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Sawbones doesn't understand what's happening as she's dragged out of bed, out of her cell and through the winding corridors by too many hands and voices. Orange lights filter through in choppy patterns, but it is dark, and footsteps trample over any other ambient noise in the Complex. Panic grips the doctor. Where are they taking her?

"There's been a mistake, I wasn't- I'm not scheduled for a match tonight!"

"You're not. You have a visitor."

"A what?" Aria can't think straight, can barely see straight with bleary eyes. She'd never missed a trial, any sanction could delay her release, but any other reason to be escorted so suddenly seemed impossible. She lets herself get pushed along. "Why-What? Why? Who?"

But no answer is given to her. Instead she's sent stumbling and fumbling into the cold showers with five minutes before a pair of her clothes, now conspicuously cleaner, are shoved at her and off she's marched again, now alert yet even more disorientated. There's no one within the Enclaves who would have any reason to know of her, and no one on the outside who would have anywhere close to enough power to arrange a visit to her.

...With perhaps one exception, that being the warlord who sent her here. But even after the horrors of the Bloodharvest, and all the new atrocities she has witnessed, Aria doesn't think she can stomach to see that one person, even if the only alternative is someone completely unpredictable.

~--~--~--~--~--~

Sawbones can see Switch in the distance. Not with her natural eyes, but the tracking systems build into her mask, that highlight her teammate. She's crouched down low, slinking up, this way, back along that way, down and across again, until she suddenly isn't. Gunfire rings through the trees on the rattling wind. The lit up shadow of Switch races like a shot across an unseen platform.

The collected blood flows through her vambrace to the towering needle with sickening magnetism, lighting up the sky like a beacon, but Sawbones can't find herself relieved that she's won't be coming under fire soon. Not when she sees one of the many Switches recoil far too authentically to be a holographic copy. Five units of blood, four units of blood, three units...

"I'll help."

Her voice will have carried across their communication channel, and she hopes Switch heard her over the chaos, but it was Ghost next to her who she was informing. He can do what he wishes with that information. Sawbones trusts Ghost, and she knows someone needs to keep delivering blood, but once Sawbones has climbed up the cliff and begun to activate a fresh batch of power cores for her healing bolts, she is relieved to see him pull himself up beside her.

~--~--~--~--~--~

It's a small room, and one that manages to be both plain and extravagant. Plain for its lack of furnishings, filled with nothing more than a metal table that looks melded to the floor itself and the likewise stark chairs; extravagant, because Aria recognises the intense up-keeping that goes into keeping a space so spotless, and this room is cleaner and more pristine than most surgery tables she's had to work on.

One of the guards gestures for her to take the seat, and she does so. Her chair is not so luxurious as to have plush lining or proper armrests like the empty one across from her, but there are two noticeable ridges on either side of her, with holes that restraints can be fed through, that match the companion holes in the legs of the chair as well as her side of the table. But, at least this time, there's no sign of buckles or chains. The freedom of movement makes it difficult for Aria to ignore how restless she is. Her hair is so long it takes hours to dry, and tying it mere minutes after showering makes the dampness feel twice as heavy on her head. She doesn't know how many guards there originally were when they pulled her from her cell but now their number is down to three or four, and she doesn't dare provoke them by turning around to look closer. The metal furniture is not cold, the room being a comfortable ambient temperature, but it is lower than her body temperature, and she feels like the fragile meat she is sitting there.

She feels naked, she realises, without her mask. She’d forgotten to grab it in her room while being ushered out, or more accurately the guards neglected to collect it when they grabbed her. Her face is no mystery, and even compared to other inmates she regularly forgoes it outside of the matches, when the air is good, but she always had it close at hand. It was laughable and utterly pathetic how she, not just a grown woman but a doctor, felt like a little girl without her precious little security blanket.

But she was a grown woman, and a doctor, and not just any doctor but a woman of principals. They only win when you let them win, when you give in. Pain, fear, even death, none of those lead to failure like submission does. Aria isn't stupid, she knows she can't fight her way out of the Deathgarden, but she can endure, and so long as she endures her freedom will be inevitable. Whatever, whoever, she is about to encounter, will be just one hiccup in her life's work.

There are voices outside of the room, speaking in neutral tones Aria can't discern anything from. One of the guards and... someone else. The visitor; her visitor. The silence of this re-purposed interrogation room is suddenly precious to Aria, the suffocating calm before the storm. Yani and Aishwarya, Aria knew they were due for an imminent match, and Su Bai as well. Aria had been relieved to not be called forth to the lobby, having fancied her first early night’s sleep after years. But now, she misses the routine of the glorified blood sport.

Aria wasn't scared of pain, or fear, or even death. But the unknown was unpredictable, especially when armed with the confines of bureaucracy, and she hated the powerlessness that came from being able to do absolutely nothing but wait and endure it.

~--~--~--~--~--~

Switch is kneeling. Her thigh oozes copiously, multiple rivers streaming from above a shattered knee, and the fresh sanguine smell clogs the air that was already overpowering with the reek of old blood. The frantic clamour of earlier has become a choking quietness.

Healing bolt drawn tight, but Sawbones doesn't fire. The hunter is already there, body blocking most of Sawbones' sight on Switch. Sawbones creeps round, quiet and quick, but Switch doesn't try and crawl away from this murderer, or towards her help. Sawbones has seen Switch desperate, dragging herself across frigid ice and coarse sands, grasping for help, but here she kneels. Her hand is on her face. She holds her face in her hand, the askew eyes and patchwork grin of her makeshift mask cold and mocking with the weight with which she pulls it down, her shoulders hunched over and head sagging forward as if the life within her is already dead. Kneeling as she is, Sawbones can't see Switch's face through the grey hair, and she doesn't need to. The hunter is standing there, still.

A burst of gunfire lights up through the clearing. Switch is laying on the ground, and her head is gushing blood. The hunter doesn't move on, taken by an intense idleness in the face of this murder that sickens Aria even more than the reek of violence. She see's the hunter's hands move, and can hear something click and clatter as it is toyed and inspected with, but she can't see what. She isn't sure she wants to know what it is. It's only after she sees Ghost making his getaway that she takes her own leave, following his lead. Their team hasn't met the blood quota yet, and there's blood that needs to be delivered. Blood they will need to deliver.

Blood that is already cold.

~--~--~--~--~--~

The commotion outside ceases and Aria hears people enter the door behind her. At this point she figures that they can't punish her curiosity given the unusual circumstances and turns around in her chair, to see who approaches her. She sees five on-duty guards, and a sixth or seventh outside, along with a woman. She is dressed in informal uniform, with no visible weapon, but the difference in status is immediately apparent in the air, and the guards defer to her as she walks in with heavy, even steps.

"Aria Vaughn?" It's a deep, throaty voice, but not one that sounds recognisable to Aria. Her pale, matted locks of hair are tied back with a colourful band, which has been embellished with a pair of bright feathers, and similar braided bands adorn her wrists. The decoration reminds her of the humble and minimal decorations of the ruins, and it sickens Aria to see Enclave militia imitate the poor fashion while they hoard the worlds wealth.

"Yes ma'am." Aria answers back, dutifully enough. But then when the visitor doesn't continue, she continues, "That is correct. I am Dr. Aria Vau-"

"Also known as Criminal-59-19-AV," the visitor comments, almost casual as she cuts in. And then, with a specific and interrogative intentionality, "Also known as Sawbones."

Aria's mouth twitches, hands folding tightly together in her lap. She doesn't like the way this woman speaks her name, her other name used amongst the inmates and aspirants. Her scavenger name. "Yes. Ma'am."

"Please, don't feel the need for formalities." The woman says with a small touch of warmth, before seeming disgruntled herself. Her brows furrow and she waves her hand, and the guards usher themselves out promptly, with one head guard lingering in the doorway to converse with the visitor in hushed tones before he also takes his leave. The visitor shuts the door behind him, but not before Aria can see that even the men stationed on either side of the door outside of the room have moved on. The visitor walks around the table and takes her seat while the spotlight that is centred at Aria casts shadows in stark patterns, catching not just her facial features but also the many scars that decorate her, more so than any military badges could.

"I've been wanting to talk to you for a while, Sawbones."

~--~--~--~--~--~

"Wait, when did this happen?"

Ghost speaks up, the first time all match. "I don't know. Early on, maybe."

Sawbones kneels. Even before she was thrown into the Bloodharvest she was no stranger to bloodshed, but she still feels unsteady. She reaches out, and cups the still head of Inked, who lies piled against other the collection of corpses. And then Sawbones feels sickened at the fact that she feels relief, that the blood dripping from Inked's head is merely splatter from her shredded torso. Any injury can be repaired, any limb can be replaced, and any death short of destruction of brain matter can be reversed and rendered temporary by the advanced biomedical sciences and supply reserves of the Enclave. This is a death Inked will wake from.

Why didn't Switch try to crawl away?

But Sawbones is a doctor, not a mortician, nor a therapist. She doesn't, and can't, focus on the past. She needs to pay attention to the present, here at the blood pile where Inked is laid out bloody and dead. Or the future, and what she needs to do now to create the best possible situation in the present for the future. They need to deliver blood. They need to finish the task and move on, and the sooner they deliver more blood the sooner they can leave this artificial arena.

Wordless, she and Ghost start to drain the blood from the pile into their tanks. She would never 'reclaim the biological material' of those she knew, or at least those she can recognise, but Sawbones wonders how much of Inked's blood has mixed into the collective puddle. She spots the digital silhouette of Fog in the far distance and feels dread- he's crouched down low. But there's no moment when he darts erratically out from whatever unseen hiding place he resides in, no matter how long Sawbones waits for it, healing bolts already loaded in her vambrace.

She doesn't feel relief that Fog, whatever the hell he may be up to, is not under immediate threat. Instead, Sawbones feels raw pain itself explode against her skull.

~--~--~--~--~--~

"My name is Dr. Aria Vaughn."

"That is... situational."

"...My name is situational?" Aria knows better than to challenge the visitor. A VIP who can stroll into the Complex at a moment’s notice and demand whichever prisoner she pleases for a chat is not someone whose bad side Aria wants to be on. Yet, as Aria had already been told many times before, she was not one to "know her place" in the face of the power. She still feels relief when the visitor does not bristle at the remark.

"Of course." The answer is blithe and matter-of-fact, and if Aria didn't know better she would say that the visitor seemed oblivious of the stark power imbalance between them with how she spoke. "I'm not interested in talking to a doctor, I already have access to the best of the best." The visitor reclines back in her chair, but then immediately props herself up and leans forward, elbows resting on the table. "I'm here because I think you have potential."

No explanation follows. No elaboration follows. Aria waits quietly, before feeling pushed to stand up for herself again. "I've already achieved my potential. I've already been a practising medical doctor for years, and I will continue to fulfill that potential the very day I am re-"

"No." Back again the visitor reclines, elbows shifting to the armrests of her chair. "None of that matters, not anymore. I'm talking about something far bigger, something miles beyond the scope of most people's comprehension. But it's something I suspect you've been in touch with... Have you heard her?"

"Heard... what?" Aria, by now, is familiar with leading questions- those intended to implant the desired response from the subject. During her time in the Bloodharvest, however, she hasn't been posed many open-ended questions, where her wardens expect her to lead herself into guilt. Or is it even guilt that her visitor wants? Aria cannot tell. "I'm sorry but I don't... understand. I want to comply," She emphasised, letting fear creep into her voice, anything to sell the truth. "But I don't understand what you're asking of me. I don't know who you're asking me if I've heard. I haven’t been in contact with anyone. I don't know what you're talking about."

"Tell me about the garden, Sawbones."

Aria is somewhat sure she isn't being interrogated right now, but if she is in an interrogation, she doesn't have a single clue what she's even being questioned about. This woman was leaving enough loose threads to weave a winter scarf out of. But once again, the visitor doesn't offer Aria anything else to work with, even after minutes stretch by. With no choice, Aria speaks up and breaks the silence. "Meticulously printed before each match, all of the gardens are based on events of the past. Most of them are recreations of sites of atrocities committed during the Thousand Day War." It's a simple enough start, but there's a look in the visitor's eyes that unnerves Aria- something hungry, and predatory. The visitor waves a gesture with her hand, an unspoken ‘carry on’. "The Bloodharvest in its current form originated from the Gauntlet, which origin-"

"You, tell me about the garden." The visitor snaps, and Aria hates how she flinches at the interruption. The woman continues to talk this time, fingers steepling together. "I can read anything I wish to about the printing process, hear anything I want to about the history behind it, or review any footage I please of the matches within. I am deeply, thoroughly, and intimately familiar with the garden."

"I want Sawbones to tell me about the garden."

~--~--~--~--~--~

Through the tunnel, out of the tunnel, back through the tunnel. The blood roars in Sawbones' ears. She shoots her healing bolt into the wall and the red cloud of healing nanomachines bounce back at her, feeling the itch of wounds rapidly binding shut on a microscopic level. She's half blind, the blood on her mask, it wipes away with a messy smear. It's not enough, the blood runs back down, - like Switch, Switch died, and now she'll stay dead, just biological waste for future dead bodies to reclaim- Sawbones fires another healing bolt at her feet, one isn't enough, and she hears the hunter above, trying to cut her off at the end of the tunnel.

Ghost, where's Ghost? She needs him. Inked is dead, she hopes it was quick, and it didn’t hurt. It’s only a painted mask she wears, but Inked’s blackened tears haunt her. Sawbones looks around, can't make out Fog's too distant location amongst the rest of the highlights and panic. Focus, focus. A vambrace bolt bursts at her feet, but she didn't fire her last power core. Ghost! Stay calm, stay calm, exhale, inhale, run. The camouflage isn't powerful enough for her to run out into the open, but the shadow of the cliff offers enough cover from above for Sawbones to slip around it unseen. She runs up a shallow ledge and into the bushes where she sees Ghost waiting, and he throws another burst of camo in between them. They sprint into the forest, away from the edges of the garden and towards the centre of their enclosure, ducking behind the artificially generated rubble and vegetation.

Sawbones feels relief, which congeals in her throat when she hears heavy footsteps continue after she and Ghost have stopped running. Breathe, she needs to breathe, this isn't the end.

~--~--~--~--~--~

"It's..."

Her mouth has run dry, the words sticking to her tongue like tree sap. But she needs to push past the dam, if she has any hope of satiating this woman's esoteric demands. And once Aria breaks the dam, it feels impossible to stop the words from pouring out.

"It's hell. It’s a prison twice as cruel as any other. The first time I stepped into the garden I was overwhelmed. I had been held captive for so long, I was a warlord's prisoner even before I arrived at the Complex, and then... just like that, I was set free into the garden. I was shocked, I didn't know what to feel, or why I felt anything. I felt happy, and terrified, after being cooped in my cell for so long. I think I cried a little behind my mask, I don't remember. I knew what to do, what to expect from the Bloodharvest. But then it actually happened. It was... too much to take in."

The visitor’s eyes are wide, wild, the woman possessed by an inexplicable energy. The knuckles of one hand are deathly pale with the force of her grip on the armrest while her chin rests propped leaning forward on the back of other hand, her mouth obscured. The intensity of her stare pierces through Aria, unblinking as she nods.

"I'd always seen death, I've come face to face with it more times than I can count, but then... In the garden, I actually died." Her stomach twists at the confession, getting too close to vulnerability. She tries to regain her emotional distance with a dose of medical pragmatism. "Of course, it was only a cardiac arrest, compared to br-"

"It's a vital moment! Sacred, even." The outburst is no less startling for its low volume, carried by a contagious urgency that swept Aria up. "Never underestimate the heart! It is the very centre of our essence."

"He…” She hates how her voice wavers. “He gutted me! The hunter, the Poacher. He held me in the air, and someone was watching," Her whisper is hoarse, words spilling out of her into the sterile air of this closed off room. "He found me crawling in the dirt, after- after, I stepped on his mines, but I didn't know it at the time, it was chaos and I couldn't understand anything, not rationally. Everything was pain and fear. He tore into me with his knife and tossed me aside. It was the first time that... that..."

"I know, I know," The visitor's hands reach across the table, and she towers high above, crackling with intensity. Her hands are cold and strong and feel like they are anchoring Aria's whole world down by her own hands. "I remember it. The pain is terrifying, death is terrifying, that pain is to be mortal, an animal." Reverence and intensity dominate the stranger, as she whispers in awe, "It's nature herself, inside us."

Oh god, why is she shaking? It's like an infection, rooted in her chest, churning her guts and worming through her limbs. She remembers the confusion and terror from what she had thought was a moment of peace, when she first learnt that a single misstep could kill. But she also remembers running for her life, relentlessly pursued, turning a corner into waiting automated gunfire. There are the memories of her teammates’ screams, of sudden airstrikes, exploding crates and body piles, and death raining from above. She remembers that macabre figure in the shadows, invisible until it’s too late, delivering death from a distance. The sniper who wears a deer skull mask and preserved human hearts at her hip. The deep breath Aria draws in is haggard and messy, and she hangs her head for a moment before looking up again at the woman. She fills the air above, like a hawk, like a hunter, Aria didn't notice her stand up. She feels sick and desperate, and she doesn't know why, she doesn't know anything that can help her now. "I used to feel like entering the garden was like entering a nightmare, but now every waking moment feels like I'm wading through a dream."

"I was in your place, once." The visitor says to Aria, her voice taking on a hushed tone. "A scavenger, an aspirant from the ruins. The gardens were the gateway to a happy life. But they're not a gateway. I know better now. They are so much more than most people realise."

"We're all changed, but for some of us... it is truly deep, and truly special. It's the spirit of nature, re-awoken."

~--~--~--~--~--~

They both burst out from the undergrowth, but it's Ghost who catches her eye first. Sawbones runs, looks back, holding her last power core at the ready, a healing bolt to save the day, to prevent the inevitable. Ghost erupts into a spray of gunfire. He's a dead man, condemned. But she has to try.

And she chokes. She freezes, at the worst possible moment. She knows how a moment of hesitation can cost her a life. But it's never been her own life in her hands before.

The pain is immediate. She doesn't have the benefit of shock like the sniper shot from earlier this time. She feels the impact, sound thunders through her head and cuts through her guts, sends her falling to the ground wet and heavy. Her arm burns with a vicious agony but she can't move it, she can't fire off the healing nanomachines beside her, still stored in the vambrace attached to her severed arm.

The Hunter is there. Sawbones is heavy, pinned to the ground by her own meat and the pain, and the gaping open wound that used to be her abdomen. Maybe she is in shock after all, it just can't overpower this pain. The hunter melds with the trees, cloak of leaves rustling with the wind and the antlers of the deer skull reaching up to the branches. The light cuts and paints shadows across the clearing.

The Hunter doesn't move, staring skyward, listening. Listening to what? Sawbones can only hear her own pain scream over everything. The foggiest hint of hope crosses through Sawbones, that it's someone else's turn to play the sudden saviour, but there is only the oppressive silence of the aftermath of Ghost's murder- and hers.

The Stalker is unreadable, her focus on something distant and imperceptible.

And then she, reaper of the forest with her deer skull visage, looks back down at the carnage she has made of Ghost and Sawbones. Sawbones expects, dreads, wants the barrel of the gun to end the pain it has caused, but the rifle is lowered, and holstered.

The Stalker reaches down towards her. In the tree-dappled light, Sawbones sees the hairband that keeps the hunter's hair tied back, decorated with bright feathers, and Aria's heart skips a beat.

~--~--~--~--~--~

"You said that you used to be in my position... A scavenger." Aria has to bring herself to spit the word out. "What... What is it like, afterwards? Finally living again, after dying? After the games, and the garden. When there's no old life to return to." There is no response, not verbally nor immediately. The visitor's hands don't withdraw from Aria's, though her shoulders start to relax, from whatever fervour had run through her moments ago. Aria states again, louder, "what is it like afterwards?"

"There is no afterwards. Most people die for the last time, and a rare few enter the garden for the last time, but there is no afterwards. It will always be with you, and you will always be inside it."

Those words strike vertigo into Aria. If she wasn't already sitting down she would have fallen down, and as it is she slumps forward onto the table, the weight of the world on her forearms. "I... I think I know what you mean." She knows this trauma will pass, all trauma eventually does, but mere knowledge can't stop the weight of it from crushing. The air is difficult to breath, no matter how clean it may be. She's never felt so exposed in her life.

"You've probably guessed that this isn't conventional by now. I don't usually have to do this." The unfathomable stranger's hands are steady, and as unmoving as the metal table. "But, having watched you in the garden... I wasn't sure, but I had to be. Now, I know I was right all along, and that I should never have doubted her for a single moment."

"Her?"

"Yes, her!" Those cold hands grip Aria's like a vice, the fire of excitement rekindled by Aria's question. "You're been touched by her. She wants to know you!" She's grinning now, yet nonetheless dials her energy back down again. "There's something special in you. You don't understand it, but you don't need to understand it. The garden might be the heart of the spirit, but she encompasses all. I'll have to help her meet you right away."

Aria is exhausted. Something about meeting a woman in touch with nature? She thinks she might have been given an explanation, but digesting these ramblings is beyond her at this point. That this woman apparently doesn't expect comprehension is the sole comfort Aria takes from this. Aria meets meets her visitor's eyes, tired but steadfast. "Yes, ma'am."

At long last the visitor straightens her back, no longer hunched over Aria as if ready to pounce, and she pulls her hands away from Aria's. She walks around the table with leisurely relief, a beaming smile threatening to brim over at any moment. Aria knows what she needs to ask, but feels lost in that moment, she's not out of the woods with this strange woman yet. However, when she opens her mouth to ask it, the woman is bent down again by her side, looking Aria over, and she speaks with a deep, sincere warmth that nonetheless leaves Aria feeling cold and unrecognised.

"I look forward to the next time I see you, Sawbones. I promise it will be soon. We all have our roles to fulfil, and I know you won't disappoint her."

~--~--~--~--~--~

She never watched the Bloodharvest. She refused to. So strongly principled was Dr. Aria Vaughn that hosting the livestream in her medical centre had been taboo. But even if she had been a viewer, and known it was a possibility, Aria would never have been able to guess what she was about to experience.

The Stalker reaches down to her. To her neck, to wring her like an animal? No, lower. The gloved hand presses on her sternum, shifts to the left side, but then stops, and reconsiders. Not the act, but the location; The Stalker's hand goes lower, and Aria feels that cold hand brush against the burning inside of her torn open innards, exposed to the polluted garden air. A pitiful moan escapes at the pain stirred by the touch, before the Stalker presses in, hand sinking into her ruined guts.

Some of her organs have already fallen out of the way, but the Stalker pushes hard, forcing her way past her stomach and against her liver. She can feel how the Stalker twists her hand up, towards her rib cage. Aria feels sick. The Stalker digs her grasping hand deep into her chest, putting pressure on her lungs which are crammed against her ribs. The world is dizzy and unsteady, her head polluted from blood loss, and the churning inside of her. It's not just pain, but invasion. Aria screams. The Stalker has to push deeper and pushes up, up, and Aria’s torso is lifted up from the floor by the force of it. Aria sees the arm plunging into her, the deer skull looming over her, can't stand the sight yet is possessed by the energy keeping her head up. She tries to reach up, to push the Stalker away, but she can't, her arms are dead weight, her remaining arm is dead weight. Her severed arm sears red hot where it used to be. Her mask is smothering her, she's suffocating, she only tastes blood. The Stalker grabs hold of, oh god, oh god-!

She's in immense fucking pain, and unbearably alive. The Stalker tugs, and there's a joke to be made about heartstrings but Aria cries. Its indescribable, the deep-seated fluttering and stuttering of her heart, feeling her life itself squirm in this cruel hand. She jostles Aria again; Aria can feel those excruciating, burrowing fingers as the Stalker repositions her grip with dreadful expertise. She's died before, she's already dead, but the swirling terror of dying floods her, and suspends her in the air with horrid weightlessness.

The feathers in the hair. The cold hands, that penetrate her being. Tell her about the garden. Names are situational. Potential. What life is like, after the garden. Amidst the depths of pain and fear, Aria touches on another deep-seated abyss. She's dead, but not defeated. When she wins her freedom back she will make the world a better place for those like her, and she will be defiant to the end. And to think, this hunter was once in her place, a victim of the same system which she now celebrates... Aria can barely pull in the shallow air she needs, but her conviction pulls her together for a small moment, long enough for her to let out a guttural rattle.

“Scav..."

The Stalker does not react. She pulls her hand, hard, and Aria feels her chest tear apart. Tattered veins, snapped ligaments, broken tissues, spewing arteries. The Stalker's hand withdraws and Aria crashes back to the ground like a lifeless puppet. Discarded. It's incomprehensible, she can't understand it, she can only see, barely. Her heart is in the Stalker's hand, beating against the dim, woozy air. Aria can hear a voice, the wind. She'll never give in, she knows it. It's all she needs to know.

She hears the voice, the voices in plural, again, and footsteps. Aria runs out of blood to bleed. She isn't cold yet. Footsteps go quiet. Leaves rustle. The distant shrieks of drones and the background whine of printers hang in the air, punctuated by the words of senseless voices.

~--~--~--~--~--~

There's a distant rhythmic beeping in her ears, and her world is unfocused. Voices sit at the edge of her hearing. Words ebb and flow, out of reach.

Now this was a role reversal for the sawbones.

Most of Switches face is a gauzy patchwork above her. Significant surface damage has happened, most of it to the back of her skull, but that is also the good news, as aside from a manageable concussion her brain avoided most of the trauma. And there is Inked! She reaches up to the tattooed woman but the short IV tugs her weak, woozy wrist back, and a doctor's, her doctor's, hand has firmly grasped her own before she can give it another tug. She tries to reach with the other arm, but nothing happens, because there's nothing to move left there, her new left arm still sitting beside the bed. Oh well. If she can't, she wishes someone else would wipe away the mess and tear stains from Inked's face, even as the two are ushered away from the medical table.

She is conspicuously aware of the sensation of her guts, her organs, the meat that composes her body in a way which has never been before. She had never been conscious of her chest as a filled cavity before, capable of being emptied. She's been punched, stabbed, shot, thought she'd witnessed the aftermath of every act of violence imaginable. But that was the limit, wasn't it? Not what she'd witnessed, but what she could imagine.

Voices talk medical jargon at her and she acknowledges them over the fuzzy cushioning of lingering anaesthetic, as well as the face of Ghost when he walks by. He's already been patched up to perfection and is on his way out of the medical ward. Inside of her, the freshly printed artificial heart integrates with what remains of her native cardiovascular tissue to reform the core of her circulatory system. It'll only be a matter of hours until the doctor from the ruins is ripe to re-enter the garden.

Far away from the scavenger medical wing, far from even the prying eyes of other hunters, Eve Barnes slides her newest trophy into the preservative cocktail. With a delicate reverence, she closes and seals the lid of the precious glass jar. Now, this essential part will stay here with her in the garden forever, where it belongs, and the Spirit of the Woods will always live on inside of her prey.

~--~--~--~--~--~

She has a few merciful minutes to compose herself before the guards enter to collect her. She feels more tired than ever before, after the frenzy of... whatever the hell that was. An interview? Interrogation? Questioning? Hell as if Aria has a single clue, other than how stupid she feels having gotten so riled up- over nothing! Nothing at all! She can just about muster up the energy to be angry when she realises that she never even got a name or title from the woman as she's stood up and guided out of the makeshift visitation room. She has never wanted to be back in her cell so badly in her life and lets herself be led down whichever way until she can finally fall to her knees, flopping forward and planting her face in the mess of her bed, arms around her head. She'll pull herself up long enough to climb into the covers soon enough, she just needs a long moment of rest before she can handle even that.

"Sawbones!" A man's voice, Ghost's, Yani's, calls out. Aria moans into her bed and pulls her head up, half her hair is falling out of the bun across her face and she can finally feel how badly congested her nose is, and how her eyes burn into her brain. God, she wasn't crying this whole time, was she? Now that's embarrassing.

"Yes? What's wrong?"

Yani looks speechless beyond the mere absence of words, (as if he'd seen a ghost, Aria can't help but smirk), "...What's wrong?" He asks, or more accurately echoes back at her. She wonders how long he had been standing there, seeing her like this. With careful, tepid steps he walks into her room, slowly approaching her. "Do you... want to talk about it?"

Aria tries to resist the urge to sniffle, wipes her eyes and tries to force it into a yawn. "N-no, there’s nothing much to say." She gives him a smile, which does nothing to make Yani look less concerned, and Aria can’t blame him. She then remembers something. "...Hey, wait a moment. Weren't you supposed to be in a match?"

"Um, yeah."

"Switch, Inked, You, Fog, and... one of the new guys. Yeah, what happened there? You’re all supposed to be in the garden right now. Was it cancelled?"

"Uh. Yeah, something happened with that. It’s not a situation worth worrying about." Yani says with a shrug, a sheepish smirk spreading across his face before vanishing abruptly. "I am serious though. You were scheduled for tonight with us. Dash was a substitute; I saw the rota. Why the hell did they pull you out, Bones?"

Aria sighs, heavily. Her neck hurts from craning around to see Yani, so she slides back and turns around, sitting on the floor with her back against her bed. "You aren’t going to let this go, are you?" She reaches across and grabs the pillow from the bed, holding it against her chest. May as well get comfortable if he won’t let up.

"You don't have to tell me, you don't want to. That is fine" He assures her. "I know you're close with Inked, so maybe you'd rather talk with her about it. I just... I heard you coming back on my way to my own room, so I thought I'd check nothing was happening." His eyes shift about when he says this, concern giving way to bitterness. "We all know the guards aren't here to protect us, after all."

"Mhm, tell me all about it." She grumbles. That brings a cynical smile to Yani's face, as well as her own. "I'll be fine. You don't need to bother Aishw-, Inked, when she gets back. It's... it was..." Aria swallows drily, unwilling to broach the topic forwardly. "Good lord, I don't even know how to explain. Nothing even happened there, truth be told."

"Where?"

"Interrogation room." Now that earns look of alarm from Yani, but she's quick to nip it in the bud. "But it wasn't anything proper. They'd taken any restrains out, I couldn't see any recording devices, and they moved a lounge chair in there. They'd repurposed it into a visitation room. I had a visitor."

Aria can’t blame Yani for sounding incredulous. "What? Why? Who?"

"No Idea. She said... God, you don't even want to try to know what. I don't know what she said, and I was there listening!" She manages a chuckle, shifting to cross her legs and letting the pillow fall aside. She pats the floor and continues talking when Yani accepts the invitation to sit beside her. "This weird woman came in, shooed all the guards away, and then started asking these nonsensical questions, like she wants me to tell her about the garden, or if I’ve heard a voice."

"And I don't know what she wants! She's clearly Enclave military, I’m pretty sure Divided at that, so she should already know it all. But then she tells me I’m telling her wrong, and then it got... real weird. Emotionally. Having to try and think that hard about it all, really made it sink in. I've been threatened with death before, I've had guns pointed in my face, but I'd never had to... fucking philosophise about it before."

"Suddenly, even though I've survived every time, dying... felt real. Even more real than real."

There's a weighty silence after that, which neither Sawbones nor Ghost are willing to break.

"It’s cognitive dissonance, or something. Whatever." An astute observation mumbled by Yani. His own gaze is unfocused and grim, staring into the nothing of Aria's cell floor. It's a long and winding moment as Yani reaches his arm over the bed, gently pulling Aria into the hug after she leans into the warmth. The two sit side by side in silent commiseration, taking in the echoes of distant footsteps and the dim shine of lights in the hallways, and other simple ambience. It was likely past curfew now, but so long as the inmates were quiet and unobtrusive, and made sure to avoid causing even the slightest disturbance, it was generally easy to avoid provoking the guards into enforcing it, at least up until truly late hours. Yani, in particular, had become a master of making his way around the Complex after lights out, living up to his namesake of Ghost, so Aria knew there would be no harm with letting him accompany her for as long as he pleased. The two sat together and listened to the continual winding down of the Complex, and the sounds of uncountable others settling down into their own cells, involved in their own many matters.

"...Alright, I think I'm good now," Aria reassures Yani after a long moment of calm, even if she still sounds impressively choked up as she does. He doesn’t look convinced, as he rightfully shouldn’t be, but is willing to concede. He pulls his arm back and crosses his arms in front of him, and she realises something she would be comfortable talking about. "So… anyway, Ghost, you never answered my questions. About what happened with tonight's match. Care to explain?"

"Yes, well,” He starts, and then stops. He uncrosses his arms and rubs his face with on hand. “…Okay. I hope you understand, I’m only telling you because of tonight’s exceptional circumstances. Don’t tell anyone else.”

“I don’t have anyone else to tell.” She says. She knows she isn’t like Yani, as she has no concern for her long-term reputation inside the Complex; her incarceration isn’t a life sentence, after all. “At least, no one who isn’t currently busy in the Bloodharvest that you were supposed to be in.”

“Fair enough.” He acknowledges readily enough, and then falters momentarily, before admitting out loud, “I stepped on a mine.”

"...You stepped on a mine?" Now that is worth a raised eyebrow from the doctor. She is highly familiar with how dignity becomes a barrier to honesty. “Once, and singular? Do you regularly lie to your medical professionals, Mr Amini?”

"It... might have been the same mine. Several times. Or several mines, several times... one after the other." Yani's looking away from Aria now, and it doesn't take an empath to feel the humiliation radiating from him. "Maybe I took the flying scenic route off the edge of the garden. On the plus side, I never even had to see the Poacher! Everyone else is still playing shotgun hide-and-seek, and I'm hanging out with Doctor Bones. It’s clear who the real winner of the match is."

Cognitive dissonance, or whatever. It's something Aria tries not to think too hard about, and she's trying to smother her laughter until she feels sick all over again. "Good god, Yani! Are you serious? They're still in the match, right now, after all this time! How-, How quick did you trigger those-"

"Look, it was live quick, die young, or however that saying went!" His voice his giddy, high-strung with embarrassment. "I'm not Inked or Switch, I can't bounce back like them. And those mines, they don't care how invisible you are when you step on a hundred of them at once." He elbows her lightly, still grinning. "And I'm not Sawbones either, so I can’t patch myself back together like you could have done."

"Ohh, I'm not sawing anyone's bones like this. That can wait till tomorrow at the earliest!" One final sniffle escapes her along with a dry chuckle when she says that, and Aria starts to stand up. Yani follows suite, his tired yawn also spreading to her.

"You get some rest, doctor. I died earlier tonight, and somehow you still need to recuperate more than I do right now." Another yawn immediately strikes him, the humorous timing not lost on either of them, but he fixes her a serious look and nods at her. "I’m not joking, you know the system. They're going to try and schedule you back in as soon as possible, so prepare yourself. I wouldn't be surprised if it's first thing in the morning."

"Oh, I will." Aria sighs, "But you go sleep too. They're going to make you make up for that early exit. We’ll probably end up together." She tosses her pillow back onto her bed and picks up the mask she spots laying loose in the bed covers, placing it on her bedside table. “And if that happens, we can stick together. I’ll even reserve my best healing bolts for you.”

"You’re too kind." Yani’s energy is markedly drained at this point, but the jovial spirit remains as he walks to her cell door. “But, likewise. You heal our wounds, and I’ll keep us from getting found in the first place. We scavs need to take care of each other, now that no one else will.” He pauses in her doorway to look back one last time, "Goodnight, Sawbones."

"Night, Ghost. You take care now." And she means it. They may not have known each other long, but trauma bonding sure accelerates the friendship process. He walks off into the dark maze of corridors and Aria thinks it's a shame most other inmates won't associate with him, fearing stigma and superstition, when he's might be one of the best people throughout the entire Complex. At long last she rolls onto her bed, not even caring her pillow is misplaced at the foot of her bed.

But still... as unexpected and distressing as the encounter ended up being, it was encouraging to think that at least one of the hundreds of thousands of aspirants had succeeded, and achieved that impossible better life promised. The whole system was corrupt and evil, and deserved to be torn back down, but that woman... She was clearly struggling with trauma, and post-traumatic stress, and a host of other issues Aria wouldn’t even try to speculate on, and that didn't make her a bad individual. Even if projecting it back onto the current scavengers was an insensitive and poisonous way to cope with her problems. But the more Aria thought about it, the calmer she felt, even if she spent an eternity tossing and turning sleeplessly.

Aria wondered if, as a former scavenger, that woman was sympathetic enough to her situation to be willing to help fast-track her release, so she could continue her life's work as a doctor again in the ruins. While she hated those with enough power to waltze through unending legal loopholes of their own creation to get what they wanted, maybe getting on this woman’s generous side would be for the greater good, so long as her only expectations from Aria was the satisfaction of her own bizarre curiosity. That would be benign enough to build a mutually beneficial relationship on. Maybe, Aria dared to fantasise, keeping in contact with the scavenger side of the Complex would develope the former aspirant’s sympathies, and lead her into action, so she would go on to help improve the system for all of the scavengers still imprisoned in the Bloodharvest. Whatever her situation was, the woman was certainly emotionally focused enough to be a powerful force, were she to channel it into meaningful action, much like how Aria had harnessed her own suffering and loss to dedicate herself to alleviating that same pain in others. After all her confusion and turmoil, Aria realises that she feels strangely optimistic about seeing this mystery woman again, whoever she was.

Aria hopes her visitor makes good on her promise to visit her soon.