Survival Of The Fittest

There's only so much a person can do before they get bored, Benni thought with resentment, cautiously checking the perimeter of the old, rundown hospital. Sure, she'd run into a few people since being thrown on this island but as of yet, she was lucky she hadn't had to use any of her ammo. Nor had she been forced to kill anyone.

Animals were one thing, but people? Come on. If she had to, she would, but as of now, she was just trying to survive. But after a while, survival was something that was an instinct, and now she was just bored. And tired. She hadn't slept since arriving, too paranoid to let down her guard, but time seemed to drag on now and it was harder to keep cautious and alert. She was a hunter, and they needed their sleep. Otherwise they would be useless.

Once she was sure, that no one was outside waiting for an opportune moment to attack, she carefully climbed in through one of the ground floor windows. The hinges were rusted and made quite the effort to get open, but she was diligent and soon had it open enough that she could squeeze through. One could never be careful enough in these times, and going through the front door was just asking for trouble.

She went through each room, trying to keep as quiet and stealthy as she could so as not to alert another presence should it be there. After years of hunting animals, she'd learned a few tricks of sneaking up on them. She figured humans weren't really any different. They were all animals in the end.

Once she was satisfied that she was alone, she stayed to the last room. It was bland and nondescript. An examination table against the wall, that was it. She'd at least grabbed a few dusty, old magazines spread across a rickety end table in the reception area. It would do. By now, she was not picky. Some place to rest her head was all she needed.

The exam table was unfortunately screwed to the floor, but using the end of one of her darts and nearly an hour of patience she'd managed to get them slightly looser. Of course, she'd broken the dart in the process. One down, seven to go. She'd just have to be selective in how she used them. Another half an hour was spent using her hands and feet to try to get the bed loose. It took up a lot of her energy and strength to do it, but eventually she could shove it against the closed door. She didn't know what to do about the window for she had no energy left to look for anything else to use.

The best she could do was sleep facing the window. That way if someone came in through the door, the cot that she intended to sleep on would move, alerting her even in sleep. Someone still could come through the window should they wish. She had to take all possibilities into check.

Benni surveyed her handiwork for a moment longer, before snatching an ancient magazine she'd thrown onto the floor and hopping onto the table. It creaked dangerously underneath her weight, but luckily chose not to break in that instant. It wasn't long, as she flipped slowly through the magazine, before her eyes began to feel as if there were leaden weights attached to them. She yawned, her head falling to the side a bit. It was no use. She was too tired, and reading stuff that looked older than her parents wasn't helping.

She tried to fight sleep for as long as she could, but caution was soon thrown to the wind. Her head rolled slightly, before dropping forward, her eyes closed. She was passed out before she could even stop herself.

((This is open to anyone who wants to join in. ))

((Hi there, your friendly neighborhood SOTF Help here! I noticed a bit of an error in your post. The area description for the hospital signifies it as a small, three-room facility. If the area descriptions are too vague, we've drawn area maps for all the indoor areas on this page. You can also view them on the wiki. If you'd kindly edit your post to reflect the area setup a bit more, it'd be greatly appreciated, and don't sweat it, it happens to all of us sometimes!))

((continued from the only way out.))

Lenny was tired of the rain. Gone was his euphoria of being at the marsh. Gone was the power he felt when he had killed Anna and the resulting calm he felt. Now he just felt cold. Cold and wet. He knew that he and Elizabeth needed to find cover. If their clothes in their bags weren't wet they could change out of their wet clothes. Though that was all pending on if they found shelter.

Lenny and Elizabeth had trekked their way through the jungle, with no clear goal in sight. The boy with the gun never shot at them, so both of them had just figured in their heads that he had left after the incident with Anna. Elizabeth wasn't talking to him. Lenny couldn't bare that feeling. His own flesh and blood. His twin sister. She was just ignoring him. He knew that he made her mad back at the marsh, and now with the rage and after-glow gone from murdering Anna, Lenny had more time to think clearly.

He felt guilty. He had did something he sister pleaded with him not to do. Though at the time, it was what he needed to do. He was surviving after all. He was protecting his sister. Though now, in the rain, walking around in the jungle without his sister, his best friend, talking to him, his mind raced to find other answers. Maybe that was wrong. Maybe Elizabeth was right. He could have, should have, killed Anna quicker. Someone else took over though. It wasn't the same old Lenny. It was someone that had been trying to get out for years. It was the Lenny that had power, that could fight back.

He was never bullied by the jocks, or anyone really. So he wasn't just some kid with pent up anger coming out. It was something else. He wasn't sure what, but at that moment, at that time, it felt right. It felt amazing. Though now, with all those feelings gone, and only the cold rain and his even colder sister to keep him company, he knew he needed to say something to make her talk to him.

He tried to think of things to say, when he saw the hospital in the distance. Falling to a crouch, he turned and looked at his sister, and said, "That's our shelter."

Elizabeth looked at him and said, "Other people are probably in it. Everyone wants to get out of the rain."

Lenny said, "So you're finally talking to me huh? Either way, yeah, there are probably other people in it. I don't see anyone outside, so let's swing around the hospital and make sure no one's outside. Then we go inside. Let's just hope none of them are playing the game."

"Like you?"

"You mean like us?"

Elizabeth looked at her brother. "I didn't torture that girl. I would have killed her. You're right. I wanted her to die just as much as you. She hit me. She threatened to kill us. You took it too far. Len, I'm willing to play this game as much is necessary. That doesn't include torturing people."

Lenny knew that this was the moment he could at least start to reconcile his relationship with his sister. Right now, he did feel like he could go without that feeling. That feeling that only angry, rash murder can give him.

"I'm sorry Liz. I just...I..." and with that Lenny Priestly started to cry. He buried his head into Elizabeth's shoulders, and she could feel his warm tears mixed with the icy rain. She could feel his anger, his sorrow, and she started to cry too.

She said, "Len, I love you, I do, I just want to go home. I want us both to go home."

"You'll go home. I'll make sure of it Liz. I won't let anyone touch you...they can't..."

"No more torture? Only kill if we have to?"

"Yes, I swear."

And they cried together. And at that moment, the twins Lenny and Elizabeth were one in the same. Except for one small yet significant detail.

Lenny's tears were fake.

An unseen smile formed on his lips as he cried into his sisters shoulder.

Then, as abruptly as it started, they both wiped away their tears, and Elizabeth stood up.

She felt relieved. It was a mistake. The Marsh was a mistake. He was back to being her same old brother. Everything would be fine. She helped Lenny up, and together they circled the hospital, making sure no one was outside.

Elizabeth was the one to spot the open window. She pointed and whispered, "Look. Someone went in through the back. Maybe we should go through the window as well?"

Lenny nodded, and together they went as fast as they could crouched towards the window. Lenny looked at his sister and said, "I'll go first. Wait until I tell you it's ok. If something happens, run, and don't trust anyone. Got it?"

Elizabeth nodded and Lenny went in through the open window. Once inside, he quickly checked the room. No one in here. So he gave Elizabeth the signal to come in.

Together, the two went through all the rooms except one.

The examination room.

Lenny whispered to his sister, "I think this could be the last room."

Walking up to the door, he put his hand around the knob and pressed against the door to open it. Though something was blocking it from that side.

Someone was in there.

Lenny looked at his sister and with a harsh whisper and a hand gesture he said, "Move! Find cover!"

He wouldn't let anyone hurt his sister.

Pressing into the door, he budged it as it slowly opened, and he hoped whoever was inside was friendly.

As Lenny and Elizabeth searched the hospital, a fourth student was slowly walking towards the building with a steady limp, not because of an injury, but because of effort on his part to shake off of his shoe what he desperately hoped was a particularly stubborn piece of mud. It didn't give off any foul odors in particular, but the fact that he had managed to step in something like it planted a terrible nagging doubt at the back of his mind that the students were not the only creatures on the island, that if the students didn't gather in the man-made locations on the island, they would be brutally eviscerated by the beasts that lurked in the deepest, darkest regions of the jungles.

This was, of course, an irrational fear, as Warren Pace had heard nothing about wild animals during the mass briefing. Oh God, the briefing; if only he could forget it all: the suffocating aura of fear, the armed guards, the slaughter of their chaperones, the face of their tormentor (covered in shadow by a fucking baseball cap, of all things), and to top it all off, Warren had lost control of his bladder near the end; he swore on his mother's eyes that he heard one of the terrorists snickering as he lost consciousness for the second time that day.

Everything that Warren had ever worked for, that he had suffered and sacrificed his own identity for in high school, was blown to bits with the skull of Coach Whittenburg. He spent four years kissing ass and hammering himself into a jock-shaped hole, all for the sake of belonging in a tight, receptive, and above all safe circle of friends. At no point did he consider that forces from outside of Southridge High School would break the circle.

But they did. Tyson Neills, the clown who Warren had laughed at solely to avoid burning bridges, was gunned down by Bobby Jacks. Nigel Gillespie, one of the few who had seen through his shallow act, was brought low by a woman, a mousy little girl whose name Warren had forgotten until the second announcement. Little by little, his ill-gotten gains eroded in his hands, slipping through his fingers and into a bottomless chasm. And he was about to lose his balance...

He tried to help his friends, he really did. But he always suffered from a poor sense of direction, and after falling into the marsh, losing his other shoe in the process, Warren took another look at his weapon, the Colt Python. Seeing it again dislodged memories he thought he'd buried, memories of an old friend playing Half-Life and grinning at the magnum's sheer power.

He had the weapon, the power to protect his friends. Now all he needed to do was find them.

And after days of searching, he finally heard the first human contact he'd had on the island inside the hospital's walls. Warren broke into a smile and shed tears of joy which mingled with the stagnant water that thoroughly soaked him. With the magnum in his pocket, the shambling wreck of a boy without a shred of dignity left to him walked up to the front door and knocked.

"Hello?"

Girl 42, otherwise known as Sharon Kulikov, shivered as ice cold rain pelted her on all visible skin. Strands of her blonde hair were plastered to her forehead in a mix of previous sweat and the current rain. Her fist was clenched firmly around her weapon- well if you could call it that. She was show that some of the other students had been much luckier in the random draw. In her bag, of all things, she had pulled out what looked to be a wrench, but on the end of the wrench was a knife.

Sharon glanced down at the wrench-knife and bitterly thought of the events that preceded the current one. Why had she been chosen to go? At this point, Sharon would do whatever it would take to get off this island, because now, more then ever, was not the time to make friends. A smirk crept onto her face, she was here to win. She had the will, the drive, and damn well had the strength that was needed.

Sharon was zapped out of her thoughts when she approached the edge of the forest.

"I need to be more careful next time, someone could easily have been there, just waiting to kill me."

Alert as all hell, Sharon proceeded out of her canopy of safety. She was on a dirt road, and a few feet in front of her was what appeared to be a clinic or a small hospital of some kind, and to the delight of Sharon- a boy. Her first victim. Smiling softly to herself, Sharon proceeded back into the forest.

Sneak up on him, knock him out with the wrench, and kill him with the knife. That was her plan and she was sticking to it. As Sharon got closer and closer to her target, butterflies began forming in her stomach. Was she really going to be able to kill somebody? She quickly shook her head to get these thoughts out. Of course she would be able to!

Closer, and yet even closer Sharon crept to the boy...

"Hello?"

Stopping dead in her tracks, Sharon's heart began to beat even faster. Had he been talking to her? Upon closer inspection, she discovered that he was knocking on the door. So there were other people in there.

"Best wait it out and see what happens," she thought to herself as she crouched down.

Lenny stopped pushing. Something was wrong, and he didn't feel right being here. Someone took great pain to barricade themselves in there, if someone was indeed in there. Lenny took a step back and whispered to his sister, "Come on. Let's get out of here. I'm willing to risk the rain a bit."

Elizabeth agreed. She had listened to the announcements, and she knew that there were other 'players' out there as well. For all she knew, that entire room could be booby trapped. So she was all the more willing to leave the hospital as soon as possible. Elizabeth started to head towards the front door of the hospital.

Lenny was quick to follow, and took the lead. He wasn't comfortable with his sister leading. Not that he doubted her capabilities in the least, but because he was worried for her. Then he heard the knock.

"Hello?"

Lenny froze.

Someone was at the front door.

All of a sudden Lenny felt paranoid. More paranoid then before. Even though nothing had happened yet, that no shots were fired and everyone was fine, he felt like everything was spiraling out of control. He grabbed his sisters hand and said, "I'm going to open this door and we're going to run. No matter who's out there, or what they want, me and you are going to run. Got it?"

Elizabeth nodded. She didn't understand her brothers fear, yet it was catching on. She felt scared too. He was a changed person. He wasn't the same boy he was at the Marsh. Lenny felt guilty for what he did for Anna right? He only cared about protecting her. So Elizabeth let Lenny take her hand.

Lenny approached the door, and swung it open. He saw it was a boy standing in front of the door, but Lenny had no chance to take in who it was, for he was sprinting, his sister in tow. Behind the boy was a girl.

What is this? The love hospital?

Lenny sprinted past her too, his sister still in hand.

As he neared the distance Lenny let back some final words for the two students. Just for fun.

"There's a player in there! He has an axe and killed my friend!"

Lenny smiled to himself. That was kind of fun.

((Lenny and Elizabeth continued at But I'm a creep))

Warren was taken aback at the pair of students rushing out of the doorway. To his surprise he recognized the Priestly twins, who had always struck him as a bit surreal. Lenny was a social creature who had talked with him every so often (nice kid, but kept himself at arm's reach), while Elizabeth was a virtual recluse who wouldn't even look at, let alone speak to, anyone she didn't already know. Warren used to make jokes among his teammates that the two of them seemed like sitcom characters; everyone knew that twins weren't that different in real life, or so he'd said.

The twins didn't begrudge him for it, apparently. In fact, they barely noticed him, barreling out of the hospital as if it had been set on fire. The only acknowledgment Lenny gave him was a warning: "There's a player in there! He has an axe and killed my friend!"

Warren was in the process of watching them run away, slack-jawed and dumbfounded, until he noticed another girl standing right behind him. Sharon Kulikov was considered to be a seven out of ten, at least, but rumors of domestic abuse at home had kept the football team far away from her. Any guilt he felt at how he and his peers had shunned her made an agonized squawk and died when he saw her... weapon at ready. He didn't know what it was, but it looked like it could do lasting damage to the face, and nothing else mattered at the time.

As quickly as he could, he clumsily took the Colt Python out of his pocket and pointed it and Sharon's head. As he failed to steady his nerves and keep the gun still, he shot Sharon a pleading look. "Please don't make me hurt you," he begged, desperate to stay out of the slaughterhouse for as long as possible.

The boy didn't move. Sharon released a sigh of relief and continued out of the bushes, stalking her prey as if she were a cheetah and he the antelope. She proceeded, crouched slightly as she slowly made her way closer and closer. Her hand, still clenched tightly around her weapon, stuck out somewhat in front of her.

BANG.

The door to the hospital swung open and two people ran out. She stopped dead in her tracks. Heart thumping. Palms sweating. She had seen the two kids around school before, but she never really made an effort to talk to them. She did know their names from class, however. Lenny and Elizabeth was it? Would her past mistakes come back and bite her in the butt? Would they join up with the boy in front of her and kill her? To her relief and displeasure, they kept running but gave her position away in the process. Sharon's heart seemed as if it stopped beating and the warning Lenny shouted hadn't helped. Other kids were playing, huh? She had no choice now but to kill.

Sharon turned back to the boy who seemed equally as shocked as she was. He now faced her and she knew right away who he was.

Warren Pace. Bastard.

Sharon had found Warren to be extremely handsome back when she had first started Southridge. She occasionally caught herself glancing in his direction while walking in the hall or during class, only to turn away quickly. It was odd, though, as Sharon never had never really thought that way about someone. Perhaps it was because of the stress her father put her through, but she'd probably never know. One could easily assume Warren was Sharon's first crush. During an uneventful day at school, Sharon braved up and waved a greeting Warren's way while he chatted with his team members. She smiled a little when he looked her way, only to promptly be ignored a second later. Baffled and embarrassed, Sharon's smiled faded and she walked away.

Now the asshole was pointing a shaky gun at her head; or at least trying.

"Please don't make me hurt you,"

Sharon smirked to herself. As if the quivering wimp could. She stepped forward, testing him. She dropped her arm to her side. She knew he wouldn't shoot if she worked him.

"Would you really shoot me?" She faked, forcing her eyes to water. "… I don't want to die."

Warren blinked in surprise and lowered his gun, pointing it at the ground with two arms locked at the elbows. "I don't know."

He sighed and looked into Sharon's eyes. He couldn't read her, didn't know what to do with her at the moment. Was she sincere or just trying to play with him? Should he run or try and talk with her? Had he really hurt her that much in school or was it just the game making things worse?

He decided to push his luck. "Sharon? Do you... hate me?" he asked her.

Benni found it was kind of hard to sleep with someone shoving the door in and moving her bed around. Good thing, too, since in these times, it was best to be on guard. And luckily that had given her a heads up that she wasn't the only one here anymore.

Stifling a yawn, she forced herself into action. She didn't want to... she actually just wanted to get a good sleep in, but apparently that wasn't going to happen. Nor was a good cup o' joe going to help her wake up. She frowned and grabbed her tranq gun, taking the time and effort to move the bed out of the way with her legs and then cautiously opened the door with her gun and peered into the hallway.

Two rapidly retreating figures... She couldn't recognize them by the backs of their heads, and didn't feel the need to stop them if they were running away. That just meant two less people to worry about, and she wasn't so stupid as to draw attention to herself and possibly get herself shot... shanked... whichever the ammo used...

She'd been thinking once they were gone, she'd do another sweep of the rundown hospital to make sure she was alone again before she reset her trap and went back to her nap. No such luck, before she heard voices out the front door the two before had run.

She contemplated for a long time, as she skirted through the shadows to hide behind the door and listen to what was being said, whether she should make her presence known, or flee out of a back window. She really, really wanted that nap, though, she she chose to continue hiding for the moment and assess the situation before taking a course of action.

Warren's question pulled on Sharon's heartstrings. Her heart increased it's already beating pace and she began to shake slighty, a mix from the cold, the fear, and the doubt. She she really trust Warren not to kill her? The only way to know would be for her to drop her weapon. Deciding to play it safe, Sharon kept her weapon at her side.

"No.." she answered. It was the truth, she didn't hate him, but what he did had really hurt her.

"I just don't want to die... and the kids here... they're playing. You heard Lenny. Someone killed someone in there!!" she pleaded, real tears forming in her eyes, "Kill or be killed, Warren."

Warren let his arms drop and point the revolver at the ground.

Kill or be killed.

"Too bad," he told Sharon morosely. "I wish I could make it up to you." Before she could do anything he might regret, he sprinted inside the hospital, in search of survivors inside.

Lenny had said that there had been a murder in there, that the killer was still inside. Warren had no clue what he would do when he saw him. I don't know what to do anymore. I want to believe that he had a reason, but...

He had the magnum. He could at least pretend that he could solve this one little problem, couldn't he?

Sharon's bewildered look was apparent when Warren ran into the hospital. Her racing heart felt as if it was now in the pit of her stomach. It was difficult to breath and, wiping her brow, Sharon walked back down the path of the hospital.

"As long as I'm not the one dead,"she repeated over and over in her mind. Yet, it didn't seem to help the guilt she felt. She was letting a, for the most part, innocent boy rush into his death. Sharon picked up her pace and began running, all while repeating the saying in her mind.

She knew not where she was going, nor what she was going to do. The only thing that seemed real to her was Warren and what would happen to him.

(Sharon Kulikov continued in Don't Panic)

Benni ducked back quickly before the front door smacked her in the face. Now that was unexpected. She hadn't seen that coming, but there was the boy- Warren, she remembered now- running through the hospital. A man on a mission, she joked inwardly.

Apparently the sleeplessness was addling her brain.

Tossing the tranq gun over her shoulder, she kicked the door shut watching with satisfaction as it closed with a bang. That probably wasn't the wisest of things to do when trying to be cautious, but she didn't really see him as a threat. Nor was she to him. She didn't want to kill anyone, and wouldn't so long as they didn't force her into a defensive situation. She refused to be prey ever again.

Warren briefly stopped in his tracks to look at the girl who he had unwittingly hit in his charge. He knew little about Benni, save for her tomboyishness and damaged arm. He stared at her for a second before deciding that she wouldn't attack and continued searching the hospital.

What he found wasn't pretty.

It broke his heart to see Heather Tilmitt, one of the most popular butts of his jokes, lying on the floor, her head covered in disgusting, lesion-like bruises, obscuring her features to the point that he couldn't remember what she looked like any more. Yet this was still preferable to what lay below the face: a festering crater of raw meat, containing the mashed remains of organs Warren had only seen in textbooks, a small puddle of blood pooling at the bottom, and flies feasting on the bounty that they had been given. Warren couldn't look at them without getting dizzy and having to suppress his bile. It was a blessing that the fetus was nowhere to be found; Warren could probably find it if he wanted to, but who would?

Lance was nearby, looking only slightly better, considering that he, too, was gone for good. Other than his brain being pureed by Melina's bullet and his body drained of much of its blood, he looked none the worse for wear, almost a relief considering what he did to his love.

Who would joke about what led to these deaths?

Warren stumbled back into the room with Benni, dazed and confused. Death, a concept that remained abstract and comfortably distant for most of his life, had suddenly found him, intent on teaching him and his peers a lesson in complacency. Even the lone bit of good news he could gain, that there was no killer in the hospital at the moment, was a moot point because it meant that Lenny had made him up.

"He was just fucking with me," Warren said, his voice uneven and scratchy.

Every cell in his body was paralyzed with fear. All he could think of was Vladimir Lenin, a man who shattered a regime and sent millions to their deaths. He couldn't help but notice the eerie similarities the school hierarchy held with kingdoms. Now a revolution had been forced on them, and soon the heads of the nobility would roll.