Survival Of The Fittest

“Hey-”

Jess said, but it was drowned out in the flood of noise.

“Can we-”

She tried again. Same verse same as the first. The argument, building up like wildfire, cut her off once more. Her shoulders sagged as she looked up at the other three, eyes peering through the mess that had once been her bangs. She knew the announcement was gonna hit ‘em all hard, some of them worse than others. She hadn’t expected it to turn out this volatile though.

And y’know, yo, it had sounded awfully like Chloe had been referring to ‘Jess’ in the same way you’d refer to a lost piece of jewelry just now. As if she wasn’t in the room at all.

“Yo, guys- guys-”

Slowly but surely, her stare turned into a piercing glare as the others continued unabated. Slowly but surely, the blankets slid off of her tiny frame until she was sitting on the edge of the bed in the scant few clothes that had avoided the dunk, shivering like crazy.

Maybe the blankets had been some kinda invisibility forcefield. Maybe now they’d realise there was another person in the room with them.

“Kitty?” Marshall blinked, wondering what cats had to do with any-- “Oh! Katelyn! ...Oh.”

That made sense why Kai was trying to leave. But everyone was yelling different things, except Jess, who Marshall didn’t register at all for the moment. He needed them all on the same page, and Chloé and Kai were on entirely different ones.

“That’s not what you said yesterday, Chloé. You said ‘apprehend,’ ‘keep them locked up,’ ‘if someone has to pay the price, it’s the players who’ll have to pay.’ You were saying that before we even knew who they were!”

Marshall’s voice, so practiced at trying – usually without success – to argue with people about dropping litter or j-walking or bullying, was loud. He didn’t notice Jess’ mumbles.

“I’m not saying we shouldn’t defend ourselves! That we shouldn’t restrain them if they come at us with intent to kill! But I’m saying we should give them a chance to help." He clenched a fist and pulled it towards his chest. "A chance that involves working with us, instead of putting them into a little room or a cage. They won’t feel safe if we lock them away. If they think fighting is the only way to get out of this… then they’ll fight.”

The briefest beat of consideration. The fist he'd clenched loosened.

“I would. If I thought it was the only way.”

Marshall hadn’t known that until it passed his lips, but he believed it as much as he believed everything else he said. He’d put his all into rescuing as many people as possible. But if that wasn’t going to happen, and it came down to the wire? He’d never been a quitter. And if escape didn’t work, there was only one way off the island. It was a sobering thought.

He stepped away from the door and towards Kai, reaching out and thumping his hands onto Kai’s shoulders in a manner that Marshall very much intended to be reassuring, but it came with the force of a small thunderclap.

“I don’t want to hurt her either, Kai! I don’t even want to stop you! If you’re her friend, you stand the best chance of stopping her. That’s why I want to make sure you’ll come back with her, and I want to make sure she’ll feel safe!” He tried to keep his voice soft. That sort of volume wasn’t his natural habitat, so it came out loud, aggressive, like his voice always did. “If not here, where are you going to go when you find her? What are you going to do?”

“Now you’re just-”

There was no point trying to talk over Marshall, not unless you had a loudhailer. Chloé would have to wait her turn, growing all the more frustrated with him.

“Now you’re just being hypocritical. How can you sympathise with them for killing someone for survival, but judge- not now, Jess- judge me for saying that, in the absolute worst case scenario, I would kill one of them to keep the whole class safe?”

An uneasy feeling grew in her stomach. A gnawing feeling telling her she’d misspoken before she really even realised what she’d said. Slowly, she turned back to Kai, realisation dawning on her. In her attempt to defend her plan from Marshall she’d forgotten what had started the argument in the first place.

“Kai- I don’t mean- we wouldn’t hurt-”

Jess's feeble interruptions were something Kai might have tried to give attention to at another time, but Marshall's overwhelming presence and volume even at a full head shorter than Kai had him on edge. It wasn't like Kai had expected anyone to be happy. There was no choice here that accomplished that.

Marshall blocking the had door made him bristle. When it was followed it up by getting up in his face, shouting and slapping him on the shoulders, Kai went ramrod stiff. He dug his fingers into his legs to keep from reflexively shoving Marshall away.

Stop Kitty? Make her feel safe? Nowhere was safe. Not out in the wilderness. Not here, where Chloé couldn't even decide what her plan was now.

Kai was buffeted by noise and contradicting points on all sides, further drawing his hackles up. Then-

Then Chloé finally said the quiet part out loud. The point she'd refused to acknowledge yesterday. And just as quickly tried to walk it back. Cover herself with what could only be a blatant lie, now.

Kai couldn't remember making the leap from frustrated to furious so quickly before in his life.

"Stop. Touching me!" He raised a hand to knock Marshall's arms away. There was strength in Marshall's grip though, and it didn't happen as easily as Kai wanted it to.

Boiling point. Boiling over. He didn't think twice before winding up and backhanding Marshall hard across the face.

The sound of skin meeting skin seemed to echo even in the small room. Kai's voice crowded into the space that it left, hoarse with a rare and ugly anger. "I. Am. Leaving!" To his own ears, it sounded like someone else shouting.

His hand stung. He was still shaking, half with what he was feeling and half with what he'd just done. He turned fully away from Chloé and refused to look back at her. To see what sort of look was on her face, watching this.

"I'm leaving," he repeated. Volume back down from a yell. Tone still too ragged. "If you don't like it- shoot me or something. Call me an accessory, or whatever." Maybe he was trying for flippant. It came out all bitterness and teeth.

Kai shoved through the door and started down the stairs, slowing his rush only enough to put a hand out on the wall for balance. Let whatever fallout was behind him just- fall.

In all the commotion, in the struggle and scuffle in the dim light of morning, it was easy to miss a figure slip past everybody, out of the room, and down the stairs.

There were no footsteps - at least none that could be heard above the din of a plan falling to pieces. Scant bits and pieces of clothing and cloth had vanished too, once used to keep the figure warm and dry - would anyone miss them, wrapped around the invisible woman? The first-aid kid, the map, the rations, the gun, they all remained silent and still in their previous positions - forgotten about in the rush of blood to the head.

As the fighting in the room drew to a close, the sheets that had been tightly wrapped around Jess Kawazoe just moments ago slowly slid off the edge of the mattress and onto the dusty floor.

Marshall had been punched, slapped and so on before. But Kai was one of the bigger guys he’d been smacked by, with seven inches and thirty or forty pounds on him. Not to mention the surprise. Marshall had a lot of difficulty imagining being angry enough to hit someone, so whenever someone slapped him it was always a shock.

In short: OW.

Marshall got straight out knocked into the wall, though at least he stayed on his feet. He was stunned enough to not find the words to protest until Kai had left the room.

“...Rats,” Marshall mumbled, rubbing his face. He quickly prodded his teeth with his tongue. Still all there, nothing jiggling.

Phew. No harm done, then. Not to Marshall. But if he didn’t catch up, or find an answer to the Kitty Problem, then he didn’t think it would go well for anyone involved.

Maybe if Chloe had a few minutes to sit on it, she’d think about a better way to word the player-handling part of her plan. She wasn’t just isolating Kitty, but Kai and any other friends of Kitty’s.

The problem was there was no time to argue about it. He’d wanted to sort this out before starting anything, but that wasn’t working when the argument was actively causing people to leave.

“I’ll go after him. ...Or I’ll try and find Kitty first! Then he’ll see there’s nothing to worry about!” Marshall said, injecting some optimism back into his voice. “I’m fast, so I’m sure I can manage! And I can send back anyone else I find! In the meantime, you and Jess--”

He stopped, then raised a hand to vaguely point at the now-empty bed.

“Wasn’t Jess here?” He raised his voice. “DJ Jazzy Jess! Where’d you go? ...Bathroom?”

The slap put a sudden stop to the argument and echoed loud in the following silence. Somehow it was the first violence Chloé had seen on the island. Eleven people were dead already, a slap shouldn’t have hit her so hard, especially since it didn’t hit her at all- but still it really caught her off guard.

“Are you okay?”

Chloé was relieved to find she didn’t have to fake the concern in her voice. It came naturally now their argument was over and the anger was cooling off. When she was convinced Marshall was alright, she sat down gently on the bed where Jess had been moments before. She’d barely noticed her leave. The girl had left a gun lying there on the mattress; Chloé hadn’t even known she’d had one. Maybe she’d be coming back, if she left something so useful behind? Chloé doubted that. There was no need to sneak off if you weren’t leaving for good.

“She went off after Kai.”

Maybe Marshall could have stopped her, like he tried to stop Kai, and she was smaller and frail; but he’d been reeling from the slap, hadn’t even noticed. Chloé couldn’t blame him for this. She was the one who’d driven them away. The way she saw it, that ship had sailed. She shook her head sadly, sighed at Marshall’s optimism. She wasn’t even frustrated with him any more, just tired of the endless, unproductive back and forth.

“Let them go. It’s not worth it; even if you could convince Kitty to join us, how would you then convince Robin’s friends? Or Liya’s? We need numbers, and Kitty’s going to cost us more people than Kai and Jess would make up for.”

Gingerly, Chloé picked up the gun. She’d never touched one before, certainly never wanted to. Careful to point the barrel away from either of them, she offered it to Marshall.

“It's gone nine now, we should split up and get to work. If we each find a couple of new people and meet back here this afternoon, we can start to grow our strength again.”

The sky was just starting to lighten as Kai rushed outside, pausing only long enough to grab his umbrella before exiting the house. He made it a few yards away before the hot rush of adrenaline started to cool. The pulse pounding in his ears slowed just enough for his footsteps and breaths to take its place.

Immediately, there was shame. The urge to turn around and go back to check on Marshall. Apologize. But then, would Chloé apologize? Kai doubted it. This was her master plan, for better or worse. She'd brought the four of them together under the promise of something like civilization. He didn't see her letting it all fall apart so soon over him.

He'd voted for Chloé in the student council elections. Funny in a sour way, to think about now. He hadn't done it because he cared who was class president or anything. He was just at the assembly, and she'd seemed like she knew what she was talking about, so he'd circled her name while only half paying attention. Not that great a start for a loyal follower, anyway.

It didn't matter. Kai didn't need civilization. He knew where Kitty would go. Where they'd both always gone to get away.

As he picked his way out of town, he didn't see the other tracks left behind, heading off somewhere else. He was looking ahead. The future might not be far away, but he had a goal there now.

((Kai Rosado-Prince continued elsewhere))

Nobody responded to Marshall's enquiry. There wasn't anybody to do so, of course. The population of the house had halved in size in the scant couple of minutes since the fateful slap had occurred.

By the time Marshall realised that she wasn't taking a quick bathroom break, she would have already left the village. By the time Chloe realised that she hadn't chased after Kai, the two escapees would be on opposite ends of the island. By the time both of them realised she wasn't coming back, it would be far too late.

DJ Jazzy Jess was already long, long gone.

((Jess Kawazoe continued in Short Circuit))

“I’m fine! It’s a slap, it’s nothing! I’m worried about Jess!” Marshall protested. “If Kai wants to leave, then I at least understand that! But Jess fell in the lake!” He waved the hand he’d plunged into the lake yesterday. “I was barely in it and my fingers hurt! She can’t be wandering about!”

Marshall only regarded the gun for a split second. The tiniest part of him wanted to take it just to keep it out of Chloé’s hands. Just a tiny part, though.

“I don’t have firearm training!” he said dismissively, before turning away from the gun and leaving it in her hands. He swung the door open and ran down the stairs, peeking at where most of the supplies had been left. “Jess! Helloooo? ...Her bag’s still here! Where’d she go?!”

How could Chloé be calm about this? How could she dismiss both Kai and Jess so easily? And now she wanted to split up? Yes, that had to be done, but both of them leaving?

Marshall had specifically packed his stuff so that he could move fast, but that meant Chloé alone would now be carrying almost three people’s worth of supplies, and what if this area became a danger zone? What if someone else took over while they were gone, and didn’t want to talk? How were they meant to make a safe place if no-one was at the safe place? He'd meant to suggest that he and Kai went and looked for people - since Kai seemed like he knew the outdoors, and Marshall was fast, he'd figured they'd cover the most ground - and Chloé to stay here with Jess, fortify and plan.

But half of the people in that idea were gone, and there was no time to argue with the only one left. Not right now!

“I left my stuff down here with yours and Jess’ things! Either hide it or take it with you!” Marshall shouted up the stairs. “Stick to town! I can run further! If we can’t come back, go to wherever’s closest!”

He didn’t wait for Chloé to protest. They’d just argue over it anyway. It wasn’t the brave way to win a debate, but there wasn’t time. He pulled open the front door and ran out, only carrying the light backpack with enough food and water for a day.

It was still dark outside, the sky starting to lighten but barely. Marshall could just make out smudges in the snow that might have been footprints, but he couldn’t tell if they’d been there before, or if they were fresh, or who’d gone in which direction--

No time to do anything except pick a direction and go.

Marshall sprinted off.

((Marshall West continued in Return of Simba.))

"Marshall-"

Chloé watched helplessly as he ran off, her outstretched hand slowly lowering the gun. She didn't want it! Hopefully she wouldn't need it either. She'd wanted Marshall to take it, because he was more likely to need a weapon, more likely to run headlong into a fight or provoke someone dangerous. She was dimly aware now having watched him leave that she might never see him again.

After a minute spent turning the weapon over in her lap and considering just leaving it where Jess had, she stood up and slipped it into her coat pocket. Jess and Marshall had left some other belongings behind, which she just stowed under the bed. If they were still there later she could offer them to the new allies she planned to make throughout the day. If someone found and took them, they had bigger problems; they'd probably need to find a whole new headquarters if this one got ransacked.

Maybe if all went well and she found enough people, they'd need to move to a bigger building anyway. Clinging on to that optimism for dear life, Chloé let the door close behind her.

((Chloé Delacroix continued in Mir ist Kalt.))