Brandone (Ft. DJ KILLJI)

The tunnels, leftovers from the failed mining experiment on the island, are rather simple in their construction, with their main branches leading into the quarry and heading out towards the isolated cabin. While the entrance from the quarry is still clear, the entrance from the cabin is overgrown with thick foliage. It is hard to breathe and almost impossible to see without a light source down in the mines. These tunnels stretch all throughout the northern and western parts of the island, allowing access at several points in the coastal woods and near the beach.
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Mini_Help
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Brandone (Ft. DJ KILLJI)

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((Keiji Tanaka continued from Evil))

Okay, so, “other people” hadn’t exactly worked out. Mainly on account of the one person Keiji was already with not working out.

Yeah, that was—he could put it that way, right? It helped to put it that way, so that he didn’t have to stop and think too hard about… about Kris, and why he’d had to leave her once he heard.

She hadn’t tried to stop him. Keiji wasn’t sure she had even noticed him leaving.

He had headed back for the parish at first, but there were a lot of people there again, and none of them were the people from before, and oh jeez what if they somehow knew he’d been with Kris when—when the thing happened that made hanging out with Kris not work anymore? He hadn’t known, but people weren’t always forgiving of just not knowing things. He knew that, at least. So he hadn’t gone to the parish after all.

After all was said and done, he’d just kind of… ended up here. His map was useless, and it had been getting dark anyway when he first headed down into the tunnels. It was creepy, but laying low and avoiding people had always looked like Keiji’s best bet. Safety in numbers hadn’t worked out so well.

Aside from being creepy, Keiji had to stoop in some areas as he wandered, to keep from bumping his head on the tunnel roof. It was slow, but actually pretty uneventful. He just moseyed along, letting the beam of his flashlight play over the whole lot of nothing down here with him, until nothing decided to become something.

“Hey, don’t shine that in my eyes, Jesus!”

((Brandon Baxter continued from Myopia))

Yeah, it hadn’t been a great day for Baxter or anything.

He’d lost Daniel. Daniel had lost Rachael. And Kris? Kris had needed jack shit besides her hands to send everything crashing down. What was Baxter supposed to do to prevent that, huh, cut her damn hands off because she gave him a weird vibe?

“Sorry, sorry!” The flashlight was quickly redirected from Baxter’s face to his chest. Even blinded, he could place the voice coming from the offending silhouette. He squinted up at its shadowed face from where he sat, leaning against the tunnel wall.

Keiji probably could have done something to prevent Rachael’s death. Baxter didn’t know what, but he was certain that there was something Keiji could have done besides turn his back, plug his fingers in his ears, and chant lalalala I can’t hear you like he’d probably done when Kris was putting Rachael in the ground.

Instead of saying any of that, though, Baxter just let the awkward silence settle in and stretch on before finally saying, “Hey, man. What happened?”

Keiji let out a nervous little bubble of laughter, which made Baxter twitch, but he was just… too tired to properly get angry right now.

“I don’t know?” Keiji made it sound like a question. “I don’t know, man. I—I didn’t know.”

And what the fuck had either of them expected, really?

“…You gonna shine that light in my face all day, or what? Have a seat.” Baxter said finally. Anything else was a waste of words.

Keiji hesitated, but he finally dropped his bag and sat, crossing his legs and leaning back against the wall opposite Baxter.

Maybe it was a victory that Kris hadn’t killed Keiji too. That and Maxwell keeping his name off of the announcements. God knew that victories had been few and far between here.

Baxter had never been too satisfied by just taking what he could get, though.

“You holding up okay?” Keiji ventured after a few more minutes. “Where’s, uh—where’s Daniel?” He glanced into the darkness of the tunnel beyond where they sat.

“Dunno.”

“Oh…”

Silence again.

After a while, Keiji set the flashlight down and fumbled in his bag for a protein bar. He made occasional comments and attempts at small talk, to which Baxter responded with one or two words, and they would lapse into silence and mutually uncomfortable companionship again for a while. Baxter’s stomach growled, but he didn’t make a move for food. He briefly wondered what he was trying to prove and made as much headway with that as he had with anything else.

Yeah, he was pissed at Keiji. No, he didn’t think Keiji was lying when he claimed he hadn’t known anything. No, taking it out on Keiji wouldn’t help. Yeah, Baxter still kind of wanted to take it out on him once the shock or whatever the hell wore off and he could feel something besides plain old discontent again.

A while longer passed, long enough for Keiji to uncross his legs and complain about pins and needles, and for Baxter to realize he’d been feeling the same for a while and follow suit. Keiji kept talking every so often, but his voice got quieter and his words slower, and eventually his head dipped forward with a soft snore.

Baxter reached over and clicked the flashlight off, plunging them both into darkness. He didn’t quite mean to, but eventually he nodded off too.

The announcement woke them. No word of Maxwell, Daniel, or Kris. No news was good news.

The bad news came at the end and punctuated itself with a beep from both their collars.

Keiji shot up into a half-crouch and then froze. Baxter clicked the flashlight on, trying to snap him out of it.

Go.”

Keiji gave him one last deer-in-headlights look and went.

Baxter moved up, mirroring Keiji’s previous half-crouch pose, and stopped.

No, he didn’t want to die. Yeah, he still had shit to do.

No, he didn’t think they’d make it out in time. No, he didn’t even know where the hell they were relative to the exits.

As the pace and pitch of the beeps increased, Baxter reached for his bag instead of rising.

There was still one thing those fuckers couldn’t take from him.

Baxter only hesitated for a split second before drawing the Bowie knife across his throat.

B06: BRANDON BAXTER: DECEASED

Keiji ran like hell, never mind his head, never mind the bumps and bruises he was picking up. Was Baxter right behind him? He was pretty sure, but he wasn’t about to stop and check. They were going to make it. They were going to be fine. Keiji was never going anywhere underground again, for any reason. Fresh air and wide-open spaces for Keiji from now on, no exceptions. This was a sick, stupid joke to pull on two guys just trying to get by, but they were going to be okay. Everything was going to be okay.

Keiji saw a light at the end of the tunnel.

He almost made it.

B11: KEIJI TANAKA: DECEASED
14 STUDENTS REMAIN
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