Survival Of The Fittest

"It's not your fault, this kind of shit has been happening since we got here. There's nothing we can really do except hope it doesn't happen to us, or we find a way out before someone tries."

Alba mentioned that it was about to rain, and it got Jonathan thinking. Should they bring Danny outside, or should they find a spot inside the house for him?

"Yeah, we should at least cover him up." Jonathan opened the door behind him.

"He's down the hall." He walked inside and looked at the group.

"If any of you don't want to see him, I understand. It, well it's not a good sight..."

Brendan glanced up at the sky. It really did look it was going to rain like Alba just said. It would be a good idea to get inside quickly. He looked back at Candice. He would have trust her for now. She wasn't trying to do anything bad. So he was going to let down his guard a little.

Just make sure not to freak out when you see the body, Brendan. You don't want the others to think that you will do anything irrational..... Right?

Brendan made his way inside and he listened to Jonathan speaking about what to do with Danny. Jonathan was trying to spare them the site of seeing Danny's body. Brendan thought that was sweet of him to do, but he didn't want to let Jonathan down. He wanted to be someone that the others could rely on.

"I.... I'm not going to change my mind, Jonathan. I'm going to help you." Brendan nodded his head lightly and then he stared down towards the hallway. "Even if.... if it is a gruesome view. We could move him into one of the rooms. Would that be okay for us to do?"

He could feel a lump in his throat. But he forced himself to hold back his tears. He could cry later on. If he had the time to do so.

"I guess we are going to stay here for tonight?" He stared at Jonathan with questioning eyes. He guessed in a way that Jonathan was the leader of the group in a way.

"Yeah, one of the rooms might work," Alba said. "We can hoist him onto a bed and cover him with a blanket. Then we can, I dunno, find a place to hole up until the Radio Tower opens up again."

Alba looked at the door. Danny was supposed to be nearby, and that it might be gruesome to see. Alba clutched the rifle in her hands. She had already seen someone die and it was already pretty bad. She didn't know how bad Danny was right now, but she had to do right by him. She would want someone to do the same if she was killed here.

Alba raised the rifle a bit.

"Um, I can check it out first. You know, take charge and all in case someone's lurking. So, stay a bit behind me."

Alba walked past Jonathan and into the door he had opened. She hoped to get this done quickly so they could then talk about their plan.

Candice silently followed the others into the building.  As was to be expected, the inside of the building was just as trashed and run-down as it had been when she had last been there a few days ago.

She wasn't quite sure that she wanted to see Danny in whatever state he was in, even more now that she had heard that it was apparently pretty bad.  Rather, it wasn't that she didn't want to see him, it was that she was afraid that she probably wouldn't be able to handle seeing him.  For all that she and Mia had been unable to accomplish anything together, they'd apparently done a pretty good job of staying away from fights.  Consequently, her experience with dead classmates so far had been exclusively limited to hearing names on the announcements.

Candice was briefly tempted to take the offer to sit this one out, but in the end it just didn't feel right.  She'd already promised to help, for one thing.  Like, literally a minute ago.  And on the more self-serving side of things, it would probably be better to find out now if being around her classmate's corpses was going to cause her to freeze up or vomit or run away screaming in horror, especially if the other option was finding out that she couldn't handle it when somebody was in the process of shooting at her.  But most importantly...

It wasn't like Candice was particularly close to Danny.  It's not like they were best friends, or even regular friends.  But still, it kind of shitty that he'd had to die out here, and even if they hadn't been friends the least she could do for a classmate was give his body a bit more respect than the person who had killed him.

So they could leave him on a bed, that'll work. But what if someone walked in there, expecting refuge in one of the rooms?

"We might have to put something on the door, just so people know that wouldn't want to walk in there, maybe?" Jonathan had just realized he could've came back to Barry, maybe brought him to somewhere that wasn't a cold wooden floor.

"Maybe we could wrap a bed sheet around the door too? I don't know, I think, I think we should give him some privacy after we find him a spot."

They were getting close to the place now. That corridor that only took 30 seconds to walk through seemed to feel like an eternity, like it would have taken him a week to really consider what was currently happening.

Alba decided she would go in first. Jonathan decided that'd be okay, she did have a gun.

"Alright, just lemme open the door."

Jonathan slowly crept the door open, looking back at the others. He didn't remember closing the door, but he felt like his mind was going blank at different intervals, like he couldn't focus. He almost forgot he had to get them off the island.

"Again, if any of you don't want to look, that's fine. It-It's not good in there..."

Brendan could just about see into the room. Seeing Danny's body suddenly made him regret wanting to help. To see the blood..... He couldn't handle it. He almost passed out on the spot. He could felt the bile in his throat but he swallowed it back down. He was starting to feel a bit shaky.

"I..... I can't...." He was stammering and his grip were starting to loosen on the weapon in his hands. "....I can't do this.... I can't stay here.... I....I'm sorry, I'm s-s-sorry...."

He dropped the grenade launcher onto the ground. He then turned around quickly and he ran off, leaving the others behind to deal with Danny.

He only had a few words on his mind.

You are a coward, Brendan.

((Brendan Harte continued in How Can I Take Off This Mask? ))

Alba walked down the hall and reached the room where Danny was supposed to be. She inhaled and exhaled quietly, keeping her grip on the rifle. Jonathan had talked a plan to deal with Danny's body, and to mark the room.

"Yeah, or we could mark something on the door. Something that tells people a body is inside. Like 'Dead Inside' or something."

Alba peered into the room. Danny was lying there, his chest a horrid mess. Alba froze, her face frozen in an forced smile. It was a lot like Bradley, but somehow much, much worse. Alba felt everything go silent as she peered in, only for that silence to be broken by Brendan.

Alba's smile vanished as she saw Brendan drop his new weapon and run away. Alba gasped.

"Brendan, wait!" she shouted.

Alba ran over and picked up the grenade launcher and ran after him. It was slightly awkward to run with two weapons and her bag bouncing on her back, but she kept going.

"Come back!"

Alba hurried after Brendan out of the dorms. They couldn't get separated from one another again. It was bad enough losing Bryony, but she couldn't lose Brendan so soon.

((Alba Reyes continued in How Can I Take Off This Mask?))

As the other two ran off, Candice briefly considered whether she should follow after them before they got too far, but quickly decided against it. It's not like there was really much that she would be able to assist with in bringing people back. Besides, if she went there'd be nobody left to help Jonathan.

"Just let me know what you need me to do," she told him. "Or, uh, would it be better for us to go after them. Will they manage on their own?"

"Let's just... Let's just help Danny first."

He wanted to pretend that Brendan and Alba leaving didn't hurt. It did. There wasn't much they could do about it though, they were already gone, and Danny was still here.

Jonathan moved into the room and grabbed some extra bed sheets.

"They might come back, we should wait here until tomorrow, maybe?"

--- --- ---

Even a day later, they still hadn't come back. Danny had been wrapped up with the spare bed sheets, then placed underneath the covers on the bed. Jon took the remaining sheet and tied it around the doorknob, so people would possibly know to not open the door.  They probably wouldn't come back. Either they were in trouble, or they simply found an idea they liked better.

Either way, it didn't matter until he found them. They weren't coming back.

That meant there was no point in staying.

((Jonathan Gulley continued elsewhere.))

When the others failed to return, Candice found herself wondering if she should have followed after them.

Ah, but then Jonathan would've been left alone.

Well, even if Candice wasn't satisfied with the result it wasn't something that could be undone.  And well, as far as screw-ups went, it didn't even come close to being the worst one she'd made in the past day.


At any rate, they had gotten done what they needed to do here.

Maybe if they went out and searched, or just even from wandering around, they'd run into each other again.  Hopefully, this time they'd be able to meet up before it was too late.


((Candice Banks continued in Welcome to the Madhouse))