Survival Of The Fittest

The fat kid's smile, as he noticed Mike was alive, was really nice if not unsettling. He still had some doubts about the fatty, but at least a thought that someone cares about Mike being alive, gave the Pole some optimism. It also lead him to forget about his other companion for about five seconds, before the fatty thrown him the bag while going toward Max's body.

Right, Max!

Mike quickly took some painkillers out of the first aid kit and swallowed two of them, before turning to see the fatty telling Max to wake up.

And then, the optimism was gone.

Mike felt the wave of heat going through his body. Max's chest was not moving, while both his face and neck were red. The Pole took a few, slow steps forward toward his companion, and grabbed Max's wrist.

No pulse. Eyes bulged. Red face and neck. Probably suffocation. Painful death.

Mike screwed up. He did all he could, to save someone who was trying to help him get out of this island, and yet it accomplished nothing.

"It's no use..." he mumbled to the fatty, as the tear started gathering in his eyes. "H-he... H-he's dead." And with the shaky hands, Mike closed out Max's eyelids. After that, feeling that all his strength was drained away, Mike just fell on the ground, feeling the salty tears coming down his cheeks. There he had it. Max Neill stopped being just a name, and became a real person with his personality and dreams. A Person who deserved to live another day, and yet he was denied that chance, because some asshole couldn't find his girlfriend or whatever. The thought, that the exact same thing could be happening right now in several other spots on the island filled him with dread at first...

Enough crying. That's not gonna accomplish anything. Stand up!

...And a new wave of determination later. Now he had to make it. Or he, and over 200 other kids would be next. The Pole stood up, wiped the tears away with a sleeve of his shirt, and pat the fatty's shoulder.

"W-we gotta go..." Said Mike, still fighting with the shakiness of his voice "It's not safe to be here, so let's do what we were supposed to do here in the first place and then GTFO."

Mike looked at the lighthouse again.

"There better be some fucking clues here..."

Timothy continued to call out for Max to say something. But the bastard wouldn't talk. His skin was starting to pale, causing the rotund boy to shy away from it.

"It's no use...H-he... H-he's dead."

Timothy whiped his head back to the Pole as he closed Max's unblinking eyes. His jaw began to slack and he felt his hands balling into fists. He was lying. The dude laying in front of them wasn't dead! It was just a prolonged joke. He would open his eyes any minute now. And joke about how he had gotten them both. Timothy would then give him a swift punch in the gut, but at least the three of them would be able to make their way to safety.

He stood there, staring at Max. Mike's sobs were the only thing that could be heard right now, mixed with the heavy beating of Timothy's own heart.

Any minute now...




Nothing...



Timothy considered himself a manly type of person. The guy who loved watching Micheal Bay movies. They were all about explosions, sex, action and death. But, death was just glossed over in those types of movies. The people in those movies felt sad for 2 minutes of screentime maximum, then it was straight back to the action and a happy ending for everyone. He never cried in those moments, he may have felt a slight pang of remorse for the character, but he was always easily distracted by something else going on in the film.

Yet, he felt something welling in the corner of his eyes. It had become harder to breathe as he felt him nose stuffing up. His lower lip, hid itself behind the upper and he felt himself quivering. He was the manly dude! Not some lame-ass pansy!

Anger wormed its way into the now shaking boy. They were supposed to have been able to get off this island! He was looking forwards to eating as many Smarties as was humanly possible! He was going to go home and he was going to watch the next Batman movie at Sunset Cinema! So what the hell was he still doing here!

He felt a hand touch his back and he almost lost what composure he was trying to keep. He didn't look to the Pole, he felt compelled to stare at this body, as if Max could suddenly tell him all the answer.

"Go?" Timothy said through clenched teeth, "Where the fuck are we supposed to go huh? You tell me Mikey!"

He pointed to the corpse that they were standing in front of, his pudgy fingers rattling as he fought back sobs.

"This dude wanted us to go here to look for something! Can you tell me what the fuck it was? Because I sure as hell can't! If we go up that lighthouse I bet you we'll still know nothing! And for another thing! Where the fuck is Erik huh? Wasn't he supposed to be with you guys!"

Timothy looked around on the ground, trying his hardest not to look at the now dead Max Neil. He found a small rock and picked it up, clutching it in his sweaty fingers.

"So now what! What pre-tell are we supposed to find huh? What are we supposed to do now? Do we just throw a rock at the cameras and end it right now!"

Timothy turned to a nearby copse of trees with a solitary camera staring back at him. He tossed the rock, only to watch it sail a paltry 6 feet, safely falling to the ground.

His entire body began to sag, and he tried his hardest to sniff in the mucus in his nose. Timothy the manly man that he was had started to cry...

((While getting an achievement for stalling the thread for two in-game days is tempting, I think it's time to go to full speed, and finish this quickly [two posts max]))

Mike just stood silent as the Fatty went on and on with his rant. He was desperate not to lose the newly regained confidence in his cause, but it was difficult, as there was a lot of truth in Fatty's words.

Finally, as his companion threw a rock in the camera's direction (missing), and started crying, Mike decided to stop him and take action. He walked toward the Fatty, put his hand on his shoulder, and looked in his eyes.

"I don't know."

The Pole paused for a second before continuing his monologue.

"And the sad part is, that's the answer for every question of yours. I don't know where should we go, I don't know what Max wanted to find here, and I don't know what happened to Erik... But I know one thing: I came all the way to US from Poland to escape from my personal problems, and looks like this is a punishment for my cowardice. I'm not going to run away from them this time, because only God knows what will happen then. The plan I came up with on the beach is still the best option I can think off, and I'm going to stick with it. You know why? Because it's the only way out of here for me. And for you as well, unless you'll find a way to kill everyone else with that hamburger phone of yours."

Mike put down his hand, turned his back and took a few steps toward the lighthouse.

"I'm going inside. Maybe I'll find something, maybe not. If you want to help me, be my guest. If not... Then I wish you good luck."

--------

Deep under his skin, Mike felt that the lighthouse will be completely empty, and every step on the spiral stairs confirmed his bad feelings. It seemed like Max hoped to find here something, but what would that be? Maps? Shipping logs? Too easy to find, terrorist probably managed to burn all of them.

Finally, Mike's foot stepped on the top floor of the building. As he presumed, there was nothing of any interest to him. No papers or desk which could contain one. Just The light which didn't work (and even if, it could only serve terrorists to sail safely around the island, because the whole area was likely cut off), the floor... And a telescope.

Well, since I'm already here, I can at least check this thing. I have nothing better to do anyway.

It took a good few minutes before Mike managed to properly recalibrate the scope. He never used any in his life, and he was known as 'technologically impaired' among his friend, except from the gaming consoles of course. Finally, as he managed to get a sharp look, the Pole looked around the island in every possible direction. To the North and East, the only thing to see was the silent ocean, and it looked like there was nothing nearby on the horizon.

Predictable... Let's try with the South...

Again, Mike didn't find anything interesting. Peaceful shoreline, and the empty docks. One of those places, where finding anything would be a miracle.

Strike two...

Finally, Mike looked to the West. More shorelines, something, which looked like a church of some sort (again, probably unhelpful to his cause), and...

Wait.

Through trial and error method, Mike managed to extend the view toward the very far end of the western shore, and the blurry shape he saw just a moment ago turned out to be...

A ship! Well, a shipwreck anyway, from the look of it.

Mike almost jumped from the happiness. That was it. Again, it would be foolish to search for the shipping logs on it, but Mike thought of something completely different at the time.

The name! This ship must have it's name painted on the board in several places. What's the chance, the terrorists did the the pain in the ass job of scraping all of the paint from it? Slim to none. Maybe it's not a perfect clue, but someone in the government HAS to have an access to the archives, and maybe they'll find it. Even if this ship tried to sail the entire world, and it got lost along the way, there has to be a planned route of it somewhere in the mother port.

"THAT'S IT!" Mike shouted at the top of his lungs. "I'VE GOT IT!"

And to waste no more time, Mike started running down the stairs.

Timothy Skula sat there, his fists all balled up and his cheeks flairing up with every sob. No...he wasn't sobbing, it was the fucking dirt in his eyes...Yeah that was it! Stupid-ass dirt...

He felt the hand on his shoulder, the Polish kid was saying some long ass speech about something, but Timothy was just too angry, too frustrated and too sad to care. His pudgy hand was wiping away at his eyes, hoping to clear away all the dirt, but nothing was coming out. He was getting tired of all this god damn dirt!

Mikey said something about how he was going into the lighthouse or something stupid like that. If he wasn't listening to the loud groan of his stomach, Timothy might have said something about how he wasn't listening to what he had said. But he couldn't summon up any words in retort.

Timothy heard the sound of his companion shluffling away into the distance until he could hear no more. It was then that he collapsed to his knees and just stared at the body of Max. It was just so...odd...seeing him laying there like that. He just looked like he was sleeping really, just sleeping and then he would pop up and say "Ha I got ya muthafucka!" Timothy would have punched him square in the face for that, but at least he would be alive.

At least Timothy would know what to do.

He struggled to remove the backpack off of his shoulders, before it landed with a thud on the ground. He twisted his body over, and clawed at the bag, bringing it before his knees. He rifled through the containts and dug out the imfamous hamburger phone.

It was a rather ugly thing really, it was clearly plastic and it had a thin cord that connected the two pieces togeather. It looked like it had come straight out of one of those lame ass McDonald's playsets that you'd see every year at Christmas time. He seperated the receiver and speaker as far appart as his arms and the cord would let him. The thin grey chord just sat there, tightly streached across his whole arm length.

Timothy's thoughts were a blur of ideas. What were they going to do now. They had no plan! They didn't even have a god damn idea now! What could they even do? He found no answers though, only a growing idea...and a question of whether it could be done...

His hands slipped when he heard the loud noise coming from the lighthouse, causing him to spill the phone onto the ground. That had sounded like that fucking Pole again. He placed his fat fingers on the ground and pushed himself up slowly, feeling his body trying to protest this movement.

"What the fuck are you talking about Mikey!" he shouted at the top of his lungs.

Mike was so excited, he almost fell of the stairs on his way down. All of his previous ideas about clues scattered on the island were questionable at best (how was he supposed to recognize the mineral dug in the mine? Or find the name of the cellphone company, unless it's painted all across the tower?), but this one really seemed like it could work. And if it would... Well, that would be one step toward his freedom. And even though it would be a tiny step, it was still worth fighting for.

Finally, Mike left the Lightouse without even bothering to close the door behind him. On his way toward the woods, he heard the yell coming from the Fatass, who apparently heard Mike shouting back in the Lighthouse, and asked Mike about his findings.

The Pole quickly closed the distance between him and his only companion left, and replied with a giant grin on his face:

"The clues, dude. The clues. That's what I'm talking about. The next destination: Sunken ship."

And without any more explanation, Mike entered the forest and began the long way trip toward the opposite side of the island, not waiting for captain Fatty. If he'll follow him, that's fine, but if not? Fuck him, he can do it all by himself.

((Mike Maszer continued elsewhere))

Timothy blinked when the Polish dude began to ramble at him. The clues? What the fuck was that supposed to mean? The rotund boy had half a mind to let the bastard go on his own now. It was clear that he had finally lost his mind. It was impossible that he just climbed up the tower and found his "clues" to get out of this fucking island! What the hell was it? A fucking bridge! A cruise ship? The god damn smoke monster? It was just too freaking convenient...

But on the other hand, he had nowhere else to go. He stared back at the hamburger phone and at the long length of wire. Timothy shuddered and stuffed the phone into his bag.

"Fucking dumbass Mike..." he mumbled under his breath.

He slowly rolled back up to a standing position, sucking in air and feeling the throbing in his legs. He latched on to his bag and put one loop over his arm. He looked back once more to Max and sighed...

"That damn Pole better know what he's doing..."

He walked as fast as he could, hoping that Mike would wait up for him.

"Will you fucking wait for me asshole!"

((Timothy Skula continued elsewhere))