☪

[almostinhuman]

The conversation had certainly escalated faster than Nadine expected. Though really, it had to sooner or later. Laura could idly joke about their impending deaths, but it was inevitable that the discussion would see them directly confront the reason they were all here in the first place. At the very least, Marion didn't seem the type to play along too much with Laura's particular brand of nonsense.

Marion was being remarkably candid in her questions. It was probably a fair line of questioning, really, but it got under Nadine's skin regardless. If Marion had some reason to want these answers was unclear; either way, Nadine hated the sense that she was being probed, as if she had already done something wrong. And really, what was she supposed to say? That she hated the fact at least two of them -and possibly all three- were guaranteed to die? That she didn't know how far she'd be willing to push it, if survival actually seemed within reach?

"That seems like an awful lot to ask all at once," she said, stepping back a bit from Marion, "especially to someone you only barely know. If you're getting at something, I'd rather you just said it without the interview."

[Pippi]

“That’s four questions,” Laura said with a smirk, precisely on cue, infuriatingly reliable. “Did you forget how to, like, count or something?”

Y’know what, Nadine actually had a point, there; Marion was using a whole fuckton of words for something she coulda just said in a handful. Laura raised an eyebrow as she glanced at the girl in the blue bandana, idly rotating the empty bottle in her hand. Pat, of course, stared too, not that he had much say in the matter of what he looked at. She’d kinda expected Lil’ Miss Slut-for-studying to be all subservient and obedient, answering any and all questions, ‘Yes Ma’am’, ‘No Ma’am’, ‘May I kiss your feet ma’am’, so this line of mild defiance was interesting. ‘Specially cause the two girls had seemed all hunky-dory in their unified reaction to Laura’s special brand of bullshit.

Course, this was Survival of the Fittest. People changed, and all that shit. Only question was how fast it took them to do so.

“Yeah, you can cut the bullshit. And all the fuckin’...” Laura waved her hand in the air dismissively, the sunlight catching the lip of the bottle, a little burning beacon in her hand. “Extra words and shit.”

She glanced at her hand for a moment, then turned away from the other girls. She took a stutter-step, then reared back, and hurled the beacon - yeeted, to be totally accurate - off the side of the ship. She shielded her eyes with her now free hand, waiting for the satisfying splash as it hit the surface of the… ocean? Lake? Really really fucking big puddle? Whatever, she waited for splashdown before she turned back to look at the other two, still with her lazy smile on her face, free of warmth as always.

“So, like, the core question you wanna know the answer to, the one you can fuckin’ extrapolate answers to all your other questions from is; are we planning on killing? Are we cool with other fuckers dying so we can live?”

Laura locked eyes with each member of their little boat party, looking from girl to girl to skeleton to girl, before she bothered to answer her own question.

“Nah, that ain’t what I’m here for. I’m here to fuck around, not fuck other people up, you get me? And forgive me for being presumptuous, or don’t, I don’t particularly fucking care, I ain’t your fucking teacher, buuut… I get the sense murder isn’t something you’re mega keen on either.”

She paused, to glance over at Nadine, little unfriendly smile still plastered onto her face, then continued talking, even as she glanced down to adjust the little bow tie hanging out around her cleavage. Y’know, she was sure there was something missing from this outfit, she just couldn’t figure out exactly what it was.

“Yet. Like, who knows what happens in a couple days time, maybe somethin’ breaks inside of you and you go all crazy nutso and glass someone in the face - that request for the Captain’s still hanging in the air by the way - but hey, what do I know, I’m just the stoner bitch in the maid swimsuit.”

[Wham Yubeesling]

What was predictable: Laura.

What was less predictable: the general response of the group. For once, Marion was out in the open. Or, well, a little out in the open. Nadine was worried about the things she said. Laura wasn’t, really. They were open for her to continue. They fairly explicitly wanted her to get to the point already, but first:

“Oh. Sorry about that. There’s… no real way to talk about this game in any sort of polite way. Yes, that’s basically what I meant. Apologies for making things… dark. Or, well, darker than they already are.”

She giggled. That wasn’t really deliberate. Something about this really made Marion want to giggle, for some reason.

“But okay. To get to the point, I don’t think any of us particularly wish to be violent. Not yet, anyway.” She nodded at Laura, primarily because… yes, she had a point when she said that. As much as the point was something that Marion would rather compartmentalize than actually think about for the moment.

“That removes — assuming we all want to live — two options of victory. Namely, the one where us three are inclined to directly kill one another, and the one where we are inclined to make sure the other two people here die. Namely, the ones where these...” she pointed at the orange sash on her wrist. “...matter.”

She tilted her head to the left, slightly, as she kept her gaze on the other two. She readjusted her hijab for the purposes of it covering her forehead more.

“Because, unless I’m missing something, we still have one option left. One that allows us all to live: escape. I… don’t think I’m smart enough to figure out all the complex science stuff that goes into it on my own. I imagine neither of you think that you’re smart enough to figure it out either. But if we’re able to bring in people who are… super smart about this sort of stuff, and we all work together, then perhaps we have a chance of finding a solution to our problem.”

She did her best to give a smile to the other two, given all the things around the three of them that gave them fairly adequate reason to not smile. Closed her eyes, briefly. Tilted her head back into position.

“It doesn’t particularly matter if we’re not on the same team, so long as we’re all working towards the same goal. Theoretically, we could just form a team of our own. Invite anyone we wish to join us. You could be on a team with Alaska, assuming you aren’t already.”

She focused on Laura.

“You could be… somewhere where you are safe from this game.”

She focused on Nadine.

“...If you want, of course. I’m not going to force either of you into this. My first ironclad order as appointed captain is simple: if you want to stay, feel free to ask me questions so that I might be able to make this idea a good idea. If you want to go, then… I won’t stop you from… jumping this ship, I think the term is? As leverage, though, if I may…”

She focused on her bag. Brought a bottle just like the one Laura had out.

“If you swear to remain a part of my pirate crew, Laura, you may have all my alcohol. It’s Ramadan.” Marion giggled. “I wasn’t going to drink it anyway. If you swear to remain part of this ship, Nadine, I’ll…”

Marion paused. Looked inside her bag. Kept it there, right between her and Nadine.

“...give you any three items of your choice from my bag. You seem like someone interested in the practical side of this.”

[almostinhuman]

So that was what Marion was after. Nadine hadn't considered that Marion might be hatching up an escape plan. The idea of escaping hadn't crossed her mind at all, and it certainly didn't seem like the kind of thing that'd be easy. Were they even allowed to discuss it so openly? Nadine briefly scratched at the collar around her neck; not only was it keeping them here, it was watching them, never mind all the other cameras doing likewise. That Marion's head hadn't been blown off the moment she was done speaking was at least a little encouraging, but that didn't mean it wasn't gonna happen, sooner or later. There were so many logistical reasons Nadine could think of on why escape was unfeasible.

And yet, the other girls weren't really wrong. Actually "playing" Survival Of The Fittest wasn't something Nadine could handle doing. As Laura put it, killing other kids wasn't something she was "mega keen on"; she didn't see how even the most ardent defender of all this could stomach actually being on it, actually doing what it expected of them. And murder didn't even make sense as a plan for her, anyway. There could be dozens of kids out on these boats, probably better armed and more physically fit than she was, and at most maybe a handful of any of them would survive. What kind of chance did a nearsighted out-of-shape shut-in like her really stand, teams or no teams? It didn't seem much more likely to succeed than this escape idea.

She was probably dead either way. So what did it hurt to try the escape plan, just on the off chance it worked?

"I guess I have a LOT of questions about this..." she sighed as she continued, "but they can wait a bit. All you need to know is that I'm in."

"Oh, and uh," she gestured towards Marion's bag, "you can keep your stuff, if we're working together. I don't need the bribe."

[Pippi]

“I do!” Laura chirped, big shit-eating grin on her face.

She moved to reach out her hand, palm upwards, to accept the peace offering of the diddy little alcohol bottle, but something stopped her, and she paused mid-stride. She put her hand on her hip. Her brow creased. She ran her tongue behind her top layer of teeth as her eyes moved upwards in their sockets, like they were trying to peer into her own brain. Then, she said;

“Actually, shit, can me and Pat discuss this for a sec?”

And quickly moved a few feet away from the two girls, huddling together with the plastic skeleton by her side, leaning in to listen to what he had to say. Pat’s mouth was wide open, but there wasn’t anything coming out of it. Fuckin’ typical. Every big decision, he’d clam up when he needed to have a say in it.

Laura’s brain, on the other hand, was being particularly fucking chatty today.

So. Escape.

Was that something she actually wanted?

Short answer was ‘yes’, but every time anything had a short answer there was always some cunt of a long answer to come along and complicate things and this was no exception. See, it wasn’t about whether escape was possible or not, cause she knew that it sure fuckin’ was. Unlikely, sure, but you didn’t get 6 escapee seasons without it being on the table, to the point the nutso conspiracy theorists were claiming the producers intentionally put a loophole to allow successful escape attempts into every season.

Nah, as with most things Laura Hakštok, her line of thought was way different and way more selfish.

Listen. She was put onto this earth for a good time, not a long time, right? Well, her time had been cut even fucking shorter now… which, logically, meant she needed to have an even better fucking time - possibly literally ‘fucking time’, who could say - while she had the chance. And look, she wanted the escape to work out, as far as she was aware you couldn’t smoke weed when you were six feet under, but if she was gonna be sticking with Marion and Nadine, then she was probably gonna have to be taking orders and shit the whole time, and ‘working together’ and ‘not being a disruption’, which sounded like a fucking nightmare.

All for a plan that had every chance of failing miserably, no matter what they did. And Laura really couldn’t say that running around like a dipshit just to get her collar blown was her idea of a good time.

She nodded. Pat nodded too, with some minor assistance. They stood up straight, and wandered back over to the other two.

“Pat and I have come to a decision,” Laura said, voice as grave as she could be bothered to make it. “We’ve… Look, I’ve got shit I wanna do as well, I’ve got my own plans and all that, and I dunno, I get the feeling skinny dipping in the cruise ship pool isn’t exactly gonna help us get outta here, y’get me?”

She hadn’t decided for certain she was gonna do that, but hey, always good to keep your options open and shit.

“But like, don’t fucking count me out of this shit or anything, all right? If I can get outta here and just go back home and call people cuckboys while playing Champions, then sure, I’d rather have that than, uhh, being fucking dead. So, how ‘bout this, in like, three days time, we meet back up again somewhere, you can pick, I don’t fuckin’ care. I meet anyone who’s down for escaping, I bring them with. I find anything that might be useful like wires or an ignition key or a fucking book telling us how to remove collars, I bring that with too. We all get to escape, I get to drink rum while naked in a pool, everybody wins.”

Laura gave a wry smile as she looked from Nadine to Marion and back again.

“If you’re thinking ‘oh but it’s Laura I trust her as far as I can throw her’, then fucking rude, but also, I get it. So if you want me to like, sign something, make a blood oath, make out with you, whatever to earn your trust, lay it on me, I’ll do whatever.”

[Wham Yubeesling]

All this had gone quite better than Marion had feared.

Which was not a sentence she had ever expected or particularly wanted to write out. Not because of this game, either. When Marion scrawled through the times where Miami was the dwelling she called home, she couldn’t quite recall any sort of time where she had had to deliver a formalized speech in the efforts of winning two people over to her side. Nor had she ever had to win two people over to her side. Maybe that was why she had never been as interested in the show as she had been in all the things that surrounded it. This show wasn’t Miami. People never had to win others over with big speeches or have to risk being murdered in Miami. That wasn’t a problem in and of itself, but the way the ones she knew acted as if the show was a microcosm had always put a bad taste in her mouth.

But that was beside Marion’s point. All this had gone quite better than Marion had feared. Both answers to her pitch were affirmations: one conditional, the other unconditional. The next move was… clunky, but simple. Talk to both of them at once. Find a place to respond to both of them one after the other without ignoring anyone.

“I’m… glad, that you’re both willing to be for this, though if I may negotiate one thing…”

She turned to Laura.

“I think two days would be safer, if that’s okay with you,” Marion said. “If I remember correctly, the last few seasons only lasted three days each. If we split up, I think it's best we set a more short term goal for meeting back up?”

She paused, for a brief moment. Thought of how she could include Nadine into this, as her head turned to her.

“Though if this place ends up being a danger zone by the time we’re ready to reconvene we will need to discuss our backup while we’re here. Where would you like to go, Nadine?”

[almostinhuman]

"Right, uh, I suppose I have some ideas on the matter," Nadine replied. Truthfully, she'd already considered places to head off to before her run in with the other girls, but if Marion was set on the spooky pirate ship being their home base, then at least they'd have a Plan B.

"I'd already kinda pondered over the map before we bumped into each other. The layout of this place is something, alright," she said, tugging the map out of her pocket. She dragged a nearby crate over so it was between the three of them, then unfolded the map and laid it across the top; she didn't know if the others had really looked at their's yet, and she wanted Laura in particular to see it, as this was mostly for her benefit anyway.

"I'd suggest, if we need to move, going to one of the larger ships on the outer edge. We're more likely to be exposed or cornered on the smaller vessels, and the cruise ship," she pointed towards the center, "is more likely to be crowded with other kids. We want something that the others are less likely to go to on their own, at least this early on."

"I'd recommend the... the ferry here, perhaps?" she tapped the large boat with her finger. "Provided it doesn't also become a danger zone, it should be a decent meet-up spot."

[Pippi]

No takers on the blood oath? Or even the fuckin’ making out? Wow. Whatever. Fucking pussies didn’t know what they were missing out on. Neither did Laura herself, for that matter, given she’d never made out with anybody while sober, but that was beside the point.

She let Pat lean on her as she looked down at the map, arms folded. Y’know how some people just had resting bitch face, whether that was natural or developed? Yeah, Laura was the master of the resting ‘I cannot give a fuck about this’ face. There could be a tornado right outside her window, and she would still be wearing a face like she was watching paint drying. People told her she wasn’t gonna amount to shit and wasn’t gonna achieve anything in life, well, didn’t they look dumb with this achievement, huh?

She nodded once at both Marion and Nadine’s statements - shorter time span made sense, as did picking a backup meeting spot - but she chose not to say anything, like she had been thinking the same things all along and had just been waiting for the other two to figure them out on their own.

“Fuckin’ based,” Laura said, before stepping forwards and leaning over the map to look even closer. If there was a camera or whatever hoping to get an opportunistic shot of cleavage, then they were shit outta luck, you weren’t gonna get any tit shots from a perfectly flat surface. Try Alaska, horny cameraman.

“But like, lemme make another addendum to this plan and shit,” she continued, jabbing her index finger towards the boat labeled ‘Yacht’ on the map. “Most of the time when they call Danger Zones, they wipe out two places at once, so worst comes to the worst and both this ship and the ferry turn into collarsplosion town, let's make the yacht our second backup, means we get a sick triangle and shit as well.”

Laura stood back up and stretched, lazily reaching out to catch Pat before he toppled over.

“And with that, I’mma peace out. Unless you two have anything else you gotta say?”

[Wham Yubeesling]

“No.”

Marion breathed out. Tilted her head. Gave a smile to the both of them. Sometimes, things said needed quite a lot of internal thought justification in order to properly convey what exactly was meant and intended. This wasn’t quite one of those times. There was simply just nothing more to talk about. Perhaps there were more things between the three that needed to be planned out, but… no. Nothing that would come to mind. Nothing that would ever feel all-encompassing. Nothing that would ever make Marion feel fully confident about this. They would come back to the Ghost Ship in two days time. Failing that, they would meet at the ferry. Failing both of those, they’d meet at the yacht. That was all they had. That was all they feasibly could have, given the circumstances.

“I think… I’m ready too. Good luck out there.”

And maybe there were better ways to end this conversation. Say goodbye to someone who you might never see again. It was something her father had conversed with her. The finer points of talking to someone when you knew full well it was going to be the last time you would talk to them. It didn’t particularly seem like much — just say ‘goodbye’ instead of see you later — but now Marion could see why it required a lesson. The words held weight. They weren’t light enough to just say. Even to someone as… complicated as Laura, it felt a lot for Marion to say those simple words knowing exactly what they meant.

So she wouldn’t. Because this wouldn’t be goodbye. They would both live to have their meeting. They would both do enough in the meantime to make something out of it. She took a breath. Untilted her head. Nodded at Laura one last time and focused her attention on Nadine.

“Are you ready?”

((Marion Rosales, continued elsewhere))

[almostinhuman]

Are you ready?

The question seemed almost absurd. Nadine had never been less ready for anything in her entire life. She'd assumed there'd be more discussion over what their actual plan was; as it stood, it was little more than a vaguely-defined hope. She'd figured Marion had more in mind than "wander around, waiting for escape to fall into our laps." She'd brushed aside her chance for questions, but now she wished she had taken it.

But would she have gotten useful answers? What could Marion possibly know or have planned that Nadine couldn't figure out herself? If they If it felt like a vaguely-defined hope to Nadine, perhaps it was little more than that to Marion as well. Perhaps she was hoping Nadine herself had an idea, or one of the other kids they may try to recruit.

If that was true, then it was fine. It was more hope than Nadine could muster on her own. Maybe she could work something out from there.

She glanced at the other girl. Laura... well, she was a cheap paperback with the plot splashed across the back in bold bright letters. They'd known each other for mere minutes, but Nadine felt like she had a clear picture of the girl; the kind of outgoing and reckless person that Nadine often struggled with. Even her reason for departure, in the middle of all this, was more about fucking around than helping with the escape she'd signed on for. She could already imagine how their meet-up in two days time would play out.

She hoped they'd all make it that far.

Nadine nodded and answered, "Ready as I'll ever be."

(Nadine Flores continued in 9 PM, Day 1.)

[Pippi]

So after letting Laura know she didn’t have anything more to say, Marion went ahead and almost immediately said something else. Fucking typical. People really didn’t think before they spoke nowadays, huh? Like, Laura didn’t either, but she didn’t try and pretend otherwise, she made no bones about the fact she made no bones.

She let it go, though; after all, when she’d so kindly and helpfully let Marion know she’d asked four questions, she had just been absolutely and totally blanked, which was unbelievably fucking rude, really. Instead, she just waved them off, Pat held under her arm, with a “See you fuckers later,” and watched them head below deck. Their footsteps died away, replaced by the sound of water lapping against the side of the boat, and the cries of one lone seagull, who was probably confused as fuck as to why a shitload of boats were suddenly hanging out over its usual fishing spot.

Laura took a breath. Then she strolled over to the prow, raising her right leg and putting her foot down on the railing, looking out over her domain, cause she was the motherfucking captain of this vessel now, fuckers! She owned everything in the surrounding waters, and she demanded rum and treasure and plunder and weed and bitches, and also a proper pirate hat, and-

There was a sudden, ominous creak underfoot, and Laura looked down. She considered, briefly, whether she should actually move from her spot, but instead she shrugged, and put her hands on her swimsuit-clad hips. Eh. If she was gonna die, then going down as the captain of a fucking ghost ship was a pretty poggers way to go.

And, see, this was the reason Laura hadn’t wanted to spend more fucking time than necessary with her fellow pirate fuckers. Cause she knew if they’d seen her doing this, standing at the bow of the ship with a 25% chance of toppling overboard and a 50% chance of crashing through the floorboards, they wouldn’t have yelled at her to ‘get back, it’s dangerous!!!’, they wouldn’t even have come and joined her. They’d have just looked at her, all baffled and shit, and not said anything, and that would fucking blow.

Cause she got it and shit, she knew escaping was a real big deal, super srs business, and hey, if she ran into anyone who looked like a nerd or a geek or some other flavour of loser, she’d give them the deets about the plan. But she was here to have fun, and she got her kicks by making fun of people, and the worst response to that was no reaction at all.

So. For now? She was her own goddamn captain.

She sauntered back across the deck, heading back down the stairs to where her bag was lying, slumped against the cannon she’d woken up next to. She picked it up, and quickly rummaged through it, just to make sure she hadn’t glossed over anything the first time, and lo and fucking behold, her eyes lit up as she pushed the gross-ass seaweed snacks to one side.

“Oh fucking nice, I knew I was missing something.”

A few minutes later, Laura strolled out from one of the jagged holes in the side of the ship. Pat was under one arm, her bag was slung over her shoulder, and she was now wearing a frilly, lacey headband and garter, to really round out every sweaty horny loser’s nutbusting dream scenario.

It wasn’t quite a pirate hat, but hey, beggars couldn’t be choosers in SOTF.

((Laura Hakštok continued in Prism))