So it was only natural that Victoria ventured further on down onto the lower section of the old wharf. As she jogged along the rocky beach, trying to plug her nose and not inhale in the decay that washed up from the shore, she knew that for the time being, anyway, she'd be safe.
No one earnestly walked towards decay, after all.
((Victoria Amaro continued from Willyecho))
As distance running was perhaps her primary hobby, making her way through the treeline and as far away from the house where she'd awoken as possible hadn't been difficult. The bulletproof vest that she'd slipped on in the house had encumbered her a little, but after a few moments, she got used to it. Her strong legs had pumped up and down with ease, and after she'd used an initial burst of energy to get through the forested area, she'd come upon a small path and followed it until it had come out onto what seemed to be an old industrial road. That road had led her down towards the shore, and it was comforting to know that the water served as a constant here, in this mysterious place the Americans had prepared as the setting for their demise. The top of the wharf hadn't seemed to have any cover to speak of, and in her mind's eye she gathered that the smarter idea would be to stay out of sight.
After all, that boy at the house had made himself quite visible, and look what had happened to him. The second bag she still carried was a stark reminder of that.
As she approached the underside of the wharf, Victoria slowed her pace to a steady walk, careful to note that the rocks on the beach seemed to be getting fewer and further between, and the water was starting to curl inward a little. This section of the island had obviously seen far less in the way of maintenance when people had actually been living here, which lent her cause for caution. Her immediate target was a small section just inside of the beams that supported the upper section of the wharf, obscured from anyone's view that wasn't already inside or traipsing down the beach. Even people on the upper half wouldn't be able to see her, and that was just as well. Thankfully the tide was out at the moment, else she'd have been knee-deep in likely disgusting water. It had obviously been out for some time, as the sand was barely moist beneath her feet. As she approached the pillar, she slowed to a halt, and plopped both bags down beside the beam, allowing herself some time to catch her breath.
The events back at the house had been horrible, to be sure. Victoria had never seen a corpse before, let alone one that she vaguely recognized from school, but it had a very different impact upon her than she'd expected. As she'd stared into the dead eyes of her classmate, she'd expected to enter autopilot, to instantly flee and never look back. But instead, her brain just hadn't gone there. She was a pragmatic person by nature - sure, that she'd always known about herself, but when faced with a body, there'd just been... nothing.
No fear.
No terror.
No sadness, or sorrow of any kind.
All that she'd felt had been a sense of hyper-realization. She'd felt aware of everything in the house, every bit of furniture that was askew. Victoria knew it was a ludicrous notion, but she'd felt as though she could hear the blood slowly leaking out of the boy's wounds and onto the floor. Now leaning against the somewhat slimy pillar, Victoria allowed her eyes to close and her ears to listen to anything that she could.
As she suspected, her hearing hadn't changed. There was the surf, the sounds of a breeze through the area, and the sound of her own breath, but other than that?
Nothing.
Opening her eyes and looking down at the bags, she realized that no, okay - she did feel something, after all. Other than self-preservation, she did feel a twinge of guilt as she'd essentially looted the corpse that had all but gift-wrapped itself in front of her. In civilized society, robbing a grave, or taking items off a dead man was something that you saw in films, or in literature; the people doing it were almost always portrayed as feckless scavengers or weaselly antagonists. Was she a feckless scavenger? Victoria grimaced at the second green bag on the ground.
Perhaps.
But she knew that she would rather be feckless and alive then be morally upright and dead. There was no one around to judge her for her actions but herself. In the stories that she'd read, the scavengers always got what was coming to them. The protagonists would inevitably catch up with them and take back what was rightfully theirs, or teach a fatal lesson where due. But this wasn't a story. This wasn't a novel or a film. This was her life, and she wasn't a character in someone else's fantasy. She was a living, breathing human being. At the moment, she may have been a rat in someone else's cage, a variable in a horrific American experiment, but she was a person all the same.
Kneeling down, she unzipped her own pack and fetched one of the bottles of water from out of it. As she inhaled half of the bottle, she tried her hardest to avoid smelling any of the pungent air. While this place would be a nice base of operations in theory, she hoped that her olfactory system got used to it soon; staying long would be out of the question if not. Replacing the bottle in the duffel, Victoria frowned as she looked at the as-yet-unopened second pack before her. The Americans were obviously keeping track of them, giving them designations or whatever. She suspected there were likely cameras hidden in the area. Victoria didn't know the dead boy's name, so she supposed he may as well be "M01"; the first male she'd encountered.
As she reached towards the pack, that feeling of guilt inched forward once more; though it was an inch, not a mile. It was a logical conclusion. She had a second bag of supplies, which meant that she had more than before. Which meant she could last longer. The bulletproof vest had taken up a lot of space in her pack, and so the extra supplies wouldn't have any issue fitting. She shouldn't waste them, no matter where they'd come from, and M01's pack seemed heavier than hers, so he likely hadn't had time to take stock before he'd been killed.
She felt guilty, but this was not the time for it. Guilt lead to doubt, and doubt lead to indecision. Which probably ended up in her demise.
Victoria grabbed the zipper and unzipped the pack. What she saw inside caused her jaw to slacken and her eyes to go wide. She now understood completely why the bag was heavier than hers, and the gravity of the situation finally hit her, all at once, from all angles.
This was a game.
Their.
Sick.
Game.
Their.
Sick.
Game.
Victoria shivered. Her spine tingled with some sort of emotion. Her hands felt cold. It was an unfamiliar feeling, and it deserved an unfamiliar reaction.
"Holy shit."
For the first time she she had opened her eyes on this infernal island, Victoria heard the sound of her own voice echoing off the pillars, off the ocean, off the sand, and now - off the wicked-looking submachine gun staring up at her from inside of M01's pack. Her blood ran cold. Maybe she'd been mistaken after all. She wasn't the feckless scavenger. The fates had perhaps decided that she had a larger role to play in the narrative, after all. But if she wasn't the scavenger, who was she?
As Victoria reached down to pick up the black, sleek steel firearm, she honestly wasn't sure.
Finally, it was that which scared her.
((Victoria Amaro continued in And All Because Of A Snail))