empire state of mind {margaret/ellexias, day 7}

There was a bit of herself inside Katelyn, the refusal to abandon a suffering patient. Despite their friendship they both knew it was wisest to leave Lexi in nature’s hands, to let life take its course because there were only four of them left. The second cannon bouncing from tree to tree - igniting the forest in a terrifying echo of a corpse’s song - startled her writhing heart. Thoughts of Marchello and his conditions reminded her of her ordeal. She had abandoned him in the dead of tonight and perhaps this was her final punishment. It could be him inside of a Capitol hovercraft, body preserved so he could be laid to rest in a coffin in District Six. What would his family think of her?

Wretched girl.

She trembled beneath Katelyn’s healing touch. Guidance was necessary to treat two separate stumps, both of which were exposed to the dangers of this environment. Without fire, there was no way to cauterize them and cease the bleeding for good, but that would decrease the risk of infection anyway. Katelyn wrapped her leg and her wrist with tight bandages. The material was already becoming spotted with blood, and she didn’t know how long she would last. ”Elevate my leg, I can hold my arm up. All we can do is wrap them in bandages and hope for the best,” she had said, and even that was optimism.

If people had souls, then hers was ridden with fatigue. She hardly registered Katelyn’s needle piercing through the skin of her arm. That kind of pain just didn’t matter anymore. They were minor inconveniences, yet they still needed to be patched up to prevent further blood loss and potential infection.

Nightfall embraced them with a terrible wind chill. She didn’t move from her position against the tree. She was waiting out in silence for her punishment. The remnants of her energy had not yet left her. Perhaps she would survive the evening, but that was all. Katelyn would leave in the middle of the night, she knew that much. With four tributes remaining there was no logical reason to stay. There was a chance Lexi wouldn’t wake at all. Euthanasia was not unkind in this scenario. She didn’t consider it betrayal.

After all, that menace was still alive out there, the one who wanted to grind their bones and extend their suffering. When she died, she wanted it to be quick. But she would never ask that of Katelyn. If she didn’t want to carry out that gruesome task, so be it. Lexi would forgive her regardless of what happened tonight.

She would not, however, forgive herself.

Prism was the name of the blonde boy she had killed today. She paid no heed to his identity or the memories. The second name was the one that stood out to her, the one that reduced Katelyn to tears. The one that reminded her how much of a heartless monster she had become. Abandoning a crippled boy, what had she expected to happen? A miracle? Leaving him to fend for himself had been his downfall. It was her fault entirely, she could’ve interfered. She could’ve protected him like she had every day before. What changed? Circumstances, but it was no excuse. Her priorities had been skewed, her morals blurred. Now it was too late.

Her tears were for his resting soul, but she didn’t deserve the acknowledgement for her despair. She wiped them away with the back of her handand passed out in the midst of her episode. When she woke, she instantly knew she wasn’t dead. Katelyn had chosen not to euthanize her. As expected, she had vanished instead. The only evidence of her presence were imprints in the snow. She was alone again, crippled and only half-alive. Her motivation was buried in bloody snow. Marchello was dead because of her and now her only option was life until death, an agonizing wait until somebody found her and killed her. She couldn’t find it within herself to end the suffering early. Suicide was not how she would leave this earth. It felt like the ultimate betrayal to her friends and family.

She sobbed instead, helpless and weak. ”I’m dead,” she whispered, ”I’m dead.” She rocked back and forth, face buried in her hand until she couldn’t breathe. The wind whipped her senses into check and she stood up to shake the shudders away. There was no use crying anymore. It was all she wanted to do but it wasn’t progress, it was pitiful. She started limping. Death would find her eventually, but that was the point. That was the final destination. She wouldn’t welcome it with open arms, but she didn’t want it creeping up on her. She just needed to do something other than sit around in a tearful heap of guilt and worthlessness.

She met her in the hills – a silhouette against a white backdrop of snow and heavenly sunlight. ”He seemed sure that you and I would cross paths,” she said, and Lexi froze. It was no mystery. There was only one person who could’ve killed Marchello, and it was her. She recalled her face from the feast and that was all.

There was no vitality left. There wasn’t enough of anything inside of her to trigger anger. Feelings of vengeance were lost on her.

”Sounds like something he would assume,” she croaked weakly. She missed his spirits already. This was a cruel reminder of what she had lost, and where the fault lied.

”He wanted you to know he didn’t blame you for leaving.”

”He should.”

Pain flared in her left knee and she saw it coming this time, her only defense being a few steps taken back into one of the hills. The flesh swept from beneath her dropped her ungracefully into a snow pile, and when the frost licked her exposed nerves she screamed from exhaustion and new-found terror. She was a helpless heap of flesh and misery. There was no means of saving herself now. She had found what she was looking for.

I should’ve stayed.

She was lashing out at her sanity more than she was the killer of her friend.

[attacks Margaret – ice pick]
NcqlgLbJaxe
Shallow Cut on Left Forearm -- 3.5 damage

table inspired by ugky

Agony quelled her nausea. Her leg buried in red snow was a gut-wrenching sight, a nightmare’s horror compared to accidents she had seen in Six. Laboratory explosions were the only catastrophic events to rattle their halls, but bodies were often disintegrated, and she was never the one to treat the wounded. There were often no survivors, either, and a nurse’s job was not to clean up the dead. She had only ever seen amputations on television. The first one she had ever treated belonged to Marchello. She had been taught to perform the procedures on mannequins, and in theory there had been a list of steps for her to memorize in her classes. That was all. She had found them useful in this survival game, but for what? Marchello was gone now, and she was next.

There was no use crawling away. She gripped her ice pick in her one hand, fresh tears like steam leaking from her eyes. She was a mice cornered in its cage, waiting for a lethal injection to be administered by a researcher. Mice were always unaware of humanity’s toxic intentions; it was worse knowing what was in store for her. A knife through her heart didn’t sound as terrible as the fire pouring from her knees, but there was a cold blackout afterward. What happened then? Science claimed simplicity. Her conscience would fade and her body would decompose, that was all. There was no evidence of souls, no proof of an afterlife. This was it, eighteen years in a warped world only to end in tragedy and pain. It didn’t feel worth anything.

Father was waiting. Somewhere in his decrepit mind, he was present and aware of what had happened to her. Her goal had been to scoop out the clouds in his brain and rediscover the loving man he used to be. Mom didn’t birth a child and suffer sickness for this. She had perished in hopes that her family would thrive, that her husband would raise Lexi to become the healer she had always dreamed of being. For a while, it seemed like her dreams had manifested. She was no prodigy, but the health programs admired her diligence. She performed well in the College and earned many opportunities. As an apprentice, she was respected and treated kindly. Perhaps it was naivety and cockiness that led her into the wrong path. She felt like a criminal.

Injustice was dealt to innocent lives, and fate was returning the favor. Every piece of her lost was a life she had ruined in the laboratory. It was all for the sake of nothing, now. There was no progress. It would be all up to Dr. Marx now, and could she trust him to continue the endeavor? Would he take care of her father? Cure him?

And then what? He would live a lonely life, cooped up in a house with no wife and daughter.

She slammed the hilt of her ice pick into the snow. Everything was so pointless. She tormented people for nothing, killed people for nothing. She left Marchello for nothing. She had wasted his life. She had no right to wield such power, to toy with human lives like that.

Frustration drove her forward. She couldn’t shift her body away without tumbling sideways, so she settled with trying to deflect the girl’s strike. The blade cut across her thigh and she flinched despite feeling nothing. ”No,” she choked out, voice quivering, ”I killed four people, and I left Marchello to die in the middle of the night. Somebody like that can’t have a heart.”

She couldn’t even remember their names.

One, two, three, Prism. She didn’t deserve to live.

But the selfish never submitted.

[attacks Margaret – ice pick]
i6YT8Rdfaxe
Deep Gash on Left Bicep -- 8.0 damage

table inspired by ugky

A laceration crawled across the girl’s arm like a serpent. Greedy desperation was making itself known in her muscles, driving her hands forward despite how quickly her world was spiraling to an end. Instinct worked to delay her death. Of course she didn’t want to feel the edge of an ice pick plunging into her chest and scrambling her insides, but it was a means to an end. The end was inevitable at this point. Her legs had been stolen from her – a miserable price to pay, yet there was no reversing the actions of others. There was no replacing regret with relief. Time didn’t exist to move backward and mend her mistakes. It existed to drag her forward in the mud until her bones were scraped clean by friction.

She didn’t want to die with regrets. Her mindset before her stay in the arena had been crisp as this frosted air. She would die early, she decided, because she was not suited to violence and combat. Her allies would surpass her and she would never see another light of day. Her purpose was to protect them and put forth her best efforts, yet she didn’t expect a true outcome. She anticipated her plans falling through with the thrust of somebody’s sword. What happened instead was astonishing; the death of two careers and two others. Outliving twenty tributes. Proving herself heartless and worthless when all she had expected was to become the victim.

She was the villain instead, that much was certain. Pretending to be the victim was immoral, especially after all of the wrongs she had committed. Death was the only way to erase her guilt. She wanted it wiped clean from her conscience and leave it forgotten in the dust, and perhaps that made her weak. She was the epitome of frailty. Her legs were gone, her hand was gone, there was no way of properly defending herself. She was backed up against a mound of snow, waiting to become Games fodder. Death was awaiting the perfect moment, she supposed. Sooner or later the girl would strike a vital point, and it would be over.

She would never be ready for it.

There was a girl long ago who had achieved victory with two missing legs. Lexi had been a child at the time, having never paid much attention to the Games. She couldn’t remember the details now, but the girl had somebody to carry her. She didn’t. She had ruined her chances by leaving Marchello vulnerable to enemies, and this was the punishment. A reality harsher than the weather chilling her exposed bones. There was no hope for a victory here. If there was, she didn’t want it. She didn’t want to live without legs and a hand, and she didn’t want the Capitol to falsify them. Their advanced technology was a miracle in itself, but never shared with her District. She didn’t want it at all.

Yet she continued to raise her axe and deflect the girl’s weapon. It scraped her arm and she tried to feel it.

”I don’t think we are,” she said. What could you possibly know?

[attacks Margaret – ice pick]
CP8w2Wmjaxe
Shallow Cut on Right Thigh -- 3.5 damage

table inspired by ugky

Her heart was lost somewhere, perhaps buried in a coffin with her mother, perhaps left behind in her father’s trembling hands. It could be anywhere; stolen by Marchello or Katelyn, maybe torn in half so each could have a piece for safekeeping. Either way, she had given it up without consent long ago. Remnants of its feelings were lodged inside of her, still orbiting the deaths she had summoned after the echo of the gong. It was all metaphorical. Physically her heart was beating – although weakly – and pumping life through her arteries, feeding the desperate cells in her brain. But she was not speaking of organs. This was about morality.

Her secrets were protected behind closed doors. Nobody other than Dr. Karx knew of their crimes against humanity. Anybody with a logical thought process would consider her actions criminal. Whether it was for the sake of science and family was up for debate, but she had caused harm in others for selfish reasons. Science no longer seemed worth torturing people. Would she submit herself to pain to save the memories of a dying stranger? Her mind said no, yet their own patients weren’t even aware of what their participation entailed. They didn’t know the details, they were just sitting ducks having been forced or tricked into being guinea pigs.

Back then, she justified it with her goal set. Now that she had witnessed the draining of life in the most gruesome ways, she was second guessing herself. It seemed like such a waste. No sane human being should think of her as anything more than a criminal, yet she carried the burden of these secrets. She wouldn’t atone for her crimes until she was buried in a cemetary. Even then, it wouldn’t bring the others back. It wasn’t compensation, just a punishment. Nobody would see it that way. This girl wouldn’t see it that way either. She didn’t know Lexi and Lexi didn’t know her, but she knew too much about herself. She knew enough now to confidently label herself a villain.

”Home is where the heart is,” she said. The armor snug against her torso suddenly split in half, and she felt a sharp pang in the small of her back. She arched and winced. ”That’s where yours is, right?” Not here, because she was a smart girl. Lexi guessed that control was a strongpoint of hers. ”Not here. I think mine was here for a while and I lost it. I killed my own friend.”

She wouldn’t hear any arguments against her role in Marchello’s death. It was simple; had she stayed, she would’ve protected him like she had every other day. Instead, she made the decision to leave him in the middle of the night. He died the very next day by this girl’s hand. With two legs, Lexi might’ve been able to kill her.

She didn’t like the taste of regret, but expected the metallic tang of blood to replace it soon.

[attacks Margaret – ice pick]
j8helkj1axe
Deep Gash on Chest -- 9.5 damage

table inspired by ugky

There was a startling gush of blood where the tooth of her ice pick burrowed into flesh. With one hand she had managed to bury it in this girl’s chest, and for a petrifying second she thought she punctured her lung. The edge was nowhere near her heart, and most likely hadn’t slipped between any ribs, yet the spillage of blood across her shirt made her recoil. Her constant swipes and deflects felt fueled by instinct rather than by a motivation to continue breathing. There was no reason to kill this girl and plant herself here like a rock. No amount of crawling would save her from the elements. Frostbite would blacken her fresh stump and freeze her slowly. It would be a long, agonizing burn until she finally laid to rest.

She realized now that her body meant to attack, but she hadn’t meant to kill. Watching the girl clutch her leaking chest was no short of horrifying. Surrender felt like a crime, but so did this. She couldn’t lay down her life like it was nothing, yet she also couldn’t waste her time trying to kill someone who was trying to do her a favor. Couldn’t she simply choose this girl’s life over her own withering one? Stranger or not, she had every reason to spare her in favor of submission. To delay her death was just another long journey to the same ending, except with more pain and more guilt. Katelyn was the only tribute remaining. She didn’t want to see her again under these circumstances. Katelyn deserved not to be burdened with the task of murdering her own defenseless ally.

”If seven is a home then I welcome hell with open arms.”

There was a sharpness to the sting that awakened her senses. Her lungs cried out to the winds, and there was no answer. Hell was not something she wanted to welcome with open arms, but that decision was out of her hand. For her own sake she hoped it didn’t exist.

She was wrong to make assumptions about a stranger, but if home wasn’t what she wanted, then what was she fighting for? Was it purely survival instinct, the same engraved humanity that was driving her ice pick forward? Had they finally been reduced to their most primitive states? The Games always exposed such attributes. It cracked people open like eggs and spilled their contents to the world. The harsh nature of their arenas promoted savagery. She had never considered her own violent acts as animalistic or impulsive. They were coordinated, meant to protect herself and her friends. There was a mind behind the matter.

This, however, was a mindless battle. She struck again without reason.

[attacks Margaret – ice pick]
VLnRb2vuaxe
Shallow Cut on Right Hip -- 3.5 damage

table inspired by ugky