The Land of Shadow

[jimmydalad]

Paris had a gun.

Paris literally was about to shoot at the retreating figure. What sort of wacko world did he fucking walk into? The image was such a disconnect for him. He'd known Paris for being a kind, if not over-the-top bible pusher. He was supposed to be friendly, or at least not trying to shoot someone down. The game had only started and he was already fucking bleeding and trying to shoot people. He couldn't have already cracked. Paris was one of the people from the fucking school he didn't hate or find indifferent.

How can he smile when he was bleeding like that? Apparently, it was a shallow cut, and Aria was just going to take his word for it. No fucking way was he going to take a closer look at that injury. The blood made him queasy enough as is. He didn't know how to respond, so he just stood quietly watching Paris deal with the injury. Why wasn't he panicking? If Aria had anything like that, he'd be fucking screaming and crying like a baby. Paris was acting like it was just a fucking paper cut.

Who the fuck were Jason and Soren? At least it sorta explained why Paris was trying to shoot the fucker down. It still left a bad taste in Aria's mouth. It felt like all Danya had to do was put them in this situation and say "go" to cause everyone to become fucking crazy psycho killers. Where did that leave him, someone, who didn't want to be a fucking crazy psycho killer?

"What do you mean by tracking them?"

That last part stuck out to him. Track? Did Paris even hear what he was saying? The fucker injured him and stole someone's weapon and Paris wanted to track him? What was he thinking of doing? Obviously talking him down was not going to work. The bastard had a fucking gun.

"You aren't going to try and fucking stop them, are you? The players, I mean."

[Cicadan]

There was something of an awkward moment of silence while Paris was able to grab his medical supplies and start toying around with them. He could vaguely recall the times he'd bandaged people in fencing classes, but there was something of a difference this time around. Severity, or something like that. It really had been just a graze, but a nasty jagged looking one, probably because of dullness of the dude's blade or something.

"Well, trying to. You know." Paris fumbled a bit with his wording, breaths spent grunting to himself as he clumsily tugged the bandages over the breadth of his shoulder. "Trying. To... Make sure they don't get up to anything." Paris finished winding his hand around and around, started with some tape to secure. "That they'll regret." Paris was thinking about that a little bit. He was still pretty sure his classmates weren't evil enough or whatever to actually kill each other but accidents could easily happen if tempers were high. Not everyone had a good handle on themselves and all.

"I dunno how I'd stop them," Paris admitted. He glanced down at the gun now that his wound was nice and snugly secure. It felt nice like that, like wrapping a bit of himself in a soft blanket. "But the gun is probably a bit much. I'm sure you agree with me on that," Paris cheerlessly chuckled, a few syllables worth. He picked out a small booklet from his bag that was apparently for his gun, printed in a generic font. He flipped through it while speaking, "If you want to come with me go ahead. I dunno what you have planned though."

Paris then found what he was looking for. He picked up the gun so it shared space with the manual, fumbled as instructed. There was a ratcheting click, a mechanical bouncing pulse against the meat of his palm. A block fell out of the handle of the gun, and Paris gave it an underhanded toss so it and it's bullets flew into the bubbling broth of the nearby tar pit and vanished neatly.

"I have a couple more... what are they called, magazines?" Paris couldn't remember. "But I think I'll walk around without the gun loaded for a bit. Seems safer, more friendly like."

[jimmydalad]

Aria couldn't tell if Paris was courageous or fucking stupid. He was acting like this was just a casual Saturday as he went along dealing with his wounds while talking to him. Aria would've offered to help, but he knew that he'd probably make things fucking worse before they got better. He did move to sit next to Paris, however. Whether it was out of solidarity or exhaustion, he wasn't sure. Maybe it was a mix of both.

Paris's words didn't fill him with much confidence. Aria didn't have as much faith as Paris seemed to have in his classmates. From what he could remember, at least half of his classmates were fucking assholes and jerks who made his life suck. A few of them were ok, but that was the minority. having already seen the fucking crazy psycho girl, Aria very much doubted Paris could do anything to stop them from doing anything they'd "regret". He wouldn't be surprised if some kids were lavishing the opportunity to kill each other.

Honestly, Aria had tons of doubts about chasing after Players. Those were the last fucking people Aria wanted to deal with. Dealing with those people meant that Aria would probably die. He wasn't armed like Paris was and he certainly didn't have a death wish. On the other hand, Paris didn't seem to have cracked. He was sane and willing to converse normally with him without shouting or pointing a gun at his face. That was very much appreciated.

"What the fuck?" Aria muttered to himself as he watched Paris chuck away his magazine into the river. Ok, he must be fucking stupid.

"I hate to break this to you man, but I doubt having your gun unloaded is going to make a fucking difference. It's still a fucking gun."

Paris seemed fucking optimistic about how interactions would go on this island. Aria knew better, owing to the disaster that had happened when he first woke up. He gave Paris a serious look, he needed to bring reality back to this guy.

"It's not going to be fucking easy stopping them. I just had a fucking psycho bitch hold me at gunpoint. I tried talking, but that didn't fucking work. It's gonna take more than just sweet words to get to them. In fact, I think there's only one way to fucking stop them. And to be honest, if you do that, you're no fucking better than them."

[Cicadan]

Aria seemed upset. Something along those lines, Paris didn't know. The dude had a weird sort of serious and heavy look he was trying to work with. Paris half heard him out, also splitting his attention so he could work out some kind of plan, though he couldn't come up with anything he figured it was only a matter of time.

Paris kept the now empty gun clenched in one fist, it was a bit lighter and easy to tote now. He began to heft the bag strap onto his shoulder, the uninjured one, a bit careless since he obviously had no capacity to accidentally shoot himself in the face while shifting things around anymore. With the gun unloaded, all that. Aria mentioned something about being held at gunpoint. Unfortunate, kinda, Paris figured that must have been all kinds of scary and unnerving. It had probably been a misunderstanding, though, and Aria had probably just overreacted.

"I am better than them, but only if it comes down to it."

'It' being the unthinkable.

"I'll just use the gun as leverage if I have to. An empty threat... literally, empty," Paris mused. He was now starting to walk away, slowly and casually measuring his breaths so he could conserve energy. Obviously there was nothing left to do around these parts. Aria was over there somewhere off to the side, he'd come or he wouldn't come. The rest of the action was elsewhere.

Paris realized it was just one of those things. Aria didn't believe, didn't trust that there was a plan in motion. Paris had never really understood those kinds of mentalities. Had to be pretty lame to see the world half empty and cold.

"Anyways if you want to come along let's walk."

[jimmydalad]

Paris was painfully optimistic about his chances. It slightly peeved Aria about how unaffected Paris was by this entire situation. This was a fucking game where they were supposed to kill each other. He would've thought that Paris would've had a greater sense of fucking self-preservation or selfishness. Yet, he didn't. Instead, he was almost exactly the fucking same as he was back home. Kind, popular and just being a generally good person. He didn't even talk about fucking God or Jesus once. It made him jealous, especially since his start had been pretty fucking awful.

Still, Aria felt uncomfortable about Paris's actions. He certainly had good intentions. That much was fucking obvious. His previous encounter with the crazy girl had made him a bit sour on the concept of reforming players. It seemed like such a fucking unrealistic expectation. To just expect someone to suddenly stop playing. They'd have to be fucking far gone in order to even entertain that idea, let alone fucking follow through with it. Aria didn't want Paris to end up like them. Another fucking player.

Paris's offer made him pause. He sat pensively for a second as he looked over the tar pits. Going with Paris meant probably finding players. That seemed like a really fucking bad proposition to him. At the same time, he didn't have any fucking better plans. He was probably gonna die anyway, but he had a better chance sticking with the guy with the gun, even if it wasn't fucking loaded. Plus, maybe he could keep Paris on the right track if he stuck with him. Better than just letting him fucking wander off and then finding out he'd become a player.

"Eh, might as well. Not like I have anything fucking else better to do." Aria called out, trying to play himself off casually as he followed behind one of his only friends. He still held the trumpet awkwardly in his hands. Who knows. Maybe he could find a fucking use out of the thing. Blow on it so badly that the player lost their hearing or got distracted or something. Maybe he could help Paris.

[Cicadan]

Paris glanced back.

"Hey, cool trumpet."

Looked like he would have a buddy. He'd need at least a couple, he figured. Staying strong in times like this wouldn't be easy. He returned his attention to looking forwards.

Paris knew, somehow just knowing, he knew that he was strong. Where others faltered he would step up. And everything would fall into place.

He could smell that particular smell, a memory of Denton. A bit briny and smoky, like someone barbecuing fish. The smell of the sea. He walked after it and someone followed.

((Paris Ardennes and Aria Samuels continued in Hi Kids! Do You Like Violence? (Yeah, Yeah!)))