blood is blue, yael. day two
Mar 3, 2023 20:29:28 GMT -5
Post by lucius branwen / 10 — fox on Mar 3, 2023 20:29:28 GMT -5
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The groggy fragrance of blossoms makes her head spin. It smells like how she'd think divinity might, both languid and startling, earthy tones, blood, and soot. Sometimes god exists in a moment, flickering between flames. She might believe it.
She stares at the heart in the jar.
It unnerves her. Not Karl who had peeled back the body and reached for the organ with such unblinking blandness, hunched over with his hand in the cavity of their chest.
Instead, her eyes slide over to Johnny, stupid, grinning boy who sawed through the ribcage, who snipped the arteries and made the incisions. She listened to how the bones creaked in his hands, the steadiness in his bearing as he worked. A person learns apathy from repetition. She suddenly believes him, his words, back in the training center. Her unease grows.
There's a stickiness to her senses. She tears her eyes from the jar and she's dragging herself through the thickness of each moment. It must be the sake. It tasted disgusting but it filled her with warmth.
She's never had it before.
She doesn't like it anymore.
Karl gives her the bottle, but this time she passes it right along to Johnny.
The pyre keeps devouring.
Absently, she touches the place near her neck, behind her ear, where the tracker is. It's barely tangible. The girls used to say they were untraceable in the facility. No trackers. No records. Nothing distinctive. Their graduation gift was an erasure of the scars collected over the years, brand new, born again.
It's almost more difficult to leave this place with all the fanfare. She spent very little time thinking about it since she's arrived in the arena. But now Calamity dies first and that little thing in her throat she swallowed grows bigger.
You have an assessment to complete.
We'll assess your skills. Successful completion will resume your training.
Her peacekeeper, with her unreadable, stern face.
Yael doesn't believe her but she also isn't dead. And somehow it's worse like this. She dwells on it, deliberates cutting the tracker from her skin, deliberates playing the game.
She wants to go home.
More than that, home is where her mother lies. She'd stay in the Black Room just to be able to kill him when she's older, her mother's killer. Because it feels like a curse to be born a girl in Two, it's even worse than the facility. That's what she thought, all that time, two years, wishing to be more terrible, more vicious, tired of being afraid. She closes her hand into a fist, a hot ache in her broken arm, shaking slightly. She's getting used to the pain of the fracture.
Something shifts in the corner of her eye. She looks up and watches Karl turn to Johnny in slow motion, hand on his leg, leaning in. She registers what's about to happen a second too late.
The bottle comes up between them, pushed into his chest and Johnny laughs stiffly.
He calls her name. She gets up, turns around, and leaves to sit by the stream.
She stares at the heart in the jar.
It unnerves her. Not Karl who had peeled back the body and reached for the organ with such unblinking blandness, hunched over with his hand in the cavity of their chest.
Instead, her eyes slide over to Johnny, stupid, grinning boy who sawed through the ribcage, who snipped the arteries and made the incisions. She listened to how the bones creaked in his hands, the steadiness in his bearing as he worked. A person learns apathy from repetition. She suddenly believes him, his words, back in the training center. Her unease grows.
There's a stickiness to her senses. She tears her eyes from the jar and she's dragging herself through the thickness of each moment. It must be the sake. It tasted disgusting but it filled her with warmth.
She's never had it before.
She doesn't like it anymore.
Karl gives her the bottle, but this time she passes it right along to Johnny.
The pyre keeps devouring.
Absently, she touches the place near her neck, behind her ear, where the tracker is. It's barely tangible. The girls used to say they were untraceable in the facility. No trackers. No records. Nothing distinctive. Their graduation gift was an erasure of the scars collected over the years, brand new, born again.
It's almost more difficult to leave this place with all the fanfare. She spent very little time thinking about it since she's arrived in the arena. But now Calamity dies first and that little thing in her throat she swallowed grows bigger.
You have an assessment to complete.
We'll assess your skills. Successful completion will resume your training.
Her peacekeeper, with her unreadable, stern face.
Yael doesn't believe her but she also isn't dead. And somehow it's worse like this. She dwells on it, deliberates cutting the tracker from her skin, deliberates playing the game.
She wants to go home.
More than that, home is where her mother lies. She'd stay in the Black Room just to be able to kill him when she's older, her mother's killer. Because it feels like a curse to be born a girl in Two, it's even worse than the facility. That's what she thought, all that time, two years, wishing to be more terrible, more vicious, tired of being afraid. She closes her hand into a fist, a hot ache in her broken arm, shaking slightly. She's getting used to the pain of the fracture.
Something shifts in the corner of her eye. She looks up and watches Karl turn to Johnny in slow motion, hand on his leg, leaning in. She registers what's about to happen a second too late.
The bottle comes up between them, pushed into his chest and Johnny laughs stiffly.
He calls her name. She gets up, turns around, and leaves to sit by the stream.
