Survival Of The Fittest

Even before the sun had risen high into the sky, Erika felt the heat. Despite hailing from Texas, she never could really stand it, even back home. People often made fun of her when she complained about it, as if somehow growing up there made her somehow immune. Much as she’d complain about the chemicals in air conditioners or the huge power drain, or how most places were just too hot because of inefficient building design, she enjoyed the feeling of walking into a cool house after a hot day more than most people.

Going to Berlin only confirmed her suspicions about the kind of environment she was really meant to live in. It had been really nice when she’d visited just before the start of her senior year; for a whole week it had just coasted in the low seventies. It was the kind of weather that a person could layer in, so she could actually get creative with outfits. Plus it meant being able to walk around a whole day and not be drenched in sweat by the end, unlike this place. She’d really been looking forward to spending time there year-round. Supposedly they did get hot summers, but after dealing with Texas and Tennessee she couldn’t imagine Berlin was going to be that bad.

I’ll never see that place again, or anywhere else. I’m going to die here.

“I’m not going to die here.” Erika said to herself, yet again.

She’d been saying that a few times since she woke up. When her eyes first opened, she found herself immobile. Lying uncomfortably on her side on a large, flat rock that hid on the far side of a hill, she was only able to control her breathing. Slowing it from a rapid pace to a gentle rhythm. Taking what seemed like an eternity to assess her situation. If it hadn’t happened enough times before to know it, she might’ve assumed she was bitten by some kind of venomous animal in her sleep and paralyzed. The truth was, she hadn’t fully woken up.

Sleep paralysis is a bitch.

It gave her just enough time to wonder if someone was going to round the corner and kill her while she was so vulnerable. Enough time to start to panic, and forget that she’d actually had pleasant dreams the night before. She’d fallen asleep to the stars. It would’ve been perfect in any other circumstance than one where every other person on this landmass had a strong motivation to kill one another. Thankfully, breathing exercises and the practice of wiggling her toes until she slowly regained control of each limb were old habit.

“It’s not over yet. I’m still alive.”

She was thankful for the shade provided by the forest canopy, and the fact that the north end of the island seemed to have fewer annoying insects. This place felt less outwardly hostile than the wilds to the south. The few paths through the woods wound in odd directions and occasionally just ended, but she’d made her way through well enough.

It wasn’t great, but there were worse places she could’ve been.

There’s nothing wrong with “better.”

Sitting upright on the rock, she pulled a protein bar from her duffel bag and began eating it, taking stock of her remaining supplies as she did so. Medical supplies were okay, as she’d used a combination of hers and Hel’s to patch her up. It was lower than she’d wanted them to be, though. Water was a little bit lower than she was comfortable with, though there were ways to remedy that. She didn’t relish the idea of tasting iodine for days, but it was better than being thirsty. The protein bar tasted bland, but not inedible.

I can’t pretend to be surprised when it happens. It’s already over, isn’t it?

Partly she felt foolish for declaring something so unknowable, so wildly uncertain. There were plenty of guns on the island, and they couldn’t have all made their way into the hands of people wholly incompetent with them. It was possible she’d never see it coming. The blood would come spurting out of her before she even heard the shot. Maybe it would hit her in the gut, and she’d see them come spilling ou-

“If I’m wrong I’ll have more important things to worry about than feeling stupid about it. Result’s not going to be any different either way. I’ll make it, or I won’t. Don’t have to spend the whole time being scared. I won’t.”

She took a deep breath, trying her best to settle the issue for herself, for the time being. It seemed to work as she found her focus suddenly shift to an itch in her eye. She set what remained of the protein bar aside for a moment, before fetching an eyedropper from the bag and putting drops in each eye. Contact lenses could suck sometimes, but she wasn’t going to risk dropping a pair of glasses out here.

Blinking a few times, she flinched as she noticed a figure in front of her. Her alarm quickly turned to curiosity, because it was very evidently not one of her classmates nor in fact, a human. It was fuzzy, a little over a foot tall, with a curious-looking face and eyes that watched her warily.

She’d only been joking about it before, but now here it was: an actual monkey.

Erika sat up straight, watching to see what it would do. Curiosity and wonder rendered the rest of the world a grey expanse far beneath her notice. The monkey raised up a hand, scratching its chest before letting it back down again. It moved slowly, and carefully. Eyes trained on Erika, occasionally looking down towards –

Oh. The bag, with all of the food. She moved slowly to pick up the protein bar, and the monkey took a few steps back. It looked down at the bar in her hand, then back to her face.

It’s actually kind of adorable.

“You hungry, little guy?”

There was only a small nub of the bar left. It wasn’t terribly significant to her. Probably meant a lot more to the monkey. Besides, she wanted to see if it’d take it. She couldn’t tell if it was a male or a female, though she didn’t imagine monkeys really gave a shit if you misgendered them.

Far as I know. What do I really know about monkeys, anyhow? They bite, don’t they? They probably bite. God, this is stupid.

“It’s okay. Here, take it. I won’t hurt you.”

The tiny little hand reached out, grabbing what was left of the protein bar. For a moment, its little fingers touched hers. She smiled as it sat down nearby, nibbling the end of the bar at first before rapidly scarfing it all down. It looked back to Erika, smacking its lips.

“You like that, huh? More than I did, I figure.”

The monkey moved a bit closer, cocking its head as it examined her. Evidently it didn’t seem to think she was a threat, at least not while she was sitting down. She wondered where the rest of its family might’ve been. It looked like one she’d seen in a documentary some time ago about the monkeys that lived in a few cities in Southeast Asia; as far as she could remember, they usually moved around in groups.

“Out here alone, huh? Did you run off from your friends or something?”

It responded to her with a low cooing noise, and made a waving gesture. She couldn’t stifle a smile, before remembering that she’d heard smiles for monkeys were a sign of aggression.

“Sorry dude. Human habit. Can I interest you in a bread?”

Erika produced a loaf of bread from her bag, taking out a slice and holding it out to the monkey. Once again, it took the treat with some trepidation before beginning to slowly and methodically tear into the food. Taking out a slice of her own, Erika held it up once in a “cheers” gesture.

“Cool. I’m also gonna have a bread.”

Wasting food on a monkey, are we?

Yes, it was a waste of food. Every calorie mattered in a survival situation like this one. Every moment was hers to waste, and she was actively hindering her own chances of making it out here if she kept this kind of thing up.

Yet every time in the past she’d encountered some kind of wild animal, she’d never shied away from them. Even if it might’ve been dangerous. Even if she had somewhere else to go, or something else to do. She’d happily engage in staring contest with a deer, or try to establish a rapport with the local crows. Anything sufficiently round and fuzzy was cause to swoon and take pictures of. Any dog or cat she met was a potential friend. Other creatures were cause for awe and deep respect, like the moose and bears she'd seen on a trip through Alaska.

There was something about these esoteric kinds of interactions that seemed to calm her soul. They gave her strength. It was like interacting with the natural world made her place in it clearer. She was Erika Stieglitz, but she was also just another primate struggling to survive. Even if there was no way for them to communicate, she sensed an understanding between them. They both just wanted to live, to keep going, in spite of where their paths might lead. All life was ever meant to do was exist. In these moments, Erika could accept she was doing all she was ever meant to do.

That was how it had always been for the things that lived in the world, and how it always would be.

Erika flinched as a nearby speaker crackled to life, and the startled monkey bolted off into the trees. The moment, and the calm it had brought her, was over. As the names read out, she packed the bread away into her bag. She didn’t have much of an appetite anymore.

She stared straight ahead, focusing on a fallen tree that looked like it had snapped in a storm. Trying to remain stoic, to take in only the information she had to.
Paloma, the girl who’d skipped a grade. Artsy, but strange in a way Erika had never been partial to. The speed at which she’d killed someone was more surprising than the fact that she’d done it. Poor Abel.

Tirzah. Fellow school photographer. Not someone she’d expected to kill anyone, at least not yet. It could’ve been self defense. Toby was kind of an asshole.
She’d known what was coming. She had acted on it already. Beaten herself up for doing so, telling herself that she was a terrible person and that she’d underestimated him. Wasted medical supplies trying to make up for what she’d done, trying to account for an action that at the time seemed sensible and utterly monstrous.

Still, when she heard the next name, her stoicism quickly gave way to confusion and despair. Erika found herself repeating her name out loud, unable to quite comprehend what she’d just heard.

“Chris?”

He bit her..? Danya can’t be telling the truth. How did that-

Beryl was dead too. They’d had so much fun at Swiftball, making fuzzy, technicolour memories Erika thought they’d both hold dearly for years. The colourful vision in her mind rapidly faded to grey.

“No…” Erika held her hand over her mouth, trying not to make more noise. Trying in vain to resist the urge to scream. The steady pace of names pushed her further and further to the ground. She curled into a ball as she heard Ty had killed Felix, too. After that, she wasn’t thinking clearly enough to hear which ones had died and which were the killers.

She knew Ty had a reason. He’d never do something so terrible for no reason, he didn’t actually want to hurt anyone. Sometimes lashing out was all he knew how to do, and-

He bit through her throat. Why did it have to happen that way?!

“W- why… why did you have to- Chris was a good per- my – my friend. You didn’t have to-”

She pleaded with no one in particular, only speaking to try and put words to what she was feeling, and failing to do so.

I don’t know the details. Can’t focus on it. All of us are dead anyways. Why does it matter how-

“Why, why did it have to be him?”

Her mind was racing, trying desperately to assemble some kind of situation where Tyrell killing Chris made sense. All she could think of was the way she smiled and the voice she did for her paladin, and how their characters were best frenemies. She was just as decent and courageous in real life, and if she’d had to fight, she wouldn’t have backed down. It made perfect sense.

They might’ve gotten along. Could’ve helped me.

Ty was brave too. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for her. Always knew how to make her laugh and cheer her up when really stupid things started to get her down. Like how she felt if she just died, nothing mattered. How even if she left some kind of legacy, the Earth was slowly dying anyways. Ty never saw it that way. Even despite everything he’d gone through, he still tried to see the bright side of things, for her.

He must’ve been reacting to something.

It was the only explanation that stuck. He didn’t want to win, not when she was still alive. Somehow they’d gotten in Tyrell’s way, or threatened him.

So he bit through a person’s throat? Shot someone else three times?

When he’d told her about the fight with the Carters, he’d mentioned drawing a knife to defend himself. She admonished him for it after he told her, until she saw the look in his eyes as he told the story. As he relived it she saw the façade fall away. All that was left was a scared kid who kept apologizing to her, who’d only wanted to never be scared like that again and was terrified of making anyone else feel that way.

Maybe he’d just gone too far. Justified it to himself, somehow.

In a place like this, with the person he was, she could think of any number of ways he might have. There was no question in her mind he was capable of it. She’d said as much earlier, to Katie.

”I’m telling you, the longer we’re here the worse it’s going to get. Fuck winning, escape, or rescue, he’s not going to wait. Not if he feels like he’s backed into a corner and he knows I’m there with him.”

Some part of her felt like she’d invoked this. That it wouldn’t have happened if she hadn’t expected it to. It was owed for the way she’d been looking at everyone. For the fact she had to convince herself to even try to help other people here.

It’s okay, though. They were already dead. They would've had to die one way or another.

She sat up with a start, her eyes wild. It was an ugly thought, one she didn't want to have. Erika blinked and wiped the tears away from her eyes. The sun was now hiding behind a thick sheet of clouds, the grey-blue overcast light casting dim shadows across the forest. The lively aura she'd basked in when she awoke was gone, and only the stifling heat remained. Desperately, she tried to think of some way things weren't exactly as she knew that they were.

All she really wanted was to see him again. Maybe he could explain what had happened. They’d sit down and sort through the thoughts tormenting her, and everything would be okay. He’d tell her that Danya had lied, and Chris and Felix had both turned out to be really bad people and he only did what he had to do to survive and find her. She could apologize for what she’d done, and for hiding. He would stay with her to the very end, and she wouldn’t have to feel as alone as she felt right now. All she wanted was to hear his voice, for her to convince him that everything is okay. To tell her that he loved her.

I should hate you.

She ought to find him and hand him the cyanide pill, tell him it was the only way to account for his actions. She knew he’d take it.

I can't do it. I know I can't.

They both knew there was only one real way off the island. It was possible he’d killed them for her. Even if he didn't, she knew he would do something like that if she asked. Ty never saw himself living past thirty, and held her up on a pedestal. It was her best chance at escape, wasn't it?

It's a cowardly, terrible fucking thing to ask someone to do. I should know. I'm not brave. I'm not like them.

To keep fending off these thoughts was torment she knew she couldn't withstand for much longer; not when the loudest voice in her mind was the very worst part of her.

Erika shouldered her duffel bag and picked up the ad hoc walking stick she made the day before, leaving her temporary abode and breaking into a run as soon as she found a level path.

There were other paths she could’ve taken, but she'd gone too far to turn back now.



The brief moment after they first locked eyes seemed to drag on for an eternity. She stood still, watching him rapidly close the distance down the winding wooded path, his quick pace soon turning to a jog. The trees were thinly spaced, the area presenting no easy opportunities to hide. Now that he’d seen her she couldn’t justify what running away might do to him. The last thing that anyone on the island needed was for Tyrell to feel abandoned, even though she knew that was exactly what she should have done.

As he got closer he no doubt saw the expression on her face. He must’ve understood all she could think about was Christine. How she’d died. She searched his eyes for evidence of what he’d done, and found it. Ty had the unmistakable look of a person haunted by his actions. Danya wasn’t lying.

At first she had no words. Tears ran from her eyes, and she turned away. He really did it. Her boyfriend murdered one of her friends. When he tried to put a hand one her shoulder to calm her, she turned and hit him in the face. Ty barely reacted. All he did in response was to look toward the ground in shame, holding his bandaged hand over the new red spot on his cheek. He didn’t seem to know where to begin, or whether she wanted him to.

Part of her wanted to let him languish in silence, to see if he’d pull through and work out precisely why she could hardly stand to look at him. She almost didn’t say anything.

She knew he wouldn’t figure it out, though. Ty wasn’t stupid, but there were some things he just didn’t understand. Certain kinds of empathy seemed to be foreign concepts to him, and only to someone who knew his damage did he look like anything besides callous and hardhearted. Knowing how it was that he rationalized not caring about the lives of others was cold comfort, though. Here the cost of making poor choices was so high. It was so hard for her to see past how much she hated what he’d just let himself do.

So she ranted and raved at his face, running a gauntlet from a terse whisper to animated, desperate shouting.

She didn’t understand; neither Chris nor Felix would’ve played into this, she pleaded. Chris was a good person. Kind, maybe overzealous from time to time, but an eternal optimist. The kind of person she wanted to think they needed here, to see them through all of this. Chris would’ve helped them both if they’d asked her. Her power fantasy was as a Paladin, for goodness' sake.

Felix Rees? The guy was a wet blanket, a perpetual wallflower. Someone who wasn’t much of a threat physically or otherwise. Ty didn’t need a gun to incapacitate someone like that. It was impossible for her to fathom what possible reason he could have for murdering them.

She continued, not leaving space for him to respond. It had only been one day. There was still a chance, however small, they might be rescued. At this point there had to still be some middle ground, some choice between abandoning all pretense of trying to be a decent person, and drowning in the self-destructive naiveté of believing this wasn’t going to go the way it had gone the last six times. Ty had to be smart enough to see that, didn’t he?

She openly, viciously pondered out loud that he must not have been the person she thought he was, because the Ty she knew never would’ve let himself get duped by some psychopaths with a hard-on for murdering teenagers. He must have just been lying to her when he said he’d been trying to be his own person, and a better one. Did their promises to one another just stop meaning anything once they’d found themselves in some twisted island hell? A desperate situation like this made making the right choices more meaningful and more necessary, not less.

It was just easier to believe he’d done something terrible than to think that someone like Chris had abandoned her values and attacked him first. Yet still, she found herself inwardly hoping he’d had some cause to do what he’d done. Ty wasn’t capable of just killing someone on a whim. He had to have known what that meant for him, here. There had to more to it than she’d heard.

So she asked him. Begged for it. There was a reason, wasn’t there? It was just a terrible one. From the moment she’d woken up, she had been afraid of what would happen to him. Afraid to be present to see him die, or to find his body. Somewhere deep down she knew the path that led him to here was one he was likely to take, but she hadn’t wanted to believe it. She still didn’t want to believe it.

Watching closely, she saw Ty take a step back from her, his legs visibly unsteady. There was a fallen tree lying nearby. He wordlessly shrugged his duffel bag and rifle off of his shoulders and sat down, burying his head in his hands.

After all that had happened, now he was here and so was she. It was abundantly clear to her that she was the only thing standing between Tyrell and everyone else on the island. That small, cold part of her psyche reminded her, painfully, that he was also the only thing that stood between the rest of the island and her.

So she sat down next to Tyrell, trying her best to understand as he explained everything that had happened to him that first day.

---

It was hard to believe it had all happened in a single day, and if she didn’t see the sorry state he was in she might not have believed it at all.

As he traced his path across the island on the map, she was able to put together a timeline of what had happened. Even the moment she’d seen him from afar and fled, which she kept to herself. Ty left out no detail, not even of the grisly way her friend had died. If nothing else, he was honest with her.

She wasn’t sure if it would change anything, but she tried to help him understand some of what had occurred. If she was going to take this conversation where it needed to go, she had to stand firm. Not let him justify what he’d done, but to help him nonetheless. She wasn’t at all sure she should, but she tried anyways. She wanted to, she told herself.

It wasn’t just a means to an end.

Ty shuffled in place, folding up the map and placing it back in his bag. She’d just finished telling him what she suspected had happened. “You’re right. It’s exactly like what happened with the Carters.”

“You told me then that you panicked. Is that what you’re saying happened here?”

“It was just like that, except there was no one there to step in and stop it. I didn’t know what else to do. I just... reacted. I didn’t think about killing her, I just wanted to get away.”

Erika absentmindedly scratched the inside of her palm, rearranging the words into her head into something that might’ve been remotely digestible. “So you bit her throat out.”

“It wasn’t my fault. I was afraid.” Ty's quiet response had been a common refrain in his explanation of the day’s events.

“You had to know who you were dealing with there. It was Chris! She only reacted because you took a swing at her. Most people would find that fuckin’ terrifying! I know - I knew her. She absolutely would have stopped if you’d backed off.”

“Look, I’m not in control of where my head goes. I wanna be but like… I just couldn’t see any other choice. You really believe she wasn’t going to-”

Erika cut him off, momentarily losing her composure.

“Of course I do, SHE WAS MY FRIEND, TY! Chris would rather die than give in to this whole thing. Isn’t that what she like, straight-up told you? You might not have had a choice on the ground, but you had two or three chances where you could’ve taken a step back before then. It's on you, Ty! WHY THE FUCK DIDN’T YOU BACK OFF?!”

Ty hung his head, the expression on his face telling Erika he was finally starting to put the pieces together after intentionally keeping them apart. Parts of Erika that felt catharsis at him finally coming to terms with what he’d done were at odds with the visceral reaction she had to seeing him in so much pain.

His voice wavered as he began to unravel.

“I don’t know. I should have known what she was actually trying to tell me, I just didn’t think it through. She told me I didn’t have to act the way they wanted me to. I thought I already was. I couldn’t stand that she told me I wasn’t. I was trying so hard. I’d tried to kill myself because I didn’t want any part of this, except Claude took that away from me. So I tried to find something else to do, something meaningful. In case I couldn’t find you, or if you weren’t alive anymore. Tried to protect some people from Lorenzo, I knew if I killed him that it might be some small justice for Artem. It felt right. I didn’t have to justify that to anyone, they’d all understand. They had to.”

Erika’s mind fell back to what Emil and Emmett had told her. Even if it was still the wrong move at this point, she couldn’t entirely fault Ty for trying to put Lorenzo down. She didn’t have the heart to tell Ty what he’d actually done to Artem by spelling out Lorenzo’s crimes in front of a camera.

The downward spiral she was currently witnessing was bad enough without that knowledge on his shoulders. She didn’t want to feel like she was engineering his destruction any more than she already did.

“It doesn’t matter though, does it? I fucked up. I tried to help Dante because like, I thought the guy deserved a chance at least, but I left him with Blaise and she killed him. Lorenzo’s still alive, and Chris is dead. How is that right? I didn’t even stay to help the rest of them. Not that they’d have me, but I didn’t even try, did I? At least Felix, he was just an accident. I wasn’t going to just let him point a gun at me. Who wouldn’t react to that? It just - just went off in my hands. I mean, what did they expect would happen?”

Erika shook her head. “Maybe they expected you to calm down? What do you think it means when someone points a gun at you and doesn’t pull the trigger? You had every opportunity to de-escalate that situation.”

“I was about to…”

Once again she found herself unable to contain her rage and frustration. “You didn’t, though. You thought it was too great a risk to have a gun pointed in your face, so you take it and point it at someone else, then you say you’re surprised when it fucking goes off? What’d you expect?”

Though he looked like he was about to break down sobbing at any moment, Ty somehow managed to hold a steady tone. He might’ve been wailing on the inside, but he continued to jump from point to point, hoping to find some level ground in the conversation.

“No - I let those people in the house - I let them walk away. I left Parker alone. I let Gervais live. I didn’t want any of this. Doesn’t that matter?”

He found none.

“Ty, three people died because of you. To them, it doesn’t matter what you wanted to do, it doesn’t matter what you didn’t do.”

After she first heard the announcement, she’d spent the next hour playing possible conversations over and over in her head, trying to find the right words for how she felt. Pondering how she’d find a way to tear his heart out for what he’d done. Wondering if she even should have done so. Now that she saw what that looked like, she found herself deriving no satisfaction from it.

“I’m scared, Erika. I’m – I didn’t think I was an evil person. Parker said people here saw themselves as heroes here. I’m worried they’ll think I just want to hurt people. I didn’t want you to think that too. I thought maybe I just needed to find you, to explain things. Maybe you’d know what the fuck was wrong with me. If there was some way, something I could do to take responsibility for it. Look, you - you just tell me what I have to do to make this right, and I’ll do it.”

Erika squeezed her eyes shut, rubbing the bridge of her nose. She knew very well where this had to go. It was only a matter of driving the conversation there. She sighed, looking back at Ty again and doing her best to explain things to him.

“I know you well enough. I know you’re not a bad person. It’s just that whatever you intended, whoever you wanted to be, it doesn’t make difference to Chris and Felix. Doesn’t matter to Diego or Jon, or Steph. Doesn’t change anything for any of those people in that house, or Yuko. Katrina’s now walking around the island with a target on her back because of you. These people will never forget what you did.”

She choked on her next words, barely able to get them out.

“And… I can’t forgive you for what you did to Chris. I love you but, I just can’t.”

Ty opened his mouth to speak, but stopped himself. He nodded, and hung his head. From this angle, Erika could easily see the bruise caused by the makeshift noose he’d tried to hang himself with. Past all of the physical and mental signs of his journey that she saw, it was the one that disturbed her the most. He’d known it was going to come to this, and he tried to stop it. He couldn’t.

It was all on her, now.

---

They’d sat there for a while, neither entirely sure what else to say to one another. After enough time spent staring ahead, Erika shuffled closer to Ty on the fallen tree, hooking her arm under his. Tension seemed to leave him as she did so. He spoke up, his voice wistful and hollow.

“A lot of people are going to be after me soon. If they aren’t already. I think we’ll have to find somewhere safer to hold up. It looks like it’s going to rain.”

Erika pulled away.

“Ty, I think you’re going to have to leave me.”

Eyes wide in shock, Ty began to plead.

“I’m sorry. I thought - please, don’t make me go. Is it - do you not feel safe around me? I won’t hurt you.”

She took his hands into hers, and moved closer once again. He was shaking.

“Ty, of course I feel safe around you. I know you won’t hurt me. I know you couldn’t find a reason to if you tried. It just isn’t safe to be around you. If you’re serious about wanting me to have a chance here, to make it – I don’t think we can stick together.”

“Why? Why not?”

“You just said it. You’re a target, that’s why. As far as anyone knows you’re playing Danya’s game now.” She paused, accosted by the mental image of Ty’s broken corpse. “I don’t want to die in the crossfire. More than that, I don’t want us to end that way. I can’t – I can’t see people without thinking of what they’ll look like dead. I can’t stop thinking about what it’ll feel like the moment my heart stops. I don’t want that to be what I think of you when I remember us.”

He recoiled, quickly pulling his hands from Erika's as he stood and turned away. Fuming. Laughing. Crying. Leaning against a nearby tree, as if his legs might give out at any moment.

“Ty. I need to do this by myself. It’s the only way I can.”

Turning back, he threw his hands up in a gesture of defeat. For the first time, shouted at her. “Then what am I supposed to do?!”

She flinched, stopping what might've been a tirade as Ty noticed it. She motioned back towards the log for him to sit back down. He did so reluctantly, keeping some distance between them. Erika pivoted to face him, trying in vain to get him to look her in the eyes.

"Look - I know only one person gets to make it out. I know that. I know what has to happen. I just can’t ask you to-"

"You don’t have to say it. If that’s what it takes, then I’ll do it.”

"No, at least – not right away. There’s something else I want. Ty, I’ve seen folks do some genuinely good things since I woke up. Things I can’t just ignore. Try and help each other, try and hold onto their humanity even though – yeah, this is fucking hopeless. I walked away from shit, but there were people who were strong enough to stick around and try and make things seem not so fuckin’ awful. It made me strong enough to try. When I did I think it was the only time I felt like a real person since I woke up here.”

He suddenly looked back up at her, confused and annoyed. "So? What difference does it make if it’s all hopeless? They all have to die if you want to make it out."

She exhaled, collecting herself. It wasn't easy to put it into words. Even more difficult when she thought about what she was actually doing by uttering them.

"Shit, how do I explain this? I wanna think there’s more to life that just making it to the next day. There has to be. Otherwise, what are we surviving for? What’s the point?"

Erika paused, her gaze drifting down to the mossy ground below them.

"The terrorists left me on the lookout point, right up on the edge. First thing I saw was like, a long fuckin’ drop. You know how I toss and turn a lot in my sleep? I almost ended up throwing myself right off of it before I even woke up. I flinched, and almost went over. Someone saved me."

She smiled, as if she was actually thinking back to the moment she saw Katie’s face staring down at her.

"Katie. She pulled me back from the edge, when she could’ve just let it happen. Got pissed off when I was losing my shit, and she didn’t let me leave till I calmed down."

Ty nodded, and chuckled when Erika mentioned Katie getting mad and doing the right thing. The thought seemed to put him in a better frame of mind.

"Heh, yeah that sounds like Katie. She’s good people. We’ve got a similar kind of headspace. Few times we shared some terrible dad stories. She was trying to work on herself, her anger - I dunno, it made me want to get my shit together. Always liked her."

Clearly he hadn’t spent a whole lot of time thinking of anything positive. He winced after smiling; the dry cuts on his face seemed to still be bothering him.

"I owe her my life, Ty. I can’t just write her off. And if anyone might understand what was going on with you when you did the things you did, she would."

"You think so?"

"Like you said, you have a lot in common. She wants to find Saffron, her girlfriend. Would do anything for her. She’ll get it, Ty. I want you to return the favour. Tell her that. Look, if you find Katie, she might convince people. Change their minds about you. No one’s going to listen to your girlfriend, people would just figure I'm in denial. They might listen to her, though. If they do, then you might be able to help a lot more than you’ve hurt."

Ty shook his head and chuckled.

"What?"

"Claude. He said the same thing. Told me I had the potential for good in me, and I could help a lot of people in this fucking place. It sounds nice, but I’m not so sure that’s the way things are supposed to go."

"They will if you want them to. Ty, if I don’t make it I want it to be someone…" Erika trailed off, unsure of how to phrase what she wanted to say.

Lying doesn’t come naturally to me.

Thankfully, Ty finished the thought for her.

"-someone who’ll remember us."

"Yeah, exactly. You wanted to give Dante a chance, despite everything. Katie and Saffron deserve one too. This isn’t over yet."

"What about the people who don’t deserve a chance? Lorenzo, and the rest?"

Erika shot him a look of cold, naked hatred at the mention of Lorenzo’s name. She didn’t need words to answer his question, and he nodded in understanding. Closing the distance between the two of them, it was now Tyrell who grabbed ahold of Erika’s hands.

"I’ll do my best. I promise you."

She kissed him.

Though she wanted to craft a memory worth holding onto, all she could think about was what he’d done to Chris.

Erika knew she’d have to find time to hate herself for it later.

For all of it.

They needed this, now.

After a few moments, their lips parted.

It seemed like Ty was now resolved to do what she’d asked of him, despite how much it obviously pained him to leave her alone. He pulled out the handgun he’d been carrying in his waistband; flipping the handle towards her, he motioned for her to take it. Erika reached out at first, but then pulled back. Looking at her in confusion, he continued to hold between them.

“Go on, you’ll need this. I have ammo in my bag, too. If I can’t be around to help, at least I can give you what I have. You need it more than I do.”

She looked down towards the rifle lying on Tyrell’s bag. It had more range, and would be more difficult for him to use than the pistol. From the sounds of it, Gervais hadn’t been able to hit the broad side of a barn with the Martini-Henry. It wasn’t exactly a gun for beginners. Anyone could squeeze off a few shots with a handgun in close quarters and have a chance to hit something, though.

Unlike the Walther Ty offered her, the rifle also didn’t have flecks of someone else’s blood on the tip of the barrel. Erika pushed the gun back towards him.

“I think you need to keep that. As a reminder.” Ty glanced at the blood on the end of the barrel, and back up to her. Wordlessly, he slipped it back into his waistband.

Erika pointed to the rifle. “Besides, that’s more my speed.”

"Alright, then."

Shrugging, Ty handed her the rifle and pulled the ammunition out of his bag, followed by some additional supplies. Protein bars, bread, water, and what was left of a medical kit. She kept any questions about whose supplies they were to herself, letting Ty divvy them out into her bag as he saw fit. Seemingly content that he was leaving her with as much as he could, he zipped up his much-lighter duffel bag and slipped it around his shoulders.


Light drops of rain began to fall, barely reaching the two through the canopy above. They stood across from one another, staring into one another's eyes. Searching for what they'd found and held onto so tightly before all of this horror had befallen them.

They'd found each other once, when they least expected to. He had accepted her. She accepted him. They'd convinced themselves it had been meant to be. Maybe it had been.

A sad smile spread across Ty's face, as he remembered what it was he'd seen. Forgetting for a moment how it was his fault they had to leave one another to this place. He saw someone to look past the scars and cautionary hatred. A person it was okay to not be okay around. A woman who knew how to love things just because she felt it, and did so without restraint.

Someone worth saving.

She smiled too, now only seeing what she'd always seen looking at him. Forgetting for a moment what she'd done to him. She saw someone who didn't care what she was, or what they'd all be eventually, who could love her in the moment. A man who didn't fear what was to come, only the idea that he wouldn't fight hard enough against it. A person who'd never gotten a chance to be better than he thought he was.

Someone worth saving.

"I wish we could've just been stupid teenagers together."

"Me too."

"I love you. Please remember that."

"I will. I love you too."

The pair embraced, holding each other for as long as they could as the rain gradually made its way from the trees, to the ground. By the time they left each other, droplets of water were falling from their skin.

Both knew they would never see one another alive ever again.

---

There was a clearing some distance away from the Art Exhibition, close to the shoreline. It was still deep enough in the woods and away from any paths that cut through the forest that most of the students would've never encountered it. The mossy soil and deadfall gave way to a flat rock, mostly exposed save for some patches of lichen. With the canopy giving way, dim light illuminated the shiny wet stone amidst the seemingly endless sea of green. Here, the smell of wet plant life clashed with the salty odor coming from the ocean. The distant sounds of waves crashing against the coastline carried far, adding to the chorus of gently swaying leaves.

It was beautiful. The kind of place that felt divine, regardless of whether or not one believed in some kind of higher power. Clearly the island's prior inhabitants thought so as well, and a series of carved sigils in the trees demarcated the clearing's boundary. Sets of dreamcatcher-like ornaments made from scrap hung off of several branches, the painted metal only now starting to show signs of rust and decay. They clattered with every intermittent gust of wind, scraping against one another.

An old, partially collapsed lean-to stood against one of the trees at the edge of the clearing. Erika sat inside. Two duffel bags worth of supplies were spread out in front of her, a rough assortment of rations, ammunition, and first-aid.

Outside of the lean-to, she left an assortment of charms and jewelry which she'd pulled from her hair and piercings. Superfluous clothes and redundant supplies were tossed thoughtlessly nearby. Anything that weighed more than she intended on carrying made its way into the pile, unprotected from the rain. She'd tied her hair back with a green bandanna, if only because she had nothing to cut it off with.

Erika stared down at the assortment of supplies for a moment, pondering the choices she'd made that led her here alone.

What Ty had done was monstrous. Unforgivable, even in a situation where right and wrong gave way to what was expedient and necessary. It wasn’t necessary to kill them, not in those moments he’d chosen. Picturing how it had happened made her feel sick. Yet still, she couldn’t help but feel like it paled in comparison to the path she now led him down, or the path she was intent to walk. It was no worse than the lies she told, and the smile she'd kept on her face as he believed every last one of them.

If she survived, then she'd do whatever she could to atone for it.

Not before then.

Erika slipped the bandolier on and pulled the leather strap tight, and then packed up her duffel bag and slung it over her shoulder. Rifle in hand, she stepped out of the lean-to. A mechanical noise caught her attention – a nearby camera turning to focus on her.

She hoped it was picking up audio.

"This is on Danya. All of this. Not Ty, not Katie, and not me. I hope everyone understands that."

With nothing more to say, Erika turned and left the area. She hoped she could find higher ground, or at least better shelter.

There were other paths she could’ve taken, but she'd gone too far to turn back now.