Your Ghost is a Lightshow at Night [Closed]

[vissernone]

WHO| Eva and Holiday
WHAT| Holiday's time is up.
WHEN| Week 4
WHERE| The jungle
WARNINGS| Death!

In her first Arena, when she was sixteen, Eva killed seven people. She remembers their faces, their District numbers, but not their names. Ultimately, she told herself they didn't matter, but had to confess that her ignorance was a fortress she erected around herself against the tides of guilt that kept washing in long after public interest had faded.

She doesn't have that luxury this time. She knows who she killed. She's seen Cosette on the television before and considered sponsoring her, except that she knew it would break Eponine's heart.

For now, she doesn't let that stop her from looking for her next victim, or for looking to find Eponine again. She ties her hair into a braid (fraying in the humidity) and uses her spear alternately as a walking stick and as a probe to venture into thick plants. She's managed to avoid the wildlife here, thank God, but insect bites and hunger and dehydration are taking their toll. And she hasn't seen Eponine for a few days now. She's seen Sigma's face in the sky.

A flash of movement through the trees catches her eye. She lifts her spear and lowers her body to a crouch, listening for the next sound.

Comments

[doc_holi]

Holiday tried moving through the forest quietly, but it was too no avail. She was hungry, tired, the days were too long. It was getting close to her end and she knew it. Might as well. Punchy was dead and she felt pretty terrible about it, so much so, that she was no traveling on her own.

She stopped, thinking that she had heard something, but ultimately brushed it off. Didn't matter if she heard anything or not really. Yet, even in her mindset, the palm of her hand stayed on her knife.

[vissernone]

Once Eva sees her target, once she knows for sure it isn't Eponine - Holiday's more lean than starved, hair fuller, shorter, hard to mistake one for the other even from the back - she makes her move.

Only her footsteps through the jungle announce her presence as she lunges forward and sends her spear whipping through the air at Holiday's back.

[doc_holi]

Holiday quickly turned at the attacker and attempted to dodge, when she hesitated once seeing the other woman's face. Eva. Traitor Eva.

Instead of her back, the spear rips through her front and she knows it's finally going to be over and she'll be forced to leave the most beautiful place she's found since arriving in Panem, but her anger is stronger than the pain and she slashes at Eva with her knife when the wound is first made.

[vissernone]

The knife slices through a lock of Eva's hair and part of her ear. Eva grunts and whips her body away from the worst of it, then scrambles backwards, away from Holiday. The woman's skewered - even if the spear weren't poison, death won't take long.

She rushes into the undergrowth to watch and wait to get her weapon back while the blood drips down her neck.

[doc_holi]

Holiday stumbles before falling completely on her back, blood rushing to her lips. She coughs a couple of times and wonders away about how to ruin the things she had on her before Eva could get them. At least the food was hidden somewhere else, but there was the knife and spear to think of... Not much she could do about that in this position.

"Bitch," she spits out, really wishing she had the woman's hair in her hands. If there was someone to kill in this arena... Eva probably wasn't the first to come to mind, but she was on the list...

She would have held the spear if she had any decent strength, but she didn't and she was dying anyway, so Holiday tries to slam the knife into the hilt of the spear and saw on it a little. It didn't break, but it was weaker now, at least. Nearly cut through to the middle.

That would have to do, because she couldn't grip the knife anymore, couldn't feel her hand, and things were getting dark. It isn't as quick as she would have liked - or painless - but it is nice. She wishes that it could all end here, but it won't. It's a shame, though. The arena was beautiful this round.

Her eyes glass over, watching the sky and unblinking.

[vissernone]

Eva waits for the signal from the cannon, then for a while longer, in case anyone comes looking around. Finally she emerges again.

She doesn't bother with niceties, with closing Holidays eyes or posing her body like some macabre doll. Instead she puts her foot on Holiday's shoulder and pulls the spear out with a sick thukk noise before going through Holiday's pockets. The knife is nice - she tucks it into her belt. She snarls slightly as she sees the notch in the spear, weakening it.

Without regret, she disappears again into the green.