thecapitol | (no subject)

Who? Adachi and you.
What? Adachi wakes up after dying, and having some serious nightmares.
Where? District 1 suite and common room; eventually maybe going out if someone drags him out.
When? After he's been restored.
WARNINGS: Adachi has some pretty freaky nightmares... not without good reason though.

Things were a lot more grisly than he remembered.

Saki's scream cut through his head as she was dragged down into darkness, clawing desperately at the ground to try and stay in the world of the living. The dark hands that had a hold on her were having none of that, ripping and tearing away at her as she was dragged down. Adachi jumped as he watched dumbly, her blood splattering against his suit, at a completely loss as to why this was happening. He fumbled forward blindly, trying to reach for her, but he wasn't paying attention to his feet, and...

"Dammit, Adachi!" Dojima bellowed, knocking him aside. The hands that had been reaching for him grabbed his partner instead, and Dojima fell over toward another waiting hand. The black claw pierced right through Dojima's chest, and it was vacant eyes that stared up at Adachi as he was dragged into darkness.

Adachi could only stare at where Dojima had been, where Saki had been, at a loss for how to even respond. He turned his gaze up to where the reason for all this was, but he couldn't see her through the thick fog that choked the area... at least, not until a storm of knives shot out of the fog, one of them stabbing straight through his throat. He raised a shaking hand to the hilt press against his throat, as the goddess' form came into view and the hands came up for him, dragging him down into death...

Adachi shot upright in his bed at the Capitol, feeling like his heart was going to shoot straight out of his chest. His hands went up to his throat and his face, and... there was nothing. No knife, not even a scar; he was perfectly fine, other than the mental scars left behind from experiencing death... again.

He fought against the urge to be sick at the thought, forcing himself out of bed to see if anyone else was around. Was he the only one assigned to District One that ended up dead? He had no idea... and a part of him didn't want to find out. If Howard or even that pink haired girl he had encountered when flitting back and forth into Fantasyland had ended up dead, he'd have never forgiven himself for failing so badly.

"Dammit..." he muttered under his breath, pulling on some clothes before heading out to the common room.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Eva's out in the common room, leafing through a book of short stories with the cover replaced by the title leaflet of one of those trashy romance novels so popular in the Capitol, for those few people who still read paper books instead of using tablets and the like. Her eyes are lined with severe dark makeup that looks slashed across her face; an antler is done up in her fancy braided updo. Other than that her Capitol garb is practically relaxed.

She glances up as someone enters. Not her district, but she saw him die. She knows it was his first time, at least in the Games.

"Welcome back to the realm of the living, Mr. Adachi," she says.

Adachi hid a look of disgust at the sight of the woman; he'd gotten the clue that the people that looked ridiculous were Capitol idiots. He wanted to throw something at her, to yell at her for giving him such a blase welcome, like this was completely okay. Stupid bitch...

Instead, he reached back and rubbed the back of his neck, keeping up his innocent act like always.

"Ah... heh, thanks, I think?"

"I'm not the one you should be thanking. It's the audience back home who must have liked you enough to give you another shot." Eva sits off to the side on the couch and closes her book. She pats the spot next to her. "How do you feel?"

The latter comment is as sympathetic as the first was sardonic. She's seen many tributes come through her and the first death is rarely easy. Some don't want to talk about it, and she respects that, but she makes an effort to be a resource to those that do.

...the urge to throw something at her rose exponentially at that, but all he managed to get out was a slightly annoyed sounding nervous laugh. If he hated this place before...

"Eh... guess I'm just lucky it was pretty quick? And that I was... er... entertaining," he replied, taking the seat next to her despite the fact that he just wanted to get out of there instead. Of course he wanted to say he felt like crap, that dying was not something he wanted to experience twice in his life.

"Most of the people who died this week haven't been brought back. None from my District, thankfully, but still..."

Eva frowns a bit. She always feels a little disgusting when she prioritizes her District over others, merely because she's assigned to them. It was different when they came from the same homeland she was from, but now they're all foreigners. And those from District One and Twelve are no more deserving of death than those from Nine.

"Poor souls. May they rest in peace." She crosses herself.

"Anyway. Quick doesn't make it easy. I saw a man last arena who couldn't stop shaking and vomiting for days after he got back. You seem to be holding up alright by comparison."

"R-really...?"

Well that was a frightening thought. Maybe it was a good thing that he summoned his Persona, even if he hadn't been willing to show off the kind of power he really had. Or maybe they were amused by the fact that he didn't want to kill anyone, and were just keeping him around to watch him snap. He wouldn't doubt it.

"Ah... well, I was already told we'd be brought back," he admitted, hoping she wouldn't try prying. Bad enough he was already waiting for the questions about his powers.

"Well, you shouldn't count on it. Back in my day, the deaths were permanent." She strokes her upper lip - there's a scar there that twists it slightly whenever she opens her mouth. "And it looks like they might be trying to raise the stakes again, because fighting for your sanity is so boring, I suppose."

She fidgets with the cover of her book.

Adachi felt his stomach bottom out; wait, "back in my day"? That scar... did that mean she was a tribute once too? And she was... willingly working with these assholes!? What the hell... just... what the hell.

"Ah... heh... yeah, boring..." he muttered, glancing away so she couldn't see the disgusted look on his face.

Eva raises an eyebrow.

"I'm being sarcastic."

Adachi raised his hands, plastering a sheepish expression on his face.

"R-right! I knew that."

"No, you didn't. You think I enjoy this." She tears at the corner of her book jacket. "Of course, I might as well, since I'm complacent."

"Er... well, it is kind of hard to think otherwise..." he admitted. "I mean... you're working with them, right?"

"Do you see any other employers?"

"I dunno, I arrived not long before this all started," he replied, waving a hand and letting the clown act slip a bit. It seemed pretty pointless anyway. She probably saw his whole shtick while he was in the arena. "Can't hurt to try and do your own thing, though. You can't tell me all these people that watch these Games are employed by the people that run it."

"Oh, it can hurt very much." She leans back. "I'm indentured to them after I won my Games decades ago. And whether or not you're supporting the Games, you're supporting the people who run the Games, so it doesn't really make a difference in the long run."

"Tch... guess it's just easy to follow the rest of the herd then."

He didn't mean to sound that callous, but the whole situation disgusted him. There was no justice here, and the Truth was an ugly, festering boil, waiting to burst. He needed to find some way out of here; even if he wasn't attached to this world, after everything he had been through? He couldn't stand to see this much mindless stupidity in one place.

A muscle in Eva's jaw twitches. "Do you have loved ones, Mr. Adachi?"

"Does it matter? They're not here."

And thank whatever gods were really out there for that.

"Then given that yours aren't under the gun, perhaps you could spare some understanding for those of us who don't have quite the same luxury."

Adachi let out a faint noise, his expression softening a bit. Well... he felt like an ass now.

"...sorry."

Eva turns back to her book. "Like I said. It can hurt not to play along."

Adachi pursed his lips together, finally glancing back up at her. Okay, he could understand her reasoning, but...

"It's not something for everyone."