literature

PMOCT- Round One, Part Two

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When Sorrel stepped onto the floor of the stadium, she realized there was no sun. Sorrel had been hoping for sun. She blinked blearily up at the ellipse of space above her, above the churning crowds, and felt her eyes ache from the sudden flood of unnatural light.
She lowered her face and looked at the walls of humans before her. They sounded distant, and blurred, and their individual faces had run together into a pattern of fabric that draped and wrinkled itself across the stadium. Sorrel turned away. No need to get nervous before a rustling bit of fabric.
And then she saw him, across the stadium.
He was a man, she supposed, thin and sparsely clothed. There were…sticks in his hair. Sorrel realized that her feet had been carrying her forward, without her permission, and so she stopped herself a few long paces from him.
A voice pooled across the stadium air, and the fabric shushed and rippled as if agitated by a sudden, strong gust of wind. The two opponents studied one another for several minutes, as if waiting for the other to make the first move.
The man's apple-green eyes darted around him, and Sorrel saw the fear in his eyes, the fear she felt still pulsing in the undertone of her movements. Her focus drifted down to the brown patches of skin that dappled his body, ones that looked much too much like bark. It was when she recognized a single emerald leaf fluttering from his arm that she thought, suddenly, of the stories Fred used to tell her. Hadn't they involved people that came from trees?
Gradually, a singular word formed from the crowd's roar.
"Fight! Fight! Fight!" Sorrel looked up to spot not only the throngs of people, but several individuals in white coats watching them silently. She sighed, refocused herself, and returned her gaze to the tree-man.
"Well," she tried to keep her voice from faltering. "Hello."
He didn't answer.
"Uh, look. I don't want to fight, do you?" The tree-man seemed to balk slightly, then, ever so slowly, as if it required great effort, shook his head.
"Get on with it!" someone in the front rows shouted.
"Right," Sorrel nodded, trying to ignore the voice. "Any ideas then?"
"Fight! Fight!"
It was at that moment that she saw the tree-man's eyes shift from her, focus on something behind her, then widen. Sorrel started to turn when a hollow thud resounded across her ribcage. She stumbled and fell back into the dirt. The crowds bellowed as Sorrel found her face a mere breathe away from a lightly panting muzzle. A muzzle colored a garish pink. A muzzle connected to the head of what looked like a mountain lion. Its breath reeked. And it was pink.
The lion's claws dug through to her skin, and Sorrel suddenly felt that something inside her had gone wrong when the lion had tackled her. She became aware of the pain floating through her fingers, the same pain that was making her brain feel thick and sweaty.
That was the first second.
The next second, Sorrel whipped out blindly with the dress, the metal ball heavy inside. There was a hitch and a tearing sound and her hand became frighteningly light.
She then swung a punch with her other hand but it was like hitting a fuzzy brick wall. She hissed with pain, clutching at her fist, and waited for the dagger-like teeth to rush down to meet her exposed neck.
A moment passed.
Sorrel squinted one eye open, then frowned and opened both of them properly.
The lion, though still crouched atop her torso, was focused on something else, its ears high and alert.
Sorrel craned her neck at what the lion could be possibly looking at, ignoring the shot of pain through her ribs. Her frown deepened at the sight of the tree-man. He stood, his hands curled around what looked like a small harp, his face soft and focused. She couldn't quite hear it from this distance, but she realized he was singing. A second lion, this one a fresh green color, lay magnificently at its feet, its ears also pricked forward.
At that moment, the lion on top of her grunted and removed itself from Sorrel. It padded a few paces away before thumping down into a sitting position, still gazing at the tree-man. Sorrel didn't bother trying to sit up, she didn't think her body could handle it, but she still watched as the people in the stadium closest to the tree-man watching him with something like wonder, or at least utter contentment, stamped identically across their faces.
The tree-man's voice swelled and she could start to hear it now, echoing to her across the stadium, and as she listened she registered that content expression growing across the crowd's faces.
Then the song fully came to her, like a breeze, and suddenly she was in a bubble of silence, and the only thing she could hear was his voice. Even the pain in her hand and ribs had faded to a distant throb. It wasn't a human song, she could tell. The tune lilted and dipped and did things she hadn't realized music was capable of. And as she listened, the notes twisted before her and organized themselves into a web of green light, dappled by the full reach of a summer forest's canopy. She felt silent, living bark run beneath her fingers. She saw blurred glimpses of faces, and a course of years that flowed past her in a small stream. She felt earth in her toes and swift, sweet water rising through her veins.    
And then, the voice shifted, and a larger, choppier wave struck her, and she thought, distantly, that her body might have jerked as it swept over her. Separation. Unbearable pain. A rising sense of loosing the self. The silent bark faded swiftly from her, and she couldn't help but feel that she had just lost something precious.
And then that pain seemed to worm into her with a small crescendo, a slightly off chord, and the next thing Sorrel knew, she realized that she needed to sleep. She was so tired, she realized, as her eyelids drifted shut. So, so tired…

When Test Subject 052A began singing, Tadd found himself wishing he could be there physically; the subject's voice coming through the speakers just didn't convey the full power. But, Tadd thought ruefully as he squinted at the screen that showed the green lion thumping to the ground, someone had to stay in the observation center. He made a few notes, then resumed watching.
After a few moments of observing the screen, though, Tadd started frowning. First the front rows, eventually entire swathes of the crowd began to go limp. Tadd's frown deepened as he tapped a few keys and sent his remotely controlled camera zooming in on a few of his colleagues sitting in the stands.
They were sleeping.
Cursing under his breath, Tadd watched as the subject looked around at the sleeping stadium bewilderedly, hoisted his harp, and dashed for the nearest exit.
"Sir!" he called out to his supervisor, refusing to take his eyes from the screen. "Sir, are you seeing-"
"Yes, I'm seeing it," his supervisor muttered from a few computers down, peering over one of Tadd's colleague's shoulder. "Call security."
Tadd heard the distinctive beep as someone alerted Artemis, but his attention remained riveted as the subject found an employee service door, firmly locked. The camera zoomed in on the subject's panicked expression. The subject lifted his harp and began singing once more.
The camera zoomed out to catch the pink lion, the larger one by far, raise its head blearily. Then, with a twist of the subject's voice, it stood in one graceful motion. One brash chord later, the pink lion surged forward, streaking straight for the locked door. Tadd actually winced as its massive body slammed ungracefully into the door, forcing it open. The lion disappeared in the dark, carried forward by its own momentum, and didn't come back out.
The subject looked about to follow the lion through the door before he paused and looked behind him. He seemed to hesitate, then turned and sprinted for the woman sprawled on the ground. He bent down, pulled her up to a slump and placed her arm around his shoulder. He struggled back to the door, half-dragging the woman with him, and disappeared from view.
As the alarms wailed around him, Tadd leaned back in his chair, exhaled sharply and realized that he was grinning.
This section gave me alot of trouble. I think I went through two or three completely different plots, and I had to cut a lot out too...but whatever. I'm semi-pleased with it now.

And we get to meet :iconyaoi-fanaticxdd:'s character, Aslan! I loved working with this guy.

:iconprojectminotauroct:
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CamelliaSinensis's avatar
Ooh, nice! *skips off to continue reading*