Gristle and Mud

[Espi]

((G003 Paloma Salt: Start))

This was fine. She’d be fine. She didn’t do anything anyone else wouldn’t have done.

Paloma was stuffing everything into her bag. She didn’t want to look over. She wanted to leave as soon as possible, but she couldn’t afford to be wasteful. She was already in the game and she couldn’t pull back out. Her whole body was trembling and she couldn’t afford to be slow.

As much of the second bag had been relocated into her own as she felt confident enough to carry it. Paloma had prioritized the water and the meal bars, because those were the most important things to keep up on. The second flashlight was extra-useless with her goggles, the medical kit was superfluous, the other foods too bulky. She kept the map and compass, though, because they were light and having a spare was a good idea.

As for the rest…After a moment of considering, she dumped what she didn’t take into the water. Someone else might use them. This was an endurance contest and denying supplies to her enemies was a nonviolent way of protecting herself. Her hands shook as she threw the bread loaf, poured out the cracker tin, and emptied the medical kit into the swampy pool. A few crumbs landed on their former owner.

She didn’t want to look but there it was. There he was. Paloma knew him-had known him-not well, but enough. She followed him on twitter for his cooking, and as best she could tell he was a nice guy. Like, a real nice guy, not the friend-zone nonsense. She remembered reading that Darwin had never used the term ‘survival of the fittest’, that it was made by the people who did eugenics, the Nazis and similar bad people. It was only fitting that it was the same principle here; awful humans justifying their atrocities to-

Paloma inhaled painfully and stood abruptly, almost slipping on the damp slope over the water, but catching herself. No, it wasn’t her, that wasn’t her. She was just trying to survive. It wasn’t fair and it shouldn’t happen but, but it was how it was, and she could, she would make it. Hell, it was his fault if anything. He came at her, right? She’d woken first, gone for his backpack, but it wasn’t like she had wanted to kill him.

Kill him. He was dead. The murder weapon was next to her bag. There was a streak of blood on the end, where she’d struck him. It was blurry, she wasn’t sure who had the baseball bat first, but he’d definitely gone to attack her. He might have been a nice guy at home, but this was a fight to the death. How many nice people had murdered helpless classmates in the decade of this stupid competition?

There was a dead boy in the swamp. Paloma was holding a baseball bat, the one she’d taken from him, which she’d killed him with. It was self-defense. Anyone could see that. She hadn’t meant to kill him, she could have gone for the bat and bludgeoned him while he slept, but she didn’t. She wasn’t just a murderer. She was a survivor. That was all.

Enough. Paloma ripped her gaze away from him-no, the dead body that was no longer a person and didn’t deserve sympathy-and shouldered her extra-stuffed bag. Nobody would believe her if they saw. It was only a matter of time before someone else wandered by and saw what she’d done. What they would assume she’d done. If she died now, it would only make his death even more pointless. He’d killed himself, really, for no good reason.

She left. Shelter, a secure location, somewhere isolated. She’d wait it out. She could make it to the end. The game masters had seen her do this, so if she was the last one left, she’d go home. Nobody else had to die. Not even today; just one a day was all it took. If people only knew what she’d done, that she’d saved them the pain, they’d forgive her.

They had to. There was no other choice.

((Now to find a safe place))

[Jilly]

It lay face down, head ringing and body marinating in the cesspool of its own blood and the fetid water that scorched its throat and suffocated any cries for help.

A minute or two passed. It sank farther in the shallow murky water

A convulsion here and there. It grazed the bones embedded in the mud.

The ringing stopped.

((B013 Abel Zelenovic)) – Dead in the Water
158 Students Remain

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