Soulless

[Namira]

((Bobby continued from: Jah, Deliver Us))

A graveyard? Hm. I missed this on the way here. Huh... it's useless, the entire island is just one big cemetery. Death all around, 'Out, out brief candle'... But that isn't going to be the way. My way will be different, even if I have to make it so by paving the road with the dead...

It was still daylight, which was a small mercy. Bobby didn't even want to think about what kind of images would be conjured up by a cemetery at night when in something as crazy as SOTF? But then... all of a sudden, Bobby reconsidered his perspective. Spooky, even in cliche fashion, as graveyards were, whatever ghouls his imagination could come up with couldn't possibly top some of the things Bobby had already laid eyes on. He had seen someone's eyeball burst. Hell, in that instance, he'd been the one causing that macabre sight. He had seen a grenade roll into a student's mouth and detonate, showering the area with gore... No. His mind's machinations could not hold a candle to what he had already witnessed... what he was sure to witness as the game proceeded.

The thought was somewhat demoralizing. What new horrors, then, would lie around the corner? Certainly, if he continued on this path, Bobby was sure to see an ever increasing number of such. As the game wound on, desperation would set in, more people would be more violent and more willing to kill... And on and on until the inevitable conclusion of the game, which by logical progression, would be the bloodiest battle of them all. All in all, it was a grim thought indeed. If evisceration was the first tier, what the last would be didn't even bear consideration. Suffice to say, Bobby's didn't think his projections would come close to covering the true reality.

Bobby sighed heavily, drawing himself from his thoughts. He liked to think about things, worrying at a problem until it was solved, puzzling through difficulty until all the pieces fell into place, or even just dwelling on some hypothetical, obscure eventuality. But this wasn't Southridge High School, safe, secure and untroubled. This was SOTF, some hellish island in the middle of the ocean somewhere, danger lurking around every corner and in every shadow. Letting your guard down would be the equivalent to playing Russian Roulette with a shotgun. And loading both barrels. Bobby stopped in his walk briefly in order to swing his pack from his shoulders and open it up. Lying atop of the jumble of ammunition, weapons and supplies was Bobby's carbine. He hadn't yet used the gun, except to shoot a corpse, which hardly qualified as 'use' - even if Bobby hadn't known Dan Wolfe was already dead. In fact, Bobby considered, he had staunchly refused to use the weapon - did he shoot Ric? Did he shoot Adonis? No, he challenged them to fist fights. Bobby wondered if it was more or less cold blooded to stab somebody in the chest rather than shoot them. As far as his (somewhat flawed) code of honour dictated, sticking a knife in a guy's stomach - then chest, was preferable to merely shooting him in the head... He couldn't begin to justify it. As far as he was concerned, the gun was nothing more than a visual threat, Bobby would only be compelled to use it if he came up against another shooter. Until then, it was melee all the way.

Bobby was about to move on after taking up the carbine once again, but something halted him in his tracks. Right in front of his feet, the earth was disturbed - unless he was very much mistaken, this was a fresh grave. Either somebody had taken the time, and found the compassion to bury a dead body, highly unlikely in Bobby's book, or... his eyes widened as he recalled the last announcement. Although Danya's perverse sense of humour made Bobby close to physically sick, the information he imparted in his morbid daily updates was invaluable...

Then there was Burt... Ken... ahhh... Burken Larris! That's what I'm gonna call him, 'cause he can't seem to decide if he's Burton Harris or Ken Lawson. But yeah, this idiot managed to cheat death once before only to fall into an open hole at the graveyard and manage to get himself buried alive.

If that was the case - and Bobby saw little incentive for Danya to lie in this instance (even if he had twisted the facts of his killing of Tyson), then that meant, somewhere around here, there was a free weapon just waiting to be found. The logical, scavenging side of Bobby kicked in at this point. If he had been buried alive, it was highly likely that the unfortunate soul still had his weapon on him. Even if it was a prank, or otherwise useless piece of equipment, the opportunity to obtain a potentially life-saving (probably ending) for little more effort than a bit of digging was unmissable.

Good to see you're maintaining a sense of morals Bobby. He thought wryly to himself. You don't shoot anyone, but stabbing and graverobbing is a-okay? Bobby stopped in his tracks a second time, poised to begin digging, then turned away.

"I need a shovel," he murmured, conscience berating him. Don't try and ignore it. You know what's right, and this isn't it.

"THEN WHY DIDN'T YOU SPEAK UP IN THE FIRST INSTANCE!?" Bobby roared, disregarding the noise he was making. "It's a little late to have second thoughts about this. There's no reset button, I can't hit 'Load' and go back to my last saved game. What's the use of bringing up the moral implications of graverobbing when I have killed two people?" Bobby's guilty side fell silent. "Exactly,"

Near the grave, Bobby located what it was he was looking for: a spade. It was old, it was rusty, and it looked about ready to break. Even if he had intended to weigh himself down with yet another weapon, Bobby knew that it would be next to useless in a fight - loose dirt looked about all it could handle. Heck, Bobby was afraid to even test it on ordinary, undug soil. As he returned to dig, Bobby failed to recognise a number of tell-tale signs which would have alerted him that this was not the correct grave. For one thing, the grave was far, far too shallow. Somebody was supposed to have been buried alive in it, and for that, you would need quite some depth. Perhaps if somebody else had buried 'Larris' then the small grave would have been feasible, the fact that it had been an accident should have alerted Bobby immediately. A second factor was the lack of a headstone. If there had been an open grave, surely there would also be the stone announcing who was entombed within? Finally, there was also a broken shovel blade embedded in the soil of the disturbed ground, the most jarring clue of all. A lack of observation opened the door to a rather large amount of trauma, which could have been avoided had Bobby just been that little bit more aware.

Rhythmic digging motions allowed Bobby to quickly reach the body inside of the grave. The speed in which that occurred should have been the final hint, as it was, his only reaction was a small amount of surprise at the speed in which he had dug down. Worse yet was that the body was shrouded - but such was Bobby's eagerness for a potential new tool, that he failed to absorb this vital bit of information. The boxer bent down, and tugged the shroud aside, revealing the horrific sight beneath.

A cavity where the stomach should be, filled to the brim with earth, guts made of dirt. Dried blood splattered all across the skin which wasn't covered in the dark soil. Decay had set in, humidity and the heat playing their roles in turning parts of the corpse grey. Insects had done their work too, not majorly, but the preliminaries were most certainly there. Even as Bobby stared in abject horror, a bug of some sort flew from somewhere to land on the body. Worst of all were the eyes, accusatory, condemning Bobby for disturbing his rest, tracking him wherever he seemed to go. Even when he flung the cover back over the body, the eyes still seemed to be following him, if only in his mind.

Bobby turned away, collapsed to his knees, and promptly emptied his stomach onto the ground. This was not what he had been looking for. But then, who looked for eviscerated corpses to dig up? Evidently, somebody had been compassionate enough to bury a dead body. Finally, Bobby realised his mistake.

Of course... back at the end of the first day, it was mentioned that someone was killed in the graveyard. Must have been that poor bastard, and whoever he was with, or even perhaps, somebody who came along afterwards, was caring enough to lay him to rest. A sharp contrast to myself. They put the dead at peace, and I profane their tombs. What a nice guy I am hey? Hm... well, I made a mistake, but it won't be too difficult to avoid making it again, after all, aside from 'Larris' I only recall one person announced as dying here. Unless someone dragged a dead body halfway across the island just to bury them in a cemetery - highly unlikely, then there should be only one more patch of disturbed earth to give me the clue as to where he's buried. I hope so. I don't want to go through that again.

At length, Bobby managed to regain his composure, and was now faced with the task of wandering around a graveyard in order to find one specific grave. An unenviable task, but one that was to be expected. It beggared belief that the first place he checked would be the right one, so, carbine and shovel in hand, Bobby began his search. He wondered if the corpse he had discovered was intended to be some kind of cosmic Aesop, that profaning the remains of the dead was wrong or something similar. If so, it had no effect whatsoever. Indeed, it only cemented Bobby's will not to allow himself to die.

I don't care what I have to do to survive. The only way to make it is to kill your way to the end, thinking that you'll survive in any other way is the height of idiocy. Much as I would love to join a group and escape with them, logic dictates that it just isn't going to happen. Just examining the history of the game shows that. Nobody escaped in V1 or V2, nobody could have made it off the island in any tests Danya ran of this whole thing, which I presume he did. He couldn't possibly have got it right first time, not a project of this magnitude. Look at the V1 winner (on the island too, might I add) Adam Dodd. I've read accounts of the older SOTF competitions, he killed more people than anyone else in V1. Say what you like about self defence, and it's true Dodd is lauded as the 'hero' of V1. But that is only when you compare him to the guys like Jacob Starr and Cody Jenson. Just because he didn't rape anybody doesn't make him a good guy in my book. The man is no better than any other murderer, and that includes myself... his only redeeming grace is that he didn't go quite as far on the scale of slaughter as some of the others. Designated as the 'hero' of that version or not, the fact remains that he was an amoral bastard. He shot one of his friends in the head. Whatever the reason, that is not something a good guy does. Even if calling somebody 'good' is very subjective. The only difference... is that I'm forthright about it. Nothing more than that.

Nearly 45 minutes of searching later, and Bobby finally found what it was he had been looking for. Well, he hoped so at least. The ground, certainly, was disturbed, and the apparent grave had a headstone too, but Bobby felt that more evidence was needed before he blindly started digging again. He didn't want to unearth another torn in half corpse after all. The first hint that this was the right place was the item lying on the ground beside the grave. A map. Unless somebody had discarded it in flight from some terrifying adversary, Bobby couldn't think why a person would intentionally drop their map. Besides, it provided a handy explanation as to why 'Larris' would have fallen into the hole. If he was reading his map, he could easily have missed the cavity in the ground and fallen straight in, dropping his map in surprise. This of course, was highly theoretical, but it was the only possible explanation he could conceive of for the unfortunate death of the man whose grave he was now planning to loot. What clinched it for Bobby was the name engraved on the headstone:

Burton Harris
1986-2006

Coincidence? Perhaps it was. But what were the chances? These little quirks of fate were just whoever directed the universe's way of getting a kick out of what they had done...

Or maybe it was just an unlikely sequence of events brought about by mere chance.

Whichever worked.

And then Bobby began the long task of excavating the dead body, which took rather more time and effort than he really cared to spend in the place. Suffice to say, he was digging for quite some time before anything of note happened. Evidently, whatever had caused the collapse of the hole had been spent, because shifting the soil was easy going - there were very few slides of dirt, and if there were, Bobby made sure to jump out of there as soon as he could. He didn't want to end up going to same way as the guy he was trying to uncover. Over time, it became more and more difficult to proceed: in order to clear the dirt out of the way, Bobby was forced to either hurl it far clear of the edge of the hole - a task made hard by the depth of the cavity and his own fatigue. Or physically climb from the hole in order to dump it. Before long, there were sizable piles of dirt all around the hole, Bobby had stripped off his shirt due to the heat, and there was still no sign of 'Larris'...

Bobby's shovel hit something hard.

Or was there?

He bent over and brushed at the area he had hit with the shuffle, revealing what looked very much like hair. A quick excavation around it, and Bobby found himself looking at the contorted face of yet another corpse. At least it wasn't rotted, at least, not to the extent of the other dead body. A little more work was required, but soon the body was laid out in the bottom of the hole. It didn't appear armed, and Bobby was bitterly disappointed. All the hard work had been for no-... -thing... Bobby bent over and tugged aside the shirt the dead body was wearing, and there, like some kind of holy grail, was one of the last things he had ever expected to see.

"Kevlar," Bobby said with a smile, hesitating for barely a moment before stripping the corpse of said equipment and easing it on himself. Things were looking up. Bobby grabbed his shirt from the ground and brushed the dirt off that before tugging it over his head as well. All the effort had been worth it after all. "My thanks to you 'Larris' this will be invaluable," Bobby told the dead body, then turned away, and hurling his shovel in the air before raising his arms and smiling with his success. His mood was dented somewhat when Bobby chanced to look up and saw the shovel coming back towards him, slamming heavily into his mouth and cutting his lower lip. Bobby swore, clutching at the wound, then grumbling, started to climb the stepped side of the hole. A slope had been required when the hole was getting deep, otherwise there would have been no way to get out once he was inside. Bobby reached the top, and was confronted with about the worst eventuality he could ever have predicted.

*

((Quale Hutchinson continued from: Three Panel Soul))

Quale didn't even know where he was any more. Since encountering that terrible vision - a vampire no less, in the caves, he had been scared out of his mind. The fact that it was bright daytime outside did very little to alleviate his fears. The creature was still out there, and after a time... it got dark, and that was when he would die. And he was sure of that now. No matter what he did, he was going to die. The island was haunted by monsters, and as much as he wished that it was all just the result of some bad trip or crazy dream, that just wasn't the case.

The fact that he found himself wandering through a graveyard did very little to help his composure, especially when he stumbled across an open grave. Mercifully its occupant was covered up, but the fact remained that somebody had opened the grave... If the island was as haunted as Quale dreaded... maybe the body had dug its way out on its own... Quale was tempted to go across and drop his weight on the body to stop it from rising again. An inkling of rationality was enough to prevent him. After all, the vampire could have just been a figment of his imagination. He hoped it had been.

It didn't take Quale long to locate the excavation site. The large amount of dirt strewn all around it made it very easy to see. Quale wasn't sure what to make of it, but he was rather surprised to see a daypack on the ground beside it, and on top of that pack, a gun... Quale smiled for the first time in what felt like days. Monsters or no monsters, haunted or no, a weapon like that would ensure his protection. Quale bent over, picked it up and put it to one shoulder just in time to see somebody emerge from the hole, plunging him into an icy pit of dread.

Coming from a hole in the ground, covered in dirt like someone recently buried, blood all around the mouth. Fuck no! Zombies don't exist!

Quale pulled the trigger almost involuntarily, the weapon went off with a bang and the 'zombie', struck in the chest, was flung back into the hole. He kept tugging at the trigger afterwards for several taken, swept up in soundless panic - unaware that the gun wouldn't fire again unless he worked the bolt back. Obviously since he knew nothing of the gun, Quale had no idea why it wasn't firing. But after a moment, hearing no further sounds, he gasped in relief and fell back on the ground, dropping the gun beside him.

B06 - BOBBY JACKS - Eliminated?

*

Vest or no vest, being shot hurt. Still, Bobby was probably about the gladdest he had ever been in his life at that point. If 'Larris' had been issued any other weapon, anything else, and Bobby would be lying right alongside the man he had robbed. Killed by his own gun no less. Such carelessness was little more than taking the fast lane to death. Bobby doubted he would be granted such a reprieve a second time, in fact, he was sure of it. Being certain of your every move... that made you all the stronger, undoubtedly. The bullet had hit Bobby dead in the chest, holing his shirt, but the Kevlar underneath had done what it was designed to do, succeeding with Bobby where it had failed with 'Larris'. Bobby was in pain, pissed off, but very much alive. One more thing to be glad for: the Armalon PC was of pistol caliber, hence the name. Had it been a proper, rifle style carbine, which didn't fire pistol bullets, and Bobby would be dead. He couldn't expect protection from anything much more than a pistol wearing the Kevlar - he most certainly couldn't take up a 'Invincible' mentality. The vest protected his chest, sure, but what of a head shot? hat of his arms and legs? Protection is was, but wonder armour it decidedly was not.

But... would his opponent know how to reload? Judging by his futile pulling of the trigger, the answer to that was no. Likely he had only been able to fire it because Bobby had already cocked it beforehand. The other guy likely also thought he was dead, if only be his reaction to being shot. Bobby had literally hurled himself backwards: the impact was small - surprisingly so in fact. He hadn't realised how small the power of the bullet was. If he had really been shot, he might have just collapsed where he was stood. His playacting would ensure it looked convincing.

Ironic, that. Bobby thought wryly as he slowly got to his feet, keeping low to ensure he wasn't seen. The movies just don't show the truth. So much so that the reality becomes unrealistic. The boxer launched himself forward, tearing up the slope in moments and coming upon his opponent a second time. At this point, he was sat on the ground, breathing heavily, but as he saw Bobby, his expression became one of utter terror.

"NO!" he screamed. "I killed you! I saw you die! I shot you then and there!" he picked up Bobby's gun and futilely began pulling the trigger again, with no discernible effect apart from repeated clicks. He got to his feet to try and scramble away, but Bobby, pumped on adrenalin and pissed as hell closed the gap in a matter of moments, slamming his shoulder into Quale's torso and sending him flying onto a dirt pile, the carbine slewing away along the ground to Bobby's feet, whereupon he picked it up. Bobby smiled sadistically, pulled the bolt back, and bared his teeth savagely at the clunk of the next bullet shifting into place.

"This is my gun," Bobby snarled, smashing the barrel into Quale's stomach and doubling him over. "And this is how you use it," he pulled the trigger and the other boy choked out a gasp, a gout of blood bursting out of his upper back. Bobby pulled away the gun, and primed it again. Quale lunged forward, trying desperately to rid himself of his tormentor, but Bobby merely took a step back then drove the butt end into Quale's stomach, provoking a cry of pain and a bright trickle of blood from the mouth. Bobby reversed the gun and fired a second time, angling the bullet downward, emerging from the rear of Quale's back in another bright burst of crimson. Quale cried out a second time and managed to conjure the strength to punch Bobby full on in the face, reopening the slight cut which had previously caused Quale to jump to the fantastical conclusion he was one of the walking dead. The reality was perhaps worse. Not a monster, not some creature out of some story book or movie, but another member of the human race, possibly the most savage of all... as Bobby had contemplated earlier, no imagination held the candle to the real thing, and that held true here.

Quale stumbled forward in a lackluster attempt to capitalise on the momentary advantage he had gained from hitting Bobby in the face, only to meet the butt of the carbine coming his way from the opposite direction, smashing his nose to a pulp in a bloody spray. Quale fell then, sprawling in the opposite direction, a futile attempt to escape from the cold fury of the fellow student menacing him without compunction. The most frightening part of the whole ordeal was not the fact that he was surely about to die, not the selection of cuts which adorned his enemy's face, but rather the expression on his face: nothing but anger and ruthlessness, a cold, calculating look. Worst of all was the sadistic smile was appeared at times. Was this fun for him, somehow? For Quale, that seemed impossible. could anybody be truly that inhuman?

For Bobby, the decimation was not without stress. Certain parts of him were enjoying a certain savage glee at tearing this guy apart - which was at odds with his entire mentality on the situation. He was doing this - killing, because he had to, not because he enjoyed it. What kind of sick bastard found pleasure in the pain of others? Yet... yet, that was just what a dark part of him was doing - reveling in the helplessness of his enemy, urging Bobby to kill him piece by piece. The suffering could go on and on... and he could have... fun with it.

Go on it urged Bobby as he stared down at Quale's heaving form, now on its knees in front of him, facing away, clearly dreading the finishing blow to come. A foot next, that won't kill him. This won't last as long as it could - the shots through his torso will make him die faster. But there will be others... oh yes, there will be others. Imagine what you could do with that scalpel, that syringe... Bobby stood there, trembling, mind at war with itself once again, one part telling him to walk away - this wasn't what he needed to do, the other urging him to slaughter Quale in installments.

"THAT. IS NOT. ME!" Bobby roared, dispelling every thought all at once, looping the carbine over Quale's head, digging one knee into his back and hauling with all his strength. Bobby closed his eyes shut as tight as he possibly could as he heard a very distinct 'Crack' and Quale's sobs fell silent.

W-what a drag man...

...

M-maybe I-I should have ... done more...

Quale's body pitched forward, the dove of Southridge High School struck down, his broken form testimony to the slaughter which encompasses SOTF.

B48 - QUALE HUTCHINSON: ELIMINATED

Both shell-shocked mentally and massively tired, Bobby retrieved his day pack and stumbled away, every thing he did just seeming to drain away his humanity and his compassion until he was completely and utterly...

Soulless.

((Bobby continued in: Point of Collapse))

[Cactus]

((I have a problem with this post. It's not that he's going around digging up corpses, but rather that he's actually able to GET to Ken Lawson's corpse. The whole point of his death was that he couldn't climb out of the hole in the ground because it was over ten feet underground. If you're going to dig such a hole, I'm sorry, but you probably aren't going to be able to get out of it. I don't mean to be an ass or anything, but that's a fairly large hole in the plot right there.))

[Namira]

((Well that's why I made the point of saying that he cut a slope into the side of the hole - so that he could actually climb out of it. If the thing was sheer, then I know he wouldn't have been able to get out else: nobody can jump four feet into the air after all. Still. If you have problems I'll nix the post and start over))