Survival Of The Fittest

Sophie smirked as Alex and the other girl continued their MacGyver talk. It was nice to see that they could still make jokes despite the situation they were in. It made Sophie feel like they were still the same kids they were back in Seattle.

Alex gave Sophie a plain comforter as the other girl told them to go away. Alex asked her if they should leave the girl alone. Sophie rolled the comforter up a bit and draped it over her shoulders like a priest.

"We ought to at least see what's up," she whispered back to Alex. "The slippers can wait a bit."

Sophie moved over to the bed area and saw the girl lying on the bed, covering her face with a pillow. Sophie raised her hand and waved, ignoring that there was no way for the girl to see her waving.

"Hi, I'm Sophie," she said. "Are you okay?"

The silence that followed soon was calming, but as it persisted the fear started to sink in. The lack of any outside noise besides some shuffling forced Megan's mind to fill in the rest, which...

Soon the footsteps grew in volume and stopped by the bed - this time, it was both of the people who were in the store. Megan's breathing on the pillow became harder until the girl introduced herself. Sophie...considering there was only one "Sophie" in Aurora's senior class and she seemed like one of those people who was super nice and not holding back any deep dark secrets, this was really good, at least for Megan's heart. Plus, she asked if Megan was okay. Very good.

"I AMFFF MEGAN, THE GREAFFF AND POWEFFFUL," Megan shouted through the pillow in a deep voice before throwing it away dramatically. She sat up on the bed, combed her fingers through her hair, and grabbed her hat that had fallen off when she laid down. "Sorry, I always wanted to say that."

Now she could actually see who these people were. Yep, it was the Sophie she was thinking of. And with her, uhhh... shit. A-something French-something, always with the extremely white hair. Megan really needed to expand her circle of friends, or at least keep it from shrinking.

She span her hat around with her finger. "So, is it just you two?" she asked, ignoring Sophie's question.

((Gavin Hunter purposefully strides in from Red Skies, Red Hearts.))

The island was far too quiet. When one thought about SoTF, one generally thought about the deaths, the backstabbing, the desperate struggle for survival that inevitably came with accepting that the only options available to you were to kill or be killed. In actuality, Gavin was learning that the vast majority of time spent on the island consisted of a series of relatively peaceful wanderings through a pleasantly idyllic wilderness that only occasionally resembled a rejected set from I Am Legend.

It was oddly disconcerting in many ways. A human being only had so much adrenaline in reserve at any one time, and it was impossible to remain focused and alert for very long when you spent the majority of your time encountering nothing more dangerous or perturbing to your progress than the odd patch of thorny weeds growing up through cracks in the roadway.

All in all, Gavin reflected, this island was exactly the kind of place that in other circumstances he would have loved to spend time exploring. It had an air of mystery and secrecy about it that was appealing. He had never heard of this island before, and doubted that anybody else he knew had heard of it either. But it had obviously held quite a substantial population at one time, and enough commercial viability to attract investors capable of funding the construction of both an airport and a nuclear power station. It was an anomaly, both supposedly part of this world and far removed from it. Genus Loci...

His musings were brought to an abrupt halt when he realised that while contemplating on the Spirit of Place, he had almost missed his destination entirely. The coastal road did not go through the shopping center directly, but instead curved slightly around it. Gavin, in his contemplations, found that he had almost wandered right past the main entrance without noticing it. He caught the mistake just in time, bringing himself to a halt that hopefully didn't look as abrupt as it really had been.

Well, this place certainly didn't change much in a day. Was all he could think as he stared at the large set of double doors that stood slightly ajar before him. He cast a glance behind him, confirming that Grace was still with him. She was there, as she always was. They hadn't talked a great deal on the trip over here, either for lack of anything comfortable to converse about or simply because the long hike over uneven potholed road surfaces made deep conversation a waste of precious energy. Still, he felt he could depend on her.

"Stick close to me, please." He said quietly. "I don't know if anybody is in here, but if there are I don't want to start a fight. I recommend you keep your gun low and finger off the trigger. Show that we don't mean any harm, but can defend ourselves."

The words were stated matter-of-factly, but Gavin still worried that Grace might take them as condescending. It was a risk, but he hoped she trusted him enough to see that he was just trying to look out for the pair of them. Taking a deep breath, he walked up to the shopping center doors and grasped one by the handle, giving it a hard tug to open it all the way outwards. The ominous scraping of the rusty hinges echoed throughout the cavernous interior of the shopping center. It was as good an announcement of his entrance as anything else.

Pausing only to snap the brim of his new fedora up to give him a clearer field of vision, Gavin strode for the second time over the threshold of the great, decaying edifice that was the island's shopping center. Like the first time he had done so, he was accompanied by a fellow student. Unlike the first time, Gavin actually had faith that this one would not abandon him once they were inside.

((Grace Faraday continued from Red Skies, Red Hearts))

Grace had walked far further yesterday, but new aches and pains had  led to journey being rather tiring. It had been a miracle that she was carrying so little, but even so, the strap of the bag had dug into her shoulder.

She had done her best not to complain, after all they were heading for supplies, but it was difficult not to think of the pain everytime she took a step.

And thus, she managed to take a few steps past Gavin when he came to a stop. At this point,she was quite ready to just give up and collapse on the floor, just as she had declared about a mile and a half back. At least they were finally here.

She nodded at his instruction and followed him in through the double doors. The sight was impressive, the place had been designed well, looking much larger than it actually was. The complete lack of people seemed to add to that effect, having a feeling of spaciousness that so few malls had. Which would have been great if she was shopping or hanging out with friends. Not now.

"We've gotta walk all the way over there?"  she muttered, not wanting Gavin to think she  was whining. The trip had better be worth it, otherwise she was going to have to-

No. That wasn't even funny to contemplate. Why did her head keep thinking this sort of thing? Grace ignored the thought and trudged along, following Gavin towards the stores.

Alex listened to the exchange of greeting between Sophie and the other girl. The other girl said that her name was Megan in a rather theatrical way. Afterwards Alex moved close to the two and introduced himself, "Anyway, now that you two know each other; I'm Alex."

Alex then jumped back onto the bed adjacent to Megan's. "God, this is comfortable after walking." Megan had asked a question about if Sophie and him were the only two there. Alex prepared to answer when he heard the scrapings of a rusty door being open.

Alex then lowered his voice and said, "Well, we were the only two, but I'm not so sure anymore." Alex proceeded to stand up fully so that he could see who had disturbed the peace when they were within sight.

Sophie chuckled at Megan's Oz reference. While Sophie thought it might have worked better if Megan was behind a curtain, she was at least glad this girl could show some light hearted joking with the two of them. Alex introduced himself and sat down on the bed next to Megan. Sophie walked over and sat next to him, keeping her legs hanging off the edge.

Before Sophie could say much, she heard a loud scraping sound. Alex figured someone might be coming into the mall now. Sophie nodded.

"Well, it makes sense to come to the mall," she responded. "I wonder who it is?"

Sophie began to swing her legs as she adjusted her position on the bed.

Yeah, someone just wants to come shopping, just like us. That's all they are going to do. Just go shopping.

Alex, huh? Yeah, that sounded right.

Alex and Sophie joined Megan on the bed, which did make her feel better. "Yeah, nice isn't it? I kinda-"

And then someone threw the mall doors open, or Megan at least presumed so. It's not like there's any other doors that could make that big of a sound in here.

Megan rolled her eyes.

As they had done before, it took Gavin's eyes several moments to adjust to the omnipresent gloom of the shopping centre. It wasn't dark, not precisely, but the shadows were long and the windows so filthy that the sunlight provided intermittent lighting at the best of times. Nothing seemed to stir in response to his entrance, but that was no real confirmation of their isolation. It could just mean that whoever was here didn't feel like announcing their presence. Yet.

The seconds trickled by without incident. Gavin listened to Grace walking up behind him, heard her muttered complaint. The journey had been harder on her than it had been on him. Shooting was a surprisingly physical hobby with lots of lugging heavy objects long distances, and it had built up a resistance to fatigue in Gavin that he was now extremely grateful for. He still ached quite a bit from the long trip to and from the shipping yard, but knew how to moderate his activities so that the strain remained tolerable.

"I'd be happy to carry that bag while you take a rest if you're feeling tired." He offered gallantly. "You can stay out here in the concourse and keep me covered while I gather what we need, we're in no rush."

Gavin didn't bother to whisper the words, instead letting them rebound off the stark walls and echo throughout the empty building. In this lighting it was doubtful that any student with a gun could be accurate enough to pose a threat beyond point-blank range, and Grace's presence in the concourse meant she would be free to provide support if he inadvertently wandered into an ambush among the stalls.

"Really? Thanks." Grace tried not to sound too happy to accept Gavin's offer but passed the bag to him almost instantly.

It only took another second to find a bench to slump down on in the middle of the concourse,  happy to finally not need her feet to touch the ground.

"Thank God for benches," she declared, not quite caring if she was being to loud. Even the hard wood of the bench felt like the best silk mattress to her right at that moment. There was no way she was going to get up fron here, not any time soon.

Grace watched as he walked up towards one of the stores. Gavin really was a nice guy. Thank goodness it had been him who had found her at the docks earlier that morning. After all, she had been a sitting duck for some psycho with a gun.

She looked up at the upper floors for a second, wondering if there could be someone hiding there waiting for them to make a move. It was probably just paranoia. Besides, she was quite sure that most people would still be friendly. All that she needed to do was to keep an eye out.

Taking a look at the large empty space, that wouldn't be too hard.

Alex heard the footsteps coming closer as the sound of rubber on linoleum got louder. He also heard voices but couldn't quite discern how many there were. He couldn't make out what was being said but hoped that it wasn't a plan to raid all the stores and kill whoever they found. He didn't know if it would be best to meet them or to stay hidden but decided to go with the former.

"Hey, out there. You're not here to kill us are you?," Alex shouted out. It probably wasn't wise and didn't really factor in the feelings of the other two with him but it was for the best if he didn't try to hide. IF they were there to kill them, they would most certainly search for those hiding. However, if they weren't there to kill them they might be shocked by finding those hiding and accidentally hurt them.

Alex changed his voice back to a normal speaking tone so that Sophie and Megan could hear him, "You two, either prepare to run or make some new friends." It was likely that those two were the only options they would have now that Alex had revealed their position.

Sophie could hear the voices of the people who had loudly entered the mall. She curled her toes as they got closer. She had no clue who could be coming in, but she hoped they were friendly.

Don't worry. They probably won't play. Sure, there has been some killing so far, but come on, that was a small fraction of the student populace. You have to be willing to trust these folks.

Alex had then shouted to the people, asking if they were going to kill him. She was surprised by his audacity, but like he then told her and Megan, they better be ready to run or make friends.

Sophie hopped off the bed and tightened her grip on the bag around her arm. It looked like she'd have to wait before getting some new shoes.

"Gee, thanks," Megan said, resisting the urge to facepalm right there. It was probably a little late to politely ask if someone was going to kill them, considering they were on Murder Island of all places. Alex was starting to look more like MacGruber at this point.

Megan replaced her hat and grabbed her duffel by the bed; she was ready to get the fuck out of dodge if need be.

Even though she tried to play it cool, she was freaking out on the inside. She didn't want to die. Not yet.

God, why didn't they just leave her alone?

Well, turns out you were right, as usual.

It came as no surprise whatsoever to Gavin that other people were in the store after all. What was a surprise, however, was the way they chose to announce themselves. He had expected to be confronted inside a darkened store and had his intentions extracted from him at weapon-point, but not this.

They must not have any decent weapons. He thought to himself. It was a logical enough conclusion. Just about every single person he'd met on the island with a gun had so far shown a casual disregard for the potential ramifications of using it as a greeting card, so either these people weren't armed or something else was at work.

But it was pointless to dwell on such things. Gavin would not let himself become paranoid about situations he had minimal control over. Down that path lay madness. Like so many other paths of thinking on the island, for that matter.

"No! We're not here to kill you." He called in a mildly exasperated tone towards the storefront he guessed the voice had originated from.

"We're just here for some supplies. What're you here for?"

This was, he reflected briefly, shaping up to be a pretty traditional conversation for SoTF.

Of course there was someone else here. From the sounds of it, not hostile but just scared. But aje wasn't going to get up unless it was absolutely neccessary. She simply swiveled around to face the store where the voice came from.

Linen and Things. At least that was where she thought the voice had come from. Were they getting clothes or bedsheets? That didn't seem like a completely reasonable plan of action. Maybe he was just taling a nap? The place looked like it sold mattresses.

That settled it. Absolutely neccessary. If there were beds there, she wanted in. She stood up and walked over towards Gavin.

"Yup. We don't plan to do any killing," she shouted at the voice. "Do you mind if we come in?"

Receiving the reaction he expected from his companions, Alex waited to hear if the intruders were there to kill them. They replied with denial, though that was what Alex expected. Whether they were really there to kill them or not, it wasn't likely that they would say yes. Still, it was early in the game and not many people would have had the time to crack yet so Alex decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and believe them.

Alex was nervous about meeting more people on the island, but he decided it would be best if he pretended to be confident so that perhaps others would be put more at ease. "Well, I came here so that I could catch the 4:30 showing of The Wizard of Oz, but upon my arrival I found out that I had read the address wrong and that it was indeed 3250 Washington Avenue and not 3520 Washington Road that the theater was at. So I decided to do a little shopping."

Jokes were what made Alex be able to continue on with fake confidence. It was one of his defense mechanisms and always seemed to give him a good laugh. Listening back in Alex heard another voice ask if they could come into the store. Alex thought about it for a moment then said, "Well, I'm fine with it. But there will be a fee, either you pay me $100 or you tell a joke."

Alex lowered his voice again so that he could speak quietly to Sophie and Megan. "Well, as of right now they know that I'm here. You can still choose to leave if you want, or you could introduce yourselves." Alex realized that he hadn't given them much choice so far, so he offered them the option of abandoning him.