Survival Of The Fittest

Drew felt Cecil's grip on the back of his jacket and a bit of his shirt. Cecil seemed like he was getting more upset about this situation and Drew realized that he had been the one who was making things worse. Cecil wanted to leave and Drew was about to say that he was sorry for what he did. And then Cecil was raising the knife! Oh, god, oh, god, oh, god! The knife! The knife! Cecil was pointing the knife right at Gervais who had a gun! Oh no, no, no, no, no, no! He never wanted this to happen! Drew had just wanted to talk to someone that he knew a little but now.... now everything was getting worse and worse.

"C-Cecil, no...." He murmured in disbelief and he felt his eyes getting a bit blurry. "You can't-"

There was a sudden firing sound that echoed around the surrounding area.

Drew felt something hitting him in the most painful manner in his whole life and he felt the force of it knocking him backwards against Cecil. He couldn't even process what had really happened to him for a few seconds. Gervais had shot him.... He really did it...!

Drew looked down at himself.

There was red. Blood...? His blood...?

Drew couldn't breathe.

Cecil wished that he reacted just as immediately when the gunshot rang out.

Unfortunately, he didn't. Instead, he flinched, panicked, feared, right before he got into gracelessly trying to support Drew when he was suddenly knocked backwards against him. Oh no. No⁠. There's red⁠—there's blood⁠—

It took him a full second to realize that Gervais really shot them. That was then he finally reacted.

Cecil aimed, then pushed the trigger.

The knife lodged somewhere it should be, and that's a chance right there.

Drop the now useless handle. The duffel bag. Get Drew behind him.

Run.

Grab the barrel and point it somewhere. Push him away and pull the gun closer.

Cecil wished he was faster. He wished for all of it to just end.

He wished to win this one.

Jackson watched with bated breath as the situation in front of him unfolded. Part of him was screaming for him to run as fast as he could away from here, but there was another part that demanded he stay in case things went south. That second part of him seemed to be winning the war raging in his mind, because his feet felt like they were glued to the ground. Cecil and the other kid continued to talk to Gervais, but it didn’t look like they were getting through to him. Jackson turned away from the scene for a moment, closing his eyes and laying his head back against the wall behind him. What should he do?

Should he reveal himself and hope that would calm Gervais?

Should he run away and pretend he never saw any of this?

Fuck, he was such a goddamned coward. All he was worried about was saving his own skin. He was worthless, just ready and willing to abandon his classmates to an uncertain fate. Just like he abandoned Mikki and Bree earlier. He was just a waste of space. He felt his fists clench and his teeth grind as he tortured himself. He was just a kid, for fuck’s sake! How the hell was he supposed to know what the right choice was?!

The loud gunshot that came from inside the room scared him half to death, and his eyes snapped open.

Before he could think, Jackson dropped his bags and spun around the corner and into the house. Cecil had the other boy he was with in his arms, but he pushed him behind him as he charged at Gervais. Jackson caught the sight of blood as the other boy fell away from Cecil’s grip. Jackson ran up behind him and caught him before he could hit the ground, his arms wrapped around the boy’s chest. Jackson quickly took the opportunity to drag the kid out of the line of fire, pulling him out of the house and around to where his bags were, sitting him down with his back against the house.

Jackson’s heart was beating a mile a minute, and it felt as if his body was moving on it’s own. With the immediate danger avoided for now, he crouched down beside the boy and took a look at his wound. Jackson cringed at the sight, and felt his stomach do a flip. His right bicep was what took the shot, but it wasn’t just any old bullet hole like you’d see on TV. A chunk of the boy’s fucking arm was missing, and beyond all the blood and gore it looked like Jackson could see his fucking bone. It took every ounce of his willpower to not throw up just from the site of it.

There was no fucking time for that.

The wound was bleeding like crazy, and Jackson needed to stop the flow. He ripped open his personal bag and pulled out another of the towels he’d stolen from the hotel in DC.

“This is gonna fucking hurt.” He said before balling up the towel and pressing it onto the wound hard, trying to soak up as much blood as he could and to put enough pressure on it to stem the bleeding a little. He grabbed the kid’s other hand and placed it on the towel.

“Keep the pressure.” He dictated, as he dug into his other bag now for his first aid kit.

Wounds like this were no stranger to Jackson. He’d spent most of his life helping his father dress and wrap his wounds from surgeries and infections. He could do this!

He pulled the bottle of saline solution out, along with a bunch of sterile dressings and a roll of gauze. He had to move fast, the situation inside could make it’s way out here before he knew it. He pulled back the towel from the wound and poured some saline on it, to wash away anything that could cause infection. It wasn’t perfect, but he only had so much to fucking work with.

It was still bleeding pretty bad, and he quickly stuffed some of the sterile dressings in the wound, much to the boy he was helping’s pain he was sure. Next, as if he was moving on auto-pilot, he started to wrap the wound with gauze, as tightly as he could, hoping to cut the circulation a bit and help slow the bleeding. He tied the gauze off when he felt it was wrapped enough, and grabbed the boy by the uninjured arm.

“Stay here!” He commanded, as he stood up and ran back into the house, not sure what to expect, but knowing he had to do something to help. That gun needed to not be in Gervais’ hands, no matter what.

Bill sat frozen in shock, his ears ringing at the sound of the gunshot. The world seemed to spin around in his vision as he struggled to make sense of what had happened. It had all happened so fast, one second, they were talking, and the next second, a bang. His eyes swept frantically across the room as he tried to make sense of the situation.

Was Drew alive? He had to be, or else the guy who just rushed in wouldn't have pulled him away. Then again, the wound looked pretty bad, and from Bill's vantage point, it was pretty difficult to actually see how bad. One thing was for sure though, judging by the expression of the man holding the smoking gun, the opportunity to talk had passed, and everyone still standing was a potential victim.

Bill swallowed hard, his heart pounding in his chest. He wanted to curl up into a ball and make himself as small as possible, hoping that Gervais wouldn't see him. That wasn't possible, of course. Neither was escape. It was long past the time where what Bill wanted could be taken into consideration. The only thing to think about now was what he had to do.

Adrenaline pumped through Bill's body as he pulled himself to his feet. There was only thing that he could do. If he rushed Gervais and tackled him before he could fire again, he just might be able to save everyone. Taking a deep breath, his muscles tensed for a moment before he heard the sound of the ballistic knife being fired.

Gervais didn't know if he hit him, but the voices behind the smoke confirmed it to him that his baseball aim is not the only aim he was good at. The victory did not last long as a blade shot through the smoke. The second after that he felt a sting in his left thigh. A knife was embedded deep in his khakis.

Gervais let out a brief grunt of anger and pain before quickly using his right hand to shove the gun into his left armpit. Now that his hands were free with only his left armpit and parts of his left arm gripping the gun, he used both of his hands to pull out the blade from his leg.

Everything that had happened around Drew felt like it was a blur and he felt like he was going to throw up. He felt someone catching himself from behind and pulling him away from the dangerous scene. He blinked for a second and then he realized that he was outside now, leaning and sitting against a wall. He was saved by someone, but his own eyes were too blurred by tears for him to know who it was and he was still feeling too bewildered and shocked by what Gervais had done to him..

He-He shot me. He really, really shot me. Why, why, why, why, why?

The person who was helping him sounded like he had a distorted voice and he felt something pressing into his hand. He felt himself letting out pained pants and he felt the person putting his hand onto the wet towel on his damaged, bloody arm, making him let out choked sobs of agony. He felt like he was about to pass out but for some reason his mind was telling him to stay awake.

He was starting to heard the person's voice more clearly now. A boy's voice. The boy was trying care of his wound as quickly as possible and Drew was thankful that this guy seemed like he knew what he was doing. Like he was a professional of taking care of wounds. His arm felt like it was numbing up and he noticed that there was a lot of blood on the side of his clothes. He couldn't do anything about that right now. Oh, god. Cecil was still in there and Drew-

The boy's face was now closer to his and Drew realized that it was Jackson from.... something. Drew couldn't remember where Jackson was from at the moment and he realized that Jackson wanted him to stay there.

"J-Jackson, don't-"

Jackson had bolted back into the house.

"-Go...."

Drew knew that he should stay put. But he didn't feel safe and he felt so scared. Cecil could be dying in there and there was nothing that Drew could do. And he wanted to run away like the coward that he was. He was scared of dying and he didn't want to stay. He couldn't stay. He wanted to tell Jackson that he was thankful for his help, but now he was not going to have the chance. All he could mouthed was a choked sorry to no one in the area around him.

He had left his dufflebag back in the house. But it didn't matter right now. He just needed to get away from a dangerous Gervais. He had woozily gotten up to his feet, stumbled a few times as he walked forward, his hand was lightly touching the injured, messed-up arm and he slowly made his way out of the area.

A trail of droplets of blood was left behind him next to Jackson's untouched bags.

((Drew Woods continued in Like A Pack of Wild Dogs))

Cecil charged through the smoke, some grim satisfaction finding its way when he saw the knife on Gervais’s leg, although it immediately vanished when he realized that he was already pulling it out.

Although Cecil wouldn’t have recommended that action, it still meant he had gotten his hands on his knife. On the other hand, he had neither of his hands on the gun.

He reached out to grab the rifle and tried to pull it away from him with both of his hands, making sure that it wasn’t directly pointed at him while he kept his eye on his own knife that somebody else ended up holding.

The situation inside was still as much of a shit show as it had been when he pulled Drew out before. Cecil was rushing Gervais, grabbing for his gun with both hands, attempting to pry the weapon from his grasp. The smoke filling the room made it hard to see anything else. Jackson felt his blood begin to boil. It hadn’t even been an entire day yet, and already people were resorting to going along with what those sick bastards who trapped them here wanted. First Julien, and now Gervais, someone who he considered a friend only hours before, were attacking others in cold blood. How?! How could they just decide that was okay? How could they rationalize what they were doing?

It made him sick to his stomach.

The only thing he could think about was Abel’s cold dead body. How if he stood there and did nothing one of the people in this room could end up the next lifeless corpse for someone to find. For someone to grieve. For the terrorists to laugh at.

People on this island like Julien and Gervais needed to be stopped before they had a chance to hurt and more people. Before anyone else had to die. Jackson’s heart was beating a mile a minute, and he felt like his mind was spinning, but this time there was no fear controlling him.

No, this time there was only anger.

“Gervais!” He screamed wildly as he charged the struggling duo.

Jackson hunched down and plowed his left shoulder into Gervais’ waist, attempting to wrap his arm around his leg with his left and attempting to grab his free hand with his right, hoping to take him down in one swift motion.

Bill swallowed as he saw Cecil and Jackson rush Gervais. His first instinct was to help them out, but... he was distracted by movement out of the corner of his vision. He turned to watch a badly injured Drew limp off into the distance, leaving a trail of blood behind him.

Swallowing hard, Bill looked at the combat playing out in front of him, then back to the blood trail, then back to the fight. Those two, well, they didn't look like they had things completely under control, but they definitely were better off than the guy who had just been shot, and was currently stumbling off without his bag. Bill wasn't much of a fighter anyway, he'd probably only mess things up. Sighing heavily, he grabbed both his bag and Drew's off the ground and rushed off after him, calling out into this distance,

"Hey, wait up, don't go off by yourself!"

((Bill Dover continued elsewhere))

Taking over.

Pain. Pain taking over.

The knife slid out of Gervais' leg like it would slide out of butter. Blood was spilled. Gervais stumbled back.

His eyes met the eyes of Cecil. And he saw Cecil grasping after the gun he haphazardly held between arm and body. Gervais wanted to say Stop to Cecil advancing, but all that came out of his mouth was a loud, passionate

"Fuck!"

As clouded by anger his vision was at that moment, Gervais could see the figure charging him. Not that he was able to make that judgment, but that was a good thing. Gervais' first instinct had been to drop everything and struggle with Cecil for the gun. But now that Jackson came, he remembered that the thing in his hands was a knife.

He felt Jackson press against his body. He wasn't sure if the knife connected.

There were shouts of…something, and even though Cecil heard the voices he didn’t understand the words. His mind wasn’t able to process them when all he was focusing on was getting the rifle away from Gervais.

That was most likely why he found it unexpected when another body collided with them. Whoever it was, they were aiming to take down Gervais, and Cecil had no problem with that.

Tightening his hold onto the rifle in an attempt to make sure it wouldn’t be taken from his grasp even when they all started going down, Cecil let one of his hands go, made a fist with it and started slamming it on the stab wound on Gervais’s thigh.

Jackson felt his shoulder connect, but wit all three of them struggling and pulling in different directions, he wasn’t able to take him down to the ground. Instead, he felt something slide against his abdomen as he grabbed for Gervais’s wrist and pulled it out from under him. It was painful, whatever it was, and when he finally managed to wrestle Gervais’s arm free, he spotted the reason why. Jackson’s eyes widened and he untangled himself from the scuffle for a second and stepped back with his breath caught in his throat.

Gervais had the knife in his hand.

Jackson was bleeding.

Jackson looked down at his torso, and saw the expanding red stain of blood and for a moment, he felt his head get dizzy like he was going to pass out. Luckily, he snapped back to reality rather quickly and pulled up his shirt to inspect the damage Gervais had caused. Jackson peered down at the wound, and sighed with relief when he saw that it was only a small slash across the top of his abdomen. It didn’t look deep enough to cause any real damage.

Good, he was still okay. In a bit of pain, but okay.

But now he was even angrier than before.

His rage built up inside him, but when he looked up towards the struggling duo, he noticed that another person seemed to be missing. Bill had made his escape it seemed. That didn’t matter. Cecil was still locked up with Gervais, and Jackson was going to make sure he didn’t end up dying for this.

He charged in again, his rage renewed by the stinging pain radiating from his front. This time he reared back with his right arm, and sent a full-force fist heading directly for Gervais’ face.

What? No! That wasn't how it should go. Gervais had a gun. He got a knife. But he was still the one losing to two guys and their bare hands.

Cecil's fist connected with the wound on his thigh. Jackson's fist went straight into his face. Two punches, but felt like a hundred more crashing on him and from within him.

Felt like they blew a goddamn hole in his torso. A sharp and choking pain emerged, but when Gervais tried to open his mouth and scream it away, bile and vomit spew forth instead.

The acid formerly known as his stomach fluids burnt his gum and his lips. Instinctively though, he dropped the knife, and grasped to pull at his own weapon. That's all he needed. That's all he wanted.

“Ugh, Jesus!” Cecil ended up groaning in disgust when Gervais started vomiting, but he held onto the gun. Some of it got into his hands and shoes, and specks of it probably made it into his clothes.

But that’s fine, that’s fine. It’s just vomit. At least I wasn’t stabbed. Or punched. Yet. Okay, okay, okay, okay…it’s okay.

Chances of winning rose. That’s it, that’s it.

Then his own knife clattered on the ground from Gervais’s hold, and Cecil’s confidence on a victory grew. He immediately stepped on the bloodied knife to make sure it wouldn’t be picked up. It was still his.

My knife still. Still my knife.

But he wanted that gun as well.

Gervais had given up the knife to make sure he’d get the gun. Not really a bad decision, of course, but Cecil would actually prefer getting both. No settling.

He tried pulling back, as much as he could with just one hand anyway. He threw a punch at Gervais’s face with the other.

Jackson did his best to stay out of the splash zone as Gervais began to vomit. His eyes widened in confusion and he still felt the rush of adrenaline pumping through his veins, but watching the boy he considered a friend only hours before be reduced to a raging, bleeding, puking mess gave him pause. He felt his heart beating a mile a minute, and his breaths were coming fast and short, but he wasn’t seeing red anymore. He watched as Cecil and Gervais continued to struggle for the gun, and he didn’t know what he was supposed to do.

Should he force his way between them and go for the gun himself?

No, that would only cause more trouble and damage. Gervais had dropped the knife, but Cecil stomped his foot down on it, so there wasn’t even a way for Jackson to grab it and help Cecil to disarm Gervais. Honestly, with the situation as it currently was, he couldn’t do anything of value. Damnit, why did he always feel so goddamn useless?

Wait.

He just remembered, was the guy outside alright? Fuck, he just left him out there without a second thought. Turning from the entwined duo, Jackson rushed outside, gently gripping his still stinging wound with one hand. He reached the door and crossed the threshold to the outside, only to be met with… nothing.

Neither Bill nor the boy he’d bandaged up were out here.

Fuck.