Deep Red Bells

[Kermit]

(Valerija Bogdanovic continued from Mao Tse Tung Said)

It took a while for Val to get used to the weight of the helmet on her head. She felt the significance of the history of the helmet in combination with her own history. She tried not to think about it.

There was a clearing in the forest up ahead. As she got closer, she saw it wasn't just a clearing but a... lake? Pond? Some water thing. She stepped out into the open, feeling the warmth of the sun against her skin. She was happy to be done bushwhacking. She could make out a few structures standing in the lake.

...Cages. They were cages.

That was... worrisome.

The cages looked almost beautiful, in a surreal, dreamlike way. They also held some deep, dark, implications. There were very few pleasant reasons to keep a bunch of cages half-submerged in a lake. This island had a story to tell.

Val crossed her arms and looked out over the water. She needed to think - she had half a plan. She had her endgame figured out but she didn't know how to get there. She knew how to keep SOTF from ever happening again; that was the easy part. The hard part was getting there.

[Endellion]

At what turned out to be the end of his walk, dead branches and leaves crunching under his boots as he went, he saw a body of water ahead. The exact opposite of the place from which he'd come, and just what he could do with right about now. His legs were at a point somewhere between ache from exertion and actual pain.

[ Julien Leblanc continued from God Bless America (Island Remix) ]

When Julien emerged from the treeline, however, two things in particular stood out enough to take his mind off that discomfort. The first was the cages set out in the water, but while their existence spoke of a great deal, he didn't find them as immediately worthy of concern as the girl unknown to him looking out across the water. Only seeing her from the back didn't help, yes, but even with that aside he just wasn't familiar with anyone who dressed in such a particularly plain manner.

Of course, that didn't mean that he would lean on caution over much, lest it be taken as hostility. Just a healthy amount of it. So Julien approached slowly, taking care to be a respectable distance off to her left when he stopped.

"They had animals here, rice fields, homes... and cages. Quite an alarming manner of punishment for wrongdoing, don't you agree?" What else could they be for, after all? There was no need for a place of reflection out in the water. Now that he could take in more of his newfound surroundings, he had to think that one could surely be found right where they stood.

[Kermit]

Val couldn't imagine how terrible it must have been to be locked in one of those cages. Being forced to stand upright for hours on end with no sleep, lower legs and feet becoming waterlogged sacks of wrinkled flesh.

Suddenly, she heard a voice, alarmingly clear, commenting on the cages. Someone was here, other than her. She was somewhat reassured by the voice's choice of words. It would be an odd thing for someone to say before shooting a person in the back.

"Yes..." she replied, momentarily glancing backwards. She recognized the boy but couldn't recall ever interacting with him in the past. His mention of animals intrigued her though the rest of the stated locations brought her back down.

This island was giving her some major Khmer Rouge vibes.

She looked back at the cages. "It's... odd. This place - it feels like it's seen things worse than SOTF."

[Endellion]

"Worse? Hm... I wouldn't bet on it. All we have to see of this place is well after it fell to ruin, however unpleasant the end might have been."

The people they knew were showing little reserve in starting to fall already. Friends, enemies and strangers alike, all would soon start to be cut down for the sake of going home. It had already begun, too; Julien had seen Abel for himself, and there was no way of knowing if anyone else had joined the departed so soon.

He shrugged off the weight on his shoulders, using the duffel bag for a leg-rest once he'd sat down. "I'd say it's about even. Whoever came here before us, I'm willing to guess they all eroded and lost themselves with time. This will simply be the history of this place repeating itself, through us and our friends."

When it was made so easy to start thinking of others as lesser, so too was it to start treating them as such. Those cages out there stood as testament to that.

[General Goose]

((Camille Bellegarde continued from Doubt))

At the very least, this island had some interesting aesthetics. It kept her mind off things, allowed her to continue thinking up ideas for stories and worldbuilding, though that diversion quickly turned frustrating when Camille realised there was no way to write these ideas down. It was a relatively inconsiderable tragedy, though still a tragedy, that, like almost every novel stroke of innovation or intriguing and noble point that came to her mind when without a pen and paper, she wouldn't even be able to make a coherent note of these ideas, to get them onto paper and benefit from the elucidation that came from transcription.

It was vexing, then, having ideas and thoughts that Camille was sure had a morsel of promise or a nugget of ingenuity contained within, yet she could do nothing with. It was better to have a blank mind in such a context. She tried to stay vacant, but the environment was just too interesting, everything else about her surroundings too horrifying to contemplate, for that act of internal self-discipline to proceed beyond just good intentions. So she kept her mind busy. The art exhibit she had witnessed had achieved its desired effect and her mind was racing, with thoughts of artistry, art criticism, social philosophising, elaborate fantasies and theories about the lives of the artist that she then exposed to detailed scrutiny and contemplation. Thoughts that were soon as forgotten as they were detailed. It was exasperating, certainly.

The pond that she arrived at was small. The map had marked it as the Serenity Circle. She wasn't sure what that meant and what that had entailed, but she had expected it to be some sort of euphemism, some sort of broadly Orwellian doublespeak. She wasn't too surprised, then, to approach it and see that there were half-submerged cages. She imagined turning to Lucas, making a lecherous joke that she would appreciate, or to Regina, making a subtle implication that would be the right amount of immodest to get her mind to rush to a place that left her blushing. Camille felt lonely. Perhaps another reason why it was best, all things considered, to let her mind continue making and losing ideas.

Two other people stood at the opposite end of the pond. She had seen them there. The pond was small, it was hard not to. She had ignored them, however, until she stood by the water's edge. Lifting her hand up with an economy of energy, Camille halfheartedly waved.

[Kermit]

"Not with that attitude!" is what Val wanted to say. Instead she just nodded.

"That's usually how life goes. Cycles don't stop until they're broken. SOTF is a cycle, in a way." She let it hang; let the implication speak for itself.

She caught a glimpse of movement from across the pond. There was a girl on the other side. Val couldn't really make out her face from this distance, but she was pretty sure she recognized her as one of Gina's friends.

"Someone's over on the other side; I don't think she's seen us -" The other girl waved. " - oh, never mind." Val gave a curt wave back.

[Endellion]

"Huh. That there is." Julien waved in kind.

She wanted to escape, then. Or simply to put a proper end to the tale that kept on being told. A crushing ordeal, either way, not least because of the danger that anyone else could come to pose, if they didn't show it from the outset; there were also the collars binding them all to this mad place. But it was one she chose to take on all the same, and so even if they were to travel down opposing roads, that was still worth his respect.

"And it goes without saying, I'm sure, but you really should take pains to be careful."

[General Goose]

It was the perfect distance, Camille supposed.

If she carried her voice slightly, put a little bit of effort into inflection and intonation, she would be able to communicate with sufficient lucidity. She wouldn't have to shout herself hoarse to make herself heard, wouldn't have to put an unnatural emphasis on every syllable for the sake of clarity. A conversation was possible at this distance and Camille imagined that that was a good position to be in. She could ascertain their motives and work out if they were suitable company before making the commitment to walk around and join them. Enough of a distance to allow engagement without forcing her hand.

If the fancy so took her, she could also add in little snarky asides under her breath. That wasn't normally her style, but with stresses running high and the potential for danger and stupidity so acute, it couldn't hurt to have that option for risk-free private sarcasm. After all, Camille supposed, it could be cathartic and could keep her slightly more grounded in her interactions here.

They both waved back at her.

She recognised Val. Gina was one of her favourite people and, by extension, that was a rather big point in her favour. Julien, she recognised too. A less familiar face, but as far as Camille knew, he didn't have any preexisting bonds with Val, so at least he wasn't killing strangers on sight. "It's Camille," she called out, by way of clarification. "How...how are you both getting on?"

[Cicada]

Someone cries out, offstage.

Camille, was it?

Scene Change - EXT. Serenity Circle. Enter PRINCESS and CLAUDESON

The first observation Princess made as she took the scene in- she loved the ornamentation of Valerija's hat, it had gravitas about it in a classically antiquated way. Big, phallic spikes did an impression make.

Princess had been about as subtle as she could have been in suggesting they traipse through the woods instead of sticking to the mapped out paths. That was to say, she might as well have conked Claude on the head and dragged him along behind her. 'Subtle' as the average GHHS student was 'reasonable'. Princess might have been enjoying herself a bit too much, perhaps a bit dumbstruck, genuinely giggling and beaming, foppish and whimsical as she'd burst through wild tangles of brush and foliage with a scout's youthful energy. Her still bare feet had not softened a bit, years of intervening shoe soles had done nothing to dampen her connection to nature. Her expertise had waned, maybe, as she nearly slipped several times, but she was far too enthusiastic to care. The occasional sting of a large rock or squish of a centipede's flailing underfoot did little to bother her.

All a bit silly, but she wasn't going to be a bore just because she'd resigned herself to making sure she and all her classmates died! Well-told stories were rich in the idle roundabout of distracted heroines.

Bursting through the treeline to follow the noise of humanity led Princess and her supporting cast into some form of still-peaceful encounter. She and Claude were perpendicular to both groups, flanking the pond from another angle.

She recognized everyone involved as much as she needed to- not much. There was some form of intellectual conversation to be had here, as opposed to Miss Anna's enjoyment of monosyllables in homage to her recent caveman ancestry. Politics aside- Valerija's type was less aesthetically inclined, insofar as a politician ever seemed to bother taking any sort of definitive position at all after twenty minutes of roundabout and misdirection.

If anyone here was about to shoot anybody else Princess was positively, sparkle-ingly sure Claude the peacenik would handle all issues with award-winning finesse. Certainly peace and trust could exist among all her peers and neighbors and nobody ever born ever had any ulterior motives.

Princess kept wearing her excited smile, waved. The smile was pretty suddenly fake now, but nobody had to know that.

[Cactus]

Once emerging from the damp darkness of the cavern, Princess had embraced the light. It was as though all of her troubles had deserted her, and instead of sticking to the well-travelled pathways, she insisted on traipsing through the underbrush. Not that Claudeson minded, of course. Staying to the shadows and off the paths was likely an intelligent call, though with the haste that Princess moved it wasn't as though she was keeping silent to avoid any attention. It mattered not, however.

She was being watched over, so he knew that everything would be okay.

((Claudeson Bademosi continued from Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.))

They'd emerged with little fanfare from the underbrush, and Claudeson was instantly taken with the scope of the lake that stood before them. It was quite breathtaking - as much of the scenery that he'd borne witness to in this awful place was - and in another instance this locale may have been a truly spectacular place to visit, or even to live. The only blight that he noticed at all were the presence of what looked to be cages in a small pond beside the much larger lake, some of them submerged almost up to the very top. All of them were open, and he couldn't help but furrow his brow as his mind investigated just what sorts of applications such devices might have. They were too big to be fishing pots in too small of a body of water for fish, and Claudeson couldn't help but think that they looked large enough to almost hold a full-sized human being within.

"What kind of place is this," he muttered to himself as he brushed a few stray sticks away from Min-jae's still-primed limb. He kept the head still-pointed at the ground as he looked up at the faces. His face broke out into a toothy smile as he saw a few familiar faces. Valerija in particular was wearing a particularly anachronistic hat. He held Valerija at a very high standard, she was one of the more politically-oriented students at George Hunter High School, but her views were almost always very humanistic, and while not always corresponding with the tenets of his religion, he appreciated that she had always seemed very interested in making her world better.

Such a shame.

Julien was here too, dour or perhaps cautious. Claudeson thought back to the party, where Julien had rolled in on his motorcycle. He'd gathered via reputation back then that the boy didn't handle confrontation all that well, but in the here and now he seemed to be acquitting himself quite well under the circumstances. He was about to look over at the other girl, whose name escaped him at the moment, but Princess stuck out her hand and waved at the lot of them. So as not to arouse any alarm, Claudeson stuck his hand out and followed suit. His white shirt was still stained with dried blood, but he supposed that he probably didn't look any worse than any of the rest of them. He called out along with his wave, so they had confirmation of pure motivation.

"Greetings!"

Yes, totally pure motivation with bloody clothes, an explosive collar and a reminder of past destruction slung around his chest. He glanced over at Princess, still smiling at the rest of them. He felt a warm sensation, almost a feeling of good cheer at discovering more classmates - presumably friendly ones. Against all odds, Claudeson felt a little silly.

He still had his shoes, at least.

[Kermit]

"And it goes without saying, I'm sure, but you really should take pains to be careful."

Now that was the kind of thing someone said before shooting you in the back. Val chose to believe the boy had meant it relatively innocently. "Oh, I'm not trying to escape, if that's what you think. It's just... there's nothing more poignant than someone's last words. We're all martyrs here whether we like it or not."

The girl in the distance - Camille - asked how they were. Val raised her voice a bit and called out. "We're okay, I thin-" Val interrupted herself when she noticed a rustling kind of sound coming from the forest behind her. She turned around slowly.

Another girl, alongside Claudeson, emerged from the woods. They were both waving, grinning widely. It was unsettling. A small part of Val thought this whole thing might have been some kind of ambush, but she pushed it back down.

Then she noticed that Claudeson was holding a crossbow. She noticed the blood on his clothes. Back home, Claudeson had seemed cordial enough - maybe a bit repressed, but not a murderer. But here, the dissonance between Claudeson's outwardly friendly demeanor and blood-spattered appearance was enough to put Valerija on edge.

"Claude, your..." Val gestured her hand towards her own nose. "What happened?"

[Endellion]

Really now?

Not knowing her name aside, Julien found himself thinking that he would have rather liked her if they'd had the good fortune to meet in another place, another time. It was a crying shame that Claudeson just had to appear now of all times, honestly; knowing his luck, getting any further into what he thought about that now might just lead to a sermon on life and its value.

As if his held more than any other.

Of course, there were more real, relevant things to be considering right now. Like the girl accompanying Claude who smiled and waved but didn't open her mouth and lacked the vibrance in her eyes that stood as a hallmark of authenticity. The sight of Forrest in his mind's eye was caution enough that he would make no mention of it, however, so Julien addressed the matter of the armed, blood-stained man with crossbow in tow instead.

"Broken nose, I take it?"

Even superficial head injuries tended to bleed profusely, on that he could most definitely speak from experience.

And now for Camille, because while he had been content to simply let his helmed acquaintance address her until she drew close enough to talk to with voice less raised, it wasn't lost on him that somebody being cut off mid-sentence in a place where people were out to kill one another didn't exactly bode well. So Julien took it upon himself to do so.

"Yes, we're alright! Come on over, if you like."

[General Goose]

Camille raised her eyebrow. There was an oddness to this current situation. She had spent so much time wandering around, not exactly rushing towards likely population centres but not exactly being hermit-like or reclusive either, and yet she had not gotten close enough to anyone in hours. And yet, straight after arriving here, she had been the third of, it turns out, five people to arrive at the scene.

Perhaps that was the result of her stopping in an iconic place. This place was something of a distinctive landmark. It likely boasted many visitors, though most probably did not pause to reminisce or chat. Once that first meetup occurred, then, it was a spiral effect.

Maybe it was by design. Maybe they had been "deposited" in such a place that meetups such as this were bound to happen. Camille could believe that. These terrorists were startlingly well-financed, after all. No reason to suggest that they wouldn't invest in some predictive modelling to help enable the most dramatic meetups or some supermarket-style psychological manipulation to drag out journeys and nudge plans in such a way as to make them more likely. After all, three people meeting at once was far less likely to lead to misunderstanding, and therefore violence, than five.

Of course, she wasn't sure why she was speculating about this rather than the...state of the newcomers. Blood. Julien's theory was plausible, but yet scepticism towards it was not helpful. Camille couldn't help but be a tiny bit irritated that Julien had offered Claudeson an excuse. Now, if he had cause to lie, all he had to do was say yes. Camille would like to think Claudeson wouldn't lie but if any situation bred dishonesty, it was this one.

Camille nodded, nonetheless, at Julien's offer to come round. There was every reason to be paranoid as an instinctive response to every act of kindness, but Camille also knew that allies were important and that it was a justifiable gamble to take the two up on their supposed friendliness. Still, she made sure to walk around the pond on the opposite side from the newcomers.

[Cicada]

"Broken nose, I take it?"

"Well, among other things." Princess could project while maintaining her chest voice, and her tone skipped like smooth stone over the shallow water between all.

Her smile died, and now her expression looked more natural, matching the subtler shadowing of the tension in her jaw. A careful calculation- shifting the mood, whiplash as it were, was an advanced skill of stagecraft. She'd been happy, now she was not. The girl-next-door sauntering through the open window and finding the murder scene- a bit Saturday morning cartoon- required a careful moment of pause, as most people reacted to shock with a delay.

She was still a normal girl, as far as anybody else was concerned, and that was her greatest asset.

"Uh,"

They were being invited over, and Princess let Claude lead her along (a strong man! a noble man! said the cardboard cutout of a damsel in distress) with a moment of feigned reluctance. Linger, pause, only glance quickly and avoid eye contact. Princess was timid, not really, but she sold it well enough. She didn't fear the others, but it was best they assumed her nervousness. Who shut out the innocent?

Plenty of people, actually. Princess expected this to be more difficult than was appropriately civilized. All a matter of 'soon'- when the debasement her peers kept poorly hidden would make itself clear at gun and spearpoint. "He- Claude, he. He had a run in with an associate- saved his life. Small price to pay, I think." A giggle, nervous, pained, inappropriate, so on.

[Cactus]

Keeping his weapon firmly aimed at the ground, Claudeson nodded in agreement with Princess' assessment of his injuries. He hadn't had the chance to examine a mirror since he'd awoken, but he could feel the swelling, he could feel the clotting of blood within - Claudeson was very likely a sight to behold. Gesturing to Princess, he carefully but purposefully walked around the pond to meet with the other three. As he did, he confirmed her story, Princess following along behind him.

"Unfortunately that is correct. Upon waking up, I encountered Tyrell Lahti in the midst of trying to end his own life." He shrugged, as though it were an obvious conclusion. "I intervened. In his distraught state, he lashed out. Though as Princess said," Claudeson came to a stop a comfortable distance away from the others.

"It was but a small price to pay."

Looking them over, Claudeson took note of Valerija's intriguing headgear once more. Now at a better range for closer inspection, it truly was one of those old-style Germanic head-pieces. It appeared as though not all of them were as fortunate to be blessed with something as powerful as Min-jae. It once more just reaffirmed his belief that this was where he was meant to be. The Lord had a plan for Claudeson. He would protect those who could not protect themselves, he would ensure that life was not destroyed here. He straightened a little as the sense of fulfillment coursed its way through his body. Were these the people he was meant to save, to protect?

"Other than that, we have been well enough for the circumstance. This island is enormous; it took us quite some time to traverse from the cliffs down to this pond. How have you fared?" He glanced at Julien now, the other familiar face.

"Have you encountered anyone else? I cannot imagine that anyone would willingly bow down to their primal impulses and engage these monsters. We must stay vigilant, however."

Vigilance was crucial, of course, and would be as the days went on. Claudeson was prepared for that. As a sentinel of the Heavenly Father, he knew that this would be a test for him. It was a test that he felt prepared to win. A small smile crept upon his face before he realized it, so he covered it with a platitude and looked over at the girl whose name he couldn't quite recall.

"I am very glad to see you all unharmed. This is a difficult day."

An understatement, but the tone of his voice indicated that he knew it was such. Claudeson wasn't one for flippant levity, but he felt as though perhaps the situation called for something, so he then looked at Valerija and gestured at her, his expression grim but his tone lighter.

"Nice hat."