Survival Of The Fittest

Marian had found totally-not a Walkman's headset in one of the lockers. She had fuddled with it a bit, untangled the knots, put it on and then it played the most wonderful song. It was the perfect instrument she needed to make snowmen to. She bopped her head along as she worked on a little guy.

Man, fuck the suburbs. It took Daniel forever to find his way out of there, and for what? The promise of a hot spring? Ha, ha, that was turning out to be further away than he thought so he went fuck it, let's see if there's any good places to stay indoors in the mines. Let's just ignore the fact that any mine was dangerous, but an old mine even moreso. Like, take something that would have made modern OSHA scream when it was in peak condition, add the ravages of time, and voila! Something so lethal it could probably be a slasher-player-whatever-they-call-em all on its own.

Oh yeah, and there's the fucked up death game on top of all of that, but it was going on all over the place so the mine wasn't special.

[Daniel Ozanne continued from nooooo don't get kidnapped by the AT your too sexy aha]

He approached, stopped, and blinked.

Though he was planning on walking right past-

"Can I join in?"

"Yeah, of course." She continued to work. "I'm planning to do something very stupid though. Do you want to watch?"

Daniel walked over to the snowy workspace, and looked it over. Yep, plenty of snow. He wasn't sure what to use for a face or arms or a hat though yet. Maybe when their classmates' died they could gather up the now-unused winter hats and scarves and such and put them on snowmen as memorials-

Well, that got a bit too real too quickly.

He shrugged, kneeled, and started gathering snow into a pile, for a body.

"Sure, why not?"

The music played silently. She bopped her head.

They sat in silence for a while, before Marian spoke again. Her head was busy with thoughts, and she couldn't get hold of all of them. So the silence was nice. It was really nice. She didn't even have a monologue yet to say, or to comment on. She swallowed wrong, and started to cough, her face turning red.

"What are your thoughts on mines, Daniel?"

Daniel paused, and thought. He would have shrugged again but no actually, he had a lot of thoughts on mines, just now.

"Dangerous," he started. "Like, even in this day and age mine collapses are deadly, and if you're talking about this mine - old mines are even more dangerous. Mix age, terrible safety practices in the bad old days, and unstable earth, and you get the picture probably."

At this point, he had a pretty healthy little pile of snow. It could probably serve as a body for a little guy.

"I think we all of these conditions outside of the mine." She shrugged. "Well, maybe, except the breathing part. Unless someone got a vial of COVID, or whatever."

The two-balls snowman was moderate size. It had a body and a head, and she had laid out the instruments she wanted to poke in him next to her. A barometer she had found, two forks for arms, a helmet for a hat, etc.

"How are you enjoying this field trip, by the way?"

Mary-something, that was her name - he guessed. He frowned, slightly. Though Daniel tried to make it a point to remember all of his classmates' names, with the slip with Amos and now this girl, he was losing his edge. But to be fair to himself, things were not exactly conductive to good recall and proper brain function right now. He took a bunch of snow into his hands.

"Well, the funny thing is a vial of COVID would be most effective indoors." He packed the snow into a ball. "The transmission rate drops by a lot in open air, even when it's moderately crowded. Or so I'm told."

What would that even look like, though? He somehow doubted you could pack enough nebulous COVID-particle-volume into a small vial to be effective, even in an enclosed space.

He placed the snowball on top of the pile. With a bit of imagination, you could imagine the snowman was a snow-queen, what with the flowing cape and all.

"Eh... enjoying the field trip?" He looked to the Mary-something girl, with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah, kinda'" She pulled out her tongue. "I never wanted to go to college, anyways."

"Oh, uh... cool."

It wouldn't really be correct for him to answer with me neither. Daniel figured he'd go to college like, eventually. He had his whole life ahead of him right?

"That's good to hear, though," Daniel said, with a nod. "I, uh. Guess I'm doing fine, too. Got plates thrown at me though."

He pondered his snow-queen. She wasn't much of a queen without a crown, though. There was a twig (?) nearby that he might be able to bend into something, so he got up and trudged over in the snow, and picked it up. Bent it in his hands.

He smiled at it.

She equipped her snowman. He seemed ready to do mine work. His name was going to be Minerboy. It was perfect. Minerboy was ready to take on the world.

Marian got up, petted her knee to remove the clumps of sad snow. Her legs were wet. And the cold was suddenly getting to her. She sighed, Marian thinking about Ellis and Eden that had both left her. They were probably doing something stupid, like dying. Or even worst, killing somebody. And maybe even both! Marian snorted.

She wondered if someone actually did something.

"Who did it?" She asks. "The plates throwing, that is."

Daniel brought the crown-of-twig back to his snow queen, and placed it delicately upon her head.

God, she was gonna get Wilson'd in a day or two if this kept up.

"Couldn't catch her face, she was throwing them from about a floor up" Daniel answered. "She didn't get me but she did get another guy, Aion, really good. Right on the head. But he's fine probably."

Despite all the blood, Aion was probably okay. Probably. Head wounds bleed a lot even when they're not serious.

"Oh jeez," she said, dragging it. "Do you think people start murdering each other yet?"

Daniel took a sharp breath in. It sounded like the hissing of an engine.

"...probably," he answered. "But I guess we'll find out if we all blow up in the morning, huh?"

She didn't respond, instead just look even sadder than earlier. She's a fool and she knows, but she wants to pretend that they were together again. Just a touch would let her know. Until then, she'll wait on a lie, wasting all of her time.

If she could make a little change, she'd be happy. But she'll need to hear the truth, this time.

"It's okay, rescue is coming soon."