Survival Of The Fittest

((Karin Han continued from Houston, We Have a Problem))

Karin ran. Most of her scenes seemed to start or end that way, which said an awful lot about her life choices.

She wasn't specifically running away from Julia - even someone as arbitrary as her wouldn't just decide to suddenly pursue Karin and shoot her in the back after giving her a gun and telling her to get the hell outta Dodge. No, she was running because she wanted to be someone that wasn't here, somewhere without smug-ass corpses and soppy naïve thickwits. Somewhere nice and snug and dark, where she could hole up and ride out the last few days of the game. They were well past the halfway point already, and there was only so much island left for the prey to avoid the predators. When Dani and her crew had come knocking, she hadn't had the tools to fend them off. But now that she had this, it was a whole different ball game.

Yeah, that would work. Hole up somewhere defensible and pump lead into anybody who came knocking. Let the bigger fish pick themselves off, and then emerge from hiding and mop up the wounded stragglers. Solid plan. Simple. Efficient. Might even have worked, too, if her leg hadn't abruptly plunged into a small, narrow hole.

Karin's foot rocketed downwards while her momentum carried her forward. Her tibia and fibula snapped in half with an audible crack, like a pair of disposable chopsticks. Karin pitched forward, arms outstretched. Her chin hit the ground first, the snow doing little to cushion the blow that rattled her teeth and sent her sunglasses spinning off somewhere into the interminable white. Her elbows hit next, one-two, and she lost her grip on the gun.

For a half second, everything was okay. A crescent of hot marks and a metallic tang told her that she'd bitten deeply into her tongue in the fall, but that wasn't so bad, but then she looked back and she didn't feel her tongue or anything because oh fuck, what was wrong with her leg, why was it at that angle? Then every exposed nerve and shredded muscle fiber lit up all at once and she was howling and her leg, oh fuck, her leg, oh shit, oh fuck, and her foot, there was something in her foot, stabbed right through it and she could feel the blood leaking down around her toes and fuck shit fuck it hurt, and oh fuck, oh fuck, her leg, and-

Everything went dark. She slumped down into the snow, unconscious. Small ice crystals spilled into her ear and her eyelid, grating against her sclera. She didn't feel any of it.

Scene 1
NARRATOR
One of the most critical aspects of any production is the table read. That's the part where the actors come in and do a full read-through of the script in front of the director, the writers, and the executives. This process allows the directors to give feedback to the actors, and for the writers to see how their dialogue sounds so that they can make necessary revisions. By this point, the show will have been mostly, if not entirely, cast.


NARRATOR
As the actors being paging through the scripts and making note of the stage directions, they begin mentally rehearsing the way that their lines will be delivered, taking each scene both individually and in the broader context of the whole production. It may seem simple from the outside, but it's a long and complicated process. And, of course... it helps if you show up on time.

[KARIN enters, limping heavily]

KARIN
Um... hello? I'm Karin Han. I was told to come here, but I don't know what role I'm-

DIRECTOR
Sit down and take your script.

[KARIN sits and picks up her script]
DIRECTOR
Who are you?

KARIN
Karin Han?

DIRECTOR
[Exasperated] No, who are you, in the script?

KARIN
Um... It says here I'm "Normal Girl."

[The actor playing DAD raises his hand]

DAD
Excuse me? I think there's a typo in my script. Karin Han isn't "Normal Girl" here.

DIRECTOR
She's not? Then who is she?

DAD
It says here that she's playing Problem Child.

NARRATOR
Karin Han was surprised. Her script clearly said "Normal Girl," plain as day. So why was Dad under the impression that she was Problem Child? She leaned over in her chair and snuck a glance at his script. Dad's copy was the exact same as hers, with the exact same blocking and dialogue. The only difference between their copies was how the roles were described. In Karin's script, she was Normal Girl. In Dad's, she was Problem Child.

KARIN
What the heck is up with this script?

DIRECTOR
That's not your line.

KARIN
Fine, fine. Um... Okay. Here goes. Am I playing Normal Girl, or am I playing Problem Child?

DIRECTOR
Both.

KARIN
How can I be both?

DIRECTOR
You're playing the Normal Girl, in your script. But according to Dad's script, you're playing the role of Problem Child. So in all of his scenes, that's who you'll be.

NARRATOR
Karin was dumbfounded. What kind of nouveau avant-garde post-modern baloney was this? She couldn't be playing both roles at once. She could only play Normal Girl, regardless of what Dad's script said. If he thought she was playing Problem Child, then he'd have to just deal with it.

MOM
Um, excuse me? My script doesn't say that Karin is playing Normal Girl either.

DIRECTOR
Oh?

MOM
But, umm, it also doesn't say that she's Problem Child. Mine says that she's... Ever Present Shame.

CHARLOTTE
[Obsequiously] Mine lists her as Obnoxious Bratty Sibling.

SOO-BIN
[Very quietly] Mine says she's "Frien-"

SCHOOLMATE
[Interrupting SOO-BIN] Mine just says "Crazy Girl."

[Several SCHOOLMATE actors nod in agreement]

TEACHER
So does mine.

JULIA
Mine says "Bitch."

CHORUS [Spoken by BEATRICE, KAREN, VICTOR, NORBERT, MAYA, DANIEL, WENDY, EVIE, FITZ, DANI, and KAEDE]
So does mine.

CHORUS [Spoken by ASHLEE and SHANNON]
Ours say "Murderer."

JOSH
Mine says "Plaything."

ALIENS
Ours too.

KARIN
But... But mine doesn't say any of those things. How am I supposed to appear in these scenes as Problem Child and Bratty Sibling and Bitch and Murderer and Plaything all at the same time?

DIRECTOR
You don't. You just play Normal Girl. Everybody else will react to you like you're Problem Child, or Bitch, or whatever.

KARIN
Even if I'm not actually being Bitch in that scene?

DIRECTOR
You're Bitch in every scene, honey.

KARIN
No, look. My version of the script just says that I'm a normal girl, that I'm carrying some trauma, and I don't know how to process it, and -

DAD
There's a second role listed here. It says here that Karin Han is playing the role of Liar.

KARIN
What?

DIRECTOR
Don't worry. It's a passive role. Liner notes. It just means that the other characters in the scene will treat whatever you say like it's a lie.

KARIN
But, look. Look at all these scenes. A lot of this stuff actually happens to Karin. That means it's not a lie.

DIRECTOR
[Clearing his throat] Does anyone else have Karin Han playing the role of Liar?

[Everyone in the room except Karin looks at their script for a second, and then raises their hand]

KARIN
But that's not the role I wanted to play!

DIRECTOR
Sweetie, that's the role you were born to play.

Scene 2

Karin opened her eyes. The sun was lower than it had been. Everything was cold. Everything hurt. There was a fine dusting of snow all over her, where it had fallen on her motionless body and settled there.

Her leg was on fire. She couldn't feel the blood in her sock anymore. What little feeling she had left in her toes told her that they were touching something hard and slippery. The blood had iced over.

She had to get out of here. She'd freeze to death. That meant she'd have to pull her leg free. It wouldn't be an easy task, it'd hurt like hell, but... she'd have to tough it out... she couldn't just die here. She couldn't move the ankle, so she tried moving her knee, and fireworks exploded across her vision.

Everything went black again.

Scene 3

In South Korea they had this concept called insang. Karin was only passingly familiar with it - her mother wasn't exactly a fan of her South Korean heritage and had gone out of her way not to teach it to her daughters lest it somehow make them less American - but the word roughly translated to "appearance" or "impression." The general gist of it was that there was some way of divining a person's character by the first impression that they created when you looked at them. So you'd look at the way that their facial features sit on their face, the symmetry of them, and all that, and then you'd just know their general vibe. Good insang, probably a good person. Bad insang, probably a bad person.

When Karin was five years old, some of her great aunts had come to visit from Busan. She remembered them as a vague cacophony of wrinkles and floral prints, fussing over every little thing and chattering and laughing away in their native language. They'd all spoken Korean, which Karin didn't know a word of, but their animated gestures and intonations had gotten the message across quite clearly. She and Charlotte had been called into the kitchen to introduce themselves. Karin had come later, because she'd been in the middle of coloring a very important picture.

She never forgot walking into the kitchen and seeing how the great aunts were cooing and fawning over Charlotte. They were simply enamored with her, stroking her hair and taking strands of it between her fingers to show its glossiness to the others, as though it was some precious substance that they'd just discovered. Their faces were wreathed in smiles as they beheld her in her neatly pressed clothing and her angelic politeness, and they nodded approvingly to one another. Ah yes, their body language said, this is a perfect child, a shining example of all that we hold dear. She is beautiful, she is polite, she is charming. We adore her.

But then they spotted Karin. There were no bright smiles, and certainly no attempts to mess with her hair. They looked at her curiously. Then they looked at Charlotte. Then they looked back at her. Heads tilted this way and that, lips pursed, eyes narrowed; they were collectively trying to understand how the same genetic pool could have produced both this and that. The word insang was uttered in the same way that Catholics might desperately intone the name of God when beholding the fearful visage of Satan himself. When they spoke to one another, they did it in asides, turning their mouths towards one another while their eyes stayed locked on Karin - as if they were afraid to let her out of their sight. Karin's mother had gently tugged her out of the room, and suggested that she go back and finish coloring. Before the door closed and shut off the sound, Karin could hear her speaking sternly to the aunts.

They didn't come visit again.

Scene 4

The world slowly came back into focus. Her teeth chattered. It was so cold. She couldn't feel anything, except when she moved, and then she could feel pain in the space between where the body part had been and where it was now. Like the cold was just sitting there, tail twitching, only bothering to pounce when she put up a struggle.

It was darker, now. Sunset came early. Or was everything just getting dark? Hard to tell.

Scene 5

There's a character type called the Asshole Victim. You can look it up on TvTropes. The Asshole Victim shows up in pretty much every horror movie, every thriller, every action-y type film that has any kind of respectable body count. That character is usually the first one to bite it.

Probably the trope codifier would be that lawyer guy in Jurassic Park. You know, the one who gets eaten after the T-Rex breaks out and wrecks the Jeep, and he abandons the children to go hide in the toilets. Now, the film doesn't tell you much about the lawyer. The book doesn't either. They don't tell you that he's cheating on his wife, or that he's screwing John Hammond with unnecessary legal fees, or that he's a Republican. For all you know, he's a decent guy - inasmuch as a corporate lawyer ever can be. All you really see of the guy is him running for his life when a Tyrannosaurus Rex shows up, and getting munched. But because he abandoned some kids at the first sign of danger, he's an asshole. So you watch Rexy gobble him down for a cheat meal, it doesn't come off as unfair or undeserved. He was a coward, so you figure he deserved it. Just desserts, in more ways than one.

So, here's a question. Who's villain there? The lawyer? Ehhhhh, maybe. He's a coward and he's kinda selfish, but he's not really evil there. He's running away from an apex predator, which is objectively the smart thing to do. It's the reason God made prey animals fast runners. And, sure, he abandons the kids, but those kids are annoying as hell, and let's not forget that airplane safety demonstrations always remind you that you should put on your own oxygen mask before putting one on the guy beside you. Lawyer guy was just following proper safety protocol, can't call him evil for that.

Okay, well, maybe Rexy's the villain? Nah. Rexy's an animal. She's just doing what animals do. Animals see food, and they eat it. They aren't evil, any more than the kids would be evil for not being eaten if Rexy failed to catch them and subsequently staved to death. Rexy's acting on instinct, you can't really say that she's making a moral judgement there.

Then how about the kids? Maybe they're the villains? Don't be an idiot. They're just sitting there in the wrecked Jeep trying not to die.

No, the real villain there is you. You, the audience member. Because you just watched the guy get pulverized by teeth a foot long, and presumably get swallowed whole to suffocate or choke to death on stomach acid, and you thought to yourself, "Yeah, that guy had it coming." What happens to that guy is horrible. It's an incredibly nightmarish way to die. But, hey. He's an asshole. So you think he deserves it. There's only one person there who's not having an appropriate human response, and it's you. You probably even laughed at that "just desserts" joke, too. Well, maybe not laughed. But you definitely did that thing where a little puff of air comes out of your nose when you're mildly amused. Don't pretend you didn't, that joke was solid.

Anyway, the point is, you had that reaction. You thought that monstrous thing. But you don't feel like the villain. You didn't wish that fate on the guy, or anything. You just saw it happening, and you approved of it. That's not a crime, is it? It's just... you know, a thing that happens. When bad stuff happens to bad people, you don't think of it as a bad thing. You'd probably feel a lot different if it was one of the kids getting slurped down like a meatball (Or maybe you wouldn't. Those kids are super annoying). But because it's happening to the asshole, it just feels kinda karmic. And that's the crux of this whole thing. Bad things are less bad when they're happening to bad people. And if someone is enough of an asshole, you could do literally anything to them, no matter how awful, and still come out of it looking like the good guy.

I feel bad for the lawyer guy. I think what happened to him is bad. I'm probably the only one who does.

Because I'm an asshole, too.

- Karin Han, posted on r/movies circa 2015. The post has far more downvotes than upvotes

Scene 6

Karin entered her house, her leg dragging behind her and leaving shards of bone and frozen blood in its wake. Her mom was in the kitchen, bustling around. Her dad was sitting at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper. It was held up in front of his face, so that Karin couldn't see him.

"Mom? Dad? I'm home."

Mom turned around and looked at her. "Wash your hands before dinner. And don't go tracking all that mess on the carpet. I've just vacuumed."

Karin shuffled awkwardly. "Aren't you... Haven't you been worried about me? Haven't you... missed me at all?"

The paper rustled a bit, and Karin could see her father's shoulders register an impassive shrug. The headline on the paper read "John Endecott Students Killed In Bus Crash" in big black letters.

Karin tried to swallow the lump that was forming in her throat. "It's... It's been nine days. I've been gone for nine days."

Silence. Then, from behind the paper, her father opines, "Charlotte would have won and been home by now."

Tears start to run down Karin's cheeks. "I tried, Dad... I tried my best, but I... I got beat up... I got robbed, and I got molested, and... and everyone hates me, and... I... I killed people, and now... I'm all alone, and my leg is broken. I'm... I'm f-freezing, and I'm really scared. H-Help me... Please..."

Was the room getting taller, or was Karin shrinking?

"Mom..." Karin pleaded, her voice getting faint. "Please..."

Mom turned around. The look in her eyes pierced Karin through the heart. "...It's better this way."

Scene 7

"Help me," she mumbled, through frozen lips. It was very dark now. How much time had passed while she was fading in and out of consciousness, she really couldn't say. It felt like forever.

She could barely remember anything that hadn't been cold. Anything that hadn't been pain.

"Help... me..."

"-elieve that she killed her fucking sister! Like, we know she's a fucking psychopath, but, like, your own sister?"

It had been one hell of an announcement for Matthew Bell. After leaving that bar, they'd holed up for the night in a house just across the road, waiting for the morning to come so they could figure out what the hell they were gonna do next. The announcement had given them a good idea: Katelyn was going to be up at the base or whatever this thing was to receive her award for murdering her sister like the little psycho she was. So off to the base they were going.

Except, given the weather and how last time they'd taken the roads both of them had nearly died, him and Shawn had opted to take a path off the road this time. Sure, it was slower, but it was safer. Plus, they weren't too far from the roads, so if there was any shit happening there, they should be able to see what was going on and intervene if needed. It was slow progress, but they'd probably reach the base by night. Or well, what was normally night, given this place was in the ass end of nowhere and the sun set a few seconds after it rose.

Scowling at his nemesis' actions, Matthew's flashlight beamed into the rapidly encroaching darkness, lighting up the trees and snow that their feet crunched into. Couldn't be far now, yeah? They'd been walking a while. "Hey, Sh-" Matthew began, probably about to ask some random small talk question, just enough to keep his mind occupied, when he heard something. A voice. Quiet, desperate, barely audible over the crunching of feet, but it was there. He couldn't tell who it belonged to, but it was someone who needed help.

Rushing over, he could still see in the faint light that it was a girl lying on her front. Her leg was sorta stuck in something, but he couldn't really tell what. So, up came the flashlight he was holding, examining her leg first.

"Oh, Jesus." Matthew whispered, his light illuminating whatever the girl had fallen into. A hole, one that looked almost deliberately dug. There was a stake in it or something that had gone right through her foot, and that wasn't even talking about her leg. It looked like it had been broken really fucking badly, like someone had straightened it out and taken a fucking sledgehammer to it. Holy fucking shit, he was almost glad the sun had gone down so he could just flash the light away. The girl's face was sorta buried in the snow a little, but as his light flashed over it, what he could see identified her... well enough, anyway.

Karin Han. Killer of two people.

"Hey, Shawn! Come over here!"

"I know, right? First Lucio, and now this... Thank Christ I'm an only child" replied-

((Shawn Bellamy continued from Speechcraft))

-following behind in Matthew's shadow, periodically scanning the ground with his flashlight before shining it ahead of them.

It wasn't his idea to take this route. Hell he wasn't all that keen on going after Katelyn to begin with, her recent award proving to be somewhat inconvenient. He was more than happy to let her continue doing her thing, whittling away the competition until the game had taken its toll on her. Let her tire herself out first, wait until she was too spent to continue or put up much of a fight, before finally putting her down.

Shawn kept these thoughts close to his chest, of course. But he did try to steer them towards taking the road, arguing that if they wanted to catch her before she collected her prize, then they needed to take the most expedient path available. Matthew didn't seem keen on the idea though, citing their recent encounter on the road as a reason enough, and truth be told Shawn didn't want a repeat of that particular fiasco.

There were also other concerns he had about travelling through the forest, ones he couldn't share so openly. He could hardly remember how many surprises he'd left lying in wait, let alone where they all were. Just as well then that Matthew was all-too happy to lead the way, Shawn gladly letting him take point as they trekked through those dark woods. Better safe than sorry.

Still - Andrew's supposed fate aside - a part of him was still curious as to whether any of his surprises proved to be effective. A curiosity he would quickly regret once Matthew stopped for a moment, alerted by noise in the distance.

"You hear something?" Shawn replied with a nervous gulp, before quickly following suit. He shone his light ahead, the beam cutting through the darkness as he kept up with Matthew, before stopping not far from a sight that turned his face pale.

A girl. One with her leg bent at an unnatural angle, her foot trapped in a small hole that looked all-too familiar.

It was one thing to speculate about what his traps could do, and hear about what they had already achieved. But to see it in person...

"Fuck."

No.

Her sunglasses. She didn't have her sunglasses.

The light hit her, and all she could see was white. She was petrified. Every muscle in her body locked up, and she couldn't blink, couldn't talk, couldn't do a single damn thing.

Some small part of her, some last desperate survival instinct, started yanking on her brainstem, telling her to run or scream or to do anything, but all systems were down and nothing was responding, nothing was working, and she was just lying there frozen, turned to stone by the flashlight.

The phrase. She had to say the phrase. It might work, even without the sunglasses. Her lips moved, only faintly, forming the fetuses of words. But no sound came out.

That's not very cash that's not very cash that's not that's not cash money cash money of you it's not that's not it's not cash money cash money that's not that's not you that's not cash that's not very that's not

Her brain was a screaming pilot in a nosediving starship, hitting all the useless buttons while the cockpit burns up in a shower of sparks. Her heart slammed against the bars of her ribcage, beating faster and faster until it was a roar in her ears, rendering her deaf as well as blind, mute, and immobile.

That's not that's not that's not that's not that's not that's not that's not that's not that's not that's not that's not

The light continued to spear into her eyeballs. The aliens had heard her distress call, and now they were here. They'd had their fill of waiting and watching, and now they were here to finish what they'd started. They'd throw her out the airlock and watch the solar heat catch hold of her and boil the fluids right out of her. They'd probe and prod her and vivisect her and spray her blood all over the medical deck. They were coming to take her away, into the dark cold void of space, where no one would ever find her.

And no one, not one single person, would care.

It was Karen... Or was it Karin? The one who wasn't already dead, though this one didn't seem far from it.

She was delirious, from the look of things, barely conscious enough to acknowledge their presence let alone pose them a threat. How long had she been out here for? Hours? Days? No, she would've frozen to death by now if it was any longer than a day at most. Either way, it was only a matter of time before the elements claimed her.

Whether or not their organisers would see it that way, however, was another matter.

"Karin" he spat, his flashlight roaming over her before pointing to an object laying in the snow nearby. "Jesus Christ, just as well she's all fucked up..."

A gun. The same she used to shoot that girl a while back, whatshername? Ashley Williams, or something. He was pretty sure she had popped up on the announcements on a couple occasions, which meant she was a valid target in Matthew's eyes.

Shawn had wondered what would happen if one of his traps worked a little too well, and actually ended up taking someone out all on its own. Would it get passed off as an accident, or blamed on the elements? Or would their organisers out him, reveal his intentions to everyone around them. It didn't strike him as making any sense for them to do that, but neither did outing killers in the first place.

No. Given what was at stake, he didn't want to take that risk.

"Careful Matt, she could still be dangerous" he whispers, shining that light back in her eyes. "Probably a goner by now. Could be risky just leaving her like this, though" he adds, a hint of trepidation in his voice as he kept his eyes on her, just in case she started reaching for that rifle.

"Maybe it..." he continues, with a nervous gulp. "Maybe it'd be for the best if we made sure. Better safe than sorry, right?"

Karin was very much in a bad way, and it wasn't like she was going to stop being in a bad way any time soon. A broken limb on this island, where a notable amount of people would want you dead and where you had no way of getting it fixed up any time soon? Pretty much a death sentence, and looking at how things were going, she wasn't too far off from dying herself. It was... look, Matthew didn't like anyone who was outright murdering people. Molly was an exception. But seeing Karin just lying there, barely conscious, with the dried blood all oxidised and brownish meaning she'd been like that for a while? He couldn't help but feel bad for her.

Shawn's flashlight illuminated something of much more interest, though; a gun! An assault rifle, too. They could probably upgrade then; Shawn got his old pistol, and Matthew had an assault rifle. Though, it did look familiar in a way that Matthew couldn't just quite put his finger on at the moment. Eh, didn't matter. What mattered at this point, was Karin.

"Yeah. I'm not just gonna... leave her like that, you know? She's all fucked up. I mean, look at her leg. It'd be a goddamn mercy." Clicking his flashlight off and shoving it into his own duffel bag, allowing Shawn to light up Karin's broken form, Matthew drew his pistol. He didn't like Karin in the first place, and there was that urge to just leave her there to die in pain like the two people she'd killed. But, he was better than that.

The gun's barrel was pressed against the back of Karin's head with a steady hand. If he was like this, fucked up in a hole somewhere with a completely busted leg? Matthew'd want someone to put him outta his misery as well. And this way... well, she wasn't gonna kill again, so that didn't matter anyway.

As he pulled the trigger, Matthew glanced away, the flash of the shot lighting up the whole forest for a brief moment. What a beautiful place this woulda been.

Final Scene

NARRATOR
Oh God, the aliens -

[SFX: Gunshot]
[Slam cut to black]

S064 Karin Han - DECEASED

Shawn nodded his head, trying to hide the anxious look in his eyes. "More mercy than she'd give us, that's for sure. Do what you gotta do, man..."

He took a step back, keeping the light on Karin as Matthew approached her. It was in that moment that Shawn began to feel a knot form in his chest, his skin turning paler as the full reality of what was about to happen sank in. 

Karin was going to die. A human being was about to die right in front of him, and he wasn't going to do a damn thing about it. Convenient though it was, he couldn't help but feel a chill down his spine at how easy it was for Matthew to agree with him, like he'd already made up his mind before Shawn even said a word.  Granted he's already done this twice, hasn't he? Probably desensitized to it all at this point, after the shit he's been through.

Shawn, though... After everything he had done, he thought he'd be more prepared for this. It wasn't like he was having second thoughts, Karin needed to die and he had zero intention of preventing that. But up until now, he never had to witness the consequences of his actions. The traps, the medicine, Bethany and Przemek... He'd been able to distance himself from it all, put it out of his mind.

There was no avoiding this, however. He stood there and watched as Matt put his gun to her head, his face grimacing, telling himself that he needed to see this. That he needed to harden himself as Matthew had done, so that when the time came he wouldn't hesitate when it was finally his turn to pull the trigger.

Shawn turned away at the last second, flinching as the gun went off.

His gaze remained averted for a long while, unable to bring himself to look at first. When he finally mustered up what little courage he had to take a brief glance, his legs buckled almost immediately, stumbling back against a tree as he let out a shocked gasp.

"Oh, fuh... Oh my god..." he chokes, keeling over and heaving, just barely stopping himself from throwing up all over the ground.

Was this... Guilt? No, that wasn't it. He didn't regret standing by and letting what happened happen, not in the slightest. But that didn't mean he wasn't repulsed by the act itself, that it all made him sick to his very stomach.

"I... J-just gimme a sec, I'll be fine, just..." he stammered, his chest heaving, the pickaxe dropping to the ground as he bent over to cough out what little vomit his stomach could produce.

"Fffffucking hell..." he gasps, wiping his mouth clean with a sleeve before looking back up at Matt. "Is it... Is it true what they say? About it getting easier?"