Refreshing as lemon squash!

[Pippi]

Gabby wondered, for a moment, whether anyone looking into the lab from the outside would think that she was totally dead already.

Probably not, honestly. Like, sure, she was flat-out on her back in the middle of the room, arms splayed out to the side, gazing up at the ceiling with glassy eyes, practically motionless. But also, like, she was still very much breathing, something that you didn’t need to be a total super-sleuth to spot happening. There wasn’t a massive ocean of blood pooling out from underneath her torso, or draining outta the top of her skull, no knife left wedged in her guts or hammer coated in gore tossed to the side a few feet away from her. And maybe, like, someone had come along and strangled her or poisoned her or she’d just straight up died of shock and/or fright, but, again, that whole breathing thing meant this deception was probably a total no-go before it’d even started.

Also, like, she’d been crying a whole buttload already, which meant her makeup was totes running, and there were streaks of dried tears down her cheeks, and her glasses had been knocked all askew. So, no, like, probably no way anyone was gonna think she’d kicked the bucket, even at a glance.

Thinking about, like, getting all stabbed in the stomach, or bashed over the head with a wrench, none of that was, like, totally fun pondering material. Nor was considering the fact that they’d all been trapped in here (and don’t get her started on the, like, metaphysical ramifications of what ‘in here’ meant in terms of the entire unlimited scope of the internet, totally do not mention the rammies to her) for the sole purpose of dying off, one by one. But she’d moved past the initial impact of that, the screaming, the crying, like, every single stage of grief bar the last one. Now there was just, like, this hollow well inside of her, this understanding that this could well be how she was spending her last four days breathing, max, this replay of Zeph’s stupid-as-heck speech running on loop inside of her head.

Being honest, she wasn’t, like, totally sure she wouldn’t have preferred to be back in the wailing and thrashing stage.

‘Get up,’ the voice in her head told her. ‘Get up and just, like, do something, c’mon, even if it’s just chowing down on some of those rations that Zeph’s dumb, stupid mouth was talking about. If you do only have, like, four days left to live, do you really want the first couple hours of that to be spent totally still and staring up at the ceiling of some science-nerd room?’

And it was totally solid advice, you know? Real good textbook stuff, logical and just, like, generally correct in all regards, and advice that Gabby wasn’t following in the absolute slightest. Like, if she coulda sunk any further down into the linoleum, she probably totally would’ve. ‘Don’t waste the rest of your life’, that was what her head said? ‘What’s the point,’ her body said, unmoving. ‘It’s already totally wasted.’

Her eyes briefly wandered to one of the huge extraction fan vents, the metal ducts running parallel alongside the ceiling. They were pretty big, and she was, well, pretty tiny. She wondered whether she could shove some of the tables and chairs and stuff together, and wriggle her way up inside one of them? Would at least mean she was totally out of sight and, like, hidden from anything weird or fucked up. Would be a little more safe than, like, just lying on the floor like a big (or, like, not that big) green and blue and pearlescent target.

Sure. Until she got totally stuck inside the vents and, like, starved or suffocated up in there. Or, like, someone wandered in and saw the mess of tables and chairs and whatever, put two-and-two together, and rolled a grenade or, like, something up alongside her.

Right. Okay. Like. Fine.

Back to staring at the ceiling, she guessed.

[Pippi]

Gabby wondered when that dark orange stain and that small black spot on the ceiling panels had been added to this simulated lab.

Cause, like. No matter when it had been put in, or like, even who had coded it in, it totally didn’t make any sense to her? So, like, say that the stain and the dirt and the everything else had all been implemented when this virtual classroom had first been born in Maya or whatever program the tech-whizzes had been using. Wouldn’t you want your high-tech, fancy, online school to be, like, as perfect as you could possibly make it? Like, if you joined a virtual baseball team, and there were flickering lights in the changing rooms and some of the equipment was all dinged up in the interest of ‘realism’ then you’d be pretty heckin’ cheesed off, right?

So maybe, like, a couple weeks back, some clown had fudged up pretty bad during a chemistry lesson (sure as heck hadn’t been one she was in, chem was a snoozefest at the best of times) and caused some kinda gnarly reaction that blasted orange liquid with a name she couldn’t pronounce up into the ceiling. Okay, cool - why wouldn’t you just code that out as soon as everybody had, like, logged off? This wasn’t, like, one of Izzy’s video games or whatever, it didn’t add to the immersion of the experience or make her feel like she was in a school with, like, a ton of storied history. It was just confusing.

And, like, not super effective if that had been the intention, cause this was the first time she’d actually noticed it anyhow. Even then, only thanks to her uniquely horizontal orientation.

There was probably some, like, super logical, super rational, super super boring explanation for why everything in this building had been coded the way it was. But right now, in absence of that rationale, all it was doing was further adding to the feeling that she was some nameless, faceless stranger that had stolen Gabby McLeod’s face and name.

This avatar wasn’t her. It could never be her. She could make it resemble herself in every way possible, from toe to tip and with every quirk and mannerism in between, and it still would not, could not, be her. It wasn’t even a matter of what persona she had put on for the public, and what she had hidden out of sight. There wasn’t blood running through the body of this representation; there weren’t even any veins to carry it. Any thoughts that this facsimile might have which were then propelled from its mouth, they, like, came from her, from the actual Gabby.

99% of the time, this totally didn’t matter at all. But here, there was a real chance that she was going to, like. Y’know. Die real soon. She would die, and the avatars around her would watch her die, but no-one would see her die. Like, if you were an actor in a film, a, like, biopic or whatever, and your character got killed on screen, that wasn’t you dying, it wasn’t the historical figure dying, it was the representation that died and nothing else. When you, like, boiled things down to basics, the moment that this avatar was killed, it’d be nothin’ more than a photo of Gabby McLeod’s face being torn in half. Wouldn’t even be, like, anyone in actuality watching her die. Would just be more avatars. Mirrors pointed at mirrors.

And all the while, the real her would be dying alone and terrified, trapped inside her headset prison.

So, like. No wonder all she wanted to do was stare up at the ceiling. She figured she’d get a pass for it this one time.

[JacobAllTradez]

(Continued from she doesn't know chat)

Soledad's eyes struggled to stay on the path as she and Yu-Mi trudged along the hallways, the once-confidence strut now more of a hobble as Soledad winced her way toward the laboratory, filled to the brim with beakers, tubes, and cups of all shapes and sizes. As the two friends entered, Soledad let out a sigh of relief.

"Finally, a place to relax." She muttered, walking her way toward the nearest chair. It wasn't that Soledad wasn't enjoying this time with Yu-Mi, far from it. But when someone had been walking as much as they had, your legs tend to get sore quickly. That's why when Soledad saw the chairs, she had to--

And then, something caught her eye, an unusual sight at that. Soledad crept forward, tip-toeing as close as she could to the source without disturbing it. She squinted her eyes, staring at the substance as best she could, scratching her chin. What was it? What could it be? Soledad climbed onto her tippy-toes, as high as she could without disturbing the peace, or causing further stress to her already weary legs before finally nodding.

"Huh, so that's what happened..." Soledad noted to herself, having had an...unfortunate, incident in chemistry class. Nothing too bad or anything, just a hint of, well, to be honest, Soledad wasn't exactly sure what it was she was pouring, but whatever it was, she had poured a little too much in it and next thing you know?

BOOM.

The concoction went right up to the ceiling, blowing everyone away in the process. To this day, some people have asked if this was some sort of prank, citing a glass under her table. Whether or not it's true, we'll never know for sure. In either case, Soledad turned her head towards Yu-Mi with a big smile.

"Hey Yu-Mi," Soledad called. "that orange stain on the ceiling's still up!" Soledad glanced back at the scene, blissfully unaware of the next few words she would say.

"Also, there's a dead body."

[apocalypseyuri]

(Yu-Mi Lee continued from she doesn't know chat)

Carrying the gun was tiring. Did they seriously code encumbrance into this thing? Sucks.

Yu-Mi never strutted. She wasn’t a “strutting” kind of person, more of a…shuffler? A walk at best. A strut required a confidence in direction that Yu-Mi simply didn’t have. She was much more suited to wandering. It fit with what was going on inside her head much more: empty, meandering, and wanting to be anywhere else. She shuffled alongside Soledad, occasionally attempting futilely to adjust the gun into a more comfortable position.

Any worries inside her head had dulled into a buzzing static. “This isn’t really much of a relaxing place,” she sighed to her companion as the two of them entered the lab. It was a goofing-around place–listen, she was sorry (she wasn’t sorry), but the format of lab partners was basically begging for her to get distracted–yet also one where you couldn’t put a leg up without knocking over something important. Not that SHE had done anything wrong theworstshehaddonewasspillingabeakerofwater but you know. (Jeez, get off my case.)

“Is it?” Yu-Mi looked upwards, then immediately tensed, expecting a “made you look”--but no, it really was there. She peered up at the flower-like stain, the fading simulacrum of tiger lily. Yeah, it was a reach of a comparison, but this entire glass cage of a school was so dull and boring that she’d grasp onto anything that could make it seem prettier or more interesting. Seriously, who would watch something like this? “Huh. Weird thing to keep–WHAT?” The static spiked. Yu-Mi darted over to where Soledad was. “What? Are you joking? Where?”

Normally, Yu-Mi would be much more cautious about approaching a so-called dead body, but the shock and confusion sparking in her nerves caused her to dash over to the prone Gabby. “What? No!” There hadn’t been any sort of sign, so everyone had to be fine, right? They had to be! She had half a mind to check her tracker; dead people probably wouldn’t show up. Her compass wouldn’t lead her to a dead end. Leaning the gun against herself, Yu-Mi leaned down. “Sh-she’s fine, probably just in shock, or something…” She lowered her voice. “Hey, um, hello?”

[Pippi]

Gabby hadn’t really taken a moment to consider, like, how she’d react when the inevitable happened and someone stumbled upon her. Too busy gazing, staring, looking, dissociating, and being enveloped in the numbing sensation that she was going to die in a world that didn’t truly exist, she guessed. She’d never really been forced into a, like, fight-or-flight situation before now; her life had been totally cushy, like, up to this very moment. Honestly, like, the most fear she’d ever experienced had probably been when she was, like, twelve, and she’d accidentally cheesed off a whole flock of geese; even then, her dad had quickly swooped in to save her from death-via-rapid-fire-pecks.

She hoped that she could be like Keke Fortuna herself, when push came to shove, and, like, danger came to her front door. Brave, no matter what she was facing. Ready and willing to square up to anything that stood in her way, regardless of how big it was. Would she always win? No - nobody could win, like, forever. But she would always give, like, the very best account of herself, and it was that never-say-die attitude which caused viewers to love her so much.

If Gabby couldn’t be like that, though, then she hoped that she would just, like, immediately book it in the opposite direction, fast as her little legs could carry her. Which was probably, like, totally way more accurate for an actual chinchilla, come to think of it.

There was no more time for consideration, though. She was gonna find out, like, exactly what her fear response was right now. The door to the lab had shffed open - y’know, like, they were perfectly flush to the ground and had those, like, weird bristle things at the bottom, and there wasn’t, like, any existing onomatopoeia to describe it but shff came pretty close - and those things were, like, so freaking heavy that they physically couldn’t be shifted by, like, a freak gust of wind or anything like that. There had to be somebody else in here now. Someone just a few metres away from her.

And as soon as she realised that, what did Gabby’s body do? It totally froze. It tensed up, all of her joints locking into place, like she’d been hit by some kinda, like, petrification curse or something. Her breath caught in her throat, and her lungs came to a total standstill. She couldn’t even blink.

Sheesh. If she was a chinchilla in the wild, she’d have been totally turned into a snack for, like, an eagle or something long before now.

Or two eagles, in this case, going off of the pair of footsteps, and the conversation discussing the - wait, were they, like, talking about her? They had to be, right? There hadn’t been anyone else in the lab when she’d collapsed to the floor, living or, like, otherwise. She guessed maybe there could be, like, somebody in the corridor, but it totally felt weird to be suddenly talking about that after they’d stepped from the hallway and into a totally different room.

Huh. Maybe she was a more convincing corpse than, like, she’d given herself credit for. Not an accolade she’d, like, ever expected to hold, but it was times like these that you totally took those small victories.

Gabby wondered exactly how long she could maintain this facade. Probably, like, not very, being totally honest. At some point, they’d totally notice her blinking, or catch her breathing, or something like that, and then she’d, like, have to explain why she’d been going corpse-mode, on top of the whole rigmarole of ‘why were you lying down on the floor Gabby’ that she was already totally sick of, even before performing it. Their attention was pretty much totally focused on her right now anyway, one of them looming right over her, about ready to, like, tell her there were better places to sleep than on the ground, y’know.

And she’d gotten totally lucky - first time in, like, a while that’d happened. They sounded concerned about the fact there was a body in here. Alarmed. They hadn’t started looting her bag or whatever, or just, like, ignoring her entirely, which probably actually woulda been even worse. It still wasn’t a sure shot, but like… she didn’t think they were about to make sure she was dead, once they realised she wasn’t.

“Hey.”

Man, her voice sounded like butts. You could tell instantly that she’d been crying. What she couldn’t tell was exactly who she was talking to right now. Her eyes were, like, still totally clouded with tears, and her glasses were just skew-whiff enough to throw her vision totally outta whack.

“I’m, like, totally dead right now, okay? So you gotta, like, treat me real gentle.”

A moment. A sigh. Then more words, flowing from her mouth that befit a voice that she had lost for the time being.

“That also means, like, you totally can’t kill me. Cause I’m already dead, so that’d make, like, a paradox or whatever.”

[JacobAllTradez]

Soledad wasn't a stupid person, far from it actually, especially when it came to taking the piss out of someone. This was another example as Gabby remained glued to the floor, almost in a comatose state as she along with Yu-Mi examined the new figure. A perfect match, really! Sure, compared to her, Gabby looked rather tiny with her lack of muscle mass and shortened height, Soledad wasn't a chinchilla, and she had no idea what those pieces of art were on her shirt, but other than that, Gabby was a spitting image.

Soledad walked up to the allegedly dead girl, an eyebrow raised as she spoke up. "Wow, the dead sure sounds like ass." Soledad thought. Was that going to be how she sounded if she died? Probably not, but it was a thought nonetheless. At that point, a realization came over Soledad. For all this talk about Gabby being dead, she sure wasn't acting that way. Either she was really good at playing dead, or really bad at moving limbs. Either were logical conclusions.

In order to find the true answer, Soledad decided at that point to have a little fun. "Well, gee, dead person," Soledad started, "I'm sorry to hear that, but if you don't mind, I have a few questions." Soledad nodded, sitting by Gabby and going forward with her makeshift interrogation.

"If you're dead, wouldn't that mean you can't talk?" Soledad asked, "I mean, I guess you could talk if you were a zombie, but zombies aren't known for being very articulate, not like you. You're speaking clear sentences."

Soledad cleared her throat, extending her arms. "I mean, if you were dead and came out from a grave, you'd probably be stumbling around with your arms out yelling, RAAAAAAAAAAAGH, BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAINS!" Soledad let out several guttural yells before continuing. "Or something like that."

Soledad then motioned closer towards Gabby's face, trying her best not to fall on top of her like some sort of freak accident. Christ, she had seen far too many animes with that cliche. She pursed her lips, humming as she noticed the stream of tears still prevalent on her cheeks. "And if you were dead, you wouldn't have any feelings right now, would ya?" She asked. "I mean, it's clear you're really upset or scared about this whole thing that Zeph guy did to us," Soledad sat up, entering a completely different tirade. "I don't blame you, either, this clown really told us that he wants us to play some bastardized horror version of Survivor where everyone except a few is forced to die, how stupid is that?!"

Soledad sighed, shaking her head. "I bet you're petrified, and a dead person wouldn't be able to feel that, cause y'know...they're dead." Soledad glanced at Yu-Mi, giving her friend a shrug. "I dunno Yu-Mi, something tells me I might be mistaken. We may have a born-again corpse on our hands here." She paused, taking another look at Gabby. "Or a human who has spent the last...I honestly don't know how long it's been, staring up at the ceiling." Soledad grinned. "We should join her!"

With that, Soledad lay on the floor, wincing as she lowered her head. "Gah, jeez, it's like sitting on metal. How've you managed to do that for so long?" Soledad asked Gabby before looking up at the ceiling. "So, uh, you've seen anything interesting up there?"

[apocalypseyuri]

Yu-Mi startled slightly when Gabby spoke. She sounded like shit, but Yu-Mi couldn’t blame her. She probably looked like shit herself. Enjoy your trip to Shit Land girl! “Hey,” she mumbled back. “Oh, yeah, don’t worry, we’re not big on…killing…or paradoxes.”

[INSERT METAL GEAR REFERENCE HERE]

Yu-Mi rolled her eyes. “What do you expect the dead to sound like?” She looked over at Soledad, panic and confusion suddenly sparking in her eyes. What was she going on about? She knew her friend usually took things with a heavy dose of levity, but she’d know better than to antagonize someone in this situation, right? It’s not like Gabby looked like she wanted to attack either of them, but still…

She elbowed Soledad in the side. “You could wake the dead with how you’re being right now! Present company notwithstanding. Take it easy, will you? Corpses, zombies, humans, whatever, noooobody likes being screamed at.” Yu-Mi was never much of a leash-holder, but she was more strung-out than usual. She felt both strung-out and loose at the same time. Huh. Maybe she felt more like a corpse than anything else. That makes two dead girls here.

Soledad was being really loud, and it was making Yu-Mi nervous. Not that she was super big on voice control herself, but what if someone heard them? Three prey animals chittering away, just waiting for some bigass hawk to swoop in and carry them off. Much better to be a plant in this situation. Nice and silent. But also plants got grazed by sheep and cows and shit so it was a lose-lose situation either way. Damn. She didn’t want to die.

“What, and you’re not? Like, if she died, she’d probably be scared, right? That’s the thing with, like, ghosts and stuff. That’s why they’re so freaky, I think, they’re freaked out themselves. Ghosts and zombies are still technically dead. It’s just, liiiike, one degree of separation.” Yu-Mi shrugged. “I mean, I wouldn’t really know, since I’m not dead. I don’t plan to know for as long as I can. No offense.” She glanced at Gabby. “Speaking of which, you’re, uh…Gabby, right? I’m Yu-Mi, the corpse pedant over here is Soledad.”

Yu-Mi narrowed her eyes as Soledad laid down. “If that’s your idea of a good time, whaaaatever. You suck at playing dead.” She fidgeted her hands slightly, looking down at Gabby. She’d figured she was laying down due to shock, but what if it was for a more serious reason? If Gabby was secretly bleeding out in front of them, that would be…she would feel… Well, Yu-Mi didn’t want to find out.

“So, uh, are you hurt? I mean, for as much of a degree of ‘hurt’ as a dead person can be…”

I suck at this.

[JacobAllTradez]

Soledad scoffed, "I don't expect the dead to sound like anything!" she exclaimed, laying alongside Gabby. "If they're dead, they're dead. We haven't proven the idea that zombies exist yet anyway, so what's the point of worrying about them?" Sometimes, it was easy for Soledad to get a bit carried away with what she was doing. At least until Yu-Mi elbowed her on the side.

"Oh, alright, alright," Soledad muttered. "I'll stop." Even she knew when she was getting excessive, and no doubt this was starting to put some strain on Gabby's eardrums. Soledad glanced towards the beleaguered woman and nodded. "Sorry." Lucky for them, no one else was around to hear this trio of ear-rattlers and screamers. The prey would live on for another day!

"Well, not always," Soledad stated, "just because you're dead, it doesn't mean you have to be scared." Soledad made a good point, people who died didn't always look petrified when they completed their journey in the circle of life. "Some people are at peace when they die." Soledad paused, sitting up and scratching her chin. "Although, now that I think about it, they're probably old." Soledad further thought about it. "I guess that makes sense. I'm not sure how ghosts or zombies feel about it, but then, I've never met either before." Solomon smirked. "Though, I have made some people pale of a ghost before soooo who knows? Maybe I'm some paranormal explorer and you weren't aware of it!"

Soledad chuckled to herself before pointing to herself. "Yep, that's me, I'm the corpse pendant. Nice to meet you!" Soledad then turned towards Gabby, "Hey, if I was known for playing that, they'd have called me Soledead." With that, Soledad slapped her knee and broke into cackling fits, tumbling back onto the floor. That joke was bad and if Soledad didn't feel bad, her friends ought to for letting that slide.

After a few minutes of this, Soledad took some deep breathes, calming herself before looking back up at the ceiling, her eyes lighting up when she spotted orange dots still as prevalent as ever. She pointed up to it. "Hey, you guys see these orange splots on the ceiling?" Soledad grinned proudly, "That was me! It happened when i was doing a science experiment for class, think I mixed a few things wrong and boom, it exploded up there!" She smacked her hands together, as if to imitate an exploding sound. "Funny enough, I think I got a C for it. They had to dock some points because I was too loud for my own good, but I did okay regardless!"

[Pippi]

“Hey, uh, this is, like, kinda a lot for a totally dead girl to take in?”

And it really, truly was, y’know? She’d woken up with her head spinning, brain desperately trying to find something to cling onto in the deluge of information that they’d all been hit with. But if there was, like, one good thing she could say for this empty sensation - this dull, grim acceptance of the heck they’d been placed in - it was that it had let her, like, finally reach a point of balance where she didn’t feel like she was totally gonna be seasick on dry land. Or maybe, like, being perfectly horizontal for so long had totally let her level out, or something. It was totally a toss-up, really.

But now she had been sent reeling once more, this time by the barrage of questions coming down on her from either side, one after the other, no time to even breathe before she was, like, faced with something else to answer. Her head turned from side to side, looking at Soledad, then at Yu-Mi, then back to Soledad, back to Yu-Mi, Soledad, Yu-Mi, Soledad, Yu-Mi, Soledad, weird yellow stain on the ceiling, Yu-Mi, til her eyes were sent spinning like a pair of slot machine reels - man, that would totally have been a way better thing to program in, rather than, like, a stupid stain on the ceiling tiles. Sheesh. And jeez, too. Maybe she, like, woulda been better off dead after all; at least then she’d totally have avoided this, like, inquisition on all fronts.

Aw, nah, that was like, totally unfair, wasn’t it? Gabby was real grateful that, for once, her brain had moved too fast for her mouth to catch up and that she hadn’t just, like, blurted that all out to the folks who’d been extending an olive branch out. It was just a lot - a heck of a lot - to juggle all at once, but, like, man. It really was a relief to, like, see these two. Yu-Mi and Sol were, like, both kinda weirdos, but in the fun, bubbly, pastels and pranks and epic memes type of weird, not the sorta, like, ‘burning ants with a magnifying glass’ weird. They were inquisitive, understandably and totally, like, curious as to why Gabby was lying on the ground, concerned about her, like, health and well-being. And on top of all that, she was actually feeling something in response to their presence, managing to cut through the ennui and sense of detachment that had overwhelmed her til now.

Sure, like, she’d been playing the role of ‘Corpse #1’. Yeah, it totally felt like her emotions were fried and she was dead inside. But, God. God, no, she didn’t want to die. Especially not, like, in a body outside her body.

“Okay, like, uh… aw, jeez, what was it that you, uh…”

Gabby screwed her eyes shut for a moment, tilting her head to the side - sheesh, wow, that caned, her neck was sore as all get out - racking her brain as to what, exactly, she should respond to first. A task that was, like, only made more complicated by Sol’s horrific zombie screeches and cackling at her own dreadful (or, like, deadful, to carry on the theme) still totally ringing in her ears.

“I’m, like, uh… no, not hurt. I’m not hurt,” she said, deciding to tackle one of Yu-Mi’s questions first. Seemed totally like the most pertinent one, her brain had decided. “I’m fine. Well, like, physically totally fine, I mean. No, like, blood, or concussion, or, like, spontaneous combustion or anything. Just on the floor cause, like, well… cause I’m totally dead.”

‘Fake it til you make it,’ that was totally what people said, right? Sure had been a credo that Izzy had lived by as well. She’d been nervous as, before her very first stream, apparently; she’d only run it for a couple of hours but she’d apparently been shaking the entire time. The cooldown process had required, like, two blankets, a bucket of Ben & Jerry’s, and, like, four different Netflix series. And, like, the next few streams hadn’t been much easier either. Now, though, her sis couldn’t wait to get home from school and sit down in front of a mic, and, like, thousands of viewers hanging on her every word and eager to see exactly what she - or, like, rather Keke - would be getting up to today.

Point was, like, it wasn’t as though Gabby wanted to be this emotionless husk, just felt like there was this, like, titanic weight crushing her down and quashing any, like, desire to do anything. But even folks with the greatest of intentions and, like, desire to help, they wouldn’t stay forever around a mopey, melancholy, misery-guts - no point in, like, helping someone who showed zero desire to wanna be helped. The other two girls, no doubt they’d been put through the wringer as well. Probably, like, totally scared and fumbling their way through this… this crud, trying to figure things on a moment by moment basis. But Sol was doing her best to joke around and engage in, like, this whole charade of Gabby being dead-not-dead, and, like, even though Yu-Mi sounded exasperated by her friend’s actions, she was still sticking around, still playing to the script.

Gabby had, like, pretended to be someone she wasn’t for years and years now. Surely this would be, like, cake by comparison.

“One-hundred percent bonafide dead girl, like, at your service. You can call me Gabby Ghost, if you want. Or, like, Gabby Ghoul, up to you. I mean, I guess I’m not a ghost at all, but Gabby Corpse doesn’t totally roll off the tongue, does it?”

She turned her head to glance over at Soledad, lying on the floor next to her. Idly, she started swiping her arms across the ground, like she was trying some futile attempt at making a snow angel or, like, something.

“And, like, I dunno why or how I can be dead and, like, still talk, and still feel, and still wanna pee my pants and cry cause, there’s, like, two whole guns in my bag or whatever. It’s my first time being dead, after all. Maybe, like, it’s cause we’re all online and stuff, and they hadn’t properly programmed you to stop, like, doing crap when you were supposed to be dead. Or maybe, like, this is where you go where you die, but there was only so much server space so, like, God has to share with our cruddy ol’ high school.”

She paused for a moment, both for effect, and because talking about the afterlife and being stuck in this digital prison had made her heart drop out into her stomach and send her mind reeling once again.

“Plus, like, I’m kinda sort a chinchilla girl as well, like, online anyway. And so, like, the chinchilla concept of chinchilla heaven and, like, hell doesn’t really exist in chinchilla society. For chinchillas.”

She gave a weak grin up at Yu-Mi.

“Hence, like, why I’m still sticking around.”

Her eyes flicked further up, now looking towards the stain on the ceiling. If she tilted her head a little, it kinda sorta, like, resembled a red panda. Or maybe more like a PogChamp.

“So, like, you really caused that? Weird they, like, haven’t removed it or anything. Maybe it’s a symbol of pride, or, uh, something.”

[NoLife42069]

(Ángel Alcántana continued from she was an honest girl (never told a lie))

They took the long way. While they could have taken the bridge and then gone downstairs, Ángel would rather not step on it for at least a couple of hours. So the long way around it was, from the third floor of the west wing to the first floor of the east wing.

Along the way Ángel told Bailey of his sins and how he got his hands on an additional weapon. Honestly, he expected her to leave when he told her. Yet here she was, following him while he listened in on the conversation happening in the lab.

When he first heard voices Ángel was on guard he threw his back to the wall and and brought his gun up. But then he heard them speak and all tension drained out of him like water down the drain. Ángel knew at least two of the people in the room, and while he intended to stay hidden a little longer when the third voice began talking about chinchillas it swiftly dawned on him how pointless that was.

With a few knocks on the door, Ángel let himself in. "MiMi, Sol. I'm happy both of you are alive and well." Ángel spoke while he walked in then quickly paused. Not one but two people were currently lying on the floor. Also, his previous thought was wrong, for the first time Ángel knew everyone in the room. Ángel didn't really know Gabrielle, he could put a name to a face but they never really interacted.

Ángel wasn't that surprised that Sol was lying on the floor, it seemed in line with her. What surprised him was that Gabrielle had apparently joined her. But well, the girl (she did identify as female right?) was talking about being dead so...

"Gabrielle, I see all of you are taking our situation quite well. Despite my equipment and look, I mean no harm. I really am happy all of you are safe." Ángel flashed a small smile.

Then the ache in his arm made itself known once again making Ángel wince. "Would it be okay if I came in? Me and Bailey need to grab some stuff."

[apocalypseyuri]

“Yeah, Sol, have some respect for the dead.” Despite her scolding words, her tone was light enough to make it clear she was just kidding around. At her friend’s murderously bad pun, she groaned. “Yeah, you’re gonna kill me too if you keep going on like that. You can’t even make a good ghost name out of my name! How many words can you think of that start with a Y off the bat? Like, two.” She poked Soledad’s face. “Paranormal explorer, eh? You should talk to those Buzzfeed Unsolved guys. Maybe they’ll start making videos again, just for you.” Or just for us. The sudden thought of her being covered on a true crime series made her feel dizzy. Yu-Mi never liked thinking about her own death. None of this was very fair at all, wasn’t it?

She looked back at Gabby. “That’s good. Wouldn’t want you to be double-dead.” Yu-Mi fidgeted slightly, her sides beginning to burn from all the time she spent crouching at Gabby’s side. Which wasn’t very long at all godshe was unathletic. “Gabby Ghoul sounds kinda mean. I like Gabby Ghost.” Her eyes widened. “You got two guns? Wow, someone must really like you. Sol and I only have one between the two of us.” The distribution of weapons was probably completely random. Their lives hinged on a gacha. That was just swell. You couldn’t even whale yourself out of it. What the hell would whaling in this situation even be? Paying a ransom? From what Yu-Mi couldn’t remember, they weren’t put in this situation for extortion’s stake, but rather for some dumb societal commentary. Someone should put special locks on copies of V For Vendetta that only let you in if you prove you aren’t an incel or whatever. “Not like we’re planning to use it, though. Seriously.” Did she sound serious? That wasn’t a “haha we’re totally not gonna use this wink wink” statement, she was telling the truth. Was that a scary thing to say? She didn’t want to seem intimidating. See, that’s why she let other people do all the serious talking.

Gabby’s statement about death not being programmed in caused Yu-Mi to perk up. “Ha, imagine.” She was aware that such a sentiment was basically impossible. To believe in it would be fooling herself; there was no way Initiative Whatever would go all this way just to not program in the “death” in their death game. But still, she really, really wished it was true. Being dead would hurt a lot less if you were still alive in at least some capacity. Sometimes, before all this, Yu-Mi entertained the idea of having her brain uploaded into some virtual space when she died. She knew it was a fatuous dream; any sort of “digital afterlife” would definitely be overrun by corporate advertisers, and Yu-Mi would literally rather die than live forever on someone’s Amazon wishlist. Hey, still, wasn’t she allowed to have dumb dreams like that? Wasn’t she allowed to hold on to a stupid, impossible thought, just to cheer herself up for a moment?

“You could totally be a ghost chinchilla girl. The more adjectives, the cooler it is, right? Whatever reason you’re still here, it’s good you are. Um, for the sake of the chinchilla girl population. They need someone to represent them.” Yu-Mi looked up at the splotch on the ceiling. “Oh yeah, I heard all about it when it first happened. Straight from the horse’s mouth. I guess they probably kept it for the sake of realism? Which is dumb. If they were smart they would’ve made this place much cooler-and not like “Call of Duty 12-year-old” cool, actually cool. You know, if they were smart they would’ve programmed this place better too! It kept glitching out in one of the classrooms, Sol can verify. Like, it was–”

The knocking on the door caused Yu-Mi to startle. She cussed under her breath. Should she point her gun at the door, or something? No, if they were knocking, they were probably friendly. If you wanted to kill someone you would just barge in. Catch them by surprise, like an eagle swooping down. She stiffened as the door opened–should they have locked that?--only to relax when she saw the newcomer. “Shit, Uriel! You scared me. Yeah yeah, good to know you’re okay too, Terminator.” She glanced behind Ángel, trying to see if there was anyone behind him. The name “Bailey” faintly rang a bell. Nudged a bell was more like it. “Uh, y–”

For the second time in a minute, Yu-Mi was cut off, much more rudely this time. She winced at the loud sound of the bell which seemed to scrape inside her skull. When the video started up, she tried to close her eyes in an act of defiance, which of course did nothing. Stupid fucking Zeph. Was this really so fun? Nothing had happened! Unless you got your jollies watching a bunch of teenagers scramble around like frightened mice, in which case you’re a weirdo anyways. Famous, yadda yadda yadda. God, did they really edit a documentary opening together just for kicks? She already knew she was being watched–by herself, or at least, the self that sometimes seemed to be detached from her body, above the glass dome, watching her as if she was her own lab rat.

The garbled editing only gave her a headache. Great, so they were being streamed. Yu-Mi suddenly felt very self-conscious. If anyone who was watching her was judging her, that was on them and not her, but nonetheless, she wanted to dig herself a hole in the ground and hibernate until this was all over. Awww, was Zephy-Wephy upset that his death game was flopping? Yu-Mi allowed herself a small smile. Seriously, what did he–Solana?

Once, when Yu-Mi got accepted into Sycamore, her parents took her to an amusement park. Her mom didn’t want her going on any of the bigger rides for her own safety, but Yu-Mi, dissatisfied with being stuck on what she considered to be “baby rides,” convinced her to relent. People say that rollercoasters are the most thrilling of all thrill rides, but Yu-Mi would have to disagree. It was those drop towers that were the most daunting. Rollercoasters have exciting twists and turns, but on drop towers, you just…fall. You fall and fall and you’re just falling, and it takes your breath away and leaves a sickening feeling in the pit of your stomach. When Yu-Mi heard Sunny’s name come out of Zeph’s mouth, that same feeling returned to her, only this time she wasn’t strapped in and held fast by a million security measures. She was loose, vulnerable, and falling all alone.

Yu-Mi would’ve squeezed her eyes shut if it weren’t for her utter shock keeping them stuck open. It wouldn’t have done anything, anyway. Even if you shut your eyes you’re still falling and nothing can change that. Sunny was putting up a good fight, but that didn’t make her feel any better. If you know a character dies in a movie, you’re going to dread it the whole time, only this wasn’t a movie and that wasn’t some random character that was her girlfriend and oh god he’s killing her he’s going to kill her. As for he, she barely knew him. He was a sports guy and pretty unfriendly, so she avoided him. And now he was killing Sunny? Why? Yu-Mi knew Sunny, and there was no way in hell she’d ever try to kill someone, so this couldn’t be in self-defense. Yeah, this was a death game, but Zeph had confirmed no one else was enough of a maniac to kill. Why Sunny? She was nice. She hadn’t done anything wrong. She was–

Cold fingers traced their way down Yu-Mi’s spine. He hit Sunny like she was some disgusting bug that needed to be smashed. It was sick. She felt sick, and she only felt worse when she heard Sunny’s last words. She had been thinking of her up until the very end. It would be a touching sentiment if it didn’t make Yu-Mi feel like she was dying in a frozen lake. She should have been there, she–she was trying to find her, she could’ve done something, anything! Sure, Yu-Mi was no pro wrestler, but she had a gun! She could’ve blown his arms off before he could even lay a hand on her. She hadn’t been particularly itching to use that thing, but… Sunny. If it was for Sunny’s sake, then… When did this happen? What if there wasn’t anything she could’ve done? What if Sunny died before Yu-Mi had woken up?

Sunny was dead. She was dead. How funny. Yu-Mi had never prepared herself for losing someone she loved, as she always assumed she would be the first one to die.

She must’ve melded with the program somehow, because when the video shut off, Yu-Mi glitched. Her head, ears, eyes, mouth were all filled with static. She trembled, but didn’t make a sound, a bed of roses buried deep beneath a bed of snow. Something inside her wilted. She drew her knees up to her chest and buried her face into them, but it didn’t help at all. Even if she blocked out the world, she was still falling.

[JacobAllTradez]

"Too much?" Soledad asked, glancing at Gabby. It was true that this had been more than a hectic meeting between the three people, definitely not out of line with anything Soledad was used to, but in this case, Soledad thought, perhaps it was time for her to tone things back a little. At least to a point where she wasn't rambling on about the topic of choice. "Well, gee," Soledad said, in a quieter voice, "I'm sorry. I'll try to keep it down now." With that, Soledad laid back down on the floor, having finished her barrage of questions to Gabby.

At least until Gabby started making snow angels, well, Soledad thought she was making snow angels, it was hard to tell given how flimsy her arms were flailing about. She raised an eyebrow, watching as Gabby wriggled on the floor. "Are you trying to make floor angels or something?" Soledad asked. "Cause I don't think you're getting too far right now."

Soledad stuck her arms out, forming an 'X' symbol in front of Gabby, her hands nearly touching the allegedly dead girl. "See, what you want to do is spread your arms and legs out like this, like you're lying in a bed of snow or something like that, and then you're gonna--" And then, Soledad stopped herself. "Wait a minute," she thought as her eyes captured another glance at Gabby. "It doesn't seem like she's making floor angels."

Soledad had never been great at understanding body language. Oh, sure, she could understand how people were feeling and why they had these emotions, but you had to be explicit, or otherwise, she would go to great lengths to do something you didn't even want. Like, just now, here she was, teaching Gabby how to make snow angels, only for her to go on another tangent about death and programming and pants peeing.

Pants peeing what the f--

The point was, unless Soledad knew full well what someone was talking about, these sorts of lapses in judgment were destined to happen. Still, wanting to make herself respectable to Gabby, especially in these unprecedented times, Soledad sat up, scooting closer towards Gabby, and patted her on the head, her hand touching Gabby's hair strands.

"Hey, Gabby, it's okay. I'm scared too. We're all scared. And angry. Now, I don't think anyone here has peed our pants or something like that, not yet at least, but the important thing is that we're all still here. And we're gonna try and find a way out of this as best we can. I can't guarantee that all of us here are gonna live, hell, I'll be blunt, some of us are probably going to die. And that's okay! Because if this is really how we're gonna go out, we can at least find a way to go out with a bang."

Soledad paused, the warm expression on her face replaced with one of distaste as she shook her head. "Crap, that sounds like I wanna form a suicide pact or something," Soledad mumbled over her word choice again before turning towards Gabby. "But yeah, we're all gonna be fine, if we can find a way to get offline, we can probably laugh at this in a Starbucks somewhere. At least, I hope we can." Soledad nodded at her attempt to salvage things.

"I mean, ghost chinchillas sound like they'd have a good life. You get to do all the things normal chinchillas do without worrying about what other people think." Soledad smirked, thinking about what dogs normally do. In retrospect, dogs had it pretty easy compared to humans. Most of them got to lay around all day without a care in the world, eat some kibble, pee on fire hydrants, maybe fetch a bone or two, and more often than not, be given all the tender love and care you could ever want. Yeah, compared to the human species, a canine's life was rather good.

And then, the door swung open, revealing Angel from out of the blue. At first, he had kept himself hidden to prevent intruders. Perhaps then, it was lucky that he came across two people (and Gabby) whom he knew well. Soledad smiled, kipping up to her feet and waving at Angel. "Hey Angel! Yeah, you can come in, and get as much as you need." She said. "I'm glad you're alive too, man. This whole hostage thing is taking its toll on us."

Soledad glanced at Yu-Mi, sticking out her tongue. "Not just a paranormal explorer, but also a visionary!" She declared, pointing towards the ceiling. "Why, I bet the reason why they haven't gotten rid of that orange spot is because they're too much in awe of what I did!" Soledad brayed, spinning a tale until it was tall and proud. In truth, the janitor for Sycamore High had planned to clean the spot up, but had not found a ladder high enough to reach. "Now then, Yu-Mi, what's this about me not being able to give you ghostly names?" Soledad asked in a joking, teasing manner. "What's wrong Screa-mi? Afraid I won't come up with the perfect name for ya? C'mon Spook-mi! Just give me a chance, I promise ya Yu-freaky, I'll come up with the perfect paranormal name for you and the afterlife, sound good Yu-"

Any further bad puns were eliminated thanks to the bell's loud clangs, forcing Soledad to cover her ears, wincing at the alarming blare. She looked towards the screen, spotting Zeph and his smug smile. What a bastard that man turned out to be, kidnapping everyone and forcing them to play what was essentially a futuristic Hunger Games. Who did he think he was, anyway? It wasn't even like anything had happened, at least, anything exciting. The game, if you could have even called it a game, had barely even started. What could be so important that Zeph felt it was worth announcing it for the world to--

Soledad's eye pupils to the point of near invisibility as her jaw dropped as close to the floor as possible, baring witness to the most unimaginable sight. There was Solana, arms gripped tightly and tears streaming down her face, in a horrific, bloody clash with a man she was not familiar with. Daniel Arista. The man laid into Solana with shot after shot, each punching weighing down on Solana until there was nothing left to give. Her eyes blackened, her lip bruised, her face bloodied, and soon, her life over. For what cause? She didn't know, she didn't care. At that point, the usually vocal girl stood frozen, shocked at what had become of Sunny. What had become of her friend. What had become of Yu-Mi--

Yu-Mi.

Oh.

Oh god.

A terrible thought rose through Soledad's mind as she watched Solana's life be taken away from her. That wasn't just any person who had been caustically murdered, that was the girlfriend of her best friend. Right before their very eyes. Soledad's eyes slowly turned towards Yu-Mi, the bright girl falling onto her knees, her entire face crumpled together in a state of static, any sure facial expression lost within the system, replaced only with the fragile veneer of stability. A woman's life had been stolen, all because some prick decided today was the day to forever etch himself into infamy. To truly kick off these deadly games. To leave one person dead and another scarred. Perhaps someday, some righteous soul would come along and indict Daniel for his crimes. Perhaps that person could be her, but that wasn't up to fate to decide.

For the time being, somehow, someway, there was a friend Soledad needed to comfort.

"Y-Yu-Mi?"

[Pippi]

She was totally getting, like, a major, hardcore headache.

Why had they programmed something that lame into this simulation, anyhow? Why’d she have to deal with, like, a migraine, a sore throat, a numb butt, the whole shebang, when she wasn’t even, like, in control of her actual body? That was a sticking point that Gabby had, like, really truly never wrapped her head around, the same sorta mystifying crud as why they’d totally left that ceiling stain in forever and ever. If you, like, picked up or zooped into a video game, you didn’t expect to have to, like, take a break every so often to use the restroom or take a sip of water; even in more realistic games, you wouldn’t have to expect to deal with, like, your shoelace untying totally outta the blue. Why not make your online school experience as, like, seamless and easy to focus on as possible? If she wanted to experience aches and pains and crippling, like, social anxiety and self-confidence issues, y’know what she could totally just do? Log off and, like, deal with them in real life!

Was she, like, totally deflecting from the situation at hand right now? Her lawyers, like, advised her not to say anything more on the subject.

Things had been going totally, like, okay for a while there, as well (she wasn’t, like, willing to stretch her feelings towards the situation to a ‘great’ or even to a ‘fine’, there was still the, like, trapped in a death game thing they totally had to contend with). The other two girls had been, like, playing their parts to perfection, keeping things light and nice and, like, breezy, mostly - Yu-Mi was totally right, ‘Gabby Ghost’ was way cuter than the alternative, and Sol seemed to have reciprocated her kinda, like, limp attempt at making lino angels, at least for a lil bit. But it was also, like… jeez, it was oddly refreshing, having people say that they got it, y’know? Sol’s efforts were, like, kinda clumsy, sure, but Gabby could tell that she totally meant it, that there really was this, like, deep-rooted anger nestled deep in the midst of this, like, thicket of terror and trauma that had engulfed all of them. Meant she didn’t feel quite so, like, alone. That if she was, like, sinking into the abyss, there were friends deep down in there with her, ready to, if nothing else, reach out a hand to take hers. Little rays of, like, light. Little sparks of hope.

She could almost feel, like, a true smile coming on. This mask of wellness slowly shifting to totally fit the contours of her face.

All it took was, like, one uninvited guest to totally ruin the party, though. And she wasn’t talking about Ángel, not, like, in this instance anyhow. No, it was Zeph and his dumb, stupid, annoying, stupid, smug little stupid face popping up in the bottom of her vision - something that startled her well enough that she almost, like, leapt up from the floor like a totally shocked kitty-cat - that totally obliterated the mood. Gabby had, like, screwed her eyes shut and pressed her hands to her head, a vain attempt to cut out the feed and stifle the pounding sensation in her skull, but it didn’t do crud-all. Heck, if anything, the total darkness meant it was, like, even easier to see every last pixel and hear every stomach-churning crunch as Sunny was beaten to death in front of her eyes, the whole thing drawn out in excruciating detail, and seeming to, like, play on loop the moment it had finished - that is, like, until Gabby realised it was her own mind-not-mind, refusing to let her forget the atrocity she’d just witnessed.

And that was nothing compared to, like, how badly it seemed to be affecting Yu-Mi.

It didn’t, like, take an Einstein or a Sherlock or an Edgeworth to figure out why. Gabby wasn’t totally sure how long Yu-Mi and Sunny had been dating, but the two were, like, totally inseparable 24-7, taking the, like, red string metaphor totally literally and never straying further than a few feet apart when they could help it, totally tied together at the heart. The smile that Yu-Mi had given her was, like, barely a shadow compared to the one on her face whenever her girlfriend was around. Odds were, it would be a long, long time ‘til she was, like, smiling again.

So, like, taking stock. Yu-Mi was curled up on the floor, barely moving. Sol had scurried up to try and prompt some signs of, like, life from her friend. Ángel was still in the doorway, asking for permission to come in, like he was, like, some kinda vampire or something.

How had this happened? How had Gabby become the one who needed to, like, take charge all of a sudden?

This didn’t seem fair. No, no, like, totally scratch that. This totally wasn’t fair. She could feel frustration welling up inside of her, as she pushed herself upright, wincing as her back peeled away from the hard floor, glancing across at the two other girls. She got it, like, don’t think for a freakin’ second that she didn’t, she got exactly why Yu-Mi had been sent reeling. But, like, despite Ángel’s assumption, Gabby was totally not handling things well just yet. She still wasn’t doing fine. She still wanted to, like, lie on the ground and do nothing at all and wait and see whether she’d, like, react to any impending doom when the time came. She still wanted someone to tell her they understood, that she wasn’t totally crazy for feeling this way, for her to feel as if she had people she could, like, lean on, even if there was no way out of this mess.

She needed help, just as bad as everyone else. And it totally felt like that had all just been tossed away like a wet paper towel.

Her attention switched to Ángel, a frown on her face as she looked up at the boy. It, like, totally wasn’t fair to blame him for this dumb nonsense, it wasn’t like him opening the door had triggered the announcement to go off. But the association was too strong for her to ignore. It was, like, impossible not to tar him with the same brush. Bailey too, still hidden outta sight, probably, like, waiting for permission to show her face, and then a follow-up acceptance message to let her know she could, like, totally trot after Ángel into the room.

“Doesn’t, like, feel as though it’s totally the best time to do that now, buddy.”

Her words tasted bitter in her mouth.

“You, like, promise you’re gonna be quick? Or, like, show a little concern to the bereaved or whatever on your way at least?”

Her arms had folded themselves up as she’d been speaking. As if she’d needed to, like, belabour the point.

[NoLife42069]

Ángel was allowed in and he took a step forward. It felt... Normal, like he could lie to himself. That his classmates were being weird like always, that he just had more stuff in his backpack, that in his hand wasn't a gun but a heavy book or something. Maybe he could-

But as the saying went:No Rest For The Wicked. The school bell rang, sending a piercing noise that felt like it was stabbing his mind. Both hands went to cup his ears. His grip on his gun ever tight. Ángel cursed under his breath as everyone else suffered with him.

Then a screen appeared in his vision, black. A black void that ate all the light in its reach, like the game. But it didn't stay that way for long, suddenly Ángel's most hated person appeared in a very familiar place. Zeph Newman. Ángel remembered the first time he was in Floyd's office, it wasn't after the FuguFish incident, no it was much much earlier. Early in his high school career, Ángel was called to Floyd's office. He wasn't in trouble, in fact, it was the opposite. He was being commended for being one of the highest-scoring in his class, but that wasn't the only reason. His teachers may have their faults, but at least some of them genuinely cared about their students. It didn't take a genius to see the disconnect between him and his class, all it took was enough of the faculty to ask Floyd to give Ángel a little guidance. Ángel still remembered his words, "You are a bright young man, but we all need connections with others."

It was Zeph's(If that's even his name!) words that snapped him back from the past. Zeph spoke his words with venom, like he knew that they could poison the minds of the class and he hoped it would. The rage on Ángel's face that coursed through his veins was palpable. If looks could kill, Ángel would have killed the person on the screen thousands of times over.

But then came the screens. The barrage of information, The deathgame, Initiative Earth, Their teacher truly being dead, Being moved to the hospital. It overloaded Ángel, yet there was one detail in particular that pushed itself to the forefront.

San José Police Department confirms that there is at least one present casualty out of a total of thirty-six total students in Class 12-B

Someone had died already. The rage went cold, replaced by deep dread as his blood went cold and his face paled.

Then he saw himself, not his Avatar. No, his real meatspace, flesh body. He saw everyone else too, some he could identify, others he couldn't. It's... Surreal to look at your body from a a third person view, and see the little details you always saw in the mirror.

Ángel felt ill. He felt like vomiting everything he had for breakfast all those hours ago. But he couldn't now could he? This wasn't his true body, his avatar hadn't eaten anything. Only the 18-year-old boy with a CRD on his head lying in a hospital had eaten the two pancakes three pieces of bacon and two scrambled eggs.

But he wasn't even given time to process this new wave of information before Zeph in his cruel disgusting humor carried on. He joked and chided the class for their lack of initiative, for not immediately falling into barbarism and killing each other like the movies.

But all of that paled in comparison to the grand naming of the first killer. Daniel FUCKING Arista! Ángel didn't know the boy bu-

started today off with a little bit of Mortal Kombat courtesy of our dear friend Solana Lucero Estelle

"S-Sunny?" Ángel almost fell to his knees. Ángel watched with both horror and disgust Sunny's last moments. He almost wanted to laugh, of course, the first murder happened in their homeroom. Once the last words were uttered out of Sunny's mouth, Ángel felt numb the rage had reached such a height it went back to zero.

The Roof was off limits but Ángel could even bring himself to be angry that his plan would be delayed for another several hours. Yu-Mi fell to the ground and Sol went to comfort her. Yet, the only thing that Ángel could think to do: Was to find Daniel, and subject him to the worst torment the the system could provide.

Ángel's grip on his pistol was so tight his nails were starting to dig into his skin. But the saying remained ever true, as Gabrielle turned her attention to him. Ángel glared at her, and with the hand cannon in his hand, you would be forgiven for believing he was going to shoot her. "Be careful who you lash out at," Ángel warned as he faced her. "Sunny was a friend, and I'm not in the mood to deal with you blaming me."

He wanted to break something, no he wanted to kill Daniel. He had failed at getting everyone out alive, and his payment was his friend's life. He wanted to scream. Scream and break and hurt and kill.

His hands shook, as he brought one to his forehead. "I'll fucking kill him." He muttered as he pushed his body to comfort Yu-Mi. He walked closer to her but hesitated, he wasn't sure how. So he just stood next to her, emotions warring to express themselves as his legs felt like jelly.

[apocalypseyuri]

There was definitely some noise and movement going on around Yu-Mi, but the only thing she could perceive was a bunch of muffled thumping and a really, really unfunny version of how Charlie Brown adults sound. She pressed her face into her knees, as if that futile movement would make it all go away and she would wake up back in her bed and check her phone to see a good morning from Sunny. Those morning messages were such a little thing, but they were…nice. It made her happy to know that someone was thinking of her. Maybe their little back and forths were ephemeral or insignificant in the grand scheme of things, and maybe that’s how Initiative Shit justified this to themselves, but Yu-Mi didn’t care. They made her happy, and Sunny made her happy, and Sunny was a person, with dreams and a long long life ahead of her, and even if Yu-Mi had neither of those she was a person too. They all were people. At least, they all used to be, before they were put into this simulation. Now Sunny was a corpse and Yu-Mi felt like one too.

Y-Yu-Mi? The sound of her name made its way through the snow; it didn’t melt it in the slightest, but it was a word that made sense. She lifted her head slightly, and through the curtain of hair that fell over her eyes she saw the familiar form of a friend. “...hi,” she whispered. The same thing inside her that had wilted seized up, now; what if she lost Soledad next? “Don’t–don’t go. Please? Okay?” Desperate nonsense tumbled out of her mouth.

In the blizzard of static that had enveloped her brain, she had completely forgotten about Ángel, so it surprised her a little when he spoke. When he did, though, a sudden hot flash of anger overwhelmed her. “S-seriously? That’s your first reaction to this? More killing?” Yu-Mi bit down on her lower lip. It split and bled, but she didn’t care. How could she care?

Beneath the heat, a hypocritical little seed germinated. If anyone’s going to kill him, shouldn’t it be me? No, she shouldn’t think that way. Daniel was way, way stronger than she was–but she had a gun. But she wasn’t a killer. But she thought nobody here was. But, but, but–

She was back to watching herself from far away again. Yu-Mi buried her face in her knees again. “I hate this.”