[Open] Roam if you want to

[seestheman]

Who: Clara Murphy & YOU!
What: Clara slips out of the house to go exploring.
When: Week 2 (maybe later than that too?)
Where: All over!
Notes: Possible language? Potential violence?


01 - Main Street
Clara's pretty certain that her and Alex weren't the only ones to lay claim to one of the buildings in town. Thinking otherwise would be naive at best, and could get her killed at worst. Which doesn't mean that there aren't some that haven't already been sacked or claimed, and if she's lucky she'll find one of them and some supplies to add to their stash. Brandishing the knife that had been dropped in front of their house with her name on it the morning before alongside a flashlight that she's clutching in her left hand, she approaches what looks like an abandoned drug store, hoping that maybe there's still something of use inside.

02 - Amusement Park
Clara had always liked amusement parks. The lights, the colors, the sounds, the smell of funnel cake and cotton candy. They always made her think of going to the carnival with her family as a kid, or dates with Alex, or the proud look on David's face when he won a goldfish or a stuffed animal almost as big as he was. What they definitely never made her think of was thick fog with the skeletal figures of rides emerging with every step or the giant, terrifying clown face that obviously served as the entrance to a fun house. Hearing some sort of footsteps near by, she climbs over the wooden counter of a game stall and ducks down, hoping whoever (or whatever) it is goes away soon.

03 - Orchards
Suspicious as she may be of taking whatever came from the Arena itself compared to what was dropped in for them as gifts, there are certain creature comforts that Clara's missed from home. Ones that aren't completely obvious, like fresh fruit. So her discovery of an orchard makes her wary, which she ignores in lieu of the fact that there's a peach tree right in front of her and one's practically within her reach.

04 - Choose Your Own

Comments

[yourmove]

After his run-in with the basement, Alex learns to take it more carefully with his scavenging runs. He doesn't weigh the same anymore and these buildings are about ready to go. Last thing he wants is it be out there trying to find food and water and taking another swan dive. He might not get fished out the next time.

He gets back with some more pieces from the Amusement Park: scraps of metal, more boards to shore up the windows, stuff that he forgets about when he calls out "Clara?" and she doesn't reply. It's not a big house. Thank God there isn't any blood stains. No signs of struggle. She left on her own two feet.

Alex can't work out if he's scared or pissed or a mix of both that feels like it's trying to strangle him.

He steps outside as the fog presses in with a grey wall, his mind racing trying to figure out where she could've gone to. Alex tells himself she'd be crazy to go back to the Cornucopia. But she'd been talking about fruit, wishing she could find a good apple or orange, and he wonders if the Orchard might be a place to check. He's seen it from a distance, avoided it because he kept thinking of Tributes hiding in the trees. With his heart jumping in his throat, Alex books it for the Orchard, legs pumping.

He makes it there to the sound of someone running through the trees, something skittering and crackling among the branches. He sees the spider before he sees Clara; it's the biggest, ugliest spider he's seen and it's so big his mind goes blank for a second trying to compute. The flash of blonde hair jolts Alex back to action.

He reaches down, picks up a piece of rotting fruit, and chucks it at the spider. It'll get its attention, at the very least.

[seestheman]

There are a lot of things that Clara's figured might kill her here. Things like those dogs she's heard off in the distance, one of those things that got into the house the first night, or another Tribute. Being eaten by a giant spider never really crossed her mind.

She wishes she could run faster, but she feels like something's weighing her down and it's taking much more effort than it should. She's been feeling that way lately along with being a lot more tired, and has assumed that it's the fog and this place getting to her somehow. The only other reason that she can think of would be the fruit, since it only started after she ate some the last time she was her, but that doesn't make any sense since it seemed totally fine. Hell, the apples she had picked a few minutes ago seemed fine too, other than the fact that the tree seemed to be housing the biggest spider she's ever seen.

Clara runs under another tree (that she can only hope doesn't have another spider) to try to evade it and loop back towards the edge of the orchard when she notices that it isn't pursuing her anymore. In fact, it's facing the other direction and is headed towards Alex.

Which begs the question, when did Alex even get here and, should they both survive this, how pissed is he going to be with her? She doesn't have very long to dwell on that, considering the fact that, yeah, she isn't being chased by Shelob's cousin with anger issues, but it's headed towards Alex and that is most definitely not good.

Maybe it isn't the smartest thing, but she pulls out her knife and unfolds it before chasing after the spider. Which probably won't do much, but at least she can try.

[yourmove]

That is one big goddamn spider.

Weird the stuff that goes through your head when you sit up and go Jesus, I could really die today. The spider bearing down on him makes all the ones back home look like jokes, the joints and exoskeleton so big that they bypass that monkey part of his brain that’s hardwired to get squeamish. It’s just flat-out ugly. Like something puked it up.

“Clara, stop!” Alex catches sight of Clara coming his way instead of, say, climbing for the trees. “Don’t – ”

He gets cut off as the spider barrels into him, hitting his chest with enough force that he actually stumbles back, thinks he’ll make it and then goes down underneath the weight of the thing. It chitters, the mandibles or whatever they are flailing as if looking for a good place to sink its fangs into. Maybe it’s never run into a cyborg before. For once Alex is glad he’s trapped in this exosuit/chassis/what-the-hell ever, the visor down to protect as much of his face as possible. Saliva drips down, splatting on his chest. Something starts to sizzle.

Alex has a sinking feeling that’s him. Of course the spider’s also acidic.

He manages to get one arm wedged underneath the spider’s mouth, trying to frantically pinpoint where Clara is.

[seestheman]

There are moments where Clara can be smart and perfectly capable of keeping her head clear and not let the distinct feeling that her heart's in her throat distract her. Moments where she is the picture of poise and rationality. Moments that remind her that, of the two of them, she's generally the one who doesn't go off half-cocked.

This isn't one of those moments. Not by a long shot.

By all rights, there should be a sane logical part of Clara's brain that's reminding her that Alex is covered head-to-toe in graphene armor and, while he may be in danger, he's in significantly less danger than she probably will be once the spider realizes that Alex won't be much of a meal (both in the sense that it'll probably be next to impossible for the spider to get through the armor and that, even if it did, there probably isn't very much of him left that's organic for it to eat, much as she hates to acknowledge that). And that, if Carlos was right, there really isn't that much of a reason to fear death here because they'll end up back in the Capitol, right as rain.

Of course, these thoughts don't really occur to her because there is a giant fucking spider on top of her husband. It's hard to think clearly when there's adrenaline shooting through the fog and cold that's sunk into her recently and the reason why is the only thing she can focus on. She only has enough time and forethought to acknowledge that, maybe, doing this uncovered is a bad idea and pulls the hood of her sweater up and tries to bunch the sleeves around her hands in an attempt to protect herself.

Moving as quietly as possible, she creeps towards where spider has Alex pinned and ducks underneath the creature before, with as much effort as she can put into it, she plunges her knife into the spider's underside before yanking it out and repeating the action.

The spider rears back, taking it]'s attention off Alex as she stabs it a third time. There's a terrible sinking feeling in Clara's stomach. She figured, from the beginning, that she never had a chance of winning this thing. She just never thought she'd end up being killed by a giant, angry spider.

At least, maybe, Alex still has a change winning this thing. "Alex, run!"

[yourmove]

Ichor or blood or whatever it is the spider has inside it splashes as it jerks its body, dragging its abdomen across Clara's knife and making this chittering squeal sound that instinctively sets Alex's teeth on edge.

He manages to shove most of its weight off him, aware of Clara in that way you become hyper-aware of things when shit is going down. Adrenaline rush. It'd be relieving in a way to know he can still feel it if he wasn't worried about this thing killing the two of them. Shoving one of the legs off him, he ignores Clara's warning. He runs, she gets targeted, and she doesn't have this armor to protect her from the acid or the fangs. Like hell he's leaving her behind.

He reaches out without thinking about it.

Alex won't know later if it's him or the AI module reacting to a direct threat: his left hand shoots out, swiveling on its joint, and sinks its fingers into the narrow part where the head meets the abdomen. It squeezes mechanically, no tremble that a human would have, inevitable and steady, Alex throwing his weight forward. He doesn't expect to get any traction because the spider looks like it should weigh more than he does. He pictures his old self in his mind's eye. The reality is he weighs more than he's used to and instead of bouncing off the spider, he actually manages to shove it onto its side. The legs twitch and scrabble. More ichor wells up around his armored fingers, Alex shooting a desperate look at Clara.

"Knife!" He doesn't know if he means gimme the knife or stab it while it's down. All he knows is he won't be able to hold it down for long...

[seestheman]

On some level, Clara's relieved that Alex decides to ignore her and doesn't run. And really, she didn't expect him to, but it was worth a shot. Except she's almost certain that this is going to end with one, or both, of them dead and she's pretty sure that she can't handle losing Alex again, even if she knows that he'll just be going back to the Capitol.

She's waiting for one of their inevitable deaths to come when Alex gets it onto its side and calls for the knife. Clara doesn't know why it takes a moment longer than it usually would for her to do anything (she pins it on the fact that the adrenaline rush is starting to ebb away and she hasn't been sleeping as well as she usually would as of late). Taking the utmost care to be sure that her hands are safely cocooned in the sleeves of her jacket, she plunges the knife in its tail-end and, putting all of her weight into it, drags the knife forward, trying to cut through the exoskeleton. While she's pretty sure that the knife's edge might be chipped and ruined by the time she's done cutting through it, it still works for the most part.

There are a lot of things she wants to tell Alex right now. That he was right and she should've stayed at the house. Or, in the same vein, that she's sorry that he had to come rescue her and she never meant to make him worry (because she knows him and it's another thing on a long list of things she feels like she needs to apologize to him for). Or that she's almost thankful that he's covered in armor because if he wasn't he'd probably be dead or badly wounded (again). Of course, saying any of those things over the sounds the spider's making right now are an impossibility if she wants him to hear her.

Instead, she walks past Alex toward the spider's front and, noticing something that resembles a vein, covers her face with a sleeve and stabs it, ducking out of the way of the spray of...blood or venom or whatever the fuck it is, only getting the sleeve of her jacket slightly sprayed in it (though not enough to soak through to her sweater or past it to the skin, thankfully). Once that's done, she starts to strip off her jacket with the now ruined sleeves so she can wipe the spider's saliva off his chest, and refolds the knife before pulling down the hood of her sweater.

Let's start wrapping up this thread?

[yourmove]

The spider collapses, Alex feeling like he should be breathing hard. Mostly his heart races like it's from NASCAR and with the chassis, it feels somehow claustrophobic.

"Thanks." Alex releases his hand hold on the spider, letting it thud to the ground and ignoring the way that even though it's huge, it's still doing that disgusting leg curl that his brain is still instinctively going holy christ at even though he's stuff in some kind of armor. "It didn't get you, did it?"

Looking at her, his HUD sweeps the outline of her body in red and then begins ticking off biometric readings, whatever those are supposed to be. It comes back with "emotional distress" and "increased heart-rate" like those wouldn't be obvious. Clara just ran into a goddamn spider from a monster movie - who wouldn't be shitting bricks about it? His left hand comes up to cup her face, hesitates, and then gingerly touches Clara's cheek, the coolness of the graphene grazing her skin. She looks like she only got some of the jacket hit with the blood and it's not eating through her like the drool was. Clara's trembling, though, and even though he's touching her with a prosthetic hand, he can still feel how she's shaking.

He's never seen her like this. Alex remembers what she looked like when she was ramping up to propose and he used to think that was the most scared she'd ever been. It doesn't have a candle to the look on her face now.

Sure!

[seestheman]

There have been a number of times in her life Clara's been completely and utterly terrified. The first (and only, thankfully) time she had gotten into a car accident, proposing, walking down the aisle, finding out she was pregnant, finding out that she was going to have to have a C-section, almost any of the times Alex or David got hurt (especially if it meant having to go to the hospital), almost losing Alex, actually losing Alex, being told she'd have to go into a death match and knowing that David was alone in downtown Detroit...none of those compare to the way she feels right now. She isn't sure if she's going to cry or vomit or scream or do all three, which would be painfully embarrassing, doubly so if people were watching them right now.

It's the dumbest thing, but the moment his hand touches her cheek something in her snaps, breaking all her resolve to stay strong and steady and calm. She's always cried when she's too stressed, and this is one of those moments. Usually she'd try to make it not so obvious or try to cry pretty. But this isn't usual. Nothing about it is. She's pretty sure that there's both tears and snot and her eyes are bright red and starting to get puffy and there isn't a chance in hell she'll be able to hide it from him like she usually would because, nope, it's too late, his hand is on her cheek and he's looking down at her and, if she's completely honest with herself, she doesn't care that about him seeing her cry right now and is just so relieved that she didn't lose him again.

"I'm fine," Clara says in between ragged breathes. "How about you?"

[yourmove]

"I'll live." Alex cracks on of those lop-sided smiles of his, worn at the edges. It looked almost alien on a face that had been burned to jerky only a few months ago.

He doesn't know how long and frankly, he doesn't care: from what Clara told him, it's a miracle he's even here today. Alex stands there, feeling useless as his wife's shoulders heave as she cries. Really cries. He rubs her back with his flesh hand (his "good hand", in his mind, because the other one is alien), whispering something like "it'll be okay" and "we'll work it out" and he doesn't know if he believes it. All Alex knows is he needs to convince Clara and he can worry about how much he believes his own BS later.

"Hey," Alex keeps his voice low, trying to aim for comforting but aware they're still near the tree line. If other Tributes didn't hear them, another one of those freak spiders might. "Hey, look. We'll get back to the house, okay? C'mon."

He protectively loops his arm around her back, glancing around at the fog as if daring the other Tributes to try their luck. After the damn spider, Alex feels like the rest of the Arena can't possibly be as bad.