SOTF Archive/SOTF Classic

Princess tried to console him, but not only that, she had gone on a sort of rant defending what Thomas had done and was seemingly angrier at Zach for the whole affair. It kind of shocking to the boy and he would have likely thought the remarks disingenuous had Princess not become so impassioned.

Her attitude to the whole thing seemed so strange. Thomas knew that he’d handled the whole thing wrong, even if his basic intentions were good. She'd always seemed hard to parse back home, though, and that seemed to hold true out on murder island as well.

Sean spoke to back up her words too, though he was certainly more reserved and rightfully so, Thomas thought.

He’s going to be afraid of you now. He might not leave you, but he’ll fear you and he’ll be right to do it.

And Zach? Zach had just wandered off, back to the room with the beds it seemed. The room with the bodies.

Regardless of whatever was right or wrong, everyone just trying to make Thomas feel better while he apologized over and over wasn’t helping anything, and frankly it was making him uncomfortable.

“Alright, um, thanks- thank you guys. Really.” Thomas cleared his throat, trying to project a clear and even voice. “We- there’s more important things to deal with anyway. Sean, can you… go get Zach? We should talk about what we’re going to do next ‘cause I do not want to stay here.”

That had been the funniest thing Zach had ever done in his entire life. A beautifully absurd punchline that shocked Princess right out of her own pointless self-righteousness. She blushed to where she almost creased her face with smile lines- would have been a nervous smile, a rank admission of her own embarrassment. But of course, at the best of times and the worst of times she was nothing if not obsessively put together in all the most disingenuous ways.

Anyways, they'd hardly managed to rally the troops. Thomas was probably still consumed by his maybe-deserved probably-not guilt. Join the club, at any rate. She stood, and wracked her brain for all the important things she'd likely forgotten in her tumbling regression to the mean.

She, the one to protect the dignity and integrity of the dying class of 2018? Laughable prospect when she couldn't even conserve her own.

Not like she was going to stop trying. She was used to being the pathetically whimpering underdog- virtually her life's brand.

"Most everyone else I've met so far has kept their wits about them," Princess softly relayed, settling into a noncommittal half-pacing back and forth. Other news would be a decent diversion from the more immediate forms of trauma haunting their surroundings- blood and bone and who knew what else splattered over these halls. "Maybe Anna Herbert might be a problem, she did not seem to be at all put together. I met Paloma and she was evasive- her killing of Abel might be more than a mere accident. Teresa Rojas and that boy who wears the mascot costume threw a girl off the waterfall- also inexplicable."

"Everyone else was..." Abandoned by her, in a fit of colossal lack of worthiness of her nonexistent pedigree. Princess would have to introduce herself as Dumb, and also Dumber. "Hopeful. For now." She turned to Thomas, but did not commit any definitive body language his way. He'd recover in his own time, at his own pace. Much as she would.

"Violet is gone, and... well, I'm keeping myself together for now. I'm with you guys, as long as you need me. We know there are still good people out there, maybe we can find them."

For all the good that would do them. More people together was likely just more lambs to the slaughter, and wolves hiding in the sheepskins.

So they got themselves as sort of kumbayah session here. With everyone trying to keep each other up through words and awkward contact. Well, he would be lying if he really meant everyone. Thomas and Princess were at least.

Whilst Zach just fuckin' walked off into the other room. Why did he do it? Sean didn't know and right now he was little bit too miffed to want to know. At first he was all too willing to drag him out as Thomas asked him to get him so they can plan, but he stopped a few steps in as he listened to Princess talk.

In the midst of her mentioning others. Good and bad, names being thrown out. There was one that made him stop.

"Y-you knew Violet?" His voice was almost a whisper as he said it as his brain rolled it's wheel. Two Violet's, but past tense. A body lay in the other room. He felt the sweat add up as the words came out. "Sh-she's in the other room. On a bed."

As Zach laid on the bed, lamenting the fact he was sharing the same room with a couple of corpses, his mind was fixated on his chances for survival. He still had a weapon and supplies, so he wasn’t completely helpless. According to the rules, since he had killed somebody, he’d be allowed to leave once this was all over.

But then, the little voice interjected.

You know your name is gonna be on tomorrow’s announcements right?

Zach was then hit by a jolt of dread. If the others found out about what Zach did to Bree, he’d be screwed! Fuck! After everything that had happened, he’d forgotten about that part.

Thomas, the bundle of nerves he is, would probably hold Zach at gun point like he did with Lucas. He’ll probably try to fucking shoot shoot him in the face with no second thought! Zach still had a gun, so he’d be able to get Thomas to back down if possible. But what if the others get the jump on him first?

Zach wanted to avoid as much conflict as possible, that way he could ride this game out as smoothly as possible. He didn’t just wanna gun down as many people as he could. It’d just paint a bigger target on his back!

The little voice returned once more.

Just sneak away when no one’s looking.

Zach had a moment of thought, and decided on a course off action. He’ll sneak off in the morning and leave before anyone has a chance to question why he was mentioned in the announcements. He’d stay up all night if he had to.

Princess' report on the status of the other students she’d met seemed a bit odd to Thomas. Not so much in the process of informing them which of their classmates might have lost it a bit out there, which was probably helpful, but in the tone and structure of the remark itself.

The girl seemed to hold a great deal more optimism than Thomas had in the moral fortitude. Sure, he didn’t think that everyone was going to turn into a gun-toting psycho the moment they woke up on the island, but this was Survival of the Fittest, and classmates had turned on one another here six times previously. George Hunter wasn’t special.

Maybe it all goes wrong because people like you lose their nerve. Can’t keep it together so they shoot someone who doesn’t deserve it. Maybe…

Not relevant. Another time. Stop.

Princess also said that she planned to stick with him and Sean, which was one good thing. Well, Thomas assumed that Sean was sticking with them since the guy hadn’t gone off on him. Zach was the real question mark.

But, instead of going to get that question mark like Thomas had tried to ask, Sean addressed another one of Princess’s remarks that had slipped passed Thomas when he was trying not to drown in self-pity again.

Violet. Shit, Princess and Violet Quinn were a thing, weren’t they? Where had he heard that?

Why the fuck did Sean tell her?! We were just about to go anyway!

“You don’t have to see her if you don’t want to. We’ll probably be going anyway.” Thomas spoke softly. He felt an instinct to place a hand on Princess’s shoulder as some token show of comfort, but he rejected the thought, instead simply giving her a cautious look.

Princess had shrugged off all the claims that she'd been brave when she'd come out. The only person whose opinion had mattered had already been on her side by then.

And she was gone now, but Princess had always been the sort to be weighed down by the gravity of long lost history. Well, she supposed it felt that long ago, already. Pettily, she'd already forgotten what it felt like to wear shoes.

Yet she couldn't forget Violet's damn voice. It had been melodious, in a particularly irritating way. Sticky to the memory like tape and glue and drying blood.

She held Thomas' gaze evenly.

"I don't want to see."

Yet she violently about faced and began to drift deeper into the building. Observing without seeing: a set of sterile double doors, a hospital's worth of props and facades. She strode up to the doors, her hand rested against. They were feather light on their hinges, her presence was lighter still. Uncertain.

She lingered there, frozen on the precipice. Of what, she didn't even know.

Sean stood there with an unsure look as Princess walked past him only to stop as her hand reached out and touched the doors leading further into the infimary. Was it a good thing to tell her? He could tell from Thomas's face that he wouldn't agree if he thought so, but what else is he supposed to do? Tell her hours later when it wouldn't matter?

She said she didn't want to see her and yet there she stood. Maybe she needed a push? Y'know, not a real one, but a sort of... what's the word again? Methaporical? He thought to himself as he stepped over to the doors and with a slight push, made his way in. If Thomas asked, he did it to get Zach. That's all.

He walked to him as he laid on the bed, not far from the bodies that made this room theirs. His eyes were open as he stared out into the open. Sean gave a slight nudge to one of his feet, a sort of sideways punch with his left hand in a fist.

"This is earth command calling Zachary Beck, over?" He waved his right hand in front of his face. "We're setting up a plan and getting out of here, come on man."

Zach was startled out of his train of thought by Sean. He rose up quickly, scowling at Sean. His scowl turned into a thoughtful gaze as he pondered.

Out of everyone here, Sean was the only one who Zach had any meaningful history with. He would help him with his pranks, introduced him to some bitchin’ music, and confided to him when life sucked the big cock. Perhaps, he could confide in Sean here as well? He was the closest person Zach could consider a friend.

“Hey, Sean,” Zach said, “What would you do if someone said I did something wrong?”

He paused, trying to come up with a way to word his sentence.

“Like,” he continued, “whether if it was true or not, would you believe them?”

Though Princess told him that she didn’t want to see, she quickly started to make her towards the room which held Violet’s body. Sean headed off too, though he was hopefully going to do as Thomas had asked in getting Zach.

Thomas stood in place for a moment, unsure of what he should do now. Cry again? Punch a wall again? Sit around feeling as useless as he was?

He came very close to doing all that.

But it would just make everyone more uncomfortable around the unstable kid with a gun.

He swallowed and then slowly followed after the others, finding Princess at the doorway as Sean stepped inside the room. Thomas heard his companion speaking to Zach and felt a small wave relief, since he could know that at least something was getting done.

Then, he managed to catch Zach’s question and found that relief replaced with a healthy dose of dread. Zach had definitely killed for or at least stolen that weapon that he later handed over to Lucas like a damn tool. Thomas’s first instinct was to rush past Princess and rip into the liar, expose him and kick him out… but he didn’t have the energy, not anymore. After all, Zach was still being pretty chill, so maybe the situation was somehow complicated.

Cross that bridge when you come to it. Focus on… other things.

Other things being Princess.

He knew he should say something nice or profound or something like that. The girl probably needed it.

“Um, you probably- you know, if you’re going to see her, you don’t have to… be alone, at least?” The words were more awkward coming out of his mouth than in his head, a jumble that sounded more like a question than a comfort. Still, his expression was one of legitimate concern this time, lacking the fear present as he tried to anticipate Princess’s initial reaction.

She'd stood small to one side when Sean bustled past. She was still standing there, hand almost ethereal against the door between herself and every truth she needed to confront and didn't want to.

She was playing with people's lives, writing a story from their bloody ink.

Her reaction to Thomas was for a moment wounded, she flinched a bit backwards as his words and voice violently intruded onto the serene moment of profound indecisiveness she'd shared with herself. Once more his tone was genuine and honest. He wore himself on his sleeves, hemmed them with his sinewy heartstrings. She searched the floor a moment long, then his eyes another moment.

Back to the door her wayward gaze drifted. She remembered, once upon a modern cynical fairy-tale time, that Violet had brought that earnestness out of herself that she'd so rarely ever bothered to use. Even now she was emoting with some oddly faux mask that she scrunched up her face into. Maybe she was not. She didn't know. She'd lost control of her narrative sometime ago.

"... No. I don't want to go through those doors, Thomas."

It came out quiet. Defeated, a bit desperate.

"Let's wait for Zach and Sean. I guess."

Her outstretched hand fell to her side, feather soft and delicate.

Sean took a step back as Zach rose with a scowl on his face, apparantly he was bothering him from pondering the mysteries of the universe or whatever with that sort of reaction. He would have reacted with one of his own along with some words about taking a nap in the room of the dead as they are all trying to get grips on the situation when he asked Sean something specific.

"Said you did something wrong..." He mumbled as his eyes quickly darted from the beds of Desiree and Violet. The cogs doing their rotation as he wondered the meaning.

Told. Said. Truth or lies, belief. Someone saying something, anything important...Other students? Or the announcements? And believe who? Him? Over everyone else? Sean especially didn't like the wording of "whether it was true or not."

What did he do?!

Sean rolled his eyes back to Zach. The cogs stopped their roation and were stock still as he stared at his friend with stoic face, who sat expectant of an answer. He was being shifty as can be right now and it felt like something was running up his back. Like he was standing in a shower that had only the dial for cold water.

Would he go ballistic if any notion of no was answered? What would he do then? Run? Steal? Maim? KIll?

Or did he speak the truth here and it was just a hypothetical question...Like a test of friendship and trust...From the dude that wanted to throw water ballons at Wyatt Carter? Sean wasn't too sure on that.

He put both his hands into the pocket of his hoodie and answered.

"No. I wouldn't." He swallowed as he took a quick look back at the door and to Zach again before continuing. "You're my friend Zach. I'm not throwing you away."

Sean’s answer felt bittersweet to Zach. On the one hand, it was reassuring to hear Sean say he wouldn’t just abandon Zach like a sick puppy. But on the other hand, he might’ve answered that way to make Zach feel better and when the chips are down, Sean might actually turn his back on him for real. Still, if Sean was sincere, thank God Zach had someone he could trust.

“Ya know,” Zach said, “We never did get to prank Wyatt Carter. That little bitch Joey Quintero ratted us out.”

Zach recollected on his time before the game. He’d just reached 1000 subscribers on YouTube, so he planned on planning a big prank on the school’s biggest asshole. Sadly, that didn’t come to pass. Zach had hoped to find a new plan for his subscriber special, but he couldn’t come up with anything before the trip.

“I wonder how my fans are gonna react when they hear that I died on some island in the middle of deadfuck nowhere,” Zach mused in a sullen tone.

It seemed like Princess wasn’t going to go through with going in after all, which was fine for Thomas. He would’ve breathed a sigh of relief, but that out would’ve been rude as hell given the current circumstances.

“That’s fine by me, and once they wrap their stuff up, we can finally get out of here.” Thomas agreed, turning away from Princess to give her a bit of space now.

Get out and don’t look back.

The phrase came into his head and he held it there. He might need it.

So they'd leave and probably never return. That didn't seem like the right note to end things off on... outwardly. Ignoring the performative her closure would be intimate, would be personal. Would be long and far away, possibly found in another life. For now she still had this life to consider. At least, the rush of its closing chapter.

She silently watched Thomas, watched the distance between them. Idle interest, didn't matter much. More important was her own distance from the door. She drew away with uneven tread, slowly, breathing in mechanical increments to force her mind to calm.

She'd never see her again.

Was she going to feel this weak for the rest of her life? She couldn't imagine a main character with any lesser amount of agency, when even thought became clauses out of context. Relevant, but in the worst way. That was all she was now.

"I don't know, but..." Sean answered. It wasn't a good answer. In all honesty he'd have forgotten about all that. Pranking Wyatt Carter for a special on Zach's channel. It wasn't that long ago they sat down and planned that out together with Matt in a cafe and yet it felt like it had been years ago.

Wyatt was here too, wasnt he? He hadn't heard him on anything so maybe he decided to keep his head low as hard as that would be? Probably best to avoid him if possible even if he's not murdering people. And Matt... He wouldn't lose it. Sean felt confident at that.

But how the fans took it, well. Sean wasn't the best at figuring out all that youtube algo-whatever nonsense and such, so he could only guess, but he probably got more people checking his channel now, if only out of curiosty. A morbid one at that. However there was something he could answer definitively on.

"Joey is a bitch." He gave Zach a soft smile and a nudge in the shoulder. "Let's get out of here man. Let the dead rest and all that." He turned and walked towards the doors whilst taking glances back at his friend.