toy soldiers with broken parts. | lenox vs. syd, day seven

Syd doesn’t know how long he runs. He doesn’t look back to the place he left behind, where the giant mutt skewered Coach’s skull on its talons. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he thinks that if he keeps going, if he doesn’t look back, then it won’t have happened at all. Maybe he can pull himself around this godforsaken Arena on his bad leg and outrun the world waiting to end him.

Eventually, he comes to an area he hasn’t been before. Giant machines stretch into the sky, rivaling the Capitol skyscrapers for their grandiosity. The sun is setting by the time the machines start appearing in the distance, and the moon and the stars don’t light his way. So when Syd steps into a pool of something dark and pungent, it comes as a shock, and he makes a face at his soiled boot.

He doesn’t know what the substance is, but at least it doesn’t appear harmful. After some consideration, he continues trekking through the dusk, ignoring the lingering pain in his knee.

There’s a lot of time to think. Too much time. He doesn’t like this... this being alone. There’s an emptiness in his chest, a gnawing sense that he is not meant to be like this. He doesn’t know how to be alone.

And then it hits him, clear as the sky on a summer’s day--

Maybe that’s why he did it. Maybe that’s why he stepped up for this, why he searched and searched for people to protect above all else. He thought back then that there was no place for him on this whole goddamn Earth, no people that would see him for who he really is.

Because that’s it, you know? How does anyone live with the feeling that there’s nothing for them?

Syd doesn’t know. But yet… he’s still here.

He’s still here.

When the anthem blares across the sky and shows the face of Coach DeLuxe, Syd’s heart aches for him. Coach didn’t deserve to die, nor Benedict, nor any of the others whose faces have outshined the stars in this hellish place. Guilt rips through his thoughts, but it’s soon replaced with worry.

Even in the darkness of a night without stars, he sees something moving his direction.

It looks like a person, but he can’t… really tell. It’s faint, like a shadow, but its movement is hobbled, unsteady. And then there’s another, and another, like wisps of smoke in mirror image. They solidify as they shuffle closer, and Syd sees that they look like… well, people that used to be.

They don’t move quickly enough to worry him. Maybe because they’re broken, diseased, but he doesn’t flinch when they shift around him. Some pass by, but one in particular sticks close to his side.

In the small light of the glowing orb hovering behind his head, he can see the details. Its skin is rough, inflamed, raw. One time, when Syd was much younger, he accidentally overcooked a piece of cow’s liver over the fire in their small kitchen. This creature has the same texture, but more feeble.

It doesn’t follow him, not exactly, but it seems to be heading in the same direction.

This is the closest thing to pleasant human company he’ll ever have again, he thinks.

”You’re pretty hopeless, you know?” he says, after a while of walking in silence. Now he’s not going anywhere that matters at all, just following the poor creature around like a puppy who has lost its person.

It doesn’t respond, obviously.

”Yeah, same here.”

Following his favorite creature aimlessly, he doesn’t sleep. He’s torn between grogginess and fatigue and the knowledge that he won’t be able to find this creature again if he leaves it. The hours stretch on, moving without direction, and Syd wonders if he can just sink into the background of this Arena. Perhaps he’ll blend in so well with the wandering monsters that nobody will notice he’s still here.

That hope is dashed when he sees a figure in the distance, clear in the morning sky. As the figure nears, he can make out the features of the uniform, torn and ragged as it may be.

His heart thump, thump, thumps in his chest.

He whispers to his newfound wandering friend: ”You gonna help me or nah?”

He accidentally nudges it with the tip of his finger. The creature crumbles into ash.

”Ah,” Syd says. ”Fuck.”

It’s just him, then. Him and his bloody knuckles and no-good pride.

He’ll take it.

As the figure nears, he recognizes the face, but can’t put a name to it. The girl’s moving quick now that she sees him, and her words are carried like a warning on the breeze: "I never wanted it to come to this, but man, I'm so close, and I'd rather lose my mind than lose my life."

Newly introduced to his own desperate need to live, Syd nods like he understands. He only sort of does.

His pulse thrums in his veins as she lunges forward with her spear. He gasps as it rips through his arm, and grits his teeth against the pain. He backs up, frantic, raising his fists.

”You’ll lose your life eventually,” he spits. ”Best be prepared.”

Upon closer inspection, Syd sees the shape of her spear, the weird electricity of it, and it reminds him of Coach.

His heart clenches in his chest.

And then Syd notices something familiar about the girl. The lilt of her voice scrapes against his eardrums, and the way of her movement reminds him of the day Benedict died.

She was there. She was there, in the smoke, tearing Bene down.

With a sudden power, the memory floors him like he’s still in the swamp, like Bene’s still breathing next to him, like the smoke’s still swirling and they’re caught in a never-ending fight. The loss of his allies weighs him down, rips the slightest purpose from his continuing life, and he doesn’t know what to do with all of that leftover guilt.

He isn’t supposed to be here, he thinks.

But he is.

He’s here, standing in front of one of Bene’s killers, and she’s telling him that nobody understands.

By the time her weapon slices through his back, he’s still reeling from the strength of his own shitty memories. He cries out, crumples for a moment. His hands smack against the dirt as he catches himself. Fresh blood blooms from the new wound on his back, and the cloth stings where it touches open flesh.

He stares at the ground, lost. He can’t bear to look at her.

But he does, eventually. With seething, directed rage, he pushes himself up from the earth.

”And Benedict?” he asks, fists clenched. His voice is quiet, but full of fire. ”He didn’t have nothing. He had everything.”

How is he here? How is she here?

Neither of them deserve it. Not like Benedict and his heart full of love.

Maybe Syd can’t bring himself to fight for his own life. But god, he can take someone down with him.

”I think that's the type of weight that is heavy enough to pull someone six feet into the ground.”

She looks at him then, with those eyes full of ice, and he feels a chill sweep through his very being.

Upright now, he backs up, and they circle each other like wild animals in a brawl, looking for the right opening to strike. Syd can feel the way his skin prickles against the tension, like a rabid dog with its hackles raised.

The girl explains herself plainly, almost calm. She’s run her calculations and done the mental math to get everything to make sense in her twisted little head, and Syd grimaces as her words reach their end. She takes that pause to angle her spear at his stomach, but he catches her movement before it turns fatal. There’s the slicing of skin, the stinging of the nerves, but he doesn’t fall this time.

His face is solemn, his fists raised. As he speaks, he’s looking for that perfect moment to crash forward.

”It makes sense, it does,” he says. ”And you’re not crazy. Ha! Anyone with a half a fucking brain wants to make it out of this.”

His lips curl into a smile.

”But I’m a fucking idiot, and all I want is to make you pay for what you did to my friend.”

It’s not a lot, but god, it keeps him going.

Would killing me make you feel satisfied?

Perhaps she’s hoping to catch him in his thoughts, weighing that alongside his own sense of morality.

It doesn’t work. That spear of hers misses him by a mile as he steps to the right, feet skittering across the dirt.

Every movement makes him more aware of the gashes in his flesh and the way the fabric of his gaudy uniform grates against the wound. He clenches his teeth to keeps from crying out, but he’ll be okay. He’s no stranger to difficulty moving, not since a faceless tribute crushed his knee during the Bloodbath. It comes with the territory of being the new version of Syd: broken, beaten, bold.

There is a power that comes with being close to death.

”I am not the therapy you’re looking for,” she says.

And she’s right -- he knows it. Benedict won’t come back with a little vengeance. Nothing will be improved if he tears her down right now. The thread stringing the whole situation together is paper thin, ready to snap, and looking at it too long will make the tenuous moment fall apart.

But he doesn’t care. That’s the crux of it.

”It won’t,” he agrees. The smile has vanished from his face. His expression has turned to stone. ”I told him, right at the end, that it would be okay. But it won’t. Not for me, not for you, not for any of us.”

He shakes his head, mouth twisting into a grimace.

”If nothing matters, why shouldn’t I kill you?”

In the silence that follows, he lunges.

This is not a rabid fight to the death.

It's a fight to the death, to be sure, but Syd looks at her with a clarity that makes this all the more difficult. The more she speaks, the more he realizes that she is a living, breathing person, and revenge won't change that fact. Avenging poor Benedict Nolan won't change the fact that this girl wants to live. And he's depriving her of that.

Still, that doesn't stop the anger from seething beneath his skin. He can feel it, that rage and overpowering drive for survival.

He hates her for what she did.

He tries to cling to the thoughts that pull the strings of that anger -- of the life Benedict could have had, of the girl he had back home, of the future he might have had.

It helps, sort of. He can barely look at her in the face, not after what she did.

"You're right," Syd says, his stare going blank, faraway. "It's not a good enough reason."

He doesn't know why he keeps going. He just does.

Because it's enough for me.

Her words echo in his head, and he tries to stop them from taking hold. Try as he might, Syd knows that he is not capable of holding hatred in his heart forever. The dying image of Benedict’s face stays strong at the forefront of his thoughts, and that’s what keeps him going: the dwindling urgency of revenge.

Maybe it’s the blood seeping from his wounds or the brokenness of his body, but he can feel himself slowing. Now they are less like wild animals and more like what they are: two struggling kids, beating each other to death, losing energy as the hellish world crumbles around them.

Her words come out in a huff. Maybe she’s feeling it too -- the exhaustion.

Syd can’t let it get to him. He -- he has to fight. For Benedict. For… something.

Fighting for the sake of fighting.

Or for himself. Maybe somewhere in the back of that sad head of his, he wants to keep going.

Problem is, he doesn’t have a lot of time to weigh what he wants. His primal instincts -- fight or flight -- have kicked in, and with numbers decreasing every day, flight is becoming less and less possible by the moment. This is it.

”You know” he begins, rising from his thoughts like a diver surfacing the water, ”I don’t think you’re selfish. But I -- “

He struggles to form the words.

”I’m so angry,” he admits.

And he has to do this. Something deep in his very being drives him forward.