Survival Of The Fittest

Micah sighed a bit as the other girl spoke. Her name was Lara Bullock and she was apparently armed with a vacuum cleaner. That was pretty shit luck out here. Even his weird knife was slightly better than nothing.

"I'm Micah," he told Lara when she asked for his name. "Micah Flanagan."

He quickly looked around the area. Lara was asking for some shelter. He was prepared to question her like he did Danielle, but already guilt was starting to weigh on him. Danielle was possibly dead now or would be on the path to her death because Micah didn't let her in, and he couldn't do the same to another girl. His family would definitely give him shit about it.

"Sure, come in," he said, stepping back to the door. "It's not much, but it's better than being outside."

Lara sighed with genuine relief, and she relaxed her shoulders, not even realizing they had tensed up in the first place. She took a few steps towards Micah, but she tried to make herself as non-threatening as possible.

"Thank you," she said, gratitude palpable in her voice. "It means a lot."

She stepped past him, entering the small building. It looked to be a jail of some sort, for the given definition of jail. It was small, only had one cell, and it looked used, with cans of beer littering the cell and the floor. She eyed them curiously before turning around and facing Micah again.

"What brought you here?"

Once the girl was inside the correctional building, Micah quickly moved to block the door again. Once he got the desk shoved back into place, Lara asked what brought him there.

"Just looking for somewhere to rest a bit," Micah said, wiping dust from his hands. "Woke up on top of a mountain and had to step down without tumbling down."

Micah walked back over to the chair he was sitting in before. He quickly plopped down, bending forward a bit in seat.

"What about you? You having a better time than me?"

"I would say that our times have been roughly equal. I woke up in the snow, went over to the garages, found people and nothing else, then came here," Lara replied, turning away from Micah's face.

"The people I found didn't want me there. Some man whose name starts with a D and a girl I did not recognize. So I left."

Lara ambled over towards the desk, pulling out the chair and moving it over towards the wall. She took a seat, slinging the bag off of her shoulder and letting it rest by her feet. She adjusted her left leg, bringing her foot up to her knee and twisting it, letting out a huff as her ankle popped loudly. There was a lot of tension in her joints that needed to go.

Her eyes swiveled back towards Micah as she did the same maneuver with her right foot, which elicited another huff as a similarly loud pop came from her right ankle.

"Do you know what happened here? I can guess, what with the beer cans all over the floor, but do you know anything specific about what happened?"

Micah listened to the girl as she spoke about meeting some people she didn't know and moved on. She also began to sit and twist her ankles like she was trying some less sexy Basic Instinct move.

"Okay, so no one significant to you," he said. "I ran into the Oliveira siblings and Mitch, but I got away from them coming down from the mountain."

Lara then asked about the beer cans.

"No idea," Micah said. "Those were here when I got here. Either someone was drinking beer here before the island became deserted, or someone brought contraband on the ski trip."

He shrugged.

"Admittedly, a beer would be nice right now."

"While I do not think having alcohol right now would help, it would be nice to have something to take my mind off of... this whole experience," Lara replied, her eyes once again scanning over the numerous beer cans littering the floor. No matter how much she wanted one, she couldn't allow herself a distraction. It was how people in Survival of the Fittest died. From distractions, and a lack of planning.

She needed to plan.

Her eyes panned across the room, looking for anything of value or use. There wasn't much. Mostly just the desk, the chair she was sitting on, the cot with the bedding, and the cans. However, not everything in the small building was totally useless.

There was Micah's bag, for one.

Lara refocused her gaze back on Micah.

"How long do you plan on staying here? What're you going to do if this building becomes a danger zone? Surely you have a bigger plan than just staying here."

Micah shrugged at Lara's question about how long he'll stay.

"Yeah, I don't think I can spend two weeks here," he said. "But at the very least I can buy a few hours to think of something better. Somewhere better to go, or someone to look for."

Micah leaned back in the seat.

"It's times like this that are the most important. That's why they recommend you take days off between different exercises. We'll only be stronger in the long run if we take our time and rest when we can."

He was a bit tired from all the walking so far. A few hours of doing nothing would be great for now.

Hmm. Micah's response made Lara give him a little more credit, since he just confirmed that he wasn't going to turtle up in this little building until he inevitably starved. His logic was good. Lara nodded at him.

"I agree. I need this time to rest. To plan for the upcoming days. Thank you for allowing me this opportunity," Lara told him, the gratitude in her voice genuine. Her eyes very briefly darted over to the bag.

There were opportunities here, indeed.

She made no effort to move from her chair. Instead, she subtly gestured towards the cot.

"It would be wise to set up a watch, just in case, anyone with ill-intent were to come here. Since you were gracious enough to let me in, I will volunteer myself for first watch. You can take the cot, if you would like."

"Thanks for the offer. But honestly, I think I'm good here," Micah said. "I found the right groove in this chair. You can take the cot when it's your turn."

Micah adjusted his position and closed his eyes. He wasn't expecting to fall asleep immediately, but slumber somehow took over him without his realization. The chair wasn't any more comfortable than that old cot would have been, but he wanted to at least be upright in case he had to get up quickly.

His pugio was tucked into his jacket pocket and his bag was left on the floor by his feet. With the one door to the building sealed, he and Lara were safe for at least a few hours.

And they were, until something several hours later broke that peace.

Micah had fallen asleep much faster than Lara had anticipated, but she still couldn't be sure if it was a truly deep sleep or not, so she kept her watch going for a few hours. The darkness outside of the windows was smothering, and it was practically impossible to see anyone who may have been coming until they effectively pressed themselves up against the glass, so it was no use. While yes, she had been keeping watch, she'd been watching something inside the building rather than out in the wilderness.

Micah's bag was just sitting there, like Aesop's golden egg, almost inviting itself to be taken, and Lara had nearly given in to her desire to take it several times throughout the night, but ultimately she'd kept herself in check. Now, however, several hours into her watch, Micah still had yet to even twitch in his sleep, so she figured that now was as good a time as any.

Hastily, she removed her boots before tiptoeing over to the door and placing them by the desk. Her sock-clad feet made much less noise compared to her boots, and stealth was an absolute necessity in this circumstance. Quietly, she slipped over to Micah's chair, placing one hand on each side of the bag before ever so gently lifting it up into her arms. She made the trip back to the door before lightly placing the bag down and redoing her boots, picking the bag back up again. Now, with both her own and Micah's bag slung across her arms, the most perilous part of what she was doing laid in her path: the desk.

Her hands grabbed each side of the desk, as she wiggled it side-to-side in order to make as little noise as possible. There was a problem, however.

It wasn't budging.

Whatever Micah had done to it wedged the desk in tightly, and Lara struggled to pull it out without making too much noise. She twisted and pulled, but to no avail. The desk wasn't moving. She took a deep breath, adjusted her grip, and tugged harder.

The good news was that the desk was no longer an issue. The bad news was that the shriek it made when it scraped across the floor was ear-piercing, and it dug the scratches on the ground even further in. There was no way that Micah didn't hear that.

No, no, no. No.

Micah had amazingly drifted off without issue. He didn't dream about anything in particular. He would have assumed that he would have had a nightmare or vision of what his family is going through. By the time he woke up, anything that did pass through his mind theater was back to the ether never to be recalled.

It was hard to focus on anything else when there was a loud scraping sound.

Micah stirred in his seat.

"The fuck? What's happe-"

He looked over and saw Lara standing by the door. The desk was moved out from place, and standing there was his roommate, now holding two bags.

"Lara," Micah sternly said, standing up. "What are you doing?"

For a few moments that seemed to drag on for eons, their was a silence between them. Lara's mind froze up at Micah's stern glare. Her leg twitched. Her arms were locked in place.

"I... I..."

That was all she could think. All she could stammer out. She felt some kind of paralyzing grip crushing her, unable to do or say anything that could get her out of this mess.

There was only one real course of action.

Her hand broke out of the spell and latched on to the doorknob, and she tugged it as hard as she could, a sense of panic setting in.

She was trying to run. She was trying to steal from him.

Micah couldn't believe his luck. He trusted a scared looking girl and she was trying to leave him for dead.

No way in hell was he going to allow that.

Micah bolted from the chair, feeling it fall behind him. He hurried over and grabbed Lara by the back of her shirt collar. He quickly pulled her back from the door.

"Don't you fucking dare!" he shouted as he threw her to the floor.

One moment, Lara had the door handle gripped tightly, attempting to twist it in her favor so that it would open. The next moment, she was on her ass, totally at the mercy of Micah Flanagan. She'd never felt more physically powerless in her life. Lara had spent years upon years building up her physique, and years of hardcore lacrosse training and playing had toughened her up considerably, and yet it was no match for the Flanagan boy. Had Lara not been in a life-or-death situation of her own making, she would've definitely nursed her bruised pride.

However, there was no time to waste on such a frivolity. As Micah had just demonstrated, he had the strength to overpower her, and she was totally unarmed and weighed down by the two bags on her shoulder.

If she hesitated for a moment, she was fucked.

Sighing in utter defeat, she tossed Micah's bag up towards his face, before sending a strong kick towards his knee. If it landed, hopefully it would provide enough of a distraction for her to get out of this prison before her own idiocy made the situation worse than it already was.

Micah loomed over the girl as she fell to the ground.

"I should have known..." he muttered.

Before he could respond, the girl hurled his bag at his face and then kicked his knee. Micah grunted and buckled a bit. However, that wasn't enough to bring him down.

He yelled, then threw himself on top of the girl. His massive framed pinned her to the floor. Without thinking, Micah raised his fist in the air.

His mom would be furious to know he hit a girl, but in that moment, Micah couldn't think about what the family was thinking. All he could think about was hurting the girl who tried to screw him over.