#ruleandkillrp

The gift came as he left to find Ariadne, drifting perfectly to the center of the path and coming to rest a few feet ahead of him.  He nearly tripped getting to it, his knees feeling weak and head spinning from dehydration. He tore open the cannister, nearly breaking the packet of trail mix that dropped to the pavement. For a half-second, he regarded it, wondered if something salty was a good idea. But the hunger took over, all thought stopped there as he ripped open the plastic and tipped half the bag into his mouth all at once. It took all of his self-restraint to fold up the plastic around the other half and pocket it for later. As he chewed, he snagged the piece of paper out of the bottom of the cannister, unfurling it. Abel. His chest ached with a pang of homesickness-- he’d kill for a good hug from him right now. Instead of encouragement or gentle kindness, though, he found something a little more direct. It is time to fight. As he swallowed the food down with difficulty, a sense of urgency settled over him. If Abel was telling him something like this, it meant he was close to the end. From home, there was always a turning point where the finale seemed close, right? This must be that point. He stood, imprints of the rough pavement still marking his knees. Sweat ran down his back at the shift, and he lifted his head to the nearest sign. Carnivore Cats, this way.

He was alone when the gift came drifting down from the cloudless sky. Mandi and Cain weren't far off though as he'd decided to drag his feet behind them. Their voices in the distance didn't bring him comfort so much as they anchored him to memories outside of these days. There was life outside of this arena and if he hung on just a little bit longer he just might see his way back to it.

Alder walked a long while after splitting from Marino, letting the tears fall once he was sure he was out of sight and the cover of darkness would keep the worse of his humiliation away from the cameras. He wept silently as he moved, but kept putting one foot in front of the other. Just a little further. Now just a little further more. To that tree. To that rock. Until the mountain peak disappeared behind this line of trees. He walked until the blisters on his feet were screaming and the last of his tears had long since dried to his face. Alder still felt raw, every emotion of the past two weeks sparking across his skin, his ribs, his heart, but his physical self could not possibly keep up any longer. He could not possibly continue to be contained by his weak body, the sorrow and rage might tear him apart, cell by cell. Once the moon had long-since dipped below the trees, he let himself climb into the relative safety of a tree to rest. In a way, it was comforting- the rough bark at his back and smell of pine needles and sap reminded him of home. He wished he could have showed it to Memphis. He would have probably had some stupid song about trees to sing about it or a thousand comments about the height of the trees. In a different life, he supposed, but Alder could hear Memphis’ ever-optimistic twang in his head. Alder wondered how long before that would fade. Before details about Memphis would begin to fade, leaving a blurry afterimage behind in the shape of him.  Maybe if Alder had done anything different, Memphis would still be here. If he hadn’t wandered up to the ninth floor in an anxiety-spurred panic. If he hadn’t been clumsy as hell and hit his stupid head, maybe they would have never bonded. Never been around each other. Maybe if Alder had cut it off in training, when he started to think he wasn’t going to play along.  Or what about after his training? His interview? When he’d unleashed his tongue without abandon and solidified that he was going to die, but he’d die with his truths. Alder had never intended to be around anyone else, to cause collateral damage. When Memphis came to visit him in the cell, he could have cut it off there. Said he operated alone, that he wasn’t looking for alliances. At the Bloodbath. At the spring. At the beach. After the lizard attack. All those times he was always thinking about how he was endangering the entire group, but never left under the pretenses of them needing him. But they didn’t, did they? What had he done for any of them? Star was dead because of his paranoia. Memphis was victim to the Gamemakers because of his mouth. Marino was the only one smart enough to walk away from it, to realize that Alder was a death sentence in here, the human personification of the “T’s” branding the skin of the failed rebels all those years ago.  Memphis was dead. It was his fault.  Alder rested his head back against the trunk, tipping his head up to the stars. “I’m sorry,” he said, though he wasn’t sure to who, exactly. Memphis. Star. His parents. His grandmother. All of the people who were working so hard out there to keep him breathing, and he continued to run his mouth against the Capitol. Perhaps they should abandon him in here, it would be what he deserved. Alder closed his eyes, starting to drift off. At first, the beeping seemed far away, a part of a dream he was floating into. But it drew closer, jolting him awake, and he cracked his eyes open suspiciously. What now? A parachute was caught in the branch above him. Surprised, he straightened and carefully detangled it from the twigs, balancing the box on his lap. It was big. He hadn’t been sent anything big, and he’d assumed that what little sponsor funds he’d managed to garner had been long since spent.  Tugging the top open, he caught the glint of sleek, modernly crafted steel sharpened into the only thing near a weapon he might consider familiar: an axe. He lifted it out, mouth agape, weighed it in his hands- far higher quality than anything he was used to back in Seven, and it surely must have costed a fortune.  A whiff of warm, rich food wafted out from the box, and Alder’s mouth immediately watered, the axe forgotten. There was something else. He opened a square tin, finding in it a meal the likes of which he’d never seen all at once back home, but foods staple to Seven all the same. Bread baked with rosemary. Blackberries, juicy and plump, like the kind that grew in wild, untamable bushes around the barbed wire boundaries of Seven. Cedar smoked salmon, a host of roasted hazelnuts. Home. It smelled like home, like better times, like sitting around a fire in November with his mom and dad as the rain pummeled the windows, his father reading aloud from one of the few cherished books they kept. The note was at the bottom, a little damp from the steam of the hot meal, but readable all the same from a whole list of people. From, all of us.

She didn’t know where Everett had gone, only that he’d gotten away from the two from One. She also knew that she’d need to keep vigilant to make sure Diana nor Onyx were able to have the element of surprise when they undoubtably came. Her whole face hurt and her arm hurt as well. Both were things she was trying to ignore.

The beeping alerted her to the parachute as she made her way away from the cornucopia. She paused and looked up, watching as the small box drifted towards her. She reached up once it was within reach and grabbed it, carefully opening the small box. She eyed the envelope before taking it out and dropping the box. It too was carefully opened, but not carefully enough as the glitter released into the air around her. She groaned as it settled over her in a fine powder. It didn’t even look like any less was in the envelope. She looked into the envelope and she pulled the small note out, quickly closing the envelope before anymore could escape. The note was shaken off, sending fine specks of glitter into the air around her. 

❞ A MASSIVE SHOUTOUT to this ACTIVE, OC HUNGER GAMES roleplay !! I wish you guys the very best of luck !! Xoxo ( 5/5 )

Sitting, covered in vomit, is not the way that one ever wants to appear on television. It makes you seem weak, it makes it seem like you can’t handle the situations that are thrown at you. But the uncooked meat has left the taste of disappointment and resentment in her mouth, and she will do anything to get rid of it.

When the parachute falls, it takes a fair amount of strength to look up at it, to let her eyes follow its path instead of glazing over with fatigue. She wants to rest, she wants so desperately to fall asleep, but there is no one to watch her back besides Hunter, who only comes around to check in on her every once in a while, who seemed like he’d be the first to plunge the knife into her back while watching it.

It lands lightly in her lap, and she reads the note, barely able to get a smile onto her face in response.

It’s from mom, of course it is, and it fills her heart with a warm feeling that she was not used to having in her body. Almost as warm as the vomit that’s stained her clothing.

The canteen is much appreciated, and she chugs in down, clearing her mouth of the dry and disgusting feeling that overwhelmed it.

She had heard the cannons, there were five left, it wouldn’t be long now before she knew her fate, saving resources seemed idiotic. With the two canteens she had now accumulated, she slowly walks towards the water, talking the shirt off and soaking it in the liquid.

While the shirt is slowly dampening, she fills the canteens with water and pours it over her body, washing her hair of the dried blood and bits of animal flesh that were still in it, washing her skin clear of the reminders of the horrific act she had been forced to commit.