You always took care of me, you taught me to be strong.

[justoutrunyou]

Who: Sandy, Effie, Mindy, Duck and then open to all!
What: The good news is your alive again, the bad news is...
Where: The Tribute Center
When: week 5 of arena 10
Warnings: Probably children being inappropriate. 

Whenever Sandy came back from the arena she usually stayed in bed for an hour or so after waking up.

Today she sat stark upright in her bed, because something was wrong.

Sandy's room was usually decorated in all sorts of graphic images she had painted on the walls and ceiling. It was her way of coping with the horrors of the arena. Sometimes she would paint over old horrors with new ones, or sometimes she would build upon the nightmares she had painted with something beautiful or whimsical.

But the walls today were white and clean and sanitized. They had a scent about them like paint remover and deodorizer as if someone had tried to cover up one smell with the other and the two scents were dueling to the death.

Frowning in irritation Sandy swung her legs out of bed and rose to her feet to pad over to the mirror and examine herself.

Same messy hair, same scrawny limbs. All the muscle and tone she'd built from training before the arena had been melted away, and all the signs of starvation were gone as well. She was for all intent and purposes a underdeveloped twelve year old girl trapped in an eleven year olds body. While she had been here for over a year now her body looked the same as it had on her first day in her first arena.

And so it was time to begin again. She could repaint the walls, she could rebuild the muscle. All she needed right now, all she wanted right now was to find Pruna and have their traditional after arena ice cream. Pruna could tell her what she thought about Sandy's actions in the arena and they could plot more ways to improve before the next arena.

The game was starting over again, and Sandy believed she could handle it.

She just needed to find Pruna.

 

Comments

For Effie

[justoutrunyou]

Sandy appeared in the District Common room and was distracted from her hunt for Pruna by the smell of fresh baked pastries in the kitchen area. Pruna was probably training anyway.

Scurrying over to the kitchen island Sandy helped herself to a thick round piece of cake ball with frosting on the top, stuffing it into her mouth in a shameless display of childlike desire and a complete disregard for all the manners Effie had tried so hard to teach her.

[mannersmatter]

For a period of time, she hoped Pruna coming back was simply one of the dellusions she'd been dealing with.

When it was clear, when she was more lucid, that it wasn't, she felt a little part of her heart break. Especially knowing she had to tell Sandy. When the girl had died, she gathered up all she had to get up, and be ready to talk to her.

This was going to be hard enough without the worry she was dying.

"Sandy."

[justoutrunyou]

Sandy gave a start when she heard Effie's voice and slowly turned around, cheeks bulging with cake and frosting on her lips and fingers. The guilt in her eyes was proof she knew she was caught. She waved sheepishly with the frosting covered fingers.

Swallowing hard she quickly nabbed a napkin and tried to clean herself up before Effie could admonish her.

[mannersmatter]

The image of that food sent her stomach lurching, and she had to grip the counter, taking a deep breath.

How could she eat that? Never mind that, given the right circumstances, cake was one of Effie's favorites.

She let out a soft huff as she felt her stomach settling finally, and decided to approach quickly. It was less tactful, but so was being ill all over Sandy.

"Sandy, honey...come here. It's ok."

[justoutrunyou]

No gentle guidance about the mess she was making? Well she did look a little green, maybe she was disgusted.

Setting the napkin aside Sandy slid from her seat and came over to Effie, gently embracing the woman in a relieved grip. "I'm sorry I died again." She mumbled into Effie's dress.

[mannersmatter]

"It's ok. Oh, it's ok."

Effie wrapped her arms around Sandy then, holding her so very tightly.

"It's...you didn't do anything wrong."

And now she was crying. She was making a mess of this whole thing.

[justoutrunyou]

The words were meant to be a comfort, and any other time they would be...but something didn't feel right about them. It felt like instead of believing the words deep in her heart...

...well it sounded like Effie was grasping at straws.

"I'll train harder this time. Pruna can teach me some more tricks probably and next time they'll never be able to touch me."

[mannersmatter]

Oh.

Oh, she lost it now.

Luckily, right now, tissues weren't hard to find, and Effie was able to press her face into one before the sob got too far out.

"Oh Sandy...Pruna didn't come back."

[justoutrunyou]

For a moment Sandy was sure she must have misheard.

She didn't feel anything different so clearly Effie must not have said what she thought she just said.

But as Sandy raised a suspicious eye brow she took in the expression on Effie's face and her heart sank.

It couldn't be...not Pruna.

"I...what?" Was all she could blurt out as she felt her heart suddenly start beating faster. There was a chill in her blood that was spreading out to all her limbs and suddenly she felt like her ears needed to pop from the pressure that was deafening all the sounds around them. The lights of the common room even seemed dimmer as all Sandy could focus on now was the normally flamboyant and encouraging mother figure she had grown so attached to.

She couldn't be gone. Not Pruna.

Before Effie would be forced to reiterate her sentence Sandy tore away from her scrambling for Pruna's room. At one point she tripped on the rug and pitched forward catching herself on her hands and launching ahead even on all fours.

When she reached the door she dragged herself standing by the door handle and flung it open with a loud BANG!

...

The room was empty.

None of Pruna's trinkets or toys.

None of Pruna's clothes.

Not even her duck.

It was a blank room with clean sheets and sterilized walls.

For Mindy and Duck

[justoutrunyou]

After learning about Pruna, Sandy wandered lost in a daze for a few hours.

The Tower was still under lockdown so she couldn't ride her bike around town, and the main floor was swarming with activity due to people being trapped in the tower. The roof was not much better as an impromtu party seemed to have been started up there with food and drinks and people craving some fresh air.

The need for fresh air was enough to force her to tolerate the crowd and after blowing off some questioning reporters she found a shadowed corner of the roof where she could look down at the city and try to feel something again.

Gone. She was gone.

And it was all Sandy's fault.

She entertained the idea of escaping this never ending loop of arenas and death by hauling herself over the safety bars and throwing herself off the roof, but she had been informed on her first day in the tower that a force field was in place to keep anyone from doing exactly that.

And so she sighed and hung her arms over the barrier looking very much like the zombie version of herself.

Re: For Mindy and Duck

[hit_girl_mindy]

Mindy learned that she and animals were a strange pair. The duck had known her a little since she and Pruna sometimes trained together, but without the girl it seemed anxious, sullen even. Mindy took the little guy for a walk every few hours, because she hated the idea of it by itself in the room alone.

So as she was giving it another walk, she finally spotted someone she knew would be coming: Sandy, quiet, pale looking. She'd been waiting for her, and once the duck saw her, it quacked happily and waddle toward her.

"Hey."

Re: For Mindy and Duck

[justoutrunyou]

The quacking of a familiar fowl snapped Sandy back to reality and she looked down to the beady eyes of Pruna's adopted pet gazing up at her.

"Duck?" She mumbled in shock and brought her eyes up looking, hoping that maybe Pruna wasn't gone after all!

But no...it was Mindy, and Sandy despite herself couldn't stop from looking disappointed. Looking back down to the duck at her feet she cursed herself for getting her hopes up.

Pruna was gone. What was done was done.

"Hey." She greeted Mindy.

Re: For Mindy and Duck

[hit_girl_mindy]

Ok, the disappointed look she understood. She'd wanted it to be Pruna, and it was just her, Mindy, the traitor or whatever. That couldn't have felt good.

"Sorry," she said, picking up the excited fowl and placing it on Sandy's shoulder. "You've had a pretty intense week. Can't imagine it felt good. I was watching. Sorta hoped you guys would get farther. You've gotten better though."

She sighed. "This is such bullshit."

[justoutrunyou]

Sandy's hand immediately came up to steady the awkward young bird who's webbed feet weren't very good at keeping him perched on her shoulder. The duck seemed grateful for her attention and nipped affectionately at her ear.

"Yeah well, fat lot of good any of that training did in the end." She grumbled. "I couldn't do anything for her."

Pruna had fought hard, killing a number of spiders before she died screaming a scream that would haunt Sandy's dreams.

[hit_girl_mindy]

"You did what you could, and that's what she expected from you. I'd be worried about you, but she told me herself I didn't give you enough credit. You're tough. You lasted awhile, and shit, you went out better than people older than you here."

She patted the girl's shoulder. "Even if she isn't here, I can say that you fought like a fucking champ, and considering the shit we deal with, that's saying something."

[justoutrunyou]

Maybe Sandy would have felt pride in the words Mindy had for her before, but she was still stuck on the fact that Pruna was gone. At least Mindy already knew so she didn't have to break the news.

Turning back out to the city Sandy sighed again and let Duck continued to nuzzle against her. The soft smooth feathers felt good under her fingers.

"We were supposed to go home together. Back to her world."

[hit_girl_mindy]

Mindy offered the words and meant them, of course, but it wouldn't change the reality of losing Pruna. Even she knew that, and didn't expect the girl to just get over it. She was glad the duck was here, because she could at least manage to give the affectionate response Mindy knew she lacked.

"It'd be a long way before that would happen, whether Pruna was here or not. To these people, its another day. But I doubt you'll be forgetting her anytime soon. And hell, I might not be much, but I can still try to make the day a little less shitty, despite the new crop of fuck all going on."

For anyone else.

[justoutrunyou]

Wandering the tower in a haze, with a Duck in her arms, Sandy was like a shell of her former self.

After speaking with Effie and Mindy she was coming around slowly, but it would take some time to pick herself up from this loss.

Everywhere she went reminded her of Pruna. The table where they ate chili when it was cold out, the sofa where Sandy taught Pruna how to play go fish. There was the stairs where Pruna raced her to the twelfth floor and even waited at the halfway point for Sandy to catch up.

And of course the training hall where Pruna did everything she could to train Sandy to not die.

Maybe if Pruna had spent less time with Sandy she'd have had the skills to survive the arena longer.

Maybe the capitol would bring her back again instead of Sandy.

But when all you have left are maybes the future doesn't look like much to keep moving towards.

And so the sad lonely girl continued to move around the tower with her new duckling nestled in her arms. Sandy was looking for something but she didn't know what yet.

Re: For anyone else.

[oredinary_hero]

Sandy wasn't the only one struggling with a loss. Rokk had just returned after spending several hours in training centre when he spotted her. He'd barely let himself stop except when he needed to sleep since he'd returned from the arena himself. Since he realised Jan hadn't come back after his death. After Rokk had murdered him.

He stopped when he noticed Sandy, realising with a sudden lurch why she was back and not still in the arena. Despite knowing that she understandably wouldn't be pleased to see him and that he could offer nothing by way of comfort he still found himself intercepting her, looking quizzically at the duck in her arms.

"I didn't think they'd allow us pets."

Re: For anyone else.

[justoutrunyou]

Sandy looked up at the familiar voice taking a moment to register where she knew him from. Her frowning lips drew tight as she felt on the defensive given how their last encounter went.

"They do." she answered stiffly. "The Avox usually take care of them when the owners are in the arena." She'd only seen a few pets around the tower. Some strangely colored cats, a rainbow colored sheep, and of course there were always a couple tribbles knocking around.

"This is Duck." she added introducing the bird who gazed up at Rokk with beady little eyes before letting out a plain and simple "Quack."

Unlike the other animals around the tower there didn't appear to be anything unusual or extra ordinary about Duck save for being well behaved. He was still a young bird, only a few months old from the looks of it presuming you knew anything about the maturation of ducks.

Re: For anyone else.

[oredinary_hero]

"Not very original when it comes to names I see."

Grife, what was wrong with him? She didn't need him victimising her on top of everything else. He should've kept walking if that was all he was going to do.

"So how long have you been back?" Not the best subject change but he was curious. He hadn't seen her since he got back so if she'd just returned from the arena she'd at least outlasted the Legion.

Re: For anyone else.

[justoutrunyou]

Sandy scowled, even if he was right. After all Pruna had named duck and Pruna was a very practical girl.

...or at least she had been.

When he tried to move past it she let him and answered stiffly "I got back this morning. A girl I was trying to help bit me and infected me, I turned into a zombie I guess." She shrugged "I wasn't around to see it happen." And she'd been purposefully avoiding televisions.

"I'm still not sure if I should count it as the fourth time I died from being eaten. Because she didn't eat all of me but she got a good mouthful of me to swallow."

[oredinary_hero]

...There were so many things wrong with that statement he didn't even know where to start. They'd already established that Sandy had died multiple times which was bad enough but hearing that it had often been in what sounded like a particularly gruesome manner made it even worse.

"Ugh. That's even worse than eating animal flesh." He didn't have to fake the tone of horrified disgust but it was equally due to the idea of cannibalism itself and the fact Sandy had been through such a thing multiple times.

"You don't seem particularly bothered by it, mind." Villain or not it didn't seem too suspicious to respect someone's ability to deal with traumatic experiences.

[justoutrunyou]

Sandy looked surprised, then embarrassed and finally ashamed. This was happening more and more with her lately where she would say something so abnormal and completely not notice till it was pointed out. She was changed and it was the arenas that was changing her.

"I guess I've had enough nightmares about it, I try not to think about it during the time I'm awake." Except for of course the dozens of times she'd painted the horrible nightmares in an effort to exorcise them from her mind.

"How about you? How'd you die?"

[oredinary_hero]

Grife, he hadn't even been trying to upset her then. Apparently he was just good at bringing children down.

"That's a smart way of looking at it. I've been doing the same, though without the nightmares." Only partly true - he been avoiding thinking about his death but there were other deaths he couldn't avoid dwelling on. Or dreaming about.

"You're not sick are you?" An abrupt change in topic but Rokk really didn't feel like continuing to talk about death and it couldn't be any better for Sandy herself. Maybe if he could find something to talk about that wouldn't make things worse for her?