Survival Of The Fittest

Ingrid let go of Katelyn's wrist and she wasted no time rearing the knife back and plunging it down to finish it. Only she abruptly stopped, mere inches away from landing the killing blow, when Ingrid started pleading.

Katelyn was taken aback, yanked out of the rage-induced meltdown she had been in, and slightly shaken as she realized how much she had lost control. Now she was the one being begged for mercy, the inverse of her situation with Mitch just hours before. Would Ingrid's surrender also turn out to be a ploy to lower her guard?

She thought about driving the knife down just a bit further. It would be terribly easy for her to not have to think about or deal with this situation anymore. She would have even more blood on her hands, and there would be another body to add to her pile, but she would be just that little bit safer.

It would be easy and less risky, but she was better than that. Who would she be if she coldly executed another girl who was pleading for her life? The exact kind of monster everyone already believed her to be. She wasn't that monster, not yet at least, and she intended to keep it that way.

Katelyn inhaled sharply through her nose, her blade still frozen in place an instant away from ending Ingrid's life.

"Do you p-promise not to h-hurt me, and that you w-won't try to take away m-my weapons?" she asked, voice small and wavering.

Ingrid's arm lowered, revealing her scratched, stricken face. She was trembling and hyperventilating too much to manage a verbal response; Kitty would have to settle for a frantic series of nods instead.

Katelyn recognized the terror on Ingrid's face. She felt it in her very bones the moment she woke up in this place. Her stomach turned at the sight, knowing she was the one who had inflicted that upon her. Not that she would have done anything differently, as Ingrid had brought this upon herself, but that didn't mean Katelyn would feel good about it.

Slowly, gingerly, pushed herself off of Ingrid and stood up, no longer digging her knees into and crushing the other girl's chest. Ignoring the biting pain in her jaw, she returned the knife to its sheathe in her boot, and plucked the digging bar off of the ground, sliding it back into the makeshift sling and securing it once more to her back. She looked back to Ingrid, frowning, eyes half-lidded as her mood returned to its baseline sadness.

"That was r-really dumb, you know," she said somberly, with no hint of animosity or mockery, merely concern. "F-Fighting is always a last resort. I could've k-killed you."

Katelyn turned away from Ingrid, moving towards the discarded billhook. She remained alert for any sudden movement, but she doubted Ingrid had any fight left in her at this point. She was badly wounded courtesy of Katelyn's frenzy, and while the injuries weren't as bad as Robin's head wound, without any treatment Ingrid's fate would be the same.

"I m-might have, still," Katelyn said, a hint of regret in her voice, as she plucked the billhook out of the gravel. "You won't l-last long like that, but..."

She turned back to Ingrid, and pointed towards the latter's discarded belongings, specifically the first aid kit.

"I can h-help. I know first aid, and how to st-stitch."

Maybe she could make up for what she couldn't have done for Robin.

She looked at Kitty with that same shaken look, like she hadn't comprehended any of what she'd said. It took a moment or two for her brain to catch up.

"R-right."

She sat up, shutting her eyes and pressing her hands together before taking a few deep, haggard breaths. At the end of this exercise her eyes snapped open, her expression collected, though still wary and alert.

"Disinfect first," she continued, removing her hoodie and revealing the unmarred white t-shirt beneath. "Not here to catch fuckin' gangrene or some shit."

Katelyn nodded, a bit surprised that Ingrid was so willing to accept her help after what had just transpired. She had been anticipating Ingrid telling her off for even making the suggestion, and that she would run away, only to hear Ingrid's name on the announcement the next morning. This was a welcome turn of events, especially in comparison to Mitch.

She turned away from Ingrid to go fetch the latter's first-aid kit. With her back once more turned, Katelyn's nerves began to fray at their edges, her anxiety building at the idea that Ingrid would take the opportunity to hurt and kill her, but she purposefully dashed the thought away. Katelyn was fine besides the pain in her jaw, while Ingrid most certainly was not. Taking Katelyn's charity and leaving it at that was in both of their best interests.

With the first-aid kit now open and brought back to Ingrid's side, placed in the gravel between them both, they were able to start. Katelyn's mind went back to her time volunteering in Salem's hospital, and all the first-aid practice she had in the courses she had taken. She set the billhook in the gravel just behind her, carefully positioning it just out of Ingrid's reach, but still within her own, and swapped out her mittens for a pair of nylon gloves. Gingerly, she placed the included bottle of ibuprofen next to Ingrid.

"This is going to st-sting, so take that w-when we're done," Katelyn said, pointing at the bottle while giving Ingrid an apologetic look. "Twice as much as you n-normally would."

With Ingrid somewhat timidly presenting her injured arms to Katelyn, the work truly began. Katelyn carefully examined each wound, disinfecting and cleaning them one by one to the best of her ability, all while trying not to cause Ingrid any more suffering than was necessary. Most of the lacerations left behind by Katelyn's frenzy were shallow, but a few were fairly deep. Each was continuously oozing blood, with no sign of stopping without intervention. Each would need stitches if they were going to heal at all, especially the wound on Ingrid's shin caused by the digging bar.

While she worked, Katelyn couldn't help but feel pang of guilt after pang of guilt as she arrived at each new wound. It was much, much worse to see the injuries you had inflicted on a living person compared to a dead one. At least the dead person wasn't suffering anymore, they just looked at you in a way that made you ashamed to have ever been born. Meanwhile, with someone who was still alive, you were able to see the suffering on their face and feel all of their pain as if it were your own, and that hurt so much worse.

Maybe that had been why she was so eager to finish her previous victims as quickly as possible. That way she would, bizarrely, feel less bad about what she had done.

"Umm, okay... s-so that takes care of d-disinfecting," she muttered, as soon as she finished. "Which m-means..."

Katelyn fished around in the first-aid kit, finding a small pack of sterile sutures with an included needle.

"Uhh, wh-whenever you're ready. We don't have an- ane- anes-the-tic," she stammered, fumbling on the last word, "so this is gonna hurt m-more."

Ingrid rolled her eyes. When she wasn't brandishing a knife, Kitty was kind of pathetic. How'd such a feral animal arise from this stuttering mess of a girl?

"I'm sure I can handle it," she replied, impatient, "so long as you get it done before I bleed to death, alright?"

Katelyn gave a small nod, and didn't waste any time getting to work. She threaded the needle and started with the worst wound first—Ingrid's ankle—shifting bloodied fabrics out of the way and gingerly pricking Ingrid's skin, hoping all the while that the cold wouldn't numb her fingers to the point of total failure. Killing someone who had been threatening you was bad enough, but she imagined it would be so much worse to fail to save someone when she otherwise had the chance.

It didn't help that this was the first time she had actually needed to stitch together a person's skin. She had plenty of practice with other kinds of first-aid, treating her own injuries and the injuries of her close friends whenever she could; and she had plenty of practice sewing, a habit that she had picked up from her mom and maintained well after her mother's death. She even had practice stitching together the cut open flesh of grapefruits, hoping that the practice would help once she had gotten into medical school, but this was the first time that any of that knowledge had been put to the test.

She swallowed some bile rising in her throat, knitting Ingrid's flesh back together while the latter twitched and squirmed, and felt compelled to speak.

"You know, I wanted to be a doctor before all this," she spoke quietly and deliberately, not stuttering as she focused on her work. "A surgeon, specifically."

Getting into medical school seemed like such a distant, impossible goal now. With her remaining lifespan measuring in days, she had much more pressing matters to attend to, like the day-to-day drudgery of survival and violence. Strangely enough, thinking about the minute cruelty of her situation was much happier an idea to consider than the fact that she would never achieve any of her goals and dreams, and would die as another faceless casualty.

"It felt like I had spent my whole life hurting everyone around me," she continued, tying off the stitching on Ingrid's ankle. "S-So I thought I could help people instead."

A tear rolled down her cheek, the latest of many. She sniffled, and suppressed the foul taste building in the back of her mouth. She got to work stitching together the cuts on Ingrid's arms, work progressing much more quickly with the much straighter cuts compared to the jagged, u-shaped cut left behind by the digging bar.

"So much for that, right?" she whined. "T-Trouble always f-finds me, no matter how hard I t-try."

Despite the darkness behind her words, she felt calmer than she had in a while. It was nice to be fixing something for the first time she got here, instead of relentlessly destroying everything around her just by existing. Even if she was merely fixing a mess that she had caused, it was better than the alternative. Yet, it still couldn't fully ease her weary, broken mind.

"But you don't n-need to hear me c-complain."

She tied off the last of the stitches on Ingrid's arms, and brought out a pack of sterile gauze, tightly wrapping and securing each wound one by one.

"I'm j-just glad you're n-not another v-victim."

Kitty wasn't overselling it; the suturing was pretty fucking painful. Ingrid did her best to hold still and keep quiet, but a hiss of pain or two escaped her lips. Her pride had taken a worse beating than she had, and being unable to keep her mouth shut through this was just salt in the wound.

Having to sit here being tended to meant Ingrid didn't have much choice but to listen to whatever Kitty had to say, and the other girl had grabbed that opportunity with both hands. She went on about her now-crushed career goals and revealed the hint of what seemed a real neurotic web of issues. Well, beyond the sort that'd she'd already displayed, at least.

Ingrid was a bit flummoxed on what she was even supposed to say in response. If Kitty was seeking comfort she'd picked the driest well on the island for that.

"Well, I'm glad not to be your fuckin' victim, too."

With the bandaging and stitching over and done with, Ingrid pulled her hoodie over herself again. Sitting on this coastline without it or the outer jacket had been miserable, and she was in a hurry to retrieve both before the sea air froze her to death.

"And y'know, mostly my bad."

It was relieving to hear someone else say it.

Katelyn had never been looking for trouble. It always found her, but she never went looking for it. This fight hadn't been the first, and if the morning so far had been any indication, it wouldn't be the last by a long shot. A grim prognosis to be sure, but not one that was going to make her quit. If her older sister had taught her anything, it was how to fight back. By Katelyn's estimation, she had gotten pretty good at it.

"Th-thank you for-" she started to say, only to pause and consider her words.

What was she thanking Ingrid for? Trying to hurt her, and trying to make it easier for someone else to hurt her? Ingrid certainly didn't deserve praise for that. Did she want to thank Ingrid for surrendering before they went past the point of no return? No, it would've been much easier to simply not corner and chase after her in the first place. Ingrid had turned that whole fight into a game of chicken, one that she almost lost. Backing out at the last possible second was the lowest possible bar to clear. What Katelyn appreciated instead was far more mundane.

"-for listening. A-And apologizing."

Ingrid had given her the first opportunity in a day's time to actually speak with someone that wasn't out to get her. Ingrid had backed down and apologized where everyone else she had encountered and murdered kept doubling down and ignoring her warnings. That was praise worthy, and had rekindled some small measure of hope in her heart that not all of her classmates were going to try to kill her.

Katelyn stood up, swapping out her gloves for her mittens, and gathered her weapons and belongings.

"Sorry about h-hurting you," she mumbled, awkwardly clasping her hands together to self-soothe. "I hope I f-fixed it as much as I could've. T-Tell everyone I'm not that b-bad, and don't d-die, okay?"

((Then, without another word and without waiting for a response, Katelyn ran away.))

And with that, she was gone. Probably for the best, given how shit had gone.

Ingrid picked herself up off the ground. Nothing broken or too badly mangled, especially with Kitty's care. She was gonna have to be a bit delicate with the stitches, but for how vicious the assault had been she was lucky she could walk away from it at all. This had taught her a valuable lesson, though; trying to play the hero of the piece was a fatal mistake. If she was gonna succeed at this, she couldn't get distracted chasing after whoever showed up on the announcements. She needed to zero in on the task at hand.

She kinda hoped she wasn't gonna hear Kitty's name again - on either side of the fence. But somehow she was pretty sure she would.

She picked up the frying pan again, put on her canvas jacket, and gathered her scrambled supplies back into her bag. There wasn't anything left for her here.

((Ingrid Wilde continued in it was a fine affair, but now it's over))