Survival Of The Fittest

Alright, then. Shawn's look said it all. They were doing this, for real. Fuck. Alright. God, Matthew almost felt like he'd rather run into Julia, Katelyn and Jezzie combined than do this. But... the voice living in the back of his head told him that this wasn't right, so he pushed it down. If they were low on food, well, they didn't have much of a chance. Had they never ran into someone before this? A dead body they could grab food from, or, shit, he didn't know, some wild animal that they could kill? Granted, they didn't have guns - at least, he didn't see any, so that might have been tough...

Alright. Matthew swallowed his fear, sliding past Valentin as he pulled off his bag, holding it with his left hand, and headed towards Alexander. OK. OK. Fuck. God, he'd literally survived being blown the fuck up by a grenade, why did this one make him so goddamn nervous? Alright, uh, Shawn had Valentin dealt with, so now he had to deal with the dead weight.

"Yeah, uh, I don't know if anything I have might be great for you, but, uh, we-we'll see what I've got. I think I have some, uh, ohfuckit-"

Slinging the bag back over his left shoulder, Matthew reached for the gun tucked into his waistband.

In that moment, halfway through pulling the weapon out, Matthew had a thought suddenly leap into his head, of another injured boy who he had killed. Maybe not directly, but he was responsible for his death.

Corbin.

It wasn't the same, he knew that, but here he was, looking at someone who'd been similarly fucked up by the island and making the conscious choice to put a bullet in him, to kill him. Just like how he'd made the decision to leave Corbin because he'd be dead weight, that he'd just slow Matthew down, and wasn't that the same kinda argument he was using here, that these guys were just gonna die to someone else anyway, because Alex was 'dead weight'? It was the saving throw of his morals, one last gamble.

And fuck it, it worked.

Hand still on the gun, not pulling it out or pushing it back into place, Matthew stared at his former target.

"I thought, uh, that I saw someone," he began to babble in explanation, knowing it sounded like pure bullshit.

"...a chain whip?" Shawn replied, brows furrowed as he shook his head. "Hmm, no... No, don't think that'll do."

There was a hint of doubt in Shawn's eyes as well, albeit for very different reasons to Matt. Less whether or not they should do this, so much as whether or not they should do this now.

After all, up until this point Shawn had veered on the side of caution. Kept his cards close to his chest, let his more aggressive competitors hog the spotlight. The one time he tried playing more overtly ended in catastrophe, costing him his closest ally in the process. Granted, he and Bethany were ill prepared, and up against an enemy who evenly matched them.

That was very much not the case here. He and Matt held all the power in this situation, what with Valentin's pitiful excuse of a weapon and Alexander in no shape to pose much resistance. Their targets were handed a 2 and a 7, whilst they had pocket aces. If there was ever a time to go all in, it was now.

His eyes flicked over to Matt, sensing the hesitancy in his voice. Seemed like he'd need a little more encouragement, a gentle push to see him through the door and fully commit to the path they were about to undertake.

"Tell you what..." said Shawn, casually adjusting his shotgun so that it was aimed at Valentin's chest. "How's about you hand over your bags and belongings, and we'll maybe toss you some leftovers? Sounds like a fair trade to me..."

He glanced back at his ally. "...wouldn't you agree, Ma-"

The dart at the end of Valentin's chain whip lashed out, slashed across Shawn's nose, cheek.

He did not care if there was a gun in his face. He did not care that it was two guns against a whip and a knife. The only factor Valentin took into account before deciding on his actions was the following:

He had approached Shawn and Matthew in good faith, in desperation, and had provided no reason for them to aggress. He had approached them, and their response was not only to commit larceny, but to point a gun at Alexander. They pointed a gun at the man he had spent nights and days trudging across the island in a blizzard to look for, providing with food and warmth and protection so he could recover from his exhaustion, staring at in his sleep for hours in end to make sure he was still breathing. They pointed a gun at a future pilot, an engineer, a genius the world's best aerospace companies would be privileged to have, at the one person who had looked at this strange, too-eloquent-spoken refugee from some foreign land, and decided to take a chance on him. They pointed a gun at his closest friend. All this time and love spent on him, and Shawn and Matthew wished to lay it to waste with one bullet.

He would not have it.

So, the chain whip he had wished to trade, he unleashed it instead, and wrought all the anger and frustration and fear he had onto Shawn. And it would not be enough to kill or even incapacitate, but it would be enough to distract. The only plan he had was to keep Alexander safe. That was all that mattered. And Matthew was in his way.

So, he barreled towards his foe, and he roared.

All of Matthew’s half-mumbled explanations stopped when he heard the crack of a whip behind him, a sound of pain from Shawn.

Flipping around, he observed the bull charging towards him, whip in hand, and a thought came to mind. Of the chasm behind him, of how far down the drop would be.

The gun was ripped out by Matthew’s hand for real this time, aimed at the bull.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

The air split open three times, and all of Valentin's momentum was halted. His footsteps rapidly slowed, a sprint meeting the rushing tide of the waves, and then he couldn't resist gravity any longer and he fell, arm outstretched toward Matthew, around five or so meters away from him.

He came up short.

And then everything went, surely and suddenly, wrong—Murphy's law, as typical as it was terrible. It was fate; it was fatal. Behind them, a million doors shut, potentials and paths, what-ifs only of interest in the purest, most theoretical sense; to him, in that infinitesimal moment, totally irrelevant—mattered to him as much as the exact composition of the meteor that killed the dinosaurs mattered to their ashen fossils.

Alexander had seen the dark looks in their eyes, the ways the shadows grimly framed their faces, the unease with which they hefted the weaponry in their hands. And yet, stupid as he was at that moment, he ignored every last alarm that rang through his empty cranium, dense as an osmium compound and of about as many possible uses—which was, needless to state, few. The human element, like all others, failed him.

As the guns raised, exigent executioners, enmity in their gazes, eliminatory intent in the way their weapons pointed at them, heads and hearts, Alexander froze, hesitant to make a move, lest he trigger the pull of theirs. And then, without warning, Valentin drew the weapon and charged, and there was a flash in the air like ball lightning. And, in that moment, every thought left his head, calculus turned to carcasses.

They had just shot Valentin; bullets towards his best friend, his closest companion, the one person in this world who had ever taken the time to understand; the person who taught Alexander the real meaning of how to build a bridge; a future poet, playwright, public speaker; the man whose words would wrack worlds; whose stage plays would put Shakespeare to shame. Valentin Shulgin, for whom he had done all of this in the vain hope that he might have saved him; for whom Alexander had trudged through the mud and the snow and the stone for; whose endless possibilities were the things for which he continued to move even when his body screamed at him to stop; Valentin, whose life meant something, whose life meant absolutely everything.

And those two looked at Valentin Shulgin, intent to end a life that, were the world fair, were it just, would have lasted for a veritable eternity.

Alexander did not think; he did not feel. He acted. No time to run numbers or think of the calculus, the consequences—only time to do something, do anything. And so, his heart going cold and sharp as a knife in his chest, he wielded his own dagger with a ferocity and determination that befitted a weapon many times its size. With a lurch, his body went taut, and Alexander charged, blade forward, towards the gunman, silent as steel.

The chain whip struck Shawn hard across the cheek, his glasses sent flying as stumbled over.

"GAAAaargh - Mother FffffUCKER!" he spat petulantly, quickly scrambling for his glasses as panic gripped him. He grimaced in anticipation, expecting an angry ruskie to come barreling into him at any moment. 

But that moment never arrived, Shawn jolting out of his skin as three thunderous gunshots rang out behind him, turning back just in time to see a blurry shapeless mass fall onto the ground.

His face turned pale, briefly overcome with shock as his shaky hand struggled to put his glasses back on. His vision cleared just in time to see Alexander rise up, revealing a vicious knife that he intended on sinking into Matthew's back.

With no time to reflect or consider his options, Shawn let instinct lead his hand, clumsily aiming the shotgun in Alexander's direction before pulling the trigger.

There was a glint of light in Alexander's eyes and on the knife's metal blade as the lightning flashed again, utterly blinding—the buckshot constellations like tiny black stars against an inverted night's sky. Little beads of pain spread across the whole left side of his body, head to toe, and then pulsed out, pulsars of pain sending static signals through the rest of his body, piercing explosions in every single nerve throughout.

The scents of smoking gunpowder, of blood and iron, hung in the air, choking, like industrial smog. Alexander, for a moment, half-shredded as he was, continued to push, unwavering, body moving on its own, heart taking the wheel and pressing forward on the gas. He didn't stop until the distance was closed. His arm shot forward, and the knife hit Matthew's face and slashed hard across the skin like a broadside against his bow.

OK, OK, uh, fuck, this should have really went a lot better. Fuck. OK, pull yourself together, you still have one guy to take care of, another shot fired out — Shawn taking care of Alexander probably. Valentin was dead. OK, OK, this was OK, he could handle this, he just had to... fuck.

Turning towards Alexander, still seeing a flash of movement in the corner of his right eye, Matthew just about saw the glint of the knife before it opened a new wave of searing pain in his face.

He couldn't really tell where, but anyone looking at him could see clear as day the newly opened slash wound in his face, starting on his right cheek, pretty close to his mouth, and twirling its way up towards his nose, ripping through his nostril and terminating with a gash on the inside of the upper part threatening to split it once again.

All he could smell was blood, pouring up his nose, dripping on the snowy ground, over his jacket. It fucking hurt to breathe.

"GHN-" A strangled screech slipped out of his mouth. Nearly stumbling off the edge of the cliff, Matthew thrashed blindly at Alexander with his pistol, hoping this fuck would get off him and just fucking die.

And then, the whole world exploded.

The scenes of violence and mayhem that played out on the mountain pass were engulfed in a cloud of snow and dust, the roars and curses of before transforming into panicked screams.

The blood respirated from the alveoli of his perforated lungs mingled with the pulverized ice and rock that billowed all around them, choking him, noticeably making each breath shorter and shallower than the last, silicosis accelerated. He pulled, and pulled, and pulled, expending the last of the lactic acid in the fibers of his muscles, leaving behind a cochineal-shaded streak in the snow, directed towards Alexander.

"STOP," he wheezed, inaudible beneath the clamor and chaos.

"RUN," he begged.


"LEAVE."




"LIVE."



All fallen on deaf ears.

And that was that.

He had wanted, at the beginning, for everyone to come together and reject the fear and paranoia and enmity that plagued every other island before theirs. He had wanted to find a path to escape so that he and Alexander and everyone else could make it out and live the rest of their lives that they were promised, as children. He had wanted anything but this.

Everyone he ran into had perished, or was going to perish, imminently, all at the hand of a fellow classmate. They were no closer to escape now than they were at the start. He had not even been able to save Alexander. The last sight of him he got, before he was enveloped in the snow cloud, was him, pockmarked by bullets, bloodfalls flowing newly down his left side, teeth bared, just as barbarous and animal-like as the rest of them.

Valentin was going to die, having completely, utterly failed to achieve any of his goals on this island.

Was this what all his heroes felt?

When all the bravery and conviction and adrenaline subsided, when all that was left to face was the long odds of their circumstances finally coming to fruition, reaching its probabilistic outcome, was this how he was supposed to feel? Downtrodden, defeated, hopeless?

He guessed, that some part of him, deep down, had always hoped he'd beat the odds, that he'd win the lottery. That he would be like his heroes, but better.

Instead, gravity, a deeper, more crushing type of gravity, pulled at him, his leaden limbs unable to bring him any closer towards his friend. The cold that he had always been so fond of soaked through him, into his bones.

This was always how it was supposed to end. He had made a bet, gambled for another day, and another day, and another day, and now it was time to pay. It was always going to end bitter, one way or the other. In these long odds, their destination would have always been the same, so what mattered was the journey.

And, they'd gotten a little more time. They got to spend a few moments, at least, in each other's company, something deprived from so many of his fellow classmates. There was that, at least.

He just wished there was more though.

The last movement Valentin ever made was stretching his arm out towards his friend, though he would never get to hold him again.

He hoped Alexander knew how much he meant to him.

S069: VALENTIN SHULGIN: DECEASED
30 STUDENTS REMAIN

The terrible, serrated edge of the blade connected and drove itself deep, then deeper still like an extension of his arm reaching directly toward Matthew's soul. Alexander felt nothing as he did it, nothing but anger and nothing but hate. Any thought of any other paths evaporated at once. There was only vengeance left, retribution for their crimes. Only the desire to drag them head-first into the open graves they had dug—the same ones now marked "Alexander Hawthorne" and "Valentin Shulgin."

His vision fading, fading, fading, faster and faster with every second, with every drop of blood that spilled out from the clusters of decimal point wounds punctuating his left side; his ears ringing, half-deaf, from the detonation of the guns, the other explosion now like the birth of a star in an outlying galaxy, fireworks in another world; his mind stalling, crawling, gears turning, turning, turning, then coming to its untimely stop, the agonizing caterwaul of screeching machinery as it felt its last approach.

All his nerves were alight; uncountable numbers of supernovas were below his skin, the sun's surface burning, pain like eternal daybreak as it seared and sheared through him. Then, another pain struck him, a blow to the head, and the darkness came faster, head swimming, swimming, then drowning, his world below the surface as he plunged ever deeper towards the shadowy depths of the hadal zone. But he fought—harder than ever—to keep his head above the water, to stay a second longer in the world.

His eyes fought to close; he fought to pry them open. And, as they tried to shut, as the world went dark around him, swirling and stirring and churning, dizzying twists and dazzling specks of colorful light and the hazy afterimages of motion, he turned his eyes to Valentin Shulgin. To his best friend. To the one he had declared his intention to save, to the one he had failed in every conceivable way. Alexander could not read the pictures on his face; he did not comprehend the puzzle of his words.

For so long, he had trusted only his mind. He listened to it as it filled his thoughts with demons and shadows everywhere. Then, it failed him, cried wolf until he no longer believed. So he turned towards the heart he had neglected for so long and let it lead him blindly, silently take him by the hand towards the slaughterhouse. To the end of the path, to the end of their lives—one step, two steps, three, four, onward unto eternity, towards the inevitable conclusion that he had fought so hard, so vainly, to avert.

Head and heart. Two terrible halves of a single treasonous whole.

His body crumpled towards the ground. First, his knees went, like before, only the consequences now were far more dire, and the company less understanding of his plight. Then, the rest of him, as the systems started to shut themselves down, a conservation of power, like a computer going into its sleep mode. He blinked once. The world shook a little in his eyes as he descended, plunged towards the darkness at the end of the tunnel, and the vignette started to close in, the blade of the guillotine as it fell.

And, despite it all—despite the wounds, despite the anger, despite the hate that burned like a dragon's fire in his chest—the worst of it all was the pain; not the pain of the wounds, but the pain of casting his eye upon his fallen friend, the pain of not being be able to reach far enough to place his hand upon Valentin's; the pain of not having the strength left to say anything when this would be the final chance he would ever get; the pain of knowing that this fleeting gaze would be the last one; the pain of having so much hope and then seeing it all crushed once more.

Damn his heart.

S061: ALEXANDER HAWTHORNE — CONTINUED IN "Subtraction"

The recoil sent Shawn reeling, landing roughly on his rear as he gripped the shotgun tightly. His chest heaved in and out, his body frozen in stunned silence as Alexander stumbled forward, knife still readied with vengeance in his eyes.

There was a voice at the back of Shawn's head that urged him to pull the trigger again. Double tap the mother fucker, follow through and take him out before it was too late. Yet his hands refused to follow his brain's commands, his frightened eyes watching in terror as Matt got slashed across the face.

He eventually snapped out of it, slapping himself hard across the cheek before scrambling to his feet. Now wasn't the time to choke, not whilst they were still in danger. With Alexander and Valentin down for the count, his first port of call was to assess how serious an injury that was. How fucking careless of Matt, letting Alexander get close to him like that.

"MATT! Oh fuck, shit Matt are you..." he gasped, his face recoiling in disgust at the grisly wound on Matt's face. No doubt about it, that was going to leave one helluva scar. But, it also looked like it could've been a lot worse. Thank god for that, would've sucked if his only ally went and got himself crippled.

His concern alleviated, Shawn looked down at Alexander, his face scrunching up into a vicious scowl. "You fucking morons!" he yelled, before running forward to kick the fallen boy hard in the ribs. "Look what you... FUCKING made us do!!!" he screeched between kicks, grinding his teeth as he stomped down on Alexander's arm.

Shawn stopped once it became clear that Alexander was no longer responsive, a look of sheer horror appearing in his eyes.

He just killed a man. After keeping his hands clean the entire game, he finally got them dirty and did someone in.

His heartrate increased, anger caving in to fear and disgust as he stumbled away, keeling over and coughing violently as he tried to hold back from throwing up again. Regret hit him like a ton of bricks. Not so much out of guilt or anything like that, but for the consequences that he'd have to deal with from now on. From tomorrow morning, he could no longer hide in plain sight. The gig was up, his intentions outed to the rest of the island. It was all or nothing now.

He clawed his hand through his hair, unable to bring himself to look back. Even if he didn't feel the least bit sorry for what he did, the physical act still filled him with revulsion. It was a feeling not unlike that of swallowing a live earthworm, or treading barefoot on a cockroach.

"It gets easier... It gets easier... It gets easier, it gets easier, it gets easier..." he quietly repeated to himself, over and over, whispering that mantra as he tried to-

Boom.

Shawn scrambled for cover, instinctively shielding his face as an explosion of dirt and snow filled the air. He let out a shrill, high pitched cry of fright, coughing and wheezing as his ears rung loudly.

What the fucking shit was that?!? Did a collar go off? Was the sky fucking falling?! Or was...

Were they under attack? Oh fuck, they were under attack weren't they? Who? Where?!? Was it... HER? Oh fuck, she had a grenade launcher, didn't she?!

"What the fuck?!?! What the fucking FUCK!?!" he screamed, quickly checking to make sure Matt was alive, before waving him over to follow. "Amscray! AMSCRAAAY!!!"

And amscray he did, stumbling onto his feet before fleeing with his tail between his legs.

((Shawn Bellamy continued in SNAFU))

Ringing. Both ears this time.

The scent, taste of blood, the warmth running down his face, pooling on his chin, clogging his nose.

Shawn faintly screaming for him to run through the inevitable tinnitus.

Dirt, rock, snow showering him like a gust of wind had picked up, getting into his eyes, adding another layer of hell to everything.

Katelyn.

They couldn't fight her, Matthew knew that even as his brain was assaulted, so many senses overwhelmed and overloaded and neurons firing off like a full-auto gun. All that would happen was that they'd join Alex and Valentin.

Clutching the gun like how a little kid might clutch their favourite toy, Matthew followed behind Shawn.

((Matthew Bell continued in SNAFU))