Survival Of The Fittest

Jonathan watched as they left. He closed the door behind him, and sighed, sliding down the door and sitting inside the building.

This was a disaster...

Everyone was killing everyone... What chance did he have of saving anyone? Hell, he couldn't trust any of his closest friends to stick with him. They were either dead, trying to kill people, or thinking of it. It should've been something unthinkable, something nobody should ever want or contemplate, but their class?

They were making it look easy.

Even worse, he could imagine some of them doing it easily. He wanted to say he was surprised about what Brendan told him, but something. Something was off. He wasn't sure what he was thinking, but it wasn't shock.

Maybe Michael and Jeremiah had a reason for it? Maybe that girl wasn't so innocent. He'd have to ask Brendan when he g-

What was that? Red....

Red.

Jonathan walked closer towards the red, before a scent hit his nostrils. He knew all too well what it was, despite it's unfamiliarity. He put the collar of his hoodie over his nose as he went closer to inspect it.

Danny was laying there, covered in red. Everything around him was red.

He turned around. He couldn't do this anymore. The people on this island were fucking crazy. He had to find a place for Danny. He should probably find something to cover him.

He reached for his hoodie on reflex before he remembered where he was at. This was a housing block, there were bed sheets near by. They'd probably be a better cover than a hoodie.

Then there was the fact that Jonathan couldn't just leave Danny laying there. He was going to need some help to bring him some place better.

He turned and walked back outside the building, waiting for his new allies to return.

((Brendan Harte continued from II Don't Feel Like A Winner))

It didn't take him too long to get back.

Although, in his mind, Brendan thought that he would have been too late. He had pictured Jonathan in a pool of his blood. He didn't know why. He guessed that he was more messed up than he thought he was. Why shouldn't he be anyway? He was still getting flashes of Jeremiah in his head. He was a memory that was never going away. Brendan knew that and it had been his fault-

Brendan stopped walking suddenly. He noticed that Jonathan was still outside. Why wasn't he inside the building? Brendan was sure that Jonathan would be more safer out of site. Especially away from any others that were willing to kill. Or just killed for the hell of it....

Brendan had the GM-94 lowered to his side as he didn't want to look threatening as he approached Jonathan and he gave Jonathan a questioning look.

You need to look after him, Brendan.

"Jonathan...? Why....Why are you outside here....?" He asked unsurely. "....Are you okay...?"

((Alba Reyes returns from Malagueña Salerosa))

Alba kept up a steady pace as she returned to the dorms. Now that she had lost track of Bryony, she had to hope that whatever Brendan and Jonathan had in store would be worth it. They were allies and teammates, and she wasn't going to be as reckless with them as she had been with Bryony. Alba sighed as she walked, the weight of the rifle starting to weigh on her.

Fortunately for her, she didn't see anyone else on her walk back to the dorms. She arrived and saw Brendan and Jonathan outside. Brendan was now holding something quite crazy in his hands. It had to be the prize for killing that guy yesterday. Jonathan looked pretty upset for some reason. Alba knew she had to get back.

"Hey! I'm back!" she shouted to the guys.

She hurried over to them. She had to inform them of her findings so they could continue on with the plan.

"Bryony wasn't there," she said, stopping by the guys. "No one was there, actually. I don't know where they could be, but I left a message for them so they can find us if they come back to the gym. What's going on here?"

Jonathan rubbed his hands through his hair. He wanted to do something for Danny. For everyone on this island. They're dying because he's not getting help fast enough. How can he? Their only plan won't even start until tomorrow, and even if they get to it, what then? They might die before they're halfway through with it. Their collars might be detonated, or the plan may not even work. What then?

What then?

He hated this, he hated being alone. Without anyone around, he couldn't help but feel pessimistic about everything. He wanted to feel like everything would turn out okay, but even if things went well, it would never be okay again. There would always be that burden, the knowledge that people died, and people tried to kill. Who could he trust at that point?

He had a decision to make, and it all depended on if he'd see the people he'd trust again. No. What was he thinking?! He couldn't give up now, not after all this time. He won't. Even if he failed, nobody could say he didn't try.

But Jonathan knew this wasn't about trying. This was about succeeding. It wasn't about him, it was about everyone here. Not him. He had to remember that.

They came back. Both asked about him. Brendan had some big shotgun. Once Jonathan's eyes noticed how big the barrel was however, they widened in shock. A gun with a barrel that big meant it fired something heavy. Brendan probably had a grenade launcher. Jonathan snapped himself back to reality to answer them.

"Danny's... well, he's inside. I was waiting for you guys to come back, I thought we could cover him, or, lay him somewhere better, I guess."

He shook his head.

"We can't let this keep happening."

Brendan had felt relieved when he saw that Alba was safe. He had been afraid that she might have gotten hurt or worse. But she looked fine and healthy. But on the inside.... He wasn't sure what she was thinking mentally. He felt bad that her friend had not been where Alba had last seen her. Maybe they could try to search for Byrony later on. It was the least that he could do for Alba. He also thought that it had been smart of her to leave a message. Although, he hoped that they would not be hostile and distrusting once they saw that he was with Alba.

Brendan's breath then sharpened when Jonathan said that Danny was inside the building. He remembered hearing Danny Brooks on the announcement. Killed by Isabel Ramirez. She had killed three people. Brendan would not like to ran into her. Or Nancy Kyle for that matter. He knew what Isabel looked like but he had avoided her in school. He had no idea what Nancy looked like. So it was a bit frustrating to him.

"That.... That must have been awful to see, Jonathan. Yeah, we should cover Danny up. We have to be respectful. I wish that I had a shovel so that I could have at least give him a proper burial. I guess all we can really do is maybe cover him with a sheet. You're right. We have to do something."

Brendan nodded. Then he was silent for a few seconds. He really hated that more people were dying. Maybe other people were getting killed right now and there was nothing that they could do about it. He felt very helpless in that moment. They had to do something. But what could they seriously do? He didn't believe that Jonathan and Darius' idea about the radio tower would work. But he wasn't going to tell Jonathan that. He might be losing hope but he didn't want the others to lose theirs as well as him.

"....Hey, Jonathan. Would you like to take this weapon? In case you need to defend yourself? I mean, we might get attacked by others who are willing to kill. Like Nancy, Isabel.... Maybe.... Michael as well. And the others who are on the announcements."

He paused as he thought about himself being on there. He was now feeling worse about it.

"....I don't trust myself.... So I would feel safer if you had it."

Brendan was staring at Jonathan with pleading eyes. He was being as honest as he could with him.

"Please..... Just please take it."

"Danny? Danny who-oooooooh...."

Alba was about to ask who Danny was, thinking he was another ally for their escape attempt. However, she remembered hearing about a Danny on the announcements, and Johnny' comment on covering him made it clear it was that Danny. Alba lowered her head slightly and turned away from the guys. Inside that building was a dead body, just like Bradley back at the gym. She could only imagine the condition it was in. Would it be as gnarly as Bradley's? Would it be as affected by the environment? Alba tried to force the images out of her mind, and back to the guys.

"Yeah, covering the body would be the respectful thing to do," Alba said.

Wait, then why didn't I do that to Bradley?

Alba pondered this to herself as Brendan tried to give his prize weapon to Jonathan.

Someone tossed him outside and I didn't even bother putting something over him. Crap. I should do that if I go back to the gym.

Alba thought about this, completely ignoring the guys. She wondered if anyone else was lying around exposed to the elements. They had been here three days, so things were probably going to be really gross by now.

((Candice Banks continued from I've Swallowed Half an Hourglass))


Candice heard the faint sound of people talking from around the corner.  Well, she'd been planning on just passing through on her way to the southern half of the island, but if there were people here now she may as well check them out.  Especially if they were people of the non-murderous variety.

Her first instinct was to try peering around the corner to learn a bit more about who it was, but she wasn't so sure that that would turn out so well.  If it were someone hostile, they'd probably just see her and shoot her.  If they weren't hostile, they'd see Candice, decide she was acting suspiciously, and then either run away or shoot her.

Let's be real, anyway.  Even if they were friendly and I could hide from them, I'd just end up getting cold feet when it came time to introduce myself to them, and would just end up letting them walk off without knowing I was even here.  Might as well just take the plunge before I chicken out.

She took a moment to make sure the safety on her gun was on to prevent any accidental discharges like from the first day.  She'd gone back and forth for quite some time that morning regarding whether she would even carry the gun openly.  Keeping it hidden definitely had the advantage of not scaring anybody else away, and after what had happened with Al that was certainly something that needed to be taken into consideration.  Candice had been pretty sure that that would be the way to go about things... up until the time came to actually set out on her own.

In the end, it seemed that her gun would barely fit in her bag, and getting it out quickly in an emergency was going to be difficult.  Thus, Candice ended up ditching the idea of keeping her weapon a secret.  If these people had a problem with her gun, then so be it.  She took a couple of deep breaths and a few seconds to calm her nerves.

Okay... let's get this trainwreck started.

Taking care to ensure that she keep the gun pointed at the ground and not at anybody, Candice stepped out from behind the corner and revealed herself to the three people who were talking amongst themselves.

"Hey, mind if I approach?"

Jonathan was still thinking about what'd they'd do for Danny when Brendan asked him to take his gun. This had surprised him, he didn't think Brendan would've wanted to part ways with it. He understood why, though, Brendan was having second thoughts about what he'd done, Jonathan could tell he had been dwelling on it all day. It was hard to see Brendan so messed up over it, his thoughts were in the right place, he tried to do the right thing, and yet he was unsure of it.

Jonathan thought about what'd he would do in that situation. If it were one of his friends that he had to save. If he had to save Alba and Brendan, and that meant killing someone else? Would he do it, could he do it? Would that make him a hypocrite, promising escape whilst damning someone else?

He was surprised and disturbed how quickly the answer came to him...

All Brendan wanted to do was help someone, so he did it in the only way he knew how. If Jonathan were in that situation, he thought, he hoped he would do the same. Yet... If he saw himself in the situation the girl was in, would he want Brendan to save him? Would Brendan be able to live with himself for killing two people? Jonathan wanted to console him, to tell him it was okay. But he had to know...


He almost took the gun before he asked Brendan. "When you saved that girl, who was she? Who did she look like?"

He still had hope Michael was innocent, even if Brendan thought he wasn't. That there was some big mistake, that he wasn't in the wrong. But would that make Brendan wrong? If it were a misunderstanding, they both could be in the right, but at the same time, they both could be wrong. Jeremiah would still be dead. But then if one of them were in the right, one of them would be in the wrong. Michael was still planning on killing someone, maybe justified in his mind, but would it be justified? Would there be a reason for it? Brendan killed to save someone, why did Michael try to do it?

If he knew who Brendan saved, that might shed some light on things. He continued to ponder the scenario before an unfamiliar voice chimed in. Jonathan looked at the voice. She had a gun that looked like it came straight out of some 80's sci fi film. Michael would flip if he saw it.

From her voice alone, he could tell she was friendly. If she weren't, he was sure she could have killed the three of them before they even realized it. He smiled and welcomed her over.

"Sure, we're just talking about some things... We're thinking of what to do with someone inside the building, maybe find a better spot to lay him..." His smile faded somewhat, once he remembered just what they were talking about before hand.

Brendan didn't think that Jonathan would ask about the girl that he saved. Not at that moment at least. He thought that he would ask him about it later. He didn't even feel comfortable to talk about it. He just wanted to get rid of the weapon that was currently in his hands. He hated the touch of it. It made him remember why he had it in the first place.

But if Jonathan wanted to know about the girl then Brendan knew that he had to speak about her. He didn't know who she was. But he remembered the hair. It wasn't that hard to forget that colour. He felt like the girl's face was a blur. Especially when everything went to chaos with Michael.

"I remember that the girl had blue hair. I can't really remember what she--"

Brendan was suddenly cut off by a female's voice and it didn't sound like it was Alba's voice. He followed the voice and he noticed that it was a girl that was unfamiliar to him. He also noticed her gun as well. He was suddenly feeling uneasy. He shouldn't really judge as he had a weapon of his own that terrified him. Why was he still holding it?

It seemed like Jonathan was welcoming her into the group. Brendan didn't know what to think about that. She wasn't doing any harm to them so Brendan guessed that it would be alright. Did she even know who he was? Would she be shocked if he told her his name? And then she would freak out?

Stop getting paranoid, Brendan. Just stay calm and don't screw anything up.

"Y-Yeah, we wanted to do something good for him." Brendan paused. He didn't even know the condition of Danny's body inside the building. He was wishing that it hadn't been a gruesome death. But Jonathan had sounded torn up about it. "....So are you on your own? No one else with you? Uh...."

Alba wasn't sure who would be a blue haired girl that could be attacked. That Raina girl she met the first day of school may be a good guess to who it was, since she knew that girl had blue hair. She wasn't entirely sure if there were any other girls at Cochise with blue hair, but if it was Raina, then she was glad Brendan saved her.

Another girl walked in, asking if she could approach. Alba sighed in relief, glad she wasn't immediately going to attack them because Brendan's name was on the announcement yesterday. Alba then recognized her as Candice Banks, another member of the junior class.

"Yeah, what they said," Alba said to Candice. "We're just trying to do the right thing while we're here."

"And yeah, how have you been?"

For all that Candice had been concerned about how things would go, apparently this was a group of people where joining up with them was as stupidly easy as asking if it was okay.  It was the kind of thing that she was sure she would look back at in the future and wonder what she'd been so worried about in the first place.

Well, better to feel dumb for being overly worried than to be blindsided by something you didn't think of.

"I'm with Mia," Candice replied as she approached the others.  "Um, I guess was with Mia would be more accurate.  Mia Rose, that is, not sure if you know her or not.  We were together for a bit but split up yesterday, and, um..."

Well, that was hopefully enough of an introduction.  Hopefully wasn't too much of one, really, since it sounded like these people had had other things to take care of when she'd arrived.

"This someone that's inside the building... from the sound of it, they were hurt?"

Jonathan thought about who could have blue hair. Only two came to mind, one was Raina, he remembered her and Darius at the party. While he wouldn't tell her it, he thought it was kinda funny, in a really cringey 'I shouldn't be laughing at this' way. That'd meant he'd have saved someone who's innocent.

But then there was the other girl, who's name he'd heard multiple times already. It'd meant he'd saved a killer, and Jeremiah was innocent. Michael was innocent.

Jonathan wasn't sure which option he'd preferred. But it narrowed it down; though not by much, he continued on pondering who was right, and who was wrong. He forced himself to stop when he remembered Brendan's intentions. All Brendan wanted to do was help. That was it, nothing more, nothing less. If he could've done things in a different way, he would've done so. He would have to talk to Michael about it, he'd have to hear both stories.

Jonathan switched his attention to the newcomer, Candice. She was looking for her friend, Mia. Jonathan hadn't seen her, so he couldn't really help with that one. She asked about Danny, she thought he was injured...

"N-no, no, sorry he's... He's worse. We were talking about what we should do with him, we were talking about finding a better spot to place him, or find something to cover him."

"It's Danny in there..."

Brendan was still feeling uneasy about Candice. He really needed to calm down. He didn't even know her. Maybe that's why he was unsettled. He really needed to cool off. He needed to relax and not do anything stupid. He didn't want anyone else to end up dying because of him. He thought of Jeremiah again. Was his body still down there? Or did Michael bury him? Or cover him up with a sheet? Brendan had to stop thinking about him. It was only making him feel worse. He had to focus on the others. He had to bury the past in the back of his mind for now.

So the girl had been with Mia Rose. He thought it was a shame that they had split up. Wouldn't the two of them have been safer together? He didn't understand why they would separate from each other. It didn't make any sense to him. Although, he did prefer to be alone sometimes. So he couldn't really judge this girl and Mia for what they did. He didn't have the right to.

Now she was asking about Danny. If he was just hurt. Brendan wished that Danny was just hurt and not dead. It would have made things more easier. They could have an extra person alive in their group then. They could have treated his injuries and then convince him to stay with them. But it was too late for that. Danny was gone. And Brendan just felt so down about it.

"Y-Yeah, Jonathan was the one who has seen him in there. We were just about to go in there before you turned up." Brendan said to Candice, still feeling a bit wary about her. "Would you want to help us? Or would you prefer to stay out of it?"

He took a few steps back towards the building. He really wasn't looking forward to seeing Danny's body. But he knew that he couldn't continue being cowardly. He had to do something. He had to be a better person.  

Alba nodded as the guys explained to Candice about Danny. Even though she saw someone die yesterday, Alba was still finding it hard to believe they were seeing death all around them. The closest encounter she had with death before this was nearly slipping down a flight of stairs when she was six. Now people were being stabbed and shot and dying in other horrible ways.

"Um, I think we should go in," Alba told the others, making her way towards the entrance.

"It looks like it might rain, so we should probably decide soon and quick. Just sayin'."

Alba gave a smile to the others. Her face was starting to feel exhausted from all the smiling.

"So he's... I'm sorry, I didn't realize..."

It had been naive for Candice to jump to the conclusion that they had been talking about somebody who had only been injured. No, it might even have worse than that. Was she being an idiot who couldn't consider that her classmates were dying, or one who had refused to consider?

They said that it was Danny in there. Danny Brooks? It must be. His name had been on the morning's announcement, and she wasn't sure that there were any other Dans in her class in the first place.

"Anyways, sorry for the mistake," she apologized. "And, well... if you don't mind, I'll help out."