big girls don't cry | { lux vs. laide, day seven }

The mace comes down on her collar bone, a quick crunch later and it is clear that it is broken. I realise that this is the start of her end; it’s going to finish exactly how I imagined it. Her blood soaking through my skin, dripping over my hands–my mind untainted by the returning shadow of death that feels more like a friend than an enemy. We work in tandem, death and I, reaping the souls who put up defences when their time is now.

Perhaps there is nothing left for them in this world. Those who cling to the past have no hope of having a future; those who hold on to the broken memories, feel the scars and try to fix their hearts which lie in shards on the ground are the weak. Nobody can make the impossible possible, no matter how hard you try. The chances of them cutting their fingers whilst trying to piece themselves back together is staggering. I wouldn’t dare to risk it, I know better because I have seen worse. A person can go from broken to crippled in the space of a few seconds; that is what happens when you lose yourself in the thoughts of the past and ignore this moment, this moment right here. Maybe there was an ounce of hope before, but when death finally catches up to you and slips through the cracks, it is more toxic than ever.

It will burn you alive. No apologies and certainly no promises of an afterlife. You denied that the moment you looked back.

I look at Adelaide. History doesn’t repeat itself, not in here, at least. She has lived before but that isn’t going to stop anything from killing her for a second time. Her life has been a storm, rain pouring down and she has just stood there in the madness, taking it on the chin. A second chance–she waits, she hopes for a third–and for what? Some sort of new resurgence that would turn her from an angel to a devil, good to bad, hopeless to hopeful? Perhaps she wants what myself and the other tributes have: a single chance.

One shot to get it right, one chance to put up the biggest fight of your life because the consequences of not doing so are beyond fatal. When you are in my shoes, you can be extraordinary, beautifully brutal. Being certain of a third life defeats the object.. it leaves room, room to hold back so that you have something to give next time. I couldn’t ever do it, hold back, not now, because life is on the line–yes–and I feel so close to the end and if being a loathed career who has a lust for blood and bones is what these other tributes will think of me for taking a stand–so be it. They will find themselves in a grave that not even their family can be bothered to visit, that will become lost in weeds and brambles in two years time, and so, they will be forced to become nothing more than a glint in the eye. A memory of what could have been and not what was.

I have every purpose to live. For the weak, the easily broken, paper people with glassy hearts, there is no life awaiting them.

I have every purpose to live because Hero couldn’t, because Jacob couldn’t, and because Adelaide isn’t going to. Because of the former, I have to kill the latter before emotion does any more damage. It is a lesson that I learnt the hard way. Part of me is beginning to think that Emberly Lowe is right about suffering, how you don’t choose to feel it, how you can blink and it is just there and you can’t do anything about it. No–I’m not suffering, I’m not letting it get to my core and start eating me alive. I’m not rotting, letting my strength become weakness.

"I may be your fall," she says, her body slumping itself over me and I stumble backwards. "But you are going to help me rise." I shake my head–living a second life was a stroke of luck but luck is not in Adelaide’s hands.

Am I going to have to be the one to break that to her? My stomach churns, head pounding. I deny myself from feeling, I need to stay calm and collected so that my hands can do the talking and put a stop to attachment before it comes close and tells shit to my heart. I am a career, above all, and that means I can handle the hard times. I don’t care how close or far Adelaide Throes is, I know that she does not have the power to reverse years of training and dedication.

"That isn’t how life works." I tell her bluntly. "You get one chance. One chance to live–one chance to be true, be real and not hold back." Thunder crashes from the heavy storm clouds above, I look up and around, noticing bursts of bright lightning being scattered around the arena. "I don’t know how you had a second chance, but I know that nobody gets a third."

"It’s the truth, as harsh as it is. And this is a truth that doesn’t change for anybody."

I’m not sorry–again–but she knows that. People at home are watching me attempt to break a girl who has already been broken before. Those in Three won’t like it, those in Four will be rooting for me. I forget Three.

I am who I am and if they don’t like it, I don’t care. I have nothing to apologise for.

{ lux attacks adelaide; spiked blunt }

ibYrCtyospiked blunt

{ 14086 -- DEEP GASH ON RIGHT FOREARM -- 8.0 damage }

I won’t say sorry to anyone, I won’t say sorry about anything.

I have realised that the very nature of these games leaves no room for any apologies. And I guess that it might be sad for some people; the ones who have hearts like roses which are set to wilt and be carried away piece by piece by the wind. I don’t think that not apologising makes me any more cold than I already am–the other tributes knew what they were getting themselves into when they step foot on the train all those weeks ago. Those who volunteered wanted nothing less than Hell on Earth, they wanted nothing less than someone to make their life even worse than it was before.

Some of them came here craving one thing: death. Those are the ones who shouldn’t have even made it this far, dare I say it, because those who actually want to take this opportunity by the balls have missed out because of them. Flickering eyes, my face drips with raindrops from above. The storm clouds show no signs of fading for they are sewn to the skies indefinitely–it is an omen, I’m sure of it now. The cannons that have sounded are the only evidence I need.

A boom in the distance means that the storm has sealed one fate already. I am used to seeing the sun being in control of the future and those who want it. A cruel mistress who would beat and burn, but today she is replaced by clouds that sit like malevolent angels. Watching silently, they wait for the next tribute to fall. Ripred does humanity no favours.

So I have to forge my own. When I hit Adelaide, her blood satisfies my desires. Her breaths become slower, a hint of desperation found in them as she scrambles back up to her feet. It takes her a moment to digest the fires which I have exhaled, words acting as their own weapons in this environment. I am not wasting my breath by telling her the truth – she needs to hear it, she can’t die in love with a lie.

But still, she swallows my flames and does not think twice.

"You’re wrong." She coughs up something – I don’t know what it is. "It already has changed for me. I drank the poison to prove I believed in something other than myself. And I volunteered to prove that life and death are not the ends of a spectrum, you know?"Maybe I don’t know, but maybe I don’t care. "If you don’t believe me, if you don’t believe the dead live a second life, you only need to think of Gasmask Boy or whisper the pirate’s name."

I take a breath, halt. The distance between us become smaller and smaller with each step Adelaide takes, and I swear that I can her heart beat through her chest. The fragile ground cracks and she finally says his name. I didn’t want to hear it, but I can’t help myself.

"Hero Marvray."

But I remember to stay in the present and not dwell on the past. Jacob and Hero are both dead and there isn’t anything I can say, anything I can do to change that. Perhaps there is really is nothing after death. Nothingness. Black. Bleak. I’m beginning to think that heaven and hell are just illusions that try to make us act in a certain way–when really, there is nothing after death. No light, no colour, no love or people or anything. An eternal stillness accompanied by an unbreakable silence. You can’t see it or feel it though, so it is really there at all?

I’m not someone who needs to be assured that people go on to better places. People live and people die; there is a lot that goes on in between but.. I guess I am content with knowing there is nothing afterwards. No place to be punished or to hear stories about those who punish, no place to be haunted by those who stand alongside me, right here and right now.

Jacob and Hero are dead. The end.

My head aches.

"There is nothing. And sure, people can think of you, people can remember you but it isn’t a life. It’s a memory – their memory, not even yours."
 
Life is hearing birds sing in the morning and being frustrated that they woke you up so early. Life is dropping your breakfast on the floor and having to pick it back up before five seconds pass. Life is seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and feeling everything that comes your way–no matter how big or small.

Though I’ll remember their names if I win, all of them, I’ll never forget that they are dead. I don’t care how they make everyone else remember them because that isn’t my problem. Some of them were friends, most of them were an annoyance but all of them had a reason and a story.

"I’ll remember you, you know. I don't think I'd remember to forget you." My mouth scrunches to one side.

"But that doesn't bring you back. You'll always be dead." I tell her, raising my mace again. "Just like Jacob, and just like Hero."

{ lux attacks adelaide; spiked blunt }

flw1YNSRspiked blunt

{ 14079 -- BLOCK -- 0.0 }

accuracy reroll

spiked blunt

{ 14154 -- GASH/BRUISED LEFT WRIST -- 3.0 damage }

Her flesh becomes bruised with my hit; blues and purples blossoming on her skin. I am sure, now, that Adelaide is going to die and I am going to be the one that kills her. I figure that really, I am doing her a favour. She wants this–it’s clear, and it takes away some of the guilt I feel from repeatedly lashing out against someone who is my friend, my ally. In a few moments time, I’ll be forced to think in past tense because her blood will be on my hands, her body will be on the ground and her cannon will be the one that sounds between the grey clouds up above.

I think the thought and yet another cannon booms in the distance–it could be anyone. It could be Lowe finally losing her heart, it could be Fer finally being transported to his idea of euphoria. Lost lovebirds and final moments, spinning and turning, rising and falling, I couldn’t count on it being any of them because anyone has the power to play heartstrings if they let go of their heart and use their head. Mind over matter, murder is for the best and I think that some of them might finally realise that. So far from the start, so close to the end.

Touching distance.

It has gone from being a world away to just an ocean away. I know the ocean like the back of my hand; they are betting on me, I know it.

Adelaide shakes, her life being drained from her as time ticks on. This is it for her–yes–death is coming and in this moment, I am the master of fate. I come knocking at every door Adelaide has and she has no right to deny my entry. Her blue eyes gazing from the ground to my old brown eyes, she smiles. Two simple words and my faith is restored. This is right, I know it.

"Thank you."

Her fall is my rise. I didn’t mean it literally, I don’t think my mother did but Adelaide collapses to her knees, her fingers wrapping around my legs like vines. She’s trying to hold on in her last moments, to have some sort of dignity in her death. Broken left right and centre, she clings onto me to stay up, to stay alive and to stay breathing.

I glance down to her, hair dripping down my body, droplets collecting on the end of my nose. Lightning strikes beside us–a startling sight. The storm above intertwines with our own storm and we become the destroyers. High and mighty, I look to Adelaide, weak and flimsy, so close to coming apart at every seam. Her voice stays the same: an ounce of desperation, a hint of content and a whole load of acceptance.

"Memory is the only afterlife. May mine be long and peaceful, just as your life will be." She says, one word sticking out like a sore thumb in my mind. Life. It means that there is more after today, after tomorrow and after this whole ordeal which is drawing to a close. The curtains will roll down soon, the show will be over and I will be ruler of the waves and the dead, a crown on my head as evidence.

"So be it," I say, tone devoid of emotion. "No one will forget you. Not on my watch."

But I still need to let go. I don’t want to feel helpless and hopeless again, I don’t want to feel like I am part of the storm and not the eye. I need to build myself up, brick by brick, body by body so that I can honour my home, myself and remember my fallen friends and foes. It is so close now – you know, it feels like I can taste the salty sea of Four on my tongue.

Maybe it’s true, maybe I actually will win, maybe tearing my heart out will be worth it. That, or maybe I’m just delusional with the pain of a broken arm.

No, it is close. I know it. Lifting my mace up again, I bring it down on the girl who knows what is coming. That is something, that is everything – she’s accepted that it is over. I guess it makes the journey easier. I guess it makes the journey lonelier.

I figure that is okay, you know. It only takes one to be the one.

"I guess we need to get this over with and send you on then." I give half a smile. I think I understand now, I think I understand the piece of Adelaide Throes I needed to understand. 

She really has known all along.

{ lux attacks adelaide; spiked blunt }

eOniM6cXspiked blunt

{ 14087 -- DEEP GASH ON FOREHEAD -- 9.0 damage }