Survival Of The Fittest

And that was the end of that. Her arm still throbbed as a result of the bashing but on the plus side she was more centred thanks to the pain. Stark reminders of your dwindling lifespan sure did put you in the moment.

Nothing more happened, outside of a brief exchange between Dane and Katie. After that Katie correctly assessed that everyone in their ramshackle party was awake and that meant it was time to head out. Forrest couldn’t argue with her eagerness to move and leapt up with as much grace as she could manage—which wasn’t much—and gave an eager reply.

“Sounds good! Let’s go.” And then she headed out.

...

Only to sheepishly return to grab her bag of clothes.

Then she left for real.

((Forrest Quin continued in ieatnothing))

"Good luck to you too," Meilin told Bill as he left. She wasn't sure if he heard her. Gervais, she had no idea who that was. Really, there was no telling what could have happened to make Gervais think about shooting his classmate, but it seemed from what Bill said that he was the instigator. But people would be pretty willing to cover their tracks if- no, no, Bill seemed alright. He probably wouldn't do that.

Would he?

It felt like everyone was getting more frustrated with one another- not just their group, but maybe elsewhere too. It was no secret that Katie really didn't like Dane and well, she wondered if Katie hated her too. It sure felt like her roommates hated her before they left and were supposed to go home and-

Did everyone start hating each other when she wasn't looking?

She probably just never noticed, and maybe that would be the death of her.

Meilin thought about giving Katie the map, but she was a little terrified of her honestly. If she gave the map to Katie she might take it as some kind of insult- somehow- and flip out on her. If she gave it to Dane, Katie would hate her even more and flip out on her. Forrest... should she give it to Forrest?

The whole island felt much smaller than it was. Smaller, and more constricting. For the first time in a long time, Meilin just wanted to get away from the people around her.

"Well- yeah, let's go back to the forested part then."

[Meilin Zhou continued in Like the Sky is Blue and the Sea is Salty]

Dane followed along, not having anything to say that hadn't already been said at this point.

((Dane Lennox continued elsewhere...))