The Tower

[Shiola]

Tyrell did not keep the bullets in Amelia’s gun, though they mercifully managed to avoid blowing twin holes in his head and chest area. What they did do was nearly blind and deafen him as the muzzle was an uncomfortable distance from him when she decided to freak out and touch off a couple of rounds. He reacted accordingly.

“JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!”

Whatever instinct had pushed him to try and calm this heavily-armed space cadet evaporated in the same way flecks of water did when they landed on a hot saucepan. An attempt at altruism, maybe. Maybe he wanted to spite the people who were entirely convinced he was entirely consumed by hate and malice.

They weren’t wrong, he did kill two people on the first day. It was hard to argue the point that he was probably not worth any consideration. Given what had happened since, he did feel he deserved at least a little bit for not continuing on with it. It wasn’t like people hadn’t given him reasons.

Sure, he didn’t need to hurt her when this had all started. Her panic even had made him somewhat sympathetic, her words echoing his own thoughts. And she hadn’t even killed anyone; she was just freaking out about pointing a gun at someone.

That kind of changed when she decided to lose her shit. Now he wanted to cave her head in for being such a goddamn simpleton. Ty scrambled backwards, now missing the handy crowbar he’d been issued with.

Of course, this was probably on him. He looked like he’d just climbed out of hell and he expected to be able to calm someone down? No, that probably wasn’t realistic. It hurt to think about, though not as much as his ears did from the second time someone had decided to shoot past him.

If instinct was the only thing he could trust now, it no longer pressed him to have anything to do with these people, either to help or to harm. His senses a befuddled mess of high-pitched whining and watery eyes, he tore off into the wilderness, ignoring the others. They didn’t need his help, either in surviving or getting killed.

Hopefully he could find somewhere to spend the night. The longer this one wore on, the more he kept thinking about everything that had happened.

Compared to that, getting shot in the face was preferable.

((Tyrell Lahti continued in Manifest Content))

[decoy73]

Goddammit, seriously? They could have calmed her down enough for her to ally, or better yet, hand over the gun, but then Daria had to run her fat mouth? Christina slowly loosened as she realized that the shots had been wild. Even better since she had dove to the ground when she heard the shots.

"Pull the fucking trigger. Tear me apart. Tear each other apart. Won't get us one inch closer to beating them."

That was what she had to say to someone on the verge of a mental breakdown? Go and pull the trigger and kill us all? Christina mentally cursed the fact that she was wearing dark clothing for a moment - she was relying on the fact that she nothing felt wet. Thank god it wasn't raining anymore. With Tyrell running off too, it was back to just the two of them. She looked at Daria and tried to keep a calm voice.

"What the hell was that?"

[Grim Wolf]

Daria stood close to the fighters, close to the flame, heart pounding though there was ice in her veins, cold and hot at the same. Gunslinger. Debonair. Dangerous.

BANG

Gunshot cleaving through the air, shattering calm. Someone screamed. Someone fell. Someone's heart stopped for a moment and then pounded with adrenaline alarm, thundering in her veins, shattering all her play-acting. She was on the ground, her ass stinging from the impact with the ground, her arms wrapped protectively around her chest, head hunched low, almost fetal with fear.

"What the hell was that?"

Daria shook her head, her throat tight with...

Grief?

Caroline and Quinn, a broken branch and the thunder of a different gun, her grandma's stinking corpse in the incense-heavy house

"Fuck," Daria whispered, jerking her head up from her folded knees. She shook her head. "Sorry. I was just...I don't want..." She swallowed, and hated the way her shoulders shook, and hated the tremble in her voice. "No more Carries. Y'know?"

[decoy73]

Daria was in the fetal position. So at least she realized that something was wrong.

"Sorry. I was just...I don't want... No more Carries. Y'know?"

Like Caroline? Who was, well, dead? To be fair, Caroline had supposedly shot someone else before getting offed herself, so yeah. Good point.

"Okay, fine." Christina put her hands up. "Just, we have to focus now. No more talking. No more guessing. Don't even think about anything that isn't right in front of you. That's our real challenge. We have to save ourselves from ourselves."

And I only partnered up with you because of safety in numbers. You don't wise up, I'm gone like that.

((Christina Rennes continued in i see u))

[Grim Wolf]

Deep breath. Inhale. Exhale. In. Out. Head's too full of Carrie, the thunder of guns, and renewed fear. The breathing's not helping. Your shoulders still shake, and your eyes still burn. It's not stage fright, but mortal terror, an the clarity of purpose hat guided you from the beach to this moment is gone.

"Okay, fine." Christina's hands are thrown up in exasperation. "Just, we have to focus now. No more talking. No more guessing. Don't even think about anything that isn't right in front of you. That's our real challenge. We have to save ourselves from ourselves."

Christina turned away. Her words keep echoing. Takes a moment to parse through. Save ourselves from ourselves. Solid reasoning, poetic repetition, clear stakes, so why does it stick in the mind like food in the throat?

No more talking. No more guessing. But Daria was a performer, and performers were creatures of language, of communication, and communication was always guesswork. The tilt of your head, the angle of your stare, the speed and precision of a hand moving through the air, not just the words you chose but how you pronounced them, all educated guesses where you brought every inch of her empathy and insight and brilliance so she could talk, plead, convince, retort, announce, oppose, and above all else convince.

The gun had fired. Daria was still alive, unlike so many others.

Save ourselves from ourselves, but that was the same fucking lie that Quinn had told her, just from a different perspective. Quinn was trying to pretend she had agency, and Christina was trying to pretend they had to be careful. They had to...what? Survive?

But there was no winning this game. There was no surviving it, either. The bombs were on their necks. Whether they pulled the trigger or not, it was the game-runners who'd put them here. The crimes of people caught in the system were nothing compared to the crimes of the people who had built it.

Daria didn't want to stop talking. She didn't want to stop guessing. She didn't want to survive, to save the living from themselves. She wanted them united against the ones who were really to blame.

In. Out. Calm again. Christina is in the distance. Daria stares after her, not sure whether to follow her or not. Well, hell; maybe she'd guess.

(Daria Bhatia continued in Code of Honor)