Oz the gweat and tewwible

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Salem, are you awake?

Get dressed. We're going to the hospital.

Your sister's had an accident.

((Salem Fox continued from I'm so tired of 17. where's my fucking teenage dream?))

Salem gave in and ate a protein bar on the way up the mountain. If he wasn't hungry enough to eat the whole meal they'd left for him, more food for later, right?

He'd checked over his shoulder a few times to see if Adam was following him; he was both relieved and disappointed to find himself alone during the trek. Once Adam was far in the distance behind him and the adrenaline faded, it was quiet save for his own footsteps and the wind.

He daydreamed a little about what his prize might be. It was hard to guess from the other winners aside from the fact that it was probably a gun. Quinn hadn't killed anybody since the first day, and Kitty had surprisingly gone quiet too. Maybe Kai had caught up with her after all and put her on a leash. Lily getting Janice was probably self-defense; at least, she hadn't proceeded to go on a rampage once she got her hands on her weapon.

Only Josh had kept going, and he definitely had his hands on a gun. Out of everyone who had won a prize, Josh was the biggest wild card in Salem's mind too; it was hard to recall much about him at all from school aside from being on the lacrosse team and probably the Christian club, if Salem wasn't just mixing him up with Corbin (rest in pieces). Big NPC energy.

Maybe that made it less surprising that he'd kept killing. More blank space to fill in.

Salem wondered what it was like to be someone like that. Almost a complete blank slate. Did Josh have thoughts, feelings? Yes, obviously, in the textbook sense, but were they human feelings, or had he just been airdropped onto the island and started following instructions like a dog?

Or maybe he really was just a completely average guy. Just the sort who worked in an office for 25 years and eventually snapped and murdered his family. Or like, the regular sort who did that and did nothing else remarkable and then just died in his sleep at 75. Either option sounded stifling.

Salem decided, as he just crested the upper pass, that he'd like a sniper rifle. Make a note of it, Santa. He only knew about as much as any other terminally online libtard about guns, which was to say he could identify an AK-47 since he was an American and that was about it, but he imagined he'd feel comfortable with a sniper rifle. He could see himself studying his classmates through the rifle scope like one would look at a bug under a magnifying glass, ever-present threat of burning it up with the sun included. Maybe that was the way he'd always been meant to look at them.

They wouldn't know it was him watching until it was too late. Salem loved and hated the idea.

He had always been the mediator. The good listener. His sister's keeper. Salem was the professional fence-sitter taking both sides in every conflict and simply gliding away if it got too heated for him to gloss over. Love 'em and leave 'em, but don't love 'em too much or leave 'em with anything that could tank your career in twenty years.

He'd sometimes had a feeling that if he cracked almost any one of his friends open, they wouldn't be real inside. There would just be something like the stuffing inside a plushie. Just like the way that he imagined Josh was.

He couldn't say that he'd always wondered about it. But he had wondered.

Salem finally spied his goal, laying neatly in the middle of the path so that he wouldn't miss it, and he picked up the pace for the last few yards of his journey, picking his way quickly but carefully over. The food was long cold, but the smell of roast beef and cheese still made his mouth water. Salem grabbed the sandwich and took a couple of frantic bites crouching right there, only stopping to savor the taste of the food after the first few. He didn't even like ginger ale, but he took several gulps all the same, feeling the cold bubbles fizz on his tongue.

"Thanks, Tim," he breathed when he finally paused.

He considered the pie for a minute before carefully wrapping it back up and settling it in his bag, making sure it was secure enough not to spill. Something for later. Same with the chips and the last third or so of the sandwich. After almost a week without real food, he didn't want to overdo it.

Finally, Salem turned his attention to the weapon. The case was smaller than he'd expected. Flipping it open revealed a revolver, to Salem's mild surprise and momentary disappointment. Smith & Wesson, apparently. That was a name he vaguely recognized.

It was heavier than his Mauser. Salem clasped the revolver in both hands and stood, aiming it down the path to get a feel for the weight and balance of it. He spun the chamber with his thumb idly. The bullets were pretty huge and had to be loaded one by one. He could imagine it would punch a pretty nasty hole through anything it was fired at.

It was a neat gun if you were into guns, he guessed, but he sure wasn't sniping anybody from any towers with this. It was going to have to be up close and personal.

…Maybe that suited him better, after all.

((Salem Fox continued in The Beginning and the End, or 'Knockin' on Heaven's Door'))