pockets full of stones, [m, l, & j] d4 suite. day 4.
Nov 21, 2023 12:57:41 GMT -5
Post by gamemaker tallis 🧚🏽♂️kaitlin. on Nov 21, 2023 12:57:41 GMT -5
The night is long, but the morning that comes after feels even worse.
Selfishness gnaws at me; I'm glad Laney is still here, still by my side, even if we've barely said a word to each other all night. All we've managed have been directives, quick updates. I'm gonna search over here, or, let's skip floor three for now. Once or twice she hears footsteps in the halls that I never seem to pick up, and I am reminded over and over that she is trained for this. How woefully pathetic I must seem, looming at her side, needing her protection far more than she needs mine. Weariness locks itself in my bones, quiet and seething.
At this point, I'm fairly certain she'd survive better without me, be able to clamber into the vents and actually use them to move around rather than get stuck in them. I'd managed to squeeze in that first night to hide, but moving around would've been impossible. Nimble as Laney is, I doubt she'd have the same issue. I don't have the energy to linger on the thought though. At some point or another someone must have messed with the ventilation system because by the middle of the night I'd soaked my uniform through with sweat. Exhaustion had me in a vice grip quickly after that, my head pounding behind my eyes, my mouth dry as cotton in a summer drought.
"I feel like I've lost ten pounds," I'd flicked my hands, feeling the sweat dripping down them. My body was jittery like that all night, addicted to movement, but desperate for rest. "That coffee was a shit idea."
"Fuck it, let's go for a dip in the Four suite," she'd suggested, wiping sweat from her own brow.
I'd grumbled a little bit that everyone and their mom was probably going to have that idea, but I didn't fight her on it. The idea of cooling off in that man-made ocean was the best idea she'd had all night.
A part of me had been worried about either of us returning to our district suites. I couldn't really explain it properly, but something about the idea of going home after losing Maia and Bentley yesterday felt like... a slippery slope. Something we might not have been able to come back from, to be able to walk away from again. She'd asked me earlier in the night if I wanted to head to Three. We haven't been there yet, and she'd been right. He hadn't been there since he left Wolf sitting in silence, afraid to try and befriend her. It feels like that was a different version of himself.
But a home is so much more than the things that occupy it.
It's almost nice though, for a little while. We get there in the wee hours of morning, anthem long ago aired and quieted. I sit on the edge of the pier and dangle my feet over the edge, taking off my shoes to just let my feet in at first.
Conversation still feels far away, but quietly, to myself, I name my glaive Maia in my friends honor, and plead with her ghost to stay by my side. Show me how to use it, how to wield it.
I barely have time to process Mateo emerging from the bedroom portion of the suite before the first tentacle appears.
Laney's keen ears notice when the doors go from closed to locked, the tumbler making the faintest series of clicks that catch her attention. It seems to be also what draws Mateo into the room, though as soon as we make eye contact his whole body reacts. I can't hear the final lock click over the sounds of water sloshing against the wooden pier, making small waves in the surface, but both of them seem to notice.
"Why did it have to be you," I just have time to spit at him before a massive wave of water surges out of the pier, slashing up onto the wooden planks where I was trying to stand.
I nearly lose my footing on the already slick wood, but I crouch into it and put my arms out, breaking the water around me. I am a coughing, sputtering mess by the time the wave subsides and I am able to get my bearings. Brine dominates my mouth, salt water down my throat and up my nose. I have to wipe it away from my eyes in order to make out the new form that has joined us from the hidden depths.
"LANEY, WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?"
Selfishness gnaws at me; I'm glad Laney is still here, still by my side, even if we've barely said a word to each other all night. All we've managed have been directives, quick updates. I'm gonna search over here, or, let's skip floor three for now. Once or twice she hears footsteps in the halls that I never seem to pick up, and I am reminded over and over that she is trained for this. How woefully pathetic I must seem, looming at her side, needing her protection far more than she needs mine. Weariness locks itself in my bones, quiet and seething.
At this point, I'm fairly certain she'd survive better without me, be able to clamber into the vents and actually use them to move around rather than get stuck in them. I'd managed to squeeze in that first night to hide, but moving around would've been impossible. Nimble as Laney is, I doubt she'd have the same issue. I don't have the energy to linger on the thought though. At some point or another someone must have messed with the ventilation system because by the middle of the night I'd soaked my uniform through with sweat. Exhaustion had me in a vice grip quickly after that, my head pounding behind my eyes, my mouth dry as cotton in a summer drought.
"I feel like I've lost ten pounds," I'd flicked my hands, feeling the sweat dripping down them. My body was jittery like that all night, addicted to movement, but desperate for rest. "That coffee was a shit idea."
"Fuck it, let's go for a dip in the Four suite," she'd suggested, wiping sweat from her own brow.
I'd grumbled a little bit that everyone and their mom was probably going to have that idea, but I didn't fight her on it. The idea of cooling off in that man-made ocean was the best idea she'd had all night.
A part of me had been worried about either of us returning to our district suites. I couldn't really explain it properly, but something about the idea of going home after losing Maia and Bentley yesterday felt like... a slippery slope. Something we might not have been able to come back from, to be able to walk away from again. She'd asked me earlier in the night if I wanted to head to Three. We haven't been there yet, and she'd been right. He hadn't been there since he left Wolf sitting in silence, afraid to try and befriend her. It feels like that was a different version of himself.
But a home is so much more than the things that occupy it.
It's almost nice though, for a little while. We get there in the wee hours of morning, anthem long ago aired and quieted. I sit on the edge of the pier and dangle my feet over the edge, taking off my shoes to just let my feet in at first.
Conversation still feels far away, but quietly, to myself, I name my glaive Maia in my friends honor, and plead with her ghost to stay by my side. Show me how to use it, how to wield it.
I barely have time to process Mateo emerging from the bedroom portion of the suite before the first tentacle appears.
Laney's keen ears notice when the doors go from closed to locked, the tumbler making the faintest series of clicks that catch her attention. It seems to be also what draws Mateo into the room, though as soon as we make eye contact his whole body reacts. I can't hear the final lock click over the sounds of water sloshing against the wooden pier, making small waves in the surface, but both of them seem to notice.
"Why did it have to be you," I just have time to spit at him before a massive wave of water surges out of the pier, slashing up onto the wooden planks where I was trying to stand.
I nearly lose my footing on the already slick wood, but I crouch into it and put my arms out, breaking the water around me. I am a coughing, sputtering mess by the time the wave subsides and I am able to get my bearings. Brine dominates my mouth, salt water down my throat and up my nose. I have to wipe it away from my eyes in order to make out the new form that has joined us from the hidden depths.
"LANEY, WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?"
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