023 - And You Shall Know Us By The Trail of Our Dead

[silentrunning]

[Well hello there, residents. Have a scrawl coming across the journal. The handwriting is absolute crap, worse than usual even.]

All is lost. They do not see that there is one thing to save them. One thing. They will see soon enough. They do not see what I have seen. They do not see... Do not fight the darkness.

[This last line is written over and over with increasing ferocity, until her pen is nearly tearing holes in the journal page due to its pressure and then perhaps something even more chilling.]

Are you out there? Are you listening? I hear you. I will help you. Don't worry. Don't you see? Death is the only salvation?

[OOC: Guess who's completely off her gourd right now?]

Comments

[the_effect_she_has]

[... Marvelous.]

CHELL. Get ahold of yourself. Death is not salvation. It's just dead.

[silentrunning]

[It takes her a minute, before she writes back. She'd been running from a nonexistent scientist, so Katniss could very likely hear the sounds of her boots on the floor...]

Death is the only salvation from this. There was blood. People's heads being ripped off. Explosions. Killing children. And scientists. And so much worse. There's something missing.

[She's clawing for words.]

They stole the girl and put a monster in her place.

[She has no idea that with part of that description she could literally have been describing Katniss's homeworld. But then she actually speaks up, but not to Katniss. To one of her hallucinations instead. But you know the journals. Faithful recorders of everything.]

Leave me alone! I'm not a monster! I have friends. Shut up shut up shut up shut up. You didn't even KNOW my parents. How can you know!

[And then there's a low, strangled sound, a raw, anguished sob. and the next thing is written instead of spoken]

Katniss... she won't leave me alone She won't stop following me.

[the_effect_she_has]

[Her jaw tightened because yes - this could be the war, this could be Panem. But it was like she was trapped behind glass this time, beating herself against a cage while the war went on. Unable to do anything ...]

Chell, don't listen to her. She's not there. She's not real. You've been hijacked.

[silentrunning]

[There's a low, eerie laugh from Chell's end.]

She wants us. Won't let us leave. Don't worry, Katniss. You'll be with us soon. Then it'll all be over. But you'll wish you heeded my words about death, because I can't protect you down there. It's so far down, and so much blood.

[She hears Katniss's words though, as if they were from a long way off.]

There's no point in fighting. Fighting only brings suffering.

[the_effect_she_has]

Chell ... [Oh God, her poor friend. Katniss's voice cracks a little, as she grips her journal with both hands.]

You have to keep fighting. You have to get someplace safe. I'll come for you, I promise.

[silentrunning]

There is no safety here. What is real and what is not? I can't tell anymore. Maybe nothing is real. Or maybe everything is.

Time has run out. It'll only be a matter of time. Only a matter of time.

Stay safe, Katniss. I'll see you soon.

[Maybe there's something eerie in those words.]

[the_effect_she_has]

[Katniss slapped her hands against the journal, cursing, before she slapped it shut. She wasn't going to ... float around and wait for her friends to die - or become killers themselves. She'd do what she had to do.]

[lioneyed]

Chell, listen to me. There's something there making you see and feel things that aren't you. Death isn't the only solution. We'll save you. Nobody has to die.