Survival Of The Fittest

((Mara Montalvo continued from A Classy Place to Meet))

Mara had woken up some time later in the hotel lobby, still laying over the corpse of Summer all alone save for the several dead bodies. She coughed and rolled over onto her back, feeling one ache that encompassed her whole body. However, she was somewhat comforted by the fact that when she coughed, she could hear it. Not as sharply as she might have before, but she could hear it. She wasn't permanently and totally deaf. Slowly and with a lot of hissing and yelping, she stood up. Mara picked up Summer's carbine and dragged it behind her with one hand as she went to pick up the  H&K MP7 that had been thrown to the other side of the room in the blast. Dragging both guns behind her in her bleeding hands, she made her way to her bag, tossed the H&K in and left the hotel with the weapons.

She took one look back at the lobby littered with the dead and her closest friend.

"That was so fucked up."

She walked out of the hotel and it was already night. She'd been unconscious for some time and Finn likely thought she was dead. It was just as well. Mara didn't want to be near anymore friends. She'd had enough of her friends from school. Standing outside, she recalled the speakers telling her to go to the shopping center. Maybe it was a hallucination or imagined during her unconsciousness, but she had no better ideas.

As she walked she tried not to think about Summer. She just wanted to reach her destination. When she stepped into the shopping center her collar didn't beep. Cautiously, she went in and saw a basket, a box and a bottle of orange liquid on what used to be a makeup counter. Mara trudged over and flung herself into the seat by the table and stared dull-eyed at the bottle.

So she was right. They had given her a prize for killing someone. At that moment the best prize of all was knowing that only she was allowed in that area. No one would attack her for now. She unscrewed the top of the orange Fanta bottle, tipped it forward and drank.

She leaned down, drinking deeply and not paying mind when some of the soda spilled around her mouth. She came up for air, gasping and wiping her sleeve across her mouth. She cringed and suck her tongue out. It had been a long time since Mara had drank non-diet soda. It was so sweet.

There was some heavenly smell coming from the box. She flipped the box open and was met with a large, supreme pizza. It had all the toppings; mushrooms, bell peppers, onions, sausage, pepperoni. It was her favorite. It was also huge. She hadn't eaten pizza in even longer than she'd had real soda and never in her life had she eaten a whole pizza alone. One, two slices at most and always blotted with paper towel first to remove the excess grease on the seldom occasions she indulged at parties.

Despite quite literally starving, she closed the box. Instead she reached out and grabbed the basket.

"Variety Basket" is what the note said in a swirly font. She ripped the note off, tossed it behind her and looked inside. It held eight grenades with identifying notes attached.

"Fragmentation grenades (2x), smoke grenades (2x), flashbangs (2x), incendiary grenades (2x)."

They were color coded. She scowled.

"More fucking grenades," she muttered and tipped the contents of the basket into her bag. She zipped it up and that was that. She sighed and looked at the pizza box. With one finger she lifted up the lid and peaked inside. The smell hit her again.

Despite trying and succeeding in not thinking about Summer on the way, she couldn't help but think of her now. She was different. Mike had spelled his own demise by being stupid. That other kid, that was his fault. He attacked her.

It WAS his fault she repeated to herself as she touched the bandage on her cheek.

It was most certainly Summer's fault as well. There was no self convincing or internal doubt. Her friend tried to blow her up and killed two other people trying to get to her. She was still disturbed by it, though. Part of it was having to kill a close friend who wanted you dead with their dying breath. The other part was fear that maybe Mara wasn't that far from Summer's mindset. Summer was so desperate to be loved by someone that she decided the terrorists where the ones who'd give it to her. She was obsessed with that love and did everything for it.

What had Mara done all her life if not that? Maybe not for terrorists or even for the other students like Summer had done in life. Mara didn't give a shit if she was liked by her peers. She wanted their respect and their envy. More than that, she wanted the praise of her father. Everything she did was for one of those two ends. She dieted, she bought beautiful clothes, she joined all of the clubs and worked harder than anyone else for her parents and for the status she gained.

For both those reasons, she wouldn't eat the pizza in her real life. Now, it was a bit disorienting not having to keep up some kind of appearance if she didn't want to. What would her father want? She didn't really know and couldn't find out. There was no sister to compete with here. Her face was slashed up so it wasn't like she was going to be the pretty one anymore. Without other people telling her what to be, she had no idea what to do.

Mara flipped open the pizza box and started consuming ravenously without a care as to how it would look.

She was free.

((Mara Montalvo continued in Allegory, Allegorier, Allegoriest))