The Bloodbath
Sept 22, 2020 0:31:49 GMT -5
Post by Kire on Sept 22, 2020 0:31:49 GMT -5
Josephine Bartlett
She doesn't look up for a long time. Even with the bellows of the moose and the rumble in the ground as it stomped around. Even when the canons fired once, twice, three times in quick succession.
How many of them were left? She would have to lift her head to find out, and she couldn't bring herself to do that just yet. "What are we going to do, hmm?" Mario, again, seemed he was still alive. The small sense of familiarity at his voice was almost comforting in a place filled with unknown horrors.
When there is silence for a moment she considers looking up. Before she can, a voice calls to her from a distance - another voice she recognizes. "Closer, no use hanging by the walls." It was the girl, the one who had started all of this. She lifted her head to see where the others were and found the arena bare except for a four other living people and far too many dead. The mutts were gone.
"We’re safer in numbers, they won’t protect you." She bit her lip, feeling like shouting back. She knew she was no safer here, but numbers had not protected any of those who had fallen. But they had protected me. Inadvertently, each person who had fought and died had protected her. Some, perhaps, not so inadvertently. An image of Luella facing down a polar bear came to mind.
That lit some spark in her, though she didn't know what her drive was trying to accomplish. "We don’t know what's coming next, so we shouldn’t waste our time." Standing, and leaving her sword behind in the sand, she moved over to the little group with a purpose.
Coming close enough to not have to shout, but still being out of reach of a sword slash, she stared at this girl who tried to lead them. "There's no safety in numbers, there's no safety here at all." She waved a hand around, her mangled one, at the bodies that surrounded all of them. "Numbers sure didn't protect them!" Pulling her injured arm in close - the movement had sent a zinging pain up from fingertips to shoulder, making her wince - she set her jaw. "Numbers didn't protect us last night, either."
It's all your fault, all yours.
This girl had gone and made things worse than they ever would have been. If only she had kept her mouth shut and her head down. Yes, they all would have died anyway, but at least they wouldn't have to be killed by beasts that only wanted to cause pain. Then again, humans weren't always much better.
"Numbers never cared about me or my family."
She would never belong to a group, and perhaps that was for the best.
[Joey is mad, and scared, but mostly mad]