SOTF Archive/SOTF Classic

Claudeson heard the voice from behind him, but in his grief he couldn't tell who it was, or even really what the words they were saying meant. By the tone, which was gentle, tentative and inquisitive, he knew what was being asked. He tried to choke out a reply, something — anything — but all that came out were the guttural sounds of despair. The voice inside of his mind continued to scream at him that all of this was on him. It was his fault that Christine was dead. It was his fault that Felix had died. The souls that Tyrell had taken from the world, the blood was on his hands.

How had he been so foolish to think anything else would have happened? How could he have been so arrogant to think that he alone could change the content of Tyrell's soul. He had witnessed it that day in the park. Tyrell had behaved like a cornered animal, and had shown little-to-no remorse after the fact. He had simply done what he believed he needed to do, and then dressed down Claudeson for stepping in and doing what he'd believed necessary to stop the fight from escalating.

Had he been thanked then? No. But Claudeson had not acted as such for any thanks. He had acted because that was his nature. He wanted to help. He wanted to do the right thing, and the right thing in that particular instance meant that the threat of blackmail was enough of a deterrent for anyone to avoid getting maimed or killed. Then here, he had come across a broken man, someone truly looking to take himself out of the equation forever. It was a sin in God's eyes, and Claudeson could not abide by that. He could not allow Tyrell the coward's way out. In his heart of hearts, he had not believed the boy to be a coward.

Yet how was he so wrong about the content of his character? He had been so sure. That Tyrell would understand that he had a second chance, and use it to his advantage. To the benefit of others. Yet how was it that Christine and Felix had benefited from that? They were no longer feeling the anxiety, the pain? They were with God now.

And yet...

There had been a voice inside of him that moment. Something he'd pushed to the side for the entirety of yesterday. It was the same voice that yelled at him that he was wrong. The same voice that told him that he wasn't worth anything. The same voice that mused that maybe, just maybe, he should have sat and watched the life slowly drain out of the thrashing body of Tyrell Lahti. Claudeson had listened to that voice, and dismissed it. That wasn't the voice of a good person, it wasn't the voice of someone who was meant to help others.

That voice had probably been correct, and that fact shook Claudeson more than anything else he'd learned in the last ten minutes. Once more, he took his hands from the water, and again remembered that someone was here, someone cared about him, and someone had asked something.

He managed to raise his head, his vision blurred by the water and the tears. It could have been anyone standing behind him. It didn't matter.

"W-what have I done?"

Val kneeled down next to Jessica.

Reuben and Teresa. Reuben Walters and Teresa Rojas. Reuben, the guy who'd been in the owl costume during all the pep rallies, threw Jessica off the waterfall.

She felt sick.

"We'll... we'll kill them if we see them - if that would make you feel... better?"

She didn't feel great about saying that.

Necessary evils.

"Just... if you need anything, let me know."

There were so many reasons for despair, so many conceivable ways that someone could be left feeling distraught and traumatised, that Camille at first thought that it would be an eternal mystery until Claudeson recovered enough to tell her. When it became obvious that it was guilt that Claudeson was feeling, that didn't narrow it down meaningfully at first either - someone like Claudeson, after all, struck Camille as the sort of guy prone to survivor's guilt, or some sort of melancholy brooding about the bigger picture. Camille was the worst person to deal with that kind of despair. After all, the big picture stuff was depressing, putting all the humdrum rationalisations and frivolous comforts that they could apply to their own lives in stark context.

And if it was something more personal, Camille did not know Claudeson well enough to help. She had no idea what it was that was aggravating him, what was tearing at his heartstrings when he had seemingly been nothing but benign on the island, even shedding blood out of a desire to help others, beyond, again, that hopeless and unassailable sense of big picture guilt. If it was something more down to earth, more personal, something she could theoretically help console Claude about, then she had no way of knowing.

But in a flash of realisation, it clicked that she already knew. Her mind was keeping the list of the killers and the killed at the back of her mind, an archive to prompt her and guide her when the time was right. Without consciously meaning to, her mind put two and two together. Tyrell. Claudeson had done a nice thing, a good thing, a brave thing, and received a bloody nose for his trouble. And now he knew - with a chilling utilitarian logic that told him that his well-motivated action had indirectly enabled far greater suffering - that it had been a mistake.

Camille felt a slight jolt of relief, knowing that she could actually help Claude now, knowing that she wouldn't just be an inconvenience or an irritating obtrusion into his private grieving. She knelt down behind him, not close enough to violate his personal space but close enough that he would sense her presence, that he would hopefully be able to tell that, if he was to ask for it, a comforting hand could be placed on his shoulder.

"Is this about Tyrell?" Camille felt pretty certain that it was, but there was enough lingering doubt about her ability to cope with this situation that she felt it prudent to ask anyway. Best for both of them that she asked an awkward question now rather than try helping him with the wrong assumption in mind. Plus, well, if she tried comforting him about Tyrell and his mind was really elsewhere, she'd just be adding extra heartache to the equation. "Because..." Camille began to speak, realising she had no idea where her words were going to lead her or what arguments she should be making, whether she should be betting that Claudeson wanted to hear logic or emotion.

"I get why you feel like shit. It makes sense. Any decent person would feel shit knowing what you know." Camille paused. She was curious how Tyrell would respond. She should probably have followed that up with something else, but she didn't know how.

Jessica smiled and nodded, trying to suppress the fact that a girl in her class she didn't know that well just offered to kill two of her classmates for something they did to her.

She just offered to kill them.

When Jessica was in middle school, a boy broke her heart, or at least she thought he did. She was sad for days afterwards. But then, two of her friends offered to make him pay, and they did so by vandalizing his locker. Slurs, waste, defilement of personal belongings, they did it all - they got in serious trouble for it, of course, but by the end of it Jessica didn't feel any better. She should have, because of what he did, but she didn't. And the exact same situation played out here, only this time she was almost killed and now the offer being made was that of a revenge murder.

Jessica wasn't the type for revenge, so it didn't sit well with her. She wasn't the type to turn the other check, however, so what exactly did she want from them? As much as she couldn't even fathom taking a knife or a gun and ending Reuben and Teresa's lives herself, or someone on her behalf, the fact remained she couldn't exactly see herself becoming the closest thing this island would have to a saint and forgiving them for what they did - if Jessica had fallen at a stronger angle, or hit the cliff softer or lucked upon a rock, she wouldn't exist anymore.

So what was the in-between? Was there an island in the seas of revenge and forgiveness?

As she tried to think of it, she noticed the quiet of the space, and looked around.

"Where is everyone?"

She'd found her way back... in time? To be late. Her hysterical wandering had done all of nothing to calm her down- every vague shadow had been Claudeson, and every obscenely overgrown moment of hallucination had been the shadows slowly fermenting in the water, in repose.

Jessica, she could barely hear (they were right next to each other, Princess had almost bodily thrown herself right out of the trees from the wrong angle because all the tree roots were all too close and wished to introduce her face to the muddy earth). She'd been thrown over the waterfall. The announcements weren't even the end of it. Guns could be shot without killing. Faces could be maimed and jaws broken without the cessation of breathing.

Evil could claim to not be a murderer, could get away with it. Dramatic irony was cheap, but would buy them all up.

She didn't want to stay. Too many variables already existed- Valerija, the politician, had already flip-flopped. Was ready to kill. Claudeson was consumed by some kind of rapture. Yes, Princess could see it, couldn't she? She already knew she'd see them again in her nightmares, where they would do one simple thing. Exactly what she expected of all of them. Lay claim to the evil in their hearts.

Princess knew soon she would give into her own. She was no worthy protagonist.

"I need to- Megan. If they find her they'll-"

She was storming through the clearing at a queer angle, her bag picked up violently and hitting the ground like a pond skipped stone.

"I'll let everyone know- Reuben, Teresa, can't be-"

It was a fair performance, she had to admit, but she didn't exactly care for the whole 'accidentally stumbling into unintended intent' concept. Literally stumbling. The gnarly mossy tree bark nearly clipped her face into a hopscotch shape.

She didn't know what she was doing, and she was finally truly ignorant enough to understand and accept it. Her character developed. It became the fool.

Of course it was about him. Claudeson barely heard the question asked, but couldn't dignify it with an answer. All he could do was continue to look at his hands. The blood wouldn't go away. It wouldn't come off. His dark hands were stained with the souls of the innocent. His mind was acting like a loop, it was the only thing that he could think. Over and over again, all he could think about were those two names. Those two classmates, whose demise was on him.

The person trying to comfort him - Camille, it was Camille, a part of his brain informed him - was trying their best. Deep inside, Claudeson appreciated that; deeper still he knew that he didn't deserve their comfort. Was he truly a 'decent person', feeling horrible about the mayhem that he'd unleashed upon the island? Or was he just feeling bad because he'd terribly misjudged someone's character?

How could he have been so blind?

"I - I gave him a second chance. I saved him."

Claudeson's voice was a dull rasp, further away than the other side of the lake that he still knelt down within. Tears dripped from his face into the water, fading away as quickly as they impacted. Camille was there for him, but he still couldn't even look at her. All he could see were his bloody hands, and the endless lake before him.

Claudeson had erred, and it was going to cost them all dearly. A pang of despair shot through his body, and he clenched his eyes closed in silent agony once more.

Mmm... Val realized she could have been a bit more tactful about the murder thing. She could excuse it by tensions running high because of the announcements, probably.

Necessary evils. The ends justified the means if the ends were the best outcomes possible.

Escape attempts would have to fail. If they succeeded, the loop of attacks would continue. There was precedent.

Everyone would have to get it through their heads that personal sacrifice was necessary. They needed to get it through their heads that the difference between 158 people dying here and 159 people dying here was practically negligible. They needed to get it through their heads that everyone dying here would break the loop. They needed to get it through their heads that everyone dying here would prevent hundreds of future deaths.

Jessica asked where everyone was. Before Val could answer, Princess popped out of the trees, said something about... Megan? and then continued into some other trees.

"She'll be back, maybe." Val said. She really wasn't sure. She hoped Princess would at least put some shoes on before she stepped on a knife or something.

"Claudeson's out in the lake. Camille's with him. They should be back pretty soon." Val unzipped her pack. "Would you like some water, maybe?"

Camille was terrible at comforting people that she didn't know well. If it was someone she knew, someone where she had had experience already in navigating tough times as well as good ones, she had some sense of where she stood. How they responded to physical contact, how they responded to dark humour or a surrealistic quip to break the tension and distract from the heartache, what paths of conversation helped them out of whatever dark place they were in. With anyone less than a close friend, though, she suddenly became socially awkward. Her instincts faded. She had to be stilted, deliberate, ponderous, trying to gauge how each step was received in real time. The best of intentions, but Camille was out of her comfort zone.

Of course, the whole purpose of this experience - if it could be distilled in that way with the knowledge that they had - was to throw young people as far outside of their comfort zones as possible. This was, Camille was fully aware, a rather trivial example, especially in comparison to present company. Claudeson gave her the impression of being a rather judgemental fellow, who would look down on smoking and gossiping and smut writing and porn drawing and all of those other things that Camille did so nonchalantly. She didn't mean that in a judgemental way - just an observation. Just something about him marked that as a flaw. For that self-righteousness - which Camille had no reason to suspect was tainted by gross hypocrisy - to be punctured by what was an blameless yet undeniable causal role in some deaths was...well.

Claudeson was not well-suited to bear the strain that he was currently going through.

She would try a logical argument. Just in case he responded well to that, if not now then at least maybe later when he was reflecting more quietly once the tears had dried out. "Listen, you couldn't have known he would have done what he was going to do. It's just as likely - more likely, even - that if you save someone, they'll go on to save others, help others, maybe go back home and cure cancer or something." She wasn't sure of the empirical veracity of her claims. The internal consistency, she was sure, was sound though. "Just help others and then let them decide how they use that opportunity. That's all you can do." It was her own ethos. She wasn't sure if it was Claude's. But it was the best she could do.

"Should we head back to the others?"

So many images flashed through Claudeson's mind as Camille made her point - a good one, too. He could see Tyrell in the park, a knife extended and keeping the Carters at bay. He could see the boy standing in the streetlight outside of the clinic, his face twisted into a sneer as he mocked Claudeson's own faith. He could see the look of frustration after he'd pulled the large boy down from the beam. Of course, he'd seen the look of disdain as he'd attacked.

Could Claudeson have seen this coming; could he have known what Tyrell was going to do? Logic stated that yes, absolutely - the outcome that had presented itself was high. So what did that mean for him, for his own culpability in the events that followed? There were so many questions that he was bombarding himself with, but nothing was giving him any answers. Not the water, not his own mind, not Camille.

Claudeson didn't know where he was right now, and somehow he felt even more lost than all of the rest. Slowly, he rose from his knees, ignoring the dripping water that freely tumbled off of his body and back into the lake. Turning slowly, he blinked the tears away and looked at Camille. She was trying - bless her heart, she was trying so very hard to make him feel better. To try and explain that none of what Tyrell had done was his fault. That he was going to make his own actions, that Claudeson could never have known what was to come.

Nice as the sentiment was, it was wrong.

He'd gotten so excited, so energized by the fact that he'd done a truly good deed, a genuine selfless act that he'd forgotten himself and where he was. He'd forgotten just whom he was helping. That was the second time that he'd helped Tyrell Lahti out of a situation that had no good ending.

The second strike.

Stepping towards Camille, he grabbed her hand in both of his, and looked her square in the eyes, hers showing none of the bloodshot internal anguish that his obviously were.

"Bless you, Camille. You're a good person. Thank you for trying. I know that you," he sniffled briefly, "are right. None of us can be responsible for the actions of anyone but ourselves. Yet I feel as though I have enabled someone whose actions were wholly predictable."

His voice was barely a whisper.

"I was so arrogant to think that I could save him and it would make a difference. I was so wrong. I must find a way to make things right."

Letting her hand drop, he turned and dragged himself back onto land, gently lowering himself to a seated position beside his bags, his shoes and socks, and Min-jae. Of course. The crossbow that he'd named after its former owner. The way by which he would protect others and stand as a sentinel in this hellish Godless island. Min-jae had a legacy to uphold; the real Min-jae Parker had survived his ordeal and held this very weapon by his side. He had taken life, he had acted as Tyrell had in the name of his own survival. Claudeson did not know the specifics of that boy's ordeal, but he did know that if he was to come through his own, he would need all of the strength he could get. From God, from the memory of Min-jae Parker, from whatever internal fortitude he could muster.

From every and any source.

The tears dripped from his eyes once more as he started to put his shoes and socks back on.

Camille remained still, listening respectfully, listening attentively, as Claudeson responded to her words, as he demonstrated if her comments had been helpful or not. He was taking his time with movement. Camille could not fault him for that. If the circumstances were flipped, she would be taking that gradual and tempered approach to movement too, wanting to drag out the moments of safety, of clarity, of relative comfort, not wanting to rush into a situation where she would have to take risks and exercise judgement.

She didn't know what to expect, of course. That seeming reluctance to rush into responding, to take one's time with answering questions and to brace oneself for the repercussions of any decision, seemed to be the sole thing that they had in common. Camille's worldview, her approach to her role and purpose in the world, was so different to Claudeson's, so incompatible and mutually unintelligible, that Camille knew that it would not be easy to work out if she'd succeeded or not. Much less understand the how and why behind any success and any failure - she'd already written that off as a pipe dream. An area for speculation at best.

Again, Camille bore no ill will, no judgement, for Claudeson being so different from her. She celebrated the richness and variety of life. The price of that was, in circumstances such as these, there were no easy answers. No flawless blueprint, no risk-free routine that had been refined and perfected and published and could be called upon.

Thankfully, Claudeson was forthright and to the point once he began talking. He praised her. Recognised her efforts and her intentions. Camille was not a sentimental sort, but she could not deny a degree of gratification at this, that her heart was warmed by the sincere praise. It was odd, that he was soothing her, comforting her, even by accident, about doubts and uncertainties that she had not consciously known she was grappling with.

He conceded that she was right. That was all Camille could do. Bridging that gap between recognising reality and updating one's emotions in accordance with it...that was a task Camille knew that she would be unable to approach for herself, let alone for someone else. And denying that Claudeson had a causal role in this itself became far more difficult, what with Tyrell's behaviour reportedly predictable. She wouldn't comment on that, though.

He had held her hand, too. For his comfort or hers, she hadn't known. But as he explained himself, and began the process of getting his shoes and socks in order, Camille found herself fearing that her time on the island too would leave her worried it was meaningless - or, worse, harmful. And unlike Claudeson, she was not making an effort. She was not taking risks.

Had to start small. Helping Claudeson had been part of that.

"Anything else I can do to help?"

As he tied the lace upon his left shoe, Claudeson pondered it for a moment. In this most unholy of situations, what could anyone have truly done to help outside of following the tenets of what it was to be a good human being? Outside of religion, outside of faith, there were certain very predictable things that people did that made them good, and the inverse applied. Camille didn't need permission to do those things, but in a situation in which ever-so-slowly their classmates would abandon those tenets, perhaps a reminder wouldn't have hurt.

"I do not believe so. What happens next is a trial that I have to undertake on my own."

Most people would have called it a measure of stupidity, but he knew beyond any doubt that it was the right thing to do. Blinking the last of his tears away, Claudeson got to his feet and looked at the girl in front of him once more. She had genuinely tried to help him; someone she barely knew and for no other reason than it was the right thing to do. The human thing. The moral thing.

"Please take care of yourself and the others, Camille. This is a place beyond where our Lord can see and," he cut himself off and allowed a solemn smile, the first one he remembered having since the announcement. "Faith or not, this is an awful place where given time, people will forget themselves and succumb to the notion that doing terrible things is acceptable."

A tear blinked into his eye once more as a familiar feeling settled into the pit of his stomach. His words felt hypocritical and saying them out loud brought the taste of bile into his throat. It was not altogether similar from the blood he'd been swallowing from his broken nose, but it burned ever-so-much more.

"Do not forget yourself, Camille. I trust that for someone such as yourself, that shall not be very difficult. I hope we meet again under be-"

Better circumstances were the words he was about to say, but that was impossible. If they met again, they would be within the same horrific scenario and undoubtedly would be more pained, more feral, and more lost than ever. Shoulders sagging, he picked up Min-jae from the ground and slung his weapon around his body by the strap. Turning his hand palm-up as a sort of half-shrug, Claudeson sighed. He was ready now.

"Bless you. Good luck."

While not an overly strong believer in luck, Claudeson felt a lot more confident in wishing Camille luck than he did anything else. God had a plan for them all - that was still what he believed, but now he wondered if he truly was cut out for the path that was all but glowingly lain down for him. It was not for Claudeson to doubt the wishes of the Lord, but He had still averted His eyes from the boy's prayers for several weeks prior to this experience, and so the youth was going on his instincts. He would pray that he was correct.

Without another word for Camille, he turned and disappeared into the forest beside the lake.

As much turmoil as he felt about it, it was time for Claudeson Bademosi to face his trial.

It was time for him to make amends.

((Claudeson Bademosi continued in Raw Deal))

Jessica nodded again, albeit to a much less heavy question.

"I'd like that."

Princess had disappeared only moments ago. A branch had been clipped, and Jessica had not been standing on it. She felt a strange sense of foreboding as she watched someone she knew from school disappear for what could have been the last time. She remembered back to yesterday, to Diego and her girlfriend, who probably watched the same of her. She wondered where they were now - more to the point, she hoped they were safe.

She drank the water with a surprising calm, as though she had just finished a track meet and not woken up for the second time in the middle of a large scale terrorist attack. She didn't want to feel calm, and in fact the very act of feeling calm when she didn't feel she deserved to feel calm removed the calm. Her eyes darted around, trying to find something to focus on, when she saw Claudeson disappear into the trees.

"Val, did Claude just-"

She wasn't sure what had gone on, or what Camille had said to him, or even where he was going. Jessica could only identify that she was no longer calm, and in fact her hands were shaking slightly.

Christine had disappeared the exact same way. Christine was now dead. But Jessica knew she couldn't run after Christine again, or Claudeson again, or she too would be on her own once more. She couldn't handle another attack, another classmate trying to kill her or rob her for something she didn't have. Jessica felt the plastic of the bottle crumple slightly beneath her fingers as she finished her mouthful and attempted to get up.

"Val, Claude just-we need to go after him or-or-"

Jessica wanted to get the words out but something caught in her throat. She stabilized her feet as she tried to figure out where her things were, only for the stark reminder to circle the block and point out to Jessica that, well, she had none. She had nothing, and she had to move.

Her heart pounded against her ribcage.

Jessica stood up. Val stayed sitting. Claudeson ran into the woods.

"He... sure did. It's... He had something he needed to do, I guess. It's okay. It's okay."

Val wanted to say Claudeson was a coward. She wanted to call him a liability. She wanted to call him weak. She certainly thought he was all those things.

But vocalizing it would make things too transparent. She'd made that mistake offering to kill Reuben and Teresa. She couldn't make it again, at least not around Jessica.

She wanted to tell the truth; it hurt not to. But if she did, she risked this being over before it ever got a chance to really start. She risked having the blood of everyone who would be killed in subsequent SOTFs on her hands. Everyone on this island risked it.

So she would ease them in. She would try, at least. She had to try.

"He's doing what he needs to do to be at peace with himself." She shrugged and sighed, slowly standing up. It was true, maybe. Val didn't know. She was guessing it had something to do with Tyrell's double-murder. She waved at Camille. "It's alright, let him go! He's... it's okay!"

Camille had no idea to talk to a person such as Claudeson, in a situation such as this. The way he talked, the worldview he had, the narrative he'd seemingly built for himself...Camille knew people like that existed in the world, but only in an academic sense, her only experience being pop culture or watching things play out from afar. Scenarios where she'd always had the comfort of not having to think properly about how she herself would handle the situation, with the distance and impartiality that that brought. Camille just nodded.

Wished Claude "good luck".

And let him go.

She wished she could have said something better. Something nicer. Expressed gratitude. Offered final parting words. But the words did not come to her mind - at least not in legible English - so she stuck to that simple expression of goodwill. Hoped that her emotions, as bewildered and confused and appreciative as they were, were somehow conveyed by those two syllables, monotonously uttered.

Jessica and Val had noticed.

They seemed to be - at least, Val, the more exuberant and more responsive of the two - supportive of Camille's instincts. Instincts that had been expressed by way of inaction, but instincts all the same. Camille turned to them. Started walking back towards them.

"He felt - feels - bad about Tyrell. He saved him, after all, only for him to be our most prolific murderer now." Camille kissed her teeth. "I don't know what he's doing. I think he - he needs to redeem himself. That's how he feels. I think." It was much harder analysing a situation such as this so up close.

"What? N-no, what are you-"

Jessica could barely wrap her head around the two other girls' reactions. They seemed to be of indifference, of acceptance, as if they knew what was going to happen and Jessica was only now being let into the loop.

"You can't let people go off on their own!"

The urge to grab her bag, much like she'd done repeatedly yesterday, emerged again, only for the familiar sensation to return alongside it, coupled with internal embarassment.

"I went off on my own yesterday and I-they...I told you what they did to me!"

Jessica wasn't sure if her heatedness was appropriate for the circumstances, but it was all she had now. She had her life, and she had her head, and her head told her not to let Claude go but her life told her to stay where there was people.

"And Christine! Christine, she went off on her own right before me, I went off on my own trying to find Christine, and now she's dead!"

That had to mean something, right? Tyrell murdered Christine, and that's what this was all about, wasn't it? There was a person on the other end of this equation, a person who Jessica met and knew and lost her life. They had to say something about that. They had to see that it wasn't just about that anymore.

"Please, we-we can't let him go off on his own!"

Jessica felt a strange sense of comfort when she wasn't as close to Valerija, or Camille. But with every fewer person standing in this camp, Jessica felt that much more unsafe. They didn't have to stand next to her, arms linked, forming a tight circle of fortitude, but just to be around people, to have them near her, not killing, or being stupid, or going off on their own, or having to defend their lives...it wasn't a solution, but it was safe.

And that was a word that was becoming less and less of a guarentee the longer she spent on the island.