Gather In The Ashes

[Applesintime]

Stephen stood in the doorway, two duffel bags slung over his shoulder in addition to the one he wore on his back.

"I found, uh, Mercedes, Lily, Kyle and Lincoln's orb. All dead. Jesus Christ. I managed to get Lily and Mercedes' bags, though." Setting them down on the floor, he sighed. "Fucking furries."

[Salic]

When Emily affirmed that she was ready, Claudia tugged on the collar as hard as she could. It took a solid few seconds, but eventually the sound of the rending of metal pierced the sound of the room. Not long after, a clattering sound indicated that the collar was no more. Emily was free.

As this was happening, Steve came up from the stairs, two bags in hand. She couldn’t suppress her grin. So the bastards couldn’t do anything to them now, and they had supplies to get them out of this godforsaken desert. God, the feeling was good.

This was, of course, dampened whenever she heard the source of their stuff. Lily, Kyle, Mercedes, and Lincoln were all dead downstairs? What the fuck happened? All of it must’ve taken place while they were sawing, because they weren’t on the announcements this morning. Claudia paled slightly, hoping that they wouldn’t have to see the bodies like Steve did.

“Jesus fuck... Steve, you feeling alright?”

[Skraal]

Emily opened her eyes, startled to see Stephen already back with two bags in tow. She put a hand to her neck, confirming that the collar was in fact, gone. For the first time since she had woken up in this place, she felt a glimmer of hope rising inside of her. It was too soon to celebrate their safety, she knew, but the loss of her explosive leash meant that getting out of here (and getting a refill of her medication) was actually a possibility.

For now, however, the priority was Stephen. Emily didn't know what had transpired in the levels below, but whatever he had seen had shaken him up pretty badly. She knew that anything she could say here would be pretty redundant, and not likely to make him feel better anyway, but after what happened with Raja she didn't want to just stand by and do nothing. Anything could have happened down there, and for all they knew Stephen could be badly injured without showing it. More importantly, as guilty as the thought made her feel, Emily knew that the more attention directed to Stephen the fewer awkward would be directed at her, at least in the short term. She followed after Claudia's question by adding a couple of her own.

"What happened down there? Are you hurt?"

[Applesintime]

"Yeah, I'm, uh, I'm fine." At least, Stephen wasn't hurt. The images still lingered in his mind, though. And the smell. God, the smell. "They'd been dead for... not too long, but the fight was far from over. I think uh... Mercedes fried Lily and Kyle, but one of them managed to kill her and Lincoln before they died. Kyle's bag was fucked and Lincoln was just his orb. Maybe the body was around, but I didn't want to... stay any longer than I had to. I didn't see Mercedes' thing she got from the furries, so maybe someone else grabbed it." He hadn't been looking, honestly. He'd just beelined to the bags, grabbed them, and then hauled ass. He felt like some pillager, disturbing the dead to loot them for their valuables.

But they hadn't died in vain. Their bags meant that they could all get out of here. It was a small consolation, but all the death around here had combined together to grant life to the three stood here.

"I think, uh," he began, glancing between his collarless companions, "we go at night. They'll probably be sleeping. Or y'know, it's dark so we'll be able to hide easier. Just follow the road leading out of here, because it has to lead to somewhere." It wasn't much of a plan. Maybe they'd be found. Maybe they'd walk until they died from thirst.

But they would die free.

[Salic]

Claudia could only stare in horror at Steve's description of the bodies downstairs, thanking her lucky stars that she hadn't ended up like them. She had been given the opportunity to escape, to get out of here in something other than a casket, something that had been denied to those four downstairs. She couldn't squander this gift that had been given to them. Claudia would make sure that their deaths wouldn't go to waste. Claudia took the bag Steve held in his left hand. Claudia didn't know whose bag this was, but she'd make sure to put their stuff to good use.

"Going out at night? I'm down with that. Cameras'll probably have a hard time seeing us walk out that way," she responded, agreeing with Steve's logic. If the cameras caught them wandering out of the arena during the daytime their captors could send a hit squad after them or something. It was best to try to use the natural stealth nighttime provided them to their advantage.

"So do we just hunker down here for the rest of the day before making our play at, like, midnight or something? That the plan?" she asked, her eyes darting between Steve and Emily. She did not wait for an answer before digging her hand into her newfound bag. Her hand was shoveling around in there for a few moments before she pulled out a protein bar. The mere sight of it made her stomach explode with hungered growls, so she unwrapped it quickly and devoured it in under a minute. The taste of food, even shitty food, after having nothing for three days made her eyes start to mist up a little. She exhaled deeply.

"Fuck, that was good."

She walked away from her two companions and plopped down on the floor, her stained tank top flowing with the sudden light breeze as she did so. She stretched out a little before laying on her back, the soles of her feet facing out towards the great desert they would soon be traversing. It was at this point that she wished she still had her hat. It must've been lost on the bus when the masked fucks attacked, as she hadn't had it anywhere on her person or in her bag since. Her hands covering her eyes had to suffice for blocking out the sun.

"Feels good to lay down, you know? I feel like I've been doing nothing but walking and running around in circles since I got here. Plus we're gonna be doing some more walking tomorrow. Maybe this'll be the last real time I can lay down for a while."

Her entire journey throughout these last three days really had been nothing but a massive circle. She went to the compound, ways away from the compound, and then back again. Now, she was about to repeat step two, but this time it would be permanent. Claudia would never come back here. The masked freaks couldn't make her come back here. She'd die before she'd let them spirit her back here again. Would she ever be able to look at deserts the same after she left here? She couldn't say. That was probably the least of her concerns, though. All she had to worry about now was making sure they could actually get out of here before the kidnappers found out about it. No pressure. She gulped heavily. Their moment of truth was tomorrow. She had to spend every moment leading up to it preparing for it.

((Claudia Salgado continued elsewhere))

[Skraal]

No matter how many times it happened, hearing the news of having lost even more of their classmates never got easier to take. So many people were just... gone now. Emily had lost every one of her few friends from back home, and many more people that she had never even gotten to know. She felt a pang of regret about how introverted she had been, spending so much of her time with books and her computer. The chances that she had to make friends with her classmates had simply been wasted, and no matter how much she wished for it, Emily would never get them back.

She watched silently as the other two spoke, reaching into the back and slowly pulling out another protein bar and staring at the wrapper. Despite how long it had been since she last ate, she still wasn't very hungry at all. Her stomach still hurt really badly, both from the stress and the withdrawal symptoms from her medication, and even something simple like this might have been difficult to keep down. Emily dropped the bar back into the bag and stepped away from it, taking a seat against the ruined remains of what used to be a wall.


Claudia had a good point. This would be the last time they would be able to rest until they finally made it out of here. Sitting down like this had made Emily painfully aware of how little sleep she had had over the past few days. Her arms and legs felt like they were made of lead, and her mind was starting to get a little cloudy from exhaustion. It would probably be better to wait a bit and settle out who was going to keep watch and all that stuff, but it wouldn't hurt to close her eyes for a little bit first. She wasn't going to sleep or anything, she just needed to give her eyes a little rest, and then she'd get back up and finish figuring out the plan with Claudia and Stephen.

Before she even knew what was going on, she had fallen completely asleep.

((Emily Chou continued in Icarus))

[Applesintime]

"Yeah."

"I'll take first watch. I don't think I could sleep after seeing three dead people. And, uh, Lincoln's orb."

"Didn't see his body, though. Wonder where that is."

((Stephen Sanders continued in Icarus))