where does the good go — lysander & terra [day 8]

[gamemaker tallis 🧚🏽‍♂️kaitlin.]

When you wake, you wish that you hadn't.

You remember trying to will your body to get back up, remember being there, on your knees looking up at the boy who wanted you to know beyond knowing that he was not there to die for you anymore than you were there to die for him, and he'd been asking you a question, but then his knife was pointed right at your neck and you were lifting your hand to try and stop it with whatever strength you had left and suddenly the sharp of the blade was dug all the way through your forearm and—

The memory is hazy after that, softly blurred, like the edges of an oncoming rainstorm.

You remember the boy rummaging around your body, your breath so shallow that you doubt he even realized that you were still breathing. You remember trying to tell either of your hands, still loosely gripped around your dual misericords, to just fucking move, swing, bury a knife in the boys carotid, but you don't move fast enough and sooner than later he takes what he wants from you and goes to find whoever it is that he is willing to die for.

Then you were alone.

You don't know if that makes you angry or if it makes you want to weep or if it makes you want to put your fucking skull into a lit fire, but—you were alone. And you feel something about that, something that feels all too much like drowning. You remember it feeling like a slow motion suicide, the life slowly fading out of you, every moment you didn't get up, didn't keep fighting feeling like a choice, like something that you were doing to yourself. A terrible choice you were making, a decision to die instead of getting up, pushing through the pain and the blood loss, to make your way back to JJ, letting him have your final breaths. It's all you wanted, the one thing that you knew beyond even how to breathe that you had to do in this life to finally become the person that you think maybe you were supposed to be all along.

You close your eyes again, think that somewhere in the back of your head you can remember a flash of white light, something bright and horrible and so clearly out of place in this arena that you didn't even want to look more closely. It was too sterile, too clean, too much like the place you came from back in Six. Sharp lines and clean cut wires, and a feeling of being strapped down to a table—no, maybe that one was real.

Either way, you want to burn the memory from your brain, want to burn away the brightness.

You decided days ago that you were never going to go back to that place, that you were never going to go home, that you weren't in here to fight for your own life anymore. The second you watched JJ kill someone for the first time, watched the way it haunted him, hung on his shoulders and threatened to turn him into someone that you don't think he deserves to be, you knew. You were never going to go back to Six.

And now, all over again, you are a girl where you are supposed to be, and yet, not.

It takes you a long moment to fully realize that your eyes are open again, your brain pain addled and confused. The darkness is all-encompassing, suffocating in a way that you don't fully expect darkness to be except it's like there's nothing but you and the dark, wrapped all around you, boxing you in and keeping you there. You knew, of course, that tributes were coming back, but you didn't give much thought to the how of it all, didn't think about the where of it. You'd taunted that boy yesterday, listened to Perdita tell Kenji that he was a corpse walking around on two feet, but you hadn't fully understood.

Laying there, feeling like you're suffocating, you can feel every nerve ending in your body setting itself on fire, unable to comprehend a world in which you are both dead and alive and still completely, utterly, without doubt, a failure of a girl. Your entire body tries to clench, your stomach rolling into knots until you're thrashing in your box of stone, elbows bashing painfully into the walls, your forehead smashing into the ceiling as you try and right yourself. You can feel your knees scrape, your heels push. You wonder if you could actually suffocate in here, if there's any airflow, anywhere for the light to seep in.

You wonder if this is how they decide who gets to come back.

You wonder if Helle died here, suffocated.

The thought makes you want to stop fighting.

Tears start to streak down your face, run down your temples until you become less a girl and more a scream, a full-bodied and high pitched thing that takes over your every sense. You scream and scream and scream until there's no more air left in your lungs, and then you scream again. It's only the thought of JJ still out there, alone and probably with Perdita right at his throat, makes you finally reanimate, a corpse turned—not quite a girl. But something; a walking death. At some point, you think that maybe you actually do run out of air and pass out all over again, because between one scream and the next, you're just sobbing. Silent, heaving sobs that wrack through your entire body until physically beating into the stone above your head is all you can do to make them stop, a physical outlet of all your pain and anger built into one single motion, made over and over. You feel your knuckles split, ripped raw and bloody, and your nails shred as you claw at the stone.

You drop to the floor of your tomb gracelessly, clatter to the ground into a pile of limbs and dust. It's only then that you realize someone has seen fit to change you out of you black attire, only then that you realize they decided you were to be resurrected as an angel instead of a demon. Somewhere, you're sure, Kingpin is laughing at the idea.

If he's even watching.

You can't be sure he would be bothered.

Either way, it doesn't matter much. In all your desperate attempts to free yourself from the box of death, you've nearly ruined your new clothes. There are scratched holes at the knees, dirt and dust covering almost every inch. Blood stains already crusting along all the edges where you have shredded yourself into bits and pieces. You crawl away from the scene of your death, from the scene of your rebirth, crawl backwards awkwardly away in a desperate attempt to free yourself of yet another cage that you've been locked in.

You never expected death to be a cage you got to free yourself from, and yet, here you are. Clumsily, you try and pull yourself to a stand, but as you do you nearly fall down all over again. You have to lean your weight against the wall, fight against the buckling in your knees that wants to send you once and for all into your grave. JJ, you think, the name ringing in your brain over and over and over again. I have to get back to JJ.

You stumble through the hallways, try not to let your eyes linger on any one thing for a moment too long. Maybe you're afraid of what you're going to find down there, afraid that you're going to see something that makes you want to stay, something that makes you want to die more than you want to find JJ and finish this game, make sure that anyone who looks at him ends up with a slit throat. You stumble past a mural of dancers, refuse to let your eyes linger on the lithe shape of the bodies, the limbs so far stronger than yours are ever going to be again. A set of tusks, ready to rip you into shreds even further, a skeleton come to life.

You're scared of how you relate.

It's in a room of sunflowers that you finally come to a stop. You aren't sure if it's the flowers or the girl that finally gets you to stop, aren't sure if it's the idea of these beautiful things trapped down here forever, or if it's the sight of Lysander that finally does you in all over again. You don't know why, but suddenly there are hot tears streaking down your cheeks and you vomit finally, all bile and nothing else. Your sick splatters onto your shoes and you want to just curl into yourself, want everything to fucking end and for nothing to be real, for all of this to be some sick variety of hell that you know you earned and deserve, but—a hell that will end.

You start to laugh.

"So you're dead then?" you say, voice manic and horrible and broken. "All of that, the almost-friendship, the death, us killing each other slowly—all of that just to meet each other as dead versions of ourselves." You inhale, sharp, can't stop the manic way you're laughing, the way you think maybe you're falling apart. "Rebirth isn't a very good look on us."

{ table by rose }

[gamemaker sloane ♕ kaяi ♕]

Darkness.

It surrounds her on all sides. With each breath she takes it grows closer and closer, threatening to suffocate her completely. The pressure on her chest grew until it eventually took over.

And there was no more room left to breathe.

Ever since her sister's death, the dead have had a tendency to plague her dreams. Hazel, her grandad, and sometimes even the faces of the innocents who walked into father's office, but never walked back out. In the arena it grew worse and the dreams turned to nightmares. It stared with just nights filled with Hazel, but then there was Helle, and Cyro, and Meredith. Last night Arabella was there, but she was faint, a mere mirage in her own deathly slumber. Maybe it meant that she was still alive, that she had resurfaced from the underground and her life was only half gone. She would not let herself consider the alternative.

The thought of failing her would bring her to her knees.

Lysander woke with a loud gasp, desperate for the air she was so long deprived of. She expected it to be fresh, rejuvenating, but instead it tasted damp and stale. There was nothing around her besides dirt and stone shadowed by darkness. The memories of yesterday were blurry, but the last moments of her life were on repeat.

"Tell me Will Johnwayne. Do you like to watch people suffer?"

"No. Not even you."

He hurled his final knife at her and in the blink of an eye it had plunged itself deep into her heart. The pain had radiated throughout her body like a slow burning fire taking over. It started at the knife and slowly spread throughout her legs and arms, her fingers and her toes, until there was no part without pain. In one last desperate action she had reached up in a feeble attempt to pull the knife from her chest. But her hand fell.

And then there was nothing.

Instinctively, her fingers reached up to her heart searching for the knife that should be puncturing it, but it was no longer there. Her hands shook as she pulled them away. That's when she realized the one was no longer metal and her breathing began to grow shallow. She had never been claustrophobic, but her breath came in gasps and she knew she had to find a way out of this coffin. She dropped her shoulder and braced for the pain before using all of her force to take the stone lid down and tumbling to the ground. For a minute she did not move.

Reality seemed to escape her.

The white outfit that they had taken the time to dress her in instead of her old butchered robe was already covered in dirt. Parts of it were left pure, but meeting the ground hand already ruined it. She couldn't imagine how harsh her blood would look against the pure white. She forced herself up and brushed off her new look to the best of her ability. The knife in her hands shone magnificently as if it did not belong in this world. She used the blade to examine her face. They had removed and trace of blood, any trace of damage that the other tributes may have left. Carefully, she pushed the sleeve down on her shoulder where her new arm was attached. Not even the smallest scar remained.

Lysander was born again.

And she would be damned if she let Death conquer her again this time.

She cautiously made her way through the caverns unsure of who, or even what she may face in this place. Her fingers gripped cautiously around the hilt of her knife, her only lifeline.

If you can even still consider her alive.

Too afraid to keep still for too long, too afraid that Death might hunt her down again. Lysander is determined to keep moving, but a cavern catches her attention. It's filled to the edges with sunflowers, very much alive in such a dreary place. No sign of sunlight or water, but they still managed to thrive in such a deadly place. No matter how loudly her instincts told her to run, she paused, running her fingers over their soft petals. She closed her eyes to remember a better time, a better place, and that's when she heard it.

"All of that, the almost-friendship, the death, us killing each other slowly—all of that just to meet each other as dead versions of ourselves."

She did not need to look to know exactly who's voice rang throughout the room. It was someone who she knew well. A girl, who maybe in another life she could be friends with.

But not here.

"I have your Career friend to thank for that Terra."

Her fingers remained on the sunflower petals, silently counting them one by one. Even though her blood boiled and she could feel the rage threatening to be released, her voice remained calm.

"Rebirth isn't a very good look on us."

"No, not at all. But I think I would much rather this," Finally she allowed her eyes to meet the other girls. Tears were fresh on her cheeks and some were still falling. Terra Markov was deteriorating. "Than the alternative."

Death had finally come knocking.

But Lysander was too afraid to let Him in.

{ table by rose }

[gamemaker tallis 🧚🏽‍♂️kaitlin.]

The first thing you do when she speaks is clench your fists.

It isn't because you're angry that she's here, not really—you certainly know that Lysander isn't the person you would choose to see first upon your resurrection.

I have your Career friend to thank for that Terra.

It isn't lost on you, the irony.

"Will?" you ask, eyebrows furrowing together. It does something to you that you don't want to talk about, the knowledge that he is still out there, still alive. Somewhere in the back of your head, you hate him for leaving you, hate him even more for leaving JJ, but you can feel your heart creeping up your throat. Tears don't well in your eyes this time, think that maybe you've shed the one's that you had left, but you can still feel where the old ones have started to dry on your skin, the places across your cheeks made tight by salt and water. "He's alive out there?"

The salt still clings to your lashes, making them heavy.

Meeting Lysander here, surrounded on all sides by flowers, things come to life in spite of, well, everything. It isn't what you imagined for yourself, but somehow it feels worth it, if only for the knowledge that a boy you hate to love is still out there in the world, blade in hand, facing death and coming out on the other side.

Not a hero, not even kind.

But alive.

That, at the very least, is all you ever wanted for Will. A chance to become something else, to live a life that isn't the one the world tried to force him into.

But I think I would much rather this than the alternative, she says, and you can't help but wonder if that's true, wonder if you are better as a corpse than you are as—whatever you were before. Not quite a girl, not quite a weapon, but something not quite right, something not quite all there. Is this version of yourself really better than death? A broken and bruised thing that didn't even think to look for a weapon before you went stumbling through the halls of your tomb? Nearly every part of you wants to protest Lysander's words, wants to turn your back on this girl and just run in the other direction, run away from the sunflowers and the beauty in the darkness, run away from your second chance at some kind of life and just be done.

This is not what you have been working towards for the last two weeks, not the girl that you have been trying to turn yourself into, but something about rebirth has turned you inside out, taken every ounce of strength that you might have once had and—you dig your nails into your palms so sharply that you think maybe you feel blood, feel the sting of it like holding your hand over an open flame and you will it to be a distraction.

It doesn't matter if the alternative is peace, doesn't matter if the alternative sets you free from the cage you created for yourself in your head. Rebirth is what you were given, and somewhere out there, JJ needs those final breaths that you promised him.

You try and make yourself properly stand, but you're woozy, blood crusting in your hairline. There are droplet of the red all over you, crimson against dirtied white, and you know that you're a disaster on two only barely functioning legs, but you still take a step towards Lysander. At this point, you're pretty sure that there's no running from the thing that this world seems to want you to be, no running from the life that Kingpin tried to create for you. You can't help it though—"No allies left to die for you, Lys," you say, try and swallow down your words, but they are venom right at the tip of your tongue and you succumb to them more even than you're sure Lysander will. You have always been too jagged edged, too ruined, and this is not the moment you get put back together better than before.

If anything, you think maybe you're worse.

"Do you—what about JJ?" you're being delirious, your train of thought in shambles, but you can't help but ask if she knows. You aren't ready to fight her yet though, need just another moment. Eternity, if she'll give it to you. "Do you know if he's still out there?"

{ table by rose }

[gamemaker sloane ♕ kaяi ♕]

Forgiveness.

It had never been one of her strong suits. She had been terrible at forgiving her bothers ever since they were younger. They would play the silliest pranks, some that were even dangerous, some that could get them killed. Hyram found them amusing, but whenever the two drug Lysander into their childish games she grew furious and often ended up hurt. Mother always told her forgiveness was key.

But even now she still held a grudge.

The only person she had a soft spot for was Hazel. The way her eyes would plead with her when she accidentally ruined her favorite dress or tracked mud through her room. It was impossible to stay mad, and she never quite could. When she died, the small amount of forgiveness she could find in her soul went with her. Hyram held her anger and hatred for a long time, but now a new name was about to take his place.

Will.

The name insinuates rage as it falls from Terra's tongue. He had shown her mercy, and she hated him for it. A few days ago, she would have been begging him for the sweet release of death, but somehow watching other's fall before her eyes changed her mind. As much as she would have welcomed Him in the beginning, but now that she had experienced His pain she had no intentions of meeting Him again. Lysander wanted will to meet Death face to face, to feel His pain.

And she promised herself she would be the one to do it.

"He's alive out there?"

"Last I saw as his dagger plunged into my heart, yes. Right now? Someone else may have found him, who knows," she said with a shrug. Her words were ice cold and distant as she spoke about the boy. Terra was concerned for his life, even when it ultimately meant her death. It was interesting how things worked in a place full of darkness. How they trusted others and let themselves feel, even when they all knew it could only end in disaster and heartbreak.

"No allies left to die for you, Lys,"

A cold harsh laugh left her lips and she took a step closer to the girl at the other end of the cave of flowers.

"You seem to have lost all yours too, so I think that makes it even."

Terra's words stung almost as much as Will's knives from the day before. They had died in front of her eyes Cyro and Bella, Meredith had been a dead girl walking when she left her. They had died for her. Not because she asked, not because she had hoped, but because that is how the cards were dealt.

And she was not sure if she was angry or if she was thankful.

"Do you—what about JJ? Do you know if he's still out there?"

"He seems like he can take care of himself. But only one of us can come out alive Terra. So who will it be? You, or them?"

Terra Markov had killed Arabella Shirley.

Lysander does not forgive.

And she most certainly does not forget.

{ table by rose }

[gamemaker tallis 🧚🏽‍♂️kaitlin.]

You know that you don't have time to sit here and try to reflect about how you feel, don't have time to sit and think about who you were and who you are and what this place has made you become, whether or not it's who you were supposed to be or if maybe there is no version of a person's self that they are meant to be. There's just a collection of choices that everyone makes and they're the sum whole of a person's life. No fate. No destiny. Just who you love and who loves you, the people you would die for and the people you would kill for.

The life you choose, and the one that you don't.

But, still—someone else may have found him, Lysander says, and all over again you can feel yourself spiraling. If somehow you make it out of here, you're going to wonder why you didn't scream louder. Your heart feels like it is cracking apart in your chest, overwhelmed by all of this feeling and confused and just—beating and beating and beating, bruises your ribs with how hard it is thumping inside of you. The feeling of it is more suffocating even than the dank, musty air of the tomb.

It doesn't matter that there are sunflowers growing here, doesn't matter that life has somehow found a way to invade the halls; this is a dead place, built for pain.

And it's pain you feel.

It feels like your heart is creeping up your throat; that's the only thing that you are able to think, that your heart is so fucking angry and tired for the way you have mistreated it and neglected it your entire life that, finally, once and for all, it's cracked free from it's cage inside your ribs and decided to fucking suffocate you itself.

Lysander asks you who it will be, and the answer is right there on the tip of your tongue.

"Them," you say, quick and immediate and broken. You shove forwards, try and remember how it is that your legs are supposed to work, try and remember what it is that your arms are supposed to do. Something about the movement makes you want to vomit, and you know that this whole rebirth thing isn't sitting right with you, think that you're decaying from the inside out and you probably don't stand a chance against Lysander in a fight, haven't missed the fact that she's carrying a knife and the only weapon you have left is your dead fucking body, but—"Don't you get it, Lys? It's them. They're the one's who are going to get out of here. Not you, not me, none of us down here."

You're right in her space now, and in a breath she could bury a knife in your ribs.

Maybe you deserve it.

Maybe you're reckless enough not to care.

"Maybe my allies aren't here, but at least they're not all dead."

JJ is alive. Will is alive. They have to be. They're out there, fighting, winning—if they're not, and you're all down here, you think you'll fully come apart at the seams. You don't have the time to think about it any other way, don't think you'll be able to fight to try and get back to them if you let yourself think anything else. You don't even think that you have the energy to properly fight Lys as it is, try and dart past her and push her from behind, but you're clumsy and you almost knock into the wall as you do, think you're going to stumble until you last minute right yourself and—she's right there all over again, and you can't run.

You've never been able to run.

Not from this.

{ table by rose }

✩  terra attacks lysander, unarmed ✩

CbVcqLlUqnunarmed

[ 5104 - bruised back - 2.5 ]

unarmed

[gamemaker sloane ♕ kaяi ♕]

Mother had lied.

Not that she is surprised, but for a year now she had been praying that this is the one thing she would be truthful about. When Hazel died, she had expected it, she knew it was inevitable, but Lysander still cried. The tears rolled silently down her cheeks as she clung on to her little sister's hand, afraid to let go, afraid to face the truth. Mother walked in and rested a hand on her shoulder. She did not hug her, she did not try to comfort the crying girl. In her family emotion meant you were weak.

Even if it was for one of your own.

One question. That's all she had to ask. She had been wondering for days now, but she could not form the proper words. She did not know how to ask without sounding as if she had already given up, but now it was over. Now, there was nothing left to lose.

"Does it hurt? Dying?"

Her mother removed her hand from her shoulder and looked down at her. Her eyes were intense and dark, she took a minute before responding.

"No. She's finally at peace."

But she had lied.

Lysander had met Death face to face.

And He was anything but peaceful.

The pain that had taken over her body, the shallow breaths that struggled to be released from her lungs, the blood. It was a ticking clock and she never knew what moment would be her last. He haunts her now, every step she takes, every time she breathes.

And she'd be damned if she let Him take her again.

"Them. Don't you get it, Lys? It's them. They're the one's who are going to get out of here. Not you, not me, none of us down here."

"If you would have asked me three days ago I would have agreed. I never wanted to make it out, I never wanted to survive. But after dying once," she shivered slightly. "I can't go through that again. Weren't you scared, Terra? Weren't you terrified?"

Now, even the thought of Death made her breathing grow quick and made her limbs lock up. He was watching, but this time she would not let Him come any closer.

"Maybe my allies aren't here, but at least they're not all dead."

Her fingers gripped the hilt of her knife so tightly that her knuckles turned white. She took a step forward, no longer afraid to face the girl she almost called a friend.

"Bella still might be alive. I...I don't know for sure."

How dare she even speak of the girl she helped to strike down. The girl who had stood over her dying body and took everything she had besides the clothes on her back. Deep down a part of her knew that she was gone, that she would never see the girl from Eleven again. The anger inside her grew and she raised her knife.

"They might be alive, but I can promise you this. You won't be for much longer."

Her mother might be a liar.

But Lysander was not.

{ table by rose }

( lysander attacks terra ; twisted dagger )
Y43gCJ1c3wknife
( shallow cut - 3.5 )

knife

[gamemaker tallis 🧚🏽‍♂️kaitlin.]

The sunflowers flutter all around the pair of you, flicker in and out of your vision like shadows, candles in the darkness. It sets your teeth on edge, makes you want to look frantically and desperately all around you, draws your gaze away from the singular thing that you know you need to be paying closer attention to than anything else.

The problem is you don't care about yourself.

Not really, not in any real way.

You have no qualms anymore about your own safety, and if Lysander would just fucking let you, you would run right away from her and plunge yourself deeper into the darkness of these tombs. You don't care really if you're the one who kills Lysander, and you don't care if you die by her blade; what matters to you is that you do it protecting JJ, or even that you do it protect Will if JJ is already gone beyond repair. The want of it licks at your skin, turns you into something different than you have ever been, desperate and wanting for life in a way that you don't understand and don't think you ever will. You have never been a girl who lived for herself, not really; you killed your stepfather because he laid his hands on your mother, and you killed for Kingpin because it's what he told you to do, because it was something he convinced you needed to happen in order to protect him and the rest of the gang.

Lysander's blade goes for your throat, but you lift up your arm to try and protect yourself and instead she catches at the skin of your forearm. You try and stumble backwards away from her, want nothing more than to try and get away, but the pain of her slicing into you clutches at your throat like a vice, like Death stealing life from their newest victim, unrelenting and unapologetic. It's the kind of pain that makes you feel small just for feeling it, the kind of little cut that should not be something that tears you into shreds, and yet—it makes your second life feel like a waste.

Was is the point of it if you cannot even make it through this, a small tear in your flesh made by a girl who seems afraid of cutting you any deeper? Weren't you scared, Terra? she asks you, and it just drives home over and over again the fact that Lysander has never been cut out for this, has never been a girl who was going to come out of this whole and unchanged. A girl who was never going to just be another girl in a crown. "Terrified?" you reply, voice high and haughty, some kind of broken laugh right there on the tip of your tongue. She wants to know how you feel, knowing now what death tastes like.

But—what is knowing worth? What does it matter that you know now what death tastes like?

You don't have time to be afraid of it.

You don't have time for anything except for this: "none of us is alive," you reply. "Not Bella, not you, not me." You swallow, shove away from the wall and towards Lys all over again. "We're all just dead things with a pulse now."

The irony of it isn't lost on you when the first place your brain thinks to attack is the girls legs. Maybe you can snap her knee, the same way she snapped yours. You dive right towards her, knock your shoulder into her thigh and try to wrap yourself around her and throw her off balance, but it doesn't quite land the way that you want it to and suddenly you're half rolling away from her, coming back up on one of your knees again, knife aimed right at you. It's the boy from Nine all over again, the other dead man walking.

You hope he's fucking dead now, too.

{ table by rose }

✩  terra attacks lysander, unarmed ✩

2aDX4GLLZgunarmed

[ 5054 - bruised left thigh - 2.5 ]

unarmed

[gamemaker sloane ♕ kaяi ♕]

She was tired.

Muscles that she didn't know she had ached like no tomorrow. Her body of free of scars, but she could swear she can feel exactly where every weapon cut into her skin. She took a second to trace a line down her palm, exactly where Will's knife had cut through it. The gash was long gone, but when she pulled her fingers away it felt as if they were still slick with blood. Her newly attached arm was particularly painful. Every time she moved it felt as if the tiny strings holding it together were about to snap.

The Capitol accomplished what Lysander had been trying to do more than a year.

They finally put her back together.

She had lost herself a long time ago. When Hazel died Lysander's spirit went right with her. She grew furious, she started to blame anyone who stood too close and in the dead of night the tears would fall because deep down she only blamed herself. Alcohol was her only release. It numbed the pain, it made her forget how to feel. Stare's followed her wherever she would go, but it didn't take her long to learn how to not care.

More liquor always seemed to do the trick.

Now, she was sober. Now, she realized that maybe she did have a life worth living. She was not sure what hurt more, death-

Or the truth.

"None of us is alive,. Not Bella, not you, not me. We're all just dead things with a pulse now.

The girl struck out with her leg, Lysander tries to move out of the way, but she's just too slow. Maybe she's still in a daze from being revived, maybe her limbs didn't know how to reconnect with her brain after dying. Or maybe Terra Markov is just better.

"You're right we all are dead. Now, before, later. But for some reason, I've never felt more alive."

Finally, things were becoming clear. She could see Death in the corner looming over them, but Hazel was there too fighting him off.

Lysander was exhausted.

But they had taken so much care to put her back together.

So she would do her best to make sure she didn't fall apart.

{ table by rose }

( lysander attacks terra ; twisted dagger )
twfPh9ua7Yknife
( sc on back - 3.5 )

knife

[gamemaker tallis 🧚🏽‍♂️kaitlin.]

Tears don't well in your eyes, but you think that this is the moment that they would, if there was any.

You're right, Lysander says, we are all dead. And her voice is so deadpan, so real, and it's so clear to you that she's listening to every word you say and somehow, somewhere in the back of your head, that makes you like her more, makes you wish all over again that you had met Lysander somewhere else. You try and roll away from her knife, but it catches your back before you're quite far enough, and you come back up on the knee you broke just the other day before standing again. You wish that she hadn't had to get sober here, in this place, with Death nipping at both of your backs. You think about the girl that you forced to train with you in the Training Center, dragged by her hair onto the mat so that she could get her shit together. You'd seen something in her the, some sort of potential, and you suppose you'd been right.

And Helle had died for it.

Now, before, later.

Maybe Lys is right, maybe you've been a dead thing all along, someone horrible and horrifying, the kind of girl who never deserved to breathe in the first place.

Your lip maybe trembles; you don't want for it to have, but you have a feeling that maybe it does, and you feel a fire fill your bones like you have never felt before. Not even when the boy from Nine sunk his knife into you over and over again, not even when Perdita let go of your hand and left you standing in the smoke and fog, all alone all over again. A fire like panic, a fire like a desperate cry for help because it’s burned up every living bit of lung tissue and left you behind with only words that taste like ash when you speak. “My god–” you begin, but you close your eyes to the world for half a breath and curl your hands into fists again, dig your nails into the half-moons you have already created and beg the pain to center you. You let out a humorless laugh, stop trying to walk away, and look at Lys again. “Who would've thought? All you needed to get sober was to die," it's weaker than your usual insults, but you just—you just want JJ, you want will, and fuck, you want Helle.

You want your family.

And you're tired of having to fight to get back to them, tired of having to be anything besides right by their side. But if Lys wants you to go through her, then you will. You grab her this time, pull her in closely and get your face right in hers. It's not the best strategy, but nothing about any of this is the best strategy, the best move—you just, you can't seem to bring yourself to do anything else, want to just fucking run away but every time you take a step, you're still right there, teeth at Lysander's throat. You grip her arm tight enough you think it will bruise and—

"You don't stand a chance, don't you get it?" you spit right at her. "Even if you get out of here, Will is going to kill you all over again, and if he doesn't find you first then Perdita will make sure she's the last parasite left standing."

{ table by rose }

✩  terra attacks lysander, unarmed ✩

WPVTigmYI7unarmed

[ 5034 - bruised left forearm - 2 ]

unarmed

[gamemaker sloane ♕ kaяi ♕]

Time.

It always seemed to be too short. And it always seemed to be running out. She never cared much for watching the clock, her days felt endless most of the time. She would spend them playing with the boys or reading stories to Hazel. Every day seemed to drag on, there wasn't a reason to worry. There wasn't a reason to care, until they put a time on Hazel's life. From that moment on every hour seemed like minutes and every day felt like an hour. No matter how hard she tried to slow it down, the days sped by until one day there were none left. Eventually they made her let go, pried her fingers from sister's cold dead hands. They told her she had been holding her hand for hours.

And still, it felt like only minutes.

For a year, time went back to being meaningless, days being endless. Alcohol blurred it even more, and soon she lost track of what day it was. Back then Lysander had all the time in the world.

But now it was finally running out.

They had revived her, brought her back. Her time was renewed, but for some reason it now felt shorter than ever. She could hear the clock ticking behind her and suddenly she was aware of every passing second. It screamed at her that she was running short, so her time would be expired. It seemed impossible to avoid, no way to escape it. Finally, she had found herself, she finally felt she was worthy enough to survive, but the voice inside her told her otherwise.

Time always seemed to have other plans.

"You don't stand a chance, don't you get it? Even if you get out of here, Will is going to kill you all over again, and if he doesn't find you first then Perdita will make sure she's the last parasite left standing."

The girl pulled her in closely, gripping tightly onto her arm. Lysander could feel the bruises forming, but she didn't pull away. Instead she stayed there, letting Terra's warm breath tickle her skin. It was an act of desperation, to try and get her to truly listen, but all Lysander could think about was her closeness. It had been a long time since anyway held her this tight. It was comforting knowing that she wanted to warn her.

It was comforting knowing someone actually cared.

"I know. I have no chance, I don't expect to survive, but I'm tired of giving up, Terra. For once in my life, I want to try."

Lysander took her dagger and thrusted it upward before pulling away from the girl, creating distance once more.

Her time might be running out.

But she would make the most of it.

{ table by rose }

( lysander attacks terra ; twisted dagger )
v0b2HUiPLyknife
( miss )


accuracy ; day eight


knife
( dg on chest - 9.5 )

knife·knife

[gamemaker tallis 🧚🏽‍♂️kaitlin.]

I'm tired of giving up.

The words land, harder probably than Lysander is ever going to properly realize they do. It's not that you have ever been a girl who gave up, not that you have ever been anything other than the girl who goes to the ends of whatever thing you have dedicated yourself to. You gave your entire life to Kingpin, body and soul. Well, whatever bits of a soul that you had left in the broken home of your body.

It's that you've never really had anything to give up on.

Not really.

Not in a way that mattered.

When Lysander drives her knife into your chest, you think about your mother, about how she gave up on you so long before you left that you can't help but think you leaving wasn't so much a choice you made as an inevitability. You didn't give up on her, didn't walk away heartbroken and loving her. It's a blinding flash of memory, the image of you walking out the door while she sat on the couch, staring daggers into you. It doesn't hurt as badly as the knife in your chest, and that feels like it means something, like she never loved you the way that you—not the way you deserved, exactly, but you aren't sure that you have ever been a girl who deserved to be loved, but you're pretty certain that there is a way that a mother is supposed to look at her daughter and she never once looked at you like that.

You didn't get to give up on her because, really, you never had her in the first place. She was a woman who belonged to her own heart, to the pain that she could inflict upon herself, and you don't exactly blame her for it anymore, but. It doesn't make you miss her either.

You laugh, manic around the blade Lysander has buried in you, and—"fuck," you choke out. "Stab me in the heart, why don't you?" There are, you think, maybe, tears in your eyes now, and every word feels like you're choking on something and you think it might be blood and that scares you because fuck you only just realized that you could feel something other than loneliness and empty amusement. "You know, the other bloodhounds used to joke I didn't have a heart," you say, and you're sure that you can taste iron on your tongue, disgusting and hot and horrible and it trickles out the corner of your mouth but you don't shut up, have never been able to bite your tongue. "That I was just fucking empty inside. Now look at me, almost dead by knife in the heart," you can't help but go on. "Proves them wrong."

You can't relate to her I want to try notion, have been trying to hard for your entire life, have been trying to hard that you've drowned yourself in blood and neglect just to feel like, for a moment, you mattered. And of course it is now, already dead, that you realize once and for all that they were wrong, that you have a heart and it can beat for something other than just spilling blood, that it could beat because you loved someone more than you have ever been able to love yourself.

You grab Lysander's arm then, the same one you're sure that you've already left bruises on, spin her around and try to shove her away. You can feel the blood coursing out of your chest, each heart beat feeling like it might be the one that puts you over the edge. Her wrist snaps, and absently, the bloodhound in you wishes that you had grabbed her knife hand instead. But you don't have time to worry about that, just take one step back and then another, hope the pain blinds her long enough for you to run, to find JJ, to find Will, to tell them both that you need them to go home because they became yours and it's the only way you know how to repay them.

{ table by rose }

✩  terra attacks lysander, unarmed ✩

wZG6iwLIrqunarmed

[ 5132 - broken left wrist - 6.5 ]

unarmed

[gamemaker sloane ♕ kaяi ♕]

"Stab me in the heart, why don't you?"

Lysander could hear the beating of her own. It pounded loudly in her ears as blood rushed to her brain. It's so obnoxious that she could barely hear Terra. It drowned out all the other noise, not that there was much to hear down underneath. Even her own thoughts were muffled.

Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum.

At least the noise confirmed that it was working, that she was still alive. It was loud and strong, but then she realized just not long ago it was not. Will's final knife had dug deep into her chest and pierced clean through her heart. It stopped beating almost instantly, and everything grew alarming quiet. She could hear the sounds of her final breath.

She never wanted to be left in silence again.

"You know, the other bloodhounds used to joke I didn't have a heart. That I was just fucking empty inside. Now look at me, almost dead by knife in the heart. Proves them wrong."

Terra grabs the same arm she had a hold of before, adding more bruises to it. Quickly, she twists it behind her back in an attempt to catch her defenseless and unguarded. Lysander remembers the trainers teaching this move, and how dangerous it is to be caught in it. She tries to perform the escape move they were taught by twisting her body back around and using her enemy's own weight against her. Except her execution is off and a loud crack echoes through the cavern. She yelps in pain and bites hard on her lip to keep herself from crying. Multiple broken bones throughout her time in the arena, but not once have they gotten easier.

"Well, let's make sure to prove them wrong and really find your heart this time. Shall we?"

The two are so close their noses are practically touching. The loose hair's from Terra gently tickle Lysander's face. She can hear the girl's heavy breathing, smell the blood that's fallen from her lip. She almost felt bad for her.

But not quite enough.

{ table by rose }

( lysander attacks terra ; twisted dagger )
auAmglBnAdknife
( dg on calf - 8.0 )
changing to stabbed in heart for operation bad ass death!!

knife