Alternate Battle for Dream Island

ABFDIA 13c: Caught

Barf Bag was all on her own again.

To be perfectly honest, she was... *mostly* fine with that. It wasn't exactly the most ideal situation, but it's a status quo that has endured for quite a while now. She'd been thrown into this competition where no one knew her name, then pushed onto a team that gradually grew to hate her guts. That's *fine*. They're more than welcome to have... *that* sort of impression, if that's what they wanna do. If they wanna be miserable, that's fine by her.

At the end of the day, after all, all that mattered was how *she* felt, whether or not *she* was happy. People can complain all they want about the stench of her vomit, or her trying to fit in, or some other irrelevant third thing. But as long as none of that got to her, as long as it didn't really affect her in any way, she was fine. She was *fine*. She's been through worse. She's been through *far* worse. And everyone else seems to have that sort of idea about themselves as well. Just like them, just like *everyone*, they were gonna push through it. Doesn't matter if they were together or apart, so long as they believed in themselves.

But *still*... It'd be nice, you know? Living beings care first and foremost about self-sufficiency, about staying alive. But because of a cruel trick, a practical joke by the universe, they also cared about the well-being of others as well. Even though, when you *really* looked at it, you were infinitely better off only caring about yourself and disregarded everyone else, people *love* to connect with others, see how well they're doing, and help (or sabotage) them whenever possible. Why?

She could somewhat see where Taco was coming from. *Somewhat*.

Once again, she was just walking around in circles, around the perimeter of Dream Island. She spent much of that time putting things together in her head, figuring out what she'll do next. Should she just do what she was intended to do? Should she try to find Golf Ball, bring her here, and have her face justice? What chance did she have of even getting close to her, let alone be able to drag her around? The sentiment around here was clearly *against* the newbies; they didn't really want to be here, the contestants didn't like their surprise appearance, and the co-host was *definitely* perturbed by their existence.

Should she continue digging into the mystery of Pen? Her teammates clearly had... *thoughts* about him, but what little information she was able to gather was all over the place. Also, he's the one that's supposed to be running the show now, and yet they haven't seen him in *ages*. She knows of all the excuses, but how come they haven't been able to get a glimpse of him even *once*? Something was clearly wrong, and it was just being... ignored. Ignored because of childish, foolish, petty grievances.

Maybe her isolation wasn't such a bad thing after all; with everyone else too distracted by their own stories, only Barf Bag could figure out what's going on beneath the surface.

That'd have to wait, however. As she turned a corner, she'd suddenly be hit by a powerful, almost lethal stench. Now, everyone has said that Barfy stunk to some degree; some chose to put it in more... gentle words, but most tended to just state it outright. Right in front of her face. But since the whole vomit thing was integral to her character (it *is* in the name, after all), she had grown accustomed to it, barely being able to sense it even if she was focusing *specifically* on it. This new smell, this *hazard*... This was something else, clearly.

This was someone else.

The bag had heard *some* words about Spongy, how he was the only one to rival her in terms of being physically repulsive. They said he was fat, they said he was stinky, they said he was dumb, they said he was... unappealing.

For the most part, she hadn't paid much attention to what they had to say. Considering the nature of the Battle for Dream Island, those sorts of insults were just par for the course. *Surely* the sponge wasn't *as* bad as most of them said, right? She planned to get to him eventually, just like all the others. But then... well, you know.