guilty {Rolf oneshot}

Frantic movements crawl through me. My steps are quick. Eyes dart in every direction looking for something, anything, to help. For such an eerie place, the sky is calm, and the temperature is comfortable making the arena feel much worse than it truly is. Yet beads of sweat still roll from my brow, and I'm sure at this point I smell hideous, but it doesn't matter. Blood cakes against my skin, matted through my shaggy hair, stains my hands, but that isn't my priority right now. No. I left Torka with a promise. I told him I'd return with something to help him, but what can I do? There's no plants or anything for as far as I can see. It's just rock. Yet I still look around trying to do what I can. Breaking another promise isn't worth the reality of it all.

Boom!

A cannon firing through the air draws my attention for only a moment. My heart plummets deep into the pits of my stomach, yet I can't bring myself to move. Somewhere behind me he waits for my return. Somewhere he's waiting.

He's waiting.

For me.

Boom!

Every hair stands on end as another cannon bellows through the arena. My heart sits in my throat racing inside my chest -

"Torka!" I scream a the top of my lungs not caring if anyone hears me. "Torka!" All I need is for an answer, for my name, something, anything to ring through the air but there's nothing. My hand throbs as I wrap my fingers around the blade of the poled weapon, my feet pound against the ground as I take off running, sprinting back trying to find Torka, my friend, my brother. A nagging sensation of dread and guilt tear through my body -

No. It's not him.

It can't be.

It feels like days have gone by since I last seen him, but I know it's only been a few minutes. Keeping myself steady, I turn my head allowing myself to listen for the sound of anyone coming.

"Torka!" I cry out again hoping he answers. Hoping I'm close enough for him to hear me. Dammit, man, answer me. Please.

A rock sits in my throat catching each breath behind it as I force myself to move forward, lungs begging for a breath of fresh air. I'm looking around hoping, praying that he's still here sitting on the ground waiting for me. Yet when I find where I thought we were, I can't find him.

"Torka!" I scream at the top of my lungs slowing my pace from a sprint to a job before finally stopping and resting my hands on my knees trying to catch my breath. Torka, where are you? My eyes scan the area looking for any signs of life - part of me is waiting for him to jump out from somewhere, but there's nowhere to hide. It's just a flat rock. A giant flat rock at that. "Torka, I'm not play -"

My eyes land on a man lying on the ground.

My heart claws at my ribs begging for an escape as I run forward hoping it's not a trap to get me killed. A weird robe drapes across his body - "Torka." My voice cracks, and my words are almost inaudible as I run over towards the body. The weapon slides from my hands crashing against the ground as my eyes rest on the mangled body of a man I called my brother, the man I promised I would return with something to save him. It doesn't even matter who the other cannon belonged to right now.

No. No. No.

No.

"Torka, wake up brother." Water pools in the corners of my eyes, my heart plummets. "Dammit, Torka, please." A waterfall flows from my eyes, and I drop to my knees. My hand rests against his chest begging for it to move. Just a breath of air anything.

"Please, Torka."

Nothing happens.

It's just a shell of a man I cared for. A man I loved. A man I wanted to fight beside. Torka taught me how to survive in the games, and this is how I repaid him? I left him when he was weak, when he needed me the most with a promise of returning to save his life, but now he's gone. He's on the ground in front of me dead, and I can't do anything to save him.

And it's all my fault.

"I'm sorry." I whisper quietly placing my head on his chest trying to hide the violent sobs. It doesn't matter if anyone finds me. I'll kill them. I'll destroy them like they have done to me. "Please don't go. Please. I can't do this. I need you, brother. I need you."

I'm the thirteen year old boy again watching my brother and Katelyn fight in the arena begging for him to win. Begging for my brother to return home alive to make up for the broken promises and shattered dreams. I'm watching his every movement praying for some sort of miracle only to be met with a cannon and a dead body.

Katelyn, help me. Please.

She destroyed my life. She took away the one thing I needed the most, and when I finally found it in my heart to move on, when I finally found something to fight for, it was taken away in the blink of an eye, but now I'm crying out for her. I need her, and I honestly don't know why. I want to talk to her again.

Dammit, Katelyn, I'm so sorry for all that I said. For all that I've done. For everything.

"Torka...."

It's my fault he's dead. It's my fault Chaske died. It's my fault my parents died. It's my fault Pherick hates me. It's my fault Citadel won't have me anymore after this game.

Bad things aren't supposed to happen to good people, but here I am drowning in a pit of sorrow and despair.

I'm the good child.

Why is this happening to me?

A broken heart slams against the granite rock with a deafening thud while a blacksmith pounds it into the ground like it's nothing more than a piece of metal being made into something new.

"I shouldn't have left you. I shouldn't have left you...."

Together we fought. Together we slayed.

We killed someone.

It's all my fault.

I've been found guilty of sins, and the gods are condemning me. They're taking away all that I love. They're stripping me of the man I am, and they're turning me into a man that I never wanted to become. For everything that I've done wrong as a child until now. For letting my brother's take the wrath of angry, drunk parents to telling Pherick I hated him. All of it is crashing down around me, burying me into a pit of the unknown.

But Torka, he was sent to help me. He kept me alive when he could've killed me, and I couldn't save him. I let him down. I broke a promise, and I swore I wouldn't do that.

"I'm so fucking sorry."

I raise my head, and I look into his open, lifeless eyes before turning my gaze to his saturated shirt filled with tears. He didn't deserve to die. Ryan didn't deserve to die. Sabrina didn't deserve to die. The other's that have died in the games didn't deserve to die, but they're dead, and I'm alive.

"I'm going to win this, brother." I whisper quietly as I place a hand on his face closing his eyes. "I'm going to kill every last one of them. I'll make them pay." I slide the severed limb necklace off my neck, and I place it around his. It's my most prized possession. "I promise."

Forcing myself into a standing position, I lift my weapon from the ground. It's best if I move away before someone finds me. Standing still for too long can become a fatal flaw, and I know that.

I hope you can forgive me because this is all my fault.