thearena | (no subject)

(no subject)

WHO| Any tribute in the arena can jump in.
WHAT| Some structural issues.
WHEN| Midday
WHERE| The center of the arena.
WARNING/NOTES| None, atm, besides death.

The acid rain had come and gone, in much short waves than before. The heat simmered, the only relief to be found in the building, strangely cooler than they should be in an abandoned city. Cool air wafted up from under the ground, seeping into the buildings. With the added safety of the various hiding places the buildings offered, and the shelter from the rain, they were a tempting place to hide.

But not a safe one.

The racking, groaning sounds started around noon, when the sun was highest, hottest, and the acid rain clouds loomed near enough to intimidate everyone inside. They were easy to ignore...old, abandoned buildings settling, section falling some where far off.

Then, the cloud came in, dumping their acid into the streets.

And with a huge, consuming groan everything began to shift. Sinking. For a moment it seed to all be sinking neatly, in one piece. But that only held for a moment before the building began to buckle, metal screeching as it crumpled down into the gaping maw of the sink hole that had just opened under several city blocks.

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They had found the building a few days ago, when the rain initially started; it worked as a good sort of stronghold while they recovered, while they doted on each other largely for the sake of the audience they knew they had. They were surviving well enough so far, avoiding the other Tributes mostly because of their own injuries. Ariadne, at that point, was just hoping they all finished each other off in the meantime, though she wasn't voicing such a thought.

She was sitting on the stairs, regarding her teammates silently with her chin in her hands, wondering what the Arena, the Gamemakers would throw at them next when the groans began. It was a concerning noise in and of itself, though distant enough that she didn't immediately worry.

Momoko stares out the window just before it starts. Glares, rather, at the ridiculous, horrible rain clouds, which seem even worse so long after they'd finished off the hard-won water bottle from the Cornucopia. She should probably school her face into something a little sweeter, more innocent, but playacting for the cameras is getting absurdly tiring, especially now that the medicine that playacting won them has returned her voice. She's finding it harder and harder to keep her true thoughts from spilling out, after the lengthy forced silence.

No matter how tired she is of the act, her survival instinct is stronger, so when the sudden noise startles her into jumping she takes that and uses it, moving towards Ariadne on the stairs. "Is that thunder?" she asks timidly. She doubts it, but who knows what the thunder from manufactured storms actually sounds like, so she goes with it. "I don't like thunder--not the worst thing in here of course but..."

Eliot steps to the doorway just in time to see a building across the street begin to sway. His face goes pale. Even if the shack can withstand the weight of all that rubble, they can quickly get trapped. "It's not thunder," he says quietly, urgently.

Quickly, he racks his mind, trying to think if he's seen any area in the Arena without the tall city buildings that have suddenly become a threat even to those outside. The only area that comes to mind is that amusement park around the Cornucopia. Ironic that everything always comes back to that one, central spot that all of them keep trying to leave.

"The city's collapsing. We need to get out of here before we get trapped under the rubble."

Her own eyes slide to the window, glancing up at the clouds as well at the thought of thunder; she wouldn't be surprised, and it's been raining on and off for a while now. She wonders where the other Tributes are, where they've all holed up in the meantime. She's seen the results of that rain hitting a living thing; she wants nothing to do with it.

"It's still raining. It's not the entire city; if it were, we'd already be dead," Ariadne replies, voice dry. There's a rather horrible noise of metal on metal outside - still distant. Certainly something collapsing. "Do you want to take your chances with acid burns, or this?"

Eliot hesitates. He knows first-hand how painful the burns from the rain are. He has no desire whatsoever to experience that again. On the other hand, getting trapped in this shack would be a torturously slow way to die.

"The acid burns would be quicker than getting trapped and starving to death. On the other hand, maybe everyone else will kill each other before then."

"That would leave us to kill each other then," Momoko can't help but point out, though she thinks privately that she's probably chosen the least morbid route for their conversation to take. It seemed as though they were about to get into a debate about the preferable way to die.

She glances to Momoko, unable to stifle a tiny, wry smile. Just the smallest upward curve of her mouth, there for just a flicker of a second before she manages to get it back under control. The other girl does have a point.

"I suppose the alliance would be rendered moot at that point," Ariadne supplies, looking between them both. She still isn't moving; she's comfortable, though she knows first hand that starving is not the way to go in the Arena.

Eliot glances out the door anxiously. He's not leaving the girls here alone. That doesn't mean he wants to linger around collapsing buildings. Back in Croatia, he'd helped recover the bodies of his fellow soldiers from the rubble. The memory still lingers in the back of his mind. "You should at least move toward the door in case we need to run."

"Run into the acid?" asks Momoko skeptically. That sounds much worse than dying from being crushed, though she'd honestly prefer neither. At this point she's starting to have some faint hope of winning, if the three of them can just outlast the rest (though she wouldn't say no to at least maiming Tate a little, herself). Then she just has to wait until the other two turn their backs, which they do a ridiculous amount considering where they are, particularly Eliot, and with a well-placed rock or two she's the Victor.

It's not like they'd stay dead anyway.

Does Eliot know they don't die permanently, Momoko wonders suddenly. As far as she knows he was one of the Tributes thrown directly into the Arena, so maybe not. She'll have to think of a good, camera-friendly way to mention it, or even better, think of some way to milk his ignorance. That would work too.

"We still have Ariadne's coat," he points out. "That'll protect us from the worst of it. There's no wind right now, so we don't have to worry about the rain coming at an angle."

He shakes his head, sighing. Both girls are young. They're not fighters like him. He's not afraid of pain. Of course they'd prefer whatever seems less painful.

"You don't always die right away. Sometimes you're there for days, trapped, unable to move, just... waiting to die."

Not that he's been trapped under a building, but the worst torture he'd been through hadn't been getting whipped or beaten. It had been the time he'd been trapped in a cell so small he literally couldn't move for days.

She does rise to her feet, wrinkling her nose a little bit to show her general displeasure at that thought. But her eyes are still on both of them, watching their reactions and listening to the conversation. It's nice to not have to be the one making conversation again; she prefers it this way.

"There's also the chance we'll just die on impact. One shift, and the whole thing comes down: who's to say we'll be trapped at all?" She asks, pursing her lips a little. She's not entirely sure why this conversation is happening, nor why they're arguing over the best way to die. Her rant was cut short, however, by another violent shifting of the ground, another building crumpling into nothingness nearby.

Eliot throws himself toward the door as the ground tilts, eyes widening. Visions flash through his mind of them trapped to starve or suffocate, of himself unable to move for the weight of the rubble. No, he'd told the truth when he told Parker that he'd cured his claustrophobia. But the thought of being helpless, unable to move, to fight back if someone attacked him? That sends jolts of terror through him. But he can't leave Ariadne and Momoko. "What are you waiting for? Let's go!"

Momoko watches the buildings fall, frozen, eyes wide. If that's spreading outwards, towards them, she's not sure how they could possibly outrun it, or how they would know they were safe. And there's a small, treacherous part of her that can't help but think how nice it'd be to be done with this set of Games, to be back in the stifling but much more comfortable Capitol. Can't help but think how even suffocating under rubble sounds more appealing than acid.

She's so close to winning, so much closer than she ever truly believed she'd manage, but she's also just so tired...

Eliot inches forward and reaches a hand to Momoko. "Grab my hand! I'll pull you out."

He can't just let her die. They're so close to the end of this and she's too young. Since he's stuck in this mess, the least he can do is make sure she comes out.

It feels like a kick.

That's the first thought she has as her stomach seems to flip upside-down, as she feels weightless for a moment, as their particular building finally joins in the apparent mass exodus of giving up the ghost beneath the acid rain.

She wants to grab onto something, but what's the point when the walls are planning on giving out within the next few minutes, seemingly in slow motion? A tiny gasp escapes Ariadne as her eyes fall to the ground, wondering how something can feel so solid beneath her boots, and yet be so unstable; she's all but frozen in place, and likely to her detriment, but at least she knows that any death here will be faster than starving to death.

"Ariadne!" He can see she's just frozen. "You've got to move! The grounds more stable over here."

Momoko can barely hear Eliot over the sound of what seems like the world collapsing. When his words finally register she tears her eyes away from the sight and looks at Eliot with his hand outstretched. She doesn't want to die, she realizes. Even if it means a temporary escape from this hell, even if she'll be up and about within days, even if it's an irrational fear in the face of her new reality, Momoko does not want to die.

She realizes this and moves towards Eliot, reaches out her hand to his. And misses. The last thing she sees before her eyes close for the last time in this specific Arena is the hand she just can't quite reach.

"No!" he screamed as he saw her fall short. Just as he moved to throw himself toward her, a beam fell in his path, effectively forcing him back to the door.

She hadn't really expected to have been saved, if she was asked. But the realisation that Eliot would save Momoko over her, though unsurprising, wasn't a pleasant one. It knotted her stomach, even if she knew she'd get over it; if she said it didn't play a part in her lack of movement after everything, after she watched Momoko go down, she would be lying.

She barely realised when the beams came down around her, her eyes closing to keep the dust out, and a gasp catching in her throat. It barely hurt this time around, nothing more than a dull ache in her entire body.

Eliot caught Ariadne's eyes as the ceiling collapsed on top of her. He didn't even have time to try to move toward her. For a moment, he just stood there, stunned. He'd known this would probably happen unless they left right away. He still had a hard time believing it. The creaking and groaning of the falling architecture stopped about as suddenly as it had started.

Finally, he forced himself to move. It wasn't certain yet. Momoko, at least, had a chance if she survived the fall. He dug and pried at the fallen beams. He found Ariadne's pack first. Amazingly, it was still intact. A piece of rubble had kept the beam from setting the mines off. Finally, he reached his younger ally. The remains of the other pack lay scattered across her chest. He choked on a sob. If it weren't for his idea of salvaging the explosives, she might have lived. The water bottle lay mockingly at her feet. Looking across what was left of they're hideout, Eliot could just make out the outline of Ariadne's hand.

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