Survival Of The Fittest

(Ugh. The short postness is contagious. D:)

Amanda did not lower her weapon. Not just yet. "Not if I fired behind you, it wouldn't." She retorted, doing her best to bluff. Amy couldn't tell why she was so hostile to this young man, but she'd have to stop if she wanted to avoid conflict. After a long pause, Amy lowered her weapon, setting it down, though she still stood, putting herself between Carson and Lulu.

"I'm not saying anything about that just yet. I don't trust you." Stop it, Amy, you're being a zealot! "What's your name?" There was no reason to believe he was telling the truth, but plenty of reasons to believe he was lying. Lulu was trying to be friendly, but Lauren and Anna just seemed irritated. Maybe it's not just me. "Oh, and before I forget, don't call my friends bitches. Me? Fine. But not them."

Maybe I should tell him. He might know something... Then again... "I can't say exactly what my plan is just yet, but if you could help with the search, I might be willing to start trusting you. Start, mind you." Her gaze on the young man hardened. "You so much as look one of us funny, I'll turn you inside out. Understood?"

((Ciel has requested that he be skipped for the current cycle of posts, and will rejoin the order at the next time it is his turn))

Nobody was fighting...yet. Hopefully, the situation would proceed better as time passed, but Lauren still wasn't quite ready to rely on hope to get the group through until the end of the day. She stepped a little closer to the boy, though still staying well enough away from him that he would have to move if he wanted to hurt her. The girl with the grenade launcher looked calmer, but as far as Lauren knew she could still be on a hair trigger.

"What were you issued as a weapon?" she asked. It was hardly the topic for starting a polite conversation, but it was important to know such things, and better that she ask him now then let things escalate and have everybody find out the hard way what could cause so much blood. The necessary thing in this situation was to keep the conversation going and the weapons down.

"Name's Carson Baye. All I've got is a corkscrew," Carson said. "Not the greatest weapon in the world, but I suppose it works. Makes me feel like Jason Bourne whenever I kill something with it," and with that he produced the bloody corkscrew from his daypack.

"Like I said, been hunting small game, not human blood, all that. What are all your names?" he asked, happy to see people who were alive and probably sane.

Lulu sighed as she realized the situation hadn't erupted into complete and utter chaos. It seemed like things were actually going along in a calm and simple manner. Just how Lulu liked it.

When the boy introduced himself, Lulu made a mental note of his name. Carson Baye. It was an easy enough name to memorize. When she realized his designated weapon was a mere corkscrew, she felt more safe. Thank god he hadn't been given anything more dangerous. Okay, so a corkscrew could be dangerous. But it wasn't anything she should worry about.

Lulu felt sick thinking about the animals Carson had killed. That was one thing she could never do. Kill an animal. Even if she were to be starving, she would rather eat grass or leaves. Suddenly, she was reminded of a book she was quite fond of. A Tale Of Two Cities. Her memory was blurry, but there was this guy who told the peasants to eat grass or something.

She wasn't hungry enough to eat grass at this point, but she would gladly do so, before killing an animal. She winced at the thought. "I'm..Lulu. How can you kill animals?! That's so..cruel.", She said. "Ewww...Please try not to do that. It's..sad.", Lulu said, feeling like she was about to cry. She couldn't help it, she was a softy for animals. She remembered a time when she had decided to be a vegan, but realized she liked eggs and chicken way too much.

A corkscrew? Well, at least they had the advantage, if he did become hostile. Lauren was apparently doing her best to keep the peace, and Amy decided to follow suit, despite the suspicion rumbling in her gut. "Amanda Redder." Amanda let her weapon fall to the ground with a dull thwumph. "Alright, Carson, I'm probably going to regret it later, but I'll give you a chance." With that, Amy let herself fall back onto her rear, nearly falling asleep. Woah. Where did that come from? Sure, she had been going for a while, but it couldn't have been that long... The last time she had gotten a decent amount of sleep was... Day four. Well, that explained it.

Amanda looked over sympathetically at Lulu. She didn't want to have to point out that it would be necessary to eat wildlife once their rations ran out. Instead, she looked back to Carson. "I'm sure you wouldn't mind dropping your corkscrew in the pile with the rest of the weapons, would you?" Amy's mind was going all over the place, a sure sign she was exhausted. She needed sleep, and she knew it. Everyone probably did, to some degree. "The game seems to be at a bit of a lull. As good a time as any to get some rest, I suppose. But we'll need to set up a watch schedule."

Anna wasn't in need of any sleep. She had been sleeping for hours a day, completely undisturbed. The jungle wasn't nearly as dangerous as she anticipated although she did find herself nearly stepping on a bear trap a mile back. She gave a bored sigh, looking around everyone. "I'll stay up. I'm the one with the most sleep in my system. Golly, you all look dreadfully tired. Let me keep guard, I can stay up." She sits upright, sighing again. She didn't want to admit it, but she was slightly tired. She turned to the male.

"My name is Anna. " she said in a surly fashion, giggling. "It's... a pleasure to meet you." She winked at him, turning to Lulu. "You might as well get some sleep too. We'll need all the energy we can get."

"I'll take the second watch," Lauren offered. She had managed to catch a few hours of sleep the previous night, and so wasn't too tired yet. She wasn't sure that she could sleep, anyway. More things had happened to Lauren in the past few hours than had happened in the entire rest of the game put together, and she was still wondering how some of them would turn out. Granted, just about everything that had happened to Lauren so far (with the possible exception of the appearance of Carson Baye) had been extremely lucky compared to what was happening elsewhere on the island. Come to think of it, there was still one last thing she had to take care of. She walked over to where Carson was.

"Hi, I'm Lauren," she said, introducing herself. "It's nice to have you here." This wasn't another half-afraid, half-annoyed greetings: this was genuine, polite Lauren. Other than that, though, she really had nothing to say to a rude boy with blood on his shirt, so she proceeded to a nearby tree and sat down with her back to the tree, facing the area where everybody was.

"Nice to meet you, Lulu, Amanda, Anna, and Lauren." Carson chucked his corkscrew into the weapons pile they had set up.

"I call third watch. I'll probably be awake by the time it comes around anyways, I woke up pretty late."

He made a mental note of the anime cliches the group fell into.

Amanda is a tsundere, I'd say. Bit trigger-happy, I might add. Lulu is probably a yandere... they say the nice ones snap the worst. Anna... I dunno, she's hard to pin down, maybe a bokkuko. Lauren seems to be the yamato nadeshiko type, he thought.

He dropped his daypack down and lay down next to it.

"Tell me when you need me to keep watch. If I'm asleep by some miracle of nature, wake me up," he said.

He pulled his DS out of his backpack, turned the volume down, and started playing Contra 4.

Lulu realized that everyone was setting up a sleeping schedule. One person would keep watch and the rest would sleep. It sounded like a good plan. A great plan actually and unlike the others, Lulu hadn't gotten much sleep in the past few days. A few times she'd nod off but those horrible stress-filled sleeps weren't very fulfilling. She kept having terrible nightmares in which she was running, but kept slipping and falling. She could never keep from slipping. In a few dreams, she had lost her glasses.

Maybe there were flaws in this system though. Perhaps the person keeping watch would run off, leaving them defenseless if danger came. Or maybe the person keeping watch would kill them off. I mean, all the weapons were sitting in a heap for all to look at and take.

Despite the chances, Lulu was far too tired to care. If she were to die, she would rather it occur in her sleep, where she wouldn't be conscious enough to be aware of her dim situation.

"I..I guess I'll keep watch last.", Lulu offered. That sounded like a big job. Everyone would be counting on her. The mere thought made her shake with fear. She wanted to act like a spoiled child and shout, "I don't want to!", but contained herself. This was no time to be picky and choosy.

Grabbing her bag, she set it down in a nice grassy area. A good place for sleep. This bag would make an adequate pillow. Before she lied down, she glanced over at Carson. Playing a Nintendo DS in this situation?! If it were Lulu, she wouldn't even be able to focus on the game. Her shaking hands would probably hit the wrong buttons and she'd get seven game overs. For some reason, she couldn't take her eyes off of the DS. It was just so...strange.

Amanda was grateful for the change of focus, and how smoothly setting up watch had gone. "I guess that leaves me fourth." And fifth. Lulu was staring of into space, a sure sign of exhaustion. Amy had decided to take over her watch before she really even realized there was a problem. Maybe her own sleepiness was giving her some kind of prophetic clarity, or maybe it was just lu-

Amanda fell asleep mid-thought, leaning forward, still in her cross-legged sitting position. She would be sore when she woke up, but that wasn't a concern at the moment. Her mind and body needed rest, and had taken the first real opportunity that presented itself. Her breathing slowed, having entered the deeper stages of sleep in record time, oblivious to the world.

(OOC: I was going to let this topic sit and wait until I get back, but I don't think that would be fair to any of you. I have an eight-hour shift today and I won't be able to post. If you guys want you can go ahead and I'll post when I get back. Sorry for the wait guys!)

Unsurprisingly, it was rather hard to fall asleep. The rain made everything wet and uncomfortable, but the game itself was more of a factor. Even in a large group full of trusted people, someone could easily surprise and overwhelm them if they caught the majority of the group sleeping. Lauren didn't want to even consider what would happen if the attacker were one of them...

Since it seemed like everybody was going to take turns watching, Lauren didn't worry too much about getting some sleep before it was her turn. There would be enough time for that afterward, and she knew that it would just be her turn before the sleep would have a chance to do her any good. Anna was taking watch right now and seemed competent enough, so Lauren took the time to simply relax. It wasn't as good as sleep, but it would be nice to have a chance to get her mind off of things and not have to worry anymore, right?

Wrong.

In a game where everybody could be an enemy and the cost of getting anything less than first place is death, there are no safe thoughts. Thinking about the game always leads to worries about the future, thinking about the world brings utter despair. There is no difference between the nightmares of the sleeping and the thoughts of those who are awake.

Was Lauren the only one who was afraid? It couldn't be, but nobody else seemed to be that troubled by it. How? How could they sleep quietly at a time like this? Lauren's previous 'sleep' had only happened after two days of wandering around hopelessly. Moving about had let her keep her mind busy. What could she do now?

She needed to talk to someone, but there was nobody to do so. Anna was keeping watch and couldn't be distracted, and everybody else needed their sleep. If only there were someone to talk to. If only there were something to do other than wait for morning to come, complete with its own set of bad news. If only Danya could have picked some other school to torture. If only...

Carson was still awake; he hadn't exactly been lying about waking up late. He decided Contra 4 was getting a bit boring for the moment, and that he needed a break; plus, eyestrain was about to set in and that would be bad when he had to keep watch. He put his DS back in his daypack.

He noticed that Lauren was, by all appearances, awake. He moved a bit closer and saw that she was, indeed, awake. He sat down next to her.

"Hey, 'sup? Can't sleep?" he asked quietly, so as not to disturb Lulu, Anna, or Amanda. He was generally blunt and tactless, but he knew to tread very, very lightly around Amanda lest he die by grenade launcher, and it wouldn't exactly be in his interests to disturb the other two.

Anna was finding it fairly easy to keep herself awake. Her eyes had rings around them, but her eyes were wide open... well, as wide as her eyes could go. She sat on the grass with her legs crossed over one-another. She let out a soft sigh. ... Oh dear. I wonder how long I'll last in this game? I hope it's longer than most people... that would make me supremely happy to know... though the thought of such a thing is depressing to say the least.

Anna looked over at Lauren and Carson who, by all means of the word, awake. They were also talking up a storm but this was a detail Anna cared not. She gave the two of them a smile. She spoke softly as to not awaken Amanda neither.

"Ahh... I see that neither of you could fall asleep. Indeed. I guess we've just adapted to this climate... I suppose." Anna had a habit of rambling in circles, which was obvious to see.

Lauren was moderately surprised when Carson moved to sit next to her under her tree. Her first impression of him hadn't been that of a person who would be very social (at least, not very social with a bunch of girls whom he had never met before). Maybe her impression was wrong... or maybe it had been a hope. Hope that Carson's rudeness was due to inexperience in dealing with other people. She didn't want to think about what would happen if he just liked to be mean for the fun of it.

She quickly abandoned that line of thinking. It came to close to resurfacing all of her fears again. Talk about something, anything... did she have anything in common with Carson? Anything that could be used as a conversation, as a distraction from reality.

"I got some sleep last night and this morning," she said in responce to his question. "I'll manage until I've finished my turn taking watch. What about you? You're taking the shift in the middle of the night, so shouldn't you be getting some rest too?" She prayed to god that he would take the question rhetorically. The last thing she wanted right now was to be left to herself again.