Survival Of The Fittest

((Wade Cartwright continued from Z3 ROADSTER FOR SALE.))

A while later, Wade was back out in the open. They'd both decided to try and fortify the location a little bit, but found it nearly impossible. Those shelves were too heavy, and he could swear they'd risked pulling hernias trying to get that counter nowhere fast. There were plenty of blankets and sheets around that they could use. Tonight would be their best night on the island so far. Nice and nestled. Eventually, the sun moved downward in the sky, became redder, and he'd quietly agreed with Ben to take a few looks outside, just in case.

The breeze wasn't too bad this time, and the notably cloud-free sky made all the colors pop. It wasn't quite a picturesque view, the rotting buildings almost everywhere made sure of that, but it was as good as it got on this island as far as views went, Wade supposed.

Calmly and without making a sound, check every bush, every corner, every remotely teenager-sized obstacle because it could conceal a hostile. Everything felt more relaxed. Maybe he was just becoming more accepting of fate and death, or more likely yet just getting weary after all that vigilance the other days. Everything except the island and his thoughts felt like a distant memory.

Wait. Stop.

He'd forgotten to check a few angles just behind himself. A few medium-size bushes, a boulder. Nothing major, but he still tried to turn around to see what was behind them as fast as possible. Curses, curses, a little corner of his mind yelled.

It wasn't really likely there was anything. He'd checked this area a couple times previously, and there wasn't anyone lying in ambush. Not a few minutes ago.

So what were the odds? Cautiously extending an arm toward a bush, he'd have an answer one way or the other.

((Matt Moradi continued from Islands Suck.. GMing approved, too.))

Yesterday had been a shit day of all shit days. He had left the relative safety of the group he had abandoned Bart to, for one - a stupid choice, one that was probably going to result in his death. He'd gone over the endless scenarios in his brain. Knife in the back. Bullet to the brain. Beaten to death by some football player. Jerry - protection, really - was dead. On top of all that - Ben was dead. Ben Fields. Matt felt his heart stop for a moment when he heard Ben's name on the announcements. Ben, dead. Sure, he hadn't known him for long. Only a few days.

Only a few days. That was how long he'd known him.

Matt didn't feel all that bad, really, and that was the worst part.

Ben was dead, sure, that was sad. He knew him for a couple of days, they hung out in a closet together, plotted to band together and kill a bunch of assholes who were murdering a bunch of people.. it all amounted to nothing when they were faced with Asshole #1, of course. Alvaro. Dead too. He didn't care much about him, either. Competition.

It was cold that morning. He could only guess where this fucking island was - definitely nowhere near the equator, it was the middle of May and it was cold, somehow - his best guess was somewhere in northern Canada. Maybe in Hudson Bay, or something, that could be too far north.

In short, Matt was a long way from Arizona.

He wasn't a long way from Wade Cartwright. Matt didn't known Wade all too well, and he was about to make a fairly poor first impression on him. He'd spent a lot of time thinking about this. About when he was going to do it. He never thought about it directly - another facet of his cowardly nature, which he'd learned about in the past few days and come to accept - but he was about to do it all the same.

He was going for the bush. Perfect. It was perfect.

Matt gripped his pipe tighter. He was behind the boulder. He'd never get a better opportunity than right now. The pipe was bent out of shape, sure, but it was blunt. Heavy. It could still knock someone out if he hit them hard enough. He was really hoping that Wade would just get knocked out from the first blow and he wouldn't have to scream or struggle or anything like that, but that was just another hopeless fantasy of his.

He stepped out from behind the boulder, unsure. The split second fantasy of Wade turning around and pulling out a gun drove him forward. Wanting to win is what bashed the pipe over Wade's shoulder, missing his head by a long shot.

The minute - no, moment, no, the very instant he fully processed the rustling noise, the figure taking shape from behind that boulder he'd so dismissed moments earlier  - Wade realized that he'd committed a grave error. A placid state of mind had been all it took to completely overlook a crucial error. He could've had the syringe drawn, he could've checked the boulder first and had the element of surprise and cover, he could've- and now a predator was-!!

CRACK

For another fleeting second, his world was pain and his mind a cacophony. Reality crashing down and his thoughts became one gruesomely mixed combination. It was like someone took a sledgehammer to one end of his collarbone. Hurt like hell... this was how it would be. He was mistaken all along.. couldn't move that arm, it was broken.

No time to reach for the syringe. Just deliver fast, hard blows with your still good arm but where?! It was all a mess! The reality of being utterly, physically outmatched drove itself further and further in. This is what it would really've been like. All the scenarios, all the stories, all the fleeting thoughts he'd had about that desire for revenge were crushed. Deep, throbbing pain. It was as though his arm had been nearly hacked off by a meat-cleaver. But he could still think.

And about how, exactly, he was wrong... to begin with - as prey he would never have any chance. None at all. Not as the most common ones, in any case.

On the ground, utterly prone, pull it together and try to reassess.. the pain is so much..

Matt grunted when he heard the pipe smack into Wade's shoulder - crack. Crack. He'd managed to break his arm, or something close to it. He was no longer thinking about this, about the potential consequences. Right now, he was fully focused on winning. On killing Wade. He took a short step back and raised the pipe again, and paused a moment.

Wade was on the ground, writhing in pain. He wasn't a threat anymore.

Matt drove the pipe down again, hitting Wade in the chest, hard.

Spin, turn around, there the assailant would be.. given the weight of the previous hit they're moving in to deal a lethal blow don't let 'em..

He distinctly recalled now. The author.. hadn't he laid it out explicitly once? All the species that he represented there had, vaguely speaking, the same proportions, body weights, etcetera, among other qualities as they had in real life.

There they are! It's a he, definitely - lifting his arm to swing - move!

Tiffany and most of the main cast were tigers, lions, big cats and whatnot - and that translated into something around six, seven feet tall and massed - three to six hundred pounds apiece - definitely on the high end for the protagonist.

the arm.. It feels like every move is unhinging it!

--His train of thought paused for a second as he rolled out of the way of the attacker's next strike, judging from the sound of the hit, it could have crushed his ribs right there and then. But then again--

Get up move start GETTING HITS!

--it wasn't just about their mass, although it played a huge role especially during hand-to-hand combat. It was also about the shape, grain, density of their muscles, the tendons, bone structure, everything. Plus, there was the fact almost all of them lived active lifestyles in every sense. Their hunter's sense must have been among the keenest possible, leaving aside those gag strips - and exercise, too, even just going off their builds. Taking all that into account, it was no big surprise..

he's surprised jump him now please!

..that, in the end, resistance instead of fleeing by most prey species seemed to be utter suicide, perhaps even while armed.

Wade didn't run at or leap at or anything else at the opponent other than simply trying to use all his limbs - good arm and legs, then just the latter - to propel himself as fast as possible in that direction, good arm braced to start punching.

Matt swung the pipe, expecting - hoping - that it would crush Wade's ribcage or something and just finally kill him. It wasn't that easy. It would never be that easy. The pipe managed to hit a whole lot of air as Wade, surprisingly, managed to dodge out of the way. Matt stumbled forward, the fact that Wade was actually fight back coming as a surprise to him. He wasn't expecting this. He definitely didn't plan for this, but beyond hitting him once and hoping that he'd be knocked out, what else was he planning for? For him to have a gun? For him to win?

He didn't have any plans for any of that. He didn't have a gun, at least he didn't think he did all he had to do was just turn around an hit him and he did seem to be WHGNINGGG.

Wade just socked Matt in the chest. Letting out a short gasp of pain, Matt started swinging his pipe again, this time aimed nowhere in particular. Lifting his pipe after getting a few glancing hits on Wade, the pipe came crashing down directly into his skull. Crack.

Slowly, Matt started to back away.

There was absolutely no hope. No hope to escape that grim fate in any way, no hope to change anything about their world short of a fully-armed uprising, and even that wouldn't have helped the really small folks (mice, skunks, otters, whatnot) unless they magically pulled three-dimensional maneuver gear out of their rectums somehow.

By pure accident of birth, every single herbivore (and no small amount of carnivores) who lived or chose to continue living were condemned to helplessly watch every minute, every day, every year, every generation, as their number were winnowed en masse, family, friends, perhaps even themselves - until they finally died, and that would be that.

Whoomp whoomp whap his hits land glancing. One strikes the painful arm and sends flares of throbbing agony to the brain again. Ignore it, rush--!

Perhaps they could console themselves with statistics and one in ten-type declarations, burying their fear and pain under a tidal wave of emotionless numbers. Maybe they conditioned themselves culturally to adapt somehow.

Maybe, maybe, maybe. In the end, the only remotely dignified way out Wade could see was suicide, and it had the same result as all the others, just a mask of angry defiance to distinguish it.

This next one is close. This next one is closer. ARGH!

He couldn't help but wonder about those who did try to rise up, his imaginary counterfactual counterparts (and there should've been, there are dissenters in every society and all that) They must have known the impossible odds, the sheer strength of their so-hated enemies. Why would they choose to take up arms in a losing battle? Knowing himself...

Ohcrapthisoneis-stop!

... they'd weighed their options, and realized: what else could they do?

Matt's pipe came down fast, unrelenting, undodgeable. In his heart, Wade knew it was a losing battle. From the very beginning, there was little nothing to do except kill himself or pass the time until something or someone else did the deed for him. Given the choice, why the latter?

A slim chance beat certain death. There was nothing else to do, and nothing else to it. All his regrets weren't much in total, faced with the bullets. Just his favorite moments with family, friends, and everything else. A faint desire to see them... only one last time.

That was that, and it just had to be enough. Because a moment after that

B038: WADE CARTWRIGHT

DECEASED

Matt's last and greatest blow struck his skull lengthwise, causing it to crack and cave in just enough that his frontal and prefrontal lobes alike were shredded beyond repair.

Matt drew his pipe back. It had some blood on it, though not much. He looked down at what he had done - he had nothing to say. No gloating, no quips, nothing. There was nothing to be said about this. He didn't know Wade very well. He decided to enter Wade's life via a lead pipe to the face. This was the beginning and end of their relationship. The pipe, slowly, slunk back down to Matt's side. He looked around, wondering if anyone had seen him - any cameras.

He didn't figure there could be cameras everywhere. Maybe he had gotten Wade in a blind spot - no one would ever know. No one would start coming after him for randomly killing someone who wasn't doing anyone any harm. Better me than anyone else, Matt thought. Better me than some psychopath who tortured people to death.

Slowly, he ambled over to Wade's corpse and started to wipe the pipe off on his shirt. He took a closer look at what he had done - caved his skull right in. He rubbed the place where Wade had hit him in the chest, glad that he had put up some kind of fight. He could't figure out why, but the resistance made him feel better about killing Wade. He couldn't figure out why. The pipe was deadly. A lot deadlier than he'd expected it to be, all things considered. There was no knocking someone out with this thing, just beating them to death.

Matt stood up and looked around again. No one saw - he had to make sure of that. Quickly, he started walking away from Wade's corpse, making great haste to who knew where. Emptier places with less people to kill.

((Matt Moradi continued somewhere else.))

(Benjamin Lichter continues from Z3 ROADSTER FOR SALE)

All things considered, Ben had had a good night's sleep. It hadn't been as comfortable as the night before, but it was significantly better than the ones before that.

The day before he and Wade had done two things, mostly: 1) They had tried (and failed) to fortify the warehouse, and 2) they had talked some more. There wasn't anything else to do, after all. Ben had gotten more and more convinced that his decision had been the right one after all, even if it wasn't "right" in the right sense of the word. The moral one. Technically, at least. Ben felt doubts about how immoral holding onto friendship could be, though.

It was with this upbeat attitude that he had gone scouting the mext morning, boot in hand and bag over his shoulder. He wasn't being especially careful, since he had his boot and the chair leg, and if it came down to it, he could run. Run towards Wade, so that they could face the danger together.

Ben still felt elated that he had managed to find a friend. Someone he could rely on.

Speaking of facing danger... Ben frowned. He couldn't remember if Wade had a weapon or not. He couldn't remember Wade mentioning he had one. And if he met somebody while unarmed... Ben felt briefly worried. Maybe he should go and give Wade the chair leg, just so he had something, at least. Ben would still have something - his boot - and he'd feel safer if he knew Wade had a way to defend himself. He decided to just go and give Wade the chair leg; he hadn't gone very far, after all. He turned around, and started heading back in the direction he'd seen Wade go in.

When he found him, it was too late.

Wade lay on his back, his head caved in. When Ben spotted him, he didn't wanted to believe it. Didn't believed it. He mumbled "Wade?", then stumbled forward, repeating his name in disbelief. "Wade!? Wade!?! Wade!?!?! WADE!?!?!" This couldn't be-- it wasn't true, he'd just fallen or something, it wasn't-- he wasn't. Ben stopped beside his body, then fell to his knees, screaming in anguish. He'd just seen him! How could this have happened? He grabbed Wade by the shoulders and shook him. "Wade!" he shouted. "Wade!" He couldn't be-- wait. Heartbeat! Ben lowered his ear to Wade's chest, then held his breath to silence his sobbing.

Nothing. He moaned, and started crying hard. He raised his head, then looked at Wade's face, but the way his head was dented and bloody only made him feel sick, so he turned looked away again. He staired down at Wade's body, firmly aware that if he hadn't gone, hadn't left Wade alone and without a weapon, he might still be alive.

...

He sat by Wade's body for a long time. On his knees, looking down at the body of the boy who he had known for such a short time, but who he would never forget. He stopped crying after a while, but he stayed where he was, thinking. Remembering. Hating himself again.

Because he had been selfish. Wanting to cherish the friendship that he had found so unexpectedly, while not doing his best to help the one who gave it to him. He had had a plan, a plan that might have saved Wade, had he just gone and done it yesterday. Wade hadn't even known about it - Ben couldn't talk about it, or else the terrorists might know what he was up to. But in hindsight, it still felt like he had betrayed him, somehow, by not telling him.

But no more. As far as Ben knew, he still had one friend left on the island, and there were plenty of people who were good and deserved to survive. He owed it to them, right?

He weighed his options. If it worked, he would have saved them, if not...

Well, then he died. That fact still scared him.

But then again, if he didn't do anything, he would die anyway.

He made his choice.

(Benjamin Lichter continues in The Feather of Truth.)