#(c)lsb

gah, natalie, who'd already witnessed so much violence at home, who already had survivor's guilt which likely affected her drug use pre-crash. natalie, who stopped them all from being murderers the first time they tried a ritual killing, when they could at least say it wasn't really them 'cause of the shrooms. natalie, who felt the most guilty about eating jackie and looked the most reluctant, then being the only one to take responsibility despite also being the only one with a legitimate reason to have a grudge against jackie before her death. natalie, who kept them all fed for the first months and kept trudging out for hours in the snows through winter and got blamed for the loss of game, almost dying trying to get that moose and being more upset about that loss of (non-human) food for the whole group than her own near death. natalie, who had to watch everyone hold up lottie as the true provider as they put her down, all bc of her weird power over that bear when all her rituals are made up on the fly and in rational, practical terms she should not be much more useful than jackie, certainly not more valuable than the actual hunter physically laboring for them for hours every day. and despite all of that she still cared for lottie and felt guilty when their dumb competition also almost killed her too. she had to watch shauna beat lottie to a bloody pulp after living through all of that with her father. she looked like she wanted most to intervene like she had against her father and the only reason she couldn't was lottie's own choice which the other girls all wanted to honor. and despite thinking it might be better if lottie just died from that beating she agreed to take part in a ritual meant to ensure that anyone other than the already gravely wounded girl, anyone other than the prophet they refused to lose, would be the next to die and be eaten. the only demand she made was for shauna to look her in the eye as she slit her throat, to take responsibility as nat herself would have. if travis, the boy whose life she saved who later transferred his loyalty to the girl who once ordered his death, had not intervened, she would have stayed there and left her fate in shauna's hands for the good of all the friends she'd always tried so hard to feed. she only runs once they all make the active choice to hunt her, to murder her as prey, not as willing sacrifice. even still, when javi falls trying to lead her to safety, she does not hesitate to stay and try to save him. even when the other girls are right behind her and she had to know before misty told her that they'd just kill her after saving javi. she had to know her danger before misty said it yet still all she wanted was a brief reprieve to save this boy who was trying to save her. this boy, whose death she once faked, mostly out of kindness. this same boy who was brother of the one who'd just saved her in the cabin. she only left that cabin after travis intervened and only let go of his brother after misty intervened, both fighting to stop her from self-sacrifice, making her culpable in the death of javi instead. another shared guilt out there on the ice, like at the snackie bbq feast, or inside as they all stood aside to let lottie take her near-fatal beating. always natalie the most reluctant yet the most guilty. self-sacrificing and self-loathing in every timeline. even in shauna's death-dream she looked the most reluctant to eat that dream baby! natalie, natalie, natalie!