They call me useless, they call me weak, they call me a flipper and snorkel geek

[Pippi]

((Garren Mortimer continued from The Sky Is Falling, So Pull Up A Chair))

He’d been feeling really damn good about his confrontation with Brady and Cheri for a while after leaving the village. That pleasant, exhilarating tremble in his arms lasted all the way to the forest’s edge, and he was feeling positively goddamn buoyant. Almost in a good enough mood to put a fucking spring in his step and a shitty, out of tune song on his lips, if the metal collar around his neck hadn’t been a far too constant reminder of his situation.

But as he’d walked further into the woods, his positivity had slowly faded, and now he was traipsing around aimlessly with his hands shoved into his pockets, pickaroon lodged between his back and his bags, feeling bitter and sour inside.

Sure, Lucas had absolutely deserved to be verbally blasted like that, cause, like, the dude was a cockbite, and he’d somehow got even more cockbitey in the transition from school to death island. And, hey, Cheri’s subtle suggestions that he’d just end up killing somebody really kinda rankled, too. He guessed he knew where they were coming from, but still, the fuck, girl. What’d he done to even remotely suggest he had any inclination towards playing?

Well. Swung his weird-ass half-pickaxe right down in front of her. That’d probably give anybody the wrong idea.

Garren pressed his fingers into his forehead and groaned, briefly scrunching his eyes shut as he continued walking, looking for any sign of… well, anything. So long as it wasn’t a gunshot. God, he’d felt so badass back there, too, and now he just felt like walking off a cliff once more. Couldn’t really go shittalking Brady’s absolute best impression of a robot with his utter lack of social skills, when he was just as bad, could he?

It came easy, he guessed. Being a dick to girls, that is. That was pretty much his whole, stinking, goddamn brand at school, after all, like it or loathe it. It’d been something he’d wanted to get better at. Nah, wait, scratch that. Something he’d wanted to obliterate entirely, as soon as he’d graduated. But hey, guess he’d never fucking get a chance to do so now, thanks a bunch Danya, you cunt.

Hmmm. Hold on a second.

Garren physically came to a halt in the middle of a path. His hands were still in his pockets, but his posture had shifted, changed from slumped and moody to something resembling a confident stance. It was real nice out. Sunny and bright and all. There was a breeze running through his hair. The smell of earth hung in the air, and it was… kinda weird smelling. But weirdly pleasant all the same. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d spent more than a few hours outside, let alone somewhere as natural as this.

He didn’t have to be a fuckup.

Thinking rationally for a moment, there was a good chance everybody’s demise had been set in motion from the second they’d woken up. It wasn’t a fun thought, obvi-fucking-ously, but again, bomb collars. Pretty fucking hard to ignore those. Escape was obviously the goal, the desire, but even if Garren got together the best and brightest George Hunter had to offer, everything would have to go absolutely perfectly for them to slip through the terrorists clutches without them turning everybody’s necks into spaghetti sauce.

Bottom line was, it was way more likely than not that Garren would wind up dead in a few days time. It was… kinda scary to think about, but not as scary as it really shoulda been. Probably cause he wasn’t staring down the barrel of a Desert Eagle just yet. The feeling would come, more likely than not, with time, with desperation seeping in to his classmates.

But in that space, why couldn’t he try and be the best version of himself he could be?

Garren shook his head and carried on walking, but even as he did so, he felt a smile creep onto his face. What did he have to gain, keeping up that old persona? For all he knew, he could end up being that same old obnoxious, asshole incel to somebody who was hours away from dying, and that… Yeah, that didn’t sit right with him at all.

If he died, then hey, he went out how he wanted to be, or at least closer to that mark. If he didn’t die, and that miracle went and happened, then hey, bonus. And even putting all of that aside, not being a dickhead would probably make people way more likely to try and escape with him.

Probably wouldn’t be easy, trying to cut loose the attitude that had pervaded his brain for years upon years, but then again, he was trying to survive against a terrorist organisation that’d been running for just as long. It’d probably be a cakewalk, compared to that.

It wasn’t much longer before Garren found a path leading out of the trees, and he left the woods in the same positive, buoyant mood as he’d entered them.

((Garren Mortimer, continued in Undulation Nation))