Night and a day [OPEN]

[forgetfulmind]

Who: Amy Reese and OPEN
What/when: First night and second day in the Arena
Location: Near the west edge of the arena, heading north and up - crisscrossing B-D on the map, progressing from 10 up to 7ish.
Warnings: Animal death, mentions of vampirism, that's pretty much it atm. Will update if necessary.
Notes: I don't want her killed yet, but I welcome all CR, hostile or not, so long as we can plot a way for her to (temporarily) get away. You can tag in anywhere there's a transition, I apologize for the dozens of teal deer.

Night falls quickly, and the temperature sinks like a rock. Amy is shivering by the time it's dark, and she struggles to see the ground in front of her. After the second minor rockslide as she makes her way up the rock, she decides to stop for the night. Curls up in a thick patch of bushes, hoping that the broad leaves would act a little like a blanket.

They don't. Or, at least, not enough to make a real difference. So she shifts up, takes the quiver, and starts to dig in the soft earth using the quiver's bottom. Before long, she has a little hollow about her size, and she snugs into it, shifting some of the displaced earth on top of her.

Of course, as soon as she's a little warmer -- at least, not actively freezing -- she can't think of anything but the ache in her stomach. She is so hungry. She'd never exerted herself this much without a meal just after. Never in her life, she's pretty sure, though she doesn't have the best memory. She could easily be forgetting some hike or another.

She sighs, and closes her eyes, and stretches out her senses. It doesn't seem to be as easy as it normally is, probably from the hunger. And the forest is full of noises. Little chitterings, leaves rustling in the wind. But she's pretty sure she'd be able to tell if someone approached. Besides, she's hidden as well as she possibly could be, covered in dirt, her skin smeared --

Hair.

She winces, and she picks up a handful of dirt. Reluctantly smears it into her hair, turning bright blonde and night-visible into something darker and better for blending in.

Ugh. It'll be very cold washing that off, in the morning.

She closes her eyes and tries to sleep.

~*~

The next morning, before dawn, a little worse for wear, she continues towards the top. It's colder as she ascends, and it seems like she's making precious little progress. It's a tough slope, very steep, the kind of hike that she'd've stayed away from if this were something normal, like a weekend excursion. She has to make her own path, too, which slows her down further.

She hesitates to eat any berries or mushrooms -- she has no Earthly idea which ones might be poisonous, especially given that this is a different world. So she drinks a lot of water, and she watches the little creatures in the forest, and she toys with the arrows.

Throwing them doesn't really work -- they don't work like darts or like basketballs. She hesitantly breaks one, strips it down, carves off bits and chips until it actually balances pretty well. It's not the best dart ever, but it's better than nothing. She tries throwing it at a few squirrels, but she doesn't get anywhere near them.

~*~

By noon, the hunger in her guts is getting pressing. She settles by a berry bush, picks one, divides it into as many little pieces as possible and she eats a tiny, tiny sliver.

A few minutes later, she throws it right back up.

Okay, not eating that one again.

It's sheer luck and a wild throw into a flock of birds that ends with the dart-arrow breaking a bird's wing. It flaps around wildly, darting this way and that, and Amy chases it, with a shouted "Get back here!" It takes an embarrassing five minutes for her to actually catch it, and then she snaps its neck, half-looking away, wincing in sympathy.

She doesn't have anything to make a fire with, and fires attract attention, anyway... So she grimaces and picks off the feathers and eats it raw, washing it down with stream-water. She doesn't throw it back up immediately, and she feels a little better, so that's good, at least. The intestines... no. She can't make herself eat that. She picks out all the breast meat and the bit of nourishment on the wings. And what she thinks is the heart and ... some other organs.

~*~

The worst part of the hike is when she slips on a sheer bit of rock and falls. It starts a minor avalanche, bits of gravel and stones tumbling, and she falls for almost fifty yards. Pulls herself back to her feet, trembling, and flees horizontally, as far away from the noise and tumult as she can go.

She twisted her wrist in the fall, hurt her hip, scratched up her skin. She gets cleaned up in a stream, the cuts turning numb under the cold water, and she continues up.

~*~

It's late afternoon when she hears a whirr next to her ear. She turns, and comes face to face with a camera lens in the knot of a tree.

It comes to her, then, the reality of this: they're watching her. They're watching her all the time. They'll be watching her if she dies.

She's tempted to scream. To shout at the camera. To plead for mercy. But, instead, she inhales, shakily, and pulls out a fresh arrow. It's long minutes of hacking away at the bark before she manages to pop it out. Looks like a little ping-pong ball, really, with a lens. She has never seen such an adorable camera.

She takes a shaky breath.

"I'm tired of being quiet," she tells the camera. "I'm used to having someone to talk to. So now you are going to be my someone to talk to. I hereby dub you 'Jeeves'. Because I've always wanted to say things like 'oh, Jeeves, I'm having such a difficult day' and 'thank you, Jeeves, for being such a good friend'."

She leans back against the half-butchered tree.

"You know," she says, "I used to fancy myself a little bit of an amateur filmmaker. Of course, I never did anything except with my iPhone, but still. You'd be amazed at the video quality on that thing. And it's got a lot of megapixels! You can totally shoot home movies on it, and upload them, and then they're going viral. I mean, none of mine were all that popular on YouTube, but still. It's the principle of the thing. Eventually I would've filmed a cat walking on its front paws or a baby that's high from going to the dentist or something and my videos would've gotten a hundred thousand views.

"I guess I should introduce myself. I mean, what do you even know about me? I just arrived, and someone told me to go in this room, and then that room, and then the other room, and before I know it I'm wading through a stream that's at most six degrees above absolute zero, and trying to kill birds with an arrow minus a bow. I wonder what idiot has the bow. Totally unfair. Not that I'm even all that good at archery -- I did it in summer camp, Jeeves, but I made like tenth place out of thirty. You know, I'm good enough to hit the target, but not necessarily the center of the target.

"Okay, definitely shouldn't be talking myself down.

"Right. Well, my name's Amy. Amelia Lauren Reese, if you'd like the full name, but Amy is what I like the best. My dad calls me Ames sometimes. He's a th-- a car mechanic. Sometimes I used to fix up the cars in the shop. Do you guys have cars around here? Seems like you must. I'm not even sure why I'm asking questions, that's pretty dumb.

"Anyway." She pauses, for a long moment, her eyes downcast. "Oh, to hell with it. My dad's a vampire. He was sired when I was little, I don't remember it. But yeah, he's a creature of the night. A thing of darkness. He can turn invisible, and he's got really good senses, and sometimes he can aura-read. And he loves me. He'd protect me through anything, I'm sure of it, Jeeves. But he's not here. And the thing is? I'm not so sure I'm all that good at protecting myself.

"So here's my plan. I'm going to make it to high ground, even if it's seriously fucking cold up there. And then if anyone comes after me I'll start an avalanche or something, I don't know. I'm just going to try and stay out of the way. And catch more birds. And if anyone could give me a few tips on which berries are okay to eat or send me some gifts, that'd be super. In fact, if you do, I'll probably spend a half-hour rhapsodizing about how excellent the gift is."

She moves to her feet, and continues on up the slope.

"I picked the steepest part, by the way," she says, "because I figured everyone else would be like, oh, jeez, that's some cliffs, there, I'd better go for the more manageable slope. Or even better, stay down here where all the cornucopia stuff is, because it looks cold up on dem slopes. Did you guys know that vampires can actually freeze solid in the snow? That is, if they never see the sun, because if they see the sun, they burst into flames. Flames would be nice, right about now. Not that I would trade my dad for some fire, because that would be weird.

"Let's see, what else. I like basketball. I'm not sure if you guys know about basketball, so I'll just go ahead and explain." And so she continues on, explaining the rules of basketball, stopping, occasionally, when she runs out of breath. Then baseball.

Then she moves onto ghost stories.

This takes her to her hiding place for the night, a little nook in the rocks.

She falls asleep with the camera still in her palm.

Comments

[implant]

Kaidan ran from the Cornucopia. He knows a bad idea when he sees one and that? That certainly wasn't a good idea. He's found himself scanning the cliff faces, looking for something akin to a cave. He spent the first night in the Arena awake with nervous energy and an unannounced migraine. They happen so often here, must be something up with his implants... Kaidan doesn't really feel up to focusing on it at this point, maybe when he finds a place to settle and take tally of everything that's happened. Then would be a better time than now.

Kaidan doesn't run into another soul until late into the next evening when he hears, distantly, chatter. The sound of someone talking, onesidedly. Kaidan tracks it easily, passing a tree with an ugly gouge carved into it, until he can make out the words, old ghost stories in a distinctly feminine voice. Kaidan doesn't say anything, can't bring himself to until the talking dies down. Kaidan is completely unarmed besides his basic hand-to-hand the Alliance taught him. There's a few people Kaidan knows who could take him, but he's confident enough that whoever he's found, they won't be a threat. Kaidan isn't looking to make enemies.

"Hello? Anyone here?" Kaidan remains beside a tree in case he needs to take cover. He's hopeful, but he's not stupid.

[buildingreality]

It's a long time before Ariadne gets the chance to follow properly after Amy. The next day sort of long time. She doesn't want to lead anyone else to the other girl, and she doesn't want anyone following her. She doesn't trust any of them right now, not when they could turn around and be at each other's throats in an instant. But Amy already had that opportunity, and she hadn't taken it.

At the very least, she could use the company.

Her hunger had been sated through one of the cans she managed to swipe; simple rationing meant that even if she didn't catch anything, even if she didn't learn to hunt in the next few days, she would still be fine for at least four days. The cans are bulky and awkward to carry, but she's grateful for having gotten a knife. It means that she can spend some of her time before night falls creating a sort of makeshift pack for herself out of found materials. Just like she'd done in training.

Morning comes, and Ariadne is back on her feet, moving higher and higher. She pushes through the trees, already panting from loss of breath - the air is thinner up there - but still trying to keep quiet, eyes scanning the terrain around her for either the girl she'd seen before or for another of the tributes. She makes a point of searching the trees as well, lest someone targets her from up there.

[cried]

Lily had already since picked up her needed supplies at the Cornucopia, and had been running to keep her distance from the other tributes as much as she could. Keeping up with her own pace, head turning around from left, right, and behind whenever an unfamiliar sound had reached her ears.

Seeing the cliff, she had expected no one to climb up the slope due to how much more difficult it would later be, and she took this as an advantage. Having a much clearer view of the area, while at the same time staying carefully hidden, would prove to be of great help for the frightened girl.

She alone, and scared, but she needed to push those fears away while she continued to climb up the slope. Though in moments, she feels her heart sinking once she faintly hears an unfamiliar voice. She doesn't want to fight. She doesn't want to kill, but she is still on the defensive side while she gains the courage to part her lips, "Hello?"