thecapitol | When all the world is a hopeless jungle...

Who: Eponine and Sigma (closed); Eponine and OPEN
What: Sigma's upset Eponine, D3 is gone, Jessica's a mess and her friends are dead. Eponine is slowly collapsing.
When Straight after Sigma's announcement. The open part is after Eponine's encounter with Sigma
Where: For the open part, on the kerb of the Tribute Tower
Warnings: EVERYWHERE - references to death, torture, sex, genocide, prostitution: actual attempted murder, blood, underage drinking and drugs: SPOILERS FOR ZERO ESCAPE

Eponine's mascara runs down her cheeks in ugly black stripes. She doesn't care, doesn't realise. Sigma's a Game Maker. Her adopted Pa, the man she had learned to love... She covers her face with her hands, splattered with red and white blood, and sobs.

She's tried to stay strong, all through the District Three mess. She's tried her best to be there for Jessica and not to mess up - again - and she's tried to do as she's told. But... but there's nobody left now. Nobody at all.

Eponine clutches a bottle of cheap brandy in one hand, and re-arranges her blood-stained skirt with the other. It hadn't taken long to find a man desperate enough to give her enough for a shot of morphling and a bottle of brandy.

She sits now, contemplating the drug. She's never taken anything like it before. The man said it would take her 'over the rainbow'. It's a nice wish.

She takes a swig from her brandy and bends to hide her face in her skirts, back heaving from the force of her sobs.

She just doesn't know what to do any more.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Eponine's hatred falls on deaf ears: the only thing Sigma regrets is not permanently crippling that man as he had promised. A heartbeat later, the knife is nearly upon him, and Sigma knows her target. He thinks of Alice, sweat beads behind his neck anxiously. It was not her blade, but his grief, that had killed him once before.

Forcing himself to remain calm, Sigma lifts his arms to block her strike. The blade sinks deep into the artificial muscle of his forearm and Sigma cries out, the tip embedding into titanium bone. His arms are cybernetic, but the pain is extraordinary - the tip caught between metal wires, Sigma sees his chance to wrestle the weapon away from her before she seeks real organs.

He lifts his hands to grasp Eponine's arm. Unfortunately, the change in the position of his muscles sets the knife free, and thick, white "blood" spurts across her. The Doctor braces himself for another blow.

Eponine screams in horror as Sigma's blood splashes on her. She can taste it a little bit in her mouth and she wants to gag. But - it's white! Blood is not white, and she stares aghast at Sigma.

"You are truly a monster!" But then he's trying to wrestle the knife from her, and she clutches it all the tighter, trying to jerk it from his arms and the blade is free and his hand closes about her arm, squeezing it tight and she screams again, because that is a grip that is too familiar, too close to home. His fingerprints that will be bruised to her skin are a reminder of the other man who has betrayed her all her life. She screams again, and desperately jabs, not even aiming any more, just jabbing, pulling away, fighting to get rid of this evil, evil man.

He thinks of how he earned his metal arms, of how he had sprung a trap on himself in Diana's place, and wonders if Eponine would still call him a monster if she could have seen him then: eyeless, armless, helpless.

Holding on to her tightly, Sigma realizes what he must remind her of - and his next miscalculation is fatal. His grip on her arm loosens and the blade slips - to produce several cuts across his chest and upper abdomen, some more than half an inch deep. A line of heavy pain radiates across his body and the Doctor gasps, one arm now tied trying to staunch the bleeding. He raises his other arm to try and catch the stab that comes next.

It's reminiscent of his fight with Maximus, but in his own apartment, and the woman he had tried to save- and died for- was now the one who wanted his blood.

She gasps in shock as Sigma's shirt reddens. Although she means to kill him, it's still distressing to see the blood, to realise that she is responsible for this pain. As much as she doesn't want to, as much as she hates herself for it, she still loves him, somewhere deep down. And his gasps make her heart hurt.

But, no. No, she has to harden herself to him. And so she closes her eyes and stabs again. The sooner this whole mess is over, the better. The sooner, she can just break down and cry for her lost love once more, the better.

Sigma has, of course, realized that this will all be over if he can subdue Eponine. He is a large man and she is so small, frail even, that it would take barely a blow to knock her over and wrestle the knife from her.

He can't bring himself to do it.

Perhaps in his panic he misjudges her aim, perhaps he feels he deserves it and neglects to block aggressively- either way, the blade slides easily into his abdomen. The pain is so white-hot that Sigma instinctively reaches to stop it; he forces himself to grasp onto her wielding hand tightly. He does not want to die (rather, he must not), not here, not in this way.

His breath becomes laboured, the pain is impossible to ignore. He can feel the strength he's using to keep the knife inside of his body draining slowly, as if seeping into the blade, but the Doctor is now determined to end this here. He forces himself to squeeze her hand until she releases the handle... as he had tried to do with her father, he must take away such power from her.

"OWW!" Sigma's fingers squeeze into her frail hands. She can practically feel the bruises forming on her papery skin, and as he squeezes tighter and tighter, she thinks of her bones turning to chalk beneath his grip, and she's forced to let go.

Like a wounded animal, she hisses and whirls away, out of reach, should he try and attack her in return.

"GOD, Papa!" She screams back at Sigma. She's not thinking, not even aware that she's still calling him 'Papa'. Perhaps, though, it will make him think to her real father, of the same role that he, Sigma, is now fulfilling.

"Why can't you just die? You deserve a death for the lies and the deaths you have caused. How can you plot with them to kill us? God, I hate you most of all."

Everything Sigma sees and hears rests permanently in his eidetic memory, unfading until senility releases him. Eponine's words are ones he will never forget, and they will continue to wound him far after the physical pain dies away.

His hand grips the handle. The knife is in his control, now.

He knows to keep the wound plugged, that the damage only truly begins once the knife is released from his flesh - but then, what stopped Eponine from approaching him and retrieving it? She was here, and she was waiting. And so Sigma does what he knows will get her to leave.

Sigma pulls the knife from his gut. He begins to bleed profusely, real, dark red blood. For a moment he hovers there, bleeding, knife in his grip, as if he is considering retaliation. Then, with the last of his energy, Sigma takes the blade and bends the knife between titanium hands, the tip pointed in towards itself, rendering it perfectly unusable. It is the strength he could have used to fight off Eponine, but withheld.

Sigma closes his eyes and throws the knife to the floor in disgust. He collapses against the wall, feeling faint, a streak of blood that had leaked onto his side following him down.

He will not look at her anymore. "Get out of here." His voice is caught somewhere between anger and cold disappointment.

She takes a step towards him, horror clear on her face. She makes as if to help him - one hand reaches out, as if to press all that rich red blood back into the wound.

He's her Papa. But he's also a traitor. Not a Papa at all, and she hesitates, draws her hand back, stifles her gasp, her cry for help that might save his life.

She watches, clutching his bedpost to stop her darting forward to his aid, as he collapses. And at his words, she turns tail and flees. It's done now. She can't watch the man she loves die. He hates her now, but can dead men hate at all? It doesn't matter anyway. He's gone for good from her life now. And now she has to get away.

She runs and she runs and she runs.

When all the world is a hopeless jungle...

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