A brave new world [open]

[savedbyasong]

Who| Shion and you!
What| Shion has arrived in the capitol and is not impressed
Where| The tribute lounge
When| mid morning of his arrival
Warnings/Notes|

Near one of the windows in the lounge of the tribute tower sat a boy seemingly lost in thought, glancing between the window and what he could see of the capitol, and the screen where the arena was being shown.

He currently seemed very caught up in the activity of... well breathing. It was harder than one would think when your world, and everything you had ever known had just been pulled out beneath you. He felt like he was falling, much like he had in the depths of the correctional facility. Except this time there was no Nezumi to catch him, no mocking voice to force him to go on, no reason to continue.

He had been feeling like this since that morning, when he had woken up on a metal cot and been placed into a room to show his fighting skills.

Of which he had none. He had then been taken to a room, told he was representing district four, told he would be housed here, told he could enjoy this city until he was to go into the Arena to die.

He looked out at the city again, a different world (because where else could it be? As impossible as that was it was the only conclusion) yet nothing had changed. They valued different things here, physical strength rather than intelligence. But it was the same as No. 6, the same corruption, people acting like they were better than others.

He looked back at the TV, feeling sick.

Comments

[savedbyasong]

The perfume smell was strange and artificial, different than the clean neutral smell of No. 6, more like something from West town, meant to be pleasant but too much of it, like it was hiding something. Like the woman in West town who had cornered him.

The other smell was one he could place straight away. Death, rotting. Dying whimpers and cries of children.

Neither memory was constructive to him staying calm and he had closed his eyes to try and escape them, try and stay focused on the present and the current situation.

He hadn't even connected the smells to a person until he spoke, Shion looked round, his purple eyes wide and fearful.

"Me too?" He blinked not understanding.

[shambler]

R lifted a finger in reply, his arm wobbling up like it was so much dead weight. “Hhhome…work. That.”

The zombie pointed at the screen, focused as always on the Arena and the dwindling number of Tributes still there. R’s eyes went to the new guy’s face and he stopped, mouth parting in surprise. Wow. Look at that hair! White, bone-white (like picked clean and bleached bone-white), and that wasn’t even counting the eyes. R never saw eyes that color. He couldn’t work out if he thought they were pretty or a little creepy or both. R finally dragged his stare away and started to lumber around the couch, feet dragging.

“Are you…District…Four?” R asked. The couch jumped out at him, R bumping his corpse against the edge instead of giving it that extra foot a Living boy would’ve. He had better coordination than most zombies but that wasn’t really saying much. Anyway, R thought he saw a flash of sea-foam teal and that made him think they might have the same Escort. R poked himself in the chest. “I’m…Rr. Hi.”

[savedbyasong]

Homework... did he mean like studying? Shion nodded since it was mostly right. He studied the other boy, taking in his strange appearance and trying to ignore the conflicting smells. He didn't want to insult people on his first day. Or ever really.

And the boy despite his hesitant speech seemed to be making an effort. "That's what they said... something about fishing..." Shion had never fished in his life, never seen a boat, and all his swimming had been non voluntarily and the fact he hadn't drowned had mostly been luck.

He made room on the couch, since the boy seemed to be having trouble moving. "R. It's nice to meet you... I'm Shion..."

[shambler]

Yup, that totally sounded like District 4. Teal and water and fishing. He overheard his Escort gushing about the “quaint” way they use nets over there – and then she turned around and tried to drop a hint, something about some past Victor using nets and a trident as weapons. R just stared at her stupidly until she sighed a “nevermind, dear”.

“Hi…Shion,” R grunted as he plopped down. His corpse collapsed into a sitting position like his strings had been cut, R resisting the urge to sneak another glance at those purple eyes. He knew there was a specific color – a name – he thought of when he saw that shade, only it kept flitting out between his grasping fingers whenever he tried to remember. “Homework is…hard. It’s…a bummer. I’m…sorry.”

He sat there slouched next to the other Tribute, wheezing out his words and wondering if there was something else he should say. A warning, maybe. Something encouraging.

[savedbyasong]

Shion turned to look at him, wondering if he was sick with the way he moved and sat. He wasn't rude enough to ask but he wondered, and wondered if it was something that could be cured.

"It's just..." He waved his arm around encompassing everything. "Confusing." His eyes flickered to the TV for a moment and the sick feeling returned.

[shambler]

That was easily the best way to put it, R grunting in agreement.

"You weren't in....Arena?" R followed Shion's gaze back to the TV. Tributes he didn't recognize where either scrounging for food or being attacked by some of the muttations still out there. Some of them were ugly enough to make even the piranhas he got personal with look fluffy and harmless.

[savedbyasong]

Shion shook his head, blinking. "No... I'd be dead if I was..." Because really no one could look at him and think he would be capable of winning a fight.

Especially with the kinds of monsters he could see on the screen. What were they even... no animal Shion had ever seen before.

He was silent a few moments, trying to remember how to breathe.

[shambler]

Looking at Shion, R had to admit he was right - he didn't look like survivor material. R had eaten Living who'd looked tougher. Shion looked like he might be the first to eat it at the Cornucopia. It was hard not to feel sorry for the guy right off the bat.

It took R awhile to notice his new teammate was silent and, turning slightly, his head rolling on his stiff neck, he saw that Shion looked like he was ready to start gulping at the air.

"Are...you...okay?" What was wrong with him?

[savedbyasong]

He nodded even though he could feel the world closing in around him. He hadn't felt like this since he was in the correctional facility. The sounds from the TV weren't helping either.

He just... didn't want to do this again. Anything like that. He couldn't, it had been hard enough the first time and this time it wasn't just a case of remaining unhidden. He was being sent to die.

And so that's how it should be is it? The prince rescues the realm and gets to live happily ever after. Are you still so naive.

"I... just... How is this real?"

He could practically hear Nezumi's mocking laughter in his head.

[shambler]

R had no idea how to answer that question. He could see Shion struggling along, looking as miserable as someone can get and R had no idea what he could do or moan to make it hurt any less. The most he could do was lift his arm and inch it out in the Living boy's direction, flopping it down gently to touch the back of his shoulder and hoping he didn't give him a heart attack on accident.

"I don't...know," R gasped. He tried to get his face to do encouraging, reassuring; anything at all. It didn't work. "They don't....play by...the rules. Wish...they did."

[savedbyasong]

The touch brought him back a little, though R's hand was cold, but that just helped him remember that he was real. He blinked at R, his eyes confused and frightened. "Rules are there for a reason. Without them there is a lot of chaos."

[shambler]

"Not...always," R said, thinking hard. "Sometimes there's...nothing. V...void."

Chaos might be the better of the two, if anyone asked him. Chaos was something, chaos didn't howl with silence. R eventually removed his hand from Shion's shoulder, pulling it back to himself as he stared at the other District 4 tribute.

[savedbyasong]

Nothing was even worse, Shion agreed. Nothing was endless and empty and he didn't even want to think about nothing.

So instead he started naming types of beetles, trying to focus. "Were you captured long ago?" He eventually asked.

[shambler]

R wasn't sure what Shion was doing now - adjusting, he guessed. Everyone had their different ways. The zombie was content to sit like a lump on the couch with Shion, starting to drift off when the Living boy suddenly spoke up again.

"Not...sure," R admitted. It was embarrassing how bad Dead were at time-keeping. "Maybe...weeks? I can't....remember."

[savedbyasong]

Shion blinked, of course he knew that most people didn't have the kind of memory he had, but to not even be able to remember how long you had been in a place. Had they done something? He knew that some forms of torture could play with your concept of time, as well as times without light or routine.

He probably could make a good guess to how long he and Nezumi were in the correctional facility, but couldn't say exactly. "Weeks... so do they just keep us here until they want us to die?"

[shambler]

R nodded. "Bas...sically. Lots of...parties. Social..izing," the zombie added, giving a slow-mo shudder. Their Escort could probably fill in Shion on the nitty-gritty details of who to talk to, how to hold himself posture-wise and all that stuff.

[savedbyasong]

"Parties?" Shion looked even more horrified, thinking of the parties described in the books he had read in West Town. "I've never been to a party, I don't know..."

How to be at a party? How to act.

He looked just as horrified at this concept then he had about the death matches.

[shambler]

So parties weren't his thing either. R could see they'd probably get along, so long as Shion didn't mind the whole man-eater thing. Or trying to shovel raw bloody stakes into his muzzle. Other than that, yeah. They had more in common than R thought they would. The zombie's head rolled in something that might even be a nod.

"They're...big. Get...poked with...costumes," R probably wasn't helping here, but that really was his impression of the couple of parties his Escort made him go to. "Lots...of food?"

That was a selling point, right? Shion didn't smell Dead, so R assumed he'd probably like the food better.

[savedbyasong]

He probably wouldn't once he got over the initial flailing. It would be a new concept anyways, he had not gotten round to reading any zombie books in Rat's collection, if Rat even had any.

He continued concentrating on breathing, and blinked at the mention of food, glancing back to the television and the kids who looked like they hadn't ate for a while.

"Of course... it doesn't seem that this city wants for anything."

His voice is bitter.

[shambler]

"Don't...think they do," R could see that and he's dead. So far he's seen a grand total of zero people fighting for food and water and the clothes off each other's backs in the Capitol. "They're...bored. Need...fun. We're...their fun, I guess."

Or that's his take on it, anyway. Their Escort could better explain the whole history of Panem to Shion better than he could.

[savedbyasong]

Bored... It was the single most terrifying motive Shion could think of. They were kidnapping people and forcing them to fight to the death because they were bored.

"That's horrible."

[shambler]

R thought about shrugging. Julie said he abused shrugging and maybe he did.

"Don't know...how to change....it. I'm...sorry."

[savedbyasong]

"I don't think it's something we can change." Or maybe they could, Shion didn't know. He didn't have enough information to stop them.

It was probably too much to hope that they had angered a local goddess who could help destroy them all...

He drew his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, like he was desperately trying to hold himself together.