Time Is Not On Our Side

[Sunnybunny]

As soon as Orpheus had gotten there, Theo had left. The kid seemed antsy, and he hoped he didn't get in too much trouble. He also hoped that Rizzo didn't need too much medical attention, as Theo was much better than that than him.

Carla said that she wasn't a player. She could be faking the whole scared act, but what could he do about it if she was? She had the gun, she had the power.

It was frustrating, putting his life in everyone else's hands.

Carla offered her assistance with Rizzo, which was good. He felt for the girl. She seemed hopeless. Hell, he felt hopeless. Even if he found Josée, then what?

He didn't have an answer.

He leaned under a tree, opened his bag up. He had packed sandwiches for the camping trip. A couple of Focaccia Turkey Clubs, for himself and Josée. His last good meal. He loved these things though. So did his folks, he had left them a few. Last thing he could give them was a damn sandwich.

But it was delicious.

He split the sandwhich in half. He couldn't do much right now, but it would be dickish not to offer some food at a time like this.

"Want any?"

[Acelister†]

Rizzo frowned, quite surprised at Theo's reaction as he simply ran off at full-pelt. The guy could move, that was for sure... But why? It's not as if anyone other than the new girl had a weapon worth mentioning. And she was the only one brandishing it. Wait...

"Fucker was supposed to be lookin' out for me..." he muttered to himself. He wouldn't be sending him a Christmas card...

"So you're..... Rizzo right? Do you need something, I have some paracetmol in my bag if you're sick, maybe it can help?"

The fact she introduced herself and claimed to not be playing was instantly ignored as she offered him medicine. Any pain relief was good pain relief!

"Gimme, gimme!" he said, his voice begging as he held his hands out towards her. Maybe when he was feeling better, he could hit on her. Right now, he was definitely not in the mood for hitting on anyone.

In his single-mindedness, he also ignored OC's offer. Which was probably a good thing as any mention of food made him feel unwell. And the difference for him between feeling unwell and throwing up were negligible.

"I've got, like thirty bucks in my wallet." he told her. "You can have it for all of them."

Maybe if he took enough of them, he would get the same feeling he got from his caffeine pills. That was how medicine worked, right?

[Badb†]

Dave sighed and turned his back. No response. With Roland he was getting pretty used to getting ignored all the fucking time, but with the mexican, it was sort've annoying, really. Oh, wait, she was talking to him again. That was fast. She must've felt like she had to explain herself, because when Dave looked away she was already rambling about something.

"Alright, sure." Dave turned around and took a couple of steps back. Isabel's arms were covered in scrawled text. Names? Was she marking down the who'd been killed? "Whatever floats your boat, I guess."

"Agreed," Dave nodded. That was a bit of an understatement, to say the least. "Yeah, I'm surprised about Roland too. I guess that's good for him, bad for the next group of assholes he tries to put together."

Isabel scrawled another name on her arms. Was she expecting to like, write their names down on her and have them die of a heart attack or some shit? Dave figured that'd be great if it worked and all, but he highly doubted it would. Or that that was even the real reason.

"Not to burst your bubble or anything, but won't that ink get all smudged if you like, sweat or anything?" Dave didn't really want to shoot down another of her great ideas like that, but he really couldn't help but notice. "I mean, whenever I used to draw anything on my arm as a kid it'd be gone by the next day."

Dave sighed. Ignored again. Whatever. Every time he brought something up he was getting ignored now, and to be honest he was getting pretty fucking pissed off about it. Dave yawned. Oh God, he was getting tired. He was always bitchy when he was tired. But how the fuck was he supposed to take a nap? It wasn't like he could just go to Isabel 'Oh hey, I'm gonna sleep now.' And expect for her to sit there and wait for his ass to wake up.

Dave yawned again. Louder this time.

"Alright," He tried to shake himself awake, to no avail. "I don't know about you but I'm pretty fucking tired right now."

[Ruggahissy]

Isabel slipped off of the tree stump and onto the floor; her back now leaning gratefully against what little was left of the tree. Her sleeves were still half pushed up, leaving some of the black scribbles visible. Her one hand was still resting on the end of her trumpet. She closed both eyes.

"Sharpie usually lasts a little longer than other pens. If I don't use soap, and honestly, where would I find any, it'll maybe last 3 days. Past that, maybe enough people will be gone that I'll be able to remember the killers by memory. Or I could just keep retracing over the faded names. I'll figure it out later."

"I don't know about you but I'm pretty fucking tired right now."

She opened her right eye to look at him just in time to see him let out a very satisfying looking yawn.

Oh no, no, no, no

She couldn't hold it back. Isabel opened her mouth and inhaled deeply letting a huge yawn escape. She put up her right hand with fingers outstretched to cover her mouth.
"Me too," she pushed out around the tail end of the yawn. "Guess we better find a place to sleep for a while. Nothing good's gonna happen for us if we're wandering around this place like zombies. Dun wanna pass out in the middle of a Mexican stand off or something."

Gradually she stood up and took her bag and trumpet up with her.

"Let's look around for somewhere that might be safe. Well....safe as one can be taking a nap on murder island."

Why is this happening to us? Why are so damn unlucky to end up here? Why

Why?
--------------------------

Why do.....
--------------------------

Why do birds, suddenly appear? Every time you are near?

Albuquerque, New Mexico: 2003

The old song sounded tinny as it leaked softly from the office speaker, wherever it was. A young girl was seated in the waiting room of Heart Hospital of New Mexico with a plastic waste paper basket in her lap. Her eyes watered and she clutched her orange bucket tight, her fingers curling over the lip.

Oh god, please not again.

The taste of her own mouth was nauseating. She tried not to think about it, but that only made her focus on it more. She spit into the bucket hoping it would help, but to no avail. A strong contraction somewhere in the bottom of her torso pushed up and repulsive, wet, squish resulted from a new deposit into the orange basket falling on top of what had been regurgitated earlier.

She panted, wiped her mouth with her sleeve and swallowed. It hurt so much; her eyes filled with tears.

"What's your name, honey?"

She looked up. A waiting room attendant with a clipboard was standing over her with a sympathetic smile and a cup of water. Shakily, she accepted the plastic cup and took a small sip.

"....Isabel Guerra."

"Well hello, Isabel. Are you here all by yourself?"

She nodded. Isabel reached into her bag, pulled out her red wallet, slipped out a white card with a blue cross on it and held it up to the man.

"Here. Lemme call someone."

The attendant took the insurance card and turned to his clipboard, scribbling things in a quick, steady manner.

Isabel pulled out a chunky Nokia phone and pressed the call button. She waited.

Click.

"Dad?" she asked in a rather pathetic voice.

"Oh hello Isabel, how's it going?"

"Dad, I need you to come get me. I'm at Heart Hospital. "

"The hospital? But, where's your mother? If she took you there she should be able to drive you back home."

"She's out of town for a few days visiting abuela, she's gonna be back tomorrow. I know you're busy packing because you're leaving, but please? I don't feel good."

"Wait, wait wait, she left you alone? "

"It's was only for a few days," she responded, her tone becoming irritated.

".....What exactly is so wrong with you that you ended up at the hospital, babe?"

"I don't feel good. I've been throwing up for the past two days. The neighbor came over when she kept hearing the noises and dropped me off here at the hospital on her way to work. I think I have stomach flu."

Empty air filled in the silence.

Why do stars, fall down from the sky? Every time you walk by?

"Dad?"

"I can't believe it; you really expect me to believe that?"

Cold icy shock hit her. If she hadn't been in such a state of surprise she would have thanked that at the very least, she was slightly less nauseous.

"W-what do you mean?!" she blurted in a panic. The attendant looked down at her.

"The neighbor heard you throwing up while you've been alone. You're mother and I are always commenting on the way you look and now you just HAPPEN to have the stomach flu? It seems far more likely to me that you've taken our comments a little too much to heart lately and the neighbor caught you and now you're using this whole stomach thing as an excuse so that your mother doesn't find out you have an eating disorder."

Isabel started at her phone like it had grown tentacles.

"I.....have...NEVER. I would NEVER.....Why would you-" she sputtered.

The man with the clipboard looked down at her and placed a hand on her shoulder. She jumped like someone had electrocuted her and shrugged away from his touch. He retracted his hand and knelt down at her level.

"Sweetie?"

She looked down at the phone. The call was still running. She pushed the call end button and looked back at the man.

"Yeah?"

"Do you have a legal guardian or relative coming for you?"

".....no. I gave you the insurance card. Just tell me what the deductable is and let me see a doctor."

Just like me, they long to be, close to you.

[Lexi†]

Almost as instantly she had made the offer for the pain-relief, Rizzo had stuck his hand out like a small boy demanding candy for a sweet toothed craving and judging by the pain that she had guessed he was in, the medication would probably go a little ways to helping him out when obviously it was a major pain that he was combating. Opening her bag for a second after briefly fiddling with the clasp with one hand (even if she didn't think they were playing, she would be a fool to drop her gun at any time) and eventually found the small little cardboard box with the plastic and foil covered pills inside. Grasping it with one hand, she tossed it over to Rizzo, declining the opportunity to get right next to him to hand over the drugs.

"Erm, I will pass the money thanks but if you have something else you don't need that could be useful, I can have that instead. For some reason, money probably won't be an issue on this island" she replied, eyes glancing over to OC when he offered the food over. Rizzo seemed to ignore it but the slight grumble in her stomach at the mention of food, made Carla suddenly feel weak at the knees and realizing how hungry she was, she didn't even care if it was pure calories she would be eating.

"Erm, I will have some if you don't mind, I haven't eaten anything since I got here.... or slept at all. God, how the hell am I still going, I should be passed out or something from all this stress" she said out loud as she walked towards OC. Hopefully it would taste nice and wasn't a poisoned snack that would do her in.

"So whats the plan you guys, looking for a safe space or searching for someone. I was going to look for some of my cheerleaders but I have no idea where to start looking..........................."

((Carla Conners continued in The Various Downsides of Becoming "Paranoid as Balls"))

[Jonny†]

((Charlie DuClare continued from The Outsider))

There's a certain time of night after which it very quickly gets harder and harder to give a fuck. It's not always at the same time, and it can be quite hard to pinpoint, but sooner or later it just becomes harder and harder to put serious effort into something that isn't shuffling forward into a bed or bed-like object. There's a certain time after which the most complex thought you can string together is looks like a decent place to curl up and doze off for a minute or two.

For Charlie DuClare, six in the morning was definitely past that time.

To her credit, she'd started her evening off by giving a fuck about plenty of things. She was full of joy and bounce and life, having just told some awful, awful people just how awful they were. And she had her list of goals and rules she was jotting down in her head, like that she was never ever again going to try and ally with people that sucked that much. Out of the question. It was a moral decision, and one she felt very very strongly about.

She was also going to stay awake till she found somewhere safe to sleep. That was worth giving a fuck about too. She'd been skipping (since she was happy now, see?) through what was gradually turning into a forest, keeping her eyes peeled for somewhere that looked nice and safe to spend the night. The closest she came to a place that met her standards was a nice big tree, big branches, easy to climb, looked like it might be good to sleep in. But the second she climbed it she realized that there was nothing even approaching a comfortable sleeping space. Plus there was the all too real risk of someone coming with a saw or an axe in the middle of the night to chop down her tree and then that would be the end of Charlie DuClare. She made her way down the tree and kept walking, because she was definitely not going to die like that. It was something she felt very very strongly about.

She was also determined not to think about the girl she'd just seen get killed a few hours ago. To chase the thoughts away the moment they came.

That was also something she felt very strongly about.

But we already know how this story ends. It was a little past six and the word strongly had quietly snuck out of her vocabulary maybe an hour or two ago. There had been a man talking very loudly, very recently, but after Charlie had lazily spun around and figured it it wasn't actually someone near her, she couldn't be bothered to listen too well. Nineteen deaths. Maybe she'd start wondering later which one of them was the girl that'd been shot right in front of her. For now she just wished the guy would keep his voice down a little.

So by the time Charlie bumped into a boy and a girl, the latter mumbling something about murder island and holding a trumpet, giving a fuck wasn't exactly high on her list of priorities. If they were planning to murder her here on murder island, then... then that would be really really bad, I guess. She was an easy target right now, wasn't she. There were two of them, she was tired out of her mind, and running away held the all too real risk of flopping over and falling asleep at about the fourth stride. So she just stood. She looked at them. She managed to blink. She tried to plead for her life.

"Uh... hi. I..." Hmm. "You know what, fuck it. If you're gonna murder me just... just how about you use sommat besides the trumpet, I really don't feel like... getting killed by... trumpet." A momentous yawn. "Otherwise, hi, I'm Charlie and let's, why don't we let's be best friends and... I'm nice to meet you."

[Sunnybunny]

"Gimme, gimme!"

[Dude, could you be more sad-looking right now?/i]

If OC hadn't been busy enjoying his food (he'd done a damn good job on this one) he would have facepalmed. He wasn't used to people whining about everything. He had seen some rough injuries in his years of playing football, and not one of then acted like this. And over what, a little nausea? As his hands were busy at the moment, he settled on an eyebrow lift.

He turned to Carla and held out the other half of the sandwich. "I'm looking for my friend Josée. I need to find her as soon as possible, she's not exactly a people person. Honestly, someone's probably wanting to shoot her now." He frowned. "And we need a safe place for Rizzo until he gets better."

Which had better be soon, he was losing patience.

"You can come with us if you want. Saftey in numbers and all, but it seems you already have that covered."

He closed his eyes. Man, how long had it been since he slept? He tried to remember, couldn't.

[Acelister†]

"'Cause everyone's tired, we don't need it JUST for me..." Rizzo grumbled, popping the pills out of the packet and straight into his mouth. He did two, but then decided he was just too ill for that - and popped another one.

He got his bottle of water out and opened it, letting a little drizzle into his mouth before swallowing them.

He closed his eyes, trying to will the pills to do their magic just as fast as possible. The sooner this was over, the better... The pain, the killing, the island... All of it.

"We need a fuckin' You Are Here sign..." he sighed, holding his head up despite his aching neck. He took a few deep breaths, to stop himself from feeling nauseous. Though it was little respite. "Maybe they just torched the fucking things? Just give us as much shit as humanly-fucking-possible..."

He rubbed his eyes before opening them to look at the two snacking former-classmates. He swallowed and quickly closed his eyes again, the sight of food bringing the more than familiar sensation back to his throat.

This was hell. Pure and simple...

[Badb†]

((Apologies for the lateness, had a bit on my plate ))

"Right." Dave nodded before covering his mouth and yawning again. "Yeah, Alright. Best not to sleep on Murder Island and, uh, stuff."

Isabel stood up, apparently ready to go find somewhere to crash for the night... morning... whatever. Dave checked if he himself had all of his stuff with him. Aside from the discarded packaging of the plasters and gauze, he pretty much had everything. Hell, he'd even managed to keep track of the knife without cutting himself on it.

Right, fuck. Finding somewhere to sleep. Right. He'd get right on that.

Dave was startled to hear a voice from behind him. Another person. Great, he was having such a good day, too. And Jesus, how long could they have been there? The girl, well, Dave assumed they were a girl. She awkwardly introduced herself, before saying something about the fucking trumpet shiv and told them her name. Wait, Charlie. He'd heard that name before somewhere. Oh fuck, was that...

Dave turned around. Yep. It was. Charlie Dew-Claire? Something like that. Fuck it, like he'd need to use her last name anyway. Fuck, she wanted to be best buddies and skip off into the sunset. Or maybe escape the island on a fucking swan boat. That'd be grand.

"Hey, I'm Dave fucking Morrison." He waved at her. She probably couldn't remember his name, and even if she did she probably wouldn't have cared enough at school to say hi to him. "Nice to meet you too! I had to watch a guy get stabbed in the neck and gutted with a fucking chainsaw! How the fuck was your day?"

Dave looked over, Isabel seemed to have found somewhere safe-ish to sleep.

"Listen, me and the Help." Dave pointed over at Isabel, keeping his voice quiet so she wouldn't hear the frankly terrible joke. "We're getting pretty fucking tired, to be honest. But, well, you're welcome to like, crash with us if you really want to. So long as you don't try to kill us with whatever death-dealing instrument of doom you've been given, oh and um, not too close, either. Hands away from the merchandise and all that."

Had Dave not been tired as fuck right now, he would've realised he'd turned his back on her. She could easily just pull a him right now and tackle him to the ground. Hell, she was probably tougher than him right now. However, Dave was tired as fuck, and none of this mattered to him as he walked over and slumped down.

[Ruggahissy]

Out of the forest walked a very tired looking girl. She yawned and regrettably this sent Isabel on another yawn as well.

"Kay, number one, being killed by a trumpet would be a cool way to die. Number....uh...."

Did I just forget how to count to TWO?

She let Dave fill in the gap where she had trailed off with his introduction.

"My name's Isabel and I don't have a fun expletive for a middle name," she said flatly after him and gave a short wave.

Isabel readjusted her bag over her shoulder and trudged a few paces over to some bushes. She pushed them with her foot, then stuck her trumpet into the middle of the brush. It looked like there was a clearing in the middle that would allow them to lie down while keeping them at least partially hidden from view with bushes. She dropped her bag in the dirt and started trying to make it somewhat pillow shaped.

"I can hear you still," she called out to Dave while fussing with the bag. She smiled a little at his joke. For the second time today she smiled and for the second time it was Dave that caused it. He might have been an ass, but at least he was a funny ass. Isabel pulled a jacket out of her bag and draped it over her upper body. If the other girl wanted to sleep near them, it didn't make much of a difference to her. She didn't appear dangerous and her name wasn't one of the ones written on her arms so she figured they would find out more about her when they were all in a more hospitable mood.

Isabel threw her head down on the bag and her dark hair spilled over the mound and onto the forest floor. Somewhere next to her she heard Dave plop down in exhaustion.

"G'night Dave, Night Claire," she mumbled.


The fear of the day was pulling at her not to sleep, but her body was giving up. Isabel shut her eyes and it felt like they had sealed as if they were made of metal. Before she realized it she was being dragged backwards into the deep black waters of unconsciousness...




"You and I are going to have some fun. Just a barrel of fucking fun. A ton..of..fucking..fun."

"Have you ever tried it?"

"No."

"Don't do it, Bro. She's an obnoxious bitch, but she don't have it in her to be a murderer."

"Let go, you can't expect me to just sit here and watch! Fuck! What the fuck have you done?"


"¡Shhhh! ¡Cállate niña! ¿No sabes sobre El Viejo?"

"N-no. ¿Quien es El Viejo?"

"I'd hold still if I were you. Wouldn't want to cut your wrists now."

"You wanna try it?"

"I don't think my mom would want me to.....Okay. You promise not to tell?"

"If we sit by and let them get away with their sins, we're letting everyone who's watching know that we think it's 'Okay' to look out for number one. It isn't okay. There isn't a number one, there isn't a winner in this."


"El Viejo es un hombre muy viejo, pues obviamente, y tiene piel pálido, pálido y él vive muy muy lejos bajo la tierra. Allí, él esta comiendo su cena.

"¿Su cena? ¿Qué eso tiene que hacer conmigo?"

"So now what do we do with you? I missed a chance with Emma, but you, maybe you'll do. Or wait, you're a dyke aren't you? Never felt the pleasures of a man. What do you think? Do you want to know what its like?"


"I won't say anything. Are you afraid?"

"A little...."

"Let's make the room dark. Pull down the shades."

"It has nothing to do with sins. You are right that there is no winner, but not in the way you think. There are only losers. We are all losers."


"Pues, cuando niñas y niños hacen mucho ruido, esta molesta mucho a él. Entonces él encuentra los bichitos, les pone en su bolsa y los lleva a su casa y les come."

"!"


"You sick fuck. I swear to God, first chance I get I'm gonna cut it right the fuck off."

"How does it work?"

"Just put your hands here near mine. Put your fingers up against the side."

"Okay."

"We gotta get the fuck out of here."

"Oh my God. What the hell. What the hell!?"


"Entonces si no quieres ser matado y comido, tienes que ser bueno y escucha y ser tranquilo. ¿Entiendes?

"Oh ho, violent little cunt aren't you. You know though. I'm sitting here thinking to myself that I forgot my manners. We've got to pre-heat the oven don't we? I mean really, its just never good unless you're REALLY ready to go and wanting it more then anything."

"Now we both have to think of the same thing. You have to concentrate. Close your eyes. Do you feel anything?"

RRRRRRRRRRRRR

"S-sí. Voy a ser bueno. No quiero morir. No quiero que alguien a me mata."

[Jonny†]

So, to put this all in perspective: there was an introduction, his name (and it had to be fucking Dave, those fuckers were everywhere), a little wave. There was an upbeat account of gore and slaughter, capped off with a charmingly polite question. There was some casual racism. There was an invitation to stay the night (the day?), with pretty much no strings attached. There was an awful, awful joke which had, as its punchline, the idea that Charlie would ever even think about touching Dave in that way.

And somewhere in the middle of all that- she couldn't tell exactly where- she started to like the guy. Nice job on the first impression. Yeah, I think I like you just fine.

Isabel a little less so. She made a big mistake early on by endorsing the trumpet: no, your trumpet will never be cool and it will always suck and be awful, and there's nothing you can do to change that. And then she put a bit of a damper on Dave's casual racism parade. And she finished off by saying "night, Claire!" which, seriously, what the fuck, how did that keep happening. Did these assholes have meetings where they all decided that the best way to get revenge on Charlie, the best way to mess with her head, was to keep calling her Claire until it made her break down weeping? Yes, that is exactly what they did, and Isabel was present at every meeting. Playing a shitty song on her shitty trumpet.

Funny thing. Hating Isabel was almost as difficult of a feat in mental gymnastics as liking Kevin and Retard Cowboy had been. It could very well just be the fact that Charlie was dead tired. That could be the case. So yeah. Charlie wasn't about to make a conclusion either way. I can decide whether I hate you in the morning. Evening. Whenever they'd actually be waking up, considering it was a little past six in the morning.

"Mmm, sounds like a plan. But there's, uh, hey. There's two things you guys need to know about me first. One is that I hate people named Dave and two is that I hate brass instruments. But," and here is a yawn, "I think I forgive you guys. Aaaaand I'm pretty sure I had a worse day than you." She pointed a finger at her nose, covered in dried blood on account of a certain girl with a certain hammer. Couldn't keep a big silly grin from finding its way onto her face, and then couldn't help but giggle a little at nothing in particular. "But I'll fill you in on the details later, if that's okay."

Do you tell them about the girl that got shot dead just a few feet in front of you? No, it turns out you don't.

Curling up to sleep is probably a better thing to do. And so she did it. And there was even a part of her daypack that seemed soft enough that it could function as a pillow. And there were two people nearby who it seemed like she might be getting to like a bit, without even trying. So sleep on this, Charlie DuClare. Decide when you wake up whether you can forgive Isabel for calling you Claire, and whether you can forgive Dave for being named Dave. Decide earlier than that, though, whether you're going to just steal their stuff and run away while they're asleep.

Hmm. Charlie wished she'd thought of that earlier, actually. Back when she was with Blanderson and Retard Cowboy. Pretend to be okay, pretend to be a shoulder to cry on, then steal Retard Cowboy's gun while he was asleep. That would've been nice, though if she'd wanted to do that, it would've been impossible to go on her rant against those two. Which had been awesome. So as far as Charlie was concerned, she'd made the right choice back at the mine shack. But what was the right choice in this case? Well. It was a little more complex here.

Actually, it wasn't complex at all. Dave and Isabel seemed alright, or at least she hadn't decided yet that they weren't so Charlie wasn't going to steal their shit. There. Case closed.

Time to go to sleep.

[Ruggahissy]

The blood leaked from the girl's eye socket and she screamed.

The triangle moved around the glowing Ouija board and she trusted.

The chainsaw revved and organs splattered at her feet.

The shadows stalked the darkness and she shivered.

Do you kids know what makes Uncle Danya happy?

The P.A. system roared to life, sending the birds scattering from the trees and waking up a girl asleep among the bushes. Groggily, she opened her eyes. She sniffed and wiped them, they were wet. Isabel rolled over and her hand hit another hand. She screamed, pulled her hand back and rolled the other direction into a bush.

I'm still on this island. I'm on this island and I'm listening to some psychopathic murderer imply that I am his niece.

She took a deep shaky breath and pulled out the sharpie from her skirt waist band. There was still a little room left on her left arm which she promptly filled in with the names. She sighed as she added two more tallies to Reiko's name. This wasn't like the time before. She knew two of the people who had died. Charlotte and Trevor, they had both been at the poker night at Alex's house. They were gone now. However, those two were a minor shock compared to the news of a particular killer.

Eleventh to die was one Steve Barnes, who found out that Hayley Kelly losing her head meant him losing his

Her pen stopped moving. She swallowed and skipped the name, now finding she had no more room on her arms. Isabel lifted her shirt to the bottom of her ribs and started writing down the side of her torso. Names flowed and curved down the side of her body with the tally marks next to them. At the end of announcement she closed her eyes and flopped onto her back.

Hayley.

Her throat was closing up and strings of pain ran down from her neck to her heart. She uncapped the sharpie and unbuttoned the first three buttons of her shirt. She pulled down the shirt off of her left shoulder and wrote "H.K" near her collar bone with one mark, and then pulled the fabric back up. She tried to swallow the feeling back down; now wasn't the time to lose composure. Her nails dug into her palm, trying to distract her with a new pain.

"D-Dave. Charlie," she said, trying to keep her voice level.

"Sorry freaked a little, Dave. Not used to waking up next to another body. Startled me. W-We," she swallowed again. Almost all the way under control again. "We better get moving."

((Isabel Guerra continued in Day of the Dove ))

[Badb†]

Dave was awoken by a scream. Then, suddenly, nothing. Wait, what the fuck had just happened? He looked around. It was light again...? The announcements were blaring away, listing off more names. Had they just slept the entire fucking day? Well, fuck, that was a waste. They could've ran into more emo chicks. He had more fun and varied places to get injured an make himself bleed from.

On that note, Dave put his hand up to his nose, the blood having long since stopped flowing. Well, that was one of the advantages of sleeping for an entire day, he guessed. Strange the no one found them, though. Oh well, at least that meant they could actually lie down without fear of being murdered or whatever.

Dave grabbed his things and got back up to his feet, adjusting his cap and brushing leaves and little twigs off of his shirt and pants. Isabel and Charlie seemed to have already gotten up and both looked ready to get the fuck out of the woods. Dave had to agree, he was getting covered in shit from sleeping under the tree.

"Alright then," Dave looked over his shoulder to see if Charlie had gotten left behind. She hadn't. "Lets get moving, I guess."

Wait, where the fuck were they headed? Did they have anything to do? Oh, right. No one had said anything. Whatever. He'd just follow wherever Isabel -Dave wondered if she'd mind being called Izzy- and Charlie were headed. Charlie was probably headed somewhere, he guessed. Yeah, she was gonna lead the way.

What followed was one hell of a long hike.

((Dave Morrison, continued in Day of the Dove.))

[Jonny†]

Time to wake up.

And time to decide about... fuck it, what exactly had made Charlie think that she'd be better equipped to make this decision when she woke up? She hadn't exactly in the mood for deep thought while she was waiting to fall asleep. And none of her dreams had been particularly prophetic or useful. There'd been something about a... a plane, and fog, and... yup, that was pretty much all she could remember. Not exactly a big help. So... put off the decision a little more? I don't hate them. That was a start. They were way better than Retard Cowboy and Blanderson. They're alright, I guess. Whoa, whoa. Let's not get ahead of yourself.

It was past sunset when she woke up, and Dave and Isabel were still sleeping, so Charlie had no real idea of how much time had actually passed. She felt pretty well-rested, but... maybe that was just because she was awesome? Wasn't really right to blame Dave and Isabel if they wanted more sleep. So she would lie here with her thoughts until another of them woke up, which would probably be pretty soon.

She fell asleep again.

And woke up again! Though not on her own. There was that awful guy with the annoying voice talking on the loudspeakers again- fuck, there are more of these?- and there was Isabel screaming at... something. Dave had maybe perved out on her or something? But Dave was... asleep. Or half-asleep, and at least as confused about what was going on as Charlie was. So either Dave was a dangerous sleep-pervert or Isabel was kinda a weirdo. Awesome. This means we will, the three of us, get along really really well.

Charlie thought of asking Isabel what was wrong, but decided it'd be kinda awkward to ask that of someone who'd jumped into a bush and started... stripping? Or something? You're kinda a weirdo, Izzy. Whatever. As long as Isabel didn't do this kind of thing every few minutes, Charlie decided she could forgive her. Hooray. Forgiving people was fun.

Both Dave and Isabel were saying something about getting moving, so that probably meant they had somewhere to go. Somewhere that they didn't seem too intent on telling Charlie about, but... but to be honest, Charlie didn't give a fuck. For all Charlie knew, their plan was to go to the abandoned ship in the northwest corner of the island and talk like pirates until the rest of the island had killed itself. That would be fine. Charlie could live with that.

Their biggest flaw, it seemed like, was that they were dorky and weird. Charlie could live with that too.

So she actually smiled for once and she actually meant it. And she picked up her belongings and started to follow Dave and Isabel. Wherever they would go.

(Charlie DuClare continued in Day of the Dove)

[Sunnybunny]

He was tired.

He did not care. He had to find her and had to be quick about it. Some of these people didn't give a fuck about anybody and . . . he yawned. Fuck he was tired.

"You're right, dude. I don't know how long we've been here. I'm really starting to hate the outdoors. I'm gonna try to find some place more indoors than this. Carla, you can come if you want." Another yawn.

He pulled out the keytar, played a few notes. Delirious, he thought about the Pied Piper. The real one, not R. Kelly. And he walked off, headed to Hamiln, or Hamilton, or whereever that guy was from.

((Orpheus Campbell continued in They F**king Work Because Unpaired Electrons Spinning in the Same Direction))