tell me about despair, yours - n v. s v. s [day 4]
Jul 13, 2024 15:51:47 GMT -5
Post by august vance d7b [Bella] on Jul 13, 2024 15:51:47 GMT -5
Things stop making sense after a few hours in the labyrinth. Time, space, direction, motivation. Too exhausted to talk much, the three of us fall into line with the silent ease of company we’ve developed with over the last few days. As we hurry ahead, we exchange succinct words of concern and resolve–Have you eaten? Are you okay? Just a little further, we’re almost there-- Vera and I keeping a close watch on Lucia.
When night falls, we take turns sleeping with our backs propped against the glass, one keeping watch while the other two rest. Knife clutched firmly in my fist, I close my eyes but don’t manage to sleep a wink. Behind my eyelids, the labyrinth still twists and turns in front of me, mocking me.
The only reliable way to mark the day moving into the next is when the anthem plays, showing two tributes’ faces overhead. I feel a faint glimmer of recognition in my chest when Serelis appears, a grim sense of connection, like we’re now tethered by an invisible thread, connected by the final blow I dealt. Though there really isn’t any more in common between us than two folks sitting together awkwardly in the same waiting room, watching one go in before the other.
I hope that’s all she’ll be, a strange memory to reflect on when this is all over, because my mind is too busy to worry about a one-armed ghost following me around.
In the morning, we resume the tedious task of pretending we are getting out of this goddamned labyrinth. Sleep-deprived and irritable, I rub my baggy eyes and watch Vera’s shoulder blades as she leads us around each corner. She’s getting us nowhere, I think. A more distant and sensible part of myself knows it’s not her fault, that she’s trying her best. But with each step, I feel my mind turning this same thought over and over, slowly hardening it into this calcified rock of a thought that weighs against my temples, blacking out all reason.
”OKAY,” I huff irritably in Vera’s direction, speaking to her back, ”I’m sick of this. You’ve got the directional sense of a fruit fly. New plan: let’s just–”
But I’m cut off mid-thought when the winds pick up, carrying a cloud of sand into the labyrinth. It’s so powerful and sudden that it cancels out all sight and sound as quickly as the lights going out. I reach my arms out, trying frantically to grab hold of my comrades, shouting their names, but I come up empty-handed. ”Vera! Lucia!”
I run forward–or what I think is forward–and I’m met with a glass wall to the forehead. Grains of sand gather in my ears, my hair, the edges of my eyes. I curse into the indifferent wind, blinking forcefully, shouting to no avail, ”Lucia! Vera! I’m here!”
I backtrack to where we were a minute ago–I think–but find nothing except more glass and sand. In a split second, they’re suddenly nowhere.
”Vera!” I cry out, my eyes burning with tears and sand, ”I’m sorry!”
I’m left to find my way out alone.
—
Somehow, the air becomes even more unbearably hot. The skin of my shoulders starts to form angry, fluid-filled bubbles that sting and burn against the scratchy fabric of my costume. My mouth is dry, crusted at the corners with spit and blood and dirt. The wound in my face throbs against its new stitches with every grain of sand that sticks to its edges.
I don’t know how far I’ve walked when Safina appears in front of me, her tall figure materializing from the thick cloud of sand. My shoulders tense at the sight of her, the muscle memory of the marks she left on Lucia still present. Though my limbs feel like lead, I hold up my knife defensively, its blade still tinged with the rust-colored blood of the girl standing across from me. I glance from side to side for any sign of Tide, who might be close behind.
”You following me?” I ask curtly, shouting against the wind, my voice already hoarse from yelling the names of my allies. ”Can’t a girl catch a break?”
The last thing I want to do is fight. Faced without Lucia and Vera, I feel my confidence slowly retreating. We were good back there, but we were good together. By myself, I feel less like a warrior and more like a child posing with her shiny toys. Safina is bigger than me, and probably better fed, being from Three. I feel like I’m about to get whooped.
But she doesn’t need to know that. I’m still banking on whatever margin of fear or awe I’ve earned in her eyes from killing Serelis, if any.
You got this, Nori. Do it for your girls. You’ll find them again, I reassure myself, rather deceptively.
When another girl appears from the sandy fog, the one I cracked jokes with on the first day–Sera, I think–my heart begins to pound. I exhale a long, exasperated groan into the roaring wind, rolling my eyes up to heaven. Now I’m cornered, with no allies, and tired as a three-legged quarter horse at the end of a steeplechase. Which is to say, tired as fuck.
Pull yourself together. It’s not over yet.
”I’m sorry,” I say with a regretful look at Sera. It’s not easy to strike at someone who’s already become human in your mind, even though four days ago is a long time in here. But if I get out of here alive, maybe I can find Vera and Lucia again. I turn back to Safina. ”But I promised somebody it ain’t gonna be me up in that sky tonight.”
Mustering up the last reserves of my energy, I send this cold obsidian flying.
[kaitlin]
nori attacks safina, obsidian throwing knife
h1R6EVVmU8throwing knife
{miss}
nori attacks seraphina; obsidian throwing knife
throwing knife
{8.5, cheek}
(accuracy on safina attack, day 4)
throwing knife
{4.0, back}
throwing knife·throwing knife·throwing knife