cageme; [atlas&ronnie] {1.5}

Defiance of the dead and the damned -- we leave their graves in peace to finally flourish without muttering so much as a pointless prayer.

I do not clutch onto the edge of control and neither do I celebrate wealth granted by divinity, aeons do not pass and we are not gods. I let his arm drape over the back of my neck and take his scarlet hand in mine, hoisting his weight over my hollow shoulder and watching the remains of our wealth slowly fade away.

Split seconds refuse to fade but I feel no desperation in the face of reality – the only friendly face in this arena and I all I have to attach to his name is a limp, a knife and scarlet along trembling fingertips. Far from porcelain, far from steel; I don’t know what to make if the man clung to my torso like a dead weight attached to the shackles along my ankles. All I know is that I’ve turned my hands redder than the fruits of temptation because I saw the mystery girl with the cards hurt him and it was a reflect.

Bittersweet nectar of two kills under my belt – only one has a canon attached to an unknown name and it reverberates through my skull. To carry the flag of a family name decorated in gold but stained by crimson, to carry the weight of one, two pounds of another’s heart along with the burn of celestial orbs along my shoulders; one would say it’s almost too much.

(I agreed to hold the weight of the world and the sky, not a mountain of broken skeletons)

Latch onto the edge of sanity – a cold gale passes through my spine when we reach the edge of this flourishing graveyard. It’s only by intuition that the gifts of wealth gain a semblance of usefulness. Ronnie latches the hook onto the edge of the roof and death extends a hand in invitation for who dares step first.

Perhaps I’ve learned how to forgo rationale but, against all instinct, I volunteer to go first.

Bleeding heart, grazed knuckles, burning palms – fear flows through my veins and adrenaline becomes my engine. It’s halfway through that my eyes flutter and I consider the idea of giving up, letting myself go so I mirror the fate I delivered to the girl who put her purple fists along my ally’s unsuspecting flesh. To sign off my right to infinity’s timeline in a pink splatter marked by a single endpoint, it would be cowardice.
The transfer or power lies from my arms to my feet, my heart rises when the soles of my feet hit the ground. A sigh of relief escapes my lungs along with the fear of the powerless when Ronnie’s arm is linked over my neck again and his joint of contortion and impediment out of sight.

If I could strike a flame against my soul one more time to fix it, I would.

Between stuttered footsteps and contemplating why I even so much care about the broken mind latched onto my blood-spattered torso, my eyes instinctively squint and a hand flies to my eyes – the colour is too prominent. It shouldn’t be bathed in luminescence and the sky shouldn’t burn brighter than the constellations against my back bathed in silver. Luminescence and death don’t belong in the same polarized plane; they may as well be red suns and blue moons.

Power rests in the hands of the fully polarized – so why do I feel so insignificant when I lack the presence of bleeding stars?

The sky burns colours of day and innocence, I do not spy a single shade of crimson in sight. No weeping stars to quicken this bleeding heart and time melts. Taunt from the Gamemakers, judgement from the messenger – (‘just make it quick, Atlas’), I pause but the ticking of borrowed time doesn’t, the gears grind and the second hand ticks and drives the minute hand. It took me nearing the end of borrowed time and the score of nine branded onto my back for me to realize that I am truly caustic – evidently not caustic enough for I cannot corrode the gears of these clocks enough to come to a halt.

I ran out of time that was borrowed, so I stole it from the nameless girl at the bloodbath to repay my debt.

Bleeding chest exposed – I will show everything to the Capitol but the skeleton vulnerabilities underneath layers of careful career precision. This burning luminescent sun sees nothing but two killers, scarlet in their hands and ichor running through their veins – we’d be gods if we could leave our mark upon eternity.

“You’re a heavy bastard, you know that?” I say with a dry chuckle and an aspirated sigh before setting him down. I could never truly be angry at this Cheyne, not when he’s shown how useful he can be with a knife in his hands and bloodlust in his eyes. “I guess even I need a break after carrying you around.”

(Ophelia and Ave are still out there, we just need to go to them)

“So let’s stop here, alright? We’ll find the others soon.”

Five canons sound in the distance and I can only hold the belief that allies unfound still flourish beyond the confines of a stillborn heartbeat.