Survival Of The Fittest

Karin was stunned into silence.

Was this... was this what it felt like to be believed, uncritically? To have someone back you up and take your side, just because? Was... was this how popular people felt all the time?

Karin had probably experienced uncritical belief at some point. Like, if someone asked her what time it was and she told them, they probably wouldn't assume that she had gotten the time wrong by several hours just for a laugh. (She had, in fact, done this several times, but that was beside the point). She was much more used to something a bit different.

See, nobody liked Karin. Nobody trusted her. Usually, the best she could get was a sort of baseline belief that was unaccompanied by sympathy. Like, yeah... people had heard her say that she got tossed by Victor or choked by Shannon or threatened by Josh, and their responses had been universally lukewarm. Why? Because it was Karin saying it. And Karin was a liar. And Karin was a bitch. Which meant that, for any given value of "it"," that Karin had it coming.

But now, someone believed her. Someone thought that something that had happened to her was wrong. Behind the sunglasses, Karin's eyes glistened a bit. Karin could have hugged Dani, if not for the fact that Karin was Karin and Dani was Dani.

She settled for a cool, casual nod. "Josh is a creepy pervert. He's an incel with a gun and a license to do whatever he wants with no consequences. He tried to get me to murder someone in exchange for food, too. If you see him out there, I recommend you run away screaming."

Karin thought for a moment, and then looked at Wendy. "I'm sure you would have helped if you had known," she lied. "So... let's just get along. We'll stay here, we'll shore up some defenses, and keep everyone else out. I'll watch your backs, if you watch mine."

With that, Karin lapsed back into silence. She had a lot of things to think over.

((Karin Han continued in Independence Is A Dead Stick))

((OOC: skipping turn order to exit))

“Get along… Sure that’s fine.” Dani said, moving further into the cabin. “I think I’ll find a place to warm up and rest. I’m exhausted from all this running around I’ve been doing.”

((Dani Bird continued in Me and Mr. Wolf…))

((Breaking order to leave))

All three of them had met Josh. Kaede was actually the lucky one in this. Either way, Wendy and Karin had decided to bury the hatchet for now. It meant that they could spend some time actually sleeping.

((Kaede Tsurumi continued in In spite of terror,))

Now that the situation had settled down, everyone could get some rest. Wendy still felt a little tense. She made sure to keep an eye on Karin, just in case. She didn't want to wake up to everyone here having their throats cut.

(Wendy Kennedy, continued elsewhere...)