Arena 12 - The Spaceport

[etcircenses]

As usual the Tributes are woken up early for the start of the arena, leaving the Tribute Centre before dawn. A few hours ride in a hovercraft delivers them to their destination where their excited prep teams will outfit them in skintight suits that are colour coordinated by District (D1 is White, D2 is Red, D3 is Orange, D4 is Aqua, D5 is Purple, D6 is Pink, D7 is Light Green, D8 is Blue, D9 is Yellow, D10 is Dark Green, D11 is Lavender, and D12 is Black) over which they will be put into what is instantly identifiable as a spacesuit, complete with oxygen tank and helmet before being loaded into the tubes.

They rise up into what appears to be outer space and immediately upon emerging from the tubes Tributes will find themselves floating upwards with a length of rope the only thing holding them to their podiums. The countdown crackles out from speakers built into each Tributes helmet.

20

19

18…

The Cornucopia sits in the middle of a dusty crater with buildings surrounding it, made up of a number of chained down cases and cubes in limited numbers. Cubes which sharp-eyed Tributes will note look like they fit into the slots beside the doors that lead into the spaceport.

8

7

6…

The mirrored visors of the uniformly white spacesuits make it impossible to tell friend from foe. Tributes fighting for goods will have to risk harming their friends but the alternative, floating off into space or suffocating when their oxygen runs out, leaves them little choice.

3

2

1…

The gong rings out and the countdown’s voice announces, “the Arena is now open” before the line goes dead. The Games have begun.

Comments

[weaintashes]

While Beth aims for the vulnerable throat, Daryl simultaneously drops into a crouching position without letting go of the tail and rips the visor shard across what he can reach of its underside, opening it up. A torrent of the same sticky green fluid is released along with foul-smelling viscera. The creature's contortions quickly become so frantic and violent that he's forced to let go, leaving it to sputter acid across the floor, snarling out its dying rage, before eventually convulsing and collapsing.

Once he's certain the thing is dead, he slowly lets out a steadying breath and looks up at Beth, the corners of his mouth twitching upward in what might be a smile. "You did good."

The anesthetising effects of adrenaline are already wearing off, granting him awareness of his bare skin burning, too, and of the shallow cuts on his palm from his makeshift weapon. He tucks the shard underneath an arm as he regains his feet, wiping his hands on his suit. Then he's reaching to take Beth's hands in his, turns them palm up, and uses his sleeve to thoroughly scrub them off as much as possible.

"Stuff's like acid," he mutters, wishing for something more effective to neutralise it. "Might blister. Keep an eye out for a sink or somethin'." Would a spaceport even have sinks?

[schnapp]

Her hands still continue to smart a little bit even after Daryl scrubs all the blood off, but it's fine. Beth continues to scrunch her fingers up just to make sure that it doesn't get stiff or anything. She needs to be able to hold her makeshift knife, even if it happened to leave cuts in the creases of her fingers where she'd gripped it. But it's fine. Both of them have endured worse before.

She's tough. She can keep going. They both can.

"You oughta smile more often. And not just when we're killin' things," Beth remarks, with a smile of her own. A distraction from the pain now that the adrenalin has pushed the fear away a little bit. "I guess we should...go and find supplies. If there are any around here."

[weaintashes]

The comment predictably wipes away all traces of his smile because he hadn't really been aware of it until Beth pointed it out, and now he's embarrassed. He lets go of her hands and stands there awkwardly for a few seconds, wanting to ask what there is that's worth smiling about.

Except the answer comes to him before he can even open his mouth. She's there staring him in the face.

Well.

He knocks aside the door and steps back out into the corridor, waiting for Beth to join him before he moves on. There's only one direction they can head in that's not backtracking, so that simplifies the choice of where to go.

"There was this place, Terminus," he says quietly while they're walking. "Signs for it everywhere. Said it was a sanctuary, a community. An' I guess maybe it could'a been, once. Rick wanted to check it out — I was with him, Michonne, Carl. We thought maybe everyone else would'a headed that way too." He's unconsciously chewing on his thumbnail by this point, heedless of the alien blood crusted under it, inadvertently revealing his anxiety. He falls silent as they reach intersecting hallways and looks to Beth. They should probably start moving inward, he figures, and nods in that direction.

[schnapp]

The smile was very short lived, but it is definitely being filed away into a small database of Beth's memories. Times when Daryl Dixon was Nice to Me, or something similarly titled. The list had actually been growing at a really surprising rate up until the point where she had felt rough hands shoving her into a car.

She sticks close to his side as they move, alert to every noise in their vicinity. Perhaps too much so, because every tiny sound in the distance makes her shoulders visibly tense. They've killed one of those things, but there's no telling how many of them are out there.

"...what happened?" Beth whispers, with trepidation, like she almost doesn't want to know. But then again, He had told her that everyone was alright. That just means they're alive and breathing. It doesn't say anything about the trauma they might have experienced.

She wishes, more than anything, that she were strong enough to shield them from all of it. But she isn't. Nobody is. So they just have to make do.

tw: gore related to cannibalism i guess?

[weaintashes]

The silence stretches on for longer than it should and he's reluctant to end it. Beth really doesn't want to know. Except she needs to, because who the hell knows what may happen when and if these Capitol, Gamemaker, whatever-assholes return them to their own world. She might stumble across the Terminus signs, too. She needs to know to stay the hell away from the place, or whatever's left of it.

"Was a literal slaughterhouse," he answers in a voice barely above a whisper. "For people. They kept the live ones locked in train cars, and were gonna butcher and eat us. Nearly did." If they didn't come from the world they did, there might be some humour to be found in his explanation. But the horror of the place — the swaying human torsos on meat hooks, the people left to bleed out, the goddamn grill out front with meat on it — is still too vivid in his mind to crack any jokes. It makes him vaguely queasy just remembering.

"We found the others there. Most everyone except Carol, Tyreese, Judith — they were safe outside. If not for Carol..." He shakes his head. "She got us out. About blew the whole damn place up rescuin' us." And there's an undeniable swell of pride colouring his tone as he says that last part. "Later, after all that, me an' her went lookin' for you. We'd seen a car like the one that took you."

That also feels important for Beth to know, that he'd never given up on her. She isn't just another dead girl to him. She's his family.

[schnapp]

The thing about Beth is that she really wants to believe the best in people. It's a little naive, but that belief doesn't exclude the fact that she's seen a lot of horrible things in her lifetime. The Governor beheading her father. The mutilated girl on the mannequin in the country club. Hearing about what happened between Shane and Rick. She knows that there are people out there that will hurt her with very little provocation. She knows about human cruelty.

But this? This is enough to nearly feel sick to her stomach. To the point where she's reaching out to grab his hand and give it a quick squeeze - I'm glad you're okay.

"That's terrible," she whispers it, dizzied with the mental image and the realization that she came so close to losing them all. People do crazy things when they're desperate enough, but eating other people? That's messed up.

"You looked for me?" Beth doesn't know why she's surprised. She's just...touched, that's all.