Stand Your Ground(s)

[CondorTalon]

Corey looked up to see that Adonis was still standing there, trying to call inside. Corey groaned inwardly, before standing up and heading towards the doors.

"Buddy, buddy buddy buddy," he said, pushing the doors open, "Listen here, alright? I don't like you. Also, you have a reputation around school. That being a given, if you get targeted by someone, neither I nor any of them will want to be in the way. Also, I don't think I trust you enough to let you into the group, and I'm not willing to take that chance."

He paused, staring at the other boy.

"If you stay with us, we'll be casting our suspicions at you half the time. I doubt that's what you want."

He wished Adonis would just take the hint and leave. Find some of his friends. That would be the best case scenario for all of them. He just hoped the boy listened to reason.

[Aura]

((Since Adonis is rolled and death rights are nabbed, I'll be getting him out of your hair now))

So it turns out that Corey doesn't like Adonis.  Big fuckin' surprise.  Plus, apparently letting Adonis into their group would make everyone else attack them, even though Corey and his gang are the only people who've reacted to him that way other than the asshole cowboy on the island.

Adonis just shrugged and responded.  "Fine.  I can see when I'm not wanted.  Have fun in your little hidey-hole.  Just don't leave everyone else for dead just because you don't like 'em, all right?"

Adonis turned around and left.  He didn't need to take Corey's crap.  He could find his own way to survive.  He was tough enough to get by, and he knew it.

((Adonis Alba continued elsewhere...))

[Cake]

[[Miles Strickland Continued From: Rebel Diamonds.]]

A school. Miles had never thought he'd be this comforted by the sight of a school, but it was a decent building that he could actually rest in, compared to that broken-down neighborhood he had just ran through and boy did he run. He ran and hadn't really stopped till then except to dump out some of Chuck's things that he didn't need in order to put everything into one bag instead of two and his body was still hurting from the wound on the side of his abdomen on top of that.

Miles finally stopped beneath the shade of a few small trees outside of a school building, which looked like a cafeteria. Someone was leaving the building area from near the farthest exit from where Miles was and he didn't look happy.

Wait a minute, was that Adonis Alba? It was tough to see from the ever increasing blur and swirls in his vision, but it did look a lot like Alba. Miles tried calling out, but a combination of pain and exhaustion led to a shortness of breath too much for him to yell out, so he sat there huffing in air, trying to regain some energy and before he knew it, the other boy was already gone.

Miles padded his forehead dry with the handkerchief he had stored in his jacket's pocket, because he felt filthy and he hated that feeling. But when he looked at the handkerchief, he noticed that it was starting to get stained by some of his own blood as well. The sight of it brought back memories of the pain from the initial jab from Kat's knife and his mind became even more aware of the stab injury in his mid-section as the feeling flared up once again.

With a hand over his wound, the other hand holding his blooded Hunga Munga, Miles staggered his way slowly to the cafeteria building door closest to him a little while after Adonis left.

To his surprise there were people already near the area. A girl and some guys he sort of recognized, but they were beginning to be blurs too. He straightened his back and tried to compose himself as he always did back home. He tried smiling as he walked toward them.

"Hey there," Miles said shortly before passing out face down onto the ground.

[Skraal]

Well, that situation seemed to resolve itself. Now they could finally-

Holy crap. Another kid. This was just getting worse and worse. Timothy's breathing sped up. He looked around. There didn't seem to be anyone else with him.

As he walked closer, something caught his eye. Blood. Was he attacked? Were they still following him? Timothy stood rooted to the spot as he stared at the bleeding student. They couldn't just leave him here, could they?

Putting his hand to his forehead, he took a few steps toward the growing pool of blood. He remembered reading something about not moving people with severe injuries. Was this bad enough to qualify for that? He coughed, his throat suddenly feeling bone dry. Kneeling down, he tried to get as good a look at the situation as he could. There was nothing to do from this angle. They had to put him on his back if they were going to help at all. Turning to the others, he spoke hesitantly.

"Could I get some help flipping him over? We shouldn't move him too much, but we can't help him if we can't see where he's hurt."

[Laurels]

That was it. Adonis was leaving. They had scared him away. While Rachael didn't like the guy a whole lot, she didn't understand how they could be so cruel. She heard that this game changed people for the worse, but couldn't it also change them for the better? She wasn't sure if Adonis could change for the better, but she felt worried about her group.

Everyone's incredibly tense. I guess that makes sense, but I don't know what that could result in.

Suddenly, another person walked over to the group. Rachael recognized him as Naomi's cousin, Miles. She hadn't spent a ton of time with him, but he was class vp, so maybe he would be better received than Adonis.

However, Miles passed out as soon as he spoke to the group. Rachael noticed that he was bleeding as Tim ran over to help him. Did Miles have a run-in with one of the killers? Rachael didn't know, so she remained frozen in place, her hands covering her mouth.

[dmboogie]

Asshole finally appeared to take the hint, restoring peace to both the group and the world, through some sort of feelgood aura-magic. Wait, wouldn't releasing an asshole out into the wild bring discord to the world? If that was the case, wouldn't the best thing to do be seeking out every asshole left in the island and absorbing them into the group, like some huge gelatinous creature fueled solely on dickishness?

...

Regardless, Michael did feel sorta bad for the dude. He'd have to ask the others what, exactly, the deal was once they got a chance to catch their breath. At least the coast appeared to be clear for now, except for the bloody, shambling figure approaching them. Shit.

Fuckin' radiation zombies? This island is bullshit. All of it- wait holy shitfuck that guy's actually hurt oh god

Michael joined Tim in rushing to the wounded student, panicking slightly. Apart from the gunshot, the group hadn't actually encountered any evidence of how batshit things on the island actually were. Michael wasn't gonna run away like he had before, though. He was gonna help this poor asshole, even if all the crazed killers on the island were after him. No one could outfight the biggest badass in a fuckin' 100 mile radius, especially not when said badass was armed with the biggest gun in a 100 mile radius.

First things first, though, they had to treat those wounds. Somehow.

...Dammit, Tim, I'm not a doctor. I have no fucking clue what to do, here.

Tim was a smart dude. Hopefully he'd have more of an idea on how to deal with the situation. Michael quickly pulled out his notepad, scribbling a message to Tim. "What do you need me to do?"

[Will†]

((Stacy Ramsey continued from Rebel Diamonds))

Miles wasn't anywhere in sight. Every now and then, Stacy would lose track of the trail of blood that she was following, but would then see another small drop several feet away from the last one. Miles must be travelling pretty quickly if she couldn't even see him; she didn't wait that long before going after him. Stacy quickened her pace as she followed the blood, she'd have to catch up with him sooner or later.

As she walked along the pavement, Stacy lost track of the blood trail. She stopped in her tracks and looked around herself to see if she could find any specks of red on the grey ground, but saw nothing. Continuing to walk along the pavement, Stacy began scanning the area in a final attempt to pick up the trail.

Stacy was about to give up her search when she suddenly saw a pile of items situated near a school. When she approached the pile, Stacy saw that the items on the ground were almost exactly the same as the ones in her bag. Bending down, Stacy picked up a few of the items and noticed bloody hand prints on several of them. They could have belonged to Miles. Stacy got up and headed towards the school building. As she turned a corner, she noticed the bloodied blonde haired boy she was looking for enter through one of the doors into the school.

"Miles, wait!" Stacy called out to him.

Stacy sprinted as fast as she could after Miles, ignoring the pain that her bag was causing her as it repeatedly bashed into her hip. Flinging the door open, the first thing Stacy saw were four people staring at something on the floor. She looked down to see that the thing that they were all staring at was a collapsed Miles.

"Oh my god, Miles!"

Ignoring the people crowding around him, Stacy dashed over to Miles and knelt beside him, dropping her bag and shotgun next to her. Tears filled her eyes as she stared at her bleeding friend. She was tentative about touching him, unsure about if she did, if it would only make things worse. Stacy flapped her hands about helplessly then stared at the others who were crouched next to her with desperation in her eyes.

"Help him, please." She sobbed.

[CondorTalon]

"Hey Miles," said Corey, as the other boy fell to the ground.

Why another one? This was like the stupidest chain of events that had happened. Granted, Miles wasn't as bad as Adonis. He was, at the very least, tolerable, to a degree that Adonis wasn't. Also, there was the fact that Miles hadn't slighted him or friends personally. At least that he knew of.

There was also the fact that Miles was injured, which is kind of a big factor when determining whether or not to push someone away.

Tim and Michael rushed over to help him, and Tim asked for help flipping him over.

"Alright, hold up," he said, preparing to move the boy to a safe place, if need be.

But of course someone else had to show themselves too. Stacey Ramsey ran over, crying out helplessly for them to help him.

"Alright, we got it," he said.

He looked to Tim. "Flip him over carefully, alright? On three."

He took a deep breath in.

"Okay, one, two, three!"

[Cake]

After flipping him over, the group were met with a glazed expression from Miles' normally presentable face as he faded between consciousness.

He could sense them turning him over, which caused him to open his eyes slightly, so they knew he wasn't completely out, but they knew he wasn't one hundred percent coherent either. They'd been saying things that he couldn't quite hear and their faces were nearly silhouettes in the glare of the light and Miles eyes might have rolled back in stimuli, not that he would have known or thought about it.

Miles had fallen and his head hit the floor, so there was a throbbing he could feel and a slight headache, but strangely he couldn't really think of it as pain. They were asking him questions, which Miles didn't really understand, but he could still catch a few key words like his name, "talk" and "move" and he tried saying something anyway, so his mouth was moving.

There was somebody's hand lifting his own hand that he had over his injury and then words were getting to be reasonable sentences with clear voices and faces. Someone was saying to help move him and telling Miles in a comforting tone that they were going to help him walk and to his surprise he recognized Stacy's face amongst the bunch. He didn't really care at this point about the fact that she'd followed him all the way here, but she had his bag and his hunga munga next to her own things.

Miles was cooperating now as best as he could, but he was still barely lucid, the earlier pain felt disjointed for some reason, but he could still feel it. Then suddenly he was being helped up by two or three of the guys here, his right and left arm supported over their shoulders as they helped him move to wherever they wanted him. The movements were slow as Miles had a bit of height and some size over the others, but he could actually feel himself making a few steps with their help.

The next thing he knew, he was moving through the cafeteria into some connected room within where they cautiously had him lay down. By the sounds of things, he was possibly in a teacher's lounge.

Some last few things Miles remembered was someone offering him some water, another pulling up his shirt and another opening up a white box with a red cross on it.

Everything else after that was a blur before he passed out again for some rest and it wouldn't be until much later where he'd regain some lucidity in his thoughts again.

[[Miles Strickland Continued To: The Best Part Of Waking Up.]]

[Skraal]

With Corey's help, the other boy flipped over easily. Timothy looked him over. He wasn't a medical expert, but he couldn't identify any injuries other than the stab wound. Miles was still breathing, which was good at least. Timothy closed his eyes for a second, thinking. The bleeding was their biggest problem right now. Compression would probably help, but what could he use?

D'oh. They had first aid kits in their bags, right? Those probably had bandages. He crawled over to the bag and pulled his out, checking inside. Yep, there were definitely bandages in there. He took a deep breath before crawling back to the unconscious boy.

Well, first things first. He pulled off Miles' shirt and dropped it on the floor next to him. After that, he unrolled the bandages, winding them tightly around the other boy's torso. Timothy felt a twinge of regret at using up valuable supplies on someone who wasn't in their group, but he shook it off. It was a shame, of course, but it wasn't a waste. It wasn't like they could just leave him to die, could they?

After finishing with Miles, Timothy stood up, wiping his forehead. There wasn't much more that he could do now. Hopefully he'd make it to the next morning.

((Timothy Abrams continued in The Best Part of Waking Up))

[Laurels]

Rachael remained in place as the guys all rushed to help Miles. They were all shouting about flipping him over and treating him. Another girl had run up as well. Rachael knew Stacy Ramsey as one of the more popular girls in school. She didn't really know Stacy that well, but Stacy never bothered her, so Rachael didn't have the worst impression of her.

The guys were going to carry Miles into the school. Rachael quickly ran and swung the door opened. The sight of the injured boy being carried into the school reminded her of the end of Hamlet, following Hamlet's duel with Laertes and after most of the other characters had died. She prayed this wouldn't lead to a funeral, and that someone in the group would know how to take care of Miles.

Once everyone was inside, Rachael quietly followed behind them. They had made their way to what looked like a teacher's lounge and were all trying to take care of Miles. Rachael couldn't set foot inside the teacher's lounge. She knew the boy could be on the verge of death, whether his wound was severe or it impeded his abilities in the next few days. She just couldn't stand to be inside that room if it meant having to see the boy bleed out before her eyes.

Rachael turned away from the teacher's lounge and started to move down the hall. Her breathing was getting heavy, and she could feel her stomach churning. It was then that she realized she hadn't taken her anxiety medication since she woke up here, and it might have been a few days since she last took a pill.

In that instant, Rachael felt something rise up in her esophagus. She quickly clutched her chest and bent forward, spilling the contents of her stomach on the floor of the hall. She gasped as she finished puking, taking a moment to try and spit out the leftover bile in her mouth. She then began to feel tears welling up in her eyes.

I'm so weak...

Rachael stepped back a little from the puddle of vomit and slumped to her knees. She buried her face in her hands and began to cry, the smell of her vomit filling the hall.

((Rachael Langdon continued in The Best Part of Waking Up))

[CondorTalon]

After they flipped Miles over, they set on bringing him into the school, helping him walk and supporting him, towards the teacher's lounge.

They gently set him down on the floor. Corey grabbed for his bag, pulling out a water bottle and putting it next to Miles' hand. Timothy had begun treating Miles' wound, and in the corner of his eye he saw Rachael stumble away from the room.

He tapped Michael twice on the shoulder to get his attention, then pointed towards the doorway.

Check on Rachael. Please.

Corey hoped that Michael would get what he meant.

((Corey Esposito continued in The Best Part Of Waking Up.))

[dmboogie]

Another person had run up out of nowhere, adding to the clusterfuckishness of things. Michael did his best to ignore her for the moment, focusing only on helping the others flip Miles over and bring him to the school. They could figure out just what the fuck her deal was later.

After setting the wounded guy down in what seemed to be the teacher's lounge, Tim and Corey began to treat him. Michael stood there, unsure of what he could do to help.

Dammit, I don't know the first, second, or any other metaphorical thing about first aid. Ignorance is the worst fucking thing.

Life would be so much easier if you could have a HUD. Press A to treat injuries! Press B to  give water! Press- actually, just throw your controller out the window, you can't do anything, you dumbass!

Rachael apparently couldn't handle the atmosphere in the room, stumbling out into the hallway. Corey tapped Michael's shoulder and pointed after her, probably saying something along the lines of "Michael, you wonderful human being you, please go comfort our trusted companion! You're our only hope!"

Well, I can't refuse a plea for help like that.

Michael gave Corey a nod, then followed Rachael out into the hall. When he caught up to her, she was slumped down near a pool of vomit, sobbing. His steps faltered for a moment. It hurt, seeing a friend in distress. It hammered in that they were, in fact, stuck on Asshole Island. He might try to dress stuff up in as much humor and style as possible, but things would still be nowhere near okay.

Agh, shitty introspection can wait. Daniel'd probably fall into a despair-induced coma or some shit like that if anything happened to Rachael before we found him.

Michael collected himself, and approached Rachael, gently placing a hand on her shoulder. He tried to smile, tried to emit an aura of "Every little thing's gonna be alright, even though I'm obviously lying through my teeth!" except maybe without that last part. Michael stayed with her until she had recovered enough to rejoin the others.

((Michael Mitchellson: Continued in The Best Part of Waking Up)))

[Will†]

When two of the guys began to flip Miles over, Stacy shuffled a couple of feet backwards away from the three. They seemed to know what they were doing and Stacy thought it would be best to get out of the way and let them get on with it.

As they got him up, Stacy grabbed hers and Miles's bags and followed the group. Stacy stayed behind Miles closely, following him like a shadow and continuously giving him reassurance. Once everyone was inside the room, Stacy immediately rushed to sit beside Miles when he was laid down on the floor.

Whilst the two guys started to patch Miles up, a retching noise and the sound of something wet hitting the floor echoed from outside of the room. One of the others must have been sick. Stacy ignored the sound and focused on Miles, gripping his hand tightly with streams of tears continuing to run down her cheeks.

"Everything's going to be alright Miles." She tried to say in a way that sounded remotely convincing.

((Stacy Ramsey continued in The Best Part Of Waking Up))