Survival Of The Fittest

((Skipping to get out of DZ))

"Yep! Let's go!"

Alba began to walk away from the beach and towards the nearby forest. She didn't check to see if Bryony and Bradley were following her. She was sure they were close behind, anyways.

She giggled to herself as they walked. This whole experience wasn't so bad yet. She found some nice people, one of whom had a weapon to scare off any dangerous people. Now they just had to wait for rescue to come. She was willing to be patient.

((Alba Reyes continued elsewhere))

Bradley smiled. With a skip in his step, he threw a cheesy grin on his face, and made to follow Alba. Ah, she was sweet. Poor girl mustn't know his reputation. Everybody knew Bradley, Bradley was sure of that, so this girl probably had the social connections of an Inuit otaku. Not to intentionally sound egocentric, but Bradley loved the idea of someone not knowing who he was. Made him a blank slate. A tabula rasa.

And he would be honest. That was his virtue. He could just exploit their ignorance, hide the fact he had more in common with BoJack Horseman or Diogenes than some Pollyanna. It wouldn't be smart, anyway. Bryony'd probably blow his cover. Poor Bryony was acting all shy and meek, like she always did around him. Maybe it was her temperament, maybe it was the whole context of a death island (which, yeah, still hadn't sunk in it, his constant verbal banter kept it relegated), but yeah, he was pretty sure it was.

Throwing a smile over his shoulder to invite Bryony to follow, Bradley got going.

((Bradley continued in This Be The Verse.))

Bryony was smart enough to realise that Bradley was messing with her. Taking advantage of the fact that they were about to leave and the fact her words were so easily twisted to fit his own narrative. She hoped he was just trying to rile her up, and that he wasn't going to smoke again; she could feel a cough building up in the back of her throat from the remnants of his first cigarette. If Bradley did end up continuing to smoke as they moved on, then she was… well… um…

Odds were, she wasn't going to do a single thing. Just meekly accept it, as well as the rest of Bradley's taunts and snide jibes. She didn't dare do anything to provoke him. She was scared of the guy back at school where he was, relatively, harmless. Now, he was even more terrifying. He had a weapon, he had potential motivation to harm and murder, and he was… unnervingly similar to how he had been back home. He was still cracking jokes, still not taking anything seriously, still being… Bradley. It was like he'd stepped off a boat directly onto some docks by a sandy beach.

Of course, maybe he wasn't quite the same old Bradley. Not inside. She could say the same thing about herself, after all. Outside, maybe she still appeared to be the same old Bryony. Inside, that was still absolutely there; the shy, quiet girl who just wanted people to like her. But maybe, at home, if something awful had happened to her, she would have broken down and given up, run to her room and smothered her tears with her pillow. Here though, she needed to keep on pushing. Keep on moving on. Whatever it took. Even if it was just one step at a time. Even if it was just one faint ray of hope in the distance. She had to try and walk towards it.

The others were heading off, but Bryony took one last look back at the beach. It was quite gorgeous, really, now that she had a moment to think about that. The rippling waves, the sunlight reflecting off the water, the birds flying low, occasionally dipping down into the sand dunes. Maybe, some day in the very far future, she'd be able to visit somewhere like this again. Maybe she could believe that would come true.

Bryony turned back to look at Bradley's retreating figure, let out a little sigh, then hitched her bag up on her back and headed off with him and Alba.

Because once again, it was the only choice that had been presented to her, and she couldn't pass up any opportunity out here.

((Bryony Adams continued in This Be The Verse.))