(no subject)

[downbeat]

WHO| Katurian and OPEN.
WHAT| Katurian is tiptoeing around the arena late at night. With a garrote.
WHEN| Second week.
WHERE| South-East (Parts of Fantasyland, Tomorrowland, and Main Street)
WARNINGS/NOTES| Attempted murder.

Katurian is a night owl. In his old world (in his old life), Katurian would sleep-walk through his days at the slaughterhouse and only revive once he left for home and the sun went down. He'd write until his body collapsed in exhaustion underneath him, and even when it did, words would still tickle the roof of his mouth and the tips of his fingertips like tiny beings clamoring for attention.

It's no different in the arena. Sleep is a near impossibility, and while he knows he has a relatively secure camp with Draco, it isn't enough. His mind twists and thrives and writhes, the words less like gentle beings and more like angry spirits living underneath his skin. Maggots. In the last arena, he solved this by pacing back and forth on the ice, a folding knife clutched tightly in his hand.

This time, he wanders the darkened arena with a thin patch of fabric tucked in his pocket. This time, he listens to the words.

This time, he fights.

Comments

[mudbloodhater]

There's only so much one can sleep when one is lying on the ground, draped in a cape to keep the chill out. It's even worse when there are all manner of noises coming from the surrounding area. Draco had to actually get to sleep in order to be a deep sleeper; until then, he focused on every little thing. That meant he was well-aware when Katurian took to wandering around, presumably to take people out. It's sort of curious, but he doesn't say anything.

Not until that night when he was curious, and couldn't sleep. That was when Draco pushed himself upright, scrubbing one hand over his face when he heard Katurian coming back.

"What are you doing?" He asked mildly, most of his previous annoyance at his District-mate's tendencies gone by now.

[downbeat]

The stress and exhaustion rotted his bones. When Katurian approached the camp after yet another late-night misadventure (no one dead yet, and what was wrong with him? couldn’t he just go through with it?), he allowed his legs to collapse underneath him. He eased down to the ground in small, stumbling steps. He was an inelegant dancer.

He was also naive. He had seen countless horrors, yes, and he was well aware of the dizzying darkness that hung behind the world, but he never once considered that Draco noticed his comings and goings. He winced.

“Well,” he said. “I’m trying to make things a little bit easier for us.”

[mudbloodhater]

"How's that?" Draco kept up the line of questioning, though it seemed more curious than like that of an interrogation. His hand pushed through his hair now - Draco already hated the way the Arena took its toll on his hygiene, as usual - causing it to stick up in a pale halo. He pushed it back down, then tipped his head to one side slightly.

[downbeat]

It was nice, admittedly, that Draco no longer treated him with the same derision. Katurian cherished every sentence spoken in a neutral tone, every conversation with give and take, every question that was honest rather than prying. It wasn’t because he wanted to be friends with Draco — in truth, he had already made the decision not to grow too close — but because it made the whole thing easier, calmer, less defensive. Even now with the topic of murder on his breath, Katurian did not crawl into a small ball. He could feel confident. He could feel like a parent.

“How do you think?”

He ran his hands through his own hair. He hadn’t killed anyone, not yet, but he could already feel the sticky blood matted in his hair.

[mudbloodhater]

Not being friends was considerably better than being friends, so far as Draco could tell; or at the very least, if they were to be friends, then they'd better not stick together. There would come a time, all too soon, when they'd be pitted against one another. Luck just worked that way: against them.

The changes in Katurian's general demeanour hadn't gone unnoticed, but Draco couldn't really place what exactly it was. Something was different, but whether it was just him tolerating the other man's presence more or not was up in the air.

"Killing people in their sleep? I haven't heard any cannon fire lately."

[nunpunching]

Punchy, like Katurian, is a person of the night. His usual modus operandi, however, is to sit up at his computer coding, burning mixtapes and hacking until dawn and then sleeping until his 10am class, rather than wandering around an abandoned theme park. At least he's still shirtless and chewing on really, really old candy - that, at least, is just like old times.

He stops when he sees someone walking down the same street. He can't tell who it is, and his depth perception is unfortunate with his sole eye. He decides to risk it and sacrifice his hiding spot.

"Psst, what's a homie like you doing out alone late at night?"

[downbeat]

He hasn't forgotten that voice (Katurian can either forget traumatic events completely or remember every little detail) but even if he had, that particular cadence is a dead give-away. It’s him. It’s the boy.

(Dead give-away, Katurian thinks, supressing a satisfied smile. Now that’s an appropriate saying.)

He raises his hands.

“It’s all right,” he says, his words running together. His former savior seemed to object to murder, but Katurian isn’t about to push that. Caution is his way. Caution is key. “It’s me.” Is that too vague? “It’s, um—“

He struggles a beat.

“Hello.”

It’s as charming as he can muster, which isn’t very charming at all. It rests somewhere between ‘anxious’ and ‘overly cheerful.’

[nunpunching]

"Fo' shiz," Punchy says, waving a hand as if to dismiss any concerns that Katurian may have about them not exchanging identifying information. "I remember you."

He's never going to forget the face of someone he saved. Granted, a little voice inside him says that they're not out of the woods yet, that no one's been 'saved' yet. But he tries to just ride his little ego roller coaster instead, the one that he alone is tall enough to ride.

"You book it out of that shitshow okay, dawg? You didn't look like you had the sick skills to handle the bloody parts well." For God's sake, Katurian, you started fighting a zombie by telling a creepy fairytale. Punchy doesn't have you pegged as a fighter.

[downbeat]

"Yes," he says. "I do not have the skills."

He casts a gaze upwards into the dark, dark sky, searching for the glimmer of a camera lens. He could picture sponsors rescinding their bets. Families shaking their heads at the television. But then again, he doubts he's more than a blip on anyone's mind. No one thinks that he'll win. He doesn't even think he will win.

(He remembers Eva's note, the tears that threatened to escape when he read it. Persist.)

"My name is Katurian," he says. "I'm a writer, and until this place, the only blood I saw was a couple of dead pigs. Thank you for saving my life." It is easier, somehow, throwing that at the end of the canned introduction. He extends a hand. "No one's ever done that for me before."

[the_marshal]

Howard hadn't come back. And Wyatt's mind had gone flush with memories of the last arena; of the other boy who'd gone out and then never come back. Kicking himself for letting Howard go alone, he climbed down from the mountain and set out, regret churning bitterly in his gut. Phantom cannon blasts echoing in his ears.

In the dark he searched, knowing the note had said Fantasyland, but not where specifically. In and around the strange buildings, looking for Howard... looking for signs that Howard had been there.

He paused beside one of the map posts, checking it against the one in his head - where he had been, and where he hadn't - and then turned away, gazing down the main path....

...and leaning against the post, his chin resting against his chest for a long, silent, still moment.

A moment to rest. A moment to pray to the God he wasn't he believed in anymore.

[downbeat]

In the darkness, it was sometimes difficult, determing who was friend and who was foe. For this reason, Katurian usually made a habit of hiding from anyone who was walking around like he was, anyone who might shove a knife in his stomach and split him open like a gutted fish. The darkness also made it difficult to see, and sometimes it wasn’t immediately obvious, what was a sign post or what was a person.

Wyatt was not a sign post. Katurian was close, too close, when he recognized this — but he was also close enough to recognize Wyatt. The good man. The hero. Katurian was soft like a cat when he moved, tiny tiptoes and hushed breaths, and so he hadn’t caught his interest just yet.

Or he hadn’t woken him up. Was he asleep?

Unthinking, he reached out an arm to tap his shoulder.

[the_marshal]

He heard the movement a moment too late. The scrape of a shoe across the uneven ground coming to him just as something brushed his shoulder.

His reaction was instanteous, and instinctive. The first impulse of a man who didn't want to kill, but also didn't want to die.

He turned on his heel with surprising grace, lightning hands striking: one grabbing at his shoulder, fingers wrapping around a slim wrist and twisting. The other shot out and up, fingers clenched in a hard fist that connected with a narrow jaw - just as his eyes were catching up. Just as he realized who had come whispering out of the dark.

Thankfully, at least, the punch was meant to hurt, not to do damage; and as Katurian's head was snapping to the side and pain was bursting across Wyatt's knuckles, he was already releasing the man's wrist to catch at his elbow instead, to steady Katurian and keep him on his feet as he rocked.

[downbeat]

Maybe he wanted this. That sharp pain. That aching punishment. Maybe he wanted to suffer because of how he treated Wyatt the week before the arena. He couldn’t have expected any other outcome, could he? Sneaking up on him like that?

He let himself fall into Wyatt’s grip, a gentle surrender. His ears buzzed and his jaw throbbed. His face was still bruised from Grey’s assault during the lockdown, although it had faded. Now he expected a new rainbow to occur, red to purple to green to yellow. If he lived that long.

He spit blood onto the concrete. He choked.

“I’m fine,” he said quickly, the words practically part of the choke. “I’m fine, I’m fine.”

[cutshort]

Sleep is a commodity to him. Something to do when all other options run out and his body asks him to slow down, recharge. He could say it makes him human, but machines need to regain lost energy, too. And the virus knows he's been wandering for a long time, exploring, watching his back, should there be someone with a knife ready to drive it into his flesh. The virus knows, so it allows him to slow down.

He can feel it, when he steps into new territory. The implants in his arms, behind his eyes, humming with life again, even if only softly. Someone is being nice to him, he thinks, after all that time tensing and relaxing his muscles in wait to see if the technology in his body was permanently quiet.

Hyperion takes it as a sign to relax, and so he does, eyes shut, lips thin, hands on his stomach. This isn't the greatest effort to hide, but he has found no reasons to do that. He almost welcomes the thought, like a challenge. See if he can get caught unaware, vulnerable.

[downbeat]

Tick tock tick tock. The night slips away.

Tick tock tick tock. Katurian’s confidence wavers.

He’s been awake for a long time — 25 hours, maybe, although the days all blend together and he can only guess so much without a watch. Either way, he’s so tired that it feels like his eyes are dragged down by weights and his head is enclosed with a vice. There are many ways in which sleep deprivation makes murder (or fake murder) easier. For one, it adds a sort of dullness to the whole thing, fading the entire palette. Black is grey and white is grey and the deep dark red of blood is no different than the benign pink of the sunset. Things are unreal. Things are easy.

But his body aches underneath him in vague, nonspecific ways, his mind spins fears like yarn. When he comes across Hyperion, his heart is punched right up into his throat.

No. No. Remember.

It's all right.

He kneels down slowly, so slowly, removing the cloth from one pocket and his folding knife from the other. He rests the folding knife down next to him. He takes the cloth with both hands.

And he lunges.

[cutshort]

Eyes shoot open with nothing less than alarm in them, pressure suddenly around his neck and in his head, making him alert but frozen, nerves suddenly tight and desperate to reach for air. Hyperion grits his teeth, either annoyed or shortened to something more animalistic than that, both fists pulling the cloth away before one hand raises in Katurian's direction, intending to take his neck.

[downbeat]

The cloth is gone from his hands. Poof.

The hand is around his neck.

Even though death is not permenant, it’s impossible to surpress it, that primal panic. He tries to yell, but — no, no, he can’t yell, and so he grabs at the unfolded pocket knife he left beside him for this exact purpose. He jabs it at Hyperion’s arm, the one gripping his neck so tightly.

Tomorrowland

[littlebitrockandroll]

[Day and night had never been a big deal in Zombieland. The things could smell you down just as well in either, so overall Wichita and she had just done their work in the day, when they could see. Here, though, where the enemies relied on sight over smell and her 'friends' only stopped being meddling and fussy when they were asleep? Night turned out to be the work time.

So, like a raccoon or rat or every other small mammal like herself, she snuck out at night and struck out from the Frontier to the place she'd seen food. Fruit and veggies, anyway, which was better than cat. Carrots were the first thing on her list, tied together by their green heads and wrapped in her make-shift backpack formed from the torn off hem of her stupid dress. It was slow going, feeling them out in the dark, but at least it was food.]

Re: Tomorrowland

[downbeat]

[Draco collected food at the Cornucopia. Eva sent him food in a tin. Katurian had been doing all right, really, rationing what he had, so he hadn't yet started thinking about the cats and ducks and rats. Katurian was not looking for gardens in Tomorrowland. He was looking for alcoves. Places where people might sleep.

But he saw Little Rock all the same, that small body crouched down over the ground. Katurian had decided he wouldn't kill any children, but he wasn't yet convinced they wouldn't kill him. He slowed his pace.

Should he hide? Should he run? Should he slink away as though he were never there? Slowly, he edges towards an overturned foot cart.]

[littlebitrockandroll]

[It took her a moment- next to the pretty obvious shuffling of zombies, the movements out of the corner of her eye was more like a cat. Slow, soft. But around here, even the cats had proven pretty freaking deadly. The small pocket knife that had arrived as a 'gift' from above (from the watches. Which was creepy. Still totally, totally creepy) was tucked into her belt...shift thing, but she didn't reach for it. Not yet.

Rather, she only shifted her legs slightly, just enough that crouch could turn to run if it was another psycho sideshow. Or just plain psycho. Confidence was key with animals...she thought. The nature channel was almost before her time TV had been down so long.]

Shoo. I'm busy now.

[downbeat]

[Shoo. Like he's a dog.]

I don't mean any harm.

[His voice is just above a whisper. Katurian isn't very good at looking intimidating (at least not willfully), but he can sound sweet when he tries. He can add a softness to his words like clouds. Pillows.]

I'm only passing through.

Main Street

[hi_there_aliens]

Nothing new at the Cornucopia. Daniel had returned to check on the place, and where the pedestals had been. So much for the idea of prying them open. They were sealed tight. He couldn't even get his fingers into the slits.

Daniel made his way back to Main Street. He could feel his feet dragging, eyes beginning to sting, grow heavy in a way that spelled trouble. He wasn't so sure he could make it back to that hidden roof/balcony and get back to sleep there. The little amount of food would get to him soon, and so was the lack of sleep. There was only so long he could go on, shoulders crawling with the feeling he'd be jumped any moment or peering into the shadows as if something was going to come bursting out. He didn't know how Jack did it. Being this hyper vigilant was exhausting.

And even if he did get back to that part of the Arena, he wasn't so sure climbing up was a great idea. Chances were he'd make a mistake now, and wouldn't that be ironic? Doctor Daniel Jackson, triple PhDs, responsible for opening the Stargate, cause of death; snapped neck due to clumsiness.

One of the buildings would have to do. Daniel ducked inside one of the darkened doors, hand wrapped around the sharp piece of metal in his hands. He held his breath, listening for any signs that it was occupied. Nothing stirred, no zombies or anyone crashing through towards him. He stepped further into the darkness, and slid down behind one of the counters. Daniel's eyes slid shut - just a few seconds to rest them, that's all, he thought.

Daniel was asleep in seconds.

[downbeat]

Katurian was already inside the shop; the sleep deprivation was too much for him as well. He would walk and walk and walk, his chest buzzing and his mind screaming, and then the exhaustion would hit him all at once, pulling him down to the earth. Down to mortality.

Sleep is a necessary human function, Howard had told him. This gave his overly loud mind an automatic disadvantage.

Katurian had been wandering Main Street when he felt it, that mind numbing exhaustion, and so he climbed into a building. Inside, he dug a small hole with his boots and then crawled between that hole and an overturned display case. It was luck, really, that he woke up before Daniel. The sky was still dark. There were no sounds to be heard. He saw him lying there, down behind the counter, and he made his decision.

He would fight. He would win. For Michal.

He knelt down beside him, taking the knife from his pocket and gently resting it on the floor next to him. Just in case. The cloth came next, unrolled from his pocket with the utmost care. All at once, he flung himself onto Daniel’s stomach and wrapped it tight around his neck.

[hi_there_aliens]

Daniel never heard the Tribute moving through the wreck of a building. Even if he hadn't been dead tired, he wasn't as attuned to something being inherently wrong or out of place as the rest of SG-1; maybe with cultures, writing - he could easily pick out when maybe they'd offended the tribe within seconds, but developing a sixth sense of danger wasn't one of those talents. The only warning he had was too late; the Tribute landed heavily on top of him, knocking the wind out of him. Daniel snapped awake, eyes flying open, just in time to see the cloth winding itself into a garrote as it circled his throat.

It began to pull tight. Daniel tried to suck in as much air as he could.

Everything Jack had said about hand-to-hand went out of the window in that one second. It had to be a warrior-military thing; it was hard to think rationally about how to take someone down when they were doing their best to try and kill you. The sharp piece of metal lay in the shadow near his leg, forgotten then, as Daniel's hands flew up to claw at his throat, trying to pull it off before it could sink in deeper. He jerked underneath the Tribute, trying to unsettle him, leg kicking out.

[downbeat]

This was not Katurian's first time with a struggling body underneath him.

It was his third.

The first was his father, whose arms and legs thrashed so hard that he nearly kicked the skinny, small fourteen-year-old Katurian off the bed and down onto the carpet. (Scratchy and blue and filled with abstract designs that reminded him of fish or frowning faces.) Then there was his mother who somehow managed to sleep through that entire first part but nonetheless provoked the same sort of fight when she woke up. But it was different, killing someone with a garotte instead of a pillow, and it was very different doing this to someone who was innocent, who probably hadn't done very many bad things at all, who was tired and just wanted to get some rest in a place that he had thought was safe.

On top of the struggling Daniel, Katurian held steady for one, two, three seconds before something inside him cracked and gave in unconsciously. He loosened his grip, his hands unwinding just slightly from the killing cloth.