Get Me Away From Here, I'm Dying

[Maraoone]

Her heart sunk a bit as Georgia Lee stepped away from her. It meant nothing, it always did. She always read too much into things, her friends told her. Always worried too much. But, what if? Given the context of what had happened just a few minutes ago, Olivia saw fear, mistrust. She saw apprehension, maybe's bouncing around in Georgia Lee's mind, maybe's and what-if's that would add and accumulate until she and Fiyori followed Hannah, followed Irene.

And she would not allow that.

Fiyori's request came right after that, and with that, a smile. A school picture smile, obligatory.

"Wait," Olivia told Fiyori as she looked through her bag. Her heart sunk even further as she went through her bag, even though she had just used that cloth a few hours ago in her room, and a few times before in the preceding days. Part of her still worried the terrorists had stripped that part of her away as well. But sure enough, she found it. She raised the white cloth, as if a flag, but then she heard both of them speak. And then she noticed both of them looking at the window, at the rain. She couldn't think of why they would both be so happy about the weather for a second or so. Rain seldom came by in Kingman, and she preferred it that way. But then she thought of the whole reason she went out in the first place.

And she was an idiot. She had planned to walk across the whole island, to expose herself to the island when she could've just gone outside. She risked her life for nothing. Well, not nothing. She had people with her now. Friends. She wasn't alone. But she couldn't tell how this would pan out, if this would be good or not. But anyways, she'd have fresh water. She wouldn't die of thirst. Wonderful.

Then, she looked at Fiyori, at her face, and at first, she thought it was her revealing how she truly felt about this newcomer barging in, about this new liability. But she was looking at Georgia Lee. This was normal. Was. Back at Cochise, this was normal. But they were together now, holed in the same room. If they still hated each other, like back then, then why stay together? An alliance of convenience? Either one of them could've simply left another, found new allies. That was what her friends did.

She frowned at the thought. And she frowned at what was going on in front of her.

[frogue†]

"Olivia, I'm glad you're here and Fiyor, I'm glad you can see, but perhaps we can out the personal maintenance on hold for a moment?" Georgia Lee let herself speak naturally, her voice sounding curt and professional to her ears.

"Listen, Liv, can you head into the kitchen and grab some pots or containers that we can catch the rain in? Water's sort of our most pressing issue right now, we can catch up after we've gotten that out under control. Fiyori..." she took a half step towards the girl "...could you give me a hand getting the barricade back in place? It seems like it actually works pretty well, so let's get back behind it A.S.A.P."

It wasn't the behaviour of a good host to send a guest off to work by themselves, and frankly Georgia Lee was wary of working in such close proximity to Fiyori. Still, there was little else for it, and she liked having the girl close far more than he liked her off by herself in the kitchen, plotting to stab Georgia Lee who-knew-where with who-knew what. No, this was far, far better.

As she moved to dismiss the girls, something glittering on the ground caught Georgia Lee's eye. She walked over to it and kicked the pick along the ground, over towards Olivia.

"You should hang onto this" she told her friend. "It's safer in here, but it's far from safe..."

[Riki]

There were many meanings behind the simple word 'what'. All of them varying based on how the word was spoken. How it was pronounced. The pitch, the tempo, the volume. The context, of course. And there were so many meanings to be found in writing. The version of 'what', that would have described Fiyori the best... well, that would have been just that.

what

Perhaps a little period at the end would have underscored her bemused state even more. But anyway, Fiyori was befuddled. Confused, a bit, for a moment, but mostly her mind short-circuited for a second. Why? Because of a single thing, a single sentence - a part of one at least - which Georgia Lee dared to utter.

'I'm glad you can see'

Fiyori sighed. She cracked a knuckle. She cracked a second, and it was a bit louder. She imagined it would calm her. If she imagined it was the sound of GLD's bones snapping. Thought it would make her less mad, but in fact, it made her really mad in the first place.

"No."

That was her answer. To Georgia Lee's request, too, but also to her whole person.

Fiyori took a half step back, she regained it, and took another. She moved with the back towards the kitchen corner, but her face still fixated on Georgia Lee's.

"Listen here you little shit.

You, you of all people, have no right to talk to me like that. Not after what you've done."

Fiyori's heart was pounding. And as disgusting as it was, she felt it in her throat. Felt the blood pulsating in it. Felt like it was about to burst out all at once. At any moment.

[Maraoone]

Olivia nodded, and mouthed "Sure" to all of Georgia Lee's requests, even the ones not aimed at her. She'd already started walking to the kitchen when Georgia Lee kicked something over to her.

She stared at Georgia Lee. Did she just? Really?

Yes, yes, she did.

The pick. The weapon. Georgia Lee had returned the weapon to her.

She trusted her with it.

While Olivia only allowed herself a small smile, and a quick 'Thank you', what Olivia really wanted to do was hug Olivia, squeeze the air out of Georgia Lee, thank her endlessly. She was trusted. Even after what she did, Georgia Lee allowed her a little defense, a little protection. And she'd repay her for that.

That weight she'd been feeling since she entered the room, since the glass and the wood, since Abby even, it finally went away. Everything was alright again.

And then it was not.

And then Olivia's heart stopped. And then those shouts she'd heard a day back, in her sanctuary, rooms away, from Jasmine and Sandy, those noises thay preceded the wood and the glass, they all came back to her. Except they weren't shouts. They were words, poisonous, dripping with rage. And Olivia wouldn't be able to block them out, no matyer how much she covered her ears, no matter how much she told them to shut up. They were so close to one another.

And then there were those choice words. 'What you've done.' Some sin that Georgia Lee apparently committed, unknown to Olivia right now. Some answer to all the questions she'd been asking before. But she didn't want answers right now, didn't need them. All she wanted, all she needed was for Fiyori to stop. She didn't need this, didn't need any of this. She could've tried to tell her to calm down, to make up or whatever, but no, wait, she couldn't. This was Fiyori speaking. And, as nice as it was, being trusted by Georgia Lee, she wanted that from Fiyori as well. She didn't want an enemy, couldn't choose sides, couldn't even figure out what had happened. She was trapped.

So, Olivia froze, midway between the kitchen and the girls, and turned around, looked at Fiyori first, then Georgia Lee. Waited. Braced herself.

[frogue†]

Fiyori's heart continued to pound and pound and pound away. The feeling of impending doom, the certain knowledge that all will go down in flames in just a few seconds. It was so much. Too much. But Fiyori would hold on. She picked up a fight, and she would end it.

Her feet took her further away from Georgia Lee, closer to the kitchen. Georgia Lee had grabbed the shovel. No doubt about it, to use it violently against Fiyori if she thought that was necessary. In that case, Fiyori decided, the lock picks are hers.

She didn't notice at first, but she bumped into Olivia.

"Oh, sorry. Didn't mean that."

There was a little smile that nearly appeared. Fiyori thought it was funny, now, how she was just trying to be nice and demure and shit. She controlled herself, however.

[Maraoone]

And there was that feeling again, when you're watching a movie you've watched before and you're in the moments before the car crash, before the downfall. And here Olivia was, thinking that maybe she should've just left that door closed, that maybe she should've gone to the pub or storage facilities for some water. Or, or, maybe when Georgia Lee had shouted at her, told her to hand over her weapon, she should've just left, ran away, because that's what she did with Bernadette, and Bernadette didn't even say anything, just sat there and looked at her, didn't threaten to shoot her. Maybe if she'd done just one of those things, just one, she wouldn't be caught in the middle of this mess. And, there it was again, that adrenaline, that wave of fear running through her, over her again, the waves that had crashed over her back when she first woke up, at the cove, and when they'd seen Abby, and when she'd heard the glass and the wood crashing, here it was, and she was breathing fast, and she needed to stop-

And then she felt herself being pushed.

She let out a little yelp. Took a few steps away from that direction. She looked to her right. Looked with wide eyes. And it was just Fiyori, just a bump. And she needed to stop looking so scared, needed to stay on her good side. On both their good sides, Fiyori's and Georgia Lee's.

She nodded. "I- it's f- it's fine, it's fine." Quick smile. Eyes still wide. Deers in headlights.

[backslash]

((Taking over from frogue))

Georgia Lee kept her eyes fixated on Fiyori's, determined not to break their held gaze until the other girl turned away.

She had been overconfident. Naive. You could chain up an animal, maybe tame it, but you could never reason with it. She had forgotten that.

Fiyori was a predator first and foremost, but Georgia Lee would not allow herself to be prey. She couldn't expect a predator to empathize with the kind of creature that it was in her nature to destroy.

She wanted to glance over at Olivia, give her something reassuring, but there was nothing to give and to do so would mean to look away from Fiyori and signal some kind of weakness. Olivia was prey, petrified in Fiyori's rattlesnake gaze. She wouldn't have lasted on her own, but Georgia Lee couldn't truthfully say that she expected Liv to last long in here, either.

And for a moment, she wondered what kind of friend she was, to lock someone in here with a hungry animal.

But the moment passed and she took deliberate steps forward to help Fiyori with the barricade. Her hand lingered near the shovel. Just in case. Even the tourists who only go on a safari to gawk know enough to keep themselves armed.

[Riki]

Later on, Fiyori would realize that the particular choice of actions she took was less than efficient. Fiyori had feelings, of course, as most humans did. She thought, and she thought incorrectly, that she had those feelings tamed, like one would tame a German Shepard. Of course, the time has come for all to see that she did not, in fact, control her feelings. Fiyori could see, Georgia Lee could see, Olivia could see and so could the entire world.

Fiyori Senay laughed a lot. Fiyori Senay laughed not one bit.

The problem was, and Fiyori would knew too – if only a few hours later – that her way of controlling her feelings was... well, in some way very much not how you actually did it. The emotions she felt were simmering and silent in nature. And if one surfaced, she would whisk it away with ridicule or with sex or with food. Or alcohol. Or marijuana. But sometimes the grotesque laughter with which she greeted all of it wasn't to stop all of it, you know?

And it was one of those moments when she couldn't help it, that her and Georgia Lee's fates would initially intertwine.

It was a deep topic. Or at least Fiyori considered it so. Or at least she would have considered it so. In fact, she considered little. Because Fiyori was furious.

She showed her back. Once. Once just to grab a bag.

Fiyori decided that she would not help GLD with the barricade anymore. And furthermore, she decided that she would take the lock picks.

She could probably use them more, than GLD would ever do.

[[Fiyori Senay, continued in Love Is A Fridge]]

[Maraoone]

And among the other gifts this island would leave in her head, these memories that would never remove itself, along with Abby and the glass and the wood and the blinks and breaths waiting for Irene and Hannah who never came back, along with those would be Fiyori's laugh. She thought it to be the beginning of the crash proper, the prelude to the last, to this climax to which she never saw the build-up to.

It was just an anticlimax, though.

Olivia stared as Fiyori turned her back and left the door. And she exhaled. Her shoulders relaxed, and then she looked at Georgia Lee and was about to ask 'Should I?' as in 'Should I still get the pots?' But of course, the answer was yes, she should, because Fiyori leaving didn't mean that they no longer needed or were able to get water. Her departure meant that some unknown variable, some person she wasn't even close with, was out of the equation, that all she had to think about, consider her position with, was Georgia Lee. Relieving, really. And Georgia Lee was a friend. Someone who trusted her enough to let her have her weapon. She just needed to maintain that trust.

So, she looked at her, and asked, "Are you OK?"

[backslash]

Was she okay?

Of course she was. Really, when you thought about it critically, Fiyori's departure was a good outcome. She was intimidating but uncontrollable, and now she was definitively hostile where before only the possibility had existed. Georgia Lee had made as much use of Fiyori as she could have, and she would not miss her.

She had still stepped back when Fiyori made for the bag that Georgia Lee had just shrugged off as she went to move the barricade. She had still gripped the handle of the shovel almost painfully tightly, just for a moment.

But she was okay.

"Yes," Georgia Lee answered Olivia, and her voice was steady and sure. She could have been proud of that. "It's for the best, really."

Georgia Lee turned and met Olivia's eyes, and nodded once. "Let's keep going, like planned." She paused and then added, more softly, "I"m glad you're here, Liv." The softness lasted only a moment before she was back to business, with no hint that it had ever been.

[backslash]

((Skipping with Mara's permission to bring us up to Day 5))

They were safe for another day.

Fiyori, perhaps surprisingly, had neither killed nor died after abandoning their sanctuary.

Olivia was crying.

Georgia Lee sat, staring at the water they had collected and the barricade they had fortified, not thinking about much of anything. She had stopped bothering to cross names off the list carved into the table.

She thought that perhaps she should say something, offer some words of comfort or her shoulder to cry on. After four... five days, this would be five, she couldn't find the words.

The names were just words now too, after all.

[Maraoone]

They weren't.

It was something that Olivia had attempted to do these past days, reduce them to words. After all, these announcements, they were nothing but sound waves emanating from speakers, half-comprehensible mutters from some man in his ivory tower. But names were metonymies, parts that represented a whole. The only parts of their classmates they'd have left, really. To reduce them to words would be to reduce them to nothing at all.

To kill them again.

So, she listened. Forced herself to pay attention to those killers, to those killed. The heat left her body when she heard Kaitlyn's name on the third announcements. The guy said she'd killed some girl named Mia. And then her mind niggled, asked those what-ifs, what if she'd gone along with her and Alan's plans, what if she'd stayed with them? Would it be her name on the announce-

No. Don't even think.

So, instead, she said a quick prayer of thanks, thanks that she'd trusted her gut back at the beach.

Aside from that, not much of note. All the other names stung, yes, they always did, but, well, it's not that they didn't mattered. It's just that the names, the thoughts of them dead didn't gnaw at her as much as the first and second announcements had. Maybe cause it was routine, a grim routine.

And then another 24 hours passed, hours passed with words but not meanings. With hauling pots out into the rain, getting the water they needed. With carving x's and o's into squares with scissors and lobotomy picks, playing tic tac toe until they couldn't see the wood. And it was nice, this quietness. Maybe it was for the best that Fiyori left. She was getting on fine with Georgia Lee, talking and playing and just doing nothing. She'd assumed that her time on the island would be more eventful. And it would be, she realized, but she didn't want to think about how.

And then the next announcements came, and she thought she could be a big girl, thought she could try not crying for once. But the names stung more. Stung as if the names that either Georgia Lee or Fiyori carved into the wood were carved into her skin. She'd played cards with Jennifer. Talked books with Leslie. Not close friends, but not blank variables, no. Funny that- no, not funny at all, odd that they were both killed by Nancy. And she held onto the wood, told herself she could hold herself together.

And then they mentioned Bernadette, and she started breathing louder. She had a disease, something to do with the uterus, she was vulnerable, she'd just left her alone, what if she stayed with her- well then she wouldn't be safe with Georgia Lee- but still what if she'd stayed with her, talked instead of running away like a coward, would she be-

"Irene Djezari was too slow on the draw and paid for it when Alvaro Vacanti put a bullet in her."

Oh.

That name had stung even before. It always did. So, what did it matter if it stung so much now, if it cut into her? This was fine. She could, she could get through this. She hated Irene, hated her and Hannah for leaving her with Abby. Yes, she loathed her. Maybe, like, maybe that's what she got for being such a horrible friend.

Friend.

One of her first friends, someone she first met in grade 4, who had the decency to talk to some weird freak who only had brains going for her, some weird freak that ate in cafeteria corners, had the decency to talk and listen, didn't make fun of her when she talked about anime or poems or other nerdy stuff no one else cared about, and then a few days ago she left all that behind because of, what, because of fear? because Olivia didn't matter anymore? left all that behind, and, this was her friend who did this, her friend who'd come into her life and opened her up, and now Olivia was being opened up, torn apart, because she was dead and she never got to ask why and why, why,

"Why?"

She sank, hid her face in the table as she sobbed why's to herself again and again.

[backslash]

Olivia just went on crying and crying. Georgia Lee wanted to be irritated, angry even, at how weak and irrational Olivia was being after she herself had spent so many days here guarding herself against the smallest sign of weakness, lest Fiyori notice and choose to capitalize on it. But Fiyori was gone now, and Georgia Lee was just so tired.

Wordlessly, she reached out and touched Olivia's arm. They sat like that for a while; Georgia Lee had long ago given up counting the minutes and hours. Her free hand went to her mouth. Her nails were bitten to the quick, and she instead nibbled at the skin on either side of the cuticles.

She stared at the gouged wood of the table, the names surrounded by grids, X's and Os. She had stopped crossing them off a day or so ago. Everyone here was dead, after all, in one way or another.

A sudden heat rose up inside her, and Georgia Lee squeezed her eyes shut. She had felt this sort of thing before. It was what prompted her to leave her home and run, it was the urge that she clamped down upon to keep from stooping to the level of her sisters when they tormented her.

She wondered if there were any trails or roads to run on outside. Everything beyond the bridge and this building might have been untouched wilderness, save for what the map told them. Georgia Lee wondered where in that wilderness Fiyori might be stalking around.

She wondered, for the first time, if she would really rather die in this stifling room than out in the dark unknown.

Our destinies are not in clay, but writ in jasper, or perhaps they are not yet writ at all and falls upon us to enscribe them.

That is a great responsibility, to be the master of one's own fate.

Georgia Lee screwed her eyes shut tighter, aware that her breathing was labored and that she was digging her teeth into her finger.

Here lies Georgia Lee Day; though she tried, tried harder than anyone, she did nothing of note.

She tasted blood.

Slowly and carefully, she lowered her hand. A ruby bead of blood oozed from her fingertip where her canine had broken the skin. She rubbed her thumb over it, bringing red detail into her fingerprint.

"Liv," she said slowly. "Is there anything you want to do with your life now? Anything at all?"

[Maraoone]

Olivia cried for a few more seconds because she heard Georgia Lee speak, she did, but Irene was dead and nothing else mattered and the announcements had told her exactly how she died, but they couldn't give her a good enough reason, an answer to her why's, and so she cried, and then she realized those vocalizations were words directed at her.

"I, I don't- I'm sorry, what-" did she say? And then she repeated to herself, "do with your life?"

She then looked at Georgia Lee, looked with bloodshot eyes and tears and mucus flowing down her face, and asked herself, "Wh-what do I, what do I want with my life? What do I want to do?" And, she giggled to herself a bit because a million thoughts, a million ideas flashed at light speed before her, and what did she want? What did Olivia want? She, she wanted to live, that was a starter, but that was obvious, added nothing to the conversation, and what else? What else?

Well, could Georgia Lee give her her watch so that the seconds and minutes and hours wouldn't escape her, abandon her anymore? Or maybe a few cards so they could do something other than carving x's and o's and lines and dashes and crossing them out next to crossed out names, erased metonymies, erased people, killed people, killed friends, and, yeah, while Georgia Lee was at it, maybe a time machine to before Irene and Hannah left, so that maybe she could chase after them, because maybe Irene wouldn't be dead or something, or maybe to before they left, so she could say 'I love you' to her mom, to her dad, yeah, that would be nice, that was what she wanted, she wanted to feel happy, to stop these waves of panic, of hyperventilation from drowning her, so she laughed, she laughed even more, and she probably looked crazy, Georgia Lee was probably scared of her now, wouldn't want to touch her with a ten-foot pole, but that didn't matter right now, because Olivia wanted to be happy, and happy people laughed, so maybe if she laughed enough she could have her happiness back and she could feel normal again and everything could be normal and she could pretend that there were no cameras watching them live and breathe and then not breathe and not live and she could have it all back Cochise and Kingman and Leslie and Jennifer and Hannah and Irene and mom and dad and her cards and her watch, those missing pieces of her and maybe she could be herself maybe she could have it all back because that was what she wanted she wanted everything back she wanted it all back

And it was all so funny because all these things that Olivia wanted, Georgia Lee could never get.

And so she stopped laughing, and then she looked at the ground. Shame. Just tears dripping. She bit her lip. Stood there, arms to her side.

She mumbled, almost to herself. "I... I don't know. I honestly don't know."

"Do you have some- have some cards? Or a working watch, or anything? That would be nice."

[backslash]

"No. I don't have any of those things." She didn't wear a watch. What would she carry around a pack of cards for?

Oh, other people did those things. Other people were so much more fulfilled in the mundane and frivolity of things.

Georgia Lee had never imagined that she might be bitter over the fact that she wasn't short-sighted enough to just be happy with what the uneven hand of fate had dumped in her lap. She stood.

"Do you- do you want to go looking for something like that? Just for a little while and then we'll come back here?" Nobody had bothered them for days, and there were fewer and fewer people who might by the hour. Surely they could just pull the doors to, make them look as though they were still locked, and their sanctuary would be untouched when they returned. Maybe they would even find something more useful than the shovel and Olivia's pick.

Georgia Lee stared at Olivia, willing her to make a choice. Fiyori might have been terrible and predatory, going along with Georgia Lee for lack of anything that appealed to her more and half as a joke, but at least she hadn't had to be dragged.