Survival Of The Fittest

((Amaranta Montalvo continued from Get Ganked))

"That bitch, that bitch, that FUCKING BITCH," she muttered. It was all she said for the last thirty minutes. It was the broken record in her brain that played as she ran.

Mara was perched on top of of a low stone wall. Next to her was her open bag. Below her were rows of houses that the mansions area overlooked not far away.

She had been alone and it gave her nothing to distract her. She stewed in her anger until it possessed her like a demon. She allowed it.

Mara could feel her face flush and burn with anger. In her chest she felt a bitter weight.

From her bag she selected a grenade, pulled the pin and chucked it as hard as she could down at one of the houses. It sailed easily into a window and within a minute, the house became a bomb. Bright light poured from the broken windows and the decrepit structure crumbled.

The shine in her eyes was gone as she numbly felt around for another grenade. For as long as she had been on this island, for the most part she'd retained her clear thinking. There were one or two fumbles, but she knew she was present and sane for the most part. For the first time that certainty slipped, however, it didn't bother her. Who cared about being above others or holding onto standards?

The rage had her and she couldn't care less. If she was shown the way to Hell she'd gladly stroll in as long as she could drag Katarina kicking and screaming by the hair, and she would smile a lopsided smile the whole way.

Her heart sped up as her fingers crawled over the surface of the next grenade, gently making the rounds.

"I'll bury her so deep in the ground not even the worms will get to her," she murmured.  

The second grenade went flying into the second house. No light this time, just a loud sound and suddenly the house was engulfed in flames. It was one of the incendiary grenades.

Her anger made her godlike on this island. The tiny frame of this girl had the power to raze buildings and reduce them to smoldering ash, but as she stonily gazed into the crackling former home, it didn't feel like it was enough.

She began searching for another grenade.

((Madeline Wilcox continued from There are some things a man just can't run away from.))

Maddie walked along around the houses along the gated community, significantly relaxed from earlier.

This certainly was a tranquil spot to get a break from things, with nobody around she could finally wind down and just enjoy herself.

She coughed into her sleeve. She had been feeling a bit ill from the morning, feverish even, she had assumed that she had caught a cold at some point. She worried about how the cold might affect her performance if it came to a life or death situation, but she doubted it would be fully relevant; the fight or flight response works wonders for allowing you to act in dire situations.

She decided not to worry about it, instead focus on the area around her. It was very quiet, serene even. It made her feel comfortable.

Then she heard the sounds of an explosion and the loud collapse of a building.

Maddie hit the ground as fast as she could, bruising her palms as they absorbed most of the impact. She looked around frantically for where the sound came from. She didn't quite know where, but it was close. Against her better judgement, she headed in the vague direction of the noise.

As she moved towards the sound, there came another explosion, albeit quieter this time, and with no big collapse. She saw smoke in the sky where she was heading. She knew she was moving in the right direction, at least.

She emerged from behind one of the houses, gun-knife in hand, trying to see what was going on. She didn't think anyone left had quite enough firepower to make a house collapse, but she couldn't exactly say she was surprised. And to think, some poor soul might have just met a very messy end.

She was expecting to see Hansel or Katarina nearby the rubble of one of the houses, having gotten away with yet another murder. Instead, she saw Amaranta near a collapsed house and another house that was on fire.

Logic told her to just ignore Mara and go on her way, avoid the person that's blowing up buildings, but instead she moved towards her, from the side.

Perhaps she was curious, perhaps she wanted to see if Mara had just managed to take Kat or Hansel down. Whatever the reason, Maddie moved towards the girl as she searched for another grenade.

A figure moved in her peripheral vision as she got the next grenade out. Mara grabbed the nearest of her two guns and pointed it at the intruder, still holding on to the explosive with her right hand.

She targeted her sharp gaze at the girl, but it was clear right away it wasn't who she was searching for. Her stare became unfocused.

"Who are you?" she said calmly with a hint of urgency.

Mara looked around. There was no one else. It was just the one girl.

"If you so much as say a threatening word or move too quickly, I'll shoot you."

She seemed unconcerned again. With her teeth, she ripped the pin from the grenade and chucked it at the smaller of the two mansions nearby. Purple smoke began billowing out of the windows. Mara bit her lip and frowned.

Maddie couldn't say she was very surprised when Mara pointed a gun at her.

Couldn't blame her for being cautious, Maddie would do the same thing if someone tried to approach her from the side. She halted her movements, but she didn't put her hands up, it was obvious that Mara wasn't the shoot first ask questions later type, so she didn't feel much panic at the situation. She watched Mara toss a grenade into a nearby, smaller mansion without paying too much attention to her.

"My name is Madeline. Last name Wilcox." She said, with the same lack of urgency that Mara gave her.

"Admittedly I was hoping that you wouldn't immediately point a gun at my face as I walked up. I was just wondering what you were doing, what with the explosions." She backed up a small amount before continuing. "I was actually thinking that either Katarina or Hansel was over here causing havoc, I thought that I might have been able to stop it. Then when I saw you I thought you might have taken one of them down."

She paused for a moment, considering her words. "In any case, I didn't have any intentions or reasons to hurt you."

Mara began digging around in her bag for something else. There was a small light of recognition in her face and she looked up for a second. "The girl with the ugly fedora," she said before returning to her task. "That was redundant. All fedoras are ugly," she said absently.

Madeline continued talking while she searched. Eventually she produced a small box from her duffle and hopped down from the low wall with a gun in hand. She walked nearby to a broken fence and pulled at a barely attached board.

"Well I'm obviously not either of them," she grunted as the board yielded.

She placed the small box on the wall and opened it, removing a match.

"I'm going to choke Katarina to death with my own hands. She killed my friend and she tried to kill me. If someone's going to try to kill me they better make sure it sticks. If someone gets her before me I'll....I don't know...give them a hand job."

For the first time she looked at Madeline, seemingly remembering her presence. "....or a muffin basket," she said looking the girl up and down briefly.

With one flick the mach burst into a tiny, flickering flame. "Hansel....he let me go. He said he didn't want to hurt me and when he could have shot me, he let me go," she said quietly.

Gently she touched the tip of the match to the wood and the fire transferred and grew. She tromped up to the house with purple clouds still rolling out and flung the burning plank into the living room, watching her ardor climb up the ancient furniture.

Maddie wasn't very surprised when she heard that Mara wanted to kill Katarina.

She couldn't imagine that anyone left was on very good terms with her, given how many people she had murdered and how many enemies she had made. Maddie certainly didn't like her just on the basis of how many people she killed.

Maddie was, however, taken aback when she heard that Hansel had the chance to kill Mara and simply let her go. It seemed very out of character for Hansel to do anything other than threaten and murder. That's all the experience she has had with him, after all. Maybe... maybe he wasn't as bad as she thought.

...No, he was definitely as bad as she thought, on reflection. Nobody could kill that many people and still be morally okay, at least in her books. She didn't know what to think of Hansel sparing Mara, and she decided to voice that. "Odd... all the times I've interacted with Hansel he was either trying to rob me or killing my friends."

She coughed. She felt a bit weak, and like sitting down or lying down somewhere would be in her best interests. Perhaps she had the flu, not just a mere cold. Now that she thought about it, given the unsanitary conditions of the island she's surprised she didn't get sick sooner. "Still though, why are you destroying those buildings? You didn't quite answer me from before."

Perhaps Mara was taking out her frustration at Katarina, or maybe she just wanted to destroy something. Maddie could understand both, given the situation.

Maddie wasn't quite sure why she was continuing conversation with Mara, but she was curious and Mara didn't seem to pose any sort of threat to her.

At least, not at the moment.

Mara signed heavily and walked back to her bag. She inspected the gun slung around her for a moment before looking back at Madeline. She seemed as if she were looking through Madeline. Slowly she tilted her head.

"I don't know. I don't know why," she said as she thought back. In the darkness of the lighthouse he hugged her with warm hands and warm eyes and kissed her. It couldn't be that though. It seemed unlikely that something as incredibly sappy as that would have stopped him from shooting her.  Doubly so because they both knew it was a ruse and she clocked him pretty hard right after. He returned her kindness likewise by kicking her head like a soccer ball.

Instinctively she rubbed the back of her head. Her brain felt like soup. It was becoming harder for her to think and articulate. She was tired, hungry and she still didn't have her vengeance. Burning down houses was only satisfying for so long. On the back of her neck she felt the warm sting of the nearby conflagration. She didn't have the words available to explain herself to the new found stranger, and truly, she didn't feel like she wanted to explain herself.

"No, I didn't," she said lifting the gun. Briefly she wondered if the girl was even real. Had she seen this person at the airport? She wasn't sure now. A few blinks. No, she had. The girl was real. She remembered her from school. Mara wasn't that far gone yet.

"I'm done here, but I'm not turning my back on you. You've got ten seconds before I open fire. Make fucking haste. Ten...nine...eight.."

Maddie backed up a bit before turning around and gunning it when Mara threatened to open fire.

In hindsight, not ignoring Mara was a bad idea. Maddie needed to keep on her toes, she couldn't afford to let her guard down like she just did. After she rounded a corner and was out of Mara's line of sight, she stopped, caught her breath, and made her way away from the scene at a slower pace.

She didn't know why Mara went from being rather reasonable to immediately threatening to kill her. Maddie was usually more keen to let a situation progress before she threatens to open fire on someone. She decided not to worry too much about it though, Mara was just another person left who was paranoid and violent. They all had to be in order to make it this far. Or at least, she thought so.

Maddie felt very warm, not just from the running that she had just done. She was definitely running a fever. She sighed. Fantastic time to get sick, just as the game is wrapping up. She doubted her chances of actually making it out of the game alive at this point.

A terrible way to go, to get this far on smarts and some luck and then just die to someone because you're too sick to defend yourself.

She resolved to herself that she wasn't going to go out like that, she would keep fighting and surviving until the bitter end. She's given up too much to turn back now and just give up. She needed to survive, for her friends, for everyone who died. She needed to make sure something good came out of all of this in the end.

Madeline Wilcox would win and survive, she told herself.

She would survive.

((Madeline Wilcox continued in Goodnight))

She ran.

"Good," she said to herself.

Mara sat down in the dirt with her back against the wall. The fire was beginning to consume the building. Madeline has asked about the incident with Hansel and she responded with the truth; she didn't know. She had thought about it before, but not with much depth. He existed, but almost in a separate world. Most everyone was like that. She was aware of them existing having gone to school with them all for a number of years, but ones that didn't affect her directly or that she didn't see felt a bit less real.

In truth, she had no idea what Hansel was like. Maybe he wouldn't be so generous now and Madeline had given her a valuable warning. What did she remember about him? Any information about a deadly fellow finalist would be priceless information. Any insight into whoever was left could be life saving, especially someone with such a high body count.

Mara leaned with her head against the wall, throat exposed and eyes closed towards the sky which was being invaded with smoke.




Her first memory was gazing from the closet shutters, in regular life the image would hold the echo of a voyeur. It was dark; ironic for a lighthouse. The darkness tinted her memories a fuzzy purple with the faint light of the moon coming in through the windows.

She came out and got a clearer look. He looked surprised, muttered "Jesus" and put a hand up to his heart. In deep, resonating tones he told her that there was a lot of things to be afraid of, but he wasn't one of them. Maybe it was a lie to try and lower her guard. He wasn't relaxed or cunning looking, rather he looked tense and formal. Was it to distance himself from her? She took his hand. His calloused, crooked fingers were mismatched in hers, but they were warm. It was the last time she would feel that kind of warmth. Her hand in his left hand and a gun in his right.

He didn't trust her? So, he wasn't stupid after all. Dark brown eyes like hers. They reminded her of teddy bear eyes.

What else? What else....

She reached up and put a hand around his thick neck, brushing past scratchy curls at the nape. After pushing herself up onto tip-toes she had him on her lips for a moment. A second of shock passed. She felt a blush radiate from him onto her at the close distance. He slid his baseball mitt hand down to the small of her back, holding her possessively with fingers digging into her lightly.

"It was for real," she said as her brow un-furrowed and her shoulders sank down.

Her fingers felt light, like the blood had been drained from them. He pulled away for a moment. A bit of embarrassment registered as she remembered unbuttoning her shirt and pulling him back. Her chest was tight enough against his to feel his racing heart. His collar was in her hand, her hand before it was cut up. They moved together, touching and sighing. This was where the snow globe came in.

Wasn't it?

In the movie reel in her mind there was no snow globe. Her fingers hooked into the waist of his jeans. She couldn't stop smiling. Token hesitation on his part for an instant. A good Christian boy.

Such a good boy.

They hit the floor. There was a pleasant symmetry as they both worked at undoing buttons on the other. Skin on skin, a bashful grin. She looked up from her work.


And saw Mike over her, bleeding everywhere with her hand jamming glass into his throat.



Mara's eyes flew open. "That's enough." The dream was over and she was returned to her horrible pit of fire and misery.


(Amaranta Monalvo continued in Tears in the Rain))