Dark Circles [TLB v. WG]

[Tom]

  JAY  KREARNS 

district four tribute

The pain was excruciating. It was difficult to move. He had stepped on a bottle of sorts and shattered it on his foot. He could feel the glass enter his skin. Jay felt like he was the only one in pain. The only one that would feel pain. His promises though. He had to keep them. He couldn't fall like his brother. He couldn't die on only day 2. He had to fight to live. He had to fight to survive. This was not where he was going to go down. He had to survive for his family and friends. For Mason. For Davy. For his mom and dad. For Jev. For Miles. He just had to live and not fall here. Jay was pushing through the pain as much as possible, but then the person got him. they stabbed him in the calf and he was about to fall, but caught himself. He'd fight through the pain. He had to.

He was moving slow, the pain was difficult to deal with. His mind was making it worse. All his mind kept telling him was to kill or be killed. That was what had to happen. He had to kill. He needed to, so his allies could survive. He needed to kill to win. All of his promises would be lost. He couldn't just die like this to three pathetic people, two of which from District 8 like Bran and Aria were. Jay spoke loudly, "you're going to fucking pay. I swear! Now fucking die!" The anger coursing through his veins was going to make him cause mistakes like last time. Jay slowly moved around trying to find someone. His foot hurt. His calf stung. He could feel the blood coming out of him. Would this be his grave? Would this be how he falls? Jay felt tears coming out of his eyes. He couldn't die to two girls and one pathetic boy. Jay would try and live.

Now the only choice for him was to fight. He had to kill whoever he could and escape. He had to escape. He needed to run and patch himself up. Jay felt tears swirling into his mouth and the salty taste made him feel not as strong. He needed to fight. He needed to beat the darkness that was there. Jay's mind was in a swirling vortex of doubt. He doubted himself. He doubted his skills. He doubted everything he could. It was only ending up in evil ways. Jay was charging now at anybody, he swung the sword trying to hit something.

template: che1sey

(Attacks someone in the darkness with Bone Sword)
NOZfseRvsword
(Miss damnit jay)

1-6
(Cha)sword�1-6

[Deleted]

[presto][/presto]

C H A  L E V I A N E

{ breathe
in
sorrow;

His blade comes close enough to slice her ideals in two. But instead, the sharpened sword slices through only win, and as it's left dangling in the heavy air, filled with the vomit of words and the stench of desperation, she takes a single moment to take a deep breath.

A single, long, much needed deep breath.

Her words set off a storm of vile statements and commands, each word escaping their mouths dampened with acid and soaked in hatred, set ablaze with the need for survival. Because that's all this is about, that is all this dark, damp, rocky arena of horrors is about. It's about survival, it's about the fight, it's about clinging to your weapon with whitened knuckles and reminding yourself to breathe ever so slowly so as to avoid attracting any mutts, it's about cringing when your foot hits a pebble into the abyss, each pop it makes sending echoing vibrations through the deep, never ending tunnels of the arena. It's about running into other alliances and cutting them down like trees.

it's about anger, it's about hate, it's about survival.

And those three things, somewhere deep down in the cauldron of her own body are melting, forming, fusing into one giant, noxious ball of utter something. Because she can't put her finger on it, and in a time like this, where two alliances are merely swinging blindly at the terrifying darkness around them, she sure as hell could not describe it, either.

She hasn't moved from the position she was in when the star map fell form her grasp, twisting and tumbling on air into the black hole abyss below. She's afraid she'll never find it, she's afraid she'll never be able to find it again.

She's afraid the only thing she has left of the stars at home, of mother and father and shelby and her sun burnt pupils. She's afraid she'll never be able to find them again, she's afraid she'll never leave.

She grits her teeth and fumes from the nostrils, a contrasting tear forming in her eye.

Somewhere deep down, she wishes she'd watched the sunrise.

She sure could use one right now.

[presto][/presto]

{Cha attacks The shaaaaaddddeee with Knife}
vI2x9qR2knife
{Another fucking block shocker--0.0}
1-6

ooc: soz it's so short. A little busy at the moment, but wanted to keep it going like bob the weasel
knife�1-6

[Deleted]

It sank in something, my spear, like it stabbed straight through a wall and for a second I couldn't yank it back out. At first I was pretty positive I snagged a blob or something - maybe a giant cake mutt, that'd be great (it wasn't until then I noticed how hungry I really was after two days and man, I wish Jael was here, guy was the best chef I ever knew I swear to swear it) - until it yelled, roared. "You're going to fucking pay. I swear! Now Fucking die!" He sounded like one of those cartoon villians Jael used to tell me about, the type of guys that sat in dungeons waiting to jump knights for their money and food. He sounded bad, and if I felt bad for trying to help Cha and Stella help me, I didn't anymore. I felt equal, I'm trapped on this ground and at least I nearly took his leg off to make up for it.

That's when I saw him swing at Cha, he swung at Cha, my Cha. I saw it straight through the dark, by noises, his swinging and Cha's grunt and the sword cutting a whole new ozone layer out of air. He's leviathan, he's volatile, he's bad, dirty, he's dark, he's corrupt. And I feel better, because he's condemned. He's in this lair with us, and his soul won't take a single step out. That, I know. That much I know for a fact, because I've hit his leg twice in the past two days hard enough to make up for the one the man made to my leg, and he hasn't hit me back once. On the ground I want to claw through his ankles to see to the other side, I'm on eye level and everything. He's leviathan, and I can stop him.

The other boy, the one who swung at Cha right before I fell like the lights, he's silent now, blended into the dark like how I thought I was on the ground (it's working though, not a single word said and I haven't been hit again yet, but that doesn't mean forever) and my biggest fear at the moment is probably somebody stepping on me. If not that, then the looming death around us is a close second. I feel kind of like one of those tiny garden snakes Matilda found in a group chilling her closet, unnoticed and pretty cute. And also unable to walk on two legs at the moment, but I can still bit through leviathan's ankles to see through to the other side and all the way back home.

I just pray I don't get lost.

Him, the leviathan, he's gone. I'm not sure which of the ankles prancing around me are his, and which are Cha's or the darkness or Stella's or the one who broke me. I don't want to attack at all, but to just sleep, just to chill in the back of the closet of these games. I don't want to be stuck here on the ground, my elbows rough against its cement. Just asleep, with Cha and Stella away from this. But there's only one way out, and that's by killing the leviathan. There's only one way off this ground with both Cha and Stella to help me, and that's by killing the leviathan.

And I'm okay with that.

I can do that.

BBsCHL0c200+3000
[results] 

1-6
[results]

200+3000�1-6

[Cait]

stella calloway district eleven

Ok so this is a filler bc I am out for the next few hours and totally want to get this fight moving along.

[attacks with spear]

vJXbAAd|200+3000

[attacks jim]

1-6

[deep gash on left thigh - 8]

200+3000�1-6

[arx!!]

"You're going to fucking pay. I swear! Now fucking die!"

And I recognize the voice as friendly - my ally, Fishboy - despite how unfriendly the words are. They echo through the darkness, bouncing down each snaking tunnel - "dieeeeeee!" - just like my heart bounces around in my chest, rattling against my ribs. And I know I should move closer to Fishboy. I should feel safe safer next to him and generally out of harms way from Chawski and Prettyboy and Volunteer-er girl, but I find myself slowly shuffling away from him ... I think.

His words sort of ring in my ears - ("Go ahead and die, kid! No one would miss ya!") - mixing with memories I wish would just leave me alone. This wasn't the fucking time to be reminded of a man who lashed out at me from the very instant I was born. That would only make me weaker, only make me cower further away from my enemies. I need to be more like Fishboy and Chawski. Deadly and threatening and yearning for blood, calling for it in the darkness. Like the monsters in those horrible children's stories my father used to tell sometimes.

I need to want to kill.

I need to want to kill.

I need to want to kill!

But I just can't. I'm not strong enough or brave enough. I like to pretend I am, but I am having a hard enough time dealing with the fact that the sharpened end of my axe is slicing through flesh with ease, glistening with blood that I can't see because it is just too dark. I'm hurting someone. Someone I don't even know, someone who may be a good person, may be nice, may not want to kill me either ... I don't want to die.

Fishboy wants to kill me. So does Chawski. They want me dead, that's how they go home.

But I just don't have enough heart to swing with full force.

I'm scared. I'm just a little, hopeless orphan boy again, clinging to my sister in the dark for comfort. I'm just that older orphan boy I was at Sycamore, brooding and angry yet still so afraid of being left alone. And now I am here. Still little, still orphaned, only I don't know how to be angry or brooding anymore - I know only fear.

I hear breathing near me and I spin around just in time to get my arms tangled with someone else's. I guess if I was feeling confident I could call it a block, but I'm not confident at all. I scream and shove my attacker away, swinging my axe furiously in front of me and breathing fiercely as I, again, scramble away.

---

{Blaire attacks the dark with his Stone Axe}
zak_FLGIaxe
{Deep Gash on Back -- 8.5 9.5 damage}
1-6
{Jay Krearns fuck me I stg}

---

Blaire Sycamore - District 5

---

axe�1-6

[Kire]

♦ ✦ ◆ ♦ ✦ ◆ ♦ ✦ ◆ ♦ ✦ ◆



J I M D E E R

♦ ✦ ◆ ♦ ✦ ◆ ♦ ✦ ◆ ♦ ✦ ◆

Says, Thinks

Everything is chaos and I don't understand anything except that I think we're losing. I'm battered just as hard as I was yesterday and Jay's swearing tells me that he's also in bad shape. I haven't heard much of Blaire other than a few words so there's no way to know how he's doing. I just hope that both of them can cling on for long enough so that we can fight our way out of here. My right arm is paining me but I know I have to keep fighting because the others are pushing on. I'm breathing hard but I'm trying to be as quiet as I can because the only thing that gives you away here is sound. As I ready myself to swing again I hear a shout from Jay and I know someone has hit him again. I'm almost swallowing my tongue in my fear, trying to remember what it used to be like for me in the tunnels when the only thing I had to worry about was swinging a pickaxe and breaking up the coal. I was a miner, and then I had to learn how to be a fighter but so far I don't feel like much of either. This whole damn thing is just too intimidating and I wish that I had the same confidence I had started off with.

My memory of the flames in the training center, the burning pile of false flesh that I had chipped and shaved from a dummy, was a hope and not a comfort. I hoped I could regain that kind of strength and satisfaction, but now I was left with nothing except the fear that I was going to die, or that Jay was going to die. We're all in the dark and I don't think we'd know what was going to happen until it did. Fuck this whole thing, I just wanted to be in the light again. I want to see, I want to know where I am and what I'm doing because this not knowing is going to drive me crazy. My ears ring with every little scuff that is made and it's impossible to know where it's coming from because it seems like the noises just come from everywhere. I don't know whether I'm sobbing in hysteria or laughing maniacally at the sheer stupidity of this all as I ready my cudgel.

I can only pray I don't hit my friends.

♦ ✦ ◆ ♦ ✦ ◆ ♦ ✦ ◆ ♦ ✦ ◆

(Jim attacks the darkness - cudgel)
uQe_bcWZblunt
Broken Right Knee -- 7.0 damage

1-6
Tom I am so sorry. </3

blunt�1-6

[Deleted]

[presto][/presto]

C H A  L E V I A N E

{ breathe
in
sorrow;

She's resting, too thin fingers pressed against the cold, dark, soulless wall of the arena while the other half of her body fights a fight she was never meant to be in.

She was never meant to be here, clutching a knife and slicing air in two. She was never supposed to be here, forcing herself to breathe and to think and to survive. She was never supposed to be in this arena, she was supposed to be swinging in a hammock, eyes weaving the threads of the universe. She was supposed to be strangling Shelby's mind with cold glares and horror stories laced with the stars of the galaxy. 

She was not supposed to be here, fighting alongside two children, with their hands tied together in love forced from the death of the Games, she was not supposed to be fighting three people she did not know, telling them they were going to die, that one of them was going to die. She was not supposed to the hate these people, she was not supposed to kill them. 

But in an odd, twisted, cruel fate sort of way, she feels like this is home now.

It's not peaceful. No, this hellish pit of darkness lacked the peace that a swaying hammock and a sky full of stars gave her. But every time the digits of her fingers trembled through the dark, searching for Finn and Stella and her own redemption, every time she listened for their breaths and every time she was eventually forced into sleep by her own body she felt as if, as if her own soul had led her here, through Shelby's fear of monsters and through the torn to bits star map in her hands and through the knife she clutched in her fingers, trembling and stained with the stench of her own uselessnes, it felt like it was her new home. 

There's a crack, a gasp, and a horrifying silence. 

And that's when she's hit with some unmovable force, flesh grinding against flesh and a body racked with pain colliding with her own. 

She can hear his gasping for breaths, and she can feel his soul tear away from it's earthly body, cut through with the point of a spear, torn apart by their own desperation.

Her first intention is not to cry out for Finn, because he knows it isn't him, and it most certainly is not Stella, because the body that collapsed into her was far more weighed down with the burden of the Games than the child inside Stella could bear.

This was not one of her own, and as the body slid down against her like it was not her immediate thought to reach down and check if that person was alright, or if it were Finn with his broken whatever or Stella with her taste for revenge.  Her first instinct is to scream as loud as she could, as death had just inched closer to her, nearly pulled her to the ground with him, had nearly killed her.

She backs up into a wall, rocks poking into her skin and beads of sweat making their way down her face, slipping off the cliff of her chin, splattering its contents on the ground beneath. She hits the wall behind her, body sprawled across it as if she has just been stabbed, as if death had truly gotten her.

And it's in those few moments where her breathing refuses to slow that she realizes the star map she once held, clutched in her hands, before it was split in two and before the halves fell to the ground carrying her pride with them was now underneath the tribute, stuck underneath death itself. 

She gulps, and stares, wide-eyed, at the darkness in front of her, eyes straining to see the dying body of another person, of another child. She trembles, and her knife finds it's way to her backpack, concealed in one of the pockets stemming from it.

There's no more swinging, or so she hopes. There's no more fighting, or so she hopes. There's no more death, but that's not the truth and she knows it.

"I'm sorry." It's a hushed mumble, said through clenched teeth as she gently lifts the boy's head up, grasping for the halves of her own token underneath him. 

She finds one piece, and as her fingers cling to the other she lets his head drop, rather abruptly if anything, before scrambling back again, into the wall and into the darkness.

"Finn. Stella."

"Finn."

"Stella."

She fumbles for them, hands patting the ground as if it would do any good, darkness swallowing everything whole even though her eyes are well adjusted to it y now (but they arent adjusted to the bloodshed), and just as she's about to call his name again, and wait for one of the weapons of their opponents to strike her down her palm finds skin.

It finds flesh, it finds broken bone, it finds pain.

She hears Finn scream in pain, a light tap sending ripples of the torture through his body. But instead of guilty, she is relieved. Because pain means he's alive, pain means he's breathing. She wonders if that dying tribute felt any pain when she moved him. 

She forces him to his feet with the help of her own strength, both of their bodies shaking and sweat droplets rubbing and fusing as they half walk, half limp towards wherever they are going. 

"Stella? Stella. Please."

She prays to ripred that the footsteps behind her are of the girl's, because if one were to even swing their weapons the two of them would drop like flies. She prays and prays as they limp, her hand tightening on Finn's shoulder with every step.

It feels like hours before a single finger prods her side.

She jumps, but before she can even think to react with her sharpened knife a single voice breaks the silence and the tension. 

"We need to kill the bad ones."

Stella Calloway's spear is forced into her hands, and as her fingers wrap around the cold rock of the weapon she nods through the darkness, opening her mouth to speak but failing even that simple action. Instead, she removes her knife from the backpack she has, and places it into the girl's hands, making sure she holds it tightly. 

They had made it, three stars. Dwindled, but still burning.

Colder, but still burning hot.

She pulls both of them into her, into a pseudo bear hug filled with as little touch as possible, because she can feel Finn wince through it.

A tear slides down her cheek before she releases them.

The boy's cannon is but a knock in the distance by the time they hear it.

[presto][/presto]

[Cha flees the fight, giving assistance to Finn and his broke ass femur]
[Recieves medkit from sponsorship]
[Uses first aid on self -3]
[Uses n/t on Stella: -5]
[Uses 5 feet of bandages: -1]
[Gives roll of bandages to Finn]
[Cha receives spear from Stella]
[Cha gives her knife to Stella]

[Deleted]

filler ngl bc i gotta do volunteer work for the rest of the day and anthem is soonish???

okay so anyways

wahhh broken femur my life so difficult

o opp leviathan ded sorry

unoheded

rip bruh

stella's a monster but maybe not??

o hey it's cha

fuKIN MY FEMUR m8

CHA U SRS RN

im being carried off yaaaaaaa

*head tilt*

i should pass out rn

stella u a monster ornah

*say nah pls*

ugh cha let go

im passing out goodngiht

[finn flees on the chamobile]
[finn does some other stuff??]
[in trib maint]
[like drugs]

[Cait]

stella calloway district eleven

When the cannon sounded, the thudding of a heart stopped.

It was not mine that had fallen dormant; my own heart stopped beating when I tainted it with inescapable immoralities I do not regret.

It was hers. (Ivy’s.)

Her heart no longer uttered commands, leaving only silence to fill my mind.

(I don’t want them to take her away.)

I was alone.

Once more.

The breaking of silence awakened us from the bloodlust trance we had been thrown into, and when the clashes of bone against flesh fell to an eerie end, there was a single moment of reflection that allowed us to evaluate what we had become, bringing with it a realisation that we would all end up as another face in the starless sky in the days to come.

We would all have a cannon resonate in our favour.

It is only a single moment we rest for, out of respect for whoever has fallen in the dark, and all I can think is it’s not me i’m sorry you’re not here i hope you did not feel any pain in death because pain scares me and i don’t want to die in discomfort too.

It is only a single moment my tears cease for, and when the echo of the arena’s mark falters, that is when I collapse with the weight of the water.

Waterfalls are beautiful delights when they illustrate their tales of suppressed sorrows and inflictions of pain and joy, love and loss. There are scattered diamonds shattering like shards of glass against the ground. Once, they would have gleamed in the light of the Sun as I worked alone in the fields, for that was the only place they were tolerated, the only place I could express the harrowing sadness trapped inside. Now, they only fall like forgotten dreams – abandoned, unnoticed, worthless.

Through the tears, my chest is ablaze as infernos rage within my eyes where jaded emerald irises are lit with a dangerous gleam. Where she was once water, I was the fire that fuelled enough hatred for the both of us, and yet now, the tears refuse to stop flowing, and each splash against the ground I am sprawled upon is an unravelling of Stella and a becoming of Belle. A becoming of death, for that is all she is now.

When I scream for Cha and Finn (they have to be safe, it can’t have been them, they aren’t bad like the others, like me) I do not hear the screech leave my throat, for it is lost in a dissonance of buzzing – sounds that double in intensity until their pitch is a vulgar champagne of voices and memories. If my allies’ replies are vocalised, I do not hear those, either. The source of the terrifying sounds is unbeknownst to me – perhaps they originate from a celestial embodiment of spirits. The realisation only reinforces the notion that the very terms must be imagined, yet with each second spent in cacophonic elopement, the classification between ‘real’ and ‘fiction’ becomes even harder to distinguish. With no heart to keep the pace of racing thoughts and shaking breaths, it feels like Autumn will not be as forgiving to me as it was before the world turned cold and the warmth in my soul had not been consumed by despair.

Darkness injects paralysing fear into my bloodstream. I can sense the blood that pumps through my veins turning black, tainted by the impurities of the fight. Swimming in a dead sea, sinking in and out of what feels like unconsciousness, I grip my spear a little more tightly. The gesture is not dissimilar to how a child would clutch at her teddy when the winds battered the curtains in her room and the nightmares would not leave her alone. Only now, the danger has passed, and all that is needed to complete the storybook memory is a sunrise to send the demons back to the land of the sleeping.

But it does not come.

I need to move.

When I find my feet, it is Cha that I sense, crouched nearby over a figure in pain that can only be Finn. The footsteps that close the distance between my allies and myself are painful, for there is an abundance of marks that line my body with stories of the wars we’ve fought already. As I reach out to Cha – to feel her and to know that she was really here, that we weren’t both dead – I see Finn’s head turn as he moans in agony. Athough I feel drying tears threaten to reappear at the sight of his broken figure, when his head lolls to one side, I stop, for his eyes are wide open, staring and unblinking. Illuminated by faint trickles of light, they look straight through me.

They hold fear.

Because of me, fear of me.

Fear.

Hatred.

Betrayal.

He knows.

He knows I assisted in the killing of an already-forgotten sacrifice – knows that whilst he slashed fearfully at the darkness and moving bodies, I lashed out with unkempt anger and almost killed again.

And I am both disgusted and petrified by what he sees when he looks at me now, and even more so at the fact that I, too, can see exactly what it is he fears.

(I am shaking again.)

There is a spear in my hand.

(I don’t want it.)

It doesn’t feel right.

(It is evil.)

I hadn’t wanted to be evil; I had wanted to make Belle happy.

(You don’t have to do that alone.)

The spear is too heavy.

(It is a burden I must rid myself of.)

When Cha turns, I reach the weapon out to her. She takes it with a certain hesitancy despite the fiery glow I can see in her eyes. I don’t break her gaze as I speak.

‘We need to kill the bad ones.’

When the words leave my mouth, I am torn between saying more – much, much more to make them understand why and make them see that I'm not the bad guy – and apologising incessantly to Cha and Finn. I don’t want to lose them, too.

They do not speak. The passing of a knife, the grip of a new mother, the accusatory looks of a boy much older than his age suggests – these are the signs of acknowledgement I receive.

It would have to do.

Through the darkness, we run.

uses first aid on self [-3 on stella]
has needle and thread used on her from cha [-5 on stella]
receives 10ft bandages from cha
uses 5ft bandages on self [-1 on stella]
gives antivenom to finn
gives spear to cha
receives knife from cha
continues to third wheel

[arx!!]

This isn't what I wanted. This isn't what I asked for.

(Or maybe it was exactly what I wanted? What I had asked for?)

No! No this wasn't at all what I wanted. I'm too scared. So scared that I've actually stopped being able to think straight. How could I possibly be okay with this? (One step closer, closer, closer to home...) I don't realize it until I trip over something that I hadn't been breathing. I gasp - not sure if because I am still scared shitless or because I actually need air - and find myself lying on my back in an instant, my elbows stinging from the impact with the ground. "Fuck." I mutter, realizing that the fight is over. And my alliance is on the wrong side of it.

I lie on the ground, stare up into the darkness, and just keep silent, listening to the footsteps get softer and softer as the other kids scramble.

I don't feel anything.

And I'm not sure if that is good or bad.

---

{I know this is short but death!thread}
{Blaire flees obvs}
{all my other actions can be saved for later in death thread ayyy}

---

Blaire Sycamore - District 5

[Kire]

♦ ✦ ◆ ♦ ✦ ◆ ♦ ✦ ◆ ♦ ✦ ◆



J I M D E E R

♦ ✦ ◆ ♦ ✦ ◆ ♦ ✦ ◆ ♦ ✦ ◆

Says, Thinks

By the time I feel the impact and hear the loud crack I realize it's too late. The sound of Jay's knee breaking split every sound the others were making so that we were all left in deathly quiet. I had made a mistake, but I knew it would cost me much more than any other mistake I had made. I hear a sudden shifting as our three opponents all take off together. Perhaps they fear me now that I've attacked my own ally, or perhaps they think that they're going to leave and let us finish each other off. I'm one step ahead of them it seems.

The words of everyone buzz in my ears like so much nonsense and I don't pay attention to anything but the sound of Blaire. He moves and I follow, tracing the scuffling tracks that Jay left. There is little way that the other boy can walk now, what with all of the damage he had suffered - and too much at my hands - but he still manages to pull himself to the wall. At my feet lay his things and I scoop them up. There's a sense of disconnect from the world and I almost smile at the new things that I had just gotten. Jay wouldn't be needing them anymore, but they would come in useful for me. My hand is wrapped around the handle of the bone sword and I jab at the darkness to perfect my grip.

In front of me I hear Jay shuffling around like a crazed hen, pecking and scratching at the walls in some futile attempt to do something. I approach him and keep an ear out for Blaire, waiting for him to still.

♦ ✦ ◆ ♦ ✦ ◆ ♦ ✦ ◆ ♦ ✦ ◆

(Jim takes Jay's items)
(Jim flees)
(other actions will be in death thread)