thearena | Everything crumbles

Entry tags:

Everything crumbles

Who| Don and Harley
What| You know how they say it takes one bad day for a man to snap? Well, that day has come for one of these two...
Where| Arena 2, by the mountain, and next to a grate. Later, the Cornucopia.
When| The first "evening" of Arena 7.2. Before the actual official Gamemaker evening happens.
Warnings| There is a psychotic break within this post. It will likely not be pretty.

Three hours later, and no sign of a Cornucopia.

Don was beginning to think that the mountain was likely not the place to find that, though thankfully, he didn't have to worry about throttling snakes for their blood just yet. A Sponsor's sent him food, and water, and a sleeping bag; he could definitely use those later.

But for now, it was time to stop. Take a rest. Beckoning to Harley, he sat on a rock, near a cactus pile.

He spotted the strange grate several feet from where his feet were, as he opened up his water.

"Huh."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Harley had not fared as well for the trip.

She had sang for awhile, skipping and twirling but by the time they'd reached the mountain she was pooped. She's swept back the hood of her costume and was wringing out her pigtails if sweat.

"Good thing this costume breathes or I'd be runnin' around nekkid." She joked trying to restore her own cheer. Watching Donnie get gifts from the heavens had her worried that all those nice friends she'd made in the Capitol had abandoned her because of the cuff that was still clamped firmly under her suit.

So when in doubt, she flashed her best sad puppy look at Donnie when he opened his water, only to see he wasn't looking at her.

"Huh what?"

Don't panic, Harley. Don fully intended to give you some water.

"The thought certainly crossed my mind. Wouldn't be too much of a problem for me, anyhow." Taking several sips, he passed the canteen over to Harley before walking over to the grate. "Look here. Reinforced metal. There's something under this."

Harley made a squee of joy at him passing the water and proceeded to savor the water while imagining with every spare brain cell that it was a milkshake. This did not help her get over being exiled from candy land.

"Oh yeah?" She sealed the canteen with a satisfied sigh and trotted after Donnie studying it with curiosity.

"Well...that's something." She agreed with clearly no idea what it meant.

"Think we can pry it up?" She guessed.

"Not sure-"

Suddenly, the blackness underneath the grate crackled to life, and then...pink. Mountains of pink, inside a rectangle.

"...A television!"

"Really? Sweet!" Harley pumped her fists in the air. "Maybe we can relax with some cartoons." Because clearly that was the best option right now.

She stood close to Donnie as they studied the strange out of place TV.

"Actually, that kinda looks like the other Arena."

"It is..." Don's eyes widened. "But why are they sho-"

His words immediately died out in his throat when he saw what they were showing, what they were really showing. There was a Tribute's body on screen, clothing half-torn and being cheerfully gnawed on by unusually sharp-toothed, unusually cute creatures with bug eyes.

It was who the Tribute was that nearly caused him to throw up again.

"Nnngh...!"

It was him. He was half-transformed, and half-eaten. He threw his hand up to his mouth and forced himself to turn away as he suddenly felt the memories come up in his mind.

He was here. But he was there. And then, suddenly, once more, he was there, in Arena 4. That damned place he kept recalling. And in that forest, that cursed forest where Don had killed so many...he stopped, and turned away from his meal, recoiling in disgust.

No. Not wasn't. He is. Is turning away. He felt it too. Because. The maggots on Momoko's decaying body. The heat. The changing of winds and seasons and-

It can't be.

It all came down and finally dawned on him. Those strange flashbacks. The nightmares about eating everyone's remains. The vivid memory triggered by Ariadne's death. They weren't just flashbacks.

"Oh my god."

The look of realization on Don's face is one of complete horror, his world crashing down around him. Had he been in a better state of mind, perhaps the revelation would have sat better. Perhaps he wouldn't have felt his hope of getting out and getting home shattered into a thousand pieces.

But it wasn't to be. All those months, and all the people he'd lost, and his own realization at the type of horrible, powerless creature he was, killing people the way he did, believing he could save those people he cared for from the Arena only to have them be wrenched away from him. It was all pointless. Even if somehow, somehow he won over this horrible place, even if everyone managed to be saved and stay alive and the Capitol fell, he would still lose.

He was a clone. A muttation. That had to be. He was no better than the Rat King. And he couldn't go home, knowing that maybe somewhere, his crumbling, paranoid mind reasoned, the real Donatello was dead, or worse, and everyone else-

Those weren't flashbacks. They were happening right at that moment. And the monster was still alive.

Harley likely knew the look on Don's face. Chances were, she likely went through the same thing once. It was rock bottom. An internal rock bottom where the bottom just kept shifting until it was little more than a black hole.

It was a look of complete and utter despair.

And there was nothing he could do.

It was, after all, for th eCapitol's pleasure.

Edited 2013-06-26 01:35 (UTC)

"Uh...Donnie? Don don?" She coo'd gently putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Come on Don Juan...ya know you can't believe everything you see on TV." She tried to steer him away, not worried per say, but fascinated by the emotional crash.

"Talk to Dr. Quinn." She urged.

"...That was me." His voice was dead, quiet. The complete opposite of his face, his mind. "That was where I died yesterday, before I transformed into the beast. And I'm still alive. I had transformed once before, and everyone thought the Gamemakers killed me. But now I know. I'm still alive. I can see his memories, and he can see mine."

"Not I think I get it. We're here to play the games...and we're here to keep doing it. They can make us. Because we're little more than clones. Mass manufactured in their labs, like the muttations they sic on us."

Bitterness, anger, began to seep into his voice. Its subtle, but there. And slowly, that numb look of horror turns into something quieter, more seething. Infinitely more dangerous, as he began to shut down internally his logic, his morality, his everything. Whatever was left that wasn't reeling. Because...what was the point? Here, in the Arena, in Panem, in this place. There was none. Not anymore. Not like this. Not here.

His father had said that to have honor was the greatest thing a ninja could attain to. To not have it would be like being the Shredder. To not be afraid of killing, meant a warrior lost his honor.

"Eva was right. We really are...just toys. Toys meant to put on a spectacle."

Well, he killed the Shredder back home. Maybe that had just been the start to this logical conclusion, coming here, a place where honor did not even exist. His punishment, in the cosmic scheme. With his entire existence shattered, it all suddenly made sense.

"They want a show. They want spectacle. I may as well start obliging." He turned to Harley, his eyes vacant of emotion. "You can come with me, if you want. If not, you can keep the water. But our next meeting will be as cordial."

His knife flicked open; whether Harley saw him take it out of his pocket or not was irrelevant.

"Well?"

Harley watched him as he monologues, nodding like the professional he wasn't. And when he propositioned her she put fingers to her chin in thought.

"I'm always up for some mass chaos, and frankly if I don't start playing my part I'm afraid the citizens aren't gonna like me anymore." She mused and began pacing as if the knife didn't concern her.

"So the long and short of it is: you're a test tube turtle with a fire of fury and a rotten realization that reality is borked and everything you know is a lie?"

She clapped her hands together "Classic clone identity crisis! Dr. Quinnzel prescribes that you indulge that ID! Let's get back to basics and see who you are under that candy coated shell!"

This was possibly good advice...or one of the many, many reasons her license had been taken away.

He doesn't nod. He doesn't smile. He simply starts to walk.

"Let's go."

And Harley followed with a joyful twirl slipping the bottle into her suit somewhere and starting to sing.

"Isn’t it strange
Feels like I’m lookin’ in the mirror
What would people say
If only they knew that I was

Part of some geneticist’s plan (plan-plan-plan)
Born to be a carbon copy man (man-man-man)
There in a petri dish late one night
They took a donor’s body cell and fertilized a human egg and so I say

I think I’m a clone now
There’s always two of me just a-hangin’ around
I think I’m a clone now
’cause every chromosome is a hand-me-down"

Don didn't respond to the song. He just let Harley sing; his main objective was the find the Cornucopia. Find it, get supplies. Weapons. If he was going to do what he had to do, he would need more than two pocket knives.

"Keep your eyes open."

"Wide and peeled boss turtle!" She declared opening her eyes in an exaggeratedly wide way and then blinking a few times so her vision could focus.

"I think maybe I saw a glint of something over there." She pointed into the darkness. "Don't stab me if I'm wrong though."

Don stopped, almost at the same time she spoke. He saw the strange glint, as well, which seemed odd, all things considered. Especially with the sudden, incoming darkness. But a few more seconds of looking, adjusting, and there was no mistake.

It was the Cornucopia.

"Looks like we found it. Be on the lookout for anyone coming."

"Dibs on any mallets we find!" She declared cheerful launching forward in eager excited joy at the possibility of loot.

It wasn't far to go for the athletic duo, Harley flipped back her hood and began plucking items out of the dirt.

"No backpacks." She reported. "But look at all this stuff!"

"And no one in sight."

That was fine. They could stock up without worry.

"You take the left if I take the right. And...if there're mallets, you get them."

He'd just spotted the scythe.

Harley dug around in her suit for a moment producing the parachute that had brought them their tribute gifts and spread it out on the ground where she began to pile up whatever loot she found. She was particularly greedy about food and by the time she packed up she was wielding a pair of machetes.

"Check me out, I'm a regular cut up." She declared proudly stuffing the items into her suit once more. Her eyes narrowed as something caught her eyes in the darkness.

"Be back in a minute Donnie!" She went skipping off to investigate leaving Donnie alone with his thoughts and the loot.

R was far away, stumbling in the wrong direction of the Cornucopia. His clothes were still smelling faintly of ash from Joan Watson's bonfire, one of his eyebrows half-singed off (he hadn't noticed. Don't give him a mirror - sun and general exposure murdered his skin, badly). Now he was wandering around trying to look and listen and smell for anything that sounded vaguely food-like, anything at all because at this point he wasn't picky.

It took him awhile to hear the sound of skipping against the sand. R's head wobbled on his neck as he tried to look up, muscles creaking.

"Rggh?"

"Hey hey! It's the undead Romeo!" Harley cheered skidding to a stop in the dirt and sizing him up from out of arms reach. "Yeesh...you ain't looking too good. I'd say Medium Rare."

She may have forgiven him for the last arena, but she wasn't gonna get TOO close to him this time. Even if she had helped him before.

"Medium rare"? That was almost a compliment at this point. R turned at the voice with a little jerk and fixed on...whatever that was in front of him. It talked human, it even smelled human - even made his corpse struggle to produce more of that stinking tar it called body fluids. R stared greedily at Harley and whatever was left of that outfit of hers (exactly the kind of costume his Escort would've sniffed, offended, and turned up her nose at Harley's abomination).

"Ggh...Not...Rro..."

R gave up trying to correct her after a few seconds of moaning and groaning and even wheezing. At this point, even that single letter he had for a name was sliding in and out of his reach. R raised his arms and began lurching toward her, trying to speed up and follow that voice to her jugular. Sorry, Harley, you sound and smell just that good. Happy, even. He liked happy. It went down easier.

"Huh? What's the matter tall pale and decomposing? Cat got your tongue? Or did it fall out?" She took a few steps back nimbly watching him, studying him with a sharp eye.

Then they snapped wide open as it hit her. "Wait wait wait wait, I know that look. That's your hungry face! That's how you looked last time you made a meal of me!" She pointed accusingly and then for good measure hopped back a few more feet.

Slowly the gears in her head started to turn. She could off him now...she had the gear for it. But maybe...just maybe there was a better idea.

"Am I right?" She called waiting so he could shuffle closer but legs bent so he would never get close enough. "You feeling the pangs of hunger big bow? Want a little prime cut Harley burger?"

The look R gave her was the closest thing to "what the hell" as a zombie could get. Did he want a bite out of her? Was she kidding? Of course he did! R's face twisted into a look of longing, the hunger making him lurch forward a step and then another toward her. (Harley had him pegged - he totally had on his hungry face).

"Hun...gry," R said, trying to sound agreeable and not like what he really was: a desperate, starving dead boy.

He approached again and this time made a clumsy swipe at her, the attack so telegraphed anyone could see it coming from a mile away.

Harley cackled gleefully skipping out of his reach once more.

"Well you gotta try harder then that! I happen to know where ALL the yummy tributes are gonna be headed. Think you can keep up scruffy?"

She trotted a little further and waited for him, always keeping just out of reach. Hopefully Donnie would be ready to go by the time she got R to the Cornucopia.

[OOC: Since he first gets there with Aunamee/Wyatt, so he'd have to get sidetracked or they could get attacked by a mutt?]

R made another lunge for Harley, still convinced in his dead little brain he could grab a piece of that and she wasn't toying with him. Look, he was trying, okay? R thought he was doing pretty good even finding another Tribute out here, even if he got an eye sore just looking at that outfit of hers. That scent coming from her was too good to pass up.

His mouth couldn't water today - R was fresh out of black drool - the zombie instead going for a starved snarl as his shuffling sped up.

Unfortunately his speed-shuffle today was painfully slow, even for him.

"You'll have to do better then thaaaaat~" Harley teased and took off at a light jog so he would get the idea of which direction to keep shuffling in.

As she came back to the cornucopia she could only barely make out his shadowy figure in the distance. "Hey Donnie! Donnie! Better get going. The walking dead is on his way here and I think the fans would love watching him fall upon so hapless dopes looking for loot."

Don was silent for a moment as he finally finished strapping his gear on. Walking dead. R. Personally, he'd have preferred simply ending that life, that undead, in between life even worse than the lives of most of the Tributes. And he likely would have ignored Harley's request on the matter, had he not heard a strange rattle sound coming from the back end of the Cornucopia's shell.

"Let's go," he said, internally annoyed at his lost chance.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Everything crumbles

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

I'm going to have R not quite make it to the Cornucopia, okay?

No worries~ Thanks for playing along :)

Re: No worries~ Thanks for playing along :)