Survival Of The Fittest

((Rebecca Kiesling continued from It Started With a Positive Jam))

The night has passed slowly and Rebecca has slept poorly.  It has seemed like every little noise had woken her up.  When she did manage to sleep, she has been plagued by unsettled dreams that slipped through her fingers moments after waking.  Never her in whole life had she been so grateful to watch a sunrise.  

Once the first buttery rays of light slipped into the classroom, it was as if the unnamed terrors of the night had to retreat.  The room felt more welcoming and like the safe haven she had hoped it would be.  However, not long after that came the first announcement.  Rebecca rested her head on her knees as she listened to the list of the fallen.  Thank God Leona had not been on that list.

Looking at her roommates, all of them as bleary-eyed and suffering from bed head as she was, she wondered what they should do next.  Delicately clearing her thoughts, she smoothed down her hair before speaking.  "So, uh...does anybody have any thoughts of what we should do next?"

((Katy Warren continued from Start it with a Positive Jam ))

Sleep was something to be grateful for, though Katy barely did it through the night.  Non-threats or not, she wasn't about to be ready to trust any of these girls completely.  So Katy had drifted in and out of a sort of half-doze throughout the night, her back propped against the wall.

She was still wondering how'd they had talked into her into playing Hungry Hungry Fucking Hippos.  She had sort of tapped at it for awhile, before at one point kind of getting into it.  Competition was competition, after all.

"Resume not dying, I believe would be order one."  She said in response to the dancer.  Her half-sleep had done little to improve her mood, of course.

((Janie Sinneave continued from Start it with a Positive Jam))

Janie slept excellently.

She had a half-remembered dream about running through a forest with her brother, laughing so hard her gut might bust. Her mother had been crying at some point, and then at another they'd gone to the zoo? Janie tried to cling the fragments of it as she woke up, but they slipped away too quickly for her. She sighed contently, and stretched with a happy shoulder pop.

The school looked safe in the lazy morning light. Janie thought that nothing bad could ever happen to them in this building. That thought was bullshit, likely, but it was still a nice thought for first thing in the morning.

Rebecca brought things to business, and the last of Janie's dream-haze faded with the other girls' voices. Her and Katy were talking survival, it seemed. Janie frowned a bit at them, unsure of what to contribute. I have the survival skills of a sloth, she thought. She pinched the patch of skin between her thumb and her index finger, trying to wake herself up fully. You are not running in a forest with your brother. You have to live. Learn survival. This is real. She shook her head out.

"As vague and well formed as that plan seems, Katy," Janie said brightly, "I think I have a more solid course of action for the moment." She glanced through her bag, and pulled out her rations with what was supposed to be a flourish, but turned into more of an awkward tug-and-clunk. "Breakfast?"

((Yasmin Carroll continued from Start It With a Positive Jam))

Yaz woke from a nightmare. A dream of death, tears and blood. A preview of what was to come in real life.

As she rubbed her eyes she heard Rebecca and Katy talking, deciding what the group should do. Yaz didn't want to be discussing their survival when she had just woken up. It was an attempt to avoid the reality of the situation but Yaz knew she would only be able to avoid it for so long. Sub-consciously she was always thinking about it. Her nightmare had proven that much, she was more than scared at the fact she was on the island, and she was terrified.

She was four foot ten and only weight around ninety-nine pounds. Anyone on the island would be able to overpower her, and not all of them would stop their attack like Katy had done. Yaz shivered as she thought about it, if it had been someone other than Katy she could have been murdered.

Janie spoke up and mentioned breakfast which made Yaz look at her bag. She dimly realised that she was hungry, she hadn't eaten anything for a day.

"Breakfast sounds good." Yaz said from her position in the corner. "We can think up a plan after we've eaten."

Yaz leant over to her bag and started rummaging through it looking for food. She didn't know if Rebecca or Katy would agree with the breakfast idea but she intended to eat regardless.

"Breakfast seems sensible," Rebecca agreed as she reached for her own bag.  After a few moments of digging, she had successfully located a bar and partially unwrapped it.  Drawing her eyebrows down, she made a moue of distaste at the sight of the grainy, chunky bar.  Lifting it up to her nose, Rebecca took a dubious sniff of the food product.    "I, uh, guess it's like a granola bar.  Maybe," she ventured as she held the bar out and examined it from multiple angles.  

She looked at the other girls.  "As for a plan, I hadn't really thought about a plan.  I mean, we seem to be doing okay right now with staying here.  It's a room and reasonably secure.  I don't know about you guys, but I'm not really a 'roughing it' kind of girl.  I would prefer to stay here, where there's toilets and sleeping mats and doors and windows, rather than wandering out there where only God knows what we'd find."  Putting the ration bar down, Rebecca folded her hands in her lap.  She took a steadying breath as she shifted her legs under her, settling in for a bit.

"So that's my thinking on the topic.  I think we should stay here, but  I would love to hear what everyone else is thinking," she offered, opening up the floor for discussion.

Katy had one of her own unsatisfying granola bars.  She took a bite of it between her jaws and chewed, using the moment to think about what she was going to say.  Her mom always told her that was one of her problems, that she didn't like to think before she said anything.  She just thought it was because she didn't need to mull a damn thing over; she said what she needed to say and that was it.

But in these extenuating circumstances, she supposed a little thought couldn't entirely hurt.

Katy finished the bite and swallowed it.

"Looking for the softball girls."  She said.  She realized a beat later that might've needed clarification.  "They can handle whatever goes on, I figure."

Janie pulled out a granola bar of her own and ate with a cheerful fervor. She was hungrier than she thought. Breakfast really had been a great idea. Janie was very proud of herself, honestly.

Rebecca's plan seemed like a good one, honestly. It wasn't that Janie didn't like nature or whatever -- it's just that nature was dark and filled with people trying to kill her, in this case. She liked to think that people weren't going to shoot first and ask questions never, but desperation was desperation. Chaos theory, or whatever. Janie couldn't account for people who had nothing left to lose, after all.

"This place isn't a dangerzone yet, anyway, so there's no reason we couldn't set up for another day or so. Besides, we'd probably hear people who tried to enter!" She clapped her hands as another breakfast-level brilliant idea came to her. "What if we found some way to barricade the entrances to the outside, or like, rig them so they made noise if people tried to set up? I mean, surprise is 99% of everything, isn't it?"

All they needed to live was a solid headquarters and the element of the upperhand. As long as they had that, no one could mess with them. Janie was sure of it. She didn't know much about the softball team, but she did know that the less people knew about their little fort the better. It couldn't host half the school, after all. Four was a good number. Maybe one more, if someone ran into them. Otherwise things would get too crowded, too obvious. They were obviously being monitored, after all -- four kids staying in one place in the beginning wouldn't attract any attention. But twenty living in peace this early on? They'd dangerzone the school for sure.

Or, at the very least, that's what Janie would do.

She thought it was best not to say any of this to Katy, though. If Katy wanted to find the softball girls, that was her prerogative. But Janie was content with eating her lame breakfast and having more nights of solid rest and more games of Hungry Hungry Hippos. Janie could stay in this school forever, if they let her.

The idea of eating one of the granola bars didn't appeal to Yaz as much as she thought it would, but it was the only thing that was really breakfast-y of the food they had been given. It would have to do though since there wasn't any other option. Rebecca had the plan of just staying in the school and waiting things out, she had a point too; they did have everything they needed to at least be comfortable, or be as comfortable as they could be given the circumstances.

Katy still seemed set on meeting up with the softball girls though and Yaz didn't like the sound of the plan, it was more dangerous, meant more moving around and more time spent with Katy giving her orders. Of course if Katy decided to stay at the school Yaz would still have to put up with her. So maybe she couldn't escape that problem no matter what she tried.

Although as Janie said they could still hunker down in the school for a few days until it became a danger zone and they'd be forced to evacuate and if they could barricade the entrance they would be able to pick and choose who was allowed in. Yaz realised that she didn't really have anything to offer the discussion and instead just took another bite of her granola bar while she thought over her options.

Katy was the only one who had a useful weapon, since Yaz's pillowcase wasn't going to be a threat to anyone no matter how big the rock inside it was. Plus Katy knew how to fight and was in good shape, the downside...Katy was a bitch and severely disliked Yaz. It was a small miracle she had even decided to let her tag along at all. For some reason she felt strangely indebted to Katy for that.

"We could wait here until it became a danger zone and then go looking for the softball girls. Maybe they'll even come here...I'm sure waiting a little while can't hurt."

Besides the lame finish the rest of the plan seemed solid, now she just had to wait to see how the others would respond to it.

Rebecca nibbled at her allegedly-food and nodded attentively as each of the other girls put forth her thoughts.  Katy wanted to find her friends, Janie agreed with staying, and Yasmin waffled and attempted to people-please by agreeing to do both.   As frustrating as Yasmin's unwillingness to take a stand one way or the other was, Rebecca understood the other girl's behavior.  She had dealt with Leona in such a fashion regularly enough to recognize when others deployed the tactic.  

"So we have two in clear favor of staying, one in clear favor of going, and one in favor of doing both," she summarized.  "Well, I think it's clear the majority of us think staying is the best plan.  If you want to leave, Katy, and see if you can find your friends, good luck to you.  Maybe we'll still be here when you get back.  It would be nice of more...capable people were here with us."  

There.  The statement was out there, unassuming and as neutral as she could make it. Hopefully Katy would receive it in the spirit it was made and not read anything into it.  However, just in case, Rebecca made sure not to make direct eye contact with Katy while talking.  It was never good to even give the impression of outright challenge when dealing with strong-willed people.  It was better to phrase things in suggestion and opportunities than as directives, encouraging people to follow your logic and agree with you instead of forcing them down a path.  Working with Leona had taught her that years ago.  

"For those of us who will be staying, I think maybe it might be a good idea if we explored some more of the school," she continued brightly, motioning at the building in general with a graceful wave of her arm.  "That way, we can see if there is anything here that will help us or make us more comfortable since we have decided to spend more time here.  If we find anything that is useful, we can bring it back in here.  Or..."  

She stretched out the word as a new thought occurred to her.  "Or, if we find a better room, we can set up housekeeping there.  What do you ladies say?"

She was a wolf in the midst of sheep.  The conversation they were all having let Katy know that right now.  They all wanted to hunker down, hide like scared little kittens and hope nothing happened.

Katy almost went with her initial inclination to just leave all of them, but something Rebecca said changed things.

More capable people, she said.

The implication being that Katy was one of said "capable people."

For all of Katy's bluster, her aggresssion, she still didn't want to go out without someone to watch her back.

And Rebecca's implication, though Katy would never, ever, not in a million years fucking admit it, was downright flattering.  Besides, Yaz was right.  The building would become a danger zone eventually, and then they'd just have to follow Katy's initial plan of action.

"Maybe a look around the school wouldn't hurt."  She said, her ego stroked.

Janie stared at Rebecca with a sense of awe. The other girl was clearly becoming the leader of the ragtag group they'd formed here. Janie, for one, was totally good with that. She was fine with someone else taking control. She was better in the background anyway, she thought. Middle child syndrome, her dad would have said, and for once it could actually be coming in handy.

Still, watching Rebecca deal Katy made Janie feel a strange mix of emotions. She was both absolutely terrified and trying very hard not to laugh. In any other situation, it would have been a funny conversation. At the lunch table, in English class -- it would have been hilarious to see Katy get her ego stroked by another person, to see the girl preen like a peacock. But here everything was a bit different. A statement made in class would have been to stop a fight in a group project, to get Katy agree to something trivial like the color of the posterboard. Here, it could make Katy realize that she was more capable than the rest of them. After all, and no one in the room had a better weapon or bigger temper than Katy did, and they'd be mostly powerless if she turned against them.

When Katy relented, Janie let out a small breath of relief. They needed her here. Janie didn't want the rest of the softball girls, personally, because, well -- that was Katy's clique. If Katy's friends showed up there'd really be no reason for Katy to show any loyalty at all to the girls she was with currently. And who knew what some of the softballers had for weapons? Certainly they were all athletic, and the few she'd talked too didn't exactly seem like the nicest of people. The idea of them showing up frightened Janie. If they lost Katy, there was no way the Elementary school would be defendable.

"Alright," Janie said at Katy's suggestion. "We could all split up, but something about this situation says that playing it like a horror movie isn't the best of ideas?" She frowned, tapping her chin. "Maybe groups of two? Everyone looks for usable materials inside a room, and we figure out how to build a barricade at the entrances?" Janie rubbed her fingers against her close-shaved head. "Would also be good if we knew how many entrances there were."

Feeling as if she'd added everything she needed too, Janie took another bite of her food and leaned back. Everyone else could figure out the groups and who went where. Janie, in the meantime, had a breakfast to marginally enjoy.

So it was settled, they'd all stay in the elementary school and make it their temporary sanctuary. It was a plan that had potential as long as the individuals involved didn't ruin it. Rebecca had already had to appease Katy's ego once to make sure she stayed and would no doubt have to do it again as time went one, but as long as Katy felt that the other three girls couldn't manage without her she would stay. There was no doubt about that one.

The idea of looking around the school was the best option, after all there was no way they hoped to defend it if they didn't know their way around it and Yaz had only seen a few corridors and about two whole rooms so she really needed to figure out what the rest of the school was like. Otherwise her attempts to keep the place secure would be fruitless.

Yaz chewed on her granola bar while keeping her eyes focused downwards, she had nothing to add to the discussion but at the same time she didn't want to seem like dead weight as far as the others were concerned, for a start Katy would end up being all over her for it and make everything that much harder. If she smelled weakness she'd go for it. But at the same time if she just ended up repeating something that had been said the other two would realise that she had nothing to offer and would start doubting her, she needed to take some sort of action to establish herself in the group, otherwise she was doomed to just drift into the background like she always did. The issue was she didn't like the fact that everyone would be focused on her.

Why did her lack of social skills have to become a real issue now?

In the end the best thing to do was to literally take action, so that's what Yaz did. Taking a final bite of the granola bar and tucking the half-eaten remains back into the packet and then her bag she stood up and stretched a little before speaking.

"Me and Katy can go check out one half and you two can check out the other." She said as she moved by the door. "What do you guys think?"

Rebecca fought down the urge to correct Yaz's grammar and simply nodded her head instead.  She wasn't very comfortable with the idea of splitting the group up but she seemed to be the lone dissenter of the idea.   Like Janie had pointed out, it was their most logical choice and in their best interest to determine what were their strongest and weakest security points.

She pasted on a bright smile and said in a chipper voice, "Sound great.  If you two are ready, please don't feel like you have to wait for Janie and I.  We'll get started just as soon as we finish up breakfast, I think."  Rebecca held up her partially eaten food bar and gave it a little wiggle.  "And if you find something interesting or need some help, give a yell and we'll be along as soon as possible to help."

Shifting around into a comfortable position, Rebecca took another nibble of her "breakfast".  Chewing the morsel up, she sighed and looked at Janie.  "I really wish they would have at least given us freeze dried camping food.  It is way better than this.  Do you think this building has a kitchen facility in it?"

Janie kept her mouth shut as people worked out the teams. Exactly her plan, honestly. She figured she'd end up with Rebecca that way, and she wouldn't look like she was choosing people over other people! Which wasn't to say that she didn't like Yaz or Katy, just that they were a bit . . . scarier than Rebecca was. There was something about a kid with a black eye that freaked Janie out. She still half-expected her principal to come bursting in and demanding to know why there was fighting on school property. 

But that would never happen again, because that wasn't reality. Janie knew that. She had to keep remembering that.

She turned to Rebecca with a grin as Yaz and Katy headed to the door. "Plan sounds all good to me!" She took another bite of her granola bar. "I'm not sure if it would have a kitchen. I mean, the kids have to eat lunch right? So probably?" She shrugged and started to stand up. "Then again, whoever is running this place probably cleaned out anything useful in the name of 'fairness' or whatever. I can't imagine they'd just leave stuff lying around to give kids advantages. That sort of defeats their own purpose, yeah?"

Janie supposed there was also the possibility that the school had no need of a kitchen because every kid brought their own lunch. She hadn't been anywhere outside of the Elementary School yet, but she knew that this place had to be tiny and self-contained if there was any hope of keeping kids in and anyone else out. She supposed it could be an island -- tiny, uncharted, privately bought? Or somewhere that had been abandoned long ago for reasons that didn't matter anymore. Her brother had once told her about Ghost Towns in America, years back, when Janie was getting bored with the fictional ghost stories. He said that there were ghost towns all over the world, still standing buildings who's people had left long ago. The school was well-maintained in any case, but that didn't mean it wasn't long abandoned. The game runners could have come and cleaned it up at any point. This was planned out. Meticulous. Careful.

No way in, no way out. No escape. And perhaps the people who had lived her had all packed their kids lunches.

None of that was worth saying out loud though. They wouldn't know the answer until they searched themselves, and Janie didn't really feel like being the Debbie Downer today. So instead she grinned, and turned to Rebecca with a flourish.

"So it's exploring time, right? Let's head out!"

"Easy there, Daphne."  Katy said, a little nonplussed by Janie's apparent exuberance at stepping into what, for all they know was an imminent pile of shit.  "We're in a life-threatening situation, not solving a groovy goddamn mystery."

Katy kicked an eraser that had fallen on the ground by her, sullen.  She couldn't shake the feeling something was about to go wrong.  Still, she put her hand on Yaz's shoulder and gave a small tug.

"Come on, then.  Place isn't going to explore itself."  

She turned and headed out of the door.  A glance both ways revealed no one down the halls, so for the moment, it was still just the four of them.

"No one's lost their mind out here yet.  Good sign."  She said over her shoulder to the girls.