the whisper of death {ORBS vs Planet Express Day 3}

I lean on Sullivan yet again, knowing well that if I was going to make it out of danger, that I was going to need to. I hated having to lean on men, but right now, that is what they were useful for, well, that and killing the robot that stood in our way. I would never be the type of girl to give a man credit, but right now, in this moment, they were doing exactly what I needed them to do, and maybe they were good company too?

I wouldn’t admit that to them though, because they didn’t need to know that. Not right now at the least.

”God this sucks.” I complain as we go a bit deeper into the lab, we find a stool that I can sit on, and I quickly pull my broken foot on top of my other leg and begin to apply some bandages around the other first aid stuff I had already applied. After a generous coating, I spotted a chair with wheels on it, something that I didn’t think existed, and asked one of the boys to carry me to that. The moment they set me down, I put my bad foot on my good knee and began to try to move around the lab. Navigating was hard, but with a little practice, I was able to roll around as needed.

Good.

I didn’t have to rely on the boys any longer.

---

A couple hours passed, or at least, that is what these watches told me. I didn’t hear any cannon’s in the distance, which could’ve meant anything, I knew that much. I took slow strides as I began to follow the boys to collect the things we needed from the lab. A long poll with a ball on it, a medical kit, something called an Antivenom (Alphabet and Sullivan said this is important), bundles of medicinal plants, and some clean looking water for my thermos. I drank the first batch before refilling the second time. I wasn’t thirsty per say, but I had learned quickly that water was scarce. Just like food was too.

After we got what I needed I decided to roll away from the group for a second to go exploring some more. I couldn’t be bothered with spending time with them right now because I was interested in finding things that could help me get farther in this forsaken place. However, the more I rolled around, the more I noticed that this was getting me nowhere. Maybe I wasn’t rolling around for that specific reason, an instead, I was looking for my father in these walls.

I had to realize that there was a high chance that I wasn’t going to see him again, and at the end of the day, I was okay with that. I knew the if I did die here, it would send the message that I wanted to send to him. That we could die, at any moment, and that was not the life he wanted for us.

However, inverse to that, if I went on to live, then that would motivate him to keep doing what he has been. The idea of that made my blood boil, so much so that my hand wildly swung out and threw a bunch of stuff on the ground. In the midst of it, I noticed a pen and notepad. Diana had used something similar to write personal things in. I picked them up and placed one on my legs and the pen in my hand.

Day Two.
Father,
Go fuck yourself.
Love Hanaa.

I smirked for a moment before starting to roll back to where I had originally came from. I was sure that both of the boys had been worrying about me, or at least worrying if I might have gotten ambushed by something or someone.

I chuckled as I rolled. They should know better by now.

I’m a bad bitch.

You cant kill me.

---

Through the night, I heard a loud beeping noise arise from my wrist, and when I realized that it wasn’t the anthem, I looked down to see that it was a private message from the girl from eight.

I rubbed the tired out of my eyes and tapped the watch to open it.

Nell: hey eos its nell. i would split my beef stroganoff with you. If you wanted. let me know. :blossom:
Hanaa: ...
Hanaa: Nell? You okay there
Nell: oh ripred (edited)
Hanaa: Sweetie...
Hanaa: you know her moms a hoe right?
Nell: a hoe with nice hair. i imagine.
Hanaa: the apple im sure doesnt fall far from the tree
Nell: i'm talking about stroganoff
Hanaa: and im taking about Eos
Nell: who
Nell: oh eos
Nell: her
Hanaa: you know
Hanaa: the girl you meant to message
Nell: i almost died today hanaa. leave me alone.
Nell: :sadstronaut:
Hanaa: but you didnt?
Hanaa: thats good?
Nell: yeah. okay. thanks for this, i think.
Nell: please dont tell anyone
Hanaa: ill do what i please Nell. :kissing_heart::kissing_heart:
Hanaa: you should too. I hope you get to see Eos again.
Nell: :ok_woman:

I wasn’t sure how to feel about the whole thing, realizing that Nell had really cared about the girl that she originally wanted to message. I sighed though, because the reality was setting in that I could very well die alone.

I might be sixteen, and I might be a hardheaded ass, but that didn’t mean I didn’t want to die alone. It was becoming clear though that was the going to be the fact of the matter. I wasn’t interested in the boys that were with me, and I wasn’t sure if anyone here could provide me with the challenge that would keep me interested.

If dying alone was my destiny then, so be it.

I did truly hope that Nell found Eos again.

For their sakes, not mine.

---

Midnight had sprung and the Anthem had popped out of my watch. However, when the capitol symbol played, it revealed that there were no deaths to report.

Good.

Well, not really. That meant that Day three was going to be harder than the next, that’s how it always went after all. No blood one day meant a lot of blood the next day.

I wouldn’t have been surprised if there was going to be a feast.

I looked out the window of the lab to notice the stars outside, and I couldn’t help but smile for a moment. It truly was magnificent, in every way. However, I could only feel so much before I had to shift my weight and turn around. Too much sappy shit made me angry, and I knew that about myself. So the less exposure, the better for everyone else.

However, that didn’t mean that I could keep my attention from it for long.

---

I got as much sleep as I could last night.

I stood from the spot I slept in, the pain in my foot almost nonexistent. It was safe to say that I felt fantastic. Bruises had begun to disappear, and bumps had subsided.

”Time for the next area guys. Lets go.” I said as I threw my bag around my shoulders and started to make my way in the direction of the arrows that had pointed towards the residential quarters.

I wondered if we would find anything worthwhile there.

We would have to find out.

---

The lock opened with little resistance, and the moment it opens, we walk through, my mace is in hand, because I know better. Being unarmed was going to do nothing but cause us to lose focused.

We take a couple steps forward and I begin to look out and around for any signs of life in this part of the weird arena we were in.

And right when I was about to let my guard down, I watched a red beam whiz right past me.

”Fuck. Look out.” I said as I dove away from the impact site, realizing that site was Alphabet. When I looked back up, I realized that it was Sullivan’s district partner.

The one that had killed Blue.

”So you want to take another one of us out huh?” I said, my anger ebbing and flowing through me, I kept thinking about my father.

One thing I had come to realize since I had volunteered for this shit show, was that I was fearless, in every sense of the word.

And funny enough, so was Alphabet.

I watched him move, even with a knife in his leg to the other side, past the blond and to the boys in the back.

I was proud of him.

”You gonna have to do better than that blondie.” I spoke as I hit the button on the jet pack and began to float towards the spot where Alphabet had met the boy from three.

”You take one of ours, were gonna take one of yours.” I proclaimed as I hit the off button on my jet back, falling to the ground and bringing my mace down in the same place the boy was.

”And don’t you dare fucking say its nothing personal. ” I sneered. ”Because it fucking is.”

It always would be.

"We're in for a long night."

Cyril swore he heard Oblivion say these words as he lay among his allies in the quickly cooling lab, waiting for sleep to give him some temporary relief from his reality. He knew she would be right; the anthem that evening had left him a greater sense of foreboding than he'd ever felt before. No tribute deaths. Which meant he could be certain that would change tomorrow. He knew how these games worked.

The thought of what was to come buzzed around in his mind; a wasp set to terrorize him, waiting to deliver its devastating sting. The uncertainty of Cyril's future was the worst kind of torture. How much longer did he have to be alive? Days? Hours? Minutes? And what about his allies? Would he have to watch any of them die? Would they have to watch him die?

Just as he thought, Oblivion had been right. It was a long night.

There was no sky to be seen in here. Cyril had yet to see a window, or a sign of anything that might exist outside of the ship they were on. The stars he craved to see were so tantalizingly close and so far out of his reach.

---

As the night gave way to the morning, the group began to move once more. So far they had always moved onwards, into the new and unknown and away from the certain. The lab had given way to a massive space filled with towers upon towers of buildings in varying states of damage. His eyes were filled with a symphony of cracked glass and gently swaying fabrics that painted a mosaic of colour. This must have been a residential area of some sort.

He tried to imagine the people who once lived here. The residents of space, their own tiny universe. He wondered if how they lived. Were they like Capitolites in their splendor, or were they more like a new District, working hard to provide for themselves? Perhaps it was a blend of the two. People who worked hard for their luxury. It didn't seem like that bad of a life to live.

"Be careful," Oblivion called out, and the foursome were off on their jetpacks. His mind is whisked away from the new world he stepped into and brought back to the reality of his situation. They weren't safe here.

As if right on cue, he heard Oblivion's shout. As quickly as he could he turned his jetpack around. He wouldn't freeze up this time. Not when his allies needed him. He made it back in time to see two of their assailants landed some brutal hits on Orion. He wasn't in the best shape, but he was still fighting back. And Cyril would be there to help.

The human body was not built for this much toil, and yet, it thrives off of it. I can feel pain radiate in waves up my spine, its tendrils seeping into my head. But I do not lean into it. I swallow the lump in my throat in favor of tasting the adrenaline. 

My pulse dances in rhythm from tongue to cheek as the flavor of blood meets sweat.. They embrace through the ridges of my mouth; salt meets metal. These things are what make me human, I think. Cautiously, I step over one of the slain robots that litter the lab floor. But is that it?

Perhaps we are no different. Perhaps we are machines. When I see the enemy, how will I react? When I see their blood, will I wax or will I wane? My thoughts are interrupted by the incessant buzz of my watch, and I contemplate whether or not I should mute the chat feature. Each of these tributes has a story and a face. Do I need to know them? Do I care to know them? 

In that moment, something inside of me clicks into place, and I swallow hard. I click the mute button without thinking twice. 

/

(Reserving this section for something I'd like to write in later... gotta go back and fill some things in first. WIP.)

/ 

When we enter the residential quarters, I can feel goosebumps spring up along my arms in lines. Like gravestones, they empty my stomach into my chest, and I grip my mace tighter and tighter with every step. I let Hanaa lead, but when I hear her call from up ahead, I can't help but leap forward, eyes wide and searching for the source of the attack. 

That's when I see them. 

Up ahead, there are four bodies clad in as many layers as our three. They bear guns of some sort and fire with no remorse. Through beams of red, I recognize the face of my district partner. Oblivion Reigns. Such a perfect name for the void of space. 

My head snaps to the right when I hear Hanaa's voice call out to her. My ally is angry, shouting something about Blue, and then it clicks. Oblivion killed Blue.

Oblivion killed Blue. 

I grip my mace tightly, trying to digest what exactly is going on, but I know that we don't have much time. I can feel the fire inside of me bubbling up, urging me to attack. Another part of me resists it, and believe me, I want to. But Hanaa and Alphie both take hit after hit, and I'm blinded by red. 

Filler 2

I am at work tonight.

Ryan will tell at me tomorrow to fill this and the last one.

He's an anomaly, a singularity sculpted from the fragmented framework of precise practiced patterns instead of emotional erosion. There is no sense of surprise within him that emerges in the quiet aftermath of  her reductive remarks. He has been stunted before by searing sentences and declarations of societal deformity. Branded an irregularity illuminated only by the shards of his difference instead of his tether to basic mutual human compatibility. He has been made to feel foreign when he is well aware of the flesh and bones forged from his chromosomal composition, the same structure as those who rose while burning away the barriers of his heart. The boy he is today, one woven by wire where veins once were and compiled by a central system of calculated thought, is that of a reaction to rejection.

He may be a robot, but at least the words of others no longer linger in torturous toxins beneath his skin.

This girl from Seven is in every equation his opposite. In the stormy seas of her stare, exposed emotion exists as the rumbling waves. Where once Orion withered from the harshness of humanity, she spun her skin in a sheath of its sins. With willingness, she has welcomed every ounce of what it is to hold a soul into the halls of her heart. Anger, agony, euphoria, every piece available in her puzzle. Meanwhile, Orion sits before a table of blank pieces drained of color. They each are in existence, but neither entirely alive.

Orion's fingers fold around the red rapids of his stomach.

He lives by his own definition, not her's.

Not anyone else's.

Together, Oblivion and this girl wind themselves further into the folds of conversation. Why words are necessary in a space where slaughter resides, remains unknown to Orion. However, he revels in the mere moment of thought it grants him to think. His theory seems to be proving increasingly plausible as the fight continues to unfold. And if such is the solution, he can't stand idle for long. Action must be implemented into the algorithm.

"Well actually," Orion begins with his vocal intentions aimed again towards the girl, "If you truly don't hold a desire for the specific material of Oblivion's thoughts, or 'don't give a damn,' to quote exactly. You wouldn't continuously comment on the death of the boy from District Five. Plainly put, you are rather poorly attempting to achieve a classic guilt trip."

In the palm of his hands, Orion feels the low vibration of his mace as though it is humming in agreement to the technical tones of his voice. Amid a small smack against the arch of his back, Orion can count the steps of the girl's District partner as well as begin to predict their potential subconscious pattern. His focus intensifies in a sudden mental mash of swift mathematics. He carries a four, multiplies by a reciprocal, and then moves.

He may be a robot, but even robots can be coded with immense instincts for survival.

The moment he pulled the mace back to his side, another came crashing down upon him. It was the third boy who chose to come after him. They were all in close quarters, and so ‘divide and conquer’ became a simple strategy. It just so happened that their weapons came after him.

He found it odd that they weren’t seeking vengeance against Oblivion, for she was the one who actually killed their friend, but it gave Royce a sense of honor to be the one they sought retribution against him.

What the boy from one did to him only compounded the pain in his already broken arm, crashing the ball at the end of the mace at his hand. Red flashed in his eyes every time he blinked, causing him to panic instead of listening to what was going on around him. The girl, from Seven, and Oblivion and Orion were all taunting each other, followed by vicious swings all around. And everyone was hitting, gashing through limbs. Pieces of fabric flew in the air with every retrieval. Oranges, leafy greens, and his own lilac uniform, were becoming tarnished, and the remnants steadily flowed through the air, some to the ground and others going so far away that they’d never be seen again. Royce found it funny that these stylists put so much time into the outfits just for them to be ripped up and destroys, with what little remnants remaining to be flashy objects in museums.

But Royce’s life wasn’t an artifact or a legacy.

His life was a life.

Working his hardest to ignore the pain that seeped through his left side, he adjusted his body to prepare for another swing with the mace. With whatever grip he had left in his hands, he swung at the girl who continued to pester Orion.

He’s just a kid, and didn’t deserve to be punished for someone else’s actions.

And Royce refused to allow him to pay the price, either.

[royce benstaloe d10m attacks hanaa darton d7f; supersonic mace aka flail]
ktQfZZIdRVflail
12109 -- Miss -- 0.0 damage


table; ryan