(no subject)

[onlyimmune]

Who| Ellie and OPEN
What| Ellie is just trying to survive but that's kind of hard when you're starving.
Where| Wandering around
When| Catch-all for everything from the cornucopia through the second week.
Warnings/Notes| language, for sure. will update if anything else.


Ellie was starving.

It wasn't the first time she had starved, of course, and it was very unlikely to be the last. It was just the first time she had starved without anything she could really do about it.

She was pretty good with plants - knew better than to eat things she wasn't absolutely sure wasn't poisonous - and she didn't recognize any of the plants. So she'd made do with the rotten apples - digging out the rotten bits with her fingers and eating around the rest. It wasn't good, and she'd thrown up once, but any food was good food, at this point.

It simply wasn't going to last.

So she went hunting.

Not literally, of course. She was armed only with a piece of wood, and she'd done nothing but run from the wildlife and the creepy moving forest. No. She was hunting for supplies. She was hunting for people.

People she could steal from.

No way that could go wrong, right?

Comments

[hit_girl_mindy]

"Yeah, I can see why you would. If you don't have a gun, a bow and arrow would be like the same thing, only you die slower and more painfully. So I'm gonna go with the 'too fast' theory. I don't think they mind the bloody if they could drag it out with less efficient weapons."

She grinned. Yeah, she liked this girl's attitude just fine. "Sister, you are speaking my fucking language: the language of 'I'm starving and I go for squirrel meat at this point.'"

[onlyimmune]

"Hey, squirrel can be fucking delicious," Ellie said, grinning a bit as she relaxed, stepping a bit closer as she looked around.

"But good luck. I haven't seen a single fucking edible thing. I've never been in a place with fewer animals than this. I haven't seen a bird, or a rabbit, or a squirrel and it's been days. There is something seriously fucked up about this place."

[hit_girl_mindy]

"I'll take your word for it," Mindy said, wondering if the girl had come from a pretty impoverished world. The only people she knew that ate squirrel were a little red in the neck. "I'm from the city, so, you know, you can buy cow and chicken and shit. No real need for roadkill."

She sighed. "Yeah, I thought that might be the case. Basically all we get is what they decide to give us. Surroundings are fucking poisoned, we have to kill each other eventually and starvation is a real possibility. Ratings gold, if you make it like that."

[onlyimmune]

"Yeah well the rations I got in the city were never as good as actually catching something myself. Cow and chicken and shit weren't exactly easy to come by."

Ellie didn't really know what Ratings were, but she wasn't exactly about to say so.

"There are people around who have some supplies. We just need to uh... help ourselves to some. If you get what I mean."

[hit_girl_mindy]

"If the world is as fucked up as you say, I don't doubt it. But I don't know if these people are even decent enough to give us, you know, real game."

She got what she meant, all right.

"I'll help," she said, "but only get what I need. I'm not in the business of starving some other poor fuck. Not unless they earn it."

Mindy was not above sending as asshole up the river.

[onlyimmune]

"Yeah, agreed. Most of everyone here is alright, though fair warning, there are some crazy fucks around here," She added darkly, thinking of whoever had leapt into the tree after her.

[hit_girl_mindy]

"Next chance I get, I'm getting a weapon. That way, we can be the ones they're scared of."

She paused. "Crazy fucks. Like who?"

[onlyimmune]

"Like the last two guys that won? I saw the footage. Fucking killing people left, right and center." Wesker and Maximus weren't exactly the best introduction to the games.

"Then some fucking freak tried to kill me yesterday while I was in a tree. Leapt right up the branches beside me like a fucking acrobat. I didn't see him though because hell no was I staying anywhere fucking near that place."

[hit_girl_mindy]

"Need names. I gotta get a grasp at where I am, what kinda shit I'm dealing with. That's really the only way you out think your bad guy. If they were dumb ass flunkies, that's one thing, but some of these people are seasoned veterans, right? Gotta know who's who."

That got her thinking. Like an acrobat huh? There WAS that woman who tried to take her weapon earlier and succeeded in getting it lost. But shit, acrobat could be anyone.

"Gotta keep tabs on these people. Sure, surviving is, like, seventy percent luck, but the rest of that is skill, you know?"

[onlyimmune]

"Uh... Well you don't have to worry about the guys who already won. Whiskers and Maxine or something like that. Once you win you don't have to fight again." Or so she had been told.

"As for the others I didn't stop to take names, you know? Kind of was too busy trying not to get stabbed."

[hit_girl_mindy]

Mindy snickered. She was pretty sure no person was named Whiskers, and Ellie said they were both dudes, right? She doubted the name was Maxine.

"Like I said, you'll wanna keep track. If someone has it in for you, better to know who it is and why. Maybe you're the quiet kinda girl though. Me, I'll have at least made an enemy by the time I get killed or win this fucker."

[onlyimmune]

Ellie couldn't help it, the chuckle already there on her lips.

"Yeah. Quiet," She said, thinking of Joel. But that sobered her up pretty quickly. "I end up with enough enemies without looking for them, if you know what I mean."

[hit_girl_mindy]

"Actually, I'm kinda curious about what you mean," Mindy said, keeping the smirk. "You don't strike me as the type that goes around starting trouble. Who ARE your enemies?"

[onlyimmune]

"Besides the infected, you mean?" Ellie asked, raising an eyebrow. She knew most of them came from worlds without infected but she never really got used to it. She looked away.

"Let's see. Anyone who wants to eat whatever supplies I have. Anyone who wants to eat me. The army. People fighting the army. Hunters. Scavengers."

The list was longer, way longer, but Ellie didn't really like broadcasting her condition, even here. She glanced back at Mindy. "Just- yeah. Kind of used to the whole everyone wanting to kill me thing."

[hit_girl_mindy]

Oh, so she was talking about her own world and bringing that experience here. That made sense: she even respected that. Better to fight the enemy when you believed there were always lurking underfoot, right?

The eating thing was a bit scary though.

"Ok, so no one special here, that's a good thing. You'd probably have to find someone pretty fucked up who wanted to go after kids anyway. That's...not the case though, right?"

She wanted to make sure, because if there was a sicko like that, the sooner she killed that person the better.

[onlyimmune]

Ellie's lips thinned.

"I don't know. I've heard that before us the games only had kids in them. So I wouldn't bet your socks on it. These were originally designed as a way for the Capitol to watch kids die. So I'm not exactly going to trust that people aren't out to get me just based on my age, you know? They'd probably just justify it as a fucking mercy for not letting us suffer too long."

[hit_girl_mindy]

"Yeah, or think about this: if we kids were this way in the beginning, pitted against each other, that would technically make them the veterans. They've seen what we can do and it scares them. An older person, even skilled, you kinda have an idea how they think after you get to know them. Kids are vicious, cutthroat. Better to probably get them out of the way first."

She shrugged. "That might be how I'd think of it, anyway."

[onlyimmune]

"Yeah, and they'd be totally fucking right," Ellie said with a grin.

Even though it wasn't true.

Kids were always the first against the wall, and they rarely put up a fight. But that didn't mean she wouldn't. And she had a pretty good feeling it didn't mean Mindy wouldn't, either.

[hit_girl_mindy]

"If they can't, then I'll have to make sure they DO," Mindy said. "I'm not gonna have these adults thinking they can just pick us off so they concentrate on what they think's the REAL opponents. I'd rather fight someone to the death than pick off some weakling like an asshole."

For now, anyway.

Wrapping this up? c:

[onlyimmune]

"Fucking right," Ellie agreed.

"Let's go show those assholes."

Re: In the words of K9: Affirmative!

[hit_girl_mindy]

"Looks like the start of a beautiful friendship."