Survival Of The Fittest

((Noah Whitley continued from Why Y'all Gagging?))

Noah continued to pant as he ran further and further away from the shoreline. He felt his bag bounce against his bag, while Sawlaska continued to bump against trees. He started cursing to himself, not loudly in case anyone was nearby. He was running blindly away from the shore, and he prayed it would not lead him towards damnation.

After leaving the tower, Noah and the girls made their way south. They found a secluded area near the shore, and had made camp there for the night. They took turns watching the others, with Sawlaska being passed around to the others. It was during Noah's morning shift that the announcements had come on. To his horror, the class had given into the game, and now several people were dead. Aside from knowing that people like Isabel Ramirez and Kimiko Kao were killing, there was learning that Abby had taken her life. Abby was such a nice and fun girl, and for her to end her life on the first day meant that something horrible must have happened for her to decide to opt out.

Before Noah could really react to the announcements, the speaker said the Supply Depot was now a Danger Zone. That's when Noah's collar starting beeping. He felt ready to crap himself. Their campsite must have been close to the Supply Depot, and now they had to scram. Noah had shouted and yelled for the girls to run, taking off in a direction he was sure lead away from the shore. He had continued to run, praying that the girls were behind him.

Noah finally stopped running when a building came into view. It looked like an old cabin, but it looked like a good enough place to stop and recoup. Noah came to a halt just outside the main entrance of the cabin, trying to catch his breath. He quickly turned around in the direction he had come from.

"Hey, is everyone here?" he asked.

He could feel the sweat falling down his forehead. He prayed everyone had made it out safely. They couldn't lose anyone just yet.

((Rene Wolfe continued from Why Y'all Gagging?))

A night sleeping on the rocky shoreline had not done wonders for Rene's stamina, nor did the fact that she had to sleep in shifts with the rest of her group.  If it had been up to her, then she would have hidden somewhere in one of the supply buildings and taken a nap so that she could actually have a chance to regain some strength.  Unfortunately, life seemed to have other plans, and that was why Rene was charging through the untamed foliage while half-asleep while under threat of her neck exploding if she didn't run fast enough.

Rene would have given more thought to what she had heard on the announcements, but at the moment she was trying her damnedest to keep up with Noah, who had the advantages of being in much better shape and having not been freshly awoken by a screeching loudspeaker.  Thanks to what Rene was assuming was some sort of miracle, she managed to keep Noah in her line of sight.  Well, more or less.  She could see him once the trees were no longer blocking her vision at every turn, so she considered herself to have successfully kept up with him through their wild dash to safety.

With her collar ceasing to give her a warning of impending explosive decapitation, she slowed her stride to a walking pace as she approached Noah.  He was waiting in front of a conveniently placed cabin, asking if any of the others had made it.  Since Rene had been too busy worrying about her own safety, she hadn't noticed if Sandra or Blair had managed to follow them all the way there.  However, she could still answer for herself.  She raised her hand and called out to Noah.  "Present."

((Blair Moore continued from Why Y'all Gagging?))

Blair had struggled to keep up with the other two when they ran from potential detonation. Her lungs ached, and she gasped and wheezed, unable to get sufficient oxygen as quickly as she burned it. When she'd woken up, having slept like a log despite the day she'd had, she'd realized something quite dreadful; she was getting sick.

Still, she'd realized Sandra was gone as soon as they'd left. Blair was distracted by the whole 'you might explode' thing, but Sandra was an athletic person, and Blair doubted that anyone but Blair would have been bringing up the rear. Was that good? Maybe. Sandra had started to grate on Blair a bit, but if she was in danger, that would still suck.

Falling to her knees in exhaustion, Blair gave a weak salute as she arrived at what looked like a weird cabin of some kind. There were like, stuffed heads and shit. Blair glanced at the other two, her suspicions confirmed.

"Sandra's...not...here...." She managed.

Noah wiped the sweat off his brow with the back of his arm. Rene and Blair soon appeared, and he felt relieved when they showed up. Of course, he couldn't feel too much relief. Sandra wasn't there. His eyes began to dart around the area, hoping that Sandra would come out of the woods any moment now. But it looked like she wasn't. Noah raised a free hand to his mouth.

"Sandra!" he shouted into the woods. "Sandra, where are you!?!"

He felt a rumble in his stomach. What if Sandra didn't escape from the Danger Zone? What if she went the wrong direction and into someone dangerous? He hoped the rhythm of his breath would be tied to his exhaustion from running, and not the small wave of panic coming over him. Regardless, they needed to get back to their senses.

"Did either of you see where Sandra might have gone?" he asked Rene and Blair. "Was she close to you guys when we left?"

Looking back gave Rene a good view of Blair emerging from the greenery, looking just a bit like absolute misery before dropping to the ground.  Her first reaction to this was surprise at the fact that she wasn't the last one to reach the cabin.  She had been pretty positive that Noah, Blair, and Sandra could all outrun her easily.  Speaking of Sandra, that brought her to her second reaction, which was the realization that Blair was the only one who appeared.  Sandra should have been right behind or, more likely, just ahead of them.  Her absence was not part of the plan.

From the looks of it, Noah had come to a similar conclusion.  Rene could tell from the way he had started shouting Sandra's name at the trees apparently completely forgetting that they had moved away from the bell tower because they wanted to avoid attention.  She cringed a little bit watching him panic, and couldn't completely hide it before he turned to ask her if she knew what was happening.

She tried to scramble to recollect her memories, but between her lingering grogginess and the intense stress of the scenario, everything from the past few minutes sort of faded out aside from the part where she was running and trying not to die.

"Sorry, I got nothing"  She answered truthfully with a bit of a shrug.  "Everything just got crazy really fast."

((Alessio Rigano continued from 4'33"))

Alessio moved around to stay awake. He felt cold and came across a familiar building. This time, people were shouting names out of it. Al recognised the voice.

But he had no clue who owned the familiar voice.

He should go away.

But if people were searching for a member of their group, they would be friendly, no? They have no gun, no? He felt tired, too tired to think clearly, rational, cold. His brain would have told him to go away, but his heart told him to seek other souls.

So Alessio approached the group. He smiled at the people there.

Blair, Rene, Noah. All nice people, except Blair. But Blair sometimes is nice as well. Alessio did not know how much she disliked him, but he did not care.

He continued to move forward.

The fur on the floor looked so comfortable. Cudly. It was sad that a tiger had to be killed for it, though. Al wouldn't sleep there.

Rene was a nice person as well. Funny. Al also did not know whether she liked him or not. She probably thought he was a loser or something.

Wasn't there a bed here as well?

Noah was awesome. Always a funny guy, pretty nice and charismatic. Al wished he was like that.

Alessio saw a bed in the room, when he went to open the door, ignoring the people around him.

Ah. Jackpot.

Noah would not murder him while he slept. Not sure about Rene or Blair, but Noah would not let either of them kill him. He was safe. He dropped his bag and staff.

So he put himself into the bed, closed his eyes and wanted to take a nap.

Blair was too out of breath to notice Alessio approaching until he walked directly past her, at which point she tried to call out to him, only to lose her wind and resume panting from overexertion. Her stamina was pretty awful even though she was reasonably fit, and running exacerbated it more than other exercises. Swimming too.

Unfortunately, Blair had a suspicion that more running was going to happen in the near future. Hopefully not followed by dying, but she had no control over that.

As Alessio entered the cabin, Blair looked back and forth at Noah and Rene, and without saying anything, turned and followed the guy. For one, he was being weird and Blair didn't like or trust that, and also she needed to sit down before she passed out. That'd be unpleasant.

Marveling at the impressively large lodge (though the tiger-skin rug was perhaps the chintziest decoration imaginable, not to mention anti-conservationist as hell), Blair followed Alessio, unable to speak, her throat burning, her chest still aching. She didn't exactly make an effort to be sneaky, as her wheezing breath wouldn't make that a pointless endeavor. Still, she kept about ten feet of distance, just to be safe.

Then Alessio did something unexpected. He walked into a room and laid down on the bed. Blair figured he must've been really tired or incredibly audacious to pull that kind of stunt. There was a chair in the corner of the small room, and Blair collapsed into it.

Literally. The chair shattered under her.

Letting out a pained gasp, Blair slammed her butt onto the wooden floor. "Damn..." She hissed. Her breath was still uncaught, but she could at least talk a little now. Instead of saying anything to the other person in the room, though, Blair just pulled her knees up to her forehead and groaned.

Noah was almost prepared to run back into the woods and look for Sandra. If they were already going to lose a person in their group, that was a sign things would fall apart sooner than later. Noah didn't want to believe that, especially if this could lead to Sandra's death. But even more, he didn't want Rene or Blair to fall apart from this. They needed to stay together and stay focused if they were going to survive somehow.

Before anything else could happen, some other kid walked by the trio and into the cabin. Noah was somewhat surprised. The guy seemed friendly, but he walked by without saying anything. Blair followed the guy in, leaving Noah perplexed.

"What the fu..." he started, before looking over to Rene.

Noah chuckled to himself.

"Um, maybe we should see what they're doing?" Noah said to Rene. "I mean, maybe he saw Sandra."

Noah walked into the cabin, clutching Sawlaska tightly. Right when he stepped in, he heard a crashing noise in the other room. Noah jumped slightly in place.

"Hey, you okay?" he shouted.

Noah began to curse mentally. This couldn't be where everything starts to get worse, right?

What happened next was pretty damn surreal, even considering how bizarre their current situation already was.  While they were trying to deal with how to approach the realization that Sandra wasn't with them, some guy showed up out of nowhere.  The guy didn't even say anything, he just walked right past them and went into the cabin.  Blair tailed the guy for reasons completely unknown to Rene, who had a personal policy of specifically not following creepy people into enclosed spaces.

Noah, for his part, looked confused as all hell, and Rene couldn't blame him one bit.  He gave her a look that implied a desperate need for an explanation.  Rene, who could provide nothing of the sort, responded with an exaggerated shrug.

But seriously, what the hell was that?

She followed her friend into the cabin, wondering if she had seen any horror movies that had begun exactly like this.  Before she could evaluate all four of the horror movies she had seen in her life, a loud crash commanded her attention.  She turned on her heel to face the direction of the noise.  "Blair?"  She called out into the depths of the cabin.  Her usual facade of calm snarkiness cracked, and she was clearly uncomfortable now.

She placed her hand on the zipper of her bag.  She knew that she had a gun because she had done some searching through her bag while on watch the previous night, and at this point in time, she was wishing that she had kept it at the ready.

((Skipping approved by RC))

Standing up, Blair irritably brushed wooden shards from her shirt and shorts, looking over at the kid, who to her surprise was still laying there. Was he actually asleep? Damn, must've gotten involved in something fucked. Or done something fucked. Hopefully not that though.

Looking around the room, Blair opted to leave the room and make sure the other two knew she hadn't randomly gotten ganked by the guy. She stepped out into the hallway, and was pleasantly surprised to find Noah and Rene after a couple steps. They both seemed pretty upset. Blair couldn't imagine why.

"Hey, sorry. That guy is somehow asleep, and I'm okay. I sat in a shitty old chair and it exploded, though." Blair's voice was quiet; she didn't want to overexert again. Especially since, if she was right, she was going to be in big trouble by tomorrow.

"What should we do?"

Noah sighed in relief when the noise was just Blair falling on her ass. She was fine, as was the other guy, from what Blair suggested. Things weren't still better, but they could at least be relieved that no one else was in the cabin.

"I guess we wait," Noah said in response to Blair's question. "If Sandra's close behind, maybe she'll stumble upon this cabin. Otherwise, maybe we've found shelter for the day."

Noah looked back in the direction of the room where the other guy was.

"Well, we'll have to chat with him once he comes back out. But otherwise, I'm fine taking a break."

Rene's newly tense demeanor loosened up upon discovering that Blair was all right. Well, disregarding any injuries that had come as a result of collapsing furniture, anyway. Rene had initially assumed that the new guy had broken the chair over Blair's head when she heard the noise, so this was one time that she was very glad to have been proven wrong.

Of course, even if all was well and good, there was still the very obvious question of who this guy was, and why he was taking a nap through all of this. Or more impressively, how he was a heavy enough sleeper to not be woken up by a chair collapsing loudly enough to echo through the cabin.

But back to the topic at hand, Noah proposed that they take a break. After the particularly crappy morning they had just had, Rene was all in favor of this plan. She very cautiously sat in a nearby chair, taking great care not to put all of her weight on it at once. She raised her hand to address the group.

"Hey, I'm all for doing nothing." She declared before pointing to the room that Blair had just walked out of. "But seriously, we're gonna figure out what the deal is with sleepyhead over there, right?"

It was hard to tell how long he was asleep, but it did not feel like much. He needed more. But, a crashing sound immediately woke him up

The bed was comfortable, so he still layed on it while listening. His left eye closed. The other one opened.

And he heard dialogue, friendly dialogue. He wished he was able to converse in such a situation. But he could not. He did not want to.

His belly felt the comfortable bed. Sleepyhead. That was his nickname. That's what they called him.

"..."

Alessio. He wanted to say Alessio. But, he should not engage. It was none of his business.

But, he needed, wanted to talk. He has not talked since waking up with Serena.

Courage.

"Alessio."

A quiet voice came from the bed.

"Yeah, I want to hear his story. Dunno what happened to put him so out of it."

Blair shrugged, looking back and forth at Rene and Noah. They still seemed intent on finding Sandra. which was Blair was...less than enthused about. At this point, knowing people were literally dying, Blair didn't want to hang around people she didn't fully trust and contributed nothing to her survival.She was somewhat tempted to point out the issue with this.

Eh, fuck it.

"Hey, listen. About Sandra. I don't think we're gonna find her. It's not exactly hard to follow people, and I don't think I remember seeing her with us when we got woken up." Truth be told, Blair was slightly exaggerating that; for all she knew, Sandra really had gotten lost. But this was a possible solution, and it'd solve Blair's problem. So this was now the story.

"I think-wait, did you hear that?" A voice, faint and barely discernable, coming from behind her. "Is he up?" She turned around and looked into the doorway at the sleeping boy.

Alessio's neckhair felt the coldness of the room. He felt the stare of Blair.

Regret.

Blair. Recognised him? Then? What?

Blair's eyes. This is what it felt like. Survival of the Fittest. Flight or flight. Flight.

Al stood up, picked up his bag, left the staff at the floor and ran away. To the back door. Away from here. Away from Blair.

He did not want to confront her about anything. Al did not want to talk with her. Not even Noah. He wanted to be alone, together, alone, together.

((Alessio Rigano continued in Sunset Boulevard))