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And Knowledge Itself, is Power

Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2011 8:04 pm
by Gwbiii†
((Bridget and Sarah continued from Sedation))

Leaves crunched below her feet, tumbling over her toes as Sarah trudged across the forest floor. She was thinking about taking her shoes off, letting the soles of her feet press into the organic litter and let it mingle through that space between her toes she didn't know the name for.

She didn't have words for a lot of things. She glanced behind her, Bridget wasn't far behind. The night before was still fresh in her mind, as were the past few hours.

She'd made a decision that morning. She wasn't going to cling onto the past anymore. She'd put it aside, tuck it away until they were safe. Surviving, escaping, and saving as many as she could had to be her only concerns. She felt the same fire she had whenever she read Lenin or Chomsky or Parenti, or wrote or painted for her cause, the same certainty in her knowledge and the same feeling that with enough effort, with enough wit, with all that she had learnt, she could change the world. It was a focused kind of anger, it pushed through all her doubts and fears, and she relished it.

Maybe that was why she'd kissed Bridget before they'd left the house.

She stopped for a moment, dropping her riot shield to her side and checking they were still following the right bearings on her compass. It seemed right, they'd swung north of the infirmary, she'd checked their position, and then they'd turned due south... and they were still going due south so...

Bridget stood beside her looking kind of quizzical, Sarah smiled back as she picked her shield up again.

"Shouldn't be far"


------------------


The pair crouched at the treeline before the infirmary, looking for any signs of life. Besides a couple of sparrows flitting through the long grass and hum of a few cicadas it seemed devoid of activity.

A few minutes passed without incident, and they glanced at each other before Sarah shifted on her legs, giving a half-hearted gesture to stay with her hand. She approached the nearest window as quickly as stealth would allow, keeping her body as low as she could as she ran. She crouched again against the wall, before taking a peek through the corner of the glass. The door was closed, nobody was standing inside. She raised herself up a bit more until she could see two bodies, each hidden beneath a sheet. Stomach churning from the discovery, she beckoned Bridget to join her, and the redhead soon had.

Bridget stood by the corner of the house keeping watch as Sarah carefully snuck her way along the front wall. She peered through another window, again, empty, no-one standing. There was... a lot of blood, which seemed to smeer across the floor towards... She squinted. Yet more bodies. She closed her eyes for a moment, covering her mouth. She wasn't sure whether she was trying to prevent herself vomiting or screaming, but she fought the urge to do either down, a mix of butterflies and nausea settling into her stomach instead.

The first few rooms seemed clear enough though, and the way her body relaxed slightly was enough confirmation for Bridget to join her. Still taking care to stay quiet they approached the front doors, where a crumpled body greeted them.

Sarah would have felt the whole place was more eery if she hadn't had the trivial superstitions blasted out of her by their kidnapping, as it was, besides the nausea, she thought she was taking it pretty well. You would have been screaming five days ago....

She felt it was best not to dwell on what was becoming of her psyche.

Re: And Knowledge Itself, is Power

Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2011 2:59 am
by decoy73
((I might receive a lot of crap for this, but ... SImon Telamon continued from And I Need You To Recover ...))

Simon was walking along when he saw the building. He figured that the key might be of use. He didn't realize that there were two people on the other side of the building as he walked towards the Infirmary.

((More to come when I figure out what to put down here.))

Re: And Knowledge Itself, is Power

Posted: Thu Mar 03, 2011 9:58 pm
by Rocky†
Bridget wasn't sure how much time they had spent in the infirmary already. Enough to get used to the smell of drying blood. It probably said something about her that she was perfectly okay with standing there, bodies all over the place, and not doing a damn thing about them. There were more important things to do. Like staying alive. It may have been heartless, but it was all she could do right now. At least Sarah hadn't said anything about wanting to bury them. Not that they'd have time for that.

The redhead opened a few drawers, looking to see if she could find anything worthwhile. There didn't seem to be much, though she did manage to find some twine. Grabbing a couple spools of the white threads, Bridget took them to a nearby counter. Pulling the nails she collected a few days back from her pocket, she unwrapped the cloth, revealing a dozen of the spiky implements.

Rummaging through her pack, Bridget removed a small length of wood she thought to bring with them. She dove quickly into Sarah's bag to grab one of the hammers she packed. Laying the wood down next to the nails, she picked one up and began to vigorously hammer it into the board, stopping just as it punched through the other end. Bridget repeated this five more times, each nail spaced a few inches apart from the others. When she was finished, the wood had six nails driven through it, the tips protruding about three inches out, while the heads were not quite driven down straight to the board. Picking up the foot long length of wood, Bridget turned it over in her hands a few times, satisfied with her handy work. It wasn't pretty, but it would be effective.

Wrapping the left over nails back into their cloth, the red haired girl placed them back in her pocket, holding the wood in one hand. "I'm going out" she said to Sarah as she came out of the room with the sheet-covered bodies, carefully closing the door behind her.

"'Kay"

Opening the front door, Bridget stepped out of the building, closing the door behind her and heading to the treeline to set her trap. About 100 meters from the building she found an ideal spot for her to do her thing. A trio of trees stretched out in front of her, which to anyone other than her wouldn't look like anything special. Dropping the nail board near by, the red haired girl pulled out the spools of twine. She began to wrap the threads between two of the trees, concentrating on her work, but keeping an eye out in case someone decided to show up.

Re: And Knowledge Itself, is Power

Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2011 5:45 am
by decoy73
Simon had been thinking a lot. He was now officially a killer. He would have been a little scared of it, had two things not been occurring: first, there were people like Maxwell Lombardi and Reiko Ishida, each of whom had killed about a person per day for six days. Second, there were subconscious forces preventing him from getting too worked up about it in the traditional sense. Rather, those forces had steered him towards the book in his personal bag: The Iliad. His favorite book of all time.

Rage - Sing, Goddess, the rage of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans ... Who'd have thought that his introduction into the Hall of Killers would be just like that? A moment of rage. Of course, for Achilles, it took the death of his closest friend to bring his head out of his ass, and this was after the Trojans had driven the Achaeans all the way back to the Acahean ships. Simon had come back to reality within minutes.

At least there should be something of use inside the ... Infirmary. Simon had to look at his map to note the new location that he had been walking towards. The only problem was that there was no door. More specifically, there was no door that he could see.

Had Simon thought it through a little more, he wold have probably been a little more careful, but as it was, as he rounded the corner of the building, he kicked a small rock that was nearby with his left foot, sending it skittering off as he watched.

Had Simon been closer, he would have noticed the redhead that the rock was heading towards. Even if he had, Simon's thoughts were working more on the most profound way to curse this current turn of events ...

Oh, this is great.

Re: And Knowledge Itself, is Power

Posted: Tue Mar 08, 2011 8:56 pm
by Gwbiii†
(Mia Kuiper continued from that thread at the lighthouse.)

Mia stomped daintily through the forest. She felt tired, she felt deprived of amusement, and she was sick to death of walking around this useless forsaken island. As much as she'd always born slight resentment for her home-country, all she wanted now was to be there again. To sit at her bedroom window in St Paul (quite a nice name now that she thought about it) watching the snow fall in Minnesota (it was so pretty, why had she taken it for granted?) curled up on the chair amongst her blankets reading something.

Something new. Something not Shakespeare for a change.

God forbid.

The hem of her dress snagged against another twig, and she scowled as she tugged the pleats away from its grip.

What had her life amounted to anyway? She'd done all that reading about adventures and history and things but she'd never actually lived them had she? Okay, so metaphorically she sort of had, she had a good imagination, and well, being here on the island counted, right? She'd had fun! She'd picayuned across a far-flung isle and she wasn't dead yet. And she had this big, angry rifle so maybe she could survive!

Then what?

As irritating and stupid and pointless as being on this island was...

It was still the most exciting thing she'd done in her life. What if it were all down hill from here?

Poppycock.

That thought was complete and utter poppycock. As much as her life before hadn't been the most adventurous, she had still been happy. She could go back to that. And if she lived... Then she would know just how much life was worth to her and enjoy it accordingly.

Re: And Knowledge Itself, is Power

Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2011 10:31 pm
by Rocky†
Bridget finished wrapping the twine across the two trees, staying in a crouching position so as to not give her position away. Bridget smiled to herself. Like there was anyone to give her position away to in that area. Which made it the perfect place for what she was planning on doing.

Convinced that no one was around to actually see her, Bridget stood, picking up the nail board in the process. She took two steps towards the other side of the middle tree before stopping, her head turned towards the forest. Something, or someone, was crashing through the trees, not really trying to hide the fact they were there. Unfortunately for Bridget, the person was too close for her to hide.

The redhead managed to ditch her board before Mia crashed her little clearing. Bridget thought about maybe removing her nunchaku from it's spot on her belt, but decided that there would be no point. If this was going to come down to a confrontation, she'd take her chances with her hands. Though with that wicked gun the other girl was carrying around, she didn't much like her chances.

"Hi there." Bridget said to Mia. Maybe the friendly greeting would throw her off a bit.

Re: And Knowledge Itself, is Power

Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2011 1:46 am
by Gwbiii†
Mia's eyes opened like flood-lamps as the voice took her unawares. She raised the gun without a second thought, but before she could even aim it straight the other girl was already moving, pushing the barrel aside with one hand while grabbing her wrist with the other. Next thing she knew, Mia's feet came out from under her, and she landed with a thud against the ground.

Without releasing her grip on Mia's wrist, Bridget kicked the gun away from the girl. After this she placed a foot firmly on her chest, pulling up on her arm simultaneously. Normally this would have been enough to subdue someone, but the pressure on Mia's lungs made her panic. Swinging her free hand over, Mia dug her nails into Bridget's hand, forcing her to loosen her grip, tearing away an inch of skin for good measure.

Bridget backed away, surprised by Mia's persistance. A trace amount of blood seeped out of the wound, but the red haired girl didn't have much time to worry about it as Mia lunged towards her. Unable to avoid the attack, the larger girl was able to force Bridget to the ground, who just barely managed to stop her head from hitting the earth.

Mia grabbed the other girl's hair between her fingers, pulling as hard as she could. Bridget responded by walloping Mia upside the head. Dazed, Mia answered in kind, thumping Bridget's cheek with the back of her hand. Unfortunately for Mia, this only served to piss Bridget off.

Enough was enough. Shifting her hips off the ground, Bridget forced Mia to lose her balance, flinging her forward towards the ground. With a final push, Mia tumbled off of Bridget, who quickly got to her feet. Running a hand across her mouth, she found that Mia had managed to split her lip. The redhead smiled. She didn't expect to have such a hard time when it came to fighting.

As Mia came out of her roll and tried to regain her focus, her eyes lay on the rifle sitting a few feet away from her. Stumbling back to her feet she grabbed the gun's strap, putting a few paces between Bridget and herself as she tried to recover from her swirling vision. The redheaded bitch looked like she was gearing up to come at her again. She didn't have time to bring the gun to bear. Instead she took one step forward, and swung her foot in a wide, forceful arc, flinging her bebuckled, booted foot up between the other girl's legs.

She winced as Bridget doubled over, so very glad not to be in her position. Mia took a couple of steps back, her limbs still shaking as she tried to get a handle on herself and the safety latch of her rifle. The stupid thing wasn't moving. She was pulling it wrong. Right, she just had to calm down and- the shorter girl, still hurting from the low blow, had launched herself into Mia's waist, toppling her backwards as the gun fell away. She lashed out vainly as they fell, trying to bruise her assailant into submission even before they hit the grou- She screamed an octave beyond her range as she slammed side first into a tree-trunk, her middle erupting in searing pain.

Re: And Knowledge Itself, is Power

Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2011 1:46 am
by Rocky†
Mia fell groundwards, the sharp branch impaling her side tearing at her flesh as gravity and Bridget pulled her away from it. Mia slumped forward onto Bridget, who knew something was wrong. Mia was screaming in pain, attempting to say something, but it came out as incoherent mumbling between the choking sobs.

Bridget wasn't sure what to do. She could feel the blood from Mia's wound on her clothes, making them stick to her skin. She needed to stop the bleeding. Trying not to be too forceful, she managed to get Mia to lay down on the ground. Tearing the fabric around the wound, she tried to get a better view of the injury. What she saw turned her stomach.

"Oh God...." Bridget said under her breath. She put her hands on the wound, trying to stop the spurts of blood. It wasn't working. The blood was coming out strong as ever in spite of her attempts. This wasn't supposed to be happening. She didn't mean to hurt her. Not like this.

"Sarah..." Bridget managed to choke out. Sarah would know what to do. "SARAH!" Bridget yelled as loud as she could, hoping that she wasn't too far away to be heard.

Re: And Knowledge Itself, is Power

Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2011 4:00 am
by decoy73
Simon just watched the rock go off into the distance, unaware of Bridget and Mia in the small clearing ahead. He just shook his head and completed his rounding of the corner as he approached the door. He looked at it a good two seconds, and then looked to either side before knocking on the door.

No way am I repeating Tyler Franklin.

No sound from inside. He opened the door and then ...

Crack. Snap.

Simon turned around momentarily, his attention turned to the twigs, or sticks, or whatever snapping. It was all quiet again as Simon turned back towards the door when ...

"AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

"SARAH!" It was a girl's scream and another girl's scream that caused Simon to turn back. Whose exactly, he didn't know, but the tone of voice was definitely one of being scared shitless. Simon slowly walked towards the site of the screaming, constantly looking around, as he took the tire iron out of the pocket of Tyler's sweatshirt and gripped it in his hands. He didn't know what exactly was happening, but as he approached, slowly and suspiciously, Simon just wondered, with Clio and then Tyler, if he was starting to become a magnet for discard and violence.

Which is just what I want to be. The modern day, unwilling embodiment of Eris.

Re: And Knowledge Itself, is Power

Posted: Tue Mar 15, 2011 1:19 pm
by Gwbiii†
Mia felt like a child, screaming for help with a situation she couldn't handle and a problem she couldn't fix without her parent's expertise. She tried to stifle it, along with the blood, holding Bridget's hands against her body as she clasped at her pierced side. Scrunching her eyes she managed to pour all her agony into sobs and stuttered groans. She dragged one of her legs up, scrunching her toes in an effort to refocus some of the pain elsewhere. Her assailant was now trying to help her, calling for someone else as well, it only made her feel even worse, this was stupid, it hadn't had to happen, it was so, so stupid.

She felt someone land next to her, shouting over her at the other girl before calling Mia's name. She focused for long enough to recognise that girl from her english class who she saw at the library so often and was saying something about rolling her over and-

"AAAAAAAAAAAAGHH"

The pain through her stomach stabbed its way back into her awareness as she was turned on her side. It felt deep, really deep, and her legs felt as heavy as stacked paper as they fell to the side with her torso. They felt numb, and her toes were freezing even though she knew how warm the air was around her. She felt her shirt raised up as her paramedic frantically wove a bandage around her bare middle. She opened her eyes again as a warm hand touched her forehead, another pressing against her chest. Sarah was swearing under her breath, she could hear it loud and clear, hands pressing down on her wound. Mia let out a pleading scream as she realised she was dying. Her heart was beating a hard staccato, she could feel its rhythm pushing into her throat, into her head, she didn't want to die. She could feel her body start to shiver violently, she didn't want to die. She opened her weighty eyelids, she couldn't see anything, she closed them again, she didn't want to die. Someone was pulling her chest and shoulders up, she didn't see how that would help, she liked lying down and her body felt so exhausted, she just wanted to sleep for a little while, just rest for a moment.

She felt someone hugging her, she thought it was Emily.

Mia Kuiper, Girl Number 49 - Deceased

Re: And Knowledge Itself, is Power

Posted: Wed Mar 16, 2011 12:15 am
by Gwbiii†
Sarah clung to Mia's body as her racing heart and laboured breaths tapered out. Her hand grasped the back of Mia's head, her fingers pressing at her clammy scalp. Mia's sleepy head lay on her shoulder, Sarah's mirrored it, and Mia's shoulder was wet with her tears. She hadn't managed to save her classmate's life. She was useless and she had failed. That she'd never had a chance didn't seem to matter as she wept.

She looked up as her partner moved in her periphery, even with her glasses askew and her eyes bleary she could still tell Bridget was distraught. Bridget... Bridget couldn't have been involved, it had to have been an accident, she could ignore the niggling doubt for now. She gently lowered Mia back to rest against the ground. She began fixing her clothes nicely as she lay. She couldn't just leave her there with her shirt pulled up around her middle. Mia would have at least wanted to look dignified.

She wiped her eyes with her sleeve, her lungs feeling like they were dropping down a ratchet as she sighed. She watched Mia, hoping in the back of her mind for some miracle or another. She knew it wasn't coming, and instead just tried to remember every detail of the person lying in front of her, each detail of her clothing, of her hands, her face... She looked content, calm, it seemed so strange. Death meant nothing but terror for Sarah, but there was Mia, all but smiling. A thousand different emotions were attacking her at once. Fear, envy, grief, failure... she couldn't focus on any particular one and instead felt them all simultaneously.

She could feel tears rolling down her cheeks again as she looked away from Mia. Bridget was digging at the ground.

"Bridget." she could barely speak above a whisper. "Bridget." She grasped bridget's shoulder uncertainly.

"Bridget..."

Re: And Knowledge Itself, is Power

Posted: Wed Mar 16, 2011 12:16 am
by Rocky†
Bridget felt numb through the entire procedure. As soon as Sarah had arrived, she started her work, removing her hands from the wound and trying to patch up the girl. It wasn't working. The red haired girl sat on her knees, her hands rubbing together, trying desperately to get the blood off her hands. Much as she tried, she couldn't pry her eyes from the girl she had hurt so severely.

Sarah had come to the same conclusion that Bridget had moments before, clinging to the girl- Mia. Her name was Mia. Her name was Mia and now she was dead. Because of her. She didn't mean to, but she did. The blood on her hands was more than enough proof of that. She kept rubbing her hands, finally able to pry her eyes from the now deceased Mia and look at the ground.

It wasn't her fault. It was an accident. Just an accident. She didn't mean to hurt her. Didn't mean to kill her. Just an accident. Bridget looked up at Sarah, but there was no help there. Sarah's eyes said it all. It was the same look she had given her just days prior, when Sarah messed up their little plan at the parish. There would be questions later. She could feel it.

Hands still rubbing. Not her fault. Sarah lay the body back down. She looked peaceful. Like she was sleeping. If only that were the case. She would just wake up, and they'd have a nice little laugh about it all, maybe they could team up. She had a gun. Where was the gun? By her side. Her gun. She probably felt safe with it. Like she wouldn't get hurt as long as she had it. So much for that.

Just an accident. Bridget began to dig in the ground in front of her with her hands. She heard her voice, but wasn't quite in tune with it. Something about a grave. For the body. Yes... yes, a grave. She should be buried. It was only right, even if it was just an accident. She remembered all those other bodies that Sarah wanted to bury, but Bridget said no. They didn't have time. They did for this one though. Her hands continued to dig, the blood mixing with the dirt, masking the colour.

She concentrated on her work completely, unaware of anything else. Just dig. The grave. For Mia. She deserved it. Because it was just an accident. She didn't mean it. She would make up for it. With the grave. Keep digging. Look at the hole. The hole looks blurry. Why is the hole blurry? Because she was crying. She didn't notice this though. Because she needed to dig.

Hand on her shoulder. Doesn't matter, she needed to dig the grave. Her hands hurt from the constant digging, but she didn't stop. The hole wasn't big enough. Not nearly big enough. Needed to be bigger. Someone was calling her name. Probably Sarah. Doesn't matter. Sarah was upset at her. Sarah was mad. Her friend had just died. Was she her friend? She seemed to know her. Maybe if Sarah had been there, things would have been different. Then she wouldn't have to be digging.

Hands on her wrists. Pulling them away from the hole. Grave. Whatever. Finally Bridget stopped. Her voice was going again. Saying sorry. It was an accident. Arms around her shoulders. Comforting. A hug. Her head buried into the shoulder of the hugger.

It had been seven days since they had been thrown onto this island. From the beginning she vowed to be strong. She wasn't going to show any weakness. Being weak meant being dead. She wasn't weak. She wasn't going to die. But she was still a 17 year old girl stuck in a situation she wasn't meant to be in. It wasn't fair.

And she cried.

Re: And Knowledge Itself, is Power

Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2011 3:24 am
by decoy73
Simon just stared at the source of the voice as he slowly approached them. As he approached the small clearing, he saw the three of them: it wasn't the Asian girl or the redhead grasping each other. Emotions were running a little high. The sight that caught Simon's eye was the brunette on the ground. The hole in her stomach brought him back to yesterday and

Clio.

The giant hole in her stomach had leaked out so much blood that she was too far gone. Was it the gun? No, couldn't be. The giant rifle would have likely made enough noise to have been heard from the beach where he had come from. The sight allowed Simon to ask only one question:

"What ... the hell?"

Re: And Knowledge Itself, is Power

Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2011 10:36 am
by Gwbiii†
"... the hell?"

The sudden male voice threw Sarah into a panic. Without time to think about it, or unfog her vision, she pulled away from Bridget, scrambling to her feet before losing her balance and painfully landing on her hands and knees. Mia's rifle was within arm's length and she snatched it up, aiming the gun in the boy's general direction. She sat backwards with a thump.

Mind overclocking, she tried to blink the tears out of her eyes as she tried to establish what exactly was happening all of a sudden.

Mia, dead. Bridget, crying. Her, crying. Boy... boy...

She thought she should probably ask him what he wanted, but all that came out was the whiny lament of her 8 year old self as she pulled at the trigger without thinking.

"Leave me alooone!"

It was lucky the safety was still on.

Re: And Knowledge Itself, is Power

Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2011 3:58 pm
by Rocky†
Bridget was unaware of anything going on around her until Sarah pulled away, at which point the girl looked up to see what was happening. Sarah had the rifle, Mia's rifle, and was pointing it at someone she couldn't see. She didn't see the trigger pull, which was probably a good thing. Wiping the tears from her eyes, Bridget looked at the boy on the other end of the rifle.

Taking a deep breath, the redhead stood. Her face was splotchy from her tears, and she had to force herself to stop. It was one thing to break down in front of Sarah, but other people were another story. Her first concern was to protect Sarah. She couldn't do that if she was crying like an 8 year old.

"What do you want?" Bridget said in the most authoritative voice she could muster. "If you don't have anything of interest to say, then I suggest you leave."