whenweallfallasleep. | javi&wolf, 3.

🐺

Laboured breathing.

Wolf wakes with a start; light sleeper, always on edge. It's the anxiety you see, that whip-lash that makes her sit up and gasp when she realises the bloodbath countdown is no longer a thing that lingers in her dreams. It's real. It's as real as the beating in her heart and the feeling of scrunched linen in her hands, the flicker of television screens that make her squint, the scramble out of bed and into the shadows.

Think. Hold out your hands, little girl from Three. One two three four five six seven eight nine ten fingers so she's not dreaming. Flicks her cheek just to be sure, Wolf flinches at the sting of assurity that this is all happening even though it's not supposed to be. She was going to try and talk to Emerson Emberstatt today, lying awake and willing herself to-



Wolf is in her room.
And that only means-


the thought of him makes her shallow breathing halt with a squeak. Javi, in the other room. Outside her door. Wielding a weapon already. Suddenly Wolf Turing is a child, scared of what could lurk behind the door in her own imagination. A child who didn't have the luxury of parents to tuck her in, turn the lights on, check underneath the bed for monsters.

Alone, still. Wolf tiptoes forward and presses her ear to the door - nothing, so she shifts to the floor and tries to hear the revirbiration of footsteps instead. A creak in the floor, a latch being lifted. Nothing. No sound but her own lungs expanding, retracting.

A balmy hand clutches the handle, the other wrapping her jacket around them both to limit the sounds of her oh-so-gentle twitching as she slowly pries the latch undone. Careful now, careful now, Wolf's bottom lip shakes and she hates it. Remembers with a frown that people are probably watching this very moment. Knowing if there's a boy called Javi with a knife on the other side. Anticipation, a spectacle - she's just a scared little kid with no tools at her disposal.

The latch clicks open so quietly. Wolf breathes out and the door opens, sans the creaking of rusted hinges at home or a monster in the dark. The hallway is dimly lit, but enough so that her eyes adjust quickly. Wide-eyed, she looks left, right, left again. Steps out on the balls of her feet, slinks to the side of the wall. Creeps through these strange new rooms, the eerie chug chug chug chug chug chug chug of that damn toy train twisting its way through a new route.

Huh. She could do something with that. Onwards she goes, creeping slowly through the transformed hall. Half a blueprint had been sketched up in her head before a shadow catches her eye in a peripheral of blinking lights and flashing screens - stupidly, another squeak leaves her lips.

A hand clamps over her mouth: Wolf's own. Perhaps the sound that had left her could be mistaken for a beep, a technological consequence. Not her own malfunction. She peers around the hallway and something shifts - her head leers back, spine pressed against the wall.

Damn it, she'd been aiming for the dining hall. A weapon would have been a nice start.

"Javi?" Wolf calls out into the dark, her voice high like a childs. She hates that, how obvious it is that she's trembling - not sure if she wants it to be him. Not sure if she'd rather it someone else.

"I'll-" a sad, desperate excuse of survival instincts. But surely he'd heard the same instructions from the Gamemakers in his own quarters. Who is she, Wolf Turing, to bargain for her life when its worth is already spent?

But that number 9, up there with Arcadia from One last night as the results poured in - that meant something. Surely the others had realised she had something in that brain of hers worth being afraid of?

"I'll let you go on ahead. If you let me stay here."

Or worth killing her to avoid.