Drip drop

[MrMissMrs Random†]

(Rosemary Michaels continued from Where on the island is Carmen San Diego?)

Rosemary rubbed the sleep away from her eyes, taking a bite of one of her issued energy bars and trying to ignore the dry and unappetizing texture. For once in her life she didn't feel particularly hungry, but she knew food would help keep her strength up. They all had probably burned a lot of calories trekking last night. Might've felt better if they just stayed on the beach, but then they would've been sitting ducks for anyone who had a long range weapon, so they walked a bit farther until they reached the grotto. It was dangerous, despite Meera and herself being strong swimmers, and she didn't know what would happen if Joey fell... but it was getting too dark to see the path back, so they pressed on until reaching the entrance they were now laying in. It was moist and certainly not as pleasant as a bed would've been, but she hoped other people would be too scared to look for shelter in here.

Sunlight had started to filter through the crevices in the cavern, and Rosemary finally got the piece down her throat and was moving in for a second one when there was a loud noise. Startled, she quickly sat up and moved to grab her knife, but before it was unsheathed from her pocket a person's voice came on, broadcasting. A loudspeaker was nearby?

She shook her head and scoffed at her rush of panic. Of course, how could they talk to every person trapped here without it?

The voice was familiar, and still relatively young. It was Danya, who had come back from the dead. And then he started to list off people's names- names of the people who had killed and been killed.

Joey's fears about Theo were right. He had killed two people- two innocent classmates had been shot down and he had taken their lives. She had thought she had been prepared to hear the worst, but it still felt like a sucker punch to the gut. And Jason, Jason the boy who had given her pansies in a surprise show to take her to Prom. He was dead too, and killed by Joe Carrasco. She had faint recollections about the boy, how he said strange things about shoes, and made really good brownies.

She didn't have enough time to process the scene hinted at with Joe killing Jason when another familiar name was spoken. She felt her stomach do a flip.

It can't be, it had to have been another. There were probably multiple Katarina's here, and I never got her last name. But when Danya had said sycthe, Rosemary knew it couldn't be anyone else. Kat, the girl who wanted her weapon, had barely hours later killed another girl in cold blood. A girl that she could have switched spots with and it wouldn't have been odd. This girl, Kelly, she was dead, and Rosemary could've easily been the one who died.

Rosemary felt her stomach do twists and turns as she crawled to the cave side opposite of where Meera and Joey were and braced her hands along the wall before throwing up the little food she had consumed and when that was gone dry heaving, her hands clawing at the eroding stone.

[watcher in night†]

((Meera Stele continued from Where on the island is Carmen Sandiego?))

Well, damn.

After Danya's voice had faded away, this was Meera's first coherent thought. Not very articulate, but the best she could manage. Through the entire announcement, she'd held her hands clenched into fists, listening to this terrorist, the man who had apparently returned to life in order to turn their own lives into a living hell. He'd spoken a bit, then listed off the names of the students who had died. Eight of them, and most weren't suicides Meera hadn't heard Garrett's name. As far as she knew, he was alive out there.

Just like in previous SOTF ACTs, people were playing. Joe Carrasco. Hansel Williams. Katarina Konipaski. All of them were playing this game.

And Theo. Joey had been right about Theo. He'd killed twice. This was the person they'd been chasing, and he'd gunned down two people-- two classmates-- in cold blood. Gabby Parker. They hadn't known each other well, but Meera knew she'd had two little brothers. They'd never get their big sister back.

It was then that the game became real for Meera. In those moments, after Danya had stopped talking, she realized she'd never make it off this island alive. Before this entire "game" had felt surreal like she was living a horrible dream. But now it was horribly real. Classmates were killing classmates. She was already dead. She, Meera, was going tow real be killed on this island in some horrible way in a few days, or a few hours. Meera thought of her own brothers, Amir and Brian, who'd probably knew what had happened to her by now. They'd never be seeing their big sister again either...

Meera let her thoughts trail off. She'd never really thought about death much. One of her uncles had died, in a car accident involving a drunk driver, when she was very young, but that was the limit of her experience with it. She'd never had any religious inclinations before, but now she wondered if she should pray. Or scream. Or run.

Meera felt her vision blur with tears, but she quickly dried her eyes. She never cried, hadn't since she was little and sliced her hand in a biking accident. If her brothers were watching the terrorist's broadcast of this right now, she didn't want them to see her cry.

Slowly her fear began to ebb away, until she was left only with a terrible, sick emptiness inside. For a while she sat there, eyes staring at the sunlight filtering through the cracks in the cavern walls and ceiling.

So, what am I gonna do? Just sit here and waste what could be the last few hours of my life? she thought. Slowly, the despair faded, replaced by steely resolve. No. I'm not going to lie down and kill or die on the whims of some terrorists. When I die here, I'll die on my own terms, not theirs.

Meera saw Rosemary had thrown up, her hands clawing at the stone of the cave. She remembered how Rosemary had described her meeting with Katarina and realized how close Rosemary had come to death.

Walking over to her new friend and sitting down beside her, Meera wondered what she should say. While she'd often consoled her brothers and sister after they'd lost games, skinned their knee, and so on, eloquence was not Meera's strong suit.

Also, her repertoire of "ways to comfort scared girl when on an island where your classmates are trying to kill you" was embarrassingly small.

"Hey," said Meera. "We're going to fight back. Me and you and Joey, and whoever else we can find. And not just halfheartedly either. We're gonna punch the terrorists as hard as we can in the face, then kick 'em in the balls for good measure. Then we're gonna find a way out of here."

Even if escape or rescue is hopeless, we should still try. Still hope. Anything else, and the terrorists win.

[umop-ap!sdn†]

((Joey Caputo continued from Where on the Island is Carmen Sandiego?))

The announcement of deaths went on longer than Joey could have ever imagined. When it didn't end as soon as he'd expected, he starting using his hands to keep track. Let hand counted deaths, right hand counted killers.

...

Fucking HOW? How could there have been so much death and killing already? It had been one fucking day. Why the hell did so many Aurora students snap so quickly. Joey looked back at his hands in disbelief. Three fingers raised on his left hand, five raised on his right. He hadn't been expecting more than five deaths on the first day. Hell, he'd convinced himself that one or two was the worst case scenario.

One hand didn't have enough fingers to count all the deaths. The "killer" hand had reach it's capacity now, too. The worst part was, every single fear he'd had had come true. Theo had gone killer. Fuck, Theo had gone double killer. Joey had talked to him yesterday, what the hell had happened? Did he see him before he killed these kids? Or after? Why wasn't he attacked? What the hell was going through Theo's crazy head?

And then fucking Iselle. She'd refused to join the alliance of his and Garret's. She was angry, hostile, and stormed off. With that big stick she'd been carrying, who the hell knew what she'd been up to. If Joey and Garret weren't clearly going to best her in a fight, or if Joey had a worse weapon, they could have been bitch bait. Two murderers spoke to him yesterday. Collectively, they had killed three students. What the hell were they going to do today? What the hell was Garret going to turn into?

Joey quietly dropped the wrapper he was holding onto the ground. Interrupting this sacred silence after the announcement would be as embarrassing as it would be inconsiderate to the deceased. Rosemary's gagging broke the ice, and Meera moved to comfort her.

"We're going to fight back. Me and you and Joey, and whoever else we can find. And not just halfheartedly either. We're gonna punch the terrorists as hard as we can in the face, then kick 'em in the balls for good measure. Then we're gonna find a way out of here."

Joey nodded. He didn't know how, but he knew it was what they had to do. Rosemary was smart, Meera was sincere, Joey was strong. They had to be able to figure something out, they were all so different. It worked in Fast and Furious, why couldn't this unlikely team overcome the odds?

"Yeah. Fuck them." He looked to Rosemary. They needed brains right now. " Let's figure out how these collars work."

[MrMissMrs Random†]

Rosemary let out a few shuddering breaths, trying to focus on Meera's words and regain her composure. It wouldn't do any good to breakdown at the first hint of trouble, and she didn't want to appear weak to the others.

Haven't even seen a body yet and you're already going to pieces- can't have that. She thought to herself.

"Give... me a minute." She gasped out to Joey. Once she regulated her breathing again she slowly let her hands pull off of the wall, which were now covered in sand and a bit of debris. She used her jeans to pat them off and ignored the particles that had probably gotten under her fingernails for the moment.

"I do agree about the collars, figuring out how they work." Where they watching them right now? They were able to hear the announcement, so there was a high chance cameras were focused on them right now; watching. If they stepped too far out of bounds with their plan they would be killed. She did not want to be killed because of a stupid plan. "But diving right in and poking through it will be a sure fire way at making them detonate. I don't think we should try to mess with our own collars."

Messing with someone living's collar is out of the question, so how could it work...

"...Do you guys think they've already picked up the bodies of who- who died?"

It was probably a long shot, but it's only plan right now she could think of that could possibly work, desecrating the dead be damned. They're dead, they wouldn't really care what happened to their bodies when they were no longer in them, right?

[watcher in night†]

Meera and Joey's words, blunt as they might have been, seemed to have done the trick. Rosemary seemed calmer as she talked about the collars.

"Do you guys think they've already picked up the bodies of who- who died?" She asked, sounding hesitant. Meera understood what she was getting at. They obviously shouldn't tamper with their own collars, they'd just blow their own heads off. But if they tampered with the collar of someone who'd already died...

Meera's first reaction was to recoil at the idea of desecrating a corpse in that manner. But as she thought about it, it actually made a great deal of sense. Since they couldn't mess with their own collars, why shouldn't their classmates help them in some way, albeit unknowingly?

Rosemary had clearly thought this through, and it wasn't like they had a lot of other viable options. . If the only way to figure out their collars was to mess with a dead classmate's collar, then so be it.

It probably wouldn't be too hard to get one, either.

"I doubt they've picked them up," said Meera, unable to keep a bitter note out of her voice. "They probably don't bother until after the game's over. We could find someone."

[umop-ap!sdn†]

Joey missed the connection. It seemed the topic had changed, and they would figure out the collars... eventually.

Find somebody? What did Meera mean? Catch one of the terrorists who was on the island retrieving a body. That would be awesome. Turn the hostage situation around, tell them they can have their friend back if they are willing to negotiate. Terrorize them. The methods had worked into turning the students against each other, why would this work?

Because the terrorists didn't give a fuck about each other. Because no matter what, the kids had collars, and were going to lose negotiations. Because the terrorists, if they DID show up on the island to retrieve bodies, would be armed better than these three. None of these thoughts crossed Joey's mind for an instant. He heard talk of a plan and he jumped on board, despite having misunderstood the intentions of the plan itself.

"Yeah, that's fucking genius." He took out his map. Holding it out for all of them, trying to plan which body they should check out.

They were never told where the bodies were. Joey felt himself blush upon the realization that the map wouldn't be helpful at all. He tried to sound confident anyway, maybe they wouldn't realize that was why he'd taken it out.

"Uh.. so.. where do you think they might have died?" Tired as he was of walking, he was even more tired of being without direction.

[MrMissMrs Random†]

"...May I see that?" Rosemary asked Joey. She didn't want to have to search in her own bag for the map at the moment. She took the piece of paper, lying it flat and smooth on the ground. She took one of the rocks to use as a makeshift indicator. This was one of the times she yearned for a pen or pencil. Any writing implement would make things much simpler to convey. And with less noise.

"The announcement said that the places we can't go today are the Airstrip, the Amusement Park, and the Hotel," Rosemary made a small dent in each place. "Why do you think the terrorists chose these three spots? I think it's probably because at least one person died in each of them, or they have something planned to do there."

She had a faint recollection of when she was throwing up that Kat would be heading to the Amusement Park to claim her rewarded prize, so it would be best to give that place a wide berth for the day.

She grabbed eight other rocks, one for each death. She put one stone in each of the danger zones. "It's obvious that going into a danger zone would be suicide- and I'm not particularly fond of that idea- and Danya said that one person- uh, fell off a cliff, so that counts him out to getting to his body."

She felt sick again, but she swallowed and shook the feeling off- she needed to make a point here, putting one of her collected rocks off to the side to represent the suicide. "But that still leaves at the most four bodies around the island."

[watcher in night†]

"Yeah," said Meera. "We could probably find one if we found Theo's trail again. That could lead us straight to one of his-" she had difficulty saying the words- "one of his kills."

Theo had killed twice, and Joey had seen him yesterday, near the Parking Garage. If the three of them found his trail, it could lead them straight into the next phase of their plan.

"We don't have any good weapons, though," said Meera. "We have to find other people we can trust. There have to be other people who are still sane here, people who would help us with this. Or should we go after a collar first?"

[umop-ap!sdn†]

They'd spent all of yesterday and much of today looking for allies and sane people. In the process of doing so, they'd actually lost a member. Joey didn't see the point in keeping this priority number one. They were wandering more than anything, looking around for people, ways to escape, things to defend themselves with. They'd accomplished nothing but boring themselves nearly to death. Was that possible? What would they say on the announcements if that were to actually happen...

"I mean, we're just kinda wanderin'. Like, how 'bout we just go with whatever we find first."

That probably wasn't very helpful, but searching for both could be done. They didn't really have any leads on where sane people nor dead bodies might be found.

"We find people, we bring em along, but I'm not about to pass up a chance to see what's happening with the bodies. Unless we know where to find friends or corpses, we're just kinda wanderin' 'n seeing what we find."

He looked down at his map spread across the rock. Rosemary had indicated the points of danger along with her theory of there being bodies there. Not all of the murder sites could be dangerzones, that would leave them with nowhere to go too quickly. The corner of the island they were on was rather far from anything else. There were two nearby areas, one of which Rosemary had declared a no-go.

There was nothing of interest at their current location, they had to keep moving. The map suggested only two directions they could move in, one of which they'd just come from. He pointed to the area to the north of their current position.

"What's this place?"

[MrMissMrs Random†]

"Joey's right about the wandering... but we don't have any exact locations either." Rosemary frowned. They were stuck, no way about it. Either look for friends- allies that could possibly shoot them, or focus on grave-digging. Neither sounded very appetizing.

She looked at the spot the boy had indicated, then at the map key. "Southern town..."

Well, it was a start. All journeys had to start somewhere. And it wouldn't be them just retracing their steps back to the Plant.

"Town's could mean supplies left behind if we're lucky. And maybe even people... or bodies." Whichever one came first, they would handle it. They would have to be able to handle it. "

She looked at Meera. "I agree with finding more people, but just because a person has a better weapon won't mean they'll want to join us. We'll have to be careful who we talk to."

"So... is everyone in agreement in heading into town?" She asked.

[watcher in night†]

"You know I'm with you," said Meera. She rose to her feet, grabbing her pack.

With only a few knives (and a car owner's manual), Meera knew they needed some new weapons. They definitely couldn't stand up against someone with a gun, but it didn't take much more then rope, some metal or glass, and a large stick to build a makeshift spear.

"We should move fast. Staying in one place in this game is probably a bad idea."

[umop-ap!sdn†]

((GMing approved))

"S'go."

They were on the move again. Joey struggled to work the compass as he moved to the front and began leading the two girls. Both were relatively cute, and so long as he could keep them protected, at least one of them might be feeling grateful. He pulled out his knife, holding it between two fingers underneath the map. Nobody was fucking with him, and nobody was going to come at his allies either. Not that they had proper direction now.

He kept his eyes open for loose dirt or soft mud, he wasn't going to fall into that water. He wasn't going to fall victim to Iselle or Theo. So long as this group stayed together and he didn't fail to pick up any more allies, they would all be safe. Rosemary was going to figure out these collars. She was smart, after all. Meera could help fight off an attacker, she seemed fit. Plus, if they were attacked and they killed the attacker, that would be their collar to experiment with. Joey had no idea what they were in for, but he knew that they could make the best of it.

Joey began walking before he heard Rosemary's voice.

"Um... Can I brush my teeth first?"

((Joey, Meera, and Rosemary continued in Nobody Wants This))