[BP] Game Night {Laney/Lucas/Arastoo/Kimmie/Dagmar}

[Shazari]

[POSTING ORDER IS: LANEY, DAGMAR, KIMMIE, LUCAS, ARASTOO.]

====================

Some of the food Fallon had provided for Game Night had been requests from students who were now dead. There wasn't a gentler way of admitting this.

Instead Laney had taken 3x5 cards, folded each one over carefully, and labelled them in a tight, precise sparkly gel pen hand:

'Gummy Bear Salad - Honoring Tara Kavanaugh'
'Saimin - Honoring Ignacio Araya'
'Wheat Thins - Honoring Abeline Froust'
'Gluten-Free Pasta - Honoring Quinn Saylor'
'Perrier - Honoring Viridiana Lombardi'
'Stuffed Kielbasa - Honoring Grayson Graves'
'Chicken Tikka Masala and Jalebis - Honoring Benson Beldon, Arlet Jahar, and Elle Hammel'
'Gyro Fixings - Honoring Euphemia Argyros'

Laney had a big wool afghan from Wholemart, zig-zags of light green and dark green color. She'd always liked it -- found it comforting -- because it seemed just like the sort of thing a loving grandmother might knit. She stretched it over the back of the couch in the common room, now, a metaphorical hug from a loved one which anyone could access without asking.

She didn't have many friends. She never had. But Laney had had Tara, and Tara didn't think it was such a transgression if they talked too long. Tara didn't think a lot of things were transgressions: in the end, she was an amazing sort of girl, the sort that you didn't find for a friend just every day. 'Was' -- no, not 'was,' wrong verb tense. Had been. Tara had been.

Laney stacked a sheaf of yellow papers, absently stacked them again, and a third time -- they just didn't feel quite straightened. Information About Bacterial Meningitis they advertised in urgent Arial Bold, though the school had sent around something vaguely similar. She'd spent hours on the internet researching it, though, and she'd discussed it with Tara, before -- before -- so it seemed wise to put together a disclosure on it to go along with the handouts she'd made about lint trap fire hazards, and the locked ladder on the fire escape, and the mildew ravaging the showers.

Wear your tinfoil cap whenever possible, her yellow flyer recommended, with burning loyalty.

She hadn't had so very many friends at all. Neither had Tara, she suspected. "We'll meet tomorrow, we will find a path," Laney sang quietly along with her laptop. It was set up on a card table next to the couch, and shuffling with soft dignity through a playlist Laney had made of good songs to honor their classmates by. "And reach tomorrow, past this day of wrath. We'll be together once again -- cling to your hopes and prayers till then."

There were so many students gone, most of them claimed by the illness -- now, despite the advice of the school board, students all tended to draw towards each other like magnets. They rarely went anywhere alone, perhaps afraid their fear and their sadness would brick them into the darkness like Montresor to Fortunato. There were fewer of them now, still putting on light-hearted faces for their classes and fighting through their work. They waited, hand in hand -- hoping the disease would have run its course. Yet still, each day brought some new announcement, cool and whispery over the loudspeaker: We regret to inform the student body...

The song plodded on without her, while Laney unwrapped a package of Dixie cups. "Give us tomorrow and another hour. Let our reunion come within our power. Grant one more chance to make a start that we may live for as we part."

No one will come, Laney thought pessimistically, stirring some of the foods Fallon had delivered with solemn punctuality. It would be a small memorial indeed.

She'd set up little tribute shrines to the students they'd lost along one wall of the room, and with each one, a frame with a metal lattice in the center about an inch thick, and a stack of post-its. No one was ever in the room when Laney visited, but somehow the students passed through like ghosts, and each time she returned, a few new post-its had been rolled into scrolls and placed in holes in the lattice. Farewell notes, wishes, confessions -- Laney hadn't looked at them. She hadn't looked at them, but she knew most of the notes on Tara's board were written in her own hand, wrapped in loving tinfoil just in case. It was how things were: there was always more to say -- and it didn't matter that there was always more to say. Time crushed on over them like a millstone, and they were dragged under and under and under. Their friends were gone.

Come say you love me as I kiss your eyes, counseled iTunes. Let one brief moment make eternal ties. If tomorrow is not in store, let this embracing replace forever. Keep us together evermore.

Laney straightened the tinfoil hat capping the still-pinched flowerbud on her plant companion. "Looks like it may just be you and I, Seymour." She'd hooked a string of Christmas lights between its waxy green leaves, for decoration.

But there was no one to show it to. There was no Tara.

There was a bed in Tara's room, but they'd removed all her things. They'd stripped the sheets off her bed, they'd shut all the windows. Tara no longer lived there. It took everything Laney had in her not to break into Tara's room with a set of sheets and a comforter, to make her bed back up with little hospital-corner tucks in the sheets, to lay out a pillow. It took every slow breath, exhale and inhale in a two-step respiratory dance. It took the bite of her teeth on the inside of her cheek. It took wrapping up in her afghan and hugging her pillow to death and making up flyers on bacterial meningitis and organizing parties and stringing Christmas lights on her plant -- it took all these things to help Laney survive the knowledge that there was no Tara to share any of them with. It took everything. And that was all. She was a sentence that ran on and on, piling clauses upon each other because there was nothing else to do when the punctuation was gone.

Laney without Tara was a question without a mark, an exclamation without a point. It was ( without ). It was all wrong.

She poured herself a ladle of apple cider and sat on the couch, cradling the Dixie cup atop her knees, while iTunes cycled into a Sarah McLachlan song.  

[Quirm]

Aggie hadn't actually known any of the deceased students personally except for what's-her-face, who she'd later - courtesy of some snooping and a few well-placed questions - learned was actually named Esen. Had been named Esen. Even though the, now dead, girl had been a bit of a mixed bag in Dagmar's experience, she'd wept rather unattractively at the announcement. But all the same, they hadn't been friends. Not even real acquaintances, when it came down to it, and that was how her relationship had been with most of the dead teenagers.
That didn't mean she hadn't seen most of them around at school, though, and several had lived on floor two, something that had, in Aggie's mind, made them automatic buddies even if they'd never actually talked. She'd already been by several times to leave post-it notes in the little shrines for her former dormmates, though most of them had silly things like 'I really liked your hair' or 'you never complained about the broken heater', and even one 'I'm really sorry you're dead'. She'd figured it was the thought that counted in a scenario like this, like with horrible homemade Christmas presents and half-forgotten anniversaries.

Still, she felt obligated to attend Game Night, though she still wasn't entirely sure what it was about or why. There'd been talk of honoring the fallen (bacterial meningitis was a cruel mistress, Barren Pines had learnt quickly) and secretly, Aggie knew she'd been pleased - relieved - that it was no-one she really knew, no-one she'd cared for that'd been lost to the infection. The feeling intensified each time the loudspeaker crackled to life and another poor victim was announced. It was a horrible thing to feel, she knew, and the relief had been in constant battle with her guilt ever since it'd shown its face.
And guilt was a powerful motivator.

So here she was, staring at the girl on the couch with her.. plant? and sorrowful music playing in the background. "Uh, hi. This is the Game Night, er, thinger, right?" Aggie'd raised her hand in a half wave and was smiling as disarmingly as she knew how to. The mood in here was heavy.  

[xo -- k a i r i]

((omgosh, I totally thought Arastoo was next 'cause of the title. SORRY x__________x -should learn to read-))

Kimmie didn't know any of them. Well...that was a little bit of a lie. She knew of all of them. She'd passed them in the hallway on the odd occasion, perhaps even had a quick chat whilst waiting in the lunch queue. But she wasn't anything more than accquantainces with any of them. She didn't know them personally. She didn't know when their birthdays were, what their favourite foods were, whether they had any pets or not. But...that didn't matter. They were all dead, all claimed by the meningitis. But Kimmie didn't think that was the cause. She'd heard all the whispers, the rumours. Heck, she still had bruises on her neck from where the bloody ZOMBIE had attacked her. And then those tentacles, and then...

She shuddered.

She couldn't even think about it. What if it had been one of her friends? What if it had been Marit, or Cameron? What would she do then? She just wouldn't be able to stand it. She couldn't even begin to imagine how close friends of the deceased felt.

To be perfectly honest, the Game Night was the last thing on Kimmie's mind. But she couldn't stand the thought of another night alone in her room, with her own morbid thoughts terrifying her under her covers. She turned the corner to the room, and nearly ran straight into another girl standing at the door. Long red hair, pigtails...had to be Aggie. Kimmie's fists clenched, the girl about to start an arguement...but then she relaxed. She couldn't - that was the last thing the school needed at the moment. With so many students succumbbing to the 'illness', the last thing they needed was the remaining students getting into fights. Sighing, she heard the mention of the game night, and poked her head over Aggie's shoulder with a weak smile.

"...Hey?"  

[Shazari]

(Posted on Iris's behalf smile

-Lucas had never been a great friend or a great boyfriend at that matter. He was inherently and unabashedly selfish in his cocky egotism, happily feeding off the love that was gifted to him without much of a thought. How many times had he blown off a true friend just because he was occupied with something else..? How many times had he forgotten about someone waiting just because his eyes were gaga over some new conquest?

He expected them to listen.. but hardly listened in returned. He ate up what they gave without offering back hardly a fair share. He cheated... he underappreciated... he was a bad friend.. a bad boyfriend. But that did not mean that Lucas Hendricks did not love those people he often did wrong to.

When he'd heard her name on the intercom, he felt the swirl of bile swell in his stomach, faltering in his step as he tore towards the door. It was like that horrible dream wasn't it? It HAD to be that! He'd go.. and she'd be just fine like last time right? She'd wrap her arms around him and whisper about what a worrier he was. Effie was fine... the intercom.. the intercom that claimed that her and her best friend were gone.. it was a lie.

He tore through the first floor, up the stairs and to the familar room. His fists pounded fevourishly against the door. She'd answer.. she had to. He knocked and knocked and knocked.. maybe she just wasn't in?

And so he waited.

For one hour. For five. While students walked by solemnly to classes Lucas sat with his back to her door staring and waiting, oblivious to anything but his task. He must have looked like a gargoyle there, still and silent, eyes and body an unresponsive ice to anyone that might have tried to address him.

As the morning became dusk however he could no longer convince himself of his lies. And he began to cry in a way no boy would ever wish to be seen crying, face digging hot wet droplets into his hands. His body hurt from sitting so long, but who ******** cared? Effie... his Effie.. she was gone. And it wasn't like 'summer vacation' gone. She wasn't ever coming back.

He howled and cursed words usually reserved for his most retarded or most challenging opponents into the darkening hallway, daring anyone to try to move him. Memories played before his eyes in a cruel montage. Their first date... her smiles... her vibrant and unselfish cheers at stupid gaming events that he was sure she didn't give a flying ******** about.. and her tears. Damn him if that wasn't he image that stuck the most.

He'd hardly been able to stop them before.. and now.. he'd never be able to. He'd let her down and he'd never be able to fix it now.

Exhaustion overtook the boy finally, body slumping against the wooden boundary, too tired and empty to dream of anything terrible. As if there was anything more terrible.

When he awoke finally, he clawed forward, trying to will a body full of cramped muscles and wiggling legs upwards. His hands pressed against the wall, trying to lead him anywhere that wasn't his room or hers.

When the familar smell of Euphemia's favorite dish touched his nose, he followed it instinctively, some spark of hope relighting deep within his chest, but it was dashed away as soon as he realized where he was.

The memorial... he'd heard about it.. had even planned to come to say his last respects to his friends. And now... one more too.

He looked quite literally like a zombie as he made his way past everyone in the room without notice.. clothing wrinkled and splattered with saline, long hair free hanging and wild. His eyes were red, his grimace tight.

He stopped by each memorial one by one, glancing at the familar faces that stared back through photographs and stationary. He knew most of them atleast through passing... but there were three in which he lingered the longest.

Ignacio... frequent meal time pal and friend for years. Though he'd always been competition for the ladies, Lucas had taken him more as a compatriot than a rival. What he wouldn't give for a bit of his optimistic pleasantness right now. A familar laugh and a grin... what he wouldn't give for that. He'd have to bring down something later.. not Nachos.. even if he'd always been one to tease him about that in the past. No something nice.. a picture maybe? Something from his panty wall. Ignacio would like that. Don't worry buddy, I'll bag you one more for the road his note proclaimed.

Abeline... Despite the fact that the beautiful dancer had been labeled the school's queen of ice... she'd always seemed so fiery to him. Her down right aggression and taunts... the way she always seemed to be around.. and even that last act of kindness.. that day she'd brought him food and (strange) condolences when Fallon had hit him. He'd liked her quite a bit, probably because of her apparent dislike of him. It was fun.. exciting. If only he'd known... He'd bring the plate back here.. as he'd never returned it. It is geniunely regrettable, that I never had the chance to add my fire to your ice. You were a smoking hot babe, no matter how cold people thought you were was etched onto one of the post it notes on her memorial.

Effie... He paused at her tiny shrine, trying hard to will away the hot moisture at his eyes again. What more could he say to her that he hadn't screamed at her door? Surely he'd be talking to her again and again in his dreams. In fact.. he could already imagine that scene from Final Fantasy 7 when the hero's girl gets run through right in front of him.. being replayed over and over in his head at night. Blood spreading across Effie's beautiful dress.. the feeling of her body going limp in his arms... ******** anyone though if they thought he'd let her body go into that water though. She'd be getting his first place trophy... his prized possession. For certainly.. it really didn't matter much to him now. And she'd always been a thousand times better than him in any way that truly mattered. I'm sorry was all he could manage to place on her memorial, before he turned away from it. Finally casting a gaze at his other companions in misery.

He didn't know what to do anymore.. Most of his friends.. the ones he considered the closest were gone. And Lucas felt so hollow. Grabbing one of the informative pieces of paper, he sat, staring blankly at the letters that made up words.- "I'm sorry." -He choked again. At noone. At everyone.-  

[Dark_Musashi]

Arastoo Pymedegauso was mostly known for his ability to survive without real social interactions during a prolonged time, as well as for the time spent reading science and math books in order to absorb even more knowledge every time. As a consequence, he didn’t personally know many students at all, not even those in the Pneumonia house like him.
The first announcements were surprising, as he hadn’t noticed anyone who could have been sick, but it didn’t touch him personally.
Euphemia Argyros’ death was a bit more of a shock. He had no idea there was another Greek student here, and he felt like he missed an occasion to… make acquaintance with someone who shared something with him.

But that’s only when he heard about Tara Kavanaugh that his shock turned into horrible realization that the bubble he’d locked himself into wasn’t immune from the whims of life. Or rather, death. Whatever.
He knew her. A bit (but a bit was largely enough for the redhead). They used to talk about logic, maths, and philosophy. She would tease him and mock him gently for his eccentric ways and his obsession with numbers. He would pretend to be offended for a minute, and then betray himself by spouting other weird statistics. Tara was not what he would call a friend, but she was definitely someone he’d gotten used to. She was a constant in the great equation of his life; a small number that could as well not have been there, but still left its tiny influence on the end result.

And now, she was gone.

That day, he realized there was something terribly wrong around here. He should have seen it coming. With his mental mathematical and geometric patterns, he could see so many things that most mortals would never notice. He saw hidden things about people that they themselves ignored, he predicted the logical outcome of his actions and the others’ (all with relative success). And all those times where he failed held no weight; they were only experiments that never doomed him to anything, unlike video games.
So, why could he not see she was ill? Why couldn’t he have predicted the meningitis would have hit so many people whereas everyone had been healthy before? Why aren’t the teachers affected, for that matter?
He took two red gummy bears – without these two, the bowl was almost perfectly balanced – and chewed on them with melancholy. Gummy bears… they seemed to fit Tara in his mind.
Ara looked around. Not many people. He only recognized one white-haired girl, who he had seen before.
Oh, right, the girl from the second floor, who he also ate during his sleep, apparently. Laney, something like that.
Since he was apparently fated to meet her, he walked in her direction. Maybe she was a missing link in his equation, another constant he overlooked because, like his now dead “acquaintance”, she hadn’t seemed to hold any sort of importance before. He was extremely calm and neutral, and was wearing a perfectly clean black shirt with assorted jeans, and most importantly, her body language told him immediately she was suffering. And blunt as always, he asked: “So, you’re the one who planned this, aren’t you? Who did you know here?”  

[Shazari]

"I knew them all," Laney answered wistfully. "Every single one. Don't you think so? I passed them in the hallway, or at the vending machine. They sat behind me in Biochem and in front of me in British Lit. They ordered breakfast from Fallon and dreamed dreams and wanted to live forever. They were my best friends and they were people who didn't know or didn't remember my name. Didn't we all know them?"

She took a step back. "Why don't you all come in and sit down. Help yourselves to something to eat, there's plenty -- and then maybe we can all introduce ourselves and just -- talk about things. About how things are going."

Laney was pacing -- even depressed, she couldn't seem to stifle her nervous energy, and now that several students had shown up, she wondered how to make it work. They looked lost, emotionally dwindling, and in need of friendship or attention. In need of a game night. "So, I'm Laney Sutton," she said for the benefit of those who weren't aware. "I live here on Two, I love Broadway musicals, and The Princess Bride is my favorite movie. Tara is the girl just left of center over there -- " She pointed to the stands. " -- and her dream was to go to deep space and to meet alien life. She believed in a whole world out beyond the stars, and she had this way of making you believe in it too. She was kind of offbeat -- and a lot of fun. She was my best friend.

"I'm doing okay," she went on, feeling oddly shy, "not so well in some of my classes. I find it a little difficult to think that it was just a disease that took them all away . . . it seems so unfair and purposeless. I just think people should be meant for more than the facts of the world. There should be more." She sat on one of the padded chairs. "So, hi. I'm Laney. I brought Monopoly, if you guys like it."  

[Quirm]

Aggie had started sniffling sometime during Laney's speech, completely caught in the moment in the way that Aggie often seemed to be. But she was so right! They were all a small family here at Barren Pines, isolated from the outside world and no-one to rely on but each other for company - you might not always get along with your family, but they'd always be there, right? Except now they were a bit smaller, a bit more lost without some of them. Bacterial meningitis had done that, and in that moment the maroon-haired girl hated that disease. When this was done, she'd take one of those folders Laney had that she'd heard about and she'd follow every goddamn little instruction and damn it, she'd go around slipping them under people's doors if that was what was needed to stop them from losing more of their friends, family, loves.

"Hi, I'm Dagmar Thorsen, but everyone calls me Aggie, and I'm the floor assistant here on Two and I only talked to Esen like, once, but I saw everyone around. I'm not really as good at talking as Laney is and I know I probably don't know what some of you are feeling, but my door is always open if you need someone to talk to." She'd stood up sometime during her small, blushing and embarrassed and oddly confident all in one. "Even if you don't live on floor two, too!"

She sat down, not entirely sure that she was supposed to introduce herself like Laney had and having lost some of the righteous confidence that'd driven her to follow the other girl's example; "And umh, I've never played Monopoly before, so go easy on me?"