Minus Something

[MethodicalSlacker]

Her hand came back wet, with bright cherry red blood tracing the outlines of her fingers. Lili's breathing got heavier as Kizi began to speak, croaking out in confusion, going cold, spewing out warmth, giving Lili shivers.

Lili turned her face toward the other voice in the room. Holding a gun in his hand. Asking questions, as if he had any right to.

Her face twisted into a snarl. She wanted to kill him.

She wanted to hit him, hard, with her nightstick, or a chair, or her fists, hit him so hard that his brains were dripping out from his ears, an ocean of unthinking, dead gray matter, take his gun, shoot him with it, make sure he feels exactly what pain Kizi felt, and...

...and Kizi was still breathing, and that was exactly the opposite of what they had been trying to accomplish, here.

"Y-yeah," Lili said, her voice shaking, "Those are ours."

Her features settled back into a more neutral state. She put her hand back on Kizi's wound. Maybe that'd help to stop the bleeding.

"Come on, Kizi," she whispered, "Fight it, come on, it's nothing major, just the arm, come on."

[General Goose]

Kizi tried shifting onto her back, but the pressure from pressing her wound - wounds, she realised now - against the table provided a sort of comfort. But you should hold wounds up, she heard a sharp voice telling her. Distinctly like her mother's. It wasn't exactly a comprehensive first aid training, but Olabode got into scrapes a lot. She tried turning upwards. Lili's hand came down, replacing the table. A warmer, more gentle touch. One more comforting.

Less robust as a source of pressure, but the direction, at least, was correct. She felt the flow slow a little bit. Or maybe she couldn't feel the blood cascading down her skin any more, so seeped in it her clothes had became. And that was, of course, assuming there were no exit wounds on the back. She couldn't feel any. But she couldn't feel anything there.

Her mind was clear in that moment. Strangely so. Her breathing was heavy.

And Lili. Lili was angry. But she wasn't fighting. And Alessio, he was standing there. Alessio was his name. He had been in the announcements. He had ceased his hostilities. "Yup." She smiled. "Kinda says it all, really." She looked down at the poster. It was the one with the garish 'sex' title. "Really didn't need those extra nine bullet points that much. But yeah. That's what we're doing."

She looked at him.

"It's never too late to just...work together. Never too late for anyone."

[RC†]

"Show me your weapon."

Al said while raising the gun to point it at Lili. He could not stay here if he was in danger of getting shot.

Then, he looked back at the shot Kizi. He tried hard to just look into her face and not the bloody body. That was disgusting.

"Have you heard the announcements? Everyone is playing the game, no one is escaping, no one is getting rescued. Why would you think you two could change it? You are just two people out of too many who are not into this idea."

Alessio was not sure how to think of this unicorn idea. It...sucked. Giving people false hopes before they would eventually die anyway on this island.

[MethodicalSlacker]

"J-just this!" Lili said, unclipping her light saber from her waistband, "It's a toy, so, unless it magically starts being a real thingy that can cut through shit, uhm, I don't think you're in danger."

"Oh, and, uh, there are other weapons in our bags, but, I don't think you'd be in any danger, if that's the issue. Sorta tied up here."

Al - that was his name, she recognized his face from band class - kept talking at her. Not to her, at her. Like she was a child with childish ideas, an animal who had done something wrong and could afford to be disciplined. Like killing Kizi was her punishment.

No.

Kizi was still alive. Still breathing. She needed to remember that.

"Maybe it is a dumb hope, a dumb idea, but maybe, y'know, it isn't? Maybe there's something left here for us to find after all. I don't care about what other people are thinking, Al. I never have! Why start now?"

She looked back down at Kizi, shivering and bleeding in her arms. Lili was holding her with both hands now, one on her bleeding shoulder and the other keeping her upright.

"If..." Lili began, glaring back at Al, "If we're all going to die, then we should do it as ourselves."

She hoped that something she was saying resonated with him.

[General Goose]

"I mean..." Kizi coughed. She looked down. There was some blood on her shirt, but she wasn't sure if it had been splattered there by the blast, or by something else. "Look at it this way. You carry on fighting, you make yourself a target. But if we hold out...the longer we hold it...each day, there's a greater chance of rescue."

Kizi was not really the right person to be making that sort of callous, prudential argument, but she felt that she had little other choice. At the end of the day, Kizi was a bleeding-heart idealist and had the Machiavellian wits of a squid. The moral arguments were enough for her. But she understood the theory of being pragmatic. And, for somebody in Al's shoes, somebody who may fear that they were already too far gone, it was a good pitch. Clemency. Mercy.

"And even if you do die, which, let's be honest, we all probably will..." She paused, to cough again. Her throat felt fine, but it was a sort of substitute to crying out in pain. Tears were streaming down her face, her nose was snotty, and her voice was quivering, but she was trying to do everything in her power to maintain some sort of composure. Some poise, some charm. Some of her endearingly awkward decency that had helped her make friends and avoid drama up until this point, that had prevented all but the 'wrong place wrong time' fates befalling her. "And let's be honest, I'm pretty likely to die at this point but..."

"Would you rather die as yourself? Or as someone else? As some puppet for these...these monsters?" She realised that her argument had drifted far from the terrain of the hardheaded pragmatism, but whatever. "And yes, maybe this isn't the time for having the luxury of feeling good about yourself, but..." She tried adjusting her good elbow, to sit up a bit, but whether it was because she accidentally put weight on her bad side or she was just generally overexerting herself, she slipped back down.

"Ow. Ow. Ah. It's the only luxury we have."

Her voice descended into an inelegant, raucous sobbing.

[RC†]

Lili was unarmed. Alessio lowered his weapon, but did not move in further into the room.

Odd.

Kizi and Lili were speaking oddly. Was Al not himself? Sure, he changed since the island, but for the better, didn't he? He grew up. He was stronger, ready for the real world, was not in his safe world at home. He had strength.

"I have no patience."

Al took a break.

"I don't want to wait any longer. We have been here for too long. If there is a chance of rescue it should have happened. It's too late, already half of us are dead."

He pointed his finger at the two.

"And I am no puppet. You two should be glad that I killed people, you two should be glad. If everyone had killed since day one, this game would have ended weeks ago. But look at this. It's still happening. It's torture. I want to be home. I want to go home. I miss my parents. I might never see them again. But someone here will. And I hope they will see them soon. Because delaying the winner the time of going home, giving them more scenes to experience, get them more traumatised than they already are won't help whoever comes out of it. No experience we will go through this island will be a happy one. It can just get worse."

[MethodicalSlacker]

"If..."

Lili paused, choking on her words, and looked around the room.

"If there can't be happy experiences on this island, then I must have found a way out of here. I didn't know Kizi much at all before this, and in the last few hours, we..."

Kizi started sobbing. More of a hacking cough than a sob, in some ways, but it was enough to push Lili over the edge. She found herself holding Kizi tighter to her chest, the smell of blood and death wafting up into her nose. Blood stained her clothing, smearing it with streaks of crimson. Al still had his gun.

She didn't notice.

Soon, Lili's own blood could be streaked across the room, her brain falling out of her skull and coagulating on the ground in neat chunks, to rot away and be eaten up by insects.

She didn't care.

"Even if I die horribly," she started, tears spilling out of her eyes, "Skewered, thrown off a cliff, whatever...I'll cherish the memories I've made here, with her and with others. Fucked up, maybe, but I guess..."

"It's the truth."

[General Goose]

Kizi did not swear. She did not engage in sarcasm. She did not stoop to vitriol or scorn, or ever lash out with an acidic tongue or a piercing witticism. Those weren't rules that she forced herself to live by, or moral dictums she zealously adhered to, or conscious choices in any meaningful way. No. It was just the way she was. Just the way her brain was wired. Wasn't really a thing she questioned, and she saw no reason to consciously make herself less nice, and so that was how she stayed.

"If the game had ended weeks ago, we wouldn't have been abducted."

Kizi had started off saying that sentence with a genuine tone despite the pain apparent in her voice. There was a little inkling of confusion, her pedantry sincere. Focusing on the little things like that was distracting her nicely. But she realised halfway through that her words probably suited a sarcastic tone, and adjusted accordingly. It felt strange, having a little bit of sardonic severity leave her lips with her words. But it felt good. In the context, a certain caustic element was justified. Merited. Pretty much essential. She had been angry at Clarice, after all, and on the scale of deserving-a-scolding, what Al had done was far worse.

Lili had the 'nice cop' act cornered. And in a moment of uncharacteristic narrow-mindedness, Kizi continued. She had to pause every other syllable, to splutter and breath, Lili's hug being essential in keeping her warm, her body steady, allowing Kizi to focus on the words. She snuggled up into Lili's arms, as much as she could without straining herself, wanting to show a token degree of appreciation for her generosity. "Do you hear yourself? Killing is a great way to stop trauma? No. It isn't. What next? Are you going to be asking me to thank you for shooting me? No. Does this look...not traumatic to you? Because it is. Trust me. It is."

"The fact is, Al, you haven't played. You've been played. You're not preventing the trauma. You're causing the trauma. If you hadn't done what you did, then we'd have a few more days to hold out. To wait. To restore some peace. A safe zone. A community. Like what me and Lili and Penelope and Raina and Ben have. And if we wait, if we hold out long enough, eventually there will be a rescue operation. They can't find out where we are in one day, Al. It takes time." She sighed. Her impassioned speech had began to aggravate her wounds, the heavy breathing causing a few more rivulets of blood to seep out with every exhale. "But please. It's not too late."

She realised at the end her attitude may have endangered Lili.

But inaction, she feared, might have done as well. The guilt still hurt though.

[RC†]

"Glad you had a good time on the island, Lili!", he shouted at her with an angry face. "I did not have a good time. Good you two found each other. I haven't found anyone. I had to survive on my own and I did what you would have done if you were in my position when the only person who spoke to you was a man with a microphone."

Alessio normally doesn't shout at people, but now he just did. He regretted it instantly after screaming, but he wanted to vent the anger. That pissed him off. These two girls had fun spending time together while he was alone for a week and always afraid of getting killed. They could trust each other, he couldn't trust anyone. They probably could sleep without nightmares. They had a fun and happy time on murder island.

"A week ago, I meant," Alessio corrected himself in whispering. "A week ago, not weeks."

As Kizi spoke, she mentioned names. So, it was not just the two of them. That gave Al some hope that it might be bigger than it seemed. They did posters, probably to spread the message.

"What's with Penelope and Ben? Where are they?"

Really, how should he have know that there were people who would try this? Try this wait for escape thing. He did not meet anyone who wanted that. Serena wanted him to play, to survive. She woke him up so they could do stuff, be productive. She wanted him to get up so they could get her a weapon. Alessio did not choose his path. What other choice did he have other than to follow rules?

"And...you guys really have a plan? Wait until escape comes? A safe zone community?"

Alessio's ego was killed. If...if there were people who would try to escape. Jesus, Henry, Cameron, Hannah, Amanda, Maria. They did not have to die. Fuck, he did screw up a lot didn't he? He couldn't revive them. But how could he know? Al could blame himself, he could blame others, but the fact was that he fucked up. Tears came from his eyes.

[MethodicalSlacker]

"I've spent my fair share of time here alone, too, y'know," Lili answered, "Just because you gave in doesn't mean that's what we're all gonna do."

Kizi started talking again. She was doing a way better job than Lili was at convincing him, and she was wasting away in Lili's arms. Even when she was fueled by rage and grief, she wasn't quite as good at talking as someone who was literally dying and losing blood every second.

But Lili knew that this wasn't the time to get petty.

Now was crucial. It was sounding like Al was loosening up.

"P-Penelope," she stuttered, "Penelope and Raina went off to get some supplies and things we'd need to set up. Ben went off somewhere on his own to pay his respects to someone, I think, the last thing he asked me before he went was if I knew someone named Jaime, I think. And there are more people who might already be onboard, too! Raina would probably bring Johnny, if she found him, and I know Asuka would be on board if she heard about us. They'd find there way here, if we managed to get the posters out in time, but now..."

She looked around the room while she trailed off. None of the posters looked like they had been bloodied, although the problem of a corpse in the supposed safe space was one she couldn't ignore. If it came down to it, Lili had experience with carrying dead bodies.

She isn't dead yet! Why is it so easy for me to think that she's already gone when she's still right here, breathing?!

[General Goose]

Okay.

Kizi was getting weak. Really weak. The table was covered in blood at this point. Lucky the posters were mostly elsewhere. Lili, poor Lili. She was covered in it. Oh, it hurt. It really hurt. Every sensation in her body had fled. Every sensation but the pain. A searing, blistering, torrid pain. A series of rupturing stabbing feelings.

They felt divorced from every other feeling she'd ever felt. As if it was some other body going through this pain, some strange alien entity. And she was just being an empath or something.

But she felt good.

They'd gotten through to Al. A murderer. A heavy word, but an apt one. No point in sugarcoating it. That was what Al was. Well, either that or a puppet. And he seemed to hate that word, so Kizi was content to drop it. And if they can get through to people like Al...well. That bode well.

"Yup. This is only as bad as it is because we let it be that bad. We can, y'know...try and have an island of peace. Here on the island. Heh."

It hurt to talk.

[RC†]

Alessio smiled.

"I like the idea of an island of peace."

So, it was really a big project and he missed it. Johnny was involved, too. He should have spoken to him in the Gym. Perhaps then, he would have realised that people were trying to resist against the terrorists. It seemed like everyone he met was hostile, crazy, a killer, hiding, lonely, trying to survive.

Everybody was in the kill or get killed mode. It seemed that everyone he met had played the game. Serena tried to survive, Astrid robbed him, Jae was hostile, Henry, Hannah and Johnny looked like they would be hiding, like they would run away from everyone, wait until everybody else dies, just hide, run away, avoid contact, Michael and Maria were playing by the rules, Dorothy too.

But now he knew there were people trying to group together and change a thing.

Kizi and Lili had a vision of an island of peace. An island where nobody kills each other. Alessio could meet his friends again, without fearing getting killed by them. They could do stuff together to distract themselves from their inevitable deaths. They could talk about their lives before dying. Peace.

He put the shotgun on a table nearby the entrance and sat down on a chair nearby. His legs were tired from standing. He wiped the tears away.

"Can...May I join? Or is it too late?"

Of course, it might be too late for him to be in that idyllic island. Everybody is selfish, nobody cared about him. It might be too late for him. They hate him.

[MethodicalSlacker]

Yes. Yes, it's too late. For you. Murderer.

That's what Lili would have said if Kizi wasn't dying in her arms, fading away with each passing moment. It was how she really felt, after all, and how she knew Penelope and Raina and Ben would feel when they came back and found Kizi dead, the person who shot her apparently taking her place.

But if she answered that way, what was stopping him from just shooting her, too?

Lili took a deep breath, and closed her eyes.

"What kind of hypocrite would I be if I turned you away, now?" she said, "Of course you're welcome here. Just think of what you'll tell the others when they get back."

Kizi shook a little in her arms, and Lili opened her eyes.

She didn't know if it was just her bad eyesight, but she could have sworn that, for a moment, Kizi was smiling.

[General Goose]

Kizi was smiling. Lili was right. She was smiling as brightly and as widely as her pained nerves and weakened body would permit. This...this validated everything. She wasn't being gullible. She wasn't being callow, or jejune, or guileless, or gullible, or exploitable or many of the other adjectives that had been applied to her over the years. She'd learnt from the jokes. Learnt how to balance trust with realism. And it was paying off.

"Yes. We'll be glad to have you."

Her tone said it all. This proved her right. This proved the doubts wrong. This made the sacrifices - this sacrifice - worth it.

"And uh...Al...if you don't want this to be on the announcements, I can use those scissors."

That final act of selflessness out of the way, she allowed herself one act of selfishness.

"Can you guys...carry me outside? I'd like to see...nature. Sun. Sea. One last time."

[RC†]

They told him he could stay with them. Al wondered if they really meant it.

He was supposed to think of a way to tell that the other group members. He didn't need to tell the others anything. Raina, Penelope and Ben would understand.

Alessio wanted to tell her that she might survive, that he might help to patch it up, but he would have been a fool to have said that. No, the wound did not seem like it would heal. Kizi looked like in pain. She would die from the shotgun wound and perhaps that was better than her staying in pain.

Then Kizi offered that she kills herself for the sake of him not being in the announcement. As if that would have mattered now, after he killed so many.

"I don't care if I am on the announcements or not. You don't need to hurt yourself."

Can he carry her outside, though? His arm said no, he couldn't carry a person. I can try, he said in his head, leaving the shotgun on the table, his bag on his back and moving towards Kizi and Lili to help them.