'Cause We Are Young and We Are Sick

[MethodicalSlacker]

She looked up from her map.

"...Uh-oh."

[Kitty Gittschall continued from Void of Course.]

[backslash]

((Sebastien Bellamy continued from Void of Course))

Sebastien surveyed the scene over Kitty's shoulder as she double-checked the map, presumably to be sure that she was in fact seeing what she was seeing.

"Well," he said finally, "I'm not going to risk taking a shower here, I don't think."

In an effort to at least pretend to be helpful, he opened his own bag and rummaged around. They didn't have compasses, did they? They were supposed to be heading south. This wasn't south, judging from the map. Sebastien hadn't really been paying attention; Kitty had seemed vaguely out of sorts but confident in her direction, and from what he could tell she was always out of sorts to some degree so he hadn't thought much of it. They had been walking for a long time, making relatively slow progress towards their destination.

Or away from it. Apparently.

Sebastien felt something round and smooth beneath his fingertips and pulled it out of the bag. It was a compass.

...

He placed the compass back in the bag and pretended he had never seen it.

[The Honeless Beard]

((Kasumi White, Cursed are the ones who can't abide))

Two people had walked into the tar pits area, both absorbed in a map that the girl held. Kasumi watched them pass, walk over a slight incline, and wind up on the other side of it so that she could only see the tops of their shoulders and heads from her position on her back. The boy's head whipped from the map to the scene and back, the girl's gaze boring a hole in the paper as if it'd start changing language any minute. Next, the boy pulled his bag around dug around in it, pulled something out, and then placed it back in with the slow, cautious movements of a bomb removal squad.

He had said something about showers, and Kasumi's mouth twitched wildly. She debated speaking, then debated keeping quiet, for a quiet, eight second internal war. Her leg was more numb than feeling, now, her face still streaked with grime, black hair tied back again in a tail down her shoulders. Kasumi's bandage desperately needed changing, but that could wait. Another few mounds of earth, another few blades of grass tried, and she'd fix it up.

"Um," she started, her voice a squeak from underuse. She cleared her throat, tried again.

"Are you guys l-lost?"

[MethodicalSlacker]

Kitty glared at Seb, though she cracked a small smile as she did so. Tar bath was off the table, so they should probably get their bearings some other way. She scanned her map a little, turning it over in her hands. Eventually, she folded it up and stuffed it in her hoodie pocket, running a hand through her hair.

Then suddenly, they were not alone.

"Uh," Kitty said, looking at the weary creature before her, "yeah, we are."

"Stop being so cagey."

"We were trying to get to the showers," she explained recluctantly, swatting at the air around her head.

She looked again at Seb, this time more out of uncertainty than anything. She wasn't entirely good at handling situations like this, and being that their collective reaction the last time strangers approached them was to try to run away, she shouldn't have been counting on Seb to be able to help out either. That said, she needed some kind of feedback. Were they to run away, or to stay put and try to talk with the girl? She didn't feel entirely up to doing either alone.

Not that she couldn't, if she wanted to.

[KamiKaze]

((Miranda Millers continued from I’ll Be The Actress Starring In Your Bad Dreams))

What the hell was that smell supposed to be?

It smelled… tarry. Miranda wondered if she had somehow wandered into the Bog of Eternal Stench or something. For a moment, she even wondered if someone had used some kind of chemical to kill someone. She continued to keep the grip on her tire iron tight, but it’d caught up to her.

There was a tar pit here, wasn’t there?

So she’d pulled out her map, and took a look. Yeah, there was. Maybe that was where she was, then. At least she had an idea of how close she was to the warehouse. She had no idea if anyone else had the same idea, or even if there’s be anything useful, but it was an idea on where to go next.

Didn’t someone die around here? She vaguely remembered hearing about it on the announcement. Miranda shook her head.

Right. She’d probably be at the warehouse by now if it weren’t for her leg. It was just bruised, but it did mess her up a bit. She had to take some aspirin earlier, just to dull the pain a bit. It was only a sign she needed to be more careful.

So she’d sat down, map on her lap, resting her leg a bit. She’d placed the tire iron next to her. As much as it was something she used to hit people, it was still hers. Maybe she could give it a name or something. Nah, that sounded stupid. Anyways, warehouse was more down south, so hopefully-

Those were voices.

She snapped her head up, and grabbed the tire iron. The map went into the bag, and the bag went over her shoulder. Right, deal with them, then. But be more careful this time.

She stepped forward. Limped forward.

Miranda saw them. There were at least three. Kasumi, Sebastien, and Kitty. Kitty was a dumb name, she thought to herself for a second, before dismissing it.

She was probably in eyeshot right about now. In fact, she was some feet away. Miranda couldn’t tell if they could see her, but she knew that if something happened…

Keep that grip tight. Be careful.

Despite that thought, she spoke.

“Hey.”

Be careful, she reminded herself another time. Can't remind yourself enough.

[backslash]

Kitty was... swatting invisible insects? Or maybe just metaphorically trying to clear the air. It did smell a bit like a tire fire around here, or at least what Sebastien imagined a tire fire must smell like.

Kasumi's appearance was a little more pressing. Her actual appearance, not his sudden realization of her presence, because Kasumi was inoffensive at worst from what Sebastien knew of her, and she looked like hell.

"Yeah," he echoed Kitty. "We thought we were walking in the opposite direction, actually." Did that really matter though, how they had ended up here? How Kasumi had gotten in the state she was in and what exactly she was doing seemed a little more pressing.

"Do... you need help? You look hurt." ...Does that count as criticizing a girl's appearance?

But they had another visitor. The possible cause of Kasumi's injured leg, maybe, but...

"Holy shit, Miranda, what happened?" Sebastien blurted out before he could stop himself as soon as he turned and took her in. Leg all bruised up, dress in tatters. She had obviously been attacked too. Someone's been busy around here.

Standing a short distance between the two injured girls, Sebastien was suddenly very aware of how the area was both wide open and full of pitfalls and potential cover for an attacker. He felt much more exposed than he had a moment ago.

[The Honeless Beard]

Kasumi opened her mouth to respond to Simastien and Kitty when Miranda showed up, and, as was expected, Sebimon turned his full attention to her. Kasumi shrank backwards into the ground, impatiently wiping at a sweaty brow, her leg seeming hotter than it had a few moments ago.

Just furniture, she supposed, as she plucked one of the blades of grass, blew on it idly - too irritated to make much of a noise, really. More of a huff of breath, and she needed a steady stream to make them sing.

She watched the other three, on their six working legs, and mopped her brow again.

[MethodicalSlacker]

Kitty slinks back, unsure of how to interact with the others. Two broken girls. Almost like they're in a suffering contest with each other. If Kitty had to make a choice between which one was having the worse time of things, she'd say the girl that had just approached them, but that might be because the girl offering directions was covered in too much crap for Kitty to really tell how much left there was underneath.

Well, dirt-girl was maybe a little loopy. Kitty wouldn't have put that ground grass anywhere her mouth, if she could help it.

"Maybe we should get..." she said, trailing off as a shot of headache pain pierced through her forehead, "get moving to somewhere more sheltered?"

Secretly, she was hoping they'd stay in the tar-pit area. They had a good look of everything around, and her conversation with Seb at the quarry was getting her back into the art-making mood.

[KamiKaze]

Miranda looked them over.

There was Sebastien, who… had an odd reaction. Apparently he was concerned about her? His eyes were on his leg. Maybe it was because he thought it was a sign she’d been in a fight before, which it was. Maybe it looked more gruesome than she realized. Maybe he… cared? Who knew? All she knew was that he was here, and he was here with Kitty and… Kasumi? Yeah, that was the girl who was currently sitting on the ground covered in dirt. She also had a bat, and it seemed like her leg was messed up too.

She tried to figure out if Kitty and Seb had anything too. From here, she couldn’t see anything. Nonetheless, she kept the grip on the tire iron tight.

“How did it happen…?” she echoed.

Was it a good idea to talk to them at all? Much less tell them about it? They weren’t close. She wasn’t too close to any of them. If they had been close, it would have been worse in a way, wasn’t it? They had to kill each other, and god knew what else.

But she expelled a bit of air from her lungs. She gave in.

“Brigid,” she said.

There weren’t enough times that she could remind herself to be careful, that they had all the reason to kill her and vice versa.

[backslash]

Brigid? Sebastien hadn't been expecting that one, but then he hadn't expected Everett to be toting a gun the size of his forearm and an itchy trigger finger, and look where that had gotten them. You know what you do when you assume.

In some ways though, that was a relief. Seeing a pretty girl bruised up, clothes in tatters... for a second, it had been very easy to suspect the worst of at least one of his classmates. Wasn't much of a relief to know that they were still only trying to murder each other, but it was simpler.

"Okay," he said when Miranda didn't offer more. He couldn't blame her for not wanting to talk about it, he supposed.

Kitty spoke up, and Sebastien bit back a sigh. His attention was being pulled in too many directions at once. "I'm pretty tired from walking all the way here," he admitted. "Maybe in a little while we can get going again, but..." He didn't want to leave Kasumi and Miranda here. It felt irresponsible.

"Were you attacked by the same person, Kasumi? Do you guys need help?" They had... moral support to offer and that was about it. Maybe he could take a look at Kasumi's knee and make sure Brigid the Leg Bandit hadn't made off with it.

[The Honeless Beard]

"I'm fine," Kasumi said, though her voice sounded far away to her own ears, a tunnel away, faintly bouncing along shaped and chiselled walls. She tested it by blowing on one of her notes, frowning at the sound produced.

"I'm okay," Kasumi reiterated.

[MethodicalSlacker]

Brigid. Bri-gid. Briiiiiiiiih-jehhhhhhd.

Kitty rolled the name over behind her closed lips, trying to figure out where she had heard it before. It wasn't the most unfamiliar, but it definitely wasn't the name of someone she knew personally. Then where would she have gotten it from? Distracted from the rest of the group, only tuning in to hear Seb shoot down her proposal to move - something she was fine with - to focus on this one strangely oblique detail.

"'Will this help?'"

That's right! That day, in the rain! Kitty snapped her fingers a few times in appreciation - maybe having strange voices in her head wasn't such a hindrance after all.

"You're welcome. Don't dwell on it, though."

Kitty looked at the worse off girl, who seemed to be trying to convince herself that she was alright. Did that come out of nowhere, or was Kitty really that oblivious?

For a moment, she said nothing, airing on the side of the latter. Then, her lips were pried open from the inside, and, like a marionette, she was made to speak.

"Are you sure?"

[KamiKaze]

Did she need help?

“No-” Miranda started, but cut herself off.

Mid-sentence, mid-word, she realized that it wasn’t an easy answer. She already had an idea of what other people were capable of. Watching Will and Richard die was proof of that. Chris and Brigid showed what happened if she wasn’t careful with the choices she made. Even Mr. Dolph was a memory of what other people could do. He wasn’t killed by a classmate, but it left a message. Jasmine had maybe attacked Paris, if what Brigid said was any true. The announcements didn’t say anything about that, that she knew of, but he’d mentioned other stuff. Lyndi, Yazmin, Panya, Chalmers. And that was what was just at the top of her head.

But, here’s the thing. She knew Sebastien well-enough to remember that he knew first aid. He wanted to be a doctor or something, right? Miranda was sure her knee was just bruised. She remembered a few times when people had gotten injured during track meetings. It was normal to, say, pull a muscle from running too hard. But, even that kind of knowledge from experience wouldn’t compare to someone who spent their time thinking about that regularly. Right?

So, the answer wasn’t that easy. Maybe he was being genuine, maybe he thought she’d be an easier target. Maybe Kasumi, too. She seemed worse off, at least? So, she was left with two choices. Let Sebastien get close enough to say that yes, it was just bruising, and maybe give better advice on how to deal with it. However, that’d mean that, if he wanted to try something, it’d be easy. Just say “no,” and walk away. She wouldn’t be in danger, but she’d still have to deal with that leg.

Miranda deeply sighed. She still was aware of the tire iron in her hand.

“I mean, I’m sure it’s just bruising. But… maybe you could take a look, just in case?”

She felt dirty for admitting it.

[decoy73]

((Sarah Miller continued from Connect/Disconnect))

Jasmine was her name. Avoid at all costs. Mess Hall was the place. AVOID AT ALL COSTS.

The area was starting to reek (so why didn't they just keep everyone away from this place), not a surprise given the tar, which had supposedly swallowed up two people already. So why was she going in such random-ass directions?

Because at least then you're a moving target.

Fuck you, brain.

[backslash]

Kasumi didn't want help, though the more he looked, the more convinced Sebastien was that she needed it. Miranda was cooperating though, so he could let Kitty coax Kasumi along in the meantime.

"Okay," he said to Miranda, nodding. This was something he knew how to handle, at least. He spared a glance for the tire iron in her hand, but took a few steps closer.

"Is it mainly your knee? How much trouble is it to walk?"