Princess of the Night

[Cicada]

She wasn't sure what he looked like now, of course, and her opinion wouldn't particularly matter anyways.

Princess had been marveling over it as she'd drifted off to sleep- again, for what must have been the twentieth time that evening, an evening being a unit of time wherein the uncomfortably warm air perpetually smothering her was a bit more fluid and dynamic, the composition of a nighttime breeze that was no longer enough to soothe. She'd been giving instructions, right? She'd ostensibly been the center of the scene, it had been a familiar enough improvisation of catharsis, Princess mocking up her lines from a nebulous concept of a barely memorized script. Princess using her last moments to help a friend, something kitschy like that.

But still, ultimately, it hadn't been her moment. She'd felt like an audience member more than she'd actually been present. She'd been superfluous, an entity as ghostly as the crop of her usual dithering thoughts.

It had felt alright.

But of course, awkwardly divorced from reality for what she could by the second portend was the last time, she was once more stuck with the spotlight she'd craved all her life. Nobody else to live for inside her own head- the phantoms of her friends were all just extensions of herself, performative grasping at straws. She was staring at the thick expanse of a closed curtain, silently wondering which side of it she was on. The lights above were cheerfully bright, meaning the show was over.

She could hear the voices again. This time, she observed, she didn't actually have to hear what they were saying. Her understanding was irrelevant- what they were saying to her was not the point, it was the fact that they simply were still there, her friends. Her 'friends'. All waiting on the other side. She looked forward to them, for the first time in a long time.

Unfortunately it was all just an illusion anyways. But it was a quiet one at least. After all, the show was over.

She could finally be herself now... Whoever that was supposed to be. She noticed she still had no shoes on, as she walked through the curtain one last time.

INT. Temple, Princess is huddled up under a blanket. She appears relaxed and content, and very much dead.

END

((34 students remaining))

[Jilly]

When all was said and done, Katelynne stifled a giggle or two. Not a mean one or nothing, just maybe a bit nervous.

Marco was right handsome.

---

The rest of the night passed without much noise other than their conversations as the moon faded away and the sun rose just like any normal day. Still no sign of Tyrell... maybe it was a good thing, last thing Katelynne wanted to see was for some sorta misunderstanding and more blood spilling right in front of her. But still... it hurt. Couldn't tell if being hurt was better or worse than being worried.

Anyway, it was time again. Katelynne snuck away from the guys outside and returned to where Princess was sleeping, covered up in a blanket like the Boogeyman was nearby.

"Hey," she bent down and shook what she assumed to be Princess's shoulders. "I'm sorry, I gotta give you another dose, okay?"

She got to work and pulled one of the packets she got way too acquainted with along with one of the bottles Nicholas handed off from last night.

Princess was still dead asleep.

Katelynne sighed and shook the shoulder mass again with a little more force. "What, no quips today? C'mon, it'll be quick."

She still didn't move.

The irked grin quickly fell as Katelynne shook her again.

Nothing.

"...Princess?"

She didn't shake her again. Instead, she reached for the blanket and peeled it slowly off like a candy wrapper.

Princess was sleeping. But she wasn't.

Katelynne ran her hands over her, feeling her arm, her forehead, her throat. Everything. Just to make sure, but it was already foregone.

Katelynne didn't cry, or yell, or pound her fists in rage. All she could do was stare at those Rosalia eyes in the morning sunlight.

For the first time in a very, very long while, Katelynne felt alone.

[General Goose]

While the makeup was being applied, Nick didn't say much. He just focused on the tasks he was given, the little perfunctory extras enabling the actual talent to get to work. Little tasks, really. He was like the guy handing a surgeon the scalpel. A de facto security guard too. Maybe it was just in Nick's mind, but it seemed to him an unspoken rule - mainly because it was so obvious - that if a disturbance were to arise, it would only be right if Nick was the one to provide the immediate response.

So he remained vigilant, to the outside world, giving every hint of an outside disturbance the due paranoia it deserved under such acrimonious circumstances, but also to the instructions. What he didn't do was take a step back and look at Marco. He just observed things in the microsense, change by change, little by little, knowing that there was no point in viewing Princess's work until it was complete, knowing that Marco would only want his opinion when it was all done and dusted. So he watched, waited, remained largely a bystander, letting others drive things forward and do what was required.

So Nick looked at the finished work properly for the first time the same time Marco saw the reflection.

And it was just...Marco. Distinctively, absolutely Marco. Like Princess had somehow brought Marco's true identity to the fore. Like Princess had given Nick a glimpse of what Marco might look like in the everyday world, that, if they got out of this mess somehow, if they were inexplicably to return home, this was the exact face Nick would look at over a restaurant table or something.

"You're a handsome fucker, Marco," Nick said, softly, tenderly, a smile breaking out across his features.

Nick slept comfortably that night.

[Emprexx Plush]

Marco had been warned often that he was not supposed to fall asleep in makeup. Allegedly if he left it to lay too long he would break out even worse than normal; there was a note of conspiracy in that explanation. Wasn't the primary reason most people wore things like foundation to cover up skin blemishes, and wouldn't most people use it for the majority of their day? So logically it could be assumed that some risk was always present with prolonged exposure, but it was deemed acceptable for its effects as long as there were others to observe you? Could it not then be posited that skin irritation might be considered more feature than bug by manufacturers eager to keep customers dependent in a cycle where the more makeup they used the more they broke out so the more makeup they had to use so the more they broke out? Otherwise surely an industry focus would be minimizing if not eliminating the effects extended contact with their products had with human skin?

That was a confident tone for someone who had no idea what he was talking about; in truth he had no idea whether any of those assertions were true or false. It was all speculation. The kind he used to stream through in half the time and four times as many words to flood over anxieties he refused to recognize in peek-a-boo logic that as long as he didn't look directly at him they couldn't hurt him. That had never worked as well as he liked to pretend, but he imagined it wasn't a unique behavior when tempered down. In idle moments people were drawn to loop on thoughts without purpose beyond occupying the mind. That's all he was doing. Laying still at night in his boyfriend's arms near friends who didn't seem to hate him nearly as much as he deserved thinking his way to exhaustion so he could fall asleep.

It felt normal.

That stung. He turned his thoughts to that discomfort. Skimming the surface he found all the thoughts he’d already been repeating summing down to guilt that he was okay, better than okay, when everyone else was suffering. Every way he returned to it, it felt wrong that he was allowed to progress after what he’d done. Marco could loop on those thoughts for hours more before he went to sleep but he leaned deeper into them too because he felt something different. A feeling he was flinching away from, new guilt clouded by the old. He stared into Nick’s sleeping face as he had more often than he could count since they found each other. Even with them closed he could imagine the soft glow of his eyes. Even at a distance he could feel the roughness of his beard under his fingertips. Even in absence he could taste his lips against his. Marco had never been much of a poet, and he’d never been great at describing the backdrops of his scenes in text, but if he tried to wax romantic about Nick’s features he would compare them to a lush, wild field tucked away behind a high treeline. Challenging, even intimidating, but inviting if you rose to meet them. When Marco traced Nick’s face with his eyes, it was like collapsing in that field and letting the grass overwhelm him, safe in the knowledge that it would shelter his presence from miles around.

It stung that he wasn't enough. It stung that that wonderful, unbelievable energy Nick filled him with wasn't the peak of his desires. It stung that Marco felt better now knowing there were still other people out there that weren't disgusted with him than he ever was alone. It stung that after all Nick had given him, he hungered for a life past this island that by nature could not include him.

It stung to be unsatisfied.

He knew Nick would understand.

Marco thought about waking him to talk about it before he went to find Princess, but it could wait. They didn't have long, but they had time. Besides, Princess might have some ideas to share about touching up since it hardly mattered what condition his skin after all this.

Katelynne was hovering over her when Marco found them. "Is she…"

Sleeping, he'd meant. Then her eyes answered him before Katelynne could.

[Jilly]

Katelynne didn't look at Marco. She just stayed transfixed on Princess's peaceful face. She let Marco's words marinate for a bit before replying with a limp head shake of her own.

"Think she's been like this for the last few hours. Must've happened sometime overnight. Idunno." She forced herself to push the words out with a cold matter-of-factness; the hesitance still found a way through, anyway.

She gulped. The dry saliva stuck in the back of her throat. And then she turned, her face matching with the floor more than it did Marco. "Can you and Nicholas help me move her to the backroom? I don't... I don't wanna leave her out in the open like this."

[General Goose]

That Nick was the group’s “security” seemed an uncontested principle. So, too, was the idea that he was just the universal “strong man” for all the group’s manual labour needs. Tragically enough, it seemed that corpse removal was just a big and enduring part of that. Nick was not used to actually working hard. His muscles were down to genetics and vanity, perhaps some vestigial leftovers from a more rough-and-tumble childhood than his peers. He wasn’t someone who actually did backbreaking summer jobs, certainly wasn’t someone suited for a blue-collar future. Yet out of all the skills he had, it was ultimately only his strength that came in handy.

It probably spoke to some great character flaw that, as Nick was carrying another person’s lifeless corpse, the body of someone who he’d seen around school countless times and never imagined in a context as dark as this, that he was thinking about himself. Maybe Nick could excuse his actions by saying it was a coping mechanism.

That would have been a lie, though.

Nick’s mind was wandering down these tangents not because it was...well, more interesting? Urgh. What an awful thought. An awful thought for an awful person! So apposite. But with how many people who’d died, people closer to Nick, people who’d had a bigger impact on Nick...he just kinda didn’t have the time or mental space to actually think about it that way? He should have been mourning. Just...it was something that everyone was entitled to, you know? One last little signifier of respect, a token gesture to acknowledge the humanity that had been snuffed out.

But no, Nick couldn’t manage that. He was sad to see Princess die - sadder than he expected, as he’d logically written her off the moment he saw the state she was in - but sad enough to shed a tear? To focus his energy on contemplating the tragedy of her death? No. It wasn’t even like his mind was preoccupied with mourning somebody else. It was just...was this common? Getting so numb to the idea of being surrounded by death, of being threatened by it, implicated in it, involved in it, that he couldn’t mourn someone dying in their sleep?

Didn’t bode well for his chances at reentering society.




The announcement came. Princess wasn’t mentioned. Perhaps she’d missed the cut-off. Maybe - an intrusive thought yelled out to him, unwelcome and illogical but persuasive in that way only intrusive thoughts could be - she hadn’t died. They’d just thrown her out, into the cold, to brave the elements, that their worst thoughts would be confirmed the next day by a sneering Danya, accusing the trio of killing her by maliciously exiling her from the proverbial tent.

Ivy and Myles. They had died. In quick succession. Myles killing Ivy, Ace killing Myles. They stood out because...well, Nick should have cared. Should have felt something. Instead, he felt even more apathetic than usual. It was odd, perverse even, but Nick was sure that some kind of sardonic commentary, some kind of petty remark, would have been a better way to honour their memory than just apathy.

Maybe the Nick of a few days ago would have taken a sadistic pleasure in the fact they turned on each other. Maybe he wouldn’t have, maybe present Nick was being too harsh on his past self. What he knew was that, now, he just found it tragic. But it wasn’t his tragedy. There had been a cruelty to their adversity, and now Nick couldn’t even describe why it mattered. Why he had gotten so invested in Gaelan’s battles was...well. Who knew.

Yuka was dead. Nick...felt robbed for a second. And then he realised that was a stupid thing to think. An awful thing to think.

Abraham came up, as a killer - and not as one of those killers who swiftly died himself, as seemed to be so popular these days. There was a moment, early on, where Abraham seemed important. He had been a witness to Nick’s truth, a rare and therefore important voice able to in some way speak to his innocence. He had been an antagonist to Marco. Maybe there was a tension there. Some potential for conflict that had never materialised. Still could, he supposed. But it looked likely that Abraham had - like Michael, like Darlene, like Henry, like everyone else who Nick had encountered in those first few days who was still alive - found his own role in the island.

And yet, he cared more about Abraham and Yuka than Myles and Ivy. A very weird thing. But the interactions with them, as fleeting and incidental as they were, just seemed to define Nick more now. He was so utterly defined by his time on the island that he couldn’t really connect with anything from before. His family, his interests, his aspirations and convictions, his homeland, his old hatreds and rivalries, his old relationships and hook-ups...it all seemed like those things were merely academic now. Matters that might interest someone studying his unconscious psychology or piecing together a meandering biography of him as some sort of memorial, but beyond that? Nick felt no real attachment to them.

He looked at Marco. Nick would never have the internal dialogue of a good person, he was sure of that much. But he could still act like a good person. Be a good person for Marco. That was something. Definitely something.




Marco was good with maps. He was smart. He’d been paying attention. Marco laid out their options, using some analysis of the danger-zones that would never have occurred to Nick personally to work out what the best next move was. They stayed in the temple. Not because it was a place that they particularly wanted to stay. The memories of reunion and of makeover were pushed aside by the weight of Princess’s death. To create new memories, to try and find new associations, to form new connotations, for the temple now seemed like an act of irreverent disrespect. Of course everywhere on the island was now a place of death. People had died everywhere.

But there was something different about being in the site of someone who’d died from...well, natural causes. Not that the causes were natural. They were all dehydrated, stressed, denied any medical attention, deprived of a good sleep and decent nutrition and just the basics of mental and physical health. To be pushed over the edge in such circumstances, to accidentally step beyond limits that had never been tested before, seemed like an obvious way to go. Surprising, even, that more hadn’t just...fallen asleep and just not opened their eyes again. Maybe there was some underlying health thing, some secret condition that made her extra vulnerable, that Nick didn’t know about, he was nowhere near close enough to Princess to be privy to that kind of info. Maybe her injuries really had been far more severe than Nick, in his non-expert opinion, had thought. Maybe. Either way, he was pretty sure that Princess wouldn’t have died if they were back home.

So yeah, natural by the causes of the island, Nick supposed.

Peaceful, that was the word. She’d died peacefully. Had time to have some final conversations. Some final moments. Her death had…okay, not her death. That was too stupid. Too romanticised. But her final days, she’d reclaimed some degree of control over them. Some semblance of them being her final days. Distinctively Princess’s. No-one else’s. He’d like a death like that. Some kind of final gesture that was Nick. In a good way, preferably. Like, if he died making a noble sacrifice about something or someone he cared about.

Or, ooh, if he died using his skills like misdirection in a way that was creative and innovative. Or that somehow turned his penchant for drama into a strength, some kind of last-minute redemption arc.

More likely, Nick supposed, was that his death would be distinctively Nick, but not in a good way. Like him punching someone in the throat or something. It’d probably involve him flipping out at someone he cared about. A horrifying thought as, well, to be blunt, only one person within reach properly fit that description. A terrifying prospect. When he pondered that a few times throughout the day, he paused. Temporarily petrified, as if every single movement made that appalling reality more feasible, closer to becoming reality. Nick had to force himself to not be scared to touch him, to remind himself that he was able to hug and caress and just be there for Marco without posing a risk.




He warmed to Katelynne.

Not in the same way he’d warmed to Marco, no. Not that Nick would completely veto the prospect - he’d rather enjoyed polyamory, shame that he’d ruined it - but it just wasn’t what he was looking for. Or what anyone else was looking for. Nick still found his mind trailing like that. He was still a fuckboy by habit, but he was finding it easier and easier to just group in those mental tangents with all the other intrusive thoughts.

Nick still didn’t know the first thing about Katelynne. She called him Nicholas.

That was funny.

He never corrected her, though. It didn’t matter. It used to matter. Nick used to think of his Christian name as carrying some weird connotations, as being a subject of mockery among everyone who heard it. That was a delusion, he realised now. Katelynne and Marco certainly didn’t treat it as such. And if there was anyone who treated it as such…

Well, fuck ‘em.

He told Marco his full name. Nicholas Domhnall Parkhurst Ogilvie. Just to see if he’d find it funny. It was a ludicrous name, after all. Domhnall Parkhurst? God, his parents were the worst sort of Edinburgh posh fucks. But Marco had liked it. Especially the Domhnall. Nick took the trouble to spell it out. Just because, hey, it was spelt weird. Marco might get a kick out of weird spellings.

Marco had answered by wondering what his middle name had been. Nick had never named anything - except for tricks and internet accounts - and he apologised for not thinking of anything.




The next day.

Henry had died. Like Abraham’s kill, it was a callback to an earlier time, but a time that still felt real, that still felt connected to who Nick currently was. And yet, functionally a stranger. Functionally someone who occupied a different life, whose experience of the island would have been alien to Nick’s.

Blaise had killed Princess. And Teresa. A lot of people. Nick had known Blaise once. And now? Well...they seemed more like some distant villain, as distinct and well-defined a character as Erika Stieglitz. Just killing people Nick cared about, but as evocative, as real, as a figure in a newspaper article.

Killing Blaise would be...not the right thing to do, exactly, but probably the best possible thing to do. It would probably save some lives for a bit longer, plus deliver vengeance to some people who needed it. But thinking about that any further would just be a...a fantasy.

Nick didn’t need fantasies. He sat up. Kissed Marco’s forehead. “I love you,” he whispered, before standing up and stretching. He’d taken to lying in during the announcements. Probably a riskier move than being alert and ready to move for them, but it made it easier to take blows, easier to handle painful announcements. Not that he needed that extra support, not when he had Marco, but it was good to be with Marco. No excuse was needed for that.

[Emprexx Plush]

Katelynne asked for both of them, but it was Nick that did most of the work. Marco did his best with the excuses at his favor. He wasn't as large as Nick, or as strong, and from the conversations they'd shared over long stretches alone he had more experience with how to safely, respectfully move someone's remains. Where Marco hesitated he was confident, Nick's touched firmed up when Marco was gentle, too gentle with the anxiety that if he held her in the wrong way she might crumple under his fingertips. There was no disputing part of that stemmed from how fragile Princess had been at the end of her life. Remembering her labor through the act of breathing was enough to make him question how she had made it this far. Marco examined her body in his arms and tried to retrace her movements for second wind suggestion that she was going to be okay before they left her last night, but he couldn't see it. In his mind her actions shrouded with a weary acceptance. Memory told him that she knew before any of them, and she was at peace.

As if he knew what it looked like for someone to accept they were going to die, or he understood Princess's condition well enough to read her innermost thoughts through a haze of fever. Of course he would remember her at peace. Marco did not trust his memory to tell him anything beyond what he wanted to ease his conscience. Almost as if to spite him another memory intruded. Flesh warmer than hers. A body that felt no less alive to the touch than his own in those few, brief seconds of inspection despite the blood pouring from her throat. So much less real than Princess yet no less fragile, no, more fragile maybe with how it separated under his hands, how easy it peeled in patches contrasted with stubborn clinginess in others, how it bled with the volume of a special effects pump stuck at maximum output or so he imagined he always looked away just before or just after they hit in the movies so he couldn't know like he couldn't know this stiff freezing limp silent thing was really his friend it didn't feel real she didn't feel he didn't he'd find her they'd understand if he-

It was strange to feel the panic spiral totally occupy his mind while his body followed Nick's moves without incident. He was breathing hard. Not harder than expected while they worked. Sweating. His pulse was raised. That was all.

His anxiety couldn't cut through his relief.

Over a hundred people had died here. None of the descriptions he remembered sounded good. They were all hungry, filthy, exhausted, terrified at the very best of their conditions, no one could actually be doing well here. From the way Katelynne talked Princess had been suffering for awhile, so she probably had it worse than most of them, so it was only fair she found her exit in the best way he had heard so far: peacefully at sleep surrounded by friends.

He hoped against his own memory that when she closed her eyes she had no idea she wouldn't wake up, and against his own advocacy that the last thing she felt before drifting away was satisfaction.

Marco didn't cry for her, which felt kind of messed up after his collapse over Theo. They had been closer. Princess had done so much more for him. He saw her body laid to rest in the temple while if he was being totally honest he was struggling to remember the details of Theo's face. The circumstances were so unfair though, in isolation and in comparison. It was hard to hurt for Princess's calm passing knowing Theo died slow with someone's hands around his neck, alone, afraid, probably confused since as far as Marco remembered the girl who strangled him had never hurt anyone else. It was unfair that either of them would die. It was unfair that Princess got to die so well while Theo died so poorly. It was unfair of him to not modulate his grief and mourn them both appropriately instead of swinging in extremes.

The announcement came after they laid her down. Princess was not on them, but Theo's killer was and he felt...what was he supposed to feel? Revenge was not among the impulses had drowned in within Nick's arms. He never wanted Camilla to die. He'd never even considered the possibility. Marco had not thought of her at all since then. Should he have? If they called Princess's name tomorrow and attached blame to her illness, should he look for whoever was responsible? Should Katelynne? After all, he didn't want Camilla to die but when he heard she had he was tugged towards a vague sense of gratitude

How many people would feel the same if Nick's name was called?

The feeling soured in his stomach.

Marco vaguely recognized her killer's name. Diego. All three of them had been friends, hadn't they? He would know. It was possible they would find each other before this was all over, and if he wasn't the kind of person to immediately attack them he could ask about her. Not accusatory. Not like people asked Nick about Beryl. Not like Garnet.

Her name still hadn't been on any side of the announcements yet.

He didn't know how to feel about that either.

There were many other names that day, but only three stood out. Yuka was gone. He was more shocked to learn Teresa hadn't directly betrayed her, but it was always possible she left her to die. It was hard to feel bad for her too. From the little time he spent with her, he had to imagine she started the fight that finished her, and the relief he felt didn't turn so quickly this time. Yuka wanted to hurt Nick. Her death meant one less person over their shoulder. It didn't feel good. It sure didn't feel bad, though.

The next was Forrest. It was harder to avoid Forrest than to know her. If her look didn't stand out enough she'd also helped throw the biggest party in the school's history, he'd be shocked if there was a single person who didn't know who she was by reputation. Her name wouldn't have meant so much to him if it wasn't for the one that killed her.

B076 - Watanabe, Abraham

Marco hadn't thought about Abraham in a long time either. Even then he hadn't given much thought to what all he stole. It'd been distant since...he couldn't remember. Some time after Kayla. Petty theft didn't seem so important after that. Marco had to wonder, though, if Abraham had taken a gun and left him the glove. From there he had to wonder if Abraham had been stuck with a weapon so intimate, would he have been able to murder his girlfriend. If Marco had been confronted by something so real, so ominously lethal, would he have been forced to confront reality sooner? Were they in a sense responsible for each other? Or were the weapons only props influencing the kind of scene that allowed their intent to manifest?

If he saw him, maybe he could ask him about that too.

When the announcement ended Marco went for his map. The three of them would have to figure out what to do next and he had some suggestions. "Um, you see," he'd started explaining, "the first week the danger zone kind of jumped from place to place? But two days ago, they started making them permanent." Marco tapped the lower right corner of the island, then shifted his fingers over the lines he'd drawn around the areas. "The Menagerie, and this one, the Upper Wilds? Then it follows this pattern," his hand jumped over the village area to the next line, "The Bay, then this morning the Lower Wilds." Marco looked up expectantly. "I, I dunno if the lines are right, but you see? Almost this whole half is cut off. They're pushing everybody up towards us, so um, I bet they start cutting off the rest of the woods, or maybe the village soon?

His fingers drummed against the paper. “So...we have options. We shouldn’t go any further east. And the farthest we should probably go west…” The ocean turned into a small river that turned into the waterfall that fed into the lake. Marco tapped that inlet. “There’s a cave under the waterfall. We could make that work again. Or um, since we’d pass through there anyway we could risk the houses. There could be people hiding in any of them though. I think, um, I think this place is gonna be some of the last shelter they leave alone, and we know nobody else is around.”

It made sense. It wasn’t a great place for defense, Marco and Nick had snuck up on them pretty easily after all, but it was four walls and a door. If Marco was right there wouldn’t be many places left that weren’t exposed within a couple of mornings. The three of them could make the best of it. Hide their supplies. Figure out escape routes if they needed them. He could do that. Marco had been practicing all week for this.

It didn’t hurt that if he kept his mind occupied with threats from the future, there’d be less room for mistakes from the past.

That evening Nick brought up his name. The whole thing, Nicholas Domhnall Parkhurst Ogilvie, for no reason Marco could determine. Asking him directly could...well, it was possible Nick was in a morbid mood. If there was purpose in telling Marco his name he would explain it if it was his to know, wouldn’t he? Unless the asking itself was a sort of test, or a cry for help of sorts, or, or suddenly Marco was thinking of graveyards, headstones, obituaries, records of passage that most of them would probably never see, that by now maybe they already had in all forms but the ones that confirmed what really happened in the off chance that they really had just disappeared until the worst was confirmed and blank space set aside for them in D.C. was filled with-

Domhnall. Like tonal but with a duh instead of a tuh and spelled nowhere near the same. N-I-C-H-O-L-A-S D-O-M-H-N-A-L-L P-A-R-K-H-U-R-S-T O-G-I-L-V-I-E. He wrote it down. Nick didn’t ask him why, and Marco didn’t promise him it’d be spelled right on the monument. He didn’t even want to admit he’d thought it.

Marco didn’t know what his middle name used to be, or what it should be now. He fell asleep that night scrolling through the list in his mind.

Roy.

Benji.

Tosin.

James.

Alexander.

Nicholas.

On, and on, and on.

---

Marco was awake before the announcements next morning, but he stayed still in Nick’s arms until they demanded attention.

Teresa died so soon after Yuka. As sure as Marco had been that they’d be the death of each other, it looked like maybe they were all that was holding each other together. As far as he knew Teresa hadn’t hurt anyone since Reuben, but as soon as Yuka was gone she killed again and got herself killed in the process. According to the voice above them the same person shot her that had wounded Princess. Marco had someone to blame. It wouldn’t make him feel any better.

That was a lie.

It wouldn’t make him feel better for the right reasons, and he wouldn’t let himself think about the wrong ones now.

Diego killed again. Marco recognized Henry’s name, he had killed the other Marco who in turn had earned a lot of praise from their host before he passed. Trying to sort out the hypothetical motives of everyone involved was messy, too messy for him to entertain this early in the morning, he could feel the spiral starting just thinking about it. One more thing to ask Diego about if he ever met him. Chances were looking more and more likely; the village was cut off as he’d predicted, a full half of the island largely inaccessible now and only thirty people left alive. Inevitably they were going to start crowding each other. That had to be the point. All the more reason to avoid unnecessary movement.

There was temptation to try and find somewhere secluded enough nearby for him and Nick to be alone. They’d developed a consistent routine for how to handle long stretches of downtime, but a mix of embarrassment and practicality kept him from voicing the idea. He didn’t want to risk Katelynne stumbling into them. Or answering any awkward questions when they showed back up. Or coming back to find that there was no one to ask questions at all.

Nick's kiss lingering on his forehead was enough. "I love you too," he whispered back.

[Jilly]

Katelynne didn't say much after that for the whole day, even past the announcements and as the moon came and went. Everything felt numb. She couldn't shed a tear for Princess, now long removed from the bastardized temple and rotting in privacy. She couldn't shed a tear for Yuka, another name from the first day she thought about a lot more than she expected but got struck down like the rest—it really was just Katelynne and the Mexican dude now, wherever he disappeared to.

Tyrell, too. She wasn't crying over him. Maybe she was more mad, if anything. She didn't know anymore. Maybe she didn't care. Maybe she was just a bad person.

Marco and Nicholas weren't bad people. What a heck of a concept considering they both had blood attached to them, just like Tyrell. But like Tyrell, that blood didn't besmirch their character. At least it didn't seem like it. Katelynne still didn't know how to feel about the whole Kayla thing. Not in a way that would make her consider becoming a vigilante against Marco specifically considering Kayla was... not one of her favorite people, but more in a "huh, small world" kinda way. Enemy of the mutual enemy of my sister kinda thing, if anything. But it was still an elephant in the room, just one shoved in the back with a tarp over it.

Katelynne nodded along with their talk about holding down the fort and what the next plan was, just putting in the minimal effort of attachment. Not like she had anywhere else to go, but they weren't Princess. They weren't even Liberty.

She spent the rest of the day watching Princess, making sure no one disturbed her. She wrote, too, on the pages of the yearbook with the most amount of free space. She didn't finish until sometime in the morning, right before the next round of announcements.

Liars.

Katelynne shook her head; there was a more important task than brooding over fake news. She read over her marks in the book, past the pages of blacked-out scribbles and spelling mistakes and probably incomprehensible nonsense that could never be good enough but was something. And then she took off her frayed cardigan, wrapped it around the yearbook, and set it down by Princess before rejoining Marco and Nicholas.

Just like every other day, life went on.

[VoltTurtle]

((The temple rose ominously above the surrounding scenery of the cliffside. It carried an almost strange life of its own, maintaining constant vigil of the island below.))

Marceline didn't think she would return to the cliffside so soon after she split with Roxanne, but the available space on the island was rapidly dwindling as the game drew to a close, pushing herself and her classmates to higher and higher elevations like the rising tide. Having left the infirmary after collecting her prize, she only had a handful of options on where to go. She didn't yet want to return to the lake, and spending more time wandering the woods listening fervently for every snapping branch and rustle of leaves didn't sound very appealing, either.

With the late morning sun beating down on the back of her neck and bringing with it its unbearable heat, more than anything she wanted to seek shelter, which would mean either visiting the inner circle or the temple. She had chosen the temple not only for its relative isolation compared to the more clustered buildings of the inner circle, but also due to its slightly lower elevation. While the meal she had been so graciously given by her vile benefactors had invigorated her, she didn't feel like climbing all the way to the top of the island just yet. For now, she just wanted a place to rest in relative safety, with as few lines of sight and positions where she could be picked off from afar as possible.

She brought the two liter of Sprite up to her lips once again, tipping her head back as she drained the bottle of the last of its sweet, fizzy contents, before tossing it aside, it landing in the soft grasses near the temple without a sound. She was close to the building now, with the nearby memorial garden clearly visible and presently empty. To think, yesterday in that same spot, she had turned everything around for herself, all the while believing her actions had spelled out her own doom. No longer would it serve as a place of bad memories and nothing more. Now it was just another place, just as haunted and filled with enemies as anywhere else on the island.

Right, enemies. Marceline was constantly on guard for any potential threats, continuously scanning her surroundings for movement, listening intently for any approaching threats between the distinctive, faint cracks of distant gunfire. If her wanderings were to lead her into a fateful encounter, she was more than ready. Amelia's handgun was clutched tightly in her right hand, currently pointed at the ground as she walked, but loaded and ready to be used at any time, with the extra magazine tucked away in her left pocket. Between both dual-magazines, she had sixteen shots and thirty-two bullets with which to dispatch any threats. If that happened to fail, then Dolly's knife sat patiently in her right pocket and the hilt of her sword poked out from behind her left shoulder, both blades ready to be drawn in either hand at a moment's notice.

The temple itself was likely to hold threats within, possibly even a group trying their best to defend themselves, due to its status of being the only place of genuine shelter in the nearby area. If Marceline were to enter, she could likely be outnumbered, and maybe even outgunned, and she needed to be prepared for that possibility. She was well equipped to deal with one of her classmates, but more than two would likely prove difficult to deal with if any of them happened to have firearms of their own. Hit-and-run tactics would be her best bet if she was facing multiple armed opponents, but her job would be significantly easier if none of them had guns, as all the power would be in her own hands.

She stopped not too far outside the entrance, off to one side, taking note of the nearby corpse and the book resting next to it that hadn't been there when she had last visited the area. The body was recognizably McQuillan's, someone whom she had always found to be quite pretty back in George Hunter, but never got the chance to get to know beyond passing familiarity. It was a shame that she never had the chance to understand who McQuillan really was before all of this, but she wouldn't allow herself to mourn the girl's passing. All of her classmates had to die, and they would. She'd kill them all by herself, if she absolutely had to. Had McQuillan still been alive right in front of her, she would have put a bullet in the girl's skull.

That was simply the way of this place. There would be no avoiding it, as much as she might want to.

Sidling up next to the open entrance doors and taking her gun in both hands, Marceline listened intently for any noises she could pick up through the faint ringing in her ears, and caught the distinctive sound of indistinct voices coming from within. Two, or maybe even three individuals? The interior of the temple was a mystery to her, as she had never actually been inside, so entering with that information in mind was risky. Should she know of their positions, that would take a lot of the guesswork out of eliminating them as threats. Perhaps, to that end, she could scout the inside before breaching and opening fire.

Slowly poking her head around the frame of the entryway just enough for her to see inside, she briefly took stock of the interior before ducking back out of view. Her face contorted into a look of rage as all-too-familiar anger bubbled beneath the surface, before both the expression and the rage dissipated just as quickly as they had come. Three people were inside, near the back of the temple, roughly matching the voices she had heard coming from within. She recognized all three of them, but one of them in particular was almost intimately familiar to her. Kirkpatrick, Hart, and Ogilvie. Beryl's killer, right here with her, once again.

She couldn't really blame him for Beryl's death anymore, at least not morally, else she would have to blame herself for what happened with Amelia. That being said, if there was anyone on this island that she would actively like to see dead besides d'Aramitz, it had to be him, regardless of whether or not his story was the truth. She still wasn't convinced that he hadn't been lying to her back at the waterfall, and she supposed that in light of her new goal it didn't actually matter all that much. He had to die regardless, along with both of his companions.

To that end, she carefully peaked inside again, a bit longer this time, trying to see what weaponry she was potentially up against. She had not seen a gun on either Ogilvie or Hart during their last confrontation, but they could have easily picked one up, or Kirkpatrick could have one herself. Thankfully for her, she didn't see any duffel bags nearby the three of them, and cursory examination showed no obvious firearms present on any of them. With her current distance to them and her own armaments, it appeared that she would hold the advantage in a fight, even though she was outnumbered.

Returning to her position against the wall just out of view, she squeezed the handgun tightly in anticipation as her heart began to hammer in her ears. She had eight shots in one magazine. That was six bullets for two of them, and four for the last one. If she placed her shots carefully, none of them would have the chance to get close to her, and that would be three threats taken care of. If any of them pulled a hidden firearm, she would simply duck out of view and double back to take them out. It would be easy, so much easier than it had been with Amelia. She didn't care for two of them, and she even hated one of them.

Despite that, she waited, not yet making her move.

[General Goose]

Nick continued stretching, because there was nothing else to do to fill the time that felt productive or enjoyable, not while Marco was still in the process of getting up. It was strange how quickly Nick had grown used to all the normal features of a morning routine being stripped away. Both the necessities and luxuries of modern life now seemed like a trifling minor detail, even though he knew that their absence was just another grievous insult of this place, that long-term survival was rendered impossible by the deprivation.

But for now, it seemed like a new routine had developed. That Nick's demands in life had...adjusted downwards. Adapted to privation and hardship, internalised the constant fear and all the aches and pains as just life. It was scary how quickly he had grown used to injustice. Scary how quickly he'd accepted that he had, at times, violently and enthusiastically been complicit in it. Yet he hadn't lost his humanity.

Katelynne was a friend - a friend that he knew next to nothing about, a friend who's pre-island reputation he could bearly remember - but she was a friend. The friendship was one borne from them just...sharing the same spatial and temporal zone, being by the same person's side as she died, neither trying to kill the other. What a stupid reason for a friendship, if he thought about it. But it made sense. It worked. And if Nick thought about it, well, all his reasons for friendships and rivalries and love interests back home? They were even dumber.

And Marco...

Well, Marco was his boyfriend. And Nick was determined to be a decent one for once.

"So, what's the plan for today?" he said, finishing off by stretching his legs against the wall of the temple. The temple looked worse for wear. The collapsed roof-beam. The decaying graffiti, washed off by rain, on the outside. The ruined painting. The scattered marshmallows. Each told a story. One that he'd never know.

Could have made a game out of it, if they weren't all definitely tied up in someone's death.

[Emprexx Plush]

Marco groaned trying to stretch the fatigue out of his body. The temple kept the safe from anymore rain storms, sure, but the floor was more uncomfortable than anywhere they'd slept since the cave. That'd been a little better since he was able to pull together things from his bags to make a pillow and cover himself in old clothes, it was sort of like sleeping in a really crappy bed. Since he'd hid his bag yesterday he was down to nothing but a bottle of water to get through the night. Now that the announcement had passed he should probably go collect it. In a minute. A couple minutes more on the floor couldn't hurt one way or the other.

"They got the village," he mumbled. Gosh his eyes stung. He sat up rubbing them and tried to repeat himself more clearly. "The village. It's gone now too. Anybody left on that side is coming through the forest, so they're..." Marco pointed to the east and almost fell over. Coffee. Coffee please. The mountain dew was gone and he'd made it past the worst of the withdrawals rationing it, but he was still so bone tired every morning. How did people live like this? "Probably coming up that side, or, or out of the village maybe, if they got stuck there, so..." He reached for a bag that wasn't there. Right. He'd just thought about that. Gotta go get it. Gotta get up. Gotta...

Zzzzzzzzzzzznrk he was awake he was here where's the bus?! Bag. Bag was outside. Gotta go outside. Marco looked around the room trying to remember where the door was and found it leaning open across the room.

And he was wide awake.

"Have, um, have you been outside today?"

[Jilly]

Katelynne nodded along with the map discourse, finally speaking up for probably the longest stretch in the last day. "Yeah, the menagerie thingy got blocked off earlier, so I think we're safe to hang around a bit... if anything, it looks like people gotta go through this inner circle place to get here. Looks like they're more or lessshuffling everyone in from the right side. Might need to get a move on in that case though since we might be called next, but we have... we have time."

She cringed at that word. But she really was ready to leave this place. The longer she stayed, the more she hated the walls and the must and funk and everything.

Marco mentioned about being outside today. Katelynne looked at him with a puzzled look before looking over yonder at the front door, too.

There was a shadow on the ground that wasn't there before, ever.

She looked over at Nicholas and Marco before shouting back to the intruder.

"Who's there?"

[VoltTurtle]

There went the element of surprise.

Marceline froze, her heart fluttering as her teeth clenched and eyes shot wide open when she heard Kirkpatrick call out to her. She clearly hadn't been as sneaky as she had thought she was being. Now that her cover was blown she had to think fast and act fast, every second wasted was another chance where they could draw a hidden gun and chase her down.

In a burst of movement, she shoved herself off the wall, spinning around the door frame and facing the group, the piercing gaze of the gun's twin barrels staring them down far more effectively than she ever could. She was here now, in the thick of it, and there was no going back. All she had to do was start shooting, and it'd be over in a flash.

Any yet, she hesitated, again.

Why again, why now? Hadn't she already moved past this? Had she not already already gone through the motions on why it was okay for her to do this? On why her classmates all had to die, and how she was sure she could do it all by herself if she had to? What was stopping her? Why couldn't she just start pulling the trigger?

"Nobody fucking move," she commanded, doing her best to maintain control of the situation. "You sneeze, you die."

[General Goose]

That was the benefit to asking the question. Meant that Nick - hardly the intellectual powerhouse of the group - had time to process his own thoughts, recover his own bearings, before having to commit to giving an opinion on whatever was going on. He was happy with that division of labour. It suited him. Seemed to be in the group's best interests too. Even when Marco was still groggy from waking up, he seemed to be smarter than Nick. A more insightful thinker. More layers to his thinking. Nick's job was to stand there and look...well, not pretty exactly, but yeah. Whatever. To be there and do whatever it was Nick does.

If there were flaws in Marco's analysis, Nick didn't see them. Katelynne didn't seem to see them either and...well, nobody had exploited Marco's strategy yet. Marco was still alive. His collar hadn't been popped. The proof was in the pudding. Marco had managed to keep both himself alive and, even more impressively, Nick. Even with the enemies that they'd made. Even with how difficult Nick had made that task, with how challenging it presumably was to corral and control him even at the best of times. Marco had succeeded. He'd made it this far. Nick, by being by his side, had been lucky in a way that would have seemed ludicrous when he first woke up on the island.

The door was open.

They'd closed it. Nick hadn't been outside. He and Marco had been entangled in an embrace. And Katelynne, as was obvious from her expression, definitely hadn't. Nick knew what that meant. It wasn't the wind. Wasn't some anachronistic automatic door mechanism. They weren't a sleepwalking bunch. It was an intruder.

His tri-dagger was on the side, perched on a stray brick. So he wouldn't roll onto it while sleeping, so it was within reach. Nick was midway through darting towards it when Marcy entered and, as quickly as he'd started moving, he stopped. Was surprised at how quickly he was able to move and stop when the stakes were so high. There wasn't time to dwell on that, no. He had to stay still. Perfectly still. Even if he got to the knife, it would just mean he'd be the first one to be shot.

He looked at the knife.

Looked back at Marcy. "Okay. Okay. Chill."

[Emprexx Plush]

It was all his fault.

There was an unspoken but understood division of duties between them. Nick was strong. Nick knew how to talk to people. Nick understood how to fish, how to forage, how to ration, at least insomuch as he understood these things better than Marco. Nick was comforting. Nick had a presence that imparted safety and made others hesitate about attacking them despite how much they often wanted to hurt him. The only time Marco had seen violence, real consequential violence, was when he tried to face someone without Nick at his side. He wasn't stupid. Marco could recognize a pattern. For all his fantasies about how he would defend Nick with everything he had if they were forced to fight, he'd never had very much. Blows came and they only stopped when Nick finished their fights. When it came to conflict resolution, Marco was useless to him. He understood that. It was Marco's job to prevent the need for conflict in the first place. Keep them moving, keep their space and supplies safe, plan out their days in such a way that it was unlikely that they would run into anyone and if they did, they would have ways out. Barring that, put as many obstacles between Nick and danger as he could figure out.

He should have been awake before the announcements.

He should have had them moving under their cover.

He should have worn his glove to sleep.

He should have been waiting behind the frame for anyone who wanted to come inside.

He should have blocked the door.

But he wanted to spend another night in the illusion Nick's arms brought that this could be normal.

Marco looked to Nick in the corner of his eye. If he noticed him he didn't dare return his gaze. One glance away, then Nick's eyes were fixed on the girl in the doorway. It'd been several days since they'd last seen each other. Marco's memories of Marceline were hazy, to put it gently. He remembered the edge in her voice when she said Nick's name, so much shakier than it was now. Then standing up. A weak threat. A memory echoing memory echoing memory.

If she tried to hurt Nick, he would slit her fucking throat himself.

Oh. Marco had been unarmed then too. Strange how that seemed the only similar detail. It had only been a few days but already recalling his thoughtless bravado only made his stomach turn. It had seemed easy then. Toxic courage mixed with a subconscious knowledge that if he was the one who got stabbed he deserved it, and Nick would make something of his mistakes. Or was that giving himself too much credit? Had he thought of Nick at all, really, or was he too wrapped up swinging in the binary of violent self-actualization pitted against penitent self-destruction? If he was honest with the knowledge of what came after Marceline left them alone, was protecting Nick ever anything more than an excuse to feed those worst impulses in himself?

He had changed. It was sad. Looking at the barrels of Marceline's gun, he had to wonder if what Nick would find most useful at this moment was a reckless meat shield. There was the possibility that if her bluff was called she'd hesitate; she wanted Nick, right? She hadn't even known who he was, so if he made a move she might flinch. Back then was not so indiscriminate a murderer as to take advantage of Marco's collapse to get her revenge. She'd been certain then too, right up until the moment that she wasn't. The Marceline they'd met under the waterfall didn't seem to have it in her to gun down a whole group of people with a moment's notice.

The Marceline in the door looked alien to the Marceline they'd met under the waterfall. Similarities existed; they wore the same clothes though hers were noticeably filthier, their voices sounded similar enough, their faces had no shocking differences, all the obvious details like that. They were dissimilar in more ways though. This one had wrapped the entirety of her arms in gauze stained up and down with blood that also marked her hands, suggesting much of it was not her own. Marceline's hair had been well down the length of her back before but this girl's grungy locks were cut in uneven chunks around her head, drawing attention to the undyed roots under the fading pink at the extremities. Alongside the gun she was aiming at them she held a large sword. Unlike everything else on her person it was clean, which spoke to the two more important differences her appearance alone could not reflect.

When Marceline walked away from them at the waterfall, she was restrained by a friend. When Marceline had confronted Nick before, they had been the only murderers present. Marceline was now alone. She had been celebrated over the loudspeaker that morning for the death of someone he did not recognize. Ironically enough, Marceline had slit her fucking throat herself.

Marco looked to Nick again and despite the risk could not tear himself away from Nick still so calm. Marceline didn't have to speak for both of them to know where this was going. Every time they met someone it was the same questions. Same answers. It never satisfied them, Marceline stood as living proof of that. Still Nick did not waver. He was ready to do it all again. Even if he had to do it again tomorrow. Even if this was the last time.

Marco stared. He did not allow himself to blink. Any moment could be the last time he saw Nick alive and in control before she pulled the trigger.

No matter how long she made them wait, they would never wake up beside each other again.

It was all his fault.