Survival Of The Fittest

((Christina Rennes continued from Let's All Make Believe))

The day was surprisingly uneventful. They'd gone deeper into the forested area around the lake and hung out there. A couple quick glances at Abe showed him gripping his gun as if he would literally die if he let it go even for a second. Okay, given the situation, maybe always having your hands on a gun was a good idea in this situation, but given Christina's lack of a weapon, she was still thinking if it was so important for Abe to have a gun that he couldn't give her one. At present, she'd picked up a large stick that she'd found, and a decent sized rock. So maybe if someone decided to shoot, she'd be able to make them dodge for a moment before she got the hell out of there, or either Darlene or Abe took them down.

((Darlene Silva continued from Let's All Make Believe))

Watching Christina struggle to equip herself almost made Darlene feel a little bit bad. Almost! The thing was, though, that Darlene knew exactly where everyone stood in this group in terms of her mental calculus of their relative worth, and Christina seemed like a perfectly alright girl but if someone came up and forced Darlene to shoot either her or Abe then it wouldn't be a hard decision. In fact, throw in the classic good-guy option of letting her shoot herself to spare both of them, and it still wouldn't be a hard decision. So she didn't really think she deserved to feel all that guilty about the other girl's predicament given that she wasn't going to do a single thing about it, even though she probably could.

This was what they were reduced to now. These musings, imaginary stories where someone came along and forced Darlene to make some sadistic choice, the most fantastical part of them was that someone would let any of them at all live or would take the time to play some crazy game instead of just gunning them down where they stood.

Needless to say, Sakurako had not returned. Darlene had thought she'd heard some gunfire somewhere out around the other side of the lake a while ago, but her ears were still ringing some now and then so she'd chosen to pretend it was just tinnitus, or else a couple bad people tearing each other to shreds. That would be nice, if all the remaining big killers would just go fight it out in a tournament to see who was the nastiest monster, and then while she was dreaming Darlene would walk right up and blow whoever it was away like she was a cowboy.

The six-shooter was always close at hand. She spent most of the time either pacing small circles or kicking up leaves or perching on stumps or rocks or else just sitting in the dirt. She'd tried at first to squat but that made her legs tired and stiff, so she'd given up. Who cared if her skirt got mud on it? It was already covered in sweat and grass stains and blood. That was what she was doing right now, sitting, gun held in hand, hand resting in lap, as she scanned the trees.

She was counting animals, which had been a more fun game at other times when there were more in easy sight. There were a few birds but they weren't even that interesting, just these blackbirds that could've even been the sort she'd see back home. She shouldn't really hold it against them, though. It wasn't their fault they were like Tennessee birds.

That phrase suddenly clicked into Darlene's mind like the perfect piece to a puzzle she wasn't working on, but it was so unexpected that she smiled wide and laughed, just a little. It was nice. She hadn't felt all that happy since Sakurako left. The sadness and mourning had really colored the mood, but here was this absurd moment of levity conjured from somewhere else, and maybe the others didn't feel the same but Darlene was going to do her best to share it, finding the words right there easily.

"Take away the trees, and the birds will have to sit upon the ground," she sang, softly but on-tune, "and take away their wings, and the birds will have to walk to get around..."

Acceptance was a hard thing to come by. Finding someone who could accept you as you really were was difficult enough. Having to let go of that person was seemingly unbearable.

She could accept a bad home life, as he was so much more than the worst things that happened to him. He could accept that she was transgender, because she was so much more than where she started. The ease with which they did this felt like what love was supposed to feel like. It didn’t seem as foreign as all of the overwrought renditions of romance they’d grown up seeing and hearing about. It was theirs.

At least, until they were brought here. In this place they found the line, the point where neither could accept what the other had become. Both tried to commission someone else to kill the other, because doing it themselves was a certain kind of acceptance, too. One that neither of them felt strong enough to internalize. In each case, their proxies failed. Those acts left marks, enough that Erika and Tyrell both knew what the other had done. They both felt the same weakness, the same hatred. That was theirs, too.

Late on the eleventh day, she found herself knelt next to his body. She recognized him immediately, even in the night. He was lying upright where the Lake flowed into the sea, a bloody crossbow bolt lying next to his open palm. His hair felt the same. His hands felt like they should have. Erika understood this was what he’d become; that this was Ty, now.

And it was still somehow difficult to accept.

Lingering here wasn’t going to make it any easier. Her instinct was to stay, as if there was still something she could do, or say. Like he needed her somehow. He didn’t, he was gone. Like she’d told herself the moment she had found him - he had nothing more to say. His corpse had nothing to say.

She still did, though. Gently, she planted a kiss on his cold forehead before standing back up. Erika didn’t question whether or not he understood.

((Erika Stieglitz continued from Don't Look Away))

After adjusting the Martini-Henry slung over her shoulder and dusting off her knees, she made her return to the outskirts of the Lake. She’d been stalking the area, hoping that the wide open space might offer an opportunity to pick off a straggler or someone desperately trying to collect some of the horrid-smelling “fresh” water. While others might have avoided travelling at night, the collar radar gave her at least a moderate advantage in the late hours. There was at least enough light to make out human shapes.

A silhouette was enough to aim for. At fifty or a hundred yards, with the torpedo-like cartridges of the Martini-Henry, a hit was a hit. It didn’t have to be another head-shot, or even something "clean." It just needed to be enough to tear flesh, to bleed, to hinder. Eventually that would kill.

She winced as she pulled the collar radar from her bag, the wound in her side now manifesting as a tight, dull ache that never seemed to abate. Less than the ever-dwindling number of individuals still alive on the island, the fruits of Lucas’ vendetta continued to remind her just how little time was left.

There were now three dots, just at the edge of the radar’s range. On seeing the image, she quickly pocketed the radar and sidestepped back behind a small copse of trees. Intact and well-armed, she’d tried to take on a group of three before. The end result was only one kill, and a pellet of buckshot lodged in her leg. There was barely any room to make mistakes back then, and she had even fewer real advantages now.

She drew in a slow breath, and then peered around the foliage. Shouldering her rifle, she watched for movement, straining her eyes to try and make out who she was looking at, and what they had on hand.

The first person she saw was a mystery, a face she didn't recognize even a little. Watching and listening, Erika came to the uneasy realization that the girl was singing. Her fingers tapped nervously at the outside of the trigger guard as she waited for the others to come into view.

((“And take away their legs, and you’ve got rolling birds abound.”))

Abe sang, kind of quietly but definitely not on-tune, since it’s not like he even knew what the tune was in the first place, he was just mimicking Darlene, which was a pretty bird-like thing to do so it was thematically appropriate to the source material.

Anyways it was hilarious watching Christina pretend that a rock and stick were worth shit. If she was trying to put on some big pitiful display to soften up his heart so he’d maybe lend her the rifle that he honestly didn’t even know how to shoot, well, she’d be outta luck even if it hadn’t been so entertaining to watch her fail at it.

Hours were hard to tell but the sun was in a pretty different place than it had been that morning so it was pretty safe to say Sakurako wasn’t coming back. While Abe obviously wasn’t overjoyed about that he wasn’t gonna fucking cry about it, either. Normally that should’ve gone without saying but someone had to go and mess up his perfect heartlessness streak so he was gonna be real careful of even mild disappointment for the time being. It was fine, it was fine, he just had a couple more days to go, right?

He'd set his bags and shit down 'cause they'd been settled in that spot for a while, but he definitely wasn't letting them out of his sight, or even like, his five-foot personal bubble. He was sitting on the ground, using a tree as a backrest, which wasn't the most comfortable thing in the world but his back was probably terminally fucked anyways from all the ground sleeping he'd been doing, so anything was better than nothing.

It annoyed him how conspicuously the rifle poked out of its partially-zippered bag, but it didn't really fit otherwise. Besides, he hadn't even bothered to reload it since he'd fired off his one party-crasher shot, so if anyone (Christina) did try to pull some stupid shit, well, he had two hands on a fully loaded SMG, that's all he was saying.

“And take away their feathers, and then the birds are, worth a pound?” Goddammit that was one, a stretch, two, confusing, and three, not even funny. He should’ve gone with something like taking away the rhyme scheme, that’d be almost clever.

They were singing. Christina didn't have any songs to sing to, nor did she have anything to sing about. She just took out her knife, and for the first time in a week and a half, she actually started using the damn thing on the stick, sharpening the stick to as much of a point as she could. She knew she had jack shit. She just started whittling out her frustrations into a point that she could actually pierce skin. If she got close enough. And she able to muster the necessary force to actually pierce skin.

Either way, she was seriously thinking about bailing on them. She was really starting to feel that she was just some third wheel to the group. She was getting increasingly sure that Abe wouldn't piss on her even if she were on fire. Maybe it was because he had already pointed a gun at her once with no provocation (and not even out of general panic). Another fresh start was starting to seem like less of a risk than staying the course.

It was hard to say what took Darlene more by surprise: Abe joining in with her song, or his total disregard for the words. He just made up his own verses! Did he even know she was singing a real song? Would he care if he did? When he started, Darlene just kind of got quieter and let him have the floor, because she was totally at a loss as to what to do.

She wasn't mad. No, that was about the furthest away from how she was feeling. She held no special emotional attachment to The Tennessee Birdwalk, which was mostly just this silly song she'd heard some as a kid and had stored away in her mind to pop out at various random points. What she was instead was impressed, because Abe had the confidence to just trust himself and do his thing, and he had the creativity to make his thing something that was actually at least almost as funny as the original words, and which followed the pattern and everything. His actual singing still wasn't quite the caliber that would be heard in choir, but that still didn't matter to Darlene.

Of course, now she was in a bind. Should she just pick back up with the normal words to the song? That would be the easiest choice, but it also felt kind of weak now, after Abe had made such a good showing, and also he'd messed it up a little so it wouldn't make sense. But on the other hand, part of why Darlene found his willingness and ability to go off on his own so impressive was that it was something she definitely did not herself possess. Darlene had imagined writing her own songs, more than once. She'd even taken faint and hesitant starts a few times, scribbling in the margins of notebooks or on old documents with names like "junk.docx" on her laptop, but she was incredibly self-conscious about her work. She wasn't really a creative person, she didn't think, and everything she came up with felt simultaneously trite and dumb but also way too personal and vulnerable. And that was with all the time she wanted and nobody else there to witness! Here she had an audience.

She glanced at Christina, then, as if maybe the other girl might step in and bail her out with an inspired verse of her own. It was probably going to be a hope in vain, since Christina didn't seem like the singing type at all, or really much for merriment in general, and maybe this was the reward Darlene deserved for her thoughts before, because now the shoe was on the other foot and Christina wasn't going to lend her a hand any more than she was going to go out of her way to arm the girl.

So, instead, Darlene clapped a few times. It was an awkward process that didn't make as much noise as she was used to, because she didn't put her gun down, instead smacking her open left palm against her right hand, full as it was of the revolver. She was beaming, and in that moment she decided: she would do it. She would try.

"And, and take away the," she started, "the birds..."

Uh oh. She'd just taken away the birds in a song about birds. What was left? Where could this go?

"...and there's not much of anything to be found," she concluded.

There! There! She did it. Darlene made something up, and it was stupid, but so was the source material, and she only stumbled a little bit and she even got the meter right. She didn't have enough time to think things through or properly second-guess herself or decide she was too embarrassed, and so she actually pulled it off.

She smiled as wide as she could, looking back and forth between Abe and Christina, positive neither of them would get it or understand but wanting to share this moment with them nonetheless. It was meaningless, silly, transient in the extreme, but in this instant she was proud, and not even the sudden resurgence of the pinch of glasses against shredded ear could take that away.

It took a few minutes before Erika realized that the other two people she saw on the radar weren’t moving from their places; she had ot move. As they sang she darted between cover, only barely picking out what they were singing at one another. It sounded stilted, as if there was some disagreement on the words they were singing - or what they were singing about. An unfamiliar song sung by an unfamiliar voice; she had a feeling even if she’d been paying any more attention she wouldn’t have figured out what song it was. Most of her focus was directed to making sure the long rifle didn’t catch on any branches, and that her feet wouldn’t snap any deadfall and alert the group to her presence.

What little light was left was quickly fading, seemingly by the minute as Erika struggled to reach a better vantage point. By the time she had repositioned herself such that she could see all three of them, they were only starting to become silhouettes.

All the better.

She still recognized the male voice that contributed to the chorus. Abe Watanabe, Forrest’s boyfriend. Forrest’s killer. Her jaw clenched as she looked down the length of her rifle towards him, still not fully able to ignore the person where she wanted to see a silhouette.

They hadn’t been close enough for it to seem like some kind of revenge. Spite, maybe. She felt uncomfortable at the idea that Abe had made it this far and Forrest hadn’t. Something inside kept her thinking that there was more than chance that kept people going at this point; that the last ones standing might’ve earned it, somehow. The last ones standing should’ve been the worst of them, or the best of them; not someone like Abe.

The butt of the rifle was just brushing up against her shoulder; not tight against it like it should’ve been. She inhaled slowly, leaning against a nearby tree for support.

Focus. It doesn’t matter who he was or what he’s done.

She strained her eyes trying to get a good look at the other two. Even from this vantage point, neither face was especially recognizable, though her eye did catch the glint of steel in the singing girl’s hand. Could’ve been a knife, or a gun; she couldn’t tell at this distance. Abe’s weapon was far less ambiguous - the novel shape of the P90 was immediately obvious.

The Martini-Henry wavered. The PSG-1 the terrorists had outfitted her with would’ve made something like this so easy. Erika knew the P90 had its own niche she could exploit, if she could put him down with the first shot.

The only shot.

There was something else, too, sticking out of his bag. A third weapon, one he hadn’t opted to outfit the third member of their party with. If he went down, the quiet girl would have no choice but to run or scramble for one of his weapons. The singing girl would have to make a similar choice, or stand and fire back.

Reaching into the bandolier across her chest, she drew another cartridge and held it between her fingers, at the fore grip of the rifle. Abe would be first, then she’d reload and bring down whichever of the two girls decided to stand and fight. She took a breath in, doing her best to suppress any reaction to the pain in her side.

Letting that breath out, she leaned closer into the rifle, anticipating the recoil. Giving slightly against her weight, a small tree’s leafy branches provided concealment more than any kind of serious cover. Her finger rested gently on the trigger. There was no creep on this old gun; the trigger was heavy, but crisp.

Erika positioned the blade of the sight in the center of Abe’s chest, only slightly to the left. Just as she had with Desiree.

Something clicked.

Not in her mind. Not the trigger, either. No, something clicked beside her. A conspicuous tapping she couldn’t place. Didn’t want to place, because she was moments from taking the shot she needed to take.

Her index finger trembled, as she held the rifle tighter against her shoulder. They were right there. Hearts that kept her trapped in this place so long as they kept beating.

In that one moment there seemed to be nothing in the world except for the rifle sights, Abe, and her own heartbeat. The peace of it was broken not by the report of the gun, but the source of the soft clicking making itself known. Then, the world became forty-four legs, bright red head, and a set of nasty-looking mandibles crawling down Erika’s forearm.

“AHH, JESUS-FUCK!”

Instinctively she tensed up, squeezing the trigger on the Martini-Henry as she yelped in surprise. The shot went wide, the recoil causing Erika to stumble backwards as she flailed and struggled to toss the large, definitely-venomous looking giant centipede off of her sleeve. The centipede didn’t seem intent on hanging on or, thankfully, biting down - it flew off somewhere into the foliage.

With it went her chance to take any of the members of Abe’s group by surprise. Through the thick smoke she caught only a faint glimpse of movement on their end of the Lake before return fire began to tear through the treeline. Drawing her pistol, she fired a few perfunctory shots back in their direction as she ran deeper into the Jungle, no longer caring so much about what she might accidentally step on.

((Erika Stieglitz continued in Piece by Piece))

((Going approved by boogie and MW))

Christina listened to the singing and the whatever as she looked at Abe. She really had nothing to say, except for one thing that had been niggling at her mind, even though it wasn't an immediate concern, or at least, not a concern beyond getting shot.

"So, when I left you the first time, I said that I wasn't sorry. The thing was, that before I met you, I was with Forrest, Connor, Faith, and Amelia, and the question came up of why Madison would have killed Nathan. I gave the answer that I believed to be true - namely that it was impossible to truly know and that our time was better spent thinking about what was directly in front of us. They didn't take it well and right before Forrest and I met you, Forrest ... admonished me over what I said." She took a breath. "After our little thing, I was so pissed off that I decided to double down instead of apologize, but after thinking about it, yeah, I was being stupid. So, it might be a bit late for the person who it was meant for, but I'm sorry that "

BANG

A shot rang out. Christina hit the deck. Abe and Darlene didn't have their guns pointing anywhere before more bangs were heard, and not from any of them, but rather from behind Christina and in front of Abe. Abe and Darlene pointed their guns in the general direction of the shots and let out a burst of gunfire that (hopefully) hit the person aiming for them. A second later, and the three broke into a run, running as fast as they could away from the site.

((Christina Rennes continued You Gotta Roll With It, You Gotta Take Your Time))

Darlene was so proud of herself that she wasn't really listening to what Christina was saying. After all, it wasn't meant for her. It was a follow-up to the argument from yesterday, a quiet olive branch, and she didn't have the context to appreciate it properly and it might be awkward for the others if she involved herself besides. She would just bask in the warmth of her successful improvisation, and try to ignore the little pains from past misadventures and hope nothing else went wrong.

So of course it immediately did. Of course! What Darlene was learning was that nothing nice could last. A minute or two here and there, that was allowed, but get too comfortable and somebody would leave or attack them or get mad for no reason.

The flavor of the current moment was unexpected attack. The boom of a gunshot reverberated through the area, coming from somewhere behind Christina and sending any nearby wildlife scattering in a crashing of leaves and branches, and even as Darlene was fretting and trying to understand what was happening and attempting to figure out if one of the people with her was now dead or not, she was reacting.

She had learned. Not necessarily well, but this was so many ambushes that she had entirely lost count, so of course she had learned. So her arm snapped up, pointing in the direction from which the fire had seemed to originate, and the revolver was right there, always ready. Her finger was squeezing the trigger as her thumb reached for the hammer. This trick didn't help her aim much, but Darlene couldn't aim well anyways, and besides she couldn't see whoever had attacked them anywhere so there was nothing to aim at. But it didn't matter. She might get lucky, and if she didn't? It would still serve as a polite suggestion that the hunter seek prey elsewhere. This group had teeth.

With her left hand coming around to steady the weapon, Darlene pulled the hammer back and released, pulled and released, keeping the trigger depressed all the while. The metal was slick against her fingers and maybe it wasn't even that much quicker than shooting the normal way, but she didn't have time to worry about that. She was moving, standing and ducking towards the trees, searching for cover, as more gunfire came back their way. This new attack sounded different, and she wondered briefly if it was another group coming for them, before she put such concerns out of mind.

It didn't matter who it was. It didn't matter why. It could be anyone. It could be everyone left in the game, all lining up to come for them, and it didn't matter because Darlene was sick to death of people coming from nowhere and trying to kill her and her friends. She was done with it. No more.

Her movements probably ruined whatever semblance of aim had remained, not that it mattered. She didn't hear any screams, but the attack tapered off. Whoever it was had maybe realized this wouldn't be such an easy proposition after all. Darlene's hands were shaking, and she thumbed the hammer twice more before the click of metal striking metal to no effect and the lack of kick and report permeated her awareness. She was out of ammunition. She was shaking overall, she realized, not just the hands.

"Go away," she screamed. She could barely hear herself, the ringing was so loud. Abe and Christina were up, alive, not shot at all. It was something. It was, she thought, the first time for such a positive outcome. Maybe they were lucky. Maybe she'd been quick enough for once.

"We should," she muttered, and now she definitely couldn't hear herself so she shouted again, "we should get away. We should move. We have to get away."

Bullet after bullet slipped into the slot, cylinder cycling to accept them. It was only when the seventh clicked against a filled slot that she realized she was done. She still had her bag on her, and dropped the extra bullet into it. She never really left her stuff lying around. Not anymore.

"Let's go," she said, pausing in following her own instructions only long enough to make sure she wasn't leaving anyone behind. If she'd learned anything, it was that goodbyes could so often be forever.

Darlene kept her balance as she ran, panting for breath but not stumbling now. Her blood pulsed through her head, and her ear and scalp should be hurting but there was too much adrenaline.

It was silly, but all she could think was that she wanted the reality of three minutes ago back.

She never should've taken away the birds.

((Darlene Silva continued in You Gotta Roll With It, You Gotta Take Your Time))

Abe didn’t really get why Darlene seemed so thrilled about their dumb lil’ song but her smile was cute and kinda infectious, even though it'd faded to a smirk by the time it landed on his face, but he gave her an appreciative nod anyways. They’d done it, they’d completely erased birds from the world, great teamwork everyone, just ignore the assholes in the trees that were still singing all like “HEY WANNA FUCK”, those weren’t birds, alright, they were something else, and wow that was a more ominous sentiment than he’d intended.

Anyways maybe their beautiful improv song had caused them all to be possessed by a warm fuzzy spirit of togetherness, ‘cause Christina finally broke her silence, but as she went on and on, Abe really wished that she hadn’t, ‘cause all she was doing was spoiling the aforementioned mood.

Forrest was dead, alright. Abe didn’t want to hear her name cross anyone’s lips anymore, especially Christina’s of all people. Hadn’t she already fucking done enough? She was listing off a buncha names of people he didn’t care about, what the hell was he supposed to say? ‘I forgive you for being kind of a dick to my girlfriend before I killed her?’ Of all the inane bullshit-

Any last trace of a friendly ghost was exorcised by a bullet slamming into a tree a few feet away from him. He saw the bark explode into splinters from the impact, and thankfully none of it hit him in the eyes, and even more thankfully his brains weren’t subsequently splattered by a second shot.

He was pretty confident that this asshole hadn’t been shooting at a bird, so he finally put all his training into action, clicking the safety off and raising his gun in one fluid motion - but then, he hesitated, because he didn’t see anything, and that’d been a single big shot, right, like from his rifle, so wouldn’t ducking for cover like Christina be the smart thing to do, anyways?

Even though he managed to sidestep behind a tree so the deadeye didn’t dome him if they happened to have more than one shot in their clip, his instincts were still way too sloppy. Fucking Darlene was firing back faster than he was, and that was the important part, wasn’t it, sending the message that you were ready and willing to blast the hell outta anyone that fucked with you? Proving that you were the kings of big dick mountain and not just a loot pinata.

A couple quieter cracks answered Darlene’s complaints, and Abe’s insides were still inside him, so he fired a quick retort in the general direction of the danger. Maybe the sniper had a buddy, or maybe the first shooter was just like Fifty Guns Gregg, either way he hoped they had to go fuck off and get their manager instead of just responding back-and-forth all day, he only had so many bullets.

“Yeah we need to get the hell out, just like, literally anywhere that isn’t here,” he shouted back at Darlene, having gained an unfortunate understanding that they were all probably gonna be deaf by the end, well, he’d be deaf, you got his fuckin’ drift, hopefully his ears stopped ringing eventually.

After waiting another couple seconds to make sure no one’s head exploded, Abe scooped up his bags and ran.

((He stepped on a centipede as he ran away. If he’d known what’d saved him, he’d feel kinda bad about the irony, which was pretty stupid, haha.))