pierce this flesh / [kruwill summer ; day four]
Jul 14, 2023 19:44:33 GMT -5
Post by pogue on Jul 14, 2023 19:44:33 GMT -5
G A M B L E
Krueger Gamble has been staring at the body of Olete Bene for the past hour.
The echo of Elijah's cannon was still clinging to his skin as he'd bent down towards the murky waters of the lake in front of him, cloth torn from ragged uniform and wrapped around the wounds aching in his shoulder. He'd ended up bad but Will was worse, the palm print of a blood-soaked hand still painted on the back of his uniform as he'd carried her from the fight. But she was alive, if only barely, taking the life of his district partner and painting her skin red with a mixture of his blood and her own.
He knows he should be grateful, willing, patch her up like Olete had done for him and stay by her side, listen to her heaving lungs and make sure she is still alive when the echo of the cannon fades from memory.
But he doesn't. He's never been built to last to those that matter, has watched friends and family come and go from the shadows all throughout his life. The nature of the troupe was to never get attached to anyone, to anything... to let it come and let it go as it pleases. This is no different: he pulls himself back from the edge of connection and disappears into the shadow, burning of the spotlight still fresh on his skin. He thinks it will feel better that way, to remove himself from any semblance of caring before it bites at him.
But there's a gnawing at the edge of his gut, something that chews on his soul and spits out the last living pieces. He can't stop picturing the way Elijah's face had looked when he'd begged him not to let his death be in vain.
It'd only worsened when Olete's body had come into view underneath the moonlight, more a shadow than a sin at first. But he'd seen the way the light had bent and pulled at the open wound in her skull, tracing the impact of Lara's dagger and calling out to him. His heart had plummeted into acid and bile, eyes wide and voice stuffed back into his throat, staring out into the lake and watching her float underneath the light.
She's haunting him even after she is so far gone. He wants to call it unfair, to yell to the skies and the heavens that her ghost has no right to cling to him like this. But something sinister rests underneath his skin, something that tells him he deserves it, something that he knows is right.
"You think I should go out and get her?"
There's voices written in-between the question, little lines of guilt threading themselves in the word. Because Olete had stepped between sorrow and steel for him, had felt her skin open and curl with the touch of a weapon, had paid the ultimate price just to make sure he kept standing. In return, he'd left her.
And now he sits, legs curled into his chest, the last of the eyes from healing wounds withering and slowly blinking as the moonlight hits them, new ones waiting to grow in the wound on his shoulder. He watches her body like he's already dead, flinching at every piece of muscle that twitches and moves underneath his skin, wanting so badly to reach out and pull her to safety. Like it would breathe life into her lungs once more, like it would make up for everything he did not do.
But he knows his answer- even before Will responds.
He won't.
