survive, said the prophet! the people were ASTONISHED at his doctrine

[dmboogie]

((Okay okay everything about that encounter had been a mistake.))

Okay maybe not literally everything, because Abe was still alive, and the other two who no longer needed to be named were still alive, and sure while that first bullet point was a hell of a lot more important than the second, he hadn’t been looking to no-scope headshot anyone quite yet, that was going to happen eventually but there was an eternity of eventualities left for him, right, it’d wind up the same whether he did it at forty people left or four people left, and well, with four people left he’d kind of have to do it, no choice, so might as well leave the choice until he had no choice, that’d make it go down a lot easier.

Abe was in the woods again, because it was safer there, if you ignored the dead bodies in the woods, like, he hadn’t actually found any, but Andy was in there somewhere, so there were probably more, so, it hadn’t been very safe for those poor bastards, and it wouldn’t be very safe for any poor bastard that Abe happened to find alone, haha, because even without the bloodthirst that seemed to be going around he had a material possessions thirst that he could choke down for a couple days, but who knew how long it’d take for everyone to get themselves killed to pave his way to the foregone conclusion finale? It was like all the stubborn idiots didn’t wanna die yet or something.

The meal bar was still in his left hand, the gun still in his right, he’d been too focused on getting away from the lake to stop and put the parting gift away. The duel-wielding felt strangely symbolic, like, feast in one hand, famine in the other, standing in for his other horseman friend who was a little booked right now, but Abe was nothing but generous, he was gonna be spreading his bullets around like Johnny Gunseed, fuckers would never go hungry again, haha.

Speaking of which. Fuckin’ trees all around him, man. Older than everyone else on the island would ever get to be. Just growing. No lumberjacks or industrial revolution shit or even beavers probably, just, growing forever and luxuriating under the sun. Bastards. He wanted to fill one with lead just to punish it for its hubris, but despite his own hubris his ammo wasn’t unlimited, so the demonstration would have to be called off for now.

He leaned against a tree, took a deep breath, sank down. No sound but the birdsong. Maybe he’d try to shoot one later. For practice. Maybe for fun. He’d never been hunting but it was probably satisfying, right? Maybe he could figure out how to cook a bird, start a fire. Turn his isolation into self-improvement.

All alone in the world. He was alone, he was the winner, he was the world. If he was a lesser man who was honest about his emotions, he would’ve cried. But he wasn’t that lucky. That was the curse of the winner, but he wouldn’t have it any other way, because then he’d be dead. He choked down the meal bar to choke down his tears, and also to destroy the evidence that anyone had ever been nice to him, that he owed anyone anything, which was a stupidly dramatic thing to do when you were the only one who'd ever care, but, that was his right, right?

Abe spent the rest of the day fucking around and getting lost in thoughts that was about as productive as all the shit you saw above.

Eventually he fell asleep under the stars, hidden in the bushes, with no one to watch his back.

((It sucked, who woulda guessed?))