Survival Of The Fittest

((Diego Larrosa continues from Untrust Us))

In hindsight, he should’ve asked Ty what a menagerie was.

Diego had passed by the hill the menagerie was supposed to be at hours ago, in any case, and he’d seen no hint of a giant red building. No hint of Cam or Theo, too. Nothing but him, his thoughts, and the woods.

There had been a few hours of panic, once he realized that none of the buildings he’d passed by before were in sight. He had run during that time, the names of his friends in the back of his throat. He wanted to scream their names, but doing so risked bringing the attention of other people, people who wouldn’t be as friendly to him, so he ran in silence.

That had been a waste of energy he didn’t have. He walked now in the tropical twilight, slow, as if the air had the viscosity of molasses. The whole of his mouth was dry, his saliva was a foam that coated the underside of his tongue now. His bare back was slick with sweat. If he walked anymore, he’d be dessicated, he felt.

His mother had always had to remind him to drink water, he never felt the need to otherwise. Maybe his body was just naturally predisposed to be less thirsty than most other people.

There was a joke that was supposed to be there, physical thirst, sexual thirst, it was there somewhere. Either he couldn’t find the joke or didn’t care to find it, the result was the same either way.

In survival books, the common saying was ‘Three weeks without food, three days without water.’ It had been over twenty four hours since he’d last seen Cam and Theo, over twenty four hours since he’d last taken a sip of water.

He was two-thirds of the way away from death.

He stopped eventually, chose a nook off to the side behind a grove of trees, not immediately visible to passers-by. It was only once he slumped himself against the bark that he realized how short of breath he was, his lungs heaving every couple of seconds, trying desperately to recover the oxygen it had been denied.

The last meal he had had was a fern, clean this time. He had devoured it in two bites, swallowed in seconds so as to avoid the grassy flavor. It had provided respite from the constant gnawing in his stomach for a few minutes, he estimated, and then it had not escaped him since.

He had promised Cam, back at the infirmary, that he wouldn’t leave them behind. He’d stay, he said. They had hugged, and the next day, they had been happy. He had promised them, right before he left to have his little crying fit, that he would be back, and he wasn’t. He felt like a liar. That, in itself, gnawed at him, more than the hunger and all the other sins he’d committed on this island.

Were they looking for him too, now? It made sense, at first, they’d spent so much time looking for Declyn, looking for him, they wouldn’t just let that go to waste now, he thought, hoped. But then, he’d made it very clear to Cam that he was willing to leave under the right circumstances. Did they just accept that he’d abandoned them for good, this time?

The answer to that didn't matter. He hadn't. He'd just been stupid for a bit, he'd just lost his way. He was looking for them, he was trying his hardest to make up for it now. He hoped they knew that. He hoped Cam knew that.

He had so much he wanted to tell them, once he found them, once he found Cam and Theo and Declyn.

He wanted to apologize for being a shitty friend, for not being there for them.

He wanted to ask them how they were, offer some form of consolation, support, be of use to someone. Be of use to someone who appreciated it.

He wanted to tell them he was

He wanted to tell them

Diego squeezed his eyes, groaned, bumped the back of his head against the tree.

Ty had told him that the self-hatred was dumb, irrational. That you could just let it go like that. But, it had had such a grip on him for so long, he still felt its fingers around him up to now. It felt like there was a physical barrier preventing the words he had in mind from coming out. It didn't really need to be said, technically. They had more pressing matters to deal with, literal life-and-death matters. Telling them would just take up space and time they didn't have.

But, Ty knew. He was just a friend of a crush. The whole world knew. His family, if they were watching the cameras, they knew. It felt wrong that his best friends would be among the last people to find out.

It was just two words. He'd said them already, basically, he just needed to say it one more time. He just needed to get over himself.

He wanted

He wanted to tell them

"I'm gay."



Chuckles bubbled from his throat after a while. They grew in intensity, he doubled down in laughter. There were tears in his eyes, the good kind.

There was a short video Declyn had shown him once. It was just some guy in a green suit jumping down from off-screen, saying those exact words. Literally it. But, they'd laughed about it for so long, the first time he'd seen it. Trying to explain why it was funny was futile, it just was.

He knew clips of this floated on the Internet, and he hated the people who watched them kill and die for fun. But, someone, somewhere, probably spliced those last few seconds and made him into a meme. And, he was fine with that. He could live with that, for a while.

---

Diego didn't know why he was awake at first. It was pitch-black, it didn't look like the sun would rise for hours.

He was annoyed, too. Sleep had been very elusive, what with the lack of a pillow or blanket or any sort of covering. He'd taken his jeans off, used them as a makeshift pillow so he could at least have the dignity of not laying his head on bare dirt. But, despite the languid heat, he was shivering, had his arms wrapped around himself.

He was scared, too. He didn't know why. But, it was the feeling you get sometimes on the back of your neck. A distinct absence. Or, absence was perhaps not the proper word. The absence felt charged. Like, something was watching you. That was it, that was the feeling. The feeling of being watched.

He pushed himself up with his elbow, turned around, and was met with more darkness. But, there was a rustling. It was consistent, not continuous. It would come every few seconds.

He was being watched, definitely being watched.

He pushed himself to his feet now, swayed a little. He still felt hungry, thirsty, but that couldn't matter right now.

Diego had literally nothing but his clothes with him. That would be very evident to anyone looking at him. Aside from his life, there was nothing for them to take.

Aside from his life.

His breathing went shallow. So they couldn't hear him, whoever they were.

He turned around once, twice, and his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, but he caught sight of nothing but foliage. He couldn't even run anywhere, there was nowhere to run to. If he chose a random direction, he might just run straight into whoever it was watching.

The leaves rustled again. It came from above.

He looked up, and he was met with a pair of beady eyes, glinting at him.

He screamed.

The thing screeched back at him.

And so, the monkey scrambled off across the branches, rustling receding in the distance.

Sleep didn't return to him, after that. He spent the rest of the night laid down, trying, but stirred back to consciousness with every rustle of leaves, every slight puff of wind.

He couldn't live like this for another day. If that had been an actual person, he would've been fucked. He needed something. And so, he decided on his next destination. It didn't matter that he had no map. He always found it anyways. It always found him.

---

The sun had risen by now. He was guided by a salty scent, a gentle whispering in the air. Intuition.

There was a fruit on the ground, it looked like the one Cam had been holding before he left. She knew her stuff about fruits, he trusted it was edible. And, it was. Mushy, lacking in sweetness, bruised, but edible, nonetheless. The gnawing subsided. The thirst subsided. He felt slightly invigorated, for a bit.

And then, the announcements began. He stopped in place, the words demanded his full attention.

Declyn's boyfriend died, he noted with some sadness. And then, Billy's name was read out, and Diego laughed to himself. Karmic retribution, he thought.

And then, as if to rebuke him, Declyn's name was read out.

He was dead, apparently. He'd been bled out by someone named Myles.

"That's not fair," he muttered to himself. Billy had robbed him of the chance to be with his friend. He'd only been spared a glimpse, before Billy had attacked him, before Declyn had disappeared.

He cried for a few minutes. He'd cried several times in the past couple of days, what was one more time? It wasn't like there was anyone to watch, besides the millions behind the cameras.

He stopped, eventually. And he finished his journey. The bags were still on the pier, and there was a glimmer of hope that maybe Billy had left something, but he hadn't. They were empty hunks of fabric. Spite from beyond the grave.

That wasn't what he'd come for, anyways.

The gardening club dealt with land plants, mostly, but sea plants were nice to research also. There was no species of seaweed that was poisonous, actually. So, he could gather that. He'd had a few more ferns, fruits with no names along the way, but more food never hurt.

And then there was the shovel.

It had dropped into the sea somewhere, back during the fight with Billy. Diego didn't know when or if he'd be able to find Cam and Theo again. He had no one but himself to rely on, for the meantime, and there was no way he had the physical strength to defend himself. He needed the shovel. He didn't even know if it was there, if Billy or someone else had found it, but it was his only hope. He was a killer, people would target him based off his name and nothing else.

He stared at the sea for a few moments. The waves lapped lazily against the coast, but in a way, it was silent. No beckonings or calls for blood to be found, anymore. Just a silent, immeasurable expanse.

He took off his shoes, stripped off his pants and boxers. One of the worse parts about the walk away from the pier, after Billy's attack, had been dealing with the wet denim sticking to his skin, he told himself. It adhered to him for hours. Even now, he felt the coarseness against his skin.

There was a new level of vulnerability here, but it felt no worse than when he was crying. As long as he didn't think about the cameras, he'd be fine.

He immediately stepped into the ocean, stopping when the water went up to his waist. The water was warm, welcoming, almost. He looked through the shifting, lilting waters and saw something long and gray on the ocean floor. He submerged his head into the water.

And he dove back up, gasping.

The wound on his forehead stung like hell. It almost felt like pepper spray, again.

He stood there for a few moments, he wanted to say a minute or two. Hoping the stinging would subside. But, he had to dive down. There was no way out without that shovel. He imagined Billy, finding him on the pier in exactly the state he was in, without his shovel, and then he didn't imagine further. There was no need.

He dove back down into the water, eyes open despite the sting. And, eventually, after eternal seconds, he grabbed hold.

He waded out of the water, shovel in hand, victorious, and he laid himself flat onto the warm wood of the pier, exposed. Dried himself out. Laid down and rested. The smell of rust, dried blood had disappeared, he noted. Or maybe his nose had deadened itself to the smell.

Once he'd gotten his rest, he put his clothes back on. He took a long look at the forest beyond him, at the buildings in the distance. Infinite possibilities. But only one of them had Cam and Theo. Only one of them had his future. It felt daunting.

But, if he never proceeded, he'd never find them anyways. So, he chose a direction, any direction, and he set off.

((Diego Larrosa continues in Love itself is just as innocent as roses in May))