When There's Nothing Left to Burn

[Crash†]

(OOC: I can't apologize enough for the huge delay in posting this, but the few of you who know why this took so long understand my reasons. Nevertheless, I'm not going to make any excuses. Cyco and I collaborated on this thread, so please enjoy it while the final participants prepare your final v3 thread for you in the meantime.)

(Alexis Machina continued from The Answer)

After leaving the site of her confrontation with Reeves, Lex had soon begun to feel the all too familiar pangs of hunger and burden of insomnia weigh down on her conscious mind. She was exhausted, and as much as she hated to admit it, still hungry. What Reeves said about her weight wasn't too far off, in retrospect - she really had dropped quite a few pounds during her stay on the island; a result of malnutrition, to be sure - but that didn't bring her any comfort. How she was perceived by her peers or by society didn't matter to her anymore. As far as America and her classmates knew, Alexis Machina was a cold-blooded killer, and she was quite proud of that image.

Nevertheless, with her failing health impeding her progress, Lex had opted to double back towards the airfield and save her strength rather than waste time and energy wandering around the island. She coughed hoarsely as she approached the control tower, the fumes she inhaled as she finished Reeves off now coming back to haunt her. The plumes of dark smoke were putrid, and the smells of blood and decay combined with burning metal did little to put her at ease. Still, coughing as she went, she eventually found the faulty door of the control tower and closed it behind her as she entered.

Despite the feeling that she was alone, the ever cautious Lex dropped her pack at the door and held her shotgun out in front of her, ready for whatever she might find. Creeping around the bottom floor less stealthily than she would've liked and eventually coming to the conclusion that it was secure, she quietly made her way up the stairs leading to the control deck. Fortunately the small size of the room at the top meant that it was easy for her to tell that she was alone even before she made it up to the pinnacle of the stairs, but she climbed the remainder anyway and dropped her shotgun down on a chair at the top.

Retreating to the first floor, Lex rounded up her pack and dragged the behemoth towards the stairs before realizing that dragging a bag full of grenades up a bumpy flight of stairs may not have been the brightest idea she'd ever had. Groaning in discomfort as she heaved the heavy pack up with both arms, she once more trudged her way up towards the control deck, exhaling gruesomely as she dropped the pack at the top of the stairs and slid it against a nearby wall. Her lack of sleep and food had caught up to her, and, coughing hoarsely as she peered out the window to make sure there were no other students approaching, she slid one of the chairs near the controls over towards the wall opposite the stairs.

Grabbing her shotgun, Lex made her way over to the other side of the room, sitting down on the chair which now had a clear view of the stairs in case anyone tried to get the one-up on her. Dawn was breaking, but the sunlight was anything but her cue to rise. She dropped the shotgun down towards the floor beside her, lactic acid buildup and melatonin finally winning their battle over her as she drifted off.

(Trish McCarroll and James Brown continued from Match Point)

A few hours later, two figures emerged from the foliage surrounding the airfield. The billowing plumes of dark smoke had since diminished into wisps and puffs of the remnants of the fire that had long since engulfed and destroyed one of the hangars. The building had been completely decimated, with only scraps of burning metal and rusted, irreparable supplies left in its place to mark its former existence. Any other day the site might have shocked the pair, but now it was just another trace of destruction left in the wake of the force that was sure to be the death of them both.

As they reached the landing strip James stopped abruptly, wincing a bit as he leaned forward and let his day pack fall loosely off his shoulder and onto the bright asphalt. The reflection of the sun glared up at the pair as Trish turned her attention towards him.

"What's up?" she inquired, hoping it wasn't anything serious or particularly time consuming. Being out in the open this late in the game was making her paranoid. Her imagination was taking every noise or shadow and running a quarter mile with it.

"Headache." James dropped to his knees and unzipped his pack, rummaging through its contents and withdrawing a small pill bottle labelled 'aspirin'.

"What's that?"

"Aspirin."

"Oh. Grab me one too, I've got it behind the eyes."

"Those are the worst." After a moment of difficulty with the child-proof cap James shook two of the tablets out and handed one to Trish, popping the other one himself. Trish raised her hand to her mouth, but a cursory glance at the tablet prompted her to stop herself. She held it between her thumb and index finger, eyeing it over. James noticed and asked, "What is it?"

Trish answered his question with another question, her eyes fixed on the little circular pill. "Where did you get these?"

"Oh, uh...I ran into Jessa on day one and she took off without her pack. I didn't think she'd be coming back for--"

"Jessa Vanallen?"

"Huh? Yeah."

"These are from her pack?"

"Yeah, why?"

Trish could feel her headache getting much worse. She put a hand to her forehead and squinted her eyes shut momentarily. When they opened again they were locked on her companion. "James..." she explained gravely, "...this is acid."

James handled the news with some confused blinking and an eloquent, "Uhhhhhh, what?"

"Shit." Trish hastily snatched the bottle from him, peered inside, gave it a shake and inspected the label. "She told me she was bringing hallucinogens on the trip!"

"What!?"

"It's LSD!"

"Shit! Are you sure!?"

Trish held the bottle up, her tone flaring up in intensity to nearly match James'. "They're orange, dude! Aspirin are white!"

"But that doesn't mean it's acid--!"

"Acid's orange, James!" Trish interjected fiercely, and James hesitated for a moment but said nothing. She added, "This explains why you flipped out before, you were tripping balls!"

James took a deep breath and nodded. It did clear a lot of things up. "You're right." He checked himself. Now was not the time to start panicking, even if the situation was pretty severe. "How long before they kick in?"

"I don't know, it varies. How much do you weigh?"

James looked himself over. He'd lost a bit of weight during his stay on the island, but then he'd never been anywhere near heavy to begin with. "Uh...buck fifty?"

"Ok, how many did you take?"

"One."

"Sounds pretty average, I'd say we have about a half-hour or so before you become a huge liability."

"...Shit," he whispered mere seconds later.

"What?"

"No we don't."

"Why?"

"Because I lied. I popped one half-an-hour ago, too."

"Jesus Christ, James..." Trish responded defeatedly.

"At least my headache's starting to go away."

Considering this, Trish gave the orange pills a second look before shaking her head clear of the thought and popping them back into the container, closing it and stashing it away in her own pack. "We've gotta find shelter..."

"You're keeping them?" James inquired curiously.

"Well, if we end up being the last two..."

"Fair enough," he shrugged, picking up his bag and swinging it over his back with a great deal of difficulty. "Ugh..."

"...What?"

"...We should get going," he urged.

Trish nodded, firmly gripping the AK again and scanning the horizon. The smoldering hangar was no longer of any use to either of them, and was the farther of the two in any case. Her eyes drifted from the control tower to the remaining hangar before she indicated with a bob of her head to James that they'd make their way towards the tower. He took the lead (for once) at a fervent pace, leaving Trish feeling more exposed and paranoid than she did before as she quickly scanned every which way while the two skitted across the airfield.

James slowed to a halt.

"What is it?" Trish breathed heavily, her gun surveying the asphalt in front of them.

"The air's getting slippery..." he observed.

"...Oh, God," she sighed in exasperation. Her mind was racing a million miles a minute now. "Come on, we've gotta keep-..."

The sound of glass shattering interrupted Trish's train of thought and illicited an uncharacteristically feminine yelp from the startled girl.

"MOM, GET OUT OF MY ROOM!" James shouted as the hail of bullets danced lethally around them. He didn't have time to finish angsting before Trish was dragging him backwards by the sleeve and shoving him in the direction of the hangar.

"Fucking MOVE!" she commanded as she flung her rifle up in response and returned fire, causing the figure in the distance to disappear from view. James took her cue as a call to arms and drew out his Ballister-Molina, firing randomly at invisible targets in the air.

"Vultures always lie!!" James exclaimed passionately, as once more Trish grabbed at his clothes and forcefully dragged him behind the cover of the hangar wall. When the two were out of the control tower's sight she took a moment to drop her guard, looking at James with concern before slapping him square in the face.

"You've gotta snap out of it!" she urged, her gaze locked onto his, which seemed to harden as he finally felt the blow connect five seconds later.

"Right. How many lives do we have left?" He returned with serious inquiry.

"One!" she exclaimed, before muttering various expletives underneath her breath. Not wanting to take chances, she threw her pack to the ground and grabbed another two more clips for the beast, ejecting the previous one (which may or may not have been empty) and slamming a fresh one into the chamber. Shoving the other in her pocket, she drew in a deep breath and looked back towards her partner.

"Stay right here," she ordered, grabbing his wrist with her left hand. "James, can you do that for me?"

In a fortunate lucid moment, James nodded his head shakily and mumbled. "Yeah...sure...k..."

"Do you know who I am?"

"Yeah, Trish..." he responded drearily.

"Do you know who you are?"

"Yeah. Lord Gold."

"One out of two ain't bad..." she accepted.

An explosion in the immediate vicinity once more alerted Trish to the gravity of their situation and, letting go of James, she returned her full attention to whoever was attacking them. Unsure of exactly what she was doing and operating completely on instinct, she bolted around the corner and began beelining towards the opposite end of the airfield, a foray of bullets scattering behind her as the assailant tried in vain to follow her trail before being met with the empty click of the SMG.

Seizing the opportunity, as soon as the attack ceased Trish pivoted and began firing towards the open window of the control tower. The assailant once more vanished from sight, but Trish's relentless attack continued as she pushed steadily towards the tower through the rapid fire. When she was met with the familiar sound of the empty magazine she quickly closed the remaining distance between herself and the tower, reaching the outer wall and fumbling for her extra clip. As she reloaded, however, the sound of gunshots once more rang through the air, and she turned in time to see James running up towards the tower shooting towards the window.

His seven round magazine emptied quickly and within seconds he had joined her outside the entrance to the tower.

"What the fuck are you doing!? I told you to stay back!" Trish hissed as James carefully studied his hands.

"OH!" he gasped as if having a revelation while staring at his hands. "I thought you told me to stay black," he analyzed, followed by a completely inappropriate burst of laughter.

"Shut up!" she snapped, putting her finger to her mouth to signal him to be quiet. Cautiously, Trish leaned around the perimeter of the tower, grasping the handle to the door with one hand and turning it as quickly as she could.

Almost immediately the opening of the door was met with a buckshot blast which blew a hole clean through it. Taken aback but responding quickly, Trish curved the gun inside the door and let off a spray of bullets, quickly retreating and slamming her back against the tower wall once more.

"So what's the plan, Callahan?" James jeered in jest, laughing at his own ability to rhyme.

Trish was becoming fed up with his casual approach to their situation. Did he think this was all a game? An unconscious impulse told her that at this moment, James was no better to her than Danya. "Shut up and let me fucking think!" she seethed in response, draining the joy out of James' face.

Their feud was interrupted suddenly by the distinct clang of metal against the tarmac. Trish froze as she noticed the explosive land mere feet away from them, her face registering their predicament but her body unable to respond. James, however, immediately noticed the familiar purple and white egg drop from the sky and was quick to retrieve it.

"Throw them back!" he exclaimed with vigour, taking a hasty step back to get a better view of the tower before pitching the grenade back up towards the manatee sitting in the window. James grabbed his pistol as if to counterattack.

"What are you doing...!?" Trish chided, but before James could register her scolding another buckshot erupted from the window, catching him in the chest and dropping him on the spot. Trish shrieked his name but was drowned out by the explosion that rang out from the control room above. Her mind raced. Her heart sank into her stomach. The back of her eyes throbbed. She was struck with a paralyzing concoction of confusion and despair.

James was dead, and if Trish didn't act fast, so was she.

***

After dispatching the explosive, Lex quickly stepped up her game by successively pumping the Remington and aiming towards the kid underneath her, finally succeeding in delivering the brutal coup de grace. Taking care to retreat so that the other bitch - Trish, she thought it was - didn't catch her off guard, Lex pumped another shell into the chamber of the shotgun. Another clank of metal greeted her, and before she could register that James had thrown the grenade back into the room she was already being swept off her feet by the force of the explosion.

The concussive force of the grenade rendered her incapacitated for a moment. The searing pain in her exposed arms was almost unbearable, and a quick inspection revealed massive burns on both. Her eyes were watering as a result of the noxious fumes the explosive emitted, and while she'd seemed to avoid shrapnel damage, her entire body felt raw and inflammed. When she regained her senses her eyes caught sight of her pack in the corner, which thankfully had gone unharmed. Of course, if the explosion had caught even the slightest part of the explosive-ridden pack, she'd have noticed far quicker, if she had any time to notice at all.

Recovering her shotgun, which had landed a few feet away from her after the explosion, Lex winced as she pumped what must've been one of her final shells into it. The fiery pain in her arms slowed her progress, but through the haze that was her now distorted consciousness she heard the unforgiving sound of the downstairs door slamming open, which re-alerted her to reality. Hoping to seize control of the situation before the other girl could take advantage of her injuries, Lex swept her way over to the stairs and aimed her gun down towards the downstairs door.

The sound of gunfire erupted in the air before she could pull the trigger, and as her legs opened up to hot lead and cascading blood, she lost her balance and tumbled down the stairs with all the grace of a four week dead cow.

***

Blinded by grief, rage and adrenaline, Trish threw caution to the wind and slammed her foot into the control tower door, smashing the obstructive steel barricade out of her way. Her focus was on nothing other than bringing down the bitch who'd just killed her only remaining friend. She leveled her gun, and before she knew it a pair of hobbling white feet appeared at the top of the stairs to greet her. That was enough.

Without hesitation, Trish raised the AK and blew through the rest of the magazine, spraying the 7.62mm rounds furiously towards the trunk of James' killer. The clicking of the empty magazine resonated against the hollow acoustics of the control tower, and was quickly amplified by the thumping of Alexis Machina falling down the stairs, smashing her limbs against each of them before landing in a contorted heap at the bottom.

Despite the fact that one more bullet would've put Lex out of the game permanently, the thought of sparing her any mercy never entered Trish's mind. Tightening her grip on the gun, Trish turned her attention to the writhing, half-conscious Lex, making barely discernable noises as she struggled on the floor. Trish cleared the room in seconds, and as Lex reached for the jutte and withdrew it from her belt, Trish slammed her foot down onto Lex's wrist, illiciting a scream from the fat wench as the knife slid out of her reach.

Trish's palms turned white as her grip on the gun tightened, but as she raised the gun to strike Lex's hoarse, throaty voice cut off her assault.

"Wait!" she coughed, pulling one of her burned, scabbing arms up to block her face. Her face was caked with a mixture of dirt, congealed and fresh blood, and smoke residue.

"YOU FUCKING WAIT!" Trish erupted, slamming the butt of the gun down onto Lex's nose. Lex screamed brutally through tears and the build-up of blood in her mouth, but with each new desperate cry for pity came another blow from the gun in Trish's relentless assault. She slammed the wooden stock down onto the bitch's face repeatedly, eventually meeting with no resistance as the red plasma seeped out of Lex's mouth and her limbs fell lifeless against the concrete floor.

Trish's assault continued, her now long dead assailant's face lost to a swelling mass of flesh, bone, blood and brain matter. Eventually Lex's frontal bone gave in with a sickening crack, and the matted hair and cerebrospinal fluid from her cerebral cortex mixed with the congealed blood on her face, forming a sickening paste where her eyes and nose used to be.

Finally, after a few minutes, Trish's adrenaline rush slowly wore off and her aching muscles convinced her to submit. She dropped the gun by Lex's side, the now unrecognizable spawn of Satan finally showing her true colours. It was hardly a satisfying sight. In fact, now that she'd done her damage to Lex, she'd prefer to never have anything to do with her again.

Escaping the confines of that dreaded tower, the warm morning sunlight betrayed the cold atmosphere of the airfield. The stench of blood and death was now inescapable; not a single area on the God-forsaken island was pure any longer. No matter where she went, that smell haunted her. The longer she stayed, the more she lost.

Trish took a seat beside James. She turned him over to see his face, now pale and lifeless. His lips, despite the intense heat of the morning, had already begun to turn blue. The wound on his chest had stopped bleeding, but his tattered shirt was stained with the remains of the crimson that just moments ago had bound him to this island. Now, he was free. And now that James was off with Jake and Danni frolicking in some fucking meadow somewhere, Trish was now truly and completely alone.

Trish took James' head up into her lap, brushing his tangled, knotted hair away from his forehead. She couldn't look at him much longer. All she could do was hold the only person who'd stayed by her side the entire time and hope he'd forgive her; forgive her for taking the big gun, forgive her for always having to call all the shots...and most importantly, forgive her for what were now the last words he'd ever heard.

Stroking James' hair, Trish turned her head up towards the sun. At this point, she didn't care if it blinded her. Quite frankly, it was the preferred alternative.

B13: JAMES BROWN -- DECEASED
G39: ALEXIS MACHINA -- DECEASED

4 STUDENTS REMAINING