thecapitol | so here's my hope, my tired soul. ( open )

She's been here for a day now, enough time to convince herself that this isn't some kind of awful dream. In a lot of ways, it's almost surreal. For one, she's clean for the first time in months - actually, truly clean. In part, thanks to the efforts of her prep team, who had tsked at the filthy and matted state of her when she'd been brought in.

So here she is, squeaky clean and sitting in the corner of the common area in front of one of the many television screens. Watching one of the programs that seem to run around the clock. This time, it's highlights from the last arena.

Beth's no stranger to violence. Her life has been full of it for the last two years, ever since the dead stopped staying dead. She's seen a lot of it. But this is a full highlight real of awful, grisly murder being narrated by people with chipper voices like some kind of sick sports event.

"I'm gonna be sick," she mumbles quietly, mostly to herself.

TRAINING CENTER RESTAURANT

They give her more food than she's ever seen in her life, and Beth looks down at it like it's an alien thing. Like it can't possibly be real. She's perched on the edge of the bar on a stool with a plate heaped high and for a moment, she doesn't make any move to eat it. Because even before everything went wrong, they never had food like this on a farm where they grew mostly everything they ate.

She sort of just looks at it, fork in hand, like she's in shock.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's harder, to figure out how to keep hoping after a bombshell like that. Understanding that some kind of cure is probably going to be all that more difficult when everyone's infected. Actually, scratch that. There literally might not be any hope of a cure, ever. The world might not ever go back to the way it was.

You pick the small things to keep hanging on for.

"There's someone else here?" that gets her attention to the point where Beth's looking up in a hurry, food instantly abandoned. In fact, the plate gets accidentally knocked off the counter, shattering at her feet.

Well. That's great.

The smashing plate and the girl's reaction startle Tess enough that she jumps in her seat and straightens up. Her hands come up and she reaches out to steady Beth. "Easy - easy."

She looks down at the broken plate and sighs. She imagines herself not having that kind of reaction if someone had told her Joel or Ellie or anyone from her world was here. She would do the opposite of wanting to find them, she would want to avoid them. and for good reason.

"You know her?" she asks as she moves off the seat to crouch and begin picking up the bigger pieces of broken china.

The way she reacts reminds her of some of the other people in their group. Jumpy, trained by necessity to react to loud noises, anything that might signal a threat. She's on her feet in a second, too. Picking up glass despite the fact that the avoxes are moving towards them to clean it up. Beth's never going to get used to being waited on. And even though she moves out of the way because she's not sure what else to do, she watches them with an expression that is equal parts anger and sadness.

What was done to them was terrible. She tells them, thank you and they recoil like she's hit them. It takes her a moment to calm down, to reach back to what they were talking about before this.

"No, I...I'm just thinkin' about who else they might've brought, if it isn't just me. I'm -- real sorry if I startled you."

so here's my hope, my tired soul. ( open )

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