Survival Of The Fittest

"AAAAAAAAAAAH MY FACE!"

"NOT MY FACE!"

"Not...my...face."

The face was a sensitive place for the bloodstreams within a body, a paper cut in the face area could already bleed like hell. Now, getting nails pressured into it also made it bleed. Heavily.

He was lying still on the ground, feeling the liquid, smelling the iron leaking from the face. And he could see...nothing. His eyes burnt. He couldn't see where he was. He attempted to stand up but then decided to stay on the ground. Didn't want to fall down the mountain.

"Fuck."

The nails impacted the upper area of his head, he closed his eyes on instinct but it didn't help when Aracelis pressured them into the nails. His mouth area was okay though. It wasn't like his mouth or cheeks were pierced. And he wasn't dead yet, so it didn't pierce through his skull.

Now, whether that was a good thing or not with the situation he's been put in, he wasn't sure. He wasn't in the best conditions right now.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! HELP ME! SOMEONE GET ME OFF THIS MOUNTAIN! BRING ME TO THE DOCTOR! STOP THIS GAME! BRING ME TO A HOSPITAL! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

Bethany had thought the sound of Przemek’s head being stomped into a bunch of nails was the worst thing she’d ever heard, and that it’d be the worst thing she ever did hear. Bethany thought wrong. The poor boy was still alive. And screaming.

She didn’t want to listen. She really didn’t want to look.

She had to do something though. A good person, a friend, someone who had been nothing but kind and courteous to her, was suffering. To stand there mouth agape, watching a good man in pain? It made her a coward. That’s what Beth told herself, demanding that she make a move and do something useful, and yet.

Yet Bethany Lyon didn’t know what she could do.

She looked to Ethan at first. For all her own sound and fury, he really was doing something, giving chase. He was brave. Then she forced herself to look on Przemyslaw. There wasn’t much colour left to drain from her features, much as the sight turned her stomach.

In a small mercy, he’d at least had the good sense to stay still on the ground. Beth didn’t think she could stand to see him fall to his death on top of everything else. Or maybe that would’ve been more merciful? The conflicting thoughts turned Bethany’s stomach all the more, and finally she could take it no longer. She staggered a few steps towards her maimed friend, turned slightly, and sank to her knees.

There wasn’t anything she could do, that’s what she decided to tell herself. What could an amateur with a first aid box do to fix that? That… that awful… that dreadful red ruin…

Beth slumped forwards onto her hands, and retched violently.

And right on cue, as if Przemek’s screams were a summoning spell, a series of loud footsteps rapidly approached the hot springs.

A moment later, a large girl came from the direction opposite of the direction Aracelis left, a silver revolver in her hand.

“What is going ON?” she yelled.

Ethan watched Aracelis sprint down the mountain. As much as he hated to admit it, this was the best possible outcome at this point.

And then he forgot about her, because there were more pressing matters to attend to.

"Please hold still," he told Przemyslaw, unsure of the other boy could even hear him at the moment. After dropping the ski pole, Ethan bent down and grabbed Przemyslaws's arms, which allowed him to more or less access the damage done by the baseball bat.

It looked horrible. Przemyslaw's eyeballs had been messed up so badly by the nails that "eyejuice" might have been a better descriptor. Between the liquidified eyes and blood were the marks of the nails still imprinted on the skin. The bleedings were only surface wounds that should be easy to treat. But nothing Ethan had on hand could bring back Przemyslaw's sight. Until they left the island, the boy was de facto blind.

Not letting go of his patient, Ethan half-turned to Bethany. "Be-"

Bethany was occupied with vomitting and clearly not in the mood to assist him.

But at the same time a new person joined the fray. Ethan recognized her as a member of the Betty Rangers, even if he didn't knew her family name. Keeping the Bettys apart had always been a challenge for him.

"Betty! He is very hurt. Bring me a medkit. Please!" He shouted as an answer to her question, hoping Betty wouldn't join the other girl starting with Bet.

What did he do to deserve this? Did he like Ethan? Yes, sure, he was a nice guy and all. Did he trust him enough to let him use a medkit on him?

Hm.

Przemek's voice was already weak through the screaming.

"GET AWAY FROM ME, YOU'RE HURTING ME."

And he waved his arms around, attempting to hit Ethan wherever he might be, hoping he'd get away from him.

"GET ME A PROFESSIONAL DOCTOR! P-P-P-PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEASSEEEEEEEEEEEE."

This was not going well.

Przemyslaw did not comply with the request. Instead, he started to trash wildly, escaping Ethan's grip. At this rate, Przemyslaw might end up worsening his condition by mistake.

Ethan retreated two steps, but kept crouched. His blind classmate was hitting in his current direction, so he carefully went around to surprise him from the other side.

Closing in on Przemyslaw, Ethan tried to grab the boy's arms again before something bad happened. "Listen, we can't get a real doctor right now. I know first aid, so I am the best shot you have at getting this patched. Please, just cooperate."

He threw a look in Betty's direction to check if the medkit was on its way.

It was at this moment that something bad happened.

One of Przemyslaw's random punches connected right in Ethan's face. Not having a good stand on the muddy ground, it sent him flying backwards.

Right over the edge of the plateau.

Before he had time to process anything, Ethan was rolling down a steep decline, getting scratched and bruised by the vegetation and stones on the way. Pain shot up everywhere and he was given no time to come up with a plan of action or even a coherent thought. All he could do was scream.

And then the steep decline transitioned into a free fall before Ethan's journey came to a messy end about 40 meters further down, his cry of pain and fear abruptly cutting of as if someone had closed the browser in the middle of a video.

Nothing came up. Try as she might, Bethany couldn’t produce whatever it was her body had decided no longer belonged in her stomach. Just a few thin, translucent strands of saliva mixed with bile. Later, perhaps she would realise how long it had been since she last ate anything, but at that point the girl simply retched and felt even more sorry for herself than before.

The exact specifics of what Ethan and Przemek were saying to one another were completely lost on her, but eventually a scream from one of them got her attention. Bethany sat back up onto her knees. By unthinking instinct, she produced a handkerchief from an inside pocket to clean her mouth. She looked up.

Ethan was gone.

Some new girl was here.

Ethan was gone?!

It took a moment to get through to her, to connect Przemyslaw’s mania, Ethan’s sudden screaming, Ethan’s sudden silence.

With some help from her trusty ski pole, Bethany got back up on her feet. She took a faltering step towards Przemek and the new girl. Familiar new face, of course she was familiar, but Beth’s brain seemingly had no interest in determining who she was just yet.

A scratchy nothing sound emerged from Bethany’s throat towards Przemek. She took another step towards him, then another, staggering on shaky legs. Tried to speak again. Retched again. Noticed the same ski that had smacked her in the head earlier, dropped on the floor.

“Przemek?”

The physical act of dry heaving had already brought tears to Bethany’s eyes. Now they rolled freely down her pallid features. She was in Hell.

“…please?”

Please what? Explain? Stop screaming? Stop being horribly maimed? She didn’t even know.

And Ty stayed in the same position she was in before Ethan fell: crouched down, holding the medkit. She’d slammed her bag down, rifled around, until she heard that scream.

And she’d looked.

And it was just in time to see Ethan fall.

Her heart had already been pounding from seeing’s Przemek’s face. There was blood everywhere, and it was disgusting. Who did this to him? And it all happened so quickly while she was looking for her medkit that he just… died.

Shakily, she stood up.

“What the hell…” she groaned.

Like, what do you even do here? Check to see if Ethan survived? Help Przemek? Fuck, she was supposed to be skiing right now. Not dealing with…

“Bethany… is Ethan… can you look? I’ll deal with Przemek.”

Admittedly, it would be harder to do what he did to Ethan just now with her, but she just watched three people die in the past day or so. Maybe just two. Hopefully just two. That was a weird hopefully, but it was a hopefully. A very dim one.

Yeah, sure, first aid. He wasn't going to trust some teenie to do anything to his face. Przemek could feel his fist connect with something. Then, he could hear a scream, then silence.

Przemek couldn't process what happened. He had a hunch to what happened, but he'd preferred if it was a different scenario. There was a simple explanation as to what happened.

Przemek stopped screaming and swinging his fists, and just sat there in silence. He had a bad feeling about this, everything still hurt but now there was something beside the physical pain straining him.

Was he responsible for-

No. This was Aracelis' doing. None of this would've happened if-

This was her fault. Even though he knew what happened, he was making sure to confirm Ethan's fall.

"What is going on?"

Tunnel vision, that was how Bethany would think about it later on. She was entirely focused on Przemyslaw, barely even cognisant of Betty asking things of her. Sure, she'd had a rude awakening not too long ago followed by seeing two people die, but something about that memory felt unreal, distant. Like it had happened to someone else, or in a dream, or it was a memory that someone else had convinced her she must've been there for, but she still sort of doubted had actually happened to her. But that morning, Bethany had very definitely watched Aracelis turn on a dime and brutally maim Przemek, then in his mania he'd pushed Ethan to what Beth was hoping against hope hadn't been his death. So paying attention to anything else came with quite some difficulty.

That said, she couldn't actually look at Przemek, not directly. Luckily, it didn't seem as though he was capable of spotting that, not any more. Morbid silver linings.

Before long though, he seemed to calm down. Probably not on her account, but it was something. He was silent for a moment, and Beth simply stared at the spot just ahead of where he sat, wilfully ignoring the indescribable mess that was the poor boy's face. Then he asked what was going on, and that seemed to pierce the fugue that had settled over the pious girl's addled mind. She blinked a few times, shivered violently, and finally regarded Betty.

The intimidating physicality of the other girl might've seemed welcome earlier on, when she'd had the dream of a peaceful little warm oasis, when having someone strong and trustworthy to help enforce that might've seemed like a good idea. Not so much now, not with the harsh reality of how little she could trust the godless degenerates she had the misfortune of attending school with had been made abundantly clear. That said, Betty did seem calm for the time being, and Bethany was still in too much of a state of shock to really act on her troubled thoughts anyway. Instead, some part of her subconscious told her to look where Ethan had fallen. Passive voice. Easier not to think of Przemek as having pushed him. Had Betty asked her to do it? She wasn't sure. She looked nonetheless.

A steep incline greeted Bethany's gaze, and she immediately looked over her shoulder as if expecting to be pushed as well. When she looked back, she saw little sign of Ethan's passage, let alone of his continued life. She saw what she thought might be scraps of clothing on the rocks that hadn't been displaced and the hardy vegetation that clung to the stony landscape, and discolourations that might've been blood, might've been natural. She didn't see a body. The sheer drop a few feet further on seemed to confirm her worst assumptions however. Still pale in the face and barely able to raise her voice above a breath, she turned back to the other two.

"He's," she gulped, becoming suddenly aware of how dry her mouth had become. Like she was dreading some test or some new ridiculous father-daughter bonding activity being proposed. How petty those kinds of dread seemed by comparison after only a few minutes on the island.

"He's fallen. I don't see him."

If she didn't say that Ethan was dead, maybe she could hold onto that last scrap of hope that he wasn't. That she hadn't watched a third person die already.

“He’s dead?” Ty asked, her voice raising.

She closed her eyes for a moment. Felt her fists tighten. That familiar blaze had filled her body, but in a different context. She’d placed the first aid kit down in front of her, open.

“Ethan is dead”, she repeated herself after opening her eyes.

Her lip curled.

She didn’t do anything else for a second.

“Okay. How the fuck–” she began, her voice rapid.

Maybe he wasn’t dead. Maybe he snagged himself on something. Maybe he fell on something soft.

“Look. Look… what even happened? What in the hell–”

She couldn't believe any of this.

"Oh god, Ethan is dead? What happened? Did he trip? Come on guys, tell me."

Przemek began sweating nervously. No, this wasn't his fault. This wasn't him, he only pushed him away from him, he didn't. Ethan was still alive, right? Ty didn't say he was dead, he was in bed. Or he went dat way, but she forgot to finish the sentence.

No, he heard it right.

"B-bethany, should we, uh? Pray for him?"

Ty said Ethan was dead. Or was she asking Bethany's opinion? Was that a question? Then she repeated it. No up-at-the-end, no implied question mark. That was on purpose. She wasn't asking any more. Then she was asking how. Bethany didn't want to believe what she'd seen, she didn't want to admit to herself that she'd watched Przemek shove him to his death. Because what if he wasn't that born-again good, wholesome boy she knew? What if he'd done it on purpose? She couldn't confront that. So she hadn't seen it happen. Przemek had been panicking, and Ethan had stumbled. No pushing. No manslaughter. Definitely.

Maybe that way she could still believe he'd show up further down the mountain, bruised up and alive.

But isn't lying a sin? Even to yourself?

Przemyslaw seemed in about as much disbelief as Bethany, at least. Then again, he really hadn't seen it happen. But much like Ty, he started accepting the reality of the situation pretty fast. That just left the one person at the scene who'd actually watched it happen, actually looked down the drop and seen how bad it looked, to rejoin the real world.

"I said," she snapped, angrily wiping away the tears that had stained her cheeks, gathered around her eyes.

"I didn't. See him."

Beth straightened up, put on her best brave face. Maybe she was in Hell, but it was her little corner of Hell to protect. Her hot spring. Her oasis. Not somewhere she was just going to accept her guests dying on her watch.

"We should go looking, before we start praying."

Except Przemek was sat there bleeding from his face. Problem.

"Which of us stays with Przemyslaw?"

Bethany didn't Ethan. Ethan's fine, until proven otherwise. This was Aracelis' doing.

Przemek stood up and very slowly tried to move forward, carefully sliding inch by inch.

((Przemyslaw Ziemak continued elsewhere))

She'd started the day telling herself to stay calm, to be composed, to trust the Lord's will. Where had that gotten her? She'd tolerated a viper in her midst, a boy was dead, another was maimed, and for her failures Bethany was left unscathed but responsible for picking up the pieces. Perhaps it was fair, she hadn't been of any use in the violence, she should be put to work in the peace? But in that moment, Bethany struggled to see any plan or any justice in her circumstances. As far as she could she, she'd tried to make peace, had a view towards establishing a safe place to wait out the nightmare, and instead the nightmare had come directly to her. Composure was a distant, distant concern.

Concern number one had become Przemek deciding to try to walk away himself.

"Fine!" she yelled to nobody in particular. To the terrorists, perhaps. Or God?

"Fine. I don't want to be here any more either."

Bethany stomped first over to where the rest of her skiing equipment had been strewn, picking up the other pole and the two skis. Waste not want not. Then she turned back to the blinded boy, and thrust one of the two ski poles into his hand. Blind people used those special sticks to feel the path ahead of them, she reasoned, and this was a close enough analogue. Then she tucked the rest under her left arm, used her right hand to guide Przemyslaw, and began the lengthy, lengthy task of guiding him down the mountain path.

[Bethany Lyon continues downhill.]