A peaceful evening it was, then. No one came to investigate the campfire at the lookout, nor did anyone try to take potshots at the exposed position. The collar radar didn't pick up anything each time Erika switched it on. As darkness set in and the fire died down to a faint smoulder, she eventually stopped checking it.
The bird was surprisingly good, although Erika couldn’t be sure whether that wasn’t just because of the steady diet of stale crackers and granola bars she’d been on since the fifth day. It tasted gamey and distinctive; like if chicken had a more pronounced flavour of its own instead of tasting mostly vague and uninteresting. It wasn’t difficult to give up when she’d changed her eating habits back home, but this flavour might’ve actually been one she wanted to seek out. On some level she was kind of glad she didn’t know what kind of bird it actually was.
With a full stomach came a wave of exhaustion, and she passed out next to the lookout platform just as points of light began to poke through the night sky.
Day 13
Her rest was better than most of the nights, though that was a pretty low bar. The few hours in a sweet and still abyss were difficult to appreciate given what punctuated them. It was one of those nightmares that seemed more like a memory suddenly found on waking up; something that she knew she immediately didn’t want to remember.
The cut in her side tore open. Viscera spilled out onto a pile on the ground. In the logic of the dream, Erika thought all she had to do was gather them and stuff them back in. Liver, kidneys, stomach, intestine. When she reached down, she found she had instead dug her hands into a pile of giant centipedes, each of their red heads bristling with venomous mandibles that promptly bit down into her arms.
She awoke with a start, frantically fighting off creatures that weren’t really there. After a few moments the terror faded, a quiet dread filling the space left behind. No matter the physical dangers she escaped from, the mental ones weren’t going to leave. It was possible every morning she continued to live, she’d continue to fight off things that weren’t there anymore. Though it wasn’t some kind of new revelation, dwelling on that idea always managed to make her feel like she’d begin to sink into the ground at any moment.
Rubbing her eyes, she checked the collar radar and the presence of her weapons before getting up from the sorry nook she had crawled into to sleep. The little fire she made hours ago was still smouldering, barely, as she saw small trails of smoke rising in the scant grey-blue light of the early morning.
The day’s checklist offered no surprises. Erika fixed her bandages, and tossed away old ones. Checked for the smell of sickness on the wounds to her leg and torso, before covering them back up. She switched pairs of socks. Reloaded magazines for her pistol, and placed them in the pockets she knew she’d remember to reach for. Ran small pieces of cloth through the Martini-Henry’s bore with the cleaning rod, until the last one came out mostly free of powder fouling.
It was all routine, passing without much thought, which was just as well. Erika’s thoughts were elsewhere. As she worked through each necessary, mundane task, she stole glances out off the lookout platform. The south end of the island was where this was all headed, if the pattern indicated by each subsequent danger zone was any indication. The day before she’d mused that it might’ve been the Inner Circle or the Cliffs - both seemed like good enough places to stage confrontations. Better than the wide expanse of the Woods, at least.
There would be a few hours at least before the announcements would be read, and she had no intention of being caught slow on the draw when it came to getting out of here. Reaching the last remaining places on the island would take time, especially if she was trying to be cautious. Others would have the same idea.
I suppose there will soon be fewer people left than I’ve killed so far. Should I feel confident about that?
Erika knew she found purpose in being the one to personally remove each obstacle to her survival. If she was going to survive at the expense of the rest, she wanted to see it done. To know the cost, to own the suffering she’d benefit from if she lived. As the person she was now, she knew she wouldn’t listen to voices that told her she didn’t deserve to survive at their expense. That sentiment wouldn’t be able to harm her. Others couldn’t question her right to live if she knew she’d earned it. The person she used to be wouldn't have gotten this far. That Erika would’ve already died in person, instead of just in spirit.
The last two weeks had been an exercise in becoming what she needed to be: a thing that killed, and would survive. Now she could switch off the part of her that wanted any other option, that needed desperately to care as much for other lives as she did for her own. She turned the hatred in her heart outwards, towards circumstance and those she now knew as enemies, instead of to her own nature.
She was hurt and tired, sure. Radar aside, there were surely others better-equipped than her. There were those who were better, who could still claim to be good people, who still had allies in spite of how close to the end they all were. There were other killers too, other people who’d found it in themselves to take a bloody path back to life.
Yet she knew she was different. No one had killed as many, not even close. By now she wasn’t just capable of violence, she was the best at it. Maybe it was circumstantial, maybe the others weren’t motivated the way she was or simply lacked the opportunity. Either way, she knew it wasn’t worth questioning. By the numbers, no one else on this island was worth fearing as much as she was, that was what mattered. Next to the people that put them here, that armed the explosives around their necks, she was the greatest danger to their lives.
Erika reached down into the remains of her campfire, picking up a piece of ashen wood and crushing it between her fingers. It left blackened stains on her fingertips.
Monsters are always a kind of fiction; ideas drawn up from blurry photographs and sights and sounds that defied explanation. Manifestations of fear. The shadows cast on walls were often worse than the creatures that cast it. Nightmares sometimes felt more real than the fears that inspired them. Even if she still felt fear, even if she had doubts about the life she was trying to save, the rest of them didn’t know that.
All they would see was what she’d done, and how she was no longer the person they thought they knew. They wouldn’t see her pain, or her fear, or her regrets. They wouldn’t wonder what it took to do what she did. Her foes would only see a prolific killer, someone who had motivations outside of necessity or self-interest. Something monstrous.
She picked up another piece of ash, and crushed it in her hands once more. Palms full of the blackened dust, she began to smudge it around her eyes. Not carefully, not like she was applying makeup. This was a sort of war paint. It mixed with beads of sweat, and seemed to stick easily. Catching a glimpse of her reflection in the deactivated screen of the collar radar, she opted to use the plastic as a makeshift mirror, continuing to apply the ash until it covered the space around her eyes.
It didn’t look good, it looked unsettling. Fucked up, kind of. A part of her wished she could’ve somehow hidden her eyes, covering them in ash so that there was only a dark void to look into. Soulless, and frightening. The kind of a monster that found you at the end of a nightmare, and brought it all to an end.
If they didn’t see her as one of them, they wouldn’t see her weaknesses, her fear. They’d make stupid mistakes. They would react to her, instead of the other way around. The end would be on
her terms, not theirs. A monster would strike fear where her humanity couldn’t, and would survive where she wouldn’t.
I didn’t survive.
All her life she had fought off fears of being seen as monstrous, as something unnatural and wrong. The faint image of her face on the dead screen seemed twisted, and wrong. A tear cut a tiny path through the smudged ash. The pain of seeing herself this way was familiar, even though the circumstances were so different.
Once, Erika had found love for herself. One day she saw her own reflection and thought
I did this with a certain unsteady joy. Now she found only hatred, looking at the image she had painted in blood and death and ash.
No story she told herself could quell that feeling. Her actions traded the possibility of living for the ability to live with herself. No amount of years would be enough to fade this new identity into some other, better person.
I did this. I made you from pieces of something worth killing for.
The worst part is, I’ll only know if it was worth it if I live. I have to know.
I don’t even want to be you. I don’t want to live your life.
I want mine back.
I’ll see this through.
“I’m going to need all the time in the world to figure out how to kill you.”
