Survival Of The Fittest

Patiently, Bethany paid careful attention to Shawn's story. She made all the right faces in response to the ups and downs, internally working to square what he told her with what she already knew, to build a more complete picture of how that first day had gone. Interesting that he hadn't seemed to notice that she had obliquely admitted to not being alone, but he did seem quite focused on recounting his experiences. She might've been more skeptical of his assertions that people had attacked for seemingly no reason, no provocation, but then hadn't she just had the same happen to her? What could Przemeslaw possibly be said to have done to provoke his attacker?

"Sounds like you have me beat then."

Bethany grimaced a little, thinking about how she planned to start.

"Let me start with your dead body on the mountain."

Her left hand, idle now, came up to fiddle with the crucifix around her neck. Pulling it out from below its many layers to run her nails along its pleasingly straight edges and perfect right angles. The warmth of it against her fingers, leeched from her chest throughout the day, felt good against the cold.

"I believe that's Ethan, I met him this morning. I woke up at the hot spring you spoke of, Ethan was there with me. Later we were joined by Przemyslaw Ziemiak and,"

A scornful expression crossed her features, quite involuntarily.

"Aracelis Fuentes. I tried to play the gracious host, make the warm oasis somewhere we could all rest peacefully. In retrospect it was foolish to think I could maintain a peaceful place here. Aracelis attacked Przemek with a baseball bat with nails driven through it. He was blinded, she ran when Ethan and I tried to fight back. In his panic, Przemek pushed Ethan. He fell. I'd been holding onto hope that perhaps he survived, but..."

Bethany's face sank visibly. As it had seconds before when she realised who the body Shawn described belonged to. That thread of hope had been one of the last few she had to grasp.

"So I brought Przemek here. It was a long, slow walk down the mountain, so that took most of the day between his sight and my wariness to run into anyone else. Luckily we found this place empty."

Finally, she tucked her crucifix necklace back into her blouse. Let it warm again. Keep God close to her heart. One other thread of hope that perhaps the world was still just, that there was still a plan amidst all the chaos.

"It's fortunate you came, we were worried about keeping watch overnight. Assuming you'd like to stay?"

„Yeah! I‘m here. Nice to meet you, my name is Przemek.“

Greeting Shawn outloud, he wasn‘t sure if he was hidden from Shawn or if Shawn could see him or what was the plan. Either way, Przemek waved.

Shawn‘s story sounded rough and just proved that more people were already killing. Przemek and Bethany had to stop them. Bethany made the connection of Ethan being the dead person Shawn saw at the hot spring, which made sense to Przemek even though he still hoped it was some other person, and that Ethan was okay. Then he thought about the thought he just thought and realised that it didnt matter whether it had been Ethan or not, it already was horrible enougn that a person from their class was dead.

"Ethan? Christ..." Shawn replied, rubbing his forehead as he leant back.

He knew he recognised that green hoodie from somewhere. At the time he didn't get a good enough look to properly identify him, too busy fleeing the scene after the stunt he pulled with Calvin. But after what Bethany told him... Yeah, of course it was him.

Like Calvin, he mostly knew Ethan through chess club, what with Ethan being the club president and all. He always seemed so quiet and polite, even Shawn hardly had anything bad to say about him. Well, okay for the grandson of a grandmaster he thought the guy was a bit of a pushover, quite literally as it turned out. But he was otherwise pretty harmless all things considered. It was surreal to think that mangled stiff was the same guy that pulled off an en passant on him mere weeks ago.

And as an extra curious development, Bethany was now travelling with the blind boy who killed him.

"Shehmeck?" said Shawn in a hushed tone, not quite getting the pronunciation right as he raised his brow. "Huh... Was wondering who you were talking to earlier"

As if on cue, a voice piped up just below them, Shawn pointing his flashlight in it's direction just in time to catch that wave. He would give him an awkward salute in response, realised he wouldn't have been able to see it anyway, before clearing his throat and turning back to Bethany.

"Well, if you don't mind the extra company, I think I'd feel a helluva lot safer here than out there. Seems like we've both encountered our fair share of crazy so far."

So perhaps Przemyslaw’s prayers were answered after all. A friendly face to join them, at least overnight. It didn’t particularly occur to her to ask her original companion’s thoughts, she was responsible for him now, she made the decisions.

“Of course not. Another set of eyes and another warm body would be very useful.”

Bethany lead the way down to where she’d left Przemek, pausing at the conveyor she’d put to use as a shelf to retrieve her own flashlight.

“Shawn, Przemyslaw. Przemyslaw, Shawn.” went the perfunctory introductions. She was too accustomed to the ruin of his face by that point to think to warn Shawn beyond her earlier tale of how it had happened, instead it was straight back to asserting authority.

“I propose we find an office or some such enclosed space, cover any holes in the windows, and split watch so we both get at least a few restful hours.”

Przemek felt really useless. It was weird to think but he didn‘t want the extra sleep. He wanted to do the night shift as well. He‘d rather give up sleep than having lost his eyes.

Oh right, they still hurt.

„Hey Shawn are you into medicine? Does this look like an infection?“

"Heyyeeeagh!" was Shawn's response to Przemek's eyes, which... Yeah, turns out getting hit in the face with a spiked baseball bat left quite a mark.

He grimaced as he tried to avoid looking directly into... At those eyes for too long, even when Przemek asked for his medical opinion. To which all he could do was shrug and scratch his head.

"Uuuh, well, uuuuuuh... I mean it's not... THAT bad?" he says, turning to Bethany and shaking his head as he mouthed noooo.

Truth be told, he was questioning her logic in spending so much effort looking after a guy who was frankly a lost cause. No matter what way you went about it, Przemek was fucked. The smart thing would've been to leave him stranded on that plateau and hope he wandered off the edge. But, as it had been a long day and he just wanted to get some sleep, he was in no mood for having that conversation with Bethany.

Not yet, anyway.

Bethany was suggesting that they find a more secure spot than the small nook they had found, and Shawn was inclined to agree, nodding his head in approval. "I think I might have something in my bag that could help Shemmy here, probably for the best if we cover that wound up, lower the risk of infection."

Not to mention hide those disgusting eyes.

"Can sort that out whilst you find us a good spot?"

Oh. Yeah, in retrospect, she should've probably anticipated his revulsion. Between getting used to it, the darkness, and it being much too rude to actually express her disgust, Beth had quickly transitioned to thinking of Przemek's condition as somehow normal. She pulled a face at his wordless aside, but didn't otherwise react.

His offer to patch the boy up was much more welcome. Taking care of someone in need was what a good Christian should do, was it not? Then again, it hadn't turned out all too well for Ethan when he'd tried.

"Be careful." she warned, hefting her weapon in one hand and clicking on her own flashlight in the other. Hardly the most intimidating sight in the world, but much better than flailing about with a skiing pole.

She walked away in silence, but hesitated when she heard the sound of her footstep on a metal stairway. Better to be safe. She came back and scooped up her bag, slinging it back over her shoulder. If anything should happen, she'd rather still have the rest of her supplies to hand. Not giving Shawn the option of abusing her trust seemed a wise move as well. Surely he wouldn't, but... better to be safe.

"If I don't come back in ten minutes," she began, unsure what her advice was going to even be. What should the two do without her that they hadn't already expected to do if they were in trouble?

"Hide, probably?"

„Alright,“ he replied to Bethany, unsure of how he should even be able to do that. He began to pray silently, standing still.

Shawn nodded and gave Bethany a reassuring thumbs up. "Don't worry, I think we'll be fiiiine..."

Well, he would be at least. Worst case scenario he had a blind meatshield to serve as a distraction.

He watched as Bethany wandered off before turning back to the blind boy before him, sizing him up as he folded his arms in thought. Dozens of ideas went through his head, little intrusive thoughts and half-baked temptations. There were a hundred different ways he could take full advantage of the trust Bethany had placed in him.

But, therein lay the issue. There was pretty much nothing he COULD do other than exactly what he said he would, not without shattering that trust and losing out on a safe spot to rest for the night. As much as he didn't see the point in helping prolong this sad sack's miserable life, helping him was ultimately more beneficial in the long term than trying to pull-off some short-sighted ploy.

Shawn looked down at his bag. He had originally considered tearing Calvin's shirt up to use as a bandage, before remembering that they were given some perfectly good medkits. He briefly reached out for his bag, before then pausing and reaching for Przemek's instead. If he was going to tend to a dead man, he might as well use his equipment in favour of his own. He briefly considered maybe sneaking some of his stuff out, but... Again, if they discovered something was amiss, that needlessly complicated things.

Bethany's presence complicated everything, really.

He opened up Przemek's medkit and sorted through it, first pulling out the bandages before then finding a small packet of sterile eye dressings. Though he lacked much in the way of formal medical training, he was smart enough to put two and two together, bringing those two items to Przemek and hesitantly looking up at his ruined face.

"Aaaaaaalrighty then, here is what's going to happen... I'm going to give you one of these eye pads and you are going to place it over your eye, keeping it held whilst I wrap a bandage around. Then once you're wrapped up, we'll then do the next one... Got it?"

Shawn gently moved the eye dressing to that ruined eye, guiding Przemek's hand up so that he could keep it in place whilst he got those bandages ready to start wrapping around his head.

"Oh, and uh... If you could do me a solid and stay still, I would really appreciate it."

Przemek nodded silently, anticipating the pain. He held the eye pad and stood still. He still had in mind the last time he defended himself from some boy trying to touch his eye.

Shawn slowly wrapped that bandage around Przemek's head, careful to not press down against that eye TOO much. Would be a tad inconvenient if Przemek started thrashing and screaming after all.

"Ooookay... First one is done, now for the other"

It crossed his mind as he began to bandage up the other eye that it might have been a good idea to have worn some gloves for this, make sure he didn't accidentally contaminate the bandages or those eye pads. Ah well, c'est la vie.

Once the other eye was wrapped up, he would then do one last wrapping around Przemek's temple to keep them both in place, not to mention look a bit more aesthetically pleasing to the eye. By the time he was done, the boy's eyeline was fully bandaged up, Shawn moving back with a self-congratulatory nod to admire his handiwork.

"And there we go, MUCH better..." he says, putting the spare kit away before fetching an ibuprofen pill and one of Przemek's water bottles and passing them over to him. "Here, this ought to ease the pain."

He put Przemek's things back into his bag, taking a long lingering look at the boy's spare rations... And sighing as he zipped it back up. Maybe later.

Reasoning that it would give her a better perspective, Bethany had gone back up into the raised gangways. She moved slowly and deliberately, but even so, the sounds of her steps on the metal plates and the flash of her light as she cast it around in search of more enclosed spaces evidenced her position quite clearly. It made her feel vulnerable. Like being inside a fully lit room with pitch darkness outside the windows: anyone could be looking in and seeing everything, the occupants could see next to nothing outside. Much as she'd planned to get the drop on Shawn, she now worried who else might by lying in wait for her. She gripped her pickaxe tighter, knuckles white underneath her gloves.

Off in the distance, she could just about hear Shawn's voice. It was mildly reassuring. Even being 99% sure he was on the level, confirming that 1% suspicion he'd just kill Przemek and run off with his supplies was false was a small comfort. Given the circumstances, Bethany was more than happy to take whatever small comforts she could get.

At length, she came upon a door. Ajar. She approached, shining her flashlight through the gap in the door. Nobody. Just some kind of office. A dusty sign on the door read "KONTOR", which she reasoned must be German for control, thus, admin? Made sense enough. Not that it mattered. More importantly there were no broken windows on the walls nor snowdrifts on the floor.

"I think I have something here!"

„What‘s this?“, he asked after feeling the pill in his hand. „Already had a pill earlier.“

Przemek was glad that Shawn bandaged his eyes and all but it didn‘t feel right, he suspected. He‘d need a medical person later if they‘d stumble upon one later.

„What do you have, Bethany?“

"...oh" Shawn replied, an awkward silence lingering in the air afterwards. "Well... You can save it for later then or something, fuck it" he adds, a hint of irritation in his voice that he tried his best to hide.

When Bethany called them up, Shawn got up and instinctively motioned Przemek to follow him. He didn't go very far before remembering that the poor bastard couldn't see him, sighing as he went back and leant down to help the guy up. "We'll be just a sec!" he responds loudly, pulling Przemek to his feet as he began to begrudgingly guide him along to Bethany, following her flashlight with his own.

Playing guide dog for Przemek was an experience Shawn could only describe as excruciating. Making sure he didn't bang his head, or trip over every step they came across, or end up wandering the wrong way... No wonder it had taken him and Bethany the entire day to make it off that mountain, a journey that had taken Shawn maybe a few hours at most. 

Nevertheless, he gritted his teeth and guided him along as best he could, doing his darndest to hide his frustration. If getting a good night's rest in a spot of relative safety meant playing nice for now, so fucking be it. A little patience went a long way.

It took him and Przemek a couple minutes to catch up with Bethany, his eyes squinting as he tried to read the sign above the room she came across.

"Kon-tor?" he asks aloud, turning to Przemek. "You're European, right Shem? Any idea what that means?"

What did she have? What did Przemek think she was looking for, a fucking ice cream parlor? No, stop, there was that impatience rising up again, and Bethany needed to be composed. The last thing she needed was to lose her cool now that she actually had company who was legitimately capable of doing her harm if he betrayed her trust. She unfurrowed her brow, took a deep breath, put her calm-and-in-charge face back on in time for Shawn and Przemyslaw to join her. Luckily it took the two of them quite some time to cross the dark space.

Once they arrived, however, she made her way inside, casting her flashlight about in search of... what was she in search of? Did she want to sleep on top of something? Barricade the door with something? Just satisfy generalised curiosity by looking at stuff?

"This should do." she declared, as much to herself as anyone else. Who cared about exactly what the German/German-adjacent door sign meant?

"If we close ourselves in here we should keep a decent amount of the warmth inside with us."