Survival Of The Fittest

Ivan had been wandering for days now. He had stayed to the fringes of the island, exploring the coast of the island that seemed to him to be quite large. Every time he thought about what was going on, two mental images popped into his head. The first was one that formed back at the beginning of his high school days, when they read the Lord of the Flies in class. A big, creepy skull, one of a sow, impaled on a sharpened stick. "Sharpened at both ends..." Ivan shuddered.

The next mental image was worse. His own body, dead. Splattered with blood. He couldn't get the picture out of his mind. He knew that this was exactly how we was going to die. Sprawled out, multiple chest wounds, crying his eyes out. He knew exactly how he would die.

Ivan was soaked from the rain. He had his jacket on, but the weather still froze his very bones. He gripped the box in his hands. He had wrapped that with a pajama shirt. He held it close to him. Even if it wasn't a weapon, it was the only thing he was given to protect himself.

Ivan approached the Lagoon, eyes downcast, trying to come to terms with his own death. He had cried a lot over the last few days, but... Not quite. He wasn't ready. He sat down at the edge of the lagoon. People had been there. People had always been there, just before he had. But why was it that he hadn't talked to anyone in the past week? But he knew. He was afraid of them. Killings are happening. He heard the loudspeaker. People are dying.

And so Ivan always stayed one step behind everybody else. For safety. Holding the box tightly against his chest, Ivan sat. Alone, once again, as he had been for the last 4 days.

((Jake continued from Finsternis))

((OOC: Jake is left-handed. I forgot to mention this in his bio. I'm saying this now instead of waiting until it is relevant and it seems like I'm just pulling it out my ass.))

Words could not describe how happy Jake was that he was wearing hiking boots. The terrain on the island got difficult to traverse even with his boots on sometimes; silently he pitied all the girls he saw wearing sandals on the bus. He had been walking along the cliffs for a while before he saw the lagoon's clear water.

He wasted no time running to the water's edge, throwing down his belongings, quickly rifling through his duffle bag, and removing three empty water bottles. In his excitement, he had not noticed the huddled figure ten feet away.

I'll have to wade in a little, I'll get more dirt than water in a shallow area like this.

Jake sat down and loosened his laces; pulling the right boot off with little trouble. He removed his sock with a quick motion, exposing his foot and showing off his incredible tan line, the result of wearing his his boots every day. His left boot was not so cooperative, however. He tugged, and tugged, and tugged...

The boot spun up in the air. Jake instinctively put his arms up to protect his head. Instead, it connected with the back of his neck, causing Jake to sit bolt upright with a little snarl. He glared at the boot lying on his right.

He thought he heard a stifled laugh. His heart leaped in half-hope, half-fear. He hoped it was someone he knew, specifically Trish, but he doubted she would bother stifling her laughter at him. But if it wasn't a friend, if it was a player...

Jake turned hesitantly towards the sound.

"Ivan? Ivan! What are you doing?"

The boy was crouched over, clutching a box of some sort to his chest. The expression on his face worried Jake. Was he okay?

Ivan's heart raced. A voice. VERY nearby. Someone he recognized. Ivan's mind raced as he thought. His first thought was to run. He wanted to survive. But he needed a friend, someone to talk to. He already felt like he was dying from being alone. And so just this once, he told himself, his social life won out.

He felt a rush of daringness. He was challenging his survival instinct. This person might kill him. But they sounded as if they cared... It WAS easy to lie, wasn't it? A bunch of people had told him that. But he recognized the voice. It was friendly. Why couldn't he remember who it belonged to? Something felt like it was clouding his mind. Fear? Madness? So he raised his head.

"Nn... Jake! I.. I haven't... I've been hiding. Running. I haven't talked to anybody... But I'm glad you're alive. I was... Crying. I can't take this. We're going to die. All of us. Or... Most." Ivan stood up, holding the box tightly still. Wiping away his tears, Ivan tried to get ahold of himself. His heartbeat had started to slow, he had stopped crying.

"So... Wh... What's up?"

"I'm looking for my friend, you know...Trish from that class, uh," Jake paused. He'd forgotten what class they'd had together. Shit...

He continued anyways. 'Grade Ten? Right?" He made an impatient gesture with his hands. "I'm trying to find her."

After a moment he said, "Have any empty bottles?" Jake nodded at the clear water. With that he turned back towards his things, hopping to remove his other sock.

(Marnie Yaguchi continued from It's My Life)

Marnie tried as hard as she could to keep a positive look on things, but she really didn't have all that much to go on. First of all, look at her ‘weapon'. Sure, she wasn't going to kill anyone, but it would still be nice to have something to protect herself with incase some deranged maniac came at her. Then again, could she really stand a chance? She just barely scrapes four-foot-ten and weighs less than ninety pounds. Even a girl could just up and chuck her across the island.

Taking advantage of the mid-morning light, Marnie had herself something to eat and drink. Quite a few of her crackers were gone and there was a large bite taken out of her loaf of bread. Her water was nearly gone, save for about a quarter of a bottle. Things were just going from bad to worse. There was no way she could survive without getting more water. If dehydration didn't take her, someone else would.

Sighing as she took out her map, Marnie scanned it for possible water sources. Sea water was no good, because she of course didn't have anything to boil it in and she couldn't risk getting sick at a time like this. The showers might have been a good idea had they not been so far away. All that was left was the lagoon.

Marnie repacked her duffel bag and made her way to the lagoon.

----------

The walk to the lagoon actually seemed somewhat quick, which was actually really rare on this island. It was starting to get humid and Marnie made sure to shove her half-jacket in her bag in an attempt to beat the heat. What she wouldn't do for an air conditioner.

When she finally emerged from the tree line, Marnie was startled by the sight of the two boys. One of them had their back turned to her, but she knew who he was from his haircut.

Jake Henkie wasn't exactly the most popular kid at school, but that was easily overlooked considering how nice he was. Marnie had attempted a few times to start a conversation with him in class, but he always ended up getting a bit shy and ending them quickly.

The other boy, who was leaning against a tree, was Ivan Roeghmills. She had never really talked to him, but that was mostly because he was even shyer than Jake. He only talked to a few people and Marnie was never one of them. He was most likely just as sweet as Jake though.

Marnie approached the two boys and peered at Ivan.

"Is he… uh… alright?" She wondered. It looked as if the poor kid was having a panic attack or something. Marnie wasn't really worried about the two boys attack her. They were much to nice to attack an unarmed girl.

In many ways, Dante Cooper (Male Student No. 63) had gotten lucky in the game. Unlike many of the students, who panicked and started running around like decapitated chickens, he had a plan. Either fortunately or unfortunately, however, while getting his bearings at the quarry where he started out he noticed the vodka bottle he smuggled onto the bus had not been confiscated by the terrorists. So he got drunk, trying to replace the stress of finding out he was in Survival Of The Fittest with incredibly strong alcohol.

In retrospect, that had not been a good idea. Nor had dealing with the hangover the next morning by drinking even more been a good idea. Fortunately, while drunk he hadn't moved much from his original position, so didn't fall off the quarry to his death like Anderson Walker did, and he hadn't been found by anyone. When he woke up the next morning with half the vodka bottle empty, he found that the alcohol had not made the fact that he was in a death game go away, and now he was on an island with an explosive collar strapped to his neck with an even worse hangover than before.

By then, hanging around the quarry had started to get boring, and he knew that eventually it was bound to become a danger zone, though through his hangover he only remembered this by finding Danya's "instruction" booklet, so he elected to move on once his head didn't feel like it was on fire and he could look at the ground without wanting to vomit. After a few hours and drinking quite a bit of his water supply, this happened, and he left after putting his hoodie, which he had removed the day before due to the island's heat, in his bag with the vodka bottle and moving the roundel he was given to his pocket.

Travelling through the jungle as he finally started to feel like his old self, Dante had started to form his plan. Examining the roundel more closely on one occasion, he realized just why it was called that. The dagger's twenty inch long cylindrical blade and handle was accompanied by an octagonal hand guard and spherical pommel. In profile, the blade was almost diamond shaped. It wouldn't be something he could hack off an arm with, but it'd be perfect for stabbing. If he could get close enough to someone, he could take them out easily with it.

However, he couldn't just kill everyone he saw. Some would have guns, and as much as he hated to admit it a few of the morons out there were better fighters than him. Besides, he had watched the previous two games, he knew that if his name popped up on the announcements he'd be very hard pressed to get anyone to trust him. Especially if he killed multiple people. Walking through the jungle and the trails he sometimes found, he noted that the heat and humidity were intense enough to sometimes make it tiring to travel, let alone fight frequently. Players who tried to kill everyone they ran into would probably get exhausted quickly. People seemed to forget that the winner was the last survivor, not who killed the most people. Survival of the Fittest wasn't the same as Survival of the Deadliest. In theory, the winner should only have to kill one person.

Why should I waste my time and energy killing these losers when I can let them pick each other off, take weapons off the bodies, and then just kill the last other person standing while they think they've won?

That was when Dante Cooper's plan truly started to form, especially after finding the corpse of Ricardo Chee on the trail and testing his weapon on it, finding that it was just as good at stabbing as he'd hoped when it went through him like paper. The smell of the corpse and the sound of the blade piercing flesh was a bit gross, but nothing he couldn't deal with. He'd have to deal with it, if he wanted to live. Really, it was a pity the boy was dead, they used to play baseball together and Dante had always thought he was a pretty good guy until the incident with Sean, but Dante knew that he couldn't afford to be sentimental. If he didn't win, he'd die. It was just that simple. Nobody could really hold the fact that he valued his own life over those of his peers against him, who wouldn't? Death was sad, and he liked quite a few of the classmates that were on the island with him, but a choice between his life or theirs was no choice at all. He was the fittest. Smart, athletic, an excellent fighter...he was better than at least the majority of his peers in almost every way. With most of them he was richer, too. He had it made once he got out of high school, if professional MMA didn't work out he could always go into the MLB, while most of them would never amount to anything and would be stuck behind a desk to the day they died. While back in the real world they were his peers and some were his friends, here they were obstacles. He deserved his life, they didn't.

What all this amounted to was the formation of what he saw as a sure-win strategy. Like all good plans it could be summarized very shortly, in this case with two words: keep moving. The jungle was huge, he could use that to his advantage. Preserve his energy and supplies, use stealth to avoid enemy students, and never stay in one place for too long. That way players wouldn't be able to keep him cornered. He'd fight only when necessary, so he could keep his name off the announcements. If he wasn't on the announcements, people would assume he wasn't playing, which would enable him to make alliances and manipulate people who he'd otherwise have to fight. Then, when there was just one other person alive, he'd kill them before they even knew he was there. Really, it was a wonder nobody else was smart enough to think of this plan before he did.

Besides, that way I can win without having as much blood on my hands as Dodd and Calvert do. Could I even take that much guilt? I'd rather one kill than over ten.

Following that strategy, Dante had easily survived the five days of the game so far without even seeing other students beyond fleeting glimpses or dead bodies, and hadn't had a single hostile encounter. The storm that started at the beginning of the fifth day had caught him off guard, and the cooling nature of the rain relentlessly pouring all over the island caused him to put his hoodie back on, but the thought of seeking shelter was forced out of his mind when he realized that everyone else would be looking for shelter too, and therefore the buildings he'd seen on the map would either be crammed with other students, hotspots where players were constantly fighting, or both. He was warm enough in his hoodie anyway.

However, about an hour or two prior, he'd noticed something amiss when he stopped at a clearing with enough tree cover to stop most of the rain to eat some of his rations. Namely, he noticed that his water supply was almost depleted. Cursing to himself, he'd allowed himself to go thirsty as he ate some of the crackers and bread, packing up and heading for the lagoon. He'd been past there before, and while he'd quickly left in disgust after he saw the corpses scattered around the area, he still remembered how to get there. As dark as it was now, he really hoped he wouldn't have to see those corpses again, or for that matter that he wouldn't trip over any of them. Shaking his head in an attempt to ward off that mental image, he tried to move as quickly and as quietly as possible to get to the lagoon and fill up his water bottles, knowing how difficult it would be to fight a player he ran into when it was this dark.

When he finally broke the treeline it was just starting to get a bit light out, though it was still pretty dark, and he emerged in a position that (thankfully) obscured the five corpses, but he was close enough to the three people already there that he could make them out relatively clearly, if not to the point where he immediately recognized them (really he just knew it was two vaguely familiar guys and one vaguely familiar girl). This meant they were close enough to see him though, startling him a little and causing him to quickly retreat behind one of the larger trees nearby. With his white hoodie and grey pants, he'd stick out like a sore thumb even when it was this dark, so he could only hope they hadn't noticed him and the tree concealed him enough that he could observe what was happening without being spotted.

Ivan had finished calming himself down to an intelligible level.
[color=46a468]Trish? Hm... I haven't seen her... Sorry, man. I'll help you look, if you want."[/color] Ivan had only seen a few people, none of which were Trish.

"Bottles? Oh! Right right. Yeah..." Ivan's waterbottles were all but empty. He probably would've forgotten had he been alone. Ivan knelt down and began to refill the bottles as Marnie approached.

As he heard her, he looked up to see her staring at him.
"Eep! Oh! Wait... Yeah, I'm fine. Just a bit... Something... Marnie, right? Ivan was surprised to encounter two (or three) people right after another, considering his last few days. He probably at least knew many of the people on the island, and was worried that he wouldn't know who to and who not to trust. But Marnie approached them in a friendly manner, and he certainly didn't notice Dante, nor suspect anything bad from either of them. So, he was calm.

[color=46a468]"Um... How are you?"[/color]

Jake twisted the cap on the last of his once-empty bottles. He turned to face the new arrival, Marnie Yaguchi, someone he had talked to on occasion back home. She was concerned about Ivan. Jake hadn't known what to say when she asked if the kid was okay, so he said nothing, keeping his back to her. He wasn't sure if he himself was okay, and therefore was not an authority on the subject.

Jake frowned. Did either of them have a weapon?

Biting his lip, Jake waded back out of the water. He wanted to ask Marnie if she saw Trish anywhere, but he felt like a broken record. Jake was optimistic enough, since her name had not been on the announcements. No one had seen her either, which meant that she was probably doing an excellent job hiding. He hoped he would still manage to find her before someone killed him.

The thought brought images back to his mind. While he was filling his water bottles with the water from the lagoon, Jake saw the bodies. Four of them. He kept his head down after that, and focused on the conversation that was taking place behind him. He was now sitting down, trying with difficulty to put socks on his wet feet, and trying to forget the grotesque display of brutality he saw on the opposite shore. The task was especially hard, since his vision was starting to fog over, going white. He felt light.

Jake crawled a couple feet away from his bag and the water. With a strange utterance that sounded halfway between a croak and a moan, he then unloaded the contents of his stomach. He looked rather undiginified on his elbows and knees, one sock halfway on (the other clutched tightly in his left hand), with his buttocks up in the air.

Jake groaned. He sat up, and wiped the vomit from his mouth with the back of his hand. "I'm all right," he said, feeling incredibly embarassed.

"I'm all right."

He hoped that he would be.

Marnie immediately turned to look when she heard something from behind them. Her eyes scanned the wooded area in hopes of finding whatever made the rustling sound, but she couldn't see a thing. She could have sworn that she heard something, but in the end she decided to chalk to up to paranoia and sit down next to Ivan as Jake got his water. That reminded her of what she came here to do in the first place, but she could get it later.

As she and Ivan talked, Marnie couldn't help but notice how timid the boy was. Even more so than he was in school, but the island could do that to someone, couldn't it? She had been lucky thus far not to have run into any bodies. That probably wasn't going to last long though. And she really wasn't looking forward to the day that she would.

"I'm doing as fine as anyone really can here, I guess." A nonchalant Marnie replied.

The idle conversation between Ivan and Marnie went on for a bit, while Jake struggled to put his socks on. Well, until Jake suddenly started crawling away from them. And then he ralphed.

Blecch. She knew it happened to everyone, but she couldn't help but be a little grossed out. Who wouldn't be? Especially since it was so unexpected. She immediately began wondering whether or not he had caught a cold or something. Marnie she didn't want to embarrass the poor boy, so she kept her mouth shut.

That's when she heard it again. That rustling sound from behind them. As she turned again, Marnie saw a quick flash of white. Maybe it was just her eyes playing tricks on her in the early light.

That's what she hoped it was, at least.

Ivan turned to Jake as he heard the sound of someone throwing up. Ivan winced a bit, trying not to look at the contents of Jake's stomach. He always got queasy about that kinda stuff. Jake's assurances that he was okay caused Ivan to smile politely and nod. He wasn't quite sure why. Ivan refocused his attention on Marnie.

"Yeah, I know what you mean... I--" His reply was abruptly stopped as Marnie suddenly turned towards to woods. he hadn't heard anything, though it was probably because he was trying to ignore Jake's upchuck-ing. Turning in the direction Marnie was looking, he spoke in a hushed tone.

"Uh, what happened, now?" Ivan scanned the treeline. His sight was still kinda blurry from crying earlier...

He saw nothing. Oh well. It... It was just a bird, he thought. Nothing wrong with that. But Marnie noticed something over there, something he didn't. It was a nagging feeling.

"Hey... I think I need to get out of here. There are more people around the island, right? Then... Let's go find people. The hospital, or something. There's a big tower at one edge of the island, right?" Ivan looked at the Lagoon... It really was a very depressing place...

"There's a big tower at one edge of the island, right?"

Indeed there was. Jake wanted to get away from the lagoon pretty badly after seeing the corpses. He was just about done tying his bootlaces, then he would take off. While he was prepared to travel alone again he did hope that someone would come with him; even the timid Ivan would be good company.

"Yeah. I think we should go there."

Jake looked at everyone's faces, trying to gauge their reaction to the suggestion.

"Well, I'm going...you guys can do what you want."

He grabbed his things and walked off, his pace slow...in case any of them decided to tag along.

((Jake continued in A View to a Kill))

OOC: Sorry for the shorter post, there wasn't much to say.
IC:

That was close. They almost saw me...wait, did they see me? Shit, I think they saw me.

It was good that Dante had stepped back as quickly as he did when he accidentally walked into the group, because just as he darted back behind the tree two of them turned around to check out what the noise was about. In the steadily increasing light, he just barely saw enough of the girl to recognize her, though he still couldn't put names to the figures of the two boys. Then again, Marnie Yaguchi's petite frame and clothing choices were pretty distinct. It helped that he hadn't ever really seen any other Asians who had blonde hair like she did, and that she oddly made the hair colour look pretty good on her. Dante normally preferred curvier gals, but he couldn't deny that Marnie was a very pretty young woman, had a knockout face and a pretty good waist and butt to compensate for the rest of her less-than-voluptuous figure. Of course, the pretty ones were always the most dangerous in the last two games, and he had no idea what the tiny Japanese beauty had been assigned as a weapon.

Of course, if she were playing she'd probably have attacked instead of just turning around to see if anyone was here.

With no idea what to expect, and the fact that his strategy for the game revolved around avoiding detection as much as possible in mind, Dante kept his back pressed against the huge tree separating him from the group on the other side, big enough to obscure both him and his nearby pack. A little bit of sweat was starting to run down his forehead despite the still-falling rain, but he didn't dare move enough to lower the hood and risk giving himself away. Moving as slowly and deliberately as possible while still mostly staying still, he slid his right hand into the hoodie's front pocket and grabbed the hilt of the roundel, ready to draw it if he had to fight. Taking control of his breathing, he made it shallower and shallower until he was sure it couldn't be heard. He heard one of the boys talking, presumably to Marnie, and recognized the voice as belonging to Ivan, a boy he didn't know too well but has a class with.

Go away, you didn't see anything...

Hard as it was to suppress his urge to either just grab his bag and run or charge into the group, he forced himself to stay completely still against the damp bark of the tree, making no noise and listening carefully for anything that would indicate that the group was onto him. Fortunately, after who-knows-how-long, he heard footsteps going back in the direction of the lagoon itself, as the conversation continued briefly. He had to restrain himself from sighing in relief as they talked about moving, due sheerly to how glad he was to have not been found out. He wasn't afraid of fighting, but he figured it was in his best interest to avoid conflict as much as possible.

The lookout tower, huh? Why would they want to go there?

His curiosity would apparently not be sated just by listening in, though, as another voice spoke up, he recognized it as being that of Jake...something or other, he only saw him in the halls occasionally, and then the sound of someone walking away from the area in a direction not headed towards him. After that, there was an odd silence, and he risked poking his head out from the cover of the tree for a few seconds to see what was going on. Just out of caution, though, he'd retreat back into cover after those few seconds, to make sure he wasn't spotted.

(Sorry it's so long!)

Marnie's attention was reverted back to the group as Ivan suggested the lookout tower. What were they thinking!? The place would be riddled with people who were trying to avoid the rain, and most of them probably weren't going to be all the friendly.

"Uhh.." Marnie started.

Before she had time to finish her sentence, Jake had also sided with Ivan. Guuuuh, was he stupid too? But there was nothing she could do, honestly. She knew they'd go their way and she'd have to go hers. She had someone she had to find. And she could only hope that he would still be breathing when she found him.

Dorian Ibanescu had been Marnie's best friend since freshman year of high school. His family had moved a few doors down from the Yaguchi's. Marnie's parents became good friends the Djordje and Anna, often having coffee at each other's houses. Dorian and Marnie were almost always dragged along on the excursions because they were the same age. Their friendship slowly started to develop as they started hanging out with each other more and more until their bond was unbreakable. And now they were both here together, despite the fact that only one student could leave the island.

Her thoughts were broken as Jake left the lagoon and she was now left with Ivan. She knew he'd probably follow Jake, so she opened her duffel bag and took out the empty bottles of water and made her way over to the water.

Before Marnie had the chance to refill, something odd grasped her attention. A pole or stick or something was sticking out of the water. As she continued to stare at it, Marnie trudged her way over to the stick. Curiosity had stricken her and she just needed to know what it was.

Oh Jesus…

Under the shallow water was the body of Jodene Zalack.

Marnie suppressed the mixed emotions she was receiving at that point. Wanting to vomit, wanting to scream, wanting to just run away right there and then. But Jodene had something Marnie wanted; the weapon sticking out of her chest.

Sure, it probably sounded revolting and unsympathetic, but Marnie needed something to protect herself with. And Jodene had it. Taking a large sigh, Marnie gripped the pole and prepared herself for what was to come.

Schpluurk

Marnie was totally and completely disgusted. The stupid thing was stuck! She just wanted to cry right there, but instead made a pitiful almost whining sound. Gripping on tighter to the pole, Marnie again tried to forcefully rip it from Jodene's chest cavity.

Schpluurk

The damn thing still wouldn't come out. Marnie, extremely exasperated at this point, put her foot on Jodene's body and gripped the pole as tight as the could.

All I want is that stupid weapon! Seriously! Just let-me-HAVE-IT!!!

With lots of luck and plenty of effort, Marnie was able to forcefully remove the weapon from Jodene's body. As she looked over her bounty, Marnie was pleasantly surprised to find that the weapon was a rather large spear. Quite a heavy one, at that. After admiring her spear, Marnie's eye's drifted to the other side of the lagoon.

"More bodies." Marnie stared, dumbstruck. "Just what I need. Maybe I can pull another fricken' weapon out of one of them!" Marnie rolled her eyes, her comment dripping with sarcasm.

Being the intuitive girl that she was, Marnie immediately associated dead bodies with their daypacks. She'd need the food and water, as she couldn'd drink the water from the lagoon. Seriously though, who'd want to drink dead-body water? After taking a minute to collect herself, Marnie made her way to the other side.

Approaching the other side, Marnie began to notice how gruesome the deaths were. Two of the bodies had their head bashed in and the other body was all over the place. Marnie was disgusted that someone could even do this to another human being. Thinking of the pain they unknown people must have gone through caused Marnie to cringe a little, but she was here to get the job done, not to cry over bodies.

Five daypacks were strewn across the grass and Marnie made quick work of getting to them, eager to get her mind off the bodies. After shoving as much food and water as she could into one of the daypacks, Marnie opened the rest of the daypacks to look for any other supplies she could possible need. That's when she stumbled upon the breadknife in one of the daypacks. She, obviously, didn't need it, but she knew that Ivan had a crappy weapon.

After going through all the bags, Marnie made her way back to where Ivan was, carrying three daypacks and her spear. One of the daypacks was the one that she stuffed full of supplies and the other two had nearly full rations and the breadknife.

"Hey, Ivan. Sorry I was gone so long," She apologized, glad Ivan was still there to receive her ‘present'. "I got you some stuff though!" She smiled as she tossed the two daypacks his way. "There are rations and I found a knife for you, so you can just toss out the books or whatever that is."

Bending down, Marnie emptied the contents of the daypack she kept into her duffel bag and looked back at Ivan. "And tell Jake not to drink the water from the lagoon."

Marnie stood up and made her way to the tree line. A strange feeling of regret came over Marnie. but she couldn't tell why. It didn't matter, though, because she had to find Dorian.

"Oh yeah," Marnie called back to Ivan, "If you see Dorian Ibanescu, can you tell him I'm looking for him? Please?" She said with a sad smile.

(Marnie Yaguchi continued in The Long Walk)

Ivan watched Jake as he walked off towards the tower. Ivan wasn't sure who to travel with. Marnie had started to mutter something before Jake took off, so he turned to ask her. He caught himself halfway in turning around as he thought he saw something disappearing into the bushes.

~Probably just rain falling off the branches... Yeah...~ Ivan shrugged off the thought. "So, uhm, what was it you were gonna say?" Ivan turned to where Marnie was, only to see that she was walking around towards the other side, with a very... Distraught look on her face. Ivan figured he should wait, in case there was something wrong.

Looking up, Ivan saw that the sky was a deep gray color. It was very... depressing. Just what he needed. Ivan lost himself in the sky for a while, in a daze. The clouds looked heavy and dark, and all locked together and covered most of the sky. It definitely wasn't a good day for cloud-gazing. Ivan cycled through the myriad of random thoughts that always popped up when he was alone on this island.

What would he do if he got off the island? He didn't want to think about that one. Escaping was nigh impossible, wasn't it? There were cameras everywhere, they'd know. What if he won? He'd have to have killed someone, at least. Unless they killed themselves, but, who would do that? So he moved on to his next question. Why did he always get so existential on this island? Was it the situation? When life is so grim, he thought, you tend to think about it a lot more. That was the best explanation he had come up with. Next ques--

Marnie had returned. She seemed to be in a hurry. Without giving him time to react, she practically threw some daypacks at him, and handed him a bread knife. And something about the water. Don't drink it... Oh. Ivan had looked towards the lagoon. A nearby body of a girl had poked her way up from the water. Wasn't there a stick there before?... ~Ugh...~

Ivan looked at the breadknife. It was just a kitchen appliance, right? He didn't like the feeling of having a weapon. He carefully took out some of the gauze from his old day pack and wrapped the knife in it. It might not be the safest way to carry it, but it'd certainly help. He threw it in his dufflebag and, for one of the first times since he got off the island, he threw the box in his bag too. He watched Marnie as she began to walk off, and as she called out to him.

"If you see Dorian Ibanescu, can you tell him I'm looking for him? Please?"

"Alright. If I see him, I'll tell him. I promise!" Ivan called out to her, and, turned in the direction of the Tower. He hoped he'd be able to catch up with Jake.

((Ivan continued in A View to a Kill))