Survival Of The Fittest

((Jackie Myrie, continued from White Sparrows.))

Another day passed, another day wasted.

This was becoming a sad pattern for Jackie. She'd go somewhere, meet a bunch of people, chicken out of whatever she was going to do, and run away. Rinse and repeat. The endless cycle of Jacqueline Myrie's sad time on the island.

This was new though. She hadn't been here before. The endless trees let up and Jackie found herself walking towards the edge of the island. Had she walked all the way across? It wouldn't surprise her if she had, but she kept her reservations for the moment. She had nothing better to do, so she sang to herself while she walked. Only under her breath, but it kept her from thinking to hard as she was going. Jackie was a terrible singer anyway, she didn't need anyone hearing that.

Her pack was getting heavy, wherever she was, so Jackie decided again that she needed a rest. She'd been walking for hours, and she was getting tired. And hungry. And it was a wonder she hadn't pissed herself, given how long she'd been walking. She opened her pack and pulled out her last loave of bread, muttering a quiet "Shit," under her breath. She quickly ate it, rolled the cellophane wrapping into a ball and threw it as far as she could. Which wasn't very far. Oh well, no one was really paying attention.

Walking past a bush- probably the last one she'd see before she walked right off the edge of the island- Jackie sighed. She dropped her bag on the floor unceremoniously on the floor, squatted down, dropped trou, and did, quite possibly, the most embarrassing thing she'd ever do on camera.

Jackie buckled her belt back up, dusted herself down and stood up, tentatively shouldering her bag. Let's never speak of that again was the general consensus of that in her mind, and Jackie was inclined to agree. She did what she had to do. Forget about it, move on, and file a lawsuit if you see it on youtube once you get home. She stopped at the edge of the cliff, throwing her bag down next to where she was standing and looking over the edge.

Jackie wondered if she could dive down there and swim to freedom. She was an okay swimmer, but she wasn't sure if there'd be rocks, or if the water was shallow, or even if she could swim with all her chains and stuff dragging her down. How far down was the water, anyway? Jackie knelt down, picked up a stone, and dropped it over the edge of the cliff. She didn't see it hit the water. Waste of time, huh?

She shrugged and kicked her bag back, in the hopes that the last of her supplies wouldn't teeter over the edge.

Then she sat down, dangling her legs off of the edge of the cliff, staring at the edge of her world.

((Joe Rios continued from Gravemakers and Gunslingers))

There had been a very noticeable change in Joe's demeanor over the course of this day so far.

Over the fairly short walk between the mansion and the northern cliffs, he'd been... not happy, exactly, but perhaps content. His zen thing, which had been shattered so badly by Rose's death and Cisco's insanity, was back.

The way Joe saw it, he was either going to win or die. No other options. And frankly, either way was alright with him: winning meant he'd be able to give Danya what for, and dying meant he wouldn't have to do any more killing. The visceral pleasure he'd taken in killing Mike Maszer had scared him, and he didn't want to drive himself further into the abyss if he could avoid it.

Joe muttered a prayer of small thanks that his clothes were mostly black. He'd washed the bloodstains off of his exposed skin along the way using some of his bottled water, but the clothes would have been more difficult to deal with.

Off in the distance, a girl, young-looking but rather cute, was sitting on the edge of the cliff. He recognized her and knew that she was named Jackie or Jacqui or something like that, but he didn't know her particularly well. With a grim sort of humor, he noted that he now had a chance to change that. Plus, she was doing something rather unintelligent by sitting on the edge of the cliff with her back to everything.

He walked up somewhat close to her, set his bulky daypack down, and sat on it.

"Hey," he said. It was simple, but it was a greeting and it would probably get her attention.

There was a boy behind her that she had never talked to before in her life, who had just introduced himself. If this wasn't death island, Jackie would have slapped him. How rude, seriously. You can't just go around like "oh hey!" and stuff, that's just-

The tinny megaphone cut through the awkward silence like a knife.

No.

No way. This wasn't happening. There was no way this could be happening right now. She was dreaming, had to be. Maybe she'd crapped half of her brain out earlier. Jackie looked up at the boy behind her.

Two days ago, she would have told him to fuck off. One day ago she would have tried to stab him. Now, Jackie Myrie was the Queen of the World, and she had to address one of her loyal subjects.

"Hello." Jackie said, before shaking her head as the man with the megaphone continued, "No, wait, goodbye."

Jackie pushed herself up, standing shakily on half solid ground before she regained her footing. She left her things behind- wait, no, she couldn't do that. Jackie quickly ran back and toe-punted her bag off of the cliff, sending it clattering into the water below. Then, she turned around and started running, scrambling to find any way down to the beach.

Jackie had something to believe. For now, the world seemed a lot less bleak than she first thought.

((Jackie Myrie, continued in The Cavalry Arrives.))

(Alice Boucher continued from Cracking)

Quincy Jones was not in the Swamp.

He was not in the Key, with the wreckage of the boat. He was not in the corpse-filled, danger-zoned Warehouses (though there had been an Uzi there, in a cabinet that Sarah's key had opened; she had given it to Aston without a word), or in the Felled Forest: North, or the Logging Road or the Sawmill or the Lighthouse, or the Church. And he was not here, on the Northern Cliffs, where two figures stood far away, windblown.

Joe Rios and Jackie Myrie.

She didn't know what to think of either of them. She hadn't been paying attention to the announcements, and wouldn't take them for the truth even if she had been.

She and Aston had their feet dangling from the cliff. Aston's mouth was twisting; frustration? Annoyance? Alice didn't really care. Quincy Jones was far away. He would come to them, maybe. As long as they stayed alive, as long as he stayed alive, they would find him, eventually. The island would grow smaller. And she would shoot him, like she told Aston she would, and it would be one more mission completed, one more person gone.

Aston hadn't talked much; that was how Alice liked it. She had touched Alice's shoulder once, impulsively and surprisingly warmly, when Alice had spasmed, shuddered, suddenly, thinking about Sarah, Sarah's body, Sarah's pleas. Alice didn't say why, and Aston hadn't asked.

So they had been together, for nearly a day now, like sleepwalkers. Exhausted walking--it was malnutrition--hardly speaking. And now, and now a metallic megaphone voice was whistling through the wind, and telling them--and telling them that boats had come. That they were being rescued. That all but--that all but the players could go home. Not Sarah Atwell. Obviously.

We committed a crime together. It ties us.

She wanted Mama and Papa so badly. They were out there, in the real world, past the boats and the waters, in France, with all the things she missed--real food, with the sort of unpasturized cream you could never find in the awful Americas, and proper coffee, and music, and francs. Mama and Papa. Warm bed. Home.

Not being afraid.

But that wasn't everything.

They had said--they had said they wouldn't take players. And Alice Boucher was a killer. French girl, alone on the island--she couldn't go.

This isn't my redemption, Sarah. You would know, if anyone would.

She wanted to go. She wanted to go home. And she would go home, now that she could see the rescue boats coming--the US army, or maybe it was the French, it didn't really matter. But they were hurried, these boats; they couldn't fit every student on the island, yes. And other students should go before her.

She couldn't leave yet.

Player.

Too much of a risk.

The man on the beach was saying what she was thinking.

...can get your collars off and take you home, on one condition: that you have not been murdering your classmates over the past week.

So Aston could go. Aston was not a killer.

And she was.

And Alice was glad, glad again, that she didn't have to make choices.

I can go later.

To Aston: "I can take you to the beach. But I won't go myself. I'm a player. I go last."

And somehow, these thoughts, these words, were so, so easy to say.

Joe heard someone start yelling over a megaphone, from one of the beaches. Something about boats going off the island, escape, and whatnot.

...can get your collars off and take you home, on one condition: that you have not been murdering your classmates over the past week.

Joe should have been angry. He really should have. Literally less than a day after he'd killed Mike and Alan, the cavalry arrived and offered to take everyone who hadn't been killing off this God-forsaken island. Joe really hated irony sometimes.

But there was a silver lining to this. As far as Joe could tell, everyone they didn't take was going to be either a player or an idiot, and the idiots weren't likely to last long. If Joe wanted to win this and get a crack at the fat fuck himself, he'd have to do a lot less moral gymnastics to justify it, and this was good in his eyes.

Jackie looked up in his direction.

"Hello. No, wait, goodbye," she said as she ran like hell, presumably to the beach. An understandable response.

Off to the distance, Joe saw Aston Bennett and Alice Boucher sitting on the edge of the cliff. The wind slowed down and he heard Alice say to Aston that while the former would take the latter to the beach, the former couldn't go herself because she was a player.

Joe was familiar with Alice. While she could be somewhat abrasive, he had a difficult time considering her a bad person, and what he had just heard confirmed that. It looked for a bit as if they were in the same boat: two decent people broken by the game into murderers. He wasn't nearly as familiar with Aston, but he assumed she was safe to be around too considering that she was a viable candidate for escape. He stood up, grabbed his daypack, slung it over one shoulder, and walked over to them at a quick pace.

When he was easily in earshot of them, he decided to speak up.

"Hey, Alice, Aston. I overheard a bit of your conversation." This was already awkward, so Joe figured that getting to the point as quickly as possible was going to be in his best interest. "You're going to need another escort if one of you is a player. I can imagine they already know who to look out for, and they're likely to open fire the second they see someone on their list. I'm a big guy, so I can probably get their attention early and draw their fire while you two get to the boat, say your goodbyes, whatever the hell."

This was a completely batshit insane idea. Joe was sorely tempted to punch himself for considering it but opted not to.

"I know, it's crazy and you're probably suspicious of me for putting my life at risk for people I barely know... but I have my reasons," he said with a faint smile.

When a door closes, another one always opens, he thought.

[font=garamond]((Whoops, I've been busy. Apologies.))

Despite the help, Quincy Jones remains elusive. We've searched nearly everywhere for him, yet an island of less than one hundred people is perhaps one of the best greater better hiding places.

We've searched everywhere, but he's probably on the move. But there was one thing we found.

A spectacular thing.

Alice handed me a key along the journey. Sarah's. She said it opened something, so I agreed we should search the island for whatever this opened. The Warehouses were the obvious choice. We searched, we avoided commotion, we avoided a grissly run-in with two flat classmates. But I found a door that matched the label. Storage. I opened it up, and...

An Uzi. A working, automatic handheld submachine gun. With ammo, with a manual, with everything. 4 clips. 25 bullets to a clip. Theoretically, if they all stood in a line, I could wipe out the entire class. Only theoretically of course. No point unless I hit Quincy first, along with whoever that bitch was that killed Tiffany. She stole it from me, so I'm going to

But we've moved on. We've searched, and we avoided scenes of drama. Needless fucking drama.

We've stopped now.[/font]

*

((Aston Bennett continues from Cracking))

There were several times in her life that Aston got asked ridiculous questions.

These were the top two.

Was Aston just going to walk off the island, without getting her vengeance on the one person who dared take something from her? No. Did Alice spend an entire day with her to mislead her into making such a vague assumption? No. Did she look like someone who could go for the easiest way out, when clearly there was much better things to do?

Aston was so insulted.

She clenched her hand on the gun by her waist. This new arrival, Joe Rios, was an unfactor. A variable. He was not part of her plan. Unless...he really wanted to be? She doubted it. He already seemed to welcome death, so any plan that involved living was probably a no-go. Going to the beach was not her plan. Getting "rescued" was not her plan. Rescue. Did she look like she needed rescuing, honestly? She was perfectly fine.

But still, Aston kept her mind on the target here. Her clenched hand drew the gun out, and casually pointed it at the newest arrival.

"Unless you bring me a certain killer's living head, for me to crush the life out of, I'm not leaving any time soon."

Her choice. Her only choice. According to mister megaphone, they weren't talking two out of three people on this cliffside. While Aston could probably say that she didn't trust Alice with her job once Aston was sipping piña coladas in some far off unknown place. Cause face it, Danya would hunt those fuckers down like dogs for screwing with his perfect game. Aston wasn't gonna live a life of nothing when she could replace it with the possibility of getting back at the one person who got away.

She turned to Alice.

"I'm not going down there. Unless Quincy Jones is on that boat, I have no reason to be there. There's no point, don't you see? This place gives me some sort of purpose, since before this place, I was just existing. Here, I have a mission. I'm going to hunt down the guy who killed my best friend-"

Liar.

"-and inflict as much pain as humanely possible to the human body until he feels what I felt."

Liar.

Her hand felt weak, so she stuffed the gun back in her jeans.

"So there you go."

Back to Joe. The new guy was briefed like that. He didn't even want to know, now he did know.

"So you can see why I'm not going down there. But..." Aston pulled herself up from the cliff's edge, and stood to face the Latino giant. Well, he didn't seem like a raging psychopath as those announcements would have had her believe. He certainly wasn't mouth breathing or snorting.

"Are you seriously interested in putting your life at risk for someone you barely know?"

I'm not going down there. Unless Quincy Jones is on that boat, I have no reason to be there. There's no point, don't you see? This place gives me some sort of purpose.

That made two of them.

You could look at Alice, look at her now, and she would be nothing. And in some ways she was. She was a vessel, a girl who had decided that getting redemption for a girl dead and gone was more important than--

--boats.

--rescue.

--freedom.

Because she could trick herself into thinking that they wouldn't take her, but in fact, she didn't know. She could go down, try to talk to the man, maybe win his sympathy. Maybe go home.

But that action--was not correct.

Not yet. Not yet.

When the boats came back, maybe she'd have her rescue then. Maybe she'd have her freedom. Or maybe she'd be a strange and lifeless corpse--that fate didn't seem so frightful to her anymore.

How I've changed.

But it was something to think about. That she was making her own choice not to go down to the boats, not to try and plead for herself, not to paint herself as not-a-serial-killer, renounce Sarah's ugly legacy.

Not yet.

"We should--" she said, startling herself with her own voice, "We should go to the East Beach. We've searched this side of the island, and Quincy isn't here. They are probably just as loud on the East Beach. If he's on the other side of the island, he ought to be at the beach. Or at least near it."

Aston and Joe nodded, and she realized, to her surprise, that that sounded logical.

"I am sorry, Joe." I don't know what I'm apologizing for. "You can come with us--or stay. Your choice."

And Aston gave her a look, and Alice wasn't sure how to interpret it, but she did not want to lower her head now.

They were going.

But the boats will come again, the boats will come again, yes?

And maybe, by then, I'll be ready.

(Alice Boucher continued elsewhere)

((Sorry it took me a while to post. Minor GMing approved by Inky))

Joe was slightly taken aback by what Aston had said, but this was a change that suited him. Helping them get off the island was a good idea; helping them get revenge was better.

He looked up at her.

"Shit, yeah. To be honest, my fate was sealed the second I ended up on this island, so I may as well go out making a couple of decent people happy." He attempted a smile, but didn't quite manage it. "And hunting someone down suits me pretty nicely, if that's what you're looking for. Never liked Quincy Jones much anyways." What he didn't want to say was that this meshed perfectly with his new raison d'etre, avenging the innocents that have been murdered or broken on the island. He knew it would sound insane and didn't want to alienate his new allies that quickly.

A pause. Joe looked off into the distance at Alice, who was walking away, and then back at Aston.

"I think we'd best get going," Joe said as he hefted the daypack over his shoulder and started off in Alice's general direction. Aston didn't take long to follow.

((Joe Rios and Aston Bennett continued in Vitriol.))