Graceland Too?

[Dr Adjective]

[Evie McKown sure is suffering that curse.]

This would be the part where she'd turn up the music so thoughts couldn't intrude.

But they took her phone, didn't they? Was probably a mercy that they took her headphones too. Unlikely that she could jury rig any sort of communications device out of the bluetooth capability, let alone one more powerful than the walkie-talkies they'd assigned her, but Evie guessed the captors just swept for anything remotely electronic and confiscated the lot. They might've made nice ear-warmers, maybe, but having them around without the means to actually play music would've been more painful than not.

In any case, Evie didn't get the option to tune out her thoughts with the same three songs over and over. Her slow, careful, somewhat-paranoid ascent up the mountain was punctuated only by footsteps; even the wildlife seemed to have fallen silent amidst the oppressive cold and stillness. She had no choice but to reckon with the aftermath of what had happened, no, what she had done. Try as she might to abdicate responsibility, the truth was that she'd taken an active role in both of her fatal encounters: if she never went for Chloé's gun, Chloé never pulled the trigger; if she simply dove for cover, DeMarcus might not have returned fire, two people might still be alive. Evie didn't relish the thought that she had blame to shoulder for three deaths despite the extenuating circumstances she preferred to fixate on, and yet... there was a sort of peace in accepting it. Ever since she'd put god-knows-how-many bullets into Chloé to stop her pain, the girl had been tormented by the thought of it, and thoughts of how others would respond. Just owning it? It didn't take the pain away. But it brought it under her control, in a way.

Several minutes into her hike, Evie the Killer found herself at a reasonably sheltered spot, and chose it as her first rest stop. She found a large, flat stone to sit on, she ate, she drank, she caught her breath.

Why did she care what others thought, though? The logic didn't follow through, ultimately. Evie knew in her heart that she hadn't been cruel about it, she'd simply protected her own life. Yeah, sure, nobody likes to think about a carnivore killing for food, but everyone can accept that it's to survive. All the kids on the island with Evie, at the end of the day, they were already victims of Danya and his ghouls. In effect, they were competing predators. No good or evil to be found in simply surviving, it was something simpler than human. It was simply animal.

Evie sat back, took in the view around her. Stillness reigned for as far as the eye could see. It made sense, their numbers must be well below half by now, and the island wasn't exactly small.

The consideration of alliances was one to take seriously, of course. A good reputation could be a great asset. But the final word on the matter was that only one person could survive: everyone had in effect already been murdered by the terrorists, with the exception of the final so-called winner. Part of Evie felt that she should feel some revulsion at the thought of it, felt bad about not feeling bad. It was a strange and dissonant feeling, but what it was not was the pain she'd felt previously. Alone with her thoughts and her simple, animal desire to live, Evie experienced remorse for the hypothetical deaths ahead of her only in the abstract, that it was sad that those people should have to die that she could live. But it wasn't like she was truly responsible, nor was it as though they were all strictly dying for her personal benefit: all but one were going to die regardless. She only ensured that someone kind, someone good, someone who actually had the capacity to feel bad about it would be the one to make it. Because much as she disliked to even think it, she did: Evie believed herself a morally superior person to her peers. Why deny it now?

Leaning forwards again, the young killer felt for the walkie-talkie at her hip. It hadn't even been turned on in days, not since she'd informed Claire she would be taking a detour. Since Karin Han had lied to her and sent her on a wild goose chase. Though could Evie really hold that against her, in all fairness? She was afraid, Evie probably had her beat in a fair fight, a smart animal uses all the tools available to stay safe. That line of thinking, it was almost peaceful. Some double-digit number of people all wanted her dead, but it wasn't exactly personal. They all just wanted to live. Come to think of it, forcing them all to live in fear and deprivation on this frozen hellscape, not getting it over with more quickly? That was arguably a cruelty in itself.

And, hadn't Evie made that deal with herself?

She'd be anything she had to be to survive, but she wouldn't be cruel?

Even so, the conclusion seemed ghoulish. She instinctively shied away from it. Making a point of seeking people out and killing them quickly, how could that be a kindness? Well, the logic was all there, that's how. Yet still she recoiled.

All the logic in the world couldn't quite stop her hating the thought of doing harm, even neccessary harm. People often liked to ask her, almost certainly always in bad-faith, if Evie would consent to eating meat if she were starving on a hypothetical desert island with no other food around. She'd always given the same answer: of course she would, and she'd hate it, and she'd feel sick, but she wasn't going to starve to death if given an alternative. Because that was the point, the turning point her whole philosophy turned on: having a choice. In Massachusetts, 2023, yeah, it was really easy to choose less-unkind ways to live. She thought everyone else should make those same choices too. She didn't hold it against people if they were literally unable to though. So, no. Evie didn't get to choose not to kill her classmates, the other option was dying at the hands of someone who chose more pragmatically. So she'd do it. And she'd hate it. But so far, each successive time had certainly made her feel less sick than before. She hated it less.

She was also completely alone for the first time in over a week, barring lonesome walks. The result of being a danger to others.

Evie lifted the walkie-talkie up and turned it on. Enjoyed the burst of static breaking the monotony of the wind and the snow crunching under her restless feet.

"Hey, Claire. You there? I, uh, I figure you've heard?"

Pause. No reply.

"I can explain, if you actually want to hear it."

She turned the volume up, stood, and carried on up the mountain.

[Evie the Killer can't not be That Girl.]