Survival Of The Fittest

((Emma continued from The Wind Below))

"I hate camping," Emma muttered, adjusting her duffle bag on her shoulder. Her stomach bellowed emptily before a crippling jolt of pain folded the girl in half, causing her bag to hit the ground with a dull thump. She stared absently at the ground, eyebrows furrowed, with a thin dribble of saliva sliding off the end of her tongue. Slowly, Emma stood herself up again, dreamily using the back of her hand to wipe her mouth. She might have noticed her dry and cracked lips scratching the back of her hand, but it was impossible to tell if she had. Once again the bag was hoisted onto her shoulder, and she continued her trek through the forest.

I thought for sure we'd pitched the tent around here...

Family camping trips had set a precedent long ago for being awful. Emma's father always had the worst sense of timing. Unforseen rain and unseasonably high bug populations were the constant bane of the "family time" he hoped would be at the forefront of these excursions. That never seemed to happen, because Mother would freak out because she was itchy, and Emma would leave to explore or find some boys to flirt with if they were on a more public campsite.

It seemed that Emma's memory was failing her because even though she clearly remembered putting the tent up in that area, her family and the tent were nowhere to be found.

If only Dad would let us get a camper. Mom and I wouldn't bitch nearly as much and we might actually stand eachother long enough to hold a decent conversation...

A clearing was visible from where the girl was standing, and slowly she stumbled her way closer. What Emma saw made her excited. A lighthouse on a hill, in the middle of a forest. If she could get in, she would go all the way to the top and stay there for a while. She could go there to read when things got really unbearable. Smiling faintly, she stepped fully into the clearing. A sharp familiar odour permeated her nostrils and slowly she felt an unease building in her as she climbed the hill. Her glazed eyes did not see the corpse of Nathanial Harris as she stepped over it.

The door creaked as she pulled it open. The building looked nothing like any lighthouse Emma had every seen, but she entered anyway and climbed the stairs going to the the top. Her vision began to swim as she climbed the stairs further. Exhaustion and vertigo were trying to take her down. Emma could not see at all through the haze, and once she reached the top of the landing she slumped down against the wall and struggled to hold onto conciousness.

((Well, Dinah has given me control of Emma. She told me that this was all cool with the mods, I'm just you know, making sure nobody thinks I'm suddenly jumping in and stealing her because I can't wait for v4. ))

Emma was sitting in a tent. And there was her mother and father, sitting on either side of her. They were talking to each other... she couldn't make out the exact words, but somehow, Emma still understood what they were saying. They should find a new campsite, her mother warned. The tent was growing smaller and smaller all around them. Emma's breath caught in her throat, the tightness of the space beginning to scare her. Her dad refused to leave. Said the discomfort was all part of camping. Her mom sounded scared, and suddenly, her words became clearer.

"We have to leave, this place is going to become a danger zone!"

Emma felt herself nearly choke as the tent closed in on them all. She realized she was wearing one of Danya's collars. She turned to her father, begging him to leave with the two of them.

Staring at her were the icy eyes of J.R. Rizzolo. Emma tried to scream, but she couldn't breath. J.R. lunged at her, wielding his tire iron-

"NO!"

The scream echoed through the empty room.

...Still alive. She was still alive. It was a dream. She must have fallen asleep while she was...

...Where was she again? Trekking across the entire island, the wound on the side of her head... she had been in a completely dazed and exhausted state when she had arrived here... all she recalled was climbing the stairs. Slowly, Emma stood up and crossed the room, hoping to get some fresh air from the window. Her senses all seemed dulled. Her head throbbed, her legs shook, and she squinted... the walls seemed to be sliding in and out of focus... however much rest she had gotten, it couldn't have been that much... she raised her head towards the window, feeling the cool air on her face, finally able to fully open her eyes.

The entire island was spread out before her. It actually made for quite the serene landscape, the trees swaying slightly under the cloudy night sky, the scent of wet foliage filling her nos-

Wait.

Emma sniffed again.

Another smell, something much fouler, had reached her nose. Turning away from the window, Emma began searching the small tower for the source. She rummaged through her pack. The rations she had left didn't appear to be spoiled... hefting it onto her shoulder, Emma followed her nose down back to the bottom of the staircase and into the larger room at the tower's base. The smell became overpowering, and she could hear flies buzzing.

She must have been truly exhausted to have missed it when she came in, because Emma didn't have to look very hard to find the source.

The entire room was covered with pieces of some unfortunate classmate, most of them barely recognizable as parts of a human anymore. There was a huge red stain in the middle of the floor - or at least, Emma assumed that it had been red at one point. But worst of all, the walls, the floor, the chunks of flesh, were now the home of what seemed like hundreds of flies.

They flitted from ceiling to walls to floor. They made circles around her head. The room itself seemed to fester. All she could smell was the rotting flesh that was everywhere, all she could hear was buzzing filling her head, making it impossible to hear or to think-

Emma gagged.

Before she could vomit, she turned and fled the room, her duffel bag bouncing at her side.

Emma barely even noticed its weight, nor did she notice the other two bodies as she fled across the grass. The image of that room was burned into her mind, and she wanted to run for as long as it would take to get it out.

The nightmare she had awoken from was nothing compared to the one she was in now.

((Emma Babineaux continued in Where the Sinners Gather))