Survival Of The Fittest

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

Kai had walked from the hot spring until exhaustion and his injuries forced him to stop. Marshall and June had followed him. They were with him still, though none of them had spoken to each other much. Marshall had done what he could to help deal with Kai’s injured leg, which Kai was grateful for in a distant sort of way. Nothing much penetrated very deeply through the fog of grief and single-minded focus on moving forward.

It felt like he hadn’t slept a bit, but he started walking again as soon as it started getting light enough to see. Seeing was relative, of course. Without his glasses, all of the terrain began to look the same the more they wove through the woods and towards the shore.

Kai hadn’t been sure if there would be an announcement. One did come, but what was said hadn’t made him feel any more or less sure about his goal. There were new Danger Zones announced, but it could have been a lie. His experience on the mountain could also have been a one-off fluke. He wouldn’t know until he tried again, with whatever consequences that would bring.

Kitty’s death had been announced, but Cali’s hadn’t. Maybe due to the disorganization caused by whatever had happened. He’d been given an award for killing Kitty. It felt like listening to them talk about someone else. He didn’t say anything about it, and neither did Marshall and June.

It didn’t matter. That food and the weapon were going to go forever uncollected. Kai could maybe tell himself that they were trying specifically to lure him back inland, away from the shore. That probably wasn’t the case. If he was really being a problem, they could have just blown his collar. Unless the collars weren’t working the way they were supposed to.

The two sides of Kai’s thoughts chased each other in circles. He could wish and hope, but rationality kept coming in to point out that he was probably wrong. They had to know what he was up to, if they were paying attention. If they cared, they could have probably killed him. There couldn’t be that many people left to keep track of.

It didn’t matter-

No, that wasn’t true.

It did matter. Every person left had to matter. Kai wouldn’t have shot Kitty if they didn’t.

That was a thought he couldn’t fully reconcile either in the aftermath of Cali’s death. A dark part of him wished he’d let Kitty go on long enough to catch up with Matthew like she’d always wanted.

There was once again no clear boundary to cross, but as they approached the shore, Kai slowed just long enough to pull the grenade launcher back out of his bag. He hadn’t told Marshall and June exactly what he was planning. It wasn’t much of a plan.

Destruction enough to get attention. That was all. If he even got that far.

If nothing else, he wanted the people who had caused all of this to have to put him down personally. One way or another.

“I’m going down onto the shore,” he said, voice rough from disuse for the last half-day or more. His face hurt when he moved to speak. The cold had felt even sharper and less forgiving since leaving the hot spring. It was breaking him down.

“You can stay here.”

He didn’t wait for a response before moving forward again. He didn’t let himself look back, either. If he was walking into a death trap, he was at least going to die with his eyes on the goal. If not, he couldn’t afford to hesitate.

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.

The beeping started as expected, and Kai picked up the pace accordingly. There was only one visible structure along the shoreline. The half-buried plane, some distance out in the water. That was his target.

He didn't know how long fuel stayed good. How long it could sit in one place and still burn. How long he had until his collar wasn't just warning him off.

He was going to find out.

Eyes forward. Couldn't look back and see if Marshall and June were with him. If he was leading them somewhere they wouldn't come back from, despite telling them that they could stay. Marshall had some kind of aspiration to still help people, and June had stubbornness that could be turned into a determination to survive.

Kai only had nothing left to lose.

He crossed the beach as quickly as his feet could carry him on the slippery rock and hadn't even fully skidded to a stop when he started to raise the grenade launcher. The plane's outline was blurry, especially against the pale light of the winter sky, but he didn't need to be exact. Just had to aim and pull the trigger.

This time, he didn't cower away from the explosion.

((Marshall West continued from Color In Your Cheeks.))

Marshall’s legs had stopped since Kai stepped into the Danger Zone.

He should have followed immediately. Or said something. Or dragged Kai back and insisted he do it instead. Something to make up for failing California. Or to pay Kai back for saving him on that first day.

But he froze, and he waited instead. If he was being charitable to himself, he’d say it was so he didn’t leave June behind, or peer pressure her into following what could very well be suicide.

Or that he was thinking of people like Evie and Matthew – killers on a day when they should have all stopped to see if the game was broken – who would continue to kill if he didn’t find them. Maybe he could talk Evie down. He had no illusions about doing the same to Matthew, and didn’t think he even wanted to.

He wasn’t being charitable with himself, though. He was pretty sure he was just too scared to move. Especially with the announcement that day playing like the explosion had never happened at all.

So Marshall waited, and the beeping got higher. And higher. And higher.

But Kai got as far as pulling the grenade launcher out, and aiming it at the plane. It was still pitching up, and up, but there was a window.

Kai’s potential discovery was his last remaining hope that, perhaps, the game wasn’t holding together underneath the surface. If Kai was right, that would be proof. They could show that irrevocable proof to people.

So when Kai shot the grenade launcher at the plane, Marshall flinched and looked away for a moment, covering his eyes. Still covering his eyes, Marshall inhaled sharply and stepped into the danger zone as well. He lowered his hand and started to walk towards Kai, though moving his feet that way was like walking through mud.

((June Madison continues from The Long Way Down))

And now she had followed them straight to the edge.

This was it, the next step of the plan.

Her collar wasn't beeping, Kai's and Marshall's were. She stood she could hear Kai's even though he was so, so far from them now, Marshall's was still a shrill beep in her ears. All this, intermingled with the sound of waves rushing over the rocks. Static of the sea, static of the mind.

There had been so much bravado yesterday. Thoughts of how if they were to die it'd be better to die trying, that's what had propelled her to join Marshall and Kai. But she didn't want to die at all. Thoughts of falling and bleeding only meant so much when they were just thoughts, but now it was just a step away.

Tingling in her hands, the cold rush of wind below her.

Kai entered, and kept walking, and walking, and walking, and he was still alive, but the collar was still speeding up. A plane exploded, June flinched, looked up, Kai was still alive. And Marshall followed, but June didn't. It was just an arbitrary border, an invisible line to cross, but there was a part of her saying that if she stepped past, she'd never make it back out again. Die crying, die trying, that was the choice.

And yet June was completely, utterly frozen. Watching as their collars beeped faster and faster. Hoping against all hope Kai as right, but waiting and waiting for another sound.

Waiting for the other shoe to drop.

There was a light whistling sound as the grenade launcher's payload flew towards the plane.

It was quickly replaced by a small explosion that, after a split-second, as if the plane itself realised what had happened, was followed by a second larger and louder explosion as the fuel still left sitting within the plane ignited.

The whole vehicle was consumed in the fireball, lighting up the water and sending shrapnel flying.

The wreck shifted in the surf before listing over to one side, unbalanced due to the loss of a wing, while the gentle crackling of the fire could be heard from where Kai stood.

A large plume of thick black smoke rose into the sky.

Kai had enough time to see it begin to blot out the sun, covering the shoreline in shadow when a third explosion emanated from his neck.

Meanwhile, Marshall's and June's respective collars began to rapidly beep.

Maybe this was the closest thing Kai had ever had to a religious experience.

He knew deep down. He knew what was coming next. But the light of the fire and smoke dancing on the water's surface reminded him bizarrely of the stained glass windows of a church for the few moments he had left.

Maybe it was like a burning bush. A message from God to the world, shouting: I am here. I am here! Maybe it was the other way around.

We are here!

When Kai's collar went off, it mangled his neck and shattered his jaw, but it didn't kill him instantly. He stayed standing for a second while the grenade launcher dropped from suddenly limp hands. The pain was white-hot, so excruciating that it was hard to say he could even really feel it. Not enough time left to process what had just happened to his body.

But he had time to be glad.

Glad he had forced them to pull the trigger themselves instead of letting someone else do it.

Glad that he wasn't going home alone.

"Go-" That was the best approximation of a word that he could get out through his ruined throat before collapsing forward like a puppet whose strings had been cut. The ground was hard, and the impact drove the last of Kai's breath from his lungs. His body shuddered, trying involuntarily to inhale again and only succeeding in filling his mouth with blood. A cold deeper than anything he'd ever felt settled in the core of his chest and seeped outwards into the rest of him.

But he could see the fire reflected on the water's surface in the last moments before his vision went dark.

The last thing that Kai knew was the smell of smoke and the sound of the ocean.

S35 KAI ROSADO-PRINCE: DECEASED

When Marshall lowered his hand from his eyes, he saw fire. Black smoke blotting out the sun, and the ocean orange instead of blue. Things that would have seemed apocalyptic if he’d seen them anywhere else, and it was only Kai silhouetted against the fire that made the sight beyond beautiful.

Marshall took another step forward, eyes wide, unwilling to blink as the smoke’s shadow billowed over him--

Kai’s neck exploded.

Marshall’s heartbeat, already fast, sped up to match the beeping that vibrated from his neck.

Kai said something. Go? It was hard to tell. Kai collapsed. Died.

Marshall shut his eyes tight. The light of the fire remained burned under his lids, interrupted by Kai’s standing form. If he kept his eyes shut, he could believe Kai was still alive.

He took another step forward, this time slow. Uncertain. Too many thoughts in his brain, none of them getting through except an urge to move forward, and believe a comforting lie.

There was another set of shrill beeps behind him, only picked up by his ears because they were slightly out of step with his own. June.

The living. Always the living first.

Kai wasn’t one of them any more.

Marshall opened his eyes. He turned and sprinted away. As he caught up to June, he grabbed her arm and pulled her with him. Trying to outrun the sound that came with them.

((Marshall West continued in I'm going where the cold wind blows.))

The smoke plumed yards and yards above her, and all June could do was crane her head up. It was human instinct, she supposed. Even though she'd been dozens and dozens of times, whenever she and her family went to Boston to do some city shopping, she couldn't help but turn her head up, marvel at the height, the immensity of all the skyscrapers around her. And so it was here, what had once been mere detritus left to rot on this godforsaken island was transformed by Kai into something infinitely greater, more powerful, a husk of metal turned into something that could block the very sun.

There was a sense of awe and elation in June at this. But still, there remained the dread, the static, the fear.

Because, what happened next was inevitable in the same way that gravity was. Once you made that final step past the boundary, once all that remained between you and the ground was air, you may be given a couple seconds to marvel at how high up you once were, to think, consider, regret the actions that led you to this point. But you couldn't un-fall. You couldn't un-step off the cliff. All you were left to do, really, was to watch what followed from the laws of physics, the natural conclusion of being accelerated 9.8 meters per second per second towards the ground, racing downwards faster and faster and faster until

A couple seconds after the plane exploded, Kai's neck and jaw exploded, leaving just a fraction of his head.

It was inevitable, it was expected, but that didn't stop June's vocal cords from nearly tearing themselves apart at the sight. A screeched second, followed by her placing her hand over her mouth, like if the terrorists heard her, they would explode her next too.

And then, they did hear her, and her collar too began to beep, despite her being behind the boundary, and she was frozen, she was frozen because what would happen next was also inevitable, they would unravel her the same way they'd done to Kai, she had stepped over the cliff, and all that remained after the bravado was the beeping of her collar the last grains of sand spiraling down the hourglass the—

feeling of being yanked back, Marshall's hand taking her free hand.

((And so, with no room left for thought, she followed blindly, and ran, and ran, and ran.))