Who Can Stay The Bottles Of Heaven?

[MethodicalSlacker]

The sun was pendant in its ascent above, visible through the foliage dangling from the tropical trees. Max sipped a bottle of water with great care paid to the purpose of quietude. The daybreak vigil was straining, but a position that Max volunteered for and was generally accustomed to. He rose before the sun each day to partake in reading, often of a recreational bend, though in Max's daily life it was a challenge to distinguish the casual from the carefully considered. Every action was deliberate if Max had selected it. It was only the interruptions that supplanted the rigid code and schedule Max adhered to, with their crass demeanor and chaotic influences. Max was organized to such an extent that it generally agonized him to witness that organization compromised in any sense. It was in keeping with his organization that he patrol early in the morning, then.

With no material suitable for reading, however—Danya's instruction manual proved incredibly unenlightened and, to be wholly transparent, in dire need of an editor and an attempt at rewriting—he turned inward. Max's thoughts proved a great comfort for him to observe and comment upon in lieu of a text. He had never been more thankful to have so many ideas, so many idle reflections, meandering in his mind. He trudged the depths of his memories, yet took care to keep from getting lost in thought. Arguments with himself ran on secondary threads in his cognition, his focus primarily aimed at the wilderness surrounding his group. That was not to posit that no particular memory or thought was so engaging as to distract. On the contrary; one particular memory played on the edges of the mental plane with disturbing frequency. It was not as if he did not expect that. He had made an allowance for himself earlier, a mental reassurance that it was okay to dwell on this particular recollection, if nothing else.

But that was currently unimportant. The present problem Max was concerned with was the prospect of recording the names of those who had murdered in the last name. His pencil and notebook had been pilfered from his belongings, and it appeared that was the case for his compatriots as well. An interrogation was not necessary; while they were asleep, he briefly glanced at their bags. It was a sin to steal, but a mere trifle to browse. Besides, if he had stolen naught but a pen and paper, it may earn his trustworthiness in a roundabout way. No malicious miscreant would pilfer writing implements and nothing else; that would only prove to be the mark of a noble, yet charmingly un-forward, citizen.

He held the man-catcher in front of him, jaws appearing to enfold the steadily rising sun. It was time to awaken his comrades. He hoped that their dreams were pleasant, their slumbers healthy, and their minds ready to confront the travails of the present. Max was personally enthused that he had not been murdered in his sleep by Darlene. It was difficult, though ultimately necessary to win the trust of Jonah, whom Max assumed would be the greatest asset he could find before Abel, to let his guard down around the girl. Though she had not technically landed the killing blow, she was the instrument of Beryl's untimely demise. Still, the unspoken assessment overnight had been enough to generally assuage Max's fears.

Max nudged Jonah and Darlene with the butt end of the man-catcher, standing above them. It had occurred to him earlier that he had not had the chance to tell the pair of his plan. He would have to remedy that immediately, over some breakfast. Max had yet to eat—going temporarily hungry was good practice, he surmised. As the two stirred, he could not help but smile. It had been years since he slept in the same space as a friend.

"Good morning," he said as they rose.

[Max Rudolph continued from ][.]

[Ruggahissy]

((Jonah Heartgrave continued from ][ ))

Jonah felt something poke him. He waved it away, yawned and rolled over, continuing to sleep. Whatever it was seemed determined and continued to poke at him. He growled and reached out his hand again, feeling it hit what felt like a bar. His brows furrowed. Jonah's eyes fluttered open and he saw Darlene lying across from him, black braid snaking around on what looked to be a forest floor. She held on to the plush dog he'd found in Beryl's bag. Jonah rolled over and haphazardly, rubbed eyes with his palms and looked up, seeing Max poking him with thr blunt end of the spiky claw thing. He shook out his blue curls, trying to put all of the information he was receiving into context.

"Um..." he said, propping himself up into a sitting position. He had to shield his eyes to look up at Max, who had the morning light shining behind him through the lace pattern of the trees. Where were they?

He took a deep breath and blinked as the memories assembled and began assorting themselves into the proper order. Jonah's heart sank and he smiled bitterly up at their wakeup call.

"Morning, sunshower" he returned, purposefully leaving off the "good" portion of the greeting.

Jonah stretched and his joints cracked and popped. While they had been walking out of the forest they'd found the majority of his ammunition dumped out onto the ground, and Beryl hadn't used up much of her food or water, so even with the theft of his bag, Jonah was in mostly the same state as when he'd started as far as resources went. Still, he was upset at Abe for stealing from them. The running off he could have understood, but the theft? He was disappointed in him more than anything and wasn't sure what he would do if he saw Abe again.

On the flip side, he was happy Darlene hadn't killed them in the night. He was pretty sure that she wouldn't, and he was fairly certain that he believed her that Beryl had been an accident, but he only felt about 75% sure that it was an accident. Now that she had taken a night watch shift and Max and Jonah were still alive, the percentage moved up considerably.

Jonah gently moved the man catcher away and pushed against Darlene's shoulder. He didn't think she would be happy to see the man catcher again as the first thing upon regaining consciousness. They didn't have a good relationship.

"Hey," he said softly. "It's morning."

[MurderWeasel]

((Darlene Silva continued from ][))

Oh. It was morning.

It was morning, and Darlene had survived the night.

She blinked and stirred, slowly, taking a moment to recall where she was—not the island deathmatch "where she was;" no way could she forget that! But the specifics of where she and Jonah and the boy whose name she'd by now sussed out was Max were—and then another moment to figure out her own tangled limbs. She was wrapped around something soft and big and warm and fluffy, and as she squinted herself more awake, it all came back to her.

Darlene didn't know where Jonah had gotten the dog. She really honestly didn't want to know. There were a lot of possibilities, but the only one (the only one!) that was going to make her feel as okay about it as she needed to was if he had personally brought it along himself in his own bag for some mysterious, unknown reason. Nothing Jonah had said had contradicted this take on the situation, so that was what she was accepting as the truth.

It was a really big plush husky, black and white. Darlene's family had had a dog when she was a baby, but it had been old and had died before she could remember. She was with it in a few pictures but that was all. It was nothing like this one, which was beautiful; her family's dog had been a pudgy beagle named Buster, and even though he had died so long ago she felt like she knew him from all the stories her parents had told her. After a visit to her grandparents' house when she was four when she'd sneezed and coughed the whole time, her parents had come to believe she was allergic to pet dandruff and had never gotten another dog or cat. Darlene really was allergic to animals, a little; they made her itchy and her nose run, but she loved them anyways. She'd had stuffed animals as a kid and then when she got older they got exiled to the corners of her room or her closet but she still hugged them sometimes when she had a bad day, and today was one whopper of a bad day and now here was this husky from Jonah to keep her company.

The group had traded watches overnight, the better to keep safe. Darlene had offered to just stay up all night all on her own keeping a lookout, because it felt like maybe the only thing she could contribute and also like she owed them and needed to not be a burden, but her offer had been declined by the others. She'd decided to stay up all night anyways, though! Darlene stayed up almost all night or even actually until daybreak at home all the time, so it shouldn't have been too hard, and she'd cuddled up with the husky and had him take watch with her. She wasn't actually sure it was a him; its real owner would know, and maybe know its name too, but she didn't want to ask Jonah in case he thought she was being silly and immature, and also in case he didn't know. In any case, Darlene and the husky had stood sentry for a long while, but it turned out it was a lot harder to stay awake with no internet to read, no blue-white screen light to stimulate her eyeballs. Even being terrified to death got really boring after an hour or two with nothing happening! So she'd hugged the dog closer and closer and had at some point tipped over and now it was morning.

Her gun was still nearby, of course. She'd kept it in her hand for most of the time while on watch, but as her eyelids had started drifting shut she'd shoved it in her pack and then wedged that under her armpit, partially hidden by the husky. She'd wanted to sleep with the revolver in her hand, but then had thought that if she did something might happen and she might somehow accidentally shoot the dog, and that had made her cry a little even though it wasn't actually something that had happened. Even imagining it hurt, and Darlene had learned her lesson, so she'd practiced good safety.

"H-hey," she said, slowly wiggling into a slightly more upright position. She felt sweaty and sticky and stiff and there were twigs and pieces of grass in her hair and her clothes and her feet felt all tight because she was still wearing her shoes. She had taken her glasses off, which was funny because at home she fell asleep with her glasses on all the time, but it wasn't too big a deal because she could make out plenty of colors and shapes. Jonah was the only one with blue hair, and Max was the only one with a huge spiny claw, which she saw a few blinks later over Jonah's shoulder. It was, fortunately, pointed up at the sky and not at her.

"Good morning," she added, to Jonah, and then she said it again to Max but more shy and quiet because they didn't have quite the same understanding just yet, even though she thought he was good because he'd seemed that way and he was someone Jonah trusted a lot, it seemed: "Good morning."

Darlene felt crappy and gross. She hadn't brushed her teeth, even though she could've. It had seemed silly last night, but it didn't seem so silly anymore because she had some nasty morning breath! Her skirt was all rumpled, and her sweater had some loops of wool coming loose, and it was so hot she'd dripped what felt like her whole body weight in sweat, but she didn't want to take the sweater off or let go of the dog. She'd also want to find a place to pee before too long, but that wasn't the highest priority because she hadn't been drinking as much as she should've and had been mostly losing fluids through sweat.

She sat up, bringing hugged bag and dog with her, and scratched at her hair some, getting a bit of dead skin under her fingernails to pick out later. A little loose sprig of pointy grass seeds was dislodged. She looked around and patted the ground before remembering her glasses were in her bag too, and pulled them out and put them on. At the same time, she checked the other important thing. Yep. Gun was still there.

She maybe should've said something more to the boys but didn't know what to say. This didn't feel as good as it had yesterday. These guys were good, and kind, and they'd done more for Darlene than they probably should've, more than she deserved, but yesterday for just a few hours she'd felt happy and part of something and so light she could bounce on her feet, and that was long gone now.

[MethodicalSlacker]

Splendid. Darlene and Jonah had nary dwelled in slumber after Max prodded them awake. Darlene, for all her boasting about her insomnia the evening prior, had given in to sleep and the comfort of the soft plush toy Jonah bestowed upon her. Max found it somewhat funny that of all the myriad distractions and childish knock-knacks to have crossed over to the island, the stuffed canine did so. He was certain that, as a child, he possessed a similar plaything, one he adored with incredible warmth and care until his mother found it had taken on mold and it was necessary to dispose of it. Max had long since discovered that there had, in fact, been no such mold; his mother simply believed that he was growing too old for such a toy, and he had to concede that she was correct.

The group shortly began to consume some food for "breakfast". This was hardly the well-balanced meal that Max had grown accustomed to in his life, but it tasted remarkably better after a long period of self-imposed starvation early in the morning. It was worrisome to speculate on the duration that his dwindling nutritional supplies would last him, but for now he fed himself with a meal bar. The texture of the food was tough, and it slid down his throat in an unpleasant manner, leaving a slightly filthy aftertaste in his mouth, but food was food.

Suddenly, the realization came to Max that, if he got Darlene and Jonah on board with his plan, food would surely no longer be an issue. Apprehending and eventually putting an end to the lives of murderers and otherwise violent individuals would reward them with the food and drink they had in their possession. He made it clear, internally, that that boon was not the purpose for his goals, for that would be selfish and wrong. It was merely a pleasant side effect of his plotted course of action.

And, speaking of the plan, he still had yet to inform Darlene and Jonah.

"So," Max said after washing down a bit of meal bar with some water, "I think by now the question of what we are going to do next has planted itself in everyone's minds, yes? I'd like to make a proposal, if it's alright with you two."

[Ruggahissy]

He was sitting across from Max, with Darlene to his left, which resulted in a kind of triangle shape they had made. Jonah munched on the corner of one of the meal bars, halfheartedly swallowing the grit down.

He missed his family's cooking a lot right about now. Hot links, corn bread, chicken and waffles, mac n' cheese, catfish, ribs, hush puppies and grape Kool Aid. Jonah idly wondered if he could shoot some island wildlife and cook that. He thought maybe he'd heard some monkeys. Would that be too close to cannibalism?

He opened one of his bottles of water and tried to hasten his breakfast's trip over his tastebuds, seeing Max do the same, and it worked well enough. Max spoke and Jonah looked around them as if someone besides him and Darlene were supposed to weigh in or were waiting for a turn.

"You've got the floor," he said, gesturing in front of Max.

[MurderWeasel]

Darlene was eating her second cracker sandwich of the morning. It was pretty gross. She'd often gotten bored at potlucks when she was younger and had eventually turned to innovating with food to keep herself entertained, and one of her biggest successes had been putting potato chips into sandwiches. A handful of Ruffles added some pleasant crunch and a bit of tang to slightly soggy hotdog buns, especially with a few slices of pickle and some ranch dressing. So this was in theory like that, except it was made from what she had on hand, which was just bread and crackers, neither of which had any notable flavor of their own.

Darlene had told herself she was being smart and analytical by using the more perishable food items first. The nutritional value was probably less than the bars, sure, but in a few days the bars would still be wrapped up all nice and new, while the crackers might be soggy with all this humidity, and the bread would probably be growing blue fuzz. Then again, blue fuzz might be the tastier option!

The husky was in Darlene's lap, taking up most of the real estate there, and she kept having to pause her breakfast to brush cracker crumbs out of its fur. The gun was also in her lap now, under the dog. She wasn't so afraid of it going off by mistake while she was awake and aware. In the light, she could see a lot better, though the trees were thick and tangled and the ground uneven. There were birds in the trees, making a lot of noise. Some of them were very colorful, though hard to get a good direct look at due to all the leaves.

But the birds were only so much of a distraction, and this one little thing kept coming to the back of Darlene's mind, no matter how many times she tried to push it away: she'd probably eaten her last peanut butter and jelly sandwich. More than that, she'd probably never ever eat fruit again in her life. That was really strange to think about. Other things were gone too now, like burgers, which she'd miss, and also salad. She wasn't too sad about salad, though! Darlene's mom always made her eat a huge bowl of salad every night with dinner because it was supposed to be good for her, but she didn't like how bitter it was and the way the leaves got limp if the bag had been in the fridge for a couple days. She had to pour so much dressing on it that it was probably worse for her than eating nothing at all.

Everyone else was eating their nutrition bars, but it didn't look like they were having any more fun than Darlene was. Max was asking if he could say something, which struck Darlene as sort of weird. Why not just say it? Then again, that was being hypocritical, because she beat around the bush all the time. Maybe he was nervous. Jonah said it was okay, and Darlene nodded to signal that she was okay listening to Max too.

Then she held out her half-eaten cracker sandwich towards Jonah, just in case he was bored of ration bar, and whispered, "Want a bite?"

[MethodicalSlacker]

"Excellent," Max stated. Jonah's attention was promised to Max, that much seemed certain. Given Darlene's attachment and affection for Jonah, it was not unreasonable to assume that upon noticing the direction in which his focus was directed, she would align her person similarly. Thus, her lack of engagement with his announcement of his intention to bequeath upon them some dearly desired direction and purpose did not trouble Max in the slightest. He possessed the forbearance necessary to elongate his words until she turned towards him.

But possession of a trait is scarcely indicative of intent to utilize.

"I believe that I should provide you, first, with some background. I spent a long time thinking, upon my awakening in the rice paddies of this island, about how to survive on this island. I spent a lot of time weighing the most moral way to conduct myself with the path most conductible to survival, and I came to the conclusion that the righteous and active path is to hunt down those who have caused harm to others and punish them for their misdeeds."

Max let his statement hang in the air for a few moments before he gestured to his man-catcher.

"Fate has smiled upon me," he said, "giving me a weapon befitting a non-lethal way of confronting these people. As we all know, some of these incidents are likely to have been accidental. In a few moments, I predict we will receive our first morning announcements. These are certain to skew things to sound more violent than they were. This man-catcher, then, can help us interrogate those whose names are listed as murderers in the announcements. Then, we can punish as we see fit. The confiscation of weapons and supplies will likely do just well enough in the first few days, and will allow us to continue living in relative comfort while satisfying the moral imperative to punish wrongdoers. Later on, as people's sins pile up—"

He was interrupted then by the crackling of speakers nearby.

"Ah," he said, "here we are. Listen closely."

Max went silent with concentration as he listened to Danya speak.












It did not take long for him to become silent for a different reason altogether.

[TheLordOfAwesome]

((Lucas Abernathy continued from Unbreakable))

It took some time before Lucas decided to join the others as he needed to collect his thoughts after waking from his nightmare. Sleeping in the outdoors was definitely a new experience for him, one that he didn't feel like repeating any time soon but he doubted he had much choice in the matter. He kept his distance from the others yesterday after the incident as he just felt like he needed to work through his thoughts and emotions on his own time. This left the others to converse among themselves but Lucas didn't quite frankly care about what they did.

By the time Lucas joined the others the first announcement played over the speakers and the news had been disheartening to hear. Already some people had died at the hands of others, either deliberately or accidentally. Of course, given that the man doing the announcements made out Beryl's death at the hands of Nick seem like a murder rather than a mercy kill, it made things ambigous which kills were genuine, accidental, or even a mercy. Lucas didn't doubt that this would put a wrench in Max's plans.

The news of Yuko's death had hit him hard though. The two had dated for a time, and even though it wasn't meant to last they were still on good terms. Learning that he lost two people he cared about so close together, it hurt. Lucas had never really experienced loss like this and it was hard for him to deal with.

In the grips of his sorrow he approached the group, adjusting his hat to try and hide his pained expression.

"Morning, everyone..." Lucas muttered dejectedly.

[Ruggahissy]

Jonah nodded at Darlene, then turned back to giving his attention to Max. He leaned over and took a bite out of the "sandwich" Darlene was offering while it was still in her hand. He returned to his upright, seated position, chewing on the food. It was an interesting texture combination and didn't taste like much, but it was still a step up from the meal bar.

"Thanks," he said quickly, not wanting to break Max's flow and concentrate on what he was saying. Jonah found that he often had to concentrate more than normal when Max was explaining something. But the more he talked, the more nervous Jonah got. He saw his chest fall and rise a little more than it had before and he was starting to feel uneasy. He looked at Darlene to gauge her reaction the proposition.

"Punish? Sins? Wait, I'm not sure --"

Jonah needed more time to process, but as the other boy had predicted, an announcement was being made.

---

[Credit to MethodicalSlacker and Jilly for writing]


He made a line in the dirt with his shoe and traced over the line until he made a little depression in the dirt. His bat was leaning against the bench.

It was humid to the point that he felt like he was choking on the air sometimes. The dugout offered the children shade as they sat, quietly. Jonah’s head was down, elbows resting on his knees and head almost in his lap.

He was wedged between Abel and Max, all in their matching Little League uniforms. He sighed, and even though the 7th inning stretch was announced the boys hadn’t moved. They were weighed down by failure. Jonah sighed heavily.

Jonah knew he was playing like garbage. He’d had a rough week, doing a lot of the household chores on his own and sleeping poorly on the lumpy living room couch. It wasn’t entirely his fault that they were down 6 runs, but it was some of his fault, so it might as well have been all his fault. With this plus stress of the week, he didn’t want to talk. He just wanted them to be put out of their misery so he could shower and sleep.

"I'm gonna go talk to coach," Max said, scooting off the bench. Once it looked that the team was losing, he'd spent his time on the field trying to give his teammates a pep talk to keep trying their hardest and to play better. It didn't seem to be working though, so Max had fallen unusually quiet. Jonah lifted his head a little and watched him leave the dug out, but remained silent. Max was doing his best to not look like he was feeling anything, but hat probably meant that he was feeling a lot of things at once.

His talk with coach looked similarly dour and strange. Max didn't really talk about wanting to win a lot, but he seemed a little more competitive than he let on.

A hand patted Jonah on the shoulder, which jolted out him out his observations. Jonah barely had time to register that it was Abel before half of a melty Crunch bar was thrust into his hands.

"Here," Abel said and bit into his own half.

“Hmm.” Jonah looked down at the candy. “I’m not sure the captain would approve of this, um, it’s not nutritionally balanced and sugar —“

"Nah, Max sucks. He don't gotta know."

Jonah smiled tentatively and figured he should eat the chocolate before it entirely melted all over his hands in the Tennessee summer heat, so the decision was made for him. As he ate the Crunch bar, he felt a bit lighter.

Abel had stopped eating and was just staring down at his half of the bar, pursing his lips. "We're boned. But... I'm glad we got to play together. That's what baseball's all about, ya know?"

Jonah was a little embarrassed that he’d put so much so much stock into the outcome when Abel was just happy to spend time with their friends playing baseball. When he thought about it that way, he was happy to hang out on a weekend and play baseball with his friends too.

“Y - yeah. I’m glad we get to play together too. I mean, even though I feel like the Amazing Abel has been holding out on us," he said, now with a full-fledged smile.

Abel bumped his shoulder into Jonah's with a chuckle, knocking him slightly over. "Shut up.”

Jonah giggled, picked up his bat, and bonked Abel on the head lightly as they kept laughing.

---

Jonah sat stone-still, eyes wide open. He didn't hear the rest of the announcement, he had hardly gotten his thoughts together on what was happening when he'd been slapped by the first pair of names.

His hands dug into the dirt and the corners of his mouth twitched involuntarily.

"M-max," he croaked out. His heart beat started to climb.

"Please."

He didn't know what he was asking for. He blinked and tears tipped over the precipice, streaking down his face. All he could do was think about his friend and shiver.

"I --"

He turned away from the other two and to a nearby tree. Jonah slammed the fist of his right hand against the tree trunk and a faint trickle of red formed where his hand and the tree were connected. He hunched inwards and shook, sobbing.

"I w--want to talk to him," he said between shaky breaths. "L-l-like we always do."

[MurderWeasel]

Darlene was pretty happy that Jonah took a bite, and even seemed actually grateful. He might've just been pretending to make her feel like she'd done something that wasn't worthless and stupid, but if that was the case, it was working. It meant a lot to Darlene either way, if he was genuine or if he cared enough to pretend. But she still wanted to know which!

She was trying to figure out how to figure out the truth. Darlene thought she could be pretty clever from time to time, which people sometimes didn't expect out of her. It was like the leverage thing all over again, except with much lower stakes. She thought maybe she would offer Jonah another bite, and if he said no thanks, said she should save her food for himself, that would mean he'd been faking. If he said yes, though, he could still be faking, in which case Darlene would have to offer him more and more until he either begged off or finished the sandwich, then maybe judge his sincerity by how far he got. Though, she wouldn't be absolutely sure even if he devoured the whole thing, and also she would no longer have any more sandwich, which didn't seem like a great loss right now, but this afternoon she might feel differently.

Max was also talking during this time, and Darlene wasn't ignoring him. She wasn't paying him undivided attention, in part because she had other stuff on her mind but in part because he was a little difficult to focus on; he reminded her of a substitute teacher trying to prove to the class that he knew what he was doing and was worthy of some measure of respect. She got the general idea, though.

He was basically talking about hunting down bad people and putting them in The Claw, then taking away their stuff. Darlene could attest that the first part of that was a pretty good way to make someone reflect upon the circumstances that had brought them to that point. She still didn't like even looking at it! It was a lot easier to imbue the catcher with all the negative feelings she held towards what had happened yesterday, because Max seemed alright and yet what had happened had happened. So it was due to the toothy stick, obviously.

But it was the other part of the procedure that caused some doubts to creep into Darlene's mind, doubts even stronger than those she felt when she watched Jonah chew and wondered if he was suppressing a grimace or not—for some reason, Jonah struck her as someone who never winced when he had to eat salad that had gone a bit slimy. Again, through personal experience, Darlene had had her stuff taken away. No, not even, just her gun. As soon as it was ripped from her grasp, she'd felt small and scared and in danger, even more than normal, and had become focused on recovering her weapon. And that was nothing compared to how she would've felt if someone took all her food away! Catching the most dangerous people, then making them as desperate as possible and throwing them back out on their own, that sounded to Darlene like a recipe for further undesired actions.

But maybe she was missing something. She looked at Jonah to see how he was taking it, but he was looking at her, and there wasn't anyone else to defer to, and Darlene didn't want to just spit out the first thing that came to mind and look stupid, because it seemed like Max had thought this through and he was definitely better at making plans than she was, so he'd probably already figured out an answer to her objection.

And then, the silence was cut by a voice from everywhere at once. Darlene wadded up the rest of her sandwich and shoved it into her mouth in a big squishy and crunchy ball, and chewed it aggressively to distract herself, as she squeezed the husky to herself very tightly. This was the part where they heard about all of the terrible things that had happened, and she was scared, and she had to pay attention but also kind of wanted to hide away behind the thundering crunching of crumbled crackers echoing around inside her skull.

But in the end, it actually wasn't that bad for Darlene. She'd heard most of the names before, but faces didn't attach themselves easily to them. Tyrell sounded sort of familiar, and also he had killed twice. He'd torn someone's throat out with his teeth! Darlene had read about that in a story once and it had made her very scared, but this time was actually less frightening because it didn't have the vivid descriptions attached to it that her book had. It was just words, and dead was dead, chewed-up throat or gunshot or allergic reaction to a bee sting.

The thing that really made an impression was Beryl, who was of course there too. The boy who cut her throat was named Nick. Darlene would remember that name and face. She didn't think she could forget if she wanted to, which she sort of almost did. The announcement also made something else clear: Beryl's death was not Darlene's fault! She had played a part, she would never ever deny that, but it had been a mixture of horrible circumstances and bad luck and ultimately Beryl had been breathing still after everything Darlene did. She'd flushed with heat as she waited for that part, but now her temperature dropped again, and she felt the prickly chill of sweat in her armpits and along her shoulders and back.

Neither Jonah nor Max seemed quite as relieved as Darlene felt about all of this. She realized they probably knew more people, and must've known someone in common, because Jonah was talking to Max and she could almost hear tears in his voice, and that made her panic just a little bit. She wanted to help, had to help, and she made herself swallow the big ball of crumb-infused dough she'd been grinding into paste between her molars because if she'd waited even a second longer her throat might've gotten too tight to do it at all!

She had nothing. No words. No gestures. She couldn't touch him, because she didn't know if he'd want that. He hadn't been this broken up when Beryl died in front of him, so it must have been someone really special. Darlene wished she knew which name it was. She wished she could return the favor Jonah had paid her...

Slowly, she shifted and scooted just a bit closer, her butt scraping along the ground and probably getting grass stains on her skirt, and held the dog out towards Jonah. It was so big it took both hands, like she was in the opening scene of The Lion King. Now she really hoped Jonah knew its name, and that they were old friends too and their reunion might bring him comfort.

Surely it would be more comfortable than the other reunion going on. The boy whose gun Darlene had taken, whose name she hadn't quite figured out just yet, was on his way back towards them, and he didn't seem to be angry or getting ready to pull out his weapon but he was messing with his hat and she couldn't see his face and his voice was low and hard to hear.

Just in case, Darlene glanced at her lap, at the spot vacated by the husky. Her revolver was still right there, glinting faintly in the morning sun.

[MethodicalSlacker]

Lucas said something.
















Jonah said something.














Max was silent.

[TheLordOfAwesome]

Lucas looked around at the three, studying them as best as he could to gauge their reactions to the announcement. Of the three Jonah was the most broken up over the news, not that Lucas could blame him. Poor guy. Lucas wanted to say something to him, some comforting words to perhaps help in some regard but everything he could think of just felt fake. Hollow. More likely to do harm than help. He supposed he'd be like him to had the coldness of his own emotions didn't just make him feel dead to the world at the moment.

Darlene and Max were silent. Perhaps trying to process the news? Lucas felt that was what Max was doing given how adamant he was about his plan to take down people who played. Foolish. A pointless endeavor. Lucas would follow him for a time to ensure he didn't do anything reckless but he felt that Max's plan was doomed to fail once put into practice. Perhaps he should voice his concerns, but now was not that time. He looked over to Darlene and wondered how she felt about the announcement. They hadn't mentioned her involvement in Beryl's death, so how did she feel about that? Relieved? It was hard for him to say as he didn't feel he was in the proper head space to properly read someone.

He sighed and sat on the ground, placing King Ghidorah beside him. He looked down at the dirt and the grass, thoughts and memories of Beryl and Yuko flooded his mind, each one threatening to break his composure and send him spiraling into a sobbing mess. Who else would die next? What other person he had grown to care about over the years will perish on this island? His thoughts turned to Camille and fear gripped his heart. Would she die before he even found her? How many people have heard their friends, boyfriends, or girlfriends had died and they didn't even get the chance to say they things they really feel to them? To say goodbye to them? He never even said goodbye to Beryl and he was there with her when she died.

His hands balled into fists and his body shook. He didn't want anyone else he cared about to die. Not if he could help it. But part of him kept reminding him that there was nothing he could do, that everyone he cared about was going to die here and that he won't even get the chance to say what he needs to say to them.

Especially Camille.

Lucas was quiet for a moment, slowly swiveling his head to face Max.

"Max," Lucas called out to him. "Max. Say something, goddammit."

[Ruggahissy]

New erasers and pencils in the fall.

Cupcakes from the bake sales in the spring.

Dust and peanuts and scent of sunscreen in the summer.

The pleasant feeling of being in between awake and asleep with that fuzzy familiar feeling closing in, head on a shoulder.

Jonah stared at the plush hound. It looked friendly and encouraging. It had a big, dumb face that made you love it; it was a face that said it was just happy to be there.

He looked helplessly from the dog to Darlene. Jonah wiped his face with the back of his arm and scooted forward. His fingers unclenched from their former state as fists and he reached out and felt the cheeks of the dog, fluffing them. The blood from one of his hands got on the dog a bit, but it seemed happy still. It would always be that way.

"I... I don't mean -- to --"

Jonah lunged forward and embraced them both, wrapping his arms around Darlene and crying into her shoulder. The dog was squished between them, with its head placed on her shoulder.

It was a selfish thing he had done again, but he just wanted someone to hold on too and he couldn't contain both his gratitude to Darlene and his sorrow. He wanted to explain himself to her, but that meant quantifying what his friend had meant to him and he couldn't figure out a way to do that.

Jonah suddenly felt a wave of fatigue hit him. His crying let up. He felt light-headed.

"My friend..." he said quietly to her, " 's gone."

[MurderWeasel]

Darlene's eyes went really wide when Jonah came forward and hugged not only the dog, but her too. She hadn't been expecting that. The husky was big and fluffy and soft and kind, but Darlene was just sweaty and covered in grass. She wasn't comforting. Jonah made her more safe and secure, and she'd wanted to return the favor, but now that she was in his arms, she didn't know what else to do.

This should've been exciting, really, but it wasn't. Darlene had thought that a handsome boy hugging her would feel special, but a few things were in the way here, first of which was she'd sort of quietly remembered overnight where she recognized Jonah from by sight and that was from having Arizona, the basketball girl, grinding her butt all over him at Prom, and Arizona was tall and fit and beautiful and sexy where Darlene was short and chubby and had big ugly smudged glasses and wore sweaters always. Second was that this just wasn't that sort of hug or situation anyways. He was feeling bad and he was trusting her now to help him and it would be awful and horrible to take pleasure in that. Darlene felt touched and scared and proud, and that was bad enough, because all of these things were floating and mixing in her mind and confusing her and stopping her from figuring out what to do.

The dog was getting squished between them, but it didn't mind. Plushes lived to get squeezed, Darlene thought. It was their job, their reason to be. They didn't have to think about how to make someone feel better.

The world outside of them didn't matter now. Her gun didn't matter; it was hidden back under the dog again. The boy with the bigger gun didn't matter. He wasn't shooting them and he was talking to Max anyways. Max didn't matter either, not in a mean way, just there was something important happening and he could matter again when it was over. Even the claw didn't matter in this moment.

Darlene didn't think any more. She couldn't think about what had happened to Jonah and what he'd said, because she didn't work that way, not exactly. She could feel, sort of, and she did, she felt it inside, the hurt, and she felt it outside too, Jonah's body against hers, his arms wrapped around her, and she felt like there was only one thing she could do.

Darlene wrapped her arms around Jonah too, and she rubbed her right hand against his back, not like massaging but just rubbing up and down, and she quietly hummed.

Mmmmmmmm...

It wasn't a tune, or a word, or a message, or anything. It was just a single note, quiet and clear at once, making her body vibrate a little and maybe flowing over her and him? Maybe helping? Sometimes when Darlene was very very happy or very very sad she would do this, just close her eyes hum and hold the note as long as she possibly could, then take a breath and start humming all over again. It was the only thing she had and it was so little, nothing really, but it was all she could offer so Jonah could have it.

Mmmmmmmm...

[MethodicalSlacker]

Max's sight was aimed between all things. His corporeal body felt feathery and weightless. Movement, in his peripheral, aided greatly in extracting Max outside of his trance-like fugue; however, Max still was still. Paralyzed by the magnitude of description, fixed inscrutably in reflection, consternation, concentration, multi-threading analysis, cognitive caverns rife with stalactites and stalagmites, waterlogged with suppressed caterwauling, emotional sensation reserved only for consanguineous individuals, witnessing external xenotransplantation occurring between two embracing parties, his speech still stopped by rampant tergiversation occurring as a consequence of conflicting opinions in his mental state, a schism between emotional response and intellectual logic and reason, pathos and logos engaged in warfare, one side in intense grief and sorrow though still exculpating the guilty party out of sick inbred Catholic forgiveness and the other while taking misfortune in stride and as innocuous for catastrophes yet to take place desiring to his right hand was raising now fingers pointed parallel to his face desiring to embark on an expedition to locate the culprit in the murder of his friend and bring them swiftly to justi—

SLAP!

He panted. His right hand had crossed over to the left. His face was in the way. Very forcefully and swiftly, it had done so. Max's face stung. He shook it, back and forth, his hair jostling slightly. Snapped out of it. He was thankful for what had just occurred. Nobody else could have done it. Nobody else wanted to. Not the point, Max. He sat up and cleared his throat, signalling for the others to rejoin the discussion, and spoke regardless of any intent on their part to do so.

"We likely cannot go after P-Paloma. Not immediately.

"The circumstances of Abel's p-passing are too vague. Given how the announcements described Beryl's death, which we witnessed, and given circumstantial evidence as to the character of both p-parties involved, it stands to reason that there are situational factors we have yet to uncover. It is a high p-priority target of our concentration, to be sure, and something we should p-pursue in due time, but we have more p-pressing matters."

He exhaled deeply. That was the hard part, done with.

"In the interest of saving my breath, I'll just skip to Tyrell. Two murders in one day signals intent to continue on such a path for an extended period of time. A long time. And it clears the threshold for potential to forgive his actions. He must be apprehended swiftly. He possesses firearms, and is incredibly dangerous, but among us we have firepower to match his and the advantage of numbers. I doubt that he is travelling any other way than alone. He is high on the priority list, despite his level of danger. Tirzah Foss and Blaise d'Aramitz are also on the list of people to keep wary of. Something about them tells me that they aren't single incident offenders. However, currently, due to their possession of firearms and the fact that they have murdered but one individual, and the vagueness of the incidents as described by the announcements, we can lower their priority. Additionally, Blaise received an 'award' for her murder of Dante, likely including additional weaponry, further ramping up her propensity to kill others, which means that we can wait for that opportunity to justify and present itself.

"That leaves Katrina Lavell, Quinn Abert, and Justin Greene as armed murderers without ranged weaponry—though we cannot rule out the possibility of them attaining ranged weaponry from their victims, we cannot say for certain, and it is a bigger leap given the random shuffling of weaponry among us to say that they obtained something useful than that they merely added more foodstuffs and gear to their arsenal and weighed themselves down. Of these, Justin is by far the easiest to engage with. He possesses a mere tire iron, which I out-range greatly with my man-catcher. Quinn is next on the list, given the ambiguity of her weapon as a stabbing implement. Followed by Katrina, who has some range with the sword but not enough to beat a gun. Between Tyrell, Katrina, Quinn, and Justin, we have some choices, then, of how to proceed."

He sighed, and put the pad of his thumb on his chin, mumbling his next few words.

"Though I get the feeling that matters very little. It doesn't really matter to me. I know where my heart lies, and it's with none of those options."