ode to the lights ✹ haizea, day 6

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She may run quick, but Dyno's words burn into her brain in a way she can't forget. Haizea flees before she even sees the death of Itzal Usoa, losing herself to the fog and the tears that come. She isn't sure why she cries, whether it's from pain or shock or fear, but it's as if all the emotions she had soaked up prior force themselves out before she can even stop it. I'm safe, I'm alive, I'm still in this- Dyno Moreno is still in the arena, she should have attacked him while he was weak. She should have, she could have;

She didn't. 

Make that a problem for another day, she runs down the cliff she so intimately mapped in her head until the fog clears; though, she never thought it would. The purple fog lessens into a mist and only then, when she's able to see that the coast is clear, does she drop to her knees and sob before tending to her wounds. First, her hand, mangled and destroyed, her eyes swell again at the sight and it burns as she clears the threads of skin that hang on. Then, her hip, a kiss of a hit from Dyno, and later her chest. 

Haizea works on herself until the emotions clear and her eyes dry, until being alone feels more of a risk than a reward. For the first time in a week's time, she fought alone and she survived, but the next days won't be any easier. She squints as a light falls gently towards her, an item she first mistakes as a sponsor but later realizes as a lantern. A beacon, floating ever towards her until she's able to grab it with all seven remaining fingers. There's a note attached, from Maverick, and the better part of her tells her to throw it away. To avoid opening Pandora's box and whatever comes from it, but she can't resist. 

"Haizea," she reads aloud, "I hope to never see you again." A sentiment she shares, especially after her run in with Dyno Moreno; Maverick would be kinder, but his blade would never be. Especially after her slaying of Rene, it's touching that he'd even reach out. "And if you manage to make it out of this arena alive, never lose sight of who you are," she reads, and reads, and rereads until she can no longer hear it in Maverick's voice. Until it's just a note, and she's just a girl again, and the bloodshed isn't who she is anymore. 

Thank you, she wants to say, but instead she curls into herself and sleeps.