thearena | Maybe that’s why I wait for ghosts

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Maybe that’s why I wait for ghosts

Who| Felicity & Cinderella ; Felicity & Marius
What| Cinderella gets in a fatal blow ; Felicity disfigures Marius
Where| 5th floor elevator bay ; 4th floor elevator bay
When| Week 3
Warnings/Notes| Character death, violence, gore

Three weeks in and she assumed she had the pattern down. The chimes would ring and the doors would open, and at certain times of day, instead of people emerging, it would be little care packages brimming with supplies. Felicity had watched this routine several times now and she realized that it would be incredibly simple for her to wait for the elevator to open during a supply drop and snatch up the presents intended for someone else before they even realized what had happened. She'd waited, observed, and at last, she was ready to move.

On the 5th floor, where she'd been lying in wait, the elevator chimes struck and signaled that supplies would be waiting inside. She had her chance and she took it, sprinting into the elevator, bare feet skidding softly on the shiny marble floor.

//

She couldn't say what hurt specifically. Everything hurt. Her head. Her throat. Her spine. Felicity wondered how she was even on her feet for a long moment before she realized that she wasn't on her feet at all and was instead crumpled into a broken heap on the floor.

How was she alive? Why wasn't she dead yet? Her breath rattled in her lungs and hissed as it escaped.

Her pain was interrupted by something then. It was a sound. A strangely pleasant chime. The darkness of her tomb was broken by a flood of faint light.

The elevator had stopped on the 4th floor.

Somehow, she remembered that she should hold onto her knife. Where had it been when she'd been attacked? That didn't matter. She had it presently, and damn it all, she was going to use it.

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It'd taken her a week to get it all down. She'd met people, talked to people, saw how the museum worked. It was a regular museum, even down to the weird wax figurines, the gift shop, and the dinosaur bones. Sort of dinosaur bones. But she had taken that first week, not getting into fights, but scavenging and getting used to it.

Second week was thinking up of a plan. The idea came to her when she was taking her time and wandering around in the gem hall and then the elevator dinged near her. Obviously, she hid, but when it was another package, and not a person, she had to think.

Everyone went to grab packages. What if someone was there waiting for them? She couldn't just stand there and wait for someone, since anyone would see her before she could even get out. That left one other option; vents. She was thin enough to fit through them, and strong enough to pull herself around through them.

And now she got to use the plan. She'd rode up on the elevator, the vent slightly open so she could ride the top and still look down and see everything. When it slowed to a halt and gave the shudder that meant the door was open to open, she readied her knife. Someone came in, and she jumped down, a blow to the head to stagger her, while keeping her in the elevator so the door could close.

The blow from above knocked Felicity to the ground and her head hit the floor with a hard smack. To say she was stunned was an understatement. She immediately felt woozy, which somehow seemed to numb the aching in her head from where her skull had met the marble. Still, there was no denying, not even to herself, that she was in serious trouble.

"Wha--?" She managed to roll off of her belly and onto her backside. It was then that she at last made out the figure of her attacker.

Thank God she was beautiful.

She wasn't one of those people that liked killing people. She liked what she did, sure, but she was a super spy. Cindy liked the sneaking around, the finding information or finding people. She didn't mind the killing part, it was a side product of what she did. But she didn't find joy in it.

"I'm sorry. It's not you." She kicked her in the side, right where her kidney was. She should have stayed on her stomach.

"It's not me either. It's just how the game is played." Cindy moved the knife in her hand, ready for a slice across the neck. Quick and relatively painless. That was her plan, anyway.

Her eyes went wide, pupils sinking into tiny little pinpricks as the chilling reality of her fate knocked the wind out of her again. This would be her last moment, the tragic end to what had been a pitiful little life. Felicity was horrified.

"No!" Her voice was like a hiss, weak and strangled in her throat, and all at once she was struck by the need to fight back, to get away, to strike out against the older woman. But she was hurt. Felicity was already pinned, and just as soon as the urge to struggle back kicked in, she came to realize that the odds were not in her favor.

Her stomach sank and her insides ached, and she did not know what she would do. She could not surrender. She could never surrender. She had to fight. All she had at her disposal were her hands, and by God, she was going to sacrifice them to keep that blade away from her throat.

She didn't respond to the no. How could she respond to someone saying no to being killed, when that was her very intention? And it was. It was her intention, and god, the things that you had to do here to survive. How could any of them be friends after this?

That's what she wonders, as she straddles her body and then sinks down, sitting on top of her in a way to stop her from moving. They were face to face, Cindy could see everything, and so could this girl. It made it personal, now. And easier to do, which was the main point.

But could they have ever been friends? Cindy goes to cut her throat and then stops, pulling back quick, then using the knife to stab her through her side, a little way below the arm. She's not done yet.

Felicity found that she could not scream. Instead, she let out a heavy gasp, so thick with tension that is got caught in her throat. It hurt. Her side hurt so badly, she wanted to die to make the hurt stop. But it wasn't stopping. Instead, it all seemed to spread. Everything felt shooting and horrible and hot.

"You villain!" Her voice was a rattle, both from the pain of her injury and from the loss of her pride. She stared up at Cindy, panting hard. Her grey blue eyes seemed to have lost their spark already.

If she felt bad by every person Cindy had ever killed, both here and back home, then there would be nothing left of her. Just a husk of a person, unable to go on with life. Then she might get put into Golden Boughs, and frankly, that idea terrified her more then anything else. No one wants to be that Fable that went crazy, and she sure as hell wasn't going crazy.

The knife dug in, and she dragged it down, hand staining with blood quickly. She'd have to go wash it off later. But she had to keep going. It wasn't just about killing someone in here; it was about killing someone in an entertaining way.

"You should be glad the real villain isn't here. She'd eviscerate you." Cindy paused, pulling the knife out. "Okay, wrong choice of words, but you know what I mean." The knife went back in, as she tried to find something to really rupture.

"Look, I'll try to make it as quick as possible." See? She was looking for a lung, and didn't really notice how fast they were moving up.

She still couldn't scream. The noise that escaped her barely qualified as a whimper, a pathetic mewl. It sounded like an animal or something sick. It sounded sad. If Felicity weren't the one making the noise, she'd have been disgusted.

She'd killed before, taken the lives of animals and of monstrous creatures. She recalled the battle in the Realms with pride, remembering the vital part she had played as warrior and liberator. Felicity was a soldier, and soldiers by virtue were not murderers despite their ability to kill. She'd been merciless with those she had faced in battle, and she had been unwavering in her duty. This scene, however, reeked of something different. This wasn't honorable battle in the name of freedom or obligation or any other virtue. This was a bloodsport.

"Make it quicker," she hissed, face contorted beyond recognition from the pain. "You are not killing me. You are drawing it out."

She didn't know who this girl was, and she had to guess that she was brand new. Either she got here right before the arena started, or she'd been thrown into it without knowing what was going on. Cindy didn't know her, she didn't know Cindy, and she was going to die without knowing some things.

Yes, it was cruel. But she just didn't get it. Cindy grimaced, and dug the knife in deeper.

"No shit." The knife twisted. "I'd tell you to wave to the camera, hon, but that seems a little tacky." And she didn't expect for her to get what Cindy was trying to get across. It was too much at one time. Maybe if she ever met her again, she'd explain things a little better.

Where was it, where was it... the elevator was about to stop, the ding sound about to go, when Cindy finally found her lung. A quick puncture through, and there was no way she would be able to last long, or be fixed in a place like this. A gash and a punctured lung wasn't a nice thing to deal with. Maybe she'll say sorry later.

Even if Felicity had wanted to struggle against Cindy, she was in too much agony to do so. Instead, she started to go limp, almost against her will. Her whole body was a useless, floppy mess of blood and limbs. Before she could even think about it, her eyes began close and she felt herself giving in and going under. The pain, so hot and intense, burning inside of her like a fire, was pulling her down and she was sinking like a brick.

Eyes closed, she ceased the fight and willed herself to die.

Cindy didn't have the time to wait to see when the intercom went off, standing right with her to double check it that she was dead. Cindy tightened her grip on the knife, quickly pulling it out and putting it on her belt. In one fluid movement, she was up off her body (her dead, hopefully dead, body), and went to start scaling the wall to get to the top (just too small to jump and grab it).

Instead, she looked back down at the body (now only a body, not a person), and taking a deep breath, she leaned down, planting a whisper of a kiss on her forehead.

Then she was gone, the top of the elevator put back in place, so if anyone looked in? They would see a dead woman on the floor, with blood everywhere, and no idea how it happened.

The little boy that reminded Marius all-too much of Gavroche had, admittedly, been in the right about Marius's lack of sleep. It was but a few hours of rest that he traded for a great deal of energy and the increased confidence in searching food, which was what he had set out to do this very moment, intending to use the elevator to head to the first floor.

He was a few steps away from the elevator when its sudden chime caused him to jump. The sound perturbed him; it became known to him as the harbinger of either direly-needed provisions or unwanted onslaughts.

Marius tightened his grip on the crowbar. He could run, or call for assistance. But time was of the essence, and if food and water from any of their sponsors lay behind those doors then he would have squandered a chance to keep the camp fed.

Besides, it was too late by now. The doors were already sliding open, so he held his breath and prepared himself for what lay behind the cold steel.

A gasp escaped him, his eyes grown large. A woman on the metal ground, and she was wounded! He hurried towards her without hesitation, reaching out with one hand as if to assist her, although his hold on the crowbar did not loosen.

Edited 2014-02-06 14:13 (UTC)

Felicity did not know who Marius was. He could have been anyone or no one, and as far as she knew, he was an accomplice to the woman who had attacked her. This man could be her end. Felicity could not allow this to happen.

Her strength was mostly gone now, slowly seeping from her like the air from a balloon. However, she refused to deflate entirely just yet. As the man approached, she summoned the strength from her reserves and struck at him. The small knife was still clasped in her fist and her arm was close enough for the blade to make contact with his face.

It happened in a flash.

Marius had knelt down beside her when he caught the gleam of the blade. He had but a split-second to jerk his head; he was not able to completely evade the knife. It slashed through his forehead, close to his eyebrows, and the sudden sting sent him staggering back and crying out in pain.

He pressed his hand against the cut, his breath quickening as the panic bubbled in his chest. How deep was it? He could feel the thick, warm liquid seeping through his fingers and trickling down his brows. Was she to attack again? He should escape. He could not afford to die, not when Cosette still needed him.

All these thoughts rushed through him like a tide, and he scrambled farther away from the lady until he felt the cold of the metal collide against his back. He stood up, felt his legs shake, fell back down. The blood had caught in his lashes and dripped into one eye, which he squeezed shut. Through his still-open eye he glimpsed his attacker; he should run, but...

But she looked so weak.

"Mademoiselle..." His voice cracked. She looked like she was dying. "I-I am not here to cause you harm."

She looked like she was dying because she was dying. She was. She understood that now. It had been unclear before, because she'd always expected to be unconscious and that it would be quick. She never expected that she would linger like this, and having expending the last of her energy in slicing the man's face, she knew that she had nothing left to give.

"I..." Her voice was weak. It sounded so pathetic to her ears. It was so unlike her. "I don't want to go like this."

Her eyes lost focus for a second before stabilizing on Marius. There was blood on his brow, and she instantly realized that he was bleeding because of her. That was both satisfying and disheartening. She didn't know him enough to hate him. He could be a lamb for all she knew. And he'd said he wouldn't harm her.

But promises like that meant nothing. Not really.

She inhaled sharply and her lungs hurt. Marius couldn't harm her even if he had wanted to. He might be merciful though, and end the struggle then and there. That thought was satisfying to Felicity. If it was over, it wouldn't hurt to be alive anymore.

"Get me out of here," she whispered, reaching to him as the knife slipped from her hand. "I don't want to die in here. Please!"

There was also the vague threat that Cinderella might reappear from the ceiling of the elevator car. Felicity had been stupid enough to enter the car. There was no need to give Cinderella a second stupid victim.

"I can't get up. P-please."

The plea was all it took to snap him into action. He wiped off the blood from his forehead and blinked, both to chase away the murkiness in his eyes and to prevent the thick liquid from trickling into them. The elevator doors began to slide shut. With a cry, he forced himself up and reached out; his palm slapped against the open button and that gave them a few more seconds of headway.

The Arena began to feel like a dream. He knew that he faltered towards her and collapsed onto his knees by her side, yet he felt as if he was not moving of his own accord. He slid one arm around her back and another behind her legs and carried her, and he cannot tell how he managed it but he staggered out of the lift with her, crumpling onto the ground just as the doors slid shut.

He glanced down at the girl in his arms through cloudy vision; beads of his own blood dripped onto her cheek. "We are out." His eyes raised in the direction of their camp. "I-I have a friend who can attend to you. It is not far from here, we can make it still..."

Edited 2014-02-08 17:47 (UTC)

There was an immediate sting of regret in her heart, due mostly to her pride. She didn't want to be weak and helpless. There was still fight in her, that much showed in her eyes, anyway. Her body was giving out, however, and even if she had tried to struggle against Marius, she would have fallen into a lifeless heap on the ground.

Still, part of her felt it would be more fitting to die all alone.

"I don't need that," she insisted. She wanted to wipe the sweat away from her neck. It was hot and it made her hair stick to her skin in a clump. However, she didn't realize that it wasn't sweat, but was rather blood pooling from the gash on her neck. "I will walk there if you will right me."

There was no way she would be walking anywhere, but at least she still had her pride.

"But mademoiselle, you are..."

Marius's words died in his tongue the moment his eyes landed on the gash that leaked out bright crimson. He could feel his eyes prickle with the beginnings of tears, so he squeezed his eyes shut and forced himself to swallow away the lump in his throat.

A murky memory of the barricades flashed before his eyes then. Briefly, a vision of Eponine in his arms, with the bullet wound in her chest, her pale face and her blue-grey lips, and the coldness of her forehead as he pressed his lips against them.

He snapped his eyes open. No, this was no time to panic. He was supposed to help this lady. He might not know her, but he knew what it felt to die, and all he could do to alleviate it was to give her what she desired, or at least what he thought she would have liked to her.

"Rest, and when you awake, we will walk there."

There were tears in Felicity's eyes, streaming down her cheeks and around the curve of her chin to mingle with all of the blood. She didn't want to close her eyes or even blink. She understood, internally, that if she did that, she would not have the strength to open them again and she wasn't ready to die yet.

"That's good," she murmured as she eased against Marius. It was against her will. Her body behaved in ways she could not control. Perhaps, above all else, that was the most horrifying wonder of dying.

Suddenly, it occurred to her that she wasn't crying anymore. Her tears had dried up and she was empty. "... I'm not ready. I have to get up." She pushed weakly on his chest in an attempt to support her own weight again. "There was more for me to do."

Marius bit on his lower lip, his vision blurring. He blinked rapidly to clear it, and he thought: there must be something he could force his concentration on, to distract him enough from the tears that threatened to fall. He would not forgive himself if he wept in front of this lady.

"And you will. In time." His voice trembled and his gaze fixed on her bloodied neck because he found it impossible to look at her directly.

He tugged at the cuff of his sleeve, realized that the material was too thick to tear off, then reached in his side-pocket for the pocketknife he had earlier retrieved from the Cornucopia. He twisted a little in the direction away from her head, so that the blade was out of her line of sight and would not accidentally distress her with its abrupt appearance. When he was certain she could not see, he pierced and tore through a considerable length off his sleeve before setting the knife onto the floor beside him.

With a shaky hand, he raised the cloth slightly stained with the blood from his hands to her eye-level. His gaze, meanwhile, flitted to her neck, her cheek, her hair matted against her temples. Anywhere but her eyes. "I-I am going to drape this on your wound, mademoiselle."

He wondered whether she could tell he was only pretending she could be saved.

She might have found his antics either pathetic or amusing were she in better spirits. As she was now, she found his kindness to be much needed and much desired. It was difficult for her to admit that to herself. She'd always been so strong and so loathe to die in the arms of a man. She was supposed to die with Pippa and no one else.

"Sorry about your face," she whispered, letting herself go limp against him. There was nothing else she could do now. It was over and the world was starting to go cold and black. Her eyes weren't closed, but she couldn't see anything anymore. Soon, she couldn't feel anything anymore either. Moments later, Felicity was dead.

He couldn't help it, really; the moment he heard her apology, his eyes welled with tears.

"No matter, mademoiselle. I do not fault—"

His voice died in his throat when he felt her sag against him. He held his breath, his muscles tensing, and he waited for her to speak, move, anything to tell him that she was still alive.

When nothing of that sort came, he finally let the tears flow. His eyes darted around the floor almost frantically, uncertain of what it was that he wanted to find but knowing that it seemed wrong to leave her like this. And so, feeling as if an outside force was controlling his movements, he rested her head on his leg and tied the torn cloth around the gash on her neck. Then, he set her onto the ground, straightened her body, and folded her hands so that they rested on her stomach. With his un-torn sleeve he wiped away the blood that trickled down her neck as best as he could, though traces of crimson still remained here and there when he was done.

He leaned away and rested on his knees. Looking at her through tear-blurred vision, it almost seemed as if she was merely asleep. He stayed there for a long while; how many minutes he did not know. His trance was only broken by the chime of the elevator, and he grabbed his crowbar, the scratching of metal against marble reverberating across the area as he scrambled to his feet and whirled around.

But there was only a sponsor bag inside. He rushed into the steel enclosure and checked the note; it was addressed simply to the campers on the fourth floor.

He hugged it close to his chest while he turned around and leaned his back against the elevator's cold surface. He wanted to return to the others, but spotted the lady's lifeless body once more and felt all the energy drained from him.

So he stayed there. He stayed there and stared at her still, silent image as the doors slid shut, and convinced himself that she was only sleeping.

Edited 2014-03-09 12:29 (UTC)

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Maybe that’s why I wait for ghosts

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