Shake it Out

[MrMissMrs Random†]

(G006, Rosemary Michaels, start.)

Rosemary awoke staring at a concrete ground. It took her a minute of inward panic to wonder why she wasn't on her bed before remembering the events that had taken place in the past few hours. The plane highkacking, Mr. Davidge getting shot, Survival of the Fittest being back for a new season with their senior class as the lucky contestants.

A whole new wave of panic made her jump up to her feet, as if expecting there would be someone in the shadows readying to gut her as soon as she woke up. But nobody else appeared to be there. Rosemary slumped back down to the ground in a mix of relief and despair.

I'm here. I'm here and there are people that will want to kill me.

Maybe there wasn't anybody that wanted to kill her specifically, but if someone was desperate enough...

Her hands moved to rub her eyes, trying to stop any tears from reaching the surface and to regulate her breathing. If she started to cry she'd probably lose it until she threw up, and that was not an option.

Mom and Dad, I need to think about them now. I can't break down. Otherwise I'm dead. Do you hear me? She didn't know why she had started talking to herself in her head, but it seemed to help her focus more on something rather than nothing. Rosemary moved her tongue around, tasting something like vomit. She must have thrown up in her mouth sometime during the student's debriefing. She was glad that her past self had enough sense to swallow it down. After some more deep breathing, she looked at the black duffle next to her, gingerly unzipping it to find her supplies, and thankfully a ziploc baggie that held a few packets of her allergy medicine. Carefully putting one of the pills into her mouth, she swallowed it down with the help of saliva. Putting them in her front pocket so they wouldn't get lost, she continued to forage in the pack until her fingers hit something. She wrapped her hand around it and pulled out what looked to be a small hilt. In her fist crumpled beside it was a sheet of paper.

"Rosemary Michaels, butterfly knife." She mumbled. She handled the hilt carefully, shaking it a bit and wondering if the blade had broken off when a sliver of cold steel slit through the side. She jumped and dropped it. It was a small knife, well suited to the name of "butterfly" in her opinion. It was sharp, but not big enought scare anyone away. She growled in frustration, flipping the knife back in place and stuffing it into her right front pocket in case she needed it.

She took another look around the area. It was industrial, and there were tall buldings around her, not a friendly looking place. Even considering the whole island they were on was a hostile environment.

Before she could think about anything else Rosemary heard a scream sound from somewhere South of where she was, and she dropped back to the ground, biting her lip to hold back a yelp of pain as her knees banged against the hard ground. She zipped her bag back up and continued a mantra in her head.

Can't break down, can't break down, can't break down, can't break down, can't break down-

[Rattlesnake]

G065: Start

Katarina Konipaski was not going to die on the island.

That was what she had decided. That was the rock she clung to against the waves of dread, terror, and disbelief that pounded she shore of her mind. She had no idea what the hell she was going to do next, not the foggiest idea, but dying was not on the list. By hook or by crook, she'd stay alive. She'd battle the elements, wage daring battles and engage in devastating subterfuge. That's what she told herself. Those were the lies she fed her brain to ease the pain of truth. In reality, she was likely looking at a sudden death, an incredibly painf-

"No, dammit!"

She pushed herself up from her position on the smooth, hard floor and swept a strand of hair from her face. Blood pulsed warmly through her cheeks. She wasn't going to die, and the odds could go pleasure themselves because there was no point in lying to yourself if you didn't freaking believe it. She was fine. Worked up, sure, but maybe - no, certainly that was a good thing, because she was thinking and she was taking initiative and if she was fine then she'd be fine until some idiot managed to hurt her. And said idiot could go get a room with the odds because she'd have to be in danger before she got hurt and you only lost out that way through your own weakness. There was a process you had to go through before a knife embedded itself in your skull, and if she skipped out on it then her insides would stay nicely inside her. And if someone was stupid enough to fight...

She smiled slightly despite herself. She smiled, because adding some qualifier onto that meant she was somehow disappointed in being well-armed on Childmurder Island. And well-armed she was; stooping to the floor, she slid her duffel bag onto her shoulder and picked up the tool she'd been eying for the past quarter hour. A small slip of paper fluttered in the corner of her eye, and she snatched it up; her stomach knotted curiously as her fingers peeled it open, but there was no secret code or plan or even message of goodwill inside. The only thing in evidence was one word in flowing script: "Scythe."

Really now.

The terrorists thought she was a complete idiot, then. Though they, or one of them at least, did have some decent handwriting. Probably owned a chihuahua or something, though, and drank fancy tea. Not the sort of person she'd want to mix with. But the point was it would take some serious deficiencies to misidentify that thing. 'Oh, sorry, Jim, sorry about that throat, I thought this thing was a shepherd's crook.' Yeah, not gonna happen. It was indisputably deadly, if something less than elegant on further inspection. The whole grim reaper thing was a bit overplayed, she thought, testing the balance and gripping the handles. Not that it wouldn't cut someone - she didn't dare test the blade against her finger, but she was quite sure it would cut through someone with energy to spare - but the thing that really struck her about it was that a tool designed for cutting grass had grips designed most properly to, well, cut grass. Hopefully that wouldn't be too much of an issue because the thing was gnarly and intimidating and wicked sharp, but sooner or later you had to back that up.

Katarina's finger brushed over her forehead again, putting a nonexistent strand of hair back into place. She'd nail the details later. For now, she was just going to, well... take a walk. Definitely take a walk. She had decided that because she was very decisive and in control, and she was sticking to it because she trusted herself. Her boots struck nicely against the floor, making a nice solid sound softened somewhat by grit and grime laying over the floor.

Something squeaked as she pushed open the door to the building she'd awoken in. Squeaked - no - screamed. Screamed, because she was being honest here, or at least telling herself believable lies. Childmurder island, screams. There you go. She tried not to think about it too much, and fortunately she had something else to think about in the form of the first person she'd seen since the whole debacle started. Friend or foe, she didn't know, but it wasn't like she was getting out without attracting their notice. She cleared her throat a bit more, perhaps, than strictly necessary, leaning in what she presumed to be a casual manner against the bladed implement as tall as she was, and spoke slowly and clearly.

"Sup?"

[MrMissMrs Random†]

Rosemary moved her head in the direction of a voice. It was another girl, someone she didn't know. And that girl was leaning against a stick with a large, curved blade on it.

Now that's a weapon that's threatening. Much more compared to her dinky knife, though she wondered how hard it was to carry around, much less swing.

Rosemary got to her feet, clutching her own pack. "Hello."

The way her greeting sounded reminded her how it would probably be on a normal day. The two were from the same school in the same grade; they could've passed each other in the halls on thousands of occasions. Yet they were only truly meeting for the first time at this moment. It felt strangely ironic, though with her track record of having close friends and paying attention to people's names the same could be said for a majority of the school.

If I try to runaway, there is no guarantee that she won't come after me. Maybe I'll be faster since she has that weapon weighing her down... but then again, maybe not.

It was a better idea to try and be cordial at this point. She didn't know if this person was a friend or foe (though in this place which would be worse?), but it would be a stupid idea to antagonize the person with the bigger blade.

"I've just woken up." She added on.

[Rattlesnake]

Katarina sized up the girl in front of her. Knowing what she was dealing with was vital, and though she didn't know the girl personally, there was plenty she could gather from er eyes and what memories she held. Her name was definitely Rosemary because Katarina recognized her from the sports assemblies back at school, and she probably swam or played basketball or something. They looked about the same size, but Rosemary was dressed in such a terribly drab manner. Who even wore those shoes any more? Well, she thought, everyone did, but that was the point, she supposed. No imagination. Katarina, on the other hand, looked sharp and talked sharp. Oh, and she had a scythe, too. That was moderately important. All in all, she definitely had the leverage in that situation. Which meant she was free to, to...

Well?

What exactly was her strategy, her big game plan? Don't die, yes, but what sort of actions paved that path? She suddenly thought, and she had to wonder if she was going crazy already just for bringing it up in a life-or-death situation, of the times she'd spent playing Pokémon. Nuzlocke runs they'd called them, though Arceus knew where that name came from. Hardcore-style, though, that was the point. Catch the first you see, release them if they ever fainted. There were parallels there. Her weapon was a random Pidgey, or maybe she was a Pidgey - no, she'd definitely be a Spearow at the least, but that wasn't the main point. The main point was the strategy of it all. Namely, that caution was the name of the game. Gather up experience, resources, techniques so you don't end up fainting when it all mattered. There was something to be gained from every encounter. The gears in her head turned. Maybe, just maybe...

She listened to Rosemary's response, nodded knowingly, gave her throat another soft little clear it didn't need. There was plenty of room for error with what she wanted, and her words needed careful selection. "I haven't been up long myself. Just been getting a handle on things, ya know?" She gave a smile that was soft and, hopefully, confident. "And speaking of handles," she continued, waving the scythe just enough to call attention to it, "not to be blunt or anything, but, like, you're not packin' any heat, are ya?"

[MrMissMrs Random†]

If they were in any other place Rosemary would've rolled her eyes at the pun, but her face remained neutral as she changed from holding her bag to slinging the strap along her shoulder. Was that tone of confidence in her voice real or fake? From the scythe bearers' muscular legs she could tell that she was an athlete, maybe that added into a sense of superiority. It almost felt like that she already had Rosemary figured out; that irritated and scared her. And this was all she got from that girl's voice.

"Don't worry, I don't have a gun." She replied calmly, taking out the butterfly knife and flicking it slightly open for a few moments to show her before depositing it back into her jeans pocket. "I don't suppose I have to ask you about yours."

The tempature was not too hot or too cold where they were, but Rosemary zipped up her hoodie and put her hands in their front pockets. "So, I was thinking of heading out. Though this is a lovely spot the terrorists dropped us off for our nap I think it'd be smarter to move on."

Her voice took on a sarcastic edge in the latter half, which she hoped would make her sound less scared. To her they were having a hidden battle in of itself with their voice tones, and Rosemary decided to figuratively step up to plate.

Just get out of here without injuries. Take it one step at a time.

[Rattlesnake]

Katarina's eyes followed Rosemary's hand as she brought something out of her pocket and flicked it casually open. A knife, then. Quite a bit more subtle than her own weapon, but still deadly enough. And not so heavy and unwieldy. The scythe might be pretty and scary and all that good stuff, but when it came down to it, when the bluff was over and you got to the hair-pulling, mud-slinging nitty-gritty of survival, the subtle blade was infinitely more useful.

And if it was useful, she wanted it.

She watched the girl close herself up. She was no body language savant or anything, but she'd been in enough arguments to know when someone was on their back foot. Good. No ill will to anyone, of course, but that meant that Katarina was in control, and any time when she was in control was a time when she wasn't being brutally murdered.

She shrugged at the girl's response, flicked her finger casually over her forehead in that familiar ritual. "If you want to, I guess. But," She paused for one thoughtful a second, raising one finger in gesticulation as she resumed her carefully-constructed argument. "I've got a proposition for you. I mean, look. Surely you're not the sort of person who's really planning to use that knife? Think you can jam it into someone's kidneys," she pantomimed accordingly, "rip it out and watch 'em bleed to death? You wouldn't want someone to get the wrong idea about you. Could be dangerous. But you wouldn't have to worry about getting yourself out of that if it wasn't a problem in the first place. And, I mean, what good's a weapon you don't intend to use?"

She stepped forward, still smiling, raising the butt of the scythe off the ground with the last sentence.

"I'm a reasonable girl, though. So let's make it a little trade. Sound good?"

[MrMissMrs Random†]

Are you serious? Rosemary thought, wanting to laugh out loud at that proposition. That girl didn't really didn't have any upper arm strength if she was so willing to trade her weapon.

Then again when you think about it, a simple knife could be a whole lot more useful with survival then a sycthe. Knives could help you make tools or shelter, and they were light and easy to carry. What could a scythe do besides intimidate if you didn't know how to properly use it? Cut grass?

No way would she make a deal like that. That meant she'd have to decline the offer given to her. Things might get heated then. She didn't know exactly where an exit was around here. She didn't know if she could lie effectively enough to make it seem that she was okay with the trade, then escape without getting in too close. She could ask if they could form a team for a while, that way Rosemary could get safety while the girl could have someone with a useful tool. But if the girl said yes that didn't mean she wouldn't try anything. The knife was her top priority.

"Even though we're classmates, I don't think you know me well enough to judge whether or not I'm willing to kill someone." Rosemary replied, slouching a bit in her stance while staring at the other girl. "I don't even know your name, that goes the same for you too."

"So I'm going to have to pass on the trade. I'm just a puny swimmer. Noodle arms can't carry scythes." She answered, declining the trade.

[Rattlesnake]

Katarina sighed. She knew it wouldn't be easy to pry an innocent girl from her only form of defense on Childmurder Island, but damn if she wasn't going to try. And yet, despite her efforts, a little part of her felt glad that the deal seemed to be stalled out. One girl's gain was another's loss, after all, and she didn't envy Rosemary's chances after she'd revealed the full terms of the deal and left her alone and unarmed. And after that...

The feeling of latent dread welled within her, washing over her skin and leaving goosebumps in its wake. Maybe she did need that knife after all. She, Katarina, not its current owner. They both did, really, but what good did it do for her to watch someone else walk away with it? She wasn't going to die, which meant that Rosemary had to die, which meant that her possession of a weapon meant jack all in the scheme of things. Why delay the inevitable? Maybe she'd last three days instead of two, and what for? Abject terror, sunrise to sunrise. She knew what sort of gift Rosemary really deserved, but she didn't have the heart to give it.

Yet.

And she had made a decision, after all. It would be best to follow through. She couldn't look weak. Word might get around. Limp noodle with a 6-foot weapon, right over there. That was the sort of thing the psychos who got into the whole business lived on. Their bread and butter. But you have a girl walk up to someone, 'hey that Kat chick is freakin' disaster zone, dunno how I'm still alive, jacked my knife without even touching me,' that's the sort of thing that made people give you a wide berth. She chewed her lip and assembled her response.

"Right. I'll just pretend you didn't totally just say you'd shank a bitch and get us back on the same page. I take your knife, you keep your life. That, to me, sounds like a freakin' amazing deal. Hell, I'm keeping my end. So how's that for a trade?"

[MrMissMrs Random†]

Rosemary frowned. She tried to decline, tried to leave peacefully. But the girl still told her to give up her weapon, only now it seems the trade was off the table. The use of the term "shank" made her even more annoyed. Apparently it wasn't enough of a threat to make the girl back off.

"Unless you miraculously smuggled in a recording device, nobody is going to believe a word you say. And even if they do, I don't plan on joining anyone here. In the end someone will always get stabbed in the back. So let me ask you: why would they believe what you say? Why would it even matter here?"

As she moved to her jeans pocket, taking out the handle of her knife, she felt her heart rate go up. It was almost like she was in the middle of a race with how fast it was throbbing. Maybe this is how it felt when facing the possibility of bodily harm from another human being. It made them more like animals.

"Maybe there is a beast....maybe it's only us." That quote flew into her head, she didn't remember which book it was from exactly, but it seemed like an apt response to the situation. The terrorists had put them all into this situation, only it would be themselves who took away each others lives. Rosemary felt a chill, but stayed firm, holding onto the handle, and easing the blade out.


"I'm giving you one more chance. Let me leave peacefully."

Think about Mom and Dad. They can't lose another kid. I have to live for them. I'm not allowed to die. She thought to herself. She wondered if she'd be able to sprint away fast enough for the other girl not to have time to lift her scythe. Probably not, she'd have to make sure to be ready to dodge if it came up.

I'm not allowed to die.

[Rattlesnake]

"Congratulations, you're too stupid to live."

Katarina sighed, grabbed the handles of her weapon and leaned heavily on it, scanning Rosemary up and down. She could feel her breath subtly quicken, her eyes lingering on the point of her knife.

"I mean - You know these guys are serious, right? Pretty freakin' serious. You know what's gonna happen, and - I dunno, maybe you don't? Obviously you don't." She straightened herself up. "You stand there with your little pocketknife like it's something halfway threatening, like you have the guts to sink it into someone, like you think this is easy or something and you just wave your hand and suddenly nobody's trying to kill you, I don't-"

"God, you're just so stupid!"

She let her eyebrows twitch, tensed a muscle in her jaw. Tears rimmed her eyes. "It's just - I don't know. What the hell are you doing? What the hell am I doing?"

A deep breath - in, out - and at least she wasn't shaking any more.

"..Name's KK. Kat if you feel like it."

[MrMissMrs Random†]

"My name's Rosemary. Nice to meet you, Kat." She replied, her voice a bit raspy. God, the taste in her mouth was disgusting. It had gone dry and she still tasted vomit. She wasn't surprised with Kat's freak out. And she was glad there was some part of the other girl who understood what's happening.

"Though if I'm too stupid too live, then that goes for you too. You instigated this whole thing." She said accusingly. "It's obvious you don't want your weapon, so why would I want it? You used reverse psychology the wrong way. It only made me want to keep the knife more."

Rosemary took a deep breath through her nostrils. "We shouldn't have to do this so early on. I'm pretty sure that's what they want us to do. Weed us out- can't you let other people do that? You think you have to do it now, when people could hear about it, maybe stay away from you- but it won't work. Either way there will come a time when you can't run anymore. So what I'm saying is- why do you want to play their game, right at this very moment? Just to 'get it out of the way'? It should never ever be that easy."

She didn't know how she started to talk this much. It was as if she was lecturing while tutoring someone. "And- and I'm the same way. I don't want to die, so I don't want to give my knife up. So I'm willing to fight. It's all about self-preservation."

It's like I'm coming up with as many vocabulary terms I can think of. Rosemary thought, wanting to laugh and cry. So many contradictions, but she needed to shake them off. If she didn't, she'd be dead.

[Rattlesnake]

In normal times, Katarina would have gladly entertained Rosemary words until the main thrust became apparent and then blocked the rest from her mind with a flurry of tangentially-related counterarguments, but these were not normal times. Even if Katarina had neatly categorized Rosemary within her own mind as someone who was ignorably incorrect, she needed every scrap of information she could get. Even if there was no potential for some shockingly cogent point to be made, it wouldn't do to keep a habit of ignoring any part of her surroundings. She waited patiently and attentively for the natural break that announced her turn.

"I'm not-" She broke off, swept that train of thought back like a stray hair. That didn't work. Couldn't entertain a personal attack just because her opponent had stooped to that level. It was too much of a defensive position, anyways. Her whole schtick here was that she was holding a scythe and didn't dress like she was warding herself from some sort of predator that used confidence to locate its prey. She would answer Rosemary clearly and intelligently and just a bit offensively. She wouldn't answer her exact points, necessarily, but that's politics. She cleared her throat again, succumbing briefly to a series of coughs before laying out her rebuttal.

"...Right. You know what? First off, for the record, this thing was never on the table. I'm quite fond of it, in fact, and I'm sure once my mind has succumbed to its inevitable degradation I'll find it deserving of some suitably endearing moniker like Steve.

"But that's not the point. The point is - well, you said it yourself. You can't run forever. Maybe I'm too nice to live. Like in a week I'll be stuck in a cave with no room to swing and a preponderance of idiots with a shortage of discretion and I'll be like, 'Man, if I cut that bitch up on day one I could stab this guy right in the freakin' face. But I didn't and now he's wearing my intestines. Oh, and I totally heard her name announced like six days ago because she was too retarded to run when someone meant business.'"

She rotated her weapon about its axis and turned her focus to scanning the razor edge, partially out of genuine curiosity and partially as an intentional gesture. If her opponent obviously wasn't worth paying attention to, then Katarina was obviously dominant and Rosemary would subconsciously accept her argument as authoritative. Or something. Maybe she was trying too hard at it but, hey, why lose an argument when you can win one?

"We on the page page now?"

[MrMissMrs Random†]

Rosemary couldn't help what she did next. Maybe she was starting to feel the effects of hysteria, or maybe it was just the ludicrosity of the whole situation. She had a small knife, while Kat had a large scythe. Both of them didn't want to die but are put into a situation that makes it almost inevitable. And Kat had just revealed her plan, straight out.

She let out a giggle, and then that giggle turned into a laugh. She started letting out roars of laughter. Why is this happening? Why am I laughing so much?

It took her a good minute to stop, her sides felt sore from it, as she gasped a bit with a smile still on her face. Her mind was sending off warning bells, but her body couldn't stop the giggling.

"The best... name you could come up with... is Steve?"

[Rattlesnake]

It was always the simplest thing that cut right to the bone.

All that maneuvering and posturing and Rosemary had just sliced right through it all like her name was Alexander. Gone were the vague threats, the not-so-vague threats, the calculated lack of interest, all her little argumentative strategies. The girl was laughing, which was utterly absurd in the face of a situation that was... well, it kind of was absurd, wasn't it?

Katarina's day so far had consisted of emerging from a drug-induced stupor with instructions to murder her friends, finding a motherloving scythe of all things resting at her feet, mulling it over a bit, then apparently deciding that was all well and good and straight-up trying to intimidate someone into a robbery. For a tool which she would then use to murder her classmates (but not the one holding it), and get this - because the giant bladed stick wasn't ~tactical~ enough. She stifled a chortle, cheeks pulling hard on the corners of her mouth. Like, she was going to go super commando-style or something and find herself in some situation where the freaking Grim Reaper's little toy was going to somehow lose out to a little knife. And the best part - she chuckled for real - was that it all made perfect sense. She had a bomb around her neck, for the love of Arceus, and either she was going to snap and murder someone or someone else was going to snap and murder someone, maybe both, but she was standing there on the pavement now and in two days or two weeks she was going to meet someone and one of their hearts would stop beating. And they were laughing about it. That was the real best part. The honest-to-goodness best part of it all was that she was standing alone with Rosemary Whatserface, holding a scythe now definitively named Steve (she began laughing in earnest at the reminder) on some island a thousand miles from home, that they were both doomed to die and that they were just giggling like the couple of schoolgirls that they were. Like none of it even mattered. Like it was all just some terrible dream.

Her chest tightened suddenly, though her laughter continued unabated. That was some stupid fictional contrivance that always had to get mentioned. Dreams could seem real, but real was, well, real. It wasn't like that movie they'd watched where the Jewish girl lived for like three months in a concentration camp except she didn't because she'd just gotten tipsy at a holiday celebration and dozed off, though the additional layer of absurdity that thought brought produced another hearty peal. It was all real and it was all terrible and she was laughing because laughing wasn't crying or murdering or dying.

She shook her head, squeezing tears from her eyes and breathing deep breaths punctuated by intermittent giggles that rumbled up like aftershocks.

"I don't - you probably think I'm insane, don't you? Maybe I am. Me n' Steve." she worked to collect herself again. "We'll grow old together, me and him. Just cutting bitches left, right, and center. Oh dear, what the hell are we even doing?"

"Like, for reals though." She squeezed the grin off her face. "Like, what the hell are we even doing?"

[MrMissMrs Random†]

"I thought you made yourself out to be the smart one in this situation." Rosemary said, covering her mouth to stop anymore laughter from coming out afterwards. She honestly did know what they were doing. It was a simple concept that happened probably in every playground across the world. A kid liked another kids toy, so they would want to take that toy. Only right now it was with weapons. Oh god, it was with weapons and they had to kill people.

It's never simple to take a life, remember? And it shouldn't be. I can't let myself become a Social Darwinist so easily. If I did then I would be considered dead meat. She thought, tightening the grip on her bag but letting the hand closest to her pocket hang back down at her side.

"Kat; can we not let the craziness get to us yet?" She said to the other girl. "Even if we might not get rescued, or- or not make it, both of us want to live as long as we can. Actively trying to play on the first day- whether we don't mean to or not is just asking for trouble."