A Broken Haze [Laila vs Anni; fight]

The bloody stump was unmistakable. As the silhouette lurked against a red horizon backdrop a gust of wind swept her sword away, friction making it scream against jagged rocks and charred boulders. Laila was cornered against an edge of the volcano, clutching an arm to her chest and quivering at the realization of who was approaching her – but you’re dead, I saw you die. I heard your cannon. The lights of wildfires burned in a circle around their bloody forms – as if this were a circle of Hell, and Laila was already dead and deserving of damnation – and when the corpse walked into the orange glares it was Savannah’s hollow eyes that greeted her.

”I have a present for you,” she said in a whisper, yet it echoed as loudly as a beating drum over and over until it sent shudders through her spine and split the ground beneath her. She was holding something in her left hand, a round object of some sort. Liquid dripped from its bottom, and Laila curled her knees to her chest at the sight of it. Savannah and her teddy bear’s head And then the girl tossed it at Laila’s feet as if it were trash not worth cherishing, as if it were a trophy for only Laila’s gaze to behold. But where she expected to see the artificial fur of a stuffed animal there were dark tufts of bloody hair, and where there were supposed to be beady, innocent eyes there were two white marbles with cracks of red along the surface, irises rolled too far back to be seen.

The lips of Eye’s severed head started to move. ”I’m a star now, Laila,” his voice was inside of her skull, scratching the inner walls of bone until she screamed. ”And you will be too.”

Her heart lurched and her body jolted, gasps choked back by her own fear. Instead of fire or blood or severed heads she was faced with the fabric of a tent – an empty tent, with only my nightmares to keep me any damn company. She wiped beads of sweat from her forehead and sat up, wishing she could be anything but alone. One by one her friends had vanished; Claire touched by hell’s fire, Eye stolen by knives and swords and thrust into the sky by capitol machines, and Willis just gone, yet she knew his heart was still beating somewhere, just not here with her. I don’t want to be alone. She had awaken to an empty tent, void of life but her own pathetic excuse of one, and when she walked out of her shelter there was no camp. There was no other tent, there was no evidence of a campfire, there were no footprints in the soil but her own. There were no voices but the howling of the wind in the distance, where those pastures she had crossed were. She was on the outskirts of both grassland and water, because water was what she wanted and water was what she deserved after all of this.

Her tent was a mess when she shoved it into her bag, but she didn’t care. With every step she took her right calf burned and her right arm complained, so it was with a limp that she approached the sparkling waters, wondering if a repeat of the tsunami might drown her for good this time. Might as well. Yet as her stitched forehead screamed with every expression she made there was still enough of a spark inside of her to trigger another storm of anger. The bitch that killed Eye was still alive, and she didn’t deserve that. Laila wanted to find her and end her, just like Willis had ended Ari after he burned Claire to her grave. Come out come out wherever you are.

The calm rush of waves lapping against a tiny shore nearly muffled the sound of sudden footsteps, but not enough to leave Laila complete unawares. She turned just as a blade licked the inside of her arm and hissed at the sting of it, backing away and withdrawing her sword to face whoever was trying to sneak up on her. ”You,” she spat bitterly, recognizing the girl’s face immediately. The girl that helped Ari kill Claire. ”I don’t have time for you right now, I have to find the girl that killed Eye. Blonde-haired, from district six I think.” She hoped the girl would maybe be familiar with the girl’s name, so Laila could at least pin a label to a face other than the filthy insults her brain continued to create. She remembered what she had said the last time she had seen this girl’s face – ”You better hope you never see us again, cause if you do, we’ll kill you!”

There was no more “we”, but there was still her. The girl didn’t seem tempted to budge or willing to walk away and avoid a scrap, so maybe it was time to fulfill that promise she made. For Claire’s sake.

”Get out of my way!”

She lashed out.

She aimed for the girl’s leg – slow her down, make her bleed – and struck home, summoning a cry from her throat. It wasn’t just bloodshed she would cause, it was burning. Her blade was bathed in fire, the same substance that haunted her dreams and destroyed her house and drowned Claire in death until her heart was too scorched to pump ashy blood. She didn’t know why she was suddenly wielding such destructive power again – hadn’t it betrayed her the first time, fading beneath bison’s blood and failing to leave any significant marks? Why had she even bothered to accept a jar of tar from sponsors?

Because it means somebody out there still wants you alive.

It reminded her almost too late that there was still an outside world to all of this, that people were observing her every move. That her family was probably in the Sycamore house right now, watching. What would they think of her playing with something so dangerous? They would want me to win, right? And it certainly wasn’t the worst thing she had ever done. In the bloodbath she had sliced a boy’s head clean off of his shoulders, and just one day ago she had helped Willis dice a girl to death. Compared to those sins, burning a doomed girl in the leg was child’s play, and killing her would only be a repeat of the days before. It was expected of people in the games – perhaps not of Laila, since she was a thirteen year old orphan with scrawny arms and slow reflexes, but it was an ordinary occurrence. Edgar, Lilith, Blaire, all of them would understand, right? They would pray for her survival, and screw them if they thought she was a monster. I’m only doing what’s necessary.

”No?” she repeated, small face twisting into a scowl. Why wouldn’t she just move? Laila wasn’t stupid enough to merely turn her back to the enemy, but they could easily just take careful steps back and walk away from all of this. They could avoid death if they truly wanted to. But that’s what glued them to this soil, to these waters; they wanted and needed to perform death’s bidding, because one more death was one step closer to the crown, to survival. To fame and fortune and safety. To home. She had once foolishly believed that Eye would be the victor, that the mighty dragon slayer was strong enough to stand above the rest and conquer this arena. Now he was gone, ripped away from them as easily as she could tear apart a family photo. And she missed him, because she once imagined him as the victor and herself as the little girl who dreamed worthless dreams as the Games claimed her life. She had once thought she wouldn’t stand a chance against all of these teenagers. Now that Eye was gone and she was still standing, did she not have a chance? A child outliving the dragon slayer; what did that mean?

It means Edgar, Lilith, Blaire, Silas, it means seeing all of them again. Claire was dead, Eye was dead, Willis had abandoned her in the middle of the night. All of her friends were gone, and she was alone, but she still had a family. They weren’t much of a family – just a bunch of kids living under the same disheveled roof, but it was better than standing here in this place knowing that she couldn’t count on anyone but herself. No Eye, no Willis, no Edgar. She still wanted to kill the blonde girl who murdered her best friend, but there were priorities. This girl was one of them. One step closer. Make her heart stop beating.

”You know I can kill you, right?” Her glare was fierce, laced with hatred and determination. ”I chopped a boy’s head off in the bloodbath, and yesterday I helped my friend kill Savannah. Killing you won’t be hard.”

Not that she was proud of it. There was no such thing as pride in a shithole like this, because even someone who could slay a dragon could be broken in a split second’s time.

”He’s dead, isn’t he?”

Her groan was hoarse from a day’s worth of rage and suffering, and with a parched throat and chapped lips to match it was surprising that she could speak at all after the haze in her vision faded. Willis was standing a way’s away from her, mouth pursed into an angry line, eyebrows furrowed, mask radiating raw anger as he clutched his sword while she was propped against a tree littered in bandages wrapped around stitched wounds. She could feel the fabric tickling her forehead, and she could see the white stained red covering her arm and her calf. Willis must’ve healed her after she passed out on his shoulder, using needles and threads to mend open flesh. It had to be the blood loss that coaxed her into the unpleasant, dazed slumber, or perhaps the shock of hearing two cannons instead of one – one for Savannah, one for Eye.

”I didn’t imagine it.” Her words were answered with tense, confirming silence, and she felt her chest hollowing out. A shaky breath escaped her, and she tilted her head toward a black sky. ”And you dragged me out before I could kill the girl that killed him.” Somehow her eyes could not be emptied of tears. She felt the uninviting warmth teasing the edges of her lids as the stars twinkled in blurred vision. Eye was up there somewhere, maybe, she wanted to believe it. Even if it was a ridiculous notion. “You were vulnerable..” he finally replied, softly bending their shared silence after several moments. Laila lowered her head and pushed herself off of the ground, staggering when she was finally upright on both legs. ”I don’t care,” she growled at him, because he had no right to decide what she was or where she should go. No right.

He suddenly whirled on her with a voice like icicles. “Well maybe you should care! I saved your fucking life! And you know what? This isn't the first time either!" She took a step back, hands brushing against rough tree bark. She hadn’t expected such a violent outburst, and she was well aware that he had saved her life before. "I could have left you, but I didn't. I got you out of there, I carried you until I was on the verge of collapse, and then I stitched you up..” But that’s not what she had wanted, she had wanted to stay and butcher the blonde girl who murdered her – no, their friend. “Maybe you should care…”

”I never asked you to save me,” she retorted, crossing her arms stubbornly. She could’ve handled herself back there, she could’ve taken her revenge! It had been right in front of her, only a few paces away! ”What do you want, a fucking medal?” A trophy, an award, a crown? Did he want her thanks, did he want her to be grateful? Grateful that they abandoned their friend when she hadn’t asked for that? It was my choice to stay, not yours.

“Ah, fuck you then.” He turned away and started sifting through his bag, and at his curse she felt the heat rising in her veins. “No one ever fucking appreciates me..” She watched him through reddening vision as he pulled out a few plants and a bottle of alcohol. Like he really needed that shit right now. ”Go cry about it. You’re acting like a little kid.” She wanted to roll her eyes at him. She knew what kids acted like because she was a kid, or at least she used to be before death stared her in the eyes. It changes you. I can’t be a kid anymore.

“A kid?” Suddenly he was on his feet again, lifting the fabric of his filthy shirt above his head and discarding it into the dirt, and for a moment Laila was baffled. She didn’t know why the hell he was stripping until her eyes raked over the disfigurement along his chest. Scars like zebra stripes decorated his flesh, along with the pink scar tissue of what had to be burns. ”Why are you showing me this?” she breathed, reeling back with horrific shot at the disturbing sight. These were ancient scars, old tales drawn across his skin that were not caused by the Games. This happened before The Reaping, before she ever even knew his name. I could’ve had scars like that, she realized, but as fate decided she had escaped that burning house with minimal injury. Willis was not so fortunate, it seemed. Whatever Hell he had tried to escape had ended up following him instead.

"You know what I went through as a kid, huh? You wanna go there? I've been through pain like you wouldn't believe. I can't close my eyes without feeling these scars. I was never a kid, Laila. I never got to be a kid..." He abruptly grabbed the bottle of whiskey and shoved it in her face. “You're feeling like the adult here? Want to grieve? Here, have a fucking drink, on me." Fingers trembling, she stared at the bottle until her hands relieved it from him – but it wasn’t a drink she wanted. Instead of indulging in the stupid poison, she hurled it against a tree and painted the soil with its contents. ”Screw your drink!” Was the only statement she could think of in response. A child’s tantrum was a nasty thing, an illogical thing. The shatter of glass seemed to shock Willis into a state of angry disbelief. “WHAT THE FUCK!”

She could see how wild his eyes were, how overwhelmed with panic they seemed to be. For a moment she thought he might lunge at her, and her gaze flickered to her sword for a moment. It was on the ground, out of the way but she might still be able to reach it. Is it really going to come down to this?

”That stuff doesn't help anyway! I saw you throwing up today!"

He attacked only with words. “Well it ain't gonna help now! Don't you realize what you done? I CAN’T DIE SOBER! I can’t..“ Tears brimmed his eyes, but his sorrow wouldn’t stop her from thinking of his strange addiction as ridiculous. She just couldn’t understand. ”You can, and you will.

And then the next morning, when faced with her own nightmares she had not been surprised to wake up to only one tent instead of two. He had abandoned her in the middle of the night, but her outrage was consumed by other priorities.

She screamed when the knife plunged into her chest, and for a moment she thought she might die. A stab to the chest is fatal, yet when she backed away and covered the sticky wound with her hands she still felt very much alive and willing to swing her sword. She didn’t want to die like this, she didn’t want Willis to be right. ”You were vulnerable.. he had said to her. She didn’t want to be some vulnerable girl anymore.

”You know I don’t give a shit about your friend, and I know you don’t give a shit about mine.” she gasped, pressing her left hand firmly into the wound. It made her wince and swallow another cry. ”I guess that makes us equal, in one way…”

But she didn’t want them to be equal.

Why me?

From head to toe she was battered and bloody, threads woven into split flesh on her arm, her calf, her forehead, and her stomach, and with a new wound gaping above her ribcage she looked like a ragged doll with stitches in every rip and tear – worn and abused. When she entered this arena through the suffocating tube of glass she knew pain was inevitable, but she had hoped that her fellow tributes would bless her with a little more accuracy. Could nobody aim a crushing and fatal blow to the right places? Why tear open her forehead when her neck was right beneath it? Why gash her arm when there was a heart to puncture? Why toss an axe into her leg instead of her back, where her lungs could be invaded? The only tribute to hit the mark was this girl, and the only reason Laila was still breathing was a streak of luck on her part. Her lungs and heart remained untouched, although the blood seeping through her clothes and drenching her palm was definitely something worth checking when this was over. If I’m still alive.

It was torture, honestly. Whenever she put weight on her right leg it burned, whenever the muscles in her right arm flexed to draw forth her blade it burned, and no matter what emotion she conveyed her expression brought forth more burning on her forehead. The healing laceration on her stomach didn’t hurt her more than it itched, though she could not stretch without irritating the damn thing. If she was going to die today, why couldn’t it be a little quicker? Who the hell thought it was so hilarious to torment a thirteen-year-old orphan in an arena full of developed teenagers? She should not have to pay for all of this suffering. There should be a prize at the end, a prize that didn’t involve her guts spilling out or her brain shutting down. Death was not a damn prize. Victory might be worth all of this, but death? It just wasn’t fair to hurt so much and then just disappear from the face of the earth without living a full life.

Screw the unfairness of it.

”We are not equal,” the girl said, and Laila resisted the desire to roll her eyes. She was stubborn as hell, but so am I.

”Why not?” She hesitantly withdrew her hand from the active wound to grip her katana with both hands. She needed the leverage. ”You think you’re better than me? Because you haven’t killed anyone?” she asked, but she honestly couldn’t decipher whether her opponent had ever killed or not. Judging by the way her expression had shifted upon jabbing the knife into her chest, she was either free of a murderer’s burden or she just wasn’t yet used to stealing innocent lives. Laila had only killed once, and she didn’t even know if she was “used” to it. Could she ever be?

The wind kissed her sword, and in turn the fates decided that Laila of house Sycamore deserved to suffer. Her scream was that of a trapped animal pleading for life as she felt the blade sink into skin and muscle. Her back arched away from the malicious touch and she stumbled forward into the dirt, landing on all fours as tears sprung forth. This morning she had felt hollow, like an empty shell unable to blossoms tears. She thought maybe her ducts had dried up. She had been wrong – they were here again, avenging. Even after all of this, even after she had proven herself capable enough to kill humans and mutts alike she was still not strong enough to battle tears.

” No. I am not…not better than you.” Clearly she was. ”But we are not equal. Our mechanisms, the wiring—“

”Are you crazy, or are you just stupid?” she shrieked rather harshly to mask the terror in her voice. At a time like this she would rather vent anger than fear, even if the fear was apparent in her wild eyes. ”Wiring? I’m not a robot. I’m human, you’re human. Why is everybody in this place so fucking stupid?” She hastily wiped the tears off of her stained cheeks and stood up. The wound burned with every simple movement, but there was no avoiding that unless she were to lie down and accept her grave. She couldn’t do that, though, not when Willis was muttering at her in distant echoes. ”You were vulnerable.. She wasn’t vulnerable this time, yet she was. She could hold her own in a group, contribute to killing whatever enemy obstructed their path to safety. But alone? This was her first time being stranded by herself, and she was losing. She was weak.

”I saved your fucking life!” But he couldn’t save her this time. She wished he could. During Eye’s demise he had saved her against her will. Now that she truly needed him, he was gone. Is that what they call irony? She didn’t know these things, and she could hardly think straight. She swayed on her feet as she stepped closer and closer to Anni, hands both wrapped around her katana’s hilt. She felt dizzy, and she knew why. I’m losing too much blood. Her chest was a fountain, her back was a fountain. More red decorations to match the ones on her face, her arm, her leg, her stomach. Why not her neck? Why not just finish the damn job?

”Everyone always misses the right spots..” she muttered to nobody in particular. ”If you’re going to k-kill me…try harder.”

Her imagination wandered. What would happen if Willis swept in and killed this girl on the spot? Maybe he wasn’t gone, maybe he had just remained hidden. Maybe he had followed her, and was watching her balance between life and death. Maybe he wanted to prove a point. You win, Willis, just come out now and save me.

She knew it wouldn’t happen. Knights in shining armor didn’t exist. Heroes? They always died. They were nothing.

Chin up, Laila.

She suddenly ripped the golden cape away from her own neck and thrust her sword through it. She would hold her chin up, but she was done pretending to be anything but a weakling. She tore through the fabric until it was split into two pieces, and she let the wind take it away.

Then she tried to tear Anni into two pieces.

Even in suffering, life was precious. She was dangling by a thread as the girl danced away from her blade – though not without sustaining another splice to the leg – but she knew that life was her motivation to stand boldly through the agony, whether she was weak or not. Her opponent didn’t seem to understand. ”Try harder?” replied a girl with wide eyes, and Laila wanted to scoff. ”Yes, try harder! You’re trying to kill me, right?” And it was working because see could feel herself draining, yet she was sturdy enough to stand on her two feet and fight until her muscles refused. This girl was quick, and it was difficult to strike any vital points. But Laila was sluggish in her movements, never quite able to evade a knife or a sword or even the claw of a savage mutt. Physically she was incapable of escaping unscathed from any sort of fight, and Anni was hitting the mark. It just wasn’t hard enough. A stab to the back? She would only suffer. A stab to the chest? Make it deeper.

She expected the girl to heed her words and finish the job, and perhaps she was aiming for a vital organ but the movement was so forward and predictable that Laila merely lifted her blade to counter before silver could touch red. Her entire body ached and burned, but she still wanted to live. Apparently more so than this girl. ”TRY HARDER!” she shouted, staggering out of her reach. She wanted to survive, but if her death here was imminent they might as well stop wasting time and end her swiftly. She lashed out with her blade again, head abuzz with dizziness and fatigue buried beneath the hum of will-power. She contradicted herself and instinctively aimed low – why? The girl’s foot dropped into the dirt, and blood pooled around the wound’s entrance. She was crippled, vulnerable. Laila could thrust the sword into her chest before she tried to scramble back up.

Except the girl wasn’t trying to stand back up.

What’s going on?

The blood, all of that blood. It was obvious, wasn’t it? She was slowly bleeding out. Laila couldn’t deliver a merciful enough final blow, and it just felt wrong to plunge a blade into her chest while she was lying flat.

She dropped to her knees as her world started to tilt, releasing her sword into the dirt. She tried desperately to narrow her focus on the bleeding girl. ”I hope… I hope you find her. I hope you do what I couldn’t do.” Laila could hardly hear the girl’s small voice above her own ragged panting, but it reached her nonetheless. Why was she hoping for her own killer? Hope was not something one invested in their own murderers. She didn’t understand, and she didn’t know how to respond. She merely pursed her lips and mentally thanked her for her support, even if it was irrational.

Her cannon was followed by silence and stillness.

She stared at the corpse, aware of her own emptiness. She hadn’t felt a thing for Thistle during the Bloodbath other than disgust at the sight of his severed head, and she wouldn’t feel anything for this girl either. When she had questioned Willis about this lack of regard he told her that it “might be bad”. No, she knew it was bad. She knew it was wrong and sickening to feel nothing for the deceased, but nobody could convince her that it was abnormal. What right did she have to feel sympathy for someone she destroyed on purpose? It was ridiculous to mourn for someone you wanted to kill. She wondered if Willis still held that opinion dear, or if claiming two lives had changed him. Did he feel anything for them, or was he as empty as she was? Or maybe he felt everything at once, and used alcohol to drown it until he was numb.

It was apparent that the blonde truly was gone. He was still wandering in this vast arena somewhere, perhaps by the volcano or in the rocky plain or inside the Cornucopia. Boom. Or maybe he was dead. Boom. Or maybe he had butchered. Either way, she no longer needed him to save her. I saved myself this time. She shakily climbed to her feet and grabbed the girl’s discarded bag, searching through its contents to greedily pull out a bundle of plants. She felt a gust of wind ruffle her bloody gi and a cold wave lap at her feet. She was alone, for now, and for once she didn’t need the protection of others to keep herself safe and alive.

Problem was, she didn’t want to be alone.