SOTF Mini

Hangovers are fucking bullshit.

S003 - Joel Foster: START

And since when can they effect his dreams? What a fucking pain.

He knew he shouldn't have had so much last night. He knew it was a bad idea, but he hadn't cared. It was the day every-fucking-thing went wrong and he wanted some form of peace. Fox dislocating his ankle trying to do a kick flip, Sasha pricking her thumb with one of her needles, Martin nearly got blinded by some dick when they were walking in the parking lot, and then the twins took two hours each to go to sleep.

Needless to say, he fucking earned the half of a wine bottle, as far as he was concerned.

The blanket was hotter than usual, but it was better than the nightmare. From a field trip to a god damn slaughter-fest. Mr. Phillips on the school bus, then Ms. Duffy after waking up, then Spencer after that...

Wait. He woke up before. Dreams don't work like that. But that meant...

Joel's eyes flew open, but he immediately regretted the decision as light flooded his vision. This wasn't his fucking house. The pain in his head wasn't hangover pain. This wasn't even a bed it-was a fucking sleeping bag lying in the fucking desert.

He finally put two and two together as his hand reached up to shield his eyes and his mouth moved before his brain could process everything.

"Did the fucking Furry Force just kill our teacher and put us in the Hunger Games?"

Turned out Gary's journey to the compound didn't take long to get interrupted.

((Gary Greer-Wheatly continued from Wake Up, Get Up, Get Out There))

Still a few meters away in the shadows of a big rock, Gary eyed his classmate. Joel, if he remembered correctly. Not someone he had spoken to often, but that could be said for about 90% of his class.

Joel seemed to be in a similar position as Gary. If this situation was staged, he might be an actor, just playing his part to convince Gary of how real this all had to be. But there was no way they could have known which way Gary would take. So that was unlikely.

More likely was that Joel was directly in his way to the compound. At least unless Gary made a detour that would result in him walking even longer under the sun. No thanks.

So it was time to socialize.

"This is not the way I would have worded it, but judging from my and apparently your experience, this seems to be the case." Not being a fan of empty phrases like "Hello", he simply answered Joel's question.

The voice made Joel flinch-he hadn't actually expected a response. At most maybe a vulture making a noise like it was a cartoon or something.

He turned his head to look at the person. Guy, glasses, expensive clothes...he was the one who Lily targeted during that disaster at the quarry. Something with a G. Gorty? Gordon? Gus?

"...Gary?"

They didn't know each other, not too well, but it was a face he at least partially recognized, and was fairly sure didn't hate him. That was good enough for him in that moment.

He started wiggling around a bit, head still spinning from...not alcohol for once. He got his arms out of the sleeping bag, starting to get to his feet and pull himself out of the bag.

"Is...is this actually real? Are we sure this isn't some-some fucked up prank show or something?"

If it was, Justin, jump out of the fucking plant and shout 'Ker-pranked!' already, he wants to go home.

It became obvious that Joel was not quite there, probably thanks to the effect of whatever had been used to knock them all out. But at least he recognized Gary, who gave an affirmative nod when his name was called.

Then Joel asked something interestingly close to Gary's thoughts.

"I am not sure." Gary answered. "Currently there isn't much to go on. Might be a prank. Or it might be the real deal."

Gary leaned onto the rock with his arms crossed. After a few seconds, he advanced the conversation.

"In fact, there are a few options we have to determine if this is real. For example," he pointed in the direction where a camera was fixated on a tree, "if this is a prank, one should be able to smash this surveilance devices without any comeuppance. Then there is the issue with legality. The moment a crime occurs, the prankers would have to reveal themselves unless they want to get into trouble. Finally, one could test out if this collars can be removed."

Gary made sure to not use any words like "you" or "we" during his ideas. Nothing of these was an invitation for Joel to do just that. More of a suggestion of the option. If Joel decided to act on any of that, it would be on him.

Fuck. Fuck, shit, piss, cock, motherfucker.

It could be real or it could be a bunch of bullshit. They could be in danger, or maybe some asshole is laughing at them like this is a joke instead of something that's going to stay with him for the rest of his life due to trauma. They could've watched three people die right in front if them, or Mr. Phillips, Ms. Duffy and Spencer were watching this discussion on a monitor, or sitting at home like everything was fine.

They could try something. See if it really was real. Gary had a point there. If someone tried to kill another person, they'd have to get involved if this was a prank. If someone broke a camera, the-the thing-the collar wouldn't actually explode, because that would send their skull sky high. Same if someone tried to take off the collar itself-they wouldn't kill teenagers on television, that would be insane.

But Joel isn't fucking killing himself today.

Maybe it wasn't really. Maybe it was some sort of special effects that happened with Phillips and Duffy and Spencer. Hell, maybe someone had convinced Lily to help and she was behind the apparent deaths.

But maybe wasn't a yes. Until he gets confirmation on what's real and what's not, he's not risking his life to be a fucking guinea pig.

There may have been other options, though.

Joel finally got to his feet, shaking his right foot to get the bag off. It made him stumble for a second, but he kept himself from falling. He shook his head before looking Gary in the eye.

"Might be other options. They might do something if anyone starts fighting. Anyone that gets too badly hurt would sue big time."

...

"Or we can see if some production asshole screams at us for saying the n-word."

It'd make him want to wash his tongue afterwards, but better to piss off the people behind this and leave sooner than stay PC and be stuck here for God knows how long.

Gary thought for a moment.

Joel's idea sounded pretty solid.

So Gary faced the nearby camera, formed his hands into a megaphone and shouted one single word.

"N****!"

The volume made Joel wince-it wasn't a hangover headache but it was still a headache-not much more than that though.

He looked around for a few seconds, waiting for something to happen. No one shouted 'CUT!' and came over to yell at them. The cameras seemed to still be filming, no sign of stopping for the sake of cutting the footage. The world continued to spin and they were still in the middle of butt fuck nowhere.

He looked to the same camera Gary stared at, a feeling of discomfort washing over him in that moment. He was going to say it, but this was a show or something, he couldn't help thinking about Sasha or Fox watching him.

"...N*****!"

Martin, you better be doing your own big brother duties right now.

After getting copied by his temporary companion, Gary listened for a reaction from anything or anyone around them.

...
...
...
...

Nothing happened.

All of a sudden, Gary felt pretty stupid. He decided to move on.

"Looks like it won't be that easy." He thought loud. "The next step would be to test out violence. Words can be censored for TV, but if someone here gets hurt as a result of a prank the prankers would get in trouble.

"But to be honest, I am not feeling like testing that one out myself." Gary shrugged.

Then he took another look at the building in the distance. While he still wasn't fully convinced that the killing game was real, it didn't change anything about the fact he wanted to get out of the damn heat into some shelter. Odds are he was more likely to find answers there than by randomly searching the desert.

"I am heading for the building named The Compound on the map. Wanna tag along?" wasn't what Gary said. He still needed to fully sort his thoughts and look for more information about his situation, so he deemed company as distracting right now.

And even apart from that, he barely knew Joel. What if the other boy panicked and tried to do what the Owl Lady had ordered? Gary couldn't be sure, so it was best to keep his distance.

However, splitting up without any reasoning would look suspicious, and who knew what consequences that could bring later on.

So he went with a neutral approach. Let the conversation go on for a bit and wait for the right moment to say his goodbyes.

"I reckon a good number of our classmates are here as well. Is there anyone you think could get us out of this mess, regardless of how serious it is? Like, someone with a long-range gift who could draw attention to this place?"

It was about two seconds after a horrendous slur left his lips did Joel remember that video editing exists.

It was times like this that he oh so wished he had been born with a brain instead of baked ham.

"Worth a shot, I guess," he sighed. It probably was a lie, but no need to make himself look like any more of an idiot.

Gary put out another theory and Joel nodded in response. "Agreed. I'm not risking breaking something yet."

Later down the line maybe, but until he got to that point, he's not testing things like that.

Joel's head swiveled around, taking in more of the surroundings. Desert hills, a big fence in the distance, the sleeping bag he woke up in and a duffle bag labeled S003. Considering the one over Gary's shoulder, it seemed safe to assume it was Joel's.

He crouched down to start rolling up the sleeping bag, still listening as Gary asked his questions.

"Not sure. Maybe Lily could do some sort of firework thing? Or August might be able to do something with his electricity, make a lightning storm or something. Don't know for sure though.

"Think my focus is gonna be on finding others though," he continued. "Real or not, I got people I'm gonna need to look for. Either know they're okay or..."

He paused for a moment, considering the alternative, before continuing his rolling.

"They'll be okay."

Because they have to.

A figure crested a nearby hill, peering down at the two boys with a frown. He honestly didn’t know what else he expected to see; he could count the amount of other black kids who’d went on the trip on one hand, and one of them can’t even speak. These white boys weren't the first people he'd hoped to run into after waking up in this nightmare, but it didn't look like they were killing each other—and they probably won't kill him, either. Anything was better than being alone at this point. A voice that wasn't theirs spoke in the boys' heads.


Orion took one look at whatever had just rolled up before turning to scramble back up the hill. No fucking way was he dealing with that.

When the voice of a boy rang inside his head, Gary wondered if Joel had been right on the mark after all.

But then he realized that the voice was a familiar one, belonging to the token telepath of the class. Plus he got surprised by... what?

It was in this moment that Gary became aware of the large swarm of insects pouring out from anywhere. From Scorpions over Centipedes to Tarantulas, Gary spotted every type of insect he knew that called deserts its home plus a few he didn't knew lived here. He even saw what looked like a fire ant queen despite ant queens never leaving their nests.

Ordinarily, most of these animals would be killing each other on sight, but now they were all forming lines and advancing in the same direction, from which Gary could hear a faint voice in the distance.

To test how far this seemingly hypnotic trance went, Gary went to the nearest line and brought his food right in front of a line of centipedes. As if it was the most normal thing in the world, the centipedes evaded him.

"Fascinating."

This spectacle had pushed all thoughts about Joel and their situation out of Gary's mind. It was mysterys like this one that always caught his full attention to the detriment of everything else, and this time was no different. He had to find out what kind of gift - because that was the most logical explanation - was causing it and to what use.

Without another word to Joel, he followed the insects.

((Gary Greer-Wheatly continued in Play Dead))

Oh God someone else heard that. Or, well, someone from school heard that. There goes the chance of keeping that whole thing a secret between him and Gary. But what was he so scared abou-

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST ON A BICYCLE, WHAT THE F U C K

Joel stumbled back before a yellow and brown beetle could crawl over his hand. How he didn't hear a crunch under his foot of stepping on, he'll never know.

Bugs. So many bugs. Big ones, small ones, ones with a hundred tiny legs, ones with only a few large hairy legs, ones that kill with a sting or a bite, ones that were completely harmless, ones that he'd seen before, ones that he wished he'd never seen.

All the bugs had one thing in common though; they followed the song.

And that made him realize exactly what was happening.

"Izzy's fucking pissed."

It was muttered under his breath for the the most part, so he wouldn't be surprised if Gary hadn't heard it-especially with the bug parade going on at the same time. That didn't change the surprise he felt at seeing the guy...leave. Following the bugs like he was a damn horror movie character that went and explored every last sound they heard. Actual insanity.

And Joel just let it happen. He watched the guy walk off, far too much shock in him to do anything more than breathe and not fall on his ass. Because he was stupid. Maybe the two of them could be stupid buddies one day.

Today, though? Today Joel is having a big fat bowl of FUCK THIS!

He quickly finishes up rolling the sleeping bag, hastily opening the nearby duffle bag and shoving it in haphazardly. He didn't even bother closing it all the way before doing his best to sprint in the opposite direction of where the bugs went.

Not. Today.

[[Joel Foster continued in I'm Gonna Take My Horse to the Old Town Road, I'm Gonna Ride Till I Can't No More]]