thearena | That was quick.

WHO| Some and Eliot and anyone with Eliot.
WHAT| Some's not willing to kill yet? That just means it's his turn first.
WHEN| Just a few nights into the games.
WHERE| The second largest island
WARNINGS/NOTES| Death, maneater.

The prison- arena, they'd called it an arena- was hell. Some had escaped the first day without fighting anyone, had only fled into the undergrowth, hiding away from the sunlight. Whatever the woman who'd accompanied him after the hovercraft ride had rubbed into his fur had been protecting him, but he didn't trust it, especially not after his swim. His fur had dried in stiff, sticky spikes, and he didn't dare take the time to groom- time spent in that was time he needed to be watching out for other contestants. He didn't want to kill anyone. But that wouldn't keep them from trying to kill him.

At least they weren't all humans.

He moved at night, from the bigger island to the next one, the other one with trees, hoping that fewer of the tributes would have gone there for refuge. He built himself a canopy of the leaves, though handling them made his palms itch and redden, and endured the day beneath it, low to the ground as a turtle. Once, he heard a few of them pass close, chasing or being chased, and he huddled small. He waited, even though hunger twisted at him.

Only at night could he make himself come out. Insects whirred in the trees as he pushed up his thick blanket of leaves and slunk out, keeping to all eight limbs, his long, lean body low to the ground. He moved silently, listening, and heard nothing, until he reached the beach. There, he opened his eyes wide to take in all the light he could, and stood slowly up on all fours, then up to only his hind legs, making himself as tall as he could, staring out to sea.

There was nothing but stars. As far as he could see, there were no lights, no other land.

Something struck him a moment later, sharp and fast. He yelped and dropped back to all fours as the big white bird wheeled away, and another just missed raking his face with its cruel beak. He cursed himself for not noticing them wheeling above him. A third dove, and he covered his head with his arms, turning to run down the white sand beach as fast as he could, to leave them behind.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Eliot stood still in the shadow of a palm tree, eyeing the birds. He'd eaten well so far between the fish and the coconuts, but something different would be nice. He'd picked up a few fist-sized rocks to hunt with since he had nothing better so far.

The night was quiet, nothing disturbing the starlit darkness. That changed when a short cry met his ears followed by a fairly large... something tearing down the beach. He took his gaze off of the birds and took a closer look at the creature. Whatever it was, it wasn't human. Or whatever kind of alien Garrus was. Eliot wasn't even sure if it was another Tribute or some new horror the Gamemakers had cooked up. He felt along the tree trunk for his spear as he pulled a rock from his pack. There wasn't time to waste finding out and if this thing turned out to be a Tribute, it'd be alive again soon and Momoko would be that much closer to winning. He threw the rock, aiming for the creature's torso.

Some staggered in the sand when he took the blow to the ribs, at first sure it was another of the birds. But no, too solid, too painful, and he wheezed, knocked windless by it. For a moment, he took halting steps back and forth, pressing his hands over the gash, and only then thought to look up for the cause.

Eliot grabbed his spear and charged as the creature stopped, temporarily weakened. Raising the spear as he ran, he aimed the point at the thing's ribcage. The machete hung loosely from his belt, ready in case he needed it.

If he'd been on solid stone, he'd have been able to get out of the way in time. But the sand was treacherous and he was too slow, and the spear caught him hard in the upper chest, the tip cutting between ribs and lodging there. His cry turned into a painful, hacking cough, the taste of blood rising sharp in his mouth, and he tried to turn, to run for the trees. "Stop!" he wheezed, a bad, wet sound to his breath. "Not- danger!"

Eliot heard the wheezing, but the sound was too constricted for him to make out the words. Even if he had, he probably would have kept going. He'd heard of the creatures the Gamemakers made for these games. He'd seen the shark Don had fought earlier. Why shouldn't they be able to make one capable of some level of speech?

He tried to pull the spear out but it had lodged itself in too firmly. He pulled his machete from his belt and swung it toward the creature's neck.

Eliot's attempt to pull out the spear was more than enough to keep the scrawny, skewered monster from fleeing, and he staggered, collapsed to three knees in the sand, flinging up his arms to ward off the oncoming blow with a scream from both mouths, one cut short when he deflected that blade from his neck, only to have it hit him in the side of the face instead. One mouth was suddenly wider, and he tried to speak again, but it was a bad sound, inhuman and ingrue too. He stared at the human in terror, eyes reflecting the bright moonlight in green flashes like a cat's, and he reached up suddenly, trying to grab for that big blade.

Eliot sighed as the blade hit the creature's face. Gamemakers' monster or not, he didn't want it to suffer more than it had to. He honestly was trying to make this quick. He pulled the machete away from the thing's grasping hands and aimed for its neck again.

Some's grab missed badly, and he didn't have a chance to block the blow before it caught him in the neck, half-severing it. He fell to his side, trying for a few moments to stop the sudden, forceful font of blood, but there was no chance. He died in the sand, long body twisted and curled around the still-lodged spear.

Eliot knelt to carefully pull the spear out of the corpse. He couldn't risk losing that. The machete, perhaps, but not the spear. He froze for a moment as the canon sounded, announcing the death of the latest Tribute. Eliot forced himself to keep moving for the cameras. He really had believed the other had been some kind of Gamemaker creature. The other Tribute's pleas for him to echoed in his mind but he refused to dwell on it.

That was quick.

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