the northern wood, day 6

The world melts as the sun rises. It's not too warm out, which I know, because I can feel it on my skin, and yet the rays shining down on the arena seem brighter than ever.

I learned yesterday that I just had to accept that the Gamemakers can make whatever they want to be real into our reality. Anything their heart desires. Anything. They can inflict you with a curse that makes you turn to stone piece by piece. They can hide little tunnels to nowhere for us to explore, littering them with this and that just to tempt us. They make the rules, and they can change them at any time.

But can they make animals talk? Just as the sun hits it's highest point in the sky, I hear a woman's voice. Not Eulalie. Not Florentine. The voice is older, more akin to my mother's. It whispers words to me, hardly audible, hardly legible. The idea hits me like a smack to the face. The wyvern. She knows I'm scared of her.

I choose to stay firmly earthbound for as much as possible today. Maybe the wyverns are actually robots of some kind, or maybe Capitol bio engineering is even farther ahead than we in the Districts are allowed to know. Frankly, I don't particularly care what the truth is, even if it's just that my imagination is playing tricks on me. I just want it to stop.

We delve farther into the flower laden forest, just like we planned to, but that's about where our expectations and reality stop lining up. The voice hisses at me this time, and I know it's my name. I whip around, and run straight into a tree. A tree? But the bark is wrong. It's... more like scales. Tawny pink scales. That's how it looks, but to touch, when I dare to raise a shaking hand, it just feels like regular old tree bark. I look over both shoulders, but my head is too light to focus on anything.

"Florentine?" I call, immediately. And then, "Eulalie?" My voice doesn't come from its usual place in my chest. I clap a hand over my mouth. Something is wrong. It can't just be me. Through my hand, I say, "Something is happening. They're doing something to us."

_{[ DARS ]}

The statue is gone in the morning. There, on the floor where it was, is just a sprawling of the leather straps they'd used to confine him. The doorway is still barricaded. Their bags look untouched. The sword is even still there, innocently placed against the wall.

Tick stares at it all. Then he leans back down and stares at the ceiling instead.

Two possibilities.

One. They fell asleep, and the statue that isn't actually a statue anymore decided not to kill them. He left somehow, and is out there in the arena waiting.

Two. They fell asleep, and whatever Tick force-fed the statue made it disappear. Or die. Or wither up into nothing just like that body they freed, which is basically the same as dying. And if that's the answer. Then it's going to inevitably happen to him too. And to Lu. They both drank it. The statue was just, what, maybe an hour ahead? Two hours?

How long has it been now.

He throws the cloak off himself. It jolts Lu, Tick dislodges himself and moves to their bags. Starts packing.

Maybe the statue is still out there. Whole and in one piece. Maybe they'll be fine. Maybe he didn't poison them.

He doesn't quite look at Lu. He hands him his bag. Says they have to get moving. Very pointedly does not draw more attention to the giant pile of nothing where the statue was last night. It's a new day. Let's get going. Let's get out there. Doesn't your back hurt from that floor? Mine does. And there was a perfectly good cot too. That's what we get for being so stubborn, huh. Jeez, point that thing the other way, you'll poke someone's eye out.

"These definitely weren't here before."

Flowers. Everywhere. Tick pokes one with the tip of the sword and the petals open very gently, releasing mist that triggers the ones around it to do the same. The whole carpet unfurls, clogging the air like a very bad perfume. Tick, very steadfastly, does not look at Lu again. He can feel the glare, though.

It's probably harmless.

He says this as they keep walking, as he spots a little path that will allow them through without having to step on any of the flowers. Just in case. He says this as they pick their way down the path, as they round a corner and Tick turns back to warn Lu about a root stretched across the ground.

Except he's not there.

Tick stops.

He tries a few steps. Tries looking around without making it obvious that he's looking around. "Very funny." He calls.

Is this because of the chalice. Is Lu still mad about that. Wait until he hears Tick's theory on where the statue went - then he'll really have something to be mad about.

Tick!

He whips back around.

Tick Tock Tick! You'll never catch me!

Except he. But he can't be here.

Tricks again. Like how the light in the trees was a trick. And the vines. And how the statue was probably just a trick too.

Except his leg. The way it drags. And the sword, very real, the hilt clutched very tight in his fist.

Tricks. Except.

There's a door set deep into one of the tree trunks. And Tick knows that door. There's ways that the Gamemakers could know that door too, but not the way that he does. He knows the top hinge squeaks louder than the bottom one. He knows that the knob has to be pushed in before it can be turned because of some factory defect that never got fixed. He knows that scuff along the outer edge, from when they were moving furniture out, when they thought the illness could be transferred that way.

He knows that door. It's in Twelve.

Why is it here.

It's very early in the morning when Tick starts talking.

Lu gets a bag dropped in his lap the minute he sits up. He rubs a temple wearily. Slats of light pour into the watchtower over his back.

In the sun, the withered body from the suit is thrown into relief. Its mouth hinges open against the floor, and Lucius stares at the fly crawling through the holes of its face, searching for somewhere soft and moist to breed. It shimmers like a tiny black jewel.

He drops his hand, grips his chest. It's still cold against his fingertips. His leg feels stiff, but the gray splotches haven't spread any further. Tick rambles on about the cot.

It takes a few minutes of sitting there to realize that the knight is gone.

Now he's on his feet. Pike in hand.

There's no body, and Lu stares at the pile of leather straps, touches the place where he laid, searching for the fine dust of withered stone. Maybe something like him doesn’t bleed. Maybe the petaled water shed the stone before it shed his skin, layer by layer, grinded down his bones until he was nothing. Maybe Lucius needs to kill Tick. He touches his mouth absently.

Tick's already running out the door.

The thought is always there, as they're walking, as Lu stares at the back of his head. For six days, and yet he hasn't yet. Why hasn't he yet.

The flowers are blooming from every surface, roots digging between the cracks of rubble. Strange mists of cloying sweetness in the air. Tick leads them onto a dirt path. The forest thickens. It's harder to breathe, the press of his lungs against the unyielding slit of the wound. There's a faint buzzing in his ears.

there was a knight and a lady bride
and three little babes had she

He stops walking.

Long echo like birdsong in the canopies. Lullaby soft. The trees swaying overhead. Lu grips the pike, tilting upwards.

til the lord culled over this whole wide world
and taken those babes away

It feels very familiar. In the sleepy haze of dusk. In the soft glint of a fire. It feels like a dream. The bells are ringing in the town. His mother stands in the field and tells him that the stomach is the warmest place to die. The soil is freshly turned.

she spread a table of bread and wine
so that they might drink and eat

A very old song. Curled in the cot with his brother.

she spread a bed of winding sheet
so that they might sleep so sweet

The woods go silent.

He's all alone, and the birds aren't singing anymore. There is something squirming in the dirt a few feet away. Something small and bleating. He's at the edge of the field where the trees come in, knotty and thin. Where he digs a deep grave for the monster of his childhood.

Strange how memory works. In the good parts, in the parts he made up. Hidden in the light that can't be looked at straight on.

His mother says I thought you were a changeling. You cried and cried, I wondered if this little beast was really mine. You cried and cried, and I wondered if I should kill you. He freezes in place.

take it off, take it off, said the oldest one
i can't stay here in this wide wicked world
for there's a better one for me

song / the three babes

Eulalie crashes to the ground. She drops from a tree, a pink scaled tree, somewhere nearby. My eyes zero in on her, and she looks so small. I didn’t ask her about Tsiuri, or about how she felt when she saw her face above us in the night sky. Tsiuri, my rival. How did I feel seeing her above me? Was I sad? No, I don’t think I can say that I was, at least not last night. I think that I might be sad about her now though. Am I sad? Or am I just jealous of whatever got to her before I could?

Hm. The curse inside of me is supposed to be gone, isn’t it? It’s supposed to be gone, and I believe that it is, because I don’t think that even the Gamemakers would be that cruel. Game. You play a game according to the rules, and that’s what I’ve done. They can’t penalise me for that. Unless? Could they? Was I following the rules too well? No way. Not at all. I’ve not been playing this game the way I’ve been supposed to be at all. I should have killed Florentine at least three nights ago now. Last night I should have tracked her and August Vance down through the mirror somehow. I could have jumped through it, maybe. And Eulalie? What about Eulalie — Eulalie Blake, the puddle on the ground, melting into the scattered branches around her. I want to reach out a hand to her, but when I do the space between us lengthens beyond the tips of my fingers. I wrench my hand back, cradle it against my chest. Reaching out anywhere seems like a bad idea right now. 

And here is Florentine now, suddenly in front of me, where I think she may have always been. I just didn’t see her until right now. She’s Florentine, and then for a moment she is Camden Lannon, and then she is Florentine again. She is rival. She is friend. Despite my hesitation, I take one exploratory step towards her, but as I move, so does everything else. 

The trees swivel at their scaly waists. Do trees have waists? I guess they must. Damn Gamemakers. Even the trees are programmed to their wills. Wyverns, trees, iodine tablets. Nothing in the arena is trustworthy, not even my own eyes anymore, and certainly not any so-called allies. 

But what else do I have? I look from the splatter on the forest floor formerly known as Eulalie back to Florentine. 

_{[ DARS ]}

It shouldn't be here.

This silly little thing. Strange thing. This front door remade down to the smallest scratch.

If he goes through, will they have recreated the inside too.

What about that wall they had to patch in the spring, the spot in the hallway where the snow melted and water started to pool on the floor. Woodrot in the foundations. It felt damp for so long. Or what about the room at the top of the stairs where his father died, windows open for the entire year to clean the air. Or even the tiny attic with the tiny window that they'd survey the District from, Hugo pointing down to the bombed out zone in the distance, planning out the next treasure route.

What about the basement. Will they have recreated that too.

There's no way they could know. The gap in the wall. The way the rock cuts into a crevice, a very hagged tunnel with a yawning sort of darkness. What about the workbench. The folders. The papers. There are no maps left that still have that branch of the mine. It doesn't exist anymore. Whatever's down there, it doesn't exist.

Tick opens the door. He steps through the tree.

He immediately smacks into something, hard. It bounces off of him, and he bounces off of it, and when he backs up, reels, tetchy with the sword-

It's Lu.

Of course it is.

They're still in the forest. They're still on the path. Tick looks behind and notes the absence of any kind of door. There isn't even a tree.

They were doing something out here. Looking for something.

It's probably Lu's fault.

Tick rubs the spot of his forehead where they collided. He scowls. He decides to pretend, very suddenly, that nothing is wrong. Tricks again. He didn't see anything. There was never anything there. He does not glance at the movement in the corner of his eye.

"There you are." He scolds, "Don't wander off."

He stands a few feet away from the bleating thing, the pike raised in revulsion, in pity. It would be a mercy to stab it through the rasping cries. Just to end it. Just to make it stop. Put it out of its misery. But the soft song suddenly whispers by his ear, so close, a breadth away, and he jolts around.

It's good that Lu doesn't immediately drive the pike through him. It's good that he stops before he skewers Tick. He touches the back of his hand to his head, pike in fist, ears ringing from the collision. He glares, then glances back over his shoulder.

But the woods are quiet again. There is nothing in the dirt.

Something feels very strange, even as they keep walking along the path. They're shoulder to shoulder now, don't wander off, Tick warned. The trees sound like a murmur. Little voices. The birds fly from the branches in plumes of shadows.

Because he can hear it now.

If he listens closely, a mechanical sound, a faint roar of an engine. The trunks are shaking. Lu tenses, stopping on the path, staring in the direction of the tearing of bark. His stomach lurches like on the precipice of a height.

Tick's pulling on his arm.

He turns.

He's looking at the face of his brother. The screaming is so loud. He's there, Godric, he's swaying a little on his feet, opening his mouth, and then the slit of his stomach bursts like a balloon. The bowels spill. Godric's screaming louder, the blood splattered across his face. The meat grinded and compacted and spit out of the other end. The dribble of intestines. He doesn't sound human anymore. Lucius is holding his hand, still holding his hand until he isn't anymore.

He drops the pike and grabs him, tripping down onto the ground.

The landing is hard.

He's gripping Tick's hand.

Because it's just Tick.

And the blood is gone except for the taste of it in his mouth. Lu lies there for a long moment, before he finally shifts off of Tick, breath steadying, slowing incrementally, inhale by inhale. He sits up, clenching a fist around Tick's fingers. Low ringing in his ears.

It's not real.

It's the forest.

"Go," he grits out. "We need to get out."

Florentine says my name, and then slips from my fingers to the ground. But her words waft up to me on the breeze and I cling to them. Sitting down is easy, because even if my legs seem to fold the wrong way, they are still able to bend and I am still able to lower myself down next to her. My legs are right again when I sit down. All joints are accounted for, all hinging correctly. I lay my hand on Florentine’s arm. Soft. My violent, blood spattered friend. How can she be so soft? She tells me to think of good things. She tells me to look up at the sky. My breathing slows as I focus on these words, before I even try to conjure up anything from them. Good things and clouds. I squeeze my eyes shut, so tight that I can see the clouds without opening them up again. It is better this way, I think. I find it easier to control the images flying around my head with my eyes closed, with my mind’s eye uninfluenced. 

And I don’t want to look up anyways. Up is where the trees lead. Up is where the wyverns fly, where there are certainly more of them circling us, ready to pick us up between their teeth in the midst of our delusion. 

“Eulalie?” I call, hating the stammer in my voice, the way I struggle over the first syllable and bite my tongue delivering the last one. I dare to open one eye to look for her and what I see shocks me more than anything. She’s there, clear as day to me, the only solid thing in the shifting, shimmering mess of forest surrounding her. She’s crawling along the ground, and to see her like this is scarier than anything else I’ve seen in all of the days we’ve been here so far. They’ve altered us. It dawns on me at last, embarrassingly late. They’ve drugged us.

I seriously should have gone to parties. Maybe then I’d know how to deal with a bad trip.

My moment of clarity is cut in half with a slash of pain that comes down on my head like a guillotine. I lurch forward, folding over my crossed legs, head nearly in Florentine’s lap. I groan, loud, but the sound comes from somewhere outside of me. I’m dizzy. I’m sitting down, I can’t get any lower than I am, and yet I feel like I’m falling. 

“Think good things,” I say through gritted teeth. “Sponge cake. I want to eat sponge cake with strawberries and cream. Light, fluffy cream. Like the clouds, Flo, like you said.”

_{[ DARS ]}