A gripping sequence of events, recalled by Wolfmother.

[The Honeless Beard]

((Dougie Sharpe, Alone Together))

Dougie arrived too late.

The violence had occurred when he was racing across the resort, scrambling over crusty ice and trudging through snowdrifts, to reach the Daycare doors. He'd run straight past them, looping around to the side to find a spare entrance, maybe some sort of side door that he could open. He found a push door - one of those one-way jobs - that he was able to jimmy open with a wedge of ice and the bat, tapping at it until the doorjamb released. Yanking at it with frozen fingers, Dougie flung the door wide, stepped into the staff area, stumbled through the door, and froze.

Four corpses littered the room.

He sagged suddenly, sliding down the wall of the daycare, keeping his bat between his feet as he hit the carpet, resting his forehead against the handle of it, and breathed slowly.

Too goddamned late.

[Spindarene]

((Lily Ashburg continued from Alone Together))

Lily's legs burned and her chest seared as she ran, but she didn't dare slow down. Up ahead she saw Dougie round the corner of the daycare center and tried to speed up, gritting her teeth in pain. When she finally got to the door she stumbled inside, trying to breathe and take in her surroundings at the same time. Groaning slightly she leaned against the wall, attempting to ignore her burning muscles and stinging feet.

"Dougie?" she gasped, looking around and noticing him slumped against the wall. "What--what's going on? Are you okay?"

[The Honeless Beard]

"No," was the only thing he could say to that, the only response that he could muster forwards. It wasn't enough - nothing could be, he suspected - to fully embrace the intricacies and encompassing, crushing despair he felt, nor the idea that he couldn't have done anything - could still do nothing - to halt, slow, or otherwise impede the way this game was going to be played.

Jewel had done this. Jewel had killed these people. And even if she hadn't, it meant that other kids, other classmates and friends and enemies were continuing the slaughter.

"No," he said again, the only word that mattered now, the only word that he could force from chapped lips and hollow heart.

"No, no, no. No."

[Spindarene]

Hearing Dougie's response, Lily scanned the room and noticed four grotesque bodies scattered across the floor. Her stomach gave a small, sick jolt.

Questions buzzed around her head as she knelt down next to him.

“What happened?”

[The Honeless Beard]

"I don't know."

He stared at the floor, fingers gripping his beanie in a white-knuckled grip.

"I don't..."

They had sat there and watched kids go through this.

"I..."

There was a magazine ad last week that he saw in the school library.

"I don't know what to..."

Killcounts were compared in English class.

"I can't."

Quiet. Barely a whisper. Then, louder.

"I can't!"

In a streak of purple and a blur of green, Dougie rose from his position, hurling the balled-up beanie across the room. It didn't land with as much force as he'd hoped, merely fwumping to the ground harmlessly. He stared at it, his fingers, with nothing to do, fidgeting with his pockets.

Try to throw something, relieve the pressure, and it floats harmlessly to the fucking ground.

Can't even throw a proper goddamn tantrum.

"I can't, with the cameras and the- jesus, these are dead kids, and Vahka's fucking- Pia, too, she's- I fucking can't do this, Lily."

He flapped his arms, helplessly. "If I go further, that means - why do I still- why am I alive, when they're dead? Is that - what - justified? Is that how this works? They were unlucky, I'm not; hey, congrats, here's a higher spot on the rankings? That's who - we're numbers now? We're numbers," he decided, yelling it, turning towards a camera.

He pointed at it.

"Numbers. Fuck you. Fuck - fuck all of you."

Turning on his heel, suddenly exhausted, feeling empty and vaguely dirty, Dougie leaned heavily against the nearest wall, folding his arms in on himself, closing his eyes.

He couldn't.

With any of it.

[Spindarene]

Lily stared at him, stunned, trying to process what was happening. She'd known that he wasn't okay, that no one here was, but she hadn't expected him to suddenly lose control like that.

She knew how self-centered and hypocritical she was for feeling this way, but Dougie wasn't supposed to do this. He was supposed to be the strong one, the one who gave her comfort when she broke down, the one steady familiar thing she had left in this place.

Repressed thoughts and feelings bubbled to the surface of her mind as she continued looking at him. He was feeling guilty for outliving other kids, ranting about the injustice of it all, and all Lily could think about was that both of them were going to die.

She'd been trying to keep it in the back of her mind, focusing on practicality, trying to keep things as normal as possible. She'd focused on where they would stay next or making sure they got enough food and rest so she wouldn't have to think about her parents or her friends, or anything related to her life before SOTF, because she knew that she would never see them again.

Good people didn't make it out of here, and she knew that neither she nor Dougie was capable of murder. The ones who got out of here were going to be people like Jewel, Vahka or Pia. She knew it was only a matter of time before she and Dougie were killed by people like them.

Lily had fought for normalcy because she didn't know what else to do. She'd tried to look after Dougie not just because she cared, but because giving up on him meant giving up on herself. She'd thought that if he saw that she hadn't lost hope, he wouldn't either.

She saw now that it was too late, that he'd already given up on himself. She didn't know what to do or say, but she had to say something. She had to try to fix this, to regain some semblance of normalcy or they would both fall apart.

“Yes you can,” she said in a low voice, speaking to the floor. “Look I know how hard and horrible everything is, but you have to let it go.” Guilt and shame crept up on her as she talked, but she continued. “We can't do anything, okay? People are going to kill and die here, that's just how it works. It's how people work. We can't afford to let it get to us like this.” She thought of a boy laying on the floor with a hole in his head, a broken twisted body at the foot of a tower, a body without a head. She thought of Michael and Valerie, and her guilt intensified. “The only thing we can do is protect ourselves and look out for each other. We can't afford to care about anything else, okay?” She crossed her arms over her chest and kept her eyes on the floor, too ashamed to look at him. “I'm sorry, but we just can't.”

[The Honeless Beard]

It was impossible.

It was his only option.

"Yeah," Dougie said, wiping at his eyes with his fingers, digging into the skin he found there.

"Yeah, okay."

[Spindarene]

Lily's eyes jerked upwards, staring at him in surprise. She'd expected an argument, or at least some form of resistance. The fact that he had none, that he was agreeing with her without any protest, made her feel worse. She quickly dropped her eyes to the floor to hide the tears that were gathering in them.

They stayed like that for a long time, him standing and her sitting, occasionally glancing at each other but not saying a word.

Unwelcome thoughts crowded Lily's mind as she sat there. She wished that she could break the silence, but there was nothing that she could say, even to comfort Dougie. Any trace of denial or hope that she'd had was now gone, and she knew that the same was true for him. She didn't know how or why, but they'd both finally broken.

Thoughts that she'd managed to suppress for the last two days flooded her mind, and she found herself thinking about home. She thought about her parents and how their lives were going to be destroyed by this, that perhaps they already had.

She thought about her friends, and wondered if they were watching her go through this. Every decision she made, every tear she shed was being broadcast for everyone to see. She'd tried not to think about the television element until now, tried to ignore the cameras, tried to tell herself that her life being in danger was more important than the humiliation of seeing her darkest secrets and feelings being played out on TVs all across America. Whenever this thought occurred she glanced up at the nearest camera, glaring at it slightly before turning her gaze back to the wall or the floor.

She tried to keep her eyes away from the corpses around them but couldn't help occasionally glancing at them. Every time she looked at them her stomach burned with guilt, remembering that she'd basically said that they didn't matter. They did matter, though. They had been people once, who were now reduced to objects. Whoever they'd been, whatever they'd done, she knew no one deserved that.

Her eyes would occasionally fall on Dougie, but she would always look away when they did, unable to deal with what she saw there.

While they'd grown comfortable with each other over the past two years, evolving from shy study companions to good friends, there were always lines that they didn't cross, things that they never talked about or shared. Over the past two days, however, those boundaries had blurred to the point where she felt like they knew each other better now than they ever had before.

There was a vulnerability that they shared now that scared her. Thoughts and feelings that she'd never wanted to show anyone were now out in the open, and no matter how much she wished that she could shove them back inside she couldn't. She'd likewise seen parts of him that she wished she hadn't; the strength and weakness that she'd seen in him over the past couple days had brought out other feelings within her that she repressed as hard as she could, because dealing with them was impossible.

Finally the silence was broken by a loud, cheery voice from their collars that reverberated around the small space. A lot more people had died this time. Someone had gone on a killing spree in the nature walk, and Pia had stabbed someone to death. Jewel had killed two more people, which now put her at seven. Lily's first thought when she heard about Jewel's victims was that she only had three more to go and then they wouldn't have to deal with her anymore. A second later, Lily was disgusted with herself. What was wrong with her? When did she become so cold and selfish? When did it become us versus them?

She realized that it had been that way from the second she woke up in the hotel. The whole time she'd been here, her only priorities had been Dougie and herself. She'd tried to look out for Michael and Valerie too, but not nearly as well as she could have. She suddenly remembered how she'd reacted when she'd seen her first death, the boy at the restaurant. She'd wanted a gun. Not to use of course, but to threaten and scare. Was that who she was now? No, it wasn't, because every time she'd been threatened or scared, she'd hid behind Dougie, the one person who'd stayed with her, the person who'd promised to protect her. She glanced up at him. He looked tired and lost.

She didn't know who she was anymore, and that terrified her. She was turning into something she didn't want to be, and if she didn't change now she would either become a victim or a murderer. It didn't matter if those were the only two options, or if it was too late to change. What mattered was that she tried.

Lily stood up and winced slightly from the stiffness and soreness that she'd gotten from sitting too long. She looked at Dougie again, longer this time, before going over to retrieve his beanie.

As she handed it to him, she said “We should get moving. We left all our stuff back in the cabanas, and it's going to get colder the later it gets.” She was suddenly aware of her bare arms and feet, and the cold and miserable walk she was about to take. Her arms prickled at the thought.

“Um, I'll be right back, okay?” She gave him a small, quick smile before she headed off in the direction of the restrooms.

[Laurels]

((CJ3 Asa Rosen continued from What Does a Guy Have to Do to Piss You Off? Kill Someone?))

Asa hurried over to the Aloha Daycare Center, panting heavily. He decided to move quickly after leaving the cabaret, but was still not used to moving fairly quickly in cold weather. It was times like this that Asa had wished he had made some attempt to get cardiovascular exercise back home. He knew the benefits that came from it, and he even knew how he could have done it without it being equal parts painful, humiliating, and aggravating, but he still shied away from it. As he trudged towards the side entrance, he had wished he had actually manned up and gone jogging every afternoon.

But that was something he figured he could save for after he went home. He would have to clean up his appearance if he was going to be going on talk shows and book tours. He wasn't going to have a good image coming out of the game, but even he knew that he could at least try to make himself look decent, or at least hire people who could make him look decent. Asa knew he should make that attempt when he got inside. He could probably clean up in a bathroom, then put on a clean shirt or something.

Asa made his way over to the clear doors that connected the outside play area to the indoor play area. As he walked up to the door, he let out a loud curse. He quickly covered his mouth with his free hand and stepped back a bit. There was a guy inside the room, sitting against a wall. There were also four bodies on the floor. Asa could recognize a few of the bodies as students from Davison, notably Davis Todd, Lisa Toner, and Jaxon Street. He didn't recognize the other girl though. He didn't know who the guy in the room was, but there was a chance he was Marcus Redder. If Jaxon Street was one of the corpses, that guy in the room could be his killer, still shocked by committing double homicide to have left the building.

Crap. I just had to pick this place.

Asa kept a tight grip on the axe, keeping it hidden under the shawl. Asa did have a chance to run, but part of him wondered how pissed the audience would be if he took out a repeat killer. He just had to see if the guy inside noticed him before he could make a decision.

[The Honeless Beard]

"Yeah, sure," Dougie said, absently, running his fingers along the purple threads of the beanie Lily had handed him - his familiar, safe beanie - as she wandered off. His gaze was locked on the floor as he spun the hat around and around and around, each touch reminding him of a simpler time, a better one.

He'd worn this hat to his first baseball game, and his brother had poured beer on it.

For the first time since the game began, he thought of Trevor, wondered if he was in a cell, or back home sitting comfortably, or maybe out of state - hiding out in a basement somewhere until it all blew over.

The reminiscing session was cut short, however, by a loud curse - a masculine voice.

Dougie's beanie was hastily shoved into his pocket as he shot up to full height, raising the baseball bat over his shoulder in an immediate defensive posture. He waited a beat, eyes darting around the room, looking for the source of the sound and seeing a flash of movement as someone ducked behind cover.

He cleared his throat, tried speaking through the tremor in his voice.

"No point in hiding," he said, his voice cracking on every other word, foiling his attempt at intimidation, "I heard you."

[Spindarene]

As Lily made her way back from the bathroom, she heard Dougie call out to someone who was hiding. She froze, still in the hallway.

She'd gotten so used to it just being the two of them that she hadn't even thought of what to do if they ran into someone here. She glanced around quickly for anything that she could use as a weapon, but the hallway was blank. She was still somewhat disturbed that her first instinct was to arm herself, but couldn't afford to dwell on it.

After a moment's hesitation she moved into the main room, where she saw Dougie standing tense and alert, holding the bat over his shoulder.

“What's going on?” she asked.

[Laurels]

Fuck me. If this gets me killed, I am going to look so stupid.

Asa pushed open the door and stepped inside the daycare. He tried to keep a neutral look on his face. If this guy inside was a repeat killer, then Asa would have to be very cautious with how he approached him. Unlike that girl back at the tour center, Asa didn't know how much control over the situation he had. The brush axe was still hidden under the shawl, so he probably didn't look too intimidating.

Asa then noticed that the guy had a girl with him. They both must have been from the hick school, since he didn't recognize the girl either. For all he knew, this was that Pia Malone girl who kept racking up kills. Asa could see it now: the fat, angry guy stumbles into a room with repeat killers Marcus Redder and Pia Malone, who are teamed up to take everyone out, and gets brutally killed by them while the viewers laugh at the carnality. The vision sickened him.

Still, nothing bad had happened yet. He didn't know them, and they didn't know him. It wasn't much, but it could at least give him a chance to do something about it. Asa turned his gaze from the two in the room to the four bodies on the floor. Just like with that other girl, he could show more concern about the deceased then the idea of dangerous living people before him. He looked back up at the two.

"So...hi," Asa said.

Asa raised his free hand and flashed a peace sign. He wasn't sure what spurred that action when he greeted them, but it would probably make them think he was peaceful.

"What's up?"

[The Honeless Beard]

Dougie's response was to straighten even further, stretching his neck from side to side. For a moment, he wished that he could feel that familiar popping that accompanied the gesture, to hopefully alleviate the tension that he felt creeping into his shoulders.

It didn't come.

Typical.

Nodding at Asa, Dougie looked at Lily. "This guy was hiding."

To Asa, "You friendly? Because I'm... tired of this whole, whatever, threatening thing. I'm Douglas. Dougie. Friends call me... yeah, and this is Lily."

[Laurels]

((Permission to skip granted))

Asa raised an eyebrow as the boy spoke. This guy wasn't Marcus Redder, and the girl wasn't Pia Malone or Jewel Evans or any other crazy lady. Sure, Asa didn't really have reason to buy that. He didn't expect that one girl to buy that his name was Josiah, so perhaps these two were lying. He could assure himself of that fact in a moment. He could try to see what these two were doing.

"I guess I'm friendly," Asa said. "I mean, relatively speaking. I haven't killed anyone if that's what you're asking."

Asa pushed his glasses up further on the bridge of his nose.

"Also, hate to break it to you, but the 'threatening thing' you're tired of isn't going to end until only one person is left alive. Or until no one is left alive. I'm looking at the glass half empty these days."

[The Honeless Beard]

"Good for you." Dougie said, stepping forwards, tapping the bat awkwardly against his boot.

"Listen, I really don't mean to be - whatever, rude," he continued, "but Lily and I... We're kind of doing our own thing, you know? No disrespect, but - we're not... looking for a third. If you catch my - if you know what I mean."