Friends Departed

[SOTF_Help]

((Violet Druce continued from You'll Have To Excuse Me, I'm Not At My Best))

Some time later, Violet was no closer to finding Leila. The sting and burn of Trent's death was still clear, as was the shock at the culprit. Maddy. Maddy had killed Trent, and even now Violet couldn't begin to understand why. The girl had been her friend. She had been gentle, once. She had killed before, yes, but that had been different. That had been clear self defense, dealing with a raging maniac who was charging them. It had been right down the road, at that. Violet had seen the body. The intervening days had not improved it.

This was nothing like that killing. Trent would never have hurt Maddy. Of that, Violet could be completely sure.

Making excuses or justifications for Maddy was not her responsibility. She had lost friends. That was enough. The causes were irrelevant at this point.

And so, Violet was combing the island, trying to track down her final remaining friend. Leila was still alive. Violet just knew that she was. Somewhere, she was out there, still going. She wouldn't have been killed between the announcements and now. It just could not have happened.

Violet had already searched the swamp. It had taken a long time. It had been a thoroughly unpleasant affair. She had found bodies and birds, water and muck, but not a trace of her friend. She had thought of Mike as she did so, had thought many times of the boats. She had replayed the moment in her head, again and again. She had pondered her choice to remain behind.

In the end, though, she had had a chance to save Trent. She had failed, had been too late, but she had tried. She still could do something for Leila, perhaps. That would mean something.

And even if it didn't, she had seen Mike to safety, and that meant plenty.

[Rocky†]

((Madeleine Smith continued from Whistling in The Dark))

Back to the beginning again. After leaving the house, Maddy felt that she needed to get away from any form of civilization. If she thought it was a good place to be, then no doubt everyone else did, and right now her best bet was to go away from everyone else. Her plan was simple. She was going to walk along the logging road and make her way to the swamp, where she was certain no one else would be.

Maddy moved as quick as her legs would take her, not wanting to spend any more time in the open than she needed to. Once she got to the swamp everything would be okay. She just had to hope she didn't run into anyone on the way. Who knows, maybe everyone would kill each other and she would survive. She could only hope.

Of course, life likes to throw things in our way when it's least expected. In this case, it was in the form of a person. This particular person however was different from the others she had come across. It seemed that after all this time, something was actually going to go right for her.

"Violet!" the girl called out, picking up her pace to get closer to the girl she had been looking to find for over a week.

[SOTF_Help]

The voice came as a surprise. It was not a voice Violet was used to hearing speak in such raised and excited tones. It was not a voice she had heard for some days now. It took her just a few seconds to identify it, and in that time she looked around, her eyes seeking the origin of the noise. A girl. Maddy. Trent's killer. The one who had taken him from her, who had acted just a little too quickly. It had been a matter of seconds, nothing but seconds. She had been so close to showing up in time.

"Maddy," Violet said, "what happened?"

Yes, what had happened to make one of her friends gun another down? She had seen it from the lighthouse, had seen the start of what had become the end of her friend. He hadn't been armed. He hadn't been armed, and Maddy had held a gun. Violet wasn't armed, either, and no gun had been left at the scene.

And oh, if she wasn't getting ahead of herself. Maddy hadn't actually offered an excuse yet, had she? She hadn't come out and said that it had been anything but a cold-blooded murder. Had she known that Violet and Trent were close? Would she have cared? It was too difficult to know these things now. What was left was the moment, and this moment was one of possibilities. Mysteries would be unraveled now.

"With Trent," Violet clarified.

[Rocky†]

Maddy's step faltered as Violet asked her the question she had been dreading. She knew it was coming, she just didn't expect it to be so quickly. Her eyes went to the ground, not knowing what to say. What was there to say? That it was an accident? Sure, it was the truth, but who was going to believe her? Especially someone who was apparently as close to Trent as he claimed they were. Her hand instinctively gripped the gun, the very one that was the cause of all this. She didn't even know why she still had it, why she hadn't just gotten rid of it by now. The protection it afforded wasn't worth the trouble it gave her.

"I..." Maddy said quietly, unsure of how exactly to explain. "I...I didn't mean to. I-it just... happened." It sounded incredibly lame she knew, but what else was there to say? She knew by this point that no one was going to forgive her for her actions, and she wasn't expecting anyone to. Of course, she wasn't exactly about to just kill everyone who she came across.

"I won't give you a-any excuses." Maddy looked up into the eyes of Violet. "What happened happened."

[SOTF_Help]

"What happened happened?" Violet said. "You killed him, Maddy."

It was upsetting. Maddy had apparently decided not only to be a coward, but to pretend she was being forthright and strong at the same time. She said she wasn't going to make excuses, but at the same time, her very admission was an excuse. It was right there in the language. It just "happened"? Where was the "I killed him"? Where was the "I made a mistake"? Maddy was doing everything possible to distance herself from her choices, to disclaim all blame.

"Take some fucking responsibility. Triggers don't pull themselves."

She hadn't expected it to go like this. Violet had known that there would be words, sure, but she hadn't expected Maddy to fall back on simpering self-justification, hadn't expected her to be so utterly contemptible. Maddy was a weak girl, a scared girl, never a fighter, but this was low even for that. It was low, and it was making Violet mad. Everyone made mistakes, but Trent would have owned up to his. Mike would have owned up to his. Leila, she would own up to hers, too.

"So what 'happens' now, Maddie? Are things just going to keep 'happening' until you're back home?"

[Rocky†]

Something about this situation felt familiar. There she was, standing there and doing nothing as someone yelled and berated her for something she had done. She looked at the ground the entire time, not knowing what to say. It was pretty much the same situation that she had been in before, except this time it was different. This was Violet. The one person she had been looking for for all this time. The one who should have been on her side. Who would have been on her side if she hadn't killed one of her friends.

And yet, even despite the fact that Violet had every reason to act the way she was towards her, Maddy found herself getting angry. She was angry about the whole situation, from being kidnapped to being stuck on this island to this moment right now. And right now, all of that anger was focusing in on a single point.

"Yeah, maybe things will keep 'happening'." Maddy wasn't even sure what was coming out of her mouth, but at this point she really couldn't care less. "Maybe something will 'happen' right now. You wanna know what happened? Your friend fucking attacked me. Tried to grab my weapon, probably to kill me with it. And would you believe he did it because I dared to consider you a friend? Of course, you're not going to believe me because I'm the one standing here in front of you and not him. If he was still alive you'd be all sunshine and happiness and oh it was okay that he killed someone because at least now you would be together with him."

Maddy was livid, and her little outburst didn't do anything to help her calm down. Before she even knew it the weapon in her hand was pointing at Violet. "So maybe I just 'happen' to have another accident right now."

[SOTF_Help]

"So that's how it is, huh?" Violet could have almost laughed. That was how Maddy was going to be. She was so full of excuses, so full of conjecture and speculation. She said Trent had attacked her, had tried to take her gun. She said Trent had tried to kill her. No way. He wasn't the sort. That was something Violet could never believe, not after what she'd seen. Maybe Maddy thought she was telling the truth. Maybe she really wa sthat far gone, descended totally into paranoia. Maybe it was time to find out.

"Why was he trying to take your gun, Maddy? Maybe because you just so happened to be pointing it at him? Maybe it was just like right now, huh? Maybe he was just trying to get a gun out of his face? Did you ever think of that?"

As she spoke, Violet advanced a couple steps. Maddy wouldn't shoot her. This was Maddy, quiet Maddy, artistic Maddy, Maddy who had always been so shy. Now, here she was, saying that she might shoot Violet. Violet was unarmed. She was incapable of doing anything about it if Maddy took a shot. Right now, it all came down to whether or not there was any of Violet's friend left inside this strange girl in front of her, and she was getting the sinking feeling that there was not.

So be it.

"Well? What happens now?"

[Rocky†]

Violet took a step forward. Maddy took one back. She didn't want this. This situation was not what she intended. Violet was supposed to be her friend. The only person left she could trust. It wasn't supposed to happen like this. If she had never met Trent then everything would have been okay. Violet would have joined her. Now she was advancing on her, her intent unknown. For all Maddy knew she was hiding a weapon, and was just trying to get close to her to stab her with it. The situation was far too familiar to her. This was the same thing that happened with Trent.

Her hands were trembling. She never wanted this. Never wanted to be betrayed like this. It was all Trent's fault that Violet was against her now. She needed to do something. At every turn Maddy had been attacked or threatened. Even when she came across the one person who was supposed to help her, they were against her. It wasn't fair. Nothing was fair. And Maddy was finished with being pushed around by everyone she met.

If that meant shooting her way off the island, then so be it. No one was going to push her around and treat her like crap any more. She didn't even say anything back to Violet. She just pulled the trigger.

[SOTF_Help]

Even though it had been partially expected, the shots still jolted Violet on more than a purely physical level. She'd known there was a good chance that Maddy would be too far gone to be reasoned with. She'd still expected at least a few words of warning or apology. Instead, what she got was piercing pain and a sensation of wetness.

She didn't even know what to think. She couldn't quite believe that this was how it was all going to end, on the same road where she had met Maddy when she first woke up, on the end of the same gun Maddy had used to stop that boy who had attacked them. She had lost track of Maddy then, and now she couldn't help but wonder, in the briefest and most fleeting of ways, if it could have all come out differently somehow had she just stayed with Maddy. Maybe then, they could have found Trent and Leila, could have found Hilary before it was too late. On the other hand, maybe she wouldn't have gotten to know Mike, Mike who was safe now, Mike who was home.

Maybe she could have figured out if the trade off would have been worth it with more time. Maybe she could have figured out some way everything could have been alright, some way everyone could have reunited and made it away alive when the boats came. In the end, though, there was no other way things had gone. Maybe there never could have been.

She lurched forward, lunged, almost, driven to just do something, to make some last effort to maybe communicate something to the girl who had once been her friend. She didn't get very far, perhaps two steps, before stumbling and dropping to the ground. Her hair had gotten loose somehow, and it fell in front of her eyes, the purple mingling with the red.

What she was seeing now, it would have made a beautiful final shot in one of her movies. It was perfectly framed. She tried to focus on that instead of the pain and enclosing darkness, but within seconds everything had gone black. It was some seconds more before the feeling faded to tingling faded to nothing.

G012, Violet Druce: DECEASED
11 STUDENTS REMAIN

[Rocky†]

Violet fell. She was dead. Because of her. But it wasn't her fault. If she hadn't done it, then it would have been her. She was convinced that the other girl was hiding something. It didn't matter to her that there was any other possibility. It was going to happen either way. She did what she needed to do. Even if it was to kill someone she once considered a friend. Someone who hadn't been her friend anymore. It wasn't her fault.

Her hands were still shaking, even after she had finished firing the shots. She let go of the weapon, letting it hang from it's strap on her shoulder. It had taken about four shots for her to hit Violet. Who was now dead. Not that it was her fault. If she hadn't met Trent, this wouldn't have happened. But it did happen. There was nothing that could be done. The only thing left for her was to just keep going. If she had to kill again then so be it. It wouldn't be her fault. Everyone at this point she'd come across by now had attacked her in some way or another. As far as she was concerned everything was their fault. And as far as she was concerned, she was the only one who'd be allowed to go home.

((Madeleine Smith continued in We Need To Stop Meeting Like This))