Welcome to Hell, We’ve Been Waiting For You

[Salic]

((Claudia Salgado continued from One Foot in the Grave))

Turned out Claudia hadn’t rested off all of the fatigue. On her death-or-glory march to the compound, she buckled and fell face forward into the sand, the exhaustion getting to her and making her miss an indeterminate amount of time. When she finally came to, she had no idea what time it was, other than that it certainly wasn’t in the afternoon. In contrast to the day, it was fucking freezing out there, and she shivered. She really missed her jacket and sleeping bag now. Hopefully they were still in the compound, but she figured that the likelihood of them still being there after countless hours was slim to none. She sighed wearily, wiped the sand off her face, and started to get a move on. Where she was moving to, she didn’t know. Claudia didn’t know where Anatoly and Selene had gone. She figured neither they nor Isabella would still be at the compound. So she wandered aimlessly for a few minutes, contemplating about trivial nothings, until a booming voice suddenly echoed across the whole arena.

The announcements were over in a few minutes, but they were some of the most important in her life. She’d apparently missed the rest of Day 1, but that was a fact she could hardly focus on. Nine of her classmates were dead. They were dead and never coming back and she would never see them again. Kincaid. Jenelle. Sydney. Moose. Orion. Motherfucking Cyrus. Yvette. Sayuna. Raja.

She couldn’t take her mind off of Raja’s death. He’d been taken by Isabella and her swarm. She knew that Isabella was dangerous if she was left to her own devices, and look what happened! She killed someone! She was a goddamned murderer!

And who wasn’t awake to take down the swarm and stop her?

Claudia swallowed. She sat back down in the sand. Hung her head. Isabella could be anywhere now with that swarm, and what had Claudia been doing? Sitting facedown in the sand looking like an idiot. She’d already fallen off of her plan, and someone had died for it. She swallowed again. She was parched. She’d need water soon. An ache started to pound at the back of her skull, slowly throbbing away as her discomfort mounted. Probably from dehydration, she thought.

She picked herself off the ground and starting shuffling over to the compound. It may not have anything she needed now, but it was a good starting point for getting her shit in order. Maybe she’d even find a friend or two on the road. A companion would be nice, unless it was Crispin. She felt a small wave of relief when she realized she wouldn’t have to worry about encountering Cyrus anymore, and then felt a much larger wave of shame flood the beaches of her mind. Was she really that callous? Cyrus may have been a total asshole, but did he deserve to get murdered by one of his classmates? Claudia couldn’t say she knew Jacob very well, other than his skin thing, but what pushed him to take Cyrus’s life? Unless she met him in person, she would have no idea.

Claudia stayed to the right of the road, on the flat end, as the ‘danger zone’ was apparently the much rougher looking side of the desert to her left. Shit, if there was anyone left in the rough area from overnight, they’d probably be tripping over themselves to get out. That means there were probably people heading her way.

There was also Mercedes. Her reward for being the first murderer was a shiny new weapon courtesy of the terrorists. Claudia honestly couldn’t think of why Mercedes would go for the weapon when she could incinerate people with her fucking hands, but hey, what did she know? Apparently little. She thought that Crispin or Cyrus would be the first killers, but Cyrus was dead and the squirrel’s name wasn’t even on the announcements. Either way, Mercedes might also be heading in her general direction.

Claudia craned her neck, scanning from the rough zone to the flatlands, looking to see if anyone was coming to her. She’d probably need some backup when she did find Isabella, and the cold and loneliness was starting to dig into her head. If she was lucky, Anatoly and/or Selene would find her. If she wasn’t? Well, she hoped that the person she found didn’t have murder on their minds.

[ItzToxie]

“Suh.”

Unfortunately for Claudia, the first person she’d meet DID have murder on his mind. Fortunately for Claudia, she wasn’t one of his targets. Unfortunately for Claudia again, the first person was ((Crispin Cuyler continued from No Future/ No Past.))

Crispin honestly wasn’t going to stop and talk, but they’d made eye contact, and that meant something was going to happen. We’re it good, bad, or a whole lotta nothing remains to be seen. He continued walking forward casually with his hands in his pockets, or as casually as one could covered in cuts, burns, and bandages.

“Who jumped you?”

[Salic]

She'd heard his voice before she saw him. She could scarcely believe it. Out of all the people she could've run into this morning, the one guy she'd specifically hoped wouldn't meet her just had to show up. Was this a fucking joke? Had she done something to piss off the universe? Claudia barely suppressed a groan. Somehow, his presence made today already exponentially worse than yesterday. She didn't think that could be possible.

They made eye contact, but Claudia couldn't be bothered to really look at him for more that a split second. Crispin had asked who jumped her, and in the small moment of self-reflection she had after that question, she realized she did look like someone had mugged her. She was down her jacket, her shoes, and her bag. Really though, no mugger could replicate the results of what her own idiocy had done. She'd never admit that to Crispin, though. She'd never live it down in the... what, three days she had left in her entire life? Gah.

"The fuck do you want, squirrel boy?" Claudia demanded, her tone reflecting her shitty mood that had been building since she woke up. She got to her feet. She turned around. "I didn't survive one day in hell just to see yo- Holy shit! The fuck happened to your face, man?"

[ItzToxie]

“The same thing that happened to Moose.” Crispin almost regretted asking Claudia anything. ‘Hey are you alright’ turns into ‘FuCk U WaAnT’. He sighed. Wasn’t gonna lose his shit.

“Before you even ask, no. Moose didn’t do shit to deserve what happened to him, me either. Mercy just woke up wanting to kill people and she thought she’d dip her toes with one of us.”

Crispy pulled one of his tetanus glove wrapped hands out of his pocket. “I want to find her so I can pay her back for the both of us. Bitch wants to live by the sword she can get her head ripped off by the rusty one. I figure if I ain’t goin’ home neither is she.”

“Im guessing you ain’t seen her based on the fact you’re still here, or you’re not looking like me. Guessing someone else got you, right?”

[Salic]

"Mercedes fucking burned your face? Jesus."

Claudia heard on the announcements that Moose was 'incinerated,' and she had tried her best not to think about that too much. Now, she had living proof of the agony that Moose must've went through. Crispin looked like shit. His face was wrapped tightly in gauze bandages, looking sullied from the night he spent out in the sands. His hands were filthy and his nails were cracked, but Claudia couldn't put a guess as to why. It looked like sand had gotten all the way down the length of his fingernails to the quick, as if he'd done it on purpose. But how could the sand even get that far down? Had he been digging? She wasn't sure if she wanted an answer.

She elected to ignore the second part of Crispin's little declaration for now, and instead decided to answer the question he'd now asked twice.

"You know Isabella? The bug chick from the grade below us? She'd apparently summoned every bug from a ten-mile radius to swarm her. She wasn't herself. You should've heard her when she talked. It was like the voice of the legion. She was talking through every bug at once. It's like she stopped being a human and instead became a hivemind."

Claudia sighed ruefully before continuing. "She killed Raja, you know? You were probably awake for the announcements. I was there when she poisoned him. We were all close to graduating, yeah? Just seven months left. I knew I probably wasn't going to see him again after we left Bend. I never expected yesterday to be the last day I ever saw him."

She thought for just a little bit. She knew Moose and Crispin were best friends, along with Alan. Even though Claudia hadn't lost any of her close friends yesterday, she was still saddened by their loss. She couldn't imagine how Crispin must have felt to have his best friend burned alive right in front of his eyes. For as much as Claudia hated the guy, she couldn't help but throw a little sympathy his way.

"I'm sorry about Moose. I know that probably means jack shit from me, but I just wanted to put it out there. I can't imagine what is was like to go through that. Was Alan not with you? I know you guys hang out pretty much all the time at school. He could probably help you through this more than I can, yeah?"

[ItzToxie]

"Yeah, it sounds like damn near everyone lost their shit. First thing that happens to me when I wake up is Austin trying to kick my head in, then we find out Kennedy robbed Moose and stole his fucking finger. Invisi-bitch tried jumping me with a steel chair, and stupid ass Lincoln wanted to fight, and then there's fucking Mercy burning people."

At the mention of Alan. Crispy hunched over, hands on his knees. He looked like he was about to scream, but he caught himself and just sighed. "Like..."

"He's. He ain't no help. He's a damn rat. He watched Mercedes fry Moose and watched Kaine hit me with a fucking chair. Hell, he was probably there when Austin was fighting me back at the beginning. He didn't care about us. Didn't even stay to say anything to Moose when I buried him- he just left. He's..."

"He's a fake ass, bitch ass, coward ass, traitor punk. Manipulated me, used me as a fucking shield, blamed me when shit didn't work, and just fucking left when I ain't had nothing left to offer him. Took me until last night to realize he was always like this."

Crispy stared at the ground. "I ain't got shit. Jenelle's dead, though she hated my ass anyways, Moose's dead, Alan's... Well, he's fucking Alan, and-"

He looked at Claudia.

"Everyone else I met's been wanting to fight, and I did my best not to hurt them too bad, and I'm starting to think if the roles were reversed they wasn't gonna give me that same benefit. I know, I know it's gonna keep happening, and I know it's gonna get so bad that I'm gonna have to do something to 'em to get them to stop, and I know what I gotta do but..."

"I don't know if I wanna, but I don't wanna die neither." He looked at his gloves, his hands were shaking underneath.

[Applesintime]

((Stephen Sanders continued from Play Dead))

This had quickly turned - no, it was confirmed all too quickly that this was a living nightmare.

Stephen had the notion that maybe, just maybe, his classmates and friends wouldn't jump into action at the idea of killing one another. The afternoon announcement had given him hope that nobody was really going to kill each other. That these, these fucking terrorists would have picked the wrong people and they'd figure out a way to escape and get home. Granted, Stephen had found some shade and rested under it for a few hours, but after the horde of bugs, he needed some downtime.

Kincaid was dead. Jenelle was dead, and her Gift would have been amazing for getting the collars off. Sayuna was dead, Yvette was dead and the two people he had met had already killed someone. Oh, and Isabelle had killed someone too. So much for fucking being harmless, right Mercedes?

Stephen had to admit he wasn't in the best state of mind. He'd kept swapping between being angry and being sad, and now he was just a mellow sad lump. For the first time, he'd considered the fact he'd probably die here. Let's face it. He had the shittiest Gift imaginable, a lot of his friends were dead, and he was going up against people who could shoot lasers out of their hands and control insects. He was going to die in some desert with a bunch of broken bones far from home and maybe his parents wouldn't ever fucking know.

Stuck inside his own head, Stephen barely noticed the two people until he was just a few feet away from them. Crispin and uh, he didn't know the other girl. Crispin looked like he was pretty hurt. Burns, so it had to be Mercedes. Even thinking about her made him feel sick. He just stared at the two of them, eyes darting nervously between them. He hadn't been paying attention to their conversation; for all he knew, they were talking about how they were gonna go kill someone.

[Salic]

Ah. So she'd been right about Crisping digging. What had he been digging? A grave for Moose. Crispin had only mentioned it in passing, but Claudia's mind had latched onto the detail and refused to let go. He'd buried him. Crispin had to bury the body of his best friend. If she thought Crispin had it rough having to watch Moose die, this revelation made it so much worse.

Apparently, he and Alan also had a falling out. Alan had manipulated him? Claudia wanted to hear Alan's side of the story before she bought Crispin's account wholesale, but if Alan was gone and Moose was dead, that meant Crispin was truly alone. Everyone he'd met (and he'd seemingly met a lot of people yesterday) had been in a physical confrontation with him, and his only two allies had ditched him or died. He was right. He truly ain't got shit.

"Look, Crispin. These people you were fighting? I think that if the roles were reversed, they wouldn't have held back. You know why? They don't like you. They don't trust you. You made their lives shit every time you showed up. You'd prank them, bully them, and generally just be an asshole to them at every opportunity you could. Back at home, they'd probably get into trouble if they tried to fight back. But out here? They don't have to worry about the consequences of fighting back."

Claudia crossed her arms and started to lean back a little bit. "They see you as a threat, Crispin. They probably think that you'll be a killer. Hell, I thought you'd be one of the first people to kill out here. Unless you have a serious come-to-Jesus moment and change, people are still gonna think that you're a threat. All those people you fought with? They're gonna see you as a violent threat, too. That isn't helping anything."

Claudia broke eye contact with Crispin to look at her feet, swishing around the sand with her right foot. She took a deep breath before continuing. "There was something else as well. You're hunting Mercedes? Let me give you a few words of wisdom from Confucius: 'Prepare two graves when you embark for vengeance.'"

She stopped her spiel to adjust her right tank top strap, which had started to slip down her shoulder. In doing so she caught a glimpse of something that wasn't there earlier.

"What the fuck?" she exclaimed, wondering how the hell... uh... whatever his name was sneaked up on them without their knowledge. "Who are you?"

[ItzToxie]

He looked back up at Claudia, listening to what she had to say. So far, she was pretty right. They were going all out on him. They weren't afraid of the consequences. They were doing this because they could get away with it. To have someone tell him the same thing he told Alan had been a relief. That he wasn't just paranoid, that he was-

'Come to Jesus moment.'


He looked back down at the ground again, a smile forming against his best efforts. Then came the two graves remark like he hadn't realized it himself. Like there was something for him to go home to regardless. Yeah, he couldn't help it. There was a wheeze. Crispy covered his face but laughed through his hands. It's his fault that he defended himself against some shitheels that thought they were gonna get back at society starting with him. Not gonna lie, Claudia had him in the first half.

"Pffft-chhkhhaaaa-akehehekeh!"

He's heard the same thing now so many times it's gone from anger inducing, to funny, back to anger inducing again. It was like a Family Guy cutaway. Crispy hunched over, he laughed harder.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I've just heard this one repeated so many times now, and- if you were really right, they- they wouldn't be doing what they're doing. If they were doing this because there's no consequences for them, then why would they not keep going if I just see Jesus and turn the other cheek, you're just telling me what I knew already, that I should play by their rules and make them know if they fuck around they gonna fi-" Crispy stopped. Smile faded. He sighed.

"You know what, never mind, you don't get it." Nobody ever does. Claudia was so, so close. You'd think she'd get it too, seeing her buddy die, but no. This whole situation was fucked. Claudia's attention turned elsewhere, and Crispy followed. Newcomer.

"Hey Steve! Question for ya! If someone's kicking your ass, and you know they're probably gonna kill you, should you take the high road and forgive them, and hope they let you go or fight back and whoop their ass?"

[Applesintime]

"Uh," Crispin and the girl didn't seem to want to kill him at the least? She seemed a little shocked that Stephen had just snuck up on the pair unintentionally, and Crispin had proposed him a question. "I'd, uh, Stephen." He settled on giving his name first. It was the easier question. "Stephen. Yeah. Uh, who are you? I don't think we've talked before..." Stephen reached up to scratch at the back of his neck, feeling a little awkward. It also didn't help that the back of his neck itched like a mother. Probably sunburn.

"And, uh, I'd fight back, yeah. If I know they're gonna kill me, talking it out is probably gonna fail, y'know? I'd prefer to not get into a situation like that, but, uh... fuck, why are we talking about this? We shouldn't be talking about this! I thought we'd maybe not jump at the opportunity to kill each other, but here we are I guess!" Frustrated, Stephen sighed. "Sorry, I'm just..."

How can you say that you had more faith in people, that you had faith that we wouldn't fight and we'd use our Gifts to work together and get out to someone who's clearly been through a fight for his life? It felt wrong to tell Crispin to his face that you thought people wouldn't fight. But, a part of him thought, maybe Crispin wasn't innocent either. He'd always been a bit of a troublemaker, although Stephen had always avoided him and his little gang, and they'd never really paid attention to him. It might not be fun to prank people when you're probably going to make them break something.

"So, uh, what happened to you, Crispin? Mercedes?" It seemed like a good enough guess. She had hand lasers, and Stephen imagined they would burn pretty hot. He didn't know Mercedes that well, but from the little chat they had earlier, she didn't seem innately murderous. Poor judgement on Isabelle, sure, but if she had wanted to kill people, she had a good opportunity there. He'd only get one side of the story from Crispin, but it was better than nothing.

[Salic]

The new kid stated his name, but she barely heard him over the sound of Crispin gibbering like a madman in response to her little speech. So he’d heard all of that before, huh? How interesting. This squirrel motherfucker was as sharp as a bowling ball and twice as dense if he’d heard this advice already and still outright disregarded it. He knew his reputation at school. He knew what people would do around here at the slightest provocation, and yet he still went around picking fights with everyone he saw!

“Goddamnit Crispin, turning the other cheek while you’re already in a fight isn’t the fucking point! The point is to make sure that you don’t get into a fight in the first place!”

Claudia threw her arms up in frustration. She should’ve realized Crispin was too dumb to comprehend anything other than the basic instincts of being an annoying prick. Alan was always the rational one in their little posse at school. If Crispin honestly believed in this mentality, then she could get a pretty clear picture as to why Alan abandoned him.

She facepalmed before dragging her hand down the rest of her face. She heard what... oh, come on, he said his name earlier! Crispin said it too. He said Steve, right? She was just going with Steve. In either case, he made a pretty good point.

“Look. Steve over here is making a lot of sense. Planning to fucking murder someone is a fucking shitty idea and is going to lead to the death of our entire class. We could doing something far more productive instead. We could be planning, I don’t fucking know, how to leave this place so that we don’t all die? I think that’d be a much better place to start!”

Claudia breathed heavily, not wanting to release all of her anger and accidentally provoke Crispin into doing something even more loony than what he was doing now. She fiddled with the hem of her tank top to try and release some pent-up energy. It was too early for this shit.

Hey, didn’t Steve ask something too? Probably her name. “Oh, yeah, you probably want my name too, Steve. I’m Claudia. Nice to meet ya.”

[ItzToxie]

"Well, when you put it that way, it all makes sense then!"

Claudia didn't get it. It was like talking to a wall. Hell, apparently her and her friends got attacked and she still didn't get it. He'd just be going in circles.

"Just don't get jumped. Why didn't I think of that?"

He turned to Stephen. "You and me both, but apparently it's my fault that people are waiting around the corner to push my shit in. Like, I get it, people don't trust me, but nobody's got any useful advice for me besides, don't get in a fight, which, y'know I tried that." He pointed to his bandaged face.

"Me being nice got me here; speaking of which, Claudia, I want to go home without killing anyone too, but people won't stop hounding my ass and trying to waste me, and-"


He paused, having to think of a way to say what he needed to so even she understood.


"If we go home, do you really want to go back to school sitting next to the kid that disfigured you and killed your best friend? You think you can just act like everything's fine, everything's normal?"

[Applesintime]

He was Steve now.

Alright.

Stephen could work with that.

The girl was Claudia. She seemed to get what he was talking about, unlike Crispin, who still thought that he'd have to kill other people. It was worrying that he was so gung-ho about killing his classmates. It piled on the doubt Stephen had about Mercedes being some bloodthirsty murderer who had attacked Crispin and Moose - assuming it was Mercedes who had given Crispin all those burns.

"Yeah. We've all got Gifts and skills and stuff. So I'm confident that if we can work together, all of us, we can get these fucking things off and get out of here." Stephen leapt at Claudia's suggestion, trying to change the conversation. "Without further bloodshed." He tapped the collar around his neck, the sensation reminding his body that it was there. Suddenly, he wanted to swallow. Something Crispin said distracted him, though.

"We wouldn't be going back to school with murderers, they'd be put in prison for literally murdering people." Stephen pointed out. Would Astrid be charged with murder? She probably hadn't meant to step on Yvette, and if she was that small, well.

This was a weird line of thought. Best abandon it.

"And besides, you don't have to kill people if they try and attack you. Run away, just knock them out, try and talk them down- there are a lot of options that aren't killing another person!" He was maybe getting a little antsy. Crispin's insistence that he might have to kill someone was maybe getting to him, because someone talking about how they might have to murder someone else, talking in absolutes, wasn't something that should be said at all, let alone by someone from his school when they should be working together and not murdering people. He shuffled his feet a little, looking down at the ground.

[Salic]

Claudia looked at Crispin, looked back at Steve, and then looked back at Crispin again. The squirrel's question still hung in the air like a cloud, casting a dark shadow on the prospect of returning home. In all honesty, Claudia hadn't thought of the consequences of returning home. How the specter of their time in the desert would haunt the school and everyone inside of it forever. Crispin's question of whether everything would be normal was a trick. As soon as they loaded up into that bus normality ceased to be. She doubted it would ever return.

"Look, Crispin. Nothing will ever be normal again. The dynamic between all of us? The status quo we all had between us at school? The roles we all played? Those are gone forever. We're all... we're all changed. School won't ever be the same. We won't ever be the same. But..."

Claudia choked up. They really wouldn't ever be the same, would they? If they really all went home, could they ever go back to absentmindedly talking about the latest hit singles? About how difficult the latest algebra test was? About how bland the cafeteria food was? She couldn't imagine them in that situation now, no matter how familiar, how unchanging, it seemed to be. Those memories were the memoirs of a time that seemed so mundane as to be boring and inescapable, but were now precious moments of a life they could never go back to.

She couldn't let herself cry. She still had a talk to give to Crispin. She steeled herself before continuing.

"This was the fault of the masked fuckers, you know? They were the ones who did this to us. They want us to kill each other. Crispin, for as long as I've known you, you've never been the guy to back down without a fight. By planning to kill someone, you're bending over to the masked people and letting them fuck you. People like Mercedes? They've already succumbed to them. You? You still have an opportunity to fight back. You don't have to let the bad guys win. If you help us escape, then you've beaten the bad guys. You've beaten Mercedes. Doesn't that sound better than killing her?"

[ItzToxie]

"Man, I-"

It was those bastards' faults, wasn't it? They shouldn't even be here in the first place. What point was this supposed to prove? They had the entire ass end of the seventies to do this glow in the dark science shit. Was it for fun? They had to get theirs, too. He couldn't do that with that damn metal noose on his neck.

"Look. You're both right. But unless we get these things off, then it don't matter, end of the week we're all dead anyways; aand, with the way things are going, we won't even make it that far. These motherfuckers... They're gonna pop heads the second something don't work right, you heard what happened to Jennelle. She probably used her power on it. I mean-"

He thought of what he should say next. They'd already put themselves on the radar, they'd already outed themselves.

" Even if we started something that could work, unless it goes off instantly, it's gonna fail; and unless that plan gets everyone free instantly, then all we got is everyone but one dead when everyone else pops. Same thing these fuckers want already. That's IF we all worked together, but we ain't even got that. You heard the announcements. Shit Claudia, you seen it firsthand like I did."

His eyes focused on the asphalt.

"Shit... Least you probably got to say goodbye. You know what I got?" He stood up straight. Pointed to Claudia. "You're me. I'm Mercy. That space two inches to your side right there, that's Moose. Ready?" Crispy pointed the palm of his hand at the space. "Fuck you guys. Boom." He lowered his arm.

"That's all I got. That, and screams, and me being fucking de-fucking-formed. I know my chances. Even if y'all had something put together, there's no reason for me to be there, you'd just be wearing a target on your chests. Mercy ain't gonna give you a chance, she sees you, she sees me, she's gonna kill you. Even if it'd work she'd kill you, just coz." He stared at Claudia as he continued to speak, before something stumbled him up, most likely replaying the scene from yesterday.

"I just- I just-



FFFFFFFUCK!"

He kicked sand again. If there was a wall, or someone who'd pissed him off he'd beat the shit out of it, but there wasn't. He hunched over, screamed again.

"FUUUUUUUCK!"