SOTF Archive/SOTF Classic

((Garry Villette continued from Walk On Water Or Drown))

Marco was dead. The Kronwall brothers were also both dead. Nearly all the Huskies were gone. As far as Garry knew, the hockey team had been whittled down to just him, Dustin and Saul. 'And he's still out there, he could be dying, he could even be dead right now!'

Garry slightly shook his head to clear the thoughts from his brain. Saul couldn't die. He just couldn't, it just wasn't... possible. Saul was one of his closest friends, and he didn't know what would happen if he did indeed bite the dust. 'How could you be such a stupid pup? You just had to run off and leave him behind in the tunnels, didn't you? Moron, couldn't look out for your friend, what makes you think you won't do the same these guys?' Fortunately, the three other students accompanying him hadn't wandered off or got left behind, giving Garry a slight glimmer of hope that history wasn't going to repeat itself.

The four of them had been wandering around in no particular direction throughout the past days, and thankfully none of Garry's companions had managed to piss somebody else off or decided to desert the group. They needed to stick together. 'Like a wolf pack...wait, does that make me the alpha wolf then? Huh, that would be cool. Would be a lot cooler if Saul was here,' Garry thought, sighing deeply.

As they trekked southwards in the dimming light of the day, the trees gave way to a clearing with a small hut just visible in the near distance. Garry unfolded his map, flicked his flashlight on for the first time that evening and had a look for what the building ahead of him could be. It definitely wasn't the ranger station; that was a danger zone. He was certain it wasn't the sawmill either, and it definitely did not look like any kind of mansion he'd seen before. 'Groundskeeper's Hut, it's gotta be that,' he surmised.

"So, I think this is the-oh... oh God." The beam from Garry's flashlight had trailed away from the map and landed on something that lay just yards in front of the group. That something was a boy, or what used to be a boy, lying on his back with blood staining the front of his shirt. "Holy shit..." was all Garry could say to that.

((Sunil Savarkar continued from Walk On Water Or Drown))

Uneventful.

That was a good word to describe 99% of Sunil's time on the island as a whole, and it was also an appropriate description of the last few hours since departing the mountain.

There had been no further near-death experiences for any member of the group, retarded statements by Sunil were at an all time-low and, while the group still didn't have great chemistry by any standards and Dustin didn't seem like the sort of person Sunil would wish to talk to in any normal situation, the group was working together at an acceptable level and getting along relatively well without awkward gaffe-filled conversation.

The announcements were still awkward to listen to. Aside from eating, sleeping, walking, thinking and trying in vain to find common ground with your travelling companions, there was very little to do on the island during the "quiet" moments, and so, when the announcements played, there was no way to block out the rather depressing list of the dead (interspersed with regular jokes, courtesy of Danya), and no way to avoid thinking about them afterwards.

Sunil was lucky in a way. Yes, he'd lost friends, acquaintances, people he liked to talk to, people he'd miss. But, as a whole, he was lucky in the sense that none of his deepest friends, and also no-one he'd travelled with on the island, had been listed as deceased.

A quick glance at Garry and Rena told that his luck wasn't common (he still couldn't read Dustin's emotions, and, frankly, fuck Dustin.) Garry seemed to be taking his losses quite well, at least in comparison to Rena. Sunil made a mental note not to disturb her.

Eventually, they arrived at a small (or, as a realtor would put it, cosy) hut. Like Garry, Sunil also quickly deduced that it was the groundskeeper's hut, mainly because he'd already seen the ranger station and sawmill, and that it definitely wasn't the mansion. Unless the mansion was some kind of ironic nickname given to it by Danya as another one of his hilarious jokes.

And there was a body.

"Fuck."

((Rena Peters continued from Walk On Water or Drown))

There was a pit in Rena's stomach that she could not get rid of. It had formed early that morning when the announcements had blared on. She was content with only half listening, not registering, pretending that they were names without faces and identities and bodies and families, and that had been what had gotten her through this game. Denial was easy, and it was simple, and it didn't hurt as much.

But she still heard the announcements. She still listened. And when names came up, names that she knew, names that she knew so very well, everything crashed down on Rena. Again. Everything crashed down on Rena a lot, it seemed.

"We next had a pair of double kills, with Liam Brooks accounting for Raine Schwarz and Ridley Landon. Aren't couple who do everything together just the sweetest?

When she'd heard that, her heart stopped for a moment. It was a glorious moment, and Rena had so hoped that her heart would never beat again, that it would just end, because that would have been so much easier. But her heart picked up again, rapidly, so hard that it hurt and she wanted to scream. She didn't. Rena was a big girl now. She didn't scream, or cry, or even make a noise. She hadn't talked since Sunil had called her crazy. The silence was wonderful, comforting, it made Rena feel like she was alone- like no one else would fall victim to her streak of bad luck.

She'd run away from the two people who'd wanted to help her and they wound up dead. Because she wasn't there to help? No. If she had been there, the only difference would be three names on the announcements instead of two. The real way Rena could have saved them was if she'd never met them. Because it was her fault, wasn't it? Everything bad revolved around Rena- dead bodies, bullets, fights- it all revolved around Rena Peters and her horrid, horrid luck.

Although it really was a way of saving herself, a selfish wish. If she'd never met Ridley and Raine then they'd just be two more names on the announcements that she could ignore. They'd still die. It was just that maybe they'd die later. Maybe it'd hurt less.

But Rena had been a big girl. She kept on moving, said nothing. She knew that she must have looked like hell- she could feel the biting of tears in the back of her throat the entire day, and she figured that the others saw them too and just didn't give enough of a damn to ask. She wondered if Dustin had actually realized who Raine and Ridley were in the tunnels, if he was wondering if he could have helped them too- but then again Dustin always seemed rather preoccupied with himself, and he probably didn't even remember that there had been other people in the tunnels. He only remembered the "crazy" girl who, in a state of panic, had accused him of doing something bad. And God forbid Dustin Royal was ever doing something bad- it wasn't like he slept around and insulted people on a daily basis, was it? Oh no. He was a saint. He'd never kill anyone.

Rena heard Garry swear, and was pulled out of her thoughts for a moment. She followed the trail of his flashlight to-

No. Not again.

"Fuck. Everywhere I go...this is the third one! The third in a row! The tunnels, the forest, here, what is with me and dead bodies?" Rena whispered, laughing slightly. It wasn't a pleasant laugh. It was desperate, bleeding, cold, and broken. "I...I can't." She was speaking louder now, addressing her so called "teammates". "I'm sorry...I'm sorry..."

I'm sorry.

Run Rena Run.

That was the last thing she'd said to them, wasn't it? That she was sorry? Sorry I'm abandoning you and leaving you to your inevitable deaths! Sorry I've brought nothing but pain and misery to your lives! Sorry that I am the angel of death, the harbinger of doom, I'm sorry! I'm sorry! That's what people say when they can't change anything. I'm sorry. I sympathize with you but there's nothing I can do to help your situation. I am giving you the literal least I can give you- empty words that I might not even really feel! You'll never know. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry that I'm useless. I'm so fucking sorry, aren't I? I'm sorry for myself. I'm sorry that this had to happen to me. I'm sorry that there's nothing I can do for myself. But you guys? I'm not sorry for you. I'm not sorry for the Killer Garry, I'm not sorry for the Dickhead Dustin, I'm not sorry for the Dumbass Sunil. I'll save my sympathy for Ridley and Raine, who I left to die, and who didn't deserve it. You guys? Me? We deserve it. We deserve it more than anyone.

There had been many times in the past 6 days that Rena had felt like giving up. There had been many times that she had thought she'd reached her limit, but this? This day took the cake. This was it. Turn off the lights, there isn't anymore.

She sat down on the ground, shaking her head. "I can't do this anymore. I just...can't. I give up. Is that what you wanted?" She turned her head towards the sky, as if she was talking to the God who couldn't have existed- not in a world that had Survival of the Fittest on it. "This whole time, is all you ever wanted to beat me, to break me, to watch for your sick amusement?" She laughed, louder, bitter, almost manically. "Well you win! You. Win. I give up. I give up!"

She hugged her knees to her chest, burning her face in her arms.

She didn't cry. Rena didn't have any energy left for tears. She just sat there, waiting for death. Because that was easier.

[[Dustin Royal continued from Walk On Water Or Drown]]

The best thing that could be about the last couple of days was that they passed quickly.

He stopped listening to the announcements. Of course that shit was easier said and done given that the fucking island seemed to go dead silent as soon as Danya decided to open his mouth, but Dustin retreated to his happy place (which was very, very far away from Survival of the Fittest) and let the man talk. Did it really matter who was dead? It wasn't like he was looking for anyone in particular, and everyone was going to die anyway, so...yeah. Dustin figured this was fantastically good logic. He also figured he was in denial.

Whatever. Fucks not given.

The other good thing that could be said about the last couple of days was the blessed, blessed silence. Rena and Sunil had kindly shut the fuck up since the scene on the mountain, which was good because Dustin really didn't want to kill anyone and he wasn't sure he could hold out forever with these two as company. Garry was quiet too, but that was fine. Not like there was much to talk about? "Yeah, what do you wanna do when we get out of here? Oh...right." Exactly. He could tell from the look on his friend's face that someone he knew- probably someone they knew- was dead. He didn't ask. He didn't want to know.

Where were they going, anyway? They'd been walking real slow- Rena in particular was dragging her heels and for some reason Garry insisted on keeping them all together- so they couldn't have gotten too far from the mountain. Dustin figured Garry didn't have a destination in mind, which was fine with him, as long as they weren't wandering into any gunfights. Eventually he saw a structure in the distance- and thank god for that, Dustin had had enough of sleeping in the fucking woods- and he was about to ask about it when Garry answered his question for him.

"So, I think this is the-oh... oh God."

Dustin's eyes followed Garry's flashlioh fucking hell. It was another body. Dead people apparently loved Dustin Royal given how many he'd been running into lately. He felt his gag reflex react and leaned away from the others (courtesy, he still had it) to puke up most of the bread he'd eaten that day. Awesome. Shit, how do people get used to this?

"I...I can't. I'm sorry...I'm sorry..."

Dustin looked back up. Rena was having some sort of nervous breakdown, which wasn't surprising since that seemed to be Rena's thing.

"I can't do this anymore. I just...can't. I give up. Is that what you wanted? This whole time, is all you ever wanted to beat me, to break me, to watch for your sick amusement? Well you win! You. Win. I give up. I give up!"

He rolled his eyes. This was the highest degree of melodramatic bullshit and he wanted no part in it. He just wanted to get his ass in the hut-thing and go to sleep in a place where this body was not. He opened his mouth to say as much but stopped himself mainly because he knew it would get Garry all mad at him and blahblahblah it was too late for this crap. He kept his mouth shut and raised an eyebrow at Garry. You're the leader, do some peacekeeping bullshit.

Garry swept the beam of light over the boy's face and grimaced, having recognized the body. Ben Powell. He didn't know the boy personally, but he'd seen him hanging around with Reiko and her band of friends on occasions. His chest was shot up pretty bad, and shining the torch elsewhere so as to avoid looking at the corpse for any longer, Garry noticed a gun on the floor. 'Huh? Whose was that? Was that Ben's?' he wondered.

All thoughts of discarded firearms, the late Ben Powell and the pint-sized skater-turned-killer were wiped from his mind courtesy of Rena, who was apparently starting to lose it, big time. She began talking to, well, no one really, and her speech was interjected with hysterical laughter. Garry looked to the others, Dustin giving him a look back signaling that he should sort it out. 'Thanks, Dustin.'

"Okay, Rena, listen to me," Garry said, kneeling in front of Rena and placing his hands on her shoulders. "Look, I know it's tough ('wow, understatement of the century, Garry'), but you can't just give up like that." He looked to Sunil and Dustin for some encouragement, but wondered if having them join in was that smart of a move. Sunil's psycho jive at Rena had not gone down well among the group, and he could tell from the way Dustin looked that he didn't give a flying fox what happened with the girl. 'Great friends to bring with you, huh,' Garry sarcastically remarked.

"You can't lose it each time you come across a body," Garry continued. He didn't know what the hell he was even going on about now, this was the first time he'd had to put on a motivational speech to someone else before. He hoped it had the right effect on Rena. "You've got to, well, uh, ride it out, I guess?" What else could he say? 'Oh, you'd better get used to the bodies because the number of them is only going to increase'?

'...Yeeeeah, best not say that, that would be a real paw-in-mouth moment.'

"C'mon, let's just go to the hut and-oh what the fuck?" By turning away from Rena and sweeping the flashlight towards the small building ahead, he'd managed to uncover two more bodies hiding in the dusk. One was in the center of the lawn, and the other lying right at the entrance of the hut. 'Oh shit... maybe this wasn't the best place to head to...'

Then Rena decided to have a mental break-down.

The poor girl seemed to have developed a very defeatist mindset, and began babbling semi-coherently to no-one in particular (though, judging by what Sunil could make out, it sounded like she was surrendering to Danya.) That would have been relatively...well, forgivable, at the very least. Not everyone could withstand the pressures of the island, and Sunil tolerated that. Sunil himself was rather desensitised to the violence of the island; he had seen some kid get their head smashed against a cinderblock, after all.

Oh wait, Rena had seen it too.

But, regardless, what disturbed Sunil was the fact she was laughing rather maniacally. Now, Sunil understood perfectly well that sometimes unfunny things made you laugh. Stress, worry, disbelief, anxiety, all emotions that could provoke an unwanted, annoying fit of giggles. But, while Sunil couldn't stand this type of show personally, he knew enough about the genre as a whole (and from accidentally overhearing the TV when his sister watched it while his parents were out) to recognise a simple fact.

Someone laughing like a crazy person means they probably are a crazy person.

God, if he was right, the whole psycho joke would be so prophetic in hindsight. Sunil could be the next Nostradamus.

And that was why at first he was hesitant to lend Garry a hand, and instead let Garry try and defuse Rena's current phase of craziness. Also, Garry didn't have the burden of having a history of making things worse. Everyone in the group could testify on Sunil's extraordinary ability to do that.

So, he just occupied himself with his thoughts and the surrounding scenery for a few moments. He spotted a rather rare bird in the distance. A brief thought occurred to him. If he'd spent a bit more time studying rare birds before this all happened...maybe he'd have been able to identify the general habitat of the bird in question. Then, he could have reported this information back to the people at home, help narrow down the search. Hell, studying rare plants would have been even better, as they don't move around so flipping much.

Meh, too late for that now. Probably a few flaws in the plan, and, Sunil had to admit, it didn't take into account the possibility of the terrorists censoring the footage, or the rather cynical fact the government had given up on rescuing the students. And anyway, there were probably about a million ornithologists who had had the same idea, and failed to reach a conclusive result.

Turning his attention back to Rena, Sunil found that Garry was rounding up his little pep-talk, and was turning towards the hut and....

Sunil jumped. More bodies of their ex-classmates. Bodies they'd somehow failed to notice until Garry cast his flashlight over them.

If Sunil was sarcastic, he may just have quipped "Well, this just keeps getting better and better." However, Sunil was not sarcastic, so he made no such comment.

Deciding that there was no harm in comforting Rena (well, at least very little chance of harm. Well, physical harm), he closed the small gap between himself and Rena, bent down and assuming the position Garry had just taken, with his hands on Rena's shoulders. He wasn't good at comforting people.

The last time he was in a position anywhere near as bad as this was when there was a massive family fight following the death of Sunil's paternal grandfather. Parvati, Sunil's younger sister, was eating her dinner, and Prajeet, his father, who was already on edge due to the loss he'd just suffered, complained that she was using her cutlery wrong. It escalated from there, and by the end of it, several pieces of furniture had been broken; Prajeet had stormed out of the house to do a few more hours at his business and spend some time at the Varsity with his friends; Parvati had stormed out of the house to do some shopping at the Promenade, and both Sunil's mother and his younger brother Bashir were sitting in the front room, crying.

And, instead of attempting to defuse the argument, Sunil decided to bury himself in the chores he had been given that week (and he decided against reminding his parents that they owed him pocket money for them at the end of the day), one time continuously trimming the same hedge below a window for several minutes so he was able to eavesdrop on the argument just inside the house. After the argument, Sunil didn't even ask how his brother and mother were doing; he just went straight up to his room, did some art homework that was due in the next week, and played some games.

He had been both unable and unwilling to comfort some of the closest people to him that day; by all logic, in a situation a million times worse, he would be unable to comfort someone who up until a day or two ago was almost a complete stranger.

So, Sunil exceeded all expectations and surprised himself when he almost immediately began giving Rena a coherent speech.

"Listen, Rena, things are horrible, but if we want any chance of pulling through this, if we want ANY chance of escaping the island, fucking up Danya's game or at the very least surviving for any length of time, we NEED to stay strong. Yes, the bodies are horrible. Yes, the k-players are horrible." It would have been hard to notice Sunil's sudden mid-word change from saying "killer" to "player", but he didn't want to make things any worse by making Rena think he meant ALL the killers (a category, we cannot forget, which included Garry) were horrible shitheads.

"Panicking like this...that's what Danya wants. He wants you to panic. He wants you to break down. He wants you to cry like a pussy. I mean, I don't blame you for being upset, there's no way I can sugar-coat all the death and destruction, but please, don't abandon all hope, don't panic, don't go crazy. The deaths are horrible, but...they're at peace. They're in a better place." Sunil didn't know if Rena was religious or not, hell, he didn't know his own opinion on that issue, but hopefully she wouldn't question his implication that there was an afterlife if she wasn't. "If you let Danya win, their deaths will have been in vain. So...yeah. Don't let him win."

Sunil always did suck at concluding arguments.

Rena looked up when Garry touched her shoulders, turning to face the boy. She realized how pathetic she must have looked, just breaking down for no reason. She hadn't even told them about Ridley and Raine, had she? Only Dustin knew about the body in the tunnels, and it wasn't like he gave much of a damn about Rena's mental state following that encounter. They didn't know about much of anything that happened to Rena, but she wasn't really inclined to tell them either. She wondered how selfish she was being right now. Every one of them had lost friends. They'd all seen bodies. Garry had even killed someone, and regardless of whether or not it was on accident, it couldn't have been good for his psyche. Yes, Rena was afraid of blood, but after everything she'd seen on this island, it really was just another body, wasn't it? And at least she wasn't stepping in it.

Rena felt awful for doing this to people who'd helped her. She'd abandoned Ridley and Raine, and now she was freaking out at Garry and Sunil. She was getting into a bad habit of isolating the people who cared about her. She needed to grow up. She wiped the tears from her face, shaking her head. "Thanks, Garry, I-"

Her eyes followed Garry's flashlight. More bodies. Rena's breath caught in her throat. What were the odds?

Actually, pretty high. Rena realized, for the first time, that there were upwards of 400 kids in her class. Added to the fact that a bunch- at least twenty, maybe more- died a day, and the fact that they were deep into the 6th day meant that this entire island had to be littered with bodies. It was more unlikely for her not to see a body at each new stop, wasn't it?

Rena blinked, turning away from the bodies. She didn't know what to do anymore. No matter where she went, she would find more dead classmates. No matter what she did, there'd be even more tomorrow. She frowned, pursing her lips together. There had to be a way to make everything a little bit better. There had to be a way.

She needed to find Ridley and Raine's bodies. She needed to give them a proper burial. All she had to do was say her goodbyes, give them a memorial, and continue on her way. It was literally the least she could do.

She didn't even notice that Sunil had taken Garry's place until he started speaking. She listened to his words carefully, smiling slightly at the end. She pushed herself up off the ground, nodding gently.

"Thank you two. I needed to hear that."

She paused, unsure of how to say the next part.

"But there's something else I need to do too. I...I have to find some friends of mine, okay? I think that I figured it out. What I need to do, I mean. But, like, I have to do it alone. Because...because I've been here for almost a week and I've done nothing useful. And I need to figure out why I'm here, right? So...please don't follow me. I just need to go do this one thing, and I'll be back. Promise."

Rena smiled, nodding. She didn't know when she'd be back, but she knew that she'd find Garry and Sunil again. She owed them that much.

"And...thanks again."

She walked forward, pecking Sunil on the cheek and giving him a hug. She turned and did the same to Garry too, still smiling. Rena finally knew what to do with herself.

She turned and left.

((Rena Peters, continued in Overdose on Adrenaline.))

Garry felt terrible as he watched Rena walk away, disappearing into the darkness, her footsteps fading into the night. Her words echoed in his mind.

"Please don't follow me."

Garry couldn't for the life of him understand why she didn't want any company with her. But by the time he thought of accompanying her, she was long gone. Garry sighed and placed his hands on his head, careful to avoid the bandage and injury Jake had so kindly left him with.

Garry sat down on the ground, which was already damp from evening dew, and waited with the others. Seconds turned into minutes, and minutes into hours. It soon became pitch black, stars dotting the sky above their heads. There was a crashing sound in the nearby trees sometime after Rena first left, Garry perking up, believing it to be Rena returning from her quest. It turned out however to be a raccoon scavenging through the undergrowth, which Garry promptly shooed away when it tried to approach them. After what seemed like several hours, Garry finally spoke up.

"I'm getting really worried now," he spoke to Sunil and Dustin. "She's been gone for far too long... we... I shouldn't have let her go off by herself. It was a stupid thing to do." He flicked on his flashlight and stood up, grabbing his bag. He looked down again, remembering the gun lying on the floor by Ben's body. 'Hoped I wouldn't have to pillage another corpse...' Garry thought, picking up the firearm and carrying it in his left hand, his first weapon since Clio had robbed him all those days ago.

"Come on, let's find her," Garry said, starting to walk in the direction Rena had gone.

((Garry Villette continued in No Such Thing as a Perfect Plan))

And, just like that, Rena gave him a friendly hug and a quick kiss on the cheek (heheh. Score one for Sunil, score nil for Dustin), before turning and leaving for some inexplicable reason. He contemplated calling her back or silently following her for a while to check she knew what she was doing out here, but, after a very quick on the spot risk-reward assessment, he decided it wasn't worth it, and would just be too much of a problem.

It was weird, how their little pep talk had seemingly had not only the desired affect of restoring her confidence and sanity, but also an unintended side-affect of making her suddenly decide to pack up and leave the group for a little stroll.

A few minutes after she had disappeared out of range, he remembered one of the so-called "motifs" in the series his sister was always rambling on about. Whenever somebody left their group to be on their own, whether if it was for thought, for finding a friend or for performing certain bodily functions one does not do when in polite company, they tended to either die or kill.

...that was worrying.

Well, it didn't happen in all cases.

Too late to worry about it now.

She'll be fine.

And so, the group sat in an awkward near-silence for a length of time Sunil did not quite know. Sunil just sat there on a diseased tree stump, assuring himself every five seconds that Rena was safe and everything would be a-okay. He mentally repeated the phrase "she'll be fine", and conjured some perfectly logical reason she was taking so long, every time that annoying voice of doubt in his brain decided to bring up the possibility Rena was deceased.

Eventually, Garry decided to go look for her.

A search party? That sounded cool. Sunil always liked the sound of a search party. Sounded not only badass, but also helpful for society.

And so, Sunil, feeling just as much guilt as Garry for letting Rena run off, followed a short distance behind the group's impromptu leader.

Is Dustin keeping up?

Better question; who cares?

((Sunil Savarkar continued No Such Thing as a Perfect Plan))

Dustin wasn't keeping up. It wasn't really anything personal, more that following a bunch of unstable people, the most trustworthy of whom was a killer, into a mission to find someone who had wandered off specifically to be alone, someone who had noted very clearly that she would be returning... well, it didn't seem like a bright idea for any number of reasons.

It had been fun. He'd look back fondly on his day dealing with Rena's antics and Sunil's crazy bullshit and the startling near-reliability of Garry. He'd look back on it from somewhere safer and better, maybe somewhere with a lovely lady on his arm, strumming some chords on his guitar and sipping fruity beverages with improbably high alcohol contents and little paper umbrellas.

But right now, he was moving out, before Rena returned with, say, Maxwell Lombardi in hot pursuit.

Dustin took off, heading in a different direction from his erstwhile companions.

((Dustin Royal continued in There's Always Room in the Swamp!))