thearena | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

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.

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She didn't need to be told twice. When she was on her feet she was fast. Fear was a great motivator. Her wide eyes were scanning this was and that for cover. A place to hide. She couldn't outrun these things forever could she?

Firworks crash around them, pounding the ground like fat, rainbow-colored raindrops. Rain that burned. Rain that could kill them.

He tried to stay with the girl, but she was quite a bit faster, darting ahead like a rabbit as the main stretch of Frontierland flashed red. It wasn't long before she too, like Howard and Julie before her, disappeared, like a ghost into the smokey shadows of the night and once again, he was running alone.

Bleeding and choking and praying.

Sandy shot a look over her shoulder to try and see the man that had urged her on but the smoke had gotten too thick.

"THIS WAY!" She shouted trying to urge him on as well. She wasn't going to stop, no no that would be foolish. But she could at least give him a direction to run.

"COME ON!"

It was hard to hear anything over the fireworks as they screamed across the sky, over the crackling hiss as they crashed down and set fire to everything they touched. Wyatt squinted into the smoke, trying to pinpoint the direction of the teeny voice he thought he heard.

It was pure luck that he happened to spot a shape moving ahead of him, an outline in the dark. He raced toward it, hoping it was the girl (or Howard or Julie) and one of those other tributes. The ones who were probably enjoyin' this.

Her eyes were watering and stinging but she pushed harder through the smoke and fire shouting and coughing hoping for the first time in weeks that she wasn't alone.

In the chaos she didn't see the building till she ran into it. Falling backwards from the impact she ended up looking at it from the ground. It was a solid sturdy building made of stone or something stonelike. The windows had been broken out and there were burn marks on it but it still stood solidly.

It was worth a shot.

"THIS WAY!" She shouted again and climbed through one of the broken windows into the darkness of the shelter.

Wyatt struggled after her, stumbling through the smoke.

An arm up, covering his mouth and nose he was saved from cracking his face off the building that suddenly reared up out of nowhere, but his elbow still smarted quite a bit as he felt around the corner to the broken window.

He half-climbed, half-fell through to the floor within and lay there hacking, his lungs sounding like they were trying to beat a hasty retreat from his body.

Sandy was wheezing nearby, having backed herself into a corner and sat on the ground legs sprawled out in front of her. She coughed and hacked and rubbed the tears from her eyes feeling the muscles in her limbs twitch wanting to keep moving.

But this place was safe...she hoped. It was too dark to see where they'd ended up. For safety sake she drew out her over sized hatpin and held it close.

The little building rumbled, walls glowing with the fires burning just outside the windows, but other than fine tendrils of dust and dirt falling from the ceiling, it was holding.

Wyatt gave himself a minute to rest, to collect himself, then he croaked softly, "Are... ya hurt?"

"Not yet." Her voice cracked but her dark humor insinuated she was probably OK for the moment.

"What the hell was all that?" She added casting a wary glance out the window they had climbed through as if a ball of fire was going to come looking for them.

Wyatt nodded, glad that she was still in one piece, and slowly propped himself up. He was light-headed, the ground feeling like it shifting strangely beneath him, as he warily climbed to his feet.

"Fireworks," he replied. "I'm guessin' things were gettin' a bit too slow for the Capitol folks."

"What?" Sandy exclaimed baffled. "You mean if we get too boring they're just gonna start attacking us for giggles?"

With a frustrated groan she buried her face in her hands helplessly. "I hate this place."

"Yeah," he sighed, moving toward the window, eyeing the fires burning behind carefully. They weren't close enough to be an issue yet, but that could change.

"Regular peaches ain't they?"

He could hear more fireworks, that high-pitched scream as they raced overhead, but even craning his head he couldn't see them.

"I think we're alright for now though."

Sandy was noticeably not comforted by this.

"For now maybe. We're still stuck here." And so far as she was concerned none of them were alright while the capitol was in charge.

She sat up a little straighter with her back to the wall and her eyes on the older man. He had encouraged her before but that didn't mean he was going to go out of his way to keep her alive.

"For now," he echoed.

He glanced from the window over to her, wondering if she was alone or if there was somebody out there looking for her, waiting for her, like he was for Howard.

"But these kinda things don't usually last long," he said gently, trying to be comforting. "We'll be outta here before ya know it."

"And back at the capital. More food. Less freedom." She had misunderstood his attempt at comfort by thinking he meant the Arena would be over soon.

"Assuming I wasn't too boring to bring back." She added.

That wasn't what he'd meant, but he shifted gears easily. If that's what worried her more - and he couldn't blame her - he'd address that too, as best he could.

"Ya don't know that," he replied. "The last winner-" Momoko, the girl he'd killed himself for, "-wasn't that much different from ya. Maybe you'll take after her."

That didn't seem to help. She hung her head with a frustrated sigh.

"Yeah, I talked to her. I don't know I'd I could...live how she does. She didn't seem to care at all how messed up and wrong this whole situation is."

"That so?"

Wyatt shifted, turning from the window and slowly lowering himself to the floor to sit beneath it. Close enough to be able to keep an eye on things, but relaxed, and more engaged with the young girl he was trapped with.

"She doesn't care? Or she doesn't seem too? 'Cause those are different things."

Especially here, with Capitol eyes and ears everywhere.

Sandy considered it for a moment. Her stomach churned from stress and she wished she had another tea cake to settle it. But she'd finished off the last of her cakes that morning.

"She seemed pretty sure about it to me." She muttered sullenly.

"Ah," he lifted a hand, pointing across at her for emphasis, as a smile played around his mouth. "There's that word again."

It was true, Wyatt didn't think badly of Momoko, but what the girl actually thought and felt was neither here nor there right at the moment. He just wanted to take Sandy's mind off what going on outside.

Not to mention his own.

His fears over Howard, Julie, and R. Whether they were together, whether they were safe... whether they were even still alive....

"It's just..." She was frustrated sitting up straighter. "Every time I find someone who understands just how crazy this world is I meet like...three people who love it and are totally on board!" And she just couldn't stand it.

"It's starting to make me worry..." She didn't finish the sentence but her thoughts were clear.

Who's the crazy one here?

Wyatt nodded, sympathetic. He knew that feeling. He'd certainly been there.

"The Capitol folks, they've always done this, or they've done it as long as they can remember anyways. They aren't like us that came from places that didn't believe in things like this. Have rules and laws against it."

He shifted slightly, frowning thoughtfully. "The tributes... well, some of them have been here a while and I expect they don't much see any other way to make it stop. Others, well, some folks just aren't good people - weren't right even before they were brought here."

Edited 2013-05-06 11:37 (UTC)

He made sense. She hated that he made sense but didn't have any good solutions. No one really did so there probably weren't any.

"Back home, before they took my Dad away he used to tell me stories of people who would stand up against what was wrong, even when everyone in the world was saying it was right. Heroes you know? But so far all the heroes I've seen around here get killed."

Wyatt couldn't help a soft snort and a gentle smile, his own fond memories welling up.

"My Pa had stories like that too," he admitted, drawling off as he recalled dinners round the table, afternoons in the fields, long rides in and out of town.

"But at least we've got those heroes here," he continued after a long moment. "We've got those folks who keep tryin', even if it means trouble."

"Why?" That was the burning question that had been eating at her since she arrived. "Why is it bad that people are trying to do what's right? Why is everyone else so convinced this stupid games thing is the way people should live? I mean we didn't even sign up for this we're like...slaves or whatever!"