Survival Of The Fittest

(Kayla Harris continued from Gotta Fake it 'till You Make It)

Inside the boathouse on the lake, Kayla observed the rowboat before her with a mixture of disappointment and barely-concealed annoyance. At first, when she'd spotted a boathouse, she figured there'd be something there, something that could help them craft a way off of this island. But frankly, she'd be shocked and amazed if this rotten piece of driftwood could even get to the middle of the lake, let alone cast out to sea.

Figures that they weren't going to make it easy.

Ever since she'd gotten herself clear of Layla, she'd spent the evening going through different ideas. Chief among them was finding a kid who somehow could be simultaneously sneaky and good with electronics, but she didn't recall anyone in the class who fit that description. She couldn't trust most of the nerds. Too self-conscious or nervous to be useful for this kind of thing.

Fact was, she had the ideas, but her skillset wasn't working for anything. Without a needle and thread, sewing wasn't going to happen, and absolutely nobody was going to be floored by her ability to play Soul Calibur. Maybe somebody could restore this piece of junk ship to something resembling usable condition, but as for her, all she could do was stare at it judgmentally as she sat inside the boathouse, pondering her next move over a gorgeous meal of rapidly-growing-stale bread and water.

The breakfast of champions.

((Roxanne “Roxie” Borowski continued from Gotta Fake it ‘till You Make It))

It was funny. Even now, inspiration struck.

The stables, in retrospect, kind of reminded Roxie of the illustrations she had in her notebook, the same notebook that had been ripped out of her bag. She’d called it “The Cow-Boy.”

See, she was thinking “what if I made a cow skull monster?” Cow skulls, even by skull standards, had a spooky vibe to them. Maybe it was the horns? But she’d imagined a man with a cow skull for a head. Then, the idea fleshed out even more. He was a cow-boy, but he was also a cowboy. Stetson, boots, bandanna around neck, cow skull for a head. She’d actually drawn multiple pictures of him, now that she remembered, one with a more realistic outfit, one with a more glitzy rodeo inspiration, all kinds of variants. Of course, actually making something like that as an FX was ambitious as all out, but it was feasible, she felt. Like any FX, you just have to figure out the logistics. She never put him to flesh, but she did think about him.

The stables would have been a good place to shoot, like, a short film featuring him or something. She didn’t know the exact plot, but she did think of something.

It was a common horror trope to be uncertain of who to trust and who not to trust. A key part of drama, really, but it was a significant, commonly used ingredient for horror. Think The Thing.

She thought of a group of people in the abandoned stables, arguing between each other as tensions rose high, unaware of the danger that might be in the background, a certain tall, horned, entity, watching and waiting. Each were uncertain in each others’ roles and honesty. Uncertain of who, and perhaps what, they were in actuality.

It might have been a start to her fleshing out ideas. But, then she realized, her notebook was gone and she’d probably never have access to a camera that wasn’t manned by terrorists again.

And that sucked!

___

Resting, at least, had been better. Nothing else really happened since they left the stables. Just them, and this boat. Rowing it out to get a good night’s sleep where people will have a harder time getting to you might have been an idea, but 1. it was rotting, 2. there’s two of them, and 3. she’d remembered the original Friday the 13th enough to be skeptical of the idea, even if that was a dream sequence. She had no idea about other uses, either.

Roxie had managed to attempt makeup a bit this morning. Her makeup pencils were gone, but her palette, foundation, mascara, and lipstick remained. It was tricky to put on, but she was able to put on some semblance of how she usually looked. Was it weird to put on makeup here? Probably. But it was kind of like… a sense of normalcy, she guessed. And if she was going to die, at least she’d look kind of like the way she normally did in life.

She was still certain she was going to die here, but she was going to try not to give the terrorists the satisfaction of her being… well, terrified.

Roxie had also checked up on her leg again, too. Everything was in working order, which was good.

So, she’d been sitting there, back against the wall, kind of chewing a bit on her (possibly not kosher also, RIP) bread, which tasted awful, until she spoke.

“They’re going to announce everything in a bit, aren’t they?”

Kayla was in the middle of an unappetizing mouthful when Roxie brought up the obvious. Yeah, she'd heard of the tropes relating to this show. Even though the last incident had been years ago, people were still talking about it online, discussing how nobody had caught these guys, how they could strike again at any moment. Some folks even had the bad taste to ask the terrorists to abduct their class. Disgusting.

Anyway, back on topic, they'd probably be hearing an announcement soon. Kayla nodded and went over the events of the day in her head, thinking about people who might have gotten involved in something. Nona seemed like she was in a bad spot mentally. Layla too. Probably also Ron. Actually, just about everyone except maybe Miss P, whoever she was. And Roxie and herself, of course, but that was kind of a given.

"Here's hoping there's not too many," she remarked once her mouth was unoccupied. She wasn't counting on it, but there was always the possibility that nobody had killed anyone. And if so...pop. It'd be all over. Not the victory she would have liked, but a victory for the human race.

"Hard to believe, kids trying to kill each other out there," she said, leaning back and staring at the wooden ceiling. It looked in just as good a shape as the boat. "But who can blame them? There's a gun to their heads."

Truthfully, Kayla had been wondering whether she ought to have a game plan, maybe start thinking about busting some heads herself. There was a high chance that she would never find someone, and if so, she'd never get off the island except through, well, the obvious route. That being said, if she was going to compromise her morals, she'd rather do it against someone who actually deserved it, so no need to worry until they heard the bad news. She only hoped that it would come sooner than later.

“Yeah…”

In a way, Roxie felt, it was kind of like a prolonged form of psychological torture.

Let’s really dissect the word “terrorist.” Terror-ist. Someone who deals in terror. Come to think of it, if the word wasn’t already used to describe people who did travesties, it would have been used to describe the type of horror stuff she did. But Danya and his dudes? They wanted them, and everyone else, to be terrified.

It wasn’t just enough to kill them outright. They had to keep them alive for days on end, and only leave one remaining. Not only that, but they’d spend the last few days of their lives in fear. Not only that, but what better way of striking fear into a country than making it so you couldn’t even comfortably mourn the dead without thinking of the whole ethics part of crying for real-life murderers?

And that was why Roxie was planning on denying them the satisfaction of them seeing her scared for as long as possible. She had an idea of what they wanted, and she was going to do her best to not give them it.

Roxie said nothing, just took a bite of awful awful bread. But eventually, she swallowed and spoke again.

“Hey Kayla? I have a weird question.”

((Richard Smith continued from Dead Clicks))

Richard trudged towards the lake, already winded from the walking he had been doing today.

Not much had happened after he left Tom behind. He didn't see anyone else for the rest of the day, and he had been happy about that. He had woken up shortly after the sun rose, after hiding out in a tree overnight. It was probably the worst sleep he had ever had, outside of having food poisoning, but at least it was something.

Speaking of food poisoning...

Richard bit into one of the ration bars he had been given, grinding his teeth against it for a minute or two before he finally managed to tear a bite off to eat. This was probably the worst food he had ever eaten too, outside of the terrible, burnt meals his dad would make him when his mom was working late.

"Piece of shit," he said, thoughts of his dad triggering that phrase to come out of his mouth like an involuntary reflex.

Tossing the wrapper that the bar had came in aside, he continued to painstakingly chew it up as he approached the boathouse next to the lake. He had been looking for shelter for a while, and had originally intended to use one of the houses in the housing blocks for that purpose, but yesterday he had gotten lost, spent four hours running in circles, then gave up. The boathouse wasn't his ideal, given that it was a pretty notable landmark next to a large geographic feature, but he could probably shack up in it for a few hours and get some rest, before heading out again.

Assuming nobody else was already in there, at least...

Finally coming up on the boathouse's door, Richard quickly looked it up and down, judging how sturdy it'd be if a gun fight broke out in or around it, and the answer was, like he imagined most places would be on a deserted island, "not very".

Readying his gun, he gently turned the knob with his free hand as he pressed his ear up against the door, listening for voices, only to hear a faint murmur and instantly react. Ramming the door open with the full weight of his body, Richard raised his weapon and spun it around the room. "ALRIGHT NOBODY FUCKING MOVE OR-"

Richard stopped, realizing that he had just busted in on two girls. Two cute girls.

"Oh I uh," Richard stammered, lowering his gun. "I, uh, didn't realize it was just you two."

He paused for a moment, grasping for something to try to deescalate the situation, only to arrive at one option:

"...Sup?"

Oh boy, another awkward question. Roxie seemed to be just full of those. Considering that the last one had caused Nona to start clawing herself to bits, Kayla could only imagine what this next one would entail.

But sure, they didn’t have anything else to do.

“Yeah, sure, let’s hear-“ but she never got to finish, because the door exploded open and a man burst through, armed with a gun and barking orders.

Kayla snapped to her feet, scattering her bread and half a bottle’s worth of water over the lakehouse floor, and threw her hands up, crying out, “Don’t shoot! I’m not armed!” She hastily scanned the room. There was a musty old couch in the corner. If he started shooting, it’d hardly slow a bullet down, but maybe...

Why had he stopped yelling?

Her eyes drifted back to him, to the gun in his hands. He was...smiling? What? She stared in confusion, wondering if she should put her hands down, or maybe he was just playing with them.

It was official. Everyone on this island was crazy.

“Uh...Hi?” Best to just keep them up for now. Less chance of being shot that way.

Nevermind, she guessed! Before they could even get started, a dude just burst in here with a gun like some wannabe action hero, stopped as if the sight of them made him question his actions, then stood there awkwardly.

Roxie totally didn’t jump and toss the bread into the air, which totally didn’t land in her lap. At all. Nor did she immediately raise her hands on cue. Okay, so she was telling herself that she was willing to not give them the whole satisfaction, but, well, she was only human. Her rapid heartbeat reminded her of that.

Okay, so, Richard. He was tall, and he was a gamer dude, and he was a surly type. That was enough to go off of. Not sure why he felt the need to say hi by busting his way through like this, nearly giving everyone a heart attack, but, well, death game.

“Um, hi Richard. Nothing much, just nearly wet myself.”

Roxie quietly chuckled under her breath. Nothing here was funny, but, sometimes, you have to crack jokes. Even when there’s a man with a gun.

Richard took a deep breath, to calm his rapidly beating heart, a leftover from the preemptive flight-or-fight response he had to busting his way in.

He hated how drenched in sweat he was, now that he was in front of two girls. The day was even hotter than it was yesterday, alongside being even more humid, and being inside only barely helped. His clothes had large dark spots from all the water he had been shedding, and he probably smelled like the devil's asshole. No way the two of them would like all of that, unless it was some kind of kink of theirs.

He wasn't sure how he felt about the possibility of either of them having a sweat kink.

He was sure, however, that these thoughts that he was having were extremely stupid at best. He was in a death game that he fully intended to be the sole survivor of, and he was worried about what two girls thought of him being coated in a fine layer of his own body fluids? He shouldn't care about all of this, but nonetheless he did, and he was surprisingly not bothered by it at all.

"Yeah uh," he said, as he wiped his forehead free of sweat with his sleeve, "sorry about all of that."

It wasn't a very eloquent way of calming the situation, but it was the best he had.

He sat down on the floor of the boathouse and leaned up against one of its outer walls, a bit away from the two girls, finally appreciating the chance to rest.

"Sooo, uh, how you two holdin' up?"

So...everything was good? They weren’t going to be blown away? Alrighty then...

“Yeah, you’re cool,” she said, daring to lower her arms. Things seemed to be getting back to normal after the height of excitement. She could feel her heart slowly but surely stop hammering in her chest, and the tension had waned, even if not entirely evaporated.

Good. Very good. Better than the alternative.

Now that Kayla was feeling moderately more relaxed, she realized that she knew the guy’s name. Richard, right? Sounded right. Well, he’d picked one heck of a way to introduce himself, but he was apologizing for it, so she couldn’t hold the loss of her food and water against him too much.

Speaking of which, since Richard had given her the go-ahead to stop freezing in terror, she figured she could try to salvage her breakfast. The water was a lost cause, having spilled out except for a couple of sips at the bottom, but maybe she could wipe the dust and dirt off her bread and only run a slight risk of catching some tropical disease.

How was she holding up...Great question. She was doing pretty good before he showed up, but that was probably a tactless thing to say. Maybe there was a better way to phrase it.

“Just hanging in there,” she replied dryly, swiping at the bread. “We were having breakfast before you, uh, introduced yourself. Still got some pocky if you’re interested.”

Yeah, break the ice with chocolate. Never fails. Long as they kept things fun and casual, they could skirt around the whole gun thing.

An awkward feeling hovered between them. It happened, particularly when a dude does his best action movie impression only to back out at the last second, obviously.

“Yeah…” Roxie said, lowering her arms.

Richard was sweaty. To be fair, it was humid sweat weather. Roxie took a moment to adjust her motorcycle jacket, feeling a pit of moisture under her arms. Not a great time to be wearing black, a jacket, or a black jacket. She also couldn’t imagine what it’s like having what you wanted to be a badass moment(?) ruined by nerves(?) she guessed.

But oh, she needed an extra moment to get her heart rate back to normal. Roxie exhaled. Another chuckle.

“Uh, yeah. Could be worse.”

Could be said about a lot of things, really.

“What about you? Everything alright?"

(Skipping ahead so I can get Kayla's death out of the way. Sorry guys)

Kayla had to admit that even with everything squared away, the matter of Richard's gun was making her more than a little uncomfortable. Not that she would ever assume that he'd fly off the handle and get back into his drill sergeant mode, but even with the promise of pocky, there was something about a gun-toting person that made her instinctively hold her breath.

"Well, I'm going outside," she said to Roxie, folding her chair and hauling it over her shoulder. "Not going far. You two need anything, just holler." She took the box with her, figured she could nibble on a couple while she just got her feet under her.

Setting the chair up next to the lake, she watched the water for a second, trying to do a couple deep breaths to get herself back to a feeling of normalcy. Ever since she woke up on this island, it had been nothing but a series of tense encounters, and she wasn't sure that she could be comfortable with having every conversation turn out like this.

((_____ Hart Continued From His Whole Life Packed In Two Bags, Just Two Bags))

No one followed ___ down the shoreline, or tried to stop ___ once __ he got away from the group. Could they not intercept ___ if __ was alone or were they waiting for ___ wherever they thought __'d go? The suspicion had crossed ___ mind back at the waterfall with Emil and Emmett. They'd beat ___ up there and as soon as __ called out to them all the others started showing up. __ had no idea how they were doing it, but it was the only thing that made sense wasn't it? It was all too convenient, __'d had two long moments to ___self in the last 24 hours and they were both when no one was around to know where __ was, even the first time __'d only had a few minutes before bumping right into Roxie and-Kayla, Kayla was sitting right there on the shore like she'd been copied straight from ___ mind. That was too spooky. There was no way it was just coincidence, it was a set up. They wanted ___ to run into her, she'd probably set it up herself. What did _____ really know about her? Memories of yesterday were already fuzzy but Kayla had been so accusatory, so invested in making _____ believe this was all real. It all made sense, anyone could see it when they put the pieces together, she was one of the ringleaders and __ didn't know why but __ didn't need. The motivations could be explained to their parents or their teachers or even the police when this all came apart, all the inconsistencies would melt along with ___ doubts if __ could scare Kayla into giving it up.

___ body ached from fatigue. When did __ stop to eat? Did __? __'d finished a bottle of water on the way here, maybe, it was hard to remember. Distractions distractions they weren't important right now, they might be doing that to ___ somehow too, they were in ___ head ___ thoughts ___ fears they were trying to exploit him and __ couldn't let them __ was so close so close

The glove came down around ___ left arm, harder than __ intended. When __ jerked it away there were scratches around the sleeve of ___ sweatshirt, one deep enough to draw a sliver of red along the blade. It reminded ___ how dangerous it had become. No, how dangerous __'d become.

There wouldn't be much time. Others would appear if __ gave Kayla time. Eyes forward, claws out. No stopping now. She was still ten, maybe fifteen feet away, but _____ wasn't stopping. The distance was rapidly closing between them when __ called out to her.

"Kayla. Have you been waiting for me?"

The crunching of stale-ish chocolate-covered breadsticks muffled the sound of Nona's approach. At least, that's what Kayla knew her as. She'd only seen her a day ago, hadn't been privy to the hell her mind had descended into. Maybe she would have regretted being so impatient with her if she knew.

She turned to hear who was shouting, and all she could do was jump up from her seat, see the claw-shaped glove in Nona's hand as she charged towards her. She had no time to bring her chair up defensively, barely enough time to process what was coming at her. All she could do was scream.

"Nona, stop!" she began to shout, but it was already too late for apologies. Too late for anything.

__ didn't stop.

"Who's coming this time? Where are you hiding them?"

Ten feet. Five feet.

"What's really going on? I, I don't want to hurt you but I will, I'll really do it, so tell me the truth now!"

Kayla was up but too slow to run away. ____ closed in to pin her between ___ and the lake. It was her turn to be afraid. Just breaking down would be too easy for her, she needed to understand the helplessness, the suffering, she needed to never do anything like this to anyone ever again because _____ had finally stood up and taught someone a lesson.

"Where's the bus Kayla?"

__ didn't wait for her to respond before letting the glove swing wild at her face. Just close enough to frighten her back into the lake. Maybe if __'d been able to look at her through the pounding anxiety in __ head __ would have aimed better and the blades wouldn't have swung too low. Too low and much, much too close.

It happened in an instant. The force of Nona's charge knocked Kayla to the ground, her hair dipping down into the lake. She was trapped, her arms pinned to the ground as Nona shouted in her face, demanding to know where the bus was.

"There is no friggin' b-" she shot back, before her protests were drowned out by wet gurgles and a spray of blood. The claw had raked across her throat, missing its mark by a large margin. She began to panic, shaking back and forth to desperately get her arms free, to maybe grab her throat and try to stifle the flow.

But she was weak. Far too weak, and as her mind began to fail her, she realized that she had accomplished essentially nothing.

She'd wanted to avoid fighting, to find a way off the island without ever hurting anyone. The thought had never entered her mind that she'd be forced to do so. She'd been too hesitant, too concerned about making her move at the right time. But the right time had never come, or maybe it'd passed her by and she just didn't notice.

Maybe she should have just hit Nona over the head when she wanted to. Maybe she should have just told Roxie about her plan. Maybe she should have spat some blood in Nona's face, just to give her a little parting shot.

Too late for any of that now though. He who hesitates, and all that.

Her protests ceased. She stopped shaking. Her head lolled sideways, staring into the distance.

She'd have plenty of time to beat Nona senseless when they saw each other again. In hell!

G067 - KAYLA HARRIS - DECEASED