Survival Of The Fittest

((Alex Avanesian continued from Spiralling Into Oblivion))

Alex took a sip from his water bottle, slowly and steadily. The machete lay next to him - it'd fare better in this close-quarters environment than his trusty spear. He'd had no such luck finding people. Maybe he'd been too loud while walking, or maybe people were just hiding at the sight of the dude who'd killed two people and was going to kill more. So for a while, he'd been frustrated. And then a thought came to mind. A risky thought, but it was a thought.

BKA interception.

BKA awards were typically, but not always, firearms of some kind. Alex remembered Kimiko got two bladed weapons for her two BKAs, but that was a while ago. Maybe they'd just ran out of better weapons to give for the BKAs then. Anyway, uh, the location that the BKA would be dropped off, the bar, was opposite this house. Alex was perched up on the second floor, keeping an eye out for when Kitty showed up to get her weapon. He had a plan. It was a desperate plan, but he needed a gun. Tully had nearly killed him, and Dave had gotten a good hit on him. With a gun, you point and shoot and it's all over.

The plan was this: wait for Kitty to show up, stalk her and kill her before she gets inside. Alex didn't know what she was gonna get, but operating off of that assumption it was a gun, waiting for her to get inside would be too risky. If she had a gun, she could point and shoot and it'd be all over. Once she's dead, take her stuff, maybe hide her body in the house so everyone thinks she's still alive, at least until the announcements drop. And once they drop, and Alex's collar doesn't explode the second he steps inside the bar, he goes and grabs the BKA.

It was risky. But Dave wasn't going to give him the BKA. Kitty had got the BKA already, and it would be quicker to kill her and grab hers than risk running into anyone who wanted to kill him. Fitz, Dawn, Evie and Clare. He wasn't exactly performing well.

"C'mon, hurry up." Alex murmured under his breath, taking another sip. Maybe he could take the BKA meal as well. He was so damn tired of water.

((A desolate wind swept through the empty town.))

The chill in the air seeped into Katelyn's bones as she darted from house to house, the warmth she had left behind in the gym feeling like it was a lifetime away. Rows and rows of vacant houses lined the streets, their doors hanging open like gaping maws, threatening to swallow her whole. The town was eerily silent ever since she arrived, with even her footfalls carrying no sound, careful as she was to stick to walking through snow that was already crushed underfoot by her classmates.

It had taken until around noon for Katelyn to reach the town. She hoped that Kelsey would be okay, even if she knew in the pit of her stomach that she would have to say goodbye for the last time somewhat soon. All but one of them were doomed after all, most of them were just delaying the inevitable.

She glanced between her map and her surroundings, trying to parse where she was in town relative to the Hunting Lodge Bar. Her grip tightened around the handle of the billhook, while her knife itched against the back of her calf. The digging pole swung loosely on her back, the makeshift sling that had been keeping it in place beginning to loosen. A dark, predatory instinct crawled up her back, and she shivered.

Katelyn had been taking care to avoid the main paths, using alleys between houses instead and sticking close to the walls wherever possible. There was plenty of potential for her to be ambushed on the way to her prize. Not only did the houses already provide ample angles of attack and numerous places to hide, but they had outright announced where she was going to go today. If anyone wanted revenge, or just wanted to take her out because she was a threat, now would be the time to do so.

With some hesitation, she peered around a corner, only to breathe a sigh of relief when she saw the bar sign further down and across the street. She had made it safe and sound, against all odds. Once she was inside the building, she would be nice and secure, and she'd have some extra firepower to back herself up on the way out.

Idly, she wondered what it would be. Some kind of gun was most likely, but she wasn't sure how she felt about that. She had never liked guns, startlingly loud as they were to her. She had never done well with sudden loud noises, given her history.

She would know once she was inside. The only problem was, in order to collect it, she would have to cross the street, exposing herself to full view of both sides of the street. She could try to run for it, but it was still a distance away, and she couldn't shake the dreadful sensation that something wasn't right. Old nerves and gut instincts like that weren't something to ignore, solely concerned as they were on survival. They were smarter than her, and trusting them would be in her best interest.

Katelyn took a long, deep breath. Sometimes stupid risks had to be taken to minimize bigger risks in the future. With great trepidation, she ignored her nerves and stepped out into view of the street, crossing it as fast and quietly as she could.

What Alex could see was snow. Snow. More snow. A house. A bar. And a disappointly empty street. Maybe she'd already picked it up while he was busy killing Dave, and this waiting around was all for nothing. In practice, this was the same thing as walking around looking for people to kill, but at least that was dynamic. Here, he was just looking out of a window waiting for his target to show up and grab something she might have already claimed.

Sighing, Alex took another sip. His nerve was starting to break. Maybe if he'd spent his time hunting, he'd have killed someone with-

All his complaints disappeared as soon as Kitty stepped out into the street, replaced by nerves and a sense of misplaced victory. She'd killed like four or five people so far, Alex hadn't been keeping exact count with too many things to focus on, but it was more than him. It was just dumb beginner's luck, picking off some people who hadn't grasped the reality of the situation, but he still needed to be careful and to be quiet. Remember what Dad taught him about footsteps. Where to place your feet. Not in big patches of snow, step light, all that kind of stuff.

Alex had never been good at it.

But now he needed to be.

Quiet as a mouse, or at least in his head, Alex exited the room, hurried down the stairs as quiet as he could, and out of the house. He'd left all the doors open just so there wouldn't be any noise from opening them. Hunching down and starting to move out of the house, even in the midst of stalking someone to kill them, Alex couldn't hide his grin. It was all slotting into place, and while it had been desperate, Alex could see how it would play out. A knife in the back or in her neck. His instincts were telling him to rush her with the machete he held and end this, share what he saw with the world, but Kitty had killed before. It was just luck, Alex knew that. But too many players had been overconfident and died for it. Alex would not be like them.

Left, right, left, right, left and right and repeat. Avoid the snow, the crunching would alert her. Step into the clear patches of ground, softly.

The patch of fucking ice.

Alex audibly skidded, grabbing onto a nearby lamppost for support.

Fuck.

Just as Katelyn had suspected, someone was waiting for her.

Her gaze shot over to Alex when she heard him slip, and she skidded to a halt to get a good look at him. For a second she stood still, staring at him with wide, predatory eyes. Once she had enough time to register who he was, and that he was NOT one of her friends, the adrenaline was already coursing through her veins. No gunshots, so no gun, and instead a machete. Mitch had attempted to ambush her in melee, and that didn't end up working out for him. That time she was unprepared, this time she was ready.

Katelyn was fast when she needed to be, her legs well adapted to long hikes and chasing prey when she went hunting. She took off away from Alex, dashing to the nearest house as all the tiredness left her legs at once, replaced by the pure need to survive. In a flash, she was already rounding the corner and behind the house, breaking line of sight to her would-be ambusher.

Then everything was quiet again.

"Shit!" Alex yelled, frustrated at how everything had just suddenly turned a 180. Maybe if he had just lunged at her with the spear she'd be dead and he'd be victorious, not standing in the middle of the street. Up in the house, he'd felt secure, confident, waiting for someone outside to make a mistake. And now the roles had been reversed. Alex wasn't secure, confident, he was vulnerable.

He pretended he didn't feel vulnerable.

Instead, what Alex did was rush to the nearest house, open the front door, check behind him to make sure Kitty wasn't making a break for it or was about to kill him or something, step inside and close the door gently. Standing out in the open meant Kitty could come at him from 360 degrees, a nearly limitless approach. In the house, there were only a few ways that she could come in, and Alex was going to check all of them were locked or closed or whatever. Stepping into the kitchen at the back of the house, brain distracted with worrying, Alex absentmindedly closed the back door, too busy thinking about how he could have done the whole 'watching for Kitty and sneaking up on her' thing better to realise what an open door meant. To him, it was just one less approach he had to worry about.

"She's nothing. She's weak. She'll die." Alex repeated to himself, standing in the middle of the kitchen and listening carefully. He could salvage this.

The innards of the house were dimly lit, much of its interior obscured by darkness, with only the natural arctic light peeking in through the windows.

A faint, curious odor hung in the air inside the abode, the smell of mildew, mud, and blood mixed into an unpleasant but almost imperceptible stench.

For a time, all was silent and still, the building betraying nothing about itself. Then, after a few minutes, from above Alex, there was a long, wooden creak.

Alex's head snapped up at the creak. It could just be the house settling. This place looked old and abandoned, much like the rest of SOTF's locations. Maybe the building was just creaking at him to get out. But he wasn't just gonna write it off. Kitty could be up there, or maybe it was someone else entirely. Someone who'd been sleeping in late and had just got out of bed.

He'd be happy with that.

Letting out a long, slow exhale, Alex hunched down low again, twisting the machete around in his hand so the blade pointed downwards. One good stab would end Kitty or whoever was up there, and then he'd look elsewhere. Moving out of the kitchen, Alex slowly crept up the stairs, resisting the urge to use the railing for a grip. It looked like the wood had started to rot, and if Alex grabbed it and it broke off he'd probably break his neck going down the stairs.

Once he reached the top, Alex eyed the door that the creak lay behind. Looked like just a bedroom or something. Maybe somebody had woken up. Glancing back down the stairs, he gathered his strength and quieted his nerves.

Slowly but surely stepping towards the door, balancing on his toes to make the least sound possible, Alex reached for the door handle, slowly turned it down, and then shouldered the door open, bursting into the room. The door slammed off the wall as his eyes frantically darted around the room, expecting Kitty to be huddled in the corner or for someone to be lying in the bed rubbing their eyes.

Instead, he found an empty room with the scent of mildew, blood and disturbed dust in the air.

The house creaked again, the floorboards underneath his feet, just like what he'd heard in the kitchen. As if it was taunting him.

The slamming of the door echoed through the house. Peeling paint flaked off of the its walls at the point of impact, the worn and aged building groaning as though it were in pain. Afterward, there came no sound, only an oppressive wall of silence.

A dilapidated old building, the house had been unlived in for too long, abandoned as it was by its builders. It was left bereft of purpose, sheltering no-one from the biting cold, growing bitter as its body became infested and its foundation sank into the earth. For the first time in a long time, mere moments ago, it had welcomed a new visitor, and so relieved it was to no longer be alone. It would not be led to betray her so easily.

Instead, it had welcomed her into itself, hid her in its shielding darkness as she skulked through its guts, and climbed up and inside its head. Nary a peep escaped from its lips as the unwelcome intruder searched for her, the house's most sacred visitor. It wanted nothing more than to keep her safe and sound.

Unknowingly, the intruder had stepped right into its open jaws.

OK.

No.

Kitty either wasn't here, or she was lying in wait somewhere else in the house to ambush him. It didn't matter which it was, both of them meant Alex needed to get out of the house now. This whole thing was completely fucked. All he could do now was retreat and think about what he'd do next. Fitz was still out there somewhere. If only he hadn't been too stubborn.

Alex slammed open the bedroom door, glancing around the dark landing, his eyes squinting as he tried to make out anything in the darkness, before beginning to take the stairs down to the ground floor.

He wished he'd left a door open now.

Behind Alex, from out of the darkness of the hallway, the hunter emerged.

She pounced, lunging at him and sinking her knife deep into his back, before ripping it out and kicking him down the stairs.

Alex knew what had happened the second he felt the deep pain starting in his back, quickly spreading throughout his entire torso, his core, his everything. He hadn't checked the other room. He'd done the same thing so many other people had done.

It would be funny if it was happening to someone else on the other side of the screen. He'd joke about how people kept falling for the same shit time and time again, that it was horror movie tier logic.

But it was happening to him, and suddenly it wasn't funny anymore.

Alex flailed as he fell down the stairs, frantically grabbing at the railing to support himself. He could turn around, go for Kitty with the ma-

The house rebuked the intruder one last time, made it clear that he was not welcome, even in his last moments.

With a cracking sound, the part of the railing Alex had desperately clung to freed itself from the wall, and he continued his journey down the stairs. When he reached the bottom with a hearty thump, Alex was dazed. One of his glasses' legs had broken off in the fall, something in his arm was sending a deep, throbbing agony through his body, and the machete was out of reach.

This was the end. But it couldn't be. Because Kitty wasn't good enough, didn't know enough. Not like him.

Beginner's luck lasted an awful long time.

Groaning, Alex curled up on himself, blood trickling from his mouth.

Katelyn stood at the top of the stairs, glaring down at Alex. Only in this very moment did she finally come back to herself. Up until then, she hadn't been thinking at all, merely reacting on pure killer instinct. Killing had become as natural as breathing, and if killing Taylor had done anything to change how she felt, it was that fact no longer bothering her.

This would be the sixth life she had taken, and shockingly, she didn't feel the least bit bad about that either. Served him right for coming after her, even though she had run away. Had he simply chosen not to follow her, she would've been content to wait him out and sneak by to collect her prize. Maybe once she piled the bodies into the sky, everyone would get the memo and stop trying to hunt her down.

Hearing Alex's groan snapped her out of her thoughts, causing her to flinch in spite of her lack of guilt.

"You're st-still alive?" she asked, rhetorically. "I must've m-missed your heart..."

She sheathed her knife, and began to slowly, carefully, make her way down the stairs, the old wood creaking underneath her feet. Her hand reached behind her head, and started to pull the digging bar out of the makeshift sling.

"S-Sorry about that," she said, earnest in her apology, "I'll make the r-rest of this quick."

Alex lay there in a heap on the floor, unable to accept that this was the end, yet finding it hard to envision a scenario where he made it off this floor and out of this building alive. Life was seeping out of his back, from his freshly reopened arm, from the gaps in his gums where Tully had punched them out.

He hadn't done a very good job, had he? Unenforced mistake after unenforced mistake. Maybe someone in the future would use Alex as an example of not what to do. Follow his idea, except this person wouldn't fuck it up at every opportunity given. What if, what if, what if. A few scattered scenarios played through his mind. What if Tully had been shot instead of Tenshi, what if Fitz had just handed over the gun, what if he hadn't slipped like a dumbass?

But that didn't matter. Kitty's apology stirred Alex out of a depressive heap, instead filling that empty space with hate. She'd just got lucky. She'd killed. She was apologising to the person she'd just sentenced to death like she'd accidentally spilled something on them, like she hadn't just done what the fucking ATs intended her to.

"Shuthefuckup." Alex wheezed, finding enough strength in that hate to power him, let him roll over onto his side and look his murderer in the fucking eyes. "You think... you're fucking... you don't know shit. You haven't fucking watched anything, you haven't... you haven't studied this. You're just fucking... fucking dumb luck!" Panting, Alex could feel how much that had taken out of him. Singular grains of sand from an hourglass that only had a couple dozen left.

Staring Kitty in the eyes with pure hatred, Alex continued. "You're too fucking... too fucking weak. Apologising and shit, you're not gonna fucking win. I, I fucking knew everything! You don't know shit!" He was repeating himself, the last grains of sand trickling down to the bottom now, his vision blurring and darkening.

Probably the first time the Ithaca guys would see someone they knew die.

"I do know," Katelyn hissed, eyes narrowing.

She stopped in the middle of the steps, digging bar now out of the sling. So Alex had watched the footage, the same as her. That made him the one person she knew for sure that had watched it and whom she had actually met in real life, rather than just conversed with in internet chat rooms. Did he really believe that knowing what would happen actually gave him an edge?

"I watched i-it too," she continued, tone colder than the air around them. "More than I sh-should've. And you know what? You're r-right."

Katelyn pointed one gloved thumb at her chest. She had thought about this particular topic a lot before. What would she do, if she wound up on SOTF? How would she win? It was originally a nervous, idle fantasy, not something she ever expected she would actually live. In the end, what actually happened was wildly different from anything she had imagined before. The only conclusion that she came to that survived the actual experience was fairly simple: luck was the ONLY thing that mattered.

"I AM lucky," she said slowly, taking care not to stutter, "until I'm not."

She took one step further down.

"That's all this place is, and all it has ever been. It doesn't matter who you are, or what you know, or what you can do. All you have to do is get unlucky once, and then it's all over. The only thing that separates the winners from the losers is that every time they flipped the coin, it came up heads."

She took another step down, now looming over Alex, the digging bar poised to strike.

"This t-time, for you, it c-came up tails."

"For you, it'll come up tails too. And I hope I can fucking see you in agony." Alex spat bitterly, and then that was it. That outburst had sapped his energy, and now all he could do was lie on this floor, wait for the bitter end and hope that when Kitty's beginner's luck ran out, she went out in a particularly painful way. She wasn't wrong, but at the same time Alex wasn't going to give that little fuck a single piece of credit.

You could avoid having to roll the dice if you were playing smart. Someone would do that eventually, and they'd win because they learned from everyone else's mistakes. They'd learn from his mistakes, they'd learn from whatever mistake Kitty made when she dies, and they'd learn from seven past versions of mistakes and good moves.

Idly, Alex wondered if this was how Cedar and Dave felt, sitting around just waiting to bleed to death. For a moment, he almost felt sympathetic for them. It wasn't a fun way to go, especially with your arm broken, or at least what felt like broken. But then he focused back on Kitty, and the rest of the world blurred out. It was just him and his murderer. It should have been the other way around.

Alex hoped she choked on her BKA meal.