a stranger's heart // isaac + violet, day 3

[Python]

A sanity-splitting crack exploded in her grip, spattering corpse’s blood into a snowy canvas. Lukewarm droplets dampened her hands, but this was not how she imagined human blood to feel. Something about it felt wrong – perhaps because she knew it wasn’t reality. She could acknowledge that this monster was real, but it was not human. It was not Ansel. He had a mighty hand capable of shattering her bones to pieces, yet she had melted his skull like snow beneath an afternoon sun. The blood on her hands was false.

There was no victory, only confusion and horror.

Revolted, she wiped her hands against the fabric of her pants. This trick played by the gamemakers was not amusing, so without another glance at the disrespected tribute she set off to find her allies again. Back to the footprints she wandered, uncertain of which path to follow. She could still hear commotion echoing between the trees, whispers within the hot spring’s rising steam. Utterly frustrated, she selected a random path and began to trek carefully.

After a minute, she couldn’t swallow the paranoia. She glanced over her shoulder to make sure Ansel’s memory did not return. Bloodied and broken, it remained motionless in the snow. She sighed and clutched her valuable new weapon close to her chest, prepared for someone or something to jump out from behind the trees.

Violet did not expect to walk into Isaac, who was standing over the body of Cynthia Rose Delgado. She blinked quickly. This time she had to be hallucinating or dreaming, but what were the odds? Two familiar faces returning from the grave? Her own imagination wasn’t that creative.

Keeping her distance, she called out to him. ”Isaac?” She tested the waters; taking him by surprise would be dangerous. They were very very alone, and she was vulnerable. ”Was that…Cynthia..?”

Before he could answer, she stammered the rest of her thoughts. ”Because I – I ran into Ansel Kiev.”

[lance]

A clean cleave through the ankle, and she falls. All it takes after that is a single hit to the brain, and she stops moving.

However real she might have been, Cynthia has been returned to the eternal sleep she never deserved. And I'm the one that put her there.

I do not immediately withdraw the axe from her skull, even as the adrenaline rush starts to crash and bone-aching exhaustion takes its place. Hands fall to knees, back arches over, and the weight of what I just did, physically and psychologically, sinks in.

I was never supposed to beat her, I think, and despite the fact that, technically, I haven't, and never will, the shade held more power over me than I had expected.

"Isaac?" So lost was I in my own head that had Violetta been out to kill me, I most certainly would be dead, and none the wiser for it. "Was that…Cynthia..?"

Of course; I would hardly be the only one with a connection to her in this arena. And the two of us had never said more than three words to each other, as people like us are oft to do, and yet life and death made for strange times.

She wasn't done yet, however, not that I minded for I was still gathering the words to speak. "Because I – I ran into Ansel Kiev."

That grabs enough of my attention that I finally shift my gaze from my feet to her eyes. For everyone knows back home of Cynthia's most famous kill, the one-in-a-million boy from Six that had killed a full quarter of the arena on his own before meeting his end at her hands.

Eventually I muster up the breath to respond. "Yes," I reply, and I wonder for half a second how bizarre it must be for her to see me in such a state, a full one eighty from what I normally express. "It was, at least."

Cynthia, Ansel - how many more ghosts were wandering this arena, waiting to slay us while we were caught unaware?