SOTF Archive/SOTF Classic

((Amber yawned, stretching herself out as she rolled out of bed, the blanket tangled around her leg coming with her as she hit the ground with a thud.))

She found herself on the dusty floor of the master bedroom, blankly staring at the ceiling as she lied unmoving, tangled in the fluffy, voluminous blanket that had kept her uncomfortably warm and very sweaty during the night. The master bedroom of this house was fairly plain compared to the others, having the usual assortment of furniture and little else. It definitely wasn't as interesting as the house that was filled with nothing but cushions, but it did have the largest bed of the bunch, which ultimately made Amber's decision for her.

A window sat wide open, the morning sun poured in from the opening, illuminating the room as the gentle sounds of the jungle could be heard outside. Amber's duffel bag and her baseball bat sat a few feet away from her, near the wall. Her jeans lying neatly folded next to her bag along with her beanie, a desperate and somewhat futile attempt to help keep her temperature under control.

Amber hadn't gone anywhere since the incident yesterday, because she just hadn't felt the need to leave. These huge, fancy houses were nice, the beds were comfortable, and now that Blaise and Parker were gone, it was safe. She hadn't even seen another person since they had left her behind, and she was uncharacteristically okay with that.

Plus, she still had Blue.

Groaning, she sat up and threw the blanket away from her, the blanket gently hitting the back wall of the room before falling to the floor with a thump. She hadn't even used the damn thing during the night, so it was a wonder how she had managed to get herself tangled in it anyway.

Rubbing her eyes and smacking her lips, Amber took stock of her current state. Her head hurt, her body ached, and despite just waking up, she was so, so tired. Running her fingers through her messy, greasy hair to clear the tangles, she tried to think up something to do during the day to keep her from going completely insane that wouldn't stress her already limited resources. Perhaps she could look around for a nearby water source, and refill her empty bottles. The work required to purify the filled bottles would probably be a pain, but it was better than catching something nasty.

Planting her arms behind her and staring back up at the ceiling, Amber struggled to find the will to move. God, she wanted a smoke more than she ever had before in her life. Not because of her steadily worsening withdrawal, but because of how many of her friends were just... gone.

The announcements had blared out a few hours early, but Amber had covered her head and ignored them, doing her best not to face the reality of what was happening around her. She couldn't bear the thought of Abel lying there in a puddle of his own blood, his body so battered and bruised that he couldn't even summon the will to move anymore. Or Mercy, who had apparently been poisoned, sitting there writhing in pain as whatever toxin destroyed her from within.

They were gone, and she would never see them again. She had tried to get over it, to give eulogies and the like to recover, but she just couldn't. She tried to ignore it, but the thoughts wouldn't go away. She tried to joke about it, but no matter what, it was never actually funny. It was all too much. Too much to handle, too much to think about. She couldn't... and yet, every moment she spent like this, her mind kept drifting back to them. She wasn't sure just how much longer she could last like this...

I can't... I can't do this anymore, Blue.

What? Amber, no. You can't just give up, you've made it so far!

And? I never expected to last this long. I didn't think I'd outlive anyone here, let alone half of my class. I tried to just ignore everything, but I can't do that anymore. I don't have a direction, and I don't know how to find one.

Maybe... maybe there's someone you could try to find, to help you figure things out?

Who? One of the other cheerleaders? I'm pretty sure out of all of us, it's just me, Madison, Ivy, and Lori left. Ivy's a huge bitch, and Lori... well, I didn't really know her all that well. Maybe I could talk to Madison, but didn't she kill someone? Nathan, I think? Goddamn, I wonder what series of unfortunate events caused that to go down...

...Well, moping around isn't going to help you. There has to be somebody out there, even if it's not somebody you know.

I guess...

Amber forced herself up and dusted herself off, before moving to don her pants and beanie again, hoisting her bag over her shoulder and taking the bat into her hand, her grip tightening around it. Leaning out the bedroom window, she scanned the surroundings, trying to see if anyone else had turned up.

Paloma's fingers tightened on the makeshift bone shiv.

((Paloma has joined the chat.))

That was the perk of eating monkeys.

Other than giving you proteins, they actually had those tiny bones scathered their bodies that were either already sharp or already broken into splinters. As she scavenged their bodies, Paloma couldn't help but notice the free weaponry in front of her.

They weren't as good as the baseball bat, but they did a better job at making Paloma feel safe. Maybe it had something to do about how she was able to conceal them around her clothings. Maybe it had to with the fact that it was nice to feel her grip around a small, breakable object. There wasn't anything else of value at the commissionary other than questionable food and water.

Her next pitstop would have been the housings but she had stumbled here instead, attracted by the bright colors of the building.

Whoever lived here in their previous life clearly had the money to flaunt it. Paloma wanted whatever was inside this house in particular. She assumed there would be leftover items from either other participants or from the house owners. If she was lucky, she wouldn't have to stay alive until she died and she could start thriving.

Her bones in her hand and in her clothes, Paloma entered what appeared to be the living room.

Wait, was that...

Amber was completely dumbfounded. After Paloma had gotten away from her the second time, she had been expecting never to see Paloma again. She had thought that one of them would have died long before they would stumble into each other by chance, but apparently that wasn't the case. This could be her chance to finally ask Paloma why she had murdered Abel in cold blood, before a single other person had killed anyone else.

She ducked back inside the window as Paloma approached the house she was in, hoping that she hadn't been spotted. Now she had to consider what she was going to do. She had no idea how open Paloma was to talking, and had no idea if she had managed to obtain a new weapon since they last met. Directly approaching her could be dangerous because of that, but Amber wasn't sure she had any other option. She couldn't run, since leaving the house would require either sneaking past or going through Paloma, and Amber was neither stealthy nor all that great in a fight.

No, confronting her was the only choice Amber had. As much as she didn't want to confront yet another known killer, even if it was likely to lead to a fight, her hand had been forced. Nervously, Amber left the master bedroom, moving quickly and quietly through the hallway and into the living room. Across the room from her, Paloma stood, clear as day.

She took on a defensive stance before she spoke, readying herself in case she had to charge Paloma, or Paloma had to charge her. "Hi, Paloma," she began, doing her best to hide her rage. "Why did you kill Abel?"

Paloma was in the middle of opening cupboards, searching for food. There were open cans of whatever was inside, something that was dead in the corner, and a very small lump of rock with a googly eyes hanging inside. As she moved to open a second one, she was stopped in her tracks by the woman she had ruined.

Amber.

She was also the woman who had ruined her life.

Interesting dynamic. Something to write a novel about, to create a piece of fiction. Tragically, their life was too real to be mocked but not enough to be cried. So, Amber and Paloma were in this house without any means of getting out without the other noticing.

"Are you sure you want to know?" Paloma cocked her head, hiding the shiv. "And risking dying like a bitch?"





"Just like your boyfriend?"

Amber's face contorted into one of shock, her blood running cold. There was no way that Paloma's word choice there was a coincidence. Had she heard Amber's outburst all those days ago? Amber knew she could be quite loud when shouting, and she had spotted Paloma sprinting out of the wrecked boat, so it was definitely a possibility.

Paloma was almost certainly trying to get to her. Needle at her to rile her up, and throw her off balance, possibly before attacking. She wouldn't let that happen, she wouldn't give an opening, but she still couldn't control her emotions. Rage at the murderer standing in front of her, sorrow over Abel's death, guilt for what she had said in the spur of the moment. Her body showed it, taking on a defiant stance as her face shifted into one of anger, tears beginning to well up in her eyes.

"Fuck you! Abel was the best person I knew, and you're the reason why he's gone," she screeched at the other girl, pointing an accusatory finger at her. "If anyone's the real bitch here, it's you!"

Amber, escalating this won't help matters-

I know.

She knew now better than ever that she was probably going to get into a fight here. Paloma had clearly grown more unhinged with time, and she didn't seem like the type to back down. She steeled herself for that, clearing the tears from her eyes and tensing her body in preparation to swing at a moment's notice. She just hoped that her hand-eye coordination held up now, when it counted most.

"I want to know why," she stated, through gritted teeth. "Tell me."

"Because he scared me."

Paloma stayed tense.

If only Amber had stepped a little closer, it would make the world much easier. Paloma could totally shorten the distance between them, but she was already injured. The damage on her body was already tearing her apart and she knew she had limited endurance inside of her.

"And he grabbed me." She spat out. "And I freaked out and I hit him."

Paloma wasn't sure if she was telling the truth or if she was remembering wrong. It didn't really matter. It went something like this, it was a vague approximate. She was unsure of what its measurement, but the memory was still there. The feelings and the aches and the pain were still in her body, but the actual images had been erased.

"And you're not going to take that for an answer," she pointed the girl with her shiv, "so come at me."

How deep was the grave she had dug for herself?

"Or get out."

Amber didn't know what to think of Paloma's answer. She could see Abel accidentally scaring someone, she could see someone freaking out and hurting him over it, but what she couldn't see was him grabbing someone out of the blue. If she was telling the truth, then that meant there was more to the story, there had to have been.

"I don't think that makes you innocent. You killed him, with this," she raised the bat into the air in front of her, before resuming her defensive stance. "Abel actually played baseball, and I bet even he couldn't kill someone with this just by hitting them once, let alone someone as small as you. You beat him to death."

She scowled at Paloma, her anger quietly building. Part of her wanted to run Paloma down, give her a taste of her own medicine, and avenge Abel for what she did to him. Another part of her just wanted to leave, to remove herself from the situation or make an extremely improper joke about it as a vague means of coping with it. She wasn't going to act on those feelings, though. Not yet, anyway.

"I don't want to hurt you," she stated, quietly. "But I'm not leaving. What are you going to do about that?"

There.

The weapon she wanted. It was in the hands of her enemy. She wanted it more than she wanted food or water or comfort because that piece of wood would bring all of them to her. Paloma's face stayed emotionless, but inside, she was antsy.

"I'm going to do this."

She dropped her bone shiv. It made a sharp noise against the wooden floor.

"I'm not innocent," Paloma cocked her head to the side, "but I never claimed to be."

Amber was another byproduct of this game. She was engaging in the same behaviour that Paloma was, but veiled under a thin layer of self-righteousness and it made Paloma feel sick. The hypocrisy of her classmates just reminded how much she hated them. Every single one of them were incapable of being honest and they all had to resort to double standards to justify themselves.

It fucking made her sick.

"You know, you're really stupid for idealizing that boy." Paloma raised her hands like a magician. "I can't blame you. He really played you."

Amber tensed as Paloma dropped the makeshift shiv, expecting her to make some kind of aggressive move, but instead she seemingly disarmed herself.

Does she not want to fight too?

It could be a trap. She might have another weapon hidden away, and she's just trying to get you to let your guard down.

Maybe, but...

Amber lowered the baseball bat, letting the tip gently tink against the floor, but kept a hold of it. She was willing to go along with peaceful gestures, but she wasn't going to render herself defenseless, not when she's in the room with a known murderer. Her boyfriend's known murderer, at that. Speaking of which...

"What are you talking about?" She asked, tersely, not taking Paloma's continued slandering of her deceased lover lying down. "I knew Abel better than anyone, he couldn't have 'played' me."

"Yeah," Paloma tentatively took a step forward, "that's literally what everyone said about him."

Paloma tilted her head. Her hat felt heavy on her head as if it was a mine that was about to blow her brains out. Her eyes trailed on the weapon. Her weapon. It reminded her that she needed it more than anything else.

She took another step.

"Connor said that. Jeff said that too. So did literally everyone else on this fucking island," she punctuated the last three words with breaths, "everyone said they knew him best and that he would never do this."

Paloma's fingers dug into her palm as she took another step closer to Amber. If she wanted to, if Amber was opened enough, if Paloma was brave enough, she could lunge forward. The shiv tied on her wrist reminded her how easy it would be to slit the girl's throat.

She just wanted to do it as safely as possible.

"So I don't blame you for not seeing it, you clearly loved him and I'm so sorry I took that him away from you but," Paloma's words were getting softer as if she were trying to catch Amber by her breath. "And nobody did anything to help me. Nobody ever stopped to think about how he fucking looked at me."

Her heart was beating between her ears and it made her feel sick.

"He hurt me, Amber, and I had to do it."

"Okay, first, back the fuck off," Amber commanded, resuming her defensive stance.

Amber wasn't an idiot, or rather she absolutely was an idiot, but she had seen enough movies to know what Paloma was trying to do with each of those steps she was taking. She was trying to close the gap between them to make an eventual attack easier. Maybe she still had a weapon on her that was hidden away, maybe she just wanted to go for the bat, Amber didn't know, and she didn't care, Paloma was already too close for comfort.

What she was saying was obvious nonsense, but Amber still wanted to know more. Maybe if Paloma lied enough, it'd make it easier for Amber to fight her if, or rather when, it came to that. She didn't want to fight, she didn't want to see others fight, but she wasn't naive, and she wasn't going to allow herself to hold back.

"How could he have hurt you? He was the most harmless person I knew."

"He was as harmless as pouring water on an oil fire, you fucking tart!"

Maybe if Paloma had planned for Amber to live in the beginning, she would have tried to get her point across. But there was this impending doom looming over Amber's head that she was going to die at the end of this conversation.

It was always meant to be like this.

This meeting would be the last time that one of the girls would breath the same air, and Paloma assumed that Amber knew it somewhere inside of her. Paloma found it deeply disconcerting that Amber wasn't acting on the impulses that had been driving Paloma up against the wall. It clearly wasn't a question of self-control.

So what was it? Fear?

Paloma snatched the shiv away. It was about one inch long and had a roundish point. She wasn't sure what was the actual bone, perhaps a rib or an arm or a nose, but now it was Paloma's and Paloma took good care of her things.

And here Amber was, still getting lied to.

Maybe when this conversation started, she had been hoping they would reach some kind of understanding, but it was abundantly clear that Paloma was too far gone for that. It saddened her, both that Paloma had gone so crazy so quickly, and that she was never going to get the closure that she wanted so desperately, but she couldn't dwell on that. Now with Paloma posturing to rush forward and pulling a shiv once again, Amber had no other option. This was a fight, possibly to the death, and she wasn't going to be the one to die.

Hopefully she wouldn't have to kill Paloma, either.

Steeling herself, Amber took her own aggressive step forward, raising the baseball bat for a swing.

The bat whizzed over Paloma's head, colliding into the cupboard into a shattering crash.

Paloma knew for a fact that she was disadvantage in this fight. Amber was taller and more fit than her. And she clearly didn't have an injury that throbbed at every moment. She was lucky. It made Paloma angrier than she was.

That's what she used when she lunged at Amber's throat with her fangs poised for attack. It wasn't adrenaline or rationality or muscle memory; it was pure anger. Her rage was deeply rooted, somewhere beneath her family life. That anger slipped through this tiny hole that Paloma had once called a mouth.

"Fuck you," she roared, "fuckyoufuckyoufuckyou-"

Blood.

Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.

Amber didn't know what she had been thinking when she took that swing, maybe she thought Paloma would just get hit and go down, maybe she thought Paloma would simply back off. It didn't really matter, she missed completely and now Paloma's coming at her and she ended up hitting the cupboard that had been to her left and made a huge noise and now there was broken glass on the counter below it-

Wait, the counter.

Running on pure instinct and adrenaline, Amber twisted and leaned back, narrowly avoiding Paloma's snapping jaws closing around the air where her neck had just been. Quickly, she took one of her hands off the bat and palmed Paloma's forehead, putting all of her strength and weight behind overpowering the other, smaller girl.

"No!" She shouted, before slamming Paloma's head into the counter as hard as she could, the brutal noise of her skull colliding with it echoing around the room as the broken glass painfully embedded itself in the side of her face. "Fuck you!"