Penny For Your Thoughts?

[Tythanin†]

(OOC: Creating this thread was approved by Crash since the other thread in this area is still on Day 1. Note this post assumes Stefan and Alicia have left. Also this is a single-post thing, so no one else join please.)

(Violetta Lindsberg continued from Feeling Kind of Anxious.)

'I don't know where I am.'

That was a scary thought, considering the kind of fucked up event she was a part of. Being lost in Survival of the Fittest wasn't a good thing, especially when you used to have a group and now were, to put it in different terms, separated from the pack. That's when the predators stepped in and Violetta had no desire to be hunted down like some animal by one of the students that were playing the game. She wasn't even sure how she got lost...she had left the others at the cliffs after deciding on a location and followed the map to the best of her ability to reach the town. Her surroundings certainly didn't look townlike at all, unfortunately, and what she found instead was a parish of some sort.

"At least it's something..." Violetta muttered to herself as she folded up the useless map and started to walk inside. She had been traveling across the island throughout the night, taking only a short break to nap under a tree. She realized that she could have been killed, but frankly being killed in her sleep seemed like one of the nicer ways of getting out of the game. At least there was no terror before death...that was probably the thing Violetta hated the most. Death wasn't that agonizing for her...she had watched enough of it that it didn't bother her nearly as much as it should have (she still didn't want to die, of course). It was the fear of having one of your classmates...one of your friends being the one to kill you. That's what scared her the most and she inwardly hoped something like that would never happen to her or Cyrille.

Of course, it could always happen to the others on the island like the poor sap Violetta saw when she entered the building. Someone's corpse lay on the blackened floor, a huge stake bursting from his chest. Her eyes widened slightly as she had to choke back her bile as it bubbled up her throat and she sent it back down with a strangled gulp. Her bags slipped out of her nerveless fingers as she doubled over, clapping her hands over her mouth. 'Watching it on TV is bad enough, but this...'

Once she had her stomach under control, she straightened and lowered her hands, still shivering. She looked around, finally realizing the battle zone she had found herself in. What was once a peaceful religious building now seemed like something out of a war film. The whole place had been blasted from the inside out by something and Violetta was somewhat amazed that the parish had stayed intact. Broken remains of the pews were scattered around and the air smelled of...well, whatever explosions smelled like. She really had no other words of what she was seeing and she could barely stand upright as she tried to wrap her mind around what had happened here.

'This happened recently...we were only one the island for what? One or two days? And already people are dead...how...I don't even know how this could happen. This isn't a movie...this isn't a game show. People will seriously die here, yet...I took classes with people who could do this sort of thing? This is crazy!' Violetta thought to herself in a daze, now wishing more than ever that she could find Cyrille quickly and think of a way to escape. 'I've gotta out of here...I don't even know why...well, I know why. There's a dead person here, dammit!'

She would have followed through on her thoughts if it hadn't been for a loud crackling and then the soft, mocking sound of someone applauding. Violetta froze in place, her heart pounding as she heard the joyous, congratulatory tone of their host on the island, Danya. His very voice seemed to ooze with smugness and pride...like a scientist gloating over his latest success. His next words confirmed it and Violetta clutched her hands into fists, wishing she had psychic powers so she could wipe his smug lips from his smug fucking face. 'He's done this thing more than enough times...why the hell does he keep doing it? And we keep fulfilling his expectations...fucking...nineteen students? How is that...why is that possible?! This is real...This is real!'

She squeezed her eyes shut as Danya began reciting down the list of kills, wishing with her very being that Cyrille wasn't on the list. Name after name was called off and she couldn't help feel relief as none of the names were Cyrille's. She felt guilty about being happy at someone else's death, but she just shook it off. 'This place is fucked up enough...I don't care anymore. Don't let Cyrille be hurt...don't let her be hurt, God please don't let her get hurt. This isn't her time...this shouldn't be any of our times. Dammit, dammit please...please, please, please!'

"First, Reiko wasted Sally Connelly with a little assist... then she promptly rubbed out her helper, Cyrille LaBlanche too."

"NO!" Violetta's eyes snapped open and she screamed at the top of her lungs, picking up one of her bags and throwing at a wall with all of her might. It landed short of its destination and she glared at it as if it was the cause of all her problems. She stomped towards it and kicked it instead, pounding at it repeatedly as she screamed, "Fuck! No, no no! Fucking fuck fuck! You're lying! You're fucking lying! I can't believe it! I won't believe it! She can't be dead! She can't, she can't, she can't!"

She sank to her knees, bowed over as she clutched her fists to her face. Tears streamed out of her eyes as she whimpered denials to herself like some sort of mantra, as if denying it hard and long enough to make it false. A part of her mind knew what Danya had said was true. He had no reason to lie about a student's death or the causes, so while he certainly could lie, why would he want to? 'No...she's dead...I didn't even get to see her? I didn't even...I didn't do anything!'

Violetta lay there for at least five minutes, curled up in a ball as she enjoyed her self-recrimination. Finally, all of her sorrow and grief bled out of her and she slowly got to her feet, taking in a deep, shuddering breath. She stared blankly at the ground, her chest aching with pain as she wondered what exactly she should do next. She had several options left to her...

She could hunt down the person who had murdered her Cyrille. Devote the rest of her life into wiping the stain that was Reiko Ishida off of the world. That would be easy enough...Danya had given her a way to achieve it, after all. The deer horn knife was an extremely unwieldy weapon, but it was a weapon. She could slash that girl's throat with the blade and watch...watch in sick, twisted joy as Reiko's lifeblood bled out of her surely as it had bled out of Cyrille.

She could try killing Danya. He was the reason why they were in this hellhole in the first place and indirectly responsible for Cyrille's death. If it wasn't for him, the students wouldn't have weapons. If it wasn't for him, hundreds...maybe even thousands of lives could have been spared. If it wasn't for him...she could be enjoying the senior class trip with her friends and the others, laughing...making happy memories. 'None of this...'

But as much as she wanted to draw up the anger...the rage she needed to embark on her quest of vengeance, she simply had nothing left inside of her to do it. Cyrille's death had ripped out pretty much anything out of her, leaving her with nothing more than a dull ache...and the memories of times long past before she was ever involved in Survival of the Fittest. She didn't even care about living anymore...which brought her to her third option.

She could easily commit suicide. Once again, she had the means. The deer horn knife could slit her throat just as easily as it could slit Reiko's. A thin smile appeared on Violetta's face as she closed her eyes, bringing up a finger as she imagined the other girl's neck. 'A cut...just there...yes...just like that. It'd be perfect...beautiful even. No horror movie could copy the real thing...' A deranged giggle escaped her lips as she placed her finger against her neck, tracing it against the cold, metallic surface.

'Cold? What?' Violetta's eyes opened again as she pressed against her hard, cold neck again and she suddenly remembered about the collars that each of the students wore. Her smile widened even more and she began to laugh. 'Oh, Violetta...you're so far gone you forgot about these dumb things. Didn't Danya said that these could explode if you try to remove them? Ahaha...hey, that's a good idea. No pain...just boom. Boom, boom, boom. Just like what happened here earlier...a smaller explosion...it'd be fitting!'

Shaking her head with a rueful grin, she was about to pull on the collar then and there when another thought jumped into her mind. 'But wait, Violetta! Are you going to just let yourself go without saying anything? This is your chance! You could say whatever you want about the people you hate...about the people you like! And no one can do anything about it! You're going to die! You have the biggest freedom in the world! What are people going to do to you? Kill you? You're already dead! Come on, say a little something! For Cyrille, at least. I'm sure she'd love it! She's probably watching you right now from heaven, egging you on.'

Violetta knew that her girlfriend would never urge her to trash talk people, but at the moment it...felt so right to her. She nodded to herself. "You're right, me. This is my chance..."

But even as she wracked her brain for something to say, she realized there were only two people at the moment that she hated. Reiko and Danya. And much to her chagrin, she couldn't even dredge up that much hate for Reiko, which she thought was a big shame. It was like the smart and rational part of her mind had siphoned all of her hate towards Danya, leaving a small pool just for Reiko, and Violetta wanted it to stop doing that. She was going to commit suicide. Being smart and rational was the last thing she wanted to be right now.

"Hey Danya! You hear me right now?!" Violetta shouted, almost giddy now that she had a set path lined up in front of her. She cupped her hands to her mouth as she just shouted at the sky, hoping in her heart that even if there weren't audio receivers around, God himself would take her words and shove them into Danya's fatass brain. She didn't even know what she was going to say and just let herself loose. "Fuck it, I don't even care if you can hear me right now! You...You, good sir, are a faggot! A big, big faggot! Like...when faggots see you? They go "Whoa, now there's a massive faggot! And not the bundle of sticks faggot! Like flamboyantly flaming gay faggot! Hahaha, that's almost alliteration."

"Flamboyantly flaming fucking faggot. There. That's better." Violetta said with a satisfied nod of her head. "Anyway....anyway, you quadruple F. Why the fuck are you doing this anyway? I'm...you know, I'm not even angry anymore. I don't know if I can even feel anything anymore. So I guess you should be happy about that. Naw, you bitch, I'm just curious now. Why are you doing this? Is this some self-righteous "I WILL SHOW HUMANITY THAT THEY'RE ALL ANIMALS" sort of bullshit? I had to analyze something like that for English class and it sucked shit. I mean holy fuck, why would we give a damn? Shit like this ain't supposed to happen unless there's a fucker like you to cause it."

She rambled on, flailing her arms a bit as she continued. "Does watching teenage kids kill each other turn you on? If so, dear god get a new fetish, cause that's all sorts of wrong. I don't know what kind of sick sort of self-satisfaction you derive from this sort of thing, but whatever! I can't understand your mind anyway, I'm just some dumbshit kid after all. Actually...you know what? I'm not even that angry at you anymore. I'm angry at all the people who work for you, now. You're just some dumb villain from a horror movie, except instead of a chainsaw you have a group of obedient morally-challenged lackies. So I guess you're just the bread in a faggot sandwich and they're the filling. Man, I sure use faggot a lot. I should change it up."

"But it's such a nice word. Really rolls off the tongue. Faggot faggot faggot." Violetta laughed again before pointing at a random direction, a crazed gleam in her eyes. "Anyway, I have just one message for you fuckers who work for Danya. I hope you burn in hell. I'll be waiting for you there, so we can share some great memories together, got it? We can be buddies and I can 'accidentally' shove you in lava a couple of times and me and Satan will have some fucking awesome laughs about it! Sounds fucking great, don't it? Same with the people watching this! Are your lives so fucked up that that you have to take pleasure in a bunch of friends killing each other? Is schadenfreude really that powerful?! That's right! I watched Avenue Q too, bitches! I know what that word means!"

Violetta sighed and let her arms drop to her sides, now bereft of anger after her tirade. She walked out of the parish and stared up at the sky, feeling tears begin to well up. It was another beautiful morning. The sun greeted her in the light blue sky and fluffy, white clouds seemed to wave to her, silently telling her that things would be okay if she just kept hope in her heart. Violetta smiled bitterly, lifting a hand to the collar around her neck. 'Life is so unfair...'

"Well, if I'm to die...Let this be the last sight I see." Violetta said as she closed her eyes, envisioning nothing but the bright blue sky. Peace filled her body...filled the holes created by her loss and anger. Her mother and father were there and even her older brother had taken the time out of his busy schedule to visit her. And taking her other hand was Cyrille, looking just as radiant as ever. "Ahhh...Mom. Dad. Brother...and of course, Cyrille..."

"I love you..."

Her fingers gripped the cool surface of the collar she wore, the jagged edges biting into her skin as she ran her thumb across the metal. She briefly wondered how much it'd cost to make one of these things and how they were placed on their necks in the first place...and decided she just didn't care anymore.

"And goodbye."

She pulled.

G116 - Violetta "Jane" Lindsberg - DEAD