For Everyone

[Applesintime]

((Stephen Sanders continued from Icarus))

His feet hurt.

But he kept walking.

[Applesintime]

Eventually, his feet hurt too much. He had walked for... how long exactly, he didn't know. The sun looked like it was starting to dip down, so he must have been walking all day. The crimson on his shirt had dried, turned into a more brown-red colour. Stephen was almost afraid of what sleep would bring. Today had been one of the worst days of his life. It had started out so optimistic. Claudia and Emily were with him, and they were going to get out of here. Tell the cops.

And at the end of the day, both of his friends were dead, one by his own hand, and he was here alone. More people were probably dead. And, unless he decided like a fucking idiot to turn back around, nobody else was getting out. He might be the only survivor of everything.

In a way, that was comforting. Nobody else would know what had happened to Emily. He could lie. The thought, however, didn't sit right with Stephen. He had done the crime, and he'd have to take whatever the fuck happened to him. Given the circumstances, nobody would convict him in a court, but even still...

Sighing, he turned around in his sleeping bag, trying to get comfortable.

Tomorrow was another day.

[Carrion Queen]

((Ximena Rodriquez continued from The Day is My Enemy))

Ximena punched it, driving through the desert in roughly the same straight line she knew she had traveled to leave.

If you had told Ximena that she would be rushing back to the jail she'd been penned in for several days where she saw her friends die, she'd have probably stomped on your foot and used her Gift to give you an aneurysm.

Presently, however, an unusual shape came up on the horizon -- the second time this morning such a thing had occurred. It looked familiar.

Ximena gradually slowed the car down to a stop until she was near the thing on the ground. She leaned over and opened the passenger's side door to get a clearer look while still being able to speed away if needed.

"Hey!" she shouted.

It was one of the sleeping bags those dickfucks had given them. After a moment, she realized that she knew who he was, in the way you know people you are casually acquainted with. People you know of rather than know.

"Get in, bone man. We can talk on the way."

(( Your Uber Has Arrived ))

[Applesintime]

He hadn't slept well at all. It wasn't exactly fucking easy to sleep in the desert, and then came the nightmares. About a bat, some gross perversion of a human body, ripping him into shreds or stabbing him over and over. Sometimes Claudia was there. Sayuna showed up once. At some point he'd just given up on sleeping and lay there, watching the sun slowly rise over the horizon until the day came. From here, he could still hear the announcements, even if it was just faint.

At first, it was just the same old shit, but then the universe made up for the shitty day he'd had. Some guy had... stopped all this. They were free to go. And, and Claudia's name wasn't on the announcement. She had killed Anatoly, but Stephen wasn't in any position to judge. They were both alive, and they could both get out of here.

And then a fucking car pulled up and Ximena shouted at him to get in. Bone man, she called him. A new nickname to add to the pile.

"Wh," he stated, sleepily rubbing his eyes and then pinching himself. Ximena was still there, staring at him impatiently. Without her collar, either. Looks like his escape group hadn't been the only people to figure out how to get them off. Scrambling to his feet and grabbing his bag, Stephen hopped into the passenger's seat, setting his bag down in the footrest. "Shit, I thought I was the only one." He couldn't help but laugh. He'd agonised about not being able to save more people, but now fate had set into motion a way to get everyone else out.

Ximena continued to drive, coming closer and closer to the building he'd spent a whole day trying to escape from. Meanwhile, Stephen fiddled with the car's radio, but there didn't seem to be any signal. Only a disk of Now That's What I Call Music! 8.

Well, it was better than silence. Turning the radio on, a familiar song played through the car.

'♪ I thought love was only true in fairy tales, meant for someone else but not for me, love was out to get me... ♪"

((Ximena Rodriguez and Stephen Sanders continued in Your Uber Has Arrived))