Day 2: The Main Chamber (Hafen v Nolan v Malachor)

[✨]

If one were watching the 10th Annual Hunger Games from the comfort of their own home, they would see the names & faces of the fallen across their television screens:

Linden Parser, District 5
Radke Torres, District 5
Jackson Thomas, District 6
Max Jones, District 6
Fraser Birk, District 7
Djed Carnelain, District 8
Ammo Alexander, District 9
Hesper Hart, District 9
Peyton Blight, District 11
Merlot Holliday, District 11
Sorrel Holler, District 12
Collete Purslane, District 12

But if one were in the depths of the Capitol's sewers, you'd simply have to guess by the sounds of canonfire - 12 so far - who's names they belonged to.

Half of the tributes wiped out in one day. The majority from the middle to lower districts. Their bodies still lie scattered in the tunnels, the main chamber, the backrooms and the flood reserve. Bloodstains surround bodies. Some float, unnervingly still, in the water. Rats come out at night to feast on severed fingers and bury into open wounds. And still, always: the stench of it all.

Congratulations on surviving Day 1, tributes. Worse is yet to come.

---

Day 2: The Main Chamber

On Day 2, all mandates will be using the 1v1v1 fighting system, meaning every tribute will attack both other tributes in the fight in every post. Attacks should be in order of initiative for the fight, from highest initiative to lowest.

One tribute must die in each mandate.

Hafen Deiu-Le-Veut vs Nolan Goode vs Malachor Erso
circe murdock d4b 🌊 minie  🌱 kaitlin.  Diomedes Adama D11 - Cato

Initiative: Hafen (46.20), Nolan (26.18), Malachor (0)

[circe murdock d4b 🌊 minie]

The light went out in Hesper’s eyes with Malachor’s last blow, chills running rampant down my spine. Slowly I started to back away, knowing when the fight was not worth the risk. My struggle was against the capitol, the taunting girl from two only turned into an enemy when she decided to throw around her words in the cage. I had meant no ill towards the dead girl from nine, the strikes of my weapon were not of the personal sort. Her fighting spirit reminded me of Drea, in the cage she acted like a friend with the knowledge I was a foe.

In my pocket, laid the two petals of the golden blossom. My hand reached for one as I dropped it onto her body, wishing her luck in the afterlife. Her death not met by the blow of my weapon, there was no remorse for her in my heart. If I could not climb my way out till freedom, I would survive till the end. Still, her even in her last breaths I had found respect for her life.

“Good luck in ‘ol Davey jones locker” I whispered her farewell as I disappeared into the tunnels not once looking back to see if the others had followed.

As I wandered the tunnels, I dragged my weapon along the floor. The spikes scratching a haunted tune in the depths of the haunted tunnels. A tune humming on my lips, a soft melody with no more than four tones I had heard often enough at sea. The lyrics always changing from crew to crew, telling a new story of a new adventure. All the lost tales combined keeping me company alone in the dark. Haunted by the past, paranoid in the present, terrified of the future.

The night had brough me no rest, my tired body unable to find a dry corner away from a corpse. The stench seemingly growing stronger with each second, the rotting sensation close to home. Thick humidity enhancing the discomfort of the sewers, water dripping into my socks lowering my body temperature as I started to shiver.

Darkness casted itself throughout, my eyes had adjusted but for the most part I still struggled to make out where I was or if I had been there before. Occasionally the sound of footsteps had me press my body against a wall hoping to stay hidden in the dark. My only comfort the repetitive tune, over and over again. Slowly loosing my mind as I became one with the tales of the dead.

I could not tell when I had lost consciousness or how long I had been out, the sounds of canons firing shaking me awake as a small yelp escaped my lips. Eyes widened with heightened senses sounding the alarms for a short moment of panic. I could not count how many there were, but I knew they had brought death with them. The end of lives, the ones face down in the murky waters of the sewer.

The tune returned to my lips at a slow pace of uncertainty. Was I humming for the dead? For the faces I had threatened or maybe the ones I had even attacked. Or was I humming out of fear, truly alone for the first time in my life, grasping at the scraps of my life by the seas. Never trusting a soul, still relying on their hands to help feed my starving mouth.

More footsteps.

Echoes bouncing off the walls as I backed into one. This time I knew I was not alone, I bent down slowly to reach for the weapon I had dragged around the underground. Still unsure how to wield it, only knowing that the swinging motions costed my strength but left deep cuts. The footsteps had sounded familiar, ones I knew I had heard before. The girl from two, had she followed me all along? Was it her mission deep down to make it all that much harder for me to survive? Or was she a curse, one set upon by an angry god. Inexplicably I was convinced of my own wrongdoing. Just the same as the day before, I patted my heart three times where the single poppy petal laid.

“Seriously two, find some other target. I won’t go down like the others.”

I swung my weapon. Another shadow behind me as turned around with the force of motion. “Shit” I whispered. Surrounded by people who would not wish me well, hostility in the air. “Get lost, leave…I won’t go after you , but if you don’t…I’ll kill you both” A threat spoken from the bottom of my chest, neither of the tributes meant a thing to me. Two more bodies I hope would soon be lying on the ground.

[hafen attacks nolan; flail]
KcIhU4VbCwflail
[8.5]

[hafen attacks malachor; flail]
flail
[6.5]

flail·flail

[🌱 kaitlin.]

"NO ONE GOODE"

Through the night, instinct finds you reaching for the rosary beads you inherited from your mother.

They were her mothers before that, kept wrapped around a fragile, shaking palm until her body started failing her. Illness wrapped its own slender hands around your grandmother when you were still young; the Goode matriarch hadn't a chance against the famine that plagued your family during the later years of the war. Not alone, not with her husband already gone. But she'd clung to those rosary beads, prayed to whatever she believed in and made Lila promise Nolan would grow up to be a good altar boy, like his granddaddy before him.

Lila spent a few years trying, but you lacked the toothy grin most of the other alter boys had. Other mothers complained, didn't like how quiet you were, thought their boys golden hearts deserved the job more.

Somehow, even before violence found you, they all knew that same boy would end up here one day, blood-soaked in someone else's viscera in a gutter under the world. You never gave the beads up though, made a habit of sleeping with them on your nightstand to easily stash in your pocket come morning.

You remember praying when you were young, learning the words in that tiny Sunday school classroom. Now, flightless bird, you wonder if you only ever learned them to know what it meant when your enemies prayed for their lives.

The only thing you find at the bottom of your pocket though is some loose lint and a small hole you can jab your thumb through as you wander through the backrooms, stumbling over your own thoughts rather than the upturned furniture. The eerie, flickering light casts strange shadows that match your every step, the darkness slow dancing with you all the night long. You find a massive, vacuous space that you think a long time about sleeping near, the rattling sounds of metal clanging together as the huge machine there does its dirty work, but as much as the noise would hide any sound you make, so would it muffle the sounds of your enemies down here. You have no intention of being surprised.

So you sleep, fitfully, seated upright and leaning against a dirty baseboard. The green carpet squelches uncomfortably beneath your boots, and when you wake the dampness of the floor has sunk into your bones. The weight of it isn't lost on you.

You couldn't be sure how long you slept, but when you wake it's to the sound of a humming, starting in low and slow. The voice warbles against the walls, as if made of water or waves itself, crashing against the disgusting nothingness of this place to create a lulling sound you've only ever heard described by your father.

Heavy boots move of their own accord, and you follow the sound like a sailor lost to sea.

The song leads you back out of the tunnels, abandoning the safety of their labyrinthine weave for the open space you and twenty-three other toppled into yesterday. Reaching the mouth of the tunnel, the song hesitates for a moment, losing its momentum, and you gaze around to find its source. A concrete prison, they haven't even collected the bodies that little the floor, their wounds still leaking ugly fluid into the place. Blood intermixes still with the inch-deep waste water across the floor. You have the thought to glance around at them, but across the space you're distracted by the slap of footsteps against the water as two girls reveal themselves.

Girl from Two, girl from Four, both with blood on their hands. Your feet carry you over to them both before you can think twice about it. A knife in the back, before Four can whirl around properly—

"I killed the last girl who tried to say that to me."

It's matter of fact, the only honest truth you can offer. Your intention is not to threaten, though you're sure it comes out that way all the same. Max's death had been neither quick nor kind. You only hope this, here, in this hell, history does not repeat itself.

You look Two in her eyes before you lunge.

nolan attacks hafen, knife
u|vK3MGAclknife
2063 -- Deep Gash on Back -- 8.5 damage


nolan attacks malachor, knife
knife
2106 -- Deep Gash on Left Thigh -- 8.0 damage

knife·knife

[Diomedes Adama D11 - Cato]

Malachor

My heart is heavy, but somehow it doesn't weigh me down. Instead, it keeps me going. It tells me that I need to survive. Survival instincts are incredibly important, and while I want nothing more than the chance to leave this place forever and go home, I know it's not just going to be handed to me, and now I have two kills. People have died because of me, and I hate it. I am willing to do whatever it takes, though, and I've hopefully proven that. I hope that anyone who is watching knows that I'm here to fight, here to win. It sucks because I don't want to kill anyone else. This is the hand I've been dealt the moment I saved my sister. Of course, I want my name to go down in history as someone who fights, someone who is strong. I want people to remember me for days to come, and to that's successful to me.

I take a deep breath as I continue moving through the sewers. Every now and then the rushing water throws me off, and it reminds me that they think of us as nothing more than garbage that's meant for disposal. It's sickening, and I want to prove that I'm so much more than that, but this proves otherwise. It's terrifying to think about, to look at, but nothing will ever change what's happening. I feel that we're just names that are forgotten anyway. And maybe that's my first mistake because as I turn a corner, I'm met with the heaviness of a weapon, and it nearly knocks me to the ground. I look around trying to keep myself calm, but it doesn't seem real until another weapon strikes. I already feel myself growing weaker, but it doesn't help me any. I grab my spear, and I turn around facing the two of them.

I recognize one of them, and it's my chance to prove myself to her again. I saw her early on when we were walking in the caged in area. She thinks she's strong, that she's capable of succeeding, and I want nothing more than to prove her wrong. I have two kills to her zero. At least I think she has no kills. I pivot around on my toes, and I look back and forth between the two of them, and I slowly back myself away hoping for the best. It's helped me so many times before. I'm a dancer, and it's time to use that. I am light on my feet. They invited me into this fight when they could've left me alone. I turn towards Hafen with my spear in hand ready to strike, and then I turn towards the other person. I'm not afraid of them, and I plan on killing them without thinking twice. "Get lost? You attacked me, Hafen."

District Two

[googlefont="Oswald:400"]

Malachor swaps to spear

attacks Hafen

YliWbHwzM2spear
3004 -- Stabbed in Back -- 9.0 damage

attacks Nolan

spear
3036 -- Deep Gash on Back -- 8.5 damagespear·spear

[circe murdock d4b 🌊 minie]

Sharp weapons stab at me, blood spilling down my back forming rivers where non should exist. The trickling bleeding running cold against my skin, breakable as proven by both older tributes. How long would it me till my blood was mixed with the others, joining a sea of waste. Human waste, human trash, bones meant for the bin and hair lost among the sewers. An ultimate stance that my life meant nothing to them, my life was dispensable and replaceable. The same back home, another homeless child with no name for anyone to remember. Not one that I ever had to claim my own until I did.

I decide if I was worth fighting for.

My life at sea worth a million stories. My constellation upon the night sky amongst those whose names were never forgotten. Who’s rotting corpses did not stench the sewers of death.

My name, the one I had given myself was powerful.

“And I’ll do it again!” I spat towards the girl from two. My weapon swinging as I made my mark, powerful amongst the deities of the sea. The daughter of Scylla, ruthless beyond compare. In a world of uncertainty, the stories had become my past and their legacy my future. Only afraid of fear itself, it was me against the world….on land, on the sea and in the sewer.

My feet splashed against the water with every small movement. The ends of my dark blue uniform already soaking the small heels on the shoes clicking to the beat of my movement. A dance of death, telling the story of my fight to end their lives. Much like the dances around the campfire in four, bells in our hands as we moved to the lives of those who came before us. Stuck in a dream, I held onto what I knew for that is what I believed made me powerful.

“I’m not the last girl, I mean it.” Violence in my words felt as natural as breathing. I was going to go home, that is all I really wanted.

[hafen attacks nolan; flail]
qJ9Xj|0CxYflail
[0.0]

[hafen attacks malachor; flail]
flail
[0.0]

flail·flail

[🌱 kaitlin.]

"NO ONE GOODE"

Time slips, staggers and bends, spreading between the three of you like frost across water. You wish you knew what time of day it was, but that's a mystery to you, this chamber, this whole place really, void of any clues as to what's happening in the world you're all buried under. The floor through which you fell should be right above you, but it's like it caved in, leaving no trace of light. It leaves you to rely on reflections instead, the bright of their eyes like a shimmer in the dark, the unpredictable trail of that thing in Hafen's hand.

You might not be able to give it a name, but you have the good sense to be nervous when she swings it in a wide arc towards both of you; Malachor has reach too though, and the strength to make it count. Where Hafen swings wild, fierce and unrelenting, it's imprecise. The girl from Two makes no such attack. When your blood sprays against the floor, you can't help but bellow in pain at the vicious wound she rips across your spine.

The boom echoes through the chamber while Malachor focuses her energy on the younger girl from Four, and your heartbeat hitches watching her spin. The three of you are eaten alive by shadows, almost impossible to see in the dim light. Two ravens, facing off; you'd might have hedged your bets on Hafen before watching Malachor bury the sharp end of her spear between a rib and twist.

You want to keep roaring against the darkness that might mean death, anger beginning to rip through your chest.

“I’m not the last girl," she says, something clicking in your jaw as your teeth grate against themselves. A terrible, tortured animal cries behind your ribs. You hope Madeline isn't watching, that she never sees the things you're willing to do to survive. "I mean it.”

So did Max, you think. She still died in the end.

"Everyone thinks they're a fighter," you offer with a grimace. Who you are begins to ache in your chest, like a wounded limb or a broken bone, a marrow deep ache. You will a coldness into your soul, a stripped field in winter. You let the void bloom. "But they'll all die for something."

nolan attacks hafen, knife
0B1LjqhFE4knife
2052 -- Shallow Cut on Chest -- 4.0

nolan attacks malachor, knife
knife
2057 -- Stabbed in Hand -- 8.0

knife·knife

[Diomedes Adama D11 - Cato]

Malachor

Neither will back away, and I get it. We're here, and no matter what one of us is going to die. One of us will never see another day even if it's inside this sewer, and I absolutely hate it. I never imagined my grave would be in a place like this, nor did I ever imagine myself dying before I had a family, but maybe that's what this is about. It's more than just being there for my sister. It's more than volunteering for the sake of being famous because I want my name known. While I might always be remembered as the first volunteer in district two, I'm still hit with that reality that I could easily become a victim here. I don't want to fall asleep for all eternity here, but that's what may happen, and I'm trying to come to terms with it, but it isn't easy to come to terms with. I may never come to terms with it until it's too late.

I manage to step out of the way of Hafen's attack, but it isn't enough for the next one. I barely manage to move myself completely, and I stop myself from being stabbed in the face, but my hand hurts, it's on fire, and I want nothing more than to scream at the top of my lungs, but I hold it all in. I listen to their words. I listen and try to take it all in. I know how this dance works, and maybe they know how this dance works too. I just don't want to die, yet I feel myself getting weak. But I have to stand. I have to keep going, trying, doing the best I can. It's awful to think about, but I try to put myself into the best position I possibly can in order to succeed. I don't know what that is anymore. I just want to go home. We all want to go home, and it's a shame that only one of us remaining will make it.

I ready my spear and take a step back. I think of my sister, my family, everyone that needs me, and I know that if I think hard enough, they'll guide me. They'll help me. They'll help me do everything I need. They'll help me focus and succeed, but ultimately it's up to me to do the work. It's up to me to make sure that everything is okay. It's up to me to come out on top, and maybe that's my problem. Maybe I'm too weak, too vulnerable, too scared. I don't know anymore. I look at them both trying to come up with the words to say, the ideas that's needed, and I just wish they'd leave me alone. All I asked for was a chance to have my name known, but even that was a mistake. I won't give up, though. I hold my breath, and I take a moment to focus on everything else, and then I hope I'm ready. Maybe they are too.

District Two

[googlefont="Oswald:400"]

attacks Hafen

2|HbEn9Phtspear
3105 -- Shallow Cut on Back of Head -- 4.5 damage

attacks Nolan

spear
3101 -- Block -- 0.0 damagespear·spear

[circe murdock d4b 🌊 minie]

The spiked weapon at the end of it’s chain thrashes at the others with no luck. A frenzy lacking control, ironically comparable to myself. I still wore the silver chains around my wrist, still locked up like an uncontrollable animal suffering the worst punishment for a crime they have not committed. The same unhinged will to survive behind my dark stormy eyes, replicating the unpredictable waves of the ocean.

The both of them lunging forward towards me, unable to control my own body against the swinging force of my weapon. Everything too big for my small body, if I had laid out the weapon on the floor it was without a doubt only slightly smaller than myself. Aspirations that driven me to my worst gigantic compared to my age. All of it together unrealistic in the grand scheme of things, but there was no one more willing to break boundaries than a teenage girl. Convinced of my own power, my own sheer will to survive, I pushed through.

Gashes on the back of my head throbbed with pain, my chest sliced by Nolan bleeding right above my beating heart still beating powerfully in my chest. A rhythm to keep my feet moving, a song of survival and tale of the girl who believed she could beat all odds. Delusional. Drea had always chuckled at my fantasy of ruling the seven seas, was she laughing now? I wondered if there was a part of her, proud that I had never stopped fighting, never giving into a fate I refused to claim as my own.

I would not die for this, not in the sewers. My death should be one worthy of one who navigated the untamable. My chain’s rustling, their sound bouncing of the walls as I raised my arms getting ready to swing again. On day, I would die for something I truly believed in, completely convinced that today was not that day.

“And what will you die for, ten?” I asked between struggeling breaths and shrieks of pain.

What would be the trajectory of his tragedy?

[hafen attacks nolan; flail]
X0IKSyvH5Wflail
[0.0]

[hafen attacks malachor; flail]
flail
[6.5]

flail·flail

[🌱 kaitlin.]

"NO ONE GOODE"

You, lonely oddity. All heart, all hope.

Despite the water and gunk weighing down your boots, your feet move quicker than they did yesterday. Merciless Malachor, wielding a scythe like a reaper, that's how you'd sketch her if she was a character in the stories Madeline has you illustrate sometimes.

Your hand aches where it clenches the hilt of your knife, blackened nails digging into the calloused base of your palm. They're both slicked in blood, your two sins dried across your skin as if to prove your point. You are no ones safe harbor. Dark crescent moons bruise under your eyes, and low light casts long shadows across your face. You think about Dagger yesterday, and the mask he slipped over his features, the way he banished any warmth or color from the room. It'd made killing Max all the easier, if only to save her from a death under his cold gaze.

Hafen has the same relentless fire the girl from Six had; Malachor has the patience and quiet of the long-suffering. One moment, you think Four could outlast Two, then you're sure David will usurp the Goliath. It's near on faultless, their rage and arrogance.

But their weapons wound only each other, once, and then again, Hafen's ugly chain whipping around you, as if glancing off some invisible shield. You know it can't only be you, aren't brazen enough to think you'll win without luck on your side. A third time though, the scales tip in your favor, and you know that you don't have time to sit and reflect about who you are or what you're willing to do. All you have are the choices you make. You don't believe in fate, don't believe in destiny. There's the life you choose, and the one that you don't.

You know what path you choose. You won't apologize for wanting to survive. You're glad they haven't either.

"The same thing I'd kill for."

nolan attacks hafen, knife
ZaYtRS||0Hknife
2117 -- Block -- 0.0


nolan attacks malachor, knife
knife
2134 -- Deep Gash on Neck -- 10.0

knife·knife