Episode 9: The Split
The morning after the tribe voted out Michael, Sean awoke early. He sat out by the fire, looking at the sunrise, reflecting on the game. Sean realized he would probably be the next person out, since all Gluboko had left was him and Sue. Sean remarked, "The Melkiys will definitely vote for me over their savior Sue." After sitting alone for about an hour, Sean saw Brandon arise. They greeted each other, and Brandon went off to go to the bathroom. While Brandon was away, Sue woke up and she went to sit down with Sean. Sue said hello to Sean, but Sean ignored her and scooted away.
By the time Sue got up, Brandon was back and the two of them decided to gather some firewood. As they were chopping, Brandon soon started to wonder why Sue had voted for Matt and Hayley. Sue confessed to him, that she had grown close to Will during the switched-tribe phase and wanted to help him. Brandon nodded in affirmation, but he still looked dissatisfied. Sue went on to tell him that he had become just as close to him as Will was, and at that Brandon smiled.
However, Sue later went off into a confessional about how Will, Brandon and Eve. Sue knew that they were all fully aware of at least the Mike/Corey/Missy alliance, but was stunned nobody had really talked to her about it, except, Eve, who did awhile back. Sue remarked, "Will and Brandon need to get some God-forsaken balls. Will, Brandon and Eve have vested interest in me even though they have not excersised it whereas Corey, Missy and Mike have vested interest in me."
By the time Sue arrived at the camp, everyone had awoken and was huddling over the dying fire eating breakfast. Brandon and Sue delivered the logs and they rebuilt their fire. After a lively breakfast conversation about the stock market, everyone split up to do daily chores. Brandon, Will and Eve went to work gathering water, while Mike and Sue went to work cleaning up the shelter, and Corey and Missy tended the fire. This left Sean all alone, and he started to take a walk in the wilderness. He eventually sat down on a log and began to cry. He said, "Why do they ignore me? I know, I'm next, but please talk to me!" On the way back, he found some treemail. It was in the shape of Lake Balkhash and was littered with money. He also noticed a pair of dice sitting on top of it. He took it back to camp and analyzed it alone-without telling anyone else about it. As people meandered back to camp, he showed them the mail individually. This led Eve to ask him, "How come you didn't share the mail?" Sean quietly muttered, "I don't know...I just feel really left out at this point." As a tear formed in his eye, Eve started to say something else, but Missy jumped in between them. She said, "Don't worry, Sean, you're as much a part of this team as anyone else." Sean smiled and they looked at the treemail together.
That afternoon, the 8 members of Mai Kai left for challenge beach. Adam was there to greet them. He said, "Hello, Survivors. Let me start off by telling you there is something different in this challenge, you will be competing as partners. They will be selected randomly. We'll do that first, and then I'll explain the rules." They rolled the dice to determine the partnerships of Missy/Eve; Mike/Sue; Corey/Will, and Sean/Brandon. Adam then continued, "The first partner will have two objectives. Their first goal is to use this tape measure and satelite photo of Lake Balkhash to estimate, within 50 kilometers, the coastline of Lake Balkhash. Once that is complete, you'll study a bill to find the name of the currency here in Kazakhstan. When you finish this, tell both of these to partner, who will rush to this Kazakhstani banker we brought here, Alexi, and get from him American dollars worth the amount of that currency. The first team to do this will be able to win the voting history and get a mystery reward on top of that. Survivors, ready? GO!" Adam fired a gun, and the players were off doing their tasks.
Will immeadiately located the word "tenge" on his bill and went off to find the coastline of Balkhash. While Will was doing this, the other 3 first players, Missy, Mike and Brandon, kept giving incorrect estimates of the lake's coastline. Will approached Adam, who announced Will had correctly gotten it, and Corey began to talk to Alexi. After a bad guess at first, Corey eventually translated 2400 tenge into $15.41, and while everyone else was on phase 1, Adam announced Corey and Will had won the reward! They high-fived each other and then followed Adam into a small boat, while everyone else headed back to camp.
After about a fifteen-minute journey, they arrived on a very small island with a hut. They entered the hut, and found two comfortable chairs next to a table with the voting history. They each spent a few minutes analyzing it before Adam came over. He said, "Hey, guys! I thought you might be cold, so I brought you over some hot chocolate. Will yelled, "All right!" and Corey and Will toasted each other. However, Adam didn't leave. He said, "Your reward isn't over yet, each of you will serve as ambassadors for new tribes!" At this, Will shook and some of his hot chocolate flew out of his cup and on to Corey's lap. After an initial scream by Corey, the three of them cracked up, and Adam joked, "Corey, the twist isn't that scary. Anyway, think about what I said for a few minutes, and I'll be back.
As Adam left, Corey and Will stared open-mouthed at each other, still shocked that the game was going to go for another turn. As promised, a few minutes later, Adam returned, however, this time he was carrying four yellow buffs and four maroon buffs. Following Adam were the other six contestants, all looking nervous. Adam sat down across the table from them. His first question to Corey and Will was "Who wants to be on Melkiy?" Corey immeadiately replied he did and Adam handed Corey the yellow buffs and gave the maroon ones to Will. Adam then said, "Because Corey chose which tribe he was on, Will you may select who you want to join you on Gluboko first by throwing them a maroon buff." Will reclined in his chair for a moment in deep thought. He gazed over everyone and soon decided he could try to split the tribes up strategically. He threw a maroon buff at Missy, who walked over to Will's chair. Corey's turn was next, and he immeadiately threw the yellow buff to his best alliance mate, Mike. Adam said, "So far we have Missy and Will on Gluboko, and Corey and Mike on Melkiy. Will, your turn again." Will decided that he should get one of his friends/allies on his tribe and threw Brandon a maroon buff. When it was Corey's turn he looked at both Eve and Sue. He wondered if choosing Sue would make his alliance too obvious. Ultimately, Corey tossed Sue the yellow buff and she joined Corey and Mike on Melkiy. Will very quickly tossed out the last maroon buff to Eve, meaning Sean automatically joined Melkiy. Adam said, "OK, now that we're divided again, we'll go on this boat back to challenge beach, and you guys should still remember the way back to your old camps."
When Missy, Will, Eve and Brandon arrived in Gluboko, they found the campsite in horrible disarray. The Gluboko flag was nearly off the flagpole, just hanging on by a thread. The reminants of the shelter were scattered all over, and to make matters worse, the sun was nearly down. The four of them just huddled around each other to try to keep remotely warm through the frigid night, but none of them were able to get much sleep.
Melkiy found their camp in slightly better shape, except the flag had fallen off the flagpole. After just a little work in the dark, they were able to create a liveable shelter. They decided to work on getting food, water and fire in the morning and went off to sleep.
The next morning at Gluboko, everybody groggily walked around camp, nobody feeling up to doing much work, even though much needed to be done. Eve eventually voluenteered to go gather some water, and she left. On the way there, Eve stopped for a moment on a large rock to think about the twist. She said, "Why was I not surprised that I was the second-to-last person picked? I've got to do something about this." Eve then continued on, got some water, and headed back to camp and was surprised to find everyone huddled around Brandon. She asked, "What's wrong?" and Will replied that Brandon had gotten a fire going, but his hand went into it and he was burnt. Eve gave Missy, who was tending to the burn, the water she had just collected, and Missy used it on his burn. Brandon looked up and thanked Eve and Missy for their support. After the pain somewhat subsided, Eve remarked they needed to get some more water and she and Will went out to gather some more. Missy remained back, caring for Brandon and making sure there wasn't any more pain. As Brandon was nearing recovery, he smiled at Missy and said, "Missy, I can't think you enough. You are an angel and I couldn't ever vote you out." Missy thanked Brandon and the two hugged.
That morning at Melkiy, everyone agreed that they should divide up the chores. Mike delegated Sue to start the fire, Corey to get water, and himself to prepare some food. Sean then asked, "What about me?", and Mike said, "Oh...well, you can go hang the Melkiy flag back up." Sean groaned and did as he was told and then just sat down and looked out over the lake. Meanwhile, while Corey was gathering the water, he remarked, "I was shocked at this twist! I thought we had the game all set up, but I was wrong, oh well, we can still do it!" Corey labored back with large quanties of water. Everyone started cheering him, but the attention soon turned to Sue, who got a fire going. After the initial excitement subsided, Mike dished out some food to everyone, and they all ate, while having an in-depth conversation about their loved ones back home. After they finished eating, the four of them decided to go out for a walk, since their chores were done. They were gone for hours, exploring the terrain. By the time they got back, it was almost dark and they settled down for bed.
The next morning at Gluboko, everyone woke up starving, since no one had provided any food. Eve searched the bottom of the gruel barrel, but could hardly find anything. They decided to try their hand at fishing, but could hardly do anything since most of the lake had iced over. They formed a circle thinking about what they could do, and Will eventually suggested he search in blocks of ice for frozen fish. The four of this did this for a couple hours and were only successful in finding a few fish. Still, they were all happy for some food.
Back at Melkiy, Sean was sleeping in that day, leaving Mike, Sue and Corey alone to discuss strategy. The three of them knew Sean was going to go next, and they wondered whether to throw the challenge. Corey eventually convinced them to do so, since Missy could be in danger at Gluboko. When Sue asked about the next challenge, Mike just said "we'll see". Sue went off to go to the bathroom and decided she would try in the challenge, but not let the others see, since she didn't want to get rid of Sean and force a former Melkiy (ironically the only people making up the new Gluboko tribe) tribe member to go. When she returned, Sean had woken up and the four of them went over to check tree mail. They found a mini-maze and on it was written the rhyme. After analyzing it for a minute, the tribe disembarked to head for the challenge.
Both tribes arrived at challenge beach at about the same time. Everyone was smiling at each other, except Sue who looked exremely nervous. A few moments later, Adam arrived carrying the immunity idol. He siad, "This is now back up for grabs. This challenge is simple, each of you will go through this maze looking for color-coded letters. When you find a letter of your color, take it off the wall and continue. When you have four letters of color, find the exit, unscramble your letters, and hang your word on the wall at the back of the maze. Whichever tribe has the most people out in thirty minutes with correct words is immune!"
At that all of Gluboko and Sean rushed into the maze. Sue lumbered back with Mike and Corey, but soon ditched them to search for letters. After about fifteen minutes, Mike and Missy ran into each other, and Missy gasped as she saw Mike had no letters, while Missy had three letters-a purple A G and E. Mike told Missy he wanted Gluboko to win, and that he had seen a purple T another place and directed her to it. Within minutes, Missy left the maze and spelled out "GATE". Adam yelled that Gluboko was on the board and they had ten minutes left. This caused everybody to panic. However, by this time, Sue had gathered orange letters to spell "HOPE". Adam yelled Melkiy had evened it up. At this, Corey and Mike naively assumed Corey had finished. Just as Adam announced a five minute warning, Brandon stumbled out of the maze. However, when he was putting it up, he misspelt his word HOPE (there were 4 different words, and each person on the tribe had a different word) by putting up "HOEP". As Adam announced the one minute warning, someone zoomed out of the maze. Will was carrying his letters and started to assemble the word CONE. As Will was working, Sean stumbled out of the maze, and Adam said he only had five seconds left. Five seconds later, Adam yelled "TIME, everyone drop what your doing!" He meandered over to Gluboko's board and saw Will completed his word. He announced "Gluboko has two words that are spelled correctly." He ambled over to Melkiy to find one letter up on Sean's word and said, "Melkiy only has one right! Gluboko, immunity!" Eve, who had recently left the maze, came out and particpated in a group hug as they knew they were all safe! Sue and Sean had forlorn faces on Melkiy for the fact that they were going to a tribal council, which neither one wanted to attend.
At Melkiy, based on the sun's position, they realized they had about an hour before they had to go to trbial council. To keep the fire going, Corey and Sue agreed to gather some firewood, leaving Mike and Sean alone in camp. Sean realized it would be best for him, in a last-ditch effort, to start up a conversation with Mike. The two chatted for awhile, but Mike didn't seem to be very interested. Sean sensed this and blantly said, "I'm going tonight-aren't I?" Mike replied, "I wouldn't necessarily say that." Sean smiled and soon afterwards Sue and Corey returned each carrying large amounts of firewood. Before they headed to tribal council, Sue sat down to think. She considered the possibility of voting for a former Melkiy at tribal council. Her two options were obviously Corey or Mike. Between those, Sue liked the prospects of voting for Corey more than Mike. Before heading to tribal council, she had a brief chat with Sean, and soon the four left camp.
They arrived at tribal council just as the sun was setting and a few minutes later, Michael, the first jury member, arrived. A huge smile draped across Sean's face to see Michael, but the rest of the tribe was apathetic. During questioning, Mike and Corey were very confident that the vote would go their way. A few minutes later, they proceeded to vote. Corey was up first, and quietly stuffed his vote in the box. Mike went up next and in big letters wrote "SEAN" down on his card. He said, "I never got to know you much, and I like the other two so I can't
consider voting for them. Sorry, but you gotta go." Sean voted next, leaving Sue for last. She looked at her card for a minute, shook her head, mumbled something, and placed the card in the box. Adam then went to tally the votes. A moment later he began to read them:
"The first person voted out of New Melkiy is:
Sean nodded and said, "I knew it." He looked over at Michael on the jury, who had his head down in his lap. Sean got his torch snuffed and quietly left. The three remaining players all looked relieved Sean was out. They all headed back to camp.
Next week on SURVIVOR:
Melkiy comes together to protect themselves.
MIKE: "We can't lose another challenge."
And at Gluboko, strategy heats up as talking of throwing the challenge ensues.
BRANDON: "Its them or me"
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