Welcome to Gaia! ::

For about the first ten seconds after the door spoke and the loudspeaker came on, Tara was excited. Something strange was happening. Something totally unexpected. This was the stuff that got Tara up in the morning.

Then, as the voice kept going, her excitement left. Devoured, like a cake at a birthday party, until all that was left was a hard lump of terror in her heart. Tara wasn't afraid of strange situations, but she was very, very afraid of death. Pain, she could mostly handle. Blood? No problem. But death was final. Sure, cryogenics had some awesome stuff, but there wasn't enough development for it to be a sure thing. Once you were dead, you were likely to stay that way.

Tara really did not want to die.

She stood, paralyzed, while the others took their turns, said what might be their final words, and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. As each girl survived, Tara's odds at survival got even worse. Possibilities streamed through her frantic mind. She could not pull the trigger. But then they would all die. If whoever was doing this could lock them in a room with an unloaded gun, she didn't doubt they could poison them. If Tara was dying, she would do so by preventing the deaths of others.

She could shoot at something random. Maybe even use the bullet. But the voice wouldn't be satisfied with that, and they'd probably all die anyway.

She could shoot someone else. As long as someone died, the voice would be happy. Tara looked uncertainly at the others. Esen was stiff but certainly not shootable. The new girl seemed okay. Elle annoyed her- who showed up to Science Club stoned?- but could she justify shooting her? No. In a calmer, nonlethal situation, Tara would play up her own potential contrubution to the world. She was determined to change it, and would anyone else? Not the way she could. But staring at death stripped her of her illusions. These people were all capable of saving lives and making change. If she deprived the world of even one of them, she wouldn't deserve to live in it.

Tara had some of the steadiest hands in school, but they were shaking badly as she took the pistol. "If you're listening," she shouted angrily, "this had better be one hell of an experiment. You hear me? If this doesn't save lives and help us talk to aliens I'll... I'll come back and haunt you. Don't think I can't. They have all kinds of proof of ghosts these days..."

Her voice wavering as it trailed off, Tara swallowed and held the pistol to her brain. "Second floor. KAV-39. I want Laney to have the telescope..." Tara swallowed again. This might not be it, she reminded herself. This was just a precautionary measure. The odds were still in favor of her not dying. She could do this. "Laney gets the telescope, but you guys can have the rest. Tell them..." She swallowed one more time, and flashed a smile. "Tell them I did my part for science."

It took all of her willpower, but she kept smiling as she pulled the trigger.

Elle took the gun again as Esen made it through her second try, and spun the chamber a little shakily, trying to increase her chances in some way. She didn't need Esen's little downer speech, she didn't want to think that in a few moments she might be dead, or if she didn't pull the trigger at all, they would all die. She'd had so long to think about it, to watch the girls pull the trigger, her mind whirling but she could do little more than keep herself from crying.

The girl closed her eyes, lifting the gun and drawing in a shaky breath, feeling the lashes of one eye get wet as a tear leaked through. ********. She could do this, it wouldn't hurt even if it was her and...

"I wish I could bang Micky O'Connell one more time..." she sighed, and pulled the trigger.

It just kept going. It would never end. After her turn, Tara had shakily passed the gun back to Esen and shut her eyes. She didn't watch the others take their turns. It was too unbearable. But nothing could shut out the words that might have been their last. Nothing could shut out the eerie silence that permeated the room. And nothing could shut out the click of the trigger as it was pulled. Once. Twice. Three times.

Tara opened her eyes, trembling worse than ever. She couldn't even pretend to smile now. She hadn't seen Elle spin the chamber. All she knew was that the odds were definitely stacked against her now. Chances were good that she wouldn't make it past another round.

While they were taking their turns, Tara had been thinking. But nothing was coming to her. If they tried to escape, the timers would go off. If they tried to dig out the timers, they's possibly accidentally set them off. They were being watched, and if there was a solution, it escaped her. There was only one course of action, and she couldn't stall anymore.

"My turn?" she asked quietly, reaching over to take the gun from Allie. She had to force herself to keep her eyes open. Her hands were shaking so badly, she almost dropped it. Gulping, she tried to steady herself and tightened her grip on the gun. In her haste, gripping it a little too tightly. Especially around the trigger.

Tara knew what was going to happen a split second before it did, but there was nothing she could do but be horrified at what might happen. The gun, still pointed at the girl she took it from, was about to go off.

[Got OOC permission from the other players to do this, but if it's no good, lemme know and I'll redo! heart

Elle's eyes widened as she saw Tara's trembling fingers settle on the trigger, disbelieving her eyes as she saw the girl squeeze it, aimed right at Allie. As the gun went off, she jumped, and stared awestruck at Tara. Had that really just... FRICKIN HAPPENED??! WHAT THE HELL?!? The dark-haired teen sat stock-still for a moment and lunged forward to grab the gun away from the shellshocked teen, pulling it away and holding it pointed at the ceiling.

"What the hell, man?!" she cried, staring hard at Tara, looking over at Allie. Fortunately or unfortunately, the girl had been spared. And that meant that it was still Tara's turn. They only had sixty seconds to pull the trigger again, and Elle would be damned if she was going to point that gun at her head again. What were they supposed to do? Tara was obviously too shaken to hold the gun, there was just no way that she could be trusted to turn the gun on herself.

She hesitated for a long moment and although under normal circumstances the decision she reached would horrify her, she grimly turned the gun on Tara-- it was HER TURN, but there was no way in hell she was giving her the gun again, not after a stunt like that-- and before anyone could stop her or her hands could start shaking or she could talk herself out of it or the timers could go off, she pulled the trigger, acting on sheer impulse, powered by survival instinct.

Allie's teal eyes were wide as the other girls were trying to shoot each other now. It had started as an accident when Tar took the gun from her. Thankfully she'd been saved, but now they were trying to kill each other. Was that still part of the game?

Esen's smile as she tried to shoot Elle gave the dark skinned girl the willies, waking her up to the fact it was time for action. She moved and grabbed the gun from Esen, backing from the others enough to have a shot...in case they wanted the gun back.

"You're all bleeding mad, you know?" Allie yelled at them, pointing the gun at each in turn. "You're so prepared to off each other...but not me. I'm not going to let a bunch of crazies like you be the death of me, no bloody way. I'll do it myself, thank you...then you can carry on trying to off each other."

Allie put the gun to her own head, hoping the game would be over soon...one way or another. She pulled the trigger.

Elle gaped at Esen as she snatched the gun away, her eyes going wide as she pointed the gun at her, holding up her hands defensively, starting to beg her not to shoot, to just give her a second to prepare herself, but Esen clearly thought she was the enemy, pinning the blame for this entire messed up situation on her. Man, did she wish she was stoned right now. Had some awesome bud in her room that she'd never get to toke.

THIS WASN'T RIGHT.

Then the sound of the hammer in the gun clicking against thin air made Elle stop still, watching Allie take the gun numbly, unable even to contemplate that she'd nearly died, that she'd nearly killed Tara, all of it happening too fast and her whole being was just telling her to move, to do something, to somehow get through this, as the overpowering knowledge that not even her resourcefulness could get her out of this slowly crippled her from within.

Elle was still numb when Allie pointed the gun at her in turn, and when Allie turned it on herself, wincing at the click as if she'd expected to see some brains instead of a very alive Allie. She didn't say a word as she moved foward, grabbing the gun back and pointing it at her own head, staring at all three of them.

"Man, look at us... look at us! We need to calm down and go back to the order.. come on, we can do this!" she intoned in a shaking voice, flushing as even her usually level-headed attitude capsized on her. This was real in a way that so much of her life was not, and, if the bullet was in this chamber, in a way that her life would never be again. This time the tears were rolling down her face as she pulled the trigger.

Tara was terrified.

She nearly shot- no, she did shoot someone. She nearly killed someone. She was nearly killed. She watched her classmates shoot at one another. She watched the new girl shoot herself, sending the group back into the game properly. Hah, game. It was all a game to someone, but Tara was sick of playing. If she could have she would have shot wildly into the ceiling, but that would doom them all, an infinitely worse fate than shooting at a person. Everyone dying was not acceptable. Nothing about this was acceptable, she wanted to scream. She was done, she wanted to scream. But she couldn't.

And then, Esen set the gun down in front of her.

Kill or be killed. It was a hell of a choice. Except it wasn't a choice, not really. Tara was no less afraid of death. Illness and injury and disaster and mental health could all be repaired, usually. Death was final. If she screwed up, there would be nothing she could do to fix it. There was nothing scarier than that. Or so she had thought.

But Tara could still feel the sheer horror of having thought she'd killed someone else. The panic of having blood on her hands, of having deprived the world of what it might need to survive. Now that she had looked both death and murder in the eye, she knew which one was worse. Her choice was already made.

She wasn't sure when she had started crying, but tears were streaming down her face as she picked up the gun and, hands shaking as badly as ever, pointed it at her head.

"I'm sorry." What she was apologizing for, exactly, was unclear. They might never know.

Elle grabbed the gun again, she was so sick of hearing that little clicking noise, of the feeling that that timer was resetting and counting down each time it went off, ticking inexorably to one or all of their deaths and it was killing her by inches. Now she levelled the gun at Esen, though the girl had just touched her hand before to take the gun from her, though she was another human being with a life just as real and valuable as Elle's.

All of it was breaking down, going to s**t. She couldn't adapt, couldn't keep up, couldn't focus. Get a grip on yourself, Elle. Get a grip, honey. You can do this. The tears were still drying on her face, not sure how much longer their luck would continue, and had only counted two seconds from turning the gun away from Allie.

"...green hair," was all she said as she pulled the trigger.