Luanne Grasset lay awake huddled behind a pool chair, staring at the inside of her eyelids.
The girl whose name Nadine had shouted. Shoshanna. She was gone now. And so was the goth girl whose hair Luanne had complimented yesterday. And the boy the goth girl had been with; the one with the gun. Anthony had killed him with an axe, which was presumably the one he'd found in the pool. So that meant Anthony had a gun now too. And that was scary. And then Anthony had killed one of Noreen's friends with some kind of acid, and Luanne didn't want to think about that at all.
She opened her eyes and groaned, because pool decks weren't meant for sleeping on, and now all of her bones hurt.
Part of her wished she'd killed Anthony when she'd had the chance, because then he wouldn't have done any more murdering. And so she felt a little bit responsible for that. But at the same time, well, it wasn't like it was her fault that he was an asshole who thought that he was in the right because he killed people who looked at him funny. And, short of killing him or breaking all his limbs or whatever, she'd tried the best she could have done to stop him, she was pretty sure.
And anyways, it wasn't like she could do anything about it now. So she wasn't gonna get all caught up on something she couldn't change.
She sat up a little, and then she lifted her hand to her face and brushed the hair out of her eyes. And she looked at the sky.
She frowned.
"Of course today is cloudy."
The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living
(multishot / pm for entry thread hybrid thing i guess (I'm a diva and i have THINGS to DO and if you impede them ill CRY!))
"I'm gonna talk about death.
"I'm not really sure if I'm scared anymore. I'm mostly just tired.
"And I don't really know if I care about living. I don't know if I ever really have? I think I'm just wired wrong in that way.
"And I know I'm just a person like everybody else in this place. I'm not that important.
"And you can survive this place but then die from something normal like a car crash or a mass shooting. Everybody dies one day, even Jewel.
"And the life that I'll be stuck with after this, I don't think there's any way for it to be worth living for me."
...
"So then why am I still trying to escape?
"I've got something to prove."
"I'm not really sure if I'm scared anymore. I'm mostly just tired.
"And I don't really know if I care about living. I don't know if I ever really have? I think I'm just wired wrong in that way.
"And I know I'm just a person like everybody else in this place. I'm not that important.
"And you can survive this place but then die from something normal like a car crash or a mass shooting. Everybody dies one day, even Jewel.
"And the life that I'll be stuck with after this, I don't think there's any way for it to be worth living for me."
...
"So then why am I still trying to escape?
"I've got something to prove."
"Now I'm just sad. And scared. But mostly sad.
"I'm okay, though.
"I'll be okay with whatever happens. However I die, I'll be okay.
"Jewel wanted to fight death. People like you want to face it. But I don't think I want either of those things."
"I'm okay, though.
"I'll be okay with whatever happens. However I die, I'll be okay.
"Jewel wanted to fight death. People like you want to face it. But I don't think I want either of those things."
Time passed until the sky cleared.
"..."
Wordlessly, Luanne picked up the lens and held it above the dead boy's collar. The sunlight focused down through, onto a part of the collar's seam pretty far away from the cameras housed inside.
Time passed.
Wordlessly, Luanne picked up the lens and held it above the dead boy's collar. The sunlight focused down through, onto a part of the collar's seam pretty far away from the cameras housed inside.
Time passed.
The plastic began to blister and smoke.
Her heartrate picked up, and she leaned in closer.
Luanne fell backwards as it exploded.
Luanne wasn't really sure what she was anymore. Empty ghosts, coils of electricity, suspended animation devices. She had nothing left now, which was kind of nice, since it meant there was nothing left for them to take away.
-
almostinhuman
- Posts: 641
- Joined: Sun Jul 12, 2020 7:06 pm
(Nadine Flores continued from I am blue and unwell)
There was good and bad to the past few days, it seemed. Mostly bad, but "mostly" was still better than "entirely".
On the bad side of things, most of Nadine's allies so far were dead, and the remnants were nowhere to be found. Her primary avenues for escape were rendered out of reach by Shoshanna's death and the loss of her notes, and the ideas Nadine had come up with in the meantime seemed like stretches, at best. Her mentor didn't seem to be talking to her, and their team was hemorrhaging members, which didn't make that path to survival any less unpalatable than before. A bunch of her friends had died elsewhere on the flotilla, without her even knowing they were there until the announcements gleefully declared they were gone. Two people she'd spoken with mere hours ago had both died horribly as well. One of them at the hands of a former friend of hers, who also wanted her dead and who she clearly wasn't done dealing with yet.
Harder to quantify was Matias, whose leg made him even more of a slow-moving burden than Nadine herself had been. Who wouldn't be able to protect Nadine if danger arrived, and who Nadine probably couldn't protect in turn. Who'd not been the most charming personality in the few hours they'd known each other. Who'd seemed rather at ease with killing his way out before Seo-yun took that option away from him.
The notion to abandon him lingered in some dim corner of her mind. But his predicament was at least a little her fault. And fuck, he was still someone; even having Matias around was better than having nobody.
There were boons, however minuscule. The ship had running water, with the cabins having their own showers. She'd spent much of the day getting repeatedly doused in blood, so any method to wash all that off was appreciated. She'd also changed out of the ridiculous costume she was wearing for the team-colored outfit, so she no longer looked like she stepped off the cover of a bad fantasy novel.
More importantly, returning to the pool had proven fruitful. Luanne was here, seemingly having never left since the earlier chaos. She was laying there, motionless, but she didn't seem physically hurt; the boy next to her was considerably less lucky. He was one of the dead kids who'd been floating in the pool earlier, and it looked like Luanne had tried - and failed - to get his collar off. It didn't look like Luanne was taking it too well, either. She hadn't noticed their approach, lost in whatever was going through her head.
"You may wanna hang back, Matias," she said, without turning back to face him. "I doubt you're her favorite person right now."
Nadine wasn't certain she would be a winner with her either. But there was at least a chance Luanne wouldn't be angry with her, whereas Matias had made a very poor first impression. The last thing anyone needed was a repeat of the morning's circus act out here.
She walked out onto the pool deck proper, crouched down by Luanne, and spoke.
"Luanne?"
There was good and bad to the past few days, it seemed. Mostly bad, but "mostly" was still better than "entirely".
On the bad side of things, most of Nadine's allies so far were dead, and the remnants were nowhere to be found. Her primary avenues for escape were rendered out of reach by Shoshanna's death and the loss of her notes, and the ideas Nadine had come up with in the meantime seemed like stretches, at best. Her mentor didn't seem to be talking to her, and their team was hemorrhaging members, which didn't make that path to survival any less unpalatable than before. A bunch of her friends had died elsewhere on the flotilla, without her even knowing they were there until the announcements gleefully declared they were gone. Two people she'd spoken with mere hours ago had both died horribly as well. One of them at the hands of a former friend of hers, who also wanted her dead and who she clearly wasn't done dealing with yet.
Harder to quantify was Matias, whose leg made him even more of a slow-moving burden than Nadine herself had been. Who wouldn't be able to protect Nadine if danger arrived, and who Nadine probably couldn't protect in turn. Who'd not been the most charming personality in the few hours they'd known each other. Who'd seemed rather at ease with killing his way out before Seo-yun took that option away from him.
The notion to abandon him lingered in some dim corner of her mind. But his predicament was at least a little her fault. And fuck, he was still someone; even having Matias around was better than having nobody.
There were boons, however minuscule. The ship had running water, with the cabins having their own showers. She'd spent much of the day getting repeatedly doused in blood, so any method to wash all that off was appreciated. She'd also changed out of the ridiculous costume she was wearing for the team-colored outfit, so she no longer looked like she stepped off the cover of a bad fantasy novel.
More importantly, returning to the pool had proven fruitful. Luanne was here, seemingly having never left since the earlier chaos. She was laying there, motionless, but she didn't seem physically hurt; the boy next to her was considerably less lucky. He was one of the dead kids who'd been floating in the pool earlier, and it looked like Luanne had tried - and failed - to get his collar off. It didn't look like Luanne was taking it too well, either. She hadn't noticed their approach, lost in whatever was going through her head.
"You may wanna hang back, Matias," she said, without turning back to face him. "I doubt you're her favorite person right now."
Nadine wasn't certain she would be a winner with her either. But there was at least a chance Luanne wouldn't be angry with her, whereas Matias had made a very poor first impression. The last thing anyone needed was a repeat of the morning's circus act out here.
She walked out onto the pool deck proper, crouched down by Luanne, and spoke.
"Luanne?"
((Matias Juarez continues from Wisdom (Part 2)))
The thing about losing almost all your friends early on was that there were less and less names to look out for. Which was a small mercy, he supposed, the same way falling off a cliff and snapping both your legs clean in half meant, at least, that he had no more legs to break. Small mercy.
More and more of the announcements became just noise to him, details to note down. It had been like that at the start, he'd been all lone and stranded ever since Leslie died, but he was at the point where his eyes dilated while Ritzy Knives or something like that made snarks about acid throwings and mercy drownings. Though, there were some things of note, like fellow crab, and former (perhaps) friend Anthony going well and truly off the deep end, being the acid thrower in question, killing two people while presumably sermoning about how they had their death coming and justice was truly upon them and God would judge them in the end and on and on and on, amen.
Other crab Eric was also dead, that was also pretty fucking funny. Just exactly as he fucking predicted to his face two days ago, some other girl got the better of him apparently and now he went from a contender to a mid-game has-been— had-been, he meant. Still going it on your own you fucking jerk-off? How the fuck's that working for you?
Miss Bladed Weapon finished off the most recent announcement, the one that had woken him up from his pain-induced half-sleep, by declaring the Crabs the current leaders of the team game. Six still standing, thirteen dead. Go team.
Not that that meant much of anything right now. He'd been keeping tabs with his binder of the dead and alive and all that. Of the six remaining, approximately none of them wanted to work together as a team, in the case of Gabby and Anthony. Or with him, at least. Maybe. Or he didn't want to work with them, in the case of Junji. Or, like, actually, he hadn't found the bee weirdo yet, maybe he'd be willing to team up? If Matias walking at a literal fucking snail's pace wasn't a dealbreaker for him, at least.
Not that any of those names really mattered in the whole scheme of things. He'd only really been looking for one name in particular, and that name hadn't been uttered by Ritzy, not once.
Ashanti wasn't dead yet apparently. Which meant that, at the very least, she'd survived the whole ballroom shootout with Seo-yun.
It also meant she'd left him.
He'd let the first announcement without her pass by without much thought, because sometimes announcers fucked up and forgot to announce a few deaths, kills, it happened. And then the second one, the one that'd happened just a few minutes ago, passed by, and he knew she was alive. She was alive and she'd left him, right after saving him.
It wasn't even a case of her getting lost. His injury meant that he'd either been in the ballroom or crawling along the corridors or chilling in one of the rooms the entire time. She could've easily come back for him at any time, had she been running from Seo-yun or the other girl. She could've found him, but she didn't, so she'd left him.
He wished he'd told her that Marion deserved to die. He wished he'd gotten to return that favor back to her.
His teeth grit against each other and his broken nostrils flared and he picked at the dried skin on his lips and he fumed and he boiled but it didn't really mean shit because he couldn't do shit about it. She'd seen him fall on his ass and decided it was time to cut and cut clean and he had fucking nothing to say about it because no one around him would give a fuck anyways.
Nadine had kept uneasy company with him for the past twenty four hours or so. They'd mostly discussed escape plans, not much more. She wouldn't really get why Ashanti leaving bothered him so fucking much because Ashanti had pushed her into the pool, apparently, and she was still pissed about a few wet clothes, boo-fucking-hoo.
Not like he fucking got it too. Whatever.
But yeah they'd had a few ideas. Nadine's plans had kinda fallen apart, what with one of her allies dying and the other being MIA, and said dead ally having the master plans in her hands. Matias had a few ideas in mind too at least. The collars had cameras which meant they ran on electricity, and there were working outlets in this ship, you do the math. Was just a matter of finding corpses around to test their hypothesis on since neither of them, Matias especially, didn't intend on being lab rats.
But, the thing was, to find corpses, you kinda had to, like, walk to the corpses to locate them in the first place. Which was a real fucking hard ask of him given the leg.
The broom Nadine had gotten him helped, kinda. It was probably the world's worst crutch, all rough on the hands and bottom-heavy as it was, a bit too small for him to keep perfectly in balance, but it worked enough to have him on two feet again, at least. Worked enough to improve his gait from clawing his way on the floor inch by inch to standing upright, dragging his dead leg inch by inch on the floor. That meant something, eh? At least if the danger zones closed in on him, like sharks circling closer and closer around, he could ask the producers for a little amnesty, a disabled pass, just give him an hour or so and he'd be good. He wasn't completely hopeless now, eh?
He'd gotten better at it. After escape talk subsided and after their little excuses at small talks faded away, Matias would get up, and head up to the end of the cruise ship corridor and back. About as much as he could manage. Like the teenage version of some retired septuagenarian accountant walking around and around and around the scarce linoleum hallways of the mall, idly listening to the speaker-provided Muzak while looping and looping and looping just to get his 10,000 steps in. Except somehow even sadder.
It wreaked havoc on his injury, and some moments he swore he could feel the wound ripping clean open, as if his entire leg would rip off like wet paper and just fall on the ground behind him. But, it wasn't staying still. It was never staying still.
When he very occasionally visited his dad's workplace in some nondescript office building in Coral Gables, he'd take the stairs up to his third-floor office rather than wait for the damn elevator. Because the elevator would take forever, you'd stand around doing shit for a whole entire minute, and you'd be crowded in with a bunch of nobodies while having to smile and say 'Nice to meet you' and all that. With the stairs, you were constantly moving, constantly making your way somewhere at least.
This whole escape thing hadn't been going many places for the past day. Part of the reason was his fucking leg, but also the fact that Nadine had sorta seemed to run out of ideas, and just. Like.
He could kill Nadine any moment if he wanted to. He had the glove gun in his bag, the bag he almost always kept slung around his shoulder these days. He could open the zipper, pull out the glove gun, punch her fucking lights out, and that would be that. Ashanti wasn't around to stop him and feel all uncomfy and shit. Not like she could abandon him any more than she already had. He could fight his way out for himself like he'd planned at the fucking start.
But the thing is, if he did that, he'd go from being immobile to being immobile and alone. And even if he didn't care for that, given the fact she had two working feet, he reckoned his chances of making it out the fight alive were 50/50 more or less. Maybe a bit generous.
And she was company. Uneasy company, awkward company, but company nonetheless.
But if this escape shit didn't start going any faster, if it became clear to him that there wasn't any way out here, then.
He slid his right pointer finger across the palm of his left hand. Something only he'd understand, now that Ashanti wasn't around. A revived tongue dying once more. Part of him disappearing once more. Whatever.
They'd made their way towards the pool slowly. Maybe they'd find people there, Nadine had reasoned. And they had.
He was surprised that, after all this time, Luanne was still just there, chilling out in the open. He was surprised she was still alive, as if nothing had happened. But he was also surprised that she hadn't heard him. Like, he was taking fucking forever to get over to the pool, dragging his broom around like an arthritis-afflicted janitor. But she'd been staring intently at this guy's neck for ages. They hadn't made any noise partly because Nadine didn't wanna startle her, but also because he thought it'd be funny to just sneak up on her like that.
And then a few things became clear. One, that guy over there was Kurt, corpse pulled up from the pool below. And second, she was playing with his collar, his now-exploded collar.
It was one thing to see his friend all drowned and pained beneath the surface, and it was another thing to see him so thoroughly defiled like this. Neck blown open, coagulated clumps of whatever-the-fuck splattered. Just utter devastation.
And, and then Nadine told him to hang back, as if she hadn't been part of the whole clusterfuck yesterday, and he laughed. He laughed because, like, no matter what plan he got in on, teaming up or escaping or whatever, it always ended up blowing up, literally in this case, like it all fucking fell apart, and it was just hilarious, cosmic sense, like what the fuck?
And also just, like, Luanne staring up into the sky all catatonic and shit, like maybe, probably, part of him had been broken over the past couple of days, but that shit looked funny as fuck.
He ignored Nadine, inched his way a bit closer to Luanne. Stood on his good leg, nudged her with his broom.
Looked back at Nadine.
"She dead?"
The thing about losing almost all your friends early on was that there were less and less names to look out for. Which was a small mercy, he supposed, the same way falling off a cliff and snapping both your legs clean in half meant, at least, that he had no more legs to break. Small mercy.
More and more of the announcements became just noise to him, details to note down. It had been like that at the start, he'd been all lone and stranded ever since Leslie died, but he was at the point where his eyes dilated while Ritzy Knives or something like that made snarks about acid throwings and mercy drownings. Though, there were some things of note, like fellow crab, and former (perhaps) friend Anthony going well and truly off the deep end, being the acid thrower in question, killing two people while presumably sermoning about how they had their death coming and justice was truly upon them and God would judge them in the end and on and on and on, amen.
Other crab Eric was also dead, that was also pretty fucking funny. Just exactly as he fucking predicted to his face two days ago, some other girl got the better of him apparently and now he went from a contender to a mid-game has-been— had-been, he meant. Still going it on your own you fucking jerk-off? How the fuck's that working for you?
Miss Bladed Weapon finished off the most recent announcement, the one that had woken him up from his pain-induced half-sleep, by declaring the Crabs the current leaders of the team game. Six still standing, thirteen dead. Go team.
Not that that meant much of anything right now. He'd been keeping tabs with his binder of the dead and alive and all that. Of the six remaining, approximately none of them wanted to work together as a team, in the case of Gabby and Anthony. Or with him, at least. Maybe. Or he didn't want to work with them, in the case of Junji. Or, like, actually, he hadn't found the bee weirdo yet, maybe he'd be willing to team up? If Matias walking at a literal fucking snail's pace wasn't a dealbreaker for him, at least.
Not that any of those names really mattered in the whole scheme of things. He'd only really been looking for one name in particular, and that name hadn't been uttered by Ritzy, not once.
Ashanti wasn't dead yet apparently. Which meant that, at the very least, she'd survived the whole ballroom shootout with Seo-yun.
It also meant she'd left him.
He'd let the first announcement without her pass by without much thought, because sometimes announcers fucked up and forgot to announce a few deaths, kills, it happened. And then the second one, the one that'd happened just a few minutes ago, passed by, and he knew she was alive. She was alive and she'd left him, right after saving him.
It wasn't even a case of her getting lost. His injury meant that he'd either been in the ballroom or crawling along the corridors or chilling in one of the rooms the entire time. She could've easily come back for him at any time, had she been running from Seo-yun or the other girl. She could've found him, but she didn't, so she'd left him.
He wished he'd told her that Marion deserved to die. He wished he'd gotten to return that favor back to her.
His teeth grit against each other and his broken nostrils flared and he picked at the dried skin on his lips and he fumed and he boiled but it didn't really mean shit because he couldn't do shit about it. She'd seen him fall on his ass and decided it was time to cut and cut clean and he had fucking nothing to say about it because no one around him would give a fuck anyways.
Nadine had kept uneasy company with him for the past twenty four hours or so. They'd mostly discussed escape plans, not much more. She wouldn't really get why Ashanti leaving bothered him so fucking much because Ashanti had pushed her into the pool, apparently, and she was still pissed about a few wet clothes, boo-fucking-hoo.
Not like he fucking got it too. Whatever.
But yeah they'd had a few ideas. Nadine's plans had kinda fallen apart, what with one of her allies dying and the other being MIA, and said dead ally having the master plans in her hands. Matias had a few ideas in mind too at least. The collars had cameras which meant they ran on electricity, and there were working outlets in this ship, you do the math. Was just a matter of finding corpses around to test their hypothesis on since neither of them, Matias especially, didn't intend on being lab rats.
But, the thing was, to find corpses, you kinda had to, like, walk to the corpses to locate them in the first place. Which was a real fucking hard ask of him given the leg.
The broom Nadine had gotten him helped, kinda. It was probably the world's worst crutch, all rough on the hands and bottom-heavy as it was, a bit too small for him to keep perfectly in balance, but it worked enough to have him on two feet again, at least. Worked enough to improve his gait from clawing his way on the floor inch by inch to standing upright, dragging his dead leg inch by inch on the floor. That meant something, eh? At least if the danger zones closed in on him, like sharks circling closer and closer around, he could ask the producers for a little amnesty, a disabled pass, just give him an hour or so and he'd be good. He wasn't completely hopeless now, eh?
He'd gotten better at it. After escape talk subsided and after their little excuses at small talks faded away, Matias would get up, and head up to the end of the cruise ship corridor and back. About as much as he could manage. Like the teenage version of some retired septuagenarian accountant walking around and around and around the scarce linoleum hallways of the mall, idly listening to the speaker-provided Muzak while looping and looping and looping just to get his 10,000 steps in. Except somehow even sadder.
It wreaked havoc on his injury, and some moments he swore he could feel the wound ripping clean open, as if his entire leg would rip off like wet paper and just fall on the ground behind him. But, it wasn't staying still. It was never staying still.
When he very occasionally visited his dad's workplace in some nondescript office building in Coral Gables, he'd take the stairs up to his third-floor office rather than wait for the damn elevator. Because the elevator would take forever, you'd stand around doing shit for a whole entire minute, and you'd be crowded in with a bunch of nobodies while having to smile and say 'Nice to meet you' and all that. With the stairs, you were constantly moving, constantly making your way somewhere at least.
This whole escape thing hadn't been going many places for the past day. Part of the reason was his fucking leg, but also the fact that Nadine had sorta seemed to run out of ideas, and just. Like.
He could kill Nadine any moment if he wanted to. He had the glove gun in his bag, the bag he almost always kept slung around his shoulder these days. He could open the zipper, pull out the glove gun, punch her fucking lights out, and that would be that. Ashanti wasn't around to stop him and feel all uncomfy and shit. Not like she could abandon him any more than she already had. He could fight his way out for himself like he'd planned at the fucking start.
But the thing is, if he did that, he'd go from being immobile to being immobile and alone. And even if he didn't care for that, given the fact she had two working feet, he reckoned his chances of making it out the fight alive were 50/50 more or less. Maybe a bit generous.
And she was company. Uneasy company, awkward company, but company nonetheless.
But if this escape shit didn't start going any faster, if it became clear to him that there wasn't any way out here, then.
He slid his right pointer finger across the palm of his left hand. Something only he'd understand, now that Ashanti wasn't around. A revived tongue dying once more. Part of him disappearing once more. Whatever.
They'd made their way towards the pool slowly. Maybe they'd find people there, Nadine had reasoned. And they had.
He was surprised that, after all this time, Luanne was still just there, chilling out in the open. He was surprised she was still alive, as if nothing had happened. But he was also surprised that she hadn't heard him. Like, he was taking fucking forever to get over to the pool, dragging his broom around like an arthritis-afflicted janitor. But she'd been staring intently at this guy's neck for ages. They hadn't made any noise partly because Nadine didn't wanna startle her, but also because he thought it'd be funny to just sneak up on her like that.
And then a few things became clear. One, that guy over there was Kurt, corpse pulled up from the pool below. And second, she was playing with his collar, his now-exploded collar.
It was one thing to see his friend all drowned and pained beneath the surface, and it was another thing to see him so thoroughly defiled like this. Neck blown open, coagulated clumps of whatever-the-fuck splattered. Just utter devastation.
And, and then Nadine told him to hang back, as if she hadn't been part of the whole clusterfuck yesterday, and he laughed. He laughed because, like, no matter what plan he got in on, teaming up or escaping or whatever, it always ended up blowing up, literally in this case, like it all fucking fell apart, and it was just hilarious, cosmic sense, like what the fuck?
And also just, like, Luanne staring up into the sky all catatonic and shit, like maybe, probably, part of him had been broken over the past couple of days, but that shit looked funny as fuck.
He ignored Nadine, inched his way a bit closer to Luanne. Stood on his good leg, nudged her with his broom.
Looked back at Nadine.
"She dead?"
SC3:
Matias Juarez is fed up. He is currently walking home.
Pregame: now that you are broken by the seas, in the depths of the waters,
Memories: Vamô Detonar essa Porra!
Diego Larrosa is lost. pls give my kids friends tv3 version
Stephanie's Cuckaneers Today at 12:29 AM
maraoone was a mistake - cicada 2021
Matias Juarez is fed up. He is currently walking home.
Pregame: now that you are broken by the seas, in the depths of the waters,
Memories: Vamô Detonar essa Porra!
Diego Larrosa is lost. pls give my kids friends tv3 version
Stephanie's Cuckaneers Today at 12:29 AM
maraoone was a mistake - cicada 2021