SOTF Archive/SOTF Classic

Garnet's hand maybe caught Yuka across the face, but what caught Garnet's hand was Yuka's blade, gouging down the back, slicing up the forearm. Garnet yelled in pain, threw another punch, took a stab to someplace, then another rake to her back, then another--

--christchrist god was she going to die? Was this what happened, when she swung and missed and actually went for someone who was gonna fight back to kill?

No, no. No, she wasn't going to let that happen. She wouldn't. What was the fucking point if she just--

Garnet's other hand was still on the rifle and with a earsplitting roar, she pulled the trigger again. If her shout didn't deafen her then the resounding gunshot might have done, sending Yuka recoiling.

She gripped the barrel with one hand, hot hot, couldn't worry about that now, pushed back, fending Yuka with the rifle, and then snapped out a blow with the stock, directed jaw-wards.

Yuka's smile disappeared, along with a few of her teeth.

There had been a sort of thump against the side of her body, but it was lost in the immediate panic of things: the panic that came with being punched in the face, with losing grip on the knife, the one weapon she had, with suddenly having no protection against an angry person with a gun. There was anger, too, at how things only went her way for so long, at how she'd never been allowed to enjoy things for more than a second, but Garnet had her hands on the rifle again, there was no time for that.

She spat out one, two teeth, felt in her vocal cords that she was shouting, probably in rage, maybe in fear, but she did not hear it. The red spreading on the side of her shirt went unnoticed as she grabbed onto the other end of the rifle, began pulling back.

There was a horrible crack. Garnet faltered, seeing blood drip from Yuka's lips. That wasn't a punch, that was--

Yuka grabbed for the gun, the thought scattered. Garnet threw a wild elbow, hearing something clattering to the ground. The knife? She could feel warmth up her sleeve, trickling down her back.

Couldn't let up, couldn't let up.

Her ears rang.

Let go. Let go.

Yuka yanked the gun, pulled back, but it stayed in her grasp, and it wasn't fair, why couldn't she have one good thing happen to her, why, and, it felt harder to pull, it felt harder to move in general. She pulled in a gasp of air, and it hurt, she felt like she was being stabbed, but she wouldn't look down, couldn't, Garnet had to let go, let go, now.

She gritted her teeth, pulled back her right leg and started striking Garnet's knee.

Garnet clung to the rifle for grim death, fighting against Yuka's grip. Some little part of her was screaming, asking what the hell she was doing.

Trying not to die.

And she hated that it was her answer.

Yuka kicked her in the knee, hard enough it nearly went out from under her. Garnet stumbled, lurched into the wall with a clatter, then pushed back off and smashed her head into Yuka's face. The grasping hand let go.

A moment of separation, she raised the gun again.

There were stars in Yuka's vision. She staggered, everything felt so slow, so senseless for a moment.

She saw the gun rising, everything came into focus once more.

The air cracked, it was subdued, muffled, but she ran all the same. She turned around, her legs felt unsteady, it felt like walking on ice, she ran into the bedroom. She turned around frantically, looking, there had to be something, anything to hit Garnet with, to make things right for a moment. But, the room was clean, there was a bed and an unshattered window and bits of bloodied fabric but nothing solid, nothing hard, nothing of use.

Built into the left wall of the room was a sliding door. There was nowhere else to go; she headed towards it, eyes focused on the crease between the door and its frame.

Garnet made sounds Erika had never heard from her before. Ways her voice twisted and cried out that there was never any reason to hear. As the fight drew closer and closer, Erika shut her eyes as if that would somehow make it easier to ignore the sounds. The opposite was true, and she had started to make out more details when another shot seemed to rattle the wooden frame of the house itself, reverberating through the walls.

Opening her eyes, she found herself blinking away flecks of dust. Erika reached up, brushing wood chips and debris away from her face. It wasn’t just dusty in here. She looked up to see another source of light in the closet: A messy hole punched through wooden boards and wallpaper, about eight inches away from her head. If she’d been standing up, they would’ve killed Erika without even knowing it had happened.

No satisfaction of a vendetta. No sick pleasure. No relief at having one less killer to think about. An accident. One shot going a little too wide. Something to wrestle with following the next day’s announcements.

She shuddered, eyes darting from the point of impact to the crack in the door and back again. Setting the collar radar in her back pocket, she stood back up and braced the stock of the shotgun against her shoulder. They were in the room, now. Another deafening thump rattled the wooden walls and Erika flinched in expectation of another hole punched through them, or her.

The pain in her side was enough to remind her of what a gun to her head felt like, how it could be comforting. Approaching footsteps made it easy to entertain fantasies she’d sworn to ignore.

Let me sleep.

Just turn over, pull the covers tight. Think of something that made her smile. That approach helped her sleep, what made death any different?

It’s not the same.

A shadow crossed in front of the crease in the door frame, ensconcing Erika in darkness. She levelled the shotgun at the door. The smell of sulphur crept in, no doubt on account of the black powder smoke. It might as well have been the smell of brimstone, given what was waiting on the other side.

The only hell I’ll ever see.

Erika squeezed the trigger, and the closet door erupted in a hail of lead, fire, and shattered wood.

Oof. This was a lot, even more than what the fine print in the contract said. The other girl just stared at the dog and pony show, stayed in her lane as the kicks and shouts and teeth blew out like a confetti cannon. Would've livetweeted it if she could.

But with whatever the bogeyman in the bedroom closet was packing, yeah. Not gonna stick around to find out; she knew a lost cause when she saw one.

She snatched her knife that settled a few feet away, and she hustled on out of the house.

Rip. See ya on the other side, Yuka.

((continued in vape nation))

Yuka's working hand had been inches from the handle, fingers curled, when the door exploded. The world was lost in sawdust and sulfur for a while, there was another punch, another thud, but it felt deeper this time. She stumbled back, fell against the opposite wall, behind the bed, and she couldn't get up, she was made of lead. And, all at once, it came to her, the fact that she'd been shot twice, all at once, she felt the sick warmth spreading across, leaking from her stomach. She looked up, the remnants of the door slid aside, the person inside stood up, gun pointed, and

There was a voiceless, breathy shuddering, an involuntary smile.

It was funny, you see, because, by her count, she had spent four whole days looking for Erika. Four whole days spent walking back and forth across an endless jungle, sweating, thirsting, starving, mourning, fighting, losing friends, losing fingers, mourning. Four whole days spent with someone who wasn't even fucking here, who didn't even have the fucking decency to try to back her up. And,

Erika just

She just got to hide in a closet

She got to hide in a closet, shoot through it, and just step out like

She had so many sins to answer for, so many people to answer to,

She killed her fucking sister and

She got to end it, like that?

She didn't even have the fucking decency to finish her off, she lowered her gun like it was some mercy

She just, she got to shoot one bullet and call it a day?

She didn't have the fucking right.

She didn't have the fucking right.

Yuka pushed herself off, momentum the only thing carrying her off the ground.

Her eyes were wide, her mouth was open in an airless scream, her arms were stretched forward, and with them, she would

She would rip her eyes out

She would tear her stomach out

She would hold her by the neck and make her beg for her forgiveness

She would strangle the fucking life out of her, wring the fucking sorry's out of her throat if she had to

She would

The world felt so uncertain.

She would

The ground raced towards her, she felt so light, it wasn't fair, no no no—
((She fell onto the floor, face-first, unwillingly, unceremoniously, blood slowly pooling beneath her.))

Garnet didn't fire this time. Before she could, something in the room beyond, that one that Yuka had fled into, simply detonated in a blast of hellfire.

Yuka fell.

Garnet stared at her, then further.

Through the ragged tear in the closet, a face was framed.

Erika. Again. Her. Again.

Like some kind of demon lurking in--

No, she wasn't a demon. That was the problem. She was Erika. And she'd just, she'd--

Had Garnet even really had the conviction to do this in the first place? There was Erika, snatching the chance away.

Did she save Garnet? Had she helped on purpose?

Or had she just fired, fired, fired again?

A noise came from the back of her throat, from a low growl into a throat-ripping scream.

She threw her weapon against the wall and fell against the doorway, wracked with heaving, ugly sobs.

Erika felt her ears pop, like a change in altitude save for the persistent ring that followed. This time, she brushed wood chips from the front of her shirt instead of blood. Throwing what was left of the closet door open, she saw Yuka reaching out, grasping at empty air, before crumpling into a heap next to the bed.

She held her aim on her target for a moment, considering a follow-up shot. Thinking back to how long it took the others to die. Weighing the value of an expended shotgun shell against how much longer this had left.

The last one.

Yuka. A few days ago, it had been Yuki lying down in front of her. At the time, she assumed she had killed both of them. If she remembered correctly, she was the last of the Hayashibara triplets. One less person to doggedly pursue her across the island, disregarding their own survival.

I used to mix up their names.

The shot hit Yuka dead on, wooden splinters decorating the messy wound left by a tight pattern of lead pellets. She wasn’t getting back up. It was an ugly sight, watching her bleed out. The smoke lingering in the air mostly hid her features, presenting only a crumpled silhouette to stare down at. It was still a picture Erika didn’t care to spend time examining.

All Yuka meant was what she wasn’t, anymore: another threat to address, another vendetta to fend off. One step closer to leaving. That look she gave before she fell, Erika saw enough to know what was behind it. Hatred, and a whole lot of meaning. There were things Yuka wanted to say, with words and action. They would remain unsaid. Yuka had just been standing in front of the door, standing between Erika and the rest of the world. It was senseless, it felt wrong, but it had to happen. There needed to be more than this.

Stepping away from the closet, Erika twitched at the sound of screaming. Rapidly turning to the source of the noise, she stumbled and braced herself against the window. Expecting someone charging at her, she was instead met with the sight of Garnet crumpling against the door frame. She seemed to matter in a way Yuka didn’t. In a way that wasn’t so easy to write off as someone standing in the way, even though her drawing breath meant she was literally impeding Erika’s attempt at surviving SOTF. Some lingering sense of responsibility kept Erika’s finger off the trigger of her shotgun.

Without her, they’ll let me leave.

Without Garnet, she wouldn’t have made it this far.

Checking the collar radar briefly, Erika was relieved to see the third dot had since absconded. Pocketing the device, she shuffled slowly towards her friend.

It seemed like the right thing to do at the time, pointing her to the location of the Martini-Henry. Like there was some honour in it. As if a zero-sum game like this had room to follow principles. It felt right, instead of just feeling necessary.

The barrel of the shotgun wasn’t pointed at Garnet so much as vaguely in her direction, its presence saying enough. The rifle lay a short distance away, and Erika nudged it towards Garnet with her foot. Once again, she offered it as an option. Playing at some twisted form of gratitude, because even that was preferable to the alternative.

“Garnet.”

She waited for the sobbing to abate, only slightly. Her own voice sounded empty, almost featureless. Every word working through the pain periodically shooting up her side with each breath.

“The moment when you pull the trigger, that’s when it matters. When you've gotta be still. That’s how you hit what you’re aiming at. Everything else is just preparation.”

She stepped past Garnet, just out of the bedroom.

“Understand?”

The footsteps were quiet. Garnet couldn't bring herself to raise her head. What was she thinking? She'd fallen at the first hurdle of her efforts. She'd thought she could have what it took, thought that she'd steeled herself, looked at that ledge and turned away and started forging this path for herself, but what was this, but Paloma and Marco all over again? She hadn't been able to seal the deal. She hadn't proven anything. She'd started a fight that she wasn't able to finish and who'd come along but one of the very people that she should be fighting back against.

Some joke that was. Some joke Garnet was.

There was a little scrape along the floorboards. At the edge of her periphery, the rifle slid into view.

Garnet looked up.

She couldn't begin to read the expression on Erika's face, the flat and emotionless voice. That wasn't her. That didn't even seem like a person. But she was. That was Erika. That was the empty, destructive shell that this place had made of her. And Garnet thought she was the one to take a person like that down. Yet she was right there, there was a chance. Garnet could make things right--or if not right, then just a little bit less wrong.

Garnet put a hand on the gun.

But she was still Erika. In spite of everything.

The weight of the weapon felt impossible. Garnet exhaled, bowed her head again. Her arm dropped back to her side.

"I get it."

“Good.”

Erika looked down at Garnet as the other girl hung her head, wondering what exactly was going on in there. Normally she’d have some idea.

Yuka and the third person had started some kind of confrontation, and Garnet responded by shooting at them. Or, Garnet had made the first move. Either way, it was closer to what she needed to be. Not there yet, but closer.

Closer to understanding why she was like this, too.

Erika knew explaining it wouldn’t get anywhere. It was important that Garnet understood by doing; Because if Garnet couldn’t make sense of what she’d done, no one was ever going to be able to. There wouldn’t be anyone waiting to understand on the other side of this, and she’d be abandoned to every person with a vendetta lurking out in the real world.

Then again, if she understood, she’d act the way she ought to when it came to Erika. The motion of her hand towards the rifle was enough to know that point wasn’t so far away. Erika sniffled; the periodic stabbing pain in her side made her eyes water. The time to ask for help with something like that had long passed, unfortunately. If the pain kept up, so too passed the time for surprise assaults on her classmates, the time for being proactive about her survival.

Then, it was time to go. She lingered in the hallway, still uneasy about leaving Garnet here like this. Still feeling, strangely, like she owed her something.

Don’t.

“Hey, if you want to - I mean,”

I have nothing to give.

“Like if you need a break, I-I have something. A gadget. I can tell when people are nearby, from the collars. You could come with me, for a little bit. Maybe a day. You’d be safe. Maybe just like, take some time to figure stuff out.”

I can’t ask that! What the fuck is wrong with-

“I promise I won’t… y’know… but I get if, if you don’t want to, you can say no. I just thought I’d offer.”

Erika waited uneasily in the hallway, uncomfortable with what she’d just said but certain she couldn’t have said anything else.

The refusal was halfway out of Garnet's mouth before she realised she wasn't certain she wanted to give it. Her words mangled as she cut them off, part-formed. The tears continued to stream down her face, but her sobs stopped. After their previous encounter, that was the last offer Garnet expected. After what had happened since then, Garnet had thought her next sighting of Erika would be the last.

Just another lie to tell herself. There was a weapon right there and Erika directly in front of her, and her mind wasn't on saving her friend from herself and everyone else from her friend. Instead the burning in her arm and back, the jagged jolts of pain each time she moved, the warm flow of blood soaking through her clothes. The pain mingled with the wrenching of her chest, the agony that after all this time felt fit to burst. No matter what, she couldn't seem to make the right move. Garnet had screamed and shouted and cried and made promise after promise and she still. Couldn't. Follow. Through.

Garnet was just... she was just tired and she was hurt, physically as well as emotionally, mentally. Wanting the comfort of a friend was fine, and as much as she told herself Erika wasn't that person any more, as much as Erika looked so damn broken, Garnet ached for the familiarity. She ached for some faint ghost of normal.

She was thinking about it. She was actually thinking about it. Her stomach rolled over in sheer self disgust. Was this the level of pathetic that Garnet was sinking into?

Though, if she was right there by Erika's side then--

Great. Coward and backstabber both. What a hero she was.

"All right," she mumbled. "Need to patch myself up a bit anyway."

But, if she could see her way to--even if she couldn't bring herself to--maybe her just being there would be enough to mitigate, to haul Erika back. And if she couldn't, if she couldn't, if she couldn't...

Maybe then she'd manage to let go.

She expected anything but the answer Garnet had given. Erika’s offer had been a shot in the dark, something she assumed would come off as insulting or unhinged. That Garnet accepted meant a few things, none of which Erika wanted to dwell on in that moment.

Her eyes lingered on the mess that was Garnet’s arm, trailing back to the mass of bandages around her own midsection.

“You and me both.” She nodded reluctantly.

Stepping back into the room where Yuka still lay bleeding out, Erika set the shotgun down on the bed. Wincing as she knelt down next to her, Erika quickly unzipped the duffel bag slung across Yuka’s shoulder and retrieved the first-aid kit inside. All the while, listening for any sign of Garnet getting to her feet, or loading a new cartridge into the rifle. Nothing.

Yet.

Retrieving the shotgun from the bed, Erika slung it over her shoulder using the makeshift sling she’d made. Much as she wanted to leave quickly, every movement was an opportunity to remind herself of her injury and the limitations it imposed on her. Walking over to Garnet, she stared at the first-aid kit in her hands.

Various perspectives fought for space in her mind, each demanding to be seen by Erika as her own. Garnet could be a liability, wounded and with enough reason to turn on Erika at the first opportunity. Inviting her to tag along would expose her to anyone wanting to take a potshot at Erika, a list that contracted and expanded each day. She was just one more lock on the door out of here, and in a precarious enough position as it was.

She handed the first-aid kit to Garnet, and stepped back into the hallway. Familiarity, at least the kind Erika wanted to feel, was a novelty in this place. If they could have a few seconds of normalcy, she thought, maybe it would help somewhere down the line. Keep a better hold on herself, on the situation she was in.

Or I’ll have to kill her, when it’s not enough.

There wasn’t any rationalizing it. She just wanted to feel something else, and it was hard to see past that, even as what was left of her conscience begged her to get the worst of this over with.

Erika reached into her pocket and produced the collar radar, once again showing only three active collars in the house. No need to worry about anyone else in the immediate vicinity, though she felt a lump in her throat as she realized Yuka was still showing up on the device.

“C’mon, this place isn’t any good. We gotta make for the trees.”

The woods were as good a place as any to hide out. They’d each benefit from keeping watch in shifts, and in having an extra pair of hands to tend to the injuries they’d accrued. A day seemed like all she could offer, given the nature of what had to be done.

Every decision that wasn’t directly working to get the collar off of her neck seemed arbitrary; but this one at least felt decent.