You Are So Sweet, A Special Treat [Closed]

[candy_grrl]

Who: Gruesome, Gretel
What: A final meal for Gruesome, but his dinner doesn't go down without a fight.
Where: Somewhere in the Arena
When: Now
Warnings: Gruesome dies, Gretel dies, EVERYBODY DIES.


Gretel was so cold. They'd given her the jacket, and it was serving, but she didn't know enough about the arctic clime to find a means to make fire and so the best thing she thought she could manage was to keep moving.

She's managed to collect a knife from one of the bodies of another Tribute, it's all the protection she has. She assumes she'll freeze to death, but she's hoping that she'll be able to scavenge some more tools and somehow find a way out of all of this.

She hasn't realized the inevitably involved in exiting an arena yet.

Comments

Just Some, actually.

[gruesome]

Some had left Adel out of shame. Ever since Lottie- ever since they'd found the blood, all he'd been able to think about was eating. And he knew, as canons fired each day and the numbers dwindled, that he'd be forced into it if he survived. He had left to find a quiet place to remove himself from this equation.

But that had been before he'd caught this new scent. A new scent, no tribute that he'd met so far. His empty stomach had clenched so hard he'd groaned, crouching low on the ice, and before he knew what he was doing, he was following it, teeth bared and mouths open, all his learned human gestures shedding away as he dropped to all eight to run, undulating like a lizard over the rough ice, until he could hear her too. He reached the top of a rise in the ice, and froze there, peering over.

[candy_grrl]

Gretel knew she was being watched, but she just couldn't sort out from where. It had her tense, almost to the point where she was so hyperaware that she knew she was going to make a mistake. But what could she do?

So she kept walking. Maybe it was just the cold. Maybe it's because she couldn't figure out where Hansel is.

Anything was better than freezing to death, right?

[gruesome]

Anything? Maybe not. Some crept along the ridge, pacing the scent on the far side, until it was so close that he couldn't stand it anymore. With a brief prayer to Void that no camera was watching, a prayer he knew would go unanswered but couldn't care, he was up over the rise in an instant, his whole body stretched out lean and long as he sprinted, then lunged for the human, meaning to catch her with all four hands and his two forefeet, to bear her to the ground. The bite would follow half a heartbeat after - he could already feel how her blood would taste in his mouth, and his senses all screamed for it.

[candy_grrl]

She doesn't even have time to shriek.

Gretel struggles under the assault, unable to free herself, but it's the sudden sinking of teeth into her flesh that makes her go suddenly still.

There's a dreadful certainty, a certain intimacy and understanding of her own horrors associated with the very act of eating that make her realize that this is what this...thing is doing. It's not just biting to attack her, it's eating her.

It stirs a little strength in her, this realization of terrible purpose. It's enough to haunt her, to give her the means to finally reach down, and in fumbling, slippery hands, grab at the knife she'd scavenged.

[gruesome]

The mouthful is half parka, but there's blood, and he all but groans with it. As long as he's been here in this horrible world, he's had no blood, no hot flesh. He lets go, swallowing just the taste, and tears at the collar of her torn coat with his claws to get a better bite. He doesn't even see the knife.

[candy_grrl]

Gretel tries to speak, but the only noise she can make is a half-grunt, half-moan of primal fear that becomes more of a gurgle and gasp as Some tears into her.

When her fingers finally find the knife, a surge of adrenaline rushes through her, and she finds it within herself to lift the knife and stab it into the creature, repeatedly, hysterically.

[gruesome]

He doesn't even feel the first stab to his chest, too occupied with the hot-live-good flesh, but he feels it when she pulls it out to stab again, and he shouts out, curling abruptly back to press his hands to the wounds.

"Ah- ah- ahstones, no," he stammers, breathing blood, both of their blood.

[candy_grrl]

Her arm keeps up the stabbing motion even after he pulls back, frenzied strikes into nothing that eventually slow down as if she were a wind up doll slowly running out of twist. Her stabs are punctuated by short, sharp breaths and a wheeze that comes from trying to make sound.

Finally she drops the knife and stares up into the sky.

"Ha...ha...ha'm...not....your...ha...fuckin'....cand--"

And then Gretel is gone.

[gruesome]

The two deep wounds in his chest pulsed strongly, and he collapsed beside her, going hard to his knees. He heard her cannon before he fell to his side in the thin, gritty snow.

His came just a moment later.