Survival Of The Fittest

Click.

“Fuck.”

Click.

“Fuck.”

Click.

B061 - Oliver Lacroix: START

Oliver gave a satisfied grin as a burst of flame rose in front of his face. Thankfully, that old shitty lighter hadn't given up yet. Small mercies and all that jazz. Of course, he was still having the worst day of his life, but, hey, at least they had enough decency remaining to leave behind the pack of smokes while going through his stuff. Well, most of it, anyway - he could have sworn that the box didn't feel nearly that light when he put it back in his bag yesterday. Ah well, you win some, you lose some. That's life.

Speaking of losing though, this was certainly it, no question. Thousands of classes were going on their senior trip, and he happened to be part of the single one that got picked. What were the betting odds on that? He took a drag on his cigarette as trudged through the sand. It seemed like every other month that Dad would bring up how he had the opportunity to bet money on Canon winning the election at 1:100 odds, always talking of it in the tone of a fisherman describing the one who got away. Maybe there was some asshole back home who'd spend the next several years bitching about how he could have been kicking back on a yacht right now if only he had bet on George Hunter instead of Signal Mountain.

If Oliver ever got out of here alive, he'd definitely be the first one to punch that guy in the face.

His hand idly wandered to his pocket as he walked, gripping a hard metallic object. He took his cigarette out of his mouth as he pulled it out, turning it around in his hands. One quick flip, and it was open, the steel blade glinting in the sunlight. The thought of its sharp point penetrating the body of one of his classmates sent a chill down his spine.

Man, this was so messed up. That presentation they gave...if this was the first time this thing had happened, there'd be some room for doubt about whether or not the class would play along. As things were, however, it was fairly obvious how this was going to play out. Oliver may not have been the best student in the world, but he wasn't stupid. Judging by the events of the previous "seasons" of this fiasco, it was only a matter of time where the only thing standing between him and Death's skeletal boner was the tiny piece of metal in his hand. He swallowed hard as he flipped the blade closed and returned it to his pocket, putting up a hand to his eyes to shield them from the sunlight as he stared down the beach.

His attention was caught by the sight of what looked like some sort of rest area up ahead. It wasn't much to look at, but honestly, neither was anything else on this beach. He approached the fence cautiously, taking a look around. The place was quiet, a little too quiet for his liking. Still, there couldn't be any harm in just checking the place out. He threw the remains of his smouldering cancer stick onto the ground as he secured his black duffel bag around his shoulders. His fingers hooked themselves in between the chain loops of the fence, and he began to climb.

Jessica Rennes had been lost in the wilds since the moment she woke up. She looked at her map, double and triple checking every possible place she could have been, and at some point she just picked a direction and started walking. But Jessica was not a natural hiker, and so the minutes of walking turned into hours, and by the time she'd been spat out at the beach she was exhausted and not particularly ready for the sun.

She couldn't believe this - it was almost literally unbelievable, the fact that she could possibly end up on Survival of the Fittest. And it wasn't just her, it wasn't just her classmates who were there, but her sister and her girlfriend were there as well. She had no idea where they were, or how they were coping with the unfairness of it all, but they weren't with Jessica so there was nothing she could do for them.

Jessica didn't know what she was going to do, because how do you even plan for something like this? Was she going to hide? Was she going to find her friends and hide with them to keep safe? Was she going to give up? No, definitely not, Jessica was not somebody who gave up in the face of anything - if she'd given up when things got tough, she wouldn't be where she was. Of course, the idea floated through her mind that if she had given up at some point, maybe she wouldn't have ended up on Survival of the Fittest, but she literally had no way of knowing because she wasn't psychic.

The beach was empty, but not of people. She saw someone in the distance, who looked like they were heading over the fence towards what had to have been an exclusive area. A twinge of shock escaped Jessica's lips, aghast at the emboldened rule flaunting, but it took a few moments for Jessica to remember that the people who owned the island were long gone, and the fence was just a relic of a time when rules mattered. Still, whoever they were, there was a chance they weren't going to come after her. People were mostly good, so the odds were in her favour, even in her current predicament.

She almost set off into a run, but Jessica remembered what happened last time she tried running while shouldering a bag with a metal bear trap inside it when she woke up a few hours ago - the momentum swung against her and she was hip-checked by her own bag into a tree, which would have been embarrassing if anyone else was around and potentially dangerous had she fallen wrong, and in her years she had seen many people fall wrong. So rather than running, she strode quickly but purposefully across the sand to the boy making his way up the fence.

"Hey!"

As she got closer, it occurred to Jessica she hadn't really thought of a follow-up to that. Inane smalltalk was good for passing time at school, but maybe it'd just make people angry if she asked how they were, or how they were feeling, or what they thought of things. Still, she couldn't leave the air empty, so she chose the safest one.

"...is there anything in there?"

((B083 - DIEGO LARROSA - START))

Diego lay on his side as the waves reached to swallow him, and he stayed still, eyes fixed on the sea that stretched before him. It was the physical manifestation of the stories Ma would tell Diego back when he was young, before going to sleep, when they both eventually tired of the five worn children's books they owned. She had told him that her homeland, the Philippines, smelled of salt on breezy days. She told him of the humid air, how it seemed to stick to one's skin on hot summer days. And despite having been alive for 18 years, those tales had remained just that, tales of a far-away land. Until now.

He wondered which home he was closest to right now. The one of his mother's stories or the one he knew?

They had tucked Diego under the decking, as if he were a dark secret, an old shame they needed to hide. The sentiment was shared, to be honest. And he did not wish to be uncovered. Not when exposure to the outside meant death, possibly. He had a shovel with him, and if he thought hard enough, maybe he could make a metaphor out of it, connect it to being uncovered, dug up. You could make a metaphor out of anything given enough time. He didn't feel like thinking about it, though. Just the sea was enough for him.

He had laid there for hours, looking at the sea, listening to the waves. They seemed to approach closer, and yet he stayed. It felt nice, lying on the sand. If he lived long enough, maybe the waves of panic and regret and despair would envelop him, but for now, they didn't. He didn't want them to. And maybe they didn't have to. He preferred these physical waves, right here. The spray hit his face, freshened it, almost. If he stayed here, let them swallow him up, he could go simply, quietly, with no pain. It felt too nice to wake up, too soothing. His eyelids grew heavy, opening and closing slower and slower...

Voices rang from above him, and instinctively, he sat up, banging his head on a wooden beam.

A groan of pain emanated from underneath the floorboards.

Oliver felt a leap in his chest, the familiar surge of adrenaline resulting from being caught in the act of doing something that he wasn't supposed to. Of course, nobody ever actually said that the area beyond the fence was out of bounds, but that hardly mattered. The place had the ever-enticing aura of forbiddeness that always seemed to spring from the combination of neglect and high walls. If anything, the fact that it was located on an abandoned island filled with soon-to-be murderers made it even more interesting than the abandoned factories and office buildings that he was used to crawling around in.

A grin spread across his face as he reached the top of the fence, pulling himself into a seated position on top, looking down at the small girl who had just approached him. She was cute, no doubt about that, but from what he remembered, she suffered from a terminal case of what he would describe as "being boring as all hell". Anyway, even if he could get past the personality, the fact that she had a girlfriend meant that he wouldn't have had a shot with her anyway. Good thing too, because if he had to stick around to listen to her ask pointless questions for the rest of his life, he'd probably end up in a mad dash to steal the nearest gun and shoot himself, or shoot her, or shoot her and then himself, whatever the protocol was for doing things around here. How could she expect him to know if anything was in there if he hadn't even been inside to find out?

Just as he was about to give a no doubt witty and sarcastic reply, the silence was broken by a loud groan coming from within the fenced off area. Without hesitation, he turned and jumped off from the top of the fence, giving a quiet grunt as he landed. His head swiveled around as he attempted to locate the source of the noise, calling out loudly to no direction in particular.

"Hey, is anyone here?"

A rush of nervous anticipation washed over him as he waited for a response. Now things were finally getting a little interesting.

Jessica didn't think she'd ever interacted with Oliver Lacroix before, but she knew of him - barely turning up, no grades to speak of, did stupid stuff when he was drunk at parties? Those phrases described basically half of their class, but Oliver was also practically a tiny loan shark. She would have reflected on his trustworthiness at this time, perhaps even asked those questions she always heard people asked at this point, but any and all potential socialization was interrupted by a low groan coming from within the place Oliver was currently breaking into.

Without hesitating, Jessica looked up and down the fence line for any other potential interlopers, or better yet an entrance that didn't make her feel like a criminal. Seeing no other option, she took her bag in her hands and tossed it over the fence, not waiting to watch it land near a crooning Oliver as she began quickly climbing up the chain links, eventually reaching the top, pulling herself over, and dropping herself to the ground. If she ever got to find Christina, she'd let her know that, yes, gymnastics did have a real world application, and it could come in useful here.

"I don't see anyone, where could they be?"

The Jessica of over a decade ago would have been convinced the voice they'd heard from seemingly nowhere was some sort of ghost or spectre, but she wasn't that naive. That said, she really couldn't think of where that voice would be coming from, since all she saw was chairs and carpet.

((They were supposed to be safe.))

Christine Bright knew the world was chaotic and unfair - that's why you had to fight, after all. Fight for a kinder, more just place for everyone to live. Nowhere was that more apparent than on Survival of the Fittest. Hundreds upon hundreds of teenagers, arbitrarily sentenced to death by terrorists with unclear motivations. There was no meaning in such a death, and no closure for the victim's loved ones.

SOTF was senseless, and sometimes it felt like a natural disaster - something that just happened once every few years; where raging against it would be futile as trying to hold back the ocean's rising tides. But it wasn't. It was willed into being by humans, and thus it had rules, hence the tasteless introduction they had all awoken to. Hopefully their teachers hadn't had enough time to realize what was going on. Even the illusion of hope had been denied to them, after all.

Like every other high schooler in the nation, Chris had held her breath and crossed her fingers as they settled into their DC trip. Sure, everyone on their bus was infinitely more likely to be killed by a car crash than a battle royale, but that wasn't quite as imagination-capturing. When they finally reached their destination, well, that was that. She was free to relax until graduation, free to live her life afterwards. She'd never once expected to be nabbed on the return trip. But, she supposed the terrorist's timing had never been a rule - just a pattern. Her fault for letting her guard down.

Her fault. Laughable. Like there was anything she could have done to prevent this. Chris was a teenage girl with a bright grin and some sick guns, that was all. Her fate had been sealed the moment she'd failed to fall deathly ill before the trip. Curse her righteous constitution.

Chris had been powerless then. But once she had woken up, and cleared away the terror cobwebs, and panicked a bit, she had sworn upon the singing fish in her bag that was the closest thing she had to a sword:

For as long as she lived, Christine Bright would not allow anyone within her sight to come to harm. It didn't matter if they were strangers or friends. People she loved or people she hated. She would protect them all the same, until her body failed her.

There was an obvious contradiction there - what if she had to brain some asshole with a brick to keep everyone else safe? She wouldn't worry about it. Oaths made upon a fish were made to be aspired to, not blindly followed.

Lucky for Oliver and Jessica, they happened to be the first people Chris saw, so they had a knight now, whether they liked it or not. There seemed to be a bit of a commotion, so she jogged over towards the fence, idly wrapping her fingers around the links.

"Dunno, but I'm right here! Hi!"

With that, Diego was fully and properly awake, a thought of I don't want to die striking him like lightning. He scrambled away from the waves, hitting his head on another beam, letting out another groan.

They had definitely heard that, whoever 'they' was. He counted three different voices, at least one of which he vaguely recognized, maybe two. The third voice he heard was high, perky, warm, familiar. He wanted to go to her.

Now that he had moved away from the waves of seawater, the first wave of panic started to overwash him, they want to kill you, it said, rapid inhales and exhales followed as he tried to stay afloat. And then regret, which always came last, too late, telling him he should have woken up earlier, crawled out as soon as he woke up. 20/20 hindsight, 20/100 foresight.

If anyone had a gun, they would've shot him already. If any one of them were playing, then they would have started attacking each other, right? People couldn't be teaming up this early, right?

Please?

The deck was wooden, they knew his location, probably. Bullets could go through the ceiling, through him, like paper. Whether or not he wanted to be found, it didn't matter, now that they knew he was here. The only thing he could control was how they found him. He did not want to be uncovered. But would he prefer they find him, or he find them? He had a shovel, not a gun. They could attack him, he couldn't attack them, in this position.

And who knows? Maybe one of them could be nice. The name of whomever that third voice belonged to was on the tip of his tongue, but he would think of it later, when it mattered more.

It was decided, more or less. He stopped breathing, swallowed, prepared himself.

"Down here!" he bellowed.

Damn, this place got crowded fast. A girl at the fence, another right behind him, and what sounded like a guy underneath the deck. It was a bit more company than he was usually used to while exploring, but he wasn’t about to complain. Oliver chuckled. Hell, just a couple more people (and ideally some drinks), and they’d have themselves a party over there. Not to say that they couldn’t have one with just four people but having to listen to Christine’s political soapboxing and Jessica’s...whatever it was she did didn’t at all sound like much of a good time.

Anyway, might as well keep the excitement going and go bring their remaining guest over. Why the guy was still hiding under the deck was a mystery, considering that he had announced his presence to everyone in the area. There was no way that he’d be able to kill anyone, not with that lack of subtlety. Was there some sort of buried treasure down there or something? Oliver gave a quick wave over to Chris before strolling over the deck, his jeans rustling as he bent down to look underneath.

It took several moments for his eyes to adjust to the darkness as the scanned around the crevice, finally meeting the eyes of the boy staring back at him. A mild sense of disappointment washed over him as he realized that he didn’t really know this guy that well either. Diego always seemed nice enough, though that was the extent of what Oliver knew of him, considering the two of them basically never talked. Still, that was no reason to be unfriendly. For all he knew, Diego would actually end up being pretty cool. Even in the worst case scenario, well...the dude was a shrimp. Any funny business, and Oliver would easily be able to put him down.

Oliver flashed a friendly smile as he extended a hand to the prone figure, trying his best to push the violent imagery out of his mind.

“Hey buddy. You gonna come out and join us or are you planning to hide under here all day?”

((Female Student #79: Stephanie McDonald - GAME START))

Stephanie looked her nails once more. She'd finally decided on the shade to use: purple. In the back of her mind, she realized that it was a fairly useless gesture to paint her nails now, but unscrewing the top and carefully going over her nails was the only thing right now keeping her from going into another crying fit, and it had taken quite some time to redo her face after that.

Essie, Nice is Nice

She'd never really thought of SOTF, though it had been big when they'd first come to Tennessee - some high school in Washington had been taken that year. Now, though, she was a tad worried as she blew on her nails. She not only had to be the last person left alive out of one hundred fifty plus people, but she had to kill someone to do it. There were obvious no's to that - Jessica Rennes was one, but other than that, she didn't know. Of course, whether she could actually go through with it was moot right now, the fact of the matter was that they hadn't given her anything to kill anyone with. She just had a bunch of (crap) food, water, a map, a flashlight and a first aid kit. But still, the thought was crossing her mind - that she was going to have to kill someone. She likely was going to kill someone. But that was going to have to wait until she had the stones to do it.

"Down here!" That was time for her to start. Stephanie took a deep breath as she got up and stepped out of the woods and towards the voices.

Jessica's turn as ace sleuth was brought to a halt as her focus was suddenly brought to the new arrival on the other side of the fence. Christine Bright wasn't exactly someone who was "in" but of course Jessica had heard of her - when there was as many LGBT people floating around George Hunter as there were, enough to make Jessica idly wonder if that was the reason her class was chosen in the first place. She looked fine, all things considered; maybe once Oliver figured out who that other familiar voice was, they could all group up and stay safe, at least long enough for the proper authorities to find them.

"Hey, Chris!"

Jessica looked over her shoulder to Oliver, who seemed to see the voice and was heading to the edge of the decking.

"Can you climb? Like, if you can, try getting in here, see if we can figure this whole thing out, I'm gonna go help over with Oliver."

She turned on her heels so fast she didn't even see the person coming out of the woods behind Christine in the distance, more concerned with finding out who was playing ghost under the deck. She strolled through the array of chairs and over the soft carpeting towards the edge where Oliver seemed to be extending his hand. Now in Jessica's mind, this meant that whoever it was was fine, because considering what she knew about Oliver, he knew who to trust at a time like this, and he wouldn't be helping someone out if they weren't someone to trust. As she got closer and finally saw over the edge of the deck, she knew her trust had been well-placed in Oliver's own sleuthing abilities.

"Diego, hey!"

Once again, someone she knew. Diego wasn't "in", but he was friendly, mostly because she was friendly to him. It was so far shaping out to be a great group, and Jessica had enough confidence in them all to ride this thing out. She got into position and extended her own hand to the boy beneath them.

"Here, two hands are better than one!"

"Hell yeah I can climb-" Chris started, but Jessica had already spun around to go check out the commotion by the deck; which was understandable but a bit disheartening. Sure, whenever Chris was doing physical stuff she liked to pretend that there was a cute girl watching that she could impress; but actually having someone in front of her would have sent her determination soaring to new heights. She'd scale the barricade like it was a dread tower, her cocky grin gleaming like the sun, dramatically hanging in mid-air for a few seconds while a triumphant trumpet chorus proclaimed her success.

Sadly, in reality, she simply scaled the fence, pulled herself across the top with a quiet "hup" of exertion, then landed on her feet on the other side. Flawless execution, but her heart just wasn't in it. After moping for the appropriate length of time (about three seconds) Chris got over herself and jogged over to the others by the deck. Seems like someone - Diego, according to Jessica - had been having a nice kidnapped-nap under the deck. Sandy and damp, but at least the sun wasn't in his eyes; not that it was likely to make him feel any better. Chris had never been hung over, but she imagined it was a similar feeling to how much her head had pounded once she'd woken up in the forest; minus the mortal terror.

Once Chris joined the others on the deck, she took a moment to take stock of everyone. Jessica was cool. She was the sort of person who was popular simply because she was genuinely nice; someone you're glad to have around. They didn't really know each other, but Chris had at least a passing familiarity with the other gay girls at school.

She'd always gotten weird vibes from Oliver. Not bad, just weird; like George Hunter maybe had some massive underground gambling ring with tournaments and intrigue that everyone was in on except for her. He was probably just a guy who liked playing cards and making bad financial decisions, though.

The unseen Diego was the closest thing to a friend she had there. He hung out with Chris and her buddies sometimes; but since he was a quiet dude and they were always in group settings, she honestly didn't know that much about him. Still someone she was glad to see, though.

"You guys probably don't need a third hand, but I can give you moral support anyway!"

The voices converged on Diego, closed in on him, and now he knew that he had made a mistake, and he should have simply crawled closer to the waves. He contemplated doing just that for a while—I don't want to die—and then he didn't. There was nowhere he could escape even if he wanted to, and God knew he wanted to. The only way out was through them. So, he looked outside the deck to where the voices were coming from.

He wanted to say the name of the guy reaching out to him was Oliver, but he wasn't entirely sure. He was a face in a crowd. His mother had seen him once while dropping him off for school and remarked that he reminded her of Diego's father, whoever that was. And she said this with the slightest hint of venom in her voice. She then picked her voice up one octave and said a goodbye greeting with a smile, and left him at school.

Jessica was a bit more than a face in a crowd, but only slightly so. She was part of one of the groups he bounced around when not with the gardening club. She seemed nice, pretty, and those were the two words he could ascribe to her, to be honest.

The image of both of them reaching out to him, smiles on their faces, it filled him with both dread and warmth. He felt like he should be trying to examine their smiles more, read more into them, but he didn't have neither the mental capacity nor the strength to do so in the moment. And besides, sometimes, a blue curtain was just a blue curtain, and sometimes a smile was just a smile. He tried to read positively into the fact that Oliver called him 'buddy', and succeeded, slightly. It made the thought of crawling over to them somewhat less scary.

"I'll come out, hold on," he replied to Oliver.

He hooked his right hand onto the handles of his two bags and his shovel, and, with his elbows, dragged himself slowly towards the two. Once in reaching distance, he stopped for a bit, looked at both Oliver's and Jessica's arms reaching towards him. He then reached his left hand towards Jessica, and grabbed hold.

Oliver sighed as he withdrew his hand, pulling himself to his feet as he watched Diego clamber out from beneath the deck. Not like he could blame the guy for wanting to grab the cute girl's hand on his way up. The less touchy-feely that Oliver got with the rest of the group, the better, anyway.

Speaking of groups… This place was getting awfully crowded. That wasn't a problem in and of itself, but the fact that he knew very little about the rest of the people here was more than a little concerning. Even worse, it was clear that all of them seemed fairly comfortable with each other, meaning he was the odd one out. A bead of sweat ran down Oliver's neck, quickly disappearing beneath his collar. It didn't take a genius to realize the danger involved in that situation.

His hand moved slowly to his pocket, patting it gently just to make sure the bulk was still there. Not that he was going to use it any time soon, hopefully, but the physical reminder gave at least a small amount of comfort. It would be really shitty to have his only protection slip out if he had to make a getaway.

Still, there was no need to panic just yet. They all seemed friendly enough, and nobody looked like they had any weapons on them. Might as well stick around for a while longer, see what they were planning, and hope they didn't try to rope him into any sort of wild goose chase. He glanced up at the sky, scratching his head as he spoke idly to nobody in particular.

"So… What now?"

So, what was going on there? There were a bunch of people there, but she could only really tell that there were a couple men and some women, and that someone was stuck under the pier. Stephanie's eyebrow just quirked slightly. Was someone hurt? Or were they just trying to get him out from under there? Either way, at least it was somebody. Stephanie just approached them carefully.

"Hello? Is everyone okay?"

Jessica's shoes dug into a grove on the deck as she pulled Diego up. She wasn't sure why he didn't grab Oliver's hand as well, but maybe he just trused her more. Either way, the four were on the deck now, with Jessica taking a breather. Herself, Christine, Diego and Oliver, a fantastic group if there ever was one. Once they got organized, and figured out what to do, there was no real telling what they were capable of. They could keep each other safe, keep other people safe, and who knew what else.

Of course, things couldn't have worked out better for her.

She whipped around at the sound of a familiar voice, and the breath left her lungs as she saw one of the two most important people to her who were on the island - Stephanie.

"STEPH!"

Dragged away from where she was once again, Jessica ran into a full sprint, only braking herself as she reached the chain link fence. Looking once again around for another way through but seeing nothing, she scrambled herself quickly over and landed on the sand, before jumping up into Stephanie and pulling her into a hug, kissing her on the cheek.

"Oh my god, you're safe, oh my god..."

Everybody on this island was important, everybody who still had a life to live, but right now she had to prioritize Christina and Stephanie. And as her head sat on Stephanie's shoulder as her hand sat on the back of Stephanie's beautiful curly blonde hair, she knew she could make it all work out.