Stalwart

[AtomicWaffle†]

"Haha... erm... no, sorry I-I.... do I look like somebody who would be playing this game, or being bait for anybody playing it?!"

Calm down. Don't get shot in the face.

Bill looked around. It was pouring rain, more rain than he'd ever been exposed to in his life. Though that isn't saying much. Ninety percent of the time he sat at his computer, the only taste of open air being when he would open his window occasionally. He took his glasses off and put them in his pocket. They were getting wet, and he didn't expect to have to read or do anything aside from running and hiding anytime soon.

"Okay... okay, dude, like... I don't wanna hurt anybody, I just need your help to... get the heck outta here! All they gave me is a boxcutter, a friggin' boxcutter! And... and I'm no fighter, man! There's no way I can... hey...."

Bill brushed his hair out of his eyes, and looked closely at the boy who held him at gunpoint... it couldn't be...

"Hey.... you're... you're Adam Dodd, aren't you? That guy who... Err... I mean... dude... you've gotta help me, I really... My Mom... it'd kill her if I didn't make... didn't..."

C'mon man, don't think like that. You'll get back.

Now, things were looking up. Adam... nobody messed with him, and if Bill could get on his side, then he'd be able to get home, he was sure of it!

Within a few moments, Bill's attitude lit up. A smile spread across his face.

"Okay... my name's Bill Ritch. I don't think you'd know me, I don't get out much... Alright... alright, let me just summarize this little wordy tangent of mine, heh... I'm in no shape to fight anybody, i'm lost, i've got no friends, and I need some help surviving this awful place. I really don't want to die, and I guess you can trust me... 'cause i've got no friends and I've got no way of hurting you. You're the one with the gun t'my head. H-here..."

Bill reached into his pocket and pulled out the bright yellow box-cutter. He offered it to Adam.

This SUCKS.

[Cactus]

Adam had to admit to himself, that this kid certainly didn't look like the kind of person who'd be carrying around a veritable army within his back pocket. Perhaps the kind who'd be the bait for such an army, but nonetheless...when the guy stuck out his boxcutter towards Adam, indicating that he should take it, likely in a futile effort to try and seem nonthreatening, Adam couldn't help but sigh a little. Obviously, it was a downright bloody miracle that he'd made it this far, especially with an attitude like 'please don't kill me, I'm a loser'. He'd be easy pickings for anyone with a gun and an attitude to shoot moving objects.

So what to do? What're my options, here? I can't really afford to be dragging around dead weight, especially if this thing has any hope in hell of succeeding. Can I really take his weapon, let him go, and wait to hear his name on the announcements? I may as well'd be pulling the fucking trigger myself.

Adam grimaced at the thought. The guy on this island with the most sizable body count didn't necessarily want to add any more numbers to his list, especially not without having a damn good reason to do so.

'Course, thinking that not killing anyone else and getting out alive's gonna be pretty much impossible, I s'pose I need to get used to it...

Grimacing slightly, Adam glanced back at Izzy. The girl was obviously still in a little bit of discomfort from her injuries, and the fact that it was storming and pouring rain made it all the more imperative that they get going, and fast. Much to his chagrin, Adam made a decision - and one that he hoped wasn't going to come back and bite him in the ass later on.

Can't believe I'm doing this again...especially after all the garbage I've been spewing...

With a moment's hesitation, Adam held out his hand, but instead of taking the weapon that had been offered to him, he put his hand on the other boy's weapon and pushed it down slightly.

"Alright, look. You're right, I don't know you at all, and quite frankly, you sound like the kind of person who's too fucking scared to be lying right now. I'm not going to take your weapon from you, that's essentially a fucking death sentance here. You come to me with the assumption that I even believe escape is possible, and knowing who I am that you're not going to shot dead where you stand. That's a whole hell of a lot braver than I should be giving you credit for, but whatever. Fact of the matter is this."

Adam lowered the weapon, and ran his fingers through his hair, wiping the water from it. The rain was now really coming down something fierce, and a shiver ran down his spine.

Just like Death itself is walking over my corpse...like he hasn't done THAT before...

"It's pouring fuckin' buckets out there, and I've got places to see, people to meet. You know how it is. Y'sound like a guy who's familiar with our situation. I'm willing to have you come along with us, but you've got to keep up. I've got two other people who - quite frankly, I'm far more concerned about. To be frank, I'm surprised you've lasted this long with how fucking scared you seem to be. I won't be looking after you every single step of the way. If you can pull your own weight, prove yourself to be someone worth taking along, then fine...I'm not going to argue with that. But..."

Adam paused, and grimaced, hoping that Izzy wouldn't judge him for what he was about to say. It was a shame, because Adam knew he'd never say anything close to what he was about to in the past. Of course...that was the past, and that was long gone.

"...if you fuck me over, stab me in the back, try and fuck us in any way - I'll hunt you down and kill you myself. I've done it before, and it's not a threat I make idley. You prove yourself useful, you don't slow us down or whatever, then cool. Your initial impression was right, I do want to get the fuck out of here. I've had enough Survival of the Fittest to last me three fuckin' lifetimes. If you and I are on the level here, and you're down with getting out, I'll try my damndest to try and get you out. Go back to your folks, or whatever. You look out for us, I'll do my best to look out for you. You betray that trust, you're as good as dead."

Adam paused, and shook his head a little bit to get the water that was freely running down his body away from his eyes. He didn't necessarily MEAN his threat, but he DID have certain issues with trust, and

"This is Izzy, Izzy Cheung. The other person who'll be joining us, provided I can find her, is a girl named Julie Mikan. Of course, you know me, I'm Adam Dodd. Basically, here's the situation. We find Julie, then we find a computer. I'd love to extend pleasantries to a whole lot of other people, but straight up? I don't know anyone, and three quarters of the school think I'm some kind of crazy psychopath. So I'm not gonna bother. We find Julie, then we HAVE to find a computer, if we've got any hope in hell. After that, well...we'll cross thet bridge when we come to it."

In his mind, Adam hadn't the faintest fucking idea how he was going to get off the island. The collars had to be deactivated, and then after that, they had to figure out a way off the island. That'd probably prove to be the easy part, if they could get the collars off then tracking them would prove to be impossible. He wasn't confident of his ability to hack into computer systems, though. Fact of the matter was that he was competent, but likely wasn't good enough with them to do any hacking. Of course, that would be a hurdle that would be crossed much later, for sure.

Stretching his shoulders, which were aching because of the constant pounding of the rain (and likely his injuries as well), Adam slowly extended his hand to the kid in front of him; Bill, he'd said his name was.

"Well, what d'you say...Bill? Are you with us? I'm not gonna hold it against you if you're not. You just kind of stumbled across us, and lately I've been in a really shitty mood. Either way, I need to know, because this rain is getting pretty fuckin' old."

It was a leap of faith to trust this kid, but Adam couldn't leave him behind in good conscience. Bill reminded him of the small French boy from his old school, Gilbert Archambault, who he'd tried to help fit in, and then saved in Survival of the Fittest. He'd saved him, and then left, and Gilbert had died moments later. He couldn't...he wouldn't let that happen again.

This time, I'm not going to fucking half-save somebody. This time, I'm following this shit through to the end, or I'm gonna die trying.

[AtomicWaffle†]

"Am I with you? Darn right I am! Let's G-T-F-Outta this rain, man! Adam, Izzy? Lez'go."

Bill looked around, the boxcutter gripped once again, the drops of rain running down it's razor sharp blade. He cautiously held it in front of him. His eyes drew towards the road near the building they now stood outside. Without looking back, he motioned to Adam and Izzy and spoke up.

"Hey... i'm all for taking the road, it's probably a better idea considering the rain, and I guess we've got a better chance of finding anybody if we stick to where people are most likely to... uh... be. I mean, we might run into more psychos, but if you're looking to find this Julie girl, we'll need to go where she's most likely to go..."

Bill paused, then looked back at Adam and shrugged.

"Ehh.... you know what? Why don't you just tell me where to go, 'cause I have no idea what the heck i'm doing out here. I'll be able to keep up, don't worry. I'm not THAT fat."


Bill coughed, and reajusted his glasses.

"Ugh."

[riserugu†]

Izzy continued to carefully glance from behind where Adam had stepped in front of her, staring toward the figure in the rain. Brushing her hand across her face and trying to rid some of the rain that was running along her features, the rain pounding against her was starting to add on to her headache not to mention just the fact she was standing here becoming drenched in the said pounding rain. Breathing out somewhat as she found her attention sifting back toward Adam with a careful look she wasn't to terribly sure what she could say concerning the boy in front of them—of course the goodness in her was wanting to just let the boy come with them. But then there was her rational side... her rational side that was reminding her of where they were was saying something completely different.

The fact that she couldn't just go around trusting everyone, after all they stuck here with the purpose to kill one another and so far she only had four people she could trust and two of them were now dead. Would her life really be worth trusting someone that could just turn around and try and stab them in the back? She had already been shot in the shoulder because she decided to trust a psycho-bitch... she really wasn't interested in being stabbed by someone who looked like they got lost on the way to a Star Trek convention.

Nevertheless though, Izzy glanced to Adam as he spoke—biting down against her lip as she listened to his somewhat hard words but was nonetheless inviting him along with them to look for this Julie girl and then on to the somewhat impossible sounding task of going to find a computer. Smiling as she was introduced as she moved out from behind the boy with a small wave and smile of sorts through the rain, sifting somewhat on her feet as everyone started seem to get ready to leave, nodding eagerly to Bill's words about getting out of the rain.

"I couldn't agree more there." She said as she sifted her daypack and glanced up toward Adam with a small smile. "So this Julie girl was at the barracks right? Well... with that place a danger zone, guess we got a bit more of a wider spread on where we could find here. But in this storm she couldn't have gone far right?"

[Cactus]

Adam instinctively went to brush the rainwater off of his face, but quickly realized how futile the gesture was, and with a small shake of his head, let his hand drop to his side. If something could be described as 'the hard part', this was probably it. He knew it was stupid to belong to the 'one more person' camp - he'd done it before and it'd turned out rather poorly for all of them. Was this any different? He was trying to convince himself of it. While sure, Julie had saved his life, and had become someone Adam had essentially been forced to trust, he knew that he had to repay that favour to her, even though finding her was extremely improbable.

"Fuck, uhh...guess that's a good point. Odds are if she's by herself, she's going to want to try and find shelter. It's easier to move around undetected when you're alone, and if the barracks isn't safe anymore, then it's probably looking like she would've headed to whichever of the smaller structures is closest. That is, if she's even looking at her map."

Shaking his head, Adam shrugged.

"As much as I hate to admit it, it's really a crapshoot whichever place we decide to go. Gotta figure, there's the cottage, the lookout tower, and the hospital which're all within a decent running distance of the barracks. It'd probably be a bit of a hike for us, especially in this rain, but fuck it if I'm gonna stand here and get wet any longer. C'mon, guys. Let's go. Keep your heads down, and try not to make any unnecessary noise while we traipse through the bushes."

Readying his M1, Adam's shoulders fell, and a chagrined expression flowed over his features. It was time to walk from the frying pan directly past the fire and right into the burning abyss.

"Man, I am so tired of this Survival of the Fittest bullshit, or what?"

Motioning with his head, he set off into the bushes, hoping that what he found wasn't the business-end of a rifle as he came out the other side. Izzy followed closely behind him.

((Adam + Izzy continued elsewhere))

[AtomicWaffle†]

Bill hurriedly followed after them.

((I don't really have much else to say. Bill Ritch continued elsewhere))