never see, never know :: [crass knuckles]

[pogue]

Just his fucking luck, Hugo's too. They lose one another.

The walkie talkie burns a hole into and through his hand, clutched tight within sweaty palm. In the other there's the spiked baseball bat, Jett. He still wasn't sure why he'd chosen the name, maybe something that'd come to him in a dream, maybe it was just the fact that it gave Jett vibes. Hugo'd looked at him with a cocked head when he'd originally said it, and he couldn't really blame him either. In the end, he'd thrown it to the blur of the arena and the delirium of his own exhaustion.

On his back? Also Jett.

That second part is slightly more embarrassing, but entirely indicative of his own lack of creativity. The creature had taken a liking to the wooden weapon when he'd pointed it at him, paw to weapon and tiny little fangs bared. "Fine, you look like a Jett too." All false danger and innocence.

Left turn, then a right, then another left. The walls of the mines claim him as a sacrifice and spit him back out as if not liking the taste. Each time he begins to get his bearings it's like the twist and fold into themselves, shadows dancing and something howling off in the distance of the halls, a threat and a tell: he can't stop moving.

But he's a runner and a rule breaker all melted into one, and it's in the wake of another dead end that ice finds its way into his tracks. Lip curls, stomach sinks, and eyes waver on a mockery of a prize.

Looking back at him is himself.

There's rusted gold framing the canvas of a portrait of Axyl Willoughby, crown atop his head and sat on a throne fit for a king. His grip tightens on the bat, until it feels like the entire thing will splinter in his own grasp. Something in him sinks, further and further into the dark and the acid. Maybe it's the realization that he'll never reach it, maybe it's the fact that it's the first time he's ever looked in the mirror and seen anything more than shit looking back at him. Thumb finds plastic, the walkie-talkie blares to life and static bounces off the walls of the mines.

A risk not worth taking.  "Hugo-" In a selfish panic he does it anyways. "We have to get out of these mines."

[Scavenges Mines]

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