sagitta luminis [solo//dream]

help me
please, help me!

The land around me is grey and barren. Dead. Not just polluted -- District Six is almost choked in smog, but its soil has yet to die. Life still conquers death. Here, death has smothered everything. Soon, I know, it will smother me as well.

I do not know how I got here. My feet ache as though I have been wandering for days, but my head is cloudy, and I cannot remember what came before. Perhaps this is what lies beyond the fence. Perhaps the Capitol is right to keep us away from this danger. Nothing can stay alive here, for I can feel death's icy tendrils rising up from the loose, dusty ground. A colorless sun hovers on the horizon, neither rising nor setting.

...why have I come here?

Almost like an answer, the voice echoes in my mind once again. Help me. Please, help me! I do not recognize it, and the words sit uncomfortably within me, like a lie I desperately want to believe. Yet I remember that this voice led me to this desolate place, and it is the beacon that I follow as I push onward.

I do not know why I trust this voice. Perhaps it is an illusion meant to lure me to my death.

All the same, I cannot ignore it. Abandoning those in need is the greatest sin I can commit.

"Please, hold on. I'm coming!" I say, but the words disappear into silence as they leave my mouth. Yes -- I see now that the whole world is silent. Sand and dust crumble soundlessly beneath my steps. A chill wind whips my hair into my face and stings my eyes, but does not whistle in my ears. I can still hear. I know I can. There's simply no sound to hear. It is unnatural, and for the first time, I'm afraid.

My feet hesitantly slow, then stop. I can scarcely breathe before two figures, as colorless and dead as this forsaken world, burst from the ground in front of me.

I was wrong about the silence. As the greyfaces rise from their graves, they shriek and moan, piercing my ears like knives and drowning out my own screams that disappear into nothing. I can't move. I can't breathe. These spirits saw my hesitation and fear, and they are here to take their revenge on me.

They are right. I was weak. Maybe I deserve their wrath.

If I submit to them, will they spare me pain?

Just before I fall to my knees and accept my fate, a light -- pure and white -- illuminates the nothingness that surrounds me, holding the greyfaces still and awakening the earth that it touches. I can actually feel the color that it spreads, and for a second, I glimpse the most vivid greens and blues, images of the life this place used to have.

You must fight.

The light explodes outward, and in its place stands an ornate wooden bow, carved with vines and crowned by the pink bud of a flower. I've never shot an arrow before in my life, and I abhor conflict, but I know the light is right. To save this land -- to save myself -- to save the unhappy spirits that suffer here.

I must fight.

I reach out, feel the warm wood respond under my fingertips, and without thinking, I fire.

[attacks first greyface]
[dice=200+4000]
[miss - 0]