Survival Of The Fittest

The announcements hummed to a close. There it was. The black mark. The scarlet letter. The stigma.

It didn't appear anywhere on Daniel's person, but it stung him anyway.

[Daniel Ozanne continued from The Children's Crusade]

He wasn't sure he ever wanted to enter a building ever again. Everywhere he went, there was a new corpse, a new name to put to a decaying face. (He didn't even pretend to care about most of his classmates back in the sane world. Even speaking to them was nothing but idle entertainment.) Add that to the names every day to put to faces, and it felt like whenever he thought of someone, he immediately thought of their death, existent or upcoming.

So no, after leaving the church yesterday, he didn't really go anywhere else, other than these wilds. It felt like the places where there were no footprints were the only places without those decaying memories, and free from the eyes, voices, and names of others.

He didn't sleep either last night, and not for lack of trying. They didn't call it "a blanket of snow" for nothing. It looked soft and inviting, but Daniel just couldn't let himself fall into it. He was a little weak like that, really. (Weak to the instinct, at the expense of morality.)

The rhythmic crunch of snow under his boots stopped. The snow continued to fill in the footprints already left behind. He stood still for a moment, just listening.

If someone was here, he'd be...

(Kind of upset? But perhaps relieved.)

((Juanita Reid continued from I've Seen Your Flag On The Marble Arch))

Her pajama pants were thick, but not thick enough. Her legs were practically numb. When they made it to the research station, she was going to find her jeans, first thing. Tear gas or no tear gas, she needed the warmth. But if there was one good thing to say about the cold, it was that it gave her nerves enough other stuff to freak out about that she barely noticed her leg. It tended to flare up in times of stress, and this was quite a stressful time even by Survival of the Fittest standards.

Betty Quinn's name had come up on the announcements this morning. She had run into a danger zone, and from context it sounded like she'd done it on purpose. The news had stunned Juanita dead in her tracks, and she'd expected it to stop Colm dead too. But he'd just kept walking, saying that they needed to get someplace safe. Biting back her protests, she'd followed along.

It was her fault. Her leg had been bad yesterday, and with the snow and everything else, she hadn't been able to walk all the way to the research station. If Colm had just left her behind, he could have made the journey easily. He probably could have found Quinn, talked some sense into her. But Juanita had held him up, and now Quinn was dead. Yet another death to blame herself for.

"Sorry" was never going to cut it. So she didn't say it. She just trudged on in shameful silence, following Colm's broad back through the snow. Their footsteps crunched and scrunched, but in between them were pockets of silence, thick and heavy and still. Until something broke it. The sound of another pair of boots, somewhere far off.

"H-Hey," she said, timorously. "Did you hear that?"

((Colm Forsyth continued from I've Seen Your Flag on the Marble Arch))

The pair trudged through the snow, which made every step a chore. Not quite so bad as sand, but more arduous than just a stroll on any given spring day. They were headed for the research station. The outdoors and the forrest still looked beautiful in a wintery way that he would have loved during his hikes before. It was a contrast to the ugliness of the situation.

The announcements went off overhead and revealed that Quinn had died, walking into one of the danger zones. It hurt his heart in a way he wasn't prepared for. He'd been with her since he woke up. They'd clashed, yes, but it was someone he'd become familiar with and not all of their time had been tumultuous. He recalled tucking the tag in on her coat and brushing it down so she looked presentable after the first night, and her smiling back. Them shouting roasts at that girl who wouldn't let them in the house. He had a pretty good idea of why she'd done what she'd done -- she seemed like someone with very high standards for herself and wasn't seeing the results she wanted.

It hurt, but he didn't have time for it to hurt right now. They needed to get somewhere safe. They needed to get to the research station. He wanted to cry and break down so badly, but it wasn't the time. Once they got to the station, then he could have the reward of feeling. Colm could treat himself by letting himself feel. The luxury of emotion.

For now, all he could afford was one tear that he quickly wiped away and the bitter, horrible feeling of suppressing the sadness which was even worse than just letting the tears go.

"I heard something," he said, eyes still misty and voice creaking.

Daniel looked back. His gun felt like an anchor in his grasp. He wondered if, whoever was there, they'd trust him to keep the gun lowered, especially now.

"Who's there?" he called into the trees, towards the vague sound of people talking.

Today Daniel found himself regretting the fact that he went out of his way to talk to everyone at least once, all the more people to recognize him on the announcements. However, those relationships were fairly shallow. They'd recognize him, but he wasn't sure how many people would know enough to feel a deep, betrayed revulsion. On some level, his own latent self-interest had, well, served himself.

(Because the announcements, the physical reality, only scratched the surface, didn't it? Everyone knew he pushed Aion and he died. If they could read his mind and find the shock of relief that hit him like a wave when he heard of Amos' suicide shortly after, well. Any doubt that he might not be a bad person would leave them.)

Juanita couldn't place the voice. It was familiar, but the sound didn't attach itself to any particular name or face. Nevertheless, she felt her heartbeat quicken. Her weight shifted a bit, and her fingers tensed around the naginata's shaft. Getting into fight mode, just in case. She obviously didn't want to get into a scrap here. Obviously. Nobody wanted to go around fighting people. She just wanted to make sure she was ready if it came to that. In, like, a totally defensive way. Nothing wrong with that.

"It's Juanita Reid and Colm Forsyth," she called back. "We're not.. you know, looking for a fight or anything."

Was that... a flash of disappointment she felt just then? Nah. No way.

"So, uh... who goes there?"

Juanita Reid, Colm Forsyth. He'd heard both of those names before, on the announcements, Juanita's twice or something. Colm stuck in his mind better, not just for the unusual name, but for the frankly cartoonish death he was involved in. Sorry for phrasing it that way, he guessed. (Daniel was not truly sorry. He was unused to repentance, which is what got him here, wasn't it.)

In this way, all parties were equal.

"Daniel Ozanne," he called into the wind and snow. "I'm not looking for a fight either."

He meant it. He wasn't sure if Juanita did. The possibility was met with a racing heart, the sort of stiffness in his limbs that reminded him of a deer in the headlights.

The mystery noise had originated from Daniel, it seemed. He expressed that he was not hostile. Neither were he and Juanita. The situation seemed stable. At least, stable enough that maybe he might be able to deal with his poor emotional state properly.

"I'm just gonna -- I'll go on ahead to the research station and check it out. Make sure nothin' is lurking about," he said awkwardly, hoping to have a bit of time alone to process the recent news.

"Don't hang around in the forest too long," he warned to both, continuing toward the destination they had been aiming for.

((Colm Forsyth continued in Fever of Stingrays))

Juanita didn't protest when Colm said he wanted to go on ahead. Much as she didn't like the idea of living out the "let's split up, gang!" trope and leaving herself without backup if things went south, she got the distinct feeling he needed to process things on his own. She'd played enough rounds of the blame game in the past six days to know the signs, and the brief window of time they'd spent together hadn't been nearly enough to justify inserting herself into his grieving process. She'd catch up later, give him a bit of time.

"Hey, uh... At the station, there's... some kind of residential area with a bunch of beds and stuff. Meet up there, maybe?" she called after him.

If he replied, she didn't catch it. The wind teased at her hair, and she watched another second or two as the snowflakes swirled in the distance between them.

Well... might as well see what Daniel wanted. If nothing else, it'd be good to get some insights on where he'd been and what he'd seen. Her heart started to thrum again as she turned and spotted him a ways off. Made her feel a bit warmer, despite the cold. She picked her way towards Daniel, using the butt of the naginata to gauge the depth of the snow. Catching her foot on a root would be the death of her out here.

"Hey Daniel," she said, when she was close enough. "We're heading towards the research station," she said, trying to give the impression that Colm was still very much a nearby presence. Just in case he had any ideas. "You could come with us, if you want."

And there she was, Juanita in the flesh. (It only now occurred to Daniel that just flat-out lying about his name might have been an option, as it might have been for her. But with every second thought, more holes began appearing in that idea, so let's just stick with the original plan.)

He let out a shaky breath. The chill was both something he was used to, and something that was beginning to bite through that layer of desensitization anew. The offer was tempting, for the same reasons it had been appealing when he was with Wendy, but.

"I..." He shook his head.

"I can't. Shouldn't," he corrected himself.

The tremors in Daniel's voice wrote patterns in the fog of his breath.

She watched carefully, taking in the look on his face, the way he shook his head. The quick way he corrected himself, and the novel's worth of distinction between "can't" and "shouldn't."

How long had it been since Daniel's name had come up in the announcements? A few hours, maybe? Definitely not long enough to get a handle on the feelings that came from hearing yourself outed as a killer. She'd made a mistake with Colm earlier, assuming guilt and shame that he wasn't properly feeling, but something told her that Daniel wasn't shielded by the same fog of irreverent self-possession.

"Yeah," she said, after a moment of silence. "I know the feeling. Do you... Do you want to talk about it?"

Daniel stood in stunned silence for a moment. Then, he gave Juanita a soft, joyless smile.

"Hah... figured it out already?" The smile took on a hint of a wince. "And here I thought I had a good poker face."

Here was the secret: Daniel was much better at scrutinizing poker faces than forming his own. Maybe it was something about the act of reading deeply and tapping into someone else's mind that left you open in turn. There was no such thing as a one-way connection. That went two ways, unless Juanita played the game better than him. A hunch: Juanita wanted to talk about it, in fact, and this was simply a roundabout way of asking permission.

He gave a moment of silence of his own.

"...yeah." He took a breath in, and raised his hand and glanced away as he composed himself and his words.

Was he ready to talk about himself? What happened back there? Probably not even if you gave him years. Right now, he only had days, hours, maybe even minutes. The answers he gave would have to be dragged out of his mouth kicking and screaming. At the same time, it was eating him up to such an extent that eventually it would become a living death. The last dregs of who he could be would be devoured by the weight of his actual actions. It had already devoured all his scant hope for the future (because it was useless to him anyway).

Juanita indicated she was ready to hear something, at least. Perhaps she was more ready to talk than him. He lowered his hand, and looked back to her. "How much do you want to hear? Do you want to go first, or...?"

"Yeah, sure... I can go."

Juanita had had her first confession at seven years old, with Father O'Hanlon down at the church. She'd had to take classes first, to learn how to do it properly.

Confession, see, was an unburdening of the soul. You have to say all of your sins out loud, because if you didn't admit them then you couldn't repent, and if you couldn't repent you couldn't be properly forgiven. That was the key difference between Catholics and Protestants. Protestants could just sort of prayerfully wave a hand at a big pile of sins and ask Jesus to forgive them all in one go. Catholics had to sort through the pile and hold each sin up one by one, and get absolution for each one in turn.

Juanita had confessed to a lot of things over the years. She'd confessed about punching her brother Dan for doing a mean impression of her. She'd confessed about lying for Pat when he come home drunk one night. She'd confessed about hating the girls who called her a lesbian, and confessed about not being sorry about how much she hated them, and confessed about hating her body and wishing that maybe she was a lesbian because then it all wouldn't seem so unfair. She'd confessed about her leg at least thirty times, about how much she hated being injured and hated what she'd lost and hated God for taking it from her. She confessed about it time and time again, and she prayed devoutly for the pain to go away. And she'd walk out of the confessional feeling pure and clean and better. Sometimes she even hurt less. But the pain always came creeping back, sooner or later, and the hate came right along with it.

So, yeah. Juanita was used to telling her sins to strangers. She'd been doing it for a long time now. And who better to hear them than another murderer? Priests didn't understand. They were pious and pure - or at least, you really had to hope that they were. Father O'Hanlon didn't seem the type to do anything untoward but you never really knew - and they had been in the seminary for years and years. Priests didn't know what it was like in the real world, down here in the trenches where girls made fun of every flaw they could find and boys you didn't know texted you inappropriate requests. Priests didn't have to stand there, haladie in hand, in front of a girl who'd just cut their ear off or a boyfriend who'd just stabbed them in the face, and decide how badly they wanted to live. Nobody outside this island would understand what it was like to be here, making those choices. Nobody ever could.

So she told him the story. Kept it concise because it was cold and she didn't want to stand around shivering all the live long day. Told him how she'd formed the legion to give herself a fighting shot, and how they'd tried to recruit Eden's group and how badly that had gone. Spared him some of the details about Teddie and the tear gas.

"And after that... I ran into my... I guess you could call him my boyfriend. John." She looked down, her hair ruffling in the breeze.

"I tried to get him to join us. I wanted to be with him, but he... he told me that what I done was unforgivable, and that I needed to die." Juanita raised a finger, and pointed at the butterfly bandages on her jawline. "And then he cut me, and I just... without even thinking, I just stabbed him."

"I tried to get back together with the group, but everybody was on edge, and there was a big fight, and... well, you heard the announcement. They said Donovan shot Jack, but that's not entirely true. He was aiming at Crystal, and I hit his hand, trying to knock the gun away. The bullet hit Jack instead. And... that's it, I guess. I ran into Colm, and we've been wandering together ever since. We were looking for Betty Quinn, but... well... you know."

She trailed off into silence. Her pajama pants flapped listlessly against her calves.

"So... yeah. That's me. You... uh... you don't have to share all that if you don't want to. I dunno. I guess I just... I just wanted someone to understand, you know?"

Daniel always wondered what the confessionals at a church were like, on both ends. He'd never been, but he knew his mother had to know the experience. He once asked her what a day at church was like though, and she wrinkled her nose and said he wouldn't like it. She was right, on an intellectual and logical and just generally sensible level. The one thing he had always agreed with mom about was a general belief that "the church", in whatever form it came in, wasn't a necessity for life, or even religion.

Yet, on a baser level, the desire to be seen and heard in prayer and confession remained, and he wasn't sure when it came from. Maybe it came from hearing mom and Genie mutter prayers to some saint to find their car keys, or the times he felt attacked by the heavy weight of his mother's staring, or - worse yet- refusal to look at him, the weight of feeling like he'd done something wrong and really would have liked to be told what it was, and what he needed to do to get rid of that awful pressure.

Because that last part was the most important part of the whole thing, right? You tell the priest how you sinned, and the priest gave you a penance so that you could grow out of it, grow past it. Set you on the track far away from future sins like that, he presumed.

Daniel supposed he was in the priest's place here. He listened, and listened, and listened to Juanita, and tried not to stare at her at some parts. Yet, he failed in the last stretch. He compromised by staring past her. If he were a priest, what penance would he assign? Let's try it one at a time.

Juanita stabbed a past lover for an insult. How resonant. Whatever penance could be applied to her, could theoretically be applied to Daniel for...

...never mind, then.

Daniel refocused his eyes, and nodded. "I get it. I mean, not the specifics but." He drew in a breath, and the chill felt sharp against his throat.

"Aion and I had... a history, too," he trailed off into a mutter, before raising his voice back to a level that could be heard. "We actually first saw each other again on the first day, when..."

He couldn't help but chuckle again, but this too felt hollow and sharp at the same time. "We started fighting again the moment we saw each other and then he got hit by a plate. Amos was there too, and went off with Aion. They..."

Amos' death, as reported by the announcements, played again in his mind. Now the awful relief he felt had been devoured (and took another chunk of him with it).

"...yeah," he spoke quieter than the wind. "Yeah..."

Juanita wasn't sure she understood Daniel's version of events. The announcements described it differently - a rock, not a plate. But they hadn't been super accurate in their retelling of her kills either, so she wasn't exactly going to rule out the idea that the terrorists were jazzing up the violence a bit to try and put the fear into everybody. Either way, she wasn't about to question him.

"When you're in a fight..." she said quietly, "a lot of stuff happens. You get all this adrenaline and all of these other chemicals dumped into you, and parts of your brain just... shut down. And your body just sorta... acts. I don't think a lot of what happens is stuff that you choose, or even stuff that you want. It's just... instinct."

She chose her words as carefully as she could, trying to say something without being direct about it. Trying to tell him what she had been secretly hoping he and Colm would say when she told them her story, which was, "You didn't do anything wrong." Because you couldn't say that outright. You couldn't just tell someone who was feeling like crap that they didn't deserve to feel like crap, because it was the moral equivalent of your mom telling you that you're pretty and all of the people who make fun of you are just jealous. Platitudes made for lousy lifelines, because when you looked at them directly they didn't have any weight or any substance. But if you came at them sideways, and didn't look too carefully, you could cling to them. Just for a little bit.

"That's how it sounds to me, anyway."

"No."

Daniel shook his head, stopped himself, and raised his hands again. "I mean- I get what you're trying to tell me. It kinda was like that, but it also... wasn't. Let me explain, from the very top."

Juanita probably thought she was doing him a favour, offloading his wrongdoing onto his instinct rather than rational thought. She was right, she was horribly, horribly right, and that was the sin. Over and over again in his life, he listened to the basest impulses in the back of his head and tricked himself into thinking he was smart and rational for it.

"Firstly... the plate thing was on the first day of this whole, I dunno, competition? He was the first person I met, and I immediately started snarking at him, he started sniping back..." he sighed, feeling his self-respect shrivel up. It felt self-indulgent in the moment and it felt flat-out embarrassing now, like god, people were watching him in this death game dig up petty old arguments for no good reason other than he thought it would make him feel better, what the fuck was that, Daniel?

"But then the girl who was having a freakout in a nearby building threw a plate and it smashed right on Aion's head. The wound bled a lot, but it wasn't so bad, especially-" Daniel's breath caught. "-especially with..."

In the moment it took him to trail back into his story, he decided to omit his gift of bandages. It meant nothing in the face of what he eventually did, after all.

"...with Amos looking after him for all those days," he spoke softly. "Yesterday I saw them again. Amos and Aion. I was traveling with Wendy then, and I approached them because- god." He pressed his palm against his forehead, and looked away from Juanita. "I wanted to- I dunno, make it up to Aion? Finally work things out with him before we both died? But I just said so much stupid shit, it didn't do anything and he said- he said-"

Maybe Daniel wasn't actually that good at reading people, if he didn't notice Aion's love before it faded away. He lowered his head, and covered his eyes with his hands. "Fuck, fuck..."

The confessional required you to say everything, no matter how hard, and so the words were torn out. "He said he actually really like- you know... was- god I can't- it's so fucked up knowing what I did, he- he said he loved me once. And I only thought of him as... a one-night at best and an enemy at worst, god, fuck. And then..."