Antisocial Darwinism

[MK Kilmarnock]

"Shit y'all, it was a joke. But sue me for hoping," Cheridene said in a tone of voice that was not yet dour but not quite so perky and energetic as the last time she said something.

She didn't think there was actually going to be a fucking boat meant to whisk them away off of Treasure Island. And even if it did exist, or they'd constructed one from logs, sea turtles and back hair, each of them had a sleek, metal reminder around their necks for why that wouldn't work. So if Sakurako or Aditi actually had a plan, one they had confidence in, Cheri hoped it was a little more complex than that.

All they had to do was keep their mouths shut about it for a while. Her social consciousness teamed with her ability to swallow her pride in not furthering discussion about it, and how saying 'hey we have a plan, join us' is already enough of an alert that it shouldn't really be worth saying 'but don't pry details out of us, the eeeevil terrorists are watching. Like, girl, they already heard us, they're already on to us. Some sick fuck was probably watching them at all times. If they weren't already before, they were now.

Yeah, there was nothing constructive in saying any of that. In fact, Cheri figured it was self-defeating; talking more about the thing and how you're not supposed to talk about it is, uh, talking about it some more and she didn't need that hypocrisy weighing her down. She only had a few more nights, pessimistically (as in realistically) speaking, to enjoy that lovely phenomenon where you get to keep yourself awake at night thinking about something stupid you said or did in elementary school. It'd be that, except poor choices that led to taking a one-way trip into the middle of the ocean.

Because, Cheri had to be real with herself, she probably wasn't getting off this rock. She wanted to, but no sense in getting your hopes up only to have them dashed on the rocks along with your brain.

This way of thinking couldn't be healthy.

"I'm in, let's go."

((Cheridene Williams, continued elsewhere))

[Somersault]

Again, Adele remained pretty unimpressed. Of course Cheri was joking about the whole boat thing, because nobody was that stupid, and besides, girl was pretty smart. Wasn’t so sure about Aditi going in whole hog on the plans, plans, plans, but she got it. Had to keep yourself motivated, had to keep yourself believing. The grains of time were slowly slipping down, and here they were. Doing...nothing, pretty much.

She offered a sly look to Cheri to show that she was on her level about the whole situation. Slim pickings for people she could actually talk to around here, but that wasn’t the point of this whole group. Whole point was to find a way out of this hellhole with the use of nothing but their brains and luck, but frankly, if she was just talking ‘bout the people she was surrounded by, Adele would’ve said she was pretty shit out of luck. And, she did not mean that lightly.

Just meant that she’d have to make her own luck, find some sorta person who actually knew mechanics well enough to do something about the increasingly less figurative nooses hanging around their necks. Just, though just because there was no way this was just gonna be an easy proposition, especially with these people, but she’d make it work. She had to.

A quick glance around showcased that Blake had now claimed cart-pulling duties, at least by her own decree. Two hands meant that you at least were thinking about doing it, and honestly, Adele couldn’t wait to go ahead and just sleep, so she was gonna go let him try to prove his masculinity by pushing it. Probably wasn’t what he was actually thinking of doing, but Blake still gave her the sense of shady, and thinking about it in this rome terns kept her mind off of some of the more unsavory possibilities. Still didn’t gel, still didn’t feel anything but mild awkwardness, but they were still alive.

That meant they still had a chance.

“Well then, let’s go, people! Don’t have time enough in the world as is.”

Adele stepped into the front, more by instinct than anything else, and off she went.

((Adele Jones, continued in why does mario sometimes jumps and sometimes he fists))

[Brackie]

Shepherding these people in the direction she needed them to go was going to be difficult.

But nothing about this island was easy, was it? It was destined to favor the rash, the bold, those quick to anger. People like Johnny were probably going to do well in the conventional sense, if he didn't make anyone made enough before he got there. In a way, she was probably expected to do the same, which was especially thoughtful considering the weapon she was given. The rude, headstrong girl, no time for those beneath her, expected to get tired of the idiots around her and start killing them off until she died embarassingly before the final day? If she had a dossier, that was probably what was written on it.

But taking the easy path, the path of least resistence, in a place like this, meant giving the enemy her victory. That meant, in a roundabout way, that she had no choice but to make herself work with these people. Even if that meant listening to their inane ideas and complete inability to stop pretending that the small silly things were worth worrying about, like the overt specifics of her own offhand sentences. She was going to have to stay with Sakurako, and Adele, and Blake, and now Cheridene, and guide them down the right path, which was the path to her own plan. She wanted to get to the point quickly, but what if she never got that far because they never listened to her? She would eventually have to make them listen, and when Aditi made people in her sphere listen to her they often didn't want to here any more after that because of how correct she was.

So as she silently nodded to the rest of the group and their ideas, as they followed Aditi's idea of the village. In a few days she would stand out front, but not yet. They weren't ready for it, so there was no use pretending.

When the shopping cart made it off of the sand, Aditi stepped forward and placed her own bag inside of it, just like the rest of them.

((Aditi Sharma continued in My Lucifer is Lonely))

[Super Weegee]

"Alright," Blake said, "then let's move it."

Gripping tightly on the handle of the cart, he grunted as he turned it around towards the grass. He had some idea of how to get to the village, but he figured that he would follow the others up front like Adele.

He couldn't help but eye the bags in the cart from time to time after Aditi put hers in. Really, he couldn't stop feeling that it was going to bite them in the ass hard later down the line. Unless somebody's on guard duty, it's just asking to get stolen. May as well have a sign that says free candy above it for the others.

Or for him.

Whichever comes first.

((Blake Davis continued in My Lucifer Is Lonely))