Survival Of The Fittest

The night had been long, hard, and cold in the way that only long, hard and cold nights could be. Zora had stuck to her rhythm and her mission, unsure of any movement but the next step and unwilling to take refuge in any conventional shelter.

Right foot. Gonna die. Left foot. Nobody is coming. Pool cue. Gonna die. Right foot. Any moment. Left foot. Any second. Pool cue.

Guaranteed death and by unnatural causes. Bloody death, violent death, slow death, messy murder. Any moment, any second. For her and all her loser classmates. Gorey gutting. Repeated stabbing. Bullets and beatdowns. Any moment. Any second…

Right foot.


The ocean always had a way of calming her down. During the summer her father had a former business associate who had a place out in Maine. The Morrisons would vacation there whenever given the chance. They’d eat lobster rolls and she and her older brother Kareem would make fun of fat tourists on the boardwalk. Zo was never mad when she was in and around the ocean. It didn’t feel safe, but it at least felt honest. There was no questioning the power dynamic. There was no struggling against the sea.

When you were lost amongst the waves, you had no choice but to let things be, you’d go wherever the tides took you.

The dawn was foggy due to the surrounding water and the low temperature. She crept quietly towards the plane, her and her makeshift pool cane. Zora’s lips were chapped and splintered. She hadn’t drunk any of her water for fear of being undisciplined and drinking all of it. A part of her realized that Angelo was right or at least that felt kinder to say than she had been wrong. Either or, it was a bad idea to spend the night out and about. Zo was so, so very cold and so, so very tired. Shelter would’ve been nice. But shelter was dangerous and she was so, so small.

Zora felt clever when she peaked her head into the cabin door of the fallen plane and that made her forget how desperate she was. Z heard the hushed sound of human breath. Zora had never lived alone; her house was never quiet. She could recognize, instantly, the specific sounds of sleep.

Her eyes widened at what lied in front of her—a teenage boy, asleep in the fallen plane. Some dumb fuckin whiteboy. A nameless, faceless, and aggressively vanilla classmate that could’ve been any nameless, faceless and aggressively vanilla classmate. Asleep. Wounded. With a big fuckin’ gun at his side. A part of her wanted to run, but she didn’t. Her smaller nature beat out her smarter. Thoughts of grabbing the gun, shooting the boy and then hiding out for the rest of the game ran through Zora's mind. Thoughts of never being afraid of anyone again made her drunk.

She inhaled sharply.

Left foot.

The interior of the small, four-passenger plane held a body within its own body.

On the floor lay a boy wrapped in an emergency blanket, with his peacoat additionally draped over his body and with his bag placed under his head. He lay on his left side in a semi-fetal position in between the pilot and co-pilot’s seats. Poking out from under the covers was his hand. It rested on the BR18, which lay beside him like a pet.

Soft, cool-toned light filtered in through the clouded windows of the plane giving the scene an icy aura.

The boy had an innocent look about him in sleep. He had messy blond hair and blond lashes that rested against rosy cheeks. Still, a blood-stained bandage across his nose warned otherwise.

He took a deep breath and nuzzled his head against the bag, then settled and continued sleeping. He, too, never knew an empty house and slept deeply.

He could neither hear, see, speak, nor do any evil.

She could only do what she had always done, move one step at a time. Forward. Forward. Forward.

The snow had soaked the canvas of her Converse All-Stars and the socks underneath them. Zora had been walking for hours, an entire day and an entire night. For a long time her steps had been heavy, adrenaline turned them featherweight. She tipped and she toed her way to the sleeping boy with her breath stuck in her throat. Zo was unable to exhale for fear of it exiting as a scream. She was so, so desperate and the boy was so, so close and that gun looked so, so scary. Getting it in her hands wouldn’t solve all her problems, but it’d solve some.The door grew further away and she in turn became more and more committed to the path she had chosen. Forward, forward, forward…

One foot in front of the other. Left, right…

She placed the pool cue down gently on a nearby seat. She wanted both hands for what came next. Zora knelt slowly and deliberately next to Sleeping Beauty. It was right there! She just needed to grab it! But Z’s cowardice constricted and wrapped itself around her limbs, she shook it off with the last burning remnants of her courage. A corrective courage, not a cautious one. There was no turning back. Zora reached and grabbed for the scary, scary gun…

And Zora got it! Finally! A lucky day!

She shot up and stumbled backwards, shocked at her own ability to pull off the heist of her life. Zora’s smarter nature told her to run, but her smaller nature was darker. ‘You’ve come this far, if you’re gonna rob him, might as well spark him.’ The words of her abductor ran through her mind. She wasn’t some psychopath looking to slaughter her classmates…but she needed to kill to get home. This man was familiar only in how much of a stranger he was to her. It would be his fault, wouldn’t it? He got caught sleeping.

She raised the gun and pointed it at the boy. His chest rose and then it fell. He inhaled and then he exhaled. It would be painless, wouldn’t it? He wouldn’t even wake up from whatever he was dreaming.

She closed her eyes. Her finger found the trigger…

An obnoxious squeal and the sound of feedback exited a speaker somewhere in the cockpit. Then came the voice of Mr. Danya.

He had only sought out shelter.


Give me shelter, he thought.


Give him.



The sounds drilled into his subconscious and buzzed in his dreams, though he never remembered dreams.

It became louder, more insistent. He was almost annoyed that this noise was there, and it began to lift him out of sleep.

Lazily, his eyes fluttered open.

((Josh James continued from A Curse, A First))

It took Josh a moment to remember where he was, why he was there, and what happened. It wasn’t easy to recall everything while that man blathered on above him. Just as the announcement concluded, he recalled everything and his fingers contracted against the crumbling carpet.

He frowned slightly and realized what was missing from his hands -- his heart.

Josh turned his head and noticed Zora standing above him, holding it.

His eyes, doe-like from sleep, turned sharp and he glared venom up at her.

The noise stopped.

She wouldn’t be above him for long, he thought.

He sat up suddenly and grabbed the barrel of the gun, yanking it and her towards him.

He forced her out of her stasis and nearly took her shoulders out of their sockets. That was perhaps the most shocking thing, not the announcement, but the strength that quickly found itself assaulting her confident posture. He felt so, so strong and she felt so, so small.

Confidence was self-delusion and the practicalities of reality would not be denied. One foot, seventy pounds, the numbers never lied.

Zo had been so lost in the announcement, confounded by its content, that she hadn't seen the moment he sat up. She felt it though and reacted instantly. Zora’s finger had been on the trigger, the boy had been in her sight. Then she had closed her eyes. One twitch would’ve done it. He wouldn’t’ve seen it coming and she didn't even have to look. He would’ve died in his sleep. It looked so easy—it had been easy! It wasn’t supposed to go like this! It couldn’t go like this! She had the gun. She had the power. Zora just needed to pull the trigger. He couldn't take the gun back, Z wouldn't let the gun go...

“No-no-no-no-no!!!”

And so, she hissed and screamed a girlish scream. And so, she kept her hands on the weapon and fumbled and frantically grasped for a trigger that had just slipped out of finger's reach. All the previous day's desperation exploded and focused on that one action. The tide came in, as it always did, and dragged her deep. Zora struggled against strength even though she knew there was no struggling against the sea.

He dragged her down to his level, onto the moldy carpeted plane floor and into a twisted, violent embrace. Her eyes transformed into saucers. The panicked and frantic grip on the gun tightened.

The girl was taken off guard and went down hard landing next to him, but she still held on to the gun.

Josh was a bit surprised by the feminine scream that echoed around them, bouncing off the metal, but he didn’t have time to dwell.

They were soon scrambling for control of the weapon. He was about 80 percent sure he’d be victorious, but she was slippery. Her hands moved quickly and frantically tried to wrest control back. For a moment, his heart skipped with anxiety and adrenaline as they played tug of war.

Finally, he got a solid grip and ripped the gun out of her hands. He only knew he had to remove the gun from play for now, and flung it to the side.

As it hit the wall, so loud and close, he grabbed Zora just below the shoulders, pinning her arms to her side.

“Stop,” Josh scolded with a voice slightly creaky from sleep and harsh from anger. “Calm down. Or else,” he warned.

A warning from him, about him, to her.

She was a quarter-sure that she was completely fucked.

Still, she persisted and resisted. Z squirmed out of the same defiant spite that had forced her forward since yesterday. Knowing that this was likely the end but refusing to go quietly. Accepting the inevitable, but flipping the middle finger at its diagnosis. Zora bucked her hips and twisted. It was all for naught and she knew it. The gun was taken from her hands and flung against the wall with a casual and comedic cruelty. He had been in her sights, sleeping. Her finger had been on the trigger, she just needed to've twitched. It no longer mattered.

The practicalities of reality endured: he was too strong, and she was too small.

The boy's arms wrapped around her in a perverse embrace. It was almost familiar. There had been many weekends where she had wrestled with her older brothers, over a television remote or a candy bar or something equally mundane. She was so, so small but they were so scared of hurting her. It was rough and tumble horseplay, but it was often gentle in the way only a sibling's slaps could be. Their strength would sometimes peak out when provoked enough though and it reminded Zora of the danger that lied beneath most men’s surface. Her brothers never took it too far. Zo was a pampered Princess in her home and a baby sister. That was a pure and wholesome position. It came with the privilege of playing with fire and not getting burned. A confidence that could sometimes be foolish and cocky. The power that came with knowing you were protected.

“Fuckin’, bitch-ass nnnngh,” she grunted, “cracker-ass cracker, loser-muthafuckin’-creep,” she hocked and gathered desperate and dehydrated saliva and yellow mucus, “let me fuckin’ go!”

Then she spat directly in the boy’s face.

Josh’s fingers gripped her arms so hard that the digits turned white against her track suit as she squirmed and mouthed off.

The words slapped him one at a time and carried a familiar echo of people who had called him things like boring, lame, barely there. She was provoking him.

A flush of searing adrenaline ran through his upper body and settled until it felt like there were burning rocks churning around in his stomach.

He couldn’t feel the cold at all.

Then she spat at him and he locked up, looking at the girl in his grasp.

A second passed.

In that second, he could control the impulse or let go.

His right hand let go, reared back, and flew at full force until it connected hard against her cheek and jaw. Teeth pushed against his kuckles.

His whole arm buzzed and he was shocked.

But it was so satisfying.

Everybody had a plan until they got punched in the mouth.

Bone met bone and soft skin broke under a hard fist. Her neck snapped backwards, and her head slammed into the floor, afro puffs bouncing off moldy airplane carpet like basketballs. Zora’s lips burst in explosive pinata fashion. Front teeth were pushed to the back of her throat as her mouth quickly filled with dark-red liquid iron. So shocking was his response that shock was her only. Tears leaked from brown eyes, blood gushed out of chapped lips and stained white teeth.

She couldn’t feel the cold at all. All she could feel was him.

Zora’s whole face stung and burned with a sharp heat and a overwhelming pain. It permeated from the spot his blow landed to both her temples. It was all too sudden; it was all too real. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go down. This wasn’t how it was supposed to end. Zora's breaths were short, sharp, frequent and overexaggerated.

Her screams were loud, piercing, and filled with terror.

I gave her a chance. Oh, big sad eyes trying to make me feel bad about this as if she didn't push me. Like she didn't know what she was doing and expected no consequences, he thought.

He punched her in the stomach.

She brought this on herself. She should have just left. She should have just stayed quiet. She should have just --

He punched the side of her head.

She was everyone who made him feel invisible, who stepped on his foot without saying anything, who thought it was funny to talk about him like he wasn’t there. His fingers curled in and made a fist that was so tight it hurt. They were going to die in this frozen hell hole, and he didn’t know what to do about that.

She thought she got the jump. Hahahaha, I can prolong my stupid life a little by taking out this guy, this loser.

All of those pent up feelings poured out of him and onto her. Josh wasn’t even sure whose bloodied face he was looking at.

A fist made contact with her chest.

It was her fault. He’d given her a chance.

WIth his superior strength, which he had never used on another person like this back home, he grabbed her as if she were a doll and slammed her against the wall of the plane.

"No one who matters will know the truth of what happens here but us," he hissed, grinding her against the metal.

Even without the gun, he had command of the situation and of her. The anguish and frustration that taken root since he woke up -- perhaps even before -- blossomed and bore vicious fruit.

Right. The air was punched and pushed out of her stomach. Zora couldn’t breathe, for a moment she could no longer scream. She panicked and she gurgled, she drowned on her own saliva and blood. Left. A terrible fist split thin skin and her brain turned milkshake inside her skull. She felt dazed, confused, and likely concussed. Right again. Knuckles turned knife as he bludgeoned her breast, bruised her chest and crushed her lung with his fury.

The next thing she knew Zo was in the air. But that relied on a vague notion of know.

Zora was stunned way before she was slammed into the plane wall. That was a bloody cherry atop a sundae of fucked-up shit. But what could be done? He was so, so strong and she was so, so small. In the real world, that particular physical strength wouldn’t matter. Zo would shoot him down with sarcasm, she'd shield herself with her siblings and combat him with community. If this was a story, she would stare down her assailant and curse his name, kick him in the balls and turn the tables. She'd be an example to all and a triumph for the clever, the scared and the small. That’s what stories were. Good guys winning, damsels being rescued, always having the right thing to say and another chance on the way. Stories were simple. Stories made you feel good.

This wasn’t a story, this wasn't the real world, it was something twisted and perverse and in between. Zora didn’t look her victim turned villain in the eyes and defiantly say ‘Everyone will see, everyone will know’, no.

All Zora did was whimper and cry.

This is horrible, he thought, but the thought was very quiet all the way in the back of his mind.

The thought wasn’t on the same track as what he felt. He felt caught in a whirlwind of exhilaration and bitterness that morphed into mania.

He was lost as his hands kept moving on his own, existing in a pink and blue haze of the sun coming through the frosted windows. He grabbed Zora and jammed her into the pilot’s seat, closing a vice grip around her throat with one hand and punching with the other. He leaned over her, was practically in her lap, forfeited completely to the ecstasy of violence that he could indulge in safely with the cloak of justification.

Because he did give her the chance, didn’t he?

Consequences had actions here.

He snarled, bared his teeth, and after a moment, both hands squeezed at her delicate neck. He felt tears come up but they weren’t from sadness, they were just from being overwhelmed with unrestrained emotions like he had never felt.

The emotion reached the zenith. His fingers clenched seemingly on their own. He stared down into her face and felt only hatred and the rush.

He had nothing but this moment.

“You,” he whispered. “ You’re nothing.”

Z was many things. She was a writer and a track star. Zo was a soon-to-be Howard Lady Bison. Zora learned to read shortly after she learned to speak, she was always bright and gifted and impressed her parents and party guests with her quips and wit. Zora was a younger sibling and her mother’s only daughter. She was precocious, petite, and petulant. Always. She wasn’t nothing, she wasn’t nobody. She was something to somebody. She was someone.

Was.

His grip tightened around her neck, and she sputtered and spat and wheezed bloody coughs instead of the previously written objections. Then there was a stunned silence as what little air remained in her thin, damaged body was squeezed out. Delicate, small, and soft hands feebly attempted to slap at her assailant. Another sharp punch to the face stopped her cold and made arms fall limp. They had barely lifted in the first place. Z stopped. He didn’t.

Right fist.

Please!

Right fist.

Help!!

Right fist.

Somebody, anybody!!!

Help came down in the form of a second hand around her neck. The man-monster's grip inconceivably became tighter and more terrifying. Vision became thin and hazy and blinding white. A light was in the distance and in her disembodied despair, it looked like hope. Zora felt comfort in the familiar. What came next looked like what had come before. She did what she had always done. Left foot. Towards the light. Right foot. Almost there. Left foot. Gonna die. Right foot. Any second. Left foot. Any moment.

Right foot. Sorry Momma. Left foot. Sorry Daddy. Right foot.

Anything to stop this song of suffering.

Forward! Towards The Light. Forward! Because there was nothing else to do.

Forward! Forward! Forward!

S036 – Zora Morrison: ELIMINATED

You went past the limit.




You ate everything.





Tears started to fall from Josh’s face onto the lifeless face of the girl beneath him as he realized that she was no longer squirming, no longer moving, no longer had the light in her eyes beneath the blood.


A shaky breath was all he could hear as his aching fingers let go of her, and he stepped back from his work, hitting the control panel of the plane.

Halfway between a whimper and a sigh escaped as he tilted his head and her figure blurred. All his nerves fuzzed and he suddenly felt very tired.

I shouldn’t have…

But it didn’t matter, because it was done. Swirling around in the regret was a distinct drop of having enjoyed the confrontation, which mixed and changed the color of everything like a drop of red paint in white paint.

A life of not causing problems was brought down in minutes. He didn’t even know what he would have done in the rest of his old life. Probably gone to work at the same stupid office supply company as his dad, dying inside slowly forever until he finally kicked it from heart disease in his perfectly OK house with a perfectly OK family.

And the thought of that right at this second sent his panic to a fever pitch.

He killed someone. Ruined his life.

Before now, he was destined to be trapped in a life of mediocrity.

Ruined what life?

Who was he even?

Josh fell to his knees, buried his face in his hands, and screamed.

“What am I doing?” he sobbed. “Someone tell me.”

It was all for nothing, but it was always going to be for nothing, wasn’t it?

Seagulls cawed outside.

Josh stood up and wobbled, tears still coming down, but in a calmer fashion now. He took off his shoes, took off his socks, took off his pants. The frigid morning air made goosebumps dot his skin. He dragged his body to the girl’s bag and opened it, rummaging until he found the emergency blanket from her first aid kit.

Gently, he wrapped her up entirely and tied off the ends. He picked up the body-shaped item and took it outside of the plane.

Get rid of everything so that he couldn't see it any more. He'd never have to see it again.

Josh began walking into the water, which felt like thousands of needles on his legs. If there were rocks, he couldn’t feel them.

He squeezed her close to him. She was so small. He couldn’t think of anything to say. “I’m sorry” felt like a hollow lie. Perhaps he was sorry, but more for himself than for this person he didn’t know. He felt no responsibility to her.

“I hope… I hope you liked the ocean,” he whispered sincerely and threw the body as far as he could into the water.

After he packed all of his things, save for a few spots of blood on already dark and decaying carpet, it would be like nothing had ever happened in the plane, and he had never been there.

((Josh James went back inside, got dressed, and continued elsewhere))