Inhale...Exhale...

[Cactus]

((Continued from: Revisiting the Past...))

Six days. Six whole days had been all that it'd taken to completely flip the life of Adam Dodd right around. One week ago, he'd been a fairly normal teenager, living a fairly normal life. There wasn't too much going on, and aside from the end-of-year trip, he was anticipating the summer, and the time off from school. This was one summer that he had a plan, he had specific goals that he had anticipated on achieving.

And now, all of that had gone to hell.

He hadn't thought back as to what had gone on during that ill-fated plane ride, not at all during the near-week that he'd been a prisoner of Danya and his twisted game. Truthfully, Adam had been more focused on meeting up with his close friends and finding a way off of the island. He hadn't known at the time how he was going to make his way off, but he knew that it could be done, for no prison was inpenetrable, and no cage was without a door.

Are the sins getting staler
Does every moment move past you
Or does it feel like forever
And shouldn't you be laughing too?

However, circumstances had really taken that plan and knocked it into the dirt. Every single person that had been on his list to find and enlist in an escape plan was dead. Thinking back on it, Adam had to admit, it was very naive of him to think that he'd be able to find and convince everyone to help. Originally, he'd been intent on finding Amanda, River, Cole Hudson, and anyone from the hockey team, then putting something, anything together to get the hell out of dodge. As he'd numbly watched the video and watched Danya taunt them, he'd been thinking of millions of ways that he could possibly escape, millions of scenarios.

Take a look how they found you
Take a look what they've done to you now
What was it they wanted
Sullen and haunted?
If only you saw it coming

Of course, as soon as he'd awoken on the island, he'd hardly had any time to find his bearings before encountering Alan Shinwrath, someone who he barely knew and hardly trusted. From there, Adam would be taken on a completely different path than the one that he'd intended on taking. Sure, he'd ended up meeting Hawley, Madelaine, Marcus, and David, and he'd even found Amanda, River, and Andrew Lipson, but Adam couldn't help but wonder how differently things would have ended up if he would have awoken somewhere other than the lookout point. Would he be dead? Would he still have blood on his hands? It was really impossible to tell.

What's really kind of disturbing is the fact that every single name I just mentioned is dead. All of them. Not a single one left alive...but me.

After having left Lucinda and Hannah at the Bamboo Coppice, Adam had wandered haphazardly through a nearby path, emerging into the well area just now, having wandered for what Adam thought must have been an hour. Clutching the shotgun with both of his sweaty hands, Adam elbowed aside a stray branch, and carefully stepped out into the semi-open area where the well was, his eyes surveying the scene.

To be frank, the area seemed dead. Not just due to the fact that there was not a single shred of movement around the well, but likely due to the stench of rotting bodies that Adam was almost used to, here on the sixth day. Glancing down at the one closest to him, Adam sighed softly. He couldn't tell who it was, for the body had been completely eviscerated, from sternum to toe. For those with a weak stomach, the well would not be the best place to be. Adam, fortunately had a stronger stomach than he gave himself credit for, and simply shuddered and moved his gaze to the next body.

How far down would you fall
If you never came up again?
'Cause you're so sick of it all
And you want to change everything
Just how deep would you go
To see through it all?

It was another one that he failed to recognize, though it was not for a lack of trying. The slumped-over body had been peppered with gunshots, and the positioning of the corpse suggested to Adam that this boy, whomever he'd been, had been shot so many times and likely been in so much pain that he had taken his own life. The gun hung limply from the hand of the corpse, and the jaw, mouth, and half of the boy's head were a gory mess, likely from what Adam figured was a self-inflicted wound.

Suicide...fuck, it's not enough that everyone else is trying to kill you, you're really fucked when you're trying to kill you, too...

The thought crossed Adam's mind to wander over to the corpse and pick up the gun, scavenge it for whatever he could use. The thought itself...sickened him. He'd never had a problem before now, but it just seemed...wrong, in some way.

I've already got something stupid like three or four pistols, a shotgun, a machete, a fucking baseball bat, and all this other shit...what the fuck is one more gun going to do me? The odds are that I die before I even use half of this shit.

Shivering slightly, he glanced over at the next body, the only intact one of the three in the area, though surrounded by the most blood. A twinge of sorrow went through him as he realized that he knew this one. He had known about his death, but seeing the body didn't make it any better.

If you could consume her
Would you say you were finding your way out?
Is anything coming clearer
Smashing your mirror?
Still you can see you're guilty

Cole Hudson, in life, hadn't been the most menacing of figures, and had always seemed to have an inner tranquility to him, while at the same time being one of the most tortured people that Adam thought that he'd ever met. Of the times that Cole had interviewed Adam for the school paper, he'd always noticed that Cole was a bit off, a little strange in some way that he couldn't put his finger on. He knew the boy to have a lot of pent up rage, and he'd remembered a comment that he'd made to Hawley days ago, about Cole being one to watch if he were on the island.

Well, he made it, and now he's dead.

A makeshift bandage over his left arm suggested to Adam that Cole had sustained some sort of injury, and someone had attempted to help him (unsuccessfully, he assumed) before moving on. He vaugely remembered something about a corkscrew, and Xian Chun, one of the cheerleaders at school. He tried harder to tug at his memory, but it didn't seem to want to relent.

Cole Hudson's body lay the closest to the well, and Adam could see the marks of something that had been dragged from his body to the well. Taking one more look around the area to ensure that there was nobody hiding anywhere that he could see, Adam softly stepped over to the well and looked down into it. The dark chasm was very difficult to see in, but Adam could faintly make out the outlines of what appeared to be a sledgehammer at the bottom.

...the fuck would someone do that? Sledge is a perfectly decent weapon, pretty much a step down from a sword. Or step up, depending on how you look at it...

Sighing to himself, Adam down against the edge of the well. He needed to rest, at least for a few minutes, and get off of his feet, otherwise he'd pass out. While sleep seemed like something that Adam really, really wanted to do, he was reminded of an expression that his father used to use.

I'll sleep when I'm dead.

And it was true, at least, how Adam looked at it. He was fighting for his life here, and if he fell asleep, he could be stumbled upon by anyone and figured for easy pray - which wasn't exactly the way that he wanted to go out. Amanda, Hawley, Madelaine, River, Alan, all of them were all dead now, and sleeping was all that they would be able to do from now on.

Thoughts hovering back to the initial plane ride, Adam tried to remember what exactly had happened. It had been a disturbing scene, he had remembered that much. One moment, the flight had been alive, full of life, everyone making noise and such...the next, people had started to pass out. He'd been bored out of his mind, and as such had simply been occasionally talking with River and studying the people around him. So when people had started to pass out en masse, Adam had correctly assumed that the plane was being gassed. He'd quickly jumped overtop of the unconscious River Garraty, and had made his way quickly towards the exit.

Almost fucking made it, too...

He would have made it, if he had been holding his breath for longer than the twenty seconds that he'd been holding it for. He'd managed to get right to the cabin door of the plane before he'd passed out, collapsing on the floor of the cabin.

The next thing he'd remembered, the plane had been in the air, and he'd woken up to the hushed whispers of his classmates, the menacing-looking weapons of the terrorists, and the hideous visage that would haunt his dreams forever - Danya, on the screen that the in-flight movies were shown on.

How far down would you fall
If you never came up again?
'Cause you're so sick of it all
And you want to change everything
Just how deep would you go
To see through it all?

If he survived this, Adam knew that life would undoubtedly never be the same for him. The media would be all over him like flies on a garbage dump. He likely wouldn't be able to go anywhere without being recognized as 'the SOTF kid'. He'd be alive, but he'd have nobody left. The only friends he had left alive were somewhere in Canada, his old friends from 'back in the day'. He knew that Andrew Ponikarovsky probably didn't watch Survival of the Fittest, for Andrew didn't cope well with watching real-life tragedy unfold. Adam knew that in a way, Andrew was like himself, covering his fear with something. In Adam's case - it was sarcasm. With Andrew, it was humour. If Andrew had found out about Adam and Andrew Lipson being in Survival of the Fittest, he probably wouldn't watch, simply due to the sole fact that he likely wouldn't be able to bear it.

The other friend of his, Adam knew would almost undoubtedly be watching it at this very moment. Adam Amato was a person who was very 'into' reality television, and the fact that SOTF would have to be disguised as a sick version of reality TV would likely encourage Adam to watch even moreso. He probably would be a little surprised, though, to see his friend on the screen, fighting for his life.

I know I would.

He sighed again. Thinking of his friends only made him wish even more that the ones who were gone already were still there.

Coming closer my composure
Turning inside out in her
Calling home all alone
You can call I won't answer
Any question in my head
Remains until you feel the same
Never telling how I felt is all I ever cared about

It was one more than the others, that whenever he thought of, his heart snapped with guilt, with sorrow, and with agony. Of course, it could be no other than his late girlfriend, Amanda Jones. Adam had been trying to keep his mind off of the guilt that he felt for leaving Amanda alone, but it kept resurfacing at many a time since she'd died. He kept seeing her dead face in his mind, and then seeing the face of the person who'd killed her. Cody Jenson, the guy who'd shoved him aside at the warehouse.

If I'd turned around and shot him in the back of the head then and there, well...none of that would have happened. But how would I have known that it was going to happen...?

"Adam, stop it."

A voice broke the silence in the well area, and in his surprise, Adam looked up, and then glanced around. It took him a moment to realize that the voice belonged to himself. Curious, he listened to himself speak, almost as if he were listening to someone else speaking through him.

"You know that you're not to blame for your friends' deaths. You didn't pull the trigger, and you couldn't have been expected to look out for them one hundred percent of the time. They don't blame you for their death, and you can't keep blaming yourself for it. This island brings out the worst in people, and you can't let it bring out the worst in you, because that's how you end up dead. You've promised to bring justice to Amanda's name, to Madelaine, Hawley, to them all. You've sworn to take down Danya time and time again...and the only way that you're going to be able to do that is to win this game, to Survive. To make sure that you're the last person standing at the end of Survival of the Fittest. To show him that you were the fittest, and that you were the survivor. Then you can find him, and make him pay for everything that he's done. Come on, Adam. You know that you're going to see your friends again, be it sooner, or later...you just have to make use of the time that you've got left. Make good use of it."

Blinking in surprise as he finished speaking to himself, Adam couldn't help but feel as though the words were not his own. As weirded out as he was, he did have to admit that he felt a sense of empowerment from the words themselves, and everything that he'd said had been correct, it had been true. He'd talked a good game, but now he had to see it through to the end. He had to see through all of the gore, the blood, the killing, the deception, and the lies, and he had to see the coward who orchestrated this whole thing. He had to see to it that he paid dearly for everything that he'd made them go through.

And he would.

How far down would you fall
If you never came up again?
'Cause you're so sick of it all
And you want to change everything
Someone somewhere should know
If you wanna come back around
Just how deep would you go
To see through it all?
To see through it all
To see through it all
It all...
It all...

((Continued in: The (Untimely) End...))

[Bloody_Fists†]

((Continued from: Girl *70 Start))

Stevan had been waiting with his 'friends' for a while, although he did not understand why they had to wait, It wasnt really his style. For a considerable time now the three maniacs had been lurking in the shadows, waiting for prey.

Stevan had just been sitting on the muddy ground stewing in his own self anger. The thought had crossed him that maybe he'd been playing this game too quietly. He had pretty much most of the time let someone else do the work for him, and when he took on the gang of kids at the school it gave him a rush of adrenaline that a knife to your own flesh could never give you.

Time had passed and before he knew someone came into veiw. A young man, looked very battle torn, a nice shotgun to rival his own aswell. It could of easily been another player, and if it was stevan might consider teaming up rather than kicking his face off.

But when he started talking it hit him. He wasnt playing, Just protecting, that was the path he chose and by the sounds of it he failed miserably.

He sat and waited, He thought maybe he had a group with himn, although it was unlikely since all his friends were dead but you never can tell, better safe than sorry?
Stevan would stay true to his word. He wouldent be the quiet one in the corner anymore and he would start to make a 'noise' on the island.

Then the boy disappeared, much to stevans surprise. Not one for unwelcome stays by the looks of him.
"You know what? fuck this and fuck both of you, Im going to find some fun, im not wasting valuable time hiding in a fucking bush" A cigarette was withdrawn and lit as it was slid into his lips, and the empty packet was thrown away.
"Im going to the house, come along if you want something different to hide and seek" And with that the young enlishmen got up and walked out of the bushes and into the clearing of the well.

((Continued in: I am Legend/Out for Blood))