flicker [leviathans d2]

[Avalon]

stella summit

district seven

let the skyfall
when it crumbles

---

The memory of the beast slicing for my direction, it'd been one- two- two times it'd miss, and surely left me unscathed. It'd been one- two- three attacks aimed towards me, and finally on the third it created a shallow slice along my neck. And although it had made its mark on me, I had left my mark on its partner, taking its life without mercy or remorse. But it was what I had to do, and perhaps it's what is gonna get me through and out of here alive. There's always that slight possibility, and it is slim, but not impossible.


Scarlet drops of blood bead down my neck and it's simply wiped away by the clutched cloth in my fist. It hadn't burned in even the slightest bit, I've grown so accustomed to mere slices and cuts over the years. It was something more of a motivation for me, for it pushed me further and further on the brink of surviving. I could feel the poison coursing through my veins ever so slightly, but it's not something I will succumb to. I refuse. I am stronger than that.


Running- running- running-
My feet stampede against the ground, as though I was several wild animals running from danger through plains. Looking forward and never turning back in the eyes of the enemy, for you can only look forward, because if you look back then you'll slip. And when you slip, you'll fall. Checking to see if the beast was still following me was not of my concern, mainly because it should know better, it would surely end up alongside its partner. Dead.


As the drops of rain hit against my skin it all starts mixing together. The blood, sweat and rain all mix into one, and the thought made me internally cringe. I had to persevere, for it didn't matter that I was just electrocuted, the shocks still surging through my body, numbness taking over ever so slightly at times. It didn't matter that poison was running wild through my bloodstream, one that could send me towards the ground at any given time, with a cannon to follow. It didn't matter that I was running wild alone, for I would find my allies- my family and we'll get through this together once again.


My breathing becomes heaving and the fire that burns throughout flickers through my lungs. The fiery sensation takes its toll and moves onward to my limbs, burning them all the same. It was as though at any second I would succumb to it all, but that was something I refused, and I had to keep persistence. My running slows and my heart beats pick up rapidly in its place. [Is this the end? Am I going to go out so easily? What would Margaret do? She didn't go out without a fight. Just hang in there.]

["Stella, you can do it. Just hang in there. I believe in you."]

Hours- Minutes- Seconds-
They all blend together into a mixture of one. And it is within that eternity that I rub my eyes, my vision becoming blurrier and blurrier. It was once I spotted them that I knew it was true, nothing like a mirage, my vision wasn't deceiving me. My memory glitches back to the vivid memory of their disappearance into the distance, while I bought them time to run. To run, and keep running. It was truly a miracle-

"Are you guys alright now? We ought-a get you guys patched up."

They are the first ones on my mind, and surely I'd put them before myself any time.

---

we will stand tall
face it all together
at skyfall

table by anzie

[brad bradford ★ d5b [arx]]

Simon Karnes

I once dreamed I could fly. I mean, what kid doesn’t? It’s such a universal dream in this world to simply uproot your feet from the ground and float off into some new fantasyland. A place where your parents aren’t divorced or where houses are made of chocolate. Some place where everything your young mind has ever imagined can come true with little more than a blink of an eye. But it’s only in our dreams that we can ever fly; our heavy bones and unfledged limbs keep us grounded to reality and away from serenity.

We’re stuck here where some cuts leaves scars and most leave gaping holes. We try to keep our blood from pouring out but neglect the little pieces of our souls that drift away and die with every blow. I’ve tried hard to keep myself together. But it seems the universe is out to get me. Slowly I’m dying. Bit by bit, piece by piece, I’m being torn to shreds. Poison pumping through my veins, electricity crippling me, and now nothing but fear, fear, fear keeping me alert. Every lump in the ground is a landmine, every wire laced with an electric current.

The blood that runs down Kiena's back looks worse now that we have been running stumbling away for some time now. It looks---not good. Not good at all. I don’t mind when gravity pulls me to the ground. I just lay, face down on the ground for a moment, listening to the buzzing of the power lines that criss-cross around us. It’s only when I hear approaching footsteps that I scramble to turn myself over, reaching for the blades I had shoved away into my bag.

“Are you guys alright now? We ought-a get you guys patched up.”

My arm twitches and the blades fall to the ground as I grumble in pain. I nod at her in an attempt to save my breath. I lift my bag off of my shoulder, grimacing the whole way as I dump the entirety of the contents on the ground. With blurred vision I find the antivenom. I extend it in Stella’s direction.

“Alright, but---you first,” I manage through labored breaths. “Don’t wanna---blind girl tryna---use a needle.” I manage a chuckle of sorts, looking to the both of them from where I sit on the ground. “That sounds---deadly.”

It's the closest my ego will let me get to saying, 'Thank you.'

{Gives antivenom to Stella.}

[Stare]

20:37:32OO

you better fire off your gun
once and forever
he said go dry your eyes
and live your life like there is no tomorrow

We run with the rhythm of a broken machine.

Poison is like rust. It sets in slowly. You shouldn’t be able to feel it yet. I swear I do, though. I feel it riding my veins like their highways, invading my flesh and searing itself against my bones. My heart is a traitor, every beat telling it to go, go, go until it’s everywhere, in my fingertips and behind my eyes and wrapping around my lungs. Even at our fumbling pace, it doesn’t take long for exhaustion to join in and make my joints feel like loose gears grinding and shaking against each other. It’s hard for me to focus much, my head light and movements often uncertain. Blood loss. You’re running out of fuel.

There are some moments when Simon is the only thing that keeps me moving. Simon and the memories of a beautiful girl covered in blood, fading before my eyes. I couldn’t get Rowan out in time. I will never make that mistake again. My arm tightens around Simon, knees straightening to push him up a bit, and we soldier on. Stella stayed back, bought us time. It won’t be too difficult for her to find us. We leave an obvious trail of blood and the alarming smell of burnt flesh behind us.

It feels like it’s been hours when I finally lose my grip on Simon and we both tumble to the ground. My hammering heart feels like it might come up out of my throat. I want to speak, but the words get all tangled in my mouth. Keep moving. We have to keep moving. But Ripred, I almost would rather just die here. Better to go sleeping than running, convinced that life is just one more step away when really death is already nipping at your heels. I hear a sound - a thud, maybe - and lift my head, gaze unfocused. It’s a package that I recognize from previous Games, and for a moment I’m brought back to life, my hands shaking as I grab at it. I can barely hold it still enough to get the needle to pierce my flesh. Then I just lie there, chest heaving, wild eyes trying to find patterns in the false sky while my fingers grasp desperately at the ground.

It’s Stella that finally ends the madness, crashing toward us with blood splattered over her and for a moment I’m terrified that she’s like Rowan. Broken. Too broken. But no, she’s moving, she’s functioning, she’s talking. I move toward her as if in a dream, eyes wide. She’s been cut. She’s been infected. I stumble a few steps but find my balance swiftly returning, my eyes meeting hers. Scared. She’s so scared.

I take the antivenom from Simon’s hand and place my hand gently on her shoulder, guiding her down into a seated position. I pull out her arm and turn it over, tracing over the veins with one finger. “Gears can’t turn if they’re too rusty. It seems like such a small thing, but it gets everywhere after a while and the whole machine falls apart. Hard to get rid of, too, unless you have the proper materials.” She’s shaking. I grip the arm more tightly with one hand and hold the antivenom up with the other. It will only take a second for her to recognize the needle, so I move quickly and make the injection as swift as possible. Once it’s over with I offer up an almost-smile. “System took quite a shock, didn’t it? Too much electricity can suspend functionality, but operations will be running normally again shortly. In the meantime some parts may seem especially stiff.” My eyes catch on a bit of burned flesh and I grimace, rummaging around until I find a needle and some thread. “Some manual fixes should speed up the process, though.”

I don’t know how long I go on that way, patching her up and talking in what must sound like gibberish. I keep my hands steady, bracing against the way she shakes, and sometimes my voice drops off into hushing noises like my mama would make when I was very young. At one point the mutt she managed to befriend comes up, too, and my first real smile of the day makes an appearance. It doesn’t last long as I finish, my eyes meeting Stella’s again and then darting away. I draw back awkwardly and start on myself, doing what I can to ease the pain in my back. The bleeding seems to have slowed, but it still burns like the claws remain embedded in the flesh.

I don’t know what it is that inspires me to speak. Maybe it’s the silence, so tangible it seems to swallow us whole. “There’s a legend back in Three.” It’s so sudden, so strange and out of place, that I feel my face heat up immediately. I keep going, though, because my breaths are limited and I might as well use them to do something other than mutter nonsense. “They say that the clock tower was built on an unmarked grave from the war. The workers never felt right about it, especially when a young man was killed during construction. Everyone thought it was the ghosts taking their revenge, and that the dead worker now haunts the tower. They say he’s the one that makes all the clanging noises up there in the morning, and if you see candlelight up near the top it’s him trying to find the grave so he can free the souls trapped down there.” I pause, tucking in the end of the bandage I’d been using and glancing up. “They must have been so disappointed when they realized that their ghost was really just a scrawny seventeen year old girl, huh?”

I never believed in those legends, promising nightmares to anyone who bothered to listen. They were just ways to make life seem less dark and miserable.

This is where the real ghosts are.

we are the heroes of our time
but we're dancing with the demons in our minds
we are the heroes of our time
heroes

[Kiena receives and uses antivenom from sponsorship
Kiena stitches up and gives medicinal plants to Stella
Kiena receives three bundles of medicinal plants from Stella
Kiena eats one bundle of medicinal plants for -2
Kiena uses 5ft of bandages on herself for -1
Kiena uses first aid on Simon for -3
Kiena uses N/T on herself for -5]

[Avalon]

stella summit

district seven

let the skyfall
when it crumbles

---

“Alright, but---you first-”

“Don’t wanna---blind girl tryna---use a needle.”

“That sounds---deadly.”

Through labored laughs and struggling chuckles, I could tell Simon was holding onto life and I couldn't blame him. Me and him are almost one in the same, suffering from poison and electricity that surges through out bloodstream. However, he'd suffered it much worse.


The searing pain of the cut felt unbearable. It wasn't hard to tell that swelling was already beginning around the broken flesh. The crimson blood that once beaded down my neck was now smudged against my skin, leaking towards my chest. I'd been applying pressure to the area to stop the flow of blood, but it was futile, for a mix of blood and slight puss from the toxin was overtaking.


I watch as Kiena reaches towards Simon's extended hand and wraps her delicate fingers around an injection of sorts. It was then that a parachute sailed from the sky, still wrapped in it's shiny, silver metal casing. One from the origin of the Capitol, something for me, and how I was grateful. Levi, the word that I had befriended during the first day here, had caught the parachute in it's beak, and brought it gently into the palm of my hands. It was like receiving a gift on your birthday, and not knowing what it could be. Unwrapping the casing I open it to reveal a needle and thread that fit perfectly inside.


Kiena takes me in her hands, tracing over the poison filled veins that bulge from the cut, even slightly. Her gently touch is warming and comforting, and I couldn't help but relax in her presence. Her finger tips tenderly graze over the entirety of the vein along the only arm that functioned properly. 

“Gears can’t turn if they’re too rusty. It seems like such a small thing, but it gets everywhere after a while and the whole machine falls apart. Hard to get rid of, too, unless you have the proper materials.”

And it is with one- two- three-
I feel the needle of the injection slide swiftly into my skin and I begin shaking even more. It was a natural reaction, involuntarily. I hate needles, I have hated them since a very young age, and I couldn't come up with a reason, but they're terrifying. And it is involuntary. A slip of a drop escapes from my eye, creating a salty trail down the apple of my cheek and stopping only for a slight second. It slips down my cheek, ending at my jawline, before falling to my jacket clothing beneath.

“System took quite a shock, didn’t it? Too much electricity can suspend functionality, but operations will be running normally again shortly. In the meantime some parts may seem especially stiff.”

Her words and how she described things were odd, but interesting and somehow comforting to me. It was how she coped with the world around her, and I admired her. For we all have our own ways of coping. She offers up a slight smile, one that reassured me that she had us in her best interests, and I smile slightly back. It was then that her eyes traced over the burned skin that electricity had flickered it's way through.

“Some manual fixes should speed up the process, though.”

Handing her the needle and thread, she begins to patch me up. The pain was almost unbearable as before, but Kiena's delicate hands and her way of working took my concentration from it all. Levi flutters down upon my shoulder gently, and I watch her face light up before flushing away just as fast as it had come.

“There’s a legend back in Three.
They say that the clock tower was built on an unmarked grave from the war. The workers never felt right about it, especially when a young man was killed during construction. Everyone thought it was the ghosts taking their revenge, and that the dead worker now haunts the tower. They say he’s the one that makes all the clanging noises up there in the morning, and if you see candlelight up near the top it’s him trying to find the grave so he can free the souls trapped down there."

Her voice trails off and we're in silence for only but a few mere seconds, before it picks up again. She tucks her bandage inward, then glances upward once again.

“They must have been so disappointed when they realized that their ghost was really just a scrawny seventeen year old girl, huh?”

Her story finishes and we're back in the dead silence. But it gives me the inspiration to speak.

"You know, we have this legend back in Seven of our own-", I lean in closer towards Kiena and Simon, adding on full effect. "It's said that decades ago, deep in one of the forests, there lays a log cabin. One that was owned by a lumberjack, one who worked excessively,  day and night around he would work alone in the woods that surrounded the log cabin. But it wasn't for money. No. He worked to extend his house further and further.", my voice trails off for a second to fully think over the words that blur out of my mouth, "Legend has it that he was a loving father and husband, and everything seemed normal until one day- he cracked. It was through his drunken fits that it all twisted downhill. It's said that the wife disappeared, no one knows what happened to her.", I sense my voice becoming more and more tense and a giant gulp is what pulls me through. "As for the daughter, he'd locked her in a single room, one with a barrier of four walls that held her inside. They say that as years passed on he had finally buried the hatchet in her, ending her years of twisted torture. Throughout the years the man worked on his house excessively to rid of the thoughts and voices that infiltrated his mind since- before he got sick of it all and killed- him- self. And now if you go towards the log cabin you'll hear the voice of the dead little girl. On the left side of the cabin lies a lone window, where the girl would view the outside world she never had the chance to venture to. And in that room with a lone window lied a lone door, one that remained locked, with the knob missing from it's hole. And in that room remained a dead girl who lived her everyday life inside of her imagination."

"I hope she finds peace wherever she is now."

My voice trails off and we once again remain in utter silence, I could feel my throat tensing up and the urge to hold back whatever that tried to slip out from my eyes were failing. But I had to hold them back, because I am strong. Not weak. I am no longer the dead girl who's trapped inside her room, surrounded by four walls that hold me caged.

I have finally escaped.

---

we will stand tall
face it all together
at skyfall

table by anzie

[brad bradford ★ d5b [arx]]

Simon Karnes

Kiena takes the injection from my hand and begins with her always straight forward analysis of the situation. I take a deep breath, willing myself to relax. But after the shock - the literal shock - fear has been the only real motivation for me to keep going. Fear and pain and the simple fact that it seemed my allies weren’t willing to let me die. At least not yet. The span of time since Rowan’s death has been too short. Too much death all at once leaves holes in the heart.

I reach for some of my bandages, starting in on my arm where blood slowly seeps out. My vision is still blurred but somehow I manage to wrap a good bit around the burning cut on my skin before a pair of parachutes land nearby. The contents include another injection and I immediately jam the needle into my skin and push the plunger all the way down before tossing the empty container aside. It works almost immediately; I hear only silence.

I reach for the needle and thread in the next sponsored package, starting in on the burns I’m just not sure how to heal. But then the silence breaks, Kiena’s voice overpowering even the constant buzz from the powerlines.

“There’s a legend back in Three.”

I blink in her direction, just a sidelong glance, confusion racking my mind. I listen intently as she continues. Her words thread into sentences and her sentences into a story as flawlessly as the my needle glides through my skin. By the time I tie off the end of my thread, her story has concluded; the smile that had crawled onto my face falls slowly. I’m not home. This is not home.

But for a moment it felt like it. The moment her story started my mind had spun up images in my head of a long lost soul clanging and moaning in the elegant clock towers I was certain Three constructed. I could see the fear on the faces of the workers who worked there. I was worker, high up in the tower, my hands greasy and overalls tattered watching candlelight flicker above me, and waiting to get a glimpse of the ghost of a war vet who had been striking fear into the hearts of my coworkers. And then, as the candlelight illuminated Kiena’s face, the suspense simply disintegrates into nothing.

I want so badly to chuckle; I hold it in, shaking the comfort her story brought me away.

Odds are it’ll get me blown up or electrocuted again.

But just as soon as Kiena’s voice ceases, Stella is telling a story of her own and I imagine a burly looking lumberjack, chopping and chopping and chopping. A cabin grows and grows before my eyes, the landscape growing darker and darker as I approach its entrance. The door swings open and a deranged man, no longer a father of any kind, swings a hatchet at a screaming girl. My dream-like self blinks and the cabin is empty. A soft voice comes from behind a closed door. A rusty lock keeps her tethered inside. I peer through the hole where a knob should be seeing only the back of a little girl’s head. She stares out a window.

“I hope she finds peace wherever she is now.”

I look up from the ground where my gaze had been falling. Stella sits quietly now. My eyes dance across her phantom arm before my focus returns to the ground. The story was a bit dark for my taste, much darker than that of Kiena’s, but a good story all the same. I swallow the lump in my throat and begin to tend to my burns again.

“So, uh,” I begin, only a shortness of breath holding me back now. “I once read a story about a little girl.”

“She wasn’t just some ordinary girl though. This girl had wings. She didn’t like to show them off, but everyone noticed them all the same. She was the gem of the District, a bit of light shining in the darkness. She soared through the clouds for the crowds of onlookers, gave rides to her peers, and used her wings to help her family pick apples from the very tip-tops of the trees in their orchard. Everyone adored her.”

“Everyone but one. There was a dark spirit who was jealous of the little girl. This spirit had been condemned to enduring endless rage since the beginning of time. He had been placed in a cage in the clouds, a place where not one single being would ever be able to let him out. At least, not until the day the little girl with the wings flew up to his cage.”

“Of course the girl didn’t know of the evil hidden inside this spirit. And of course the spirit exploited the goodness only a young and naive child has. She unlocked his cage and brought him home for some pie unaware that with each wingbeat the spirit grew more and more jealous.”

“The girl introduced the spirit to her family, fed him pie, and offered him a room to stay the night. The spirit smiled at her family, thanked her for the pie, and with a full belly, went straight to bed with a sly grin on his face and a knife hidden behind his back.”

“The girl’s brother knocked on her door in the middle of the night, cracking the door open with the sly grin of the dark spirit on his face. He pulled a knife from behind his back and clamped his hand over his sister’s mouth even before she could scream. And the spirit in possession of her brother’s body, sawed off her wings before leaving the knife buried in her heart.”

“To this day the spirit lives within the little girl’s brother, laughing at the boy who was too weak to resist the temptation of rage.”

I finish with my bandaging just as I finish up my story, taking a deep breath after having to huff out so many words. But it seems now that my heart and lungs are finally cooperating again. I try to wiggle my toes. They refuse to move.

And the rage makes me growl.

{Simon collects 3 bundles of medicinal plants & uses one on himself.}
{Simon uses First Aid on himself.}
{Simon uses N/T and 5ft of bandages on himself.}
{Simon receives anti-venom from sponsorship & gives it to Stella.}
{Simon uses a bundle of medicinal herbs on himself.}
{Simon accepts First Aid from Kiena.}
{Simon says touch your toes.}
{Simon says hop on one foot.}