SOTF Mini

((Bunny Barlowe continued from The Bad Bitches Club))

You know, this seemed all kinds of unfair.

She had reached the shipping yard about an hour ago, and the very first thing that had crossed her mind when she saw the big blocky shipping containers was that she absolutely needed to find a way on top of them. Because, uh, duh? What else were you gonna do in a place like this? C’mon, as if you didn’t wanna do the same! Climb on top of them, crawl inside, whack the outside of them with a stick like they were the world’s biggest steel drum, shipping containers were like the forbidden fruit for kids with overexcited imaginations!

So Bunny had managed to scramble her way on top of one, thanks to whichever kind dockworker had left a bunch of crates stacked next to it before he’d, like, been driven off the island or died or whatever, and sat down right on the edge, legs hanging over the side.

For the past hour, she had been swinging them back and forth, heels occasionally crashing into the container with a hollow ‘clang’, and pouting.

Because this really was freakin’ unfair.

All she’d wanted was a nice, long, peaceful rest. And she’d got it! And it had been great! But had she been allowed to savour it afterwards? No! No she had not! Because big, dumb Wendy Fischer had rolled on up, and had decided that her laundry list of murders was totally acceptable and cool, but Bunny’s was a big no-no. The hypocrisy was, like, honestly stunning, really. Anybody who tried to justify their murders and killings as a good thing was about as trustworthy as a … a really untrustworthy person. Yeah.

Because Bunny, obviously, wanted to kill Wendy. She had plenty of reasons to do it, after all! And after what had just gone down at the cabin, well, those reasons had simply increased in number and strength!

Bunny looked down at the puddle next to her, and gazed at the bloody mess on the side of her head where her ear used to be, and the urge to put a bullet between Wendy’s eyes grew stronger once more.

The sound of the ocean just didn’t sound right anymore.

So! She had a reason to kill someone, even after she’d secured her way off the island with that kill on Everett days ago. That didn’t make it alright. That didn’t make it good. It was murder! Murder, and she couldn’t believe she was thinking this but apparently some people out here needed a sledgehammer reminder, was bad! She was doing bad things! Everyone who’d killed, or wanted to kill someone, was doing bad stuff, so get off your high horse, have a cookie, and take a gosh dang potshot at someone!

“Hmmph.”

Bunny made a pouty little noise, tapping her finger against the side of her machinenpistole’s trigger.  It was good to be reunited again. Wendy had mistreated them both. They both had scores to settle.

And if anyone else tried to cause a ruckus? That would be their loss when they were lying on their backs in the mud. They didn’t need to try and fight her. Self-defence and stuff! Now that was justifiable.

Either way, she hoped someone turned up quick. She was getting pretty bored.

The eternal return.

[Katie Gittschall continued from We're Runnin' Right Back, Here We Go Again]

Wandering the familiar container corridors brought back bad memories, so she sought a way to survey from below. She had come out here to spend some time alone, so the last thing she wanted was for someone to get the drop on her from above. Some of the twists and turns came through her memory as she saw them, eventually guiding her to something of a stairway of crates.

So, up she went.

A determined, quiet scramble, her footing unsteady. Hand over hand, she hoisted herself on top of the metal container, and saw that she wasn't alone. A familiar face greeted her, made all the more familiar over the past several days. Making no assumptions, she spoke.

"Lovely day, isn't it?"

Déjà vu. A loose grin found its way onto her face.

Bunny heard the sound of footsteps on hollow metal, but didn’t recognise it. Nothing sounded quite right anymore. It sounded like she was hearing them underwater, muffled and distant, hard to tell exactly where they were coming from. Far away, at the other end of the shipping crate? Or right behind her?

Either way, she angled her body to look behind her, craning her neck, gazing up at a strikingly familiar face.

“Huh.”

When was the last time she had seen Kitty? That was a question they both knew the answer to. The bus stop, in the pouring rain. Quite the far cry from here, in basically every possible way. The sky was lovely and clear, for a start. She supposed she shouldn’t have been too shocked to see Kitty again; after all, there was an equal chance for her to bump into any of her classmates on the island. But, well, y’know…

It was getting close to endgame, now. And to be honest, Bunny had expected to hear Kitty’s name on the announcements a good while ago.

Kitty spoke, and her words, like her footsteps, just didn’t sound right, like there was a thick layer of fog between the two of them, that Kitty’s voice only just managed to breach. Bunny couldn’t keep a frown off of her face. This was getting real annoying real quickly. Maybe, when she caught up to Wendy again, she’d give that binch a taste of her own medicine. Yeah, that sounded fun!

“Yeah,” Bunny said, and her own lazy smile drifted onto her face.

“Just peachy.”

Yeah, she remembered. What, did you think Bunny Barlowe didn’t remember hanging out with her friends? Rude!

A moment passed, the ocean breeze tousling Bunny’s hair. She could feel the blood matted into it. First thing she was gonna do when she got outta here was take a long, hot shower.

“So how’s it going? Whatcha been up to?”

"I'm okay."

She took a step over and sat down a decent distance away from Bunny. Not too far, but not too close either.

"Lost a few friends, made a few friends, lost them too. The cycle, I guess."

Katie's eyes drifted to Bunny. She looked like she had her fair share of bruises, but Katie was fairly certain that most of the blood on her body wasn't her own. It was a little startling to see her without makeup, but that wasn't what caught her attention the most.

"Do we have matching injuries?" she asked, pointing to the gap in her ear where her earring had been, "Well, you're a little worse for wear than I am, but..."

She sighed deeply and briefly wondered if she was dying, but nobody she had met before had seemed this calm while they were dying. There was only one somebody to base that off of, but the point still stood. Kasumi had suffered, and Katie (Kitty? was it worthwhile to distinguish the two?) had watched, transfixed, and been unable to stand in while Seb was murdered. Seb and Aaron were one-and-done. No suffering there, at least.

"I'd ask you how you've been, too," Katie said, "but, well, I've kinda heard."

It was around this point that Bunny realised she’d let her guard down. Her muscles were relaxed, her finger had slipped away from the trigger. The gun itself was pointed in some random direction, something that would waste valuable seconds in moving it should a threat come about. She was no longer coiled up like a spring, ready to strike as soon as someone made a move in her direction.

Because y’know what? Y’really know what? Bunny considered Kitty a friend. And looking back at everyone else she’d bumped into on the island, this was the first person she could say that about. Everyone else had been either just another classmate with a name and a face and nothing else, or, y’know. Jeanie. Wendy. A dumb stupid worthless jerkface cunt.

“Aww, twinsies!” Bunny said, giggling, looking at Kitty’s bloody ear.

Even though they weren’t twinsies. Even though one of them had been constantly on the announcements and the other one hadn’t. Even though Bunny didn’t have a clue what Kitty’s time on the island had been like, and what path she’d taken, and what she was planning on doing from hereon out. Even with all that, she still considered Kitty a friend.

But did Kitty feel the same way? Well, Bunny would probably be able to find out as this conversation went on. But there was, of course, a chance that Kitty’s experiences had pushed her towards actively seeking out people to kill. Or maybe she was just like Wendy or Scarlett or any of those other idiots, the dumb-dumbs who still considered themselves forces of good as they ripped and tore their way through anyone they considered ‘evil’. Or maybe Kitty just didn’t consider Bunny as good of a friend as she thought!

If any of those were the case, well, it kinda sucked, but hey. Plenty more fish in the sea. Plenty more people to love her when she got out of here alive.

“Kinda is the big word there, y’know!”

Bunny grinned, a lopsided grin, finger slipping back over the trigger, relaxation slowly seeping out of her body.

“The announcements only tell half the story, Kitty-Kat. Everett shot first, did you know that? I hope you didn’t run into Wendy, cause she’s a bit of a lying jerk, and she’d have said I was planning on killing him, which is so not true! And also, super hypocritical, considering she’s been killing and maiming anybody who gets in her way cause she thinks she’s, like, some sort of paladin or something. She tried to burn me alive and then shot my ear off, by the way! I’ve killed, sure, but only cause people try to kill me first.”

Her smile turned as sweet as syrup.

“Are you gonna try to kill me too?”

For a moment, she considered it.

Just for a moment.

"No."

Katie stared at her shoes.

"You did what you had to."

There wasn't much left to say, now. Her mark had been made, and she had found some kind of makeshift peace with things. She had been living on borrowed time ever since the bathrooms—hell, ever since she ran into Sebastien—and she knew that of all the ways she could have spent those extra few days, she spent them wandering in circles, barely scrapping by. She had lost a bit of weight, the little that there was to lose. Her gaunt, sunken features (a projection? an assumption? there were no mirrors, no clear pools to gaze into. only tar, only dirt.) betrayed that, she was sure.

"But, ah, it's just Katie now. Not Kitty anymore."

The shivers and stutters had fallen away long ago, a curtain pulled to the side with robe and blood and aches. Her balance was still wrong, but, in taking mental inventory, she found that a lot of her problems had been killed away. No more posing, or posturing, or anything like that. She felt like she had gotten over her fear of the dark—no room for that when you're dying of thirst—and her claustrophobia, though still present, was nowhere near as bad. It could be that it was so bad that it was operating on a level that she couldn't recognize, but ignorance was bliss.

"Just thought you might want to know that."

“Oh.”

Bunny had to admit, she was disappointed.

Not about the fact that Kitty wasn’t going to kill her, obviously! Don’t be silly! No, Bunny was more than slightly disappointed about the fact that Kitty was, uh, no longer called Kitty. Because c’mon, Bunny and Kitty? That worked so perfectly! Bunny and Katie? That was… well… that was nothing, really, was it? Come on now.

On more pressing matters, though, it was a really nice change of pace, Kittatie not wanting to murder her. The last person she’d met who hadn’t wished death upon her was… Soren? And before that, Tania, which had gone south fast and before that… Simon Leroy.

Wow. That really was a sucky collection of people.

“Well, uh, in that case, hi Katie!” Bunny said, cheer only momentarily disrupted, warm smile on her face again. “It’s nice to meet you!”

She did look much more like a Katie than a Kitty, right now, to be true. A Kitty was, well, like a Bunny; cheerful and bouncy and bright and happy and good! And this girl in front of Bunny? She was… there. Just about. She looked like a ghost. Sounded like one too. Bunny didn’t even doubt she was telling the truth about not planning to kill her. Katie looked like the act of lying would take all her remaining strength out of her.

“So, like… what are you planning on doing? If killing me isn’t on your bucket list? I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s lovely to see you! But it’s been…”

Bunny started to count on her fingers, before a confused look crossed her face. She paused. Then she giggled.

“Uh, I think I fell asleep for a whole day, so I’m not actually sure how long we’ve been trapped out here. But it’s been a whole dang while, that’s my main point!”

She tilted her head, looking curiously at Katie.

“So surely you’ve got some kinda idea of what you want by now, right?”

"Not really," Katie confessed, "I think for a little while I was thinking that I'd spend time trying to figure out, like, who I really am or something, but I don't think that'll be happening any time soon. Right now I'm just trying to, I dunno, stay alive, I guess?"

She wasn't getting the best vibe from Bunny, right now. All this thinking about not being nervous had made her—guess what?—a little nervous again. Something was off. There was the feeling of eyes on her back, but that could easily be chalked up to the cameras all around her. She hoped her parents weren't watching.

"I think it's been about a week, anyways," she continued, "I got the impression that we'd have wrapped this up a little while ago, but, eh."

She shrugged her shoulders and leaned back a little, looking Bunny in the eyes.

"I'm guessing that you want to win, right?"

“Uh, yeah, duh!”

Her voice was still cheerful. The warm smile was still very much still on her face as she scooted herself round to face Katie, lifting her legs up and back onto the shipping container. She brushed the dirt off of her skirt – aw, dang, she loved this skirt, it’d have to get a thorough wash when she got home! – and tilted her head to the other side.

“I don’t just want to win, I’m going to win! I’ve already booked my ticket outta here, so, really, I can just wait til there’s only one other person left! Ooh, I hope it’s Wendy. That’d make putting a bullet between their eyes even more fun!”

See, that was only a half truth. The firing of the gun, the rush of blood to her head, the adrenaline pumping through her veins as she pulled the trigger, now that was fun! And, so far, she’d only been doing it to people who deserved it, people who tried to hurt her, or pissed her off. But if it came down to the wire, and the only person left was, say, someone like Katie Kat? That wouldn’t be fun. She’d do it, don’t get her wrong. But… eesh. It wasn’t something she tried to think about. It was easier not to.

If it was Wendy, of course, she was gonna frickin’ relish that opportunity. That part was a 100% bona fide Bunny Truth.

“But, like, do you not want to win, then, Katie?”

Bunny stood up as she spoke, dusting her skirt off again, and all of a sudden, her gun had ended up pointing directly towards Katie’s midriff. How on earth had that happened?

“Because, y’know, it sounds to me like you don’t.”

She looked into Katie’s eyes.

“Are you sure you’re trying to live?”

Hmm.

Hmmmmm.

There wasn't really a good answer to that question, was there?

Because, deep down, Katie didn't really want to live. Everything that she had once had was long gone by now. All of her friendships, her family, even her name—even if she had taken that much away from herself. All that had kept her from crawling away someplace alone, curling up, and giving in? Just her own fear of death. She had seen how it could take and change and warp and distort and that was enough to keep her away from it for a long, long time. At least, to keep her from the freshness of it. Give a body a couple days of decay and she could stay right over it and mumble something about death and a valley with a backpack and a tent and be on her way.

This was the freshest it got, though. Death was staring her right in the face, in the hands of someone she once considered a friend.

All she could do was stare back wordlessly. She was kind of screwed either way. Either die here or die later. She had already died. She was always in the process of dying. The only reliably consistent thing in her life was inconsistency, and that inconsistency alone was proof of its truth. She was Katie, she was Kitty. She was dead, she was alive, she would never die, she was never born. All the same. The gun would fire and kill her, it had already killed her, it would never fire, it would never kill her, all of those things were true.

But, speaking practically, she still had that club thing in her bag. She could just reach on over, pull it out, and get shot in the process, but at the very least it would have looked like she still had some fighting spirit left in her.

Hmm.

Hmmmmm.

Why lie, though?

Instead, Katie continued to stare, exhaling deeply from her nose.

“I thought not.”

Bunny sighed, then gave Katie a small, pitying little smile.

Then, with no further hesitation, she pulled the trigger.

Katie tried to close her eyes, but there was no time.

She had read an article online by someone who claimed to have survived a mass shooting, somewhere down south. New Orleans? They claimed that, immediately, it didn't really hurt, until they fainted. Then, a burning heat radiated out from where the round finished it journey in their body. They lay on the street, waiting for some kind of white light or something that signaled the beginning of death, but it never came. Instead, they were caught in a mob of screaming and in a cage of heat from the still-intact round lay lodged in their chest.

When had she read this article? Why had she come across it? She wasn't sure. It probably was for some kind of U.S. History essay, or something. The point was, in this very moment, at this very time, Katie was 99% percent sure, though not entirely, because everything was kind of a mess currently, but still, just about mostly certain,

that she felt none of those things.

Instead, she wanted to scream, but no sound came out. She couldn't know, but right now, bile and blood were pouring out of her stomach and slowly emptying out of the hole torn by one of Bunny's rounds. The others had managed to tear through her spleen and liver, both of which were also now leaking a variety of fluids inside of her body. Another of the rounds had managed to ricochet off of a rib and exit through her back. She was unfortunate enough to not have been killed instantly by the gunfire, and instead had to deal with the never-ending feeling of reaching outward, trying to find something to hold onto for dear life, and coming up empty. Her arm never moved.

She felt the impact of her body against the top of the shipping container as she tumbled backwards, but it felt like she was falling through water instead of air. A million thoughts were busy going through her head, and all of them were pain.

Ick. Bleh. Gosh. She was really never going to get used to that sight, the messy wounds where the bullets had ripped through skin and clothing, the blood dripping and pooling, the look on their face as they realised their life was slipping through their fingers. It was super gross, and it made Bunny feel all pale and like she was gonna throw up every single time, and it was even worse when it was happening to somebody she actually liked.

Because that, honestly, was the reason she had shot Katie. Not out of hatred. Not because she wanted to, because the adrenaline rush had already vanished and she was all too aware of the blood pumping out of the holes in Katie’s chest. She didn’t need to shoot, because she had already gotten more than enough kills to satisfy the terrorists’ weird fetish or whatever they had going on.

But there was only going to be one winner at the end of all of this, and that winner was gonna be Bunny Barlowe. Katie was gonna die at some point in the next couple of days. And if she had really and truly given up and realised that fact as well, which it looked like she had done, then wouldn’t it be nicer for a friend to put you out of your misery? Rather than having to face doing it yourself, or being taken out by someone who just wanted you to suffer?

That was how Bunny truly and honestly saw it. But she’d kinda messed up a little bit, huh? Katie Kat was still breathing, just about. Bunny had really hoped that she’d manage to hit her heart with her spray of gunfire, but as much as she had come to rely on her maschinenpistole, it was, y’know, a little hard to control!

Still, she could fix this, easy peasy. No more words or anything else that would waste time. She just needed to put Kitty out of her misery. Her finger wrapped around the trigger again, and she-

A whizzing sound rushed past Bunny’s ear, and metal bounced off of metal, inches away from her. She spun around, Katie completely forgotten about, wondering just what the heck was going on.

The second pinging of bullet striking metal answered that question well enough. Instinct took hold of Bunny, just like it had in the burning cabin. Moving faster than she even knew she could, she slipped back down again, legs dangling over the side of the shipping container, palms placed flat against the cold metal.

For a moment, it was like nothing had ever changed. Like there wasn’t the body of an old friend bleeding out behind her.

Then Bunny pushed herself forwards, dropping down onto the mud. She rolled onto her side, scrambled to her feet, and ran into the labyrinth and out of sight.

((Bunny Barlowe continued in The Killer Bunny of Caerbannog))

[[Wendy Fischer Continued From: The Bad Bitches Club.]]

Darn it she got away again.

The Dragunov Sniper rifle, one of two guns confiscated from that bunny with the freshly bruised ear was held between her two hands and smoked ever so slightly from its muzzle, as G29, Wendy Fischer, stared through its scoped sight, from her perch, atop an even higher shipping container. The smoke disappeared quickly, blown by the slight ocean-side wind, although the smoke from the nearby bonfire of sorts, continued to flow.

It was strange, this flame just right inland from the start of the shipping yard, along with the flames of the forest from yesterday. Almost like they'd all been done by the same people. It's partially what lured her here in the first place. She wanted to see. Which was double lucky because the decision found her a blinking dot representing that troublesome bunny.

That handy little device from her friend Felicia was great. Thanks to the GPS, G18 would eventually be found again. It was only a matter of time.

Even more interesting: It seemed like her game had left someone behind; an ally of sort whom that nasty, evil bunny decided to backstab - of course. The girl was a number she was unfamiliar with or hadn't yet memorized. G05. Couldn't really tell who, from this far away.

Time to take a look see. She made her way down.

---

The Isolated Burning Cabin, Yesterday

The baton, her torch, touched the wooden wall of the room, of the bed and its sheets. Of the walls in the hall, of every other room, including the kitchen, the bathroom, the living room, all of it from within, as Wendy strolled her way through the isolated little shelter with a soft little hum as every area lit ablaze with every step behind her.

She made her way out and continued to circle the wooden building on the outside, to help the burn she'd started outside Bunny's window.

That nasty, ungrateful bunny. Should have just taken the soup. Now Wendy would make sure this bunny would have no hole to return to.

Still, it was a beneficial day. Not two days ago she had no power, but now Wendy had earned herself three times, the roaring power. If she found Irene anytime soon, maybe she'd give her one, to solidify the partnership. Maybe.

Wendy turned and watched with Mr. Dolphy in tow as the Isolated cabin crumbled behind them, fire devouring every part of it. What an exciting sight. Maybe this is how that scorched ruin from before came to be.

Then a second thought came to mind and Wendy could only slap her own forehead in reaction.

She forgot the pants. She was so dumb.

---

Present time, Present location. Presently at her feet was a G05.

"So, she shot you and just left you here, to suffer? What a terrible friend." Wendy stared at the familiar girl with the colored hair, as she sat on the little blue cooler, with the sniper to her side. "Should have never trusted her. Bunny's evil, you know. Good thing I chased her away, right? I bet you're in a lot of pain, you poor thing."

The girl had made some sounds, some movement. Some expression on her face as she took in Wendy's presence.

"Hi Kitty."

Wendy remembered her. Asked her for some help at the pits.

"Don't worry I'm here to help - end that pain."

Wendy reached into the bag and pulled out Bunny's former revolver. The third of her guns. Pointed it right at Kitty. But she shook her head and pulled something else out instead.

More reaction. This kitty was getting pretty excited, wasn't she.

"Oh, you remember this don't you? From the tar pits. When you and Miranda, K.K and who knows who else killed Kasumi."

....

Deny. Deny. Deny. Only she was a bad liar. Wendy saw it happen at the scene of the crime and now here, in cahoots with Bunny.

"You want me to believe that Kasumi just died on her own or something, after I took good care of her? The one decent person, the one person I had a fun, peaceful picnic with, the one person I just wanted to find some help for, after Bunny killed Everett who was going to help and when I get back to her she's dead and you're there with Miranda after she kills Sebastian and yet you live. Of course. You had nothing to do with it. Didn't kill her. I'm not that dumb. I mean, I'm not dumb at all. Even if you all think I am. Even Mr. Dolph would be able to see through this. Right Mr. Dolph?"

Wendy opened the cooler revealing the fish and almost teared up at her own frustration of being able to get some of these feelings out after finally having someone like this at her mercy. She just wished it could have been someone she had more personal animosity with, who wasn't already dead. Someone like Saachi or someone exactly like Bunny, who she could relish in, but this one would have to do. An accessory to a crime was still guilty.

Smoke wafted by from the bonfire slightly inland from the shipping yard they stood.

"Next, you'll say that you were never partnered with Miranda or K.K, or Bunny or some other terrible person. That she wasn't your accomplice. But I've heard enough. I'm getting Bunny next. For Everett."

Wendy spun the Louisville slugger in a circular arching motion. Kasumi's Bible Thumper. Poetic.

"I think it's time Kasumi was avenged."

Huh?

Katie tried to look up, but only saw red. A faint hissing noise rose from her throat.

Someone was delivering a speech in front of her.

A

fucking

speech.

What the hell were they talking about?

She couldn't tell. Things were fading, and fast.

Pointless words, clattering against her eardrums.

They were there, and they weren't. They never were. They were everywhere. Words were everything. Words were nothing. The only consistency was inconsistency. The only truth was a lie. There were bullets in her stomach. She no longer had a stomach. She never had a stomach. Her name was never Kitty. Cats had nine lives. She had lost her ninth life days ago. Years ago. Weeks ago. Seconds into the future. Time was irrelevant. She'd bleed out in minutes. She had already bled out. There was no such thing as blood. There was no such thing as stars. She writhed, and writhed, and writhed.

If she had been able to tell what they were saying, maybe she'd raise her voice in protest.

Or maybe that wouldn't be a good idea? What if this was an angel?

If it was an angel, she'd raise her voice even louder. It had come far, far too late.

A ghost, then? Like her. Ghost-boy. That was long past.

At least he had gone down arguing.

Fighting.

He had the honor of recognition.

For her, there was no consolation prize.

No participation medal.

She couldn't even say she'd done all she could.

She was a coward, hiding in a proverbial hole, moving from place to place, the flip-side of a coin, the turn-tail-and-run of the head-on-and-fight that she had given up.

Renounced.

If there was an audience to entertain, they'd all gone home by now.

Bored.

Dejected.

A little disappointed.

It would be pointless to draw the curtain closed, but it seemed that had been done for her anyways.

The angel was standing in front of the camera.

One final miracle.

Writhe,

gurgle,

wriggle,

gulp.

Ow,

ow,

ow,

ow.

Bits and pieces of the speech made it through to her as it dragged on. She felt like it would be disrespectful to die while someone was talking, but at the same time, she didn't think that. She couldn't, consciously. It just pinged off through her head, on a circuit that she wasn't able to perceive, because, at the moment, she was busy dealing with the fact that she had been shot in the fucking chest.

Whatever climactic moment this was for that person standing over her, she couldn't care.

Katie wasn't suffering for their sake, now, was she?

No.

There was no reason to be ashamed.

Things were always going to turn out this way.

This was the proper way to go.

She tried to scream, and a strange scratchy noise came out instead.

If that scream had managed to contort itself into words, to twist itself into some miracle of syllables, it would have probably sounded something like

"Fuck you,"

But it was a scratchy sound.

A visceral,

barbaric,

savage scratchy sound.

Not a scream.

It was too late for screams.

It was too late for mock defiance.

It couldn't be helped.

She had given in.

She had given up.

So it goes.

And so, when the bat finally came and rained down on her and broke her neck, it found that its target was already dead.

She had been dead for seven days.

G05: Katie Gittschall - DECEASED