literature

HG OCT: Round 3 Part 1

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The girl looks down at the thrashing creature, its movements stilted, its eyes vacant in the dull dawn light.

"What kind of mutt are you if you can't even stand up by yourself?"  She kicks the thing, and it swipes in her general direction.  The girl snorts, seizes the sword from Garrett's hand, kneels, and drives the point straight through its head.  Garrett flinches, a mixture of fear and awe of his companion.

"And that," she states, her voice matter-of-factly, "is how you use a sword."  She repeats the process with the other one before plopping on the ground, the exertion suddenly visible on her flushed face.  Garrett follows suit, scrunching down beside her.

"Ok?" he ventures.  She huffs a little and nods.  A good sign.  "What is…you…your name?"

The girl stares.  He must have said it wrong, Garrett thinks, and he opens his mouth to try again.

"You really haven't been paying attention at all, have you?"  She shakes her head.  "Ofelia," she says, pointing to herself.

Garrett brightens.  Now he can finally stop referring to her as 'the girl.'  "My name–"

"Garrett," she cuts in.  Steadying herself with a hand on the wall, she gets shakily to her feet and hands him the sword.  "Look, I'd love to sit here and chat, or even take a nap, but we should get going before those things come back."  Ofelia shoulders her pack and gathers the vestiges of the blanket.

In the morning light, the interior of the hall seems less forbidding.  Garrett takes a final glance around as he nabs his own pack and returns the sword to the sheath hanging by his side.  Rows of statues line the walls between red columns, bearing shields and spears and labeled with those pictographic characters on stone placards.  Had it been daytime several hours earlier, he might have found those shields useful when he lost his sword during the fight.

"Come on!"

Outside, the clear dawn sky paints the backdrop to the white-iced city.  Garrett takes in the sight, transported momentarily to a different kingdom across the ocean, a familiar frost in the air prickling his nostrils.

A sound of crinkling, and he sees Ofelia unwrapping a small package.  A corner of red peeps through the tarp wrapping.

"What is–"

"None of your business," Ofelia starts, shoving the package back into her jacket pocket.  She crosses her arms with an expression daring him to ask again.  And then she squints at something past him.  "Uh, you should take care of that."

"Hvad?"  Garrett looks over his shoulder.  More phantoms?  Did she see Ame?

Ofelia throws her hands up.  "Here, you idiot."  She yanks him over, stumbling.  "Didn't realize you were that clueless.  Honestly, walking around with your arm bleeding out like that."

She wraps a strip of the shredded blanket around his arm, and that's when he remembers the wound.  It's a shallow thing, already sealing, with the rivulets of red down his arm turning to brown.

Are you always this nice when you're angry? he wants to say, but doesn't (or rather, can't).  The annoyance on her face might turn into actual anger if he keeps blabbing nonsense at her.  Instead he offers a smile and a cautious "tak."

"That better be a 'thank you' I'm hearing."

In the morning sun, it's easy to see where the nearest gate is, a stretch of a mere hundred feet to the north.  And that's where Ofelia heads first, Garrett just behind her.  He agrees with the sentiment.  The city has enough nightmares.

Garrett is relieved to step into the arched tunnel beneath the enormous gatehouse, where the snow is actually low enough to properly walk through.  The chill is becoming less of a friendly reminder of his home and more of a growing danger, and he can't stop shivering.

The tunnel opens to a view of bare-branched trees, the ground sloping down into the blue shadows of snow beneath the skeletal canopy.

"I definitely did not climb up a hill to get here."  Ofelia backs away from the edge as Garrett crouches down.  If it were not for the peppering of tree trunks, he should have liked to take his old toboggan for a run–at least it'd be easier than tromping down the slope.  And faster too.  He wonders if a warm shelter at the bottom of this hill is too much to ask for.

As it were, if he really wanted to be able to turn around those trees, he'd need a saucer sled.  A saucer.

He pats Ofelia on the shoulders and holds one finger up.  Not waiting to see if she understands, Garrett hurries back towards the hall where they'd left those ghouls.

The shields, smooth-faced and round, are–in his mind–nothing less than perfect for sledding.  It takes a bit of time to find one large enough but light enough that he can unhinge it from the statues.  Garrett wastes no energy carrying it, instead flopping on it and skimming the snow surface like a penguin all the way back to Ofelia.

Who looks less than happy at having been abandoned momentarily.

"You could've said something," she snaps with a shiver.  "And what are we supposed to do–oh."  She steps back when Garrett motions for her to climb on.  "Are you crazy?  This isn't the time for sledding, and we are definitely not doing this through those trees there."

Her hesitations can't be more obvious, but where can he find the words to reassure her?

The arena gives him a rather convincing argument.

Towards the east, where the glimmer of sunrise has just begun to silhouette the mountains, a jet of powder puffs into the air.  He hears the boom a second later as a cloud of loose snow surges down the mountainside towards them.

"No," Ofelia breathes, looking over his shoulder at the sight.  They stand transfixed.  It's like watching ocean waves rolling to the shore, except this wave would not reduce itself to a trickle lapping at toes.  The trees dotting that mountainside snap as the wave cruises through, carrying broken trunks as if they were twigs on a rushing river.

Would these walls hold against the snow?  The stones tremble, and somehow he's afraid to stick around and find out.

Garrett kneels down on the shield, one hand grasping the enarmes–the straps–and the other yanking Ofelia down.  She yelps but doesn't resist, falling into place behind him, hands around his waist.  He leans forward, the shield tipping onto the incline.

"You know how to drive this thing, right?  Right?"

The shield swoops forward.

Ofelia screams something, but the wind rips the words from her lips.  When he doesn't answer, she settles for clutching him tighter.

Despite the fact that they're attempting to flee a dangerous avalanche, Garrett can't help but indulge in a little excitement.  Skirting the snow drifts, slicing around trees–it reminds him of the kite dive, except he is in full control of the vehicle here.  And Ofelia's vise-tight cling makes shifting their combined weight easier; the shield responds beautifully to every subtle tug and tilt.

But they're not fast enough.

He feels the ground shuddering as the thundering mass looms, blotting out the rising sun.  The trees crack and splinter behind them–hiding there isn't an option either.  A tightness wells up in his chest as Ofelia buries her face in his shirt.

The shield rattles beneath him, and an idea springs into his head.  It's a risk, but better than being swept away to certain death.

He jerks the shield in a sharp turn to the left, and glimpses the enormous white froth bearing down a hundred feet away, its roar reverberating through every bone of his body.  There isn't much time.

"What are you doing?" Ofelia shouts as Garrett stops and pulls them off.  He rolls the shield upright and wedges it into the snow.  It would serve its original purpose, at least he hopes.  He pulls Ofelia close and crouches down behind it, one hand gripping the enarme.  Suddenly there's no more time for words.

It's like a giant fist punches them; his elbow snaps back as the avalanche smashes into the shield.  The cold metal collides with his head.  A flash of white light, and then, darkness.

- - - - -

She smelled like peaches.

Sunripe peaches.  Dangling from the branches.  Pinks and oranges and reds and yellows.

They fall to the ground and then there's nothing more than a broken, bruised–


"Rettie," he cries out.  Carsten snaps awake and gulps air, ice pinpricks sharp in his throat and lungs.  He struggles to sit up and bites his lip, another scream on the edge of his tongue as pain electrifies every muscle and bone.

In the end, he simply lies there, staring up at the featureless sky, shuddering with every breath.  Still alive, he thinks. I probably got a million broken bones, and I'm still alive.  He scrunches his eyes shut.  How am I supposed to win like this?  How do I get back to Gabry?  To Father?  To Grandma Dalla?

A shadow casts across his eyes.  He looks up.

Carsten rolls aside, limbs suddenly alive.  The woven cloth face stares back, its black button eyes unnervingly pinned to his, straw bits poking through the fiber.

Scarecrow?  But how...

The scarecrow steps back, kneels awkwardly, and lays a sickle on the fine layer of snow on grass.  Not the rusted thing he'd had back in the cave.  Silver, shining, he'd even say pristine if not for the purpose it'd eventually be put to.

He swallows.  "That 'fer me?"

It nods.

"Why-wha-who are you?  Who sent you?"  Then again, it doesn't exactly have a mouth to answer him with.  "Guess you can't talk."

It shifts into a rather human-like squat and shakes its head.

He draws the sickle closer to himself, or at least farther away from the scarecrow, wincing when he touches the cold metal.  His hands are torn up, lesions and skin flaps drawing ragged lines across his palms.  He barely recalls clawing to the surface and out of the water–the rocks and shoots probably shredded his hands.

Under this snow cover, he can't see the hole he dug himself out of.  Maybe the Gamemakers moved it, maybe it's just hidden.  Another trap.  He hopes this scarecrow isn't a trap.

"Not here to kill me, are you?"

It shakes vigorously, bits of straw spraying out.  With surprising grace in its clawed hands (paws?), the scarecrow unzips a pocket and shakes out a melon-sized pile of berries.

Hunger rises to the forefront of his mind.  He spends barely a moment on the thought that these might be poisonous before reaching out and cramming his mouth.  Sweet juices burst on his tongue, and he nearly chokes on the memories.  Strawberries warm from the sun, Grandma pressing them into juice, a pitcher of sweet iced tea on the checker tablecloth..

Rough twine chafes on his wrist.  Gabry, he thinks, the sweet tang turning to bitter cough medicine in his mouth.

"You ever hear of strawberries?" he asks the scarecrow, not expecting an answer, not waiting for one.  "Grandma Dalla used to pick strawberries for us every morning, when the sun warn't hot enough to burn the skin off our backs yet.  She'd make strawberry iced tea, strawberry pie–that was Thad's favorite.  Thad, he's my brother. He–"  Carsten trails off, the thought of his brother choking him up.

He swallows the last berry and shakes his head.  "Can't think about that.  Gotta think about the people still living.  My pa, he broked his back, and Gabry's doin' her best to help out Grandma, but they's ain't got much and I gotta go home and help, I gotta go home."

Carsten looks at the scarecrow, its button eyes still trained on him.  "Do you understand?  Do you got somewhere to go?  When this is all over?"

It stares at him, and then shakes.

"Oh."  Carsten pulls himself to a sitting position.  "Look here, maybe, when this is all over, maybe they'll let me take you with me.  Those claws are probably good for reapin', maybe even siftin' the wheat, yeah?"

The scarecrow says nothing.

"Do you have a name?  What should I, what do I call you?"  Carsten racks his brain.  A strawman bringing him a sickle and berries.  What does one name a scarecrow?  "Scare…straw…crow…berries…strawberry!  You don't mind if I call you Strawberry?"

The scarecrow pulls itself back, rolling its shoulders in a stilted shrug.

"Alright, Strawberry, it's you and me–"

Fanfare blasts his eardrums.  Way up high, unseen machinery projects the face of the Gamemaker against the grey clouds.  Meaningless words of false concern, images of a mountain, of food, of a so-called "Banquet."  He'll need food, eventually, but it's not his most pressing concern.

"There'll be medicine, won't there?  Medicine that I need."

Strawberry returns a solemn nod.

Carsten bites back several curses as he pushes on the ground, on the scarecrow, on anything really, just to get himself to his feet.  "S'pose we have a party to get to."
Audition: [link]
Round 1: [link]
Round 2: [link]
previous: [link]
next: [link]

Ofelia c) ~hisiheyah
Carsten c) ~inucheychan
© 2012 - 2024 An-san
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