Illusions

[AtomicWaffle†]

[((Will continued from I Love Death))
((Stephanie continued from Hold Me Closer Tiny Dancer))

"C'mon, wake up, we can't do this all day. Oh wait, we can!"

An unearthly cackling awoke Stephanie from her brief, buttstock-induced slumber. For a moment she couldn't even recall where she was... it still seemed like she was back at home, and now she'd have to rush out the door to get to school on time. If only. Where that horrific, crazed laughter was coming from, she couldn't tell. A dark haze seemed to hang over her and she could barely tell where she really was. Green, brown, blue splotches... That was all. Gradually it seemed to recede, and every time it would a spike of pain would replace it. Pressing her hand to her forehead revealed why... she'd been bleeding quite a bit, and a small bump had formed where she'd been hit. A sigh escaped her lips and she slumped back against a tree and shut her eyes.

---

"Fuck, I do NOT have time for this. I've got places to do, people to go, and things to be!"

Will wasn't... Well, he wasn't much of anything anymore really. The little cocktail of chemicals he ingested were having fun bouncing around in his bloodstream, and he really wasn't quite in any decent state of mind anymore. For example, things Wade Wilson had said to him back at the coast started to make sense. Monsters, and ghosts, and weird, crazy shit! He could see it now. Wade wasn't hallucinating, and Will was a fool to try and help him. An ally in this grand fight and now he'd lost him all because of "reason."

Wait, that didn't make sense. Not in the slightest. Suddenly those pills seemed like a very bad idea. Well fuck, what did he expect to happen? It wasn't like he could suddenly fly off the island after he took them, he'd just be awake a few more hours, maybe a bit more reasonable. It only seemed the opposite had happened. Inanimate objects seemed to burst out of place, but when he'd look at them they'd still be where they were before. Everything seemed just... out of place. Even the trees seemed to edge closer. Fear overtook him. That rationality he'd cherished had now left him completely.

---

"DIE MOTHERFUCKER!!!"

She had barely slipped away when several loud gunshots ripped through the lively din of the jungle. Wet splinters rained down upon her head and she rolled away behind another tree for cover. When they'd stopped finally, she brought her head from the wet underbrush and looked to see where they'd came from. The familiar figure of Will was not a few feet away. He'd had the gun pointed at a large, thick tree. She had hoped Will would find her once again... or at least she'd find him. But now it didn't seem quite like she'd hoped it would be. Will was... different. His eyes were red and bloodshot, his hair matted. His glasses lay a few feet away, crushed. And... There were cuts. All down his arms... Will had mutilated himself.

They were at the very edge of a trail, grown over by vines and brush. Her gun lay in the middle of it, with her daypack and Will's. Though hers was untouched, his had been ripped apart. Three waterbottles spilled out of it, two of them stained with blood. She nudged them out of the way with the end of the gun, wanting to see if there was anything she could use in there before she left. As much as Stephanie wanted to know what the flying fuck was going on with Will she had a gut feeling she didn't want to stick around much longer.

The instant she touched the gun Will had already begun walking towards her. The metallic clicking from the gun Will held in his shaking, bloodied hands told her he was reloading it once again. Stephanie struggled to place a round in the chamber of her rifle but it was jammed... Of course it had to be jammed...

Fuck, not now, please, not now!

"Will, don't..."

"Don't do WHAT, Steph? What do you think i'm about to do, hmm? Kill you? Why would I do such a thing?"

"You're not... right. You're fucking psychotic, that's why!"

Will stopped right at the edge of the trail. The amount of blood he lost and the lack of any coherent thought made him struggle with the chamber. Finally he seemed able to lock it in place. Stephanie didn't have much luck with the rifle. She dug her heel into the ground and burst away, running as fast as she knew how.

Goddamnit Will what the fuck are you doing?

Memories flooded back to her. She had been running just this way down the trail when he'd attacked her, beating her over the head with the end of his gun; all the while he kept muttering strange, nonsensical things. This wasn't like Will at all. Granted he was never really quite there most of the time but this just didn't make sense... It almost seemed like he was drugged. Maybe he was. She didn't have the time nor the willpower to try and find out.

Unfortunately for Stephanie, she couldn't ever outrun a bullet. The .357 had struck her dead on, hitting her in the back and putting her down hard. Pain. More pain than she'd felt in her entire life altogether seemed to be focused on that one spot. Every hope she would escape the island seemed to blow apart with that chunk of flesh that was now splattered along the ground in front of her. As she lay gasping for air on the ground, she came to the horrible realization that had she not ran she probably would've been able to shoot back, as the rifle was now finally loaded.

---

"Well well well, looks like despite my shaky fingers I still got to shoot a bitch. Tehee!"

Will was ever so happy. This gun he simply ADORED had now earned it's fourth kill, and he couldn't be more filled with glee. That fun, "wheee" feeling had replaced the fear and Will was WELL on his way to getting of the island now. Once he hit four kills, there really was no stopping him. At least he'd passed Gabriel's score. Score? Heh, what a funny thing to keep in a place like this.

Stephanie lay on the ground, that pathetic little rifle laying beside the pathetic little girl. A pool of blood gradually grew around her, and he could see her soon-to-be-lifeless body twitching, gradually slowing down. Lovely. Will rose the revolver once more.

"You know Steph-"

In an instant his head was almost completely removed from his shoulders as a rifle round lanced through it, blowing apart his skull and pulverizing brain matter along the way. A fantastic purplish-red mist exploded from the back of his head and littered the ground around him. The Colt King Cobra dropped with a light thud beside him. His headless body seemed to hang in the air for a moment before it collapsed in a lifeless heap.




Stephanie could only lay there and stare at where Will had once stood. This wasn't anything like how she imagined dying. She hoped maybe she'd live to be a kind old lady and die in her sleep, happy. Not like this. Never had she imagined this is how her life would end.

Still though, at least her dying act was a good one. She stopped Will from wreaking any more terror on anyone else. It still wasn't clear to her why he'd done it, but at least it was over.

The world finally seemed to fade out as Stephanie finally fell limp to the ground. She smiled. It was finally over.

G50 - STEPHANIE EVANS - DEAD
B09 - VILHJALMUR SIGURBJORNSSON - DEAD

[Ares]

((Steve and Gabe continued from Appeal to Reason))

The path to the brook was not an easy one, as Steve had insisted that they stick to the cover of the bushes and jungle and off the beaten path. As they made their way through, they heard the sound of voices coming from ahead.

"Keep it quiet." Steve whispered to Gabe and he readied the Garand just in case.

Together they moved slowly towards where the voices were coming from. The brush became thick to the point it forced them both to belly crawl up to a nearby log. The log provided them a view point to the whole situation.

"Dude, we gotta do something." Gabe frantically whispered to Steve.

"I don't have a shot man, and your pistol won't do fuck all from here." Steve said as he tried his best to maneuver the Garand in the tight spot they were in.

"Well then let's go man. We have to help her, that Will kid ain't right." Gabe said as he crawled back out from under the brush.

As Steve was crawling, they heard the gunshots and both turned to see Will standing above Stephanie looking overjoyed. They saw his mouth move slightly, then it was as if his brain exploded. Half of his head littered the ground in thousands of little pieces. Stephanie had used something to one-up Will.

"Steph!!!" Gabe screamed as he began to run towards her.

By the time he got there, it was too late. Will had indeed mortally wounded her, and she was now lying in a pool of her own blood. Gabe kneeled down next to her.

"This is getting ridiculous. You didn't do anything to deserve this either." Gabe muttered to himself.

Steve slowly made his way up to the scene. He was becoming accustom to Gabe wanting to give every respect to his fellow students. As for himself, Steve was feeling quite apathetic now. Yeah he'd wanted to save the girl, but he was beginning to understand that not everyone can be saved. It might be a cruel and terrible way to go, but in the end, he wouldn't have been able to save Stephanie from the inevitable end they were all looking at. Steve decided to give Gabe a minute, and checked Will's corpse. He noticed a rather powerful looking revolver lying on the ground, blood from Will's body slowly seeping towards it.

"Sorry mate, but you ain't using it anymore." Steve said under his breath as he scooped it up. Turned out to be a Colt King Cobra, one of the revolvers that Steve's dad Mario owned. He'd never personally shot it at the range, but his dad always said it was a pretty reliable gun.

"Gaber, take this sucker and chuck that Taurus, you only have one shot left anyways eh?" Steve said as he rose and handed the gun to Gabe.

"I feel so wrong taking this man." Gabe said as he placed his Taurus on the ground and surveyed the Colt.

"I know, but if we run into Lenny we need as much firepower as we can find." Steve replied.

"Does he have any ammo for it in his bag?" Gabe said noticing the missing rounds from the cylinder.

"Yeah he does. I'll grab whats left of his food too." Steve said as he tossed the ammunition to Gabe.

After they finished dividing up Will's supplies, they took one last look at the scene, each of them having very different thoughts.

This shouldn't be happening. There are people here that don't deserve this.

I couldn't help her no matter what, just move on and stay focused.

"Keep on the way to the brook then?"

"Yeah."

((S & G continued elsewhere))