Cassandra "Sandy" Marko (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
justoutrunyou) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thearena2014-05-22 05:05 pm
justoutrunyou) wrote in thearena2014-05-22 05:05 pm
Entry tags:
Give yourself to the nothingness - Week 1
Who: Sandy, NPC Pruna and Shepard
What: They finally ambush Shepard and karma rewards them accordingly
Where: One of the houses just off the main street.
When: Week 1
Notes: Death, violence, cursing, Quick time events
The scent of rotted wood and dust was so irritating to Sandy that she had pulled up her windbreaker to cover her mouth and nose as she lay on her back in the old house she and Pruna had claimed for themselves.
In a rare stroke of luck Sandy and Pruna had reunited after the initial rush at the cornucopia. Pruna had come up empty handed but Sandy was willing to share her supplies of course. They had sought out shelter in one of the houses and after checking for bugs, the upstairs seemed the safest place to rest and let time pass. As usual Pruna wanted to seek out other tributes but loyally stood by Sandy's side.
The house reminded Sandy of many of the older buildings she had explored growing up in the bad neighborhoods around her apartment. A hint of danger, a sense of history. This house was practically alive with what it had seen in it's glory days.
...at least that was how it felt. For all Sandy knew the Capitol had built this house from scratch and prepared it exactly for the purpose of evoking such emotions.
It was a safe place for now, who knew how long that would last.
In the arena, safety was always fleeting.
What: They finally ambush Shepard and karma rewards them accordingly
Where: One of the houses just off the main street.
When: Week 1
Notes: Death, violence, cursing, Quick time events
The scent of rotted wood and dust was so irritating to Sandy that she had pulled up her windbreaker to cover her mouth and nose as she lay on her back in the old house she and Pruna had claimed for themselves.
In a rare stroke of luck Sandy and Pruna had reunited after the initial rush at the cornucopia. Pruna had come up empty handed but Sandy was willing to share her supplies of course. They had sought out shelter in one of the houses and after checking for bugs, the upstairs seemed the safest place to rest and let time pass. As usual Pruna wanted to seek out other tributes but loyally stood by Sandy's side.
The house reminded Sandy of many of the older buildings she had explored growing up in the bad neighborhoods around her apartment. A hint of danger, a sense of history. This house was practically alive with what it had seen in it's glory days.
...at least that was how it felt. For all Sandy knew the Capitol had built this house from scratch and prepared it exactly for the purpose of evoking such emotions.
It was a safe place for now, who knew how long that would last.
In the arena, safety was always fleeting.
no subject
Creak, crick, croak!
The house was old and the wood was moldy, full of complaining boards and mushy spots that bespoke worse damage below-decks. Far from just looking bad, the house had cancer in its bones, mush or termites, or some Gamemaker trick as yet unthoughtof by the mercifully uncaring hand of nature. Shepard stalked across the ground floor like an unsubtle cat, in search of supplies or targets, hiding in the rotten shadows.
no subject
Rolling over as slowly as she could manage without feeling vulnerable she placed an ear to the floor to listen, and sure enough someone was moving around on the floor just below them.
She made the smallest of hissing sounds to get Pruna's attention but the trained assassin was already creeping across the floor to Sandy's side with a hand on a sharpened piece of wood she had procured as a weapon. Sandy had offered her the axe she had found but Pruna refused saying how Sandy would probably need it more if they got into trouble.
The floor under Sandy's knees gave a creak of it's own as Pruna reached Sandy's side and for a blood freezing moment they both stopped still expecting they had been heard.
fifty wrestling matches with my screen later . . .
...or maybe there was a Tribute.
There was an answering creak up ahead, as something in the floor— the ceiling, rather, groaned, as full-throated with dismay as if the house really had been alive. Shepard put her hand on a wallthat might once have been papered in a pastoral-print, and watched the ceiling as if she could see right through it to the other side. A bit of dust drifted down into her eyes and made the decision for her; all half-formed supposition of stealth forgotten, Jane strode towards the stairway. Commander Shepard didn't hesitate and she sure as hell didn't get intimidated by ghosts in the damn attic.
Congratulations on your fixing your computer troubles :)
The combined weight of both girls wasn't much, even when factoring in the force of their feet pushing off the ground to run.
However the house was so old, the wood so rotten that all it took was one wrong footstep. Sandy's foot found that step and punched through the floor with a puff of dust and mildew. Her yelp was the only warning Pruna would get as she pitched forward grabbing for her friend desperately.
The floor made one last anguished groan before it split open and shattered under their weight, exploding the ceiling above Shepard as two girls, a bag of supplies and an axe came tumbling from the second floor.
thank you <3 Still getting used to this new beast, though.
There was a tumbling, and darkness, an immense sense of pressure that then shifted. Shepard felt a sharp pain run up her side; a pulled muscle or a cracked rib? No time for answers, and no time to indulge her treacherous, pained body: the damn roof had just fallen in. She took a breath, then another, then pushed with both legs and the strained and screaming strength of her back against the moldy beam that had pinned her. It shifted first, although it cost her a scream to do it, and left her limp with exhaustion and painfully vulnerable.
The house looked like a shelled hull, the entire second floor sagging towards the hole, with bits still sliding and falling as their individual physics demanded it. And there, on a rough patch of almost intact floor, she saw none other than Sandy Marko, and the girl they called Pruna.
Shepard did not get up; she just lay there and goggled, choking on the dust until she could speak.
"Okay. Full marks this time. You got me."
no subject
"Shepard?"
Pruna stood up looking only a little banged up until she turned around and revealed to the other two that she had a broken piece of wood in her shoulder. Sandy marveled for a moment at how easy it was for Pruna to completely shrug off pain like that. Years of assassin training had made it almost instinctive for her to shut off her emotions and feelings of pain.
"Hold on lemme rip some strips out of my shirt we can wrap your wound." She called struggling to haul herself out of the mess.
The floor beneath them creaked and groaned causing her to freeze, it seemed like the house was warning them that they weren't safe yet.
no subject
And then the floor spoke, and her grimace was for another reason. The ceiling couldn't bear the weight of two running children in some places, clearly. Why would the floor be able to hold the weight of the entire upper storey?
"...easy. Easy, now," Something shifted below them, there was a rattling sound, and then a clunk, as if some part of the cracked and creaking house had fallen away into a lower place and struck stone, or concrete, "Okay. Sandy, you first. Slowly, towards the door. Kid? You next."
If the house would give them a little time, then this could still come out reasonably aright.
no subject
Slowly, so slowly she dragged her leg out of the rubble and put her foot onto a piece of wood to try and pull the rest of herself out. Pruna was still as a statue as she watched Sandy with a distant look in her eyes. While Pruna was in her zenlike nothingness state she wouldn't have any actual concern for Sandy. It was all part of how she blocked out pain.
The next foot came free with a cloud of dust and bits of rubble falling off her shoe leaving the gangly girl perched on a few mangled pieces of flooring that had landed on top of the collapsed level.
And the house itself was no silent witness to this feat of anxiously slow activity. It groaned and threatened in a creaking, cracking voice that they were testing their luck with every passing moment.
One foot, then the other. Sandy precariously sought out stable footing among broken furniture and moldy insulation.
By the third step the house decided it had finally had enough. With a deafening crash the middle of the room seemed to split open like a gaping maw and the local gravity shifted sharply sending all the contents of the main floor sliding towards it. Sandy let out a yelp and pitched backwards towards the hole. Pruna didn't hesitate for a moment at dragging herself from the mess to throw her body at Sandy trying to catch her, but the floor was tilting much to steep and fast.
no subject
Pruna slid past her, unsteady with her injured leg; you could banish the pain, but the wound was still real. Shepard made a gab for it, but only managed to snag Sandy. She hauled her up bodily, and scrambled like a pyjack, half-dragging, half-throwing the young Miss Marko to be sure she made it out even as the floor disintegration beneath their feet. She could only hope Pruna was behind her.
Dim grey light filtered down as the roof wobbled and gave way, spotlighting the long, deadly slide from ruined first floor into basement. Oh yes, and the spiders.
There were hundreds of them, enormous beasts with impractically large fangs like something out of a horror vid, but no less deadly for their general implausibility. Here and there among them, pale, half-humanoid shapes rolled and gibbered, turning their heads and what might pass for faces towards the potential for a meal. Shepard considered the whole of the situation in a single glance with the experience of decades behind it.
"Fuck."
no subject
She caught onto the surviving bits of floor near the front entrance and hung half safe and half dangling over a pit of squirming death. Kicking her feet for any sort of hold she grunted and groaned using what little upper arm strength she'd developed in the weeks prior to the arena. By the time she was on solid wood again she felt sweat running down her face.
But it wasn't over yet.
Turning back to look into the basement she saw Pruna fighting like a savage beast. Even with how large they were spiders were dying as she slammed feet into them or scratched at their many eyes.
But she was one girl against a swarm and as the pain shattered her grip on the nothingness she let out a scream that would haunt Sandy the rest of her life.
"ASHLEY!" She cried out the affectionate nickname that only she ever used. Her fingers curled around the edge of the remaining wood so hard the jagged splinters dug into her skin. Tears streamed down her face as Pruna vanished into the swarming bodies.
Frozen by the tragic scene, Sandy was still in danger of becoming the swarms next meal.
no subject
ASHLEY
Dammit, Sandy, as if they hadn't enough trouble. Shepard guessed what was happening behind her without looking, and caught Sandy up in passing. The girl was just a ripple in the adrenaline-haze, almost nothing against her shoulder, but the weight was too much and she felt the wood give like soft cheese as she scrambled to run. Shepard didn't stop until she felt solid ground under her feet; only then could she look back and see the basement of the house like a yawning, tooth-edged pit, and the writhing crowd of monsters down its throat.
And the last few minutes of Pruna's life as she fought with broken bones and streaming red skin against that horde. In a moment she would go down and then their attention would shift. There was no time to watch, and nothing they could do.
"It's time to go."
no subject
Her numb feet kicked at the ground and stumbled. Barely aware of her surroundings she clung to Shepard as she felt a sort of tunnel vision looming around the corners of her eyes. The blurriness became tears that ran down her cheeks staining the collar of her shirt.
Somewhere a canon sounded signalling one less tribute in the arena.