you're crashing but you're no wave / v vs t vs c, day 4

The wine had been an ugly memory dancing on my tongue. Recalling broken moments from a broken home. Mom was on a bar stool next to Uncle Nicky, whispering words I could never quite make out. They were not for me to hear in the first place, but I had always been at the center of their conversations. On occasion red wine would swirl in between the realm of their glass, dark like the blood they were ready to spill. The two of them drinking until it was their liver they were killing, and their whispered words no longer made any sense.

Alcohol had always ruined everything.

My back was pressed against the cool surface of the glass wall. Hands in my head as I tried to steady the room. An illusion of spinning taking over every sensation. I knew it was not real, my senses were being tricked by the bitter liquid. I could not explain what I had been thinking as I accepted the drink, the music reminding me of the Kraken’s Cove. A melody of something more, something with a story to tell. The red wine sitting on a throne, taunting me to take it with its sweet tune. A sweet rouse that reflected itself in mother. I guess the tolerance for alcohol skipped a generation.

I can’t remember what I had said, but all I know is that I talked too much. Telling Sera tales of a life that had ceased to exist the second I had volunteered. A girl damaged beyond repair, a family smiling in the pictures but when the doors closed at night…monsters came out to play. I talked about my mother, her charming smile and endearing voice. All of the allure ruined when she began to drink, just as capable of violence as my father. Between the two of them I had never known peace, always on the lookout for someone to prove what I had known all along. The only one who would look out for me was myself. Don’t trust a trustworthy smile because all that lies beneath it is a someone looking to get ahead.

“I need to go for a walk”

I finally pushed myself off of the ground swaying in the heat-ridden night to the gentle sound of the wind whistling through the glass walls. Promising I would not be long, I needed to be on my own. Emotions that had been all too well kept for years suddenly had a mind of their own. Teasing and taunting in my mind, the voice of uncertainty got louder. Now it was screaming, pleading for me to listen as it wove a web of lies. I wanted to believe it was lies echoing loud enough for me to hear…clear as the night sky.

Slow steps suddenly picked up pace and began to run with no destination in my mind…deeper and deeper into the labyrinth I had gone. Five minutes surely had passed but Sera was no where to be seen. I had become lost in the labyrinth, a ghost haunting its hallowed hallways searching for a way out. An escape when there was none, trapped forever in a place I would never be able to navigate. Searching for an answer behind every corner, I kept my feet moving. I removed another poppy from my hear, picking of the petals one by one…leaving a trail for Sera to follow. Marking the spots where I had been before, until fatigue took over. My eyelids falling heavy, I swear I could hear my mother’s voice singing me to sleep.

The heat of the sun had woken me up, burning against my skin and reflecting off of the glass. In my palm a crunched up poppy flower, the ones in my hair wilting from the heat. They were fighting to stay upright the same way I was fighting to keep believing in the certainties I knew to be true.

Looking around me, Sera was still no where to be found. Lost in her own labyrinth, fighting her own demons. For if what she had told me was true, a grave robber from six must have enough of her own battles to fight. This could be it, the point where she was no longer part of my life. Pulled apart by fate, but the two of us never were meant to be together in the first place. The lives we had led could have not been more different. Just as it always has been, I was on my own. Fighting my battles with no one else on my side.

The wind had begun to pick up pace, the cool air soothing my burning skin. Gentle at first, but soon became a violent force pushing my body towards a direction I did not want to go. In panic I grabbed myself and began to run. Vision becoming blurred as the sand caught up with me, faster than my feet. There were the occasional short moments of grace, allowing me a quick glimpse as to where I was, but the labyrinth all looked the same.

There was no telling how long it took, minutes or seconds; unable to differentiate in timeless chaos. Stuck in a loop for all eternity never knowing anything but chaos and fear. Fundamental building blocks to turn any human into a killer. If you could find order in chaos then you knew you had made it as a career. Fear only existed in paranoia, never allowing it to settle down in chaos. I had finally made it out of the labyrinth but for what? The storm continued to rage accompanied by a new melody equally as unsettling and inhumane as the rest. It played in the background as the winds forced me into a direction of a familiar face.

Tide.

A cruel joke.

The day before I had killed Sera’s district partner, it was only fair that I killed mine. Tide should have been Sera’s, it should be her weapon…the spear, digging deep into his skin eventually stealing his last breath. That would have been the fair, but nothing was fair in the game of life. It always came down to survival of the fittest. I had few words for my district partner. He was an unknown face with a name. Someone irrelevant in the grand scheme of it all, for he was just another tribute that needed to die. It was easiest to see the tributes that way, dehumanize them into a number. Play a game of whack-a-mole, a stupid children’s game found at the pier. Whack them all down till it was only me who was left standing.

I had not been given any time to say anything before the annoying voice of one of the girls from eight broke the silence. Mixing into an affair she would have strayed away from if she had known what was best for her. Taking the first swing at two career’s was a bold move, however filled with ridicule. Her weapon grazed my skin, leaving behind a paper cut on my upper arm. The pain was close to none, a scratch at best…an annoyance.

“Hi, babe…did no one ever tell you to mind your own business?” Vera only seemed to appear in moments of annoyance. An omen of something, if someone wanted to read into it. She had opened the door to a fight gaining moment. Tide stood there in silence as his weapon was blocked by the armor on my legs. I had decided to take a page out of Sera’s playbook, lighting the tip of my weapon fire. The heat radiating in the already hot weather, my very own beacon of light throughout the darkness that lived deep rooted in my heart.

[Lights glaive on fire]

[circe attacks Vera; glaive + fire]

o4Lf6v8DUOglaive
1-50

[9 +1 blades +2 fire]



[circe attacks Tide; glaive + fire]

glaive
1-50

[block +2 fire]

The cannons go off and the fire burns out. Two lives lost; two lives that had been taken as soon as their name had been called out. Robbed of free will in their last moments, the brutal reality of the games for those who did not choose to be here. There should be a feeling of despair and guilt settling in my chest, that is what should happen…the human reaction. Instead, emptiness took its place, the loud screeching sensation of nothing. Vera can continue to spit her words out, letting the wind carry them far enough for the Tide and I to here. Claiming the arena was hers, it would not be long till she was choking on her own ego, and I would watch her drown in a pool of her own guts.

Everyone thinks they can rule the world if they are delusional enough.

My claim to the throne had been carefully crafted, molding potential to fit a form. The people I called parents, incapable of producing anything else but the worst of the worst. There was the memory of my mother’s pretty lies and my father’s ugly truths. It ran in my blood, gashing through my scalp. The two enemies before me, out for my head. Their weapons never quite hitting the executioner’s mark.

My head pounded, heavy to hold on my shoulders. Last night’s sin leaving its mark, a headache that could kill. Vera’s voice just adding fuel to the fire. Nice. She repeats the word till I could only assume it was the only word in her vocabulary. A word that does not hold any meaning, nice was a word people threw around when they had nothing better to say. A stupid word for a sensation that was meaningless. Nice was only a rouse, a trick but never sincere. It was my mother’s smile when she had just taken an unsuspecting man’s wallet. It was my own actions when father would place a camera in front of me.

Nice was just another lie in the mountain that made up my life.

I looked over to Tide, a brief moment watching my district partner falter under the hits from the two of us. Just another person that would be sentenced to death eventually. Only a matter of the ticking clock the gamemakers have set up.

My feet carried me over to Vera, slowly all of this had become personal. Déjà vu to day one, leaving no room for error. “Nice doesn’t suit a bitch like you.” I smiled at her, a friendly smile…sweet and innocent.

[circe attacks Vera; glaive ]

vZnKtY5y5Sglaive

[4.5]



[circe attacks Tide; glaive ]

glaive

[8 + 1 blades]


[circe attempts lightstep on Vera's attack 1189]

1-10

[fail]