YOUTUBER REACTS TO HIS FRIENDS DYING

[Fiori]

A flash of anger crossed Darren's face as Catarina continued to tug on his arm and yell in his ear, raising a finger to his lips to shush her as he tried to think of a way out of their predicament.

Pausing for a moment, he reaches out towards a nearby desk to put his camera down, instinctively placing it so that it got a nice wide-angle of the room without even really thinking about it. He then carefully grabs a chair and lifts it up, quietly placing it up against the door so that the would-be bandit couldn't barge in.

"Listen, we... We just want to leave, that's all. And unfortunately, as you might have gathered, you're blocking the way out..."

He leans his club up against the wall, before picking up a chair and gesturing to the others to move away from the window, ready to fling it at a moment's notice to provide an escape route should the worst come to pass.

"So I'd appreciate it if you walked away! There's no need for things to escalate here..."

[Dr Adjective]

If not for Darren's intercession, perhaps Esther might've kept on defending herself. Sure, how she'd behaved to Catarina had been shameful, and in other circumstances she'd probably be apologising right now. But turning it back on her as she had, while Esther was still trying to process watching Dusty's head implode before her eyes... suffice to say, her head wasn't in the best of places. But Darren shunted her thought processes back to the plan. She'd wanted to sneak by without interacting at all in the first place anyway.

"Yeah, fuck it."

Of course, it was less good of a plan if her ablative armour were leaving of their own accord. But at least she could settle down for a bit before deciding how to proceed from there.

"Just tell Hot Mom she's got the wrong ginger, yeah? I..."

Esther trailed off. She was going to say she didn't do shit, but that wasn't really true. She fucked off and let Catarina fend for herself when she could've stepped in. After introducing herself by pointing a gun and barking orders. She fucked up for sure. Just not in the exact way described.

"I'm just trying to fucking... fucking survive okay?"

Trying not to end up like Dusty.

She just couldn't quite shake the image. The utter ruin of his head, wreathed in gore.

"Fuckin'... count to sixty or something. I won't be here."

And with that, Esther hustled on away from the door, onwards towards the stairs. Based on the one monster she'd seen, she felt fairly secure holing up up there for the near future: it didn't quite occur to her in the moment to wonder what a Vermiculus or a Revenant could be, or how well they'd navigate stairs or doorways. She could worry about that later, probably.

[MethodicalSlacker]

Catarina's panic made Jarrett panic even more, so much so that they barely could hear Darren and the robber monster negotiate through the door, over the internal sound of their own panicking.

They took their sword and ran back to the window. Repositioning their fingers on the handle, they drove the bottom of the blade into window. Once, twice, three times. Not even a crack was made in the window. If they went at it any harder they'd maybe put the blade through their shoulder, so instead they just went at it more, the soft pounding on glass punctuating the screaming and talking through the door with arrhythmic thumps.

"Is she gone?" Jarrett asked, not taking a break from attempting to drive a hole through the glass, nor looking over their shoulder.

This was all so stressful. What they really needed at a time like this was a joint. Fuck. They had been looking forward to this morning's all last night, and now it had been like, what, two months since the last time they smoked? Fucked up, man.

[Fiori]

Darren raises his hand to silence the others as he listened to what Esther had to say, seemingly counting every second in his head, before slowly opening the door to peek outside. Seemingly convinced the coast was clear, he turns back and puts the chair down before going to grab his bag.

"C'mon, lets go..." he says, not taking no for an answer as he heads back to grab his camera, briefly scanning his surroundings to make sure Esther wasn't lying in wait before swiftly exiting the building.

The next minute or so of footage is too shaky to make out, the view clearing up once they were outside, turning back to Darren's face as he wiped his brow. "Right, ok... OK, let's go find somewhere a little quieter then" he says, before turning the camera off.

((Darren Decker, Jarret Bergman and Catarina Markovitz continued in this might be the end of me (not clickbait)))

[Dr Adjective]

In the span of 60 seconds, Esther made her way upstairs, making no small amount of noise as she dragged her case full of supplies up after her. Once there, she shoved her burden further into the space beyond and hovered at the door, holding it ajar to listen out and be sure the group downstairs did indeed make themselves scarce. Sure, she would've preferred to have them stay downstairs, but she also would've preferred they didn't even know she was there. Accursed cold made that a non-option, sadly.

Once the sounds of footsteps faded, the girl finally allowed herself to relax. She sneezed again, slumped against the wall, and slid down to a seated position. She looked down, breathing deeply, staring at her white knuckles and the submachine gun they grasped. Between that and the rifle slung over her shoulder, she was theoretically one of the most dangerous people on the island that wasn't working for the corporation, but it sure as fuck didn't feel that way. Each time she blinked, she saw what remained of Dusty. She saw the abomination that had made him that way. She felt powerless. She felt despair.

After a time, she got back up, and set to exploring inside. Found things to blockade the stairway, found the room with the most sunlight and thus warmth, generally made herself at home.

Home sweet fuckin' home.

[Esther Ježek expects to see the Bad Guys Win anyway.]