Survival Of The Fittest

((Rene Wolfe continued from Dysthemia Morte))

Another day spent running around the island, another night spent cold and worrying that someone would gut her while she was asleep, and another announcement in the morning informing everyone of the killers and the killed. At this point, it all felt very routine. Undeniably fucked up, yes, but routine.

The announcement did have some pretty big surprises this time around. Junko was dead, which was something that hadn't even crossed Rene's mind. Junko had always been pretty cool at school, so to hear about her death, especially since she was apparently trying to kill someone else, was a pretty big shocker. Nancy was gone now too, meaning that Rene wouldn't have to worry about a crazy-ass weeaboo showing up and slitting her throat in the middle of lunch or something.

Shit, was she really feeling relieved after hearing that one of her classmates was dead? This island's shittiness really was starting to get to her, and she hoped it wouldn't stick.

Rene browsed around the garden, which consisted of less flowers and more various types of weeds and other things that would send the hosts of those gardening shows her grandma likes into a coronary if they saw them in the quantities that lay before her at that moment. It wasn't the most pleasant place to spend the night, but when you've gotta drop, you gotta drop. And to her credit, she hadn't gotten pricked by any unfriendly plant life.

"Gah!"

... Okay, may have spoken too soon there. She hadn't been paying attention and got her finger cut by a thorn for her trouble. She sucked on the cut to stem the bleeding. Yes, it was the most primitive course of action she would have taken, but in her defense, it was also the easiest, and a work week of poor nutrition didn't lend itself very well to quality decision making.

She sat on a rock and looked at her newfound wound, reflecting on the discovery that even the local plants couldn't be trusted.

[[Johnny McKay, continued from Wait, dont' be hasty]]

Things had been, uh, continued to turn out bad. Saying it came as a surprise would be lying, but Johnny did feel like lamenting his bad fate here and there. To no one particular, of course, because Johnny was alone. That didn't help, obviously.

The damage on his hand didn't seem to be serious at first. It hurt a lot. When Johnny passed the ocean, he held it in the water for minutes in an attempt to cool it. Seemingly that helped. The hand didn't swell or anything, and though it was sensitive to the touch, and sensitive in general, it didn't appear as if he got anything bad out of it.

He'd hope that, once he woke up again, the hand would be fine and dandy.

Of course, it wasn't. In fact, it had swollen quite a bit. Took on a reddish color. Ugly sight, but for some reason it didn't hurt a lot.

Suddenly, a random 'Gah'. He looked up from his hand.

"...hello?"

What drove him to the place was unclear, but Johnny found himself at the gardens. Place sucked. But it sucked when he was together with Raina. Maybe it was that that drove him after all.

((Blair Moore continued from Dysthemia Morte))

It was starting to feel samey.

Same old murderous classmates, same old vague sense of doom without any apparent purpose, all that shit. Each announcement brought something new, but it wasn't usually a good surprise. Hell, it wasn't even upsetting at this point. Just sort of...expected.

Maria was dead. It was weird to think that someone she'd talked to a couple days ago had been murdered, but then again, it kind of made sense, given the provided context. She'd seemed the high and mighty type. Isabel killed two more people, Jerry Fury was looking to be picking up as a player, and Junko was also dead. Kimiko had killed Nancy, which was nice. Maybe all the psycho killers would off each other.

This all seemed kind of boring, if that made sense? Blair found it odd that she could be bored while on murder island, but most of her time was spent either walking, eating, or sitting around, mostly in silence. Rene would crack jokes and she'd smile, but it wasn't a persistent feeling.

People were dying, for Christ's sake. She ought to be doing something! But what, the smaller voice of reason replied. Fighting? Killing? No, it said, you're better off waiting.

Waiting for what? The reason couldn't respond.

Now, as they said around in relative silence, Blair picked at a flower, plucking the red petals off one by one. Rene startled her by crying out, but when Blair looked up she'd just cut herself on the finger, no big deal. She went back to her thoughts.

A distant voice caught her attention. Blair looked over at Rene, raised an eyebrow, and stood up from the dirt. She didn't say anything.

Okay, the cut wasn't bleeding so much now, but she figured she should still probably get a bandage on the thing before it got a chance to become infected. She had been relatively lucky so far in terms of the whole staying alive and relatively uninjured thing, but she was in no mood to try to push her luck, not even with a little scrape.

She unzipped her bag and was making a reach for her first aid kit when she heard a voice. Was it calling out to her? She had no idea. She paused what she was doing and looked around. She saw Blair looking fairly alert, so she could presume that she wasn't the only one who heard it. That was good. At least she could feel relatively secure in the fact that she was not currently losing her mind.

That still left Rene with the dilemma of what to do about their unwanted interloper, though. Should she say something back? That was a risky move. What if they were dangerous? That would only draw their attention.

... Then she realized that she had probably already drawn some attention when she cried out after pricking her finger on a thorn. She rolled her eyes at the way this situation was unfolding. Now that she felt there was no point in pretending not to hear, she gave the most apathetic, half-hearted reply she had available.

"Yo."

Johnny took a few more steady steps, and there they were. Rene Wolfe and Blair Moore. He looked at Rene. He switched over to Blair. His eyes didn't rest long. Something made noise in the background. A small bush twitching and rattling. Johnny looked at it, and saw two small birds hopping and dancing on the ground.

He continued to stare at them for a while longer.

"Alright."

Blair was tempted to groan when she saw Johnny. He was one of those nobodies with no ambition or ability to get out of Kingman. The kind of person who didn't care about the world or the beauty or adventure that could be found outside of a shitty desert town.

She initially suppressed the groan, actually. It then occurred to her that she didn't have to care about social niceties, not that she was the most affable person to begin with but had she been nice to Caedyn or Alan or Wade when he first showed up?

"Ugh. What do you want?" She said with an exasperated tone, rolling her head back in annoyance. Johnny was a complete joke, and the fact that he'd outlasted so many people was kind of depressing. Then again, the dying girl had as well, so maybe she shouldn't be judging.

Wait, she didn't care. Judging away.

Johnny came around the corner and wow did Blair seem pissed. Rene couldn't really make out any reason for why she was so angry, but she had to remember that when one spends a night sleeping in a subpar garden filled with finger-stabbing thorny vines, they were allowed to have bad mornings if they damn well felt like it.

She continued with the removal of her first aid kit so that she could deal with her lightly injured finger. She popped it open and looked up at Johnny, who still seemed to be pretty confused about the whole situation.

"So how is it?"

What the hell, might as well at least try to be friendly.

A step forward, and three backwards. That's how it was. Johnny thought this place sucked. When he was with Raina they decided they'd find something better. Something better than the thorns and the wet bushes scattering the gardens. And now Johnny came back to it. He thought he'd be the hero for once, set out and find Raina, and all he got was the same stinking place as before. Worse, all he found was two girls already occupying the place, treating Johnny like a bug or leach or whatever.

There was no point in it. No point in remaining here, no point in talking to Blair or Rene. He should've just went on and searched further. Instead he sat on the floor, butt first.

"Good. No, actually bad."

Johnny looked at this hand. Same condition as before.

((Skipping to get death started))

Rene nodded to Johnny. "Yeah, same for us too." She replied. "Not a whole lot of good days lately."

She took a bandage out of its pack and applied it to her finger, taking special care to ensure that it was fastened securely. Once she thought she had a good fit she closed up her kit and bend her finger a little to test the flexibility of the bandage. It was a bit stiff, but manageable enough. She smiled at her dressed cut and moved to get up.

She placed her hand on the ground to help push herself up, but felt something strange. She could feel something fuzzy under her hand for a few moments before she felt a sharp pain shooting from her palm all the way up her arm She yelped as she pulled her hand away to see a large spider under it.

She squinted at the spider to get a better look at it before it scurried away. It was big and hairy, with a black and white color scheme, almost resembling zebra stripes in a way. She had seen a spider like that before during one of her research projects. She just had to remember...

... Oh. Oh crap. She recognized it. A fringed ornamental tarantula. A venomous spider.

She flipped her hand to look at the palm, and her eyes immediately widened with panic. Two blood spots at the heel of her palm. She had been bitten.

"Oh crap, oh crap..." Rene muttered frantically as she reopened her first aid kit. She needed antivenom, and she needed it fast. She moved things around took things out, and did everything she could to find something that could dispel the venom before it took its toll on her. There was bandages, tape, asprin, scissors, and a bunch of other stuff that she didn't even know the name of nor use for. But in spite of all of that, she couldn't find an antivenom.

Her arms fell limply to her side as she looked down at the kit. There was nothing she could do.

Speaking with Johnny seemed fruitless. He was one of those loud, trashy people, or at least he struck Blair as such, but apparently whatever horrible things he'd experienced had taken a toll. Not that she could blame him; it was a pretty traumatic situation to find yourself in.

Still, that didn't mean Blair could make small talk with him easily now that he was all sad and mopey. "Hey, we're kinda not too keen on visitors, so if you-"

Rene made a noise, and Blair's head whipped to look at the other girl. She saw something large and brightly colored in the grass near her, and for a moment Blair thought it was a snake and suppressed a scream. Luckily, it was only a gigantic spider, so she wasn't as embarrassed when she did scream.

"Jesus Christ!" She gasped, voice trembling as she coughed once. Clearing her throat, Blair moved over to Rene, who was sitting morosely at her bag. "Hey, did you see that thing?" Then she saw the tiny speck of blood on Rene's palm.

"Shit, are you okay? It didn't-" she didn't want to finish that sentence.

Rene turned her attention from her bag back to the bite on her hand. She knew that the effects of the spider that bit her weren't as widely known as those of a black widow or brown recluse but she had heard the symptoms. Pain, comas, and of course, death. And there was nothing at her disposal that could stop any of it.

Blair came over to her, and she looked up. Her friend was obviously startled and concerned, and Rene had neither the heart nor the will to keep her in the dark for any longer than necessary. She held up her bitten hand and explained the situation in a low, soft voice, with none of her usual energy present.

"I don't have antivenom."

Shit.

Blair was floored. "Shit, what." She looked down at the ground. The spider was scuttling away at high speed. She had no idea how there could be a tarantula here of that size without her having noticed, but then again, she had other things on her mind. Blair considered stomping it.

"Well, is it bad, like..." Blair trailed off. No. Being a downer here wouldn't help.

"Are you going to be okay? I mean, tarantulas aren't that venomous, right?" She forced a smile, and it came across as awkwardly as it felt. "It's fine, right?"

Right?

Rene sighed. Blair was trying to be optimistic, but it was painfully obvious that she was forcing it.

"Fringed ornamental tarantula." She recited from memory. "Much more venomous than the usual tarantula. Bites can cause intense pain, muscle spasms and..." She trailed off. She knew all of the known symptoms, but she didn't want to verbalize the last few, mostly because they would involve expressing what she already knew would probably happen to her in the near future.

"... yeah.' She mumbled. She looked down, to the side, and all around, seemingly doing whatever she could to avoid looking Blair in the face and tell her that she was probably dying now. She looked at her hand again. The area around it was already starting to turn red, and it still hurt like a bandit. The process was already getting started. She was expecting to see swelling any minute.

Oh man, oh man, this was bad.

"You said you don't have an antivenom, right?" Blair knew people could survive venomous encounters without the antidote, as long as they received some form of supportive care...which they were lacking, being on a deserted island.

"What can we do?" Blair asked in a small voice. She wasn't used to feeling helpless, but this wasn't something she'd been prepared to cope with. Murder, sure, but the slow death of a spider bite like Rene was implying? How could she just sit here and watch her friend die like that?

Friend. At home, she'd probably never call Rene Wolfe a friend, but here, Rene had been a supportive person and a helpful companion. Blair was glad to have her around. But now...

"I don't know." Rene said. "If it was a black widow, then I'd be a hundred percent fucked, but for now..." She took a long, deep sigh as she mentally recounted her very limited options. "I guess we're just gonna have to wait and see."

Yes, it was probably one of the worst answers that she could have given, but it's not like she had much choice. If she lied and said she'd be fine, it wouldn't even take an hour for Blair to find out that she was lying. Hell, it might only be a few minutes before the really bad symptoms started showing up.

She looked at her hand again. Still getting redder and starting to feel a little stiff around the bite marks.