The Worst Gun in the Game

[Solomir†]

Tiffany couldn't stop crying.

She had been kidnapped, watched her beloved teachers get gunned down, forced to participate in this sick game, and thrown into this dirty dirty swamp. And they had given her a gun.

She had tried to tell herself it was a dream. If it wasn't real, then she wouldn't need to hear about her friends killing their friends, or see the bloodied bodies of those who had been brutally murdered by their closest friends. She recalled the video the terrorists had played, of that John Rizzolo killing the girl that loved him. It seemed surreal enough, like a scene from a movie. Who would want to believe that it was real?

Then she found the gun in the backpack.

The backpack, labeled with a bright "G006", had contained the things that Mr. Danya had said would be in them: some bread and crackers, two bottles of water, a flashlight, a folded map, a compass, a thin booklet, and her weapon. Any doubts she had had about the game left when she saw the weapon, a small pistol, sitting in her backpack taunting her with the implications. All of it was real, and the tears had welled up as the full force of reality hit her.

That was thirty minutes ago, and Tiffany needed to stop crying.

She wiped away some tears with the clean side of her sleeve. Crying wasn't going to magically make things all better, and she needed to stay focused and stay positive. She gingerly pulled the pistol out of her backpack, taking care to not have her hand anywhere near the trigger. It was a weapon. Her weapon. It's only purpose was to hurt people, kill people. She needed to accept the gun in order to survive.

But then she'd need to hurt people, to kill people. Tiffany couldn't accept that. That was wrong, even if it was easier. She had been taught many times that it was worth doing the right thing no matter how easy it was to not. If killing others was wrong, then there was one thing she could do to make sure she was never tempted into doing something wrong. With a swing of her arm, she lobbed the gun into the distance. If the gun was gone, then she couldn't use it to kill people. Nobody could. There was a faint sound of a splash, but Tiffany paid it no heed.

Now she had no weapons, and she was alone. For the first time in a long while, Tiffany really felt alone. There were other students out there, her friends, and not all of them would listen to her to do the right thing. Some people might be more sympathetic to her pleas, but there'd be no way to tell for certain who'd be safe. She needed to find somebody she could trust.

She knew who she could trust.

Tiffany pulled herself together and walked over to her duffel bag, which had been dropped a few feet from where she had been. It was heavy and bulky, not something that she could carry around on the island. She threw a quick glance around to make sure nobody was in the vicinity, then quickly stripped off her dirty clothes and changed into fresh ones. Then, she started packing a few necessities into the backpack: some extra clothes, a towel, her raincoat, her sketchbook and her pencil case. The duffel was then zipped up, then hidden under some nearby foliage. If anything, she might be able to come back to get new clothes at a later time.

She pulled the map out of the daypack. She had no idea where to look for him, but staying in one area was probably not safe. It looked like the sun had just risen, so if she headed in the direction of the sun, she'd eventually reach the coast. Hopefully she'd find him by then.

((The gun landed in a puddle and is useless now. Don't bother coming over to pick it up))
((Tiffany Baker continued in Everybody's Changing))