Empyrean

[Deamon]

((Kimiko Kao continued from I Imagine Death So Much It Feels Just Like A Memory))

Kimiko was lent on the rails of the docks, looking out to sea. The events of the previous two kills played over in her head again and again. Sleep had been a terrifying prospect but she had forced herself to lie down and let it take her. Her reward was a nightmare that was still at the front of her mind. She had been alone in a room she couldn't distinguish any of the details of. She felt sick though and had eventually vomited up some black tar like liquid. It sat on the floor momentarily before a large portion of the mass had started to rise up from the floor until it reached about a persons height then it had started changing into a familiar shape.

She had awoken before she could fully discern who the blackness had been taking the shape of, drenched with sweat and heart pounding. She knew she needed to stay rested, but it was becoming hard to find the will to sleep when she woke up panicking every time.

Her deteriorating mental health worried her. Kimiko didn't know what she could do to fix it. She didn't know if it was fixable. Not after everything that had happened.

Her mind wandered back to Jasmine and Ty. It was the first time she had killed in such a short timespan and it had been a stupid mistake to do so. When the announcements next played she would appear even more dangerous and unhinged. People would have been even less likely to tolerate her presence. She rubbed her eyes with the back of her left hand.

The sea was calm. The wind on the island had settled down so it was easy to appreciate the beauty of the open water. Kimiko didn't know what her next step would be, she felt she needed to go back to hiding out of sight and avoiding people. But she knew from experience now that the plan wasn't has simple as that. She felt the gash above her eye. It still stung when touched, even after she had gone through the correct steps for first aid.

Kimiko let her hand fall back down to the railing, her thoughts returning to Jasmine and Ty. The girl she didn't know and the boy she had killed in cold blood. She knew it wasn't healthy, but she couldn't help herself.

[MK Kilmarnock]

"Oh geez..."

((Coleen Reagan continued from Ye Not))

Coleen breathed the words as a mix of disappointment, frustration, maybe just a touch of resignation dashed onto a spot of hope. So they'd finally found the infamous Kimiko Kao, a name that had been coming across the announcements for a long while. What's more, the two of them had never really talked... for obvious reasons, naturally, giving her little bearing to assess Kimiko's personality, her cues, anything like that. No telling what somebody like her might do.

The last time Coleen had seen Kimiko, she killed Bradley. She killed him with the very same spear that Coleen had clutched in her hands, just as a measure of safety and protection. The rifle on her person would have been the better option and she knew it, but it also stood as the more threatening weapon to be holding and there was a chance, just a small one, that perhaps this encounter would go okay.

"Wait here for just a second. Okay?" Coleen asked Enzo. "I'm not going to get super close to her or anything." The sun hadn't even fully come up over the waves yet, and much of the bridge in the distance was doused in fog. It was a view similar to the one several days ago... how many was it now, Coleen wondered to herself. The days had long since stopped being distinct and separate, a phenomenon not helped by staying cooped up in that rotten building for more than one sunrise. At least here, there was some fresh air. A body or two scattered along the water's edge that the two of them had passed, but with open enough space that at least they were spared the smell or a closer look.

Coleen took one hand off the spear and raised it in a wave, her feet still short of stepping on the docks where Kimiko was hanging out. "Hello? Uh... over here?"

[Namira]

((Enzo continued from Ye Not))

"We met before. Talked, even. I mean, that was before she did other stuff but—well, it still didn't get violent. That should count for something."

They put their hands on their hips and kind of shrugged. It probably really didn't count for very much, honestly. When degrees of counting came in, this was like, a microcount.

Enzo didn't like where this was going; not their line of thought and not what Coleen seemed to have on her own mind. There had to better things to do than what amounted to surely provoking Kimiko.

"Hey, c'mon, let's be smart about this-" welp nope too late Coleen was already ploughing on off ahead.

Tch, hard to know what was going on in that head. In anyone's. They just knew that creeping unease was the very least of their worries just now.

[Deamon]

Kimiko heard the voice and let her hand slip down off to railing to rest on the gun before turning around to face the source. She recognized Coleen from somewhere, perhaps she had been present when Bradley had died? Kimiko couldn't say for sure. The other person that was hanging around behind the girl with a burned face was someone Kimiko knew. She had spoken to Enzo a few days ago, it had been after she had her encounter with Isabel. Kimiko could remember most of the conversation. It had covered their fears and doubts about their time on the island. Kimiko had decided to let Enzo live though, a mercy she hadn't extended to Ty despite the meetings being more similar than she had first considered.

Kimiko watched with eyes narrow. She recognized the spear in Coleen's hands. It was the one she had used on Bradley. She thought she wouldn't have been able to bear looking at it but she didn't feel anything seeing it in. There was just nothing. She was supposed to feel something wasn't she? She had felt guilty after it happened but now...

Kimiko raised her free hand in greeting but didn't offer anything more.

She didn't know what to expect and wasn't prepared to give the girl any opportunity to surprise her.

[MK Kilmarnock]

Coleen's eyes zoned in on the gun Kimiko was holding, and no attempt was made to disguise or conceal her glance nor her concerned expression. The odds of pitting a spear against a gun seemed reasonably apparent, and it was not a game of chance that put the odds in her favor. If she was thinking of killing Kimiko, perhaps she'd consider herself to have a much better chance at it if she weren't dealing with somebody experienced and already proven to be quite competent at the task. Kimiko had shown up on the announcement enough times to make the point.

"Relax..." Coleen breathed. "Nobody's doing anything stupid. We're just watching the sunrise, right?" She raised her chin, directing the latter part of the comment Kimiko's way. "It's early. Did you get any sleep, or are you like us and just having the worst morning ever?" She offered an empathetic smile. "Do you mind if I come onto the docks with you? I'll, like, stay out of cuddling range, I just want to talk to you a little easier."

She made a bit of a dare, but it was a show of good faith more than anything when she averted her eyes away from Kimiko and instead looked at Enzo.

Please trust me.

[Namira]

Enzo threw up their hands, and then folded their arms.

They didn't like this. They didn't like this one bit. Coleen seemed to be on a one woman mission and Enzo couldn't tell what the end goal was. Although they'd managed to share that conversation with Kimiko before, that'd been enforced close quarters; they'd quite literally stumbled across her. This was like poking the lion for no reason. Kimiko was still Kimiko, but she was also dangerous. Every one of them were technically dangerous. Why put yourself into a situation like that when you didn't have to?

It hurt that so many people were dead that you couldn't even take a regular conversation for granted.

Coleen gave them a look which they couldn't really read, maybe one part permission one part something else.

On the chance they were right, Enzo shook their head.

[Deamon]

Kimiko shrugged. She didn't care.

Coleen may have hated her deep down but she was being civil for the time being. Kimiko would return it, but she knew the potential for violence that bubbled beneath the surface of every encounter on the island. For their part Enzo stayed back, unwilling to venture any closer. It was as if Kimiko was a tiger, Enzo had been close to it once and they didn't need to experience it again. It was another hit to her humanity, not that it was unfounded. Kimiko was aware that she couldn't be trusted and could lash out when threatened.

She thought of Jasmine again, an innocent bystander who had been in the wrong place. Her target was Caedyn but Jasmine had spooked her and it had cost the girl her life. Thinking back on the event Kimiko couldn't say what the end goal of her plan was. She didn't know whether she planned on just robbing Caedyn or killing the girl as well. It didn't matter in the end; another person had died because of her own choices. But that was what Vanessa had been talking about, the need to commit.

Kimiko had a reason for what she was doing. She needed to remember that.

Still with Coleen in front of her Kimiko found herself considering what the girl was planning. There had to be a reason to approach her after all, it was obvious people saw her as a monster to be feared. Her encounter with Clarice had proven that. One of her best friends had been scared and disgusted at her very presence, for some of her classmates she had stopped being a person they knew and something that haunted their thoughts. How many of her old friends hunkered down in a safe place and dreaded seeing her?

Coleen looked away. It would have been to shoot her while she did so. But Kimiko didn't, she had no reason why she did. Maybe it was Enzo's presence. The only one of her classmates she had encountered who had treated her as a person not a monster. Maybe in a way she didn't want to let them down.

Kimiko's eyes darted to Enzo and then to the floor before refocusing back on Coleen.

Coleen said she wanted to talk and Kimiko's eyes again glided over to Enzo. She trusted Enzo.

Slowly, her eyes not leaving Coleen, Kimiko nodded.

They could talk.

[MK Kilmarnock]

"Okay."

Kimiko nodding was the best response Coleen could have hoped for.

"Okay, cool," Coleen repeated, stepping onto the docks. The spear was pointed at her ankle and held in one hand, switched into the left so she could grab for the rusted railing with her right. It looked to be a tetanus-laden thing and a gateway for scratches and cuts, so she resisted the urge to slide her hand along as she walked. Gingerly, she rested her hand on one spot, making sure the piping wouldn't bend or snap off and send her into the shallows. Each step let her trust the docks more and more, happy that whoever built these things had the foresight to have more to them than just wood.

Coleen stopped around 10, maybe 15 feet away from Kimiko. Communication was going to be an uphill battle, but there were a few things she wanted to know. There were a few things she had to hash out with somebody else who had been where she felt she was going. Of those among the living, she could only think of two or three people she felt comfortable identifying as killers. Nearly everybody left alive had probably killed somebody, herself included, though the circumstances surrounding Arthur's death were not the same as, say, Bradley's. Kimiko had been awfully busy since then, and she was still alive.

"Sorry, I know we don't know each other super well," Coleen said apologetically. "I kept to myself most of the time so like... if you weren't theatre or part of our band, we'd never see each other. Hell of a way to meet, huh?"

Well, might as well stop shooting the shit.

"I wanted to know-"

"It's another beautiful morning today children!" The crackle of the loudspeakers' announcements violently shook the still and quiet morning, causing Coleen to twitch reflexively. Crazy as it might have seemed, the voice was starting to grow on her just a tiny bit. It wasn't a particularly harsh listen once he got going, but the subject could have used a little lightening. She wondered if somebody had ever told him he had a voice for radio. Not wanting to compete with the superior volume of the announcements, Coleen let herself remain hushed for now. They could listen to the names for as long as they wanted. She wondered to herself, for a moment, if Kimiko would be on here.

Her fingers wrapped around her thumb and squeezed until she felt her knuckle pop; Vanessa was dead, killed by Maxim. Societal convention would have had her cry or fall to her knees in shock or something, yet she remained standing with little more of a change in posture than leaning her elbow on the railing as she finished listening. Kimiko was nowhere on there.

"... Some more of our friends dead," Coleen murmured. "Unless Brady n' B.B. are here, I guess that means I'm the last member of Peyote Coyote left here."

She turned and pressed her back to the railing, a little less cautious about whether it would snap off now. Her nose pointed in Enzo's general direction at first, then most of the way back to Kimiko. There was a breeze blowing out from across the water and, thankfully, Coleen had her good side towards it.

"What about you? Are you entirely alone now?"

[Deamon]

Coleen accepted her response and edged her way onto the docks. Kimiko watched her the entire way. The girl was unsure, of herself, her situation, her decisions. It was clear from her movements and the way she carried herself. Kimiko sympathised, she had felt unsure of herself too.

She stopped a good distance away from Kimiko. That was good, it helped build up a small modicum of trust. Kimiko looked over at Enzo who was still stood over on the shore. There didn't seem to be any plan at work between the two. It made Kimiko slightly more relaxed but her hand still rested on the gun in case it was needed.

Just as Coleen was about to ask her a question the sound of the speakers crackled out over the calm lapping of the tide. Kimiko listened and made a mental note of the name Matthew Moradi she only dimly knew the name but he had become very active and therefore a threat to be aware of.

Whatever question Coleen had been about to ask was lost to the wind following the announcement. The girl had lost a friend Kimiko assumed from her reaction. When she asked the question Kimiko saw Caleb's face and then Clarice's. Ty had been Clarice's friend. What would she think? It hadn't been on the announcement but Kimiko knew that it was guaranteed to be on the next one.

Kimiko nodded. She had no one left.

[MK Kilmarnock]

Coleen shook her head almost as soon as she saw Kimiko's answer. If there was any other answer she could have reasonably expected, she was unsure just what it was. They'd all spent more than a week's time on this island. Finding dead bodies was more and more common by the hour, to the point where they dotted the landscape and served as a more frequent sight than other living, breathing kids. That was just the ones they were able to find as well; Coleen was sure that a few of her classmates leaped or fell off the bridge or over the cliffs, deciding they were unable to take the stress of the island and instead left themselves to the mercy of the waves. Others might have holed up in a dusty crawlspace somewhere, choosing to starve to death or gamble for a danger zone to give them a quicker alternative. Chances were nobody would ever find every single body littering the island, a thought that disturbed her the more she dwelt on it.

"I thought so," she admitted. "We're getting more tired every minute. I keep thinking that maybe if I get out of here, if this were just like a really fucked up camping trip, I could write one hell of a song with it. That's if I can get any sleep. That's getting harder too."

She trailed off a bit and thought. She wanted to ask about the people Kimiko killed. She was alone, for certain. Was she alone because the killing drove others away, or was she alone because she had killed those close to her? Had she killed her friends? Coleen dared not ask, because she was no stranger to having killed a friend. Accident or not, the announcements played for keeps and withheld as much information as they thought might make things entertaining. She had no right to judge anybody.

Coleen lowered her voice before speaking next. "I'm going to be alone very shortly," she said, looking Enzo's way after she said it. "Not... don't get me wrong. There's only one person I want to hurt. It's not you, and I don't want Enzo to see me when I do it. You guys know each other, right?" Coleen looked back to Kimiko. "You like each other?"

[Deamon]

Coleen acknowledged the answer she had been given and continued to speak. She spoke wishful thoughts about getting home and writing music, clearly the girl didn't expect to make it off the island. It was just as well Kimiko thought, she knew what it meant if both of them expected to be the last alive. She also spoke about how tired everyone was and how sleep was becoming difficult.

Kimiko knew that all too well, every time she eventually fell into a slumber she would be awoken not long after by a nightmare. It had been a consistent occurrence every night since she had killed Caleb. The idea of having to sleep scared her, but she knew that she needed to do it in order to stand a chance as the game went on. As Kimiko stood there in front of Coleen she found her own thoughts drifting to back home. She was certain the nightmares would follow her there, no matter what happened.

Kimiko returned her focus to Coleen who was speaking again. She wondered what it was that made Coleen so willing to share her thoughts with her. Maybe she thought that because Kimiko was a killer that she would be more understanding or maybe Coleen just needed to tell someone and it was easier with someone who she didn't know very well.

It was clear that Coleen was planning on going after someone to get revenge. Kimiko didn't know who it could have been and while before being dropped on the island she would have found Coleen's decision flawed, pointless and achieving nothing but making her just like the person she was after; she couldn't bring herself to care too deeply. There must have been people who wanted revenge on herself, Kimiko was aware of this. There were probably a few who had died before they even saw her. It was the cycle of violence the island perpetuated but despite that Kimiko didn't do anything to discourage or stop Coleen. It made no difference in the end.

Kimiko tilted her head as Coleen asked about Enzo. She thought that Enzo was her friend before they got on the island. Enzo was nice, funny and enjoyable to be around. But Kimiko didn't know if Enzo saw any of their time together at school when they looked at Kimiko. The conversation they had shared in the staff lounge made her believe that they still saw her as a person but...

Upon her return to that room she had shot Ty in the back. He had known it was going to happen, they had both known what their roles were in that scenario and if hadn't of been her it would have been the next killer Ty met. But still Kimiko found herself wondering if her Enzo actually felt less of her or if she was just ashamed of herself and who she was.

Eventually she nodded in response to Coleen.

[MK Kilmarnock]

"Awesome."

Yeah, that was just about the only thing she had to say to that for a while.

"You don't... have to answer this one," Coleen started off tentatively. "But I wanted to ask for a little advice. I wanted to know... how. How you could do it." In lieu of words, she only had Kimiko's face to go off of. If she started to offend the girl, she'd head out of there the best Kimiko would let her. A conversation was nice but she had already seen what happened when you started to push her, and that was back when they all could have claimed to have any sanity.

"Like... does it just get easier?"

She swallowed. Her throat felt dry all of a sudden, and not from the ocean spray.

"Do the nightmares stop?"

[Deamon]

Kimiko tilted her head as Coleen asked her question.

She was right then, Coleen was confiding in her because she was a killer. It upset Kimiko to know that the only reason Coleen was even speaking to her was because she had killed, yet alone was asking her advice on it. Coleen was clearly nervous about even asking her, perhaps she expected Kimiko to lash out in a rage at the idea of being asked such a thing. Instead she just felt disappointed and hurt at the fact that Coleen had moved the conversation in the direction she had.

Kimiko kept her focus on Coleen, staring into the girls eyes.

She knew the look in her own eyes would give Coleen the answer.

[MK Kilmarnock]

Oh yeah. That look spoke to her more than Kimiko could have ever said, had she possessed the capability to speak.

"I'm sorry," Coleen was quick to say. "That was a stupid question. I'm just... I'm just on the track to becoming, I feel, not a really great person." She found eye contact with Kimiko difficult to maintain, and increasingly so by the minute. Eventually her eyes fell to the other girl's feet. "Because... for a while, I figured the best thing to do would be to take myself out. I... we all knew what was  in store for that and when I thought about it, I wanted to jump in the water."

She sighed.

"You know Arthur Bernstein? He was there with us, in the gym." When Kimiko killed Bradley, Coleen thought, but those next words were better off left unsaid. "He helped me out for a while. Was just there until I could rediscover the way... not like, the way out but... shit. How to describe it..."

She could bear to meet Kimiko's eyes again. How she wished she could be talking to the girl back home, the girl who never became a killer, and also as the girl who never killed her friend. Just another burden on her shoulders she had to live with for a little longer, no matter how long or shit it might be.

"It hurts. I just wanted to know if it hurt all of us the same way. You, to me, to Enzo. Because we're still people."

Her ribs pressed into the railing. She figured soon, it would be her time to go.

"Pain's one of those things in life, I found, that's going to find you no matter what. And if I learned anything here, it's that I can't go through the rest of my life being afraid to get hurt." Whether it was hurting from her mistakes or the misdeeds around her or to her, it was all the same. The fear wouldn't make her death come any sooner or later, it just made the point up to it more miserable.

"Anyway, sorry for talking your ear off."

[Deamon]

Coleen seemed to know immediately that the question had been the wrong thing to say. The way she avoided Kimiko's gaze told her that much. Despite that the other girl continued talking about her time on the island.

It was the first time Kimiko had heard about someone's time on the island properly since Caleb. She felt a small pang of empathy for the girl but it was tempered by her knowing why Coleen was telling her what she was.

Eventually Coleen stopped and apologised for talking so much. It didn't matter to Kimiko anymore though. She merely shrugged and looked out over the ocean briefly before returning her gaze to Coleen.

It was alright. In the end she should have known better anyway.