It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

[Zetsu]

Oh, fuck.

Come on, think it like you mean it. You're entitled to swear just a little more than usual, given, well...everything.

Oh, fuck.

Yeah, it's still sinking in, isn't it?

((G056: Asuka Takahara: Start))

Asuka Takahara sat up slowly, stretched, stood. It was cold. A little windy. Normal, in a surreal kind of way. She had been lying in the overgrown grounds of a...lighthouse? No. Bell tower.

So. She was pretty sure this wasn't a dream, but she sure as hell didn't feel like she was all there. Otherwise she'd be trying to find something better to do. Ok. Focus. We're stuck on Hellmurder Island-- ok, not very original, but this hellhole deserves a lame name and where are your priorities Asuka where are your fucking priorities. You're on Hellmurder Island and your biggest concern is that you're not actually concerned enough. It'd be funny if it wasn't actually a pretty big fucking problem.

Sit back down. Take inventory. That's the rational thing to do. That's the thing rational people would do if the wanted to survive and were actually willing to confront the situation so that's what she was going to do, and maybe she was being very detached in thinking about playing the game-- well, not playing playing, probably maybe not-- moralize later, you have to focus!-- but at least she was getting her head in the game, right? She was strategizing and being strategic and, and

Oh, fuck it. Asuka lied back down. Closed her eyes.

Even overcast, the sky seemed unnaturally bright.

It didn't feel like Survival of the Fittest. Yeah. That was it. That was most definitely fucking it. It didn't feel like her classmates would be killing each other, would be dead and rotting in a matter of hours. It didn't feel like she would probably be dying, no, definitely be dying, because face it, five foot two and ninety-something pounds wasn't gonna cut it even if it had muscle.

"You're going to die," she whispered to herself.

Still nothing. But she already felt tired and wanted to take a nap, so maybe this had negatively affected her mental state after all. Good.

If she ended up feeling like the emotional equivalent of watching paint dry on walls the whole time she was here, it'd be pretty fucking ironic. Okay, so yeah, she'd half-wshed about being on SOTF, back in the days when she'd felt drained and empty for days on end and she wanted it to stop and she didn't give a fuck about living and if watching her classmates get killed made her feel something and made her cry then that was real fucking good. Karma was a bitch.  Now she was literally living as though she could die today, and it was supposed to be all inspiring and meaningful and she was supposed to savor every breath and be in every moment and go out and do something that was all inspiring and meaningful or some shit, right?

So the day was banal and empty as fuck so far. She could work with that. It was ironic, yes, but it was beautiful kind of irony-- there's some feels there, right? Maybe she could feel some ennui over how even when she's thrown into a game of life and death she still doesn't feel truly alive and oh yes that's a nice thought hang on to it because here come the feels. And Asuka was giggling hysterically, almost frantically, because goddammit she'd just thought about fucking ennui on fucking Survival of the Fittest and no matter what happens Asuka Takahara would still be a pretentious little fuck, so stay that way because that's how you keep ticking that's how you stay in business.

So. Asuka was in business now. What do people in business have? A plan. A plan would be positively DELICIOUS to have. Okay, so she's still not entirely focused, but this is the good kind of unfocused. Yeah. Let's go with that. And a plan needs a goal. So get a fucking goal.

Winning was out of the question, of course, been over that already. Escape...yeah, you'll need a group for that, and even then it probably wouldn't work, because look at these things they put on our necks, they're practically a black box. Totally seamless.

That left dying.

Asuka was surprisingly okay with that at the moment, all things considered. You figure, well, living's highly unlikely, might as well go out doing meaningful shit instead of clawing at survival like an animal. Where are your priorities, Asuka, where are your fucking priorities, why don't you value your life a little more.

Asuka was a realist. Well, wasn't that a fucking good excuse.

Thing was, living and dying meaningfully, she thought she could do, yes. This was Survival of the Fittest, and now that it felt like Survival of the Fittest, lots of meaningful shit was going to go down. Oh, yes. Definitely. I mean, say what you will about terrorists, but when they screw people's lives up, they screw them up meaningfully. You could flip out, kill someone, try to escape, off yourself, and really the possibilities were endless and no matter what you did it'd prove something profound about human nature or something. It was genius. They were demented manic pixie dream girls, the lot of them. She should, she should

Fuck them all.

She could out-pretentious them all. Animals? You think you look cool and all by turning us into animals? Fuck you. Animals are boring. They're simple. So show that we're still human. And you'll need to be something more complex than a sociopathic villain. Like, you'll need to seem like a real person for people to believe that you're human. No shit. You're gonna have to show your real self to them.

She shivered.

Her real self. Her Holden Caufield self.

Right.

Asuka took off running.

((Asuka Takahara continued in A World of Sadness))