Rise Great Undead Lord Dread

[Deamon]

Urgh, what time was it?

The sun needed to go away. It was interrupting her sleep.

Her eyes squeezed shut and she groaned before rolling over. As she did the bed was no longer there, her arm dangling over the empty space above the floor.

Her eyes slowly blinked open.

That was when Forrest realised she was far from the ground. With a yelp she pushed herself back away from the edge of the wooden platform she was on, good hand struggling for purchase.

Her woozy, drug-addled mind suddenly snapping into sharp focus as she caught up with everything that had happened. The realisation of how her location corresponded to the fuzzy images in her memory.

Oh fuck.

She pulled her legs up and tucked them into her chest, eyes staring ahead at the wilds of the island. It was beautiful but there was a shadow cast over everything. A shadow made up of four words.

Survival of the Fittest.

Her eyes were watering and Forrest didn’t know if there was anything that could stop her crying. There was no silver lining. She was weak normally and that wasn’t helped when she only had one usable arm. She was realistic, physical activity besides dancing at a party was far from something she excelled at.

As she sat taking in the beauty before her Forrest tried to think of something stupid to say, something to take the edge off. For the first time in maybe her life Forrest had nothing.

Finally breaking her gaze away from the horizon Forrest saw her pack. Sitting off to one side, probably to make sure it didn’t fall. She reached out with her right hand before remembering it was immobilised in its chartreuse cocoon. Her left hand took its place and brought the bag closer. Setting it down next to her Forrest saw the number stenciled to the side.

G022.

She sighed. That wasn’t cool.

What was cool was the metal collar that was around her neck. Not cool as in on trend-y’know what forget it.

There was a feeling of trepidation as she stared at the bag, as her vision focused on its details it seemed to move further away. The pack contained everything she owned on the island. She took a deep breath in preparation for-“Oh fuck!”

Forrest lunged for her bag but it was too late, with an almost mocking slowness it fell off the platform and as she watched disappeared into the jungle below.

From her position lying on the wood of the platform, Forrest pressed her face into the wood. Her body beginning to shake as the tears finally came.

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

[G021, Meilin Zhou - START]

The first thing Meilin could do was lift herself onto a bench and sit there. At her feet, the duffel bag with "G021" written on it, a cold reminder of what she was. A number. A statistic.

She closed her eyes at the painful sight, and wrapped her hands around herself, and started to breathe as deeply as she could, even as the tears stung her eyes. This would be the end of her life, she knew it. Even if she somehow became the last one standing, there was no way she could harm one of her classmates. None of them deserved this, none of them. But maybe... no, surely, nobody would sink so low to actually try and kill any of them, would they?

Would they?

At least let Ace be safe. Oh no, oh no- if Ace was hurt, Meilin wouldn't know what to do. She had to find him, but what if she was too late? Even her closed eyes couldn't help her as a flashing image of Ace's corpse invaded her mind. If someone hurt him... no, she couldn't go after the person who did it. That would make her just as bad as them. It would- it would turn her into a killer. No, she couldn't give them what they wanted. But... if she had to protect someone... no, she can protect her friends and loved ones without killing. She had to, she-

She opened her eyes at the sound of a yelp. Some way to the side, on an unfenced platform with a long way down, there was someone's bag falling off the edge. The person next to it- Forrest. She curled up and started sobbing. Perhaps she was sobbing before, too.

She softly called out to her. "Forrest? It's Meilin."

[Pippi]

The drugs had hit her harder than most.

Katie was no stranger to drugs. Nicotine was the main one, of course, but she was no stranger to weed as a backup means to eliminate her stress. She’d taken ecstasy a couple of times, too; she didn’t get invited to too many parties, but whenever she did, she developed an attitude of ‘fuck it’ that overrode her health-conscious, boxer nature.

Knock-out gas, strangely enough, wasn’t something that was in her repertoire. Maybe she’d been given a stronger dose than the other members of her class. Maybe there was something in her body that reacted negatively to it. Whatever the case was, it meant she still felt like she was half under. She was practically sleepwalking. The knowledge that six versions of Survival of the Fittest had come and gone and every single time people had killed the friends they knew and loved without fail and that she really ought to have self-preservation in mind had vanished. So too had all of her methods of calming down, of dispensing stress healthily. She wasn’t bottling her anger up, at least, but that just meant she was venting it at a furious pace.

She couldn’t think straight. She could barely think at all.

She wandered the woods, yelling a name over and over again at the top of her lungs. Her voice was clear, despite the fog in her brain. Fueled by anger. Piercing.

“Saffron!”

Desperate.

CAITLYN “KATIE” JASMINE AGUSTIEN – SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST – START

There was nothing but trees surrounding her. Trees, trees, trees, more fucking trees. She stumbled over roots and fallen branches, ambling aimlessly through the shade, calling Saffron’s name out every few seconds. She wasn’t used to this environment. Trees, to her, were scenery first and foremost, decoration for parks and gardens. Not for impromptu fucking pathways. She was used to spending time inside buildings, in gyms and boxing rings. Not this place. Wherever this place was.

“Saffron!”

Her bags clattered against her back as she wandered, ungainly thrown onto her shoulders, but she didn’t care. She wielded her weapon like a machete, but she hadn’t even noticed it was still in the box. She pushed onwards aimlessly, traipsing in circles, knowing exactly what she wanted, but without a clue of how to get it and where to find it.

“Saffron?”

It was too fucking quiet out here. She needed noise. She needed hustle and bustle. She needed something, even if it was only something to keep her hooked for a half hour before she went back to boxing again. Most of all, she needed a reply. God, she needed a reply. Any kind of noise, any kind of acknowledgement.

There wasn’t one. Not to her, at least. She couldn’t hear the words being said through the cushion of the trees, but it wasn’t Saffron’s voice. She knew that much at least. It was almost entirely useless to her, in that case.

Almost.

There was still a chance Saffron was with whoever had spoken. A faint hope, but one Katie kept held tight to her chest as she moved towards the voice, stumbling over forest debris as she gained in speed, almost sprawling to the floor as she reached the lookout point. Her hand grazed the ground, needles from the plantlife below digging into her palm as she pushed herself back up.

Meilin and Forrest. But no Saffron.

Katie let out a furious yell, grabbing a rotten branch off of the ground and hurling it off the edge of the cliff.

[Shiola]

The gas had hit her hard, but she still remembered everything. Enough to be afraid. Enough to wake up screaming, thinking only of the bomb wrapped around her throat. Her throat burned from the taste of vomit. Waking up in the jungle, she'd already been bitten by the insects that dotted the forest floor; blood streaked down her arms, though it had dried as she had ran.

Erika didn't know what else to do.

((G030 - Erika Stieglitz - Start))

There had to be somewhere to hide. Somewhere she could wait this all out. What else was there to do?

Don't even have a gun. Don't have anything. Just a bomb around my neck. A bomb that might just explode for no reason. Unless someone kills me first.

It was going to be dark, if it was anything. No, it wasn't going to be anything at all. Just the end. Every thought and feeling and experience. Annihilated when her heart stopped beating and the electrical signals in her brain stopped firing. She wanted to believe in other possibilities. None of them seemed plausible.

There's nothing waiting for me. There is no other side. It's just this, and then it's over.

The bag with "G 30" written on the side swayed back and forth as she tore through the jungle. Only a few provisions. Only things that would make this hell last a bit longer. The terrorist, the one who shot Ms. Garcia and scattered bits of skull and brain matter across the room, said they'd be issued weapons. Hers was a pill bottle, with her name on it and a prescription:

ERIKA P. STIEGLITZ - 300MG POTASSIUM CYANIDE. TAKE AS NEEDED.

They must've thought that was funny. Like the rest of this. Was that why they were doing this? What did they even believe in? Anything? Erika felt her breathing become heavy, her heartbeats a rapid, dull thudding that seemed to almost be audible. There was only so far she could run. Much as forests were familiar terrain, she could tell that she bore more than a few cuts and bruises from her journey already. Though she'd been looking down as she ran, the light ahead signaled a clearing, and the end to the incline she'd been tearing up.

She felt what seemed to be a skip in her pounding heartbeat as she noticed three other figures in the clearing, some kind of lookout on the cliff.

"Forrest? It's Meilin."

"Saffron?"

Erika stood meekly at the edge of the lookout, unsure of what to say. If there even was anything she could say. Forrest's hair was recognizable enough. Mellin had identified herself. Katie she recognized; her and Ty boxed together.

Oh God. Tyrell.

Erika called out, her voice not entirely her own. "Help. Please."

[Deamon]

There was a voice, soft, quiet, nonviolent.

For a moment Forrest ignored it. She just wanted to be swallowed up, to be rid of it all.

Everything was fucked.

She was fucked.

Forrest looked up from where she had been flattened out of the platform. She saw out over the island be again because that was the direction her body was facing.

There were drips on the wood from her tears. But well, yeah. Nothing she could do about that.

As Forrest rolled over onto her elbows there were yells and shouts. So much was happening and she had nothing to show for it besides her tears. Forrest sniffled as she saw Meilin, Forrest sat up and her hands went up to wipe her eyes.

It didn't work, they didn't stop. But they slowed, at least until Katie burst from the treeline screaming.

None of this was good. She'd lost her bag. She needed that. She would have to get it back.

Then, again, before Forrest could reply there was another person calling out. It was all too much. Forrest's hands covered her face and she fell onto her back on the platform.

She couldn't do this.

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

Meilin carefully got off the bench to walk over to Forrest, who was drying her tears. Maybe something could be made here- they didn't have to go all guns blazing right away. They can stick together, work it out, survive and-

Another girl approached, but it seemed she wasn't happy to see her and/or Forrest, if the way she hurled a branch off the lookout was any indication- it was enough to make Meilin flinch a bit, even though she wasn't very close to that girl, calling for someone earlier. She believed her name was Katie- and Saffron, that was her girlfriend, wasn't it? The memories and quasi-encyclopedic knowledge of high school social structures, once necessary implements in the halls of GHHS, seemed to have faded to the back of her mind in the initial panic.

Another person called out. Things were starting to get confusing. She figured Forrest thought so too, the way she slumped back down again.

Meilin looked to Katie, then to the direction of the other person calling out. There was Erika, standing off to the side. Then she looked back to Forrest. What could she do? Perhaps they could all band together, if only for a short while, but how? They'd need common ground.

Her face curved more into a worried frown. Then an idea came to mind- she was looking for Ace, wasn't she? Or was going to, anyway. Forrest was going to need to find her bag. Katie, she came in here calling for Saffron. She wasn't sure how Erika would fit into this, though.

So she carefully walked over, and sat on the ledge next to Forrest- not overly close though, that would only make more problems. She savoured the view from up above, where the sky and island could reach on forever.

Then she looked down. Geez. It was a long fall. She looked back up, to Saffron, and then to Forrest.

She murmured a musing, "I guess we're all looking for something..."

Hopefully that could be the start. It would be dumb to assume that would get everybody on board, but it could open the discussion, and maybe bring them all together. Maybe. Hopefully?

And hopefully this Katie wasn't in the mood to throw people off the ledge.

[Pippi]

It was starting to wear off, now, the blinding rage that had been bottled up and building ever since she’d been strapped to a chair, ever since Danya had taken to the stage to let them know these would be the last few days of their lives, ever since the execution. Throwing the branch and watching it sail off the cliff, down and out of sight into the woodlands below, that had helped, even if just a little bit.

But it still wasn’t totally gone. Her thoughts were still unsteady and uneven, still laser focused on a single goal and ignoring everything else that surrounded it. So when Erika entered the scene, blood and bruises streaking down her arms, and Katie spun around to see another girl who wasn’t Saffron in front of her, that pulse of hope was swiftly extinguished again, and she glared daggers at her, hands balled into fists, face like thunder.

“What-“

Something caught in Katie’s brain. She knew this girl. She recognised Forrest and Meilin, too, but only in passing. Erika, though, that was someone she was much more familiar with. She was dating Tyrell, wasn’t she? She sometimes came to the gym after Ty had finished his workout. Odds were she was looking for him, too. Forrest and Meilin probably had people they cared about, friends and loved ones, they wanted to see before everything went to shit.

She wasn’t the only one in her position.

Katie made a strained, unhappy noise, before turning away, glancing at Meilin.

“Guess we are.”

She started pacing, like a tiger in a cage, trying to remember all the techniques her anger management therapist had taught her, all the breathing exercises she used in her day to day life. They were right there, she could see them all, knew what she had to do, but the embers of anger inside of her were still burning bright. She knew exactly what the root cause of her fury was; she was still stuck right in the middle of it.

“Dunno what I can do to help though, can’t even help my fucking self! All cause some cunt decided to trap me on this stupid fucking island!”

Katie stormed back into the treeline, coming back a few moments later with another tree branch in her hands. She ran past Forrest, barely acknowledging the girl’s misery, winding up and hurling the branch off of the lookout point, watching it spiral away to join its kindred.

“This is such fucking BULLSHIT!”

[Shiola]

I wish I could just be that angry, Erika thought as she saw Katie fling another branch off the cliff. It would've been nice to be able to just break something. Fly off the handle, shout for a bit, and then figure out what to do after it was all out of her system. Instead, she only stumbled closer to Katie and the others, not entirely sure what to do or say. Forrest looked like she'd pretty much shut down. Mellin was muttering to herself, looking like she was about ready to check out as well.

Yeah. That seems like the right reaction too. We're all already dead.

Erika slowly sat down on the ground, hugging her knees. Though she knew Katie's comment wasn't directed at her, she felt it anyhow. Who would help her? The government?

This is the seventh time. All of those drills for nothing. The checks on the bus didn't stop a damn thing. Danya's still alive. That group still has enough money and resources to pull this off. I kept telling people when they talked about voting for Canon. When Mom thought maybe he was onto something. Dad had his theories. Still nobody knows why they're doing it. Maybe that's part of it. If anyone knew, they could target their supporters. Still, who would support this?

She tugged at the collar on her neck. It felt solid. Looking to the others, she could tell they'd been manufactured to a pretty high standard. They had that kind metal-plastic sheen, like a brand new smartphone. There was nothing ad-hoc about the devices.

A corporation maybe. Someone with a vested interest in making the public afraid. So, most of them. There is no stopping this, not here and not by us.

The gears turned in Erika's mind, and on each revolution she felt more and more ill at ease. Anyone who thought the way she did and had more of a stomach for human suffering was no doubt already planning how they were going to pursue the only avenue out of here.

She knew at least one person like that.

"Katie? Katie, I know you're upset but I think you might be able to help with something."

[Deamon]

Forrest listened while her body was wracked with sobs. She listened as well as she could, which wasn't much.

Her main focus was her own spiraling self-pity, at least it would have been had Katie not sprinted up next to her head.

Instinctively—because someone had rushed up next to her head—Forrest went to move out of the way. It was a reasonable response, aside from the fact they were on a wooden platform out over a cliff and there was no safety rail. Upon seeing the jungle below her yet again, Forrest yelped and pushed herself away from the edge, smacking the back of her head on Katie's knee as she did so.

"Ow!"

That snapped her out of the spiral.

She rubbed the back of her head and looked at the girl. She got the anger and frustration, she really did. She wasn't handling it well herself. She was handling it pretty awfully honestly. But still, like, maybe try not to step on her face.

"Could ya not?"

((G022 - Forrest Quinn - Survival of the Fittest - Start))

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

Meilin shuffled away seeing Forrest's head and Katie's knee collide- just a little shuffle, though, and a raising of one arm. Afterwards she took herself away from the ledge, shuffled away from it, because the height made her deeply uncomfortable.

She had to admit Katie had a point. Bollocks, really, that they of all people were the ones to get sent to death island as a sort of twisted game that would be posted on the dark web. Katie had every right to be angry, Forrest had every right to be sobbing, feelings were feelings. That was okay. And how did Meilin feel? She felt... empty. Like something had poked a hole in her heart while she was unconscious and drained all the energy, feeling, and hope away. All that was left was a dark pit that she couldn't take her eyes off of, even though she knew the longer she stared into the abyss, the more it would stare back.

If only she could say something to make it all better, to make them all work together.

"You're right Katie. This is nuts," she began. Now where to go... "We're all pretty upset about this."

She paused.

"Well, upset is an understatement, but you get me, yeah?" she smiled a bit, but she wiped it off her face, before looking out over the island again. "I... I guess this isn't a bad place to be right now. Just process everything for a bit. Nothing wrong with that..."

[Pippi]

As soon as Forrest’s head smacked against her knee, sending a spasm of pain jolting through her leg, Katie spun around, glaring down at the rainbow-haired girl, the same fire in her eyes that she’d shot at Erika earlier. She bristled, hands bunching back into fists, and for a moment the temptation to go with her snap reaction and slam her foot into Forrest’s face or bring it crunching down on top of her neck almost took over her senses and functions.

It was close. It was real close. Her foot twitched against the wooden planks.

She remembered what Meilin had just said, though. What she’d just told herself. Everyone here was looking for someone. Everyone here was frightened and scared and pissed off at Danya and his goons, they just displayed it in different ways. She wasn’t the only one hurting, here.

Katie’s face softened, slightly, and she closed her eyes, sighing as she took a step back from Forrest. Not too far back, though. It was a long drop. She didn’t really feel like joining the tree branches down there.

“Right. Yeah. Sorry,” she muttered to Forrest, stepping off of the platform and back towards the treeline, taking deep, steady breaths as she did.

This was good, though. The moment she let her anger control and take over her, the moment all of her calming techniques failed and she couldn’t even bottle her emotions up any more, then she was sunk. She was already feeling sick with herself at how close she’d been to hurting Forrest a few seconds ago. How far would she have gone from there? If Forrest had fought back, would she have stopped her assault?

Katie nodded at Meilin’s words, then turned away, suddenly unable to look at Forrest without feeling like she was about to throw up. She focused her attention on Erika instead; the girl had directed something at her a moment ago, after all. She folded her arms as she looked at her, gently squeezing her left bicep with her hand.

“Sure, go ahead, shoot. Wanna channel this into something productive.”

Fuck, that’d be a poor choice of words if Erika had a gun on her.

[Shiola]

Erika noticed Katie taking deep breaths. The other girl seemed to be piecing herself back together. If Erika was going to say what she had to say, she'd have to do the same.

Slow down. Take in the situation. Might help.

She breathed in sharply through her nose. Held it. Let go. And again. And again.

Her heartbeat slowed. Still, every time she looked to the edge of the platform, or to Meilin and Forrest, her mind raced. Trying to gauge what they were expecting to happen. Thinking of how it might feel to fall from such a height, and how it might not feel too different than she felt at the moment.

Taking a minute to process this might've helped, if the situation wasn't so monumentally insane. It was hard to imagine anything that could calm the deep panic in her chest. Anxiety always felt like a chain wrapped around her rib cage, pulling on the inside of her chest. Tightening every muscle it tore into. That chain was taut, and it was only going to keep pulling until it ripped her apart. Deep breaths weren't going to fix that.

I always said it wasn't a life or death situation. Thinking these feelings would help me if I was in actual danger, but that I was never in actual danger. Well, now what?

Worse still, thoughts raced through her mind she could scarcely find the words to describe. Something worse than the question of how quick dying actually was, or which of these girls was going to snap and try and kill her first. Things she knew to be true, and was incapable of suppressing. She could kill someone. She didn't want to. She didn't want anyone to have to make that choice. Erika knew very well what would happen if she was on the right side of a gun and someone was trying to kill her. It wasn't hard to imagine Katie doing the same.

Katie's going to do anything she can to find Saffron. She's going to push herself to find that girl and protect her. That's what you do when you love someone, you protect them. Even if it kills you, or anyone else.

"Okay, listen. I..." Erika trailed off, unsure of how to say what needed to be said. Something that felt twisted, perverse. Something true only in this hellish circumstance, but true nonetheless. Every part of her body wanted to run, to retreat back into the forest and say nothing. What little part of her still felt brave and confident pushed her to continue.

Erika took a deep breath and leaned close to Katie's ear. She held onto the other girl's shoulder to steady herself. Her voice shook, though she spoke clearly, and deliberately. A sense of desperation and doom hung on every word. For a time, she and Katie stood still together on the outlook, Erika speaking as quietly as she could. Her tone was hurried, impatient even, and she paused twice to hold back tears. By the time she was finished, her eyes were wide and she seemed to be trembling.

Stepping back from the other girl, she barely managed to stand upright as her knees buckled beneath her. Unsteady steps led her back from the platform, towards the forest. No longer could she speak coherently, or deliberately. Whatever strength she'd had she used to speak to Katie. To tell her what she needed to know. Something Erika wished she didn't know, much as she'd always wished blissful ignorance of her own death or the death of the world.

"I can't... You know I can't. It has to be you. Please."

The unknown was often referred to as the ultimate source of fear. For Erika, it was one single dreadful certainty that threatened to cut the bare thread of sanity she desperately clung to. The bleak world she saw seemed barely distinguishable from a night terror. Unable to look to Katie, or to the others, she turned and ran.

((Erika Stieglitz continued in Something Better))

[Deamon]

For a moment Forrest thought she was about to receive a beating, but Katie's anger passed, she apologised and nothing came of it. That left Forrest as the only one on the platform and the other three all focused on each other and their own things. She was left alone.

Yep, alright, cool.

Forrest carefully leaned to look out over the edge of the platform and to the forest below. It was a long way down and she'd dropped her bag down there. She needed to get that back. That was priority number one. Unless she just took one of the bags belonging to the other girls and who was she kidding? She wasn't going to do that.

As she turned back Erika had called Katie over and was whispering into her ear...a lot.

Then she ran off.

...Okay then.

Only one thing for it.

"I...uhhh...so my bag fell over the edge."

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

Meilin could only look on quizzically at Erika running off, and her mind wandered, wondering what she could have whispered in Katie's ear. It must have been something of great importance, or significance, or at least was very emotional for Erika. That much was pretty obvious, though.

There wasn't time to dwell on that though. Forrest's bag was missing. They didn't know each other well, but Meilin knew well enough. Besides, that bag was pretty important. First aid, food, all the essentials, plus a weapon. Oh! Didn't she have a weapon? She hadn't even opened her bag. She got up and turned to where it was still sitting-

No. That will wait.

She turned back to Forrest and nodded.

"Seems pretty important. We should get it back."

She looked to Katie, then back to Forrest.

"I mean... if you want me to help. You know?"

[Pippi]

Katie stepped closer to Erika, still grasping tightly to the thin cardboard box housing her weapon. Now that she’d gained some semblance of focus, she really wished she’d taken the couple of seconds to actually discard the packaging. It would have been real good to actually have a weapon before walking over to Erika. Just in case the other girl also had a weapon, and had decided to take the pragmatic approach.

She was lucky, this time. All Erika did was put her hand on Katie’s shoulder, lean in close to whisper in her ear, and as she did so, Katie felt like she’d been punched in the gut for even thinking Erika might try and hurt her. She could see it in her face, the way she stood and shook, and she could hear it in her voice, and feel it in how tightly she held onto her shoulder, like a boat tied up to port, desperately holding on through crashing waves and the swelling sea.

Katie nodded as Erika spoke, hanging on to her every word. She paused at one point, stiffening slightly, before continuing to nod, showing the other girl she was listening closely.

Then Erika said something, and Katie totally froze. Her eyes widened, and her mouth hung open, words failing her utterly. Even as the other girl pulled away, trembling, on the verge of tears, Katie couldn’t move. Her arms hung limply by her side and she stared at Erika, anger and all other thoughts wiped clean by what she’d just told her.

She didn’t snap out of it until Erika gave her parting words and turned to leave. Katie blinked, staring at Erika as she ran, before something clicked inside of her.

“Hey! H-Hey, Erika, hold on!” Katie yelled after her, moving as if to follow her. “You’ve gotta be… you can’t… Erika! Erika!!!”

The girl didn’t stop. Katie had known she wouldn’t, really. She turned back to the other two, face still blank, chewing on her inner lip, idly fiddling with the corner flap of the box holding her knife. The words Erika had left her were stuck in her head, blocking anything else from entering.

Erika couldn’t do it. It had to be her. Only her. Nobody else. She had to do it.

The other two were talking. The words just about filtered through, something about Forrest’s bag, something about it falling off the ledge. She could piece two and two together. Just.

“Y… Yeah. Yeah, sure. I’ll come help.”

Anything to distract herself from what Erika had just whispered to her. Or to at least set her mind on track.

It could only be her...