Breathing in the Chemicals // [Day 3 RK vs. GF vs. Rats]

She misses because of course, she does.

Nothing seemed to be going right this morning. Her face was on fire and her stomach was threatening to expel whatever the hell she had left in it and the heat was radiating off of the cement and it was enough to feel like she was being cleaved in two with an ax.

She could try to dodge the blows and hide behind the median, but hadn’t she come here to do more than just cower behind her allies?

The boy with the flaming hands comes at her again and he hits her hard in the chest and she can taste blood through a split lip.

Nanette, Revan, and Flynn circle around her, swinging at the rats that are still coming and the other tribs, but it’s not enough - the boy that she had been swinging at shoves her down to the ground and she lay there for a moment before Nanette’s over her, yelling for her to get up, screaming in her face. Lang smiles at her dazedly for a moment, her head knocked against the ground before she’s hauled to her feet, Nan's hand in hers.

“Nanette, Nan, I - ” Langley begins but she shakes her head because the words won’t come out, no matter how badly she wills them to come. Shaking her head is a damn bad idea because her head hurts. Everything fucking hurts. 

She should tell them to run. She should tell them to go grab the water bottles and get the hell outta dodge because she can feel her heartbeat slowing down, her arm dripping blood, and her mouth tastes like ash.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, ” she finally says to the girl from Four who battled a shark in the Training Center.

She wanted to tell her so many things. She wanted to say that she’s sorry that she had to see this, that she’s sorry that she wasn’t stronger, that she’s sorry for dragging them down with her. She wants to say more things than could ever be possible because forty-eight hours means nothing in the grand scheme of things, but bleeding for your allies means something more than running away from a place that you thought you had called home before this all began.

Dying for them has to mean something too, right?

“Revan, Flynn, you gotta be ready to run, ya hear? Drag her with you if you have to!”

Might as well go down swinging with the eyes of the world on you, even if it mean that the world was just reduced to a girl from the coast at the moment it all ends.

I feel helpless, even as I strike the rat with precision, but it's not enough. It's never enough. Staying alive and giving myself food wasn't enough when I ruined a perfectly good relationship with a brother. I was hungry, and I regret it. Volunteering for the games wasn't enough. I promised myself I wouldn't care about anyone here, but the longer I'm with these people, I can't help but grow close to them. I'm learning to depend on them, to trust them, but I know it's not enough because all of us won't survive.

And it's proven as Langley is targeted over and over again, and I can tell she's about to slip away from this world, and it's in that moment that something keeps echoing, and I'm not sure if people are shooting or if it's cannons firing. I stop in my tracks, and I can't help but keep my gaze focused on my ally. She's apologizing to Nanette, and I don't know what to do. I don't know what to say or think or anything, and I'm just standing there so confused wondering where I went wrong, and I listen to her as she tells me and Flynn to drag Nanette away if we have to, and that we need to be ready to run.

Why run? Why? It does nothing. I ran my entire life. I've ran from my problems instead of trying to fix them, and the only way to fix this is to seek revenge. What if it's all my fault? I wanted to leave them behind. I wanted to run. Nanette never cared about me, she never will care about me, and sometimes my face still stings from where she slapped me so hard. But maybe I do care about them. Why am I still here if I didn't care? I can tell how close Langley and Nanette have become. I lock my gaze on Langley's for just a moment. I'll get Nanette as far as I can, Langley, I promise. I want to say it out loud, but I can't even form the words.

Instead I turn my attention to the rat that's standing before me, and I do what I can to try to save everyone here. I have to do something. It's not going to be enough though. It's never enough, and yet I have no choice. Right now all I can do is stand here, and pray to whatever god there is, if there's even a god, that I somehow make it out of this mess alive. I can't care about these people as it'll only end in pain. But I do care, and that will be my downfall. I promised I wouldn't, however, it's a promise I can no longer keep because I have another promise to keep, and it's more important than anything.

Bang and the dirt is not gone. Two heads. I aimed for a damn head but somehow the bullet wound is planted into one of the demented legs. Dammit.

The other rat is being hacked away at by two other tributes, while Langley and Nan hack away at the one from Nine. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, ” For the first time, the cries feel real. Real pain hits my chest. Sympathy. Pity for a friend who I was just taking to last night. Langley does not look too far off…bloodied and charred. Shit. Am I wasting these bullets on the right thing here? I could easily sneak up behind flame fists and end it now.

”Nan, tell me what to do. What can I do?” Panic twists around in my words, the gun in my hand aimed wherever it needs to be. But now my hands shake, vibrating up to the barrel of the gun. Focus is beginning to slip away; I cannot lose it now. Not right now. This is not a game to lose. ”What do I do?” I waste the last of the water in my body with tears. Real tears for the first time in the arena. It is only day three, I cannot lose one of them yet. Not like I lost Tommy. I cannot see Langley’s lifeless body like I did his, not yet.

Bang.

It is not my gun. Just the sound of a friend falling. Of me failing. I have been aiming at the wrong head all of this time ”I am so sorry.”