sick of the sun ✾ | suburban moms v. lethal quartet, day 2

They're here for me.

They're saving me. I'm stitched back together, my ear left somewhere back at the cornucopia. It's a memory lost. I can still hear through my other ear, but it's difficult. The pain sears me with each small movement, with each breath I take. These might be my last breaths.

I manage to slip out of the stupid shoes I had been stumbling around in and into the the more sensible ones. If anything else, at least I can walk, kind of.

As I sleep, whispers sneak into my dreams. Fear of those around me who I had just met. I didn't know any of them. We are merely souls who collided during preparation for death. Combined with these terrors, my dreams flickered through my memories. Iris helping me with my broken leg, laughing with Pine as we sit on branches, then those from just a few moments before. The pain. The arrow through my chest. My ear on the ground. The blood.

I wake up, wincing with each breath I take once again. Even my nightmares had been a blissful escape from what I feel now. I see a wicked sword glinting besides me. I don't know how it got there, but I won't question it. I grab it, slipping my bow and arrows into my bag. They wouldn't have been much use anyways. They would just hasten my demise.

But then again, would that be such a bad thing?

I stumbled along silently with my friendsallies as we make our way away from the malformed forest we had been in. As we exit, I see water everywhere. I can't swim, what is this? I remember something I had picked up in confusion, but now I hope it'll help me. I slip on the absurdly colorful armbands. This must be what they're used for.

I think Mia says something, because suddenly Trist and Georgi's heads turn. I don't know what she said, it was hard to understand with her being on my newly deafened side. Then, they approach. I can't tell who they are at first, I had only seen fleeting glances of them at the training center.

I wish Jules was here. I wish we could just curl up in those theatre seats again, desperately shoving popcorn into our mouths since we know we'll never be able to again. I wish we could just watch others dying, not be the ones dying. I wish we could just be gone from here, taken away by a guardian angel meant to protect us. I wish these games never existed.

There's a lot of things I wish for in that moment as the arm hits the ground.

What the fuck.

I see a hammer swinging at Mia, and I try to rush over to her, but it's too late. I see it connect with her arm. My pain-addled brain is stuffy as I turn to the two attacking Mia. I need to do something.

Trist starts screaming, and I can hear her.

"Fuck. Shit. Fuck. Oh Ripred. Oh fucking hell. Ahhhh fucking hell."

"You can say that again," I say, gritting my teeth and raising my sword, preparing for what's necessary, what needs to be done.

I step back as Trist as she slashes at the girl.

I think she's from 10? I can't tell at this point. We're all just scared, and fear is the truest equalizer.

The boy bends down and grabs his sword from his severed arm. His blood is everywhere, just like yesterday when my blood mixed with the wet foliage of the faux forest. There's shock, there's pain, there's the lingering scent of death. It's lingering over this battle, getting ready to swoop in and drag our souls apart.

The boy swings at Mia, "That wasn't very nice of you to do that. Fucking dick."

I face him, readying my machete. It's prepared to cut, to slice, to kill. That's what it was made for. I'm here to cut, to slice to kill. But am I ready?

"If just trying to survive means you're a dick, I guess this must be a sausage fest." I say, gritting my teeth and swinging the machete down towards the boy.

[attacks xavier with a machete (sword)]
5BlRWFvOTfsword
[1050 -- Shallow Cut on Right Forearm -- 3.5 damage (Sword)]

(also puts on the water wings!)

sword

The blade comes down cleanly through the air, slicing against his elbow to cut his arm off. And then it just falls to the ground so easily, the blood pooling beside the body part, made an ocean by the drips from the end of my machete. He does not seem shaken at all by the botched amputation, and instead he reaches down to the ground to collect his sword. "That wasn't very nice of you to do that," which I already know—because that was the point. He rounds of his exchange with "fucking dick," which only makes me want to strike out again, and watch him die in the most painful, but human way.

He cuts against my leg to create a small wound which is something I can shrug off in an instant, but then his friend comes out from behind him, the girl from Ten, her own weapon cracking my arm in two. Shock kicks in, adrenaline too, and I look at them both with narrowed eyes, my teeth grit to prevent anger from becoming silly words which mean nothing. Every word has to count because I don't know if they could be my last. The darkness clenches my jaw and plumes into every inch of my head, but I feel it most behind my eyes: watching them intently, trying to inflict my own nightmare on their flawed dreams. Her own slide off from my dark armour to sit in the puddle of blood on the ground—because no matter how hard they try to make me feel bad, I'm not going to.

"We're just the same. I could call you a fucking dick too, I could say you've made a wrong move—but I'm not going to," because I know how this works. And we've seen this all happen before, and whilst yes, perhaps it is different from living it and experiencing it for yourself—it has happened for eighty-four years. There are expectations that we might not want to meet but have to, there are unwritten rules that the Capitol have etched onto our brains to make us the best entertainment possible. And it is all done in the name of survival, something we all want, something that everyone is prepared to fight for. "I won't make you feel bad for trying to live."

Tristitia, Willow and Georgina follow shortly after, their own attacks unable to match the devastation of the breaks and severs that have already become history. There's an onslaught of swearing from Tristitia, which is understandable—because when she says this is hell, she's right. That is what it has to become if anyone is going to make it out alive; perhaps peacefulness has a place within the hearts of some tributes, but it does not in my case. Peacefulness comes from looking into the darkness and seeing no reflection: there's no way of facing the nightmare I have become.

It is a fight I have already lost.

My name rings in my ear once again, a slow but rhythmic chant being crafted from the tremors running through my body: "Annemie Yille, Annemie Yille, Annemie Yille, Annemie Yille, Annemie Yille," are the mumbled words I hear hang in the thick air. The words feeling heavier than ever as they leave my body, but somehow they do not fall to lie alongside the blood. They twist and turn around me; my own sick, selfish sense of protectionism that stems from trying to stay whole but only breaking in the process. An image of the lantern I'd received in sponsorship flashes through my mind—the two of us have both lost our light and have no means of getting it back. And there's a stark difference between letting the darkness in and succumbing to it, which I think is what stops me from fully breaking.

I would be sharp and jagged, but not to the point where I am a danger to myself.

The nightmare feeds only on the world around me: the hopeful glint in the eyes of tributes, the shine of a person's reflection in their unbloodied blade, the grace that I can see falling through the air when someone gives up life for the sake of love. I make a promise to myself that I will never make the same mistake—because that would be the real wrong move, because that would make me a real fucking dick.

In one second, I see that light in him.

In the next, I try to take it.

6f annemie yille attacks 9m xavier xayachak; sword

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[ 1133 -- Deep Gash on Back -- 8.5 damage ] +1 blades

My world turns into that of one comprised of nothing but the blood surrounding me. My attacks land nothing more than small scratches while others combat around me.

The boy who had called Mia a dick continued in response to me, "Look, we're all dicks. Not gonna deny it. Deep down, we're fighting for ourselves. No one wants to die here. But that doesn't change that cutting off someone's arm is a dick move."

A smile teases at the corner of my mouth. It was strange amongst all this pain, this fighting, this fear, that I would be able to. The smile was a mixture of excruciating pain combined with just a sick humor. We're all fighting. We're all trying to survive. We're all trying to kill. And yet, we all have time to make small quick quips. It's like someone is using us to make an interesting plotline for the capitol sick pleasures. We have time between strikes and slashes to sneak a joke in.

It sickens me to my stomach.

I can remember Justice making sick sexual innuendoes as he hacked away at Iris. I grit my teeth together, remembering the anger I felt towards him as he slashed her everywhere and joked about tops and bottoms. I guess this is why they say the games drive you crazy. This must be it. Not the arena. Not the fighting. It's the tributes; it's the incessant urge to give in and become a monster because it would just be so easy.

I'm stabbed in the stomach, all thought of being controlled to make a story more interesting gone as the pain once again consumes me. I let out a gasp as I stumbled backwards, right into another strike.

Limbs fly off bodies like tributes' souls leaving the earth: frequent, often, and disturbingly gruesomely.

My hand flies off.

First my ear, now my fucking hand.

What's next?

My life.

I can feel myself nearing death once again. Yesterday was no fluke. It was a sign. I survived then to die now, just as I had predicted.

In the distance, I hear a canon fire. Either someone just died or the gamemakers accidentally set off mine too early. Maybe both.

I stumble backwards once again, reaching out with my remaining hand. My eyes filling with tears and blood as I swing, using the last of my strength to collapse downward at the boy. I'll be gone soon. Maybe I can at least try to help my allies before I'm gone for good.

[attacks xavier with a machete (sword)]
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[1175 -- Severed Left Ear -- 8.0 damage + 1 blades = 9 damage]

sword