down canopy lane. [ blighted hearts v bushbunnies ]

[🌱 kaitlin.]

BUSHBUNNIES.

No one wants it to go the way that it does.

They scurry in the underbrush quietly, tiny troop of Bushbunnies let loose in this unsettling place. At first it's easy to find food in the forest, to nibble at the greenery decorating the floor. Some of us fly up into the tree tops, searching for the source of the strange noises, trying to understand what's going on. Mother tells Cottontail that there's some berries in the big tree ahead, and the rest of us scamper after them to catch up.

"Don't go near the path," Mother tells us all as we're flying, "there's danger there."

The rest of us are eating black berries off of a bush when Clover starts making that thumping noise he knows he's only supposed to make to warn us about incoming danger. Except Clover is nowhere to be found! All our ears turn towards the source of the noise where it filters through the trees, mixing with the voices of the forest. The rest of us start flying quick as we can through the trees, but no one gets there before one of the two legged monsters steps right on Clover where she hides at the edge of the path, not wanting to be seen. She lets out the most awful squealing sound, and I'm swooping into the kid's face before he can finish taking a step. Pepper bursts out of the forest behind me, claws ready, aiming for the pretty one's eyes.

No one touches Clover. Even if it was her fault she was there in the first place.

ATTACK KREUGER,
claws (knife)

IkuPTbtP4mknife
8.0

ATTACK OLETE,
claws (knife)

knife
0.0

0/35 HP

knife·knife

[pogue]

Exhaustion takes him quickly, his head resting on a misshapen bag filled with everything he'd been able to scavenge from throughout the arena. He's white-knuckling his spear as the smell of death and decay roots itself in his veins, wounds half-burned and half-healed carved across his chest as a reminder of what he'd done to himself. He tries not to think of it, home, the same way he'd tried to 

That's just the thing, this is home now and forever, a coffin of his own making. He settles in and waits for the regret to claw itself up from his gut. Luckily, or unluckily, sleep takes him first.

He dreams, that much he knows. Because his fingertips have moved from cast around his spear to somewhere where his heart should be, where he can hardly feel the heartbeat. His other hand he finds resting over his own wounds like it's meant to hide something from him, and it's only a few seconds before he feels his own skin pulse and move underneath his palm. There's a shaking in his wrist as he pulls it back to reveal a fresh new set of eyeballs, darting and shifting on newly formed flesh, staring back at him. He screams, stumbles backwards and damn near wakes up what's left of the blighted woods. Which, lucky for him, ain't much.

It takes him ten minutes to calm down, twenty to reckon with it and thirty to try and rationalize it in the only way he knows how, his voice cutting through the silence as they break towards the forest edge.

"Used to have this guy, back in the troupe like.. five years ago." Memories, rotten and sinister, blot themselves at the edge of his mind. He talks to cover them up, like Olete has any interest in mind, like speaking truth to familiarity will make him feel better. It won't.

"Not much of a talker. Well, din't talk at all." 

Two fingers form a scissor as he pretends to cut off his own tongue. "They'd, y'know-". There's an air of awkwardness that casts over him as he does it, like that's where he draws the line, as if that's true. "But he'd written he was from some underground avox fighting ring. Something something with mutts, who the fuck knows. Can't really care about that-" He kicks a rock with his good leg. "Honestly, sounds like a show if you ask me ."

Krueger looks out towards the approaching forest and lets out a sigh, he's seen enough of these Games to know what's going to come next. Mutts or tributes- or worse. His own voice is carried as a distraction as he looks back to Olete, "Anyways... the Caps had mutated him so that his skin would change color based on his level of anger. Fucker'd look like a lit jar'a tar if you took his last donut on Tuesdays." He chuckles, one of those ones meant in good faith but pronounced in bad practice, like there's a divine comedy written into his bones and every eyeball that now sits scattered in healing wounds.

He stops, twists on his heel like he's putting on a show, then remembers he is. Arms wide, spotlight set in the form of a blinking red dot that hones in on him and the eyeballs that now glare and shift throughout his newfound wounds. "Guess I'm givin' him a run for his money-"

Crunch.

He hears it before he feels it, bones and flesh collapsing underneath his weight as the gnarled roots of the forest come to greet them. When he lifts his leg there's blood and guts and everything in between caked on the underside of his shoe, a twitching carcass of mangled fur and fury sitting beneath him. "Gross..." He begins to comment, but it's less than a heartbeat later that something sinister darts out from the wounds and carves its namesake into his leg. "Agh- fuck!" There's a string of expletives that leak from his lips as he jumps backwards, crimson and scarlet seeping from a newfound wound on his leg. Instinct kicks in before fear, the sole of his shoe launching the rabbit that'd just bit him into the nearest tree. Fear follows next, adrenaline and anxiety coursing through his veins as he palms the nearest tree to steady himself.

Spear in one hand, the other still palming the tree. He casts a glance towards Olete and swallows the fragments of his pride that are left.

"Here we fuckin' go again."

Genetic Mutation: All eyes on him! As a result of his mutation, Krueger will have human eyeballs growing in his wounds as they begin to heal. These will eventually wither and fall off as the wounds fully heal.

[Krueger attacks bunnies, Spear]

uFwDmQ54p3spear

[8.0, +1 strength]

spear

[ines izar d11a 🖤 cait]

 


Krueger and I had spent the night taking it in turns to keep watch. We split our shifts as evenly as we could, but it’s a task that proves hard to keep when you’re trapped in a forest with no sense of time or direction. Even so, I’d done my best to take the brunt of the lookouts; I should have been exhausted, but I’d felt strangely alert. Besides, it was obvious who of the two of us needed the rest the most.

The night hadn’t been kind to Krueger. One minute he’d been sleeping – restlessly, of course – and I had been picking at a stubborn piece of dried skin by my right thumbnail. The next second, he was screaming, clawing at his own skin, disgusted with the sight that beheld him. A literal sight.

Eyeballs. Moving, blinking, staring bullets into my own. It’s something from my nightmares, but very, very real. I‘d looked down at my own arms, then, wondering whether it was a matter of time before the vines snaking up my limbs started sprouting fingernails. Luckily, that transformation had yet to take hold; I’m not sure I could stomach the sight of new body parts in places they shouldn’t be.

We’d both found ourselves fully awake after that, and decided it was as good a time as any to move. Still, I can tell he’s struggling in a way I was yet to. If it was safe to stay in one place, I would have insisted we rest a little longer. But we don’t have that luxury, with our small bundles of salvaged supplies and a few simple goals to live by: avoid danger, find water, and stay alive.

Krueger walks in front of me, trying to hold himself together. Out of respect, I ignore the faint tremor of his frame that suggests he’s not quite as okay as he’d said he was. He rambles about his life back in Ten, sharing stories of his troupe with a detached familiarity. I can’t tell if he misses his old life or not; I tell myself surely not, not if he volunteered for the fate we now share. What I do realise in his unrelenting chatter is that Krueger is a storyteller – has probably grown up collecting fairytales and fables to pass around late night bonfires, whispers traded in the dark like secrets. It’s the oldest trick in the counselling guidebook – people talk nonsense just to escape their own reality. It’s incredibly unhealthy, no doubt, but hey: I’m no psychiatrist.

He pauses for dramatic effect time and time again, turning back to look at me in tandem. I find myself nodding in the right places, chuckling on cue, yet unable to offer any words of my own. Each time his eyes find my own, I struggle to hold his gaze. I want to look anywhere but at him – the sight of the pulsing, damaged flesh is so grotesque and unnatural, it makes me want to run away completely. Takes all of my mental energy to stay by his side. “Guess I’m givin’ him a run for his money,” you could fuckin’ say that again.

I absent-mindedly play with the gold chain tucked safely beneath my shirt, something I’d hidden from Krueger when we were reunited after our brief time separated yesterday. It wasn’t something I was intentionally keeping from him – rather, the memory of how it came to be in my possession was something I had been trying to suppress all day and all night.

Of course, trying to forget just feeds the moment.

Eighteen years, and I’ve never heard my mother scream – never knew she could sound so desperate and defenceless – but the echoes in the woods had been unmistakably hers. “Olete, come home to me, please! Olete, they’re trying to hurt me!”

It’s not real.

They wouldn’t hurt her.

They wouldn’t hurt her.

They wouldn’t–

“Agh – fuck!”

Whiplash from the motion of my head flying off my neck, I’m dizzy with the shifting momentum. I grip the hilt of my sword tighter, preparing to face the worst, not quite ready to become a killer but fast running out of better options.

“What the–”

It’s kind of comical, the way Krueger tries to disentangle himself from the sweet looking creature he’s accidentally squashed. My heart jolts a little at the sight of the tiny animal’s paw, now twisted at an unpleasant angle. It doesn’t seem fair that such cute, harmless animals could be expected to make a home in a place of such cruelty and destruction. I step forward to help steady him, ready to turn us away from the pack of bunnies that have congregated near a particularly thick tree trunk. But I’m not fast enough to pull Krueger back to my side, back to the safety of the protective ring that seems to follow me.

The frightened, wide-eyed hare warps into something sinister, dilated pupils and claws biting into the flesh of his leg. The rest of the pack prepare to follow suit, lips curling back in unison to reveal rows of razor-sharp canines, and that’s all the reminder I need: these are not real. None of this is real. This is a sad attempt for Astrid Zane to reclaim some power over us, over me, because yes, I’m taking this personally.

I find myself laughing as I approach the mutts.

olete attacks bushbunnies – sword

7laH089hxcsword

1017 -- Block -- 0.0 damage

accuracy day 2!

sword

1056 -- Shallow Cut on Right Shoulder -- 3.5 damage

GRIFFIN

sword·sword

[🌱 kaitlin.]

BUSHBUNNIES.

In another life, watching Clover get punted into the trees would probably make everyone laugh. His little ears go spinning around his head in a chaotic circle, fluttering desperately to get purchase on something, anything, even if it's the air itself, but nothing works and his body makes a sick thwack against a the trunk of a nearby tree.

The branches look like they reach down, tuck him into the roots, protecting him, curling around him to keep him out of the fight. His eyes stay closed, but the slow rise and fall of his chest is enough to keep the rest of us on task. Mother and Pepper try to take the one who stepped on him from the air, teeth and claws extended towards him.

The girl who laughs at my brother though is mine. I'm hoping through the underbrush, trying not to be seen, to let her pay her attention to her companion, save him from assault. The noises she makes are awful, a threat, the sounds of joy I can't understand — I go for her throat, I go for her voice.

No one laughs at Clover but me.

ATTACK KREUGER,
claws (knife)

It|CxNZlZLknife
2134 -- Deep Gash on Neck -- 10.0 damage


ATTACK OLETE,
claws (knife)

knife
2109 -- Deep Gash on Left Bicep -- 8.0 damage

12.5/35 HP

knife·knife

[pogue]

fillering bc im getting on a plane lol

[Krueger attacks bunnies, Spear]

ly0uCOF|E0spear

[result]

spear

[ines izar d11a 🖤 cait]

 


Teeth bite into my leg and I feel the first wave of pain deep in my bones; I shudder at the intrusion, not used to the burning.

The second wave follows swiftly, once the adrenaline of the initial blow dies away, and I can’t hold in the scream that escapes me then. I’ve never been good with pain – was always the girl who would run away when things looked ready to take a turn for the worst. But that’s no longer an option here. Krueger braces himself to fight, teeth gritted, no stories to tell us to distract from the present. I can’t do anything except stand by his side.

The sword is too heavy, quite simply. My arms buckle under its weight as I try to work my body around it. Why hadn’t I gone for the set of throwing knives I’d seen the girl from Seven running away with in the Bloodbath?

My nails glint dangerously, sharp stiletto tips of gold that I’d attached to my fingertips at some point during the night. They feel more familiar than the massive chunk of metal held haphazardly in my grasp, and for a moment I consider using them to my advantage. I’m certain the tiny spikes could cause a decent amount of damage if I managed to get close enough to the tiny mutants.

But that’s the thing – proximity is required. And there’s a perfectly useful sword in my hands which keeps me a safe three feet away from the bloodthirsty creatures, and so.

“Now’s probably a bad time to tell you... I've never hit anyone in my life. Any thing, for that matter.” I mutter my confession under my breath in lieu of an apology: sorry that we’re getting totally fucked up right now.

“Did that Avox ever teach you any tricks from fight club? Got any pointers for me?”

See, I was listening.

olete attacks bushbunnies [sword]

TvMNYs58S1sword

1141 -- Block -- 0.0 damage

GRIFFIN

sword

[🌱 kaitlin.]

BUSHBUNNIES.

The one without a smile slices at Pepper and Mother, and they do their best to flutter out of the way but it doesn't seem to work for them. The ugly end of his weapon makes purchase and a chunk of white fur tumbles away from Pepper where a wound opens up.

Ow! Mother is never letting that happen again!

I get lucky when the girl somehow misses me, if I'm being honest. She's swinging a little wildly, a little unpredictably, the way only a person with on training can wield a deadly weapon. I was paying attention to the squeaking noise Clover is making from the underbrush a few feet away. 

ATTACK KREUGER,
claws (knife)

McAJHSX5nTknife
2006 -- Deep Gash on Right Bicep -- 8.0 damage


ATTACK OLETE,
claws (knife)

knife
2125 -- Deep Gash on Chest -- 9.5 damage

16/35 HP

knife·knife

[pogue]

"Yeah- no offense Olete, but I can tell."

There's a wave of red that dribble from his lips at the newfound wound in his neck, Krueger emerging from behind the nearest tree with a torn through shirt haphazardly tied around his skin, doing next to nothing to stop the bleeding.

The world is spinning, little blots of black and grey hang at the edge of his vision as he swipes desperately out towards the little fuckers, only managing to scrape the back of the rabbit's fur. It darts away into the brush and in its place come four more, rabid little things with gnashing fangs and sharpened claws. He considers himself more agile than this, but the exhaustion from yesterday still reeks within his veins and bogs him down, and its all he can do but spin on his heel and attempt to block what's left of his throat from the creatures as they lunge at him.

Red. He sees it, he feels it, crimson and scarlet soak his uniform and he nearly collapses into the brush from the loss of his own blood. He palms the nearest bark, leaving a handprint as a bloody reminder as he drives the tip of his spear down into the ground to avoid falling forward. "Olete.." He coughs, ragged and remorseful and full of his own wounded pride.

It's a glance and a white-knuckled hand wrapped around the hilt of his spear as he looks back to her. "Forget the Avox-" He's not one to pass up his own stories, he's just never told one quite so bloody as this.

"Just fucking kill these bastards."

[Krueger attacks bunnies, Spear]

5EwMeYY|7nspear

[result]

spear

[ines izar d11a 🖤 cait]

I kick at the ground in frustration when my sword sails through the air unthreatingly. Failure leeches out of my bones, the embarrassment rising to my face like the blood splattered across my skin, Krueger’s skin. I’ve never felt so inadequate in my life; it stings, vinegar in the wound, heaviness in my chest.

“Are they multiplying?!” It sure seems like it. Doesn’t matter which way I turn, there’s a body of fur waiting to meet me. I try to control my rising frustration. I don’t feel like I’ve just been clawed half to death – my legs are still moving and my mind is still working in overtime and I’m just a touch faster than Krueger, for now – but shock and fear has a lot to say for my lacklustre effort.

Krueger coughs and stumbles out of a retaliating attack, smearing blood against the glistening bark of a tree. He looks at me desperately, surely contemplating making a run for it and leaving me to fend on my own. I wouldn’t blame him for that.

To his credit, he doesn’t run.

“Olete…” And I wait for his magic words to unlock my bloodthirsty savagery, hanging on to his voice like it’s my saving grace.

“Just fucking kill these bastards.”

Well. Less than helpful, but certainly motivating.

My voice comes out a whine on my back swing, “what do you think I’m trying to do?!”

olete attacks bush bunnies – sword

Utc0Y47f9Lsword

1162 -- Shallow Cut on Stomach -- 4.0 damage

GRIFFIN

sword

[🌱 kaitlin.]

BUSHBUNNIES.

The sounds of our ears flapping gets louder as Benny comes barreling out of the trees, diving towards the one who stepped on Clover. I can hear him shouting about his cousins being on their way, but they both gets swipes in with their ugly silver weapons and more blood starts falling.

I think we should leave soon. I want this to be over.

ATTACK KREUGER,
claws (knife)

xksPApgX5hknife
8.0


ATTACK OLETE,
claws (knife)

knife
3.5

24/35 HP

knife·knife

[pogue]

filler 2 cause im out of the house

[Krueger attacks bunnies, Spear]

n6_IzAjJ5cspear

[result]

spear

[ines izar d11a 🖤 cait]

quick filler lets kill some bunnies!!!!!!

olete attacks bush bunnies – sword

xUYsCu44mtsword

1151 -- Deep Gash on Stomach -- 9.0 damage

GRIFFIN

sword