Survival Of The Fittest

((In an attempt to get back in some kind of order, I threw this post of reactions together. GMing approved by Selphie and Beta.))

Thea watched with an amused smile on her face as the Evelyn of old returned. She was glad to finally have some help dealing with these losers. She stood to one side of Evie, content to let her put people in a place for a while. She still couldn't believe that they were actually going to cut Alex's arm off, when that happened she planned to be long gone. And if everything worked out the way she wanted with Evie and Charlie in tow. Although what had gotten into Charlie lately Thea couldn't figure. Jason seemed to be fairly reasonable maybe he could come along to; if he could drop the "worrying about the losers" complex he seemed to have developed.

Lost in thought, she almost missed Meredith raising her arm and swinging at Evie. Evelyn raised her arm to block the blow and Thea stepped between them in time to receive the deflected blow into her waist. She grunted as the baton connected. Pinning the baton to her side with one hand, she threw a punch of her own aiming at the much smaller girl's face.

It connected with a satisfying thunk. Thea watched pleased that Meredith went stumbling away from her. She shook her hand out, looking down at it. "You little bitch," Thea said. She looked down at the baton, which appeared to instead be a staff in three sections. She dropped it, disgusted. "You made me break a nail. I don't know what the hell is going on in that warped little head of yours, but why don't you pick up you're crazy weapon and get the hell out of here before I get really angry."

((Breaking post order to avoid inactivity. GMing of Alex Campbell approved by nowave))

Everything was going to hell. First Evelyn aired her disagreement, to put it lightly.

"Keep everyone from GOING crazy? Wow, way to want to shut the barn doors WAAAAAY after the horse got out, Jason. Are you going to go and warn the Titanic about icebergs in the North Sea next? And what the hell do you mean, we don't have many options? You might not have many options but we ... we have one option here. Walking the fuck away! Are you actually serious? Make him 'happy' and cut his arm off? What kind of sick freak are you?! You want to go all Buffalo Bill on him, you do it your own damn self. I'm not being a part of..."

That he could put up with easily - he'd gotten into party after party mainly because he brought beer (Yes, it was partially just to get in), so getting picked on, even jovially, was okay with him. Then Meredith (which was a much more bearable name to use) spoke up again.

"Fuck you, Thea. Fuck you and Sofia. You bloody planned this, right? You planned it with bloody Sofia to kick my only freaking clothes into a fucking river and then you fucking accuse me of running around naked for fun?! Gimmie the fucking sword and I'll chop off his fucking arm for him if that's what you fucking want. If not, get out of my fucking way because I am going to fucking KILL Sofia and then maybe I'll do you all a fucking favour and kill myself as well. You hear me?"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP, MEREDITH! No one planned anything against you, you freak. People would have to give a shit about you to plot against you! And they don't! No one does! Because you don't matter! In fact, you barely register as human. So either put up or shut up! If you're so FUCKING BADASS, then bring yourself up and do it! Knowing you, you'll get off on it. But at least then, for once, you'll have actually done something hardcore and gothic rather than just sit around in your tragic clown makeup."

Again, this statement didn't bring Jason over the edge - hell, had Meredith just stayed away, maybe he'd be able to talk some sense into the people on how they had to unite to beat the game (or at least live longer). The next chain of events, however, did. Meredith, finally deciding that she had had enough, swung a stick at Evelyn (on closer inspection, it was actually three sticks chained together). Thea was able to grab the thing, and then punched Meredith in the face before flinging yet another insult. That was the final straw of three days of running for his life and dealing with people yelling at others for the smallest of offenses.

"Thea, Evelyn. Why? Why are we fighting? I mean, this is EXACTLY what I meant. I mean, yes, Evie. Maybe you're right in that the proverbial floodgates are already open, and I understand that we're all on edge, but if we keep on mouthing off to everyone we don't like, somebody who's armed and psycho enough will take offense to that and kill us. I mean, what if Meredith had a blade? Or a gun? Instead of ONE life-threatening injury, we'd have THREE. Just, please, let's just take a breath, calm down, and try to figure things out." Had Jason been thinking more clearly, this is along the lines of what he would have said. Hopefully, the simultaneous tones of despair, anger, and disappointment would have struck a tear in the eyes of anyone listening to this kind, peaceful young man. Unfortunately, it was at that moment where he snapped, and in his anger, Jason took what was possibly the worst course of action:

"You know what? Fuck it. Fuck it. All I was asking for was for what? Six, seven people to cooperate for more than a minute without trying to beat the crap out of each other?" Jason sounded relatively calm, if not extremely sarcastic, in spite of his anger and resignation that everyone was fighting around him. "Have you people lost your minds? We're on an island in the middle of nowhere, in a death game, and all you're trying to get yourselves killed sooner? You know what? You're right. Cooperation is clearly impossible, so I'm going to do what we all should have done the second we all got together." He turned towards Alex. "Hey! Alex! You want your arm cut off?" Alex nodded weakly.

"Yes. Do it now!" Alex weakly exclaimed. Jason just frowned as he dropped his sword, retracted his hands inside his sleeves and pulled his T-shirt over his head and off his body before putting his arms back into his shirt sleeves. He then walked towards Alex, spying a rock a few feet away, about six inches square by a foot and a half long - he actually had a few around his house for decoration. Picking it up with a grunt and moving towards Alex, he put it down and shoved the T-shirt into Alex's mouth, removed his blazer and shirts, before lifting up the rock, and bringing it down onto Alex's right arm, right where the decay was starting, with all his might. Alex screamed - obviously having his bone broken was pretty painful, but in order to pull a Ralston, he had to break some bones, huh?

"Stay with me! I'm doing you a favor, remember?" He brought the rock down on the bone again, and again, until he heard a crack. Satisfied, he walked back over, took the sword, and cut into the arm, once again right above the decay, ignoring the screaming (but probably grateful) Alex, slicing through muscle, ligament, and the occasional shattered bone, until the sword hit ground, at which point he took the T-shirt in Alex's mouth, and wrapped it around his new stump, yelling out over the sobbing boy:

"Now, does anybody have something with which we could start a fire with?" Something like that, or, in fact anything would have been better than what he said and did next:

"That is all we had to do! Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going. I have better things to do than watch people fight over petty differences when our lives are on the line. Anyone who wants to follow me is free to do so." And with that, Jason picked up his bags and walked away.
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Meanwhile, the incident that had caused Jason to snap, had done less to Charlene. She actually smirked a little when Thea struck at Crazy Goth whatever. I so do not need some freak bitching about how "no one cares." Borat's reaction was slightly stronger. He got into a rage about how nobody was getting along (You're talking to someone who's been shot at.), before walking over to Alex with a huge rock and breaking his ...

"Shit, Borat! What are you doing?" Oh, God! That's just wrong! Alex's screams, while muffled through the shirt, were clearly those of pain. Charlene looked away, unable to watch any more of the guy hacking away at Alex's arm (kinda weird - in a way Charlene felt like she owed Alex for saving her, so shouldn't she be doing something about it, like helping Borat?).

"Oh, my God. I ... gotta go." Charlene quickly ran away from the gruesome sight, an instinctual reaction to get away from the gruesome scene before her, stumbling away as fast as she could, on the verge of tears, stopping about fifty feet away from the group, as Borat finally ended his spiel and walked away from the group, towards Charlene, just shaking his head in irritation as he passed her, and kicked a bag.

"And could someone PLEASE pick up their stuff?" Jason yelled as he picked up the bag. "Couldn't Ja ..." Jason's expression immediately changed from one of rage to one of disbelief as he peered at the label on the bag. "MALE STUDENT #70 - JAMES MULZET"

"Hey ... Charlie, is it? Have you seen James Mulzet around lately?"

Charlene looked at Jason, slightly scared that he'd hack her open as he asked her if she'd seen James anywhere. "N-no. Why?" Jason's brow simply creased.

"THEA!" he called out. "THEA! You're gonna want to see this."

Meredith hadn't expected Thea to step in, but her weapon hit the bigger girl with an audible and satisfying thunk. She smiled, feeling waves of euphoria rush over her even as Thea punched her in the face and she felt her body stumbling back. The pain didn't even really register on her mind, even as Thea ripped the baton from her tight grip.

It felt good. The sound of the weapon hitting flesh, even the feeling as the weapon collided with Thea's body. Every part of that moment felt good.

Even trapeze, fun as it was, never felt that good. Trapeze was simply a way to get attention from her parents, which they never gave anyway.

This.

This was beautiful.

Evie was right. Meredith wasn't human. Even her so-called schoolfriends never recognised her as one.

Meredith stumbled around blindly for a moment, trying to get her bearings. She heard Thea say something, too slowly for her to really make out what the words were, but she recognised an invitation when she heard one. She dived for her weapon, pulling it to her chest as if it were a trapeze and quickly moving the links so that they aligned once again.

In the future, she'd really need to learn to keep a better grip on her weapon or, better yet, perhaps she could find a better weapon. She smirked as she recollected that one, perfect moment.

Then she grinned.

Then she laughed.

She snapped up from the ground in a forward roll, jumping to her feet using an old circus trick and jabbing her weapon towards Thea's face quickly. Without caring if her blow had actually hit, Meredith took off for the forest. Her bags, empty of everything but the most basic items, remained by the riverbank. Her notebook with its attached pen, however, remained neatly tucked into one of her jacket pockets.

There'd be plenty of time to kill Thea and Evie later and plenty more time to recover her stuff.

After she'd gotten herself a better weapon.

((Meredith continues in http://s10.zetaboards.com/SOTF_V2/topic/7307149/1/))

Alex had screamed as the stone had come crashing down on his arm. In his mind's eye he saw it in violent details, the bone shattering, splitting into shards, still interlocked, nessicitating another blow. He looked up as the stone was raised, gritted his teeth, before suddenly spying a small length of wood. He took it, placing it in his mouth and biting down on it hard. The stone came down again.

His scream this time was muffled as his teeth dug into the wood. He tasted bark and cold dirt. His head swirled.

Stay here. You have to stay here. If you shut your eyes, if you let it take you, if you sleep you'll die.

He thought about it for a second. Just shutting his eyes and letting it all go. All around him, chaos continued to swell. Three days ago, Alex had been full of faith. He'd believed in the capabilities of these people. He believed they could be good people. That there was a way they could all get off this island.

Now, even as the sword bit into his flesh and slowly began to remove his arm from his body, people were fighting, coming to blows over... he didn't even know any more. Was it that Pandora girl? Everyone kept calling her Meredith. I should have asked her to write me a letter before we did this. The thought was so obvious now, just a few seconds too late.

He concentrated on what was happening around him to try and avoid focusing on what was happening to him. Charlene was leaving. In a way that hurt more than anything else. He'd wanted so badly to save everyone. He'd known that if they could just work together they would find a way to beat the game.

Big if it seemed. Ever since Jonathan had snapped it had all gone wrong. The bullet, the infection, Hayley, all of it. Maybe there was no hope at all.

A tourniquet was knotted around the bleeding stump. Not enough. Alex had let a wound go untreated before. Didn't work out to well. He looked around at the people around him. Not one of you is going to help me, he thought to himself.

Evelyn was only a little shocked when Meredith swung at her like the insane psycho hose beast she was. She took no small measure of satisfaction when Thea popped the weird little goth right back. Jumping on the bandwagon, Evelyn fumbled around in her bag and quickly produced her issued weapon.

With all of her might, she hurled the boardgame as the deranged girl feinted at Thea. Not that Life fell anywhere near Meredith, but it was the intent that counted, right?

"You haven't a clue who you're fucking with, little girl," Evelyn called out as "Pandora" ran off.

'What a fitting name you picked for yourself. It completely suits you. You've been nothing but badness, just like your namesake.' Revenge still on the forefront of her mind, she eyed Meredith's posessions. There they sat, completely unattened and unprotected on the bank of the river.

Before she could finish what Sophia had started, Alex's muffled, agonzied screams registered. Evelyn turned towards the wounded boy just as Jason finished butchering his arm. Her jaw dropped in horror as she watched Jason half-assedly tourniquet the gushing stump, declare his part done, and start to leave.

Lips moving silently, Evelyn repeated a phrase several times as her emotional levels build up to near critical level. Jason started to leave, then stopped to yell for Thea to come see...whatever it was that he suddenly thought was important. Because, really, whatever was on the ground was OBVIOUSLY more important that the kid BLEEDING OUT because of HIS actions!

"Hey!" Evelyn roared, rage amplifying her beyond her usual projection capacity. There was no way he could ignore her now. It simply wasn't possible. "FUCK YOU, JASON! FUCK! YOU!"

She was so angry that she was shaking. How *dare* he go and dump this in their laps then try to take off. She and Thea had been against this from the get-go. He had no right to go and run off now. The coward. The absolute fucking coward. This was his mess. He had to see it through now.

"This was *your* fucking plan! You can't just leave him like this, you soulless prick! You cut off this kid's arm, and now it's all 'wham, bam, thank you ma'am'? Get your ass back here and cauterize the wound before Alex bleeds out, you Limey fuck! FUCKING FINISH THE JOB!"

((GMing approved by Beta and Decoy))

Thea watched in horror as Jason apparently lost his mind and started crushing Alex's arm with a rock. She cringed with each blow, and then, then the hacking began. What the hell is he thinking? How does he expect Alex to survive, there's nothing to stop the bleeding. That thought spurred Thea into action. She decided that what this crazy group needed was a leader and she seemed to be the only one who wanted the job. Looking around she started to gather what twigs and sticks she could find.

"Put pressure on his wound," she ordered Evie. "Charlie, get over here and help her out, find something to staunch the blood."

"No, you come here," Thea shouted, noticing now that Jason seemed to be trying to slink away after what he'd done. At the moment she had very little interest in what Jason was attempting to show her. "No, wait, look around there see if you can find any branches and twigs and bring them down to us."

Thea watched in satisfaction for a moment as the others actually moved to obey her orders. She dug into her own bag searching for something to light the fire with. Coming up with a lighter from the first aid kit she began to stack the branches she and Jason had found into a somewhat orderly pile. She glanced over to where Evie and Charlie seemed to be working together to put pressure on the wound. Hopefully he'd survive long enough for the fire to get started and hot enough to do some good.

She knelt down and placed the lighter at the bottom of the pile, praying that the fire would be as easy to light as it was on TV. A wide smile spread across her face when, on her third attempt, the branches caught. She blew on it gently encouraging it. Then she sat back to wait a few minutes for it to get hot.

"What did you want to show me," she asked Jason suddenly remembering that he'd been shouting at her about something.

((GMing of Alex Campbell approved by nowave))

If there was anything Jason should have been thinking, it was something along the lines of "I messed that one up." Weirdly enough, his anger at the fact that people were starting unnecessary fights led him to do exactly what he was yelling at Thea and Evie for. So, he shouldn't have been all that surprised when Evie got angry at him.

"Hey! FUCK YOU, JASON! FUCK! YOU! This was your fucking plan! You can't just leave him like this, you soulless prick! You cut off this kid's arm, and now it's all 'wham, bam, thank you ma'am'? Get your ass back here and cauterize the wound before Alex bleeds out, you Limey fuck! FUCKING FINISH THE JOB!" While the unusual circumstance of James's bag being left behind (without James around) had calmed him down, it had done less of actually making him less angry rather than just pushing said anger to the side. Evie's rant had, in essence, brought Jason's ager back to the forefront. Jason was about to come up with a cutting remark about how now Evie saw Alex's problem as vital (i.e. "Fuck you, you did nothing while I was listening to Alex's request.") when Thea stepped in.

"No, you come here. No, wait, look around there see if you can find any branches and twigs and bring them down to us." Jason rolled his eyes as he slung the second bag over his shoulder. While he wasn't aware that Thea and James were an item, he did remember James stating that he'd meet up later, meaning that James was either forgetful, or that something had happened to him (he was hoping that it was forgetfulness, although the announcement would reveal the truth of the matter), and that was important. He just searched for and found a few sticks and twigs and laid them out along with Thea, who took out a lighter and managed to eventually light the fire, when she finally displayed an interest in listening to what Jason had to say.

"What did you want to show me?" Jason looked around as he removed James' bag from his shoulders and showed the writing to her.

"This bag I found. It was issued to James. Meaning he might be around here. Hopefully." He put the bag down as he picked up the sword and held it over the fire for a couple minutes, making certain that it would function as hoped before walking over to Alex, Charlie and (sigh) Evie.

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Charlene hadn't been listening to Jason go on about how he was leaving, so she didn't immediately understand why Evie was screaming at him about being a dick for running out on the group, when Thea finally spoke up, ordering Evie and Charlie to help staunch the bleeding.

Finally, someone's not acting like an idiot. Charlie walked over to Alex, focusing on Alex's face as she pressed her hands onto Alex's arm next to the red (formerly white) T-shirt wrapped around the end.

"Come on, Alex, stay with me," she muttered, as the flow of blood slowed down somewhat due to the shared efforts of both Charlie and Evie. A thought occurred, momentarily, about how weird it was that she was carting him around when they probably never talked to each other at school. Had she thought about it more, she might have also come to the realization that maybe she should have gotten to know some of these people a little better (Alex did risk his life for her with no expectation of being her owing him anything).

That's what she would have thought had the sound of someone clearing his throat not snapped her back. Looking up, she saw Jason, holding that sword and motioning with his hand to move away as he removed the shirt. She was about to question what he was doing until he raised what was left of Alex's right arm from the ground and pressed the flat of the sword against the wound. The hissing sound and bloodcurdling scream from Alex was enough for Charlie, or anyone within sight of what was going on, to realize what was happening: the wound was being burned shut. Charlene quickly moved her hands away from the sword upon sight of the blackening flesh the hot sword was creating, both hurting and helping Alex.

Had she been watching herself on TV, she would have wondered why there were no tears coming to her eyes right now ...

((For those of you that don't know, I am Madelyn's new handler.))

Madelyn was confused. Scratch that, terrified and confused. It was already bad enough that Alex had gotten shot and was now rambling on about wanting his arm cut off. Now there was all this. With all of the fighting and yelling, it was as if everyone had gone mad (which she suspected some of them might have, especially the goth chick).

Madelyn had just stood by and watched in horror as everything unfolded. All of the yelling between everyone, then the girls trading blows with each other, and then Alex's arm being cut off. Oh god, especially the last part. Madelyn couldn't even bear to watch the agony, and even Alex's muffled screams made Madelyn wanted to curl up in a corner. It was also so terrifying, so unreal. Even if Madelyn had been brave enough to say anything, she wouldn't have known what to say.

So many thoughts were running through her head. She didn't know who to talk to, what to say, what to do. Madelyn needed an answer, someway to clear her head. So she did the only thing she could actually focus enough to do.

She bowed her head and prayed.

Things were starting to happen around him, but he was too far gone to care. His head was swimming, blood loss making it hard to keep his focus on anything for a single period of time. He caught snippets of conversation, bickering and arguing that eventually seemed to calm down slightly.

Idly his mind thought through the things he would never do again. He would never play his guitar. He would never roll a joint. He would have to learn to do everything with his off hand. He thought of trying to teach himself to write again. The disjointed scrawls that happened when bored experimentation made him use his left hand to write and he suddenly realised that that was all he was left with. He reflected on his own pacifistic nature. No choice anymore when it came to that. He was reliant, for now, on the kindness of others. He wondered how long he would last with his disability.

Charlene leaned into his field of view. "Come on, Alex, stay with me," He managed a pale half hearted smile up at her, showing he was trying. Even now, he couldn't bring himself to regret the decision. Taking the bullet for Charlene was not a clever thing. It was a stupid impulsive act, that he was paying the price for now. He didn't regret it at all. It didn't matter. Every name he'd heard read out, every death was his failure. As Charlene looked down at the severed arm, trying to staunch the flow of blood, he looked up at her. He didn't know her at all but at least her he'd tried to save.

He felt the shirt around his arm being loosened. He shut his eyes and held his breath. He would last as long as he could without screaming. As soon as the blade began to sizzle and cook and burn, he began to scream. His body arched and near convulsed, he felt someone, he didn't know who, push down on his chest to try and keep him still. There was nothing but the pain, nothing but the stump of his arm and the burning metal. Finally it was over. He breathed in harsh racking sobs, tears of pain streaming down his cheek. But he stayed awake. With the determined grip of a drowning man, he hung to conciousness in sheer desperation.

Evelyn was glad to relinquish her place to Jason. As vital as it was to slow Alex's bleeding, it was almost more than she could bear. Between the smell, the sight, and texture, she wondered what would happen first: vomiting or fainting.

This was not what she had signed up for. This was an avoidable situation that Jason had insisted on creating. Obviously Alex wasn't in his right mind if he was demanding people cut his arm off. Why on earth had Jason listened to him?

The sword sizzled as it came in contact with Alex's stump, and he writhed and screamed. Just like the other boy. The one who had burned to death. The same disgusting odor of cooking human flesh assaulted Evelyn.

Without thinking, she lurched to her feet and staggered several steps away, wretching and crying. She was helpless as several waves of dry heaves wracked her. As soon as the sensation passed, she staggered towards Thea, continuing to cry.

"Oh Thea, I can't do it again. I can't. Please can we leave? Please?"

Thea wanted to be sick. She wished Jason had given her a little warning, not that she thought it would help, but something. She quickly made her way towards a wavering Evelyn. "It's okay Evie, we'll go soon. Why don't you collect our things and those of my wayward boyfriend and I'll see what else I can do to help Alex before we go," she soothed hoping that giving Evie a task would calm the girl.

She took a step forward and knelt next to Alex. She dug in her first aid kit and offered him one of the tablets that had been in the packet labeled pain relief. "I don't know how much this will help, but it's gotta be better than nothing," she said. "We need to get this covered, but I'm not sure what to cover it with. Anybody got any ideas?"

At Jason and Charlie's blank expression, she let out a frustrated sigh and stood. "Something that won't get stuck in the wound once it starts to heal," she prompted. She scanned the area once more, nothing in the way of help. "So listen I'm going to head out with Evie, I'm going to try and distract her with looking for James. You can come, but no more burning and hacking, got it," she said looking at Jason. "You need to keep cool, if not for your sake then for Evie and Alex's."

She turned and headed back towards Evelyn who was weighted down with the three bags. "Got everything? I'm ready if you are. I guess I should really go see if I can't hunt up my boyfriend again," she said with a smile. "And maybe we'll keep an eye out for yours. I know I'll make you a bet, whoever finds their boyfriends first, gets a trip to Starbucks." Without a backward glance she took off with Evie in tow.

((Thea Kairos continued in Revenge is Best Served Cold))

((GMing of Alex Campbell done with permission from nowave))

One would think that Jason would be feeling like a prat at this point. Given his behavior over the past few minutes, what with hacking off Alex's arm, threatening to leave, making Evie cry due to her flashback of Daniel Vaughan's death, and almost making Charlie cry, although her experiences made it slightly easier for her to accept it. The thing was, Jason was still pretty upset at the idiotic fight that had occurred with the crazy girl (at least everyone could agree that Pandora whatever was bonkers - that was a small relief), so it would still probably take a couple hours for him to cool down enough to feel bad about anything he'd done.

"I don't know how much this will help, but it's gotta be better than nothing. We need to get this covered, but I'm not sure what to cover it with. Anybody got any ideas?" Jason just raised an eyebrow. He hadn't actually thought about that, namely because the entire idea behind covering up the wound in the first place was the same reason they burned it shut - to stop the bleeding. "Something that won't get stuck in the wound once it starts to heal?"

It was a good thing that Jason was there, because on that prompt, he immediately went to the first aid kit in his bag, and started rifling through. Mask, bandages, gauze, tape, antiseptic spray, lighter, gloves, scissors, tweezers, aspirin, painkillers ... Okay, so Jason was just as clueless on what to use as everybody else there.

"So listen, I'm going to head out with Evie. I'm going to try and distract her with looking for James." Thea then looked directly at Jason. "You can come, but no more burning and hacking, got it? You need to keep cool, if not for your sake then for Evie and Alex's." Jason just zipped up his bag in response.

Sure. Maybe you shouldn't have gotten into a dumbass fight we didn't need.

"Yeah. Got it." He then put his bags down, and with both his hands, pushed Alex into a sitting position and then lifted him up as Charlie grabbed a hold of Alex, supporting his weight. He would have helped, but (a) the only side to keep Alex up was taken, given that his other arm was only half there, (b) he was, at only 122 pounds, probably not going to be able to support him (actually, this was incorrect: Alex had, before the amputation, weighed 125 pounds. Jason was able to support his weight), and (c) his hands were full, with the sword in one hand, and his bags in the other (Okay, said feelings of anger were also affecting his ability to think properly). He then started walking, about ten feet behind Thea and Evie, hoping for better (i.e. less eventful) days to come.

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Charlie couldn't bear to watch the process of Alex's arm burning itself shut. Had she not been involved in the incident where Alex had received the wound in the first place, or noted when Alex's wound became infected, she would be in Evie's situation, puking and crying. However, the game was starting to take its toll on her - whereas she still couldn't bear to watch the process, it didn't drive her emotions into any range of emotional breakdown she looked away, screwing her eyes shut and trying to tune out that horrible scream. It wasn't until Thea spoke up when Charlene actually looked again. Look into her eyes. Keep them away from the arm.

"I don't know how much this will help, but it's gotta be better than nothing. We need to get this covered, but I'm not sure what to cover it with. Anybody got any ideas? Charlie was coming up with nothing. "Something that won't get stuck in the wound once it starts to heal?" Borat had decided to go through his first aid kit (a futile search - there was nothing there that fit the category).

"So listen, I'm going to head out with Evie. I'm going to try and distract her with looking for James." The next part she directed at Jason "You can come, but no more burning and hacking, got it? You need to keep cool, if not for your sake then for Evie and Alex's." Charlie smirked. That guy was just being a little prick right now, regardless of whether Alex was satisfied with the work that had been done (He was, in a couple hours, going to come off his high horse, although nobody realized it, and would most definitely be humbled when the announcement of James's death came up - a fact that nobody knew about yet). Jason, to his credit, agreed, and helped lift up Alex as Charlene picked him up on the left side, placing his left arm around her shoulders and helping him move forward, following Jason, Thea, and Evie. At the very least, things would be a bit quieter for a bit and they could all cool down.

((Jason, Charlene and Alex continued in Revenge is Best Served Cold))

Madelyn lifted her head up from prayer and saw that, luckily, the bloodshed was over. Evelyn was crying and vomiting all over the place before she asked Thea to leave, which Thea said they would do in a minute. That would leave only her, Charlie, Jason, and of course, Alex.

"I don't know how much this will help, but it's gotta be better than nothing. We need to get this covered, but I'm not sure what to cover it with. Anybody got any ideas?" Thea said.

Madelyn didn't have any ideas. Her mind was still swirling as she walked over to Alex and tried not to look at his stub of an arm. She felt tears coming, but she did her best to stop them. She didn't want to do this anymore. She just wanted to go home, away from all the killing, back to her family, to Sayumi...

Madelyn snapped out of her trance and saw that Charlie and Jason had gotten Alex into a standing position and had started to walk away. Not wanting to be caught alone, Madelyn quickly picked up her things and ran after them.

((Madelyn continued in Repercussions))

With shaky hands, Evelyn obeyed Thea's gentle suggestion and gathered the girls' belongings. It gave her something quiet, normal to focus on. Anything other than looking at Alex. Anything other than remembering the other boy....

She couldn't do this. She couldn't keep dealing with all this depravity, with this waking nightmare. She couldn't. She wanted to go home, back where people were sane and things were normal. A world with doctors and police and people who could make all the hard decisions so she wouldn't have to. The shaking in her hands had become a shuddering through her whole body. One of the bags slipped from her hand. Some poorly shielded makeup containers clincked and rattled about as they were jostled.

Evelyn guiltily looked over at Thea as she quickly scooped the bag up again. Hopefully nothing was broken. Thea wouldn't want to keep travelling with a basket case. She needed to be able to pull her own weight or maybe Thea would decide it was best if they went their separate ways.

You don't want to be alone, do you? Evelyn's poisonous inner voice inquired, its tone sickly sweet. Left all alone with no one to help you. Isolated. Helpless. Friendless. Abandoned. Unworthy.

She shook her head in a short, jerky movement. She would be good. She would pull it together. There was no need for anyone to leave her. She would be good. Evelyn tried to look calm and collected as the other cheerleader returned. She smiled wanly as Thea explained that they were looking for Nik and James. she tuned out the rest of Thea's comments as they started walking. Maybe that was all they needed to do. Maybe once they found the boys, everything else would be fine.

((Evelyn Reed continued in Revenge is Best Served Cold))