Seeking

[Grand Moff Hissa]

((Kimberly Nguyen continued from and you may say to yourself, "My god, what have I done?"))

Kimberly had been craving a fucking smoke for about an hour now, but she'd given all her cigarettes away. She wouldn't have smoked them even if she hadn't, of course. She was done. Cold turkey. She would never touch a cigarette to her lips again as long as she lived. It was pretty damn lucky she hadn't been addicted in the first place, at least, not seriously. Social smoking had always been a habit she'd planned to kick someday. She hadn't thought much about her own death back in Saint Paul, but she'd sure as fuck not counted on letting lung cancer get her.

By now, she'd almost certainly succeeded in her goal of living to halfway. She was considering what the next big thing should be. Another landmark? Make the final hundred? Something sillier, more arbitrary? Make Kris pay before someone put a cap in Maxwell? Really, it didn't matter. She was just playing games with herself, using obsessions to hide the reality of what she had done. She knew she'd have to face the music for Aislyn sooner or later. She was just putting it off, getting her affairs in order. Besides, there were other things she was trying to forget. She was spinning ideas through her head to take her mind off the fact that she was tired, bruised, hungry, and sick.

That last bit wasn't as bad as it could have been, of course. There were all kinds of infections and other nasty shit she could have gotten into, and instead she had a sore throat. Hell, it could have even been low grade allergies. It didn't make much difference. Point was, her throat hurt, and it was pissing her off. She'd drunk more of the nasty creek water, gone through a whole bottle of the stuff, then refilled it again. In all likelihood, that would come back to bite her at some point, but only if she lived long enough. That wasn't something she was at all sure she could count on.

It didn't matter. She'd deal with dying when she had to, and not a second sooner. For now, she was heading to a part of the island she'd never been to before. She'd spent the past week mostly crawling around the eastern side of things, with a brief vacation underground. Her map told her that the east was the more civilized area, with houses and clearcut woods. The western edge, where she was going now, was still forested, with swamp to the north. It was wild. Dangerous. Untouched.

It was exactly the sort of place to hunt someone down like an animal.

Even if Kris wasn't here, the area would play to Kimberly's advantage. She could get closer to people in a forest. She could listen to birds to get a bit of advance warning if other people were approaching. Maybe she could even catch something to quell the rumbling in her stomach. She could cook. She still had her matches. Rhory'd be fine lighting the cigs with that shit Bic that came in the first aid kit.

She walked and walked, always staying alert, watching the terrain under her feet change, noting the decreased erosion compared to the felled area. She considered the relative lack of bodies. She found only one, a girl obviously the victim of a collar detonation. Kimberly didn't care to try to recognize her. She simply searched the rough vicinity for supplies. A short ways away, she came across what must have been the girl's weapon: a large gun, a lot like the one Rhory had used. It was lying against the foot of a tree. Kimberly couldn't tell if it was damaged. She didn't give a fuck. Didn't even bother picking the thing up to look at it. What use was a gun you needed two hands to reload if you still couldn't bend your fucking left elbow? Besides, she wasn't such a fan of guns. Her primary concern with them was keeping them out of other people's hands, not having them in her own.

She dimly wondered what had become of Daisuke's pistol, what Liz was doing now. She'd seen the helicopter. Knew what it meant. Liz was well and truly fucked, but at least it'd been her choice. At least she was dying how she wanted to. Kimberly would've liked to pour a toast to that, maybe some of that nasty shit Peter Siu had fed her at Justin Corrigan's party a million years ago. It seemed wrong to toast death with decent alcohol.

She moved on, leaving the corpse and its possessions untouched.

The woods were eerily still. It was quite a large island, all things considered, and the Bayview Senior Class was shrinking by the hour. Kimberly gave a little consideration to the possibility that she had the woods to herself. It didn't really matter if she did, though. The island was only so big. Kris could only run for so long. If Kimberly had to stay alive until the finals to catch up with Kris, if she had to hold herself together until they were all herded into a tiny area to kill each other, well, so be it. Her only concern was that her opponent would fuck up and get herself killed before then.

That was a very real worry, unfortunately. Kris was a big target. Surely other people were searching for her too. Kimberly was cool with it if they beat on Kris a bit. She could live with them maybe taking a finger or two. Nothing more than that was acceptable, though. While many people on the island probably had reason to hate Kris Hartmann, surely none had as valid an axe to grind as Kimberly did.

So she kept moving, ranging through the woods, heading towards the coast.

She'd find her quarry. Sooner or later, she would find her.

((Kimberly Nguyen continued in Bloodgarden))