Are You The Complete Player?

2/2 DO YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE?

Krystupas was heading over to Carmella’s bunk with two cups of punch in his hands. When he got there, he saw Chloe Lavigne already sitting by her side, comforting her. He hesitated, not knowing if he should approach. What if they were having a private girl talk like his sister would sometimes have with her friends when she was upset? He knew better than to interrupt those. He sipped his punch just as Chloe looked over her shoulder and spotted him. 

He watched as she said something to Carmella then got up and walked over to him. At the same moment, a sound began blaring like an alarm. Chloe seemed startled by it and jumped, nearly falling right into Krystupas who almost spilled his drinks. A few other people screamed, thinking there was another fire or that it was time for the next challenge, but it turned out that the sound was quite literally a false alarm. It was just the intro to Beyoncé’s song “Ring the Alarm” which was undoubtedly another one of WIC’s twisted jokes. 

“Are you OK?” Krystupas asked Chloe, who was still recovering from the scare. She had her hand over her heart as if it were beating very fast. 

“Yeah, I think so,” she breathed. 

“How is she doing?” Krystupas asked, nodding towards Carmella. Chloe shrugged.

“I’ve been trying to talk, but she hasn’t said a word,” she responded. “Maybe you’ll have better luck.” She shot him a sympathetic smile and then headed back towards the dance. Krystupas went over to Carmella who was laying with her back to him.

“Hey,” he said. She didn’t answer or even move to acknowledge his presence.

“I brought you some punch,” he added awkwardly. When she still didn’t respond, he added, “It’s pretty tasty, actually. You should try some. It wasn’t easy getting it for you. Some of the players are fighting over quantities back there in case there isn’t enough for everyone. I almost had to fight Drew Martin for this cup. He said I was being a punch hog and tried to take it away until I finally convinced him it was for you and I’m not really taking double portions for myself.…” he was rambling and he knew it, but he didn’t know what to say to her or how to comfort her. He had seen Carmella distraught before, but this time it seemed different, more serious. WIC had really thrown her a personal attack by killing Selene while her special song was playing, the one that reminded her of her grandmother. It was understandable that she was upset, still it killed him to see it.

“Come on, Mela, say something…” he said quietly, almost to himself. Surprisingly, she seemed to hear him because she turned around to look at him.

“What did you just call me?” she asked. Her eyes were red, and her features were a bit swollen from crying. It both broke his heart to see her that way and caught him off guard how pretty he thought she still looked even in the worst of moments. He suddenly felt nervous for reasons other than figuring out how to comfort her.

“M – Mela? It just came out, I don’t know,” he said, letting out a short laugh.

“No one calls me that except my friend Brigitte,” she said, sitting up and pulling her pillow onto her lap so she could hug it. “And well, Will.”

“I guess I must have heard him mention that name before and it stuck with me,” he said. 

They exchanged a silent glance until she finally spoke again.

“Why did you have Selene killed?” she asked sadly. Krystupas walked over and took a seat beside her, handing her the drink he got her.

“It’s not like I wanted anyone to die,” he explained. “I was just forced to make a choice. It was either someone else, or you and me both.”

“You don’t know that,” she started. “Maybe if we hadn’t chosen, WIC would have—”

“WIC would have killed us both and you know it,” he said. She looked him in the eyes, then down into the cup in her hands. The punch was a deep, dark red, almost the colour of blood. WIC’s favourite color, she would bet. She knew Krystupas was right; she just hated that WIC put them in that position. She hated WIC so much generally. 

“And Selene was… well, she was the first person who came to mind, mostly because I found her very annoying, but also because she wasn’t a good person,” he added.

“That doesn’t mean she deserved to die,” Carmella said. Despite the nasty colour of the punch, she found herself very thirsty after all her crying. She had also swallowed a bit of salt water during their journey to the island, which had left her throat feeling parched. She tasted her drink. Krystupas was right, it WAS good. Sweet, fruity, and comforting. It was similar to the kind her mother used to serve at her and Will’s birthday parties when they were young. She took another, longer gulp. 

“No, but then again, no one here did. I want you to know that I’m fighting for us to get out of here alive,” he said. “And that wouldn’t have been possible if I didn’t make a choice.”

To his surprise, Carmella suddenly wrapped her arms around him and cried into his shoulder. He held her for a long moment and let her release her emotions.

“Do you really think we’ll get out of here?” she asked. “Do you think they’ll really give me back Will, alive and unharmed?” Krystupas thought about that.

“I don’t know,” he finally said. She pulled away from his embrace to look into his face as he spoke. “But I do know that WIC hasn’t really lied to us yet. Whoever this is, is a sick, twisted psychopath who is very literal in everything they say, but also true to their word. It’s how I knew we had to make a choice or really die. From what I’ve observed, WIC doesn’t bluff. That leads me to believe that if they promised you Will as long as you win this thing, they’ll deliver.”

“But, Krys…” Carmella said, her eyes still brimming with tears. “They also said only one of us will make it out of here alive. What if—”

He silenced her by putting a finger to her lips. 

“Don’t think about that now,” he said. “Look how many of us are still here.”

He glanced back at the other players, more of them had joined Luis on the dancefloor by now and some of them actually seemed to be enjoying themselves. He looked back at Carmella.

“This game is far from over. Which means we still have time to…” he trailed off. He didn’t want to say the words out loud in case WIC was listening (and he guessed they probably were) but what he wanted to say is that they still had time to figure out a way to outsmart them, to escape, to win this thing together. “We still have time,” he simply said, hoping Carmella would know what he meant.

She looked at him quizzically for a moment, thinking about his words but finally nodded. 

“Are you feeling better now?” he asked.

“A little. I mean, as ‘better’ as I possibly can be under these crazy circumstances,” she said, finishing off the rest of her drink.

“I know what you mean,” he said. It was true. Things were never really good in this place, even feeling “better” was still bad. “Do you want to go back to the dance?”

Carmella looked from the others back at him. “We don’t really have to dance, do we?”

“God no,” he said quickly, then worried he sounded like he was rejecting her.  “I mean, it’s not that I don’t want to…with you… it’s just that I really don’t dance at all.”

She laughed at that, despite herself. He seemed a little bit flustered, and she thought it was cute, mostly because she could relate. Dancing, especially fast-paced dancing, usually brought attention on people. Carmella was not the kind of girl who enjoyed attention and she avoided dancing as much as she could. “I really don’t either,” she said.

“Good,” he responded with relief. “Because I was kind of just thinking we’d hit up the snack table before the others eat everything. Sound good?”

“Yeah,” she said, laughing. “That sounds good.”

He stood up and offered her his hand. She took and stood but upon standing began to sway a bit, suddenly feeling very dizzy. 

“Carmella?” Krystupas asked in concern as he felt her grab onto his arm for support. “Are you alright?”

“Something’s…. wrong…” she slurred right before slumping onto the floor and hitting her head hard on it. 

“CARMELLA!” Krystupas screamed. It was the last thing Carmella heard before everything went black.

                                                           ***

“Will! Oh my god!” she screamed.

She could see him standing in the yard of their parents’ house, her sweet brother, drenched in blood.

“What happened to you?” she asked him, frantically.

“Go back inside, Mela, it’s okay, I’m okay…” her brother said weakly. 

“You’re not okay! Oh my god, have you been stabbed?!” she screamed.

“Please, just go inside,” he pleaded. Then she heard a noise and realised they weren’t alone. When she looked over, she saw someone else standing there, brandishing a knife. A dark look was on his face. What was he, of all people, doing there? In her parents’ home? 

“Carmella? ….. Carmella? Can you hear me?”

                                                           ***

Krystupas had carried Carmella back to her bed and was softly shaking her, trying to rouse her. What happened to her? One moment she was fine and the next she collapsed. She hadn’t mentioned feeling sick. 

“Carmella?” he repeated. 

After a few moments, she finally opened her eyes again. Krystupas breathed a sigh of relief. She had hit her head pretty hard, that sort of injury could kill someone.

“Carmella!” he exclaimed. She blinked at him, a confused look on her face. She was obviously very much out of it.

“Will…” she said so quietly it was almost a whisper.

“No, I’m Krys,” he said. “Krystupas. Do you know who you are?”

“Will…” she repeated.

“You’re not Will,” he said patiently. “Your name is—”

She suddenly shot up, the confused look on her face now turning into a panicked one.

“I remember now! I remember someone hurting Will!” she exclaimed.

“What? Who?” Krystupas asked, shocked, and concerned. He wasn’t sure that Carmella was not just imagining things after hitting her head.

“Drew Martin.”