Tunnel Vision -Katelyn oneshot-

k a t e l y n .

I was young and innocent
Naïve and ignorant
When they told me it was time
It was time to choose time to decide
How I would spend the rest of my life

Katelyn’s stomach was twisted into knots.

Maybe she was just projecting, seeing what she wanted to see. There was no snow, no shrine on which to make an offering of words. She’d never been a dreamer like Arabella; idealistic perhaps, not to the point getting lost in a fantasy. But she had felt out of place, like a burden to her allies; a girl with a substance abuse problem, a girl whose blade was deadly and a boy with brotherly qualities who was trying to keep the three of them safe.

If Cyro was Marchello in this equation, Lysander trading Velocity’s drugs for alcohol and Meredith proving to be as dangerous as Lexi—

Then there was only one person that Katelyn could see Arabella as.

The resemblance Arabella’s allies had to her own put her on edge. She’d told the girl to find allies that she could trust to have her back, but she found herself wondering if the allies she’d picked were just a coincidence. Cyro took a knife to the chest and Katelyn cringed internally, remembering the sound Chaske’s ribs had made when her throwing axe broke them. She bit her lip uncertainly. The quell twist was a second life in the arena, so even if one of her tributes fell here, they’d get another chance. There was no need to start worrying just yet.

Arabella had a look of intense concentration on her face. Maybe fear as well. Another knife left her hand, and Helle’s head snapped back, the blade protruding from her face. Katelyn felt her heart lurch, thinking about Margaret Dubois and Heather Tenley. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same. History repeated itself. What had she said in her letter? If your focus wavers, so will your aim. It appeared that Arabella had found her focus.

Katelyn was surprised to find that she was tearing up. While it broke her heart every year that her tributes came home in coffins, while every one of them held a place in her heart, something was different this year. It was probably Cyro's fault, dredging up regrets and pains that she’d thought she’d finally buried. While she could understand his decision, she’d never be able to respect it. Then there was Olivia, pulling at the thread and unraveling the stitches she’d sewed herself back up with since being set free from the detention center.

It was colder than she’d ever felt and Dillon Hartman’s brutalized corpse lay a few feet away from her. Katelyn was on her knees, steam rising from the puddle of bile on the snow in front of her. She’d never cut anything larger than a watermelon, and with nothing larger than a carving knife. She made pies. Not in a hundred years would she have imagined she’d cut off someone’s leg. Let alone kill them.

But a cannon had gone off after she’d brought her ice pick down on the blood covered girl from three, the one who had crawling around helplessly. Blood had sprayed upwards, spattering her chest, her arms, her face. Self-defense, she told herself. The girl on the ground had punched her knee and she’d just reacted, swinging downward. A punch. Not that she could have just been searching for purchase, clutching for something to help her stand up. Katelyn shook her head, ignoring the lump in her throat and the taste of stomach acid on her tongue.

She’d had to do it.

Surviving the games meant becoming something she was not.

Katelyn wiped the tears out of the corner of her eyes and refocused on the screen, wondering if It might be a good idea to send the girl another letter. Taking a life was a heavy burden and Arabella was one of the sweetest tributes she’d mentored in years. How would she handle it?  Katelyn had dealt with what she’d had to do by withdrawing and then by throwing herself into the role of mentor.

If Kirito hadn’t come home that first year, she doubted that she’d be the person she was now. He’d given her a strength unlike any other in a time where she was ready to shut the entire world out; in a time where she'd been nothing but angry, confused and cold. It was a strength she now needed to share with Arabella. She’d wait and see how the girl dealt with it first. Of course, she had no way of knowing that she’d not actually killed the girl from seven. Very few of the tributes had figured what not having faces in the sky meant yet.

The rest of the tributes dispersed and the camera switched to the fight in the catacombs between three half dead tributes. Katelyn sucked sharply at her teeth when she saw Opal’s tribute and the stitch across his neck. Were the returned tributes in any pain? Would they die a second death only to be resurrected again? Was that the theme of this quell? A never-ending treadmill of death and rebirth.

She hoped not.

She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. This was stressful. Every year brought with it a fresh new hell, but this was something else. But she wasn’t the only one feeling the stress, though she might be the only one feeling like her past was being repeated. Opal. She needed Opal. Katelyn got up and headed for the door. There were a couple things they needed to discuss.

Olivia. Their tributes.

A hug wouldn’t hurt either.