SOTF Archive/SOTF Classic

Angelina never really cried.

((Angelina Cortez continues here.))

It was odd as a baby. Her parents never figured why she couldn’t cry. It was less than she couldn’t and more that she wouldn’t. As she grew older, she morphed into the population. She was able to cry, but she never quite knew why.

So, she was wondering why she was crying over her brother. She had cried because of him in the past, but never like this. It came from somewhere else than her tear glands. She knew she would never learn where her cries came, but she thought she’d be at peace with it by now.

She laid her hand on his forehead. It was warm. She tried to stop crying. Angelina sounded like a wet tire on dry granite. She stopped trying. Her voice was soft and quiet.

“How do you feel, Ramsey?”

Ramsey didn't respond. Not at first, besides some coughs and hacks that he turned his head to redirect away from Angie. And then he opened his eyes, bloodshot, rotting. Like he'd been crying for some time.

He struggled to reposition himself on the makeshift mattress of an emergency blanket before replying, his own words unsteady. "Like shit."

“I figured.”

The world stopped raining on them. In a way, it made the situation worse. Their bodies were completely wet, and now, they had no reason to stand under this makeshift shelter. Everything the rain touched was rain, and everything the rain didn’t touch was moist.

“I’m sorry.” She apologized again. She should know better than to do that, but Angelina just needed to say something. She didn’t want to be silent around her brother. He deserved better than that.

Still clinging to her gun, she looked through the window of their little hut. They managed to make it big enough so that two people could lay down and one could stand. It wasn’t comfortable, and the terrorists didn’t like it because their collars went off at least twice, but with a bit of manoeuvring around the spots with camera, they decided to let the trio of kids live.

“Want more Tylenol? I wish I had Xanax, honestly.”

"Me too. Sure, hit me up."

Truth be told the medicine wasn't doing shit, like back when Mom was way too into holistic medicine. His head still hurt, his throat still burned, still couldn't get any solid foods down. But if it made Angie feel better he'd do it.

Another cough, another couple of specks of blood.

"How's Mike? Where'd he go?"

“Firewood.”

It was a lie. Angie didn’t know. Maybe he was pissing himself or rubbing one out before coming back to them, but he’s been gone for at least a couple of minutes now without any signs of him coming back. She was glad Mike let them be like this. In a way, it just made things easier.

She needed peace. And love.

“Ramsey.” Angelina sniffed. “I love you. I’m sorry I wasn’t there before. I wish I could have stopped this and-”

She started to gag. Her face hurt from the crying. She had cried all night. She wanted this to be over with.

“If I could swap places with you, I would do it.” She wiped her tears away with her sleeve. “You don’t deserve this, nobody does.”

"You don't, either."

Mike being gone, though… good. That made this a lot easier. At least, that's what Ramsey kept trying to tell himself.

"I- we-"

Oh God, the stomach pain started up again. Ramsey grimaced as he waited for it to subside before another round of coughs and phlegm and specks of blood.

"We need to talk."

“About what? The weather?”

Ramsey's eyebrows furrowed. It would be nice to chat about the weather, or about boys, or something else mundane like that, like they used to do back home in Chattanooga in the middle of the night on school days when they were supposed to be asleep. But no. He had to focus. This was important.

"Uh, maybe, but right now… you know I love you, right?"

“Yeah.”





















“Why?”

Ramsey bit his lip as he watched Angie's sullen face and sad eyes. Those tears. She never really cried like that before they reunited like this, come to think of it. Not that Ramsey ever really did either, but seeing her like this upset him the more he saw.

This wasn't right. Like, none of this situation was right, Ramsey knew that, but this. This feeling wasn't.

He… he couldn't do this. He couldn't ask her. He had to bitch out.

"...Nothing, just making sure you knew." He tried to smile at her, tried to make it convincing despite the pain and the tears.

Silence again. But then he spoke up once more. His mouth felt so dry, his eyes so tired.

"Is it still raining?"

“No, it stopped a while ago.”

She bit her lip. She knew what this meant. In a way, she knew it from the start. Angelina knew on this deadend island that the only thing that would stop her from hitting it would be her brother.

And he was laying down in front of him. Dying. The flies having already claimed him.

“I love you too, Ramsey."

“It’s going to be a beautiful day tomorrow.”

“I love you.”

There was something to be said about finding someone you had been desperately searching for.

He was still worried about Ivy like he was worried about his other teammates and friends, but traveling with Meilin? It was like he was given a second wind and focus. His shoes were back on his feet, his basketball shorts now serving as boxers under his cargos and unlike Ivy, Meilin could actually carry her own stuff. He was trying to be positive, present—the drama of their reunion aside.

It felt good to be back with Mei and he felt like she lacked Ivy’s ulterior motives if only because of her willingness to forgive and the lack of baggage they had. The only baggage between them was recent, of course, the only history between them was recent too—but that wasn’t really true, he kept on telling himself. They had been friends before they had been significant others, that wasn’t insignificant.

What also wasn’t insignificant was the smoke bomb he gripped in his free hand and how he lost he was. Oh yeah, he remembered, he had made Ivy read the map because he couldn’t. He didn’t want to explain that to Meilin, it might piss her off or if she couldn’t read the map better than he could, insecure about the Ivy thing. Ace was trying to defuse that situation.


“I dunno where we’re goin’, but I think we’re in like, the lower wild…or is it upper? I dunno, this is a wilderness tho, most def.”

He was an idiot, his brain didn’t work well but his eyes did and ahead there was a clearing…

“Hey, look, I think I see somethin’ over there, let’s go,” he whispered to Meilin and approached the clearing careful, seeing a structure of some sort. It looked like a shelter or something that had been destroyed, but the structure was only background, there was a figure that stood center stage, “Oh shi—Angie? Angie that you?”

Angie Cortez, she and Ace knew each other and were cool with one another. Well, about as cool as older sister’s were with their little brother’s pretty much bestest friend. Angie was better than most. Seeing her made him think of Ramsey--could he really be getting so lucky? Finding Meilin and then Ramsey afterwards? Could he be with Angie? Bret was with Wyatt right? Maybe putting siblings together was some fucked up shit that the terrorists did. Ace was an only child and always jealous of siblings--a brother was like a best friend that God gave you.

“Hey! It’s Ace!”

He dropped his stuff and stepped in front of Meilin, his hands raised, the smoke bomb up in the air like he was getting reading to do the wave. He didn't wanna scare Angie, shit didn't look right--and was that blood? On her hands?


“Uhhh…what the fuck happened here?”