Takin' Care of Business [Bog Friends Day 5]

Dawn turns the inside of the tent a burnt rust sort of colour.

It's been an awkward night. After the horses had gone cold, Johnny propped Karl against a rock face and shoved his shoulder back into his socket and the pop of it was so loud that it send a roosting nest of birds above them spiralling.

Then the tent came into play.

Karl cradled his shoulder and slept as far to the side of the tarp as he could get. The cameras not being able to get them in there somehow made it worse. It felt like he was doing something he shouldn't.

But it cools down overnight. That's why when the scuffling jolts Karl awake, he finds himself just a little closer to Johnny that he remembers being. He blinks at the tarp roof for a beat, and then the shadow slants over the side.

It's like something from a terrible campfire story. Like those Games back in the late 80s that had the cabins and the canoes and the masks. Karl sits up so fast that his chest wound flares from it, and watches the silhouette of somewhere slowly pass by the tent, backlight by the rising sun.

He reaches over to poke at Johnny, drawn so tense that his bones creak.

"Johnny." He hisses at him, and there's so little reaction that Karl actually has to check that he didn't somehow die during the night.

He's alive, but his face looks awful. The horses smashed his nose yesterday, and you can definitely tell. The bruises are dark even in the dimness of the tent, taking up the whole centre of his face like he's just smeared green and violet watercolours over himself.

Aed tries to float up in his face and Karl bats the seelie away. The stupid thing is dim enough that it wouldn't be noticeable through the tarp, but still, it hung up in the corner all night like some kind of deranged owl, perched up and looking down at a mouse. Three days later and the thing still gives him the creeps, "Go away."

When Karl looks back towards the tent wall though, the silhouette is gone.

Maybe they never even noticed the little shelter. Maybe it was just an animal walking by, and his eyes were playing tricks on him.

Karl gingerly lowers his hands, heart still jackrabbit, and that's when all hell sort of breaks loose.

The tent flap flickers and then whips to the side like a sudden windstorm, someone is yelling, Karl scrambles and accidentally kicks something and Johnny's finally moving but Karl can't tell if it's because of his foot or the sword suddenly sticking out of his gut like a particularly large and shiny toothpick.

Shit.

"Shit."

Shit shit shit.

Karl grabs Johnny beelines it past their attacker like a shot, only stumbling when the whole tent comes down on top of the three of them. He keeps hold of Johnny like they're drowning, practically dragging him out from under the mess of tarp and ignoring the sudden blood gushing out of him because the most important thing is to get away, he can't do this again - "Go go go."

He yanks Johnny up with one hand around his wrist and tries to not grimace when the other boy winces. They can deal with it later, Karl will apologize then.

The boy with the sword is still lost in the tarp when Karl turns to get Johnny up the path.

There's someone already there.

It's like Calamity again. Like Yael. The pat-pat-pat of Johnny's blood hitting the rocks is so unbearably loud but Karl can't reach up to cover his ears because as soon as he lets of Johnny, that's it.

It's the girl from Nine standing in front of them. That terrible thing in Karl that's been building over the past four days starts to bubble over.

"Get out of the way."

The bleeding had finally stopped overnight, but the searing pain was as hot as the moment that stupid donkey's foot had collided with my face. I groaned as I tossed and turned during the night, the inflammation in my nose so server that it had totally closed off the airway.

My stomach complained with each movement, each twist of a muscle, contraction of the fibres, sent pain shooting through me like electricity. It was about now that I wished Flynn would send me down a parachute with something to ease the pain, and not a mirror, or a fake gun. I didn't need to see my reflection to know that the skin beneath my eyes would be black, the bridge of my nose a bluish purple, that stretched down my cheeks.

When I finally fall asleep I am nearly pressed up against Karl, finding a sense of comfort in the warmth that radiated from his body. A distraction from the pain. As darkness takes over I surrender to sleep, to an escape from this game-

White hot searing pain has my eyes flying open, my mouth wide in a silent scream as my hands clutch the steel that protrudes from my stomach. My mind and soul are trying to catch up, my hands digging into the sharp edged of the blade that threatens to gut me, to rip open my insides. "K- Karl," I gasp, fingers sticky with blood, sliced open as the sword is ripped from my stomach, from my grasp.

The world moves too slowly and then too quickly.

There is a boy, my blood dripped from the end of his blade. He looks down on us with a smile.

Then time is moving to quickly. It's a blur of colours and shapes and Karls face, his mouth moves too slowly for this world and I am left staring up at him with my a-gap, still trying to put the pieces together. Karl has me by my the wrist, dragging me from the tent. I'm gasping for air, breathing through the pain that pulsed through me with intensifying pain with each pain beat of my heart.

Finally I start to catch up with the world, pushing myself to my feet, Karl still clinging to my hand, almost as though he was scared to let go.

Another tribute moves out into our path, and Karl growls at them to move, his blade raised. The threat falls on deaf ears, the girls face remaining calm, almost bored, when Karls blade nicks her neck. She barely pauses before she is closing in on us, on me.

She aims for my heart, and I block it, my arm catching her blade I knock it to the side with a hiss of pain.

Pulling myself together I reach for my Katana, forcing my lips to pull back into the characteristic grin that I wore so well. Though it didn't feel right, my face stiff from the swelling. "Yeah, nah," I aim the blade at her throat, trying to ignore the way it trembled slightly. The adrenaline mixed with blood loss was not an intimidating factor. "Hear that, Karl, Nine wants us to use our manners." My eyes dart to Karl, and I waited for the familiar, unnerving darkness to consume him, just like it had the day that Calamity was murdered.

"Say 'please' and I'll think about not killing your friend once we are done with you."

The scythe glides against the girl's neck gently, hushed like whisper, cutting more air than skin.

The way she just stands there has Karl's hackles raising faster than they have all week. She has the same dead eye stare that Yael did and he stands there gaping at her until she moves like a snake, jolting towards Johnny and forcing him to catch her blade with his arm.

Johnny's picked up his grandiose routine again while Karl tries not to vibrate out of his skin. He's laughing again, mocking them, but effect is diminished by the fact that his face looks god-awful in the light. It's scary, almost. Like something that lives under a kid's bed.

The buzzing is back in full force and Karl's ears fill with static, it's like there's an entire swarm of bees hiding somewhere nearby. He's burning slowly, the smoke starts to clog up his lungs, fuzzy noise is really just the crackling of a funeral pyre. It sits in his minds' eye like a great big dead thing and he can't blink because as soon as he does then it's going to get back up and they don't have time to run and Johnny's still talking.

The boy that stabbed him finally crawls out of the mess of the tent and Karl briefly starts to fantasize about reaching over and just smacking Johnny.

They could have gotten away.

But now he has to weather through this. Whatever this is. Because he hates the banter. He hates how easy it comes to everyone except him because while tent-boy cracks a one-liner, Karl is too busy trying not to dissociate from the sight of Johnny's blood all over his hands.

You picked the wrong day to be brave.

But he's not at all.

He's terrible and awful and something that shouldn't be alone at night. He freaks everyone out when they tell him to be quiet because he takes it to heart and stays silent for hours.

The only sound that comes from him is the thump-thump-thump of the heart sitting in his bag.

Or

in the tent.

In his bag in the tent.

In his bag on the ground under the collapsed tent, behind them.

Karl freezes then.

He promised he wouldn't leave without it.

He suddenly looks anywhere but the tent. He focuses on Johnny, who seems to be developing a serious problem with keeping his blood where it should be. He focuses on Tent-boy, but then reroutes so quickly that he nearly gives himself whiplash, because there's something in the way that he grins and the way that he speaks that echos and pushes against Karl's psyche like Dyno had.

That means he focuses on Path-girl instead. It hurts a little, more like standing in front of a blackhole than a supernova.

But he listens because that's what he's good at. He kissed Dyno because that's what he wanted. He tried to kiss Johnny because that's what he thought he wanted.

"Please leave." Karl gives in quietly, something jagged stuck in it. This wretched obedient little thing, this shell of a boy; he does what he knows.

You picked the wrong day to be brave. Tent-boy had told them.

Thump-thump-thump goes the heart under the tarp.

I could still hear the rustling and curses coming from the fallen tarp when I strike out at the girl from nine, my blade tracing a thin red line against her bicep. The momentum almost has me stumbling, but I catch myself, pulling my shoulders back, ignoring how the movement had my stomach screaming in reluctance, blood running down my legs, collecting on the cool stone beneath my feet.

I must have looked like a pathetic mess, and I wipe an arm along my forehead, sweeping my hair out of my face. The noises from behind had begun to quiet down, the boy finally managing to escape the tarp that had sent him down just as easily as his blade through my stomach.

“Hey Mirage," the boy starts and I hold back a sigh of annoyance as my gaze flicks over to him, my hand tightening around the hilt of my blade. I didn't know what it was about him, but just the sight of him had my jaw clench in annoyance. There was something about him that rubbed me the wrong way. It reminded me of when the teachers pet would continuously remind the teacher that we had homework due, even though they knew they were the only ones who did it. "These chucklefucks aren’t even going to run."

Maybe running would have been the right choice. Maybe I should have just grabbed Karl and taken off... But what was the point? If they didn't catch us, someone- or something- else would have and we would be fighting for our lives once again. At least with tributes their moves were more predictable. Their feelings provoked more easily.

My gaze flicks to Karls once again and then to Nine- I double take back to Karl, holding back a curse. The boy was looking super uncomfortable, his eyes darting from me to the tent to Nine and back. Shit. I take a step closer and his eyes land of Nine as he asks her one more time to leave.

She doesn't. Of course she doesn't. She didn't seem like the type to back down, no matter the odds. In fact, she barely even takes notice of Karl, instead focusing her attention back on me and I felt my shoulders tighten, my jaw clench, fuck this chick.

She lunges and her sword buries itself into my shoulder, just above my heart, just below my collar bone. I hiss in pain, grabbing her wrist with my blood stained fingers. "Bitch," I growl, I hold her and her blade there a moment longer, glaring at the girl the same way that Yael used to glare at me. Her blade broke through the skin on my back and we are standing so close now and the image of Yael and Dyno flash before my eyes, his sword in her chest and

I spit in her face.

It was kind of gross.

But liberating.

Ripping my shoulder from her blade I avoid the other boys advances, twisting away from his blade before thrusting it towards Mirage.

"We are all liars here."

"I was lying." The girl says.

Karl stares at the blood along her arms blankly.

He's not completely surprised. It doesn't sting - it was worth a shot, right? But the way she looks at him, like he was stupid for even trying, like that's made his worth go from zero to below-zero; that feeling burrows into him, wrapping itself around his organs like a lazy boa constrictor. The chasm of him tries to swallow it, but it's stubborn, and it lingers.

The pair barely even glance at Karl. They focus on Johnny instead and it's like being home all over again, or being on that train, or in those rooms. People just don't see him. He's the invisible boy; silent and self-aware and so unsure how to navigated.

"We are all liars here." Johnny spits at the girl, Mirage, and it takes nearly everything in Karl for him not to whip his head to the side.

It's the confession that really surprises him.

How many times has he thought he'd had Johnny figured out? How many times has that been uprooted and shaken?

But still, I'm trying, Johnny had said back in the forest. Karl had stayed because of that.

Now, Karl wants to yell and refute it because we're all liars - no. He's not. To his detriment, he's only ever lied to himself, just the once when the Keepers first came and he spent the first night watching the bog and he told himself that what was happening wasn't necessarily a bad thing. But he doesn't lie. Someone asks him a question, he answers it.

Someone attacks the person who isn't his friend, but could be, then he answers that too.