trust fall. [oz/peter/open to bc!]

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doodle :)
Merchant

163 POSTS
last seen Jul 29, 2022 23:41:01 GMT -5

Me Hoy Minoy (but jazzy)

trust fall. [oz/peter/open to bc!] Mar 13, 2022 18:25:27 GMT -5

Quote

Post by doodle :) on Mar 13, 2022 18:25:27 GMT -5

a comic book

panel 1: Oz enters the abandoned warehouse he and his friends have recently taken over. He fiddles with a permanent marker. As he climbs the stairs up to the Loft, he he hears Snuff counting down from three, Mya giggling. He peers over the top of the stairs, just in time to see Mya falling backwards into Snuff's arms.

OZ: Eeeeeeeeeeewwww! What are you guys doiiiiiiiiiinggggggggg?!
SNUFF: [helping Mya back onto her feet] What?
OZ: I feel like I just walked in on my parents.
MYA: You've never done a trust fall before?
OZ: No, it looks gross.
MYA: It's fun!

panel 2: Snuff comes up and grabs him by the wrist, tugging him up onto the Loft.

SNUFF: Just give it a shot, man!
OZ: I already know I don't trust you freaks.

an animation

The roar of rending metal reverberates throughout Rusty's Petroleum Shack. Oz's eyes bulge open. Last night he had fallen asleep on the countertop, still leaned against the hatch trunk. The line of stitches across his chest has swollen and bruised. He shifts, tilting his head towards the window barred window.

The first glimmers of new morning light shiver through the barred glass. A serpentine hissing lingers beneath the metallic roar, growing louder as the roar fades into an anguished moan. As though it is approaching. Clutching his shirt to his chest, Oz stiffly pries himself off the counter, every slight motion of the abdomen jolting pain through his body. Yet he forces himself to move hurriedly. Seizing his trunk, he forces himself to drag it off the counter, letting it fall to the floor with a bang.

The hissing is all that can be heard now. Within a second, the morning light fades into dusk. Oz looks out and does not understand what he sees. Grains of shadow, curling together, writhing and flowing like tendrils, pressing up against the windows. Oz staggers back. He turns on his heels, dragging the trunk, pulling himself towards Frog-legs the mech. Out the corner of his eye, he can see the windows tremble in the frame, their rattling totally consumed by the hissing of the storm. The dark grains cake the glass, gathering together in shifting clumps. Sand snakes around Frog-legs, through the hole it had made in the doorway, striking into Oswald's eyes, mouth, the stitched hole in his chest. The grains burrow into exposed skin, like hot needles. It stings. He recoils, cringing back. But all around him, crack tears across the center of the glass -- the storm's about to break through. Gnashing his teeth, he secures the trunk to the mech. The cockpit's still open for him. The cracks within the glass spread in sudden fractions, till the cracks spread across the glass like square cobwebs, till the windows buckle beneath the weight of themselves and the pressure of the storm. Oz scrambles into the cockpit. The windows fall in a shower of glass. The sand rampages in, wild, bucking. His fist slams into the cockpit button; it shuts around him.

The sand converges on itself, the tendrils of sand tossing against each other, puffing almost softly as the storm destroys what's left of Rusty's Petroleum. It pushes back against Frog-legs, as though to cast it out. Yet within the cockpit, there is a moment of safety. Oz clings to his wound, shuddering, delicately brushing away the sand that clings to the dried blood around the gash. In slow, cringing motions, he rises up in his chair. He looks out through the cockpit's windshield and finds he can't see anything. Only swirling clouds. It's like the interior of Jupiter.

He slumps. Desperate confusion widens his hollow eyes.

A pleasant tinny sound ding-dongs through the mech's speakers. He glances down at a light beneath the dash, shaped like a parachute. A compartment opens. Oz blinks, the desperation fading, but not ebbing away completely. There's a note within-- he couldn't give a damn how it got in there, a sponsor was a sponsor! He'll take anything at this rate. He seizes it greedily.

"down the rabbit-hole, oz."
-- av

Oz stares at it. And stare it. It finally settles in that the note means nothing to him. His eyelid twitches. He curls up within himself, body tightening.

"The fuck is that even supposed to fucking mean, Av?!" he spits, outraged, and crumples the note in his fist.

a comic

panel 3:At this rate, they're all just tormenting one another. Mya holds her arms out to catch Oswald.

OZ: Do I have to land on the shortie?
MYA: Hey!
OZ: I might squish her. She's soft.
SNUFF: You're both short and squishy.
OZ: Yeah, so we should be landing on you, right?
MYA: You just don't trust me!
OZ: No, but also yes.
SNUFF: Alright, c'mon, c'mon...

panel 4: They get into position, Snuff with his arms reaching forward, Oz standing with his back in front of him. They stand there awkwardly for a while.

SNUFF: C’mon, man!
OZ: Shut up, shut up, I’m focusing!
MYA: You literally just fall.
OZ: Shut up!

panel 5: Oz sticks his arms out, waves them around in circles as he leans back on his heels. Then automatically rights himself.

SNUFF: Aw, Oz, c’mon!
OZ: I’m trying! Here, here – Mya, push me.
MYA: Yah sure?
OZ: Yeah, I'm sure! It'll make up for that time I called you a shortie.
MYA: Y' mean just now?
OZ: WOMAN, JUST PUSH ME ALREADY.

panel 6: Mya takes several steps back. Crouches into a runner's lunge. Oz instantly grimaces with regret. The boys exchange worried glances. Mya sprints forward, a mere blur, streaking like lightning, crashing straight into Oz. He is thrown backwards, off his feet. His "death rattle" fills the panel: "oWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW". Snuff catches Oz by the armpit.

OZ: Ohmigod, she fucking killed me.........!

an animation

Av wasn't an idiot. Oz knew that, as much as he didn't want to admit it right now. His hatred for old literature and cryptic messages sometimes got the best of him.

The "rabbit hole" is only a few miles down. A gaping maw of rock and sand -- difficult to find with the storm, yet the way the whipping sand cascaded down across the mouth was enough for a discerning eye to notice. Frog-legs jumps into it, its one headlight beaming through the darkness, spotlighting the rippling amber rock around it. Oz looked over his shoulder. The storm couldn't blow in here. Shelter, for a moment. Av was right.

Oz turns to the other side, peering into the darkness of the cave.

Didn't Av say "down" the rabbit-hole?

A corner of Oz's mouth twitches, uncertain. He directs Frog-legs deeper, down the sloping cave. The sand beneath Frog-legs bouncing feet shifts, scatters. Barely any grip at all. Yet they move forward, until a precipice opens out for them.

With Frog-legs headlight, Oz can make out the shape of trees. Water crashes into itself, splashing and bubbling. Oz gasps, tries to lean forward, but that hurts, so he stops. He stares down, wonderingly, scanning the area for a way to get down.

The precipice cracks beneath Frog-legs' feet -- as though in cruel, mocking answer to his question.

The next thing Oz knows, Frog-legs careens forward, plummeting headfirst.

a comic

panel 7:
OZ: I would NOT trust her in the Games.
MYA: Why?? Yah scared?
OZ: [clutching his chest] Fucking yeah.

panel 8: Mya prances around the Loft, very proud of herself.
SNUFF: I definitely think out of all of us, Mya's the most dangerous.
OZ: Most homicidal.
MYA: You're so whiny. I just bumped into you a little.
OZ: I could literally feel my ribs desperately trying not to cave in. Here...

panel 9: Oz uncaps his marker. Quickly, he draws a stick figure across a spare piece of wall, giving it "girly hair" and eyelashes, with a crown on top of the head and a sword in the stubby hand.

SNUFF: What's that.
OZ: That's Mya, winning the Games, because she ran at everyone at top speeds and just fucking killed 'em.
MYA: Why is my knee up that high?
OZ: It's your victory stance.
MYA: I'd have to be, like, quintuple jointed or something to raise my knee that freaking high.
OZ: Here, let me fix it.

panel 10: Oz lunges at Mya's face with the marker instead. She squeals, flees, huddles behind Snuff. Snuff grabs Oz by the chest. They "scuffle" (pushing up against each other and waving one another's arms around).

SNUFF: No no no, lil boy!
OZ: I'm just fixing it!!

panel 11: The doodle of Mya, a few hours later; the shade and the sunlight slant across it. Lines have been drawn across the face to make it older, droopier. A beard has been added. A speech bubble, saying: "im MYA." The words "SEXTUPLE JOINTED" with an arrow pointing at the awkward knee (which has now sprouted a smaller, secondary knee). Beneath the foot is a very small, frowning stick-man, labelled "Oz (is SHORT and SQUISHY)".

Their laughter still echoes off the old warehouse walls, filling the air and the light.

an animation

The vines and the branches entangle Frog-legs listless body. It lies across the grassy ground.

Within the cockpit, Oz is curled up like a fetus, eyes squeezed close. His seat-belt hugs him to his chair. Unhurt -- Frog-legs absorbed most of the blow -- but the shock has drained him. The momentary stillness is not only welcomed, but a necessity. Gradually, the eyelids tremble apart. First thing he sees is a crack in the cockpit's windshield. Grass and leaves seem to sprout through, but that's just an illusion. Just like the way they blur and dance across his vision, until he blinks and everything becomes still again.

A shaky, uncertain hand quavers across the dash. Fiddles with some buttons. The joystick. Frog-legs groans, wheezes, tilts one of its ankles around. Then droops. Nothing.

His hand falls into his lap.

"Shit."

Last Edit: Mar 13, 2022 18:43:37 GMT -5 by doodle :)

ali
Retired Staff

1,729 POSTS
Pronouns: She/Her
last seen Dec 5, 2023 17:17:50 GMT -5

Ohana means family

trust fall. [oz/peter/open to bc!] Mar 14, 2022 17:34:22 GMT -5

Quote

Post by ali on Mar 14, 2022 17:34:22 GMT -5

Ten silver spoons coming after me,
One life with one dream on repeat,
I'll escape if I try hard enough,
Till, King of the Jungle calls my bluff,

Tick.

Peter's words, rang in her head, the hung around her neck like a weighted colour dragging her down deep into the lake- condemned. She had barley known Celeste, they had shared a handful of words between one another in the Training Center but she still could not help but feel the bitter taste of injustice in her mouth at the fact that Celeste had been pregnant and her life had been taken from her in a blink of an eye-

The rest of the afternoon she had spent trying to reason with herself that even if Celeste had won, if she had made it out, that things may not have worked out anyway; but that didn't stop her screaming at the top of her lungs after forth time she tried to persuade herself that the stress of the arena would have ended things early regardless but- she screamed until her throat felt raw.

Esther did not say another word to anyone else that evening- she sat at the edge of the clearing in the Garden staring into the dark, feeling the heat of flames on her back as the camp fire glowed behind her. She had grown up in a cruel world, one that took no prisoners, one that had left her with no choice but to sacrafice herself to put bread on the table. To survive. The Arena made the real world look kind.

She did not believe in God, or Ripred, or whatever deities that still watched over this mortal realm. Esther was a woman of no faith- yet she was very much certain she was in hell. Stupid Girl. her mothers slurred words crept from the darkness that enclosed on her as the evening stretched onward and the flame gave in to the darkness. Closing her eyes, the darkness was still there and her mothers scolding tone echoed in her mind too-

Stupid Girl.

Stupid Girl.

Stupid....

Esther should have felt thankful that her mother had been sober enough to remember her name, who she was, when she had come to see her in the Justic Center; but all Esther could feel was hatred. It simmered in her belly and was so hot, so bright that it would have lit the night like it was day. Esther let out a small sob as the realisation hit her and she pressed her fingers to her lips to stifle the sound, she didn't want to wake the others and she didn't want to wake anything else that might be listening.

She felt the tears against her fingertips. She was only 17- not quite a child but not quite an adult. Her mother should have taken stead of the ship when her father died, but instead she had given into the grief that had entrapped her while Esther had been left behind, expected to keep them both afloat when her mother was the one holding onto a weight.

She had never felt she had been allowed to grieve her fathers passing.

Esther held herself tightly, clamping her shaking hand over her mouth as she screamed again, hot tears streaming down her face as she doubled over- stifling the anger, stifling the nausea and the agony she felt in her heart as she cried- and she cried- and she cried.

At some point, Esther must have fallen asleep because she woke suddenly to the darkness again, the camp fire no more than a pile of embers behind her.

Blinking, it took Esther a long moment to notice it. The unsettling nothing that hung in the air around them- the world was so still, but it felt on the edge of something. An unseen prephasis opening up before them out of sight, the moment stood on the cusp of it. Looking over her shoulder, Esther went to call out to Peter and Ellis, to tell them that there was something wrong-

Then the moment ended, and it tipped over into the abyss.

The sand hit her like a ton of bricks. ”SHIT!” Esther called out, trying to use her arm to shield her face from the sand that cut at her skin like thousands upon thousands of shards of tiny bits of glass as the wind howled and moaned, begging for some sort of blood that the previous games day had failed to supply them with.

There was a flurry of movement as the three of them scurried like scared rats to get into their mechs, grabbing their things they had left strewn around the makeshift campsite and shoving them into the storage cases on their mechs. Other the howling wind it wqas difficult to see or even hear the other two, their voices caught and pulled away by the howling wind but as Esther cowered in her mech, she felt the hand of Peter’s mech guide her forwardward, through the billowing, never ended ocean of sand.

Their reprieve came in the form of a leering, gaping hole in the base of a tree, leading down into the belly of the arena. She watched through squinting eyes Ellis disappear into the hole and Peter said something but she was not really paying attention- so when she stepped through the hole and found nothing beneath her mechs foot she could not help but scream as she fell-

And fell, and fell.

Somehow, her mech landed on its feet and topped forward, sending her tumbling from the machine and across the soft, flush ground of the belly of the arena. Fuck… she thought to herself, staring up at the ceiling as Peter landed on the ground somewhere behind her. Staring up, she could see the roots of the garden twisting and hanging from the distant ceiling of the cavern above them. Blinking tears and sand from her eyes, Esther slowly took in the dimly lit cave around them. It was like the garden above them, overgrown but unlike th one at the surface there was a beauty to this area, like the whole thing had been painted by a delicate hand.

Esther stared around, carefully getting to her feet, hopping forward as she stared up at the canopy of trees above them. There was such vibrancy here, not just green but other colours too- reds, oranges, fuscia’s, cyans. It reminded Esther of the great vats of dye she mixed at the hat making shop, a hundred colours, vibrant and stark against the otherwise bleak world.

As she walked forward, something caught her eye. A mech, tangled in the vines of the trees ahead of her. Creeping forward, Esther left the two boys behind her, parting the bushes into another clearing. She tilted her head to the side, seeing behind the dark tinted glass a figure, curled up into a tiny ball. ”...Knock knock…” Esther called out softly, reaching up to brush the front of the mech in the tree barely with her knuckles.

Lyrics: Mowgli's Road by Marina and the Diamonds

“It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.”