should I be worried? :joy: | matt vs portia [bloodbath]

matt colekay

I was awake at 05:00AM before the Reaping. That's when it was the quietest—everyone bigger than me slept during the hours of 04:00 and 07:30, made for far less aches and bruises of red, purple, blue, green, yellow. No one could crack my ribs or my collarbones—(Well, collarbone. Twice. On the right side, but don't tell anyone.)—at the crack of dawn after cracking skulls and cold ones together all night. Too much many cracks and fissures and you'll break. No worse, shatter.

So I was up again just as early. I suppose I work like the sun. Or maybe the moon. Maybe even more distant like Mars or Venus. Watching and waiting and enjoying peace before there was none left to find. Or maybe I was just following a gravitational pull. Just some body floating in space.




But I wasn't going to tell her that. There were too many instances in which that didn't work out for me.

She was fast. No, not fast necessarily. Enduring?

Yes. Enduring.

"Should I be worried about you or can I get out of here without having to punch you in the face?"

Hard to forget the first two of us they show off everywhere, flash on the screens, announce. But I made a point to make sure I could forget all my peer's names. (So many of us need to quit breathing for this to end.) My hands are trembling, but that's to be expected; my hands always shake when I think I'm about to get beaten down.

And she does. The first blow is to one of my ribs and I'm certain she knows it with the way I cry out and crumble beneath the sheer force of being run through, tripping and falling backwards, purple roses blasting through my vision. I look up and see my reflection in medals of gold and unnaturally shiny leather. The Maybach name manages to twist me up in pair of knotted up shoestrings; I feel like my feet are tied together. She manages to clip my temple with her knuckles. My senses go soft and black for a moment and my reply comes out like I have a mouth full of raven's down fluttering out.

And, yeah, maybe I spittle them back out in her face just a bit—"Hit me all you like, but you aren't getting out of here."—if only to make my words sickly sticky. I grin. I can see where my words lilted off my tongue and splattered against her skin in red flecks. If I was lucky, they'd dry there.

I'd kill her and my blood would dry against her skin.

And it would be a fucking spectacle.

And so I wait, curled up and battered as I always have been. Just waiting. Shaking. Whimpering. But waiting all the same. "I've heard you like royalty."

(So kick me while I'm down, just like they do. I dare you.)

matt colekay

"Pick up that knife." She kicks the blade toward me and I watch it skitter and spin and halt in a spotlight. I hesitate, try to make myself _smaller. Or, at least, seem it. I know better than to listen to her demands. Especially with words like, 'royalty' and 'need' and 'earn' and 'fight' rolling off her tongue with that sickening twinge of desperation. Cornered animals never played nice. Especially not the one's who thought they deserved crowns and to sit on thrones.

I cower in on myself, locking eyes with her as I shake my head.

"Don't make this easy for me, I need to fight. I need to earn this!"

(And maybe I don't want to die. Ever considered that?)

I lift my hands slowly above my head, empty palms open to her. My blood will surely fill in the creases soon. Surely she'd bury that blade into my eye, my throat, slip it between my ribs, clip my femoral artery. She was going to grow tired of waiting any sec-

I latch onto her wrist and then again at her elbow as she lunges for me. Tears spring to my eyes and a yelp tears itself from my throat. (But I promised a fucking show.) I can smell the leather of her outfit as the lanyards around our necks tangle together. Dancing silhouettes cast shadows across our skin from behind heavy curtains as music threatens to drown out my reply.

And then I force her knife into my leg, sink it in to the hilt. It takes every muscle I have to keep her from wrenching it free or twisting it. My hands are shaking, but my grip is strong as adrenaline begins to turn me into a whole different boy. Someone stronger. Someone braver. Someone who could walk around with a knife sticking out of his leg. Someone who could stab someone.

Someone who could kill.

"Fights are better when opponents are equal," I choke, swallowing hard and gasping through grit teeth. "Don't you think?"

My blood is warm where a few beads have begun to form.

"Besides, I'm no royal."

My blood is warm where a few beads have begun to form.

"Why kill a peasant when you could kill a king?"

And then I do my best to twist her arm from its socket or break her fingers until the blade in my leg is mine and I'm scrambling to stand. It juts out awkwardly—(I need to focus on her, shit.)—and all I can manage to do is push and squeeze and just- pressure, pressure, pressure. Apply pressure, don't pull the blade free. (This was worse than broken bones.) My fingers are getting slick, my breathing is coming in rapid bursts, my vision is swimming, my body won't stop swaying.

(No, no. I can do this.)

(I told myself I would.)

I kick the knife that was still at my feet back to her.

I wonder if she can see it in my eyes, the goading—(Go on. Make a spectacle of us.)—behind my gaze as I look her over. The lights make it look like she's wearing that crown she so desperately seeks already. And there I was, clutching at a knife in my thigh, bent over and bloodied.

Fucking bowing like I was waiting to be knighted.

Or beheaded.

(What did I do to deserve this?)

I try to twist my features into a smile, like the one I had worn on the stage at the Reaping, but I doubt it comes out right for the cameras. Maybe it'll be enough for her though.

matt colekay

I've been called a lot of things in my life. Rat was one of them. Limp rat, though? That was new. Creative even, I suppose. A lot more fun than the normal bullshit back home. (You're becoming delirious.) I can only manage a nod, listening and trying not to let myself keel over.

(The show just fucking started, Matt. Get a grip.)

"There's something wrong with you."

(Clearly. There's knife jutting out of my thigh.)

I press down harder on my leg, fingers becoming slick and sticky the more I move. My instinct to

the damn thing out was growing more and more difficult to fight. (Don't do it, you'll bleed out.) It makes my smile falter the more I try to keep my blood on the inside. (Bared teeth and clenched jaw )

"This is your knife. I want mine back!"

My hands are shaking even if my voice doesn't quaver.

"Come get it then."

My muscles falter where her blade has severed some connections—sinew sliced through, silver against my bone, kissing marrow and curdling blood—and I can't manage to move quickly enough to avoid the blade she throws at me. I try not to let the pain stagger me as it follows the line of my jaw, cutting deep as it whistles past my ear and clatters somewhere behind me. By the time I regain composure, I can see the whites of her eyes.

(Shit. Fuck. Shit.)

I scramble backwards, trying to regain the distance, dangerously—stupidly—turning my back to her in search of the knife that wasn't accounted for.

But she was faster, quicker. (Everyone always was.) And the knife is still just beyond my reach when she catches up. Her words ring in my ears—"Look what you’ve done to yourself."—as I try desperately to keep her from pulling the damn blade free of my flesh. But she's strong, far stronger than me. I stretch with my free hand, fingers desperately straining to grasp the blade just out of reach, as I keep my other hand over the knife in my leg.

I need to make a decision.

(What did I do to deserve this?)

And I need to make the right one.

(What. did. I. do. to. deserve. this?)

So I let her have the hilt; I let her    yank   it free.

I screech in agony, kicking and rolling and scrambling desperately in the same instant so that my bloodied palm can reach the blade full of our collective coagulating gore just out of reach.

And I can't see her when I lash out with all the red and black clouding my vision. I can feel blood dripping down my neck, over my throat, pooling in my collarbone. I press what is now a white-knuckled grip into the gash across my jaw.

"We're all carrion in the end."

I've seen the way hawks puncture rat lungs with their talons, pull their guts from their ribcages and skin from their tiny bones. And I've watched the way those rats descendants devour the flesh of the rotting corpses of hawks.

Some call that cruelty. (The world we live in is so fucking cruel.) But I've only ever known humans to embody that word. (That's what I fucking need to be.)

"It's just a matter of whose corpse gets eaten first."

"Tell me," My voice strains, my breathing finds a broken rhythm to follow. "Do you enjoy rotting flesh stuck between your teeth?" (Are you willing?) "Fucking up that royal smile?" (Are you?!) "Because this limp rat became a stiff a long time ago."

('Look what you’ve done to yourself.')

(What did I do to deserve this?)

matt colekay

I try to keep myself from needing to sink to the floor and to return to the only position I had ever known—curled into a tight ball, knees to chest, forearms protecting my face, hands covering an ear. Bruises would bloom across my back and create color portraits up my shins, but most of my bones would be intact instead of puncturing my lungs. Sure, beneath the surface, hidden deep and buried deeper within my heart, my pride was scarred. But what did that matter?

Pride doesn't fucking matter in Panem. The strong would always crush the weak, the cruel would always Nothing would ever fucking change. It was always just going to be like this for me. Fetal positions and blood stained monsters grinning down at him.

Always beneath a boot.

(What did I do to deserve this?)

I outstretch my arm and drop the knife in my hand. I try to fall to a knee first, but I only fall backwards, panting and shivering and sweating and bleeding and- well, I'm-

Dying.

Flames are roaring around us in the distance, electricity sizzling in the rafters. Her silhouette stands tall over me, leering as my own blood makes the floor beneath me slick. I curl in tighter on myself and peer at her with one eye through my fingers.

"Go on then," I choke out, throat swelling tears pricking the corner of my eyes as I return to the only thing I've ever been good at—being stepped on and being stepped over.

"But I'm taking your honor with me."

And then I close them. I curl into a tight ball, I pull my knees to my chest, protect my face with my forearms, and cover my exposed ear with hands.

Guess everyone with a steel-toed boot and leering gaze had been right all along; I—the weaker, the limp rat—deserved this.