killer + the sound / eloise v sophie day 7

She left before he had a chance.

To tell his story, to see the faces in the sky, to say he loved her — to say goodbye. The stars were shining, and he was lying there beside her, but the damage had already been done. She was gone before she even pulled herself up, before she looked over her shoulder and saw his lips moving. She couldn't register his words.

She couldn't stay.

But she could stand, and so she did. There was nothing she could say that would make this better, or beautiful. It was an ugly thing, a scar stretching between their hearts — but it was a necessary evil. It would keep them alive. This was their blood clot. And she was the knife, slicing in and out of him.

She didn't flinch.

But she cried when it started to rain. It started slow, and quietly, the kind of apathetic tears she was so used to. And then her face twisted, and her sobs became gasps for air, and all of her emotions came crashing down on her. Juliet was in the sky — and Beck was still down here, somewhere, but she couldn't run to him.

She was either the one left behind, or the one leaving.

All that mattered now was the fact that her lungs were still burning, and her legs were still aching. She was alive. Walking with ghosts, and the memories of a boy she could have loved. If it were safer; if it were wiser. She pushed her hair out of her face, a mess of damp curls. Sophie Fray was not a fool.

Frightened, yes — but not a fool. She made it to the bridge, to the place where Silas was impaled through the heart. The place she couldn't bring herself to go. She paused at the roots of the structure, peering ahead of herself and at the horizon. She was terrified of heights. And perhaps she always would be.

But she was more afraid of what it meant if she stayed. So she took a step into the unknown, grasping at anything and everything and refusing to show her terror. It was hers, and hers alone. She focused on her breathing, taking slow steps, trying not to slip and fall. She could hear water rushing. She didn't want to be swept away.

She wanted to make it to the other side.

Wherever that was. However she could.

And when she saw the tribute from Eight, it was like everything came to a stop. And here she was, staring into a mirror, and she tried not to hate what she saw. Fair hair, and haunted eyes, and a sort of broken innocence that could only mean one thing. Neither of them had anything left to lose. But Sophie had so much more to gain.

She needed to be selfish again. That wasn't a regression. Her enemy drew their sword with no hesitation, no time to dodge or parry before the blade bit into Sophie's shoulder. It stung for a moment, pulsing down her arm and into old wounds, but she had felt worse. Her jaw was still purple and swollen, her legs still covered in scabs.

Her clothes were bloody.

And so was her sword.

She took it out, then. She closed the distance.

She would stay for this one last thing —

she would stay to kill her reflection.

Her enemy screamed.

Not because of the blade Sophie drug across their back, not because of the rain pouring down on them — they just screamed. As if there were no reason at all; as if this were normal. It was like taking a breath, and then the water rushed in.

She just stood there. Staring at this nameless creature, watching it break down — but then the image shifted, and they were staring at a person. As whole as they were, just as damaged. Sophie had to avert her gaze, then. Until the only sound was the rain.

When the stranger's sword met her skin, she held in her gasp — like the two were already familiar. Stumbling back on the roots and the vines, grasping for anything sturdy. Her hands were far away from herself, her hair was in her face. She wanted to scream, too.

"Feel better?"

It was the cruelest thing she could say, the most vicious attack. Because neither of them would ever feel better — they would always feel this. In the sun or in a storm, alive or dead. Nothing could fix what had been broken. Screaming couldn't get the emotions out.

So she simply tilted her head, forced herself to take a few steps forward, still gripping the vines tightly — and she held out her sword, watched the rain wash the blood away. "I hope you die." Her features fell, her voice became soft and fragile.

The words were cruel, but the sound was a timid thing. Sophie had to blink the water away, the tears. She did not say this proudly, or viciously — she said it like it had to be said. A simple truth. Because she wanted to live, and there was only one way to survive here.

Everything was quiet, and terrible, as she lunged.

She narrowed her eyes, pursing her lips as her enemy stuck out their tongue. Childish. But she couldn't really blame them. There was no one way to react to this — you could cry, or you could scream, or you could just stand there in the rain.

But then she felt her feet start to slip, and she remembered that she was afraid of falling. She kept the vine in her hand, even as the stranger cut her open. Her knuckles were white from strain, and her cheeks were flushed from struggling to breathe.

It was difficult, and scary — all of it. Breathing, and fighting, and surviving. But she had to, against all the odds, so she looked up at the sky and let the rain wash over her face. "Am I the bad guy?" She said it quietly, gently.

She said it to herself.

"I'm trying to kill you. I told you to die." It all seemed so funny, so dramatic, and she couldn't stop herself from laughing. The sounds tore out of her, until her throat was raw, but at least the tears stopped. She didn't want to cry anymore.

"I don't even know you. I didn't know your ally."

Sophie took another step forward, her sword still in her grasp. Her palm was aching, but so was her arm, and her chest. Everything. She had felt worse, and there was still worse to come. This would not be her ultimatum. This was a bridge.

And she would make it across.

"Oh, fuck it. None of us are good."

'But I'm alive. I'm keeping it that way.'

Her sword sliced through the stranger's chest — and then they stood there, together, in the silence and the pouring rain. And Sophie couldn't even bring herself to breathe. Panicked gasps be damned, all she could do was stare and shake and blame it on the cold.

She had done this before. She had murdered other tributes in more horrible ways — but this was not murder. It was torture, and it was still not enough to finish the job. She watched her target stumble back, the blade sliding out of the wound and blood rushing out.

Everything was falling now. This was a flood.

"Oh." And what else could she say? This was what she wanted, this was the whole purpose of holding that blade in her hand. She wanted to stab this person through the heart, she wanted to leave them to the water and the trees and the chill.

It took hold of her, then — the numbness. Her face was flat as she took a step back, weakly dodging her enemy's attempt at mirroring her attack. The sword cut her chest, but it was just a flash of pain. A memory of a scar that had already healed. Her bloodshed was less.

But her will was stronger. It had to be.

"I hate storms. I hate this."

Her life was split in two. Just like that.

All it took was a single moment, one clap of thunder and the sweep of a blade — and then she was screaming above the rain, and crashing to the ground. There was her life before the fall, and then there was this. Her cheek in the mud, her hands grasping at a bloody stump.

This was true pain. It was not an echo, or a flash. It was a wildfire across her skin, burning deep in her veins and through her limbs. She had to stop screaming, struggling with the water filling her mouth and pressing her face back down against the rough bridge.

She wanted to disappear. She wanted to go back home — to be the same old Sophie, the one who hated dance lessons, who had both of her legs. But here she was, crying and gasping and aching. This was not beautiful, or a time for glory.

This was the moment where you turned away from the TV.

This was her tragedy.

Leaving Beck had nothing on this; carving out her innocence was a needle prick compared to the agony of losing her leg. This was tangible, and terrible, and it was all she could do to force herself to sit up. She couldn't stand. She couldn't pick up her sword. "Fuck."

It wasn't even a word. It was just a sound, raw and hoarse and shaking. Her bag was still around her shoulder, resting against her thigh, and she reached in with trembling fingers and a chest that kept rising and falling and risingandfallingand—

She was alive. She said she would keep it that way.

The crossbow was in her hand, familiar and strange all at once. She was close enough that she didn't even bother to aim, didn't bother to say any parting words. She pulled the trigger, and she watched the bolt soar through the air, and she hoped it would skewer this tribute's neck. She would have their head. Their life.

Every last piece of them.

It was all so fast.

Thunder, and rain, and blood — and they were screaming, and dying, and doing all of it together. But there was distance, a war-torn path between them. And maybe this was no man's land. Crying until there was no sound, face in the mud, smelling rust.

She was a performer up until the very end — cold, and entitled, staring down at something lesser than her. But now she was looking at herself, curled up in the roots and the water, mud in her hair. Her bolt pierced the tribute's calf, brought them to their knees.

But then they lashed out, a clean sweep of their blade. And then the crossbow fell, and so did her hand. And she was already in so much pain, full of so much adrenaline, that the sound she made wasn't a thing she could describe. It was primal.

And horrible. And terrible. This was what it meant to die; to be a girl, who spent a lifetime eating candies and dancing on tabletops, bleeding out on a stage. And that's what this was, this arena. She was an actress, wearing a new mask each day.

This was the worst one. This was her face.

And she showed all of her anger, and all of her hurt, as she reached for the crossbow and pried it from her own dead fingers. Her left hand was shaking, it moved awkwardly, but she could still find the trigger. There was still a second bolt ready to be fired.

She was dying, and that meant she was alive.

"Go ahead. Cut my fucking head off."

Her voice was acid rain, her bow was lightning in her hands.

"That's the only way you'll kill me."

Her body was numb, and distant. It felt like she had fallen out of herself, like the thing that was writhing in the mud wasn't even her. Not anymore. She had crashed to the ground so suddenly, lost so many pieces of herself before she could even register what it meant to be without them.

She prided herself on being able to stand, and now she couldn't. It was impossible. All she had was one hand, and the smell of rust and rain, the faintest feeling of drowning. In her pain — in her tears — in her blood.

This was the final moment. This was where the girl was stripped of her glory, of her pride. Her hair was dark now, her eyes dim and cold and far off, her skin was thin and white as paper. She was not a legacy. She was not a hero. She was not a villain. She was not a coward.

She was just a child — and she was dying.

There was no music, and there were no lights, no pretty words to carry her home.

She crawled towards her sword, perhaps out of desperation — but she moved so slowly, and so quietly, that it seemed like she had given up completely. But then she forced herself to sit up, to rest on her knees and then the bloody stumps that were left of her legs. She was in the air again, holding herself up even as all of her nerves were catching fire.

But the rain kept falling, and she held her arms out for one final scream.

And then she lunged, straight into the depths of the unknown.