Survival Of The Fittest

((Kammy So'oialo, start))

Kam sat with her back against one of the worn wooden towers, legs crossed. It had been a strange place to wake up, almost like she'd made it to a theme park after all, and then just up and fallen asleep and been abandoned there. She could've told herself that, for a few seconds, was genuinely tempted to entertain the idea. Only...

It would've been a lie, a transparent lie. Kammy was good at putting on a false face for the audience, but no amount of stage presence could pull off a cover-up of this magnitude. No, denial was dumb and wasn't going to help things. Also it would just make her build up hope for cotton candy or something, and then she would be disappointed when there wasn't any.

A smile cracked her face, and then for a few seconds, a laugh came bubbling up out of nowhere. Soft, but genuine. It died quickly. She wasn't sure if her sense of humour being intact was a good thing. For a given value of intact; that hadn't really been that funny.

Her headspace was fucked up. It was tough to think of what she wanted to do when the situation was so extreme, when all her thoughts were mixed up in a mess of wondering about back home, of all the things she could've, should've been telling her family. Kammy remembered squidging Tana's cheek as she'd left, the way his little face had wrinkled up and he'd whined at her for it, before they hugged. There seemed to be so much... unsaid. So much to work out with them, to try and, and...

Kammy looked down at the ground. There hadn't been though, had there. She'd already told all of them everything she had to say. Her heart had been on her sleeve, and they'd all known (save the kidlet) the details since Kam was fourteen. It wouldn't have made a difference if Kammy had sat down to talk about it that very morning she'd left to catch the bus. Her dad's face would've closed off like an iron door, her mom would've got that painfully disappointed frown and they wouldn't have got anywhere. It'd have been 'can't you be different' and 'I'm just like this' and 'we love you honey but-' and 'that's not how it works' and... all of that. Instead it'd just been the usual morning, the normal, positive atmosphere the house had when the elephant in the room wasn't brought up, and Kammy wasn't reminded of the way they thought of her, thought of Michelle and their-

Michelle!

Kam jolted so suddenly that she hit her head against the tower with a solid thunk. That pain though, was eclipsed by her pulse beginning to race. Michelle was here, Michelle was out there somewhere. The last thing she remembered before meeting that 'Danya', the horrific execution, the tape... was Michelle drifting to sleep on her shoulder. Fuck. Fucking hell. She had to, had to...

Kammy was already on her feet, had taken five steps, when she forced herself to stop, grinding her foot into the dirt. No. This was dumb. Not looking for her girlfriend, but attempting to do so by just charging off into the wilderness, screaming her name. Kam didn't even know where she WAS; finding someone was going to be hard enough without navigating. Without being methodical, applying some kind of logic, it would be like looking for a needle in a stack full of needles. There had to at least be some kind of plan.

Okay so... that meant daypack. That Danya guy had mentioned it and... Kam turned around on the spot. There it was, on the ground, right by where she'd woken up. Christ. She'd almost left it behind. A+ work she was turning in here.

Returning, Kam took a moment to glance over the outside. G008. Her number apparently. Top ten placement? Whatever. Meant nothing. There had to a map in here, right? They... and didn't that already hold weight - they - wouldn't just want everyone stumbling around getting lost. She opened it up, peeked inside, and the map was forgotten.

Right at the top, laid innocuously atop some kind of leaflet, was a gun. Not the gun that drew her attention though, not primarily - it had a note affixed to it - a quick tug confirming that it was by blu-tack. Kam raised it, tilted her head to the side.

In block capitals, hand written.
Three names of the dead. One other. One person who had come into this game and made it out alive. It had been years ago, she'd been young, but this had happened four times, and the details circulated around, even if you tried to avoid them. That was the gun of a killer. Seemed a stupid distinction to make, guns were after all, weapons, but... there was something sinister about the fact that it'd been used. More than that - it'd belonged to someone that had not only been in this game, but won this game. Kam reached inside, picked it up. Cold to the touch at first, it warmed slowly.

It had seen use, that was clear enough. It was battered, a little marked - someone had polished it, but you couldn't clean off the slight dents, the hint of scorching around the barrel. If Kam knew more about guns, she might've glanced at some of the more internal workings, but she didn't, left the moving parts alone. She knew enough, though, to know where the magazine was, know that it was fully loaded. Glancing back into the bag, there were more, plenty of ammunition to, for...

For a repeat performance?

Kammy swallowed and laid the gun down, delving back into the bag. There was that leaflet, which seemed to be a manual of some sort, food, water... and then a folded piece of paper attached to a compass. She extracted both, unfolded, and jackpot. It was a map. Quickly, she perused it, trying to find just where she was. From the legend, it appeared the answer was the very north of the island. That was something, at least. Pretty out in the sticks, all things considered, though. Kammy felt that people would probably gravitate towards the built up areas - better shelter, right? Kam knew she'd feel better with a roof over her head than a bunch of rope swings.

But... just a little further north and she'd be able to systematically search from the top of the island, to the best of her ability. Meant she was less likely to miss anything. Tall order on an island that was something like six miles long though... Kam was going to leave ground uncovered whatever she did, there was no GOOD choice.

Which meant she had to go with the most probable one. Michelle MIGHT be somewhere to the north, but there was a lot less island to the north. It was more likely she was south of here. If- when, Kam found her, she didn't know exactly what she would do but she'd... she'd figure it out on the way.

Kammy picked up the gun as she rose, turned it over and over in her hands. Ballestair Molina. It was both scary and strangely reassuring. Some people did make it out of this alive - some people had escaped a few years ago, that'd been huge.

Only, the person who'd owned this had made it out alive in a very, very different way.

She set off.

South.


((Kammy continued in Perspectives, an Alternate))