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[Aster]

BAUMGARTNER
DANIELLE J.
FEMALE STUDENT NO. 03
A POS
CATHOLIC

Danielle stared blankly at the dog tag, running over the grooves of the letters with her fingers. She’d always dreamed of getting one. In a simpler time, she would play with Buddy’s, and asked him if she could get one. Her stepfather laughed and ruffled her hair, saying something about how she’d get her own when she was eighteen.

In a way, he was right.

She took in a sharp breath and laid down, clutching the dog tag to her chest. Danielle had woken up in a bed, as if everything before was a particularly bad nightmare. But this bed was much more uncomfortable than the one at home, and her room wasn’t a faded light pink. As she stared at the ceiling, she assessed her situation. Against all odds, she’d been picked for the Program; in the General’s words, the greatest test of patriotism ever devised.

A test she was going to pass, Danielle assured herself. She’d been prepared all her life to make her country proud, and this was supposed to be no different. Her last conversation with her stepfather wandered into her mind, his causal but firm belief that, if thrown in, she could win.

Maybe, just maybe, she could. Danielle sat up and exhaled, hugging her knees to her chest. Sure, she had qualms about killing, but isn’t that what their troops did abroad? She supposed it was easier when your victims weren’t fellow Americans, but it was something she knew she had to learn to stomach sooner or later.

She was going to win, she told herself, with a look so determined she almost bored holes in the wall.

Danielle Baumgartner was going to win.

[Cicadan]

Jacqueline had never been particularly good at tests. The quote greatest test of all, no exceptions. Jacqueline's old man had gone so far as to cuss out The Program as a waste of taxpayer dollars. The very man who'd shattered his spine on The General's word...

Jacqueline sighed, and tugged the scratchy wool scarf around her neck a bit closer, tighter.

She stalked carelessly between Americana homes and fences, her dry-mud caked boots crunching crisply with each step. She kept her contemplation to a minimum. only occasionally allowing flights of fancy to tempt her. An empty head could be better filled by the liveliness of another, whether friend or enemy...

Whether Jacqueline would need to point gun at them or not... But for now, she kept the deadly weight to herself, invisible in her bag, dragging down the shoulder she'd sacrificed to the straps.

"Dani."

Jacqueline spoke with an invisible smile and a slightly heartened tone. Danielle's was the one face she'd most hoped to see. They were separated by the grime of a window, but the door to the house was open and Jacqueline could join Danielle on her side. Jacqueline wandered inside, but kept her hands and distance to herself. Hugs, sobs, paranoia, up to Danielle.

[Aster]

It was almost pathetic, how all that bravado evaporated the moment someone else made their presence known. Maybe it was the fact that Danielle had spent all this time hyping herself up, and she forgot that she was disarmed.

She jumped, yelping as she fell off the bed and hit her head against the wall. Groaning, she scrambled to her feet, eyes darting around the room. The voice sounded somewhat distant, but they could still see her. She looked down the hall, out the door, and at the familiar figure outside the fence.

Oh.

Oh no.

Oh no no no no no. Danielle’s eyebrows furrowed, mouth open in disbelief. Of all people, why did it have to be Jacqueline? Had she been picked? She struggled to remember what had happened on Announcement Day. She’d been the fourth to be picked, behind Mina, Charity, and some other guy whose name escaped her. Hardly enough time to watch everyone get picked.

Why couldn’t it have been one of those three instead? If they’d been her first opponents, she could take this easily. Even if they were armed to the teeth, caught her off guard, and had murder in their eyes, Danielle would rather fight them than Jackie.

With them, at least she wouldn’t hesitate.

[Cicadan]

Jacqueline stayed on her side of the hallway. Several seconds passed.

Paranoia, so it seemed.

"Dani." Jacqueline dropped her voice to a low lullaby coo. Funnily enough it seemed far stronger than it had been in months. A chance to finally have a good and deep night's rest- albeit, against her own will- or perhaps adrenaline straight to the vocal chords.

"Please." She crept a few steps down the hall. "I'm armed, but..." Jacqueline made a slow and careful show of the gun. In palm, fingers splayed open, far from the trigger. The gun went on the floor and stepped over it. Away from it, towards Danielle. Close enough that all the details of both girl's faces were clarified, pristine. "I won't come any closer if you don't want me to."
"
"I just want to know you're doing okay." A pause. "Whatever you need to cope. You can scream." She envisioned Dani smothered into her shoulder howling in hysterics. "You can hit me." The vision deux, but with Jacqueline herself sprawled on the floor, dazed. "Whatever. We don't have to go anywhere. We don't have to face this. Not yet." Jacqueline stayed still. Steady, strong, measured. She had to be, for the sake of another.

[Aster]

“No,” Danielle blurted, backing up against the wall. Jacqueline’s warm face and soothing voice were a godsend in a situation like this, but the gun in her hands definitely wasn’t. As close as they were, they were both patriots, and damn well knew their duties. They would have to hack, slash, and shoot their classmates until only one was left standing.

They both knew that only one of them was going to walk away from this.

She wanted to say something: a threat, a plea, a confession. But all that came out was a yelp, followed by soft blubbering as tears welled up in her eyes.

[Cicadan]

Jacqueline wanted to respect her friend's wishes. This was, after all, the textbook Program experience. Friends meant nothing. Jacqueline understood that on an academic level, certainly. She already had the tools needed to do her duty, to fight as her country demanded of her.

Dani was crying.

Jacqueline quietly marched forward, strode into the room. "Sorry," she offered in that ever-familiar voice. Her arms found what purchase they could, pinned between Danielle and the wall, Jacqueline hugged her crying friend. Never saying a word herself, just being there.

[Aster]

Danielle made a noise when Jacqueline stepped forward, but she didn’t do anything to stop her. Undeterred, her friend pulled her unto a hug, and that’s when Danielle broke down. It was as if she’d squeezed the wail out of her. She wrapped her arms around Jacqueline’s waist and buried her face in her shoulder, muffling her sobs.

The two of them had always been physically intimate - mostly instigated by Danielle’s - but she couldn’t remember being this close. Jacqueline’s warmth washed over her, and for the first time since her name was called, she felt at peace. After about a minute or so, her cries petered out into sniffles and soft whimpers. She wanted to stay in this embrace forever.

But as Danielle came to her senses, she knew she couldn’t. They were here for a reason, and only one of them was supposed to walk away from this encounter. She gave her best friend one last squeeze, a final nuzzle to her neck. Her hair smelled like lavender.

This closeness, this lull, this was all to her advantage. Taking in a sharp breath, Danielle brought her knee up to Jacqueline’s stomach and shoved her onto the bed. She clambered on top of her, and with a scream, brought her fist down on her face.

[Cicadan]

This was very much comfortably familiar. It was quiet as well. Each girl together, and alone with her own thoughts. She wouldn't lie about how her thoughts wandered. So close, perhaps even too close, Jacqueline had never quite gotten a sense of where the line between the two of them was drawn. It didn't matter, of course. Not now. Not even the danger mattered, the sword hanging above both their heads, that each of them could feel the vulnerabilities of the other's flesh, the spots to plunge the dagger. Jacqueline allowed herself to muse on that as well. How to kill her friend. But it didn't matter. And, for whatever reason, she didn't do it.

Jacqueline merely played her role. Heart softly beating, breath gently washing over the hairs on Danielle's head.

Danielle made the first move.

Fair. They'd had their moment.

Jacqueline was still taken by surprise, though. Wind torn from her lungs, only barely enough breath left to sharply squeal the rest out as she fell to the bed. No time to vault back up. She hadn't been trained for such a maneuver anyways. Quick evaluation: Danielle on top of her, weight of her hips on the soft of Jacqueline's torso, escape was impossible.

Jacqueline flailed with one arm, failing to protect her face, blinded as both eyes were forced shut by instinct to protect what she could. Pain. Her arm continued to extend, she clawed at whatever flesh she found, was it a face? It was somehow familiar, whatever her palm plastered over. Meanwhile, her free arm, it found the bedside table at an angle. Scrabbled. She touched her other hand at something cylindrical, smooth, bulky. A weapon. She rushed, searching for a proper grip with fumbling fingers. She just needed to keep her composure. Keep Danielle from finishing the job.

[Aster]

Jacqueline was fighting back. Of course she was. Danielle had expected her to, but she still shrieked when the girl raked her fingernails down her cheek, forcing her to shut her eyes. She retaliated by pushing down on her chest, and delivering another blow on her face. Danielle kept up the flurry of punches, hoping that she’d stun her into complacency. But Jacqueline’s patriotism was as ironclad as hers, and neither were going down without a fight.

By chance, Danielle’s fingertips grazed over her friend’s wool scarf, and an idea came to her in the heat of the moment. As if she was on autopilot, she seized the ends and spread her arms out wide, yanking them so hard she swore Jacqueline’s head lifted off the bed. Danielle grit her teeth as her knuckles turned white, tightening the scarf around her throat.

[Cicadan]

Jacqueline indeed felt herself being yanked off the bed by Danielle's ferocious coup de grâce. Neck first, her head limply following before the sheer, burning torsion settled into equilibrium and the crown of Jacqueline's head sunk into the pillow of the bed. Her eyes flared open.

She was losing her grip around the weapon. She fought for every inch of her finger's progress. Not enough. Her hand on Danielle's face also redoubled, gouging, seeking... something. Nothing to be had. Also not enough. Within a few seconds of Jacqueline's vision beginning to blur, painful brightness flooding each eyeball, her other arm fell limp, funeral clasp over her chest.

A thousand yard stare. For a brief second, pupils dilated, drowning with desperate tears. Fear. Jacqueline knew fear. A single rattling gasp, compressed into a tire hiss.

Then it passed, and she accepted it. Her gaze became as it always was. Soft. Inviting. She fished over Danielle's face, pried at her shut eyes, somehow still seeing even as Danielle choked her vision, her life, out of her. Selfishly, she hoped. She hoped Danielle would at least look at her once last time, as a friend.

She hoped Danielle would prosper.

She hoped her family would heal.

She hoped the pain would stop.

One of her wishes at least, would be granted.

F24 : Jacqueline Hastert, Deceased

[Aster]

In hindsight, Danielle wished she’d done this a different way. Maybe she should’ve seized the gun on the floor and gunned Jacqueline down. Maybe she should’ve gone for the lamp or some other piece of furniture and bashed her head in. Maybe she should’ve picked an easier, cleaner, or at least quicker method instead of strangulation, one where she wasn’t forced to listen to her best friend choke to death.

To her credit, Jacqueline fought until the very end, weakly clawing at her face until her dying breath. Danielle didn’t let go until she heard the soft thud of her friend’s arm falling to the bed, and the writhing between her legs stopped. She exhaled, taking all her energy not to collapse on top of her.

She gingerly opened her eyes, expecting to see a grotesque death mask. But instead, she looked serene: eyes half-lidded, a soft smile on her lips. It could’ve been a face she’d made back at home, if she wasn’t so blue.

It was much, much worse.

Danielle slipped off of the bed and crept away slowly, until her back hit the closet door. She paused to look at Jacqueline's corpse, sprawled on the bed. Whimpering, she slid down to the floor and wailed, burying her face in her hands.

She did it.

[Aster]

She sat there for a while, until her sobbing subsided. Danielle remembered where she was, and picked herself up, forcing herself to soldier on. Jacqueline’s pack had fallen to the side in the struggle, which had knocked Danielle’s onto the floor. She slowly put everything back into her bag, occasionally stealing glances at Jacqueline’s face. Part of her wanted to shut her eyes, like they did in movies, but she didn’t have the guts to touch a corpse’s face. Instead, she shed her pea coat and draped it over her face. It wasn’t like she needed it in this weather, anyway.

After that, she moved over to take Jacqueline’s handgun. Danielle felt its weight in her hands, and forced a smile. At the very least, she got a weapon out of it. She tucked the gun into the waistband of her skirt, then transferred its ammunition and manual from Jacqueline’s bag to her own. Next were her rations, then her compass, flashlight, and first aid kit. After some deliberation, Danielle decided to ditch the latter.

For the first time since she woke up, she stepped out of the house. It was a nice, sunny day, and the neighborhood was quiet. Danielle paused, and softly shut the front door before she went on her way.

((Danielle Baumgartner continued in América rompió mi corazón))