thearena | (no subject)

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Who| Kieren and open!
What| Kieren is rabid
Where| Out and about, anywhere (He'll be wandering aimlessly as a zombie)
When| Day 2
Warnings/Notes| Typical zombie stuff, wanting to eat brains, gore is likely

It started with a trickle of black liquid, oozing out of his nostrils. When he noticed that, he realized instantly what was happening, and he knew what he had to do. He ran. Trying to get as far from anyone else as he could, he ran. He ignored the small, strange flame that was just now flickering into existence over his head, because while he wondered what that was, he realized that his very ability to wonder was ebbing away entirely.

Then, after quite a bit of running, he slowed down to a stop and stared down for a moment, forgetting why he was running, where he was going, forgetting everything except for the one overwhelming feeling that surged through his thoughts and dictated his every action. As that feeling grew, he looked up and around, salivating more of the black substance from before, as satisfying that feeling became his entire focus. He was hungry.

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Garrett can be found in a tree just in front of the castle, dozing in the branches well out of reach of any animals that may be roaming around and camouflaged against any wandering tributes. Well, most tributes, anyway. He hears the moan first and assumes that someone must be ill. He rolls slightly, just enough to get a better look at his "visitor," and that's when he sees how wrong he was.

There's no mistaking it: that's a walking corpse. A shambling, rotting, moaning corpse, and it's headed toward him. His conversation with Ellis comes flooding back, along with the word "zombie." Garrett reaches slowly for a branch he'd picked up, ready to defend himself. Even though this monster is walking in the sunlight, he can't help but remember his encounters with the nocturnal freaks back home. Light clearly wasn't a weapon he could use in this case, but like hell is he going to try to use the Primal around this thing. Just because it could walk in the light didn't mean it wouldn't sense him the second he tried using his own powers.

Kieren moves closer to the tree. As he nears it, Garret may recognize his features. He doesn't look as good as he did on the network post, where he revealed what he was and warned Garret that it might be best to avoid him in the arena. Now Garrett had the chance to see why. Now he looked less like a normal person who happened to have dead, grey skin, and more like a corpse. His right hand was severely burnt, and bits had broken off of it until it was little more than a stump. There was a hole in his left ankle where he'd been speared, and blackened gunk was smeared on his face, and dribbling from his mouth to his chin.

He growled and moaned as he clumsily stumbled past, but fortunately for Garrett, people rarely thought to look up, and the rabid undead thought of even less than regular people did. Kieren, though he was very near, did not appear to know that Garrett was up there.

And he'd never know Garrett was up there if a sense of guilt didn't kick in. Jane was camping in the area, and she had a kid with her to boot. There are things even he found distasteful, and letting a child get attacked by a walking cadaver was one of them.

Garrett drops down from the tree, making sure his landing is loud enough to catch this creature's attention. Now that he's down, however, he recognizes it: Kieren. Well. So much for killing it; he refused to just give in to the capitol's barbaric taste in entertainment by slaughtering his fellow tributes. And so, when he swings the branch at Kieren, it's not to bash his skull in, but to make sure the zombie's attention was firmly on him as he takes a few steps away from the castle.

Hearing the sound behind him, Kieren paused, then slowly turned, snarling at Garrett. He lurched forward, trying to grab at the man, but the force of the branch hitting him sends him staggering to the side. It takes him a few seconds for him to reorient himself, giving Garrett plenty of time to take a few steps away. Kieren, of course, naturally follows, his focus entirely on Garrett. He lunged again, trying to grab at the man, but lacking the presence of mind to pay any mind to the branch.

Good. Kieren was following him. As much as Garrett wanted to cut and run, to leave this...animal behind, he takes another swing and keeps just out of reach.

"Is this what you meant when you told us to stay away from you?"

...Could he talk? Was there some scrap of humanity still in there?

If he could speak or even understand Garrett, he'd confirm that yes, this was exactly what he meant. Instead, he just staggered as the swing diverted another attempt at an attack, before lunging again.

While bumped and grabbed at, the air hot and smothering and stuffing itself like a rag down his throat, it had been all too easy to lose track of his people. Shaking off someone's grip on his way from the smithy, he stumbles from the glorious blaze of the Cornucopia with a bag bouncing against his shoulders and a dully-glowing axe in hand. It’s only when he’s reached the top of a small hill that he turns back, pausing, panting. The knot in his gut winding itself ever tighter as he blinks his smoke-stung eyes, looking for his friends. For a sign.

But there’s someone else waiting for him. He senses motion and snaps his head around, a pair of sunken, glassy eyes staring back. Luke’s own eyes widen. Something stirs in his chest.

It’s the kid from the training room. The one who had challenged what he thought he knew about the undead after years of exposure.

Well, it was.

There's a flicker of pity in his expression - all he can afford - before it steels over and he steps back, gripping the axe-hilt harder. Arm drawn back.

“Kieren--” He calls out, a warning edge to his voice. But he knows a corpse when he sees one, knows that look of blank hunger because he had seen it on the waxy faces of hundreds before him. Because he has seen it on his own face back in the spaceport before he had sunk his teeth into Sam’s ankle. This is all the hesitation he can spare.

He sets his teeth and swings fiercely, aiming for the head.

Edited 2015-05-30 03:00 (UTC)

Kieren didn't heed the warning. He couldn't heed the warning, because what had been Kieren wasn't anymore. Fortunately, Kieren's intelligence was gone as well. When Luke swung the axe, Kieren lacked the sense to stop, to even try to dodge or flinch. Instead he lunged forward, trying to grab at the man, when his own momentum met with that of the axe and whack!

What wasn't really Kieren wasn't anything anymore. The body stood for a second, axe in skull, eyes blank, before he crumpled to the ground, dead and lifeless.

Kieren’s name means nothing now. It’s just another sound that draws the creature's interest, those eyes bright with hunger for warm, living meat.

The corpse is fast and fearless, grasping for him–-

But Luke's knee-jerk reflexes are faster, metal blurring, burying with a wet crack and stopping it in its tracks. It drops bonelessly as he squelches the axe out of its skull with a practiced, unthinking tug, the blade dripping black. Adrenaline surges through Luke's body.

This is the way it had to be – and there’s little time to wonder what had triggered a complete dissolution of Kieren’s humanity and less of it to ache with regret for the turn of events while his people are still out there somewhere. There’s one less threat in the arena now. And with hope, this would be the last corpse he’d have to put down.

The shuffling was...familiar for James Sunderland, the awkward and unnatural gait of a monster in Silent Hill. As ridiculous as the jester outfit was, he knew he was a walking target for every predator and Tribute out there. This was no different, only the man before him was more humanoid than the abstract piles of skin and flesh the clerk knew.

All he had on him was a salvaged table leg from the village, something so rotted away that James suspected it only had a few blows before it came apart. Hopefully it wouldn't come to that...hopefully.

"Sir are you all right?" then again, James was never too quick to catch on to Survival 101: don't bring attention to yourself.

He didn't answer, didn't speak. Instead he simply moaned, turning toward the sound and shuffling nearer, a hungry look in his eyes. The words meant nothing to him now, nothing more than the sound made by potential prey.

Oh, that was not a healthy sound to hear, and James braced for the incoming monster in human skin. "Stay back..." the clerk whispered, holding the nail side of the table leg towards the zombie.

It occurred to him a bit late that if this man was only able to shamble, that he could indeed run away and get out of this place scot free.

Kieren didn't stay back, however, starting to pick up his pace a little at the words. The sound of prey. He lunged forward, ignoring the table leg, trying to grab at the man with a louder moan.

By sheer instincts that the moan brought about, James swung his table leg with all his strength into the man's neck. He didn't care that he made a mess, that he just jammed three rusted nails into someone's throat, all that he cared about was getting some distance from the dead.

In his mind, this wasn't a Tribute, this was just another of his delusions, the lying figure, just waiting to spew acid or gnaw on his skin.

Unfortunately for James, slamming a leg barbed with nails into Kieren's neck didn't affect him as it should have. Black gunk spilled from the wound, but not as much as would have had it been living blood in his veins, and he raised a hand to pull out the leg with a loud moan. Clearly it didn't work to stop him, though it did seem to distract him for a moment and may give James the chance to run, if he chose to take it.

James doesn't waste this chance in trying to reason with Kieren. He chooses to try and climb the trees, and get as far away from the zombie as he can. This fear is familiar and so is the reaction, there is nothing in that skull. There is nothing left of whoever that person was.

But even the trees aren't safe, there's nothing else but break a branch and hope this man isn't a fast runner.

"Goddammit stay away," Sunderland murmured.

Kieren wasn't about to stay away if he had anything to do with it, but fortunately, the dead weren't the fastest runners, and Kieren, despite his hungry, desperate scrambling toward the other man, soon lost sight of him. Once it was clear the other man was gone, he went off in search of easier prey.

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I know we talked but let me know if there's anything you'd like me to edit

It's perfect!

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