What's Real, What's Not, What's the Difference [JF Day 4]

I t z a l

I couldn't tell you in words how I'm feeling
Maybe what I need's a good proper healing
Spend most of my nights staring at the ceiling
Tried all that God stuff but I stopped bеlieving

I took another couple of swings at the rock monster’s body when it went down. It cracked to pieces and spilled out a black tarry blood across the grass.

When the world grew still, I felt the goosebumps across my arms and back. I had longed for the quiet when the games had started but now it felt like we might be consumed by it. Almost felt better to be wrapped up in the howl of the wind or the crush of a fight since then we would have to keep moving. A calm only meant that at any moment it could all give way to chaos. And pretending to exist as though everything would work out just fine wasn’t exactly my style.

“Cannon fire.” I said at the sound of dull echoes in the distance. Another few bodies for the squall. We’d find their faced in the sky that night – people I hadn’t met and wouldn’t know – but I kept returning to Haze and Niko. Someone who’d be as good as dead but who I wanted to take alive; and someone dead to me that should’ve been dead, too.

Each stitch across my bleeding lobe felt worse than the claws that tore it off. I let out a grunt every time the needle punctured skin, and let out a quiet fuck as I drew the thread through the dangling skin. Could’ve been worse, I kept trying to tell myself, I could’ve been as beat to hell as Mirage.

For three days she’d had to endure being knocked back and forth, but here she was, still standing. I had a sneaking suspicion the game makers were testing her. I imagined I was a bit of a surprise to them. Perhaps they chalked it up to my run of good luck. Though it got easier every day. I felt further away from home than I’d ever been.

“I’ve been thinking,” Which was probably a shock to those watching when I said it, “About what Niko said.” I couldn’t let it go no matter how I’d tried. “How people seem to want to do good in here.”

I rubbed my fingers together to scrape off the blood caked across my skin.

“I don’t think that’s possible, do you?” I blew the remnants of the coppery film from my palm. Mirage felt a whole lot wiser than me. Aged a bit more, and not by choice. “Like – you can’t be nice, if you want to survive. But then you’re supposed to feel bad for doing what you have to do.”

I tugged at my knapsack and leaned back against the gnarled hide of one of the cherry blossoms.

“I don’t think I want to be nice. I mean – I don’t know if I ever really was, y’know?” I gave a shrug. “I’d rather put an end to it as quick as I can. Do what’s supposed to be done.”