Survival Of The Fittest

This was about the last place in the entire world that Ariana Moretti had expected to find herself sleeping for the night, but as far as small nooks to hide away from potentially homicidal classmates were concerned, she figured it was pretty all right. She'd travelled through the bush for most of the day, it seemed, and when she'd finally oriented herself to a landmark to figure out where on the island she was, lo and behold, she'd crossed the whole damn thing.

No wonder her feet were sore.

((Ariana Moretti continued from Two Hearts))

Travelling north until she'd finally run out of real estate, Ariana had come to the edge of the island, a rocky cliff showing a steep drop to the water below. In theory, it would have been a great little spot to hide out if one were hoping to stay out of the way of everything, but if the terrorists had been feeling particularly cunty, they could make it a danger zone and fuck anyone who decided to venture out there out of their misery.

Curiousity killed the cat, as the saying went.

So instead, Ariana had looked around, ended up finding a small patch of trees that allowed for some cover from anyone approaching, and decided to hole up here for the night. If she were being honest, sleeping was going to be an iffy proposition, though she knew that any sleep she could get would be like a drug for her body. She knew how this worked. The first few days, everyone would be trying to talk to one another like they were all still human beings, like everything was still somewhat normal.

In a week's time, anyone left alive would be likely wounded, feral, and barely capable of composing a coherent sentence, let alone a thought in their mind. It was a frightening thought, and one that she still couldn't quite believe she was having. What would someone like Juliette Sargeant look like after six days of hell? Would Wyatt Carter even know how to speak after all of this or would he just grunt and accept his true nature as the caveman they all knew him to be? Would the Hayashibara triplets have melded together and formed a grotesque, Thing-like entity hell-bent on murdering anyone it came upon?

It was all morbid as fuck. As she stared out into the sky, she tried to distract herself as best she could. The sun was starting to set, the stars would soon emerge and cast their light upon the most unholiest of places. Looking down, she felt the weight of the Glock in her hand. For the first few hours of the day, it had felt a bit obtrusive, like it didn't belong. After she'd left Dolly and company, the gun had felt like the only piece of solace she had left to cling to.

Very quickly, it had gone from unwelcome interloper to trusted companion.

She looked it over once more, as she had probably close to twenty times that day alone. It wasn't a companion, she wasn't going to lose her fucking mind and imbue it with human characteristics. It was a gun, an object expressly made to spread destruction across a small area. It was a tool, something that Ariana would undoubtedly have to use in protection of her own life.

She wasn't stupid, nor did she consider herself naive.

At some point, it was going to happen.

Unless.

Ariana studied the barrel for a moment.

Suicide was a coward's way out. Ariana had always believed that, always known that she was anything but a coward. Yet, it was the path of least resistance. If she put the weapon to her head and pulled the trigger, she would never have to live with the grief of taking another person's life - a friend, or a classmate, even. She would never have to suffer the indignity of trying to fight for her life, even though the odds were disproportionately against her ever seeing her home again.

"No. No fucking way."

It was more of a whisper than an utterance, but she refused to give that possibility any more thought. What would that do to her father, to Ross?

Shit.

Closing her eyes, Ariana clenched her fist and squeezed it against her forehead, almost trying to push back the tears that had finally started to crawl out. All day long, she'd put them both out of her mind. She hadn't thought about them; couldn't. But thanks to her own fatigue, she'd tugged on the thread that held that wall together, and it had all started to come apart.

Ross had declared himself unlucky a few times in the last little while. She'd flooded his phone with pictures, videos, and had probably racked up more phone minutes than she'd had in years, all in the past week. She'd wanted to make him feel like he was there, as though he hadn't missed out on anything. Ariana had felt so terrible for going on this trip, leaving him behind.

She'd only gone because he'd asked her to.

Oh, goddammit.

Silent tears rolled down her cheeks as she recognized just what that was going to do to him. This would all be so traumatic. Her father - that was another story. Franco Moretti had dealt with loss and with the complete implosion of all he thought that his life was. He would yell, he would scream, probably a lot and at numerous someones, and he would probably drink a little too much for a little too long.

But he'd find a way to carry on. Her father was the strongest man she knew, he was fiercely proud and he was where she got everything good within her. She had always known that, always told him that. Even reconnecting with her mother - who Lord knew would probably just shrug and carry on when she heard - had simply reinforced that Franco Moretti was the best dad she could have ever hoped for.

Ross, though?

She knew him. Too well, for someone she'd only been dating for a few months. He would worry, he would withdraw. He would search for any and every hint of an answer, and when it eventually all came to light, he -

Ariana set the gun down on the ground and wiped her eyes, trying not to allow the sorrow to overtake her.

He would watch.

Of course he would. Ross would watch all of his friends die.

He would watch Morgan die.

He would watch Michael die.

He would watch Johnny die, and Bree. Forrest, Connor, Philip and even Richard. Asshole Richard, who somehow Ross always managed to get along with.

Julien would die. Liberty, Dante, Stepney and Abel. All of the people who he knew well enough, who were more than happy to wish him well. She'd been so pleasantly surprised by how many people had good things to say about him. They were all his friends, all of those people who he'd grown up with and gotten to know. Who he'd been so excited to come to Washington with. Ross would watch all of them die.

And then, he would watch her die, and it would destroy him.

Ariana hadn't cried in a very long time, but the soft sounds of her sobs carried throughout the woods as the sun set on the first day of the end of her life.

"Ross, babe? I know you're watching."

Hours had passed.

"You shouldn't. Everyone's telling you that, I know. But you're too stubborn. I know you need to know what happened. It's your nature."

It was dark now, the moon casting a glow over the trees, the soft sound of the waves only a faint background sound.

"I love you. It didn't take me very long, but I fell in love with you. You told me that last week, and it validated everything that I'd been wondering about with us. Love always has shitty timing, I guess."

The cameras were everywhere, even in the woods. The terrorists didn't want to miss a thing.

"Whatever's going on, it's horrible. I know that. Deep down in my heart, I know that people are doing horrible, awful things to one another. I know that it's all going to end one way."

Silence, for a long moment.

"And it's not - I don't, it's not okay. I don't want to die. I want to come home, I want to live. I want to see you again and tell you that it's all going to be fine. I want to give you the souvenirs from the trip. I want to see if you can lift your stupid arm over your head and laugh when you can't. I want to kiss you, hold you, spend the summer with you. Maybe longer. Who knows."

Another long pause, punctuated by a sniffle.

"But, that's probably not going to happen."

A sigh.

"I'm going to try, Ross. I'm going to really, honestly try. I'm not going to go out of my way to hurt anyone. I don't want to somehow pull this all off and come home a monster. I don't want that. I don't want to face you again as some evil bitch who thinks that it's going to be okay that she slaughtered her way through this. I won't do that. Not to you."

The wind rustled through the trees, only a slight breeze.

"I know if I told you to stop watching, you wouldn't. I don't want you to see this. I don't want you to see any of it. I know my Daddy won't. He's going to hurt, Ross. I know you don't know him very well, but he's going to hurt like you're going to hurt. You need to be there for each other."

There was a small thud, a head softly hitting back against the soft bark of a tree.

"Most importantly..."

Nothing but breathing now; courage.

"This isn't your fault, sweetheart. Don't you ever think that. Not for a single second of your life is this on you."

More tears, a quiver.

"The only thing keeping me going is the fact that you're not here. Except you are. You're with me, every single second of every day. Whenever I've felt like it's hopeless, I just look at your silly mug. So please, don't blame yourself."

A whisper, now.

"And don't lose hope. I won't. I love you. Always."

Silence.

Ariana Moretti had fallen asleep without even really being aware of it, so when the loud crackle punctuated the coming of the day's announcement, she snapped into a state of hyper-awareness almost immediately, raising her gun at the 'terrifying' sight of the ocean and the sky looking back at her. Her heart rate slowed.

There was no one here, no one to threaten or menace her.

The announcement would likely do that just fine on its own. Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, Ariana listened as the young, almost snarky-sounding voice of Mr. Danya congratulated them on taking the briefing to heart. Her stomach dropped as she realized exactly why he'd be sounding so cheerful.

People had died. Probably a lot of them.

So she listened.

And gasped.

Then felt numb.

Where did she even start? She knew them all. Every last one of them was familiar to her. The victims and the killers. Abel was a bit of a typical bro, but that he'd had his head bashed in by her artsy-fartsy erstwhile roommate Paloma took what little wind remained from her sails.

Paloma. Ms. 'I want to feature in an art gallery' and 'I'm going to educate everyone on what Burning Man is' was a fucking murderer?! The first one? It didn't compute in Ariana's mind.

Thankfully she didn't have much time to dwell, as Tirzah's name was mentioned and it truly hit Ariana that the list of people she could trust - not that she ever would have trusted Tirzah - was truly now down to one. Crazy, flighty Tirzah, who'd mounted her to take fucking pictures of her when she'd had that accident in the art lab had blown Toby's brains out. Sweet, nerdy Toby.

Everything else seemed to run together; Beryl died, Chris Bright died, Violet and one of the Hayashibara triplets too. So much for that Thing-monster. Speaking of those, apparently Tyrell Lahti was a fucking monster, which didn't surprise her in the slightest. That guy screamed bad news; she would have put money on him having legal troubles in the future and not even needed to bother to check the odds.

For a moment, she took solace in the fact that Dolly, nor Meka nor Rhonda nor any of that group were on the announcements. It was good. She hadn't left them with killers, and nothing had befallen any of them. It gave her a second of hope.

Only a second.

The final smack to the face was Dante Valerio's name amongst the dead. That one hurt, because she knew he and Ross were buddies. Dante had been so tickled at her idea to send Ross videos through the week; he'd been one of the biggest texters. He was such a nice guy, and she almost wished she'd hung around with him more. She'd gathered that he probably would, once they all got back. But now he was dead, and that was never going to happen, because -

"No, NO! Fucking Blaise, you fucking cunt. FUCK!"

Ariana got to her feet and started kicking the foliage, dislodging sticks and sending rocks and dirt over the edge of the cliff face. Her outburst only intensified when the terrorists awarded that stupid tiny androgynous French whore a fucking prize for killing Dante. A. Fucking. Prize.

"YOU STUPID FUCKING PIECES OF SHIT. YOU CAN'T FUCKING GET AWAY WITH THIS FOREVER."

She booted a rock over the cliff face, let out a primal scream of frustration and sorrow, and then sank back down, slumping beside the tree that she'd slept beside. Any hope she'd had about somehow waiting this out was gone. People had bought in. Whether it was fear, or the settling of a grudge, or just people's inner psychopathy coming out, Ariana knew that it was all over.

She looked down at her Glock once more.

Ariana didn't want to die.

The terrorist had stopped speaking, so she was left alone with her thoughts. Her left hand found its way to the pendant around her neck. Unclasping it, she looked down at the photo within. She found only sorrow in his silly face.

Would Ross understand?

She held the locket close to her chest for a moment.

Her gaze shifted back to the Glock.

Whatever she decided, he would have to.

((Ariana Moretti continued in The Sky is a Neighbourhood))