This Is Not A Oneshot (Come on in, everybody welcome)
The Exterior consists of the decaying parking lot outside and directly west of The Compound. The asphalt of the parking lot is marked by wide, deep cracks, with brush having grown up through these cracks. The parking lot and The Compound itself are surrounded by a chain-link fence with barbed wire on top, though much of this fence has rusted and many sections have fallen apart. A small, abandoned checkpoint consisting of a gate and a guard house exists at the entrance to the parking lot, with the gate having been left wide open.
The colours on his skin swirled, but failed to solidify, as his eyes swung down to look at the asphalt beneath Lucine's feet.
It wouldn't be like her to lie. But it wasn't like him to steal.
"I- I don't know."
A pause, as awkward and painful as the pressure he felt in his chest.
"Do you think she'll say yes?"
Jacob would have swallowed, but his throat just scratched when he tried.
He shook his head, and dragged his palm down his face, smearing the crust of evaporated sweat-salt across his skin - Anything to stop his eyes burning impotently.
Lucine shrugged. She probably shouldn't be so calm or trusting anymore, but It was nice to talk. As much as she knew she probably should keep her guard up, in the end it was nice to talk to someone.
It was better than thinking about grief and paranoia. She wondered if Jacob had just been through the same thing. It was possible. Maybe she should look for the bright side of him, instead of being cynical. She wasn't much of a socialite herself, but she wouldn't call herself a cynic, either.
Maybe Jacob was just as stressed as she was.
Lucine would've sighed, but she was too guarded to show that. Damn her sense of trust, never being able to truly doubt her friends and schoolmates, not unless she saw them murdering her classmates... even then. No, better not to think about it.
Lucine approached Melodie and nudged her shoulder.
"Hey. Probably shouldn't sleep in a place like this."
Lucine scratched the back of her head. It could be for the best. After all, the more people she got involved with, the more complicated the relationships would get.
"Sure, alright. 'Sides, I've been thinking a lot about this whole situation." Lucine says, glancing at Jacob. "...We really shouldn't be killing each other, we should-"
Lucine stopped. People didn't want to kill each other, right? And yet it happened. Maybe it was just an accident, but the damage here and the announcements just confirmed that more of her classmates were capable of killing--whether by accident or not--than she expected.
"...We should look to get out. Cause... I may have one idea. Maybe. I'm not sure if it'll work."
Lucine became nervous. If she wasn't already sweating from the heat, she'd probably be sweating from the thought of doing this. "I know things, about the collar. Our collars. M-Maybe there's a way out."
Jacob's eyes widened. Whitened. Span away from Lucine's as he scanned their surroundings.
He caught their gaze. A camera, perched innocuously atop one of the rusting posts that held up the sagging chain link fence, it's lens coated in a thin film of dust.
The dryness in his mouth began to taste like blood again.
"... careful" Jacob murmured, his voice a deathly quiet whisper as he nodded his head in it's direction.
Lucine motioned for him to head towards a hidden spot in the camera's vision. There probably wasn't any real hiding spot, but at least in front of that one specific camera, she could say something at last. It's going to be a long week, and people are killing each other. People died because Lucine thought that she could simply play it safe, but maybe it's time to take risks.
She was, admittedly, a little stressed out, but she also had something she could maybe pull off. While she had been walking here, she thought to touch her collar. Maybe if she worked together, if her friends knew about what it was these terrorists had, they could be free.
Lucine waited until the camera wasn't on their sight. She didn't know if there were microphones, but she had to try. "Okay, Jacob... what I'm about to say is very important." Lucine took a deep breath. "The collars. I know what's inside them. Listen to me, okay? There's no explosive. I--I don't know how they're going to do it, but it's signal-operated. I think it tells them where we are, and if we tamper with it. I just have to turn off the signal. If I can damage the signal, maybe... maybe we can take them off safely."
Lucine took a small pebble the size of her fist. She had to do this outside the camera's vision, so that she wouldn't get caught. There was a chance that what she did wasn't going to work, but if she could just find the right spot to hit it.
"Hey, Jacob. I don't know you that well, but... find people who need help, and tell them what I know." She didn't know if Jacob was that kind of person, but Jacob was human like the rest of them. "We shouldn't be killing people, we should be fighting back. People are just... scared. I'm scared."
She held her rock close to her hand. Lucine gulped. She had to do this right. "But I'd rather it be me that fail, and someone else that passes it on. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's tried to fight back."
Her hands were shaking. "Hey, j-just... tell everyone back home that we're victims, no matter who does what, okay?"
She didn't even know if Jacob cared. At this point, Lucine was simply talking to get rid of the fear, but she had to be ready. It's now or never. With a quick slam into her collar, Lucine hit what she thought was the correct position for the signaling device, careful not to damage anything in the collar too much before it turned off. Another slam, and another.
She touched the device just after. Nothing. No more signal. Did Lucine hit it just right, or damage the collar? She didn't know, and at this point, it's too late to turn back. Nothing's happened yet. She waited a bit more... nothing. Did she honest to God do it? She allowed herself a moment of reprieve.
"Okay. I-I think I did it. Help me take this off and--"
And then she heard a grinding sound. A noise that seemed like a small saw. She was already touching the collar, so she already realized what had happened. She messed up. Maybe it was her shaky hand, maybe it was her not getting enough food or energy, but she messed up. She could barely form the next words out of her mouth before her neck feels like a thousand shrapnel pieces shredded it. It started getting itchy, then completely wet with blood.
The last thing Lucine saw in her head was the scorching heat, but all she felt was the chilling cold. She hoped her sister wouldn't be upset, and she hoped she could face her friends out there saying... she tried.
His head rocked up and down gingerly as the words slammed into him, hands hovering indecisively in front of him as he wondered where to put them?
Should he be grabbing his own collar? Getting ready to grab hers? Trying to find a rock of his own? Where was the reciever? How could he damage it?
Would they kill him if he helped? If he didn't try and stop it?
Jacob hesitated. Recoiled. Looked at the camera.
"I- I wasn't going to escape - Please!"
The sound he was expecting never came, and so Jacob ran - Faster and harder than he thought he was capable of, until his feet sunk into sand.
She was a little unsure if she should be scared, because it was a collar pop, but also someone could've triggered it on purpose and then they'll try to kill her. Or dhe slept through a suicide, or something.
It was a little inconsiderate, doing this close to her. The effect was like one of those pineapple shaped frag grenades exploding- she could feel the burning lines where metal traced against her skin and the splinter like sting of shards embedded onto her. All flesh wounds. Wasn't deep enough to truly penetrate, but still painful. She could feel the transition of living to dead flesh, her Gift tingling at the senses.
Maybe one day she could wake up from this disassociation and then realize that she looked a corpse in the eye and thought it was nothing, that Yvette, Jenelle, and now Lucine will always be there waiting for her when she sleeps, and that she'll spend her future breaking down in therapists' offices and she couldn't look at any black-eyed girls or blondes in hoodies or people whose clothes are a size too big without remembering this traumatic nightmare of an event, though chronologically it would be but a small blip in the years of her life.
Maybe one day in the future she would wear chokers instead without panicking at the metal around her neck and she would be able to talk about her high school without thinking of her teacher's brains splattered on her lap and when she sees another owl or bear or gator her first instinct wouldn't be thinking about the bus she was trapped in.
Maybe one day she would be able to look at rainbow glitter the same way again, and feel safe in vehicles. Or she could read about Battle Royale and not have her hands shake, or talk to her friends without thinking about losing them.
Maybe one day her brain would stop dragging her mind to play the flashback of Jenelle's severed head, over and over again, keeping her trapped in the worst time in her life.
Maybe.
But she couldn't be sure yet.
So she walked on, one hand pressed against her shrapnel studded arm, over Lucille's corpse, leaving a trail of flesh in her wake.
He shook his head, and dragged his palm down his face, smearing the crust of evaporated sweat-salt across his skin - Anything to stop his eyes burning impotently.
