the tomb won't close // gc vs duo, day 3
Jul 7, 2024 6:42:28 GMT -5
Post by Cait on Jul 7, 2024 6:42:28 GMT -5
sera keoch
Our days are spent sleeping. The heat makes us tired faster, wearying our bones and sapping any dredges of energy from them. And in the night we move, stealth-like through the Arena, trying to hold onto the disappearing moments of coolness before the sun rises once again.
It’s fine by me. I’m used to the dark. I know what it’s like to be a creature of hibernation.
I’m sleeping more than I ever have before thanks to the relentless heat. Should probably make me more anxious being unconscious for close to twelve hours every day, but if it’s too hot for Circe and I to move, then it’s definitely too hot for other tributes to be hunting us.
When the sun starts to set and dusk starts to creep in, we ready ourselves for our trek. Don’t really know where we’re going, but we gotta keep moving. Apparently. The sands shift to make room for puddles of water that aren’t really water. Just glass-refracted light; there’s a sandstorm taking hold and a maze to swallow us up and we’re lost almost immediately, flies caught in the honey trap laid so perfectly for us.
“Y’know, I heard that you can find your way out of a maze by just constantly turning right,” I tell Circe, squinting against the wind. Which kinda sounds like bullshit, realistically speaking, but I doubt Circe has a better option for us. So at the first fork in the road, I take a right turn, expecting more glass and more broken reflections, trying to ignore how dilapidated I look. But it’s not my reflection staring back at me.
It’s Carmen. And that other guy.
I stop dead in my tracks, Circe very nearly ramming straight into my back as a result of the sudden halt of momentum. I quickly shuffle backwards, hoping to hide myself from enemy eyes, fearing the glass has already given us away.
“Uhhh… so, this is awkward.”
Is it weird to say I’m glad Carmen’s still alive? Seeing her brings forth a momentary feeling of familiarity – a shared train carriage and a hand to hold as our worlds spiralled, intertwined, and separated all at the same time.
“Should we go? We don’t have to fight do we?”
I know what Circe’s going to say before she says it.
”They’ll have to die sooner or later, and the sooner the better. I don’t trust Jupiter... do you trust your district partner?”
I trust her about as much as I trust you.
Right. “Right.” So. “So… eeny meeny miny moe?” I feel like it’s a pretty good suggestion given the current mix of dusk ambience and sand in my eyes that would make it next to impossible to know where I’m swinging this hulk of a weapon anyway.
But Circe barely hesitates. “The girl.”
And I get it. She’s smaller. Not a Career. Doesn’t have anywhere near as much gear as the boy does – which confuses me beyond belief. Hadn’t Flynn said Teddy was talking to Carmen? Had he not been getting her sponsors? A new wave of respect and admiration for Flynn courses through my body, and I almost regret the finality of my voice message to him earlier in the day. Maybe this is what fighting for something feels like.
I get why Circe picks Carmen as our target, but I’m not pleased about it. “What, is he your boyfriend or something? Don’t want to hurt him?” I cock my head in the boy’s direction. Never learnt his name. Not really any point now.
She doesn’t reply immediately. And then: “We’re wasting time. We need the upper hand.”
Again, she’s right. Of course she is. She’s been training and strategising for this very moment her entire life. And I’m as malleable as aluminium – smart enough to know that survival means listening to the pint-sized killer by my side.
Okay. “Okay.” And so. I turn the corner, ready for an ambush, an apology on my lips that I keep buried behind my teeth.
seraphina lights her spiked blunt on fire,
and attacks carmen
dQCQqIPiGkspiked blunt
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