Survival Of The Fittest

((B013: Jack McDonald - START))

For Jack, there was no slow, hazy return to consciousness. Whether that was a benefit or something horribly wrong, he didn't know. Either way, he simply found himself lying on a hotel bed, face half-smushed into the pillow.

Jack groaned, immediately trying to roll himself over and stand up. The task proved more difficult than he had anticipated; it had been a while since his body had been in motion, so his joints were stiff.

In his half-awake state, Jack had simply assumed he had crashed out on the bed at the hotel in California. Any moment now, he would have that burst of remembrance to fill in that temporary gap in his memory.

Well, he was partially right. It only took a second for his memories to come rushing back in. Unfortunately, they were nowhere near the memories Jack would have liked.

Sleep. Awake. Restraints. Gunshot. People. Game. Killing. Sleep again.

Jack had never known himself to be too anxious, but at that moment he could swear he nearly had a panic attack. Without even noticing, he was now standing up, but focusing on, well, anything at this point was just making him dizzy. He leaned onto the nightstand next to him, staring down at it and trying to keep himself together.

Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out.

No matter how hard he tried, though, he couldn't get the horrible realization out of his head. He was now on Survival on the Fittest. The sick game that's infamy had spread across the country. The one that had supposedly stopped years ago. The kind of thing where teenagers like him would look on and say to themselves, "Man, that's terrible. I'm glad that'll never happen to me."

Jack no longer had that luxury.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a set of double doors that led out onto a balcony.

"Fresh air. Yeah, fresh air'll help."

In his attempts not to panic, Jack was attempting to focus on the little good things that seemed to be left. Most of all, he just wanted out of this room. He instinctively reached down to grab his glasses - only to realize that in his frantic state, he hadn't even noticed they were already on. With that out of the way, he half-ran, half-staggered over to doors that would provide him a sole bit of relief. On his way out, he briefly spotted a black duffel bag resting at the end of the bed.

"No. Later."

Swinging the doors open, Jack went out onto the balcony, taking in what he could see. Just to confirm this wasn't all just some crazy idea he had imagined, the view showed him that he definitely was not in California. It looked like some sort of tropical island. A few landmarks Jack couldn't care to pay attention to dotted the landscape below, and the ocean was quite visible from this angle. He couldn't tell how many floors up he was, but it was fairly high.

Jack closed his eyes, resting his hands on the balcony railing. He still didn't want to believe this was happening. To be fair, he guessed that no one really did. It just still seemed unbelievable odds.

"How does something like this even HAPPEN? With odds like this, I could have won the lottery or become famous or something instead. But now I'm here and no one's around and, and, and-"

Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out.

[David Zimmer, continued from One Big Joke]

"Hello? Anybody here?"

David's optimism was, again, almost limitless. Apparently it also caused a decrease in intelligence, as shouting around in a building where potentially dangerous people, lethal people, were, was still a bad idea. Don't tell that him, though. Honestly, if somebody would have told him right then that shouting around was a stupid idea, he would have delivered a speech about optimism and heroism and all that. The question was how much David believed in that. The answer was 'very much'. Maybe it was because untill now nothing really bad happened. That put him in a good mood, even so. Also, he found Jenna's weapon, a dildo that nobody could ever take, too be very hilarious.

He walked along the corridor.

"Don't worry, we won't harm you!"

He hoped that this level was a bit more successful than the other ones.

((Jenna Rhodes continued from One Big Joke))

"Well, glad to see we're still being cautious..." Jenna whispered to Yukiko as David announced their location, reigning in the urge to chastise him for being so carless. In all honesty, given how unsuccessful they had been thus far, she was beginning to doubt that there was anyone else in this hotel at all.

So far, their search had proven to be futile. Whilst there were possible signs that there had been people who had woken up in different parts of the ground floor, from the look of things they were long gone by the time Jenna and her friends had investigate the area. Other then that, the hotel appeared to be completely deserted thus far. Not just abandoned, but deserted. With it's long haunted corridors, dust coated chandeliers and cobweb infested bedrooms. It really felt like a building that nobody had used in over a decade.

Whilst they had explored the ground floor, the group had encountered a bar with a number of empty (and not so empty) wine bottles in it, one of which Jenna decided to wield as a make-shift club. It wasn't exactly much, but compared to what she had been assigned it was better than nothing. David found the fact that she was expected to defend herself with a sex toy to be highly amusing, more-so than Jenna found it anyway. Not that she told him or anything. His spirits seemed to have risen since they first met, so the last thing she wanted to do was demoralise him. Depression was just as big a killer in this situation as any lost soul who decided to gun down their own classmates in order to survive, so frankly Jenna was glad to see that her companions hadn't lost hope just yet.

That said, if David's optimism was to ever put them in any serious danger, she would have to have a personal word or two with him.

In any case, as they began to search the fourth floor, Jenna did nothing to stop David's shouting. She was feeling certain at this point that the three of them were the only living souls in this hotel, bar the odd cockroach or two. And even if this did draw unwanted attention, she felt confident that the three of them could probably handle any desperate classmate.

Unless said classmate had a gun, in which case they were probably doomed anyway.

((Yukiko Sakurai continued from One Big Joke.))

Oy.

Yukiko couldn't help but smile pitifully at David's shouting. At the very least, it hadn't brought them in harm's way yet, but only because the hadn't found a single person yet. Honestly, she was beginning to think that coming up at all wasn't the best idea, after all. They'd already checked the rest of the first floor with no success, and she'd had almost suggested that they skip the higher floors. However, she'd kept silent.

They were almost done, thankfully. They were on the last floor to search. Yukiko didn't say anything about David's shouting.

"Well, I guess it's better than sneaking up behind someone and startling them," she said, in response to Jenna's remark.

They'd given Jenna a dildo to defend herself with. Yukiko couldn't help but feel sorry for her. At least Yukiko's weapon was dangerous; it'd make a player less likely to attack them (unless they had a gun, in which case nothing they had would have helped). Jenna's weapon would, at best, make an attacker laugh their ass off, giving them a chance to escape.

Regardless, as they walked down the corridor, with David in the front shouting, Yukiko couldn't help but wonder if, should anyone be here, the three of them would be able to handle the situation.

Jack had a tendency to zone out at certain times. Mostly it had to do with him being disinterested with what was presently going on, but disinterest didn't really cover the current situation. It was more of an escape - the longer he stared out into the distance, the longer he could avoid facing his reality.

So Jack looked out, his eyes fixed on one certain location, watching the waves continuously hit the shore, over and over, seemingly never-ending. He didn't know how long he stared, and he didn't particularly cared. He focused his mind by not focusing at all.

Then the voice came.

His perfect cycle of concentration was broken. Jack's head whipped around instinctively. Yep, that was definitely someone calling out. It was a bit muffled, what with the door being closed and him being on the complete opposite side of the room and all, but he could make out most of it. Male. Not someone he recognized. Asking if anyone was around. Innocent-sounding enough. Jack's interpretation of the voice's tone seemed to be re-affirmed when the male followed it up by saying they didn't want to harm. They. Meaning more than one. Jack let out a seemingly involuntary sigh. Not only did he not recognize this person's voice, he also had more completely unknown figures to worry about.

Still, as panicked as he was, Jack wasn't stupid. He was NOT the kind of person who could get out of this game alone - he didn't have the brute strength or the guts for that. Surrounding himself with company would help keep him alive... and keep him sane.

That nagging voice in the back of his head just had to be the devil's advocate, though.

"What is it's a player? Someone who's already mowed down three people before coming here. Could be Cody Patton. Or Sawyer."

Jack shuddered at the thought of that. Still, he had to stick to what he knew. Those people were far and few between, and he could still hold onto the hope that his classmates hadn't turned violent yet. It was a risk, yes, but a calculated one.

Jack took a step forwards - and almost immediately collapsed, barely managing to grab the door frame before he fell. His vision was blurry. His legs were shaken. The nerves definitely hadn't gone away.

"Come on, come on... you just haven't moved in a while. Give it a couple seconds."

Sure enough, everything seemed to clear up pretty soon after that, and Jack stood up straight once again. He took a deep breath. Alright. NOW it was time to do this.

Still, as he walked towards the door, he knew he had to play it safe. Someone could be waiting out there with a pointed straight down the hallway, just waiting for a helpless victim to step out. Jack was NOT going to be that helpless victim... at least not yet.

Jack gripped the handle, pulled it down, and swung the door open; though he didn't step out.

Then he realized he had forgotten to prepare something to say.

"Uh... I'm here. I guess."

"Smooth."

Success!

David was able to see how a door opened. A male voice was heard, but the owner did not show himself. David tried to determine who the person was, but he could not associate any face to the voice. Eitherway, the person did not seem to be very hostile, but very careful. Which was fine. David was sure that everything would run smooth.

He quickly glanced at his female comrades before slowly walking at the opened door. He made sure to make loud steps, so that the boy would not be startled once David actually stood before him. However, once David was close enough to see who the guy was, he noticed that he did not know the boy. Well, he did know his face, but not the name. Time to change that.

"Heya! You are?"

As Jenna continued to search the fourth floor one room at a time, she couldn't help but think of her family back home in Seattle.

She still wondered whether or not they were actually watching her back home. Her parents had always made it clear that they were just as disgusted with SOTF as she was, so it wouldn't of surprised her if they refused to watch their daughter get humiliated on a live broadcast. Not that she would blame them. As much as the thought of her parents sticking with her brought some level of comfort, at the same time she didn't want them to have to witness whatever atrocities were bound to happen, or... God forbid, witness whatever fate this island had in store for her.

Not to mention the fact that odds are, she probably wouldn't be featured that much anyway. Whilst she had never watched the older versions, she imagined that they couldn't have been able to feature everything that happened. There were, what, a hundred or so students who had gone on this trip with her? Surely there's no way they could all get an equal amount of screen-time? Unless they edited the footage later, they probably only focused on whoever seems to be doing something interesting, only occasionally cutting away to someone less compelling when they're about to die horribly.

In any case, just as she'd finished searching yet another empty bedroom, a voice emanating from down the corridor caught her attention.

Good god, so there is someone else here after all?

She was admittedly taken somewhat aback by this sudden development. By this point she had assumed that there was no one else in the hotel, so to see that they weren't as alone she had thought was quite a shock to the system. Thankfully, whoever it was didn't appear to be aggressive, although the thought that they could have been was enough to make her want to chastise herself for lowering her guard.

Well, that's the last time I'm making any assumptions on this island.

"Who is it David?"

She walked over to David, bottle still in hand as she got a good look at the person whom the voice belonged to. Whilst she recognised the boy to be a fellow classmate named Jack, she didn't know that much else about him. He didn't seem like the sort who would try to murder his own classmates though, at least not right from the get go.

May as well let David do the talking for now.

Well, it wasn't long before someone else made their existence known on their floor. It looked like her hypothetical situation was about to get a lot less hypothetical.

At the very least, she was glad that the person actually responded instead of hiding, or worse, staying quiet to ambush them.

Yukiko looked ahead at David, who had stopped in front of the door and greeted the voice. She recalled that she'd heard that voice somewhere before. She'd have to see who it was before she drew any conclusions. She made her way to the door, stopping behind David.

Yukiko smiled. She couldn't believe her luck.

"Jack," she said, moving in front of David and Jenna.

The gods must have taken pity on her or something. She couldn't believe that she'd find this many friends in such a short amount of time.

"I'm glad to see you. Are... are you alright?"

Well, there were worse ways to be surprised, especially now. Still, when the boy popped out in front of the door, Jack felt his heart leap up into his throat. His instincts calmed him down quickly, though - David actually seemed quite cheery, and not in the serial killer kind of way.

"Anyone want to remind me how I haven't had a heart attack yet?"

His mind gave no answers. Upon that obvious realization, the next order of business for Jack was responding to the boy's question, although about one second later than what would have probably been expected.

"Uh... Jack. McDonald."

He added that last part when he had to remind himself that there was more than one Jack in his grade. Wait, how many Jacks were there again? And didn't at least one of them not attend the trip? Unfortunately, Jack was not really in the state of mind to mentally list all of his classmates.

That wasn't helping the fact that he couldn't place the name of the guy in front of him, either. His curly blond hair made him stand out the most in Jack's eyes, but he couldn't remember hearing the guy's name. Didn't his last name start with a Z or something? Jack would have to find that out later. He had learned long ago that it was surprisingly easier to converse with someone without knowing their name, so he figured he could avoid the awkwardness and just let it come out naturally later.

The other people Z-Guy was with reacted to him confronting Jack and wandered over a couple of seconds later. OK, the one girl Jack was preeeeeetty sure he knew as Jenna. Not really in his circle or anything, but she hadn't done anything to screw with him, so she was alright in his eyes.

The third person got Jack beaming.

Of all the people he could've run into, very few would've made him happier than Yukiko Sakurai. While the two weren't necessarily the best of friends, they knew each other pretty well. On top of that, the little Asian girl was just so sweet Jack found it nearly impossible to imagine her doing anything close to the acts these terrorists seemed to want them to be doing. Having company he knew was a saving grace at this point.

He almost felt like hugging her. But that would be weird and out of place and might surprise everyone too much, so he didn't.

"This game is already a freaking emotional roller coaster."

"As alright as I can be, I guess," he replied, still smiling at the group. His body was making sure he was holding on to the one happy emotion he had felt in a while - he didn't know how long it would be until another one would come along.

"They just... dropped me off in this hotel room for whatever reason. Not that I'm complaining. It's actually pretty comfortable. You guys can come in... uh, if you want."

Jack quickly moved out of the way, still holding onto the door. Even in this situation, he still had his manners.

((Cassidy Kant continued from This is the Story of a Girl))

Cassidy rounded the turn on the steps. Her feet were getting heavier with every step. She'd been awake for awhile now, and the lack of breakfast was starting to be felt. She paused on the landing to remove the half energy bar still tucked into her pocket. It had deformed from being too close to her body's heat, but it hadn't stained her pocket or gotten drippy. She took small bites of the tough, chewy bar. She'd eaten similar bars before, though these seemed more military grade compared to those.

A Cliff bar before practice for energy, and a Met-Rx bar after for recovery. That was the routine around her gainers, tucks, rolls, and roundoffs. Coach had given her so much grief for taking a week off to go on this trip...

She hit the top of the stairs and swallowed what she had in her mouth. It wasn't worth savoring, anyway. She grabbed the handle, turned, and pulled slowly. Her face moved towards the small opening and she called out.

"Matt?"

She could't remember what number time this was. She'd figured out that the number of times she'd called was equal to the number floor she was on, minus one. She'd remembered getting into the hang of climbing stairs, calling for Matt, waiting, and moving on. But she could not, for her life, remember what number floor she was on.

She took another bite of her bar, chewing as she began her silent count to thirty. If she was only greeted by silence, she would move on. Just as she had the past few floors.

So Jack and Yukiko knew each other. That was great. The more friends came together the merrier the whole situation would be. He did not even leave the hotel yet, which surprised him a bit. Not that he minded, of course. In fact, this scene seemed strangely comfortable for him. Maybe it is because the hotel is despite the decay rather nice to look at, or maybe it is because it just seemed so welcoming from Jack to ask them three into 'his' room.

"Cool," he said with a voice loud and happy enough to fill the entire floor. "we'll take that offer up."

He passed Jack and wandered into the room. It was truly still looking very comfortable. If David would not know better, he would have prefered to stay here. Of course, he still knew that he needed to find his and Yukiko's and Jenna's and possibly Jack's friends, but a few minutes spent in that room could not hurt.

"Name's David Zimmer, by the way."

It was then that David found the balcony. From where David stood, he could see that the view was rather promising, so he decided to go over there. When he reached it, he was, in a certain way, impressed. The island did look very great, which made it seem to be unfitting for a death match. David leaned on the railing. Maybe someone could hear how it had some trouble with supporting David's weight. That being was definetely not David. He was still lucky, though. The railing seemed to be fine for the moment.

Thankfully, from the look of things Jack and Yukiko were already well acquainted, so they wouldn't have to go through the trouble of finding out whether or not he was trustworthy.

Seeing Jack and Yukiko's reunion made Jenna think about her own friends, and how some of them were stuck on this island with her. Thankfully, not everyone she knew came on the trip. Chitose for example hadn't come along for reasons she never got the chance to learn, as well as Yukiko's friend Miriam. Other though like Alex, Chase and Max hadn't been so lucky. Whilst a part of her wanted to be thankful that she wasn't alone in this situation, all she could think about was the fact that like it or not she was expected to murder her closest friends. As far as Jenna was concerned, being thankful that her friends were in this awful situation as well was extremely selfish.

"Thank you." Jenna replied when Jack invited them inside, the young girl quickly moving into the room and sitting down on the bed. Whilst she had no intention of dawdling, after searching four floors of a fairly large hotel she was more than happy to just sit down for a moment to gather her thoughts. She couldn't help but note how this room looked almost identical to the others she had searched, the only notable difference being that it had a different color scheme to it. Not that it was particularly unusual or anything, although admittedly she had never been to a hotel with color themed rooms before.

"We don't intend to stay here too long. Yukiko, David and I have been searching this hotel for some friends of ours, Chase Rodriguez and Max Sawyer? I'm guessing you haven't a clue where they are, seeing as you've just woken up and everything."

After saying this, she opened her bag and took out her map, unfolding it to remind her exactly where on the island this hotel was. Now that they had finally found someone, she figured it was about time they decided where they headed next.

"In any case, I think it's safe to assume this building's been thoroughly searched now. If you ask me, I'd say the next best place to check would be..."

Jenna stopped mid-sentence as a distant voice caught her attention. At least, she thought it was a voice. Certainly sounded like someone calling someone else's name, though whether that was actually the case was yet to be seen.

"Did... Did anyone else just hear that?"

Again, no more making assumptions.

((Clayton Leven continued from Sleep, My Dear))

Clayton wasn't paying much attention to where he was going. Honestly, it was a miracle that he was coherent in the first place. Being dropped on an island with a bundle of explosives around your neck and being told to murder a bunch of people from your school to avoid dying is hardly good on anybody's psyche, but Clayton already wasn't in the best of states back home.

Dislocating someone's arm while trying to save her life was just the icing on a big cake of clusterfuckery.

Eventually, he made his way elsewhere. Specifically, a big-ass hotel. It probably would have looked nice if it wasn't so.....post-apocalyptic. A filthy mess, surrounded by dead or overgrown plants and trash. Still, it was reprieve from the sun and hopefully gave some respite for the mind. God knows Clayton could have used some of that.

He had only given the place a quick once-over before heading upstairs. He wanted isolation, and what better place than the upper floors of a very large building? People weren't going to be there, probably. Who would willingly climb up that many stories when they could just stay down in the lobby?

Of course, Clayton never actually considered that he obviously would never be the only one with that idea. That would require critical thinking skills and forethought that he simply did not have at the moment.

And, of course, as soon as he heard talking Clayton responded appropriately: cowering.

The voices were coming from a room down the hall. Normally you'd never hear casual conversation inside a hotel, but the doors weren't exactly all closed and there was no sound to be heard except for conversation in the first place. Sound carries.

And thus Clayton, quite reasonably, ducked behind the corner out of sight before anyone could spot him and began thinking of exactly what the hell to do.

"Thanks, Jack," she said, stepping into the room. She leaned the weed whacker against the wall and sat down on the bed next to Jenna. She closed her eyes.

She'd managed to find this many friends just in the hotel. It made her sad that this many people had been forced into this situation. She couldn't possibly think of killing anyone, least of all her friends. It was all too jarring. She opened her eyes again.

Jenna made point of finding more of their friends, like Chase and Max. Yukiko nodded. She wanted to find them, sooner rather than later. The earlier they were found, the less likely they were to have already died or... started killing. Yukiko didn't want to think about that. Unlikely as it was, she could actually see some of her other classmates start killing. It was a momentary, fleeting thought, but it was nonetheless an unpleasant one.

There was a voice then, coming from somewhere in the building... somewhere. Yukiko almost wanted to pass it off as her imagination, but Jenna heard it too.

"Y-Yeah," she said, standing up.

It was weird to think that someone else could be here, someone who maybe wasn't as friendly.

To his ever growing relief, the group accepted his request, filing in one after the other. Z-Guy (who identified himself as David - see?) went straight towards the balcony. That at least gave Jack the confidence that others had similar thoughts to him - that he wasn't a complete outsider. That would be the worst thing position to be in on Survival of the Fittest from what he could tell.

Once everyone was inside, Jack let go of the door, watching it absentmindedly and letting it slam all the way shut. Better than to let just anyone come charging in here, he guessed. After a moment's hesitation, he grabbed the door's lock (one of those weird chain things that seemed to only be on hotel doors and nothing else) and secured that.

Security. Jack added that to the list of positive things.

Satisfied, Jack went and flopped onto the bed opposite the two girls. Considering he was fairly tired in a lot of situations, it made a lot of sense to him that he was fairly tired now. Probably the drugs. Hopefully the drugs. Or... maybe not hopefully. Either way, he at least mustered up the energy to flip over onto the side, facing the girls.

"Nope, haven't seen anyone. You guys are the first people that have come by."

Jack noted that Jenna seemed to be the one taking control of the situation. Before he could even say anything else, she was already rummaging through her bag for a map.

"Eager beaver, competent girl and quiet one? Seems I've stumbled across an... anime group or something."

Jack was mentally berating himself for thinking about tropes and anime at a time like this when a faint, but still notable sound came into range. He was almost willing to pass it off as paranoia until Jenna and Yuki confirmed his suspicion - someone was calling out.

"Yep. Someone's out there, I think." Great, MORE unknowns, and just when he was starting to get comfortable with who was around him. Sure, this group had been friendly, but how lucky could Jack keep getting?

He quickly eyed his bag - still sitting at the edge of his bed - before turning back to the girls. Yukiko, he noticed, had already stood up.

"So... anyone wanna go check who that is?"