disconnect / krueger

[pogue]

More monster than man, Krueger Gamble stumbles through the dying woods and matches it one for one, staring death in the face and realizing it doesn't like the look of him.

And who would? There are slivers of white where Perry had carved into him with her spear, bone peeking out through the holes in his body as if yearning to see the fading sunlight. Torn pieces of flesh and sinew cling to his form as his last remaining allies, dangling helplessly as he drags what's left of his body away from the fight. He can't will his limbs to move fast enough to avoid the holograms of his fellow tributes, digital sword and bloody knife passing through him like a ghost amidst the wake of cannons in the sky.

His mind, cruel as always, plays tricks on him. Phantom pain echoes through his body, dancing in the fading sunlight and clawing at his wounds. He feels his muscles contracting and withering at the surface, curse of the arena pulling forth newfound eyes dotted around his wounds. Black spots turn to tidal waves, washing in from the edges of his vision and forcing him to stop periodically just to grasp the nearest dying tree so that he does not collapse and join them, feeling a fading heartbeat in his chest and praying that it keeps on kicking.

Or, praying that it ends suddenly and all at once, that he doesn't feel this pain for a moment longer. Life, crueler than anything else, refuses to let him go.

He doesn't know if Perry let him escape out of mercy or for the entertainment, watching a beast of a boy stumble his way into the brush just to witness the spectacle. He couldn't blame her for the latter, performing was in his blood and his blood was all over his body like a tailored suit, torn muscle and rotting flesh sewn to his skin.

He collapses, eventually. All too soon and not soon enough at the same time, a new wave of pain shooting through his veins as the soft underbrush of the woods cushions what is left of him. This is it, one voice says to another, and the latter sits in silence as a response. Because he can't tell if it is or if it isn't, if the spotlight that singes and scorns his flesh is one of life moving on or life rooting itself deep in the torn up earth, if he will pass tonight or die tomorrow. Brown eyes gaze up into what is above, a blanket of stars and an unforgiving coldness. The rest of his eyes follow suit as if marching in a funeral procession of his own making, muscles pulling and bending underneath his skin along with heaving breaths.

Life and Death pull themselves from the shadows and clash in the world above him, a chorus of black spots and shimmering lights darting across his vision as he bleeds. 

Or is it? The other voice finally answers. A dice roll, a gamble.

Whatever it is, whatever it turns out to be, it looks just like the night sky. Mean and empty and cold and unforgiving and begging to take him, blinking red with its own hunger and coming to swallow him whole.