.gimme sympathy! {zack.VS.katie||day5}

Oppressive heat pressed in on Katie from all sides. Not that any of the last few days had been characteristic of the cool weather back home this time of year, but for the seventeen-year-old, the fifth day of the Hunger Games was overwhelmingly, oppressively hot. Ordinarily, the thick air and sensation of being pressed from all sides might have offered some comfort to Katie, mental as well as physical - a reminder of the stuffy factory and the broiling machines within that she'd loved so dearly in District Three - but the mortal peril involved and the crawling fingers that sent shivering blisters across her skin were enough to permanently dissociate any feelings of contentment from the decalescent* weather. And, Katie mused, "mortal peril" wasn't even an overstatement - but her amused attitude towards this fact was cut short by flashes of imagery from the day before.
Wandering deliriously. Realizing that she had cut off her own forearm and somehow not minding. The feel of rough rocks under her clumsy fingertips. Water- water! Hot and cold shuddering alternately just under a besieged epidermis. Lights in front of her eyes, blinding her, following her even through closed lids, battering down already-worn resistance. Vomit sliding in liquid turrets up her throat with no chance at being halted. Hours spent curled and shaking and sobbing on the ground, condensed into a memory-image only seconds long in the recollection.

Today was much too close in resemblance to the day before. The searing throat, the swimming thoughts, the hacking coughing-fits that left her doubled over with hands left hand on her knees for support. Only one difference from the severe dehydration of the day before became apparent as Katie continued her never-ending traipse across the land (looking for what, the girl did not know; she preoccupied herself with the pleasant feeling of crushed fungi under her bare feet): the ability to sweat. Copiously. Salty liquid formed a sticky, disgusting, insulating film spanning the entire surface of the teenager's skin; it cut lightly stinging tracks through the cuts on her upper arms and painfully welled in the somewhat-healed deep groove on her neck, eliciting a series of heavy winces before she adjusted to the pain. Sweat was everywhere, it was like clothing in feel and oxygen in abundance. Katie hated it, hated it desperately and vehemently; the water she'd worked so hard for, endured such terrible nightmares for, thrown out by her body in a pointless fight against the heat. Beads of the stuff rolled down the girl's right bicep and sunk into the crusty edge of her makeshift bandage. (The "bandage" itself was mostly useless in that bloodflow from the arm-stump had not been stopped or slowed much, but its ability to catch sweat was a bit of relief, Katie conceded.) Yet nothing evaporated, no cooling effect was achieved from the perspiration - sunlight was a forgotten quantity in this Arena, replaced with unending dirty grey that pressed down and suffocated.

Afternoon arrived and to Katie's lonely, delirious mind, a nap seemed to be in order. She sank down to her knees, giggling as a mushroom was crushed beneath each one, and was on the verge of collapsing into a heap of dejected limbs when a glinting object flashed through her peripheral vision and, now watched, skimmed the ground lightly before thudding to a halt. Katie's first assumption was the logical one: she had been hallucinating. After all, there was no one and nothing left in this awful place. Faces in the sky at night were the girl's only indication that the human race (besides herself) even continued to exist at all; even those had begun to seem like hallucinations lately. No tremendous boom or far-in-the-distance screaming or human voice over loudspeaker could convince Katie Morven that the Hunger Games was still full of competitors, for she did not see it that way. What was a competition with amateur teenagers when absence of water put her very life at stake? No, that whole premise seemed very faulty, a sham almost. Perhaps, Katie thought, no one back in the Districts realized the real point of the Hunger Games because they were too caught up in the fighting. The real point was to almost-die, then to live some more, then to almost-die again or go insane. Maybe the cycle would go on forever. Only time stood between Katie Morven and survival-
"Did you kill Enigma Lane?"

Run.
Instinctive desire to flee, molded by outlook and hardened by years of habitual acceptance, took hold of Katie Morven as it had so many times before. Logic, planning, even the fact that she's spent seemingly-unending time lately musing on the lack of other people in this new, strange reality were no obstacle to her fundamental compulsion to abscond danger at all cost. The girl stumbled to her feet clumsily, only managing the simple action after several attempts due to failed tries to use her right arm to push off the ground. When she finally did rise to her feet, though, lethargy overtook her seventeen-year-old frame. Running sounded like so much effort...and it would make her sweat...
This, in turn, led to a connection between running and sweating, in that neither had any point in the Arena. A hallucination was nothing to run from. Besides, Katie mused, her instincts had only led her astray as of late; hadn't the compulsion to drink as much water as possible upon finding it led to hours of misery? (Of course, this logic was not entirely sound: in fact, her instincts had allowed the girl to survive in the Hunger Games far longer than her mind - or even sheer luck - would have.)
Why not play along?

Turning slowly, Katie faced the dim figure from which the hoarse words had come. All skills of eloquence abandoned in a world long behind, the girl spoke in low, curious tones. "Are you a hallucination?" Peering through the tinted air, the teenage girl took a few tentative steps forward, subconsciously attempting to bring a hand up to run through her hair, which had the unsettling consequence of reminding her - consciously - that her right hand was no longer attached to her right arm. Twinges of pain jolted up into her shoulder at the thought and Katie did her best to distract herself; words had always been an effective method, had they not? "...Because I've talked to hallucinations before - talked to a rock yesterday, it tried to steal my bracelet - you can't have it either -" - the girl glanced down at the yellow wires around her left wrist, beginning to come out of her secure knots, and wondered vaguely whether it was proving an analogy to her demented mind - "-anyhow, I guess if you talk back you might be real. Only how could you be? Everyone's gone. They're all gone."
Katie averted her dulled brown eyes, tears welling up within. Wasteful, wasteful! she chided herself, appalled at the preventable loss of water. "Maybe they're dead," she mused, facing the scrawny boy once more; "Killed off somehow. Hell if I know. Haven't seen anyone die yet-" Nameless horror filled Katie's glazed eyes as more images bombarded her mind. I should have erased these- why aren't they gone?! Standing on a platform, transfixed on the glint of gold yards ahead - people everywhere, crawling like bugs, clashing together and tearing apart, ripping away from the bloodbath and heading in all directions - a girl she was so tall being hit from all sides and slowly losing ability to continue beating her heart. Thump. Thump. Katie wished to silence her own heart, both then and now.
"-I have. I have seen someone die. The beginning, I think - can't remember when anything happened honestly - she was tall, much taller than me. Like this," Katie insisted, holding her left hand parallel to the ground several inches above her head, before continuing the mindless babble. "It was awful, I thought it wasn't real but who knows, maybe it was. You say someone killed? I don't know, I don't know, does it count as killing if it's in the Hunger Games? What are you here for?- because I'm here to not die, well I don't know about that, I guess I'm here because...because the Fates hate me, I don't know!" By the end of this miniature rant, Katie was gesturing wildly with her left arm, face contorted in confusion she'd refused to acknowledge until now. At first, the word-vomit was helpful, allowing her to release stress of the past few days; but now it clouded her logical progression of thoughts, brought up too many painful ideas. Eyes glued to the ground, her next words dropped down from their previous shout. "I guess it's an enigma." Giggling sadly with a dejected shrug of the shoulders, Katie smiled up at the possibly-real teenager in front of her.
Passing seconds furrowed the girl's brows in genuine concern, a return to her normal self - if before the Games she had been normal - and grounded her thoughts to sympathy. "You look terrible," she insisted quietly, drawing forward and running her eyes across never-ending burns and scars. Dried, caked blood, singed flesh, shiny pink skin were all present in abundance; by comparison, Katie looked rather hygienic.

Murky connections existed between the burns-too-severe-to-be-from-sunlight, the boom from early that morning, the exhausted tone of the hallucinated?-boy's words, the ashy quality of the grey canopy overhead; however, in her state of confusion and distractedness, Katie was unable to realize exactly what had transpired. "Did- did something happen? I can- do you need any help?...You really do look awful," she whispered in a nearly inaudible voice that cracked in concern. Wiping her forehead with a lazy wrist, Katie stared with wide, fearful eyes at the boy, praying subconsciously that he could be real because little as she wanted to acknowledge it, she needed people. Not to be helped but to help. That was the real torture at work here.

*I found this word on thesaurus.com!!!!!!!!! it is SO AWESOME

Katie stared at Zack and wondered why he looked so faraway. Desperately cursed her inability to read people's emotions. For a moment she flashed back to a conversation with a certain boy at home that had made her feel equally mystified. But she snapped out of it when Zack grabbed her arm. Horrified and disgusted - and also feeling very defensive because he had rejected her offer to help - Katie froze in place and closed her eyes. She couldn't bear to look at him and all the burns and nastiness. "I don- didn't know her name. I don't know. Maybe it was Enigma. It's an eni-- brown hair, she had brown hair just like mine! But prettier and full I could see it in the sun even from my plate - so tall - and they were all hacking at her, disgusting, how could they do that? but I guess it's the point - barely defended herself - I didn't see much, I don't know, I thought I blocked it out but it's coming back - and then that girl, the skinny one with the dark hair, she just ran up and sliced her across the throat and it was awful, how could she do that? How could anyone-?" Katie stopped talking because her throat was squeezed shut. She could feel her face contorting, tightening, mouth turning down and liquid leaked from her eyes. She yanked her good arm from his grasp and stumbled backward, muttering unintelligibly, and wiped her nose to stem the tears and snot and general nastiness that accompanies sobbing.

This is another filler.

Last filler.
I wanted to give Zack another chance with a non-combat post but I'm out of fillers and I don't want to prolong this fight anymore. :c hopefully Ripred will make Katie miss so Zack'll be able to get an attack in...

Whatever happens, just know I love you. ;.;

Here we go...

PS. I love you. And Zack. <3 </3

Katie sifted through Zack's items and grabbed a rucksack, in which she placed length of wire, 25 ft of bandages, 2 needles/thread, and 1 full jug of water. She felt very numb.
Then Katie used 5 feet of bandages on Zack even though he was dead because the wound on his head looked gross.
She walked away and picked some mushrooms [took edible plants] and put them in the rucksack.
Then she sat down and used five feet of bandages on her own severed arm and used one of the needles/thread twice: once on her calf and once on her neck. [[ooc note: let me know if this isn't allowed - I didn't see anything that said 1 use per battle so I'm using it twice.]] Then she did first aid.
Finally, Katie ate the mushrooms she had already picked and then gathered more mushrooms and put them in the rucksack.