Survival Of The Fittest

((Amanda Tan's pregame start))

Sumac Park wasn't too far from Amanda's house and closer than most other green spaces nearby.  As a result, it had become part of her favorite jogging routes, for those rare occasions where she actually did have the time to jog.  With the winter season behind her, Amanda had found that she had a little more time for her own training.

She'd made it out of the house early that morning, stuffing her phone and keys hastily into her pockets, her earphones blaring a playlist that featured a little too much Taylor Swift for her current self's liking, but her past self could carry all the blame for that one. In any case it wasn't all that dislikable, and if she were to update her song list, she'd probably manage to turn that into a couple hour project. Not a job she really fancied doing any time soon.

There was just enough light for a good run, and the streets were still largely quiet. It was for the better she got her run in now in any case, so she'd have some free time in the afternoon. Not like she had plans at the moment, but more free time was always a good thing.

The green fields of Sumac park were welcoming, the temperature still cool from the early morning, a light dew blanketing the fields around her, small lights glistening in the morning sun. Sumac was often regarded duller than Liberty, but it was times like this where Amanda really appreciated the greenery of the park. Better than the gray and brown shrubs that dotted the landscape anyway.

Amanda took in the landscape for a little longer as she wandered towards her target, which was standing near a set of concrete benches. The vending machine was one of the older ones in Sumac, a light grey tingeing its white shell, and though it tended to be a little less well stocked than she liked, there was little point dragging a drink all the way out here if she could get herself a mid-run pickup right-

"Oh come on. You've gotta be kidding me," she said, patting down the pockets of her sweatpants. No wallet. Not even a couple coins. Nope, she was flat out broke right now. Good job, Amanda, good job.

((Raina Rose continued from 4649お願いします!))

Raina wasn't normally one for getting up too early, between her medication and the passionate love affair she had been carrying on with her pillow ever since chronic insomnia had invaded her life and reminded her just how nice it was to be able to sleep comfortably. She was still adjusting to the new dosage, though, and had been waking up earlier in the morning lately. It was more like getting an early start to the day than having to toss and turn for a few hours until she could pretend that it was a reasonable hour to be up, but it disrupted her personal schedule all the same.

So that was why she was awake. The reason why she was out and about so early, on a weekend to boot, was a little harder to determine. There was a restlessness that she'd been feeling lately, deep down in her bones, or her soul, or some part of her that didn't usually see the light of day like that. She'd rationalized that this wasn't sneaking out, really, since her dad had been called in to work somewhere around the neighborhood of 5 AM that morning, and her mom wouldn't be up for a few more hours and was unlikely to go checking in on Raina's room once she was anyway.

Besides all of that, it had been a good while since she went stargazing, and the sky was nice and clear right then and the sun hadn't quite breached the horizon, so she'd headed to the park. Nobody was around that she could see, but she didn't feel like standing around in the open or trying to find a dry patch of grass. Instead, she stood on one of the benches and heaved herself onto a low branch in the closest tree. It took more effort than it maybe should have; hard to contest her parents' assertions that she should be more active and maybe go to the gym or something every once in a while at times like these. On the other hand, it was hard for them to argue with the fact that she didn't care about going to the gym at all and it wasn't like they could take her there and try to force her to use the stairmaster or anything.

So Raina sat in the tree for a while and picked out the constellations that she recognized until the sun slid up into view and the stars faded away, and then she just sort of sat there for a while longer and thought about nothing in particular. She could have gone on like that until she either got too uncomfortable sitting on the branch or her phone rang to signal that someone had actually realized she was out of the house, if nothing else had caught her attention. (Un)Fortunately, it seemed that someone else had decided to go for an early morning jog or something. It looked like someone vaguely familiar, so Raina leaned over a bit for a look, and, well. Everyone knows what happens when you go around tempting gravity like that.

She didn't have time for much more than a jolt of that stomach-plummeting sensation that you get when you're about to fall, and a muffled "Oof!" when she dropped several feet into the damp grass.

Amanda didn't have much time to think further about her coinless plight, the far too familiar sound of a person meeting the ground in a violent fashion interrupting any progress on that front.

She turned to see the source of the noise, a figure lying at the foot of a nearby tree, looking for all the world like a the victim of a particularly inept murderer.  From this distance, it wasn't too hard to tell who the figure was, the blue hair an almost complete giveaway.

Raina was a friend from school. Okay, perhaps friend didn't exactly fit the bill, but that was the closest word she could think of, barring some hipster portmanteaus that she'd rather not even know existed.  In any case, while they weren't best pals, Amanda wasn't about to ignore the fact that she'd fell out of a tree, making a quick sprint across the wet grass towards the girl.

"You alright, Raina?" Amanda asked. Checking for consciousness was the first and only first aid step that Amanda could remember. Granted, that step seemed completely unnecessary given the oof that Raina had made after impact, but it still seemed like a helpful thing to do.

"The heck are you doing in a tree at 6 am in the morning?"

Okay, that question was much less helpful, but her curiosity, much like her actual thirst, needed to be quenched.

"Guh," was the very eloquent and helpful explanation Raina offered in response. The wind had been knocked out of her for a minute, so she had plenty of time to feel all the moisture from the grass soaking into her clothes and generally making things much more unpleasant than they had been previously. Once she got her breath back, she pushed herself up with a scowl, sitting back on her heels. This was why she didn't go outdoors.

She supposed she could appreciate Amanda's concern; she'd have been more annoyed if she'd gone and fallen out of a tree and nobody reacted to see if she was okay. "Came out to look at the stars and junk," she muttered. She tried to brush off some of the wet grass now clinging to her legs, but that just made it stick to her fingers.

Amanda being here wasn't that much of a surprise, she was just the sort to turn out to be a morning person who liked getting up and doing things at unreasonable hours. Who goes for a jog before the sun's even up? At least Raina was out doing something that required it being dark.

"You out here by yourself?"

Raina was okay. That was good.  Still, the ground was damp enough to soak through Amanda's shoes and she wasn't keen on staying there much longer. Raina would probably be feeling much worse than that mild discomfort too.

"Ugh. Let's get  to the pavement. No point standing around in the wet grass for any longer than we need to, right?" Amanda said, heading back towards the pavement. "It's starting to get a bit too bright for stars anyway, isn't it?"

The sky was starting to turn a vivid shade of orange in the distance. While the moon was still visible, only the brightest stars still remained visible. Amanda wasn't really into astronomy, in any case. She could maybe guess at Venus, and that was about it. Not  a topic she really wanted to talk about for very long, especially since Raina seemed to know a thing or two about it.

"Anyway, it's just me here today. It's quite hard to find people willing to wake up at 5 on a weekend to go out on a jog, you know?" she said, half-jokingly. A jogging partner was a nice idea, but she'd never actually gone round looking for one. For one thing, Amanda liked to keep her jogs as a spontaneous choice, to run whenever she felt like it. Having someone to run with her would make it an obligation, and that was a bit too much for her.

"So, have you been here a while?" Amanda asked, putting her hands into her jacket pockets absent-mindedly. Still devoid of coins, of course. "It's quite rare to see you up and out at a time like this."

"Been out for an hour or so, I guess. It was darker when I first came out." Raina stood and followed Amanda to the pavement, shaking herself a bit to rid her clothes of some of the looser grass and water droplets. Lucky that the day was going to get warm pretty quickly once the sun came up, otherwise she'd be miserable.

"Yeah, I don't normally get up this early. Just felt like going around and doings something different today." She shrugged, not really caring to offer more of an explanation than that. Only a select few people needed to know about her insomnia and all the other issues that stemmed from it. Amanda wasn't one of those people.

"Is this the usual for you, though? Seems like your style, I guess. Going out early and all that."

"Guess it does sound like me, doesn't it? Didn't really plan to be up, but it's quite hard for me to get more sleep on the weekends. I find myself waking up at the same bloody time everyday whether I like it or not." Amanda flung her hands up in the air in mock defeat.

"Anyway, since I'm up, I feel like I might as well do something. It feels like such a waste to do nothing with the time, ya know? I feel like I'd waste away if I just spend too long doing nothing."  Amanda shrugged at her own statement, finding herself distracted by the vending machine once more. She could always wait to get a drink back home, or even just use one of the water fountains here. Yes, the fountains were a decent replacement for a drink. If only they'd installed water coolers in the park. That would have eliminated her need for a cool drink in the first place.

"So how are things going on your end? Things are starting to get busy lately, aren't they?" Amanda asked.

((Maria Cucinotta continued from Let's Get Cooking!))

"I just can't get you outta my head, boy your love is all I think about..." Maria paused the song briefly and dug in her pockets to find some cash. Although early, there were still a good few people hanging around the park, which didn't really surprise her to be honest. She yawned. Whilst normally, she'd still be asleep in bed, she'd woken up early and hadn't been able to get back to sleep. She fished out a few quarters and a five dollar bill, and paced up to the vending machine.

She fed the note in, only for the machine to whir and reject it. She growled, flattened it out and repeated the process. Finally, after much swearing, smoothing and some liberal hammering of the machine to vent her frustration, a Red Bull clanked to the plastic floor of the machine. Sighing, she picked it up and popped the tab. Just as she turned to walk down one of the many winding pathways that lead into the park, she spotted two girls from her school.

She smoothed out her shirt, one of the many 'Daddy's Little Monster' ones that had started to pop up ever since Suicide Squad was announced, and slipped her headphones down onto her shoulders. She looked at the two girls, willing her hungover and tired brain to remember something. The girl with the bright blue hair... Rena? Rain? Something R... Raina! That was it! Although the two barley knew each other, it was, in fact, Raina who had inspired the bright pink highlights currently streaking down her hair. She was, however one hundred percent sure she had no idea about this. The other girl was easy, as it was her friend Amanda.

She walked up to them and caught the end of Amanda's sentence, waiting a few seconds before inserting herself into the conversation. "Morning all, how're you all doing?"

Raina nodded along absently as Amanda talked, rolling her neck and shoulders to work out some of the stiffness that came with sitting in a tree during the early morning. "Yeah, end of the school year coming up, tests, thinking about college apps..." She glanced at the vending machine that Amanda kept eyeing and absently patted her pockets, but there was no loose change to be found. Probably for the best, she didn't need an energy drink or a soda this early in the morning.

Somebody was hanging around there too, and decided to make a beeline for Raina and Amanda when she spotted them. Maria or something, wasn't it? The chick with half a finger missing. Another reason for Raina to eat out instead of trying to cook for herself and Leila. House fires, losing limbs, the odd chance that whatever she threw into a pot might gain sentience and try to get revenge on the person who wronged it, in other words her. Kitchen Nightmares, indeed.

Raina briefly wondered if she'd ever have the opportunity to sic Gordon Ramsay on the home ec department at Cochise. She doubted he'd be able to do much there, considering the school's budget and general incompetence of everyone involved, student or faculty.

Anyway.

"Hey, Maria. It's... going, I guess. What are you doing up?"

"Ever heard the song 'Sex 'n Drugs 'n Rock and Roll?' Last night was the tamer verison, that being alcohol, groping and shitty pop music. A pretty typical party to be honest. As to why I'm up? Got drunk, didn't drink enough, woke up at four with my head feeling like someone's playing drum and bass inside of it..." She paused to take a sip from the can and continued. "Took... Three? I think three... Maybe two, can't quite recall... No, definitely three..." Maria faded out for a second, face creased in concentration before resuming her sentence. "Never mind. Took painkillers, found some clothes and walked outside to clear my head."

She stopped talking for a moment and sighed. "If I wasn't hammered, I'd be thinking up a new recipie, or researching for some fresh ones. I can't find anything original without hours and hours and hours of wasted time, copied recipes down to the gram and 'experimental' chefs creating culinary abominations like CHOCOLATE COVERED BEEF."  Her eyes darted back and forth between the two, and she giggled. "You don't want to hear about all of that though... Unless you do, in which case I have an entire YouTube channel dedicate..." She cut the sentence short. "Sorry, I babble a bit when I'm hungover." She turned to Amanda. "And what are you doing in the middle of Sumac Park at half-five?"

Raina's eyes had flickered away to stare at something in the distance, giving Amanda a sure sign that she didn't quite care for her personal opinion of early mornings. It was a fair enough opinion, Amanda had little more to say on the topic in any case.

Besides, the reason for Raina being distracted was clear as Maria arrived on the scene, a bottle of Red Bull in hand, the sickly sweet scent unmistakable from this distance. Amanda failed to completely conceal a frown when she noticed the can that Maria was holding. Sure enough, Red Bull was complete schlock and she'd probably have a horrible crash if she were to drink it, but a disappointment of a drink still felt like it was going to be better than nothing. Okay, wait she was pining for Red Bull. She was going to need a drink soon, or she was going to go crazy. But borrowing money would probably be awkward, especially given Raina around. She seemed judgey enough that borrowing money in front of her wouldn't be the best thing to do.

"Heya!" Amanda said, waving at Maria. "Up early too? We were just talking about life and stuff, you know the usual kinda chit chat. I was just about to head to the fountains in a sec, how 'bout you?" she asked.

((Rea Adams, continued from The Library is the Powerhouse of the Student))

Ah, the sunrise. a symbol of beginnings, a symbol of light, a symbol of life itself, and other artistic wank any of her parent's friends could go on about for months without shutting up. Rea could appreciate the beauty of art, but believed that anyone looking for deeper meaning in something was just being pretentious. Sure, coming from her that might be a bit hypocritical, but nevertheless-

"CHOCOLATE COVERED BEEF!"

What the hell was that? Why was someone shouting about a horrifically misguided dessert at the top of their lungs? From the sound of it, the noise was coming from elsewhere in the Sumac Park. As Rea strode over to investigate, she saw three girls chatting, but it was Raina, the only one she recognised, that caught her attention. She was someone Rea was fairly certain suffered from insomnia, as she had often seen her around late at night. The other two she was fairly certain she'd seen around the school, though it was hard to be sure.

Rea was still mulling over the events that transpired in the library. Specifically the fact that, from what she'd heard around the school, she had inadvertently made a mortal enemy in the form of Asha Sur. Suddenly realising these three were wearing vaguely similar outfits to Asha's, she panicked. Did they know each other? Surely there must be more than one goth crowd at the school, she was just being paranoid. Still, that's not what her legs believed, practically carrying her away from the trio, walking hastily but attempting to appear casual.

Don't notice me, don't notice me, please don't notice me

Wow, okay, Maria just came right out and said all that. No filter here, that was for sure. Raina knew about Maria's partying reputation of course, there were few people in their grade who didn't, but sheesh. She didn't party much herself, but if Maria's account was anything to go by, she shouldn't feel particularly deprived for missing out on that bit of social interaction.

Sorting through everything that had just tumbled out of Maria's mouth, Raina latched onto the first interesting thing that occurred to her. "You have a YouTube channel?" Wait, damn, she'd probably just invited more non-sequiturs. And frankly, that was the least concerning thing Maria had actually said, considering the drinking too much and losing track of how many painkillers she'd taken...

Guh, it was way too early for this. She didn't need to reinforce the misconception that she knew all about health just because her parents were doctors by butting into Maria's unhealthy habits, either.

Raina's attention was drawn away from the conversation once again though, this time by some other chick trying to hurry past them like she was smuggling drugs or something. Was she? Seemed vaguely more likely than a bunch of her classmates suddenly becoming morning people.

"Uhm, hey? You need something?"

Fantastic.

So, she'd just been spotted. Great. Probably because she wasn't trying to "act casually" hard enough; a somewhat paradoxical effort. She froze as someone called out to her. It was Raina, the suspected fellow insomniac.

"Uh, no, I, just, uh- Why, do you, uh, do you need something?" Because if her insane stuttering like a crazy person didn't look casual, then she didn't know what did.

So there were a few ways this could go down. All with varying amounts of actually being possible and not just paranoia-fuelled madness. The first of which being that she would accidentally offend this goth crowd, and end up being mobbed by them. Yes, that was a very serious concern, and had nothing to do with being paranoid. Nothing at all.

The second of which being that these three would be good friends of Asha's, who would then recognise her as the girl who deeply insulted Asha, and then proceed to being mobbing her. Sure, the chance that these three actually knew Asha was low, and even if they did, the talk she'd overheard from others had only described her as being "mildly pissed" after their encounter in the library, but it never hurt to be careful. Yes, being careful. Not paranoid, "careful".

She could try running away. But considering the fact that running even a small distance caused her to collapse on the ground, this would probably just lead to her being mobbed, just unconscious for the duration of it.

There was a fourth option she could consider, though. Trying to actually talk to them, and not behaving like a paranoid schizophrenic who believed the entire world was out to get her.

Yeah, that could work.

Even if it didn't, she could always try running, anyway.

((So maybe someone didn't expect to be skipped over and just posted their last post blindly. Sorry for not reading carefully! Skipping ahead to help Spin out))

Maria had talked about parties before, but that wasn't quite up Amanda's alley. Sure she knew who went for these sorts of parties, and she was friends with a good number of them, but finding herself covered in puke god knows where wasn't exactly her idea of a fun time, no matter how much movies tried to glamorise it.

Not that Maria wasn't fun to have around, but today, it felt like it was infringing on what she had expected to be a quiet  morning in the park. It wasn't bad in any case just- Wait, what? Chocolate covered beef?

"Oh my gosh. Not that again. We all know that was never a good idea." Maria had shown her a video before, and while some people seemed to like it, it just made Amanda kind of queasy. Chocolate just wasn't something that went well with
meat, and if it tasted as weird as it looked...

"Hmmn? You haven't seen her channel before?" Answering Raina's question helped her distract herself from the horrors of grotesque desserts for a moment. "The channels's pretty cool, though I'm not to keen on some of the more eclectic dishes there I mean, I'm more of a traditional style cooking kinda girl myself," Amanda said, but Raina was already turning her attention elsewhere. Amanda found herself mildly ticked off depsite herself, twice in five minutes was perhaps a little too much to be accidental, even if the girl passing by was more than enough distraction. Not in that kinda way, but the lanky looking girl was doing her best not to be spotted while passing them by.

Raina greeted the girl who had been staring in their direction, and received a response stuttered so much as to be barely intelligible. The girl looked a mess, seemingly one part nervousness, one part not having slept in what looked like half a decade. Amanda's mind was already busy jumping to several mutually exclusive but generally unflattering conclusions.

"You're from Cochise, right? Is anything wrong?" Amanda asked.