Survival Of The Fittest

((S014 - Juanita Reid Game Start))

There was a slight breeze teasing the bits of hair sticking out from under Juanita's hat. Her neck felt stiff - her head was laying on something, at a weird angle. Her leg was throbbing like crazy, too. She groaned and her eyes blinked open. Then they blinked again, in confusion. She couldn't quite figure out what she was looking at - a round metal ball in a dome of some kind. After a second or two she realized that she was looking at the interior of a big metal bell. Both the clapper and the rounded outer shell of it were old, and corroded.

Juanita sat up and rubbed at the sort spot on her neck while she looked around. She was in a small, square room with arched window holes on each wall. She could see sky all around, and some rooftops a little ways off. There was a ladder leading down someplace, the sides of the square hole lined with timber beams of some kind, presumably to keep unwary bellringers from taking a step in the wrong direction and falling down the hole. The space was pretty cramped, so whoever'd put her up here hadn't been able to lay her out properly and had apparently left her with her head propped up on one of the beams like a pillow. There was a tan bag nearby, with the number S014 stenciled on it in large black letters. Lying beside it was a bizarre weapon, like two daggers welded together at the hilt.

The memories came back pretty easily - during Danya's demonstration she'd been too frightened not to pay attention and let all of the details sear themselves into her mind. Everybody knew what Survival of the Fittest was, if they'd paid any attention to the world. She'd never really paid any real attention to it, though her brothers had talked about it from time to time, jokingly saying "Bye bye forever!" every time one of them went on a school trip. But now she was here, she was in it. She... She was going to die. All of her friends, all of the people she knew from the lacrosse team... all of them were going to die.

Someone was yelling, far off. Was it... were people already killing each other? Oh God, oh God, no... This can't be happening... I can't...

Her stomach knotted up, like someone had seized a fistful of her guts and twisted it as hard as they could. She leaned over, retching once, twice, but nothing came up. The floorboards underneath her creaked ominously, and she noticed for the first time that the floor she was on was slanted. Whatever this structure was, it wasn't stable. She couldn't stay here, especially with the cold blowing in. She crept over to the hole and looked down into the building below. Nobody seemed to be in there, at least nobody she could see. Trying to climb down the ladder with a pointy curvy weapon like this was going to risky as heck, and her leg was already throbbing with pain. Climbing down was going to be a slow, painful process, and if she fell she'd probably slice her guts open. No way did she want to risk getting attacked on top of that.

Juanita looked through the duffel bag, and found a small olive green medical box. She opened it up, and selected the most useless-looking item: a tube of anti-fungal cream. She held it out over the hole, and then dropped it. It fell for a disconcerting second or two, and then hit the floor with a loud bap. She watched cautiously, waiting to see if anybody came to investigate the sound.

(S032 — Medea Parth: Game Start)

Consciousness drifted back into her mind for the first time in who knew how long was an odd experience. She found herself laying on her back, staring up at a wooden ceiling, the world slightly tilting in one direction and a ladder next to her that went up. Confusion swarmed her mind until the memories came flooding back, one by one. Her eyes widened, she shot up from her laying down position faster than she had ever in her life. She panted, frantically looking around for anyone she might recognize. But there was no one, and as far as she could tell she was alone.

What happened to her poor teachers…

As she remembered her stomach churned, tears welling up in her eyes. She knew instantly what her situation was, and she desperately wished it was anything but. Her mouth was dry, her mind going through the list of people who were on the trip.

Her heart skipped a beat when she remembered two names in particular.

June and K.

Two of her best friends in the whole world had come on the trip and now they were out there somewhere, separated from each other. What would happen to them? What would they do once the reality of their situation came to them? Slowly she curled her arms around her knees, beginning to rock back and forth as she muttered to herself, desperate to calm her nerves.

This isn’t happening... This isn’t happening…

In the midst of her quiet panic something dropped down from the ladder and landed on the floor nearby with a BAP, electing a startled yelp from Medea. The blonde snapped her direction of what had fallen, seeing some sort of gunk had exploded from the crashed object. Hesitantly Medea stood up and began taking slow, careful steps towards it. Once she was close enough she crouched down next to it, plucking up the now exploded object with two fingers and lifting it to her eye level.

A tube of anti-fungal cream.

Medea blinked, then set the tube down. She looked upwards, her eyes squinting.

“H… H-hello?” She said, her voice shaky and hoarse. She cleared her throat and tried again, a little louder this time, “Hello?!”

Juanita had ducked out of sight as soon as she heard someone approaching, not sure who might be out there or what they might be armed with. But by creeping up over the edge, she managed to catch sight of someone down below, crouching to inspect the ruptured fungal cream. It was a blonde girl from school, wearing a bright yellow. The girl looked up, and Juanita shrank back just in time to avoid being spotted.

The girl was calling out. She sounded scared. Juanita closed her eyes, thinking hard. She had vague recollections of seeing the girl at Endecott, wearing bright colors. She seemed friendly enough, from what little Juanita remembered of her. But did that really count for anything at a time like this? Competition changed people. She'd seen teammates who were pleasant on the sidelines change into intense, snarling hooligans when game time started. This was like that, but on steroids, adderall, and... lots of other drugs she didn't know the name of. There was no telling what anybody might do, when death was on the line.

Maybe if she hid here, the girl would go away. Or maybe she'd climb up and investigate. Maybe someone else would hear her yelling and see what all the fuss was about, and then they'd kill her, and then they'd see what was up the belltower. There were too many variables to consider, too many players on the field to get any real sense of what anybody would or wouldn't do.

She weighed the options. What was she working with here? A shaky tower, and a precarious heavy bell that looked it'd turn her into paste if it fell on her. Couldn't stay here. So she'd have to go down. Do it now, or wait until the girl left? The girl didn't look like much of a fighter, and based on her voice, she was alone and pretty freaked out. That was good. It meant the girl could be a potential ally, at least for now. Juanita would need allies, if she wanted to survive for any length of time. Other people would probably team up, with friends or allies. Going it solo wouldn't be feasible, especially with her leg. Juanita thought back. The girl had picked up the cream, so she hadn't been carrying any kind of weapon, or at least not an obvious one. So if it came to blows, she'd have decent odds of walking away, or fighting the girl to a draw. This weird double dagger thing was basically just a shorter, heavier, stabbier lacrosse stick, right? Of course, all of this was assuming she could get down the ladder in one piece.

Her gut said to chance it. All right.

"Hello?" she called out, still staying back from the edge and remaining unseen. "Who's down there?"

A response came down, and Medea smiled. A person, an actual person was here! Granted, the actual answer couldn’t be anything else, but still it was people! While she knew what her situation was she couldn’t help but feel some joy that she actually found someone right away. The voice didn’t sound too familiar to her, but she was good with names and faces. Once they got a good look at each other she was sure she’d know who it was she was talking to.

“Oh, uh, hi!” Medea called up, her happiness leaking into her tone. “It’s me! Medea! I, uh, I’m not sure if you remember me or not! I’m just happy to hear from anyone.”

She paused, hesitantly looking around herself.

“Are you okay?” She asked. “Should I come up so we can talk or do you want to come down here or…”

"No, don't come up!" Juanita said, a little more frantically than she meant to. "Sorry, it's just that the tower is kinda unstable, and I don't think it's safe."

She leaned outwards, letting the other girl get a look at her face. "And, uh, hi! I'm Juanita, Juanita Reid. I do remember you, actually! I don't think we've met, but I've seen you around the school a few times."

She cast a look down at her bag and the wicked-looking curvy dagger beside it before continuing. "Look, I don't wanna stick around up here. I'm gonna come down, and we can talk more. I just have to... figure out how I'm gonna manage it with this bag and everything. I don't know how stable the ladder is gonna be."

Then again, whoever had dumped her up here must have carried her up while she was unconscious, right? So the ladder could probably hold the weight just fine. Probably.

She took another. Now way in heck was she going to be able to fit it in her bag and zip it up, and trying to carry an unzipped bag full of curvy knives down a rickety ladder seemed like a Darwin award waiting to happen. Her leg twinged just from thinking about it. Juanita settled for slinging the duffel bag over one shoulder, and gripping the weapon handle in the other hand. If she coiled that arm around the side of the ladder while moving her other hand down from rung to rung... yeah, that'd work. She'd have to go slowly, moving one limb at a time, but it'd be doable.

"Okay, I'm coming down now," she called to Medea. "You might want to stand back, if I fall I don't want to squash you or anything."

And with that, she started the long climb down.

Okay, so far so good. She wanted to talk. Wanted. To. Talk. That was the main takeaway here. She was glad that Juanita didn’t have all sense of morality robbed from her by the stress of the situation. She wouldn’t have judged her either way. SOTF was, very understandably, a terrifying situation. People do many things they normally wouldn’t do when they are desperate and scared. Medea quietly hoped that she herself wouldn’t succumb to the fear of the situation.

Juanita started to climb down, and Medea moved out of the way. She backed towards the duffel bag that had been laid next to her when she awoke, keeping her gaze on the ladder as Juanita descended.

“Please be careful!” Medea said. “That ladder looks a little rickety. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Juanita's bad leg had been pulsing with a dull ache ever since she got up. It wasn't all that bad when she was gathering her stuff and starting down the ladder. But only a second or two after Medea shouted up a warning to be careful, she misjudged her step, and had to shift her foot to catch herself. The sudden movement sent pain went shooting through her leg and up into her spine.

"Ghh!" She bit back a cry of pain, hugging the ladder tightly to keep from falling off of it. She pushed up with her other foot, taking the weight off her bad leg as best she could. The muscles felt swollen, like they were trying to burst out of the knee brace.

Juanita's breath hissed through clenched teeth. Her knuckles whitened around the grip of her weapon, her whole arm trembling.

She couldn't stop. She had to keep going.

She eased her foot down, and the knee trembled, about to buckle. Juanita gripped tight with both hands, taking as much weight onto her arms as she could, lowered herself until her other foot could catch the next rung and plant. A few ragged, panting breaths, and she brought the bad leg down to meet it. Red hot pain oozed like magma down her femur. Small tears of pain beaded in the corners of her eyes. Then the whole painful process started again. And again. And again.

It probably only took her a few minutes to reach the ground, but it felt like it took all day. When she finally felt her good ankle hit the floor, she dropped the curvy knife thing with a loud clang, and half-fell, half-slumped into a sitting position. The bag slipped off her shoulder and hit the ground with a slight whump.

After a few deep breaths, she managed to look up at Medea. "J-Jeez... that was rough. Do you... are there any meds in the bags?"

Medea could hear Juanita make a noise of clear discomfort as she descended the ladder. She frowned, fidgeting in place as she anxiously watched the other girl climb down. She wished she could do more to help, but there was very little she could actually do. For the time being, she would have to try to be content with watching Jaunita come down. The moment Jaunita reached the same floor as her, Medea watched as she sort of fell over into a sitting position. Concerned, she took a few steps forward before stopping when Jaunita addressed her.

“Oh, um….” She turned back to her bag and moved back towards it. “Let me check real quick.”

She knelt down to the bag, quickly opened it and began looking through it. A windbreak, some food and water, a map, a flashlight… some sort of whip thing? She wasn’t exactly sure what it was, but she figured it was her “weapon”. Regardless, she tossed the object over her shoulder and chose to forget about it. Eventually she did find the first-aid kit, pulling it from the bag.

“Let’s see here…” She opened the case, shifting through the contents. “Um… There is some Aspirin and Ibuprofen. Would any of that work?”

"One of each, if that's okay?" Juanita sat back, leaning against the foot of the ladder, taking slow, deep breaths. Now that her weight was off of the leg, the pain wasn't as bad, as long as she kept still. This sort of thing had happened before, once or twice, but never to this degree. She didn't know if it was a result of whatever they'd been knocked out with, or if she'd gotten banged up when they dumped her in the belltower, or if her body was just having a crazy reaction to the stress. But whatever was going on, it had her muscles and sinews tautened up like piano wires.

"Sorry, I... I've got a bad leg. It's not usually like this, but I guess with everything going on, I'm having a rough time with it."

She felt her cheeks going a bit red. Admitting weakness wasn't something she'd ever been good at, but in this situation? She might as well have hung up a flashing neon sign saying "Leave me behind! I'm dead weight!" Better to change the subject.

"So... How are you doing? With... you know. Everything."

Medea nodded her head, pulling out the two bottles and working to get the medicine out. She knew that Juanita probably had the same stuff in her bag, but as far as Medea was concerned Juanita was in a lot of pain and needed help. Made little sense to go rifling through another bag when she already had the items required in her hands right now. Besides, two pills gone is not going to hurt anything. Right now someone was in need and she wasn't going to turn a blind eye or leave her to her fate. Some people might have, maybe even taken advantage of the situation presented to them, but she just wasn't that sort of person.

With the pills required she also pulled a water bottle from her bag and moved towards Juanita.

“Hey, it’s okay.” She said, smiling softly. “You are going to be okay. Just take these and relax for a moment.”

She carefully handed Juanita the medicine, then uncapped the bottle before also handing it to the other girl. Slowly she lowered herself to the ground near Juanita, sitting cross legged as she watched the other girl. She smiled softly, hopefully reassuring. She reminded herself that the situation in general was stressful and trust was probably at an all time low for just about everyone. While Medea knew she wasn't a threat to anyone, Juanita didn't. She needed to give her a reason to trust her presence, even if it is just smiling from nearby.

“I’m…” She paused, thinking of her answer. “Well, being honest, I’m scared. Like, really, really scared. I’m happy I didn’t wake up alone, but I’m still scared given… everything. I guess that could probably be said about everyone.”

Juanita took the pills in her hand and gulped them down with a swig of water. Only after she'd swallowed did it occur to her that they might have been poisoned. She froze for half a second, terrified by the prospect. But, wait, no, that couldn't be right. Medea had thrown away some kind of whip thing when she'd been digging through her bag. They wouldn't have given her a whip and poison, right? Unless she'd already killed someone. But that would be pointless, when Juanita's dagger was already lying there on the ground, easy to reach. She was overthinking it, jumping at shadows already.

She took a deep breath, chugging another bit of water - both to calm herself down, and so Medea wouldn't see the shame on her face. Juanita didn't want to have these thoughts. She wasn't naturally a suspicious person - heck, she hadn't even known Max was on drugs until he'd basically spelled it out for her, and then there'd been the whole thing with him and the painkillers, and she hadn't pieced that together until it was far too late. But in a situation like this, any mistake could be deadly. Medea seemed nice and justifiably worried, and that was... about it, really. She didn't seem like she wanted to hurt anyone, Juanita included. But that could, and almost certainly would, change. What was that old saying from the Middle East? "Trust in God, but tie your camel." She'd trust in Medea for now, but she'd be ready just in case the winds changed.

"Yeah," she said, once Medea had finished answering the question. "I'm... I'm really scared too." The words were surprisingly hard to say, and Juanita had to force them out of her mouth. "With my leg, and everything, I..." She trailed off, unable to give voice to the rest. She was screwed. Both of them could see it. Her only chance here would be to try and hide long enough for everyone else to kill each other off, and then hope and pray that she could somehow get the drop on the survivors.

On top of that... there was the matter of eternal damnation. Based on the look of things, she was in a church. But there was no priest around to do confession, so like, now what? No confession, no absolution, right? She hadn't gone to confession before she'd left. Should have, given the blowup argument she'd had with Max, and the resentment she'd been harboring against him for the whole week. Those sins alone were bad enough to get her an eternal apartment overlooking the lakes of fire and brimstone.

"I don't wanna die here," Juanita confessed. "If I do, I'm going to Hell. I know it. I... I just want to go home."

thud

((June Madison continued from Help I'm Alive))

A girl burst onto the altar, the sacristy doors slamming against the walls.

She sprinted through the aisle, tripping on the carpet once, sent sprawling on the floor. Two vaguely hand-shaped smears appeared on the ground. Without even dusting herself off, she stood up, limped the rest of the way to the door.

In the periphery of her vision, there were two girls. One had a pixie-cut, she vaguely recollected her being one of the athletes, she didn't have the time to name her.

And the other,

This was so embarrassing. There were more appropriate thoughts she should've been having right now at the sight of Medea, at the sight of her friend, but above all else, that was all she could think about. This was so, so embarrassing.

Hot tears welled up in her eyes. She covered her face with her bloody, dirty hands.

She heard someone else running the opposite direction. She hadn't even noticed them entering, hadn't even noticed them coming in, but they were running towards the doors she'd just exited from.

Towards the barrel, towards

She couldn't stay here. She had to get out of here, before anyone else knew.

Without daring to look back, or look at her friend, she pushed the front doors open, and she ran away.

And once the doors swung closed, a blood-curdling scream emanated from the sacristy.

((June Madison continued in Dum Spiro Spero))

Medea frowned, looking at Juanita sympathetically. Having a bad leg was certainly a devastating disadvantage given the situation. She didn’t know much about Juanita personally, but both of them being scared was a common ground they shared at least. She could connect with her on that. Juanita was talking to her, so at least Medea knew she trusted her even a little bit. Juanita opened a little bit, expressing a desire not to die and a fear of going to Hell if she did. Medea understood the fear of death, but not Hell as much. She knew other followers of Christ believed in Hell, but she never could. She would keep that thought to herself for the moment. If it were to come up, she would discuss it with Juanita.

Right now, Juanita was someone in need of help. Medea knew she could help, if not for the pain her leg is in then to help alleviate Juanita’s fears and worries.

“Don’t worry,” Medea said gently, reaching her hand out towards Juanita. “Everything will b-”

The sound of doors slamming into the walls caused Medea to jolt, retracting her hand. She quickly turned her attention to its source. The instant she saw who had entered the room, her heart skipped a bit and her eyes widened.

“June?” She muttered. A hurricane of emotions coursed through her, with the most prominent just being sheer relief to see her friend.

…But something was wrong.

Her could see tears well up in June’s eyes, her hands coated in… was that blood? What had happened?

June turned, started running away and Medea’s heart sunk in her chest. Immediately she bolted to her feet as she watched her friend run off.

“June?!” She called in alarm.

She took a few steps forward then stopped. She fidgeted, unsure what to do. She looked in the direction June fled in, as someone else quickly entered the room and through the door’s June came from. Such a rapid series of events that it clouded her thoughts. She stood, frozen, her brain frozen in a state of executive dysfunction.

Then came the screaming.

Snapped out of her thoughts, Medea looked around. To where June had ran. To her bag on the floor. To the door from which the screams came. To Juanita. To where June had ran… Heart pounding, adrenaline rushing through her veins, she knew what she needed to do.

“I’m sorry,” she said, looking at Juanita. “I need to go after my friend!”

Then she turned away, running over to her bag to collect it off the floor. She quickly tried to secure it over her chest as she rushed out of the room, towards the front doors of the church.

“JUNE!” She yelled out as she ran into the outside. “JUNE! COME BACK! JUNE!”

((Medea Parth continued in Dum Spiro Spero…))

"H-Hey!"

Juanita watched the doors swing shut behind Medea, thunking shut with a definite air of finality.

Piercing screams were still coming from somewhere below, and it was impossible not to connect them to the blood-soaked girl who'd gone running by. Someone had been yelling outside the church earlier, too. People were getting violent, in almost no time at all.

There were other sounds. Juanita had seen someone else come into the church, but she'd been too distracted by June and Medea's exit to see where they went. Checking out the source of the screams, maybe? Maybe they wanted to help whoever was in trouble. Maybe they wanted to shut the screamer up for good.

Medea had left her whip thing lying on the floor. Juanita's blade was lying at the foot of the ladder not far away. Wincing in pain, she dragged herself across the floor towards both weapons. The whip she could stash in her bag, in close quarters it wouldn't do any good. But the knife, she'd hold onto. She didn't know who or what might be in here with her, but with any luck they'd see her weapon and steer clear.

((S001: Kaede Tsurumi: GAME START))

Kaede Tsurumi had hardly moved in the hour since she had woken up. She'd remembered, she'd screamed, she'd cried. Then she got her wits about her and looked in her bag. The box of Trojans had sent her into the fetal position.

That was it for her. She'd never do another dance, nor would she see Sayaka, or even her parents. She was dead where she stood, crouched under the pulpit.