Survival Of The Fittest

"A plan?" Corey said, thinking.

Corey had a plan, but it was a pretty selfish one. Find their friends. Alternatively, find Kam. That was it, though. He didn't have anything past that.

"All I really had in mind was finding people. Not much else."

He shifted his feet. It was weird. When he was moving around he looking forward to a break in running. Now, though, he wanted to move again.

The plans they had...it was being generous to actually call them plans. They had one idea and it was find people which as far as plans went was the most obvious one but it did have plenty of reason to it. It was funny in a way since the reasons two different people could want to find the same person were most likely completely unique to them. Everyone had a different reason for everything they did at the end of the day, whether they realised it or not.

Cassandra had mentioned Alex had a plan but she'd never really got to know what it was. It slowly dawned on Gray at that point that he had become the de facto leader of their trio by virtue of being the one to suggest a plan. The thought made him uneasy. He'd always been the quiet one in the background. Never really saying anything unless he thought it was important. There were always louder voices in his group of friends like Sean or Claire. He just hung out and relaxed, even when he was with Kyran skating he was still the quieter of the two.

Yet here he was, being the leader of the group by virtue of someone needing to actually come up with an idea. It was awkward and in a way slightly distressing. He didn't want to have to make decisions that could lead to someone dying. To come up with crazy plans of escape or make a strategy so that they could steal from people. Leadership just seemed like a slippery slope into something worse. Where everything became ten times more important until either the pressure got to you, you made a mistake or you failed.

Gray looked between Corey and Cassandra and held back a sigh. Instead opting to adjust his hat just so his hands had something to do.

He dropped his bag onto one of the benches and spent a good thirty seconds looking for his map. Once he found it he unfurled it and smoothed it out on the check-in desk.

"I'm thinking we go from here." Gray pointed to where the airstrip was marked on the map. "And head over..." Gray's finger hovered over the map as he decided where to go. The choice was more important now than it had ever been. Pick the wrong place someone could die. So no pressure.

His finger came down.

"Here."

He packed the map away, haphazardly folding it and stuffing it back into his bag. It felt better knowing that now they had a goal, a place to go.

"So we'll just look and see who's there. If no one is, we move on."

The strange feeling of distress he'd had was gone and in it's place was a nervousness. The doubt of whether or not he'd made the right choice. There was no point trying to change that though, he would just have to accept it. Every action had a consequence. That's how he had met Cassandra after all. Maybe sometimes just doing things without thinking worked out. Gray just hoped it was one of those times.

He swung his bag over his shoulders and adjusted his hat again.

"Let's go to the beach I guess."

((Gray Emerson will be continued in Tell No Tales))

Corey had no ideas either, which left the decision making to Gray. Cassandra was strangely okay with this. Had they been at school working on a project, Cassandra would have surely taken the lead. She would have known exactly what needed to get done when, and she would have delegated the tasks optimally among the group members, ensuring her own success. But out here, she did not know what to do.

Cassandra knew from Gray's uncertain words that he did not really know what he was doing either. None of them did. Some kids had already decided that they were willing to kill to go home, others had snapped. Some had chosen to give up. Cassandra could not make any of those choices. She knew that her mother was in heaven, and that she would soon be with her mom barring some twist of fate salvaging their situation.

Ultimately, at least Gray was trying. He was not balking the way Cassandra was now, and that impressed her a bit. She always viewed people like him, people who did not play by the rules of the games put before them, as dumb. Incompetent. But Gray was not. He was probably just as capable as her.

So Cassandra followed Gray. She had nothing else to do, after all.

(Cassandra Black continued elsewhere))

Corey simply followed Gray's finger on the map silently. It had landed on the beach, and so Gray suggested that they go there.

There was nothing really left to say, was there? At least now they had some semblance of a plan, which was still better than nothing.

And so, Corey followed, trailing at the back of the group, as they left the terminal.

((Corey Esposito continued in Tell No Tales.))