Survival Of The Fittest

((Madeleine Molliqaj continued from The Forthcoming Tragedy))

There was a dead body by the front desk. Bethany Lyons. Or Lyon, one of the two. Madeleine didn't pay her much attention as she entered the sheriff's office, but a part of her was revolted by that. That in just a few days, she'd went from being horrified by the sight of a dead body to just stepping over someone as if they weren't there. As if Bethany had been there the whole time, just another part of the dusty old building that'd been sitting here for years at least, probably decades. Like she'd never been a living, breathing person before someone took her life. It was uh... Rebekah, right? The girl who brought raccoons to homecoming.

That thought sent a pang through her chest. It was the worst thing about being able to easily put a name to a face in this environment; you could remember something about everybody. EXTREME STEVE's antics and his skateboarding paintballing thing they did, Bethany and her spirited debates during MUN, Ashlee's cheerleading and the one time Madeleine saw her at Slice Slice Baby and Donovan's basketball and running, though she'd only really checked out JEM's sports teams a couple of times. Each person was, well, a world. Someone with their own dreams and hopes and wishes and fears, all brutally ripped away from them until they were nothing more but a body propped up against a front desk with a wound on their head. And this wasn't even more than a fraction. How many people just like Bethany and Donovan and Ashlee had had their lives ripped away by this game? How many Cassies had been killed by Joshuas? How many Madeleines had there been, desperately seeking to kill, to avenge a friend murdered?

Suddenly Madeleine felt a little tired. Woozy, almost. The scale of all of this was just almost... unbearable.

Cassie's blood was still on her pink coat, reddish-brown contrasting. She hadn't washed it off. She wasn't sure she wanted to until Josh's blood joined it.

Almost stumbling past the front desk and towards the cell, her mind flashed back to Tenshi.

Her screams.

How she squirmed as Dawn hacked away at her arm.

How it felt to be suddenly holding onto a hand that was limp, bloodless.

Madeleine doubled over and threw up.

((Salem Fox continued from shooting stars only))

Back to town. Home again, home again, something like that. Only instead of a home, Salem was at the sheriff's office, because he was a twisted fucking cycle path who needed to be locked up. Actually, it was mainly because his leg hurt and he wanted to sit down for a while, plus he hadn't really explored the buildings outside of the housing area yet. But also the first thing. Welcome to his twisted mind, et cetera.

"Oh, hey Beth." He paused as the sound of someone retching from further back reached his ears, continuing to stare somewhat blankly down at Beth's stiff and bloodied body. It was kind of weird; he'd come across some corpses that had been covered, posed in some way, but a lot had just been left where they fell. You could draw some kind of conclusion from that maybe, if you put all of the data points together. A graph of who was the most and least likely to be given their last respects.

Salem nudged Beth's body with the toe of his shoe and then straightened up, looking in the direction of the retching. "You good back there?" He called. He adjusted his grip on the rifle; it was a bit unwieldy to carry after he'd spent a week getting used to a handgun. Not to mention he had to look like a complete tool limping around with a gun in each pocket and now this, plus Billie's ice axe in his bag.

Hey, it had his blood on it. That made it rightfully his now.

((Jennifer Farrow continued from Go for Gold))

It wasn't long after that another person joined. Jenny didn't know why she chose the Sherrif's Office. She just happened to walk by, spear in tow, when she heard all of the retching and saw a boy nudging on a dead body. It's been, what, a week now, and people are already desensitized?

Jenny was desensitized too. The only thing that hit her was the smell, but she didn't feel any sense of disturbance any more. Was it because she saw death in the face or was this all just a coping mechanism that'll all come poring out when... if she got out of here alive?

Either way, the retching probably meant that whoever was in here wasn't immediately going to shoot her. A good thing too, considering everyone at this point is probably armed and dangerous, the early days weeding out the people who were easy pickings. Jenny never thought to think of her friends that way, but she had to be practical now.

"This place occupied?" she asked, the casual tone betraying that she's still ready to defend herself or run if these people really were just crazy enough to shoot at first sight, so she didn't quite step foot inside the office just yet.

There was a familiar voice, and Madeleine shot up straight, knowing who owned it. Salem Fox. One of the more distinct names she remembered, because they lived in Salem and he was Salem. People had poked gentle fun at him about it sometimes. Used to be a cheerleader, was in the school paper now.

Had murdered two people and won two awards for it.

There was another voice, a girl, but Madeleine was too focused on Salem. How she was cornered in this corridor, her only way out being through the door that Salem was presumably waiting at, leading to the main lobby. There was the cell as well, but that wouldn't do her any favours. Shit. OK. She coul feel her heart pumping, feel so acutely aware that she might be dead in the next few minutes. Is that how Cassie felt, talking to another murderous man who took her life for no good reason?

Quietly, she began creeping towards the door. He had a gun, so maybe if she rushed him before he could use it she could... what? Kill him? Just knock him down and get out of here?

"I'm fine!" Madeleine's tone carried a faint whiff of anxiety, grip on her sword firm and tight.

She would cross the bridge of 'what to do with Salem' when she came to it. Right now, all she could do was focus. Think. Plan ahead.

Salem didn't quite whirl around, but he did make a little half pirouette towards Jenny when she made herself known. Maybe he needed to stop leaving doors standing open. "Just me and the ghosts," he said airily, fixing the smile on his face as he gave her a once-over. Not too worse for wear, all things considered.

He cocked his head to the side slightly as the answer to his first question floated up to the front. "Me and the ghosts and her," he corrected. "But come on in, have a seat-" He gestured to the office chair behind the desk, then to the heap of Beth on the floor. "I checked, and Beth's not planning on taking it."

Right, so he was kind of sandwiched between the two girls here. Normally, that was the kind of thing he'd be able to joke about, but Jenny was a humorless stick-in-the-mud most of the time, girl in the back was going to have vomit breath, and wouldn't you know it, Salem was feeling just a tad gun-shy after his last date took an axe to his leg. (Only not literally, because he had three guns, which was at least one more than anybody reasonably needed. He ought to consider finding another charity case like Adam soon.)

Anyway, back to the present. Salem took a step away from the receptionist's desk and made a sweeping gesture towards it, like he was a waiter at an unnecessarily fancy restaurant showing Jennifer to her table, where she probably would tip him less than 15% at the end of her $80 meal. Tilting his head back slightly, he called towards the back of the building again.

"You gonna come up and be sociable?" His finger rested lightly on the outside of the rifle's trigger guard; the barrel stayed pointed at the floor for now.

Jenny kept her hand on the spear. She and Salem should know, right? They can be amicable now, or start bloodshed immediately, and Jenny was hoping that there was no point to further bloodshed. The point was to survive, not earn as many kills as you can, right?

Although, she supposes some people are willing to do that. They were the dangerous ones.

It also dawned on her that whoever Salem was talking to might not be in his group. Jenny couldn't really guess who from the voice, unfortunately.

"She with you?" she came up and hovered around over the chair. First thing's first is to at least get a hold of her surroundings.

Madeleine couldn't hear exactly who Salem was talking to, but the presence of another person both worried and calmed her. On one hand, it could be someone else who was looking to kill people, and then she'd be doubly screwed, but on the other hand, he might be a little distracted with talking to the person and Madeleine could rush him easier. It all depended on who it was, though. It was a girl, she could tell that much.

Staying quiet, trying to make sure her footsteps were as quiet as possible even though to her they felt equivalent to glass shattering or a building collapsing, Madeleline made her way to besides the door leading into the reception area, hiding behind it. If he came in, he probably wouldn't expect her to be hiding behind the door, and then she could shove him over or slash at him with the sword (although really, Madeleine didn't think she had enough room to really swing the sword. It'd be more of a jab.), anything to make sure she could get out of this place alive.

A bubble of anxiety popped in her stomach, Madeleine's breaths a little shallow, fast. Quietly, she prayed that Salem would either come in to the cell area or leave the building. Anything to stop this horrible tension in her stomach that felt like it'd burst at any moment.

"Hm? Oh, nah, she was like this when I got here." Salem knew that Jenny meant the girl in the back, but he referred to Beth in an act of deliberate obtuseness. She hadn't come any closer, but also hadn't backed out the door; seemed she was content to just take up space there instead of taking the offered seat, even though Beth had so nicely vacated it.

The other girl had fallen silent too, no more retching and no answer to Salem's second question. Go figure that he always ended up with lousy conversationalists. "Well, it sounds like she's not doing so hot back there. You gonna come in, or just stand there? You're letting the cold in." He took another step back from the receptionist desk and towards the hall, adjusting his grip on the gun as he did so.

He wasn't turning his back on that spear just yet. He'd take his chances with the sick girl behind him rather than Jenny. Though honestly, if she kept dithering on whether she wanted to be in or out like a finicky cat, he'd just as soon make the decision for her so that he didn't have to split his attention.

The sarcasm could really mean anything at this point. Either the dude had lost it, or worse, he didn't mind all this killing. She shouldn't get too close, not that he probably would let her get close enough. Jenny had just gotten out of a dire situation, and she was still on edge. She wasn't going to let herself get jumped this time.

"Just thought you two were together or something." Jenny shrugged. "I'm not staying long, just trying to find a place to sit and rest up. Most of the island at this point is..." Jenny looked over at Beth's body. "...occupied."

She still stayed by the door, for now. The boy hadn't given her good reason to come in and sit down yet, but at least he wasn't an opportunistic killer.

Salem exhaled through his nose a little more forcefully than necessary. The smile still fixed on his face probably made it seem like the beginnings of a laugh, but it was actually a noise of irritation.

"Listen," he said, taking another step back and reaching for the door behind him. If he could swing it open and ready to go, he figured he could get a shot off and duck into the hall before Jenny had a chance to retaliate, assuming his first attempt wasn't a one-hit KO. "I hate to break it to you, but you're gonna have to lower your standards for roommates. Only place with a worse housing market than here is San Francisco."

Not quite a movie one-liner, but they couldn't all be winners. With that, Salem grasped the door handle and yanked it open, and in the same movement, he swung the rifle up to fire a wild one-armed shot in Jennifer's direction.

Madeleine's worst fears and best hopes came true at the same time. First came the door being ripped open by Salem outside, and then a gunshot from whatever gun he had, something that brought back memories of Cassie and Josh. It seemed clear that the other person - a girl - wasn't friendly with Salem, or at the least they weren't friendly anymore. Either way, Salem was going to come into the hallway.

She wasn't going to let another girl get gunned down by a psycho man with a gun right in front of her. Not again.

Stepping out from behind the door, taking in the scene - the girl by the door (Jennifer, Madeleine thought, though she couldn't think of the surname at the moment. She was on the basketball team, the girl's one, which was about as successful as the boy's team), how Salem's gun was aimed in her direction, the blood pumping through her veins and the sword that her hands clenched tight.

She swung. Maybe not the way that Lara had taught her, no, but she didn't really have the thought to do anything but slash instinctively at the murderer in front of her.

"RUN!" The words exploded from her like a bomb that'd been lit since her first encounter with death — fierce, desperate, raging. Maybe Salem would listen to her and run too, or maybe he'd stay and she would kill him. Madeleine didn't care, just as long as she could save Jennifer from his bullets.

You know that whole thought process Salem had after Billie, the one where he decided that he wasn't going to keep letting things spiral out of control and letting people get the drop on him, that whole deal?

Yeah. Yeah.

Madeleine's weapon didn't cut as deep, but it hurt all the same. Salem yelled out in both surprise and pain when she struck, finger instinctively squeezing the trigger again, but there was no new bullet readied in the rifle. Instead, he spun away from Jennifer to face Madeleine, backpedaling to put distance between them and grasping the rifle with both hands to instead swing it at her face like a club. He needed time and space to ready the rifle again, and she didn't seem like she wanted to give it to him.

The good news is, Jenny was prepared for Salem to shoot.

The bad news is, she wasn't Neo, and this wasn't the Matrix.

The searing pain on her left arm as she dodged wouldn't be felt until later, but the bullet had grazed her skin.

Jenny yelled out instinctively. Mostly out of adrenaline. A part of her brain-the athlete part, the "always win at all costs" part, the part that didn't want to run-had wanted her to just lug the spear forward in some Hail Mary attempt to attack and stab Salem. The other part of her, the part that was sensible and realized that even if she had a spear, there was no way she had enough distance to win in a gunfight, told her to run.

Luckily for Jenny, Madeline was there to push her more sensible side.

Jenny turned around and sprinted away. Her body had wanted to trip over when she twisted it, but her training in basketball kept her from doing that. Instead, she held on tight and used her spear as a balancer, like a makeshift crutch. A straight shot to freedom and escape, and she would take it. She wouldn't let anyone take her life.

It wouldn't be until she was far away that she would be nursing her wounds, and it wouldn't be until then that she'd hate herself for running instead of helping Madeline.

((Jennifer Farrow continued elsewhere))

As Salem swung the gun at her, Madeleine raised the sword to clumsily deflect the blow, still taking a step or two back with the force. In the corner of her eye, she could see Jennifer running out, and even as she faced down a madman with a gun like Josh, a little small smile plastered itself on her face. Even if she died now, died here to Salem and his gun, she could still say she died protecting someone. That was something that only a few people on this island could say.

But she'd realised something in that second, thinking about her possible death. She didn't see a clip for Salem's gun like Josh had, or any other way of really loading the gun, so maybe it was like, one of those single shot guns? If so, it was kinda impressive that Salem had killed two people with it but he had also killed two people and was gonna make it a third if she didn't intervene, so she didn't feel like giving him credit. It did mean, though, that it would probably take him a second to make the gun ready to fire again. So she made a quick plan in her head.

The first part was simple. Keeping one hand on the sword's handle and grabbing the part of the sword with the missing stone that had fallen off after Tenshi died as best as she could, Madeleine shoved it at Salem, trying to knock him off balance or at least distract him long enough to let her enact the second part of her plan:

Running out of the sheriff's office and into the town as fast as she could while praying that she was right and that he wouldn't put a bullet in her back.

((Madeleine Molliqaj continued in Kismet))

This was faster, more frantic, than the clumsy dance that Salem had shared with Adam. The stupid smile on Madeleine's face versus the anger in Adam's eyes at Salem just existing. One was more satisfying than the other.

It was over just as fast, no room for conversation. That was fine in a way; Salem didn't think that anything Madeleine had to say would be very interesting. He raised the rifle lengthwise to catch and weather the next blow from the weird sword she was swinging, let it push him back a few steps. As he caught his balance, she bolted for the door.

Dropping the rifle, Salem grabbed the revolver from his coat pocket, cocked the hammer, and leveled it at Madeleine's back.

Hesitated.

You know what? No. No, he wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of thinking that she died a hero.

Salem aimed the revolver at the floor just inside the doorway and fired, sending a spray of wood splinters up. The shot echoed in the now-empty building.

"...And stay out!" He shouted out into the street, long after Madeleine and Jennifer were both long gone.

He wasn't going to stay here, but if they thought that he was and were forced to find another building and hope for a friendlier face, or just try to tough out the snow falling heavier and heavier outside, he could work with that.

As soon as there was a lull in the snowfall, Salem was gone too. It felt like he'd gotten everything that he could out of the town for now.

((Salem Fox continued in Fever of Stingrays))