Survival Of The Fittest

((JACOB WINTERS START))

It was taking everything in him not to start screaming. And "everything" was a rapidly-dwindling resource.

He was sitting on the floor of some old, forgotten lab, legs drawn to his chest, curled in on himself in the corner of the room. He'd woken up in this spot and hadn't been given much cause to budge. He was afraid moving around too much would draw attention; he was so desperate to remain silent he could scarcely breathe for fear of whatever minor noise it might make. He certainly couldn't fly into hysterics, no matter how much he wanted to. He could vaguely hear others shuffling around in the building - or maybe he was just imagining it. He didn't wanna find out if he was. It was best to stay as silent as possible, for as long as possible.

Or at least he was trying to tell himself that. Truthfully, being so still and quiet was only heightening the terror he felt. Maybe it'd be better to rip the bandaid off, let the tension building in him out, and hope whatever attention it drew wasn't hostile. And if it was, well...

Well, at least he'd be getting it over with quickly.

He drew into himself a little tighter, chin resting on his knees. Tears fled from his eyes, a betrayal of his resolution not to cry, and his throat closed, worsening his struggling breaths. He was utterly fucked, and he knew it. This shit'd happened, like, six or seven times now, right? He wasn't sure how many victims it'd claimed in total, but he was pretty sure it was in the hundreds. He was also pretty sure the number of survivors wasn't anywhere near that. The odds weren't good, and that wasn't even taking into account whether he could actually bring himself to do what they'd been dumped here to do. The rules had been stated pretty clear; you only went home after making sure everyone else didn't.

He covered his face with his hands, whimpering pitifully. He may as well already be dead.

In the distance, there was the sounds of glass shattering and drywall being kicked in.

A deeper voice began to scream, getting higher in pitch as he drew out his profane screaming.

"FUUUU-UUUUUUUUUUUUUU-CK!"

The door kicked open, and in walked in Tully Talbot.


(TULL TALBOT BEGINS THE GAME))


Tully slammed the door behind him, "GOD-DAMNIT!" he screamed, as it the door bounced back and hit him in the elbow. He turned to it, an offended look on his face. "GODDAMMIT!" He screamed again, Sparta-kicking the door to close it, only to knock it off its lower hinge, leaving it to dangle lopsidedly in the doorway. He stared at it, red faced; "FUCKINNNN'-" and turned around, just to notice Jacob hush-puppied in the corner.

Tully leaned back against the wall and started laughing. He slid down the wall until he was also sitting on the floor. He continued laughing. He shook his head, sighing. Then he laughed some more, until he was chuckling silently to himself, until he stopped. He sighed again. "Sumbitch..."


"Man, ain't this some shit."

As the door burst open and the other boy boomed and swore, Jacob recoiled, cramming himself even further into the corner. For a second, he was certain this was the end. For all his effort to stay quiet, someone lunatic had sniffed him out and was gonna kill him in a blood rage. It'd already seemed inevitable, the only surprise was how quickly it'd happened.

Fortunately, he was wrong. The other boy was quick to calm down. The furious swearing became a mirthless laugh that soon devolved into a flat little chuckle. Soon he was sitting on the floor too, musing about their incredibly grim situation. He didn't sound nearly so furious anymore, nor did he sound like someone kidnapped by psychopaths who'd meted out a death sentence to him. If anything, he sounded like someone dealing with a flat tire. It felt surreal, almost, hearing someone speak of being in SOTF so casually... but after the rage explosion earlier, he supposed he'd take it.

"Y-yeah..." he stammered, still trembling and teary-eyed. "You c-could say that..."

He felt embarrassed all of a sudden, crying and cringing on the floor as he was. He surely looked and sounded utterly pathetic going on like this. Unfortunately, he wasn't quite embarrassed enough to stop.

"I-I..." He removed his sunglasses, fruitlessly swiping at the tears on his face. "I can't f-fuckin' believe this sh-shit, man."

...


"Yeah."



Shits happened like nine or ten times before. Of course, of fucking course their class was picked this time. Tully felt sick. "Man I shoulda just fuckin' dropped out. This some bullshit." His hands were shaking, knuckles already worn and bleeding from punching through drywall. He rubbed at his wrists, shook his left one out. Tully laughed again.

"This shit's fucked. Worst part is nobody's coming for us. Once we wake up here it's already over. By the time I walked in the door, someone on the other side of this fuckin' island already killed someone. Same fuckin' shit, different fuckin' day." He laughed again.


"FUCK FUCK FUUUUCK!" Tully elbowed the wall behind him and stood up.


"FUCKING FUCK-MOTHERFUCK!" Tully kicked at the desk in front of him, it wasn't all that well aimed so he lost balance and stumbled back. He paced around, brushing his fingers through his red hair. "Fuuck dude..." He wanted to do something, anything to get out of this, but he knew it didn't matter. In the end it never does. He gripped the end of the desk and leaned his head into it, swearing into his arms some more before standing up. He glanced around the room and took a deep breath, and then another one.



"Dude, I don't know man, I don't fuckin' know..."

DREAD came running, skidding to a stop in front of the broken remains of the door, which was still hanging lopsided by one hinge. On one arm, she had her duffle bag.

"MOTHER FUCK!!" she shouted, and stomped on the door until the last hinge that had been desperately holding on gave way, clattering defeated to the floor in front of her.

((Mildred Platt, start))

She brushed her nose with her thumb and then looked up at the two boys.

"I knew I heard you, I knew that was you bustin heads!" she said. Seeing that Tully was kind of hunched over already, she jumped onto his back, hugging him from behind like a backpack and not noticing that he was actually holding on to a desk. Mildred kept tight hold of her hands clasped together so he wouldn't see them shaking, but he might still have felt it as she was being the Yoda to his Luke.

"It's gonna be 'k, right? Our class is a bunch of stupid nerds, right? No one would -- they ain't got the stones to --" she said, now glancing over at Jacob.

It didn't take long for the boy - Tully, he vaguely remembered him now - to go back to yelling and hitting shit. From what he knew of the guy, that was basically how he dealt with everything. At least now Jacob knew it wasn't a threat to him, though; he could deal with it as long as it was impotently directed at their captors. Fuck, maybe he had the right idea even. It wasn't like there was much else they could do about it, and smashing shit probably felt better than melting into a sad puddle on the floor.

He would've gotten up if not for the shriek of "MOTHER FUCK!!" from outside, followed shortly by the door being smashed off its hinges and crashing to the floor. A spike of anxiety shot through him as a girl barreled into the room and leapt on Tully's back. He'd have thought she was attacking him if it wasn't for the blustery, excited way she spoke to him. She wasn't a threat either; just kind of a loud idiot. He wasn't sure how he felt about being around two of them at once. Especially since the girl, according to her own words, didn't seem to see the true threat of the situation.

"I d-don't have your confidence in that." He replied, finally picking himself up off the floor. "It's happened without f-fail every other time, r-right?"

He sniffled a bit, still wiping at tears threatening to form in the corners of his eyes. Shame burned in his gut; why'd he have to be the only one here who cried about it?

"And besides, even if nobody does it, they'll... they'll kill us anyway."

And then the best worst thing that could happen happened. Tully knew Mildred was here, but-

Mildred was here. SOTF. The game everyone dies in. One out of one hundred or so people comes home. Still, he laughed. Mildred was her same old self, and that was good.


“Hey Mildew…” Tully tried to speak like nothing was wrong. Like this was normal. The piggybacking was normal-ish, just ignore this MKUltra building they’re in and it’s normal.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re the last person I want to see in this shithole.” He meant it. She didn’t deserve this place. None of them did, but Dread was at the absolute bottom of the list of people who should be playing death games.

“I’m happy to see you though… Just not here.”

What Jacob said added to it.

Tully glanced between Jacob in the corner and Dread behind him.

“He’s right though, but I don’t think anyone here’s gonna do shit. I don’t know about the rest of us.”

Meanwhile, another nearby door was slowly opened. Unlike Tully and Mildred, the newest arrival treated the establishment with care. Or maybe she just didn't want to be noticed.

((Dawn Montogomery continued from Welcome To Your Death))

She recognized all three of her classmates currently in the room. Jacob, Tully and Mildred were not the kind of people Dawn hung around back at JEM, but maybe this was for the best. It would make her next course of action much easier.

The question was how to approach them. This tragedy had happened seven times before, so surely there had to be some kind of common etiquette on how to signal that you came in peace. Didn't she read something about the terms to differentiate how students acted during SOTF?

Finally it came to her mind.

Dawn opened the door, creating a creaking noise in the process. Remaining in the doorframe to allow for a speedy exit if necessary, she raised her right hand as a greeting.

"Hello. I am not playing."

Then she brought forward her left hand, holding the bag of cannabis that the terrorists had given her as a weapon.

"Does anyone of you know how to... use this?"

Mildew thunked Tully on the head after he called her that. She looked from the back of his head to Jacob and her buck teeth gripped the edge of her lip in anxiety.

"S-sure it's always happened. But -- But -- But we're built different... right?"

Then, a second, un-destroyed door creaked open. DREAD slid off Tully's back, small fists balled up near her chest, ready to square up.

"Playin' what --" was DREAD's immediate question. But then she saw the enormous bag of marijuana, which was more weed than she'd ever seen in her life.

When she said wasn't playing she really meant it.

Mildred's eyes became the size of plates and she stared in awe at Dawn.

"This is the most beautiful woman I've ever seen," she mumbled and pointed to her, momentarily forgetting their broader situation.

This lab was getting surprisingly full. Another girl, with a far different vibe from Tully and "Mildew". Unlike them, she appeared to actually know how to use a door.

Also unlike them, she brought with her something he was all too happy to see.

"Abso-fucking-lutely I do."

"First you had my curiosity; now you have my attention."

Kathleen felt weird.

((KATHLEEN VOZELNIK START))

Like, waking up after sleeping a very, very long time in a very, very awkward position. The feeling you have when you realize that you left your mouth open very slightly all night, and now your throat is ever so slightly dry and achey. And no amount of water will ever fix the dryness, even if you drink straight for several minutes. The feeling you have when you sleep directly on your arm, cutting off just enough circulation for it to get painful pins and needles. The kind that would last well into the rest of your morning, and would directly impact functionality of your arm while you rush awake, knowing you're late for the bus.

Now combine all of this, with the feeling of slightly damp, cold, metal. And you have exactly what Kathleen has woken up to. Her body fiddled around slightly, trying to figure out where exactly it is. A trunk? A closet? A desk? A locker? No, it's much too cube-like for all of that. A cupboard? Maybe, but why is it made of metal? And why is she in a cupboard in the first place?

Kathleen moves around just a little bit more. Okay, so she's in some kind of small, metallic cupboard. Why is this? Perhaps a bully played some kind of trick on her after she fell asleep at lab? No, because the teachers would've definitely found out at this point. That she was missing that is. Or perhaps not? Kathleen felt very confused at this, and her level of haziness did not help. Why was she so hazy? How long has she been out? Is that sunlight or artificial light streaming ever so slightly from the cracks in the door?

Memories began flooding back, as if some kind of sewer gate had opened, letting the noxious waves of human waste and water flow into the intake. Kidnapping? Gas? Survival of the Fittest? Terrorists? Death game? Last man-woman-or-NB-standing? Oh God? Oh fuck? Deadass?

??????????!!!!!!!!?!?!!!!!!!!!!????????!!!?!?!?????!???

Kathleen started to, much more violently, thrash in the cupboard, feeling all at once much more claustrophobic. Her breathing felt constricted, and the secret evil trapdoor to release all the murderers was about to open. And where was Kathleen? A sitting duck, stuck in some cubic metal prison. THE pandora's box itself. It was hell personified, except it wasn't personified, and it was merely a metal box somewhere Kathleen did not know.

The walls were closing in on her, until suddenly they weren't. A leg kicked, the door bursting off it's hinges, as Kathleen tumbled out of the cupboard and fell to the floor below her.

A lab. That's where she was. Mystery solved!

She hit the tile floor, very hard. Kathleen felt sleepy again, but tried getting up, fighting off the unconsciousness. Not that she hit her head, or anything. Probably just lack of oxygen. Or hyperventilation. Or both. Or maybe it was sleepy bitch disease. Probably the last one.

Her eyes felt hazy, she slowly got up.

"Fuck."

It appeared that Dawn had run into just the right people.

When she presented her "weapon", everyone gave a positive reaction. Tully's line felt weirdly familiar, but Dawn decided to pay it no mind as she fully entered the room and joined the group.

"I know it may sound stupid, but I want to spend my time on this island how I want to, not how Danya wants us to. And since I got a bunch of drugs, I figured I might give it a go."

She reached a table accompanied by a few chairs, apparently for meetings. The perfect place to put down the cannabis.

"They also gave me that here." Dawn produced the bag with the blunt hemp wraps. "And there should be a lighter in our first aid kits, so fire isn't an issue either. I don't mind sharing, so how about we... kick back and relax for a while?" She tried to give a smile, but now that she was actually setting her plan in motion, she realized how silly it sounded when said aloud.

Luckily, a rumbling five meters to her right ended the moment of awkwardness befor it could really begin. Dawn turned around just in time to see a cupboard bursting open, spitting out a small girl and her belongings.

Dawn recognized the girl.

"Kathleen?"

While her daily contact with Kathleen Vozelnik was about as low as with the other students in the room, she knew that Kathleen was one of the goths in the class and also did cosplay, a topic Dawn sometimes dabbled in due to being in the Knitting Club. She went to Kathleen and offered a hand to help her up.

"Are you alright?"

Mildred moved closer to Dawn, her jaw still lowered from the shock of taking in the bounty that arrived.

Then suddenly, someone fell out of a nearby cupboard, causing Mildred to shriek and nearly jump out of her skin.

"What the hell?" she demanded, still shaken. "Fuckin jeez. Terrorism, setting up jump scares -- they truly have no standards," she muttered.

Then the weed and Dawn moved over to help Kathleen.

While that was happening, Mildred decided to look in her bag finally. She'd forgotten all about it until this point, and now eagerly tore into the duffel.

"What'dIget, what'dIget, what'dIget --"

That's when she pulled out a high society critter rendered in fine fur.

"Wow, a big barrel of jack and also shit!" she said, placing the thing on her hand.

"And a side of fuck all!" she said in a higher voice while moving the puppet's mouth.

Jacob burst out laughing at the sight of the dapper squirrel.

"I f-fucking..." he choked out between the giggles. "Wh-what the fuck, hahaha!"

The puppet wasn't that funny, really. But it was just absurd enough given the context to feel utterly hysterical. Especially given how desperate he was to feel anything but the terror and despair of a moment ago.