The Bloodbath

[Tom]

[Minos Vallanso D5M | Intro]

M I N O S

The storm was coming.

Sleep was a thing of the past, nightmares and fears occurring within his subconscious during sleep, waking him. His feet moved on their own around the place that he had spent the better part of his life, feeling more alive. A corpse with a taste of life that wanted more and more of the precious flavor. The training center felt like a real home to him, but in reality, it had always been a buffet, showing them off for the capitolites to pick and choose their favorites. The kitchen seemed empty, all of the smiles that hid the fear inside and the joy of blood seemed to seep into his mind. The spin the bottle games that allowed him to kiss the one and only Justice Fray. Midnight snacks with M&M as Minos had determined it to be. Falling asleep in Daniel Tate’s lap, which was actually very comfortable for Minos. The kitchen held some good memories that Minos would cherish for the day, but once the storm began, Minos would throw them all away for just a little bit more life.

The storm was brewing.

The actual training center was dark, no one around, but camera’s black eyes still staring at his body. The room was cleaned from top to bottom, like they had never been there. Only a memory within his and the twenty three other’s minds. Percy Delacroix painting a beautiful mustache upon his sleeping body. Petra Vipointe’s nervous hands being taught how to sew up a body that was nothing more than a dummy. All memories that had to be shoved aside within the next day or so, or else, he may be killed by those he’s made memories with. The hallway leading to the elevator holding a few more memories of the one’s before. Harbinger’s threat of tearing off his hands for flirting with a happily married man. The elevator holding even more than before. Justice Fray’s ass filling head, what a beautiful butt. Drunken nights stumbling around, to Hypatia Anning pouring ice cold water on his face. Natalie Brandt’s offer for him to sleep alcohol off in her room. Wandering around the whole floors like a lost dog, wondering how to occupy his nights, when he wasn’t sleeping. The shower incident with Bailey Truus flowing back into his mind. Tired night, walking in to find a secret skill of Leon’s with musical tunes that could soothe the soul. Atticus Manor’s cute boyish feature, and the innocence that Minos Vallanso wanted to ruin. Renee Perdris’ stash of cigarettes that eased his addiction to the point of survival.

The storm was forming.

The train being the last happy moment to appear in his messed up head. Emmery Johnson, his district partner, who seemed to be a calm within the storm for a while. The girl seemed to vanish, since Minos had stepped foot in the training center. Patricia Valifierno’s brash attitude putting Minos off after his comment about women. The train was a pleasant memory, just like the rest, but Minos had a plan, play nice and wait for an opening to play rough. Memories of fun and games had to be put aside. Within a week, most, if not all of them will be dead. Nothing but a blip on a map of time, showing how insignificant their lives truly would be. It wasn’t a matter of if, but when they will parish by someone’s blade. Friends would be enemies, district partners would shed each other’s blood, it was coming and Minos could sense the horrors that would come.

The storm was growing.

Sleep had been around. It wouldn’t be enough for Minos’ fate. A fate of running around an arena, with possibly nothing but a weapon and a few people. Patricia hadn’t been around much due to some sort of reason that he would rather not question. It wouldn’t have been useful anyways. No advice is better than little advice. Preparations could be made with the wonder floating around the inside of his head. The preparations were going by faster and faster, his stomach filling up with a tingling sensation of fear. Bile was threatening to rise up, but Minos ignored it. Puking, now, would mean getting washed again and frustrating his already annoying stylist. Dressed in the uniform that had been made for his body.

The storm was picking up.

The tube was clear, an annoying idea, since he could see his annoying stylist’s face. A wave being caught by his eyes before the rising of the platform. Eyes scan the arena before him. A chuckle leaves from his body. The fates web had an ironic way of working. A literately place that Minos would consider hell stood before him. Torches light the giant skeletal hands that hold together protecting the treasures that lay inside. His insides feel intensely nervous, feet like jelly. The lights show that the monstrosity was breathing, or maybe not. Minos wouldn’t question it. Tributes line the area in a circle. Everyone knew how this had worked. A countdown until their death or an ally’s.

The storm was darkening.

His eyes scan for anything, but the lights gave little to the land before him. Mystery of the arena shrouds his mind with wonder, but that’d have to wait before anything else. His heart calms slowly as he takes a few deep breaths of the rough and intense air. The world was a hell and yet, this hell would be even worse than the world he remembered. His mother’s smile on her face as his hand wraps softly on the pocketwatch. Hand moves back out to race to whatever he could find. Skeleton hands sit before him, mocking him, and yet he felt for them. They were all corpses fighting for that taste of life. Twenty three would die, and Minos would probably be one of them, yet he was fine, the world had thrown tough things at him all of his life. Minos Vallanso was stubborn. Minos Vallanso would survive, one day at a time. His feet moved forward. The corpses danced upon the web that fate had woven with his skeletal hands.

The storm was raging.

Made by Frankel

(Minos Vallanso enters Bloodbath)

[aya]

[roger strangways-teach, intro]

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He forgot what he was here for. It was unfair how quickly he'd grown used to milling about the training center, lounging about in luxury with scarcely a thought to the hell that awaits him.

Roger Strangways-Teach isn't nervous. He isn't scared, he isn't stressed, he isn't anxious. From sunrise to shuffling off to the stockyard, he stares, eyes unfocused, pensiveness painted across his brow, his frown. It is a mask he wears; Jolly Roger can't muster a concrete thought.

The morning plays itself out in slow motion. Halfhearted, he chokes down breakfast in halftime, unsure of what he's even putting in his mouth. His stylist tries to do him up pretty for the cameras, but he ties his long hair back in a bun for battle. Doesn't matter how nice he looks for the sponsors if he's dragged by his mane into the point of someone else's knife. (The scene plays out in his head over and over and over until it reaches the point of hilarity and Roger is forced to laugh. His stylist looks at him funny for that. The tribute doesn't care.)

He's still smiling when he's stuffed in the glass tube. He shuts his eyes for the ascent, deep breaths the only mantra filling his ears, his mind. When his platform jerks to a stop, he opens them... to find himself quite literally in hell.

That's not good.

That's very bad, even.

But it doesn't keep him from picking out a path through the fray, and doesn't keep him from hurling himself headlong into the skeletal site of the skirmish at the sound of the gong.

[attr="id","rSpeech"][roger enters the bb]

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[я𝑜𝓈𝑒]

[Percy Delacroix, intro]

P

D

the disconnect is welling up
and good intentions are not enough
your words are weary
their hearts are strained

She untangles her hands from the rosary around her neck. Her finger traces down the small ivory beads, over the delicate silver chain, down the cold, smooth cross at its end. Percy waits for the sear, the gentle burn against her flesh, but there is nothing. Just the gentle hum of the pedestal rising through the darkness and

She dreamed of nothing last night. There were no nightmares, no shadows come to play, no. Her head was quiet into the night- it was just her and the blue darkness of her room, the lights outside gleaming incandescent sapphires.

And she knows, with a heavy pang deep within the pit of her stomach, that this will be the last peaceful sleep she will ever have.

As the pedestal slowly rises, up and up and up, she listens to the rhythm of her heartbeat rather than giving into terror. She can feel it crawling up her insides, prowling in the shadows, poised to strike at any moment. Its icy breath rakes down her back, but she does not give into the cold. She will not.

Her hands ball into fists reflexively the moment the air kisses her skin- she feels it all wash over her in a single, swift rush. She expects cold, but there is only a wave of blistering heat, and for a moment, she thinks the sun is on her back. But then she looks up to meet its glare and the sun is not what cuts into her eyes.

A castle of bones, its spires reaching into-

no, there is no sky-

the darkness. It is endless, sprawling out into an endless void.

("Look up at the stars, and you will know that I am with you."

There are no stars, here, Calypso.)

But she does not tremble. She could never fear her ally, the shelter that kept her safe on those midnight heists and perilous treks in back allies. Darkness is as much as a friend to her as the gun she kept strapped to her thigh beneath her skirt.

She does not tremble-
until her eyes catch sight of the light, a caustic gold and orange glow like embers.

No. Not just light.

Fire.

It is in a ring all around her, flickering on torches mounted on the rugged stone walls. But then her eyes dart to what lies beyond the great cage of bones, and her heart drops like a stone in her chest; the torches are not the only source of flame.

She cannot find its source for a few moments- it seems to materialize from nothing, but then she sees a rickety rope bridge reaching from the hard rock ground to another place across the seemingly endless flames. The fire has made its home in a pit beneath the bridge, forming one great, terrible abyss.

It leaps into the air, dances with a vigor unlike any other flame, claws viciously at the darkness with tongues that remind her of talons.

A tremor unfolds, pools, rushes, through every fiber of her body, of her very being. Her knees nearly break before the scene- she has to stop her legs from folding into a mess on the floor.

She knows exactly where she is.

"You are no saint,
you are a sinner,
fool."

This truth has drenched her like sticky, black ink, too thick, too heavy, to scrub off of her skin. It has been carved into her destiny, sealing her fate. She has always known, but it runs deeper now as she stares Ilbis's kingdom in the face. It is not a carbon copy of the image painted into the stained glass windows of the church or drawn into the Book, but Percy can make no mistake-

this is the terror they had warned her of, sworn to her with every bitter, blackened piece of their withered up hearts that she would rot here.

It shatters her to even consider that they were right.

"Percy, I tried to save you," her brother had told her.

She told herself that she is the savior, but she wonders if she is just damned.

"I've been damned since I was born, remember?" And she trembled, fiercely, let her eyes burn with tears.

She's been damned since she was born. She tells herself this again and again as her eyes drill holes into the hungry mouths of darkness, into the dancing tongues of flames. For the longest time, she never truly believed it- she couldn't, she refused. But now as she stares into the destiny that had been written out for her before her eyes, she begins to consider the grim possibility that she was truly born to burn here.

There is no countdown for Percy Delacroix. There is only the pounding of her heart in her chest, so furious she fears it will burst through her ribcage, and the deafening roar of blood in her ears.

Four, she meets the eyes of Lucrezia Eckhart for reassurance. She waves at her rather than shouting across the ring or just leaving it at eye contact- she must look childish, silly, but she couldn't care less what everyone watching on television thinks.

Three, she finds Atlas and Achilles and Petra and Stevie and Machaon and Justice.

Two, she takes in the images of them, fearing that the next time she will see them is a blur of darkness and a ghostly blue projection of their face in the ceiling of the cave.

One. Heat floods her veins, but she is not fire. She is not sure what she is.

The sound of the gong reverberates throughout the cave, and Percy is falling into her fate with their words heavy on her shoulders.

and idle vows find the deepest pains
i'm sick, i'm tired of hollow hope
of promises, empty, your way with words
they're feeding back inside my head

[Percy Delacroix has entered the 73rd bloodbath]

[D6f Carmen Cantelou [aza]]

[petra vipointe, intro, #]

P

V

i've been through the days
when bright love turns into hate
you bend and you bend till you break
till the lights all gone

The cat died and it taught me that death is inevitable.

All I'd learnt in the past week or so has disappeared. Mind like a sieve; I'd stayed up all night trying to recall the moments that mattered. Moments of strength and moments of sincere vulnerability; I was a victim to a storm of cataclysmic events, but there is only one that remains pinpointed in my mind, despite the falls I'd suffered: a moment of letting go of what I cannot change.

Initially, acceptance of fate was not welcomed. 

I'd become a part of the Capitol's game—and that's okay. It's okay, because the odds are stacked against me. Death is inevitable, but there's a part of me which finds serenity in the brutality of reality—and I want it. To escape this world of broken bodies and maimed minds and find something peaceful. Plain white, a clean slate to just restart and leave past insecurities and regrets and doubts behind.

Because if we are all just a collection of moments, I don't have much to lose.

I sit beside Cedric. Ice growing within me, my face becomes stone cold and the colour of innocence washes over me. Victim of my own words, but still I blame the death of the cat for putting me here. I blame the death of the cat for stirring my thoughts and believing that the Capitol was a spectacle to observe, and that tranquillity would be found in every inch of the culture and traditions it is home to. I lost myself in the vibrancy and expressions of it all, and am pulled below water by my title as a 'tribute'.

Lost, but always breaking.

Nobody dares to break the silence which consumes us. Injected with a tracker, I am assured I cannot go astray any more, but it does not immunise me against my collapse. I glance around at all the scarred faces, confidence left for dead as the hum of the hovercraft beats around us. Harmony is found within Achilles and Lucy and Percy; people who I can hopefully trust to have my back; Ripred knows I have theirs.

Eventually, the buzz of the engines come to a halt, and silence dawns upon us once more. We descend to the ground, blinded by fear and panic as we move between the shuttle and a preparation room. It is hitting hard now, that escape is not an option and the only way out is through death's treacherous path or through slaughter and murder and brutality. I'd sworn that I wouldn't take that road, that pacifism would rise and conquer my being entirely.

Even peacefulness can not withstand this billowing darkness which festers on my sanity.

I whisper fine words to myself: gentle and soothing, but the immunity to them remains. Immunity is the enemy of a sinner, and I am no longer a saint. Petra Vipointe is a sinner, destined for Ripred's cruel judgement which will send her to the underworld; where beasts lurk and where light is only found in the fires which burn.

Fires had already burned me: charred heart, charred head—every part of me is turning to black.

But still, I am pictured in white.

Emotion slips from core. I was responsible for this, I only have myself to blame for the tragedies that loom moments away. A volunteer; stupid and unholy. Religion could no longer save me, because a God would not let this happen. Live and let live, live and let live never live and let die; for that shows we have become numb to the hurricane that follows after a body falls limp.

I begin to shake.

This is real.

Life is real, and so is death.

My mind runs wild with possibilities. The setting of the arena, the location of the Cornucopia, the supplies, the weapons, the tributes beside me. A quick judgement is what will divide me from the weak; I can't be cast aside and beaten black and blue by the careers—the hope of my whole District is split between the shoulder's of Cedric and I.

Iron on our delicate bones, I am set to crumble.

But, I don't want to.

When push comes to shove, I will attack.

Thoughts turn to ash when a man signals me to enter the tube. I give a single nod, keeping my head down as I step inside. Fear strikes at the heart, and my pulse quickens and I'm sure I can hear my heartbeat echo all around me. No, it must be ignored.

I cannot let the weakness conquer, for courage is what should reign.

They close me in, this is it, and I do not dare to look at the people I leave behind.

The ascension begins. My vision creeps up to look above, but I am met with darkness, until a flicker of light meets with my eye. Red and orange cascade between each other, curling within each other. Confusion strikes—am I already dead?

No, it's Hell reimagined.

In this inferno, curiosity cannot live.

Curiosity killed the cat, but in this inferno, I think I'm free.

i've been knocked down on my own
when the water's too deep and too cold
sleepless so many nights
with a broken heart running wild

[chelsey]

[Cedric, introduction]

[googlefont="Playfair Display:400"]cedric lane

grace is just weakness

This is a story of stars. Constellations leaking behind muslin curtains and through the cracks in the ceiling. Light dripping down drains and collecting in buckets with rainwater and dead leaves and the forgotten carcasses of dead rodents. Galaxies and universes beyond theirs, hidden behind a cloak of supernovas and nebulas and suns and darkness that filled every cavity in between.

This is a story of lovers. The abandoned, the departed. The broken hearts passed down through bloodlines like a family heirloom. The kind of abrupt passion that can only be inherited. A mother clasps her son’s hands in her own and points to the night and whispers, “Cedric, look at the stars.” He finds her eyes.

This is a story of death. A presence as familiar as one’s shadow - so they forget that it’s there. No one stares at the darkness when there are flames that quench it. No one believes that a fire can be extinguished so long as it keeps burning. Astrid clasps Cedric’s hands in her own and points to the night and whispers, “Cedric, look at the stars.” The next day, she coughs up blood.

This is a story of time. They wanted more of it.

It ends the way a star begins. Turbulence - a love growing too strong and too fast for its own good. A collapse - she’s at her father’s grocery shop when she keels over, the blood forming black puddles at her feet. Heat - Cedric bundles her up in blankets, kisses her forehead, whispers, “I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

Light - daybreak comes, and she’s gone.

His mother’s eyes tell him that he should’ve seen it coming. His father isn’t there to voice an opinion. Where Cedric comes from, loss is like lead in their water supply. A rite of passage when you’re growing up. A souvenir to sell when the Capitolites come to visit. How charming, they’ll say. Really gives this place some character.

The night before it all ends for Cedric Lane, he presses his forehead against his bedroom’s window and drinks it all in. Artificial lights from the city are too loud and too boisterous; they swallow up every constellation that Astrid and his mother might’ve taught him. The night sky isn’t so much the night sky as it is a bottomless pit, a black chasm separating earth from Heaven. He closes his eyes and pictures that they’re there anyway: Andromeda, Hercules, Orion, Cancer. Look at the stars, Cedric.

This is a story about Cedric Lane. The street rat with the crooked father who ran away and the pessimistic mother who stayed. The urchin with a guitar that sings and a girlfriend that dies. The love-doped boy that follows in her footsteps. The hopeless soul hoping for more time.

The next day, in his graveyard, the countdown isn’t so much of a countdown as it is a lullaby. A symphony of goodbyes stringed together by digits. A goodnight kiss and a hot breath promising to see you tomorrow.

[Cedric Lane enters the bloodbath] 

[pogue]

[Achilles Muto ; Intro]

A

M

I'm the one that your mama said
'Don't mess with them or you'll end up dead
That type they don't follow any rules'

She buries herself in obsidian, feeling her bones crack beneath the pressure.

This is confinement.

She is eight and her body reeks with unkempt fury and untamed youth, hands curled into fists, whitewashed knuckles grinding against the creaking floorboards. His words float around her head like dying balloons, succumbing to the currents and crashing against the inside of her skull.

Bang.

Bang.

Bang.

She becomes a whirlwind, sucking in stale air into her lungs, breathing out toxins in return. Her fists are eight years young but punch the walls with the fury of a career, the flower wallpaper falling into itself as she pulls fist from plaster. Red ink falls from the cracks between her knuckles, falling in droves to the floor below, staining it red with her punishment, seeping into the cracks and into oblivion.

It is childish, the way she screams and roars.

But she can count every crevice and crack that lines the flooring, every snap and tear she's carved into the walls during her past visits. They scatter along the walls, crawling and cracking and snaking up the sides, above her head, falling down the wall on the other side. Shadows seep in like sunlight through stained glass, flattening against the floorboards, submerging her.

This is confinement, this is a church. She has no god to worship, though.

Maybe that is why she cannot bring her hands to clasp together, tugging on invisible strings that bind her to the peeling wallpaper, crucifying her in all her convictions.

With one final roar she rips the rest of the wallpaper from the wall, watching it fall apart in her fingertips.

Then her heart stops. The doorknob twists and turns, screaming through the room.

---

She stands, eighteen, in her living quarters, drowning her spirits in running water when the doorknob creaks against the walls.

"Achilles! It's time to-"

The door swings open and her escort's hand falls forward, body stumbling into the tribute before reaching back up and straightening her jacket, adjusting her posture.

"It's time for us to go."

"I know."

Her fingers find their way into her pockets, scraping against the metal coated memories she made during the past few nights. Two nights prior, they cloaked themselves in the shadows and escaped into the city, finding their religions nestled in the falling waters of a fountain, carved from the same marble that traces its boundaries in her arms.

She'd dipped her fingers into the waters, grasping a gold coin before pulling it from the abyss, admiring the way the light bounced off its edges.

"Thought it was bad luck to steal from fountains."

"You forget we are being sent to die. There's no such thing as luck anymore."

She flips it in the air, hearing the wind bounce against its edges before catching it in her palm, closing her fingers around it as the elevator begins raising her up. The shadows pool at her feet, biting at her ankles. They hiss at the gold coin when she points it towards them.

However, the shadows melt into their brethren when she is finally raised into the arena.

Torn prayerbooks and cracking fingertips clasped together, she'd always thought Hell was supposed to be found by going the opposite way. Her eyes scatter across the tributes, watching some shake, some cry, others stand tall. Percy, Lucy, Petra, she locks eyes with all of them before preparing herself.

She brushes the shadows and broken prayers off her shoulders during the final ten seconds, feeling the fire in her eyes spread down to her cheeks, then her chest, then her legs.

She charges.

[achilles enters]

[ali]

Intro | Hypatia Anning

Hypatia Anning {district three tribute}

Hungry for the kill, but this hunger, it isn't you Voices disappear when you are speaking, in somber tunes I will be the wolf and when you're starving, you'll need it too

Sleep had not consume Hypatia the night before, the nerves twisted her stomach and kept her eyes fluttering open each time she tried to close them; it was much like the day before her birthday, except the nerves that tingled through her from her toes to the tips of her fingers were not caused by the excitement of the anticipation of a gift, a new pair of socks or a bag of sweets. The anticipation which flowed through her sickeningly slowly, dragging its nails through her flesh, leaving no scars but an echo which curdled her blood; this was dread. Not even the nerves of a reaping could compare to what Hypatia felt, perched on the edge of the bench waiting to be called. The time between the reaping and now felt like nothing, nothing more than a breath in a blissful silence before a storm. Yet Hypatia couldn’t help but feel like she hadn’t seen her home in eons, despite it only been just a little over a fortnight since she’d stepped from that cobbled street and onto the train; she could barely recall the smell of the kitchen on a sunday morning, when her mother and aunts would make bread on the stove or the sight of her house after a winter's snow, icicles dripping from the overhangs or the pertinent fog that clung to the District in the summer. It was as if she was a star, distant, beautiful but ever so lonely in the vastness of space. Lonely. Something Hypatia never had really considered herself to be before now. The thought stung, sharpley. Hypatia inhaled sharply, sucking the cool air through her teeth as tears welled in her eyes, the realisation of her solidarity becoming horribly apparent. She had been so self absorbed in her yearning for knowledge, to become a musical genius, to be perfect, that she had forgotten to be human. Humans had been a social species, ever since homo errectus gained the ability to walk on their hind limbs, even before that, the genus of homo had been social animals, evolving languages which gave them the ability to tell stories round ancient fires; perhaps that is why she was so lonely, her inability to speak cutting her off from the rest of the homosapiens, disallowing her to tell those stories round the campfire about how the stars came to be in the heavens. At least she had the privilege to hear the birds and the announcement that rung over the speakers, crisp and clear like the church bells that rung at her funeral. Standing, Hypatia wiped her eyes angrily, thinking herself foolish to cry over something that could not be changed. Time can only move forward, she reminded herself as she stepped towards the platform, motionless other than her feet moving one step at a time towards it. And yet as she stepped onto the silver circle, allowing a glass tube to surround her, her mind aimlessly wandered to the thought she had in the training center about where, if it was possible, she would travel in her timeline. 60 seconds... As the glass tube began to rise around her, trapping her inside, Hypatia reconsidered the moment in time she would travel back to. While the memory of her birthday at which she got her violin, the memory of the bow between her fingers for the first time and the violin resting nicely between the crook of her neck, was the fondest, it was not logical to travel back to such a point where nothing could be changed. As she was entirely engulfed in the glass, the 50 second mark counting down towards her, she decided that if time travel was possible, she’d travel back and stop herself from being reaped; even if that meant killing herself. Anything to get out of the war she was about to face. 50 seconds... As the platform rose beneath her, and the room she had been in faded into- to her at least- oblivion, Hypatia was engulfed in darkness. There was a second of silence which seemed to follow her, like a horseman hunting her down, before the silence didn’t matter anymore. It was the smell that hit her first, before the orange firey glow of the arena did as the platform rose above the ground level. Still engulfed in darkness, the stench hit her and she suddenly found herself gagging, her hand clutching to her mouth and nose to try avoid the smell. She recognised the stench that drowned her, the stench of rotten eggs, sour, tart against her nose; it was sulfur and for a moment, Hypatia was confused. 40 seconds Then the platform rose above the ground level. Heat was second to hit her, causing her eyes to water slightly, followed by the blurred, wavering sight of the arena around her. Heat ebbed off the dark, almost red rocks, that littered the ground for as far as the eye could see, making the great golden cornucopia that loomed before her seem almost ghostly, like a mirage against the dull glow of its surroundings. There was no real light, making it hard to see beyond the cornucopia where the darkness clung, the only source of light was a distant hot glow of something- lava? Fire?- Hypatia wasn’t sure but it gave off an earily firey glow that made her stomach sink; it was something out of nightmares. 30 seconds She felt bile rise in her stomach and tears fill her eyes as she realized where she was, a nightmare place she had only seen in her sleep where the stench of sulphur rose from the brimstone and fires burned eternally until the end of time itself. Shit she thought to herself as she came to realization that she was in hell, and the hell around her was punishment for the pillar in her life that kept her afloat: her pride. 20 seconds At that moment, Hypatia also realized how her plan to travel back in time and kill her earlier self so she would not have to come to this place was flawed. Horribly flawed. She recalled, stood on the platfrom, the grandfather paradox and how it was horribly flawed. Even if she did go back and kill her earlier self, therefore making her existence now impossible, there was a problem; if she did not exist now, she would not be able to go back in time in the first place and therefore, she would forever exist, regardless of what she did. She was trapped. 10… Inhaling, Hypatia tried her best not to gag against the stench of rotten eggs. 9… She counted the levels of hell, in front of her eyes as they watered against the vivid heat. 8… Her gaze shifted over the rest of the tributes, wondering what their sins were. 7… She exhaled, slowly, steadily. 6… Her fingers, dug into the palms of her hands as she balled them into fists. 5… A fleeting second, reminiscent of her training score. 4… Hypatia swallows the bile than rises in her mouth again, inhaling shakily. 3… The young woman perches on the balls of her feet 2… She considers stepping off early, killing her quickly and instantly, putting and end to it all before its even begun. 1… But every star has its time. BOOM! And this is not hers.

[*]

[Kizzy l Intro]

K I Z Z Y

"Dad. What are you doing?" I question the man standing in the doorway of my sister's room. His legs shaking and his gait slouched and unsteady, wavering on the brink of falling over. My voice draws him out of his stupor enough to turn around to me and immediately, without words, the smell of alcohol hits me. I glare at him, watching as he turns toward me, using his hands to steady himself.

"None of your fucking business, Kale. Go back to bed." He growls at me, and I shake my head. I'm barely even thirteen and my little sister is but ten. She's sleeping soundly in her bed not knowing what's going on and I wonder how long my father has been standing there admiring her while she sleeps. An eery feeling washes over me, and my blood begins to boil slightly all the while a new sense of adrenaline starts to course through my veins.

"Leave Tenten alone, dad. Let her sleep. You need to go to bed too. It's three in the morning." I tell him, feeling grateful that a full bladder is what woke me up in the first place. Only, he keeps glaring at me, and in his hand, he brings up a bottle to his lips.

More alcohol. Why do you drink... what is the purpose of it, dad? You get crazy...

"You know, I'm tired of you and your sister. You're mom was smart, you know. That broad... at least she had the sense to take off with your brother. At least he got the better end of the stick. You are worthless Kale. Not good enough..." My anger boils beyond belief and tears start to come to a head in my eyes the more my father's slurred words protrude from his mouth and peirce my heart.

"I hate you." I mutter under my breath and he shrugs his shoulders and turns to go into my sister's room.

"Go back to bed, Kale."

"No! Dad..." Everything else is a blur from that moment on, as I jump him, hitting him in the face, and pulling him back with the weight I push onto his neck. He falls, and hits his head on the dresser in my little sister's room as she wakes and starts to cry. All I remember, is leaving him laying on the ground, and comforting Tenten for an hour before she fell back to sleep and when she was back to sleep, I dragged my sorry for nothing father back to his room to let time sober him up but I swore I would never tell him what happened. I also knew that I needed to always be around to protect my sister from him and his drunken ways.

This is no different. My girlfriend has taken to keeping Tenten at her place until I come back. Today, is the day when everything will be different. As the tube ascends upward, and pitting me into nothing but the arena, I take a giant breath and think to myself.

This is nothing but another drunken night for my father. My own personal hell. Damn, it's hot.

3...

2...

1...

I step off the portal and barrel into the fight without a single bit of hesitation. Every single one of them looks like my father at this moment. Despite my head knowing that they aren't, I will treat them the same way I did my father. They are all standing in my way of getting back home to my sister and my girlfriend. I need to see my twin brother again. It's just a matter of time as I approach the catastrophe developing in front of my eyes.

[Kizzy Enters the Bloodbath]

Made by Frankel

[L△LIA]

[scout krigel, intro]

"It's the Pegasus Queen," Scout murmurs defensively when her stylist peeks over her shoulder and asks what she's doodling in her notebook. "She sprang from the blood a siren that was attacking a fishing village, trying to start a civil war, when the siren was beheaded by Crown Prince Le—" The murmuring turns to mumbling and the Crown Prince's name is lost to a fit of fake coughing and at least thirty seconds of um uh er heh hmm durrrr-ing. "It's just a thing I draw sometimes. It's not a big deal... except the Pegasus Queen has been captured by a horrible gang of monsters threatening to kill her in revenge for the siren's death and so Crown Prince Leon sent the Pirate King to save her! And —" Biting back her sudden outburst, she snaps the notebook shut and clutches it to her chest. "I guess that part is kind of a big deal."

The stylist nods with patronizing disinterest and starts powdering Scout's face again, trying to hide the blush coloring her cheeks. "Well, you need to calm down, my dear," she says as if Scout's would-be graphic novel is the only thing that has her on edge this morning, "you don't want to look all ruddy on camera. If you're too red then you'll blend in," Scout's breath hitches and dies in her throat at the blatant implication, "and your cheekbones are much too pretty to be wasted like that."

Silence gnaws at the tension between them as Scout fights the urge to give herself over to a fit of ugly sobbing. "Can I see Roger? Just real quick? For a second? Please?" Her hands shake as she pleads, but the stylist simply tuts and shakes her head with a wordless no dear. Reassurance is a luxury she's no longer allowed.

There's another hour of fussing over eyeliner and making certain every hair is securely pulled back into a ponytail so it can't distract from the carefully emphasized slant of her eyes or the way each individual freckle has been painstakingly highlighted with flecks of honeyed glitter. Somehow Scout has been strategically made to look almost like a warrior, her edges sharpened and her smile nowhere to be seen. She is gilded in gold as if she is her own armor. It's a fantastic lie and she hopes even one of the people waiting for her in the arena is enough of a fool to believe it. She doesn't even dare ask to be saved for the entire day, just the bloodbath. Somewhere I'll be remembered, at least, not lost in a mass grave...

The tube that carries her up into one kind of sky or another isn't as scary as it should be. She doesn't think about all the red she might be lost in a mere minute from now, just the promise of Roger's encouragement. Having her district partner back will make her feel a thousand times more protected than any weapon she could pick up. "I'm not alone," she whispers to herself as she squeezes her eyes shut and pictures his face, pictures Leon's face watching over both of them. When she looks out at the new world it's hardly much brighter than when she wasn't looking at all and a flare of panic hooks into her. She can't tell one tribute apart from another in this flickering darkness. "I'm not alone, I'm not alone, I'm not alone."

In a world without a sun, no one can see her cry. There is only the ringing of the gong.

"The Pirate King will save me."

[thompson harvard - d2b - arc]

[daniel tate, intro]
Sixty.

That’s the amount of time I have to bask in the memories that I once held close to my happiness. That’s the amount of time to think about the things in life I enjoy, because either way I escape (alive or dead), there’s going to be no possible way to enjoy them. The beautiful eyes that Blanche has, the sisters that have filtered my life. All of it as if it had been nothing- little specks of air that just floated on by. All if it deep in the depths of memories that are to never be serenaded again. To fall into the abyss that never ends (and never returns).

The arena that surrounds me is dark. That’s all I can taste, all I can see.

Darkness.

Skeletal hands that could only remind one of the dead arise out of the ground. They form a shield of sorts to protect the life that stands inside of this soon to be lifeless place. They protect us from whatever lie outside of that place, the hell that awaits us. The fingers curl as if they’re in pain, shriveling up to try and revel in the pain. Torch’s stand in a ring, the dancing of the flames lighting up the circle that stands before me makes the arena feel like it’s breathing. Like it’s alive, the entire lifeform that revolves around being ruined in this hell.

I take a deep breath, and let it out as that clock counts down the moments I have left to live in peace. The choice is obvious if I would rather run away from this hell or stay in chances to preserve my life with a weapon. It’s a risk I’ll take, quite honestly. It was a fate that my brother took, a wire that started the travel towards the death of Sue Tate.

And as the gong rings- I’m traveling towards the death of Daniel Tate.

[daniel tate enters the bloodbath]

[gamemaker sloane ♕ kaяi ♕]

Jun 18, 2016 12:00:43 GMT -5 gamemaker sloane ♕ kaяi ♕ said:

[lucy eckhart | intro]

[lucy eckhart | attack 1 | 5038]

L

E

Chaos.

Seconds in and it already fills the arena. Everywhere I turn there's fists, or blood, or weapons. I'm not sure if anyone is dead yet. All I can hope is that my allies are okay. I've lost track of them. They've disappeared into the crowd, but I know that they can hold their own. The only thing left I can do for them is hope. I lash out to the person closest to me, not concerned in the slightest who it is. I see something glittering on the ground, I quickly bend over and pick it up.

[attacks bailey truus ; unarmed]

Ek9JBRizunarmed

[gash/bruised right foot - 3.0]

[grabs serpent staff(spear)]


unarmed

[Arrows]

Jun 18, 2016 12:00:18 GMT -5 Arrows said:

[Bailey Truus / Intro]

[Bailey Truus / Attack One / 5077]

Bailey truus

"Esme be careful you could hurt yourself!" Bailey's voice carries across the golden grazing fields as her feet pound against the soil in pursuit of her playful cousin. Laughter bubbles out of Esme's childish grin as she continues to whip through the grasses. Suddenly the laughter stops as dust transforms into clouds with the sound of sobbing erupting from below them. Bailey's heart races as she sprints to Esme's side scanning her cousin for any injuries. Blood trickles in a several small inlets on Esme's hands and knees but aside from the scrapes her skin is unscathed. A slight sigh of relief releases from Bailey's lips as she wipes away most of the blood and Esme's translucent tears. "It's alright Esme you will be just fine. As long as I am here I won't let you get hurt. Next time just be more careful about things you might trip over, including your own feet. Now come on its best we head on back home now." Bailey says soothingly to her cousin she her helps lift her from the dirt.

Bailey's bitter memory flashes across her mind as her eyes dart from tribute to tribute. Cries are lurching out of every mouth while screams escape from others. Bailey's adrenaline sends her straight for the first weapon she sees. Sure Bailey hadn't practiced much with a Bow but it was better than nothing. Yet before Bailey's fingers wrap safely around the Bow her hands meet skin other than her own. From there instincts take hold of Bailey's body as she lashes out. Personally Bailey didn't have any discontent with any of the tributes, but she did had allies she cared about. Allies she would do anything for, Esme would understand... at least Bailey hoped she would.

Bailey Attacks Ross Wolfe With Fists
27pvy5hCunarmed
{Results}
**Bailey Picks Up Her Bow and Arrows**

unarmed

[Python]

Jun 18, 2016 12:00:17 GMT -5 Python said:

Machaon Amador, Intro

Machaon, Attack 1, 5173

He made a mad spring toward the skeletal Reaper’s hands, terrified that this hell world was about to swallow him whole. The heat of the flames was apparent, but all he could focus on was the rush of air on his cheeks. He prayed between each gasp; to who? He didn’t know. Maybe to Lucia, he didn’t know. All he knew was that he suddenly regretted not turning around and running away, because here came the tributes.

[attacks Bailey – unarmed]
MtwHoA6Bunarmed
Gash/Bruised Left Collar Bone -- 3.0 damage

[grabs sword]

unarmed

[Marsh Deluca D5M [tribsit]]

Jun 18, 2016 12:00:26 GMT -5 Marsh Deluca D5M [tribsit] said:

[HEATHCLIFF | INTRO | ATTACK ROLL N/A]

[HEATHCLIFF | ATTACK 1 | ATTACK ROLL]

H E A T H C L I F F

Renee had been a pretty girl. The girl from one had proven just as pretty as she was vicious. They knew that an alliance was in order, if not just out of need for one but that two careers were far stronger together. They were certain Renee was stronger, a fighter—what lay behind those eyes, that made her so determined. Travers was just as ready as she but, the determination was not so effusive. Rather, ambition lacked in Travers as much as they didn’t want to admit it. Instead, introspection was abundant, as well as self-doubt. Not that they didn’t run through everyone. Even now as chaos erupted in the cornucopia, a golden figure on the precipice of what seemed a great cave, Travers was too focused on what was inside rather than out.

Perhaps Magdalene was whispering in Traver’s ear, but they balled their hand into a fist and pressed toward the weaponry. Now was not the day to die, if all of it could be avoided. The world was still new, and beautiful. Even as dark and horrifying as it were.
[Heathcliff attacks lucrezia eckhart with unarmed]
DG05MFJMunarmed
[Heathcliff picks up Sharpened Horn (knife)]
[Block -- 0.0 damage]

Made by Frankel

unarmed

[Kire]

Jun 18, 2016 12:00:29 GMT -5 Kire said:

[Ross Wolfe // Intro]

[Ross Wolfe // Attack 1 // 5085]

Ross Wolfe

Everyone moved as one, rising like a wave or like a wall of fire. You streamed forward with the rest of them, diving toward the first thing of use you could see - a sword. On your way there, a girl got in your way. You paid little attention to who she was, noticing only after you had struck out that she was the girl from Ten. For the entirety of your time since the reaping you had purposefully avoided learning names. Knowing districts would serve you well enough. The only name you knew was Mach's and even then that wasn't his full name. You couldn't see him, but you tried to ignore that fact. Everyone was here, right now, and that was more than enough to deal with. The moment you get an opening, you dive for the sword.

[Attacks Bailey Truus - fists]
LCnDS05munarmed
Bruised Right Arm -- 2 damage

unarmed