Survival Of The Fittest

((Billie Sommerfield continued from The Beast That Shouted "I" at the Heart of the World))

Billie groaned as her slowly opening eyes were met by darkness. After a few moments of slowly adjusting to the depressing reality of finally being awake again, she rubbed her eyes and pulled herself into a sitting position. Her body was stiff from sleeping on the floor, but at least it was better than sleeping in her chair again. This bathroom had probably the first door she had encountered here that had a lock on the only way in or out, and she was going to take full advantage of it, given that she didn't exactly have much to defend herself with otherwise. Of course, the bedroom would have been better, but, alas, the people who built this house hadn't had the foresight to include an elevator. Maybe it was better this way though, at least this room was small enough that she could use her chair to block the door against any classmates who had thought to use the houses as a hunting ground.

The thought of violence brought up a flash of guilt as she remembered the events of the previous day. She still wasn't sure what had happened in that cave, or if anyone was hit by the shot at all - she hadn't stuck around to find out. What could she have done anyway? If there actually was some fight going on in the cave, it wasn't like she'd be of any help. Her only option was to get the hell out of there before things started to spill out of the entrance. There was no way she could have helped anyone back there, not a chance.

Somehow none of this rationalization did much to ease the guilty feeling churning inside of her.

She winced as a particularly painful muscle spasm made its way through her body. Honestly, with how little she had been actually adjusting her position over the last few days, it was surprising that she hadn't been getting more. Once it finally passed, she looked over at her chair, leaning up against the door, illuminated from below by the crack between the door and the ground. It had taken some work, but she had managed to wedge it around the door handle in a way that would keep it from moving. The position was as annoying to pull the chair out from as it had been to place it there in the first place, but eventually she got it. Now the only thing left was to accomplish the annoying task of getting back onto her chair in the dark.

Billie turned the chair slightly, patting the seat with her hand before turning her body to have the chair behind her. This would be a lot easier if she had some light to work with, but even if the electricity was working in this place, the light switch had been unfortunately designed for people who didn't have a hard time getting themselves off the floor. This was going to be a bit of a pain, given both the darkness and the fact that she didn't really have anything to brace herself against, but it wasn't something she hadn't done before, thankfully. She reached back with her right hand and grabbed the frame of the chair, close to where the frame met the seat cushion, before planting her other hand on the bar next to one of the front caster wheels. Grunting softly, she pulled herself up until her lower back met the cushion. Leaning back, she placed as much of her weight as she could against the seat as her left hand move upwards to mirror her right. With both hands in position, she leaned forward and slowly lifted her rear onto the seat, adjusting her position once there. With that done, all she had left to do was wait until her legs stopped spasming and pulled them up onto the footrests.

With her body finally in place, she paused for a moment, listening for any sounds around her as she rested her aching arms on her lap. Satisfied that she didn't seem to have heard any noises coming from outside, she slowly began to open the door, blinking rapidly as her eyes were met by the light streaming in from the windows and illuminating the hallway beyond. A sinking feeling began to twist its way through her stomach as she realized that she hadn't thought to check last night if the back door was locked...

((Shu Hawthorne continued from someplace else lost to time and space))

Some distance away from the bathroom, Shu was seated in the middle of the dining room table, bag tossed onto the seat right next to him and shotgun leaning against the table to his other side further from the entryway.

His face was obscured, buried in his hands as he hovered over the table slowly flooded by the blue early morning sun touching everything it can through the window with its greedy fingers.

And even at the commotion from the bathroom and the sound of the previously locked door opening, Shu stayed seated and continued to cry, drenching the palms of his hands in hot tears and muted weeps.

Przemek found his way out of the building, somehow.

He needed to get out. His mouth was starting to feel like cotton. It hurt to swallow.

How long could someone last without water? Two, three days, his science teacher said, right?

How long ago had Shawn and Beth abandoned him? Two, three days, right?

He didn't have any good choices, really. His choices were to die of dehydration inside an abandoned mine, cold and alone, or to die outside of exposure, or hunger, or sepsis, or something else, cold and alone. But at least he wouldn't be thirsty, and at least he would die in a more interesting way.

So, he grabbed a pole somewhat adjacent to where he had been sitting, and made his way out along the metal walkways, crawling on his hands and knees. He felt like he'd fall over into the dark abyss if he tried standing up, and if he tried using the pole as a walking stick, he'd just make a bunch of noise and draw attention to himself. So there he went, creeping along the floor, inching his way along the side paths up and down stairs, miraculously, miraculously not being found by anyone. The echoes of the trespassers bounced off the metal railings, were absorbed by the concrete walls, intruding and receding, coming and going.

And yet somehow, they never found him.

After what he guessed was one or two hours, he felt a brisk air come upon him. He reached his hand out, and it crunched, the cold quickly numbing him.

And like a dog, he dug his face into the snow and slopped it right up.

--

The rest of the day had been spent on his feet, scanning the ground with his pole, left and right, like blind people did in the movies. Przemek didn't have much to say or think about the day, since all his focus had been on survival.

Just hours spent shuffling along the icy ground, step by step, praying and praying that he wouldn't walk into a branch, or fall off a cliff.

Minutes spent sprawled on the ground, trying to get back up, begging God that someone wouldn't see him from afar and shoot him, although they had every chance to.

A sinkhole inside him, the edges crumbling within, his void of a stomach expanding, gnawing.

Nothing else to think about. No room for anything else.

--

Przemek had slept in the snow.

The parka he wore had been enough to keep him from dying of hypothermia, but only just. When he woke up, his skin felt hot to the touch, his uvula had swollen, and snot began to dribble from his nose.

The thought occurred to him that perhaps he was only a few feet from actual, proper shelter, and he giggled to himself a bit, even if it was a joke played on him by the Devil.

He scarfed down another mouthful of snow, and then he heard a slight sobbing in the distance. And, for some reason, he approached it.

Why was he doing this? Why did he keep walking anyways? Sobbing meant there was another person, sure, but that other person could kill him in a heartbeat, and he wouldn't be able to do anything about it.

Helping people was the Christian thing to do, for one, no matter how bad off you were.

Maybe this other person had food to share.

And... mostly because the only refuge prey could find in nature were fellow prey. And he just had to hope that he was approaching a sheep, and not a wolf.

So, he scanned his pole along the path. Eventually, it hit a vertical wooden surface. He walked sideways, bumping along the sides of the house, thump, thump, thump, until he found the wall closest to the crying. He reached out, felt the cold metal of a doorknob.

With his cane, he knocked three times.

And he asked, "Are you alright?"

((Przemyslaw Ziemiak continues from Evening / Morning))

Billie's fears were confirmed by the sound of sobbing coming from down the hall. She bit down on her lip nervously as she looked around, trying to determine the source of the noise. It soon became apparent that the sounds were coming from a doorway just down the hall, but that was the only information she could get. The angle didn't allow her to see in from here, and the sound itself wasn't enough to let her figure out who it was. After all, she wasn't exactly familiar enough to the sounds of her classmates crying to pin the exact sound to one particular person. Whatever lay beyond that door was a mystery as far as her knowledge was concerned.

She took a deep breath in, trying to stay quiet as she considered her options. The house was pretty open inside - one of the reasons she had picked the place to stay in to begin with - and even if she planned to go straight to the exit, she'd have to pass through the view of the doorway on the trip there. She could try sneaking past, but if she got caught, there'd be no way for her to get the door open and leave in time before whoever it was caught up to her. Of course, the same was true if she tried to actually check in on the person in there, but the possibility of the abandoning yet another person in distress so soon after the last group didn't feel too good either. In the end, curiosity won out over pragmatism, and Billie found herself wheeling towards the doorway and turning to look inside.

It was kinda hard to tell what was going on there, but two facts were immediately obvious: 1) she hadn't been noticed yet, and 2) whoever was there clearly was going to able to take care of themselves, given the shotgun leaning against the table nearby. This person was clearly going through it, as they say, but with the knowledge that they were both heavily armed and seemingly uninjured, Billie felt pretty alright about leaving her classmate to their own devices and quietly exiting the house while the crying session was still going.

Unfortunately, the sound of a knock at the back door made that a bit of an impossibility. Shit. Billie glanced back and forth between the person at the table and the nearby door, the latter of which may or may not have been locked, depending on the actions of the last person to use it. Taken off guard by the sudden interruption, she was able to utter little more than a stunned "Uhh...", though to whom the sound was directed, not even she could say.

Shu was an animatronic, not moving from his spot even at the beckoning from the door or the girl that rolled up just into his peripheral vision with a look of absolute befuddlement on her face.

Several more seconds of silence passed save for the soft sounds of sobbing. Until it stopped.

"...I can't find it...," Shu uttered under his breath, barely audible to even himself as he kept his face buried in his hands on the table.

Nothing filled the void that followed until he suddenly slammed his good fist into the table in one jarring motion, a grimace burned onto his mouth; the loud thud rattled around the house, and if it had more force behind it, perhaps it could've shattered the window into thousands of pieces.

He fought off the sting in his hand and returned it to its previous spot, keeping his face buried.

"Can't find it..."

Hearing was all that Aracelis had left Przemek with. And so what he heard was the following: the voice of a girl in the background, a boy looking for something, and a loud thud. No further context.

Przemek hated Aracelis for a lot of reasons, but the main reason on his mind now was that she had taken even the concept of certainty from him. Two voices and a thud, no context. Was there a whole crowd of people behind that door waiting to kill and rob him? Was the thud the girl being murdered? Did they know he was here? Ever since he'd left the building, nothing had been sure, nothing. He had no answers, and he had no escape.

How long had it taken him to find this house? How long would it take him to find the next house? For all he knew, there could be a house right next door, and for all he knew, this could be the only house within a mile. Dread rose within him, everything in him was telling him to run, but how? Where?

The only way to go was forward.

He prayed to find sheep inside.

Slowly, he opened the door and turned his head towards where the thud had come from, gauze-bound bloodied eye-pads staring straight at the boy.

"Can't find what?" he asked.

"Do you need help?"

Unfortunately, none of those words brought Billie any closer to figuring out what was going on, and despite the encouraging fact that she had not found herself riddled with bullets, the scene in front of her still evoked a feeling of creeping dread. Watching someone have an emotional breakdown was uncomfortable even at the best of times, and, like, as hypocritical as it would be for her to judge someone over their mental health situation, she couldn't help but feel incredibly uneasy at the knowledge that said person was also armed with a weapon capable of blowing her head off. The sound of their unexpected visitor at the door didn't make things any easier to deal with either.

Speaking of their visitor... Billie's head jerked up and looked over to see the back door opening, confirming that it was, in fact, not locked. She swallowed as she watched the figure pathetically shuffle in, clearly having little idea of where he was going. It took a moment of staring for Billie to recognize him as that religious kid with the unpronounceable name. Ironic how the lack of a name was what made him memorable, but any mental effort that could be used to recall what to call him was soon taken up by the factor that initially shrouded his identity - the bandages. This guy had definitely been through something terrible, and the shock of the sight caused her to reply to his questions with a couple of her own.

"Whoa, what happened to your face? Are you alright?"

Not the most tactful of a response, but there was no point in trying to sugarcoat it. She knew that if she didn't ask, she'd spend the rest of the conversation distracted by the mystery. Best to get it out of the way now rather than keep wondering about it while trying to pry out information about whatever it was that Shu was looking for.

Shu broke out of his trance. His face shot out of its hand cradle like a sprung mousetrap and he stared at the ghost with skin, bone, and muscle barely stapled together at the front door. Was it an angel? Or the grim reaper come to finally take Shu away?

He was so hideous. He was so broken. But something about him shone like outsider art. It left Shu in awe, mouth left agape and speechless as Billie did the talking for them.

Staying seated and staring straight ahead, Shu's hands fumbled for a grip on the shotgun.

"Aracelis Fuentes stomped my face into a nail-studded baseball bat."

The sentence came out automatically. As well-rehearsed as his response whenever people asked him how to pronounce his name (PSHEH-mi-swaf), or whenever one of his old friends would ask him what happened to him, why he never came to any of their parties anymore ('I found God'). Shawn and Beth had regarded him as a freak show post-injury, so during his days of isolation, he had come to accept that is how everyone would see him now. So, he had come up with the response on his way here, to get all the gawking out the way as soon as possible.

Was he alright? the girl asked. He wanted to laugh at the question, but he had a headache that was starting to build, and any sort of sudden movement, or positive emotion he supposed, would bring him pain.

Instead, he answered, "I'm not alright, no. Bethany Lyon and Shawn Bellamy left me in an abandoned building to starve."

He sniffled, trying to suck some snot back up his nose.

Somewhere in front of him, something shuffled against what sounded like a wooden surface, like someone fumbling for something.

"Do any of you have food to spare?" he asked, desperately trying to ignore the sound.

"Holy shit."

Billie leaned back in her chair, her gaze travelling away from Przemyslaw's ruined face. Based on the appearance of his injuries, she knew whatever happened must have been brutal, but not, like, a deleted scene from Hostel. It wasn't often that she felt pity for anyone else, but this was an extreme situation. Her own personal circumstances were bad enough, but it would be difficult to argue that his weren't worse.

Well, on the other hand...

No, this wasn't the time to be debating about which disability would be worse to have; they were both pretty screwed here. She looked down and began digging around in her daypack. It wasn't long before her fingers closed around one of those ration bars that they had been given. Billie pulled it out and zipped the bag closed, raising the bar in her hand.

"Sure, here, catch-"

She stopped herself, feeling incredibly stupid about what she had almost done. Sighing softly to herself, she lowered her arm.

"Um, actually, I'll just put it on the table here for you. Can you make it over here?"

Without waiting for a reply, Billie began to wheel herself over to the side of the table closest to Przemyslaw's, taking care to avoid getting close to Shu or his weapon. She placed the bar down on the table, tapping next to it in the hopes that would make it easier for the guy to figure out where she had put it.

Shu's hands found a grip on the shotgun, although they couldn't stop tremoring as he stared at Przemyslaw like he was a damaged Baroque painting that found beauty past its original luster. It was both a blessing and pure sin for mere mortals to take a look.

He got out of the chair and approached him with wobbly steps, ignoring his request for food and Billie's futile aid as he got closer, eyes watering even moreso and mouth agape.

Soon enough, Shu found himself right in front of him. One hand dropped from the shotgun and ensnared Przemyslaw's arm like a claw. Shu didn't waste any more time as he dragged him away with him out the front door of the house into the cold.

Shu wasn't gonna let Billie take him away. She didn't deserve him. He was too beautiful, and he would be Shu's alone.

((Shu Hawthorne continued elsewhere))

Metal wheels squeaked. An object lightly thumped as it was set on the table, followed by a couple fingernail taps.

Przemek smiled for the first time in a while. He salivated, imagining the void in himself finally being filled.

"Th-thank you."

He reached his arm out towards the sounds. He could almost taste it.

His other arm yanked back.

"Wait—"

His fingers brushed against the bar, but found no purchase.

He pulled back, but the fever had sapped him of all strength, and he could only muster up a slight tug away from his fate. His feet continued stumbling backwards.

Despite all the pain it would cause him, Przemek's eyes welled up as this one good thing was taken from him.

Helplessly, arm still ensnared in Shu's grip, Przemek floated away from the girl and the house, back into the cold he had spent the last day trying to escape.

((Przemyslaw Ziemiak continues in I daydream until all the snow is gone))

Billie didn't have time to do much but stare as the two rapidly made their exit. The whole scene looked more like an attempted kidnapping than anything else, but there wasn't much that she could do about it. What was she going to do, wheel up to Shu and run over his foot or something? Seemed like a pretty good way to get shot, especially given that the guy was clearly off his rocker. Man, they really had a trifecta going here - a kid whose legs didn't work, one whose eyes didn't work, and one whose brain definitely was missing at least a few screws. It was like the setup to some stupid joke or something.

Whatever the bit was, however, it was clearly over now. Billie sat in silence for a few minutes before reaching over to grab the bar from the table, sighing softly as she returned it to her bag. As lonely as she was already beginning to feel, perhaps there was at least a little luck for her in having the situation "resolved" so quickly. She'd have plenty of time to feel depressed again after she had finally locked that back door.

It wasn't long before the sound of the door slamming shut echoed through the house, followed by the sound of a girl's voice, tinged with equal parts frustration and exhaustion.

"Fuck."

((Billie Sommerfield continued in The Beginning and the End, or 'Knockin' on Heaven's Door'))