Survival Of The Fittest

Well. The basic story here seemed to be that everyone was retarded and/or insane, except for Garry, and except for that other girl, Marion, who apparently decided to leave. Probably because of that whole everyone is retarded and/or insane bit. Not even Dustin Royal could keep a cute girl hanging with a killer, a probable psychopath and a fucking idiot. And if he hadn't already been a bit irritated at all of them (and I sure fucking was), he most definitely was now.

"Good job, guys," he said with cheerful sarcasm. "You've managed to chase off the only sane girl for miles. Awesome job." He raised an eyebrow. "Much as I appreciate you two not talking...no, actually, keep not talking. Garry?"

He looked back at his friend. In all honesty he was still stumbling over this Garry killed someone thing, but he was going to try really hard. After all, this kid was the closest thing he had to an ally right now.

"To answer your question, yes, we've met, no, we don't really know each other given that we met in those goddamn tunnels-" he jerked his head towards the tunnel he'd so recently found his way out of- "where she accused me of killing the shit of some I-don't-know-who. Person. Dead person." He didn't want to give details, really. He never wanted to think about any of that ever again, really. God, this game is fucked up.

Anyway. He shook his head, and sighed.

"Whatever. I don't like either of you, particularly, but I like Garry here, no homo, and I'm sticking with him. So we're all going to have to just...deal with each other. And not kill anyone else. Alright?"

He followed the others away, willingly enough. Not like he had other plans.

[[Dustin Royal continued in I'll Huff and I'll Puff]]

((Okay, I think it's high time we got out of here))

Garry didn't really know what to feel right now. He felt torn, being pulled in two directions. True, Sunil and and Rena had made a disastrous first impression with Dustin and the other girl, but he'd been with them since the night before, and they'd been good company, especially with helping him get over Jake's death.

"Look, cut them a little bit of slack, will ya? This whole thing's stressing all of us out," Garry spoke, a bit louder than he would've liked. "I don't know exactly what happened between you and Rena in the tunnels, but let's just try and forget about it. You're not a killer, you weren't on the announcements, Yes, she shouldn't have gone round accusing you like that. That's the end of it. If we're gonna stick together, we gotta work together, okay?" The last part was directed to Sunil and Rena as well as Dustin.

"And yes, I agree with the 'not-killing part'," Garry said. "What happened last night was an accident, and if I could go back and change it so he didn't die, I would."

'An accident, that's all it was. I just... I just lost my temper, threw him to the ground and he cracked his head open... that's enough, no more.' He didn't want to talk about, or even think about Jake's death any longer. There'd been far too much death already. Sally, Cyrille, Dougal, Violetta, Hermione, Miranda, Dan, Maddy, Jake, Alex, Trent, Phil...

"C'mon guys... let... let's get going," Garry announced, trying hide how upset he suddenly felt.

((Garry Villette continued in I'll Huff and I'll Puff))

The other girl on the scene (not-Rena) decided to turn away from the madness and wander off. Meh, Sunil couldn't really care much for not-Rena, so whatever. He didn't even remember catching her name, so she could be listed on the announcements today and Sunil would have no idea it was her.

Damn, that was a depressing thought.

Huh.

Apparently, Rena had flipped out at this Dustin guy in the tunnels (Sunil had never been there, but they sounded really dark and grimy) and accused him of being a murderer. But, unlike Garry, Dustin had definitely not been on the most recent announcement, and he couldn't remember him on any announcement before that. If he had been, Danya probably would have made a groan-inducing joke about him arriving "Dustin time" or "Dustin away the competition".

As Garry attempted to serve as a negotiator and peacemaker, attempting to patch up the abysmal initial impressions Rena and Sunil had given Dustin, Sunil kept to the wishes of Dustin and everyone else in the area and kept his lips sealed tightly. If he opened his mouth, he'd probably make the situation in this little corner of the mountains as big of a fuck-up as the situation in...erm...pretty much every country in the Middle East?

Yeah, that was a good comparison. Sunil really should have got better grades in English with such intricate, multi-layered metaphors like that.

He felt quite chuffed with himself.

Suppressing the niggling thought at the back of his mind that he'd just made a simile as opposed to a metaphor (Sunil would die not knowing the answer to that question), Sunil gave a token nod of approval to the suggestion to not kill people and to get on with each other, and turned to follow Garry away from the mountain.

Sunil told himself as he walked that things would get better, that he would prove himself to be a competent, heroic component of this ragtag new team, that he would....

Give it a break, Sunil. You're not fooling anyone. You're gonna be a failure on this island.

Oh, how Sunil loved a positive mental attitude.

((Sunil Savarkar continued I'll Huff And I'll Puff))

If Rena was anyone other than herself, she probably would have smacked Dustin by now. But Rena was sadly just Rena, which meant that, while she'd really like to slap the boy, she could not muster up the confidence or strength to do so.

She wanted to explain why she'd flipped out at the tunnels. She wanted to explain that she'd been so scared, so terrified and miserable that she hadn't thought about who Dustin was, or if his name was even on the announcements. She hadn't thought of anything except protecting herself, and Ridley and Raine, but Ridley and Raine had acted so horridly, had yelled at her, and everyone was screaming, and she was standing in a body and she didn't know what to do and she was scared- she was so goddamned scared that she didn't think! She didn't think about calling Dustin a killer, or who Dustin was, or any of that, all she thought about was that he was the first person who'd stumbled upon them, and there was a body and what was she supposed to do?

She wanted to explain that she'd run away because she was weak, because she couldn't just stand there going over the same things over and over again, she couldn't stand even thinking about the blood on her feet, or the boy who'd they'd run into. She'd just wanted to leave. She hadn't meant to call Dustin a killer. She hadn't meant to make him angry, but what else was she supposed to do? What if it had been the killer? She didn't know. She just acted.

She wanted to apologize to Dustin. She wanted to hit Dustin and tell him that he was overreacting and being a complete jerk. She wanted to punch Sunil for being such an idiot. She wanted to thank Garry for sticking up for her, and tell him that she was sorry. She wanted to run away. She wanted to find Raine and Ridley and beg them to forgive her, and hug them, and tell them that she was a moron and that she shouldn't have run.

She wanted to do so many things. But she didn't do them, because she couldn't do them, because deep down, where it counted, Rena was spineless.

So instead, she kept her eyes pointed at her feet, kept her mouth shut, and trudged along after Garry and Sunil, silent the entire way.

((Rena Peters continued in I'll Huff and I'll Puff))