verbatim // hunter-gatherer, day one.

[✨ zozo.]

My knuckles scream, red and raw and thumping underneath the impact of two cracked noses. Even when my legs give out from under me and I collapse into a pile of colourful pebbles I can't bear to open up my fists. They might be broken - then I'm screwed. And once I know I'm screwed I'm going to panic, and then once I panic I'll be good as dead.

Boom!

Like them.

God I hope it's not Nikolai. There's nobody around, not behind me or where I was headed, so the kids who's faces I socked surely aren't coming back for more. I've never punched anybody, not ever - even if the first one was an accident more than an act of violence. Least I kept my thumb out from inside my fingers on the second swing - it'd surely be shattered. Call it instinct, call it saving my own skin, but the second punch was definitely meant to hurt. I needed those knives more than they did. And I needed my life to last a second longer in the moment.

So sue me. It's the fucking Hunger Games, what'd they expect?

The knife still sits clutched in my fist, purple and blue and shining in the light like the bruises on my knuckles. Slowly I unfurl one finger, then another, and another, braving for the hot flinch of broken fingers - but it does not come. The knife glistens in the light, passed from hand to hand - neither broken. I’ve still got a chance in this hellscape. Even when I collapse into the pebbles and realise I’m still alive and breathing and the sobs of relief roll through my chest it stays in my hands. Better safe than sorry.

No more canon-fire. When I was growing up the Bloodbath was the deadliest part of the games, but it seems the Gamemakers have scared us a little too well - we all avoid it as best we can. I don’t blame them for running like I did, but the weight of silence and how many it means are still alive hangs heavy against my shoulders.

Hours pass and I count pebbles until I hit the hundreds, turn a few in my hands and realise they’re gemstones and marvel at how many are here. I wonder if they’re real, and I wonder how much they’re worth, and I think about how just a handful would have set Mom and Dad up for life if they were the real deal. Dad wouldn’t have had to work in the factories. He wouldn’t have been there when it collapsed. He’d still be ali-

My eyes squeeze shut tightly but it’s not enough. The tears sneak out anyway, hot and angry, and I pull my knees up to my chest and hold myself close in comfort because I am alone, until I’m not, and then I’ll be dead. Like Dad.

Maybe that won’t be so bad.

A scrunching of boots in piles of gems scratches past my ears and I freeze, waiting for the sound to pass. But it only gets closer, approaching me quickly, and in a flourry of limbs and panic I remember where I am and scramble up to my feet, tripping over and losing my balance for a moment - these damn boots will be the death of me.

"D-don't come any closer!" I stutter, whirring my body around to face the noise. The tip of my knife points to the boy from Five, the wolf in a pack of lions. I look a mess, strands of curls escaping from my ponytail and red cheeks flushed with evidence of my earlier grief. But I stand my ground anyway, even with the shaking in my hands, and stare him right in the eyes.

"Seriously!" I add, prodding the knife toward him and silently begging that he makes it quick.

and all you can hear
is the sound of your own heart
and all you can feel is your lungs flood
and the blood course

lyrics

steel runs into kenji!
leisure time for -3
- collects geode morning star (spiked blunt)
- collects flint
- collects right vambrace & equips!

[lance]

KENJI

A cannon sounded behind you as you tore away from the conflict, running like hell out into the unknown. You may have survived - no, even thrived in the part where everyone was doing naught but throwing fists, for that was your domain, your specialty, your comfort.

But then the blades and other weapons had come out, and in that, you were out of your depth. Sure, you had been mostly ignored - only one boy had managed to land a punch on your body - but there was a different between tossing fists around, where it would take a lucky shot to kill anyone, and swinging around blades and blunts all around, where someone could be fine one moment and completely dead the next.

And if the cannon that sounded at your back was any indication, you'd made the correct decision.

So you run at a healthy pace until the Cornucopia is but a speck in the distance behind you before slowing to a walk, heart pumping and breaths taken in quick and shallow. Eventually, your breathing evens out, and the ground underneath you transforms from graves and patchy grass to, well, shiny things. Lots and lots of sharp, shiny, green things.

Back and forth you look as you step gingerly from patch to patch, up and down the seemingly never ending wave of green. Then, you see it - one patch of the ground that was distinctly not glittering green in nature, but more rock-y in comparison.

Your curiosity gets the better of you, and you go to investigate. But before you can, a voice shatters the relative silence you'd grown accustomed to.

"D-don't come any closer!"

It's a familiar voice too, laced with fear, and you turn to find the girl from Eight standing a few feet away. Her face looks red and puffy, as if she'd just had a severe allergy attack or was - crying, maybe?

"Seriously!" And a knife is pointed in your direction with trembling hands.

If you were a Career or someone with more psychopathic or villainous tendencies, you'd figured this would be a good time to laugh maniacally and then strike forth without a second thought. But that's not your style. And this girl, even if she would have been a worthy opponent in her peak condition, was hardly suitable for any sort of fight right now.

And quite frankly? You don't want to fight, either. It's far too early in the Games to worry about that sort of shit.

"Easy there, Steel. Steel, right?" you say, holding both hands up, palms flat against an invisible wall. "Last thing I wanna do right now is fight anyone."

NAKAMURA

[✨ zozo.]

WIP FILLER HELLO, i will have wifi in like 15 hours!!

steel holds her knife in the air for a second longer, but then drops it oit of exhaustion. “Okay,” a deep sigh. “Okay. Sorry, I’m just a little on edge.”

notices kenji is hurt, “Here,” motions him to walk towards her. “You’re hurt, let me help you.” doesnt let go of the knife but helps tend to his wounds quietly.

“I’m shit with names - starts with a K, right?”

warms up to kenji a little! eventually finds the RE sword - reads the inscription. “Wonder what it means...“ flips it over to read KILL OR BE KILLED.

swallows glumly, looks up to the sky. “Right. Thanks for the reminder.”