Galloping Manic to the Mouth of the Source

[Brackie]

((Kennedy Jackson continued from Play Dead))

Kennedy had always known she was a loser, but she hadn't really grasped how much of one she was until she decided that the best course of action was to, oh, I don't know, go check for herself that she really was trapped?

Because instead of safe inside the main building, where she could hide and stay out of the sun, her pale blob of a person was now out by the exterior fence. She could have just trusted them when they said they were stuck. They'd already killed people. Because yeah, classmates were dead, weren't they? It sounded sociopathic, but she'd never even spoken to any of them before so she hadn't really processed the fact that some of her class were gone before this started, so the situation really didn't matter.

So she stood there, hoodie over her head, staring at the rope. Staring at the signs.

Kennedy didn't know whether they were real or not. She wasn't a scientist, or an engineer or whatever-the-fuck, but she didn't know what technology would blow something up if it left a certain area. She'd seen a movie about that once, yeah, but that was a movie. Those weren't real, especially when they started really hot people performing bank heists and showing off their tits for no reason other than her-the audience's titilation. So in theory, she could just walk through the ropes of the fence and start running.

But what if she was wrong, is the thing? If she was wrong, she'd be dead. But if she was right, she could go and help people. Keep running until she found a road, keep following that road until she found a car, or a person, and try and remember where she was. She could save people. She could save lives. Maybe if she did that, people would remember who she was. Maybe she'd have friends at the end of school.

And if she was wrong, her neck would explode and she'd die in the middle of the desert and nobody would remember her or even find her body.

She stepped closer. She could see the fibres of the rope. She watched them electrify through the white of her eye. She wanted to reach out and feel it, and yet all she could think of was the terrorists and their threats. So Kennedy stepped backwards, and as she did so, she felt her lungs shrink.

Kennedy kept walking backwards, and for every step she took, she felt her head get lighter and her chest tighter. Once she could no longer read the signs, her lungs were trying to press their way through her throat. At some point, her feet had strayed from the road, and she was somewhere else, but anyone near could hear the gutteral sounds eminating from the pudgy girl's mouth.

((Kennedy Jackson continued elsewhere))