CHAPTER FORTY-ONE: PAPER DOLLS (ENDGAME)
THE BLACK FOREST
JUNE 26, 2010: 02:25
Enter Subject C05, Simon Matthews
Back where it all started.
The familiar, strangely black barked trees surrounded him once more as he walked deeper into the area known as the Black Forest. Getting himself lost again in one of the largest areas on the map – he guessed – while waiting for the other ‘finalists’ to show up so they could finish this was not high on the list of thing to do; however, the orders given during the last announcement which could basically be summed up as ‘hurry your ass back to the forest or we’ll kill you’. It was hard to argue with that.
For Simon at least the forest was where this ordeal had begun for him and now, one way or another it would be where it ended as well. He briefly wondered if there was any sort of deeper meaning to the way events were playing out before dismissing it as mere coincidence; as much as he would like to believe the Universe worked with a sense of dramatic flair life simply didn’t work that way, and even if it did he wouldn’t be so delusional to consider himself enough of a ‘main character’ to warrant such treatment.
While he was on the topic, how did he manage to get this far anyway? He stopped next to a particular old and sturdy looking tree and leant against it, resting his forearm against the wood as he caught him breath. Everyone else he knew were going to be in the ‘final five’ as it were from the announcements had done something to get there; almost all of them had killed someone at some point or at least been a notable enough part of their death to warrant a mention, in one case multiple times. It seemed that all he had going for him was a not insignificant amount of luck and a curse which left everyone he had met up until now dead soon after.
At best this made him a dark horse, an unknown entry into the final who the others probably weren’t even aware of; whether this was a good thing or not was debatable, but it was something. On the other hand it potentially left him woefully underprepared for what was about to happen.
Taking a few moments to look around and make sure that he was indeed the only person currently in this part of the forest, Simon slumped down against the tree and sat on the ground for a while, pulling his knees up and resting his arms on them, careful to let his hands hang freely where they could not touch anything. He reached around to pull his pack around in front of him and flipped open the flap, long since giving up on ever being able to successfully zip the thing up and began sifting through the contents. Ignoring his remaining bread rations – he was getting kind of sick of eating burnt toast – Simon cautiously lifted out his last water bottle between the backs of his hands and wedged it between his knees. He began removed the lid and he threw away the rapidly melting piece of plastic and again lifted the bottle with his wrists and tilted it towards his mouth, quickly emptying it of its contents, not having had a drink since the last time he had attempted this procedure almost sixteen hours ago. God he hated his power.
Throwing away the empty container leant his head back against the tree and closed his eyes; the game had been hard on him so far, not hard as in the ‘fighting for your life and almost dying’ kind of way it was hard on the others, and probably not as hard as it could have been, more in the psychically and mentally draining sense of the word. Almost every action, the kind of things you wouldn’t even need to think about before now required actual thought and effort to pull off without hurting himself.
As he began to relax against the tree with all visual stimuli blocked out and the quiet sounds of the forest lulling him into unconsciousness, Simon soon began to involuntarily fall asleep, the first he had gotten since the game had pretty much began.
Enter Subject C08, Ashlie Jackson
Just four more people.
Ashlie Jackson just needed to kill four more people, then she would be free. She would be going home, back to her life of non stop partying and boys. The voice thing might be an issue, but that couldn't be permanent. The people who forced her into this horrid situation probably had a cure or something like that. So that was that. Ashlie would win this game, get the cure, and go live her life again. Maybe try to put all this behind her.
Bag in hand, the shirt she stole from her first kill on, Ashlie made her way through the forest. The location was vaguely familiar to the girl, as she had passed through it multiple times in the two and a half days she had been there. It didn't feel like it had been that long, like it was just yesterday that she had been partying it up back home. Now she was here, three time killer, and ready to kill more to get home.
Just four more.
Ashlie removed the gun from the pocket of her capris, holding it in her right hand. The extra magazines were in the same pocket, in order to make it easier to access them. One of the knives she had collected was already gripped in her left hand. She was ready to end this. Just as soon as someone else showed up.
After another couple minutes of walking, Ashlie finally found what she was looking for. Namely, someone else. The boy hunched on the tree brought a smile to her face. Finally. The girl aimed her gun, ready to fire, but stopped herself. As much as she would have loved to just shoot him and move on, there was no fun in that. This was the finals! She wanted to have some fun with it. Finding a tree that would put her in the line of sight of the boy when he came to, Ashlie sat on the ground, watching him.
He was number one.
Enter Subject C11, Katherine Black
They were exhausted, starving, broken and beaten.
But they were alive, and they were close to the end. That was enough to spur Kate on. They owed it to theselves to carry on. Neither she nor Taryn was willing to let this slip through their fingers, not this close to the end. The end of the tunnel was in sight, and Kate wasn’t going to let anything stop her and Taryn from getting out of there.
At Taryn's suggestion, Kate had kept her pistol loaded, stashed in the front pocket of her sweater next to her knife. Not that she was intending to use either. No, never, even if this island had numbed her of death. She wasn’t a murderer. That couldn’t be taken away from her. But what if that was what it took to get out? After all, Taryn wasn’t a murderer before this happened. Even skanky-feet Ashlie probably wasn’t before she got shipped on the island. That wasn’t the problem, though. The problem was, would she be able to? Even in self-defence, or protecting Taryn like Taryn had protected her so many times before, the idea terrified her.
Kate blinked and stepped into what looked like the rough boundary of the zone.
Leaves, kinderling and nettles crushed underfoot as they trekked through the blackened woods. It was a surreal sight, if Kate was honest, any real signs of life as faint as the smell of smoke that lingered in the air. Kate coughed. She hated the smell of smoke. It got in her clothes and up her nose and was a general pain in the ass.
Another reason to keep going, Kate guessed.
There was one thing that Kate couldn’t see, though, as she led the way through the maze of roots and trees that made up the forest. The other people, the rest of the finalists, all sent here to fight and kill and die for a shot at getting home. The fact that there was an announcement meant there had to be more than just her and Taryn out there, and Kate’s gut told her that Ashley was still lurking around there somewhere, given that they hadn’t heard her name on the last announcement.
So then where was everyone?
A chill ran down Kate’s spine. What if they
were the only two left? Would Taryn keep her promise? Would they be killed? When it came down to it, would they betray each other? Kate swallowed hard and looked around. She didn’t want to think of those possibilities. Not now. Not when she needed to trust Taryn the most.
They’d just have to find them. Shouldn’t be too hard. The forest was big and there had to be a lot of ground to cover.
Kate didn’t like it. The darkness made her jumpier than usual.
“Taryn… Maybe we’re we the only two left?” Kate looked over to Taryn. “…L-Let’s, uh, let’s keep looking.”
Slowly and quietly, she started to move and hoped to God that they’d just gotten there before everyone else.
Enter Subject C13, Taryn Jones
The two rushed forward from their place at the great divide until they hurled straight into the black forest. She could see why it was so named that. It was a pretty dense place with a lot of trees and bushes. Taryn stayed close by Kate, always trying to keep an eye out.
Once inside the forest they slowed down a bit, but the momentum was still inside of her. She was a little jittery. Her fingers were poised at the ready on the gun held close to her chest. Taryn told Kate to have hers out and ready just in case. She wasn't sure the other girl had it in her to point and shoot, but at the very least an attacker would hesitate to come at her if Kate had a gun in her hand.
It occurred to her that she was worrying a lot about Kate, more than she was about herself. What would happen at the end if they made it though every adversary just to be standing opposite of each other?
Don't think about it. Deal with it if and when it comes to it. There's got to be a way. I'll figure out a way. If you want something hard enough there's always a way.
They were quiet, cautious and on guard, but it didn't seem like there was anyone around. All was quiet and still. Kate turned and asked the obvious question.
What if we're the only two left? What if the time to deal with that is now? No. It's not time yet. Please, not yet.
"No. There's got to be someone else still besides you and I. Remember when that man said for someone to be careful? And of course Ashlie's still dragging her grody feet around. No, they're here. Like you said, we'll just keep looking."
Enter Subject C21, Khalid Shamoun
"Stay safe, buddy."
The words were still ringing in Khalid's ears. They were unexpected, more so than anything else that had occurred since he first found himself resurrected from death, save perhaps being dropped back on the island. He'd never been the closest to the folks back at HQ. He'd brought them coffee, sure, and they'd chatted on occasion, but none of them had ever seemed to care about him. Lizzie had been downright antagonistic half the time. She'd pulled a better job than him somehow, despite being the new girl. He'd always wondered if she resented him, or maybe thought herself superior.
It seemed she didn't. It seemed she and Carl cared.
Not that that helped him a whole lot. He was still somewhat numbed from the painkillers he had ingested, his wounds still raw and, in the case of his hand, bleeding. He was not thinking perfectly clearly. He knew one thing for sure, though: he wasn't getting a free ride off. His presence here was no mistake. He was part of the experiment once more, thrown into things at the last hurdle, another unfairness, not only to him, but to those poor kidnapped people who had struggled as hard as they could to survive.
Unfairness was pretty much The Organization's modus operandi, though. After all, hadn't Khalid been promised that he could go home after winning? He'd believed it, too, at least for a little. He'd believed it up until they made things so very clear. If he left, there would be no home to return to. He'd wondered about that from time to time, on those nights where he wished the world would just go back to normal, even if it meant dying someday, even perhaps someday soon. Had they kept him around only because of his extremely unusual power, or had it simply been the thing that made it impossible for them to kill him and be done with it?
But now, he was on his way to the end again. He was on his way to witness as more people met their deaths in the name of science that didn't even make sense.
He was now following Lizzie's instructions to the finalists. He had never died in an explosion before. He wasn't sure what that would do to him, but with his power weakened as it was, he actually felt some fear. The boy from before, the one whose name he hadn't managed to catch as Lizzie read them off, had hurt him, and not just physically. He'd shown through his actions that he didn't think Khalid was a worthwhile person. He'd been willing to take a life in his hands and crush it out, and then, when confronted with his mistake, to try to do it again. He was what Khalid had seen more than enough of during his first run, too. Somehow, he'd felt he deserved a break this time. He'd thought maybe these new kids wouldn't be as bad.
He'd been proven so very wrong.
His thoughts had carried him to the forest. Looked like he was on time. It was just as dark and mysterious as it had been before. He'd always meant to ask about the trees, but had somehow never gotten around to it. A bird chirped somewhere, its song incongruous with the darkness and menace.
He wandered among the trees for a time, listening, his gun held loosely at his side. He'd thrown it away once before, and had paid the price. He wouldn't make that mistake again.
Finally, he caught a glimpse of figures up ahead. Two of them. They weren't fighting, so it seemed safe enough to approach. That meant they were potential allies. It was unlikely anyone would be easily trusting this late in the experiment, but he couldn't dismiss it just yet, regardless of the other boy.
"Hey," he called to the two girls. Giving them a bit of warning while he was still a very safe distance away was best. He wasn't in a hurry to take another bullet, or to dish any out, for that matter. No need for anyone to get hurt right now. Not unless they wanted to make it necessary.
Simon
Simon was always a very heavy sleeper; for as long as he could remember it would take excessive amounts of noise and effort for somebody to wake him up and even then he almost never just sprang awake like some people were capable of. Even so, even he was awoken almost instantly as his arm slipped from where he was resting on his drawn up knees and his hand landed on his shin, the heat from his palms quickly piercing through the material of his jeans and sizzling the skin of his leg.
The boy jerked awake quickly, patting down the fire starting on the material of his jeans with the back of his hand a resisting the urge to scream and swear and curse his tortured existence and all that other melodramatic crap lest he give away his position to the other four people in the forest. While he picked himself up off the ground Simon mentally chastised himself for falling asleep at a time like this, even if he had to admit that he felt much better now, painful wake-up notwithstanding.
It was as Simon finally raised his head to look at something other than the ground or his leg that he finally noticed her, a girl who had clearly seen some of the worst that the game had to offer if her appearance was anything to go by, sitting against a tree directly in front of where he had been sleeping. How long had she been sitting there, just staring at him? It was a little creepy to be honest and he noted with some worry that she seemed to be holding her gun in her right hand and her knife in her left. Whatever she was up to she was ready for it
He racked his still sleepy mind for some explanation for the current situation. Practically he should consider her a threat; this late into the game was not a time to be forging alliances and there was a fairly good chance that she had to have killed to get this far in the game. Not every body was as lucky/cursed as he was to have everyone around them die without him lifting a finger.
Still, she had every opportunity to kill him while he slept, yet she didn’t. She clearly saw him; he could see her eyes were on him right now, still just staring at him like she probably had been the entire time she was there. Was she playing the game at all, was she waiting for him to wake up to talk to him or did she just not want to kill someone while they were asleep? Give them a fighting chance before she killed them?
Even before he realised it Simon was weighing up his options in a fight with this girl and couldn’t say he liked his odds. She was just far away enough that she could shoot him before he ever reached her to burn her and with his power leaving him unable to use his own gun that gave her a clear advantage. Still, there were trees all around that gave him cover and he still had his own knife in his pocket that he could use as long as he was quick enough. He had no idea what this girls power might be, but there was still a fairly good chance that if he moved quick enough he might be able to get that gun away from her.
Simon shook his head suddenly and reached up to brush his forehead with the back of one hand. This was ridiculous; he hadn’t even met this girl and he was planning how to kill her already? Better to at least try the diplomatic approach first.
“Hey, I don’t suppose you’re one of the people still trying to find a peaceful way out of this game, are you? Because it would be great if we didn’t have to fight each other”
Ashlie
Ashlie was just beginning to wonder if she should just shoot the poor boy and get it over with when he finally woke with a start. She let a smile cross her face as he began to to flail at his legs with his hands, noticing the small flames before they were snuffed out. The smile left her features as soon as the boy noticed her.
The girl didn't move a muscle, just stared at the boy. He began to fidget, probably uncomfortable with the fact that he had been so easily approached. He began talking, asking if she was looking for a peaceful way out. This brought another smile to her face. So he didn't know her. That was good. Maybe this would be easy after all.
Ashlie slowly stood up, never taking her eyes off of the boy. In response to his question, she shifted her knife so it would be pointing away from her, before pointing at her throat and shaking her head. Hopefully he would understand her motion. She didn't want to give away too much of her power, not yet at least. She made no other moves towards or away from the boy, biding her time until it was just right for her to strike.
Maybe she could have some fun with this.
Katherine
"Y-Yeah," Kate nodded. "We still, um, have to get Ashley. For Samantha."
They took a few slow, quiet steps, their pace dictated by the quiet crunch of the debris underfoot. Still yet to notice anyone, Kate turned a corner, and briefly considered the possibility of there being something other than the other people in the forest.
Maybe that was what they were supposed to do. Hunt down some gigantic freak of nature they’d thrown in at the last minute to make things interesting.
No, they’d have mentioned something like that, even if they were colossal dicks- which they were. There were no ulterior motives at work here. For once on the island, everything was straightforward. No tricks, no smoke and mirrors, just hunting each other down until it got to the end.
Straightforward, maybe, but no nicer than the rest of the game had been.
Kate quietly coughed again and took her map out of her pocket. The map was pretty much useless for navigating a forest, but it did give Kate an indication of just how
big this forest was. To put it plainly, it was
huge, stretching from the centre of the island right to the Cove. Back where they’d started. Kate briefly wondered that if they got to the end, they’d be able to go back there. For closure, she supposed. End the game where, for her and Taryn, it began.
Maybe she was just getting sentimental, she guessed. She still wasn’t even sure that they
could get far enough for that to be an issue, or that they’d even be able to reach the Cove from the forest.
They had to. If they didn’t get to the end, everything they had done so far would have been worthless. There was no point in coming as far as they had to give up. They had to press on. Get to the end.
“This forest…” Kate looked back down at the map. “T-Taryn… It’s pretty huge.”
She put the map back in the pocket of her sweater, opened her bag and pulled out one of the bottles of water Samantha had given them, gingerly taking a sip before screwing the cap back on and throwing it in her bag.
"Hey," called a voice from the distance, and Kate nearly jumped out of her skin.
Kate pulled her gun out of her sweater pocket and fumbled for the safety. She wasn’t intending to use it, no, but it helped just to have it in her hand. It was the difference between her getting to the end with no more injuries and getting her throat cut while she wasn't paying attention.
“Hello?” She looked around, but couldn’t find the source of the call. “Who’s out there?”
She turned around and noticed him, fairly far off but still visible nonetheless. It was odd that he’d called out to them. That meant something, definitely. It meant he wasn’t hostile, at least. He hadn’t tried to sneak up on them. Maybe there were still people out there that weren’t hostile, then.
Kate lowered her gun and waved to him with her free hand.
“I… I don’t think he’s an enemy, Taryn.” Kate turned her head to her. “…trust me on this.”
Taryn
Taryn made small little circles with her back to Kate as the other girl pulled out the map and studied their location. The only sounds she could hear were the crunching of dead plants under her dirty flats as she moved carefully. She continued her orbit until she heard Kate speak up about the size of the forest.
Taryn leaned down and looked at the map. The area was discouragingly big. She sighed and scratched her head with the handle of the gun. Her hair was greasy and her scalp was itchy. She would have traded all the money in the world for a bath.
"No worries, doll. We'll manage somehow. It's big yeah, but it doesn't look impossible."
She offered what she thought was an encouraging smile. "We're bad chicks. We can handle it."
A voice from far off called to them. Taryn tensed and had her weapon at the ready, pointing towards the figure.
But Kate waved to him. She told her to trust her. Taryn looked uncertainly at Kate for a second. The fact that he made himself nice and obvious from a good distance and that he appeared to be unarmed spoke well for him. She wasn't going to let her guard down, after all who knew what weird power he had, but she'd settle for letting her gun down. Hesitantly, she lowered the gun so that it pointed at the ground.
"I trust you. It's him I'm not sure of. But....."
She remembered what a mess it had been back at the little church and she bit her lip. Taryn nodded at Kate.
Khalid
Two girls. They looked rough, like they'd been living through a war. Their clothes, their hair, all ragged and wild and in tatters. Worse for wear, as expected. Khalid himself was winning no beauty contests here, but at least he stab a decent meal before he got dragged into this again. He'd been a tiny bit lucky he supposed, a tiny bit, having already played this game before.
He knew how to ration out his food in case they went into overtime; he knew how to conserve his ammo for that rainy day; he knew the kinds of people who were working behind the scenes. It was alright for them, they didn't have to do all of this. They were safe, secure in their little hideout, watching the island behind glass screens and binoculars and satellites. Too bad he didn't have those luxuries here - maybe then he wouldn't have had to fight.
No.
It would've been forced upon him; they would've wanted it. So Lizzie and Carl were on his side? So what? They'd never given away any feelings of support before, so why were they starting now? What good did this knowledge give to him now that he was trapped here, again? Besides which, that girl probably didn't share Carl's sentiment; not truly. She was known throughout the base as something of a nutjob, and having her fall silent on the broadcast only confused him further as to her true disposition.
And yet, these feelings of companionship he held served no purpose, and he knew it. It was too late for well wishes, and he didn't appreciate them. He shook these thoughts loose, letting them fall into the abyssal part of his mind where ideas and dreams of home went to die. His eyes were red and dry, crusted with the tears he'd shed stab at the mansion, and he felt them suddenly as he began to awaken to the realisation that he was still moving, still waving, towards the two girls up ahead. Everything around him kept blurring and twisting out of focus, his mind concentrating on events he wanted left alone. The gun in his back pocket kept bouncing off his leg with every stumbled step, and every hit reminded him of his intentions here today.
The girl with the map looked up as the other whispered something to her, but she didn't seem spooked. If anything, she seemed slightly calm about the whole thing, like this was just another day in the park for her. Nothing special, just business stab usual. A bird cawed somewhere deep in the forest, and a rustle of feathers came after, stopping him mid-step as he checked around for signs of an intruder to this meeting. A tell-tale movement in the leaves, a shadow that shouldn't have been; things that he'd been trained to look out for, and things that paranoia had often told him to find. Seconds passed, fading into a minute, and then the trees fell quiet once again. They were okay for now.
As he maintained a good distance between himself and the pair, he stooped down as well as he could without putting pressure on his knees, then, keeping his left hand raised as a sign of peace, he used his other to slip the bag from his shoulders and placed it softly on the ground. Every movement was deliberate, as he knew that at any second someone else could come barging in and cause a riot, but until then he had to keep everything cool - unnaturally so, but nonetheless a safe and calming temperature. This was key. These next few minutes would mean everything to everyone, and if the stars were shining down on him today then they would surely grant him this brief moment of respite in which to give his counsel and advice.
He drew in a breath, then spoke with the all the care and the delicate tone of a man who was about to face the end.
"My name is Khalid," he began.
"And I can't die."
Simon
The girl didn’t answer, or do much of anything really, and instead raised the hand with the knife up and carefully pointed to her throat a shaking her head. Was that supposed to mean that she couldn’t talk? Was she injured somehow, had she simply just lost her voice or was there another reason for her inability to answer him.
For some reason the word ‘banshee’ flitted across the back of his mind but it went more or less unnoticed.
Simon cautiously stepped forward to get closer to the girl while maintaining a safe distance; he remembered that the last girl he had seen on the island had eventually shot at him once negotiations took a turn for the worse she he consciously placed himself close to a particularly wide and solid looking tree just in case he needed to quickly hide from any bullets.
“Urm, well that’s ok, I guess I’ll just do all the talking”, easier said than done, apparently, as Simon very quickly found himself drawing a blank on what to say. “I guess I’ll start with an introduction; I’m Simon, you probably haven’t heard of me since I haven’t been mentioned on any announcements yet. What’s your… name. Never mind”
It would be almost to continue a conversation without being able to ask questions, there had to be a better way to do this. “You could write it down or just scrape it in the dirt with your knife if you want?”
Ashlie
It was almost cute, the way this boy was naively trying to make friends. It was a bit late for that. Friends in this place made you dead. Well, a lot of things in this place made you dead. Like talking. A lot. And annoyingly so. Her grip tightened on her knife, keeping herself from just lunging out and slashing his throat or something. Getting close to this boy would end bad for her, so she was going to avoid that as much as possible.
So that really just left her one thing to do. She waited until the boy, Simon was his name, finished talking, asking her to write her name in the dirt. Okay, she could play this game. Walking a couple steps toward the boy, she crouched down, clearing the ground until the dirt was exposed underneath.
She began to scratch some stuff in the dirt, not actually spelling out her name or anything. Just random letters. Simon was far enough away that he wouldn't be able to see what she was writing. After a few moments, she stood up, looking at the boy. She was done playing now.
The pink-haired girl lifted her pistol, pointing it at Simon. At least he had the sense to get out of the way as she squeezed off a couple shots in his direction. She called out his name, taking a step towards his hiding place.
Ashlie Jackson was ready for a fight.
Katherine
Considering everything that had happened, it took something big to shock Kate now. Khalid's words however, may have provided the biggest shock that Kate had experienced in her life.
It certainly put a new dimension on things, assuming he was telling the truth. Having someone who couldn't die sort of put her, Taryn, and anyone left at something of a disadvantage. It made her more relieved than ever that she and Taryn didn't attack him on sight. They had too many enemies on the island already. Adding one more to the list would have been deadly.
Besides, having an invincible man for an enemy wouldn't have ended well for either of them.
But was he lying? Kate couldn’t wrap her head around the prospect of someone just flat out not being able to die. Her mind took her back to when she and Taryn made up fake powers Considering everything else she’d seen on the island, though, could it really have been that much of a stretch?
It was weirder still to Kate that she faintly remembered seeing him before. Not on the island, she could remember almost everything she and Taryn had done on the island almost perfectly. It was before. She was certain. Had he shown up at the coffee place while she was on shift? That would make sense, she didn’t remember a lot about her customers, but he- Khalid, even, struck her as being more recent.
Then it clicked.
The briefing. The man in the gasmask. All of them, Taryn, Ashlie, the two from the church, sat there. The boy next to her in particular, scruffy and tired. Words, lots of words. A gunshot.
The smell of blood in the air, and then darkness.
That was when Kate realised he wasn’t bluffing about being invincible.
They were silent for a moment, Kate looking over to Taryn, shaking ever so slightly, both due to the cold and due to a hint of nervousness or fear from staring down someone who claimed to be- and was almost proven to be- immortal. She silently nodded and turned back to Khalid.
“I’m Kate,” She turned the safety on and stuffed her pistol in the pocket of her sweatshirt. “She’s, um, Taryn.”
He might have already known that, but Kate figured even a reintroduction was worth it.
She blinked once.
“Not, that, um, I’m really in a hurry to want to try it, but you could
probably kill us.”
As far as first impressions went, it was about half a step above their encounter with Ashlie, but the fact that they were talking to him was a huge step.
Now? Now was the hard part.
Taryn
"Oh really?" Taryn drawled out.
Taryn choked up her grip on the gun, but kept it pointing down at the ground. She looked at him critically, trying to figure out what he was playing at.
She glanced briefly to Kate and saw her looking at the boy in confusion. Then it looked like a little spark had gone off in her.
"Khalid," she repeated, turning back to him. "You were the one they wished good luck. You work for them. That annoying girl and the guy with the birthday are your friends."
“Not, that, um, I’m really in a hurry to want to try it, but you could probably kill us," she heard Kate say.
"I don't think so," she said, frowning. "So you can't die and they sent you here, hu? Then what do you suppose we should do? Should we jump off a cliff since it's would be a losing battle to fight an unkillable man?"
She readied herself and her stare didn't waver from the boy, but she had to admit she wasn't as confident as she had been before. There was no way they could beat an invincible boy.
Khalid
Kate and Taryn.
"Kill."
Khalid stuttered as they spoke, the latter of the girls looking for an explanation while the other pointed out the horribly obvious truth. His lips quivered, his fingers shook, and his teeth clenched together so tightly he thought he felt them crumble in his mouth. But he held fast, drowning out the cricket that pleaded so incessantly in his ear "take them out before they get you" with a simple chant that he played stab over and over in his head.
They are not my enemies, they are scared and confused. They are not my enemies, they are scared and confused.
And soon enough the words came back to him, rejuvenating his body as they sent the shivers of his face away for another time, when speech wouldn't be so vital to their cause.
He cleared his throat to stop them asking any more questions, then let the words he'd been holding on to for so long now drip slowly into the air. Every part of his mind focused on making the next part sound as convincing as he could make it, because if he didn't, and they thought for even a second that he could be tricking them, he would be forced to show them that he wasn't a liar.
He looked into their eyes.
He tried to dive in - to make them see the importance of his arrival, and the danger that they faced.
He wanted them to understand, for if they didn't, then all of them would lose.
Not just them, and not just himself, but everyone, everywhere. Every man, woman, child, pet, tree, everything and everyone. They were all about to die, and the only people who knew were the ones who sat beyond, on their mighty pedestals, watching over the island with those cold, terrible eyes.
"You won't have to worry about that - I promise, I won't hurt either of you, that's not why I'm here."
Pulling his daypack open so they could all see, he reached in and took out the map.
"This-"
He laid it out on the grass to even out the folds, then pointed to the very center of the island, running his finger up and down the two great lines that threatened to tear the paper in two.
"This line. It's not natural. It was never meant to be there, but because of this serum, it exists."
The girls looked suspicious.
"Whatever hopes you had of finding home, or making it back to your old lives, you need to let them go. Now that you've been tested; now that you're like the rest of us, there's no cure. Whatever power, or ability, or whatever it is
you want to call them, you're stuck with."
He glanced down at his hand.
His bandaged, bloodied hand.
"But see, the serum they use - the one they're perfecting - well, that's just it. They haven't finished making it yet, it's still in design. Do you get what I'm saying?"
A heavy sigh, before a moment of heavy silence.
"Dead or alive, your bodies carry all those years of testing, prototyping, data, money, fuck, even the scientists' own sweat, and that means we're theirs now. Do you understand? It's important that you understand this, because I can't help you if you don't. We're
theirs, okay? They're never going to let you go, and you're never going to be normal again. They will use you, and they will test you, and they will work you to the bone, and it will hurt, and you will cry so many times that you'll wonder how you even have tears
left and it'll all be in the name of 'science'."
Simon
Things were going better than expected, the girl was actually stepping forward to write her name in the dirt when he half expected her to just pull her gun on him rather than make the effort. He couldn’t see what she was writing from this far away but he wasn’t going to move closer to see what she had written until after she had finished and moved away; even though he wanted this to end peacefully he wasn’t going to take any stupid risks just yet.
It turns out this decision saved Simon’s life, for the time being at least. As soon as he saw that gun being raised he instinctively ducked back behind the tree next to him just as two shots rang out in the forest, the first bullet snapped past him and the second skimmed a layer of bark off of the tree. Not only was this girl trying to kill him now, she was also apparently a pretty good shot. Great.
He was just about to poke his head out and see if she was getting closer so that he could decide which way to run when he heard it, or maybe ‘felt’ would be a better term. The piecing sensation inside his skull that passed after only a second and left Simon’s legs feeling like jelly. For some strange reason he also felt like someone had just called his name.
“I… I guess you’re not willing to talk about this?”
Ashlie
He was on the run already. Ashlie was somewhat disappointed, but she couldn't really complain. A kill was a kill, which got her one more step towards winning. And she wasn't planning on doing anything but win. She would remove this pest, then find her way to the others, and kill them too.
The pink-haired girl pocketed her knife, holding her pistol in both hands and stepping towards the tree that her adversary had hidden behind. He wasn't showing any part of himself, which would make things a little harder, but not by much. The fact he hadn't returned fire was somewhat perplexing, but Ashlie gave no thought to the matter.
So what to do next? She could try to shoot through the tree, but it was too big for that. Waiting for him to come out would be bad, since it would give him time to plan. So her only option was to come to him. So come to him she would. Pulling the knife back out of her pocket, the girl moved around the tree, swinging her knife as she went.
If only it were that easy.
Katherine
Taryn was, understandably, agitated at the prospect of facing someone who was unkillable. Kate agreed, to an extent. What could they do if he tried to attack them? Kate kept the possibility running in the back of her mind, but she tried her best not to look threatening or hostile. It was a little hard, considering they'd spent the entire game trying to do just that, but she didn't think she did that bad a job of it.
He promised he wouldn't hurt them, though. That worked. That was what she needed, the little push that made her believe him. Whether she trusted him was another matter. Kate still wasn't sure if she entirely trusted Taryn, let alone the immortal man she’d just met. That was a question for later, though.
This wasn't helping. None of this had been. Kate was getting distracted, right when they both needed to focus. Focus. She kept using that word, but every time she used it she got more and more distracted. That was it, then. She needed to stop saying that she was trying to focus. Make it something subconscious, rather than drumming it into her head.
Khalid laid out a map, between them, marking off the line that crossed the island. Kate had wondered about that. Everything there had seemed so unnatural. It was a weird place, though it was the only place they been where they hadn't had to fight anyone off.
They'd found the naked corpse there, though. That was pretty harrowing, to say the least. Samantha. That was where they had met her, too. Then she left them to get blown up. Kate tried not to think about that. Samantha was just there with them, then she was gone. Another name on the announcements.
"That's where we've just come from..." She whispered.
The serum had caused it, apparently. A giant scar on the island caused by the same thing that had given her a natural dental plan and Taryn crystalised blood. Kate was a little apprehensive of that. It didn’t really make all that much sense. She listened anyway, though.
No hope of getting home. Ever. That was the second bombshell he dropped on them, though Kate had been struggling to believe they would just let them go since she had woken up, choosing to rely on blind optimism. That, it seemed, had served its purpose, and now it was time for Katherine Jennifer Black to face up to the fact that she-
they needed to win. Even with Khalid on their side- for now- they still had people to get through, and if they hit Ashlie again, they needed to be prepared for her. Or anyone else they could run into, for that matter.
Even if she lived, how would Sammy cope if she never came home? Or Mom and Dad? That was what Kate was afraid of. Not that she herself would die. She could accept that. It was the thought that her family, the few friends she had left, everyone would have to deal with the fact that she'd just
disappeared.
She thought back to everyone they'd met. Everyone Taryn had killed. They had families too, right? Even Ashlie had to have
someone that would miss her when she was gone. And yet, none of this would ever be found out. They'd just go down as a name on a Disappeared Persons list, probably murdered but never identified.
Worrying. She couldn't worry. They just needed to finish this. Whatever was outside of the island had to be better than the island.
Something would be better, at least. Food? Yeah. At least they'd be fed, even if they were forced into being test subjects. They'd be no use dead, right?
One by one, the layers she had built for herself were being torn down.
There was silence for a while, the few insects in the area chirping faintly the only sound, though Kate swore she heard a scream. Then, her thoughts collected, she slowly began to speak.
"I'm willing to risk it." Kate looked down at the ground, then back up. "To get out of here, I mean. I don't care if I can't get home- I mean, I'd work for them if I had to."
She paused. "I just want to get out."
Taryn
Taryn slid her glance to Khalid and threw him side-eye. She took her eyes off of him for a fraction of a second to look down at the map where he was explaining the topography of the island. He promised not to hurt them and she wasn't one to trust him, but there wasn't anything to do for the moment other that to try and maintain the peace they'd developed.
"Interesting....I guess. So what does this have to do with us?"
And then he told them they'd never go home. Showing an outspokenness she didn't think possible, Kate told him that they wouldn't give up. Taryn nodded.
"That doesn't matter. It's better than dying. And even if they say they're going to keep us forever, I'll never stop trying to get home. If I live I've at least got the chance, even if it's small. We're not going to give up. Not now."
Khalid
Khalid took it all in, every word. Their speeches proved just how wrong the scientists were about them, about how they were just subjects. The danger of what would come next, the fear it would instil them with - and they didn't even care. He couldn't help but grin, amazed at the sheer confidence these two had in themselves, and to a tiny extent, in him.
"Good," He replied.
"You'll need to hang on to that. That determination will keep you strong, keep you fighting. I... I admit, I let myself get lazy, settle in, but you two can't let that happen to yourselves. Even if one of you dies, you keep the other one in your memory and you
promise them that you'll survive. You've got to do that, girls. It's going to be hard after today, but if you can keep a hold of this faith, this drive, then I swear to you-"
A breath; a sigh.
A whisper: "Maybe not right away - certainly not tomorrow - but someday all of this will mean something
good, I promise."
"All this heartache, this suffering, the pain we endure, even if it leads to the end of the world just remember that there
will be a light beyond those times. Always. We just have to make sure that it's lit by the time this nightmare ends."
Simon
No sounds followed the first couple of gunshots from the girl for a few moments, successfully building the tension up inside Simon the longer nothing happened. He considered just sticking his head out from behind the tree to see what was happening but that was a colossally stupid idea no matter what way you justified it.
It wouldn’t matter anyway; he knew she was coming towards him, moving closer the longer he stayed here. He just knew that at any second she was going to pop out in front of him and shoot him, he was just waiting for that final death bullet to find its mark.
He leaned back against the tree and slid down it, balancing on the tips of his feet and crouching at the base of the tree while he thought. He needed to decide what he was going to do. The choices were whether to break cover and make a run for it, and get shot, or stay where he was and wait for her to come to him… and get shot.
Okay. Okay… okay, here’s what he was going to do. *Thunk*
The tip of the knife embedded itself in the tree a foot above his head; if he hadn’t been crouching he would probably have a piece of metal pierced through one of his lungs right now.
Acting on a moments thought he pushed away from the tree with his elbows and tackled the girl around the waist, pushing her back and toppling them both onto the ground. He pulled back and sat up on his knees so that he was looming over the girl and reached out to grab her wrists, fully aware but not caring what his powers would do to someone with direct contact like that. It was about time this damn curse started paying it due.
Ashlie
Ashlie felt a painful shockwave shoot up her arm as the knife buried itself inside the tree a couple of inches. The boy was below her, but by the time she was able to register this and aim her gun, he tackled her. Her hand slipped off the grip of the knife, leaving it imbedded in the tree, while her gun was jostled out of her hand as he back hit the ground. The air rushed out of her lungs in a gasp, and Ashlie had to fight to breath for a few moments.
He was on top her now, leering down on her. Ashlie stared back at him, her face twisted in anger at this boy who had the upper hand on her. His hands reached out for her, and she tried to move away from them, but there wasn't very far for her to go.
Next thing she knew, it felt like her wrists were on fire. As soon as his hands came into contact with her wrists, she felt the fiery pain emanate from the contact. Ashlie screamed from this pain, the worst pain she had experienced in her life. She tried everything she could think of in her limited movement to get him off, or at least get his hands off her. There wasn't much she could do really, except maybe scream at him until he let go.
So she did. Ashlie screamed at the boy who was burning her with every curse, every insult she could think of, writhing her body in an attempt to throw him off. She needed to do something before her hands became useless from the injuries.
