Survival Of The Fittest

((Kimiko Kao continued from Resident Evil))

She was alone again. Kimiko wasn't going to lie to herself, it was better this way. The path of least resistance meant going through as few people as possible. If she stayed by herself, alone in the dark she reduced all potential risk to nothing for practical purposes. She was sat in the dark of the storage closet, the cold hard floor providing little comfort and making her wounds and bruises ache. Her only companions being the corpses that had already been present and the spiders that she knew lived out of reach. The rest of the day had passed with no incident and she had found herself slowly drifting off. The nightmares had welcomed her with open arms and she had woken soaked in sweat. After that she had continued to quietly sit and think about her plan for the rest of the game.

The announcement had both served to bring her back to reality and give her an idea of the time. She listened to all the name of the fallen but her attention was more focused on their killers. She needed to know who was a potential threat and who wasn't. Hearing Isabel's name came as a surprise to Kimiko; in a way, she had been expecting to meet her again it had felt almost predetermined. She exhaled bitterly, the fact she felt self-important enough to even think in that way disgusted her a little. Isabel's death and the manner of how it had happened shouldn't have been a surprise to her. Isabel had been acting like a wild animal for the entirety of the time they had been on the island. The result of that had always been inevitable.

It served as a warning.

People would want to find her and get revenge for their friends eventually. Kimiko knew she needed to be aware of the potential danger someone like that posed to her. She had no friends or allies left. She only had herself to rely on and now that she had accepted it that was alright.

Kimiko stayed where she was sitting; fingers tapping gently on the gun she had taken from Nancy. There would come a point when she would have to leave her hiding place but until then Kimiko was fine taking refuge in the dark.

((Caedyn Miller Continued From Love Runs Out))

Caedyn was on top of the fucking world. Always had been, always will be.

Sure, some things had gone sideways. She couldn't find wherever Jazzy had slunk off to, and her supplies were starting to run a little low, and she'd had to shoot Jeremy, but was that all really so bad? Jazzy wasn't around to pressure her to explain herself, so maybe some time apart would do them both good. Supplies could be solved just by rolling up on some idiot and taking them. And Jeremy...

Bridgette had wrecked her. No denying that. That whole thing had left her so fucked up and angry and disgusted that she wasn't sure she could do it again. Killing people just wasn't in her...at least until Jeremy taunted her. She wasn't even really trying to kill him, but he was probably gonna die. That was just inescapable. 'cuz people like Jeremy, and Bridgette, and Oskar...well, they were supposed to die. They couldn't handle it here. They could barely handle it back home. It was just the natural order that they'd die. She'd had that thought before, and she was thinking maybe, just maybe, it was the natural order that she kill them. That made sense, right? Of course it did. Nobody could blame her for that. It totally tracked.

After all, wasn't the Cassowary an apex predator? And that like, meant it could kill whatever? Yeah. That all seemed right. She'd read that somewhere, probably on one of the nerdier blogs she followed. Or somebody DMing to try and impress her. That had to be it.

Because Caedyn was on top of the fucking world. Always had been, always will be.

She hummed idly to herself as she made her way through the hall. Her gun tapped along her leg while she walked as a constant reminder of how dangerous she was, how in charge she should feel. Who'd so much as taken a shot at her? Who hadn't she been able to out-talk, out-shoot, or out-run since the second she woke up here? The door to the storage closet flew open to reveal her standing there without a thought towards who might be inside or lurking nearby. She could take them. She could take all of them. Caedyn squinted into the room from the door, trying to make out the shapes past the shelves. It was a, big place. Trying to pick through here for anything useful was gonna take awhile.

((Alessio Rigano continued from Time flies when you have a gun))

And here is the place where he learned to kill.

This place was too familiar. Every time he entered this room, someone died. Coleen. Maria. Arthur.

But this time, he did not enter the room. No, he just opened the door to see that again, he'd meet people again. Real people.

He held the door open with his foot to use his hands to shoot into it. Then, he regretted the choice as he realised who was there.

Oh fuck, this was totally a disaster. Not only did he shoot at a killer, who he should not shoot, because she would kill other people for him. No, this killer was fucking dangerous.

Alessio ran away faster than before and his arms hurt from carrying the shotgun while running. Fucking wound.

His arm.

He was hoping no one was running behind him

((Alessio Rigano in Minus Something))

((Jaime Steinbeck continued from ... Lose a Hand))

So another one bit the dust. Isabel was dead.

Good riddance

Now, she was going to have to deal with the ... thing when ... other people were going to kill more now that the two big psychos were out of the way. So, count the positives?

With Isabel and Nancy dead, there wasn't anybody going crazy. Positive.

Kaitlyn was dead, so Jaime wouldn't have to deal with any attempt to strangle the bitch. Positive.

Amanda had been rewarded for a kill she got ... uh, not so positive.

Lucilly was dead by stomach related means ...

"My heart belongs to you, my love is pure and true. My heart belongs to you, but my cock is community property."

Steel Panther never failed to get her mood up.

Kimiko saw the door to the storage closet open as someone entered, although through all the junk that filled the room it was difficult to make out who they were. Still she gripped the gun tighter, grabbed her pack and slunk deeper into the shadows. Staying behind the shelves and using the shadows to hide her movements Kimiko circled around in an attempt to see who it was. As the door was swinging closed she recognised the face of Caedyn Miller. Kimiko knew she had killed someone but the circumstances of what had happened were unknown to her. The announcements gave her some idea but how much of what they were told was the truth was another question entirely. The terrorists controlled information in much the same way China and North Korea had been known or were still known to do.

As she Kimiko watched Caedyn the door opened slightly as someone else slowly pushed it ajar. She recognised the boy vaguely but her attention was drawn to what he carried. It was something Kimiko knew from movies as a shotgun. He wasn't looking but he fired anyway and Kimiko instinctively flinched and ducked. They made eye-contact with each other and before she could raise her gun he was gone, the door swinging closed and dropping the room back into darkness. The distraction caused by the boy with the shotgun led to Kimiko losing track of Caedyn, so she stayed where she was and waited, listening for any sign of life.

"FUCK!"

Her leg was burning and bleeding and screaming and fuck fuck fuck who why where how FUCK

She couldn't die here oh god she can't die here she had way to much to do but someone's shooting and and and

A hand pressed to her leg. Screaming and crying and blind shots back through the doorway . Ears ringing. Bright flashes.

Caedyn was too panicked to think there in the middle of dark closet. Couldn't see. Couldn't breathe. Just rasping, shaking, firing until her arm felt like it was going to fall off and the bullets in her gun were spent. She still didn't stop, though. She just kept squeezing the trigger to the pounding of her pulse in her ears.

(Jasmine Reed continued from Love Run Out.)

Jasmine could hear the gunshots from down the hallway. She could also hear Caedyn screaming at the top of her lungs. And while every little inch of her told her not to, she followed her voice down the hallway and towards the storage closet. She only caught the back of the figure known Alessio Rigano as he darted around the corner, away from the room and away from the gunfire. There was sight of another figure too, and Jasmine scrambled back behind the corner she came from. Heart pounding, pupils dilating.

She swallowed. Her grip tightened around the blade in her hand.

"Why are you bringing a knife to a gunfight, idiot?"

... It wasn't a knife per se, but the point was made very clear. Yeah. Jasmine wasn't leaping into the line of fire just yet, like no way.

She had to do something to save Caedyn, right?

Jasmine was in this strange place mentally. Someone was firing their gun again and again and again and Jasmine might hazard to guess that was Caedyn. She was just firing her gun aimlessly. Or was there multiple people in the room with her? Kuso, she didn't consider that!

A single bead of sweat trailed down the side of Jasmine's face.

She's had all this time to make a decision and yet she still hesitates? Christ.

((Skipping because I'm coming up on inactivity here))

There was a loud cry followed by gunshots. This time however the gunshots were away from her. Kimiko watched as Caedyn fired madly, the flash from her guns muzzle lighting up her face. Kimiko just stood in the darkness watching her and waiting. She quietly felt around in her back for her flashlight and held it tight in her hand.

As soon as she heard the tell-tale clicking of Caedyn's gun. Kimiko crouched down and quickly moved over to near the girl while drawing her gun. Slowly she pressed it into Caedyn's head. She had been careful to make sure the flashlight was ready to strike in case Caedyn tried anything.

Then she slowly brought it up and pointed it at Caedyn's face before clicking it on.

BOOM

"FUCK"

Someone decided to fire a gun. She supposed that it wasn't a surprise, even though she and someone else swore at the noise. However, this wasn't a handgun, it was more of a room clearing, zombie beheading shotgun. Then more shots going off until there was a click-click-click.

CLICK.

Get out.

((Jaime Steinbeck continued in Que sera, sera))

The first thing to drag her to her senses wasn't her pain, but the bright flash in her face and the presence of somebody around her. Something cold was pressed to the back of her head too. Everything else had drowned that feeling out but now it was all she could focus on.

She was going to die.

Someone was going to shoot her in the back of the head and she'd never even know who it was. Probably some idiot who just got lucky, she could have had them without the gunshots in the hall. Of course she could have. It had to be some kind of trap. A team catching her in their fucked up conspiracy. That was the only explanation, right? Because this wasn't how this worked. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fucking fair.

The worst part is that she could feel her body shaking. Tears were forming in her eyes as she just waited for them to pull the trigger. Everybody was watching and seeing her like this, hundreds on thousands on millions of eyeballs glued to the screen watching it all end for her and she couldn't even put on a brave face. She was too scared to breathe, let alone fight.

Oh god. She was going to vomit again, she could feel it. Please, not here, not now, not with everybody watching, not in her last moments. If there was any justice in the world she would die first.

But that was out of her hands. All she could do was shiver and wait for the click before it's all over.

Jasmine peeked her head around the corner. She only caught a brief glimpse of another figure dashing out of the door and around the corner. She had no idea whether that was Caedyn or not but... No. She had to go and check. She had to help Kay. Had to.

She dashed out from around the corner. So many bulletholes littered the gaping maw that was once a door. Jasmine would have been able to look inside, even if the door wasn't already open. She took her sword, clutching it so hard in her hands went pale.

The closet was dark. It was hard to see. But her eyes adjusted quickly, and she saw a figure with a gun.

Its barrel was pressed against Caedyn's head.

Jasmine screamed. "NO."

What was the next step?

Kimiko hadn't considered her plan past the point of holding Caedyn up. The girl had killed and had a gun though which made her a dangerous and a threat. The easiest thing to do would be to shoot Caedyn then and there but Kimiko had no idea how much the announcement could have been trusted. She couldn't remember anything about a gun. The other option was just to rob Caedyn, that wasn't an altogether appealing option either.

It meant Caedyn would be her enemy from that point on, but it meant she'd have even more supplies. Whether she needed more supplies wasn't part of the question she was considering. It would be easy for her dump anything she didn't need once she found a safe place to do so.

Kimiko was about to move when a sudden shout made her jump, her instinct kicking in Kimiko span and fired off two shots in quick succession with the gun. The roar seemed to be louder from within the confines of the smaller room and her arm jerked up wildly since she had no support.

She didn't know if she hit anything but she felt a churning deep in her stomach as she waited to see.

She was so shocked when the click finally came that the word before it didn't register until it was too late. The shape in the doorway was alien through her tears. Its voice was unrecognizable under the pounding of her pulse. But when that trigger finally pulled by her head, she felt relief like never before wash over her.

For just a moment she was still alive.

In a moment more her tears cleared enough to see, and she wished she wasn't.

Each bullet carried the weight of the world. Jasmine didn't have enough time to scream.

The first bullet embedded itself into Jasmine's hip. She stumbled back. Her hands lowered, clutching at her side. The second bullet hit her shoulder. Her body hit the ground with a loud thunk.

Like a sack of potatoes.

Dead weight.

Kimiko saw the girl hit the floor and her blood went cold.

She didn't know who she was. She didn't mean to hurt her. She had just been surprised and reacted on instinct.

Kimiko slowly rose to her feet and kept the gun held tight as she moved closer to the girl. Caedyn momentarily forgotten.

This wasn't the way things were supposed to happen.