My 66 Faces

[Jilly]

((Welcome home, princess.))

What a day.

Marco didn't talk much after the temple. Not like Katelynne was up much for talking either, but the only sounds between them for the majority of the last few hours was their footsteps pattering along the ground as they wandered around. Whether intentional or not, they found themselves back at the waterfall. Marco spoke up about maybe taking a break. That was probably a good idea.

After all, Katelynne still had business here.

The roaring of the waterfall grew louder and louder as Katelynne descended down to the mouth of the cave. She stood just outside the entrance and threw the big rock in her hands. It resonated and reverberated through the whole area, barely audible but still present.

She gave it a few minutes for any signs of life before drawing closer, looking around the entrance with the flashlight. Safe for now. Though maybe if she was lucky, a cave monster could come and gobble her up.

It was... about right here. Yeah. She was sure of it.

She sat down on a barely large enough rock, pulled her knees in together, and sat in silence watching the water fall overhead. The cold droplets plopped against her exposed face and arms.

[Emprexx Plush]

((Blaise And Carl D'Aramitz Continued From Acquiesce))

Y'all look like shit.

Thank you for your contributions.

He-that is to say they, though perhaps more accurately he as he was them and they were-nevermind. The observation was not inaccurate. Blaise could not recall the last time they exerted this much physical activity. Hauling the stones in and up and around the cave with a flashlight biting into their side into what they could only assume was a nasty looking impression by now was not what they would consider normal activity, and it showed. Sweat dripped all over their body. There was grit worked all over their borrowed clothes and their wig kept drooping unseemly, it'd fallen to the ground more than once in their trips. It did not help their short breath that they wouldn't allow themself to gasp for air until they were deep enough in the cave to be reasonably certain their wheezing would not echo. An unnecessary precaution, they convinced themself as much now that they sat near the bottom of the cave with their work accomplished. They had not seen a soul at any point, so if someone was watching they had been very, very, very patient.

Any minute now.

Pardon?

A loud crash echoed from the mouth of the cave.

What did you do?

What?

You, you knew, what have you orchestrated?

As the disembodied voice of an imaginary cowboy I gotta ask if you understand how fuckin' crazy you sound right now?

They waited in silence for someone to come down the path. Light would be betray them, or an errant grunt when the stumbled the wrong way, if Blaise allowed the intruder to come to them it would be over quickly enough. Except that it wasn't. Time dragged on in darkness, by the count of their heartbeat they were certain it had been no less than an hour or perhaps even two when they rose aching from their post and pointed the gun into the twisting passage up and out.

For the record? Three minutes, maybe four tops.

Fuck off, Carl.

Up and down and around enough times in their labor that they could feel their way through the cave reasonably well without risk, at least until the light from its mouth illuminated their position. The waterfall was too loud to hear anyone approaching by that point. With their pistol in their right hand they were forced to use their left to feel up the walls which drew a wince of pain each time they forgot to manage the weight correctly, but they would not cry out. They would disrupt this obvious trap laid up top in complete stealth, and when they found whoever was responsible for it...hmm.

A moment.

Why does she look familiar?

Opportunity presented itself blatantly enough. A tiny figure with auburn hair staring up into the waterfall, not unlike the stories Blaise had heard of turkeys in the rain. The figure did not seem apt to drown themself watching the water fall, but they may near as well after causing such a disturbance and then leaving their back to the cave unexplored. Muscle memory or something near enough reminded them of how they crept on a similar target at most hours ago, and how much simpler it would be to make sure their first shot found their head this time, but there was a hesitance tugging in their chest. Fleeting recognition.

Y'all suck at this. All the folks stuck up in your head and you forgot all about the most important one.

Katelynne.

The gun dropped to their side, though they did not put it away. "Hello."

Hey mama.

Gross. Weird. Gross and weird.

[Jilly]

Someone else indeed was here, or the hunger and exhaustion was finally getting to her.

Katelynne whipped around, but she couldn't see anything, not right away. But farther back in the cave, there indeed was someone else, or at least a figure of one. Someone that looked familiar but just as alien, with something shiny in one of their hands. Their greeting was friendly, but they could just as well be a foe. She stayed rooted in her spot just the same.

"Hello," she echoed back with a raised voice, hesitating for a few seconds before continuing on. "Sorry for disturbing ya. I just wanna sit here for a sec."

She faced the waterfall again. She crossed her arms and felt every water droplet plonk against her skin.

[Emprexx Plush]

Hmm. Surprise but at its most basic level. Katelynne's body language spoke to shock that Blaise existed at all, not who they were, which played down equal paths. Either Katelynne had been party to such violence that a blood stained killer holding a gun no longer excited her survival instinct, or she did not recognize so much as a single detail of their appearance.

Y'all gotta let me talk to her.

What? No.

On consideration the latter option was not so unlikely. The last time they met Blaise had worn different clothes, different eyes. Katelynne seemed disinterested. The dots might connect if she paid attention, but she was elsewhere. Simple enough then to go past her. Simpler still to shoot her as she ignored them if that was their desire.

Nah. I'm puttin' my foot down on this'n.

Oh this is a new delusion. Are we a democracy?

Just talk to the gal.

It was not what they desired. "Why?"

[Jilly]

Katelynne shrugged, though the jury was out if that was because of the question or because of chills from the splashing water.

"Why are you hidin' in a cave?"

[Emprexx Plush]

Hmm. She was unhelpful. Stalling? Blaise's eyes darted around the scene but could not make out other shapes beyond the waterfall. Still...an ambush? Draw them out with a loud sound, offer up bait, surprise them with their guard down? Yes. That was a sensible plan.

"I was not hiding."

How much did she actually know? Had she seen them work in the cave? Had she seen them kill the boy in the garden? Or was either unnecessary? Dante, Dolly, Alexander, Joanne, Megan, Julien, Teresa, Princess...it could be any of them, or the two names lost to them. A combination, perhaps, if she was operating a group. Out of some 30 people left alive any could have connections. Katelynne was accommodating. She would help their pursuers as she helped them with only a degree of consciousness dividing her actions. "Who are you with?"

But they were already answering in their mind. Ace. Faith. Princess, she had some association in the other Violet, had she died? Marceline, Anna seemed intent she would hunt her down and she had made impression enough in the morning. It was possible they expected too much empathy. Just as likely someone forced the girl here at gunpoint with no regard whether she lived or died. Justin. Erika. Michael might have it in him. There would be a certain satisfaction if they had affected him so, but that was irrelevant. They were ahead of themself. Katelynne would reveal her affiliation soon enough, one way or the other.

[Jilly]

There was just enough of an uncomfortably long pause before Katelynne replied. "It's just you and me right now, bud, unless you're just a ghost."

She turned her head back towards the cave. "Are you?"

[Emprexx Plush]

She did not answer their question, but she asked a more entertaining one. Almost as acceptable.

"After a fashion, I suppose."

Entertainment was a rarer resource than knowledge these days.

"Have you forgotten me?"

[Jilly]

Katelynne turned away from the shadow again and plucked at her nails. They were so dirty. Mom would be so mad at her right now for not taking care of them.

...Was she forgetting someone?

"I don't think so," she finally replied. "There's a lot I wish I could forget, but pain is important, too."

She paused, and then added, "You can come out and give me a refresher, if ya want."

[Emprexx Plush]

She really didn't know. Katelynne had no idea who they were, and there were opportunities in that ignorance. The approaching entrance to the cave blurred in memory with the wall of one of the houses and a window pane under the barrel of their rifle.

"They were all his fault. The rest will be too."

Blaise wondered how Daria had been in the days since they parted. There would be three, four, perhaps as many as five names resting on her conscience by proxy in the morning. They had lost count. She wouldn't have. If they saw each other again she imagined Daria could tell them every one.

"You gave me clothes that first night."

Guilt by association was a powerful thing. Doubtless it had driven many of their classmates to grief since their arrival, for many the implication that they might have had a hand in grotesque misdeed was enough to turn their stomachs even if they were certain of their own innocence. How much stronger must it be then without that comfort? When one knows the opposite, that they are compromised? Complicit? When guilt morphs from association to accomplice?

"I have not forgotten. I owe you."

They would have to settle for asking Daria if they saw her again. Katelynne's ignorance could serve a more practical purpose than her horror.

[Jilly]

A pitiful smile flashed across Katelynne's face, visible only to the relentless waterfall.

"Guess they just can't kill either of us, huh? Glad to see you're still hangin' on, too."

She meant it. It was a strange pleasure, thinking back to the chaos of the first day. That initial dread and despair, now firmly just... dunno, a feeling. Melancholy, maybe? Nothing as obtusely sophisticated or pretentious as that... maybe more like emptiness, but that wasn't it either. She wished she could feel things again, but that was forgone now.

Some more awkwardly long time passed before she spoke up again. "...I'm sure you owe me nothin'. I've only hurt everyone I tried to help. I'm sure you'd be better off yourself if I jumped off the edge right this second."

She hugged her knees tighter and waited.

[Emprexx Plush]

People fell into patterns. Personal, social, instinctual, habitual, so on. It was no less true here. Katelynne communicated with the tension wound body language of one reflecting great personal tragedy, resignation yearning for the ability to yearn for anything but yearning, loss and want compressing the fuel of desire into the harsh, jagged gem of acceptance she now wore diadem displayed for whoever came upon her. Of course she did not recognize them truly; if she remembered her charity at all she did not openly mark the difference in their mannerisms. She did not see them. They were as any other person who could have emerged from the cave with arms in hand. A witness to her self-destruction or an actor that would bring it out, identity did not matter beyond that point. Katelynne was finished, and in her own mind there was likely some unique brutality to the path that brought her to that end. Unfortunate fo her that under her own power she had become so...common. Cookie cutter, as they called it, a reflection of a reflection of a reflection ad infinitum stretching across not only the days their class had shared but every other iteration before them. The same blank riddled story filled in with new names and places but no other novelty beyond it. What she could not possibly conceive is that the most cruel, tragic thing that could be done in this moment was to end her in this hollow echo of-

Lord Alive can y'all get to the point already?

There is an art to these things.

Mmmhmm, I got bouquets for you both but get to the curtain call. You gotta both know y'all are playin' around. Ain't nobody talk like this, so-

I don't know that she is playing.

Come again now?

I do not know that. There is no way for me to, as I do not know her. I imagine others in the same games I play with myself, but I cannot say that they play with me. I do not know. I do not know what people do. I have never understood.

It was all in their head.

They played anyway.

The path most cruel went ignored, then. Cruelty was not useful to them in this moment. Katelynne echoed many people, yes, the Dantes, the Princesses, the Megans, the Juliens, but it was a more recent figure that caused Blaise to find value in her. In Katelynne Blaise found Anna, a useless thing discarded by whatever had kept it in play to this point hoarding resources never to be used other than as a sort of plumage to draw predators upon it. In that comparison they found a solution. The primary thing that separated Katelynne from Anna was that Anna was armed. Defense paradoxically left Anna more at risk since she would never protect herself, only present the spectre of a threat to encourage those more trigger happy than Blaise to shoot first and collect her things later. Placed in the same position, Blaise suspected Katelynne would make many of the same mistakes. She simply had not had the opportunity.

"I do owe you, though."

Yet.

"I was not hiding in the cave. Something else is, however. Rightmost curve at the very bottom,, under the rocks and the dirty blanket. You should find it without trouble if you use your flashlight. It is not my best work."

No more unknown figures rooting through their supplies and coming up armed. No more bullets from corpses. No surprises. A gamble, certainly, but one with a comfortably known risk factor. Placed in the same position, Katelynne would make herself appear a threat to those well armed enough that their gift would be largely a lateral move if secured. On an even odder outcome she might surprise them and find use for the weapons herself, but that was so faint a possibility that it would be entertaining if it came to pass. Even then, they would know. They would remember her regardless if she remembered them, and when the time came to approach her again they would come to the table with superior knowledge. It would not be so terrible a problem.

They moved forward, pistol still swinging at their side but casually. Nowhere near Katelynne. They did not even look at her as they passed.

"B066. I believe you will find its contents useful. Allow me the conscience of squaring our debts."

Give it a day, maybe two. They would hear her name on one side of the announcements or the other. Either worked. Probably.

You got no idea what you're doin', huh?

I never have, except when I do.

There is never a difference.

((Blaise And Carl D'Aramitz Continued In Stop Crying Your Heart Out))

[Jilly]

"Wait, what do you mean-"

When Katelynne turned back around, the cold and lonely cave was her only companion. She gave it a few more minutes before standing back up and shining the flashlight in. Nothing.

...

She kicked a rock into the waterfall and tapped her foot on the ground a few times before looking back to the cave.

This better not be another lie like everyone else.

---

So much must've happened here in the last few days. Three dead bodies, though only one Katelynne really recognized. Paloma, the first murderer or so what Princess said. Gunned down and thrown away in the dark, just like that. There were two other boys, but they looked like they were here for a while. Wonder if Liberty was like this now, too, or Dante.

Katelynne had to hold back the urge to vomit. She had things to do, at the very bottom of the rightmost curve.

Dead end. This must've been it. She waved the light around the floor of the damp chamber. There was a pile of rocks crushing what looked like some sort of blanket blending in with the grays and blacks of its surroundings. She probably would've missed it if it weren't for the tip.

She looked behind her, just in case, before she started to toss the rocks aside one at a time.

When enough weight was removed, she snatched the blanket and tore it all away.

The bag. "B066". Maybe this wasn't a ruse after all. But if it weren't, it still didn't make much sense why that boy wanted to help her so bad. She was probably being played for a fool in either case, but she didn't care anymore.

She hesitantly reached for and opened the bag, flapping it open and groping around in the dark with the flashlight set down.

There was something long, cold, and metallic in a weird shape, like it had a grip to hold, like a...

She pulled it out and brought it closer to the light.

A rifle. Gray and black. Heavy. Looked like the sorta thing they'd throw at a barely-18 year old infantryman. Even Dad didn't have one quite like this.

There was a crossbow thing, too. And plenty of ammunition to go with both weapons.

How was this not some sort of trick? Why would someone just do this out of the goodness of their heart for a tshirt? It didn't make any goddamn sense. None of this made any sense. She hated this. She hated this so much.

But a gift was a gift. And if she was being played for a fool, well, she'd show him.

((She'd show them all.))