Survival Of The Fittest

((Russell 'Fitz' Fitzroy continued from : after story))

The announcements crackled to an end, and Fitz scowled as he added to the killer list in his weapon manual. He was sitting on the floor in the cell. Tenshi occupied the singular cot, and he was using the space on the wall next to her to write down the victims for her reference. Cedar’s name was there, as was Tully’s.

They’d arrived here not long after setting off out of the research lab, and remained there for the night. It had a cot. It was the best that could be hoped for. There was a beer can on the floor for some reason, but whoever owned it didn’t seem like they were coming back.

During the time between then and the announcements, Fitz had admitted to shooting Tully. His wording had been, ‘I was aiming for Alex, and I missed. You should know that before the announcements, because they’re probably going to make it sound bad.’

Now that it was over, Fitz finished scribbling the list and said, “Told you. Could not have sounded worse. You missed the first announcement, right? You should have a look at who’s killing.”

He held the list of killers out for Dawn to look at.


Kitty – knife – III
Janice – knife – II
Prz - ledge
B. Quinn – blunt - BKA
Jacob L – knife
Jess R – gun
Aracelis – bat
Jezz S – knife - II
Shu – barb wire
Dragon - ?
Joshua? - choke - BKA
Alex – spear


As he held the list out, he glanced at the list of today’s victims on the wall.

“Syrup. ...Asshole,” he muttered, putting a hand in his pocket and fiddling with Cedar’s choker.

It was a new day. Due to yesterday's lack of drug abuse, Dawn felt physically better.

A faint consolation at best, given that she was still on the island.

((Dawn Montogomery continued from : after story))

This marked the second night in a row where Dawn slept under a table. The correctional room turned out a bit colder than the laboratory, but thanks to the issued windbreaker this was no problem.

The announcement came and went, bringing news of disaster and death. Pain and panic. Hate and hopelessness. Bill was dead. Mitch was dead. The girl who Dawn knitted new gloves for was dead. Zora was dead. Zhijuan, Marian, Ingrid, Jess. All dead.

The mention of Cedar and Tully showed that Danya wasn't just making stuff up. However, by conforming to Fitz's prophecy, the terrorists had given them something to hope for.

"Thanks," she said in response to Fitz offering her the information. "And I never doubted your story. After all, you deciding to murder Tully with Alex in the room would have made no sense.

"As for the killers, if we run into someone, I think we should at least hear them out. If Danya was willing to twist the truth to make you look bad, he certainly is willing to do the same for others as well. I am sure many on this list had no intention to do what they did. They were just fearful or in a confusing situation." She cleared her throat. "I refuse to believe that anyone in our class just woke up and became a murderer."

The face of Alex came to mind, but she ignored it. It was too early in the morning for deep reasoning. To divert her attention, she turned to the cell, where Tenshi rested, seemingly awake since not very long.

"It's time to change her bandages."

Last night, there was a concert. Purple smoke, cheering crowds. It was a medley of covers, something Tenshi had wanted to do for a while as an anniversary gift for her channel, but there was something sweet about debuting it live. At the very end, everyone raised their lights and the spotlight above her grew blinding, the roars grew deafening, and there were...

...fireworks.

[Tenshi Fukushima-Yves continued from : after story]

The next thing she knew, she awoke, lightheaded in a dark place. She rubbed her temples and groaned. The after-concert party must have been so wild she blacked out. Right now, she was- where was she? She looked around. It looked like a jail cell... but actually, it was just backstage. Cedar was the type to make these sorts of preparations, probably. Put up a cot somewhere unassuming, for a drunk Tenshi to pass out into.

Cedar still wasn't back. Fitz was, though, and so was Dawn. They also seemed kinda out of it. There was a list of names written on the wall, but Tenshi couldn't be bothered to read much right now.

Her bag was open on the floor next to the cot. Unzipped, with a cracker tin on the top, a whistle nestled next to it. Some dinner she had last night. She could have at least ordered takeout. Her good hand hung down and fished the whistle out, fiddling with it in her fingers, hopefully that'd keep the limb awake. One numb arm was good enough, thank you very much.

She wasn't sure why she got this dog whistle, out of all of them. The morbidity wasn't her style. Maybe it was a gift? Yeah, it was probably a gift from a weird fan or something. Leaning over a bit in the cot, she peered into the bag. Nobody found and put her hearing aids in her bag in her sleep like she (probably) requested before passing out, so those were still unaccounted for. In the worst case, she'd have to replace them, and she'd have to ask her parents for help with that, and they'd freak (they'd help, obviously, but they'd freak out first). Her phone wasn't there either, she lost that too, so she couldn't call them right this second. Maybe she'd borrow Cedar's phone. When she got back.

With a sigh, she lay back in the bed, and set the whistle delicately on the creases of her duffel bag.

“Hear them out? Seriously?” Fitz’s tone was snappy, irritable, as he jerked his head towards Dawn. “You think we’re going to sing Kumbaya now? Did you just block yesterday out?!”

He breathed in sharply. When he next spoke, his tone was calmer. Tired. He leaned back against the wall and pressed his head against it.

“I’m not going to say they’re all guns firing. Most of them might settle down if they’re smart… not like you need more than one kill to leave. Still would rather keep my distance, and I’m sure they’d say the same for me. But anyone who’s killed twice? More?

“Some kids are just… like this. You didn’t see how Alex and Tul--” He paused, then said, “Like, Alex almost looked like he was enjoying the fight. He didn’t run when Tully knocked half his teeth out.” The teeth in question, Fitz pushed back and forth in his pocket as they bumped against Cedar’s choker. “It’s like he’s been waiting to make history.”

His gaze slid to Tenshi fiddling with the aztec death whistle.

“Tenshi, if you blow that fucking whistle again I’ll--” He clamped his mouth shut, then shut his eyes again without finishing his sentence. “Can’t hear me anyway. What’s the fucking POINT?!”

That last word snapped out like a gunshot. Fitz’s knuckles were white as he narrowly avoided crumpling his weapon’s manual.

What Fitz said stung. A lot. But aside from flinching back, Dawn decided to leave the topic be. As long as Fitz wouldn't attack anyone on sight, she saw no poblem with him being overcautious.

More important was to check Tenshi's condition. Entering the cell, Dawn approached the bed where Tenshi just dropped the weird whistle which appeared to be her weapon. The design looked spooky, but with everything else going on, that was of lower priority.

After getting Tenshi's attention and making a few signs to hopefully signalize her intentions, Dawn opened her first aid kit before carefully unbinding the help they had given the wound to take a peek.

There was a lot of swelling.

There was greenish pub flowing out.

There was reddish skin.



















No.

No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no!

With closed eyes, Dawn took a breath and started counting.

10...

9...

8...

7...

6...

5...

4...

3...

2...

1...

She opened her eyes, and the wound looked exactly as before.

This was beyond bad. When watching medical videos, she had seen wounds like this one. She had seen what the appropriate responses to such infections were.

Now a lot paler than before, Dawn retied the bandages without even changing them. Then she gave Tenshi a weak smile before walking backwards until she had left the cell.

Fitz seemed agitated, but she couldn't afford to wait for him to calm down.

"We need to talk."

To be honest, the cast had been getting kinda itchy. She was glad for Dawn's attention to it. With any luck, she wouldn't have to wear it for too long...

...were broken bones supposed to look like that?

Tenshi shook her head very lightly, and when she regained her sight, Dawn was smiling. It was a slight smile, but a smile nonetheless. Surely, that meant things were fine. She opened her mouth to ask about Cedar, but Dawn started walking away, so she dropped the words.

She glanced back at the list on the wall. Vision was still kinda bad, the way it got bad after being on the computer or her phone until 2 AM. She squinted. A list of names, including Cedar. A guy named Tully, from yesterday. What was the point of it, though? Was it a guest list? Yeah, it had to be a guest list.

While Dawn went to check on Tenshi, Fitz huffed under his breath and got to his feet before he started pacing around the room irritably. Once or twice he stopped to look at the desk, or a cabinet, but he moved on quick without really looking closely at any of it.

When Dawn returned – far too quickly - Fitz looked at her strained expression. Then he looked through the bars at Tenshi, and the still stained bandages on her arm.

“...She’s not doing great, huh?”

He put a hand on his hip and wrinkled his nose as he spoke, looking more irritated than concerned.

Biting her lip, Dawn looked back to Tenshi before replying. Despite the non-danger of Tenshi overhearing them, she whispered.

"Her wound is infected. A lot. Maybe not all of the bandages were sterile.

"Normally she should be rushed to a hospital, which we can't do right now. But if we do nothing, she will die."

Another look over her her shoulder told her nothing new.

"We have to amputate her arm."

Whispering it out loud made it sound even more surreal than it had in her head. Two teenagers performing a surgery on an abandoned island wasn't something that should ever happen. And yet here they were.

"Will you help me with that?"

Fitz, for a good ten seconds, responded by raising his finger, opening his mouth, then shutting it again and clenching his hand, then repeating this several times before he finally found words.

"Are you NUTS?"

This was delivered in a harsh whisper.

"You want to do an amputation? With what?!"

He gestured wildly around them, to indicate the lack of choppy implements.

"I'd rather she had the decency to last more than twelve hours after we let Cedar die for her useless ass, but what we should do is let her kick it before one of us does something that gets her killed! Because the only option--"

He pointed at where he'd put his rifle down, keeping his gaze on Dawn as he spoke.

"--is blowing her arm off, unless you have a knife tucked away. You want to do that? Because I'm not taking that shot. Don't want my fingers in the way of it, either."

His words were harsh, but deserved. Dawn knew what a risky endeavour this was. But she also knew that Tenshi would die without it. A small chance at life was always better than no chance at all. Cedar had asked her to make sure that Tenshi was okay, and while she probably had only refered to the current situation back then, Dawn still felt responsible.

"That's what I was going to ask about. We need to make some noise to alert others. Those terrorists must have given out some bladed weapons, so if we get enough people to come here, someone has to have something we can use.

"As for the contacting, we have this." With the last word, Dawn quickly returned to Tenshi's side and stole the weird-looking whistle from her.

She presented it to Fitz.

"I will blow it and then we wait. Once someone arrives, I will do the explaining while you keep your gun close incase Alex comes back."

Maybe Dawn and Fitz were discussing when Cedar would be back. But from the way they seemed to speak, you'd think she got caught in a car accident or something. There was nothing to be worried about, or at least that's what Tenshi wanted to tell them. They'd all seen her in the hospital with their own eyes, sleeping peacefully. And what was more likely? That the perpetually exhausted caretaker of the group was taking a nap, or that she'd left Tenshi forever?

Tenshi glanced over as Dawn took the whistle from her side, and didn't raise a finger to stop her. No harm no foul, it wasn't her style anyway.

“You--”

Fitz rubbed his face, eyes shut, before that hand came back to massage his neck irritably.

“Alright. Alright… that… you know there’s cons to that, right? That Alex isn’t the only one out there? But...”

He huffed, glaring at Tenshi through the bars.

“But I don’t have a better idea. Fuck it.”

Fitz crossed the room and sat down in the chair by the desk, and placed his gun in his lap. He started to check over it and make sure it was loaded properly. He’d made the extra effort to remember to make sure it was fully unloaded last time, so that a situation like Alex wouldn’t happen again.

“Heads up. That whistle sounds like human screaming. Only the most goody-two-shoes would run towards someone screaming like that.” Fitz finished checking the gun and put it on the table before he covered his ears. “If killers turn up, you better get out of the way.”

"Okay."

There was little to say about that. Her legs shook slightly as she stepped out of the building to get a better point where the noise would reach at least across the entire station.

With no way of influencing who would hear the whistle and how they would react, all Dawn could do was hope.

Hope and blow into the whistle.

((Madeleine Molliqaj continued from Little Things))

Another scream.

Pausing, Madeleine ran towards it, sword brandished.

This wasn't like Cassie. Someone needed help.

"W-what the fffff-ff-fudge was that?!?" squeaked a voice outside, in reaction to the ungodly banshee wail that just echoed throughout the research station.

Not long after, a pair of figures could be seen rapidly exiting a nearby tunnel, leaving their sorry excuse of a shelter to go investigate. One wearing a bright pink jacket and brandishing an aztec cudgel, the other short and mouselike with her hands clutching tightly to a bladed shoe.

Once they were closer, the figure with the shoe stopped suddenly, her eyes widening in surprise when she realised where that nightmarish sound had originated from.

"D... Dawn?" gasped-

((Cassie Chao continued from Little Things))