SOTF Mini

((Glen Bole continued from Electric Sun))

They hadn’t found her.

They hadn’t found anyone, in fact. They’d found a jungle, which wasn’t quite the same, and after a long, humid, difficult, swear filled trek, Glen had also found a lake. Really, it didn’t exactly come as a surprise to Glen. They had no idea where April had run off to; he’d just stormed off, out of the lighthouse, metaphorically dragging Anna behind him. They’d gone nowhere fast, and Glen felt tired and annoyed; he could only imagine how Anna felt, after her ordeal earlier in the lighthouse.

They needed a plan that was more than “Find this girl”, Glen knew that for sure. They weren’t any closer to finding April, and this lake was as good a stopping point as any. They’d only found the place by accident, so Glen guessed it’d be tricky for people to actively search for the lake. It was safe and a good place to gather their thoughts.

There was a tree near the water’s edge, so Glen headed towards there, dragging the sledgehammer behind him in one hand, his bag and hoody only just avoiding the same punishment. When he reached the tree, Glen gratefully leaned the hammer against it, as well as his bag and hoody. Then, he slumped down against the tree, opened his bag, and removed his bottle of water. Before any of the planning and shit could happen, he seriously needed a drink more than anything.

Glen unscrewed the cap of the bottle, and drank about half of it in one go. Yeah, that felt a hell of a lot better. A bit more rest, and probably the rest of the bottle, and he’d be up and running again. Glen leaned back against the tree, staring up at the leaves, their type unknown to Glen. He figured Anna was somewhere nearby, so he called out to her.

“Yo, Anna, you holding out okay back there?”

((Anna Kateridge continues from Electric Sun))

A wiser Anna would have left to fend for herself.

There was nothing to gain from this senseless running about. Ever since that day at the lighthouse they'd been forced to vacate they'd been doing nothing but running, running, running, running, everywhere they were running. Sometimes they stopped. Other times they kept going. More often than not, they stopped for a while, like here. They were probably going to stop for a while.

Well maybe that was an exaggeration. They hadn't really gone that far. But they had finally found a lake to stop at.

Anna stopped at a tree not too far away from Glen's own tree and slipped her belongings to the ground. A rest was all too good a luxury at this point, and she was going to enjoy it.

Her hand wandered into her bag, once against feeling the grip of a gun. It was all too strange a concept to wrap her head around - Anna had a gun. Other people had things like hammers and whatnot while she of all people was given a gun. It felt like the universe was simply dicking around with her, giving her a weapon she had no intention of using.

But if she wasn't going to use it, then who was?

“Yo, Anna, you holding out okay back there?”

She pulled her hand from the bag again, zipping it back up.

"Uh, yeah, yes yes, everything's fine, everything's okay, nothing out of the ordinary whatsoever at all. Yep. Totally."

She would think about that later.

So apparently Anna was completely fine, if Glen was going to be a complete idiot and believe her based on what she said. But Glen was not a complete idiot, and he’d heard the tone of Anna’s voice, realised that her hurried claims of “everything’s okay” meant the exact opposite. Glen stared straight at her for several seconds, a look of suspicion on his face.

Can’t see anything wrong going on. There’s no-one there or anything, she isn’t bleeding, far as I can see. I guess whatever’s going on is her own fucking personal problem, probably her time of the month or some bullshit.

Glen shook his head, muttering “Fuck it, whatever,” before looking back over the lake. He could see a medium sized lump on the opposite side of it, just in the treeline, which Glen guessed was a rock of some sort; although, he couldn’t see it clearly due to the distance. A rock was the most likely answer though, there were a few scattered around here and there.

Glen looked across the lake in silence for a while, thinking. He’d had only one idea, and that had been to find April. That plan was pretty much mission impossible for now; they could trek across the entire island twice and still find no sight of her. So what else now? Glen wanted, in some way, to avenge Ben, or something. He needed a proper burial, but that was impossible thanks to the fucking danger zones. They could try and find somewhere safe and secure to hide out, but they’d tried that with the lighthouse, and hadn’t that gone well?

Glen leaned his head back against the tree in frustration. Then he grabbed a small rock by his side, and hurled it as far into the lake as he could, with a cry of “Fuck!”

“Help me out here.” Glen said, looking over at Anna, feeling slightly deflated. “I’ve got no fucking clue what to do.”

((Carol Burke continued from No One Checks In Unless Their Name is Smith))

The warm sun kept Carol sweating, to say the least.

After she had woken up from the ground, she made a decision; she was going to find Paige and Karl. She felt kind of bad not looking for them the previous day; she had still been shocked over Marty and Amber's deaths. But once she woke up, she knew one thing.

That the best thing to do would be to find them.

She knew she couldn't save Amber and Marty. But it felt right to go looking for anyone she could. They both had killed, certainly. But Paige was a friend. So was, in a way, Karl. She bet she could find them. They were both probably scared out of their wits, poor guys.

And she knew it would have made Amber happy if she had found Paige. Paige was going to be fine once she found her, she bet. She had a gun to scare away anyone bad. Not that she considered anyone "too" bad. Just scared. Just lonely. But if someone tried to hurt Paige? She could stop them!

And same goes to Karl. She had still been shocked over him killing Marty like that. But it still felt like she could find him and calm him down a bit.

But she still couldn't get over Amber and Marty.

And that was what gave her doubt.



Carol placed her things down to rest. She had been carrying a lot; the chair leg stuck out of her bag, while she carried the gun. It had put a bit of a strain on her shoulder, unfortunately. She reached to rub the aching shoulder. Maybe it was a good idea to sit down as well. Her feet ached.

Exhausted, Carol sat down, a gasp of air coming from her lips.

The bad part was... Carol had no idea how close to the water she was. Her back faced the lake, completely unaware of the vast water behind her. It was silent, and, unfortunately, Carol wasn't known for paying attention. And when she was exhausted? She didn't even realize that she was about to fall in rear first.

Which she did. Or rather, slid in the mud and landing inside the lake.

Now, it was a commonly known fact that Carol was aquaphobic. And right now, Carol was in an aquaphobe's nightmare.


Cold cold water filled her mouth and blurred her eyesight. Her arms flailed, reaching for something to grab. Her feet brushed what seemed to be dirt, or weeds. Carol forced her head up over the water and gasped. She couldn't move. Water was everywhere, and it was big and cold. She felt herself coming close to sobbing.

And in her panic, she saw a root from a tree just within her reach.

Automatically, she grabbed it, and held on tight, closing her eyes.

She imagined herself letting go on accident, and being pulled down, never to come back up again. A soft sob came from her as she gripped it.

Her feet barely grazed the bottom. It was shallow enough for her to get out. But she felt herself shake as the water soaked her clothes and chilled her. She could barely move. But slowly, she pulled herself up using the root, and found herself on the shore again.

For all the world, Carol looked like a miserable housecat that had been forced into getting a bath. She found herself gasping for air, and still somewhat sobbing as she placed her hands and knees on the ground. Her things weren't too far off.

Carol felt like the world could just end right there. The soaked clothes engulfed her, feeling as if she had been tossed into snow. She gripped the grass underneath her hands.

She crawled over next to her bag, and, after making sure she wasn't about to land in water again, sat. Carol looked at the ground, feeling dejected and still frightened. She had calmed down a bit, but not by much. She felt herself shudder, both from the cold and the fear.



What seemed like a handful of minutes later, she heard a sound of something splashing into the water and someone crying out "Fuck!". She looked up. Someone was here. As she listened closer, she could hear the same voice asking what they should do now. Pulling herself out from her position, she crawled towards it slowly.

Was that Glen?

Carol knew of Glen. She didn't know him that well, but she knew him. She thought he was kind of mean, honestly. He wasn't, by any stretch, a "nice" person. But it couldn't hurt to talk to him, right?

Thing was, she couldn't see him. He must have been out of distance, or in a position where she couldn't see him. Maybe it wasn't Glen, then. But she couldn't think of anyone else, right?

She decided to stay where she was to investigate a bit more, still shuddering from her drenching and trying her hardest to look away from the lake.

It may have been somewhat cliche to say so, but it was really that last line that cinched the whole scenario for all of them.

No idea what to do.

"And you think I do?" Anna murmured to herself, not meeting Glen's eyes even once. Because really, she was in the same boat as all of them. When it came down to it, they were all in the same boat. This was all unheard of, the possibility of students such as themselves being stranded on a deserted island by a madman and forced to kill each other. There was a movie about it once, but as far as Anna could remember they were criminals, not innocent kids.

"I don't want to kill anyone."

She was louder than last time.

"And I don't want to die out here."

That's all it really came down to. A bunch of kids who didn't want to die, and everyone who didn't want to die more than the others who didn't want to die, well...they made sure as hell they weren't going to die. It all made sense to Anna, yet for some reason, however, sensible it was, she couldn't even fathom the possibility of her being involved in it. However...

Anna pulled her head from her vacant gaze and looked at Glen.

"Do you?"

Glen sat in frustrated silence, waiting impatiently for Anna to respond to him. He idly flicked away a few pebbles, and lazily lobbed another rock into the water, this time with almost no energy. Anna muttered something, something that Glen didn’t quite hear properly. He shot a steely glare at her anyway. He needed help, reassurance, anything, and Anna was the only person right now who could do that.

Anna spoke up then. She didn’t want to kill anyone. She didn’t want to die out here. That was it. Those were the only plans that she had at the moment. Well that was just fucking perfect. They’d just lost a friend, they were in the middle of a jungle on an island with no idea where to go, and their big plan was “not to die”. Brilliant.

Glen was trying to think of some sort of retort, when Anna got in there first. Glen stared at her, slightly bewildered at first. Then, he looked back over the lake, letting out a short, bitter laugh.

“The fuck kinda question is that?” Glen snapped. “Course I don’t want to die. Who does?” Glen paused, looking out over the lake again, considering Anna’s other statement. There was a couple more vague shapes on the other side, now that he’d had a second look.

“Look. I’m gonna be blunt here.” Glen said, turning back to Anna but not looking directly at her, his voice less harsh, but still bitter. “When I heard that April had been the one who’d killed Ben… yeah, I wanted to kill her as well. I was pissed, I was angry, I wasn’t thinking straight. Now though…” Glen sighed, and looked straight at Anna. “Yeah, you’re right. Killing people is just gonna bring nothing but bad trouble. I don’t want guilt that fucking big looming over me for my whole damn life.”

Glen stared at Anna for a few more seconds, before laughing bitterly again, and staring across the lake.

“So I guess that’s it, huh?” he muttered. “We just go along, surviving as long as we can, staying out of peoples way, with our heavy-ass sledgehammer and… whatever the hell you have. Best fucking plan ever.”

Carol heard another voice reply. A girl? Sounded like it. She couldn't pick up on who it was, though. She could barely pick up on what she was saying. To her, it was only a mumble. However, she managed to pick up mention of not wanting to die.

This caused Glen's voice to audibly snap, and she heard him go on an angry rant about... something. She managed to pick up the word "April". Or was that the person, April? April did something, right? She thought she heard something on an announcement.

Carol stood up, and grabbed her bag and gun with shaking, cold, unstable hands. Feeling a bit like she was about to throw up, she unsteadily moved her feet forward. Her wet and somewhat muddy clothes reminded her in the most horrible fashion of what she had just been through. Her eyes stayed as far possible from the lake, in fear of causing another episode.

She...

Might as well say hello.

Feeling like she was about to fall over, and like someone was choking her, she slowly approached the voices.

They were nice. She was sure of it. Glen could be a jerk, but she knew he wouldn't do anything weird. She had faith in that, right?

And slowly, she moved to where she could see them. The girl was Anna Kateridge. She was in her English class, right? She was kind of ditzy, but she couldn't really hate her for that. She was kind of the same way, after all.

She barely was able to approach them, but here she was.

Slowly she raised her hands to her mouth.

"Hey!"

She smiled a bit. It was not just to be friendly. To be kind of honest, she was kind of happy to see them.

(David Jackson continued from Body Count, quick placeholder until I can get back from the office)

David wandered aimlessly until he found the lake.

"Well unless you've got any other ideas...then I guess that's just what we do."

Anna couldn't help but feel incredibly intimidated by Glen. It wasn't the fact that he swore, or that he was just being an asshole in general to her. No, it was more about the fact that he seemed intent on asking all the hard questions, expecting Anna to have the answers. Despite what some people might say, she didn't have any of the answers (although whoever these people were that expected her to she needed to have a talk to, because they were clearly living in a different world).

"We try and survive, and...well, I guess we can think about the big "what if" later down the road. When we have to start thinking about this."

It felt so surreal to Anna. Not in the literal sense, but...yes, actually, in the literal sense as well. She and her classmates were trapped on an island in the middle of who knew where, and expected to kill each other. The message hadn't lost any of its meaning so far, but as the minutes and hours clocked by the ever-present danger just seemed to grow, like some kind of shadow. It wasn't like it was an actual danger, but more like one of those dangers you never see coming, or you can see coming out of the corner of your eye but you ignore because you're human.

But then again, she'd been saying this over and over and over in her head for the last couple of days, while having to put up with a guy who clearly wasn't dealing as well as her. The message was becoming clearer and clearer, while Glen was losing all touch. This wasn't exactly how she imagined her last days on earth, though...

Her internal musings, however poetic, were suddenly interrupted by two things. One of them was a female voice from nearby, calling out to nobody in particular. It could have been them. As Glen turned to the voice, Anna did, however, use this brief gap in people watching her to take the gun from her bag and store it in the waistband of her skirt, tucked under her shirt.

She had common sense after all.

The second was a loud screeching noise that was echoing across the island soon after this new voice appeared. She knew this sound too well, but for now she was going to ignore it. Simply because she felt like it.

For the first time in a while, Anna pulled her behind from the ground and ran with Glen over to the voice. It was still kind of dark (or light? Was it a reflection on ones personality to refer to it as kind of dark, kind of light? Kind of like that half empty/full thing everyone always referred to? Oops, sidetracked.), so it wasn't until the two of them got close that she saw it was indeed one of her classmates. Someone she was quite sure would not and did not fall to the island's pressures. Carol Burke, some chick from her English class.

"Oh my, Carol, you seem to be all wet and muddy, what on earth-"

bled to death, courtesy of a parting shot inflicted by Carol Burke

As aquantainces were shared over the booming sound of an indeterminable accent, she couldn't help but hear a name she had only herself had recognised in her mind. Carol Burke? Well Carol Burke was right here. What did that mean? Well, she wasn't dead for one thing. Did one of her friends die? But that wouldn't make any sense, why would her name be in the announcements if she wasn't dead or she wasn't one of the...killers

...

...


...



...




...as the unidentifiable accent droned on, Anna stepped back from the group, and pulled the gun from her waistband.

"Carol..."

Anna Kateridge was now pointing a loaded gun at a girl from her English class. And to top it all off, there was a small voice in the back of her head telling her to pull the trigger.

And just at that moment, the announcement started once more.

She heard Anna coo out to her, asking why she was so muddy. But the announcement... it distracted her. More people were killed. Reeves killed Nicole Husher.

Paige?

Carol's eyes widened. Jen had gotten her. She couldn't believe it. She could have gone out yesterday and looked for her, not waddle in her own pity at the hotel. She could have found her, she could have saved her. She could have done a million things-

"Lyn Burbank collapsed and bled to death, courtesy of a parting shot inflicted by Carol Burke, a friend of Ms. Burbank's victim from before."

....

No.

"Nice one, Ms. Burke. Dead is dead, regardless of whether you stick around to see your handiwork. I admire the ability to take a long view instead of going for instant gratification."

Lyn... Lyn was alright! That was a lie! Paige and her were safe! Carol couldn't have killed her. She just couldn't. She just panicked and fired that gun, and Lyn made it out okay! It was going to be fine! She'd grab Paige and Karl and they'd escape together!

Right? Of course!

She heard someone say her name, and then she saw Anna point the gun towards her.


Carol felt her heartbeat thumping in her chest.

It felt like her mind had shut off, and was replaced by one emotion.

Fear.

With the previous dunking, the fact that they still weren't too far from the lake, and Paige's and Lyn's deaths, that was the only thing coming to mind.

She could move, she could say something.

But she didn't.

Instead, she looked at the two with large, frightened eyes, opening and closing her mouth like she couldn't think of anything to say.

There were many things running through the head of Glen Bole right now. Probably not as many as the many things running through Anna Kateridge's mind, but still damn close. One was the voice of the announcement, although given what the hell was happening in front of him, it was somewhere right at the back. The other was, well, what was happening in front of him.

Out of nowhere Anna had pulled a gun on what Glen initially thought was himself, but was instead on the girl standing right next to him, Carol, who he himself had just heard declared a killer. Granted, there was a time and a place for questions, but right now there was still the fact that Anna was holding a gun on him. What the fuck.

"What the FUCK, Anna?" Glen yelled, keeping his hands instinctively away from anything that could look like he was about to jump her. And granted, he wanted to jump her and strangle her for keeping a fucking gun secret from him. Back when he was waging war on the world (though really just April) he could have used it to fuck shit up, somewhere, some place, although such a thought wasn't really at the forefront right now, given that said gun was pointed at a different girl.

"Jesus, just...just put it down, okay?" he started, trying to do his best to be the sane one here. Even if that was the cook leading the cavalcade just a little bit.

One thing that made it easier for him, yet didn't exactly ping in his mind how dangerous it was getting by the side of that lake, was that his, and everyone else's around him's, collars were starting to beep. The surprise was evident in Anna's eyes.

"YES, WE'RE IN A DANGER ZONE ANNA, PUT THE GUN DOWN AND LET'S GO! FORGET ABOUT HER!" he yelled, and that random spat of yelling seemed the work. The gun's barrel dropped from view and Anna was out of her trance. Not wasting any time, he hightailed it.

And following close behind was Anna Kateridge, trying to figure out what exactly she was about to do with that gun.

((Glen Bole and Anna Kateridge continue in This One Goes Out to the One I Left Behind))

[[GMing approved by Pippin while he was away]]

Carol had frozen on the spot as Anna continued to point the gun on her.

She barely heard Glen try to calm her down, but she couldn't pay attention. She just couldn't. Carol could only focus on the gun.

And suddenly, beeping. That familiar beeping.

Anna lowered her gun, and with that she and Glen ran.



And Carol ran the other way. Away from the lake, away from Glen and Anna, away from the beeping, and just... away.

((Carol Burke continued in Lost))

The announcement hit David's ears, and in that moment the world stopped. Nikki was dead? Had already been dead a whole day? He wouldn't even get to hear how? Ice filled his veins. He would never see her again. Never hear her voice, feel the warmth of her body against his, do any of the things he'd planned to do over the summer...

The knife twisted in his heart, and he barely heard the rest of Danya's announcement. Almost didn't care when his collar started beeping. Half of him said to just stay there on his knees, let the pain end, see Nikki in the next world where they could be happy.

Only half. Adrenaline kicked in with each beep, sheer instinctive self-preservation pushing him to his feet. There'd been a name. Danya had oh-so-smugly chosen not to say what happened, but he'd given a name.

Reeves. That dumb behemoth who'd always carried himself around like king of the school. David knew what he had to do.

He turned, and ran into the trees.

(Continued in Missteps)