Bullet-Points

[Catche Jagger]

Your name is Gabriela Garcia-Campos, and you are an SOTF fan.

Not a weird fan, though. You certainly aren’t deluded enough to think that fanfiction written about actual real-world teenagers is anything but insane. But people were fucked about that sort of thing before the rise of SOTF, and even if it were to somehow just go away, some new phenomenon would take the place of that niche.

However, even if you aren’t a crazy kind of SOTF fan, you’ve watched a lot of the show. Though you lack the seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of some people, you do have an almost intuitive knowledge of how the show feels, how it is presented. That’s why, even before you walk into a room, you feel like you know the camera placements there.

Sometimes you’re surprised, but not usually.

[Catche Jagger]

Sometimes, you wonder if you’re a sociopath.

[Catche Jagger]

You are close friends with Elliott-Blair Østergaard. Actually he is your best friend, though you cannot be certain that you are his, so you never bring this up. Still, he matters to you quite deeply, you think. Why else would you have followed a path where you’ve pledged to kill ten people to ensure his safety?

Of course, you are a SOTF fan, so you know that this does not make you any better than someone killing to save their own ass. Dead is dead and killing is killing.

Besides, isn’t valuing the lives of people close to us above all others it’s own sort of narcissism?

There are times, though, where you’ve thought about how easy it would be to kill him. He is weak and trusting and lacks a gun and it would be so very easy to simply raise your pistol to the back of his skull and blow out his brains while he gazes out at the flotilla. Might be better for him that way, stop him from meeting some more brutal end at the hands of a true psychopath. You

You could tell yourself it was mercy that pulled the trigger.

Tell me about the rabbits, Gabriela.

When your mind travels here, your hand grips the weapon at your side so tightly that your fingers ache.

At this moment, he rests up on the deck, having barely spoken to you since you blasted a hole in Hannah’s skull. You need time alone.

[Catche Jagger]

Benjamin Cuthner is the mentor for your team on this, the sixty-seventh season of SOTF. He is a previous winner, thought to be a bit underwhelming in his time, and is otherwise known for having a cheesy as fuck gimmick.

Though you’ve spoken only a little with him since your first interaction on the first day of the game, a resentment has boiled within you since then.

He lied when he told you killing gets easier.

You were always right about him being a piece of shit.

[Catche Jagger]

Curled up in the corner of the room, you face the wall, head resting on your bag. The floor is hard and cold, but you prefer it to one of the beds right now. You're not supposed to sleep here, after all. From this angle, the cameras shouldn’t have a direct view of your face. They may see your back and whatever else, but the expression you have now is yours.

You want that to be comforting, but your breath catches in your throat and you feel your hands start to shake. You quickly fold them in front of you, desperate for some reason to hide this weakness from any prying eyes, regardless of whether or not they mattered.

None of them mattered.

You swallow and it hurts.

If you are ever given the opportunity to watch this footage later, you will tell yourself that you did not cry here.