Into the {r e d flood} [Ems]

Here lies Newt Krearns, trapped in limbo.

Where am I?

Am I dead dying?

Limbo feels really wet and warm, it's as if salt water has flooded my mouth and left it a parched desert.

I can't see, I can't even breathe.

Consciousness is a fleeting feather in the breeze. One minute it's dark, one minute it's blurry. Limbo can't see to make up it's damn mind. I think I feel my jaw open but nothing comes out, not even salt water. Finally a gush of air dares finds its way into my lungs. Big mistake. Crimson floods the world followed by black and the cold touch of seawater against my soaked clothes.

"Fucking hell, that's what a true Krearns acts like, too bad he isn't my son." Dad's voice snaps me back into reality and out of the realm of black. Colours exist again, at least partly. Blue, crimson and black are the main ones. I cough and sputter, a quick burst of water dribbles down what feels like my chin and onto whatever surface I'm on.

Move.

I only manage a groan and a twitch.

Limbo calls my name, every wave drawing a twitch and groan from me (is it even me?) but I'm not even half convinced that it's a twitch.

It sounds more like a sob, that's not good.

"Careers don't cry." He scolds me for crying.

Warm runs down my cheek from my eye. Tears. No, it's only from one eyes and tears don't feel this thick. Tears don't hurt this much. I can't see, there's no mirror and I'm completely and totally submerged into the darkness. I wince, the liquid running down my eye feels heavier and it really hurts. Agony radiates from my right eye down to my cheek and from my cheek it shoots down to my abdomen.

I open my mouth to cough but nothing comes out.

Head face down and heart on my sleeve I sit on the doorstep of limbo, waiting to teeter on one side or the other. I don't care any more, just let me be free. I'm not just talking about the pain this time. I blink my eye (left or right, who even knows at this point?) and open my mouth to see if I can cough, groan, do anything. I can't call out for help as if it would come at all.

I still hear the silenced screams. I suppose I'm special in that way, death came and had i's tendrils around my neck but it didn't tear my throat clean out. It formed in the cracks of my 'stronghold', it formed as a gigantic wave looming over me, it viciously slashed past me, sweeping and destroying all in its path. Merciless, it wrapped its hands around me and squeezed, the sadistic prick that it is, it didn't show any mercy.

"Less hands but twice as skill as you'll ever have." Less mercy than even him.

What does he do? Leave me stranded here in limbo, the suspense endless as I teeter on one side or the other. I suppose this is the definition of on the fence.

A concoction of seawater and tears fill my nostrils along with the silenced cries playing in my ears. A symphony of death, limbo taunts me with it because I'm stuck here. I open my mouth to cry out but there's nothing, not even a wheeze at this point. Good, maybe this is a sign. can feel myself tilt and it hurts; but it won't hurt for much longer.

I brace myself to join the army of the silenced screams and shattered lives. Anything to break away from the chains of limbo that rattle with every breath, every twitch. Maybe I'll just...

"Hey, can you hear me? Are you okay?" A voice calls to me, and it's not father's. He's real.

I feel him turn me over (oh so I was face down) and the dim sunlight hits me square on.It doesn't look the same.I finally cough and sputter and in the corner of my eye I see what was running down my face.

Tears are not red.

The light's dim and blurry, I can't tell if the person that came free me is real or an illusion, if it's a man or woman. None of it matters. Shock and awe, my hand moves up to shakily touch it and from my cheek, a dull pain cuts up and radiates throughout my 'eye.'

There's something sharp and painful in it.

The man remains a blur, the light remains forever dull. The chains of limbo shatter as I let out a horrified scream.

My voice cracks and I'm silenced. Cracks of sunlight weep from the sky, gently tapping my face and I feel waves of irritation mixed with agony. A stifled groan is all I can do to vent my pain. My neck writhes and muscles clench. Limbo. A word so painless rips so much agony through my head. I let my head roll to the side. In my good eye, vision focuses, revealing him that this person is a man. I see him recoil, slapping his hand to his mouth at the very sight of me. I never was the impressive one, I guess.

Heart crashing through my ribcage, I feel time stop. He looks so panicked, his vision darting in every direction possible, so distressed but so weightless. Untouched by the heavy ocean, an angel in disguise. Quite a panicked angel at that, he looks as if he's seen the walking dead; but I'm just a boy. Defiled, injured and agony-stricken but I'm still just a boy.

My arm twitches, flinching in the water and I swear I hear death in the splashes. Limbo has lingered for too long, never the decisive one, I've been teetering on the edge for too long. Blood trickling down my cheek, I shiver in the cold. Dead men don't feel the cold. I open my mouth to say something (kill me), anything (it hurts) but I feel choked right down to my torso. My back arches and I wince, something isn't right.

(When was anything right?)

His voice cuts through limbo. "Gonna have to use some gauze to stabilize it until the doctors at the medical tent can get it out." He tells me, half of what he says passing right over my head. Sent to the training centre at six years old, half of what was said is lost now. Everything shattered in shards, each memory undistinguishable in the passing breeze despite being revealed by the weeping light. An instructor's words have never felt more redundant.

(Sometimes you might need to heal your ally, if it's earlier in the games.)

(First you-)

(If it's late in the games, sometimes it's best to leave them to die.)

This isn't a game.

If the careers from the training centre could see me now. Laughter, simple as that.

I groan, a silent call out to this angel of mercy. I'm begging him. It hurts. Speaking is a distant memory. I twist my neck, staring into the sky and the weeping light. It weeps for you. Hah, as if anything would weep for me, consoling myself in my last moments. I groan one more time, my mid-section screaming out for respite. Looking at the sky would be better than looking at the bodies, less blood. I don't want my last sight to a snapshot of the future - corpses.

I cough with the force of all my pain; and I'm not talking about the glass. My back arches and I sputter in pain, the sudden sharp jolt combined with the pain sending a shiver down my spine. It's the cold. My lips part to speak but they only manage nothing. Every cloud staring down on my in mockery, I feel myself writhe once again.

Suddenly, the angel of mercy returns back into my field of vision, blocking out the sky and their death diluted clouds. "I have to cover your other eye too because when one eye moves, the other eye moves too, even if I have it to where you can't see. So for a moment you'll be blind, but you have to trust me. It's for your safety." I hear him say, lifting an object over my eye.

No! No!

I try to shake my head but I'm too weak, can't fight it. For once, the dark scares me; I'll be blind for a moment. But what if a moment turns into an eternity. I can't protest, don't have the strength. I have to trust the angel, I have to trust the stranger. Please, don't make me blind. I'd be useless. The sight of that rd bullseye would become forever stripped from my fingers.

I cringe, the thump playing in my ears as the knife's point hitting the bullseye.

A distant memory, unlikely to be relived at this rate.

"My name's Evander, and I'm from district two, and I'm here to help." He tells me. Evander. The angel of mercy has a name. Somehow, through the all the pain I pin the name above his head. If only Evander knew, I was beyond saving the day I was named Krearns. I want to tell him just do it I want him to do something, anything. One side or the other, I will be dragged away from limbo sooner or later. When my mouth opens I want to cry, beg him for help, beg him to end this all. Limbo can't keep me here forever.

"Evander," I allow my words to flow, carried towards him in the cloud of my agony, "Evander... my ribs." Nothing can seem to go right in limbo.

"Okay, I'm going to cover the other eye." Speak your procedures, make me comfortable, but Evander, you speak like I can be mended. I lost the right to be fixed for seventeen years ago.

He's going to make me blind to the world; die blind, what a way to go. What if I die? Silent question that I can't let dance off my tongue because once it goes out into the air it's a reality, an impending doom. The good 'if I can't see them, they can't see me' logic, carrying me through seventeen years and shot down by a wave. I should've known it was a weak logic if a mass of water could shatter it so easily. What am I even saying? Makes no sense, fading. Losing. Dying. I stop and breathe deeply. Fading.

Restarting, I can feel him covering my other eye with his tools.

Submerged.

The touch of darkness sends a chill down my spine. Seventeen years old and I thought I was so big, now I can't even stand the dark. Teeth chatter, I feel like my jaw's moving on it's own. Stutter, that's another chatter, it doesn't feel so warm any more. My mouth opens but nothing comes out, I think I've lost the energy to groan. Darkness saps the life and soul out of me, a side of energy to. I don't think I can even beg for limbo to end at this point.

Perhaps this is the end, just dark.

I can still feel my own blood soaking into whatever he put over my bad eye. Red hot agony seeps into my brain and my chattering stops, the despair restarts. Silence, it seems Evander doesn't have any words for my burning ribs. Some things you can't fix. Bullet holes. Broken bones. Glass in your eye. The names Krearns. Newt Krearns.

Can't be mended, just poked and prodded. Fixing is a distant epitaph.

Nothing can fix me, limbo and darkness is beyond saving.

Another explosion rocks my eye and batters my brain, and I yell out for a second. Can't be fixed, just poked and prodded. Don't know why he's even trying, Nevah and Dad told me I would never get better. Leave me to rot in limbo, I'll teeter over the edge some day. Then it'll all just stop, so I like to think. Closest thing to salvation. Even mercy incarnate cannot mend me now, if it even ever could.

Fragile silence, so easily shattered by a caring question. "What's your name?"

No name.

Dead man.

Drowned man.

Seventeen years drowning and it took shards limbo digging into my skin followed by the kiss of darkness to open me up to the truth. My name...

Fuck, I know it starts with N. "It starts with N and ends with T." The grown man's amused words rewind. As it it was so simple, "and ends with T. Just like that, as if I could be summarised in two letters. N and T. He'd laugh bitterly, clutching at straws I'd wrack my brain, agonising for ages like I am now. 'It starts with N and ends with T. Nothing but a heap of mess; two letters to summarise my independence and it has to be N and T.

"Four letters, that's all it is." All it is, four letters and that's me summarised. "That's all it is." Four letters, starts with N and ends with T. Wrack my brain, wrack it real hard and real deep until the answer shoes up before my eyes (eye) and then that's four letters to summarise who I am. Who I was. I never would have thought it would be four letters.

Useless.

Drowned.

N and T.

"N...T...N...T...N...T" Blurred reality and running past, I never could tell the difference between running colours on a white canvas, even when it was my own blood etched in its history. My history. Blurred lines, scattered paint.

"Come on son, it's just four letters, it starts with N and T." Cold words of encouragement, I could only ever wrack my brain and draw blanks.

Tick-tock, seconds pass like a snail in limbo.

"Four damn letters, we've been through this." Frustration, a poorly masked growl and I recoil.

I think thinking hurts, another small groan escapes my lips in the form of a broken wheeze. I feel my leg involuntarily shudder and kick out.

Explode. "For fucks sake! It's N-E-W-T!" Bang. It can't be mended.

"Newt." I answer, coughing and wheezing into the darkness as if it'll call back, letting the blind sink in and the despair build. Building blocks to teetering on one edge or the other would include at least knowing my own damn name. Four letters to summarise who I am, the name Krearns was pushed forwards much later to add to the broken sentence. Shoved into the back of my head now, Evander doesn't need to know. At this rate he'll never know. When I topple over the edge, limbo can't take that. I shudder and I cough and wheeze. Something doesn't feel right (when has anything felt right?) Evander's been awfully quiet to my useful senses and non-existent to me useless one. He's rummaging, checking something; he might not know what to do.

Newt, he can't be mended. Only poked and prodded. "Try to relax. I know it's a lot easier said than done. I'm going to have to bind the ribs. And by that I mean wrap gauze around them to prevent a lung from-" I never could tell the colours apart when blurred on a blank canvas. Scattered, smeared in crimson in all directions. Broken syllables. The shards of shattered laughs spin webs of agony through my body, cut me and bind me. Relax, the very thought of it is a joke. If you relax, Dad will... Evander's right, it is easier said that done. Drowned in the dark, I don't know why he even tries. Limbo can't allow salvation.

"It hurts too much," I say, stating the obvious through broken wheezes and cracked breaths, "I-I- I'm- I'm d-d-dead aren't I?" A question that doesn't even need answering at this point. Bitter reality, dead in the dark. He speaks as if I can be mended. Bullet holes. Broken bones. Glass in your eye. Some things just can't be mended, the list is extensive but constant.

"N-E-W-T!" Four letters that make another gurgled grown escape from my throat. I'm dead aren't I?

Forever constant, never mended.

Hope's fleeting in the silent atmosphere. No motion but it manages to dance and skitter before my eyes in mockery; it won't keep still. One moment it's there, the next moment it's gone in a flash. One moment it's solid, the next moment it blurs before my eyes. One moment I can taste it, the next moment the reaper's scythe slices it in half. Spoiled, I wonder if I even had hope in the first place before limbo. I'll never know, everything's a smear across the blank canvas of targets, blades and the sea.

('He's really doing something for the name Krearns.')

No, father wouldn't say that to me; he never compliments me.

N-E-W-T. Four letters that are smeared across my face, don't even get my started on the name Krearns. Broken letters tumbling from my lips, somehow Evander caught the letters that form a shattered syllable and a useless name. I'm dead aren't I? No one wants to ask it, no one wants to know but I do. The reaper's steel scythe hangs above all our necks, I want to know if it will fall today. Seventeen years I've felt the steel hover above my throat, a cold command standing between me and it's blade for seventeen years.

Was this wave the cold command?

I want to know, I'm to know before I tumble over the edge of limbo. Two polar opposites separated by the same fence. I'm begging to know. I'm fucking dead. I'm fucking dead. I'm fucking dead. The living can't endure this over stayed agony, not in this world; not even in limbo. Red running down my cheek, seeping into my hair and pain lancing through my eye and through my brain. I can't possibly endure this.

Red blurred across the blank canvas along with those four useless letters. Even Evander must see it because he's suspiciously quiet. Shelter me from the truth, I see the crimson blurred across the canvas over those four useless letters and worthless syllable. Clue: it starts with N and ends with T. I feel him lift my top half up and I involuntarily cry out in pain. I swear I feel a slight crack and my ribs creak underneath my flesh.

('It's ideal to never find yourself in this situation.')

Here I am. Here I am. I am here. I-

('In the event of a break-')

I'm beyond mending, dead. Let it end, I'll gladly topple over the edge.

('Class, I must stress, never let a bone break in the-')

This isn't a game, this is me waiting to fall.

A wave of that cold command, the reaper's scythe feels all the more closer. Decapitate my hope, cut through my neck. What's the difference?

Difference: I'm still breathing (I'm still breathing weakly) and I can still feel the pain lancing through my mid section as Evander begins wrapping something around my ribs. I groan and sputter, the sudden pressure's blinding. Dull pain piercing my tattered composure, I feel myself involuntarily shudder when he stops for a moment. Both of us weightless, I begin seeing smears across the page. There's no way the living can endure this, I'm dead aren't I?

"No, Newt, you aren't dead. You're alive, and I'm going to keep you that way." He forces comfort into my veins before adding more to the pressure with whatever he's wrapping. He sounds too confident. Everyone's a confident one here. Someith Krearns. So sure of himself, so sure he would bring havoc into that arena and climb the skulls of the dead tributes. Even won Dad to his side. Where is he? Where is the insane, confident man? Banished to the grave by the swing of a boy from some back alley district.

Too sure of himself, as if trying to bandage up my eye to the truth. Why does he care so much? Nevah would have walked away long ago ('you're just a fucking mess, Newt'), Father would have scoffed at me and shaken his head ('I thought I raised you better than this'), Enzo would have sneered or laughed ('you idiot') but this stranger's just said he'll keep me alive. Drag me out of limbo to, I want to hear the promise. Wipe away the red from the white page, I don't want to drown in the smears any more.

I'm tired of seeing those four useless letters covered in red. N-E-W-T.

"Just take some nice, deep breaths for me." A command, a real one this time. How do I even breathe? I let my jaw go slack and I inhale, deeply like he said.

Mistake.

Pain shoots through my flesh and I involuntarily cough and sputter, agony wrecking my composure.

Just take some nice deep breaths.

Repeat, more agony attacks my bones and I groan loudly.

Smear. Red. Blank-

"What’s your favorite color?" Evander's voice cuts into the smear like it's nothing but butter. What? A random question and it throws me off guard so suddenly. I feel shocked. He's asking me a personal question?

I don't even think about it, my response automatic. "It's, erm, white," no lies spun, a quick answer, "cos it's simple, I like the simple things." Justification for who I am. Seventeen years I spent justifying myself to everyone who had ever strung those four letters together to make the useless syllable. I was ruined for seventeen years.

"What do you like to do for fun?" Another question fired.

Another answer automatic, I swear the corner of my lip tugs upwards; the ghost of a smile. "Play card games." I manage to say, it sounds like a strained wheeze. Card games, a nice word for gambling, I could never tell someone that directly. They might tell Dad. That would be the end of Newt. Would it be like this?

I can't end with red smears across a blank canvas.

"Most people," I feel my sentence get forcefully cut off, stopped between misshaped ribs and agony pouring down from the eye; I still continue through it. "Most people would say training," I ignore the rust coating my voice, "but training ain't fun." I finish. Despite the agony lancing through my brain and pounding in my ribs, a phantom smile plays across my face; through the wheezes, I swear the shadow of the reaper's scythe begins to fade.

Stumbling through life while hanging on a thread, I've really developed a set response to nearly every situation I tend to find myself in. It's constant routine that's rarely ever broken with a sprinkle of sporadic events on the top; the sponge is still mostly the same consistency. No cracks on the surface and no pressure on the shell, I've never really seen the need to change. Same response every time, constant tick, the need to evolve never coursed through me. Same situation, same response.

('This fucking pussy, how is he related to Nevah in any way.')

It cuts through the darkness like a knife, pushes past the glass shard and the burning torso and I wince at the thought. Another disgruntled career who thought they could start something with Nevah before getting themselves put back into their rightful place. I always had to be the sacrificial lamb to resurrect their pride. Next chance they got, they would step to be like a terrier and lay onto me with the force of their damaged pride and anger. A familiar situation; my familiar response was to take it and spit snark at them with a hint of fire and venom. 'You can beat me, but you'll never beat Nevah.'

('Where have you been?')

Father's red question burns through the darkness and the agony, forcing its way to me through limbo. Silence could never be so deafening, father's sitting at that table, reading his oversized book calmly flicking the pages page by page. He never needs to look at me, doesn't even need to look up or acknowledge me; it's as if he already sees right through me. I can't exactly say 'I was just at the back alley gambling place, drinking and gambling away my allowance.' A familiar situation; my familiar response is to twist my tongue and spin lies. 'I was with Ivy after training.'

"White is a good colour." Evander's gentle words and my father's questions and my old lies shatter faster than my bones. Just like that my familiar situations and familiar responses are swallowed by the black darkness. Instead of father's words are a career's pride shattering I hear tape ripping and setting. Even I wince and shudder, pain lancing up my torso. Involuntary groans of pain tear through my throat and out of my lips. I don't have the right to complain, he's helping me.

All my life, familiar situations would be met by routine responses. All it takes is a spanner in the works, a spark in the wrong direction, an outlier and routine turns to mush and the familiar becomes meaningless.

What do I do when I have glass in my eye?

What do I do when my ribs break?

What do I do when I'm dying?

Routine's meaningless and the familiar has turned to cold mush between my fingers. Like bitter, wet sand.

All I've done is sit in the darkness, allowing Evander to relieve the pain. I'm bound by the arcane chains of limbo but the weight of being useless it oh so familiar. Crawl into my crab shell, let someone else do the work. After all, I'm the useless twin for a reason. Broken ribs, glass in my eye, livelihood stripped away and it takes a stranger from District Two to try and mend me. I could never be mended, I should be dying. Hanging onto limbo by a thread, waiting to tumble on one side or the other. The shadow is The Reaper's scythe faded and joined the darkness but I know I'll never be safe.

I'm not dying, he'll keep me alive. He said he would. More than everyone else has ever promised.

He pushes a soft spot but this time I suppress the urge to cry out. "And I agree with ya. Training isn’t fun. I hate it. Kinda weird growing up in two, though, as most people train there. It’s kinda expected. But it’s just not something I want to do." Understanding, gentle words wrap around me. He's surprisingly soothing, soothing to the point I feel myself relax in the dark.

When was the last time I heard someone dislike training like I do?

('Wow, that was actually a pretty decent throw. Bullseye!')

('Good, but Nevah does it better.')

('Needs more work.)

Everything's an indistinguishable smear along a white canvas. Red smeared with harsh words that seem irrelevant now that I'm soaked in sea salt and drowned in the darkness. Smeared along and drowning those four useless letters: N-E-W-T.

None of it is fun, he understands - surprisingly.

He stops binding and I feel a strange pressure holding my ribs. I let out a shocked choke and cough. "Alright, I got your ribs bind. Anything else hurting?" He says. I cough before shaking my head quickly.

I hate the fact I can't see him, I can't tell if he's worried, only by the sound of his voice. I'm begging for the chance to see his face. See if he's smiling, sneering, disappointed, scared, anything. The dark does a poor job of telling me if I'm dying or not. Sighing, I resign myself to the inevitable that I'll never know until I teeter over the edge of one side or the other.

"What are we going to do now?" I ask him. My voice cracks and my lip trembles despite me breathing a cold sigh of relief. I hate this.

I hate the unfamiliar and I hate not knowing how to respond; I hate not knowing. For once, I hate being useless.

What do you do when you're waiting to fall?

For once, I don't know. The routine is useless and the familiar has been drowned by the wave and torn in half by the glass.