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 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."