SOTF Archive/SOTF Classic

((G020 Desiree Beck - Game Start))

Desiree gently opened her eyes, only just now processing the wet, slimy sensation rubbing on her cheek.

She shot up immediately after opening her eyes, after processing just what that wet, slimy sensation was.

The black goat in front of her bloated contently.

She batted the thing away and tried her best to wipe the goat saliva off with the back of her hand. But no matter what she did, she just felt dirtier and dirtier.

The goat gave her a smug look before bounding off for the trees, giving one look back before abandoning her in the small clearing.

She stopped. She pounded the ground with a fist and pressed her hands on her forehead, trying to process the exact events that transpired or just what she remembered.

A faint bleat called out from the distance.

There were sounds of movement, rustling in the trees, drawing closer and closer, louder and louder. The noises continued like this, for a few seconds, before one last burst sounded out at the area of the jungle closest to Desiree and a girl pushed herself out, stumbling forward before readjusting her movement, standing up still and almost straight. Her appearance had become slightly more marred since the last time she’d been visible, with dirt now coating parts her face, things — twigs, leaves, maybe — stuck in her hair, and a small scratch on her upper right arm, roughly an inch in diameter. It didn’t seem to hurt all too much, though — the scratch looked only a faint white and it didn’t seem to impact the girl’s expression at all, having changed from a frown to a toothless, beaming smile as she placed her attention onto the girl on the ground.

“Yo. Day,” the girl said, taking a few steps forward towards Desiree. “Man, am I fuckin’ glad to see you. Like…” A heaving breath out. A few seconds spent silent, looking around, before the girl took a few more steps forward, brought a hand out, seemingly for Desiree to grab. Felt kinda weird that this girl was doin’ what she was doin’ but hey, good girls had to look good. Good girls had to, like, do good things and shit, if they wanted to not get their good looks smited away from some random fairy godmother.

“Need a- uh..." A brief pause, from the girl, as she shook her head. "Ya need help up?”

(Reuben Walters continued from Put On Your Game Face)

As much as Reuben had agreed to it at the time, this plan was doomed to failure. He and Teresa had hatched this scheme together in all of 15 minutes, if that, and it depended heavily on the target not feeling threatened by two people approaching from differing angles close to the same time.

When they'd identified their target, he'd circled around so he'd be coming from about a 90-degree angle, so while Teresa would be straight on, he'd be to this girl's left. Straightforward plan, but something had gone wrong almost instantly. To be specific, he'd almost been run into by a goat. A friggin' goat. The thing had loped merrily right across his path, and he'd instinctively dove out of the way with a shout of surprise and more than a little confusion.

So much for the element of surprise.

"Sheesh, that was unexpected," he muttered, dusting himself off, and proceeded to walk as casually as possible towards Teresa and Desiree. "Say uh...you two see that goat there? That's really...really...weird."

Crap, he couldn't keep this act going. His gut was seizing up. He hadn't eaten anything, maybe that was the problem. Not like he'd be able to keep anything down either. What they'd planned was necessary, yeah, but it was also...he should just call it what it was.

They were planning to murder someone.

Rustling came from the nearby bushes, jolting Desiree back to her surroundings. Some girl, Teresa, approached her slowly and extended a hand out to her with a smile that shone but had no light behind it.

Desiree smacked it away and pushed herself back up off the ground, only now noticing the two duffel bags heaped up nearby.

No one called her 'Day'.

Some other guy, Reuben, approached at an angle, mumbling and tripping over his words like he was nervous about something.

Something was up. Desiree's gut was tensing up as she looked between Teresa and Reuben, slowly backing up herself closer to the duffel bags as they approached.

"What the hell do y'all want?" she rushed out in one breath, her heart already racing.

Well... shit. This sucked. Girl right here was hoping that it’d take a bit before the ruse got rused, that she could get a lil’ closer to Day before the shit turned to shit.

...Oh well. Still two on one. Wouldn’t be that hard to get things done. The girl sighed. Took another step forward. Brought out something from her pocket, and watched as it unfurled into what looked like a metal snake. She turned her attention back to Desiree, her smile dropping.

“Kinda a lot that we specifically want, but we’ll make it nice and simple,” she said. “Your money or your life.”

Brief pause.

“Well, like, your stuff or your life, but y’probably got me anyway. Right, Day?”

Yeah, she saw right through them. Reuben was willing to take the blame for that, but in all fairness, Teresa had also muffed her approach a little. No use in pointing fingers, he guessed. All they could do was proceed with the-

Wait, robbery?

Even as he slid the KABAR knife out of his own bag, Reuben blinked a bit at the routine Teresa was putting on. Stealing someone's stuff and leaving them alive would be condemning them to a slow, agonizing death by starvation. Or worse, putting them at the mercy of some depraved lunatic.

"Whoa whoa whoa," he protested, "we-we can't do that! Cutting her loose without supplies in this jungle? It'd be like we killed her ourselves. So let's just...kill her now and be done with it!"

It was the more merciful of two options. A swift death now was preferable to a prolonged one much later. Neither one was kind, but the first was kinder. Very reasonable, given the options at hand. But even recognizing that, he couldn't go on the offensive unless he was sure that Teresa had his back. If she and he were at cross-purposes, if he jumped in without her supporting him, who knew what Desiree was packing? He wasn't going to get himself killed by acting hasty and reckless.

"Please...work with me here."

Was the plea to Teresa or the girl he wanted to kill? Not even he knew. His hands were shaking, and if they didn't make a move, he was sure that he was going to collapse then and there.

Desiree said nothing other than a soft yelp accompanied with a flinch when Teresa whipped out the whip and Reuben sloppily unsheathed the knife.

She just kept backing up, fearful eyes locked on Teresa while walking on the path to the duffel bags with fingers flexing.

She was sitting up almost as soon as she'd awoken, her fingers raising to claw at the collar around her neck. Her fingers tensed around it, her eyes scrunched tight. Brown hair hung like a greasy curtain around her pale face.

“Christ," she whispered.

One commandment broken already. How many more to follow?

Terra Johnson: START

The thought jolted her to her feet. She snatched at the duffel bag on her lap, grabbing it by the strap. She turned her ungainly lunge into a full-on run, throwing the bag over her shoulders, dashing wildly between thick trees. Things rustled in the grass as birds cawed and crowed and called overhead, and the pounding in Terra's chest had nothing to do with her sprint.

Needed to move. Needed to run. Needed to-

She was careless of branches, careless of underbrush, careless of anything but the need. So even before she burst up over a low bush and out into a small clearing, the people there had plenty of warning that she was coming. She skidded to a halt when she saw the people there. Reuben, who she thought she'd played Call of Duty with at a party once. Desiree, who she'd wiled away more than a few hours with playing Fornite. She didn't know the other girl. The one with the knife.

"Uh," she managed, blood oozing from a long scratch on one arm, her hair more of a tangled mess than before, her eyes flickering between the knife, the girl holding it, and the others in the clearing.

There was a pause, from the girl, after Reuben had spoken. She turned her head to the side and looked at him, her attention seemingly drifting off of Desiree. Her face possessed an expression of surprise, but it seemed as if it was more out of amusement than affront.

“You uh, sure ‘bout that, dude?” She asked, moving her whip to her left hand as her right moved to wipe her face. “Like, I’m kinda down for doin’ either but I was thinkin’ it’d be best we be low key about it, y’know? Make sure we don’t get, like, a bullseye on us or anythin’.”

The girl turned her head to the other side as another person appeared from the wilderness. Her eyes moved, went between Desiree and Reuben and the whip now back in her right hand before her focus was placed back onto the newcomer.

“Yo, uh…” Her voice sounded strained. The words came out as if she had no idea how they were pronounced. “How’s it goin’?”

Girl took another step towards Day while all this was happenin’ though. No way was this girl gonna let that girl get out of her sights.

Reuben had to admit that Teresa had a point. He'd seen how the broadcast system worked. As long as it wasn't your finger on the trigger, you wouldn't be to blame for causing someone's death. From a gameplay perspective then, maybe it was better to just...no. He couldn't do that. Or could he? No, he couldn't. But maybe he could.

His inner tussle was interrupted by the sudden appearance of Terra, and as much as he was shaking and sweating, part of him found it amusing how Teresa was trying to act casual while they were holding a whip and a knife, respectively, on someone and Desiree could just as easily scream for help. Who exactly was she trying to fool here? If anything, they were squandering the opportunity for a surprise attack and they were going to get pincered and die. But sure, try to bluff. This was absolutely going to work.

"Jeez..." he muttered again, gripping his knife. Well, might as well try to follow Teresa's lead, as stupid as it was.

"Hey," he said to Terra, "this is, well...exactly what it looks like. Just...just keep walking, and you won't get hurt."

Actually, wait, that's the opposite of what Teresa was doing. Crap...

Someone else joined in. Terra. But Desiree was too focused on Teresa and Reuben's knife to pay her any attention.

This was how Desiree was gonna die. Right here, right now. No one was gonna help her. No one was gonna care.

She took another step back, this time gently tapping a palm-sized stone with the back of her heel.

Her eyes shot at the stone, at Teresa, at the whip, at Reuben, at the knife.

With Terra's distraction, Desiree took the shot. She snatched the stone in one quick swoop and hurled it at Teresa's face with all her might.

And then she turned around and booked it.

Reub didn’t wanna go with the big ruse, but eh, that was whatever. Prolly best that someone outta this Clyde and Bonnie group were takin’ this shit-

“-mmph!”

The rock had hit the girl roughly where her mouth was. It ceased motion, falling without note onto the ground as the girl was pushed back, needing to take a step behind her to not get knocked down with it. She stood there, for a moment, staring at Desiree as she started to run. Her mouth was agape. Her eyes seemed to express anger. She took a step forward, again. Kept her eyes trained on Desiree.

“Someone fuckin’ get her!” Her face snapped back into place as she started the pursuit.

They stared at Terra. Terra stared at them.

There was no way it was happening this fast. No way she'd walked right into an attempted murder. The other kids at her school where idiot heathens, but surely they weren't that stupid, that cruel, that immoral. Right?

“Yo, uh…” The girl's voice sounded strained. The words came out as if she had no idea how they were pronounced. “How’s it goin’?”

Terra didn't even know how to begin answering that. Fortunately, Reuben saved her the trouble.

"Hey." Terra's eyes flickered to Reuben. He looked a little sick, a little apologetic. "This is, well...exactly what it looks like. Just...just keep walking, and you won't get hurt."

It was exactly what it looked like. They were going to hurt Desiree. They wanted her to walk away.

Blurred movement. A grey object whipping through the air, smashing against the girl's face. Desiree was already running, the girl was roaring with rage-

And answering rage filled Terra's veins like fire.

"ABSOLUTELY NOT!"

Terra's bellow was so loud she felt it rasping out of her throat. She took two long strides so that she was between Desiree and the girl with the weapon, glaring between her and Reuben. "How long have we been here?" she demanded. "An hour? And you're already trying to hurt someone? For what!" She jabbed an accusing finger at them. "God sees you. He knows what you're doing. Every sin you're contemplating, and the ones you're trying to commit, and you're just going to do it?!" She stabbed her finger at them like a knife. "Ab. So. Lute. Ly. Not."

Reuben would have liked to say that this was all unexpected, but no, this was just about what he figured their first caper would look like. Their quarry was heading for the hills and before they could give chase, some random person was getting in their face like a big nosey busybody.

He wanted to ask Teresa if she was okay, maybe take a look at where the rock had hit her, but Terra was all up in their faces, bellowing out accusations like some messenger from heaven above. All the while, Desiree was slipping further and further away, and burdened as he was by his bags and lack of athleticism, there was a very slim chance of catching up, becoming slimmer by the second.

Reuben wasn’t one to get angry, but this situation was really, really ticking him off.

“What else are we supposed to do,” he snapped, “just sit around and die? Get out of the way, or pull a weapon. I don’t care.”

It was a highly truncated version of his significantly more articulate manifesto, but he felt like he’d gotten the important points across. In any other situation, he would have been happy to explain his rationale, to show that it had been based on lengthy considerations and weighed against other moral objections. However, there was a time and place for justifying his actions and this wasn’t it.

Put short, either Terra made herself scarce or she would be Desiree’s substitute. Reuben wasn’t picky.

Desiree couldn't stop. She couldn't stop running. Stopping meant death. They were already killing people.

There was shouting behind her, but she didn't stop.

She neared the two bags. She couldn't take both of them. There was no time. Baggage would slow her down.

Slowing down meant death.

She snatched the lighter looking bag. And then she kept running.

((She didn't stop running until she knew she was safe.))