Survival Of The Fittest

Constance was ready and prepared for whatever Leslie was going to do next. She had it all figured out in her mind. Although she wasn't usually the type for planning, her plan for Leslie was relatively simple: shock him until he gave up her shit. It was an easy enough plan to follow through.

However, in her focus on Leslie, she left out crucial variables that disrupted the whole thing: the two other students in the room with her. In just a moment, she felt something solid smash into the back of her skull, followed by the sound of a sharp crack as her skull was cracked open like an egg.

In that moment, all she knew was pain. It was infinitely worse than whatever Leslie had done with the taser. This was an explosive, incomprehensible pain that permeated from the back of her skull down to the soles of her feet, making its way through every nerve in every part of her body. She staggered, dropping the cattle prod on the floor as she teetered backwards and toppled into a heap on the floor.

She grunted, not really comprehending what was going on as she felt the blood pooling around her head.

Eventually, Leslie found himself being able to move again, though he sure felt like staying put in that spot, or rather his muscles begged for him to. He grunted and pushed himself off the gross floor, snatching the taser on his way back up, and feeling his heartbeat every step of the way.

It didn't hit him what happened until he saw the cattle prod lying on the floor, the girl bleeding out of her fucking head near it, and the other girl standing over with the bat in her hands that made Leslie connect the dots on what that rust he saw on it actually was.

Heh. Heheheh. Hehehhehehehheheh.

"Y-you.... you...," his voice stammered out. He struggled to tell if he was more relieved or more terrified.

Was there a difference?

With a sound like a plate cracking Constance dropped to the floor. The impact of the bat on the back of her head reverberated through Aracelis' arms and her grip on the bat tightened to avoid dropping it. Aracelis hopped back in shock as the body fell backward. Her mouth hung open and her eyes were wide as the blood started pooling. She blinked a few times and then managed to tear her gaze away from the scene as Leslie scrambled back to his feet.

"I..." She started only to get interrupted by a grunt coming from the body on the floor. At the noise, Aracelis' heart fell into a pit in her stomach.

Slowly she turned her head and cast her vision back down to Constance.

The girl was still alive and still making noise.

"Oh god," Aracelis hissed, trying to hold down her body's urge to throw up.

Everything was so hazy. It was all so remote, so far away from her. Like she wasn't in Survival of the Fittest. Even the pain that had been so prominent was fizzling out into more of a background role. All of the remaining energy in her brain was going towards keeping her awake.

Constance made a few more grunts, a few more gurgles. She couldn't speak any actual words. She could barely see Leslie getting up, she could barely see Aracelis hunching over.

It was all so distant. The end was so close yet so far away.

Leslie couldn't take his eyes off the girl on the floor squirming about like a fish desperately struggling to not drown in air. Fuck fear or triumph or relief or panic or schadenfreude or whatever, now in this moment he really just felt pity. Yeah his gambit about gaslighting her seemed to work, but-

"...Shit."

He finally managed to pull away and looked towards Aracelis. He scratched an eyebrow with his thumb, wincing a bit at the lingering spasm on the side of his ribs.

"...Thanks."

He looked again at the body that hit the floor before returning to Aracelis. "I... th-think you got her good. Should probably-" he paused, one hand motioning in a circle before he found the words, "-put her down. Like a deer."

Once again Aracelis was filled with regret.

Constance wouldn’t stop making noise. She lay there body twitching, while grunts and groans came from her mouth. Aracelis didn’t understand why she didn’t just go unconscious. Instead she had to stand there and listen to the girls feet uselessly kicking. Once again she had managed to fuck everything up.

She stood there, breathing heavily with her mouth ajar as Leslie pushed himself back to his feet. He thanked her then turned his attention to the twitching girl on the floor of the room.

He suggested putting Constance out of her misery, which helped pull Aracelis back to reality. It was easy enough for him to suggest the idea. He’d nominated her to actually deliver the killing blow.

But Constance being dead was what Aracelis had wanted wasn’t it? She’d had all those arguments. Constance seemed unhinged, she and Leslie could have shared the loot, she’d already killed Przemek. Those were all reasons Aracelis had convinced herself with, but now, faced with a gurgling girl spasming on the floor she was having what felt like a panic attack. Her heart and her breathing wouldn’t slow down and she felt the edges of her vision going blurry.

Aracelis blinked a few times and slowed her breathing. She could do it. Her attention turned to Leslie momentarily.

“Y-yeah, you’re right.”

She had to do it.

Her vision fell back onto Constance as she raised the bat once again. Aracelis took a deep breath, adjusted her grip and brought it down on Constance’s head.

The sight of the baseball bat being brought towards Constance's head failed to register any sort of emotion from her, as it looked more like a fuzzy brown lump than something that could end her life. She stared upwards, looking at but not really seeing who or what would end her time on Earth.

All the same, time felt like it was slowed to a crawl, the fuzzy brown lump moving at a glacial pace rather than hurtling at her like a comet. Perhaps in another timeline where her brain still functioned properly, she would've used this time to think over her life, what she'd done, and what she wished she'd done, but alas, it was not to be. She could barely conjure up a few words, much less think about the ramifications of her past actions. It was a futile effort.

When the wooden bat connected with her skull, she felt nothing. When the bat kept going and crushed her frontal lobe, she still felt nothing. When the bat was lifted upwards, not only did she feel nothing, but she saw, heard, and felt nothing either. The last things her brain could manage were a final few twitches in her extremities. One last gurgle.

In just a few moments, she laid still and silent, the last vestiges of life having ebbed away from her now-motionless, soundless corpse.

S086: Constance Blanchet - DECEASED
12X Students Remaining

It had happened kind of fast for Joan. If she had been more prepared, as much as the situation allowed her to, she might have been able to speak up. To prevent things from coming to blows and keep things at only harsh language. Failing that, she could have tried to help Constance when Aracelis hit her with a bat.

Nope.

Well, maybe she had, but in all likelihood she likely hadn't raised her voice enough. Or she hadn't been able to finish it before Constance or Aracelis raised their voices again. The result was that instead of having prevented bloodshed, she had allowed it through inaction. All she could really do now was what she did: she took a few tentative steps forward, looking with some morbid fascination, getting a close look at the pulp that used to be Constance's head.

"Hrk." It was a very good thing that Joan's stomach was empty.

Christ on a bike. If they weren't cursed before, now they truly were. Leslie should've ran when he had the chance. Or just plain not come here. He didn't want anyone to die; he just wanted their stuff. He was a thief, not a murderer. But now here he was. He got someone killed even if she did kind of suck. He may not've swung the bat, but God didn't care.

What a mess.

His eyes refused to leave his handiwork until he forced them closed and bowed his head. He raised his right hand still gripping the stun gun and touched his forehead, his chest, and then the shoulders in a cross pattern.

When he was done, his eyes honed in on the scene again before glancing at the other girls with his knuckle pointing at the floor. "Should we... do something? With, uh, with... you know, that. Moving it or whatever."

As the bat connected with Constance's face a spurt of blood flew up and splashed into Aracelis' face. She flinched and recoiled back. As she did so the bat came free with a noticeable squelch and left a trail of blood on both Constance's hair and the floor. At the very least at least she had stopped making gurgling noises. But Aracelis' wide eyes and the ringing in her ears betrayed the effect the red ruin that now lay on the floor affected her.

She was snapped back to reality when Joan dry heaved from nearby. Aracelis shook her head and blinked a few times to clear her thoughts as Leslie spoke.

There was no way in hell she was touching it.

Aracelis began shaking her head even before Leslie had finished talking.

"No," She said, eyes falling over the broken and cracked red mass that sat where a face should have been. "I-" She gave up and let out a shaky breath.

"Give me a minute," She finally managed to say, stepping around the body to rest against the lockers on the same side of the room as Leslie. She leaned her head back and stared at the ceiling, trying not to see any more red.

Mmm. Well, so much for that.

...

Yeah. Leslie was just gonna go. Maybe the ghosts would call them square.

With a wince from a jolt in the side of his chest, Leslie retrieved the locker key from his pocket and stepped past Aracelis and returned it to its lock, revealing the bag inside.

"S- sorry, I'm just gonna...," he said to no one in particular, shuffling past the girls and out the door into the cold.

((continued on Day 2))

Aracelis watched as Leslie opened up the locker and pulled out Constance's bag. She had been right then. A small comfort.

She let out a sigh, made up partly of relief and regret. Then Leslie started leaving.

Aracelis blinked a few times as he rounded the other lockers and made his way out the way she had entered.

The ringing in her ears was still present and she stepped forward to follow him only to feel her shoe land in Constance's blood with a squelch.

Instantly she froze, her breathing suddenly rapid, heart suddenly running a race. Despite her brain fighting the movement of her head for every degree she looked down and saw what remained of Constance. Next to the crater of the girl's face was her left foot, the white tom shoe that covered it newly stained with a deep red ombre from the pool of blood.

For a second she remained there and then she was moving again, faster than a walk but slower than a run.

She followed Leslie out the door, leaving bloody left footprints in her wake.

((Aracelis Fuentes continued in The Holly and the Heavens))

If anything, Joan at least hoped that Leslie and Aracelis were just as affected by the corpse as she was. In fact, they were so affected that they left. Just left, in such a way that suggested they were ready to do what she had done. Joan could only give a shaky thumbs up in response.

"Yeah. Great idea."

That she had been alone for about a minute at this point was of little consequence.

((Joan Leaven continued in 36 Chambers))