The Ground Walks, with Time in a Box :: [Day 4 + BARFs]

L△LIA
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The Ground Walks, with Time in a Box :: [Day 4 + BARFs] Jul 9, 2015 18:16:47 GMT -5

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Post by L△LIA on Jul 9, 2015 18:16:47 GMT -5

GUNNER LA TORRE

oh lord, won't you leave me
leave me on my knees
cause i belong to the ground now
and it belongs to thee

Her skin conducts danger, electrified as Nat's blood trickles between her fingers. Mopping the gore up with handful after handful of stripper cash, she eases his head up from her lap with one hand while wrapping multiple loops of duct tape around his neck with her other. "I've seen worse," she mutters absently to him as she works, as if being a nine point six instead of a ten on a La Torre's scale of Horrific Things Witnessed is supposed to be comforting. There's no promise that he'll be okay, no whisper that all he needs is a little rest. She knows he won't wake up from the next time he closes his eyes.

Instead of lying to him, she carefully settles Nat's head back down against her leg and smooths his filthy hair back. Sweat and blood and dirt beneath her fingers, he's only half as blonde as when she first met him. It can't be mere coincidence that he's grown a little bit darker since knowing her. The last thing she'll admit in this moment is why she's attempting to mend the unfixable pieces of his dying body, but she can feel the truth hidden as deeply within her as the heart she denies having. Nat should have been hers. Somewhere in the years lost before now, she should have taught him how to fire a gun, how to break bones with a pair of pliers, how crystal meth fucks your teeth up, but is the most beautiful thing on earth if you simply hold it in your hands.

He can't be put back together, but she can't help trying. Just in case.

"My pops says a soul can't be killed, only its body. Souls escape with last breaths and are reborn when babies take their first." Her dirty fingers tangled in his grimy hair, this absentminded touch is anything but impure. "I've never ended a life... I've only given people the opportunity to live better ones the next time around." In her new life, Gunner will be better than she is now. It's too late to save either of them today, but someday there will be a different future with a better past than this one.

They can try again.

If it gets fucked up a second time around, then there will be a third and a fourth and a fifth opportunity to fix their broken ways. Even if they never get it right, he won't stop belonging to her. Her heart that isn't a heart may not know how to feel everything it should, but it understands empty spaces and promises to remember each one. In her lives to come, this neglected place inside her chest will be filled with enough stolen heartbeats that she won't have any choice but to admit that she let them in. All of them.

Every time she insists that she is untouchable, she's lying. Gunner La Torre's body is branded with fingerprints and not just from one night stands. Unable to admit that someone has touched her without having stripped her naked, she picks up Nat's hand and presses it to her chest. "I'm the best fucking thing that ever happened to you, Baby Krigel. Congratulations on touching your first boob. Your life is now complete." His hand in hers, held to the space above her useless heart, she feels only the empty space he'll leave behind.

Last Edit: Jul 30, 2015 2:26:07 GMT -5 by L△LIA

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Cato
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The Ground Walks, with Time in a Box :: [Day 4 + BARFs] Jul 10, 2015 20:24:13 GMT -5

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Post by Cato on Jul 10, 2015 20:24:13 GMT -5

[googlefont="Coda Caption:800"]

hammerfell

orion

district two male

I watched him fall. His head flew away from his body as my look alike swung the sword ending the life of one of my friends. I couldn't save him just like I couldn't save Elya. I should be the one dead right now. I should be the one laying lifeless on the metal floor of the train, but for some reason I'm still alive. Even though I didn't kill him, I felt like it was me. Not a single person will ever realize that it wasn't me no matter how many times I tell them. Tears sit on the brim of my eyes, and I can feel my chin quivering as the harsh words of Gunner slide through my mind. She blames me. Nat probably blames me, and I have no idea what Circe thinks. I don't even know where she is.

Maybe I should leave. Circe is gone. She's probably dead right now, and in the mix of my emotions I didn't hear the cannon sound. Gunner can hold her own. She's strong enough to fight. Brave enough to carry on by herself. Me? I'm weak. I'm a coward. I ran away from them because I couldn't look at her, and looking at my dead friend only breaks my heart into thousands of pieces. Large tears drip down my face. All it would take to join Mason and Elya and Nat right now was a simple movement. All I have to do is throw myself from the train. Maybe this time the fall would kill me instead of breaking my arm. I was lucky then, and I don't want the luck anymore. I don't want nothing except to embrace my brother with a hug we won't ever forget. Is it too much to ask for?

Slowly I throw my legs over the edge of the train. Mason, I greet you. My entire body shook with fear as I prepared to let go and fall to my death, yet something kept me holding on. Sobs shook through my body leaving me alone, and I wasn't sure what to do. I wanted to die. I wanted to end my life because I can't stand being alive anymore. I can't imagine losing anyone else. But before I could let go, I saw the broken girl travel before my eyes. Circe was alive. She's not dead, yet she looks horrible. She looks really terrible, and she needs me help. I can protect her. I'll die before I let her die. Using all my might, I climb back onto the train before carefully heading over towards her. Yet I'm at a complete loss of words. What can I say to a girl who broke my heart? What can I say to a group who thinks I killed my friend?

OOC Notes

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The Ground Walks, with Time in a Box :: [Day 4 + BARFs] Jul 10, 2015 23:06:03 GMT -5

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Post by admin kay on Jul 10, 2015 23:06:03 GMT -5

[googlefont="Coda Caption:800"]

lyon

circe

district two female

The night peels back like fingernails, one excruciating moment at a time. Beneath the shiny veneer is torn flesh and mangled bones. Circe wheezes, prone on the floor of the storage car. Arrayed around her are strips of black clothes and dented knives. Though they but clipped the Reaper's shroud, they too have come far too close to death. She inches fingers away, pressing palms onto dulled blades. They are dull enough not to cut; they are dull enough to hold her weight. Circe twists, forcing herself to hold weight even though she is minutes past death. When she stands and wobbles from the car, she is a skeleton marionette.

She walks with the taste of Death on the back of her tongue. She would have expected it to be bitter, to taste of ash and rancid meat. But it's the opposite. It's the sweetest thing: angeldust and a peppering of divinity. Soon, she promises in so quiet a voice only Death can hear it.

By the time she stumbles into the car with her allies, a new life has taken hold in her chest. She is exsanguinated, poisoned, shivering. Her quarter heart comes to a crashing start at the sight of them and she realizes that she cannot promise Death soon or even ever. Not while there was a quarter piece left.

It's Orion's gaze that confirms her transition from living to ghost. Her face twists slowly into a scowl. "I cannot possibly look that terrible, Hulk." She steps to him, and makes a liar of herself. She wraps each hand around his biceps, forces her aching legs en pointe so she can meet his mirrored gaze. In his dark, liquid eyes, she does not see the mechanical puppet. She sees herself, ashen skin and bruised flesh and not enough duct tape in the world to heal her wounds. Tears cling to the corners of her eyes as she turns away. Her voice is tight and tiny when she says, "nevermind."

Her left hand slips into his, her other reaching forward. She uses the back of chairs and hand holds hung from the ceiling to maneuver her way to Gunner and Nat. She hears very little of their exchange, so engrossed is she in putting one foot in front of the other while keeping her chin tucked beneath the waterfall of her hair. It is matted and bloody, a perfect shield from the cameras. Orion's hand is a deadweight in hers, nearly lifeless, but as solid as a rock. When she toes bumps against Gunner's thigh, she comes slowly to the floor. She holds fast to Orion with one hand, and reaches for Nat with the other.

Kneeling beside Nat, her fingers but a whisper against his shoulder. She doesn't have to ask if he tastes the divinity too; she already knows.

OOC Notes
you mean I don't have to roll a dice in this post?
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credit dars

credit [ retro gm ] angel lí ✨

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анзие (Anz)
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The Ground Walks, with Time in a Box :: [Day 4 + BARFs] Jul 10, 2015 23:45:56 GMT -5

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Post by анзие (Anz) on Jul 10, 2015 23:45:56 GMT -5

[googlefont="Coda Caption:700"]

krigel

nat

district four male

They are alone, or as alone as they can be.

That's the first thing Nat notices when the haze of disorientation has dimmed, and the endless shadow of red that follows him like the outline of his slipping soul is shaped in fog and blood was wiped clean. They were alone: him, Gunner, Circe and Orion, and nobody painted murderous between them. Just the fog that beckons now, slithering over his skin and wrapping gentle tendrils of promised comfort around his wrists; it strokes his cheek and kisses his lips, and calls his name like a siren calling him to the water. Nat can't get up to follow.

He's not ready to follow, yet.

The ground lurches under him; they are still on the train, then, maybe. He thinks that's where they were, but memory fails him - or maybe it's simply brain function, or proximity to loved ones.

His world bumps, shakes, and tries to fade away.

Nat holds on. He can barely open his eyes, but he does.

Overhead is Gunner, bent over him; her fingers are tremulous as she smooths tape over over over his parted skin. "I've seen worse," she says, like bad isn't bad enough. He tries to laugh, but all that comes out is a rattling breath that feels like Orion is cutting him in half all over again. Darkness creeps into his edges and if he could still count time with his heartbeat, it races.

He's not ready. He's not ready.

Whoever said that dying was like going home after a very long day is a liar. Dying was like watching his life slip through his own fingers, knowing that all attempts to stop the spilling sand is in vain. Dying was needing to speak but feeling the words shatter the moment they touch air.

He has so much to say, so much to apologize for, and yet...

I'm scared.

Like she knows, Gunner runs her fingers through his hair - the way Leon used to, when he was young and scared of the dark. He takes comfort in the feeling, like reliving old memories in the dark attic of home - where he took his first steps, first played chase, had his first grown-up bed, kept his first bow. That's the home he wants to go to.

"...home?" If the words escape his lips they're swallowed by the fog that steals the breaths he's managed to sneak. He can't open his eyes now, but he knows he knows he knows Circe and Orion are there, and if he had a working heartbeat it would be screaming: Are you real? Did you kill me? He wants to press his fingers to their weapons like touch will tell him whose blood they've shed; he wants to press bloodied fingers to their faces and stare them in the eye until he knows, until they know, who the real boy is.

"Don't let me go."

He can barely feel it, their fingers like raindrops on his skin as the fog glimmers and parts for him - waiting. Nat can barely feel their touch on his skin, and a large part of him doesn't ever want them to let go.

The rest of him wants their continuing life; wants them to watch him for the moment that he looks over his shoulder to wave goodbye.

Nat Krigel is dying
[ actual death post to come ]

Last Edit: Jul 10, 2015 23:47:59 GMT -5 by анзие (Anz)

[ retro gm ] angel lí ✨ made this. she is my spirit animal.

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L△LIA
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The Ground Walks, with Time in a Box :: [Day 4 + BARFs] Jul 13, 2015 19:51:05 GMT -5

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Post by L△LIA on Jul 13, 2015 19:51:05 GMT -5

GUNNER LA TORRE

m o t h e r
make me a bird of prey
so i can rise above this
let it fall away

Fear twists a pathway from Nat's eyes, through his next ragged breath, and into a silent mouth. It's all too much for him. She recognizes the ugly ghost of dread within, but doesn't flinch as she stares it down. After delivering so many into the arms of death, she is familiar with The Great and Endless Quiet. There is nothing to be afraid of here, unless he trembles for the hand a far more terrible monster has laid upon him.

"...home?" He asks the devil and she can't reply because she doesn't know what he means. The two of them traveled to this Arena together, with matching footprints scattered out behind them, yet they come from different places and walk different roads. Even with her hand upon the crown of his head, he is as untouchable to her as a fifth direction.

North. South. East. West.

Forward. Backward. Left. Right.

Nat is to Gunner as Elya is to Gunner as Circe is to Gunner as Orion is to Gunner as Everything is to Nothing. "Don't let me go." He pleads to the horror holding onto him and she doesn't pull her hand away, although she catches herself thinking that she should. The weight of him grows lighter against her as his blood continues dripping out his wounds to feed the earth instead of his heart. Her jeans drink up the red of him and it is a stain that won't come out; she will be wearing his ending when she finds her own.

"Home," she promises him, as if she can build him one out of her breath. Eyes flicking up to glance at Circe and Orion, Nat may be the one bleeding out between them, but Gunner's expression is twice as dead as his. Home is a heart, but she swears she doesn't have one. Gunner La Torre belongs to nowhere now.

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