SOTF Archive/SOTF Classic

Justin was getting more and more wound up. His emotions flaring because of everything that was happening. Aliya hadn't wanted to be right about Michael not being able to handle it but the situation was far from handled. She was close to stepping in regardless of what she thought was best when surprisingly Michael lowered the gun and gave her the reigns. Huh. She returned the nod and then, man, the guy who'd been bludgeoned just kept talking huh?

Aliya couldn't prevent an eyebrow from raising as he spoke. He certainly...said words and those words were arranged into sentences. Yep.

While she appreciated his effort, he wasn't approaching the situation in the best way or being particularly helpful by continuing to talk to Justin and deciding to include maths for some reason.

"Okay, the gun's down." She said, focusing on Justin. "And...yeah, we were all there, and if it helps I'm scared. I'm really scared, but right now we can't just lash out alright? It might seem like what you need to do but it'll only make things worse."

Aliya took a half-step forward. She really hoped she got through to Justin. She didn't want to see anyone get shot.

Bert couldn't really think of how to express her reaction to Benedict's last outburst in an intelligent, thoughtful, accurate way, so she just went with—

"Yikes."

It was becoming increasingly clear to her, and she hoped to everyone else present, that he hit his head way, way too hard to consider something like that. Cruel and inhumane? Bert wouldn't have used those words, maybe, but it still sat wrong with her. Practically, how could you do something like that? Gather everyone? The island was too big. People would hide, and then you didn't have enough people, because people hiding meant there could be more people than needed dying, and you had to keep track of all sorts of stuff, plus danger zones eventually, and overall it was just—

"That ain't it, chief."

Maybe that last little quip wasn't needed but who cares. Bert walked over to Benedict and offered him a hand to lead him away from the chaos that was this conversational trashfire.

"Here, we should take a look at your head," she said, "you probably have a concussion."

"What in the fuck-"

Tony managed to stop himself before he went any further with that tangent, but his blurted-out half-sentence still hung in the air. Yeah, he wasn't the best with words, and he'd be the first to admit that, but still, what the fuck, Benny. There were a hell of a lot of ways to make a case, but he was definitely doing it wrong. He basically said that they could just buy time by having only one person die a day, a concept that Tony could find multiple problems with despite only thinking about it for a few seconds.

And how are we supposed to figure out who dies, smartass? Is someone just gonna volunteer to get killed every day while the rest of us figure out what we're gonna do? Is that the plan?

Tony really wanted to say something like that, but that would only make things worse, probably by a good margin. He did like the idea of fighting back and surviving, beating the terrorists at their own game without playing the game... wait, did that make sense? But when Benedict put it that way... yeah, there had to be a better way to plan that out. There just had to be.

Plagued with a lack of ideas, Tony put his palm to his forehead and groaned.

"This sucks, man."

Michael backed down and lowered the gun. Aliya reassured him. People were starting to shut up, except Benedict, but he probably had brain damage now. That wasn't the sort of thing Justin would find funny on the best of days. Today was probably the worst day of his life. Even if it was just at how absurd and impossible everything was, he wanted to laugh at something, but found only sadness.

"I just don't know what else to do," he sobbed. That feeling in his stomach, the heavy pit twisting his guts, was the feeling that told him he'd done wrong. He couldn't look anybody around him in the eyes out of shame. The offending iron dangled from a few fingers of a hand that drooped lifelessly at his side while Justin stood with sloped shoulders and a crooked back.

"I'm sorry, okay?"

So... that went better than expected. Justin chilled - or at least stopped being outwardly hostile and evidently felt bad about what he did, which would hopefully hold over until he was dead. Benny, though.... Benny was gonna be a real problem.

Michael had read an article in the New York Times that summarized the events of Adam Dodd's time on the island. There was one point, Michael could remember, where Adam Dodd had mercy killed a kid unconscious from a head injury.

Adam Dodd's gun was currently laying at Michael's feet.

Boy, that was a cinematic parallel Michael wasn't entirely comfortable with.

The girl seemed to have had a good effect on Justin, so Michael figured he'd let her deal with Justin. "Bert," he called, "check if his pupils are dilated. Benny, can you... just keep talking. Not about the island, but, like, about home maybe?" If Benny's story lost coherence all of a sudden, they'd know for sure his shit was broken. It'd also hopefully get him to focus on something other than his injury or the island.

Michael didn't move from the gun.

"Shut up, Michael. I'm fine."

Benny rolled his eyes. Okay, his head hurt a bit, but he wasn't crazy.

"I am taking a walk. Actually, y'know what I'm leaving. Follow me if you're an Owl and don't want to play this terrorist game. There's lot of stuff on this island to discover."

Benedict hastily grabbed his stuff and stumbled away.

[[Benedict Murray Exit]]

"Hey, Benny, wait!" she shouted after him.

She didn't want to go with him because she agreed with his ideas, but she figured that he was probably still out of sorts, and it'd be in the group's best interest—and that's what was happening, right? They were becoming a group?—if he was not still out of sorts later on.

"I'm going to go and make sure he's okay," Bert said, turning back to the group, "I'll be back, though!"

Drill in hand, Bert walked after Benedict, careful not to lose him in the thicket of the trees. Her bags lay by a tree in the clearing where Michael was originally situated, but they were much farther from Bert's mind than that distance would suggest as she followed Benedict through the woods.

[Liberty "Bert" Wren continued in My Body Is Ready.]

It had worked. She had managed to talk Justin down. Aliya wanted to smile and laugh because she had actually done it. Any joy and relief she had in her success were quickly dispelled when Michael started instructing Bert and Benny. Yeah, the potential concussion was something they needed to worry about, he was right. But Benny—apparently unaware of just how dangerous a concussion was—decided to wander off, saying some more weird statements. Bert had enough common sense to go after him and make sure he was alright. Aliya was assuming he wasn't, just going off what he was saying.

That wasn't her main concern though. Her main job was making sure Justin stayed relatively calm. If that meant holding back her own feelings some more, well, that was what she'd have to do. As she looked over at Michael she saw that he still had the gun in his hand. It made sense she supposed, but she would have preferred it if he just put it away.

Regardless, he wasn't her focus, Justin was.

"Hey, it's okay." She said, holding her hands out as she moved closer. "You made a mistake in a stressful situation." A potentially deadly mistake, but she was putting that detail to one side for the time being. But everything was calm and not violent, they just needed to keep it that way.

Another few steps closer.

"You can put the tire iron down and we can just talk for a bit if you want."

Okay, hold up, hold up.

Did that just work?

Okay sure, two of them just up and left, but he also had to look at the positives column. The crowbar and the gun were on the ground, and all of the aggression had gone out the window, at least for now. Now they had the opportunity to actually talk about the stuff instead of trying not to get shot or smashed. That was definitely something that Tony would call progress.

Except, well... now Justin was crying, and Tony felt bad. Yeah, he had just smacked a guy over the head but... fuck, he couldn't stand to watch people cry. It made him get all emotional and shit, even if he didn't know why they were crying. And when he did know why they were crying, that just made everything worse. He averted his eyes and stared at the ground while he listened to Aliya talk. Yeah, he felt comfortable letting her take the lead here. She kept her head cool during this whole thing, so letting her take point felt logical.

"Yeah man, no pressure." Tony added, still looking at the dirt and trying not to tear up.

Justin's arms suddenly jerked up, and the tire iron came with them. He had moved so suddenly without meaning to, and he flinched at knowing how horrible it must have looked. He dreaded an adverse reaction from anybody, but especially Aliya. Part of him wondered if he would have just been shot, had Michael still been holding that gun.

And in his fear, all he did and all he had intended to do was to clutch the tire iron close to him. "No I-I-uh, I'll thi... I'll kee... hold on to it, I think," Justin stammered. Aliya had done nothing to betray his trust. Reasonably, the least trustworthy person here was himself, but there was no possible way he'd give up his only means of defense. He shivered through an apologetic grimace and shrank back.

"Suh-sorry, I just... wanna keep it, okay?" Justin repeated. "I want to talk but I'm afraid you hate me..."

"Shut up, Michael."

Woah hey fuck you too Benny, have fun dying in the woods.

"I - okay..."

Bert followed after. Michael figured they'd be back soon. Benny probably wouldn't get far. If they weren't back in 20 minutes, Michael'd say Benny had a 50% chance of not dying in the next day, and Bert maybe a.... 75% chance of not dying.

Justin was kinda freaking out again, this time over his tire iron. Michael felt the same but with Adam Dodd's gun. He didn't see much of a problem with letting Justin keep the tire iron. Kid was huge; could probably bench three Michaels.

"I - we don't hate you. Honestly, the fact you're able to admit that is... admirable."

For a split-second, Aliya tensed and she felt her knees start to bend. Her instinctive reaction to Justin's sudden move would have been to shoot on him. It was good to know her reactions still worked and all, but she knew that it was a close call. Luckily, Justin had no interested in trying to dome her and Michael's trigger finger wasn't itchy. As far as she was concerned if he wanted to keep hold of the tire iron that was fair enough. It may have been giving some form of comfort to hold it.

Aliya nodded as Tony and Michael spoke.

"Yeah, no hate here," Aliya nearly said it was only an accident but that would have been a step too far. Justin needed comforting, not lying to. "Shit, I'm used to hate man."

There was a pause as Aliya processed exactly what she had said. For a moment her thoughts turned to that night in the car park. That was when it hit her that Meshia was going to be alone out in the world. Her stomach fell and it felt like she had been struck in the face. Fighting down her feelings Aliya forced a small smile onto her face.

"So what do you want to talk about?"

When Tony looked up again, his eyes moved to Michael, then Justin, then back to Michael, then over to Justin again. Really, Aliya was the only person there who Tony totally trusted not to suddenly fly off the handle. Part of that had to do with him knowing her the best, and the other part was more about how she was the only other one there who hadn't been waving around a weapon earlier. Seemed like pretty sound reasoning as far as he was concerned.

He hung back while the others talked, and listened in to try to get a feel for the mood. The mood, of course, was scared, and maybe a little pissed off, or maybe that was just Tony. For now, he decided that his role was to stay calm and not do anything stupid. It was a simple job, and he trusted himself not to screw it up.

"Don't sweat it, man. I don't hate you." He spoke up, directed at Justin. "Shit's just really messed up right now. For all of us, y'know?"

"Anything. We can talk about anything but where we are."

Justin knew he was asking for the impossible. Their entire lives now revolved around this island. For all but one of them, their lives would end on this island, so it was the most relevant topic to be discussed, reasonably so. Even knowing this, he was willing to push reason away a little longer so he wouldn't have to think. Thinking about it all had driven him to the point where he attacked Benedict. If he left himself alone with the heavy and pressing thoughts again, he didn't trust himself not to fly into another frenzy and this time, he could actually kill somebody. Once that bridge was crossed, he highly doubted there would be any going back.

Tony, Michael, and Aliya. They were willing to take a break and ease up long enough for him to get a hold of himself. Justin took a deep breath and forced himself to smile.

"How about that basketball season?"

((Justin Greene, continued in day 2))

Everything had worked out surprisingly well given the competency of the average GHH student.

Bert and Benny were still gone. If Benny's head wound was nothing to worry about, he'd be fine, and if it wasn't he was fucked no matter what anyone else did, so Michael felt ambivalent about the possibility of him returning. However, Bert - she'd left her bags behind; a potentially fatal mistake for a girl who Michael thought otherwise might be able to survive the game. This wasn't Survival of the Fittest, it was Survival of the Luckiest. Bert was already detached enough that if she survived the island, she probably wouldn't be too traumatized and broken. She was like Beryl.

"Yo, uh, Bert left her bags here, so... I'm gonna see if I can go find her and bring her back." He bent down and picked Adam Dodd's gun off the ground. It was still... primed? Cocked? Ready-to-fire? Michael didn't know the exact word but he knew enough to keep his fingers away from the trigger. "If I'm not back, don't look for me. Just assume something came up."

He grabbed his bags and began walking slowly towards the woods.

Something came up.

((Michael Froese continued elsewhere))