Survival Of The Fittest

Idiot.

Almost immediately, Oscar realized how fucked he was. In less than a few seconds, he dug himself a hole far too deep for him to get out of. So, he waved it even more, half out of anger and half out of desperation. Everything was telling him to stop, but his heart pushed on. He had a box cutter. It should've scared him off.

The distance between them lessened with each step Ben took, and still, Oscar waved it around. It wasn't working, it wasn't working. There was no way out.

He felt himself falling all of a sudden, and let out his last scream as he hit the floor.

Oscar wasn't aware of what happened. All he could feel at the moment was throbbing on his back and head. He was probably covered with bruises. The first sign something had gone wrong was what felt like a slight punch to his neck. The wound was throbbing, and the pain was slowly getting worse. He was about to let out a deep exhale to cope when all of a sudden, the pain intensified. He looked down on his body and saw a river of blood spreading through his shirt, replacing the varied colors on his shirt with red, only red. His tongue was overwhelmed by the taste of metal. And he couldn't breathe. God, he couldn't breathe. He was choking on his own blood.

He needed to find a way out because he needed to live, he did. He pulled out the weapon and saw it was the box cutter. The same box cutter that started this, that he left the group for. Hoisted by his own petard. How wonderful.

Oscar tried getting up, tried running out of the room, but his limbs were failing him. Everything was getting so cold. He managed to get up, but slipped on his own blood. His head hit the floor, but instead of falling unconscious, he felt it. Oscar wanted to scream, but instead of that, he let out a rasp, mixed with the sound of liquid bubbling.

His neck was in a vice, it was being set on fire, it was being filled with water. Everything was becoming so confusing. He swore he could hear someone coming towards him, although whether that was a hallucination or not, he couldn't tell.

There was so much to do. He could've done one last drawing, at least, or had one last conversation. If he'd been shot once and left to die, maybe he could've gotten this chance before bleeding out. But no, it wasn't like that. There was so much he hadn't lived up to. The best way to sum it up was disappointment. This wasn't the best way of going out.

He tried getting up again, even though logic told him that there was no chance, but he no longer had the energy. He was breathing rapidly, desperately trying to get some oxygen in, but all that came in his lungs was blood.

It was too cold. Freezing, even. Now, Oscar couldn't tell where he was. He could be outside in the rain for all he knew. Sounds became more distant. The roar of the rain on the roof lessened and became a slight static. And everything was going dark. Nothing was on his mind at this point. No last words, no final regrets. He was just falling asleep. And just like that, he let go.

B054, OSCAR TRIG: DECEASED

75 PEOPLE REMAINING

"-not walking out here you scrawny ass motherfucker."

Janie was vaguely conscious again, greeting the world with a blur. She felt around her head for her glasses and placed them on the bridge of her nose, lessening the still present blur. A shout had pierced her brain as Janie dreamed of places far away from where she was. She was on the back of a stallion, flying through cotton candy clouds as hooves nudged their pink tops and pushed them through the sky. She was an orca as it flew through the air, skimming into a well-placed hoop and landing back into the water. She was even a bass guitar as it travelled on top of a black '96 Saturn through the bustling streets of Seattle, a young punk rocker flicking his cigarette out the window. But she wasn't any of those things anymore.

She was stuck inside a sheet, cocooned around her body and keeping her warm from the rain and her soaking clothes lying a short distance away. The urge to return to her dreams and become a butterfly in the process was there but she was woken up for a reason. There was yelling. This happened sometimes at home, she'd wake up in the middle of the night to her mom yelling at Thomas and she'd learned to go back to sleep in spite of it. This wasn't home though, and she didn't have that option if she wanted to be safe. Janie grabbed the nearest shelf and helped herself off the floor, still woozy after her snap from dreaming. A few seconds later she realized what had woken her in the first place.

"-fucking load."

That was Benjamin, somewhere distant but still as loud as he always was. And Oscar was nowhere to be seen in Linens and Things so safe to say he was with him? Benjamin had to be talking to somebody, he hadn't started talking to himself in the past couple of days. Of course, if he had Janie might not know about it, since he didn't get a lot of time to himself and she didn't get to listen on him when he did. So it must have been another fight. Just like back at the school. Only more swearing.

Janie scooped up her clothing and made her way towards the entrance, maneuvering her way into her jean shorts in the process. They were still fairly damp and it was incredibly uncomfortable walking in them. If she knew where Oscar had put her bag she could possibly get a change of clothing, but as it stood now she still had no idea what was going on.

As she threw her arms up woefully in trying to get her shirt on so she wasn't completely indecent on camera, she heard a throaty rasp from the same place she heard the yelling. She pulled it over her body quickly as she ached for a view.

There couldn't have been a worse time to walk in on said view.

She saw Benjamin first, and then she saw Oscar. The big difference being that Benjamin was standing near the entrance of the mall with a look of  horror on his face while Oscar was weakly moving around on the ground, trying to hoist himself up in what looked like a small pool of tragically dark water. She didn't need another look to realize that it wasn't water.

Everything started to click in place, and the familiar feeling of abject dread returned to the pit of Janie's stomach. Almost the exact same feeling as when she saw Yaz's body, only she had the strength to plant her feet on the linoleum and not fall back. Of course she wasn't strong enough to not choke out another scream of horror as the true realization of what was happening sunk in. A boy she'd been with, relied on, spilled all her secrets to and trusted was lain dead on the floor of the mall.

"Wha-"

Her eyes twisted towards the figure standing above Oscar's body.

"What the-"

And wrought with fatigue and overcome with an unfamiliar mixture of panic and fear, Janie lost all the composure she had left.

"WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO!?"

Ben should have done something.

In his mind, Ben raced over to the ground immediately, trying to catch Oscar. He'd wrench of his shirt to staunch the bleeding. His expensive Hollister shirt was once a symbol of pride and personal exaltation amongst his friends. Now, Ben would gladly use it as a tourniquet, staunching Ben's mistake, if it could buy them time. Ben didn't want to be a murderer.

In his mind, Ben never even got this far. He'd calm down. He'd try to understand Oscar's fears. They'd just been mere feet away from a serial killer. The guy was scared shitless. Ben would have told him that they'd get out of there. Together. Ben would back down and apologize. They would never be friends, but they were all they had here. Oscar trusted Ben with his life, and this was how it ended up.

You fucking idiot. Ben looked out to Oscar, eyes filled with rage and regret, but the comment stopped being about him the more Ben repeated it. You fucking idiot. Idiot. Idiot. IDIOT

In his mind, Ben would never be a murderer. He was a leader. A hero. He was going to save two virtual strangers and keep them safe while rescue came. He'd be memorialized through pilfered camera feeds as a heroic figure through all the evil. Ben wanted to be John Wayne. He wanted to be Harrison Ford. He wanted to be Bruce Willis. He wanted to be a huge Hollywood hero. He'd settle for being anybody else but himself right now.

Oscar's death rattle was a horrendously pained breath. Each gurgle, a sad attempt to catch the breath that was too pervasive, made Ben's chest recoil in pain. He'd done this. No matter what Ben envisioned in his mind, he'd fucked up. It would be something that he would have to carry with him forever.

As Ben watched Oscar's last shreds of stamina escape from him, the accursed sense of hindsight struck him. Ben was no stranger to hindsight. When Ben should have tackled left instead of right, when Ben should have selected C instead of B, when Ben should have asked out that cute redhead instead of her blonde friend. It all seemed so clear after the dust settled and everything was obvious.

Ben should have been a man. Boys lead through fear and manipulation. Real men could know when to have a heart. He should have cared more about Oscar. He should have been a man. Oscar paid for Ben's immaturity, but Ben would have to suffer too.

A rogue tear darted down the length of Ben's nose, pooling at a drop at the tip. Ben went to wipe it off with his left hand, only to catch sight of the gore that coated his hand.

Ben only remotely heard Janie's alarmed protests. She'd seen everything. There was no excuse. He couldn't blame this on the cat. Oscar Trig wasn't a broken lamp that Ben had accidentally knocked over while home alone. He was a human fucking being. He wasn't something that Ben could casually dismiss.

"I didn't mean to." His voice started off weak, trailing off into a barely audible whisper. The strength, the fury, everything that made Ben, drained from his face, along with the color. He was a scared little boy, who'd have to pay for his inability to man up.

Ben crouched down to the floor, sitting on his heels. His hands, coated in blood from a weak attempt to reach out to Oscar, shook as they traveled through his matted hair. "I-I fucked up. He needed me, a-a-and I fucked up."

Ben's eyes ran raw with regret. He deserved better. Ben took one last look at Oscar, letting the sobering reality of what he'd done soak in. Ben wanted to apologize so badly, but the words lodged in his throat. Every sound came out as a hushed whimper.

Ben wasn't even man enough to say he was sorry.

There wasn't even a response Janie was looking for, come to think of it. The same reaction was due for whatever Ben said.

"No."

Benjamin had just killed Oscar. Benjamin had just killed Oscar. This was it. There was no room for anything else in their group anymore, despite how long it had lasted and how much effort she had put into keeping herself alive within it. Because there was no group, it was just the exact same thing as it was when they first met, a bully with a weapon and a girl who didn't want to deal with this sort of thing. She didn't have to. It was her right not to have to watch people around her kill each other or themselves.

"No, Ben, just..."

Janie started backing her way back into the store. She glanced over at the counter and despite her less than solid composure she could see clear as day that was where Oscar had put their bags. She strode over and picked up her belongings, strapping them over her shoulder.

"I'm done."

This was it. She couldn't stay with him anymore. Not after this. Janie half walked, half ran out the entrance of the store and almost into Benjamin.

"I can't stay here anymore, Ben. You...you just...I can't. I'm sorry."

And with that, she ran past him towards the doors. At least her weak, malnourished, still half-asleep version of a run, which was still getting her out of that shopping centre.

Janie was back in the rain, but for once in her life she didn't care anymore.

((Janie Sinneave continues elsewhere...))

"Janie." Ben's voice trailed off as he pronounced the last syllable of her name. What was the point? Ben knew he'd fucked up irreparably. This wasn't something that Janie would just up and forget about. Ben couldn't either. Despite being called a "game," this wasn't a game at all. There were no do-overs. No mulligans. No fucking take two's. Everything mistake counted, and killing Oscar Trig was the biggest one he'd ever made.

It's why he silently sat beside Oscar's body, directly in the pool of blood, while Janie wandered off. He had nothing to say. He couldn't bring himself to plea for Janie to come back. Ben been so sure that he was their only shot at survival. Ben didn't have the long term planned out, but he figured that they'd get rescued. Ben would have kept them safe from all those psychotic fuckers that took out half their class.

But that's not how it worked out. Because nothing ever went according to the fucking plan, did it? Ben wasn't supposed to let any of them get killed. Ben wasn't supposed to become one of those people he hated the most. But sure enough, it was Oscar's blood on his hands. And Ben didn't have a single person to blame for it but himself.

Janie returned, back slung over her shoulder, and started to leave. Ben couldn't even look at her while she spoke. He knew she was right. Ben failed as a leader. He failed as a man. He also failed as a friend. He should have been all of those things, but he succeeded at none.

He could only catch the last word of what Janie had said to him. "Sorry." A word that was so hard for Ben to say, Janie could easily whip out at him. She wasn't. She didn't mean it at all. Not like Ben had.

The door opened briefly, and then violently shut closed. Ben couldn't even acknowledge her exit. It was Day Three all over again. Just him.

Ben stood up after Janie was long gone. Too much time had gone to run out and try to chase her. He flirted with the idea, opening the door and sticking his head out. The rain had finally stopped. Maybe she wasn't getting wet out there. Maybe she'd found somewhere dry to rest.

Maybe Janie found a better group. She'd find friends, people who both genuinely cared about her, and were less explosive than Ben. She'd follow these guys until the rescue boats came in to save them all. Ben could see her in Seattle and finally be able to say those words. Maybe he'd give it a few years. Let Janie forgive him on her own time. By then she'd probably be in college, doing something with animals or whatever she told Oscar she was interested in.

Ben fucking hoped that Janie would have all of that. She was a good person. It was better that she wasn't dragged down to his level.

Ben picked his body off of the floor. Oscar's blood was slowly starting to coagulate and soak into the seat of Ben's pants. His expensive Hollister shirt was just a disgusting, bloodied mess. Fingerprints spelled out in Oscar's blood decorated the iconic white letters. His jeans were in an equal state of gore. He'd have to find something in the mall to change into. Every time he looked down, he'd just be reminded of Oscar. If Ben was going to survive, he couldn't let that keep happening.