004 | Costs an arm and a leg

[harp_strings]

Who: Sheik & anyone
What: Sheik is has been poisoned and is in shock
Where: the graveyard
When: 11th October
Rating: PG-13
Status: open

He did not know why he had been drawn to the graveyard; perhaps it was the tombstones poking out of the scorched earth like jagged teeth with names long since worn away that were a sad reminder of home. It seemed like years since he had seen the rolling green fields of Hyrule or heard the chatter of the marketplace on a busy, midday afternoon.

Days of feverish nightmares had left him with many sleepless nights and the dead of the graveyard seemed to resonate with Sheik. He longed for the peace that they felt and as he scaled the gradient to the top of the hill he felt himself stumble, something itched at the back of his neck. With a sharp intake of breath he reached around and scratched where the sting had stung and, when he pulled his hand back, he saw a small, swollen-bellied little spider spinning madly in the palm of his hand. Without thinking he yelled and flailed his hand to shake the spider off. He was convinced he saw it land on the floor in front of him, but when he leaned forwards to take a closer look... there was nothing.

A minute or two passed and he shifted to move again but felt a weakness wash over him and one of his knees buckled under him. An irony taste swelled in his mouth and his head was spinning. Was it the exhaustion, he asked himself, leaning on a nearby gravestone and slowly sinking down to his knees. A deflated sigh, Sheik shook his head, despairing, trying to focus his eyes on something, anything. "I... suppose it's appropriate that I walked here then." he mumbled to himself, poison clouding his mind he began to hum a familiar melody to himself.

Comments

[fadeling]

It was hard when the games started--it always was, when everyone started hurting more urgently all at once. It was more than just the dull aches that everyone carried with them. The old hurts he could handle because they were quieter. These were loud, immediate, and insistent. Sometimes it was hard to untangle all of them from each other, but sometimes there was a little more brightness to some of the threads.

That was how he'd ended up here in the graveyard, following a thread that led him here. He didn't like it here, it gathered too much pain. But when he saw the other man, he knew he couldn't flee either. He might have hated it, but he had to help more than he wanted to flee.

So he appeared, the way he always did all at once (he'd never learn, it seemed), speaking softly so as not to startle the man any more than he already would be. If he could even register someone else was there through the poison, the fever, the hallucinating.

"Sick and singing and silent. Poison playing pictures and picking places. You need help."

[harp_strings]

A familiar voice echoed around him in stereophonic, words overlapping themselves as Sheik desperately tried to make some sense of them. He knew the owner of the words but their nature was all but lost on him. Blurred, red eyes scratched open and he saw a figure, phasing in and out in a dark haze, the image called a dull ache in the back of his head and his gaze, heavy, looked down where upon he saw hordes of spiders, legs a high-speed blur, crawling up and down his arms. Sheik's heart skipped a beat as he frantically tried to push off the non-existent arachnids.

He looked up again to see the figure who, at first glance was quite normal, now seemed to shift with a dark and terrifying aura. The words you need help bellowed and bounced inside Sheik skull and poisoned with fear he scrambled backwards as if in fear of his life.


[ooc: I like to this that this poison words like the hallucinogenic in Batman Begins XD]

[fadeling]

Cole froze, watching for a moment, completely confused. He hadn't done anything terrifying, had he? At least...he couldn't think of anything. Maybe he had and he had forgotten. It wasn't that unlikely. But...he wouldn't have done anything. Maybe it was something he didn't think was bad. He'd scared people before. They didn't like when he helped, or that he was too strange or that he lurked. Maybe it was like that.

But he didn't want to scare him any more than he already looked scared. And yet, he couldn't leave either. Not when he so obviously needed help.

"You don't have to be afraid."

[harp_strings]

Sheik continued to scramble backwards until he felt his back touch a rather large gravestone with a sculpture of an angel perched on the top of it. He turned to look at it and he audibly gasped as he thought he saw the gargoyle move, wings crumbling as they flap in a jilted animation. Sitting with his back to the stone Sheik brought his knees in close and wrapped his arms around his shins. He looked so small in this position he resembled a boy more than a man and, the fear and poison running hot in his veins, he was trembling.

He tightly scrunched his eyes and tried to block out the fear that was filling up in his head. Again he heard a voice but decided not to look at its owner. With a great expenditure of energy he attempted to filter out the fear and, for a moment, the voice held words and a tone he knew.

"... Cole?"

[fadeling]

He was still cautious, but he did come forward, dropping into a crouch next to the other man, but refrained from touching him. There really wasn't any telling what would happen if he tried. Most likely it would have ended badly.

He did speak, though, if only very softly. He certainly didn't want to startle anyone when they were like this. It was...bad, and he could tell.

"Yes. Are you hurt?"

[harp_strings]

Without realising it one of his hands that had been clinging to his legs instinctively reached for the back of his neck where a puncture mark had now swollen into a very sore-looking spot at Cole's question. All of Sheik's body ached with the dull pain that came with the poison but the spot where he had been bitten was the worst place of all.

"Yes." a pause "No? I don't know. I thought I saw something on me then..." he had to stop to catch his breath. Sheik felt as though the palpitating of his nervous, small heart was sapping all of his energy and the faster it beat; the more venom it transported. His breathing had become laboured at this point "... there... was an insect, no, a spider..."

[fadeling]

Those spiders, then. He'd been right to be worried about them. It was easy to, though, when they were everywhere. And he knew from experience that not all of them were safe. Usually they were bigger, though, where he was from. Much easier to see and fight. Maybe that made them less dangerous. Or more dangerous. These ones were too little to see and that was dangerous too.

"Crawling, creeping, clawing, climbing over and under and up. You need help. I'm not a healer."