Survival Of The Fittest

When Ty chuckled, there was a tenuous smile on Diego's face. Staying felt like the right decision, right now.

His eyes wandered over to Ty's fist. The fingers pulled inwards gradually, slowly. That hand had pulled him away from the bench with such force two days ago.

He was so diminished.

Diego looked back at him.

"...yeah. Yeah, I'm scared. Why aren't—


"Are you?"

Ty shook his head, proud of his answer. Desperation didn’t dictate what he said anymore.

“Nope. Not like before. After a while it got easier to think that it might not end here. Too many coincidences.”

Holding both hands out in front of him, he opened and closed his fists again. Took a couple of cursory breaths, testing whatever his lungs had left to give him, diaphragm straining against torn tissue and a hemorrhage waiting to rip back open. Both sets of fingers curled back into his palms, and back out again.

The panicked voice in his head was grateful to be calmed, at last. It gave back some control in appreciation.

Ty extended some of his own to Diego.

“It’s still not easy to do, not alone at least. So, thank you.”

"It's noth—"

He choked. Through it, he forced the corners of his lips upwards. Wiped his eyes.

"It's nothing. No worries."

The tears made it more than obvious, and Ty called Diego on it immediately, though it wasn’t in anger. Tried his best to sound comforting, almost out of spite.

“It’s something, don’t bullshit me. But, you’ll be alright. Just keep going. Even if it ends like this, you’ll be okay. You’re strong enough.”

He looked away, sitting back and staring out at the ocean. Instead of focusing on the water, his mind strayed back to freshly hewn dirt and bare suburban asphalt.

There was another time, before all of this. Another close call.

He never really called it a suicide attempt, even though that’s probably what it was. What it looked like, at least. Ty couldn’t help but linger on the phone call he’d made to his brother, only a few days before he died. One night he’d taken what felt like too many pills, and wandered out into an open field a few blocks from his home. One of those soulless, barren spots cleared away for new houses. It was a clear and peaceful enough spot to walk, somewhere he’d thought he was comfortable fading away.

His reasons for doing it sucked, and the pills just ended up making him sick. It just felt like a lame, fucked-up teenager’s version of an easy exit, and he hadn’t told anyone after he came home with vomit on his shoes and dark circles under his eyes. No one really noticed, either.

The only thing that it taught him, past that it was harder to overdose on tablets than he’d thought, was what he’d decided to hear at the end. The song he’d blare at maximum volume through headphones before he died. Ruined the song for him, for a solid year. Kept in on playlists, but skipped over it. Told Erika he’d forgotten why it was there, but never took it off any of them. Never deleted it. He heard it now, over and over in his head.

“I hate this place, but I love these chords.”

When he tried to find a good memory to end on, like he’d done at the Temple, it was all he could think of. Wandering out in the darkness between streetlights, clambering over fences and walking off alone into the night. Playing that song over and over, words written by someone else that still felt like they could be his own. The images blended easily with thoughts of wandering those same streets with his friends, singing other songs, thinking nothing of where the night was headed, nevermind the rest of their lives.

“An empty fate just means an even score.”

Nothing else came to him.

Then that's what I get to be. A stupid teenager, with one more thing left to prove.



Didn’t matter what he’d seen Ty do, who he knew Ty was, it wasn’t easy for Diego to watch this happen. The glassy eyes showed more than some surface level discomfort; Tyrell was sure that all the past examples Diego had seen were playing over in his mind, each one of them fuel for more fear and nightmares. He needed a good one to follow, when the time came, a reason to be a little less afraid.

Ty reached out and clasped Diego's hand tightly, offering a reassuring look.

“Look at me. It’s alright.”

Ty turned away for a moment, looking down at the crossbow bolt, then back to the ocean. Taking a deep breath, he tested his free hand one last time before looking back to Diego, smiling.

“I’ll show you how to die. Just in case.”

Suddenly reaching down, he gripped the crossbow bolt and ripped it out in one swift motion. It fell out of his hand almost immediately, as blood began to spill out of the wound. It hurt worse this time, intense enough that it seemed to steal the air from Ty's lungs. Once again, darkness began to close in around the edges of his vision.

Gritting his teeth and staring ahead, Ty fought only to keep his composure. After no more than twenty seconds, shock set in and he shut his eyes for the last time.

His last thoughts weren't of mistakes he'd made, or the pain he felt, or what he'd missed out on or left behind. All Tyrell saw were days spent wandering with his friends, not wasting a moment thinking about where they were headed or what they were doing.

For him, that was enough.

There are moments of waking, and there are moments of slumber. They are two different states. That means there is a first moment of slumber, and a last moment of waking.

Dane's last moment was rather clear. It was in the final second before Lorenzo pulled the trigger, blew out the back of his head. A light had filled and hollowed him out from the inside, and then there was no light to be found in his eyes. In an instant, he was dead.

Cam's last moment was not. Even though she had slackened her grip, let Diego sink the shovel into her throat, she still had pushed and pulsated and writhed against him. She had mouthed the words 'I love you' to him, she had given up, and yet she hadn't. In his ears echoed every attempt at a breath, every gurgle and every gasp. Agonal respiration, he thought it was called. She had given up, and yet some part of her, maybe, hopefully, God, hopefully unconscious, still fought for every last moment.

Diego had looked her in the eyes for each and every one of those moments. They would never leave him. And yet, even if you pointed a gun at his head, he would not be able to tell you which of those moments had been her last.

The worst part of it had been the waiting. He knew that, at some point, she would stop moving, she would stop breathing, she would stop being. At some point, it would be enough. At some point, he could get off the shovel. But, she had not come to a sudden stop. What happened was that her movements had lessened gradually, bit by bit. They became more vibrations, reflexes, than actual struggles. And, at some point, it became impossible to differentiate her spasms from the trembling of his arms. They had faded together.

Ty submitted willingly to this. Chris had died in a similar way to Cam, now that he thought about it. He had to have known. And yet, he did it. He pulled the bolt out of himself. His jaw stiffened, but his grip on Diego's hand went slack. Diego kept his hand in his anyways.

He ended up waiting for twenty seconds. After that, Ty's eyes closed. He waited a few more minutes, just to be sure. But, once he no longer saw his chest rising, once he no longer felt his wrist sluggishly pulsing, Diego allowed himself to let go. He laid on his side, pulled his knees up to his chest, and he broke down, finally.

---

The sun pricked against his exposed skin now. He felt sticky, moist all over, with either blood or sweat coating him. Some of Ty's blood had reached his face at some point, it didn't really matter. Cam's had congealed on his back, it wouldn't be worse than that.

Seagulls squawked in the distance. The ocean continued to crash wordlessly against the crags. A light wind passed overhead. And there was nothing else. No gunshots in the distance, no errant screams. No muffled voices. No breathing.

Diego finally willed himself to get up. He stared at the ocean for a minute or two, let the sun glare into his eyes. He wiped away the blurriness in his eyes, blood streaked around his cheeks. He transferred Ty's rations into his own bag. The medical kit stayed, it was mostly spent. He took the gun, it was what Ty had promised to him. It felt important. The crowbar stayed, three weapons was more than enough, the risk of it ending up in someone else's hands was acceptable. He closed the bag.

They were on the rocks, there was no soil to bury Ty with. An ocean burial would've been viable, but Ty hadn't specified if he wanted to be buried at all. He'd spent enough energy on Cam anyways. The ocean had asked enough from him. He'd leave the body alone.

He'd have to put in the work, Ty said. He rotated the gun, Lorenzo's gun, Ty's gun, his gun, in his hand again. Three players, three pariahs. There would be no allies from here on out. That was fine, they would all die anyways. They all died anyways. Four times was enough.

Ty had said he was strong enough. He knew he wasn't.

It's why he had no plans of going out like that.

Ty wanted him to live, he wanted himself to live. That was enough.

He walked away from the beach, headed inland. He hoped he'd never see the ocean again.

((Diego Larrosa continues in black eyes looking up from below))