“You know what that is?” Mari asked.
Russell studied the "billy club" in his hand, blazing with a newfound confidence that only hydration and the sweet, sweet taste of having the upper hand in a confrontation could bring. Mari hadn’t taken her eyes off his weapon, her lips pressed tight. He could see the gears turning in her head, sizing up her odds. She didn’t like them. Neither did Russell, really, but the fact was, he held the cards. Or at least one dangerous-looking stick she seemed deathly afraid of.
“Yeah, it’s my thwackin’ stick,” he said. He jerked his chin towards the tarp. “How long’s pretty-boy gonna be out there?”
Mari’s eyes stayed locked on the grenade — though she hadn’t called it that yet — and she gave the smallest shake of her head. “Dunno.”
Russell smirked, mostly at himself. He had to admit, it was wild how well this stupid bluff was working. A part of him felt bad, but not bad enough to stop. She’d held a hunk of rust to his neck earlier, so, really, this was just karma balancing the books. Still, just to be sure, he gave her spear a casual nudge with his foot, sending it clattering across the floor.
He moved to the tarp, easing it aside. The tide pools sparkled in the golden hour glow. The place might’ve been beautiful, if not for all the trash, and the fool who was bashing a busted pinball machine with Russell’s old walking stick. Each swing Hotness took with the stick was punctuated with a bellow.
“Level me up, god dammit!” THWACK. “Fucking. Piece. Of. Shit!” THWACK.
Russell let the tarp fall back. “That guy’s a moron on a mythological level.”
Mari’s glare cut just as hard as her spear ever could. “If you’re gonna talk, then talk,” she snapped. “But stop shaking that thing around, okay?”
Russell plopped himself down on Hotness’ crusty cardboard bed, ignoring how gross it was. He’d sat in worse — his own pee and puke, both in just the last few hours alone — and right now, he just wanted something between his ass and the cold, hard ground. He swept a pile of petrified napkins aside with a lazy flick of his flip-flop and the indifference of a half-assed housekeeper clearing out a cheap Vegas brothel.
“I’m Russell,” he said, his tone flat, neighborly vibes long gone. “I think I heard the guy call you Mari, right?”
She stared at him for a beat, long enough to make it clear she wasn’t a fan of small talk. Finally, she gave a nod, but that was it.
Now that he got a better look at her, Russell pieced it together. Even without the spear, Mari was all sharp edges. Her don’t-even-think-about-it attitude and her dark eyes had the kind of weight that made you feel like you’d already lost whatever fight you were thinking about starting. The braid running halfway down her back was thick, almost menacing. Everything about her said she’d been in more scraps than she cared to count. Definitely not someone to mess with.
And yet, here he was.
“Do me a favor, Mari,” he said, pointing to Tumzy, perched on the beverage cart like a prize at a sad carnival. “Fill my friend up, would you?”
He almost cringed at calling Tumzy his friend. The stupid panda was most likely some rigged-up prop, part of the production’s twisted game, but Tumzy was also his golden ticket to getting water out of this cave. There was no way he was lugging that cart down a cliff.
Mari didn’t move, sizing him up again. “We don’t got much left,” she said, her voice flat.
“Oh, I know,” Russell said, giving the grenade a casual shake. “I don’t feel good about any of this, but if being an asshole is what gets me out of here, then guess what? I’m King Asshole, first of my name.”
Her jaw tightened, but she finally let out a huff of frustration. With a look that could curdle milk, she dragged the cart closer to her raft, flipping open the hatch and unscrewing Tumzy’s beret.
“Fill up my tum-tum-Tumzy!”
Russell froze. His eyes darted around the cave, worried that the hallucinations had returned. His grip tightened on the grenade. “You heard that, right?” he asked, his voice uneasy.
Mari didn’t move for a second, then gave a wary nod, like she wasn’t sure if she was dealing with a lunatic.
“Good,” Russell said, swallowing hard. “Good. Well, uh, best do as Tumzy says.”
Mari worked the cap off the first water bottle, slow as a slug, making a show of struggling with it. Russell wasn’t buying it. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, the grenade resting in his lap.
“Let’s talk about boats,” he said.
Mari didn’t look up. “What’chu mean?”
“I heard you when you came in,” Russell said, nodding toward the back of the cave. “You said a guy found a boat. That boat’s gotta be the one I came here on. So tell me where it is.”
Mari’s fingers paused on the bottle, then resumed their deliberate twist. “Maybe you don’t listen so good. Shoji is a liar. Ain’t no boat.”
“Who’s Shoji?”
“A liar. Bad person.”
Russell snorted. “If he’s the naked guy throwing rocks, I agree. Dude almost got my—” He stopped short, thinking better of oversharing about his close call at a crab castration. “Yeah, bad dude. But if that bad dude knows where to find my boat, then I gotta find him.”
The water began to trickle into Tumzy’s open top. Mari poured slow, her eyes flicking between the panda and the grenade in Russell’s hand. “I get it, you know,” she said, voice softer now. “Day one. All you wanna do is bounce out.” She wiggled her device at him. “Call it quits, go home. Yeah, I remember that…”
Her words trailed off, and Russell’s gaze shifted to the wall above her makeshift bed. He hadn’t noticed it before, the black soot marking six short hash-marks. Six days. Had they really been here that long? The thought gnawed at him.
“I just wanna know what the fuck is going on,” Russell said, his voice rising. “You and the pinball wizard out there really seem convinced we have to play this shit, but I’m here to tell you we don’t. So, come with me, back to the boat. Even the idiot outside can come.”
Mari scoffed, shaking her head. “I ain’t going nowhere with you, man. You’re dead and don’t even know it.”
Whatever chance Russell thought he had of getting through to her fizzled. He swung the grenade around like a conductor leading a symphony, adding flair to his words with wide, careless arcs. Mari’s eyes tracked every movement, growing wider with each reckless swing.
“Think whatever you want,” he said. “I’m not dead. All I did was get drunk and fall off a boat. That’s never had consequences for me before. All I have to do is get back onboard.”
Mari tipped the empty bottle in her hand, shaking it lightly to show she’d done as he demanded. Tumzy, now almost half-full, sat in front of Mari with a reserve that barely reached her belly button. Russell frowned at the waterline, giving her a once-over.
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“More,” he said. “Tumzy’s a big girl. She’s got room for a couple more.”
Mari’s lips tightened, her eyes flicking toward the spear lying just out of reach. Russell saw it, too, and tightened his grip on the grenade. The message was clear: don’t even think about it. Mari exhaled through her nose — it might as well have been steam. But she buried her anger and reached into the cart for another bottle.
Russell pulled the tarp back, just enough to peek out. Hotness was a picture of failure, slumped by the tide pools with his stick tossed to the side. He sat with his hands on his knees, staring at the sunset like it had personally insulted him.
“Tell me where to find Shoji,” Russell said, letting the tarp fall.
“You’re wasting your time,” Mari said as she twisted the cap off another bottle. “You can’t trust him for shit. Lost his mind, like, day two. He hasn’t found no boat, I promise you.”
“Well, how about you let me go ask Shoji, and I’ll see what I can find out?” Russell leaned forward, the grenade balanced in his hand. “Just tell me where he’s at.”
Mari’s eyes dropped to the grenade again, and Russell caught a flicker of something in her face — contempt, sure, but maybe something else. Fear. His guilt tried to sneak in, but he shoved it aside. He wasn’t the one with days of fresh water sitting in a cart. His gaze wandered past her, to the soot-streaked walls of the cave. Black char, thick in places, and blasted back in explosive movement. Black soot on the boulders, black soot on the walls... What the hell had happened in here?
“We chased him into the jungle,” Mari finally said, voice flat.
“You guys don’t like the jungle, do you?”
“Hell no.” Mari flashed a sharp, fake smile as she poured a second bottle’s worth of water into Tumzy. “But if you wanna go for it, you do you.”
Russell matched her smile, just as fake. “Pour another bottle, how about?”
Her shoulders stiffened, but she grabbed a third bottle, the cap twisting off in a snap of broken plastic. Her tongue moved like a snake striking from the darkness as she cursed him in Spanish. If looks could kill, Russell figured he’d already be a smoldering pile of ash. Still, she poured. He had to give her credit for that much.
“It doesn’t have to be this way. I said you guys could come with me,” Russell said, gesturing broadly, his grenade-free hand sweeping the area around Hotness’ makeshift corner. “But if you’d rather take your chances here, at Jack-Off Mountain, then that’s on yo—”
He stopped mid-sentence. Something under the layers of cardboard and filth caught his eye. A corner of glossy paper, sticking out like it didn’t belong. He remembered seeing it earlier when he’d been tearing through the cave looking for water. Back then, it hadn’t been worth a second glance, but now, with a moment to think, his curiosity got the better of him.
Keeping the grenade steady in his other hand, Russell leaned down and plucked the glossy paper from beneath the mess. It wasn’t just a scrap; it was a photo. A professional headshot, no less.
Like everything else on the island, the picture had seen better days. Its edges were frayed, scratches cut across the image. But there was no mistaking Hotness. His face stared back in over-the-top Hollywood lighting, the kind that screamed serious actor — or at least wannabe. Even better, he was wearing the exact same outfit as now, down to the grease-slick hair, a look made with gallons of product instead of days without bathing. At the bottom of the headshot, a name in bold font: Conrad Rock-Hard.
Russell laughed as he flipped the photo around to show Mari. “He’s an actor? Seriously?”
Mari didn’t so much as flinch. Her expression stayed flat. To her, this was old news, and that only made it better for Russell. The pieces started falling into place in his mind, clicking together the poorly-written plot twist. He tapped the photo with his grenade like a wizard who’d finally cracked the spell of all-seeing.
“Oh my god. It all makes sense now.”
He thought back to long nights on the couch with his roommate Wayne, playing Big-tittied Warrior Woman Saves the Day. The game was jam-packed with bumbling background extras — villagers, shopkeepers, hapless cannon fodder. They weren’t heroes, just simpletons meant to make the world feel alive. In gamer terms, these nobodies had a name: Non-Playable Characters. NPCs. The supporting cast to someone else’s story. Every production needed a supporting cast, and just now, it hit Russell: he’d found his.
“You’re just an NPC!” Russell said, pointing at Mari. “That’s why you can’t tell me how to quit. You’re just a quest-giving asshole!”
Whatever guilt Russell was having about stealing their water was immediately wiped clean. These weren’t real people — they were characters. Props with a pulse.
Mari stood up slowly, measuring how much trouble Russell was worth. “Hey, Russell, or whatever your name is,” she said. “I ain’t no NPC. So don’t call me that.”
Russell barely heard her. He was too caught up in his own epiphany. “Right, right,” he said, holding up his hand like he was calming a toddler. “You’re not NPCs — you’re actors. Playing a role. Real-deal actors.”
Mari exhaled hard, the kind of sound someone makes when they’re done explaining something to a brick wall. “You just don’t get it, do you? You’re so fucked, bro. You ain’t gonna last a day.”
Russell snatched Tumzy from in front of Mari, screwing the cap tight with a smug twist. He gave a lazy shrug, there was nothing she could say to bring him down. “You know, I was wondering why you were so freaked out over my little club here, but now it clicks. You’re acting scared. Playing your part. Gotta hand it to you, though — top-notch work. Bravo. I’m sure the Academy will be calling any day now.”
He strolled toward the tarp, dragging out his charade with every step. “Sorry to piss on your big break, but you might wanna leave this role off your resume. Something tells me this production’s gonna get tanked in post. Bad press, lawsuits, the whole nine yards.” He glanced back, pulling a fake sad face that made him look like a drunk theater kid. “So tragic.”
Mari crossed her arms, rooted to the spot, her expression unreadable except for the venom in her eyes. She didn’t try to stop him. Instead, she said, almost conversationally, “You know, this is almost worth losing the water.”
Russell paused, halfway through shoving the tarp aside. “Oh yeah? How’s that?”
Mari looked down and smiled, then tilted her head toward the object in his hand. “Just knowing you’re walking out of here, thinking you’ve got this place all figured out. Thinking it’s all fake. Meanwhile, you’ve been holding a grenade this whole time, too stupid to realize it could blow your dumb ass straight to hell.”
Now, that stopped Russell. His eyes dropped to the so-called billy club. He turned it over, narrowing his gaze, and yeah, he could admit it — he’d been a little hasty claiming this thing as his Excalibur. But hey, desperate times. Here in the light of the cave’s mouth, under Mari’s smug scrutiny, he started seeing the little details he’d blown past. The old metal casing. The wooden handle. The faint, faded markings that screamed vintage military hardware.
His brain finally stumbled into the party, late and a little drunk. He’d seen this kind of thing before, during the few times Wayne swapped his RPGs for hardcore WWII shooters. Stick grenades. Stubby little bombs on wooden handles, just like the one in his hand. Heavy, authentic, and built to blow things to hell. If it were real, anyway. But Russell dismissed the thought — it was just another well-made prop, designed to crank up the immersion of this bat-shit production.
Immersion, he was realizing, was all that mattered. Russell knew now, without a shadow of a doubt, that this was his game. And in his game, he was the main character. Nothing could hurt him. He had the strongest armor of all: plot armor.
“Huh,” he said, tossing the grenade up and catching it, as carefree as a baton-twirler. “Would you look at that.”
Mari hit the deck like he’d just shouted fire in the hole. Russell let out a sharp laugh, the kind that says you’re ridiculous and I’m loving this all at once. “Now that’s how you commit to a role! You and the dead guy back there — hell of a cast.”
Mari peeked up from her cowering position. She glanced toward the back of the cave, then back at Russell, her expression screaming dead guy, what the fuck?
Russell waved her off. If he wasn’t so sunburned, he’d be red in the face from chuckling so damn much. “No notes! You’re killing it.”
For his final flourish, he stepped onto the spear, bending it just enough to snap the rusted license plate loose. He stomped the deadly metal for good measure, then kicked the whole mess into the shadows, letting the clang echo through the cave like a closing curtain.
“And, scene!” he said, forming an imaginary clapperboard with his hands and snapping it shut. With a smug grin, he placed Tumzy around his neck and ducked out through the tarp.
Behind him, Mari didn’t move. Her hatred sat heavy in the air. Much like the grenade in Russell’s hand, Mari had become a powder keg just waiting to go off.
----------------------------------------
Russell was halfway down the boulder pile when the license plate came whistling past his head. He ducked instinctively, but not quick enough. A sharp sting shot through his sun-scorched arm, and when he looked, blood was leaking from a freshly cleaved wound on his bicep.
“What the hell!” Russell spun toward the cave, clutching his bleeding arm. Mari stood at the entrance, framed by the tarp with its bold, flapping declaration: FUCK OFF. If she were the hero in a fantasy novel, those two words would be her house motto. And she looked every bit the part — fierce, unflinching, full of fury that matched his own.
But she wasn’t the hero. That was Russell’s job. And she’d broken the unspoken rules. Supporting characters don’t take cheap shots at the lead. And they definitely don’t try to give them a case of tetanus.
“I told you,” she said. “You stealing the water, getting blown up. It was almost worth it,” Her voice was calm and venomous. “But nobody steals from me.”
Then she turned, calling out to Conrad, who had turned away from the sunset like an awakened ogre. “Ay, C! Look who I found.”
“You Muppet FUCK!” Conrad roared, launching to his feet.
Russell’s stomach dropped. Mari came leaping down the cliff-face with ease, Conrad thundering across the tide pools. A spider and a bull, coming at him from different angles, and they had nothing but violence on their minds. Russell didn’t wait to see what would happen when they reached him.
“Oh, shit,” he muttered, bolting for the tree line as he gripped Tumzy close to his chest. The loose rocks slipped under his feet as he scrambled, high-stepping like he was running hurdles. His new flip-flops weren’t doing him any favors, but he couldn’t ditch them. Not now.
To buy himself some time, Russell held the grenade high above his head, waving it like an Olympic torch of doom.
“I’ll do it!” he hollered over his shoulder. “Don’t test me!”
At the tree line, he chanced a glance back. His threat had stopped Mari, who had one hand clamped on Conrad’s arm, holding him back.
“You’re a dead man,” Conrad spat, his voice booming as he pointed to the jungle. “Go in there, and you’re a fucking dead man.”
“Uh-huh,” Russell said, stuffing the grenade into the waistband of his leggings like it was no big deal. “Think I’ll take my chances, Mr. Rock-Hard.”
Conrad’s face was a storm cloud, brewing by the second. He snarled, spat at the ground, but didn’t move any closer. That alone was victory enough. Russell flashed them both a big, triumphant middle finger before backing into the thick green wall of jungle.
He didn’t stop moving for ten minutes, pushing through the never-ending tangle of vegetation, ignoring the sweat pouring down his face and the sting in his arm. Hell, it felt good to sweat again, and the cut on his arm a badge of honor from his first skirmish in this lunatic game. Proof he’d survived something. The shouting from Mari and Conrad had faded, swallowed by the uncomfortable hum of the jungle. Everything was alive around him, but he couldn’t see any of it. He almost missed the sound of the ocean waves. Almost.
Then, the device on his wrist chimed. Russell stopped, glancing down. His own sunburned face stared back at him on the screen, the bird-flipping avatar the device had made him take earlier. Before he could curse it out, the little cartoon version of himself strutted onto the screen, this time decked out like a pint-sized foreman. Hard hat, hammer, the works. The little guy squinted up at the avatar like a sculptor sizing up a block of marble.
Then, in a blur of cartoon chaos, the little guy whipped out a hammer and nails and flew around in a flurry of dust clouds, building a crude frame of driftwood and broken planks around the avatar’s portrait. The finishing touch was a tiny plaque at the bottom: LEVEL 2.
The device crowed in that overly-enthusiastic voice that Russell had come to despise.
“Level 2 Reached! That’s Badass!”
Well hell, at least it was good news.