Survival Of The Fittest

((Alice Gilman: Continued from Waking Up to Ash and Dust.))

Miraculously, all three of them made it out of the Nuclear Plant intact. Despite all of Alice's fears, they'd avoided being trapped or shot at. Hell, they didn't encounter any resistance at all, which was far more than she had been expecting. Sometimes, things did work out for the best, however unlikely it seemed. Not that it promised to stay that way for long, considering that they'd just left their only shelter behind.

The Nuclear Planet was no longer secure, and the nearby Living Site had been declared a danger zone, (Alice paused for a moment to wonder about what had happened to the group they'd encountered, then dismissed the thought. She didn't have any real reason to care about them, after all, and she had more important things to be worrying about.), so it was decided that their next destination should be the Homestead.

After their encounter back there, none of them wanted to risk running into another group, and the Homestead was nicely isolated. The farmhouse, if it was still in decent condition, would also work well as shelter, assuming it was unoccupied. Considering that it was currently a danger zone, if they were able to get to it right after it was lifted, they'd probably have a good chance of being the first ones there. Not wanting to follow the road again and risk traveling through the city, they cut through the woods, which slowed them down enough for it to be dark long before they reached their destination, forcing them to stay in the amusement park overnight.

As unnerving as their surroundings were, the night passed without any real incident, though Alice found herself once more unable to get any real sleep. They left early in the morning, and when the announcements came on at their regular time, all was back to normal after the previous day's fake-out. Just a mild admonition and another long list of corpses that Alice certainly did not feel anything for. Certainly. What was interesting was the list of new danger zones.

"Guess it's a good thing we got out when we did."

The Homestead, thankfully, was both in good condition and no longer a danger zone, and after ensuring that the farmhouse was empty, the group got to work setting up rudimentary barricades. "Not that bad a place." She remarked to the others as they were working. "Honestly wouldn't mind living in a house like this, if it was fixed up a bit."

((Casey Malkovich continued from Waking Up to Ash and Dust))

Casey wasn't exactly sure how they had made it out so cleanly. Maybe she had been right about the others; maybe they really were just another group of scared kids looking for a place to stay the night. She wondered if they also let out a sigh of relief once they realized that Casey and her group had left. Maybe it was the first time in this whole damn game they had the chance to rest their feet and get a decent night of sleep.

Or maybe the other group had been hardened killers. Who knew?

Anyway, it was pointless to worry about anyone other than Alice or Carlos at this point. The important thing was that the three of them had made it out of that situation and that they were all currently unharmed. It had been tense, with Casey gripping her pathetic little knife and praying that she wouldn't have to charge some unknown figures, but they didn't even see the others as they ran out.

It had been a good idea to go to the homestead. That place had already been a danger zone (in fact, it had just been once, hadn't it?), and Casey figured that the terrorists wouldn't make it one again so soon. Well, she actually hadn't been paying attention to the danger zones as much as she should have been, so she didn't actually know for sure. It semeed like a safe bet, anyway. And if the people in the plant really had been dangerous, then it was good to put as much dirt between them and Casey as possible. All in all, it had been a good choice.

But, dammit. The homestead was so far away. It was a long walk over rough terrain, something that Casey hadn't been forced to do since the early days of this whole thing. The trek burned her throat raw and even managed to form blisters on her well-covered feet. She did her best to keep up to the others, to not complain, but she still couldn't keep the relief out of her voice and off her face when they finally reached their destination.

And she didn't think about the names of the dead they had heard during the early morning. It was pointless to worry about anyone other than Alice or Carlos. Everyone else was on some other planet, somewhere far away with its own rules.

Casey looked over the farmhouse. "Yeah," she responded to Alice, moving a board in front of the door. "It's honestly kind of cozy. I'm glad we managed to snag this place."

(Carlos Lazaro continued from Waking Up to Ash and Dust)

It was only to be expected that they got out of the building without being caught. At the time, Carlos was amazed, but it made sense that they weren't caught. The whole structure had multiple exits and it wasn't like they were storming out of the building. Alice, Carlos and Casey took their time and snuck their way down without being caught. They were careful, they were quiet and, most importantly, they played it smart. No stupid distractions. No noisemaking.

Carlos felt a bit proud for how they handled the situation. The group he was in may have had little idea of what to do but they weren't getting themselves killed. It took them days to have to deal with anyone else, which meant that their hiding spot was perfect. The way they handled the situation back there was criminally smooth. Lastly, they managed to avoid crossing paths with any other groups.

The most important thing was that they were all still alive. Where many failed, they were succeeding. Wasn't that cause for even the tiniest bit of pride?

The announcement came on. Alice mused that it was a good thing they got out. Carlos smirked.

"Yeah," he said, stretching his arms over his head. "At least we avoided running into any killers, yeah?"

He could have jinxed it. Could have ruined it for all three of them. But no, no jinxing.  Carlos's regular attitude was nowhere to be seen; during the night at the amusement park, Carlos found that he was smiling more. He even caught himself laughing at one point.

It must have been the relief of getting out alive clouding his judgement. When someone gets spooked, the usual first reaction is to laugh. Laughing dispels the negative energy built up from fear. Carlos understood that he was scared shitless, back at the Nuclear Plant.

He understood that only one of them could survive.

So why was he so happy?

...

They came across the house soon enough. The whole place looked tiny, just enough to house the three of them and nothing more.

"That's it?" Carlos sneered, lifting the tip of his nose up. "Shit, the barn looks better than that."

Carlos imagined the whole house being coated in dust. He imagined that part of the ceiling collapsed and a good section of the house was closed off. He imagined that no one would bother going in there because it looked creepy as hell.

It was perfect.

Time passed. They went into the farmhouse and started barricading. Eventually Carlos made his way across the creaking floor panels to the master bedroom. The master bedroom looked to be utterly trashed, the bed sheets tossed, a mirror overturned. Glass shards were scattered across the floor in one spot. Carlos carefully took the mirror and moved it out of the way, using his dufflebag to sweep away the glass shards.

"Be careful in the bedroom. Someone tipped a mirror."

He threw his bag on the bed and started walking. His eyes landed on the bookcase at the opposite side of the room, completely barren. Carlos looked at it, eyes squinting.

"Hey," Carlos started, seeing someone pass by the doorway "Have you noticed that they left almost no books?

"Not sure about you guys but I brought along a book with me. They took that. No folders at the office, and they cleared this entire bookcase? Don't that seem, like, unnecessary?"

Carlos opened the armoire. The clothes inside were completely littered in dust and he had to pull his head back to cough. Crap, he should have expected that.

"What - What kind of place was this anyway? Like, a island resort? Shit's too cold for that that, especially so close to summer. And, like, what island resort has a nuclear plant? And a farm? It doesn't make any sense."

The more they investigated, the more it became apparent that they weren't the first group to have passed through the farmhouse. The cabinet doors that had been left slightly ajar, the disastrous state of the master bedroom. Alice couldn't help but be slightly unnerved by this. After being forced out of their hideout due to it being declared a danger zone, would the previous occupants return? The group would admittedly be able to make far more of a clean getaway from the house than the close call that had been their exodus from the offices, but Alice didn't want to have to flee from yet another safe haven.

On the bright side, as it had been two whole days since the homestead had been declared a danger zone, it was also somewhat likely that the student or students that had been there were lying dead in some obscure corner of the island. Funny how much being caught in a battle royal changed your perspective on life.

"Yeah. Lucky us." Alice said, smiling slightly and finishing with her part of the barricades. She stretched, admiring their handiwork, before turning to Casey. "Need a bit of a breather. Gonna go see how Carlos is doing." With that, she carefully ascended the relatively sturdy looking but still off-putting staircase.

It turned out that Carlos had been busy tidying up the bedroom, catching Alice's attention as she almost passed by the doorway. She frowned a bit as she listened to him, deep in thought. It was true that a lot of stuff about their situation was pretty bizarre.

"Didn't the escapees last time communicate by passing notes to each other? The terrorists obviously couldn't grab every piece of paper on the island, but I doubt they'd want people to get any ideas." She thought a moment on the second part of his question, then shrugged.

"One run by poor civic planners? I dunno. I kind of remember hearing about some resort that had to be evacuated when I was reading up on nuclear accidents over the years, but its been a while, can't remember many details. Sorry." Dammit. She had failed during one of the few times in her life that her fascination with scientific trivia could possibly come in handy.

It seemed as if Alice had finished her side of the barricade before Casey had complete her own. "Yeah, go check out what's up there. I'll be right with you when I'm done," she replayed, waving Alice off as she tried to jam a chair into a hole probably half its size. It reminded Casey of the barricade she had helped make for that performance of Les Miserables that she had been tech crew work for. She had assisted the stage crew in throwing whatever junk they had found into a big central pile to make a barricade. They all had gotten coffee and donuts after it was over, and sat together on the chairs and tables they were using for the ABC Cafe, chatting about television or something like that.

Casey, lost in such an unremarkable memory, didn't realize she was humming Red and Black until she had finished her own side. She took a step back to survey their work, as well as the rest of the farmhouse. Maybe it was just her own aesthetic, but Casey thought the place worked alright. Not perfect, but serviceable and cozy. Her own room was probably messier, anyway.

She climbed the stairs to join the others in the master bedroom. Despite her fondness for the rest of the place, even Casey thought that this room was kind of wrecked. She carefully walked up to Alice and Carlos, taking care not to step on any fallen glass that might still be there. The atmosphere around them was feeling different than before. Downstairs, Alice had been talking lightly with her. Even Carlos had been smiling lately, which was nice. He had a good smile.

None of them had forgotten where they were, Casey was sure of that. But she could live with they way they were now.

"Judging by the names on the map, I think this island was a touristy place, but with a bunch of locals living here too. This farm, though...it seems older to me. But I don't really know. I mean, I'm no architect."

Alice's mention of the evacuated resort was pretty interesting, and Casey figured she might be correct. But right now she really didn't feel like spending that much time figuring out where they were. It didn't seem all that relevant. Even if they managed to say exact what island they were on, the terrorists weren't about to let them relay that information to anyone outside; the lack of paper and books was proof of that.

It might be best to take her mind off of that fact."Well, we got this place set up, anyway. Let's have a good meal to celebrate. I think I have a chocolate bar in my bag that hasn't melted."

((Stephanie Wright continued from O-Lan you are the Earth))

Claire had left quickly when they reached the farmhouse, leaving her alone once again. Stephanie wasn't sure whether it was any safer this way. She knew that there was little point dwelling on the past, but it was probably better to have had someone by her side. Claire didn't seem like a killer, but of course that didn't mean very much in this sort of place did it?

It didn't mean anything now that she had gone further on, only visible as a little head a distance away. She wasn't coming back and Stephanie could only give up that line of pursuit and try the door to the farmhouse instead.

The door wouldn't budge.

Stephanie pulled a little harder but there was nothing but the handle wouldn't move any more than an eight of an inch.

That wasn't possible. She'd seen Zubin and Brian walk out of the building on the first day. She managed to find a second door and tried it as well, only to find that it too was stuck as well.

She knocked the door a couple times, feeling ridiculously naive as she did so. Twice in fifteen minutes she was courting danger for little reason but to satisfy her curiosity.

"Hey! There's people in here, right?" she shouted.

(... I am soooo sorry for the wait on this, holy shit.)

"I guess," Carlos scratched at his cheek. He remembered what happened last version but the details were pretty sketchy for him. Alice practically reminded him of it. "Just sounds like way too much trouble. And didn't they get away with that because a bunch of cameras were busted? Man, sounds like some paranoid bull to me."

As to the whole nuclear commune theory, Carlos just blinked and gave a nod. Carlos was okay in science but that kind of stuff was out of his league. Casey decided to peek her head in on the conversation soon enough, and to her Carlos gave... another blink and another nod.

"That... makes sense?" Carlos said, to, Casey. "Man, maybe it used to be a settlement turned into a failed vacation hotspot?"

They certainly weren't going to draw any customers to their freaky-ass fun park. Even with Casey and Alice there with him, that shit gave Carlos some serious heebly jeeblies. But Casey's idea sounded way more understandable. It wasn't conclusive though. It'd be useless though, he knew. He remembered how badly attempts to find out where the island was turned out in previous versions. He wasn't about to fall down an obvious pit like that, thank you very much.

Carlos smiled at Casey as she spoke up again. "Yeah. Sounds like a plan to me. What do you think Alice? Do you think we can - "

There was a knock on the door downstairs. Harsh knocks but hesitant, in a way. Eventually the knocking gave way to a voice, shouting and accusatory.

"Fuck."

Carlos threw his head back to the stairs visible from the door. A very long silence. Then he turned over to Alice.

"What the hell do we do?" He glared. "Don't recognize the voice."

Sounded like a girl but that didn't mean she was the only one at the door. Alice had voiced her suspicions that there may have been a group in the house before them.

Sure as hell wasn't planning to find the answer to that just yet.

"Could be in a group," he mumbled. "Any windows we can look out of?"

Alice simply shrugged at Carlos. "Sounds about right. Been a while since I heard anything about it, so I can't really say for sure." While Alice would have normally been all over something as fascinating as a group of teenagers working together to break free from their captors, the small glimpse of V4 that she had seen was more than enough to make her stay far away from the subject.

Casey soon joined the conversation, and Alice found herself nodding in agreement. It did seem likely that there had been people living on the island long before it was converted into the tourism trap/nuclear facility it was today. Though, the presence of the nuclear plant was still incredibly baffling. Was the homestead around to provide food for the nuclear facility? Was the facility abandoned before the tourism stuff was built? That didn't make any sense, though. If the facility was shut down, why did the island ever have to be evacuated in the first place? Was some sort of waste-

The sound of Casey's voice as she suggested that the group should celebrate a little snapped Alice back to realty. It was a shame, really. If the whole "relentless slaughter" thing hadn't been going on, Alice would have loved to just explore the island, try to piece together what happened. This was the sort of mystery that endlessly fascinated Alice, made her want to just devote all of her time to solving it.

Sadly, since Alice did not live in a perfect world, so all she could do was focus on the here and now. She smiled at Casey and Carlos. "Yeah, I think we all deserve a little treat after-" and was cut off by someone banging at the door. Knocking, really, which was strangely polite for their situation. They never could get a break, could they? Was it too much to ask for another whole day without being confronted without the possibility of death?

Alice frowned. They were in a better position now, at least. More hope, more ways to get out alive. She wasn't going to break down again. She couldn't fail Casey and Carlos. "Window's in the hall. I'll check."

Ducking into the hallway, Alice carefully glanced through the window, trying not to attract attention to herself. Outside, she could see only one girl, who she vaguely recognized as a Stephanie. She didn't appear armed, she seemed to be alone. Alice's fear instantly turned into annoyance. What the hell was this girl thinking? How the hell did she survive for five days when she apparently considered it a good idea to bang on random doors, and loudly ask if there was anyone inside? She should consider herself lucky that she hadn't been answered with a bullet straight to her forehead!

Alice returned to the bedroom, feeling equally relieved and infuriated at Stephanie's incompetence. "One girl. Alone. Unarmed. Stupid. She'll probably just head off on her own if we don't say anything."

((Skipping to avoid the danger zone))

Stephanie was not expecting the house to remain silent. Well, perhaps it was for the best that here was no one inside. Walking up to a locked house and announcing your presence wasn't the best idea.

But now that she'd already done so, it seemed harder to back out so easily. She knocked the door again, hoping to get a reply.

Silence again. If there was anyone in there, they didn't want her in. No one seemed to want her around. The prospect of having to go back through the field again didn't help to soften the blow.

She sighed and trudged back into the wheat field. No point sticking around if she wasn't wanted anyway.

((Stephanie Wright continued in Exposure))

Carlos and Alice hadn't even finished responding to her suggestion before they all heard the knocking at the door. Seriously? The universe wasn't just going to give Casey even the tiniest break? She really shouldn't have been that surprised, considering…well, everything that had happened in the last few days, but come on.

Somehow, Casey wasn't as thrown off guard as she had been before. She had once read that human beings could adept to even the most insane scenario, and she was beginning to think that there might just be something to that thought.

Except not really, not truly. Casey might be able to deal with the sudden noises and Casey might be able to calm her pounding heart, but she wasn't sure if names or death could ever become commonplace, even if she were here for months. Not that she would be, of course. The situation would most likely kill her in some way before such a long period of time could elapse.

Or she could be rescued, Casey thought, part of her still hanging on to pig-headed stubbornness. It had happened before. There was a possibility.

Right now, however, the new visitor was the immediate problem. Alice glanced out the window, and Casey took a deep breath. There was a very low probability of the outsider having some kind of gun that could hit her friend's head through the window, much less know how to use it. Right? Could someone do something like that relatively easily with some kind of sniper rifle? Everything Casey knew about guns she learned from movies and video games, which were not exactly the most reliable sources.

She let out the breath when Alice popped back safely. The girl had more guts than Casey, to do something like that. So the new girl out there was alone, or at least she seemed to be so? That was heartening. It at least meant that if she really was by herself, without an obvious weapon, they would probably be able to fight her off if she went crazy and attacked them. But their problem was larger than that.

The knocking stopped almost right after Carlos and Alice finished whispering. Was the girl leaving? Why would she do that?

The whole thing was a mess. "Guys, this place might not have been as safe as we thought it was," Casey didn't even realize she was holding her little knife again. "It looks like at least one other person had the same idea of coming here. And if she was scouting, she might bring others back, and then we might have an issue on our hands. And even if she doesn't, other people might have the same idea as her and us."

Casey frowned. "I don't know. Maybe I've being a chicken-shit, but we might want to think about if we want to stay here for a long period of time. I mean…" And she had just been thinking about how good a place the farmhouse was. Things were so quick to change here. Or maybe Casey was just indecisive.

((Timeskip and post order change approved by DM and Ciel))

They didn't end up leaving the farmhouse, and Casey honestly thought that it was probably for the best.  Her suggestion to go had been mostly based on a panicked response to a new situation, which meant that it might not have been fully logically. After all, they put so much work into making this place a good base for themselves that it would be a waste of energy to run at the first sign of trouble.

The day finished like all of their days here finished. They checked their surroundings again, had their little meals, and even talked a bit before starting the night watches. Casey was beginning to speak more than she had at the start of this fucked up game, even making jokes that sounded less forced. Her watch itself was completely uneventful, which was a relief. If no other students had come to bother them, than she had been wrong about the first girl being a scout. Maybe they'd be as unbothered here as they had been in the offices.

Casey woke up a few minutes before the announcements, like she once woke up a few minutes before her alarm would go off for school. Not that she could tell, of course. She had taken first watch that night, and had no idea what time it was right now. If there was something she did know, however, it was that they had made it yet another day.

"G'morning," She yawned to Carlos and Alice, rubbing her eyes. There was still a decent amount of food (and by a decent amount, she meant ‘a tangible amount') in Casey's pack, considering how long they had been there. She made breakfast out of a high energy bar, listening to see if she could hear birds outside.

There was really too much time here, too much time alone with only your own thoughts. Maybe Casey could tell a story? She used to do that all the time; roleplaying and the like. Trying to plot out a story in her head might be a decent way to burn time and keep her mind off of other things. She might even be able to get Carlos and Alice to join in, make their own contributions. It was such a silly idea, but what else was there to do in this place?

Casey stood up, still phasing out of her sleeping state. "Hey, guys. This is going to sound kind of dumb, bu-"

She was cut off by the sudden start of the announcements. Casey hadn't been expecting that.

Casey really hadn't been expecting that.

She stumbled backwards in surprise, putting too much weight too suddenly on her right foot. The rotting patch of wood didn't hold, and Casey steadied to keep herself from completely falling through the floorboards.

A life of generally avoiding physical activity or dangerous situations meant that Casey wasn't exactly used to this kind of sharp, sudden pain. She tried not to scream, but it wasn't any use. Casey's yell blocked out the beginning of the announcements and the first few names, at least to her own ears. By the time she was able to pull herself together enough to focus, Jenna Rhodes had murdered Yukiko Sakurai, who Casey faintly knew. How many names had she missed, and who were they? Did she miss the deaths of her friends?

No, she couldn't worry about that. Casey couldn't tell through a general haze of pain, but she thought a nail might have pushed through the skin above her ankle. Could she get tetanus from that? How quickly did tetanus set in? As she tried to wiggle herself free, more names went by. Theodore Fletcher was dead. Would that news hurt Alice or give her relief? Casey felt like she should say something to her friend, though she didn't know if she should say ‘I'm sorry' or ‘You know he deserved it'. She couldn't make her mouth croak out either, so it was a moot point, anyway.

There were more names that Casey tried to ignore in the effort to get herself on her feet again. She might have felt a little bad about that if she realized she had been doing it, but right now she was hurt, and in Casey's animal brain her immediate pain was far more important that the theoretical deaths of other students. But even that didn't stop her from pausing at the list of the danger zones.

There were seven of them this time, but Casey stopped listening after the third. The Homestead. They place they all had thought would be safe from this. If she didn't get out of here…

Casey's goal of pulling herself out of the floorboards was no longer about dulling the pain. It was about continuing to live.

Her efforts were redoubled. She didn't try to do it gingerly, didn't worry about what would happen to the nail in her leg. Casey felt like a coyote stuck in a trap, following pure survival instinct. She thought, for a brief second, that she might have to consider cutting the trapped portion of her leg off, but that was ridiculous. Her knife wasn't good enough for that, and she wouldn't be fast enough to get out of the danger zone with heavy blood loss and only one leg.

This method tired Casey out quickly, and she stopped to gasp for breath. The girl hadn't realized she had been crying until now, and she shakily rubbed tears and snot off her face as she looked up to meet Alice and Carlos. She had been panicking so much she had almost forgot that they were still here.

Still here?

The three of them knew the rules of the game well enough by now. Even Casey was capable of understanding how this story would go. In the event that they did manage to get her out, she wasn't going to make it out on her most-likely mangled leg. It was a numbers game, and Carlos and Alice had to realize the only feasible option here. The fact that they hadn't run already was astounding.

She knew this situation. Things like this happened in the books she read and the stories she participated it, where people were brave and good. This was probably the part where Casey was supposed to tell them to run. And she really wanted to (or at least she wanted to be the kind of person who would do it), but Casey Malkovich was seventeen years old and human and suddenly realizing that she really, really, really didn't want to die. Was it selfish that part of her wished they would stay? That they would find a way to get her out?

So she couldn't do it. Couldn't tell them to abandon her. But at the same time, there was an equally strong part of Casey that would not tell them to stay. That part of her would not make the decision to leave Casey, they one they were going to have to choose, harder on Carlos Lazaro or Alice Gilman. They didn't deserve that, did they? They were friends. They had gone through a game designed to make them fear and kill each other, and they had done it together. There was nothing that either of the others could do for her right now, and Casey could understand that. There was no point in Alice or Carlos dying right here, so there was no point in making them feel worse about what they had to do.

No, she couldn't tell them to run. But she wasn't going to tell them to stay.

Casey gathered up all the strength she had left and looked Alice and Carlos in the eyes. She thought about how Carlos had a good smile and how when they first saw each other on this island he had asked about her well-being. She thought about staying after school with Alice and some of their friends to play games and how the other girl had calmed her when she was just processing this whole thing. And she managed to do the one thing she had always been good at.

She managed to lie.

"S'fine," Casey stumbled over the two syllables, keeping her voice loud enough to be audible, but not much more. "S'alright". It was the best she could do right now, as she pulled her hat down to shield her face. Hands still shaking, she took her knife out of her pocket and placed it on the ground beside her. It was a good knife, one that wasn't much for killing but instead reminded her of home. It might be useful.

Casey pulled her hat up to look at her friends one more time, to make sure they got out. And then she vomited on the floor.

At least there wasn't anyone here to see it.

((Casey Malkovich continued in Highway to the Danger Zone))

The rest of the day passed without incident, with Casey's suggestion to bug out eventually being shot down. There was no guarantee that the one idiotic girl was anything more than someone who had just stumbled upon their hideout, and even if she did return with help, they'd likely be able to escape without any real difficulty.

They'd grown into an almost comfortable routine, over the course of the past few days. Check for anything useful, eat a meager meal, (Alice noted with some alarm that their supplies likely wouldn't last them for much longer), have small conversations while carefully avoiding dwelling on their situation for too long. It had served them well, so far, letting them feel like they were cut off from the rest of the world. The rest of the island was something far away, something that couldn't hurt them, with only the morning announcements and couple of close calls reminding them otherwise.

Time passed. Alice found herself sleeping somewhat soundly, for once, though her dreams were still tinged with a strong sense of unease. She was awoken by Carlos for her turn at watch, which passed without any event until the morning came and her friends woke up.

"Morning." Alice absently replied to Casey, lost in thought over mostly trivial matters. Thinking more about the state of the island, wondering what sort of person the original owner of the house had been, briefly pondering how her family was getting on before hurriedly shoving the thought out of her mind. Wasn't now about the time for the announcements to come on, any-

Alice's thoughts came to a sudden stop as she heard Casey's scream of pain, the sound hitting her almost like a physical blow as the feeling of security she had slowly built up was dashed away in an instant. She turned to see Casey, sunk halfway into the floorboards that had evidently collapsed under her.

"Shit, Casey, don't move, I'll get the first aid! Carlos, try to get her out of there!" Alice immediately sprung into action, digging through her bag to reach her medical supplies. She'd taken a class in basic first aid, and though she'd never had any cause to use it, she still knew enough to at least treat an injury before it got infected, which would be a killer for sure on the island.

Theo's name came and went on the announcements without Alice hearing it. If the situation had been different, she might have felt sadness at the loss of another friend, might have felt relief at never having to encounter what her friend had turned into, but Alice was entirely occupied on helping Casey. Her group had made it this far without a scratch, they certainly wouldn't let one of them be taken out by a floorboard.

By the time Alice got a hold of the kit, the announcements had reached the list of new danger zones. "Alright, I've got it, be there in a-" she said, halting as her brain processed what had just been said. The Homestead was now a danger zone.

No. No. It couldn't end like this, there had to be some way out. Alice couldn't just leave behind one of the only people on the island that mattered to her, especially not like this, trapped and helpless to do anything but wait for her death. However, as much as she thought, as much as she tried to think of a way for all three of them to get out alive, there just wasn't enough time. As desperately as she wanted to save Casey, she-

Alice's collar beeped once.

She wasn't left with any choice. Alice locked eyes with Casey as she cried, as she lied, saying that she was fine. "Casey, I'm sorry. I'm so, so-" Alice's voice broke, knowing that she was seeing her friend for the last time, knowing that she had failed the person who had kept her sane. Alice couldn't bear to look for any longer. She tore her eyes away, scooped up both her and Casey's bag, and ran from the farmhouse, ran from the place that would soon become Casey's grave, ran until she completely collapsed from exhaustion.

Alice still couldn't run from the final memory of Casey tearfully telling her that she was okay.

((Alice Gilman: Continued in Hello, Goodbye, Twas Nice to Know You.))

(This may, in fact, be the first placeholder in v5. Not sure.)

(Carlos Lazaro continued elsewhere.)