WHO: Io Tesla [D5] and Silas Rawson [D9], brief guest appearance by Hugh Esbe [D3] WHAT: A chance meeting! WHEN: Day 4, early afternoon. WHERE: The bridge between Cloud 9 and Nimbus. WARNINGS: Child murder games warnings. STATUS: Complete!
For a day and a half now, Io had been wandering around the strange landscape that made up the Arena. It was slow going--she tried to stop as frequently as possible to give herself a chance to run into Hugh without running into anyone else--but she’d learned enough over that day and a half to have a better idea of how things worked around here. She’d counted three bridges--one to the north and two to the south--but she had no real idea where they led or if they were even safe to cross. Late in the previous afternoon, she’d stepped out onto the northernmost bridge but found herself shaking too severely at the sight of the impossibly far drop to continue on her way.
Fear wasn’t the only factor keeping her from crossing the bridges, though, or at least not only fear of heights. She’d seen neither hide nor hair of Hugh, and she didn’t think that leaving the wooded area around the Cornucopia would improve her chances of finding him. But all that said, she was hungry and her fruity drink was nearly gone. She’d seen nothing in the woods that she could eat, and she didn’t dare go back to the Cornucopia, not without knowing where anyone else was. Her only option, as she saw it, was to cross the bridge.
She chose the southwestern bridge, for no reason other than that it was surrounded by trees, and that way (or so she reasoned), she’d have more cover for at least the first few steps. “I’m going to cross the bridge, I’m going to find Hugh, and we’re going to surprise everybody,” she said aloud and swallowed hard before taking her first steps out onto the pass. “It’s just a bridge, that’s all. Just one foot in front of the other, and it’ll be over before I know it. And then I will find Hugh and we’ll surprise everybody.”
It was a lucky thing that Silas' fear was water, not heights. If there hadn't been the ominous idea of meeting someone in the crossing, he thought he might even have liked the journey. Breezes blew but it was strangely peaceful standing inside a cloud every which way you looked, atmosphere swirling and occasionally offering glimpses of blue sky or the glassy path ahead. He was growing a little more accustomed to the thin air, though it was still easy to tire and damned difficult to catch your breath after running.
Silas looked back over his shoulder to see Buckwheat, but the clouds were too thick. They'd been going for long enough now that he could sense the end of the bridge coming near; he could turn back, hold still, or carry forward. As he paused to feel for her footsteps, Silas' head whipped back around - there was someone else coming onto the bridge. He reached into his pocket, retrieving the shard of china plate wrapped in purse lining and t-shirt sleeves to protect his hand.
After the first few steps, Io began counting aloud, figuring that on some level, it wouldn’t hurt to know how far she’d gone. It helped keep her mind off the great height and the fear that she was walking out of safety and into danger, at the very least. The distraction became particularly necessary once she was about two hundred fifty steps out and the land surrounding the Cornucopia had vanished behind her in the mist. She paused to look behind her and sighed, “No turning back now.”
That was when she heard footsteps ahead on the bridge. She couldn’t see anyone in the mist, but she could hear them, whoever they were, drawing to a stop not far from where she stood. Io took a step backwards, any courage she might have mustered to cross the bridge rapidly dissipating. She swallowed hard again, silently begging whoever it was to not be one of the Careers, and after a beat, worked up enough nerve to call, “Hugh?” into the mist.
Silas threw a pebble from his pocket back at Buckwheat, the sign to hold where they were and get ready. If she heard his shouts, she would start running the other direction - or if he knew Buckwheat, she would disregard the plan entirely and come running to do something stupid, instead. The voice before him was feminine though, offering a name as a curious question. "No, sorry," he answered obligingly, continuing a few slow steps toward whatever girl was out there., "Silas from nine. Who're you? Are you armed?" It was likely to be a lie either way, just like he would say if asked, but Silas wanted to hear the answer, to talk in order to get closer if he could.
Io staggered back another step, her legs shaking. Silas from Nine. What did she know about him? She tried to think back to the training sessions, tried to remember what Silas from Nine could do and who he’d allied with, but all she could come up with was the thought that way too many people had names that began with the letter S. Silas from Nine, though. He wasn’t a Career, and for that reason, she thought maybe it wouldn’t be so foolish to tell him the truth.
At least after she took another several steps backwards on the bridge.
“I’m-- I’m Io,” she answered. She didn’t imagine anyone else sounded so young or afraid anyway. “Io from Five. Like input-output. I-- have a bottle of water? I don’t think that counts, and-- and there’s not much left anyway…”
"Would - would you let me have a mouthful?" Silas asked hopefully, advancing forward though keeping his posture easy in case the fog shifted. "All I've had is snow, and it makes you cold, I'm gonna get sick if I keep eating it. I've got a stick but I'll give it to you to hold, if you'll let me have a little drink?" He remembered the girl from five was small, and had looked like she would've grown up to be pretty, with hair even curlier than Sher's. He didn't remember anything else and he didn't know what input-output meant, but he did know the arena wasn't well suited to her skills, and that if she was clever she'd know it was more in his favor.
All the while, Io had been walking backwards at as quick a pace as she dared. The bridge had no railings, and that was terrifying, but the idea of confronting someone while halfway across was even more terrifying. “Um,” she answered, stalling for time. If she looked behind her, she could almost see the beginning of the bridge now. “Yeah, maybe. There’s not much left, and it’s really sweet, but maybe I guess you could have a sip or two. It kind of tastes like strawberries, and it’s fizzy.” Maybe, she thought, if she could reach the island again, she could give Silas--if it even was Silas, and she still didn’t know if it was--the fizzy drink and then run. And find Hugh. And surprise everyone.
Breaking into a run was dangerous, given the thin air and the glass surface beneath their feet, but Silas could sense she was getting nervous, and he was right - as soon as he gave chase he could hear her run too. Height and a childhood of racing on dirt roads and across fields eventually won out, and with the desperate feeling that came with not enough oxygen, the adrenaline of the moment racing through him with every heartbeat, Silas lunged to tackle the girl from 5.
Whether or not it was Silas, the person talking to her had broken into a run, and Io panicked. The bridge didn’t seem nearly as frightening anymore, not when compared to being chased down like this, and her feet pounded against the creaking wood until they found purchase on solid ground again. She barely had a moment to feel any relief, though, before Silas tackled her and knocked the wind out of her, cutting off the beginning of a scream for help.
"I'm sorry," Silas wheezed, doing his best not to look her in the eye. And he was. This wasn't anything that he wanted to do, but the Gamemakers had made it clear with his score just what it was going to take to advance, to win, to go home. Silas drove the shard of china into her neck as hard as he could, and while it wasn't as easy or clean as it would have been with a knife or the sickle he'd used on the dummy, it was still a means to an end. Her blood was warm on his hand, like water from the Capitol taps, and Silas' empty stomach threatened to spill bile.
Io had just caught her breath to scream again when the shard of china connected with her neck, not slicing her throat open completely but causing blood to spurt forth--far more than she even realized as she lifted both hands to try and staunch the flow. She didn’t know what to do; she tried to meet Silas’ eyes and ask something--anything--of him, but for once, Io didn’t know what to say, save for a hoarse, “Please-- help me…”
Silas had wanted to make it easy on anyone he had to kill, he'd been so idealistic that he could find a way to make it nearly painless for them, if only he could make it quick. His shoulder still throbbed, and he knew he couldn't find a way to get to the other side of her neck, so he thrust it into her chest instead with a garbled noise of his own, a wordless plea for forgiveness that he didn't deserve. Silas slumped to the side to catch his breath, visibly shaking as he tried to will himself to anywhere else, any time that he hadn't just stabbed a little girl. Where was Buckwheat? Had she actually run back to the snowy mountain, or was she lurking just beyond where the white fog sucked the bridge into mystery?
A figure emerged from the fog, but not from the bridge, and not Buckwheat. Hugh had followed them yesterday in the woods for a while, as quiet as someone who'd spent most of his time with nature in the previous week could manage, until Silas's quiet warning had driven him off. But he'd been in these trees for days, gridding them out, and took the longer path to the bridge by following little stone markers -- intent on keeping tabs on the victor's nephew. Their journey onto the bridge had been where he'd stayed behind, held back by fear of the railless glass and the untold depths below. He didn't know how he'd missed Io, but he could hear her now, screaming and begging, and no amount of fear would keep him from this confrontation.
"Back off!" He snarled, leaping forward and grabbing Io with all the strength his small frame could muster. He didn't wait for a response, but pulled her back with him through a thick huff of mist, past his first marker, left at Helios's stone. He covered her mouth and held her in the small hollow between two trees, listening intently for any sign of being followed.
Silas had jumped at the sound of another voice. The blood rushing in his ears had masked the sounds of the other boy's approach, and though he saw a glimpse of them over his shoulder, Silas' scramble to his feet was something less than graceful as his shoulder gave out, and then his boot slid on the wet rock in his haste to make up for his injuries. He could go after them - if Input Output wasn't dead already, she would be soon, leaving them two-to-one, for this other mystery boy. But he needed Buckwheat for that, and so Silas turned back and gave the bird whistle, the sign for the all clear, and waited instead, counting in an attempt to keep track of how far he might have been able to go, dragging a body along with him.