Survival Of The Fittest

((Mônica Oliveira continued from the dead include the living in their own great collective.))

They hadn’t gone far. Moving fast enough to escape Aracelis hadn’t done any favours for Jacob’s leg, so they’d just ended up hiding in yet another house.

Talk had been difficult. Not least of which because Mônica was exhausted after days of barely any food or water, and not being able to sleep well knowing that no-one was watching her back any longer. Jacob had food and water, but she didn’t know him well enough for his presence to cure the sleep issue.

Mônica had spent most of the night sitting by the window and keeping an eye on the street below, and resisting the urge to steal Jacob’s gun while he was sleeping and leaving him to inevitably die. It would have been the practical thing to do.

Still, some company was better than no company at all.

-

In the morning, they’d heard the explosion over the announcements. Followed by quiet. Even if Jacob could have moved fast, Mônica was afraid to leave. So they hadn’t gone to look for any signs of further explosions, nor had they heard anything new.

The last few hours, she had slowly shifted away from the window and curled up, pressing her face to her knees and not looking up. She felt like she was about to explode, and that moving at all might trigger something.

That first week had been spent hoping for that exact noise. A sign that something might change, and the game might end with more than one survivor. She didn’t know for sure if that’s what it was… but it was the biggest sign of it. She’d hoped for it for so long.

But that was before she killed Lúcio. Before she became unforgivable.

She could never face her parents, or her siblings, after what she did. That might have always been true, but if she’d been the only one to survive… at least they’d understand that rescue would never have come. If others came back with her, they’d know she was the sole reason Lúcio never came back home.

On the other hand… she could actually abide by Lúcio’s last words. Don’t die, and don’t kill. It might actually be doable.

Finally, after wrestling for hours to get the twisting guilt and confusion in her gut under control, she lifted her head and looked for Jacob.

“Does this change anything for you?” she finally asked.

((Jacob Winters continued from the dead include the living in their own great collective))

The morning had more than a few surprises for them this time. Mostly bad, but not all, at least.

On the positive end, Mônica hadn't either killed, robbed or abandoned him while he was sleeping. Not that he'd really expected her to; if she'd wanted to rob him, she'd have just done it the second she'd seen him, after all. But still, he'd known, on some level, that trusting her like he had was a little naive, thanks to whoever it was that'd called out to them earlier. But hunting Salem was dangerous anyway, and she'd offered to help. The way he saw it, anyone even vaguely in his corner was a mandatory ally, regardless of what shit she'd pulled before. He could save his feelings on the matter for when Salem was dead on the floor.

And it sounded like he'd been busy. Unfortunately, he wasn't the only one.

"Kathleen..." he muttered under his breath as the announcement droned on.

Jezzie had killed again. Worse still, he'd killed someone he cared about. Someone he'd been friends with for years. Someone he'd been lucky enough to bump into at the start of all this, back when he and her and Dawn and Tully and Mildew had gotten high together. He wasn't sure if that made him the last one of their little group still alive; he knew Dawn had already died, but if the other two had been on the announcements, he'd missed it. But he suspected they were, and if they weren't, that they would be soon. He wondered if it wouldn't have happened if he'd stayed. He'd stepped out because he needed a bit of space, but he should have known doing so would mean he'd never see any of them again.

He wasn't sure what he'd do about Jezzie if he saw her again after this. It felt like they'd had an understanding, a bond, but this...

Lily's name coming up was less surprising. The mystery of how though, that was something. He'd have expected someone else to have killed her, after she'd killed someone, but instead the terrorists themselves had done so. He wondered why. How could she have "broken the rules" in a way that necessitated that to stop her?

The way they signed off - a violent explosion blowing out the audio, echoing across the island moments later - really made him wonder. And Mônica clearly was wondering about it herself.

"Like... if that explosion means, like, rescue or something, you mean?"

It felt almost too much to hope for. The notion that either one of their own had figured out some way to attack them, or that someone had found them and come to their rescue. It seemed improbable, even with the explosion heralding that clearly something had happened. But if it was some sort of way out?

"Yeah. Yeah, it kinda does."

The high of victory had been short-lived. The look on Julia's face after Salem nailed her with the pie lingered sweetly in his mind, but his body hurt, and his thoughts were fuzzy. He was exhausted, and the smoke he'd inhaled from Adam's grenade had brought his cough back. He hadn't gone far from the church before resorting to the tactic that was becoming habit; he found a relatively fresh house, found a bed, barricaded the door, and collapsed.

His dreams were jumbled and nonsensical, and they escaped from his grasp every time he woke and tried to recall what he'd been dreaming about. It felt like he spent most of the night floating in that liminal space between fully sleeping or fully waking, and wouldn't you know his subconscious didn't even have the decency to conjure a fun little Backrooms exploration or anything.

He was still there when the announcement started. Danya's voice intruded on him distant and muffled. He heard but didn't hear.

Not until the explosion woke him.

((Salem Fox continued from SLEEPING ON A BED OF THORNS))

How long had he sat up in bed, clutching his chest like an honest-to-God Disney princess rudely startled out of her enchanted sleep? Salem wasn't sure. The sun was high overhead now, and there was a blurry span of time immediately preceding the now. He'd gotten up and stumbled outside, some kind of idea in his head about seeing what was going on, like there was going to be anything to see.

Once he'd realized that everything was the same old same old, clarity had trickled back in. Salem did take a peek down the front of his shirt and confirmed that his chest bruise was looking pretty gnarly. His sinuses and throat were still irritated too, and he needed to change the bandages on his leg and his ear, so everything was really just coming up fucking Millhouse today. Salem had never longed for the school nurse before, but he'd have killed to get a sterile cot to lay down on and someone else to deal with his injuries for once.

Big dreams, right, considering that ought to be part of the care package if you managed to drag yourself across the finish line. "Wowwee, I'd love to do the thing I'm currently doing, for the reward that's already been promised." Real good work, excellent demonstration of how many cylinders he was firing on considering how long that one had to sizzle around in the brainpan before manifesting itself in any coherent way. (Boom, Homestuck reference in 2021. SaLame Fox, King of Cringe, coming at you with all hits all the time! The king never misses!!)

Salem was still very, very tired.

He'd settled for prowling between the houses, like he had done before his little rendezvous with Billie before. Had that been his best work? Rough if he'd peaked so soon.

His mind ran in circles as he wove around the neighborhood, stepping methodically in his own footprints as he rounded each house just like his swirling thoughts. Swirling, not spiraling. Not yet. No downward spiral for Salem, not until he decided it, not until he chose to put that plane straight into a nosedive. The pilot might have been asleep at the controls, but he was still there, and he had a say in who and how many he took down with him.

It was quiet out here, with only the sound of his feet crunching in the snow and the distant memory of the explosion still echoing in the back of his mind. He ought to have been an easy target for anyone else who was lurking. He half-wished someone would try. It would be a good distraction.

There were pieces of a jigsaw puzzle in his brain, and he could see how the edges all fit together, but he wasn't willing to do it. Not yet.

((Aracelis Fuentes continued from the dead include the living in their own great collective))

Aracelis had no experience at hunting or tracking, but luckily she hadn't needed it. The trail had been easy to find. Two people, with one carrying the other, could only get so far and they could only hide their trail so much. Aracelis had calmed from her initial eruption of rage and had settled into a stable level of simmering anger. For once the anger wasn't directed at Leslie either, it was firmly on Jacob and Molly.

She didn't feel entirely good about what she was planning to do. There had been the promise she had made to Lucio, that she wouldn't fight Molly, but deep down, even when she had given her assent, Aracelis knew she would never keep it. There was some guilt she held from that, from lying to her boyfriend even as he died. But she had done it to keep him happy. She hadn't wanted him to die knowing the truth of what she wanted to happen, and for a while she had managed to keep the promise. But seeing Molly on the porch of the house, and listening to Jacob just accept what she had done without any further questions or qualms had pushed her over the edge.

As she walked Aracelis coughed and spat, then reached up and pulled a clump of hair out of her mouth and tossed it into the snow. She stared at the tangled ball as it sat there, before spitting again and turning to Leslie.

"Here," She said, pointing out the footprints with her bat, "Looks like they went into that house there."

((Leslie Romero continued from the dead include the living in their own great collective))

Leslie dully watched the hair roll onto the snow and noted it. It had been eleven days. Bad sleep when you could get it, tasteless calories that didn't feel like enough, freezing, walking. His body ached whenever he moved.

So here they were again, hiding and looking secretly in on Molly and Jacob. And he didn't want to kill Molly. He didn't want to confront Aracelis. He didn't want to do anything. As he finally saw the pair again, he willed himself to think through the net of misery.

The only person in this situation he held any responsibility for was Aracelis. It's not that he planned it or he liked it, but she watched out for him and it was because of him she hadn't died. If he was going to abandon her, he should have done it back when he'd left her in that house after she was bandaged up.

"N-not gonna...." Leslie choked out. He opened the cap of a bottle of water in his hand. He'd gotten some more water from snows collected in the trees, and waited for his skin to warm it. He drained what liquid there was, until the ice hit the plastic.

"...bring him back. N' her bestie. He's got a gun," Leslie observed, pursing his cracked lips.

Mônica climbed to her feet and rifled in her pockets, looking for the make-up kit that was the only possession she had left aside from the sword they gave her. As she had whenever she’d gotten the chance in the morning, she opened it to check her face. She winced at the sight. Super blotchy, especially around the eyes. Probably happened after she heard about Dani.

She felt a little weird getting into her make-up while Jacob was there, and they were discussing stuff that was actually important, so she only tried scrubbing at her eyes a little to clear them. It just smudged them worse.

Something registered. A noise. Mônica snapped the mirror shut, glancing around. She’d been hearing noises all night. Old houses creaked like nobody’s business. Still...

“You think we should… I don’t know… go somewhere? If rescuers came, where would they go? I don’t know anything about what happened last time. Did they just scoop kids up if they found them?”

She moved towards a window. She reached out and tried to scrub at the dust with her sleeve, peering out it after. Nothing that way.

“I mean… I bet it’d take a while for us to get there, with your leg. Wherever ‘there’ is.”

There was a thing she’d heard somewhere, maybe… that whoever had done the rescue last time, they’d left behind anyone that had gone too wild with the killing.

“I wonder if they’d leave Salem here. That’d be revenge enough, right?”

Would they leave her here? If Mônica wasn’t herself, she probably would.

"It'd be what he deserves."

Jacob couldn't deny a cold satisfaction at the thought; at Salem left behind to fend for himself, his potential victim's spirited away where he couldn't touch them anymore. But if they were leaving him behind, it would probably be because they'd left behind anyone who'd killed another kid out here. Jacob hadn't killed anyone yet, even if he'd wanted to, but Mônica...

"But if the cavalry's actually here... frankly, Salem can live or die for all fucking I care, it makes no goddamn difference anymore. Going home does."

He still wasn't sure if he believed it yet. Sure, the explosion could be some sort of attack, but it could also just be a fluke accident, an internal coup, or any number of scenarios that didn't get anybody home. But it was at least worth preparing for, just in case, right? Much as he hated Salem, he hated dying more.

"So, I dunno... I figure if they show up anywhere, it's along the coast, right? If we're moving, that's where we should head to."

There was a window with a cracked glass pane and a figure in it, bright yellow framed by the dull greys and browns of the outside. Molly.

Molly, one of his ex-girlfriends. One of his friends, all the same. Molly, the brother killer.

Salem just caught the shape of a person moving around in the room behind her. Voices now too, from the other side of the house, faint but there. Looked like a whole party. And Salem stood still in the space between the houses, framed in Molly's sight just like she was in his.

If everything they'd both done had taken place say, a week earlier, maybe he'd have settled in for a chat. Maybe he'd have said he was getting revenge for Lúcio. He'd wanted to see Lúcio because he had known that Lúcio would forgive anything. But so, apparently, would Julia.

Salem still might have made his way in just to see what was going to happen, but he was worn out, and he hurt, and honestly he was just tired of being haunted by his exes.

And he'd been waiting for a party.

He rested the rifle in the snow for a moment, propping it against his leg. One hand slipped into his bag. The other forked two fingers and stuck them into the corners of his mouth, and Salem brew a shrill whistle that echoed through the nearly-deserted town.

He was already winding up when Molly's gaze zeroed in on him; he'd just wanted to be sure that she saw. That she knew.

He let the tear gas canister fly, right through the crack in the windowpane.

“I…It’s not about bringing him back.” Aracelis said matter-of-factly, as she stepped up the pathway towards the door.

And it wasn’t, Aracelis knew what she was going to do, and that it directly went against Lucios wishes. But despite that she continued to walk forward. Jacob wasn’t going to do anything about what Molly had done, so it fell to her. Because someone needed to hold Molly accountable.

Leslie was nervous about the decision and she could understand it somewhat. Although she wondered if he would have felt differently if the person who had been killed was someone he cared about. She supposed they’d never know, he hadn’t mentioned having a girlfriend or a boyfriend so Aracelis assumed he didn’t have one.

The house that Molly had decided to hideout in was the same as the others. Left to face the ravages of time alone and losing that fight. Paint had flecked away across the entire front facade, and rotten wood was exposed in a few places, the dark red wounds of wood visible as she reached the door.

“It’s fine,” She said, in an attempt to be reassuring. “I’m not expecting you to help.”

Then she kicked open the door and was immediately greeted by a cloud of tear gas.

"Mmm," Leslie said quietly, looking away. He supposed it wasn't about bringing him back. Revenge probably helped cover the pain for awhile, but he wasn't sure how long that would hold back that sorrow. But maybe it wasn't something for him to care about. Aracelis already said wasn't expecting him to help, so he got what he wanted and he would be left along in this matter. Was it really his business?

Leslie found himself being a bit embarrassed looking at her. Though it had been many days that they had been on this island together he couldn't help but notice sometimes that she smelled... like a girl. And that it was nice. It was nice to have around. And that he liked talking to her, and also, not talking.

He was brought back to himself when she kicked the door open, and Leslie was struck instead by a painful, chemical smell. His eyes began to water and he coughed, putting his gloved hand up to his face. He stumbled away from the door and leaned with a hand on the wall, coughing uncontrollably. When Leslie looked up, he saw a figure with an unmistakable silhouette.

“Right. Going home is what matters,” Mônica repeated, more to herself than to Jacob. Her eyes flickered down for a few moments.

She contemplated the always-seething guilt in her stomach for a moment, then pushed it down. Going home mattered. The rest could wait.

Her eyes moved back up and out the window again.

Salem was standing there, a canister in his hand. Staring right at her.

Mônica stared back blankly for a moment, the reality of it only catching up when the tear gas canister crashed through the window.

“Salem’s--” Mônica started to scream, but then the gas flooded the room and her eyes—her whole fucking face—started to burn.

She covered what she could of her face with one arm, gripping the zweihander so tightly with her other that her knuckles were white.

She pressed her back against the wall, trying to hide from Salem’s view. She heard his footsteps move. She heard a door slam open nearby… too quickly for it to be Salem. Voices.

Through her blurring, burning vision, she saw a glimpse of a silhouette that she’d dreaded seeing ever since she’d fled from Lúcio’s body. Aracelis.

This was every nightmare arriving at once.

She’d wanted to stick with Jacob and help him to the shore, to hope that they could both reach the boats… not make up for what she’d done, but at least tilt the scales a little further back… but this was too much.

Mônica turned back towards the broken window, Salem no longer there – entering through the same door that Aracelis and Leslie had been near, maybe, she could hear noises from that way. She jabbed the sword into the window and knocked more of the glass and rotting wood away. Then she threw the sword through the window and hoisted herself out.

She couldn’t look well where she put her hands. Glass and splinters sliced her hands, and she lost her balance and tumbled out of the house and onto the snow outside. Coughing and crying and her hands bleeding and spilling red onto the snow now, she picked up the sword again—her hands shrieked in protest, but adrenaline overwhelmed the pain.

She couldn’t see. She just ran, leaving little speckles of blood in her wake.

((Mônica Oliveira continued in YEAAAH!))

“What the fuck?!” Aracelis coughed as the gas hit her in the face. She furiously wiped at her streaming eyes as she continued hacking and coughing.

Her hands flailed in front of her face as she tried to clear her vision. As she did so there was the sound of glass smashing from inside the house. As she looked around at the smoke filled room, the silhouette of someone was visible breaking a window.

Backing up Aracelis stumbled around the corner of the house and through streaming eyes she saw Molly retreating across the snow.

Without hesitation she gave chase.

((Aracelis Fuentes continued elsewhere…))

Without warning, something crashed through the window. It didn't take long for it to reveal what it was; it had scarcely hit the floor before the air suddenly grew sharp, a billion needles stabbing into his eyes and leaping down his throat.

Jacob scooped up his bag, gun and all, and managed to struggle to his feet, bracing himself against the wall. He stumbled away from the window and out of the room, making it through a door he'd (apparently?) left open. He made it just a few steps outside before collapsing into the snow. The still-growing gas cloud behind him had left him utterly helpless, laying on the ground and hacking up a lung; he could barely breathe without it sending a new wave of violent coughing and wheezing up his windpipe. His vision blurred horribly, water leaking from his eyes like a faucet. The inside of his nose and mouth felt practically on fire. If he hadn't already been in horrible pain before, he certainly fucking was now.

He was so blind and in such pain that he didn't quite notice either of his present company right away.

Salem hadn't stuck around after throwing the tear gas; he'd had one smoke-in-the-face experience and that was enough, thanks. He instead darted off around the side of the house to see who else was arriving, pausing only momentarily at the sound of the window shattering behind him. Molly was fleeing though, not running towards him, and the huge fuckoff blade she was lugging kept him from giving chase. It was a little too much like the one he'd thrown at Adam.

He found what he was really looking for at the front of the house.

"Jacob, how's it hanging, buddy?" Salem called, staying what he judged to be a safe distance back from the open front door. He wasn't sure how far or fast tear gas spread, but one look at Jacob and his new friend was enough to tell him he wanted none of that, if there had been any doubt.

He swung the rifle up, catching the barrel in his free hand and holding it across his body at the ready to aim. "We've gotta stop meeting like this, huh?" He tilted his head to the side with a smile at the other two boys; his warped, sidelong reflection in the house's windows showed a grinning corpse with bruised shadows under the eyes. But like still in a hot way, like the anime version of Dracula.

Leslie kept the gloved hand up in front of his mouth, though he had stopped inhaling while he was trapped in the smoke. Tears began welling up and pouring down his face, but he felt a draft and moved toward it until he emerged from a doorway. Jacob was already hacking his lungs out. Leslie took a big, deep breath and coughed as he looked up to see Salem.

And to be very honest, Leslie wasn't happy to see a crazy twink.

Leslie whipped his head around and also noticed that Molly and Aracelis weren't with them.

"Oh... fuck."

Leslie coughed a few more times and stumbled away from Jacob.

"I'm not with him," he said quickly, pointing at Jacob.