Survival Of The Fittest

((Blair Moore continued from Amen))

For the first time since waking up near the bridge a week and a half ago, Blair was feeling something like hope.

Well, hope wasn't the right word. Anything resembling hope was long since dead and desiccated inside. Maybe when she saw Jennifer fall off that bridge, or when she saw Noah the last time before Nancy attacked, or when she shot Rene, or Georgia Lee, or Matt. It didn't really matter, because in itself losing hope meant you didn't really know what you were missing. There was nothing left anymore.

Tentative anticipation was more appropriate. Apparently there were less than a dozen people left including herself. Blair had hardly been an expert on the proceedings of SOTF before her arrival, but she'd seen somewhere on a particularly morbid Tumblr that once there were four or so left, they'd be corralled into one room and made to fight it out.

So tomorrow was likely judgment day, since having everyone in the same building would probably lead to lots of death going around today. What did that mean for Blair? Good question. There had basically been a constant echo of gunfire and at least one very loud explosion. Blair had no idea where someone had gotten a fucking bomb or how they'd had it for so long, but her guess was that it was good news for her. As much as part of her was considering weeding out the competition while so few were left, it was too risky. An ambush was one thing; return fire was easily avoided and she'd taken out at least one person, a killer with multiple takedowns at that. Hunting people down was way less practical, and moving around too much could turn the tables on her if she stumbled into an ambush herself.

So she waited.

Holing up in the staff lounge was surreal. When she'd been here before, Enzo and Coleen and Olivia had been alive, and Alba had been with her. And Blair hadn't shot Georgia Lee dead yet. It was like a dream, something she couldn't quite accept as a reality. Peaceful human interaction was long gone here. Any hope of a triumphant arrival of saviors was dead. If someone did show up, they'd find a hundred dead kids and at least half a dozen murderers. Not much to save anymore.

Blair found herself in one of the chairs facing the door; it was a bit shot up, but there were a few bullet holes in everything in here. The corpse of Ty Yazzie didn't add much appeal, but Blair was honestly out of fucks to give about that. There was probably a dead body in every goddamn room of this place, and she'd seen so many by now that it just didn't bother her.

That was probably bad. She'd not spent much time thinking about her parents, her sisters, her online friends, not for a long time. It wasn't conscious avoidance, per say, but she couldn't help but feel like there was a little fear there. Blair had done bad things, like objectively bad. Rene was one thing, she doubted people could blame her for that. Georgia Lee was a reckless accident, but that was a rough excuse for murder. She'd killed Matt in cold blood, and Nate could well be dead too as a result. She was pretty sure the previous survivors who'd killed people had been pardoned. If - when - she got home, legal action wasn't going to be a problem.

Murdering classmates was a good way to commit social suicide, though. Her parents loved her, but they were good people, and Cynthia was in the same boat. Miley might not be so happy, but Blair could never tell what Miley thought, so who knew? Her chat room/forum/social media friends didn't have as much attachment, though. Would they still want to talk to her, knowing what she'd done? Plus, the other part of her social circle consisted of her now dead classmates, it didn't look like she'd be winning any popularity contests.

It was a sad state, but manageable. She'd decided, unconsciously over time, that she valued what remained of her life too much to let it slip from her grasp. She might not be able to live as she had before, but she'd never really wanted to stay in Kingman forever anyway. When she got out, she could still leave that town, travel, see things, do things, make the most of her life. Hell, that was probably the best way for the winner to live her life. If over a hundred people died so you could live, then wasting that extra time was making all that death in vain.

A loud cough echoed through the room, followed by a continued series of hacking and wheezing, which lasted several seconds before she recovered and caught her breath. A grim reminder, on cue no less, that she had only so much time. She was going home, she was sure of it; making it to tomorrow was a no-brainer, and all it took after that was one well-placed strafe of bullets and she'd be done. Done with the violence and death and awfulness that had become so normal that it barely registered by now.

Blair set the submachine gun on the floor and began rummaging through her bag, which lay at her feet. There was one bottle of water and a couple pieces of bread left, for tomorrow. The map and compass were not worthless of course, and the gun that Rene once held was nestled within. Sawlaska was stuffed in too, the ends pushing into the corners of the bag it barely fit into even with so little else to take up room. Blair picked up the contraption, carefully resetting the sawblade firmly into the sling. It was a truly bizarre device, a hillbilly invention if there ever was one. It had been Noah's, and now she held it long after his passing. That was kind of nice. It was funny that all that time ago, Blair had stuck with Noah partly as a preservation tactic, thinking he'd keep her safe. Then they became friends. Noah was a good guy, and losing him had been hard, especially since it was the same day Rene died.

Hard, but inevitable. Of course it was preferable if all them got to go home, along with everyone else here, but it hadn't panned out. Blair and Sandra and Rene and Noah; only she was here still. None of them lived to see her make it this far, fight this long. Maybe that was for the best. She could remember them as they'd been when she was their friend, and not witness them seeing her at this state.

The slinger on her lap, Blair yawned. It was risky to nap, but the door was closed, and she had multiple weapons in arm's reach. She was a light enough sleeper that if anyone came in she'd hear them and wake up. Sleep deprivation would get her killed for sure. Better to rest now and keep herself strong.

Blair closed her eyes, her brow furrowed.

((Bryony Adams continued from Rain, Rain, Come Again))

Bryony's footsteps echoed down the corridor, muffled thunder to match the storm raging outside the asylum and inside her head. Her lungs were ablaze, her breath ragged and harsh, legs feeling like they would collapse any second now. Still, somehow, she managed to keep running. It was the one solid thought in her head. Just keep running. Just get as far away from the shooter as possible. She'd escaped with just an injury back at the garden. She might not be so lucky again.

Doorways and peeling wallpaper blurred past her, and slowly, as her body sped along the hallways, almost tripping on broken floorboards and faded carpet, the pounding and ringing in her head began to fade away. What were they going to do now? Hide out in another room and then go running the second the shooter, or some other player, stumbled upon them again? All that would happen then would be that they'd eventually run out of energy, run out of steam, and run into the exact same dead end as if they'd just stood with their backs to the wall and waited to be shot. They still needed a weapon, and they weren't likely to find one just lying about the place. So, she finally needed to admit it to herself plain as day; they needed to take one from somebody. By force, without a doubt.

Bryony glanced behind her to make certain that Alice and Candice were keeping pace with her. She skidded to an abrupt halt, almost stumbling into the wall in front of her.

Alice wasn't there. Neither was Candice.

In an instant, the pain and exertion and realisation of all that had just happened in the art therapy room crashed down on to her, like the building itself was collapsing on top of her. She bent over, resting her hands on her knees, taking deep breaths, before even that became too much for her to manage, and she collapsed against the wall.

Whenever they'd moved on from place to place, whenever one of them had gone on slightly ahead of the others, they'd always managed to stick together. Bryony had assumed the same would have happened after her flight from the art department. But there was nobody standing in the corridor next to her, and she couldn't hear any hurried footsteps over her shaky breaths and rapid heartbeat. They should have been able to follow her; she wasn't fast, not in the slightest, and she hadn't been subtle about her exit from the room. Had they… had they…

Bryony wasn't stupid. She knew, in the section of her mind that haunted her, that Alice and Sandra would have had to have died eventually. She had desperately wanted to stay with them both for as long as she possibly could, but the longer they did that, the more heart-breaking it would have been in the end. They all cared dearly about each other, wanted to protect and look after each other, but if their thoughts were anything similar to hers, then they wanted to live even more. When push came to shove, if they were the last three surviving, what on earth would they have done? How could she ever work herself up to killing her two best friends?

It was for the best that Sandra had died the way she did. Before the end. Not even by a killer's hand. And certainly not betrayed by her own friends. Yeah. This was the best way this could have ended.

It took a long while for Bryony to get up from the crumpled heap slumped against the wall, for the silent tears to stop flowing. The weapon she had grabbed, that she now saw was a broken easel leg, top splintered and nails sticking out from one edge, served as a crutch once again, pushing her to her feet. She was beyond exhausted, now. She just wanted to fall asleep and wait for tomorrow, what would almost certainly be her final day on this island, no matter what happened. She needed something more secure than the corridor, though.

Bryony walked over to the nearest door. She moved her hand towards the handle. Then she stopped, and stared at it. A minute passed. Her hand went back into her pocket, and pulled out the final playing card. If you could even call it that; it was the "How to Play Blackjack" card. She almost smiled.

Nobody was dead until the announcements said so. If Alice was… If Alice found her way to this part of the asylum, Bryony desperately wanted to see her one last time. She still had so, so much she wanted to tell her, before the very end.

Bryony slotted the card into a hairline crack in the door. Then, easel leg gripped tightly in her left hand, she pushed the door open.

She'd been just seconds away from dozing off. The anxiety and fear and tension that had become a mainstay of every waking moment of Blair's existence fell away as she relaxed and rested. She hadn't even been awoken by the sound of the door, creaking as motion was forced into it. The slight change in lighting from the door had made her eyes open unconsciously.

Blair sat upright as if she were spring-loaded. All that stuff about tension and fear? Yeah, welcome back. In a split second between the door opening and whoever stood beyond it revealing themselves, Blair's mind went through all manner of plans and deductions.

Who was it?

Did it matter? Not this far along in the game.

Were they armed? Probably.

Did they know she was here? Probably not.

Talking was out. Run, hide, fight? No other exits. Door was taken of course. Room was full of stuff, but she already had surprise and hiding solve nothing.

Her gun was off to the side, picking it up would delay her action just a little too much. Blair stood up and in one motion, the image of Noah messing around with the stupid thing, swung Sawlaska like a lacrosse stick. The heft of it's movement made her slightly off-balance, but she watched as the sawblade disk whirled down the track and leaped into the air towards the figure across the room.

Bryony saw the world through an artist's eyes, even out here on the island. Whenever she visited somewhere new, or stepped into a different room, or even returned to somewhere once familiar after time and the actions of humans had altered it, she absorbed everything she could see in front of her. She took in all of the colours and shades and hues, the locations of objects, the movement of people and things in the wind, the way the light dappled and dispersed and disappeared. She would absorb them all, and paint a picture on a canvas in her mind.

She had just enough time upon entering the staff lounge to take in the empty chess board, the silent body underneath the plaque, and the staccato holes peppering the right wall, before Blair rising from her chair demanded her full attention. There was something clenched in her hands, something that looked almost like a metal hockey stick, something that she was now swinging in an arc in front of her before Bryony could even raise her own weapon or shout a greeting or take a step.

There was a dull, wet noise, as the saw blade buried itself in Bryony's stomach. Everything froze. Her breath caught in her throat and her eyes widened. She staggered back, two steps, a drop of crimson splashing to the floor punctuating where she'd been standing. Her hand instinctively moved to the blade, as if it were a phantom that would disappear as soon as she tried to touch it.

There was pain, constant, burrowing through her skin like ants, slicing through her, never ceasing.

Her legs wobbled. Somehow, she stayed upright. Somehow, she gripped the easel leg tightly in both hands. Her mind, just like back in the art room, was focused on one thing. The girl standing in front of her. The girl who had killed already. The girl who had attacked her, unprovoked. The girl who was planning to kill again.

She knew that they were all stuck in this same situation, that they were all innocent in the shadow of the terrorists' actions, but she wasn't going to just sit back and let herself be attacked because they were all good people doing bad things. Her friends had all been killed. Alice had stopped the girl in the art room from shooting her at what was almost certainly the cost of her own life. She couldn't just lie down and die after all of that. She had to live. She had to be the last one standing.

And if she couldn't do that, then she wasn't going to let someone like Blair walk out of here alive.

As fast as she could with the sawblade digging into her guts, Bryony crossed the room towards Blair, trying to close the gap before she could hit her again, winding up and swinging her bat at the girl's midriff.

Blair had a moment to experience a brief and ugly moment of satisfaction at her direct hit. It lasted just long enough for her to lose focus until Bryony moved with unexpected swiftness towards her, brandishing some kind of wooden stick. Her carelessness would cost her; she was startled and dropped her weapon to bend over and pick up the gun.

Bad call. She hadn't expected her opponent to aim low, and just as her fingers wrapped around the machine pistol's grip, she felt the strike, like the physical sensation of a thump, slam against her forehead. Blair's vision briefly flashed white, and as soon as the panic and disorientation ended she realized she was falling.

Her balance was off, and attempting to right herself only caused her to stumble further. She landed hard on her side onto the hard floor, the gun sliding just out of her grasp and landing an agonizingly short distance away, measurable in inches, but just out of her reach.

For the first time since Nancy at the beach almost a week ago, Blair was truly scared for her life. She had no smart remarks, no snide commentary, no way to fall back to familiarity. Just adrenaline and dull pain.

In a motion more reminiscent of aimless flailing than a deliberate strike, Blair swung her legs in the general direction of Bryony's shins, her arms raised to cover her face.

Blair ducked down at the last second, Bryony's wild swing cracking into her forehead instead of her stomach. Good. She should have aimed there first anyway. The girl was disoriented, knocked prone, the sawblade slinger forgotten and whatever other weapon she'd been trying to collect sent spinning out of sight.

The thought of running to grab it briefly crossed Bryony's mind, but was gone in a millisecond; she couldn't afford to turn her back on Blair even for a moment. This wasn't an honourable duel between two opponents on equal footing, like in one of her video games. This was a scared girl, desperately fighting for her life against someone just as scared but out for her blood.

Thoughts of what she was doing and how much she'd hate to see herself doing it threatened to bubble to the surface and paralyze her, but they were pushed back down by her thudding heartbeat and overwhelming adrenaline, as Bryony took another step forwards, foot pressing against Blair, trying to keep her where she was. She took in one, deep breath, then raised the easel leg up over her head like an executioner's axe.

Blair's foot found her ankle as she swung, and the sudden stinging pain combined with her own movement knocked her off balance, and Bryony clattered to her knees, practically on top of Blair now, and as panic instantly flooded her mind, her left hand scrabbled along the floor, trying to find purchase to push herself back up.

It brushed against Blair's shirt and, instinctively, Bryony grabbed hold of the fabric. She let out a war cry, born of pain and fear and anguished determination, raised the easel leg again with nails pointing down, and slammed it into Blair's chest.

Kicking Bryony in the leg hurt Blair almost as much as it might've hurt her opponent; her shin had struck Bryony's foot rather than the inverse, and the sudden bruising pain balanced out the feeling of success in her strike.

Rolled onto her back, Blair fumbled awkwardly at the gun, still just out of reach by some marginal distance, millimeters even. Her fingers could touch the barrel, but she couldn't pull it forward. Her hands were sweaty and she couldn't get enough grip to even slide it closer.

Her head arched back just to see the damn thing, Blair had only a moment to conceive of Bryony's shout before the most horrible pain in her life.

Horrible, yet all too familiar. Because of her CF, Blair had a long and painful history with respiratory malaise. She'd had pneumonia several times, and chest pain was a recurring concern.

This was worse.

For a split second after the initial wound, Blair had thought it might not be so bad. Then she tried to breath after screaming and she realize just how fucked she was. She felt like she was sucking air through a straw, and the stab wound suddenly felt like it'd had a ton of bricks dropped into it. She couldn't breath, and she had blood on her shirt and it was leaking into her lung and it was hot and worse than any pneumonia.

Flailing like a pinned animal, Blair's knee almost incidentally struck against the sawblade still lodged in Bryony's body. Blair barely noticed for all her thrashing. The strangling feeling was bad enough but the fucking whore was lying on top of her.

Oh no.

Bryony did her best to ignore the sound the easel leg made when it connected with Blair, a horrendous echo of the sawblade's impact into her own stomach. She tried desperately to ignore Blair's awful scream when the nail pierced her chest. She forced herself to ignore the dark crimson stain beginning to spread across Blair's shirt. She had to ignore it. She couldn't afford to focus on anything else but beating Blair, on the act of surviving. On killing the girl in front of her. There would be time for hatred and self-loathing during the aftermath. If she wanted to actually reach that point, she couldn't let up. Blair wouldn't show mercy. So, neither could she.

She tightened her grip around the easel leg, moving her left hand to grab hold of it as well, head and heart pounding terrifyingly loud. Just one more swing. Just one more…

She hesitated for just a moment.

In that brief split-second, Blair's wildly flailing leg found it's mark. It cannoned into Bryony's stomach, striking the sawblade, digging it further in, a strangled gasp of pain and terror leaving her mouth, as fire coursed through her body and fear surged through her mind. She had to finish this, she wasn't winning, she was going to die, she had to, she had to, she had to…

Grab the board. Raise it high. Nails down. Overhead swing. Bryony hit Blair one final time. Then she scrambled to her feet, leaving the easel leg embedded in Blair, almost collapsing again in the process. Her hands wouldn't stop shaking. Her entire body felt like it had been sliced to pieces.

But Blair wasn't getting up to attack her.

Bryony took a hesitant step backwards. Then another. Blair was moving, but in no way that suggested she was able to do anything to enact her revenge. Bryony spat on to the floor and wiped her mouth with the back of her sleeve.

She had done it. She had won.

Bryony stood there, doing nothing but breathing for a moment, before she left the room.

((Bryony Adams continued in eternitybox))

So this was it.

Stabbed in the lung and again in the heart.

Hurt worse than hell, if hell was hot; Blair could handle burns. Sucking chest wounds? Pass.

Thrashing around on the floor like a pathetic animal wasn't making much headway, but it was a little hard to make decisions with a chunk of metal stuck in her, right? Her hand trembled like a, well, it trembled like crazy as she tried to pull the wooden chunk out of her body. No dice, and it made it hurt even worse so great decision there.

Well shit. Blair couldn't really bring herself to move too much after that. She lay flat on her back, whimpering and squinting through the tear-stained world. Fuck that, man. If this was it, she could at least have some goddamn dignity. And if she lived through it somehow, well no use getting so worked up over it.

She tried to reach up and wipe her eyes. Her hand made it about three inches and then fell back into place, the combination of renewed suffering and drained strength shutting her show of defiance down real quick. Fuck's sake.

What else could she do now? She'd come so far, tried so hard, made it nearly to the end. She'd been so sure of herself, done so much right. Done some stuff wrong too, but it seemed pretty pointless to beat herself up over that. Bryony took care of that part. She wasn't going to apologize for herself, wasn't going to beg for forgiveness to the families, for Georgia Lee or Matt, maybe for Bryony too if that wound was fatal.

Not like she could bear to make a sound anymore. She could barely move at all, let alone give a heartfelt speech to an empty room. Her body was all wet and sticky with hot blood, and her hands and feet were freezing cold. Wonderful.

What now? She was dying. All there was to it. Anything she did now would be pointless. She wasn't going to heroically recover or anything. She was going to lay here in a pool of blood and croak, and who knew what happened after that? The terrorists would dispose of her body or something, and any concept of an afterlife was pretty nebulous to her, especially with the whole murdered multiple people. Fuck.

The only thing she could think to do was give some kind of last words. What was there to say? Who knew. Blair took a shaky, painful breath, and tried to say something, anything, just to scream into the emptiness of the universe or whatever. No great secrets, no powerful revelations, nothing. Nothing else, just something at all.

"G-guh..."

God fucking damn it.