All it takes is a spark

[CardboardAirplane]

(Perante Losoa continued from Morning Pyre)

"The cold isn't going anywhere. But as always, I'll give you what you came for. The murdered and the murderers."

"Thanks Danya." He said under his breath, the eye-roll he gave afterwards showing his distaste for the guy.

With the amount of announcements Danya had done, Perante was sure that at some point he'd lose his voice or something. Somehow, it was still as grating and threatening as ever. The fact that he was making jokes about this was worse to him, like, hello, someone died and you have the audacity to make a pun out of that? Just- Whatever, he should've gotten used to it by now.

At some point there'd be a rather uncomfortable feeling of apathy building up inside of him. He still took note of the killers but at the same time there were at least thirty of them dead now. It started not being worthwhile to remember the individual victims. Just the dead as one conglomerate.

"Kitty's back, go figure." He muttered.

That girl's killed five classmates by now, he wondered how anyone could even stomach that. Just one was required, why do you have to go beyond that?

Holding a bottle of water in his hands, he took a sip from it as the announcement continued. Upon further thought it felt really stupid to him, yes it was an action as simple as drinking water but the casual way that he did so after learning of more people dying almost felt comedic to him. That is, assuming this was something like a comedy in the first place.

As the announcement went on, he looked for the kid he's been with this entire time and everything they had to show for their work yesterday.

[Ryuki]

(Chester Folk, Continued from Morning Pyre)

The announcements came like they normally did. The Zima siblings died, one of them having been killed by Kitty Graves. Oh yeah, Kitty had shown up on the announcements again. Why is she killing so much? She could have just stopped when she committed her first murder. The one name that caught Chester’s attention was DeMarcus Miller. The dude was a huge right winger. But the fact that he actually shot someone was surprising. Better watch out for him.

In the meantime, Chester and Perante had hunkered down at the campground all day yesterday. Chester had hoped they could find some wood to build a fire. However, they hadn’t found any good wood. Any wood they had found was too damp from the snow. How disappointing.

Chester looked over the map as the announcements kept going. He looked over to Perante, who was drinking water. He couldn’t help but feel guilty over coercing him into an idea that had yet to yield any results.

[CardboardAirplane]

A deep breath was taken in. As he drank more, he stopped himself around halfway through despite the apparent need to down a full bottle. As he put it back in his bag, his eyes darted towards a random tree branch; the feeling of dread he’d get by looking at his dwindling supplies was something he wanted to avoid.

He wasn’t even feeling hunger or thirst past an uncomfortable feeling, but as time blurred and days passed, he wasn’t sure how long he’d have left or how long until he was out of supplies. Thinking about what’d come first took up a lot of space in his brain. His mind tried to wander into something else, what the hell was he complaining about this for anyway? He wasn’t special, everyone was dealing with this shit. He couldn’t keep thinking about it now.

After all he knew the only ways to resupply. Four days in, he should already know by now. Four days—it feels he’s been here forever and at the same time just yesterday things were normal. What has he done? He’s just been stuck trying to act on a concept when time was so limited. Why was he still on this? He swore he told himself to stop complaining. He wasn’t special. Others were dead, they had it worse.

Alright, now he’s going to stop thinking about it.

“We’ll get somewhere today, don’t worry.” His smile never changed from before this entire game, but it sure as hell felt more forced to him.

[Ryuki]

"I hope so man," Chester replied, "I hope so."

Chester looked at the map again. He tried to figure out what they could do to start a fire. There should be plenty of dead wood in the forest. Guess they could try to rub sticks against each other and see if they could get a spark.

It was at this point that Chester started to reevaluate this plan of his. The only people that he of that were in on this plan to start an SOS fire were him and Perante. And maybe Aion and Amos, but who knows where they are and what they're doing? If he and Perante were going to get this plan into motion, they needed to recruit multiple people. That was going to be hard, considering people were either murdering others, too scared to trust anyone, or in hiding.

For now, Chester figured that if it's currently just him and Perante, maybe they should start small.

Maybe start...multiple fires?

"Hey. Do you think the forest has any dead wood?," he asked Perante.

[CardboardAirplane]

Something inside of him died a little, but he wasn't willing to admit that.

This wasn't new stuff, this was just repeating the same old shit that they have been repeating for the past four days now. How the hell could they have not gotten so far in that amount of time? Around thirty of them—no, thirty of his own peers were dead now and they were just here with a dream.

He thought for a moment before realizing he's already complained about this just moments ago. Repetition seemed to be pretty common for them nowadays. At this point he could at least do something about it instead of being a little bitch.

He wanted out. He wanted a way out of this, but he wasn't sure how the hell to go about it. Not trying was easier though and meant that technically it wouldn't be his fault since he wouldn't be the one to start anything.

"Well like, yeah there's gotta be. Big place, big island, gotta have something. There's a lot of ground to cover but like, with the two of us it should be fine."

Technically small implications didn't count to him.

[Ryuki]

Chester looked up, hoping the calmness of the sky could help him brainstorm an idea.

"Maybe we could arrange multiple small piles," Chester said.

Perhaps they could arrange a small circle of wood piles and find a way to light those. Although, two people lighting multiple piles of wood would get tiresome. If only they had more people to help them out, they could get more fires going. So maybe building a single fire would be easier. But how?

"Or maybe, one big pile," Chester said.

They could arrange a small pile of wood, get a small fire going, then build on that, until it becomes big enough for people to see.

Chester's stomach growled. He started chewing on an energy bar.

"Do you think rubbing two sticks together could work?," he asked Perante with a mouthful.

[CardboardAirplane]

"One big pile sounds like the only good idea. A lot of small ones wouldn't be noticeable enough. Only problem is that sounds like it'd take quite a bit of work. A lot of time too."

He started and he wouldn't stop. The words were already out of his mouth, it'd make him sound stupid if he were to suddenly turn back now. He's just gotta slowly inch into it so it still wouldn't be his doing. He still wouldn't really be at fault if this whole thing dissolved.

"I mean like, at this rate anyway. I'm trying to think if there's a way to make this all go faster."

He paused for a moment to think, or at least made it seem that way.

He had a lot more that he wanted to say, but he couldn't let it all spill out at once. About how it's made pretty obvious that none of these two knew how to start a damn fire. How just because fires weren't against the rules doesn't mean that their heads won't be blown straight off if they tried what was obviously a signal for help. How even if they did manage to start one without getting killed, that it would still take some time before any feasible help arrived.

How long did these things last anyway? At this rate he didn't have time for that.

"Do you have any ideas?" He asked, taking hold of the line of questioning.

[Ryuki]

"I was thinking," Chester began, "If we got a small fire going, we could keep building on it, to the point it became huge."

Chester took a swig of water, to wash down his energy bar.

"We could send a message to recruit other students," said Chester, "We could write something in the snow."

Chester brought out his belt knife.

"Or maybe, carve it into a tree," Chester said.

[CardboardAirplane]

There it was.

"I think having some other help with this could be nice." He smiled again, this time getting a little paranoid about if he was forcing it too much or not. There was a line and he wasn't sure if he was crossing it.

He played another scenario in his mind thinking about how this would go down, thinking about every pause, every word he would have to say. They were cold and robotic in his mind but were churned and melted into something more pleasant. The very existence of the former felt like something unfamiliar deep within that made his stomach turn.

"Actually you know what," he continued, "I think I could try going out, looking for others to help out with this thing we've got here. Like, split up a bit, meet back later with a couple others and we'll have more hands to deal with this."

His demeanor morphed into something more cocky and he slammed a fist into an open palm.

"Brains turning, you could like, carve some messages into the tree to get some stationary messages out too like you said. Gives you time to still work on a fire too."

[Ryuki]

"That would be great," said Chester, "While you gather some help, I'll try to get the word out."

Chester finished off his energy bar and got to his feet.

"You be careful out there," Chester added, "There's some dangerous people out there."

Chester held out his knuckles for a fist bump. He then took his leave.

(Chester Folk, continued elsewhere...)

[CardboardAirplane]

"I'll be fine, don't worry. It takes a lot to bring someone like me down." He let out a light chuckle.

He returned the fist bump and stood there until Chester left his view.

He gave himself a moment to think; how for the first time since arriving on this island, he was alone. In the sense that there was no one physically around anyway. There wouldn't ever be a chance where he was truly alone on this island; his mind wouldn't ever let him think that for a second.

Perante held out a peace sign to no one in particular before running in the opposite direction.

(Perante Losoa continued at Bravery)