thearena | Can I pose a question [closed]

Who| Clemzombie, Joel and Sabriel
What| Joel finds Zombie Clementine, luckily Sabriel is there to do the hard part
Where| Town green
When| First day of the 2nd Hell-rena
Warnings/Notes| Descriptions of gore, zombie children, child death

It's been a week since Clementine died but her body remains in the arena, wandering, rotting as whatever has possession of her flesh follows its singular desire to consume. Since taking it's one mouthful of Sandy there have been no other tributes within its grasp, one injured dog-creature, but no humans. Sometimes it's smelled them, followed them but has always been outpaced, wandering in the wake of quicker chaos.

When the world changes the Walker does not react, it has no concern for such things. The sound, sights and temperature do not affect it as it stands, still for once in the town green. Lurkers had been the name for the ones that stayed in once place to Clementine, it seems that right now the Walker she is has decided to do just that.

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Joel feels empty, hollow. He hasn't felt anything like this since - well, since Sarah died, twenty years ago. It's like a hole in his heart that he'd tried to keep plugged, keep buried and hidden, has suddenly been reopened.

He couldn't save her. He could never save her. Sarah is gone, again, and once again, it's his fault.

Ellie tries to help him - but he can't look at her without seeing Sarah, so he tries to look away. He knows it hurts her, but he can't do it.

It's almost a relief, to be spending an hour away from her. Despite the growing heat, despite the faster movements of the creatures in this place. If she was with him, she'd just die, anyway. They all die. All the people he loves.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spots her. Maybe it's his imagination, but it's been a few days, at least, since Clem just up and vanished from their little group, and Joel got so distracted with other things he hadn't had time to keep searching for her.

"Clementine?" Even in the unwavering heat, he starts for her at a jog. "Clem!"

A sound. A voice, footsteps running closer, the smell of something alive.

To say what Joel will see will horrify him is putting it mildly. As he comes towards her what's left of Clementine turns to look at him with opaque eyes and a rasping moan. There's old blackened blood and ripped flesh exposed in her stomach, the same on her right arm -- there it's been torn so badly the bone is visible, partially eaten away as if by something acidic while old flaking blood runs down her chin. Her brown skin has taken on a deathly grey pallor from the lack of flowing blood.

She's already lunging towards him, slow but determined with her hands grasping and her mouth open in endless hunger.

"Jesus Christ."

It takes his breath away, the sight of her. So this is what she meant. Walkers. Not infected, just... dead. But still moving around. It's like his worst nightmare come to life - again.

"Clem... goddammit..."

He stumbles back away from her, his face twisted with pain.

To Sabriel, the Dead were were a fact of life- a horrifying fact, but a fact.

So when she sensed one nearby, instinct took over. A whistle and a handclap- sounds that seemed to linger longer than they should have, carrying a command to the little corpse, reinforced by Sabriel's own will and power.

Stop.

She strode forward, keeping a grip on her crowbar even as horror twisted her features.

Edited 2014-06-27 04:59 (UTC)

She keeps coming after Joel, not looking down, not blinking, moving at what is best called a quick walk. Even when her feet encounter debris among the grass she does not seem to acknowledge it, just stumbles over them and clumsily rights herself with hands outstretched for him.

Then suddenly she stops, coming to a stiff stand of attention as the sound of the whistle echoes around them, holding her in place.

Joel isn't scared. He's not in fear of his life. He's shocked, and horrified. The sight of this child, like that, is definitely up there on the list of terrible things he wishes he'd never had to see.

Almost as high as the image of Sarah - or something like her - trying to attack Ellie.

"Christ. Oh, Christ," he hears himself saying, scrubbing a hand over his face even as a whistle cuts through the air. Startled, he turns around, looking for the source of the sound. A - girl? With a crowbar?

"Hey, what're you -"

Sabriel keeps up the sound- whistling, stomping, humming, and occasionally even singing a few words- like "Yield", and "obey" as she raises the crowbar

She keeps Joel in her peripheral vision, but most of her attention is on the Dead thing in front of her, horror hidden beneath concentration and grief as she swings it down.

It turns its head towards Sabriel at that last moment, attention drawn though the body remains still, obeying the magic the Abhorsen wields. There's another piteous moan before the crowbar hits--

--and the Walker goes down at once, collapsing like a broken doll as bone and sluggish dead blood splatters from its head. It doesn't move again now, Clementine is finally truly dead.

"Clementine!"

Joel has no idea what he just saw, honestly. A little girl, turned into a walking corpse, a horrific sight even for someone who's seen as much horror as he has in his life. And then another girl who - he doesn't even know what the hell she just did, before snuffing out the thing that used to be Clementine.

"Jesus Christ," he hears himself repeating, that familiar numbness creeping over him whenever it's a child. Whenever another kid dies violently. Whenever it threatens to take him back to that night.

"It's dead," Sabriel tells him, tension easing out of her body a bit, "Or as dead as I can make it. I know there was another one out there, but I think someone else might have killed it by now."

She pauses, looking Joel up and down. "Are you injured?" She sounds exhausted, and sad, but not particularly shocked by what she just did, or what she just faced.

He's seen infection. He's seen people turn, had to kill them. Even the infection was never quite like that, though. On reflection, Joel isn't sure which he thinks is worse. Not that it matters. They're both equally terrible.

"I'm fine," he mutters, shutting it away, closing it off, turning his face hard again. There's no use dwelling. Clem will wake up back in the Capitol, now.

Hopefully.

"What the hell was that you did?" he asks, running a hand over his sweaty face. Jesus, he hates it when the temperature rises here. It's worse than Austin in the middle of July.

"I told it to hold still," Sabriel said with a grim look, "And then I hit it very hard on the head."

People here had never heard of Abhorsen, Sabriel realized as she wiped sweat from her face, and apparently this man had never heard of necromancy either. Given the general reputation of such magic, that was probably a blessing.

He ignores the part about hitting it on the head - that isn't the part that startled him. Given a few more seconds, he would've done exactly the same thing. It's the other thing that's got his eyebrows raised at her.

"You told it."

Sabriel shrugged, "I couldn't call myself a necromancer if I couldn't force the Dead to do what I wanted. And music is how we channel that power."

"...Right," Joel says, because what is there to even say to a statement like that? Anywhere else, it would be frankly absurd. Here, though, he can't deny that what she just did worked. However terrible the result.

So he says nothing, just wipes his brow again and sits down near what's left of Clementine, to wait.

Can I pose a question [closed]

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Tell me if this is okay!

It's okay! c:

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Sorry for the delay!

<3!

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