Cross my heart and hope to die [Insanis' one-shot]

i n s a n i s .

{Can't you hear the bells sing in Cologne?
You won't hear it on the radio}

Two canons to symbolise a death means two faces haunt the sky tonight. The anthem blurred loud and proud through the whole arena and I'm smiling as faces begin to reveal themselves in the stars. The most obvious face of Cecilia Brontz shows up in the sky; a wasted opportunity but no real loss I guess. She was entertaining while she lasted at least, I couldn't help but admire her guts and determination. The way she stood up to me in the arena. I could have killed her at any time with the flick of my wrist and she still spoke her mind. Bravery like that deserves at least some admiration.

The next face is the face of the District Ten boy and my smile only widens as a wave of relief surges through my chest. He scored a ten in training so he certainly had some tricks. It's a good thing he didn't live long enough for me to see any of them. It doesn't matter, he would have fallen in the end anyway. Everyone falls to the blade of the king no matter who they are. That's just the rules, that's how I play my game. Everyone who stands in my way dies.

His face fades and disappears into oblivion, forever becoming a distant memory to be trapped in our disgusting arena. My hammer sits rested on my shoulder as stay leaning against the tree. The night sky glares down on us from above (Hettie and I) and I instantly know it will be time to sleep soon. We'll need our rest. If my count is correct then there are a whole sixteen tributes left in the arena, fifteen of which need to die for my ultimate dream to be reached. Then all I need to do is depose the false Queen and King. They're still in the back of my mind - I definitely haven't forgotten about the two Keeni killers that still live today.

Yes, me and Hettie need to get our rest. As much as I hunger for more of her we'll need our rest for tomorrow. It would be stupid to miss out on sleep at a time like this. Being tired would reduce my concentration, which means I'll have that much less accuracy, that much slower reaction, that much less strength and it would all be a disaster. My head cranes to Hettie sitting across from me, resting her back on her own tree trunk. I lustily stare at her for a few more seconds, taking in every small detail I can (her dress, her flowing crimson hair, every last visible gnat bite on her skin, the way she holds her weapon, the way she sits...everything) before sighing and staring back at the dark sky, my vision slowly going as my head lulls to the side.

"How about you start thinking with that head of yours again, Keeni." I recognise Willis Keeni's accent instantly, his voice is a whip. I spin around to see him standing behind me, a background of thin, white smoke cloaks his body as he takes a small step towards me. I recognise his face instantly as well, his short yet messy blonde curls and his constantly unfocused green (or were they blue? It's been so long) eyes are filled with judgement as he stares me in the eyes, slightly taller than me but I barely have to crane my neck upwards. His face is clean, no axe wound disfigures his features and he has every single one of his fingers - he doesn't even walk with a limp either.

"The fuck you just say to me?" I spit back, clearly not taking kindly to his words. A harsh sneer twists my face as he only chuckles weakly. My hands tighten and I instantly notice I'm holding my warhammer. Why is it clean? Where's the stained crimson that coated it just now? Where's the blood?

"I said when are you going to start thinking with you head again, idiot." He tells me, chuckling again, happily reiterating himself. "What happened to you? You went from Insanis fuckin' Keeni to nothing but loverboy," he expands and I instantly feel the head rushing to my head as my cheeks turn red with rage.

"Fuck you." Is all I spit at him and I turn to walk away...

Right into Kitty and the gigantic furball he calls a fucking pet. It's happily resting on his shoulders and he looks up at me with the same fucking judgement. He looks oh-so perfect as well. He has both legs unfortunately and the marks of death are wiped clean from his body. "So you can walk away from family but you can't run away from a career girl huh?" He sneers; I can taste the judgement dripping from his tongue as he stares up at me.

"Buzz off, kid." I sneer, my warhammer tightening.

"What happened to the guy that almost slit my throat for making the dinner table dirty? What happened to the guy that walked around the house like he owned the place What happened to the king?" He asks me, he raises his voice at me this time, not backing down from my dismissal of him.

"Replaced with this... this-" Willis begins but I cut him off viciously, not caring enough to hear the end of the sentence. "Well last I checked you were dead!" I scream, rage building up in my chest like a volcano, ready to erupt and burn all of these fuckers.

However, in the corner of my eye I catch... Pyrian?

He steps into the clearing, looking oh-so-fucking-perfect as well. Not a single scar from where Gypsy tried to poke holes in him, not ugly gash across his chest from where Cricket passed judgement on him. He's smiling at me, as if mocking my statement and he's shaking his head. He points at me and draws his thumb across his throat.

"Think your a big man now, think all of this makes you grown up?" Kitty asks, dragging my attention back to him - he's right behind me.

"Think having a girl to fuck makes you some kind of grown up?" Willis mocks.

Pyrian glides in as well, joining the circle with them.

Willis produces a bottle of golden brown whiskey. "Think you're grown up, here have a fucking drink on me." Willis mocks, shoving the cool bottle of poison in my free hand. Laughter begins to fill the air from them, all of them obviously enjoying tormenting the living, breathing king. Kitty laughs the loudest of all and holds out his cat and speaks in a deliberately high pitched mocking tone. "She can't get enough of you Insanis, maybe she'll definitely ride you if you give her this cat as a present." He states and the laughter resumes.

My cheeks are as red as blood, Pyrian only points to me then points to his lip... and he bites it in a mock seductiveness.

I snap.

"YOU CUNT!" The bottle of whiskey flies out of my hand towards him and shatters against his face, the golden-brown liquid drips down his face and clothes but he's absolutely unfazed, he simply continues the laughter as if nothing happened, which only infuriates me even more and I spin to Willis and my hammer sails through the side and smashes into his torso full force but there's no satisfying crack! He stumbles back and resumes his laughter at my fruitless efforts.

I snap on Kitty like a long whip, I spin and face him and my hammer is readied, it comes down right on the top of his brown curls and like Sol Shim he ripples and distorts and he phases right through the hammer like he's nothing but air."Fuck your cat." I gasp.

"Remind you of your previous attempts to use that, Insanis?" Kitty asks.

Pyrian and Willis step back into the circle, amusement still raw on their faces.

"You're nothing but a fake." Willis states.

No.

"You are no king!" Kitty adds.

No.

"Lover boy!" Willis adds.

I scowl at the two of them, my grip tightening on my hammer so tightly I feel my hand turning white.

"You're nothing!"



Reality hits me in the form of a slow building soft pressure and a tingling sensation in my body. My eyes flutter and my vision slowly focuses from the darkness. My heart is racing, a slight, dull rage is slowly running through my veins. I blink twice and the figure of Hettie Cheyene sitting on me greets me. She's said something but I didn't quite hear it. "What?" I ask tiredly, lightly rubbing my eye with the back of my hand. She moves closer to me, so close I can see every detail of her face once again. "Wake up, we're alone." She repeats.

In the corner of my eyes I look into the darkened space and see that the shape of a little boy is not asleep anywhere. Did he just never come back? Perhaps that's what she means be alone. I slowly begin to lift my head up, so I'm even closer to her than before. A sly smile begins to form on my lips. "About time." I state simply, a mountain of possibilities mounting in my head. Maybe he's dead; perhaps he got eaten by a mutation and I was just asleep.

"He has left, dear ripred, the stroppy piece of piss has gone!" She says, glee dripping from her voice like water from a waterfall. Yes, the thought of Iain being gone is a pleasant one. Much easier to fulfil our promise, the promise sealed with a kiss. I look down to see Hettie's hands against my chest but quickly look back up.

"Good, all that time babysitting him - all that time wasted." Truth rings in my words. What could we have done had Iain and Cecilia not been with us? The possibilities are endless, we wouldn't have had to waste time trying to hang behind after Cecilia lost her arm. Perhaps they were useful in the sense that it was their flesh that tasted the steel of other tributes and not mine but that's all I can think of. If I hadn't pushed Iain to the ground that day me and Hettie would have killed them ourselves. The pleasure I'd get from hearing their begs of anguish, their shattered screams of anguish.

It sends and excited chill down my spine.

"Well I can babysit you now." She says teasingly and pokes my cheek with her finger. I raise an eyebrow at her statement, full awake at this point and all of the haze having disappeared. As if. I don't need baby sitting, I've never needed it and I'd never accept it.

(Lover boy.)

I catch her finger in my teeth and gently nibble it. I hungrily take in every bit I can take before I release it from my grip. "You'd love that wouldn't you?" I ask, allowing the playful tone to be exposed in my words.

"Oh you've learned so much." She says and I smile and lift myself up.

"You haven't seen the half of it." I tell her.

The slight pressure lift as she slides off me, leaving my starving for more yet again but she doesn't stop it there. "Then surprise me."

"If I have my way then surprise will be the last thing on your mind." I state with a smile. I already have a very clear idea on where this is going.

"Oh really?" She asks, deliberately poking and prodding me further and further like I'm a sleeping bear. Every muscle in my body is tense.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

My heart's smashing against my ribcage like a hammer, threatening to burst right out."Oh definitely." I say, rising up so I'm sitting up straight but she's already moving towards me on all fours and she's right next to me. Everything moves in slow motion as her hand lifts up and brushes against my cheek and runs down my jaw. In that moment we're both weightless, we're both air but in that moment the two of us are alone in this place. The tension is like an elastic band, so tight and so taunt it can be cut with a rusty knife. It's tangible through the night.

(What happened to King Keeni?)

The deadly silence is deafening.

(Think you're all grown up now?)

"Go on then."

The tension snaps and I lose it.

~Fade to black~

They didn't come back this time and I'm relieved. The sun hits me like a truck and when I swing myself up I'm greeted by the sight of Hettie shifting her naked self back into her black and red dress. She slept like that? The sight is almost enough to drag my mind away from the tons fresh mosquito bites that had appeared on my skin after the mosquitoes themselves had fun with their feast. I could never sleep in such a way (absolutely no clothes) I had to keep myself clothes, I'd feel to exposed I grab my warhammer and swing myself up, using it as support.

"Told you so." I say, the witty remark is said as soon as it comes into my mind and she finally notices her king has awoken.

(What happened to 'King Keeni?')

I tear my vision away from her, instead looking down at my skin and I begin assessing the damage the mosquitoes did. Fucking hell. I'd kill for some kind of bug spray or ointment for my skin - this simply won't do. I wince to think of what Hettie would be feeling since she slept with every inch of flesh bare. She still looks as perfect as she did back in the training centre. I guess that's a plus - I still have a pretty face to look at every day we spend here.

(What happened to your dream?)

"I was not surprised." She says but it's obvious her words aren't true; considering I was there. Still, a hint of annoyance flashes through my brain (but who at?) but I still mask it under a light hearted tone. I'm an expert at that - lying. "If you say so." I lie through my teeth and sling my bag over my shoulder and my hammer over my shoulder and begin walking from the iconic area.

The swamp slowly passes as time goes on. We walk side-by-side this time I only walked behind her before for strategic purposes, nothing more nothing less. Hettie was never better than me, at the end of the day I am still the king. That's why I'm constantly on my toes, not once do I let my guard down. Anything could ambush us, anything could try and kill us.

Paranoia is only made worse the sudden strong smell that hits us. "What the-" Is all I manage to say before I feel it, a small piece of paper? Before I know it multi-coloured pieces of paper are slowly falling from the sky like rain. I instinctively swipe at one of the pieces of paper with my arm but more keep falling like coloured rain.

The feel of the swamp intensifies. I can feel the water seeping trough my crocks and the water splashing. Sending chills down my spine. Before the now I wouldn't have tolerated this, two weeks ago I never would've allowed myself to get this dirty unless it was in the blood of someone else.But this is far from blood. It's disgusting water that doesn't looked like it's even been decontaminated. Just one sip of this thing will have me emptying my guts out within an hour.

Paranoia isn't just a feeling, it's not just a disease, it's a state of mind. It's slowly eating its way from the back my brain like a virus. It spreads like wildfire, so quick and so efficient. It's evolution is unnoticed and unchanged. One minute it starts from just being careful, then it turns to we shouldn't be here and before long it's become we're going to die here. I see shadows in every corner, daggers in every dark place and weapons in the murky water.

It's uncontrollable, it's ridiculous...

(Every second I spend in this place my count increases.

Five.

Six.

Seven.)

... it's totally justified.

I raise my hammer instantly at the sight of what looks like silhouettes that aren't me or Hettie. The mass of irregular shapes comes closer and closer. That's all they are to me, shapes. Irregular shapes that need to be hammered into the proper shape, the proper shape of a casket that's buried six feet under.

Before I can even blink I see it in the corner of my eye, what the fuck is that? The tree moves, springing into action like a piece of mechanical equipment. A challenge. No doubt it's another challenge sent from the Gamemakers; another mountain to conquer - another chance for my canon to sound.

(Eight.

Nine.)

The silent promise.

A quick flash and the glint of a silver spear.

(Te-)