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[Applesintime]

"Hey, uh, not interrupting anything, am I?"

((Anthony Golden continued from We're Back In The Swamp

He had been walking. Aimlessly. No killers, no friends, nobody but him, his thoughts and the sun blaring down on him like it was determined to kill him. But he had his hat, and no matter how fucking ridiculous he looked, he wasn't getting sunburnt. For just a second, he had paused, wiping the sweat off his brow. He hadn't walked so much in his life. Back in London, he took the Tube to school, and in Miami, Dad drove him to school. Sure, he jogged, but he had things to do, like swearing at fucking Mourinho and whatever he was doing with the team. He had people to talk to. Clarissa, Dad, his mum, sometimes Giselle. He'd never get to do one of those things again, and he probably wouldn't do the other three again. Idly, he wondered what they thought of his path.

He had always dismissed the player hunter type as someone who wanted to murder just like the rest of them and pretend he was the good guy. Now, though, Anthony got it. It was one thing to critique the poor, terrified guy just trying to get revenge for his friend's death. It was another altogether to be that guy. Would they judge him like the rest, call him a wannabe murderer, or would they be unable to reconcile this image of him with who he was?

Of course, his train of thought was derailed by the sound of two girls talking. One of them mentioned that they were gonna get a bath, and the other one said they were gonna get in after her. And it was like, a little weird intruding on what was probably supposed to be something kind of private but like, he could be Junji. It could be so, so much worse. Who were the girls who had killed? Rhonda, Verity, Seo-yun, Carol, uhh... Bacchia, and, uh. Uh. Fuck, who was the last one? Jesus Christ, how was the list of killers after a singular day so long that he couldn't recall it off the top of his bloody head?

Akeno! It was Akeno. No matter, he had his scoreboard, he was checking it twice and he was lifting the sword to those who were living by the sword.

Maybe these girls would turn out to be players, they'd be fishing and they'd try and kweff him. But Anthony was fairly certain he could fight both them off. So, he stepped into their view, and yep, he didn't know any of them. He tried to keep a somewhat peaceful demeanour, which was difficult when you were holding a wooden board. And also, being in a game where you were forced to kill each other.

"Not here to hurt any of you girls, by the way, swear down. I- Not going to hurt any of you." Unless they were gonna try and hurt him. If they were gonna end up going all aggro on him, then he wasn't going to hesitate. No matter how... repulsive he found the idea. Killers dead up was good for everyone.

Even as he talked, trying to keep himself looking peaceful, Anthony held the board tightly. Just in case.

[Maraoone]

"Not yet, at least."

Britnee had been about to pull off her shirt when Anthony passed by, her hands on the hem already. And then she paused. Which was pretty weird if you think about it, because weren't people gonna see her either way? Like, people made compilations of this shit. Not that she watched them because kissing compilations were more her thing, couples holding hands and growing closer and closer, metaphorically and physically, until finally they lean into each others, give her more of that slow burn shit yes please. But, yeah, bathing compilations existed. It came with the territory of SOTF, of every moment being broadcast. And, she'd been about to add herself to one of them.

And now there was a person actually present, and she was hesitating. Her cheeks were blushing. Because there was a difference between taking and sending pictures of yourself, and actually showing yourself. There was a difference between being seen in swimwear and being seen in your underwear.

She'd been about to add herself to one of the compilations.

She shivered, slightly, eyed the cameras for a second. She flicked her eyes back up, turned her attention towards Anthony, the boy standing outside their boat. She'd hold off on bathing for now, left Diana's question hanging too. Would be pretty awk to just continue undressing in front of a guy trying to talk to her, a bit too seductive for her tastes.

Anthony himself was a bit annoying. One of those 'boo hoo people are dying on live TV' types. Like, get the fuck over yourself, SOTF's been a thing for fifteen years, either lighten up a bit or watch something else, it's not that hard???

Prior attitudes on SOTF aside, lots of people typically changed their tune once they actually landed on the show. Went from 'I would never kill, killing is immoral, it says so in the Bible' to 'the Bible allows for self-defense, I just wanna get home to my family.' Some tropes had established themselves pretty well over 67 seasons.

She didn't like the way he was holding that board.

Her eyes flicked towards Diana, a flash of worry crossing her face. She then looked back at the boy, expression neutral.

The reason why Britnee and Diana had chosen this place in particular was because of how out of the way it was. The boat they were on was on the very border of the flotilla, enough so that the only thing separating them from an oddly familiar cruise ship, perhaps where the producers' HQ was, was a wide expanse of ocean.

They were on the borders, basically.

You had to seek this place out.

"What brings you here anyways?"

How come they hadn't heard him coming?

[SansaSaver]

Anthony Golden.

The first guy they’d encountered in their entire stay here, and of all the guys to run into he was definitely near the bottom of the list.

Diana had always thought he was a little handsome, with those soft brown eyes and tan complexion, but not enough to override all the parts of his personality that clashed horribly with hers. Sure, he was into reading, which was a nice mutual interest and the sort of thing they could manage light conversation with. On the other hand, he was a bit of a teetotaler and although the two of them had never gotten into any disputes over it, Anthony’s distaste for SOTF was well-known throughout the school.

She knew it was a little superficial, but she could never quite shake how that little Cockney twang in his voice always had her picturing him as some kind of knock-off Artful Dodger.

The people who abhorred the show were unpredictable in their own way when they were thrust into the very game they hated so much. Some stuck to their morals and fought against the system, some shut down from lack of forethought and were taken out early on by those savvier and more prepared, and then there were the players. Those who wanted to live at any cost despite knowing nothing of the game. They’d panic at their lack of knowledge, would be jumpy and make murkily thought-out decisions. Those who knew the game and chose to play would usually have some logic, however weak it might’ve been, based on successes from previous seasons. But those who had no background to work off would always make the same mistakes over and over and over again.

Diana didn’t know Anthony well enough to gauge whether he’d try to play or not, but there was a feeling of uneasiness that came with his arrival. Whether it was purely because of him interrupting their blissful little hideaway, his nails digging painfully into that board of his, or something else entirely, she couldn’t tell. All the same, if he did take a swing at either of them, it wouldn’t take much. She would pull the trigger on her gun and take him out, and that would be that. In the eyes of the viewers, she and Britnee would no longer be the two BFFs loitering and making idle, contextless small talk, borderline guaranteed to be taken out by some power player. People would pay attention and watch them, eagle-eyed.

If attention and accolades were what she wanted, though, then she would’ve already splattered Anthony’s brains across the planks at their feet.

She glared at that board in his hands, trying to mentally will him not to come their way. Britnee had already levelled a question in his direction, but it felt only fair she contribute something to their little trio as well.

“How’s the game been treating you, Tony?” She tilted her head, let her hand snake towards her pistol behind her. “For what it’s worth, you’re the first guy with the gaul to even come our way. Just so you know.”

[Applesintime]

They both seemed nervous. He couldn't fault them, he didn't exactly look like the picture of pacifism. He wasn't, but he didn't have these girls on his scorecard. They weren't murderers, they were just people trying to survive. Like Seth. Like Giselle - clearly that was the reason she joined, so she'd have someone watching her back - and like him. SIghing, he lowered the board, holding it in one hand and tapping it rhythmatically against the deck, alongside its less mobile and more rotten brothers. This was their yard, and he wouldn't intrude.

"Absolutely fucking brilliant, Diana. Absolutely fucking chuffed. I got kicked in the fucking balls and nearly shot by a fucking wankstain. Then I stumbed into a bunch of godfdamn players and only got out because two of them were my friends. Including Giselle. There's, uh- player group running around, by the way. Fisk, Vasily, Keegan, Bacchia and James. Keep an eye out for them. I know I am." His tapping turned into knocking. Bunch of fucking paigons. He thought he trusted him, Vasily. And now all his friends were killing, dying, killing and dying, like a macabre cycle.

"Then all my friends are apparently dying or killing each other, including Giselle, reh teh teh. Absolutely fucking chuffed at how my time on this show is going. Real fucking pleased. And now I'm... Have you seen any players?" He thought for a second, which is why he paused. Did he want to reveal that hey, he was player hunting? Because who knows if these guys would all of a sudden pull something and gun him down without so much as a murmur? He didn't think they would, but he had to evalutate his options, of which there were few. Clear sea both left and right, apart from this sole boat, an oasis in a wet desert.

The only chance of escape he would have is to step backwards and let the sea swallow him whole.

He wasn't fond of that idea, no. But it was the best one he had if that was what he needed to do. Better to be soaked in water than soaked in blood. Shifting on his feet a little, he examined the two girls. They didn't run in the same circles, the same groups. Maybe they had taken classes together, maybe bumped into each other in the hall, but that was it. And clearly, they had some kind of connection. He was an outsider. Like he had been in that pool, like he had been on the ferry, where everyone coalesced into their own group and Anthony chased someone who wasn't there anymore. He had been too aggro. Cocked it all up.

He didn't know if they were fans of this show or not.

He couldn't tell if that was a gun he could see or if it was just his imagination. He hoped it was the latter.

"Wandering, I guess. What else am I supposed to? Sit down and wait for one of the players to come and kill me? I'm not gonna hurt any of you, if that's what you're wondering. Just... staying away from the big populated areas." He shrugged. He was hoping he'd find some wannabe player, licking their wounds on the outskirts of this flotilla. Someone he could dispatch easily. When had he started actively looking forwards to the idea of killing someone? When his friends started dying, yeah, but it wasn't something to look forwards to. It was like having to clean out the garage, or get rid of a bee nest, or something. It wasn't something you looked forwards to, it was just something that you had to do. Take out the trash.

Anthony was tired. Physically and mentally. His eyes flitted between the two like a hawk, waiting for the first sudden movement, the first indicator that he had to take his leap of faith into the ocean. It would be OK, though. God would protect him. Reaching up, his left hand fiddled with the cross hung around his neck. It would all be OK in the end, whether his end was today, tomorrow or in seventy years. As long as he could send one of them to hell, he would be fine. He would be happy.

He shook his head, Snapped back to reality with a noise. Lost in his own thoughts.

"How have you two been doing? Better than me, I hope." He cracked a weary smile, one that threatened to shatter at the slightest pressure.

[Maraoone]

So, like, Anthony had been through a lot of heavy shit and all, Britnee got that, she understood, she empathized, but also while he spoke, all she could hear was 'Blimey blimey blimey blimey. Blimey blimey blimey blimey! Blimey? Blimey.' You see, like, they only shared, like, one weekly class or so and didn't interact much otherwise, so his accent and use of slang always retained its novelty for her every time they crossed paths. Like... people actually spoke like that? In real, daily, actual life? Fascinating. Iconic.

But, beyond the accent, she had been listening. Was honestly quite amazed at just how many... things had happened to him. Sounded more like the SOTF she had known and loved before. The other names he listed didn't really surprise her, James aside, she'd thought he was kinda decent, boyfriend material even. The others were all freaks of one degree or another. Were they the ones Shiva had been warning about yesterday?

Anyways, he'd asked a question, it was only polite to reply. She was tempted to copy the accent, but Martha Zolanski she was not. She was shit at accents. There was this time she'd tried imitating Steve Irwin's voice for a game of impressions, it was some random party, she and Diana had been, and it remained one of the most embarrassing moments of her life. So she bit her tongue, considered her words.

Still didn't like that board of his.

That smile.

Truth be told he'd kinda caught her off guard. Not that she wanted to use it in the slightest, not at all, but her weapon, her little bottle of acid was tucked away deep in her bag, out of reach, essentially. She wasn't quite sure what to do, actually. But she'd made that choice, when she'd asked Diana her plans, when she'd let Diana's non-answer slide.

When you choose to shut away the game, the world at large, you shouldn't be surprised when you find yourself without a game plan.

But anyways Britnee always aced her English essays, even when she crammed them the night before. She was good at coming up with stuff on the fly.

Diana was too. The corner of her eye had caught Diana's hands moving. She had a plan. She trusted her.

"I mean, we've heard some gunshots I guess? When we first woke up? But, like, no idea who fired them. Other than that we've seen nobody. Have had a pretty quiet, peaceful go of things, honestly.

Clicked her tongue, kicked her feet idly.

"Also if you're just wandering you can go now."

He could make things easy for all of them, hopefully.

[Applesintime]

"Maybe I will." Were Britnee and Diana a threat? Maybe they were. But he wasn't going to kill someone on nothing more than suspicion that they might decide to murder someone in the future. If they actually did go off and murder someone then sure, he would be the first person to hunt them down, to grab them by the hair, throw them down, and beat their skulls in. It was a shame so many bloody people had guns, because it was a hell of a lot harder to kill players when a lot of them had guns and all he had was a wooden board, a tiny broken bottle and some glass to throw in someone's face. But he would manage. He had to.

Despite saying that he might leave, Anthony lingered for a few moments more, unsure of where to go, what to do. He had always had some kind of schedule, some kind of routine. Jog a little when he went home, maybe log on Discord and chat to Clarissa and the rest of his friends, shittalk Jewel Evans, the usual. But of course, all of that had been shattered, and the only plans he had involved the cardinal sin.

But he wasn't the only one who would, who had broken that cardinal sin. He was a hunter of the wicked, the slayer of those who would raise the sword to the innocent. God would not acquit the wicked. And neither would he.

Anthony turned, and walked a few meters, heading back towards the main flotilla. But he paused. Turned around.

"If I hear your names on that board, hear you've fucking killed someone, well..." He left the threat hanging in the air, like a backhanded insult spoken graciously to the host as you left a party you didn't want to be at. And with that, he turned, and left the two to their own devices.

"Good luck. Don't murder." The words were murmured quietly, moreso to himself than the two girls. What was the point of telling them not to do so, anyway? If they were going to murder, he couldn't stop them. He couldn't stop anyone.

((Anthony Golden continued in A Time To Build And A Time To Destroy))

[SansaSaver]

Anthony didn’t stay in their presence long.

He responded to Diana’s question about how his day had gone by launching into a fully-blown rant, capping it with a smile so strained it looked like his teeth were about to crack under the pressure. To say he’d had a worse day than them was understatement of the year, and it really hammered in how lucky both she and Britnee had been, to have escaped any moments of violence, to have not lost anyone, or hear any friends had turned to killing.

She sucked in her breath when Britnee told him, quite bluntly, after providing a concise summary of their much less eventful run in the game, that he could leave. She agreed with her, 100%, but felt perhaps there was a way to do it with a gentler hand that might not provoke or cause him to snap. Of course, if he did that, it would be of his own accord and not the fault of either Britnee or herself, but in a place like this it did pay to exercise caution when you could.

Anthony’s response immediately sent all of Diana’s concerns out the window, though.

The threat he left dangling in the air as he followed through on Britnee’s request and exited got her blood boiling.

The whole player-hunter dichotomy really pissed her off. She was passionate about SOTF as a whole, but this was that one topic that really riled her up. The people who thought they could somehow claim moral superiority for their kills, that they were purging the game of evildoers when hey, guess what? There’s a whole bunch of people still running around who haven’t committed any violent acts -- even by proxy -- so I think they’ve got you beat on the moral grounds, hun.

Like, if you killed someone for revenge, for a past altercation or for killing a friend or ally then that was great -- so long as they owned it for what it was. An ultimately selfish decision borne out of their own desires. People like Anthony were dangerous, because they could go out swinging and end lives and not really think for a moment that they could even potentially be the bad guy there. She’d seen player hunters take out killers who’d definitely had way more sympathetic motivations for their actions than simply wanting to play judge, jury, and executioner.

“Fuck me, Brit, he is such a prat. Like, I get having a bad day and all but dude, you’re not gonna be able to take every killer out. So if that’s what you wanna do, maybe don’t start by threatening people who haven’t even done anything yet? Thanks for getting him outta here, though.” She ran her hands through her hair, pulled out her scrunchie and tied it back up as she paced across the deck, continuing her rant. “If he kills someone you just know there’s gonna be a theory that we pushed him into it by telling him to yeet outta here. Come through, foreshadowing compilation? Oh, and don’t even get me started on how whack I find that whole player-hunter thing, it’s so--”

Pause. Breathe.

She closed her eyes, took in a deep inhale, held it, then slowly let it out. Perhaps she’d been a little unfair. She knew they’d have their bubble of solitude popped inevitably, but for it to be done so aggressively and ultimately just be a whole lot of unearned threats from a guy she only thought about once in a blue moon was so jarring and frustrating.

She knew Anthony wouldn’t be alone, though. As Danger Zones closed in and people started getting more desperate, their ability to stay just the two of them would become more and more diminished as the hours trickled by. Better to take the plunge now, to leave and readily face the oncoming storm than just hide in fear of its arrival.

“Honestly hun, I’m getting a little bored. Our little love nest is cute and all, but what would you say to a bit of exploring?”

[Maraoone]

Huh. He made it easy. Good for him.

Had to go and make it all tense and awk and ish before leaving, of course, but that was Anthony for you right there. Why she never looked forward to that class with him, accent aside.

Britnee briefly considered firing off a parting 'Good day to you sir,' but in hindsight, she'd pressed her luck enough, actually. Instead she raised her hands and waggled her fingers at his departing figure, silently seeing him off. As he went further and further into the jetties, her shoulders relaxed, and she let out an audible sigh.

Diana spoke up once he got out of earshot, and as she did, a boat sailed off into the distance, an opportunity receding.

Like, Britnee was nodding along as Diana vented, yes, player hunters were so annoying, so true bestie. They really were! Most of the ones she knew of were all so self-serving, and had sunken more than a few of her ships, unfortunately. Unforgiveable. But it would've been an interesting route. Mouthing off to the camera about principles and morals and shit, effectively becoming your own force of justice, it almost sounded cool.

But nevertheless, Britnee nodded along, hummed in agreement at appropriate times.

"Sis, I bet you he was creaming himself when he woke up here. Probably can't fuckin' wait to kill all those players he hates so much, actually. Fuckin' weirdass."

The words tasted off when they left her mouth to be honest, but it didn't matter much. She said a lot of things she didn't necessarily believe in, when it felt right. When it felt easier.

Diana didn't wanna go that route, and so she wouldn't. Where she went, Britnee would follow.

And now Diana was heading off this boat, apparently. The idea made her body tingle, honestly, made her feel uneasy in her bones. It'd been nice here for a while. But also she considered spending another whole 24 hours in this tiny little space, now without any rum to get her through the day.

She considered another encounter with a possibly more unhinged Anthony. Or someone of his ilk.

Ugh. Part of her had been looking forward to that little swim actually, but she wasn't in the mood anymore. She could always take that plunge later anyways. Not like there was a shortage of water in this place.

She pushed herself off the seat, pushed herself off the boat and onto the jetty.

"Anyways yeah we can go now. Find some adventure, perhaps?"

Find some trouble. Same difference. It'd find them either way soon enough, might as well have some say in it. Have some fun.

Diana followed, and they took their first few steps towards the innumerous other boats in the distance.

((Britnee Joyner and Diana McIntyre continue in ))