Survival Of The Fittest

((Continued from the Makeshift Hospital))

Bathrooms. Wonderful, now I can wash myself of the idiocy that was clouding my judgement before. If I think that I'm going to be able to pass myself off as a mute girl from Canada, I'm probably as full of shit as Danya himself. Nobody's going to believe that. Not while there are terrorists around. McLocke and Rice are probably stupid enough to keep their outfits, which don't even work for camoflague anyways, but the kids aren't as stupid as perhaps I'd thought. Fuck!

As Angelina Kaige admonished herself, she stealthily crept through the wooded area that surrounded the bathroom complex. After she'd been engaged in combat with Chance Burton, she'd recieved a few bruises, nothing serious, but enough to make her regret the plan she'd come up with. She had to assume that everyone on the island was playing the game, and that everyone was looking to kill. By her own calculations, they were going into the latter half of he game, and while most of the students left were probably guilty of murder at least once, there would still be a few who'd be looking to escape. That had been how it always went. That'd been how it was with Aberthol. The kids who wanted to escape grouped together, and paranoia destroyed them all in the end. She'd have to shoot first, and ask questions later, but only shoot when the opportunity presented itself.

Getting closer to the bathroom facility, she paused outside as she heard voices coming from within. She heard at least two females, but her brow furrowed and her eyebrow raised a bit when she heard what one of the girls had just said.

"You're gonna undress me then?"

Blinking in surprise and then rolling her eyes as she realized what was likely going on, Angelina debated just creaking open the door of the bathroom and then rolling a grenade inside. It would be an easy way to take out however many people were inside, though if it were two teenagers who were stupid enough to try and have sex while on the island, she figured she'd probably let them finish before she blew them to high heaven. With a small grin on her face, she crouched down beside the door, below a bush, where she couldn't be seen, and listened.

She was weak again, and by her fight to keep wake, Angharad was weakening. Vulnerable, back in the same position as before. Xian sucked in on her bottom lip, finding her own wounds hard to ignore. Without the drive to cover the pain, the hole in her arm burned. The red bandana that had been tied around it had fallen off when she had changed into the Pullman outfit, free flowing the blood. It was nasty, sure, but not as horrible as what Angharad had to have gone through. Bullet after bullet had gone through the girl's body. Xian was unsure of where exactly, though that didn't matter. Her blood was enough of a sign that she'd gotten it bad.

Xian toyed with the knot she had made in the bandana she had tied around her head. It had been a fad in Barry Coleson High around the start of the year. Back then, the Chun girl wasn't one to jump on the bandwagon. Not until she had joined the cheerleading squad. It had been a pretty stupid idea. Kind of like the idea to drift into a flashback in a river of blood.

Blood... It's starting to lose its grossness. Blood and Xian had once been a touchy subject full of icks, yucks, and "eugh!"s. Now that she was here, blood had become as common as water. As terrible as it sounded, it was the truth. Swallow it, lick it off of someone, have a hard time cleaning the sticky crap off of your clothes; blood was the game's survival drink, innuendos aside.

"Undress you? Nah, maybe later on." Another terrible truth that could prove itself false down the line. "Angzilla, hold on a second with the helping crudola. I'd just like to say something to you for a moment, yeah, and what I'm trying to say is that you... You have such a way with words." The punctuation at the sentence was more of a question mark than a period. "I'm getting tired, and, sweetheart, I'd like it if you'd tell me a story we can sleep to." She smiled, wanting assistance in escaping from the pain. Preferably, an escape without heightened hormones.

Careful to avoid lying in blood (a harder task than one'd imagine), she lied back on the tiled floor next to her sweetie, humming the same song she'd been humming before. The generic "Rock A Bye Baby" lullaby, the way her mom always sung it for her. Too bad she had no music sense, so the tune was near unrecognizable.

"I'd love you if you'd do it, my deary 'zilla."

Grimacing as she listened to the antics of the occupants of the bathroom, Kaige realized that she was wrong about them - they weren't teenage lovers, but rather just two ordinary teenagers.

How boring...

Checking over her inventory, Kaige removed one of the concussion grenades from her pack. If she timed it correctly, she'd be able to toss it either through the window or into the door of the facility and then wait, hidden in the woods. That way, if the occupants weren't killed by the blast, then she could shoot them as they ran out, frantic due to the explosion. The facility wasn't all that big, either, so she hoped that it'd just take them out in one shot. Readying her rifle, Kaige looked around the wooded area, looking for a specific spot that she could camp out in. Glancing around, she saw that the area that looked right onto the front door seemed to slope down on either side of the path, providing a perfect hiding spot, and an ideal spot for some 'target practice', if the need were to arise. Looking around her surroundings, Kaige looked for something that she'd be able to jam into the door handle, something that might disable them from tossing the grenade right back at her. Slinging her rifle around her shoulder with the shoulder strap, Kaige bent down and broke off a large branch off of the bush beside her. It'd have to do, as far as that went, for she wasn't able to find anything that was immediately better than this.

Well, here goes nothing...

Stepping up to the door of the facility, Kaige gently grabbed the handle, and slowly opened the door a crack, just enough that she could pitch her device in and run. Holding her breath, she took the grenade that she held in her right hand, bit the pin off, and tossed it into the bathroom facility. Quickly jamming the stick into the door handle, hopefully enough to restrain the door for at least a few seconds, Kaige then took off in a sprint towards the ditch, almost jumping into it, and setting up her rifle, taking deadly aim towards the door of the bathrooms.

And now...for the moment of truth...should be off in 3...2....1....

((Beh. Sorry. ;__;))

Angharad groaned as Xian lay down beside her. Not that she minded singing particularly, but in a situation like this, the last thing she wanted to do was to serenade some stranger who had just spent a good part of half an hour molesting her. Turning her head away, she mumbled.

"I'm not much of a singer..."

Waiting for Xian to say (or, more likely, do) something in retaliation, she bit her lip and stayed quiet. But something else got her attention, something Xian couldn't possibly have any control over. Something had just whizzed through the door near her. And she could only assume that flying projectiles, especially in this game, never meant anything good.

Squinting her eyes, the 'thing' fell on the floor a few meters away from them. She hadn't been imagining it- there was definitely something there.

"Xian... did you see that?" she managed to whisper.

((I didn't know if you wanted Xian to try and escape, Kai, so it's kinda short ))

Did you see that?"

Rather than answer in words, Xian replied in respiration. She saw it and knew what it was on sight. Sydney had had some of the near same design, too. Grenades. No matter what the design, the objective of the item was the same. Cause an explosion. And, in most cases, explosions meant death. And death, in all cases, meant—

The girl rolled, going over Angharad and landing, smearing blood all over her new shirt. Shouting out something coarse, she backhanded the canister, watching it bounce underneath a stall. There was a split second of realization before Xian was able to remember about the main entrance to the Facility. The door. If there was one grenade, there would be more. Should've thrown it out there to return the present and stop the onslaught. The window at the very least. Xian looked over at Angharad, then back to the bathroom stall.

Inhale...
Exhale.

A wave of heat swam infront of her, singing her hair. Instead of the blind she had expected, everything was turning to a bright red. She only got to see the next part in still frames as the blast got stronger, destroying the stall and sending the rest of it broken and roaring outwards. Including her. She was ripped from the bathroom floor, legs kicking without a clue that they no longer were standing. Human beings have always wanted to fly on their own since the dawn of time. Now, Xian was doing it, skin peeling and all. If it weren't for her quick action, she would've just been limbs, so her hasty move hadn't been all for naught.

The boom carried her eastward and crashing through a window to the outdoors. Fire flared outwards above her, blanketing the darkening sky. There wasn't a chance for Xian to celebrate her luck. As soon as she was grounded, all her pain sensors kicked into high gear, more than willing to lay on the hurt.

First part of the pain to come alive was her leg. It had been broken off at the knee. The rest of it was nowhere to be found, most likely having been chewed off by the inferno. Saluting its fallen counterpart, her other leg started to vibrate from the burn, kicking out to shake off forgotten flame. The jean material was scorched, blackened, and melted to liquidating skin. She tried to stop the bleeding, but her left hand, sadly, came up a little short.

Her pinky and ring finger had been torn off by the bloody glass lying mere feet away. Blood squirted out of the new stumps, splashing up into the air and onto the low parts of her paling face.

Every heart beat brought new blood to swirl midair.
It didn't get long for her to grow delusional, keeping rythm with the beat of her heart to count bloodtime.

She was losing it. She was losing the game, right after the beginning of her new chapter.

Too fast...

Bits of hot shrapnel stuck into her right arm, blazing red and splitting skin. If not for everything else, she would've reached over and pulled the grenade fragments out to tidy herself up more. It was always good to die pretty in the face if you couldn't get pretty anywhere else.

"Pretty..." That'd be a tough feat when, by now, even the pretty ones were uglified with blood and murder staining their hands.

When it started to hurt to breathe, her eyes fluttered in and out of focus.

"I just hope we can survive, or be rescued somehow. I swear, if we are rescued, when I get back home, I'm doing all the things I want to do. Life is too short, and till now, my life has been cheering and social clubs. I'm going to be more daring, do more things, get more involved."

"Well, what's been stopping you from being more daring? Taking more risks, doing what you want to do? It doesn't matter if it's the unpopular opinion or view. As long as you're content with it, you should be able to do it, you know? Like what kind of stuff did you want to do but didn't?"

"Sure...you make it sound so easy...just go out and do whatever I like. I wish I could be that bold."

Changed a lot since then, didn't you, Xian? You sure have grown up.

Xian rested her eyes gently, wheezing out air. She didn't realize it because of the back-down, face-up position she was in, but most of her backside had been charred. If she moved, all the dead skin would flake off from under her, leaving pink flesh for the world to vomit to. It hurt enough as is. The extra bit of information wasn't needed.

Shuddering from the new world of pain, her eyes opened wide again. She glanced over at the grass, spying a large shard of glass nearby the glass that had chopped her. It had come from one of the mirrors, now broken and shattered. The reflective glass in the grass shined, clinging desperately to the cracked image of a scared, little girl.

N..n...no....no..not supposed to...play...noone should. I..i..its..not right, not right..

There was a monster in the mirror.

"I....dont wanna.....dont make me....I..I'm not a killer. P..please...l..leave me alone..g..go...away..far away."

There was a monster in the mirror whom had done horrible things.

"My fault...my fault.....I did it...I did it...I killed him."

The monster had killed not one but three. Sydney Morvran, Cole Hudson, and Vince Noir.

No... make that four.

The monster in the mirror had killed Xian Chun.

"I won't let you die in vain Cole... I swear it."

"I'm only interested in two things. Finding that Mr Danya, and slicing his throat, then finding a way off this island. I dont have time to play the damsel in distress, or listen to your little insightful speeches. Two boys got close to me, and I had to watch as those two boys died. I'm trying hard not to make it a habit of watching others die, so watch your step!"

We're different, so different, and I don't think you'll ever get a chance to realize that for yourself. One of us is dying, the other one is going to live, and, damn it, I'm going to see myself at the end.

Who was she now? She had been a kid before, a friend, an ally, and then, she was going to be the girl to see it to the end. Take down Danya, their problem source. What had she done, instead? Took her sweet time, traveling on a different path. It was on that path that she spiraled herself out of control until she didn't even know who the hell she was anymore.

I'm a monster...

She was the monster in the mirror. Cut under the eye, leg and fingers missing, burns and permanent scars; Xian Chun had done the about-face from what she was in the beginning.

"We're going to play a fun game. It's called Innocence Destroyer. You know how to play?"

You play the game by becoming the monster. Kill all what you once were to reveal the monster beneath. It was a scary game that everyone took part in, whether they were aware of it or not. Every action, every movement brought you closer to finding the truth about yourself. Humans were animals that used their power of choice in the wrong ways. Then, when their wrongs were exploding in their face, they tried one last ditch attempt at redemption.

Things weren't looking up for Xian. She knew this by the face staring back at her in the glass. And by the way her vision was blurring out again like a stubborn microscope. Beginning to feel the hurt again, she looked away from the mirror.

Time for the grim discovery.

"It would be quite ironic to kill me with my own weapon, but that is an irony that won't happen!"

It didn't happen to her and Cole's attacker, but it had happened to her. Stuck in her arm was the corkscrew, nice and bloody and full of vengeance.

"Seems like someone wanted to give me a handle, or...something. I mean, really...who sticks a guy with a corkscrew?"

"You got your just desserts tenfold, didn't you?"

"Didn't I?" The words came out with a bloody choke. Seemed like the explosion had managed to sucker punch her harder than she thought. Coughing out a pint of the thick stuff, she felt like the whole day had beat her up. "And I bet I deserved every moment of this." She hoped that the viewers at home were watching her closely now. "I've done my share of damage. I don't like myself anymore." The final syllables were drowned out, almost as if her body refused to buy into her words.

I should be sad about dying...
but, it's really okay.

Xian would go with the monster. People could get on with their lives. She was only one out of a hundred or so, the one with the lowest chances of surviving. I mean... A corkscrew given to one of the weakest out there?

Full circle revolution.

Angharad, Vince, Andrew, Cole, Tayli, Anya, Sydney...everyone... I'm sorry. Anghzilla, I hope you made it out okay. I really tried to change. I should've done it sooner.

She didn't allow herself to go into the fact that she could've probably saved her "friend" by leaping onto the grenade. She had done enough already. This was something that she was ready for. The end of her long story.

"I love you all. Winner, remember to finish what I wanted to do." Her voice wavered, lowering to a whisper when it should've done the opposite. "Get Danya. For me, for everyone. One for all and all for one." The meaning of Survival of the Fittest. The weak shall die and the weak is Danya. Get him.

Another cough and another screen blur. This was it.

Here I go.

She yanked the corkscrew from her arm. A whoosh of blood sprayed up, painting the area all around her. The artery had been severed. But, Xian didn't see it that way. She saw it as unplugging from the world and watching a so-so movie frozen on screen go dark...

Lights out.

G04 - XIAN CHUN: ELIMINATED.

((Adam... feel free to rip out my throat and stamp on it.))

It was an odd sensation. As soon as the grenade exploded into life, Angharad was hurled off the floor and against the bathroom walls, but by the time she had slid back down and lay in a crumpled heap, it didn't seem like anything had happened. She was still on the floor, she was still in a lot of pain... the only difference she felt now was the presence of some pretty bad burns.

Wincing, she tried to move, to turn over. To see who was responsible for the grenade, whether Xian had been badly injured... her ears were ringing and her face- something was running down it. Blood? Most likely, but she couldn't move her hand to check. She was completely destroyed.

She made to call out to Xian when she found she couldn't talk- in fact, she was having trouble breathing. Some of the grenade shards had been embedded in her throat, and while it narrowly missed her collar, it was still pretty deep into her windpipe. Her lungs were tightening and her face turning blue; surely she didn't have much time left now.

All in all, her time on the island had been pretty dreadful. From the little girl lost, to the murdering bitch, and finally the repenting sinner, Angharad had been through a lot. And as her story was finally coming to an end, she couldn't help but wonder what had happened if she'd played the game differently. If she'd stuck with Duncan, instead of killing him. If she'd stayed away from other people- if she'd never met up with Xian. Would she still be alive now?

Who knew? Angharad didn't have much time to contemplate as her lungs exploded, her face unchanging. It was finally all over.

_____________________________________

Back in the Welsh valleys, a lone figure was watching a television screen. It was late, very late in fact; being several hours ahead of whatever timezone the island was in, he was hunched up, in complete darkness, alone. A young blonde girl was slumped up against a wall, covered in blood and looking terrible. The figure balled up his fists as it was announced that she had died.

"Why?..." he whispered.

Standing up, he turned the television off. It had been the first time it had been turned off for days, ever since his girlfriend had been declared missing.

He hadn't been able to believe it at first. Angharad, on some terrorist reality TV show, with death, blood, gore and horror? It was one of those things that you never thought happened to you, but as Reese had found through hours of watching his girlfriend be tortured, shot and maimed, you could never assume something like that.

He'd kept hope, of course. She had made it pretty far, and there was a possibility that the terrorists would be captured, or Angharad could have won... but now...

Now she was dead.

And now he needed revenge.

"Danya... I'll see that you pay for this."

He swung his foot into the television set and it exploded, sending sparks everywhere. He would get his revenge, no matter what it took.

Girl #31 Angharad Davies... DECEASED

As Kaige watched the grenade go off with a resounding thunder, she couldn't help be amazed as the upper window shattered and a human body actually flew out of it, crumpled and torn. It was amazing, the damage that a single explosive device could do. Amazing, but immensely useful, especially in a situation such as this. Watching as the body, broken and bleeding, tumbled onto the ground, she took note that whomever it was was likely going to die, and soon. One leg was missing, a corkscrew was embedded in the arm, and blood was quickly pooling around her. Flames shot up from the bathroom facility, as the fire consumed the majority of the building.

More like 'ruined shell', as opposed to a bathroom facility. Crap on that, Danya.

Her sarcasm dripped through her mind and was as strong as though she'd spoken. Waiting, silently, peering through the stock of her rifle, she waited for movement. The girl on the ground bled to death, but still, she waited. The other person inside had evidently not been able to escape, for the building was aflame, and the absence of any movement seemed to indicate that death was busy at work, and with any luck, the playing field would be narrowed even moreso than it already was. Slowly standing up, Kaige hesitatly walked over to the corpse of the girl on the ground, that had flown out of the window. She was most definitely quite dead, the pale colour of her skin and the fact that she was missing a leg spoke to that. Without a hint of remorse at the damage she'd inflicted upon the girl, Kaige raised an eyebrow and turned, stepping into the trees, almost as though she wasn't even there in the first place...

((Continued in the...School Building (i think)))