blur [4 v 3 + 1] (Day 2)

Ellexias Verisity

There was a lower resistance in flesh compared to bone, like sliding a meat cleaver into a raw slab of steak. This meat was fresher. It was alive and spouting blood, and Ellexias didn’t know if she had shredded the femoral artery or not. There was not a second to waste searching while in such close proximity. She ripped her ice pick from the girl’s muscle fibers and hastily backed away, eyes darting sideways to assure Marchello was upright and breathing.

”This career killed a friend of ours,” she heard Katelyn say.

Velocity?

”Shut up!”

Her head whipped around. The other girl was at charging at Katelyn, waving her bloody knife with a glare etched into her eyes. Another boy was closing in on her, and he had his own furious words to spout, like this was a contest of anger and not survival. Lexi had known it was a career who bashed Velocity’s skull in, but she hadn’t known who. Somehow, despite the knowledge it didn’t fuel her into a sprint. She stood her ground, heart in her throat, as she watched them attempt to corner Katelyn with their silver blades. On her other side, a similar image was painted with Marchello. Their blood was alike in abundance, painting the snow an ugly color.

She felt stranded. Two ropes tugged on her arms at once, begging her to lunge each way and offer her hand in battle. They were equally wounded, equally likely to collapse at any moment.

Until she heard a gut-wrenching squelch.

She stared in horror at the leg splayed out in the snow, pressing its own snowy imprint as a patch of scarlet spread around the stump. From foot to thigh, it was separated by a clean swipe. It wasn’t surgically precise, but it had been expertly executed. Three out of however many (she couldn’t count, it was all too chaotic and time consuming) present were careers, that much she was certain of. She had memorized their glamorous faces for the purpose of avoidance. Her efforts weren’t successful. Somehow the mad hunters had sniffed them out. They were the pack, not Lexi’s trio. They were the hounds with the bloodstained snouts and snarling jaws.

”Shut the fuck up!” One of them bellowed, but it was lost to her ears. All of his words were. Her wide eyes were trained only on the smug smirk drawn across the career girl's lips. It was astonishing how someone could manage to smile in this miserable tundra. Leg missing and ear stolen, she could still find pleasure in hurting others.

Careers were utterly terrifying, and that was why they had to die. All of them. For her survival.

”Why is this funny to you?” she said, voice swept up by the howl of the wind. Marchello was rapidly losing blood and could perish any moment. How could somebody smirk at him so cruelly? No matter their upbringing, it wasn’t natural to find humor in pain. Vengeance or not, it was wrong. It was against everything she knew.

She didn’t know who to blame. She knew little of the girl’s District or her background. Perhaps that was best, because Lexi was not about to start hesitating, not now of all times. The girl would finish him off if she didn’t budge.

So she budged, axe raised and lips pursed.

Ellexias Verisity

Hunger Games was a misleading term. This was not a Game. This was an unchosen war between unwilling subjects, and the term “Game” was slapped across it for entertainment puposes. It was only a Game because there was one victor, one winner. What was it really? Money and control. It was a fight, and the only ones who knew this gruesome truth were the ones inside the dome, the ones who couldn’t escape. The ones standing ankle-deep in slush and blood.

Voices joined the cries of the wind, adding fire to ice. It burned her cheeks and boiled her blood. She didn’t know how she managed to fly past a crippled target – perhaps it had been wrong and even insulting to underestimate a career despite her injuries. She wouldn’t do it again. It was too big a risk and too heavy a mistake. Marc was balancing on one leg, using the trees as leverage, and rapidly losing blood from his hip. At this rate, the only way she could save him was by cauterizing the stump. There was a limited time frame to perform the procedure, otherwise he would wither away and blanch until he matched the landscape. The odds were low. There were so many bodies here, fueled by rage and adrenaline. The chances of scrambling out of here alive were slim to none.

Ellexias didn’t commit this girl’s name to memory, but she had a loud mouth. It spat threats into the wind even as her body bled. Threats to end Marchello’s life with hers. It seemed like such a pointless endeavor, but Lexi couldn’t stand in the shoes of a bloodthirsty career. What did she know about vengeance? Even now, what motivated her to fight was not vengeance on Marchello’s behalf – it was for his protection, to kill her before she killed him and then drag him out of this mess if she could. It wasn’t a desire, it was a need. She didn’t want to kill, she had to.

[attacks riot – ice pick]
WIEdtb|Waxe
Deep Gash on Left Forearm -- 8.0 + 1
9 damage

When her body toppled into the snow, she paused with her weapon half-raised, panting and panting until the clouds of mist in front of her lips dissipated. She tuned into the chaos around her, and listened to their vents. ”Hey, shut up!”

She whirled. ”How about you all shut up?” Her eyes blazed, and she stepped in front of Marchello as a barrier. A weak, amateur barrier that didn’t know what she was doing. She was was just acting out of the sheer frustration pent up in her overloaded system. ”You,” she snarled, raising her axe toward one of the boys, the one with the malice drawn across his face. ”You won’t be killing anyone, unless you want me to shut you up with this.” She waved it around, arm trembling. They were no longer outnumbered; there was another boy here, Velocity’s district partner, and he seemed bent on playing for Lexi’s team.

”Now get lost!”