Survival Of The Fittest

There was a girl lying prone in the middle of the woods.

Fortunately, she wasn't in any danger, though the same couldn't be said for the deer in her crosshairs.

((Lillian Larsen continued from Kick the Tragedy))

Lily meant to return to her old camp more-or-less straight away, but had opted to put it off for now. She wasn't looking forward to dredging up those old memories. Didn't want to be reminded of those few days of relative bliss, when it was just herself and Amaryllis in their own quiet little corner of the island. Still, its use as a secret shelter couldn't be denied, so she suspected that she'd return there eventually.

Until then, she found herself seeking distractions. In this case, a lonely doe that had crossed her path. It was one of the most beautiful creatures she'd ever laid her eyes upon. It also looked delicious, far moreso than the tasteless ration bars she was subsiding on at this late stage of the game.

She bit her lip as she spied through her scope, finger resting on the trigger. Shooting a deer couldn't be that hard, right? She'd already opened fire on a human before, so surely a deer would be easier to stomach? Even an adorable hapless bambi like the one currently in her sights, looking like something straight out of a Disney film.

Lily took a deep breath, before counting to three in her head. One... Two...

The doe's ears twitched, and it suddenly bolted. 

It took Lily a few seconds to figure out why. Off in the distance, she could hear a strange noise echoing through the forest. A loud cry of sorts, not a human one, but it was difficult to pinpoint what exactly.

A concerned glint in her eyes, Lily got up onto her feet and trudged through the snow, making her way slowly through the woods towards the source of that ungodly wailing. The closer she got, the clearer it became, and before long she was able to figure out its source right before she finally laid eyes upon it.

It was a mountain goat, bleeting loudly for help, its leg seemingly stuck in a hole. It was hard not to feel sorry for the poor thing.

"Wooah-wooah, easy there!" said Lily, raising a hand as she slowly inched closer. "Not here to hurt you, just gonna see if I can..."

Lily stopped, her eyes widening with shock as she let out an audible gasp.

It wasn't just any old hole that the goat's leg was stuck in. It was a pit trap, full of vicious wooden stakes, one of which was currently impaling the goat's hoof.

Day ten. Ten whole days of this prolonged torture.

The morning had snuck up on Julia, the overnight hours passing like a whirling dervish as she trudged aimlessly through the bitter cold. It had been a lonely time for her, only her thoughts of endless despair to keep her company. The harsh combination of exhaustion, stress and grief playing dark tricks on her mind as she tried to reason with her actions out of exasperation. Her path took her across what felt like the entirety of the island, her feet aching with each heavy step, her shins splinting under her weight.

Swimming had always been her source of relief. The swimming pool her trusted apostle as she let the cold rush of water overwhelm her face. A tingle of shock preceding nothing but a calming exodus of her thoughts. Nobody else mattered, nothing else mattered. That feeling was nice. It was a simple source of relaxation but one that felt so far away. She tried to get in the zone, to overcome her dreadful feelings of regret but it didn’t seem to matter, she couldn’t shake those final words, those fleeting glances from Victor.

It was all a mistake that couldn't be undone.

Julia teared up even at the thought, the regret stabbing her in the stomach repeatedly like a bloodied bayonet.

She had briefly stopped at the lake before moving in to the thick depths of the forest. Her reflection blurred by the ice, the girl staring back at her unrecognisable. The wish of enacting revenge resulting in a liberating freedom had instead turned in to a repeating nightmare, a coldness subduing her and leaving nothing but flaccid fragility.

As the morning announcement played she continued to stare at her smeared reflection, at first not even flinching from the gruesome details uncovered by the terrorists brooding voice as the list of the dead grew. Teddie, Chester... Danielle. That one was a shock. She had never been a gambler, but she would've put a bet on Dani being one of the finalists in this bloody competition. Why would anybody kill her? She was the it girl, the one who knew how to have a good time and made sure that everybody else came along with her for the ride. They weren't close at all, but she had always viewed her as a good person. Evie was somebody she knew a lot better, or she thought she did, but her instincts suggested she never really knew Evie after all. They swam together, they competed with and against each other. Julia begrudged her for always being that little bit better than her in the pool but she never expected her to be so volatile on this island. She had lost count of how many people she had murdered now, an unsettling reflux itched at her from the inside.

But then that itch was replaced by a sharp skewer of pain pulsating from the pit of her stomach. Her blood ran cold as Karin Han's name was pulled from the hat. It hadn't even been 24 hours since they had their spiteful exchange, her eyes opened unexpectedly to her self-fulfilling prophecy of good and bad. Karin had been right all along about her, a bad guy playing the good guy, and yet she ignored that. Laughed it off. But merely hours later she had proven Karin right. Matthew Bell being the killer felt like a gruesome twist of fate, her foes clashing. The enemy of your enemy was your friend, allegedly. That didn't seem to matter much here.

Juggling her emotions and fears was hard enough and Victor's name being called along with her own was as painful as she had expected, but she would be lying if she said she wasn't a little bit relieved that Karin hadn't lived to be able to hear her name called once again. The stubbornness in her knew that it was a toxic reaction but she couldn't help herself. Her own name being spoken again, this time mispronounced, didn't strike as hard as she had expected. The shame she had been carrying extended further than any affliction of guilt the terrorists could cast.

Shu's name being called shortly afterwards felt like a weight taken off her shoulders. He had creeped her out enough in their chance bar encounter, and that was before she was revealed as killing Przemek. He was probably the one on this island she was most fearful of encountering again. The stories Joshua had told her, she wanted nothing to do with that. She didn't need to fear him any longer.

Eventually the announcement stopped and she dragged her feet in to the nearby forest. Thankfully the easing weather conditions helped make the labyrinth of foliage a little less confusing. She knew what, or who, lay in the forest and didn't want to accidentally stumble upon him again. Her feelings were still complicated - did she like him, did she hate him, was she confused by him? All three statements were true, to some extent.

[S119 - Julia Guercio - continued from To All The Boys I've Killed Before]

NYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.

A blood-curdling scream rippled through the trees, not that of a human.

The shriek of distress lured her in as she ran to help. The screams getting louder and recurring faster on her approach.

Through the distance a growing silhouette of a person stood near to where the cries of pain reverberated. She knew the risks but her instinct was to continue forward to get a closer look, the sound of an animal whimpering in distress chilling her bones more than the cold had ever done.

As she approached she readied her grasp on her gun. Hopefully the person there with the animal was like her, trying to rescue it out of whatever fate had fallen upon it. She heard her calls to the animal to calm it down, a valiant effort to relieve the agitated creature.

She dropped her rifle as she approached closer, trying her best not to startle the other girl who was wielding her own weapon. Julia came in peace, a natural resolve in her voice as she looked to charm both animals before her.

Her tongue soothed as she came in to view of the girl stood above a pit hole. Had the snow given way underneath the animal?

"W-who did this?" she soothed amidst the serrated screams of the goat inside the hole.

The poor thing was bloodied and struggling to free itself from the wooden claws entrapping it.

Lily spun on her heels the moment she heard another voice, her rifle readied in alarm.

She kept it aimed low however, taking a cautious pause as she assessed the girl standing before her. Julia, right? The same Julia who killed Victor last night, and Przemyslaw a few days before. Lily didn't know her well enough to hazard a guess as to what events led to either of those deaths, granted Julia likely felt the same about her after what happened with Janice. The fact that she was concerned about the goat was promising at least. After all, if she meant Lily harm, she probably would've just gunned her down on the spot.

"I... I don't know" Lily replied, gun lowered and hand raised slightly to signal her peaceful intentions. There were questions she wanted answers for, but for now she was happy to let them slide in favour of their mutual friend.

Could Julia be the one who set the trap up? No, that was unlikely. She wouldn't be asking who was responsible for this if that were the case, unless this was all some needlessly elaborate ploy. But again, it would've been easier to just shoot her.

"I just found him like this..." she continued, turning away to kneel down on one knee, assessing the damage from a safe distance. Injured or not, the goat was still a wild animal, so the last thing she wanted was to get too close to those horns whilst its thrashing around.

Lillian Larsen - Gored to death by a mountain goat. Christ, Danya would have a field day with that one.

"Whoever's responsible hasn't made just any old pit. It's one of those... What do you call them, punji pits? Like the ones they used in Vietnam?" she continued, wiping her brow and clearing her throat. "Poor thing has a spike through its hoof."

At that moment, a horrible thought struck Lily: There was a decent chance that trap wasn't intended for wild game.

"Jesus, this is fucked..."

The girl she had approached was Lily Larsen. They never really crossed paths at school, she was one of those more into the arts rather than proper subjects.

She was pretty, though. A little smaller than Julia, perhaps by a few inches. Delightful blonde hair either windswept or styled to one side. Her name had stood out like all the other winners of the murder prizes, her killing of Janice Cresner sounded pretty brutal. Regardless, they had something more important to figure out first, accusations or apologist defensiveness could wait for now. Julia was sure she would have to do some explaining too.

Julia noticed as Lily's grip on her own rifle tightened in reflex to her approach. With her own weapon on the ground beside her bag a few paces behind her, she raised her hands to signal that she wasn't a threat. Hopefully she wouldn't shoot on sight, although she wasn't convinced that it wasn't the fate she deserved anyway.

Having said that, in the time it took Julia to approach the edge of the hole and come face to face with the bewildered goat, shaking restlessly in a bid for freedom, Lily could easily have turned the gun on her and shot her down. Not wanting to be overly optimistic about the situation, stranger danger and all that, it was a hopeful start. She seemed to share Julia's consideration for the goat's welfare which suggested she maintained some sort of moral conscience. She hadn't killed since then anyway, and Janice had been on the warpath herself, so maybe it was in self-defence. Especially seeing as she got her own best kill award for being merciful.

Punja pits?

“Punja what now?” Julia shrugged with naivety as Lily started to explain what the gruesome pit trap was for.

What was painstakingly clear from her description however was that whoever had created this had fully intended to cause grievous bodily harm. At first, she had assumed it was the work of the terrorists. They had proven to be capable of reaching such sadistic heights so it would’ve been completely in-character of them to set up excruciating traps like this. The goat was unlucky, it had fallen prey to their sport. Much like their class at the start of this marathon of a week, the wrong place at the wrong time.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t get over the thought that it was somebody else. The collision of the five earlier in the week on the old road had been fruitful. She had learned that Matthew and Shawn were friends, both sinister and ready to kill. That fratricidal Molly was reeling from her wrongdoings, whilst Jezzie perhaps wasn’t the evil spirit that her killing spree suggested. She remembered clearly the words, or rather accusations, that spat from Jezzie’s mouth as she laid eyes on Shawn. She shouted at him something about catching him digging holes. Was this him?

Was Jezzie really telling the truth?

Something about Andrew Lapson being left to die down in a hole but having a pill to commit suicide with instead of dying at the trapper’s hands. That being the truth of the situation was too much to consider right now. They were from New England, not the deep south. Even the most seasoned of hunters in the region concentrated more on game or just simply fishing. It was one thing to hunt innocent animals in the wild, another sport that Julia found abhorrent, but to start laying macabre traps to hunt human beings… was that really possible?

Surely not.

Julia shrugged to herself, ignorantly choosing to ignore any allegations frothing to the surface of her brain. It was easier to believe that it was the act of terrorists instead of a classmate. Whether it was true or not, she ran with it. It was the easier option here.

“Those terrorists…” Julia paused, grimacing at the heartbreaking sight of the goat struggling in agony. “They really are fucked up.”

Another sigh, this time audible for Lily to hear.

“They really fucked us all up with them.”

Listening to the goat cry was tough. The horns of the goat were being thrown from side to side as it writhed around desperately, seemingly worsening the puncture wound as it anguished dejectedly. Even with their medical kits in their bags, there was very little they could do. If they got any closer they’d be as gored as the goat.

“I don’t know what we can do for it.”

She lied, maybe to protect Lily’s feelings or maybe just to reassure herself of her innocent. Just like with Przemek, the wounded animal was beyond repair. In contradiction to her words, she was fully aware the kindest thing they could do for it at this stage would be to put it out of it’s misery.

Julia wasn’t ready to pull the trigger of that gun again. She shivered at just the thought. Life or death decisions seemed to come as second nature now, but ending an innocent life was a dark road she didn’t want to journey down again. Animal or classmate – she felt sick at the thought.

"Yeah..." Lily replied, a hint of uncertainty in her voice.

Apparently Julia had never heard of punji pits, not that Lily could blame her. Most people probably didn't read about Vietcong booby traps in their spare time, especially not out of boredom or to satisfy their curiosity. Probably for the best that she kept that bit of personal trivia to herself, especially when everyone was at their most paranoid.

Julia also seemed to be under the impression that their terrorist kidnappers were behind the pit trap, which was... Hmm. Lily wasn't so sure, after all the times Danya complained about people dying by accident, it didn't strike her as the kind of thing they'd set out to do. Kinda defeated the whole point if people kept dying to their traps instead of killing each other. Then again, she was never convinced that making some deep political statement was their top priority, so who knows. Maybe they've had a more direct influence over how things pan out than any of them fully realised.

Conspiracy theories aside, right now they had more pressing matters. The goat continued screaming and thrashing about, Lily wincing as it tried to tug its impaled hoof free. It was heart-breaking to watch the poor beast suffer like that, especially when it became clear that there was little they could do to help it. Even if they managed to free it without getting gored, that wasn't the kind of injury you could just walk off. The best they could hope to achieve was delay the inevitable, condemn the poor thing to a slow and agonising death.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. There was another option neither of them were willing to say aloud, Lily staring down at her rifle with a pained look on her face. She glanced between it and the goat, before turning back to Julia. It was easy to tell from the look in her eyes that they both knew what they had to do, even if neither of them were keen on volunteering to do it.

In the end, it was Lily who finally relented, taking a long deep breath before exhaling warm steam. "Ok" she sighed, taking a few steps forward as she raised her rifle.

It shouldn't have been as hard as it was. After all, it wasn't that long ago that she had an uninjured deer in her crosshairs, granted she never got a chance to find out if she would've pulled the trigger in the end. At least here it'd be an act of mercy, a necessity even. Just like how Janice had been a...

Lily closed her eyes, breathing deeply as she steadied herself, trying to block out all distractions as she aimed her rifle. It was such a beautiful animal, its fur as white as the snow surrounding them, possessing a short chin beard just like the ones they had back home. A part of her was almost glad Rebekah wasn't around to see what she was about to do. 

The goat's head was still flailing around, Lily whistling and making soft soothing sounds to try and calm it down long enough to line up a clean shot. Eventually it'd stopped thrashing long enough to take note of her, staring up at Lily with its strange eyes, almost like it was aware of what was about to happen next.

At which point, she finally pulled the trigger.

A thunderous bang echoed throughout the forest, followed by silence.

Lily stood there, hands still trembling, unable to look away for several seconds before finally lowering her gun. She bit her lip and rubbed her palm, letting the rifle dangle as she recovered from the recoil. Her injured hand still hurt, even after all this time, though not as much as it used to. Slowly but surely, she was starting to get used to the gun's kickback.

Eventually she'd turn back to Julia, silent for a moment as she found herself unsure what to say after all that.

"I... I guess this means we're now tied, huh?" she says, in a half-hearted attempt at gallows humour, sniffling and wiping her eyes before sighing some more. "Sorry..."

BOOM.

The shot of the gun startled her even in spite of her bracing for it. It didn’t sound like the others she had heard recently, the whistling-like ripple of bullets going bang was replaced by a deeper noise of boom. The noise of Lily’s rifle resembled its figure; large, domineering, dangerous. The goat never stood a chance. The rumble of the bullet like overhead thunder growling down from the clouds.

In some ways, the fate of the goat felt like some twisted metaphor to describe their own fate. Out of their depth, innocence trapped and then obliterated by evil. The ringing in her ears echoed, snuffed only by the sound of the goat collapsing lifeless into the spikes down the pit. It felt merciful to look at the goat in the eye as it gasped its final breaths. As the warmth in its panicked eyes was distorted by blank emptiness.

----------------------------------------------------------

”Look at the flowers, Julia.”

It was her mother’s way of showing kindness, or perhaps just mercy. The front of the car had been shattered by a deer bounding hopelessly across the road. The five of them in the car were okay, a little shell-shocked by the sudden emergency brake but altogether fine. The same couldn’t be said for the animal. Her parents took all three of them from the car, her little sister needing to be helped out of her safety seat. It was clear by the state of the car bonnet that it was a direct hit.

Julia clung to her sister’s hand as she went to move around to the front. Instead her mother jumping in front of them to cover their eyes. Marina saw everything and gasped in retaliation, Julia’s own imagination running wild was enough to bring her to tears too.

“Take your sisters to the back of the car,” her mother ordered Marina.

Symbolically, the grimacing scene was juxtaposed by the willing beauty of flowers just off the curb of the country road. Hidden within the depths of the woodland was a vacant road and just beside that a small bed of beautiful flowers. Reds, blues, yellows. It was a beautiful scene. Enough to distract the three girls from the yelping of the dying elk metres away.

At least, that is what she told her mother when she came back for her after calling the breakdown service. She was old enough to be aware of what had happened, the fairy tale that the crying noises of the mammal were just birds in the distance about as implausible as conspiracy theorists deciding the moon was made of cheese, or that the Earth was flat. The truth was that she knew, the kindled grotesqueness made her stomach churn, but she didn’t want her family to feel like they had to make a big deal out of it.

She didn’t want to be the weak link.

So instead, she lied. Pretended she didn’t see what she had seen, ignored the oblivion that she felt inside as the animal died slowly and painfully beside her.

Because it was easier.

----------------------------------------------------------

This time it was quick.

Julia stared at the dead goat until she couldn’t do it any longer. Lily was visibly shaking, but Julia appreciated that she took the lead and put the animal out of its misery. She doubted her own capabilities of being able to do that. Watching the goat fold over and die was hard enough, a vivid throwback to watching Victor awkwardly fall to motionlessness too. She bit her lip as she held back the tears that sought emancipation. Deep enough to draw blood.

Dawdling idly, Julia alternated from looking down at the ground and throwing glances over in Lily’s direction. An awkwardness had filled the air with both figures unsure of how to make the first move.

The silence was deafening. Even more so than the dramatic gunshot.

Yet that void was filled by Lily cracking a joke about equalling her kill count. Julia bit down on her lip even harder as she avoided eye contact with the girl. It was distasteful and yet making light of the situation felt like a cathartic release.

A few more moments had passed, Julia running Lily’s joke back and forth in her head over and over until each letter was burned into her brain.

And then she laughed. It started as a light giggle before erupting furiously into hysterics. It was the first time she had laughed in days. Hell, it was the first time she emitted anything close to a smile in days. Julia probably seemed crazy, not the impression she wanted to give. Yet she was unable to stop laughing, the hysterical mirth filling her empty stomach with pious courage. The laughter was born of the chaotic energy building up inside of her as the turmoil grew, the desperation she clung to, the weakness she stunk of, the anxiety that riddled her. She wasn’t crazy, it wasn’t madness but simply a breaking point, where nervous laughter and euphoric hilarity were the most natural release.

“That tickled me,” Julia laughed back at Lily who looked back at her as awkwardly as the ambience felt.

“Thank you.” Julia paused, her laugh regressing to a genuine smile. “F-for making me laugh. It’s the first time I’ve smiled-”

She stopped herself from continuing, looking back at the corpse of the goat. “A-and for doing that,” a mournful pause of respect, “it had to be done.”

Lily was probably skeptical of her, she made it perfectly clear she knew Julia had killed. Her exposed infamy preceded her and that Pandora’s box which she had unwittingly opened continued to haunt her every move.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” a direct resonance in her voice this time to craft reassurance, “I’ve fucked up.”

Julia sighed, the disappointment in herself radiating from her lips, “I promise I’m not going to do it again.”

Lily didn't think it was that funny a joke, herself.

It was a spur of the moment attempt at breaking the tension in the air, one she regretted almost instantly. It was an utterly tasteless thing to say, not to mention grossly inappropriate given what they had both been through.

And yet, when Julia started laughing, it was hard for Lily to not find herself joining in.

It started with an awkward chuckle, slowly shifting into a muffled chortle as she tried to stop herself, before finally caving in to laugh wholeheartedly alongside Julia. She could almost picture the confusion on the faces of whoever ended up watching this, bewildered if not outright disgusted that they would burst into hysterics at a time like this. If anything, the thought just made it all even funnier.

The laughter slowly died down, Lily wiping away her tears as the gun hung limply in her free hand. Not tears of merriment, exactly. After all in the end this was just another emotional release, just like the tears she shed last night. Only difference this time was that the emotions were more mixed, albeit leaning more towards the positive side of things. A welcome moment of catharsis, a brief moment of respite after the tumultuous week they had both been through.

Eventually though, as they both returned to reality, her smile would disappear as they turned to each other again. She listened to what Julia had to say, nodding when appropriate, before biting her bottom lip in quiet contemplation.

It was difficult to ignore the intrusive thoughts in her head. The ones goading her into lifting her rifle and pulling the trigger, quickly remove Julia from the competition whilst she was still unarmed. After all, if she intended on surviving this game, then sooner or later Julia would have to die anyway. Wasn't as if they were even friends, or anything. It would be so easy.

Her eyes glanced at the assault rifle Julia left in the snow. It was a terrifying weapon to behold, one that conjured up images of warzones, action movies and distressing news reports. Julia could've gunned her down with ease if she had wanted to, and there was little Lily would've been able to do about it.

Lily let out a deep breath, before looking back at Julia.

"That makes two of us" she replied, her posture relaxing. She maintained the grip on her own rifle, but it was pointed downwards and away from Julia, hanging down mostly by the gunstrap hung around her neck. "Somehow, I suspect we wouldn't be talking if either of us meant otherwise."

There was a moment of silence between them, broken only by the growl of a hungry belly. Lily turned back towards the goat, its white fur now covered in specks of red. She reached down into her pocket, pulling free the odd Inuit knife that Janice scarred her face with, thinking back to what Amaryllis had taught her about how to skin and cook rabbits.

"I, uh... Don't suppose you're vegetarian, or something?" 

---

Lily sank her teeth into barbequed goat meat, tearing into it with relish.

It was tough, and perhaps a little overcooked. She knew little about how to properly cook mountain goat, and figured it best to play it safe and have it well done, even if it meant having it a little crispier than she would've preferred. That didn't make it any less satisfying to chow down, given how rare it was for her to enjoy a proper cooked meal as of late.

There were several more goat steaks and strips laid out before her and Julia, placed upon the grill she and Amaryllis scavenged several days ago, occasionally turning the meat strips over with a pair of prongs as the campfire underneath cooked the meat thoroughly. It wasn't as much meat as they likely could've harvested, there was only so much she could physically bring herself to strip away, but it was enough to feed them both and have plenty spare to last another day or so in their cold climate.

"God..." Lily gasped between mouthfuls, pausing to clear her throat. "Wish I had something to season this with, but..." she continued, before hungrily munching down some more.

Lily seemed to be a girl full of surprises. Julia had even started to regret not meeting her properly at school.

Her humour was hearty. Julia’s stomach twinged with pain at their uncontrollable, hysterical laughter. The nauseating bleakness of their situation silenced momentarily by their fits of giggles, only just falling short of quite literally rolling on the ground laughing. The laughter induced a thumping headache as she battled the light-headedness and breathlessness caused by their euphoric, albeit slightly inappropriate, amusement.

Her resourcefulness was impressive. The way she didn’t hesitate to slice and dice the goat into fillets and steaks, before pulling out a marvel of a grill and getting the meat cooking. Julia’s only proper meal, outside of the unappetising, dry rations, had been the haddock from the award she received. The goat was nicer, even unseasoned. The prize meal was nice and all, but the story behind how she had earned it embittered the whole situation. This goat, as sad it was to watch it yelp in pain, was tasty even with the toughness of the overcooked meat.

Meanwhile, her presence was kind. Julia risked everything with her premature surrender, throwing her weapon to the snow-laced grass behind had left her vulnerable. Yet Lily didn’t turn the gun on her, used the catastrophic force which snuffed out the light of the goat on her. It would’ve been easy to do, perhaps scarily too easy. The blind trust Julia felt towards the other girl, who was already busy trying to rescue the goat, could’ve backfired devastatingly. Despite that, Lily had welcomed her in. Starvation did many things to a person, so skinning the goat and feeding Julia as well was a well-received act of kindness.

Whilst eating the unseasoned yet scrumptious goat dinner, it gave Julia ample time to think. To reflect on her past actions, her mistakes, her regrets. From the small talk being made over the barbeque, it was clear that Lily was a good person. The way she presented herself, the way she spoke with blunt consideration, reminiscing over her past encounters on the island. Julia had seen with her own two eyes that Lily, a seemingly good person, had taken the hardship of putting the goat out of its misery for the greater good. She didn’t want to outright compare Przemek to a goat, an insensitive dehumanization of her first victim, but it shed a new light on what she did. On what she had to do.

Sometimes a good person had to do bad things for the greater good, an ethos Julia worked hard to convince herself. It didn’t mean her morality had corrupted; it didn’t mean her soul had been consumed by darkness. Most importantly, it didn’t make her the villain.

Food for thought.

Julia lashed her tongue around her mouth as she chewed on goat steak after goat steak, devouring the food until her famish was no more. By the time they had both finished their meal, the smoke from the barbeque was thinning as much as the conversation.

“Thank you, that was a-amazing.”

Julia hesitated momentarily before cutting through the silence that pursued.

“So…”

She shrugged her shoulders obsoletely.

“What are your plans for now?”

Before a yawn interrupted her speech.

“All that food has been me so sleepy.”

Lily was about to take another bite when Julia asked her question, pausing for a moment to consider her answer.

"I..." she began, lowering her steak and biting her bottom lip again. "Honestly, I... I don't know. Been asking myself that since day 1..."

She tore out another strip of flesh with her teeth, chewing thoroughly as she thought back to the graveyard. Back when it looked as though she, Dickie, Amaryllis and Liya were going to form a group together and figure out some way out of this mess. Nine days later, she was all on her own, possibly even the last amongst that group left. Things seemed almost hopeful back then.

"Been wanting to figure out a way of resisting this game, fight back against it somehow" she continued, wiping her mouth clean with her sleeve as she stared down at the campfire. "I... I don't even really care about escaping anymore, if I'm honest. I'm just tired of feeling so... Helpless, y'know? I don't want to believe our only options out here are to play along, or become another victim to this game..."

She paws at her steak, puffing her cheeks as she exhaled hot steam. "But, realistically, I'm probably going to do what I've been doing since day one. Survive this thing one day at a time..." she says, sighing softly as her brows furrowed. "Still feels like that makes me compliant, somehow. Just being more passive about it than others..."

Realising she'd perhaps rambled on a little too long, Lily looked back up at Julia. "What about you? What's your story?"

The helplessness Lily described feeling resonated. That uncomfortable feeling, like a small fish in the deep, blue ocean. When looking into herself, she saw nothing more than a small fluttering bird trapped in the sharpened winds of a hurricane, the wings beating as fast as possible yet submissively taken along for the ride.

An echo of the vulnerability that had manifested her every thought and fibre over the week past week. It was good that somebody else felt that, too. It made Julia feel that maybe she was normal. A lot of the others she had met, they didn’t seem to have the vulnerabilities. Victor was mournful but not in a powerless way. Salem, Joshua, Karin… well, their strength disguised, or maybe covered up, their own weakness. All this time, Julia had thought she was the odd one out and yet the mirror of self-reflection that Lily was holding to her face exposed that her own naivety was perhaps clouding her judgement.

Rebellion was a sharply textured word, as sharp as the blade of a knife. Lily revealing her own turbulence accidentally made Julia feel even more insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Of course, earlier in the week she had fleeting thoughts of escape. A long-winded fairy tale that spawned hope and fortitude. The hope had faded, her prospects of any alternative route out of this hell waning more and more with each passing minute. It was sad to see Lily’s resistance seemingly dwindling too, the flame of insurrection being snuffed by the unbearable weight of reality.

“I… I don’t think that surviving makes you c-compliant,” Julia challenged the other girl. “Wanting to survive isn’t a bad thing, it isn’t selfish to want to live.”

She frowned, staring down at her damp Converse sneakers.

“I want to live.”

Her lip wobbled slightly as she held back her selfish tears.

“I want to go back home,” Julia looked over at Lily with a sullen, defeatist glance.

“I know it’s unlikely. But I want to go home. More than anything else. I want to wake up from this choking nightmare.”

The worst part was knowing the timer was counting down. Each second that passed was one second closer to her last. Julia didn’t want to die. She just wanted a long and quiet life.

“Maybe I don’t deserve that. To survive this and go home.”

Julia wiped a single tear as it fell down her right cheek.

“And maybe I shouldn’t get the chance to survive this. I’m just a normal girl. I’m not spectacular in any way. I’m not going to change the world.”

Another tear, this time the other cheek.

“If only one person can survive… it should be somebody who deserves it. Who will do something great with that second chance.”

She sheltered from Lily’s eye contact.

“My story? Well…”

Julia was already feeling emotional. She didn’t want to overload Lily, cascade her with information about the hunting lodge bar, Joshua, Victor. Everything. It wouldn’t help anything. She didn’t want to be a burden.

Yet she couldn’t stop the words from flowing. The flood gates had well and truly been breached.

“I think I’ve been lost. I’ve stumbled from group to group, looking for an answer to all of this. Looking for refuge. some time, I had a home. Joshua James. He helped me, protected me from the danger. At the time it worked, I felt so safe,” a painful gulp, “But maybe I was wrong. The more I think about it, maybe I was just the easy option to keep around, the stupid girl he could sink his claws into and manipulate. The one who wouldn’t question things. If he kicked me down, he knew I’d get back up and forgive him.”

Julia couldn’t even look in Lily’s direction, her blurred focus gripped in a stare-off with the ground.

“Przemek was in a bad way, blind. He was suffering. I wanted to help him, I tried to help him. I did what I could but I think I just made it worse. Like always. I didn’t mean to. I really didn’t mean to.”

Lily was essentially the judge, jury and executioner at this point. Julia knew exactly how it sounded, unbelievable and farfetched.

“Victor… I hated him. For what he did to Ashlee, for what he did to Karen.”

The curl of her lip tensed at the mention of his name.

“I thought if I hurt him, like he hurt them, that things would be better. I thought that if I killed him, if I was able to avenge my friends… then I would feel better. But I don’t. I don’t feel any better. Everything is worse, I feel- I don’t feel anymore, everything is just empty.”

A gentle pause in her delivery, a half-baked shrug into silence that was only broken by the tender hissing and crackling of the barbeque.

“I thought it would give me purpose. I don’t know… it probably doesn’t make any sense. I’m sorry for unloading on you. I don’t know what I’m here for anymore. I don’t even know who I am.”

She swallowed, gently biting the edges of her tongue to soothe from her duress.

For the first time since she started spilling her guts to Lily, she looked up at her and stared dead into her eyes.

“I wish I knew what I was doing.

I wish I could be brave, like you.”

Lily remained quiet, watching and listening as Julia opened herself up to her. She resisted the temptation to interject, letting Julia use this as a rare chance to vent her thoughts and frustrations, get it all off her chest during this brief moment of respite that they shared together.

She quickly regretted her earlier choice of words, realising that she was unintentionally throwing shade at her peers. Julia was right after all, there was nothing selfish about wanting to survive this game. All Lily really wanted was to find a way of doing so that wasn't playing by THEIR rules, or at the very least figure out some way of getting back at their kidnappers.

Her brows furrowed as Julia recounted her experiences with Joshua. It reminded her of the time one of her friends back at Philly spoke about her ex-boyfriend, who as it turned out had been an abusive asshole the entire time that they were together. It pained Lily to think that someone had taken advantage of Julia like that, her knuckles clenching tightly as she held back the urge to say something. No use wasting her breath over a dead scumbag.

Julia then went on to talk about Przemek and Victor, Lily listening closely as she withheld judgement. No wonder Julia was hesitant to step in and put the goat out of it's misery, likely she didn't want to relive that particular memory. As for Victor... Well, it wasn't hard at all for Lily to empathise with her plight there.

When Julia finished, Lily found herself unsure what to say at first. A silence was shared between them, Lily looking back at the other girl, before letting out a long sigh as her eyes drifted elsewhere.

"I... I'm nobody special, Julia" she replied, lowering her steak as she stared down at the fire between them. "Honestly, I haven't a clue what I've been doing either."

She bit her lip, before poking at the inside of her cheek with her tongue, as if she was still making sure that Janice's injury hadn't torn a hole right through it. "I... What you said about Victor, it... Made all the sense in the world to me."

Lily exhaled hot steam, staring into those smouldering embers. "A while back, a friend and I ended up bumping into Katelyn. Found ourselves with the perfect opportunity to take her out, stop her from hurting anyone else. Only we... Well, I hesitated. Kitty wasn't alone you see, she had a friend with her too. They seemed so... Sweet together. Reminded me that despite everything, she was just as human as the rest of us. So in the end we just... Let her go."

She sighed again, eyes unblinking. "A day later, they killed another friend of mine" she continued, her knuckles turning white as she gripped the steak tightly. "I didn't think it was even possible for me to ever want to hurt someone as much as I wanted to hurt Katelyn. I... I dropped everything, left my friend behind to go after her alone. I wasn't thinking straight, I just... I HAD to fix things, had to undo my mistake before anyone else got hurt because of me..."

Lily sniffled, wiping her eyes clean before looking away. "It all feels so... Stupid now, thinking back. Like, I didn't even really hate her that much. She's just a victim, like the rest of us. If anything, I hated myself for being so... So naïve, so..."

Her lips trembled, eyes tearing up as she struggled to hold them back. After a brief pause to wipe them clean again, she composed herself before staring back down at their campfire, her cheeks now red and raw. "By the time I came to my senses, it was already too late... I let this game get to me, convince me that I could somehow make things better by playing along... And in the end, all it did was cost me the last friend I had left on this island."

It was at that point, after another long pause, that she finally looked back up at Julia. "We... We've all made mistakes out here. Some worse than others. In the end, none of us WANTED to be here. None of us deserve to go home any more than anyone else."

She bit her lip, thinking back to something she said to Amaryllis and the gang right at the beginning. Something she kept trying to remind herself, not matter how hard it got to cling onto those words.

"They... They want to make us think that there are monsters hidden amongst us... When the only real monsters out there, are the ones who gave us these and told us to kill each other..." she said, tapping the collar around her neck before letting out a rueful chuckle. "You've no idea how hard it's been for me to keep trying to believe that, after everything we've all been through."

The occasional hiss and crackle of the embers in the fire felt like the perfect ambience for the heart-to-heart unfolding between the two girls. Acquaintances, no… strangers, brought together despite their differences due to a mutual curiosity. The path they had led was distinctly different and yet from their conversation had unexpectedly blazing similarities. A fusion of stories; motivated by grief, spurred on by hate, consumed by hollowness. It marked a marginal familiarity.

What Lily had said about Kitty shocked her a little, the what ifs that must’ve eaten her alive, but the underlying context felt similar. That unparalleled, burning hatred that so easily consumed you and drove you to the brink of madness. She wasn’t surprised at all by the regret she must’ve felt from that situation. Knowing you had a chance to take out Katelyn Graves and the moment passed by. Julia emphasised with Lily. That knowledge that she let Kitty get away and then before long she was hooking her claws into classmate after classmate. Maybe it would’ve changed things for Chiara, but regretfully there wasn’t a way to change the past so it was too late to worry about the past. Julia had lost count of Kitty’s kill count by this point, she was sure it was in to double figures. If not it certainly damn close.

Had she not executed Victor, who was to say she wouldn’t live to regret it like Lily had done. This would be like the chill that runs down her spine every time Salem’s name is revealed as having killed another unlucky victim , but worse. Victor had proven before he was capable of killing. She understood Lily clearly. Their blood would’ve been on her hands, indirectly. She probably would’ve struggled to live with that decision, a likely descending spiral even worse than her current depression. Of course, morally she couldn’t claim any high ground. It was all just a vicious cycle after all, right? Who was she to be judgemental about somebody else, vilify them for their murderous sin yet be so willing to fall into the same trap. How can one who takes a life judge one who takes another?

Lily was getting upset from her retelling, just like Julia had done before her. From the release of the unbridled laughter all the way to the intensity of the fireside stories. Emotions were high. She wanted to give her a hug. Embrace her, tell her it would be okay. That they could find a way off this island together, a way to find the light of hope masked by the crushing darkness. But she couldn’t. Her words would be false. Not because she didn’t have the genuine empathy for Lily. That wasn’t the problem. She just had no answers. How could the blind lead the blind?

Calling Lily the blind felt a bit harsh. Not only had she been well-natured and forgiving towards her, which alone was far more than she deserved, she had shown repeatedly to be not one, or two, but three steps ahead of Julia. With the goat, the steaks, the barbecue, the experience of awakening she’s endured over the past day or two. Lily exclaimed that she wasn’t spectacular, but Julia respectfully disagreed. Every morning Julia woke up, she was genuinely startled by the concept of still being alive. Having defied quite literally all of the odds to make it this far. For some reason she had chosen to push on, despite teetering on the edge of giving up countless times, but her movements weren’t thought out ahead of time, she didn’t have some genius master plan that would swing the odds in her favour. In contrast, it wasn’t a surprise that Lily had made it this far. She just had that something about her, even when she told Julia she felt lost in her emotions she emitted a radiance of confidence. A stern reliability that comforted Julia whenever nervous thoughts about who could be watching on from the distance or what unfortunate thing might easily happen next.

That clock, counting down the seconds until her inescapable death, continued to tick and it continued to tock.

And then Lily’s attention had turned to the terrorists. She wasn’t wrong, they really were the ones to blame for all of this. It was Danya and his awful cronies that were the real enemy of them here. It didn’t mean that everybody left on the island would get along, but that conflict with the evildoers who excitedly watched as they massacred one another was the missing piece of the puzzle that connected them all. The resentment Lily showed was clear, a slight volatility hidden within her vented frustrations. She didn’t blame her.

“I hate them.”

She didn’t care who heard her. If the terrorists were watching or listening in on her as they spoke. Julia wanted to scream it out at the top of her lungs. She longed to use every final exhale of oxygen she had to slur them. To spit on their names, like they would callously do in her memory. Julia lightly prodded the side of her metal collar. It was scary just how easily she could forget about the glistening choker wrapped around her neck. What should’ve been a constant reminder of her eventual fate had somehow drifted from her long list of concerns. The cold touch of her necklace resembled the dominance and control the terrorists held over them - collared like a dog being made to go out for a walk. Given the connotations it wasn’t unreasonable to want to mentally block it.

“I really, really, really fucking hate them.”

Julia didn’t swear that much. Her parents always scolded her when she said a bad word. Reminded her that the only people who swear are those with a stunted vocabulary. But sometimes you needed to swear, sometimes the moment really called for it. This was very much one of them. Her lip curled once again as she smirked back at Lily, rebellion painted across her cheeks with their natural rosy blush.

“You shouldn’t feel bad about letting Kitty go. I d-don’t blame you for feeling that guilt, but you can’t control other people. Not like that.”

It was meant to be a show of reassurance but instead the words fell out flat. The accidental bluntness in her tone as scathing as the bullets loaded up in the guns sat with them.

Deep down she knew that Kitty was just another victim, like Lily had explained, but that didn’t excuse the brutality of her actions. The unrelenting force she carried with her as she moved around the island slaying everybody she found. Matthew Bell had even mentioned she had a grenade launcher or something crazy like that. It was an irritating stroke of genius from the terrorists. Give the number one killer something as extraordinarily savage like that. If she wasn’t repulsed by the idea of their actions she’d probably want to applaud them for their commitment to being evil.

“You said you weren’t spectacular…” Julia smiled with warmth as she continued, “but I think you are. The maturity, the way you have been able to forgive. The fact you’re still alive after all you’ve been through. All the demons you’ve had to confront.”

Julia paused, hoping her words showed the sincerity she intended. “I think that’s spectacular. You have been given every single reason, repeatedly, to despise people. To hate them. And sure, you did for a while. You probably still do on some level. But that doesn’t make you the bad person. To overcome that, though? To get to the other side of the tunnel in one piece, not consumed by that protruding dark. That, Lily. That is spectacular.”

Lily wanted a friend. Julia wished that could’ve been her but given it was so late into this whole thing it wouldn’t be wise to build connections that could only be formed over the certainty of dissolution.

“I wish I could be your friend. That somehow we could do this. Pull through together. That would be really amazing. Can you imagine their faces?”

Julia brushed her hair from her face and coughed gently to clear her throat. “Sadly… I don’t think that’s possible anymore. Maybe we’ve already missed the most. Hey, I wish I’d missed that bus before we left the school gates.”

Her smile still strong, a poorly timed joke stubbornly battling against the pessimism of her thoughts and words. The warmth of the fire illuminating her expression.

“I would just slow you down. I’m not built for this. It’s a miracle, or maybe a curse, that I’m even still here. I’m not strong enough to do anything about it. I’m not brave enough to be that spectacular person who can make the difference.”

Julia blurted out a murky giggle, a reluctant surprise at how little of an impact the looming dawn of oblivion had on her.

“I doubt I'm going to survive this, Lily. But I hope you can... No, I believe you can!”

Sure they were just words, but Julia genuinely did believe that. Lily had shown so much maturity, even within the biting grip of malevolence / benevolence, she’d come out the other end.

“The fact you still believe that. Even though it’s hard, you’ve been put through so many tests and still see that. You’re a better person than I am, I think I gave up my faith on day three. You aren’t to blame for losing your friends. It isn’t your job to protect everybody else.”

Julia’s smile finally fell flat, “Who knows. Maybe I’m just naive, maybe selfish or perhaps just wrong. I just want you to do what you think is right for yourself. I think that’s important.”

Lily bit her bottom lip, letting Julia have her turn to speak her mind.

It felt good, having someone to talk to about these things. Someone who in another time and place could've been a friend, who was willing to listen and share their thoughts, vent their frustrations to without feeling self conscious about it. It was nice, therapeutic even. There was a good chance neither of them would ever see each other again once they parted ways, which meant there was little holding them back from letting it all out.

Still, what Julia said about wanting to be friends... It was hard to deny that the idea had appeal. It would be nice to travel with someone again, to not be alone on that cold island. Someone she could trust, someone she got along with. Even from a purely pragmatic point of view, it made sense to team up with someone as well armed as Julia. They would probably make quite the duo.

It was also hard to deny that it somehow felt off to team up with someone else so soon after Amaryllis had passed, as if she was ditching one friend for another. She knew deep down that was an unhealthy way of looking at it, and yet...

Lily sighed softly, looking up at Julia once she was finished, forcing a smile upon her face. "I... Thank you, Julia. I... I appreciate it, I really do..."

She wiped her eyes clean again, her smile slowly growing more genuine. "You're a good person, Julia. Feels at times like there aren't many of those left anymore" she began, letting the words linger in the air for a moment. "I think anyone whose made it this far has to be pretty spectacular. You didn't get here because you were just lucky, or because of divine intervention, or because they gave you a gun. And especially not because you were relying on some... Guy" she continued, saying that last word with perhaps a little more venom than intended.

"You made it this far because of you. And..." she said, pausing for a second. "And I hope you make it home, too."

Lily pawed at her steak, before looking down at it with a quiet chuckle. "Geeze, look at us... Getting so carried away, we've let our lunch get cold..." she added, lifting her steak to tear another chunk out.

It would be easy to mistake Lily's words as aimless gratuity. Not even two hours ago the girls were essentially strangers, Julia questioned if they'd ever spoken one word to each other in school. Actually, Julia wasn't even sure they had ever even looked at each other. Yet the fireside conversation had bonded the pair in a way that almost didn't feel real. It was like a strong sisterly bond that had been born a little too late, which painted Lily's sentences with a stroke of genuine kindness. That was the weirdest thing about this whole situation. The fact that it had torn apart literal siblings, even twins, and yet through all of those deplorable, revolting acts of vulgarity, it had a magical way of bringing people together. People that would've died as strangers, now bound together in this instance through a mutual hunger and a morbid inquisition into their nearing mortality.

Being young was a strange sensation. Like being a bird flying high in the sky with no destination in mind, wings spread and the ability to quite literally take on the whole world as it comes. No set direction, instead a flight path designed erratically in the moment. This conversation, along with all of the horror Julia had witnessed over the preceding days, was a whiplash reminder to appreciate every moment. The whole thing was hard to describe, a fuzzy sensation that warmed even the bleakest of moments. Lily's encouragement was welcomed, restoring her from rock bottom. She hoped that what she had said to lily had also helped her find some sort of closure on her feelings and the exasperation she had felt over the conflict faced.

Rumbles from her stomach gave the girls something to laugh about, as Lily led the chuckle of their starvation being replaced by gluttonous greed. The goat was not able to be rescued, but for what is was worth Lily had done an excellently job at salvaging what she could from it. She hadn't felt this full since being back at home the night before the trip. Her mother had prepared a gigantic plate of pasta - a traditional staple for any Italian-American family - and ushered Julia and her little sister Chiara for seconds and even thirds.

If there was one thing about the Guercio household that was reliable, it was the beautiful conveyor belt of Italian home cooking.

The goat wasn't quite that, but it filled the hole in her stomach with ease. Her appetite had been reduced to a few mouthfuls of rations throughout the day so unsurprisingly she wasn't able to finish the goat Lily had plated up for her.

"I'm absolutely stuffed," Julia chortled, "That was the best hot meal I've had in what feels like forever."

Julia beamed over at Lily, incredibly grateful for the cooking she had delivered, "Thank you so much for cooking. You really are a rockstar. I was beginning to worry that I would never get to eat nice food ever again!"

She wasn't a fussy eater and wasn't about to snub Lily's goat steak dinner, even if ideally they could've done with a little less time on the barbecue and with a touch of seasoning. In a perfect world, at least, when salt, maybe some garlic, some mint or something sweet like honey to marinade it in. Julia was making herself hungry thinking about it.

"If I die now, at least I would die with a stomach full of meat!" Julia joked, slightly awkwardly crossing the line between what was appropriate or not to say in front of new company. "The meal the other day was hot, too. It was alright, I guess. I didn't have much of an appetite but it was some haddock. It was so warm though, almost too warm to eat when you first touched it."

Julia hadn't really pressed on what happened between Lily and Janice, reflecting in that moment that maybe she should've done a little more. Ultimately she felt any clarity she would get from raising the question would not sufficiently justify the potential alienation of an ally and newfound friendship.

"You got a meal too, right?" she questioned.

Julia shared one more joke to lighten the mood, "Your cooking was way better. Maybe that's how you get home safely? They bring you in as a cook and then you can make a run for it when you get off the island..."

"It's nothing, really..." Lily assured, using her sleeve to wipe her lips clean as she swallowed another mouthful. "Was just going off what my friend Amaryllis taught me about cooking rabbit" she added, a melancholic smile on her face as she thought back to that particular memory.

Lily appreciated the gesture, even though they were both well aware that this meal was far from perfect. In an ideal world Lily would've used a pan with a sprinkle of olive oil, season it with some mixed herbs to really ramp up the flavour, maybe even aim to serve it medium rare if she could. But with limited knowledge and utilities at her disposal, this was about the best she could manage, though it was still infinitely more appealing than their regular rations.

She was in the middle of another bite when Julia reminded her of another thing they had in common, thinking back to her own BKA meal earlier in the week. Julia had received her's for Przemek, hadn't she? Yet another example of their captors' twisted sense of humour, treating their trauma like a sick competition. Neither of them did what they did in order to receive some twisted prize, yet when the promise of a warm meal and a means of protecting themselves was offered, they weren't able to turn it down either. When you're living off scraps, it's hard to say no when the devil offers you butter.

When Julia asked about her own BKA, Lily nodded in response as she finished off her last bite. "MMmm, sort of a hot pot thing, if I recall. Only ate half of it though, shared the rest with Am."

It was still weird to think that at some point during the night, their kidnappers showed up not far from where they slept in order to drop off their BKA. If she and Amaryllis had woken up early, would they have encountered them? What would've happened if they did?

Lily blinked after Julia made her joke, her face scrunching up before bursting into laughter. She hadn't really given much thought as to what she'd do if she ever escaped, probably write a book or something, have her memoirs appear on the same shelves as Kim Nguyen and Andrea Raymer's autobiographies. Still, there was something about the absurd mundanity of the terrorists having a catering crew that cracked her up. It conjured up an image of some scary looking dude in a balaclava wearing a big oversized chef's hat, stirring a great big pot of stew out in the middle of...

The laughter slowly died down, Lily pausing as a thought embedded itself in her mind. One that had been planted a while back, but was now starting to grow and take root, her smile dissipating as it quickly consumed her attention for a moment.

"HMm..."

After a few seconds of being lost in thought, she found herself jolted back to reality when she remembered the steaks still left on the grill.

"Oh, uh, better package these up..." she said, quickly searching her bag for the plastic containers they scavenged a while back, using her prongs to fill them up with the steaks and strips they had leftover. "Cold ought to keep these edible for a couple days, I reckon" she continued, before looking up at Julia.

After another moment's silence, she passed Julia the container. "Here, you may as well keep the rest."