Survival Of The Fittest

((Jerry Fury continued from Wombo Combo))

Maybe it was the crowded atmosphere of the rinky-dink warehouse compared to most of the wide-open spaces that Jerry had grown accustomed to by this point, but even with just a single body stinking up the joint the place was just a little too corpse-y for his tastes. Not very fond of the potential roommate (who was honestly just a little bit smelly), Jerry took to exploring the recesses of the warehouse looking for anything of use.

Or, he would be, except night had taken them long ago and he couldn't see shit, captain. After a panicky, shout-filled search for his flashlight, he pulled the invaluable tool out and clicked the button, immediately setting about towards the back rooms. "Fat chance of there being a bed in here but like, that's why nobody's gonna come lookin' here this time of night," Jerry asserted to Matt. Totally infallible logic. Nobody comes to a warehouse at night.

Except them, but... like... that's different, you know?

"My legs hurt. My nose hurts. My ass hurts. My everything still fucking hurts," Jerry griped. "You'd think there was some IcyHot in this place but noooo, it's gotta be all old-fashioned!" He continued to grumble, spelunking deeper into the warehouse. "But hey, they got soap, soap and more soap! Look out, classmates! I'm gonna kill you with a bar of Ivory!"

((Matt Moradi continued from Wombo Combo.))

Having a gun made Matt feel powerful, even if it was technically worthless owing to the fact that it was empty. Just point it at someone and they'd be liable to listen to you, he figured - just like in that basement. Only two days ago but it seemed like an eternity. The warehouse reminded him of the closet, somewhat, only a lot larger. Nate and Ben weren't dead yet, against all odds, and he really was rooting for them, even though that technically meant he was rooting against himself. He didn't want to think about what he might have to do if someone else didn't get them first.

The warehouse had that familiar smell. A corpse, of course. Might've been dead for a few days by now, he couldn't entirely tell based on smell. Jerry was whining about how all his bullshit hurt and Matt didn't entirely care. Apparently the warehouse had a ton of soap in it.

"Yeah, this place sucks." Matt mumbled, following behind Jerry deeper into the warehouse. "This whole island can fuckin' blow me," he said, louder. "Think Cass is dead by now?" A question asked not out of malice, more out of genuine curiosity. A dozen different things could've happened to her. He hoped she was dead, at the very least. One less person to deal with.

"Fucking warehouse. The asylum has this storage closet. No dead people in it as far as I can fuckin' remember." Maybe Henry crawled in there to die. He didn't think it was likely, though.

"Fuck going back there," Jerry grumbled. "Too cramped n' creepy. I feel like when I'm in that fuggin' place, there's somebody gonna jump around any corner, scream boo and shank my ass." He turned, unintentionally shining the flashlight into Matt's face before dropping the beam of light closer to his feet. "And you know we got some fucked up classmates enough to try it, huh?"

He turned his attention back to the shelves. "Booooy howdy, none of this crap's worth a damn to us," he said again, some lament in his voice. Mostly boredom, though. Even the whole 'everybody around him is dying' thing was starting to bore Jerry; seeing a dead body sure is shocking the first time, killing somebody is the same way. But now both of them just seemed like regular occurrences. 'Yep, this is a Tuesday, boy howdy I sure do enjoy killing', it seemed like.

"I tell ya, Matt... you ever wonder if you're like... on a different wavelength from everybody else?"

Matt agreed, somewhat. The asylum was big - a little too big for his liking, really - with far too many places to hide in. Still, he preferred it to the openness of the outside. Just something about being outdoors on this island made him feel uncomfortable. The outside could go fuck itself, in short, barring something horrible going on inside of wherever he decided to plant himself for any imaginable stretch of time.

"Yeah," he said, coughing. "That's where Alvaro fuckin' ambushed me and, uh, Ben and Nate." Matt glanced over to some of the worthless shit lying on the shelves. Soap. So much god damn soap. "Watch out for them, alright? They're both good."

Different wavelength.

Jerry had no idea.

"Oh yeah. Definitely."

((Bart Cappotelli continued from Bart's Nightmare))

Sitting in the middle of a field in the dead of night turned out to not be the most comforting way to pass the time.  With every passing minute, Bart felt more nervous about his surroundings.  He was completely wide open, vulnerable to attack from any direction.  He needed safety, but there was no guarantee that he would be able to find it.  As a compromise, he set out in search of the next best thing: shelter.

He wandered around aimlessly, hoping to find someplace to hide out until morning, or at least until he could hear the next announcement.  Not knowing what had happened to Kizi or Clarice was bothering him immensely.  He was pretty sure that the library was gone, or at least ruined beyond repair.  With no firefighters on the island, he didn't see how the blaze could have been tamed before it reached that point.

Poking around with his flashlight, he came across the warehouse that he and his group had tried to rest in a couple of days ago.  Deciding that this was as good a place as any to stay for a few hours, he crept up to the door and slowly made his way inside.  Everything looked pretty similar to the way it was the first time he showed up.

... Well, aside from the corpse.  He didn't know if it had been there during his first trip, but this sure was his first time seeing it.  He made a noise of squealing discomfort as he tried to slowly move away from the body.  This unfortunately led to him backing into a shelf, sending a box of soap falling to the ground with a thud.

Bart froze in shock, flashlight still shining straight ahead.  He sincerely hoped that no one had heard that little mishap.

"Yeah like, what I mean is..." Jerry continued rummaging through the shelves. Fate happened to play a cruel joke on him in treating him to what seemed to be a box of something edible, maybe crackers or biscuits that miraculously lasted the several decades of nothingness, but it just turned out to be... more soap? Even more goddamn soap? Just where the hell were they, the soap aisle in the soap store on the soap... isle? He stopped himself kicking the bottom of the shelf in frustration, only because he got a vision of the whole shelf toppling over onto him and killing him.

Jerry could think of some shitty ways to go but if he was going to die from a shelf falling on him, then he'd just as soon wish Trav really had knocked his block off back at the beach. "What I mean is," he repeated after clicking his tongue. "Like, there's this weird disconnect when I'm trying to talk to people. So, uh, nobody can think like me, yeah? Therefore..."

Fuck, where was he going with this?

"Nobody can... think like me." Well, it sounded better in his head, but he supposed it helped to prove his point. "You know I'm not just a dumbass, right? I'm not dumb. I know I come off that way sometimes, but I can't be that dumb if I'm still alive while-" Jerry cut himself off in order to listen to the tail-end of something crashing into something else.

"... I'll just go assume and ahead you heard- ahead and assume you heard that, right?" Jerry babbled, reaching for the switchblade in his pocket. He cleared his throat and raised his voice.

"Alright, shitdick! Or shitpussy, I'unno! I'm Jerry motherfuckin' Fury, and this here's Matt Moradi, and-"

He paused. Think of a name.

"And Alessio Rigano! We're three of the baddest dudes on this island and you think you can attack us, we're gonna rip your throat out!"

((Alan Banks continued from Calm Before The Storm))

When he realized he overslept the first thing that he felt was panic. Then he thought better about it while eating a snack he wondered if he really cared that much. As soon as he put a foot out of the art therapy room, he felt relieved.

Now he wouldn't have to see Kaitlin's face after so long. She was the closest thing to a friend he had in there, but deep down he knew things were better that way. She knew how to take care of herself anyway, right? They could always cross paths, maybe Alan would have done something useful by that time. Attending the meeting would have meant awkward silences, emotive hugs, backstabbing... And he really didn't felt like that

Day 5. Already afternoon. Alan Banks was wondering through the island without looking the map because he didn't have anywhere to go. Perks of being a lone wolf. At least he didn't get into the danger zone. Now what? No idea. He kept turning left or right or whatever until night came and then he decided it would be cool to find shelter even when he wasn't drowsy.

So he got in and steps aside as he sees a light. Okay, two guys talking and the didn't seem to notice Alan behind the shelf so he better not power his torch and ruin everything, their light would be enough. If they were going to sleep there maybe he could finally do something useful. Time to be sneaky.

Then another unexpected flashlight appears, and as he turned his head, he saw it pointing directly to a corpse.

"Fuc-"

At this point he shouldn't have reacted, but it happened fast enough to scare him. Or at least that's what he liked to think.

Oh, fuck. The third one was Alessio Rigano? And Did Alan just spoke out loud? Oh fuck that was an ambuscade. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck thinkaboutsomething fuckfuckfuckfuck... Okay. Calm down. Alan just needed to use his fast-thinking skills after years in the debate team and take action. Action. Yeah. That sounded like a good start.

Action + Ambush -> War
War -> Guns
Guns -> No guns (Well, crap. We've been stuck on this for days, why don't you just forget about it Alan?)
No guns -> Grenades
Grenades -> No grenades
No grenades -> .......Soap?

The soap would do. He took two boxes and threw them aiming to the head of Alessio/Bart.

Nobody could think the way Jerry Fury did - that was for certain, yes. He'd warmed up to Jerry a touch. Sure, he wasn't exactly the best long term planner. And sure, he murdered Toby. But he was protection, in a certain sense, and he wasn't that dumb. Definitely smarter than some of the people in Kingman, he guessed. He could never argue with having someone as physically fit as Jerry not wanting him dead.

Noise, a thud. They weren't alone. Someone else was in the warehouse. Slowly, Matt pulled up his empty Mauser, holding it in a vice grip. He glanced over to Jerry, who was busy trying to intimidate whoever it was that had the misfortune of running into the two of them in the dark. He decided to add his own little piece to it, when he had another noise in the dark. Talking. His head darted around, looking for the source of the noise and.. someone was throwing something. Shit, what if they had throwing knives, or something?

Well, he doubted they knew how to use them.

"If you know what's good for ya," Matt said, doing his best to try and sound intimidating. His best was as good as Jerry's worst. "You'll come out where we can see you. Me, Jerry fuckin' Fury, and.."

Who the fuck did Jerry say was with them? Hell, was that even a real person? He had no idea.

"And the other guy." He held his empty gun tighter.

Bart felt his body tense up as he heard someone call out to him from deeper in the warehouse.  They didn't sound too friendly, and the things they were saying definitely weren't friendly.  He had a very strong urge to turn tail and run right there, fleeing in the hope of finding more pleasant company elsewhere.  But he also figured that if he tried to run now, it might just make Jerry and his friends angrier, and they might even be willing to chase him down if that was the case.  If it did come to that, he dreaded to think what the consequences may be.

Bart put his hands up, making sure to keep his flashlight shining a beam in front of him, and slowly sidestepped in the direction of the voices.  He didn't want to look threatening in any way.  "I-It's Bart.  Bart Cappotelli."  He called back, hoping that the non-aggressive manner of his introduction would soothe some nerves.

He continued to slowly make his way over, watching what the beam if his light revealed along the way.  Once he passed by a couple of shelves, he saw two boys over near the further end of the warehouse, wielding flashlights of their own.  He couldn't get a great look at them because of their distance and the darkness of the area, but they didn't look too happy at the moment.

Bart silently grimaced in fear.

"Alessio. I said Alessio," Jerry whispered, only slightly irritated. In fairness, it's not like he knew exactly who the fuck that guy was (and with a name like that he sounded like a total dork), but he heard the name enough on the announcements that it started catching his attention. He had to say, he didn't wanna run into that guy any time soon.

Anyway, better pretend he's there already in order to freak people out.

His efforts seemed to be mostly wasted as the newcomer was none other than ol' Bart. Barty Bart Bart. Bart Simpson. Barty Crouch Jr. Bartholomew Roberts. "Baaaaaart, my man," Jerry sang, putting a smile right on that face of his. "Where the hell you been? Coulda sworn somebody killed you by now. Well, nice to see-"

Something went whizzing behind Bart's head, narrowly missing him. Bart seemed to have paid no notice to it, like it wasn't even really there. Looked like a box of... a box of soap? Was this going to be a recurring thing? Was he going to start having nightmares about soap?

"Uh... is there somebody else here?"

Throwing soap in the dark. Well that was the most fucked up thing he could've done. Now that they knew he was there, it would be stupid to think about fleeing from the warehouse. He was no coward. That crap about distracting people so he could run? Not his style. Never happened.

Instead he opted for keeping it cool and play along. Alan Banks wasn't the kind of guy who would get scared that easily, right? He took his pipe and made his way to them, making sure to not being careful with the noise he was causing. Then he made his appearance a shelf behind Bart

"Hey"

And walked towards them. Cool. Carefree. Natural. Smooth. Suave too? Why not. Suave. Even though he kept his usual smile, he was obviously trying to get a little more oxygen than usual after the scare. But who cares about how this loser breathes? Look, a familiar face. Matthew, that guy that always kept discussions heated. Never knew much about the guy besides that, but he was surely fun to deal with.

"Judging from the fact that you have a big gun with you I must assume you're doing fine"

Alessio. Okay, he'd have to remember that, in case Alessio was ever beating him to death and he was trying to remember his name. Out of the dark comes Bart, potentially the least threatening person he's encountered on this island right next to Nate. Bart wasn't much, generally speaking. He didn't play sports. He was kind of fat. That, and he smelled like fish, for some weird reason. He heard it was a medical condition but he kinda just always assumed that Bart didn't shower regularly.

Still, he preferred seeing/smelling Bart to a lot of other people. He lowered his gun, slightly - his face didn't really say much. Slight surprise, really, that Bart was alive.

"Bart? Man, am I.." Glad to see you? Well, not really. "Just, uh.. man. You're still kicking, huh?"

Then he remembered. Soap thrower. Somewhere in the dark - he raised his gun again and out came Alan Banks.

Banks, he wasn't so happy to see. He was athletic, so he'd stand a decent chance of beating him in a fight. Beyond that, they sort of not really knew each other. They'd argued a couple of times, but beyond that, not really a whole lot. He didn't lower his gun, this time.

"Alan? Fuck me, is half the god damn school in this warehouse or something? And yeah, I'm doing great. Just great." He glanced over to Jerry, before quickly turning to face Alan again. He had his gun on him. "Just, uh. Don't do anything stupid, alright, man?"

The other boys may not have been aggressive, but that didn't do a whole lot for Bart's nerves. Firstly because they both stated that they expected him to be dead by this point, although he couldn't really disagree with that sentiment himself. Secondly because, well... they were armed, so he was pretty sure that things were going to go their way if push came to shove. The sudden appearance of another guy behind him didn't do any favors as well. Bart was spooked by the new arrival, jumping a bit before trying to hide his nerves once again.

"Hey, uh... I just got separated from my friends." He tried to explain. "There was a, uh..." He used his off-hand to point off in some random direction as he tried to force himself to remember his words. "... A fire."

He didn't dare move as he continued. He knew that the boys before him still definitely had the upper hand. "I was hoping that maybe I could, uh... find someone to help me out?" He could feel more sweat forming at his forehead, preparing to run down his face at a moment's notice.

Hopefully he was making a better impression than he thought he was, because he really didn't want to make these guys mad.

'Bart wasn't a concern, Alan was.' That was the conclusion Jerry had drawn, and he assumed Matt was drawing the same one. Bart looked to be about as harmless as a freshly-kicked baby seal, Alan had a pipe. Bart was wandering around uselessly in the dark, Alan was some sort of monster who aimed to trigger soap-related nightmares. Boxes of it, flying through the darkness here, there, and everywhere. If Jerry got through this, he likely would never look at soap the same way again. He knew one aisle he wasn't stepping through at Safeway, that was for fuckin' sure.

"Help you how?" he asked Bart, trying to cross his arms. However, as one hand had firmly placed itself in his pocket to get a grip on his switchblade in case things soured up, what this really ended up looking like was Jerry senselessly tucking his other arm across his chest and burying the fingertips in his armpit. Not the kind of pose you'd see on a movie cover. "We're not like... giving you food or anything, if that's what you mean."

Don't do anything stupid. Ha, that was a good line. A classic.

"With you pointing a gun at me? And outnumbered? Um... No thanks"

Nobody in this hell of an island would trust him, right? He took a glance at Bart. No bravery. No muscle. Apparently on his own. By comparison everything would look like a potential threat so yeah, that would be like a proportioned response or something. He was kinda getting used to it. What kind of responses would he get if he goes and gets a name on the murderer list?

Stop right there. That guy just told you not to do anything stupid. Why don't you better listen to that guy Bart? Wasn't he trying to ask for help? Sounded interesting.

"Maybe he wants someone to cover his back while he searches for his friends" Now he was looking to Bart's direction too "Or new friends, who knows"