Survival Of The Fittest

(Perante Losoa continued from Tranquility)

"Ooooooooh my god. Okay like, so... What am I looking at here?"

He had to stop and stare for a while at the oddly shaped hole in the middle of the lake. He shook his head and looked up towards the sky. Perante could only have made assumptions on what happened but he felt the need for a second to hope that it wasn't a classmate that fell down there and instead it was an animal or something. And if it were in fact, a person who made it he had to question if they were just being a blooming idiot or not. Either way, it's a good indicator that he should stay far away from the lake at least.

"Hope whoever it was got out of there okay." He thought out loud, speaking for himself and hopefully the cameras. "I mean like, nothing was said about someone falling into a frozen lake this morning, so." He lightly shrugged. "Not one of them."

Perante opted to sit down at the apparent remains of a campfire for a moment, only remembering now that he still didn't have his bag on him.

Honestly? Totally his fault, if he was getting hungry then he should've made sure in advance that he had food with him instead of just wandering around with nothing but brass knuckles like a jackass. The hell was he doing just not eating before wandering off? Imagine if he got lost now, he'd be stuck out here with no supplies and no means of knowing where he was.

Just to be safe, he retraced his steps in his mind.

He started praying that he was correct about things and he knew how to get back to the foreman's office. That is, if his stuff still was there anyway. Surely nothing would've happened, right? Right?

Nah.

Right?

He started lightly tapping the brass knuckles against each other and constantly taking them on and off. The sound of metal clanging against each other wasn't all too loud, but he still felt concerned that any noise at all could attract unwanted attention. The need to fidget with something was there at the moment though so that was the best thing he could do about it.

"I'll be back soon, I promise."

(Chester Folk, continued from Suppression)

It had been hours since Chester left the foreman’s office. He hadn’t found Perante nor a single soul for miles. That could be considered both a good and a bad thing. Good, because he hadn’t met anyone who’d want to hurt him, and bad, because he’d like someone to talk to, and maybe get some help for his big plan. Chester figured he’d make his way up to the campground, but now he’s worried he might have taken a wrong turn. He used his map and compass to help, but he was no explorer. Also, carrying two bags (his own and Perante’s) was starting to wear him out.

Just as he set his things down to catch his breath, he looked at the map again. He took a look around and noticed what looked like a frozen lake. Then he noticed a figure in the distance.

“Hey!,” Chester shouted, “Is that Perante?”

The sudden voice startled him. Shit, a warning next time would've been nice. It was foolish of him to expect total silence though when there was over a hundred kids stuck on this island so he only had himself to blame here. That was Chester talking though, at least it wasn't anyone worse. If he ended up coming face to face with someone who was actually trying to kill him he wasn't sure how he would handle it. Frankly he thought he could cross that bridge when he (hopefully never) gets to it.

He stood up and looked over towards Chester, displaying a deliberate smile.

"You got that right." His bag looked to be brought along as well, internally he felt relieved. No need to walk back at all or risk getting lost or anything. That was one thing he can stop worrying about now.

"Oh jeez, here lemme get that for you." He walked up to take his bag off of the other boy's hands. "Wasn't too much of a bother I hope." The more he thought about it, he did start feeling pretty bad about just dipping though. And for however long he was gone.

“I was getting a bit worn out to be honest,” Chester said as he handed Perante’s bag over to him, “But it’s fine.”

Chester stretched a bit before picking his own bag back up.

“So, you hear the morning announcements?,” asked Chester.

"Sorry once again for the trouble, sorry," He repeated. He was about to say something more about how he wouldn't do it again, but the fact it happened in the first place was just deplorable. Hindsight is always a fun thing.

"Yeah, I heard it. That was a lot more than I was expecting to end up on there." Perante took out one of the energy bars and started eating away at it, some of the unease leaving his system now that he was getting food into him. "I'm like, keeping track of the names though. Gotta remember who we don't wanna meet."

It wasn't that hard really. He already had a good memory to begin with and it wasn't exactly like it was difficult to forget that someone was a murderer.

He opened his mouth to ask if any of the victims was someone Chester knew well, but decided against it. He decided he probably shouldn't talk more about the dead, would just make things feel a lot more depressing.

“Yeah, gotta watch out for the crazies,” Chester said.

Chester looked at the map again.

“There should be a camp not too far from here,” he said, “Maybe there’s some useful stuff there.”

Hopefully some firewood for a fire. It’s a campsite, why wouldn’t there be wood?

“Did you wanna come along and check it out?,” asked Chester.

"Can I see?" He said before proceeding to take out his own map anyway to look at. He dropped the wrapper to the energy bar and took a small scan around the map before finding the campground.

"Ah..!"

Chester was right, that wasn't too far off (In comparison to literally everywhere he's been today. He can walk across the island here, this wasn't too bad) so he wasn't all against the idea. It was labeled on the map and that was a point of concern in his mind, but he can just tell himself that it'll be fine.

"Yeah, sure." He nodded his head. "We can do that. I'd be down."

“Cool,” said Chester, “I’m ready to go when you are.”

Chester folded up the map and tucked into his coat pocket. He picked up his bag and sling the strap around his shoulder.

(Chester Folk, continued elsewhere…)

"Aye, let's bounce."

Perante nodded his head and put away the map. Zipping up his bag afterwards, he started walking towards the other boy. Now was time to follow the leader and stay close.

(Perante Losoa continued at Morning Pyre.)