SOTF Archive/SOTF Classic

Eventually Tony asked the question she had been dreading. How was she supposed to answer him? Many people with the benefit of it being a hypothetical situation would have told her that she needed to tell the truth. It would only make it worse if she and tried to hide the severity of the situation. But that also left out the issue that she was going to have to tell a friend to their face that they were going to die. Tony was going to die and there was nothing either of them could do about it. Some others would have been kinder to Tony not to tell him. She also knew that. There was a chance that she could maybe hedge her and tell him there was a chance if they tried really hard and attempted some crazy plan that they could save him.

But a chance was just that. A chance. It was the slimmest of chances as well. It wasn't fair to him to lead him on. She didn't know how to go about saying the words she knew she had to. It was tough. She cared about Tony as a friend and as a companion. He had stuck with her throughout the ordeal they were going through, it wouldn't have felt right not telling him the truth, especially when his wound was due to her.

So Aliya looked away again and gazed at the cages that were stood within the pond. The water lapping at the bars. Then she let out a sigh and turned back towards Tony. Her focus entirely on maintaining eye-contact as she spoke in a shaky voice.

"What..." She swallowed and started again. "Whatever you landed on, it went through you. I tried my best to patch you up but..." She trailed off and blinked a few times. "I don't know if it's enough."

Tony stared at Aliya after her answer, because it sounded totally crazy. If something went through him, he was pretty sure that he'd be dead, hanging there like a piece of chicken on a skewer. He convinced himself that she had to have just worded it poorly. Paloma had probably just been hiding a knife or something, and she must have stabbed him with it when they were fighting, and then he probably hit his head and blocked it out. That could have been what "went through" him. Yeah, it made perfect sense.

He brought a hand up to his chest and felt the bandage that was spread across it. He ran his hand across it, and felt a divot near the center that gave him pause. He knew that he couldn't just rip it off and undo all of the work that Aliya had done, but it forced him to wonder. He shifted lightly and felt a bandage across his back as well that felt like it was in a similar location as the one in front. It seemed to match up with Aliya's story pretty well.

"Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck." Tony groans, sounding more annoyed than anything because he was having trouble finding the proper emotions to convey. He never thought a whole lot about impending death before the island, and even then, he had never been confronted with it quite this hard. Now he had one of his friends telling him to his face that she had no idea how much longer he would be alive, with legitimate proof to back up her point. Yeah, looking at something tough and playing it off or responding with a joke usually worked pretty okay, but he didn't feel like making an attempt.

"So what now?" He asked, propping himself up with his arms. "Do I just sit here and wait, or should we do something about it?"

"I don't know if there's anything we can do," Aliya began, eyes dropping slightly. She swallowed before returning to looking at Tony. "But we can try."

Tony took a moment to take a breath, and he was suddenly much more aware of how long it took, and how every little thing inside of him felt as he inhaled, and how that changed when he exhaled. It felt weird keeping track of every little thing that he could feel in his body... or at least what he thought he felt.

"Yeah, I'm not just gonna sit around here. We gotta..." He paused, feeling a moment of panic when he thought he felt something in his chest, but letting the feeling pass and pushing on without comment. "We got shit to do."

Aliya nodded her head a few times in response to Tony's words. She had to admire the courage he was showing considering they both knew how it was going to end. As he stood Aliya collected her own set of packs and swung them over her shoulder. She exhaled long and hard as she looked at the cages submerged in the water. The symbolism of it in relation to her current situation clear. Then she closed her eyes and centered herself before opening them and turning back to Tony.

"Damn right."

Then they set off once again.

((Aliya Kimia Nemati continued elsewhere...))

"Hell yeah."

Tony rose to his feet... eventually. It was a slow and labored process that quickly made him more aware of his current situation. He was slowed in every little thing he did, probably by more than half. Whatever they wound up doing next, it definitely wasn't gonna be easy.

But he wasn't dead yet, so he was gonna keep moving forward.

(Tony Acardi continued elsewhere...)