SOTF Archive/SOTF Classic

Cammy opened her mouth to speak when Tanisha turned to her and passed the conversation over, only to close it again when Jeff opened his mouth. When he mentioned people shooting up the island, she cringed again. She didn't want to hear about any violence. She didn't want to hear him talk about violence. This was turning out to be a bad idea. She couldn't handle it. She'd wished he'd just stop talking about the things she didn't want to hear about, but she couldn't help but feel like he'd keep going and oh god she'd given him the bat and

Cammy didn't register the arrival of yet another person. She felt sick. Her breathing sped up. Even as the others were taking this calmly, and conversing like nothing was wrong, she felt herself losing her mind.

There it was. It was all starting to hit her. She was going to die. Everyone was going to die, and it was all going to be at the hands of each other. She shut her eyes, but her head filled with images of blood and the swinging of weapons and the firing of guns and

Cammy clutched her head, fell to her knees and let out a loud, sustained scream.

The group was going to list the names of the people they wanted to look for. Tanisha remembered Ace from SwiftBall, and decided to mentally add him to her list. She didn't know if he was shooting up the island like Jeff suggested, but she could hope he wasn't. Before Cammy could add anyone else, the conversation was interrupted by someone calling out to her.

Tanisha turned and smiled. It was Yuka! Yuka was a pretty cool and colorful chick. She and Tanisha had some pleasant encounters in the past and had survived one ridiculous game of Never Have I Ever together. Yuka was someone Tanisha was glad to have randomly encountered, considering they wouldn't have such good random encounters from here on out.

"Yuka! Hey, girl!" Tanisha said, waving over at her. "We're alright so far, but we've got ideas on how to make it better. Hey, have you-"

Before Tanisha could ask Yuka about who she saw, she was interrupted by a loud scream. She quickly turned and saw that Cammy was now on the ground clutching her head and screaming. Tanisha didn't even think. She immediately hustled over to Cammy and got on her knees beside her, setting the shotgun down.

"Hey, Cam, what's going on?" she asked, trying to speak as calmly as possible.

She put a hand on Cammy's shoulder. She could probe Yuka for information later. There was no way Tanisha could stand by and do nothing if someone was crying.

Great. Another kid. Yuka, apparently. It was starting to dawn on Jeff how exposed they were if these kids were just stumbling upon them, but at least they all seemed to know one another. Maybe a little too well...

Not that Jeff thought they'd immediately turn on him and gut him, but when you've got a group gathering and three out of five of them have personal connections, well...it didn't take a genius to connect the dots. Going gets tough, chances were high that he'd be the one kicked to the curb before any of them were.

Jeff was starting to get an uneasy feeling, like the knot in one's stomach before a big game. Where the three of them saw some lovey-dovey reunion, he saw a faction forming in this makeshift alliance, and he could already see his head on the chopping block as a result. He had to get out of there, next chance he got. Maybe make some excuse about looking for supplies and then just never come back. Or maybe he could...

Cammy's scream made him jump, and he snapped around to see what had happened. She didn't look like she'd been hit by something, just that she was having a panic attack of some kind. He didn't know why or what was causing it, but Tanisha was on the scene, setting her shotgun down and...

She set her shotgun down.

Involuntarily, his eyes tracked the weapon as she took her eyes off of it, focusing her attention on trying to help Cammy. He was standing right there. It'd be so easy to just stick a foot out and slide it away, force her to give him the ammo, and then be off to an easy start, with a gun, a shield, and a backup weapon. He'd be set for the entire game, right then and there. It would be so, so simple.

And he'd be a giant piece of shit for doing it.

"Hey," he said to Cammy as he crouched down, laying his shield aside so it'd be out of the way, "Hey, deep breaths, alright? Deep breaths. You're fine. Nothing's going to hurt you."

His mom and dad were watching, probably his brother, maybe even his little sisters. If he let this game turn him into some cold-blooded asshole...he could never go home. He'd never be able to look them in the eye again.

A smile immediately broke upon Yuka's face as Sal and Tanisha responded. She let down her hands, felt herself more at ease for the first time on this island. Hiding the salt gun had been the right move.

She'd been about to respond when a scream pierced the air.

Yuka stood still and looked on as the spectacle unfolded, as the girl, Cammy if she remembered correctly, had her breakdown, and Tanisha and Jeff rushed to her aid. She felt a twinge of jealousy. Not at the attention Cammy was getting, but at how she had gathered the strength to scream. Yuka longed for that kind of release, and the urge that had followed her through the forest returned. But she wouldn't satisfy that urge because doing so would mean stealing help away from someone who needed it. She didn't want to look like an attention hog. And episodes like this were best dealt with alone. They were most easily moved past and forgotten about alone.

She took note of the weapons left lying on the ground, and the thought of taking them and running came and passed. Weapons would buy her protection, but they wouldn't get her information or company. She wanted to find her sisters, and it would be less easy to do so with a target on her back.

Yuka wanted to help. Yuko would help, after all, if she were here. But again, things like this were best dealt with alone. Cammy probably felt crowded in already. And in any case, two people was probably enough. So, she stood on the sidelines, a position familiar to her.

((Manuel Figueroa continued from Quintessential Thinking))

So, what was supposed to be happening? Manuel saw a few people. Yuka was one of them, and yes, he recognized Sal, but that was it. He was just hoping that Yuka wasn't too mad at him for what happened previously.

And then someone started screaming. A hippie dressed girl. Manuel just stopped and held his hands up. He didn't want anyone panicking over him, especially when he had just gotten out of a standoff.

Sal could feel his heart pounding in his chest as Cammy began crying. The whole situation seemed to be spinning rapidly out of control. Nobody had any idea what they were doing, and it was obvious. The place was crowded, and would only be getting worse as time went on.

His vision blurred as he looked around, his eyes settling on the only lifeline available to him. He slowly turned to Yuka, letting the mask dropped as he whispered to her, his voice dripping with confusion.

“What should we do?”

Her throat was hoarse, from crying back in the building she found herself in, and from the screaming, but Cammy wasn't really in the frame of mind to pay attention to that. The screaming, the burning of her throat, it was a feeling that distracted her from the encroaching thoughts. The realization that she was going to die, that everyone was going to die, whether it be from a bullet to the chest or from their necks exploding. She let all of it out in a one-woman cacophony.

She didn't register anything else that was happening until she felt someone touching her shoulder. She let out a panicked inhaling noise as she looked up. Someone was there, and for a few seconds she didn't register who it was. She flinched, falling backward onto her butt. The screaming had stopped, replacing with a pitiful sobbing. The tears wouldn't come out; it was a pathetic display.

"I... I..." Cammy started.

Everything was wrong. It was only a matter of time. Cammy couldn't form coherent thoughts, and so she settled on muttering the same words over and over.

"We're gonna die we're gonna die we're gonna die..."

Tanisha looked around as Cammy continued to cry. She began to rub the girl's back as she began to mutter that they were all going to die.

"Hey, hey, hey," Tanisha said reassuringly. "That's not set in stone, baby. We've got a good group here and we're well armed. We're not dead yet, so there's still time to turn this all around."

Tanisha looked up at Jeff, then back to Cammy. She knew that there was still a chance that all five people present would be dead within the next few days, but there was always the chance they could hold out for rescue, or make it close to the end. Tanisha didn't want to believe they needed to give up this soon into the game. Aside from the matter with Tonya, things had been way better than they could have been, so they were still in someone's favor.

Tanisha reached and grabbed her gun again, keeping one hand on Cammy's back.

"Maybe we should move her somewhere else," Tanisha said to Jeff. "Might be good to get her out of the open until she calms down. What about one of these houses?"

Jeff shook his head and let out a frustrated sigh. He had to admit that while it seemed like Cammy was freaking out for no reason, she actually had a very good point. They were all buddy-buddy now, but in the long run, they were all dead, maybe by each other's hands. If anything, maybe HE ought to be panicking too.

But yeah, sure, might as well make her comfortable for her last few days on Earth.

A movement caught his eye, and he spun around to see that ANOTHER kid had descended upon them, holding his hands in the air like he thought that Cammy's piercing cry would somehow blast him through the chest. Tanisha's suggestion for taking cover indoors was getting more attractive by the second.

"Yeah," he replied to her, "sounds like a plan."

He turned his attention back to Cammy. Man...she was a mess. However, under the circumstances, he had no time for being gentle. This situation called for some tough love, which he was only too happy to provide.

"Hey, we're moving," he said to her. "You can either stand up and walk or you can be dragged along. Your choice."

There was absolutely no way that they were leaving her behind right now. In her state, she'd be a sitting duck.

"Nothing. Tanisha and Jeff have things handled already, so just stay calm. She'll be fine."

Yuka said this while looking at Sal, noting how his eyes had turned watery. She put her hands around his shoulders and pulled him into a hug. Yuko would help someway, somehow, so Yuka decided she also had to find a way to help. It felt weird comforting someone reacting to someone being comforted, but it was what it was.

She had hoped hugging Sal would provide some form of release. Hugging people always made things better. When she would hug Zen, or vice versa, it felt warm, embracing, like home. Their warmth felt like the inside of Yuka's home on a winter evening. But this hug felt light, barren, mechanical, obligatory. She should've pulled in tighter, rested her head on Sal's shoulder, she thought, but she felt doing so would turn the release into a torrent, leaving her on the floor with Cammy, surrounded by people who had no right to see her like that.

Looking behind Sal's shoulder, she caught sight of a familiar figure, and the hug ended as suddenly as it had begun.

She briefly considered pulling out the salt gun and pointing it at Manuel, but she no longer had any forest shadows to maintain the illusion of a threat. Besides, she felt pulling out any gun would make things worse for Cammy, burn out any goodwill she had established with the group.

She shot at him a glare. "How long have you been following me?"

And then Yuka turned to him, where she was less than enthused at his presence. Maybe it was the fact that there was girl having a mental breakdown over the fact that they were all going to die in the next week or so. Either way, Yuka was not happy that Manuel had followed her. The truth was that Manuel had followed her on a whim without really thinking.

"Uh, I just thought that I'd be safe with you. I didn't trust some of the others."

Sal took a deep breath, his body still warm from Yuka's touch. She didn't deserve to be here. Well, none of them did, really, but especially not her. She could be abraisive sometimes, sure, but he knew that she was still a good person deep down.

More importantly, he knew she was trustworthy, which was more than he could say about the others here. He barely knew any of them, and even he could tell that the group was too dysfunctional to stay together for any length of time. If he chose to follow them, he'd end up alone before long, there was no doubt about that.

No, staying with Yuka was the best choice here. He didn't know exactly what was going on with Manuel, but he knew the guy from drama, and he seemed pretty decent. This was just a little misunderstanding that could probably be worked out easily. For the time being, Sal would just need to stand there and listen in. He could vouch for either of the two conversation partners if necessary.

"Bu- But..."

Cammy heard the attempts by Tanisha and Jeff to calm her down. But... they were all going to die. That was... that was the point, wasn't it?

She simply stared at the ground as the two of them discussed their plans. They were going to move? Okay. Cammy wanted to stand up, but her body didn't listen to her.

She simply sniffled. Even with Jeff's admonishment, even if she wanted to...

Her body shook. She slowly tried to stand up, but her legs gave out before too long.

God, she was tired.

"Okay, let's go."

Tanisha noticed that Cammy could barely stand. She looked up and around. Yuka and Sal had their attention turned to some unarmed guy who wandered in. Tanisha barely had time to think about who he was or what he was trying to do. With the breakdown Cammy was having, that took precedence.

Tanisha stood up, keeping her grip on the gun and her bags close to her. There wasn't any sign that one house would be better than the others, or that any house was currently occupied. She simply turned to the one they were closest to.

"Hey, I'll go ahead and check it," she told Jeff. "Can you help her?"

Tanisha grabbed the shotgun with both her hands and gingerly walked up to the house, slowly opening the door. With how Cammy was breaking down, Tanisha knew she couldn't break down so easily. The next few days were going to undoubtedly the worst of her life, even worse than when her mom died. At least then she had her dad and her other siblings. Here, she had to be the strong bitch. She had to be the leader that they needed.

She stepped inside to the empty house. It was a small place, and she quickly paced through, checking every nook and cranny she could for anyone. Thankfully, it looked pretty empty, owed to the fact that whoever lived on this island didn't seem to want for a lot of material goods in this world. Either way, they had a place to calm Cammy down.

Tanisha hurried back to the door, opening it up for the people outside.

"Okay, we're clear," she told Jeff. "Bring her in."

She turned back to Yuko, Sal, and the other dude.

"Hey, we're gonna move in. Come on in if y'all want to."

Tanisha stepped inside. It hurt that she couldn't look for her girls yet, but Tanisha was sure they'd be fine for now. She could find them when everyone was feeling ready to move out. Until then, Tanisha was going to have to employ all the caretaker skills she had up in her arsenal to ensure Cammy would be okay.

((Tanisha Abbey continued elsewhere))

Jeff watched expectantly as Cammy began to stir. For all her insecurities, she was still willing to put in the effort to keep going. Sure, she didn’t get very far before slumping back down, but the effort was the thing. As long as she had at least a little fight in her, that was enough for him.

Still, not very conducive to her getting anywhere. Guess it was time to put his threat into action.

“Well, you tried,” he said with a thin smile. “Plan B.”

Stowing his nailbat in the bag, he crouched down, hooked an arm around Cammy’s midsection, and hoisted her into the air, flopping her over his shoulder like a sack of flour. She seemed pretty light. Fine by him. Meant he could haul the shield with the other arm.

“Deal with it. No time to be gentle.”

He followed behind Tanisha, sparing a quick glance but no words of parting for the rest of these unwanted guests. They’d know where he and Cammy were going. Not a good thought. They didn’t need a bunch of tagalongs, not when any of them could snap at any moment. Jeff had his own plans for the game, and once he was sure that Cammy was back on her feet, he’d be sure to put it into action.

If that time ever came.

(Jeff Greene continued elsewhere)