Survival Of The Fittest

For a moment she could believe that it had all been a dream. That she had tumbled out of the bus as it went off the road. That the hole in the ground was a ditch by the highway. That she'd fallen out of the bus, through an open window, and landed here, and pretty soon the adrenaline would wear off and she'd have a few broken ribs, maybe a fucked ankle, but she'd be alive, and she'd be waiting for help, and help would come.

Then she saw the bags. The bags and the bag on the end of a pole.

Behind the bags, a wall. Around her, four walls, walls of dirt. Above her, the gray sky, bound by a rectangular frame.

She awoke in her own grave.

Amaryllis tried to breathe. She coughed instead, and went down on one knee, struggling for air before her fit stopped. It felt like there was a knife in her throat. Crawling with her hands and knees on the semifrozen dirt, she opened up her duffel bag and looked around in the first aid kit for an antiemetic. But she couldn't find one, so she threw the bag away from herself and threw herself to the far corner of the grave and threw up whatever was left in her stomach.

She cried, too. Wept. Got it all out, all snot and spit and selfsorry shit. If she was going to make it out of the grave, she would fill it, and bury this part of herself so that she could remain strong.

---

Once Amaryllis had collected herself, used one of the first-aid kit masks to wipe the vomit off her face, and stood up, she realized that there was an immediate problem; the grave was taller than she was.

The lacrosse stick didn't give her any extra height to balance with. She tried standing on her duffel bag, but couldn't place her feet in a way that wouldn't do a number to what was inside. Taking a running start from one side of the grave to the other couldn't give her the momentum she needed to run up the wall and grab the edge and pull herself out—she knocked some dirt loose that way. She didn't have enough jackets to tie together to make a rope, and there was nothing immediately around the edge of the grave to tie it onto, that she could see, because when she jumped she couldn't even see over the top. She had been to funerals before and she felt like there was something wrong with this one. It was lower in the Earth than it needed to be. Almost an entire foot lower.

So there was really only one option left, right?

Amaryllis took a deep breath. She swallowed some air, and her pride went down with it.

"HE-E-ELP!"

Amaryllis shouted, waving the lacrosse stick as high as she could, hoping that the top of it was visible from outside the grave.

"SOMEBODY, PLEASE, HE-E-ELP! THEY LEFT ME DOWN HERE AND I CAN'T GET OUT!"

Sure, it might attract the wrong kind of attention. But there was no way around it: she couldn't get out of here by herself.

Several seconds or so later, a voice rang out in response.

"HEY! Hang in there!"


((Lillian "Lily" Larsen V8 START))

Lily had quite the odd start herself, awakening to find herself trapped in a tight wooden box with soft padding underneath her. It didn't take long for her to put 2-and-2 together and realise where she was, panic briefly gripping her before she closed her eyes and started counting to ten, trying to calm herself down before she did something stupid. After some awkward shuffling and shifting, she'd eventually move her hands up and press them against the lid, taking a long deep breath. Please don't be buried underground, please don't be buried underground, please don't be buried underground...

Fortunately, as she pushed the lid of her coffin open, she'd find herself staring up at the grey cloud above. Breathing a sigh of relief that she didn't have to punch her way out like in Kill Bill, she'd clamber out and look around her surroundings, scratching her head as she quickly pieced together that she was in a graveyard.

Having gotten past the initial shock of waking up in her own coffin, she'd bury her hands into her palms and start to breath steadily, now faced with the much more pressing matter of dealing with the whole Survival of the Fittest thing. Jesus Christ, weren't they only supposed to target summer trips? Oh... God.

She didn't have too long to acclimatise until she heard a voice cry out for help, prompting her to clamber out of her coffin to look around, calling back to try and pinpoint where the voice was coming from.

"Where ARE you?"

"Down," Amaryllis said. It was supposed to be a shout, but her voice faltered. She tried to remember the person that other shout came from, but it too was muffled, far away sounding.

"Down here! I'm waving a lacrosse stick around, and, jumping, with it."

Which she continued to do, trying to put all she could into the jump, to get as much of the lacrosse stick over the top of the grave as she could.

It was starting to tire her out.

Lily scanned the horizon, trying to figure out where the voice was coming from until she heard another shout echo from one of the open graves, followed by what appeared to be the top of a lacrosse stick waving for attention. Oh, shit, is she really... Right.

Not one to leave one of her peers in a bind, she'd snatch her bag up and run over as quickly as she could, stumbling slightly as she was still a bit woozy from the sleeping gas. It wouldn't be long until she stopped by the grave, looking down to see one of her peers stuck at the bottom.

She didn't know Amaryllis too well, though she'd recognise that bright red hair from a mile off. They had mostly crossed paths amongst the various alternative culture circles they occupied, Lily feeling pretty certain she'd brought a jacket off her at the mall one time. Not that any of that mattered, acquaintance or otherwise she had to do something to help her out, bending over and reaching her hand out.

"Here, grab on!"

When Lily finally came over and reached her hand down, Amaryllis felt relieved, started to smile, and reached up, but stopped herself before she grabbed on.

"Wait there a second," Amaryllis said, "Find a foothold or something, I don't want to pull you down with me."

Lily was apparently a Satanist, by popular reputation, but that was a rumor that Amaryllis didn't put much stock into. She had been called that before, herself. Anyone who went to her band's shows (right? Lily looked like she was familiar from there) or sold her a jacket (Amaryllis felt like she'd bought one from Lily before, or through Depop, or some other clothing swap event; it was on the tip of her tongue) was good in her book.

But Amaryllis lived by a code. And a part of that code was this; trust, but verify.

"Let's think this through," said Amaryllis, "I have these two bags; one's empty, but the other is a bit heavy."

She brought her lacrosse stick down and held it by her side like a scepter, using it to point from one bag to the other.

"If I give you my bags, first," she said, "and then you pull me up, how do I know you won't just run off with them?"

"Yeah yeah, of course..." she'd respond, steadying herself so that she could pull Amaryllis out of there without falling into the pit herself.

Lily would pause however as Amaryllis posed her conundrum, giving it some thought with a furrowed brow. She was about to suggest maybe using that lacrosse stick to fish them out if she was worried about her pulling a fast one, but upon reflection that probably wouldn't work if she could barely push the netted end of that stick out from where she stood, let alone try to hook up a bag laying on the floor from up above.

Giving it some thought she'd look over to her own bag and open it up, shifting through it's contents to see what she ended up getting assigned. A short while later she found herself looking down at what appeared to be a metal belt of some kind, with a handle at the end? She wasn't entirely sure what the hell it was, but she didn't have time to really speculate.

"Fair enough... I can maybe drop you my weapon, but what guarantee do I have that I'll get it back after I fish you out of there?" she'd ask, holding it up so that Amaryllis could see it. She didn't exactly want to suspect the other woman, but she wasn't interested in being a sucker either.

Amaryllis didn't know what that was, that Lily was holding. She'd never seen anything like it before in her life. Lily wasn't trying to use it on her, though, which was good. And the offer to hand it over, well, that was good too.

"You have my word," Amaryllis said, "and I can hand you the lacrosse stick. Even though I'm pretty sure it's useless for anything other than tripping somebody."

Or, she could kill a squirrel and put it in the basket, then use some of her medical tape to get it high in a branch, lure some big animal in. That was for when she had a rifle and could hunt. And assuming that there was anything big and predatory on the island to begin with. Apart from her own classmates.

Amaryllis went over to her bags. She picked up the empty bag and threw it up into the air, watched as it landed on the opposite end of the grave from where Lily was standing. She threw her lacrosse stick up after it, in the same direction.

"Now it's your turn. Weapon, then I'll hand my bag, and then you'll pull me and it up. Make sure that it isn't too heavy. And tell me where the sharp part is, so I don't cut myself."

Lily nodded her head. "Alright, sounds good to me..." she'd say, knowing full well there was only so much back and forth one could do insofar as trust exercises were concerned.

She'd examine her weapon some more, try to figure out what exactly it was. At first glance it resembled a flat metal belt, wrapped around and ending in a handle. Upon further inspection, she realised it was a bendy sword of some description that was curled up like a whip, and after lightly tapping the apparent blade she'd pull her finger back in pain. Yep, it was sharp alright. What the hell had she ended up with?

"Okay, careful with the sides, they seem to be pretty sharp" she'd say, tossing the hoop down before readying herself to catch the heavy bag that was thrown her way, grabbing it and putting it aside before then reaching down for Amaryllis. The other girl would reach up and grip her wrist, Lily grabbing a hold of her before reaching down with her other hand, using all her strength to PULL her up and out from there!

It was a task that was easier said than done, however, with Amaryllis being taller and heavier than herself and Lily was hardly a paragon of strength. She'd initially pull her a foot or so off the ground, before having to drop her back down, panting and wiping her brow before taking another deep breath. "Okay... On the count of three..."

She'd bite down on her bottom lip, readying herself for round 2.

"One... Two... THREE!"

On that note she'd pull again, tugging with all her might, lifting her a couple feet higher than last time...

C'mon, c'mooooooooooon!

Amaryllis's fault, the first one. She'd done almost exactly what she was trying not to, which was pull Lily down into the grave, by misjudging how much force she could pull herself up with. It was also hard to not accidentally cut herself on the whip-sword; she put the hilt in her left hand waist-level jacket pocket and had to be careful not to let the blade bounce against her snow pants with too much force, which made her approach at an off angle. Amaryllis would have to—

"—three!"

Amaryllis braced herself, took Lily's hands, and jumped. She pressed the soles of her boots to the wall and tried to propel herself upwards as Lily hoisted her up high enough for Amaryllis to get her elbows over the edge. It was like climbing out of a pool, but the dirt let her bring both knees up as she did half a roll forward out of the grave and onto the ground.

When she had both of her legs over, she rolled onto her right side to catch her breath, and gingerly pulled the urumi out of her pocket and set it on the ground next to her.

Ground. Sweet, sweet ground. Surface level ground. Snowy, dirty ground.

"Thanks," Amaryllis said, and coughed. She rolled to her side away from the sword and then sat up.

"There's a green apple in the lighter bag. I didn't get to it during the bus ride. Please, take it."

[Iliya "Liya" Polaris continued from A Question Of Faith]

The gate opened with a creak, as expected from these iron fences. Liya waved as she walked through it, calling out.

"Coming! Coming- oh, huh."

She approached the two, Amaryllis (she thought the yelling sounded familiar), and Lily. One a friend, one an... acquaintance? that she wanted to study under a microscope like a bug.

All things considered though, this was a pleasant surprise. She smiled. "Had a feeling it was you," she nodded to Amaryllis.

"Guess you took care of it just fine without us!" she noted to Lily, in good humour.

She glanced back, towards her incoming companion.

It wasn’t that she was so much faster than he was—she just had longer legs.

Pistol in his hand, fire in his belly, a storm in his eyes Big Dick huffed and puffed his way onto the scene with a clear intention and effort. He ran like he heard someone call for help and like it was important he be seen helping. Whenever there was a confusion, Dick went with what he was supposed to do. Dicky's hand gripped his pocket pistol harder. A display of power. Big Dick didn't have to use it, they just had to know he had it.


“Y'all okay?”

He knew, big picture, nobody was. Still it felt like the right thing to say and that was reason enough to say it.

Lily huffed as she wiped her brow again, laying back beside Amaryllis trying to catch her breath after heaving her ass out of that goddamn pit. She'd shake her head as she passed the lacrosse stick back, before retrieving her sword-hoop-thing. "Don't worry about it... That was... On the house..." she'd gasp between breaths.

She'd bolt up suddenly as she heard footsteps approaching, gripping the hand of her folded weapon as she turned her head, only to breathe a sigh of relief when she saw who it was. She and Liya weren't exactly friends, but they were... How should she put it, mutually fascinated in one another? No, not like that. More that she was fascinated by Liya's wiccan parentage and insight into that particular world, and Liya was keen to learn more about her satanic leanings.

Not that she was actually a satanist, or anything.

She'd nod back at Liya and give her a half-hearted thumbs up, before turning her head to see another familiar face show up, the legendary Biggus Dickus himself. Now THERE is an odd couple if I ever saw one...

"I think so, yeah" she'd respond to Big D, dusting herself off and getting up to her feet before reaching down to offer Amaryllis a hand.

"Please," Amaryllis said, "I insist."

But it didn't seem like Lily was going to take her up on that. There were two distractions, approaching on foot.

"I'm surprised you came back for me. If anyone's tired of hearing me shout like that, it's probably you."

Amaryllis smiled, but it faded fast. She wasn't sure what else to say right now. Liya was here, and Amaryllis wished that she weren't. Not because her company was unwelcome; she just didn't deserve any of what was going to happen, to all of them. Express anything else other than "gosh am I happy to see a familiar face like yours" right now and Amaryllis might bring back up what she had yet to bury. That grave still had to be filled in, after all.

Big D, on the other hand, Amaryllis didn't really know much about or care for—all she knew was that he was a President Kirby liberal, and that was enough to kill her curiosity right out the gate with most people—but his heart was in the right place, which meant he wasn't unreachable, and his question wasn't unwelcome. And it was better to have a question aimed at her than that gun. She took Lily's hand and stood up.

"I'm okay," Amaryllis said, "they—um, the terrorists, I mean—stuck me in that grave, right behind me. Luckily Lily was around to pull me out, or someone else could have come and fish-in-a-barreled my ass."

Her hand was still holding Lily's hand. She gave it a short squeeze and then let go, and took a step towards Liya and the Big D. Now that's a band name.

"Me and you must have got our weapons switched," she said, looking at Liya, "they gave me a lacrosse stick. What'd you get?"

Liya gave a thumbs up to Lily, then walked to Amaryllis' side with a scoff and leaned over, peering into the grave. "Yeah, yeah, bandmate's job."

Six feet deep seemed a lot deeper when you actually saw it. "Oh, that's evil evil. That's fucked," Liya muttered as she backed away from it.

Kidnapping a bunch of kids for the supposed ideal of survival of the fittest (in the sense of the gross misunderstanding of Darwin's theories perpetuated by fascists and adjacent fuckers) was one thing, but the wildly varying-in-quality weapon assignments, as demonstrated by that lacrosse stick compared to Liya and Dick's own weapons, and just plain cruel placements like that made Liya think that there's no way that could be the point either, not without the terrorists being the sort who doublethink easily - it was plainly not survival of the "fittest", but survival of the luckiest. Which was more true to life, in a way, so maybe that was their point.

(Also, it really annoyed her that 1984, for its flaws and the fact that annoying people on the internet kept bringing it up when it plainly didn't apply to them, had some really good words for this kind of shit.)

But enough contemplating the enemy. She tapped her bag, where she kept her blade for now - it was both intimidating and kinda unwieldy to carry out and around. "Really nasty looking billhook. So much for survival of the fittest, huh?"

It was rare Big Dick felt the outsider.

Richard tried his best to be Mr. Congeniality, responding to most situations with a friendly smile or a witty quip and always being willing to lend a hand or offer a shoulder. When he waddled the halls of JEM he felt like the Mayor champagning and campaigning, waving hand and kissing babies. In Dick's mind, that image of being everybody's buddy and acting like his status was quo was what got him elected veep, captain and king. Still, there were a lot of people he knew by face as opposed to name. It didn’t really matter. An honest smile, looking people in the eye—you could fake familiarity.

Dicky felt like an outsider, but there was a real familiarity in that. Richard was the only dude here and the girls knew each other better than they knew Dick. It wasn’t the first time he was in such a situation and there was a routine that came in the performance of projection and posturing. He was reminded of group projects and awkward cafeteria lunches spent discussing student government issues with Chloe at the cheerleader’s table. Even if he had butterflies in his stomach and discomfort in his shoulders—he stood straight and forced a neutral expression to his face. The situation was too scary to try and look cool...Dicky just didn’t want to look lame. Around anybody but especially around girls.

“It doesn’t make sense because this whole thing is senseless.”

He said it like he was saying the sky was blue.

Dick didn’t care about why he was in—he wanted to figure out how he was gonna get out.

“They gave me this,” he waved his comically small double-barreled pocket-pistol, “but I guess size doesn’t matter here.”