revelation . day 6 . ph&as&fs&zl

Holy water cannot help you now
Thousand armies couldn't keep me out
I don't want your money
I don't want your crown
See I've come to burn
Your kingdom down

You wake in a crimson haze, sweat glistening on bare skin and a dull ache wracking your body.

Memories flash through your mind, some whole, others shattered as if they were a mirror that someone had smashed in with a wrecking ball. Flashes of severed limbs and a beast made of shadow, shards of a burning in your right arm and a sweet taste in your mouth. You can't make hide nor hair of it for several minutes, only of burning sun and the distinct stabbing of stones into bare skin.

You hurt all over, but it is not until you finally sit up, placing one hand and what used to be a second on the rocks that it hits you.

Yesterday wasn't a dream.

Two days overlap into one, a day where combat was limited to your group of three and another - your district partner had gathered a tough looking boy and a Career girl of her own to guard here, and a day of mayhem and shadow dragons, of severed limbs and blurry white boys, of Dove and a little girl and of Bella and pleas to do something. Both happened yesterday, but one did not - it did not make sense, though both were real.

Regardless, both had happened, and you had suffered. Wounds on your stomach and thigh from one, a missing hand from another. And memories of other events too - a severed leg, a severed arm, a slash across the chest that created a crimson waterfall and another that stopped short at steel. Parallels across might as well have been two worlds, but were simply two different days.

You groan as the events of the last few hours come into focus. A meal of pancakes and foods too sweet to remember, an amicable conversation with Dove and the little girl - Ollie - and then wandering. Andy had run off, Bella was nowhere to be seen so you'd just walked. Then swam. Then walked some more, until you'd been so exhausted that you'd deemed rocks the perfect pillow and had promptly collapsed in a dead sleep.

You should have died. No lookout, no shelter, no nothing. But you've gotten lucky, it seems, given your state of consciousness and the absence of a weapon through your back.

It's a mixed bless, perhaps, given the absence of Bella and Andy. But you'd heard the cannon go off at least twice the previous day, and you'd forgotten how many times the day before that. Roughly half still remained, you guessed, still a tad early to cut ties, but perhaps it was for the best.

Especially given the circumstances. You'd talked your way into the alliance consisting of the pair of Ones and the boy from Four under the assumption that they'd be the tough, brutal Career alliance that would serve as the perfect tool to getting you past the stage where the odds where anything but even. But the only one who had managed that from the first moment you had seen them to their last had been Volkner, and his soul had departed seventy two hours prior, one of the first to exit the arena the way they had came.

As for the other two, it was almost as if osmosis had existed in terms of courage and personality, for when it came time for death and blood, it was not the kids that had come from the districts where the Games were not an abomination of a punishment but a stepping stone for glory that had stepped up to take on the challenge unwavering, it had been the scrawny sixteen year old boy from the district of technology that had done so in their place. You'd had your doubts about Andy from the beginning, but having both him and Bella have their own separate breakdowns in the midst of battle had left you more than a little uneasy.

Between that and the loss of one of your hands, it was probably for the best that you had parted ways when you did. Much better to keep your fate in your own hands instead of two passable Careers whose mental health was questionable.

You'd enjoyed your time with them. Perhaps even to the point where you would have spared them if given a choice. But in the end, only one can leave the arena with their lives.

And if you had your way, it would not be Belladonna Ruze or Anduril Harvard.

Time passes. A parachute drops, some optimistic sponsor gifting you with a substance you've seen before - tar. With tar comes fire. With fire comes death.

You'd expected the fight to come anyways, but it still felt satisfying to receive validation.

The process was slow going with only a single hand to work with this time around, but eventually you got your armored vest on over your bare torso, shin guards on each leg, combat boots on your feet, and tar on your blade.

It isn't long after that when the first soul appears on the horizon.

Eyes narrow as you recognize the girl from Nine - she'd killed the girl from Twelve the day before, of that you remember - and you think that, at the very least, the fight will be on even ground. The boy from Five or Ten or whatever had not been a killer, of that you were sure. Neither was the girl from Four, for all of her bluster, nor the boy from Two, for all of his imposing presence.

There was a certain look that one got once they had slain someone, a certain way they held themselves, a certain glint in their eyes. Andy had gotten it after he'd ended the girl in the bloodbath, and Bella had gotten it after saving Andy one - no, two - days prior. No doubt you had it, too, just like this girl.

Your remaining hand grabs the flint you'd received two days ago, and you scrape it across the ground next to your tar-coated blade. And then again. And again.

On the fourth try, sparks fly, and fire is born. Quickly, awkwardly, you drop the flint, and grab at the hilt of your weapon. You fumble, then find a grip, but the girl is already upon you, blade scraping against your chest plate, leaving a mark but not breaking through.

And then, you are ready. Resolute, even. Your first true fight alone, and yet you've never felt calmer.

You gaze into the face of the girl, into the face of a killer just like yourself. And you feel nothing.

So you swing, fire and steel delivering judgement that only you can deliver.

You will survive, at any cost. There is nothing else that you can do.

This girl will hardly be the first to find that out.

Holy water cannot help you now
See I've come to burn your kingdom down
And no rivers and no lakes can put the fire out
I'm gonna raise the stakes, I'm gonna smoke you out

song: Seven Devils - Florence and the Machine

And now all your love will be exorcised
And we will find you saints to be canonized

Your blade digs into flesh, a direct hit on the girl from your district, and you feel perhaps just a little bit sick.

It goes against your upbringing and your morals alike to strike at someone younger and smaller than you, one reason you were almost glad you were amongst those number as opposed to the several seventeen and eighteen year olds that permeated the arena. You'd been the smaller, younger kid right up until the day you had gotten reaped, and you knew what it was like to face an unfair competition based on that.

But this was no friendly contest back home, even if both you and Florence were the sole representatives from Three this year. And you'd accepted ever since the day that you had struck down Cesare Crocetti that if that was the worst you had to do to survive, then you would do it again and again even if it made your stomach turn in the process.

But Cesare Crocetti and Lavina Cheyne were one thing. Florence Spark was a different challenge entirely.

Her second strike matches that of the girl from Nine and blunts itself across your vest with enough force to leave another gash in the metal but not quite enough to dig through to the exposed flesh underneath. But it is her words that strike a truer target than her weapon, at least for the moment.

"If you stop, I'll stop too. I promise."

In truth, you have no idea where Florence got her naivety, nor how she managed to retain it given all of the things that she no doubt has seen throughout her stint in the arena. At best, it was a plethora of savage muttations hell bent on slaying her and her allies, capable of appearing in enough shapes and sizes as to severely traumatize a fully trained Career, let alone a girl of fourteen. At worst, her experience was on the opposite side of the spectrum, resulting in the deaths of tributes at the hands of allies and enemies alike - the more likely of the two different approaches, he gathered, given the fact that her alliance had numbered three instead of four when they had fought and the wounds across Lavina's form alike.

And it is in this naivety that you believe her when she says that. This is not a girl built for the realities of the Hunger Games, but a girl built with the necessities for the remainder of her life - a kind persona, a gentle spirit, and the ability to see a good solution within every conflict.

And you so, so desperately want to agree, to put down your blades and walk away. Perhaps in a different world, you would be granted the courage and compassion to agree, even.

Alas, you are not so brave as to challenge the will of the Gamemakers, and not so selfless that you'd put the life of anyone, even this little girl who did nothing to deserve to be here, above your own.

"I want to, Florence." In that, there is no doubt. "I really do."

God, where is Bella with her calm logic and even words when you need her?

"But don't you get it?" There is not so much accusation imbued in the words as there is a plead to simply understand. "This is not a Game where we can simply walk away when we're stuck with something we don't like. This is not something we can ignore, something we can simply forget about until it passes. That's how it's always been for seventy nine years - twenty four enter, one exits."

You choke up a bit, raw emotion flooding your voice and body with something other than anger and pain for the first time since you'd stepped foot in the arena. "Only one of us can leave, Florence. One. Not two. And-and the Gamemakers, they..." You pause. Inhale. Hold. Exhale. "The Gamemakers put us together for a reason. This is our greatest test."

A tear emerges from one eye, hot and sticky, and you wipe it away with the back of your handless arm stubbornly. Now is no time to break down on live television, Sokatoa. "And I know it's very selfish of me, but I want to live. Pause. Inhale. Exhale. "I need to live."

You tense, for you know the tirade of words won't continue much longer, nor will the tides of conflict be held back. "And-and it's very selfish of me. Trust me, I've been telling myself that for days." Pause. Inhale. "And it-it's very unfair for you, I know."

You take one step forward, back within striking distance. "But I can't stop now. Not when I've come so far."

You have a feeling that when your blade flies towards her form, whatever the result is, it will hurt you more than it will the poor fourteen year old girl from your home whose greatest sin was simply being unlucky.

And it's an even song
It's a melody
It's a battle cry
It's a symphony

song: Seven Devils - Florence and the Machine

Seven devils all around me
Seven devils in my house
See they were there when I woke up this morning
I'll be dead before the day is done

Your blade finds gold at the other boy's neck, but it is not enough. A simple cut is no slit throat, nothing that would make his torment end any quicker, just a little more painful. You had failed him, just as you had predicted you might.

Gazes lock, you look into the eyes of a boy that truly has lost it all - the eyes of someone so far gone down the rabbit hole of insanity that life is more torturous than natural deep in their bones. You recognize it because you've seen it before - in the final gasps of Cesare Crocetti, in the pained laugh of Lavina Cheyne, in the eyes of beggars back home and random children on the television.

Fighting to survive is one thing. Fighting to murder, fighting to end one's torment, is something else entirely.

The boy pulls out another throwing axe, and you realize with a start that he didn't just strike you to play games and get your attention, he means to fight.

Of course. Wait till your back was turned and you had forgotten about him, wait till you were locked in emotions and an impossible choice, and then strike. An axe that, had you not had the remains of your armor and a fair bit of luck, could have very well sunk itself into your back, causing critical damage.

You did cut off this boy's arm, after all. It only makes sense that he'd want to strike back at you in retribution.

He winds for the throw, and you pivot. But your evasive maneuver ends up to be in vain, for a heavy force hits you square in the back nonetheless. But instead of sharp you feel only blunt, instead of another scream you let out only an oof of exertion as the air is once again forced out of your lungs.

Then comes the squelch, and you turn to see that Florence has dug her spear into the boy's stomach, not so far to end him but far enough that you're certain that it must hurt like a bitch.

"Get away from my friend!"

You're not quite sure where Florence got the idea that you two were friends - you'd never set eyes upon one another until you both had been consigned to the same fate, and now she has entrusted you with something you don't think you would personally ever be able to hand to anyone else, and that was her fate. But right now, you don't care.

You're grateful, even.

You'll do what you can to make her end a quick one, even as tears stream down and dry up on your cheeks and your throat rubs itself raw with every shout.

You'll do what you can for this boy, too, even if he is trying to kill you. Because deep down, all he is is just another scared, tortured soul who had no business being in an arena of death and destruction.

His fate, for better or for worse, is in your hands as well. So you move to follow up with Florence's strike, sending your own blade his way as well.

Let me finish what I started, and quickly.

Please.

Seven devils all around you
Seven devils in your house
See I was dead when I woke up this morning
I'll be dead before the day is done
Before the day is done

song: Seven Devils - Florence and the Machine