strangers on a train / round one

[eulalie blake 1a 🍒 tris]

They made a dance of it. Death took her by the hand, blood pooling between her fingers, and she felt herself be spun around. Her feet were firm against the top of the railcar, the wind running through her hair like a spark of fire. But for a moment, a lapse in her clarity, Tiggy wanted to pretend like she was doing anything else. Her thoughts were airy, drifting up to the sky as a streak of red ran down the side of her face.

Her enemy stared up at her with all his wickedness on display — a viper coiling in a dark shadow. Nothing could convince her this boy wasn't a threat, but a quiet voice urged her to play make believe. Wouldn't it be lovely if he just let her go? She blinked, and she hoped he would disappear. Then she blinked again, and again, and he never went away.

She guarded her tears.

A treasure for the end.

Even when her axe bit at his skin, and a look of hot denial flashed across his face. She felt like she was at a disadvantage. What he lacked in speed, he made up for with a fierce determination. She saw the embers igniting all around him, a halo rising over his shoulders and casting a silhouette over his face. It was a trick of the light, but then not at all.

"Good luck." He said it with enough venom to wither an entire garden. She wondered if it was her pride wilting, or the roses. If she lied to herself, she could almost smell them. The petals unfurled for her. "Good luck forgetting me now." And they turned to ash all around her, like a hot ray of sunlight against metal, so bright they she could make out anything the glare. She thought of home. Her head was a shelter, and it hurt terribly.

"I want to be your worst fucking nightmare, Libertine."

Her eyes met his, and stubbornly, she smiled. Even knowing the consequence, even with her eyes open to the tragedy, she refused to show her fear. It wasn't that she was afraid of being vulnerable, but she could tell that he wanted to hear her screams. He wanted to take all of her pain, and her sadness, and rob it from her. Pulled from her chest — tossed away.

"So you'll never be free of me, even when you close your eyes."

It was like a blade across the chest — like a body tumbling backwards, crashing against the steel, and lying there. She blinked up at the sky, strands of ginger blowing across her vision, a tiny fire to scare away all the terrors. She smiled, feeling a little dizzy, and she reached up to touch her chest. An explosion set off through her nerve endings, and then.

Quiet. So deep, and haunting, she felt it inside her own skin.

It felt like dying.

It felt like discovery.

"You're just a boy," she struggled to speak above a whisper, voice quiet and tired as it came from her lips. And, of course, she was terrified. As much as she knew she was distracting herself, she also knew the inevitable. She couldn't escape it now. Tiggy sat up, a silent bomb under her skin, a nauseous feeling sweeping through her. And courage.

"There are scarier monsters than you." She closed her eyes for good measure, suddenly so aware of how much they were stinging, and the tears she couldn't keep from him. Struggling to stand, she nearly lost her balance, before forcing her knees to lock and for the heft of the axe to swing upwards — poised for the strike. A last stand. She'd give it all.

"I'll think of them, instead."

She looked up, glaring a dagger straight through his heart.

"Stop playing with your food, and finish it." she smiled, blood on her teeth.

"I'll bite you back."

With a palm full of stars

I throw them like dice (repeatedly)

On the table (repeat, repeatedly)

I shake them like dice
x

( tiggy attacks thorn ; axe )
qeQiQb2dK|axe
( 3.5 damage )

axe

[maverick hale 🌧️ d5 [nyte]]

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T H O R N It'd be easier to say that I have never known love. To weave tapestries of a cold, pathetic boy picking himself out of gutters with blood on his knuckles and only himself for company. It makes for a good story, doesn't it? Rhyme and reason for the way my stomach does somersaults as I revel in the sight of just how deep I can cut. My axe tears across her chest, her lips still managing to lilt into a crimson smile. I see the fire spilling out from under her skin and she ignites it all. "You're just a boy." She tells me. And she's right. Isn't that horrible? Because I grew up in a warm little house with a happy family. My brother loved me as my father did before him, evident in the smiles they offered through grit teeth. They loved me even after they realized I was incapable of loving them back. I'm more than greed, I took all they had to offer knowing it would never be good enough. I don't regret a single second. "You're a liar!" Because she takes from me all I ever wanted, her words are spat with violent precision and I wonder if I truly am that transparent. She revels in my insignificance; even as I stand over her, the very embodiment of her reaper. A killer desperate to kill again, chasing the adrenaline rush that comes with inflicting pain upon what is just like me. Her words pull me apart, thread by thread, and I cannot control the way I unrsvel. "You're scared of me!" It's on the edge of mania, more of a question than an answer. Because she's dying. Because I'm killing her. Because she's supposed to be dying. Because I'm supposed to be killing her. My breaths come faster, so quick they hurt. I run my hand through my hair, staggering back as her blade grazes me again. She's still fighting, I don't know why she's still fighting but it makes me feel so fucking - scared? No, no I tell myself that is anger. I lie because she must be telling the truth. "Don't think of them." My voice is softer as I plead with the girl I'm trying to kill. I've always been pathetic but it's never been this hard to obscure. Hatred burns my throat, carving a path up it with claw and bile. But it is not her that I hate. "Please, don't think of them." See me. Just fucking look at me instead of through. "You shouldn't bite what you know is full of poison."

[thorn 1m attacks tiggy 4f -- axe]
DpKu68XR12axe
[Deep Gash on Right Forearm -- 8.0 damage]

axe

[umber vivuus 12b 🥀 [dars]]

For whatever reason, my last attack seems to be the one that makes him understand how this works. Good, I think, now we both know what comes next. He slumps against the wall, already fading regardless of if he'd realized it before this moment or not.

"This is how the story goes."

I lean down so that my face hovers just above his- he's too far gone to do anything back about it and death on him smells like blood, sweat, and fabric softener.

"I win. You lose. However you want to phrase it, really the only thing you need to understand about this story is this: you die in the end."

I have no plans of dying. Not now. Not soon. Not ever.

He doesn't look afraid anymore. That's how I know he knows I'm right. He looks like he's... accepted it. His eyes flutter and I wonder if it's me or someone else he thinks he's staring at. I guess it doesn't matter. He won't see anything for much longer.

I stand back up and ready my axe against the bend of his neck. Practice swing, squared shoulders and planted feet. Make it quick. Despite not wanting to, I keep my eyes glued to his- as unfocused as they are- all the way up until my axe is planted into his windpipe and his eyelids close. He gurgles and spits for a moment, but there really isn't much pageantry to his death. It isn't a bang, full of color and violence and memory. It's quiet, sneaking through the back. Like an exhale.

Simple.

With one last shuddering breath, the boy goes still. I pat him in the chest and wink at the camera. Now that there's a dead body here, this place feels so much more ominous. The smiling paper animals seem cruel. The tulle is stained with blood splatter. It's like hell's kindergarten class in here.

Perfect for someone like me, I guess, but I've got other places to be and more people to kill.

she's a killer queen

gunpowder, gelatine

dynamite with a laser beam

guaranteed to blow your mind

[delia kills loom]