(no subject)

[gamemakers]

Who| Everyone in the arena
What| Even more reasons to hate the Capitol.
Where| Everywhere.
When| 4 am.
Warnings/Notes| Any group is being targeted to be separated. Everyone should be tagging someone they are not with, as well as those they are, as the Gamemakers are driving them apart. (You can feel free to search for, and possibly find your buddies later)


Once upon a time, when this place was a much happier place, fireworks would light up the sky, delighting children and leaving everyone with a magical feeling in their hearts.

This will not leave anyone with a magical feeling.

It was much later than a fireworks show would have ever gone. Closer to dawn then not, when anyone who could rest, even those far from it, would have finally managed to drift off.

It started with a strange, warbling music. For those familiar with this place it feels wrong, close to something they would connect with this show, but wrong. Distorted. Stumbling through a few bars, it starts to peter out just in time for a high pitches whistling.

And then the first firework explodes into the ground in a shower of bright colors, lighting up the castle. There is a moment of silence as the sparks fade.

And then all hell breaks loose.

Whoever is controlling the fireworks obviously have goals in mind. The strikes are tight, controlled. They are herding. Targeting the groups, the pairs, driving them apart.

The fireworks aren't made to kill (although a direct hit may), but they burn flesh, and leave anyone who looks at them too close momentarily blinded. Ever one is a shrieker, loud, louder then the shrillest fourth of July fireworks, screaming toward their targets. The arena is suddenly a shrill battleground, full of blindingly bright colors.

Th whole attack doesn't last longer than 20 minutes, petering off as the divisions have been deemed enough. A few squeal through the night here and there and then finally, blissfully silent.

Comments

Re: Peg Leg R [Open to new CR] [NO square/Frontier/Adventureland]

[themediator]

Suze had been camped out just near the swamp. In the daylight she would go out exploring other areas in the arena, but she always returned to the swamp at night. It was where Howard had brought her and for the moment it was the spot she was most familiar with. She stayed hidden under a covering of branches and leaves that she had pieced together. It wasn't perfect, but during the night time it worked. She had been nodding off, despite her best efforts not to when R stumbled into the swamp.

She shot awake at the sound, but didn't dare move. She was a fair distance off, but she had decided it was best to avoid everyone if at all possible. She had been lucky with her few run-ins so far, but she wasn't counting on her luck to keep up for much longer. Because of the distance she couldn't tell much about R, other than the fact that he was most likely male, and stood kind of funny. She watched as he approached the swamp, wondering if he was planning to fish. She already had a few bites up and down her arms thanks to the piranha, but when it was the only food source she could currently rely on, she didn't much care. She only hoped there would be enough fish to last her until this whole nightmare was over.

Despite herself, Suze jumped when the fireworks began. She didn't think it was enough for anyone to see and the noise of the music and fireworks covered the sound, but she froze more than ever under her cover. Then the shot came down at R. She watched as he began to stumble away, and again she can't help but notice the strange way he carried himself. Was something wrong with his foot? He was still to far away for her to tell.

As she considered this, another shot landed dangerous close to Suze. She let out a startled shout as the explosion lands and lights the leaves all about her on fire. She scrambles up on to her feet, but the burning leaves catch around her wrist. She struggles with the burning mess and finally manages to shake it off, but not before collecting a burn on her right hand. She bites her lip, trying not to cry out from the pain and runs as fast as she can from the fire. She's too distracted from the noise and the throbbing pain that she doesn't realize where she is running to until she's almost caught up to R. Her eyes were watering up from the pain, but she just kept running. It was all she could think to do.

Hope this works, lemme know if I should change anything!

[shambler]

Footsteps. R hears more than sees someone coming up behind him. He’s turned around, confused and blinded, his ears ringing, his leg wobbling every time he totters forward. He has the thought that maybe – he didn’t know how – it’s Julie running at him. It makes sense in those couple of seconds he has to react.

R defaults to zombie instincts: when in doubt, grab. He turns, slings out his arm, meaning to try to grab her hand, and misses. Badly. Instead all he manages to do is get tangled up, sending him and the girl down in a heap of arms and legs. R hits the ground first with a dull thud, feels something land on top of him, and he’s trying to make out Julie’s face, starting to gasp are you okay when his head flops toward her and…what. That’s not Julie. The firework shooting over their heads several hundred feet up gives him enough light to see dark hair, not blond, the strange girl’s face totally different now that he can see her. If R was hungrier, now would be an awesome time to attack while she’s down.

He’s too worried about Julie and the others to even think about sneaking in a bite. It’s one of the few times he doesn’t register the hunger.

“Have you…seen...” R’s not used to groaning out a question on the fly like this. “…Julie? Help…me. Please.”

R starts the process of trying to lurch back to his feet. It’s a multi-step thing: get his hands under him, knees in place, bones grinding together, and then it’s a matter of pushing up with his good foot. The busted one, the stump blackened where his foot used to be, skids against the pavement as he stands up. R turns to the girl he almost clothes-lined on accident, his mouth hanging open because he’s in too much of a hurry to keep it closed. The zombie's good eye fixes on her, the wonky one hidden behind the eyepatch Howard gave him.

Please don’t run, please don’t run, R tries to send those vibes at the girl.

it's just fine. :D

[themediator]

It took a moment for Suze to regain her senses after the tumble. The pain from the burn made her head spin as it made contact with R and the ground. With her good hand she wiped at her teary eyes to clear her vision. It was too dark to see anything at first, but as the fireworks lit up the sky overhead she caught enough of a glimpse to see that R did not look like an ordinary human. She let out a strangled cry as she scrambled off of him. She pushed back on the ground, into a sitting position and gaped up at him.

A zombie. Howard had said there were zombies but she had hardly believed him. The death match was bad enough. The living dead was a whole different level of crazy. Suze prided herself on her ability to cope, but she didn't think she was up to par for all of this. He couldn't really be a zombie, could he? Maybe he was just so beat up that it looked that way? Her vision was pretty impaired thanks to the dark and her pain. But he was missing a foot. People don't just get up and walk after something like that. In the condition he was in, Suze was pretty sure a normal person would have succumbed to infection, but he was still moving along, even if it was slowly.

But then he spoke. Suze had spent many, many hours watching various zombie flicks, and she was pretty sure zombies didn't go around talking, save for the occasional moaning for brains. Then again, zombies weren't supposed to be real. She gulped, but forced herself not to run away. Sure, it could have been a trap, but he was asking for help and some part of her just felt like he really meant it. She'd spent years mediating for the dead...but the undead?

She took a breath. She had to do something about the situation, and Suze had never liked running away if she could help it. It seemed best to get more information if she could.

"What...are you?"

[shambler]

“I’m….” R trailed off, stumped.

He wasn’t used to that question – in fact, only Julie asked it and he hadn’t known the answer then, either. R watched as the stranger levered herself up, making sitting look so easy like it wasn’t even a second thought. Another firework flashed past, bright coral pink. Whistling shrieked overhead. He realized with a start that her eyes were tearing up, glistening in the light.

“I’m...R,” he said, settling for what he did know. “I need…to find a…girl. Help.”

He threw that again in just in case she didn’t get that part mixed in with the gurgling, especially when she was staring at him, gaping, and R could see the realization “he’s a corpse” dawning on her. It happened a lot. Usually when it did, there wasn’t a whole lot of time for grossed out staring because he and the other zombies were already piling in, but today was one of the exceptions. R wobbled on his stump. The strange girl looked like a lot of Living did to him: flushed faces, bright eyes, working lungs, hair that didn’t look like it was seconds away from rotting off. Maybe she was pretty. What she was, though, was another pair of eyes and ears and he really, really needed those right now.

R righted himself, thought about reaching out to grab her hand and decided nah, he’d better not. His eye fixed on her, searching her face, his other thankfully hidden behind the eyepatch from Howard. It spared the girl the hard decision of deciding which eye to look at.

“I won’t…hurt…you,” R moaned. Oh yeah. He was glad he was fast enough on the ball this time to add that before he spooked her off

[themediator]

Saying he wouldn't hurt her didn't sound all that reassuring coming from a walking corpse. But she still wasn't running off. Given the circumstances, anyone telling her they won't hurt her was questionable. Someone had to win this death match, didn't they? Every person she trusted, even for a second, was a risk. But then again, if she hadn't trusted Howard she might have been starving and dead already.

So risks were necessary, but she wouldn't take risks like this blindly. For all she knew he could be looking for a girl he thought was particularly tasty. She wasn't about to let some other girl become this guy's early morning snack. Who was to say she'd be safe afterwards either? Of course, even that sounded insane. Were zombies supposed to put that much thought into their meals? As far as she'd seen the whole idea was more of a "see, chase, eat" deal. He'd seen her and yet she wasn't zombie-chow. She considered that to be a good sign, and slowly stood up. She wanted to be ready to bolt, or fight back, if it came to that.

She cleared her throat and looked R in his good eye. "What girl? Why are you looking for her?" she asked.

[shambler]

The fact she hadn't booked it in the opposite direction was enough to make R hopefully this could work out.

"Julie. She's....a friend. In...danger," R said.

He tried to put emphasis all over the place, stick on an exclamation mark or two or three - anything to get across that he was actually in a hurry and not wandering around like a lost corpse, no matter what it looked like. Annoyed it wasn't working, R settled for reaching up and pointing at the sky, trying to gesture at the fireworks exploding all over the park. That had to be clear enough. R was relieved to see that the strange new girl wasn’t looking away at him or anything, like he wasn’t there or she was debating the best range to get a headshot in. He was startled to realize she was making an effort to look him right in the eye. Weird. He usually didn’t meet many people who did that. It stood out, even with the fireworks whistling overhead.

[themediator]

She briefly glanced up at the fireworks overhead, but quickly set her sights back on R. She didn't want any more surprises from him. But she knew those fireworks were trouble. Her throbbing hand was a perfect reminder of that. Maybe she had been sent in here to kill people, but that just wasn't her. She helped people, no matter what a pain it was. Slowly, she nodded. She realized he might not have been able to see that too well and spoke up again.

"Okay. I'll do what I can. Do you have any idea where she might be?"

[shambler]

R would've blown out a breath of relief if he was alive. Instead R nodded - a bobbing, jerky motion, like his muscles were out of practice - and tried to work up something he hoped was a reassuring smile. He remembered at the last moment not to show his teeth. Probably didn't want to push it.

"I left her...there." The zombie pointed at Thunder Mountain. The top of it was being bombarded by fireworks, fire flickering from the seams of the fake rock. The mountain looked red in the night sky, almost like it was glowing from the inside out. "Thank...you."

R meant it.

He'd remember this, make an extra effort to keep it from sliding away like everything else in his life. A girl willing to stop and help a corpse out. R turned, did his best to burn her face into his memory, the way her brown hair framed her face. Anything and everything that would help him hold onto it. R turned and started to limp off toward Thunder Mountain, trusting the stranger to follow him.

[themediator]

Suze does follow him, though she keeps a fair amount of space between them. Honestly, she would have done the same to anyone she ran into in the arena. Nothing against zombies, really.

Watching the mountaintop she really hoped that whoever R had left there had gotten out. Otherwise things were not looking very good for them. She didn't bother saying anything about it though. If R had had enough thought to thank her for her help, then he probably had enough to be concerned on his own.

Maybe.

Either way she didn't want to add to his concern. She moved along at a fairly brisk pace, which was hard when the person you were trying to keep away from was a zombie. Not exactly the swiftest walking companion, though R seemed different even in that aspect.

"Think you could move faster? If she's still up there she'll need help sooner rather than later."

[shambler]

R looked over and whoa, suddenly she was closer than he thought she was.

It did drive home again how slow he was.

"Try...ing!" R grunted.

His limp sped up a fraction more, R getting an awkward loping look as if he was gonna get dumped off his stump if she so much as looked at him wrong. He teetered forward, and, impossibly, kept going. It wasn't a run, nowhere close but he was making progress and that was about all they could ask for at this point. By now they were close enough to feel the heat coming off Thunder Mountain. Another firework spun into the side of it, lighting one of the tracks on fire as it exploded into sparklers.

"You...see anyone?" R asked, turning to his new best friend.

She looked more alive than he did, so he assumed maybe she had better vision. Y'know, two eyes are better than one. She seemed like a sharp girl and even better, she hadn't changed her mind so far. R was all for shuffling into the blaze and seeing where that got him, but he remembered oh yeah, Living girl here. Different...limitations.

[themediator]

Suze scanned the ride for any signs of life. While two good eyes gave her an advantage over R, it wasn't very helpful when she didn't see anyone or anything of note. Though given the fireworks bombarding the false mountaintop, she considered that a good thing. She didn't see anyone moving along the ride, but she didn't see any burning bodies either.

The growing fire heated up the air around them. That, in combination with all of the running she had been doing was causing Suze to sweat wish for water. There might have been people hidden within the ride, but with the fire blazing, she didn't think she could risk a trip inside. If the fire didn't get her again, the ride just might collapse. She sincerely hoped that whomever might have been there before had booked out of there at the first sign of trouble.

"I don't see anyone. Are you sure this is where she was?"

[shambler]

"Yes," R said, sounding for once sure of himself. "Left...her here. Wanted to...surprise her."

R started to lurch toward the ride, only to stumble to a halt when a firework slammed into the path leading up to Thunder Mountain: it was the prettiest explosion he'd probably ever seen, but it also blew out a good chunk of the path and the zombie was left staring there helplessly at the crater.

He knew he couldn't navigate it.

R backed up to stand next to the girl, his shoulders slouched as if he wasn't sure what to do. Yell? Go around the back? Maybe he could try to pick his way through the crater and ask her to go around the back. Divide and conquer, he suddenly remembered the term. Yeah, maybe that was a plan. R sucked in a breath to start talking again.

"I don't...see her. She's...human, like...you. She'd leave...right?" R asked, searching the girl's face. He wanted the truth but he also wanted to be reassured at the same time.

[themediator]

Maybe she was being optimistic, but Suze really didn't think anyone would still be hanging around the ride. The fireworks had come down fast, but there had been enough noise to wake and warn people before the real damage came down. Despite the days, almost weeks she'd been in the arena now, Suze hadn't seen anyone die yet, and she was really hoping to keep it that way. Until she had solid proof otherwise, she was going to believe there wasn't someone burning away in the fake mountain.

"She probably did," she replied. She looked back at R again and gave him a small smile. It was strange, but even if he was a walking, talking corpse he almost had a kicked-puppy look. Whoever Julie was, she was probably important to him. It was an odd thought to wrap her head around, but she'd been adapting to odd for years now.

"I know I bolted as soon as the fireworks came down. I'm sure she did, too."

[shambler]

"Maybe she's...nearby," R moaned, wanting more than anything to believe her now. The smile was what made him decide he did. "We'll...look, yeah?"

R assumed Julie had the same survival instincts as this girl. Hoped she did. The look he gave her was mostly still dead, but there was an undercurrent of gratefulness underneath it as he closed his blackened mouth and nodded. Okay then. Going with that half-glass full take on things Then R turned on his stump and began trying to pick a path around Thunder Mountain, probably too close for comfort with the heat beating at them and sparkles spiraling off from where the fireworks scored hits.

He tried to plod along and multi-task at the same time, thinking he was missing something here and it was hard to think when he kept worrying about Julie and the others. They neared the place where he thought he remembered a wagon being - there was nothing but splinters - when he turned to the girl with him.

"Name?" It was sudden but if she was cool enough to help him out, then maybe they better be on first name basis.

[themediator]

Suze followed R, but keeping a wider distance from the burning ride than he was. Given that he was a zombie, she wasn't particularly concerned about him getting too close to the fire. For a moment it was almost like watching a ghost go into danger. It wasn't really danger for them at all when everything just went through them. Then again, R would still show the damage from any danger. He'd just get up and keep walking. That was how it worked, right?

She was busy considering all of this while simultaneously keeping a eye out for any other life around the area. Thankfully, she didn't see anyone hurt or worse which left her assumption about this girl running away, validated. Suze looked back at R when he spoke up again.

"What-? Oh, my name? I'm Suze."

[shambler]

Suze was a pretty name - he liked the way it sounded aloud.

"Nice...to...meet you, Suze," R groaned. "Wish...better...cir - "

He wanted to go with "circumstances" but that wasn't happening, so R dipped his shoulder, grunted, and hoped he got his point across. He was grateful more than he even knew how to express that Suze was trying to help him out. Most people wouldn't, not with a zombie. They'd either run or try to kill him and she hadn't done either. R appreciated that.

The back of the mountain wasn't hit as hard, R limping to a stop.

He checked for bodies, lying there or stumbling around like him, so there was that. R felt his hopes starting to rise. He knew for a fact humans were a lot more prone to hightailing it out of danger zones before it was too late: for every Living he'd ever eaten, a lot more of them had gotten away. He hoped that was the case here. He stopped at what looked like a piece of BBQed fish.

"That's...theirs!" R pointed at the charred piranha. He remembered watching Wyatt gutting it, the zombie almost sounding excited instead of lost.

[themediator]

It was pretty easy for Suze to understand the gist of what R was getting at. She nodded her head in agreement. Pretty much any other setting would have been a better meeting for them. Of course...a setting change wouldn't make him any less of a zombie. At least, she didn't think it would.

Carefully, Suze leaned in to examine the fish. Her nose scrunched up at the smoky smell. She supposed there really wasn't a huge variety of food choices when you were pitted in a battle to the death. Whoever was pulling the strings around there knew what they were doing. A lack of food was bound to make most people desperate. She sighed, causing her bangs to puff up and down again. Then she straightened up and looked at R.

"Okay, well if this is where they were, then I think it's safe to say that they aren't here anymore. Why don't we get away from this oven and try looking somewhere else?"

[shambler]

"Sounds like...a plan. Maybe they...dropped more...fish?"

R found it easier to concentrate when Suze was there investigating and poking around with him. It kept his focused. More or less focused. Zombies weren't very awesome at focusing, so basically R was trying. R stared as she blew out a breath, her hair flipping up and even that looked Alive to him.

Having someone agree and give an outside opinion made R feel better. He wasn't used to panicking and now that he suddenly had humans he felt responsible for, he was getting a crash course in it. The look the zombie gave Suze was mostly Dead but also grateful, even if he didn't have the words right now to get that out in the open. Later. I'll do it after this. We have time.

[themediator]

Chuckling softly, Suze began to walk away from the ride. "Like a trail of breadcrumbs, huh?"

She wasn't sure if R would get the reference especially with the blank look he seemed to favor, but it was something to say. It was a tendency of hers to say something witty the worse a situation got. She shrugged and looked over her shoulder at R.

"Let's try this way. As much as you seem to not really care about it, you'll start to barbecue if you stick around here much longer."

[shambler]

More like a trail of piranhas but - yeah. Close enough. R thought they were on the same page. He was still a little rusty on human/zombie protocols here, mostly because before there weren't any. With Suze, R didn't want to burn any bridges by looking at her and getting any funny thoughts. The problem was he got she was a bright girl, the kind of girl any normal Dead would look at and start drooling over.

R hurriedly looked away from Suze, as if she could read his mind.

"That would...sssss - " R's words whistled out through the stab wound in his chest, weeks old. "Suck. I guess."

R tried to hobble faster after Suze. Was it him, or did the fireworks stop?

[themediator]

At his words, Suze looked back at R and just started laughing. Laughing probably for the first time since she ended up in the arena. The laugh was especially loud since the fireworks seemed to have stopped completely.

She gasped and covered her mouth and stopped laughing. Now that things were quiet, anyone might have heard her if they were close enough. She stopped walking and glanced around, but no one seemed to be within sight. Sighing she sighed and ran a hand through her hair.

"Sorry. I just...well, it wasn't something I expected to hear from a zombie." Her lips cracked into a smirk again at the thought. "But then, I never really expected to meet one in the first place. That is what you are, right? A zombie?"

[shambler]

The laugh startled R when it cut into the night, razor sharp. The zombie gave a delayed jump - a flinch of his shoulders - and swung slowly around to ogle his new human friend. Helper. Whatever he should call Suze. There had to be a word for the oddball Living who dropped what she was doing to help a zombie.

Apparently he had skills with the girls. R had no idea he was so good at making them laugh - first Julie, now Suzie. It was like a new track record. He'd take laughing over screams any day of the week.

"Yeah. Sorry," R added. "I won't...eat you," he threw that in too, almost defensively. "I'll be...cool. Fun...ny too."

There. R paused to shoot Suze a puzzled look.

"You've...never seen...other...zombies?" Really?. What kind of paradise was she from? Was it too late to hitch a ride there?

[themediator]

Suze spoke more softly now, as if she were trying to compensate for the volume of her laughter. "Of course not," she said. She gave him a look that said that something like that was common sense, but then she quickly realized it obviously wasn't for wherever it was R came from. She couldn't help wondering what kind of place R was from, if there were any human left, or if zombie were all that there were.

She glanced at him, looking hesitant. Zombies were new, but the dead were not. It wasn't something she went talking about to just anyone, but she was already treating R like one of her ghostly visitors, thank to his...condition.

"I do work with the dead, though. Just...not your kind of dead."

[shambler]

"There's...other kinds of...Dead?"

R sounded surprised-surprised, not zombie-surprised: slight difference there. He was starting to think there were other types of Dead out there, between the Boneys and whatever Karis was, but it wasn't often he ran into someone like Suze to confirm it. And what did she mean, she worked with them? If she was a survivor, R would've assumed "worked" meant "shot, re-killed, burned" but she hadn't reacted to him like the humans back home.

So maybe it was something else.

R plodded along with Suze. "You said...working. I don't...get."

[themediator]

She shrugged and walked along quietly for a moment. She really just wasn't used to explaining her whole...deal. Suze wondered if ghosts were even a thing where R came from, or if everyone who died just defaulted to zombie stage.

"I mean ghosts. Spirits. Back home I would help them with...well, whatever it was they needed help with."

Often they were simple tasks; finding a family heirloom or leaving a note for an old flame. Sometimes things got more tricky. Like her last job that had almost gotten her killed, not to mention a few broken ribs and a concussion. She was just glad that had all healed up before she had been brought to the arena. She probably wouldn't have made it this far with the injuries she had received.