eve of destruction ☽ brennan v niko, day 8

[LAIN 🍽 1M | Mattio]

〖    b r e n n a n    f i t z g e r a l d    〗

There is a dryness after emotions get shackled back into their cage. My time is spent staring, lowly, at the mountainscape below while the wind sweeps fog like a river flows water. I stay hidden between the flora's deteriorating daylight glow, counting seelie as they pass through. I think that the best way to depict this moment is drained. I have given everything in the past few days. Hands shake when they lift something as light as a knife. Give and take. A common analogy of balance and fairness. Not true. Give and take are a ton of metal in each hand. They are equally unfair and equally unrealistic equalities to put on people our age. Give and take is doing an act of kindness in exchange for a minor inconvenience. It's not surviving a war by slicing someone's head off because they want the same.

How can some people expect so much out of us? Every excuse made out to be an expectation only adds to the pressure: you could be the hero, there are people starving in Three, give everything here so you'll never have to give again. I lock my fingers together, digging them through Atticus's stress ball.

My hope is that neither of the other cannons throughout the course of today was Haizea. Three in total, meaning there are four people left. Nobody's passed through the mountains that I could see, adding to that uncertainty. I need to see her again. My only friend left alive. Her warm spirit relaxed me and helped me not to be scared of fighting. Memories return from nights ago when Haze struggled with her belief in a good god. I never felt closer to a faith than I had at that moment. I hoped that her god heard her through the chambers of the arena. That they would give her the strength to carry on. One thing about our group– me, her, Ama, Pierce– is that we amplified each other's strength. If we weren't fighting for ourselves, we were fighting for each other. Another heavy expectation with only one change: a choice. I did not choose myself, I did not choose the people I'd help by winning. I chose them. They chose me, too. I can (could) look into their eyes and find myself in the reflection. A decision I made. And a decision I want to stand by until the end. If she's alive, and she can find me, maybe we can stick together and pick off the other two. Two people are stronger than one. We can do it together if she can find me. I hold my chest as the anthem plays… if she can find me because I'm frozen by fear and hurt.

Mirage. Karl. Dyno.

My head bends back to the tree in relief. Haze is still out there, as are Theo and Niko. There's still a chance for both of us to control our destinies: live, survive.

I hold onto the illuminated indigo plants as they glow through the night. Their brightness keeps me hidden as I lie almost underneath them, and their sturdiness keeps me from squirming or tearing my bandaged chest open.

I close my eyes for the second time today, the blue and purple rays much more agreeable when they aren't mixed with the cries of a scared boy.

Maybe this time I'll sleep.

The colors and cells floating around shut eyes transform from neon blue to hot flashing red in a matter of seconds. The shift rattles me and I throw myself up from the resting place and dive for the trees. Is it a fire? And explosion? I cover my head. Against the sun's rays after only a moment with the moon. Daylight.

I pull frustratingly at my hair. The wake-up call is unwelcome and unnecessary given that we were afforded no time to sleep.

Collecting the equipment I'd hoisted up on tree branches, I throw it all on my back and move, a soldier conditioned to move and act with light, no matter how drained I am.

As soon as I move from the camp, the clouds overhead grow so thick, so dark, that it almost feels like night again. Stars flash through the brief breaks in the fog. Night or day, who the hell knows? The mind games are truly unnecessary given the circumstances. Racnoss, Belmont, Sato. Ruby, Sloane, Chanel. Just force us together and force us to fight if that's what you want.

On that assumption, they're probably going to do everything they can to keep Haze away from me. Keep me from running down the hill and back to our spot at the base of the mountains. They'll be disappointed should that happen.

My seelie scouts ahead, fluttering through the air when it wants me to follow. They join in with other seelies, the same ones that watched Dyno and me fighting over his glaive, battling over death. They're back again, ushering me through the mountain.

Ushering me to Niko. The only person left in the arena who I haven't seen face-to-face since the training center.

I move in without a second thought. They won't let either of us run away. Waiting only prolongs the hurt. People get a jolt of energy through their veins when they're tired. I cut through the air with my katana, a drained swing filled with more desperation than control. "It's been a while, hasn't it?"

I hear Pierce's words echo. If you kissed me right now, I know I'd feel better. I miss those days when wondering if I'd ever find teenage love was a problem I could use to stop thinking about the Hunger Games.

"Congratulations on making it this far. Or I'm sorry… don't know where your sentiments lie."


[ brennan attacks niko ; katana (sword) ]
rkWPdBXfgvsword
[ 1176 -- Shallow Cut on Chest -- 4.0 damage ]

sword

[pup]

---

Forty-eight hours.

It's been forty-eight hours since he last slept. Or at least, since he thought he last slept. The weather shifting, fog churning, and day turning to night turning to day seemingly at random had left his brain whirling.

When the light had dimmed at the end of day seven, he had backed up against a crumbling structure to do his best impression of someone about to fall asleep. His treacherous seelie had even come to find its home resting against his leg once again. When he had closed his eyes, however, Karl's desperate insanity met Elm's screams in a tormenting torrent of agonizing sleeplessness.

As the anthem played and the faces of the dead flickered in the sky, he hadn't even needed to jolt himself awake. Instead, his eyes haggardly pulled themselves open to stare them down.

Good, Mirage is dead.

That's one solace if he doesn't make it out: the world won't have to endure Mirage anymore.

When Karl stares down at him from the sky, it's almost accusatory. The picture they chose for him was a far cry from the bloodied boy he had left on the stained ground next to a decaying heart. His eyes, in this picture at least, held none of the distance that comes from insanity. Maybe he could have gone back to that, or at least some semblance of normalcy if he had been able to kill Niko, won, and got a top-rated Capitol therapist.

Niko couldn't look away from the sky after that. The after image of Karl's features was burned into the dark. Even closing his eyes in a desperate attempt to get just a second of sleep brought back a picture of Niko's blade sawing through Karl's flesh.

The morning couldn't have come soon enough.

After forcing himself up using the scythe had stolen from Karl's corpse, he looks around. Spots dance in his vision. This time, though, it's not from the pain. These spots are different. There's an incessant pounding in his head which beats in time with his heart. The bags he feels under his eyes seem to grow with each thump. It felt as if a blacksmith had taken a liking to his head, or at least a liking to splitting his mind apart with a hammer.

As the sky darkens and the wind picks up, he knows that the next challenge awaits soon. He's not certain if the seelies he sees dancing alongside the floaters are figments of his imagination or not, but he follows them anyways. He's learned well enough from Bean's betrayal that the seelies do as they are told, and that he must do what the seelies direct him to do.

A sweet smell surrounds him as he starts on his path. Petals cloud his vision and it's unclear whether or not they are a part of his sleepless hallucinations. At this point though, it doesn't matter. He knows he just needs to keep walking.

The scythe trails behind him, leaving a long mark in the dirt. He doesn't worry about anyone following the path though. Itzal's gone, Dory's gone, Ivy's gone. There's no one left he'd hesitate to kill. Karl had gotten in his path, and Karl's canon had gone off shortly after. Let them come.

When Brennan's voice reaches through the haze in his mind, Niko turns wearily. His tired eyes bore down the boy from district three. At first he thinks the boy is just another hallucination, another floater, but this time with noise.

Just as Niko makes up his mind about whether or not the boy is real, he only has just enough time to step backwards to stop Brennan's sword from skewering him through the heart. He doesn't gasp in pain this time, though. The tiredness seeps into the wound, blocking Niko's mind from registering it.

Niko just stares at Brennan for a moment before raising Karl's scythe. His brain is sluggish, but he knows the scythe will cut true just as it had the day before when it bore into his own flesh. Brennan had been one of the few people he had been able to stand in the training center in their short conversations. It's a shame he has to die.

"Congratulations and apologies are all the same here." Niko responds, his voice monotonously weary. "The only thing here that's really different is the order we go to the other side. I hope I'll be the one following in your footsteps on our way there and not the other way around." He breaths out with a sigh, his eyes struggling to remain focused on Brennan, "I'm sure you get it."

attacks brennan with scythe (glaive)
P_lLG_TARHglaive
[Shallow Cut on Left Hip -- 3.5 damage]

---

bean

glaive

[LAIN 🍽 1M | Mattio]

〖    b r e n n a n    f i t z g e r a l d    〗

The blade slides across the upper part of Niko's torso, weaker than I would have liked. He doesn't even seem to register that the cut happens, a blank and obviously tired expression across his face. It looks like day and night really have melded together as one, living as a webbed planet spun together by the Game Makers to keep us unsettled. He raises his scythe in exchange, all scratched and tattered from the days of combat. It grazes my leg, adding more wear to it, my hip enduring more than the grain a scythe is designed to handle.

"Congratulations and apologies are all the same here." It's a relief that he doesn't have the same vitriolic speech as Dyno. For the first time walking into a fight, I know that Niko gets it. It took a while to figure out Theo and some insightful presumptions had to be made toward Maverick, but Niko understands it. The conflict, the indecisiveness of not knowing which is the right one to say. Congratulations on getting so close, apologies for what it has taken to get this close. This world, the arena, does not give us enough time to process commemoration from memoriam. Especially now when there are so few of us left. A formula develops to raise the stakes when things get quieter. Trauma is one tick of delay behind the good and bad. At any given moment, I can see the world through either one. Brace for impact, collision, cry through it, and rescue yourself. Tired as we may be, we have to keep rescuing ourselves from it, over and over.

Rescue ourselves from the bad because it hurts to stay that way.

Rescue ourselves from the good because it hurts to know we'll lose it soon.

"The only thing here that's really different is the order we go to the other side. I hope I'll be the one following in your footsteps on our way there and not the other way around." It's a slow conversation, given that either of us is lucky to be awake at the moment. "I'm sure you get it."

I shoot him a wink, hoping he can see straight enough to catch it. I understand him well enough to brave a conversation.

"The other side…" I say, scuffing through dirt to get close enough for another shot with my katana. Stubborn to stay focused, I keep myself talking, thoughts on what Niko said flowing through freely.

"You won't see footsteps if I die, Niko. You'll see the marks of a boy being dragged away." My words are a signal of resistance and rejection. I twist the blade toward him, hoping I won't be dragged away any time soon. "I'm not going anywhere by choice." I will my words into existence with a brush of force from my shoulder to my fingertips.

Niko, the Gamemakers, a god. If they want me to go to the "other side," they'll have to take me there themselves.


[ brennan attacks niko ; katana (sword) ]
pnvqP0uQNfsword
[ 1032 -- Shallow Cut on Right Shoulder -- 3.5 damage ]

sword

[pup]

---

No one wants to go. It's especially apparent here. When death is thrown around like a joke and taunts are tossed and forth, people's true, innate desire to survive is when they're on the precipice. At least Brennan didn't have to wait until death is knocking at his door to acknowledge it. At least he's not screaming like Elm or throwing his body over a heart like Karl.

Instead, he winks. That gives Niko pause in a moment of confusion. His sleepless brain doesn't process whatever message Brennan is trying to send.

"You won't see footsteps if I die, Niko. You'll see the marks of a boy being dragged away."

Brennan's blade clashes against Niko's scythe for a few moments in a volley of slices. When Niko turns, the sword slips through his defense and slices him on his shoulder. Another cut he can barely feel. In the back of his mind he knows that the blood loss will catch up with him soon and that he needs to get this over with faster, but his movements are not cooperating.

"I'm not going anywhere by choice."

Neither is Niko. No one here is choosing to die. Even the volunteers like Itzal or Dory who chose to be here were not culpable for their own deaths. He doesn't know what happened to them, but he assumes that they didn't just sit there and take a blade to the heart.

"Neither of us have a choice," he says, his eyes moving slowly to try and find a weak spot in Brennan's stance. It's true though. They were led here, forced to this spot for the amusement of whoever's watching. And, at the end of this, they won't have a choice of who dies.

"But I know I won't be going anywhere easily, and I'm glad you feel the same way."

attacks brennan with scythe (glaive)
TV6tcbhBSUglaive
[Shallow Cut on Left Calf -- 3.5 damage]

---

bean

glaive

[LAIN 🍽 1M | Mattio]

〖    b r e n n a n    f i t z g e r a l d    〗

I exchange weak blow for weak blow with him again. "Neither of us have a choice," Niko says, moments before cutting at my leg from the other angle this time. "But I know I won't be going anywhere easily, and I'm glad you feel the same way."

That's the kicker about death. Nobody goes by the will of their own choice. People kill you. Things kill you. It's rare, perhaps in the context of the Hunger Games, for someone to take their own life. That control is not afforded to us. They can cover up the hurt and the loneliness by killing us themselves. Make it look like something they can take credit for. My heart aches for the dozens, hundreds of tributes who tried to control their truth for a few seconds but were denied that by Capitol pride and distractions.

It's then, that it happens. A cannon sounds from below. Birds flock up to the sky in packs as the branches they once rested on shake, still frightened by a sound they'd heard twenty times before. I'm still standing. Niko's still standing.

My stomach turns over. There are moments in life where you just know. Sitting down for a test and you know nothing from what you studied for is going to be on those pages. Someone knocks on the door and you're scared to answer because you know there's bad news on the other side.

This is one of those moments. I know it's her. Haze. I'm stuck in space at the thought. No, no, no. Not again. Everyone else lost their allies, the people that they held on to and found strength from. It was supposed to be different for me and Haze. We were the last ones together, we were supposed to be the last ones alive.

I clear my throat, two eyes blankly staring down the hill. My heart was deaf long before I even knew your name. Things that cannot hear can still feel and understand through vibration. My heart feels the slightest gust of wind against my chest. It can't hear the cannon, but it knows, too.

Blurred vision from the tears in my eyes doesn't keep me from picking my sword back up. My heart doesn't beat. It rattles between two lines of ribs, begging to be freed from the cage so it can live without restriction. The game changes, now. Niko needs to die. The walls around me feel smaller than they had when I first ran up to attack him. The Game Makers will not give me time to grieve unless I earn it.

"I think that was my friend. Haizea." I direct Niko's eyes down the mountain with my blade. "I was thinking about dying for her if I knew it was just us left in here." A secret, a hidden thought contingent on Haze letting me and not having the same idea herself.

I approach Niko, more unforgiving than I've been before, even when Dyno sunk his glaive deep into my chest. It's nothing against Niko, I don't hate him. Something's shifted here. Losing Haze means that there's nothing left for me but the reluctant survival of the self. A pained story, the last shot at doing something good and making real change.

There's one other person in the arena who has caused my allies and me more than our fair share of problems and pain. I don't care if Theo understands the things I feel. I don't care if Theo understands the philosophy of life to a tee. He'll understand the palm of my fucking hand.

"I'm not going to paint myself as needing this more," I say, knowing damn well the righteousness that's about to follow will make it sound like anything but. "I have a friend I need to mourn, avenge, and win for all at the same time."

I remember our conversation alone in the cave. Good versus evil. God. Martyrdom. Change. Rebellion. All those words are bitter on my tongue knowing how things would turn out for us.

"None of those things are possible for a dead boy." Therefore, I will not die here. I refuse to die, as Dyno said. I'm beginning to realize that the convictions he held led him to that point as they lead me to mine. My katana slides toward Niko with intent.

"I am going to win for her." Not for myself, not for my district. For her.


[ brennan attacks niko ; katana (sword) ]
bT35EQBJkgsword
[ 1039 -- Shallow Cut on Right Shoulder -- 3.5 damage ]

sword

[pup]

---

When the canon fires, everything pauses. Three. There's only three left.

Niko feels some strength seeping back into his body. The canon going off signifies only one thing to him now that he's lost anyone he could care about in this arena: two deaths left and then it'll all be over. Stopping, his weapon hanging in the air, he stares at Brennan as tears roll down the boy's face.

Haizea. The name's familiar. He could vaguely remember Itzal making some not safe for work comment about her in the training center. The girl from eleven. If it's her, she was probably done in by Theo. There's no way to prove it's her, but Brennan holds conviction in his voice and the swing of his blade. He seems to have a newfound resilience, and Niko eyes his sword wearily as he points down the cliff to wherever Haizea must have been before they separated.

Good to know that Theo's behind them then. It'll give Niko time to prepare at the top after finishing his attack on Brennan.

"I'm not going to paint myself as needing this more. I have a friend I need to mourn, avenge, and win for all at the same time."

Niko grimaces at that. They all have someone to mourn. They've all met death and they've all welcomed it with a strike of a weapon. It seems everyone he fights has something desperate to say to save their life now. First Karl with his insistent lies that he knew Mirage's hiding place, now Brennan with his funeral planning.

"None of those things are possible for a dead boy," and he braces himself, raising the curved hook of his weapon as Brennan readies his. As the katana comes swinging towards Niko, he pushes it out of the way from his neck and it nicks the side of his shoulder once again.

Through his tired numbness, Niko could feel anger pricking at his vision. Brennan, now high on his self-worth and conviction, somehow thinks he deserves this more because he has a dead friend? Kat must be sitting at home, watching him with their father just as they had watched the games all together year after year. There would be no one left for her if he doesn't make it back. No one left to buy her markers and scavenge for extra sketch paper. And this boy from three is standing here, nearly commanding Niko to his death because of someone who can no longer be helped? His view begins to clear of the sleeplessness-induced floaters, and now he only can see Brennan.

"I'm sorry about your friend," Niko says, his steady voice now tinged with the whisper of bitter vitriol. His weapon raises into the air, slicing through the humid air and the wind.

"But pining for the dead does not make you more fit to win. Unfortunately for you, I have living people I need to care of. I am going to win for them."

When the scythe swings, he once again welcomes death into their presence. Just as he had for Elm, just as he had for Karl. He will fight, and he refuses to lose.

attacks brennan with scythe (glaive)
vM5QJExEdnglaive
[miss]

accuracy reroll
glaive
[Stabbed in Foot -- 8.0 damage]

---

bean

glaive·glaive

[LAIN 🍽 1M | Mattio]

〖    b r e n n a n    f i t z g e r a l d    〗

My angered chance toward Niko ends in a weak slice toward his shoulder. I'm only hurting myself by feeling so stuck in my emotions, burning feelings of loss making it harder to fight despite the strength of my determination. "I'm sorry about your friend." He doesn't have to be, but I appreciate that he is.

"But pining for the dead does not make you more fit to win. Unfortunately for you, I have living people I need to care of. I am going to win for them."

I'm not asking him to let me win because Haizea is dead. I am only willing it into existence. I need to do this for her. His scythe aims completely downward, stabbing through my open foot. I want to recoil back, but the tearing on my heel as soon as my muscle twitches keep me face-to-face with him. I can feel his tired breath and I'm certain he can hear mine through its heaviness.

I feel guilt from the words he says. I have living people I need to take care of. No one left for me. I don't love anyone on this earth alive. People have disappointed and pained me at every turn yet look the other way when I have the courage to show it on my face. People will do everything to stay as high as they can on the social ladder. The Capitol's governance has been crafted in such a way as to worry more about infighting within your own district than seeing the problem from the top. At any turn of rebellion or resistance, the Capitol can easily threaten: look at what you have to lose. Your place. It keeps people silently obeying the status quo because being where you are is better than being lower.

I think of Haizea again. A flash of her dead plays as I blink. Shit. A bloodied bandage marked by the word Rebellion burning in a fire. I can't let that message go to waste. The root of the social hierarchy in the districts radiates from the Capitol. If I don't fight for myself and fight to win, who's going to fight for the other kids like me, of whom I'm sure there are many.

The silent kids. The scared kids. The kids who hope that someone will come up to them and strike up a well-meaning conversation. The kids who hope that people won't look the other way when they sit down at the table. The kids who get put down because they don't fit in. The kids who want someone that they can trust. The kids who worry relentlessly about who's going to let them down next. The kids who hope in desperation that someone will remember their name when are no more.

If no one fights for them, if no one knows that they even exist, how will they get better?

My attempt to hold back tears is weak. "How lucky you are. Rub it in some more that you have people who still love you alive, Niko." I swing my katana to him again, bending my arm to aid the close proximity. "I'm just kidding. People have rubbed that in for me my entire life. Can't fault you for doing the same."

I think of Haze again and what the people back home will say: a peak for a kid ready to decline as soon as he gets fit into the crown.

"I've seen the arena have its way changing people. I can't really change to get worse. If you get back, I hope the people you love don't think you've changed in a bad way."


[ brennan attacks niko ; katana (sword) ]
THox1HoUeLsword
[1064 -- Stabbed in Stomach -- 9.5 damage + 1.0 Blades]

sword

[pup]

---

The scythe slices cleanly into Brennan's foot. Niko understands what it's like to be hobbled without a foot. He's been missing his for the past few days, curtesy of Mirage, and he knows the toll it takes on somebody. Unfortunately, the curved blade fails to take it entirely off, leaving Brennan with enough to room to hobble around.

Their heaving breaths match each other. It's a dance of cutting and slicing into each other's arteries to see who will give in first. The flurry of weapons and words melding into an anger-fueled performance. Those watching better be happy. If the gamemakers approve, maybe they'll at least make sure the bodies a proper farewell.

Brennan's tears do not strike a chord in Niko. They would have just a few days ago. They would have given him pause. But he's no longer the boy who stood between Itzal and Ivy and faced down their weapons, begging for peace. No, steel and blood had consecrated that boy from the arena. Now Niko knows, if he survives, those teardrops will flow from Brennan's cheeks and into a hideous stew with Elm's screams and Karl's pleading. They'll haunt his waking moments and shake him from his dreams, but they have no place in the midst of the fight.

"How lucky you are. Rub it in some more that you have people who still love you alive, Niko."

Lucky. Lucky?

Did fighting for everything in his life to support his family mean he was lucky now? Did jumping down an oil rig and coming home with a face smeared in dirt and lungs filled with smoke count as luck?

The katana comes dangerously close to him.

"I'm just kidding."

Shit thing to joke about. He's almost as bad as Itzal.

"People have rubbed that in for me my entire life. Can't fault you for doing the same."

If Brennan has no one left, why fight? The thoughts why down Niko, his anger continuing to cloud his vision. Why not just let someone who has someone get home.

"I've seen the arena have its way changing people. I can't really change to get worse. If you get back, I hope the people you love don't think you've changed in a bad way."

The blade slices into Niko's stomach. It goes deeper and deeper, edging its way into his organs and dissecting him from the outside-in. The pain barely registers, but his eyes widen and his hands try desperately to pull the blade from him.

When Brennan finally releases the blade from his stomach, Niko stumbles backwards. His breathing is heavy, his eyes are wide, and his hands are slick with blood. He won't cry, though. He can't cry. All the sleepless terrors that had been haunting him had wormed their way into his eyes. He could feel them now, boring their way into his brain. Is that what Karl had felt before his death?

One hand holds his stomach and staunches the flow of blood, making sure nothing falls more out of place. His other hands raises the wickedly curved blade. It was stolen from a fallen, cursed body. Niko will make sure it is not stolen from his dead body.

"We've all changed for the worse," he spits, his eyes unblinking. With each word, he feels the blood drain from the wound in his stomach like an uncorked bottle facing down. "You're not supposed to come out of this thinking you're a better person. The second we came here we're doomed to die or to stand on a pile of rotting bodies."

Mirage, Itzal, Dory, Karl, Ivy, Elm, Haizea. The names keep stacking onto each other. The bodies keep mounting. There's no limit to the lives taken.

"But if I die now, I hope you'll find someone breathing to live for. It must be a sad life, living for the dead."

He spits some blood on the ground. The metallic taste reaches into his mind, intermingling with the demons that have found their home in there. It reminds him of his need to stay alive.

"Then again, I'm not planning on dying just yet."

attacks brennan with scythe (glaive)
DvWxHfnqxEglaive
[Severed Right Forearm at Elbow -- 9.5 damage]

---

bean

glaive

[LAIN 🍽 1M | Mattio]

〖    b r e n n a n    f i t z g e r a l d    〗

"We've all changed for the worse."

I hold my tongue. I hate to say it, but the Hunger Games have given me at least some sort of character growth. A moment of pride and confidence that I'd been previously unable to find within myself. Strength to fight with the Stars against a pack of people that would love to see me dead. The strength to ask a boy if he'd like to sleep by me for the night. The strength to accept a first kiss after years of thinking about how I'd ask for one. The strength to allow me to love someone so much that I'd say aloud that I would die for them. I can hate these Games as a premise and an institutional disgrace, but I can't deny that they have changed my view more than seventy years in Three ever would have. The only issue is the faith I have in myself to maintain it.

"You're not supposed to come out of this thinking you're a better person. The second we came here we're doomed to die or to stand on a pile of rotting bodies."

Niko's words conflict me. He's right, for the most part. You're not supposed to walk out of here thinking that you're better. I remember feeling like that after Calamity, questioning if killing them had ruined my spirit for the rest of time. I stood in the hot spring, arms crossed and frightened to look at Ama and Haze. Did the career applause from Pierce mean it was a sealed deal? My mind changed when Ama died. Haze and I spoke about how we cared about her so much that we considered killing a fleeing Svetlana. I spoke to Haze as a friend with no experience with faith. God won't judge us for what we do here if they do exist. Condemn the Game Makers for the crash they've caused, and our country for the lack of alternatives it has given.

"But if I die now, I hope you'll find someone breathing to live for. It must be a sad life, living for the dead." Niko's scythe falls down upon my arm, tearing from the back of my elbow to my wrist. I bleed from all angles. It burns to spread my hand wide enough to grab his as it retreats, but I do it anyway.

"It is sad, Niko." My body acts with the same desperation as it had when Dyno's hand was practically in my chest along with his blade. What a sad boy, I am. Sad for Pierce, Ama, and Haze. Sad for Itzal, Elm, and Maverick. Sad for Calamity, Dyno, and Francine. "It's a sad, sad life. But I'm tired of being sad and sorry for myself." I let go of him and limp back. The ones I loved, the ones I remember, and the ones I killed. I'm sad for them because of how this world has treated them. I'm sad for who comes after us if our hearts stay silent.

Maybe it's the denial speaking. "Recently, I learned that the last person I should be sorry for is myself. My sadness and my self-pity do not have to be the same." Crying into a pillowcase, isolated and wallowing, put me on the track for an inept and lonely life. The moment my name was called, things changed. I had less to lose. I yelled at the kids back home and cursed them out for everyone to hear. I can taste the whispers from kids at school the next day: Brennan Last-Name-That-We-Have-Forgotten: Off The Rails after Reaping!

The old Brennan Fitzgerald would have hated that. He would've hidden away from embarrassment and humiliation and never done the same ever again. One month later, I kept up against a mouthful of Dyno's threats and attacks.

"There's nothing wrong with being sad for someone who deserved better than what they were given."

This is why I'm sad for you, Niko, even though I don't know nearly as much about you as I do Haizea. I don't give him a bold when you die or when I make it out comment this time because now I'm unsure. I cannot tell if the flinch in my gut is still from Haizea or if it's predicting a new fate. I ready trembling feet in Niko's direction, then I swing.

"My emotion is not a sign of weakness." Not anymore.


[ brennan attacks niko ; katana (sword) ]
ME4po8DqKxsword
[1008 -- Shallow Cut on Back -- 4.0 damage]

sword

[pup]

---

The world seems to shake and he stumbles. The scythe withdraws from Brennan's arm, leaving it mangled and bloodied. It seemed like it had its own soul; it guided Niko where he needed to go. He couldn't make these swings consciously, not with the cold gloss of fog that was slowly muddling his vision.

There is contempt--a sad hatred--forming between them. Niko could see it in the air, the floaters having returned and red tinging his vision. With each strike, Brennan becomes more and more of an enemy. This reminds him why he stood alone with no allies besides his brief friendship with Ivy. Isolation in the past means an easier victory now. There's no one who can stop the demons in his mind.

"It is sad, Niko." He hates the way Brennan says his name, as if they were old friends catching up over a morose drink. His knuckles turn white on the hilt of his weapon as he clutches it even harder, gritting his teeth and preparing for another blow.

"It's a sad, sad life. But I'm tired of being sad and sorry for myself." They both back away from each other, moving slowly and painfully as they eye each other for the next attack. "Recently, I learned that the last person I should be sorry for is myself. My sadness and my self-pity do not have to be the same."

Niko's moment of pity is drying up. His wish for Brennan to find someone to care about if he lives shriveling into a husk. All he wants is to get home to his sister. He wants to open the door with a new pack of crayons and see her smile light up again. He wants to go to work and see Benji then head out to a party at night. He wants life to be normal and awful and real again.

But the demons nesting inside of his head have no care for that. They want to see Brennan bleed, and they want Niko to hurt him. They whisper inside-out into Niko's ears, telling him the truth: all Brennan wants is to stop him from going home.

"There's nothing wrong with being sad for someone who deserved better than what they were given. My emotion is not a sign of weakness."

When the cut comes, he still feels no pain.

Brennan is wrong. Emotion is weakness. At least, most of them. Through the fog of his waking nightmare and the demons whispering in his mind, he understands that. The only emotion that fuels him now, the one that keep his strength going, is anger. Anger at the gamemakers for putting him here, anger at shitty luck at the reaping bowl, and--most of all--anger at Brennan for his simplistic self-actualization needing to happen when they're both teetering on the precipice of death's ever-expanding mega-mansion.

"Maybe you should pity yourself a little bit more," Niko spits out with a wheeze, the anger from the demons in his head roaring and blazing in his vision. The floaters turn red and dance around Brennan's bloodied face.

"This isn't some district one wellness retreat bullshit. If you really needed all of this-" he gestures to the metallic sheen of their blood pooling on the ground, to the mutts floating like phantoms in the distance, and to the sky where twenty-one bodies had been taken by hovercraft over the course of the past week, "to have some self-realization and still only be thinking of how sorry your life has been, maybe you really weren't living a life worth living. All of us have had sad lives and all of us have been dealt a shit hand. Murder shouldn't and isn't going to change that for the better. It'll just leave you sadder, more hollow, and even more pathetic."

attacks brennan with scythe (glaive)
OlMfW88UM9glaive
[Severed Left Forearm at Elbow -- 9.5 damage]

---

bean

glaive

[LAIN 🍽 1M | Mattio]

〖    b r e n n a n    f i t z g e r a l d    〗

My words echo through my ears, ringing from left to right. I feel so exhausted that I question if they even came out right. I bring my katana out, too far, and only manage to clip his back.

"Maybe you should pity yourself a little bit more," no, dude. I just told you that I'm done with that. I can tell he still has a daze around him in the way his eyes struggle to capture mine and focus. "This isn't some district one wellness retreat bullshit."

Niko seems to think I have some career-like infatuation with killing. I'm not Dyno or Rene, so desperate to live in books of career legend that they lose sight of their humanity. I'm still clinging to my humanity. I won't let anyone blame me for what I've done in here, the three lives that I've taken and the others that I've helped Haze totake. People like Niko are not going to twist my story in line with the careers. I'm not proud. I just know the stakes, and I'm confident that I'll find forgiveness at the end of the day.

"If you really needed all this, to have some self-realization and still only be thinking of how sorry your life has been, maybe you really weren't living a life worth living. All of us have had sad lives and all of us have been dealt a shit hand. Murder shouldn't and isn't going to change that for the better. It'll just leave you sadder, more hollow, and even more pathetic."

It's a mouthful that I take, one beating after another. Each word adds to the anger, to the frustration, and to the confusion. I instantly spit back at him while he makes an identical tear in flesh on my other arm. There's desperation in my speech, knowing that these words could be my last.

I need to make them count. I need to make the mean something.

"Let me say it again to you because I'm tired of being misunderstood. The old Brennan Fitzgerald who felt sorry for himself is gone. He died, the moment Calamity Grace's blood dripped from the ceiling of the mountain's cavern." I dig into my pockets and reveal the locket with Calamity's photograph that the Game Makers left for me. I throw their picture to the ground. "The Game Makers wanted me to be traumatized, scared of what I did. They wanted me to cry in front of Panem! And I did. I cried because they died. Calamity brought calamity in my soul. I'm sad for them. That's not pity. That's acknowledging that they're more like me than most give us tributes credit for." My hands shake. I should just keep fighting.

But I need to hear this.

"If you thought I said that I'm some career wannabe looking to absolve myself for the people I've killed, you need to get the bullshit out of your fucking ears. I'm not Dyno. Killing three people is not going to be the legacy that I am buried with. I'm nothing like a career. I'm five feet and five inches, barely above one hundred and ten pounds. Do I look like a career to you?" I think of Pierce. The quality that he, a career reject, liked most about me was the way that I cared and loved. "Accusing me of trying to find closure and solace in my kills is so far off the mark, you're not even on the map."

My shoulders stay high, burning through the red-hot anger that keeps them stiff. Like a checklist of responses, I press on. "'I'm so sad. And that means I'm not living a life worth living,' hmm? That was what you said? It's rich to me that anyone has the balls to judge my life. You only know what I've told you. And even then, I don't think you understood a word. Read my lips: 'I'm done feeling sorry for myself.' I've been done."

I try to wipe the blood off of my forehead, but my arms are so drenched in it that it only adds another layer. "Self-pity created a boy who believed that drowning in that pity was a sounder fate than learning how to swim." I still feel Pierce's arms wrapped around my body, a life jacket keeping me afloat after he pulled me from underwater. "You can ask me to pity myself all you want, hoping I'll give in and die."

I gesture to my chest, years of theatrics learned by daydreaming in bed. "I've had water encase my lungs. It's a lonely suffocation."

"Call me a self-pitied upper district boy. Call my life not worth living. Call me sad, hollow, pathetic. Call me weak for mourning people I love– and the ones I didn't." I nod through, trying not to get emotional through each hypothetical admission. "Call me anything you want– you'll never call me by my truth. You'll never know the half of it."

I lay a lashing with my katana toward Niko. I'm good enough, I'm good enough, I'm good enough.

"If you dislike my heart and the apologies I give, that's fine. I'll give you none."


[ brennan attacks niko ; katana (sword) ]
eJCa37_ccxsword
[1054 -- Miss -- 0.0 damage]

accuracy re-roll
sword
[1135 -- Deep Gash on Right Bicep -- 8.0 damage + 1.0 Blades]

sword·sword

[pup]

---

Niko can barely hear him. The switches in his brain seem to be turning off one by one in a neat order. First, his sight was reduced to a narrow point of light. Then, his brain began to whispers terror-filled thoughts. Now, the sounds around him have been muted to a muffle and an intense, overwhelming ringing.

He registers the curved crook of his weapon digging into Brennan's skin. He can feel the flesh breaking and the muscles breaking away from his opposing tribute. If he has to die, he will not die without taking Brennan down with him.

Yes, the pervasive thoughts seem to whisper through the noise and the darkness. They affirm his anger, his fear, his hope that he may live, and his desperation for Brennan to finally die. Withdrawing the blade, he's unsteady and shakes as he prepares for his next attack or wherever Brennan will be coming from.

Vaguely, he's aware of Brennan speaking to him through the haze. There must be the hatred and anger that Niko had felt in his other words, but now the world was spinning too much. He stumbles backwards as something is thrown to the ground. From the pinhole of his vision, he sees the picture of someone. The name Calamity rings through the silence and he feels an eery familiarity creep into him. He could remember the tribute from twelve with Karl in the training center, he could remember an old, putrid heart laying on the ground next to Karl as his cannon fires.

Was Brennan the one who delivered that horrid sight? He hears more words, but can't make out the full sentences through Elm's screams reverberating through his head. Brennan's mouth is a blur, and nothing seems to make sense. He could have been talking for an hour or a few seconds, but Niko knows his time to act is running out when he distantly feels the slice of the weapon into his arm.

"I don't know what you want to me say to that," Niko says, his voice a weak deadpan. It's the truth, he doesn't even know what Brennan was trying to convey in one of their final moments. "But I think it's time for one of us to stop talking."

Death stands by. He can feel it now just as he felt it with Karl and with Elm. He had seen it grasping at the heart in the pool of blood. He had known when it was reaching for Ivy. He and Brennan had beckoned for it to come closer and closer with each welcoming strike from their blades.

He hopes that he can count on death at least one more time. As he raises his scythe, aiming at where he thinks Brennan is standing, he rolls out the red carpet for death. Now, all he hopes is that the welcome mat rolls the right way.

attacks brennan with scythe (glaive)
TpNhvfj04Gglaive
[Severed Left Ear -- 8.0 damage]

---

bean

glaive