Survival Of The Fittest

((Nancy Kyle continued from デビュー.))

Nancy had just stepped onto the landing of the first floor when she'd heard the bell.

Nancy was drawn to it like a moth to a flame, so she looked around her before sneaking out the back door of the asylum and looking up at the bell tower.

"Nancy-chan's... going to get a better view," she said, to no one, "Stay tuned, minna-san."

She entered the bell tower and began to climb, not being particularly careful or quiet. She looked up the whole way, until she eventually made it to the top.

There it was. The bell. She contemplated ringing it again, but decided against it and sat down against one of the walls of the belfry. She placed the hatchet down beside her, and breathed in deeply, looking out to the island.

It was a moment of calm, and Nancy decided it would be best to savor it, before someone else came barging in.

Because that's just what she'd come to expect.

"Hey."

((Jeremy Frasier, continued from The Brave May Not Live Long, but the Cautious Don't Live at All))

The journey down had surprisingly been harder than the one up.

He could mostly see the reasons as to why, though. The height, mostly. Well, really, the height was the only part. It didn't strain him physically at all and it didn't look like the walk down would take forever or anything. No, it was only because he had to look down and whoaaaaaaaa that was a long way down if he fell. Kinda put him a little on edge, especially considering that the stairs now seemed to creak like, every fifth step he took. Probably not a sign that he could have fallen through them, but that wasn't really something he wanted to think about at the time. Falling didn't really seem like a particularly fun way to die, especially right after he had actually figured things out for himself. It'd be sorta ironic, yeah, but it'd be the sort of thing that was funny for everyone but himself. And really, to Jeremy, his fun was the only person's fun that mattered. For now, anyway.

He managed to get down, though. It wasn't really the fastest or the funnest process but he made it down (at that point). Just kinda chilling against a wall, for the most part. Below the stairs. He figured that if someone came into the centre of the room he could step out and maybe surprise them. It looked cool in his head, and maybe it'd give him a fun reaction, so he didn't see any real problem with it.

The first person to come in went straight up the stairs, without even seeing Jeremy.

He looked up.

He had to go back up the stairs again, didn't he?

Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

So he went. Back up the stairs. He knew that this would result in him having to go back down the stairs again but whatever, he stayed here for the sole purpose of seeing who came so he was going to put it on himself to see who came; so eventually he reached the top. It wasn't as easy as the first time, but this time he didn't have a fall down to make him worry, so he figured that it was probably easier than the first trip down, at the very least. The pleasantness of it could be at a low, but in terms of difficulty it was probably in the middle, somewhere.

The girl up top was someone he sorta knew. Nancy. She was into Japan. Jeremy didn't know much more than that, and he wasn't sure whether that was a good thing or a sorta neutral thing. Maybe he'd find out soon enough.

"I'm guessing you're up here because you heard the bell?"

Well, that was fast.

Nancy placed her hand on the hatchet and sat up straight as the sound of footsteps faded in. Someone was coming. She sat there, waiting to see who would pop their head up from the stairwell. She adjusted her sitting position so that she could spring up quickly if she needed to.

And then there was a Jeremy.

"Oh," Nancy said. Not a 'hi' or a 'hey' or something like that, but 'oh'.

Nancy relaxed.

Jeremy she knew. Of. Never really interacted with her at a great length, but he seemed nice enough. He asked her if she came up here because of the bell.

"Uh... yeah," Nancy said. She idly scraped the blade of the hatchet against the floor for a few seconds, before stopping.

"Was that you?" she asked.

((Clarice Halwood continued from The Calm Before The Storm.))

They'd heard the bell on the way over there. That kind of put a brief, if silly, dampener on Clarice's mood. That had been her plan, dammit.

But she'd cheered up again pretty fast. After all, this meant other people were thinking the same plan. Gather everyone together with the use of loud noises. Genius. It meant people might already be heading over there, and that people would be there already.

There was no-one on the ground floor of the bell tower, though, so if anyone was here they were probably upstairs.

Clarice glanced back at the others to check who was still following before looking up the staircase that led upstairs.

"Hey! Anyone up there? We're friendly!" she bellowed up the staircase.

No time for subtlety, after all.

((Conrad Timothy Harrod continued from The Calm Before the Storm))

Oh god she was shouting. She was revealing that they were here. She was inviting killers to seek them.

They arrived at their 'headquarter'. The tower, where they planned to stay to gather people. But, they probably were not alone. They heard the bell rung before, so here used to be people. Maybe still there are. Hopefully, they all ran away and Clarice and him were alone. He feels much more secure now, now that Maria left them and he was alone with his girlfriend.

He could trust her. She could trust him. The problem was also that she could trust Isabel, she could trust Maria. She could trust a killer, a murderer. Someone who plans to betray them. Conrad had to be cautious. Cautious who the person upstairs is.

Man, Nancy had totally ruined the line that he was going for. Now he had to think up of something else suitably cool to say. Bummer.

He was also a little disconcerted about Nancy's initial reaction to him, but he was able to push that away into the realm of being understandable. They had rarely (if ever) talked before this, what made him think that they were going to be instantly friendly right out the gate? Well, still, he didn't think he really deserved an "oh," but maybe that was just him. Maybe there was something he had done to Nancy that he had somehow actually managed to push out of his memory (and in that case, good job Jeremy) that had managed to totally negatively butt Nancy's opinion of him. Or maybe he was still a little annoyed about having to go up the stairs again. Either or.

"Yep," he said, walking over to the opposite side of the room. He considered sitting down, but that didn't really seem right for reasons that Jeremy couldn't decipher or word. Instead he leaned against the wall, standing.

"That was me. Couldn't really think up of a better way to say that, but whatever."

Probably not something he should have said aloud, but the last part of what he said pretty easily fit the last part of this as we-

A voice called out from the bottom of the bell tower. A small tense went up Jeremy's body. He was probably going to have to get used to that. Not because it'd help him or anything but he didn't really like the feeling that came across him when that happened. It wasn't even like, the good type of tensing or fear or anything like that, like the stuff you'd encounter at a roller coaster or in a fast car or something. This was probably the… unexpected type. That was probably how it worked, yeah. You go in roller coasters and fast cars because you wanted the thrill but the moment it came up uninvited it really didn't feel that pleasant. Huh, slightly interesting. Maybe he'd jot that down somewhere if he had the ability.

But anyway, voices. They were friendly, apparently. He was willing to give them a chance, but he wasn't the only one in the room, and at this point Jeremy didn't feel like his decisions should matter too much. It was someone else's game, and Jeremy didn't really want to ruin anyone else's chances so he'd let it be their decision. Plus, Nancy had raised that sword of hers when Jeremy initially came up. Maybe she was a little hesitant about people right now, considering the current situation. It was probably best if he let her decide.

"I'll let you reply to them," he said, sitting down. "If you want to, of course."

Nancy was about to ask why Jeremy rang the bell. It struck Nancy as a weird thing to do. She didn't know if calling attention to one specific area was the best idea.

Though that might have just been her, and only because she was here right now.

Nancy was about to ask, but before she could, someone else called up from the bottom of the stairs. The voice cried out that they were friendly, but Nancy tightened her grip on the axe regardless.

Jeremy told her that he'd let her reply to them.

Oh, great. More responsibility. Nancy sighed, before shouting, "Who is that? Who's down there?"

Clarice waited. She thought she heard talk, but she wasn't really sure.

Then someone yelled back. She recognised that voice.

"Is that you, Nancy?" she called up.

Nancy was odd. But harmlessly odd. Clarice admitted that she didn't really understand the girl's obsession with Japan. Or idols, which Clarice understood even less about. But Nancy was a good actor. She'd been in a couple of Clarice's little film projects that were on her Youtube. And she was friendly enough.

"It's Clarice! Clarice Halwood! And I'm with Conrad Harrod! Maria Cucinotta was with us, and might catch up if we ring the bell." She paused, then added, "Although I suppose you already did that, huh?"

Hm. What did she do now? Ring it again? Just hang out here and ring it regularly?

"Can we come up?" Clarice called. She looked behind her at Conrad and said, "Nancy's fine. Maybe a little grating at times, tops."

It was just Nancy. Nancy, would she kill them? It was hard to imagine. But to be fair, it was hard to imagine either student on this island would murder them. He had to be cautious for sure.

"We are friendly and-"

He added that while screaming up to underline Clarice's statement of him being here. He wanted to say 'friendly and unarmed'. But should he really give her the fact that he was without a weapon? That wasn't even true, he had his weapon. But he had no gun. And if Nancy had a gun, it would be bad for him and Clarice.

"-and looking for a group!" he finished. He hoped Nancy did not ring the bell just to get people here to kill them with her weapon. Her voice did not sound like that was the case, but...

"Clarice, I'm not sure if we should go up to Nancy."

Nancy called down to the people below. Jeremy moved himself against the wall, trying to find that sweet spot where he could lay back without absolutely murdering his back. Everything was as it should be in nature, or something like that.

Then the voice called back up to the both of them. His head perked up. It was another person he recognised.

Clarice Halwood was a friend somewhat in the same vein that Irene was. They didn't meet up and talk to each other all the time, but hey, he could appreciate her presence whenever they were in the same group or cafeteria table. She also shared Irene's willingness to argue with him, although she was far better at it than Irene had ever been. She actually brought up evidence, that monster. Still, even though it could be unpleasant arguing with her she was still an okay person; maybe not someone he could describe as fun as per se but it was nice whenever they talked and actually agreed on a subject. So yeah, she was a friend. Maybe not someone he'd put on a list of his close friends but maybe someone he'd put on the list below that.

Bad choice in boys, though. And traveling partners who didn't happen to be here at the moment. Still though, maybe the situation was now serious enough for Conrad to stop being so fucking ignorant about things. It was currently an unknown whether that was actually the case or not, but it was at least worth a shot.

"We're friendly too!" Jeremy shouted down the bell too. "Maybe not looking for a group, but we're not going to bring you any harm!"

It was Clarice. Nancy liked Clarice. She allowed her to act in a few of her movies, so Clarice was okay in her book.

She wasn't as sure about Conrad. They never really interacted much.

Another unknown. Nancy was just surrounded by unknowns at this point, wasn't she?

She heaved a sigh and stood up, using her axe as a support to do so.

Conrad had called up, telling them they were looking for a group. A group? Nancy considered that.

...

"Yeah, come on up," Nancy said.

She was going to be friendly and invite them up. Even if she didn't know Conrad that well, if he was with Clarice he couldn't be too bad, right?

Despite that, she tightened her grip on the axe.

Yeah, it was definitely Nancy. And... Jeremy? Hmm, that was a little more mixed. Jeremy was… not the worst. But sometimes his ideas were dumb, and sometimes he and Clarice argued. Generally they were cool after they were done, though. It wasn't like Bradley, who always said the shit he knew would piss off Clarice the most.

But Conrad didn't want to go up there.

Fuuuuck that. What was with Conrad, anyway? Why'd he even bother following her if he wanted to avoid the first person they met?

"Then go and hide wherever Maria hid," Clarice snapped. "I'm not going to go hiding and picking who's good enough to try and survive with. That paranoia shit's what those assholes want us to do. No-one's happy to be here, and if I don't trust them… well, I can't expect them to trust me, can I? So I'm going up there. And I'm gonna be friendly, and ring that fucking bell, and be friendly to whoever turns up."

With that, she headed up the stairs. They were steep, and a little trying even with her level of fitness. But soon enough, she made it to the top. Sure enough, Nancy and Jeremy.

"One of you two ring the bell? Because that was my idea, and I don't appreciate the theft." Clarice's tone was light, though, and she grinned at both of them cheerily. The grin got a little smaller at the realization that both of them were armed—damn, was that a gun Jeremy had?—but hey, they hadn't attacked her yet.

Conrad recognised the other voice, but could not recall who it was. Another reason why he should not go up there. Clarice told him to stay here if he was not trusting them.

"Fine."

He shortly considered leaving, but he could not leave Clarice alone. He did not want to be alone either. But she was already gone, upstairs. He waited for some moments. Should he follow her, help her if the people up there were hostile? Or go outside, risk his girlfriend getting killed due to her not being cautious? He waited. He thought. Clarice would do fine alone, he was certain. If the people upstairs attacked her, she'd just knock them out. Conrad could leave, find Maria perhaps. But.

He could not leave Clarice alone. He just could not.

Leaving now would be a death sentence to Conrad. There were certainly people out there who wanted to kill. Conrad did not want to die with the last memory of her being angry at him for not trusting Nancy. He did not want to split up and die. He did not want to never see her again. It was fortunate enough that he met her in the first place.

Conrad slowly began to walk up the stairs.

The words had felt a little odd as they came out of his mouth.

He wasn't quite sure why. Well, he wasn't going to say no to that previous statement but it wasn't something he could really say yes to either. He had an idea. Theory, whatever the right word for the situation was, that was what Jeremy was talking about. The reason that the words weren't feeling right was because they weren't really ones that Jeremy would say. He'd probably felt like he had to say something to announce his also being in the tower but he didn't really know what the right words to say were, or rather that he had said the words but they didn't really have the right feel to them. The Jeremy Frasier flavour that everyone knew and everyone loved. Yeah, that was probably at least a bit of it. Even though he didn't have a full reason as to why it was happening to him it was still a good start. Good enough as to possibly work on improving himself through the current rut he seemed to be in.

Well, actually, there was another no. There was a reason why. He was on a bell tower on an island and he had just learned that he was going to have to kill people he knew if he wanted to get off and he had also figured out that he was probably going to die here and that everything he knew was different and that everything he had worked and hoped for was for nothing. There was bound to be a little jet lag from that. It was only natural.

Hmmmm…

Nah. That wasn't it. To be honest it probably was the reason but Jeremy didn't really want to name it so. It was too simple. An easy truth, as Persona 4 would probably say. It was entirely possible that the issue was something more than this, and if Jeremy cared enough to want to fix this problem in the future he had to keep his options open on this. For improvement's sake. However much that counted at this point, anyway.

But okay. Back to the real world. Clarice had just come up the stairs, asking who rang the bell. That was him, and she had just ruined the thing he was going to say. Oh well, maybe he could still work with it a bit. He raised his hand at Clarice's question, moving it into a slight wave.

"Hey, Clarice."

Okay, so would saying something that he'd normally say help with his current problem? Hmm. Couldn't think up of an answer to that question. Best to test it out. See where that went and work out things accordingly. An age old greeting would work for this. Maybe. Again, worth a shot at least.

"Do you still hear the lambs screaming?"

…

Yeah that probably wasn't the right thing to say.

Nancy leaned back against the wall, not really paying attention to what was happening. She vaguely registered Clarice reach the top of the building, and gave a smile and wave. Nancy had been attracted to the ring of the bell because she'd been curious to know who'd rung it.

But now, she was here, andfound the answer... well, not lacking, but... disappointing? Nancy didn't know if that was the right word. She tried to smile, to get some of that energy back in her body, but that was hard to do given the situation they were in.

Nancy thought.

Deny, deny, deny. The longer she could convince herself that everything was fine, the longer she could carry on.

For now, she just hung back, her eyes looking between everyone in the room.