Vantage Points [semi-open]

[shiftingurbulls]

Who| Ellis and the Walking Dead group or anyone who passes by
What| Meeting fellow zombie-apocalypse survivors
Where| Around the caves and glaciers
When| Week 3 before the Guido Suit massacre
Warnings/Notes| Language, talk of Gore...usual business

Ellis had to admit, the sponsors were kind to him to get him all warmed up and armed. Granted it wasn't a rifle like Nick and it was terribly lonely to wait for him to come back from whatever he was doing. He'd told the man to rest for a day in their cave, there wasn't that much need to hunt or defend themselves. Nick, this isn't Georgia, we don't have medkits lying around for us to find. Lay down an' recover, okay? But like hell Suits listened to him. He barely did back home!

Beth implied there were more survivors out there from his home state (halleluyah!) and Ellis knew that as soon as Lt. Raine gained a weapon, he'd be more than fine on his own. So the mechanic grabbed the nearest rock and scratched on the wall a message for Nick to find if the gambler came back before he did:

"LEFT FOR SUPPLIES, BE BACK SOON."

With that, bundled up and the small pocket knife on tow, Ellis set out to explore the Arena again now that the cats were gone.


A. Cave Story

The caves around this land had proven to be a challenge for the ever-curious man to explore and forage in. There was evidence of other people living in there, more experienced Tributes in the art of putting the best and bloodiest show the Capitol could see. All El could get out of these were scraps he could either consume or build trinkets to beat the boredom. Every time the mechanic ran into a campsite, he'd slow down his paces, avoid making unnecessary sounds as to not cause a fight. For all his boisterous acting, survival usually trumped his itch to say hello to anyone he met. Not everyone was as friendly as he was, Nick reminded him so many times back home.

"Hello?" Ellis called out inside, making sure he was close enough to the exit to make a quick getaway. Anyone returning his greeting would see him raise his weapon first before he relaxed.


B. Self-Imposed Challenge

"Okay, tha's impressive," El whispered under his breath as he admired the glacial majesty before him. He felt so tiny and insignificant against the massive structure. Naturally, he said to himself, "I'm gonna climb it." How he survived the Green Flu outbreak is sometimes a mystery. The thing about glaciers is the sheer difficulty that comes with trying to get footing without the proper shoe wear as the mechanic soon found out after a few unsuccessful tries at crossing the river to get to it. "Fuckin' hell," he hissed under his breath before giving up, "Coulda made for a good vantage point."

So the next best thing were the trees, something he had more experience in. It was how he kept whatever meager supplies he could find safe from any slippery hands. He was young and flexible enough to make his way up the branches. Anyone looking up will see a grinning idiot ready to say hello or pounce and get their supplies then disappear into the wilderness if they proved to be untrustworthy. Though Ellis had a fatal flaw in his plan: he wouldn't kill the target. These were thinking people, and he refused to commit murder.

Comments

[shiftingurbulls]

"I know..." the tension in Ellis' voice spoke more than the two words he let out. Nick almost died because of those damn sabertooth beasts, he's seen the massive mammoths. But above all, the crushing loneliness that came along with wandering in between people. El was used to having someone to bounce off with, a face to see. This, isolation, is what gave the young man so many nightmares that he was almost glad he was sent to the Arena first: he could see others fighting too.

He took his time picking up the knife before he asked, "Did anyone from your group get injured? I haven't seen many people in these caves...an' there are huge-ass cats that are raisin' hell." Now to the more pressing question, "I'm wanderin' because my fr-" use another word, El, "travelin' partner, he's out there an' got mauled."

A hauntingly similar situation arose from Philadelphia, where patients were not so much drunks but enraged and tearing each other apart. If there was a cruel mercy, is that kids never really made it far in the Green Flu; the last El read up on was a 98% kill rate on those younger than 15. To see children like Beth in the Arena disturbed the mechanic but they were a comfort.

[burningdaylight]

The furrow between Luke's brows deepens slightly at Ellis' stumbling over words. "Almost got mauled myself back there." He admits, grimly sympathetic. "…Wasn't too sure I'd make it back in one piece."

And had he not had been hauled back to shelter, stripped of his drenched clothes, and all efforts been made to keep him from drifting quietly into death, he knows he wouldn’t have been here to have this conversation. He's one of the lucky few granted a second chance at life -- but he knows this luck won't hold forever.

He blinks slowly, surfacing from his thoughts.

“M'sorry ‘bout your friend.” Luke says after a long moment, his voice a low, soft thing, toneless. It hangs heavily in the air, a seemingly unfinished thought. But nothing else comes.

[shiftingurbulls]

"If I may, wha' happened to ya?" El tries his damnedest to cover the fact that Nick, the older one, was his friend. "You went after one of those fuckers? For real?!" How many suicidal people were in this damn arena?!

"It's all right, he's a stubborn asshole an' he made it through thanks to me," El spat out, annoyed to hell and back that Nick, the diva of his group, had been so risky.

[burningdaylight]

His mouth skews, his expression shifting into something more shuttered. “More like it went after me.”

He tries to forget what came after, what left a stronger impression on him than the fear of being reduced to shreds of bloodied meat between the teeth of a beast that existed billions of years ago. He's used to running, to the threat of having his flesh hungrily stripped off his bones in no particular hurry.

It's the all-consuming stillness, the deathly calm of the lake. It's his lungs burning for air with a too-familiar urgency while hammering at the ice from beneath it, trapped, the lake so fiercely cold it hurts to the bone. It's wanting to scream but being unable to, it's fighting for life as it's being ripped from him, struggling and fading away alone and so far away from everyone and everything he ever loved that shakes him. And it always will.

[shiftingurbulls]

"Oh...those mangy things really were lookin' for prey," Ellis thought out loud, having seen some of the attack patterns used. By the way they sought out people, it was clear some if not all of them had a little sentience or worse, controlled in some way. "Not that you're prey, you're still here."

If Ellis had known about the ice, he'd be a little less blunt about the questions that he'd been asking Luke for. Silence terrified him, made his brain act weird in putting sounds that weren't there. To die drowning in a frozen lake...it was one of the worst ways to go.

But the way the mechanic spoke the words you're still here were more than just assess the facts, but to encourage Luke. To make him realize that he was still in the competition as El was.

[burningdaylight]

There’s nothing said for a while, only a slow straightening - tautening - of his shoulders in acknowledgement. Not much reminding of his presence in a competitive bloodsport is needed while standing face to face with a stranger. They weren’t enemies, though, as much as the Capitol pushed for otherwise. Not until a threat was made or a weapon turned on him or his people. But they weren’t friends, either. There was a reason why he wasn’t inviting Ellis to step over the barrier and join him on the other side.

"Your people're gonna be lookin' for you," He says, evenly. And though his gaze isn't sharp enough to be penetrating it makes a point of never leaving Ellis' face.

[shiftingurbulls]

Ellis caught on to the silence, and shrugged, "He won't, he's a prick." A prick that he cared a lot about. Stretching his back, the mechanic turned around, showing trust in being vulnerable. "Hope y'all git close t' th' finish line! Pleasure meetin' ya Luke."

He still smiled, but at least he knew now that not everything his Nick told him about the others was completely true. And that cheer? Completely sincere. As he began the walk back outside, he was sure he saw a buck outside. El wasn't out of it, and if anyone came at him with intent to kill, he'd demonstrate exactly how he earned the "privilege" of being in the Arena.

[burningdaylight]

And Luke does nothing to betray that trust though he knows there are more than a few vicious opportunists out there who would’ve leapt at the chance to throw a knife at Ellis’ back. Easy prey. Every tribute still alive and in any shape to bear weapons hurts his chances at survival and protecting those he cared for, he knows that. But he won’t start weeding them out at the cost of his morals, at the cost of the sort of man he’s elected to be even in the darkest and most desperate of times. Like the barrier, his spear is more a deterrent than anything else -- and that’s just how he’d like it to be for as long as it could be.

“Thank you." He answers, unsmiling and careful.

His gaze steadily follows Ellis out the cave and he waits for him to disappear from his field of vision before turning back and making for the warmth of the fire with a furrowed brow, thoughts swarming his mind.