Rebuild

[MethodicalSlacker]

"Everybody has a right to be stupid, but some people abuse the privilege."

- Joseph Stalin

[G05: Kitty Gittschall: Start]

This building needed more than a wrench. Way, way more.

The wrench wasn't even that big to start with, either. No matter how many times Kitty tapped it against what remained of the foundation, unsure exactly how a wrench was supposed to do wrench-things, nothing magically fixed itself. She knew deep down that what she was doing was pointless, stupid, and made a fool out of herself in front of quite possibly everyone she ever loved or cared about, but it gave her hands something to do while her mind pondered the big things.

The big freak-out happened earlier. She woke up face-down, almost choking on her own spit, then choking on the ashes that had found their way up her nose. Then, crying and hyperventilation, followed by her spotting the first camera, immediately followed by another short burst of sobs, after which she steeled herself and got over it. It was unclear how long this newfound resolve would last, both to her and to the audience she imagined watching over her like guardian angels. Already half a bottle of water was gone just trying to wash the taste of burnt wood out of her mouth, and if she kept coughing like she was currently then she'd be downing the other half shortly. The food could wait, though. Kitty knew that she would probably crack and eat some of it later on, but for now she preferred to live with the illusion that she had some sense of restraint. For the time being, then, she kept tapping the wood with the wrench. Not much to do otherwise.

Her bag lay on the ground a few feet away from her, outside of her line of sight. She trusted her ears more than she did her eyes, anyways, and she'd soon get bored of mindlessly hitting things with a wrench and rocking back and forth on her heels.

At least they have some sense of humor, Kitty thought dryly, the fact that her wrench was, in fact, a monkey wrench, not being lost on her. The only solid rationale she could think of for why someone would go to the lengths of doing all this was, in essence, that it was some kind of perverted art statement or macabre joke. Not entirely far removed from what she'd find funny, if she was several hundred thousand degrees of separation removed from it. She'd heard of the game before - every so often something tangentially related would show up on her tumblr feed - but never imagined she'd be standing where she was standing now, lazily swinging a wrench at a piece of burnt wood.

...

Quietly, she wondered how her friends were doing, and decided that she'd go find them.

...

She'd go find them, after she got these last few swings out of her system.

[backslash]

"Usually, you have to turn the wrench to make stuff happen, not just hit things with it."

((B01 SEBASTIEN BELLAMY: START))

"Metal works better too. And, you know, actual tools to go with it."

Speaking of tools, way to say hi like a reasonable, rational person.

Sebastien leaned heavily on the remnants of the door frame he had found himself on the other side of as he regarded Kitty. It was the sounds of her crying that had first awoken him, but he hadn't been pulled out of the leftovers of his drugged stupor by any sort of heroic or altruistic urges. It had been the vibrating of his insulin pump that woke him properly. His blood sugar was low, of course. Not dangerously so yet, but he needed to eat soon. He was feeling lightheaded, and he couldn't tell if it was from the drugs or the fact that he hadn't eaten in... a day, maybe? He couldn't tell.

He wasn't sure where Kitty had gotten the wrench or just what she was trying to do with it. He might have the answers to these questions filed away somewhere in his brain, but his brain wasn't quite up to speed with his body yet. So instead of doing anything useful (like, say, eating so that he didn't go into a coma and die) he found himself leaning dazedly on the scorched wood and making inane statements about tools.

Sebastien couldn't bring himself to focus on what were arguably the more pressing details of the situation, though. There was an undercurrent to all his thoughts, a nagging feeling that could be honed into an edge if he were to focus on it too much, and then-

Remember those "Keep Calm and Carry On" posters that everybody and their mom had a few years back? How Erik got one for his room that said "Now Panic and Freak Out"? Yeah, buddy.

Sebastien's grip went white knuckled on the burnt door frame, the charred wood biting into his palm, until he slowly, slowly forced himself to relax it again.

"Sorry," he said, though Kitty hadn't demanded any apology from him (yet). "I'm not quite... here."

[MethodicalSlacker]

All it took was the sound of someone's voice for the wrench to start slipping from her hands. Her suddenly sweat slicked palms went down to her side, both clutching the wrench tightly, as if it were a bomb or stick of dynamite that could go off at any moment. There was a guy - a sickly pale guy wearing a hoodie. The first thought that struck her was how they were wearing clothing that was - superficially - similar. It was comforting to know that there was a guy out there that was looking just about as out of his element as she was out of hers.

The ghostly guy apologized for something, resting up against some wood that she hadn't got to yet. Kitty shook her head, still frightened, and awkwardly stepped over to her bag.

"I mean," she started, catching herself on a voice crack, "you found me hitting a wrench into a piece of wood. I dunno if neither of us are here."

...

"How long have you been there? Just kinda, like, watching me? Is that entertaining to you?"

She'd have to start trusting her eyes a bit more now. Her ears had already failed her. Lightly tapped the wrench to her ear, missed the cartilage, hit her head, clutched it with her other hand. Enough ear punishment. Don't look stupid in front of the boy.

Ghost-Boy. Yes. That's his name now.

[backslash]

"Sorry," Sebastien said again on reflex. He wasn't usually so quick to apologize, but it was the first thing that came to mind and escaped from his clumsy tongue. "I mean, no. I just woke up back there and heard you..." Don't say 'tooling around'. "In here," He finished lamely.

He could feel his hand shaking despite the tight grip that he had on the door frame. Hadn't he brought some snacks with him? Sebastien absently patted at the pockets of his hoodie with his other hand, but came up with nothing. He must have left them in his bag.

"I was just..."

Sebastien wasn't quite sure what happened.

He pushed away from the door frame, either to approach Kitty or to turn around and look for his belongings. One moment he was moving to stand up straight, and the next, he was found himself on his back, staring up at the patch of blue sky visible through the building's destroyed roof.

Sebastien blinked a few times, trying to clear the sudden dizziness that had overtaken him.

"Oog..."

Should have gone for that snack right when he woke up.

[MethodicalSlacker]

"Wow, you must really not want to live through this," Kitty said, putting her hands on her hips, "any sane person would probably have clubbed me over the head, or shot my in the back, or, like, punched my fucking lights out, but you didn't do that. I mean, call me crazy, and like you already know I am, but you must not be very-"

Her rant was cut short by Ghost-Boy falling over flat on his face.

...Did I talk him to death?

No, it seemed like he was still breathing. Breathing, and groaning, obviously hurt by the fall. Kitty let go of the wrench, the shining metal dropped  to the ground, and she started to jog the few paces over to him, concerned for the dead-man-walking's health.

"Are you oka-"

Then, her ankle gave out under her. She had stepped wrong on a piece of wood, hidden by the piles of ash all over the floor. Kitty's ankle twisted the wrong way, slipping on the wood. Letting out a shout, she tumbled to the ground right next to Ghost-Boy, landing on her side. Her body slammed into the ground hard, setting her nerves on fire, and she curled up into a ball instinctively, unsure herself if she was trying to compress the pain or just writhing.

"F-Fuck!" she stammered, "Jesus Christ, ouch!"

[backslash]

...Huh.

So, of all the reactions Sebastien might have anticipated for his sudden collapse, Kitty also suddenly collapsing next to him in an unintentional show of solidarity hadn't really been on the list.

He stayed where he was until the dizziness passed, and then slowly sat up, rubbing his head. He was getting covered in bits of ash and dust, and the small cloud of it that he and Kitty had stirred up by falling made him sneeze.

"Uh... you okay there?"

Sebastien rubbed his head, glancing around the room before turning his attention back to Kitty. They never really talked back at school; Sebastien mostly recognized her because he didn't think there were any other girls at P.J. Hobbs with blue hair. She was an odd duck, as his mom might say, but making suggestions for all the ways he could have killed her when her back was turned was a little more welcome than trying to do the same to him, even if it was off-putting.

In his survey of the room, he spied a duffel bag back in the corner where he had first come to. He had missed it in his initial confusion. Right, there ought to be something useful in there - namely, food. And maybe something a little handier than Kitty's wrench. Like, say, a cell phone.

[MethodicalSlacker]

"I think I broke a rib or two."

Kitty sat up with a groan, watching as Ghost-Boy looked around the room. It didn't hurt nearly as much as she anticipated.

"Nope, just weak as fuck. Never-mind."

With a deep sigh, Kitty raised her aching body from the ground, onto her two feet. Her pants were all ruined now, covered in gray ashes and dust. Her sweater had been covered as well, but with the breeze coming through this place she figured she could make do with an ashy sweater if it meant staying warm.

The more she thought about it, the more she recognized Ghost-Boy from somewhere. Maybe it was just from seeing him around at school from time to time, or maybe it was from some kind of art club activity, but his face was teetering on the edges of 'Familiar' and 'Unplaceable'. Dusting off her soot-covered hands on her pants, she took a few more glances at Ghost-Boy. His name was on the tip of her tongue, but she was still having trouble placing it.

"...Flounder?" she guessed, pointing at him weakly with one eye closed and her face contorted in confusion.

[backslash]

"Come again?"

Truth be told, Sebastien wasn't wholly paying attention to Kitty's words at this point. Once he had established that there was likely food nearby and that she was mostly okay, he had started shuffling over to the duffel bag in the corner to examine its contents.

The good news: food!

The bad news: he jabbed the hell out of his hand on a corkscrew while reaching for the food.

"Ow, Jesus!"

Sebastien whipped his hand back and clutched at his hand, scowling. Yep, that was a corkscrew. Just sitting there, pretending to be innocuous. Pulling his hand back to examine it, he noted the small puncture in his palm and the drop of blood oozing from it. It stung, but a bandaid should fix it up with no problems.

But first, food.

Reaching in again more carefully, Sebastien forwent the meal bars and bread for one of the granola bars that he recognized as his own. He didn't trust whatever rations they had been given to suit his needs.

After he unwrapped the bar and took a bite, he pulled the corkscrew out and dropped it on the ground where Kitty could see.

"Don't think I'm going to be doing much shooting you while your back is turned even if I'd wanted to."

[MethodicalSlacker]

Kitty stared at the corkscrew in silence. Concentration burned behind the lids of her eyes as she considered the scene before her. The corkscrew was even worse of a starting draw than her monkey wrench, and there wasn't even a cut pun to go with it to boot. At the very least, she knew that he couldn't hurt her physically, though his capacity for emotional damage had yet to be seen.

She glanced up at the sky. Getting lost in the contours of clouds was easy for her, but on days like these, when the sky was clear and the clouds had all gone home to watch sports and fight with their spouses, she found it easier to take their hint and stay inside with them. Now, though, there was no real inside. Maybe there was, somewhere, if the other houses on the map weren't burnt down as well in some capacity, but it wasn't the same as home.

Her head turned back down toward Ghost-boy. There were...two of him? Had she really hit her head that hard? She blinked a few times, and the two images settled into one concrete whole. Kitty breathed a sigh of relief that her eyes hadn't been all knocked out of whack, and stepped over to her bag, reaching down to fish out a water bottle. She could use another sip - her throat was starting to feel burnt again, the succulence of soot finding its way to her taste buds yet again.

"What's your name? I've been calling you a ghost in my head and I've realized that's probably not the case here," she asked, as she gulped down the rest of her water bottle.

[Fenrir]

[B21: Aaron Chalmers - Start]

He awoke to the smell of ashes on the air. A smoky, cloying scent that made him awake in a panic, a primal part of his mind telling him to get away from whatever was burning. The clear sky above him and the breeze on his face confused his senses, his reality warring with the belief that he must be at home in bed if he was just waking up; in a house that was on fire as far as his panicked mind was concerned, the smell of burning still strong in his nostrils.

Feeling the grass under his hand and squinting against the sun in his eyes Aaron slowly awakened to the fact that he was outside. Once this clicked into place he began to calm down, slowly, as his breathing slowed and the heart pounding in his chest steadied to a more normal rythym. A quick look around told him what the source of the charred smell was, a burnt out husk of a building sitting a few meters to his left, the gentle breeze carrying the smell of ash in his direction.

As he moved to stand up something jostled around his neck, a solid collar caught between his shoulder and his neck digging into his skin. A hand moved to take a hold of it instinctively, fingers coming into contact with cool metal that was fastened around his neck. He fingered it inquisitively, his groggy mind still trying to make sense of his surroundings and what had happened before he had fallen asleep. As memories slowly started to drift back into place, his heartbeat picked up again, hand gripping both the harsh metal collar and the grass beneath his hand tightly.

The trip to the aquariam, the bus, the breakdown, the drive to the warehouse in a far too shady part of town, the guys with guns, Mr Dolph, the sleazy guy in the suit, Mr Dolph...

Mr Dolph's head exploding.

"Shit."

----

The banging had started up a few minutes ago, a dull, repetitive clacking of something hitting a loose piece of wood emanating from inside the building, but as of yet Aaron hadn't built up the motivation to go see where it was coming from. He sat on the ground outside with his back to the scorched building, next to his duffle bag with an open bottle of water in one hand and his "weapon" in the other.

The ornate looking gun barely fit in his hand, with a polished wood handle and a dull metal barrel. The thing looked old enough to be a museum piece, something backed up by the packets of black power and balls of lead shot that he found in the bag with it.

Do they actually expect me to kill someone with this? Or is this all just a big joke?

Well, nobody was joking when they shot Mr Dolph. The events on the bus that had brought him to this point had finally come back to him; everything after seeing Mr Dolph get shot was kind of a blur, everything that sleazy guy said washing over him, but he'd picked up the basics.

This was just like that event a few years ago, when those kids where kidnapped, when they were forced to kill each other. He hadn't followed the news too closely, his mother had tried to shield him from it as much as she could, but he knew enough to know it was happening again.

We're all dead within a day if we don't do something. Same as those other kids. How am I going to get out of this?

The banging had stopped now, the rythmic sound he had managed to drown out suddenly noticeable by its absence. Aaron tucked the derringer into the pocket of his letterman jacket and stood up; he put the cap back on the water bottle and threw in back into the bag before grabbing it by the handles. If he was going to do something about his situation he couldn't just stay here. He didn't know what his plan was but he could start by finding out where that noise came from.

Aaron circled the burnt out building until he found an entrance and followed the main hallway deeper inside, following blackened corridors and peering into torched rooms until he found something. Soon enough he heard voices from further in and followed them until he found himself standing outside of a room, looking in at two vaguely familiar faces. He stopped just outside the boundary of the room, placing his free hand not holding the duffle against the doorframe to balance on the unsteady footing.

"Hey, you guys ok?"

[backslash]

Sebastien wasn't sure whether Kitty was joking or not, or maybe she actually had hit her head. She didn't look hurt, but she sure was spacey.

"Sebastien," he said plainly. "And I'm flesh and blood." He held up his bleeding palm for her to see, as though she actually needed convincing that he wasn't a ghost.

"It's Kitty, right? Or... Katie?" He was pretty sure of her name, but he might as well ask. Nothing better to do for the moment. Two kidnapped teenagers sitting in a ruined building, decidedly not murdering each other.

There was a sick twinge in Sebastien's chest, and he hoped that the sudden, odd feeling didn't show on his face.

It's better than the alternative.

He jumped a little at the voice from the doorway, turning quickly. Aaron, the new face was Aaron. Not somebody Sebastien really knew, except by reputation and things he had heard from the athletes that he bothered to socialize with. Said reputation didn't exactly inspire confidence in Aaron as a person, but Sebastien couldn't say just what that might mean in the current situation.

"H-hey. We're... making it so far, I guess."

[MethodicalSlacker]

"Kitty's the name," she said, nodding along with Sebastien's memory. So he did know her from somewhere. Flounder wasn't too far off the mark, too - on some impossible level, she was vaguely surprised he didn't understand the confusion. Far from ethereal, he, too, was alive, bleeding quite openly from his palm. Kitty was no good with medicine, and with any luck she'd end up somehow making the cut worse, so she merely gazed at the crimson droplet. She figured that she'd see a lot of this stuff on her journey, so she might as well get a look.

Another guy showed up just then. Some jock, or whatever. Kitty didn't care too much for jocks normally, but in this case making an ally with this level of physique would be more than advantageous. She needed another partner, she reasoned, who would be able to do most of the heavy lifting. Plus, his introduction wasn't that of someone who would be looking for a fight, or who had been dead set on playing the game. She didn't need to repeat the spiel she gave Seb, nor did she particularly feel like it, but the same line of thinking was running through her head.

She stood up straight, her water bottle hanging at her side, and blew a few strands of hair out of her eyes. First impressions,
Kitty, first impressions.

"Good..." she started, pausing up to gaze at the sky, "...daytime, I guess." She put her finger to her piercing, pushing on it slightly. "You're A-A-ron, right?"

[Fenrir]

Fortunately, Aaron had arrived just as the pair were introducing themselves to each other, which saved him from having to ask for their names. Kitty he somewhat recognised if only because of her blue hair, while Sebastien was someone he thought he might have seen around the halls or in one of his classes; aside from that he knew nothing about them, not even able to put a name to their faces until now.

"It's just... Aaron. The second 'A' is silent."

He'd never been that close to his classmates, he'd never been the social butterfly that some others were; Aaron was usually so involved in his classwork or training for the football team or engagements with his family that he never really got to know any of his classmates outside of his teammates and a few others. It made for some awkward situations, like having to ask people you should have known for years what their names were.

He wondered if that was going to bite him in the ass now. Whether his lack of involvement with others was going to drag him down and make things harder than they should have been, whether the awkwardness of this first meeting was just due to their situation or if it was because neither of them knew who he was, or whether the lack of familiarity would make it hurt less when inevitably...

"That really all happened didn't it? On the bus? Mr Dolph was shot."

[backslash]

Sebastien inhaled through his teeth, feeling another twinge. Truth be told, he didn't remember a lot after Mr. Dolph getting shot; he had blacked out. He had always liked to think he would be helpful in an emergency, but he had never envisioned himself at the scene when it happened. He had pictured an emergency room or sterile operating theater, not a school bus with his teacher's blood and brains splattered on the windows.

"Yeah," he said, gesturing at the burnt building around them. "This is happening."

He finished his granola bar and stuck the wrapper into his bag, and then turned his attention to the first-aid kit so that he could root around for a bandaid. As he did so, he noted the things in the kit that he knew how to use - bandages and gauze, of course, sanitizing wipes, face shields for CPR, painkillers. Everything else looked at least vaguely familiar, which was heartening.

Sebastien stuck the bandaid over his palm and turned back to Kitty and Aaron. "...I guess nobody has any sort of plan, huh?"

[MethodicalSlacker]

Kitty stood on and watched in silence, nodding along as Aaron corrected her and brought up their teacher's death. Sure, she had never really liked Mr. Dolph, and she had imagined him dying in a variety of messed-up ways when she was bored in class and still had to sit through his shit so she wouldn't flunk out, but she never really, truly, honestly wished death on him. How could she ever? He was a teacher at their school, and it'd be tragic if he died. Tragic, and a hassle. No part of that sounded desirable to Kitty.

There was a plan that was forming in the back of Kitty's head, contrary to Seb's belief. It didn't take a psychologist to know that deep down, Kitty was planning something. It didn't take an espionage-person to recognize that the tapping she had done earlier was absolutely most certainly definitely a Morse code S.O.S. and not at all legitimate flailing and under the influence of ash and soot and dirt.

Because Kitty Gittschall knew exactly what the plan was.

She was going to-

to-

Kitty clutched her temples and stumbled back. The fall had rattled her around a lot more than she thought. Everything was too bright and powerful, made her feel sick to her stomach, the slightest noise of her feet scuffling across ash was enough to send earthquake tremors through her spinal cord. Her head hurt like a motherfucker.

She forgot the plan she never had. All of her mental posturing came falling away like the building she was standing in.

Her struggle, however, was not readily visible. What felt like almost falling over to her was just one step backwards. What felt in her head like the end of the world was a micro-expression of pain flashing across her face for a split second and then quickly receding while she tapped some fingers on the sides of her head. What the cameras saw was much healthier than what was actually taking place. In that same moment of internal catastrophe, Kitty managed to brush off what she felt and open her mouth to speak.

"I'm sure," she said, acting as if nothing had happened, "that not many do. Making shit up as we go along ain't all that bad."