The Bloodbath

[fireflyz]

[d3m Ambrose Pixel, intro/attack 1, 2107 - deep gash on forehead]

The stranger in the mirror of his holding cell blinked slowly at him as he got ready. Well, as ready as he could be; he only had one outfit, some dingy cargo pants and a t-shirt, and he couldn’t suddenly adopt a new look, a new identity when the one he had was already so burdensome. This day, like every day since the war began, felt like he was moving on autopilot, except this time he was cruising towards his demise. The peacekeepers “guided” him towards where he was meant to begin, but it was more like they were dragging him. Ambrose had been dragging himself along for years, so it was nothing new. Before he knew it, he was in the arena, in a field to be exact. But the grass was fake, the sky was fake - nothing was real.

The first moments of the battle went by in a blur. Several of the tributes turned their knives on one boy, the one from Two. Some prayed, still others washed their hands of the fight. Some recognized each other. He recognized Yejide. He wanted to reach for her, ask, are you alright, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. It was too much to bear.

It felt like lead had accumulated in Ambrose’s feet as he went to pick up his knife, embracing the familiar feeling of a rubber hilt. So much of this was familiar; fighting, seeing other rebels and other people who should’ve just stayed out of it, just like he should have. But it was too late - he was already here, and he was already dead.

“Kill the traitors!” a girl screeched. “Free Panem!”

Free Panem, indeed. Time continued to tick by, his hologram self floating along until Yejide linked her arm around his.

“Ambrose,” she said, “There has to be another way.” But there isn’t. A girl lost a finger. Another continued her pleas for everyone to stop. Ambrose wanted to know if Yejide was okay. But he knew she wouldn’t be.

He turned to glance at her, the muscles in his cheeks tightening to form a smile but not quite achieving their goal. ”So what are you in for?” he asked, before turning and thrusting his knife at one of the girls who remained stationary.

[ambrose attacks d11f uxue izar]

[/center]
tplv4BSY2gknifeknife

[✨ zozo.]

Aug 31, 2019 12:45:28 GMT -5 ✨ zozo. said:

audrey manning d7f; post 2

audrey manning d7f; post 3

Audrey's angel takes her blows, a shield in the chaos, and when the angel's blood splatters on her pyjama-clad arm she shrieks.

"NO!"

In her protest she shakes her free limb, as if violently thrashing it about could rid her of the scarlet spots staining her clothes like they were bread crumbs or leaves from a falling tree. Permanent evidence of her sin, punishment for her ongoing living - she hates it. She hates this.

Someone cries out toward them, begging the culprits where Audrey could not, pleading for them to leave the older girl alone but it's no use - she's seen that bloodthirsty glare in the eyes of rebels and Keepers alike. Desperate to live. Desperate to survive.

You can't help desperation. Can't halt it in its tracks, can't plead with it. It's unstoppable, the same way she couldn't stop her brother from marching to his death, couldn't stop her Mother getting caught in the crossfires of tear gas that filled her lungs, couldn't stop the bullet from meeting her father's temple.

Can't stop someone else dying for her sake, can't stop herself shaking, can't stop being a coward.

Still, Audrey turns back toward the girl who begged for their salvation and she peers at her, lips trembling, gasping for air and thankful for her words - whoever she was. She doesn't know what District she's from, let alone her name or her story, but Audrey does know that she's got kind, sad eyes and isn't holding a knife.

"Help," she pleads with the girl, gulping down her cowardice. Knowing damn well she's had more mercy than she'll ever deserve.

You can't help desperation, but Audrey tries anyway.

"Please help us."

But it's too late. A boy appears out of nowhere and cuts through Audrey's line of vision, and the next thing she knows there's a deep line of red across the girl's head and it weeps: how dare you?

All she can do is flinch, stare at the grass, sob quietly, and clutch uselessly at the clean knife in her hands.

[Baby Wessex d9b [earthling]]

Aug 31, 2019 11:29:59 GMT -5 Baby Wessex d9b [earthling] said:

[D10f, Scorpion Praxis, Introduction]

[D10f, Scorpion Praxis, Non-Attack Post 2]

SCORPION PRAXIS

Elmo put a hand on her barely clad shoulder, his fingers just on the other side of paper from her skin. The paper gown - already a little torn - stretched from her neck to her knees. Someone - a doctor? a Peacekeeper? - had put scrub pants on her. There was a little pocket on the side of the left knee that she could possibly use to store... something. Not the knife. It might slip right through and the last thing she needed was to limp away from this mess due to her own incompetence.

She leaned into his touch, rolling the shoulder just a bit, pulling back the breezy gown. The delicious feeling of his fingertips on her collarbone made her shiver. The tingling zapped through her core, tightening and pulling. She flinched, just a bit, as she spoke. "I'm glad to see you too. But what do you say we take this somewhere a little less public?"

She lifted an eyebrow in more than a suggestion. Threading her long fingers through his, she tugged, pulling him towards the bleachers.

And then the tightening became a cramp, and a gush of blood soaked the scrubs. "Fuck me," she whispered, panic making her nerve endings sizzle. Play it off! A warning bell. She did her best to look anything other than pained as she looked into his eyes. "We can't stay on the field. We - I - am too vulnerable. Do you understand?"

[Sunrise Rainier D2 // [Thundy]]

Aug 31, 2019 11:34:55 GMT -5 Sunrise Rainier D2 // [Thundy] said:

[Edison Grieve, D5M // Post 1]

[Edison Grieve, D5M // Post 2 // No attack]

______________________

And oh, if you’re gonna build a wall
You’d better be ready for the day it falls

”Kill the pigs! Kill the traitors!” A girl hollered into the day, and the words struck fear into his chest.

This younger boy next to him wasn’t a pig or a traitor. There were faces in the crowd who looked so frightened they didn’t even move, and Edison wanted to protect them all from harm.

None of them deserved this. To call for death, to strike when they thought they had the ability to discern who was guilty and who was innocent, was to incite rebellion against each other.

Broken, separate, weak.

Such a powerful tool of the Capitol, the words “Us” and “Them.”

The young boy sniffled beside him. “I want to go home,” he said, reaching for Edison’s hand. Somewhere along the line, tears started forming in the corners of his eyes. This young boy reminded him of his little brother Frankie, and something so kind required kindness in return.

”P-p-please I--”

He didn’t finish his sentence. Edison squeezed his hand and stepped in front of him, tucking his knife into a belt loop.

”I won’t hurt you,” he reassured him, giving him the same smile he always gave Frankie. The kind of smile that said everything is going to be okay, even when he couldn’t guarantee anything. ”You’re going to go home and be safe and happy, okay? Just trust me.”

And he moved forward, still holding tight to the boy’s hand. There were others calling for peace, and it was them who he trusted the most.

”There has to be another way,” one girl said. Edison nodded, holding out his other hand.

”Stand behind me,” he offered. This was his role at home, back in Five. Not a soldier, not quite, but a protector against violence. ”We are not each other’s enemy.”

song: If You're Gonna Build a Wall by the Anthony D'Amato

[mat]

Aug 31, 2019 11:02:00 GMT -5 mat said:

[D2M // Dmitri Kostas // Attack 01 // 2109]

[D2M // Dmitri Kostas // Attack 02 // 2038]

dmitri kostas

My knife rushed past hers in near unison, both going toward the other. We’re close, closer than they let us on the train. Before, all she had was words, but now her names were accompanied by knives, both hers and her friends’.

The rebels. They’re a cult without a strong leader to give them orders. Mindless and lost in the idea that taking a life for the cause is the only escape. Their masters in the districts could only spread their propaganda so far before getting executed, and they’ve left their recruits in Panem to do the same after they died.

Look where it got them.

To the Capitol, maybe, but they’re marching on a hundred-yard empty stadium, not the President’s front yard.

The girl and her followers come after me while almost everyone else remains frozen. Leave it to District Two’s representatives to start the fighting. The ones who had the best chances of escaping are the first no risk it all.

Her knife misses, but her sidekicks’ manage to scrape my body. It stung, burned, ached, and hurt all at the same time. My head. My legs. I feel now the pain that Dad felt when the rebels came and gutted him. We shared the experience now. This is what it feels like when the army’s walls flank you from the left and close in on you every which way.

I feel what he felt, all but his last breath. For now.


{“Kill the pigs! Kill the traitors!”}

I don’t speak, the pain making it too nauseating to even open my mouth.

{“Free the districts! Free Panem!”}

Stupid girl. By now she should’ve been able to realize that the revolution had failed. You can’t free shit when you yourself are in the cage.

That’s what they don’t understand. This isn’t the rebellion. This is the Hunger Games.

Be selfish before being selfless.

She’s about to go in at me again, but a scream approaching stops her.

She grabs my arm and tugs at it, trying to fix whatever might be wrong.

{“Can’t you see that this is what they want, you’re going to kill each other.”}

I look at the girl from my District, and then back at the new girl.

Nobody understands whose fault this really is. The rebels blame the Capitol, but what else are they supposed to do? Let them riot? No, chaos is chaos, and they’re the ones to blame.

“No. You have it wrong. This is what they want- this is what she wants. And them. And them,” my finger points at first to the girl from Two, and then to all of her friends who echoed her calls to riot. “She wants to kill me. And you. She doesn’t know how good she could have had it, and she doesn’t care.”

I hesitate to go for my fellow District Two resident again. Maybe this girl could knock some sense into her.

“These people. They drink from a poisoned chalice without thinking twice about who they hurt and who they leave behind. They’re reckless, and they deserve everything that comes their way.”

The girl is still holding on tight. There are at least a dozen others still not fighting, knives still on the ground with tears in their eyes.

My voice is louder now, despite nausea pressing on my throat, aiming to reach the little kids who can’t seem to get a grip on the situation. “It’s all they know how to do. If you don’t get them first, you’ll end up just like them!”

My eyes now train back on the girl from Two, and I scream at her, words filled with mockery of her own.

“Kill the rebels! Kill the traitors! Kill the criminals! Every last one!”

I feel content with committing murder again. A boy comes and distracts the girl holding onto me, and I take the opportunity to snap back.

“It’s that simple.”

They all see me as the villain, but I see myself as the falling hero- soon to be fallen.

They believe it’s better to die on one’s feet than live on one’s knees. But I fear they have it backward. It is better to live on one’s feet than die on one’s knees.*

I believe myself to be the victor- the pardoned one. I have lived my life in peace. They’ve died in chaos.

I’m at peace. They’re not.

My knife goes at her once more, content enough as I prepare to breathe my last breath.

[Dmitri Kostas 2m attacks Adder 2f, knife]
BoOjM5_qruknife
2038 -- Block -- 0.0 damage

*Quote from Joseph Heller’s Catch-22
knife

[napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

Aug 31, 2019 11:54:49 GMT -5 napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ. said:

{ 1m malachi le roux ; attack 1 ; -- }

{ 1m malachi le roux ; attack 2 ; -- }

are you, are you
coming to the tree
where dead man called out
for his love to flee

There’s no structure to a war, only broken pieces and shrapnel and blood lust. In the figurines, he caught the broken pieces, the ones who’d been shipwrecked here and instead of trying to swim against the tide, had resorted to drowning in their own tears and spit. The shrapnel was the blood, the consequence, something that was meant to course freely beneath their skins but now trickled down to the grass, like the pieces of a broken mosaic. Each one of them was merely stained glass, a medley of colors; the breakage only brought out their sharp edges. Blood lust, on the other hand, were the knives, crooked in sweat-slick hands, and the willowy girl that used hers to slash a boy whose body flamed savagely with fresh wounds.

       “Kill the pigs!” she roared. “Kill the traitors!”

That word—traitor—thawed the ice in his veins and Malachi exhaled, through his nostrils, his breath a stone.

He was here because of a traitor, because someone’s loose tongue had spoken the things it should’ve guarded with all its muscles and teeth. If not for this Lamb, he would have his father beside him, not the ashes of his charred bones on Malachi’s dark-red uniform. If blood got on this color, he mused, it would never show. He was, from the very prologue, drenched in red, most parts of him the color of pomegranate entrails. A smear or two, Malachi thought with intent, despite himself, would never show.

After all, the name of the game is hunger and he’s filled to his brims by it, hungering for escape, to return to the vigils under the apple trees, to inter his father’s bones, and to tuck his little brothers in bed after taking his coat off and spreading it over them because it gets bone-rattlingly cold in the forest at night.

       He hungered.

“There has to be another way,” a small sound arose from his left, and his eyes spun, landing on a girl much smaller than him, but with ardent eyes, bright like polished buttons in the sun. Her words are tinged by a desperation Malachi felt in his own bones—there has to be another way.

But, before Malachi could agree, the boy at her side brought his silver blade down in an arc on another girl, and he knew, he knew, he knew. In the marrows of his own bones, he knew the price the Capitol demanded from them. The hunger was meant to be for blood; the willowy, chanting girl knew that, the boy at the girl’s side knew that, the ones who had their daggers drawn and fists bared knew that.

       Malachi should too.

“Yeah,” he said, words as coarse as sandpaper. “the quicker way, or the bloodier way.” His eyes tore away from her because her face had still a glimmer of hope that his lacked.

“Let’s hope we’re all experts at giving mercy kills here.”

Malachi’s hands clenched his knife with all their might until his knuckles were bone-white and held it up to the girl. “Hold your knife as though your life depends on it—because it does.”

       Then, he turned back to cacophony.

“Fuck,” Malachi breathed out, eyes darting from one face to another. In the end, they fell back onto the face of the girl beside him. “We could take the shit-keepers’ guns.”

strange things did happen here
no stranger would it be
if we met at midnight
in the hanging tree




lyrics: hanging tree

{ ooc: the willowy girl - adder; the other girl - yejide }

[sidney]

[ 12m wesley blume / intro ]

now my heart stumbles on things i don't know
my weakness i feel i must finally show
lend me your hand and we'll conquer them all
but lend me your heart and i'll just let you fall

It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust, momentarily blinded by the searing, white hot light of day. I’m not sure how long it’s been since I’ve seen the sun, but it’s a welcome sight. Far better than the steel walls and artificial lighting I’ve called home for too long. It’s warm against my skin and for a brief moment, my eyes fall shut and I float away. To that distant patch of grass on the edge of the Seam, up the hill that overlooks Twelve where Hana and I would sneak off to on Sundays before supper.

The warmth makes it feel so real.

Like a dream you never want to wake up from, and I swear a breeze blows through the air and it smells sweet, like wildflowers and honey. So much like home that I reach out for my sister’s hand, ready to yank her forward with me so we can roll down the hill in a heap, but instead a gloved hand roughly clasps atop my shoulder and I’m shoved forward harshly.

“Move,” a voice says, gravelly and low, with very little patience, “Now.”

Another hand slaps my other shoulder as I catch myself, almost tripping once I stumble through the door. It’s still grass, still green and soft beneath the pads of my shoes. The sun is still warm, hot against my skin and I start to sweat, though I can’t tell if it’s from heat or from the nervous pit that’s forming in my stomach as other faces come into view. Twenty-three of them to be exact.

One will be pardoned.

It didn’t make sense when they told me, and it still doesn’t. Not until they escort me to sideline painted on the ground. Not until my eyes fall to the knife perfectly placed at my feet. Not until they clip the binds around my wrists, around everyone’s. Some reach for the knife quickly. Others look around, scared and helpless. My heart goes out to them, but it feels like it shouldn’t. They’re weak. Easy targets. And that logic makes my stomach churn.

They said the war was over.
The fight was won lost.
It would appear that was just another lie.

I bend at the knees and pick up the knife, flipping it over a few times in my palm.

One will be pardoned.

I know what they want me to do with it.
But that doesn't mean I'm going to. 

I see a familiar face a few feet away, one I've only ever seen in pieces through a sea of people in the town square. I've heard the rumors, though, enough of them to remember who she is—or rather, who I've heard she is. But right now it looks like she's a protector, and getting attacked because of it. 

I know what I should do. Attack her too. And the others that surround her. And the girl she's vowed to keep safe. Eliminate them all. Less competition.

One will be pardoned.

But that doesn't mean I'm going to. 

Instead I begin to close the distance, ready to offer up a helping hand. 

However foolish it may be.

[aya]

Aug 31, 2019 12:00:33 GMT -5 aya said:

[ 2f adder ames // attack 2 // 2178]

[ 2f adder ames // attack 3 // 2146]

[attr="class","adderPostWidth"]

i have my gods
will you give me my ghost?
sons and daughters
may you kill where my blind heart could not

The fear in the air smells like pig blood, which, if you're being honest with yourself, is indistinguishable from human. The trick to not caring is knowing that humans are monsters worse than any animal. Is he the one that threw the brick through your little brother's window while he slept? You weren't a soldier then, but you bled picking the shards out of his crib. Was he the one that forced your father to his knees, stuffed a pistol in his mouth, blew the back of his throat out, left him to drown in his own puddle? Or was he just the one who held your sister's eyes open so she had to watch?

Arterial spray, the end is nigh, righteous and red. It drips down the knife, rivulets twining down her thumbs, winding around her wrist. Your pulse quickens and you are not ashamed to admit that the prospect of killing this Capitol feels better than anything has in dreary months. After all, you are human too.

There are shouts, too, to follow yours. Revolutionaries outing themselves on the pitch — "I'll toast to that, sister" — and a boy in smudged glasses takes up the call. "Kill all the pigs!" He grapples with the girl who pled for you to stop, who assesses — correctly — that you and the quisling who bleeds beneath your blade are going to kill each other.

What you don't understand is why everyone sets upon each other and no one sets upon the white uniforms that ring the arena. It dawns on you slowly, like a sunrise muddled through smoking rubble: that is why there are civilians. That is why there are bootlickers. You wish that you'd shared your train with Wild Will or Flintlock or Feldspar, despite what that would mean for them.

"These people," the lapdog explains to the interceder. The twist of irony in his voice, the way he says people, you can tell he does not believe you are one at all. "They drink from a poisoned chalice without thinking twice about who they hurt and who they leave behind." The day the bombs hit your childhood home, you left behind three kid siblings with two ghosts for parents, so that one day they might have the agency to live their own lives — as fulfilled people, not as a starving number perpetually behind an unmeetable quota. "They’re reckless —" You are. "— and they deserve everything that comes their way."

You died in the train tunnels under the storage depot.

You died on the side of the mountain.

You died storming a machine gun nest.

You died keeping watch.

You died in your sleep.

You have died so many times in pursuit of a life worth living, and you would not have been half as reckless if you did not believe you deserved it.

"Kill the rebels!" he mocks you. "Kill the traitors! Kill the criminals! Every last one!"

He swings at you, fading, but you catch his knife with yours.

You don't waste your breath responding, but it is with pleasure that you hawk another gob of spit in his face.

It doesn't matter if he is the one who put the pistol in your father's throat and pulled the trigger. It doesn't matter if he's too tall to have been the one that made your sister watch. It doesn't matter if he's never seen your house, never hurled rocks through your window, never set fire to the hospital tent, never blew the bridge the refugees slept under, never broke a child's fingers for stealing a loaf of bread.

He is that boy. He is all of them.

[attacks dmetri with knife]
NjgClaNZRiknife
[2146 -- Deep Gash on Left Thigh -- 8.0 damage]

winter solstice — cold specks

[newclass=".adderPostWidth"]width:460px;[/newclass]knife

[goat]

Aug 31, 2019 12:21:38 GMT -5 goat said:

[8f maryam volk, attack 1, 2006]

[8f maryam volk, attack 2, 2086]

maryam volk

“I know she's scared. That's why I attacked her.”

“Bitch,” you spit out. There was nothing honorable about attacking somebody who was afraid. Your morals were fuzzy at times but you knew where you stood on that. Rebels didn’t go after children, or the sick, or the elderly. That was the Capitol’s job.

“And why did you stab this girl? Why not me? Don't let me stop you. Kill her.”

“Maybe I will. You don’t know me.”

You’ve killed before. Keepers and Capitol sympathizers, neighbors that threatened to report you, Rebels who thought they could be bought out for information. It wasn’t hard. You pull the trigger or jam the knife and don’t stick around long enough to watch them bleed out. If they lived, you didn’t.

“I think you're the one that's scared,” the girl said.

You smile, all teeth, all vicious. “I haven’t been scared in a very long time. Don’t project onto me.”

It was the same thing here— if they lived, you didn’t— but the people here didn’t deserve to die. Not even the girl who turned her knife on you.

You stare down at your hand half-expecting the finger to grow back, but it doesn’t.

“What the fuck?” You shake your hand out but the finger doesn’t grow back. “This is my shooting hand, dude. How am I supposed to blast some Keepers when I get out of here?”

You bent down and picked up the severed finger, shoving it into your pocket like the twisted souvenir it was. “I’m keeping this. Fuck you.”



maryam attacks 9f dakota lambert; knife
CnaRLVn|Urknife
2086 -- Shallow Cut on Back -- 4.0 damage

knife

[tick 12a / calla]

Aug 31, 2019 12:06:34 GMT -5 tick 12a / calla said:

d5f devon mercier | attack 1 | no dice

d5f devon mercier | attack 2 | no dice

children cry and
laugh and play
in the places
we won't walk

It's easy to tell when an animal is close to death, when a new-born calf isn't going to make it, when wounds are too great. It's the same with men, you think. "If you don’t get them first, you’ll end up just like them!”

You cannot kill. And you don't want to die.

"This is what they want." They boy two feet away from death says, "She wants to kill me. And you."

The world is harsher than you know, perhaps more than you will ever know, and your heart aches to imagine following these paths. You wouldn't be able to live with yourself.

"They deserve everything that comes their way.” He spits and you want to shake him, tell him how you're all the same, how you're certain that no one deserves to be in this kind of hell. But there is a wildfire, a scream, kill the pigs, and you're shoved away, stumbling sideways where there's already someone there to meet you.

A burn sears into your leg and suddenly you're on the ground, turf digging into your knees, gasping as red blooms beneath you and rust red petals fall to mingle in the green. You have no familiarity with pain, no time in your life where you can remember this kind of fire that licks at your skin and stains it like a sunset.

There is a boy with your blood on his blade and you look up at him, haloed from the light of a thousand suns.

"Why should I stop?" He asks and you might be shaking.

You are not above anyone here, at the mercy of strangers, with a decade's worth of delicate living at your disposal. You decide to go with the truth. "If you start killing now, you're no better than them."

Your hand presses against your calf, warmth seeping through your fingers as you grit your teeth and try to breathe through the smell of copper. "This isn't liberation, this is an execution. And you're all doing the dirty work for them."

You hear the first boy die before you see him, the thud of his body landing beside you. If you couldn't save him what hope is there for yourself?

The artificial grass stings your palms when you try to move away, wide-eyed when a blade comes down on him again and there is a spattering of crimson across the side of your face. Because you are not naive, you have seen death before but not like this.

Never like this.

"Look what's happening." You say to the boy who ran you through, "Look around you."

The field becomes a blur, the outline of the body so similar to yours and you shake your head, seeing through the haze to those trying to fight and those trying to run, "Don't do this, please."

devon does not attack

[Knuckles]

Aug 31, 2019 12:49:05 GMT -5 Knuckles said:

{Johannes Beaumont | attack 1 | 2155}

{Johannes Beaumont | attack 2 | 2035}

Johannes

It's such a wonderful feeling watching people run around in panic as one even sits on the ground - pathetic. This is the war they've all been waiting for, and yet Johannes realizes this isn't even the beginning.

Some are still begging for help while others are fighting. The fresh scent of blood fills each nostril, and it excites him. It takes him back home to the streets where he's fighting knowing each second could become his last, but this is where it becomes even more of a reality.

It's not over until it's over.

This is his desire. A chance to fight. Being tossed into some arena where kids are screaming at one another, but it doesn't make a difference.

It'll never change the things he's done. Even then some are still refusing to fight, but why?

If they want a chance to go home to escape this hell hole without a care in the world, they have to stand up and fight.

He wants more blood. He wants to hear people scream and listen as they suffer. Executing is quick, but standing in the streets throwing makeshift bombs as the traitors march their way makes things a little different especially when they don't die right away. The screams echoing through the night as they beg to stay alive just a little longer.

That's what's happening here, and this is a place where he knows what has to happen.

The sinister grin grows ever larger, and the joy of blood, the pain, everything floats through his mind.

Stand up and fight already! He wants to shout, the words bubble within the walls of his chest, yet he holds it back. The longer people sit around the better because soon Johannes will stand amongst them all without a care in the world as he slits their throats one by one.

People are protecting one another. They're giving them a chance to think they're really free when all that matters is the death of every person in here but one lucky soul. It's almost sickening.

Someone falls, and Johannes finds himself snickering beneath his breath. Call for our deaths, and this is what happens. Death is where all the Capitol scum will go. They'll fight to the death in a battle for a champion, but the rebellion won't end when the rebels fall.

She speaks, the girl he attacked;

"If you start killing now you're no better than them."

If only she knew how many of the Capitol scum has died to his hands as he blasted a bullet through their brain. If only she knew he stood on the streets fighting with the rebels to liberate the districts from the grasp of panem.

"This isn't liberation, this is an execution."

He can't stop the chuckle from leaving his lips. He's executed many. The blood of many run through his veins, and it's leaving his heart like ice chilling him straight to the bone, but it doesn't phase him at all. With a heart of stone roaring within the walls of his chest, Johannes knows what he has to do.

A kid is dead, and Johannes forces himself to look around. Some are fighting. Some are doing nothing. Some are trying to protect the innocent souls.

Like they matter.

This is what a war looks like, and it's all he knows. A father made of stone carved the future for him, and he can hear the words echoing through his mind over and over;

"Don't do this, please."

He laughs even harder.

"Do you think killing scares me?" He asks, tongue sliding across his teeth. "I have killed many, and I'm not afraid to do what I have to do."

His lips curls, and Johannes feels the grip on the knife growing tighter and tighter.

"I'm an executioner, and I hereby sentence you to die."

Without a second thought, he attacks. It's not like shooting a gun, but it'll work, and maybe one day the rebels will succeed.

Johannes Beaumont d6m attacks Devon Mercier d5f
CznTOjanNpknife

{2035 -- Severed Thumb on Right Hand -- 8.5 damage}knife

[eulalie blake 1a 🍒 tris]

Aug 31, 2019 13:30:22 GMT -5 eulalie blake 1a 🍒 tris said:

( 9f dakota lambert | attack 2 | 2188 )

( 9f dakota lambert | attack 3 | 2075 )

and it's my whole heart
weighed and measured inside
and it's an old scar
trying to bleach it out

There's a finger lying in the grass.

And it's pointing at me.

I'm used to it. I'm the witch, and this is the rope around my throat — and somehow I've cut myself down, I've done it a thousand times, and I've landed on my feet. I always land on my feet. When the intruder speaks, all her rage is directed on me. Her blood is dripping down my cheek.

There is no gunpowder on my skin;
there will never be gunpowder again.

"No, I don't know you." I don't deny that accusation. Her face does not exist in my memories, and I do not care to know her name. She is nothing more than an obstacle, a rabid dog that I need to put down for my own safety. "I don't want to know you. Fuck your shooting hand."

I try to turn when she lunges, almost surprised by her choice to target me — and I grit my teeth when I feel the fire that kisses my back, that sharp sting of pain. There's a voice in my head that screams at me to run, to grab the stranger and throw her in my path. Flight has always been the stronger of my two instincts.

But now there's nowhere left to run,

and I have to fight.

Maybe this will put the stranger in my debt, maybe she will feel the urge to protect me. I won't stop her from being a hero. And she shouldn't save me — I am not someone you want on your side — but I do not tell her otherwise. I simply glance her way, allowing my features to shift into an expression of fear.

Because I am afraid.

I'm afraid I have run
out of deals to make.

I look back to the intruder.

And the numbness creeps in.

Nothing hurts now.

"I won't regret killing you."

and it's my whole heart
deemed and delivered a crime
i'm on trial, waiting 'til the beat comes out
i'm on trial, waiting 'til the beat comes out



lyrics : florence + the machine
— which witch

^{[ DARS ]}

( 9f dakota attacks 8f maryam ; knife )
bviAcLImvKknife
( Shallow Cut on Left Calf -- 3.5 damage )

knife

[pearl mcclain d4 [ryan]]

Aug 31, 2019 12:41:14 GMT -5 pearl mcclain d4 [ryan] said:

[7M Donatello Birch | Intro | No Attack]

[7M Donatello Birch | Attack 1 | Knife: 2095]

The commotion was a lot to take in.

People were screaming and shouting at each other, and some of them were simply standing around, trying to figure out what to even try to do.

People were shouting impurities, telling each other that this was the only way to win. Killing each other meant the world to them, because that was the only thing in the world for them.

A fighting spirit that culminated into what was laid out in front of them.

And Donnie wasn’t sure how to react, because he was still confused to why he was here.

People were screaming at each other, slicing through skin, telling each other to put their feelings aside, and some were trying to calm to war that had been waged. None of it was and they were working though to their own traumas. At least, that is what Donnie thought.

He wasn’t sure what to do, and so he stood there frozen as he tried to wrap his mind around the concept of death, and the travesty that it laid in front of them.

Was he really going to kill in order to get out of here alive? Was he going to show people that he wasn’t afraid of them?

Was he going to show that he wasn’t afraid of himself?

Those were the real questions, and Donnie didn’t have time to answer as he continued to watch children going after each other with vicious intention.

It was like they were tapping into their primal roots, and Donnie had half a mind to try to flee.

He wanted to run, but after surveying the ground around him, there was nothing more here he could do. There was nowhere to run, and nowhere to hide.

Not unless Donnie wanted to die at the hands of someone from the capitol.

---

The thought of Aspen was motivating him. He wondered if he was in on it, like he had set him up for this big hullaballoo just so he wouldn’t have to go through it himself. Of course, he didn’t believe that completely. He was in love after all. However, the thought of it scratched at the back of his mind.

Donnie missed him, but he wasn’t sure if Aspen was missing him, or wondering where he was, or even trying to find him.

Each one of those thoughts passed through his head as he listened to the words of the others, trying to justify their actions.

They claimed that murder was the only way home, and while Donnie did not know them personally, he could tell that they had to have some sort of backstory.

There was always more to the story when it came to times of desperation.

Words kept playing in his head.

Love.

Target. 

Death.

Donatello. 

Life.

Live. 

Death.

And then there it was, the girl who had been fighting with the group who had Audrey by the hand had sliced off a finger from the girl who had been retaliating. Others had been stabbing at people that they didn’t know. A girl had already turned a boy into an example of what needed to be done here.

But none of it was motivating Donnie to do the same.

It was scaring him.

---

And so he had to make a choice here, leave who he was back home, or remain the sweet innocent boy that he knew he was. The boy that Aspen fell in love with.

The boy he claimed he still was.

However, the realization of what this place was, this cemetery with 23 living bodies, this burial ground of the damned, this casket of suffering, one thing was clear. This place would be just that.

A graveyard.

Donnie wasn’t sure if he wanted his story to end here.

He just wanted to go home. To see the boy he loved, to find out why he had been thrown into this situation, to live a life of peaceful solitude. He didn’t want to kill, but the itch had been scratching since he saw first blood.

He needed to kill in order to survive.

And even though he had a weapon, he wasn’t sure if he could bring himself to use it.

However, others were, and they didn’t seem to have any qualms about it. Donnie needed to remember that some of these children had probably already seen a fair share of death, so what was another couple of dead bodies to them.

They would lay in their ruin as they tried to give the capitol what they wanted.

The little girl across the way pleaded with everyone: ”Look whats happening, look around you, please don’t do this” And he shakes his head.

”I don’t think they are giving us a choice little one.” Donnie spoke out towards her as he turned his attention the little girl that came with him.

He realized what needed to be done here, and as scared as he was, his hand went straight to his necklace.

Aspen was with him. Wherever he went.


And Aspen would want him to protect the weak, because that was just the type of guy Donatello was. A hero without a cape, a vigilante, someone with a cause.

He needed to get to her. That was his resolve. Protect her at all costs.

And so he realized that a group of girls were fighting in the same vicinity of where the little girl was crying, which meant that they were in his way.

”I’m coming.” he spoke as he finally moved from the spot he started in, taking deep breaths as he walked closer to the war he was about to enter. He was tired, battered, and bruised, but the adrenaline running through his system was guiding him.

”Get out of my way.” he spoke clearly as he realized that he might have been foreword. ”Shes scared, cant you see?” he let that float into the chaos as he raised his knife. He did not know this girl, or what she had done in her past, but it was very clear that she wasn’t afraid to fight, or to kill.

"If you guys want to kill each other, by my guest, but let the little one go."

And that was the difference between them. Donnie was afraid to fight. To kill.

But if it needed to be this way, then so be it.

Let the rage out, the blood boil.

Let go

[Donnie Birch [D7M] attacks Lennon Greer [D12F] | Knife
rmR7U|AR7Xknife
[2095 -- Shallow Cut on Neck -- 4.0 damage
(Knife)]

knife

[✨ zozo.]

Aug 31, 2019 13:45:38 GMT -5 ✨ zozo. said:

audrey manning d7f; post 3

audrey manning d7f; post 4

If she had a free hand she'd raise it to her dry lips, clamp it down over her jaw, muffle her screams. But there's one hand around her knife and one hand in her angel's and there's nothing left for her to do but howl at the site of fingers dropping to the floor and curse words firing like bullets and a boy, lying still on the grass, as another girl stabs him in the abdomen.

The world is green grass, blue skies and red sin - Audrey is grey, drained of colour. So many wounds and yet she is left unscathed, hauled behind the body of her angel time and time again. And she lets herself be shielded, useless, still crying - she's a coward and she knows it, but the angel told her not to let go. That she'd be okay.

Until a boy barrels through the massacre and rips her angel from her hands. ”Get out of my way,” he growls, a slice of silver in the air - more blood, cutting off the girl's pleads about motherhood. "She's scared, can't you see?"

She's scared - it's true. She is scared. Scared of kids like him, almost twice her height with hands that could crush her windpipes easily, snap her neck in a flash - why wouldn't she be terrified? Smears of blood already coat his hands from the fallout of his lethal actions. He could be from Seven, perhaps, or Two. Four. Nine, even. He could truly wish to set her free. But Audrey doesn't remember the parts between her house and the train, bullet holes in her memory, ricochet shrapnel that tears blank spots in her mind. She can't put her faith in anything, not anymore. Maybe he came here with her. Maybe he didn't. Maybe he wants her to live, maybe she'll be the next to meet his blade.

There's blood seeping from her angel's neck and at the sight of it Audrey collapses, hands now free to barrel forward toward the boy and shove him to the ground. 

"NO!" she cries, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand - knife still clean and clutched in white-hot fingers. "LEAVE HER ALONE!"

Tears fall down her cheeks slowly and Aubrey turns her gaze back to the girl, terrified she'll find a corpse in her place.

[cameron]

Aug 31, 2019 11:40:49 GMT -5 cameron said:

d10m elmo latch | attack 1 | none

elmo latch | d10m | post 2 | no attack

Shouts of “kill the rebels” fought “kill the traitors” in my ears, but her voice reigned over them both. “I’m glad to see you too,” she said, leaning into my hand, and it took all my effort to remain firm for her. Before I was a tree, and she’d welcomed my branches as I’d tended her petals; now we both were bare for winter, our scars exposed to the elements, to the world. She feigned her own power, but I felt the tremble in her fingertips and the new tenderness of her palms, more delicate and altogether less hers.

Scorpion hadn’t fared well since we departed. Paper framed her body, both thin and not made to withstand this game. Last I’d seen, she was nothin’ but tenacity, the embodiment of guts and grit and glorious gray eyes. “But what do you say we take this somewhere a little less public?" Before I could agree she’d laced her fingers in mine and tugged me along behind her, toward the high rises where keepers watched us run wild, watched fuckin’ children scream for their mothers and stab each other in the back. Where they watched and laughed at our lives, because our lives were beneath theirs now more than ever.

It was hard not to blame them, Ma and Pa. Hard not to blame the people who engineered explosives for rebel forces, forces that weren’t enough to withstand the capitol’s thumb even with their vigor, with their bombs and their passion and ultimately their greed. They could’ve stayed home, could’ve kept their experiements to themselves instead of shellin’ ‘em out to war heroes.

Could’ve kept me from being used as a punchin’ bag for those damn white walkers.

I didn’t know where to place my anger. Nowhere felt right. There was enough anger, and heartache, and trauma all around. There wasn’t room for mine too.

Her grip tightened on my hand, and I looked up into her eyes, swimming with worry, with heartache and trauma, and I shed my own like I shed my leaves. "We can't stay on the field. We - I - am too vulnerable. Do you understand?" I did. Without askin’, I scooped her up and positioned her on my back, both hands clingin’ to hers, holding her hands tight like she was zip-tied again, and ran.

“Don’t let go ‘a me, Scorp,” you’re all I got now.