Survival Of The Fittest

((Kai Rosado-Prince continued from Color In Your Cheeks))

What did you deserve after you'd suffered?

What was the world supposed to give you in exchange?

It was a question Kai had occasionally grappled with. Politically, sure. People arguing about handouts and heritage and what was owed or earned. Personally, too.

What did he get for growing up poor? For having a mother who'd tried to kill herself and a dad who stopped calling after he lost custody? For feeling always out of place, never quite right among people? He'd been happy with his own company most of the time. But not always.

What did he get now? For being here? For listening every morning to the list of who had killed and who had died and knowing he'd eventually be there too? For carrying the cold and stiff body of his best friend up the mountain step after step in the snow and the wind?

He was punishing himself by doing this. He knew that. What did he get for it when he'd finally been punished enough?

Who decided when he was sorry enough for killing her? For letting her live so long in the first place?

What had she really deserved?

Kai could feel the stitches in his leg straining as he walked. Gritted his teeth and powered through it. He couldn't be sure where exactly the invisible boundary between the two halves of the mountain lay, but he imagined it couldn't be much farther. Everything felt more distant and barren without Cali following close behind him. Without her, all he had were the borderline nonsense questions swirling around in his head.

His muscles were burning and his breath escaped in shallower and shallower puffs of mist. He kept going.

Once Kai crosses the boundary into the danger zone, his collar begins to beep. At first, it is slow, only beeping every few seconds. After a minute, it becomes more frantic, beeping every second, and then every half-second.

Despite the warning, however, it does not immediately detonate.

Kai froze.

Stupid, right? The same way a deer froze in headlights. They could avoid the car and live, but they froze. So they died.

But he didn't. Not when it seemed like he should have.

The collar kept beeping, getting faster and faster like an alarm clock that nobody was turning off. It never stopped.

Kai staggered forward a few steps, gasping for breath. Kitty's weight and gravity pulled him over, and his knees hit the ground hard, but he was barely aware of the pain. Only the noise and the question it asked. The possibility. Kitty nearly tumbled from his arms, but he held her. He held on.

He was still holding on, but he couldn't any longer.

The collar was beeping, but that was all. He felt like he was teetering on the edge of a revelation. Vertigo.

Kai pushed himself back up, dragging Kitty with him. Made it a few steps more. His heart was beating so hard he thought he'd throw up, but he couldn't stop. Couldn't stop.

Couldn't keep holding her.

Even with his mind reeling and his body demanding that he drop where he stood and the noise never stopping, he made himself lay her down gently. Away from the edge. Far enough in that he could hope nobody would stumble across her. Maybe most people weren't as stupid as him, anyway. Wouldn't be coming up here.

The island was beautiful from up here.

Nothing looked out of place as far as he could see, but Kai didn't have time to be disappointed or wonder about it. He tore his gaze away, and then tore back down the mountain with his thoughts racing as hard as his heart.

((Kai Rosado-Prince continued in Color In Your Cheeks))