Survival Of The Fittest

Demetri breathed in. Enjoying it in the quiet of everyone screaming a little less, because he only belatedly realized this was the second time in his life he'd been this close to the sea. Smelled fresh. PJSalt, so on.

He reappraised everything with a slow roundabout of the eyes. The sword was put away, seemed like a good deal. The lighthouse door was still stubbornly closed. Yuki... no, no. One of the other two, Yuki wasn't that tall. What the fuck. Demetri wasn't Stepney, he had better standards than that. It was probably like, the stress or something. Not like he knew the other two Hayashibara girls that well. Well, okay, he was kind of on okay terms with Yuka as well- Yuko, the butch-looking girl between the three had been Yuko. Nice. Well done. It had only taken him about until the near end of his virginal life on this earth to figure it all out.

Seriously, it wasn't his fault. Nobody expected him to memorize these kinds of things. Anyways, yeah, he just had to hope Yuko hadn't been paying too much attention when he'd called the wrong name her way.

... He was just stalling. He had nothing to add- he had opinions, maybe, if he wanted to have them. He could contribute something along the lines of:

"Yeah, that.. sounds about right."

And that was about all he had to say on the matter. Nobody, least of all himself, expected that much more in the way of meaningful contribution.

"And if we do end up all dying, like, think about all the money our parents save on the burial." The bodies never came back, Demetri was pretty sure. That'd be nice. Save Dad a couple bucks.

Okay, so Katrina just put away the sword. That’s good, Zach didn’t want to lose a limb over nothing. He stepped closer to the group, a little less tense.

Everyone then started talking about how they would or might not die. Yuko suggested that they drag this thing out until rescue comes. If that worked, this game wouldn’t have as many victims as it did. You would think the government would make more of an effort to prevent the kidnappings. But, the fact that this game has now happened for a seventh time proves just how fucking useless politicians were.

Politics aside, Zach thought Yuko’s plan was incredibly naive. Did she really think that there weren’t any students among their class that weren’t deranged enough to take up the challenge set up by that Tracen dick? And Demetri, with his comment on their families saving money on funerals. Did he really think that was fucking funny? Zach liked a good dark-humored joke, but now was not the time for that!

“I don’t know about you, but that’s fucking stupid,” Zach said to Yuko before turning to Demetri, “by the way, that wasn’t funny.”

Zach walked up to the rundown lighthouse and knocked on the door.

“Hey Sven!”, he shouted, “Room for one more in there?”

The others seemed to be a bit more optimistic than Katrina was, even if they had wildly different approaches to the situation than she did. Yuki (oh, she was Yuki) said they might be rescued, and that America is probably searching for them as they speak. Demetri then tried to make a joke about funeral expenses. Katrina felt her throat seize a bit at that comment. If she was going to die, that would mean her parents and Russell would have to bury her somehow. Would her body get sent home, or would she be left behind? What would they bury, anyways? A mannequin with a high ponytail wig wearing some of her clothes? Katrina didn't like the idea, even if it was something her family wouldn't realistically do. Knowing death was probably coming closer than she expected and that her family would have to put on a half-assed funeral in place of paying proper tribute to their daughter made her feel like she would need to run to the cliff edge to hurl.

The other guy started knocking on the door to the lighthouse, calling for Sven to come back out. Katrina sniffled again. This guy seemed mad at both Yuki and Demetri for their answers.

"Um," she said. "Is it stupid to think America would be looking for us? I mean, wouldn't they be? I thought that's what they did whenever classes got abducted for this?"

Katrina hadn't paid much attention to the mechanics of SOTF whenever it occurred. She held the victims in her thoughts and prayers, but she never followed the news too closely whenever it occurred.

"Like, they have to have a system in place to find us, right?"

Yuko glared at Demetri, and then at Zach. They were not helping. Okay, maybe it wasn't a sure thing that there would be a rescue. But it had happened before! Twice before! So how was it so ridiculous?

"It's not stupid! They are lookin' for us. Other kids had been rescued, so can we. We just gotta make sure we last as long as possible, right? Only one person has to die every day, so if we can keep ourselves safe... I mean, this thing can go on for like two weeks! By then someone'll definitely find us!"

Yuko looked on with disgust as Zach pounded on the lighthouse door. She turned to Katrina and nodded.

"Let's stick together. Watch each other's backs. That's the only way we're lasting out here."

Yuko gave a sideways glance to Demetri. She couldn't figure out what was going on in that boy's head. But if he wanted to join with her, she couldn't just turn him away.

"...Demetri, you can come, too. If you want."

Another breath, and another, and another. Sven drifted a little, the outside world held at bay where it belonged, for the moment at least. Everything seemed to be quieting down out there, or else he was just getting into the right frame of mind for it, a groove that couldn't be disrupted by petty or inconsequential things like conversation or screams or the shearing of steel through muscle and bone.

The rapping at the door right behind him made him jolt, his slow exhalation instead turning into a sputtering cough. He was being hailed, by name, by a voice he didn't recognize. Someone was seeking permission to join him. That was polite, at least, superficially.

Sven was not much for horror literature. He'd tried, here and there, halfheartedly over the years. There was a certain something to the Gothic aesthetic, but he preferred the architectural side of it. Gargoyles had become of particular interest to him in recent years, as twisted reflections of unknown fears and metaphorical monsters that were not shunned but rather celebrated. And as a kid, he'd loved the Disney version of Hunchback of Notre Dame, yes, that too. But still, Sven knew the rules for vampires. A vampire could not enter a private abode unless invited, but once that invitation was extended it could not be revoked.

He sighed. His back was against the door, which opened inwards. He put his hands against the dirty ground and scooted forward, slowly, stiffly, one foot, two feet, three. Was that enough space? Probably. His jeans were dusty, scraps of wood and grass clinging to them, and small rocks had embedded themselves in his palms, not breaking the skin or hurting but there nonetheless. He brushed his hands on his pants, cleaning one soiled surface at the expense of another. He reorganized his legs back into position again, closed his eyes once more.

"Yeah," he called. "Come right in."

Yeah, it hadn't been funny. It also hadn't been a joke.

Demetri would have called it something more the lines of an observation. A snarky, manly one-liner, if only his girlish voice had been more suited for the apropos delivery.

Anyways, Zach was busy doing his thing. Burning up calories with that 200 IQ of his. Storming straight through them- in the process hurtling mindlessly right past the one girl with enough sword to make a nice slice-up of his white bread ass. Ignoring the offer to travel with two women- a pretty fucking unironic offer, as far as Demetri could tell.

"You're an idiot, Zach." Said without much maliciousness, or anger, or much of anything really. In another time and place called George Hunter High School Demetri might have intended such a stoic phrase in a show of solidarity, of particularly cheeky brotherhood and banter. Now he didn't mean much of anything by it. Again, really just an observation.

Demetri tugged at his collar a bit, acutely reminded that the sun was rising a bit higher into the sky. First unconsciously, then with a bit of an awkward slowness as he remembered he had company. He noticed Yuko- hey, he'd definitely never forget her name again after this- was looking at him sidelong, he glanced back blank faced.

"First time anyone's ever offered, to be honest." A humorless smile. "You won't regret it, I promise." He shoved the Manifesto into the slightly open zipper of one of the bags looped around his shoulder. "Either of you check the map yet? I'm thinking it's better to stay away from landmarks like this. Roughing it in the forest might be hard but it'd be, like. Less likely you get cornered if someone's got a machete and a grudge. Particularly against me, probably." Couldn't forget that. He was probably going to be easy pickings for the libs who thought killing someone who literally hadn't done anything wrong besides hurting their precious snowflake fee-fees was totally moral when there happened to be no cops to say otherwise.

“Well, good luck with that,” Zach sarcastically responded to Yuko, “Meanwhile, I’m gonna find a place to hide before Wyatt Carter finds me and fucks me in the ass.”

Yuko’s idea just didn’t make sense to Zach. How can she be so sure there wouldn’t be more than one victim per day? There was no way she could control the actions of other students. She was basically putting trust in others she didn’t know that well, if at all. Zach, on the other hand, wasn’t going to put all his eggs in one basket like that. He barely had anyone he could really put his faith in on this island. The handful of friends he actually had might be miles from his current location, which is why he figured he couldn’t trust anyone at the moment.

Once he was given the go ahead to enter the lighthouse, Demetri spoke up.

”You’re an idiot, Zach.”

Zach paused, turned around and glared at Demetri. Without saying anything, he turned back around and entered the lighthouse, slamming the door behind him.

Katrina listened carefully as the others spoke. Yuki seemed more than willing to work with Katrina so she could live a little longer. Katrina was glad. She had no idea how she could survive such a place on her own, so if there was someone more open to being a leader and working with her, she wasn't going to turn that down. Yuki looked like the kind of person who could take charge, and that was a lot more than Katrina could say about herself. She only looked intimidating in the sense of "you can't even begin to try to be me" sense that pop stars had.

It also sounded like Demetri was willing to come with them, although the other guy didn't seem to like him that much and would rather go inside the wrecked lighthouse with that other guy who went inside. Katrina wasn't sure how to feel. It sounded like Demetri was going to potentially be difficult to be around if he could drive Zach away. That meant Katrina might have to push herself a bit closer to Yuki for the time they were on this island.

Demetri asked about the map, which caused Katrina to perk up.

"Oh, I can look," she said.

She put the sword under her armpit and swung her assigned back over. She opened it up and shuffled through it. She saw some water, some first aid supplies, a piece of paper that said something ending in -chi, and then she found it. It was the map. She whipped it out and unfolded it, trying to figure out where they were.

"Uh, let me see," she said. She then raised her eyebrows and smiled.

"Hey, there's a town or something here. Maybe we can find a place to hide there!"

"See ya."

And with that Zach was, thankfully, gone. Yuko didn't wish any ill on him, but she wasn't broken up about seeing him retreat into the lighthouse. If she had to be with that douche for more than a few minutes, she'd flip out.

So Yuko was left with her group: Katrina and Demetri. She didn't know enough about Katrina to really trust her, and she knew a little too much about Demetri to trust him, but it seemed like they were all on the same page. Or mostly, anyway. Demetri wanted to go into the woods and Katrina wanted to go into town. Yuko had already basically stepped up as the leader, so she figured that she would be the one to settle it. And she knew where she wanted to go.

"I agree with Katrina, let's go into town." Yuko said "The forest plan is a good idea for later on, but I've got to find my sisters first. Checking out the town would be the best way to find people." She didn't think either Yuki or Yuka would be hiding out in the wilderness any time soon.

She realized she was being selfish, though. Katrina and Demetri wouldn't be going out of their ways to save Yuko's sisters. There had to be a give and take.

"You guys, you must have people out here you care about. Friends. Let's make a promise. We'll protect each other, but we'll also try to find and protect the people close to us. Then we'll all wait it out together. For me, it's Yuki and Yuka. Who do you guys want to find?"

Yuko put that out there, and she intended to follow through. Still, she didn't know who Katrina cared about, and she wasn't sure if Demetri even cared about anyone.

The door opened behind Sven, and then it closed again, hard. The rattling from the impact shook the walls and for a moment he thought the whole structure might come crashing down around their heads, leaving them seated in a pile of rubble and dust with only the door left upright, impotently shielding them from the world and the group outside.

That didn't happen, but there were ramifications from the force exerted upon his shelter. A bird, hitherto-unseen far up in a nook in the walls, screeched and took flight. The plank that had been slapping the side of the building every few seconds in irregular pattern was dislodged and fell, scraping the wall almost inaudibly before silently impacting somewhere outside, notable mostly by the absence of the almost comforting sound it had produced. Dust rained down from on high, caught by the rays of afternoon light like it was a comfy old library in the middle of summer vacation. Sven closed his eyes, the real one and the glass, and scrunched up his brow so hard that it hurt, held that for two seconds, and then let his expression loosen.

Neutrality returned to his features. He took a deep breath, held it, opened his eyes.

He did not turn around at any point, and he did not speak.

That didn't sound so good from their side of the wall. The lighthouse's midget self groaned like it was one extra dumbass occupant short of calling out, 'I've fallen and I can't get up'. Man, and to think, Zach could have had his pick of being cucked by either Door A 'Chris Hansen will be waiting if you look at pictures of her' 'cat ears McGee' or Door B 'white girls midlife crisis haircut now in an asianic flavor', 'seriously my parents could not have been less creative with their naming if they'd tried' 'Haya Shiba Inu'. In this hypothetical idiocy Demetri would have definitely jumped on the short straw between whichever of the two Zach chose to get rejected by- that was how being a bro worked. Ride for your man, die on a deserted island millions of miles away from civilization. For your man.

And, as expected, Demetri was already relegated to third wheel status in a group dynamic that didn't have much in the way of an axle. The Virgin 'hide in the wilderness' versus the Chad 'saunter into the town where literally everyone with a gun can casually breeze through and indiscriminately shoot the Futscher kid while valiantly white knighting the Ariana Grande chick and the least attractive of the Hayashibara sisters'.

All of Demetri's momentary sperging over pathetically lonely bantz that weren't even that good aside.

He guessed Yuko brought up a good point. Friends, those were definitely a thing. Demetri not having many of them, of course, but he'd hung out with enough in his day. Like, suddenly he was thinking back to those moments after the council elections when Faith had casually mentioned she was considering joining the army. It had been the first time he'd been reminded that high school had been about to end- in the sense that, sure, he was already getting the fuck out of town and onto a better life where he wasn't the default pose loser NPC in the background, but he'd also had to suddenly contend with the idea of losing friends to high school memories. The idea of moving on, of letting go.

And he'd never really figured out how to respond to Faith, like, in the heart-to-heart. What the fuck could he have said that wasn't patently retarded? Wasn't like he was Julien Lecuck or Lucas 'Put Nathan In Auschwitz' Brady where he was hanging on to her every word in the hopes of getting noticed by her ovaries. He'd never fucking figured it out- how he was going to say good-bye to her, or to Mercy, or to Garren, or like...

It almost seemed too late now, if he thought about it a little too much... What with the impending class wide BTFO and all.

"Just a few," Demetri forced a smarmy smirk, as if he was daring either girl to call him out on the fact that he, indeed, actually had friends. "Faith, or like Mercy. Garren if you know him, or Max Rudolph- I think we kinda all know him, unfortunately." He paused, thoughtfully. "Though like, if you two don't want to dude up the dynamics anymore, I get it."

"And yeah. I want to make sure your sisters are good too, see if we can keep them safe. There's like, Kelly from Yearbook, and Lucas A's definitely not a bad dude." More names coming to mind. It was only now that he was realizing that he'd maybe never been as isolated and alone as he'd always assumed. "And... I dunno, maybe anyone we meet in general if they're not trying to turn us into body bags. Make sure everyone's at least okay."

Probably a super beta thought of him to think- man, he could already envision the damn macros of his copy-pasted face as the latest and greatest of white knights.

"I'm ready to head out whenever."

((Demetri Futscher continued elsewhere))

Zach had realized upon entering how dilapidated the lighthouse was. There wasn’t even a roof and there was a hole in the wall. It was more than just drafty, that’s for sure. Zach hoped to find a better temporary living space after today. For now, he’d unfortunately have to make due with the decrepit lighthouse.

Zach looked over at Sven, who was eerily quiet. What was he doing, sleeping, meditating? Well, guess some people find unique ways to deal with horrible situations like that. Zach thought about his parents, and how their coping with the fact that their son was on an island, forced to play a death game. His mother was probably inconsolable at the moment, while his father was stressed out trying to remedy the situation. Sure, they had to put up with Zach’s shitty antics for years, but they love their son regardless.

Zach opened up his duffel bag and dug around in it. He pulled out a protein bar and the map. Taking a bite of the protein bar (which tasted like absolute shit to him), Zach skimmed the map and looked at his current location. He traced his finger from the lighthouse to the village. There had to be numerous houses he could stay in, even if they were old as fuck. Zach made it his mission to secure a safer spot in the village. For now he forced himself to bare with staying in this damn lighthouse.

“So,” Zach said to Sven, “Guess we’re roommates for now.”

Katrina was pleased to see that Yuki and Demetri were willing to go to the town. It would be nice to get inside a place that had actual standing walls and a roof. Maybe she could find a bathroom to clean herself up in after making a mess of herself in the first few minutes. The whole world was watching, after all, so she had to at least make herself look somewhat appropriate for the setting.

The topic of friends and people to look for came up. Demetri had a few people to find, so Katrina had to ponder.

"I guess Forrest would be good since we've worked together in the past," she added. "Other than that, maybe some of the girls from the choir and the dance team. I think that should be good."

It looked like they were all heading out now. Katrina adjusted her bags and kept her hand tight on her sword. She wasn't going to use it if she didn't have to, but at least she now knew there were people alongside her to protect her and make sure she wouldn't have to go through this madness alone.

"Yeah, let's go," she said.

She followed after Demetri, ready to hopefully find a better situation than the one she was currently in.

((Katrina Lavell continued in LETS GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO BOYZ WHERE WE DROPPIN’))

Yuko nodded as Demetri and Katrina listed off their requests. Katrina had surprisingly few people, Demetri surprisingly a lot. Garren, Max? Eugh, she wouldn't want to be around any of them. But she told Demetri she'd help him, and he said he'd help her, so she'd follow through. Besides, maybe it wasn't fair to assume she knew what they'd be like. Just because someone was a jerk back home, it didn't mean that they would be trying to kill everyone out here. It was a whole different ball game.

"Alright!" Yuko said, trying to muster up some enthusiasm. "Let's get going!"

There was no time to waste. Yuki and Yuka were somewhere out here, and nothing was gonna stop Yuko from finding them.

((Yuko Hayashibara continued in LETS GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO BOYZ WHERE WE DROPPIN’))

"I suppose we are."

The short boy was probably compensating for his stature with his demeanor and general decibel level, Sven decided. Napoleon Syndrome, he'd heard it called, and someone had once explained to him in great detail why that was a misnomer, something about Napoleon being roughly average height for his era, something about changing definitions of a foot, but Sven couldn't recall. What he could bring to mind, vividly, was an image of a painting of Napoleon, wearing very tight clothing, a white vest over navy blue, his face almost boyish, his short hair black slicked in an almost modern style. One hand was tucked out of sight within his clothes, along his breast, and a saber hung at his hip.

There was not, Sven was pretty certain, a hideous Yorkshire terrier in the actual painting, but in his mind's eye there was. It sat next to Napoleon, looking quite dignified in its own ratty way. Its hair was pulled into a topknot by a pink rubber band, and it was licking its nose, its eyes wide and entirely black, glossy.

The boy was looking over a sheet of paper and gnawing on a ration bar. To Sven, his mastication spoke of aggression, but then maybe that was a less-than-Holmesian deduction given the slamming the door had taken.

The obvious social solution here was to throw out some quip to continue the interaction and smooth things over. Even to Sven, options came easily. He had, after all, just come from a charged, less-than-ideal roommate situation, and likely so too had this guy. The lines wrote themselves.

He took a deep breath and looked off at the wall.