Survival Of The Fittest

Eris stood staring at Jim for a moment, puzzled.

What did she want?

It took a moment before she could remember what she was doing. Furrowing her brow, she pointed at the log and said, "I tripped," as though he had been questioning her integrity. He might as well had been, talking to Eris in such a way.

She held her head in her left hand as she scanned the immediate area. No one was around. After turning her attention to Jim, she looked at him carefully.

Normally there was some kind of mischief lurking in his expression, but it had been wiped away, presumably from the stress of the island. It was satisfying to see his optimism beaten, he was always so annoyingly upbeat. Eris swayed a little on her feet, quickly regaining her balance. He was seeing things more or less her way now.

It came out of nowhere, the realization that she'd touched him mere moments before. Eris had so little physical contact with the opposite sex that even touching his shoulder was shocking. Even worse, it had felt nice to feel his mass under her left palm. She never touched or was touched by anyone except by accident.

Her thoughts were operating independently of her. Before she could protest, Eris imagined stroking Jim's arm shyly. He drew her in close to him, placing his hand on the small of her back, and the other gently on her cheek. His mouth was soft as he pressed it cautiously to hers. Their lips caressed, and slowly she felt them part to allow his tong-

NO! Eris' mind recoiled in horror. Jim was not and could never be desirable. He was fat. He was obnoxious. He laughed at fart jokes.

Embarassed, her eyes darted away from his face. That was when Eris saw the gun. The sound she made was ugly, somewhere between a squeak, a gasp, and a hiccough.

With Eris' first off-the-wall statement, Jim found his irritation dissolving into bewilderment fairly quickly. Her stating the obvious didn't exactly answer his question, but it did make him wonder just what exactly had happened to her over the course of the last few days. "No kidding," he responded, eying her up and down. She looked and smelled awful, and she could hardly keep her balance, let alone make coherent speech.

When she went about scanning the area, Jim found himself doing so as well. Was she travelling with other people? Had she heard something that he didn't? Almost forgetting about her completely for a moment, Jim drew his eyes over their surroundings. The jungle was quiet as usual, save for the pattering of the rain against the ground, and it was hard to see too far in front of him.

As his focus came back to rest on Eris, he couldn't help but notice that she was...staring at him? Her gaze was rather absent, but given her current state he doubted she could really concentrate on anything. Still, the great deal of attention she seemed to be paying him was slightly unnerving.

Soon afterwards she broke her stare and spluttered, and Jim found his irritation re-surfacing. "What's your problem?" He demanded indigninantly, his gaze hardening as he tried to make sense of whatever she was thinking. Ultimately, however, he decided she was a waste of time. She was really starting to creep him out, and deciding it was for the best, he picked up his pack and turned around. "Fuck this," he muttered harshly and began making his exit.

Eris regretted reacting so quickly to the sight of the weapon. If he was going to hurt her he would have done so already. She needed that gun to protect her. The time was now to bury the proverbial hatchet between her and James Midd-

"Fuck this," he practically spat at her. He began to take his leave. Eris' vision swam as the violent throbbing in her head returned to drown out the words she was trying to say.

Jim, wait!

Eris was, by all accounts, completely plastered. Her headache had barely been subdued by the copius volume of vodka that she had consumed. She believed that she still had some left in the bottle, when really, it was long gone. Just wishful thinking on her part. Teetering a little in her canvas tennis shoes (which were formerly an immaculate white), she scowled at Jim's back. She was sure she'd called out to him and he...

He was swiftly slipping through her fingers.

Enraged at his blatant rudeness, she took a few agitated steps towards Jim, raising the empty liquor bottle high over her head.

"I said..." she began, her voice a low growl. Her hands tightened their grip on the bottle neck.

"...WAIT!"

The word was punctuated with a dull thunk! as the thick glass bottle collided with the back of the boy's head.

Jim's determination to get as far away from Eris as possible was laid to rest rather quickly and solidly by the smashing of some kind of heavy object into the back of his head. The suddenness of the blow knocked Jim off balance and forced him down onto his knees, and both his hands reached towards the back of his head to examine the damage. As he retracted them he got to his feet, turning around to face Eris again.

"What the fuck was that for!?" He started, staring her down and eventually taking a few steps towards her at a rather quick pace.

Jim, of course, was completely oblivious to the fact that during the scuffle the Taurus had fallen out of his hands and now lay on the soft earth underneath him.

Eris had no idea what she was trying to accomplish by assaulting the boy, but having him come at her like that was denifitely not what she was going for. There was only one thing she could do. She aimed a full-out kick at Jim's testicles.

Her timing was a little slow, but her kick was still rather effective as her shin crashed into his scrotum.

"I don't know who the hell you think you are-..."

Jim would've loved nothing more than to tear Eris' ego down right then and there, but unfortunately for him her devastating blow to his groin came quicker than he had time to react to, and she ended up being the one who took him down a peg yet again. Both his hands immediately jetted towards his inguinal area immediately after the blow had landed, and his eyes slammed shut.

"FUCK!" he shouted, dropping onto his knees yet again. Soon afterwards he found that that was an even more difficult position to maintain, and reluctantly he fell over onto his back, writhing around on the ground in an attempt to distract himself from the blinding pain that kept coming in waves throughout his body. "Stupid fucking cunt..." he whimpered, trying to shake off the pain.

Cunt...

Eris' breath caught in her throat upon hearing the word. The sound of Jim's voice was like needles that stuck her all over her body. Her hands coiled themselves into tight fists. She never thought Jim would be one to use such hateful language.

Nobody liked Eris, and she knew it.

She knew what they saw in her. Eris Marquis was arguably the most unpopular person at Southridge High. She was so meaningless to her peers that they didn't even bother with her, except to be the butt of a mean joke or two. Nobody liked her because she was uptight. Eris didn't believe she was such. She was meticulous, and controlled. She wasn't bursting at the seams with juvenile mindlessness. Why would she be? It was annoying.

As such, she was the weird girl no one spoke to. Even the outcasts thought she was unapproachable. It had always been that way. Since pre-school, her unchildlike behaviour drove away many of her classmates.

It wasn't her fault she was different.

Tears streamed down Eris' gaunt cheeks. She wanted to hurt Jim. She wanted to show him just how much everyone had hurt her.

He was still writhing in pain, massaging his genitals. She threw herself on top of him, straddling his stomach and inadvertently pinning his arms at his sides. Pitching forward a little, she grabbed hold of his collar with her long, twig-like fingers. Eris sobbed loudly and without abandon as she began to slam Jim's head on the ground repeatedly.

The harder she cried, the harder his skull collided with the earthen floor.

Eris really had always been the type to get what she wanted, Jim was well aware of that. Never, though, did he expect her to resort to such dirty tactics; especially when he hadn't done much to merit the attack. No woman could possibly understand the pain of being booted in the testicles, he was sure. Especially now, since he was on the ground and fairly well exposed, and she had good footing, her attack had been extra successful. A good thirty seconds or so had passed now, and the throbbing pain hadn't ceased at all. He was struggling to keep his eyes open as he reflexively held them together in a futile effort to ease the pain, but every few seconds he sat up and shot a cursory glance towards Eris to check up on her.

Almost immediately he regretted having uttered his last string of cursing. The look in her eyes was both distant and menacing, and in the pit of his stomach Jim realized that he'd dug himself an even deeper hole than the one he was already in.

Despite the fact that he'd somewhat expected her attack, he was in no position to resist. Eris straddled him with ease, and for a second Jim found himself torn between the urge to punch her in the face and an eager sort of curiousity that he hadn't felt before. The latter was wiped away quite quickly as he noticed the hot tears stinging her cheeks, and as her knees made their way up to his arms to pin them down his half-anticipation quickly turned to dread.

Eris' instability had morphed into rage, and Jim was her outlet. As his head slammed against the ground for the first time (and inconveniently a rather large and shapely tree root that happened to jet out from the jungle floor right underneath his head), his voice tore itself from his lungs in the form of an almost primal scream that resonated throughout the jungle.

Somewhere in the midst of the assault Jim remembered the Taurus, and pathetically he tried to curl his left hand in an attempt to reach it. Eris' legs pinning his forearms down prevented him from making very much progress, however. His head slammed into the ground again, but the only reaction he gave this time was a visible increase in his breathing rate. His breath now came in great gasps, and with each breath he took he inched his arm slowly away from her knee and his hand closer towards the gun.

Just as the his left hand found the barrel of the 9mm his head slammed into the ground a third time, dazing him. His grip on the gun loosened, and he found himself staring straight upwards. Eris' face was blurry; partially owing to the head trauma that he was undergoing, and hindered further by the gentle pelting of rain droplets that still poured down on the two. He could barely hear her screaming and crying, but his mind had now long forgotten the gun.

His head slammed into the massive root a fourth time, and it was good enough to render him unconscious. His grip relaxed completely and his limbs loosened, all resistance that he'd provided just moments before fading away. The sound of Eris crying was the last thing Jim Middleton remembered hearing before he slipped into blackness. He couldn't have been sure how long the assault lasted after that, mainly because he never woke up.

B120: JAMES MIDDLETON - DECEASED

As Eris was brutally beating James' head into the ground, another boy wandered the jungle, worn and ragged from hours of travel through the unforgiving woods. His clothes were torn and scuffed, his eyes dark and sunken, and his left leg sported two ugly wounds, crudely stitched together with thread from his shirt.

After losing Dennis, Dane wandered aimlessly around the jungle, hoping against hope that he would find Dennis again, or even a suitable landmark. Sadly, this was not to be, and he had no choice but to rest alone and vulnerable.

Shortly after waking, he had the misfortune of triggering one of the many traps on the island, a bear trap that caught his leg like a vise. He panicked and nearly passed out because of the pain, but eventually he managed to work his leg free and treat his wounds. By then, however, he'd lost quite a bit of blood, and he felt somewhat woozy. It was a miracle that he didn't run into another trap by now.

He limped into the vicinity just as James breathed his last. "Hey, stop! Stop!" he protested, but to no avail. The other boy was already dead. "Why did you have to do that?" he cried.

((OOC: Jim's head was not being banged into a tree. Also, I'm begging you not to make any obvious references to Eris about Jim being dead. Please.))

Before Eris had a chance to notice that Jim had gone slack in her hands, she heard a voice ring out in protest. Whipping around, she saw that it was Dane.

"Why did you have to do that?"

He was chastising her. Did he see it all? Did he think she was a...a cunt as well? Eris crawled off of Jim's body (he hadn't moved- she must have knocked him out) and backed up against a tree to her immediate left, gingerly grabbing hold of the gun that had been dropped. Eris whimpered, wiping away the last few tears stuck to her face. The boy was making her very uncomfortable.

"Go away..." she croaked.

((Fixed.))

Dane stared at the girl, trying to place her in his mind. Not that it mattered much who she was; the important thing was the gun she was reaching for. He backed up a few steps, only to trip over a root and fall flat on his back. The impact jostled his wounds, causing him to cry out in pain and tears of his own to drip down his cheeks.

"Please don't," he whimpered as he clutched his daypack, scared of what the girl might do to him. "I just want to find Dennis. I just..."

"I...I don't care. Go away." she said, her voice breaking. Eris wiped the snot off her lip with the back of her hand. Somewhere in her mind she was appalled at her current display, but at that moment she was still reeling from the alcohol-induced rage.

However, beating Jim upside the head made her feel better, and Eris became aware that her headache had receded almost entirely. Feeling a little clearer of mind, she looked at the boy and recognized him. There were tears in his eyes. Dane Zygmunt was crying.

"I just want to find Dennis."

Dennis must have been his friend. Had Dane been searching for him this whole time? Maybe, it would make sense that people would seek out companions. But not one would be looking for Eris. Not a single person on the island could be said to give a damn about her. She'd dealt with the awareness of being an outsider for years, believing that she would make herself important to everyone someday. That was the whole point of joining Student Council.

All that seemed pointless now that she had no friends to be with during her final days. The little cretin didn't know the first thing about pain!

Eris adjusted her grip on the handgun as she stood up. She glared at Dane and said, "You should leave now."

Dane stared at her for a few seconds more, then took off running through the brush. The mystery girl, whom he'd given up trying to remember (it was on the tip of his tongue, he could swear...), was too far gone to negotiate. He didn't know why, and he didn't want to, not if his curiosity could kill him.

And so he continued to wander through the endless jungle, his only consolation being the coming dawn. With the seventh announcement so soon in coming, he would know for certain whether his friend was still alive.

((Dane Zygmunt continued elsewhere))

Staring at the back of the retreating boy, Eris felt a strong urge to put a few bullets into it. She would then leave him to die alone and afraid, just like how she would eventually die herself.

Jim was still unconcious on the ground before her. She turned his gun over in her hand a few times. Why should she relinquish such a good find? Jim deserved to be scared and defenseless, since he was so willing to abandon her and leave her drunk in a forest of madmen.

To hell with you, James Middleton.

With that, Eris unzipped the daypack that Jim had discarded during the altercation and transferred all the clips she could find, as well as the manual, which she shoved under the strap of her bra. Having no pockets was quite a nuisance in a place like this.

Before she went to leave, Eris studied Jim's face once more. He hadn't moved at all since she last checked. Feeling a little braver, she edged closer to the corspe. He looked peaceful, as though he was sleeping in his own bed at home. Curious, the feelings she was having that day. Figuring it was harmless enough, Eris went ahead and kneeled at Jim's side. Her thumbs hooked gently around the inside of the corners of his mouth, and gingerly Eris pulled his lips into a lopsided grin. For a moment she sat, surveying her work. It was nice to be smiled at again.

Eris gave her victim a small, nervous smile in return before striding cautiously drunkenly from the area.

((continued elsewhere))