Jones could've sworn he'd heard a rustle near the bushes, he's even gone and took a torch to light up that general distance. There didn't seem to be anything, the others continued to gnaw (and complain) on slightly burnt fish without a care in the world. So, with an uneasy shrug, he managed to convince himself that he imagined it. The hair on his back continued to tingle nervously, whether it be the chills or the chills.

  The tents were set, and with the campfire extinguished, the five of them went in their separate tents. Yoko and Rin were first to sleep, the latter's snores could be clearly heard while the former apparently had a tendency to talk in her sleep, according to Rin. She was mumbling on and on, nonstop in the pitch black midnight, something about their father's infidelity.

  Jones wasn't having any of it, the ruckus made it impossible for him to sleep, that and the strange unease he just couldn't shake off no matter how hard he tried to gaslight himself. He tried counting sheep, which counterproductively ended up making him more awake. He tried every corner of his sleeping bag, but none could hit quite right. He tried counting spiders in his tent, he did go up to around twelve before the fact that there are a horde of spiders dawned on him. Terrified, he sprang out of the sleeping bag and lunged out of the tent.

  The hair on his back were all still stood up, it had spread to his arms and the back of his neck as well. The air seemed off, the way that patch of grass looked seemed off, the way that the god rays of moonlight seemed to have missed a sizable patch seemed off. He had never slept in the wilderness before, maybe it was just him being nervous about an unfamiliar environment. He slid into Sung's tent.

  "Navis, it's me, Jones." Sung was already drifting off, so he only gave a half-audible grunt before flipping over to the other side. Jones explained how his tent's infested with arachnids, and he's fled to Sung's tent to sleep. Sung gave another unempathetic grunt, and Jones took that as a yes. The tent's really only designed for one person, although it got rather cramped, Jones still managed to find some extra space to sit.

  Having company's eased him a bit, a wave of drowsiness crashed over his mind as the butterflies in his stomach slowly faded out. Just as Jones was on the verge of dozing off, though, crisp, continuous sounds of rustling grass startled him awake again. He dreaded for the worst - an enemy attack of unknown size - as he stretched out his trembling hand and slowly pushed the flaps of the tent aside.

  There was nothing out of the ordinary, there wasn't really much to be seen in the dark to be fair. Howling winter gusts slapped onto Jones's outstretched head, tears gushing out of his eyes in response to the irritating, freezing air. He already had to squint because of the wind, the extra tears rendered his vision extremely blurry. It was so cold outside, that it was starting to hurt a bit. Jones was about to retreat back into the warmer tent, when a smooth, almost alluring voice slipped into his ears from the right.

  "Gotcha~"

  His heart froze - he didn't recognize the voice. The panic that this voice triggered had almost congealed his blood, as he slowly turned his gaze rightwards, the grinning face of a very arrogant, borderline manic clone loomed into view. Dieu savored every bit of the dread etched on Jones's face, as he turned his focus to the stab wound Dieu had put in him. The etches contorted into horror, that only pleased Dieu more.

  But Dieu knew, this wasn't the end of it. She had stabbed him in the abdomen, not comfortable, but easily survivable. This was, without a doubt, intentional. A deliberate act, not to inflict a deadly blow, not to finish the objective, but a selfish move just to extort a bit more fun out of her victims. Dying is such a fleeting moment, it barely gives any joy to the audience. What comes before, the realization, the anguish, the anger, the helpless bargaining, the dread, before bitterly coming to terms, that's the real show. Absolute cinema.

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  Dieu pounced on Jones, causing him to topple over forwards and fall onto the ground, outside of the tent. The dagger dug deeper into his guts, its guard crushed his liver and ripped apart arteries as it got forcefully shoved into Jones by the fall. The tip grazed his spine, protruding ouf ot Jones's back just so slightly to the left, nearly impaling Dieu as well.

  Jones couldn't scream, he couldn't fight back, the pain rushing to his brain's overloaded his nerves and wiped his mind clear of any sort of natural fight-or-flight instinct. He could barely even see what's in front of him. Disorientated, he could only feel his crushed liver spilling hot body fluids all over the frozen dirt ground.

  It didn't take long for the first emotion to return to his mind - fear. As his mind slipped back into place, the excruciating pain from his bowels rushed in to take front row seats in his consciousness. His vision cleared up a bit, possibly due to the adrenaline, it felt like reality was unfolding in slow motion. Under the debilitating pain, he couldn't keep a single thought straight, let alone keep track of time.

  The pain eventually mellowed out, or he's simply gotten used to it. Jones consciousness had half returned by then, finally did the thought of fleeing kick in - but by then it was too late. No matter how desperately tried to squirm, to Jones' utter horror, he couldn't move nor feel his lower body at all. The dagger just so happened to paralyze him, that and the dagger's hilt had firmly implanted itself into the ground, Jones felt like a patty in a burger with a toothpick stabbed right in the middle - dead meat, trapped in a sandwich.

  And like cattle, like livestock, there was simply no reason, nor any use, to escape the inevitable.

  Dieu was disappointed to see Jones resign to his fate so easily. She had hoped for a bit more struggle, but he's already laying there motionless, as if he's actually dead. With a frustrated, firm grip, she grabbed hold of Jones' head and forcefully turned it towards her. "What, are you just going to stare at me?" Dieu demanded. "You're actually just going to let me kill you like this? Have you got no pride? At least squirm a little you brat!" Jones didn't reply whatsoever, he did not show anger, he did not show anguish. Nothing.

  Denied of any entertainment, she furiously slit Jones' neck with her knife. Jones slowly bled out on the ground, his body recovered by Dieu for the extra nanites and what little equipment he had.

  From a short distance came the shrieks of a girl, a delectable, soothing shriek that somewhat filled Dieu's appetite for despair. It didn't take long before the mufflied cries died down, and out from the furthest tent came Mignon. Unlike Dieu, Mignon's modus operandi is to just do it swiftly and collect all the loot. She couldn't care less about the process, killing's always just been a means to an end. Some perverts do it to satisfy themselves, some do it for survival, she does it for the extra materials, it's not that different.

  With a slight flick, Mignon shed the blood on her own dagger onto the snow, before she carefully sheathed it and put it back in her inventory. "God, another broken dagger?" Mignon took a look at the dagger stuck onto the floor. "Ehehe..." Dieu sheepishly laughed. "We're gonna run out of resources from all the daggers you break... Didn't I tell you to be more careful with them? Just last time you broke several whilst trying to hack off bone segments one by one... SEVERAL!" Mignon bickered on.

  They continued to argue, their backs turned against the tents. "Oh cut it out, will you, there's still two tents left unchecked. Your bitching's going to wake them all up." Crecket scolded the two, as he climbed out of Jones' tent. "This one's empty." He pointed at the tent he came out of. "There's three of them left."

  "Don't be so tense now, they can't even put up a fight. Noobs~" Dieu said mockingly. "They were surprisingly easy to kill, maybe they just aren't expecting anyone to attack them at night." Mignon agreed. "Still, we can't afford to let our guards down. With how our clones are configured, we will die the instant they attack." He beckoned Mignon to the farthest tent on the other side, as he himself walked over to the next tent, leaving Dieu in charge of assassinating Sung.

  "Crecket, while I love how much effort you're putting into this, we gotta have fun ourselves too." Dieu whispered. "Just do as you're told, we don't have the leeway for any more than that." Crecket whispered back disapprovingly.

  With a sigh, Dieu turned around to enter Sung's tent. As she pushed away the flaps slowly and carefully in compliance with Crecket's borderline carebear-ish standards, what met her was instead a straight decisive punch squarely in her face, causing her nose, and the better part of her skull, to crumble in and collapse. Her grin was instantly wiped off, both figuratively an quite literally. It was at this moment she knew, she screwed up royally.