[8] The Survivors

[Piper Juunanagou]

“Cheers,” Piper muttered as she tipped her glass toward the center of the table. As the majority of her party downed their beverages, the medic simply placed hers back on the table and turned her attention down toward the empty space that lie in front of her. Although she hadn’t been hungry by any means, the woman had nevertheless figured it best to spend some time with the other contestants. After all, there was no telling when the next time any of them would ever see one another.

“Not thirsty?” Sophia asked after placing her glass down onto the cloth-covered table. With a shrug of her shoulders, Piper slowly began to run her index finger along the rim of the elegant glass. The healer, correctly interpreting the awkward silence to stand for some form of internal strife, frowned softly as she continued to look at the redhead. “Are you okay, Piper?” She asked as she reached a hand across the table toward the silent medic.

“I can’t drink alcohol,” the redhead shot back as she pulled her outstretched hand away from Sophia. “It doesn’t mix well with my medication,” Piper added as she placed her hands on her thighs and looked across the table at Kaden. The blonde was staring at her with a slightly flummoxed look on his face, but before he had a chance to remark, the redhead pushed her chair away from the table. “Excuse me, I just need to go to the bathroom,” she spoke quietly as she stood up and hastily departed from the table.

Although Piper didn’t have the slightest clue where the bathroom was in the restaurant, she made sure to walk with enough confidence that she didn’t instill any second thoughts in the minds of the others. After all, the last thing she wanted to do was show any signs of weakness or uneasiness, because there was no telling how deep Kai’s subterfuge went.

“Crazy talk,” the woman whispered to herself as she entered a small hallway. To her left and right, the corridor extended in both directions before curving off in the same direction. With a frown, Piper looked around for some sort of sign to point her toward the restroom, but the only things that hung on the wall were strange floral decorations and paintings of foreign places that she didn’t recognize. “Damn it,” the woman seethed as her eyes continued to dart between the two ends of the side hallway.

“Can I help you, ma’am?” A voice spoke from behind Piper as a cold hand fell upon her shoulder. Instantly recalling her little incident at the boutique, the redhead was quick to spin around to confront her aggressor. In a single, violent motion, she batted away the man’s arm and then grabbed his exposed throat with the same hand. With just a wee bit of pressure, the man collapsed to his knees and began to weakly pry at Piper’s unyielding grip.

Pay attention, now! As the voice resounded within the woman’s head, she suddenly realized that her ‘attacker’ was nothing more than a frail, orange-haired teenager in a waiter’s outfit. With a look of dread on her face, Piper relinquished her grip and slowly started to back away from the gagging adolescent.

“I’m sorry,” Piper stammered as she quickly made up her mind and darted down the hallway to her left. When she reached the turn at the end of the corridor, she disappeared around it and was rather relieved when she found herself staring at a door labeled ‘Women’s Restroom.’ Stepping inside, the redhead walked over to the nearest stall and slammed the door shut behind her.

Although she didn’t have to use the toilet, she nevertheless took a seat. Placing her elbows on her thighs, she cupped her palms and used them to prop up her head as she stared at the plastic door. All around the woman, the walls of the stall were covered with various pictures and crude sayings that had been chiseled into the plastic with pens or other sharp objects. Most were random remarks about men, although some were rather nihilistic in nature.

“‘God is dead’,” Piper read aloud as she rolled her eyes. “Clichéd if you ask me,” she sighed as she lifted her head up and let her hands flop down onto her upper legs.

Then again…what has the old Greater God done for you? A voice within her mind inquired as the woman tilted her head. Other than, y’know, throwing you two and a half decades into the past and allowing a bunch of vengeful ghosts to maul and torment you.

“That’s enough,” Piper spoke as she ran her right hand across the top of her hair. It was at that moment that the woman noticed that her left hand was shaking rather noticeably. A frown spread across the medic’s face as she clasped her other hand around the trembling appendage. “Shit,” she whispered as she tried to put enough pressure onto her hand that it stopped moving, but despite her best efforts, her limb continued to shake. This wasn’t the first time that the woman had experienced muscle spasms, and because of that, she had a pretty good idea why they were starting.

With a frown, Piper turned her attention to the bare spot on the side of her waist where her side pack had once been. Back in Olde Town, the medic had nearly had a breakdown right before the showdown that had left the old village in shambles. To gather the strength she had needed to emerge intact from that skirmish, the woman had essentially overdosed herself on her medication. Unfortunately for Piper Juunanagou, her dosage was beginning to wear off, and with it, she was slowly starting to come crashing down from her adrenaline-infused high.

Well this certainly explains the paranoia.

The thought caused another knot to begin forming within the woman’s stomach. Without her cocktail, she didn’t have the slightest clue how long she could hold it together. If her history before her journey into the past was proof enough, the answer was a rather grim one.

“Hold it together, Piper,” the woman mumbled as she started to rock back and forth atop of the toilet. “You made it this far…now it’s time to seal the deal and bring that madman to justice,” she added as her left eye began to twitch intermittently.

Now who’s to say that the real madman isn’t someone in your group? Maybe Kai’s just a red herring and one of those other contestants actually is some sort of heinous criminal? Piper’s subconscious remarked as the woman shot up off the toilet seat. With a scream, she kicked the plastic door with enough force to split it in two across the center. Stumbling out of the stall, the medic lurched forward until she found herself staring at her reflection.

“Come on now,” she whispered urgently amidst gasps of air. “I can hold it together,” she assured herself as her breathing slowly started to return to normal. A few seconds later, the woman’s tiny episode drew to a close and she found herself staring at someone who looked relatively intact and altogether.

See? That was easy.

“Yea,” Piper whispered in response to her own thoughts as she turned on the faucet and splashed some cold water on her face. “Everything is just peachy keen,” she added sarcastically as she ran a damp hand across her hair. Once the woman was certain she looked relatively normal, she calmly made her way out of the bathroom and back to the table. When she returned, she saw that the group’s food had all arrived, and everybody was already digging into their rather delicious-looking entrees.

“Did’ja fall in?” Kaden said jokingly from the other end of the table as Piper sat down and picked up her knife and fork.

“Nope,” Piper shot back with fabricated confidence as she started to cut into her chicken breast. From the other end of the table, Kaden arched an eyebrow as he watched the woman’s hands tremble as she tried to cut through the meat.