There Is No Passion, There Is Serenity

[Cactus]

"We're almost six days in," Jeff's voice didn't betray a hint of anything but control. Within though, he was angry. Angry at the justification for murdering someone right off the hop. Fear could make someone do a lot of things, but killing Abel first thing?

He wasn't sure he bought that.

"You killed him immediately. We may as well have still been on the buses. Besides," he paused, his lips turning into a scowl, "Garnet has a point. It's a bit of a size mismatch."

The talk about Quinn didn't mean anything to Jeff, though it seemed as though it startled Garnet — if nothing else, it made her angrier. His own blood was starting to boil, but he tried to use every ounce of self-control to keep himself in check. If they went off the deep end and lynched Paloma, how were they any better than her? The hypocrisy was not lost on him, and if there was one thing that Jeff Greene was not, it was a hypocrite. He despised them; he would not become one.

Not yet, anyway.

"It's absolution time, Paloma. You need to tell us what else you've done, or you need to go." The bat felt heavy in his hand, but he felt like this was a good time to try and put his foot down. Sven had checked right out of the conversation, and Jeff felt an odd sense of protectorship over the space cadet that he couldn't understand. There was an innocence there, and he wasn't sure if he'd be able to forgive himself if this silly argument lead to him being hurt — or worse. He couldn't let that happen again. The wave of guilt over Cammy's death hit him again, and it both weakened him and strengthened his resolve. This situation needed to find a resolution before Paloma or Garnet or both did something they'd regret.

Or wouldn't.

"What'll it be then, hm?"

[Melusine]

"Absolution time?"

Paloma shook her head. Nobody wanted to listen to her. However, she already knew this. It wasn't a surprise that they were reacting that way so she didn't really know why this made her this upset. She already knew everyone's reaction would range from distraught to complete, unrepairable anger.

So, why was Paloma upset?

The million dollar question tragically didn't let Paloma called her mom or her dad for help, so she had to tap into her knowledge of the situation. There were several reasons that she could pinpoint. However, she didn't quite have the tools or the energy to properly concentrate on them. Her hunger was one, her mood was another, her grimy state was becoming as she was working up a sweat, and finally, the one that sent a nail straight to Paloma's coffin was her reputation.

It was dead.

Deceased.

Gone.

Ripped apart, limbs by limbs, starting with the toes going up to the ears but not missing the teeth and the eyelids.

It was the most uncontrollable aspect of her downfall. Food? She could kill someone for it. Hygiene? There was a river. Her mood? Well, she was getting some of it out on Garnet and Jeff so she was fine on that aspect. But her reputation? Her own sake? Her life she was building since she popped out from the womb? That was dead and there was nothing she could do fix it. Even if she were to get out of this in one piece, there were no amount of PR and public apologies that could take back what she had done.

So, she was rightfully pissed about it. Her right hand grabbed her hat. Her anger was only made worse by Garnet's offhand comment. Paloma was able to beat Abel in a fair fight. There wasn't any underhanded tricks. It was all fair, she hit him and-

and-

mhm.

"You're not the judge," she said, pointing Jeff, "or the jury," her finger trailed over Sven then on Garnet, "or the fucking executioner!"

"Get your ass over, bitch, I'll show you what I did to him." She snarled.

[Namira]

Jeff backed Garnet up, which gave her sort of conflicted feelings. It was easy to get carried off in the righteous anger, let his support stoke those flames until she charged in and mowed Paloma down because goddammit she was a murderer and if Garnet was going to break the gears, she had to start somewhere.

She didn't. There hadn't been a fight here until Garnet brought it. There hadn't really been one with Marco until Garnet brought it. That didn't make her worse than them, wasn't some kind of moral failing that she wasn't chill with letting people sit back on their laurels and go unanswered for being killers, but--she still did that. Garnet was the one starting shit. Where did that put her? Was it much of a rebellion at all if her rebellion just consisted of smacking down folks buying into it? Murder a murderer and the net number of murderers in the world stayed the same.

Which was all a fine way of thinking and approaching it all right up until Paloma gave her a 'come at me' in so many words.

Garnet tried to think of something pithy to say, came up dry, and launched herself at Paloma. Three dollar punch coming right up.

Fuck.

She should have said that.

[MurderWeasel]

Absolution? Now there was an interesting concept.

Sven thought, in that moment, that it was somewhat odd that this whole affair was not more often couched in religious metaphor. Many of the elements were right there, overt. All who found themselves here were pulled from the mundanity of their daily lives and spirited away to another realm, where the rules were different. There was no coming back, for the most part, and if any were to be saved it would be either through divine intervention or more as punishment than reward.

While here, they would be tested by their circumstances and by each other. But was this purgatory, or was it the lion's den? Was he wrong about the fate of the survivor(s)? Was it better to live on? Were those who fell sorted based on their actions for either reward or damnation, or else were they all bound for the same fates regardless of their crimes? Did this even matter to the character of their souls, or was the duress under which they were put a sort of metaphysical blank check? Sven hadn't spent too much time musing on it to this point, because it didn't particularly apply to him—he knew, after all, precisely what fate he was bound for.

And the legal system? Why, that changed the entire thing up again. Yes, in some ways the idea of an omnipotent being was nothing but earthly laws write large, if you approached it from an atheistic point of view (though Sven didn't favor that interpretation, never really and certainly not now), but in this context it was clearly earthly actors being evoked. Their fallibility was the key to the whole thrust of the argument.

As he sat on his crate turning these concepts over and over in his mind, somewhere a million miles away Garnet punched Paloma in the face.

[Cactus]

Jeff's fingers tightened around the nail bat as the situation escalated. Paloma freaked out in their general direction, collapsing under the weight of scrutiny that being a murderer brought with it. Good, she didn't deserve to get off scot-free. The more she ranted and raved, and threatened — that was ballsy — the more his guard went up. He was about to retort back when Garnet beat him to the punch.

Literally.

Mouth falling open in surprise, Jeff stood still momentarily taken aback by the girl's action. If Paloma wasn't going to leave, then fine. Maybe Garnet could knock some sense into her. Subtly, Jeff moved in between Sven and the fight. The boy hadn't done anything wrong and he didn't want to risk seeing an innocent getting hurt. He knew that he could step in, but... this seemed like the kind of battle that he could avoid if possible.

But if Paloma did find the upper hand?

He would be ready.

[Melusine]

The fist collided with Paloma's face at a speed she had almost expected.

She wasn't the type of girl to fight people. It wasn't a smart move because of her size and her current and past physical aptitudes. Paloma did knew some of the basic self-defence moves. It wasn't something she had rehearsed in her life or that she was professionally trained, but it was something that sat in her mind.

It came from busking, really. Telling her mom and her dad that she knew what to do when someone grabbed her made them feel safe, even if she didn't really know what to do if someone grabbed her other than to bite them. She knew to go for the crotch or the neck, but not the actual procedure.

Garnet's fist in her face was a reminder of that. In theory, she knew she should strike back somewhere as they were both off-balanced. Paloma figured that neither of the girls were actually trained fighter which actually comforted her. They didn't really know what they were doing other than slinging punches at each other and shit.

So Paloma did what all the videos recommended her to do if someone did that: go for the flesh.

And that's what she did. Garnet's ear was standing there in front of her. The punch had made Garnet's body come forward, destabilizing her and making Paloma flinched back when it struck her cheek. But she was ready to get punched, she was ready to eat a hit or two, but Garnet clearly didn't know what she was up against.

So with one swift claw to Garnet's head, Paloma had tugged the top of the girl's ear.

She pulled.

[Namira]

Something that Garnet never thought there would be in a punch was satisfaction.

Her coin-heavy fist slammed into Paloma's cheek so hard that it jolted back through her own hand. She was roaring forward then, fully committed into the attack.

She yelled something that wasn't words, driving a forearm into Paloma's stomach as she finished closing the gap, and then Paloma was fighting back. Snatching and clawing, there was a sudden burst of pain as Paloma caught onto the side of her head and yanked back.

Garnet swore, brought up her same-side arm to grapple with Paloma, trying to relieve some of the grappling on her ear. Her other arm came up. More forearms, aimed at Paloma's face this time.

[MurderWeasel]

A jolt, weak but stronger than Sven had expected, rolled through him as if conjured from below. It was like the crate itself was unwilling to let him sit idle too long. Even the environment made demands of him, though perhaps that was only a favor fairly returned.

On the ground now, the girls grappled. He spared them passing consideration. It felt disrespectful to categorize them like that—"the girls"—as if their gender was their most defining feature, but Sven had already forgotten their names, if he'd known. He thought he had. He remembered gratitude that one or both had introduced themselves or been introduced. That hadn't been long ago, but a lot had happened since.

But back up, challenge for a moment the presumed sexism of that shorthand. Did it feel strange to think of the guy between them and Sven, the guy obstructing his view to a degree, as "the guy?" Not really, no. Did that suggest that the masculine general was benign while the feminine was in some fashion derogatory? If so, was that not a far more pernicious bit of internalized bigotry? But of course, there was another side to the coin: Sven had definitely not been introduced to the boy ("guy" was getting stale but "boy" felt wrong for someone rocking a full mustache but "man" felt wrong for someone in high school and Sven had never been the sort to whip up "dude," "fellow," "chap," or "bloke") properly. So omitting a name he never knew was forgivable, surely.

But wait, because going down that route the truth had to be grappled with: Sven actually didn't think of the girls as "the girls" in reality after all. That was just narrative shorthand. Really his perception of them was a tangled mess of sights and sounds, half-formed memories and half-recalled details. He'd been such a visual person, once. The killer was reds and blues, dark hair and an aura like she'd been dignified right up until she stuck a fork in an electrical socket. Wispy and wiry, she contrasted the more filled-out physicality of her assailant, who was dressed for action, just not the sort she was getting. Her less polished appearance contrasted the glasses she wore, which offered an intellectual counterpoint. Sven liked people who wore glasses by default. Both girls had a hat energy about them, but he couldn't say that either had been wearing them during this conversation. A memory from school? Or a memory from seconds ago, now obscured?

He gripped the crate, the din and confusion rising from within in lost against the backdrop of the greater chaos and cacophony of the confrontation he could only partially see beyond.

[Cactus]

As he watched the spectacle of the two girls battling it out, his hand firmly clenching the nail bat in one hand and the riot shield in the other, Jeff had a sudden urge of disappointment. Not in the situation, nor the fact that it had escalated as such, but rather in himself. Disappointment at the fact that he was willing to stand here and watch as two people fought it out, no better than the circling gawkers who would encircle a fight and chant and jeer in its general direction. He was Jeffrey-Goddamned-Greene, and he was better than that.

Slowly backing up a few steps, he looked over at the boy seated on the crate, whom was staring a hole through the confrontation as though he were trying to see the real meaning behind it. Newsflash, kid — the only meaning behind it was that everyone was on edge, and in the end, no one could be trusted. The explosive collars around their necks ensured that.

"Hey, I think," Jeff whispered to the awestruck boy seated on the crate, "maybe we should go. Let them duke it out."

He'd go on the defensive if he had to, but the more he thought about it, the more it seemed prudent to get out of here, and take the space cadet with him.

[Melusine]

Paloma's neighbour had a dog once.

He was dobberman and he was black. His name was something like Skylar or Sky, but Paloma never really caught it. Dogs weren't her thing, she preferred cats and bunnies. Typical 8 year old girl stuff, basically. She had never asked for pets because she found them stinky. And also, her dad was allergic.

Though, even if she didn't really care about the dog, she was marked by that one time she came back home early with her mom and her neighbour was also coming home at the same time. The black dog was wearing a collar around its neck and immediately she felt sick to her stomach. It was about the wimpering the creature did. As she came closer, Paloma's noticed the thick brown-silver wire stitched around and tied to what used to be the floppy ears of the dog.

And she screamed. For about a good minute before her mom picked her up, and looking back, it must have been pretty hilarious because everyone was laughing. But Paloma wasn't. She screamed. And she dreamt about it. Again and again. Her parents didn't help. They joked about cutting her ears like the dog if she misbehaved.

It made her sick to her stomach. So, she covered her ears with her hair. It was an instinctual thing. A simple act to avoid an imagined punishment a child feared.

But, in her hand, there it was. The punishment. The childhood fear. The black dog.

The gift was a little bit of ear and a little bit of metal laid at the palm of her hand with a lot and a lot of blood staining her arm.

And.









Again.






She screamed.









And she felt sick.










And she remembered.

She knew she would have nightmares about this.

Why it was called cropping.

[Namira]

The worst part was the stretch.

Garnet felt her lobe begin to pull away, she felt the tension in the flesh, felt it give and give and give.

Then tear.

Hot blood flooded down the side of her neck and Garnet screamed back. What the fuck! What the fuck!?

The pain, burning sharp, managed to do something. It focused her. Paloma's hand had come away from her, losing grip as it ripped the earring clean out.

Garnet pulled up, drove a knee into Paloma's stomach, then, as the impact doubled her up, brought that same knee crashing into Paloma's face, dropping her.

She looked down at Paloma, shoulders and chest heaving.

Then the pain really hit.

"Motherfucker! Fuck! Fuck!"

Garnet clutched at the bloody ruin of her earlobe, coming away with her hand soaked.

Paloma was just... there on the floor. Hurting but not finished. But how was Garnet going to finish her, other than killing or just like, fuck, tying her up and dragging her around the island?

This whole thing was fucking pointless from the start, and now she had the wound to show for it.

She swore again, twisted around, and stomped out.

((Garnet continued in No Hell But The One We Made))

[MurderWeasel]

Just like that, Sven was back in the moment. The guy was addressing him, whispering close, and that was mildly unsettling and not only because Sven had not clocked his approach at all. Now was not the time for such tender ruminations, especially as beyond the screaming and blood flowed freely.

He pulled himself to his feet. The stick on twine dangled limply from his wrist, but remained in place, held by the wrapping despite not being truly secured by knots. It bounced off his leg once, twice, but the impact was so mild he didn't exactly notice it per se. He shifted his bags. They were ready for movement. Had they been there the whole time?

Maybe they should go? Maybe. It had been a long time. Too long. The "they" factor felt strange. Not quite right. The boy unsettled him. He would consider, of course. But there was one thing Sven had to do before he left. He was, after all, invested to some insubstantial but real degree in being something approximating a good host.

The candy lay on top of the crate, shiny red and green plastic against dull aged wood. Sven rested his hand on the box—it had some real weight to it, a lot more than it might look at a glance—and shoved, rolling it a quarter rotation towards where the girls had been fighting. The candy fell from the top and landed on the grass, but that wasn't really what held his attention. Sven was already turning to leave.

But the crate had been open on one side—the side facing down. Within huddled a small monkey, covered in wiry brown hair and with a lurid pink face. Its tail was thin, curled, but it whipped around suddenly. The monkey clutched the torn and chewed remains of a ration bar wrapper in its tiny hands, and for just a moment it blinked in the sudden light.

Then it screeched and howled, sounds relatively quiet on the grand scale of monkey noises but still abrupt and piercing, coming now fully unleashed and with no muffling and limited competition from the battles of larger primates. It tore off towards the treeline, scrambling on all fours, its path the shortest route to its destination, which happened to take it directly past the boy who had suggested that it was time to depart.

By the time the small animal vanished into the underbrush, somehow Sven too had disappeared without a trace.

((Sven Vee continued in A Portrait Of The Artist As A Dead Man))

[Melusine]

The floor wasn't comfortable, but it was better than a fist in the mouth.

Garnet had ran away like a little bitch. It made Paloma feel really fucking good to know she was right. Even if this was a tie, Paloma knew she proved her point. To both herself and to the losers who watched her suffer. It was good to be right. She smiled through the pain.

The bit of her ear in her hand made her squeamish, though. She let it fall out along with the stud that was still deeply ingrained within the mass of flesh. It didn't make a noise when it hit the ground.

"Any other questions?" Paloma taunted. "Comments?"

She was glad Jeff was still there. A villain monologue on your own didn't quite have the same worth as revealing your plans to someone who had misjudged her. He wanted a villain. She'd give it to him, one way or another.

[Cactus]

Everything descended into madness, and while Jeff's default in such a scene may have been frustrated annoyance, the sudden and shocking set of events put together left him standing, mouth agog, staring at the bloodied and very evidently homicidal Paloma. As the part of ear hit the ground by his foot, Jeff could only stare at her with incredulity. She'd gone and torn Garnet's ear clean off — at least, that was where his mind went, not having any intention of investigating the torn bit of flesh any further. Even stranger, Sven had gone and disappeared in the commotion, leaving a monkey — yes, a monkey in his wake. It was all so insane, and what made it even worse was that his mind echoed a line from some old song over and over, as though it were on some sort of feedback loop.

Haven't you always wanted a monkey?

No, he hadn't ever wanted a primate as a pet, but the monetary amount that the song was about was a whole other story. What he wouldn't do with a million dollars right about now — of course, all of the money in the world wouldn't help him out of the situation he currently found himself in. Standing, nail bat at the ready, with a psychotic classmate who'd very evidently revealed her true colours and made him completely aware of how and why Abel Zelenovic had ended up dead at virtually the very beginning of this shitshow.

"Stay the fuck back," he managed, the monkey having zoomed off out of the building, Garnet bloody and hot on its trail. He wished he could have given the warning some snarl, but he simply pointed the bat at Paloma.

"You're nuts. How's that for a comment? You're absolutely nuts. I don't want to see you again," Jeff started to back towards the door. "If we do cross paths, you're going to regret it."

It was posturing of course, but Jeff no longer had any intention of sticking around, especially not with someone so obviously unhinged. Besides, after Sven had somehow beat him to the punch of vacating the premises, he needed to find the poor guy. He seemed to only have a very vague interpretation as to what was going on, and of anyone, Jeff knew that Sven seemed entirely harmless, likely unable to comprehend his circumstances.

Maybe he could find him, help him survive. Find some way to make his own guilt subside.

"Freakin' psycho," he shook his head at Paloma, but didn't wait to see how she'd react before he slipped out of the door and into the woods beyond.

((Jeff Greene continued in Mad As Hell and Not Going to Take It Anymore))

[Melusine]

"...........anyways."

((Paloma continued in the next thread.))