Alas, He Had to Go
“Hey, shit… man, I-I-I didn’t mean anything by it, I mean, I see that I shouldn’t have thought that…” Aaron stammers as he attempts to explain himself, but Benton isn’t having any of it.
“You gonna see what this nigga’s fist can do to your face. I’mma go Worldstar on your candy ass!”
The first punch lands with a jarring thud, right in the center of Aaron’s soft abdomen. He squeals in pain. Staggering back against the wall, still upright, Aaron cries out in anger. “You’ll regret this! You think just because I’m white and like fedoras you can push me around, like white people can’t fight? Huh? Our civilization has a legit
history of fucking you people up in wars and shit! You actually think you guys can survive this place without me?” He takes up a strange fighting pose: his shoulders hunched over, his fists balled and by his side, and his legs spread apart. “I’m gonna make you eat your words, nigger, so you better watch out! Bankai! Yeaaaaaaargh-“
Benton’s next punch strikes Aaron square in the jaw, interrupting his yell. “I don’t do that Dragonball shit, yo. Hey, show me what else you got, white boy.”
Screaming an incomprehensible battle cry, Aaron rushes him with a wild flurry of punches. Benton is amused at first, fending off the attack like he would a child. “Is that all you got? Is that all you got?” Suddenly, Aaron ducks low. He steps on Benton’s toes, pinning him in one spot, and throws a punch that clips his ear. It hurts, just a little bit.
Fuck this shit.
Benton strikes back, full of anger. Grabbing Aaron by the collar, he unleashes a series of punches, hammering away at the other man’s head with no mercy. In between the hits he seems to hear Aaron crying for mercy both with his ears and in his mind, but there wasn’t going to be any mercy until the lesson was fully delivered. Finally, Benton's fist shoots out in a powerful hook that catches Aaron right in the temple. The impact twists and hurls him away. Aaron falls, hitting his head against the concrete wall on his way down with a painful crack. His neck turns awkwardly, and he slumps to the floor. Looking at his fallen opponent, Benton takes the opportunity to get a few more shots. He kicks Aaron’s forehead and stomps on his stomach, snarling in rage. “You like that, huh? You like that? Hit my face? That’s what you get when you mess with the best, bitch! Suck it down!” It takes a few minutes before he snaps out of it and takes a step back, breathing heavily.
He glances disgustedly at Aaron, who is convulsing slightly. “And stay down!” he shouts. Then, he turns to Edgar, who had been watching them fight without saying a word. “You got a problem with this?”
The homeless man does not respond. He looks at Aaron’s battered face instead. The fallen man is now utterly still. Kneeling down, Edgar makes two observations: that Aaron is not breathing any longer, and that there is blood trickling from his ears.
“Shit. What?” Benton realizes it too, and his heart skips a beat. “That ain’t right, man, I wasn’t hitting him to
kill him. He can’t be that weak, can he?”
Edgar merely stands up and gestures at the body.
See for yourself.
“Fuck. Shit. Fuck. The fuck is…” Benton had never had to cap a person before, though he’d known plenty of brothers who had done so. The feeling of watching a rapidly cooling body before his eyes, which ended up that way thanks to him… it is a strange feeling. But it's not his fault. He can't be expected to stand there and let a white boy punch him; they have taken enough from him already. “At least… at least no pigs are around. They can’t frame me for this. It was an accident. I didn't do nothing.... hey, no snitching, you hear? We're in this shit together,” he demands of Edgar. "Snitches get stitches, my momma used to tell me. So you should know what's good for you, dawg."
At that moment, a monitor that they had missed lights up.
“You know fuck-all, motherfucker!” Benton screams at the screen. The only response that he gets is that of the speakers crackling to life. The discordant notes of the second part of Stravinsky’s
Rite of Spring – The Sacrifice – begin to fill the corridors. “Fucking shitty-ass music again,” grumbles Benton, looking around him in bewilderment.
Edgar, on his part, is listening to something else: a faint scratching in the distance. Like the claws of a dog scraping on the tiles. Or perhaps something bigger. It seems to be coming closer, but he is unable to tell the exact direction of its approach. Not with the music playing.
“Hey, man. Come on, let’s go,” urges Benton. “Gotta find a way out of here. I'm not gonna stay around till that guy starts to rot.”
---
Group Choice (Benton & Edgar):
A. Head left, down the passage with the sign saying ‘Cafeteria’.
B. Go straight ahead, following the sign saying ‘Administration’.
C. Go right, down the corridor with the sign saying ‘Swimming Pool’.
---
Edgar’s Choice:
A. Can’t trust Benton. Even though he can read your mind. Gotta strike.
Now. Disable him. Then leave him for whatever
thing there is out there, to slow it down.
B. Need to survive. Not gonna die here, no way. Benton’s too violent and unpredictable to be around… you abandon him and run your own way.
1. Towards the Cafeteria.
2. Towards the Administration.
3. Towards the Swimming Pool.
C. You watch. For now, you just watch.
---
***
“Hey! Hey, can you hear me?” Caitlyn faces down the screen, snapping her fingers and waving her hands. “Can you stop this music? It is literally oppressing my identity! The sexist Classical music has long been a patriarchal tool used to exclude women from participating musical creativity on the grounds that they have a vagina! I cannot
believe that you would keep playing this genre when there are far more gender-neutral, egalitarian, empowering songs to showcase, I literally cannot even!”
Her shout fades away, swallowed up by the humid jungle. It seems to take the classical strings together with it, as they dwindle into silence. A second later, a different music begins to play. A grin splits Caitlyn’s face, and she begins nodding her head along to the beat of Beyonce’s
Flawless.
“That’s more like it. This song is much,
much better both musically and in the meaning that it conveys! But it is clear from the very fact that I
had to ask, that you don’t yet recognize your privilege.” Yes. She is flawless. She needs to own it. Girls rule. Caitlyn smiles to herself, feeling very empowered by the song.
God damn!
“Caitlyn?” asks Francesca, approaching her.
“What is it?” Caitlyn can’t resist snapping a little: she already knows what Francesca is thinking.
God-botherer.
“O-Oh, no, I don’t mean to bother you.” The older woman shakes her head. “But I was just wondering, what do you
really think of this place? Do you still believe this is something man-made?”
“What, why wouldn’t it be?”
“This is beyond man’s capability. Creating life… it must be the work of God. The natural ecosystem created here is so… natural! This is a test of faith, Caitlyn-”
“Right, whatever,” shrugs Caitlyn, interrupting Francesca before she can finish. “I’m not very interested in talking about something I don’t believe, Francesca.”
“But why? God is real, as you can see from everything around you.”
“All of this can be done with science,” snaps Caitlyn. “Like… science like…” She realizes that she doesn’t really know a lot of about science, and falls back on, “Look, I read that it could be done, alright? It is a mark of your internalized misogyny that you are letting a patriarchal religion cloud your thinking, Francesca. Wake up.”
You’re lucky I’m not in a bad mood, or I’d eat you up alive, she thinks bravely.
Francesca shakes her head again, frowning. “I... I see." She decides to back off for now. "Well, perhaps we should try to find a way out of here, then?"
On their way down, lowered from the cage, they had spotted a few strange structures in the jungle that could be worth looking at. Caitlyn has a rough idea of where they should be headed, but she wonders if they should really be going on any expeditions at the moment. Someone might arrive and rescue them. Perhaps it would be better to try and set up camp first.
---
Group Choice (Caitlyn & Francesca):
A. Head for the stepped pyramid.
B. Head towards the glass dome.
C. Head for the giant cross.
D. Try to find a suitable place to set up a base camp.
