Survival Of The Fittest

"Hey Steve, you wanna get out of this chick's way? I'm off to find a better place to wait for the end."

Certainly sounded like a plan to Steve. Getting away from the nihilistic-sounding weirdo that couldn't stop breaking things sounded like a very good idea indeed. But all things considered, the fiasco at the beach in particular, he was more inclined to leave and go his own way. Never again did he want to feel responsible for failing to help someone that had been shot, or wounded any other way. He knew he was better off by himself, he'd attract less attention that way, and wouldn't put anyone else in danger. After all, he was quite sure it had been his fault Kimberly was shot in the first place.

"Yeah... but I'm gonna go by myself, okay?"

Not really a question, since he was doing it whether Scott was okay with it or not. Steve had already had quite enough of the stupid, dark, mirror-filled hell-hole and it's inhabitants. Going in there at all had been a mistake. So he too gathered up his stuff, and made for the exit. Off to pastures new, hopefully ones where he could just wait patiently for a sign of what to do next.

[Steve --> Break Up and Break Down]

Meredith used her staff to lever the remaining glass out of the mirror's frame, as she did so, she heard the other two boys talking. She opened her mouth to explain her actions.

"I-..." she murmured, but she was rudely interrupted by Scott.

Before she could even get a word in edgeways, both boys had called her crazy and left the mirror house. Meredith frowned and spread the broken glass shards across the floor. Fine then, let them think she was crazy. When the next group of students came into the mirror house, their shoes would cause the little shards to clink. And if they walked barefoot, they would have nothing to protect them from the sharp glass below.

Inwardly, she hoped that Scott would slice his hand on the glass piece he stole from her mirror house. Maybe after he fed his blood to the mirror, he would learn his own reflection could hurt and hurt him badly, just like her own reflection had hurt her when she saw it in the eyes of her peers.

"I am Pandora, the reflection that remains after reality turned hollow." She murmured to nobody in particular, "Perhaps the reflection will dissolve in the light. Perhaps it will not and become the reality."

The sentence didn't make sense, but Meredith wasn't looking to make any sense. She was looking to calm herself down, to feel better about things. Being "gothy" brought some sense of normalcy back into her situation. It was familiar to her and it comforted her. She bent down and gingerly picked up the notebook from the wreckage on the floor, shaking the glass off it as she did so. The pen was unharmed and the notebook wasn't damaged.

She reached for the doorknob, but pulled her hand back as a loud squeal from the loudspeakers startled her. Meredith stood stock still, listening numbly as lists of the dead were read out. As quick as she could, she scribbled the names and causes of death as Danya read them out. Then, she pulled out her map and, using the notebook as a base, carefully drew crosses on the new danger zones.

"The beast roars after he has fed. The beast will get no satisfaction from me today." She growled back at the loudspeakers.

Meredith thrust the notebook into an inner pocket of in her big cape-like vinyl coat, opened the door and stepped out, squinting, into the sunshine.

((Meredith continued on in Death at a Funeral. This thread is now CLOSED.))