Survival Of The Fittest

((Madeleine Molliqaj continued from Gold Slouch))

Hack, slash, slash.

Hack, slash, slash.

It was the morning, a little bit after the announcements, when Madeleine was outside of the cabin, practicing what Lara had taught her yesterday. She thought she'd feel better after a little rest, let herself process the grief of Cassie's death.

She didn't.

But now Madeleine had a target, a name to go with the face. Joshua James. One of the, uhm... Christians? Maybe? He was one of those people that just kinda blended into the background enough that even she didn't know his name. If he wasn't a murderer who'd killed two or three girls like Cassie, she'd have felt a little bad about not being able to match the name and face. But now that little piece of information was stored in her head, ready to be pulled out when she saw that bastard again.

Hack, slash, slash.

Admittedly, lacrosse didn't pair well with a giant sword. It was more meant for sticks. But even still, Lara had managed to give her an idea of how to get a better grip on the sword, make sure that she didn't end up throwing it out of her hands by accident or something, and that was better than nothing. And some of the ways she'd been shown how to slash with it might come in handy at some point.

It was better than nothing.

Hack, slash, slash.

Lara was still in bed. Madeleine wondered if she'd even been woken by the announcement.

Hack, slash, slash.

But her mind, her essence, her soul was focused on this. Hack, slash, slash. Instead of thin air in front of her, she pretended it was Joshua James and she was enacting her vengeance for the girl who's blood still clung to her.

"Still doing your training? Quite admirable."

The door to the cabin opened, and Lara emerged, the cold wood transforming into cold dirt underneath her feet. Her breath sent warm fog billowing through the air, but that was almost comforting. The weather here on this island was not much different from the average winter day in Boston.

She had been awake for a few minutes now, and was awake an hour or so before the announcements. Lara felt the weight of her lack of sleep weighing down on her mind, but what could she do? The housing units were certainly tempting, but there would be no one to watch over her as she slept, and every minute was an invitation for someone to kill her in her sleep. No, she could not get a full night. That would effectively be suicide.

The announcement provided an answer to her earlier questions. She was both surprised and not surprised it was Joshua. The boy had always been a background character, an extra, even when he played lacrosse. He had the natural talent to fade away. Perhaps this game was his way of letting everyone know that yes, he was here. More power to him, she supposed. If there was any time or place to wrap up loose ends, leave some sort of legacy, it would be here. The announcement also gave Lara an odd pang when she heard neither Evie's nor Chloé's names. It was an indescribable little flush of... something through her chest. She did not know the words to explain it.

Carefully, she watched Madeleine's swings, and her form, scanning her up and down as she slashed and hacked at the invisible Joshua before her. While she certainly lacked finesse, she seemed to have caught on to the general form of what she was doing. Good. It would make her much more effective than if she had nothing at all.

Eventually, Lara's eyes settled on her companion's feet, watching them twist, arch, and scrape across the semi-frozen ground as she imagined Joshua getting cleaved with the massive sword. A short yawn escaped her lips.

Madeleine startled a little when a voice called out to her, nearly slipping and falling on her butt before realising who the voice belonged to. Lara was awake! Even still, it kind of felt like it was somehow embarassing to be caught swinging her sword around at thin air. Her cheeks flushing, Madeleine stumbled over her words for a second before nodding and replying in a more normal fashion. "Eh, uh, yeah! Yeah. Just, uh, practice makes perfect, right?"

A nervous giggle escaped her lips, Madeleine deciding to stop swinging and hold the sword like a cane, idly twisting the edge into the ground.

"So, uhm, it was Joshua. Joshua James. I, uh, don't really know much about him, he kinda blended in back in school..." But she'd remember that face. She'd remember that face as long as she lived. How it looked as Cassie slashed into his cheek, the malice and hatred that lay behind it suddenly revealed as if she'd cut away the thin facade of a human being to reveal the demon lurking behind it. She couldn't imagine how he'd looked when he killed the other people he'd murdered, but it couldn't have looked much different.

She hadn't really paid attention to the rest of the announcement, and in hindsight she'd wished she had. Corbin was dead, and that was the only other thing she'd really noted. He was... kinda cute, but she'd never really talked to him and so that was all she had to go on. Maybe he was an asshole and they'd have some terrible breakup like Robin and Kitty. Maybe they'd be really sweet together. But that was all just what ifs that never could be, and compared to the unending pain she still felt about Cassie, it was nothing.

"What are you gonna do? I'm probably going to be heading to the hot spring, I need to..." Madeleine pulled at the bloodied pink coat she wore, unable to vocalise what she meant lest she burst into tears again. It would hurt, washing a remnant away, but it had to be done. "You can, uh, come along if you want, I don't mind. Might be a bit of a hike, though..." Honestly. she kinda hoped she didn't take her up on that offer. The hike would give her time to think if she was on her own, time she desperately needed.

"I do know Joshua James," Lara stated, looking back up at Madeleine's face. "He was a member of the lacrosse team. Worship and Prayer, too. He was fairly successful at both."

Really, that was as deep as Lara's knowledge of Joshua went. She was never interested and never cared about learning more about the disappearing boy. Even as the captain of the girl's lacrosse team, she could not be bothered to search deeper into the man. He was an uninteresting and uninspired background character to Lara for her entire high school career. He had been dead set on changing that, it appeared.

Her companion had asked her a few useful questions, ones Lara should start considering as well.

"I... have not thought about where I will go next. My destination will probably not be the hot springs, so this is where we will part ways. Perhaps I will return to the research station. There are certainly supplies and perhaps a friendly face there. Two useful things in one location."

Lara leaned up against the door frame, wincing at the small creak that came from it. This cabin was going to fall apart before this version ended, especially if a blizzard or some other catastrophe rolled in. She could not predict the weather, but the cabin was cold, damp, and unstable. No use in staying here.

"One last note. If you are going to be looking for Joshua, try the church after you visit the hot springs. He was a member of Worship and Prayer. It is possible he has gone or will be going there to, uh, cleanse his soul of his sins, if he even cares about such a thing."

Josh was a member of the lacrosse team, huh? It was kind of funny in a morbid way. A member of the girl's lacrosse team taught her techniques from lacrosse that probably weren't meant to be used with a sword so she could go and kill a member of the men's lacrosse team. She'd never actually seen a lacrosse game before and to be honest, Madeleine didn't really know what it was. Something like hockey maybe? Given what Lara had taught her, it seemed to fit.

"Alright, the hot springs and then the church. Maybe I'll run into someone else who's had a friend killed by him, or maybe I'll just find him while he's sleeping." It would feel anticlimatic, but at the same time Madeleine just wanted him dead. Part of her wanted him to suffer, yes, but she wasn't going to torture him to death or anything. She just wanted him gone from the world, for everything that made up Joshua James to disappear and leave him nothing but a body.

"Thank you for everything, Lara. Good luck with your, uh, whatever you're going to do." Madeleine offered her a small smile and a friendly wave, before she started to walk away, mentally following the same path her and Cassie had tread on the first day.

((Madeleine Molliqaj continued in The World Ended on a Snowy Day))

Lara did not return the wave or the smile that Madeleine gave to her. Instead, she crossed her arms and watched silently as the girl trekked into the forest unknown. That was one objective that could be checked off the list. Joshua now had someone who was armed and (relatively) trained how to use it hunting him. That would hopefully result in one less danger that she would have to directly deal with herself.

Still, there were many more objectives that needed to be completed before she could truly rest. It had been six days and she had yet to retrieve a weapon from someone. This simply could not do. While she was loathe to consider it, her current methods of retrieval were not working. Her attempts at stealth resulted in Micah nearly breaking her arm, which was still sore, and her attempts at diplomacy still had not produced her a weapon of any sort, other than a human weapon which she could not control.

Perhaps violence needed to be added to the cards. Without a weapon, she may as well be a shambling corpse.

Lara yawned the thought out of her head. Her unfortunate dietary situation, combined with her lack of proper sleep, was really beginning to take its toll. Lara felt like she had weights perpetually hanging from her eyelids, but what could she do? All she had were energy bars, and sleeping heavily in this situation was effectively suicide.

However, the day had only just begun. Now she was alone, with the rest of the day available to her to plan out what she needed to do. She needed to get to work, and quickly. Her life almost certainly depended on it.