Survival Of The Fittest

"I think that we're going to have to kill him."

Madelaine blinked, looking perplexed. Sure enough, she was wondering if she had heard wrong... Adam had just suggested that they perform euthanasia on Marcus, who was almost sure to not awaken with his mind fully intact, if at all. In other words, Adam was saying that all they could do now was kill him.

She stared at him silently for a while, before her eyes flickered towards Marcus' form lying against the ground, still and almost motionless, if not for his irregular breathing. Madelaine wondered briefly, what would it would be like, if Marcus somehow knew of what was going on around him, and what his friends were discussing at this very moment...

Madelaine had trouble finding her voice as it locked against her throat. "...Kill him? Wait...there has to be something we can do...right?" Madelaine asked, trying to sound hopeful. "He's still alive, so maybe we can...help..."

Her voice trailed off unexpectantly as her words lost any and all form of conviction. She looked down at the ground, not wanting to look at Marcus, or anyone else around her.

"...Is there really nothing else we can do?"

Amanda's eyes went wide at the proposal that Adam was putting forward to the group. She'd been silent for quite some time, and while she knew that Marcus might never awake from his coma, it was NOT a solution to just kill him.

That's just so wrong. We can't...we can't kill him. There's no way...

As Madelaine seemed to deflate under the stress of the idea, Amanda's jaw set and her eyes went hard. She looked at the group and shook her head.

"No. We can't just kill him. That's murder. It doesn't matter if he's in a coma or not, we can just bring him along, or something like that. Come on, guys...listen to yourselves! You're thinking about killing one of our friends, it's just...it's just not right."

Adam sighed and stared at the ground for a second, before looking back up at Amanda. He shook his head sadly.

"We can't though...I mean, like...he's virtually brain-dead. We bring him along and he's going to slow us down like crazy. Come on, Mandy, you've seen how big he is...there's no way we can carry him. It just isn't reasonable. And say we leave him here? He's easy pickings for someone else to do something more cruel and unusual. The way that I see it, this is really the only option."

Adam looked at Madelaine, and at David.

"It is, isn't it? At least, I don't see any other options available to us. This is the only way, and at least...at least he'll be free..."

Madelaine had long since fallen silent as Adam supplied his argument for putting Marcus out of his misery. As cruel as the very suggestion seemed, Madelaine knew that the points that he supplied were both reasonable and valid. By committing such an act, they would be doing Marcus an act of kindness. The way Adam put it...to leave him like this would probably be the crueler thing to do.

But still...Madelaine's mind was dwelling on the prospect of seeing yet another friend die. After Nanami. After Hawley. He would end up just like the two of them.

And also...there was another matter behind all of that, the very reason and intention behind the act of killing itself.

This is a course in basic human morals, the thought suddenly ran through Madelaine's mind. Please take notes.

First, and foremost, it is wrong to kill.

It is wrong to kill.

It is wrong to kill.

It is wrong to kill, Madelaine knew that perfectly well. That was the most basic of basic human morality. But they couldn't just leave Marcus here like this, that much they knew. However, with the only member of their group with applicable medical knowledge dead, and for the lack of resources, there was next to nothing that they could do. Therefore, the right and only thing to do was to kill him.

And after all...who was she to criticize the morality behind it all? She, herself, had already killed Nanami, her best friend that in fact never was. That made her a murderer, no doubt. But did that make her a sinner as well? After all, she killed Nanami just as she was about to kill Amanda... yet was she still guilty? It was all too confusing.

As for the current matter now, she knew not what to say to argue against Adam's case. Still, she pursed her lips, looking half-heartedly defiant.

"...Don't ask me if it's the right thing to do," she told him in a strained voice. "Just don't. Because I don't know. I don't know if it's the right thing to do."

Because she knew not what else to do, she simply turned away, not wanting to see if Adam was about to carry out his decision or not.

Amanda shook her head, a pissed-off look on her face.

"No, this is bullshit. That's what it is. Bullshit, plain and simple. You know what? Fine. You guys go ahead and do what you want to with this situation. You want to shoot him? Go ahead, and shoot him. But I'm not going to have any part of this...this is murder, plain and simple."

With a scowl on her face, she picked up the shotgun that lay on the rock beside her, and shook her head one more time as she looked over the group. With that, she began to walk in a beeline away from the area, and disappeared through the foliage.

((Amanda continued in: Starting point for B#54))

Adam watched her go, and looked at the other two occupants of the river area. Madelaine stood with her back to him, trembling, and David...David simply said nothing at all. He had a weak, exhausted look on his face, and his eyes wouldn't meet Adam's. Sighing, Adam knew that now was the time. The decision had been made, and the burden was going to fall on him to make sure that it was carried out.

You're going to have to make decisions that you don't want to make if you step up and take responsibility for this group. You knew that when you did so. Well, Dodd...here's the first. I just hope that it's the right one.

Striding over to the prone body of Marcus, Adam looked at the boy on the ground and smirked. He remembered when Marcus had first come into view at the small house, and he had turned to Hawley and remarked do they even make boys that big? In retrospect, they shouldn't have been afraid of Marcus, for the boy was a kind, gentle individual, an intelligent boy that Adam wished was still okay. With Marcus' help, they'd have an even better chance of escaping the island, but now, as it was with Hawley, Marcus was gone, and there was no chance of him returning to this world.

He sighed, and then looked down at his pants. He patted his left pocket, and the Mauser M2 that sat in that pocket, compliments of the dead body of his best friend, Andrew Lipson. In his right pocket, he had the Tokarev TT that he had obtained from the corpse of Nanami Nishida, who was lying meters away. And finally, in the third pocket of his jeans, he held the Ballestair-Molina pistol that he had originally started the game with, but had given to Hawley once he burnt his arm.

My, how things come full-circle, eh...

Removing the Ballestair-Molina from his pants, he unclicked the safety. Hawley had fired it a few times, but none of the pistols had really had extensive use since he'd come upon them. He'd shot Blaine once with the Mauser, but that was it. Sighing, he cocked the hammer of the pistol and looked down at the comatose form of Marcus Roddy.

And how many more must die before this is all over? How many more will have to suffer before we find some way to fuck the system...?

With difficulty, he pointed the gun at Marcus' forehead. This was something he didn't want to screw up. That would be too much to handle if he did, and he didn't know if he'd be able to look the others in the face if he did. Aiming the gun at Marcus, he silently hoped that Marcus would wake up and bear those impossibly-white teeth of his. He hesitated, hoping it would be so.

It wasn't.

Sighing for what seemed like the hundredth time in days, Adam took a deep breath, and pulled the trigger, the shot rang out, echoing over the soft whisper of the river.

Marcus' eyes snapped open for a moment, the pupils completely dialated to the point where the brown of his eyes was no longer visible. As quickly as it happened, the eyelids slid shut again, and Marcus' ragged breathing stopped. His body was relaxed, serene. The stillness and quietness of the moment caused Adam to hold his breath.

As quick as that, Marcus, the gentle giant, was dead.

He always was good at just blending in.

...Boy #11, Marcus Roddy...DEAD...

Adam rubbed a tear from his eye as he bent down and checked the large youth for a pulse. Thankfully, more for Adam's sake than for Marcus', there was none. As he had done for everyone up until this point, Adam then extended his right hand and closed Marcus' eyes.

Respect the dead...

"Goodbye, friend. It was a pleasure to have known you."

Turning around, he put the pistol back in his jeans pocket as he walked towards Madelaine and David, both of whom looked the worse for wear. As he neared them, he didn't stop, but blurted out what he knew both of them really wanted to hear.

"Come on, we're getting out of here. Besides, we have to catch up with Amanda. Let's go."

Adam didn't stop but let his feet carry him past his peers, and into whatever situation the next area would bring. This river had been the setting for so much death, and so much suffering, and it would be a cold day in hell before he'd ever be back here again.

((Continued in: Starting Place for B#54))