ItIsJustMe

CLOSED -- Chat thread for writers involved in "The Survivors"

Added a little CS right under Annelise’s profile (same post).

@Xandrya

I'll add him to the Character's list tomorrow. Right now, I'm going to bed.

FYI, my characters are all ready to get some sleep and head into Day 2 EXCEPT for possibly Peter, who may or may not still be in a conversation with Autumn. If Autumn's post ends up with Peter not needing to reply, then personally, I am ready to move on to Day 2.

Thoughts?

"The Survivors"

Medical Tent Bravo

Samantha turned to leave the tent, badly needing some air, but stopped when she realize how she looked. Much of the front side of her scrubs were covered in blood after the failed attempt to save poor Jenny's life. She didn't want those outside the tent to see her like this, even though she was pretty sure that the rumor mill was already spreading the news that they'd lost another life to the savagery of the C-130's crash landing.

She looked back to Dr. Biermann, finding him standing over the dead woman with his hands in his pockets and head lowered. He removed his glasses and wiped a tear from his eyes. The emotion and gesture resulting from it surprised Samantha. Biermann had thus far seemed so ... unemotional about what the community was going through thus far, so to see him shed a tear over losing another patient was somewhat of a shock to her.

She found herself feeling empathy and sympathy both for him. Samantha had worked Emergency Rooms for years, and she'd seen Doctors lose a great many patients after automobile accidents or gangland shootings or violent domestic disputes. After a while, most of them ceased showing the deep emotion that came with losing someone on the table. Oh, it didn't mean that they were unfeeling monsters or anything like that. It's just that they often became desensitized to the losses.

Samantha found herself very content with seeing that Heineken could still feel in this way.

She crossed over to a makeshift shelf unit, shed her bloodied scrubs, and slipped into a lightweight vest. The sun was threatening to disappear for the evening, and she knew that it was going to get much chillier very quickly once darkness arrived. Outside, she found the Mission Coordinator standing only a dozen yards away; she was obviously waiting for news about the emergency surgery.

Crossing toward Carol, Samantha only shook her head. The other woman's eyes instantly welled up with tears; Carol and Jenny had been friends as well as Mission coworkers, and of all the losses thus far, this ranked at the top as the most devastating, side by side with the loss of both of little Autumn Fitzpatrick's parents.

"I'll get the crew to begin digging," Carol said, referring to the preparation of yet another gravesite. "We'll wait until dark. Everyone doesn't need to see this." When Samantha nodded her agreement, Carol asked, "How's the Doc taking it?"

Samantha wasn't sure whether or not she should be speaking for Biermann. She replied, "He's keeping busy with the other patients, but ... you might want to check in with him at some point."

"I will," Carol said.

She took Samantha's hands in her own, asked if she had time to take a rest or at least get some food, then hugged her tenderly. When they parted and Samantha headed away, Carol looked off toward the forest's edge and caught sight of Paula's recon' team returning. She hurried over to them wanting badly to hear what they'd found.

"That's incredible," she said after the team informed her of both the abandone airstrip and the freshwater creek. "We'll check it out more tomorrow and think about moving the camp there. We have to be close to water."

"What about rescue?" one of the other survivors nearby asked with a harsh tone. He gestured a hand out toward the surf, asking, "How we gonna see a ship out there if we're all living in the jungle?"

Others who'd come closer to hear about Paula and Desmond's trek joined in the conversation, and within seconds it was a full blown argument about what the community should do. Carol called for quiet, then again, and finally a third time before she had the group's attention.

"We're not going to abandon the idea of rescue, people, trust me," she promised. "We have to move the camp to a place close to water ... but that doesn't mean that we can't station people here on the beach--"

She gestured toward the mountain above the forward portion of the C-130's fuselage, continuing, "--or even up on that peak to look for and to signal a ship or a plane if we see one."

Most conversation followed about who would man the lookouts, with some of the survivors volunteering while others argued that they shouldn't be forced to stand watches. Carol found that argument odd, believing that anyone and everyone would be willing to keep on the lookout for rescue. But apparently, there were a handful or more of survivors who thought that they were above such labor.

"Listen! Everyone listen!" she cut in again. Once relative silence prevailed, Carol finished, "We'll figure all of this out tomorrow. Nothing has to be decided tonight. For now, go back to whatever it was that you were doing and don't worry about tomorrow and moving and rescue. We'll deal with that tomorrow."

People began breaking off and returning to what they'd been doing. Carol concluded some conversations with people who simply had to ask more questions or make more comments. Finally, she got a break and turned to look off to the west, where the sun was about to disappear into the sea, just to the south of the island's west end. It was so beautiful that it made her forget what she was facing at the moment.

"The Survivors"

Peter stared dumbfounded at the little girl he found standing before him as he stepped out of the jungle after better hiding another of his caches. He was at a loss to explain where she'd come from, as well as what she was doing here. His great fear, obviously, was that she'd seen him moving this particular stash of resources back into the woods a bit more, hiding it between two large fallen trees that themselves were well hidden withing large clumps of ground foliage.

Peter recognized the little girl after a moment but without being able to recall her name. He looked up and down the beach for either her parents or other prying eyes. The nearest persons to the two of them were a pair of guys down the beach by the camp, standing in the surf with long wanna-be-spears; they were trying unsuccessfully to recreate the four years later scene from Castaway in which Tom Hanks so skillfully killed a fish with a spear from a good hundred feet away.

Looking back to the girl, Peter was surprised to see her wave and smile to him; he couldn't help but chuckle -- short and sharp -- at the big gap left by the recent loss of one of her baby's teeth. He smiled back, saying with a bit of nervousness in his tone, "Hi. How are you?"

Peter immediately felt stupid for asking such a question and quickly followed up with a more relevant one, "What are you doing here?" When she didn't answer, he asked, "Shouldn't you be back at the camp with your folks...? Your mother ... father ... whoever?"

Still, she just stood there smiling at him politely, which began to bother Peter to no end. Nosy little brats were the last thing he needed if he was going to keep his hidden goods hidden. A thought suddenly came to him, and smiling more broadly to her, he asked, "Hey kid, you like candy?"

As soon as he said it, Peter realized the mistake he'd made. His heart leapt in his chest with the fear of the girl remembering her stranger danger lessons from grade school and screaming out for help against the bad man. But again, the little girl just smiled at him.

Removing and unzipping a pocket of his backpack, Peter withdrew one of the candy bars that he'd found in one of the many personal packs that he'd found during the darker hours of his salvaging. (It hadn't been just Mission supplies that Peter had filched and hid away.) He took a couple of steps closer, leaned down with a friendly smile, and offered the candy bar out.

"You can have this," he told her with a soft tone, still not realizing that she couldn't hear a word he was speaking. He added, "But only if you don't tell anyone that you found me down here in the woods alone. I was, um ... I was ... taking a nap ... yeah ... and I was supposed to be working ... like the others ... but I'm so tired. I just needed to nap for just a few minutes. I'm sure you understand that, right...? You take naps once in a while, too, right?"

"The Survivors"

Day 1 - The Clearing, just short of sundown:

Paula Kennedy's recon' team had an easier go on the southwest side of the abandoned air strip than the that of the team led by Desmond D'Vaughnt. The terrain here was mostly flat, and even the jungle was less cluttered with undergrowth, making the use of machetes almost unnecessary.

Because of this, they covered the full southwest side and the northwest end of the old landing area by the time Paula thought they should turn back. She suddenly realized that she should have told Desmond to meet them here, at the most northern corner of the clearing.

The ease of the trek was the only good thing about their walk through the woods, though. They found no source of water, be it a creek or spring. Paula hoped that the other team might have better luck. If not, a second expedition farther north or east of the clearing was going to be necessary, and that would likely require an overnight stay in the woods.

Paula wasn't really interested in camping out in the jungle so early in their occupation of the island. There was simply too much unknown about their new and hopefully temporary home. She wasn't an expert about the islands of the South Pacific, but when she'd been asked to join the Mission's Security Team, she'd downloaded dozens of internet files about the region to her phone and began perusing them whenever she could in an effort to learn about the potential dangers. Her greatest concerns were such things as ferocious animals, poison plants, and -- of course -- pirates.

She found that while there weren't any lions, tigers, and bears, oh my, there were indeed a significant number of poisonous and venomous things that could easily take a human's life. And while they weren't as common as she might think after having seen Six Days, Seven Nights about thirty times in her life, pirates were, in fact, a possibility all across the South Pacific.

"Let's get back," she told her trekking partners once they'd searched the woods a bit north of the northeast corner of the strip. She pointed not the way they'd come but directly south toward the center of the clearing, comically ordering, "That'a way, kiddies."

As they traveled at a much quicker pace from one corner of the strip to its opposite in the south, Paula imagined the possibilities of the clearing that had once likely served small aircraft, possibly even smuggling planes. She was a realist -- always had been, always would be -- and while she hadn't said this to the others, she knew there was a possibility that the survivors of the C-130's crash could be here for a long, long time.

As she walked, she imagined a vast farm growing the food necessary to keep the community fed. They did have, after all, bags upon bags and boxes of seeds, tubers, and saplings that had been intended to revitalize Tongalo's agricultural economy. And they had stock animals, too: chickens, ducks, hogs, and both dairy and meat goats. Some of the seeds they had were intended to be raised as stock feed. Animals gotta eat, too, she reminded herself, to make them big and fat so that we can eat them in turn.

Paula and her travel mates arrived at the south corner of the strip where they rested and replenished until the other team arrived a good time later. She could see by their haggard appearance that they'd had a more difficult hike. She was quick to snatch up bottles of water and protein bars, telling them, "Take a squat and rest before we head back."

Before Paula could even ask if they'd been fortunate enough to find water, Desmond eagerly announced the good news. She told him with glee, "Thank God. I was really getting concerned."

As she listened to his report, Paula couldn't help but pick up on the younger trekker's body language and facial expressions. At first she thought maybe he was just exhausted, but as the man she knew to be his stepfather continued, Paula thought maybe she saw anger or disappointment in his eyes. And his clenched fists were all too conspicuous.

She wasn't about to ask anything about the young man's thoughts now, though, so once Desmond was finished, she told everyone to drink up and pack up, then off they went back to the camp.

(OOC: I'm going to write my response to the death scene and Peter/Autumn scene in separate replies.)

CLOSED -- Chat thread for writers involved in "The Survivors"

@ItIsJustMe

So I intended for their interaction to end there aside from Annelise who would come back to give him something for the pain. It's more so to establish their meet and greet so to speak.

What I had in mind was making him a secondary, background character. No major ideas yet but someone I could ocassionally use when not interacting with one of your characters. But if any of you guys want to pick him up, feel free! Sometime today I was gonna do a small CS for him.

@Xandrya

Got it. Perfect. By the way, I added him to the list of characters just so we remembered him.

For both of you, we have 10 unnamed characters left. They can be primary characters with profiles; secondary characters used for banter and interactions; or sacrificial lambs to be killed later. We only have to remember that once they are used up, there's no one else.

Of course, maybe we'll have a second group of people show up at some point, sort of like they did with "Lost". We'll see.

CLOSED -- Chat thread for writers involved in "The Survivors"

@ItIsJustMe I'm gonna write up a reconnaissance character in a moment that I've been working on for a bit, but idk if I want him to find water sonce he's an ass and will just be even more of an ass about being the one to find water, lol, though maybe that could be fun?
As for the rest, I'll get to Autumn's discovery of Peter and Heini's loss of Jenny in a few minutes, just woke up here haha

@Baphomini

The fridge is working, and one of the Mechanics is on his way to tell that to Biermann. I don't know if you want to write a response to it or just let it go. You're call.

Let me know whether you want to discover the water or whether I should. :)

"The Survivors"

Day 1, early evening:

As she reached her left hand out to the refrigeration unit's power switch, Camille La Cour raised her right hand to cross herself. She looked up to the heavens while thinking to herself Don't blow this fucker up, please. She understood the irony of simultaneously partaking of the religious gesture and the profanity.

Drawing a deep breath, holding it, then releasing it slowly, she flipped the switch. The electric motor jerked to life, followed quickly by the needles flipping to the right on a dozen dials indicating pressure, temperature, flow, and more.

After almost a minute, Camille realized she was holding her breath in anticipation. She let it out in a shriek of delight. Looking to her right-hand man, she ordered, "Go tell the Doc the good news: his fridge is up and running and getting cold, fuck yeah."

The man hurried off to find Doctor Hienmann. The Head of the Medical Team had expressed his concern that morning that they find a way to keep vital medical supplies refrigerated, and now they had it.

It hadn't been easy. The cooler in which the medicines had originally been housed had been damaged during the C-130's crash. To power it, Camille had to refit it with parts from the plane itself. The problem was that she couldn't remove the parts from the plane's fuselage without damaging them.

The solution had been to install the fridge inside the wreckage of the transport plane, rather than remove the necessary plane parts and take them to wherever the Doc wanted the cooler to be placed. If the mountain won't come to Muhammad, Camille thought to herself.

She heard footsteps inside the wreckage and turned to find Tino and Aroho Hanare entering. Camille liked the married Māori couple. They were happy-go-lucky types, always wearing a smile, even considering the situation in which they and the other survivors found themselves.

"What's happening?" Camille asked.

"We need more wiring," Tino announced. "You mind?"

"No, not at all," the Mechanical Chief said. She looked about the interior walls of this portion of the wreckage, adding, "I don't see this thing flying again, so I don't think anyone's going to mind."

The couple went to work, stripping wiring from the walls and rolling the lengths for transport. They shared farewells with Camille, then headed into the jungle near the edge of the current camp. There, they'd been assembling the intact cages to keep the stock animals safe and secure. Using the wire, they bound limbs and poles together to make pens for the pigs and goats. Later, they wanted to build coops for the chickens and ducks, too, but that could wait for now.

"How's it going?" a female voice asked from nearby. The couple turned to see Carol Kingsley approaching. She smiled at what she was seeing, saying, "Makes me want to sing Ol' MacDonald."

"Thanks, boss," Aroho said. "We got a lot of help from the kids, too. They deserve a pat on the back."

"Well, I'm going to get everyone together around the fire tonight for a little update of our situation," Carol told them. "I'll be sure to give them their due ... or, better yet, you two should."

The three of them talked about the farm, it's needs, and its future, at which point Tino asked, "Does it have one...? What I mean is ... do you think we're going to be here a while? Is rescue coming soon or not?"

Carol didn't have an answer for that question as of yet. She only told them, "I'll talk about it tonight ... okay?"

"The Survivors"

Camille La Cour, Mechanic (Technical Services Chief)

Image

Female, 34

Nationality/Ethnicity/Languages:

• French citizen.
• French and Belgian parentage.
• First language is French; seconds are English and German.

Marital Status, Sexual Orientation: Single; heterosexual yet willing and even eager to experiment with other women, too.

Physical Description:

• 5'7", nicely shaped.
• Dirty blonde hair; green eyes.
• Multiple tattoos in interesting areas; some are erotic in nature.

Psychological Description/Personality:

• Confident and strong.
• Realistic; she understands and accepts that they may very well be screwed.
• Dedicated and loyal to those who deserve her.
• Flirtatious, sexy; a bit of an exhibitionist.

Family, Education, and Career:

• Her family lived in the suburbs of Paris, France.
• She grew up a tomboy, a middle child with brothers as sibling bookends.
• Her father, an automotive mechanic, taught her engine repair.
• She was schooled in equipment and engine repair.
• She earned several certifications in the repair of industrial equipment.
• She took a job with a humanitarian mission in South Sudan, meeting Carol Kingsley.
• She was in Sydney when the Tongalo mission was announced.
• Carol invited her to join the mission, which she happily did as Technical Services Chief.

Other and Direction for your Character:

• Camille loves new adventures.
• She understands the situation and its potential hazards, yet in which she and the other survivors are in, she will find being stranded on the island as an adventure.
• I see her becoming involved in helping to build a thriving community.
• I also see her making new friends and finding new lovers, primarily male but possibly female as well.

CLOSED -- Chat thread for writers involved in "The Survivors"

Xandrya, did you want one of us to write James? Is so, PM the lucky winner an idea for a storyline. :)

CLOSED -- Chat thread for writers involved in "The Survivors"

I don't want to rush things, of course, but I'd like to push on to Day 2 soon. The interactions I see needing to be completed for Day 1 include:

• Peter and the little girl at the edge of the forest.
• The survey group returning, which I can finish on my own UNLESS one of you wishes to be the one who finds water.
• Doc Biermann and Jenny.
• Doc Annelise and James.

Are there others?

I don't see the need for more from the Documentary team. I figured that could wait until Day 2. Thoughts?

Am I missing anything?