between a tomb and a dead place // kenji + emmett + kestrel

[lance]

There's a great pain radiating throughout your body as you attempt to smash the boy from Six's head in. Had you been at full strength, had you been more practiced with the rock thing, had you been, well, anything other than a half-dead Kenji Nakamura in that instance - well, who knows what could have been?

But you can't. Try as you might, your blow is blocked. Easily. And for the first time, you realize there's no strength behind your arms, no willpower driving you forward to bash the fucker's head in. You're no warrior. No street fighter. No imposing figure to be met on the battlefield as an equal.

You're just you. Just Kenji. And right now, just Kenji is a scared seventeen year old boy who knows his life is about to come to a close.

When Six counters, the force of his blow sends you stumbling backwards. Iron fills your senses - your eyes, your nose, your mouth - and with each step, your grip on your life - no, your sanity - begins to fade.

Your legs buckle. You fall backwards, but not onto dirt. Something warm. Something strong. Something stronger than you have ever been.

"You shouldn't be dying here either." Jones' voice is distorted, far away, and it takes a second before one word - dying - sinks in. None of us should... too late for our lot, I suppose." Fear grips your chest, but something stronger has already gotten a strangehold and won't let go. And as you look into the girl's eyes, she looks back into yours. "Next time."

The words don't make sense. Nothing makes sense, only that you feel the steady presence of solid ground on your back, see a swirling maelstrom of petals blotting out the sun, feel-

Cold. So very, very cold.

Steel's voice breaks into the rapidly dimming lights of your conscious. "Come back," she cries, a note of desperation you had no idea the girl from Eight could elicit tearing her throat apart. "Please come back..."

And you want to. You want to get up and reassure her that everything will be fine, that the fucker from Six and the fuckers from Ten won't be enough to put you down, that you'll kill all of them with your bare hands if you have to - except those hands won't move.

Nothing will.

Like an eclipse, darkness blots out the sun, and you fade into the everlasting void.

Dead.

..........

or

..........

Alive?

When you inhale, you cough, as if waking up from a deep, dark sleep that drowned the senses, like you'd just broken free of a terrible head-cold that has only now let sweet, sweet relief flood your system.

That wasn't murder. That wasn't failure. The boy from Six didn't murder you. You were still in the field of jewels and Steel was still-

You blink. Once, twice, thrice. No. This was no field of glittering green. Hell, this wasn't even outside anymore. And Steel - well, Steel was nowhere to be found.

Confusion runs rampant through your skull as you first sit up, and then get to your feet. It is then you notice three things. One, the fabric of your clothes, black and torn up by your foes at your last memory, is now a pearly, iridescent white in color. Second, you were surrounded by, well, things - things old and things new, some hauntingly familiar as you looked from one relic to the next. A bouquet, a wagon, a statue, and so much more.

And third? You're not alone. Far from it - two other shapes are likewise stirring, likewise getting to their feet, likewise dressed in the same pure white as you. One is unfamiliar besides her face and district of origin - Nine's girl.

The other is-

"Emmett?" you voice aloud. Memories of a rooftop talk mere days ago, of deepness and laughter and a rebounding apple smacking a forehead to mutual surprise. The boy from One had felt so effortlessly strong, so powerful - and yet deep down, so fragile as well.

You look from girl to boy and back again, your questions no closer to being answered. So instead, you verbalize one out loud.

"What the hell is going on here?"

sike no attack yet

[Stare]

Time flickered like an ember on the wind.

" - it really for me?" Kestrel beamed as she lifted the violin out from among colored pieces of paper, lifting her disbelieving eyes to her aunt.

Her aunt smiled. "It's tradition for - "

Am I brave?

" - was just wandering the hallways. Couldn't sleep, like - "

Callum's face went from smiling to grimacing, smeared crimson as he stumbled with her in her arms. "It'll be okay Kes, just keep - "

Am I brave?

She tossed and turned, feverish, as the night wore on. At one point the pain became so intense that she was certain she was going to -

" - the strongest person we both know. Kes, you know, people like you, artists, performers... they never really - "

Am I brave?

...

Well you died, didn't you?

Kestrel's eyes blinked open. The afterlife felt cold and dark and hard, and she was surprised to realize that she still felt pain. Her eyes wandered down, past the white that she'd always imagined herself wearing in death, to the stump of her hand. Her stomach dropped. Still gone. Tears pricked at the backs of her eyes. So that was it, then? An eternity without the violin? Without dancing? Without music? A knife rested beneath her good hand and Kestrel vaguely wondered if this was some sort of punishment.

But then she heard something stirring from beyond her cramped little space in the stone. Every movement ached, but she managed to drag herself out into some sort of tunnel. Colors and art twisted over the walls, gemstones gleaming in the dim light. But Kestrel's attention was drawn to the fact that there were others. Two figures - demons? angels? reapers? No, Kestrel realized. She recognized those faces. They were other tributes.

"What the hell is going on here?"

Kestrel tucked her stump of a wrist close to her side, frowning. Was this some sort of test? Some final feat they had to accomplish before they were finally allowed into a world without pain, where their bodies were no longer broken and their minds were finally clear? Some sort of purgatory to cleanse them of the sins that still clung to their skin from the Games?

"I died," Kestrel said slowly, politely avoiding staring at the giant gash across the boy from One's throat. "They cut off my hand and then they killed me. I'm not..." Alive. But it felt so strange to say that she cut to a question, instead. "What are we supposed to do now?"

[tick 12a / calla]

Awareness comes back in pieces.

First, everything is just dark. Dark and cold and hollow. And the warmth seems to creep in so slowly, thawing away something glacial.

And then there's a crack, a dam bursting, a flood, and my lungs are expanding but it's like I can't them control yet. My torso shifts and my shoulders move and I shoot up so fast that I can hear the thunk of my head hitting something solid even though I can't see it.

I rebound in shock, falling back down, falling still again, and raising a hand to the pain.

What the fuck?

Everything- everything feels foggy though the throbbing of my temples, like I'm moving through syrup and cotton and I realize slowly that it's only dark because my eyes are still closed. I swear it takes hours to peel them open, an agonizing number of hours, and the sudden cut of light makes my skull shriek. I blink at the stone above me, (stone?), confused, or maybe just unseeing, because I can't remember this. I can't remember how I got here.

I remember being ten and waking up in the middle of a thunderstorm, hiding under the bed because I knew if I went to my parents' room I'd be turned away. I remember turning fifteen and losing a part of myself. I remember gaining something else.

I remember floor thirteen, and I remember trees made out of a thousand different colours. I remember Niko and Perdita and something blotting out the sun and the sudden rush of water, I remember the sudden warmth that had taken over my body when I was bleeding out and my hand flies up to my throat because I remember.

I can feel the line of a scar but I can’t feel it. It’s numb when my fingers skit across it, a straight row of stitches that still feel fresh and I can sense the air leaving my lungs faster now, the stone around me closing in because I died but I didn't, I'm still here but I'm not. They sent me home and buried me alive and I can't see anything but the grey of the slate and the red of the sea.

My hands shake against the scar and I jump at a noise from my left. I turn my head too fast and expect to feel a twinge, a pinch, but there's nothing.

There's just nothing.

If that bird's talons hadn't felt so real and if my heart wasn't beating so fast I'd swear I'd just dreamt the whole thing. But I turn my head and try not to hyperventilate when I can't feel it happening because there's an opening in the side of the stone, right in front of my face, a slab where the light shines through.

A dozen thoughts of collapse strike me, images of the walls caving in or the ceiling crushing me and I just need to get out I need to make my body move but it won't listen and I'm stuck with grabbing the edge of the opening and pulling myself through, kicking my feet and landing hard on the floor when my legs don't quite work well enough to catch me.

I focus on the patterns of the ground and dig my nails into my wrist.

I died. I fucking died but I'm still here and I can't understand it so I'm taking great big shuddering breaths but there’s no sound coming from my throat so I just try again and again and there's that stupid fucking panic again - bleeding through my skin and working it's way through my veins and I try to call for help but it turns into a wheeze and then a cough because I can't.

I can't-

I don't understand.

There's a knife lying on the ground beside me and I distantly register that it falling must've been the sound I heard. I take it like a lifeline, holding it white-knuckled and grabbing onto the wall beside me to try to stand up. I feel shaky like a newborn, dizzy and stupid, but I finally get my feet steady enough to look around.

There's dozens of dozens of pockets in the stone, just like the one I was in, but they're all empty. I know because I check each one as I stumble my way down the hallway, gripping the knife in one hand and guiding myself along the wall with the other.

I don't know what I'm looking for. I think I'll know when I see it.

I don't know how long I walk for either. I don't know how many times I retrace my steps or hit dead ends because it's so eerily quiet here, so silent that my thoughts are loud enough to distract me.

I don’t know how long it takes me to find Malachi’s statue, but I know it isn’t an accident.

And I recognize him immediately, because of course I do, we grew up on stories about him and his bravery, his glory.

He was the one that started all of this. He started this legacy and this family’s need to be so perfect. No one else.

I think he's the kind of son my mother wanted - someone strong and glowing and worthy. But I’m not like him, I don't think I can even pretend anymore, and it isn’t fair. I’m just dumb lonely Emmett, the boy who lived alone and died alone because he could never be what anyone wanted.

His eyes follow me like he knows

I couldn’t even die right.

And I can feel the burn of my blood again, that magma feeling that settles low in my stomach and rises up so slowly. It gets stronger the longer I look at him, this gleaming monument of him. It's kind of anger that sneaks up on me, but I think it's always been there.

Every brush-off, every dismissal - it was never my fault. I bled for it and I died for it, I tried and tried and tried and here I still am. No different.

It makes the little feral thing inside of me crow, lash out at my ribcage and dig its claws into my spine.

I'm not one of them. I never have been.

I never will.

I kick at the base of the statue and bash the hilt of my knife into the metal and try to scream but it just comes out as this pathetic hoarse sound. I look at this statue of my ancestor, at the dent in his chest from my weapon, and there’s something wet on my face. My whole body aches and it feels like my skull is being split open, every member of my family flashing through my mind and I hate them I hate them I hate them.

There's a sudden white out, ten seconds of loss, and then I'm leaning against the wall, trying to catch my breath and watching the statue tilt. My hands are bruised and my eyes are red but it feels like some kind of victory when the thing crashes to the ground.

I wait long enough to make sure it isn't going to come to life and follow me before I shake myself and step over it. I don't look back.

It takes barely ten steps before I'm turning another corner and finally coming across some other form of life. I freeze in the archway, because I don't recognize the girl, but the boy -

"Emmett?"

It's Kenji.

I'm suddenly hit with an evening's worth of memories, a time that seems like ages ago, when we had decided to just be teenagers for the night, throwing shit off the training center roof because we had nothing better to do.

I try to say his name but all that comes out is a croak and I get frustrated all over again, half-snarl half-huff. It's getting real old real fast.

"What the hell is going on here?" Kenji asks.

"What are we supposed to do now?" Comes from the girl.

I look down at the knife in my hand and then the ones in theirs, back up at the girl, then at Kenji, a terrible twisting feeling starting in my gut. They gave us knives for a reason.

Except they're not careers, I know that much, and maybe the fact that we were all given weapons never even crossed their minds. Maybe that's just the wild part of me, the ferocious thing that screams to get them before they get me. It's just some old survival technique leftover from living in that house for so long.

I'm not sure what kind of test this is, but it obviously is one.

A Le Roux would do the honourable thing and tell them. There's no glory in backstabbing, they'd say, face your opponent head on or don't face them at all.

But I scored a gash across my name, some taste of finality that I don't know if I can come back from.

It's freeing, in a way.

Except I look at these two, these two people stuck in here with me, and I don’t know if I’d say anything even if I could. I don’t know if that makes me a bad person or not. I'm stuck between the person I was and the person I am, ten different versions of Emmett waiting for me to pick them.

I reach for one blindly and hold up the knife, waiting for them both to get it.

[lance]

There's a sinking feeling forming in your gut as certain details begin to sink in.

As your eyes adjust to the flickering light of the torch, you realize that there's more to the room than you thought. If it even is a room, to be fair - have you ever been inside somewhere that wasn't either crumbling, poorly maintained architecture or the gleaming iridescence of Capitol stainless steel for more than a few minutes at a time? This is different, natural and yet artificial all at once - a cave worn down by the passage of time. A sanctum built for a reason.

Logic begins to painstakingly piece itself together as blood once again flows through your brain. You're in the Hunger Games, so this must be part of the arena. But what could have possibly prompted you to pass out from the pain in a storm of flowers and wake up in this dark, dank place full of treasures from the lost and forgotten? More have caught your eye as you glance back and forth across the room - a silver box, a plant warmed by a personalized lamp, a wooden necklace - things that should, by all means, have no place belonging in a hideaway nowhere near the sun.

Your mind wanders. Critical thinking was never your strong suit - why bother trying to solve a problem when you could just beat it bloody instead? - but right now, punching the walls of a cave seem like the opposite of anything productive. So what was the deal? Why wasn't Steel here? Where had your tormentors gone - surely they hadn't simply up and left without finishing the job, right?

In your distraction, you don't notice that one of the others is moving towards you until a grip of iron grabs at your shoulder. It is with a fright that you're brought back to earth, though it takes another second to to register thatEmmett has grabbed you, long fingers of one hand digging into your flesh while the other holds something sharp and pointy-

-and you realize that you're gazing right at his collarbones, the realization that this boy is noticeably taller than you dawning on you for the first time (in your defense, it's somewhat more difficult to discern how tall someone is when they're sitting next to you in the dark). Your gaze travels upward, lingering for a moment on his neck - did he always have that scar on his throat? - before traveling up to his eyes.

They're angry. Annoyed. Perhaps not quite sane. You swallow thickly, waiting for the inevitable stab of pain to join the grip on your shoulder, the aches in your chest and stomach.

When it doesn't, a spark of nerve ignites your core. "Hey, easy now," you rasp, though whether it's from the disuse of your voice or terror you cannot tell. One hand reaches up to grip his own - so warm - and gently, you peel his fingers off of your shoulder. "There's no need for that. Not yet."

But isn't there? You're remembering more now with each passing second - remembering how this Games ends in a multiple of five, making it unique amongst the rest. Something new, something twisted, something to keep the formula from growing stale. Sometimes it's randomization, sometimes it's lowering the age gap, sometimes it's relaxing the number of volunteers, and sometimes-

It clicks, and you feel foolish for not realizing it sooner. Of course. Jones - the sister, not the killer. The one who had come back from the dead after the Games. Minx and Denali from your home, and so many others from each of the other districts -

Your heart, already hovering around your solar plexus, takes a nose dive into the pit of your stomach. Eyes widen, pupils dilate, perspiration begins on your forehead and under your arms. You take a step back from Emmett's lanky form, and then another.

"I died." The girl from Nine speaks your fears into existence, confirms what could not be possible. Should not be possible. "They cut off my hand and then they killed me. I'm not..." Dead? No. She isn't. Neither is he, despite the wounds that had lacerated his chest and stomach. One hand absently buries under your shirt, feels only scarred flesh where yesterday blood had poured like a waterfall.

It couldn't be. And yet-

"What are we supposed to do now?"

It was.

Your gaze flits around on the floor, finds a similarly jagged pointy thing like the one Emmett had held up, and without a second's hesitation you reach down and pick it up. It's no rock thing, but right now, it's a hell of a lot better than nothing.

What are we supposed to do now? Emmett's already gotten it. He would, damn him.

"I-" Your voice cracks, and you swallow again. "I don't know," you repeat after a second.

That was a lie. Anyone looking at your body language could see the fear causing your heart to palpitate, feel the confusion turning your mind into mush. But your instincts are sound. They always have been.

Your gaze locks with Emmett's, turns back towards the girl, and then once again rests on his.

We know what we must do, you realize.

But who would have the nerve to say it first?

[Stare]

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[attr="id","roryText"]She wasn't dead.

Kestrel was the last to realize it - perhaps the only one who had ever dared to hope that it was true - and her stomach lurched painfully as the Le Roux boy held up his knife and the boy from Five scrambled for his. This wasn't purgatory but hell, a place where the Capitol raised tributes back from the dead, mending them just enough, and forced them to slaughter each other once again. This was where she was make her final stand, in a place without the sky or sunlight or the people she'd dared to trust.

And she was going to die again. There could be no doubt about that.

Because Kestrel Volant was clumsy, and silly, and overly optimistic, and perhaps the most pathetic tribute the Games had ever seen. She wasn't charming or interesting or stupidly bold or ridiculously strong or especially clever. She wasn't special, no matter how much effort she'd put into tricking herself that she was. She was just an ordinary little girl, easily forgotten, and if their situation shed any light on the lack of faces in the sky, then she was going to be the very first to be truly defeated in this Arena. Tears welled up in her eyes, making her throat tight.

She'd wanted to be better. If she couldn't have won she'd at least wanted to be memorable. An artist, a musician, a dancer, performing one final time on the world's biggest stage. Immortalized, like Bird had said. Or even just around long enough to put a few more smiles on Callum's face. But Kestrel had never been destined to last, had she? She simply wasn't mighty enough.

It isn't over yet, a part of her whispered as she recognized just a flicker of fear on her fellow tributes' faces. You can be brave. There's still time. What will you do with it?

Kestrel's grip on the blade tightened as a strange, calm resolve flooded through her.

Something good.

With a small cry, she spun away from the other two tributes and flung the knife as far away from herself as she possibly could. It clattered against a wall and to the floor, the sound echoing like a gunshot in the enclosed space. The moments after felt like the space between lightning and a roar of thunder, heavy with an anticipatory sort of silence. Kestrel's chest was heaving with a mixture of fear and something else, something like fury but more determined, as she turned back. And then she offered a shaky, sad sort of smile.

"It was never going to be me." Her voice was soft and quivered ever so slightly, but there was something steady and solid beneath it. "I know that. I'm not stupid. And I also know..." Terror was trying to choke her, but Kestrel forced it down. "I know that it could be either of you. But one of the corpses you stand on has to be mine. And... and that's fine." She tried to laugh a little, to ease the tension and hopefully wick away some of their guilt. "Already died once, right? How bad can it be the second time?"

Be brave, little dancer. Kestrel summoned what meager grace was left in her broken body and spread her arms out wide, holding her swollen limbs taut like she was in first position for a final waltz.

"Make it quick. Do what you have to do."

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[tick 12a / calla]

He knows. I can tell by the way he looks away and recoils from me.

He knows and so do I.

"Easy now," he says, "No need for that." But my nerves feel like they're on fire and my head hurts and my hands are shaking. But I don't think it's from fear anymore. It's from something else.

"I don't know." Kenji says but he still picks up the knife at his feet. He looks like how I used to, maybe how I still do, when I tried to be something I wasn't.

Something I'm not.

"K-" I stutter out a sound, syllables clawing their way out of me and I try to ignore the way I can feel the strain on my throat,"Kenji, we-"

But the girl shifts her weight and it makes me jolt, turning in time to see her throw her knife away. I wonder if she's trying to be a martyr, or if she's just stupid. But she throws the blade and it soars, hits the far wall and clatters to the floor. The way it echoes makes me wince.

My eyes linger on the trajectory and when they come to rest where the knife is, I can feel something click. Something shifts and makes room for a memory, and then another and another. Her blade lies innocently in front of a line of alcoves, in front of a dozen little spaces carved out in the stone. And there's a potato plant sitting in one of them

"It was never going to be me." I can hear her say, but I'm still looking at the plant and it's like I can't get away from it. It's like how I couldn't get away from the ring that Ky had around his neck and the way that Opal had looked at me right before I left and the light hitting the leaves seems to get a little brighter now, a little harsher, the world turning more saturated until the walls are red and the floor is blue and my head is left spinning through a colour wheel.

I died.

I died in the cradle of the waves, I know that, I can feel that deep in my bones, and so this must be hell. This must be whatever comes next - some kind of final test because I haven't been tested enough already.

It's the eager little boy inside of me that still listens to this girl and her words. It's that little piece of me looking for approval that still burns, it holds my hand steady and stop me from lashing out. It makes me listen.

The shadows shift and when I look at her, I suddenly see Emerson in her place, but then it's gone as quickly as it came.

This is a mercy killing, I tell myself, weeding out the weak of the pack.

But I watch her extend her arms, and I hear the way her voice shakes, and I know astutely that she isn't weak. In the same way that I know I'm not weak. A little broken maybe, a little different than the rest, but not weak.

Never weak.

I watch the way she stands and the way she moves and wonder what gave her that kind of strength. I grew up around bloodlust and brute strength, snakes in the grass and sharpened canines. I thought that kind of pain was normal.

Knowing her would be a worse kind of pain, I decide, and I grip my knife a little tighter. I don't want to know her name - I can't. And maybe that makes me a coward. I don't know what I have to live for anymore anyways. Not my family. Not my name. Ky, maybe, if he'll wait that long.

I wonder what this girl has to die for.

Maybe it's fitting that I don't have my voice back quite yet. I don't know how to comfort her - I've never been very good at it.

Kenji and I look at each other, and then we look at her.

When he doesn't move, I do.

"Close your eyes." I whisper to her unsteadily, just like my mother used to, and move a little closer.

emmett attacks kestrel ; knife

yl4BUiHUEZknife

Shallow Cut on Right Thigh -- 3.5 damage

knife

[lance]

You understand now.

You understand why Patricia had called you and Lysander idiots way back when on the first day. Why even over a decade and a half later she still had demons reflected in her eyes, a haunted look etched in the lines on her face.

She was right. The Kenji back then was fucking mad.

Or maybe he was just ignorant to the ways of the Games. Back then, you thought it was merely an upgrade over your current lifestyle. You kept what made shit fun and worthwhile at a higher-stakes level, threw away what dragged you down and made you miserable, with a quick end or an worthwhile crown forged in blood at your end. They were supposed to be fun, living and dying while fighting down asshats and murderers. Ripred knew you were built for that, even if you'd never expected to go down during your first dance of sweat and iron.

But this? This wasn't what you expected. This wasn't what you signed up for. And you were so very naive to imagine otherwise.

Everyone was supposed to be like you. Like the Six boy and Jones and Ten, murder in their eyes and thirsting for blood. Fighting them was a thrill, no-namers you'd never interacted with who would die at your hands or spell out your end personally. Either way, it was a win. You would either crawl away from that fight with a few cuts on your body and murder on your name, or you would greet the eternal rest on your own terms.

This wasn't part of the plan. This wasn't in your contract. Fighting, killing, you thought you would be fine with that.

But this? This wasn't a battlefield. The girl from Nine wasn't a worthy opponent to test your mettle against. Killing her wouldn't be a victory.

It would be a slaughter.

But what choice do you have? You watch, eyes wide, hands shaking, your grip on your newfound weapon already threatening to come undone. Emmett stands in front of you, imposing. Strong. And yet even he seems shaken. Even he has a look you've never seen on a living human before reflecting in his eyes.

He knows what needs to be done, the same as you. You can see it in the glance the two of you share, deep and powerful.

"K-" Yet when he speaks, his voice seems even more broken than yours. Once again, you glance to the scar on his throat. We died to get here, and his mark was apparent. "Kenji, we-"

But whatever was supposed to come out of Emmett Le Roux's mouth, be it plea or demand or solemn regret, is cut off by the third. The girl. Who has turned and thrown her own last ditch hope of salvation away into the darkness of the cave. You watch, eyes still wide, as she turns, and the look on her face-

"It was never going to be me." So resolute, so soft, so laced with fear did her voice flutter, that you find you cannot look her in the face. Pain, shame, something you cannot name floods your cheeks as she speaks. "I know that. I'm not stupid. And I also know..."

But you can't. Something hot and foreign wells up in your eyes, something that only ever had appeared when hit with a particularly hard blow in the arena or backhanded with a tongue-lashing from your uncle in your younger days. You were stronger than this. Beyond this. You knew better than to show weakness where others could see it and capitalize.

But tears stop for no one. Tears burst open the floodgates and trickle down your cheeks as if they had a mind of their own, and even scrunching your eyes and clenching your teeth cannot save them from themselves.

This wasn't supposed to be how it was. You were never supposed to have been tasked with something like this. You were a warrior, not a butcher. You fought against those who could fight back. You weren't supposed to give mercy kills to soft, sweet girls who had no place being here.

"Already died once, right? How bad can it be the second time?"

This girl, this tribute with a warrior's spirit, is far braver than you could ever be.

"Make it quick. Do what you have to do."

Your free hand wipes the salt from your eyes, granting you a relief that would turn out to be temporary, for the wells are far from dry. You stand, your heart at war with your head - for you know what you must do, but you are not sure if you have the strength - or was it weakness? - to follow through.

Emmett moves first. And you're not sure what to do - to stop him, to feel grateful, to stab him in the back while it's turned towards you - but the blow he lands on the girl is far from crippling. Far from killing. And you realize - he cannot do this alone.

You let out a shaky exhale you did not know you were holding, form a glare through the wetness spilling over your eyelids. Then, another. Your heart might want for the three of you to go your separate ways, or perhaps defend each other until you find light. In another world, maybe that's how the tale of your life goes. So wishes your heart.

Your mind, however frazzled, is more pragmatic. You have a task at hand, a task you got yourself into. Without looking, you'd gone over the deep end into the boiling cauldron. And now, you'd have to get yourself out of it.

"Here," you murmur as you step forward, for you do not trust yourself to utter anything louder lest it turn into a choked sob. "Let me help."

To Emmett, to Nine, to yourself - even you are not quite sure who that offer is made towards.

kenji attacks kestrel; knife

FhAWRmytfsknife

2113 -- Miss -- 0.0 damage

accuracy, day three

knife

2048 -- Deep Gash on Right Bicep -- 8.0 damage

knife·knife

[Stare]

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[attr="id","roryText"]These two were not her allies. They weren't even her friends. They were strangers, built up as enemies by the Capitol, and they were going to kill her. But as she watched them, her heart thundering as if it could outrun the inevitable, she felt relieved that they would be there when she died. Her fellow tributes were not monsters, reveling in her death and taking her body as a trophy. They were kids, and she could tell that they were just as scared as she was.

"Close your eyes."

Kestrel didn't. If she had to die, she was going to do it with her eyes open, no matter what kind of hell it was that she was looking at. She tried to remain stoic as the first blade grazed across her skin, but as the second one sliced deep into her arm, almost as if he'd been trying to slice through her, she cried out and fell forward onto the ground. "Sorry," she gasped out, embarrassed and scrambling to regain her composure. "I'm s-sorry, I'll try not to - "

But she couldn't stand again. The fall had reignited the pain in her shattered shin and when she tried to shift her weight back onto her heels she only ended up crying out again, driving home how feeble and miserably inadequate she was. Her jaw clenched as she raised her gaze, determined to mask the pain with clear, unwavering resolve. What she saw made her falter.

The boy from Five was crying. Her heart twinged sympathetically, and if she could move Kestrel would have tried to brush the tears away. Even from her place on the floor she stretched out her good arm, her fingers briefly brushing against his. "Hey," she murmured, smiling up at him, "it's okay. It's all going to fine. It - it doesn't even hurt." As if to prove her lie, she drew her hand back and reached down beneath her shirt to the partially healed gash across her chest. Gritting her teeth and muffling her own scream, Kestrel dragged her nails across the wound. It broke back open like a crack of lightning against her skin.

"Th-there's nothing - " it was becoming difficult to talk through her uneven gasps, but Kestrel forced herself to steady. It's almost over, little dancer. Almost. "Nothing you could do to - to hurt me n-now."

The world was beginning to slip in and out of focus, the faces in front of her blurring. There were no colors here like there had been the first time, no swarm of music and cacophony of rainbow hues. Here, things faded into light and dark, a quiet sort of warning that her time was running out. There was something warm and damp all over her skin and Kestrel frowned, raising her gaze upward. "Rain?" She murmured, brushing her hair back to try and see past the fuzzy darkness. Why would the Gamemakers make it rain when there was no sky? "I - I used to d-dance in the rain."

That was a mistake. It was better for her to remain a stranger to her killers. Nameless, faceless, a corpse they could quickly forget and leave behind. So she steeled herself and lowered her gaze back to them, pulling herself up as tall as she could.

"I'm s-so sorry, but - you have to finish it."

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[tick 12a / calla]

I aim for her chest but my hand slips at the last second.

It was an accident. I didn't mean to draw it out or to make her suffer more than she has to. The room is just still a little unstable, my body still a little unbalanced.

It was an accident.

The girl stumbles when Kenji's blade digs into her, steadier than my own, and when she falls to her kneesI can't do anything else but watch. It feels like I'm not quite in my own body again, like I'm watching this from far away and someone else is moving my arms.

When I glance over to Kenji and the blood on his blade, his eyes are wet.

Weak, something inside me whispers, coward.

But it's hypocritical and I beat it down. I think maybe if this was yesterday, or the day before, then I'd have the same look in my eyes. I'd be crying too, hesitating just like him. But instead I just feel dried out, arid. My chest hurts but I feel blank. I can't remember if I've always been like that or not. I don't know if this is something new.

I don't think any of us truly know what's happening.

Maybe we'll get nothing from this. It could all just be some kind of cruel game, another round of entertainment, and whoever's standing at the end will be trapped in here, starving and suffocating and left to go insane in the solitude. The thought makes my heart race and my palms sweat. I can't die, not again, not here. I have to go home just to see the look on my family's face when it's me that knocks on the door.

I need to prove that they were wrong, or maybe that they were right. Because I'm not quite Le Roux, but I'm not quite an outsider either. I'm stuck in that little pocket of underbrush in-between the two, toeing the line dangerously.

I don't know which way I'm supposed to fall.

But "Let me help." Kenji had said, like he was doing the both of us a favour, and I almost told him to back the fuck off. I had suddenly felt so much like my mother in that moment that it made me stop. I didn't even notice the keening sound coming from the girl on the floor.

She tears at her wound and it rips me back to the present. There's suddenly so much red. It falls from her and gathers on the floor, pools under our feet and I'm drowning all over again. And I think she is too, because "It doesn't ever hurt." she says but I recognize the lie for what it is.

Because that's the thing - I think it's easier to lie to yourself than it is to lie to someone else. You can make yourself believe anything if you really try.

I listen to the way she babbles, about the rain and dancing and I'm suddenly glad that when I died the first time it was quick. I don't know what I would do if I was like this - holding on to a final breath, delirious and shaking, making a fool of myself. My pride is too twisted up inside of me, wrapped too tightly around the knobs of my spine, and I think I'd waste away without it.

But then I look down at the way my hands tremble and wonder if I'm already halfway there.

"It's okay." I say a bit stronger, pretending to have the courage I need to stand above her, except I don't know if I mean it or not. I don't know what's happening to me. It's like trying to calm a wild animal after they've been spooked, or like trying to contain a cyclone, I can't pin down the reason why. "Don't move, it's okay."

I spill a lie into the space between us, letting it hang there so I can focus on it instead of the look on her face. "I'll help you dance again."

emmett attacks kestrel ; knife

W0oLJoJByeknife

Stabbed in Bicep -- 8.5 damage

knife

[lance]

It's hard to focus. Harder to execute, both literally and figuratively. A quick death means skewering someone in the eye or the chest, piercing a vital organ to grant the gift of death. It's quick, almost painless - you'd say that'd be how you'd want to die, but you've already been killed once and you can't say you enjoyed the experience.

Perhaps that's why your grip loosens, your aim falters, why your blade tears into the girl's outstretched arm instead of sinking into her chest. You can't - you can't fucking do this, and a new wave of tears blurs your vision as you stumble away.

But you wipe the offending brine away, notice Emmett's look of indigence - annoyance at your presence? Anger at trying to claim his kill? Relief he was too proud to show openly? - notice Nine's gasps of barely concealed pain as she tears open not a freshly drawn wound, but one scarred over through accelerated healing - and you can't help but gasp alongside her as blood pours freely, as the mark of her first death merges with the crimson of her second.

"Rain?" Even her last words, weakened by the onset of a second death, cut deeply into your skin. "I - I used to d-dance in the rain."

A girl like that had no place being here. No place dying here. She wasn't some hardened fighter like you or Emmett or half the cast that had volunteered to find a life or death connected to the arena. The least that could be done would be to offer her mercy, but you were too goddamned weak-

Emmett steps up to finish what you cannot, and like a puppet with its strings cut, the dancer girl from Nine collapses to the ground. The girl from Nine, someone who had a full life ahead of her back in her home - someone who likely brought pride and joy to whomever had been blessed to meet her outside of this godforsaken tomb. You knew the girls like her back home, the ones kind of heart and soft of skin but fierce of spirit and strong of will. You'd always admired them from afar. Envied them, too.

But there was nothing enviable about this fate. She deserved one far better, one outside of this world where she could live and thrive and dance to her heart's content. And you wonder just what kind of person had condemned her to a fate beneath the surface of the earth in the first place.

You decide that if you survive, if you escape to live and see the sunlight again, that there will be two things that you do. The first will be to look into the sky, see her face amongst the stars, and commit her name to memory. The second will be to figure out just what fucker that still walks above the ground sent her to the tomb and ensure that you send him to hell with your own two hands - twice, if it becomes necessary.

It's less than she deserves. Good souls like her deserve so much more than that. But it's all that a boy like you can give.

Your breathing slows, and another hand wipes away the twin waterfalls coating your face with the promise of rain. Rain. Emmett still stands, over the body of the girl, and icy needles prick your heart as you realize what the implications are.

Nothing happened, which means that either the purpose of the gathering was entirely misinterpreted, or - not enough blood had been spilled.

You weren't the brightest bulb in the shed, but you weren't entirely forgetful. Most tributes turned and fled at the prospect of a single death, not willing to risk any more in what was not a sprint but a marathon. But sometimes, it took more than one to cause panic. To satiate the bloodthirst of the savages who got off to this sort of shit from behind their television screens.

And as the seconds pass and nothing happens, you realize that this isn't the end. This is just the beginning.

And you're fucked. Utterly, irrevocably, completely fucked. Starting from ground zero, there isn't a damned thing that you have that Emmett Le Roux has you beat. Size, strength, training, determination - hell, even ruthlessness, if the fact that his blade was the one that had ended the girl from Nine while yours had only drawn forth pain.

But the ice melts away to a smoldering inferno deep within your core. No. This was familiar territory. This was what you had signed up for. Slaughtering innocent girls who had no right being here was not part of the plan.

But fighting against the best that Panem could offer? Living, breathing, even dying by the will of the battle? That was where you were home.

"Emmett, I-" you speak, before you close your mouth. Now was not the time for words. Now was not the time for platitudes or heartfelt emotions or reluctance or even a goddamned speech. Every second you wasted was another one that the Career boy from One could turn against you.

"Fight dirty." Patricia's words echoed through your skull even now. Fighting the way the Careers do would end in your death. So instead, you'd have to fight the way you did. Fight the way that Kenji Nakamura knew best.

So you grip your knife, stare the other boy right in the eye, and then you move.

And as you swing, another thought shoves Patricia's out of the way, lighting up your eyes with the fires of the soul.

Today is a good day to die.

Again.

kenji attacks emmett; knife

yTWERypkrgknife

2157 -- Block -- 0.0 damage

knife

[tick 12a / calla]

My knife tears into her and the sound sears itself into my brain.

Because I've never -

I've never killed anything before.

I don't think I've even seen anyone die either. Not in person.

But I watch the way she falls and wonder why it feels like there's something hollow inside of me. I take in the echo of her last sigh and wonder why this doesn't feel quite real.

Maybe it isn’t. This could just be some fabrication that my dying brain created, like a last hurrah, because I thought there would be more pomp and circumstance to dying, or something dramatic, like a huge crashing sound as the world crumbled, but there's just an eerie sort of stillness instead.

And I guess that makes sense. If this is some elaborate day-dream then it makes sense that my reactions are muted and it makes sense that the body falls to the ground so much slower than usual. I don't have any experience to draw from and my consciousness is just skipping over those parts, filling in the blanks with something temporary. The absence in my chest could just be because my body doesn't know what to put there instead.

The rational part of me knows that it doesn't make sense. Why would this be my last swan song? But the desperate part of me grabs onto it, holds it tight and keeps it close. Blaming this emptiness on a false memory is easier than trying to face what it actually is. Killing fragments of my imagination is easier than killing something real.

But either way, I think both Kenji and I hold our breath when the girl falls. I stand still and blink down at her body long enough for her blood to seep into the soles of my boots and stain my skin. The sight of it makes the room spin a little.

And I can feel Kenji's eyes on me then, because he's not an idiot.

The light glints red off of my knife when I glance down at it.

I guess I've always been underhanded, it's a role that I shrink and settle back into like a tide returning to the sea. Before this moment, before waking up, I thought I'd never have to find the comfort in it again. I thought I could seal that part of me away and gild it over with gold. Because I was a career, a Le Roux, and that meant I had to act like it.

I don't know what I am anymore.

But I look at this boy in front of me, this boy who's still crying and who still seems irrevocably real and I try to make myself feel anything other than broken pity.

"Get out of my way, Kenji." I tell him softly, something wolfish stuck in my throat,, “You don’t want to do this.”

But he moves, like anyone else would, and I guess I went through career training for a reason because it feels automatic when I I bring my blade up to his own and hear the clang of metal on metal. I push him back and taste saltwater, see a starburst of white light and hear a gunshot. I don't know if I'm fighting back because it's what I want to do or because it's what I'm supposed to do.

In some twisted way, I think they're the same thing.

I need this to end before the gravity of what I've done hits me and I can't move anymore. I want to go home. I want to rest. I want this illusion to be over, I want to know who I am.

I don't think he can tell me that though, not here, not now. It's something I have to find out for myself.

I look for it in the way the shadows move against his face, in his stance and in his weapon and in his heartbeat. I look for it in the blood.

emmett attacks kenji ; knife

ujZ_5Uw81wknife

Shallow Cut on Left Calf -- 3.5 damage

knife

[lance]

It's easy. Too easy. Not for you to sink your blade into the other boy's flesh, but for him to bring his own weapon to stop yours in a metal clang. And for a moment, an eternity, or maybe just a second, you stand there. Face to face, gaze to gaze, your own surprise mixed with grief while something conflicting floods through his.

And then you back away, reflexes fast but not enough to avoid shedding blood, as a strike down low cuts into the flesh of your leg. And it hits you just how tired you are, just how fatigued you were, the memory that moments ago you were fucking dead sinking in.

And Emmett Le Roux stands before you, tall, imposing, resolute. The kind of fighter you always dreaded going up against in the ring because you knew you were going to get your ass handed to you. There, it meant bruises and bloody noses and a few days' worth of rest. Here? Well, you already knew all too well what it meant here.

"Get out of my way, Kenji." And Ripred above, how so very badly you want to. How so very much you want to go your separate ways, or hell, fight through to the surface with him at your side because in Emmett Le Roux from District One, you found something of a kindred spirit. One night on a rooftop in the middle of the Capitol felt so very far away right now, but if there was one thing you had picked up from your life on the streets, it was reading just what lay beneath the skin of the people you met.

And in Emmett, you find something opposite yet similar. A wealth of privilege no doubt heaped upon him by his cousin's victory, and the weight of responsibility that must have come with it. The street arenas of Five are not the Career academies of One, and yet they're damn near similar enough - taking in kids with no other lot in life than the one forced upon them, chewing them up, and spitting them out, whether they be broken shell or solid stone.

In another life, you could have been friends.

In this one, there's no other method except death. His or yours - another corpse to add to the pile either way.

“You don’t want to do this.” And you nod. You agree, and then you speak it.

"You're right. I don't." The admission is easy to spill yet catches in your throat all the same, the aftereffects of a long-suppressed emotion still wreaking havoc on your mind. "What I want is for us to lower our blades and go our own separate ways and hope we never meet each other again because anything else scares the shit out of me." He swallows. "This scares the shit out of me."

You'd told yourself that when the time came, you'd greet Death with open arms. But you'd felt their embrace once already, and as more time passes without those icy fingers around your heart, the less sure you were that was what you still wanted.

The girl from Nine really was the bravest out of all of us, huh.

Your free hand gestures, first to the boy, then to the tomb around you. "But what other choice do I have? Do we have?" It's rhetorical, for Emmett knows the game - the real game, not the one put on for show - just as well as you do. "I don't see any other way out. Do you?"

You drop into a stance, one honed by years of practice. Only this time, your left wrist is clutched around something sharp and shiny. "I may not want this, Emmett, but I'm not Nine. I'm not going down without a fight."

Brave words for a boy who had mangled a dead girl and utterly failed to harm the boy who still stood in his way.

But brave words require a brave mask. So despite everything, you plaster on your best smirk - a little lopsided, a little ingenuine, for fear still twinkles in your eyes for all the world to see - and fall into the rhythm.

"So, let's have ourselves a little fun."

You lunge forward, and silver flashes against the dank air.

"Shall we?"

kenji attacks emmett; knife

rcOQbz4NJrknife

2014 -- Deep Gash on Back -- 8.5 damage

knife

[tick 12a / calla]

He surges forward and we both tumble to the ground. And it’s when I’m rolling, trying to get away from him, trying to get back on my feet, that the pain comes.

His blade catches on my shoulder blade and digs in, drawing a line of fire when I keep moving and he doesn't. I breathe through the way it burns and aches, gritting my teeth at how I can feel blood soak through the white of my shirt.

It’s the first real thing I’ve felt since I woke up here.

I feel like I'm slowly gaining awareness again, because everything was hazy before, I can barely remember coming across Malachi's statue just like I can barely remember pulling myself out of the little alcove. I look into Kenji's eyes through this pain and think about the two of us sitting on the roof together, watching the world turn for a few precious minutes and find my footing again.

"This scares the shit out of me." He says and I know, I almost tell him, it should. This should scare you because it scares me too.

But he's talking too much and every single part of me hurts. The numbness of my throat is starting to wear off now, a sickening kind of pain creeping in to where the stitches line up.

We don't have a choice, I agree with him, because neither of us is going to back down now. Not when we're so close.

"I'm not going down without a fight." Kenji continues, and I respect him for it, I really do, but all I can focus on is the way he had said Nine. Because I can see her body out of the corner of my eye, lying so still, and feel the beginnings of guilt trickle in. I didn't even know her district.

"Fun." I echo. And I think it makes me angry. The nonchalant of it. There's a dead girl at my feet and a chasm in my chest and he thinks that this is fun.

I told myself I would've run away to Four and lived by the ocean if I didn't have to be a career. And it's a sudden realization, a pin drop -

I could've been anything if my family's name hadn't been so stifling. I don't think I would've been a fighter. I don't think I would've been cruel like this. I'd just be Emmett, or maybe Adrian again, not a Le Roux but someone else, someone better.

Maybe Kenji would've been a fighter either way, no matter who he was or where he was born, but I think I would've been different.

I like to think I would've been different.

I like to think that maybe I would've have been this much of an idiot either, because I suddenly get in Kenji's space, in his face, close enough feel the heat off of him and I don't know where this sudden fire came from but it's there and it's slowly eating away at me when I stand in front of his knife.

It's right there, so close, above my heart where I swear I can hear it beat in double time, "Do it then," I say, barely a whisper, glass in my throat and I swear I taste copper, "Do it and then tell me how fun this is."

And this was what I was taught - that I'm strong and he's weak, I'm gold and he's silver. My mother's lessons ring in my head, snake in the grass, little lion, and I think I'm realizing that this is all I have. This wild thing that sleeps in my bones as all I am.

emmett attacks kenji ; knife

qqcA_Kt_KAknife

Severed Thumb on Left Hand -- 8.5 damage

knife

[lance]

It's easier than you would have expected to get behind the boy. Stick your blade into his shoulder, tear down - it's like with the girl, but instead of sickening, it's almost satisfying. Like landing one good hit on a bigger, tougher opponent square in the kisser before he beats you into a pulp.

Emmett doesn't go down so easily just because you land a decent hit on him for once, though. You wouldn't really expect anything less from the boy who's managed to live with the weight on his shoulders for as long as he has. Just because you got in one lucky shot doesn't negate the other advantages that the boy has against you.

But you fight. You bleed. You revel in the thrill for just a moment, and if you die - well, at this point, you guess it would be unavoidable.

"Fun." Your own word echoes in the other boy's mouth as he turns to face your new position. And you can see the gears turning and wonder just what it was about what you said that has affected the other boy so-

-and then he's close again. Too close, the kind of close where the dank tomb air is overwhelmed by the other boy's body heat, the kind of close that you might make when you were playing a game of chicken with a foe, daring them to strike point blank only so you could knock them on their ass, the kind of close that, well...

You swallow, for the second time finding yourself looking up at a boy whose own regard for personal boundaries feels somewhat lacking. Once, you might not have complained so much. But right now, it takes every bundle of steel-encased nerve in your system to not cower back and hide behind a rock.

"Do it then," he whispers, whether by choice or by necessity you cannot tell. "Do it and then tell me how fun this is."

And then he swings and you're stupid, so so stupid because there's no possible way to dodge or even block such a blow at point blank. If this was hand to hand then maybe you'd have stood a chance, but trying to stop a blade with nothing but your bare hand is the worst kind of choice you could have possibly made and oh god oh fuck-

White fire erupts in your right hand, a scream echoes through the tomb, and you stumble back in shock, in fear, in agony as a new chasm for your lifeblood to escape from is opened up in your flesh. But unlike above ground, unlike with Six, this is no simple tear in your flesh - this was a goddamned separation of limb from core.

Even if that limb was simply a finger, simply an ounce of flesh and blood and bone that has now plopped onto the tomb floor as a crimson waterfall pumps from where steel had met your being and won out. Your scream peters out into a choked gasp as autopilot takes over from rational instinct, your free hand is buried into the white cloth of your outfit in an attempt to stem the flow, snowy fabric stained red in the process.

Dimly, you understand, moreso than you did with Nine. At the end of the day, you're nothing more than a sacrificial lamb for the glory of the Capitol.

You never did much like the pageantry and fakeness of all of that sort of shit. How ironic that you would die, not as a fighter, not as a lion, but as a lamb.

Gradually, the pain ebbs. The blood flow slows to a trickle, and as the first dredges of your sanity begin to flee from your head in the delirium that was oh-so familiar, the delirium of blood loss that comes when you're taking the steps down to Death's door, you look at the boy from One and grin. Or try to, before the pain wipes it away with a shuddering wince.

"S-sorry to break it t-to you, pal," you manage, choking the words out through the waves of pain. "But I g-grew up in the poverty line back home. I'm no stranger to watching Death work their m-magic from afar."

With one more deep breath, you release both hands from your shirt, the knuckles on your whole hand turning white from the force of your grip on your blade. And as you clench your teeth, you look at the boy from One, wondering just who managed to send him down to this purgatory at the same time as you. Perhaps it was an army, or a pack of mutts, because one thing is for damned sure - you never stood a chance in hell.

"A-and maybe killing isn't fun. Maybe t-there's no difference between slaughtering an innocent girl from Nine or k-killing someone like you in the heat of b-battle." There's no hiding the pained look on your face, physical or otherwise. "B-but I've been at Death's doorstep already. Just like you."

Your breathing steadies. Your focus narrows.

"A-and the prospect of becoming a murderer doesn't scare me half as m-much as returning there so soon."

You grin a lopsided grin, but again, only for a second.

"So come on, Career." And though you treat the word as a description instead of a spit of venom like so many of your lower-district peers, there's no denying the extra emphasis you place on it regardless. "Don't t-tell me you've never enjoyed the thrill of the fight before."

You lunge, a dying man's hail mary against impossible odds.

This was how you were meant to die - a warrior's spirit burning bright within you, a snarl on your lips and the fear and thrill of the fight overwhelming the stench of immediate death.

A dead man walking you might be, but you'll hold onto those last few moments of life with as tight a grip as your opponent will allow.

kenji attacks emmett; knife

HjRKVvXGBOknife

2133 -- Deep Gash on Left Bicep -- 8.0 damage

knife

[tick 12a / calla]

His thumb falls to the ground and I watch a river of red follow it. There's a scream that echos off of the walls but I don't really register it as coming from him. It pierces through the cotton in my skull, leaves a shattering in its wake and I can't do anything but stand here and let it. His chatter becomes background noise and I try to focus on it but the air fizzles and cracks and I stumble sideways from the strain on my back.

I feel warm all over again, as warm as I had felt with Ky when I'd fallen asleep listening to the sound of his breathing and the gentle feeling of a sea breeze.

I made an empty promise to him. Because I told Ky that I would come back, and we would have another sunset together, a real one this time, but even back then I couldn't say if I'd actually be able to do it. I know I'll be different if I go back. In the same way that I know I'm different now. I have the blood of two people on my hands, the life of one, and if I die, I have to die with that.

And if I live, well, then I have to live with that too.

I'd always felt like a rejection, or a consolation prize. Mom had Emerson, five other children, her pick of nieces and nephews, and so she didn't need me. I was just something extra that came along and ruined the family. I'd always felt red when they were blue, like the weeds in sidewalks cracks, like I didn't belong.

The only time I'd felt like someone accepted me was with Ky, because he saw me, and I saw him, and we existed in that space together until I had to leave. Every piece of me that he touched felt different, cleansed, and I stare down at my hands now, where the blood flakes off and settles like rust, and try to imagine myself whole again.

I thought he had taken what made me weak. I thought he had drawn out that secret little part of me that I'd always kept hidden but I know now that it's the opposite. He took the best parts of me, I gave them to him, and now I'm left as this wild shaking thing, backed into a corner and slowing down from blood loss.

I tear my gaze away from the pools on the floor long enough to see Kenji grin. Maybe we're both going insane.

Maybe there's no difference between slaughtering an innocent girl from Nine or killing someone like you.

He's right and he's wrong. The principle is the same but the circumstance isn't. I think it would be easier to kill someone like me.

When I try to say something to him there's just a terrible choking sound instead. I cough and splutter and spit up the blood in my throat, feel my breath catch when the liquid there makes it feel like I'm drowning all over again. Because I can't breathe, and for a horrible second I think that I've ripped my stitches, or that the internal bleeding has started up again and the edges of my vision turn a little darker through the panic.

I shouldn't have said anything, I should've have even tried to talk when I wasn't even healed fully. I should've just attacked and cut them down and been the thing that I was supposed to be.

A sharp pain suddenly shoots through my neck and I raise a hand to it, terrified that I'll find the skin there open again, gaping like something out of a nightmare. Because that's all this is, it's just a nightmare that I can't wake up from and a set of circumstances that I can't understand.

Career, I can hear Kenji saying, and the word bounces around in my head, leaving an imprint everywhere it hits, career career career career.

He's right and he's wrong.

We're less human and more animal now, circling each other. But he lunges first and I can feel the burn of my mistake. My arms cries out and I gasp, shifting and twisting and trying to cradle it to my chest.

"I-" But it gets broken off and I'm suddenly rasping through a mouthful of blood, gurgling and feeling it spill from the corners, "There's no thrill," I get out eventually, "I made a promise." I have to keep it.

He's a fighter, but I'm a career.

I can feel the blood on my teeth.

emmett attacks kenji ; knife

yxclHHw8zKknife

Shallow Cut on Back of Head -- 4.5 damage


pts re-roll

knife

Shallow Cut on Left Forearm -- 3.5 damage

knife·knife