Survival Of The Fittest

How did she know?

"I watched it happen," Coleen murmured. "We were at the cliffs... Arthur, Bern and I. I had just heard about Cameron and..."

Her knees were at her chest know. She took attention off of Fiyori as she slowly lost herself in her story and in the conjured memory of the events of the past few days. The shaft of the spear ran between her legs and up her body at a slant, the tip of the spear sitting past her right ear. She hugged the weapon as her only support.

"Bern was with me until Brendan showed up. She got angry about him having killed..." Coleen narrowed her eyes and struggled to think, not wishing to show disrespect to one of her dead classmates, but a name wasn't coming to mind. "Brendan killed somebody and Bern was mad at him. She yelled at him, he got frustrated... my gun used to be hers," she added at the end. "I sorta remember screaming at him, threatening him with it. He backed off, and Alba went with him."

Her jaw clenched.

"So, I don't know. If he really wants to explain to people that it was an accident, he should try talking about it to Ty, like I had to." Coleen's voice darkened with flecks of bitterness that tasted of the boy's sorrow and agony that day on the beach.

It still hurt so much. It still hurt... why did she have to ask? Why did Coleen have to answer? Why did Coleen have to talk, and talk, and talk, and drive the stake even deeper? Why couldn't she just stop? Why couldn't Fiyori just say 'it's all a lie'? Why couldn't she stop feeling so much hatred?

All just because she had to be nice. Because Fiyori wanted to be open. Transparent. She wanted to be clear, so Coleen knew that she would have nothing to fear about Fiyori. If only she had never dropped their names. If only she could've shut up about that detail. If only Fiyori could just ignore everything Coleen had said. Everything, ignore everything and pretend everything was alright. Even with Bernadette dead, Fiyori could have pretended everything was alright. But now she couldn't and it was all Coleen's fault.

That goddamn bitch should've just shut up and piss off.

"...no, I- I get it. I'm sorry, I get it."

Fiyori still wished she could just not breathe. She gazed at her hands. Gazed at them, hoping to stare long enough for her fingers to decay and fall off.

Isabel killed her friend. For that, Fiyori was able to hate her. Brendan, too, killed Fiyori's friend. But Brendan was a friend as well, not some stuck-up bitch she didn't like to begin with. She couldn't hate him. Or, she wouldn't hate him. Didn't want to, so her mind played a small little trick. It took the scraps of info it had, and it weaved them into a tale that would satisfy her conscientiousness. A tale where she knew how Bernadette died. A tale where she knew that Brendan wasn't involved at all.

But he was. And Coleen reminded her of it.

"I... ah, hahaha, of course. I get it. I get it. Get it. Gotten it. Yea, completely got it. Ahaha... man, this- this sucks so much. I... I... goddamnit... ah, hehehe."

Fiyori reached for the collar around her neck. She yanked at it, and yet still she breathed. Tears fell down her face, and yet still she breathed.

Bern was dead. And Brendan killed her.

For the first time, in a long time, did the violence of truth's nature itself throw all its might at Fiyori.

"Fiyori?"

Coleen didn't think she had been pushing quite so hard, but now the other girl was acting unsettled. No, unsettled wasn't... unsettled wasn't nearly strong enough a word to describe exactly what was going on here. Coleen's attention fully turned to the girl with the scuffed-up and bandaged face that looked to be sweating bullets. It took a few seconds to realize that it wasn't just sweat lining Fiyori's forehead, but tears streaming down both cheeks.

It was then that Coleen realized just how deeply mired in a lie Fiyori had been, and it appeared that she had become unstuck from it. But now, her actions were deeply troubling. The yanking and tugging at the collar served to remind Coleen of her own neck adornment. The pressure against her throat that she was suddenly aware of once again distracted her, but she moved past it to focus what was important and sat up straight with feet firmly against the floor.

"What are you doing?" Coleen asked, alarm raising in her voice. "Are you trying- hey, stop! Fiyori, stop that!"
She let the spear clatter to the floor between them as she reached forward to snatch at Fiyori's wrists.

Fiyori kept her hold on the collar. She tugged, and even with all the force she could muster, nothing happened. Nothing, except the collar pressing on her neck. Nothing, except her fingernails - now over-grown and dirty - digging into her throat.

"Da- damnit, hahaha... I can't. I just can't. I ca-ahahaha..."

Yet she breathed still. Yet she cried still. Yet she pulled still.

And then Fiyori could hear something fall on the floor. And she could see Coleen lunge forward. She didn't have time to react. Or formulate some kind of thought. Fiyori's wrists were already fixed by Coleen. Fiyori's hands, however, remained clinging to the collar.

She met Coleen's eyes. It was just at that moment that Fiyori realized that Coleen existed.

"It's a loa-ahaha- it's a load of bull, Coleen. Heh, hahaha... this is good! This is bad! This is evil and this is just! Ahahaha... I've been thinking so much. And it's all a load of bullshit! Bullshit... ahahaha..."

Fiyori closed her eyes. It hurt. Yet she breathed still. She let go of the collar.

It didn't seem quite so safe to let go of her wrists. That's what Coleen was thinking to herself as she listened to Fiyori ramble. At least she had let go of her collar at the end of it, but the girl she held fast was still something of a wreck.

"Yeah," Coleen agreed in a soft tone. "I get it. It's bullshit. All of this is bullshit. None of us asked for this." Her fingers relaxed some. Breathing became steady and practiced, kept to a simple and inaudible level. Oftentimes the first step in calming somebody is staying calm yourself -- a lesson learned in abundance from caring for rowdy younger siblings who tended to earn themselves scary but ultimately superficial injuries, like falling off a bike and skinning up a knee.

"When you keep thinking about it like that, trying to make sense of it, that's when it hurts you. None of this makes sense, and it was never supposed to." Coleen's lips closed and, behind them, her tongue pressed against the back of her teeth, running to and fro and acting like the pendulum that was supposed to keep her brain going, hoping to piece together another sentence that might help. "Nobody can blame anybody else for wanting to stay alive. Simple as that."

She tilted her head, a tic designed to throw hair out of her eyes where there was none left to throw.

"I'm going to let go of your hands now, okay?"

Coleen released all the pressure in her fingers, all but letting go and leaving Fiyori free to pull her hands away.

"Yea..."

Coleen let go of Fiyori's hands. Fiyori held them close to her throat for a moment. Not at her collar, but still touching the vulnerable flesh of the neck. She waited a second - or maybe it was a bit more or a bit less than that. Then she placed on hand on her lap, and used the other to wipe away her tears.

At first, she wasn't sure if she should, or could keep the eye contact with Coleen. Her eyes were starting to dart aimlessly around the room, until Fiyori scolded herself and forced her eyes to remain on Coleen.

It helped.

There were still too many problems to solve, too many riddles to be played and too many questions to be answered. But listening to Coleen helped. Helped soothe Fiyori when she had this emotional outburst. That was a good thing. And yet again, there was this urge. She wanted to talk, and tell Coleen all about it. About how much she hated life back in Kingman. How most of it was just a blur of constant misery. How these spontaneous suicidal motions weren't so unusual. Or that she had been planning to kill herself anyway come graduation day. How hilarious the fact was that Fiyori was still alive on day seven of Survival of the Fittest when she didn't want to live at all.

Fiyori gulped. She rejected that urge. It would do no good. It would've never done any good.

"...thanks. Sorry for this. It's- I am sorry you had to see this. Pretty pathetic, huh?"

She halted for a moment, wiping away another tear.

"Ty... you mentioned him. How's he doing..?"

"Ty?"

Coleen frowned and sat back. "He's fine, I guess." Physically he was completely healthy, so it wasn't a lie. "He wasn't in a very good place when we spoke. I told him where Bernadette's body was, and never saw him again after that." There wasn't much more to say about Ty Yazzie, though Coleen had a few other thoughts reserved her way... for instance, she wondered if he had made much work towards finding Brendan.

She leaned back and let a half-smirk sit on her face as she thought to rewind the conversation to a minute ago. "And don't worry about making a scene. I don't mind you not making eye contact, either. It's hard to look at a face like this anyway, most people find." Coleen forced a giggle.

"I see. That's good to hear."

Simple, brief, and finally an answer to summarize her feelings in a succinct manner. Ty seemed to do well, even with all the hurt he must have been suffering. And furthermore, he had been unmentioned on the announcements thus far. It was something that made Fiyori happy, even if she knew that might change soon.

She wasn't sure how to feel about that.

Coleen continued, Fiyori replied. They both giggled. "Ah, you shouldn't say that. You're still pretty... pretty!" There w a joke about how half of their classmates would be looking worse anyway. Fiyori wasn't sure how that kind of humor would've landed with Coleen, though.

The truth was that Fiyori actually noticed little of her scars. There were enough noises for her senses to suffer from. The sight of her classmates' bodies, the stench of their corpses. The sound of people dying, and the distant but ever-present wail of sorrow. The cold chill of the island, and the permanent grey light.

Coleen's scars were nothing in comparison.

"Ha..."

Coleen rose up and stepped around to the side of the couch, leaving her daypack where it was. Her legs had felt a little locked up from all the hiding and the sitting, and while she had been holed up in this place for what might have amounted to a full day by this point, her legs had cried out in pain and atrophy. The assault rifle was still in her bag, but she afforded Fiyori a small amount of leeway in letting her near it. Worst came to the worst, she was still holding the spear and could jab at Fiyori if she made a move.

It would be a move that sacrificed the scant tranquility of the day for a bid at survival. It would be a fair trade, but Coleen prayed she wouldn't have to make it. She begged, internally, for Fiyori to not force her to make that choice.

"Even if you don't really mean it," Coleen responded after a moment, raising and lowering each knee to shake out the rust. "I really appreciate you saying it." She turned to sit on the arm of the couch, holding the spear in one hand and using the other to adjust her skirt. It was tattered, ratty and bloodstained after several days of constant wear and tear and, to be honest, it was starting to reek just as badly as the rest of her, but a shower wasn't on the top of her list of priorities. Well, not anymore, it wasn't.

"Especially right now," she added as a note of their current 'living' arrangements. "All this trouble and they can't even pack us some extra deodorant? The monsters."

Fiyori gave Coleen a smile - a forced one, maybe; she wasn't much sure about that one herself - and trailed the girl's movement with her eyes. Fiyori would've said that she really meant it, and even though she did not, it felt like it was the truth. Funny enough, had she actually said it, she'd have considered it a lie.

For the moment, a nod had to do it. A nod, and the smile.

When Coleen mentioned the issue of body odor, Fiyori couldn't help but instinctively reach for her armpits and take a deep breath. She regretted doing so very much immediately. Tears swelled up again as she took in the stench of her own old sweat. It was utterly revolting. Fiyori bolted back, and with such a force that she nearly tripped backwards over the chair. Fortunately, her backpack served as an anchor, somehow.

She cracked up, knowing the absurd scene she just delivered.

"Well, guess they figured we'd just take a bath. Would almost do it myself if it wasn't so cold."

Catching a sudden motion out of the corner of her eye caused Coleen to jump, clasping a hand to her chest upon realizing that Fiyori had simply almost fallen right out of her chair. Her shock made it harder to catch the humor in the situation but she giggled anyway, possibly out of nervousness more than anything else as made evident through upturned eyebrows and beads of sweat forming on her forehead.

"Careful," Coleen panted, standing up straight while more of a smile returned to her. "If you busted yourself open for no reason, we'd just waste even more bandages." She searched in vain for a joke, sighing. A thick, awkward air had filled the room and she couldn't figure out how to cut it. Coleen chewed on her lip for a moment or two, thinking about what she could say next.

She had an idea but she didn't like it.

"Hey, Fiyori..." Coleen asked suddenly, her voice flattened. "You haven't run into Alessio yet, have you?"

"No, afraid I haven't."

The conversation returned to a more somber and serious tone. Fiyori bit her lip. She knew that Alessio had killed. She had no idea about his current mental state, however, and Coleen's tone made it difficult to read into her relationship with him.

Though Fiyori allowed herself to hazard a guess. Whatever Coleen felt, whatever she wanted from Alessio, it wasn't positive.

"If I find him, should I tell him something?"

"No. I don't want you to say anything to him," Coleen said.

She swallowed the dryness in her throat.

"I just wanted to know if maybe he was nearby. Because I..." She wanted to kill him. Ever since she heard Cameron's name and ever since her day of failure in the closet, where he had the audacity to return to the scene of the crime with the bodies of classmates strewn about, where Arthur was added to them and it was all Alessio's fault. It was the one negative piece of passion she had and he wrapped herself around it until it burned a hole into her chest, yet she couldn't actually say the words.

I want to kill him.

I want to kill him.

"Never mind," Coleen sighed. "Just wanted to know if you had run into him. Oh well."

Fiyori understood.

Coleen hadn't said nothing of the sort, but Fiyori understood what she truly wanted. It had been a similar place Fiyori had been in, and still was. Well, either way Coleen played it off, and Fiyori chose not to pursue her on it. There was no further need to say anything on the matter.

A silence filled the room again. Fiyori jumped back and forth between trying to look into Coleen's eyes, and studying the markings on her face. She wondered if she could ask Coleen about them. Or if she should. Probably not, given all the rules of polite society but still...

She noticed someone coming. Fiyori had hoped that this little sanctuary would last a while longer, but unfortunately it could not. Ah, perhaps it was better that way. She still had things to do, people to find. But not yet to her. Granted, her appearance surprised Fiyori. The implications of them were huge, but for the meanwhile Fiyori enjoyed the dumb expression on the arrival's face. Probably didn't like what she saw.

Well, guess what? Fiyori wasn't liking it either.

"Well Coleen, looks like you got someone here."

Fiyori lifted herself from the chair, stretching her limbs and yawning intensively. She lurched over to the door, passing the guest. She would have said something to her. Fiyori even knew a few things that could be said. But unfortunately, Fiyori had quite terrible images in her head. Vicious, brutal images. In the end, Fiyori would rather not have them.

And for that she had to leave.

[[Fiyori Senay, continued in Love Runs Out]]

((Georgia Lee Day continued from Until Then, You Are Free))

They never should have left the cafeteria. The hours they had managed to hide away in the relative peace of the library aside, they had had no respite since leaving their sanctuary. If life had taught her nothing else, it had taught Georgia Lee to deeply and thoroughly regret any time that she attempted to break the mold for reasons other than pure practicality.

She wasn't startled to hear Fiyori's name on the announcement, though the fact that she had apparently joined together with some sort of execution squad to bring justice to Isabel Ramirez was something of a surprise. Fiyori wasn't one for teamwork.

She was startled to see Fiyori in the upstairs hallway, and it just gave her another reason to curse herself and how she had given in to cabin fever after almost a week of making it work. She had heard Coleen's voice. Coleen Reagan, one of the few names carved into the cafeteria table left unmarred. It was only after Georgia Lee zeroed in on the sound of Coleen speaking that she remembered Coleen had been announced as a killer, turning on her own ally.

And then she saw Fiyori.

Georgia Lee had instinctively stopped and taken a step back, bumping into Olivia, and then she recalled again that one must not show weakness in front of a predator, that she had to face up to Fiyori, and God, couldn't this girl stop tormenting Georgia Lee with her very existence?

But Fiyori said nothing to her. She just smiled and vanished down the hall. To Georgia Lee's overtired mind, it could have been as though she had evaporated into smoke, or had never been there at all. A tell-tale heart composed of gangling limbs and that secretive, knowing smile that made Georgia Lee's insides twist.

The moment passed as Fiyori's footsteps faded. Georgia Lee took a hesitant step forward. "Coleen?"

They had been friends before. Maybe they still could be, though Georgia Lee's survival instinct repeated again and again that seeking others out was as much a mistake as leaving their hiding place had been.