Sad Tunes

[jimmydalad]

God Adonis had a punchable face. Every word that came out of his mouth just made Aria want to fucking deck him if he wasn't around twice his size. Fucking hell, he was such an asshole and a retard. He tried to stand up to Adonis, even though he towered over him and could probably knock him out in his sleep. He was so incensed, that he probably wasn't considering his safety in this situation.

"Are you fucking stupid?" Aria spat back, glaring daggers at him. "I don't know if you can remember, but the only thing I have is a fucking trumpet! The only "game" I'm playing is to not fucking die!"

Before he had the chance to scream more obscenities at Adonis and tell him how much of a fucking idiot he was, the crying girl let out a loud yell. That wasn't the only thing though. A distinct rattling. Was that metallic? Oh god, what was that? He never bothered to think about what weapon she had.

"Uhhh... what's in your bag?"

Oh god, what if she had a fucking gun? Or something else lethal? Was she just waiting for them to lower their guard to strike? He assumed that she stayed out of the conversation because she was too busy crying like a fucking baby, but what if there were more dangerous reasons?

Aria took a few steps away from the girl, refusing to look away from her. What if she attacked him or something?

[Aura]

Trumpet Boy really gave Adonis a lot to think about while he was yelling at him. Right now he was wondering what would happen if he threw him into the fence. Like, would it break and send him off the cliff to his death, or would he just bounce off and land on his face? He would probably feel bad if the first one happened, but the second one would be kinda funny.

Oh right, he was getting lectured about being stupid or trumpets or whatever. Really, Adonis didn't give a crap what was getting spewed at him. He was probably about to bounce anyway. He didn't have to put up with some guy getting all holier-than-thou with him. He could do better than these losers. He didn't even bother coming up with a comeback. However, he was getting pretty tempted to just smack the guy...

Wait, shit, put that on hold. There was crying and loud noises. "... The shit was that?" He said, looking over at the girl who was now on the ground again. He was a little more concerned about the jingling and clanking that he heard, though. Either she was made of metal and her kneecaps had come loose or something, or there was something really loud and mechanical in that bag of hers. Adonis may not have been the smartest guy around, but he knew that one of those possibilities was a lot more likely that the others.

Conveniently, Trumpet Boy had already asked what he was about to, so Adonis just pointed at him and reiterated. "Yeah, what he said."

[Cicadan]

They were both glaring at her. Hostile expressions. Coldness, iciness propagated like a laser through the air. All she could see. They might as well have been two more cameras mounted onto the fences.

She shook her head, suddenly, violently.

"I-it's... a-uah-ah-..."

'Pillbox.'

'Coinpurse.'

'The weapon they gave me was a bunch of dinner bells.'

Why was she trying to lie?

"... A gun." The admission was meek. Weak. Barely audible over the ambient breeze.

She could feel her injuries, clearly now. Ankle was sprained, worst case scenario. Shoulder was fractured. Best case scenario. Adrenaline was at least temporarily burning the pain away. That wouldn't last long. And the ache was just relocated to her heart anyways, she swore the needle-cushion thing she'd once trusted to pump her own blood was going to beat it's way out of her chest

and they were going to beat her

Rachael was still trapped. Loops of her bag caught around the fence caught around her ankle, a twisting pulsating squid mass. She whimpered then dropped to her knees. For once she ignored the pain as fumbling fingers for once didn't betray her, as she quickly unzipped the bag and found what she was looking for had drifted right to the top, so innocuous like flotsam riding the waves.

It came down to this, it had seemingly devolved so quickly. In times of diplomacy the opening and closing statements would be delivered at sword and gunpoint. She knew that well enough, that little heroine demon girl. What she didn't know was that she was no hero, but dramatic irony was for now just keeping the wool spun over her pretty little eyes.

Already loaded.

It was a heavy piece of wicked machinery but somehow it felt light as a feather in her grip. It warmed up quickly as her blood-engorged skin enveloped it in body heat, immediately it was almost a familiar part of her person, more welcome than the faces and the voices beyond.

Every part of Rachael that wasn't the fist closed around the handle of her gun trembled. The threat of her aim itself was steady. Center mass.

[jimmydalad]

Of course, the crying girl had a gun. Why the fuck not? Wasn't like his start could be any fucking worse, couldn't it? Adumbis had strength, the crying banshee had a fucking gun and what did he get? A trumpet. Why thank you so fucking much Danya. Aria didn't know the guy got such a boner from fucking him over. What a fucking joke.

What wasn't funny was that the girl got her gun out. And started to aim at them.

Ohnononononono. Fuuuuck that.

"Hey hey hey!" Aria said quickly, holding up his hands in surrender for the second time in the last 10 minutes. "L-let's not rush things, ok? I'm not gonna hurt you, I swear!"

If he could fucking run, he would. His legs refused to move though. He knew full well that if he ran, there was a high chance that he'd be peppered by a hail of bullets. The wreck could've been the shittest aimer in the entire country and she'd still probably be able to pick him off cause there was nothing to block the bullets. How the fuck did he end up getting into the shittest situations in life?

"Look, I'm sure we can all walk away with our lives intact. I don't wanna hurt anyone, especially not you... uhh... person I just met. Let's just put down the gun and we can all just fuck off wherever we want. That way, everyone wins."

Ok, some of that was a lie. He'd love to put Adumbis in his place. But now was probably not the time to be trying to dig into the other guy. Right now, he had to worry about the potential fucking psycho who just suddenly decided to get aggressive. It really didn't take long for her to crack. While sad, it was also fucking terrifying since his life was potentially on the line. Was it so hard to just not kill someone? They were probably gonna fucking die here anyway, but he'd rather die by his own hands rather than by Miss Sally the School Shooter.

Was it so hard to be a fucking good person?

[Aura]

Oh fuck.

Yeah, that was a gun. The girl who had barely stopped crying since he showed up just whipped out a gun. Yeah, that wasn't good.

Oh wait, now she was starting to aim it at them. That was worse.

Shit was getting real, and time seemed to slow down for a second when Adonis saw the barrel float towards him. Nuh-uh, no way was he going out like this. Adonis Alba was not going to get shot down by some weepy girl that pulled a gun on him for no reason. That just wasn't happening.

Adonis considered the limited options in front of him and took the one that made the most sense: He ran like the fucking wind.

Screw Crying Girl, screw Trumpet Boy, screw everything. He was out of there.

((Adonis Alba continued elsewhere...))

[Cicadan]

Rachael stared blankly as Adonis fled, her own eyes glassy, doll-like in a crude facsimile of humanity. She felt nothing as she watched him go, except the slight draining of tension that she hadn't even realized had been locking her jaw.

It's weird. I've been panicking and suddenly when I'm pulling out the gun I get so calm.

Rachael heard the echo of herself thinking in the distance. She turned microscopically to consider the unknown boy once more. She was able to relax her stiff neck into a soft nod. An almost calm smile, like the ones she'd used to force for the faces of strangers. An insistent thrust of the gun forward, her hand so strangely capable of keeping the grip steady. There was juxtaposition to the scene Rachael could have appreciated if it hadn't been herself as its star.

"I don't..."
'want to hurt'
'want to kill'
'want you to hate me'

Silence. Silence that dared Aria to speak. The creaking tension on the trigger one moment away from being pulled could almost be heard.

"... Just go. Ph-...please."

Rachael couldn't think of anything else to say or she couldn't think at all.

[jimmydalad]

Wow, thanks for your stunning display of bravery Adumbis. At least he had the fucking balls to at least try and be diplomatic with the crazy bitch with the gun. The worst part was that she didn't even bother to try gunning him down. Did she really have such a problem with him? He couldn't be worse than fucking Adumbis. could he?

God, now that he took a closer look at her, she was really fucking creepy. That smile was unnatural, possibly even inhuman. She seemed unnaturally calm holding a fucking gun in her hands like it was just a fucking casual thing to do. Why the hell was it a fucking gun that calmed her down? He stayed deathly still, waiting to hear something from the girl who had in his mind already snapped.

"More than happy to."

Fuck, was this his first lucky break in the game? Being held up and then just allowed to leave like he was already thinking about doing anyways? It seemed way too good to be true, especially with the state the crazy chick was in. She couldn't even string together a single sentence without blubbering all over the place. He was tentative to immediately accept that she just would let him go, but he honestly didn't see any better option for him.

His first steps were backward, making sure that the psycho girl didn't try pulling a fast one on him. Once he was a comfortable distance from her, which in this case was pretty fucking far, he turned around and bolted like his life depended on it. In his mind, it probably did.

((Aria Samuels in The Land of Shadow))

[Cicadan]

And everything cascaded at once when Rachael was finally alone, left like an abandoned corpse, alone in repose underneath an unfamiliar sky. A cold frisson down her spine as she was promptly reacquainted with pain. Skins rubbed raw, bones pounded apart by mortar and pestle. Rachael couldn't even force down a breath, she fell to all fours like a helpless animal, shallowly panting for desperate gulps of oxygen. The crack buried right under the skin of her shoulder neatly split her body.

What are Mom and Dad going to think? What about Bridget?
Did you think about that?

There was nobody in the vicinity talking but the sounds piled up like the infinite blaring of a horn buried deep away within the earth.

What is Daniel going to think of this?

Rachael hissed to herself, anguish becoming spittle slogging through her teeth, the peeling skin of her palm trapped on top of the metal of her suddenly far-too-heavy gun.

He's here too.
You know.

The crack buried right under the brittleness of her skull neatly split her body. Rachael was frozen trembling, she was headaches, she was dry heaving,

The story doesn't end there, and she knows it, and she wishes she could find a happy ending but she knows it's not going to happen. Because she knows herself, and she knows what she's going to one day be. She knows that her story starts once upon a time when a little girl was lost in the woods...

she was that unfamiliar old friend. Me, myself, and I.

It was hard to get up and move on. She almost didn't manage.

((...))