Shutdown

[Applesintime]

First aid kit, check. Flashlight, check. An instruction manual for her sword thing, did you really need an instruction manual for a sword?

So Cassie was like, one of those digital artist types. "That's cool! I'm not really all that good with computers myself, that's kinda my brother's thing. He's always playing something on his console." And now Cassie was asking the question back, as Madeleine thought she would. The poor girl still seemed really shy, so it was a good icebreaker.

"I like swimming, and uh, I go hiking with my dad a lot. He couldn't go hiking back where I was born because of the landmines, so once he got here he was really taken with all the trails and stuff. He used to take me and my brother all across Mass and go visit all the historical buildings - oh, yeah, history's cool too. If you haven't, you should walk the Freedom Trail down in Boston at some point." The time she walked it a few years ago with Dad was a really fun day. Madeleine wished she could relive that day instead of having to live this one.

The food wasn't all that appealing, but it was better than no food. "I wonder if we could fish in that lake for fish. You know how like, they make a circular hole in the ice and then they put a rod down and fish in Alaska? We'd need a rod, though." Madeleine sighed.

[Fiori]

Cassie listened to Madeline speak about her hobbies and homeland as she put her things back, continuing to rummage through the bag as they spoke. 

She couldn't help but be reminded of her friend Chackie again when she mentioned landmines, remembering all the memes he used to post that made light of his country's tragic past. As far as she could tell it was something of a coping mechanism, using dark humour to heal painful memories, granted he was born well after the war ended and was mostly going off the experiences his parents went through.

She'd pull out the black windbreaker she'd been assigned as Madeline brought up fishing, blinking and looking it over before turning back to her... Friend? Ally? It felt too early to say either, but... 

"Th-there might be a fishing rod around here, somewhere... Or, like, we could make one? I don't know how hard that would be, though..." she'd say, turning the jacket around to see a number printed on the back, the same as the number on her bag. S020. That's all she was to these people. Just another number.

"Um..." she'd hum, before looking back up at Madeline. "Y-you're from the Balkans, right? I-I have a friend from Bosnia, your accents sounded very... Um, similar..." she'd say, hoping to distract herself from another doom spiral.

[Namira]

Connie Toda burst through the cabin door in a rush of cold wind and a puff of snow. She looked around, wild-eyed, confirming that there were people in here.

She slammed the door shut behind her, heaving great lungfuls of air, each exhalation pluming out in front of her in a puff of white smoke.

Then, Connie put her back to the door and slowly slid all the way down to the floor.

Her eyes flicked back and forth between the two girls. Her tongue wet her lips.

"Olive's dead."

[Applesintime]

"I guess we could, but I don't know how to make a fishing rod. Maybe someone else got given one by the terrorists and we can link up with them."

Madeleine didn't need her windbreaker, her coat was both cute and it kept her warm and comfy! Being cute didn't really matter here, but damn it she'd spent so much time coordinating her outfits that she was going to try and stick to it. As she continued searching through her bag, the next question from Cassie made her pause for a second before answerig.

"Yeah, uh, Kosovo. We moved over here when I was pretty young, my mom got a Green Card. Barely even knew any English, so my dad had to do all the translating for us." Letting out a little fond laugh, Madeleine remembered just how out of place they'd felt when they arrived in the US. Everything was so clean and there was so much choice, from what you could eat to what kind of shampoo you could use. It was still something that she admired about the country today.

"He'd met some soldiers from here during the war, they got civilian contractors to build one of their bases and he was one of them. He even named my brother after Bill goddamn Clinton, that's how much he loved the man."

Another pang went through her heart - would she ever get to see Klinton score another goal again?

This pang was quickly interrupted by someone fucking busting into the cabin as Madeleine jumped up and grabbed her sword. The intruder, another girl, didn't seem to be hostile, but Madeleine wasn't going to let her guard down.

"What- Who are you, what? Who's dead? Someone's dead?!"

The same fear in her heart that she had felt when she woke up was starting to bulge in her stomach again.

[Fiori]

Cassie nodded and did her best to maintain eye contact. She was always worried that people thought she wasn't listening if her eyes started to drift, or if she was looking at something else whilst the other person was talking. That wasn't the case most of the time, especially not now, but it did mean she had to put a bit of extra effort into looking interested in a conversation than most folk did naturally.

She'd heard a bit about Kosovo, not as much as what happened in Bosnia or Croatia but she had a rough enough idea to know that Madeline's family must have had a hard time. She didn't want to admit however that most of her knowledge of the Balkans came from the various countryballs memes her friends liked to share.

She did however let out the smallest of laughs at the mention of Madeline's brother being named after Bill Clinton. She'd let her guard down just enough to let that slip, at least.

"I can only imagine what that must be like" she'd say, looking down as she thought back to home. "My parents and I were born in America, but m-my... My grandma was-"

It was at that point Connie barged in through the door.

Cassie would leap up to her feet with a high pitched yelp, scrambling to bring her shoe up and aim it like a gun, before realising it was probably more practical to wield it in a manner that made it easier to make use of the skate blades. Panic began to grip her quickly, her pupils dilating when Connie made mention of someone already being dead.

"Wh-What?!? Olive?!? Dead?!? Wh-Wh-What?!?!"

[Namira]

Connie ran a hand through her hair and let out another shuddering breath. She'd started running hell for leather as soon as she'd seen people entering the cabin up ahead of her, and she was sweat-streaked and dishevelled.

An incredulous expression broke through her panting when Cassie pointed an ice skate at her, but she chose not to comment on it. You could probably hurt somebody with one of those, but it wasn't like you could fire the blade off at them. Gun skate. Skunte.

wait—

She shook herself out of the useless trail of thought and swallowed, knuckling her eyes with both hands, and then her head drooping until she was looking at their feet. Staring into nothing, really. She stayed sitting, feet flat on the ground and arms resting on her knees.

"It's Connie. I just—I don't know what happened. I was out there and I just saw her and her head—" an exhalation. "Her neck was just bent alll the way back. All the way. I thought—" Connie laughed nervously. "I thought she'd been freaking decpitated for a second.

"I couldn't see anyone around so I, well. I ran."

[Applesintime]

"You, erm, you're certain she wasn't just sitting funny or something? Maybe you saw wrong?"

Madeleine felt sick. They had only been awake for a little while and people were already dead. Taking deep breaths, she tried to calm herself down, but that only made things worse.

"Y-you're Connie, right?"

[Fiori]

Cassie gripped her boot tightly, hands shaking, heart racing. Her face turned a ghostly shade of pale, her eyes filled with sheer terror as she stared into space.

"De... De... D-Decapitay-tay... Decapitaaay-tay...Decapitay...." she'd mumble behind her facemask, her entire body shuddering in horror as she stumbled slightly, feeling faint at the thought alone.

She felt sick. She felt afraid. She didn't want to be there. 

She wanted to go home.
She wanted to go home. 
She wanted to go home.

[Namira]

"I know what I saw."

Connie looked back up to them.

"I don't know how you do that to somebody. You'd have to hit them really hard. Or be stupid strong."

[Applesintime]

"W-well, uh, who'd even be strong enough to do that?" That guy who always wore the leather jacket? Lara? There were only a few people who came to mind. The idea that one of them was capable of breaking someone's neck, someone who'd been in classes with them, made Madeleine shudder. She had hoped that people would be smart enough to not listen to Danya. But then, another thought came to her.

"Where was she? Was, uh, I mean, was she lying inside somewhere or outside somewhere? Because if she was lying outside maybe she just fell off one of the mountains or something and broke her neck there, I mean, there's two big mountains on the island so maybe that's what happened, heh." Madeleine chuckled nervously, already internally wondering why she did that. But the idea made sense to her, if only because it meant that the few people who could have broken somebody's neck were innocent, and that it was nothing but a tragic accident. She was lying to herself, she knew that, but it was a comforting lie.

[Fiori]

"St-st-stop... Talking about heads, and n-necks, and... Aaa-aand..." she'd stutter, quietly, not wanting to draw attention to herself but also struggling with every passing second to not scream, or cry, or run away, or roll up into a ball, or...

It was all too much. All too fast. She didn't want to be here, WHY was she here? Why couldn't she go home? She didn't want to be here. She wanted to go home. She wanted to go home!

It wasn't fair. She was going to die. She was going to die like Olive. Why did she have to die? It wasn't fair. Why did Olive have to die? Why? Why? Why? Why?

"IwanttogohomeIwanttogohomeIwanttogohomeIwanttogohomeIwanttogohomeIwanttogohomeIwanttogohomeIwanttogohomeIwanttogohome..." she'd whisper rapidly under her breath, shuddering silently, trying to blot the world out and pretend she was back home on her computer. Away from the reality she refused to believe was anything other that a cruel nightmare.

[Namira]

Connie started to say something in response to Madeleine, but she pulled up short, raising her head to fix on Cassie. Even out of breath and chest pounding, she was paying close attention to the others, and she heard at least some of what was being said.

Still looking at Cassie, she answered. "It was in the open. I don't see how it could have been a fall."

Connie got a hand under herself and pushed herself up to her feet. She took a second to orient, dusting off her hands against each other and then walking across the cabin to lay a gentle hand on Cassie's shoulder. Poor kid.

"Hey. Try not to freak out, okay? You're safe here."

Connie didn't add 'for now', but she did think it. A for effort.

[Applesintime]

"Right..." Madeleine didn't really know what to think. Excuses kept popping up in her head, convoluted explanations as to how and why someone would end up with their neck broken. But every excuse was flimsier than the last, and even if she tried to hide from it, it had to be somebody else's fault, didn't it?

But, enough worrying. One of her friends(?) was clearly all stressed about this. So, the right thing to do was to clearly try and help her out. Connie had already done what she was gonna do to comfort her, so instead Madeleine opted for more verbal encouragement.

"Y-yeah, you're safe here. Nobody's gonna hurt us, and if anyone tries I'll just... slash them!" Madeleine nudged the weird sword, forcing a little grin. She very much did not want to slash anyone, but the idea that somebody would be willing to protect her would probably cheer Connie up.

Really, if people were already playing, she was going to have to slash someone. Maybe.

[Fiori]

"IwanttogohomeIwanttogohomeIwanttogohomeIwanttogohome I..."

Cassie flinched as she felt someone touch her shoulder, looking up to see Connie trying to reassure her.

Under normal circumstances, such an approach wouldn't have worked out well. Even at the best of times, Cassie did NOT like being touched. At all. Her mom and dad generally got a free pass to hug her, and she occasionally tolerated her friend Kelsey's affectionate nature, but she otherwise tended to abhor any kind of uninvited physical affection.

It was just as well then that on an island such as this, circumstances were anything but normal. Though Cassie was quick to pull away from Connie, she and Madeline had done enough to jolt her back to reality, remind her that right now she couldn't afford to crawl into her own head and blot out the world around her. Not when - as dread as she was to think about it - there was a killer potentially nearby.

Assuming of course that Olive's murderer wasn't already...

She'd brush that thought off and give Connie and Madeline a nod of reassurance. They both meant well, and right now that was enough, even if the thought of Madeline clobbering someone over the head with that club made her wince.

Focusing back on the situation at hand she'd quickly hurry over towards one of the front-facing windows, one that had a clear view of the jetty and the vast frozen lake beyond, pressing her back up next to it as she clung tightly to her bladed boot.

"Wh-wherabouts did you see her again?" she'd ask, before cautiously leaning over to take a peek out the window...

[Namira]

Ah, a little jolt there. Maybe too much? Still, Cassie seemed to calm, so really, Connie was right all along.

She didn't expect to be able to be the one offering reassurances under the circumstances. Pumping with adrenaline, just barely getting her breath back, the grim news she'd had to impart. Call her the multi-talented Connie Toda. She was doing great.

Connie decided not to point out to Madeleine that she was pretty sure that she had a blunt weapon and not a stabbing one. Take things in the spirit that they were meant, you know?

Cassie asked about the body, and Connie shook her head. "Not out that way. The other way."

She scuffed up a patch of moss from the floor with her sneaker and half leaned, half sat on the table.

"I feel like I would have seen them ahead of me if they came by here."