Survival Of The Fittest

((The darkness of the tunnels enveloped her, hiding her from the judgemental gaze of the world.))

The weather outside had grown much more frightful, with the snowfall picking up all across the island as the temperature continued to drop. Camping out in the wilderness under those conditions wasn't something either Katelyn or Kai were keen on, and as such they had begun making their way to the research station. Once they had gotten close, Katelyn spotted the entrance to the tunnels, and both of them took refuge within. The air was just as cold beneath the earth, but the lack of wind and snow at least meant they could avoid frostbite, for now.

Kai's flashlight beam marked the path ahead of them, revealing the aged and cracking concrete beneath their feet. Katelyn following quietly behind him, her presence almost as ghostly as her long departed victims. The clacking of Kai's footsteps echoed around the walls of the tunnels, playing tricks on her ears and making it seem like they weren't the only ones down here. The tunnels were dark, darker still than even the island at night, and there was some comfort to be found in that. Anyone who dared travel without a light would be left completely blind, so if anyone else was coming, she'd see their light long before she saw them. Then, maybe the shadows would lend her their blackened hands, and help conceal her until she was poised to strike.

A chill passed up her spine at the thought, and for once not from the cold. There was still some small, quiet part of her left that recognized that she was growing far too used to thoughts of violence. It was wrong, and she knew that, but being okay with the violence was what she had wanted, right? Maybe Kai's presence was starting to make her doubt that, or maybe it was the fact that she had not killed anyone in two whole days. Had Kai really stopped the cycle of violence she had been trapped in?

No, he hadn't. Probably not, at least. Perhaps it was just Katelyn's pessimism rearing its ugly, misshapen head again, but the only reason she hadn't killed Matthew and Lily were circumstance. They had still both approached her with violent intent, and it was only a matter of time until they found themselves in another confrontation. Kai had to be ready for violence, but he was still living in denial, even as his only plan fell apart. She needed to broach the topic with him, but still hadn't, because in spite of it all she was still a coward.

She wished Ren was here, even if her heart hurt whenever she thought about them. They would've made this so much easier.

Kai's flashlight beam reached the end of the tunnel, lighting up the junction at the center of them all. Seeing this snapped Katelyn out of her thoughts, and she stopped, grabbing Kai by the sleeve and tugging at him. Now was as good a time as any.

"H-Hey, Kai, can we talk about what happened y-yesterday?" she murmured, her voice echoing around in the silence of the tunnels. "Because, um, if we're heading inside, then we're probably going to run into s-someone else."

((Kai Rosado-Prince continued from Cat Scratch Fever))

Kai hadn't wanted to return to the buildings on the island, but the worsening weather hadn't given them much choice. As much as Kitty protested, he felt that having only one altercation with anyone over the past day had proven the good of staying in the wilder areas as much as possible. They couldn't make it without some form of shelter if a snowstorm whipped up, though.

The tunnels seemed a good enough compromise even if he'd prefer to stay away completely. Sheltered from the elements, but not welcoming enough to expect to run into anybody. Wherever they actually went wasn't marked on the map, so as Kai led the way down into the darkness, he was really only waiting for one of them to decide they'd gone far enough.

He grimaced when Kitty spoke up. It wasn't like he hadn't expected to have the conversation at some point, but still.

"Yeah?" He asked quietly, glancing down at her. The flashlight's beam only partially illuminated her face, throwing the rest into shadow.

There were lots of topics that Katelyn wanted to cover with Kai, so many that for a moment, when his flashlight beam crossed her face, she froze up with indecision. There was a stab of pain in her throat, and she forced herself to swallow the lump that was forming. She could feel herself starting to sweat, something that always happened when she spoke to someone she was unfamiliar with. Yet, Kai was the opposite, so why was he provoking this reaction from her now? Had they really grown so far apart?

"I, um..."

Focus, she told herself. This had to be done, even if it was hard, and even if she knew that Kai wouldn't like it. There was only so much room for kindness in a place such as this. Mercy was a precious resource, only to be given out on rare occasions, preferably when it was mutually advantageous. He had to understand that it would only get harder and more precious as the days went by. It had already been one whole terrible week, right? These games usually only lasted two, so every decision they made from here on out might be the one to dictate their fate.

"We, um, can't expect the n-next person to be like Lily," she continued. "We got l-lucky with her, because she was naive. If we meet someone else and they have any k-kills to their names, they're more likely to be l-like... him... Matthew."

She hissed his name, almost as though it were a curse.

"We should, um, try to a-avoid others, if we can. B-But if we, um, if we can't then... we have to be pr-prepared. For violence, I mean."

The events of Ren's death played over and over again in her head. She wouldn't let that happen to Kai. If anyone tried to hurt him, or was even capable of seriously hurting him, then she'd cut them down first. When it came to important matters such as survival, all that mattered was killing or disabling your opponent faster than they could do the same to you.

"N-Nobody can be trusted, unless we know them, o- okay?"

Kai looked away from Kitty and kept his gaze pointed straight ahead at the wall as she spoke. It took effort not to clench his jaw. Lucky. Right.

He didn't know if he'd call any part of that encounter "lucky" aside from the fact that Kitty had spotted Lily's ally in the trees before they could take a shot. He wasn't necessarily willing to give Lily the benefit of the doubt that she was so kind or so naive as to not have had killing intent when she came up with that plan. Lucky, maybe, that he'd been there. That he'd been willing to step in front of the gun and trust that Kitty wasn't going to shoot him in a panic.

What would she have done if he hadn't? Gunned Lily down anyway and then been shot herself? Would that have been some kind of victory?

"You don't have to trust people," he said finally. "The same way you don't trust an animal if you see one out in the woods. You know. Be careful, but don't assume it's out to hurt you." The metaphor didn't really translate to their current circumstances, but Kai couldn't think of a better one.

Maybe it was just that despite everything, he couldn't bring himself to believe that every single person out there had fallen into the kill-or-be-killed mindset. He still didn't want to accept that Kitty had, but she kept reminding him of it.

It kept him wondering how many of those names listed next to hers on the announcements had really been kill-or-be-killed, and how many Kitty had just convinced herself of.

"I already told you, I'm not gonna just sit there and let someone hurt either of us. That's not opening up the floor to a- a- preemptive strike, or whatever you'd call it." And you have to be okay with that, the unspoken rest of the sentence sat heavily. An implied "or else," though he couldn't say exactly or else what.

((Chiara Masina continued from No One's Here to Sleep))

Chiara traced her hand along the wall of the tunnels. After she and Derek left their sleeping quarter, they had moved through the quarters before deciding to move through the tunnels. The assumption was that they could hopefully avoid other students and exit in a remote area of the research station. They hadn't really traveled through the tunnels in the past week, so they weren't entirely sure how it would go.

Chiara walked ahead, keeping her gun by her side. The gun had provided her so much comfort the past week, but now that she had actually killed someone with it, it started to feel like a vestigial appendage. Part of her wished she could toss it away, but even she knew it was important to keep it around as long as possible. She wasn't likely to be successful with the trident, especially in a cramped tunnel. So it was necessary to let it burrow into the palm of her hand.

She turned back to make sure Derek was still there. He had been her unintended companion for the past week, and she was really glad he was there. They were sharing a lot of trauma, whether it was dealing with the amputation or killing people back to back. She really hoped she wouldn't lose him down here.

As they continued to walk, Chiara suddenly heard some noises ahead. It sounded like two people having a conversation. She stopped walking and tried to listen more closely.

She turned to Derek and raised a finger to her mouth. They had to know who was there with them.

The way through the tunnels proved trickier than expected.

((Derek Caldwell continued from I'm Just A Kid (And Life Is A Nightmare)))

Since Chiara had the gun ready, it was upon Derek to shine the way by carefully aiming the flashlight at the ground in front of them with his left hand while dragging their newest possession along with his right. Neither of them was interested in getting drunk, making the seven cans of shitty beer practically useless, but if they picked up more stuff, the cooler would be useful for transport. Plus just letting it stand there in front of the rec room would have felt wrong.

His more important new possession was tucked in his belt, fully loaded and unlocked. Deactivating the safety in a hurry was unfeasible for Derek, so he had settled on taking this risk. Given the situation, shooting himself in the leg was just as good a way to die as any other fate on this island.

Judging from the announcement time, Abel was probably in the middle of his last class for the day. When he got home, the apartment would be empty except for their mother sleeping drunk on the couch as usual. No big brother to be found, just as the week before.

Derek grit his teeth just thinking about it. In an effort to escape this hellhole, he closed his eyes and imagined how it would be when he returned home for a moment.

A moment in which he paid little attention to the conversation further down the tunnel.

A moment in which he reacted too late to Chiara's raised hand.

A moment in which his feet stomped right on top of an empty glass bottle, crushing it like a hydraulic press, sending noise through the void of darkness.

Crap!

"That's not what I meant," Katelyn huffed. "Lots of people are d-dead, and more are dying every day. Anyone left is more likely be b-better armed and willing to hurt."

Even Salem was killing people, just like he said he was going to. They had hugged on not hurting each other, but could she actually count on that? Would Kai be exempted too, or would he just be another obstacle? California, Kelsey, even Ash were still out there. How long did they have until they either died or got blood on their own hands?

"If we can't avoid c-confrontation, we have to at least control it. We don't have to k-kill them, just... get the drop on them and disarm them, or s-something."

A stab of pain shot through her head, causing her to flinch, and leaving behind an intolerable ache in its wake. Another wave of her withdrawal symptoms hitting at the worst time, no doubt. There was so much she wanted to say, to explain to him, but her thoughts were all jumbled up, and thinking had suddenly become much too hard. Better cut to the chase.

"Trying to t-talk it out with everyone will get us killed," she continued, trying to keep her composure. "It's too easy to die when g-guns are involved, Kai."

She took a deep breath, and began to unzip her bag to retrieve a drink of water. Why couldn't he understand?

"A-And I... I don't want to w-watch you-"

The shattering of glass echoing down the tunnel they came in from abruptly cut her off. She froze up, tense and staring down the blackness of the tunnel behind them. There was a bend in the path, neither they nor the intruders capable of seeing each other, yet. Her hand went to the handle of the grenade launcher, but she faintly recalled reading something about blasts in tunnels being extra deadly, and let go of it. Instead, she crouched and drew the knife from her boot.

"We have to run," she whispered, her breathing picking up along with her heart rate, "or hide, or..."

She trembled, listening intently for any further sound, trying her best to ignore the pain in her skull.

At least in the dark, Kitty probably couldn't see the way that Kai was indeed now clenching his jaw, despite his best efforts. They'd been together for only a couple of days, and he was so tired of her lecturing him on how necessary violence was. He started to half tune her out as she went on, already knowing the direction the conversation was going to take.

He knew where they were. He knew what was going on. He wasn't blind or stupid. Kitty seemed convinced that Kai was just refusing to see the situation for what it was, but from where he was standing, she had set on a course of action and was insistent on pushing forward with it no matter what. Maybe that was the only way that she could deal with what she'd done. Convincing herself it was completely necessary.

He'd have wished that Ren was still there, but thinking of them at any point over the past few days made Kai's chest squeeze so painfully that it got hard to breathe. He wished Cali was there. She had a soothing presence. Maybe that would be better received than his practical arguments.

If they could just find her-

The telltale noise of breaking glass behind them snapped Kai out of his thoughts, and he spun around. His flashlight only illuminated a bare corridor at the moment. Whoever else was back there - and it had to be a person, no fooling themselves that it was just the wind - was still out of sight.

Kai grabbed Kitty's shoulder and squeezed. Half comfort and half discouragement. He felt more than saw her move at his side, and he didn't need to look hard to know that she was already drawing a weapon.

"Hide," he hissed. They might have already been heard, but they could back off, find one of the other ends of the tunnel, and move on before anyone caught up to them. No problem. That was the kind of thing he'd just been telling himself, ignoring all of Kitty's arguments that they had no choice but to stand and fight or strike at the first opportunity.

It was the other thing he'd been thinking of that stopped him from immediately slinking off into the dark after Kitty. That, and maybe the desire to make sure that she put more distance between herself and whoever else was down here before he followed.

But until that person rounded the corner, there was a chance, however small, that it could be somebody Kai wanted to see.

"Hello?"

Chiara winced when she heard Derek step on some glass. She lowered her hand and slowly opened her eyes, turning to the direction where they heard voices coming.

Someone further down the way called out to them. Chiara looked back and forth between the voice in the dark and her companion.

Chiara had the gun by her side, but she slowly raised it up to chest height. They still didn't know who was ahead, but it felt like it would be important to keep the gun visible for when they found who it was.

"What do we do?" she whispered to Derek.

"Hello?"

On the island, this otherwise innocent word could be many things. An invitation. A check to see if the air was clear. A cry for help. A hunter looking for prey. The scary part was that they had no way of knowing which Hello? they were dealing with.

Derek took a look back into the darkness behind him. How far was the next set of stairs? How far was it until the next corner would protect them from getting shot in the backs? If the at least two people in front of them decided to pursue, who would be faster?

Chiara's question almost startled him. It was rare for his companion to begin a conversation.

"If we run now, they might see this as a sign of us being hostile. I say we approach them carefully. Make our intentions clear."

But what were their intentions, exactly? Both of them had killed, so according to the rules of the game there was little more to do than to wait until everyone else died. They were not trying to get the collars off or contact the outside world or help their classmates or do anything productive apart from staying alive, so they surely weren't the good guys. Just the guys who carried on until the bitter end.

Not for the first time, Derek avoided the question of what would happen if Chiara and he ended up the last survivors.

So he turned to the corner, imagined his classmates standing right in fron of him and called out.

"Hey, it's us. Derek and Chiara." Lying would only get them in hot water if one of the two was recognized, so Derek stuck with the truth.

"We are looking for a place to stay and hide after our last place was... well, pretty sure you heard the news.

"We are not here to start trouble, but we are both armed and willing to defend ourselves.

"... Unless you object, we will now come across the corner."

Kai didn't need to tell Katelyn to hide, as she was already skulking around the edge of the junction before he finished speaking. She felt her way along the wall, cold concrete scratching her palm as she blindly navigated the dark, memorizing where the walls were without needing to see them. Eventually, her hand hit empty air, signaling the beginning of another tunnel, and she immediately darted into it. With her back to the wall, she leaned around the corner, watching Kai and his light.

To say she was annoyed at him for not coming with her would be an understatement. He was asking for trouble by calling out to any random person that it happened to be. What if it had been one of the other major threats? What if it had been Matthew? He got a response, but it brought her no comfort, only a slightly worsening headache.

Derek and Chiara were the intruders. She didn't know much about either of them, but both of them had killed before, and recently at that. One of them, Chiara if she remembered correctly, had done so with a gun. The voice of who she assumed was Derek confirmed that they were well-armed. He said they didn't want trouble, but how much of that could be trusted? Would she believe that if it had come out of her own mouth? What if they had heard her, despite her best efforts to be discrete? Would Kai be able to explain why he was suddenly alone?

The beating of her heart began to sound more like that of a war drum. If she wasn't prepared, then Kai was going to get hurt. As silently as she could manage, she set her bag and the digging bar down in the tunnel next to her, and then stood back up, tightening her grip on the knife.

Now was the time to be quiet.

Kai let out a slow, almost inaudible sigh of disappointment when he got his answer. He'd known the chance was slim, even with the island's... well, dwindling population. Still, he'd hoped for a moment that it would be Cali calling back to him.

Derek and Chiara were names that meant almost nothing to him, save for what he'd heard on the announcement that morning. Maybe he'd recognize their faces when he saw them. He didn't plan to see them for very long, though.

"That's fine," he almost sighed again at Derek's oddly formal request. He didn't have the energy to keep up this stiff maneuvering around each other. "I'm not looking for trouble either." He took a step back as he spoke, moving in the direction where Kitty had scampered off.

It's too easy to die when guns are involved, she'd said. Kai had been irritated by it a moment ago. Like he hadn't watched Dominiqua and Ren die. Like he didn't know. Now though, it was just a fact, and distance and the dark were his friends.

Derek pointed out that running could get them in just as much danger than just staying, so he elected to respond to the voice in the darkness. Chiara remained quiet as he explained their situation. They were armed, but they didn't want trouble. Chiara still didn't know who was there, but they knew at least two people were there.

The voice encouraged them to step forward. Chiara looked back to Derek, then to the darkness. Everyone who would come across Derek and Chiara going forward would remember that they had been responsible for Ty and Daenerys' deaths the day before. Even if Ty's was an accident, Daenerys's was definitely murder, and of a dangerous person. The tunnels were starting to feel a lot more claustrophobic the longer they stood there, so Chiara knew the time to act was coming.

So she nodded to Derek, then lowered her gun to her side. She moved a bit closer until she could finally see the boy who had called out to them. Wasn't there supposed to be someone else with him? With the limited lighting, Chiara wasn't sure where his companion was, so she hoped Derek could reveal where she was when he also approached.

Feeling uncomfortable with letting Chiara face the group alone, Derek shuffled awkwardly forwards, rounding the corner plus his companion, dragging the cooler behind.

His flashlight illuminated the corridor, revealing one lone boy. The dreadlooks were familiar, but no name came to mind. Probably one of those faces Derek sometimes saw in the hallways. More important was the large weapon in the boy's hands, easily dwarfing their own weaponry. Thankfully, it was pointed to the ground, just like Chiara and Derek's firearms were.

If only it wasn't for the second voice.

"Hello," he spoke, his face barely betraying his lack of nerves. "I don't think we are familiar, and given the situation, I say we better keep it this way.

"But I guess its nice to see someone for once. So far, we have seen like fo- five people over the whole week."

As if to underline his statement, Derek let his view wander through the darkness. But not so long that it seemed he was actually expecting to find someone.

"We have mostly been around this complex, so maybe everyone avoids this place for whatever reason. What about you? Met anyone recently here?"

A question casually tossed into room mid-conversation. And yet there was a strange echo to following.

An echo of anxiety.

The two of them stepped out into view of the junction, watched by eyes in the dark.

In the dim glow cast from their own light, she could see their weapons: a twin pair of violent little death-spitting monsters.

Her mouth felt dry. Her vision started to spin.

They knew. They had heard her speak. Derek asked a question, but actually leveled an accusation. Kai wasn't alone, and they wanted to know why, and who.

Her ears were ringing. She held her breath.

Kai had to answer, but what could he say? All paths would lead to hell.

Her hand squeezed the knife handle so hard it began to hurt.

Despite her rising panic, she remained hidden, and waited for her opportunity.

If all paths led to hell, then she would make it a hell of her own choosing.