The Reviews Are In, and It Does Not Look Good At All

[Laurels]

((CJ3: Asa Rosen continued from I Don't Have to Be Your Friend to Survive this Show. This is Now Survival of the Best Friends.))

Asa groaned as he pushed open the doors to the movie theater. His left arm still stung a bit from the stitches. Asa wondered if Dee had screwed up the stitches somehow. It wouldn't surprise him. The girl could understand him at all, so why would he expect her to be smart enough to sew a wound up? It was probably her attempt to fuck him with after that fight they had on the beach.

No, wait, that would mean she screwed up the stitches intending to have that fight with me. Well, I guess someone like her would do that. Stupid.

Asa looked around the lobby. The announcements had played while he was walking over to the theater. Asa wasn't surprised the majority of deaths had been Davison kids. Meat headed jocks Davis Todd and Isaiah Hall, annoying musician Taylor DeVasher, blabbermouth Lisa Toner, bubbly cheerleader Lucy Williams, bookworm Austin White, and neurotic coder Damion Castillo had all been killed, and Asa wasn't surprised. People like them probably didn't have much going for them coming into the game, so dying early wasn't much of a shock. More people were probably going to die soon since those morons got killed. That's how past seasons had gone, and Asa did not want to be easily killed because some kid got too paranoid because their buddies Johnny and Janey got killed and now they suspect everyone is playing. That would be stupid.

Asa continued to mutter curses under his breath as he walked into the lobby. It was really cold out, and he needed to warm up. It looked like the concession stand was open and operating. After the shit he'd gone through that day, Asa could use a large bag of popcorn, a coke, and a dark room he could sit in and ignore everything. Maybe it was a good thing he found the theater.

Asa made his way behind the counter, keeping the brush axe by his side. He grabbed an empty popcorn tub and began to scoop some popcorn inside. The popcorn had to be warm. He needed it to be warm, or else he'd be really frustrated with his situation and might smash the concession stand up. He'd especially do that if they filled the popcorn machines with kettle corn. He really hated kettle corn.

[Polybius]

((Brendan O'Toole continued from Deliver Us))

Brendan clutched the cattle gun tightly in his hand as he prepared to open the theatre doors. For all he knew someone like Munez or Alice Young could just be chilling on the other side, waiting for their next kill to wander in. If they were, he was going to be ready this time. He took a deep breath and pushed open the doors, hoping that he wouldn't find himself facing off with a-

Oh. This guy.

"Asa," he said "Funny running into you again."

Brendan scanned the lobby. It looked like Asa was the only one around. Brendan wasn't exactly happy to see Asa again, but at least he knew he was harmless.

"What happened to your arm?"

[Laurels]

It was stale. He really shouldn't have been surprised. Rather, he really shouldn't have been surprised, but he was still pissed off tasting the first piece of popcorn in his mouth. Asa had to think it through. The jackasses behind the show probably popped the popcorn before any of the kids woke up, and over twelve hours had passed since the game began. If this was a real movie theater, they would have probably sold all the popcorn in the time and popped fresh popcorn in the interim. All of that made sense to Asa, but it still made him want to take his brush axe and smash all the glass on the machine, mix it with the popcorn, then forcefully feed the popcorn-glass mixture to the motherfuckers and their grandmas who put him in this game.

However, he could fantasize later, as J.R.R. Toolekien had walked into the theater, gawking at the bandage on Asa's arm.

"God, just fucking kill me now," he muttered under his breath.

Asa set the bag of stale popcorn on the counter and turned to Toole Booth.

"Oh, this?" he said, raising the bandaged arm out. "I got this from some stupid poodle skirt-wearing hick who thought the best way to respond to a reasonable demand was to lunge a goddamn spear at me!"

Asa lowered his arm and stared at the boy. His day had been really shitty, and if Bristoole Palin was going to make things worse, he'd just lay his head on the hot dog grill and get it over with.

[Polybius]

Oh, okay. Asa wasn't going to be any easier to talk to than before.

"That sucks," he said, though he doubted that Asa had made 'reasonable demands' to anyone. "I've... I've had a pretty bad day myself..."

He trailed off and looked at the ground uncomfortably. Why was he even bringing this up to Asa? Brendan looked back up at him and decided to change the subject.

"Um... popcorn's probably stale."

[Laurels]

"Yeah, I know," Asa said.

Asa grabbed the bag of popcorn and pulled it closer to himself, taking a few pieces off the top and shoving them in his mouth. He chewed them quickly and swallowed. It was still stale. He didn't expect it to get fresh in a matter of seconds, but .

"Frankly, I've given up on anything actually going my way, so fuck it," he continued. "If stale popcorn is the best I'm gonna get, then why not?"

Asa grabbed another piece of popcorn and ate it. Even if the texture and temperature were off, there was at least still the butter and salt on the popcorn to make up for it. He could at least savor it while shoving kernel after chewy kernel into his mouth.

"It's not like they want us to be happy here."

[Polybius]

"Yeah," Brendan said. "Yeah, I get that."

Brendan glanced over the snack counter. He wasn't really hungry. Besides, he enough food in his bag already.

"Asa, you, uh, see anyone else from Davison? A lot of my friends were in the announcement and I want to find whoever's left."

[Laurels]

"No, I haven't seen anyone else from our school," Asa said, nibbling on another piece of stale popcorn. "I keep running into jackasses from the hick school."

Asa walked over towards the soda fountain and grabbed a cup.

"I guess they wanted to do a 'city mice vs. country mice' theme for this season, then place everyone in a fake-ass Hawaiian resort for some added thematic purpose or something."

Asa began to fill the cup up with some cola from the fountain. He knew most soda fountains produced cold beverages and that adding ice reduced the flavor and reduced the amount of drink the customer got. He wasn't going to waste time with ice.

"Frankly, I'm giving up on trying to understand this shit."

[Polybius]

Brendan hadn't really expected Asa to have seen anyone. Brendan had had bad luck since waking up, and he didn't expect it would change so easily.

"Yeah, I've met some of the Oklahoma kids too," Brendan said. "I haven't a better time with them then you have."

Soren was good. But walking in front of a killer with a loaded gun? What was that? And what the fuck was going on that made Jewel so damn crazy? What about Alice and the rest?

"I don't know how the hell so many of them started killing so quickly. I mean, most Davison people wouldn't do that- and they didn't, right? There's just- fuck, I don't know- something messed up about that school."

Maybe he was being stupid, but he really didn't think so. If he ran into another one of them, there was a good chance they'd be a killer, and he'd have no way of knowing. It was goddamn terrifying.

"We're not like that. There are people in Davison that I know I can trust, and I want to get to them soon. I mean, if I find a group... they put in ways to escape, don't they?"

[Laurels]

Asa put a lid on the soda cup and grabbed a straw as John Kennedy Toole gave his thoughts on the announcement. Asa couldn't believe it, but Swimming Toole sounded so damn stupid with his assessment. Asa had to roll his eyes.

"If you ask me, I think it's stupid as hell to assume it's all the fault of the country bumpkins for killing," Asa told him. "Sure, they got the most kills this last round, but there's no way the kids from our school won't go crazy when given the chance. It's easy to treat the hick school as the great, mystical Other that has no morality and kills for fun and needs to be taken out by the pure Davisonian clan, but that's a complete load of shit."

Asa put the straw in the cup and took a sip. It wasn't that cold, but it wasn't flat either.

"There are probably just as many non-psychos in that school as there are in ours, but to write the whole school off as evil is moronic. You might as well determine everyone to be a threat, which, to be fair, is written into the rules of this shitty game, so you could be excused for following that creed."

Asa put the brush axe in his right hand. He used his left hand to bring the bag of popcorn close to his chest. He put his arm around it, keeping the bag pressed against his chest. He grabbed the soda with his left hand and began to walk out from behind the counter.

"As for escape," he continued, "go for it. I mean, if you can figure out complex machinery that you've never seen before and manage to get it off without blowing up, then more power to you. It's just one big risk, and I hope you really trust your people to figure it out. As for me..."

Asa took a quick look around the theater. The theater rooms were labeled with various genres. Asa didn't really know what to expect from the genres, but figured that there was some dumb crap playing in each theater room. Still, a theater room promised darkness, and if he could find access to the projection room, even better.

"...I might see what this place's idea of Drama is."

[Polybius]

Brendan stood silently as Asa pulled part everything he'd said. Okay, maybe Brendan was being dumb about the other school, maybe the crazies from Oklahoma just got lucky or something. Brendan couldn't figure out how to argue against what Asa said. But still, Asa hadn't met Jewel. There was no way anyone Brendan knew from Davison would ever end up acting like her. She was just so different from anyone he'd ever met before, and he wasn't gonna rule out the chance that there would be other kids like her from the other school.

The thing about the collars, though... shit, he was right, wasn't he? His whole plan relied on his friends being able to figure out the collars. They were smart but they weren't geniuses. Hell, Brendan didn't even know if he'd be able to find them. What would he do if his plan fell apart? Give up?

Asa said something about drama or whatever while Brendan was thinking of a response. The only thing he could come up with was one stupid question.

"Well what do we do, then?"

[Laurels]

"Hell if I know," Asa told Brendan. "Like I said, go for it if you think it will work. I doubt I can be of any use to you, so I'm just going to go do my own thing and try to avoid as much craziness and stupidity as I can."

Asa took a sip from his drink.

"Honestly, if you're still not a complete psycho at this point, I think you're doing pretty well for yourself. You better not give in to the stupidity virus that comes out in this game. Peace out."

Asa turned away from Brendan and began to walk towards the theater room marked "Drama." He didn't really care to hear what else Toolamina Slater had to say. He imparted his wisdom, and now he wanted peace.

Of course, he should have known better than to assume there would be peace in this game. The theater room was playing the scenes of "drama" from past versions of SOTF. Asa plopped into a seat, putting the popcorn in the seat next to him and the soda in a cup holder. He kept the axe on his lap and propped his legs up on the seat in front of him.

"Well," he muttered as he looked at the image on screen, "I guess the entertainment industry really is dead."

[Polybius]

Well, that was that. "Go for it if you think it will work". Did Brendan really think it would work? Shit, he was a complete mess. He had spent most of his time messing around instead of actually thinking about his stupid plan.

"See ya." he said. Brendan never thought he'd be taking advice from Asa, but the guy definitely knew more about SOTF than he did.

Even if Brendan's plan sucked, he still had to keep searching. He wanted to find at least one of his friends before they were killed. Maybe they'd have a plan. Hopefully.

((Brendan O'Toole continued elsewhere))

[Laurels]

"............ah! FUCK!"

Asa jumped up in his seat, knocking the bag of popcorn onto the floor of the theater room. He had fallen asleep in the theater at some point while watching various scenes of romantic entanglement and friends betraying friends, only to be awoken by the sound of the announcements crackling to life.

He hurried out of the theater room, leaving his bag behind but taking the axe with him. He needed to hear the announcements loud and clear, without the detritus of SOTF playing in the background. He rolled his eyes as Ritzy Daggers continued her annoying spiel before reading the deaths. That Jewel girl managed another three kills, putting her halfway to the ten kill limit. Asa groaned.

"Great. People like Jewel Evans are just confirming my belief that people from the hick school are fucking nuts. Seriously, feel free to disprove that theory," he said to himself.

The names continued. There weren't too many people he knew, although he did recognize a few names from his school among the killers. Riley Parker got killed, but if their brief meeting yesterday was any indication, then it's not surprising she got killed. After that, all he took note of was the danger zones, which thankfully didn't include the theater.

Asa walked back into the theater in order to get his bag. Part of him was amazed he managed to make it over a day in this game. Part of him always assumed he'd have the worst luck imaginable if he ended up in the imaginary version of SOTF that came up whenever he read the Wikipedia page for the show, getting killed within minutes of waking up by some frothing lunatic drenched in blood. Sure, there was that Happy Days idiot from the salon, but he managed to get away from that somewhat in one piece.

Asa looked at the bandage on his arm. He'd probably have to change it soon. Delusional Dee probably fucked it up somehow. He groaned loudly as he looked at it. He hardly knew anything about first aid, and there was a good chance he'd screw it up trying to fix it. Not only did these fuckers want him to get horribly killed, they also expected him to stave off infection.

"Ugggh!" he cried out.

He wanted to moan some more, but then noticed the image on screen. Another stupid tearjerker scene was playing on screen. Another stupid representation of people being torn apart by the game. He was annoyed, and the axe was starting to feel a little heavier in his hand.

"Man! Get some real entertainment in here!"

Asa ran up to the screen of the theater and swung the axe at it. He cut across the screen, slashing over the screen. Asa yelled as he continued to slash apart the screen, screaming expletives as he continued to hack away at the screen. He wasn't getting most of the screen destroyed; his height preventing him from destroying most of the screen and his choice to attack one small area of the screen, but he kept hacking away.

[Serpico]

((Corin Albanesi from The Was a Firefight!))

Corin felt cold, physically cold and like there was this chill flowing and ebbing through his body. He couldn’t stop rubbing his puffy eyelids, not until they stung. It was still early when the announcements tore through and disrupted his thoughts, dividing his attention from his self loathing and pity. Replacing it with the voice of Ritzy Daggers, and as she spoke he found himself just hoping that she’d slip over and gouge her eye out with a ballpoint pen, or something, anything just to stop her from talking. He didn’t want to hear it, as she joked through the list, mentioned Jewel yet again, other people. Just fuck off and die, Ritzy. He repeated it over in his head, fuck off and die. He waited for something to interrupt Ritzy, but it never came.

He stopped when she mentioned his name, feeling like whatever integrity he had just crumbled. It was solidified, officially announced and everyone knew. He worried, worried about what Paisley would think, what Marcus thought, wondered if they even cared. Not just about that, but about him - if he was okay. His right hand subconsciously cupped against his face and he felt like slamming them together while the words stupid, stupid, stupid rang about in his head. He wanted to hit Ritzy, he wanted to hit himself, to kick, scream and cry. He thought he didn’t have the luxury to stop and scream. He was lost, not in a physical sense, but in the sense that he couldn’t piece his brain together.

He needed guidance.

He instinctively had thoughts about Bunny Barlowe. Thinking that all his actions with her had been a mistake, one that he was paying for the hard way. His mind reeled back to Forrest, his feelings were mixed, his feelings were deeply negative. She was also de facto leader at the time that he had died, and petty as it was, he wondered if he could call Bunny’s actions negligent. Even if he didn’t know the circumstances, he knew that maybe if she hadn’t been so keen to split the group with total strangers, Forrest might still be alive. It was a conflicted feeling, though Corin didn’t want to be under her terrible sense of judgement, he didn’t want to be alone, but the contradictory thought was that he didn’t want to run into anyone. He didn’t know, he was confused and he just wanted someone to blame other than himself, but he also craved some sort of stability.

Corin was not far from the Cigarette Holder Theatre, the walk from the Sunshine Tower was uneventful. For that he was at least thankful, he was feeling worn out from the day prior and everything he’d had just discovered thanks to the announcement. If he wasn’t in his current situation, he might have been joyed to see the lobby and all the interesting things inside. But the prospect of entertainment didn’t interest him like it would have back home, he never really felt that sort of apathy before in his life.

He surveyed the area a little, trying to dull his mind with any sort of work. He probably would have left or been wandering longer if he hadn’t heard Asa screaming. He reacted cautiously, moving as quietly as he could manage towards the drama section of the theatre. Peeking in at the other boy working at an isolated section of a screen with what Corin could only describe as a big knife like thing.

The other boy didn’t seem fearsome, even though he was wielding a weapon. And Corin didn’t know if it was just because of Asa’s disposition, or if because in comparison to his rifle, that the axe might as well have been a toothpick. It was really a mix of both, but Corin was aware that the rifle gave him the potential to lead a conversation even with his lack of confidence. Corin tilted his head, wearing a confused expression. He didn’t raise the rifle at the guy across the room, keeping the barrel pointed to the side. He was pretty sure he could outrun him if he decided to come towards him, and that he had a distinct advantage over him in most aspects. If he were more frightening, Corin would have likely turned around and left.

“I understand that it’s a shitty film, but what are you doing exactly?” His tone was questioning, and there was a judgemental ring in his voice.

[Laurels]

"Stupid! Fucking! Shit!" Asa grunted repeatedly as he continued to slash away at the screen. Pieces of the screen continued to fall to the floor. Part of the image on screen was now projected onto the black wall behind the screen, making the whole image a bit broken. It wasn't by much, but every time he felt the axe cut into the screen, he felt slightly more excited and relieved.

Asa heard a voice speaking out to him; one that was loud enough that he could hear it over the video clip. He stopped hacking at the screen, slowly turning to face the person. Asa's face showed a pained grimace. It was another tosser from the hick school. Not only that, but this one had a large rifle in his hand. Asa closed his eyes and sighed.

"I swear to God..." he muttered.

Asa opened his eyes and raised his axe, pointing it towards the screen.

"Oh, nothing special! I'm just redecorating this tacky-ass movie theater!" he shouted at the new person. "I just figured I'd start by replacing the screens with something different, like pink tartan! But in case you're like the other assholes from your school that I've had the displeasure of meeting yesterday and need it spelled out for you, I'm choosing to take my aggression out on something inanimate instead of being a shithead and trying to fucking murder anyone I come across."

"How about you? Are you one of those shitheads?"