Survival Of The Fittest

((Jacob Winters continued from the caged mind craves the comfort of home))

After Jacob's little R&R session in the spring, he'd left Jezzie behind to finally head back down the mountain. He'd gone ahead and drunk the beer, leaving him crossfaded, but it wasn't a complicated way back, and he figured he could make it there about as quickly as he'd gone up, if not faster. He'd said his goodbyes, gathered his stuff, and started his trek back down the rocky path.

Now it was hours later, and he was only just coming back to consciousness.

There was a sharp pain on the back of his head. His head ached all over. His vision was blurry as he stared at the sky, lying on his back, not entirely sure how he'd gotten here.

"Ooooooh..." he moaned, one hand reaching up to cradle his head. "What..."

He started to rise. Maybe he'd just tripped and fell. Maybe he was just lying on the path with a painful bump on his head, otherwise no worse for wear.

"What happe-"

The shifting of his weight suddenly caused him to slip forward rapidly, like the ground had fallen out from under him. His hands quickly caught himself, palms scraped against the rough stone surface. His left leg, which had been positioned awkwardly under him, was now fully folded at the knee and locked in place. He'd been groggy before, but now he was wide the fuck awake.

He wasn't on the path anymore. He was on some small outcropping of rock, just about large enough for him to lie on, slanted ever so slightly. Below him lay the island, and between it and him was dozens of feet of open air.

He looked behind himself as best he could. A face of cold, sharp stone greeted him, going several feet up until it terminated in a ledge. No doubt the edge of the path he'd been on before. No doubt the ledge he'd fallen from.

Everything was not fine.

Fuck

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck

...

Panicking wasn't gonna help him. He needed to keep calm. He wasn't dead yet, but if he started freaking out he could easily slip and fall.

...

Jacob let out a terrified, enraged scream.

... Well, the scream did not magically lift him back onto the path nor did it summon help. But at least he'd gotten it out of his system.

He took a minute to try and assess the damage. The back of his head hurt, so he'd probably struck it on the way down. He didn't know enough about first aid to know if him being out cold meant he had a concussion or something, but he wouldn't be surprised. His legs didn't feel broken at least, though the left one was cramping up real bad in the awkward position it was in, and the right one was dangling off the edge in a way that prevented him from looking at it. His palms stung from the rough, rocky surface they'd just slid down; he could feel his right hand growing damp with blood, so it seemed to be particularly scraped up. He didn't feel any other injuries, though that didn't mean there weren't any. Checking himself any further would have to wait for him to be on a more solid surface.

Getting to that point would be its own fucking problem.

He took another look behind him to the cliffside. Jacob knew how to climb weird and difficult surfaces. He'd developed a knack for getting into all sorts of places he shouldn't be, and finding ways to climb up walls and shit was part of the package. But usually the worst fall he had to deal with if he messed up was maybe a dozen feet. This was... well, it was a hell of a lot more than that, that was for fucking sure. A single mistake would be fatal. It didn't help that his hands were roughed up now, and that he didn't have the gloves he usually used to protect them. They were tucked away in the suitcase he'd brought, and who knew what the terrorists had done with all that stuff. They'd probably just thrown it all in an incinerator or something.

He was jumping the gun anyway. Right now he was in serious danger of just sliding off the outcropping entirely, before he even had a chance to climb the cliff. He wasn't gonna dare try to sit up straight again, since that'd led to him sliding forward to begin with, and with his left leg where it was he probably couldn't manage it anyway. Instead, he started slowly inching backwards, pushing himself back with his hands and elbows, trying to drag himself away from the precipice.

The process was agonizingly slow and tense. He was moving mere inches by the minute, pulling himself away from the edge and back towards relative safety. His right hand left a series of faint bloody handprints on the rock, like something out of a horror movie. He was intensely aware of how every movement shifted his weight, how close he came to slipping to his death.

Still, eventually he reached the point where the outcropping met the side of the mountain. It was a little bit flatter then where he'd landed, flat enough for him to comfortably sit upright. He pulled himself onto the little rocky shelf, sitting with his back to the mountain proper. His legs were laid out in front of himself, his left one finally unpinned from under him. It tingled uncomfortably, almost painfully; it had probably fallen asleep from the awkward position it had been in.

He waited, catching his breath, letting blood rush back into his leg, and nursing his injured hand. He wasn't remotely out of the woods yet, but he needed a moment to get started. The most difficult part of this was still coming.

A brief trickle of tiny rocks fell down the incline from behind Jacob and joined the scree far below at the foot of the mountain.

At the top of the crag, a mountain goat peered down from above.

"Meeerp." It whined.

(("Oh no, another goat." Greg Craig's voice could be heard faintly saying from the distance somewhere behind it.))

The goat snorted, turned its head, and then pranced away from the edge. A few more rocks tumbled down.

"Eeeasy, eeasy. Don't have to be scared of me. See, I'm just a little guy. You're the boss. I'll just leave. It's - " His voice cut off sharply.

He yelped.

A few seconds of silence passed.

Then, another brief stream of pebbles rolled down the mountain. At the top of the crag, Greg Craig now peered down from above in a crouch. He was wearing two windbreakers. The mountain goat stood next to him and licked the side of his face vigorously. Greg was visibly uncomfortable with the licking.

"... Are you alive?" He said in a downward direction.

Jacob looked straight up, still holding his lacerated palm.

"O-oh, hey!" He exclaimed. "I need help!"

Jacob vaguely recognized Creg, or Graig, or whatever his name was. He wasn't sure if they'd ever really spoken much, but they hung out in vaguely similar circles and shared a few friends-of-friends, at least. He never quite understood what someone so milquetoast got out of hanging with a bunch of goth kids, but he seemed harmless enough that Jacob never questioned it too deeply. Maybe he was just a closet Nick Cave fan or something.

"You got a rope or anything?"

"Ahahaha," Greg said out of force of habit, "sorry, no rope; just some porkchops and this goat. And a submachine gun, but that probably won't help much."

He looked down at the other boy. This definitely wasn't the guy who'd saved him last night. Greg had been hoping, in that first moment after peering off the ledge and spotting a human figure, that it was that guy. Greg honestly wasn't sure if he was actually still alive. He'd never gotten the chance to learn the guy's name, and both of the people who'd been listed as dying from exposure on the morning announcements had names that were technically gender neutral, so Greg couldn't be sure one way or another. He... he didn't hope he was dead, but... he didn't know. When Greg put himself in his shoes, in comparison to lying in agony at the bottom of a freezing ravine with all his bones shattered, dying on impact seemed like the merciful conclusion to being launched off the side of a mountain.

But this guy wasn't that guy. This guy, if he'd fallen from where Greg was standing right now, hadn't fallen very far. He seemed to be... relatively okay, or at least not actively dying at the moment. But even though this guy wasn't actively dying at the moment, that had the potential to easily change any second, and so... well, Greg still had to help him, right? He wasn't sure if he was really going to be able to help in any meaningful capacity, and his own life was already being put in more and more of a precarious position the more daylight he spent getting off of this mountain, but he had to try.

If he died because of this, he died, he guessed. It didn't really matter what he did; with the way things seemed to be going, pretty much everyone was going to die anyways, so in the end it probably wouldn't make much of a difference. But if you were going to die, it was better to die because you tried to do a good thing.

He sideeyed the goat suspiciously and then suddenly glanced back down.

"- Ah, I've also got, uh, a tree branch. It's... kind of burnt, but I've been using it as a hiking stick and it feels pretty sturdy. I could try to... dangle it down, if you need something to grab."

Jacob frowned, looking the stick over uncertainly. He doubted someone as unimpressive as Greg could pull him up with that. Really, it seemed more likely trying would send them both over the edge. No, if he didn't have a rope to offer, then he'd not be of much help getting back up. At best maybe he could lend a hand to clamber over the edge when he got close enough, hopefully without his little animal buddy knocking them into the abyss below.

"I... I think I'm good man..."

Jacob's eyes turned to the rock wall in front of him, studying it. Every little crag and gap started looking like a plausible step on a deeply dangerous and awkward ladder.

"Is my bag up there? I kinda fucked up my hands a bit, but if I bandaged them... I think maybe I could climb it."

He really hoped it was. Not just because of the bandages, but also because if it wasn't up there, that meant it'd fallen down there, and his chances of recovering it if that happened were virtually nil. The last thing he wanted was to starve to death on the murder island.

"I'll, uh, I'll check."

Greg moved a few steps backward and disappeared from view.

Meanwhile, the goat continued staring down at Jacob. It made another "meeerp" noise, snorted again, shook its head, and took a few steps backwards. For a second, it was completely still. Its tail pricked up, and then suddenly, with a hissing snort, it leapt forward to where it had just been standing moments before and feinted a headbutt in Jacob's general direction.

"Meeerp," it meerped again menacingly. Something smouldered in its bovid eyes.

A few seconds later, Greg reappeared.

"Uh, so... I couldn't see your bag anywhere up here, but," he said, pausing and taking a moment to drag a different daypack a few feet over to the side of the cliff, dangling it down towards Jacob, "but I actually had an extra with me. Though it's not mine, it's someone else's. He's, uh..." He trailed off.

He swallowed.

"... a goat pushed him off a cliff." He finished.

The mountain goat he was currently crouching next to turned its head to him, and resumed its vigorous licking of the side of his face.

He frowned.

"Do... do you think I should get my gun, just in case it, uh, the goat, it... uh, you know..." He asked quietly, trailing off again.

Jacob took the someone else's bag - it was probably about as good as his own, so whatever - and listened while retrieving the first aid kit from inside.

"I..."

His voice trailed off. Everyone but him had been dealing very directly with death, it seemed. It almost made him feel guilty, the silly shit he'd been getting up to while others in his class were watching people die. He knew it obviously couldn't be avoided forever, but that he'd kept it at bay for so long was clearly luckier than the lot of everyone else.

That whoever Greg had been with had died in such a darkly-funny and embarrassing way didn't help. It sounded like some shit out of a cartoon.

"I mean... if it makes you feel better?" Jacob was too busy wrapping his hands to look at Graigory Creg or the animal he wanted the threaten with a firearm. "Though I think we're probably fine."

Hands as covered as they ever would be, Jacob looked again at the task. Now that he was prepared, he was suddenly much less ready for it.

"Right..." he muttered, sighing. "Guess... guess I'm really doing this."

He looked up at his would-be rescuer.

"Might need your help once I reach the edge."

"I mean... if it makes you feel better?" The other boy said in response to Greg's question.

It would not make Greg feel better to get his gun out, because he didn't want to shoot a poor innocent alpine creature that was probably just scared and confused by all these strange and noisy salty-skinned bipedal apes invading its home. But Greg wasn't the person here who the goat seemed to be threatening to headbutt down the cliff, so he didn't particularly hold his own feelings with much priority at the moment.

"Ahahaha," Greg said, angling his face away from the continued slimy licking of the mountain goat's tongue, "I can try to help, but I, uh, I don't know if I'll be able to while the goat's here."

He scratched the back of his head.

"I think his deal is that... he's using me like a salt lick or something. And I think that he just warned you to stay away from his salt lick. Like... I'm his, uhh, territory, is what he's trying to say, because nutrition is probably really important in the wintertime for these guys, and so he'll try to fight you if you get too close to me."

He coughed quietly.

"So, uhh, if you need my help at the edge, there's going to be a high level of... goat-related risk. Unless you want me to, uh... deal with him before that."

He swallowed a lump in his throat and frowned.

"Or I can just sit here, and we'll book it right when you're up. Mountain goats don't look like they're very good at chasing things, but you never know..." He said, pausing for a second. "But, uhh, yeah. You're the one whose life is on the line here, and you have the best idea of what level of risk is acceptable to you, so, uh... just let me know how you want me to proceed."

Jacob sighed, long and weary. Of course Greg wouldn't actually be much of a help here. If he was right about the goat he was more of a hindrance than anything.

"Look, you can shoot the fucking goat or whatever, I don't give a shit. Just don't let it knock me off a cliff here."

He did his best not to look down as he said so. The sheer gravity of the task was hitting him hard enough without a visual reminder.

"And if you aren't helping, stay back from the edge. I'm gonna need space."

He picked up the bag Greg had dropped him, holding it up as high as he could get it.

"Though take this first. Don't wanna have to carry it and climb this stupid thing."

"Hey, sorry, I'm doing my best up here," Greg said, bending over the edge and swooping the bag from Jacob's hands. "Hold on for a moment, I'll be right back. Don't start climbing yet."

He receded backwards out of view. The goat trotted along after him.

...

...

...

Fourty-five seconds of silence passed, followed by a single, sudden gunshot.

Immediately after that, the mountain goat came trotting haphazardly off the ledge, quickly hopping from outcropping to outcropping and scaling its way past Jacob and down the rock wall to somewhere safe from loud, scary noises.

...

Another fifteen seconds passed, and then Greg popped back out from behind the ledge.

"I figured out there was a way to spare the goat." He said.

Greg had never fired a gun in his life before that moment. It was a pretty scary experience!

"Let me know when you need help."

"... right."

Well, Greg had actually managed to solve the problem. Complaint half-rescinded.

"... so I can't put this off anymore, huh?"

His body tensed a bit; he already had some idea of how to get up, it was just getting started that was the trouble. His left hand reached for a handhold just within reach, while his right boot found purchase on the rocky surface. He pulled himself up, officially starting his climb. Now he was in it alone, and a single fuckup would be it for him.

"S-so," Jacob said, audibly struggling with the effort, "how's sh-shit been treatin' ya?"

Jacob wasn't sure what answer he was looking for, nor what he could expect to hear other than some variant of 'shit sucks'. But hearing Greg's voice might keep his mind off how daunting the task at hand was.

"Ah, well, uh... I've been lost in the wilderness for a day, and before that, uh... uh, I was with Kiera Hayes and Shu from the first announcement."

He remembered blood dripping down from underneath Kiera's collar and to the floor, like syrup -- artisanally handcrafted from organic, non-GMO, pureed strawberries -- dripping down from the rim of a paper La Gelateria cup. He was never going to be able to look at a sundae ever again without remembering her. The chances of that actually mattering again were low.

He was silent for a moment.

Shu hadn't killed anyone else, at least according to the announcement this morning. But Greg still didn't want to think about the possibility of running into him again. Even if Shu seemed to be keeping a low profile, Greg knew first-hand that the boy was a calculating, manipulative, cold-blooded murderer; like if he were a fictional character, he would be one of those androgynous anime boys that Heidi called a "problematic fave" and kept a picture of as her phone's lockscreen. Greg knew that Shu knew that Greg was probably the only person on the island who knew that. Greg knew that meant Shu would turn him into an obstacle if they ever met again.

"- But all things considered, I guess I'm still alive, so it could be worse." He finished.

He sidled over to the ledge and popped a squat, ready to help Jacob whenever he needed. It would probably be a good idea to give him something to talk about, to help him think about something other than falling down the cliff and dying.

"What about you?"