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They arrive as a group.
There's a sort of safety found in numbers that Joel hasn’t experienced before, it's hard to say if he enjoys it yet.
The neighbour's base looms, silhouette stark on the horizon as night falls, its shadow stretches in inky tendrils that try to root him to the ground.
It’s suffocating.
Even though they’re a group Jimmy strides ahead, he’s tripping into creeper holes in the hazy dusk light.
He's on a mission to save the last of his dignity, because it wasn’t ever really just about a frog, was it?
A shooting pain rockets through his neck and Joel flinches. Each footstep is followed by him turning to check Grian is still behind them. The tongue-in-cheek comments are grating, it takes a lot not to completely lose it.
(If he’s honest, he’s not sure how much he has left to lose.)
Joel contemplates killing. There’s not much else to do as a red.
When every second counts you learn to revel in the chaos, thirst for bloodshed, and dream of the way each moment will slip through your fingers and silence the insatiable hunger known as desperation that eats and eats and eats until nothing is left but the desire to kill.
Then he shakes his head. Pushes the thought to the darkest corners of his mind where it can do little more than keep him up at night.
They’re allies, they’re a team. It’s a mantra of sorts. It's not quiet enough to silence it completely, but it will do for now.
Jimmy calls out to Pearl and Big B, its echo beckons them inside with low haunting tones as it ricochets off stone walls. As they enter the warm amber of torch light spills onto their dark clothes and Jimmy gets straight to the point.
“We need to talk,” the two members of the opposing faction exchange confused looks and after a few seconds of deafening silence Jimmy reluctantly elaborates, “It’s about Judge Judy and Executioner-”
The rest of the conversation fades to white noise as Joel isn’t listening, instead, he spends the time utterly distracted by the fact that Pearl doesn’t seem quite herself today. Still familiar, but in the way his gut tells him they’ve met before, but of course they’ve met before because it's Pearl - even though it's also not.
She just seems… different .
There’s a nasty cold going around the server, it must just be that. He has better things to spend his time thinking about anyway.
“The main person in this C-plot doesn’t even remember it!” Grian groans from his stance in the doorway stepping closer inside to inspect the deceit-filled walls. If Jimmy hears the comment he doesn’t acknowledge it.
“Is this one person or three?” Pearl questions as Big B frantically tries to salvage the situation, whisper shouting that it was only one over the chaotic groans and snickers. Pearl responds with a nervous laugh that gets stuck in her throat, although the curiosity behind her previous question did seem genuine.
But when was anything ever as it seemed.
“It’s Judge Judy and Executioner,” Jimmy’s face falls a little, as he repeats himself. He looks back at Joel for reassurance that he knows he can’t give, for at the end of the day it was just a frog.
Pearl steps forward to meet Jimmy on the gravel. Each step is filled with newfound confidence and all Joel can think is how nothing good can come of this.
“Actually,” Pearl begins, “ I know exactly where Judge Judy and Executioner is,”
_______________
Pearl doesn't know where Judge Judy and Executioner is.
She thought she killed that frog last week, but apparently whoever is puppeteering her body doesn't know that. She can’t blame them too much, that storyline never really did make it mainstream.
She's itching for control. Every minute is spent aching to have her fate back in her own hands, the last time it was bonded to another, she remembers how that had ended far too well.
The ‘bad boys’ have been talking far too long for her liking. She wants to do something about it with her in two hands- maybe make back some time.
The conversation continues but Pearl isn’t listening, because suddenly she’s falling.
Falling fast and hard towards the ground, bile rises in her throat with the faux sensation of her stomach falling and she can't do anything.
She can only watch.
Watch as her body is moving without her, limbs that refuse to abide stuck in a stasis. She tries to fight it, it's not enough. She can’t feel the way the wind would have pushed against her skin, would have been roaring against her ears to drown out the fast-fading screams of delight and despair. They’re all the same.
A blur of yellow, canary yellow, reminds Pearl she is not alone in her descent, and cements her fate. Through eyes that aren’t quite her own she spots arms that should belong to her desperately reaching out in the hopes a selfless hand will save her. Her own wings curl around her hollos body, they cradle her, in an attempt to soften a deadly fall, they gently wipe the tears streaming from her eyes.
Tomorrow Pearl will rise from the ashes as a red name. She will kill and gorge herself on the lives of friends, she will close her blood smeared eyelids, she will open them and see nothing but a world painted red.
But tonight, she falls.
Tonight, she dies.
Tonight, she curses those cruel beings above, she’s learnt better than to call them gods.
_______________
Gods, this wasn’t real, was it? Big B was frozen watching as Grian paced back and forth, his face switching between glee and something else he couldn’t make out. By now all shouts had come to a halt, silence fell over the room, a heavy blanket, a twisted source of comfort from the sickening sound of crunched bones.
Cautiously, he followed the others to where they stood at the edge of the pit, the pit that Pearl should have known about. She wasn’t herself today, from how she parted her hair to the way she approached everything with the body language of a feral cat, he’d blamed it on the boogeyman.
It wasn’t the Pearl he knew, the Pearl that he trusted but he’d kept his mouth shut and now he was looking down at nothing, nothing but a blood-stained floor, the only thing that proved that they were once there. He watches as Grian rushes out the door, Joel follows shortly after, frantically reminding everyone that Jimmy now only has seven hours left.
Big B isn’t alone for long, Pearl returns soaked red and seeking an explanation but in that time, however short it was, he wonders if he did something then maybe things could have gone differently.
_______________
“There were buttons on the floor Tim-”
“Why did you push them?”
“Because I’m me!'' Jimmy was in front of him, the sight of those infamous yellow wings so rumpled was a clear sign of his distress, even if they weren't, the frustration was plainly written on his face.
Grian found himself being grabbed by the lapels of his jacket and braced himself for the shake that never came. Instead, he felt the grip relax but not completely let go.
He looked up from the ground and saw the white-knuckled fists that lay limp at Jimmy’s side that pitiful desperation in his eyes. He looked away just as quickly.
“I need my time back,” Jimmy paces, letting his grip go slack and Grian tears himself away, “You can’t just kill me!” but Grian knew that he could just kill him.
Heading towards the bread bridge Jimmy trails behind.
Grian wasn’t particularly sure why he pushed the buttons, it wasn’t like he had to do it, or it was some carefully crafted plan. It wasn’t like the entire base floor was covered in buttons to disguise the fact that one of them probably did do something. It wasn’t like he wanted to kill him.
But it still happened and Jimmy still died.
Another hour lost, another hour he couldn't get back.
But this time he could .
Grian couldn’t give up his own life- no it’s not that he couldn’t, he didn’t want to. Alliances in this game were never meant to last, he knew that better than most.
Jimmy was never particularly aggressive as a red name, usually found calming down others. Yes, he was frantic, yes he was desperate, but wasn’t everyone grian searches his mind for a memory that shows true anger? But He can’t seem to recount a moment, except from right now.
Tim only wanted to survive, but this time to survive you needed to kill.
It was strange, he was almost proud really. He laughed to himself, shaking his head at the thought.
The thing that he finally decided to grow a spine over was that damn frog.
_______________
6 and a half hours.
Jimmy hears the smiles and tries to force one of his own. Joins the choked laughs that follow his pitiful announcement of pitiful amount of time he has left.
It had to be a joke. Every time game Jimmy curses himself for thinking he would ever live long enough to see another die a proper death, he doesn’t think that’s a lot to ask. The merciless hand of death, always that much colder than he expected, always coming far too soon whether it be at the end of a sword or his own naivety.
It would be so much easier to accept it. Everyone dies in the end, the cycle continues but he wants to live. He is going to live.
He runs to catch up.
390 minutes, he can work with that.
He’ll kill if he has to, and he’ll do it happily if he gets to live. If they want him to, he’ll scratch and bite and live a little more with each drop of blood spilt.
23,400 seconds, it’s all he has left.
He steadies himself, they make a plan; they promise him more time.
(It's not enough.)