celebrityskinned: (Basic - Hit in the Face)
Venus Dee Milo ([personal profile] celebrityskinned) wrote in [community profile] thearena2014-08-20 01:45 am

Nowhere to Hide, In Your Dreams You Are Useless [Open]

WHO| Venus Dee Milo and anyone in the Arena!
WHAT| Venus finds the food court the first night.
WHEN| First night.
WHERE| Food court.
WARNINGS| Mentions of torture, violence and mutilation, plus some dark mental stuff.

She finds the food court on the first night, and for a few moments allows a little spark of hope to catch the tinder in her chest. She and Kankri did well in the cafe for several weeks back at the museum; there might be food there, a stockpile she can jealously guard. More importantly, there might be people.

She doesn't know who among her allies might have been exploded. The entire thing was too fast for her to keep track of which people were reduced to bloody splinters and chips of bone, droplets and chunks across the ice. She'd gone straight for a key and tried to find Kankri, Joly, Ellie, even the boys - but in the tumult, in people's scrambles away from the killing field and to identify their loved ones, she didn't even see if they were among the living.

To be honest, she isn't sure who her allies are anymore. Maybe it's better they haven't seen her like this up close, with bruises festering purple and sickly brown on her neck and arms and bare legs. Her face, usually the envy of skin cream models and makeup artists, is a wound. The brand that sprawls across her cheek, nose and upper lip looks rotten, and the yellowed skin withers away from the edges, where painfully raw flesh beneath peeks out. The juxtaposition of her current state and the daintily-beaded, sequined spandex outfit she's wearing doesn't escape her.

She has a baseball bat from the sporting goods store. She holds it close but not cocked as she starts to go through the metal cabinets behind each buffet line. She pauses occasionally to look over her shoulder, but she doesn't take much care to hide the clatters of metal on metal. She's alright with being found, so long as she can act on it.

Thirty minutes going through each kitchen station yields nothing. Nothing but the hiss of oil in the fryer, spitting at her.

She takes a seat behind the cash register at the Panda Pantry. Her figure skates are dangling around her neck, resting against her chest. She folds up her legs, lets her palms take in the coolness of the tile on the floor. There are no victories for her here - not in the Arena, not in Panem.

She would cry if she weren't on camera, or if she weren't so good at swallowing it down by now, but she's had a human body for over a year now. She knows how to keep it to herself.

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