There We Will Be, Like An Old Enemy

Private, early morning, before Day 4 announcement

The Compound consists of the upper, above ground levels of the titular structure. The outer walls of The Compound evoke brutalist architecture, being composed primarily of concrete, steel, and glass. The building itself is enormous, and box-like in shape, with two floors above ground and two floors below ground. Despite the road, parking lot, and fence surrounding The Compound all showing signs of age, the structure itself appears to be completely intact. On the roof of the structure are an enormous exhaust pipe and a very large loudspeaker, the latter of which can be heard across nearly the whole arena when it is turned on, and is nearly deafening up close.

Inside, The Compound's floors all consist of the same layout, with hallways running around the perimeter of the building surrounding its central staircase, with rooms branching outwards from these hallways and facing the outer edges of the building. During the day, the interior of The Compound is dimly lit, courtesy of the glass windows common to every outside-facing room. At night it is completely dark inside, requiring the use of a flashlight for the average person to be able to see.

Much of the furnishings of The Compound have been moved around and overturned to create cover within the rooms and hallways, but cursory examination shows the most common furnishings being cabinets, flat metallic tables, and plastic chairs. Discerning the purpose of most of The Compound's above ground rooms is difficult, but flat countertops with fume hoods above them are a frequent sight, and some rooms (primarily on the building's west side) possess beds and were seemingly designed for habitation. Shards of glass from shattered glassware and scattered, broken medical equipment is common in The Compound's rooms, but not the hallways.

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Maraoone
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There We Will Be, Like An Old Enemy

#1

Post by Maraoone »

((Mattie Wilkinson continues from Inertia))

They had to end up here eventually.

That's what Cecilia had told him when the sun rose. The roughlands had been locked out, and then the old road. The flatlands would go down any moment, and then the parking lot they'd been in last night would be next, she reasoned. They were corralling them up, he thought to himself. Making the circle tighter and tighter, kinda like the collar around his neck, he thought while he forced himself to swallow a lump in his throat, ignore how the edges dug into his skin when he did so. Best to set up camp, pick out a spot while they still could, rather than get picked off by whoever beat them to it. It was all but inevitable.

So the duo had entered the structure, Mattie in front. Mattie in front despite the fact that this was the last place he wanted to be, despite the fact that the last place he wanted to be was near all these people. Because his fears didn't matter anymore, not after last night. She needed someone who made her feel like she mattered, so here he was.

The both of them weren't getting out of here. Yesterday's flashbacks had proven that. They had no further ideas for escape, and this country had just forgotten the both of them, moved on without them. They had two, three days left he guessed, and only one of them would make it out. That was how it was.

So, all there was left to do was to find some small bit of purpose. And, he'd always wanted to matter to someone. Matter to anyone. So, he'd protect her. If there was anything he'd accomplish in his short, short life, it'd be that, at least.

They wandered a bit around the dusty, mercifully empty hallways, and then the scent of rust and cooked meat became more and more noticeable, and Mattie's steps gradually slowed to nothing.

He turned towards her.

"You wanna keep going?"
SC3:
Matias Juarez is fed up. He is currently walking home.
Pregame: now that you are broken by the seas, in the depths of the waters,
Memories: Vamô Detonar essa Porra!

Diego Larrosa is lost.
[+] ᵧₒᵤբₛ
[+] Supers
Dead:
SS35: Mattie Wilkinson can't stop thinking about the past. He tried his best to matter in There We Will Be, Like An Old Enemy. [14/43]
Previous Threads: would - I'm the Satellite and You're the Sky - I'll Be Your Friend in the Daylight Again - What Remains of Cyrus Vähi - Could You Spare My Blood? - Inertia
[+] TV3
TV3 Characters:
Dead:
BC03: Matias Juarez hates you, and you personally. It was all bullshit to him in the end. [24/81]
Previous Threads: Doves in the Wind - Chapter 46: Fantom Frigate - Matias & Me - Loyalty: 1 - Everything Is Going According to Plan - Loyalty: 2 - If I ever acquire wisdom, I suppose I'll be wise enough to know what to do with it - Go for Broke - Wisdom (Part 2) - The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living - The Distance Between the Landscape and Dusk - I Want to Conquer the World - Night Moves
Memory Thread: It's All So Incredibly Loud

SS11: Britnee Joyner (adopted from Somer!) heard something from a friend of a friend, and wants you to know about it. She gave the cameras one last smile in Out on the Sea, We'd Be Forgiven [37/81]
Previous Thread: It Matters if We All Live - 👁️👄👁️ -👁️📦👁️ - Wait a Minute! - Bravado - On the Way to Anywhere - I Want Blood, Guts, and Chocolate Cake
Pregame Threads: Now, Check That
Memory Threads: Let's Hit It 90 To Nothing
[+] SC2
Dead:
B16: "Badass" Johnny Lancer (adopted from Yugi!) is the diplomat with scars inside and out. He got what he deserved in Though Far Away, We're Still the Same [8/65]
Pregame: Hold Your Horses Now (We Sleep Until the Sun Goes Down).
Memories: Through the Dreamers, We Hear the Hum. They Say "Come On, Come On, Let's Go."
Previous Threads: I'm Looking For a Place to Start, But Everything Feels So Different Now - waste of words - Now, Wait, Wait, Wait for Me, Please Hang Around. I'll See You When I Fall Asleep - Sinking Man - Little Talks - There and Back Again - Your Bones - some day we may come to peace with the world within ourselves

B33: Damion Castillo is the perfectionist with cracks in his facade. He ran out of time in At Every Occasion, I'll Be Ready For The Funeral [38/65]
Previous Threads: Second Impressions - I'd Rather Be At The Aquarium.
Memories: Take a Bite of My Heart Tonight
[+] SOTF TV2
Dead:
CJ2 - Cathryn Bailey is the cynic who just wants respect. She lost control in Production Costs [4/72]
Previous Threads: A New Morning - Don't You? - The Jellies Experience - Makeup - Discordant - Stuck in the Middle with You - The Final Curtain - Grievances - Silver Lights - Going forward - Closing In
School: Whittree Secondary School
TB3 - Damion Castillo is the elitist who just wants to be good. He died a perfectly ordinary death in Lifdoff [65/72]
Previous Thread: Countdown
School: Davison Secondary School
pls give my kids friends tv3 version

Stephanie's Cuckaneers Today at 12:29 AM
maraoone was a mistake - cicada 2021
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Gundham
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#2

Post by Gundham »

Part of her hoped that she might be wrong, that they wouldn't close off the rest of the desert, but the more they studied the map, the more sense it made for the terrorists to funnel everyone into the central building.

So they'd made their way into the building, hoping to find someplace private. Others would surely be heading towards the area sooner or later, and it'd be better to establish some kind of defences before then.

That was the thought, anyway. But as they walked through the battle-scarred building, it became harder and harder to believe that any safety existed here. The whole building was cloaked in fear and death. That happened to places, sometimes. When something bad enough happened, all of the horror leeched out into the air and clung to everything. It reminded her of the family bar, that last night. The shattered glass and bloodstains all over the floor, the bullet holes in the walls, the spilled drinks. Even though the danger had passed by that point, the entire place felt dangerous and unstable, as though it wanted to devour her family and shred them to pieces.

When Mattie stopped, Cecilia nearly ran into him.

Whatever was in the corridors ahead, it smelled wrong. It was a similar scent to the one she'd smelled on the dead boy in the desert, but somehow worse - it was ripe and sick and hideous, knotting up her guts and sending danger signals pulsing through the deep primitive parts of her brain.

Mattie asked if they should continue, and Cecilia forced herself to nod. There was death down there. And where there was death, there were bodies. And bodies were the best and only weapon that the two of them were going to get.

"Si. We go."
Maraoone
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#3

Post by Maraoone »

And so it was.

Mattie turned away from her, kept going forward. He didn't say anything. The silence gave him less room to back out, run away. Mattie was good for thinking and nothing more, so Cecilia and her bodies were all they had left to fend themselves against the rest of their class.

There was still smoke lingering in the air, when they got to where it all happened.

Two of the bodies were charred and blackened, one completely and the other partially. Something like when his dad had gotten distracted, left a patty on the grill for an hour. The first body looked so unrecognizable that it helped, kind of. Just so divorced from the idea of a person ever having been in there.

It helped if he thought about it without thinking about it at all. If he just noted the silhouette of the thought without ever looking directly at it.

He recognized Kyle's head though. Just another face in the hallways, an eagle face he could put a name to.

Across them was a sphere of bone and a body that looked like a body, sole arm cradled around the sphere. Bloodied, but still recognizable as human-like in form and shape. She even had a face, and most of her limbs.

Was it bad that he felt less nauseous now than he had the first time?

He looked at Cecilia, black and red in the periphery of his sight still.

"Does any of this... work for you?"
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Gundham
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#4

Post by Gundham »

Cecilia inspected them carefully, like she'd seen adults do in a used-car lot.

The burnt one? Right out. The body was withered, with empty charcoal-black eye sockets. Was it a boy or a girl? She couldn't tell. Whoever it was, they were charred beyond all recognition. Whatever had burned this student, they had done it relentlessly. Cecilia wasn't sure if her gift would even work on a body that was that far gone. If had suffered that much damage, it might be too brittle to stay together.

The other one, the eagle boy... his torso had been burned badly, and entrails were dragged out behind him from where he'd tried to crawl along the floor. That explained the rotten smell. Clothing appeared to have melted and fused with his skin. It must have been painful. Incredibly painful.

The sphere? Would that even work? Cecilia had no desire to try. She wasn't sure if her power would work on anything that wasn't properly human. And what would she even do with it? Roll around? But the girl holding the sphere... she looked calm. Serene. Whether she'd been killed by the other two (or some unknown party who'd escaped,) it was clear that she'd had the time to die a bit slower than the others. Her arm was missing, but that wasn't a deal breaker. She still seemed more combat ready than any of the others.

She approached it, looking closely. The girl had certainly been damaged. There were three bullet holes in her torso, but Cecilia could probably shrug those off if she need to. Aside from the arm, things seemed relatively okay. She looked once more at the other bodies, not confident in her choice. Where had the bullet holes come from? Who had the gun now? Had they killed this girl? Or had they killed everyone, with bullets and some kind of fire-related gift? What if they were lurking somewhere near here? She felt extremely anxious. If someone out there had a gun, they needed bodies. Now. A corpse could soak up bullet holes, give them something to hide behind. Fight fights that they couldn't risk doing themselves.

"Okay... I take this one, she who hold the ball. Is... is best, si?"
Maraoone
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#5

Post by Maraoone »

"...yeah sure."

He didn't wanna say that. Something or someone had caused all this. He thought, for a moment, it might have been that explosion he'd heard a couple nights ago, but where they were seemed to be relatively far from the blown out part of the compound. The whole building would've been scorched, if the explosions were what caused these deaths.

And, if it were the explosion, then why wasn't the other body burnt?

It felt dangerous, it all felt dangerous. Like walking along a cliffside at night, each step less certain than the last. But, that was the thing wasn't it? It would always be dangerous, from here on out. Nothing but sheer drops on every side, along every path. So, just keep walking forward, right?

"Seems like the only useable one here, anyways."
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Gundham
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#6

Post by Gundham »

Cecilia nodded, but hesitantly. She looked at the girl's body. Even with the damage to her arm and the bullet holes in her torso, the corpse was still mostly intact. She looked again at the eagle-headed boy, suddenly having second thoughts. She licked her lips nervously. Would he be a better choice? The beak would be a decent weapon, wouldn't it?

No, she told herself. It's fine.

Why was she hesitating? Why was she nervous? She'd touched dead bodies before, hadn't she? But the first boy's collar had blown up and killed him instantly, and the other one had gone down quietly, without a scratch on him. Their deaths had been removed from the violence, but these bodies... They hadn't passed away suddenly, or slowly faded away. They'd had died horribly, scratching and fighting each other to stay alive. That panic, that desperation was everywhere, scrawled in blood all over the scene.

They're just dead people, she told herself. They cannot hurt anyone. Whatever has killed them, it is not here.

She took a deep breath, and lay down next to the girl and her ball, carefully avoiding the rivulets of blood from her wounds. She wiggled a bit, trying to get comfortable amidst the rubble. It was impossible. One more breath, and she reached out to touch the dead girl, and -
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Gundham
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#7

Post by Gundham »

She opened Mercedes Guenther's eyes.

Immediately, something didn't feel quite right. This body wasn't like the others. It felt hot. The bodies weren't supposed to feel hot. The bodies didn't feel like anything much. This was new. It was different. She didn't like different.

And the heat... it felt wrong. She couldn't feel it properly in this body, in the same way she couldn't feel pain in the other ones. It wasn't hot in the way heat was supposed to feel. It was a heat that was all edges, like when you got a bad sunburn and you could feel the heat creeping into you, living inside your skin, not hurting but ready to hurt, ready to set your nerves on fire if you touched it or scratched it or rubbed against it.

Cecilia took a few deep breaths, forcing air into the corpse's lungs, making its chest heave up and down as she tried to get control of it, tried to steer it.

Why was the girl so hot? Had she been burned in the same way as the others, on her back where it didn't show? Maybe that's what had blown her arm off. Maybe. Maybe it something else.

She tried to raise herself up, and the corpse's arm stub shifted uneasily beneath her, giving her the disconcerting feeling that her arm was spearing straight through into the ground. She shuddered.

"I... cannot. It is strange."
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#8

Post by Maraoone »

The corpse shifted, and Mattie noted that only the upper half of her body was moving, the legs just moving along.

Concern seeped into Mattie's features. She wasn't speaking right. Wasn't breathing right.

"You're alright," he said, tone a bit strained, lips trying to curve upwards. "You're alright."

He positioned himself in front of her, stooped down.

"Let's get you up."

Both hands took hold of her arm.
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Gundham
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#9

Post by Gundham »

"G-Gracias."

What was wrong with this body? Why weren't the legs working? Had one of the bullets gone through and hit the spine? Or was something else wrong?

The worry was nagging at her, giving her the troubling sensation that it was loosening her grip on the body, threatening to pull her out all together. She willed herself to stay in control. She could do this. For both of them. She could protect them. Keep them safe.

Mattie's hands encircled her arm. The heat inside her crackled for one heart-stopping second at his touch, and then... went still. She'd done it! She'd held on. Cecilia smiled gratefully at Mattie, and pulled herself up to meet him.

Then the dead girl's fingers twitched, and a pillar of dark blue energy erupted from her palm.
Maraoone
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#10

Post by Maraoone »

Mattie fell to the right just in time.

A small explosion happened behind him, chunks of charred concrete falling to the ground a few meters away, adjacent to the burnt corpses. He stayed frozen in this position for a bit, residual heat lingering on the exposed side of his body, arm hair singed.

And then, he looked at the two intact hands hovered in front of his face, attached to two intact arms, and he laughed. He laughed heartily, and he looked over at Cecilia, and she was laughing too.

He pushed himself up off the ground, saying, "Let's try this again."

He stood behind her, putting his hands underneath her shoulders, and
Maraoone
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#11

Post by Maraoone »

Maraoone
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#12

Post by Maraoone »



"Si. We go," Cecilia had told him.

He shook his head at her, this time.

"No. I- I don't have a good feeling about this place, Cecilia. It- it feels bad here. You get me?"

Cecilia hesitated, her eyes flicking between the hallway and his face.

"Why you ask, if you say no?" she asked him.

She shook her head anyways. "But you are right. This place... it is bad. We find another way, si?"

She turned to leave, taking the lead this time. And, for what would've been the first time in a while, she smiled at him.

"Do not worry, Mattie. This place... it is aterrador. But I use my gift, and I keep us safe. You will see."

Because it was just that easy, right?

He tried to smile back. A tear fell from his eyes.

"If you say so."

Maraoone
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#13

Post by Maraoone »









Somewhere near or far, there was a bubbling sound. A warmed pot of stew on the stove, the heat just turned off.



His chest shuddered and burned.






Maraoone
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#14

Post by Maraoone »



They were somewhere in the flatlands, this time, cold morning air nipping at any exposed skin. Andrew and Tamara standing up front, still living and breathing. Cecilia hovering over Cyrus' body.

Back where it all started.

"Dios mio..." she had whispered, bag clutched to her chest. hugging her bag close to herself. Her hand hovered over the corpse's eyelids.

And, with a suddenness, with a fury, she grabbed her shoulder, yanked her away.

"Don't do it," he panted, eyes glaring at her. His chest heaved back and forth. "Not worth- it's disrespectful. It's disrespectful to him."

"Ahh?!"

Cecilia shrank back, clutching her wrist. She looked at Mattie, her eyes quivering somewhat. A slapped child, anticipating the next blow.

"I-I... I do not mean..."

She took a step back from the body, her torso trembling. "I... I am sorry."

And there was that sludge again in the back of his throat. He stepped back himself, looked at the hand he'd touched her with. Couldn't hold it fucking still.

"No, I- I'm so- I'm sorry-"

He doubled over, chunks of vomit falling at his feet.

Maraoone
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#15

Post by Maraoone »

There wasn't anywhere left to go.

Using his gift was like thinking, Mattie had told Cecilia, and he couldn't think. He tried to go off to some other timeline, some other memory of his, and it drifted away from him, felt like trying to reach for a leaf in a torrent of water.

His vision settled, instead, on this dull-gray ceiling above him. All that was left to him.

He felt soft, plush linen beneath the parts of him he could feel, the most comfortable feeling mixed with the worst.

There was sniffling in the background. The shuffling of fabric, maybe Cecilia retrieving medical supplies, like there was anything to be done. He tried to take in a deep breath. Got worse with every heave of the chest, like knives stabbing, radiating all over his chest and back. Not enough air in the world for him.

He looked down at himself. A good portion of his shirt was devastated, along with everything beneath. At the center of it all was a crater in his left chest that seemed to go down forever and ever. Skin and flesh and bone and organs just burnt into nothing.

He tried reaching again, reaching for something, and his eyes met with the blackened pink-flecked eschars that fully encompassed both his outstretched arms. Didn't hurt, or feel, all that much, surprisingly. He tried reaching again, and the memory went away from him again, and all he was left with was the fact that he had tried to remember, that he had tried to go back. That was it.

Gifts like his had long debunked such theories like determinism. He was born, and philosophers and gift researchers around the world proclaimed that everything was possible, that nothing was impossible. And that was true, technically speaking, at the start. But, what he'd realized over the years was that his gift was like careening down a freeway with infinite exits. There were infinite paths in front of him, yes, but also infinite paths that had passed him by, infinite roads running just parallel to him. And, his gift only just allowed him to peek into the cars on these other paths, but he could never actually go on those roads himself.

And there was always something better out there, wasn't there? Always something that resulted in less people being hurt. And, these better futures, they were always just one turn of the hallway away. One yank of the shoulder away. But despite all his trying, he'd never quite made it there.

So, here he was, laid on this bed, Cecilia crying all over him. His fault.
SC3:
Matias Juarez is fed up. He is currently walking home.
Pregame: now that you are broken by the seas, in the depths of the waters,
Memories: Vamô Detonar essa Porra!

Diego Larrosa is lost.
[+] ᵧₒᵤբₛ
[+] Supers
Dead:
SS35: Mattie Wilkinson can't stop thinking about the past. He tried his best to matter in There We Will Be, Like An Old Enemy. [14/43]
Previous Threads: would - I'm the Satellite and You're the Sky - I'll Be Your Friend in the Daylight Again - What Remains of Cyrus Vähi - Could You Spare My Blood? - Inertia
[+] TV3
TV3 Characters:
Dead:
BC03: Matias Juarez hates you, and you personally. It was all bullshit to him in the end. [24/81]
Previous Threads: Doves in the Wind - Chapter 46: Fantom Frigate - Matias & Me - Loyalty: 1 - Everything Is Going According to Plan - Loyalty: 2 - If I ever acquire wisdom, I suppose I'll be wise enough to know what to do with it - Go for Broke - Wisdom (Part 2) - The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living - The Distance Between the Landscape and Dusk - I Want to Conquer the World - Night Moves
Memory Thread: It's All So Incredibly Loud

SS11: Britnee Joyner (adopted from Somer!) heard something from a friend of a friend, and wants you to know about it. She gave the cameras one last smile in Out on the Sea, We'd Be Forgiven [37/81]
Previous Thread: It Matters if We All Live - 👁️👄👁️ -👁️📦👁️ - Wait a Minute! - Bravado - On the Way to Anywhere - I Want Blood, Guts, and Chocolate Cake
Pregame Threads: Now, Check That
Memory Threads: Let's Hit It 90 To Nothing
[+] SC2
Dead:
B16: "Badass" Johnny Lancer (adopted from Yugi!) is the diplomat with scars inside and out. He got what he deserved in Though Far Away, We're Still the Same [8/65]
Pregame: Hold Your Horses Now (We Sleep Until the Sun Goes Down).
Memories: Through the Dreamers, We Hear the Hum. They Say "Come On, Come On, Let's Go."
Previous Threads: I'm Looking For a Place to Start, But Everything Feels So Different Now - waste of words - Now, Wait, Wait, Wait for Me, Please Hang Around. I'll See You When I Fall Asleep - Sinking Man - Little Talks - There and Back Again - Your Bones - some day we may come to peace with the world within ourselves

B33: Damion Castillo is the perfectionist with cracks in his facade. He ran out of time in At Every Occasion, I'll Be Ready For The Funeral [38/65]
Previous Threads: Second Impressions - I'd Rather Be At The Aquarium.
Memories: Take a Bite of My Heart Tonight
[+] SOTF TV2
Dead:
CJ2 - Cathryn Bailey is the cynic who just wants respect. She lost control in Production Costs [4/72]
Previous Threads: A New Morning - Don't You? - The Jellies Experience - Makeup - Discordant - Stuck in the Middle with You - The Final Curtain - Grievances - Silver Lights - Going forward - Closing In
School: Whittree Secondary School
TB3 - Damion Castillo is the elitist who just wants to be good. He died a perfectly ordinary death in Lifdoff [65/72]
Previous Thread: Countdown
School: Davison Secondary School
pls give my kids friends tv3 version

Stephanie's Cuckaneers Today at 12:29 AM
maraoone was a mistake - cicada 2021
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