saw w h a t i'd d o n e {alaska&vitani: day 1}

As Curtis’s feet pounded away the hard packed earth that led away from the Cornucopia, he found himself laughing for no apparent reason. The last action he had performed at the bloodbath mystified himself; for why would he deem it important to grab an arm that was laying on the ground? His tenure by the cornucopia had been a brief but painful one; Curtis had been set upon, by not one, not two, but four females or varying heights and suppleness. What in the heck had he ever done to them? Were they angry that he chose to hang around with Legs and Cub? It’s not like he was attracted to either of them. He wasn’t even sure where all the furies were from. One of them he knew, was related to a tribute from the previous year; Lean Liberty or something. The rest, he had no clue, but he decided right then and there that he was going to stay the heck away from those girls. Who knew? Maybe it was just that time of the month and they needed to take their feelings out an unsuspecting male.

The burbling of the river reached his ears, and splashed into it with gusto, more eager to get away from the center of the arena as he heard a handful of cannons go off, pausing only when he noticed the red tint of the water in his general area. Someone was bleeding nearby; either that, or a body had been unceremoniously dumped into the river. Then again, it could have just been leaking from the arm sticking outside of his bag, but if that was the case, then why did it seem to be coming from off to his left? Following where the blood was dripping with his eyes, his gaze traveled up to his shoulder. Or would have, except that he no longer had one.

Letting out a sort of squeaky scream, he stared at the limb in the bag and came to the realization that it was his own, right down to the cufflink he had pinned to the sleeve. So that’s why his rattled brain had insisted upon bringing it along.“Landsakes, when the freak did that happen? I must still be in shock.”His breathing started to come quick and heavy as his mind finally caught up to what his body had been trying to tell him. And here he had thought the tears coming from his eyes had been a result of joyful exuberance to celebrate his escape from the bath. Sinking to his knees in the muddy water he gasped, leaning on his sword for support. There was something else he had felt too, a stinging on the side of his face. Clapping his remaining hand to the right side of his head, he was horrified to feel a much wider hole than there should have been, as well as a slick wetness that came away as blood.

“Sheesh, If I’da known my body was in such high demand I’d have tried harder to get with someone during training week.” He remarked out loud with a bitter chuckle. Letting out several pained sighs, he did the best he could with his limited supplies to see about staunching the blood flow so it could clot. His meager treasures from the cornucopia would have to last him a long while, though the more morbid thought was that he might not need them for much longer anyway. Filling his water jug up, which in retrospect was a lot harder than it should have been, he rested his head on his left knee for a moment, wiping his lips back and forth on it and trying to get the blood from his face to smear off so he’d be clear on how much of it was left.


One thing that he was very certain of, was that the tall girl from two had been the first to attack him, knocking him to the ground with her tall frame; it was nice to have at least one certainty in his life. Putting his now full jug back into his satchel, as well as pinning the link from his severed arm onto his remaining one, Curtis straightened up and began to slosh at a leisurely pace. His wounds still screamed at him, but he needed to get his mind off of it. Too many people lost their marbles after the bloodbath, and he was not keen on joining them in their insanity. The bad news was that the arena was a terrible place, but the good news was that no one was likely to stay there for long, even if they let themselves become as monstrous as the the mutts that were likely prowling about unforeseen. Some would be alone, and others in packs, but the true question was who were the real monsters?

Curtis was no philosopher, but he had some time to think and ponder about what he now found himself up against. The reality of the violence in the arena had already taught him much. Like that when the trapping of society were removed; Government, laws, and even good manners , the eternal battle within the soul of mankind was laid bare. We are at war with ourselves. For Curtis, this thought had come about by his inability to cope with losing a limb until he was moderately sure he was out of any immediate danger. Or how the cannons had gone off as soon as he was clear of the place. Some were definitely playing to kill. On the one side of the instinct, the one he was sure he was still subscribing to, were the things like reason and order, logic and willpower.

But on the other, as he was also sure, by judging the ferocity of some of the others, was the beast within. Filled with hungers and passions, not to mention heedless of the consequences. At this stage in the game, he didn’t think there was a clear winner. But it sure made life interesting. The war was sure to keep waging on; though most were able to keep it in. Most of the time. The past games he had viewed had shown him that some preferred to wear it out for all to see. This proved to him that, though it didn’t always work out the way the capitol intended, the arena was supposed to be about natural selection. The ones who can’t hack it end up on a slab sooner than the others; once you’re in the arena, you’re in it for the rest of you probable short life.

That’s the part that’s in the brochure, but the point is, that’s why he had to keep going; why he had to fight. Missing limb or no, Curtis was not about to give up, he’d fight until his knuckles were raw and bleeding and then he’d keep going. Because in the end, it wasn’t about unlikely allies and a week of romance, nor was it about popularity or the shock factor. In the end, the fight was all there was.

Well that, and the pile of cash at the end of the rainbow.

The way fights were supposed to be in the arena was to make it seem like anywhere from five minutes to five hours. Survival in the arena meant taking people out, and then the next one, and then the guy after that. No time for thinking or looking back, no time for reflection, just the bad, dirty business of him versus others and only one of them walking away. And Curtis desperately wanted to believe that the one that walked away was going to be him. There was no way of knowing who the first to die that day had been, least not until the anthem went up. And even then, the faces were shown in district order, not in order of dying. In any case, he was certain he had barely talked to anyone that had died so far, unless his teammates had expired without his knowledge.

Some people seemed like they should make it out alright, but others? Some he wasn’t sure would make it through the rest of the day alive. Some small part of him supposed that maybe some people had caught wind of his plans concerning the Wolfe siblings, and that he planned to milk them for all that they were worth. Did that make him a bad person? Perhaps. Curtis might not be the type that parents were pleased to see their daughter bring home, but he thought he was one of the ones that had what it took to make it out of this hellhole. Why? Because unlike the crazies that would get themselves killed, or the good guys that would try hard not to, he was willing to do whatever it took to survive.

A splash caught his attention, and he zeroed in on an unwary tribute that was merely a few feet away. There was no one else to be seen around them, but it appeared that they hadn’t seen him yet. Slightly shifting his satchel on his remaining shoulder, Curtis lunged at the person with a whoop. No sense in waiting around for them to come after him.
[Attacks Alaska]

[dice=200+1000]
[dg sc on stomach 4.0]

Much to his surprise, he recognized the person as a girl; the girl that had been on stage opposite him in fact.“Alaska? Alaska get out of here!” He had no beef with this particular female tribute and he certainly didn’t want to kill her. If he slew his district partner, that would make him no better than the past tribute that had helped his paranoia along; Mike Smith. To be that like deceased career would be a fate worse than death itself.

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