A Battle Against Time [70th Finale]

Counting to twenty-four hours struck against a clock that never seemed to correctly tell the time— I could only keep the count straight when I was watching for one sign more of a death I could not despise. Eighty-four scratched upon a surface I was forced to loosen my grasp on before the task was done I had watched finality fade to failure and determination dwindle into desperation with the passing moments spent in a justice building with no visitors to knock upon hollow walls. No blood relations to care for a broken boy— my parents knew the five steps to fixing their child’s problem but never once stopped to think that the destruction desecrated any progress they had ever managed to make.

The problem with persistence was the focal point of self-loathing lying in the idea that perfection could be attained by a hand that did not hold purity in its palm, rather dirty fingernails and scratched skin attempted to possess power where none was due. No presence in eighty-four punctures to pure skin my hatred became my only sense of help, stones on broken ankles reminding of a pain that could exist outside the realm of a reality I could only face when I was fully weighed down to a ground that constantly gave way if one was not careful to tread lightly.

Heavy feet upon fragile footing it was often that confidence crumbled and realism rolled with each fall of the fallible. Eighty-four times prior to the time spent in a week’s worth of the worthless— I was counting confidence in the void left behind by its lacking, the empty cavity of my chest expanding at the expense of an existence I could never exemplify. Sanity for the self-loathing was never a trait found in the bloodstream, and with the fall of the sun on night seven I find no security in the scratches that skim scarred skin; no comfort in the lack of condolences that were fabled to lie in gashes too deep to stitch with simple string and shaking fingers.

Anthem to break apart the bits of night the boy from two’s face flashes first, scenes of his lover’s suicide more prominent than any memories of him. Nothing special in a district that lives to produce lambs for the fallen Circe Lyon’s death left a lasting impression for the both of them when she trailed a lit axe across the outline of her spine, a picture of skeletal simplicity where complexity was the common ground. Set apart for the sacred Kiena Ward follows, the number three holding her to a home she will never reach because of my hand alone— Stella Summit’s spear to her stomach she sunk to shaking knees to pay for a sin she could not atone for.

No rest for the righteous— neither I nor the boy from eleven could hold that card in our deck for show. Ace of spades up my sleeve desperation played a dirty hand in the rise of a sun that would never set on our horizons. One to stand between a house that would never be sane to call home again, not with a white-washed wall never completed by a hand that would never be allowed to touch it again, not with a pocketknife shattered under my heel or a blade that cried of bloody hands and broken bones.

Three steps towards twist of truth and trust— I did not know the boy from eleven’s name, only that our occurrences were that which I did not wish to recreate, risen from the ashes of flames that should have died out three days prior when he watched the girl from eight fall to mutts, mauled by sense of a heavy step and a light sense of reason.

But nothing of note falls in my mind when I think of the boy from eleven, no name to put to a face I did not wish to see on the final day of a downfall long coming. Rather to be struck by a hatchet through the heart while being smother by the smokescreen I knew nothing of tactical timing and how he was to play his hand, for the cards up his sleeve remained unidentifiable to the common eye, for there is no specialty in the sane.

But sanity is subtle and subtlety does not fill the graveyards and lead the tombstones to flourish with thoughts of the fallen.

Lit match across the tips of four knives I had pulled from the bag of Kiena Ward I run a hand across the handle of hell’s torch, light to the sunrise there is nothing to shed upon a situation that smokes with the flames of a fallen heart.

The boy from eleven stands in front of me like the forerunner to a fate I do not wish to tempt, the death of at least one upon his back— he does not seem to shrink under the weight as I shrivel under Kiena Ward’s conscience upon my shoulders with the shift of the wind.

I’d rip hollow ribs from an empty chest to kindle the flickering flames of a fire meant to burn out the day that Sue Tate laid his sword against my skin under the guise of sanity. Torn seams in trust risen from the ashes I had extinguished the last embers of Kiena Ward’s empathy while remembering the final moments of her life, never the first of her death.

Bomb yourself to fix the bullet holes— I had failed step one of the course of eight days, I was left now only to strike the match against my skin.

For eight days I had only been painting in shades of red.

But blurring colors on the artist’s palette is a transgression that lays high on the list, pain never to be accented with anger in fear of the repercussions that were to come when two thoughts did not meld like smooth pieces of metal. The seam simple to see stitches line my skin like the welder missed his mark one time too many. Pain hidden from the penalized I hid behind a shield of sympathy, the boy who almost lost his life to the girl from district three only to lose it to a boy whose impression of a power trip involved drawing lines in the sand so blatant he would even step back to regret them.

“Howeva, you ova stepped ya lines, Wyatt.”

Accented by anger his axe catches the side of a vest that had reached my hand just hours prior, a gift for the grateful, this was only one step further in death’s defiance.

Eighty-five and eighty-six traced upon my wrists with the blood of the beast from day two, I had seen anger and refused to acknowledge it. Overrun by fear Sue Tate, Noah Bowers, and Maya Xiaoqing had accompanied the arbitrary, never putting a name to the fallen corpse in front of us but only knowing that death was a title it would wear proudly upon scarred skin.

Red lines of drying blood on my wrists, I did not feel the same.

Absent anger in the tearing of our skin I had never been able to see the same shade of red. They were the fire on the end of our weapons, flickering with vengeance when I was the fading embers of fear. Boundaries overstepped the fueled their flames with motivation while I was left to strike sticks and stones.

Never a fire-starter; I’d rather extinguish the flames and tend to the burns of their burden.

But Kirito Miristioma accuses me overstepping a line he drew in the sand with bloody fingers and a dirty conscience, blurring the colors on my palette together until no shade of red is distinguishable one from another. Empty chest and hollow ribs the first knife leaves my hand like gasoline poured over an open flame.

Ignition of weakness found in the blade that strikes the sight of his eye fire sparks at the touch, like his skin is charcoal against white purity. There was sin to be burned away and the only method of doing so was by striking the match against his sin.

His laugh on the afternoon air he swings with partial blindness towards a target he cannot see, for my skin has been scratched one time too many for true damage to be done to a truth he cannot touch. Sanity was for the self-righteous and it became apparent that Kirito Miristioma was neither sane nor righteous.

His blade only a passerby in my presence I let my gaze linger on the axe that falls at my feet.

Taking the axe handle in my hand I nudge it away with my foot— he does not determine my boundaries despite his desperation. For he is no more than the cannons that have sounded in his favor, and I am no more than one. No more than Kiena Ward and the final moments of her death that replayed the prior night in the moments that followed her face striking the night sky.

Axe kicked away there is only open space between us, a reminder of the vast that lies on the timeline of that which determined which of us was to defy death a final time— I do not know his prior count, but mine stands high, grazing the blade of the reaper one time too many to forget the touch of cold metal against burning skin.

Stoic to his smirk our gaze does not break as I begin, “Last time I checked you were simply another fucking kid caught in the middle of an egotistical landslide, so do not tell me what boundaries I have overstepped unless you’re willing to have your own handed to you on a silver platter served with a side of self-loathing,”

Breathing in the burden of a boy who was to burn at the hands of the broken, my breath hitches on the continuation of a conscience I wish to clean, “and believe me Kirito, that is not an invitation that you would want to accept.”

Shades of red blurred one to the same there is no distinguishing anger and fear when the only touch left by either against my skin burns with the fire that flickers at the end of a blade at arm’s length.

Colorblind to consciousness the world only prefers to see in shades of red, anyway.

Lecture by the liar and the lied to he speaks as if he holds the key to a lock already broken, “If ya honestly think I am egotistical ya truly know nothin’, Wyatt.” Knowledge is always correct by the mind that thinks it, never able to distinguish fact from fiction he continues, “The truth is no amount of words will change the truth of what happens here.” Yet he lingers on, convinced that his conviction would drive deeper than his attacks— not completely false, for it seems he cannot hit with either.

“We are both just fuckers that will keep fighting until a cannon sounds. So get ova’ any thoughts ya think ya know about me because I assure ya, I am not what ya think I am.” No words that he could possibly speak would convince me that Kirito Miristioma was anything but an idiot— unaware, perhaps, but clueless and unrealistic regardless. Trapped in a world he tallied by his death count he become lost in the numbers which did not speak of sanity to him. But sanity in his sense was a loose definition, which could be bent as easily as the flames that swayed in the afternoon breeze.

Impact to the chest and he staggers slightly, broken bits of armor crumbling at his feet without use like every word he has spoken prior.

Moment of silence to break apart the strain another axe sails by, only differing from his prior strike in the fact that the smell of smoke fills my lungs as it singes my skin, a reminder of a fueled fire I cannot stomp out without lingering on the edge of an insanity I did not wish to face.

Yet still he refuses to come to finality with another piece of speech flung hastily in my direction, “So tell meh cause I figured ya would know. What the hell happened to Circe Lyon?” Mouth tugging to a smirk the flames flicker in a pattern all too familiar to forget, an answer on my tongue he cuts me off with timing truly turned to shit, “If ya lie I promise ya I will cut ya tongue out.”

No loss of time in the time that it takes to laugh I linger in its presence, no such action having crossed my mind for the past seven days there is new vitality in the rumbling of my chest, as if hollow threats would leave any mark against marred skin and an empty chest.

Day six only two days prior to seem like an eternity Sue Tate flashes across my mind like a reminder of light in a place only dark from the moment his cannon sounded and on. But Sue Tate was the period at the end of a run-on sentence, finality in fear he was not the topic of the truth Kirito Miristioma wished to hear. No question of the boy from two who limped to a lingering existence I can only assume that the boy in front of me took his life at the thought of returning favors that were not his to owe.

“a roar like mine
you will not find
among the living”

Answer to a riddle never solved— “Who am I?”

Another way to spell Wyatt O’Connor was the final moment before Circe Lyon’s death, when narcissism was pondered for its pro’s over gluttony and avarice. The sight of her skin set alight by sin I focus on the horizon behind Kirito Miristioma when I speak, “She killed herself—I watched her strike an axe against her own spine.”

Circe Lyon was the change of pace in the middle of a sentence that signified uncertainty, never able to be defined by the numbers on the side of a six-sided dice, one gamble that could not be taken despite having the best odds. No reason for her to fall by her own blade alone I’d call her courageous but self-sacrifice is a card I have played one time too many to deem holy.

No confirmation from his end of the wire I can only believe that he wears doubt upon his sleeve like Circe Lyon fixated upon narcissism, gluttony, and avarice, “I would say you could come and take my tongue out if you didn’t believe me, but it doesn’t seem that you can about lay a hit on me in general, so I suppose I’d be asking too much.”

Power played by the powerless he wanted to strike me with my own stupidity as if it was sharp enough to tear my skin and become the predecessor to my fall but he was left with only the space between us and the passing moments to fill it. But if we were to truly empathize with emptiness, it meant draining ourselves of that which remained.

I do not know if there is anything left to be found in this hollow chest of mine.

"Thank ya for ya honesty, but be careful about everything ya say.”

Spasm of muscle and my knife skims shallow, a disappointment to a defiance of death and I was left listening to Kirito’s voice in my ear like the buzz of a night spent too far in thought. Worst type of forgetful— remembering everything. Sue Tate and I’s night spent in an attempt to forget prominent in the mind of the powerless, the empty bottle held tightly to a hollow chest threatened to slice skin, yet its danger held no rank in urgent threat.

Until the sixth day, dying had not held much rank either.

But watching the final moments of Sue Tate and Circe Lyon, axe to the spine and nerve severed— I did not wish to fall the same way. A promise to Kiena Ward, “I wish to go quickly.” A lie in disguise, there was fear overlapping every sense left to be felt. A shade of red now dulled, I wished to live in the black and white world my parents read about on page four. There was no question to the theoretical principle of that which I did not understand, the simple statement more reliable than that which could be marred by human touch.

“One hundred and four.”

Four words spoken into still air and I can only count backwards, head spinning and fingers numbing I watch his axe sail, unaware of dire consequences until the trouble stings with truth and in the moment that passes I am clawing at a bleeding neck, stopping blood with sweaty palms and tearing at the torn with rough nails.

(“Wyatt you are depressed.”

“No, I’m just sad— bad days are bad days and there’s always the passing of twenty-four hours more and I’m—”

“How long have you been counting the days, waiting for them to pass?”

“One hundred and four.”)

Wyatt you areiamyouareiam dying.

But I did not count one-hundred and four marks upon a white-washed wall to pass the time of my dying, no, I passed them in hopes ground washed in sunlight and blue skies overhead, for weight in a hollow chest and deep breaths that filled damaged lungs. I passed them for the exhalation of smoke, for the time it spent to count to eleven ripped pages in hopes of patching the ripped paper.

I empty my pockets, dropping the wadded piece of paper at my feet before kicking it to his own, “I never learned much from this book, maybe you’ll be able to find use of it.”

Five steps to fixing your child; one to break— kill them.

“Sorry it’s only page six, the other were lost somewhere between the method and the madness, but my mother always told me that was a side-effect of sadness.” Nights spent between the sheets searching after sleep that refused to be found— they never explained what it was like to be gasping for air in the cool of night, falling against a hollow wall when the sheets untangle from your body in the desperate fight for a freedom just out of reach.

“I’ve decided I don’t really need that book anymore, it didn’t do me much good after five years spent on the same eleven pages.”

I never wished to read the words that marked the ending.