Survival Of The Fittest

(Dominica Shapiro continued from The Science of Selling Yourself)

"Ughh... I hate this fucking rain."

Dominica scowled. It was so humid outside and the rain was so cold, a brew that made her sniffle and cough. Her cold wasn't subsiding at all and her wounds were itching and she was tired. So damn tired. Why the hell didn't she just ask Matthew to go get the awards? Why did she volunteer? Because. If only one of them went there'd be a chance someone would ambush either of them and make off with all the awards. That's why.

This logic was why Dominica was so cranky. She was sick. She wasn't used to walking long distances when she was under the weather, she was used to laying down with a warm blanket wrapped around her. This was an impossible dream especially with the situation she was in, but her good memories from home were about the only thing that was keeping her going, living, surviving. She began to perk up just a bit when she saw the hospital up ahead. Dominica had only seen the building once when she was staying in the shadows, but it looked in worse shape that she had first witnessed.

She saw three crates propped up in front of the building. I... guess that's our rewards right there. Funny, I don't feel like I've achieved anything. She arrived at her box (Marked "DOMINICA" in dark black letters and two red ballons hovering over it) and wasted no time in opening it. She brushed through the confetti left inside.

A machine gun.

Dominica Shapiro was a winner of some lame competition, and the only thing she got from her troubles was a machine gun. A very sleek gun at that, but it was a machine gun. A machine gun. A weapon of war. Killing wasn't even part of her objective anymore, but with a gun like the "Khaybar" KH2002 (That was the name that came on the manual when Dominica actually read it) it made the act very easy. Too easy actually. With this Dominica could literally rip the competiton apart and yet she wasn't going to make an attempt to. Escape was her first goal, Neil made that detail quite clear to her.

Neil...

Dominica looked down at Neil's crate then sneezed again. He hadn't followed either Matthew or her... so he wasn't here to get his gun. Her first idea was to steal whatever he got (He's already got himself a gun, she thought to himself. Machine gun. And a poisoned sword... he doesn't need the extra load.) but that was shot down. Matthew would be coming along any time now and if HE saw her stealing Neil's award he would... most of the trust Dominica had been buliding up all this time would be lost. She couldn't have that. Not one bit. Besides, DID SHE need another weapon? Not really, no.

Still. Someone had to hold onto the weapon. She opened his box (and to fight with one of the ballons that just seemed to attach itself to her hair) and picked out the Sphinx 3000. It looked... nice. Very nice. Dominica wish she had received it herself.

Neil... I really hope you aren't sending us into a deathtrap. I'm putting all of my trust in you and everyone else. Moreso than anyone I've ever known and if you return the favor by getting us killed I'll never forgive you. I don't even know why I'm trusting you. I don't even know WHY I keep you alive. If it weren't for you or Matthew, I'd still be killing people. Why the hell makes you so different? Why the hell am I following behind you?

She looked up from her spot for any signs of Matthew. "Matthew? Are you there?" she frowned slighty, feeling scared. "Matthew?"

((From: The Science of Selling Yourself))

Matthew trudged through the underbrush as fast as his legs could take him. Dominica had gotten an early start on him, and had all but left him in the dust. He at least knew where she was headed, so he figured he'd catch up to her eventually. And the hospital was still a danger zone to anyone but Neil, Dominica and himself, so he figured if she was there she was safe for the time being. He sighed and continued through the trees.

He'd decided to put his "crutch" in Corbin's daypack (as he had left his in the chapel on day two, and Neil gave Corbin's to him after the lookout tower incident), and used the trees to move forward instead. His knee was feeling better, so he figured Nathanial had only sprained it. Walking on it must have helped.

He soon found himself breaking through the foliage and wandering upon the rundown hospital. The last time he was here, Neil had attempted to rally Kallie Majors and her group into SADD. They all but shot them in their refusal. Matt shook his head. Kallie made her decision.

He saw Dominica not too far ahead. She seemed to be opening up a crate. He saw one more opened crate and one closed one. He figured she was getting Neil's "prize". He frowned.

"I'm here Dominica…" He walked over to her and smiled slightly. He saw the crate marked with his name and number next to her. He frowned.

"I… I guess this one's for me…" He said shakily. Dominica was holding two rather powerful looking guns. He wondered briefly what Danya had decided to "award" him, before shrugging off the feelings and opening the crate. He reached into the confetti and grasped the handle of something. He pulled it out.

A shotgun.

Danya gave him a shotgun.

He pulled out the manual and read the name. Ithaca 37. It was just another tool Danya wanted him to use to kill his classmates. A tool he might have to use soon. He shoved the Viper JAWS and the Ithaca's manual into the daypack, and grasped the shotgun firmly.

"I guess… This is our award…" He looked at Dominica with a sad smile.

"Because we killed him… we got this because we killed him…"

(I'm going to make this very short and sweet. Gotta get a conversation in there somewhere.)

"Y-Yeah..." Dominica looked down at the ground as though she were the cause of all of the trouble. She sighed, drawling out Neil's pistol. "H-Here Matthew. This is Neil's... hold onto it. He's going to need it after all." I really don't see what he'd use it for but... it's the right thing to do. The right thing to do.... Dominica gave a loud sigh, brushing her hand through her hair. Matthew... he's been an outcast like me. Out of everyone here Matthew is the one I can relate to. What does he think of everything?

"Matthew..." Dominica spoke up, frowning. "What do you make of Neil? Why are you following him? What makes him so special, to you?"

Matthew blinked at Dominica as she held the pistol out towards him. He looked at it as if it were some foreign disease, but them he nodded slightly and grasped the gun with his left hand. He stowed it away in his daypack until he would have to give it to Neil. He looked around him slightly, then sighed. This entire island really depressed him.

When Dominica asked her question, all he could do was stare at her for a while.

Why DID he follow Neil?

Probably… because Neil was the first to treat him like he was a person.

"I… I follow him because of his ideals… He never treated me like I was a bother… Like I was some tag-along who he'd leave behind without a second thought… He treated me like I was important… and I owe him everything… that's why I follow him. That's why he's so special… He's the first person I've ever really been able to call my friend."

Dominica nodded. That was the kind of answer she imagined getting from Matthew, but she still looked rather surprised by how quick he responded. She looked away from him and down at her gun as though in thought. Why do I follow Neil? That's a very hard question to answer. The answer wasn't difficult to grasp but the crux of the matter was that... she had so many different reasons. Too many reasons to be sure. She gulped slightly, turning her head back at Matthew. Might as well answer him. I stuck out my hand for him to answer, might as well give him the benifit of the doubt.

"I... I don't know what to tell you Matthew." She coincided, visually struggling to come up with an answer. "I feel safe in S.A.D.D., I like you... you seem very nice Matthew and a friend was something that I couldn't find in school but... I'm going to be completely honest..." Please don't hate me for saying this, PLEASE don't. "I JOINED the group with the soul purpose of dismantling you but..." she gulped softly. "I don't know. I guess you've all grown on me. I was so busy trying to convince myself that there were no other opitons that I couldn't see how our plan could work...

"But I can't help to feel that there's another reason. A better reason... I've noticed Neil in the hallway many times but it wasn't like I KNEW him. Why do I trust him to lead us out of here so much? Is it because I, as a human being, would try to avoid killing? Or is it that.... I trust only HIM and you? I don't know... but that's a hard thing to do, to KEEP trusting someone. I'm torn Matthew. I don't know what I'm supposed to do other than stick as a team, with you and the rest but the fact of the matter is that we DON'T move as a team... What if Neil abandons us? What if he dies? I don't know what I'm supposed to do... I'm... scared of what will happen to me if you and him die..."

...

She looked up, his nose sniffing from the cold. "Oh.... no, I'm sorry. I'm rambling. I was just... thinking about what could happen... that's just how I think, I can't help it.... I hope you don't think of me as some sort of monster now, I can't have that on my conscious."

(OOC: Sorry about jumping the gun like this, Amanda, but I just wanted to get this in since the Dangerzone tag was just removed. You can just assume it comes at the end of your next post or some shit if you want to.

I would also like to request that nobody new enter this topic until I give the go-ahead. I have another post planned here that requires that Dominica and Matt take their leave and I'd like to post it before people start to swarm the building.))

{{continued from What a Day, What a Day, What a Day}}

"What's wrong?"

Lyn looked up from her comic book, noticing the slightly sad expression on Maggie's face. After her first visit, Lyn was surprised to see Maggie returning the bathroom more and more, attempting to start up conversations with her. Lyn was reluctant to do so at first, wondering why she kept returning to spend time with her when she must have had friends she could be hanging out, but eventually she found herself starting to open up to the girl.

They talked about a large variety of things, mainly comic book related, since they obviously had that in common. Lyn had taken up drawing a while ago, and eventually showed off some of her handiwork (Maggie commented that they looked pretty good, though Lyn was certain that she wasn't really that good.) She learned a bit about Maggie; that she had two other siblings, an older brother four years her senior named Charles and a 16-year-old sister named Allison. That Maggie was a big fan of Modest Mouse (she couldn't understand why, though; Lyn had heard their music before and she couldn't stand the lead singer's voice.) That she was hoping to have a career in architecture someday. Lyn had also (reluctantly) told her about herself and her home life. Maggie urged Lyn to get out of that kind of household as soon as she could, to which Lyn simply agreed just to move the topic to something else. Though for the most part she acted just as nonchalant as ever, she was happy to finally have somebody to talk to. Somebody that (for the first time in as long as she could remember) she could consider a friend. Those times when Maggie had come to visit her were the highlights of her week.

"Oh…I was just thinking..." Maggie replied.

"Thinking? Thinking about what?"

"Well, you know that Survival of the Fittest show?"

"SOTF? I know OF it, but I've never actually watched it."

"Well, my brother started watching it. The second version. I guess he's become a big fan." Maggie let out a sigh. "I mean, I've heard all these things about it...that it's all real. All those people, people our ages, killing each other...that they're real people, and they're really being forced to kill each other in all those horrible ways. I mean, when you think about it like that, it just seems..."

"I'm sure it's not real." Lyn replied simply. "I mean, it can't be real. The TV networks wouldn't allow something like THAT to air on TV if it was real. It's just a publicity stunt. Don't get worried about it."

"I...I guess you're right." Maggie smiled towards Lyn a bit. "I can't even watch it myself. The more violent parts just make me ill."

Much to her surprise, Lyn found herself smiling back reassuringly. When was the last time she had smiled? She couldn't even remember.

The conversation soon turned to Maggie's new boyfriend, who she was certian was the one that would stick. Lyn wasn't so certain, though. She had gone through a few more since they had first met, all of them turning out to be complete assholes Where does she find these people? She thought to herself. She certainly had horrible luck with men. This one would probably turn out to be an asshole, too. She let out a mental sigh. She deserved better than this. She deserved someone who wouldn't cheat on her. Someone who wasn't always thinking about himself. Someone who genuinely cared about her.

Someone like...

Lyn blinked in surprise at where that train of thought had almost taken her. But then again, why should she be surprised? It had been almost a year (a year? Was it really that long?) since she had first met Maggie, and while they had been friends for a while now, she found that it wasn't enough. She didn't just want to be friends. She wanted more.

But what more was there?

The realization came as a shock to Lyn. She never really considered herself to be one of THOSE kinds of girls, but it was apparently true. She had feelings for Maggie that girls usually don't have for other girls. She had meant to tell Maggie about these feelings, but she could never bring herself to do it. She was always worried about how she would take it. Would she feel the same way? If she didn't, could their friendship ever be the same if she told her? Would she herself be able to handle it if she were rejected? She decided that she should just keep these feelings bottled up for now. It hurt, but she and Maggie had a perfectly good friendship, and she didn't want to risk ruining that. That would hurt even more.

----------

Laeil sat underneath a very large tree, the branches providing adequate protection from the rain, at least for now

Setting down her pack next to her, she reached in and pulled out her first aid kit. As much as she'd rather do this under better cover, this needed to be done now rather than later. Opening up the kit, she searched through its contents. Various bandages and band-aids, rubbing alchohol, burn dressing...

And a lighter.

...

A FUCKING LIGHTER.

Typically the lighter would be used to sterilize the metal equipment that came with the kit, but Laeil didn't know anything about that. All that she could think about at this moment was how she couldn't possibly feel more stupid. Here she was, looking around for something to light the molotovs she was carrying around, and it turns out she was carrying one this whole time.

Laeil sighed and shook her head. "Whatever..." Pocketing the lighter, she pulled from her daypack a towel that she had brought with her, just in case. She took one corner of the towel and wet it with water from one of her water bottles, using it to clean the dried blood off of her face as best she could. Then, taking another corner and wetting it with the rubbing alcohol, pressed it against the cut above her eye. She tensed up and breathed in sharply as the wound stung like hell, but kept it up until she was satisfied she had done a good enough job. Digging around in the kit some more, she found a bandage big enough to cover the cut, carefully putting it just above her eye.

Next was her left hand. Though the burns weren't as bad as she had expected, her hand still stung painfully. Plus, the cause of the burns had effectively cauterized the cuts scored across it as the result of a molotov exploding in her hand, leaving multiple scars along the top and across her fingers. Taking the burn dressing, she wrapped the length of it across the palm and top of her hand, and after a few moments the pain started to fade. Her uncovered fingers still hurt, but there wasn't much she could do about that.

The speakers came to life as Danya announced the...well, announcements. Laeil let out an annoyed "Tch!" as the disfigurement on Melina's face was accredited solely to the boy she had killed. The fat bastard suddenly speeding his way through the last of the deaths surprised her; Danya had never given up an opportunity to describe the massacre that was occuring on the island. She didn't think too much of it, though, as she finally packed everything back up into her bag and got back up. Now that that was taken care of, the next order of business was to find some better shelter so she could change out of these soaking wet clothes.

As dawn broke, Laeil finally reached the edge of the brush, stumbling a bit as she broke through and almost falling flat on her face. Stupid root... She thought to herself, her attention turned to the nearby building as she realized where she was.

Oh, SHIT! The hospital. If she remembered correctly, it was declared a dangerzone yesterday, and even after the announcements it was still a temporary dangerzone until Neil and his SADD group got their BKA weapons. She turned to run, expecting her collar to start beeping any second, or just plain explode, but then something odd happened.

Nothing.

Laeil stopped, looking towards the hospital (she was at the rear of the hospital at the time.) Did SADD already get their weapons and leave? After a moment she started to make her way towards the building slowly, ready to step back and head out if her collar started beeping.

"Matthew...what do you make of Neil? Why are you following him? What makes him so special, to you?"

Laeil stopped. What? They're still there? Her collar hadn't started beeping yet. Had they gotten their weapons already? She crept around the side of the building and peeked around the corner, seeing only two people, a boy and a girl, guns in hand. Judging from the way they were talking about Neil, she concluded that he wasn't here, and it was just those two.

Well...lucky me, then. One against two certainly wasn't as bad as one against three, especially when they didn't know she was there. She could really use a gun, and one of those would work just fine. Molotovs were good and all, but they were bulky, and not as effective in this rain. I need to separate them, and then attack one, take their gun, and use it on the other one. Setting down her pack and opening it up, she pulled out one of her molotovs and unwrapped the article of clothing from around it, careful to make as little noise as possible. The rain had lightened up some by this point, so she'd have less difficulty starting a fire than she would have earlier.

Pulling out her lighter and grabbing her sword, she moved back to the edge of the building. Waiting until both of their backs were turned, she ran across, ducking behind one of the crates, the wet grass muffling her footsteps quire nicely. Now... She lit the molotov and stood up just long enough to throw it right at the two. The bottle flew right between them, shattering against the wall of the hospital and bursting into flames. She ducked right back behind the crate as this happened, grabbing the sword and watching to see what happens next.

"Dismantling us, huh?" He smiled sadly at Dominica. There was nothing he could think of to say to her. Even if that was her intentions originally, they were obviously changed now. The lighthouse was by far the most fearful moment in his life, and he was sure Neil and Dominica felt the same. They were drawn together there, and he had no ill-feelings toward Dominica for her original intentions.

They shared a particular bond now. He trusted her with his life.

"Trust is very hard. I always want to stop trusting people, because people only end up using you in my experience. In school I used to think it was better to just blend into the walls and pretend not to be there. I was afraid of people, I guess. Of what impression I made on them. But when I got here… I didn't want to die. I tried to trust someone, but she just couldn't trust me, and she left me in the dirt." Matt sighed.

"But Neil… He made me want to trust him. He didn't care who it was… he believed in everyone. I guess that's what made me keep following him."

Then Dominica dropped the big one. She didn't know what she would do if he and Neil died. He had never thought of it. And now it scared him.

"I guess… if we die, you'll have to keep going, and get out FOR us. I'm afraid of dieing. I-I don't even want to think about it. But I want to be strong for everyone. And I just find myself failing at every opertunity…"

"You're no more of a monster than I am. None of us here are… we're all just scared, I think. We all want to go home."

Matt attempted to smile, but he found he couldn't. He was scared being here. He somehow felt that he would never make it off this hellhole. He would never go home and feel safe. It plagued his mind.

He was shaken from his thoughts by a bottle flying past his head and crashing into flames on the hospital wall. He jumped to his feet and pointed the shotgun towards where the bottle came from.

"Someone's attacking us?!" He nervously looked at Dominica.

"We should get out of here…"

Fear? Was that why she did what she did? Fear? It was far fetched, very unlikely. Dominica's reasons for her actions were very scrambled up, being fueled by just about everything. It could be her fear to die... or it could have been the fame. Or it could have been revenge against her wrongdoers. Maybe, just maybe, it was all of them. She didn't know at all. A sickly fear crept into her chest every time she saw a gun before, but now that she had ammunition on her it didn't bother her at all. In fact she felt safe with the rifle she had now, more so than any other time.

Her fingers drummed on the side of the gun, looking at Matthew for a brief moment. "You trust me?" She said, half surprised. Her eyes looked down at her feet, sighing. "Well I certainly hope you're right about that. Sometimes I don't even trust myself: at times I feel as though I'll backstab myself..."

Wow... that's extremely paranoid of me. I can trust myself quite well... I think. Maybe.

"Hopefully you understand Matthew that I can't just act like someone else, even if it helps me escape. I joined the group out of my own free will but that does not mean I'm with you guys until the very end. I promise that I will never betray you or Neil, I can assure you that. It's just... I don't know what I would do without the hope of escaping. I would probably be killing but now I can't imagine myself hurting another human being without getting sick to my stomach. Maybe I have changed... but it isn't enough for me to put-"

Dominica was always so fond of fire. She thought of it as comforting and chaotic at the same time and she liked it. It was very different when it was being thrown at her. It made her scared to see a bottle fly right in front of her, landing into a wall of the hospital. It scared her but only for a minute. She looked over to the place where it came from.

Lyn must have thought it was pretty smart to hide behind a crate but to Dominica it was a foolish decision. The crate wasn't even that big so the outlines of a girl could be seen, and while there were rainclouds in the sky it was pretty easy to see someone so close at this time of day. Dominica grimaced, standing there for a moment without saying anything. It was one thing to attack someone and then run: gorilla warfare was a good strategy especially when you were outnumbered. However, attacking someone and hiding close-by in the hopes of attacking again was a completely different matter altogether. It was cowardice, plain and simple. It was disgusting.

Dominica used to be very anarchic. People assumed that she had changed over the course of the three days but the truth was that change could only go so far. Her sadistic side very much applied now as much as it did then and not even in the presence of Matthew would it cloak itself.

"We should get out of here…"

Dominica ignored his suggestion, adding in her own one. "Oh Matthew? Could I ask you something?" she gleamed. "Has it ever occurred to you that Molotov Cocktails could ever explode should you shoot at them?" she had an evil smile on her. "Actually, I've been wondering about something different... do you ever think a few rounds of bullets could go right through a crate? I've been wondering that myself. Let's test it."

*Click*

There were two different settings for the KH2002 that could change the rate in which it would fire bullets: manual clusters of three at a time or full automatic. Dominica didn't know how heavy the recoil on the gun would be but that didn't matter one bit. Her judgment was being blocked by the sheer stupidity of the enemy (or what she imagined it was). So... she decided to go all out on the enemy.

"Show no mercy Matthew. Had we run away at every possible risk that came before us, we wouldn't be trying to escape."

She said this in a cold demeanor, just like she would have said a few days prior. The KH2002 rocketed in her hands, shooting several rounds towards the figure huddled under a box. It was smoother that it looked although there was a slight difficulty in aiming it in the right position. However the bullets seemed to cluster around the same area: the crate in which Lyn was sitting in wait. She was sickened by what she was doing but overriding that was a strong sense of pleasure she could only get from outsmarting another human being. Ahh.... this joy I'm feeling. THIS was why I killed...

...

Matthew... I'm sorry about this, but this is who I am. I haven't changed at all during my time here... I like you, but I won't forcefully change who I am. I'll let change come with open arms but I won't seek it like a lost pup. Not for you, Neil or anybody else.

[OOC: Sorry about the crappy post. I just wanted to get Laeil out of here and I don't have much time to make this post.]

Laeil scowled as the attack failed to break the two up. Dammit! Why can't things just go my way for once? It was her own fault, really. She had jumped the gun without first thinking things through fully. She should've been more patient, waited until they had left the hospital, gone back into the jungle. She would've had much better cover then, instead of just three flimsy crates.

"Oh Matthew? Could I ask you something? Has it ever occurred to you that Molotov Cocktails could ever explode should you shoot at them?"

Laeil looked back towards the two, and suddenly she had a very, VERY bad feeling about what was going to happen next.

"Actually, I've been wondering about something different... do you ever think a few rounds of bullets could go right through a crate? I've been wondering that myself. Let's test it."

As Dominica continued to speak, only one thing ran through Laeil's mind.

RUN!!

She quickly bolted from behind the crate just as a hail of bullets ripped through it, one managing to nick the back of her calf. She ignored it as best she could, though, dashing back to where her pack was. Picking it up and stumbling a bit at it's weight, she ran into the brush, holding it under her arm now instead of behind her back as she did the last time she was in this situation, since the pack no longer provided protection now that it was filled with firebombs.

Laeil gritted her teeth in frustration. Here I go, running again. It had been a long time since she felt it. The power she had felt when she killed Anthony, the feeling of absolute control over whether someone lived or died. She wanted that feeling back again. It was like a drug. She had come close during her fight with Melina. Maybe that was why she had become so obsessed with killing her. This recurring trend of being forced to run away without having accomplished anything was driving her crazy. It was making her desparate, causing her to make foolish decisions, which would only get her killed before she could accomplish all that she wanted to accomplish.

Dammit...I need to find someplace to clear my head. She thought to herself as she made her escape once again, wincing a bit as the pain in the back of her leg finally became apparent.

{{continued elsewhere}}

(This thread has gone on long enough. o.o)

Who was that hiding behind the crate? It was very hard to spot them throughout all this rain but Dominica could see that the figure was limping. This surprised her, and it made her smile. The machine gun she had just received was working just fine, much better than she had anticipated, and the fact that she even hit someone the first time firing a weapon meant that either her luck was beginning to change or this machine gun was more reliable than any other weapon she ever had. Whatever the case, it was fueling her something awful. She felt... giddy?

The feeling that she had from the second day, when she ended Nigel's life, came back. She didn't want to feel it but she couldn't help it. It was just there, sitting above her like a fog, telling her what she should do. She should head back to Neil, tell him about what happened to them... but she didn't. That idea never crossed her mind. The monster that attacked them must be purged from this earth. That was her first objective: she didn't want someone setting others on fire, because then she would feel guilty, as though it was her fault. Of course this was just an excuse. She wanted to hunt down that other kid like a dog. She looked down at the KH2002, turned it back on manual and then smiled. Neil can wait... He waited patiently while we were here, he can wait now.

She turned to Matthew, just staring at him. "I'm leaving," she told him. "You can come with me if you want but otherwise head back to the chapel. I'll be back soon, don't worry." Then she smiled gently, turned and left.

(continued elsewhere...)

(Since Matt kinda got skipped over it wouldn't make sense logically to kill him here, since he's not mentioned in the next thread.)

Matt quickly turned and trailed Dominica.

(Matt continued elsewhere.)