Survival Of The Fittest

((The shadow of death found itself cast over the dining area.))

The familiar smell of blood met Katelyn's nose as she entered the room, so thick in the air that she tasted it in the back of her throat like rising bile. The interior of the dining room had the dried innards of another victim spattered all over one side, reminiscent of a Jackson Pollock painting. Her calves stung from exhaustion, and her hand came up to support herself against the cold, uncaring metal of the wall paneling, idly wondering how long the room would remember the carnage that occurred within. Her footsteps made no sound as she had entered, as she remained drifting from place to place like a ghost haunting the island. It was eerily quiet within the Quarters in general, leaving Katelyn unsure if she was alone, or if everyone else was hiding from her.

If they were, it was better for them all that it stayed that way.

She had circled the entire island at this point, desperately searching for her friends, but had come up empty-handed. She had found Salem, but he had left her behind in the dead of night. She couldn't bring herself to blame him for the abandonment, even though it hurt like a knife in her chest. She herself didn't want to deal with the trouble that came with her presence, so it wasn't like she could expect different from anyone else.

Briefly, she had come by the trapping cabin to complete her tour of the island, spotting a makeshift grave for Robin well before she got close enough to be noticed. While she had planned to do that herself, she was not comforted by the sight. Instead, it had left a lump of dread in the pit of her stomach, because it gave her undeniable proof that those that cared for Robin were out there. In time, they would be hunting her, seeking to rip her head from her shoulders and cast her body into the ocean. Whenever they came, she would be ready, even if she didn't want to be.

The announcements had come by the time she made it within sight of the research station. Ingrid had died, apparently in a vain attempt to swim away from the island. So much for all the work Katelyn had put into saving her. There would be no-one to vouch for her better nature now. It was as if the universe was trying to spite her, taking away anything that could pull her from the ruinous, violent path she was on.

She came to the four chairs lined up in a row in front of one of the tables and took a seat, letting her weary bones come to a rest once again. Maybe she could stay here for a while, and hope that one of her friends found her before trouble got to her first. Her eyes shot over to the body, not quite recognizing who it was beyond passing familiarity from JEM. Decomposition was a process she was deeply familiar with, per her morbid interests, and it had thankfully yet to set in beyond the initial stages, likely due to the cold. A small blessing in the face of overwhelming terror that she would meet a similar end, and soon.

Katelyn let the billhook rest in her lap, feeling the knife rub against her leg from where it remained in her boot. The digging bar slung across her back banged against the side of the chair, the only sound she had made since she had entered.

She rested her face in her hands, covering her eyes as she tried to keep herself from crying again.

[Enter Eden]

A door swung open, and then closed, and it continued swinging in place, rhythmically, deliberately, scratching away at the silence. The tapping footfalls that followed were light, befitting a boy who was light on his feet. This sound, too, was measured, and it continued for several seconds as the boy closed the distance between himself and Kitty.

Then it stopped, and the boy spoke, and the sound of his voice was a sewing needle in a shaky hand. "If you're going to cry in front of me, then stop drawing it out. For fuck's sake."

So lost in thought, Katelyn was, that the faint sounds of entry hadn't registered through the ocean of grief crushing her. When the voice intruded upon her space and cut through the silence, she startled, jumping out of her seat in the process, her weapon already in her hands, ready to cleave flesh from bone. With her heart hammering in her ears and body trembling with fear and loathing, it took a moment for the sudden panic to clear from her head. Once it did, she finally registered who was actually with her, now.

Eden Zima, twin brother of Eve Zima. She didn't know him well, much like most of the student body of JEM, whom she generally avoided like they were diseased. The few interactions they had shared had always been negative. He was unfailingly rude to her whenever they spoke, but in a way that revealed that he cared very little about who she was and what she wanted. She had always been beneath his notice, before. Perhaps it would be different, now?

He wasn't armed, no weapon anywhere that Katelyn could make out. If he had been intending to kill her, he had the perfect opportunity to do so without speaking. She had gotten lucky, this time, and that was a mistake that she could not afford to make again. Still, the fact that he didn't lay waste to her already was a positive enough sign of his intentions. Rudeness before didn't necessarily mean that someone was out to get her now, much like kindness before didn't suggest a lack of murderous intent, a fact that Katelyn herself was unfortunately an example of.

"H-Hi?" she croaked out, unsure of herself and what to say. "S-Sorry. I didn't- I was tr-trying not to cry, f-for once."

She let the billhook fall to her side, no longer ready for violence, and signalling her best intentions to Eden. She was a murderer, but that did not define her, and it certainly didn't motivate her. She wasn't going to let this place turn her into a monster. She was better than that, better than it.

"Eden, right?" she continued, voice hoarse and throat congested from lack of use. "It's... K-Katelyn. Graves. Or K-Kitty. You probably don't r-remember me."

If he hadn't, then she had thrown what little plausible deniability that she had out the window. Not that the many, many bloodstains soaking her clothes and sticking to her skin were all that well hidden. If he didn't already know who she was, it wouldn't have been hard for him to at least figure out what she had been up to.

"The- The body. I, um, didn't do th-that one," she kept going, unable not to bring up the carnage nearby, her mousey voice clearing as the cobwebs were worked out. "S-Sorry. A-Are you, um, okay? Do you need h-help with anything? I have extra s-supplies and I know, l-like, f-first-aid and stuff."

Eden laughed coldly, harshly. "Am I okay? Do you earnestly believe that there is the remotest possibility that I could be okay? I have just lost--never mind. Tell me, Kitty, are you okay? You don't look okay. Save your first-aid kits for yourself, my dear. I think you'll need them, if your clothes are any indication."

Eden swayed slightly on his feet. He really should get some sleep at some point. Eve was dead, so no point in denying himself of it any longer, right? That's what he was here for--of course. Shelter, a place to rest. Undisturbed by weather and other people. He had shambled here from the lake, somehow--had he been following a map, or instinct? He couldn't remember. It didn't matter. It had been, what, at least 52 hours since he last slept? And here, right as he was ready to finally drop, there was--of course--Kitty, occupying his room.

It would be very easy to simply pack up and go to another room. But fuck it.

Eden took slow, swaying steps forward, ignoring the corpse, and plopped into a chair at the same table as Kitty. He glared at her.

Truthfully, at this moment, Kitty was guilty of nothing but unintentionally denying Eden a place to sleep. Eden knew that, and so, he moderated his response. His cruelty would be enough to make her leave the room--not more, and not less.

"But of course. The blood on your clothes isn't yours."

Katelyn took a step back.

"I-" she started to reply, hands trembling, only to stop.

Not this again, her heart wasn't able to take it. She couldn't blame Eden for bringing it up, it's not like being a murderer was something that could be casually ignored. As much as she didn't want to be defined by the atrocities she had committed, her new reputation had clearly already solidified. If that was the case, then maybe instead of extending an olive branch, she should have bared her fangs to scare him off, like she had tried to do with Iliya and Ingrid. Except, that hadn't worked, it had only prompted more attention that led to the unfortunate events that followed.

Might as well try something new.

"L-Look," she continued, voice shaking almost as much as her hands. "Robin was an a-accident. He wouldn't l-leave me alone, so I th-threw my heater at him, and it did more damage than I w-wanted. Iliya and Mitch w-were self-defense. The former, she- she tried to s-stab me in the back, and Mitch, he a-attacked me without w-warning and I-"

She gulped.

"I h-had to do what I did," she finished, so unsure of what she was saying that even she didn't believe it.

"I'm not a m-monster. Please, please believe me," she pleaded.

Kitty’s plea hung in the air, unanswered. Eden shifted his weight, allowed the silence to stretch--much like how, in another time, at another kitchen table, another, similar, silence had stretched. The Zima kitchen hadn’t been dimly-lit, exactly, and yet, somehow it always assumed a greyscale quality when Eden contemplated it. In his memory, their kitchen became dusty, and cold, the color of twilight on a rainy day. All that was missing here was some cold, tasteless food to nibble upon.

Kitty was trembling before him. She must want an answer very, very badly. In another life, he would have taken pity on her, for she was easy to pity and he wanted pity her. He wanted to, he wanted to—but what did it matter what he wanted, now? What did anything matter?

“You know…”

He paused, so that the tone of his voice could become cool, spindly.

“I wasn’t asking you for an explanation. Frankly, I’m surprised you expect me to care about Mitch, or Iliya, or that shitty boyfriend of yours. As far as I’m concerned, he probably deserved you. Just like you probably deserved him.”

What mattered was this: that Eve was dead. That Eden was tired. Fuck Kitty for expecting him to care.

"But since you want me to absolve you so much, fine. If it's what it takes for me to not be stabbed, then sure, I'll 'believe' you."

Katelyn grimaced at Eden's remarks, taking another step back from him. She felt a brief flash of anger at the comment about Robin, but it only manifested as a trembling lower lip. She took a deep breath in, and out. Eden wasn't someone she should care about the opinion of, and yet, she still did.

"But you d-don't, though," she replied, audibly hurt. "You don't believe m-me. You even think I would s-stab you just for that!"

She sniffled, fresh tears starting to roll down her face. She brought her bloodied sleeves up to wipe her eyes, trying her best to keep the rising tide of guilt and grief at bay, just a little longer.

"Who am I k-kidding?" she whined, blubbering. "N-Nobody will, because n-nobody cares. Everyone already m-made up their minds that I'm just s-some psycho, and this place has proved it."

Maybe they had been right all along. Something was deeply wrong with her, and she had always been capable of this. The awful circumstances that she was trapped in merely brought it out.

The thing was? Eden did believe her. But it really was very annoying that Kitty expected anything of him, and she still wasn’t leaving.

“Aw. Don’t cry. You said you weren’t going to do that. Tell you what. I’ll pretend to believe that you won’t stab me over that, if you promise not to stab me over that.”

She was so pitiful. She might as well have been wearing a cardboard sign around the neck with the words “KICK ME” written on it. He hated her for being so easy to kick. It reminded him so much of—don’t say her name, the stupid, self-important, fucking piece of—

“You’re a good joke, you know. Like I said, I really don’t give a shit if you’re a murderer. So why is it so important to you that I believe that you’re not?”

He paused, pretended to think.

“Oh. Don’t tell me. Don’t tell me you. You actually care, don’t you? Holy shit, really? This actually matters to you. You can kill, but you really, really don’t want to be the bad guy for it.”

He took a deep, shaky breath. She was dead. She was dead, and it was his fault, except no the fuck it wasn’t and now he would never yell at her again. Instead it was Kitty before him, and she didn’t deserve this, but she was here, and it felt good, and he didn’t deserve, he didn’t deserve better than—

But the words were already leaving his mouth.

“That’s really funny. That’s really, really funny. Your previous victims. Did you cry and snivel and beg like a dog for them to forgive you, as you were killing them? Was that a thing you did? I would’ve paid money to see that.”

Katelyn was left speechless, dumbfounded.

Her face was red, tears becoming hot and blistering. Despite the cold, she felt balmy, like she were standing inside a sauna. Her whole body shook, trembling and indignant. She squeezed the handle of the billhook in a vice grip. She tried to take a deep breath, but it was shaky, insincere.

She knew all too well when someone was trying to get under her skin. Once someone set their sights on her, they wouldn't relent until they had her crying, and even that didn't stop all of them. They'd pick on everything they could, every little insecurity she had, just to make her hurt and feel as bad as they could. Why they did this and what they gained out of it, Katelyn never understood.

Eden had revealed himself for what he was; just another bully. He would be dealt with the same way she dealt with all of her bullies.

"I'm leaving," was all she said, before she turned around and started making her way to the door.

Eden felt a thrill of panic at her words. Anger too. He got to his feet, knocking his chair over, and, with striding steps, planted his body between Kitty and the door. He turned to face her, eyes burning—

“As if.”

Why was he doing this? Hadn’t he wanted her to leave? Yes, that was it—how dare she give him what he wanted, how dare she try to leave before he was through with her—no, before he was through with himself. It didn’t make any sense. He was tired, he needed rest. Once he’d rested he would be able to make better sense of his own thoughts. But why the hell would he want that? Why would he, when—

His voice twisted, tightened, a rope on the verge of snapping. “That’s all you got? You didn’t get the answer you wanted, you didn’t get the answer you thought you deserved, so you’re just going to leave?”

He forced out a weak, mirthless little laugh. It was a trembling sound, self-pitying. He doubted there were many people who could’ve been hurt by it, but that didn’t matter; it was probably enough to hurt Kitty.

God, she’d turned pink. There were tears on her cheeks, and she was trembling. You had to feel awful taking a swing at her. Good; good.

“You’re even more heartless than I thought. You don’t care at all. Do you? I mean, come on. We all knew what Robin was saying about you. You thought he deserved it. They all fucking deserved it. That’s what you tell yourself, isn’t it? That's, that's...”

But what in the fuck was he saying, anyways?

"You're wrong," Katelyn growled.

Her face turned redder, her trembling turning into shakes. She squeezed the handle of the billhook so tightly that it began to hurt. Her breathing was hot and fast, rapid, deep breaths trying to keep her calm. She was a pot on a stove, heating up, and the searing, frothing rage within was threatening to boil over and burn those who were standing too close.

Eden didn't know her, and he didn't understand her. He read intent where there was none, and malice where she didn't have any. She deserved nothing, and did her best to ask for it. She had a heart, and she cared too much, if anything. None of them, her victims or not, deserved what happened to them here.

If he was right about her, then she would've just skewered him and called it a day. She would've killed Salem too, and Meena, and California. All of it would've been easy for her, because true violence came not from the weapons one wielded, but from the raw capacity to kill, and the intent to follow it through. The greatest condemnation of her character was that she had that capacity in spades, something that most of her classmates no-doubt lacked.

Eden understood that much, that she had that capacity in her, but he didn't understand her motivation. She didn't want to be that way. She didn't want to become a beast of murder and mayhem, a bloodlusting hunter leaving a trail of bodies in her wake. What she wanted was to be better than that, even if it would be easier to simply give in, and let the beast come out.

The worst mistake Eden was making was eroding her will to resist.

Normally, in these situations, dealing with a bully who was trying to get under her skin, she would simply escape. Go somewhere that she couldn't be bullied, and then take a while to calm down. In those moments, the vengeful, spiteful little beast within wanted her to bare her teeth and sink her claws in. When she ran, she did so to get away from it. She would remind herself that violence only caused more problems, that revenge wasn't worth it, and that she would regret it if she acted on her darkest impulses. When she couldn't escape, instinct would always get the better of her.

And Eden wasn't letting her escape. He wouldn't allow her to clear her head. Instead, all he was doing was pissing her off.

"Get out of my way," she hissed.

A last chance, and an ultimatum.

“Wrong about what, exactly?” Eden was shouting now, the anger rushing through him; it had never been very hard at all to make it flow. Never mind that it had nothing to do with Kitty; never mind that he was swinging wildly, and she knew it, and he knew it; his anger had found an opening, it was gushing, and Eden only wanted more of it.

“No words for me? Cat got your tongue? Do you know why everyone at school thought you’d be a school shooter? It’s because you’re like this. It’s because, because,” Eden flailed about for a reason to hate Kitty, for indeed, he hated her now, he was sure of it—“because you’re always running away, it’s not you, it’s never you, it’s never your fucking fault, ever. It's always, he made me do it, of course he did. It’s because you’re weak. It’s because you’re so fucking sensitive.”

There was a reason he was doing this, there was a purpose to this, he was angry for a reason or else why would he be so angry? There was something, something that was going to happen, he needed Kitty to give him something and she wasn’t fucking giving it to him and—

“When you slit Robin’s throat for him, I bet you cried. You cried, didn’t you? You did him a favor by crushing him with that heater, was what you did. Did he beg? Did he plead for his life, as you pled for his forgiveness? Or maybe he knew better. Maybe he already knew what you were. Maybe he knows you, like, knows you, if you get what I mean. Maybe he—“ Eden was reaching, he knew, “maybe he wasn’t lying at all, about what you did for him. Or maybe you cried because you wanted to see him suffer, but you didn’t have the fucking guts.”

She was dead. She was dead, and it was his fault, and he would never yell at her again, or steal her makeup again, or make fun of her stupid youtube channel again. She was dead, and it was his fault, and he wanted to hurt her for it, but he couldn’t. Never would he hurt Eve again; but he could hurt himself, he could hurt himself by hurting Kitty, and Kitty deserved it because she—

“Have you been thinking about doing it for awhile? I bet you have. I bet you like this. I bet you like, what is it, showing them all. If they think I’m a monster, then let me be a monster or whatever. Because, because…"

He was projecting now, of course he was, but couldn’t he see, couldn’t she see, the projection was the point, it was the point. Any idiot could see it; even Eden would’ve been able to see it, if he weren’t tired out of his mind.

“You could’ve let them live. You could’ve let them be. You could’ve walked away, gone it alone, instead of forcing them to share in. You. Could’ve drowned by yourself, instead of dragging them all down with you. But you didn’t, because this. Is. What. You. Are. You couldn’t be anything else, even if you wanted to be, except you don’t want to be,” his voice was stretching, unraveling, twisting in on itself into a snarl, perhaps a screech, and it was true, he didn’t want to be, in truth, it would’ve been quite easy to be kind to Kitty, to leave her alone—but to be kind to Kitty would’ve been to grow and heal, and Eden Zima didn’t deserve growth or healing, what he deserved was to die like a dog like a rat like the piece of filth that he was, which meant, it meant that—

“You don’t fucking want to be a person worth—"

Eden was cut off by the billhook being buried halfway through his neck.

For a moment, he remained standing, some kind of inertia holding him upright as the blood oozed from his neck. The sound had gone, the fury snuffed out, but there had been a thought that he wanted to finish—he had been reaching towards it for quite awhile, and it had seemed terribly important for him to finish it.

Then he crumpled to the floor.

The hunter loomed above its latest victim, blood dripping off its great, hooked claw and staining the concrete below. The skin of its face was warmed by the first spray of rapidly-evacuating life now pooling around the victim's ragged wound. The odor of metal hit its nose and clung even deeper to its clothes. Its gaze was transfixed on the sight of the corpse, body so still that even it wasn't sure if anyone in the room was still breathing.

Her sense of self returned when the blood began to pool around her boots.

Katelyn took an unsteady step backwards, legs wobbling as she found a seat to collapse into, unable to take her eyes off of her latest crime against humanity. Her heart pounded in her chest as if her life were in danger, even though it had never been at risk in the present tense. Her stomach, the part of her that staunchly refused to grow accustomed to the violence, recoiled at the sight. It assaulted the rest of her insides, making her feel as though she was about to puke, despite the fact that her guts had been empty for some time. All the while, as she tried to keep her body from rebelling against her, her mind whirled around one number.

Four.

That was how many lives she had taken, now. Unlike the previous, her latest kill carried no possible hint of a justification. Her emotions had gotten the better of her again, but that wasn't an excuse. She had no excuse, because Eden was no threat to her. She had a choice, and in her anger she chose to kill him instead of using any other option available to her. In death, everything that Eden had said about her had been validated. She was falling. She had fallen. She could not go back.

She was the scorpion that could not change its nature.

Grief overwhelmed Katelyn's senses. She mourned the image she had built of herself as it came crumbling down around her. She was not the person who she always thought she was. She was not who she wanted to be. She was nothing more than the sum of all the worst parts of herself. She was the monster, the beast, the hunter, the killer. Her fate was sealed, and she could blame no-one and nothing else for her actions. The cold, hard truth was that this violence was who she was, and all she would ever be.

She wanted to cry. Desperate, pleading with her own body to get the tears to start flowing again, to provide the relief that they always did, but her vessel refused. She shook, then brought one hand up to her face, clawing at her cheek. She dug into her skin and tore a gash in the side of her face. White-hot pain erupted from the wound, and she finally stopped. Her own blood dripped down her chin, staining the collar of her jacket. With the arrival of pain, tears flowed once more, but this time they stung her eyes, and brought her no relief.

Abruptly, she stood up, defying her exhausted legs and forcing them to carry her out of the room. She left Eden's supplies behind, unwilling to take them, for she did not deserve them. Let the vultures have them, so they did not go to waste, for anyone was more deserving than her.

((With another body left in her wake, Katelyn ran away.))