driving in silence // niko 8

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They collapse to the ground in unison. They're bloodied and mangled and broken. There's one difference between the two boys, though. One, however faint his breath may be, is still living.

In the painful silence marked only by the ringing in his ears, he pushes himself away from his victim. Through the darkness, he thinks he can make out the shape of death standing over them approvingly. The canon fires and Niko flinches instinctively. Whatever dark shape had been hovering over them was gone, and Niko is all alone once again.

It's how he's always been from the second he stepped foot into the arena. He was alone when he fought hordes of mutts. He was alone when he stared down a gang of tributes with nothing but a sword and a weak warning. Even when he was with Ivy, he knew they weren't truly together. They fought side-by-side for just a moment, but they were never one entity. He would never have heard her heart commanding him to tear it out of her chest and keep it in a jar.

He grabs his scythe from the ground and tries to right himself. With each movement, he can feel the life draining from him. Staring at his weapon, the light reflecting between its metallic surface and Brennan's blood smears is the singular thing he can see. In stories, he knows that this is the weapon that death uses, and it's almost ironic that it's ended up in his grasp with all the canons following in his wake.

He has walked along side death since the beginning. Preparing Elm for Mirage's final blows, striking down Karl and Brennan, and even leading Ivy to her unintentional death as she shielded him from Itzal's blows. The hilt of the weapon feels just right in his hand, as if he was made for it.

The Grim Reaper of District Five.

The voices in his head whisper the name to him. The demons that had been slithering into his brain through waking nightmares, sleeplessness, and despair. They hiss the name and he thinks he sees the silhouette of death once more, this time in the distance. He thinks the title, and it feels just right in his mind, as if he was made for it.

The math is simple, and it is the only thing that compels him to collect himself from his increasingly dark thoughts and prepare his body for combat. With the canon from his fight with Brennan and the body lying on the ground feet from him, there's one left. He knows that somewhere there's a screen on a television with faces turning grey and slowly moving to their proper positions. He knows that his face must be standing alone against each other, the ghosts of the dead staring through the screen. Is Kat watching? Is she cheering or is she terrified? Will she even want her brother to come home now?

He'll find out soon enough. He will make it home.

Reaching out to grab his stained bag, he takes his last gulps of water before operating on himself. Without sight, he moves slowly and needs to feel where Brennan's sword tore holes in his body. At the end of the sloppy procedure, his shaky hands are bloodied and he feels faint, but he knows he's going to live when the wounds are tied and his heart begins to beat steady once again.

As he sits, the world slowly loses its darkness and shapes become clearer once again. One shape--or, horrifyingly and more specifically, shapes--in particular stands out from the others. It's the body.

He feels no puke rising in his throat at the sight. Maybe that's one of the positive changes like what Brennan had been raving about towards the end. There's no more jitters like those he felt when he stood on that stage in district five with a painful hangover shaking his stomach.

The voices compliment him for his bravery.

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bean