toes-es are roses // [Noah vs. Digitamole, Day 5]

I wake before the Gamemakers even raise the sun, eyes blinking open wearily to the haze of the morning. There's a light mist, here in the pit, and I can feel the moisture seeping into my lungs, trickling as I try to keep myself afloat in wakefulness. She pulls me a little deeper anyway though and I bob into the waters without a choice, mouth opening when the cold spears up my spine and paralyzes me. My limbs are heavy as my mind screams to move, my mouth open in a desperate, silent cry for help, but there is no one there. There will never be anyone there in this plight. In this battle, I will sink or swim alone. It's not a choice, but a curse. It's her curse, gifted to me out of her selfishness. Who am I to refuse her, skin clammy under her grip and tired soul aching to give in?

In just a few moments, I can feel my entire body go numb. My tingers tingle with sleepy death, cells beginning to give up hope. The pain of my absent thumb dulls until it is entirely gone, the wave rolling inward on my body. Soon, I can't feel the searing heat of the cut on my stomach, nor the scratch upon my forehead. Inch by inch, I lose myself to her and her waters, sinking deeper hopelessly. Maybe now is a good time to let her pull me under, drag me back into her arms and heart and consume me for all I am worth... There are only eleven of us left. There's me and Pyrian and River and Ivy. There's the girl who tumbles and flips and twists with ease. There's Py's sister and their two companions. There's the Harper boy. There's the strange girl with the swaying hips and the boy with the strange personality. That's all there is left of us twenty-four tributes. Our ranks have been descimated. Emerald of the battle axe is gone, and the strange redhead from the running machines, and the boy who barely escaped from the bloodbath. Thirteen children have died and I have been left waiting for my turn, waiting for her patience to run out and her hands to grasp me and never let go. For now, she releases me forlornly and waits for my next visit to the abyss of fragile dreams. I am running out of time, and I am running from it. I am not ready to go just yet. I am not ready to die. I can't quite call what I'm doing living either, and I so want to rest more than anything...

The sun is a little more than half risen when I begin to stir in the nest I've curled in. Snakes wrap around my every limb and inch of body, slithered up underneath my shirt to wrap around my torso. I can feel some draped over my neck and trying to twine through my hair. It's strange being back here after just a few days and seeing how everything has changed. I am not the same boy I was, recklessly catching snakes in a moment of defiance against my fate. Now, I am a boy sticking to what little he knows, trying to find comfort in something familiar like a snake's nest of all things. It's more home-y than the gold of the Hall of Treasure, more calming than the quiet of the Tomb. Here, there is a low hiss that spreads through the throngs of snakes and crashes against my skin. When I sit up and close my eyes, I can almost pretend it is the ocean coming to crash in upon me. Almost. It isn't though and I open my eyes to a sea of snakes. Carefully, I disentangle myself from the curl of their bodies and stand, stretching myself tall. When everything has loosened from my night's drowning, I lean down and pick up the glittering gold crown that sits within the snakes, nestled between their bodies. I sit it back atop my head where it belongs, and look out at the snakes once more. We're not all that different afterall. We're all just trying to survive.

I turn slowly, looking out beyond the ridge of the pit and trying to choose where to go. Just a day ago, I was dead-set on approaching a flame of light in the distance. From here, I can see the steep steps of a pyramid, gleaming in the early sun. In the opposite direction is what looks like a dense forest almost. It lacks any real order, from where I stand. It's but a blur in the distance, but I find myself walking towards it in little steps anyway. I take a moment to lift my pack onto my shoulders and set off.

The closer I get, the more I can see of what this place used to be. Tall trellises hold vines of bright, sickly flowers aloft. Towering weeds bend together to create likenesses of trees. Thick grass and brush coats the ground. Little by little, the foreboding place envelopes me until I am surrounded by its disorder and chaos. I stumble a little over rocks laid in patterns, a guiding frame of what once was that has become overtaken with wild flowering plants and freely growing weeds.This must have once been a beautiful garden, but there is nothing left of that place of joy now. Now, even the lively flowers look sinister in their shocks of blood red and puss yellow. Everything else is dying, choked by the force of invading wildlife. The vines in particular seem to have a tendency to wrap whatever possible in their grip and squeeze. They hang down like ropes, shutting off pathways through the mess. Some of them have been cut and no, I am not the first to cross this place. I breathe in slow and take out my knife, slicing at disruptive vines.

Some of the more prickly ones catch at my clothes and skin, pulling at me a bit as I move onward. One even managed to snag a leech and pull it off. It's only then that I remember the pesky little bug-leeches. I look down, frowning at the black slugs that cover patches of my skin. Picking at them, I grumble at their prone forms once their suckers have been pulled away from my skin. With hardly a second thought, I dump their little bodies into my pack and listen to my snakes go to town. I'm hoping that this will be the last that the snakes will taste of me. Again, I push forward through the remnants of the garden, face level and forward. I am the king and I am safe. I am the king and I am safe. I am the king and I am safe... My gut drops and an uneasiness settles in its place, fear building in my spine. Stiffly, I walk forward with precise steps and hope for safety.