Survival Of The Fittest

(( Travis Webster continued from That's Crate! ))

After his less than successful attempt at blending with a group of people at the shipping yard, Travis had skulked off towards what he hoped would be some shelter. Miraculously, he hadn't encountered anyone else for the rest of that entire day.

Not that he'd have wanted to meet anyone anyway. He'd been so furious at his own failure that he would probably have beaten the person to death, just for being there. He hadn't even gone back for his hedge trimmer. He'd just wandered aimlessly, mostly looking for shelter and trying to think up a course of action. Staying under the radar and not killing anyone hadn't helped him one bit with merging with groups of innocents.

As for the hedge trimmer, It was safe on top of the storage containers. Nobody would find it now, and he could always go back for it.

Finally, when several hours had passed, Travis had arrived at the red brick building he was now sleeping within. At first he hadn't been sure what kind of shelter he'd found, right at the edge of the enormous forest that covered a large part of the island. Eventually, while he'd been checking the rooms, he'd realized just what kind of place this was. The irony of Travis Webster taking shelter inside of a local high school had not been lost on him.

He also found something - or rather someone - else as well. Francis. He'd been moved since he'd died, that much was clear. Accidental death? Regretful killer? Travis wasn't sure. There was no backpack, though, so the killer couldn't have been THAT regretful. Francis had been a nice dude, even though he was a bit of a killjoy when Travis messed with other students. He'd be missed. Travis began walking off the check around some more, and then stopped. He turned and looked back at the boy, smiling.

"Tell you what, Francis, my man. Your name will probably show up on the announcements tomorrow. If I run into your killer... well, let's just say I won't leave their corpse in such a dignified matter as they did with yours."

Plus, two sets of rations. Fuck yes.

When he was done with checking the building for supplies or other students, he'd decided to sleep in the science room, designing a makeshift alarm by using his duct tape to tape one of the several dirty test tubes to the doorway. If anyone opened the door, the tube would automatically fall down and break, and he'd wake up and be able to defend himself. He finally understood how practical his own "weapon" actually was. He'd also grabbed several pens from the surrounding classrooms. It wasn't much, but he figured it was better than nothing. If a prison inmate could kill someone with a sharpened toothbrush or a piece of glass, he should be able to do the same with a bunch of test tubes and some pens. It wasn't rocket science. The pens and post-its also had the benefit of allowing him to write shit down, including tomorrow's killers, deaths and danger zones.

Eventually, comfortable with how his alarm had looked, he'd fallen asleep. This time around, he was woken up by the announcement.

Megan Emerson. That was the girl that killed Francis. Travis swore to himself. He didn't even know who the fuck that was. Guess he'd have to ask around if he saw anyone.

Another few names. Miranda Millers, Max Sawyer. Both clearly killing their targets deliberately. Travis smiled. Maybe he wouldn't have to kill too many people to get to the "finals" if this trend kept up.

Then... Time stopped. Had Danya just announced that Miles had killed..... Chuck? All the good times he'd had with Chuck flashed through his head. The laughs, the pranks, the conversations. His silly, goofy friend, with that stupid hat, was dead. By the hands of another... "friend". There were no tears. Every single bit of sadness that he felt quickly transformed into anger. Miles fucking Strickland. He began grinding his teeth, staring out into nothingness. Another name to the list of people he'd kill. People he wanted to choke the life out of with his own bloody hands.

He was woken up from his trance by another name. Naomi Bell.

....

He laughed. Violently. He laughed so hard it hurt. That fucking bitch. The one who'd always thought herself better than all others. The girl who'd shot him on the first day. The cousin of that son of a bitch Miles. She was dead. By Summer's hand, no less.

His crazed laughter echoed through the hallways. He looked up at the roof, and screamed:

"How did that escape plan work for you, huh!? YOU DIDN'T GET VERY FAR, DID YOU, YOU STUPID FUCKING WHORE!?"

Not only would this wound Miles deeply, which gave him great joy, but it also gave him satisfaction since HE was probably almost as responsible for the death as Summer was. He had been the one who drove her allies away. He had been the one who stole her weapon so she couldn't defend herself. But whether it had been his, or Summer's or plain bad luck's fault... It just didn't matter. Naomi, an otherwise strong and clever contender, was dead, and a big bonus was that Miles would suffer for it. Just like he'd made Travis suffer by killing Chuck.

Travis had barely noted the name of Stacey Mordetsky, his prom date. He didn't care much, really. He girl had been an excellent fuck, but that was all. She meant almost nothing to him. Especially not compared to his old friend. No. Now, he was only focused on two things. Hunting down Miles, since the bastard had killed one of the few people on the island that Travis actually cared about, and finding out who the fuck this Megan-girl was. The girl had two packs, two sets of weapons, and she had killed Francis. Plus, she wasn't a giant like Tyler. She was a much more manageable victim, and it would hopefully allow him to move up a tier or two with his weapons.

He noted down the danger zones and began eating his breakfast. It was time for Travis Webster to go on the offensive.

((Edgar Tolstoff continued from Rebellion))

The tears streaming from Edgar's eyes flew out behind him as the greenhouse, and Cody, and Cody's stupid friends and Cody's attitude and Cody's gun receded into the distance. By now he wasn't sure if they were still tears of terror, or tears of relief, or even just tears from the wind blasting into his eyeballs as he ran faster than he had ever run before. He blew through a vast expanse of wheat almost without noticing, caring only for any cover it might provide his rapidly retreating backside and however much of it he could put between himself and the worst morning of his life.

The greenhouse long out of sight, gradually his adrenaline levels began to drop, his eyes began to dry, his steps began to slow and his heart... his heart was still hammering away like there was no tomorrow, and indeed that was now a very real possibility, but why not slow down a while and stop thinking about what might have been done to him, and start thinking about what he could be doing instead? He slowed to a panting, hunched-over halt at the edge of the field next to some rusted hulk of a machine of presumably agricultural application, clutching a stitch he had only just begun to notice, brain trying to think about everything all at once. He had been gifted this chance. What should he be doing? Had he run far enough? Was there a "far enough"? Could he ever be safe? What about his plan? How could he save anyone? How could he save himself? How would his plan work? Who would he need? Who did he want to look for? To what extent did these overlap? What was his plan? Where even was he? Did he have a plan?

Running wasn't Edgar's scene. Walking was much more like it - and, looking up for a moment, he realised for the first time that he hadn't appreciated how beautiful the island was. Yes, that's right, why don't we go for a nice, relaxing hike across the unspoilt scenery of Death Island? Wheelchair users are advised that the path may be uneven in certain places, and all visitors please be aware of immature jocks with rifles, twitchy idiots ruled by fear and/or their dearest childhood friends trying to murder them. Make sure to visit the gift shop.

Did he have a plan?

He stood up and began walking in, for lack of a better choice, the same direction in which he had been running. The fear was dying down now, or at least settling into a constant low-level hum of paranoia, and he knew he would need to think harder, faster, than any last-minute homework essay, any awkward debate question or any crucial move in chess, if he was going to save himself or anyone else.

---

So he walked.  He walked for the rest of the day, through woods, up hillls, down valleys, through woods, along coastlines, behind an inexplicable amusement park and through woods.  He was getting a bit sick of the woods if he was honest, but if ever there was a time for not complaining about having too much of a good thing, this was it.  He concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, admiring the beauty of nature, listening to the birdsong, pacing himself so he wouldn't get too tired, and trying to persuade his brain not to think about the explosive noose around his neck, just like the hikes his dad used to take him on.  Well, except for that last thing.

Those ration bars which the terr... which he had been given didn't make much of a picnic, but there was still a certain attraction to eating lunch nestling among the tangled roots of an old tree, eyes trained on nothing in particular except the sylvan scene laid out before him.  Even if he did dearly wish he had his sketchbook on his knee, or that he'd gone with his original plan of eating the wrapper to see if it tasted any better than the bar.

Inexorably, night crept up on him.  Edgar liked visiting nature, but never had he felt the desire to live there, and as the shadows lengthened he found himself confronted with an unwelcome choice.  He knew there were built-up areas on the island, because his map had said so, and because he had been studiously avoiding them.  This wasn't, after all, a hike around Seattle and its environs, it was a bloody deathmatch to the death on the Isle of Bloody Death, and that meant people were bad news.  His one and only encounter with them had taught him that much.  He knew that, ultimately, if he wanted to get off this island he was going to have to enlist the help of his fellow students, but... well, he'd been put off the idea a bit, OK?  He'd do it soon enough.  He'd been going to do it soon enough since that morning, but it still wasn't quite soon enough.  But now, when his chances of getting a good night's sleep in a comfy bed were at stake, did he have the balls to go where he knew all his classmates were likely to be, talk to them, reason with them, run the risk of getting another gun pointed in his face, run the risk of the owner of that gun being an even bigger asshole than Cody?

Suffice to say, Edgar's sleep was chilly and uncomfortable that night.

---

His awakening was a rude one.  With a yelp of alarm, he shot bolt upright almost in one fluid movement from his position slouched in a small hollow beneath a large tree.  He staggered, his head spun, his ears throbbed, and he almost fell right over again before he noticed it.  The deafening mechanical screech died away, to be replaced by a terribly familiar cheery voice emanating from the large loudspeaker situated right next to where his head had been resting mere seconds before.  He hadn't even seen it in the dark.  What was this?  Clutching his forehead as though hoping to squeeze lucidity from his brain, he leaned against the neighbouring tree and tried to focus on what the voice was saying.

Oh.  People who had just died, and people who had just killed them.  Right.

That was... awkward.

Even after the incident in the greenhouse, even after he'd seen for himself what scared, angry, irrational kids could do if you gave them a weapon and an excuse to use it, he'd been hoping it wouldn't come to this.  He could only half-listen to the half of the announcement he was awake enough to comprehend, with the rest of his mind trying to panic about a hundred different things at once and succeeding only in ripping itself into a fine mist of generalised terror, but it sounded pretty gruesome even then.

He had to stop this.  He had to enact his plan.  He had to rally people together, get them to see there was another way, talk with them to hammer out the details of his plan, come up with a plan, hope for a plan.  Did he have a plan?

He had to stop running away.  He had to seize the moment, march out of these beautiful, unspoilt, safe, non-murderous woods into town and bash some heads together.  And hope not to get his own head bashed in.

He'd get round to it... soon enough.

---

On the third day, Edgar snapped.

He'd been walking around and staring at the woods for a full two days.  Why would the terrorists take away his sketchbook?  What did they think he was going to do with it, devise an elaborate and ingenious secret escape-planning code via the medium of detailed pastoral landscape drawings?  Were they intending to drive kids to tear each other to pieces purely through sheer unrelenting boredom?

It felt like he'd seen every inch of the woods twice.  They were exquisite, teeming with life, overrun with plants of all descriptions and completely un-sketchable.  He'd checked his map twice, and the huge and decidedly non-exquisite building he now stood behind was definitely what he thought it was.  It was relatively isolated, and it was bound to have paper and pencil in it somewhere.  Hell, he could swipe some watercolours while he was at it.  He wasn't sure that was what his water bottles were intended for, though.

Minimal risk, maximum reward.  He strolled through the small rear entrance to the high school and began searching.

He was prepared for the annoucement this time.  He resolved to pay closer attention to the second than he had to the first, and he believed he was prepared for anything it could throw at him.  Breaking down wasn't going to break them out.  He could do this.

The very first name he heard was Mara's.  It wasn't in the context of her dying, either.

That was... could he honestly say it was unexpected?  Shocking, yes, but... well, it was Mara, wasn't it?  He wasn't terrified at all.  These were just names on a script, there wasn't anything he could do, he was on an island full of his own high school class, he knew people he knew were going to die, and logically people he knew were going to kill, at least if he didn't stop them... and there were some names he was more fearful of hearing than others, like Chuck's.

Chuck.  Chuck was dead.  He knew Chuck.  People he knew were going to die, right?  But that was a person he knew.  He'd talked to Chuck, debated with him, laughed along with that goofy grin now resting on the face of some corpse somewhere, possibly disfigured with something called a hunga munga.  A corpse that he knew.  But just a corpse.  That he knew.

Despite himself, Edgar's comprehension of the announcement began to blur, shifting from who was actually on it to who might be the next name to be read out.

Oh, God, Kat.  He hadn't even thought about Kat.

Where was Kat?

Walking unsteadily down a long corridor on the first floor, face set, Edgar was no longer even conscious of his actions.  His feet forced themselves in front of the other as every microwatt of his brain power strained to absorb the morbid, disgustingly cheerful commentary.  He had barely registered Naomi Bell's untimely demise before a sound assaulted his finely-tuned ears which he was completely unprepared for.

Laughter rang through the corridors of the school, and it wasn't Mr Danya's.  Mad, gleeful, horrifying laughter which whipped through his body and froze his blood in an instant.  It could mean many things, but there was absolutely no doubt about at least one of them: he was not nearly as alone as he thought he was.

There wasn't much doubt about another: he was screwed.

As if trying to outrun the speed of sound itself, Edgar's legs launched into a terrified sprint, sending him pounding down the corridor as the laughter bounced off the walls around him, as if mocking him personally for running away from his fate like that.  The voice changed as he launched himself down the staircase, muddied to incomprehensibility by the endless echoes off the walls, drowned to inaudibility by the beat of Edgar's shoes upon the stairs, and distorted even further to insanity than it already was by his panicked mind.  He could hear everything, understand nothing, and could barely see anything.  That probably explained how he, instead of flying through the front door as he intended, flew through the air and planted his face on the floorboards.

Lights exploded before his eyes and his legs seemed to have lost their appetite for movement, but he forced himself up with his arms.  He had to get away.  He had to ignore the pain, and keep moving.  He couldn't look back.  He didn't need to see anything but the sun beating upon his cheeks and the landscape outdoors.  He didn't need to look back, not least to see what he tripped over.  He looked back.

He had tripped over Francis St. Ledger.

But by the looks of things, he hadn't done any laughing in a long, long time.

Edgar forgot everything.  He was unaware of the immediate past, or his plans for the immediate future.  He knew of no world outside the bottom of that stairwell.  He barely knew of the objects which were not the body of someone he had once known.

Francis wasn't just a name on a script.  Francis was real.

Edgar forgot everything else, as he screamed.

The fuck...?

He'd barely started feeding on his rations when he heard the scream.

Trav's eyes shot up, and narrowed on the door. He hadn't noticed anyone outside, but there was most certainly someone else in the building.

Aaaah. Whoever it is, they probably found Francis.

Travis quickly dropped his less-than-appetizing breakfast and got on his feet. He held a pen in each hand, like a pair of short blunt daggers. They weren't much, but with enough pressure applied to something like the jugular it would be sufficient. Whoever it was outside, he had to at least catch up to them before they ran off with valued gear or rations.

In his rush, however, he forgot about the alarm-system he'd constructed. He quickly rushed through doors at the science room, breaking the taped up test tube while doing so. Bursting out of the room in a hail of breaking glass and loud noises, he quickly turned towards the place he'd left Francis corpse the previous evening and ran. As he came to the top of the staircase, his silhouette a stark contrast to the gray light shining through the clouds into the dirty windows, he quickly came to a halt. At the bottom of the stairs, there were two boys. One of them was Francis, who'd been little more than a corpse for the past day or so. The other one, however...

Edgar Tolstoff. Kat's brother.

Instead of saying anything, or approaching him, Travis merely stood on the top of the stairs, looking down at the panicking boy with his piercing blue eyes. He didn't even smile. He merely kept his eyes on Edgar, awaiting his reaction and quietly pondering what he was going to do next.

Edgar still hadn't fully come to his senses, but it didn't take a great deal of lucidity to appreciate that his recent inadvertent announcement of his presence had been the mother of all bad ideas.

Here he was, in a building known to be occupied by - at best - a sociopath of some description, and he couldn't take his eyes off a corpse.  Moving away from it appeared to be out of the question, too.

Sure enough, not two seconds after his environmental perception started to work again, there was the sound of a door crashing open from the very corridor he had just run down, accompanied by what sounded like a window breaking.

As heavy, rapid footsteps drew ever nearer to him, he still didn't move.  He made no sound other than his own shallow, panicked beathing, and he still couldn't break his eyes away from the cold, empty pair just a yard away.

No matter how much danger he may have been in right at that instant, Edgar's brain just refused to recognise it.  He'd barely known Francis.  He was a sporty type, not much to do with Edgar at all.  Edgar remembered seeing him in English classes.  Wasn't there something to do with music as well, or was he imagining it?  Here he was, enumerating all of the facts he knew about Francis St. Ledger (deceased) and regretting the immediate non-availability of any postage stamps.  Didn't he have more important things to think about?  Like, say, not getting murdered?

The footsteps had stopped.  He finally looked up.

He still couldn't see much, thanks to a combination of the natural gloom and the fact that his head was still spinning from the fall, to speak nothing of the fact he could barely concentrate on anything right now.  But there was absolutely someone there at the top of the stairs.  And the odds of it being anyone other than the guy who'd just laughed his head off at the announcement were negligible.

A spectrum of possibilities opened up before Edgar.  He could go with the classic, "Who are you?"  He could take the nonchalant route with, "Good morning."  He could attempt some sort of explanation for his current state, or raise the possibility of an alliance.  He could adopt some of the local customs, as in, "Are you playing?"  He could even open on an accusatory note, such as, "Did you do this?"

Maybe he did do this?  Maybe that was what he was laughing at?  Maybe Edgar had tripped over his trophy, and now a murderer was coming back to secure his territory?  Oh, he wished he'd listened closer to that announcement.

All of these possibilities flashed through Edgar's mind in a moment, none of them penetrating his consciousness.  Instead, all his brain would let his vocal cords do was let out a quiet, strangled, "P-please don't kill me..."

Well, at least he could be sure that Edgar was not a threat to him, unless he was trying to do what Travis had done on the day before. Either way, Travis found his sniveling rather pathetic. But then, the kid had just stumbled over a dead body at an island full of murderers. Fearing for your life was probably the most natural response there was.

He let out a slight chuckle.

"Well, that depends entirely on you, doesn't it, friend?"

He started slowly walking down the steps. He tried to look as intimidating as possible. Needlessly killing harmless students was stupid. Most of them would be picked off by accidents or by less strategic players out there. Killing was a last resort, for now at least. All he wanted was the kid's rations and/or weapon.

On the other hand, if Edgar had been carrying anything useful, wouldn't he have used it by now?

He stopped halfway down and tilted his head, still looking at his classmate. He needed to be careful. He'd underestimated Cammy, and that Gary-kid, and Naomi before that. You never knew what people were capable of on this island, and Edgar could be trying to fool him into feeling safe.

His eyes still fixed on Edgar, looking for any sign of aggression, he coldly asked:

"What supplies do you have?"

He had no idea what the guy meant.  How did what depend on what?  He almost started devoting precious thought cycles to trying to figure it out when whatever small part of his brain which had managed to regain basic functionality sounded a klaxon.

As his companion began strolling down the stairs, and the patterns of ambient light played off his body and face, there was no mistaking him.  Edgar had walked slap-bang into the lair of one Travis Webster.

Under different circumstances, he might have given a world-weary sigh.  The first person he met on the first day was Cody.  The first person he met on the third day was Travis.  It was beginning to sound as if staying in the woods all through the second day might have been an alright idea after all.

With a jolt, he realised that he still hadn't budged an inch.  As Travis came to a halt halfway down the staircase, he suddenly shuffled backwards, from his position sprawled on the floor.  He had put all of two extra yards between them when his head banged into the exterior wall.

His duffle bag was still slung around his shoulders, where it had been since setting out that morning.  Right now it was resting in his lap.  He half-sat up against the corner he had backed himself into and refocused his eyes on Travis just in time to hear his next question.

He was still terrified, but beginning to come down off his high of abject, undignified panic.  Why was Travis interested in his supplies?  It didn't sound like he was just making small talk.  Maybe Edgar should stop assuming the worst of people.  It could be that Travis was just trying to plan for a potential alliance, right?  Comparing each other's supplies would be sound strategy, yes?

Of course, there was that other possible explanation...

...and Edgar's pessimism had taken a sharp upswing since the last time he'd met someone on the island, that fateful morning in the greenhouse.

Maybe he should just play it safe for now.

"I... I haven't really checked yet," he said, not very truthfully.  There was still a noticeable waver in his voice.

Travis laughed.

"You really mean to tell me you spent three fucking days on this rock... and you didn't check your backpack yet?"

Travis gave the boy a smug look showing him he wasn't even remotely convinced.

"Do I really look that stupid to you, man?"

He descended further down the stairs, until he was at the bottom. He sat down on the third lowest step whilst smiling at the cornered boy, still holding the pens in his hands. If Edgar decided to run, or attack, Travis would most certainly be ready. He looked down at Francis. This was how it was now. Chuck was gone. Francis corpse was laid out right in front of him. Many more would die before this was over. Maybe even Joe.

Fuck... Joe.

"Now, I'm going to ask you again..."

His eyes shot up and he dropped his jovial demeanor as he spit out his next sentence.

"What fucking supplies do you have?"

Shit.  Shit.  Shitting shit.

He wasn't sure why he'd expected Travis to buy that.  At the very least, he'd have had to eat and drink, right?  Was there any way out of this which wouldn't involve him getting robbed and/or killed?

There was no escape.  There was nowhere to run which wouldn't take him directly past Travis.  Although Travis didn't seem to have a weapon - unless those pens counted - this was cold comfort, seeing as Edgar didn't have one either.  In hand-to-hand combat, there was no way he could beat Travis.

"I-I don't have a weapon!" he blurted out.  "All I got was this bottle of ipecac, and... and same stuff you got, I guess."

It was a shrivelled, pathetic morsel of a hope, but it was technically hope.  Would Travis decide he wasn't worth the effort and wander off?

He found his eyes straying from Travis's, doing anything to avoid the chilly, cold-hearted blue glare.  That was how he found himself staring intently at the large bloodstain on Travis's elbow.

Whoa.

How bad was it?  Bad enough to tip the balance in Edgar's favour?  Could his forty-eight hours spent cowering in the woods trying to avoid... well, people like Travis, pay off?

Travis sighed audibly.

Another low-tier.

Why couldn't he find some weak kids with strong weapons? Why did every person he met have to either carry weak weapons, or be too strong for him to take down with his own shit weapons?
The kid was hardly worth the effort. Maybe he could take some rations, he supposed. But was it really worth getting into such a scuffle over it? He needed to save his strength. Miles, Megan, Hansel, Tyler... There were a lot of names on his list. A lot of fights to be had.

He had no doubt he could easily dispatch Edgar, but what was the point, really?

While he was pondering what to do, Travis quietly rested his head against his hands. Edgar seemed to want to avoid looking him in the eye, and any form of confrontation in general. Not too odd, really, considering how terrified he seemed. And then... Travis noticed him staring. Following his eyes, Travis quickly realized what Edgar was looking at.

"Heh... So you noticed?"

His jovial demeanor returned, together with a large smile on his lips. He dragged a hand through his ruffled hair.

"Yeah... Naomi Bell shot me with a fucking crossbow on the first day. First hour, even. Heh... Can you imagine that? What a fucking whore."

He laughed quietly to himself.

"But then, she got what was coming to her... Well, if the announcements tell the truth anyway. I just wish they'd been more specific about how the bitch died."

He yawned nonchalantly and stretched out his bandaged arm. It still hurt like a bitch, but he hadn't noticed any particular issues with it, such as infection, despite his little stunt of opening up the wound for sympathy points.

Not that it had helped.

"Maybe after this, I'll go find Summer and ask her myself. But first..."

He slowly rose up and took a step over Francis body. If he needed to chase down Edgar, he didn't want to stumble over this... corpse.

"... I need something from you. Depending on your answer, I might let you go."

Travis took another step forward, looking straight at Edgar. His heart was beating, adrenaline pumping. Travis was in control. Nobody was pointing a weapon at him this time. Edgar was at his mercy.

His smile had twisted into a malicious grin.

"Megan Emerson. What do you know about her?"

Triple shit on a cock pancake.  Had he really been that conspicuous about it?

If Edgar hadn't already been almost swimming in adrenaline, his body might have involuntarily tensed up.  But he didn't have any more fear to give.  This situation was getting worse and worse by the second, and there was no possible hope of Travis being the second person to have an unexpected change of heart and lower the metaphorical gun...

...Wait a moment.

Didn't he used to be... scarier than that?

Either his cheerful recounting of the tale of how Naomi Bell inflicted his war wound really was all it seemed, or now was the right time to get really, really scared.

He looked almost inhuman as he sniggered his way through the news of the death of one of his classmates.  This - someone's grief, a terrible act, a life cut tragically short no matter what the girl had supposedly done - must have been what he was laughing at earlier.  Edgar shuddered as he recalled the sound of the deranged, monstrous, gleeful laughter echoing along the school corridors and shaking him to his very bones, sending him running off in a panic and leading directly to him ending up down here in the first place.  Yep.  Definitely the second one.

Travis stepped over the cor... over Francis, closing the already small space between them further.  Edgar drew his knees up to his chest and sat up straighter, making himself as small as possible, as the bigger boy loomed over him, leering.

Wait, what?  What was he going to demand?  How could he be let go?  Just how screwed was he, exactly?

What did Edgar know about... Megan Emerson.

Edgar felt positively exhausted from the roller-coaster of emotions he had been dragged through in the past thirty seconds or so.  He had gone from terror to confusion to panic to relief and straight back to terror again faster than he thought possible.  In the short breather afforded by Travis waiting for his answer, he became conscious of his shirt sticking to him underneath his jumper, and a face as wet as if he had just jumped into a swimming pool, whether through sweat or tears or both he did not know.

But here, at last, he might have a way out.

Megan Emerson.

Who the hell was Megan Emerson?

Why did he want to know?  Something to do with that announcement Edgar had managed to miss most of?  And why was he getting his information off the first scrawny, frightened random he could corner after the announcement?

Ill-defined as the precise terms of Travis's proposal may have been left, Edgar got the distinct impression that an answer of, "Who?" wasn't gonna cut it.

What would happen if he didn't give the right answer?  He wouldn't be let go, obviously, but then what?  He wasn't sure he wanted to contemplate the possibilities.

He'd tried pleading, before, the last time someone bigger, scarier and generally more of a dick than him had trapped him.  He still wasn't sure if it had worked.  Back then it was just him, Cody, and a gun, and he'd only lived because the guy holding the gun hadn't had the nerve after all.  Would Travis?  Was that a risk he wanted to take under any circumstances?

That said, it was just them and their words this time.  His opponent had once again given him an opportunity to prove his worth, to explain why he shouldn't be killed, and this time he might actually have an answer.

Everything rested on how much Travis didn't know.

Debate sessions, don't fail me now...

"What do you want to know about her?" he asked after a short while, picking his words very carefully.

That's the spirit.

"What does she look like?"

Travis hardly needed to interrogate anyone about Miles. Even though the boy was top priority over Megan, Travis already had all the information he needed on that motherfucker. But Megan was a complete random. Probably some loser, having obscure interests and only having a handful of friends.

That's why he'd asked Edgar. Travis figured one loser probably knew of another.

"What friends does she have?"

Travis kept grinning, awaiting an answer. He needed to memorize the appearance, and if he couldn't find her... well. Her friend's would have to do for now.

This was it. This was perhaps the most important speech of his life.

He probably should've studied creative writing more. He was leaning heavily on his own personality, his methodical way of speaking, and the authoritativeness honed from years of public speech-giving to carry him through. He was also leaning heavily on his tendency to pause before anything he said to think it through properly, which was acting as a very useful cover-up for the five or so seconds he spent racking his brains for something plausible.

If Travis was asking what she looked like and what her friends were, it was a safe bet that Edgar's previous question had performed its intended purpose: he had ascertained that Travis did not, in fact, have any more idea of who this girl was than Edgar did.

That made things at once much simpler and so much more, unimaginably more complicated.

"She's kinda chubby," he began, because he'd seen the sort of girls Travis liked to date and it couldn't hurt to steer clear of anybody Travis might conceivably turn out to know. "She's got blonde hair, curly, quite short. She's not that tall - a bit shorter than me - and she wears a lot of video game T-shirts." Yeah, you couldn't go wrong with gamer nerds for fictional social outcasts, could you?

As Edgar's mouth continued to throw together an identikit picture out of whatever parts it could find lying around on the spur of the moment, his brain turned to the second, weightier question. He still hadn't asked why Travis wanted to find Megan. He obviously didn't know her. Maybe he had entirely innocent motivations? Maybe he just wanted to give her something of hers he'd found lying around? Maybe he was genuinely interested in meeting her friends to have a nice chat about how awesome she was? ...Whoops, nope, there was that pessimism again.

"She's... erm... got brown eyes, usually wears jeans," he continued, pondering whether he should add the next bit. "And small breasts," he finished up his description, because hell, it was Travis after all. Had he gone far enough? Had he gone too far? He didn't want to make it sound like he was dating the girl.

He had a name ready. He'd pulled it out of the short section of the second announcement he had paid the blindest bit of attention to, partly because if Travis did mean harm, better he meant it to someone who couldn't suffer, and partly because it turned out to be remarkably difficult to pluck a random name out of all of high school on the spot, so he resorted to the nearest available list of the things. Mostly the latter, if he was honest.

"I used to see her hanging around with Kaitlyn Williamson a lot," he continued smoothly, artfully suppressing his fear and stress as if he was speaking to Congress, and hoping that he at least didn't look appreciably more panicked than he did anyway. This was much easier without a gun in his face. But that wasn't going to be enough, was it? What did he know about Aurora High's gamer nerds?

Bits and pieces and drops and scraps of information swirled around in Edgar's memory as he spoke, accumulated during the course of four years of high school like so many flies on a windscreen. Wait, wasn't there that one guy who wanted to be a professional gamer? "Matt Var... er, Vartoogian could probably tell you more about her than I can," he added. Never liked the guy anyway. He needed one more to straddle the line between 'helpful' and 'creepy'.

Who else could he come up with? Shit. Edgar could feel the chokes coming on - the death of the debater, the scourge of the public speaker, the ending of him personally if he wasn't careful. Quick. He needed a name. He looked down at Francis. Francis was big in English class, right? English. Who did he associate with English? He blurted out the very first name which came to mind, after a pause which was just very slightly too long for comfort: "Owen Kay, er, I think she's friends with him as well." Even more shit. He liked Owen - he was barely an acquaintance, but he seemed like a nice enough guy. Edgar hoped very much this wasn't going to, as Owen might say, come back and bite him on the arse.

Not quite as good as he would have liked, but he rounded it off anyway with, "Er, is that enough?"

Because if it wasn't, then it could be. It could always be enough, for as long as Edgar had mental Mr. Potato Heads to pin imaginary body parts onto, and surviving classmates who he thought Travis probably wouldn't be that well acquainted with to throw under the bus through no fault of their own. It could always be enough. And it could always be too much.

Well, fuck. He didn't even recognize the look of the girl as Edgar described her. How did you go to school with someone for years and not even know their face? Maybe if he spotted her he'd realize who it was. But... This was good. With the names of these friends, he now had leverage.

Kaitlyn Williamson? Where had he heard that name?

Williamson... Williamson...

FUCK! He knew where he'd heard that name! She'd been mentioned on the announcements just a few moments before he'd met Edgar. Killed by Miranda Millers. He couldn't use her at all.

Matt Vartoogian. He was that weird kid who always sat around and played League of Legends, all the bloody time, even in school. Jesus. Trav enjoyed the occational FPS game, but man, some people needed to get a bloody life. But hey, at least Travis knew of him, if only because he'd snickered at the boy's lack of a social life.

And last, Owen Kay. The british kid. Kinda hard to miss.

If he found one of them, he could probably use them to lure out Megan. Neither of the other two had been mentioned on the announcements, so he doubted he had much to fear.

Suddenly, he realized he'd been standing there silently for almost fifteen seconds, eyes unfocused, still staring at Edgar, the wheels turning, plans being made, ideas formed. He quickly shook himself back to reality. He chuckled and gave the boy a menacing grin.

"Heh... Yeah, it's enough. And you know what, Edgar? I like your style, my man. So quickly turning on your friends... It's quite admirable."

He shrugged and laughed audibly.

"Or, well. Not."

Showing himself capable of such a betrayal, and with such ease, Edgar had potential. The kid could probably thin out the herd just like Tyler Lucas, or Hansel, or Theo, before inevitably falling victim to someone else. Probably sooner than some of the other mentioned, granted. The boy was, after all, quite weak-looking. But just one or two kills would be enough.

The question was: Would it make sense for Travis to kill him here and now, when he could ease Trav's workload if simply let loose?

He smiled, this time shining up with genuine cheer. He looked like he was about to do a good deed.

"Tell you what, dude. Leave your gear here, and I'll let you go on your merry way."

Had he got away with it?  Was it worth it?  Was he going to live long enough to feel some of the consequences of his recent actions?

Travis didn't answer for a while.  Edgar's fate hung precariously in the balance as the two boys stared at each other in silence, his heart rate steadily increasing with every long second passed.

Had his lies paid off?  Was Travis going to swallow them?  Were the people he just named set to have a violent encounter with Travis so that Edgar didn't have to?

Travis answered.

Edgar's panic slowly ebbed away, allowing a trickle of relief to seep back in, along with an undercurrent of a new emotion: shame.  What would have happened if he had refused to answer Travis's question?  Death?  Worse?  Would it still be worth it if Travis were to back off right now and allow Edgar to escape unharmed?

Why was it so important that Edgar lived, anyway?  Well, he didn't want to die.  He couldn't let his potential go to waste.  He knew there had to be a way off this island, and he knew he had the tools to find it.

Then again, Travis didn't want to die, either.  Cody hadn't wanted to die.  Rose and Mike hadn't wanted to die, and he was reasonably certain that Matt and Owen didn't want to die.  Maybe that was all Survival of the Fittest was, at its heart: an exercise in finding out what people are prepared to do to not die.

Was he really any better than Cody, waving a rifle in the face of one of his classmates?  Was he, as Travis seemed to be questioning himself, any better than Travis?

And would it be worth it?

He allowed himself a moment of stronger relief as Travis smiled, relief which was quickly crushed as Travis explained what the price for his life would be.

He wanted to protest.  He wanted to plead.  He wanted to lie until the cows came home, to sell out as many of his friends as necessary to make sure that he, and he alone, could keep his survival kit.  Not even his life, just his possessions.

He wanted to pull off the same tricks again so badly.  Maybe it would work better the second time.  Maybe it hadn't been enough after all.  Maybe he could still weasel out of this, saved by his own lack of scruples, scruples he didn't even know he'd lost.

On the other hand, maybe he'd done enough damage already.

Maybe this was his penance for what he had done.

Maybe he didn't deserve to live anyway.

Wordlessly, he dragged the strap of his duffle bag off his shoulders, up between the back of his head and the wall, and let it fall into his lap.  He stood up, slowly and cautiously, tentatively unfolding his body against the corner of the stairwell and letting the bag slip to the floor.  He was still half-crouched when his eyes once again met with Francis's.  He shut them, tight, trying to blot out the clearest reminder he had had yet of exactly what was at stake, and what was in all likelihood in store for him.  He'd freaked out when he saw the first corpse of his life, couldn't stop staring at it literally to save his life, and he wasn't proud of that.  He had to shut his eyes, or he feared he would never be able to tear them away from it again.

The duffle bag resting at his feet, Edgar leaned back against the wall, his eyes still closed.  He wasn't sure he wanted to see what Travis was going to do next.  He barely wanted to think about it.  He knew this was the moment his chances of ever getting out alive, of making it back to his parents, of even seeing his sister for one last time, went into a tailspin.  He knew he couldn't enact his plan - whatever the hell that was - and couldn't save anybody if he couldn't even save himself, not even by sacrificing random innocents in his place.  And he knew, on some level, that he deserved it.

(( Slight GM approved ))

Travis was prepared for battle. Not that he wanted to fight, of course. If Edgar handed over the bag he was free to go... But everyone weren't always quite that willing to hand over their supplies, and the last time he'd tried robbing someone he'd had the bag thrown straight at him, which had almost made him impale himself with his own chainsaw.

So he wasn't going to take any chances this time. If Edgar tried to trick him, Travis would go straight for the jugular.
But apparently, Edgar didn't have quite as much fighting spirit as Tyler Lucas had possessed.

"Excellent. You've made the right choice."

He quickly leaned down and picked up the bag, then turning and walking back towards the science room without another word. As he was about to walk up the stairs, he laughed and turned around, facing Edgar for the last time.

"Oh, and... You're free to go."

Travis headed back up to the room. He grabbed his things, stashed a few pens and test tubes in his backpack and began heading out again, munching on a ration bar. He now had plenty of them. As he got back to the bottom floor, he noticed Edgar still in the same corner he'd been left in. Travis simply shook his head and chuckled.

Whatever.

(( Travis Webster continued in Forever... Forever...))