Waking up in a strange place isn't so unusual for some...

[Dannyrulx†]

Will's first thought upon waking up was the massive crick in his neck.

His second thought was how he was not going to die.

Although it has been shocking to him, his teacher's life being ended litterally in front of his eyes, his jacket sporting a light spread of almost rust-coloured blood, the actual, physical act hadn't been as bad for him. He had, after all, has blood cover his jacket before, and indeed he had seen the effect a bullet could have on a living being.

But it was horrifyingly different to watch a fellow human's brains being blown out than it was to see a prairie dog crumpling. To see someone's life being snuffed out, see the light fade from their eyes as it flickered back from sleep, and then to be told he'd need to see it over and over and over lest he suffer the same fate? It was sick. And as he looked at the B037 marking his rucksack, it truly hit him.

He, he considered, was probably some kind of favourite. He was strong, had firearms experience, and had shown an interest in joining the armed forces. Maybe some goons had him market down as a potential victor.

However it wasn't merely him. It was also about Rea. She was a nyctophobe, frail as a china vase, and as athletic as a fat kid with asthma. He needed to protect her, because otherwise she was dead, for sure.

In fact, some small part of his brain thought, what's too say you'll never see her again? That already she's bleeding out in a ditch, or dead. That the first girl he truly opened up to, had taken her virginity and shielded her from a million minor things, was already being mourned by her parents?

But that was the defeatism talking, and defeatism was a slow and insidious killer. He would find her.

[Spinnentier†]

Rea lay on the floor, curled up in a ball, crying.

G049: Rea Adams, Island Start

This wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening.

For the presentation she'd just remained still, motionless, and unthinking. She didn't have time to react, only time to vaguely remember the presentation in her dazed and confused state. She'd thought the entire thing a dream, that is, until she realised she was lying on the floor of some strange room. This was it. Her life had been cut short by people she'd never even met, for reasons she couldn't fathom.

There was no way she was getting out of this alive. She was too weak to do it. What chance did she have of returning to her family? The one that she'd seen so little of. The one that she'd left behind to go and die on an island somewhere.

And then it hit her. Will was here too. He had to be, he was sitting next to her on the bus. Which meant he was in this hell with her. That was a small comfort.

But how could she find him? How did she know the he wouldn't be dead by the time she got to him? What was to say that she'd never see him again, never to fall into the embrace of the only person she'd ever felt truly in love with.

The truth was, there was nothing to say that he was still alive. And that's the part that got to her.

And left her crying on the floor.

Alone.

[Dannyrulx†]

Will's hand was on the door handle, feet hovering over the shag carpet. He had to find a proper weapon somewhere, because he had gotten fucked over with the weapons. All he had gotten was a packet of cable ties, which currently were scattered outside, the window having been the preferred method of ditching them. A few were in his pocket, but the rest were the domain of whoever stumbled across them.

He appeared to be in an office area. A corridor lead down, with name inscribed on each door. The rooms all seemed to be identical in construction, two separate rooms with one having a desk and what you'd normally expect from an office building, and the other having a bed, for whatever bizarre reason.

He rubbed his neck, the metal collar that had been wrapped around it had dug into the back of his head, which was what he had mistaken for a crick when he had first awoken. Carefully, he walked along, occasionally opening a door and peering inside; perhaps a staff member was a fan of lethal weaponry, or maybe someone was inside. He didn't know what morbid curiosity drove him checking on.

Finally, he was about to open the flast door, when he became aware of a sobbing noise. He would put money on the fact that this voice wasn't the only one bawling like a child, and whilst part of him felt that joining them, he knew the tears wouldn't come.

Not because he was a sociopath, or unable to feel emotion, no, he wouldn't be able to cry because the most incredible sense of numbness had spread across him, and he was having a hard time thinking anything other than 'step forwards,' over and over again in his head.

He gently pushed the door open, hearing the faint creak as the un-oiled hinges swung inwards. There were two large bookshelves flanking the desk, and a small pot of random junk that had been abandoned whenever this facility had been deemed no longer needed. The pot was made from some kind of ceramic, so he gently smashed it open and picked up a shard. It wasn't much, especially if somebody had a gun, but it was all he was going to have for now.

[Spinnentier†]

She hadn't even moved since waking up. All she'd done was cry into the floor, waiting to die, waiting for someone to open the door, run forward, and stab her in the neck or something. And then she'd bleed out in this room, or wherever she was, and leave this hellish place behind.

Along with everything from her old life. If she died here, there was no way she'd ever see her parents again. Never graduate from Cochise, never get that fabled university degree she'd always aimed for and never move out of Kingman. She'd never have a family, never get married, never spend the rest of her life with Will-

But then it hit her. Both of them getting out of this alive was impossible. It was one or the other. Even if she did manage to survive this by some miracle of fate, it would be at the cost of the one person that mattered most to her. One of them had to die to let the other one live. That was for certain. And that was the thought that kept her sobbing on the floor of an abandoned building in the middle of nowhere, waiting to die.

Then she heard the creak of the door open. Someone was entering the room. Probably about to kill her. End it all, before it even began.

"Just.... Please don't... Please don't kill me..."

She could barely manage speech in this state.

[Dannyrulx†]

The odds, he thought, of bumping into one specific person on an entire island, with probably a hundred other people was very small indeed. So to find the one person he was looking for almost immediately after deciding to find them was such a minuscule chance that he wondered it'd Danya was fucking with them, toying with them for some bizarre reason.

The numbness that had spread over him seemed to fade a little as he saw her red hair and heard her voice. Sure, it was a quiet whimper that gutted him, but it was her voice, and that was defiantley something. He shuffled over next to her and sat down, the first tears threatening to claw themselves out from his eyes to splash onto the soft carpet.

"If you're the kind of girl that hates seeing men cry, then I'm sorry, and you should probably look away." His voice sounded strange, as if it was more distant. Quieter, almost meeker. Like his body was strangling itself as it realised his situation.

There could only be one winner, and that winner had to have killed someone. Either he or Rea was going to have to die in this island, the other scarred and a murderer. So, he thought, maybe crying wasn't such a bad idea.

[Spinnentier†]

It was weak, it was shaky, and it was far too quiet, but she knew that Scottish accent anywhere. It couldn't be real, though, could it? Will just waltzing in here, within the first minutes of the game. She was just hearing things, her mind playing tricks on her. There was no way that was actually her boyfriend talking to her. She opened her eyes, trying to force her mind to focus on reality.

And there he was, sitting on the carpet, his head drooping, a few tears slowly making their way down his face. She scrambled to get closer to him, wrapping her arms around him, crying into his shoulder. One of them had to die. Their lives, their futures, taken away from them and cruelly destroyed in front of them. The life they could have spent together an impossibility. They couldn't both get out of this. That is, even if either of them managed to survive through this at all. In all likelihood one of them would just die a little later than the other, just lonelier.

It was a crushing thought, made even worse when she considered how many others on the island would be going through the same dilemma. The Sophie's Choice of who to live and die, who should carry on without the other.

"You have nothing to apologise for. I'll always love you, no matter what happens."

[shotgunkid†]

((B038: WADE CARTWRIGHT. START!))

No, no no no no! Wade simply lied in bed and uneasily rocked his head from left to right, trying to rid himself of a throbbing headache but also trying to keep his cool and ignore the rising tide of emotions raging inside of his mind. He was barely holding it together. The headache was probably a result of the terrorists giving him too much of that sleeping--

The gas. The terrorists. He was reminded of a furry novel he'd read, long ago, that made a major plot device out of mind-controlling gas. However, he also felt no discontinuities in his consciousness, even though he was intellectually aware that a long time had passed. The bus ride, Mr. Graham's death, that awful 'presentation' all melded together as one continuous memory. Most of all, though, he remembered the enigmatic young Danya, whose face and features stuck out oddly in Wade's mind. Come to think of it, they sort of reminded him of--

Dover. Dover Cheetah, a character the memories of whom were already becoming distant in Wade's mind. Very distant. The gas again? But he would never read another strip of SJ. Or.. of any other webcomic he had learned of. He would never see the ending of Rough Housing. He would never experience anything he had been looking forward to up until that point. As hard as he tried to suppress the onrushing flood of despair and anger-

It's not fair. He sat up, noting the duffel bag squeezed under the bed. The room seemed old and looked something like a teacher's office, strewn with furniture, which itself was stacked with books and charts and folders, many of which looked oddly familiar to Wade's eyes--

He would never have the chance to write more stories, never learn how to draw and animate, never listen to another Eurobeat song, never hear another amazing opening or ending, never watch the second seasons of Sword Art Online or Attack On Titan, never see Zootopia or play Civ 6, never enjoy another good round of CS:GO or Civ 5, never achieve or earn or accomplish anything of note in life.

It's not fair... He stood up quietly and tightly balled up his fists, his hands and arms shaking almost uncontrollably in place. In spite of his best efforts, his face twisted itself into a mask of pure grief. He was tearing up. As his throat moved, he became dimly aware of the collar, attached tightly to his skin just below his Adam's apple. If he didn't follow the rules, or just took an unlucky stray bullet, he supposed, it would explode, killing him in one of the most excruciating ways imaginable. Now that I think about it, it kind of reminds me...

As a matter of fact, it sunk in for him, he would almost certainly never read, watch, listen, think, feel, love, or enjoy anything ever again. His very existence would be erased, his memory destroyed for all time, his dreams and hopes and labors all rendered futile. He would never have a chance to make them reality, as he had so hoped practically his entire life. And it was all because of the actions of this hideous, heinous, monstrous terrorist organization who had chosen him and many, many among his class just like him to have all of their potential, hopes, dreams and lives cruelly dashed, no, stolen from them, aside from a horrifically traumatized winner, who often did not survive long anyhow.

All of that simply for the sake of.. revenge, or religious zeal, or sheer misanthropy, or whatever it was that had motivated those very terrorists to embark on this decade-long campaign of sowing fear and pain throughout the world. In his mind, he cursed them to the high heavens-

IT'S NOT FAIR! Those words reverberated through Wade's mind as though they were a mantra. He was captured in a haze of grief, terror, shock, pain, and a litany of other emotions he could not name, and it was all he could do to keep himself from repeating that phrase out loud. He could barely stand, but there was no room in the cramped office to fall over completely and he instead leaned, hands-first on the filing cabinet at an awkward angle, crying silently. IT'S NOT FAIR! IT'S... NOT... FAIR! He remained in that posture for awhile, thinking back to his past. He wracked his mind thinking of what he would never attain, of what he would never experience again, of everything that he'd started and would never finish...

He fell backwards into sitting up on the bed, devastated and drained. It's not fair... He was more or less relaxed, having rid himself of all his immediate feelings. All of them weren't gone, strictly speaking. He had the faint sense that new ones were being spun. But to his mind, he'd already expressed them. He felt an odd sense of pleasure at being hollow for now. In his rage-filled stupor, he had been so fixated on all his own emotions at the situation that he hadn't noticed the footsteps or creaking as someone moved their way down the hall. He could faintly hear the whispers of crying and talk and more crying, which he disregarded for the moment, trying to analyze a new sensation bubbling up from his semi-conscious mind.

He was thinking, unwittingly, on his own survival instincts trying to speak to him. He went through many mentally-constructed scenarios of victory, defeat, and death, and escape. More narrowly, he fixated on how his present situation would play out. Through all that, however, one thing was increasingly clear:

I just want to live.

[Dannyrulx†]

Numb yet crying. Was that an oxymoron? A contradiction in terms? Or was it the inevitable consequence of being put into the situation that he found himself in even now? Whatever it was, he supposed, he wouldn't be dying alone.

He'd be dying with another person who really didn't deserve to die. Fuckin' A. His shoulder was getting soaked through from Rea's tears, but he didn't object, watching as the droplets of his own eyes dropped down and splashed into his trousers, the carpet, anything.

Carefully, he pulled Rea's bag over towards him, intending on sharing the load a bit more evenly. He unzipped it and looked through it, finding the same supplies that he had, except for one difference. His eyes widened as she saw the gun, but for now he left it in there, instead pulling out an energy bar and unwrapping it for her.

"Maybe we don't have to fight?" He muttered. The overwhelming part of his brain knew that it was bullshit, five times this had gone ahead, and not once did the result end in anything but a single survivor. "There can't be too many islands with an infrastructure like this, right?"

Maybes the government would be searching for they already, preicing together the locations the terrorists were releasing in order to find the location. Maybe his or her family had hired investigators to do the same. They were both rich, right?

Or maybe, the cynical part of his brain whispered, you're in denial. 'You know that you're going to have to kill or be killed and you're too pathetic to accept it. You wanted to be a soldier, so make up your mind Willy boy!'

[Spinnentier†]

"So you just want to lay down and die?"

Will's shoulder was becoming drenched. But there was nothing she could do right now but cry into it. Too badly affected from the shock and anguish of her situation to do anything about it but cling to Will.

"I'm not making it out of this. I'm too weak, and frail, and at the age of 17 I'm still afraid of the dark."

If someone tried to attack her, she'd be powerless, if she needed to run, she'd make it about ten metres before collapsing. Not like she had a chance at making it out of this alive. But Will... he was a soldier. He was fit, strong, tough, had firearms experience, could hunt, everything. He had a chance of escaping this hell. Not her, no way that was possible, but him, infinitely more so than her.

"But you... you could. You could make it back home without me."

She pushed him onto his back, her head above his, face to face with him, like they were on that night that seemed so long ago now. Her hair fell around them, creating a red curtain around them.

"I'm just happy that I get to spend what little time I have with you."

And then she leant forward and kissed him.

At least that was comforting.

[shotgunkid†]

Wade had remained sitting up. He hadn't moved at all. His eyes appeared glassy. The completely vacuous, but strangely reassuring, feeling of emptiness now pervaded his mind. He'd poured out his grief and anger and everything else that came with them. All that was left was to ask himself: what would he do? More importantly, what did he want? He wanted most to survive the game, of course. That feeling lingered. It seemed trite and obvious, but he grasped the genuine determination which underlied it. His goals, ambitions, and dreams called to him. He wanted, desperately, to return home to his family and his art and work on everything until it was polished. Put his work out there, become a true writer, a true director, a true artist. Accomplish his dreams, complete his goals as he always meant to. Beat all of the odds, achieve greatness. Wouldn't that be an amazing way to stick it to the terrorists? Succeeding in spite of having gone through this horrific ordeal, defying the precedents other winners set?

Yes. Sure, reaching for his dreams would be wonderful and all, but he had to focus on survival first. Getting there in the first place. There were only two workable routes to survival: escape and victory.

Escape was obviously the preferable choice, but it couldn't be relied upon. And it was not perfect. The one time it had succeeded, during Version Four seven years ago, 29 students out of... 279?.. had been rescued. That was around one in.. seven. Not bad, all things considered, but it wasn't the majority. And none of the other escape attempts in any of the other versions had succeeded, as far as anyone knew. It was especially unlikely to work now that the terrorists had locked down security and tried to make their procedures as airtight as possible. So as far as Wade was concerned, he wouldn't start an escape attempt. But he would join one if their prospects were looking good, and of course he'd be stupid not to take a clear route to escaping. If one presented itself.

Victory, then, was the likelier and much less palatable way to survive. He was loath to even consider it, as he'd have to get his hands dirty with someone else's blood, one way or the other, or he'd just be thrown back in. He definitely couldn't and wouldn't try to murder his classmates. Forget it. Out of the question. Trying to kill the murderers was dangerous and more than a twinge hypocritical. But trying to rescue others from being killed? For a moment, he almost considered it. But then he realized the problem: unless they went on to escape or win, saving someone would merely prolong their suffering on the island. As ghoulish as it sounded, it was pointless to try and be a hero. Unless it was close to the end and he was already mortally wounded. Or there was a rescue going on.

So, those were Wade's rules of engagement. He would essentially restrict himself to self-defense. He wouldn't--couldn't play, but if someone attacked him, they were fair game. He was energetic, but weak, and he didn't have the endurance for even mild workouts. He'd just have to trust in maintaining situational awareness and think quickly during any fights. Ideally, he'd avoid fighting until the end, but there had been about a hundred or so students on the trip. Assuming the island was... where was the map? The bag!

He'd almost forgotten about his issued bag. Quickly pulling it free and throwing it onto the bed beside him with some racket, he first saw the lettering: B038. That was his numerical designation. Paying it little mind, he opened the zipper quickly and loudly. Inside? Ration bars, bread, crackers, a compass-- the map! Ignoring everything else, he quickly opened it and carefully inspected it. His suspicions were confirmed: this really was a mental hospital. And if it wasn't deceiving him, he was inside the main asylum building.

Sunlight had been filtering in from a small, shuttered window just above the bed. Crawling on top of it, Wade opened the shutters, which were surprisingly clean after what must have been decades of abandonment. Peering through, he saw a large, kind of rustic-looking bell tower dominate the view, meaning that he must be on the back end of the asylum. Nowhere in particular stuck out as being potentially safe or dangerous. Yet. Students were probably spread evenly among the buildings, so everywhere was equally safe. But off to his left, in the distance, was that... human screaming?

He turned back around and rummaged through the rest of the bag at his knees, the ancient bed's frame groaning quietly. A flashlight. A first-aid kit, which was, oddly enough, filled to the brim with medical supplies. A 'guidebook', which he flipped through and immediately discarded back into the bag. He didn't want to read sadistic shit-talking from Danya just yet and the rules were nothing he didn't already know. As he was nearing the bottom of the bag when he saw a hypodermic needle and a small bottle, both filled with a clear fluid. Alongside them was a small piece of paper, simply reading: 'Adrenaline and needle'.

He could feel it now. The sensation of his heart dropping abruptly and violently into his stomach.

[Dannyrulx†]

Rea had kissed him. That was good. The entire situation in which they found themselves in was not good, and he had just heard a rustling noise from next door. He gently pushed Rea away, put a finger to his lips, and took her revolver out of the bag. He looked straight down the barrel to see it it was loaded, a very stupid idea, but until he figured out how it worked, the best he had, and was relieved to see that it was. He slowly stood up, wiping the tears off of his face with his right hand, before switching the gun over. The door swung open, and he siltently padded out, indicating that Rea should stay where she was. If the other pereson wasn't friendly, then he could probably take him or her. She couldn't.

He flattened his back against the wall next to the door, and pressed the revolver's barrel against the wooden partition that seperated the two. "Hey, you alright in there?" It was about as stupid as a question could get, but it was the only thing he had in the circumstances. If they were someone he knew, Ben maybe, then they could have a group that haad a chance. Sure, the likelyhood was that any group would eventually be picked off, he remembered an article in a newpaper when he was younger talking about how there was this semi-famous ice skater who had gained a slowly-picked off entourage, but that group was big. Two or three people was perfect. Enough to spot and cover for eachother, not enough to cause infighting and be blatantly obvious whilst moving.

[Spinnentier†]

She pressed her back into the wall, trying in a fruitless endeavour to keep a small profile, as if it would do any good if someone burst through the door holding a weapon.

Will had just left the room, with a revolver of some kind, after telling her to stay silent and not to follow him. She prayed it wouldn't be the last time she saw him, disappearing through the door like that with a tool used to end lives, and probably with the intent to use it for its intended purpose. To murder another human being in cold blood, and be scarred for the rest of their life because of it. And she knew that if she wanted to make it out alive, she would need to kill too. Not that there was any chance of them both surviving, but she didn't want to dwell on that unfortunate fact of her situation any longer than she needed to.

Now all there was for her to do was wait. Wait for him to come back with blood on his hands. That is, if he returned at all. There was a very real possibility that whoever had caused enough noise for Will to go and investigate it could kill him, and then come after her seconds later. And then kill her, leaving her to die alone, and found later by some other student passing by who would ignore her as if a girl not even old enough to drink yet covering the floor of an office in an abandoned asylum with her own blood was normal. A trivial fact of life, a mundane part of their day where they would simply say something like "Shame," and then move on, being completely forgotten within minutes as they struggled with their own survival.

And so she collapsed against the wall, head hanging forward and arms drooping limply beside her. She didn't want to think about things like that. She didn't want to think about her own death. She didn't want to think about anything anymore. Didn't want to think. Didn't want to do anything, but stay there, still and unmoving.

Completely emotionless.

[shotgunkid†]

That was it. Dread freely pooled in Wade's stomach, turning it into a turbulent lake and making him physically ill. That was simply it. His odds were definitely slim before, but there was absolutely no way he was going to make it now. He couldn't stand up to anyone without an actual weapon. He was too weak for the adrenaline to help in unarmed combat, and the needle alone was worthless without something to inject. Maybe if he found some extra medicine. Or venom. But-

"Hey, you alright in there?"

What? Someone else? The terror and dread vanished instantly. Taking their place, a shallow tension. The voice was coming from just left of the doorway, being held open by the person it belonged to. Probably male, definitely Scottish. The tension gave way to a sick tingling feeling all over Wade's body. The sensation of vulnerability.

He realized: Most of the room's furniture aside from the desk was against the left-hand wall. And being more or less crouched on the bed, which was against the right-hand side... meant he was utterly open to attack. If the person was hostile and armed, they'd have a clear shot immediately.

Wade moved to quell the awful sensation by closing and grabbing the bag. As silently as possible, he moved off the bed and tried to quickly position himself behind the desk. That way, he was at least behind cover. He'd get forewarning if the unknown person came in and he'd at least have a chance to disarm them if they went in to attack. It had already been several seconds since he heard the words and he was running out of time to reply--

"Yeah! I-I'm fine!"

[Dannyrulx†]

"Alright, I'm just going to open the door so we can see each other properly, ok? No potshots now, or I'll return fire."

With this, Will carefully pushed open the door, letting out a groaning creaking noise as it swung open into rusted hinges. He waited a few seconds, then poked the snout of the revolver around the doorframe, and then his head, eyes searching for the boy who had responded.

The kid was crouched behind a desk, looking at the door, and by extension Will. The kid wasn't one he knew at all, one of the many faces that he passed by in hallways without properly registering them in his mind, just another face in the crowd.

In one smooth motion Will drew up the revolver and aimed it at the kid. Short of a bullet, there was no way in hell he was taking the shot, but the kid didn't have to know that. And besides, hadn't it been a Lord who had said "You get more from a kind word and a gun than you can from just a kind word?"

Or maybe that had been Al Capone.

Either way, this would make everything easier, for him at least, the boy was probably crapping himself, but that was how life went he supposed. His thumb roasted lightly on the hammer of the gun, and his arm was rock-steady, despite it's rather heavy weight. He had held rifles and shotguns, this was no different. Except for the human on the other end of the barrel, and not a deer, fowl, or pest. There was that.

"Let's start with names, shall we? Will. Will McKinley."

[Spinnentier†]

Muffled sounds of speech came from the hallway. Probably Will trying to communicate with whoever it was that made those sounds next door. Not that she was paying much attention to it, in this near-catatonic state and all.

She waited in the room, unmoving from the position she was in, pressed up against the wall. Time passed, though how much she had no idea. It could have been mere seconds or whole hours, and she would't have been able to tell the difference.

Her mind remained blank, the shock and trauma of the entire situation forcing her into a state of complete numbness, with the only though on her mind being the question of when Will would return.

If he even returned at all...