Forum Thread

The sharp barks and the sudden bite was enough to wake Rui up, even through the overwhelming exhaustion. She woke up with a gasp followed by heaving breaths, retracting the bitten arm as soon as the pain settled in. At first she was scared and confused, wondering what had happened and why her hand hurt. She then looked at the bite marks, then Laili. Why would she bite her? The sudden realization kicked in that the nightmare might have made her react in a way that worried her? She raised her hand to pet Laili as a thanks, unsure of what to do now. She was still exhausted but she couldn’t go back to sleep, and boredom would overtake her if she just sat there

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Mare quietly excused herself. She had to leave, she had to get away. Her head was ringing, and she couldn't think straight. Sprinting away from the icey area she was in, she doesn't stop running until she reaches the forest. Sinking to the ground, Mare finally lets the suppressed memories pull her under.


Please note, this may be mildly disturbing, triggering and most likely gruesome.

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A dark figure moves through the streets of the Capitol. He wears dark clothing, not to hide, but to stand out. Eyes fall on this suspicious looking male, then they widen, to see the multiple men and women walking behind this young leader. They are all older than him, their faces hardened by years of suffering. Some have scars, some have burns, others have broken noses that have never been fixed. A few are missing a few fingers and two are missing arms. A few lucky ones have no physical wounds.

A few citizens step inside, but the bravest stand just outside their houses to watch The Liberated march through the streets. The leader, Milo, keeps an eye out for any sign of danger, his gaze narrowing in suspicion when he sees nothing.

Finally, they reach the main Capitol building, right where the Games are taken care of. Here, is where the Tributes were held and where the arena is able to be manipulated. They don't know it right now, but there is a temporary bug, a hack that they placed. For a single hour, they won't be able to control the arena. Milo prays that that'll be enough. More importantly, here, is also where the Capitol leader hides.

The street is empty. Standing in front of the doors is an army of Peacemakers. Milo smirks at this. He takes a step forward and watches as one of them flinch. "Here it is!" He shouts. "Our window of opportunity!" A tazer shoots out towards Milo. The long metal strings are like tentacles, desperately reaching for Milo. He bends his back down, watching as they sail over him, missing him. He rolls underneath it and back onto his feet with alarming speed. "Fight! Now!" Milo demands. He and The Liberated race forward, Milo being the first one to meet a Peacemaker. The Liberated will make quick work of this. This fight is just a warm up for when they reach the inside.

But alarmingly, this attack is nothing but a distraction, a window of opportunity, as Milo declared.

After a long nap, Lesia had managed to recover a considerable amount of strength. She still wasn’t 100%, but at least she could move correctly now. She slowly tried to get up, allowing the dust that accumulated over her to fall off, but something was wrong. She noticed that something was messing up her arms, whether it be the long exposure to cold or the large amount of dust, she wasn’t sure. She could barely move them properly, which was a major problem. If someone came up to her and attacked her, she would be at a large disadvantage, and that wasn’t ideal. She tried her best to fix them the way she always did, but she never had to deal with extreme conditions like this. She tried cleaning them, she tried taking apart some of it and putting it back together, but it didn’t seem to be working that well. “Dammit!” Her arms slumped down beside her as she leaned against the wall, making a loud clank that echoed through the temple along with her voice. Well... that wasn’t a good idea. If anyone was around, they would definitely know she was here now. She decided that she should at least have a look around, hoping she wouldn’t run into anyone. She went inside, carefully scanning the area to see what was inside. She didn’t know Akiro and Chelsea were here, and she had yet to encounter them

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Chelsea awoke with a small start, hearing the loud clank echoing off of the sandstone. After a moment, she nudged Akiro. "I heard something," she whispered. She was still leaning on him, wrapped in his arms. It was comfortable and warm, but there was something somewhere nearby. Likely, something bad. The only good thing at this moment was Akiro, and Chelsea recognized that.

Something felt... off. She wasn’t sure if it was just because the temple was all ominous or something, but she knew something was wrong. She began to have goosebumps and she continued searching, not looking all too deep in wherever she did so. The longer she stayed here, the more she began to feel a presence. Her and her naive mind kept thinking it was ghosts, but something told her it was unlikely. Sure, Mare existed, but she was all the way back in the tundra, or at least she still thought she was. There couldn’t be any ghosts here... right?

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Akiro was normally a deep sleeper, but Chelsea's nudge combined with the dreamless sleep woke him up. "Hmm?" He blinked his eyes opened, immediately forcing himself to wake up as he had for years. After a few seconds, he sat up a bit. "What was it?" He was serious about wanting to protect her, and so his mind was already racing despite only have just woken up.

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"Not sure." She glanced around, then whispered, "We should probably figure out what it was. It wasn't a small animal, more like metal hitting the stone." Turning back to look at Akiro, she waited for his input. If he thought it was a poor idea, she wouldn't press it. It he thought that they should, she'd sprint around the area and figure it out, so they could return to their comfort.

After a while she began to hear faint talking, but she couldn’t pinpoint where it was coming from or who was saying it. She kept having trouble getting around due to the lack of her arms, but at least she wasn’t stumbling like an idiot. Now that she had the thought of ghosts being in here, she now worried about embarrassing herself for some reason. Pretty weird considering there were much bigger things at hand, but Lesia wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. She decided not to call out, confirming if something was really there, knowing it might cause a bigger problem

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"When I got here, it was about noon, and as far as I can tell, hours have passed. Unless you have an exact time of when the mobs start coming out, any sounds could be dangerous and I don't want to risk your safety, especially if it was metal. That might be someone's weapon." He was already starting to get nervous, he didn't want to disturb this perfect moment and it seemed like he wasn't going to ever have something good in his life until Chelsea came. And if she got hurt..Akiro didn't want to think about how much that would hurt him.

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Her arms kept hitting the loose sandstone, scaring her half to death each time. The echo was already bad enough, she didn’t need to make it worse. She heard even more talking, still not really understanding what it. Well, one word managed to come through clearly. “Weapon”. A chill went down her spine as she froze, even more scared of what was in here.

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Chelsea thought over the new idea, pondering over his words. "There's an iron sword in one of the chests. I polished it and took off the rust, so it's good and sharp. We can take that and look around. If danger arises, we'll have at least a little defense." She glanced at the chests, then saw the one that was open, just barely. The handle of the sword kept the lid up. Standing up was the most painful thing she'd ever done, because Akiro's arms needed to release her. Opening the chest, she grabbed the sword gently, lifting it without making a sound.

Lesia walked around until she found a strange pattern on the floor, which raised her suspicions. She had never seen one of these before and she wasn’t sure about what to do. Of course, her curiosity got the best of her and she moved forwards, looking to inspect it. As soon as she did, she noticed a hole, one that didn’t look like was supposed to be here. So that means... someone was already here... The bad thing was, she didn’t know if they still were. She knelt down and moved closer to the hole, wondering what it lead to. As soon as she did, she let out a gasp and nearly jumped back, unable to clamp her hands over her mouth like she usually would. She only got a quick glance but she could tell that there were 2 people down there and an iron sword.

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Chelsea yelped, then looked up. She glanced at Akiro, then gripped the ladder and started up slowly, sword at the ready. Every muscle in her body was tensed, ready to duck back or lunge forward. Glancing down at Akiro, she took a breath. Then, she poked her head out of the floor, ducking back immediately. There was indeed somebody up there.

She listened as the sounds of someone climbing a ladder got louder and louder, each step inducing more and more fear. She backed away from the pattern and almost yelped when she noticed a familiar face rise out of the hole before disappearing once again. Was that... Chelsea? It was very hard to tell, since she wasn’t good with faces, but that didn’t call her nerves down. From the little she had seen from her, Chelsea was dangerous. She didn’t want to cross paths with her in the arena, but fate just loved to play tricks on her

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Akiro also got to his feet, sliding the dagger from his bag. He wouldn't use it, most likely, but it made him feel...a little less useless. He watched her climb the latter, and said quietly, "What did you see?" He braced himself for any answer, but he had no idea what could have made that noise. And if she had ducked down so quickly, that raised even more questions. Was it another Tribute?

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"Somebody's up there," she whispered. After a moment, she looked back up. "Uhm..." After a moment, she continued. "I'm not sure who you are, but we don't want to hurt you." She had clearly never done this before. Her words were slow and questionable, as if she weren't sure what she was saying.

Akiro's grip around the dagger tightened, and he could hear the hesitancey in her voice. From what he could gather, the tribute's level of danger was still unkown. But once he was able to see said tribute, hopefully he could at least guess at their intentions. He didn't trust any of the other tributes besides Chelsea, and he was still tense, waiting for the person's response.

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She began to calm down after hearing that, but was still very skeptical and nervous. She was always told to never trust anyone if she ever got into the games, and she needed to put that knowledge to use now. “We?” She hesitantly asked, her voice slightly shaky. Sure, she had seen two people down there, but confirmation made her feel a bit better. Besides, this wasn’t a good situation for her. If the two were lying, she was up against them with no arms and very little energy, she would definitely get killed. But... if they really didn’t want to hurt her...

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Chelsea poked her head out again, through the sword wasn't at the ready as it had been. "Err, yes.. Akiro and I-" She broke off, glancing down. Blushing, she quickly crawled out of the hole and let Akiro out. Quietly, she muttered, "Hope you enjoyed the view.. Sorry about that Akiro." She stopped talking then, clearly embarrassed and unwilling to continue with trying to speak with the other Tribute.