Survival Of The Fittest

Bridal carry. She'd idly daydreamed about this one since the first day they'd gotten to know each other as more than friends.

`if I feel faint I’ll be cool if its your arms I swoon into.`

She felt something a bit more severe and acute than the mere word faint could describe. Her consciousness was leaking out in about the same way, but this time there was a good portion of her meatself spilling in accompaniment.

"... Mmh... W-... Wait."

Once again the shadows closed in. She'd once been a god-fearing little girl, and the terminal lack of visibility, the inky paint dripped over everything that was rationally just her eyes starting to give out as parts of her brain died from hypovolemic shock... looked an awful lot like hell. Her mother had taught her the wards against the devil once, but she'd discarded them with pride.

Please. No. She didn't want to die scared and pathetic. She choked out more words. Maybe choked, additionally, on... spit. Blood. Something starting to slowly clog up her windpipe.

"Tenshi. Focus on... too late. I-ih-it's... too late..."

She should have stayed holding Tenshi's hand. Started holding Fitz's, or Dawn's, or... there was nobody she could comfort. She was locked in her own body, watching herself be a final and ultimate burden onto others. Her sins, their cross to bear.

Half a world away there was a computer and a discord chat, where ‘RoadtripToDenverAirport’ had defended his decision to go on the trip.

i kind of wanted to spend time with someone and she already missed homecoming okay

In this room, lying on the floor, there was a weapons manual with words smudged to illegibility in charcoal.

I don't think playing survival mode's going to work for her.

Inches from Fitz’s hands, Cedar gave the order.

“Dawn.”

His voice, panicked only seconds before, had taken on a hard, calm edge.

“You heard her. You’re already… you’re already working on Tenshi. Finish that first. I’ll… see what I can do here.”

He snatched some bandages from the nearest kit towards him, and crouched so that the wound was blocked from Dawn’s view. He glanced over at Tenshi’s arm, saw how Dawn had wadded the bandages to try and stem the bleeding, and mimicked her.

They soaked through near immediately.

Even as the blood seeped through them onto his hands, and the bandages became useless, Fitz didn’t change them out.

Under his breath, he murmured, “Get some rest, Cedar.”

Tenshi. Focus on... Too late.

Cedar's words were scrambled and unprecise, but Dawn understood the meaning clear as day. So did Fitz, apparently.

But he still stayed by Cedar's side, ignoring her words, wrongly assuming that Dawn would be able to handle Tenshi on her own.

Was this the right answer? Not abandoning a friend who had asked to be abandoned? Dawn didn't know. But she did knoow what a doctor would do in most situations.

Honor the wishes of the patient.

"NO!" She screamed at Fitz, her voice too shrill and too loud. "I need you to put a tourniquet on Tenshi or she will die! I can't do this alone."

Her fingers got even more wet as she spoke. As did her face.

"Please."

“I don’t know how to--”

Agitation crept into Fitz’s voice, in a way that it didn’t when faced with the inevitable. He gripped the bandages a moment longer, despite their uselessness, and when he looked over his shoulder at the dying Tenshi, there was the briefest flash of intense, bitter dislike.

He looked back down at Cedar, then sighed. His eyes shut for a moment.

“...If you say so.” The tone was flat.

He dropped the bandages, hands hovering over Cedar’s wound for another moment before he left her there so that he could go and kneel over Tenshi instead.

“Tell me what to do.”

The lights were coming on. The cameras were already up. Tenshi was recording herself, because she couldn't forget her roots as a star. Luckily, this performance wouldn't be her last, as much as anything wouldn't be the last in the entertainment industry. No, no, it wouldn't be her last. The curtains were opening. The lights were coming on, and they didn't overwhelm her.

Yet, something was missing. Something had yet to be done.

Tenshi wasn't sure why this had become so urgent all of a sudden. It was an ordinary day for her. She was performing, she was doing her job. Or at least, she would be once she got over this woozyness, the pain in her arm that was tightening around it. Must be her arm falling asleep. Must still be nursing a hangover, right, a hangover...

When was Cedar coming back? Tenshi's good hand, lying open-palmed on the floor, twitched. The people sounded distant, but they felt close.

She had something to discuss with her. It had to happen before Tenshi got pushed onto the stage. Yet she didn't know what she was going to say, exactly. If her schedule was less packed, she'd find a quiet moment and they'd have tea by the window, like they used to before things got so hectic. She would have time to think through her words, her feelings, exactly. And then, she'd place her hand on Cedar's and tell her something, that Tenshi would feel confident was the truth.

Cedar's inevitable, polite rejection would be bearable then.

Tenshi regained her breath, slowly. She had to choose her words, but what if she chose wrong? Her breath steadied, and crystallized into something that she might regret.

She turned her head.

"Cedar, I..."

The bandages were a nice touch. They were completely pointless, Cedar didn't have to be able to see them to feel how the gauze was already as useless as wet socks. But Fitz had tried. At least for a moment, letting the part of his brain that quietly and timidly cared about her however briefly overwhelm the rest that had shut off the softer bits for the sake of maybe living to see another day. She hadn't asked him to, but he had anyways, and that was what she had really liked about him, end of the day. They'd found an oddball synergy in their lack of it.

He was gone now. She was happy enough for that. She hoped she'd been enough for him, in these final moments. Maybe the sight of her innards trying to escape her body wouldn't scar him too badly. She could hope against all odds.

Anyways, as he said. Time to rest. She'd lived ten some odd years continually being in pain, dawn to dusk, only telling apart the moments by the severity of her body's attempts to reject life. A reprieve would be nice. She just wished it wasn't forever.

She was used to this part, the dying. She'd been doing it most her life. But still... she didn't want to leave things unfinished.

Tenshi was stirring, after all.

It'd always been her. Her first friend in America, her first confidante when Cedar had said goodbye to her heritage, traded blood for chosen family. The first words, day in, day out, that Cedar would broadcast to the world. Tenshi's evening rants: something stupid, something fun, something for some fucking nerdy ass weebs. It was as immutable a law as those of nature- as every reaction, so too its equal and opposite. Tenshi couldn't be left with the last word. Cedar owed her her own last words- her last words ever.

That message, however, would go unanswered.

S055, Cedar Dalisay: Deceased
114 students remaining

"Tell me what to do" was Fitz's order, and Dawn did so by explaining him where and how to tie the scarf around Tenshi's arm while Dawn applied a third layer of bandages. Tenshi said something, but Dawn had no time to listen.

For a few scary moments, it seemed like nothing had been achieved. But then the red creeping up the bandages slowed down and eventually stopped.

For the first time in twenty seconds, Dawn breathed out.

"That should do it. We have to keep holding the arm upwards like this for a little longer. Plus the tourniquet will need to get removed in a few hours to avoid damage. By then, it should no longer be necessary anyway.

"...

"Sorry for screaming at you earlier."

During all of this, her eyes darted from Tenshi to Fitz, never getting anywhere close to where Cedar had to be.

"What about Tully?"

She already knew the answer.

“Dead.”

He didn’t elaborate, though the reminder was enough to briefly pull his eyes away from Cedar towards where Tully lay. It was the first time his gaze had been dragged away from her, barring when Dawn was giving instructions on what to do.

The moment he could, he let go of Tenshi. He glanced down at his already blood-smeared clothes before wiping his hands off on his skirt.

“Well. Wasn’t all the screaming worth it?” Fitz’s voice was flat. “Thanks to that, and thanks to you, we managed to save the deaf girl who’ll blunder into a danger zone anyway the moment she’s left unsupervised.” He raised one hand and made the most unenthusiastic fist pump ever seen. “Hooh-rah.”

He stood up, picking his rifle back up as he did so. He gave a long look at Cedar once more, face closed-off, before he started to glance over the room. A purple haze still filled it, though it had scattered enough that it could mostly be seen through now.

Without saying a word, he wandered off into the rest of the room and started dragging scattered packs of supplies near the other two.

Tenshi stared at Cedar. She... no, she wasn't staring back, that would be silly. People can't stare while they're sleeping. It looked awfully uncomfortable, being mentally asleep but having your eyelids open. Probably some other weird medical issue of Cedar's. Instinctively, Tenshi tried to reach out, but her arm's movement was made awkward, clumsy and restricted by a... a cast. It was a cast. She broke her arm falling down the stairs, but she went to a hospital and got a cast. It was terribly uncomfortable and tight, but what were you gonna do?

Instead, she sat up and reached out with her good arm. It trembled, but it reached Cedar, and closed her eyelids for her. She stayed by Cedar's side, watching her (imperceptible) breathing as she took a well-earned nap. Someone had to, not because either of them were in any danger or anything, but because...

Because...

Well, because her boyfriend abandoned her for one. Jerk.

Dawn twitched when Fitz confirmed her fears. Another classmate lost. How would Mildred react?

At least Tenshi seemed fine, even regaining consciousness. Dawn watched with a bit of pride as the first life she saved reached out to

Cedar.

The first life Dawn failed to save.

Cedar, who would never smile or sing or wear cool cosplay again.

Suddenly the room felt a lot colder. Dawn slung her arms around herself, but it just reminded her of not so long ago when she hugged Cedar's warm body. Another thing Cedar would never do again.

She needed to get out of here.

Standing up, she aimed her sight at Fitz, who was rummaging around the room for some reason.

"I-I will talk a walk. Just wait for me."

And with that, she killed the distance between herself and the door to bolt out of the room, leaving all of her belongings behind.

About forty minutes later, she would be back. Sans a lot of tears.

((Dawn Montogomery continued in The Disappearance Of An Internet Angel))

Tully’s supplies, he picked up. Then he knelt near where Tully was for a moment. He did little except briefly extend his hand to rest it on his wrist, almost like he was checking for the other boy’s pulse. He bowed his head slightly, shut his eyes, then looked around.

Glass and teeth all over the floor. Fitz’s hand hovered over the mess, before he picked up the teeth that Alex had left behind and put them in the pocket of his jacket.

That done, Fitz stood up. He walked over to where Cedar’s supplies were and picked those up too. They were heavier. Cedar hadn’t eaten much over the last day.

Fitz looked back towards Cedar again in time to see Tenshi shut her eyes. Fitz watched that, then turned his head away, sighed and rubbed his forehead, accidentally smearing blood and fish-gunk over it.

Suddenly, Dawn left. Fitz tried to lift his arms in a ‘what the hell’ gesture, but couldn’t do so easily under the weight of the straps. So he quickly lowered them again with a huff.

He eyed the door, long and hard. Hands tight on the straps of Tully and Cedar’s supplies, as well as his own. As much as he could carry, though he cast a glance at the unguarded supplies left by Dawn.

He looked back towards Tenshi holding Cedar’s hand, then at Cedar once more. He looked away, rolled his neck a little and grimaced, before he dropped all the supplies he was holding and instead walked back over to Tenshi, before grasping and lifting her bad arm to keep it elevated as Dawn suggested.

“You’re not worth this,” he muttered, tone biting and unheard by anyone except the cameras.

He remained there until Dawn returned. Alternating between staring at Cedar and looking away, but never, ever looking at Tenshi if he could help it.

-

The moment Dawn reappeared, Fitz let go of Tenshi’s arm.

“We need to move Tenshi somewhere else.” He glanced over the bodies. “This is not a good place to be found in, and we should find somewhere with a bed. Grab your supplies, Tully’s and Cedar’s. I’ll grab my own and Tenshi’s, and carry her. Can sort that out later.”

Right before leaving, Fitz reached for Cedar one last time, hands touching her throat before unclasping the plain choker she wore. He took it off, and put it in his pocket alongside the teeth he’d scooped off the floor.

Then he moved to go pick Tenshi up.

((Russell ‘Fitz’ Fitzroy continued in The Disappearance of an Internet Angel.))

Fitz held up Tenshi's arm, which she... allowed, because it was on the doctors' orders. She didn't look at him the whole time, only at Cedar. Shouldn't he be holding his exhausted girlfriend's hand? Sometimes Tenshi got the idea that she liked Cedar a lot more than Fitz did.

This tenuous peace continued for some time. But once Dawn (the doctor? surgeon?) came back... Tenshi's eyes widened as Fitz stole the choker off Cedar, as he packed up. She wasn't stupid, she knew they had to leave and get her on stage, but like this?! They were acting like Cedar wasn't even there! Tenshi waved her good arm at Cedar as Fitz hauled her away.

"No, wait," she protested (verbally, since her hands couldn't form into the more sophisticated hand-shapes just yet). "C-cedar, when she wakes up she'll..."

She'll be okay, but alone. Even that was too much to bear.

But, there was nothing that could be done. Tenshi still had a voice. So, she had to go on stage. Showbiz was cruel like that, sometimes. Whatever Tenshi wanted to say, she'd have to say it now. Cedar wouldn't see it. Maybe that was for the best.

Her fingers shook, but eventually took shape. Thumb, index, pinky out. The ASL letters "I" "L" and "Y", combined into a single hand shape. At least this sign didn't need both hands. Her hand started over her heart, and she moved it towards Cedar. Moved it back to her heart, then back towards Cedar, over and over until Fitz had dragged her out of sight.

<<I-LOVE-YOU--I-LOVE-YOU--I-LOVE-YOU--I-LOVE-YOU--I-LOVE-YOU>>

[Tenshi Fukushima-Yves continued in The Disappearance of an Internet Angel]