embers of hell {Maddox vs Cecily Day 7}

"Listen to me."

Her spear collides, and there are sparks.

"I'm coming for you."

But the cruel thing about fire is that it goes out. For a moment, when everything is taken from her, she's terrified of it. Gavin's corpse is held in her embrace, embers kissing snow, and she can't stop herself from staring at the wall of flames where Aneesa and Sasha have been erased from her life. She doesn't know what to do now that she can't reach for them. Can't hear them. Can't see them.

Then the forcefield ripples, and the machine steps through. In her sleep, hours after the end, she remembers the way all the wreckage had been reflected across its face. A grave reminder that as much as she wants to blame the Capitol for her tragedies, the blood is on her hands — the blood will always be on her hands. She speaks like her words have enough power to rip through the barrier, drives her weapon through steel, all the while pretending that she can still face the Capitol on her own.

Under a cloud of smoke, she clutches to Gavin, tracing the lines of his constellation with teary eyes. In the night sky, she could find him anywhere. She can hear the whir of a hovercraft, approaching over the trees, and she tries to make her peace with the knowledge that this might be the last time she ever sees him. Part of her wants to damn it all, and just keep fighting. What else is there to lose? And how is she supposed to let him go?

Rationally, she knows that she is a flight risk — a risk that has been monitored, and confirmed as a real and present danger. If the gamemakers have their way, Cecily Deerling will die in the cage she tried so desperately to break.

Selfishly, she knows that she cannot accept that — even as she stares at the dying inferno, the skeleton of a burnt out car emerging from the blaze, watching ashes dance on the wind. Even traumatized, she wants to live.

Even coming to terms with being a failure, a bad omen, she tries to convince herself that there's still something to fight for. In the rearview mirror — a pretty memory, sunlight washing over her, Sasha in the driver's seat — death stares at her. She's a kid, and she's scared, and within that terror she goes and kills all of her friends. Because she was willing to do anything. No matter the cost.

Her fingers curl around strands of dark hair, she presses her forehead to her best friend's chest and pretends like his heart will start beating again. Pretend like she's not the one who stopped it. Gasping out, bloodshot eyes and trembling hands, she scolds herself for ever believing she could save them. There is nothing in this arena that is not made of suffering. What is she to do? Start his heart, swear to protect him, and watch him die again?

Over and over. A promise that never stops breaking.

That second explosion. That last bullet.

Should have been hers.

Grabbing her things, holding her tongue and choking down all the soft words she wants to say to herself through him, she makes her peace with knowing he got the last word between him — he deserves more, will always deserve more, but she is tired and hopeless and doesn't know how to give him that. All of it was love. Now, all of it is loss.

One last glance over her shoulder, she regards the place where her hope will remain buried forever. A scar across the earth, a ruin of her own making. Somehow, she finds a way to hold back her tears. Reaching out her hand, grasping cold air, she tries to find comfort in having nothing. In knowing that she had been so lucky to have something, even if fleeting.

The day yields to night, and Cecily stands firm against the paranoia. Wrapping her tarp around her shoulders, fleeing to the warmest spot she can find in the downpour, she eventually comes to a stop and rests her face against her knees. There's no reason to find shelter. The rain feels thinner across the dunes, kissing the sand and rising as mist as quickly as they embrace. The elements are the least of her worries, anyway.

At any moment, a creature sent by the Capitol could lunge from the shadows and finish her off, or a stranger she never got the chance to meet. So many dangers. All so familiar.

Minutes after waking from a rough night of sleep, blinking raw eyes to gaze at a blistering sun behind dark clouds, a drizzle still falling from the sky — she tries to traverse the vast nothingness, the warm sand beneath her boots, and the emptiness that sinks so deeply inside of herself. This part isn't graceful. None of it is.

But when she stumbles into another tribute, her only instinct is to throw her hands up, not even thinking to thrust out with her spear. The mistake is not made twice, and quicker than she can manage to dodge, a sharp edge is dragged across her back. She hisses out in pain, moving a few steps ahead and dropping her bag from off her shoulder. She can't name this person, and when she stares into their eyes, a ruthless enemy is not what she sees.

Just someone who wants to survive.

Perhaps it's comforting, or perhaps it's cruel irony.

"I need you to know that there's no other option than this." Cecily glances at the weapon in her hand, and the choice she has to make. The one that was made for her. "I can't run, and even if I could, I know that you can't let me walk away." Ever the martyr, she tries to justify her murder for them. If they need the reason. "I can't die in here." She thinks of the seven lives standing between her and freedom.

Escape feels impossible, and yet.

It wasn't always.

"I'm sorry. You're in my way."

"I'm going to move you whether you like it or not."

Cecily doesn't take the harsh words personally, but despite herself, a scoff leaves her lips. It's not a hateful sound, but there's an undertone of bitterness to it. Melancholy. The sad part is that it really doesn't matter, and they both know it. She's sorry, and they're merciless, and the ending of this story has already been told. There's an unbreakable barrier waiting at the end of this road. She glances up at the forcefield in the distance, shimmering at the edges, and she smiles. Flames flicker in her memories.

"Okay, then." Her voice is soft, shoulders squared and arms spread wide in invitation. Her strength is gentle — her spirit is broken into pieces. But there is nothing in her that knows how to yield. If this is where it stops, where her feet run out of ground, then she has already proven that she will do everything in her power to fight against fate. She considers accepting it, she has always considered accepting it, a bullet for safe keeping.

In the back of her mind.

Always.

But now that everything is gone, and all she has left is her own stubborn hope — gambling her life doesn't seem all that bad. The bets are already in, the Capitol has willed her death into existence, and all she's wasting are minutes. Seconds. Time without them, without him, without the comfort of knowing that she might someday forgive herself. The horror that now that she's started to run, there's nowhere to stop that won't cause her pain. She's so afraid of hurting.

A scream echoes in her mind. Her friends are dead, and it feels like her heart has been ripped from her chest. What makes pain real? Her scars are shallow, save for the deep cut hidden by her wet hair, dark strands slowly catching the cold wind. There's an ache that radiates from within her, but she can't point it out. It's not a wound that she can cover. It bleeds, and there is nothing she can do. Except for this.

"Let's see how that works out for you."

Grunting with all of her rage, and quiet fear, she lunges to the side as soon as the other tribute lashes out with their own spear. The point of it sends an echo of pain shooting though the slash on her scalp, just a hot throb of pain before it settles into a sharp needle, soaked in numbing medication. It hurts, and will continue to hurt, but she's felt a lot worse. She swings her weapon up as she finds her footing in her new position, catching it in a two handed grip. There's no going back from this. That will never be an option.

As much as she would give anything to take the hands of time, and walk back a few paces. Tell her friends that she loves them, and that she's sorry, but she can't save them. She'd treasure however long they had left. She would be content. She tells herself this.

And she strikes to kill.

"Those were just practice shots."

Their spear hits the ground,
a bat wrapped in razor wire taking its place.

"But I am ready now."

Cecily's weapon exits the tribute's stomach as quickly as it entered, and their jagged fury slams into her chest at full force, knocking her backwards. She gasps, so loudly and unwillingly that she feels sick. Deep within herself. The fear curls in on itself, begs her to run, almost tricking her to believe that will ever be an option again.

Her features shift, agony bleeding into rage, not looking very different at all. She will never be more furious than this. She will never be more sad. She stares at her final moment, eyes locked, and she refuses to accept the inevitable. These are metaphors becoming real. What's a bone shattering to a shattering soul?

She'd do anything.

She's already proven that.

"Good for you." The softness of her voice takes a sharp edge, forcing herself to recognize that she already knows what will happen if she tries to flee. They said they would chase her, and if she hopes to survive, that means they can't live. She frees a hand to push her hair out of her face, trying to tuck it underneath the back of her shirt. If this is what it must come to, the least she can do is look them in the face.

She sighs, securing her grip on her spear once more, circling around her enemy as they begin a dance made to end. Only one of them standing. "I'm not ready." It sounds like she should be ashamed, but she says this without remorse. "For a couple things, at least." The idea of dying chills her to the core. There is nothing in her that will ever be prepared for that. And killing someone, well. She's already faced that.

If she must do it again, then so be it.

When she attacks, it hurts her, too. Aftershock in the marrow.

"But it is what it is, yeah?"

"We're in charge of what we do."

She glances down at a spear streaked in blood, a white knuckle grip. When they put it like that, it's a little cruel. Cecily glances over her shoulder, even knowing that looking away is a risk she cannot afford, even knowing that she really doesn't care. Let her turn back around, and find a blade soaring towards her heart. Watch her grab it from the air.

Watch her be brave.

A tear slides down her cheek in defiance, a blue ripple running across the forcefield, and fire rises in her all her fondest memories. She remembers the weight of Gavin's body, shifting her weapon like it's a practiced art, trying to convince herself that any of this is easy. That she's not in shock, and eventually, if she ever gets her stubborn way, she won't be devastated. Knowing she already is.

And isn't that the funniest part?

So afraid of hurting, she goes and risks worse.

Death looms just out of view, fingertips tracing the scar on the back of her head, sending throbs of pain through her body. Loud enough to break through the adrenaline in flashes, quiet explosions, an echo of pain she'll never be able to forget. She folds it into her being, lacing grief with all of her hope. It's a double edged sword. She's not afraid to bleed.

Life, survival, peace — the currency will always be blood.

Cecily's face is washed clean by the rain, but in her hair, and under her nails, and seeped into her clothes. All of her sacrifices have been paid. She remembers seeing Sasha in the driver's seat, eyes meeting through the car window. She remembers how saving Aneesa had been all it took to keep her courage alive. Now she's gone, and her bravery feels halved.

"I know." Her voice is rough, a strain between emotional and indifferent. There's a kindness in her that wants to kill itself, to distract itself from the fact that it wants terrible things, and will do terrible things in return. But her friends died last night, and the gamemakers sent a robot to kill her, so there's only so much she can hold back.

A stubborn kid pretending she can still get her way.

Acting like her happiest ending hasn't already been consumed by flames.

Where does it go after this? She thinks of the target across her back, the sharp edge of razor wire digging into her arm, and considers the grim reality that she might always be unhappy. She remembers all of the quiet moments that built her life, and how lucky she was to experience them. They were good. She will treasure them. She will mourn them.

Let this be the eulogy.

"This is what I choose.
I'm getting out of here."

Wherever that leads.

"You'll escape when your cannon sounds."

There's an echo that goes on forever;
and then it ends. It always ends.

"I'm going to win this."

Equally matched, equally stubborn, Cecily stares at willpower wrapped in razor wire — and she swallows, fingers tightening around her spear. For all the reasons to give up, the sentence of death by a thousand cuts, there's nothing in her that knows how to back down. Even staring into burning eyes, knowing that the flames will haunt her always, she doesn't move.

It'll take a lot more than that.

Raise the earth, and call down the flood.

"Whether I have the crown or not."

They dance through the crescendo of music — wind crying out over the rain, quiet sunlight threatening to break through the dark haze of clouds in the sky. And yet, in the distance, in those terrible shades of blue; that's the end. She's already been there, heard the way the world can shatter around her, felt the vibrations of her own undoing move through her.

Heartbeat. Breathe.

This is living in the aftermath — this is the hurt she's fighting to keep.

"It'd be nice if things worked out the way we wanted them to." She's not trying to sound hateful. If anything, her sadness is the most apparent emotion in her voice. Even though she's made the choice to be ruthless, to survive by any means necessary, that doesn't mean any of it is easy for her. The truth is, they're just two kids in way over their heads, and what will happen here goes so much deeper than wanting.

It's a need. It's a fear. It's the prize.

There's blood on the gold laurel crown.

"But they don't, do they?" It's a question for them to share — an answer that will evade them equally, now and until the end of time. Her ears are still ringing, but if she strains them, just beneath the hum, she can hear the ticking. Some metaphorical clock trying to force her to come to terms with her own morality. She has no control. In this arena, they're all trapped. Her tragedy is theirs.

But the mistakes are hers. She has to own them.

Even when they crash against her chest, a jagged wave that cuts into an existing wound, breaking something that is already shattered. There's a crack, and she falls to one knee, nearly sliding down the side of the dune. But she holds her ground as best she can, struggling to keep from collapsing against the sand. This isn't how it ends; she doesn't get a say.

She's lying under the stars, and her friends are lying there with her, and she locks eyes with each of them in turn. The fields stretch on for miles, volcanic ash giving way to spring flowers, grass so high they can feel it tickling their fingertips as they walk. Forward, and never backwards, ever closer to the horizon. This is what they fought for. The sun rises, and the truth is a difficult thing to accept.

They lost.

She's losing.

But she finds her way to her feet again, stares up at someone who refuses to stand down, and it all feels familiar in the worst way. "Keep your crown, then." She hefts her weapon, eyes locked on a thing she is not allowed to have. The cage door is welded shut. She remembers the feeling of gunpowder between her fingers, and how there was a time when she thought she could do anything. Gavin smiles in her memory. "They can bury you in it."

And like fire, Cecily will steal what she cannot have.