The Gigantic

[Aster]

Clover Dubose pouted.

To be fair, it wasn’t her fault her bag was snagged on the barbed wire fence, a good foot and a half above her head. It was like that when she’d woken up. A lot of things had happened in the last day or so, and her mind was only beginning to process everything that happened. She should’ve been screaming or crying or showing some outward sign of emotions. Instead, she was idly twirling a strand of dirty blonde hair with a finger as she watched the bag gently swing.

She almost had it. Her hand grazed the bottom of the bag on the last jump, and she was sure she could get it again. Taking a deep breath, Clover leapt again, this time clapping both hands around the bag. They connected, and she pulled. After a moment, the bag’s strap snapped, and Clover was sent tumbling onto her behind, the bag knocking the wind out of her. For a fleeting moment, she felt triumphant, standing up and cradling the olive green duffle bag in her arms.

Then something rustled behind her, and when she whirled around and yelped, Clover remembered where she was.

[Pippi]

Faye opened her eyes to darkness, and the scream that had felt lodged in her throat ever since her name had been called finally broke free. The sound echoed around her, deafening her, and she frantically scrambled around with her hands and feet, trying to discover why her vision wasn’t working, any exhaustion and grogginess that might have been left over from the knockout gas vanishing in her desperate flailing.

She could feel smooth wood against her palms and against her back, head pressed into a corner with her neck bent at an awkward and painful angle. She couldn’t even roll over without bumping into one of the walls enclosing her from either side.

Maybe she was in a coffin.

Faye let out a terrified whimper, before she slammed her fists against the wall, kicking and punching, throwing the full weight of her body against the wood. She couldn’t breathe. She shoved her hand against her mouth, trying to stop the air from escaping her lungs. She felt dizzy. She felt lightheaded. Her fists stung and she was going to die.

Her foot caught the gap between the doors of the cupboard, jostling the latch, and sending them flying open as she tumbled out with a yelp, onto the hardwood floor of the boat.

Faye looked up at the ceiling until her breathing had slowed to its normal level. Then she started to laugh, tears sparkling in her eyes, and her laughter swiftly turned to sobs, and she shoved her face into the duffel bag next to her, tears staining the fabric marking her as G016.

Time passed, as it was wont to do. The boatshed was quiet, still, peaceful. The muffled sound of Faye’s footsteps as she stepped off of the boat could have been those of a sailor adding another lick of paint to his prized vessel.

The pistol crossbow held in a vice grip told anyone who was watching that wasn’t the case.

Faye wiped her eyes with her sleeve, then her nose with the back of her hand, leaving a glistening trail of snot behind.

“Gross…” she muttered without thinking, smearing the offending material onto the boat, a coat of paint the sailor who owned it probably wouldn’t appreciate.

She stood still for a moment, shaking, knees knocking, listening out for the sound of movement elsewhere in the shed. The device in her hand looked like someone had hit a crossbow with a shrink ray or something. There was one bolt loaded and three more shoved into the pocket of her dungarees. The rest were nestled in her bag. It seemed fairly easy to use. No complicated safety or chamber maintenance or anything like that. Just a trigger. Not that she had any plans of pulling it, of course. She’d never fired a gun at home, nor had any inclination to do so. She didn’t want to wield a dagger or a sword or a crossbow or a bow and arrow or anything that could hurt or maim or kill.

But she felt safer with it in her hands. That was hardly unreasonable, right? To feel safer with a weapon in her hands, when she was trapped alongside people who might shoot her in the head and shove a knife in her guts if she looked at them the wrong way?

God, she hated this. She hated feeling like this. She wanted to go home.

Faye slowly made her way out of the boat shed, each step feeling like an eternity. She felt her heart stop and her body freeze as she heard something nearby, then carried on walking with a hiccupping, sobbing laugh when she realised it was her own heavy footstep.

The first thing she saw when she exited the boat shed was another person, standing and facing the barbed wire fence surrounding the building, and her heart instantly started jackhammering against her chest. She didn’t want to talk to the girl. She didn’t want to be noticed. She didn’t care if it was a friend or someone she thought might try and put a bullet in her brain. She just wanted to leave and find somewhere to cry, and spend the whole day crying until she was all out of tears and could actually think straight.

But once again, her own footsteps betrayed her, and at their sound, along with the gentle breeze rustling her hair and bag, the girl spun around with a shriek of surprise. Faye jumped backwards in response. The two stared at each other for several moments.

“Um… hey…” Faye offered, a half-hearted jerk of her hand standing in for a wave.

[Aster]

Clover's heart rate settled as she recognized who it was. Faye Xandora was nice! They were friends back at school, and she was a sweet girl. She smiled and let out a chuckle. "Hey Faye..." Her eyes went down to the mini crossbow she was holding, and all that warmth evaporated.

Oh yeah, they were supposed to kill each other. Clover's eyes flicked back up to meet Faye's, trying to detect any hints of betrayal behind them. Everyone was her enemy here, and her 'friend' was no exception. It was kill or be killed, and right now, it looked like she was the one that was going to be killed.

Not yet, at least. And maybe Clover could take advantage of that.

She forced an obviously strained smile. "How've you been?" she asked, defaulting to the types of pleasantries they'd exchange back at school. It felt weird now, but she hoped Faye wouldn't mind. Clover not-so-discretely unzipped her pack, and kept her eyes on the other girl, beaming and trying not to draw attention to it.

[Pippi]

Faye liked Clover. She liked her a lot. She was sweet and warm and friendly, almost a perfect match for herself, and the two got on like a house on fire. Even now, even with the strain of the Program taking an obvious toll on her, Clover was still doing her best to appear welcoming, all smiles and laughs and pleasant greetings.

This was exactly why Faye had wanted to avoid her.

Faye felt as though she was about to break down again, every time she saw the corners of Clover’s mouth turn up into a charming smile and at every pleasant word. It would have been easier, she thought, if she’d run into someone… someone like Scott, or Ambrose, someone who wouldn’t hesitate to murder if they thought they were doing it in the name of America. They were simple. Their trajectory was laid out in front of them.

For the people she’d laughed with, loved, cared about, the only thing they had to look forwards to was horror. She would only be able to watch as they were cut down around her, or watch the despair in their eyes as the same happened to her, or watch as they were pushed past their breaking point and their own fingers began to tighten round the trigger of a pistol or the handle of a knife.

She couldn’t handle even thinking about that right now. She should have just stayed on the boat. Should have just curled up on one of the bunks and cried herself to sleep. Maybe tomorrow she’d be able to figure things out without wanting to scream.

Still, she attempted to match Clover’s pleasant greetings, a tiny smile forming on her face, even as her lip quivered, and tears threatened to spring up in the corners of her eyes. She was here now. Might as well make the best of it.

“Not, um, great…” Faye offered. She attempted her own tiny laugh. It didn’t feel right, so she quickly turned it into a sniffle instead. The bolts in her pocket jostled, and, without thinking, she moved her hand holding the pistol crossbow to shove them back in.

“Some, like, jerk soldier must have put me in a cupboard before I woke up. I thought I was gonna be trapped in there, but I managed to break out. And then I found my bag and this, like, crossbow thing, and… now I’m here…”

Faye trailed off lamely. Her voice felt fake, like a fraud attempting a tiny, quiet, hollow version of it.

She didn’t pay any attention to Clover opening her bag. Not yet.

[Aster]

“Aww, that’s sad,” Clover offered, the corners of her mouth tugging downwards. At the very least that sentiment was genuine. “They threw my bag on the fence, but I got it down!” She giggled, trying desperately to keep the mood light when two ton weights were dragging them into the depths.

Her smile strained as her hand passed along a blocky plastic container, a cold metallic cylinder, and some sort of small circular object. God, where was her weapon? It’d be much easier if it had been lying next to her, but she had to remind herself that handguns were small enough to fit inside these packs.

There was still a chance she could live.

Aha! Her fingers wrapped around a trigger. Clover’s smile grew wider, and she wanted to thank the country, the General, and even God himself for blessing her with a gun. At the very least, she was on equal footing as Faye.

Clover kept up her chipper mask as her grip tightened. If Faye tried any funny business, she’d get a bullet for her troubles.

[Pippi]

Faye didn’t respond to anything Clover said. Her gaze was now firmly fixed on the bag the other girl was rummaging through. Her attention was focused on whatever she was looking for, not on the conversation they were having. So Faye decided she had to focus on it too.

She could feel her heart thudding in her throat, blocking her airwaves, making it difficult to breathe and impossible to swallow. She realised what that horrifying heat rising up inside her was, the stifling warmth causing sweat to break out on her forehead.

Suspicion. Mistrust. Fear of someone she considered a close friend.

She felt her grip on the miniature crossbow tighten. Her hesitant smile had completely vanished by now. She didn’t want to know what the expression on her face looked like. This wasn’t how this was supposed to work, this wasn’t supposed to happen. Clover couldn’t be deciding to play. She wasn’t… She was supposed to be as scared as Faye was. She was supposed to be as scared and innocent and searching desperately for a way out, until she…

Oh God. She had really just wished her friend would get killed. She wanted her friend to die because that was the preferable choice. That was where she was at. That was the situation she was in.

Faye felt blood beneath her fingernails as she dug them into her palm, fist clenched, desperately trying to hold back tears.

“What… What are you looking for, Clove?”

Her hand jerked, ready to flick the crossbow up and point it at Clover at a moment’s notice.

[Aster]

It looked like Clover had found the gun in the knick of time, as Faye’s smile vanished. Her own smile persisted, though, with the satisfaction that she was no longer a guaranteed victim.

She could fight back now.

Faye asked what she was looking for. Clover opened her mouth to say some sort of banal object, maybe a snack or a water bottle, but then she noticed the girl’s hand jerk, finger resting on the trigger. The cheeriness faded, her brow furrowing as the corners of her mouth drew downwards.

“Don’t try anything, Faye,” she hissed, instinctively stepping backwards. Her grip on the handle tightened.

[Pippi]

“I’m not… I’m not, Clove, I’m…”

Faye really and truly hadn’t had anything in mind when she’d started speaking to Clover, neither malicious nor benevolent. She’d just wanted to talk, a brief little conversation, just like they’d done at school, just to check that her friend was doing all right, just to check that their abduction hadn’t affected her too horribly. Then she would be on her way again, and with any luck, they’d never run into each other for the rest of their lives. From the moment she’d stepped off of the boat, she hadn’t wanted to fire the pistol crossbow. That fact, that intense disgust of firing at someone she’d considered a friend, or a classmate, or even someone she’d only bumped into in the halls once or twice, still remained.

Faye knew that. But Clover didn’t. And that was the deal-breaker that had led to this moment.

Her eyes flicked down to Clover’s hand in the bag.

She needed to tell her. She needed to tell her she wasn’t going to do anything, that they were both still friends, that she didn’t want to hurt anybody. She could throw the crossbow down, she could put her hands up in defeat, she could just turn and run and never look back, before she… before Clover…

Her eyes flicked up again, and her arm followed suit, and she felt a scream wrench itself from her throat as she pulled the trigger, desperately stumbling backwards. Her brain was disconnected. Her body was pulling its own strings. She tripped over her own feet and fell backwards, landing with a painful thud on her back

She looked up, the horrifying notion that Clover was still standing and preparing to fire back at her rushing through her brain, just in time to see red.

[Aster]

Clover was a little slow on the draw. When she saw Faye’s arm shoot upwards, she immediately retaliated. She pulled out the gun and pointed it at the other girl, but she wasn’t actually sure if she’d pulled the trigger.

The force of the arrow embedding itself into her chest was too overpowering.

The girl doubled over, the impact knocking the wind out of her. She felt the gun slip from her grasp, and her pack fell to the ground. The view of the bolt jutting from her chest dominated her vision, and she watched crimson bloom through her magenta fleece jacket. Her hands clutched her stomach, feeling the fabric dampening as the blood trickled downwards. She looked up, and through her rapidly blurring vision, she saw Faye fall over. Suddenly, Clover’s smile returned, wider than ever. Looks like she’d pulled the trigger after all.

A chuckle bubbled up from her chest, and soon, she was laughing. Clover laughed and laughed, because even though she was dying, she was going to drag her killer down to hell with her. With one last gurgle, Clover stepped forward and tripped over her bag, the concrete rushing up to meet her.

Thankfully, she was dead before she hit the ground.

F23, CLOVER DUBOSE: DECEASED

[Pippi]

Faye watched, frozen to the ground, as the blood dripped from Clover’s stomach, red cutting through purple, splattering to the floor, the crossbow bolt jutting out in such a way that it looked like nothing more than a small black dot, floating in a crimson sea. Faye heard a whimper escape from her throat. All she could see was the ground and the sky and the chain-link fence and the dying girl in front of it, and all she could hear was her own harsh breathing and the pattering of blood. And then laughter.

And the dead girl laughed, laughed as her blood stained the ground red, laughed even as her voice grew hoarse and painful, and laughed as she stumbled and fell forwards.

Faye heard the bolt snap as the girl hit the ground, and a second later she heard her own voice again, a rising scream this time, and she was trying to tear her gaze away from the body, but her neck was locked in place, forcing her to look at it, even as she was pushing herself up and scrambling to her feet, body working independently, trying to get her away from the boat shed.

Look at it.

Look at the girl.

Look at what YOU did.

Her right hand was glued to her crossbow pistol, and her left hand was a block of lead, trying to clumsily scoop up her bag, dropping it once, twice, three times, and she couldn’t tell if she was still screaming over the piercing sound cutting through her head, and it took her a moment to realise that she was running and her braid was coming loose as it whipped in the wind and her heart felt like it was about to burst.

And even as she ran, the image of the body never left her mind.

Look at what you’ve done.

Look at what you’ve ruined.

((Faye Xandora continued in Chill and Rigor))