The Bloodbath

[umber vivuus 12b 🥀 [dars]]

He must be close to death by now. Closer than he's ever been, and it's crazy. In this moment, looking down into his eyes, I wonder if he's ever felt more alive. He holds an arm up to block my attack and he's met with a gaping wound next to his elbow. This time he doesn't scream so much as moan in defeat. He's losing too much blood, probably fighting consciousness by this point. He flops himself over so that the good side of his jaw is facing up and, if it weren't for the blood, you'd have no idea how horribly disfigured I have just made him. His eyes lull once he's made it to a sitting stance, and I kick him as hard as I can in the ribs. "Stay down." He sighs, seems to consider my demand for only a short moment. He pulls himself back into a crawling position. I kick him in the chin this time and his head snaps back at a disgusting angle. The force is enough to send him toppling away. He makes a sound that I recognize after a moment is a sob. He's crying. Tears sting my vision so I force myself to start laughing. Hysterical, hands clapping, I bite my lip in exertion. This allows me to take in a deep breath- needed for the sob that has been forming in my throat- without any of them being none the wiser. "Stay down!" He looks pitiful. He tries to stand again, and I get it. He knows the end is coming, he must be able to sense it. He's antagonizing me so I'll do it quicker. He wants me to kill him. Sounds delusional but, maybe. Maybe I am just telling it to myself to make me feel better, but it's all I need to allow me to keep doing this. "Stay! Down!"

[delia attacks zane]
jcv4GZBhI6axe
[11054 -- Shallow Cut on Left Bicep -- 3.5 damage]

[delia kills zane]

axe

[eulalie blake 1a 🍒 tris]

Axe in hand, Tiggy charged into the chaos.

It welcomed her with open arms. The creaking of the metal door wasn't enough to mask the undeniable sound of death on either side of her. Even if she tried to throw herself from the train and return to solid ground, there were simply more dangers waiting for her there. She remembered the way the sand had soaked in so much blood. That shade of red was a stain on everything now.

When she tried to escape, it followed her. She knew she should have been exhausted by this point, but her racing thoughts were only as loud as her heart drumming inside her chest. Not only had she left a little kid to die alone and afraid, making an enemy of the girl's killer in the process, but now she was forced to come face to face with Topper in his final moments. She kept to the shadows.

Her panic gave way to the grief, and looped back around again. There was a quiet voice in her head saying, "you have to help him," but a quieter one insisted, "it's too late." She listened to it, of course. As familiar of a stranger as he was, Tiggy couldn't bring herself to put herself at risk for him. She knew the rules as well as the others did. Only one of them could make it out alive.

And, yes, she believed that he deserved better. If he were not surrounded by a particularly threatening duo of tributes, Blondie among them, she would have knelt by his side and taken his hand in hers. He deserved that much. She would have told him to focus on the vibrations, and the way the train whistle drowned out all other noise. To look into her eyes, and search for the stars. Topper's death could have been kinder, but it wasn't.

Terribly, she skirted along the edge of the railcar, trying to go unnoticed and make it to the next exit door. The world seemed louder in this moment, like every step she took was a thunder clap, and every breath felt like it could have been her last. There was just too much going on. Too many variables than she knew how to deal with. She inched closer, fingertips brushing against freedom — and then deeper, until they met the iron bars beneath.

"I see you, Red!"

As quickly as she heard the words, Tiggy whipped her head in the direction of the familiar voice. Her eyes widened with quiet terror at the sight of Blondie waving at her, and before she could consider any other option, she bolted forward. She was confident in her abilities as a runner only to a certain extent, and just the thought of the distance between her and her enemies closing was enough to keep her adrenaline pumping. She couldn't stop.

"I'm coming for you!"

The warning was hardly necessary, but she'd heed it. Her hand was already closing around the door handle, once again running from one terrible room into another. The slam behind her was a momentary solace, but she knew it was only a matter of time. She noticed another tribute a few feet away, but to her relief, he didn't seem at all excited to see her. Keeping her distance to be safe, she moved past him and came to a stop at the next exit.

"Fuck," she muttered openly, needing to hear herself think aloud. "You can't keep on like this. Think, Tigs." Her gaze lifted to look out the window, and she sighed. The sky could have been mistaken for peaceful if you didn't glance down — the way the gold was fading into a deep orange. She squinted at it for a short moment, and then raised the glass. She turned to glance over her shoulder, watching Blondie finally make her grand entrance.

Damning the consequences, and listening to the fair haired killer distract herself with the boy Tiggy had passed minutes before, she pulled herself through the opening and out into a hot gust of wind. She was almost blown back for a moment, shoulder pressed hard against the steel of the train. Blinking, and then shaking her head, she twisted her torso and began to scale the side of the railcar. Quickly, with her breath held, she made her way to the top.

Closing her eyes, and swinging one leg over the edge, she gave herself to the momentum. And for a split second, things were okay. She was okay. And then she opened her eyes, and would you believe it, someone else had the same clever thought as her. Just as she finished pulling herself up, she was greeted with the panicked face of a girl her age staring back at her. Her fear gripped her suddenly, and it didn't let go. In this sense, her adrenaline was like a double edged sword. She would have done anything to be free.

Like kicking out her legs before she could stop herself, so shocked and afraid by the sudden person now crouched in her way. If she took the time to catch her breath, and use rational thought, maybe she would have realized the girl was a lot like her. Maybe she was only trying to get away, too. But then Tiggy's boot was crashing against her chest, and as sudden as it began, it ended in a splay of dark hair catching the wind. Fingers catching empty space.

The sound of the tribute tumbling off the train was something Tiggy would never forget.

And the lurch. It felt like her soul had left her body.

She didn't chase it.

With a palm full of stars

I throw them like dice (repeatedly)

On the table (repeat, repeatedly)

I shake them like dice
x

( tiggy kills 9f )

[umber vivuus 12b 🥀 [dars]]

He hangs on so desperately and for what? I stare at him with a perplexed expression, eyes flitting from his terrified, unwavering stare to the fresh wound he now has in his other arm. "Fuck's sake." It's my way of giving him props, I guess. Looking at him there, at the mangled lower half of his face and the twin wounds in his forearms. I heft him up by his shirt and escort him to the back of the train car. Red is long gone by now, and I'm fucking pissed about it. If she ends up killing me, I swear to fucking god I'm haunting her until she goes kookoo and gets locked up somewhere for good. Just as soon as we get there, I pull him up and kiss him on the cheek. "Bye-bye!" I don't even throw him, so much as drop him and watch as he tumbles out and onto the tracks. He tumbles head over heels and I point and laugh once he comes to a stop. I keep my eyes trained on him just to be sure, and just as I am about to turn back- get this: The motherfucker. Squirms. I scream in a rage, jumping out onto the tracks and run at him with my axe raised. By the time I have reached him, he has somehow managed to stand. I've gotta hand it to him, the kid can take a beating. That's how my Mom was, how she wanted me to be, too. Not strong enough to fight back, but strong enough to survive it. Or maybe we all just gotta choose at some point, whether we wanna be the hurters or the hurt. Maybe he just chose what he thought was better, same as me. Except he chose wrong. He's still alive, sure, but so am I. And I'm still here, and I'm still fighting, and I'm really starting to get pissed off. I rare back with my axe from a full ten feet away, clenching every muscle in my body at once and by the time I've reached him, a war cry is blasting through my parted lips. I swing once, in an upward motion. I think that from the duel angles afforded to me by both cameras, there'll be plenty of footage from both angles as I remove his head from his shoulder. It lulls off to one side, unreasonably heavy, and comes to a rest between two tracks face down as his body also crumples away. There is a wet sound that makes me gag again when I realize its the last beats of his heart squirting blood onto the ground. Without looking back, I begin closing the distance so that I can re-enter the train.

[delia attacks zane]
vo9KLs1vlWaxe
[11144 -- Severed Left Forearm at Elbow -- 9.5 damage]

axe

[gamemaker tallis 🧚🏽‍♂️kaitlin.]

The boy from Four presses his hands against the axe in my hands, feeble and inconsequential, and the viscera of him expands into vision, awful and red and wretched. His inside come outside, he begs and Dexter snarls and I can't help but think one thing over and over.

Foolish boy. Foolish, foolish boy.

I look up at Dexter and see something in his eyes that I should be afraid to recognize, should be afraid to understand so intimately. A desire to finish what you start, at the very least. A hunger. I keep my axe steady, but I don't press, just square my shoulders. I feel the cold of anger in my gut, though; it presses against my chest, that cold simmer raising gooseflesh on my arms as Dexter demands a kill I had every intention of giving him anyway. The foolish one fights back, and I feel within me those things that have always so thoroughly terrified my mother. My talent with avoiding kindness, a sort of side-stepping of compromise.

She knew, always, always, when she fights with me, I am not going to back down. Not ever. Not ever.

I grit my jaw, hold Topper tighter.

"On with it then."

My mother used to tell me that boredom was unattractive. Loneliness is off-putting, she'd say, poke the hollow of my cheek and pull the skin there. You're much prettier when you smile. I used to sit in from of the TV and mirror the expressions of the people that I saw there. Sometimes I'd even make a game out of it, drag a mirror out and stand it up on the coffee table and really try to match what I saw. I still remember the time she caught me doing that, the way it sent her into a state of panic for weeks. 

I wonder what she'd say about the look on my face now.

Dexter buries his axe in Topper's stomach, turning something ugly into something cruel, and I can feel the life as it bleeds away. I consider it for only a half-breath before I press my axe against his carotid for good measure.

I dance backward quickly though, square my shoulders.

"Maybe some yet for you," I say. My jaw clicking once, twice as I pump the muscle in my cheek, clenching my jaw as I consider this choice. I push the body of Topper away from me, try and shove it into Dexter's arms as a distraction mostly. Something to occupy his hands, ideally. "I'll see you at the finish line, if you're lucky enough."

And then I bolt.

I'll find weaker prey first.

A glimpse of something in a window, a shadow with the face of a girl: braid loose and scattered, overalls dust-covered, and blood caked on her neck. I barely recognize myself. For the first time, the thing looking back is starting to look like me.

[maverick hale 🌧️ d5 [nyte]]

[atrb=cellSpacing,5,true][atrb=cellPadding,5,true][atrb=border,0,true] [atrb=style, background-image: url(https://i.imgur.com/6nmm0jW.png); width: 175px;]

T H O R N There's only so long that you can draw from rage. Like an engine turning over, gears grinding against each other without oil. It rings in my ears, a deafening screech. I'm suffocating, I think. Exhaustion turns every breath into agony. "This whole murder thing is a lot of effort, huh?" Air hisses between my teeth, musty and humid as it pushes down my throat. "Wish I'd have worked out more back home." I can't let them see me unravel. There's a part of me that way always ready to snap, a red hot iron smothered underneath an early grave. Blood spills out of the girl in thick waves, hatred burning in her eyes as they bore into mine. Onyx, not oil, catching the overhead lights and biting into me with malicious intent. She's so full of hatred. It's familiar, a strange kind of kinship formed between my sad little victim and me. She's not the only one who hates me. "Don't worry." I close my eyes and fill her up with fear, frigid enough that it numbs my aching muscles. "You're still dead, this just means I can't make it quick." My tongue has gone callous so I can't taste the lies. "I think I like it better that way."

[1m Hawthorn Clarke attacks 3f Kennedy Rosebay]
_|VTgSvUvzaxe
[3.5]

axe·axe

[gamemaker tallis 🧚🏽‍♂️kaitlin.]

I can hear my heart beat, steady and slow.

The girl in the window blinks back at me, the one who is me and who isn't, looks less and less like a creature of the commonplace with every inhale. Like darkness being given definition, a girl and her shadow becoming a single being. A thing belonging to itself and itself only, all edges and boundaries and too-sharp definition.

From the corner of my eye, movement blurs across my vision and there's a boy in the shadows there, I realize quietly. I settle into a fighters stance quickly, spread my feet and square my shoulders. He's hiding right now, trying to stay out of sight, and I don't blame him. Death settles in my chest, wraps its cold hands around my heart and plays sick, twisted games there that shouldn't make my pulse soar with delight but do. Two cannons to my name, I'll make his the third without a second thought.

If it's life Death wants, it's life they'll get.

"I wouldn't pick a fight with me if I were you," I say into the shadows, continuing to walk through the train car delicately. "I'll go right through you. Understand?"

He skitters, afraid, and it's not hard to find him cowering. Tall, skinny thing, it's almost impressive the ball he's curled himself into. All long arms and legs and too-bright eyes from crying, he looks much younger than the eighteen I know him to be. Wade, from Eleven I'm fairly certain, I recognize the same look of terror and horror he wore when his name got called and he was dragged up on that stage.

"I killed your district partner, you know," I say now, standing over him. "She tried to hide, too."

"I don't want to kill anyone," he says with a sob, shoulders hunched as he curls into himself, hands raising up towards me to beg for mercy, I'd suppose. But there's no kindness here's to give, no room for two. I see a girl reflected in the window he cowers under again, two caverns where eyes belong. Mystery gleaming, like a lightning flash, standing over him makes her glimmer. An omen with blue eyes. "Please, I just want to go home," he continues, and tears fall down over his cheeks in rivers, making new paths next to where I can see already dried tracks of salt along his olive skin.

Palms lifted, he looks like a disciple in need.

(You think me is just another word for god.)

Inside, the hunger bites down.

The sharp of my axe is pressed against his skull lightly to hold him in place, and I lift it away a half-inch, a sliver of red beading and dripping down between his brows and over his nose. It trails down his cheek next to his tears, red and wretched, I know.

I am not going to draw this out.

"You know what happens next."

He presses his eyes closed, mouth falling agape as he wails a final time. Hands caked in blood, they lift my axe into the air and bring it back down with the swift force of purpose. His skull splits, cracks, and a cannon fires at the same time my heart beats.

Red, across my hands and arms, filling my vision.

Red, becoming a part of me.

juno kills the d11m, wade foxx

[maverick hale 🌧️ d5 [nyte]]

[atrb=cellSpacing,5,true][atrb=cellPadding,5,true][atrb=border,0,true] [atrb=style, background-image: url(https://i.imgur.com/6nmm0jW.png); width: 175px;]

T H O R N Sweat slides down the hollow of my cheek, a harsh caress tasting of salt and iron. If there's anything I'm intimately familiar with, it's mediocrity. I've burnt through the soles of my shoes running from it. It's hollow, it's complacent. There isn't pain in never being good enough - just a constant ache. An unbearable pressure that never builds. The fear in that little girl's eyes is a fucking reflection. I'm terrified of fucking this up. Is there a microphone attached to that little camera? Can they hear the way my breaths have gone labored? Fuck it. Fuck it, it doesn't matter. It's all up there on the scoreboard anyway, bright neon coiled around a single number. One. Even among demons, I am not despicable enough. I hate her. I hate her. I hate her. Because I've screamed all these thoughts, all these awful words at her and they just bounce back at me. "You deserve this." I don't know who I'm talking to, but I mean every fucking syllable. Sweat has my hair stuck to my brow, light glinting in a frantic gaze. I've given up glory, I just want to be a reaper.

[1m Hawthorn Clarke attacks 3f Kennedy Rosebay]
3C5Gb|_82uaxe
[10.0]

axe