SOTF Archive/SOTF Classic

Erika had only been examining Hel's wounds for a moment when she saw Toby stand up, produce his gun, and unload several rounds into Ashlynn's... bag? She recoiled, at first in fear and then in confusion as Toby abruptly left the area.

"Holy mother of fuck. Okay, screw that guy."

She took a deep breath, trying her best to suppress her jittery nerves. Thankfully she was still a bit high. Looking back to Hel, she noticed Stepney didn't seem to be doing so well either. This was a bit too much for him. Hel, to her credit, seemed to be handling the situation as well as could be expected. As far as Erika could see, the wound was largely superficial - she'd been grazed by a .32ACP, it wasn't exactly a howitzer.

"Okay Stepney, Tristan, you wanna help? Grab some gauze and hold it on there tight. I'm gonna grab some stuff from my kit, we'll clean it up and see if we have to stitch this shut. Hel, you just chill out and stay cool, we got this."

It was important to make it look like she knew what she was doing. She did, but it would help if they all had confidence in her. They'd feel like things were going to be okay, and then no one would panic, and nobody else would accidentally get shot.

"One way or another this is gonna hurt, Hel. We can patch you up but I gotta know you're okay with us doing it."

((Skipping to avoid inactivity))

Everything went black, which is kinda expected when you roll into a ball covering your face at the sound of gunshots. Then everything went white hot, which is kinda expected when you forget about your sick new gunshot wound and stretch it the fuck out trying not to get shot again. "Mooootherfuckeeer," they whined through gritted teeth. They weren't sure they hadn't been shot again, or if he hadn't that the approaching footsteps weren't him coming to finish the job.

Their hand slipped into their waistband.

Good luck, man.

He was gone. Hel didn't let go of the grip, but they eased up. Soon Ashylnn, Erika, even Stepney were around them reassuring them everything was fine. Some example of acceptance they made, huh? Like, they weren't trying to crush anybody's spirit when they got real. It was okay that they were gonna die. Everybody needed to get square with their mortality as soon as possible, because only one of them was gonna go home and the longer they deluded themselves the worse shit they were gonna do. Gods Collected, they could only imagine what some people would have done by the end of the day. Give it a week and they'd be on some full on corpse mutilation cannibalism torture porn insanity, you couldn't avoid it. When people let themselves get desperate the worst in everyone comes out. It would be way, way better to just accept what was happening and get it over with, right?

But they flinched. Worse than that they went for the gun. If Toby hadn't kept going, if he'd come to tower over them like Stepney was, there were pretty good odds they would have...

Man, fuck the end of the day. it hadn't even been an hour and if you counted the one in their head they'd already sat through three attempted murders. No telling what was in anybody else's heads already. They tried to push the thought out of their head and focus on the pain. Erika said this was gonna hurt. That'd probably keep them from thinking about it for awhile. "Do whatever you've gotta do. I trust y'all."

This was gonna suck, huh?

((Various bits of minor GMing approved via PMs))

Erika heard Hel acquiesce as she returned to her side with a medical kit. She motioned to Stepney and Tristan to move aside, and to lift the bandages.

“Alright, let’s get a better look at this.”

Erika motioned for Hel to lift her shirt up over the wound, and she obliged. It was nasty, but not nearly as bad as it could’ve been. Running across her midsection was a three to four inch gash, which was bleeding at an alarming, but not altogether catastrophic rate. It was surprisingly clean, and she could only venture to guess that the terrorists had armed Toby’s Kel-Tec with fully jacketed cartridges. If they’d had any room to expand or tumble, it would’ve been a lot uglier. As things stood, this still wasn’t the kind of injury that was going to close on its own, it practically invited an infection or some kind of additional trauma. It wasn’t going to kill Hel, but it wouldn’t help her chances. Erika took a moment to mentally prepare herself for what she had to do.

What I have to do? Do I have to do this?

Helping Hel wasn’t exactly going to help Erika survive this place. If she was serious about getting out of here, every person who still walked and breathed on this island was another that would eventually get in her way. One hundred and fifty eight to one, those were the odds to begin with.

She didn’t even like Hel to begin with. Erika didn’t really know why. She’d avoided them for the most part, partly out of fear of getting clocked. Anyone who involved themselves with LGBTQ+ stuff at school always made her a bit suspicious, as if they might be able to pick up on some sort of tell she'd somehow forgotten about. A part of her always bristled at the way the activist kids acted, too. Much as she knew she should have, she could never shake her discomfort at using "they" or at hearing people bemoan a gender binary she'd worked so hard to find a place within. Those activist types were the examples people pointed to to support the idea that trans people wanted to be special and different, when all they wanted was normal shit that everyone else just took for granted.

She tied back her hair, taking a deep breath as she forced herself back to some kind of baseline. A grim thought had occurred to her that she didn’t much like having, and one she didn’t feel was her own. She felt a sudden determination to rebel against its true origin.

God-damn Danya, you’ve built a special hell, haven’t you? I just thought about leaving someone to die because of some real petty bullshit. That's not okay. I hope the CIA puts you in a tiny box full of bedbugs one day, and never lets you out.

Regardless of what happened tomorrow or the next day, right now there was a person here who needed help. She thought back to Nona and Garnet, and how she’d left them at the Waterfall. To Katie, and what she’d saddled her with only moments after waking up. Neither of those decisions had sat well with her, as necessary as they’d seemed at the time. This wasn’t at all a necessary decision to make, but it was the right one and now she had the luxury to make it: a small act of rebellion against the broader circumstances they all found themselves in.

“Okay, this is gonna suck.”

She poured iodine on the wound, its characteristic orange hue washing away the blood and staining Hel’s skin. She poured some over both of her hands as well, taking care to only touch the probably-sterilized medical supplies afterwards.

Stitching flesh isn’t that different from stitching clothes, is it? I made my own clothes. I can do a few inches of sutures.

As she began, she noticed the handle of the weapon Hel was holding in her waistband. If the angle of the grip wasn’t familiar enough, she saw the characteristic white lettering on the safety that told her exactly what Hel had been issued.

“I know that gun says Gesichert and that does mean safe, but you might wanna take it outta your pants just in case. A loaded gun’s never actually safe.”

The needle went in easier than she'd expected. Erika heard some cursing and could feel the tension from the others watching what was happening. She pulled the line through, and then once again. More cursing. Her jaw tightened. As stressful as this was for her, she could only imagine how awful it was for Hel. She mentally searched for some kind of story or anecdote that might distract them. Only one really came to mind.

If I survive I’ll have a lot more to be concerned about than being outed to the world.

So she began to tell the story, as she fastidiously worked on Hel’s wound like she would have worked on a treasured old sweater.

“Okay, fuck it. Story time. There was a student teacher at my primary school named Erika. She was this tall, classically beautiful, sorta bubbly girl that never seemed to get tired of us. I was obsessed with her for a while, I thought she was just the most awesome thing I’d ever seen. Like she was really sporty, she had a million different like, nature facts, that she’d tell us whenever she took us outside. Just a really fuckin’ cool person.”

It wasn’t really that hard after a fashion. Seeing the skin pull together was kind of gnarly, but she supposed it was worth not bleeding to death or getting an infection.

“She ended up being the one they sent after me when I ran away, because they knew I liked her and I’d trust her. I ran away a lot. Folks don’t realize how much little boys and girls can bond over fuckin’ with someone who doesn’t seem to be either. So later on when I’d think of who I really was, the kind of name that fit that, I thought back to that woman. I remembered how kind she was, how patient she had to have been to stick with me. I wanted to be a woman like that. So I knew it had to be Erika.”

The stitches were done. Steri-strips were next up, to help it all hold together. Maybe they weren’t totally necessary, but they couldn’t hurt.

“I know people call ‘em dead names, but I never liked thinking about it like that. I wanted to keep Philip alive somehow. When I think about where I started, I’d rather have life on my mind. Like I know that little kid went through a lot so I could be me, so I feel like I kinda owe it to not totally erase him. Kept it as a middle name. If it came up on the attendance I just joked it was a spelling mistake. I dunno if it made any sense to do it that way. It just felt like the right thing for me. Tristan, you got the gauze?”

At the end of the excruciatingly long process, she finished up with a couple of squares of sterile gauze Tristan handed her, taped vaguely over the area. It wasn’t exactly a professional job, but it looked better than she’d imagined it would.

I’m not sure if doing this makes any sense in the long run, but it felt right.

The rest of the world seemed to come back into focus as she sat back to the forest floor, finally able to set her hands onto something that wasn’t either bloody or sterile. She wasn’t sure how much her story had really done for Hel or anyone else around them, though she did seem to notice a conspicuous drop in the amount of pained hisses and cursing. She dusted her hands off on the side of her duffel bag, placing the now-lighter medical kit back inside.

“Alright friend, you’re patched up.”

Hel’s whispered instruction had only just registered in Tristan’s mind when Toby made his exit, leaving a wildly fired round of bullets and a petulant one liner in his wake. As infuriating as it was that he had left them in such a stat, one he was almost wholly responsible for, a small wave of relief washed over Tristan. At least the most volatile, unpredictable one was gone. He hoped they never had to cross paths with his whirlwind of chaos again.



Ashlynn gave another biting response as Toby sped off and Tristan glanced at the ruin the boy had made of her bag. It dawned on him that if he’d had the time to fulfil Hel’s request, it would’ve been him riddled with bullet holes instead. He shook the image out of his head, closed his eyes for a second as he drew his focus back to the reality of the situation.



Cracked voice aside, Tristan thought Stepney was keeping his cool remarkably well considering the tantrum his friend had just thrown. Seeing the pressure they were in chip away at anyone was rough to see, but Toby was a near stranger to Tristan and he imagined it would’ve been ten times as difficult for Stepney to see a friend go from lighthearted joking to emptying a cartridge at them. In hindsight, Hel’s downer attitude was nothing in comparison to that display of fury.



He looked up at Stepney and offered him a smile of comfort; the best thing he could manage when they still had the gargantuan task of makeshift surgery to see to.



Tristan let himself be kept firmly under Hel’s grip as he fumbled through his kit with his free arm. He grabbed a spool of gauze, and followed Erika’s instructions firmly yet gently. As he stretched the fabric out, he noticed his hands weren’t shaking at all.

“You got this, Hel. I’m sure you’ve had tougher days at Starbucks, right?”

Erika went into full doctor-mode, moving Stepney and himself out of the way. He reluctantly let go of Hel's arm and backed away a few steps, giving Erika enough space to do what she needed but remaining close enough that he could leap in to assist if need be.

Tristan turned away and closed his eyes as Erika went to work, trying to shut the imagery out. He figured he'd see a lot worse (and soon), but if he had the chance to avoid it he was going to leap on it. There had been times when he'd had the opportunity to look away when chaos reigned around him and he hadn't taken it. But that was years and thousands of miles away, and he wasn't going to make the same mistake now.

Almost instinctively, he let his hand reach out for Stepney's. He just needed a touch, a little something to see him through to the other side.

It seemed like hours had stretched past by the time Erika's voice broke through the silence and Tristan finally let himself open his eyes.

Ashlynn's role in Hel's medical care was quickly limited. She wasn't sure when or how the decision was made, whether it was a conscious call or just a new arrangement that emerged organically, but before she knew it, the first responder had been relegated to an auxiliary role, silently following Erika's commands and adhering to the role that she was given. Ashlynn was passing materials, holding tape, keeping things steady, sometimes on her own initiative holding out her hand so Hel could grab or squeeze it if she needed that extra comfort, but there was no mistaking that Erika had taken charge.

It wasn't right, but Ashlynn couldn't deny that there was an instinctive pang of irritation at this development. She had been the first to move into place, after all. She had been the one to leap into action, with no regard for her own safety, heroically forgoing her own hygienic or sanitary needs even as her hands got caked in someone else's blood, no recoiling at the potential risks and the unavoidable ickiness that came from this all. She had been the one to endure Toby's ire in its latter and lesser form, to lose her stuff and the integrity of her supplies in a secondary burst of his entitled rage. Ashlynn did feel a little bit irritated that, again, her own talents were not being put on full display.

Luckily, she realised how selfish and unreasonable that initial reaction was before it displayed itself in any tangible way. She wrinkled her nose and furrowed her brow, of course, but she was doing those things anyway. Better to look angry and irate than despondent and terrified. It was when Erika cleaned her hands with iodine that Ashlynn really started seeing the error of her ways. There was only so much iodine on hand, after all. Best to conserve the supplies in other bags - especially as Ashlynn's own first aid kit was a likely casualty. That insight sparked others - that too many hands could only add confusion and increase the margin for error, that Ashlynn was perhaps too emotionally implicated in this scene despite being a late arrival much like Erika.

That Erika knew what was doing, and Ashlynn didn't, and there was no point in Erika teaching Ashlynn when she could do it herself.

Erika had a talent for storytelling too. Ashlynn listened intently to the tale, making a mental note to praise Erika later for all the bravery and courage that she had been made to show throughout her life, that perhaps the group's wide and diverse array of experiences could be leveraged into their greatest strength, that there was much they could do by sticking together and working together.

Hold the gauze, keep it held tight. Yeah. Yeah, he was pretty sure he could do that, even with his current mental state about as secure as the proverbial china plate, watching a bull stroll into the shop.

In real life, Stepney was used to being the one setting the pace, and if not that, then easily keeping up with it at the very least. But he had to keep reminding himself that he didn’t hold all the cards anymore, and that his skills, so useful when it came to swindling a dime out of somebody, meant absolutely jack shit out here. He let Erika move him around and tell him what to do. He’d flipped a coin, and made the decision to help Hel. He didn’t wanna get in the way, or worse, pull a Toby.

Man, what a jackass.

He’d thought his job as ‘Bandage Bitch’ was gonna be a piece of cake, but the pained noises and hissing and swearing like a sailor coming from Hel’s mouth had very quickly turned that opinion around. So too had the blood. So too had their body reacting sharply against the pain. He appreciated Erika’s story for that, something else for him to set his mind to and focus on, even though it was mostly just white noise, as he shut his eyes and held the bandages.

He caught snippets of it, though. Enough for him to figure out where she was going with it, enough for him to understand just how personal this had to be, how much willpower it had to take for her to spill her heart out whilst trying to stop Hel from doing the same.

He wished he could empathise more. Well. Sort of. Not, like, in the way that Erika had been through, but… he’d never really had any reason to take a deep examination into his own gender and sexuality. It wasn’t that he was 100% secure in either of them, or anything like that; 18 years old wasn’t the end of the line for self-discovery, he had - or rather, he had had until Danya fucked everything up - plenty of time to suddenly realise things. Just that he’d never had any particular interest in relationships, and no particular desire to find out more about what and who he liked and didn’t like.

All up until Ming came into his life.

God. He hadn’t thought about her for a while. Even now, the image of her smile made him feel slightly calmer, a little warm bubble enveloping him momentarily. He just had to think about her. Think about all the times they’d spent together, that text message he’d sent her by the fountain, the one that had sent his heart haywire and skyrocketing through the stratosphere.

Fuck, man, he wanted to see her again so fucking badly.

He opened his eyes again, and saw Tristan smiling at him, fingertips gently brushing the side of his hand as they held the gauze. Instinct guided him, welcoming the comfort of human touch, mirroring Tristan’s gesture and smiling back at him. Huh. Maybe he didn’t appear as shaky as he thought he did. That… Hell, that was real good. Maybe the years of putting on a veneer of calm had ingrained it into his system memory. And if the people around him thought he was successfully keeping his cool, then that’d only help him actually do so quicker than expected.

He looked back at Erika and Hel, and realised that they were, finally, done. Hel was still kind of a mess, but, like, a mess where the really truly messy bits had all been cleaned up. A promising mess. Which, coincidentally, was what he’d been listed as in their yearbook. Stepney gave himself a weak self-zing as he stood up straight, feeling relief begin to flood through him.

He also realised how badly he was sweating, now. Gross. As if the humidity of the forest hadn’t been enough. You could probably make a swimming pool out of the sweat collecting on his back. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, giving a grateful smile to Erika.

“Hey, uh… hey, good job,” he said, wiping his hands on his shirt. “And, Jesus Christ, thanks a bunch.”

Stepney craned his head to look behind him, deep into the woods, as a scowl crossed his face.

“Hope that dumbass trips and breaks his goddamn neck.”

The Fury household had never been big on doctors, which was kinda weird considering their dad had been doctor-adjacent since he was 19. Or maybe it wasn't? If anybody got to have a fair suspicion of medical practice maybe it was the guy who did all the tests and put up with all the bullshit. Whether it was rational or not, it meant they didn't have any experience with getting stitched up. They'd probably been hurt bad enough; there was that time with the bleacher's at Bobby's teeball practice where they'd jumped off the top row dodging a stray ball and turned their knees to hamburger skidding on the concrete below. That gnarly cut all up their back when they slid down that tree at camp a few years ago was pretty nasty too and they couldn't really tell if it'd scarred up at the bottom or faded away, it blended in too well with their stretch marks. The only time they'd seen stitching happen live and in color though was when Lloyd and Bobby and them were jumping around on the guest bed watching Dad play...what, some RTS? The screen was washed out by the memory of Bobby screaming, his head cut open against the edge of the wooden nightstand he'd fallen on to, their parents yelling at them as they ran to the car. The anesthesia didn't quiet down his sobbing at all, the nurses had to hold him down while he was getting sewn up. Huh. They didn't have that many clear memories of Bobby. Vague flashes of kicking a soccer ball back and forth at the YMCA, some shared video games. They'd taught him a couple times when Mom was too busy and it hadn't gone well for either of them, but they couldn't remember why. All blended together in a half-remembered slurry they couldn't be sure held many real details. That night, though. They remembered it now clear as if it'd just happened. It made them wonder.

Like, it was easy to figure their parents would never watch this. Mom didn't have the stomach for it and they were, uh, they still had a lot to work out they probably wouldn't anymore. Dad had seen enough of this kind of thing. He didn't need to watch it happen to them. They'd be worried if there was any chance Lloyd wouldn't be on the first flight out to take care of him once he heard the news, and Lloyd? He could never watch. It's not that he couldn't stand to see what might happen to them. Just, as soon as they were hurt and he didn't have anyone to take the anger out on he'd have to know it was time to quit. Gods they hoped he would quit. Otherwise he'd find someone to blame eventually, no matter the people he really wanted to hurt were already dead. All it took was running into somebody like Toby's parents downtown and he might snap. He needed to have the self-control to not look. Hopefully Dad kept him distracted enough.

Bobby, though.

Hel didn't know anything about the man Bobby was growing into, they hadn't even seen each other in years. They talked but they were brief. Private. It occurred to them they didn't know what his voice sounded like anymore, not without the warping of whispers and a bad phone connection. They hadn't thought to ask him for a picture, or send him one, it was too risky if their mom had found out. If they'd tried, really tried, they might have been able to sneak back to Missouri and see him, but it felt like an impatient gamble. Three years hadn't seemed so long yesterday morning. Why endanger what they had when there would always be more time?

They didn't know what he was doing now. They wondered, though, if he was watching. If he might take this last chance to try and understand the sibling he'd been kept from for almost a decade now, and if when the needle broke their flesh he felt the same symbiotic pang of regret they did watching him in the ER all those years ago. Did it stir his memory too? Was he crying?

Hel was crying. That probably seemed pretty normal to everyone around them, what with the gun shot into impromptu surgery without anesthetic. It helped in a way. They didn't need to explain the tears. Their intermittent swearing was par for the course, as was the way their body trembled under Erika's hands. This was the wrong group to get into these thoughts with, regardless of how well meaning they were, so it was a mercy that every stitch hurt enough to drive their speculation away for a few moments. The big savior was Erika's story, though.

"That...fuuuuck...makes a lot of sense. I never, mm, figured to ask. R-rude, y'know? She'd be proud of you though, I think..."

Everything said and done it still hurt like a motherfucker. They were sweating. When they got to their feet they stripped their flannel off and tied it around their waist. "I..." Hesitated. They thought about sharing their name, but what was the story? There was no big gesture behind it. An edgy online nickname when they were a kid turned into the assumption it was a joke about their real name once they started presenting as a girl to anyone who asked, and bam. They were Hel, or Helen, or Helena. Had been to lots of people for, fuck, also almost a decade. Sounded kinda hollow next to Erika's speech. It was just who they were, not some grand point about the nature of identity. Not worth sharing either. "Nevermind. Thank you."

Tristan tried to encourage them on with banter and got a weak smile. The group wasn't going back there though. You could add the mood to Toby's list of victims. Stepney went full dark to the other end of the spectrum in a way that kinda scared them. That mood needed to die next, but it was just gonna fester here. "Maybe...maybe we should get going? In case he comes back, or something."

Hel shouldered their bags with a sharp wince. Reeeeaally needed to take things easier or their side was gonna be screaming at them constantly. "It sounded like he went off that way so...take your pick, I guess?"

---

They caught the flash of the lens hanging low in a bush sometime later while they were walking. No one else was right on their tail to ask questions. Getting hopelessly lost had a couple advantages, maybe. They knelt down, not right up on top of it but a couple feet away and whispered.

"Please don't be afraid. I'll be okay. I can't..."

They choked.

"I can't tell you to stop. I wouldn't. I'll, I'll try to come up with some better stuff to say if you really want to hear it, okay?"

Dead air. Their eyes drifted to the ground.

"I love you. Just, whoever's watching, I love you. Mom wouldn't ever let me tell her, and I don't think she'll, you know, I don't...tell her for me, please? I still love her. There's a lot I wanted to say but that's all I ever needed her to hear, if she'd pick up."

The sleeve of their flannel wiped sweat and tears from their face. "Okay. I'll talk to you later, I hope."

((Helena Fury Continued In The Sky Is A Neighborhood))

Erika shrugged, as Stepney complimented her on a job well done.

"Just tryin' to do the right thing, dude."

It probably should've made her feel good, just as much as seeing Hel slowly get back to her feet and thank her as well. She'd tried her best to help, and it had paid off. Maybe they'd all be a little bit less frightened after this, now that they'd faced down something awful.

It'll keep them going.

Tristan and Ashlynn seemed to look at her in a different light than she'd expected, too. A show of competence and kindness went a long way towards people trusting you. She hadn't really meant to take charge, at least she hadn't set out to do so. They'd let it happen, no doubt out of desperation. It wasn't easy to tell if they'd had a genuine impression she knew what she was doing.

I didn't. I just did what I had to.

Everything was fine, relatively speaking. Hel had a better chance then she'd had before. Maybe this would make the rest of them feel more confident about what they'd done. Even the source of their troubles had extricated himself from the situation without any additional bloodshed.

Did I really have to?

Still, she was unable to shake the sense of unease. The sense that no, she had done something very wrong by helping. These people had a false impression of what to expect from her. Garbage thoughts invaded her mind, making it impossible to even cherish a solitary moment of doing something kind and decent just for its own sake.

I chose to. Now I'm lighter on medical supplies. There's only so much iodine, and I'll need it once I run out of water. What's her life worth to me, exactly?

Hel was still alive, which meant she was still in the game just like the rest of them. Her group of survivors weren't going to be bogged down by tending to the injury. To debating whether or not to kill her, and then which one would get the chance to do it. These people were going to draw strength from this encounter, wouldn't they? Strength they'd carry with them further into the game, further than Erika could ever hope to-

Stop it. Stop thinking about it like that. I'm not going to die here. I will not let that happen. I just proved what it's going to take to do that. Everything is okay.

Maybe she'd just created a challenge for herself. A litmus test to see if she was still someone she wanted to be. Still worthy of a name instead of just the number on her bag. Maybe it was a chance to prove that she was still herself, an act that might obfuscate the heinous lack of value she placed on lives that weren't her own, the callousness Erika couldn't help but feel she'd embodied so far.

One foot in front of the other. Come on.

As Hel beckoned for the rest of them to leave, Erika did her best to suppress the anxious thoughts that were racing through her mind. She forced a smile, motioning with her walking stick in the opposite direction to where Toby had ran off to. "I'm good with wherever as long as it's got like, less crazy people. It's not like I'm on a schedule or anything. I'm cool with procrastinating the whole getting killed thing."

---

Erika had stayed fairly quiet as they'd searched for shelter that night, eventually opening up when they'd found somewhere relatively safe. She confessed to the rest of them that she'd likely head her own way in the morning, to find somewhere to hide. To see if she could find people who she wanted to see in case things went bad for them in the next few days. The fact is, she admitted, she helped Hel because she didn't want to see anyone die. Even though she didn't know them all that well, she cared about them and didn't want to be around again for something like that. The idea of dying scared her too much to function at times, even back home.

The only lie was that her impetus for hiding was to avoid any sources of danger until, she hoped, rescue would come.

Before leaving, Erika shared some of her experiences with them. The places she'd been, and people she'd encountered. Talked about how Emil had a tracking device for the collars, and how they should avoid Lorenzo if at all possible (though she only accounted for his actions on the island.) Explained what they'd have to do if someone got hit dead-on, what risks they'd face with an injury like that. Used her stick to demonstrate how they'd have to aim any guns they found. Shit that'd help them down the line, where she knew she couldn't.

"If you've gotta shoot someone, keep going until they're down. Handguns aren't as deadly as everyone thinks they are. Someone worked up on adrenaline is gonna keep going until something actually stops them."

"You can use iodine to treat water if you run out. Five to ten drops in a bottle, wait half an hour, then you're good. It'll taste like shit but it's safe. Always keep some when I go hiking just in case."

"I'm really sorry guys. I should be better than this. I just... can't."

All of this she said as she felt claws dig into her shoulders, a lingering notion that saying all of this was somehow worse than just leaving them to their own devices. For all she'd hoped her actions in the later part of the day would erase what she'd done in the beginning, both managed to deprive her of rest that night. When the time was right, Erika made her exit and disappeared off into the wilderness.

((Erika Stieglitz continued on Day 2, Heimweh))

Hel was back up on their feet with almost miraculous speed, if not without visible pain and difficulty. Tristan admired the strength they’d seemingly pulled out of thin air, especially given how before they’d sunken to resignation so quickly.



Stepney had returned his smile, and had assisted so diligently as Erika worked. Tristan felt a burst of admiration for the other boy. Maybe it’s because he’d been there, in the clearing, right from the start. The first person to greet him and offer him a kind word in this place. However, all that didn’t mean Stepney was above offering an explicit comment about what he hoped Toby’s destination would be. Still, he’d been keeping it together so well so far, Tristan couldn’t begrudge him a flash of frustration.



Erika seemed so assured, and who could blame her after pulling off a feat like she had; a makeshift surgery with poor equipment in the least ideal scenario and environment? It made sense she could conjure up such inner strength, given the anecdote she’d given as she worked on Hel.



Ashlynn had kept to the side, and Tristan wanted to check in, see if she was doing okay, but couldn’t quite find the words. A rare enough instance for him, and one he found unsettling in their current circumstances.



Hel wanted to move on, and Tristan agreed. They’d been here far too long already for his liking. He let the others take the lead in choosing a direction, and he nodded in acquiescence as he followed in their path.




---



Morning.

A whole day had passed in this place. Tristan glanced around, still bleary-eyed from a remarkably smooth sleep, and checked his watch. Still early, enough so that he could be sure he hadn’t yet missed the announcements they’d been promised. Good.



Tristan grabbed his bag, and double-checked to see if all his belongings were firmly accounted for before slinging it over his shoulder. He neglected to check who was still amongst their crew, didn't want to catch the eye of anybody who might question him. All the same, he murmured something akin to “need some space” to anybody who might care to hear, and shifted away from their cluster.



He moved without a solid direction, just wanting somewhere secluded; close enough that he could still find his way back, and far enough away that he had some sense of privacy for what was to come.



Just in case.



((Tristan O’Hara continued in Could I Leave You?))

Ashlynn wanted to impart some knowledge. Wanted to be useful. Wanted to be quotable. Ashlynn's one hope was to do something good with her life, to have some kind of a positive legacy, to create an indelible improvement upon the world. She could scarcely do that if she was a supporting character in her own arc. No scholarships or campaigns were ever named after a random statistic, after all.

She spent the next few hours surveying the damage done to her bag. A selfish task, admittedly, but Ashlynn needed her own house in check before she could help others. It was an irritating inventory, and Ashlynn's fervent double-checking and triple-checking probably only added to the wear that the contents were put through. She had lost water. One bottle had been burst, leaving the adjacent survival guide - her only reading material, as sad a thought as that was - sodden and squidgy. Some of the foodstuffs were damaged, but salvageable. Her "weapon" - some stupid key blade - had taken a hit. The integrity of the bag itself needed to be monitored.

But as the day turned into night, she was out of her depth, unable to do any of that, unable to be at the forefront of anything. Hel provided the impetus for the group to move on, getting back to their feet with admirable speed and tenacity, setting the pace for where the group went next in a manner that defied all argument. After all, if the injured person had the energy and zest needed to move to safer ground, who were the others to object?

Tristan just came across as nice and supportive at every turn, and Ashlynn appreciated that. The role of kind loyalist was an integral one to any group, though not one suited for Ashlynn, but in Tristan it had an occupant regardless.

Ashlynn had hoped that she could, at least, be the best at expressing contempt for Toby. But Stepney - perhaps wishing to rid himself of the besmirching guilt by association that Toby's amicable manner towards him had left - managed to be more eloquent and pithy in expressing his contempt for the gun nut that had caused this mess.

When it came to inspirational stories, tales of adversity and challenge, Erika proved a reliable fount, able to be the protagonist in her own stories rather than just relaying the stories of others, as Ashlynn's talent was. When it came to useful survival tips and insights into the actions of their fellow classmates, it turned out that Erika had plenty to offer there too. But she would leave them. She was open about that, at least. Her reasons were understandable - but the reasons for staying, for cooperating, were so obvious, so compelling, that Ashlynn didn't see a need to make them.

Ashlynn would stay behind, though.

She wouldn't run. She'd lead this group, if need be. That was a nice thing to dream about.

((Ashlynn Martinek continued in Assignment to Catastrophe.))

Time to leave, apparently.

Wasn’t like there was much else to stay here for, after all. It was gross and sticky and humid, here in the woods, and… well, if the rest of the island was as tropical as this, it would probably be just as muggy and awful everywhere else. But at least there was a chance of shade, or a big ol’ body of water for them to throw themselves into, if they moved out. Only reason they hadn’t left already was because they needed to treat Hel, and now that they were a-okay, that was their whole to-do list checked off.

And like Hel said, there was always a chance that Toby would come back for a second go.

Stepney scowled again as he thought that. His comments to Erika about the guy had been made in a pique of anger, sure, but he couldn’t deny there was more than a kernel of truth in them. It probably sounded weird to say, sure, maybe a mite suspicious, speaking like that about the guy he’d been closest to at school. 100 to 0 real quick.

But, turns out, he’d stopped caring about his old friend the moment he’d fired a bullet into someone else Stepney liked, shot up someone else’s bag for snapping back at him, and then fucked off. It was easy for Stepney to stop caring about someone. You just had to be as stupid as Toby, and that seemed to be something the other four were sorely lacking. Along with, if he was being generous, a solid… 35% of his class.

But even with that in mind, he’d stayed to help Hel, even when he could have easily just gone ‘Yeah, nah, bye’ and wandered off somewhere else. Clearly he cared about Hel, and most likely he’d continue to care for their wellbeing for a long while after this. That was fine. That was one person out of over a hundred. But he didn’t care about or trust Erika, or Ashlynn, or Tristan anywhere near as much, and he was willing to bet… well, the most valuable thing he had right now that wasn’t his bicycle was his stash of granola bars, so. He was willing to bet all of them that he’d end up wanting to make sure none of them came to any harm, either, the longer he stuck with them.

There was a lot of shit for him to shift through, all various shades of ‘fucked up and unpleasant’, but thankfully, it all kinda vanished from his mind as he followed the others through the forest.

Wheeling a bike over tangled roots and bumpy undergrowth took a hefty amount of mental exertion, whoulda thought it.

---

He had time to mull it over as he lay on the ground and struggled to sleep, though. He knew what he had to do, really. What the smart thing to do in this situation was. All he needed was for him to actually push himself forwards a step and do it. Having some time just with his thoughts, letting his body rest, and with everybody else out of sight and mind, had been enough for him to convince himself to actually do it.

But as soon as he woke up, he knew it was too late. Stepney wasn’t a heavy sleeper most of the time, but when he slept in, boy fucking howdy did he sleep in. Tristan and Erika were already gone. Hel and Ashlynn were already awake. He supposed he could have just… made up some lie and about turned and left the two of them. But it didn’t feel right doing so. He couldn’t tell you why, exactly. Maybe it was because lying to Hel’s face didn’t sit well with him. Maybe it was because, despite what everyone might think, Stepney actually cared a ton about the people he hung out with.

Maybe it was just that there was still the chance that Ming might be watching him, and man, he really was still clinging to the hope that he’d be able to get out of here and see her again, wasn’t he?

Whatever the case might have been, Stepney ended up walking with the two remaining members of their little group, and as he did so, he could feel the claws of loyalty and allegiance sink in.

Goddamnit.

((Stepney Cruz continued in Assignment to Catastrophe))