Survival Of The Fittest

"We probably shouldn't check that out."

((Matt Vartoogian continued from since when have I had my backend done at the time of posting))

The resonating bangs from somewhere nearby were a grim reminder of what was to come. Matt and Finn had hurried their way down here as quickly as they could after leaving the park. Finn's new spear worked wonders on their speed, and they'd holed themselves up before sundown, passing the time with relatively trite conversation. Nothing too heavy, too serious. Despite the levity of the conversations they maintained through the night, Matt could sense that Finn was different. He'd changed his demeanor, tone, just about everything after Mara had left them, and Matt had a feeling he knew where Finn's head was.

He was still the strategist. He'd kept them both alive this long, even if he only meant to keep himself alive. Maybe.

Eventually they went to different rooms to pass out, only to be awakened once more by the grating voice gleefully announcing the deaths of more of his peers. Just over 20 left. Probably less than twenty with the nearby gunfire. Mara's killing of Stacey was conveniently left off the list, despite the fact that it had clearly happened the day before. How much had the terrorists tampered with time stamps before? Not that it really mattered; who could expect integrity in any of this?

So Matt and Finn continued hiding out in one of the apartment buildings. They'd be able to hear if someone approached, so they were safe. Unless someone threw a grenade through the window or something, but that would require them to somehow know they were there. Which would be hard to do from the ground three stories below.

"Hopefully the others will be forced to come to us eventually," Matt continued. "Everyone left is left for a reason. Anyone not out for blood has to have some other trick up their sleeve."

((Finn Grant continued from Caught in a Moment))

Finn didn't know why he even bothered to listen to the announcements anymore. All it was now was just a list of names he didn't care about. Although, he did find it interesting to find out who had outlasted who. At this point in the game, everyone who was left were on par with Finn, they were all survivors. They were all better than the jocks and the rest of the popular group who had died. It put into perspective how each and everyone of his classmates were equal, and that popularity didn't count for shit in a place like this.

One thing Finn did find curious about the announcement was the lack of Mara's and Stacy's names. For some reason they had decided to leave out the incident between the two of them that had happened yesterday. It made him wonder what the terrorists motivations around this could be. Perhaps it was just to do with the time of the day that it happened and they cut off deaths after a certain point.

The thought of Mara got Finn thinking about the decision he had made yesterday. Now that he had time to think about it and was in a better state of mind, he started to question if he should go through with what he had planned. He'd been angry yesterday and he had wanted to prove Mara wrong, but when push came to shove could Finn actually kill someone? It wasn't even like it would be just a random person, it would be someone who he had spent a good chunk of his life at school with - someone who he knew. However, it wasn't like he had a choice whether to start killing or not. It was kill or be killed and Finn knew for sure he wasn't going to sit around and wait for someone to kill him. As Finn had thought yesterday when going through if Matt would join him in his plan, if he didn't start killing then he might as well just off himself now, because if he didn't kill then he couldn't win.

Finn's thoughts were interrupted when Matt began to speak. Finn looked up at Matt and nodded.

"Good, it will make it easier for us then."

It was then that Finn remembered that he still hadn't asked Matt if he would be willing to join him in his decision to start playing. Hopefully Finn's comment would make something click in Matt's mind and it would lead into an easy conversation about it. Well, perhaps 'easy' wasn't the right word, it would all depend on how Matt would react.

Finn's gruff response was nothing more than a continuation of how he'd been for the past day. Sterner, more grave, this new Finn was someone Matt hadn't fully expected to come out, especially not so quickly.

Theo had gone farther in even less time.

"Everything's about making it easier for us, in the end," Matt responded. "Every action each of us has taken over the past 10 days is going to come full circle. I'm happy not to have made any enemies up till now."

Finn rolled his eyes at Matt's response. He didn't know if Matt was just being extremely naive or extremely stupid. He didn't actually think that the only people who would want to kill him would be any enemies he'd made on the island did he? Had he not listened to any of the announcements? Had he not heard who had killed who?

"You're an idiot if you believe that the only people you have to worry about are your 'enemies'." Finn replied with a hint of venom in his voice. "Do you think that half the people Hansel or Katarina killed were their enemies? No, they weren't. They were just morons who got in their way. They were people they killed in order for them to win, not people who they had any personal vendettas against, just normal, innocent people. Well, for the most part innocent; there aren't many people left who you could class as 'innocent' anymore."

Taking a moment to pause, Finn stared into Matt's eyes. Matt hadn't given the response Finn was hoping for. It would appear that Finn was going to have to spell out his decision for Matt instead of a subtle hint that he was hoping would lead into a discussion about it. With a sigh, Finn began to speak.

"Look, there's gotta only be around twenty of us left now, which means only about nineteen people have to die until someone wins."

Finn paused again, trying to think how he was going to put what he was going to say next. Clearing his throat, Finn continued to speak.

"So... because there are so few of us left, I think it would be a good idea if we started playing. It would help speed up the process and get this thing over with, and plus we have to kill at least one person if we want to get out of here anyway."

As Finn stopped talking, he started chewing on his bottom lip and stared at the ground. He was nervous to see Matt's reaction to what he had just said; this could potentially be the end of their alliance. Whilst wringing his hands together, Finn waited for Matt to respond.  

Matt didn't understand why Finn got so aggressive so quickly. Tensions were high at this point, and he was feeling the stress, the fear, too. He had been the entire time. The constant logical overrides on under riding emotions kept him relatively sane, but that nagging feeling at the back of his head, that he was going to die at any moment, had always persisted. Still, they were allies at this point, and Finn needed to cool it.

And then Finn suggested that they start "playing." Matt hated that word still. From day one, this hadn't felt like a game, because it wasn't. They weren't "playing" anything. They were surviving. Just like he had been this entire time.

"I was wondering when you were going to say that," Matt responded. "And no, I don't think we need to start killing yet."

Matt paused for a second, trying to figure out how to construct his words in a way that made sense. He'd held the same logic for so long that he should have been able to make it roll off the tongue with perfect ease, but for some reason he couldn't.

"Or rather, maybe I should say we shouldn't go out of our way to kill people. If someone gets near us, I'm okay lighting them up at this point – I think the time for diplomacy's past. However, I don't think we're going to speed up the process by going out and hunting people. Enough people are gonna do that for us – hell, Jaq was doing it like day 2. We probably have two days left regardless of what we do. Our number one priority needs to be on staying alive and saving our resources. And making sure we can fight when it matters."

Matt didn't know about Hansel's missing fingers or KK's beaten state. He'd only seen the damage done to those he'd encountered, the worst of which was Finn's leg. Well, that was the worst physical damage. Who knew what demons they were all carrying at this point.

Finn started to feel optimistic as Matt began to give his response to Finn's plan. Matt wasn't outraged at the idea and he was apparently expecting Finn to bring it up at some point. This led Finn to believe that Matt had previously thought of playing and he'd possibly even join Finn in doing so. However, as Matt continued, Finn's hope of him agreeing with him quickly diminished.

Clenching his jaw, Finn's eyes darted back up to Matt as he explained his decision that they should stay, as Finn would sum it up as being, neutral. Since waking up on the island, Finn's patience had been declining bit by bit each day, whilst his frustration and anxiety had been steadily growing. If this had been several days ago, Finn would have happily listened to Matt's perfectly diplomatic counter argument. However, today Matt's reasoning was sounding more like a lecture to Finn, and it was grating on his nerves. Finn had always hated not getting things his own way, though he'd never gone out of his way to try and sway things back in his favour. Nevertheless, today was a different story; Finn wasn't going to take no for an answer. Whilst shaking his head, Finn ran his tongue across his teeth and smirked.

"If you think I'm just going to sit around here and wait for someone to sneak up with the intentions of killing me then you've got another thing coming. If we're not hunters then we're prey, and I tell you now I'm not gonna fucking be the prey."

The longer Finn spoke, the louder his voice got until it was verging on being a shout.  Grabbing his bag and spear, Finn stormed over to the doorway.

"If you want to waste your time hiding in buildings and waiting for Hansel, or Katarina, or Travis, or anyone else to barge in guns blazing then be my guest, but I'm not dying like that. I'm gonna go out there and I'm going to fucking win this thing so I can go home, and if you're not with me then you're against me."

Without waiting for Matt to respond, Finn turned on his heels and marched out the door. Finn was walking at such a pace that it was beginning to hurt his wounded leg, but Finn ignored the pain and carried on.

((Finn Grant continued in Multishot))

Matt froze as Finn's voice grew louder. Shit fuck what even the hell was this? Finn was supposed to be a level-headed ally. He was supposed to be smart. Why was he so emotional now? He couldn't respond; he couldn't do anything but tense up as he realized that Finn might turn against him and holy shit what the fuck was he going to do. Luckily it never came to that.

When Finn started to walk away, Matt's breathing slowed a bit. His heart rate began to drop down to normal. His anxiety dropped down closer to the normal on-edge state he was always in.

"If you leave, you're going to die. I'm not coming with you!"

It didn't matter. It didn't do anything. Finn left, just like Bri, Jesse, Chris, and Ben had. Like Garrett and Bella had. And where were they now? All dead. Well, Bella was still alive, maybe. Girl probably wouldn't last much longer, though. Matt didn't have much faith in her. Now he was alone, again, curled up in a ball at the foot of a foreign bed and left to his own thoughts. Those thoughts were probably the worst things he could have to deal with at this point.

Did he really have a chance to survive this? He had thought so on day 1, and the fact that they were down to about twenty people meant that he had a good shot, right? He was unscathed, decently armed, with more than enough food and water to last the rest of the time. He was a tactician by training; his shot calling was one of his biggest strengths in League of Legends, and had propelled him to the very pinnacle of skill in that game. Still, Hansel, Katarina, how many kills did they have together? More than 10% of the people who'd come on this trip, probably. Mara had shown that she had no hesitation in killing and had the will to survive. Fuck, even Joe Carrasco had managed to kill multiple times since Matt had encountered him, and there was no way in hell those were all accidents.

Joe Carrasco could bring himself to kill someone, but Matt Vartoogian couldn't. He could only make excuses that he was stalling for strategic reasons for so long. He didn't want to be the hand that ended a life.

But then what had he done with Jaq? Sure, it was Garrett who put the knife in her, but he'd condoned the action. He'd told him to go through with it. His name had stayed off the announcements, but he was no less innocent. He'd killed Jaq. He'd killed every person whose death put him one person closer to going home.

No, he couldn't think like that. This was the terrorists' fault. They'd killed them. It wasn't his fault. It wasn't Hansel's. It wasn't Kat's. It wasn't Mara's. It was the terrorists. He couldn't lose sight of that. Oh, but it was so easy to. Every day, every moment living in fear of inevitable death, knowing that everyone else has to die for you to live. Knowing that it has to be by your hand at some point. That it has been by the hand of those you've known for so long. It was so easy to lose sight of that. The tools start to look like they have agency when you're one of the tools.

He had to start thinking about something else, something that would keep him away from the proverbial edge. Thinking about his family didn't help. He could hear his brother calling him a self-centered, lazy asshole. He could hear the disappointment in his parent's voices about what he wanted to do with his life. Even though they'd always been great about supporting him, he knew he was letting them down.

League, think about League, maybe that will work. It was hard to think about, though. He hadn't played in a while. Had a new patch come out while they were out here? Had there been major roster shifts in the competitive scene? Questions, but no way to get answers. He could mentally replay some of his favorite moments, but that was about it. It did little to help.

What was worse, this, or finding someone at this point?

((Matt Vartoogian continued elsewhere))