what lies beneath | 96th finale

[august vance d7b [Bella]]

There was no joy in watching Lionel’s blood form creeks and rivers down the seams of his yellow shirt. It looked like his body was breaking down, the effort of movement twisting his face into a scowl. And hers–was this still her body? Was she still in here? The flash of red on her wrist reminded her of the true meaning of hanging by a thread. The pain in her leg, moving into her whole body, was so intense it was impossible to be dead yet.

But she was dying. Xov couldn’t recall what she had imagined it would be like. Maybe like being high, though she’d never smoked. Like being too drunk on moonshine, without the spins and queasy feeling, maybe. Or, if she made it to be old, like falling into a neverending dream.

No chance; she had been born unlucky. Her thoughts strayed to the bitter irony of her own two feet still standing here. All this time, she’d been thanking her ancestors for bringing her so far with barely a scratch, even while her friends fell around her. If she’d thought she was being rewarded for hard work, she doubted it now. More likely, she was even more unlucky than she’d thought–unlucky enough to come all the way to the very pinprick of the mountain’s peak just to die there, her body burying itself in the snow among all the others who had climbed. Erased.

Lionel snarled at her again. "I'm not tired, more bored that this is the best you've got." He swung his ax around casually. Was he lying about being tired? Or was everything just moving slower all of a sudden?

"But if you're so tired, how about you lie down. Close your eyes. I promise I won't slit your throat in your sleep."

Xov didn’t want to play this game anymore; didn’t have enough air to answer. Only spat on the floor in front of her, a big gob of spit that was reserved for the worst curses, like she was invoking destruction on the ground itself. She didn’t see him swing.

Pain blinded her, and a wild, dying sound poured from her throat.

Her left hand was on the floor, sitting there in her pile of saliva and mucus and blood, bones sticking out of it, like a fake stage prop in a horror movie. Severed at the wrist.

Wrapped around it was a lonely circle of thread with a double-knot, its original color forgotten in the pile of red. It stared back up at her, like an apology.

As she screamed, she felt a hundred people wailing with her–her mother, her siblings, her father, her grandmothers, and her grandmothers’ grandmothers. Tears broke free from the levees of her bottom eyelids, flowing warm down her cheeks, the heavens crying too.

She would die here, on the hard gymnasium floor, with no left hand. Up ahead where the stars should have been, her loved ones watching over her, the artificial floodlights looked down indifferent. Regardless, her eyes were glued to the spot where her hand had been.

Something forced her to lock eyes with Lionel again. Her brown eyes, sparkling with tears, gave him a pleading look, but her mouth wouldn’t form a single word of supplication.

Like a butterfly leaving a cocoon, she could feel herself splitting in two. One Xov, memories intact, was peeling out and flying away, while the other was trapped here in a dried-up husk. The only sensations left were a searing, all-encompassing pain– and a strange emptying feeling.

A voice came out of the husk, hoarse. Barely audible.

”I wanted to see the stars again. The real ones.”

There was nothing left in this body. Just a bundle of nerves that raised the glaive and pushed it forward into a mass of air and color. A pair of floating blue eyes stared back at her.

It was better than being alone.

[xov attacks lionel, glaive]
uU2_6oBrJ9glaive
[4.0]

glaive

[k!ah]

Its so fucking satisfying to feel my blade break through her skin, her flesh, her muscle, and her bone. Its so fucking satisfying, in the most fucking twisted way, to hear the scream that pierces the air. Its blood curdling, full of agony, and it should have my stomach clenching and nausea building. It should have had me filled with regret, with remorse, but it doesn't. And that should have been terrifying, and it was. But I try not to think about it, because if I did think about it for too long then I would have to rip open a can of worms that I wasn't quite ready to face.

Did that make me a coward? I don't know, and I am not quite sure I care. Let's just add that to my ever growing list of undesirable qualities.

I glance at Xov's hand. Her fingers were curled, and blood had begun to pool around the stump. When my eyes meet with Xov's once again they were bloodshot and filled with tears and a silent plea. She was breaking, with every tear that ran down her face I could see a part of her falling away. I hadn't managed to break lucky in the end. I hadn't managed to break Hal. But here Xov was, struggling to hold herself together as her body struggled to fight for her. She was so close to shattering, and I knew that the moment that she did there would be no putting her back together.

And I would watch. I would watch as she scattered across the arena floor, as she fell to her knees and begged me to end it. To stop the pain and the suffering until she felt nothing. Until she was dead. In the back of my mind a voice whispers that those thoughts sounded an awful lot like my father. And maybe they did, and maybe despite hating everything that he was, I had managed to turn into something that was exactly like him.

No. No, I wasn't my father. Whatever the hell I was, this monster that I had become, I wasn't him. I would never be him.

”I wanted to see the stars again. The real ones," she rasps, her voice broken as fresh tears begin to fill her dark brown eyes. She moves towards me her weapon raised.

The edge of her blade catches my chest, a thin line of blood forming, staining my uniform. I glance down at the wound, a sigh on my lips as I dab at the blood. Bloops dripped at my feet, and my stomach screamed as my abdomen tensed in preparation for my next strike. "You want to see some real stars?" I ask, my eyes meeting her's once again as I spread my arms, my lips pulled back into a wide grin. I ignore the way my head spins, and my whole body aches as I take another step towards her. "Your wish is my command," I purr closing the distance between us until I have to look down at her. "You want to see a star? A real star?" I tilt my head as I study her, my brow raised.

"Love, you're looking at a star."

attacks xov

YGZvmiM0WUaxe
cute lil 

axe

[k!ah]

I throw my axe to the floor, reaching for the collar of her shirt as I drag her to her feet. A startled sound escapes her lips a moment before a cry of pain as her stump collides into my chest and squashed between our bodies. "Sorry, did that hurt?" I say as I grin at her, our blood mingling until it was impossible to tell where my blood began and her's ended. She whimpers as I shift my body, pressing in closer until I could have sworn I felt the jagged end of her radius biting into the skin of my chest. "Do you want me to stop? Do you want all of this to end?" I whisper as I lean in close. "It can all stop. Right here. Right now. All you have to do is say please."

With my free hand I brush a few strands of hair from her face before sweeping a blood stain thumb across her cheek, wiping away the tears. "What do you say, Love? You ready to give up?" Her eyes roll into the back of her head, her body going limp in my grasp as she loses consciousness. I frown, disappointed, and I curl both of my fists into the collar of her uniform. I give her a rough shake, stifling my own groan of pain as the movement sent my abdomen on fire.

My stomach hurt like a bitch, and I knew that I needed to end this sooner rather than later.

"Hey! Hey Xov! Wake up!" Annoyance has my voice rising as I give her another rough shake before I reach between us for her severed stump. "I said, wake up love," my fingers curl around the stump, pressing into the torn raw flesh. It was cruel, even for me, but there was a desperation and wildness within me that was driving my actions, and I wasn't sure I would of been able to stop myself, even if I am wanted to. "Now's not the time for sleeping, Xov. We are having so much fun." I press in deeper until her body shudders, her eyes flying open as she chokes on a cry. "Hellooooo, there she is."

Agony glazed eyes meet my own and I smile, releasing my grip on her mutilated wrist. "Welcome back, Love."

"Love..." The words are barely a whisper, broken by the rawness of the pain that was eating away at her, desperate and hungry to consume her whole. The fingertips of her remaining hand brush against my stomach causing a sharp inhale of breath at the fresh wave of pain that tore through me viciously. "S-" her voice trails off and for a moment I think she is about to black out again and my fingers tighten in the material of her shirt. "Sorry," she gasps, her fingers falling away.

Wrong word. My eyes narrow and my fingers fish for the knife that I had strapped to my thigh. "Don't be sorry, love," I say quietly, so that only we could hear, the sharp end of the knife running along the vulnerable flesh of her throat, a ghost of a touch, a little teaser of what was going to happen next. "Cause I'm not," I smile at her, her eyes rolling into her skull as she once again fights her consciousness. "Don't," I warn her as her face goes slack, I press the knife against her flesh a little harder. "Lose consciousness on me yet, love."

A groan escapes her and her feet scramble against the floor for a moment before she goes limp once again, her head slumping forward until it hits my shoulder. "Damnit Xov," I sigh as I release my grip on her shoulder, only to have my finger knot in her hair as I yank her head from my body and run the knife across her throat. It's a mess. Blood is everywhere, warm and sticky and final.

I release my grip on her, she crumples to the floor, choking on her own blood until the sound of canon fire signals the end.

I lift my gaze from her body, my eyes meeting with each of the game makers before they land on Hades. I give him a wide, shit eating grin before I drop into an elaborate bow. "Well, I hope that was as exciting for you, as it was for me."

[ permission and credit to Bella for xov content ]



♕ END OF THE NINTEY-SIXTH HUNGER GAMES ♕