Fight 2: Flood Reserves

In Fraser’s honest opinion, he is probably the most worse off person here. Did anyone else get publicly humiliated during their reaping? He bets not, there’s nobody more important in this exhibit than himself – unlike what some of them think! During the two excruciating days in here, he’s been trying to mop up that public humiliation. Once he is out of here – alive, he is going to be ready to snatch that mayoral seat. He got locked out of the mayor’s mansion, but he will soon have his own keys to it. There’s just the matter of culling a few kids his age first.

There’s no real game plan for what is about to happen to him. He is no stranger to drawing blood though. He has a mental tally of how many fingers, tongues and varying body parts he has taken from those in debt to the mayor. Fraser is not afraid of maiming others; it is just the defending himself part that he is inexperienced in. Fraser is the type of guy to stab someone in the back who is already down. It is a dog-eat-dog world, his father he’s been told that. And he knows it.  

It feels like a dog eat nothing world at the moment, not even a miniscule green leaf from a salad the past two days. His stomach is CRYING. He has been sure to let those watching know. He has not been begging them for food but he has been dropping hints during the occasional chit chat with those outside the exhibit.

”Oh, I have never tasted Capitol food before, I can’t even imagine it! It is a shame I will never get a bite…” Is one thing he said to a group of middle aged visitors that came to just prod their sticks at the tributes.

Fraser is leaning on the climbing wall, arms crossed and a mind in overdrive. It is filled with what is going to happen once I get home rather than what is about to happen. His interactions with the other tributes have not been the most desirable. The brat from Four tricked him and October, that girl who thinks she is all that is so insufferable! Amber is cool though; it is a shame she’s got to go. Just an unlucky one in life, like all those that come begging to the mayor’s office. There’s a hierarchy in life and Fraser needs to make sure is the one on top of it.

It is getting boring in here for him…but not for long.

There’s a quake beneath his feet, he looks towards the wall he is leaning on, seeing if anyone has dared to climb it but there’s no one. It is the ground, it feels so fragile as he shuffles away from the wall, but it doesn’t matter where he moves, the earth below him opens. And down goes Fraser Birk.

It is a comical tumble for the lanky six-foot boy to the new underworld. Bonk bonk bonk on various pipes and chunks of earth. A leg, his torso and even his head, not one part of his body is left without a bruise or a scrape as he finally stops falling. There’s even a scream from him halfway down.

His ass feels soaked but it is not with blood. Fraser’s boiler suit hasn’t properly dried from his misadventure with Four in the pond and now it is also soddened with sewage water. ”Ewww.” He says as he looks at his palms, now stained with the unthinkable that is floating all around him. ”This place stinks!”

This is the place that he is going to have to fight out of. Life really likes to bite his ass and pass on the worst book to him. Karma’s coming for the wrong person, it needs to go back to Seven and drag the right person out of the mayor’s office.

A reluctant Fraser pushes himself onto his aching legs, he can’t fumble in the poopy puddle for too long. There’s a handful of tributes all around him and this isn’t the exhibit anymore. The messing about is over, the real game has begun.

The knife piercing through the murky water confirms it. Fraser swipes it not taking his chances with just his bare hands.

”Took a hard landing, huh?” He asks the kid sat in the tunnel’s water, comforting a mangled leg. Fraser is no doctor but his foot should not be pointing in that angle. Kick a man who’s already down, it has been hand delivered to him. ”Hold on, I will help you!” Death is the only help feasible for this one. Will he still be the hero he was trying to bring in front of the camera with the Four? It was over for this kid the moment he saw his leg.

All it takes is a dance of Fraser’s new blade across his neck and it is done.

All it took was seconds. Seconds for him to have blood on his hands.

Fraser lays the kid’s head flat on the tunnel floor, he hurries as he hears the sloshing of the water behind him, it sounds like footsteps. The next one is not going to be so easy.

The tunnels expand into an even larger room filled with more water. ”Aren’t you guys fed up of the water arenas, after last year?” He asks the cameras, wherever they are.

Their only answer is to fill this room with occupiers, one he has already had the pleasure of meeting. ”December!” Fraser calls out to her, both rows of his teeth are showing, this is the only time he is going to smile in these tunnels.

”Watch out, this one will try and steal your spotlight.” He tells the two others that he has cared to not ignore. On edge is an understatement, he is looking out for the District Four girl to creep up behind him.

Blood rinsed with the sewage water on his boiler suit. It’s his or the guy’s who is laid out in the tunnel.

There’s an increasing darkness in his vision. It is a not a metaphor for his leap into the villain role but a symptom of the light headiness caused by his fall down here. He needs to get out of here before he is face first in poop water.

”You’ve heard great things about me! It is a shame the other’s won’t get a chance to hear them.” Fraser dips the knife into the questionable liquid. His blade is now diluted in disease.

It took seconds earlier, time for a personal best? It is a shame he has a personal strife with just one other here, makes for an easy target though as he lunges through the water towards her.

”Yes…water.” Fraser dips his head at the girl with the throaty voice as he fails miserably at tracing the same art on October like he did with the guy earlier. ”Lots of water, well done!” Water girl aint all that useless – well kind of, she fails to take a swing at October with her knife but at least she is on his side. Even if she looks like she is about to croak it herself.

As October pleas to be left alone, Fraser lets out a half-supressed scornful laugh. Oh, how the turn tables. Tables have turned. ”So NOW you want to be left alone?” He kicks up a mini tsunami with his feet in the water, hoping to splash October with the perfect wave. ”Can’t be the perfect little princess down here can you? You’ve got to learn to adapt…” Fraser Birk the Sewer King – now that DOES NOT have the perfect ring to it. Fraser Birk, Conqueror of The Sewers…No, nothing works with sewers!

His about to be short-lived ally gets ravaged by October and her freaky little friend that welcomes everyone to hell. The guy sounds just as dramatic as Fraser is trying to be, in this scene and Fraser can’t stand being without the microphone for so long.

”Don’t tell me,” Fraser inhales, the pause is not for dramatic effect but a suppression of the quaking pain omitting from the back of his head after the fall. Everyone’s gasping and croaking, letting their pain seep out for all to see. Fraser is not going to let anyone see his. ”you’re the meet and greet rep for hell?”

Fraser is not shaking the hand of the devil, not today. He is not letting this vessel that he cherishes end its time floating in the waters alongside a Capitolite’s doo-doo.

”Hey, Hell’s Tour Guide! Show me the way out of here.” The only way out will be climbing over bodies, he’d rather face the scraps near the end and not the guy with the weapon bigger than his.

Fraser’s knife versus whatever the heck that thing is, it is a game of chances he’ll take. This time it will be a better frenzied swing with the infected blade.

A flame is sprinting along a fuse that will soon run out. There’s a chance to stomp it out, even splash of water will halt it. Except Fraser Birk has been ignoring it, or he is just oblivious to the fact that he is the one that lit it. If he keeps on like this, he will rapidly learn what that fuse is attached to.

"Not for you, pal."

Being called pal is so grating in his mind that his body is stalled from responding to what has just happened to him. It is a mix of delusion and adrenaline that is keeping Fraser Birk standing in the sewage water that reaches his shins. His left hand drops to his stomach as the blade is pulled away by the other guy. A bloodied palm reaches his face before he looks down at his abdomen. Everything so slow, so unreal. This can’t be real. This can’t be happening to him. Biting his bottom lip does not withhold the cries that seep between his teeth.

What suddenly frustrates him more is the idea of October laughing at him crying, he imagines the told you so. But there’s not a word from October, it is father reciting those words in his head. He throws his eyes at her, just to be sure but her only reaction is a slice of her knife, and her prize is his finger floating in the water. It is swaying in the water, his eyes are fixed on it, ignoring the body that is nudging his ankles. Now his body croaks, begging him to stop. But the only way to stop is to join the boy in the watery grave, riddled with disease.

”If you don’t want to fight,” Fraser’s breathing drops, it is becoming exhausting just talking but he doesn’t let the blood loss and light headiness take the lead. ”leave. Get out of here.” But that is not how the game is played, there’s a brain in that skull of Fraser’s and sometimes he knows how to use it.

Who looks just as bad as him? Miss Water.

Every step could be his last, if the blood loss from his stomach doesn’t take him out, the bacteria jumping from the water festering inside of it definitely will. The girl is stumbling about just as much as he is, he just needs to make sure he is not the one to fall over the edge first.

”You don’t know how important I am, PAL” He bites at the guy who stabbed him but his eyes are on the worse-off girl. He can’t leave this world silent. ”Just watch me walk out of here.”

How helpless he looks right now. It is comical watching him swap the role of his hands. One to comfort the hole in his abs and the other to hold his knife. Only problem is that Fraser is missing a finger and no matter what way he does it, the tingling agony begs him to swap.

Fraser coughs. There’s a metallic sting from the back of his throat right to his teeth. It is blood, up from his oesophagus or somewhere internally. That brain is ticking in his cranium again, he is sure blood should not be billowing into his mouth. It seeps from his lips; everyone will be able to see the red dribble rolling down his chin. It is quickly becoming too much in his mouth, Fraser spits and now his blood dilutes the waters at their feet. Blood is not human waste, especially his. Fraser’s own blood should not be mixing with excrement. Embarrassing again. Ever since the reaping, Fraser has been on a trail of embarrassment.

That is all he is worried about, how he looks to whoever is bothering to watch. Not the fact that he is about to die.

His rambling must’ve struck a nerve with October, the girl tries to strike another finger but misses. Smugness still blooms on Fraser’s face, despite the chronic blood loss and constant double vision that knocks his co-ordination. ”District Seven needn’t miss me, they will be welcoming me back soon. Their true mayor…” Fraser gasps for air, there’s not enough oxygen in the world to fill his lungs as he grabs hold of his chest, his knees nearly completely buckling below him. It doesn’t matter though, Fraser loves the sound of his own voice, even if it is going to kill him. ”No need to send my love to Amber.” There’s none to give. Seven is only welcoming one home and it is going to be him.

An unexpected bite of a blade draws even more blood from his arms, Miss Water has clasped onto life and taken her knife to Fraser. All three of them have now taken a piece of him. ”Y-you’re gan-ganging up on me! October, I’ll look like an underdog. I sur-survive this and they’ll be cheering my name. I’ll be p-putting so many people at the edge of their seat!”

There’s just the matter of actually defending himself and knocking one of these sharp skittles down. One is closer to floating in the water than the others…”I can show you the exit.” Fraser points with his knife then stumbles.