Unsatisfied

An open field, filled to the brim with flowers of every size, shape, and color, lies along the island's western coast beyond the quarry. It's truly a beautiful sight, created by a combination of fertile soil, ample moisture, and a number of species of flower imported by the miners thriving due to fortuitous evolutionary advantages over the local flora.Bees and butterflies are common sights in this area, busily collecting pollen and nutrients.
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General Goose
Posts: 318
Joined: Thu Aug 09, 2018 2:51 pm

Unsatisfied

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Post by General Goose »

((Chuck Soileaux continued from The Chuck Republic.))

Chuck was doing...recon. Yeah. That was it. Scouting out the new areas.

No. No, that narrative was already stretched beyond all plausibility.

He was doing this because he needed to do it. Because he wanted to do it. Some kind of respite day, a moment to reflect and contemplate, to give his mind a chance to recuperate and his rapidly fraying mental health a chance to take stock. He was sitting in a secluded corner of the field of flowers, examining the natural beauty, sometimes just embracing the aromatic bliss and placing himself in some other, sweeter, gentler, corner of the world. That was the benefit of being in the new part of the island, after all. Fewer sights and sounds that had unshakeable associations with the traumas of the island. Easier to relocate his mind somewhere else.

Allowed him to wrap up some final things on his bucket list. Chuck had long had a bucket list. A lot of the things on it, of course, were now largely beyond his control. He would not be leading a successful reform of US food aid policy, or creating a webcomic, or standing one foot in rain the other foot out of rain. No, his bucket list had become simpler. To, as he'd done several times that night, ramble at the camera incoherently. He had given all his goodbyes, even to obscure internet communities and people he'd met once but only once. He had even given monologues on his ideas, his philosophy, in the egotistic yet well-meaning hope somebody could find something fruitful for his pre-mortem ramblings.

The announcements put an end to his rambling. Cut him off mid-sentence, as it were. He'd been building up to something, but luckily hadn't been interrupted in the middle of posing the counterargument that he'd sought to defeat. That would have been the worst.

More death, more trauma.

Chuck had been correct about the lake being next. Small comfort.

For the first time, the long list of deaths - unusually crammed with friends and allies from Chuck's time on the island - produced a thought that was at once sobering and oddly motivating.

You could win this.

Chuck knew there was no reason he should win over his peers. But there was no reason he shouldn't, either. Whether it was luck or strategy or an inexplicable divine blessing or a certain intangible quality to his person, Chuck was doing alright at this. He'd made it this far with mainly only a cut to show for it. And a heap-load of mental baggage, but that was a problem for future Chuck. If there was one.

Of course, for his victory to be anything meaningful, he'd have to...kill someone.

Saachi. She was still alive. She needed to die. He could be forgiven for, in the lawless anarchy of the island, succumbing once to the sin of revenge, of a preemptive strike. Had to be done. To make the island safer for everyone, to create a possibility of a rescue effort.

He got up.

Picked up the crossbow. Almost forgot the AK. Still wasn't used to carrying it.

Chuck set off, seeking another reunion on the island.

((Chuck Soileaux continued in There and Back Again.))
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