Survival Of The Fittest

((Shannon Choi continued from Broken Angels, Wingless, Cast from Heaven's Gates.))

There was a lot of time for Shannon to think, holed up in a house tucked away in the maze of buildings of the mining town. A lot of time for her to really take stock of the situation.

Mostly, it gave Shannon time to count.

Twenty-one, if she was counting correctly. If she hadn't somehow mixed up a name or overcounted or whatever. Twenty-one. That's how many were dead. And against all odds, none of those twenty-one had been her.

So she had that going for her, which was nice.

Anyway, uh... yeah.

The second announcement had just ended about three minutes ago. It felt a lot longer than that, as she simply stared at her feet, not really thinking about... anything, really. Oh sure, there's always talk about someone feeling 'empty' in situations like this, if they were so inclined. And sure, Shannon felt empty, in a sense.

In as much as, she was really 'no thoughts, head empty' right now. Right now, she was just in a room, sitting on a bed, thinking about...

Uh, honestly, at this point? She was thinking about bees.

"Bees?" she asked herself.

Yeah, Shannon. Bees? Is that where your single brain cell has landed on now?

...You know what? Sure.

Apropos of nothing, Shannon was thinking about bees right now. Not about how twenty-one of her classmates were dead. Not about the fact that eventually she would join them, on this island that help would never find. Not about how her whole life up to now was shortly going to be thrown away for nothing.

Bees.

((Maya Press continued from Broken Angels, Wingless, Cast from Heaven's Gates.))

Maya had been with Shannon for a while now. It was an interesting experience. She didn't expect the girl to be so... quirky? Was that the right term for her? She thought it was just a thing she did at school. Shannon seemed almost oblivious to what was going on, or if she wasn't, she was taking it in a lot more stride than Maya did. Maya envied that a little. All she was thinking was where to go, what to do, supplies. You know, essential survival stuff.

And in this room, with nothing to do and the shock of more people dying after the last announcement? All Maya could do was distract herself and think of a new plan. In fact, she was just checking the map when Shannon suddenly said something so inexplicable that Maya had to stop herself from studying said map.

"...Bees?" Maya had to ask.

What was this about bees?

This was the girl with an actual weapon, too.

Bees.

Oh, you know. Just casually forget that, hey, you're travelling with someone else now. No biggie.

"Uh..." Shannon started, trying to find words to say that wouldn't made her sound completely insane. But to be honest, maybe that chance had already been yeeted out the window. "Yeah. Bees."

What else was there to say? There was no possible way that Shannon could go and explain the reason she was thinking about bees. Mainly because there wasn't one. That happened to everyone, right? Your thoughts wander, and you start thinking about random shit. Like bees. Happened to everyone. Had to. And yet, it wasn't really the kind of thing you could really just say. Saying, 'Oh sorry, my mind wandered to bees randomly,' was the kind of thing that got you strange looks at school.

They weren't at school, but the point still stood, right?

"It's... uh. It's better than thinking about... gestures broadly at everything," she said, waving her hand haphazardly to the side.

Shannon still had that number in her head. Twenty-one.

"Twenty-one..." she muttered, looking over to the window. "Oh, that's how much commander damage you need to kill someone in EDH."

...

"Okay, I'm gonna think about Arcades now. He's a dragon that makes walls go."

And Shannon continued to think about literally anything except their situation right now. Just hopping from one random thought to the next, dragging this poor other girl along for the ride.

Maya couldn't help but smile. The girl was a little weird, sure, but she at least knew the gravity of her situation. Maya was just as stressed out as her, she just could handle the stress better after making sure that they were alive and on solid ground. Maybe she could use a distraction, herself.

"Arcades, huh? I forget, did I ever play you with my Ulamog deck in Commander?" Maya smiled.

Shannon was right. It was nice to forget, and it was better than thinking about this, whatever this was. The reality of the situation would've driven her to a quick one-way trip to depression, or worse. If there's one thing Maya was good at, it's keeping her focus elsewhere when dealing with stress. Distractions worked. Distractions were nice every now and then.

"It was a mill deck, obviously. kinda fun, actually."

Who knows, maybe she'll actually get to talk to Shannon for once, without worrying about school or extracurricular activities or... the entirety of their class trying to kill them. Yeah.

For a moment, the scene was serene.

Then, three quick knocks struck the door.

S031: ABHISHEK PANICKER — CONTINUED FROM "Life Has Become Better"

Abhishek had awoken earlier in the day. Nobody had disturbed him, as he expected, and he slinked back out the same way he'd entered. Unfortunately, he couldn't find a key, so the door had to be left unlocked, but there were a lot of houses in this town. It wasn't likely for someone to scoop up his refuge in particular. If they did, he could find another.

Just a few short moments ago, the announcements—as they always did—played. Some people were racking up body counts like high scores in an arcade—killing like murder was about to go out of style. Honestly, that didn't seem like a great plan to him: you only needed one to go home, and the more you killed, the more people would want to kill you.

But who was he to judge?

He smirked. Before he knocked, he had already peered through one of the windows from afar and saw the outlines of people inside. He didn't have to warn them of his arrival, but that was how he rolled—let them wonder for a while. He twirled the weapon in his right hand—just out of view of the door or the window—while his left clutched the strap at his side.

"Oh nooooooo..." Shannon said, with a flat tone of voice. "Speak not those accursed words to me, woman."

No, Shannon had not played against Maya's deck. However...

"I am traumatized. Someone in one of my games pulled out a nasty combo with Compost and Psychic Corrosion," she said. "Someone else in that game was playing mono-black. Guess who didn't have any responses?"

Shannon pointed at herself, then twirled her fingers in a circle.

"Worst part was, I was also playing a Muldrotha deck. I want cards in my graveyard! But not all of them! Well, actually, yes all of them, but you know what I mean!"

Shannon fell quiet after that, letting her story sink in. How dare Maya play a mill deck. Shannon wanted her to feel her trauma by proxy.

But there was no time for that, as suddenly there was a knock at the door. Shannon's eyes widened, and she looked at Maya. She opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it again. If she said anything, it would have let the person on the other side know that they were in there, and who knows who it was waiting for them on the other side?

But then... she'd been speaking, and quite loudly, just a scant few seconds ago. Whoever was outside probably already knew.

Shannon looked to the door. For a second, she debated on what to say. A simple 'who's there?' would have been fine enough, but that was so... cliche, you know?

So instead, Shannon yelled back, "Cool Girls Club! Cool girls only, please!"

That'll learn 'em.

Perhaps Maya was allowing herself a bit of happiness, but when Shannon said that, she did a follow-up.

"Yeah, only people who play Commander allowed, sorry!"

She forgot that she was on a murder-island. Or at least, for a split-second she did.

"Oh shit." she muttered slowly, mostly to herself. Jolting down a bit from her place on the bed, she looked out towards wherever the voice had come from and stayed quiet, then glanced over at Shannon.

"You uh, don't think he came with friends, right?" she practically whispered.

She listened in, wondering if he'd leave, or stay.

Cool Girls Club?

Abhishek chuckled lightly to himself. Sometimes, people mistook him for a girl. Nonetheless, he was confident enough in his masculinity to be okay with being feminine. Here, though? Well, it's such a stupid thing to worry about, playground notions. Still, though, it made him laugh.

"Good for them," he thought. "I'll let them go about their business."

Abhishek didn't know what that business was—what the fuck was a Commander?—but he was sure it didn't involve him. And, frankly, it was for their benefit that they weren't involved with him. They'd appeased him with their audacity, and that was enough.

"I'll just go about my way, then. Maybe we'll meet again."

Or maybe they wouldn't.

Who knew?

S031: ABHISHEK PANICKER — CONTINUED IN "Year Zero"

"O... kay?" Shannon uttered, as the voice made itself clear that it was leaving.

Shannon looked to Maya, who at that point had been given a bit of a spook. Well... if the voice had brought friends, they were presumably leaving with it.

She let out a breath that she didn't even realize she was holding. In between the mysterious voice, and Maya's reaction to it, Shannon train of thought run aground at the station in Lego City.

"Uh..." Shannon started, trying to continue the conversation, but it had already passed. Which led Shannon back to that one number.

Twenty-one. And surely, it wouldn't end there. While she and Maya were faffing about, talking about Magic, people out there were killing. And dying.

...And so what? They weren't her, right? As long as she could keep pretending like nothing was wrong, it was going to be fine, right?

Until it wasn't, right?

...

"What now?" Shannon asked. She wasn't good at making plans. She preferred to live in the moment, and in the current moment...

Well. Shannon had moved on from 'Commander moment', and over to 'who the hell was that guy moment'.

So... she looked to the one person that she knew right now.

Maya regarded herself for a moment. What was she to do? She had no weapon, and she was spending most of her time recovering her mental faculties. That is to say, she needed time to actually calm down, and as much as she had forgotten in the past few moments, she did. Enjoying a chat with someone she never used to talk to in school, forgetting about this and chatting about Magic.

But that was a wake-up call and a half, even if it wasn't a deadly one (and was Maya glad it wasn't a deadly one).

She took out her map and checked her surroundings.

"Okay, uh..." she began, taking a deep breath. "It says here we're in a Mining Town, so the best thing to do would be to search the houses for some food? We already have shelter here. I guess we could find more people, but I'd say a decent place to stay that can last us a few nights is best."

She neglected to mention the fact that said people would be dangerous and that it was risky. Bad for morale. Especially for Shannon. "I can look around while you watch my back?" she offered. Better to give some feeling of control to her, maybe it'll help relax her as much as Maya felt a bit more relaxed making plans like this.

(GMing of Maya approved)

Maya suggested that they should go searching for some food. Shannon, internally at least, didn't think that was the best of ideas, mostly because she was sure they wouldn't find anything. But she didn't really feel like objecting because... well, it was a plan. And right now, she supposed, a plan was better than no plan. Besides, what was Shannon gonna do, come up with a better plan?

Yeah, okay. Sure.

"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea," Shannon said.

----------

But as Shannon predicted, they found nothing.

Well, not literally nothing, but nothing useful. Nothing that could be considered food enough that they could just dump their bags.

That was a terrible idea anyway, though. Never do that.

So they returned, back to the house they found themselves in with nothing to show for it except for an increased hunger.

"Okay, that was a bust. I could've sworn there'd be some food in a mining town. How else would they feed the miners?" Maya said. It was an attempt at a joke. Shannon appreciated that.

Unfortunately, it didn't change the result. They were... well, they weren't running out food, not at this very instant. The two ration bars that Kelsey had given were... well, they were a help. But that help wasn't going to last. They were still on a type of clock.

"I'd really hate to leave this place, but... maybe we should get back to where we were before?" Maya suggested, "We didn't really have time to search the place out, did we? After the axe situation, I mean."

It was better than nothing, Shannon supposed. And hey, there was shelter back there, even if that shelter was dark and dank and blegh. It was a bunch of buildings, right? There had to be one penthouse suite among them.

"Hmm. It's dark out," Shannon said, "Let's wait until tomorrow. First thing tomorrow morning. For sure."

So that was the plan. Get going after a good night's sleep.

Well. 'Good' was a bit of a stretch but whatever.

----------

Shannon had manage to not sleep through the announcement, which was good, because she was still keeping track.

Thirty-two, now.

She was so preoccupied with counting out the dead that she wasn't really paying attention to the details, which probably wasn't super great, but it is what it is.

Thirty-two.

Anyway, it was time to leave the safety of this house. Shannon felt a creeping uneasiness as they crossed the threshold, but she tried to pay it no mind. It was the stress getting to her, probably.

((Shannon Choi and Maya Press continued in by talos this can't be happening.))