Survival Of The Fittest

((All the godmodding in this post has been approved.

Oh, uh... shit, this was in the making before Toben posted. Most of the details work, execpt one. ... Actually, they all work. Fuck yeah.))

Tabi yelled his name. It pierced through the ringing in his ears somehow, letting him take a hold of it to pull him through. He and Aaron were now struggling near the top of the stairs in the narrow hallway, a wall pressed to each of their backs. The shotgun had been rendered useless as far as a firearm went; now it was nothing more than a metal stick that he was using to keep Aaron at bay, as well as lodged against the wall. A pistol was pointed, but... not at him. Of course not, why would it be? The shotgun had been locked in a way that was not pointed at Aaron. That meant the most imminent threat was...

"Tabi!"

Ivan let go of the pancor with his left and and reached for Aaron's wrist, but somewhere between the two placements of his hand, several shots rang out. The concussive force of each shot punched through him almost as though he had been shot again, but it didn't stop his hand from latching onto Aaron's and slamming it back against the wall. The boy's grip on the pistol did not relinquish, but Ivan didn't care. He just needed it to not be pointed at anybody. For a moment, he took his eyes off of Aaron to look at Tabi...

She was on the floor, and blood coated her leg. Tabi had been shot, and Aaron was the one who shot her.

Taking his eyes off of the boy proved to be a mistake as Aaron's forehead cracked against Ivan's. The only saving grace that prevented him from stumbling back was the wall that was already pressed to his back, the claustrophic hallway offering support in more ways than Ivan could have guessed. Aaron tried to direct the gun at him. The gun that had shot Tabi was now trying to be pointed at Ivan.

Asshole...

ASSHOLE!

"ASSHOLE!" Ivan screamed, swinging his left fist down on the hand that was trying to raise itself. There was a yell, maybe even from the both of them, but the sounds blurred together. Everything now smelled of blood, and a distinct, weighty and viscious mosture gathered above Ivan's upper lip. The pistol fell to the floor with a clattering sound, and the fist had found a new target. Again and again and again, Ivan beat against Aaron's face. There was no art to the matter, no glory or form, just the two wailing on each other in a brutal race to be the first one to incapacitate the other. Aaron clawed to the side, trying to get some distance between himself and Ivan. He was reaching for something, but this was his mistake. Another shot rang out, causing Ivan to wince. For an instant, he thought Aaron might've been able to reach for another gun and pull it out before Ivan could react. He resisted the urge to check himself for spots of blood coming from a wound that he couldn't feel. After a drawn out moment of silence that seemed like it did not belong, Aaron dropped something. Another weapon of some sort... a gun? Ivan could not look at it for too long... his eyes were instead pulled to the patch of blood forming on Aaron's arm. Tabi had not taken her own wound lying down. Rather, she showed her strength one more time.

Tabi...

Both hands were now on the Pancor Jackhammer, and the butt of the shotgun swung up at Aaron's chin. There was a satisfying crack and it knocked the boy up against the wall that formed the side of the staircase, but it wasn't enough. It would never be enough until Aaron shed his own blood for having spilled Tabi's. "Give her back..." Ivan uttered mindlessly, swinging the gun again... laterally this time. It cracked against Aaron's head. "Give her back! GIVE HER BACK!"

The beating continued, yet it failed to satisfy Ivan. "You just make everybody's life miserable...", a swing to the gut followed in due time. "You hurt the only person I give a damn about!" Another shot to the head brought Aaron right in front of the stairs. The barrel of the shotgun pointed directly at his chest. Ivan no longer knew hesitation.

"You're still a goddamned tool..."

He pulled the trigger for the third time.

It had been going so well. Aaron had smashed his forehead into Ivan's. That was how people in movies broke deadlocks. It was how a hero managed to wiggle free. It turned out it hurt the giver and the recipient, but that was to be expected. Aaron was pretty sure he wasn't even suffering from a concussion, much less a cracked skull. He'd be fine. He just had to pull things together, had to finish these two off.

Then Ivan was punching him in the face, again and again. It was worse than Aston's gun. This was repeated trauma, ominous crunching sounds. Aaron had been so very sure that he had once read that the face was an awful place to punch people, that doing that messed up your knuckles something fierce. Apparently, Ivan had not read the same books. The pistol clattered to the ground, planned feints entirely forgotten. The battle's terms had just shifted. It was no longer just about killing Ivan quickly. Now, what mattered was surviving and getting some distance.

Aaron got free, got space, and his hand instantly shot to the small of his back, searching for Aston's pistol. This was it. Game over. He'd have to remember Ivan, bill his family for the inevitable plastic surgery, maybe. He'd have to make sure someone regretted what had happened here. There would be hell to pay. There would be a reckoning.

There was a shot, just as Aaron's hand came back around, just as he prepared to fire the gun. Something in his upper arm was burning. His fingers stopped responding. For a second, he desperately tried to retain his grasp on the weapon, but it wasn't enough. The gun thudded to the ground. The girl. He'd assumed she wouldn't be so willing to take a risk. He'd assumed she was down for the count. That had been a mistake. Alright. She was first, then. He had one more gun. He'd shoot her, then shoot Ivan, and—

The butt of the shotgun smashed into Aaron's chin, clacking his teeth together. Something might have cracked. He was too busy groaning in pain to tell for sure. He bounced off the wall, just in time to catch the gun coming back the other way. His vision exploded into lights. Again and again, the blows came, and Aaron couldn't fight back, couldn't do anything. This wasn't right.

Ivan was winning.

He was saying something, again and again. Aaron heard only ringing. The gun slammed into his stomach, but he didn't have time to vomit. One more blow to the head, and he was staggering, teetering at the top of the staircase, tilting so precariously. He tried to speak. He tried to apologize, to beg for mercy, to come up with some sort of bullshit to avoid what he finally realized was coming, to buy him time to make a plan to turn this all around.

Too late.

The shotgun blast tore through Aaron, sending him toppling down the staircase. There was pain, but there was also anger and regret. This was wrong. He was supposed to be the one who lived. He'd had it all planned out. Until half an hour ago, he'd held the island in the palm of his hands. Eleven other people. It shouldn't have been a problem to kill them, not for someone like him. He'd managed and outlived a team. He'd had a plan. He'd been unstoppable.

And now, now he was falling, and he was bleeding everywhere, and he was dying, and it was all because of dumb luck, random fortune, a roll of the dice. It might have been beautiful, were it happening to anyone else.

He should have taken the boats. That was what he finally realized, as he bounced off a step. He should have caved, should have succumbed to Aileen's pressure. No, she should have tried harder, should have dragged him and Charlie. This was all her fault. It always had been. She'd bungled the escape plans. She'd talked too much. She'd alienated the recruits. She'd held him back every step of the way, kept him from becoming what he knew he could have been. At least, in the end, he'd paid her back. He'd paid everyone back, everyone but Ivan and Tabi.

He'd just have to hope they got theirs soon enough.

It was always possible this fall wouldn't be fatal. He might be able to stand up, to fire one more shot. That was how it went in movies. He'd land, and then he'd make a speech, and his death would be dramatic.

He impacted the foot of the steps, and the resulting blunt force to the head knocked him unconscious instantly. It only took about thirty seconds after that for him to bleed out, due the hole the shotgun blast had torn in his chest and back.

Ivan stared down at the product of his labor. Aaron was now only a torn remnant of himself and in the lives of anybody he had ever affected. As much as he wanted to pour hatred onto the boy's memory, Ivan tried to remember that he was just another student who became a product of the game. They weren't just nameless and faceless bodies racked up in a pile as some arbitrary killcount, because if he thought of it that way, it would be just like when he killed Keith... he'd be the closest to becoming a monster since day one. Yet, it was hard not to think such hateful things when he had nearly killed them both without any provocation. What's worse, he had even...

Oh god...

"Tabi! Are you alright!?" Ivan yelled, running and dropping the shotgun at the entrance to the bedroom as he knelt over her. He repeated the question in a softer voice, looking at the damage. There was a lot of blood, but they could bandage it all up. They could make her better, just like they had done with his own arm. He could save her, she was going to be alright.

She had to be alright or...

Or...

Tabi had made it to the foot of the bed. She was unsure as to how it had happened. But she had made it all the same. It had been a struggle to break through the pain to hold her weapon, it was only for a few moments but that was all that she needed. There had been an opening, and she had fired. Was it twice? Four times? The entire clip? She couldn't tell. But Aaron had been hit at least once. He had dropped his weapon. Then she saw him flying, there was blood, and then there was nothing. He was no longer there.

It had become quiet. Sound had been sucked away from the room, and the only sounds heard were her increasingly sporatic breaths and a dull humming sound. The blood from her leg had brought a garish smear onto the woden floor from the cabinet to where she had now found herself. The flaring in her leg was intermitant and when it flared up it was an overload. Her head felt light and it was a sturggle to keep it upright.

Ivan was rushing over to her. If her leg looked bad on her side, she could only imagine how she looked to Ivan. He looked older than she had remembered, his face seemed to have succomed to the weight of the game. It was bloody and bruised, and she couldn't tell for sure, but it had looked as if his glasses may have cracked. His eyes though, there was such a weight held in those eyes the true proof of his age.

He kept asking her if she was alright. Over and over. He was trying to wrap up her leg, but in an instant the white bandages had become stained with crimson.

"Are you alright?"

Tabi smiled, and yet, she could feel the mosture pooling down her cheeks.

"No."

Ivan had paused. But, as if to not admit it himself, kept trying to wrap the bandage tighter. It was terrifying looking at him, feverishly trying to stop the bleeding.

"I'm dying...aren't I?"

"No, of course not!" Ivan blurted, "We can stop the bleeding."

She laughed, not out of spite, but it was something she couldn't keep under wraps. Maybe it was the admition of the truth. Just vocalizing it out for all to hear. Her head was becoming heavy, it drooped down, giving her full view of Ivan's efforts.

"Sorry. I didn't mean it that way."

Her hands lifted up to her belly.

"Last night was wonderful Ivan. I'm glad that I got to share that with you."

"N-no."

"Ivan, stop. I... I wan't to give you something."

Her arms lifted up behind her. She was fiddling with the bobble of hair that she had put up yesterday. Ivan seemed to love that look. She liked it too.

When her fingers grabbed the scrunchie holding it together she let out a low hum before pulling it off of her, letting the hair drop down beside her. She then strained her neck up to look at her boyfriend, trying her hardest to keep a brave face, despite her tears.

"I want you to take this Ivan. I want you to take this, and, if you could. Could you maybe bring it home with you? I think my parents would like to keep it you know? You don't have to do it though. I mean. It makes a great bracelet. Something to remember me by y'know?

Stay with me Ivan. But please, don't give up. Your little brother wouldn't want you to give up after all."

Tabi placed the hand with the scrunchie into his own and held it there. She could feel Ivan squeezing it tightly.

"Thanks Ivan."

She couldn't keep her eyes open. Everything was starting to grow heavy. And yet...





This was nice...







After all she had been through, Tabi Gweneth was content.



G041 - Tabitha "Tabi" Gweneth: Deceased
6 Students Remain

No, wait...

Please don't go!

The resting body of Tabi Gweneth only laid there in response, oblivious to the silent pleas for her to return. Tabi was dead, and that meant Ivan was now all alone. They had lived so much of their lives unaware that the other so much as existed, ignoring each other in the halls and in their classes. It took the island to bring them together and understand how much they meant to one another. They could have pulled through to the end somehow, just maybe... they could have escaped if they had gotten away from Imraan in time, or Ivan could've fought Aaron downstairs. So many ways, so many ways this could have been prevented. Tabi didn't have to die, but fate took her all the same.

His fist closed around the hairband and crushed it as tight as he could. His knuckles grew white with frustration, locked tight to try and hold everything back. Her face looked so peaceful the way it didn't hold any hints of pain anymore. It even almost looked like she was asleep, resting under his watchul eye. But this time, she was never going to wake up. She'd never open her eyes again, never laugh again, never cry again. He'd never get another chance to talk to her again, to tell her how sorry he was that he couldn't save her. He was still stuck down here in hell while, somewhere, a sparrow had finally been set free.

Whatever was holding Ivan up at that point let go. His face buried itself against her neck in a vain attempt to find some shelter from his grief. His arms wrapped around her, though she returned no embrace of her own. She was still so warm to him, and it only pained him more to know that wouldn't last forever. Worst of all, it was all his fault.

You fucked up, Ivan. You didn't save the day, and you don't get the girl.

Anybody else might try to say that this was the best possible way things could've turned out from this point. Tabi was now supposed to be in a better place.

But I want you here with me!

Ivan held her close until he ran out of tears to shed. The sky would darken before that happened, but when it did, he knew it was finally time to leave Tabi be. His hand reluctantly loosened up to reveal to him the hairband that she had given to him. Ivan slowly put it on, pushing it over the fingers of his left hand and drawing it upward until it clutched his wrist. In return, Ivan removed the green-lens glasses from his daypack and placed them on Tabi's chest. He moved her arm over herself to rest on the glasses, as though she were holding them there. He also removed the umbrella and placed it at her side, placed a small kiss on her forehead, then stepped out the bedroom door.

He took all the guns he could find and never looked back.

Never give up, Ivan...

((Ivan Kuznetsov, continued elsehwere))