Weak Executioner

[MK Kilmarnock]

((Cody Patton, continued from Bullet Dance))

They didn't make it far. The pain in his leg was too great, and Cody was beginning to feel like the bullet might have been in the worst spot imaginable. His mind painted a picture of the piece of steel being wedged right at the joint where the head of the femur met the pelvic socket, grinding and getting stuck and sharding off microscopic pieces of bone every time he took a step. He decided he hated his sense of imagination and that they should take an extra day of rest so they could possibly survive.

They rested near the hotel for the entirety of the next day, but the announcement that came on the very next morning caused both him and Cooper to find somewhere else to stay. It was a welcome change of atmosphere, as the presence of the corpses of students, friends and enemies alike, was only barely tolerated due to necessity of rest.

They wanted to try the hospital. At least, Cody did. Maybe there'd be some extra drugs or something, something to really take the edge off. Alas, that too had been cordoned off through the danger zones listed in the announcements. The two headed west instead, stopping at the first thing of interest that they came across.

The mall looked kind of diminutive compared to the grander buildings one might find in Seattle, but it was homey enough to support the two of them, at least. The bottom floor seemed empty - at the very least, they didn't notice any bodies. If they were there, either they were too desensitized to notice or simply too far gone to care. The top floor was about as comfy; they had to watch out for the broken glass that littered the floor and Cody wondered if there might be a few wild animals living up here, but after a quick 'split up and search the floor', they found nothing.

Cody's leg was feeling better. He could be thankful for that much, and for Cooper's patience with him. Cooper, honestly, had been taking these last few days... almost better then Cody was, himself. It confused him, placed itself in stark contrast with how Cooper had taken earlier events. It seems that ever since the showdown with numb-nuts Tyler at the docks, Cooper had really wanted to step it up.

Well... good. Cody now pretty well trusted having somebody at his back. He hoped that things wouldn't come down to just them two left on the island, because he might have to...

He was unable to think ahead. He had lost so many people he cared about, some people he thought he'd never care about, but every single name listed on the announcements was painful. Eliza had killed yet again, not yesterday but the day before. At least she was still alive.

It was an awful way to think of things, but he'd rather hear her doing the killing than doing the dying.

His girlfriend was dead. His ex was dead. Almost all of his friends were dead, some of them feeling like they died years ago, that's how detached he was. He still had his sister, his friend Cooper, himself. They had a safe location. He had his gun.

His world hadn't fallen apart yet.

[Skraal]

((Eliza Patton continued from The Crazy Kids))

Why did the terrorists have to take away her smokes? Assholes. She had been craving them for hours now. Hopefully she could find some in here. She laughed quietly. It was a pretty stupid hope, really. She just needed to calm her nerves, that was all.

Eliza walked slowly through the mall, taking time to look around. It had been a long time since she had been inside one of these. It was all rather surreal to think about. It was almost  if an eternity had passed since she and the Rainer Valley had spent their time messing around, well, anywhere, really.

She wondered if Leah, Cherry and the others were watching her right now. Would they recognise her, considering that Eliza barely recognised herself? All the rules and inhibitions that had governed her life before had slipped away.

She sighed and shook her head. Brooding on how her life had changed wouldn't make anything better. She picked up the pace as she walked, anxiously playing with the safety on her rifle. To her annoyance, she was unable to increase her speed due to a terrible pain in her back. She probably injured something in a previous fight. Whichever one that was, she had no idea.

As she turned the corner, she was greeted by a rather shocking sight. Just a short distance away, she could see her brother with some other guy. She paused for a moment. Should she call out to him? The last time that they met didn't go so well, after all.

Eventually, her curiosity got the best of her. She walked over to the two boys, speaking slowly as she approached them, gun drawn.

"Hey, guess who."

[MK Kilmarnock]

Cody looked up, arm tucked across his knees. His gun laid at his side, but he didn't pick it up. He didn't feel the need to.

"Huh. Meet again. The hell you doing here?" Cody asked Eliza, much as he would if he ran into her outside the guy's locker room. Eliza was holding a gun, and though he didn't think the barrel was pointed exactly at him, it could be in just a moment. This wasn't lost on him, but he tried to keep his eyes up.

There was surprise in seeing Eliza here, almost as though he was destined to run into her again and again. After those first few days of silence, finally seeing her near that zipline was both a relief and the moment that started the absolute worst time in his life. Just her appearance was enough to cause the death of two people, whether it was her fault or no. She had killed somebody else, too. Every time her name popped up on the announcements, Cody felt himself tuning in, praying it wasn't Eliza's corpse being mocked.

He realized he was actually happy to see her. Relieved she wasn't dead.

"I don't suppose you came to team up with me."

[Skraal]

Eliza laughed. "Nope. I don't think I need to team up with anyone at the moment."

Now that she could actually get a good look at her brother, the results were actually rather shocking. He was in worse shape than she had ever seen him, even ignoring the leg wound. Eliza swallowed, hard. It was rather hypocritical to feel this way, considering what she had done, but it was rather disturbing to see her own brother in such bad shape.

After looking away for a few moments, she decided to deal with this strange bundle of emotions the only way she knew how.

"So, what happened to you? You look like shit. You finally decided to start playing, huh? It looks like you haven't been so good at it."

[MK Kilmarnock]

Cody struggled to stand. He left the rifle where it was, laying preciously at his feet. Eliza seemed to be looking around a whole lot, as if looking for somebody.

"Cooper's here," Cody said. "Somewhere," he added, not entirely sure which part of the upper floor the guy had disappeared off to. "But he's here so if you see somebody it's probably him. Try not to shoot him." The sentence was a bit more biting-sounding than he had wanted it to come off as. He blamed it on the pain, both from loss and from injury.

"Not that... well, actually you HAVE killed a few people," Cody said. "And I haven't exactly been 'playing', sis, I'm just trying to fuckin' live day by day. Same as you, I imagine." He hoped he was right, hoping she told the truth about Luca. All the others had to be the same, right?

Cody had doubts, he just didn't want to voice them. He wanted to trust his sister, say with absolute 100% certainty that she would never hurt or kill him, but he couldn't exactly say that anymore.

"Tell me about Michelle."

[Skraal]

Eliza laughed. "Michelle? Who's that?"

She paused for a moment to think. The name was vaguely familiar, though. Where had she heard it before?

Oh. It was the girl from the hospital. Eliza remembered hearing her name on the announcements after she had died. What an idiot. She had to have wanted to die back there.

"Oh, never mind, I remember. Yeah, that stupid bitch just jumped in front of my gun. It was like she wanted me to shoot her. I guess she got her wish then." Eliza chuckled.

"I guess that's really all to say about that. Why do you ask? You were planning on screwing her or something?"

[MK Kilmarnock]

Cody fell back down to his ass, gazing up at his sister.

He didn't say anything for a few seconds. Then he picked up his gun.

"Are you fucking serious?" He blinked his eyes a few times to get this annoying stinging sensation out of the way. "You kill somebody and that's how you're going to fuckin' talk about her?"

This had to be Eliza's coping mechanism for how she did what she did. This had to be her killing in defense and then being... being her in order to sort it out, because this was honestly in line with how she acted all the goddamn time, especially around those fucking no-good friends of hers. She was many things, but she wasn't just a wanton murderer. He couldn't let himself believe that. One final chance to redeem herself.

"F... I'm fucking serious. You killed her in defense, right?"

[Skraal]

What? Did he honestly think that it made a difference? They weren't back home, with laws and police officers. Everything was different here. On this island, killing wasn't a crime. It was just a part of life, just like it was for every other species on Earth.

"Of course not. Where do you think we are? This is Survival of the Fittest! You don't survive here by just waiting for people to come and attack you. You need to take the initiative and go on the offensive if you want to win."

Eliza unconsciously stroked her rifle as she waited for Cody's response. Her brother wasn't exactly the smartest tool in the shed, but you'd think that he'd be able to grasp this simple concept, at least.

[BetaKnight]

((Cooper Komorowski continued from Bullet Dance))

Never in his life had Cooper found a mall to be as useless as this one.  Not one helpful or interesting thing to be found in any store here.  Not even anything in the break rooms.  He had hoped that maybe the record store would have something since the record store at home was staffed by weirdos and burnouts, but no.  Nothing.  Zero. Zilch. Bupkis. Not even a super stale bag of chips.  For a second he felt a spark of irritation at his poor luck before shrugging it off.  

It wasn't that big of a deal.  Besides, the mall seemed fairly secure.  It definitely fit with his criteria for "places to leave Cody Patton".  

His survey of his half of the mall complete, Cooper had been on his way back to Cody when he heard voices. Dropping low to the ground behind a fallen planter, he did his best to figure out what was going on.  Cody wasn't going for his gun, but he didn't sound too happy with whoever it was with him.  Of course, Cody never sounded all that happy with Cooper either, so Cody being grumpy wasn't really any sort of indicator of anything.

It took a few seconds for him to recognize the other voice, though, and he cringed when he finally did.  Fucking Eliza.  That psycho bitch who started this spectacularly bad run of luck.  

Yeah, no, fuck her and fuck this.  

Running into a Patton reunion was had started this 'partnership'.  Eliza showing up was like a sign from God, letting him know that another Patton reunion was an excellent place to end it.  They deserved each other, Eliza and Cody.  They could be each others' problems now.

He would come back later to get his stuff, once they moved on.  Later.  After they sorted each other.

As quietly as possible, Cooper backed up and headed back to the employee-only areas.  He was sure there was another way out of this place that didn't require him to come into any more contact with the Pattons.

((Cooper Komorowski continued in The World According to Third Grade))

[MK Kilmarnock]

He gave a chance for doubt, but it seemed like Eliza wasn't one to leave any room for that. Despite the windows of vagueness he threw out and about, it had become very clear to Cody that Eliza was doing just what she had been claiming to do, and that would be playing the game to win. That meant Eliza intended to be the only person coming alive out of this and, from a certain point of view, that was fair. They were all stuck here with pretty much no chance for escape, almost no chance of being rescued.

There was a rescue once, and that was supposed to have shut this stupid thing down for good. Cody remembered seeing all about SotF's demise on the news before entering high school, and he felt like he could sigh in relief knowing that, as a senior, he wouldn't have to put up with this bullshit. He'd go from prom king to graduation darling to college football star to some extremely high-paid quarterback in the NFL somewhere. Seahawks would be great, but he'd play for the fucking Browns if they'd take him.

This wasn't his fate. This wasn't where his life was supposed to end, and he had vowed to himself that he'd hold true to that. But that meant if he wanted to be the last kid alive...

If he wanted to hold on to his dreams and live... Eliza would have to die.

Eliza was so driven to live that her success would mean his death.

He stared at Eliza's gun. She cradled it, practically loved on it as she said that she wanted to do everything to win. Take the initiative, get out there and get the job done. You don't accomplish matters by waiting for others to come to you, teaming up and making friends with your old school pals when, at the end of the day, only one kid could walk away. It was that part that made this wholly in essence such a cruel, cruel game. Friend against friend. Brother against sister.

"To survive..."

Cody looked up at his older sister.

Then he raised his gun.

[Skraal]

Eliza laughed as she saw her brother raise his gun. How could he ever kill anyone intentionally? Everything that he had ever said to her on this island was murder this and morals that, and that bullshit. The thought of him actually going against that was ridiculous. Cody had many interesting qualities, but the ability to change his mind was not one of them. He was so predictable that way.

To be honest, the best option for her now would be to just shoot him. There was no way that he would ever make it off this island even without her intervention. Actually, considering his leg wound, he probably wouldn't live much longer even without getting killed.

Still, she just wanted to have a little bit of fun with him before then. Smiling, Eliza moved her arms to the side, exposing her chest. Looking straight down at her brother, she spoke in a mocking tone.

"As if you could actually do it. I dare you, go ahead and shoot me! Prove that you're not as much of a weakling as you look."

[MK Kilmarnock]

Cody aimed, aimed directly where he figured Eliza's heart was.

It didn't take much to see the barrel of the gun shaking, his hands trembling, his breath ragged and rattling. For the first time since day 1, he was pointed a gun at another human being an a deliberate, protracted manner. 'I can do this', he told himself. 'I've killed two people. If I can kill them, I can keep on killing. If I can keep on killing, I can live. I can go home.' It was nice to think that way, nice to turn something so ugly and senseless up, to spin it in a positive way.

Only it wasn't working. Mike was an accident, never intended to be killed. Cody just wanted him off of Eliza, saw that he had hurt Rose, and everything went downhill from there. Alice was shock, a complete reaction. One twitch and she was dead. This would be the first time that he had pointed a gun at another person since Edgar. Cody couldn't pull the trigger.

He couldn't pull the trigger... but somebody else could, metaphorically or no. The name still burned in his mind when he heard it over the announcements. Edgar was definitely dead by now. Both of the Tolstoffs were, both Kat and her loser brother. Truth was, though, he didn't want to see either of them die. Edgar might have been a shithead, but Cody never would have imagined in a hundred years that he'd come to kill somebody and, just like that, he'd killed twice in the space of a week. Eliza had killed even more than he did, and unless she was lying... no. Cody knew she wasn't lying by now. She was a con, full of deceit and trickery, but he could almost always call her on her bullshit even when their mom couldn't.

Eliza meant to kill. She actually had that drive to get out, but somewhere along the line, Cody thought that maybe it had destroyed a piece of her. Even if she lived, even if she were the last girl left on the island atop a pile of corpses, what would her life be? There's no coming back from that. For either of them, regardless of who lived or died.

Cody had already come to terms with the wretched fact that they couldn't both leave here alive. He also had decided which one it was going to be.

Cody pulled the trigger.

[Skraal]

Just as she thought. There was no way that he would ever-

Eliza's thoughts were interrupted by a sudden blast of pain consuming her body. The sound of gunfire echoed faintly in her ears as her vision began to dim.

Son of a bitch.

She quickly moved her gun towards the figure in front of her, using the last of her strength to pull the trigger as she fell to her knees. Her weakening grip soon lost hold of her weapon, and the last thing that she heard was it clattering to the ground. Eliza made one last futile grasp for it before she finally lost consciousness.

G054: ELIZA PATTON - DECEASED

[MK Kilmarnock]

Almost immediately after the shot was fired, Cody watched Eliza lurch forward. She looked like she wanted to hold herself where the bullet went in and clutch at it. She toppled, but just before she did, there was another loud noise.

Something cracked into his chest, sucking all the wind out of his lungs only to place it in a silent heave of a scream. The Winchester fell out of Cody's arms as he clutched at his own chest, having never even gotten to stand to look his sister face-to-face. Eliza hit the ground and was hardly moving, a hand outstretched and reaching for something. Her eyes had an incredible fixation and Cody found his own locked on to hers, horrified by what he had just done as well as what she had done to him.

He couldn't breathe, no matter how hard he tried. His neck wouldn't obey the command to look down at the wound, to witness what must have been a ruined rib cage pressed in by the bullet from Eliza's gun. His hand felt soaked in a warm fluid seeping from his chest, while his cheeks felt equally soaked in a warm fluid pouring from his eyes.

Through his blurred vision, Eliza no longer appeared to be moving. Cody wondered if his sister was already dead, slain by her own brother. Here he was as well, choking on his own blood and a little bit of bile as his body attempted to process the fact that it was dying. He was dying. Just a few seconds, and each of them had their chances for victory... no, survival, utterly dashed. If only they could each apologize to their parents, tell them that neither child would be coming home. Maybe it would be better this way. Nobody would be playing favorites, neither sibling having to lament the loss of the other.

Would Eliza mourn his death like he'd mourn hers? Cody found it harder and harder to tell with each passing second thanks to the lack of oxygen, his body no longer being able to take in air. He toppled over onto his side, his mouth locking open as blood coughed out. As he cried, it almost felt like laughing. Maybe this was laughing, laughing at the joke of their deaths.

Cody realized, in a curiously funny way, that each of them had lived their lives on each others' toes in such a way that hardly a week passed without one of them, intentionally or no, absolutely ruining the others' day, or week, or whatever. The joke being that even moments from death, Eliza had somehow managed to find a way to fuck over her brother yet again.

That bitch.

B005: CODY PATTON - DECEASED