Methanol and Nails

[Cicada]

She remembered the first time she'd heard her name it been a frisson. Nervousness, excitement. Something taboo. The second instance lost much of the associated feeling. Merely a dull assurance- yes, she had actually done what she'd set out to do. Nobody could take that from her now. Judge her for it, well. They could still do that, and they still would. Inevitable. No escaping it.

No need to escape. She proved to herself, with the passing of time, that evolution was real. There was a stronger Kelly each day, an iteration of the previous day's Kelly built of some unknown substance, each time cast and forged a little stronger. Maybe decayed a bit, superficially. Kelly was beginning to justify to herself that there was a certain picturesque quality to how they'd destroyed her beauty. Wounds and scars were proof of success. She was beginning to think of herself, now, as someone who would run at the next challenge that proved itself predictable as all the previous. Challenges loud like hot air escaping an ass, empty judgements and mentalities and presumptions.

The gun larger than her arm helped. She liked the way she carried it.

((Kelly Nguyen, continued from A Filmmakers Apocalypse))

An entire hand was still gone, but there was almost a meditative quality it brought to her. The old shirt stuffed into the spaces between her teeth, the taste and smell of her own brine almost able to erase the alkaline stench of her fresh blood. Biting, hard, with each pass of disinfectant, a torrent washing over what was left of her forearm, clear life-giving fluid rinsing through the spaces between fragments of bone and gore. Minimal blood flow to the area now, a tourniquet. It had taken her a while to tie it off until it clamped down so hard onto her muscle she could barely feel anything below the elbow. It was rags tightly wearing a groove onto her increasingly fallow skin, hugging flesh and muscle into a tight embrace right around the bone.

Her other hand she learned to compromise with. She had a gun and a barely working hand. All she really needed. Her fingers would tremble, but they would. Under-performance was unacceptable. She, most of all, knew that. She'd signed off on a grand bargain, enforced through her own petulant anger at the atrocity that remained of her ruined body.

The rest of the scraps were just her motivation to keep pushing. She had visions of making people eat their words. And lead, a plentiful feast of that. It was only fair. Only just. She'd been wronged enough times in the past few days that all the world's best surgeons would never be able to put her together again. There was such a thing as justice in this world, that she still thrived in the aftermath of her many standings before her jury's worth of peers. Her spirit was as buoyant as her slow, hobbled body was not. She was changed. She'd earned her place in this new world, and would continue to do so.

She'd only gotten here an hour ago, and it was just now that she had finally managed to strip off the two days old shirt. That had involved a bit of contortion and teeth clenched. The cave murmured back at her as she silently worked, scrubbing her bare skin with a waterfall-doused shirt- must have been the one she wore the first day, the beautifully unique mustard bile color that had once marked her connection to her peers.

A flag, in a way. A creed. Once she'd tried to impress with statements, now she stood yet to be impressed. If anyone could have stayed afloat after all she'd been through, maybe they deserved her respect.

She felt a bit fresher. Nice to feel like she had a bit of privacy again, much as it was an indulgence more for an older form of Kelly to cherish. Nice to hide in the shadows- to be the stereotype everyone expected her to be, before she'd once again prove them wrong.

[Melusine]

Everyone was sacrificing bits and pieces of themselves. It was the name of the game: who could cut off more and survive?

((Paloma continues from her last thread that’ll be linked after I’m dead anyways.))

It was a definite lose. Her face was mangled, gored into disfigurement. Her name wasn’t in the announcement, but she half-wished that it had been. She was close to hitting Ace with her bat, maybe even Teresa. But she had been stoped by the casual conversation the teenagers had, and it made her feel sick.

They weren’t allowed to do that. Paloma had assumed that they were supposed - no, she was sure of that - to be suffering as much as she did. They weren’t allowed a breather. It wasn’t fair and it made her stay up all night long, reliving that moment. It wasn’t fair and Paloma hated it.

She wanted everyone around her to hurt as much, it didn’t make sense that she was the only one with a broken face and reputation.

Everyone was cutting parts of themselves, but Paloma was dismembering herself. She was pushing it more than the others at a cost of nothing, just a loop of suffering without any rewards.

She wanted now to bring the bat back down the skull of Abel, making sure he was still down there with a broken body and mud in his lungs.

She stepped forward, swinging the bat in the air. She was back here, in this quiet dark cave. It was almost peaceful if she ignored the constant buzzing of the flies on the corpses and the metallic vultures on the walls. It was reassuring to know that those things didn’t change. They were a constant in this island where the bodies and the blood stained appeared on new surfaces everyday. Despite Paloma’s effort, she still hasn’t made any impact that she was satisfied with.

She walked and she walked, and then she stopped.

There was another set of footsteps. She smiled.

[Cicada]

The hardest parts of herself to clean were the bits threatening to flake off.

Anyways. She'd heard the footsteps coming from outside the cave in time to reflect on the petty details. How small they sounded. How many times this queer echo must have announced to people hiding out in the cave that someone else was about to be an intruder. At least one other faceless kid had died in here- probably a guy, his imploded neck and the face Kelly hadn't bothered to evaluate stowed away in a corner. Funny how she hadn't even found him the first time. Could have been that he'd crawled in here and died the day between, could have been that his presence had just been that much not noteworthy.

Kelly allowed the footsteps to continue unopposed. She stayed in sight of the cave's gaping mouth, letting the light illuminate her naked shoulders. If there was going to be trouble, there'd be another corpse to add to the cave's unknown bounty. Kelly had nothing more to prove than the assertion her gun made when it wanted to be loud.

A face showed itself. What was left of a face, anyways. It almost looked more dead than the actual dead bodies. Kelly invisibly smiled at it too.

Emphasized the grip on her gun's stock, fingers a mere readjustment and a wadded up wet shirt away from the trigger. It was a new fashion of greeting.

"You think he's figured it out yet? Zach."

A moment of silence, punctuated by the carefree cracking out of the tension in her neck.

"Boring topic, but whatever. Guess you didn't appear on the announcements. It's been a while, no judging." Paloma, Kelly morosely reflected, was her people now. Insofar as Kelly needed to belong to a group, anyways. The more legs there were in a race the harder it was to rat it up.

"You can wash up too if you want though. I'm not Quinn, I won't creep on you." Kelly didn't go back to the scrubbing yet. Her 'towel' dripped little lines of erosion over the smooth contour of her gun, tracing the barrel down until they snapped off and struck the rock below like bullets.

[Melusine]

The darkness of the cave was another constant on this island. It was quiet. It felt removed, away from prying eyes. But, again, Kelly was there. She seemed like she just lived here like a creature that feared the sun. Kelly was exactly the type of person who scrambled away from the light, desperately trying to avoid its truth-seeking properties.

Paloma wasn't quite like that, but the darkness was still a comforting blanket to carry on top of her. She wasn't ashamed of what she was hiding to the world, she was angry at what she chose to let protrude was twisted into something that wasn't. It was unfair. Her knuckles twisted around the handle, she didn't speak for a moment.

She just let her breathing do the talking, reminding to Kelly that was she still alive. That was the clearest thing that she had ever expelled through her lungs.

But breathing, letting her lungs corrode into nothing, wasn't good enough. It could have done the job maybe five days ago, but it wasn't strong enough to convey her meaning. Paloma sighed, another sound that meant more than the little ondulations let know. The buzzing of the flies and the vultures were still echoing in her mind as she took a final step toward Kelly.

"If Zach hasn't figured out yet, he's a fool."

Was her brief answer to a brief question. It wasn't much, better than grunting.

She took a second step. The air of the cave felt weird against her raw cheekbones. There wasn't much protection other than the bandages and the clots. She still had that drive to dig into her face with her fingers until she saw which layer of skin failed her. Amber had ruined her life. Paloma just wished she had done more to her.

"Sorry, not taking your offer," she let the baseball swing down next to her. With her newly free arm, she squeezed herself. "I'm tired."

The elephant in the room suddenly sat on Paloma's chest. Everything was movement, and every movements was a planned struggle. Especially in the darkness, she knew it could swallow her. Paloma knew she'd be okay with it, but Kelly probably wouldn't.

"So, you killed the last Lucas." She paused. "How does it feel?"

[Cicada]

Kelly wasn't sure the two of them were seeing the same thing, even if there was only one cave's worth of darkness and damp between them. Paloma breathed and Kelly heard something far different from whatever echoed through Paloma's own Habilis shape skull. Kelly supposed they both had some shared commonality. They were, after all, both still somehow breathing. Still standing. Still had some amount of shape left to their faces. No need to guess at any of the reasons. Kelly knew her own. Knew enough to continue to smile to herself.

As the bat tapped moss Kelly's own shotgun did the same with a dull click of metal. Kelly's bare collarbone glistened with slowly evaporating vapor. Cleaner was better. An old life's lesson.

"He was the last one?" Easy to hear the little edge of humor, the laugh that almost escaped. Life traveling the wrong way out of the body when it needed to stay capped up inside. "Lost count y'know. Not like we're lacking for Lucases."

She watched Paloma, without really exchanging eye contact. Kelly paid that nicety no mind.

"He was fucked up. Desperate. I was doing what I had to." The truth, through Kelly's expert eyes. She could see the world a different way from a lot of the other things that crawled on it. A better way. She could see Paloma for the weakness that had turned her into a walking monster, clumsily taped up with gauze.

"You know that story well enough," Kelly finished, impatiently tapping out the punctuation of her sentences with the barrel of her gun dancing on stones. "I'm curious, honest. Did it get any easier? This long after it happened. Visualizing it. Understanding it." It was a question that Kelly could have asked herself but didn't. That was a certain not-so-obvious trick to pick up after scraping for social safety, for value, because value was safety in a society corrupted by mob rule and human nature in the form of capitalism. Questions weren't always selfless conversation. An answer was a weapon, like anything else Kelly had to keep in her arsenal when the world refused to be on her side- the winning side.

[Ruggahissy]

((Lori Martin continued from @shdwmstr recordings and transcripts June 19th))

Lori walked at a brisk pace. She had been walking like that for a while. She was beginning to feel it in her calf muscles -- already strong to begin with -- aching back at her in complaint.

Val tried to shoot you, you know.

I know.

So then why did you say that she'd done something for you?

Because I have to believe that. The only other reason I can think of for why she shot herself would be that she just didn't want to be around me anymore. That's how awful it is to be with me.

.....

I just want to believe that someone did something for me. I want more than anything to believe that she did it for me because I need to believe someone cared. I just wanted someone to be with who wouldn't leave me. They leave me because I'm awful. So I have to believe she did it for me. She did. She did do it for me.

"Hel was right. I'm a joke." she said dully to herself. "That's why I killed them," Maybe that was enough to deserve to die.

Lori halted and realized she was a waterfall and by a waterfall. Hel's pistol was in her right hand. It was easier to carry than the rifle. She had been so deep in thought she hadn't paid attention to where she was going and this is where her aimless feet had brought her. Before her, there was a small path towards the opening of what looked like a cave behind the waterfall.

By her foot, a few flowers had sprung up and were pushed gently back and forth by the wind from the water. Lori balled her fists, closed her eyes tightly, and brought her right foot down onto them.

[Melusine]

Kelly had killed him for the same reasons that Paloma had killed Abel and Tony. They were all doing what they were supposed to in this game. The girls were playing their roles as pawns until one of them reached the other side to become a queen. In theory, it was all very simple. In practice though, it was another story.

Kelly was, again, too close, at least mentally, for comfort. A string was struck, making a weird harmony inside of Paloma's head. They were too similar, not quite cut from the same cloth but they were probably cut with the same pair of scissors. Or at least, from the same game. To answer her question, Paloma had to ponder on her motivations, but it didn't take too long.

"Yeah," she said, her voice steady, "it does."

Paloma remembered Abel and Tony. She remembered them well. She couldn't describe exactly what they were wearing, but she remembered their faces full of disgust and annoyance.

"I didn't mean to kill Tony so I don't really... care," she said softly, "but I do for Abel."

Tony wasn't a mistake, but he might as well been one. He wasn't meant to die like that. Paloma would have preferred a hands-on approach to the problem. She had lost a lot that day, but she managed to pick herself back up from the shattered pieces of her ego. Up until Amber made her remember that she was simply a pawn trying to make it big.

"I see Abel everywhere." Her voice was steady again as if she were talking about an old acquaintance. "In people, in places, in my memories, in the cloud. He haunts me but he doesn't hurt me anymore."

[Cicada]

"Didn't mean to." Simple repetition. A bundle of words strung up as some grade school addition up of syllables. It could have meant anything, but Kelly was cynically positive it wasn't interpreted correctly. She hadn't offered many clues, to be fair. Her voice had been as void of substance as the average high school girl's head.

Paloma's answer made it clear, that the two of them had experienced and suffered the same. And that the two of them viewed the world so differently. Kelly wouldn't have answered her own question the same way. Be it in the first or third person.

"I get that."

But the way perspective worked out, Kelly did have to act like she was sympathetic. Even if she didn't understand. It was an alien world out there, on the other side of a camera lens, but it was one Kelly had spent every day of her life so far diligently adapting to.

"I see them too. They're everywhere." And they'd shut up. In due time. Everyone ate their words when the proof was served up.

There was a moment of silence, Kelly considering something else to say. Another question with too many wrong answers, maybe. Kelly's eye continued to trace Paloma's hands. Smaller, by some illusion of the cave's dismal light. Kelly had been worn down to raw nerve, she was that much sensitive now. The sweat always stung, even a single drop of it. Her hands never stopped screaming, even when she'd learned to shut her mouth and let others talk themselves into the grave. They screamed different things.

Something screamed beyond that blind corner the waterfall roared through. Something outside. A gentle sound. A human sound. Stomp stomp. Crunch crunch. Rocks snapping sounded different from bones, but not by much. Kelly smoothly stepped back, not hesitating or stumbling. Deeper into the cave. In all of a second Paloma would be left all but alone.

[Ruggahissy]

Whispers were carried over to her on the breeze from the rushing water. It didn't sound like anything she could make out -- it was just feminine murmuring.

The flyaways from her ponytail whipped lightly against her face. Carefully, she stepped towards the noise. It was alien that her footfalls -- heel to toe, heel to toe -- were almost inaudible.

At first she thought, maybe it could be someone friendly? But then she thought a little more and realized there were no friends left alive now, if they were ever even real to begin with.

As Lori moved through the mist she saw a shape in the opening of the cave. It was the distinct shape of a cloud of frizzy brown hair, which she had once grabbed in haphazard handful and pulled as hard as she could.

Her heartbeat began to pick up until she could hear it pulsing in her ears. It was finally her. When she woke up on the island, she had cut her arm and told the first group she'd come across that it had been Paloma. A double-ploy -- gain sympathy and turn people against Paloma. She'd tried to judge Claudeson in her direction as someone worthy of investigating while really having designs on killing her no matter what his decision was.

Hel had been a snap decision based on the whims of her emotions at that moment, bruised by the truth of Hel's words. This had been calculated over days. Maybe weeks if you had counted Lori's fevered daydreams of lightly maiming Paloma back at home.

The girl had just become the latest in a never-ending line of people who provoked her and then when she tried to stand up for herself, she was blamed instead. It wasn't fair. But here fairness could be restored.

Just because she wasn't beautiful like Madison or rich like Ivy or someone who got easy As like Paloma, that didn't mean she didn't deserve a chance.

Suddenly the air rushing from the waterfall felt cold against her flushed face.

She raised the gun and walked forward.

I deserve things too.

It has come to your door instead of the other way around.

I deserve them all.

[Melusine]

Kelly retreated and Paloma didn't follow. She was going to leave anyways. She had to, no point to stay here in the darkness. As she turned around to leave, she stopped on her toes. There was a figure in front of the entrance that let some of the light shimmer through the split. It took a second before realizing who it was, which was less because of a problem with her vision, which was increasingly growing dimmer, and more by the blinding bad luck she was just hit by.

It was Lori.

Lori was, to describe her quickly, rough on the edge. She looked just like an unpolished sculpture. Something with crude features, both from her personality and her body, that mimicked itself as a woman. Paloma's bad luck was in front of her with a gun and it was moving toward her.

But Paloma, true to her nature, snarled at the figure. It wasn't going to get the best of her. People like Lori needed to see weakness to thrive, and Paloma didn't feel like showing the holes in her armor. It was quiet in the cave. Kelly was at the back of her mind, Lori was in the front, and Paloma was at the center.

So she did what she did best. She talked. Paloma moved her mouth like she had been taught to. She knew what was she doing, she was on top of it. Paloma's words were short and sharp. They were quick. Paloma didn't need a gun if she had her words.

"Ew." It was simple. "It's you."

[Ruggahissy]

"Yeah," she said, looking through Paloma. She felt like she was having an out-of-body experience.

Paloma was unbelievable. Even on the end of a barrel, she wouldn't it give up. She really couldn't be nice if her life depended on it. What had they said the last time they spoke?

"It's the ugly bitch. And you're the virulent cunt."

Lori's features hardened and she pulled the trigger.

[Melusine]

She wasn't wrong.

A virulent cunt was an easy way to put it. But, it was quite quick too. A little too fast for Paloma's taste since she didn't have the time to reply before having a bullet wound to her guts.

Paloma didn't quite feel the pain. It was too quick, too sudden. It wasn't dramatic like she had dreamt about. There wasn't any smoke or sparks or anything really, just an echo of a bullet going through her body. Between the sound of the gun and the crackling of the rocks beneath her, Paloma forgot about what she was thinking.

Truly, being shot really changed priorities.

Paloma wasn't sure where she was shot, blaming both the darkness of the cave and the burning inside of her. She gasped, once or twice. She wasn't sure. She wasn't counting. Nobody was counting, but she knew she was gasping. Her breath was cut out of her, just like that. It wasn't fair.

"Fuck," she spat, something came out of her mouth. She raised her to wipe it. Blood. "Abel."

It wasn't a statement. Paloma knew this wasn't a statement. She wouldn't let it be a statement. She wouldn't let anyone think it was a statement. There wasn't any point in making statements. She couldn't and she wouldn't and she can't and she won't. It won't be a theory or a discussion nor a theme or an idea.

It would be clear as day.

"Abel?"

[Ruggahissy]

The sound echoed around the cave, hurting Lori's ears. She was shocked for a moment just from the noise, which had nowhere to escape. She felt herself breathing heavily, but she couldn't hear it.

Lori had done it. Technically, she had done it again. It was different before, though. She had seen Hel. The anger over what they had said to her just a few hours ago possessed her, she raised the gun, shot them, and they died immediately. It was almost like she didn't think. The anger had taken the driver's seat. Val was a survival reflex: shoot or be shot.

Now she had time to think, say something, and then make a deliberate decision. And here, Paloma wasn't dead yet. Lori felt somewhat afraid of having more conversation with Paloma.

Lori heard Paloma say a word but wasn't sure what it was. She took a step closer. It was dark towards the back of the cave, but the light from the mouth illuminated a puddle of liquid streaming out of her. Without enough light, it looked like the liquid leaking from Paloma was jet black.

She said it again and this time Lori understood.

"Abel?" she said loud enough to be heard.

Paloma had killed him the first day. It was noteworthy because it meant Lori had predicted Paloma's immediate violent turn with her fabricated attack. So really, she had thought back then, it wasn't even really a lie. She was just warning people, the ungrateful jerks.

"I don't... give two fucks about Abel!" she shouted.

The rusty wheels turned. That first initial decision to kill Abel must have meant trouble for Paloma. Either people came after her for it or wouldn't let her into groups because of it, probably. Stupid. She'd made a bad play by doing that so early.

"I shot you because...."

The sound of water filled in the gap. The black puddle touched Lori's white sneaker.

"BECAUSE I HATE YOU!" she shrieked at the top of her lungs.

"BECAUSE YOU'RE A BITCH AND I HATE YOU AND NOW I CAN DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. BECAUSE I'VE ALWAYS HATED YOU AND NOW THINGS ARE FAIR, YOU FUCKING POODLE."

[Cicada]

Fair? By some definition, maybe.

It was an ugly scene. Paloma leaking, the sunlight from outside the cave blessing her with a malformed halo, one that exposed all the misshape in her skull. The dents. The girl with the gun with the shooting with the screaming... One of the cheerleaders. Didn't make sense that she was nameless- all the cheerleaders were supposed to be notorious, noteworthy, non-negligible...?

Lori. That was the name that came to mind. Lori didn't think things had been fair, until now. In a way at least, Kelly agreed.

Kelly supposed she agreed with Paloma too, though. She hadn't been so bad. She'd understood things from some pale imitation of Kelly's perspective. Kelly could have done something.

No good deed went unpunished, ultimately. The Marcelines of the world proved that much. The gun stayed with Kelly and stayed silent. Her sentiments went Paloma's way, really, it was just an unfortunate tragedy Kelly had nothing to do with.

[Melusine]

Paloma wasn't sure how to describe this feeling.

It wasn't pride for sure, but it wasn't shame either. It did feel something alongside of that. Something on the same axis as pride and shame, but not on the same intensity. It was somewhere in between the two, that was for sure. Maybe it was the blood or maybe it was the pain, but she was sure that this feeling had to do with her gut wound.

She was able to pinpoint one feeling, though. There was this strange serenity spreading throughout her mutilated body. It might have been the pain that turned into numbness, but she felt like she had never felt this calm. It had to do with Lori, with her words, with her feelings. It had to do with her pain, but it wasn't the main element.

It had to do with Abel. Something about the fact that he didn't matter, for once. It made her happy, made her feel like she wasn't being judged and juried and executed over something that was an accident. Manslaughter, not murder. Different m-levels of crimes and not something that Paloma deserved to be punished for over and over again. She already had to be haunted by him. She didn't need the constant stares and gawks and mocks and insults that came with it.

As she spat another load of blood, Paloma's brain weaved a new sentence.

"A poodle?" She gurgled. "A fucking poodle? That's the best you can say you pathetic, mediocre cumslut."

She leaned forward. Lori was pathetic even as she was killing her. That's so sad. She roared, her features twisting and churning the blood and the sweat that dripped down her face unto her chest.

"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU WAITING FO-"