Jet Link | 002 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
metalicarus) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thearena2015-03-07 01:42 pm
metalicarus) wrote in thearena2015-03-07 01:42 pm
[Open] Sometimes I wish for falling, wish for the release
Who| Jet and, eventually, Open
What| Jet gets trapped in his cave for days and loses his mind a little, then escapes
Where| The caves and on the other side of the river
When| Thursday into Sunday. The open Portion takes place from Sunday into Monday
Warnings/Notes| The only necessary part to read is the one marked "Open" unless you want to read the lead-in to Jet's mental state. I'm not looking to get Jet killed, but injury is an option since he's likely to lash out if someone startles him.
In hindsight, he should have beat it when the rumbling first started, but he'd deemed it 'not dangerous enough to worry about' and had stayed in his cave. Hours later when the iceburg that had fallen had closed up the entrance and blocked out all light and sound, he regretted not using more caution. Hindsight was always 20/20 and wouldn't help him now.
The silence had been deafening once all the noise of the iceburg crashing down had ended, leaving Jet's breathing and heartbeat the only sounds in the pitch black. Jet focused on that at first, willing himself to keep his breathing normal and force himself to stay calm despite the panic welling up in his chest. He was trapped, literally couldn't see a hand in front of his face and silence reigned supreme, leaving him vulnerable to his thoughts and imagination and oh god it was Kirk's Voidroom all over again and he couldn't take that twice, he'd barely made it the first time.
No. Breathe. In. Out. Think.
He groped for the fire-starting kit, cursing for the first time this whole arena that he lacked a real set of hands possessing a real sense of touch. After several minutes of slow searching, he found the kit and some kindling and lit the wood on fire, flooding the small space with blessed light. To keep his mind on-task, he focused on the snap and crackle of fire as he examined the ice covering his exit. It was smooth, making chipping away at it difficult, but maybe if he melted it...? It was worth a shot. He held the fire to the ice and felt a small jolt of hope as he saw the ice begin to sweat and dip under the heat. As long as his supplies held out, maybe he could make it out of this. Hours passed and he passed the fire from one piece of wood to two others before he had the makings of a tunnel wide enough for him to squeeze his shoulders through. It wasn't even a foot deep yet, but it was something.
Time had no meaning when he couldn't see the sun and so he didn't realize a whole day passed with him focusing on this task, only stopping when exhaustion forced him. Half way through day two and already a few feet into the ice thanks to the fire and the use of his knife, the fire kit ran out of supplies shortly followed by what kindling he had left. When that desperately flickering little flame finally guttered out, it took with it Jet's source of light and his hope of escape. The darkness consumed him once more and it's companion, silence, was ready to swallow him as well. Jet felt the hope slipping out of him, leaving a cold pit in his chest and fear racing through his veins. This wasn't Kirk's Voidroom because the megalomaniac wasn't just outside of it, controlling how long Jet was stuck in there, waiting for Jet to toe the edge of insanity before throwing him a lifeline in the form of light and sanctity in blind loyalty. There would be no relief from the visions he knew would plague him again, no apple and bottle of water to offer him something solid to cling to after days of not knowing the feel of anything but his own mind slipping away. He could feel it now, in a few hours the lack of light would cause his mind to make up scenes for him to see, perhaps more visions of Albert and Pyunma melting at his touch, perhaps they'd be replaced with the family he'd found here or maybe his blood family would come back to haunt him, far less real than they'd been in the Capitol, but just as painful.
His hand reached out in the dark as he sat with his back to the cave wall, knees drawn up to his chest, and knocked against something solid that made Jet jump at first. Picking it up and inspecting it told him it was that rock Sam had given him and a choked laugh clawed out of his throat. Who'd have known the damn thing would have come in handy so many times between sharpening knives and sticks, fighting sigma and then bringing down that mammoth, he'd never underestimate the ability of a good rock again. It made him think of Sam, the note he'd sent with the new hunting knife playing in his head. Marvin Gaye...could he remember any? In the silence, a trickle of a song entered Jet's head, leaving him to hum out the tune experimentally, attempting to find the rest of the song before he tried for the lyrics.
"Somewhere there's music
How faint the tune
Somewhere there's heaven
How high the moon
There is no moon above
When love is far away too
Till it comes true
That you love me as I love you
Somewhere there's heaven
It's where you are
Somewhere there's music
How near, how far
The darkest night would shine
If you would come to me soon
Until you will, how still my heart
How high the moon"
His voice was quiet at first, but by the second stanza, it grew a little stronger. It didn't sound half bad, but as his own voice echoed back at him he lost that confidence all over again, the thought that he was trapped in suffocating loneliness killing the joy in the music. There was only one verse left and he didn't finish it, just tucked into himself tighter as his voice died. "There you go, Sam...remembered another one for you. You'll have to sing me that Troubleman one...okay?"
His voice sounded weak, hopeless even to his own ears and instead of getting angry about it and fighting like he normally would, he let it go and just accepted the fact he was going to die here, probably with his sanity lost in the process. Except...except he'd made Albert promise not to give up and let himself die when Jet died first...he couldn't break that promise himself and expect his husband to follow through. He'd be pissed and Albert pissed wasn't a fun thing to experience. He already had the makings of an escape route...maybe if he kept trying? He still had that rock and his knife and it wasn't like his hands would get tired...it was worth a shot. Better than rolling over. Jet Link didn't roll over for anything.
Slowly, Jet unfolded himself and gathered the stone and knife to him. The last lucid thought he would remember having was the realization that, if he wanted to keep his supplies, he'd need to shove them all into the double sleeping bag and drag them along behind him as he dug. He didn't remember stuffing everything he could find into the bag or crawling back into the ice, sleeping bag trailing behind him as he set back into digging. For the next solid day, there was only the frozen chill of the ice burning into his torso and settling in his lungs as he chipped away piece by piece. It was pitch black in the ice too and just as silent but for the sound of metal and rock against ice and a few hours in phantom sights and sounds began to torment him. Cries of people suffering, dying, being corrupted as he corrupted them under Nevua's control. He'd poisoned them with darkness flushed through him, his own ijiva turned into a weapon against other's souls. Some of those orbs had held the voices of his family, crying out as he tormented them and he was viciously reminded of the robot from the space arena that had used Joe and Pyunma's voices to lure him into a trap, the birds had done the same trick, but he'd learned they weren't real from the last time. Again, he knew these voices in the darkness weren't real, they were the symptoms of his mind tearing itself apart to find stimulation where there was none. Void's crushed face, the same one that had haunted him in the voidroom, appeared in the ice where he knew his hands were still digging and Jet jerked back a moment before continuing on. The visions shifted, far less active now that he wasn't simply strapped to a floor but was actually doing something.
Grey alien children mixed with grey troll children as they ran around in the nothingness, most of them with suspiciously familiar characteristics, but he forced himself not to concentrate. Blink. Breathe. Dig. Keep digging. Gilmore, Francoise, Ivan, Geronimo, G.B., Chang, they all spoke to him, some of them made up like in the voidroom and some of them memories decades old and still painful. They tore at him and when they faded they were replaced with visions of Joe and Pyunma and Chaud bleeding out somewhere in that museum arena they'd all arrived in. Keep digging. Nevermind the chill in every inch of human flesh, never mind the hollow feeling or the way every sound, real and fake, echoed endlessly and the way it seemed like the ice would never end, would never give way to anything else. Surely it would simply cave down around him and squash him flat. Perhaps that would be better. Perhaps it would be better if that was simply it and he didn't wake up on the otherside.
But then other voices and faces would join in, ones that belonged to people here, people just as important as those other faces. His new family. Keep digging and don't think about that static settling in the silence, the static that made a soothing blanket of nothing in his brain and filled the gaps left between visions and ghosts and torturous recordings played over and over and jumbled together with the happier soundtracks of his memories, mixing together until it was a fog of nothing and everything and it was simply easier to stop thinking all together. Don't think. Dig.
Open- Near the caves and just on the other side of the river.
When light first broke through the ice, Jet was momentarily convinced he'd died for good this time and had finally reached a heaven he'd never once been granted in all the times he'd died even before Panem. The light was colored and fluctuating, but Jet didn't pay it very much attention until he finally broke through enough to tumble down to the ground, free from his ice prison for the first time in days. He lay there, staring up at the sky as the lights shimmered above him, a certain collection seeming to be brighter and hovering just above him. He didn't pay it any thought, in fact, he didn't pay anything any thought, simply gathered himself up and his stuff and stood on legs that were only still strong from the fact they were metal. That static that had filled his head and drowned out his own thoughts still lay like a thick fog in his brain as he wandered to the river. He didn't have a destination in mind, but he knew he needed to get away from the caves. For some reason. There was nothing there anymore, he supposed.
Jet dragged himself through the deep current, uncaring of the cold waters that drenched him, he was already so cold, what did a little more matter? He settled down in a clump of toppled and charred trunks, pulling the sleeping bag around him for warmth even as he still clutched tightly to his knife, the stone stashed in a pocket for safe keeping. Even as shivers and coughs began to wrack his body, he held tight to that knife, still heavily on-guard even if the reason why was a foggy background note in that jumble of static. Whoever or whatever was going to try and kill him wouldn't get him easily, his vision was sharp from being blackened for so long and his hearing was keen from so much silence. A person's footsteps might as well be thunderclaps and if those crashes of thunder came too close, he'd show them how sharp that wonderful knife of his still was.
What| Jet gets trapped in his cave for days and loses his mind a little, then escapes
Where| The caves and on the other side of the river
When| Thursday into Sunday. The open Portion takes place from Sunday into Monday
Warnings/Notes| The only necessary part to read is the one marked "Open" unless you want to read the lead-in to Jet's mental state. I'm not looking to get Jet killed, but injury is an option since he's likely to lash out if someone startles him.
In hindsight, he should have beat it when the rumbling first started, but he'd deemed it 'not dangerous enough to worry about' and had stayed in his cave. Hours later when the iceburg that had fallen had closed up the entrance and blocked out all light and sound, he regretted not using more caution. Hindsight was always 20/20 and wouldn't help him now.
The silence had been deafening once all the noise of the iceburg crashing down had ended, leaving Jet's breathing and heartbeat the only sounds in the pitch black. Jet focused on that at first, willing himself to keep his breathing normal and force himself to stay calm despite the panic welling up in his chest. He was trapped, literally couldn't see a hand in front of his face and silence reigned supreme, leaving him vulnerable to his thoughts and imagination and oh god it was Kirk's Voidroom all over again and he couldn't take that twice, he'd barely made it the first time.
No. Breathe. In. Out. Think.
He groped for the fire-starting kit, cursing for the first time this whole arena that he lacked a real set of hands possessing a real sense of touch. After several minutes of slow searching, he found the kit and some kindling and lit the wood on fire, flooding the small space with blessed light. To keep his mind on-task, he focused on the snap and crackle of fire as he examined the ice covering his exit. It was smooth, making chipping away at it difficult, but maybe if he melted it...? It was worth a shot. He held the fire to the ice and felt a small jolt of hope as he saw the ice begin to sweat and dip under the heat. As long as his supplies held out, maybe he could make it out of this. Hours passed and he passed the fire from one piece of wood to two others before he had the makings of a tunnel wide enough for him to squeeze his shoulders through. It wasn't even a foot deep yet, but it was something.
Time had no meaning when he couldn't see the sun and so he didn't realize a whole day passed with him focusing on this task, only stopping when exhaustion forced him. Half way through day two and already a few feet into the ice thanks to the fire and the use of his knife, the fire kit ran out of supplies shortly followed by what kindling he had left. When that desperately flickering little flame finally guttered out, it took with it Jet's source of light and his hope of escape. The darkness consumed him once more and it's companion, silence, was ready to swallow him as well. Jet felt the hope slipping out of him, leaving a cold pit in his chest and fear racing through his veins. This wasn't Kirk's Voidroom because the megalomaniac wasn't just outside of it, controlling how long Jet was stuck in there, waiting for Jet to toe the edge of insanity before throwing him a lifeline in the form of light and sanctity in blind loyalty. There would be no relief from the visions he knew would plague him again, no apple and bottle of water to offer him something solid to cling to after days of not knowing the feel of anything but his own mind slipping away. He could feel it now, in a few hours the lack of light would cause his mind to make up scenes for him to see, perhaps more visions of Albert and Pyunma melting at his touch, perhaps they'd be replaced with the family he'd found here or maybe his blood family would come back to haunt him, far less real than they'd been in the Capitol, but just as painful.
His hand reached out in the dark as he sat with his back to the cave wall, knees drawn up to his chest, and knocked against something solid that made Jet jump at first. Picking it up and inspecting it told him it was that rock Sam had given him and a choked laugh clawed out of his throat. Who'd have known the damn thing would have come in handy so many times between sharpening knives and sticks, fighting sigma and then bringing down that mammoth, he'd never underestimate the ability of a good rock again. It made him think of Sam, the note he'd sent with the new hunting knife playing in his head. Marvin Gaye...could he remember any? In the silence, a trickle of a song entered Jet's head, leaving him to hum out the tune experimentally, attempting to find the rest of the song before he tried for the lyrics.
"Somewhere there's music
How faint the tune
Somewhere there's heaven
How high the moon
There is no moon above
When love is far away too
Till it comes true
That you love me as I love you
Somewhere there's heaven
It's where you are
Somewhere there's music
How near, how far
The darkest night would shine
If you would come to me soon
Until you will, how still my heart
How high the moon"
His voice was quiet at first, but by the second stanza, it grew a little stronger. It didn't sound half bad, but as his own voice echoed back at him he lost that confidence all over again, the thought that he was trapped in suffocating loneliness killing the joy in the music. There was only one verse left and he didn't finish it, just tucked into himself tighter as his voice died. "There you go, Sam...remembered another one for you. You'll have to sing me that Troubleman one...okay?"
His voice sounded weak, hopeless even to his own ears and instead of getting angry about it and fighting like he normally would, he let it go and just accepted the fact he was going to die here, probably with his sanity lost in the process. Except...except he'd made Albert promise not to give up and let himself die when Jet died first...he couldn't break that promise himself and expect his husband to follow through. He'd be pissed and Albert pissed wasn't a fun thing to experience. He already had the makings of an escape route...maybe if he kept trying? He still had that rock and his knife and it wasn't like his hands would get tired...it was worth a shot. Better than rolling over. Jet Link didn't roll over for anything.
Slowly, Jet unfolded himself and gathered the stone and knife to him. The last lucid thought he would remember having was the realization that, if he wanted to keep his supplies, he'd need to shove them all into the double sleeping bag and drag them along behind him as he dug. He didn't remember stuffing everything he could find into the bag or crawling back into the ice, sleeping bag trailing behind him as he set back into digging. For the next solid day, there was only the frozen chill of the ice burning into his torso and settling in his lungs as he chipped away piece by piece. It was pitch black in the ice too and just as silent but for the sound of metal and rock against ice and a few hours in phantom sights and sounds began to torment him. Cries of people suffering, dying, being corrupted as he corrupted them under Nevua's control. He'd poisoned them with darkness flushed through him, his own ijiva turned into a weapon against other's souls. Some of those orbs had held the voices of his family, crying out as he tormented them and he was viciously reminded of the robot from the space arena that had used Joe and Pyunma's voices to lure him into a trap, the birds had done the same trick, but he'd learned they weren't real from the last time. Again, he knew these voices in the darkness weren't real, they were the symptoms of his mind tearing itself apart to find stimulation where there was none. Void's crushed face, the same one that had haunted him in the voidroom, appeared in the ice where he knew his hands were still digging and Jet jerked back a moment before continuing on. The visions shifted, far less active now that he wasn't simply strapped to a floor but was actually doing something.
Grey alien children mixed with grey troll children as they ran around in the nothingness, most of them with suspiciously familiar characteristics, but he forced himself not to concentrate. Blink. Breathe. Dig. Keep digging. Gilmore, Francoise, Ivan, Geronimo, G.B., Chang, they all spoke to him, some of them made up like in the voidroom and some of them memories decades old and still painful. They tore at him and when they faded they were replaced with visions of Joe and Pyunma and Chaud bleeding out somewhere in that museum arena they'd all arrived in. Keep digging. Nevermind the chill in every inch of human flesh, never mind the hollow feeling or the way every sound, real and fake, echoed endlessly and the way it seemed like the ice would never end, would never give way to anything else. Surely it would simply cave down around him and squash him flat. Perhaps that would be better. Perhaps it would be better if that was simply it and he didn't wake up on the otherside.
But then other voices and faces would join in, ones that belonged to people here, people just as important as those other faces. His new family. Keep digging and don't think about that static settling in the silence, the static that made a soothing blanket of nothing in his brain and filled the gaps left between visions and ghosts and torturous recordings played over and over and jumbled together with the happier soundtracks of his memories, mixing together until it was a fog of nothing and everything and it was simply easier to stop thinking all together. Don't think. Dig.
Open- Near the caves and just on the other side of the river.
When light first broke through the ice, Jet was momentarily convinced he'd died for good this time and had finally reached a heaven he'd never once been granted in all the times he'd died even before Panem. The light was colored and fluctuating, but Jet didn't pay it very much attention until he finally broke through enough to tumble down to the ground, free from his ice prison for the first time in days. He lay there, staring up at the sky as the lights shimmered above him, a certain collection seeming to be brighter and hovering just above him. He didn't pay it any thought, in fact, he didn't pay anything any thought, simply gathered himself up and his stuff and stood on legs that were only still strong from the fact they were metal. That static that had filled his head and drowned out his own thoughts still lay like a thick fog in his brain as he wandered to the river. He didn't have a destination in mind, but he knew he needed to get away from the caves. For some reason. There was nothing there anymore, he supposed.
Jet dragged himself through the deep current, uncaring of the cold waters that drenched him, he was already so cold, what did a little more matter? He settled down in a clump of toppled and charred trunks, pulling the sleeping bag around him for warmth even as he still clutched tightly to his knife, the stone stashed in a pocket for safe keeping. Even as shivers and coughs began to wrack his body, he held tight to that knife, still heavily on-guard even if the reason why was a foggy background note in that jumble of static. Whoever or whatever was going to try and kill him wouldn't get him easily, his vision was sharp from being blackened for so long and his hearing was keen from so much silence. A person's footsteps might as well be thunderclaps and if those crashes of thunder came too close, he'd show them how sharp that wonderful knife of his still was.