Survival Of The Fittest

Jessica's stomach tightened even more when she realized just how badly her lie had blown up in her face, with the watergun being taken out right in front of her. If her heart was in its own running heat it would have made the finals, as it attempted to smash its way through Jessica's chest and into the wilds. She kept on walking backwards, not looking where she was going until she was tripping backwards yet again and pulling herself up just as quickly, the hurt not going away.

"Please, just let me go, I don't have anything!"

All she could do was keep on insisting. Her bag had all that she had left, from her food to her own belongings. It was all that remained of home and she couldn't let them have it, because it would mean losing herself, and that made Jessica panic more than anything.

However, what Jessica should have been more concerned about was the direction in which she was heading backwards. Because in her haste to keep the distance between herself and the two classmates trying to rob and possibly kill her, she failed to notice just how loud the rushing water was becoming. So when she made another inadvertant leap backwards away from them after Reuben jumped forward trying to grab her, she tripped once more, but instead of falling backwards onto the cavern floor or a cave wall, she hit her hip on the edge of the cave's opening. The momentum pulled her body back much faster than it otherwise should have gone, and after a few moments of inordinate balance, suddenly Jessica no longer had her heels planted in the waterfall's cave.

Instead, she was beginning to fall through the air.

Jessica screamed.

Jessica was a slippery sort. As Reuben made a grab for the bag, she dodged backwards, leaving him grasping at empty air. She kept insisting that she didn’t have anything of worth. He didn’t believe her. If her item had been truly useless, she could have just shown it to them. If it was something mundane like a deck of playing cards or something stupid like an action figure, maybe he would have just let her go because it wasn’t worth the effort.

She was protesting far too much, and that meant this endeavor was worth it.

He was about to taunt her again, give her a last chance to give them what they wanted, but then his eyes drifted to where her feet were going and his words caught in his throat.

“H-Hey, watch-“ But it was too late. He sprang forward, dropping the knife as he reached out with both hands, trying to grab hold of anything as Jessica began to pitch backwards.

He got the bag. Right by the shoulder strap.

Then gravity took him too.

He didn’t scream, too shocked to realize he was falling until he was dangling halfway over the edge, clinging to the strap with all his might. His legs were caught in the lip of the cave, barely keeping him on this side of oblivion. He could feel himself slipping...

“Teresa!” he shouted, desperate to be heard over the roaring waterfall. “Help! Help me!”

For the few moments of zero gravity Jessica endured, she was scared, and when suddenly her strap still attached to her shoulder was yanked stationary by someone from above she couldn't see, she thought she would be okay.

Unfortunately, Jessica was still moving. And she kept moving right into the side of the cliff face, face first.

crunch

And suddenly, Jessica's dazed body bounced backwards, slipped from the strap, and with a scream and a spin in the air, disappeared beyond the waters of the fall.

((Jessica Rennes continued in Deep Red Bells))

Her position hadn’t changed. The girl had only tilted her head, seemingly to watch. The other two had been driven to the cliff, struggling for the bag. Jessica fell, Reuben looked about to do the same, and the girl-

Wait.

Right. Yeah. Should probably help out, huh?

“Hang on!” She called, fuckin’ bookin’ it right to the edge and grabbing Reub, sending him the way he prolly wanted to go. He fell, she went down with him, and-

“Oof...”

She was now right the fuck on her ass. Kinda hurt. Wasn’t sure whether it was the rock below her or the soft, squishy kinda thing (prolly shouldn’t say that Reuben was hard, god damn) on top of her but... yeah, geez, that was a tumble.

“You kay?”

Reuben was just staring into space for a while, his heart pounding like it was about to explode. He was covered head to toe in sweat, his floppy hair coming down in strings over his eyes. Thank goodness for his contacts, even if they were now stinging something awful. If he'd been wearing his glasses...

He'd killed someone. Wasn't his hand that pushed her over, but who else could he blame? Did it matter if a blade or gravity had done Jessica in? He knew what the viewers at home had seen. If he wasn't a monster before, he sure as heck was now.

Teresa was asking him something. He blinked and looked at her, realizing that he'd been yanked back on top of her. She could have just shoved him over the edge. He'd left his knife in the cave and there was no reason to save him, but she'd done so anyway. He didn't get it, but he appreciated it nonetheless.

"I'm...yeah, I'm okay," he lied. He stared at the bag clenched in his hands and slowly untangled himself from it, his palms indented with the strap's impression. He realized that he'd scraped his knees on the rocky ground. They'd make a good accompaniment to his arm, he guessed. But first, he needed to know, needed to convince himself that everything he'd done was worth the pain. He unzipped the bag...

A bear trap. Not bad.

"We should take what we can and...ditch the rest," he said slowly. Food was good. Could never have too much of that, but most of this was just empty bulk. He transferred what he could to his own bag without overfilling it, figured that Teresa would be able to do the same, reclaimed his Kabar, and he began to rise and move on. This place had lost its lustre.

But first, he turned to Teresa and said, "Thanks. I...I owe you." He didn't know what was going on through her head all the time, but Reuben knew that he wouldn't have made it this far without her. How could he possibly repay all that she'd done for him up until now? He didn't know, and the question whirled through his head as he made his way down the path.

(Reuben Walters continued elsewhere)

“No prob.”

Girl sat up once Reub got off (her). She scratched her head — realized that there was either a shit-ton of dirt or a shit-ton of dandruff in there, geez — and wiped herself a bit, tried to work out those kinks in her body that were making her low-key feel like shit. Was this how, like, beating the shit outta people felt? Didn’t feel too great but hey, maybe that made all the other good things better, she didn’t know. She kinda got why all those people she heard went apeshit here and killed a ton of people did that now. That was… weird and cool and som-

...Wait, they were leaving already?

Well sure, okay. Kinda felt weird to leave now when this place seemed like a pretty good crib but whatever, this girl was down to clown. Maybe doin’ dumb shit would be kinda dumb but hey, the point of this place was to clown around ‘till you fucking died or whatever. Wasn’t really like she’d be thinkin’ ‘bout all her mistakes once she was dead so, like...

Yeah, whatever. She was just kinda spitballin’ for the sake of spitballin’. Ignore her.

The girl stood up. There were a few extra seconds spent brushing herself off, a few seconds where her gait was akin to a wobble (goin’ side to side for all the wrong or maybe right reasons), but after that, everything seemed normal. She walked after Reuben with a smile on her face and there was nothing more to her than that.

((G31, continued elsewhere))