live deliciously | h vs sb vs ck vs hags

Carnage. The cackle of the hags grows rhythmic as blood spills onto the soil. They begin to dance, locking hands and twirling up, up, up into the air: vanishing in the darkness above and only able to be seen from the flashes of lightning accompanying the Fold.

How much of it is real? How much of it is just coding? The swirling storm of blackness, the clawed fingers interlocked, feet flat as if standing mid-air. The darkness of the fog grows thicker around the tributes, pouring forth from the arena. Direction becomes impossible to track: one moment, an ally is just to your right and the next, they're so far to your left you can barely see them. If you were to run right into the fog, you'd find yourself returned to this exact spot just as soon as you break eye contact. It doesn't make sense. So that must mean it cannot be real, right?

Right?

Although, if these creatures really do float then it would explain why, for those who were in this area two days ago, those footprints came to such a sudden stop at the edge of the arena. But then why do the claws still sting as they are raked across flesh? Why does the blood still drip onto the ground, a haunting sizzle as it bubbles upon impact before being swallowed by the snow and soil.

A flash. The Hags are still far overhead, circling in the air now as they continue their chant. The light fades.

Another flash. They're right back on the ground where they were before. Maybe they hadn't ever actually left.

Another flash. They're closer than any have seen them: smells of sulfur and decay as toothy mouths open in excited greeting. More blood is needed for this ritual.

[Hags attack tributes who have not been attacked this round!]

Lionel
WI62E5BLI6knife
[9.0]

Inga
knife
[0.0]

Isolde
knife
[8.0]

If you had asked me three days ago what dying felt like, I would have told you it would be feel like being separated from my pack. It would mean isolation, loneliness, and goddamn abandonment. It would feel like that time Pops left us on the streets for a week when he needed to win back the food money with his drinking money. When his fists kissed my face each night as darkness fell and his pockets lay flat with emptiness.

But today, dying feels a lot like the touch of Axyl’s hand on my shoulder. His fingertips grazing mine as he hands me a piece of plastic that we can whisper into and not have to worry about who’s on the other side. Dying feels a lot like the sun on my face, even in this place of darkness as our enemies stick us with spears and axes, their steel and mourns dripping with the same poison.

Dying feels a lot like giving up.

But is it really. giving up? We gotta be a threat because Axyl and I are marked for death and deemed disposable. He heaves my arm over his shoulder and I fall into him, my blood dancing with his on our hands and our clothes. I would apologize if I could get the words out, but I instead try to thank with him a shaky smile. We're a study in twilight., a collapsing star - two boys blindly reaching out in each other for answers we can't confront and questions we never asked.

I never even asked him his favorite color.

Mine used to be red, but now its unmistakably the shade of purple of Axyl's uniform.

I can feel a heartbeat in my fingers - his or mine, I'm not sure. I long to reach into my chest and his to figure out which is which. Marrow and bone and blood, hot and sticky, warm enough to drive away this wretched cold from this wretched place. Would his heart beat faster than mine? Stronger than mine? Or would they beat the same?

"You can't - I'm just deadweight now, Ax. It ain't gonna work this time -" My sentence starts in the middle and stops somewhere near the end, barely a whole thought but what I want to tell him is to save himself. To let me go. I cough instead. 

With one last strike, I follow Hugo, blackness in the corner of my eyes and blackness hanging over our heads like a dark halo.

Truth is, I would follow him anywhere. Even to my death.

Half of a filler, just to move things along.

-I've hurt before, but never like this. Thought lots about how much weapons would hurt, the way blood is warmer and softer it has any right to be. Searing pain followed by those lovely fingers, painting long strokes down my skin. I have known since they called my name that I was going to die.

The difference between then and now, of course, is that I really don't want to.

-Not a killer, not innocent either. The hags do not let up, in spite of being paid their due. That's the thing with greed, I think. It'll never be enough. Maybe we'll all sit here, slashing at each other until no one is left. Inga will run me through or Izzy will slit my throat and the hags will laugh and laugh and laugh and-

-"I wasn't trying to behead you. Happy accident?" I tell Lionel, it's absurd that those are the words I find. Sloshing through dirt and gore. "I am sorry. I was sorry." Not anymore, I can feel my heartbeat through the blood gushing between my fingers.

There's a body at our feet.

-And yeah, maybe I'm a little spiteful about that hit. Maybe I'm thinking about how much it hurt when I lash out at the girl who shot it at me. I know her, remember wanting to talk to her. That she's a person who I could have probably been friends with, had things gone a little different.

There are a lot of feelings there, not just hard ones.

"Well, if I have to hurt someone, I figure I might as well mean it. And that dart really hurt."

I swing, I swing fucking hard.

-more to come! movin things along cuties

Hugo falls, but whether he hits the ground or not is unclear to the other tributes, who simply watch as the darkness consumes him. The cannon fire sings in tempo with thunderous applause. And then-

Silence.

Not just a comparative quiet: absolute silence. No wind whistling against the ear, no snow crunching beneath boots, or laborious breathing from the most damaged of the tributes. No screams. Silence. And then from that silence, a low hum. The tributes watch each hag begin to glow with glistening dark purple energy, drawn from the land, from the darkness, perhaps from Hugo.

The ritual is almost complete now.

One more. One more. One more.

Again, the tributes aren't sure if they're really hearing this or if its in their heads, but the ominous silence makes it even more difficult to ignore. One more. That's all they require. And if the tributes do not want to be the last of the quota, it's up to them to appoint someone else. One more.

The hags tilt their heads to the skies, gaunt mouths stretched open to their limits as the purple energy poured into it. This cant be real. This cannot be happening.

And yet.