Survival Of The Fittest

The blade sunk into Dave's back, and Alex watched eagerly. There wasn't any escaping it. Just like Cedar, it was a perfect hit. One that guaranteed death. He'd done it. He'd proved that she wasn't a fluke, that he was capable of surviving. Of playing. Of winning.

Dave pulled himself off the spear and collapsed on his front. Alex assumed that was it. Dave'd curl up and die and that would be it. But he kept going, weakly shuffling his body in the direction of the machete, even as blood gushed from his back, soaking his shirt. Maybe he'd hit one of his organs. Actually, seeing where he'd hit, it was certain the spear had hit an organ. Some dude on the forums would be trying to figure out where he'd hit, make a makeshift autopsy report like the neurotics they were.

Stepping forwards, Alex picked the machete up from where it had fallen.

"Too late. Should have used this a little earlier." Alex's tone was low, almost amused at how Dave struggled. He had to give him credit for that. Cedar had just curled up and died. Standing back up and leaning against the wall, he watched Dave curiously.

Dave had failed to get the machete back as all he could do was watch Alex picking it up and take away his one thing of unlikely hope. His words were not wrong either. Dave should have tried harder to stop Alex from getting a fatal blow on him. So why didn't he try slash at Alex's throat or chest or stomach? Maybe he didn't have it in him to actually kill someone else. Maybe he really was too cowardly and too paranoid to do something so barbaric.

Dave coughed and wheezed heavily. More blood dripped down his chin and he gingerly wrapped at it with the back of his trembling, weak hand.

Why wasn't Alex finishing him off...?

He slightly moved himself again, knowing that it would make it hurt himself more to do so. He half-crawled over to one of the pipes that was near Alex and he slightly pulled himself up with the pipe, resting the side of his head against it. Making sure that his eyes could focus as good as they could on Alex.

His vision was starting to blur a little.

"....W....Why...?" He was struggling to speak, but he had to get the words out to the other boy that was just watching him now. "....Why.... haven't you.... you.... k...killed...?"

He trailed off as he was getting too exhausted to speak more.

Dave was still going, but he was starting to falter, run out of strength. To put it simply, he was dying. Alex felt no sympathy. Dave had several opportunities to escape or to take him out, and he avoided all of them like an evasion expert so he could do the stupidest thing imaginable. Even if he'd fleed or killed Alex, ran up the path to whatever salvation awaited at the end instead of running down past him, someone else would have found him. Kitty, Fitz, anyone who wanted to play would have had a good time picking off the people who would crumble and fold in the heat of SOTF. It was better that Alex killed him. Better him than any of his competitors.

Examining the machete, Alex shrugged at his question. It was a good one, though. Why hadn't Alex just killed him? Tactically, it made no sense to just stand here and watch him die, wasting crucial time that could be spent hunting in the town for other victims. He could tell himself that, like, he was just worried about someone coming in and stealing his kill like Tenshi, but really, it wasn't like, uh, Dave wasn't gonna magically get better or even live long enough to see another person. So there was one possibility, and it was one that made Alex feel kinda uncomfortable, because, like, it meant he wasn't just playing for survival or whatever.

He was sitting here and watching a dying man out of fun. And as soon as that thought entered his head, it was recontextualised, reshaped and reformed into something that Alex found much more understandable and palatable: he was sitting here and watching a man die out of morbid curiosity. Because, it was like, uh, how many times do you see a guy die in front of you? Sure, he'd seen the SOTF clips, but it had never been real to him. It was people he only knew from SOTF killing people he only knew from SOTF. And it was, like, here he was, with people he knew and dying right in front of him. Alex had only ever seen people die in video clips. When you were, like, when a dead guy was in front of you, wouldn't you be curious?

"You're... you're dead already. And you really fucked up tactically, you know?" Alex's voice started out unsure, not even considering what he was saying, but as he continued to speak it morphed into an air of arrogance, of 'I know better than you'. "Like, you didn't do anything right, dude. Coulda ran up there," Alex pointed up the hall, "coulda, uh, y-you coulda just committed and stabbed me, but you, you took half measures. You weren't gonna make it anyway, you know? S-Survival of the Fittest doesn't keep idiots who can't commit alive for long. It's the people who can commit, who know what they're doing, who live. Not the... not the idiots who just get lucky."

Shrugging again, he examined the machete. It would do for a close-combat weapon.

Dave let out a small wheeze that was supposed to be a small laugh of disbelief. He could feel a sticky substance running down his back onto the ground and he could barely move himself any more. All he could think that Alex was more messed up as Dave could still feel the pain that was going through his body and he groaned softly. He was feeling more numb and he was breathing more weakly.

"...Didn't.... didn't want t...to ki-kill...."

He closed his eyes as it felt like time was almost up.

"Was... s...scared...."

The darkness was taking over more and more. He didn't feel like God was going to give him another chance.

This was it for Dave. He had lost his life to Alex who was a complete psychopath to him in his final moments.

At least... he didn't have to die all alone. Even if it was with his killer.

A minute later, Dave breathed his last breath.

Henry David “Dave” Dearborn - DECEASED

And that was it. Eventually, Dave stopped moving. Alex didn't take his eyes off of him the whole time. It made sense that he had to make sure Dave didn't get a second wind and kill him, but when he considered that he'd taken Dave's weapon that reasoning didn't make any sense. It was just morbid curiosity, Alex concluded without really thinking about it. But then his arm started hurting and Alex remembered he'd been wounded.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. It was an unenforced error, the one he'd seen killers make dozens of times. You let your guard down, you underestimate your opponent, and you get killed by them or by someone you didn't even see. Alex pulled up his hoodie sleeve and shirt and took a good look. Ouch. It wasn't deep and it wasn't bleeding too much, but otherwise it was still painful and it was a reminder to be more cautious. Dave had the knife out. He could forgive another killer in an older version for making a mistake, but Alex had pretty much watched them all. There was no excuse.

As Alex patched himself up, trying to remember how it was done, he thought back to the killers. He'd always been more interested in them. They drove SOTF and they created the conflict that the whole thing thrived on. What was more interesting, someone who bumbles around for two weeks and lives because they stabbed someone in endgame or someone who kills, drives conflict and growth only to get stabbed by the first person? While some people would argue that it wasn't an effective strategy for winning, Alex pointed to Hansel, Erika, Dodd. They racked up kills. They made it so far. Dodd even won! But then he got thrown back in again, which posed some questions that Alex didn't care enough to think about.

They'd all misstepped in some way and paid the price. But Alex had watched how they fucked up. And he could do better than that. He could win where they lost.

((Alex Avanesian continued in I'm the Psycho, You're the Freakshow))