👁️📦👁️

[Maraoone]

((Britnee Joyner continues from ))

So nothing of note had happened in her and Diana's explorations.

Like, yeah, there were gunshots, but what else was new? And yeah, people were dying apparently, allegedly, according to the announcements, but she hadn't even seen any bodies? And, like, they'd been walking around the jetties and exploring old abandoned sailboats and shit for hours? So that was really fucking weird to Britnee.

She wasn't complaining, she thought at first. Trouble would find them when it found them, that was how it went. And all the walking had been good cardio too, good for stamina, good for her figure. But, like. It felt a little like that time she'd meant to send a picture of herself in a crop top to her boyfriend of the month but she'd sent it to her mom's phone instead. But mom was still at work, she was still teaching in her little Catholic private school. So, like, something bad was gonna happen, she knew it, but it wasn't happening yet. So, that day, Britnee had spent those whole entire hours at home, hiding in her bedroom, freaking out with her besties on the phone about it, just waiting for the world to end.

Just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

It hadn't dropped yet. No bodies, no enemies, weirdo Anthony aside, just her and Diana and the sea and some old boats and the implications of violence in the air.

Eventually their tour of the arena brought them to this pier kinda jutting north of the cruise ship, she guessed. She'd dragged Diana here because the sea here looked weird. The light glinted wrong. And then she realized why.

In front of them was this spread of floating cargo boxes chained together, just bobbing like meatballs in soup, moonlight glinting off their metal surfaces occasionally. The chains told her this was put together deliberately by the producers. That you were meant to, like, traverse this, walk across this rickety array of ropes and crates, where the slightest wave could send you tumbling into the sea.

It seemed like the worst idea possible.

So Britnee walked onto the pier and then off it, jumping onto the nearest floating crate.

She looked back at Diana.

"Wanna try this little obstacle course with me?"

[Lord_Shadow]

((Genevieve Erickson continued from Gene Hackman had it easier in The Poseidon Adventure))

The sea looked so inviting. Like it could wash away all her anxiety and fear. Like it could get rid of her memories of what she had witnessed.

Even a day later hadn't done that.

Somehow, it never occurred to her before to just stare out at the sea and wait.

Wait for what? A new threat? Death? For this all to be over?

For Leo's face to disappear from in front of her. For the gunshots and blood and everything to finally go away.

She hadn't slept because of that. She was basically a shambling mess up until this point. Like a zombie or something.

But now at the cusp of the floating crates, Genevieve was finally still.

Not really calm, but still. She sat and watched the waves with mild interest.

Maybe she should just jump in.

Maybe that would be best.

Maybe

Maybe

May-

She jolted awake, steadying herself so she didn't fall off the pier. Those crates didn't seem stable at all and she didn't want to fall on them or between them.

She looked around and thought she saw some people nearby. Hard to make out in the moonlight, but more than likely they were real.

And that meant she wasn't safe.

She gripped the gun tighter and rubbed the sleep from her eyes.

Can't sleep, they'll kill me.

Can't run, too tired.

Can't close eyes, nightmares still there.

Can't

Just can't go on

Just

Just

Want to

Maybe

Fall in

Dive

Di(v)e

(Di)v(e)

Rest




































No

Stay awake, stay alive

You have to, you have to.

[Maraoone]

Britnee's feet landed and the metal crunched underneath.

There was, like, a split second where she thought she'd die one of the more pathetic deaths on SOTF, when she landed and her feet wobbled and her arms flailed and she thought she'd just plop into the ocean in the dead of night like that. There was her trouble right there, just a few meters away and she'd landed right into it.

Her few seconds of mortal terror passed though. She righted her balance, stood up properly, and now she was on the obstacle course. Tada.

She'd expected Diana to join her immediately, to be right by her side, but instead she saw some small little girl in a hoodie, sitting at the end of the pier, kinda hunched over, all ghost-like.

She'd seen her before. Probably at the trawler, the place she'd woken up, since that was the only other place she'd seen people aside from Anthony, and she didn't look like a blond British boy with anger issues so.

Hoodie, cargo pants, a remarkably unremarkable outfit.

Genevieve. Yeah, that was her, that was her name.

And she was holding something too.

It was middle of the night, only a dim moonlight providing any sort of illumination in the area. What she was holding could be anything, really.

Could be her own little bottle of rum. Bottle of water. Some joke weapon the producers gave her. What did the producers like giving out for jokes these days? Were dildos still a thing or was that a bit passé by now? Or maybe it was a log.

She was gripping the object in both hands and it seemed to glint in the light a little and Britnee didn't like that.

Smile on her face again, like before. Dee's Discount Deals smile, customer service smile, shine through the dark smile.

No way she didn't hear her jump on the cargo. Couldn't sneak in the dark anyways, so might as well face her new trouble face-on.

Blood rushed through the back of her neck again. It felt new.

Nice, maybe?

Looked at the girl, taut smile still on display. "Hey, Gen. You alright there?"

[Lord_Shadow]

She looked up at the girl who spoke to her.

Doing alright?

What kind of stupid ass question was that?

"Fine."

She didn't have the energy to run anymore. She had one shot, and if she had to she would take it.

If she even could.

Still, seemed fair to let her state her intentions, considering she was kind enough to not gun Genevieve down immediately.

"But it's not like that matters anyway."

She closed her eyes and raised her head and took a deep breath.

She exhaled and lowered her head and stared at the girl again.

She was going to die tonight. Or the girl would. Or maybe both of them would.

She just wanted to rest. And not see the blood and horror and everything. But that couldn't happen.

She avoided looking at it when she was at home.

She couldn't avoid it here.

And it took away all her will to go on.

But go on she had to, if for no other reason than that she was still alive.

And Leo wasn't.

[Spindarene]

((Amanda Brooks continued from Excellent Choice))

She knew it. She knew that Kaya and Bethan hated her. Those fucking hypocrite bitches. They wanted her to become a killer so that they could survive, but as soon as she said yes, they turned tail and ran. Well fuck them. Fuck all of them. Fuck every single goddamn person in this game. Everyone from her school. Everyone in the world.

Amanda was walking quickly and furiously, holding her gun by her side as her thoughts churned. She didn’t know where she was going. It didn’t matter.

She turned around every ten minutes or so to make sure that Emmett was still with her. She kept expecting him to disappear any minute, just like Bethan and Kaya. She always had a horrible feeling in the pit of her stomach every time she was about to turn around, expecting Emmett to be gone. And she always felt a little thrill of relief whenever she saw that he was still with her.

Well, Kaya and Bethan could go off and die on their own for all she cared. But she was going to keep Emmett safe, no matter what it took. As long as he stayed with her.

Her thoughts were interrupted as she approached a pier with some boxes floating in the water nearby. There was a person standing on the pier. Amanda’s stomach dropped and her heart pounded. She didn’t think the person had seen her yet. The figure was small. She couldn’t tell who it was. She peered at the figure, trying to determine their identity, then stopped. It didn’t matter. In fact, it was better this way.

Don't think. Be empty.

Almost in a trance, Amanda raised the gun with shaking hands, fumbled with the safety until she clicked it off, then held it up with the person on the pier in her sights.

Her finger found the trigger. She braced for the kickback, then fired.

[Brackie]

((Emmett Purcell continued from Excellent Choice))

Emmett had been no happier than Amanda when he realized Kaya and Bethan had ditched them.

They'd gone to the RocketBoat, as a group. They'd waited there, only for a few hours, in the sparing hope that someone from their team would show up - maybe Stephanie could have at least hinted to their team they'd be there, otherwise she was a pretty shit mentor - until suddenly, they weren't allowed to anymore, because otherwise their necks would blow up. As Emmett grabbed his bag, he'd turned around to ask Kaya where hers was, when suddenly, she was gone, and so was Bethan. He didn't even see them run away, they were just gone.

And of course, Emmett was pissed, because every negative thought he'd had about them while he was here bubbled to the surface, but he didn't have the time to rant and rave because they had to escape a danger zone. And of course, he'd barely managed to get a few words in before Amanda had revealed she was just as angry as he was, which was a relief because there was usually a giant fucking canyon between how Emmett felt and how any woman within his vicinity felt. And yeah, he'd agreed with her. He'd gotten so caught in the moment he'd practically riled her up. She probably had her own reasons, but for Emmett, it wasn't just that two people had run off on him, it was that two teammates had run off on him, two people he was supposed to protect and help survive. Well, fuck them. They could figure that out on their own.

But as Amanda determinedly lead him around the floatilla, he realized very quickly he needed them to figure it out, and successfully, even if he wasn't there. If they died, his own odds shortened. His odds shortened dramatically every time Amanda felt angry, because she was under no obligation to not kill him - hell, he'd been the one who put the idea in her head about going for the ten kills in the first place, and a Buccaneer kill was worth just as much as any other team.

And yet, he stayed with her, because helping someone live when it could happen alongside his own survival was still important.

No matter how pissed off at Kaya and Bethan he was.

He just needed to find the rest of their team and let them know the deal. With the goal of a team win, with helping Amanda get ten kills to maximize the amount of survivors here. That wasn't too hard, right?

Of course, they could do without Amanda shooting at anyone she saw.

Emmett had been around guns a lot in his life, but he still reflexively flinched when Amanda fired at the number of figures at the end of the pier. He wasn't used to being so close to such a shaky trigger finger, and he had a small voice at the back of his mind reminding him he was still in a team.

But he checked the group, and none of them had his own signature pink bandana anywhere on their person.

So he turned to his travelling partner, and nodded.

[Maraoone]

It wasn't until after the bullet zipped between her and Genevieve that she jumped back, the rocking of the cargo almost sending her stumbling. Whatever Gen had just said was smashed, smothered by the crack of the gun.

More blood surged through her veins, along with something else. This pure, dreadful energy, this frightening burst of something.

Here it was. Here was her trouble. The something she'd been looking for was here.

Her first instinct was to dive into the water, but though she could swim, she couldn't swim fast. They'd catch her there.

Her second instinct was to run off into the crates, but she didn't have any good weapon at her. She couldn't just spray the corrosive chemical at them like a spray bottle.

All her instincts felt off. They all felt wrong, misshapen, weird, any course of action she could take felt wrong because her best friend wasn't by her fucking side.

Diana still wasn't here. She wasn't here. She hadn't been shot, Britnee would've heard it. She'd just disappeared.

She wanted to scream out her name, but maybe she was hiding. She was probably hiding. Diana always had a plan. Diana always knew what to do.

Diana had the fucking gun. Britnee didn't have a gun. She didn't have any defense against these two silhouettes.

Her trouble was here, it was here. And yet there were still all these boats to head off too. There were still all these paths to take.

Two days she'd lazed around on some random boat in this marina with Diana doing shit. Two days, because she'd had all the time in the world to decide. Trouble would come to her when it came. Later was always later.

And now she had all of now to decide.

The two silhouettes in the background.

Her missing friend.

The crates behind her.

The hooded girl in front of her.

Those were the paths.

She couldn't catch any of the cameras, but they were always there, weren't they?

Genevieve had something in her hands, didn't she?

Genevieve needed someone, didn't she?

She'd decided.

She looked up at the hooded girl on the pier, held her hand out. Couldn't pull her off herself lest she drop them both into the fucking sea.

"Gen, come with me NOW or we DIE."

[Ohm]

If one were to think that Diana would follow Britnee down there, after the almost stumble into the ocean, one would have to be joking or mad.

Diana stayed put. Britnee was many things to her since this started, and they shared some cute moments together, she was not landing in one of those comps with inappropriate music for her.

The struggle to see was real at that moment, with the darkness that now ebbed across the sky only punctured by the moonlight giving them faint viewing of what was ahead. The splash of the water onto the various crates and the creak of wood and metal felt the weight of the person on top of it, all of it made it everything more unnerving.

She squinted as if to help see in the dark, see the girl Britnee was calling out to with only her faint voice of Gen being the clue… From the first day? She was still around from the sounds of it. Maybe the others from that day would jump out from the dark to surprise them, just like the first day, before they all went boom or something. Surprises were rarely nice on SOTF.

But this little reunion tour of theirs would be interrupted by the biggest moment killer of their time.

Some asshole firing at them.

Diana ducked down instinctively, shielding her head. The shot wasn’t close, not by a longshot. It was clear whoever this was, they were aiming for the ones on the crates. Still, she shielded, mind going into overdrive thinking who it could be from the announcements.

It had to be Seo, right? She had so many kills already. It wouldn’t be out of mind for her to just go for people now, hands caked in blood.

Or was it someone else, Anthony? It couldn’t have been that prat, with the way he had been acting towards them he would have been ranting and raving for them to suffer for the sin of being on tv.

Then, who could it be?

She looked over her hiding spot to see darkness, her old friend staring back at her. Faint figures on the crates across with voices to match. Her hands clenched involuntarily on her gun as she tried to see.

The faint sounds came closer, slowly figures started to form clearer, Diana's eyes widened, and again, she went back down and hugged herself close. She could feel their weight on the boards as they walked past her hiding spot where she had hidden herself away. She had seen them, but they hadn't seen her.

Didn’t matter, couldn’t matter who they were. Not now, not ever again. Just someone after them that they would have to drive away.

She had told Britnee on the first day when she found her that she would protect her, people like her rarely made it near the end after all, and she was not going to let her die to some random person firing blindly in the dark.

With that thought in mind, Diana rose from her spot and aimed her flintlock with her right hand, other hand holding at her arm as if to brace from impact as she nestled the gun on the crate and fired at where the sound had come from.

[Lord_Shadow]

It was happening again.

More shooting.

And now she was in the thick of it.

Her heat pounded out of control. Her senses went wild, everything going crazy within her.

She was gonna die.

Fucking die

And for what?

"Fuck, fucking fuck!"

She scrambled to her feet, took a breath,

And jumped

She somehow managed to land on a crate.

The gun cushioned her fall

In the sense that it didn't and she basically tumbled all over it and herself and ended up in a heap on the ground.

Somehow she didn't end up in the drink, though she did get a refreshing blast of complimentary salt water. How nice.

She spat out what she received.

"Let's"

She struggled to her feet, used the weapon for support to rise quicky.

"Go."

[Spindarene]

Chaos erupted as soon as Amanda fired her gun. She heard shouting from the people near the water, and then heard a gunshot coming at her from somewhere in the darkness--some other person she’d completely overlooked--and then felt a sharp pain in her side.

She cried out but held onto her gun, and swung it around to point in the direction where the other gunshot had come from. Her finger clamped down on the trigger, and she fired. However, it wasn’t just one or two shots this time, it was a whole series of them, making the gun vibrate and shake against her shoulder. She groaned and yelled as the kickback aggravated the wound in her side. She swung around to face the water, still holding onto the trigger, firing one bullet after another anywhere in front of her. She couldn’t think. All she could feel was the pain in her side and the feeling that walls were closing in around her, and that if she stopped to think or even breathe she would suffocate. So she clutched her gun tightly against her body and kept her finger pressed against the trigger long after she ran out of bullets.

[Brackie]

The crackle shook through Emmett's head the moment it went off, even though it didn't hit him. Shit, they were already shooting at the girls on the dock, but now someone else was shooting at them? They needed to replan, get to cover before something bad happened.

And the bad something that happened was Amanda getting shot. When he saw Amanda crying out in time with the gunshot, the worst came to his head - that he'd lost what he knew of his team for someone who was as useful as his damn mentor - but when she recovered almost immediately and saw her turn and unleash bullet hell, something of a wave of relief overcame him.

With him safely behind a nearby jetty post.

Part of him wanted to dive out by himself, help out, get a confirmed kill. But this was a gunfight. You don't walk into a firing range unless you plan on getting shot, and Emmett did not plan on getting shot. Amanda was the star here, and for some reason, some unknown providence, he was going to have to remain her support, since she was the one laying out all the fire and taking it in return.

When the firing stopped from their end, Emmett peered out at his companion, letting out a harsh whisper shout for her to hear.

"Get to cover before you get shot again!"

Questions about her feelings and wellbeing could wait, he needed to help her stay alive now.

[Maraoone]

bang

Oh God they were being fired at. Britnee looked back, saw a girl with a gun hunched over, bleeding, the girl that'd shot at them, and, that wasn't Diana. That wasn't her. Someone else shot her, someone else in this area had a vicinity, so Diana was there. Diana shot the girl. She had Britnee's back, she had a plan, she always had a plan—

crunch

Genevieve landed next to her, steadied herself. She was with Britnee too now, thank God, thank God, thank God, she wasn't alone in this. She grabbed her hand, prepared to run—

ratatat

Britnee turned her head again, saw the girl fire her gun at something behind herself. Oh God, oh God, she shot her, she shot Diana, she fuckin- oh God she was turning towards them—

ratatat

The air whistled between them, there was a thud in her side, the gun was still pointed at them, she laid herself flat on the ground, pulled Genevieve down with her—

ratatatatatat

The air ripped apart once more, that thud in her side was pulsating, she'd been shot, she realized.

A few seconds of silence followed, a period of forever relative to everything that preceded.

The movies were wrong. Those Instagram Q&A tell-alls by the winners of this show had been wrong. These gunfights, the idea of your life being this fucking close to ending, time didn't slow down like the Matrix, or the Flash, or- or- fucking whichever pop culture reference you could summon, typical slow-mo ish, nah. Like, time was still as fast as it ever was, but just, more things happened. More things happened.

There was the blood and the energy and the fear and the dread and the adrenaline pushing through her veins, and was Diana dead, was she alive? God, God, God, she couldn't even call out, she'd probably be hiding.

She looked back. The girl who'd shot at them, she saw her face now in the dim of the night but didn't even recognize her, stood with her fist white-gripped on the trigger of a gun that was run out of bullets. They had a few seconds.

She couldn't see Diana. Couldn't fucking see if she was bleeding or reloading her next bullet or dying or God, fuck, God, where— she couldn't afford to think about her right now.

And, some distance behind the girl, there was a blond mop of hair. An all too familiar mop of hair.

Her eyes widened.

That was her ex. Her fucking piece of shit ex who just- he did something to Diana. Diana wasn't out there. What did they do to Diana? What did they fucking do to her?

She looked at her new hooded companion through gritted teeth, teeth chattering.

"Gun. Gun. You have- you have a fucking gun right? In your hands? Shoot the bitch"—burning swelled through her—"oh God, shoot the bitch, shoot her, now."

[Ohm]

Her hands shook as the gun rattled from the bullet being fired. A grin formed on her face as her elbows stayed pressed against the crate that she used for support. The cry that echoed through the night told her that she had hit her mark, as it didn't sound like Britnee, as far as she knew anyway. Despite the creeping doubt that she might have hit her, the grin refused to leave.

It did, however, when the response was a hail of bullets her way that she could hear whizz by her, as they hit the crate in front of her. That she could feel as they went by, and furthermore, when they cut into her.

Slipping backwards, Diana fell onto her back, and her left arm shot up to her face. Groping around to check. Her hand felt slick and the sound was horrible, she pulled her hand down to see.

Although she couldn’t see the damage itself, even through the darkness, she could see the blood that was on her hand.

What she got for playing hero. It wasn’t her role.

She reached over and held her bag tight as the gunfire continued, sprayed across the dock they were at until it mercifully ended. Once it did, she quickly put her bag, zipped it open, fished out some of the balls that were supposedly ammo for her gun, her flashlight, zipped it up and made a run for it.

[Lord_Shadow]

Fucking hell why was she being relied on? She relied on others, not the other way around. Fuck.

She shook her head. "One shot. Too far. Won't hit." Truthfully she didn't know if that was indeed the case. All she knew was that she was too scared to give up her one defense.

She cupped her hands over her ears. She had to think and the constant gunshots weren't helping.

Hide? Get shot.

Run? Get shot more.

Fight? Get shot most.

Do nothing? Well shit, that seems survi- oh no you get fucking shot!

"Goddammit!" She had nowhere to go. Every decision just led to more shooting.

"Fuck! We have to go. Now!" She scrambled to her feet. They had to run, they had to. They were going to be shot anyway, best to try and get away before the shooter was done reloading.

She held out her hand, like Britnee had done for her.

Please for the love of god, take it and run.

[Spindarene]

It felt like all of the energy had just fallen out of her body. Amanda's shoulders slumped as she clutched the gun to her stomach; she could feel her body curling into itself. Her legs were shaking.

As she stood there, feeling like a house of cards about to be blown over, she heard Emmett tell her to get to cover. Her brain felt hazy and her body felt like it was made of molasses. She tried to walk back to where his voice had come from, but as she attempted to turn around her legs tripped over themselves and she fell. She had just enough time to let go of the gun and fall on her right side to avoid the wound in her left before she hit the ground, groaning with the pain of her wound and from falling on top of her gun.

As she raised her head to look in the direction where Emmett's voice came from, she saw him run out from behind a jetty post, tearing off in the direction of the person who had shot her. She felt terror zing through the dull haze of her mind, and she tried to call out to him. What came out was more of a whimper.

"Na-ne-no, no..."

Her head fell back onto the ground as tears spilled from her eyes. She wasn't sure what scared her more, that he was going to die or that he was leaving her.

Slowly, painfully, she inched her way across the dock until she was able to crawl behind the post that Emmett had been hiding behind. Once she felt like her body was reasonably hidden, she stopped moving. All she could do was lay there, her heavy breaths punctuated by whimpers and sobs.