Survival Of The Fittest

((Katelynne kontinued from the cbt thread))

Katelynne sat at the dusty, grimy dining table, head perched up by her arm as she watched the rain continue to pelt down relentlessly outside the window.

This sucked. After getting lost for hours in the forest art nonsense until it started raining, she lost so much ground in the last two days.

"The rain will surely stop in a couple of hours," she said.

"I can just camp out in here overnight," she said.

She's been trapped here for probably.... lemme do the math... 22 hours now. Not exactly on the dot, but close enough. Dad was always impressed and kinda spooked at her ability to keep track of time so good. Never even had to use an egg timer when she was around.

That was a joke. Ha ha.

...

Katelynne spent most've the day sleeping and no one seemed to be around to bother her, or at least the locked front door persuaded them to look elsewhere. Couldn't tell if that was a good thing or not though, the loneliness and fear of confrontation kinda went hand in hand all together like.

Her arm collapsed, and she buried her head into the table. If this rain didn't let up, she was just gonna have to put on her big girl britches and continue in the downpour. She wasn't part cat, but that didn't sound too appealing.

It was very easy to get lost in the rain.

[Liberty "Bert' Wren continued from Sink or Swim, Better Dive Right In.]

Camilla was just going off to be alone for a little while. Just a bit. And that was fine with Bert, absolutely fine, despite the fact that Bert had basically literally nothing with her except a power drill and a bag that used to have some snacks in it but all of those were gone because y'know girl's gotta eat and all, it was fine. Bert could handle herself. She'd been through more difficult situations. Precisely until someone showed up. Then it was hard. But as long as she was alone and stayed put, she'd have been fine.

She did not stay put, because she got bored.

Sure, it was raining. Did that ever stop Bert? Was she one to fall to a little bit of rain? Hell naw! So she decided to go on a walk just to stretch her legs. Just for a little while. She'd keep the spot where she was standing by herself before in sight at all times as she went on a walk. And, just in case, she'd take her drill, leaving the bag behind. Bert didn't know what sort of weirdos were wandering the woody wilds three days into their time on hell-murder island. Oh, look, a path! Where does this path go? Bert should follow this path for a bit, she could just follow it back. Oh, maybe if Bert checks her map, she can see where she is. Wait, Bert doesn't have a map. Which direction did Bert come from? Let's try this one. Bert can't tell where anything is through the rain and before she knows it she's standing in a village with houses and no Camilla meeting spot because she is stupid and also dumb and really really stupid.

Bert wandered into the part of town with not terrible looking houses and picked the least terrible looking one and tried to go inside. Unfortunately, the front door felt locked. Or was it stuck? You could never know with abandoned houses, probably. She tried it a few times, just to make sure it was purposefully shut and not just stuck. Eventually she just straight up knocked on the door, trying to push it open. And then that knocking turned to banging with the drill as her patience with the rain wore thin.

It was definitely knocked, and that meant a person. And that meant a person that could let her inside. So why didn't they?

"OPEN UP!" she said, "IT'S WET AS FUCK OUT HERE."

Katelynne snapped up at the incessant, almost on cue banging from the front door. Her jostled body pushed the table an inch or two, nearly knocking the open yearbook and map off the edge.

She ran up to the window to try and get a better viewing angle, but no. Nothing. She couldn't see who the mystery visitor was.

All she could tell was that it sounded like a girl in distress about the rain. Sounded like she had something solid in her hands too - like a brick, maybe?

Katelynne reached for the broken table leg she managed to snap off (not like there was anyone around to care about property damage anymore), and she made her way for the door, each step as heavy as her heartbeat.

After what felt like minutes, she made it. But in the final stretch, she couldn't move. Just stared at the handle, at the vibrations reverberating from outside.

She didn't have to do this. She could just hide, pretend no one was here. But she was never great at hide and seek, always had to be "it" like half the time. But maybe she could keep it together under the influence of adrenaline.

Her heart fought with her brain.

Katelynne sighed and grumbled to herself, the world unfreezing as she undid the lock and the safety latch.

"I'm openin' up!" she shouted at her guest, her hand glued to the now unlocked doorknob. "Don't try nothing' funny."

With one more air gulp she turned the handle and pulled the door all the way, staying behind it with her weapon clutched in her free hand.

Just in case.

Ah, holy shit, there was somebody in there! Bert felt relief wash over her like the rain. She stopped knocking on the door, and her hand went to the knob. Was this a knob, or a handle? Did you still call it a knob if it wasn't exactly shaped like a knob but just sorta fulfilled the same function, or did you say door handle instead? Door handle didn't really have the same ring to it as doorknob, and you couldn't really get away with saying doorhandle as one word, so Bert decided that, whatever shape it took, a doorknob was still a doorknob because a doorknob was a functional thing and oh hey it's unlocked now.

She twisted the knob and stumbled into the house.

"Ah, shit, thank you!" she said. She found herself panting. Maybe she was hitting the door with a little too much force. "It's so wet and gross out there, I didn't want to be stuck out there for any longer, Jesus. Sorry about all the noise."

And then she finally turned and saw who had been on the other end of the door the entire time.

"Katelynne?" she asked in disbelief. Her eyes went back and forth between her face and the table leg in her hands.

"You're still alive?"

Oh, Liberty. Pretty name, pretty girl. Trustworthy, at least enough for now.

As she stepped in, Katelynne quickly scanned left and right outside for any unwarranted stragglers before half-slamming the door and relocking it.

"Sorry... precautions. Ain't keen on dying just yet."

Alive... yeah. Alive was close to all right, and that was good enough for right now.

The chair leg grip slackened a bit as she gave Liberty another pass over. Looked like she had some sorta power drill, but where was her duffel bag and stuff?

Oh, and she was soaked to the bone. Should probably take care of that first before playing twenty questions.

"Lemme fetch you a towel," Katelynne said, already turned around and headed for the bedroom. "Sit for a spell and have some bread, if ya want."

"Oh, thank you," Bert said, "aw jeez, Katie, you're the best."

And she really meant that, with all her heart and gratitude. Katelynne was the best there was. A prime example of southern hospitality and all the good it could bring. A towel? Bread? Bert hadn't even asked for that stuff! And yet here it was, about to be hers, dryness and food and warmth and being able to sit down on the couch without feeling soaked to the bone in all the worst ways possible, and it was good, and it was good, and God made it and it was good good good good good hey wait what's that?

There was a book on the coffee table, opened up, next to a map of the island. Bert walked over to it and peered inside, and instantly recognized the layout of happy and fun images taking up the pages. A yearbook! Maybe Katelynne somehow got a copy of the GHHS one and had taken it with her on the trip. She looked a little harder. Wait, she didn't recognize any of these people. She turned a page, and another, and another, and eventually just sorta gave up and closed the book and looked at the cover and what the fuck was a Cochise? The yearbook wasn't just a couple years old, it was also from bumfuck nowhere, and Bert lived in Tennessee! Which had a few household name cities including her own hometown, sure, but also contained great multitudes of bumfuck!

Curious and eager to kill some time while she waited on Katelynne, Bert leaned in and began to flip through the yearbook.

There were collages and group photos, advertisements and messages taken out by parents. Three goofball teenagers in Halloween costumes. Photos taken by a student named Jennifer Wallace, artsy fartsy pretentious stuff that reminded her of more than a few people from George Hunter. Lots of art people, actually. This one Korean kid with his art, messages from his parents in a couple of languages, as well as the other kind of arts—music—represented with a student rock band and a concert ensemble group. There were some other goofy shots. A girl playing her Nintendo, shocked into making a really kinda dumb face. Some sporty people! A gymnastics girl with medals, the wrestling team, it was so...

Bert remembered the word. It was on the tip of her tongue. The realization that other people lead lives as intricate and detailed and storybooklike as her own, the sense that every single person was the main character of their own story, that they had things they ought to be doing and lives they ought to be leading so it was okay if they did that stuff because it furthered the completion of their own personal narrative. She almost had it. It was on top of the shelf...

...and Bert was too short to grab it. Whatever. She flipped to the quotes and picked through some of her favorites.

"Ahahahahahahahaha! Ha! Hahaha! Haaaaaa," was one that Bert really appreciated. Girl looked pretty goofy and happy! Bert appreciated that. Maybe they would have gotten along. Bert liked to think she got along with most everybody. So far, nobody tried to kill her, so she had to assume that was actually at least a little bit true. Some dude advertising his dad's restaurant? Or Mom's? Or some other kind of establishment? For some reason, the address was scratched out. Maybe they didn't want to be found after all.

"School. School never changes," made her snort laugh for a bit. Quotes. Quotes never change. Always some dumb gamers and their dumb nonsense. It was neat, just the variety of places that the quotes came from. Calvin and Hobbes, top tier stuff. Some latin bullshit, because there was always latin bullshit. Someone quoted a member of a band, and then the person printing the yearbook made a mistake and typed a bunch of closed parentheses after the 'O'. Rude. There was a quote from Buddha. There was a quote from Bob Marley. There were a couple of proverbs and nuggets of traditional and conventional wisdom, and there was dumb teenage stuff. Bert didn't know why, but it made her smile. The kind of smile one does at an adorable puppy being asked to do a trick and then failing at it in an adorable way.

She heard footsteps somewhere behind her, or a noise that sounded like them, and shut the book, pretending to have been looking studiously over the map instead.

"Yeah, I'm sorry, this is about all I got," Katelynne said as she shuffled back to the living area, crumpled and dry towel lifted from the hotel in hand.

She handed the towel to Liberty and then set the wooden leg on the table. She sat back on the seat facing the window, her hands tucked under her thighs.

Liberty was oogling and dripping rainwater over the map pretty fierce—maybe she was lost or someth'n? Would make sense since she didn't look like she had nothing other than that power drill.

"So, uhm..." Katelynne started and then stopped, immediately cut off as she tried to think of the words.

Eh, screw it. She'd just go for it.

"...Are ya lost or did you lose your stuff or what?"

"Pour kay no lowes dose?"

She cracked a smile and took the towel, putting it over her shoulder for now. Her Spanish was terrible, but it wasn't that bad. Hopefully Katelynne would appreciate the meme.

"On Day 1, I left my stuff in the woods and then only took my drill. Then, today, I left the replacement bag I got behind at my meeting point with someone and then just sorta wandered off and got lost. So, I have nothing, I know nothing, and I am generally a garbage person."

The map was stained with water. It was getting harder to read with Bert leaning over it and dripping, so she took a step away. This was probably the village? And Bert had no idea where her original starting point was, but she passed through the rice paddies at some point? Wait, holy shit, she chased Benedict that far?

"I, uh, the map isn't helping," Bert said with a shrug.

Katelynne politely yet awkwardly chuckled at the Mexican jargon Liberty spoke. Must've been some sorta joke, but Katelynne was way lost on the punchline. But the effort was nice.

Katelynne listened intently, nodding along as Liberty gave her story. Jeez... that must be rough. For what Katelynne went through, at least she still had her supplies and what little she got to keep on her. Though she'd trade that all away if it meant her Polaroid didn't get taken.

...

...Anyway.

"I don't think you're garbage." Katelynne picked the edges of the map up and angled it to the floor, her hand brushing and and shaking the rainwater off the laminated plastic. "Quinn tried to kill me twice, so I reckon you're a couple-a notches above garbage in my book. Unless of course you're lying, but I don't think you are."

One last stroke, a good flick, and the map was somewhat dry again as Katelynne laid it down flat on the table.

"We're right here."

[+] She pointed at one of the houses in the village area, the first one right after leaving the woods.

"That help, any?"

Bert squinted at the map. The house that Katelynne pointed out made sense. As in, of all the houses on the map, Bert could buy it being the one that she was in, right now. As for the rest...

"Nah, sorry," Bert admitted, "it's not helping. I got turned around in the woods, and there are lots of those, so I really don't know where I came from."

...

"Oh, wait a second."

She looked at the map a little harder. Something there was calling out to her, screaming for her attention, jumping up and down in a stupid mascot costume and calling undue amounts of awkward stares in its direction. One of those paths was looking a little more familiar than she had anticipated it to. The one leading sort of directly to the house, from the southern direction, ish. That must have been the path that Bert followed for a while, she realized. Which meant that the spot with her stuff was probably...

Probably...

Bert pointed at a spot of tree-triangles at the edge of a change in elevation on the map.

"Sonder!" she exclaimed, "I mean, there! Probably! That's roughly where I left my stuff, and where I was supposed to meet back up with Camilla!"

Katelynne tensed up, her fingernails dug into her own hand in a soft balled fist.

"Camilla?"

"Camilla Bell," Bert said, nodding her head, "I've been hanging out with her since, uh, for a couple days."

She took quick notice of Katelynne's tension. It wasn't becoming of her to be so serious. She was just a horse furby girl. That was just what she was, and that was okay! Horse furby girls just didn't need to be serious, and they shouldn't ever get serious, was Bert's opinion, so it was up to her to remedy this so that Katelynne could just keep on filling her role the way that she was supposed to.

"You know her?"

"Not really, no."

Katelynne's head fell, eyes down through the map and the table and stared at nothing in particular. She squirmed in her seat and bit her lip. Her hand didn't let go of itself.

"...Have you, uhm... been with her since the first day?" her voice shook somewhat.

"Uh, no?" Bert said, "I think it was Day Two that I met up with her."

Something wasn't right. Katelynne looked really upset, and Bert didn't want to be the cause of that more than she thought that Katelynne shouldn't be like that, period.

"Seriously, Katie, if something's wrong, you gotta tell me. If Camilla did something sketchy, or weird, or something, I wanna hear it."

The silence was deafening save for the roar of thunder and rain pounding on the roof.

A breath.

"...Okay." Katelynne lifted her head back up, brushed a hand through her wiry hair and bangs before making eye contact with Liberty again.

"Okay."

Another lip bite before she began, spinning the tale with a shaky voice.

"On the first night, I ran into a boy on the beach northeast of here. Real little thing, about our height. He was covered in so much blood... I gave him my spare clothes. But he said... he said he was in a group with Camilla. And..."

Katelynne's eyes wandered away as she tried to form the words.

"...Camilla ordered a hit. Her and some other girl killed a guy. I didn't get any names before the kid ran away."