Survival Of The Fittest

Katy stuck the grenade back into her bag before she followed Yaz out.  She had wanted to throw it, of course.  But the first time it hadn't worked out.  Well, it had "incapacitated her target" as the weapons manual had explained it was supposed to do.  But the target really hadn't needed incapacitating.

When Katy had choked that girl earlier in her school career, her mother, her counselors, they asked her to be more light-handed in dealing with her peers.  Not so much asked as threatened to remove her from school, as she supposed was their right.

It was probably one of those times to be light handed.  Besides, the girls were...were they about to play with Hungry Hungry fucking Hippos?

She nodded at Janie, wondered briefly why the fuck her hair was cut like it was.  But she held her tongue.

"I found her like that.  Gave her some meds out of my pack but I couldn't do much else."  She said, silently lauding Yaz for coming up with a halfway plausible lie.

She gestured at the game with her injured hand, squinting at the sudden stab of pain.

"It game night on Death Island or something?"

The fact that Yaz could manage to be so completely ungraceful was a foreign concept to Rebecca, even with her stupid ankle and trick knee.  The few times she had ever nodded off in public, she had caught herself before doing anything embarrassing, let alone as potentially permanently damaging, as what Yazmin had done. Had whatever they been given affected the other girl so severely that she didn't even have a 'stop' reflex while falling?

Rebecca really didn't appreciate Katy's attitude.  For a second, she thought about answering Katy's derisive question with a sarcastic response.  It would have been justified.  However, everyone at school knew that Katy was one of those people who could and did regularly fight.  She knew how to hurt people, and proudly proclaimed it with her personality and body language.  

Instead, with a lightness she didn't feel, Rebecca summoned up a sunny smile and gestured around her.  "It seemed appropriate, don't you think? To play a friendly game in an elementary school classroom?  They say everything you need to know you learned in kindergarten."  

Janie winced again at Yaz's explanation. "They laid you out on a desk as a wake-up spot? The sickos probably get off on watching people flail off of that thing, right?" She shrugged sympathetically. "Sorry, looks like a real shiner. Thing probably won't go away for a few days." If you live a few days, Janie thought, before shoving it away. No point in going the nasty way now, after all.

"Come on Katy," Janie said with a grin. "We still got two open hippos, and I see two people who aren't playing! It's always family fun night around here." She shrugged again, feeling more tired than she had any right to be. "Besides, it's early and as far as we know, no one's died on Death Island yet. Might as well have some fun before the real horror starts, right?"

She turned to Rebecca with a grin that she hoped went to her eyes. "If that bit about kindergraten's true, then that means that sharing is caring, and that if I call not-it then nobody can kill me, right? So, not it! No tag-backs! All that nonsense!" She grinned. "I guess if anyone tries to shoot me I can just scream "no shoot backs" and dash away, right? 'Last one in the school's a rotten egg!" She snorted with laughter, shaking her head.

"Anyways," she directed to Yaz and Katy. "I got dibs on Pinkie over here, but y'all should come join us. After all, it can't hurt."

Katy backed up her lie with a half-truth of her own. Yes Katy had given her some painkillers, but she had also been the one who had broken Yaz's nose in the first place. Then she said something sarcastic about what Rebecca and Janie were doing, Yaz fought the urge to roll her eyes. She couldn't even stop being a bitch in a situation like the one they were in; everything seemed to be an attempt to establish dominance in some form.

To her credit Rebecca just rolled with it and made it into a joke. Yaz smiled a little at that, at least someone was managing to stay positive, which was more than she could say for herself...or Katy for that matter. Between the two of them they were the most negative people, or maybe that was because they both in the presence of someone they disliked on a fundamental level.

Janie also tried to lighten the mood and Yaz had to admit it was working somewhat. The pain in her face notwithstanding she felt much better than she did when she had first ventured into the Elementary School. She put it down to how positive the other two girls were.

Granted they could have just been hiding their nerves and how scared they were but at the same time even fake optimism was better than pessimism.

While Yaz was open to the optimism the invitation to actually play Hungry Hungry Hippos felt weird to her. It seemed so out of place with everything they were expected to do during SOTF. In the end though her urge to take her mind off everything won out and with a small shrug she went and sat down behind one of the hippos.

"I guess you're right." She said to Janie as she started fiddling with the hippo.

((If anybody has a problem with the GMing to advance the timeskip, let me know and I'll rewrite.  But we need to get this show on the Day 2 road.))

Rebecca smiled and scooted over to make enough room for Yazmin.  There wasn't enough room for Katy, but she had the feeling that that wouldn't really be an issue.  Katy didn't exactly strike her as a Hungy, Hungry Hippo afficianado.  That was okay, though.  She supposed that it was best that the most capable warrior was the one least interested in playing.  

Someone had to be alert, and obviously 'someone' wasn't her or Janie.  They hadn't heard Yazmin and Katy approach until they were in the room with them. Maybe just spotting Katy would be enough to 'encourage' someone to move on to easier targets.  Bolstered by the thought, Rebecca threw herself into the hippo game.

_______

What started out as a friendly game turned into a serious tournament.  Plastic hippo heads clacked furiously while attempting to gobble down as many rolling white marbles.  The passage of time was inconsequential when compared to the glory and honor of being the first official Hungry, Hungry Hippo champion.  By the time they actually tired of playing, the lengthening shadows of evening had begun to darken the room.

Rebecca blinked in surprised.  "Oh," she breathed as she looked around.  "I didn't realize it had gotten so late."  She looked to the shadowy doorway and corridor beyond.  The thought of wandering out into the night made her break out into a fine sweat.  "You know," she began off-handedly, "it would be silly for us to go outside now and try and find a safe place to stay when we've been left alone in here.  This seems like a good place to stay for the night since we have doors and walls and stuff.  I think we should just stay here until tomorrow, at least."  

With a confidence she didn't feel, Rebecca retrieved her bag and tried to make a sort of bed on the floor with some foam mats that had probably once been used for napping. "I think we could be pretty comfortable here!"

((Rebecca Kiesling continued in Not Like Any Previous Sleepovers))

Hungry Hungry Hippos was the best idea. Literally. The best idea.

Everyone else in Deathland would be spending their evenings crying or fighting or fleeing. No one else was probably playing an exciting, riveting board game in an abandoned elementary school. Janie was an individual. She had done something unique. She'd done something fun, more importantly. It was good, she thought with a grin. It would make things easier. Maybe. For a bit.

When Rebecca suggested sleep, Janie found herself nodding earnestly. She wasn't actually sure she was tired, but she figured the adrenaline from the really strange day she'd been having wasn't helping at all. She followed Rebecca to the mat room, and laid down eagerly.

She was asleep in seconds.

((Janie Sinneave continued in Not Like Any Previous Sleepovers))

For a while Yaz forgot about everything as she played Hungry Hungry Hippos. She focused on playing the game and all the other worries and fears she had about being stuck on the island vanished. Yaz didn't have a care in the world for however long they ended up playing the game for, like everything though it had to end. The evening had crept in and stolen away all the fun with it. The idea of sleeping in an abandoned elementary school creeped Yaz out but the other option was finding somewhere else to sleep on her own.

It was safer to stay in the school. As she stood up Yaz did realise just how tired she was. It had been a stressful day and she was emotionally drained. The beating she had taken earlier was still with her too, her face ached and every so often pain spread out from her nose.

The idea of sleep was quickly becoming very appealing. She moved herself into the corner of the room and made the closest thing she could to a bed out of some of the mats. It wasn't that she didn't trust the other girls, but she didn't like the idea of having someone be able to creep up on her. Despite those fears Yaz fell asleep almost as soon as she closed her eyes.

((Yasmin Carroll continued in Not Like Any Previous Sleepovers))