07-03-2016, 04:15 AM
Just like that, the lights went out.
The room was a sheet of black, with a single lamp belaying down from a nonexistent sky. A true abyss. She swept her line of sight as she tried to get a better angle of the room, but there was nothing to see. Just the single light. As she drew closer, staggering as though under some sort of pressure that she carried not just on her shoulders, but on the rest of her body, which she now was able to look down and see.
It was the corpse.
Half of her shown bloodied and mangled below her chin, and there were no toes to wiggle or kick her free. How was she suspended in air? Her blood was fresh, hot, and greasy. Nothing like the cauterized flesh of the woman she had more or less put to rest. Panic began to grind away the corners of her mind, slowly working its way inward, while Christa’s skinned hands attempted to stop the gore from escaping from her stomach. Just then, there was a voice. It distracted her from the darkness she sat in, enough to make her look up. Enough to make her forget.
The voice was British, and spoke these words in a firm and permanent tone, “You’re going to die.” though the woman attempted to bay the fear that surged within her with a gulp, nothing would stop the stirring of a tsunami now rising in her chest.
...
Velvet sand glued to her tongue and was sprinkled on her skin, which had been crushed face-down into the beach. The pebbles crunched inside her mouth, while her eyelids cracked open like a door, letting the bright light in.
An azure sky filled her vision, stained by the focusing figure of Red as his whiskers prickled against her sandy cheeks. A violent breath seized her, as a chill of shock, panic, and horror shuddered through her shoulders and iced her toes. Who the Hell was that supposed to be? Bruce fucking Dickinson? Christa’s fingers interwove with the soft sand as she gingerly rose, feeling the pricks and pangs of pain pierce the parts that are forgotten until something ails them.
“Tch.” she exhaled a complaint and as the lion gazed at her glacial body, they’d see her lips had turned purple from the chill. Her wrist suddenly screamed at her with fierce, relentless torment, as though stolen straight from the fires of Hell, startling her with sudden agony that felt like skin was being shredded from the bone. Looking down, Christa found that her wrist had gathered a pool of swelling, and was hardly moveable; the wince told of the tension teasing at her face while charlie horses tore knots behind her kneecaps. “Damn, I feel like I got hit by a rock,” she answered the feline’s questioning eyes with a valiant smirk. The sniper’s keen gaze put two and two together, due to the claw marks on the ground, and the fresh soot between his furry toes. “Thanks,” she said quickly, but meant it.
She rose to her feet, but found the blood surging to her head was too much, it caused her to swoon and nearly fall into the beast who was standing solidly by her side. Her hand extended outwards shakily, to catch her merging steps, and then after a small scuffle in the sand, she fell on her sitting bones with a great plume of dust fluffing upwards. The sniper’s eyes lazily took in the scene, smoldering at Karl as they passed him by. Bastard, I owe you a fucking bullet, was all that came to mind, but that was hardly an original thought. Her eyes scurried past, looking at Cyborg who’s arm had been ripped from the bone. Then, they fell on the smaller girl, who vaguely resembled Katia, save a wild look in her eye. The girl was in the distance, far from where Christa sat in the snowy sand.
They would live. But the war they had endured would wear on their faces forever.
The pain had settled to a background yowl, if she didn’t move her arm a single hair. Time ticked away, while she pulled out an item she’d slipped into her pocket during the battle. Her eyes had barely grazed it, but what could she say? She was a fan of glimmering stars, and for all Christa knew, within it could be gold. Now she pulled the ampoule out to inspect her treasure, appearing with a honey-stained gleam in the light. It was a vile with golden swishing liquid inside, she shook it and froth formed around the edges within. It was meant to be swallowed, or injected, or so she was sure, until she saw a fine silver gleam at the middle of the vial. A needle already inside. It caught her eye, and frankly, it could’ve been drugs. Christa used her only hand and squeezed the vile against her knees to open it before sniffing the soothingly astringent scent. Medicine.
Well, fuck it. Which was, well, usually her motto for everything. She stabbed the needle through the skin near her injured arm, not really thinking of the consequences, only hoping to quell at least an ounce of the dreadful, excruciating pain, which had weaved steaming vines up her arm, and seemed to have been spreading until the injected shot cut it off. Nothing happened. Her bones didn’t instantly turn to steel, nor did the blood trickling over her eye cease to roll. Christa rolled her eyes as the bottle emptied and shrugged as she put the hollow glass back in her pocket.
A sling was a good idea to have, though considering the state of things, she’d have to sacrifice the shirt on her back for the fabric of it. Her eyes fell on Karl, he stood there with that capricious smile on his lush lips, jesting her with his only his eyes -which was all it took.
“Give me your jacket.” she didn’t have the strength to stand, not yet, so she more or less hollered at him from a few yards away. To be honest, Christa didn’t think he would, since it wasn’t his style and the purple coat certainly was, “Not sure if you want to have to see what’s under mine. Red’s only got fur, and the guy over there has metal clothing woven into his skin. There’s no luggage scattered here, and I need a sling.”
Her tone was different this time, as though speaking concisely what she exactly needed from the man, there was no pleading, only words, demanding action. Only a request to be denied. Karl seemed to always win, always gain something in every encounter, if not a petty amount of loathing to pass his spare time. In response to her words, which he had no obligation to reply, he smirked and lifted his foot, which revealed a sizable handkerchief, large enough to sling her wrist in. His expression seemed non-committal, and he did not offer to extend and carry the thing to her, despite the blood splattered against the fabric of her pants. The gash in her leg was bothering her, causing the limp as he had once even called her, to squeeze tight at every hobbled step towards the suited man, but she made her way. In her boots, she felt something she hadn’t in so long. Blisters. Scabs too, had already begun to form and congeal where the skin had been ripped away. What did existing in this verse do to primes? Reality was somehow different and obscured. Maybe that’s why Karl always seemed to act the same.
As she made her way over to him, finally close enough to face him, she bend down to pick it up, complaining not with words nor an under-her-breath comment as she scooped up the fabric and gave it an ample shake before tying it tight as a noose around her neck. Just maybe, she was satisfied. “Thanks, but purple’s not my color anyway.”
As she turned away again, she could’ve sworn she saw him smile.
Before she knew it, she’d slipped her wrist in, and found the corner of a package in the sand. She sat down and her hand reached for the unknown but familiar shape, as she picked it up, she noted it was a box of cigarettes. The green emblem mixed with royal red and lines of gold told her that this was the exact brand that Abner smoked. Christa blinked, and with her single hand, she pulled one out of the box. Never in her life had she ever asked for a light, but right now, she thought she could’ve used one, if not for the nostalgic fondness she imagined it would give her. He had held this in his hands. She put the unlit stick in the part of her lips and let it hang there for a while, there weren’t any lighters in sight, nor did she feel the need to make her lungs convulse and wheeze.
The outward facing edge of her the coffin nail caught her eye, and she stared at its absence of smoke while some of the initial thrill from the battle left her still rattling mind. The prime was pretty banged up, and she considered the face that went along with the cigarette in her mouth. Her pale eyes wilted slightly as she looked off at the salivating waves chomp into the natural declivity of the beach. Smoke. It reminded her of him. Completely immersive, yet it was kind of sad when it all fell away. The clutter in her thoughts dissipated with the sudden wind and her hand moved to her belt, which carried her utilities and her fingers lightly touched the two canisters hung there. They just happened to create smoke.
While her thoughts inspired her to stand again, her body once more, wavered. Squeaks in her muscles protested No! Stop! while her mind was all too determined to do anything but. Christa had a good look down the beach, and there was nothing there, save a few slices of metal. There had once been a group of other survivors, but it had moved off, and left nothing but wave-washed tracks on the beach. Then her eyes scaled the forest, and the great big mountain that laid so distantly atop it, which she was able to see from the less-dense film of mist over the island. Bright eyes glittered with curiosity. It’d do no good to try to unleash a smoke signal here, especially if help might come from the other side of the mountain, and, if her... he, was alive, there was no telling if he’d see it from where he was, perhaps he’d been crashed in the forest just like she had.
There really were no answers, but a whole lot of fog. If that really were her only gamble, the one that hung off the side of her hip, she had to take it even if the visibility was poor. The beach could get her rescued, but Christa didn’t want to go without him. Nor without her answers, without the nameless girl in the photograph. A sense of belonging welled up within her and something like fate bound her to the island. While something like Karl Jak gave her a purpose to fight it.
“I’m going out there,” She told Red XIII, “We aren’t safe on the beach, and while I’m hardly mobile, I think I have to go in there. I have to know what secrets this island holds, since he won’t tell me, I have to find them. I can barely hold my gun, and if I had my pistol, I’m sure I could barely cock it. But I’ve got a reason to live and something worth dying for. Maybe that’ll be enough to help me find what I’m looking for.”
[spoiler]
The room was a sheet of black, with a single lamp belaying down from a nonexistent sky. A true abyss. She swept her line of sight as she tried to get a better angle of the room, but there was nothing to see. Just the single light. As she drew closer, staggering as though under some sort of pressure that she carried not just on her shoulders, but on the rest of her body, which she now was able to look down and see.
It was the corpse.
Half of her shown bloodied and mangled below her chin, and there were no toes to wiggle or kick her free. How was she suspended in air? Her blood was fresh, hot, and greasy. Nothing like the cauterized flesh of the woman she had more or less put to rest. Panic began to grind away the corners of her mind, slowly working its way inward, while Christa’s skinned hands attempted to stop the gore from escaping from her stomach. Just then, there was a voice. It distracted her from the darkness she sat in, enough to make her look up. Enough to make her forget.
The voice was British, and spoke these words in a firm and permanent tone, “You’re going to die.” though the woman attempted to bay the fear that surged within her with a gulp, nothing would stop the stirring of a tsunami now rising in her chest.
...
Velvet sand glued to her tongue and was sprinkled on her skin, which had been crushed face-down into the beach. The pebbles crunched inside her mouth, while her eyelids cracked open like a door, letting the bright light in.
An azure sky filled her vision, stained by the focusing figure of Red as his whiskers prickled against her sandy cheeks. A violent breath seized her, as a chill of shock, panic, and horror shuddered through her shoulders and iced her toes. Who the Hell was that supposed to be? Bruce fucking Dickinson? Christa’s fingers interwove with the soft sand as she gingerly rose, feeling the pricks and pangs of pain pierce the parts that are forgotten until something ails them.
“Tch.” she exhaled a complaint and as the lion gazed at her glacial body, they’d see her lips had turned purple from the chill. Her wrist suddenly screamed at her with fierce, relentless torment, as though stolen straight from the fires of Hell, startling her with sudden agony that felt like skin was being shredded from the bone. Looking down, Christa found that her wrist had gathered a pool of swelling, and was hardly moveable; the wince told of the tension teasing at her face while charlie horses tore knots behind her kneecaps. “Damn, I feel like I got hit by a rock,” she answered the feline’s questioning eyes with a valiant smirk. The sniper’s keen gaze put two and two together, due to the claw marks on the ground, and the fresh soot between his furry toes. “Thanks,” she said quickly, but meant it.
She rose to her feet, but found the blood surging to her head was too much, it caused her to swoon and nearly fall into the beast who was standing solidly by her side. Her hand extended outwards shakily, to catch her merging steps, and then after a small scuffle in the sand, she fell on her sitting bones with a great plume of dust fluffing upwards. The sniper’s eyes lazily took in the scene, smoldering at Karl as they passed him by. Bastard, I owe you a fucking bullet, was all that came to mind, but that was hardly an original thought. Her eyes scurried past, looking at Cyborg who’s arm had been ripped from the bone. Then, they fell on the smaller girl, who vaguely resembled Katia, save a wild look in her eye. The girl was in the distance, far from where Christa sat in the snowy sand.
They would live. But the war they had endured would wear on their faces forever.
The pain had settled to a background yowl, if she didn’t move her arm a single hair. Time ticked away, while she pulled out an item she’d slipped into her pocket during the battle. Her eyes had barely grazed it, but what could she say? She was a fan of glimmering stars, and for all Christa knew, within it could be gold. Now she pulled the ampoule out to inspect her treasure, appearing with a honey-stained gleam in the light. It was a vile with golden swishing liquid inside, she shook it and froth formed around the edges within. It was meant to be swallowed, or injected, or so she was sure, until she saw a fine silver gleam at the middle of the vial. A needle already inside. It caught her eye, and frankly, it could’ve been drugs. Christa used her only hand and squeezed the vile against her knees to open it before sniffing the soothingly astringent scent. Medicine.
Well, fuck it. Which was, well, usually her motto for everything. She stabbed the needle through the skin near her injured arm, not really thinking of the consequences, only hoping to quell at least an ounce of the dreadful, excruciating pain, which had weaved steaming vines up her arm, and seemed to have been spreading until the injected shot cut it off. Nothing happened. Her bones didn’t instantly turn to steel, nor did the blood trickling over her eye cease to roll. Christa rolled her eyes as the bottle emptied and shrugged as she put the hollow glass back in her pocket.
A sling was a good idea to have, though considering the state of things, she’d have to sacrifice the shirt on her back for the fabric of it. Her eyes fell on Karl, he stood there with that capricious smile on his lush lips, jesting her with his only his eyes -which was all it took.
“Give me your jacket.” she didn’t have the strength to stand, not yet, so she more or less hollered at him from a few yards away. To be honest, Christa didn’t think he would, since it wasn’t his style and the purple coat certainly was, “Not sure if you want to have to see what’s under mine. Red’s only got fur, and the guy over there has metal clothing woven into his skin. There’s no luggage scattered here, and I need a sling.”
Her tone was different this time, as though speaking concisely what she exactly needed from the man, there was no pleading, only words, demanding action. Only a request to be denied. Karl seemed to always win, always gain something in every encounter, if not a petty amount of loathing to pass his spare time. In response to her words, which he had no obligation to reply, he smirked and lifted his foot, which revealed a sizable handkerchief, large enough to sling her wrist in. His expression seemed non-committal, and he did not offer to extend and carry the thing to her, despite the blood splattered against the fabric of her pants. The gash in her leg was bothering her, causing the limp as he had once even called her, to squeeze tight at every hobbled step towards the suited man, but she made her way. In her boots, she felt something she hadn’t in so long. Blisters. Scabs too, had already begun to form and congeal where the skin had been ripped away. What did existing in this verse do to primes? Reality was somehow different and obscured. Maybe that’s why Karl always seemed to act the same.
As she made her way over to him, finally close enough to face him, she bend down to pick it up, complaining not with words nor an under-her-breath comment as she scooped up the fabric and gave it an ample shake before tying it tight as a noose around her neck. Just maybe, she was satisfied. “Thanks, but purple’s not my color anyway.”
As she turned away again, she could’ve sworn she saw him smile.
Before she knew it, she’d slipped her wrist in, and found the corner of a package in the sand. She sat down and her hand reached for the unknown but familiar shape, as she picked it up, she noted it was a box of cigarettes. The green emblem mixed with royal red and lines of gold told her that this was the exact brand that Abner smoked. Christa blinked, and with her single hand, she pulled one out of the box. Never in her life had she ever asked for a light, but right now, she thought she could’ve used one, if not for the nostalgic fondness she imagined it would give her. He had held this in his hands. She put the unlit stick in the part of her lips and let it hang there for a while, there weren’t any lighters in sight, nor did she feel the need to make her lungs convulse and wheeze.
The outward facing edge of her the coffin nail caught her eye, and she stared at its absence of smoke while some of the initial thrill from the battle left her still rattling mind. The prime was pretty banged up, and she considered the face that went along with the cigarette in her mouth. Her pale eyes wilted slightly as she looked off at the salivating waves chomp into the natural declivity of the beach. Smoke. It reminded her of him. Completely immersive, yet it was kind of sad when it all fell away. The clutter in her thoughts dissipated with the sudden wind and her hand moved to her belt, which carried her utilities and her fingers lightly touched the two canisters hung there. They just happened to create smoke.
While her thoughts inspired her to stand again, her body once more, wavered. Squeaks in her muscles protested No! Stop! while her mind was all too determined to do anything but. Christa had a good look down the beach, and there was nothing there, save a few slices of metal. There had once been a group of other survivors, but it had moved off, and left nothing but wave-washed tracks on the beach. Then her eyes scaled the forest, and the great big mountain that laid so distantly atop it, which she was able to see from the less-dense film of mist over the island. Bright eyes glittered with curiosity. It’d do no good to try to unleash a smoke signal here, especially if help might come from the other side of the mountain, and, if her... he, was alive, there was no telling if he’d see it from where he was, perhaps he’d been crashed in the forest just like she had.
There really were no answers, but a whole lot of fog. If that really were her only gamble, the one that hung off the side of her hip, she had to take it even if the visibility was poor. The beach could get her rescued, but Christa didn’t want to go without him. Nor without her answers, without the nameless girl in the photograph. A sense of belonging welled up within her and something like fate bound her to the island. While something like Karl Jak gave her a purpose to fight it.
“I’m going out there,” She told Red XIII, “We aren’t safe on the beach, and while I’m hardly mobile, I think I have to go in there. I have to know what secrets this island holds, since he won’t tell me, I have to find them. I can barely hold my gun, and if I had my pistol, I’m sure I could barely cock it. But I’ve got a reason to live and something worth dying for. Maybe that’ll be enough to help me find what I’m looking for.”
[spoiler]
Quote:Reward Item used (+1 SP, +4 Damage).[/spoiler]
![[Image: -Gildarts-fairy-tail-35651033-300-180.gif]](http://images6.fanpop.com/image/photos/35600000/-Gildarts-fairy-tail-35651033-300-180.gif)
"I have never met a strong person with an easy past." -Atticus