The Things We Lost in the Fire

[Pippi]

((Owen Kay continued from Don't Panic))

It didn't seem as though Owen would ever get a decent night's sleep on the island. Yesterday had been the hard wooden floor of some abandoned shack. Today's bed was the natural forest floor, dirt, twigs and leaves free of charge. It was cold and uncomfortable, and Owen wasn't exactly in the greatest of moods. He had wanted to go to the hospital, and try and pick up that scalpel he'd seen on the first day. Maybe for himself, maybe for Aileen, so she'd actually have a decent weapon. He hadn't been totally clear, but it had been a plan.

Of course, that hadn't gone right in the slightest. He had gone off the beaten path, wandered into the woodlands, and soon enough, gotten himself completely and utterly lost. North and south were one and the same; every tree looked like the rest, and every stop he had made to stick plasters on his blistered feet and to eat something had just added to the confusion. Eventually, despite having left the pond in the morning, night began to fall, and there was nothing Owen could do but sleep. He was low enough on energy as it was; walking through the night would most likely cause him to collapse.

As Owen lay there on the hard ground, twigs poking into his back, the chill night air finding its way into every fold of his makeshift hoody-blanket, his mind wandered, as it had done so much the past three days. He was in a perminant state of hunger, the bread and energy bars never being quite enough to fill his stomach. He had blisters on his feet, numerous cuts and scrapes everywhere. He hadn't changed for the past three days, hadn't even washed.

The mental stuff was much worse than the physical stuff. All the memories, all of the guilt, all of the sorrow, pain, despair, fear, everything he'd felt and seen and done on the island, constantly pushing at the door to his mind, threatening to break through. Every familiar name on the announcement. Every mistake made.

He knew, though, that all things considered, his situation could have been so very, very worse. Somehow, he was managing to keep his thoughts at bay, managing to keep going, managing to stay sane. He had allies and friends to find, the vaguest semblance of a plan but a plan nonetheless. Things were, it seemed, going as well as they could be.

Owen really should have learnt to stop being so naive.

---

Owen woke up early, blinking at the sudden brightness assaulting his eyes. Nothing new on that front. Slowly, he stood up, brushing dirt and foliage from his body, limbs aching as he did so. Again, nothing new there. What was different, however, was that it wasn't the announcement that woke Owen, but the sheer pain of having to sleep on the forest floor.

Owen tied his hoody round his waist, picked up his bags and table leg, picked a random direction and started walking forwards. He didn't want to stay in the forest any longer than he needed to. Aside from the discomfort it provided, it was also completely open to anybody, including Theo and other such people. Plus, the forest was such a wide, vast area, he doubted he'd be able to find Aileen or anybody else unless he suddenly got seriously, seriously lucky.

The morning was chilly and clear, and Owen set off at a brisk pace, despite the aches and pains and despite the stitch that was threatening to emerge in his side. The sooner he was out of the forest, the sooner he could find people, find Aileen. There was a sort of positive force inside of Owen, a sense of optimism that all would be okay.

As soon as the announcement started, however, that optimism evaporated. The voice was different to how it had been before. Apparently his name was James, apparently he was the collar guy. Apparently, all of their collars were about to explode.

Owen froze as his collar beeped, the high pitched sound piercing through the almost silent forest. He needed to do something, run, pull his collar off, even though he knew it would just delay the inevitable, even though he was still going to be killed-

The collar didn't beep again, and the announcement continued playing. It had been a joke. A joke, a stupid fucking joke. Another bitter laugh emerged from Owen's lips, and after another few seconds, he started walking again. This was all so goddamn fucked up. And he had frozen again. If he did that again... well, the outcome might not be the same at all. Just keep pushing forwards, that was what he needed to do, even as the names started to be read out.

Lauren was on the announcement. Somebody had killed her. Owen almost paused at that. His one impression of her hadn't been positive, but it was still hard to take. As Danya read the next victim out, though, Owen did stop walking. Amy. He'd said Amy's name. Amy was... Amy had been killed.

Owen's arms fell limply to his sides, tears beginning to form again, as he looked around as if to search for some other explanation. Maybe he had said Amy, but maybe it was the other Ami, Amy Flynn who'd been killed, or maybe it had been a mistake entirely, and she was fine, she had to be fine, right?

Somehow, even as Owen continued to try and delude himself, he carried on walking. The name's kept on coming, the little barricade Owen had formed in his mind weakening with each one. Mallory had been killed, as had Brian, and Nina and Alex. His friends, people he'd gone to parties with, had lessons with, talked to... everything about them was gone.

Owen had reached the edge of the forest by now. There was a large, fancy looking building in the distance. The grass around Owen was long and untidy, threatening to engulf the overturned golf carts lying about. He'd never liked golf. It had always been tennis for him, or football, with Brian and Mallory. Amy'd never liked sports; well, playing them at least. Sometimes their stupid conversations would lead them onto the topic, mostly with Amy saying how attractive certain football players were. And now...

Owen dropped the table leg, grabbed a rusting golf club leaning against one of the carts, raising it up before smashing it against the vehicle, over and over again, hearing the metallic smack, seeing the club dent and bend, before he finally chucked it aimlessly away. It felt like a horrible reprise of the first day. Owen slumped against a golf cart, head in his hands, completely drained. He couldn't even cry any more.

[Riki]

[Aileen Aurora Abdallah, continued from Eh, anything's fine]

Okay, fine. She admitted it. If there was one thing Aileen was not built for, it would be sprinting. Running over long distances? Cool, she had the stamina for that. Had been doing that as a hobby when things were normal. But fucking James reminded her that this was not normal anymore and how she had to deal with hard forest floors and hard apartement floors and cannibalistic Summer and crazy students and being out of breath and aches everywhere and being like she had not seen a shower for a few days BECAUSE SHE REALLY HAD NOT SEEN A FUCKING SHOWER FOR A TIME THAT SEEMED LIKE ETERNITY.

In moments like these, Aileen wished for the ability to breath fire.

Still, the good news were that both Aileen and Joe managed to escape the less than graceful death by collarsplosion. The bad news, no, worse news were that she had no idea where she was going. Consulting the map was not exactly Aileen's highest priority. Besides, it would not help her anyway, because every direction was 'Trees', 'More Trees' and 'Oh, look! Another Tree!'.

...well, and some green field somewhere in the not-so-distant area. Would probably be the best idea to go there. If it were not for the fact that she could hear some metallic noises from that direction. She might order Joe to form a protective shield in front of her. Just in case.

However, when she saw the head, buried in it's owner's hands, a change of plans was made.

A big, fat smile appeared on Aileen's face as she run towards the figure, certain in knowing who it was. For these seconds, all the unpleasant events, all the smell, the pain, the aches the exhaustion... everything was simply gone.

"O...Owen! Holy shit, I found you!"

[ViolentMedic]

((Joe Carrasco continued from Eh, anything's fine.))

They'd escaped the danger zone. Joe supposed that was good.

They hadn't stopped since then. Neither of them had said anything much. Joe had meant to ask if Aileen was alright, since she'd seemed reasonably terrified at the collars almost going off. But the words just hadn't come out.

He wondered how Travis or Marcus had felt about the collars or the possible imminent death. Had they been terrified, too? Or not really minded, like him? ...Probably the former. Travis, in particular, was if nothing else too full of life to just roll over and accept dying. Probably got really mad about it.

At least Joe had at least one more day to find them.

There was someone in the distance, slumped against a golf cart. Joe didn't recognise him, but Aileen did. Owen was the guy she was looking for, wasn't she? ...He was kind of jealous of her luck, but happy for her nonetheless.

While Aileen ran forward, Joe just came to a complete halt. He didn't know how Owen would react if he just charged towards them, given what had happened to Jason.

[Pippi]

((Ugh, sorry for the wait. I'll try to be much more prompt in the future))

There was movement in front of Owen. He could hear the swish of the grass, the light thud of feet on solid ground. Just for a moment, just like the first day, he didn't care. Maybe it was Max or Theo. Maybe he didn't care. Maybe he was just going to sit here and let whatever happened happen. But thanks to everything he'd been through, and despite the fact that the announcements had left him at possibly his lowest point, he'd changed since the first day.

So Owen looked up at the approaching figure, and his mouth fell open. Aileen was here, Aileen was here and she'd found him and she was running towards him and shouting and holy shit. She hadn't been on the announcements, Owen only just remembered. He hadn't been focusing on that, and although her appearance wasn't quite enough to drive away the despair entirely, it was still a very, very welcome sight.

"Oh my God..." Owen whispered, before scrambling to his feet, shouting "Aileen!" back at the girl. He knew he had no right of feeling happy about this, given the announcement that had just echoed across the island. But this was one bright spot, one good thing, and hell, he needed to savour those whilst he still could.

"You dunno how glad I am to see you..."

What to do now? Hug her? He felt so relieved at seeing her that it seemed like the correct response. Hell, why not? A smile was beginning to form on Owen's face as he moved forwards to hug Aileen, feeling more positive than he had since boarding the plane.

As if on cue, Owen noticed a figure standing a few feet back from Aileen, and the smile was instantly wiped from his face. Owen knew of Joe Carrasco more than anything, but at the very least, he knew what the guy looked like. He also knew what Danya had told them all on the second day; that Joe had killed Jason. Owen picked up his table leg, and pointed it at Joe.

"Why're you sticking with him?" Owen directed his words at Aileen, trying not to look at Joe. He wanted to keep this civilised, stop anything from breaking out, but he couldn't hide the note of anger in his voice. Maybe there was a reason, though. Joe had never seemed like the type to do... that, after all. There had to be a reason.

[Riki]

And things had to be complicated again. Of course. She was about to hug Owen when he pointed out Joe's existence. Aileen guessed that it was natural for Owen to feel animosity towards Joe, given that the latter killed someone. Possibly even one of Owen's friends. Still... she just wanted one time when everything went smooth, but nope!

"Well, after you left I wandered around alone for a while until I met Matt Vartoogian and Joe. And I didn't want to be alone anymore, so it was a choice between Joe and Matt."

She slowly turned around to Joe.

"Joe was obviously a better one than Matt."

Back to Owen.

"But he is not dangerous, I promise! He even lost his gun, so he's nothing more than a... meek kitten?"

[ViolentMedic]

Owen's reaction wasn't surprising. Joe looked down at his hands while Aileen talked, scraping at the scabs with his fingernails. There was no way that he was a better companion than Matt. He couldn't even find anyone, let alone do anything useful.

He didn't bother to speak, because there was nothing he could say in his own defence. Even if something came to mind, he probably wouldn't have said it.

Instead, he just placed his bag of supplies on the ground in front of him neatly. He stepped back and put his hands on his head. The universal gesture for 'I'm not going to shoot you.' He nudged the bag with his foot towards Owen.

[Pippi]

Owen kept looking at Aileen as she explained the situation, still trying to avoid even glancing at Joe. All the while, however, his anger was steadily evaporating. Joe was one of the last people Owen would have pegged to be a killer; hell, the guy was scared of blood, if memory served. Aileen had just wanted a companion on the island, and it sounded as though she'd taken the lesser of two evils. God knows, Owen would have appreciated a friendly face to stay with him the past day or so.

Joe had also been disarmed, apparently. As if to solidify that as fact, he stepped back, hands on head, nudging his bag towards Owen. For what purpose? An invitation to take something? At any other time, a bag of helpful items would have seemed like a miracle. Now though...

So Joe was unarmed, harmless even, and a better prospect of a companion than Matt. Okay. Okay, sure, Owen could buy that. But that didn't stop him from feeling uneasy around Joe, uncertain of his motives, and unwilling to take anything from the bag nudged towards him. Above all else, however, there was a question Owen wanted to ask Joe. Whatever happened next, he just wanted... an explanation, he supposed. The truth and nothing but. Owen closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, before opening them again and finally turning to look at Joe.

"Okay. Okay, sure, fine, you're harmless. Just... tell me one thing, then. What... what happened with Jason?"

[Riki]

It worked! ...wow, finally something worked. Owen, too, deemed Joe to be harmless, which meant that Aileen did not have to put up with some stupid and senseless confrontation between the boys. Joe was nonetheless asked by Owen about Jason. On the other hand, it was understandable for someone to want to know how one of their friends was killed.

Thus, Aileen looked down on Joe's bag and decided that she'll look whether there is something useful in there that Joe hid from her, for whatever reason. As it turned out, there were some useful things still in Joe's bag. Well, not necessarily useful, but there were cookies. And frankly, after days of eating bland military food, or whatever these bars are supposed to be, she would love to eat at least one cookie. No matter how... mushy or stale they were.

One for herself, one for Owen. Back to the boys.

[ViolentMedic]

I panicked.

I was trying to help.

I wasn't aiming for him.

I didn't mean for it to happen.

I had to finish it. I didn't want him to keep hurting. He was dying.

I'm sorry.

None of it seemed like the right thing to say.

Joe just stared through Owen for a moment, the image of the bullet hitting Jason's head and the wetness of the blood splattering him going through Joe's mind. Then he blinked a couple of times, trying to bring himself back to the present--trying not to remember that moment--before speaking slowly.

"I... I killed him. That's wh-what happened. There's... there's nothing I can say to muh... make it better. Nothing justifies it, let alone anything that... that I did. So... so I got nothing to explain."

Joe looked at Aileen going through his bag, then back at Owen. "You... you can take anything you need. Just... just tell me if you've... you've seen Travis or Marcus. ...And leave me enough water so... so I can find them. Otherwise, I... I don't mind what you take. I'll get out of your way after."

[Pippi]

Aileen only took what looked like a couple of cookies from Joe's bag, which Owen was glad for. He had to admit, he hoped that the second cookie was for him; that feeling of hunger had popped up again with a vengeance. It also meant that Joe didn't have anything hidden in his bag, or looking at it a different way, that they hadn't taken even more valuables from him.

Speaking of Joe, he had answered Owen's question. It wasn't what he'd expected. He didn't try and justify it, or proclaim innocence, or anything. He stated he'd killed Jason, and left it at that. Did that make things better or worse? He hadn't sugar-coated it, didn't seem to want to talk about it, but at the same time, it had all happened. Joe had still killed somebody.

"Fine" was all Owen said for a good while, even though he wanted to say so much more. Whether it had been an accident, or Joe had recently had a change of heart, or something else entirely, he guessed he'd never know. Joe clearly didn't want to talk about it. Fine. That was evidence enough for Owen, that whatever had happened, Joe regretted it. There were better places to direct his anger. Max, Travis, people like that.

"I... haven't seen either of them. I met... someone who found Travis... but I dunno where he went." Owen didn't mention Edgar's name. Joe was a friend of Travis, and Edgar was an enemy of Travis and, well... Owen didn't want to be the catalyst for anything potentially fatal.

The euphoria that Owen had felt upon seeing Aileen had almost entirely vanished. Now, almost without realising it, he began to rummage through his bag, similar to how he had with Edgar. His hand closed around his first-aid kit. Aileen had said Joe had lost his, right? There was a lot of stuff in there. Bandages, antiseptic stuff, important things. Owen grabbed a small amount of items, and held them out to Joe.

"Look, I... I can't forgive you for Jason... but, I... I can tell you're not... you didn't..." Finishing sentences suddenly became impossible. So much he wanted to say and yet no way of saying it. Owen guessed Joe had felt similar with his answer. It was a good few seconds before Owen spoke again.

"So... take this, if you want. Can't give you much, but..." Owen finished his sentence off with a shrug. Really, why was he doing this? He wasn't sure himself. But Owen had a feeling in his gut that it was the right thing to do. Joe had been a good guy at school, he'd stuck with Aileen this whole time.

He didn't deserve to die out there from some random injury.

[Riki]

Oh, that was interesting. Owen met someone who had an encounter with Travis. Aileen wondered who that was, and why Owen did not mention their name, but she guessed she could ask him later once they were alone.

What was even more interesting, though, was Owen taking some of his own medical stuff out in order to give it to Joe. Much to Aileen's own surprise, she just raised an eyebrow at this. Usually, she would have chided Owen for giving away possibly decisive items. Perhaps she did feel that Joe deserved some sign of gratitude, or some compensation. Perhaps she did not want to speak with a full mouth. Hm...

Aileen looked at Owen and then at Joe. Still chewing, she instead conveyed her message of "Okay, you can go now" with mimics alone.

[ViolentMedic]

Owen had heard about Travis. That... was good? Good, since it meant Travis was at least still moving. Though perhaps bad, if whatever Travis was doing was important enough for someone to mention. Was he hurting people? Robbing them? Killing--

No. Travis wouldn't do that. No matter how far he sometimes sunk, he wouldn't kill someone.

Joe eyed the offered medical supplies. He was tempted. But he knew that Owen and Aileen would end up needing it. He didn't want them to die because he'd been greedy and taken their supplies. If there was anyone Joe needed to help, odds were decent that they'd have their own supplies.

"It's okay. I... I don't need it," Joe said. "And I wouldn't want forgiveness... even if you were offering it."

He picked up his bag and took a couple of steps backwards, looking at Aileen.

"Thanks," he mumbled. "For... for putting up with me."

He looked at both of them again.

"I hope I... I don't... hear about you guys again. G-good luck."

He turned around and left.

((Joe Carrasco continued in Repeat.))

[Riki]

Aileen waved after Joe for a while.

"You'll need more luck than I do."

Well, good thing she managed to finally finish that chapter of her journey. Reunited with Owen, got cookies... yeah, that seems to be a good day.

Oh right, cookies.

She stretched out the arm holding the uneaten cookie towards Owen.

"This one is for you."

A smile, as warm as it was playful, appeared on her face.

"And then, maybe, a hug?"

[Pippi]

"If ... if you're totally sure..."

Maybe, like with Edgar before, Joe leaving would be a good thing in the long run. Owen didn't know how long this... thing would last. Another few days? Another week? Longer? He, or Aileen, could get any sort of disease, and they'd only find out he'd given away the required medical supplies when it was too late. Plus, although his view on Joe wasn't 100% negative... there was still a feeling of unease Owen had around him.

Still, as Joe gave him and Aileen good luck, and Owen put all of his stuff back into his bag, he felt a little guilty. The guy was walking off into the wilderness with no weapon and no medical supplies. Owen couldn't help but wonder if there was anything more he could have done to help.

No, no, of course there wasn't. It was a stupid, self-defeating train of thought. Joe was gone now, and that was that. Owen muttered "good luck" to Joe's departing figure, certain he hadn't even heard him, before turning his attention back to Aileen, who was holding one of the two cookies out for him. Owen took it from her, smiling graciously, before her next sentence really hit home.

"I, uh... I think that could be arranged." Owen's smile grew a little, as he moved closer to Aileen, before wrapping his arms around her.

"God... I'm so glad you're okay." Owen said. For several moments, he felt happy. Then, a slight twinge of worry entered his mind, threatening to send everything back to square one.

"You... you are okay, right? I mean... with Summer, and..."

Owen's voice trailed off. He hoped Aileen would understand the meaning behind the fragments of sentences.

[Riki]

Finally.

Aileen enjoyed that moment. Her head leaning against his shoulder, her hands wrapping around Owen, binding him to her. He didn't smell very nice, from an objective perspective. Probably. But for Aileen, his odor was comforting, welcoming and... enchanting?

At first, when Owen asked her about Summer, Aileen was surprised. To be honest, she found it difficult to actually be angry at that woman. Yes, the memory of seeing her eating bits of Naomi was, without doubt, there. And it was, without doubt, unpleasant. However, Summer seemed so irrelevant. Her main priority was Owen. Evading, or somehow handling insane women who eat their former classmates was less important than finding the person she trusted on this vile island.

Hm... and now she found Owen, so perhaps she should think about Summer now? Get angry? Again?

"I'm okay, takes more than Summer to harm me.

...but I do miss my sun glasses."