][

[Shiola]

Henry cocked his head, before nodding at Nick’s rather obvious observation.

“None taken, I’ve been told I’m travel-sized.”

The joke felt flat, but Henry said it more out of reflex and a desire to be anywhere but where he was, than a sincere attempt to make anyone chuckle. He looked and saw the remains of his erstwhile companions leaving the area, with Jonah leading the way. Did they care that he wasn’t coming with them?

Not my problem. They're worse off, then. I have other responsibilities.

As much as he felt compelled to follow them, he knew he had a duty to Beryl; and perhaps most importantly, to Nick. Henry could tell he was still not entirely phased back into reality, and he’d need some direction to navigate the next few hours. Probably the next few days, depending on whether him or Darlene were publicly credited with Beryl’s death.

Henry retrieved the Big Fucking Gun from his bag and again looped the makeshift sling around his shoulder. With this own supplies packed up, he motioned to Nick who gently shouldered Beryl’s body.

“Alright. If I recall correctly, we’ve got a bit of a walk that way through the woods until we reach the coast. I’ll take point.”

Henry realized that what they were doing wasn’t strictly rational, but he knew it to be necessary. Resisting the Arthro Taskforce couldn’t just mean not killing people. That wasn’t enough. Nick had killed Beryl, but he did so out of mercy. His actions stood in opposition to the selfish, cynical worldview Henry was sure people like Danya held. Survival couldn’t be their only goal. If they did so without trying to at least hold onto some shred of humanity, they were just proving the point that modern society was a flimsy film holding back a sea of barbarity and that everyone was just a selfish coward deep down inside. The last thing Henry wanted was to validate whatever garbage “we live in a society” philosophy that motivated these monsters.

Leaving behind bloody bandages, shell casings, and a dark spot on the leafy ground, the three of them set off for the coast.

Day 2 – 2:30 AM

“Good luck, and be careful."

Henry signed off, leaving Camila to whatever horrors might await her on the south end of the island. He hoped for her sake she heeded his advice, and kept him as informed as possible. Leaving Nick out of the conversation felt a bit wrong, but he wasn't certain the other boy really wanted to talk.

Stretching out his legs, he stood back up and brushed loose gravel from his trousers. The two of them had taken a short break after their journey - it had taken quite some time to actually get Beryl to this end of the island, and the dense forest hadn't made it easy. As soon as this was all over, he'd hoped to find somewhere safe to discuss their next move, and sleep. Nick's day tomorrow was certain to be far more difficult than Henry's. Part of the reason it'd taken them so long to reach the coast was Nick's despondency, manifesting in muttered bouts of self-loathing and the odd outburst. He'd done all he could to help keep Nick's spirits up, but he supposed the only person who might truly be able to help him was himself.

I can't say whether or not he has the strength to. I hope he does.

The coastline wasn't exactly a beach at this point, so much as it was a jagged rocky crag with a few isolated pockets of gravel that were simple enough to traverse. The white foam of the waves stood out in the starlight, and Henry was pleased to see the familiar points of light illuminated far beyond anything he'd typically see back home. If the weather kept up like this the next evening, and he found what he was looking for at the yacht, he supposed he'd be one step closer to actually doing something about all of this.

Beryl lay in front of the two of them. The blanket made it only slightly easier to remember she wasn't actually there anymore. At least, it had for Henry. There he saw a corpse - all Nick seemed to see was a reason to think his life forfeit. Henry hoped when this was over, things might look different to him.

"Alright, how do you want to do this?"

[Kermit]

((Michael Froese from the Art Exhibition))

Michael Froese died that night.

Not physically; but mentally, he was done.


He was something else now.

____

It was about twenty minutes after leaving the Art Exhibition that Michael decided to stop looking for Bert. Bert had made the decision to walk off into the woods without supplies. It was her problem.

Out of everyone he knew was still at the Exhibition, Michael figured the only one who wouldn't be broken during the next few days was the girl who's name he didn't know. He didn't - he didn't want to be around that kind of suffering.

And so he kept walking.

He kept track of the time by the hourly beeping of his pod. It helped keep him grounded.

Over and over and over, it kept dawning on him that he was going to die during the next two weeks. Morgan was going to die and Clay was going to die. But Beryl, if she made it physically, she'd survive mentally. He held on to that hope.

At some point, he heard voices. He heard gunshots. The gunshots were regularly timed and the voices sounded... okay. Michael thought one of them might've been Beryl's voice, but he flattened himself to the ground to avoid being accidentally shot. The gunshots stopped for a moment, but the voices continued. Michael sat up slowly.

Then there was one singular gunshot. Screaming. He fell back to the ground, holding his gun tighter than anything he'd held before. He shook and there were tears flowing from his eyes and he knew he'd just heard someone's death. He hoped it hadn't been Beryl. He hoped he hadn't even heard Beryl's voice; that it was someone else's.

He heard someone yell Beryl's name. Everything else was indistinct.

He wanted to scream but he was in too much pain so he didn't do anything except sob and quietly choke out sentence fragments like "I can't" and "I didn't" and "I'm sorry".

Eventually the yells and cries stopped and the voices became quiet. Michael stayed where he was. He lay there for another hour. His pod beeped. He sat up slowly. All he could hear was the forest. Whatever had happened was well over now. He stood up and began slowly walking in the direction of where the commotion had come from. He kept telling himself he hadn't heard Beryl's name; that he heard someone yell 'Barrel', like a gun barrel and not the person.

He arrived at the scene of the crime. There were shell casings everywhere. Different calibers. Bloody bandages lay next to a large dark spot on the forest floor.

Michael knew it was a pool of blood. For a second he thought maybe the person who'd been shot survived and had left, but then he noticed the blood hadn't just spread over the ground but had soaked into the ground and he knew living people couldn't bleed that much blood. When he looked closely, he could see two distinct splotches joined together; that meant two wounds, either fatal. A trail of blood led away from the main pool. Someone had moved the corpse. Someone had lost someone they cared about. Why else move the body?


He pieced it together. A timeline of events.

Initially, there were multiple people shooting guns without intent to maim or kill. The first batch of shots, the initial voices, and the variety of shell casings all evidenced it. Michael figured it was probably group gun practice. There weren't really any other reasons why so many people would be shooting unmaliciously in one spot. It also made Michael feel confident that the voice had meant 'barrel' as in 'gun barrel'.

Then a pause in the shots. The voices were still relatively calm, which meant the shooting hadn't stopped because of a threat. There was probably some kind of group discussion.

Then one fatal gunshot. The initial wound. The wounded fell where they were shot, and they never got up. They were still alive at this point. The gunshot had been an accident, or at least the group had thought it was an accident. If it had been fired with intent to kill, there would've been more blood, more bodies, and more gunshots.

Then chaos. Screaming. Crying. A boy shouted "Barrel" (or "Beryl", but probably "Barrel"). Someone had tried to patch up the wounded, but they stopped for whatever reason. At some point after that, someone inflicted a second, more immediately fatal wound. A mercy killing. The weapon was silent - not a gun. Melee. Something sharp; bludgeoning wasn't a mercy.

Chaos faded. The group dissipated. Someone who cared about the deceased moved their body.

Then an hour passed. Michael arrived. Then now. The present moment.


Michael followed the trail of blood. He needed to know.


____

He followed it well into the night. He held a flashlight in one hand and the gun in the other. The trail got harder to track as the blood dripping from the body coagulated and the drips became further spaced out, but he persisted. He almost gave up, almost called it a night, but...

...he needed to know.

He needed to know.


Eventually he heard voices. Michael shined his flashlight toward them. Though he stood behind them, he recognized one of the figures as Henry Sparks, who he'd roomed with during the trip, and the other as Nick Ogilvie, one of Beryl's exes. There was a figure lying on the ground, covered by a blanket. Their feet stuck out from beneath. On the blanket, he could see two distinct splotches joined together.

That was them.



Nick Ogilvie cared about Beryl Mahelona.

A deep dread began to bubble in Michael's stomach.


He needed to know.


"What hap-" he began to ask, but then he noticed something that paralyzed him.

The person on the ground - the feet - those were - it was wearing -

Those were Beryl's shoes.


He choked back a scream. His eyes widened, unfocused, staring at nothing. He knew.

He knew.
He knew.

He knew and it broke him.

And he knew it.

[General Goose]

Nick could only nod at Henry's travel-sized quip. Nick tried to smile or let out a perfunctory chuckle, anything to reward the admirable effort, but he couldn't summon up the energy to commit to that, at least not in a way that didn't sound sardonic or manic. Just to acknowledge that a one-liner had been attempted, that there was no real expectation to find it funny, but that Nick wanted to say that he appreciated the attempt at earnest conversation and friendly banter. Henry was short. That was a nicer thing to think about than the fact that Nick literally had Beryl's blood on his hands.

Only a couple of days ago, Nick's thoughts about Henry's height could be summed up as 'oh, he's short. That's hot. Size differences are hot'. Now, he was having to think about how Henry's height made it impractical for him to carry Beryl's corpse. That was...such a ludicrous thought to have, one that Nick was pretty sure was irreverent and disrespectful in some way, but still. It was an apposite thought. He couldn't think of something that so adequately encapsulated how he felt, how he had been forced to change in such a fundamental way by the sheer shock of being thrown into this spectacle. Nick would have expected some change. But it should have happened over the course of a few days. The mistrust and anger, the hopelessness and despair, would take a few days to sink in, to steadily accumulate.

But no. Because of an accident, because of an idiot with a gun, because of him, Beryl was dead. He was probably the first killer. He was probably the reason any hope of reconciliation or peaceful resistance crumbled away. He had given the terrorists their narrative. Given them their villain. The terrorists had laid the stage, and Nick had gotten the ball rolling, and as bad as he felt about the big picture stuff like that, at least he could put his grief there into words. What he couldn't describe was how bad he felt about killing Beryl. About living in a world where Beryl no longer existed. Sure, he'd...acknowledged, if not accepted, that soon his life would not have her distinctive presence, but at least she would still be there. Existing. Living.

And now? Nope.

Henry set off. Henry led the way. Henry was in charge now. That was good. Anyone not named Nick had a much better claim to authority, to leadership. Nick paused. The blanket helped. He was sure that Henry had intended the blanket out of respect, maybe for ease of carry, maybe something like that. But it helped Nick. Helped him forget the fact that he was carrying Beryl's body. Not often, no. But as he set off walking, there would be a stray second - one in a thousand, maybe - where he forgot that he was carrying Beryl's body, that she was dead, that Nick had killed her.

------

Nick had a breakdown along the way. At least one. It was possible - probable, even - that he'd had a series of mini-breakdowns, each one where Nick tried some new way of punishing himself for his transgressions, before Henry somehow pulled off the magic trick of getting Nick to calm down. But it was also possible that it'd been one big breakdown, where Nick swung erratically between new lows, Henry getting no reprieve and no pause in his effort to keep Nick focused on the task that they shared. The details were foggy. Nick remembered the sensations he'd experienced, could feel all the bruises - both physical and emotional - but the details, those trivial and fleeting details, were not retained by his memory at all.

At one point he was pretty sure he punched a tree. His knuckles were grazed, the skin scratched and abraded with marks that looked ugly and uneven and from the result of a punch that wasn't even thrown right. He couldn't remember why. He was scared that he'd thrown Beryl's body on the ground to enable that fit of pique, but he hadn't. He'd known that much. He had placed Beryl's body on the ground, respectfully, maybe for another purpose such as a toilet break or a rest, before each of his tantrums. Nick knew that much. It was a small comfort, but a big relief.

One of his rants had been selfish. About how people saw him, about how people would blame him, about how it was unfair for one person to be loaded with so many obnoxious and contemptible personality traits. About how he was selfish - so, so selfish, like he was always was, blind to how there were millions of others, dozens of others on this very island, with greater cause and more right to complain than he had. About how he didn't deserve the right to vent. About how Henry, who was kind and sweet and smart and decent, was clearly having an episode of madness because why the fuck was he wasting so much time on Nick, why the fuck was he treating him with a sort of common decency that Nick didn't deserve?

But Nick kept at it.

For Beryl. For Henry.

Because he was too much of a coward, too much of a hypocrite, to actually kill himself.

Because Nick had nothing else to do.

-----

When they reached the coast, Nick was blunt. He had a message. An important message. One that he couldn't deliver through tears and through shouting, one that had to be spoken calmly, authoritatively, with meaning and as much indication of rational thought as he could muster. "Henry...just so you know..." Nick swallowed. He'd convinced himself it would be so easy to say this. Had chosen every word, picked out every syllable, hoped to summon all his charisma and showmanship and salesmanship in a way that would not leave any space for coherent disagreement.

"If someone tries...killing me for what happened to Beryl...if it's Tristan or Nia or Jeremiah or Myles or Ivy or whoever...don't stop them." He didn't mean to imply that Nick was worth saving. Just that Henry seemed like the sort of guy to try and save the worthless.

Not wanting to give Henry a chance to respond, Nick looked out at the sea. "I guess we could kick our shoes off and carry her out a few feet into the sea, then let her go." The more he thought about it, the less appealing an idea it sounded. Maybe it was because he was hearing it in his own voice.

And then came Michael. Michael, a physical representation of all the hurt that Nick had caused.

He looked at Henry, silently pleading for him to intervene.

[Shiola]

Henry had more or less expected that to be the case, though he was wary of letting Nick continue with him out into the sea. He knew at some point the collars would start to beep, to warn them they were straying too far. Henry knew what that sound meant – a chance to know his enemy. It was something he wanted to be familiar, so he knew what to watch out for.

To Nick, though? It might’ve been a way out. It was too easy to imagine the other boy taking her body well past the point, and slipping beneath the surface of the water before a muffled detonation sent red bubbles streaming to the surface. Turning one sea burial into two of them. No, Henry couldn’t be so naïve as to let that happen. They’d all already suffered one too many lapses in vigilance for one day. He turned away from the ocean and to Nick.

“Nick, I think it’s best if I go alone. We can’t leave our stuff unattended out here, someone could take it while we’re out there. I don’t think Beryl would want us to throw our lives away.”

He said enough without actually saying what he truly meant. It wasn’t as if anything he was saying was untrue, it just wasn’t the primary reason he didn’t want to expose Nick to what the other boy would no doubt see as an end to his suffering.

Henry saw Nick staring off in the distance, an alarmed expression overtaking his face. He looked for himself to see a figure approaching them. The Punt Gun was nearby, though he didn’t move to grab the weapon as he recognized the other person almost immediately.

“Michael!”

Henry couldn’t help but break out into a sad smile, which fell from his face quickly as the pieces fell into place in his mind. Michael hadn’t finished his sentence, but his face said enough. Henry knew little of the relationship between the two, but he knew enough to know that Michael and Beryl were well acquainted.

In the last few hours he’d discovered enough about Nick’s state of mind to know that explaining what had happened fell on Henry’s shoulders alone.

All Henry wanted to do was find some way to comfort Michael. Some way to assuage the grief that had bedeviled Nick across the island and told him he was worthless; that same grief which kept telling Henry that he was somehow responsible for what had happened, too. He wanted to give Michael a hug, or tell him that he’d found a way off the island, that they’d all be rescued. That Beryl hadn’t died for nothing. That it wasn’t because of a stupid accident that anyone could and should have prevented.

All I have is the truth.

The one instinct that overwhelmed all of the others was that he couldn't ever lie to his friends or embellish the truth. Even if it made things easier, even if it hurt less. So he told Michael all he could. As he did so, he found himself unable to hold onto his own composure despite a herculean effort to do so.

“I’m so sorry. Beryl’s dead. A gun went off by accident, some girl named Darlene - she didn’t mean to. I was there, I saw her fall. I tried…”

He glanced at Nick, then back to Michael, hoping in vain that his words weren’t drawing out more pain in the other two.

“I tried my best to save her. I really tried, Michael. She was shot in the chest. I thought at first all we had to do was stop the bleeding, remove the bullet. I tried my best, I was right there… I was there with her the whole time.”

Michael seemed to be shaking. Henry continued, knowing this was the only chance he had to say what he had to.

“It’s just… It was bad. She was paralyzed, and she could barely breathe. We didn’t have any other choice but to end it. I don’t think she was in any pain. The others just left us. Nick and I were the only ones who stayed with her. We thought… we’d carry her out there.”

Michael started to cry. Henry struggled through the last of his explanation.

“…so that she could rest somewhere that wasn’t the island.”

With nothing left unsaid, he walked over and held the other boy, who was seemingly inconsolable. Michael’s legs seemed to give out from underneath him moments afterwards, and Henry tried his best to let him gently to the ground.

He wanted desperately to tell him that things were going to be okay, but Henry couldn’t lie to his friend any better than he could lie to himself.

[Kermit]

It was Beryl's blood. He'd been following Beryl's blood.

He'd been looking at Beryl's blood - no, not just her blood; it was - it was part of her physical being. And he hadn't even fucking known it. That was really what got him. The bloodstains he'd analyzed so callously were Beryl.

Henry said something. A greeting. Michael's name. Michael didn't react. He couldn't.

He'd taken his meds when he first woke up but they'd worn off now and now he was feeling everything and he couldn't focus just on one feeling and every feeling hurt

And then Henry started explaining what had happened.



“I’m so sorry. Beryl’s dead. A gun went off by accident, some girl named Darlene - she didn’t mean to. I was there, I saw her fall. I tried…”

Then one fatal gunshot. The initial wound. The wounded fell where they were shot, and they never got up. They were still alive at this point. The gunshot had been an accident, or at least the group had thought it was an accident. If it had been fired with intent to kill, there would've been more blood, more bodies, and more gunshots.

“I tried my best to save her. I really tried, Michael. She was shot in the chest. I thought at first all we had to do was stop the bleeding, remove the bullet. I tried my best, I was right there… I was there with her the whole time.”

Then chaos. Screaming. Crying. A boy shouted "Barrel" (or "Beryl", but probably "Barrel"). Someone had tried to patch up the wounded, but they stopped for whatever reason.



Darlene

Fucking Darlene. Christmas girl from choir. The girl nobody knew. The least interesting person in existence shot the most interesting person in existence.

He shook. He couldn't stop shaking. Opening and closing his mouth, trying to say something but unable to form words.



“It’s just… It was bad. She was paralyzed, and she could barely breathe. We didn’t have any other choice but to end it. I don’t think she was in any pain. The others just left us. Nick and I were the only ones who stayed with her. We thought… we’d carry her out there.”

At some point after that, someone inflicted a second, more immediately fatal wound. A mercy killing. The weapon was silent - not a gun. Melee. Something sharp; bludgeoning wasn't a mercy.

Chaos faded. The group dissipated. Someone who cared about the deceased moved their body.

Then an hour passed.



Michael's mind was screaming.

He knew Nick was the one who mercy killed her. Nick looked like how Michael felt.

Michael'd never seen a real corpse before. He'd closed his eyes tight when the teachers were killed. He'd chickened out at funerals.

It hurt.

He couldn't hold it in anymore. He made a noise like he'd just been stabbed in the gut and scrunched up his face and he couldn't stop crying and shaking.



“…so that she could rest somewhere that wasn’t the island.”

Then an hour passed. Michael arrived. Then now. The present moment.



And then Michael arrived. Now. The present present moment. And he'd been right about everything. Everything except what actually mattered.

"I know what happened." he said shakily.

and he looked at Beryl's broken corpse.

and he quietly choked out the word "Aloha", silent enough for nobody to hear him. It meant hello and goodbye. This was both in the worst of ways.

They would take her out to sea. A burial at sea. It sounded like what she'd want. It was what Michael wanted.

She was gone. Beryl was gone forever.

Michael felt someone's embrace. For a second he thought maybe it was Beryl and she'd been pulling a prank and everything was okay but then he realized that was stupid. It was Henry.

He wailed and went limp. Convulsed. He hit the ground slowly. Softly. Henry kept hugging him on the way down.

"I - I'm - when - I didn't - it's my fault." He didn't know how to talk anymore. "I just - I..."

His voice calmed momentarily.

"...I need you to bury me at sea when I die."

She was still gone. Beryl was still gone forever.

His hands shook so hard he lost grip of the pistol and flashlight. He felt like he was dying.

She was gone forever.

She was the only person in the world who ever really well and truly understood who Michael was. Michael himself wasn't really sure who he even was. He could be sciencey and goofy around Morgan and sad and bitter around Clay, but the only time he felt safe and emotionally accessible and actually okay was when he was alone with Beryl. He even felt on edge when he was by himself.

He couldn't even be himself around himself.

Beryl... she was his emotional support human. She was kind and inherently free of malice and judgement and she was carefree but in the best way possible. She could be a bit... wacky sometimes, but it had just dawned on Michael that she was that way because she was okay being herself. She was okay with being happy. She was everything he wanted to be, and when he wasn't with her he was too scared to be like her and just be okay. And only now was he realizing just how much she meant to him.

Only now was he realizing just how much he loved her.

and her mind had just faded into nothing. All her thoughts, all her dreams, everything she ever was - she may as well have never existed.

and it was all his fault. It was all Michael's fault. He could've stopped what happened. If he'd actually walked towards the gunshots, maybe his presence alone would've changed events enough to save Beryl's life. Instead he'd just hid in the bushes like a coward.

He felt like his head was going to explode. He felt like he was about to vomit out all of his blood. It hurt. Everything just hurt.

[General Goose]

Nick knew MIchael. Not especially well, but he was a known quantity. Michael was part of Beryl's life, part of her eclectic circle of friends, part of what Nick could only imagine was her support network after he took her for granted and treated her like shit one time too many. Michael was another person that Nick supposed could kill him with due cause and due justification and everyone who knew both Nick and Beryl would venerate Michael as a hero when the announcements came. That much was obvious.

But Michael's mind didn't seem to be thinking about justice or vengeance, and instead he responded with sadness, and Nick had gotten so caught up in thinking about himself like the selfish bastard that he was that he'd forgotten that, yes, the appropriate reaction to this situation would be despair and alarm over Beryl's death rather than a desire to make Nick join her. Even when he was being self-loathing, Nick was a fundamentally selfish guy.

He didn't know how to comfort Michael. Michael was taking the news badly. Which, again, was appropriate. Henry was taking point on comforting him, on giving Michael all of the harsh realities, on doing everything that Nick was too much of a selfish coward to do himself.

Nick took advantage of the distraction. He wasn't sure why, but something about Henry's desire to take Beryl into the sea herself struck Nick as...prohibitive. Stifling. Like it was designed to cut off choice for Nick, like it was about Henry protecting him with a paternalistic fervor that was probably, all things considered, completely justified, yet Nick still found it suffocating regardless.

So while Henry and Michael focused on anything but Nick, he kicked his shoes off. Rolled up his trousers. Gently folded up his socks and placed them into his shoes. An odd time to be concerned about his appearance - dirt and sand and blood and grime already sullied his clothing - but it seemed like an important thing to care about at a funeral. Which was what this was. What it should be.

He walked up to the two. "I'm...ready to take her into the sea. Whenever you guys want me to. You guys can stay behind and watch the stuff."

[Shiola]

Henry gently let go of Michael. He sat next to the other boy and listened to the few words he could get out. Blaming himself much as Nick had. Much as Henry was just barely managing to not. A brief moment of alarm struck him as he felt something metallic digging into his leg, only to look down and see a gun. The one Michael had just dropped to the ground.

Could it have happened again?

He tried not to waste too much energy speculating just how likely it was that they'd experience another death via accidental discharge of a firearm. Or how stupid he felt for not noticing it immediately. Gingerly he picked up the handgun, noted that it wasn't cocked, and placed it on Michael's bag.

Is that really wise?

Michael needed it. Henry needed Michael to feel like he needed it, not to let his self-worth sink to the bottom of the ocean with Beryl's corpse. As Michael mentioned wanting to be buried at sea, Henry shook his head.

"I'll remember that. I promise you I will. It shouldn't be for a long, long time though. This... this isn't your fault."

This isn't my fault.

"There is only one person to blame here, and it sure as hell isn't you, or Nick, or me. This all falls squarely on-"

Danya.

Interrupting his attempt to bring Michael back to the surface was Nick, who seemed all set to carry Beryl off into the ocean. It was clear enough that he wasn't going to take no for an answer. They'd been especially close, after all. It made sense. Regardless, Henry couldn't shake off his earlier suspicions that Nick might decide it was a one-way trip. Henry pulled Nick aside.

"Okay. I'll stay here with him. I have no idea how long it'll take before it goes off when you reach the perimeter, so once you reach it you have to be quick."

Putting a hand on Nick's arm, Henry tried his best to get as much of the other boy's divided attention as possible. If he thought he was being too selfish in his actions, if that was the manifestation of his guilt for Beryl's death, then Henry would give Nick a chance to prove otherwise.

"I need you to come back, Nick. I can't do this alone. Please be careful."

With that he let go of Nick's arm and left him to his task, while Henry moved to resume his own.

[Kermit]

Michael wanted to grab Beryl and never let go. He wanted to hug her and never let go. He wanted to sink with her. He wanted her to drag him down. He wanted his body to rot next to her body.

But he didn't even know how to swim.

But Nick did. Nick would grab Beryl and never let go. Nick would hug her and never let go. Nick would sink with her. She would drag Nick down. Nick's body would rot next to her body.

Henry talked. False reassurance.


Michael hadn't killed Beryl.

Nick had killed Beryl.
He cut her throat open.
That was one of the scariest ways to die.

and yet Nick -
and yet he got to do this
he didn't deserve to do this
he didn't deserve Beryl
he didn't deserve to rot next to Beryl

Nick.
Fucking Nick.
Michael knew the dirt
Nick was Beryl's ex
Michael knew the dirt
Nick and Beryl had fucked
Nick had been inside her -
NO
NO
No
no
no
no
stop
please
Stop
just
Michael couldn't
it hurt to think about
oh god
and Michael knew about Sierra
and he knew the dirt
and he knew what happened at prom between Beryl and Sierra
and he knew about the
the rebound thing
and
and Michael wanted to be Beryl's rebound.
he couldn't
please just
he wasn't
he couldn't
he needed to be her rebound
he wasn't her rebound
he needed to be her rebound

no
no
he needed her to love him like he did her
he needed her to devour him spiritually
no
NO

Michael couldn't let himself think of Beryl like that.
It was selfish.
It was disrespectful.
All Beryl was was his crush
reacting like this over a crush was stupid
he didn't even know if Beryl even actually liked him
he was stupid
no
no
it wasn't just a crush
it couldn't be just a crush
he couldn't let her be just a crush
because she was dead now
because letting her be just a crush diminished her memory
because letting her be just a crush would make it hurt even more

Beryl was dead

Nick -

Nick had - Nick had killed Beryl. He killed her but it wasn't his fault. He killed her because he loved her. Michael wouldn't have done any different. Dumb shit Darlene probably wasn't really even at fault when it came down to it. Really, Henry's implication was right. It was Danya's fault, but Danya was an abstract concept now. Danya didn't matter.

There was no guilty party. There wasn't anyone Michael could hate for what happened. He needed someone to hate and he needed an outlet for his emotions but

but the only positive emotional outlet he had was dead and she wasn't coming back

Michael couldn't stop crying. He wanted to slam his fists into the ground and scream and never stop screaming. He wanted to point his gun at his own chest and shoot and never stop shooting. He wanted to gouge his own eyes out. He wanted to push Nick to the ground and stomp on his head until there was nothing left. He wanted to set himself on fire because the feeling of every single nerve in his body being destroyed would be better than what he was feeling right now. He -

He wanted Beryl to be alive and he wanted her to be home and he just wanted her to be okay

and it was tearing him apart that it took her dying to finally get him to see how important she was

and he loved her so much and it was making him physically sick and

and he was broken.

He was never going to feel okay ever again and he knew it

He hurt more than he had ever hurt before in his life.

He felt more than he had ever felt before in his life.


He inhaled sharply. He needed to say something. He stared into the waves, his mouth half-open, shaking and emitting staccato chokes.

And he sat up.

And he looked at Nick.


His voice quivered. Talking was hard.

"Nick, don't blame yourself. I was there. I was maybe fifty feet away and - and I could've stopped it before it all happened. I'm as responsible for this as you are..." He trailed off. "I would've shot Darlene. I would've shot Darlene, then Beryl, then myself, probably. You're a better person than me. The fact that this is tearing you apart is proof you're a good person, and -"

He pinched the bridge of his nose.

"- and I think - I think I loved her. I loved her too."


He didn't know what he meant when he said 'love'; if it was romantic love or a deep, deep platonic love, or something else. Maybe for him, they were all the same thing.


and then Nick took Beryl out into the sea.

and then Michael would never see Beryl ever again.


He felt better for a moment. Suddenly it comforted him that Beryl died as she did most things in life: accidentally.

He closed his eyes; focused on the sound of the ocean. It
the sound brought him back
and he wanted to sink into the ground
and the sound brought him back to the moment when the feelings now boiling over first began fomenting deep in his subconscious.
Back to the aquarium.
Back to when they were at the ctenophore tanks.
Back to the exact moment when she touched his hand and made everything feel okay.
Back when she told him that there was nothing wrong with him.

He felt like he was having an emotional seizure. Everything hurt. It still hurt. He didn't know if it would ever stop.

He wanted to hold her hand. He wanted to hug her. He wanted to kiss her as long as she was okay with it. He just wanted for her to be okay.

All he ever wanted was for her to be okay.
Whatever it took.
He just wanted her to be okay.
He just wanted everyone to be okay.

He knew nobody he gave a shit about was okay right now. He knew they'd never be okay again.

He wanted to wade into the ocean. He wanted to wade into the ocean and not come back. He wanted to feel the burn of his lungs filling with salt water. He wanted to feel every cell of his body be crushed under the weight of the sea.

He wanted Darlene to feel the pain he and Nick and Henry felt.
He wanted this to end.
He wanted so many things.

but they were all things that were either impossible or unknowable or things that he was too much of a coward to do or -

he just
he just wanted to be with Beryl
he just wanted it to be over
he was just so fucking tired
he just didn't want to feel anything anymore
he just wanted to die


He curled up into a ball and fell on his side and couldn't stop shaking. He clenched his fists so hard his left hand drew blood. He writhed in pure agony. He was imploding. Caving in on himself. He let out a desperate, guttural wail.


and then the earth swallowed him whole






and then....

And then Michael Froese was gone! He didn't know where, specifically - but it was somewhere else. Like he was watching his life through a screen. Detached. Forced down.






The wail cut off suddenly. His body was still. There were no more tears.

Michael opened his eyes; blinked a few times. He slowly sat back up. Inhaled softly. Exhaled softly. Stared out into the waves and then up at the stars. His eyes were alive and wild; floating. He held a closed-mouth smile on his face. His hands grasped at the space in-front of him. He glanced over at Henry, looked into his eyes, and nodded.

He was something else now. He didn't feel like him.


He didn't feel like anything.

[General Goose]

People were talking to Nick. Telling him that he wasn't a waste of space. Telling him he wasn't awful. That he was needed, in some weird and inexplicable way. Nick nodded, forlornly and half-heartedly, whenever such a sentence was finished. He wasn't sure why he nodded. Impulse? Instinct? A desire to avoid further scrutiny, further debate, about his role in the world that he didn't have the energy to engage with?

It certainly wasn't actual agreement. Henry was wrong to say it wasn't Nick's fault. Henry was wrong to say he needed Nick - at least, if he meant 'need' in any way more complex than a pack mule or a human shield. Michael was wrong, so so wrong, to say that Nick was in any way a good person. Nick knew those claims to all be inaccurate. Nick was a bad person. Nick was useless here. Nick would have done all the shit Michael talked about - and then some - if he'd had a gun, most probably. Nick was at fault. Not for the whole context, not the whole crazy situation that they found themselves in - which still felt more like an inscrutable act of god, some cataclysmic force of nature, rather than the machinations of one man - but how everything involving him had played out. He felt guilt for that. So much guilt.

And maybe that guilt made him a good person.

Maybe.

Maybe it just made him worse.

He had hurt people before. A lot. While knowing he was hurting people. While knowing he was going to feel guilty. While already feeling guilty about the shit he'd just said not five seconds earlier. And did that ever stop Nick? No. It didn't. Because for some inexplicable reason - pride or stubbornness or the sunk cost fallacy - he never stopped. And Nick knew that he would never change. He was going to be dead soon. He was going to die as he lived. An awful person. And he would feel bad about it and yet he would carry on with his behaviour because, at the end of the day, Nick was a bad person.

Henry and Michael were good people for thinking otherwise. Stupid people, but good people.

Henry had told him to be careful of the beeping. That had put the idea of suicide by collar into Nick's head. But Henry then asked him not to. Nick thought about doing it - out of spite - but Henry was not a person who needed spiting and the people who actually needed spiting wouldn't know they were being spited. It was a stupid train of thought, a stupid reason to ponder suicide and a stupid reason not to go through with it, but Nick agreed to it anyway.

Michael said he loved her.

Nick should have felt angry about that. Jealous. Possessive. Incensed that someone else would dare have fallen for Beryl when their breakup was still so raw. At least, that's what Nick thought he should have felt. After all, that was what bad people should feel in this circumstance, right? But Nick didn't feel that way. His curiosity was piqued and his mind briefly wandered off, imagining the 'what ifs', pondering the chemistry between the two, just imagining what Michael would have been like as a boyfriend. Respectful, probably. Decent. Not the sort to hurt her consciously.

"You would have been good for her," was all Nick said before he went into the sea. He let the blanket fall away, not lifting it off consciously but not stopping it as it got snagged on a rock or a twig or something and fell away.

He looked at her one last time. She didn't look peaceful. The blood, the gunshot wound and the collar saw to that. She usually looked peaceful in life, too. Well, it was hard to describe her aura, her mien, her demeanour, that she carried in life, but there was always something sorta peaceful to her. She seemed to roll with how the world was, how she was, how Nick was, in a way that Nick, with his limited vocabulary, could only describe as peaceful. She would never have that look again. She would bloat and rot and decompose and be eaten by fish and plankton and whatever, and it's not like she would wash up on the shores of Hawaii and suddenly be fit for a funeral.

Holding Beryl, he walked up to his waist. He bent over, water covering Beryl's body. He sighed.

Maybe her family had been yelling at the footage, telling him to stop, telling him to leave her body so they could bury her when the authorities finally found the island. Nick felt bad. And yet, he let her go anyway.

Because he was a bad person and that's what bad people do.

[Shiola]

Nick carried her into the water, and Henry watched his silhouette shrink against the water. It was a horrible thing for anyone to have to do, but he couldn’t help but see a certain element of beauty in the picture before him. The stars cast enough light that it was easy to make out just enough details, while still hiding the fact that Beryl was a corpse and Nick was a wreck of a man. It would’ve made a good painting. Something for people to look at and ponder the story behind it.

Knowing every detail made him feel guilty for seeing the scene that way. At least, he thought, Beryl might’ve thought it was nice. There were people here, feeling pain and grief. Humans were social creatures, and there was nothing more cold and inhuman than dying alone, with no one to feel all of the right things and cry out in despair at the night sky.

At the moment though, Henry found himself distracted. A bit cold, even. Any thread his mind could pick up on, it pulled at like a bored cat with a ball of string. He thought back to Morpheus, who would no doubt be wondering where his human had gone. Mom and Dad knew how to look after him, but he was Henry’s cat. If he went missing, no doubt the little guy would be bouncing off the walls before long. He realized he didn’t actually know if cats had a way of feeling loss. What would a fuzzy little predator do when it couldn’t find its friend?

With the possibility that Nick wouldn’t return still pawing at the back of Henry’s mind, his gaze turned upward to the night sky. His eyes adjusted to the starlight, and he examined the patterns he saw above him. He’d only seen a night sky so full on a trip to Montana; the light pollution in Chattanooga hid many of the stars from view, even on a night like this.

They were different stars from home, too. As much as he knew, he couldn’t quite do the work in his head to sort out precisely whose stars they were. That was what the next day’s trip was for. Hopefully the moon would rise soon; it’d tell him where they might’ve been relative to the equator.

Oh, because that really narrows it down, doesn’t it?

“It’s something at least…” Henry muttered, before being cut off by a guttural wail. Flinching, he turned to face Michael. It was immediately clear that he was somewhere… else. His eyes seemed glazed over, a vacant expression locked on his face. Like a smile, but not. Somehow. It felt wrong to him. Henry turned to face Michael, unsure of what exactly to say in response to the nod.

“Michael?”

[Kermit]

As Michael sat still as a statue and stared into the distance, his mind was racing. It was like time had slowed down and everything except for him was in slow-motion.

He was thinking. He just couldn't stop thinking. Dreamlike. Dreamlike thinking. Everything was hitting at once.

_____




Even before the island, Michael Froese never really remembered having, at his very core, a real personal identity. He was always just... pretending he was someone, like he was putting on a character. The character depended on the situation, though its purpose was always just... getting him by - manipulating people into letting him just exist; into judging his book by the cover. It was hard letting people in emotionally when on the inside you were some nebulous blob. It made people care about him, but it was always an anxiety-laden kind of care - and it inevitably made him feel incredibly guilty. It hurt so much for people to be scared for him when he showed them who he was. His only way to cope was to just appear as normal as possible and let people see what they needed to see to be happy. It was only now that he really started to realize why he did it.

But Beryl saw right through him. Beryl let him be a nebulous blob.

he was sinking

Beryl let him be nobody. Beryl let him be nothing.

Beryl let him exist.

And her death triggered something within him. A clarity of sorts.



Michael figured he and Beryl suffered from the same mental illnesses. They had outward differences in manifestation; Beryl's thought process was loose and disorganized; Michael's cold and logical. Beryl's outside demeanor was happy and bubbly; Michael's aloof and covert. Beryl was romantically prolific and sexually free; Michael hadn't kissed a girl since second grade and was only now able to admit to himself that he was maybe just a little bit bi-curious. But all of those had the potential to just be differences in their coping strategies. They were the same person. They were the same person and


But the similarities between them were striking when Michael laid them out. He knew he and her both exhibited:

- varying levels of emotional detachment, likely as a mental defense mechanism
- problems properly expressing emotions
- an aversion to things that made them feel happy
- soul-crushing guilt about who they were and they were always just running from themselves and
- and they ran and they locked people out because it hurt too much to let people see the truth and
- and they were self-defeating and self-destructing and
- and they dissociated and
- and they dissociated and
- and they dissociated and
- and
he was sinking
- Floatiness. Dreamlike depersonalization. An observer complex.
- inability to find a persistent personal identity
- an obsessive preoccupation with their medical conditions; Beryl with her narcolepsy, Michael with his diabetes and various self-diagnosed mental issues (not with depression, ADHD, or autism spectrum disorder)


Right now, in Michael's opinion as an off-his-meds high-school student, all signs pointed to them having the same weird hodgepodge of schizoid personality disorder and avoidant personality disorder.

She was the only other person in the world who was like him

and


He was still thinking about Beryl like she was alive.

He'd never felt so alone in his life.

He had to

He was



he was folding in on himself like a four-dimensional object in three-dimensional space




At the present moment, Michael Froese was neither here nor there. He was fragmented through time. Everything he experienced felt like it was hitting him over and over on a billion tiny delays.



Tangibility led to nothing but agony.

So he became tangibly intangible. There was nothing left to repress.


and now

He saw that nothing and something didn't always have to be mutually exclusive.

He was nothing. He was something. He was whole.

He could see himself



He was internalizing Beryl.

he was sinking



putting on a character except it wasn't just a character anymore



Oscillation.

In the end, everything came down to oscillations. Cycles. Natural clockwork. The Loop. Sun up Sun down Sun up Sun down. Born from the earth and then absorbed back into the earth. Birth Death Birth Death Birth Death Birth Death.

the first life on earth was a single-celled organism living in the ocean and the last life on earth will be a single-celled organism living in the ocean

eukaryotes emerged.. um, 1.3 million years ago, if im remembering right..! it's interesting that they evolved many of the, uh.. features of life while being evolutionarily separate. do you know what the specific differences in their nervous systems are?
did you say they were some of the first eukaryotes? cus they werent.. they were probably some of the first animals, but not eukaryotes. the first eukaryotes were probably.. like, cyanobacteria.
the first known shark lived around around like, 430 million-ish years ago..! thats before land vertebrates..!

He hoped Beryl would fossilize and confuse the fuck out of some future paleontologist.

Permanence -


he was half-consiously reconfiguring his internal being


- Permanence was never real. It was an illusion. A byproduct of balance which was a byproduct of oscillations. Consciousness, identity - it was all just electricity. The meat computer. And

And 'Michael Froese' had never really existed. 'Henry Sparks' had never really existed. 'Nick Ogilvie' had never really existed. 'Darlene Silva' especially had never really existed. They were all meat robots.

he was sinking

Nobody had actually ever really existed.

Nobody except Beryl. Because she saw the fabric of reality. She knew it. It was what made her beautiful. She was the universe observing itself.

just because his love was real didn't mean it was gonna work out

But now Beryl too, in a sense, was nothing but matter -


replacing parts of his mind with parts of what he perceived Beryl's mind to be


- Michael..

..Michael was Beryl's little oscillator. He remembered she'd said that.

he was sinking

But now Beryl was swept up in a different oscillation. She was going back into the earth, but Michael was stuck between being borne from the earth and going back into the earth. They were out of sync.

All he wanted was for his oscillations to be her oscillations, to be together with her as one metaphysical being -


replacing parts of what he perceived Beryl's mind to be with parts of his mind


- but he'd fucked it up and there was nothing he could do about it. Doomed to oscillate in isolation. It wouldn't be until the heat death of the universe that they'd be part of the same thing again. And maybe...

he was sinking

...maybe that had always been an inevitability.

It hurt to admit it, but Michael knew that if he and Beryl'd survived high school they'd never see each other again. The world was cold and uncaring. Society didn't take kindly to true beauty. It would chew Beryl up and break her. It would chew Michael up and break him. They'd probably both be dead before age 35.

At least this way Michael got some kind of closure. If life had continued normally after the DC trip, Beryl'd just end up a question Michael was too afraid to look up the answer to. And..


they were sinking together

sank in sync


..it was like the kidnapping was the only way Michael could die feeling not-alone.

and -



fixing himself



- and in a way, Beryl wasn't really gone at all. As he started to see himself as he truly was, he too started see the world as it really was. He saw the world as Beryl saw it. He like was her spiritual continuation.

He was something beautiful now. He was something real now. For all he knew he might've been the only really real thing in the universe.

he wasn't coping very well with this

He existed. And he knew it. He didn't know who he was, but he was him. He was who he was.

This island was the best thing that ever happened to him -



fixing beryl



- this island was the best thing that ever happened to anyone here. Nobody gave a fuck about them before, but now it was like.. it was like they were people now. The world would treat them like people instead of people, because the world would know their names; their stories. Michael, Beryl, everyone - their names would be etched into a memorial. They would finally exist to the rest of the world.

they were ascending


One-hundred-and-fifty-nine names. One-hundred-and-fifty-nine stories. One-hundred-and-fifty-nine individual tragedies. One-hundred-and-fifty-nine broken minds.

He hoped that each individual loss would make the rest of the world hurt as much as they did Michael.




and soon his ghost would ask her ghost who put all those bodies between them


_____

“Michael?”



..Henry..!

He snapped out of the fugue. He wasn't really sure what had happened - what parts of it were real or what parts were thoughts he actually had or which ones were dreams. Maybe the whole thing had been a stress-induced psychosis. Maybe it was all real. He didn't know.

He didn't know what correct was.

He was untethered.

He knew he was untethered.



"I.. that's me. I'm Michael.. uh-"

He looked back at Henry again.

"-I'm back, I think. I'm here. It's just, like..," He gazed up into the stars. "..This island is kinda like everyone's own personal metaphor. I.. don't know, I'm just like.. fwoosh, y'know..?" he trailed off. "Henry, if you ever need to find yourself, look at the stars. Literally, of course.. but also, like.. use them to ground yourself. Don't lose yourself here."

[General Goose]

Beryl's body wasn't washed away at first. The tides were still for a second, so she just floated on the top of the water, a little bit of red clouding the temporarily stagnated water around her. Then the tides went in a bit, and her body bumped against Nick's, and he was sure that that experience should have been far more traumatic and far more profound than it was.

Then the tides finally started taking Beryl's body away. It was two steps forward for every one step back and eventually she would be taken out into the sea, beyond where Nick could see her, beyond where he could watch and observe every detail of how marine nature slowly reclaimed her, beyond where he could be reminded every second of what he had done and how he had failed.

He wasn't sure why or when he turned away and back to land. It wasn't a conscious decision. Nick was on autopilot and, thankfully, his autopilot was a bit too staid, a bit too cautious, to do anything impetuous or reckless. Nick wasn't sure what he would have done had he been thinking consciously. He probably would have forgiven, for another selfish moment, the promise he had made to Henry, would have likely charged into the sea in some gauche and maladroit attempt to be reunited with Beryl, to escape the pain, only to be reminded of the fact that people were inexplicably still dependent on him at the last possible second, as the final beep reached his ears.

But he turned back around, clothes sodden and soaked up to the middle of his waistcoat, and suddenly he felt extraordinarily uncomfortable.

He walked back to land. The moment falling face first wouldn't drown him, he did just that, slumping over onto the ground as waves continued to wash over his prone form.

[Shiola]

"Don't worry about me, I can't lose myself here. Not when there's so much to do."

Henry watched Nick return from the water, after which he fell onto his face near the beach. Michael seemed - well, stable wasn't exactly the right word, but it he certainly seemed on more even ground than Nick did.

Something was definitely up with Michael, beyond the pale of having lost someone he'd been close to, beyond the background stress of their incredible and horrifying situation. There was a look people got when the structures that defined the contents of their mind started to change. It was the kind of look that inspired anyone like Henry to begin coming up with any number of contingency plans for how Michael might act.

For now though, he was just sitting still and relatively calm. Which Henry could only hope would remain the case, because he needed to work with it.

Nick was face-down in the sand, at a time of night when they needed desperately to sleep to conserve their strength for the day to come. Henry's eyelids were certainly starting to feel heavy, the disruption to his routine and the abatement of the day's supply of adrenaline beginning to take its toll. Letting one or both of these people pass out meant they weren't doing anything more to endanger themselves, or him. It had to happen. He stood up, looking around and straining his eyes to find some kind of appropriate shelter. Finding such a place, he knelt down beside Michael and pointed it out to him.

"That outcropping there. It's sheltered from the wind, and I don't think anyone on the treeline could see it. The rocks aren't going to be comfortable, but it's better than trying to find somewhere inland to sleep. I know none of us really wants to sit and think about all this shit right now, but if we don't try and get some sleep we're screwed. Michael, you think you can do that? I've gotta help Nick, let him know where we're headed."

A nod. Maybe. Henry didn't wait too long for an answer, Nick's predicament altogether too distracting to ignore. He closed the distance between the two of them, and made an attempt to roll him over onto his back, thinking a day's worth of carrying around a giant shotgun would have made such a task easy. It wasn't.

"Nick - Nick, you can't just lie here like that."

What am I going to do, carry him?

Henry knelt over him, trying to gauge where he was at mentally. Not that he knew what that meant - he was no psychologist. Wasn't even really this guy's friend, not in the way Michael or Morgan might've been his friends. Still, he had to do something. Work this problem, however he knew how.

"We have to get somewhere with cover, where we can rest and you can dry off. Plan our next move. I'll help however I can, but I can't carry you. I'm small. More than that, I shouldn't have to. Nick, you didn't do a damn thing wrong, but if that's what your going with - fine, then make up for it. Tell yourself whatever you have to, but get up. This isn't over yet."

With that Henry turned and headed towards the outcropping, wondering what kind of mental gymnastics of his own that it would take to allow himself to fall asleep here.

[Kermit]

"Don't worry about me, I can't lose myself here. Not when there's so much to do."

Ha. Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

Michael Froese had thought the same thing; way back when he'd first woken up. Way back when he thought Tony would be one of the first ones to break.

haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Michael barely knew who Michael Froese had even been.

"..Sure, Henry.. whatever you say."

Nick shambled out of the ocean, looking like a zombie. Michael wished it was someone else's zombie.

Nick then fell over. Michael knew the feeling.

He thought about getting up. Moving to the gun. Picking the gun up. Shooting Henry twice in the chest. Walking over to Nick. Shooting Nick once in the back of the head. Two mercy killings.

It would've been easy, really.


...but he couldn't kill them. Not Henry. Especially not Nick. He would've shot Morgan. He would've shot Clay. He would've shot Bree. He... he wouldn't have shot Beryl - but he wouldn't have shot anyone if she was -

- if Michael had been holding the gun, he would have shot himself right in the middle of that thought. He pushed it down. He felt floaty again.

Henry and Nick were the only ones who stayed with Beryl. They were the only ones who really understood Michael's pain. It was their burden to carry. He couldn't kill them.

Henry pointed out a rocky outcropping, proposed that they use it as a bed. There were worse places to sleep, like the seafloor..

..Repress that thought!

"Sure, cool, yeah, let's sleep on rocks.. I guess.." Michael wondered if everyone would get swallowed by the waves while they were asleep. He could only hope.

He stood up, feeling his knees crack. He picked up his flashlight. He shuffled over to his bags. He picked up Adam Dodd's gun, then he picked up his bags. He shuffled over to the rocks. He clambered up the rocks, avoiding using his left hand. He didn't really feel like not dying, but he also didn't feel like he wanted to die while his hand was a painful hunk of flesh festering with bacteria. He wandered across the rocks, using his flashlight to navigate, until he reached a section of rock that seemed to work pretty well as cover from the forest. He kneeled down, unzipped his pack, and took out his PDM. He took out a thing of test strips, placed one into the PDM, and pressed the strip to the cuts on his left palm.

His blood sugar was high. It was surprising, but also not that surprising. He didn't change his temp basal. Dying from high blood sugar took weeks. Low blood sugar took minutes. Anything that took weeks was irrelevant to Michael now. He went into his PDM's settings and turned off the hourly beep reminder for temp basals. The terrorists had reset the time on his PDM and given him a pod change before dropping him on the island. He was thankful for that, kind of. It meant less work for him, at least. He'd need to change his pod in two-and-a-half days, on the morning of day four.

The home screen on his PDM still displayed his named and his phone number. Phone numbers didn't matter now. Michael changed it to display 'To whoever is reading, bury me at sea - Michael F'.

He dreaded sleep. Most of the time, when he was asleep, Michael lucid dreamed. Not actively, but he could recognize if he was dreaming. Most of the time, he didn't interfere in the dreams; it was more fun observing all the things his brain hallucinated. The only times he did interfere were when he could tell the dream was headed in an unpleasant direction. He hadn't had a nightmare in years.

..and he knew having normal dreams - ones with Morgan and school and... Beryl - that would crush him when he woke up.

It was an impulse decision, but he didn't know what else to do. He grabbed a pill bottle full of ADHD meds. Dexedrine spansule. Dextroamphetamines. The Air Force used to give it to pilots who went on long night missions. On most days he took four pills when he first woke up. He unscrewed the cap and removed six pills. He had enough pills in the bottle to last a decent while, even if overdosing. He screwed the cap back on. He grabbed a water bottle, unscrewed its cap, placed the six pills in his mouth, took a gulp of water, and swallowed the pills. He put everything except the gun into the bag and pushed it up against the rock wall's edge. He sat down, propping himself back on the bag.

Henry walked around the corner. "Howdy," Michael said.

He stared out across the ocean.

Nick eventually shambled around the corner. "Howdy," Michael said.

He kept staring out across the ocean.

Day 2 – 8:50 AM

He kept staring out across the ocean.

He could see the sun now.

His pupils were dilated. They were usually dilated, even at home, when it was a side-effect of his Prozac. This time it wasn't his Prozac.

He focused on the waves. He felt like he was moving with them. Like he and the waves were dancing together to a song only they could hear. He was bumpin'.

He checked the time on his PDM. Ten minutes until announcements. Time to wake up.



He sang, softly. The Breeze by Dr. Dog. Not a dancing song, but one he knew he could sing.

"Are you moving much too fast?
And the good times that just don't last,
If you're always on the go,
Make an angel in the snow,
And freeze."

He paused for a few seconds.

"Do you feel like you're stuck in time?
Forever waiting on that line,
If nothing ever moves,
Put that needle to the groove,
And sing."

He paused for a few seconds while he imagined the backup vocals of the song.

"Is it a dream keeping you awake?
Is it the stillness that makes you shake?
If you need to know for sure -
- need to know for sure
What's on the ocean's floor -
- on the ocean's floor,
You'll sink."

Ba ba doooo ba ba.

"Do you like things the way they seem?
Or are you looking behind the scenes?
Well, if you've gotta know -
- if you've gotta know
What it takes to make it so -
- what it takes to make it so,
Just believe."

Ba ba doooo ba ba.

His voice was softer for the next verse.

"Are there dark parts to your mind?
Hidden secrets left behind?
Where no one ever goes,
But everybody knows,
It's all right."

He paused for a few seconds. He was louder now.

"Do you get dizzy on the ground?
It must be something going around.
What blows us here today,
It'll blow us all away.
The breeze,
Ohhhhh,
Will blow us all away.
The breeze,
Ohhhhh,
will blow us all away.
The breeze."

He checked his PDM again. Roughly four minutes had elapsed.


"Yo, six minutes 'till announcements.. might want to wake up, maybe.. if you're not already up."

[General Goose]

Whatever Henry said worked. Nick didn't agree with it - the notion that Nick was in any way an acceptable human being or of any value to anyone who was was a fatally flawed premise at the outset - but he didn't want to argue with Henry. Henry was a good person. Maybe he saw something, understood something, that Nick didn't. That in itself seemed like a plausible possibility.

Plus Nick couldn't exactly pinpoint anything wrong in most of what Henry was saying. Henry was small. Getting to shelter and formulating a more durable plan made sense. If Nick was as big an arsehole as he seemed to think he was, redemption was a logical move. Henry was better placed - as a better person - to understand what that redemption was than Nick.

Nick couldn't argue with any of that. He could argue, vehemently, with the "you did nothing wrong" contention, but Henry had had the foresight not to make his comments dependent on that. Nick could have just painted a strawman, taken what Henry said out of context, twisted and distorted his every utterance, but Nick's heart wasn't in it. Nick just didn't have the energy to even pretend that he could argue with what Henry was saying.

He didn't agree with it, though. Aside from the bit about Henry being small - which, well, if there was such a thing as objective fact, exhibit A right there - Nick didn't agree with any of it. It was all bullshit. Nick couldn't articulate why, but he just knew, in his gut, that Henry was wrong about this. But he couldn't explain why, not even to his own internal satisfaction, so he kept quiet.

Kept quiet and just did what Henry suggested.

Not straight away, no. He lifted his head up and grunted in agreement, just to show recognition of Henry's points and acquiescence to his suggested course of action. Michael was the first to head to the suggested place of shelter. By the time he'd reached the destination, Nick had started pushing himself up onto his knees. Nick made sure to walk slowly, move with a slugged economy of energy, just so he'd fall behind Henry, just so that, if someone was waiting to pick off a straggler, he'd be that straggler.

And then, if Nick needed any more evidence that he was a bad person, he slept way too soundly.

There was some thrashing, his body responding to irritants and malaise that his conscious mind found dull. Bad dreams he couldn't quite remember, the fact that he could remember the feelings they caused but not even the faintest outline of the dream itself carrying its own haunting quality. A couple of times when he woke up in the night and could acutely feel both the heartache and the discomfort of his surroundings. One time where he stared at the camera, remembered that his awfulness was now on display for the whole world to see, the charismatic illusionist act he'd put on back home exposed as the facade it was.

He woke up.

Michael was singing.

It was a trite banality, but it made Nick forget where he was, for a moment. Just...yeah. Art and singing and creativity and enjoying oneself, those were all such glorious and beautiful things and hearing Michael sing might be his last taste of that. He didn't pay attention to the lyrics. Would have required too much straining. All of Nick's critical faculties were turned off for a moment.

And then Michael stopped singing and told them that it might be wise to wake up, and Nick was back into reality. He opened his eyes. His mouth felt grimy. He wished his toothpaste and toothbrush had been packed in his hand luggage rather than his suitcase. What a petty thing to think about.

Then the announcements played.

Nick tried caring about other people. Really, he did. There were some important names that were read out - friends, adversaries, crushes - but he couldn't even remember who was listed as a killer and who was listed as a victim. It all blurred into one depressing chronicle of death. But Danya had confirmed how the world saw him. Nick was vindicated, then, on the most awful of points.

He was a murderer.

Nick waited until the announcements were over before speaking.

"Nice singing, Michael."