{|-How Misery Loved Me-|} [standalone for nofo]

Lyla knows.

She's known all along, known since the gong sounded and everyone took off in the mad bloody rush that hasn't changed in fifty-eight years. No, she knew as soon as she heard her voice in the crowd that morning, loud and strong and so ready to stand in her shoes. But she really sensed it as soon as the Capitol cameras started shoving themselves into her face once it got down to the final eight, all bright flashbulbs and too-personal questions that she was afraid to not answer. The real inklings began then, and they've only gotten stronger as time goes on. She knows, she knows, she knows, and it's only a matter of time.

How long have you and Aénor been friends?

We're not. I never met her before the Reaping. I'd like to think that we'll be friends if she makes it home, though.

Not friends, and yet she took your place in the Games. How do you feel about that, Lyla?

...I don't know.

And she doesn't, really. Lyla's been having this problem with indecisiveness for what seems like forever, and asking her to peg one emotion to the wide-eyed girl who rushed to her rescue on that fateful morning... You might as well ask her to teleport herself to the moon. Still, she thinks, watching herself on television for the umpteenth time in the past few days, she could have come up with a better answer than that, all doe-eyed and uncertain in the face of all those lenses that did nothing but remind her of trials and torture and lost fingers and the nightmares that never, ever leave. She's grateful, of course, grateful that she was given a second chance at a life she's not sure she deserves. But on the other hand, there's something almost like bitterness that licks along the inside of her veins like black fire, and sometimes it pollutes that gratitude and twists it into something ugly that makes her furious at the other blonde for taking the burden on herself and leaving Lyla to deal with the fallout, with the retaliation that will surely come from the Capitol officials who so carefully rigged the Reaping to rid themselves of their technological nemesis, only to have the whole thing blow up in their faces. She's selfish, that dark part of her hisses, but it grows quiet when Lyla watches Aénor's sanity begin to crack. Yes, grateful, definitely grateful, she decides, but something else, too, a foreign sensation that she's only felt a few times in her life.

Guilty.

She hasn't left the living room since the Games began, refusing food, shrugging Clayton off wordlessly when he approaches with a mug of hot tea or a blanket, never responding to her mother's entreaties to go take a nice long bath and get a good night's sleep, sitting and staring blankly ahead when Julian combs his delicate fingers through her dirty hair that hasn't been washed in a week and is starting to look more dingy gray than white-blonde, pulling it carefully into a long braid and tying it with a neon-pink ribbon that makes a stark contrast against her black sweatpants and white tank top that, like her hair, have seen far cleaner days. She's blind and deaf to everything but the television screen, mute to the universe, completely unresponsive.

Because she knows.

Is there anything you'd like to say to Aénor, Lyla?

Just... stay strong. You're doing great, and I'm spending every dime I've got to sponsor you. Try to come home.

Do you think she'll come home? Do you think Aénor Kembry could be our next victor?

...I don't know.

Lyla knows that the girl who saved her life is going to die.

Has no one told you she's not breathing?
Hello, I'm your mind giving you someone to talk to

Her interview raps up, the commentators making a few remarks about what a charming young lady Lyla is (if only they knew that they're singing the praises of a traitor) before moving on with the interviews with the family and friends of the other three tributes still alive in the arena. The mother of that pretty girl from Five appears on the screen, looking all lost and broken and hopeful at once, saying tearfully what a good girl her Lethe is and how she hopes that she'll get the chance to hold her baby again soon before the tape cuts off abruptly and the commentators are back, grinning like maniacs beneath their neon-bright hairstyles and exorbitant amounts of make up as they babble excitedly about a new development that promises to be highly entertaining.

It seems that two of our tributes have run into each other in the denser portion of the jungle. Let's watch! This is live, folks!

[/i]

Lyla feels like she might throw up.

She almost does when the screen flickers a bit and the camera focuses through the downpouring rain, locking onto two figures already in the heat of combat. Aénor. Aénor and that boy from Two who's always reminded her of another tribute from that district, the one who snapped her little brother's neck in the Bloodbath all those years ago. He's got that same iciness in his eyes, the same stubborn set to his jaw. He could be that other boy if Lyla hadn't watched with a sick, feral satisfaction as the girl from Four killed Leo's murderer with just as much ruthlessness as he had wrought upon the other tributes. She forgets this one's name, his training score, almost everything about him other than the way he'd had a soft spot towards that poor blind girl from Nine. If anything, that should make her at least a little more inclined to like him, but there's that resemblance and the fact that he's from a district that she hates with a fiery passion for taking her little brother away from her, and she can't, she just can't.

Especially not when his sword cuts a long crimson furrow across Aénor's back and for the millionth time Lyla is left staring at the blood with a detached sort of horror that's haunted her since the first wound was opened in the Bloodbath because it doesn't seem real but it is, it's so horribly real and kids are dying. Kids that could have lived a long life, that had so much potential... that could have been her friends in a different world. She thinks briefly about Gage Cooper and how she sat next to him in Calculus and they never said a word to each other. And now he's dead, skin cold and heart stilled, packed up in a wooden box and probably on a train back to District Three from the Capitol right now. Everything in the world is so wrong and the thought of the smiling boy from her math class being murdered by the girl she owes her life to is enough to make the bile rise in her throat until she gags a bit, sputtering against the burning taste on the back of her tongue but managing to not get sick - after six days of eating nothing but a handful of cereal that Clayton managed to coax her into choking down, she doubts that she's even capable of cleansing her body.

Aénor's knife finds it's way into the other tribute's leg and Lyla's heart soars just a bit before it plunges to the floor, weighted down by the awful realization that she's hoping that this boy will die. Not for the first time, she hates herself more than a little. Through all of this internal turmoil her face is impassive, caramel eyes fixed unblinkingly on the television screen and delicate features a mask that speaks of someone not quite there. And she's not, really. Lyla's not here in this living room huddled on the couch in a nest of blankets that she's cast off with a shrug whenever someone's draped one around her shoulders. She's somewhere else, in that Arena, her fragile soul tied to the blonde on the screen who is currently fighting for her life.

(And by the looks of it, losing)

She's not here, not here, not here, because here is unbearable and she'd give anything in the world to be somewhere else even though her emaciated limbs won't move her starving body anywhere but over just a bit to wrap her remaining fingers around the remote and jam a spindly thumb into the volume button, turning the sound on the television up until it swells, surrounds her, floods her lungs. She can feel each thunderclap reverberate through her veins, each sharp clash of blade on blade brings a metallic taste to the backs of her teeth, the steady roar of the rain replaces the sound of her own shallow breath.

The sword slashes across Aénor's back once more, and Lyla knows.

[/i]

"Lyla, what are you -" Clayton's voice floats into her consciousness, the warm tones of it straining to make themselves heard over the deafening volume of the television. Lyla doesn't react; she only stares at the screen like she always does, wondering if she stares hard enough that it will make her and Aénor switch places so the one of them who was meant to die can take the final blow. A sigh, the warm pressure of a hand wrapped around her own, the remote pried gently from her grasp. All of these sensations are foreign, distant, because she's not here, she's a ghost of herself sitting in this frail shell of a body while her spirit has fled somewhere far away (and she's scared, so scared that it might not come back), which is why she doesn't even react when the rafter-rattling volume of the television dissipates into a normal decibel level, doesn't flinch when Clayton kneels in front of her, fingers brushing a stray bit of hair back from her face, and tries to search her eyes for signs of life he won't find.

He leaves, but Lyla makes no motion to acknowledge that he was ever there, her eyes, sunken and overlarge and owlish in the too-angular planes of her face that are the aftermath of her week-long abstinence from food, fixated on the flurry of light and sound before her as Aénor lands a nasty-looking hit on the boy from Two with her flail. She cheers on the inside even though she remains outwardly impassive, trying to ignore the commentators' statements about how week the District Three girl looks and how that blood loss won't be easy to cope with even if she's able to take the boy out before he does any more damage.

Just once, just for this feeble moment, she allows herself to hope, even though the innermost part of her really has no idea what she's hoping for. For Aénor to win the fight, the Games, for this awful deep-seated guilt she feels clawing at the inside of her chest to go away, for it all to just stop so she can breathe again... Lyla's never been too sure about what she wants. As if to accent her trademark indecision, the fringes of her mind register that Clayton has returned, this time with Julian in tow, the two of them folding themselves down onto the couch on either side of her. They know too, just as well as she does, all three of them know, but it doesn't soften the impact any less when it finally hits.

It happens in slow motion. The boy from Two pulling himself back to his feet, Aénor's victorious smile faltering, the scarlet glint of the rain-and-blood-soaked blade as it slices through the air. It's all painfully slow, every millisecond screeching to an almost-halt and drawing out for a million years as it's edge moves closer, closer, makes contact, sluggishly burying itself to the hilt in Aénor's chest in a blossom of liquid crimson. The whole thing can't have taken two seconds in real life.

It takes her another million years to fall, eyes glazing over and the last traces of her smirk dying on her lips as her knees buckle and she sinks to the ground, the motion almost graceful in a horrible macabre sort of way. Lyla notices that the little bit of sunlight in the Arena glints off the microchip around the girl's neck as she collapses, shimmering off the necklace that had once belonged to her. And that's when she starts to lose it.

It takes forever for the cannon to fire, but Lyla knows.

Aénor Kembry is dead.


The scream starts somewhere deep in the pit of Lyla's stomach and claws its way agonizingly out of her body, through her lungs, up her trachea, over rusty vocal cords that sputter and crack after over a week of making no sound. It comes out as more of a mournful wail than a scream, a high, keening noise that splits the air and covers the commentators' excited babble as Lyla's eyes screw themselves shut in a futile effort to block out the horror and her body curls in on itself, sending her off the edge of the couch and slumping to the floor in a sort of fetal position as that eerie sound continues to rip itself from her sore, abused throat.

She can't begin to say how long it goes on, time has lost its significance when a few seconds of death has managed to stretch on for an eternity, but when the vocalization fades to silence, her throat is throbbing and she's gasping for air, the lines of her ribs straining visibly beneath the fabric of her tank top. The quiet is deafening, the breathing of the living room's three occupants mixed with the distant mumble of the television slowly leaking its way into the sobbing blonde's consciousness and serving only to break her further. She's not here, she's not here, but the sound of her own shaky respiration and the salty taste of her tears and the flighty presence of Julian's hand rubbing soothing little circles between her shoulder blades remind her that she is.

Her eyes slit open just in time to catch footage of the boy from Two bending over Aénor's still form and closing his fingers around the microchip pendant that adorns her neck, almost carefully plucking the bloodstained chain from the girl's body and claiming the token for his own. Lyla's anguished expression shifts instantly to one of utter rage, chapped lips pulled back over her teeth in a feral snarl, and before she can even think about what she's doing she's lunging for the television, hell-bent on reaching right through the screen and into the Arena so she can rip the boy's throat out with her bare hands. Clayton somehow manages to catch her mid-leap, his formidable strength from years of Career training back when he lived in One holding back the struggles of her atrophied body so easily that it might be comical if it weren't so tragic.

"No! No!" she shrieks, her first words in days rending the air as she continues fighting like a hellcat against Clayton's unyielding grip, chipped pink-polished nails clawing at him, the television, herself in a mad frenzy. "No, he can't have it, it's hers, it's Aénor's, I gave it to her and he can't have it!"

The anger makes her veins boil over, a black miasma of wrathful animosity burning all through her until she's entirely consumed by it, tears still leaking down the angular planes of her cheeks even as she thrashes viciously against the arms that hold her and vows every sort of revenge on that slimy little bastard if he ever makes it out of the Arena alive. But then the camera shifts back to the bird's-eye view of the hovercraft entering to retrieve Aénor's body, and the sight of the other blonde, all peaceful and looking like she could be sleeping if not for all the blood and the ragged gash where her heart should be is enough to sap the fight right out of Lyla's every muscle fiber, hot-salty tears continuing to march in single file down her face as she slumps defeatedly into Clayton's arms. "My fault. All my fault."

"It's not your fault, sweetheart," Julian murmurs, the pads of delicate fingers gently wiping away at the drying tracks of sorrow that line her cheeks. The little dancer grabs her intact hand, the one with all five fingers, and doesn't let go even as Clayton lowers her carefully back to the couch before hovering in that endearingly awkward way of his, wanting to give them a moment but not quite enough to leave the room. Julian makes a less-than-satisfied note of his continuing presence, but does nothing about it other than send the taller boy a faint glower before turning his attention back to Lyla, all smooth words and caresses that are meant to be comforting. "She knew what she was getting herself into. She knew the risks. It isn't your fault, love. It'll be okay."

Lyla's on her feet before either of them can stop her, hysterical, deranged laughter bubbling over her lips as she looks at each of them and points back to the television screen, replaying the moment of the female tribute's death over and over in slow motion. "How the hell is this not my fault?!

"She volunteered to save me! She went in when I was supposed to be the one in the Games! She's dead because I was too much of a coward to go! This is all my fault, all of it!" Lyla's crying again, overwhelmed by everything from the sight of Aénor dying again and again and again to the careful way that Julian has to carry himself after that awful neck injury to the sallow tone of Clayton's skin from months of hiding inside the house, never able to go outside for fear of being spotted in a district where he doesn't belong. "How many more people are going to get hurt?! How many people are going to die?! How much more shit will the world have to deal with when it should have been - me?!"

The last word is punctuated by her fist ramming itself through the glass of the window beside her, the pane shattering into large fragments that cut long gashes over the surface of her arm, sending hot, sticky blood raining down on her mother's immaculately cared-for carpet. The sobs begin anew, and she sinks back to the bloodstained floor, weeping for all she's worth and shrugging off any consolation that Julian and Clayton attempt to offer her. "Just go. Just leave me alone."

It takes them a while to do so, but eventually she hears two sets of footsteps retreating from the room. Lyla keeps her eyes shut, trying to escape to somewhere inside her own head but finding nowhere she can go that isn't gore and death and everything being her fault, her fault, her fault. And she's not here, but right now here is the only place she can be, so she lies on the floor with her arm bleeding and her head pounding and her tears mixing with the crimson essence that pools on the carpet, and somewhere in the corner of the room the interviews begin to play again.

So, you almost went into the Games. Were you scared, Lyla?

Yeah. Terrified.

But Aénor Kembry took your place. You're safe. How do you feel now?

...Okay, I guess.

But Lyla knows that nothing will ever be okay again.

She knows.

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