Survival Of The Fittest

- Salem Fox -

Nation building was the sort of thing Salem had hoped to be an active participant in outside of the custom Minecraft servers of his tween years.

Nothing much to that errant thought, really, it existed for its own sake. Reminding himself he was a human with mortal ambitions and failings was probably not the move when he was trying to keep his options open as a forcibly inducted citizen of stabby shooty murder island, but he could about as much shape the impulses of his own thoughts as he could force his will onto the geopolitical realities of the world. God. Fucking Natasha now formally had a better shot of being relevant to the body politic than he did. He was unironically losing to a terminally online tankie.

Well, probably deserved. Salem didn't believe in karma but he did believe in hilarious coincidences, so he was in the right headspace to make peace with this particular tumor's worth of intrusive thought.

The scattered few structures overlooking the mine- this excursion being the closest in his life Salem would ever be to setting foot onto the grazing grounds of the working class- looked... iffy.

Salem only wanted to stay long enough to see if anybody had already been here. He wasn't here to actually accomplish anything even if he did find relevant information. He wasn't looking for a goal more so than he was a distraction, lest California or the Graves sisters pop up in his idle thoughts and make contemplating taking a life even more nauseating than it already was as a mere abstract exercise. Honestly maybe he had to ask Kitty how it was done. She most certainly would not appreciate that question, but Salem had always idly wondered what it'd be like to troll people to actually hurt and scar, and not just for the bantz. He didn't know if it said more about him that he entertained such thoughts or that he always dismissed them, or that he never dismissed them for reasons of morality as far as he consciously knew about himself.

If the creaking and complaining of the stairs underfoot had alerted anybody to his presence they had yet to show. Salem took his time to clear the room, looking for any signs of life. Not much. Far as he could tell nobody had even been here. He found himself at the observation windows looking out over the rough-hewn rocks and stale piles of earth below, a blank expression in his eyes. Unproductive, but he'd already spent enough time looking engaged and busy for the camera. His contractual obligations to relevance. He could rest his thoughts a moment, much as they'd allow themselves to be still.

((A dark presence washed over the area.))

The wind whipped through the valley, its mournful howl passing through the branches of the forest surrounding the mining town.

Something crept up the stairs to the office, out of view of the windows, its footfalls deadened to the point that even the creaky wood did not give it away.

It carried the scent of blood with it, and its metallic teeth and claws shivered in anticipation over when they would next carve flesh from bone.

There, in the doorway to the office, the figure arrived unbidden, a shadow cast over the interior.

"S-Salem?" she croaked, her voice ragged and hoarse.

Sounded hellishly cold out, but Salem didn't need to listen to the razor-sharp whistle of the wind seeping through innumerable cracks in the structure's flimsy walls to figure that out. He knew it from experience- hot sweaty air glistening on the inside of his multiple layers, slowly depositioned to ice.

He smelled something before he heard it, and heard it before he saw it. The subtle malodor of something that needed more bandages than he had to give set goosebumps to his knuckles.

"Fuck." He'd been got. Figured real life was way harder to safely navigate than a video game with a convenient HUD. "I'm armed, so don't get a step closer. Or do. It's my funeral."

Once again, the banter before reasonable action. He turned around slowly, breath dearly held like his throat was his firstborn, as if he could will the shadow cast over the wall to be an illusion if he made it dramatic enough. The corners of his eyes fished out the one mote of color from the dull and lifeless. Bright blue. Ash's eyes. That alone almost made him turn away. But the voice forced him to finish reeling.

"Kitty."

He turned to face her. Hands neutral at his side, tension gone in an instant. Consciously, a practical decision. He wanted to look the island's grim reaper in the eyes. Beautiful eyes, she'd had. Not as fierce or harsh as her older sisters. Not to his taste, but he noted how striking a contrast it made with the gory decoration she'd painted onto her clothes like glitter.

"Well fuck. Forget what I said then, I know when I'm outgunned." He smiled softly as if he wasn't in danger of being splattered over the room's four walls. He felt that smile. Kitty was a terrifying sight, but she was a familiar one. He hated to see her, but he couldn't help but want her to not immediately run. Screaming. Away from him, or at him.

"You look terrible. Want one of my spare jackets?" She was tiny but he wasn't exactly a man among men, so the discrepancy in their body sizes wouldn't be so bad. "Way cleaner than your clothes probably are, which might surprise you as much as it does me." A casual smile at... his own expense? To his credit? Was being a killer a good thing or a bad thing? Moral dilemma of the new decade.

Katelyn breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

"Oh th-thank goodness, it r-really is you," she whispered to herself.

She had almost convinced herself that she would find nothing but enemies wherever she went. Salem wasn't exactly her friend—they were merely cordial, but distant—but he was closer to being one than anyone else outside of her immediate circle. By virtue of being her older sister's boyfriend—something that made her question his taste in women—and the younger brother of one of her actual friends, she had interacted with him quite frequently. That meant he was a known element to her, someone that she could predict, and therefore trust not to judge her too harshly for being herself or, more importantly, try to harm her.

Her leg wobbled as she took her first step inside the office, the burning pain in her calves starting to race up into her thighs. Hiking and hunting might have been some of her favorite pastimes, but she still had a limit. She took another step forward, teetering towards the nearest seat, throwing herself onto it and letting out a contented sigh. The fog that had been developing since the morning settled once more over her mind, bringing with it a stinging headache.

"N-No need for it, I th-think," she replied to him, clutching her head and pausing a bit too long between sentences. "Everyone knows what I've d-done, so it's not like the b-blood changes anything."

Her free hand wandered up to one of the cat ears on her hood, gently pressing between her fingers. What went unsaid was that she had plenty of opportunities to pillage warm clothing and had already balked at the idea. While she could take off her bloodstained jacket and vest, that didn't mean she wanted to. These old cat ears were one of the last vestments her mother had ever sewn for her, and she had painstakingly removed and replaced them every time she had to get a bigger jacket. She would never let them go.

"These l-last two days have been t-too much," she whimpered, her gaze cast to the floor.

Here Kitty Kitty.

Is what Salem had never even once said to himself because god that was lame, he guessed he was already scraping the bottom of the barrel if it occurred to him in the here and now.

Kitty was deceptively tough, Salem had intuited that much pretty much the first time he'd met her while hanging out at the Graves household after cheerleading practice one mediocre sophomore fall day. The awkward sister of the absolute unit of a girl Thad that was her elder sister. Kitty was, in some very well defined ways, the infinitely more terrifying girl. Salem had never followed Kitty on one of her woodsy outdoorsman expeditions- the offer had been extended before, but even before they'd dated Ash would have killed him the way only a girlfriend could skin a boyfriend alive if he'd ever done it. He had always thought he could see it in her eyes though, that huntress instinct. Sometimes he swore her eyes would gently adjust to find the exact spot he'd step before he himself knew where it was. Like she was calculating the momentum of his gait, calculus zooming around under her pretty dang cute dye job and kinda fucking lame cat ears.

That was to say, Kitty was not exactly his type but uh. Kinda hot all the same. In the same way little insects liked to mindlessly hover way too close to open flame.

He nodded softly. She sounded even more terrible than she looked, as if that were possible. Exhaustion had a way of really sinking deep into the vocal chords, and he could hear each individual knuckle that had kissed Kitty's face. All the fingers she'd dug however many knuckles deep into another's guts.

Absolutely splendid imagery, yes. And yet he couldn't help but look at her the exact same way he always did- a bit awed, a bit concerned, all playing out subtly on his otherwise placid, gentle smile and soulless eyes. At least he wasn't particularly tempted to subtly check out her ass this time like he usually was- probably not the move.

He let out a sigh, a bit brighter and more energetic than hers, as he adopted a cross legged position beside the chair she'd found. Eye contact he held without a hint of fear or a singular flinch. Well, she didn't seem to be interested in it but that was usual. Still, he insisted on it, even if one sided. He searched the roots of her hair as if they had encoded answers to the questions he likely wasn't going to bother asking her. How much did it hurt? How loud were they when they breathed their last? Pretty typical small talk kinda questions.

"I can imagine," he offered as a platitude. "Scratch that, I can't. You know I'm not here to judge you, but I still can't really put myself into your shoes. As if I ever could, right?"

A pause, marked by a cloud of not particularly warm mist escaping his lips.

"But who cares about my opinion on that. You're kind of beyond caring about most peoples opinions, I guess? Maybe your friends- the actual ones who are ride or die for you. What do you think happens when you find them?"

Katelyn blinked. She stayed quiet, listening to the sound of the wind whistling around the building, and glancing between Salem and the floor.

"I-" she gulped, "I d-don't know?"

She bit her bottom lip, another stab of pain to remind her who she was, tears already welling up at the thought of seeing her friends again. She hadn't truly considered what seeing them again would be like, and how they would feel about what had transpired. They might be willing to let her explain herself, but would that change anything? Would they still be her friends, no matter what happened?

"I've k-killed three people," she mumbled, voice trembling, "and I'm st-starting to think all three were a m-mistake. They f-felt right at the time, like I didn't have a b-better option. In hindsight, I think I could've made d-different choices, and I think my f-friends would agree with that, if I told them what h-happened."

Katelyn sniffled, swallowing the blood in her mouth, now dripping down her chin. The bruise on her jaw ached, telling her that nothing would change, and that she was locked into this path whether she liked it or not. She reached up and wiped her face on her sleeve, and took a deep breath to steady her nerves. Was this what giving confession in church was like? At least Salem wouldn't judge, it wasn't in his nature.

"I don't think they would f-forgive me," she whined, blinking the tears out of her vision, "but I want to t-try anyway. I don't know what e-else to do, or why else to l-live. I'm scared, though, I'm scared that- that this-"

She squeezed the handle of the billhook.

"Th-this is just going to k-keep happening."

Wasn't his job to reprimand her, to praise her, or whatever. He wasn't Ash, and Ash wouldn't have wanted that job either.

"Ominous," he shot back. He let his smile dissipate into the rest of his face, as the time for it had passed. Usually didn't stop him, but he figured he owed Kitty a little more than his typical schtick.

"You can't stop it? Like. I know you and Ash are both bad news by birthright, but." Salem couldn't help but laugh. It was meaner and leaner than his usual, because he actually kind of meant it this time around.

"Doesn't have to be your destiny."

Though, between the two sisters he guessed it was really only Ash who liked to occasionally pretend free will existed. Something like that.

"But, it is," Katelyn rebutted. "I can't h-help it."

Her entire life had been nothing but attempt after attempt at not making mistakes and failing. Even before the consequences of her actions came down to life and death, she would always end up hurting the people around her. She would make them worry about her, and afraid for her. She remembered the phone calls she got in the hospital, after both times she tried to kill herself. She remembered the pain in her friends' voices all too clearly. She hurt them all so much by trying to leave, and she didn't have the excuse that she didn't know the second time. She did it anyway, and didn't think about how they would feel for even a second.

An old fable popped into her head.

"Have you ever heard of The Scorpion and the Frog?" she asked, sniffling. "I-It's about a scorpion, and um, a frog. And the scorpion needs to c-cross a river for some reason, and the frog helps it out, b-but then, the scorpion stings it halfway across, even though both of them would d-drown. A-And, you know why the scorpion did it anyway?"

She paused for dramatic effect.

"Because it couldn't resist the urge," she said, her voice steadying. "Because it was in its nature."

Katelyn looked Salem in the eyes, and saw only her own reflection looking back at her.

"I hurt people," she continued, looking away from Salem and not looking back. "That's my nature. This place just brought that out. And now I have to keep going, or e-else, or else-"

She swallowed another mouthful of blood.

"Or else they'll k-kill me."

Katelyn slumped in the chair, like a puppet with its strings cut. No longer could she fight the force that made her dance for its amusement, and so she surrendered to her fate.

"Do you think I'm a b-bad person, Salem?"

She already knew the answer. She just needed to hear someone else say it.

Well, actually. But not like Salem would ever admit he unironically read that sort of thing in good company.

"Was it in your nature to melodramatically pause like we've gathered 'round a campfire to sing a campfire song?" Between their eyes hers still shone brighter. It was the calling card of the Graves family- pretty eyes on top of the desolation of their souls.

His eyes stalled on the patch of barely there glisten where the blood had blazed a trail down her chin, been wiped off but not with industrial thoroughness. He could hear her continued laboring through the bleeding, the thickness of the liquid slicking the gaps between her teeth. He was active as she was passive, digging through his bag with only that inert rustling as his response for a long moment.

The click of his medkit as it touched ground, a single packet of antiseptics held loosely in one hand.

"Spit into these if you need to. I mean, you and Ash are the ones who know first aid, not me. Just let me know if you need any other supplies from me to help that broken tooth or whatever it is, it sounds bad." Or, at the very least, gross. Ah, the squeamish Salem and his intent to up his body count, to grow his KDA infinitely in one swoop. He could at least tell himself that it was empathy for one of his only kind of authentic friends, and live with that copium.

"I think you're making a lot of assumptions about others. Most people don't care about you dying, they just want to live. It's like... a particularly low IQ version of prisoner's dilemma. Neither party gets a reward for making the selfish decision." His mind churned, as it often did, with the implications and the contradictions, often in the form of generic PowerPoints with unimaginative font. Supposedly, as one devil's advocate, some folks in prior SOTF occurrences had been motivated specifically by getting revenge on other people who had killed. Salem mildly prided himself on not understanding people in general of course, but he specifically didn't understand the A -> B logic for that particular breed of camera fodder. Revenge was a shaky enough concept as was, but it seemed even more disconnected to fight on behalf of the vague concept of life in general, as opposed to specific lives.

He had the sense Kitty, who definitely had the most soul out of the Ash-Kitty-Salem anti-personnel black hole, probably got it more than he did. If he didn't know her any better he might have guessed she was trying to condescend to him by pretending he was any authority on morality.

"I feel like you're asking the wrong person. However soulless you think I am, I'm worse."

An idle hum, as his thinking cap overheated and fell to the ground as a crisp husk.

"Asking if you're a bad person, I think, is the wrong question. Subjective, blah blah platitudes. More productive question would be, 'is what I'm doing what I actually want to be doing'? If you're spiraling out of control then it doesn't matter how good a person you are- you're going to make decisions you regret."

A sigh.

"I don't like talking this much, by the way." Said with the same vague and pleasant tone. "At least give me some more to work with if we're going to navel gaze."

Katelyn took the packet from Salem's hand, blankly staring at it.

"I don't have a broken t-tooth," she murmured, spitting the blood onto the floor. "I bite my lips and make them bleed, because I h-hate myself, and I think I deserve it."

The taste of metal in her mouth reminded her that she was a creature of flesh that would one day die. Each time she did it, she remembered her fear of the end, and added more fuel to the fear burning in her chest. She didn't know if she deserved to live with it day in and day out, but it felt right. She was punishing herself for being who she always was, for she was someone deserving of all her hate. There was no alternative, because she was not worthy of love. The fact that she still sought it out and still burdened people like Salem with her being was just another sign of her selfishness.

"What I w-want is," she mumbled, then stopped.

Katelyn covered her eyes with trembling hands, trying to hide the fact that she was still crying. She cried like she always did, her eyes an unceasing waterfall of tears, because she was weak. Everything was another reason to cry for her, no matter what it was. Now that she was here, she had an endless font of reasons to justify her crying, even when she was the perpetrator of suffering, rather than the victim.

"I don't want to b-be here," she sobbed, her words trembling in the air. "I don't want to do a-anything here. So that means e-everything I do is going to be something I r-regret, right? And the only way out is to d-die, or win. I don't want to die, not anymore, but I'm not going to w-win either. I've already... thought, about th-this. It's not Survival of the Fittest, it's Survival of the Luckiest, and I'm n-not lucky."

She sniffled, feeling the trail of blood coming down from her lip running down her neck.

"And yet I'm too s-stupid to give up, even though it's h-hopeless, and I'm d-doomed," her voice broke. "All because I have this i-idiotic drive to keep going, no m-matter what."

Katelyn uncovered her eyes, grabbing hold of the billhook again and bringing the blade up to her neck. The edge tickled her throat, ready at any moment to dig in and gorge itself on her vital fluids. Her hand shook, but she only had to kill the fear gripping her heart for a moment.

"It would be easier to just g-get it over with, right?"

Maybe Salem could give her the courage she needed to end it on her own terms, like she should have so long ago.

"Wow. That's a lot."

Salem didn't look especially perturbed. He wasn't sure anyone else except Ash knew the cues that he was actually uncomfortable- maybe Cali, but showing weakness around his own sister was something he'd probably never had the opportunity to do. He was very particular about eye contact, something to do with seeing the whites of his enemies eyes, in turn something to so with shooting his shot, but in this particular case he happened to be training his gaze onto the space between Kitty's eyes. Old trick he'd learned back when he'd still been a boomer in terms of pretending he could relate to and be interested in people- eye contact was generally too intense for extended periods, unless you knew how to keep your gaze soft and unthreatening. Not necessarily puppy, but at least a little bit of paws in the air, nyaa nyaa.

Wasn't much detail to parse where he was looking- Kitty had a small nose, not very clearly defined. One of her most distinct differences from Ash's face.

"Well first off I'm pro-euthanasia under any circumstances." He imagined Kitty hitting the floor, a fine mist of red and a barely distinguishable fragment or two of skull erupting from her temple where the bullet love tapped at the end of it's journey from the other side of her skull. Dispassionately, curiously. Kinda gross, he guessed. He briefly envisioned her bloating and becoming inhuman shades of purple and blue like Tana... Tana, right? He was already forgetting the name.

His pace of speaking stayed the same, relaxed. He continued to search for the meaning of his words in the vacant skin bereft of her emotion.

"I won't help. If you do it, it's by your hand." As if he were willing to extend that luxury and/or maybe condemnation to anyone else. Had it been, like, Dani or some other NPC sob story-ing him he wouldn't have hesitated to pull the gun and give them what they wanted without their finalized, legalese consent.

"Here's my brief follow up. What is your drive, exactly? Really think about it- what's keeping you going?" He proceeded in order of things he consciously thought kept him going. What his mind could offer up as his own excuse to not an hero, whatever his brain could spit out. "Morbid curiosity? Spite? Maybe you think you still owe someone something, or just care too much about your friends to be more focused on your own fear and suffering. You won't be able to end it yourself unless you know what's stopping you, I guess."

Not like he knew a lot about that. Even when he'd least given a fuck about the cruel world and all it's anti-neolib bias, taking the blue pill out had never been an option. He and Ash had never once tried, he was fully aware. Maybe Kitty had more courage then them, in that case, to at least attempt to offer society that particular ultimate fuck you.

What was driving her?

Katelyn didn't understand her own emotions at the best of times, let alone now.

"I-" she started to say, then stopped.

There was a long, long pause, Katelyn staring at the floor as the gears turned in her head. The billhook caressed her neck, whispering sweet affirmations in her ear that all the pain could go away, if only she would welcome it one last time. Katelyn didn't move, her sword arm didn't even twitch. Then it all clicked together, and slowly, ever so slowly, she lowered the blade into her lap.

"There are a few reasons," she said, methodically, without stuttering.

She closed her eyes, sniffling, and wiped her face on her sleeve again. The tears stopped flowing, and the life in her eyes turned to emptiness as they glazed over. It was an emotional state familiar to her, one that she most frequently entered when she walked into therapy. It was a sort of safe-mode, meant to protect her while she recounted the pain that marred her soul, and lived with her every waking moment of the day.

"I don't want to make my friends grieve my death," she stated quietly, monotonously, and slowly, as if she were reading from a textbook. "Especially if I do it myself. There's... tr-trauma there, I think. I also don't want to give my bullies the satisfaction of knowing that I'm dead. They probably aren't surprised by what I've done, even though they don't know what happened, and are probably already b-baying for my blood."

Katelyn shuddered at the thought. She inhaled deeply, holding it for a few moments, trembling, and exhaled slowly.

"Most importantly-"

She stopped mid-sentence, still quivering and trying to hold in the flood of emotions hammering at her heart.

"I've never told a-anyone this before. I think it needs context."

Katelyn took another deep breath. She thought back to her writing, and the words she would always use. She needed eloquence, so that Salem would understand.

"For most of my life, I have never known a day of rest. Not that I remember, anyway. The good days have been... blasted out of my mind, by all the hurt and guilt. Just waking up in the morning was always a struggle, one I could barely manage. If it weren't for my k-kitty," her voice broke, "I wouldn't have gotten up. I always have to remind myself, do it for him, not for you."

She sniffled, the dam she had built already beginning to crack as her monologue neared its end.

"When I woke up in the hospital after trying to k-kill myself the second time," she swallowed hard. "I promised my p-parents that I would make a better story out of my life. I decided that I deserved better than what I had done to myself, and that everyone else deserved the best of me, too."

Katelyn looked back up at Salem for the first time she started speaking, her tears starting to flow again as the wall around her heart gave way.

"A-And d-dying here," she stuttered out, life returning to her words, "after e-everything I've b-been through, wouldn't be a very g-good s-story, would it? Even though it's not my f-fate to win, and e-even though I know it's already o-over for me... I s-still have to tr-try, don't I?"

He'd watched the sickle shape cuddling up against the so obviously fragile skin over her windpipe and jugular, like... Mr. Kitty, had that been his name? An affectionate love story between a girl and her weapon- probably the least toxic and most understanding relationship Kitty had ever had in her yet-to-be shortened lifespan. His thoughts had been few, and not especially profound. Wondering what Ash would think. Wondering how relieved the rest of the class would be.

Willing himself to not flinch or close his eyes when she split herself open.

The next part, where she closed up, did the robot, that was more familiar. Forced dispassion was something Salem could relate to, insofar as he at least understood the mechanism of action. His gaze returned to hers, he played out her life story like a cheap travel brochure.

Overexposed, gently sun-bleached photos of a smaller Kitty- as if she could get smaller, ha, absolutely perfect time to joke at her expense- IV drip deep in one arm, lying in a hospital bed, her surviving family all awkwardly at her side but not close enough to show off they really cared or understood why the thing in that bed had ended up there.

"A more cynical person would call it spite. But I'll give you the benefit of a doubt because- to answer your earlier question. Well." Salem almost wanted to pause for effect but fuck that, everything he was saying now was cringe and he wanted to get it over with.

"You're a good person Kitty. Insofar as I don't really think good people exist in society-" gamer moment, "You're the closest thing I can think of. You, Cali. Molly, I guess." Not Ash. That was why she was specifically the one he was dating.

"I think that's why this is so hard for you. So whatever you do I have no business to judge, because karmically I'd say you earned it."

He didn't understand her at all. Not one bit- not her motivations, not her drive, her passion, her resilience. That was why he could factually say she was the better person. He leaned back in place, staring at the ceiling of the abandoned place of labor with a raised eyebrow that might have been aimed right at god if Salem believed in such a thing.

"I'll give you this, Kitty. If you and I make it far enough, I'll do you a solid and take myself out. One less problem for you to deal with."

Katelyn wanted to say-

I don't want you to do that for me.

-but she couldn't make the words crawl out of her throat.

Instead, she closed her eyes and inhaled sharply through her nose, in a vain attempt to quell the quivering in her chest. There could be no peace anymore, for her or anyone else here. It was everyone for themselves, and if by chance it wasn't her fate to die here, that meant everyone she loved would die in her place. Salem was acknowledging that, while she had hidden that essential truth away, in the back of her mind. He might be talking her up, but he was far braver than she was.

"I'm not sure I b-believe in karma," she murmured, opening her eyes, but once again looking at the floor. "There's no rhyme or reason for what happens to us. All of us are just riding the wave."

It wasn't like a child who had done nothing wrong and barely comprehended the world around her deserved to lose both of her parents in a horrifying accident. It wasn't like the fact that something so horrible happened to her justified every terrible action she took from there on out. Violence begets further violence, and it would find her again soon enough.

"Th-Thank you, though," she whispered, looking back up at Salem. "It means a l-lot that you'd say that."

"See now you're talking my language." A pause, unnecessarily long as Salem for a moment wondered if there could be more to him in that moment that dispassionate, cooler-than-thou machismo. Well, in general, of course, but a lifelong evolution as a human being was pretty officially out of the cards now, so.

He put those feelings aside. They were small and fragile anyways, had to be kept out of harms way.

"Except for the part where you thanked me, though. Like, I'm not supposed to be smart or wise or anything. Cramping my style, Kitty."

He smiled up at her and felt like he wanted to take it back the moment he did. His lips immediately were extinguished to neutral. His face in general stalled and sputtered out like he'd just choked two Ambien with a sip of water.

"Well, I think there's one last thing. I can't promise that the next time we meet it won't be, like. Less of a talking situation and more of a shooting and stabbing one. I don't know what I'm trying to accomplish yet but I'm not ruling out playing the game, y'know."

No karma, after all. The only way the consequences of his actions could catch up to him is if he'd let them. But he guessed he wasn't exactly the fastest runner.