He jogged tirelessly onwards. There was no doubt that he was being tailed now, the dull snap of rotted wood and rush of parting leaves behind him were evidence enough of that. But the smell of earth and the warmth of the sun, the soft jungle mist laying over his skin in a light sheen, those all bespoke something different, more important. He was alert and awake and alive, and the jungle was beautiful because the jungle was his. He was running, and there was someone chasing him, but he wasn't being chased. And soon enough he'd turn and take care of whoever it was behind him, and cement his standing that much further. There would be no remorse, no misgivings, only perhaps a moment of pity for whomever had so foolishly decided to challenge the alpha.
For now, though, he was pushing on through soft soil, letting the sun wash away his sins. The girl he killed had left her blood matting his beard and assaulting his nose with the persistent smell of rust, forcing its way through the stench of dirt and grime, the scents of leaves and wetness with each measured breath he took. He couldn't soon forget her, but there was no need to now. There was so much more, he reminded himself, than his status on the line. Every former acquaintance remaining was another block in his path, an obstacle he'd have to clear, one more beating or a stabbing or a shooting so he could keep living, keep running in the sun. He was so strong, and the others so weak, and it wasn't chance that had caused that.
He came to a junction between one overgrown trail and another, a little clearing that would give him ample room. Dropping his pack, he stretched, touched the handle of his bat, the grip of his pistol, made a fist that like as not would render both unnecessary. He wasn't going to hold back by any means, but that didn't mean was going to be wasteful.
((Nick Reid continued from Will I Never Be Lonely Again?))
Nick was running, too. The ground was uneven, his throat quickly becoming ragged, the air heavy and cloying. The swiftness of his flight from the dangerzone was just a memory now, long since given way to an exhausted, forced march. His lack of proper food or sleep was no longer an annoyance but an obstacle, even a threat. The fine balance of the sword in his hand didn't stop it from weighing his arm to a worrying degree, and that before he'd even begun moving it in and out, feinting, parrying, whirling it around with deadly force and precision. He had a fight to win, but he had to get there first.
He slowed to a blistering walk, broke into a jog again, jumped a narrow gap and clambered wearily over a log. He couldn't stop, not now, not until he'd reached his ever-moving goal. There was far too much at stake now, and if he let himself stop running, the whole endeavor would be a failure on every level. He'd be lost, tired, alone. Adam would be running free, dangerous as he looked and twice as ruthless. Megan would be, well... he tried to frame it in some way that would nicely encapsulate the whole situation. Tried and failed, because the whole thing was riddled with uncertainty and complexity. He knew April mostly just in passing, except for the fact that a. she was on good terms with Megan and that b. she was a murderer who needed to die at the next convenient opportunity. Except he'd killed someone himself, and Megan had watched him do it and then stuck with him anyways, which meant that she'd simply gone from hanging with a murderer to hanging with a double murderer, like the world's worst seat upgrade. All he really knew was that he needed to find them again as quickly as possible to sort it all out.
And if we're lucky, all three of us might survive it.
He smiled grimly and pressed on, still a good distance back but unafraid of losing the trail. Adam wasn't exactly a subtle person, and Nick was increasingly doubtful that there was any effort to mask his crashing advance. Suddenly, however, all noise ahead of him abated. He peered through the trees, saw nothing, scrambled frantically up a rise to his left. And there it was, a sight both reassuring and disquieting, a splash of black and grey among the green. His target was stopped, stretching - waiting? The secret hope in the back of Nick's mind slipped away, the idea that he might somehow lose the trail and avoid the clash, forcing himself into a situation where the only options were to murder or be murdered. He gave a sudden laugh in spite of himself.
Well it's freaking Harry Potter up in here now, isn't it?
He slowed his pace, walking now to regain his stamina, examining his surroundings with a critical eye, remembering the whole mall debacle. He needed to hedge his bets, stack every advantage he could. The environment had saved him then, and he wasn't about to go in blind now. Every tree, every log, every twist and turn of the trail could figure big if it all went pear-shaped. That rock, that hole, that - wire? He bent down to examine it. It was low-slung, tight, and deadly thin. A jolt of fear chased realization through his body. A tripwire. One he would have missed entirely had he been moving any faster or had the sun not shone through one blessed gap in the foliage. He didn't know what was on the other end, didn't have the nerve to check, but there was no need to investigate the details of his own gory death held off by a simple stroke of luck. Environmental awareness, he thought, was a hell of a thing.
And with that thought in his mind, he slipped through another narrow passage, rounded a bend, and came face-to-face with the man he was trying to kill.
"Took you long enough."
Nick threw down his bag, gripping the katana with both hands. "Yeah, longer than it took for you to resort to bloody murder, eh? Not a patient guy, are you?"
Adam smiled, twirling the bat in his hand. "We can do this slowly, if you'd like."
"Lay on," Nick mumbled to himself as he stepped forward. He took a middling stance, grasping his sword tightly, aiming the tip at Adam's throat, but he had never felt smaller in his life.
They closed. Nick dipped his sword towards Adam's knee, feinting down and left before striking high and right. His bread and butter shot, the one he threw until it was second nature, until he could take a shoulder before his opponent raised his shield, until he'd look low and follow through and his friends were utterly surprised. It was blazing fast with foam and fiberglass; quick and clean with short rattan; slower now with long, sharp steel.
Slow enough that Adam had no trouble aiming in response, meeting the sword mid-swing to knock it far out to the side. He raised the bat as Nick tried to recover, chopping downwards with a fast, brutal stroke. Another clang rang through the jungle, followed by the soft warble of steel on soil. He twirled the bat as he stepped forward again, flush with the glow of victory, chasing the scent of blood. Nick's fear was palpable now, thickening the air around him like the clinging jungle mist.
"Now what can I break first for you?"
Nick dove to the ground, a swish of air over his head announcing the near-miss of the swing aimed squarely at his ribs. Adam was tremendously strong, terrifyingly strong. One clean hit was all he'd need to shatter a wiry limb. Nick desperately needed something to swing the fight back in his favor, and he'd only have one chance to do it.
He dove, spitting dirt, rolling to the side and closing his fingers around the hilt of the sword. He willed his arm to shoot outwards and upwards, a disembowling strike just like the one he'd dealt to Sally. But the sword didn't budge. He looked up just in time to see one boot pinning the blade firmly to the ground, and another flying towards his head. Pain erupted across the side of his face, one hand flying instinctively upwards to relocate his jaw. He tottered dizzily for a second, one word burning in his mind.
RUN
He ducked to the side as dirt exploded upwards, throwing himself forward and somehow finding his legs. In an instant he was off and running, destination unknown and unimportant. Adrenaline surged through him like a hot wire threaded through his veins, muscles pumping like pistons. He hazarded a look behind him to stave off any projectile strikes, but saw only Adam's heaving form worryingly close behind. He started running even faster if it was possible, tears swept out the corners of his eyes, the fear of death upon him.
Nowhere to go.
That was the thought that took center stage in his mind, establishing itself amongst the whirling maelstrom of facts and anecdotes and fragmented images.
Bears can outsprint racehorses.
Racetracks are a furlong, which is the length of a farmer's furrow.
There's nowhere to run.
An acre is a square furlong. It's supposed to be the amount of land a farmer could plow in a day.
I'm going to die.
Adam's not actually a bear. But he makes a good standin.
They say your brain dumps all its DMT in the moment before death. I wonder if I'll remember I'm dying while I'm tripping balls.
There's nowhere to run.
I'm slowing down.
He was indeed beginning to slow. Adrenaline could only carry him through so much, and he was lucky even to have gotten that far. His legs were protesting, chest heaving, saliva mixing with his tears and flowing freely down his chin. He was slowing, and Death was right behind him, except with a baseball bat instead of the typical scythe. Or gladius, which nobody seemed to remember being part of the original deal. He briefly chastized his wandering mind, except the only alternative was wondering what it would feel like when his bones splintered into razor shards and exploded through his limbs like needles.
He put on a final burst of speed.
His head swiveled, eyes desperately scanning for some feature or irregularity that would confer the slimmest advantage. Situational awareness. Situational awareness. Please be something I can use. There was a rise to his right, featureless jungle ahead and to the left. It wasn't much, but he was running on empty now. He had to change it up or get run down.
Turning suddenly to the side, he grasped the foliage, heaving himself upward with the power of all four limbs. Sticks and rocks and soil flew behind his pumping feet. His lips curled into a crazed smile.
Situational awareness.
He reached the top of the rise, turning to see Adam just starting what looked to be a much slower ascent. Wasting no time, he grabbed the closest objects at hand and hurled them down the hill. His initial volley produced an angry grunt, his second a burst of swearing. He seized a rock the size of a bowling ball, threw it at Adam's head with all the force he could muster. A laugh escaped his lips, squeezed out by pounding waves of adrenaline and giddiness and incredulity. There he was, a thousands miles from home on Murderdeath Island, chucking rocks down a hill at his classmate, watching him-
Dodging. Flushing beet red. Reaching for something. Pulling it out.
Gun.
"You wanna play pussy, huh?"
Two echoing booms rang out, blasting leaves backwards in the swirling muzzle wash. Something streaked by, leaving a vorpal buzz in its wake like an angry bee flying inches from his ear. He checked himself quickly for signs of bleeding, but found nothing. Which was just as well, because he suddenly remembered that he'd ducked behind a good-sized tree before the bullets had even left the barrel. But that all meant nothing now, because Adam was moving up the incline with renewed speed, and there was nothing Nick could do when he got there, and there was nowhere to run where a bullet couldn't find him. It was death behind him, death in front of him, to his right, to his -
He tore down the path, ducking and weaving with his last reserves of strength, trembling with exhaustion and anticipation of that one lucky shot. It didn't matter how poor a target he made, that 1% that found its mark would leave him just as dead. He could feel hot lead boring through his skull even then, but he couldn't focus on that, had to focus on remembering what it looked like, what bend in the path concealed it, the branch overhanging the trail, a mossy rock, the curve of a fallen log...
There.
He jumped.
His heart caught, breath frozen in his chest. He hit the ground, landed in one piece, jolted his heart back into service while his feet stopped instead, skidding, turning, hoping and praying, terrified it wouldn't work and terrified of what would happen when it di -
It was the loudest thing he'd ever heard. The loudest thing he'd ever hear, at least out of that ear. He stumbled as the blast hit him, lost his footing as a monstrous stabbing pain invaded his skull leaving nausea and vertigo in its wake. He groaned softly, but only an intense ringing met his hears. He pushed himself up, cracking his neck, adjusting his jaw again, listening to the dull bone-transmitted sound. So he wasn't completely deaf. That was good enough for now. Something more important lay behind him.
Adam lay on his back, blinking slowly in the shaft of sunlight falling on his face. The world had simply exploded, and Nick was coming to stare down and him and then darting away again and what the hell had he done? Why was there so much blood? Why were his legs covered in what looked like hamburger meat? He wanted to lay back and rest, but he wasn't tired because why would he be tired, and Nick was getting away now, and he had to get up and move. His legs didn't respond. He tried to make them work, but they wouldn't. He was so confused. His head wouldn't stop spinning. Had he been shot? But he was the one with the gun, except now Nick was taking it and looking at it, and something shiny suddenly entered his throat.
There was so much blood now, gushing, spurting, a sea of it, a sea so deep and wide he was drowning in it, and his vision was going dim. Nick was leaving, didn't want to fall into the sea, didn't want to drown in it like him.
Wait, he thought.
B15 Adam Reeves: Deceased
11 Students Remaining
11 Students Remaining
((Nick Reid continued in Valor))