Minus Something

[General Goose]

Kizi sat back down, and pulled out a bit of bread and water, just to sate her appetite. They were relaxing in this moment. She really enjoyed it. Lili explained the truth behind her naming pick, and Kizi listened intently.

"Listen, you can take credit for the application of the name. You know, very few names are entirely original. I mean, if you wanna get pedantic, Spiderland was a derivative name. Of the words spider and land. So you took it, into a new context, and made it your own." Kizi patted her on the back. "And you're citing your sources, which is a good thing."

The conversation turned to music. Kizi was always awkward with this kind of thing. She felt unnatural, jolted, a little bit out of her depth when talking so forthrightly about interests. All she could do was opt for honesty. "I'm a..." She took another swig of water. Procrastination.

"I'm one of those annoyingly indecisive people who say they listen to everything."

[MethodicalSlacker]

"True. Some of my favorite artists do stuff with field recordings, like, they go out into the world and interview people or capture the ambiance of the world, and incorporate that into their music, and they manage to take credit for that, so I should feel just fine about stealing Spiderland. There was this one fucking album, aha, where this one guy recorded the natural ambiance, the room tone, of whatever room he was in, and then played it back into the room so it echoed off the walls, and then recorded that and played it back, over and over again, in four different rooms. Pretty crazy."

Kizzy lied and said she listened to everything. Lili doubted she'd listened to 4 Rooms, not that it mattered much anymore. It wasn't even something Lili enjoyed very much - not musical enough, not in the slightest.

"At least you're not being a liar, I guess," Lili said, "I have really out there tastes, I'm in no real place to judge."

The one person she'd shared significant musical experiences with, Asuka, was somewhere else on this island. Or was she? Lili had always felt deep down that she was, but then again, she didn't exactly know for sure. It had been a few years since the concert they went to, but Lili had made sure to bring up music from time to time when they happened to speak. Other than her, she was pretty much alone in her interests.

But she didn't have to be.

"Okay," Lili started, "I'm gonna spitball an idea here. What if, when we get people together, we pick out the artsy fartsy types, and make some music using whatever we can find? Use art to rebel. We could set up in a different room, closeby, and make some real outsider stuff, seeing as we don't have any instruments. I played flute in the school band, I have a bit of a grasp on theory and stuff. Pretty stupid thought, but I just think it's a neat concept. We'd get on the front page of Pitchfork, at the very least."

[General Goose]

"Ooh." That sounded pretty cool. She raised an eyebrow, and sat forward. You didn't need to be a musical aficionado to find that pretty cool. It was creative, and artsy, and experimental, and Kiziah always appreciated people who did that kind of thing. "What was it called? And who by?" Not like she'd have a chance to investigate it, in all honesty, and if she did, she'd probably forget and the album would forever be on the tip of her tongue, driving her crazy with frustration. But still.

"Yeah. I just listen to whatever's on. If I do have preferences or genre likes, I'm too much of a philistine to know them yet."

And then Lili floated another idea. Kizi nodded, leaned back, and smiled, clearly trying to concoct a mental image that was probably too ambitious. "That'd be awesome. Yeah. Really kick it to the terrorists."

[MethodicalSlacker]

"Album was literally called '4 Rooms' by some guy named Jacob Kirkegaard. He wasn't very creative with names either. I'm pretty sure the rooms were a church, a swimming pool, a cafeteria, and a gym, or something. He'd probably have a field day with this place."

Lili smiled at Kizzy's relative open minded tastes. If they were rescued, which was looking more and more unlikely by the day, she'd have to show her some of her favorite records. Oh, and 4 Rooms. Only because she'd mentioned it.

"Some of the best stuff is recorded in isolation," Lili remarked, "Like 'Trout Mask Replica' by Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band. They locked themselves up in a cabin for, like, three months, and set about practicing every day and playing over and over. Never mind that Beefheart was borderline insane and everyone was on drugs the whole time, it's still a neat idea."

Lili laid back on the table and sighed, shutting her eyes. Another great album she'd never get to listen back to. Come to think of it, she could've named the island Frownland too, after the first song on that album, or, better yet, Shadowland after a song by The Residents. If she'd just kept herself from blurting out the name, she could readjust herself to a new one and leave it at that. Too late for that now, though.

Her eyes opened and looked out at the blurry room, but it was something next to her head that caught her eye. Someone had scratched something into the table.

"What's this, here?" Lili asked, sitting up, "Looks like somebody wrote something."

[General Goose]

"Names. Of people we know."

Kiziah was sometimes observant. But normally those moments coincided with her taking the mantle of Captain Obvious, and it did not take long for her to make that startling diagnosis. As Lili had explained her music taste, she had sat in silence, responding with her facial expressions. Genuine interest, sincerely paying attention, but nothing much to contribute to that particular avenue of conversation. When Lili had walked away, Kizi had remained seated, but the piqued interest in her features had been enough to goad her back onto her feet, where she stood at that moment, by Lili's side, examining the list of names.

"Our classmates." As if there was any doubt about the depth of her perceptive abilities, she removed it with that addendum. She spent the next few moments perusing the list, trying to think of something more insightful to say.

"Is it a list of the de-" No. It wasn't. "Looks like they crossed out names as they went along." She was tracing her finger down the list. Looking for her own name, in a flash of ego, but she couldn't find it. She wasn't exactly observant, though, and her name was liable to be misspelt. Plus, she wasn't exactly the most commanding presence in Cochise. Would have been quite easy for her to be forgotten, if this was some kind of register or whatever. "Do you think we should..." Well, a few recent deaths had not been accounted for. There had clearly been a stop-off date, but her amateurish detective skills gave her the slightest suspicion this hadn't been a one-day thing. Some of the scratches looked done by a different hand, or on a different day, or were surrounded by more dust. Maybe a couple of days. "Do you think we should carry it on?"

"Maybe, it can work as a kind of...register? Or recruitment list?"

[MethodicalSlacker]

Lili slid off of the table, standing next to Kizzy. She was right - the scratches did make out a list of their classmates.

"We could, I guess?" Lili muttered, still somewhat unable to see who was and wasn't on the list, "See how many people are left that we have to convince. Could work, could very well work." She scratched at her chin, eyes flickering around the room. Even if they had art supplies, Lili wasn't entirely sure that they had something they could carve into the table with. "Would it be slightly simpler to transfer the names that had already been written onto one of the pieces of paper?" No, she thought, that could be a waste of a poster. Drawing directly onto the table wouldn't be much better.

She leaned in closer to the list until she was able to tell what names were there. Some of them she recognized, while others were unfamiliar. As far as she could tell, however, her name was not among the list. Whether she was supposed to feel good or bad about that was beyond her. There were multiple lists too - the fact that she hadn't made it onto any of them made that judgement even harder to make. Either way, it was serving to distract them from their poster making.

"Maybe we should worry about that later. Posters come first, yeah?"

Where her newfound focus came from, she could not say.

[General Goose]

"Sounds like a plan."

And with that, they got to work. Kizi was not artsy, but she had a way with words. She had a certain self-control when writing things down, something that was not conveyed at all in her undisciplined verbal expression. Punchy, concise, to the point. She could somehow muster all of that when writing, when given time to reflect, when given an opportunity to get constant feedback, to adapt and change.

Kizi did add some decorative flourishes, with excess or unsuitable paint, in the form of circles and arrows and whatnot, just to give things an extra punch, an extra capability to draw the eye. They were very neat lines, very immaculate and clean-cut colouring, an almost mathematical perfectionism to some of the circles. It was clear, from the clashes of colour, that she was making do with subpar supplies, but it was no worry. If anything, the inharmonious colour scheme and discordant irregularity of the designs made them stand out more. And the colours were fresh. They 'popped'. They would draw the eye. Placement was another thing, but she was sure they could find good locations. Maybe high up? A few of them, anyway. The ones with bigger handwriting, of course. She discussed these things with Lili as they worked, but briefly, logging notes for future conversation.

Her first poster was a ten bullet point list. A simple list, really, of all the stuff she'd mentioned. A good strategy, she decided. Worthy of replication. She didn't copy things exactly. She wanted to avoid the monotony, and revise her wording as she went along. Bold colours and a big line of text at the top, some eye catching title. One of the titles was an emboldened "SEX", followed by the subtitle "now that I have your attention..." An old joke, but hey, some levity may be worth a shot.

Five posters to start with, each. She wasn't going to explicitly hold Lili to that standard. But she had taken five sheets of paper to get to work with, and had given Lili five, and there were a few others in the bag, but whatever. She wasn't going to rush her, or micromanage, or demand she go according to a template or whatever. Let her creativity run free, let her work at her own pace. Lili kept up the pace, in the end. A few moments where she faltered, because of her eyesight. Kizi always offered a hand to help her out whenever she noticed such a lull.

And it was fun. They talked, they chatted. Continued mixing in the more sombre and purposeful talks with chatting, joking. At one point they had a very short paint fight. It was fun. Very short. Just flicking brushes at each other for a few moments. All in good fun. No reason not to engage in a little bit of horseplay.

And they worked for a few hours. And they ate, and then they looked over their work, and nodded at one another. "So, I'll get to carving in the names into the table now. We have five to start with, and..." She trailed off. "Uh. What do you think they used? As a carving thing?"

[MethodicalSlacker]

The posters looked better than Lili ever thought they would. The work had taken a whole day, but it had been worth it: soon enough, they'd get these posters up all over the place, and people would come knocking at the door looking for them. It had been fun, too - the process, that is - so much fun that Lili wished they hadn't stopped. Even so, looking over the posters filled Lili with a sense of accomplishment that she hadn't felt in a long time.

"Probably a knife, or something?" Lili guessed, responding to Kizzy's question, "Though I don't think we have anything of that caliber here, do we..."

Lili strained to remember the contents of her bag. The light saber on her hip was, unfortunately, fake, and so they couldn't burn anything into the tables. Similarly, a blunt instrument like the nightstick was useless in this situation. However, her mind wandered to the med kits they had. Lili hadn't even gotten a good chance to use hers yet. She raised a finger in the air, signaling Kizzy to wait a moment, and wandered over to where she put her bag. Undoing the zipper, she fished around for the box of supplies, eventually pulling it out and setting it down on a table. The thing was filled with useless junk like soap and masks and aspirin, but hidden in there she found two candidates for name-writing. Clutching them in her hands, she walked back over to Kizzy.

"Option A," she said, holding out the lighter, "Gives us the ability to burn the names right into the table. I mean, I don't know exactly how that'd work, but we'd figure it out, if we didn't light everything on fire firs-"

Shit. That was in poor taste. Already forgetting about the library, Lili? You're just plain dumb. Stupid, dumb, stupid.

With a sheepish giggle of realization and a muttered apology, she put the lighter in her pocket.

"Option B," she continued, holding up a pair of scissors, "Probably makes way more sense, all things considered, given that they're sharp, and probably more likely closer to what the people here used. Forget I said anything about the other, er, thing, aha, um, yeah."

[General Goose]

The flame may have been impractical, but the mere suggestion seemed to put Lili on edge the moment the words had left her own mouth. Seemed to make her feel bad. Lili had sheepishly put it away. Maybe the fire reminded Lili of some past trauma? Better not to ask. Kizi smiled, to signal that Lili's backing away from the fire was not a problem. She wouldn't pry or judge.

Alright. Scissors were good. They were suitable. A convenient side effect of their medical kits, really. If this plan worked, then maybe the terrorists would not in the future provide scissors in the medical kit. Or maybe not. It was a small part of the overall scheme, after all. But still, if they did end up retaliating to their plan by revoking the use of scissors, Kizi felt a small pang of guilt for the students who'd suffer because of their absence from the medical packages.

Kizi wasn't quite sure what purpose scissors served, medically. Looking at how sharp the blades was, she decided she wouldn't think about it too much. "Thank you", she said, with a smile, as she took the scissors from Lili, and held them at a weird angle, trying to get it so there was only one blade, with enough of a hold in the table, to carve a name. It took her a few seconds to get an appropriate position, and she may have cut her thumb in the process. By the end of it, her view of the scissors as an auspicious find was fading, but then suddenly, the blade dug into the table just an inch, sawdust flying out. She was almost tempted to ask for the flame, only held back by how reluctant Lili had obviously been with that idea. "Yes!" she exclaimed through gritted teeth, that they would not have to seek out an option C.

And so she began carving the names.

'Kiziah Saraki.'

She was on the second 'l' of Lili's name when she had to look up at her. "Uh, is your name two ls in the middle? And does it end with a y?"

Kizi looked back down again. "Oh, and I forgot your last name."

[MethodicalSlacker]

Kiziah Saraki.

Not Kizzy, or Kissy. It was, this whole time, something more like Kizi. Not once had Lili thought to ask about how Kizi's name was really spelt, or what that meant, or anything like that. Had she even said her name recently? Silently, Lili mouthed it, feeling the shapes of the letters curl over her lips. It felt good, in some weird way. Like she was revealing to herself some truth that she didn't know she was looking for. She was so caught up in her own musings that she almost didn't notice Kizi's question about her own name.

"Just one 'l', and it ends with an 'i', which is weird, I know," Lili said, "And my last name is Williams."

There it was again, that same feeling that had come over her when she said Kizi's name. My name is Lili Williams. She hadn't forgotten, of course, but it felt like she had been slowly pushing herself away, distancing herself from reality, dehumanizing herself, letting go of any earthly inhibitions. With this, her name drew close again. Lili felt tinges of what she had been struck with the first day, on the tower. Even if it wasn't that exact feeling, it was enough to bring her back there, with Eyepatch's gun pointed in her face. How was she doing? Eyepatch, the first face she'd seen on the island, was she still alive? Would she be surprised to see that Lili had made it this far along?

Or was she dead, like so many others?

"It's a weird spelling, of Lily, I guess," she added, nodding her head.

[General Goose]

"Nothing weird about it," Kizi politely replied, oblivious to the uncertainty surrounding her own name's spelling. She set about carving Lili's name into the wood. It was easier. Lots of straight long lines, more than her own name, where she had been forced a few times to adopt a strange mix between a jagged cursive and inchoate approximation of the calculator font. Plus, she'd gotten the hang of it. A good hook into the wood. Knew the amount of force she needed. Every now and then, the wood became damper, more decayed and worn, and the blade would slip at the sudden lack of resistance, but with Lili's name, no real problem. Just meant that the second 'l' in her last name was rather noticeably elongated.

When that ardous task was completed, she looked back. It was scrawly. She always had good handwriting, but that had not translated into eloquent wood-carving. And that wasn't a surprise, when she thought about it. Oh well. The names were clear. Distinguishable. The Ks and Zs, at least, were apparent in her own name, even though she had had to bring the blade out and stab it back in whenever she turned. Such finicky sharp turns were difficult without leaving the wood.

"Anyway, I'm not one to talk for weird names. Kizi's not exactly a common name in the States, after all. And Saraki? Heck, even I wasn't sure I was pronouncing it right for the first ten years of my life." She would have guessed Lili would have had another last name, truth be told. But that was her prejudice speaking. Assumptions were a flaw she sometimes caught herself making. She would probably have asked 'oh, is that your birth name', or some similarly insensitive question, had her tongue not been occupied sticking out of the side of her mouth in mid-carving concentration. Hooray for distractions, really. They were Kizi's best defence against faux pas.

She began carving out Ben, Penelope, and Raina into the wood. "Uh. You know their last names?" She wanted to say something flowery and naturey for at least two of them. Maybe Raina Rose? No. That was alliteration. Assuming alliteration was a bad way to guess people's names.

[RC†]

((Alessio Rigano continued from Takao))

This is where he lost his arm.

Alessio was sweating heavily as he opened the door of the cafeteria. He could smell himself being all smelly and smelling disgusting.

As he opened the door, he could see two girls at the table.

Alessio closed his eyes and pulled the trigger.

[MethodicalSlacker]

They were just talking.

There wasn't any precedent set, nothing that made her feel like they'd be in danger. No, they were just talking. Why would someone do anything to hurt them? What sin had they committed? Was this somebody's home, their refuge that had been disturbed? Why? Why? Why?

They were just talking.

Lili's mind went white, and adrenaline began to flow through her veins.

She had no idea what was going on. First, voices, their voices, then, noises, someone else's.

"Kih," the sound came, up out of her throat, a name cut in two.

Slowly, she reached her hand out to Kizi, looking to touch her for some confirmation that this was really happening.

[General Goose]

Kizi was in the process of turning around, to face Lili, to say something. What it was that she wanted to say, that quickly became for naught. It was rendered irrelevant.

The first sense to return was her hearing. A grating, cacophonic ringing. Pounding at her ears, bombarding her brain. She heard every little tremor, every little tremble. No other sense could penetrate through. Just as she was getting used to it, it was shattered, by a metallic clatter, coming from seemingly miles away yet as clear as if it was right next to her ear. The scissors, she realised, in a moment of relieving clarity.

And then a smell. And a taste. A strange one, one that was new to her. It irritated her nostrils, left them feeling inflamed and singed. Her tongue felt dry.

Her sight came back next. It was like she was opening her eyelids again after a particularly long blink, but her eyes had not been closed. They had been transfixed on a sight on the table, yet not relaying the image to her mind. Blood. It was definitely blood. She wasn't stupid. There was no point in deluding herself into thinking it was anything else. Of course it came from her. It was almost pouring out. Like a river. Almost a tranquil sight, really. Coursing over her arm, filling in the name carvings that the group before them had left.

It seemed like forever before her senses of touch, pain, presence came back. It was like they had been piling up, competing for attention with one another, before all crashing through. She could only close her eyes, grimace. She rolled into her side, almost involuntarily, her skin making contact with the wood. Her skin wasn't there. That's where she'd been hit. The blast had caught the side of her torso. A graze, really. Perhaps an injury prompt medical treatment could fix, she realised in a flash of optimism.

Then she remembered where she was, and the optimism died.

"Oh...oh God, why did you do that?" She didn't know how she was talking, or why, or who to, but the words left her lips. She didn't really hear them properly, but felt the sound travel from her voicebox, out through her mouth.

[RC†]

He hit Kizi.

Alessio then planned to leave.

He took some steps backwards to run away, but his eyes were caught by the posters. Selfmade, handmade posters, not made by the terrorists or people from the asylum, no, they were made by Alessio's classmates.

He could not see much about it, to do that, he would have to come nearer to the poster.

It were posters relating to the game. He ignored Kizi's bloodiness and her saying something to him. He read the last point of a poster, hanging off the edge of the table.

And the longer we hold out, the more we prove the terrorists wrong. And the longer we hold out, the more likely rescue arrives.

"Did you guys write this?"