ghost in the water. parker & kareem.
Mar 22, 2022 17:31:29 GMT -5
Post by nolan goode 10m / kaitlin. on Mar 22, 2022 17:31:29 GMT -5
The cavern has many places to hide.
Better, it has places to watch.
This place is supposed to be some kind of oasis, that much is obvious to you. A part of you wonders if the settlement above you was real, to have a place like this underneath of it. This is nothing like any of the arenas you've ever seen before, not really. There's elements of others, sure, but this place is massive, cavernous ceilings with stalactites hanging down from them, flora somehow growing on scraps of sunlight. You inspect the plants along the ground and discover hallucinogens, or what you're pretty sure are hallucinogens, and you pocket a collection to bring back to Wes. There's pools of water spread all over the place, too, and you take too long trying to figure out the source of them, search for some sort of shift in a tide, the flow of a river, but there's not an easy explanation, and you have other things to spend your time on.
You'd dragged Wes's half-concious ass into his mech and forced him into the tunnel at the back of the Den you found, lumbered ahead of him and screamed over the proximity chat when he watched you tumble through the hole in the floor you found when scouting ahead. You'd almost fallen over laughing when you saw the look in his face after realizing you'd been fucking with him and knew it was there all along, the fear you might not be fucking alright bright in his eyes.
Kareem is the third tribute you find.
Nowles Adroxis is there first. You watch her mech tumble out of the ceiling and lose sight of the red thing in the caves, don't bother going in search of her and instead start going about your own business a little bit faster. You and Wes split, shit-eating grins on both of your faces, devil on each others shoulder, pouring gasoline over every one of their bad ideas and igniting them like wildfires. You spot Bowie after that, just the back of his shoulders between the trees, but it makes you grit your teeth. Two other alliances, at least.
You go about tying knots that much more quickly.
The rigging isn't flawless on any of them, but they'll all do their jobs if they get triggered. You manage to set three traps with the twine you've collected from the gardens a few days ago. A part of you wants to try and drench them in battery acid so that whoever gets caught will feel it literally eating away at their skin as they dangle there, but you don't really have the time and you definitely don't think you have the tools, even with your toolbox.
So you keep them in your pack, and hide yourself away in the branches. From your vantage, you can see the trigger for all of your traps, and Wes setting his own a few hundreds meters away. He's making too much noise, as usual, but it makes you smile this time.
Kareem, tribute number three, triggers your second snare first.
You remember him seeming unerringly human to you in the training center, human in ways that you've never really been able to grasp. You, ghoulish girl detached from all her feelings, you do little out of passion, and even less out of anger. But Kareem—unimpressive in the training center skills assessments, unimpressive private training score, boy in the corner that no one wanted to talk to because they were afraid of the things that his hands had done, you could tell there was something about him worth looking at. It's the understanding of one's own fallibility, one's own weaknesses, that one day decades from now we will be but teeth and bones left in the dirt while later generations laugh about the things we've done here and now. Kareem Hasim killed his father, took life in his hands and moulded it until it was his own. Blood on his hands, you'd bet that was the most human, most alive he'd ever felt.
You remember scoffing at the other tributes foolishness for avoiding him, rolling your eyes at the irony escaping all of them. Would they shudder to think someone might treat them the same once they've left this place? Twenty-three bodies buried behind them?
You killed his district partner because she was a rebel. Well, no. You killed her because you felt like it, and you would have anyway, but Maryn Hale wanted her dead because she was a rebel. Head tilted to the side, you don't see the same foolishness in him.
You're going to kill him without the pretense.
The twine snaps around his ankle without ceremony. Now, snare traps for creatures as big as a boy from Eleven, even one malnourished from being in prison, and you weren't perfectly sure that the twine was going to be strong enough to hoist his weight off the ground, or that the branch you sent in place was going to be heavy enough to knock him off balance when it dropped to the earthen floor, but you grin in success as Kareem is knocked prone and then swung in the air. Dangling by his ankle above the pool of water, you doubt the irony will be lost on him.
You hop down from your hiding place after scanning the rest of the nearby trees, searching for those you know he was allied with. You have no interest in leaving him up there; out of your reach is the last place you want him to be, but just for a moment, you'll at least let him see your face before you kill him. Hair still chalked blue, ugly undercut on the left side of your head finally scabbed over where the gumroot tree vines had managed to shave off a bit of scalp. Your uniform is tattered, but not terribly, ruined far more by the stray bits of blue paint that splatter your boots and the rest of your clothes. You're out of your mech again, favoring agility and stealth to panserbjørn's brute strength this time. You land quietly on your toes, but you're not trying to hide from him.
"How's the view from up there?"
You saunter forward slowly, come to a stop by where the branch has fallen to the ground. You put your foot up on it, lean forward onto you knee, then look up at Kareem. Eyebrows up, you feel the corner of your mouth twitch.
You can't help grinning.
Better, it has places to watch.
This place is supposed to be some kind of oasis, that much is obvious to you. A part of you wonders if the settlement above you was real, to have a place like this underneath of it. This is nothing like any of the arenas you've ever seen before, not really. There's elements of others, sure, but this place is massive, cavernous ceilings with stalactites hanging down from them, flora somehow growing on scraps of sunlight. You inspect the plants along the ground and discover hallucinogens, or what you're pretty sure are hallucinogens, and you pocket a collection to bring back to Wes. There's pools of water spread all over the place, too, and you take too long trying to figure out the source of them, search for some sort of shift in a tide, the flow of a river, but there's not an easy explanation, and you have other things to spend your time on.
You'd dragged Wes's half-concious ass into his mech and forced him into the tunnel at the back of the Den you found, lumbered ahead of him and screamed over the proximity chat when he watched you tumble through the hole in the floor you found when scouting ahead. You'd almost fallen over laughing when you saw the look in his face after realizing you'd been fucking with him and knew it was there all along, the fear you might not be fucking alright bright in his eyes.
Kareem is the third tribute you find.
Nowles Adroxis is there first. You watch her mech tumble out of the ceiling and lose sight of the red thing in the caves, don't bother going in search of her and instead start going about your own business a little bit faster. You and Wes split, shit-eating grins on both of your faces, devil on each others shoulder, pouring gasoline over every one of their bad ideas and igniting them like wildfires. You spot Bowie after that, just the back of his shoulders between the trees, but it makes you grit your teeth. Two other alliances, at least.
You go about tying knots that much more quickly.
The rigging isn't flawless on any of them, but they'll all do their jobs if they get triggered. You manage to set three traps with the twine you've collected from the gardens a few days ago. A part of you wants to try and drench them in battery acid so that whoever gets caught will feel it literally eating away at their skin as they dangle there, but you don't really have the time and you definitely don't think you have the tools, even with your toolbox.
So you keep them in your pack, and hide yourself away in the branches. From your vantage, you can see the trigger for all of your traps, and Wes setting his own a few hundreds meters away. He's making too much noise, as usual, but it makes you smile this time.
Kareem, tribute number three, triggers your second snare first.
You remember him seeming unerringly human to you in the training center, human in ways that you've never really been able to grasp. You, ghoulish girl detached from all her feelings, you do little out of passion, and even less out of anger. But Kareem—unimpressive in the training center skills assessments, unimpressive private training score, boy in the corner that no one wanted to talk to because they were afraid of the things that his hands had done, you could tell there was something about him worth looking at. It's the understanding of one's own fallibility, one's own weaknesses, that one day decades from now we will be but teeth and bones left in the dirt while later generations laugh about the things we've done here and now. Kareem Hasim killed his father, took life in his hands and moulded it until it was his own. Blood on his hands, you'd bet that was the most human, most alive he'd ever felt.
You remember scoffing at the other tributes foolishness for avoiding him, rolling your eyes at the irony escaping all of them. Would they shudder to think someone might treat them the same once they've left this place? Twenty-three bodies buried behind them?
You killed his district partner because she was a rebel. Well, no. You killed her because you felt like it, and you would have anyway, but Maryn Hale wanted her dead because she was a rebel. Head tilted to the side, you don't see the same foolishness in him.
You're going to kill him without the pretense.
The twine snaps around his ankle without ceremony. Now, snare traps for creatures as big as a boy from Eleven, even one malnourished from being in prison, and you weren't perfectly sure that the twine was going to be strong enough to hoist his weight off the ground, or that the branch you sent in place was going to be heavy enough to knock him off balance when it dropped to the earthen floor, but you grin in success as Kareem is knocked prone and then swung in the air. Dangling by his ankle above the pool of water, you doubt the irony will be lost on him.
You hop down from your hiding place after scanning the rest of the nearby trees, searching for those you know he was allied with. You have no interest in leaving him up there; out of your reach is the last place you want him to be, but just for a moment, you'll at least let him see your face before you kill him. Hair still chalked blue, ugly undercut on the left side of your head finally scabbed over where the gumroot tree vines had managed to shave off a bit of scalp. Your uniform is tattered, but not terribly, ruined far more by the stray bits of blue paint that splatter your boots and the rest of your clothes. You're out of your mech again, favoring agility and stealth to panserbjørn's brute strength this time. You land quietly on your toes, but you're not trying to hide from him.
"How's the view from up there?"
You saunter forward slowly, come to a stop by where the branch has fallen to the ground. You put your foot up on it, lean forward onto you knee, then look up at Kareem. Eyebrows up, you feel the corner of your mouth twitch.
You can't help grinning.
