Under This Killing Moon

[Ares]

((Continued from Shallow Grave))

That literally accomplished nothing. You basically stared at two girls, who in turn, did nothing. You couldn't hear them, you couldn't nut up and actually inquire about their status. Joey Grey, master of accomplishing nothing.

Joey wandered into the area that encompassed the overpass, shuffling his feet with each stride. His head hung low, his shoulders were slouched. He was walking like a defeated man. He had no idea what he was going to do next. There couldn't be that many people left. He'd stopped keeping track of anything other than where not to travel.

"There's what? A dozen people left?" Joey muttered as he came to the actual overpass.

He stared over the edge to where the the sewage pipe had a constant trickle of water flowing. The smell coming from it was noticeable from where Joey stood.

"A dozen people left, and I'm pretty certain that everyone except me and Zubin have killed someone."

Joey let himself sit on the ground with his feet over the edge of the overpass.

"Everyone has killed except me. Yay me! I'm a good guy!" Joey exclaimed with the sarcasm turned up several notches.

You're pretty much screwed Joe. You know that right?

The seeds of self-doubt that Joey had battled early in his island stay were doing their best to try and creep back in.

"This is bullshit." Joey said through gritted teeth as he slammed his swords into the ground.

Would it be easier to find an edge to jump off? Impale himself on his own swords? Walk into a dangerzone? Pretend one of the swords was an 8-iron and start going Tiger Woods on some cameras?

Nope.

Fear of dying was the only thing that would stop him from doing such things. Yet fear of perceptions were the main thing holding him back from trying to straight Rambo on the remaining people. He didn't understand how they could so easily murder each other, yet at the same time, it was completely logical for someone to be scared and defeated as a victim of circumstances.

With nothing better to do, Joey started humming Yellow Ledbetter by Pearl Jam, tapping his fingers on the ground, missing his Ludwig drums more than ever.

"Unsealed on a porch a letter sat, Then you said, "I wanna leave it again..." Joey murmured the lyrics as he stared down in the drainage pit.

[Deamon]

((Gray Emerson continued from Love and Marriage))

How lost did you have to be to revisit the last place you saw someone alive?

That was the big question in Gray's mind as he hobbled along the overpass. He'd just ended up walking (as best he could) to the overpass. It was almost like he was on autopilot. He kept replaying shooting Sean in his mind. The bullets ripping into his friends back. Sean falling to the floor in a heap. He'd failed Sean. He had tried to save him and he failed. Sean had paid the price for his failure. That was what made it worse.

So now he was lost and alone. He hadn't ever truly been alone since he'd woken up. There had always been someone with him. Andi, Cassandra, Corey, Sean. They'd all been with him at some point or other. Now he was by himself. It was a weird feeling. He felt adrift and close to drowning. If Sean represented his hope then he had destroyed it with his own hands. Maybe that was melodramatic, but it was how he felt about the situation.

So he continued to make his way across the overpass, not knowing where he was going or why. He slowed down when he saw someone else. Chances were they'd killed someone. The number of people who hadn't killed was dwindling. Gray used to be a member of that group. Used to.

He stopped a safe difference away and raised his hand.

"Hey. You dangerous?"

The irony of the question was not lost on him. Asking if someone was dangerous when he was the one who had just killed one of his best friends. Being stuck on the island was having more of an effect on him then he thought. It was making everyone's priorities backwards. Value being placed more on personal safety rather than the safety of others. Ignoring how dangerous you were to others as long as you were safe. Gray now knew the true nature of the game he was taking part in.

[Ares]

Joey turned as he heard the voice. Probably the simplest question he had been asked during his stint on the island. He remained seated as he answered the boy, who he could now see was Gray Emerson.

"Well, considering I haven't killed anyone or even been in a fight yet, I'd say no."

Joey lifted up one of the hookswords.

"These are my weapons. I can't say I want to use them."

Joey stood up from his position, leaving the swords on the ground in hopes of showing Gray that he meant no aggression.

"What about you though? I haven't heard your name announced or anything, but I also watched Zubin help Tyler kill Cooper and Zubin wasn't announced, so...yeah..." Joey trailed off. The last thing he wanted to do was piss someone off.

[Ruggahissy]

((Amaranta Montalvo continued from Multishot))

Mara shuffled away to a nearby area, one that she'd previously been to in fact. The world seemed gray and hazy. On her slow trudge away from the place, all of the awful things she had seen and felt began collecting like a snow ball rolling down a hill.

It started with having to watch Finn die and stay by his side as slowly expired. That memory attracted the rest of the things she'd put off, like a magnet for pain. She tried to stay strong during the entire ordeal that was this island ever since she'd seen Daniel shot in front of her on the first day. Strength had always been demanded of her at home and weakness was punished.

Home....

It couldn't be more than a day or two away. It was so close, but as the cliche goes, also so very far away. What even was at home anymore?

Her mind lulled and her thoughts jumped back to Finn and to Summer. Her hand tightened around the gun that was dragging lazily behind her.

She felt tears rise up in her throat and dug the nails of her unoccupied hand into her palm as she'd done when she was young to prevent crying.

Crying was a weakness.

As she felt the pain once again, it occurred to her that it didn't matter anymore how she appeared to others. She tried to release the feeling, tried to cry, but so many years of pushing it back made it a strain. Her chest tightened. She could feel her father squeezing her heart and demanding strength. Next his stern fingers were around her throat.

After a moment a single, loud sob was produced. Tears tipped over her sharp cat's eyes and she started crying freely.

So it was like this, sobbing, covered to her elbows in dried blood and dragging a huge weapon behind her that she encountered the two boys at the overpass.

[Deamon]

He hadn't killed someone. That was surprising. Gray hadn't expected to meet someone who still hadn't killed. It was a weird thing to consider. Maybe because he had been around Sean so long. He had been exposed to a killer for so long he had forgotten what it was like to be around someone who hadn't. That was a depressing thought. Even Kathryn, who hadn't even registered to him as a threat had killed. He realized that he had left her behind. He had just walked away, trying to get away from his murder of Sean. It had been like a dream almost. Gray had just zoned out and started walking paying no attention to whether Kathryn was following him or not.

The other boy who Gray recognised as Joey raised his weapons. They were some weird looking swords that Gray had seen in a few martial arts movies. Not that he could name them. It didn't matter anyway, Joey had no intention of using them and Gray would have been able to gun him down if he tried.

"Yeah..." Now Gray had to confront what he'd done. It was harder than he expected. "I..." He sighed. "Fuck." Gray rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand and tried to calm himself down. He needed to keep it together. "I killed Sean not too long ago." He didn't want to go into any more detail. Sean had been on the announcements once. It wouldn't be too hard for Joey to piece together what had happened. Even if he got it wrong it still told a similar story and Gray didn't feel like telling his side of it yet.

Now he was just another statistic in the history of Survival of the Fittest. Another death added to the tally and Gray had been the one to put him there. He had no idea how Hansel had managed to kill some many. Gray had killed once and it was eating away at him. He could feel the guilt in the back of his mind, clawing and tearing at him. Trying to break him. He had gotten to this point though and he intended to keep going. That was the one thing Sean's death had solidified in him. The strength to go on.

That was when he heard the sob. It was a loud sharp sound. It sounded anguished. Gray turned towards it. He saw the girl walking towards them and it took him a second to put a name to the face. It was Mara. Gray had never actually spoken to her before, he wasn't the sort of guy she paid any attention too. But he still knew who she was; her name had been on the announcements a few times. Despite that, she didn't seem like a threat.

The question of whether she was alright was the stupidest thing Gray could think of asking so he didn't bother. Instead he stood watching her approach before speaking.

"Hey Mara."

[Ares]

"It's alright man, no explanation needed."

Joey could tell in the way Gray's voice changed at the mention of Sean that it was a sensitive matter. Those two were friends, and there was no point pressing on matters like that.

There was a brief silence between the boys that was interrupted by the sound of a sob. Both boys turned to check out what the noise was, and there appeared Mara.

Gray quickly greeted her, but Joey hesitated. This was a girl who had killed multiple people. This was one of the people that Joey had just spent time wondering if he could face down.

Joey could feel his body tensing up with nervous apprehension. It might have been genuine emotion pouring forth from this girl, but this might have been her mode of operating. Suckering in people and blowing them away.

After kicking himself mentally for leaving his weapons on the ground, Joey gave Mara a nod of acknowledgement, followed by moving himself slightly so that Gray's body was blocking him out as much as it could.

[Ruggahissy]

She curled into herself. Some unseen force was trying to fold her body clean in half as if she were a sheet of paper. Again, as before she swung the gun in front of her and used it for support, hunching over it.

Mara's breathing was deep and shaky as tears continued to flow freely down her face. The hollow cavity that was her stomach went inward and it made her acutely aware of how thin and tight her skin was stretched over her protruding ribs, and how angular and pronounced her hip bones had become.

She couldn't stop. The pain of an entire lifetime, swallowed down until now on the orders of others so that she appeared superior, spilled out of her heart and into her veins like acid. She felt it, cold and nauseating, hugging the curves of her limbs.

Hunched over her weapon-turned-crutch, she wretched, but there was nothing to expel. She shuddered and shook like an electric toy with a short circuit and cried loudly.

Someone said her name. Her own name sounded like a word in a foreign language.

When she tried to respond only a few creaky squeaks escaped. Her legs came together for support, refusing to let her fall to her knees. She haphazardly pushed her hair back and wiped her face with the back of her hand, not remembering it was completely covered in blood. It gave her a sweep of brick red color across her cheek just below her eye like war paint.

Her breathing slowed down a little. She looked at both of them with eyes overflowing with tears, but wild like a feral animal apprehensive by the appearance of humans.

"What?"

[Deamon]

So now what?

Despite the fact both of them had killed other people Gray felt miles away from Mara. There were no similarities even the thing they shared was wildly different. He had only killed once and recently. Mara had killed three times over the course of their stay on the island. Just from looking at her it was obvious she'd had it rough. He had no idea what she had been through and it wasn't his place to ask.

Which led back to the original question. What did he do now?

Mara looked like she was halfway between breaking down or attacking them. She reminded Gray of a cat you'd see in an alley. It recognized you as a person but it didn't trust you. If there was a loud noise it would probably spook her. It meant he had to carefully think about what he did or said next because it would set the direction for the rest of their interaction.

Gray resisted the urge to ask if she was alright. It was a stupid question and he knew it. Strangely he wasn't scared of Mara. He had thought he would have been. Instead he saw her as he had back when they had been at school, just another student. It was the same with Joey. They were the last remnants of their class. Everyone else was dead.

The reason he viewed everyone as equals though was that if they had made it to the point where they were the last ones left they all had done something. Joey said he hadn't killed anyone but Gray had doubts that he hadn't run away or failed to help someone. There was no way he could have made it to the point he was at without doing something that benefited him over someone else. Mara had killed others and Gray had looked out for his friends more than others, like when he had kicked Matt and Finn out of the house. Then he had killed Sean. It wasn't like they could talk about the people they had killed or what they had done. There hadn't been any happy memories since he had woken up in the park.

So what did you say when everyone was damaged morally?

The truth he guessed.

"I don't know." He shrugged. "What's there to say?"

[Ruggahissy]

A memory resurfaced while she broke down.

"I have to go now, but you better pull it together, Miranda. You have to do it for yourself because no one is going to help you. Get your self in line and tough it out. I'm not saying that to be cruel. I'm saying it because no one else will."

Her tears stopped and she swallowed hard.

Is that me? I don't recognize myself. It was the last time we spoke, but did I say that?

She closed her eyes and blinked slowly. The empty misery felt like a rock in her chest, but what other choice did she have but to keep going? If she quit now everything would be pointless.

Mara stood up straight and her arms went slack. She swung her gun up and it came to rest on her shoulder with a hard "clack." Her breathing was shaky, but she stood solidly with her gun up on her shoulder and her other hand on her hip.

"I have to keep going. I'm going to find that bitch that shot at me and killed Finn. No one shoots at me and lives."

She walked past the two boys and stopped just before she was about to pass them.

"Don't forget."

((Amaranta Montalvo continued in Get Ganked))

[Ares]

Words. All that came of this was words. Joey's life was fully still in his hands. It had been a tense few moments indeed.

"Look man, I'm going to go grab my things and get going. I don't know where, and I really don't know who I'm going to come across, but at this point, I think it would be a stupid move of either of us to stick together. Maybe I'll see you down the line."

Joey turned away from Gray and returned to where he'd left his belongings.

He studied what he had left, and decided to take one thing away from this situation. Mara's voice when she stopped near them had been cold and motivated. She had the right attitude to get herself out of here. She had come to terms with what she would have to do.

Joey needed to find a way to get himself in that mindset, because he knew that he was about to be the guy who was bringing a sword to a gun fight.

((Joey continued elsewhere))

[Ruggahissy]

Mara moved on quickly, leaving them a threat to dwell on. Gray didn't think much of it. He could have shot her as she left. It would have been easier than with Sean. Mara probably didn't see him as a threat. She had always been egotistical like that. He didn't shoot her though. She seemed different the island had changed her, all the time she had spent on it and she was going to avenge a friend. Gray could support that. It served to say a lot about his current outlook on life he realized. Joey made some excuse about getting his things; he said it would be stupid to stick together. That made Gray raise an eyebrow. He had a feeling Joey would have been useful as a companion anyway.

After they left Gray hobbled over to the edge of the overpass and looked out over the island. He had lost track of the days, when he'd last eaten, when he'd last slept properly. But despite that he had never felt lost before. Now though, now he was finally realizing what it meant to be on the island. He had never thought about his chances of living or dying, there had never seemed to be a point to it. Sadly though he found himself drifting towards those thoughts and what was going to happen next.

It was a great unknown.

Gray had been lost looking out over the island when the speakers blared to life. He hung his head, he knew what was coming and as much as he didn't want to hear it he had to. The announcement gave him the confirmation. Sean was dead. Gray had assumed he was but actually hearing it stated changed things. The worst was still to come however and at the end of the announcement he heard his name again. He had won a prize for killing Sean. It was on the overpass. Gray looked up and scanned the area. Of course it would be at the other end. Pushing himself off the edge of the overpass Gray started limping to the opposite end.

When he arrived everything was there like they had said it would be. Gray stood staring at it all. He had been given all of it for shooting one of his friends in the back. He felt sick. Gray put the FAMAS down to one side and picked up the mug of hot chocolate. It smelt amazing, so he didn't hesitate to toss it over the side of the overpass. He wasn't going to accept a prize for killing a friend. The pot-pie followed it. Gray left the gun where it was. He doubted that anyone was going to be allowed back onto the overpass. Gray didn't care if the terrorists were laughing at his act of rebellion. It was important to him and that was all that mattered. He picked up the FAMAS and continued on his way.

((Gray Emerson continued in Sudden Life))