Survival Of The Fittest

((continued from Yes It Is))

Harry hefted the essentially fake pistol in one hand as he followed the trail into the thickening trees. At the very least it packed a sting, he decided, and since he wanted to keep the GPS handy he arranged the BB gun and the scrap metal in one hand with the latter upside down.

'It's an improvement.'

Given that he'd almost had his ticket punched by third and fourth parties back at the swinging bridge, Harry made a mental note to keep a close eye on the GPS at all times. He didn't want to get caught off-guard again.

((Continued from: The Piano has been Drinking))

And he walked.

He walked so long he didn't really know what to do and when he grew tired of walking, he ran and when he grew tired of running he would walk. But, most of all he would never stop. And as he approached the edges of the paths, making sure not to go onto said path (to avoid others), he couldn't help but notice a boy eying something in the palm of his hand. Something that despite how much he squinted, Blood Boy couldn't see what it was. A bomb? A piece of cardboard? He noticed the boy had a gun, but that wasn't of much concern, gun fights? It was a lot easier for someone to miss than to hit someone, in fact he bet that even a trained marksman -if enough pressure was put on them- would falter in the face of danger.

Twas the one frailty of humanity's combat effectiveness, they lack it when placed in actual combat situations.

Blood Boy was apprehensive in jumping full force into combat as he crept along the trail and watched the boy, making sure the Viper was in his grasp. He was being perfectly silent, if things turned bad he could perhaps get the boy off guard. And that's when Blood Boy saw it, the green glow of an LCD screen. The gigantic red dot that seemed to taunt him from his location, he of course got a basic view of the topography from this distance, but it was almost as if the dot was placed in bushes in close proximity to the device.

Bushes that he was currently inhabiting.

And then Blood Boy, grunted, he had fell right into what could've been a trap just to sate this boys curiosity. What would happen now? What could happen now? What if the boy wished to fight? Blood Boy couldn't bet that he could escape like he did against Evan and Gabe, or luck out as he had against Troy, Boxer, Michael, and Renee. This boy. This boy obviously could locate red dots that may or may not have been signifying other characters, what it meant? Not even Blood Boy could really imagine.

But, he stepped out of the bushes and noted the less than three meters difference between him and the boy, he simply stared at him through the happy face mask, his hand loosely holding the gun, ready to be pointed at this boy if he proved to be a threat.

"Hello,"

It was plainly stated with his guttural voice and gratuitous mixture of the California and nasally accent. But, he still stared at the boy and tightened his grip on his pistol, the cool metal heating up underneath the heat of his palm.

We'll see if talking to people is actually worth something...

There was someone close by.

Harry had encountered a fork in the trail, either path winding out of sight in a matter of paces and leaving just about everything to the imagination. Well, not everything per se; Harry's trusty third eye revealed the presence of another player making their way toward the intersection. He froze, his hand gripping the BB/shiv combo tightly as the approaching blip curved off-route and stopped moving.

'Do they see me?' he thought, wrinkling his nose and fighting the ever-present urge to forsake his slight I-know-you-know advantage and get the fuck away from the potential killer. His eyes remained fixed on the GPS, not daring to look in the direction of the blip's owner.

'Just stay cool. Let them make the first move...if it's at me, unload on them.' True the BB gun was lacking in firepower, but it was effective and could fairly easily incapacitate someone if aimed in the eyes. He'd checked the "magazine", too; there was plenty of ammunition left as well as another container in Owen's pack. Plus, it looked real. That counted for quite a bit.

The move made by Mr Blip was certainly no surprise attack, nor was it a hasty retreat; he revealed himself almost casually and said hello. Harry turned and glanced up from the device. He recognized him of course--you tended to get noticed around Southridge wearing a smiley face mask all the time--but he didn't know what the guy's deal was. Some kind of weirdo. People called him Blood Boy, which combined with the mask actually seemed like a decent stage persona. Not one Harry would've ever tried himself, but decent.

"Hi," he replied solemnly for lack of any better idea. Harry didn't know what to make of the other boy's tactics, and wasn't about to aim his fake gun at him given that he was actually armed, but an idea came to mind that definitely had some potential without putting him at risk. He glanced back at the GPS screen again to make sure nobody else was in the immediate vicinity. There were a few blips here and there, but nothing that presented a threat. "Nice mask."

"It has it's moments."

He stared up at the boy who in reality was nearly a foot taller than him, it always seemed that Blood Boy was at a horrific disadvantage as stealth and close combat didn't become much of an option, the BB gun in the boys hands made him a bit cautious, that is to say it made him cautious as it wasn't a BB gun and the proximity of the two made it clear that this brief moment of peace that was occurring could be shattered at any moment and it was just up to who attacked first, Blood Boy, Blood Boy was cautious as he stared at the boy through his mask and began speaking again.

"You can cut the tension with a knife, eh?", he said lightly, " I mean, the practicalities of this situation are obvious, at the end of the day, we're all going to kill each other. Perhaps you'll kill me. Perhaps I'll kill you. Perhaps someone else will kill us both. Perhaps sooner. Perhaps later."

He sighed.

"It's a bit of a tough thing to swallow, eh?"

He laughed lightly as his gaze turned to the boy once more through his tinted lenses and his skinny fingers tightened themselves upon the trigger of the Viper Jaws, his free arm twitched slightly as it resisted the urge to draw the sword. No need to go out right now. Just talk. Talking could scare the boy off, get this show on the row or at least make sure that attention isn't drawn. It's true, the over brush would allow someone to approach him if and when a fight occurred and catch both him and this new boy off guard.

Something Blood Boy certainly didn't to happen.

"You'd think so, but it seems like a lot of people are playing," Harry replied, still confused as to what the Blood Boy was going for but nonetheless on absolute pins. To his credit he hid it well. Every few seconds he'd take a glance back at the GPS screen, zooming out and then back in to keep an eye on the blips.

He wished he had a real gun, and that the Blood Boy didn't have anything past a kazoo, and so Harry could just blast him in half without so much as a word. It was nothing personal of course, just that he had no emotional investment in any of these people and would gladly go through a hundred strangers--perhaps the odd familiar face or two--to save himself. Did that make him a bad person? He didn't think so; he highly doubted he would have ever played the game against any of his friends, all of whom were waiting for him back on the other side of the world.

...well, from the States. He wasn't sure exactly where the fuck this island was located.

"Are you?" he asked with an almost uninterested tone, which was meant to seem at ease but did the trick anyway. "Sorry for asking."

An odd question.

Blood Boy calmly looked downward as he fumbled with his fingers deep in thought, how to answer that question? In fact, when it came down to it was he truly playing? Playing carried all these positive connotations, but Blood Boy (despite popular belief) was not exactly feeling good about all these killings. Apathetic? Yes, that was the most logical term, he had no emotion for Trey Leyton. Rebecca Bradbury and Kara Holmes only carried annoyance with them (not malice), and Joshua Goodman was self defense, so was he playing? No, it wasn't that.

But, he was a killer. Come to think of it, he didn't really reflect or angst about said killings, he didn't know why. Maybe there was some great emotional build up to it, but for him, there truly wasn't anything to it. Killing. Killing is easy, anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar, but it's when you give this life value that simply doesn't exist to it, that life becomes this item that can never come back. To Blood Boy? Life meant that he was still here. Without it? Well it was just as simple as walking out of a door, he simply wouldn't be there anymore.

It's funny, at seventeen he was thinking like an old man.

Still, that one answer as he stared through his mask escaped him and finally he muttered one word calmly.

"Yeah," he paused, "You?"

It was so casual, he wished it just faded out as he flicked the safety off from the VIPER and it responded with a loud click and he raised it slightly towards the boys chest, he noted that this guy also had a gun, if they both fired it would spell destruction, so that's why BB didn't pull the trigger. Maybe, just maybe he could convince the boy to put his gun down and move on his merry way.

Maybe.

Harry wasn't really surprised by the Blood Boy's answer but he'd be lying if he said it didn't hit his resolve pretty hard, given that it was punctuated by that raised pistol. True, there was no way to tell without close examination that his own was a BB gun, but as he pointed it at the smiley-faced kid in retaliation he didn't exactly feel empowered. Still, the cornerstone of this bluff was his own cool, which he held onto firmly.

"Mm-hmm," Harry responded, now looking straight into the other boys eyes. It seemed as good a time as any to put his original idea into play; hopefully it'd get him out of this sticky situation. "Well, I hope you're a good player because it's about to get awfully crowded around here."

He held up the GPS, which fortunately wasn't readable from the Blood Boy's point of view, and shook it gingerly. "Just FYI."

So there it was. Did he buy it? Harry wasn't about to wait around for the kid to think it out; he backed up slowly into the brush.

"I'm off," he muttered. The vegetation was soon thick enough to cover his escape, and he left the area with gusto. Mostly because, according to the GPS, his bluff was beginning to come true.

((continued in The Earth Isn't Humming))

OoC- Man, I've been procrastinating far too long...

"Well, that's certainly unfortunate," he paused calmly, "I suppose that leaves me with two options. Shoot you. Steal your gun. Run away.", he shook his head, "Or, shoot you, use you as human shield, push you into the bullets of our enemies, and then run away."

He shook his head and spoke clearly.

"It's truly an endless cycle of violence."

Blood Boy stared at the taller asian boy and simply lifted his mask slightly to spit out the gathering phlegm and the snot that seemingly was leaking out of his nose. At nearly three days his wounds had already worsened, almost as if they where an infection. The pus excreting from it was worsening and it was obvious that if he didn't get medical help within the next ten days, well his wounds would probably mess him up. At the moment though his "face" simply was a tightened, pussy mass of scar tissue.

Putting his mask down he kept his gun pointed at Harry Tsai, he thought quietly about some thing, and then decided to continue on with this idle, but tense conversation.

"You know what?", he chuckled, "This is the first conversation I've had on this island. Forgive me though, I'm going to go on a bit of a triad, I honestly don't care if you care or not, but I'd appreciate it if you at least feigned interest.", he sighed, "Does it enter your brain that no matter how hard you play this game, the small chance of you surviving it most likely will not come to pass? None of us will have a funeral, a proper burial. Then again, it doesn't really matter much. Your mother embalming you, laying in this coffin, all your family coming to say goodbye to you, to leave behind this immortal memory of you...All this ceremony, and the truth is: the body decays, the spirit is lost. It means nothing. Ashes or earth, I hardly see the significance of where they lay your corpse"

He paused.

"The truth of the matter is, that like one other person on this island...I've already survived near death circumstances before. When I was four. The first day on this island. Today. If these people you say are coming do come, then I'd wager I'd survive then as well," he cackled a bit, "Truth be told I'm starting to think that death is a little afraid of me."

He tightened his grip on his pistol and laughed once more.

"I suppose I'll end with this nonsensical story, you see I spent a lot of my life in a lunatic asylum, because of the nature of my mental problems I was placed with the victims of violent crimes and in some cases, the person who committed the crimes themselves," he laughed the loud and high pitched laughter again, "I once knew a man whose dog told him to cut his entire family into pieces. Bark. Bark. Bark. BARK!"

And perhaps that was Blood Boy's main problem, caught up in his own speech he looked up to realize Harry had long left and that he had been talking to himself.

Funny, the first conversation he had on the island had been with himself; and people call him crazy?

((Continued in One by One, We All Fall Down))