Survival Of The Fittest

As she groggily pushed herself up off the dusty and trash-laden floor, Candice's first thought was that she had always figured it was going to be at least another year or two before she experienced the sensation of waking up with only a vague recollection of what she had done last night to get her there.

Still half-asleep, she gazed at her surroundings for what must have been a few minutes before what she was seeing finally registered.  Light was just beginning to peer in through the windows, delineating a clear line of airborne dust motes where the sun's rays had been blocked by building that stood outside the window across some kind of courtyard.  Catching herself looking out the broken window at the rising sun, Candice realized it would be best to examine her immediate surroundings first.

And what dreadful surroundings they were.  A bed whose mattress looked like it had been dragged out of a dump managed to indicate both that this room had at one time been a bedroom or dorm, and that "at one time" was probably not any time within Candice's lifespan.  The broken glass window seemed to have been tastefully accessorized with a good number of broken glass bottles strewn about the room.  If it weren't for the decent coating of dust that gave everything in the room a drab look to it and made it clear that Candice was the first to be in this room in possibly years, Candice would've concluded that last night had been one hell of a party.

Well, aside from the room looking like it was abandoned for quite some time, there was that thing from yesterday where terrorists told her to murder her classmates.


Candice cautiously looked out the window.  A quick glance indicated that there was nobody there, which was a fact that she wasn't sure whether she should be happy about or not.  She looked more intently, noting the building on the other side of the courtyard.  The thought that there might be somebody else in that building looking back at her suddenly crossed her mind and sent a chill throughout her body.

Maybe standing next to the window wasn't such a good idea after all.  Rather, was it bad that somebody might have already seen her and now knew where she was?


Candice moved towards the door to the room, stopping just before to give one last glance at the trashed dorm behind her.  There'd been a black duffel bag with a prominent "G031" printed on the side on the floor next to where she'd been laying.  What'd they said would be in it?  Provisions?  Better to take it with her than regret not having it later.

Grabbing the duffel bag and throwing the strap around her shoulder, Candice walked back towards the door and cautiously opened it, taking a step into the hallway beyond.

((G031 - Candice Banks: Start))

((G021 – MIA ROSE  --  START))

Mia needed a fucking drink.

She wasn't too fussy as to what that drink would be. Preferably water, because her throat was absolutely killing her, and for whatever reason her mind was still fixated on the idea of staying healthy and in shape. She was absolutely not opposed to something on the stronger end of the spectrum, however. A pint of something. Some lemonade or vodka, maybe. Hell, just give her an entire fucking bottle of Jack Daniels so she could down it and fall back asleep for a while.

A milkshake sounded pretty good too.

…

Damn it. Now all she could think of was the last date she'd gone on with Nathan, and how happy she'd been then, and how she couldn't even remember the last thing they'd said to one another, and how she was stuck on the island and he was safe back at home and that they'd never see each other again.

Mia sniffled suddenly, rubbed her dreary eyes, and sighed. Her mind was a tempest, filled with emotions, filled with thoughts, filled with white noise. She knew she should be crying. She wanted to cry. She was going to die. It was almost certain she would die in the next few days. She would never get to follow her dreams of becoming an Olympic swimmer. She would never get to see her boyfriend again. Slowly but surely, her friends would start dying around her and there was no way she could help them or even see them again before it happened.

Right now, she just felt numb. There was a hollow feeling where her heart belonged, and nothing inside of her was working properly. It didn't help that whatever it was the terrorists had used to knock her out had hit her hard. She still felt groggy and half asleep, her eyes threatening to blink shut every moment.

So instead of crying, Mia sighed again, and sat cross-legged in the middle of a dark and dusty room, staring at the gun lying on the floor in front of her.

Mia had no idea about guns. She had no idea whether this thing was a pistol, or a submachine gun, or a, what was it, RPG, or whatever. She'd never held a gun. She had never wanted to. But even in her dazed state, she knew she couldn't just leave it here, or do anything with it aside from keep it on her at all times. She wasn't stupid. Naïve in some regards? Maybe, sure.

But she wasn't stupid, and there was no way she was giving up what could be the difference between life and death. People would kill each other. The words tasted sour, but she had to realise it sooner rather than later. Everyone knew this wasn't a practical joke. Everything knew that if they didn't kill, they'd all die instead. She needed a weapon to increase her chance of survival. That was how you stayed amongst the fittest; you found an advantage and you never let it go.

Mia sighed once more, a small cloud of dust being kicked up, before she scooped up the gun, weighing it in her right hand. It was much, much heavier than she'd expected. She lightly pressed her finger against the trigger. It didn't even shift an inch. Firing a gun looked so effortless on TV, but, shocking twist, Hollywood and all the big name TV studios cared more about money and ratings than realism.

Slowly, Mia levered herself up, using the edge of the bed as a crutch. First things first; find out exactly where she'd been placed. A rectangular outline of light told her where the window was, and she shuffled over towards it. She grabbed hold of the base of the blind covering it, pulled down slightly, and let it roll back up.

Light flooded straight into Mia's eyes, startling both her and a crow that had been nestling on one of the broken window frames. It squawked indignantly at her, flapping its wings, and Mia stumbled backwards in alarm. Half-blind, half-asleep and off balance, she tripped over her own feet. Heart in her mouth, Mia tried to stay balanced, but all that succeeded in doing was spinning her around and making her slam face first into the opposite wall. Her nose exploded with pain, and she could instantly feel a trickle of warm liquid make its way down towards her upper lip.

The sudden burst of pain, fear and confusion caused something to click inside of Mia, and all of her emotions shifted into place again. The delayed, pent up reaction to her situation flooded out of her all at once; not in the form of tears and sobbing, but in pure, undiluted anger.

"Motherfucking piece of shit cunt terrorists, fucking… fucking bullshit! Mothershitfucking bullshit!"

Mia stormed towards the bedroom door, slamming it open, almost ripping it off of its hinges and throwing up an almighty cloud of dust. Breathing heavily, she stomped out into the corridor, almost slap-bang into another girl, and as most rational, logically thinking people would do, Mia screamed straight into her face.

"Who the fuck are you?"

Backed against the door and with an irate girl screaming in her face, Candice had to wonder if her judgement had always been this terrible.

So as she'd been leaving her room, there'd been these noises from the room next to her.  In a situation where you're on an island with several dozen other people who might decide to kill you, it's not the sort of thing you'd want to just ignore, right? The smart thing to do would be to investigate, right?  It's practically a no-brainer!  Still cautious from her paranoia that somebody might've been watching her through the window, she'd even decided to go about this investigation cautiously.

Apparently, being "cautious" still doesn't prevent you from being scared to death when the door you were working up the courage to approach suddenly slams open and somebody starts shouting at you.

"Ca...Candice," she stammered.

As far as "Fight or Flight" reactions go, it... well, it wasn't really on either end of the scale.  Rather, because Candice knew next to nothing about fighting, couldn't run a long distance to save her life, and was currently weighed down by a bag full of whatever that was going to hopefully keep her from starving to death, it was more the case that neither fight nor flight were viable options for her.  Maybe in the end, "do what the other girl says" would really be the best option right now.

After all, so far nobody had taken any bullets to the head, so it's not like it wasn't working.  Just cooperate and you won't have to fight or run away.  Just do as the other person says and it'll be fine.

Just hope that both parties feel the same way.  It's going to be fine right up until the other girl decides it's not fine.

You don't have to attack her, Candice, but you've never been a person who lets herself get pushed around by others and it's not the time to start that shit.  Keep your composure, and stand your ground in your own way.  It's just like being on stage, except instead of a bunch of people it's just one and instead of being a good distance away she's two feet from you and if things go bad she might try to kill you...

She took a deep breath, looking the other girl in the eyes.

"Candice Banks.  That's who I am"

As quickly as it had appeared, the red mist that had clouded Mia's mind was beginning to fade away. Well, part of it at least. She still felt like a bull in front of a china shop that exclusively dealt in red, but that was still an upgrade from feeling like an erupting volcano. It was enough for her to realise that she'd just burst out yelling from a room in front of an unarmed, innocent, frightened looking girl.

An "oops" or a "sorry" probably wouldn't cut the mustard at this point.

Mia placed her hand on her head, running her fingers through her hair. She was actually beginning to recognise the girl in front of her, even before she identified herself. Candice and Mia didn't run in the same social circles at all, but they both happened to be cheerful, friendly girls, so Mia had seen her around and about once or twice.

"Candice, Candice, of course. I knew that…" she muttered, more to herself than to the other girl.

Mia gave a disgruntled sigh, shaking her head and looking down at the ground. Her muscles relaxed a little, her shoulders visibly sagging. After a few moments, she looked back up again, giving Candice a small, grim smile.

"Christ, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to spook you." Mia could still feel blood trickling out of her nose. She wiped it away, stemming the flow momentarily and leaving a dull red streak smeared across the back of her hand.

"This isn't exactly how I planned my morning to go, y'know? I expected to be napping on the bus, not dumped in some rundown hole with explosives round my neck. Smashed my nose against something as well, and I'm still trying to just… process this… this…"

Mia sniffed and sighed once again, before anger flashed in her eyes.

"This fucking bullshit!"

That brief moment of anger clouded Mia's thoughts again, and she unconsciously tried to clench both of her fists. This include the one still holding the gun, pointing down at the floor. A spray of bullets burst from the barrel, ripping through carpet and splintering wood. Mia shrieked out in alarm, and leapt backwards, staring with wide eyes at the smoking holes in the floor.

"Sorry, sorry, fuck! It was an accident!"

The sudden sound of gunfire erupting throughout the hallway caused Candice to flinch back.  Momentarily worried that some other crazy classmate had arrived or the nutjobs in charge of this horrorshow had decided to take matters into their own hands because the two girls weren't killing each other fast enough, she quickly realized that it had been caused by her new neighbor.  Candice had been so focused on the fact that the other girl had been shouting and up in her face that she hadn't even registered that there'd been a gun in her hand until it went off.

Candice was also struck by the realization that she'd gone her entire life up until now without knowing how loud a gunshot was.

So this is all it took for one of us to snap, Candice thought.  At this rate, we'll be down to the one survivor in no time.  

Candice had expected her life to end shortly after the gunshots rang out in the abandoned building.  After all, it's not like cowering against the wall with her arms pathetically raised in front of her face was going to be any help in protecting herself from bullets or anything.  And yet, the expected pain failed to arrive.  Was this other girl trying to intimidate her, or was she just whetting her appetite for violence before the kill?  Looking up, she expected to see her psychopathic classmate emptying her weapon into everything in sight out of sheer rage.  She instead found the complete opposite: a terrified girl who didn't know what to make of this situation they were in.

This other girl... Mia?  Candice thought that the girl's name might have been something like that.  At any rate, Mia had gone from "Terrifying" to "Terrified" so quickly, she'd become Candice's go-to mental image for when somebody used the word "Unstable".  Prone to lash out at everything around her, then not understand why she'd done it three seconds after it was over.  Changing attitudes at the drop of a hat.  That was the first impression Candice got from her.

It was the first impression of a girl that Candice wanted nothing to do with.

A girl who would be nothing but a liability or an enemy.

Candice wondered if she would make it if she just walked away.  Mia seemed like she was more surprised than angry at Candice right now, so it was a plan of action that probably had a good chance of success.  Leave the girl behind, maybe see about meeting up with friends you know and can trust.  Don't let the fox into the barn where all your eggs are, or whatever the applicable saying is for this situation.  While telling herself that this would be for the best, and thinking things along those lines, Candice almost reached the decision to run away.  Almost.

She hadn't yet turned away from Mia to begin her escape, though, which meant -- not knowing whether or not this was a mistake or not -- that she got one more look at the other girl.

A girl who couldn't even wrap her head around what was happening to her.

A girl whose entire life had been torn from her... no, one who had been torn from her entire life.

A frightened girl that Candice couldn't look at without thinking that she was staring into a goddamn mirror.


She wanted to reach out and do something supportive.  Put her hand on Mia's shoulder, give her a hug, anything to show support.  That's what would make Candice feel good if she were in Mia's situation -- no, what would make her feel better in her current situation.  But her better judgement was telling her that doing something like suddenly touching Mia was not a good idea.  Well, Candice was beginning to suspect that this madhouse was going to render her "better judgement" into nothing more than a crock of shit, but "no sudden moves" seemed to be sound advice no matter how you looked at it.  She settled instead for just extending a hand in the other girl's direction.

"Confident" and "Reassuring" were the attitude she was going for, but based on how she couldn't seem to keep her hand steady it seemed as though she'd greatly missed her mark.  

"L-Let's find someplace safer than the middle of a hallway for the time being, okay?"

Even as Candice started to move and speak, Mia couldn't help but stare at the holes in the floor. There were teeny tiny splinters of wood scattered everywhere, and little scraps of faded carpet still floating down around her. Gently, as if she was expecting to fall through it any second, Mia tapped her foot down against the floor. It felt solid, like that old wood you saw in stately homes, wood that was built to last centuries.

The gun had torn through it like it was butter. Butter that had been left out in the sun for an hour. In, like, Morocco.

Mia briefly considered what it could do to people in that case, and instantly felt sick to her stomach, bile starting to rise in her throat. Another part of her brain, the part of her brain that still thought it was stuck in Kingman, was screaming at her that she had a gun in her hands and that is was pretty fucking cool.

It wasn't exactly an appropriate train of thought, but it did help Mia regain control and calm down a little. It was just a little thing that kept her grounded and stopped her from drifting away again, into anger and despair, and screaming into girls' faces.

"Yeah, uh… yeah, that sounds like a good idea." Mia nodded her head back towards the room she'd burst out of. "That room's in pretty okay condition, it's got a bed and anything! Not that the terrorists had the courtesy to drop me on it, course not."

Mia put the gun into her jacket pocket, half of it still sticking out, and took a step towards the room. She stopped suddenly, before pulling the Uzi out again and glancing sheepishly towards Candice.

"Do you, uh, know where the safety is on here? If there is one? I don't exactly want a repeat of… that."

"Safety?  That's on the..."

Candice's voice trailed off as she realized she had no idea as to the answer to Mia's question either.  Safety?  Why would she know where that is?  The only answer she could think of at the moment was "try random buttons," and she somehow doubted that either of them would appreciate that answer.

She began to reach out to get the gun so she could inspect it more closely, but upon moving her hand just a few inches she froze.  This was somebody who was at the end of her nerves and acting on a possibly literal hair-trigger.  How would the other girl react if Candice made a move that could be interpreted as trying to arm herself?  She quickly drew her arm back, grasping the strap of her bag to ensure that she didn't accidentally make any threatening idle motions.

"It's on-- um, try holding it, maybe?  They'd put it someplace you could easily switch it on and off while holding it."  Or was it that they'd put it out of the way, so you don't accidentally toggle it while holding it?  Damn, maybe she should just keep her mouth shut on topics she didn't actually know anything about.

She felt sick at the thought that she was probably going to become much more familiar with guns in the next few days.

Candice forced that unpleasant thought out of her mind.  She turned and walked into Mia's room, glancing casually around the room as though she was in the process of inspecting a new college dorm before moving in.  It was her best attempt at pretending that she was in control of the situation and acting like they could afford to relax and take a breather.

It was an absurd attitude for the serious situation they were in, but the serious talk could wait.  No, with how the two of them were at their wit's end, it had to wait.

"Anyway, they really started us out right next to each other, didn't they?  Think all the other rooms are filled with other people, too?"

Well, it's highly likely there weren't any people here now, at least.  Any people would have either heard the gunshots and either come to investigate or hauled ass in the other direction.  It was something to talk about, though, even if the topic was pointless.  Maybe it was even a good topic because it was pointless.

"Ah, your name is Mia, right?"

Well, fuck. This was a question that was going to drive Mia completely insane for the next day or so. She trudged after Candice, back into the room she had woken up in, staring at the gun as if it was a Rubik's cube. Where the hell was the safety? That was about the extent of her gun knowledge, right after the whole ‘point and shoot' part. Most of them had safeties to stop people from doing, well, exactly what Mia had done, right?

Mia moved her thumb over a button-y object on the side, then froze as she realised she was accidentally pointing the gun at Candice's back. Hastily, heart pounding like a jackhammer, she shoved the Uzi back into her pocket, the bottom half awkwardly sticking out like some bizarre appendage.

Better for her to have the question of the safety location pester her mind, rather than the accidental murder of an innocent girl plague her conscience.

Mia trudged across the room and sat on the edge of the bed. It was about as comfortable as one would expect a bed in a dilapidated, years old house to be, but it was still much more preferable to the floor. She craned her neck back to look at the ceiling, staring at the cracks and watermarks that decorated it, letting Candice's question wash over her. Then she looked back at the girl, a smile on her face. It wasn't forced, but it wasn't quite natural, either.

"Yeah, that's me!" Mia said, voice slightly strained. "Mia Rose, the one and only. Swimming sensation, cheerleader, lover of dogs and cats and all things cute, generally all around pretty cool girl. Next big Olympic star, live and in person!"

The smile fell almost as quickly as it had appeared, and with a huge sigh, she flopped backwards onto the bed, feeling all of a sudden very limp and very small. She was exhausted. It had been less than an hour into this thing, and her emotions had already been put through the wringer.

"At least, that was the plan," Mia muttered. "Then everything went tits up, and now I'm just some girl who assaults the first person she sees. I, uh, really am sorry about that, by the way."

Mia glanced over at Candice, an apologetic look on her face, before continuing her study of the ceiling.

"If there is anyone else nearby, they must still be out cold not to have investigated the noise by now. Probably for the best, honestly. Didn't exactly give the best account of myself, huh?"

As the last couple of words left Mia's mouth, a lead weight felt like it had been dropped on her heart. Maybe there was no-one else in this building itself, but there were plenty of people who would have seen her little display. Plenty of people who would be watching her right now, checking every hour to make sure she was still alright.

"Do you think our parents are watching us right now?"

Mia wondered what Nathan was thinking right at this moment.

(Scout Pfeiffer continued from The High Window.)

The door to the door opened slowly. She gave it a light push, let gravity do the rest. There was no rust on the doorhinges, so no squeaking. Good. She was thankful for that.  Scout Pfeiffer peered her head out of the doorway. She stared down the hallway, at the bullet holes in the floor, finally landing at the door leading towards the stairs.

Well. There's good news and bad news.  Good news, she found a gun. Bad news, she didn't find it in any of the rooms. Someone was using it.

Scout had heard creaking and shuffling, but she figured it was the sounds of the building settling. Then someone screamed 'who the fuck are you?' from further on and then somebody fired a gun.

The voices were faint, clearly female, clearly nobody Scout recognized. They went back into one of the rooms. She didn't know which one. One of the ones she didn't check, she figured. Was the door still open? Was one of them just 'testing' the gun? Both fight and flight weighed heavily on her shoulders. The plan Scout had was vague, malleable, but it wasn't going to be possible with just a bonesaw. But. she had no idea what to expect. Were the two girls down the hall trustworthy? What if there wasn't just two of them? What if there's more people in the room? She didn't know.  

Scout hated ambiguity, but not nearly as much as indecision. The unknowable, when things like luck, fate, and loads other bullshit came into play when rationality failed.  She knew one thing though: she wasn't going to needlessly kill anyone. That cannot be overstated.

Scout grunted. She left the door open as she finally slid out, bonesaw clutched in hand. She tested the floor, making sure there were no creaks. She pressed her shoulder against the wall. The place - a dormitory of some sort, Scout gathered - was a mess. A candleholder on the wall was downturned, pointing towards the floor. Beer bottles were set in a pyramid along the opposite wall further down. Scout shuffled down to the neighboring door. Or rather doorway, as there was no door on this. Her heart thudded as she checked inside. No one.

She paused, breathed in, out. Christ. She weighed the idea of making a break for it.

At the mention of being watched, Candice found herself fighting the urge to glance at the corners of the room to see where the terrorists might have placed cameras.  The fact that their every moves were being recorded and broadcast hadn't crossed her mind until now.  Unfortunately, that knowledge and the sense of unease that accompanied it had now embedded themselves in her mind so deep that wild tractors couldn't pull it out of her.  It was the feeling of every last ounce of stage fright she had ever felt packed into a single instant, and then repeated over and over and over again until she felt like going out and swimming as far as she could into the ocean because they might not have put cameras out there.

Why did you have to say that?

Since waking up this morning, Candice hadn't thought for an instant that anyone who saw her would think that she was staying cool and collected.  She was almost at the end of her nerves and wasn't a good enough actor to convince anybody that she wasn't.  Nobody was a good enough actor to pull that off.  Trying to lie to others that she was totally keeping a clear head about her was a fool's errand, and she had no intention of chasing it.

She had thought, however, that she was at least good enough to lie to herself.  That if she were to keep telling herself that she could handle it, the false confidence would at least prevent her from completely falling to pieces.

And then Mia had reminded her that everybody who knew Candice and who wasn't already on this godforsaken island would be privy to every detail of her descent to either a madman or a sobbing wreck.  She honestly thought that Mia had dealt a greater blow to her morale with that single question than she did by screaming in her face and firing her gun off randomly.

"W-watching?  I..."

She couldn't think of a response.  Couldn't even dismiss the question or change the subject.  There was some reply in the back of her mind, the part of her that still wanted to salvage her faux-confidence, something along the lines of "That's a good question, let's be sure to ask our parents when we make it back," but she couldn't muster the courage to say something so blatantly fake.

Above all, she couldn't give an honest answer.

The word "Honest" seemed like a joke in this situation, because for all that she couldn't get her mind of the thought of the people watching this, she also couldn't begin to consider what the better case would be.  Would it be a blessing that her parents and sister could watch Candice's last days in some sort of twisted one-way communication?  Would everybody be happier if the sum total of everybody's knowledge regarding her end was "Candice went to an island.  She didn't come back"?

In the end, Candice couldn't bring herself to do anything but stare vacantly out the window.  It was either that or curl up in a fetal position and cry.

Christ, she was really making a mess of this, wasn't she?

Mia sat up and scooted backwards, resting her back against the cold bedroom wall, tucking her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. She had two reasons for doing so, both of which were obviously of equal importance. Her nose was still bleeding, and didn't look like it was planning on slowing down any time soon. She hurriedly wiped the stream with her already blood-smeared arm, and pinched the bridge of her nose. She'd read horror stories about people with nose bleeds lying at awkward angles and having the blood run into their brain, or something like that. Probably an urban legend or something, but right now, Mia didn't want to take any chances with anything related to ‘horrible gruesome death'.

The other reason was because she'd heard the trepidation in Candice's voice, and knew instantly that she'd fucked up, again. She looked over at the other girl, feeling like there was a pit opening up underneath her heart. She certainly wished she could just disappear into a pit right now. It was so stupid, she hadn't been thinking at all, just vocalising her thoughts. Now Mia was regretting thinking about it as well.

She couldn't help but put herself in her parents' shoes, or her siblings, or Nathan's, or any of her other friends who had stayed behind in Kingman. She didn't want any of them to watch her right now; she knew there were places online to find out what had happened to her on the island, she'd stumbled upon them herself when the previous version had been running. But nothing good would come of them watching her progress. Even if, by some miracle, she made it out of this shitshow alive, she was going to have to encounter death and tragedy at some point. It was inevitable, one way or another. Maybe she would cry. Maybe she would mess up even further. Maybe she'd sink her reputation so far into the gutter that no-one back home would want anything more to do with her.

But Mia knew that everyone she loved would do their best to try and find footage of her to make sure she was still holding on, and she'd have done the exact same damn thing.

"Hey, listen, I'm really sorry," Mia mumbled, removing her hand from her nose and instead sniffling occasionally to try and halt the flow of blood. "About, like… everything so far. I'm not really sure where my mind is, right now. Everything's all jumbled up and I can't think straight. None of this feels real, like it's just some horrible dream I'll wake up from any moment now… maybe it's better to think like that than to get numb to all of this, though."

Mia chuckled ruefully, before studying Candice for a few moments, a gentle smile on her face. When she spoke, she chose her words carefully and slowly.

"You know… there's no reason this can't go the same way it did a few years back. Like, when a whole bunch of kids got rescued? It happened once, there's no reason it can't happen again, right? I know it's a long shot, but…"

‘But so was our chances of getting chucked into this living hell,' she wanted to say, but she knew that would go down like the Titanic.

"… but stranger things have happened. We've just gotta hold on."

Mia forced a cheerful smile onto her face, which vanished almost instantaneously when she felt more warm blood touch her upper lip. Making a noise of supreme disgust, she wiped it away again – her arm was beginning to look pretty suspect now – before her expression changed yet again, this time to an apologetic side glance at Candice.

"Uh, could you grab some tissues or something from my bag? I think I brought a packet with me but there's probably something useful in the first aid kit."

"Tch."

Scout couldn't help herself. She was thinking about escape? Jesus, this girl was grasping at straws. That wasn't what she scoffed at though. It was the girl's bleeding nose. For a second, Scout actually thought she was hurt. Thought someone shot her. Looks like her fear was misplaced.

That was a mistake though, the scoff. She pressed her back against the wall, out of sight. She had peeked her head through the doorway. They didn't see her. It was as if they never considered someone would find them. But now, surely, they were going to notice her. So she made her presence known. Scout did not make a habit of squirreling herself away, like a coward.

"Ain't gonna say that escape's outta the question."

Scout stood in the doorway. The dufflebag was open. She pulled something small out, left the dufflebag open. No reason to zip it back up yet.

"Just don't go thinkin' it's a given," Scout continued. "Not everyone's gonna be waiting for the escape helicopter. Hope for the best, plan for the worst."

There was going to be at least one pencil neck geek who's been looking for a reason to kill the big, tough bully that's been fucking with them for years. At least one girl looking for attention. At least one killer that you least expected.

Scout squinted. She couldn't see any guns. And as far as she could tell, none of them were making a move. The saw was tucked into the pocket of her hoodie. She didn't make a move to attack. Scout decided against it. Neither girl appeared to be a threat. Yet. She recognized one of them, Candice. The other was a senior. Regardless, neither of them were friends of hers. That made her all the more reluctant.

"... At least one of you has a gun." Scout shouldered her bag. "The both of you practically walking targets if you start popping them every chance you get. Take my advice and keep them hidden. Pull 'em out only when you need to."

After all, Scout was actually planning to steal said gun moments before. She didn't give them a chance for follow up questions. It wasn't like she was an expert, it was all common sense.

"Here." Scout tossed the packet of tissues over to Mia like a bean bag. "Take these. Try not to get yourselves killed, yeah?"

Then she turned and headed for the stairs. She wasn't planning on breaking bread with these two. She did it because it was the right thing to do.

(Scout Pfeiffer continued in Never Known Questions.)

Should we go after her?

Catching up to her would take a bit of effort, sure.  She'd gotten a little bit of a headstart -- Candice hadn't even noticed the girl in the doorway until she spoke up and was already on her way out -- a brief glimpse out of the corner of her eye was all that Candice had seen of her before she was down the hallway.  But even so, they should be able to catch up with her if they hurried.  It would just be a bit of sprinting.

Well, just that and the fact that Candice would have to drag herself away from dwelling on the people back home.  Y'know, the same thing that led her to not notice the girl in the first place.

We should go after her.

Candice might not have known much about survival or how to deal with being locked on an island with busloads of potentially murderous classmates, but she felt that safety in numbers was clearly the way to go.  It wasn't just about the thought of using superior numbers to win fights, rather she felt that with enough people the aggressors wouldn't even have the courage to attack because it would be such bad odds for them.  Everybody would protect everybody else, and everybody would keep each other's morale from plummeting.  That was basically what led to the developement of societies in the first place, right?  It was clearly the best option.

It was also likely to result in you getting a bullet to your spine, courtesy of somebody that you trusted just a little too much.

That girl wouldn't want to take a pair of cock-ups like you anyways

Really, what point would there be in taking on allies who are just liabilities, anyway?  Out of all the kids who had been dragged into this, it wasn't hard to imagine that you could find better allies than a mopey, out-of-shape coward and a trigger-happy girl with mood swings.  Hell, even Candice was having trouble thinking of any of her classmates who would be a worse choice.

After all, shouldn't the two of them be dead by all rights?  Whatever bad luck they must've had to be shoved into this hell, it had surely been balanced by the fact that the person who came to investigate them was just interested in giving free advice samples and not in building up their armoury.

The people who know how to survive can do so because they don't bring along dead weight like the two of us.  People might be willing to lend a hand if you need it, but anybody who helps you when you're not able to pull at least a bit of your own weight is just going to get dragged down with you.

Stop acting like your life isn't currently in danger just because nobody's holding a gun to your head at the moment.


Candice wiped her eyes on her sleeve, belatedly realizing that they had been gifted with a perfectly good pack of tissues.  She made a half-assed attempt at forcing a smile before stopping due to how blatantly fake it must have looked.

"Let's--We should probably find a different spot to hide," she said to Mia.

She shouldered the duffel bag she had been carrying around and took a few steps towards the door.

"We, ah... Maybe if we get a change of scenery... other side of this building... hell, even the other side of the island..."

Candice stopped a minute to let her mind catch up with her rambling.  She also changed her mind yet again on how to try presenting her self and once again adopted the world's saddest excuse for a smile.

"Maybe if we get away from here we can try just starting everything over."

Sometimes, it felt like the entire universe was conspiring against Mia.

She was a naturally happy, cheerful, peppy girl, who just wanted to enjoy herself and make everyone she cared for happy as well. She wanted to live out her days doing what she loved, and what she was good at. She knew she could make a career out of it. Everyone who knew her had said she had the ability to become a professional swimmer, or a soccer player, or any sort of athlete she wanted to be.

It could never be that easy, though. She wanted to eschew her studies to focus on sports when both society, and her family, expected her to continue her academic career for as long as possible, and judged her for not being successful at them. People expected her to be happy and cheerful all the time, and she knew far too many people who would shun her rather than help her on the rare occasions that the stress of schoolwork became too much to handle. She was a girl that liked boys and girls and everyone else in-between, in a world that still struggled to accept that guys could like guys.

Even further on in her life, one single event managed to make her terrified of something would affect her for the rest of her life. She'd had to flake out of so many gatherings over the years; all the barbecues she'd had to make up excuses to avoid, the bonfires and firework events she'd spent doing her best to find somewhere safe and out of the way, the sleepovers where she'd watch films hidden under a blanket for half of them. Smoke, in any form, was enough to send her into a cold sweat and hurtling towards panic. So many things she'd missed out on, all because of the events of one single evening.

She barely needed to mention Survival of the Fittest. If that wasn't a sign that there was some God or Goddess up there that just wanted to fuck with her, then she wasn't sure what else was.

And just now, after Mia had felt like she'd managed to patch things up with Candice, after she'd finally felt like she had done something useful on the island, hell, after she'd almost managed to convince herself that escape wasn't just a pipe dream, that it was a viable way out of this nightmare, this girl had just appeared and brought all that fear and panic crashing back down again.

The packet of tissues bounced against Mia's leg and onto the bed beside her, but she barely noticed, staring up at Scout with a mix of confusion and anger. She knew the other girl wasn't trying to actively hurt them, but Christ, she'd managed to do so anyway. Sometimes you just had to lie a little to make things alright, or say things you didn't necessarily believe in; all she'd wanted to do was give Candice a little bit of hope, to make herself look like she could be trusted and relied upon. And then this girl had waltzed in and told them to ‘hope for the best, prepare for the worst'.

Mia knew she was right, of course she was right. But it wasn't what she needed to be told right now. She stared at the empty doorway where Scout had been, eyes empty and looking at nothing. It was only when she felt the stream of blood trickle down over her lip again that she broke out of her reverie.

Sometimes it felt like the universe was out to get her, but Mia had never let that get her down. She'd kept pushing forwards, kept who she was, hadn't let any obstacle bring her down completely. People and things had tried to stop her before, her own brain included. She'd fucked things up before. But everyone did, now and again. She'd fucked things up with Candice, but that didn't mean she was a fuck up herself.

"Starting everything over, huh…"

Mia mumbled under her breath as she ripped open the packet of tissues, wiping her nose with one and stuffing the rest into her left-hand pocket. She sniffed once, then a second time. Then she stood up, and looked straight at Candice. Somehow, a small but confident smile had found its way onto her face.

"That sounds like a plan to me," Mia said. "This place isn't exactly my style. The whole ‘frat-party-drunken-orgy-aftermath' doesn't really suit an Olympic hopeful, y'know?"

She put the gun back in her pocket, hoping it wouldn't tumble out as they were walking, and stretched her arms up, her back clicking as she did.

"This whole thing… this whole morning… this isn't me. I'm better than this. So let's leave this place, and forget it all happened, yeah?"

Mia crouched down to zip her still-open bag back up. Once she'd finished, she looked up at Candice.

"You got anywhere you wanna go? Or should we just… wander and see what happens?"

Candice shook her head apologetically in regards to Mia's question.

"I'd just woken up when I met you.  Aside from these two rooms, a hallway, and anything we can see out the window, I have no idea what's out there."

Well, if the two of them were going to try not failing at something for the first time today, taking steps to correct that lack of information seemed as good a course as any.  The could put the decision on whether or not they should settle down somewhere off until they had a better idea what the options were.

"So... our destination should be 'someplace better than here, which will be determined once we're already there,' I guess?"

She paused for a second to think about how to further elaborate, only to realize that in her rambling she'd basically just come up with a clunkier way of repeating one of Mia's suggestions back at her.

"Umm, I guess 'wandering' would be it," she admitted sheepishly.  "Sorry, I guess it's not really much of a plan."