a fire that crept up the mountainside [Stitch's End]

He is nothing but ash in the ground now. The moment he stands there he feels like the universe is crashing around him, and he cannot even try to take a breath.

He is too scared that the black hole he is will collapse and turn into nothing.

But then he realizes that in this moment, as flaming axes pierce his skin and singe in flesh, that he is nothing. He will never amount to anything, even if he found his way out of this arena.

He hated this thought, not because it wasn’t a true one but because it was a reality that he was now going to have to face.

He was going to die here, and that was just the way it was going to be.

He didn’t have a chance to pull himself out of the black hole that was himself, and even though he made a promise to people that he loved to come home and rub it in his mother’s face, he would not be able to do so.

He hated that idea.

He hated it more than watching Andy die the day before.

He hated it more than taking the life of the 12 year old in the same day.

He hated the person that he was becoming, but he had to become this because otherwise he would have been bulldozed into nothing.

He would have been obliterated into the sun that he tried to escape from, its heat eviscerating him into nothing but ash and starlight that would have been scattered all over the solar system for everyone to see.

He would have traveled the worlds to make his presence known, but now that he was dying, and that he was very aware of it, he knew that he didn’t have long. He just had to wait for the final blow to be struck.

---

And he wanted to keep exchanging words with the boy that was dealing his death, but there was no point. Akira Sokatoa would never matter in this life time because Stitch Gabel was going to die here. He was going to cease and that was going to be that. No matter how much he wanted to curse the very air that Akira breathed, he couldn’t bring himself to do that. Because Akira knew what he was doing. He was aware that he was killing Stitch. Lighting him ablaze in a thunderous succession that would do nothing but prove to the world that he was not worthy to come home.

That no matter how much he tried, he would have to give up on his promise to Andy and Florence.

And the sad part was that those were the people he was fighting for, and the fact that Mackenzie was here with him gave Stitch the motivation to keep going. He knew that he could have went out on his own terms, taking the glaive that he carried and sticking it right through his neck, but he didn’t do that because the memory of the lives that he lost would be wasted away.

They would have died for nothing, and their black holes would have went through space with no direction.

Stitch wanted to be the house for them to live in, and seeing them in the sky did not make it any easier for him.

Their deaths meant that he had to try to live for them, but the axes that were embedded in his skin made it clear that he was not going to survive here.

He was going to die, and he was going to have to just accept that.

---

He could feel himself imploding, and Akira continued to speak lies that Stitch did not want to hear, but there was nothing that he could do about that. He was not Akira. He was a boy that was lost, and he was a villain, as much as he wanted to be the hero.

The death of Ollie Brooke the day before made that very clear to him. He was the villain in people’s stories here, and he was just going to have to live with that. However, making it out of this arena would have negated that to an extent. He would have been able to make his life something worth living for. He would have been able to go home to his mother and tell her that she was an awful person. He could have gone back and saved his brother from the same fear that was instilled in him from her. He could have changed his life for the better, but that was all a dream now.

He felt an axe strike his foot, clean off his body, and as he fell to the ground, flames spread up his body and around his soul.

He felt like the sun was engulfing him, and that was what he was going to have to accept as his death.

---

And as he sat there and roasted for the other boys to see, he took a deep breath, realizing that none of them wanted to kill him, but it was a means to an end. Stitch Gabel needed to die in order for one of them to go home, and while he was the one who wanted to stake his claim as victor of the 79th games, for Andy and Ping and Lavina and Florence and Faline and Mackenzie, he would never be able to do that, because the smell of burnt flesh mixed with the tears that streamed down his face.

He could barely breath, but his body didn’t feel like it was on this planet anymore anyway.

He felt like he was traveling in space, a feeling that he was so accustomed too at this point. He traveled from the sun to mercury, experiencing the rapid temperature changes.

To Venus, where he could feel the love and the toxic air envelope his lungs.

To Mars, where he could feel the rage he felt boil up in his body and then exert itself to leave him like the terrain that the planet was covered in.

To Jupiter, where he was tossed around like a ragdoll as he got caught in the eye of the storm.

To Saturn, where he skated across the rings until he lost his balance and was flung into the empty void of space, not sure where he would even wind up.

To Uranus, where he could feel his lips turn blue, a feeling that he would never understand.

To Neptune, where he could feel his body go numb.

To Pluto, where he would be forgotten.

To the stars, where he wanted for his body to build up to a mass temperature and explode into something dangerously beautiful.

To the moon, where he couldn’t breathe.

And finally, to the closest black hole, where he was shocked that he was pulled into its gravity, him being a black hole himself.

He didn’t cry though, not anymore, because he was no long apart of this world.

---

The flames took him, and the moment his eyes laid on the grim reaper, he realized that this was it.

He did not exist in the same plane as the people that he was fighting.

And while he wished Akira Sokatoa would meet the same fate that he did, he also wished him the world, because he knew that he was going to need it.

His hand moved to his scarf, the dry blood of Wynter Rochelle still permeating it, and he threw it aside, ”Mackenzie, take this to my mom.” he wheezed out quickly. ”Tell her I hope she regrets the day I left.” he proclaimed, realizing that this was his last chance to ever speak again.

He looked up at the sky and counted the stars that covered it, hoping and praying that the black hole that was him would become something beautiful.

So that something good could come out of his life.

[dars]