Survival Of The Fittest

((Elodie Hailey continued from Fearsome Critters))

Elodie had been in a haze on and off since Olive’s passing. She’d tried her best to bury her with both bare hands, and now she was hidden under a layer of snow. Afterwards, Elodie hid herself away inside a tent of her own making. It wasn’t hard to make. She’d leaned a branch into the fork of a tree, and used long pine leaves to tie other sticks to it as a frame. Then, she draped the crinkly blanket over it, before using extra foliage she found as a way of hiding it a bit better and adding a bit more warmth. Then, a bit of snow, to keep it more hidden.

She’d tested it once it was complete. Pretty warm, pretty hidden, pretty sturdy. Her own little fort. She giggled when she wasn’t feeling hazed.

She was used to surviving.

She was used to people leaving her life in some way or another.

Just like her teachers. Just like Millie. Just like Olive.

Elodie was always scared to get to know people. One day, they’d promise you the world, and then you’d have to move away, and they never say anything to you again. It happens. She was used to moving around everywhere. So sure, she was friendly, and she did like having people. She didn’t like making enemies, since people were… well, they were useful. Did that sound manipulative? A little. But like… you don’t want to make enemies, and people knew things and had resources, that you didn’t. And when she knew Trisha wasn’t going to abandon her and Bridgette like everyone else, it hurt to open up, because… because…

It could happen again. It always happens.

She smiled during the Natural History Club meetings, as she brought homemade bread and watched movies with them. She enjoyed getting to know her coworkers and the regulars at the witchcraft shop she worked at. She loved being a chaotic little goblin.

But it happens. They leave your life, and you don’t know what to do. So you prepare for what happens if they do.

This time, though, it was different.

They didn’t die. Not usually.

She only kinda remembered her birth parents? But she knew what happened to them. It was an electrical fire and Bridgette… she saved her. She was so small, and Bridgette, only a bit older, managed to grab her. But she couldn’t save everyone because they were so small. And that defined their entire life, and that’s ultimately why she was here.

Ah! Elodie had actually talked with her therapist about this. Abandonment issues? That was what it was, wasn’t it? Yeah, that’s what she’d describe it as.

She missed Millie and Olive. She knew Olive wanted to learn how to drive, and that’s why she was so keen on the snowmobile plan. It was funny that was how she went out. Er, not funny in that funny-haha way, but you know.

That’s why she kept the snowmobile. It’d been parked nearby, but she made sure to keep it off to the side and to keep an eye on her keys. And, uh, she took some of her other stuff as well. It felt weird and kinda slimy, but, well, made sense, right?

Elodie had used a spare bottle to make pine needle tea. Pine needles were edible, in fact, they were good for vitamin C, and that’s a great thing because of scurvy. She admired pirates, but she didn’t want to die like one. But she filled up the bottle with some of the top layer snow that had fallen, away from any roads or where animals did their business. She had a fire going earlier, but the snowfall had gotten so intense that it had gone out. But it did warm things up a little bit when she placed the bottle near the fire.

Hey, do you want to know a story Elodie always hated? The Little Match Girl. It was the one where the little girl who was unable to sell matches, but wasn’t able to go home because her father was abusive. So she’d light the match, and she’d see wonderful visions. More and more matches, until there weren’t any more and she froze to death. But it’s okay, she’s in Heaven with her grandma now, yay! Gah. The thing is, it clearly denounced child abuse and abandonment and being in terrible situations, yeah, but like, for some reason people found it inspirational? And yet, she knew they didn’t care about little girls dying in the snow. It wasn’t like, she just guessed, she knew for a fact. Sometimes people looked over things they didn’t want to see, like homeless people.

She liked that part of The Hogfather for a reason.

Anyways! Her tea was bitter, but it stayed warm for a while, and it was extra nutrient. She still had some leftovers, as she curled up inside her little tent. Her– Olive’s– snowmobile was parked nearby, in case someone wanted to do something.

But nobody had come, and maybe that was a blessing. Maybe.

((Jacob Lang continued from Mutilated Lips))

It wasn't long before that peace would be interrupted by the arrival of footsteps awkwardly stumbling through the snow. Jacob had barely slept since his tantrum the previous night, and any catharsis he may have received from the event had since evaporated. All that was left was for him to continue onward, alone with no company other than his wandering thoughts. In other words, business as usual... well, almost. It wasn't that he wasn't used to being by himself, but with no entertainment to distract himself, the weight of the feeling had gone from annoying to downright crushing. Depression, he could handle, but depression paired with boredom was near unbearable.

He sighed, muttering a few curse words to himself as he gave the snow another kick. All he wanted was something, anything to take his mind of how useless he was. Nothing had gone his way the whole damn time he had been on this island, and it didn't seem like that would change any time soon. It was all so tiresome. All he wanted was to have some impact on the world around him, rather than just being an annoying gnat buzzing around the heads of his much stronger and better armed classmates. His entire existence felt pointless. If he dropped dead right now, absolutely nobody on this island would be affected, or even really care, most likely. Could he really blame them? He hadn't given them much reason at all to care, and he had almost certainly missed the one chance to turn things around by showing up for whatever Valentin had planned for an escape attempt.

This pity party would likely have continued indefinitely had Jacob not suddenly been distracted by the sight of a neat little campsite, complete with fire, as well as another exciting discovery - a snowmobile parked seemingly in the middle of nowhere. It didn't look abandoned either, or at least not for long, which was a surprise. He would have expected all vehicles on this rock to have been preemptively disabled long ago, but then again, it wasn't like anyone would have been able to use it to escape. As awesome as it would have been to score such a valuable prize himself, he had a feeling that whoever was in the tent over there wouldn't make that easy. Might as well head on over and see how true that was. There wasn't much point in being overly cautious. He doubted that they'd just shoot him on sight, but after all this time, the thought of death wasn't nearly as unappealing an option as it had been at the beginning of the week. He coughed into his sleeve before calling out towards the tent.

"Hey, anyone in there? Or have you already frozen to death?"

A beat.

A bit of shuffling from within the tent.

And Elodie peeked out, her hand peeling aside a bit of the blanket she had used. She was on her knees, but her other hand was close to the pocket where she kept her shank.

‘Not yet! Sorry!’ she called out, smiling.

She looked Jacob over. He… was a bit of an untrustworthy type back at school, she remembered. They never really talked, but she’d heard stories. Did he kill anyone? Elodie tried to remember. It felt like his name was on an announcement.

Jacob watched inquisitively as Elodie popped her head out of the tent. It was a reassuring sight - not because they were friends or anything, however. There were a few reasons: she always seemed pretty nice, and as far as he knew, she hadn't killed anyone here. The most important factor, though, was that she was perhaps one of the few kids in his class that at least appeared to be smaller and weaker than he was. That of course wasn't enough to give him the ability to take whatever he wanted, since he wasn't sure what her weapon was, but at least it was some nice insurance.

He took a few steps forward, hands in his jacket pockets, his right gripping tightly to the handle of the knife he had hidden there. There was no hurry to close the gap between them, especially since he still hadn't fully scoped out the extent of the situation. He still didn't know exactly what he wanted to do here, but at the very least it was comforting to know that there wasn't much chance of him coming out worse from this than he went in. Jacob returned her smile, the expression feeling fake and hollow to him, even more so than usual. There wasn't really much he could think to say in response, so he figured he'd change the subject a little.

"Pretty nice setup you've got here, did you put this together all by yourself?"

“Yeah, I did. I kinda have experience.”

Elodie smiled and laughed some, but still felt tense.

You know, it’s a common threat. Oh, your kids are cute, shame if something happened. Oh, what a nice car, I hope it doesn’t crash. Oh, what a nice campsite! It’d be lucky if no one raided it.

A little paranoid? Yeah, to be honest. But sometimes, a little paranoia is healthy? Sometimes, at least. But still. Still! She kinda realized that he was possibly also trying to figure out if she was alone.

She didn’t want to make enemies, though. Sometimes that was healthy too.

Elodie picked up the bottle.

“Want some? It’s pine needle tea. Kinda weird sounding, I know, but it’s full of vitamin C.”

((Juanita Reid continued from I Suppose You Were The Victim, I Suspect You May Have Lied))

Colm's footprints had led Juanita into the forest, but between the snowfall and the winds, she eventually lost the trail. Didn't help that she'd also been taking it slow and paging through the shotgun's manual while she walked, trying to learn all the ins and outs of the gun she'd been unexpectedly gifted. The manual, it had to be said, hadn't been much help. What kind of cruddy weapon was this? Had the terrorists just crafted this thing as a joke? "Ha ha, here, have a gun that punches you in the face when you fire it!"

Jerks.

Eventually she'd given up on the reading and stuffed the manual back into her pocket - formerly Fred's pocket. She thought she was finally heading in the right direction, but it was slow going and the forest was trickier to navigate than it looked. Didn't help that the gun was so heavy. She'd slung Daniel's bag across her back with the gun inside. Wouldn't be easily reachable in an ambush, but with all these trees around she'd probably wind up blowing a hole in one of them; she'd most likely give herself a pile of splinters and a dislocated shoulder while her enemy ran away scot-free.

The terrorist weren't just jerks. They were major jerks.

Juanita hazarded a glance upward. It was, what, late afternoon? Hard to say if she'd even reach the station by nightfall at this rate. But there really wasn't a better option. Wasn't like she could spend the night out in the snow. She continued trudging through the, using the naginata as a walking stick, poking it into suspicious patches of snow to make sure there wasn't anything to trip her up.

She'd have walked right on by the tent in the trees if she hadn't heard voices.

People were out here? Talking? Maybe they knew a path out of here, or somewhere with walls and a roof where she could stay warm until morning. Leaving Colm on his own that long wasn't ideal, but he'd probably prefer that she show up with all of her extremities intact.

"Um... H-Hello? Is somebody out there?"

Elodie flinched for a moment. The tea sloshed around in the bottle as she quickly set it down. Her hand moved to the shank inside her pocket.

“Shhhh… hear that?” she whispered.

She looked around herself.

Elodie contemplated responding. On one hand, she had no idea who it was. If it was one of the people on the announcement, they could easily just walk by if they felt no one was there. On the other…

She had to take a moment to think.

Then, she saw a shadow approach from the direction it came from. Elodie slid out of the tent, standing and putting herself out of a less vulnerable position. In hindsight, it would have been risky with Jacob there and her inside the tent.

“Here.”

Pine needle tea? Was that some sort of euphemism for gin? Before Jacob even realized what was happening, he found himself reaching out to accept the girl's gift. Whatever it was, the realization that his reputation had not yet preceded him here made the offer too enticing to pass up.

Unfortunately for him, however, his curiosity was not going to be satisfied. His head shot up at the realization that, just like that, whatever power he may have held over Elodie had evaporated. The only advantage he really had was that, as weak as he was, if he wanted to take something from her, he could. That was no longer on the table - no matter what the intentions of the person arriving were, the fact remained that they had complicated things beyond repair.

Damn it. Why couldn't something go his way for once? Like... it wasn't that he had certainly planned on doing anything in particular to Elodie, but... Normally he'd stick around to see how things went, but right now, he just didn't have the energy. His entire body ached from lack of sleep, and his mind was way too foggy to do anything in particular. He quickly glanced over at Elodie and let out an embarrassed, "Uh, I'll be right back," before heading back out into the woods.

Maybe he would go back. Maybe he wouldn't. At this point, it was impossible to tell, even to him, and he didn't really care. He was just done with dealing with all this.

((Jacob Lang continued in The Golden Eel))

To Juanita's surprise, someone emerged from what looked like a rather unassuming patch of forest. That small girl with the bushy hair. What was her name? Melanie? Melody? No, it was something... Elodie! That was it. Juanita vaguely remembered thinking that she was weird, but didn't really have a specific memory to tie it to, it was more of a free-floating association than anything else. Juanita blinked, and peered at where she'd come from. Was that... a makeshift tent? Clever. She'd have passed right by it if she hadn't heard the voices. Which... come to think of it, who was the second one? Where was the second one?

Both questions were soon answered as she took another step closer, and saw boy that she didn't really recognize. He had a weird, depressive air about him, and instead of acknowledging her he just turned tail and left. She really wasn't sure what to make of that, and couldn't really guess at what might have been going on before she arrived.

"Sorry, didn't mean to intrude on you and your friend, or anything," she said to Elodie. "I'm just passing through, on my way to the research station. Guess I got a bit turned around. It's hard to read a map in a snowstorm, you know? Speaking of... if you've been here a while, have you seen Colm Forsyth at all? Big guy, built like a fridge. Has really dark red hair."

Jacob ran for it, very abruptly. Kind of figured, but eh. Was she relieved? A little, but–

Now she had to contend with Juanita. She didn't remember if Jacob was on the announcements, but Juanita? She definitely remembered. Multiple times, if she recalled correctly.

Her heart pounded. But she remembered one thing.

Don’t let them see you are afraid.

So she smiled.

“Ah, I haven’t seen him.”

Research station, huh?

She touched the shiv in her pocket in thought.

“Friend of yours, right? Or other business.”

At the same time, she eyed the snowmobile in the corner of her vision. It wouldn’t take long to run for it. Turning it on would be tricky, but she did have something of an escape route.

Juanita pondered the question, probably longer than she needed to. What was Colm to her, exactly? Not a friend, not even really an acquaintance that she could say that she liked much - every time she talked to him, she invariably felt that her reply was wrong. Like his half of the conversation was all inside jokes that made perfect sense to him but made her responses come out like gibberish. He was just... someone who was there, when nobody else was. Someone who didn't want to kill her. Out here, you couldn't really ask for a closer relationship than that, could you? Besides, she had... well, she'd seen that, and that was more than she'd seen of any other guy, so, that had to count for something.

"I guess you could say we're friends. Companions. We got separated, but we're going to meet up at the research station. I've... heh... got a bit of a bum leg, so I kinda got left behind. I, uh... I don't suppose it'd be okay if I could just sit in your shelter for a little bit and warm up? It's really cold out here, and just want to get a little life in me before I try and tackle the rest of the hike up there..."

Elodie was… hesitant.

She had an idea of what Juanita was capable of. She knew she was a killer. And, uh… how do you put this…

Okay, so, her abandonment issues were still kinda a thing. Jacob ran off before they could be an issue, but like, it was hard enough losing Olive and Millie. She still remembered how helpless she felt, how difficult things were.

Big, strong hands. Small, weak, helpless hands.

Don’t let them see you are afraid, another quote echoed in her head.

She then thought again of the Little Match Girl. How people would think a little girl dying alone in the snow was somehow inspirational and wholesome.

Elodie clapped her hands and smiled. She made a decision.

“Sure.”

It was a risky decision for all sorts of reasons. But, well, her heart won out. She’d keep an eye on Juanita, of course. But, she wasn’t going to be the one to come across the corpse later and go ‘oh no how sad.’

Juanita smiled with relief. "Thanks, you're a lifesaver." She was only mildly exaggerating there; people had frozen to death out here already. And between the additional weight of the gun and the strain she'd put on herself while fighting Fred, she was feeling pretty wiped out. She wouldn't be able to stay long if she wanted to reach the research station by nightfall, but taking a load off for a few minutes would be worth it.

She approached the makeshift tent, her eyes widening as she took in the full scope of it. "Whoa, this is incredible." Juanita and her brothers had spent a lot of their formative years building forts - because what was the point of even having siblings if you couldn't build tiny dwellings out of sticks and deny them access? - but the Reid kids had never built anything that had this innate competence to it.

She ducked her head a bit to see fully inside. Looked like Elodie was doing pretty well for herself. "Have you been sleeping out here and everything? I'm way too chicken to sleep out in the woods. Guess that's what I get for watching the Blair Witch when I was a kid, heh..."

The little laugh she tacked on at the end came out artificial, sounding forced. And in a way, it was. It felt kind of silly to talk about being afraid of made-up movie monsters, given the circumstances. Especially since she was standing there wearing clothes crusted with the freeze-dried blood of the last two people she'd run into. With any luck, Elodie would take it as dorky rather than sociopathic.

“Yeah, I have. Thank you.”

Elodie kind of laughed a bit, but kept her eyes on the frozen blood on her clothes. It was only a visual reminder of the risk she took. It could have been Juanita’s own, but… you know.

“I mean, I remember that part I watched with my big sister? Bridgette, you might have met her, she graduated. It’s the part where like… the one guy goes missing, and then they hear his screaming in the woods in the middle of the night. But they also find his teeth and hair before that, so…”

Was it really a good idea to talk about scary movies in this situation? Maybe.

“I guess that’s a reason why you should be careful in the woods.”

She forced out another laugh again.

Her eyes were still on the blood. Her hand was still close to the shank. She had two sets of keys. One was to the snowmobile, the other... reminded her of Trisha. It was the key to back home. Both were nearby the shank. She could easily pull out the snowmobile keys in a heartbeat.

“Uh… you got something on you, by the way.”

She tried to stay casual. Don't let them see you are afraid.

Juanita had never been a very good liar. Her brothers had all been fairly decent at it - Jeremy had been known to date multiple girls at a time, Dan had a tattoo that their parents still didn't know about, and nobody except Juanita had figured out yet that Pat was gay - but Juanita just didn't have the knack. Saying something that wasn't true was hard, and acting like you believed it was even harder.

So, when Elodie pointed out the blood on her sweater, Juanita couldn't really do much except look down at it with some measure of surprise. The spatter didn't look entirely fresh, so she might be able to get away with a little fib here. Maybe.

"Oh... yeah." She adopted a downcast look, picturing the awkward way she'd had to yank the sweater off of Fred's limp body. "I... I took it off a body in the woods. I know it's kinda sketchy, but it's freezing out here and I just needed to warm up a bit, you know?"

There. Good. Not technically a lie. It was freezing, and she had taken it off of a body. Just... you know... a body that had been walking and talking before she came along.

But then it abruptly occurred to Juanita that she might still have blood on her face. Crap. See, this right here? This was why she didn't lie. Well, no. She didn't lie because lying was a sin. But the other reason she didn't lie was that there were always too many little details to keep track of. It was too easy to get tripped up.

"So... um... You were saying you watched horror movies with your sister? Heh, I always watched with my older brothers. We weren't supposed to watch scary stuff, but my brother Dan used to stay up and after everybody else went to bed we'd hang out in the living room and watch all kinds of movies. We usually watched with the sound off so we wouldn't wake anybody else up, so we'd watch it with the subtitles on..."

She was rambling now. Was that suspicious? It felt suspicious. Whenever she played Among Us she did the same thing, babbling on about what tasks she'd been doing to try and seem innocent, even when she wasn't an imposter. That kind of thing had gotten her voted out more times than she could count.

"Anyway, if you've been out here for a while, do you like... know where we are? I've been trying to get to the research station to meet up with Colm. He's been having a pretty rough day, emotionally, and if I can't get my bearings it's gonna take me hours to find him in all this snow..."