Game Over

[Wham Yubeesling]

((Previously, on SOTF TV...))

---

These corridors had been so much easier to navigate before somebody had set this ship on fire.

It’d been simple. If you were inside, pick a direction, move, and you’d be somewhere sooner rather than later. If you were outside, it was even simpler because there weren’t many ways you could go before you reached a cabin or a staircase. When smoke was starting to come out from below, though, it was a bit harder. To see where you were going. To know which way was what. To get there before it became too much and choked you out. It didn’t help either when your arm was bleeding and searing and commanding way more of your attention than you could really give right now. The race against the clock wasn’t great when you had to stop, every few seconds, and squeeze until the pain abated. Wasn’t amazing when you had to close your eyes, grit your teeth, cut off what little vision you had and risk letting the smoke in your lungs because you had to breathe, you had to breathe, you had to breathe-.

But eventually, Verity found a staircase. Climbed it. Climbed another one, and another one, all the way up to the top. She remembered, somewhere, in another life, that that wasn’t proper fire safety, but she supposed that was the point of endgame. No way out. No other way but up.

But she did it. She made it up. She climbed all the stairs and went through the first door outside she saw and she was here. On the deck. Underneath the night. Here, alive, with the ocean.

She took a breath.

She took a breath.

She’d dropped to her knees without realizing it. She started coughing, hacking up, with not even an impulse giving her any warning. She looked, let go of her arm, and-

…Should’ve gone for turtle strats.

Shouldn’t have picked that fight.

But she had, and it hadn’t gone how she’d wanted it to, so now she had to recalibrate. Figure out what path was laid out for her now. She took her backpack off her back, took a moment to wipe all the blood off her other hand, and unzipped. Reached in. She still had some fabric somewhere she could tear up, and make it into a bandage. She pulled the bag closer to her. Scrounged around. Looked up, in the meantime. Saw the night, again. The ocean. It was clearer than it should’ve been, from her angle: The railing that was meant to be between her and the edge of the ship was just gone and-

Wait.

Was this where-?

[Applesintime]

Something hit Verity.

[Wham Yubeesling]

And just before she realized where exactly she’d emerged, a bullet went through her shoulder and threw her away from her bag, from on her knees to on her back.

[Applesintime]

Anthony emerged from the same staircase she'd climbed up from, chambering another round into the De Lisle, standing at the bottom of the same steps Verity had shoved Timothy down.

He admittedly hadn't expected Kaya to be standing there around a corner, waiting. It had made things, uh, pretty easy though. He'd ducked back around the corner, blind fired a couple of times, and then she came storming around the corner with a sword, trying to close the gap.

All it took was one shot, and she went down like a sack of potatoes. Two down. Soon to be three.

This was almost too fucking easy. Maybe God was lending a hand after all.

SB06: KAYA ROBINSON - DECEASED

[Wham Yubeesling]

It was almost a joke at this point.

She turned her head, looked at her arm. Saw the gash on her deltoid that Akeno had given her. Saw the chunk of meat blasted on her lower arm from Ivan. Saw the bullet wound, through and through her shoulder. Saw the mangled lump of flesh that used to play piano, that used to hold a mouse, type on a keyboard, hold onto her backpack as she walked to the-

Whatever. She’d never liked that arm anyway.

So she turned her head again, looked up at the figure coming out of the smoke. He was… too close. Still holding his gun. She wouldn’t be able to run. She wouldn’t be able to grab one of her own weapons before he pointed his and fired. No way to resist, or flee, which meant…

…Which meant there was one thing left to do. Bluff. Stall for time. Get out some last words while she could. Angle for… angle for maybe having a bit better of an end than this.

One of those things.

“Heard about you from Mary.”

[Applesintime]

Anthony briefly paused, studying Verity carefully. So Mary had survived being kicked into a pit of fire. Probably came right out the other side. He didn't care too much now, Mary was a Chris and a Kaya away, but it would have been awfully fitting for her to burn in a pit before she went to another pit to burn.

"Heard about you from the announcements. I figure they should have told you more about me than a dying girl." She was stalling, Anthony knew it. But unless she had Ivan and Olivia on speed dial - which he knew for a fact she wouldn't, because Ivan fucking hated her - this was just a distraction. It was like Nadine. He'd stood there and argued as she died. It had shown him that maybe he wasn't exactly a hero, but looking at the people who were still alive, it was hard to see himself as anything else.

"What's your point?"

[Wham Yubeesling]

“I dunno.”

She was getting stonewalled. And, like, there were almost certainly bigger priorities than that when the guy giving you nothing was also the guy staring you down, a gun to your chest, one pull of the trigger away from ending your story, but still, kinda lame. Like, maybe give some options other than to try and stall as if anybody still left here would try to save her? Give her something to think about other than impending death? Make her feel a little better about the whole situation?

Whatever. Verity felt a whole lot less bad about maybe making him mad now.

“Just heard from her that you were, like, crazy. That you didn’t deserve to win. Wanted to know what that was about.”

[Applesintime]

"Crazy?"

Anthony scoffed.

"I'm not the ones who banded together and started murdering their teammates because they thought the producers would let them go. I'm not a dead man who refuses to accept he's dead. I'm not a girl who got as far as she did because she leeched off of other people until they died."

Was he talking about Olivia, or was that one directed at Verity?

[Wham Yubeesling]

"And I haven't killed eight people."

[Wham Yubeesling]

"So, like, I really don't know what your point is."

[Applesintime]

"Ten."

[Wham Yubeesling]

"Cool."

[Wham Yubeesling]

"Now I really don't get how you're not meant to be one of the crazy ones."

[Applesintime]

"And the point is that compared to all of you, I'm positively fucking sane."

"I got here because I worked for it."

[Applesintime]

"If I'm, I'm crazy, then what the hell are you lot?"