play stupid games, win stupid prizes: Tommy's and Xaa's dp

[Hafen d4 ⚓︎ minie]

Larissa slices at my only arm still attached to body and the wound starts bleeding immediately. Her sword cuts through my skin the way my sword cut what happened to be my last line of snow back in the training center – with precision. She knew combat and I knew drugs, just my luck I was dying at the hand of an expert in her field when I could not get my hands on what I knew best. Who would have thought that my end would come when I was strung out and sober.

It couldn’t be, not here at least. I refuse to give Larissa La Roux the satisfaction of watching me die. She does not get to see my death; she does not deserve to know that my blood is on her hands.

With a few short breaths as I felt my own blood run down my skin, I gathered whatever strength was left in me to move my legs. Slowly at first but then they picked up the pace. Left. Right. Left Right. Marching to the sound of my still beating heart. I was not dead yet, keep going, you still have a little fight left in you.

There was only one person in this arena that deserved to be there when my pulse stopped, final words were muttered, and last breath was taken. There was only one person in the world that I wanted to be witness to my demise. Unfortunately, I could not turn off the cameras, but I could make sure he was the only one who knew what my last words were. He would take them to the grave with him and it would forever remain our little secret, our sacred vows of friendship. We would die hand in hand together, where we would be each other’s final salvation from a world that was not built for people like us.

Mother loved me because she had no choice but condemned my every action. Father was terrified of the woman that I had become and walked on eggshells around me. Gorgina resented me for making her life miserable when all I wanted was to make sure she grew a thick skin. She was going to need a thick skin now that I am gone. Tallie…Tallie tried hard to be me, she wore my hand me downs and followed my instructions carefully. One day she would replace me, I had no doubt, and she would become everything mother hoped I would have and probably even more.

My families faces flashed before my eyes as I stumbled and fell through the woods. My already bleeding and battered body rolled through the dirt once again with leaves and twigs sticking to my mangled vessel. I was to become almost unrecognizable, a spitting image of the holograms that depicted the other fights around me. I became the distorted version of myself the arena desperately tried to push me to be. I thought I had felt all the pain that there was to be felt, but with every bump and every root my body encountered, I felt everything all at once, over, and over and over again.

That was until one final blow, the last hit my body would take as I rolled against Tommy’s disfigured body laying on the ground. I welcomed the pain because it meant that I found the one I was looking for. The arena allowed us one last rite before we both bit the dust.

”Oh Tommy dear, I told you that I’d kill you myself if you tried dying without me around to see it.” I started to laugh at my own morbid joke but then soon began coughing, and with the coughs came blood. I gasped for air, trying to hold on just a bit longer. I was not ready to go yet. Give us a moment, let us have this moment.

I laid my head on his chest, able to hear his heart beating. My pulse matched his rhythm, and we were in synch. He was the only one that ever really understood me, the only one who could march to the beat of my drum. I laid there in silence for a second, enjoying our moment together. Once a person who thought she always needed to fill the silence with her echoing voice, I needed no words to communicate with my friend. We understood each other like no other. Only a mere two weeks ago, never would I have thought that a boy from district twelve would be the one to teach me the meaning of complete trust and true friendship.

The day we met, I whispered into his ears a question which I once believed only had one right answer. Save me. Always save me. No matter who else was injured or impaired, saving me would always be the top priority. I was blinded by my own selfishness; I talked up a big game about the greater good but only now did I realize that my life may not be worth more than the lives of my friends. Here and now if I had to choose; I would choose Tommy.

Tommy’s life meant more than mine in this very moment. He showed me what it was like to truly care for another person and that was something that deserved being saved.

”You need medical attention, please let me help you Tommy. We can save you, I choose your life, over mine.” I went to reach for the medical supplies but there were none left to grab. They must have stayed behind with the other two. Damn it, my snakeskin would be with them, and they did not deserve the precious work of art that shielded the capitol created creatures.

It did not matter who I chose because I could not save him if there was nothing to save him with. I buried my face into his chest to mask my tears from the audience, from the capitol, from my family. I grasped onto what was left of his war-torn clothing. I held on to him because it would be the last thing I do as I whispered into his ear.

” If you go down, I’m going down too”


[The End of Xaahira Mahdavi]

table by ryan

[pup]

Their voices are muted. Torian's blade went through my neck, Bellamy's through my leg, and now I'm on my back staring at the sky. The purple light is swimming, but I can't bring myself to squint and steady the world. A terrifying numbness, starting in my legs, creeps upwards through me, silencing the overwhelming pain ricocheting from limb to limb.

Someone's rifling through my things. It's probably Bellamy the vulture pecking around to see what useful items his recent kill has. He probably saw my weak breaths and knows I can't keep fighting. I hope he sets himself on fire when he steals the acid I stole from Quentin's corpse.

And then my murderers are both gone, lost in the waves ripping through the air before anyone could come and avenge me. And then there's no one. It's me and the world slowly pulling itself away from my grasp. No one swoops in to save me, and it'll be too late by the time anyone finds me.

I can't hear anything now. The laughs of pixies dulled into silence, and the ground, once wet with the toxic trees' tears, seems to have turned into nothingness. A choking sob ripples through me at the realization of what's happening. I've seen it so many times before. I've sat at deathbeds and I've counseled the bereaved so many times, but this is new. Everyone who I've seen die has always died with someone there to hold their hand and let them know they're not alone.

When I imagined myself dying, I never saw myself alone, broken, and empty. I thought I would die old and in peace and quiet; I thought I knew all the depraved ways someone could lose their life and I thought that I could avoid it. I reach for anything, but all I feel is numbness. It's like what I felt after killing Quentin all over again: no sadness, no happiness, no fear. Even the anger at myself and at Will and Xaa has all drained away, so the staggering weight of nothingness sits on my chest, growing heavier with each breath and nothing to cushion it against me.

I thought I knew what death looked like, but there's the irony, cruel and deceitful, creeping up on me unexpectedly: I thought I knew what death looks like because I only have seen it when I'm there to observe it; I've never seen death when no one's been there to observe.

Is this what Luna felt like? I never found her body. I only saw her face in the sky and heard a third-hand account of what happened from Will through Xaa. I hope she didn't die with no one with her besides death doing it's job with no accountability.

Just as I'm about to force my eyes closed and let myself be consumed, someone yanks on me and drags me unwillingly back to reality for a few fitful moments. I want to groan and push her away again, but death's embrace matches hers and binds me to the ground. Her head's on my chest, and even though I can't see her and she sounds like she's talking to me from a mile away, I know it's Xaa.

"Oh Tommy dear, I told you that I’d kill you myself if you tried dying without me around to see it."

I can't bring myself to laugh with her. I can only force my eyes to stay open just a little longer. There's so much I want to say to her, but my mouth won't move. Thank you, Xaa. For not leaving me, for not letting me die alone, for not letting the nothingness drag me down with no one to hold my hand.

Last night she had wrapped herself around me. Not like she did with Will. We were never lovers, just allies. We were both alone, our thoughts freed by alcohol. I looked at her and she looked at me we both saw each other trapped under a layer of ice and screaming for warmth, drowning in our own isolated, chilly depths. She has saved me so many times, and I have saved her now too, but last night she held onto me and I held onto her, and we saved each other from our coldness.

In the morning, I pushed her off me and rolled away. I wish I stayed in her arms just a few moments longer, knowing, in that moment, I was safe. And now she's back, her arms on my chest again, letting me know that we are safe for now. With her weak embrace she's telling me again that it's okay to be broken with her; the doctor sometimes needs to be cared for too.

I never wanted this. She was supposed to protect me and I was supposed to stitch her up when she got hurt, that was our deal. I knew she would try to manipulate me and slither her way into my head--and she did--but this was more than a calculated ploy or a move on a chess board. I never asked for Xaa to hold me in the darkness, and I never wanted to hold her back. Despite all the warnings I gave myself, I became friends with the snake, and now she's coiled around me, refusing to let go, and I don't want her to.

Don't let go, Xaa, please.

When Will left, and Luna died, and I thought I was alone with myself and my anger, you proved me wrong.

When the fae separated us, I told her I would find her. It looks like she found me instead, or really, we found each other in our own downfalls.

"You need medical attention, please let me help you Tommy. We can save you, I choose your life, over mine."

Dick.

Now she's trying to force me to live in a world where she dies. She's the only friend I've had, the only person I had been living for in here besides myself. If she saved me only to die, I'd be indebted to her like I'd never been indebted to someone before, and I wouldn't be able to live knowing I could never pay that back and that she'd one-upped me one final time.

I try to push her away, my arm only raising an inch of the ground and hitting her helplessly. She's needs to save herself; I'm a lost cause. My vision is already going black. Xaa, please, don't die.

She grabs onto my shirt and whispers something, but her voice has finally churned into nothing along with anything else. I want to reach back for her, to claw her out of death like she had done for me, and we could grab onto each other and anchor ourselves to life like last night. But it's useless, and I know that. But we aren't alone.

We've found each other in the darkness before, and we can do it again.

[The End of Thomas O'Quinn]

^{table by ryan!}