boo, you whore | p v bb, day 4

[dars]

Okay, so... Y'all... I just had to spend the night in these fucking caves again because literally we would have to climb back up the entire side of the mountain to get back up to the castle, and the other options are either walking further in- no- or jumping off, which I'm lowkey considering at this point because this has me fucked up. My fuckin' neck hurts from the bat attack yesterday, my back hurts from the shitty makeshift bed, and my pride hurts because I'm already an ugly sleeper and now I'm like literally waking up in a dark-ass, damp fuckin' nasty cave and I'm craving blood again of all things and it's just-

It's fucked up.

And that's not even to mention everything going on with my alliance. If Kiko hadn't literally eaten her way through that bat swarm yesterday, I lowkey don't think she would've pulled through. Like, even if we'd all made it out together, she was getting fucked up. The blood made her feel better, but I think it saved her.

And then there's Elvena, who definitely has some really scary skeletons in her closet. Not a day goes by that I'm not glad I was smart enough to put her on my side. She's a good guard dog, but a vicious fucking enemy. Unlike the rest of us, the pain doesn't even seem to phase the bitch. Or at least she's better at handling it.

Mer, for instance, who was supposed to be sucking up all the damage in the plan I showed to the gamemakers in my Private Training Session, must have gotten her fill of standing out front or something, because for the last couple days she's been doing damage from the back and avoiding as much confrontation with whatever spooky little creatures the gamemakers have decided to throw at us.

But I keep thinking about what Elvena said yesterday, about how that time today we'd be fighting other tributes. The idea of it freaks me out, but I don't show it. I can't. I can only hope- silently- that the girl who has studied this contest her entire life is wrong. Maybe our decision to stay buried into the side of a rock was smart after all- maybe we're too remote for the other tributes to reach. Maybe.

Hopefully.

"Okay," I declare, my voice reverberating against the walls, "I vote we at least walk back to the mouth so I can see."

The dreadful feeling in my chest might be made better with some sunlight, after all. Assuming the sun is even out. This far in, I'm pretty sure the only reason any of us can see at all is because we're so used to the dark. Everything is best viewed in layers of shadow. For instance, the darkest dark is the wall opposite to me- I can see the peaks and valleys were the few molecules of light that've made it this far are creating against it. And that blob, there- that's Kiko. She'd probably been resting until I spoke up. The less-dark blob closest to me is Elvena's head- blonde hair against the shadowy folds of nothing surrounding us. And then, in the distance, is a tiny little pin prick of sunlight from the outside world. We'll have to walk toward it until it exceeds our heights by several feet easy before we make it back out, and I'm pretty sure light travels hella far, so-

"So let's go now, so that there might still be sunlight by the time we get there."


We've been walking for maybe ten minutes, me holding up a torch so that we can see, when we notice the disruption of the light at the end of the tunnel. At this point we're close enough that it's about a foot and a half on light, but it's still plenty for us to see as a lone figure drops into the mouth and begins delving further into it.

"Shit," I whisper. Not long after, I see others following. Whether they were allies to the first, or hunters of, I couldn't be sure. But it didn't matter. With them running toward us, and us running toward them, a crash is inevitable.

I look to Elvena.

"I hate it when you're right."

[chichi attacks katrina, knife claws]
XliRAUnQ6gknife
[3.5]

knife

[napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

The mist cloaked the world in a deadly calm and, for a moment within that unnerving quiet, he was seven years old again and hiding from a summer storm.

He was holding Ma’s hand so tight it felt like his little fingers were strong enough to break hers. His ears rang. The wind howled as if it was a hungry wolf dying out in a winter field, insistent and painful, and the rain sounded like static from a left-open television, drowning the world with its terrible hum. Everything teetered on a dark, hazy edge. Everything.

But the house stood tall and strong, and his Ma with it. He swore he didn’t see her even doze off that night, didn’t see her do anything except hold his and his brother’s hands. Andal learnt how strong a house can be during that wind-tossed night. What he deemed a little ramshackle thing on a hill became a fortress as the rain lashed at it and the winds charged at it. And so when they caught sight of the castle, Andal was tugged towards by it by what can also be described as a childhood instinct.

He needed to find safety, to find shelter. Not for the sake of it himself, but of everything else around him.

His stomach was a pit. He could picture the endless dark it had become, and yet he wouldn’t be able to map out the size it had grown into. He ached for food. He ached for …

Andal licked his lips.

Focus. He shook away the storm-thick memories that’d taken hold for a moment, settled back in the present. Katrina took the helm, Jack in the middle, and he brought up the rear. They had begun moving in a slapdash synchronicity after the past few days, growing to learn how to move together, in more ways than one. He felt a strange, terrible kinship between them. It was one that intensified the most when they were slaughtering creatures as a single team, as a single pack.

Soon after, they were deep under the castle. “There’s always a safer way up from here,” Andal stage-whispered, making only two blinks to adjust to the darkness around them. “If they replicated this from the prints of medieval castles, there are always secret passages and escape routes, primarily so that the aristocracy could safely leave the premises if danger befell them.”

He paused, looked at the other two.

“Yeah, I’m a bit of a history nerd,” he sighed.

Andal couldn’t fight off the smirk that crept onto his lips as they continued inward. He marveled at stalagmites, at nature’s own stonework, at how the cavern became larger and more marvelous with each step. He was hungry for something else now, like pen and paper. Write every observation he had down, sketch a rough map of the caves, explore more—

His nostrils flared. Gooseflesh crawled down his spine, raising every hair on its end along its wake, and then it ascended back up to unsheathe his fangs. His eyes narrowed; the dark got clearer.

He could smell something ahead. No, not something. His stomach growled. Someone.

Wind through stone, the gentle tip-tap of cave water, their shallow breathing. 

And there. He moved the instant he heard it, his body miles ahead of his head, barreling through the sheer dark like a wild bear, scraping himself against stone, charging onwards for his prey, hungering, hungering, hungering.

His glaive came loose in one swift movement.

He moved his arms.

The swinging registered in his head a second later, right as his breathing has grown haggard and his features had grown more feral. Andal could feel his teeth, the molars like diamonds planted in his gums, the fangs like the most uncomfortable braces. The oddest thing was that instinct which taught him to bare his teeth, grit it so it didn’t hurt. And that instinct was now telling him to tear things apart.

The wind sang in his ears.

He once thought he was his childhood home, strong and tall, but perhaps he was the storm now.

And this time, there was no hiding.

That made seeing Chiara feel a little worse.

His shoulders shrank back, his spine curled, but Andal stopped himself before anything else happened. Instead he surprised his own damn self with a dry chuckle.

“Still think I look classy in this light?”

[ Andal attacks Mereddyd | Glaive ]


RrPsV3HDeDglaive

13157 -- Miss -- 0.0 damage (Glaive)

[ Accuracy | Day 4 ]

glaive

13076 -- Severed Right Hand at Wrist -- 9.0 damage (Glaive) + 1.0 damage (Blades)

glaive·glaive

[eulalie blake 1a 🍒 tris]

"I vote we at least walk back to the mouth so I can see."

Deep in the belly of the beast, through cavern tunnels and down dirt paths, the sisterhood sets their scene. Chichi holds up a torch, firelight framing her face as if to say, this is the only way you should ever perceive me. I am your beacon. Elvena can't help but to smile at the shorter girl quietly, sneakily. As if to imply, the flames can't show you all the monsters that are hunting you right now. Did you like what you saw last night in the dark?

She falls into line patiently, assuredly, bag strap over her shoulder and flail chain looped around her belt. Always dressed for war, and always longing for more carnage. "You sure? Maybe if we keep going far enough, we'll earn ourselves an express ticket to Hell." For a brief pause, her face remains impassive, and then she laughs sharply and casually in the glow of the embers. "Kidding. The gamemakers would just kill us in a convenient landslide."

Tapping her left temple sarcastically, her gaze travels to where Chichi's eyes are now trained. A tiny speck of light shines valiantly in the distance, a discarded halo suspended in the sky. It feels like a lifetime away, a perilous journey; but so did winning the Hunger Games up to this point. Now she's here, and she's holding her ambitions accountable. Her biggest dream will come true in less than a week. She's been sowing all those black, blighted seeds.

And here is the forbidden fruit.

When Chichi prays for sunlight to guide them, Elvena yearns for her pound of flesh. Minute after minute, step after step, she listens intently to the quiet hum all around them as they ascend towards the cave entrance. It's boring. She doesn't know who to be when she's not locked in battle. Maybe that's why she's detaching her weapon from her side as soon as the light shifts, and a tiny silhouette emerges. Then several. A hiss rises from the shared throat of the sisterhood in retaliation, in anticipation.

"I hate it when you're right," Chichi says almost exhaustedly.

"Well, don't let me break your heart."

When she lunges, the only thing she knows to reach for is the prize. The trophy kill. She aims all of her sharpest edges at Katrina, and she intends to eviscerate.

elvena attacks katrina / flail
k4UgViASgnflail
{ miss }

accuracy | day four

flail
{ 3.0 }

flail·flail

[revel latimer, 11b 🔍 jay]

you bleed into the black of the cave, the darkness is your veil. a shadow, you've become, unnoticed and unnoticeable.

you've played the role of a shadow most of your life. hands wound at your side, mouth bound tightly shut, you never brought unwanted attention to yourself. you found solace in the silence. but here, hundreds of miles away, it's the dark you find your home in.

in the beginning, at the height of the sunrise, it's quiet. you're content in the moment, back resting against the damp, rough wall of the cave. a drop of water splashes against the rocky floor, your ears perk up at every slight sound. the crossbow sits on the edge of your knee, you watch as it teeters, inches away from clattering against the ground, before catching it in your grasp. anything to make the time, the day go by faster.

you hear them first. in the vibrations their light footsteps make as their hit the ground, in their voices that follow their steps, in the words that slip from their lips. you leap from your place on the ground, mind now alert, claws gripped awkwardly around the crossbow.

it was the smell that hit you next. a few steps deeper into the cave, the stench crawls into your nose. whatever, whoever it is makes your stomach curl. a predator heart, your mind is telling you to leave, but your body betrays you and moves of it's own accord. one step, two steps, three steps, and suddenly it's too late to turn back.

tracking the source of the noise, of the smell, was far from a tough task. it was easy, almost, like they didn't even bother hiding that they were here. a death wish in a hellscape like this.

there was multiple of them, a divided group it seemed. they bared their fangs and their steel weapons, striking and spilling crimson blood onto the ground. you hid in the dark, away from the torchlight. it was unwise to get right in the middle of this. you aim the sights of the crossbow at the nearest person, clawed finger on the trigger.

you thought, if you're lucky, they'd all kill each other and you'd pick off any that remained. 

silver attacks kiko / crossbow.

GIZaXSth98bow

[ 4.0 ]

bow

[✨ zozo.]

I wake up satiable.

It doesn't last long. Slowly my throat begins to burn. But the euphoria of not starving has me in the best mood. I smile, teeth bared, slinking along in the dark - the bats blood did something to me, something good. Maybe it's all placebo but I feel stronger, braver, manic with delight. I even giggle, back to the old me. Back to Numbuh Three, back to the girl in the gang, skipping along after her friends in the dark without a single complaint. I'm full, satisfied, drenched.

Yet still. More.

I can taste them before I smell them, see them, red eyes adjusting to the dark with ease. It's us versus them and there's more of us here, four of us and three of them - that boy from before, I bet he tastes good.

Something violent ignites in me. I lurch forward after Chiara and Elvena, hot on their tales - but that boy swings toward Merr and I flinch - muscle memory. Instinct, that's all it is, reliving that day. Needle in my neck, dry mouth, scrambling away from his broad swing. There's a commotion now, I can taste it in the air. Metal tang, the damp cave air. One body, two bodies, three bodies-

four.

A sharp thing strikes me, de ja vu. I whirl around to hiss and spot her, just a crossbow and a trigger finger in the dark. All limbs, all skin.

All alone.

"Yummy," I grin, teeth bared like an animal, salivating - and then I pounce.

One body, two bodies, three bodies -

More.

kiko bites silver, knife / fangs!

C4MIFFdnxtknife
4

knife

[gamemaker sloane ♕ kaяi ♕]

It's cold.

Freezing in these caves, actually.

I so desperately wanted to leave last night, but Kiko was struggling to stand. So I tried to curl up on the stone floor and get some rest, but sleep managed to evade me.

The whole. Damn. Night.

My body tossed and turned recklessly through the night, and each brief moment of sleep that I somehow managed to get was filled with swarms of bats and vivid images of Death. Each time, I woke with a startle, and each time the swarm only grew bigger and Death only grew closer. It was the early hours of the morning when I finally gave up, and laid on the cold, hard ground staring blankly up at the ceiling, hoping that I would be able to keep Him at bay.

At least for today.

Chichi was the first to wake, which was rather typical. She was always rearing to go first thing in the morning. She was ready to leave this hell hole and I don't blame her. Something about this cave made me uneasy. I forced my limbs to move, but they felt stiff and each one creaked or cracked as I did my best to stand.

"So let's go now, so that there might still be sunlight by the time we get there."

"I'm coming, I'm coming," I mutter as I finally stand straight. I toss my bag over my shoulder and look at the others. They are all looking worse for wear, so I can only imagine what my appearance is. I make a mental note to avoid all bodies of water and anything that can show me my reflection.

It seems like we wonder through the caverns for hours, but it can't be more than ten minutes and I am already exhausted. My mouth is dry, I am sleep deprived, and a rage threatens to bubble over. My eyes instinctively flash to Kiko making sure she is alright. She looks better, but no where near the same girl I saw at the start of the bloodbath. She looked hungry too.

And it was terrifying.

Chichi's whispered "Shit," and the hiss from Elena's lips brings me back to reality. My head snaps in their direction and the two of them are pulling their weapons out, ready to lunge. I follow suit, lining up my crossbow. I blink.

And I regret it instantly.

It happens so quickly. Chichi jumps forward and a boy lunges back. Not at her, but me. His weapon comes in contact with my wrist, cutting so deeply I swear I see tendons. And before I know what is happening, I let out a blood curdling scream. Blood flows down my arm and stains the floors of the cave crimson. I look back up, holding in the tears forming in my eyes, and he's not even paying attention to me, but is instead talking to Chichi.

“Still think I look classy in this light?”

"That's great that you two know each other and all, but don't you think I deserve a proper introduction before you take one of my limbs?" I snarl, lifting my bow and ready to take aim. Then another one appears, this time attacking Kiko. I whip around towards my smallest ally and her offender.

"Leave. Her. Alone."

An arrow flies towards the girl. More worried about defending Kiko's skin than my own.

Because after all, I already know I won't be making it out alive.

( mer attacks silver ; crossbow )
GoGsEM3KoBbow
( arrow in stomach - 6.5 +1 target practice )bow

[sidney]

Yeah, I'm a bit of a history nerd.

You don't know why but that last line plants a seed in your rotten-to-the-core chest. It hasn't always been like this, you know that much. But ever since you downed that serum, lost your heartbeat and grew fangs, something inside you had definitely died. Like your ribs had been lit aflame, charred, and immediately turned to dust. In one fell swoop, you had lost so much of yourself. So when Andal said something so endearing, it was almost as if your heart had been jolted awake briefly.

"You're right, you are a nerd," you smile back at him, balling up a fist and planting it as hard as you can - which still isn't quite that much - against his shoulder playfully. Don't change, you want to say to him so desperately. To keep him like this for as long as possible. But you know the fate of everyone who walked this same path. Only one will make it out. And there's a good chance it won't be any of us.

The trek to the caves wasn't that bad, a short jaunt from where'd they'd last set up camp, but they hadn't expected to run into anyone this far out. That was the whole point. They were laying low, biding their time before they had to scratch and claw their way back to the cornucopia for the inevitable feast. Another bloodbath, really.

A canon sounds, loud and ominous throughout the sky. Some birds caw and fly out of the trees, fleeing the scene. You dart back around to look at Andal where he stands at the entrance of the cave, and a sigh of relief leaves your lips as your eyes land on him looking over both shoulders back toward where the three of you came from.

"Not a good day for someone," you say softly, somberly. It's not like you want people to die, to perish in this nightmarish hellscape and never return home. But it's also not like you don't. They have to if you're going to make it out. Simple fact.

As you turn back to look forward at where Katrina leads the group, your eyes go wide as figures dart out from within the darkness further inside the cave. "Katrina!" You shout at the top of your lungs, trying to warn her to something you see far quicker than she does: a feral girl with her claws outstretched.

"Look alive," you offer up after a scratch lands on Kat. She won't be happy about that. But Andal takes the ambush in stride, unsheathing his scythe in an instant and going for the girl closest. You recall this group now that they're closing in and making themselves known. The Plastics, they called themselves. As if it was something to be proud of. 

You snicker, muttering something under your breath to Andal about whether or not they're made of it, too. But tuck the thought away for later, especially when you watch Katrina take another hit from the blonde little bitch from One. She's got a mouth on her, that one. If she isn't careful, you'll make sure she can't talk anymore sooner rather than later. You decide later - for now. And turn your attention toward the one of them that had ran the last time. The one that hadn't put up a fight, but instead tucked tail and fled.

You wonder if she'll do the same this time as well. 
Let's find out.

[ jack attacks kiko, glaive ]

sJhS|S9DN0glaive

[ 9 + 1 blades ]

glaive

[charade]

Knew the gamemakers were going to pull this shit. Not enough people dead in the first half. I swear we were heading due north, but the mists kept forming around us and somehow, somehow, we wound up turned around and underground. Fuckin’ annoying. But what can ya do?

We’re all at the mercy of their whims.

They gotta do whatever it takes to keep the ratings up. I have a few ideas myself. Maybe I’ll do that after I win. That goth milf from two ran a games right? I can do one better. Fine. They want to spice things up? I’ll carve up whoever we run into and send their blood splattering over the walls of this cave like a dash of Sriracha on a roll of sushi.

And I know someone else is down here. I can smell them. Hear them too, though it’s hard to tell what direction they’re coming in with all the echoes in these tunnels. Jack shouts a warning, so I turn to look at her instead of where she’s pointing; my mistake.  Then they are there, the illegitimate score earner from eleven slashes at me with her claws, drawing blood.

Andal draws a lot more than that in retaliation. A glancing blow from a flail strikes me as I move out of the way of a sloppy swing, anger mounting in my skull. The four girls from the bloodbath. Plastics. The ones we scared away from the wealth. Well, high time we finish the job we started. Even if they do have the numbers advantage, we can take them.

Then Silver Strauss materializes out of the shadows like an angel of darkness, firing off a crossbow bolt in the direction of the plastics. How about that. A grin slides over my face. Not someone I expected to see again, but I’m glad for it.

“You learn how to smile yet, Silv?” I say with a barked laugh.

Fray understands. Silver does too. They’re probably the only ones that gets it. The non-careers don’t see what’s really happening here. This is a battle between three sharks, and the minnows that follow in their wake, desperate to scavenge what’s left behind.

Six is lost in the sauce, acting the part of the monsters that we’ve all been transformed into. I can feel myself slipping away too, becoming something more feral. But I’ve held onto my mind this far. Don’t know if I’ll be sane by the end of this fight though. The smell of human blood in the air is intoxicating. Awakens a hunger in my belly. Reminds me that they are nothing but meat to be ripped and torn.

Devoured.

F-fuck. Why did that make me hungry? I shouldn’t be hungry for them. Cannibalism ain’t cool, but they smell so—tender. No, no I just ate a steak the other night. And...and it didn't satisfy my hunger. A voice in my head whispers that my competitors will.  I can’t stop visualizing soft pale flesh sliding down my throat as my teeth crunch on their bones.

An arrow whistles through the air, burying itself in Silver’s stomach. My mouth curls into a snarl of its own accord, all teeth and spittle. Something dangerous glitters in my eyes as I stare past the nobodies at the real threat.

“Fray, When I’m done feeding your meat-shields to Andal,” I growl. “I’m gonna cut your head off and wear it as a hat.”

The serrated pieces of whip click together to form a sword as I bring it to bear against the girl from seven.

“I don’t have time for this shit Fawkes. Get the fuck out of my way.”  

It's the entitled career that I want to eat.

Katrina attacks Merydd Fawkes, sword

fmNtnw1q55sword
1059 -- Severed Right Ear -- 8.0 damage + 1 Blades + 1 Rivalry

sword

[dars]

I clip at the tall bitch but, in true psycho career mode, it does little to stop her. I wonder if it's as simple as that for them: a switch that gets flipped on or off. It'd be nice, I think, to be able to do fucked up shit and somehow not feel responsible for it. Her sword runs itself through Mer in a swipe that would've killed me over, as far as I'm concerned, and I'm only able to cringe at the sight of the wound occurring for as long as it takes for me to smell the blood.

I feel my pupils dilate and my mouth begins to salivate. This is disgusting. This is cruel- it's so fucking unfair! Turning us all into monsters feels particularly cruel in a contest where making the decision is supposed to be what separates the weak from the strong.

I don't even know which way is fucking up anymore.

Tall bitch keeps moving, which is fine with me so long as she keeps the sword trained elsewhere. And then it clicks that, of course, if she's there, then the wiry one with the creepy stare would be somewhere nearby. And though there are two other forms there, I only feel safe in assuming one is Andal. I squint at the other form- it's difficult to focus as it is, and the fleeting sources of light aren't doing anything except making me nauseous.

Andal speaks to me- has the nerve to, it turns out. I put up a hand to block his face from view. Not worth dignifying with a response- it's fucked up to play mind games like that.

He's running out of strikes, I think. Already struck out as far as getting with this goes, but I'm thinking if he doesn't wizen the fuck up soon and the two he's with don't eat him alive in the meantime, I might have to be the one to spank Andal Searley's ass like the overgrown child he is.

"Add another member to your pack?" I ask, eyes flicking to the other form and then back to him. I don't realize until I'm finished with the words how hard my heart is beating inside my chest. Packs are nothing against covens.

I'm very, very hungry.

I turn to tall bitch. She's focused on Elvena- smartly so, I suppose. But then she makes the mistake of calling me a meatshield.

I don't die for anyone.

"Bad dog."

[chichi attacks katrina, knife claws]
mGXW_FWHivknife
[0]

[accuracy, day 4]
knife
[8+1 blades]

knife·knife

[napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

You know it’ll be a juicy Games when they threatened to eat each other alive in the first breath of the fight.

He tried not to think about it, but saliva built up at the back of his throat instantly. Andal pressed his lips together and swallowed, hard. The smell was the hardest to ignore. It was delicious, aromatic, and calling – like the world’s most forbidden cup of wine. His hunger was not the same as Jack’s refined one. It had no special diet, no specific craving. His hunger simply pleaded for anything.

He flinched as an itch suddenly ignited under his skin.

What the hell? Andal scratched at his arm, and blinked away the stars beginning to constellate at the edges of his sight. Steady. He couldn’t rush in, he knew that, and yet saliva had begun flooding his mouth again and the scent of fresh bodies tapped a tattoo against his urges. He shook his head again. Focus, Searley, focus damn it. That was his greatest strength once – a clear head – and of course, they had carved it out of him to make room for pure animalistic instinct. He growled softly when the girl he attacked spoke. Mama would chastise him for doing that to a lady at a first encounter.

“Don’t suppose ya’ want me to say sorreh’?” he asked her with a mouthful of fangs. Another itch quivered under his skin, making him double over for a moment. His spine hunched, and when he rose back to his original height, everything looked shorter than it was before.

His stomach ached – hollow, hollow, hungry.

Andal’s claws burned to grip around the holy symbol he’d found, ask for forgiveness like he was under the glow of stained glass windows again, but what god would atone him in a place such as this?

There were only monsters here.

With dilated pupils and bared teeth, he could see it on all of their faces that they hungered, too. The feast was drawing closer. This constituted as only the starter course.

He held tighter onto the glaive in his paws and sought after Chi’s eyes. Words coagulated in his throat: I don’t wanna’ hurt you because I feel awful. But that was selfish. And so he took his awfulness, and gulped it all down like the burning spit at the back of his maw.

“I see ya’ found yer’ own share of weird, too, Chi.” He cracked his neck once, twice, all as he locked his eyes on the girl from before. She was wispy, like a ghost, and Andal had fought one of those just yesterday. So he pictured her as simply that: a ghost, something that’ll fade when the sun rose upon these damned hills again.

“Name’s Andal,” he said. “Smiley day to ya’.”

And he let the animal in him finish the introduction.

[ Andal attacks Mereddyd | Glaive ]

YiO46qcNU_glaive

13092 -- Shallow Cut on Neck -- 4.0 damage (Glaive)

glaive

[eulalie blake 1a 🍒 tris]

It’s the simplest thing.

Her allies are in danger, and so she will keep them safe. As long as more than four people are alive within this arena, then her sisters will have her complete and undivided loyalty. And they should count themselves lucky; because when the girl from Four spits out her surname, as wicked and sharp as a guillotine blade greeting a felon, you can see flames rising in the blood red crimson of her irises. “Is that so, Sykes?”

The abrasive young woman speaks of decapitation, about wearing heads as hats, and just the image of it is enough to make Elvena start chuckling where she stands. Low, sickly sweet like burnt honey spoiling in a jar. She lives in her rage / she feels at home. When she glares up at Katrina, all she sees is an insect in her path. A thing to be crushed, to be folded away into a napkin and tossed away. Insignificant. “You’re not all that bright, are you? Bold to show your hand so early in the game.”

As much as she wants everyone in this cavern to drop dead, her focus settles on the career standing across from her and remains there. Bold enough to threaten her life, yet as dull as the figurative blade she’s going to try and cut the blonde’s head off with. “I was only trying to kill you because you’ll be a nuisance to me later.” The statement sounds like the easiest truth. Her head tilts to the side, a pout on her lips that doesn’t quite reach her flat, impassive eyes. “But now you’ve gone and made this personal. And I'm a girl who likes to play with her food.”

She wields her flail like a death sentence, raises her arm with all the muscles rippling. Years of training / years of pursuing this one goal. How many lashes is suitable for the blasphemous? A beast snarls at a god-king, and the god-king snarls back. When Chichi calls Katrina a bad dog, Elvena looks approvingly and adoringly over her shoulder; more at the fresh blood resting so beautifully on her ally's cheeks than anything else. “Correct. And what happens to bad dogs?” Needle in the vein, with each passing day she grows only more powerful and hungry. She doesn't care. She's always been willing to play by the script.

“They get put down.”

When she leaps forward, she can almost breathe her next words against Katrina’s neck. “Career girl to career girl,” she speaks like a friend to a friend, predator to prey, “you’ve gone and fucked with the wrong bitch.”

elvena attacks katrina / flail
EH97G1jkouflail
{ 3.0 }

flail

[revel latimer, 11b 🔍 jay]

girl-shadow, step out into the light.

this part is wip because the site ate my entire post and i'm upset but something about
- "you let out a whine, a wounded howl, a wolf caught in a hunter's trap."

"you learn to smile yet, silv?"

the voice breaks your caravan of thoughts, it's familiar. you tear your hooded eyes away from the ones in front of you, following the echo in the cavern to its source. katrina, bloodstained and dirty, looking like she truly belongs here, stands to the side with a wicked grin. her form is illuminated by torchlight, she's fur-coated and beastly, not unlike yourself.

it's a welcome sight, almost. a momentary lapse in your judgment. when her words set in, they needle at your skin. she has made a habit of doing that in these few short weeks.

friend or foe, foe or friend. that line is blurred, or even obstructed entirely in a place like this. for you, they're the same thing. a foe can become a friend, a friend can become a foe but end on the same knife's edge: in death. there's only one victor, everything else is temporary.

but you nod your head towards her, your teeth bared in a pack-like way as to say i'm with you. because in spite of your reservations, you know the role she and her friends, the raven-haired girl from nine and the wolfish boy from ten, play in keeping you alive in the next few moments. they aren't friends, just something temporary.

you turn to the smaller of the two girls, your crimson blood smeared on her mouth. you can smell the iron on her lips from across the cavern. not one for small talk, you latch your next bolt and aim it toward her before she can get another word out of her poisoned mouth. though, you keep your teeth bared in a way that says i'll bite back.

silver attacks kiko / crossbow.

eN5F0XDGAUbow

[ 6.0 ]

bow

[✨ zozo.]

The pain in my leg screams out in agony, but the hunger within me screams louder still.

More, more, more, but she slips from my grasp and joins forces with the others. I stumble forward and slip on my own puddle of blood, dragged back down to the cavern floors slick with scarlet, purple, black. Light dancing off of its surface, my eyes, steel weapons. Girls dance in the dark.

Chichi, good. Elvena, good. Merr - she'll be okay, she always is. There's purple blood streaming down my leg, so much. Too much. Ripped stockings, wounds that match their ladders, my white socks are lilac. I'm dying, I'm dying - but I'm so damn thirsty.

I pull myself up and hiss, "More!" - manic, licking blood from in-between my sharpened teeth. It makes me stronger. I have to be stronger. I simply must, the scent blinding me with rage as an arrow buries itself deep in my leg. On all fours I scramble, following her smell through the dark. Thirsty, thirsty-

"You're tasty," I must be close, pounce, the other dogs are there. I don't care, I'll eat her raw, I'll suck them all dry, salivating, "so tasty..."

kiko bites silver, knife / fangs!

m5yTR_IV6cknife
3.5

knife

[gamemaker sloane ♕ kaяi ♕]

Hello hi I’m in clinical today and it’s Friday? Excuse me??

( mer attacks silver ; crossbow )
nl3OLfRtR2bow
( miss )

accuracy ;

bowbow·bow

[sidney]

is a filler until later when i have time xx

[ jack attacks kiko, glaive ]

BYFsU87mkQglaive

[ 3.5 ]

glaive