Seven miles into the grave

“I feel like I’m simultaneously in a bad position in the game, but I’m also viewed as a big threat to win. This is the worst,” I admit in a confessional.

There are only nine players remaining in the game. I know that at our next challenge, we will merge. I have three allies: Kaden, Mason and Molly; and three enemies: Maeve, Jake and Luke. I have no idea what Ginger and Izzy are thinking. I can only pray I was successful in gaining some measure of trust with them when I voted Sage out.

Our merge challenge is in April — the beginning of the third month of the game. Before the challenge starts, we paint a new tribe flag. It’s a tense affair.

With a pretty tribe flag completed, Kyle reveals our first post-merge challenge to us. It’s a twist on a classic “Survivor” challenge called “When It Rains, It Pours.”

In the TV version, players have a strap around one arm. The arm must be held straight and still above the player’s head, or the strap, which is connected to a large bucket of water, will cause the bucket to tip over and dump freezing water onto them.

“Survivor: Kent State” has no budget, so we hold red Solo cups filled with water above our heads with both hands and try not to spill them.

The first five minutes of the challenge are the worst. The burn in my shoulders grows and grows until I am sure I won’t be able to stand it any longer. Then, the pain stagnates. In the second five minutes, I realize the burn isn’t going to lessen, but neither is it going to blaze any hotter.

At 10 minutes, Kyle begins to announce that the first person to drop out of the challenge will receive a clue to a hidden immunity idol. Before the words even leave his mouth, Luke is pouring his water over his head.

Of course. The arrogance and cunning of it irks me to no end, but whatever — Luke can spend all night searching in the cold for a tiny hidden idol. I’ll win my immunity here.

Players drop out one after another until only Kaden, Ginger and I remain. Kaden and I suffer together, both aware that whoever doesn’t win will likely be voted out, but both unwilling to let Ginger have an immunity she doesn’t need.

Ginger drops out somewhere around 20 minutes. Kaden and I battle for more than 30 minutes until, finally, Kaden spills a bit of water.

“It’s over. Quinn has won individual immunity,” Kyle declares.

I try to bask in my glory as I gingerly lower my arching, burning arms.

The next morning, I feel like the shiny new kid on the playground at recess. It seems like almost every member of my new tribe wants to meet with me. Of course, my old Vuaka alliance will gather before tribal council that evening, but I am also getting meeting requests from Izzy, Jake and Luke. It is a far cry from the prior tribal council where I was vulnerable to being voted out.

I hold court in the library and wait for people to come to me.

My first appointment is with Luke, who candidly tells me that if I weren’t immune, they’d be voting for me that day. Nice.

“You, me, Kaden and Jake are probably the biggest threats in the game, so we should stick together, because if one of us goes, they’re going to come for the rest of us,” Luke tells me.

When did we suddenly become an “us”?

I nod along, but I remain unconvinced. I know what Luke has to gain from lying to me: It will keep me from scrambling to arrange a vote for him or his allies.

Next, I talk to Jake, who spouts the same nonsense about a “big threats” alliance. “We’ll pull in Molly, Mason and Maeve,” he claims. “I want to vote off Ginger or Izzy.”

My third and fourth visitors are Kaden and Mason. Mason tells us that earlier in the day, he met with Ginger, who had echoed Izzy’s earlier sentiment that she was on the bottom and wanted to target Maeve.

We have two options in front of us, and honestly, neither one looks good. Kaden and I agree that Luke’s alliance pitch does not seem trustworthy, and Mason is not sure about the truth in Ginger’s words either. But we need to do something.

I waved Izzy and Ginger a white flag at the last tribal council when I voted off Sage. At least they have a reason to want to work with me.

I later meet with Izzy, where we decide to vote for Maeve. Maeve seems like a good choice to me because she is neither an original Rarama member nor is she loyal to any original Vuaka members. After Maeve is voted out, the original tribe numbers will be even: eight to eight. Izzy smiles and agrees with me.

Tribal council is in White Hall again. Even though my badge of safety hangs around my neck, I feel sick and powerless. I watch five original Raramas go up to vote and wonder if I could really be so naive as to hope that Izzy and Ginger won’t make the easy move and stick with their alliance.

Kyle reads the votes. Four votes for Maeve, and six votes for Molly.

I feel shock and betrayal like I’ve never known. I’m shocked because I thought for sure they’d vote out Kaden or Mason over Molly, and I’m betrayed because Izzy was just too nice to me.

I walk out of tribal surrounded by enemies. The gauntlet has been thrown down. Izzy, Ginger, Maeve, Jake and Luke want absolutely nothing to do with me or my allies. I can hear the crumbling of my game around me, my dreams shattering. I need a miracle for any chance of survival.

The next morning, a message from Mason pulls me out of the pit of my self-pity.

“I got an idol clue,” Mason tells me. “The clue says: ‘You’re in the final nine and looking for a boost — maybe an idol could give you some juice. Your power will grow if you keep your eyes wide, but remember the grass isn’t greener on the other side.’”

Hope! An idol is exactly what we need right now. If Kaden, Mason or I can find it, we can eliminate Jake and take control of the game. I can imagine the shocked reactions on Izzy, Ginger, Jake, Maeve and Luke’s faces when I pull out the idol, nullify their five votes against me and send their ally home. It’s a perfect story. We’re going to find that idol — I’m sure of it.

I gleefully arrange to meet with Kaden after our classes and scour the campus until I find the idol. Based on the clue, I guess that the idol is somewhere near a fitness center, juice bar or garden.

On my way to class, I can’t resist stopping at the Beverly J. Warren Student Recreation and Wellness Center to scour the garden out front. Every time I peer around a tree or behind a bush, I expect to see a little Ziploc bag, and every time, I am disappointed. I arrive an hour late to my class, empty-handed.

After class, Kaden and I comb through as much of campus as we possibly can for three hours. We look everywhere. We walk over 7 miles. I’m sure I look crazy to other students as I veer off beaten paths and go poking around in bushes, trees and mud puddles.

“We’ve looked everywhere,” I confess to the camera. “We’re sick of this, and we want to go home, and it’s not fun. We’re trying our best, but we’re out of ideas.”

I have been betrayed by Izzy and Ginger, stonewalled by Luke and completely ignored by Maeve. With one option left, my alliance and I meet with Jake. We try to sow seeds of mistrust between Jake and his allies and convince Jake to vote with us to take out Ginger.

We hope that there will be a four-four tie and someone will flip on the revote to save themselves from an unpredictable rock draw. It’s flimsy, and I have little faith in it. But it’s all I have.

My fifth tribal council is held in Bowman Hall. I am entirely unsurprised when Kyle reads the votes, and there are five for a former Vuaka castaway. I am slightly surprised that the five votes are for Kaden instead of me. I watch another one of my allies’ torches snuffed, somewhat wishing it had just been me. Vuaka is down to two now, and I have no hope left.

After Kaden is gone, we move on to our next immunity challenge. I know I need to win this one to survive the next elimination. It is yet another cruel blow that the challenge is stacking coins on a popsicle stick in a budget imitation of a classic “Survivor” challenge called “Beaking China.”

I have shaky hands. Though I try my best to stay still and stack carefully, I am embarrassingly the first one to drop my coins. The sound of pennies clattering on the floor is the funeral dirge for my game.

Almost immediately, every other player besides Luke and Mason drops their stack. They’re not even bothering to hide it. They’re just going to let Luke win.

I strain to understand why Jake, Izzy and Ginger — smart people who want to win this — are letting Luke control the entire game. Don’t they see that Luke will just take Maeve to the end? I’d told Izzy as much during the merge when we decided to vote for Maeve, and I’d told Jake the same thing last round. Now, I still can’t understand what they are doing.

By some miracle, Mason outlasts Luke. I am genuinely happy for him when the shell immunity necklace is placed around his neck.

Kyle stops us from leaving. “Tonight, we’re doing things a little bit differently. Today, there will be a double elimination. You will have half an hour to strategize, and then we will meet back here for our second tribal council of the day.”

I should be really angry about this twist. It basically ensures that I will be eliminated today; I have no time to convince my tribemates to vote for anyone but me, and I know I won’t find an idol that I couldn’t find in three hours in a mere 30 minutes. 

Oddly, though, I am a little relieved. I am being spared days of stressing about my position in the game and scrambling to make something unexpected happen.

I walk outside the classroom where the challenge took place and sit on a bench in the hall. Mason sits down next to me. A production member with a camera follows us.

“I’m not going to go try to talk to them,” I declare as the rest of my tribemates head out to get some dinner. “They know where I am, if they want to talk.”

Jake is the only person who eventually comes to talk to Mason and me, but not to give us any sort of hope. He’s here to do jury management and make sure that, on our way out, we have a favorable opinion of him.

He explains to us with his usual laid-back demeanor that Mason, Kaden and I didn’t tell him about the idol clue that Mason had, so we are too untrustworthy to work with.

I acknowledge that as a valid reason to feel distrust, but I remain skeptical that if the roles were reversed, Jake would’ve told me about the clue.

A few minutes before tribal council starts, Mason pulls a tiny blue Lego piece out of his pocket.

“What’s that?” I ask.

“I found it a while ago and thought it might be an idol,” he tells me. “I’ve had it at every round so far and haven’t been voted out. Maybe it’s good luck. You should try to play it.”

We both know that the little Lego isn’t an idol, but it might be funny if, just for a second, my tribemates think I really do have an idol. I accept Mason’s gift and get up to face my execution.

When we’re all sitting in our places facing Kyle, he asks some standard pre-vote questions about what we did during the last half hour and how we feel about our positions in the game.

When he asks me what argument I can make to convince my tribemates to keep me, I throw out the last hope I have.

“I know we all love this game, and honestly, I’m disappointed with how boring this season has been after the merge. It’s so boring to just stick with one alliance and go to the end. So, please, make a move in this game, change the game and vote out someone who has actual power in the game.”

I get blank stares from my tribemates. It’s over.

Before the votes are read, I stand up and play Mason’s Lego. I chuckle as Kyle declares that it is not an idol. I walk back to my seat, content that I tried everything I could.

Kyle reads my name five times.

I stand up and approach Kyle. He hands me the unlit tiki torch and holds a lighter near it.

“Quinn, the tribe has spoken,” he says and blows out the lighter. “It’s time for you to go.”

Revelations from the jury bench

For Mason’s elimination next week, the jury decides to wear white lies t-shirts, making fun of our former tribemates. Apparently, one of the perks of being on the jury is poking fun at our old enemies with no consequences via weekly jury outfit themes.

I laugh with Molly and Kaden and speculate on who won the last immunity challenge, while we make our shirts before the tribal council. Being on the jury is pretty fun with all of the friends and none of the impending doom.

It’s not so fun to watch Mason flame out in pretty much the same fashion as I did last week. Just as I did, he makes an ineffective plea to his tribemates to keep him and get someone out who is real competition instead. Just like last week, Luke, Ginger, Jake and Izzy ignore his pleas with self-satisfied smirks on their faces.

I smirk too because I know the next time we all gather, it will be their funeral.

Kaden, Mason, Molly and I arrive at the next tribal in our best funeral attire. Tonight’s theme has a double meaning: first, that every Vuaka alliance member is now dead, and second, that tonight Rarama’s rock-solid alliance will crumble apart.

Izzy, whom I beseeched week after week to work with me, who told me herself that she was at the bottom of her alliance, is the first Rarama to fall with three votes from Jake, Ginger and Maeve.

Next week, the jury dons beachwear — Izzy’s idea — to witness Jake’s elimination. Unlike Izzy last week, Jake sticks around after his elimination to talk to the jury.

I’m brimming with questions. Were any of your alliance offers ever real? What was Jake’s reasoning for going to the end with the people he chose?

Stripped of the deception and gameplay, Jake is an open book.

He reveals that from the beginning of the game, he, Luke, Izzy, Ginger and Ella were in an alliance. When Ella was eliminated, she was replaced with Maeve, and they officially named their alliance “The Fishbowl Alliance.”

Even during the tribe swap, the alliance worked together. Izzy and Luke were plotting to get Mason, Molly and I to vote Sage out, as I suspected.

“The Fishbowl Alliance” had always planned to go to the final five together, and nothing I did or said would have changed that.

“I did a lot of legwork setting up my position in that alliance,” Jake says. “I thought that I was close enough to Ginger and Maeve that I wouldn’t be targeted next, but I couldn’t pull it out. The magic ran short.”

Jake’s words give me peace. I’d held onto worries that maybe if I tried a little harder, lied a little better or said just one thing differently, I could have done better in the game. I know now that’s not true. 

As embarrassingly cliché as it is, I don’t think I care about what place I got in the game. I really am just happy that I played at all.

At the next tribal, Ginger is voted out in third place. Luke and Maeve become our “Survivor: Kent State” season one finalists.

The final tribal council

Almost every person involved in “Survivor Kent State” gathers in a large classroom in the College of Architecture and Environmental Design on April 28, 2025, where we hold the final tribal council. Although every eliminated player is present, only the jury is permitted to ask Maeve and Luke questions.

At the beginning of the final tribal council, the final two each get a chance to explain their game. Luke goes first.

“I want to start by saying that I’ve wanted to play ‘Survivor’ my entire life,” Luke says. “Winning this game would be a dream come true for me. It would be proof that after all this time, I can really do this, and I do think I deserve to win this game. I think that there’s a good chance that I would be here without Maeve, but I don’t think that Maeve would be here without me. From day one, I had a clear idea of what I wanted to do in this game, and I put in the legwork to make that happen. I took this reputation that I gained as a villain and used it to make me seem like a less threatening person to take to the end.”

Maeve is more casual in her speech. “During the last challenge, I said, ‘My ignorance will guide me,’ and I think that’s kind of how I played this game. I think my lack of knowledge about ‘Survivor’ helped me in this game because you can surprise someone who expects to be surprised. I just tried to notice things and react to them,” she says. “I just tried to have fun.”

Molly starts the jury questions on a light note by asking Maeve to do an interpretive dance about her game and Luke to slither on the floor like a snake because that’s how he played the game.

Then, we get into the nitty-gritty. In response to jury questions, Maeve explains how her near elimination in round three changed how she played the game. Luke apologizes for his bad behavior but maintains that he did what he felt was necessary to win. Maeve points out that she blindsided Luke at the Izzy elimination. Luke points out that he masterminded almost every other elimination in the game.

By the end of the questions, I’m actually more unsure of my vote. Maeve shows some strategic movements, but still declares that she brought Luke to the end with her because he’s more fun than Ginger. Luke does not seem appropriately penitent for his crimes.

One thing Luke said sticks in my mind: that winning “Survivor” would be a dream come true for him. Luke, for all his flaws, played for the love of the game. I respect that.

In the voting booth, I sit down to write a name on a scrap of parchment for the last time. For the first time, I’m writing the name of who I think should win the title of “Sole Survivor.”

I write Luke.

Luke does not win. Actually, I didn’t expect him to. Maeve gets votes from Jake, Kaden, Molly and Mason. Ginger, Izzy and I voted for Luke.

Luke gives Maeve a hug after her final vote is read, and Kyle presents Maeve with her prize: Coco Diva Nut.

After the cast mingles and takes pictures, we enjoy the production crew’s “Survivor Kent State: Season 1” meme reveal. Apparently, as my fellow castaways and I struggled to survive, the crew memed our idol plays, shocking blindsides, frustrated confessional rants and hilarious challenge performances. 

The ice between some of us former players has not totally melted yet, but laughing together at our successes, failures and silly moments goes a long way toward thawing it.

I am not the Sole Survivor; however, I found my people. I showed up and let myself care about something that felt silly, and I found a lasting community. Today, my former tribemates are some of my closest friends on campus, and playing “Survivor: Kent State” is a college experience that I will never forget.

Quinn Schafer is a web writer and copy editor. Contact her at [email protected].