A Cold and Lonely Road

[Acidic*]

[PRP5: Sterling Odair Start]

It was cold. Cold and small in the vent they put Sterling in. He woke up knowing what had happened to him, some of his friends, and some other poor bastards. The rules, teams, and the kill-ten-people-and-go-home deal. Despite this he stayed in the vent and it's cold, dusty, metallic embrace. He didn't know how long he stayed, but when he accepted it as much as he could he pulled himself out. He was put in face first, so it was awkward moving his arms to push out. Hands slipping on the metal and dust. Legs trying to help best they can.

Then he was out. he sat on the ground and looked around. He was put in a ski lodge. An old ski lodge with more dust, more cold, but a musty odor about it that the vents didn't have. he looked to the couch on his left and saw his bag. Why couldn't they put me there? he thought. He sighed as he stood up and looked down at the bag. From this angle he could see a axe-like weapon laying on the bag. It had a dark wooden handle and a silver head, and when he picked it up he felt the smooth, treated handle.

Sterling kept it in his hand as he searched the bag for anything else. Food, drinks, map, the bandanna (which he tied around his neck. Careful to avoid the collar), a purple tank top, and black t-shirt with a Trojan ad on it. He stopped digging. Deciding it was time to see who else was here.

Putting everything except for the hatchet back in the bag he picked it up and slung it over his shoulder. He walked to the hall way. It went on for awhile opening to three doors, and bent.

Sterling, trying not to shake, walked down the hallway carrying his weapon. He felt like the killer in an old horror movie. Despite being scared Sterling was still friendly, and willing to help. So he walked down the hall, and when he got to the first door he knocked and asked as his usual friendly voice and smile,

"Hey, is anyone there?"

[The Bearded One*]

((debut of Grey #1: Bobby Goldman))


Bobby Goldman felt the soft, shag carpet under him as he filled his lungs with air.  Consciousness returned to him and he blinked a few times, then pushed himself up into a sitting position on the floor.  The air he breathed felt a bit colder than he expected it to, and he glanced around himself to try to orient.  He was inside some sort of cozy hotel room with dark wood trimmings and a fireplace off to one side.  It was not lit.

On his other side, Bobby noticed a shopping cart.  That's so totally out of place, he frowned.  Then he spotted the dark blue backpack inside the cart.  Cautiously, he stood up and gently opened the backpack.  When he saw the contents, he remembered that he was a "contestant" in the new Survival of the Fittest TV season.

Fuck me blind!!  He whirled around, looking for someone to punch, but he appeared to be alone in the lodge.  God damn it all to hell and back!  All right, Goldman, calm the fuck down.  This is SOTF season 65.  They get the best God damn ratings in the world.  I'm probably on TV right now....

Speaking of which-  He turned back to the backpack and dug in it until he found the grey bandanna with a shield symbol on it.  Not a bad symbol for me, I guess.  He tied it around his head like a headband with the shield symbol in the middle of his forehead.  No way I'm going to die quick and stupid.  I can survive this thing if I use my head and work with my team and get a good weapon.  Hey, where is my weapon anyway?  He started searching through the backpack more thoroughly, trying to find his weapon, until he came across the Durex condom.

He held up the condom toward the fireplace, where he guessed a camera would be.  "Are you kidding me?  Is this my fucking weapon?  You couldn't at least give me a whole pack of them so I could, I don't know, use them as throwing stars or something?"  He put his head in his hands and rested his elbows on the handle of the shopping cart.  After a few seconds, he opened his eyes again, looking at the shopping cart he was leaning on.  "Oh that's even worse!  It's not even portable!"

Frowning in frustration, he shoved the condom back into the backpack and drew out the map and compass.  A quick glance out a window gave him enough information to figure out that he was at the Ski Resort all the way in the far corner of the island.

"Well, I'm toast unless I can find the rest of the grey team or at least get a better weapon.  Fucking shopping cart.  Well, I'm here, so I may as well see what resources I can scavenge before I head out onto the island.  And by the way, I'm not talking to myself and I haven't gone crazy.  I know I'm on TV, so I thought I'd narrate my thought process for the folks at home."

He closed up the backpack and slung it over his shoulder, then, pulling the shopping cart after him, he began exploring the inside of the lodge.

In the hallway, he heard a familiar sounding voice.  "Hey, is anyone there?"

"Well," he sighed, "here goes nothing."  He stepped out into the hall and waved at Sterling.  "Hey there.  Did you get grabbed and put on an island too?"

[Acidic*]

Sterling responded to Bobby,

"I like to think of it as a once in a life time vacation." Okay, not the time for dark humor. Sterling looked behind Bobby to see a shopping kart. Why is there a shopping cart in her- and then Sterling laughed. Sterling did want to be mean, but a fucking shopping cart!

"I'm sorry, Bobby." he said, and then he saw the bandanna.

The grey bandanna.

The grey bandanna on Bobby's head.

Sterling shifted before deciding keeping an eye on him. An eye was sensible, right? He heard about how he blew up at Devonte during the party, but maybe that was a bad day for him. Then again, being here was one hell of a bad day. His laughing had slowed and stopped. He looked down the hall, and back to Bobby.

"So do you want to see if anyone else is here?" When he watched SotF-TV people usually just found each other by accident, but Sterling thought it would be better to check the house.

"If not to make sure nobody sneaks up on us."

[The Bearded One*]

Sterling responded to Bobby's jest with the same level of dark humor, just as he'd hoped. Let's keep this light and non-killing, please. Then Sterling noticed the shopping cart Bobby was pulling along behind him, and he broke out in an easy, jovial laughter. Bobby smiled too, relaxing a bit. He knew Sterling, and he knew that he wasn't a person likely to kill anyone except maybe in self defense.

Sterling's laughter died abruptly, though. Bobby couldn't immediately tell why for a moment, then he realized what the other boy was looking at: his grey bandanna over his forehead. Bobby saw that Sterling's own was tied around his neck, sitting loosely above that damn collar; his bandanna was purple. He can't think I'm a potential player, can he?

Bobby shook his head and managed to smile again. "Yeah, apparently the shopping cart is my weapon. Talk about shitty weapon draws...." He took a nervous breath before continuing his attempt to keep the mood light. "And I'm not even sure how I'm going to get this thing down from the lodge across the snow."

Sterling glanced down the hallway, then back at Bobby to suggest that they search the lodge for other students.

Bobby shrugged. "I think we should check the rest of this place as much as possible, but I'm less concerned about finding other kids than I am about finding something that will do us some good surviving this game. I don't think I like my 'weapon' here, and I was planning on searching this place to see if I can find something better. Honestly, I don't see myself turning into a killer unless my back is seriously up against the wall. If you don't mind a non-purple-team ally, I think we'll both be safer looking around together."

Bobby turned and walked back into the guest room he'd awakened in, and began his methodical search. He had a momentary nightmarish flash of Sterling shooting him in the back, but that didn't happen.

He opened dresser drawers, looked in bathroom cabinets and even under the bed without finding anything obviously weapon-like. Then he remembered the fireplace. Duh! Fireplaces come with those iron poker things. But when he checked, there were no such things present. "Damn."

[Acidic*]

After Bobby's long winded plan for the game Sterling nodded. While their priorities weren't the same at least Bobby was being peaceful at the moment. So when he turned back to look for a weapon Sterling wished him luck and continued with his search of the the rooms.

The door next to Bobby's room lead to another guest room. Sterling walked in with the hatchet raised in case someone was scared and hiding in a closet waiting to jump him. Opening the door he saw nobody was there, and relaxed. He took a few steps and allowed himself to relax for a bit. He took one last look around the room before leaving to search the next one.

This door was just a hall closet filled with nothing but selves, dust, and a few useless items. Sterling then went down the turn. Giving one last glance back before going down. There were two doors adjacent to each other at the end. Sterling figured the first one he opened would be a closet, and he was right. More dust, selves, and useless junk. That left one more door. He knocked on it with the end of the hatchet,

"Hey, is anyone there? I won't hurt you." He waited a bit too long for an answer, and opened the door and stepped in.

It was the master bedroom. With a king sized bed cover in the same sheets and pillows as the previous room. The dresser had a mirror, and it was (of course) bigger than the previous rooms. It had two doors on the other end. Sterling hoped his searching was done, but walked to the first one regardless and did the routine again. Knock, announce, and open.

A small bathroom with black tile floor, wooden cabinets under the sink (black), toilet, and shower (the curtain was open). Sterling stepped to the sink and turned the knob, and no stream of water cam out. Sterling's smile became a bit more labored, and turned back out of the bathroom. The next door was a walk in closet, but it held nothing to Sterling's need or interest. So he went to the bed, and decided to go see how Bobby was doing. When he found him Sterling asked,

"How goes the search?"

[The Bearded One*]

((GMing approved by Acidic))


Bobby could hear Sterling in the next room, announcing his presence, then opening doors. He sounded like he was being thorough, but cautious. "I'm having no luck here at all finding a decent weapon," he said to the still unseen cameras and microphones. "I guess the shopping cart implies that I'm supposed to be a supplies and logistics person, huh? Well that's worth crap. I need a real weapon."

He walked over to the bed, a double, and roughly stripped the blanket and sheet off of the bed, stuffing them into the shopping cart. "I have no idea what I might do with them, but if I think of a use later, I might as well have them with me, right?"

Still feeling frustrated, Bobby walked out into the hallway, tugging his cart behind him. Sterling was exiting a room at the far end of the hall at the same time.

"How goes the search?" he asked Bobby.

"Not so well yet. Have you found a master bathroom by any chance? I mean one with a full size bathtub?"

"Yeah," Sterling answered, "I just came from there." He pointed to the door he'd just come out of.

"Cool. I think what I need will be in there." Bobby pulled his shopping cart past Sterling toward the master suite.

"No problemo"

Bobby entered the master suite and found it similar to the other guest rooms, but larger. The fireplace was a bit bigger, but the pokers had again been removed. He walked to the end where there were two doors, both slightly ajar. Bobby walked into the bathroom and saw the bathtub, but his attention was drawn to the shower curtain's rod. It was plastic, but as long as a spear. Bobby braced it with one hand, then sharply struck the end closest to the wall with the heel of his other hand. The plastic wall mount broke away, and Bobby had no problem removing the plastic pole without damaging it. After a moment's thought, he grabbed the shower curtain and shoved it into the cart as well. "Hey, it's waterproof, right?"

He was about to leave the master suite, but paused, looking to the second door. He pushed it open and a grin appeared on his face when he saw it was a walk-in closet. He walked in and found that all of the clothes and their hangers had been removed, but the metal bars from which the hangers would hang were still there. Bobby examined the fixtures and saw that they were metal (aluminum?) and screwed into the wooden frames. He tested the bar with his hand and found that there was just a tiny bit of play between the bar and its fixtures.

Bobby wedged himself underneath the hanger bar and held onto it with both hands, then he used all of his force to kick at the frame just below the fixture. BAM! The frame cracked a bit. Bobby repeated the operation, kicking in the same place again. CRACK! The frame broke enough to get the end of the bar out of the wall fixtures. There was a second metal bar of the same size, and Bobby broke the wood frame to get it out of its fixtures in the same manner.

The operation did make a lot of noise, but when Bobby left the master suite, he had a six-foot-long plastic pole and two five-foot-long metal bars. When he saw Sterling again, he grinned and pointed to his new acquisitions. "Now I feel a little better."

[Acidic*]

Walking back to the room he woke up in Sterling tried to think of his next move. It was just him and Bobby, He's on a different team, and you barely know him. Sterling shook the thought. Paranoia would cause a conflict that neither of the boys needed or wanted. He sat on the couch his bag had been laying on a while ago. He put the bag on his lap, and the hatchet resting head down on the floor leaning against his leg.

When Sterling opened the bag the first thing he took out was the map which he laid out on the coffee table before him. He'd look at it later. Followed by the can of coke and he dug deeper for something he forgotten to search for before. One of the reasons he watched the show.

The fan service outfits. Occasionally he'd sit and watch with his friends to see the girls (and guys) put on the outfit on and try an live and/or kill. Of course Sterling didn't intend to put it on unless there was real pants included. Because he had to wear shorts the day he was picked up by the government and dropped in (for what he knew) the fucking Arctic. He felt leather and began to pull, and there in his hands were a pair of leather pants. Sweet! Just what I needed. He thought looking at them, and then he turned them around to find they were missing something. An ass. He looked into the nearest camera and asked,

"Do you guys really want to see my hairy white ass in these?" He tossed them aside, and looked for the rest of the outfit. As far as he was concerned it made more room in his bag if it was removed, but when he found that it was a black leather vest and boots he decided to keep them both thinking both could be useful. He jammed the vest back, put the boots on, and somehow fit his sneakers in the bag.

With all that done Sterling opened his can of coke. Slowly pulling on the tab, for this may be the last time he would hear the physsss of a can opening. Then he took his first sip. He hadn't realized he was so thirsty, or nostalgic of the good memories that involved drinking coke. He took another slow sip before he heard a series of noises.

At first he thought that someone had avoided Sterling's search and attacked Bobby, but it didn't sound like a fight. So Sterling guessed that Bobby had found something useful to kill Sterling with to defend himself with. Sterling decided to look on the map while keeping a cautious eye on the hallway as he read the map.

To his relief he found they weren't put in the fucking Arctic, but the coldest place on a tropical island. Great. Then he bopped himself on the head with his palm. Bobby did mention the island before.

Sterling looked up when Bobby came back into the room, and looked at the results of Bobby's exploration. He recognized the shower curtain, it's rod, and the bars from the closet. All from the master bedroom. How the hell do we need the shower curtain, and how are we gonna be able to run with.. Screw it. I cross bridges when I get to them. Sterling nodded while he thought. Then he replied,

"Awesome," It was genuine. Despite the confusion over the usefulness of the curtain and cart the rod and bars could be useful. Sterling took another sip of his coke.

[The Bearded One*]

Sterling was sitting in the lobby of the lodge drinking his can of Coke when Bobby showed him what he'd acquired. "Awesome," he said admiringly.

Bobby saw that Sterling's backpack was open at his feet. I haven't done as thorough an inventory of my pack as I should yet. That's secondary, though. First, we need a plan.

"Since it looks like you didn't find any other kids hiding in the lodge, it's probably just you and me here for now. It's relatively comfortable here, and I'm pretty certain that neither of us is going to kill the other. So that leaves two choices: We can hole up here and wait for the game to come to us, or we can head out and start wandering the Island.

"If we wait here, we can do some reinforcement stuff and maybe make some defenses and barricades against unwanted intruders. You know, like they do in zombie movies. The downside of that is that it will be harder for us to get out if the producers turn this place into a Danger Zone.

"If we head out, just about everything is an unknown. We don't know where we'll find other people or supplies, and we don't know how kill-happy the other contestants have gotten. 'Course we also won't be able to join in other groups' escape attempts. My personal downside is this damn shopping cart; it just isn't built to move over any kind of rough terrain."

Bobby paused to see Sterling's reaction. "So what do you think?"

[Acidic*]

Damn it, let me finish my Coke first dude. But Sterling knew Bobby was right. They needed a plan, and Bobby gave the only two options they had. Stay and wait it out as long as they could, or leave and at least try and find their friends (and teams).

Sterling thought about it a bit. He liked the wait it out option, but he couldn't live with himself he stayed in this cozy (well, as cozy as this could get) lodge while his friends were more vulnerable to the hazards of the show. Even if it meant subjecting himself to them with only a hatchet to defend, and Bobby's weapons if he agreed.

"I guess I'd like to find our friends." He looked at the map after he said so. Seeing that the forest was the closest place to go do that.

"They might have better weapons, and safety in numbers." He moved a finger to the forest on the map,

"This is just as good as any place to look."

[The Bearded One*]

Sterling thought for a moment, taking another sip of his Coke before answering. He wanted to head for the forest to find their friends. Crap.

Bobby sighed. "I was afraid you were going to say that. I have no idea how hard it's going to be to get the cart down from here, but it's sure not going to be easy." He looked at the front door of the lodge, then at his overloaded shopping cart, then at Sterling sitting in one of the cushioned wicker chairs.

"Hey, do you mind if we have a lunch before we go? It'll help lighten our loads and give us energy for... whatever lies ahead out there." Sterling nodded, already reaching into his pack for something solid.

Bobby sat down in another seat, this one a plush 'love seat' with a red velvet seat. He opened his pack and thought about what to eat. The Clif Bars or the beef jerky would give him more lasting energy, but that could become more important later in the game. He grabbed a loaf of bread that was already getting squashed by the many other contents of the pack. He reached for the can of Coke in order to get rid of one of the heavier items, but then reconsidered. That's got a lot of sugar, which means a lot of quick energy. That's another one I should probably save for later. And the liquid is heavier than the packaging anyway. He took out a water bottle instead.

While he ate, he rummaged through the other contents of the pack. Aside from the food, drinks, and condom, he also found the first aid kit, a grey t-shirt with the shield emblem on the front, another t-shirt which was a slightly different shade of grey and prominently displayed an Adidas logo in the front (eh, the game gets sponsors from all over), and a pair of jean shorts cut so the legs ended only an inch below the crotch with red suspenders attached.

He pulled out the shorts and suspenders and showed them to Sterling. "I think I'd need to have a big bottle of sunscreen as my weapon if they expect me to wear these," he smirked. He put them back and zipped the backpack closed after he ate about a quarter of the bread loaf and drank half the bottle of water. "All right, let's see what's out there."

He opened the front door and pulled the cart out the door behind him. He was pleasantly surprised to see that the snow did not completely cover the grounds, only a specific, though large, swath of the hillside. He checked his compass one last time, then headed east trying to stick to the smoothest and firmest of ground so that the shopping cart wouldn't get stuck or topple over.

It didn't take long for the cart to get stuck in soft earth anyway. Bobby cursed uncreatively, kicked the cart, then abandoned it, taking only his backpack and the three rods he'd salvaged from the lodge. He wore the backpack and carried the rods under his left arm as he walked away from the artificial-snow-covered hill.

"Stupid fucking weapon draws!"


((Bobby Goldman continued in Establishing Shot))

[Acidic*]

Sterling pulled only two slices of bread out of his pack to eat. Compared to the Coke it was stale and flavorless. When Bobby showed Sterling his joke outfit Sterling laughed, but he really wouldn't mind seeing Bobby in it. He could imagine him in it no- and it was time to go. Sterling zipped his bag up with Bobby, grabbed his hatchet, and followed him out.

When Sterling saw that the ground wasn't covered with snow the star wished he checked before leaving, but didn't go back to change his shoes. As he went down the hill he looked around for others to pop out, but none did. Then Bobby's cart got stuck, and Sterling was about to help when his companion abandoned it. Carrying the items that were in it away, and Sterling followed.

((Sterling Odair continued Establishing Shot ))
((Thread Closed)