Survival Of The Fittest

((OOC: Private topic for now. Also, Kathy and Becky continued from Freiheit unerreichbar. Also, godmodding approved by Cyco.))

What had happened at the Field was not something Kathy was used to, by any stretch of the imagination. The sudden eruption of gunfire, the selfless actions of someone she deemed a troglodyte - these were not things she knew. Everything was much more cut and paste, black and white before the island. Against the law or on the right side of the law. Moral or immoral. Good or bad.

Now, Kathy was questioning her ideals. What was right and what was wrong. Who was good and who was bad.

Luckily, Kathy had someone she thought unequivocally good by her side. Becky wasn't far behind her, and Kathy was thankful that there was someone on this island she could trust not to murder her. As they walked along the path towards the Hollow Tree, Kathy smiled.

Perhaps everything would be all right for now.

***

The wound on Becky's shoulder was still seeping blood, and it stung whenever anything had touched it. Kathy had done her best to dress the bullet wound, but that didn't stop even the slightest bit of breeze passing over the wound make Becky wince. Regardless of the nasty wound, Becky grimaced on as she and Kathy trudged through the jungle. It was quiet, which was a good thing - meant that they wouldn't be caught up in another firefight or tense group situation.

As Becky's mind travelled back to the caves, she suddenly remembered Ryan - she'd forgot about him in all the insanity of the field of flowers. She had lost him now, this much was true, but she hoped he was still alive - if she could see her just once more before this island got at her, that would be perfect.

Becky picked the pace and went to catch up with Kathy.

Becky didn't see the root sticking out of the ground.

Becky's foot collided with the root, and she stumbled.

Kathy stopped and turned around quickly.

"Becky!"

Becky got her foot free and stumbled forward. The sudden movements had caused her more pain in her shoulder, but she was alright. She'd recovered from the attack of the root.

"I'm alright, I'm fine," she said quietly.

She got up and walked towards a relieved Kathy.

"What a brush with death," Becky said jokingly. "Didn't think I was going to survive that one."

Kathy giggled. "Oh yes, we didn't want to fall and get suffocated by the leaf litter."

The two laughed. "Or get trapped by sentient trees and used as a marionette," Kathy added.

In between laughs, Becky replied, "You're an odd one, Kathy Holden."

"I'm odd?" Kathy retorted in faux-anger, "You're the odd one."

"Oh really?" Becky said, pushing Kathy lightly. "I'm not the one who suggested trees use people as puppets."

"Well, you're the reason we got onto the trees using people as puppets thing in the first place!" Kathy said jokingly, pushing Becky back.

"Yeah?" Becky said in a mock-confrontational voice, pushing Kathy again. Kathy stumbled back a couple of steps.

"Yeah!" Kathy replied, and she pushed Becky harder.

Becky stumbled back into another root.

Seeing as Becky was falling backwards, there was no way she could've known that this fall would not have been as superficial as the last one.

Seeing as Becky was falling into a heavily-forested area on the edge of the path, Kathy couldn't have seen what Becky was falling into.

Becky waved her arms a little. For all she knew, she was just landing on leaf litter again. She thudded onto the ground...no, wait...the ground doesn't make that sound.

CLICK.

THUNK.

The bear trap Becky had fallen onto snapped shut around her abdomen, crushing her torso into a pulpy, gory mess. Becky screamed out in agony, a scream shortened as the breath was crushed out of her lungs.

As Becky's last breath escaped her, a tear fell from her eye.

Not this way.

G051: REBECCA HOLT - ELIMINATED.

***

CLICK.

THUNK.

What was that?

Kathy's question was answered when Becky's painful scream erupted from inside the foliage.

Kathy ran to where Becky had fallen, muttering "nonononononononono..." as she ran the couple of metres. She pushed aside the leaves, and doubled back, wretching, almost as soon as she saw what had happened to Becky.

Kathy stumbled over to the other side of the small path, vomiting into the bush.

She's dead.

This wasn't what was meant to happen. They were friends, they were meant to look out for each other...not kill each other.

I killed her. She's dead and I killed her.

Kathy's moral compass was thrown awry, as if a magnet had been placed on it and fucked up the poles. She wasn't the good guy any more.

She had killed.

She was the bad guy.

"I killed her."

Kathy sat down on the side of the pathway, staring in the direction of Becky's lifeless body, but not at it, almost as if in a trance.

"I killed her."

Kathy sat, staring, repeating those words in a disbelieving tone.

"I killed her."

Yeah?

Yeah.

OOC: Adam continued from Walking in Circles. Let's get this girl dead.
IC:

Pain. Adam thought he'd known it from years of wrestling, from locks and holds and slams, but the recent battle had taught him one thing; he didn't know SHIT about pain. It'd been at least an hour or two, and all his wounds had stopped bleeding, but they still hurt like a motherfucker. Everything still seemed muted, too, his ears hadn't really stopped ringing. He couldn't help but wonder if permanent damage had been done to his ears. At least he was alive, though, which was more than could be said for that Amanda bitch.

I guess fate's got better things planned for me, by all rights I should've died there. I mean, really, a guy with a pistol beating some bitch with a grenade launcher?

Limping through the jungle while trying not to put too much weight on his injured leg and still carry all his supplies, for once Adam couldn't help but question his fate. How had he survived? Why had he survived? Was it truly his fate to win the game? Did the cosmos have some greater plan for him? Was there indeed a God, letting him live only as a test to see if he would redeem himself? Was he just that good?

No use worrying about it. Fate does as fate wills, and there's no point questioning it. I'll know when it's my time to know. If that's ever.

Reeves may have taken some shrapnel to the leg, along with a lot of other cuts and scratches from the last battle, but his fate really was better than most of his classmates. After all, he was still alive. As long as he had that, nobody could stop him. Still, when would fate stop protecting him? That shrapnel that'd hit his leg had only been a couple inches from severing a major artery and making him bleed to death. It made a man think, even if he didn't want to. How much time did he really have left? When would his luck run out?

Making his way through the treeline, he eventually broke through into another trail surrounded with trees. This one was nearby a hollowed out tree, one he'd walked past before and even slept in once, but that wasn't what caused him to drop the sword and pack, reaching into the bag to get the grenade launcher he had acquired earlier and load it with one of the two grenades he had left.

No, it was the fact that there was someone there. Two people, actually, one alive and one dead. The same girls from the field. One of them was in a bear trap, her torso crushed and gore all over, while the other one sat nearby, staring at the corpse and muttering something. He was right, she was playing.

No time for remorse, no time for mercy...

Bringing the grenade launcher up to his shoulder like he would a rifle and going down on one knee to increase accuracy, he closed one eye and aimed it at the sitting girl's legs. He had to strike quickly, and he knew that the grenade would have enough explosive force to probably blow her in half. She hadn't noticed him yet, he had to fire before she did.

Here goes no mercy!

Pulling the trigger, he got up and ducked around a tree as the grenade flew towards its destination, hearing the explosion and waiting until the rain of shrapnel and dust would settle down before peering around the tree again.

Kathy's state could best be described as catatonic. She'd always taking pride in her moral clarity - she lived by the letter of the law and knew right from wrong. She wouldn't dream of killing, she wouldn't think of stealing, hell, she wouldn't even contemplate jaywalking. She was a walking, talking book of statutes to many. She was a model of morals, she knew it and everyone else knew it.

Katherine Holden, you stand accused before the court of the manslaughter of Rebecca Holt. The facts are these -

Now, with one simple, playful push, her high opinion of herself had been thrown all awry. She'd just killed a girl. She hadn't meant it, but she'd done it. The guilt and confusion was crushing her normally-rational mind like a vice. She'd killed a girl.

You were walking with Ms. Holt when you accidentally pushed her into a bear trap, killing her instantly. All evidence points towards the defendant's guilt. How does the defendant plead?

Tears started running down Kathy's eyes. There was no going back. She'd killed - she couldn't unkill. It was going to torment her forever.

Guilty.

Kathy continued staring at Becky's lifeless body. The light, snuffed out. All because Kathy couldn't keep her pushes light.

Very well. You will be executed immediately. You will be taken to the gallows, and hung by the neck until you are dead.

In Kathy's mind, she imagined herself being led up to the gallows, her arms tied behind her back. There was a distant fwump, but she thought nothing of it. The cloth bag was put over her head, the noose slid onto her neck and closed. She closed her eyes as the sound of the lever that released the floor below her echoed through the room.

BOOM.

"Wait, levers don't go..."

The grenade had landed not a couple of metres from her, and Kathy Holden was blown down the trail, shrapnel slicing through her body. She collided with the ground, hard, dead on impact.

As her mind processed its last, one last image flashed before her eyes - the floorboards fell out underneath her, and she fell, noose around her neck, bag over her head.

May God have mercy on your soul.

G066 - KATHERINE 'KATHY' HOLDEN: ELIMINATED.

{{continued from Everdreamers}}

"Hey, are you alri-HOLY JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!!"

Noah stumbled back as the ground where Kathy Holden had been exploded suddenly, leaving a shrapnel-riddled corpse in it's wake. Just a few minutes earlier had he been walking down along the trail, pondering where the hell that fat cow Lex had gotten to. If he remembered correctly, Danya had started declaring permanent dangerzones. Why? The theory Noah had was that the game was finally nearing it's end, and Danya was herding the survivors into a smaller and smaller space in order to force them to kill each other.

At least it'll make finding Lex easier. Any thoughts of his long-term survival were put to the wayside for the time being, instead being replaced with thoughts of making that bitch pay for what she'd done.

And then she saw Kathy Holden, standing there and basically freaking the hell out (though a conviently placed bit of brush prevented him from seeing what she was freaking out about.)

And then the explosion happened.

Noah looked around frantically, looking for the source, and found it in the colossus known as Adam Reeves. When someone thinks of Adam Reeves, probably the first thing that comes to mind is "Man, what a dick." Of course, they don't say this out loud; not if they like their bones unbroken or something to that effect. To be honest, the thought of an already powerful guy like Reeves having a weapon that goes boom scared the shit out of him.

"Hey, Adam! I guess you're playing, huh? I wouldn't expect any less from an asshole like you."

...wait, what the fuck?

Scared as he was, Noah was also fucking sick and tired of this shit. Of assholes like this giving into the game and killing people en masse. And his being sick and tired of this shit overrode his fear. These people needed to get what was coming to them.

Time to clean house.

Reeves hadn't had time to admire his kill before Noah showed up, as he switched his grenade launcher out for the Mauser and leaned around the tree to aim it at the newcomer. The loser talked a big game, and he had a shotgun, but so what? Reeves knew he could take him. Noah called him an asshole, and Reeves only scoffed. How many different people had called him that? The idiot would have to come up with something better.

"Big words from a loser like you, Noah. Wonder how well you'll back 'em up when I blow your fucking head off!"

The announcement interrupted them, though. Passively listening to the ever growing list of the dead, it occurred to Reeves just how close to the end of this sick game he had gotten. He was almost home free. Tch, no wonder, of course he was this far along. He just had to avoid screwing up.

Just then, the prick declared the Tree one of the permanent danger zones, and Reeves was smart enough to realise that the part of the path he was standing at, even if he was right at the "edge" of the area, was close enough to be counted as part of the Hollow Tree area. "Well, shit," he said. "We'll have to settle this some other time, Jacobs."

Danya's additional reminder for him to report to the Cliffs to pick up his Best Kill prize reverberated in his mind as he withdrew, slowly slinking back into the treeline after he picked up his grenade launcher and pack and put away the pistol. After a while of running through the jungle, he'd realise that he left behind the zweihander, but after cursing about it for a second he kept moving.

That thing was too cumbersome, no way I was gonna use it. There'll be something better at the cliffs.

OOC: Reeves continued elsewhere.

Noah tensed as Reeves made it clear that he had gotten his attention. He aimed the shotgun in his direction, ready to duck for cover at a moment's notice. No turning back now...

Just then, the loud screech heralding the announcements echoed throughout the area. As Danya rattled off the list of dead (going back to including their killers as well), he also noted that they were down to the final 15 percent. It's almost over... It was only going to be an uphill battle from here, though. More dangerzones were declared as the survivors were herded into an even smaller space, and-

Oh, shit. Suddenly, his collar begin to beep. Apparently, the two of them were right in the middle of one of the dangerzones. Seeing Reeves make tracks out of the area, Noah did the same himself, heading in a different direction.

The message declaring Reeves the winner of the daily BKA repeated in his mind. Another killer rewarded for the mindless slaughter of innocents. Well, he'd have to do something about that later, wouldn't he?

Just wait, Reeves. Let's see how long that smug look of your's lasts when I shove my shotgun down your throat and pull the trigger.

That could wait, though. First things first.

{{continued elsewhere}}