Hell is Other People

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

It was so weird hearing the name "Camila" on the announcements.

[Camilla Bell continued from The Sweet Smell of Blood on a Summer Breeze]

She'd wandered through the wilds, half-asleep, as the announcements played. Camila- the one with one L, she reminded herself- was killed by some guy. One name kept popping up that she only just really took note of, Blaise. Were they familiar? Camilla didn't seem to recall what they looked like, either. Or that Quinn person. But she knew who she knew, and everybody else- well, fuck everyone else, right?

The sun could not wake her more. She could see the village, up ahead. If she had any luck, Bert would have camped there or something. Maybe in the big red building. Camilla peeked in, through the door. There wasn't anyone in the first room, but there was something beyond it. She went there and-

What the hell happened there?!

Nope, nope, nope nope. She turned around and walked back into what looked like some kind of hospital reception- probably was, given that the map said "Infirmary". Well, Bert wasn't here, but- damn, she had to sleep, didn't she? No, no, she shouldn't sleep, she didn't want what happened last night to- oh who cares about a few petty little nightmares? She could get attacked at any moment, and she was worried about getting a little scared while she slept?

...That sounded like a reason to not sleep, a better one. She took it. That being said, she wandered a bit too much last night, and would much rather sit down and gather her bearings. Maybe call Henry. She dropped her stuff in the corner, and sat down next to it, letting out a sigh.

Wait wait should she close the door-

[MK Kilmarnock]

Justin Greene stood in the doorway.

((Justin Greene, continued from now fuck off))

The announcements mercifully hadn't announced Mackenzie's death. There had to be some logical cutoff to report the deaths, but Justin had assumed prior that it would be just moments before the announcements went off. It would appear that wasn't quite the case, though without a way to measure the exact amount of time thanks to his phone being confiscated, whatever this cutoff is would remain a mystery. But Justin would only one one more day to enjoy this slight advantage. Meka had likely found out by now... Mackenzie could only 'sleep' for so long.

Seeing Camilla there in the corner of the room surprised him, even if not enough to outright startle him or to drop his things, much less the tire iron he still gripped in his hands. "Camilla?" he asked; he hadn't been startled, exactly, but seeing her alive was still rather confusing. "I thought you died- like, thought you were... already dead. ... Did we have more than one Camilla or something?" Justin asked, immediately feeling pangs of guilt... but, for once, they were not pangs of guilt related to murder, so they almost felt welcome.

The thought occurred to him, as the highly awkward beginning of this conversation dragged itself along the floor horribly wounded, that it was a good thing he was relatively clean for the most part. Benny didn't bleed all that much when he hit him, the hair probably stopped most of it. Mackenzie's bleeding was profuse, but controlled. Meka didn't die - that one would probably bite him in the ass later. But the main point was, Justin was free of blood. He didn't necessarily look much like a killer, so now it depended on Camilla remembering his name being called a couple of days ago.

He could still explain it away. Maybe.

Just long enough to get close.

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

What the- she really should not have been surprised, she was the one who forgot to close the door.

He asked if there were multiple Camillas. She figured sharing a name with the same pronunciation as one of her friend's would cause problems one day, but like this? She- she saw it coming yes. But not that it would cause an issue so soon, it didn't help she was running on maybe half an hour of sleep.

What was that in the guy's hand? It almost looked like a crowbar crossed with a pipe, or something like that. Whatever it was, she didn't like it.

She stood up and took her bag with her as she rose. Deep breaths- it wouldn't be too bad, would it?

Would it?

"Wha- who are you?" she asked, instead of answering. "I- no, why are you-" Why was he talking to her? He said so. "You- your name?"

If only she'd closed the damn door, if only she closed the door- she wouldn't be flailing around like this.

[MK Kilmarnock]

"Why am I?" Justin asked with a furrowed brow. At least he had understood one of her questions, but she was obviously freaked out by his presence. But she didn't know his name.

Two options presented themselves here. Actually three, but two main ones. The first option was that Justin could tell her the truth. 'Hi, my name is Justin Greene', he might say. He'd have to bank on her not knowing about his name coming up. The second option was to lie. He couldn't call himself somebody obvious like Connor Lorenzen or Jeremiah Anderson. He wasn't the hotshot QB of the football team and the prom king, and he wasn't a giant gray walking stick. He could just make up a name wholesale, like... Andrew Barbury or something. But if somebody else happened to be around and recognized him...

"Are you alone?" Justin blurted out.

Yeah. Just ask the scared girl if she's alone. That won't freak her out or anything. Justin took a half-step back as he realized the mistake and immediately set about trying to look as nonthreatening as possible, which turned out to be him slouching a little bit, looking at the floor, shuffling one foot. "No, nuh... uh, never mind that. I'm - my name- it's Justin. Greene."

It looked like he was taking the honest option. Bold plan, he'd have to see how that played out for him. "Had- uh, long day, huh?"

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

Oh.

Oh, no.

That was Justin Greene, the guy that killed Benny, who had the distinguished space in her memory as the second dead body she saw.

He backspaced after asking if she was alone. Kinda relatable but you know what's not relatable? Murder.

And to think she joked about wanting to die earlier. Okay she kinda did but not- look, she had people to find. She couldn't just leave the gardening club hanging.

She started with a forced laugh.

"Ahaha... It's been a long night," she answered, stealing a glance the exit from this room to another.

Actually, was she sure she wasn't still dreaming? Because this seemed like exactly the kind of bullshit her dreams would pull on her.

[MK Kilmarnock]

Huh. Maybe she didn't recognize him after all. Then again, she did look awfully nervous. It was clear that Camilla wasn't looking for a fight, which made Justin feel... safe? Searching within himself to parse his feelings was a fruitless effort that would take too much time and too much thinking. He couldn't spare one, and didn't care to do the other. Introspection would make it harder to push on. He decided he felt safe and left it at that.

She probably wouldn't attack him beyond panicked flailings of self defense. She didn't look obviously armed, either, so Justin stepped back inside and made motions for the center of the room.

"I lucked out," Justin blurted. "I uh, managed... managed to find a place that would take- like, there were people in there and stuff." He shook his head. Let the thoughts fall into place. "You know. Actually had people watching me at night. Felt kinda safe." Mackenzie probably felt safe too. "Why? What about you, run into any scary people?"

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

Why was Justin telling her this?

Camilla took a step back as he came closer, kind of- the back of her foot hit the wall, so she made that step smaller. Well, it didn't look like he was looking for a fight. Right? And for all she knew, Benny could have been an accident, it took him a while to actually properly fall dead apparently, and Bert was probably being biased when she told Camilla about Justin but she really, really didn't want to take any risks.

She kept her eye on the pipe-crowbar thing, and kept her mouth shut while she thought of an answer to his question that was less likely to end with her head getting bashed in than no, not until you showed up.

"...no. No I didn't."

[MK Kilmarnock]

"That's... good. That's good I guess." Justin looked for a good place to sit down. There was a mattress just unceremoniously plopped down into the middle of the floor complete with a blanket. Camilla had probably spent the night in it or something, and now she was up and about and... all packed up? So did that mean she was on her way out? She possibly never meant to spend much time here in the first place.

Justin's eyes turned to the door at the other end of the room... mainly, the rust-colored stain all over it. "What's uh... th- what's in there?" He had his ideas. He just wanted to know if Camilla had been over there to explore.

"This build- place, this place looked..." He knelt on the mattress. It was too low to just sit on, but he was so sick and tired of standing and his feet killed him, so he took some weight off by kneeling, still facing Camilla. She wasn't a threat but it gave him shivers to turn his back to anybody now. "Well like, it's huge, right? Yeah? So there- right, there's gotta be a bunch of stuff back there. And that looks like blood, dun-don'tcha think?"

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

Deep breaths, Camilla. That's what she told herself as her gaze followed Justin's movements. See, he was sitting down, Justin didn't want to hurt her. For now. Also he wasn't sitting he was kneeling on the mattress and dammit why didn't she take the mattress for herself? What was she supposed to do now, go and sit next to the pipe murderer? No way in hell.

She should have done a whole lot of things. Wasn't fear supposed to heighten your awareness? Something seemed to have dulled Camilla's. Oh yeah, she didn't sleep. That would do it.

Justin asked what was in the other room. Really, there wasn't any reason for her to not answer, was there?

"...blood. Corpses," she stated. "Probably shouldn't go there."

She still looked to that door all the same, but figured now she had a chance of making it through the other one that went outside. At some point, she would have to run- she knew it.

Would running right now prompt Justin to give chase? Though it wasn't like she was going to test that right now.

[MK Kilmarnock]

Justin had to think on Camilla's response for a little while. He certainly didn't want to see a bunch of corpses, even ones he wasn't responsible for. But...

"Anybody we know?" he asked quietly. Obviously they were classmates, but he was searching for specific names, asking if Camilla had taken a closer look.

"Actually, I-... I guess there's no point in asking that. I just... I wanted to know. H-... wh-who was here." He stood up, only to set the bags on the mattress now. He hadn't eaten in a little while. "How long you been here?"

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

Seeing him stand up, Camilla took a small step towards the door to outside. Just a small step, surely that wasn't worth getting her skull cracked over?

She stayed silent for a bit. Those corpses, she couldn't answer Justin's first question anyway because those had blankets over them and she wasn't about to uncover those. Who knows how long they'd been there?

Who'd been here? She had no clue.

"Oh, um. I only got here uh... recently. Looking for a place to sleep, I-"

She really should have shut her mouth.

"-I didn't get much last night."

Well, what was he gonna do with the information, lull her into a false sense of security and kill her in her sleep?

[MK Kilmarnock]

"Yeah. I know."

Justin unzipped the bag in little jerking motions so the zipper would give. It was a pain, unzipping the bag with one hand, but his other was occupied as always. Letting go of the iron wasn't safe. He could never be safe if it wasn't in his hand to protect him. He finally got the bag unzipped enough that he could reach in and rummage for a bottle of water. He decided he was more thirsty than he was hungry. The water wasn't all that cold, but it wasn't warm either. Even at room temperature, water felt a little more cold than the air. Justin always found that just a little funny.

"Be... for... because you said, like, you had a long night." Ironically he had enjoyed one of the shortest nights in recent memory. Probably the last good sleep he'd ever get until everybody else...

"This is... place, this place is kind of open though. To sluh-... sleep, isn't it?"

He adjusted the bottle of water in his grip by tightening and loosening his hand until it was up near the uppermost part of the bottle. He braced the bottom part of it against his gut and turned the cap carefully with his index finger and thumb. When the cap loosened, he let it fall to the floor. He wouldn't need to cap the bottle again if he finished it all off with one session. As he drank, he thought about where else Camilla might sleep. The bodies probably weren't an option.

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

Justin did not let go of the pipe thing even as he took out a water bottle. He seemed very committed to holding onto that weapon, and Camilla did not like it.

It seemed he'd actually been listening to what she said, so yay? She wondered if he always spoke the way he was at that moment. Maybe he did.

He had a point about it being a rather unsafe place to sleep, because there was no safe place on this godforsaken island.

"Well... you're right," she admitted. "A little lost sleep isn't too bad, though."

Camilla made it sound like she stayed up a little late studying.

The exit was so clearly in view, and she knew better than trying to sleep. Of course she could excuse it as wanting to be on the lookout, and she'd never admit the real reason to Justin of all people. Still, her feet screamed at her to stop standing- so she did. She sat down against the wall again, pulling her knees against her chest with her arms.

This was a bad idea. A horrible idea, even. There was something in the back of her head offering her comfort and reassurance, after all what would be lost if she died?

She could do without its comforts. She was sitting down because she was tired. That was the end of it.

[MK Kilmarnock]

"Lot m-... it's a lotta- lot more than that, don't you think?" Justin had chugged about a third of the bottle while listening to her speak. His fingers wiggled awkwardly and he remembered he had discarded the cap. He felt a little bad just leaving it there... maybe he could find a trash can later. Taking another sip, he let this one sit on his tongue for a couple seconds before swallowing.

"I forgot what day it was, uh... today," he said, watching Camilla slump against the wall. "Don't think either of us we- really slept well. For a while. I slept well... again, last night. Already said that."

Sip.

"But you."

Sip.

"The other room has... has like, all those buh- dead bodies, in it, right? So not there, it's there or here. I could stick... around."

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

"You want to sleep here?" Camilla asked.

Well, if Justin wanted to sleep he could be her guest but apparently he slept well last night. So...

"Or that I sleep here?"

Oh shit he was actually doing that. He was actually going to lure her into a false sense of security and kill her in her sleep. Well joke's on him, Camilla had a falling out with sleep and she knew Justin was a murderer so fat fucking chance.

She quietly laughed at it all. It felt more natural than her previous laughs, but it was still without much mirth.

"No..." she said afterwards. "No... I'm good."