Salty Surprise [ Bloodbath: Upper Middle District Tributes ]

***

"Run, Cas! We gotta get out of here, right now!" Elena's fingers were laced with my own, her eyes wide as she tugged at me, silently begging me to move. "Please." The desperation in her pleas has me tearing my gaze from the bloody mess that had unfolded before us, my grip tightening on her hand as I took the lead, guiding her down the the dark back streets of district four. We shouldn't have been there, I knew that... But when I had heard the whisper that a Ricardo Black was making a shady deal down in the slums... well I had to be there, I had to see him.

There was not much that my mother told me about my father, she herself had barely knew him. But she had given me his last name, and one day when I had begged her for some detail, no matter how small, she had told me his name: Ricardo Black. I had not asked her much else after that. Her shoulder would always rise with tension, her brows knitting into a frown when I asked about him. I think she got scared that maybe she felt like she wasn't doing enough. And I hated making her feel that way.

"Shit," I had hissed as the sounds of a siren wailed behind us. My foot had slipped, my mind distracted as images of Ricardo Black kneeling on the ground. A Peacekeeper behind him, a gun pressed against the crown of his head, flashed through my mind on repeat. Elena had tried to get me to run before the Peacekeeper had pulled the trigger, but I she had not been quick enough, the bullet causing my fathers brain to explode onto the cement floor.

"Cas, watch out! Cas-"

***

BOOM

The sound of a canon fills the air and I run to the edge of the ship to see an iron ball explode into the air, the body of a tribute beside it. The canon ball hits first, violently splashing water against the ship, causing it to rock unsteadily. One dead. My heart begins to thump wildly in my chest, my hands clutching the axe tighter.

Shit was defiantly real now.

Chatty Catty had decided to abandon me as a target, throwing his blade at the girl who had tried to server his arm from the shoulder. He aims for her head, attempting to remove it from her shoulders, but she manages to manoeuvre around it, the tip kissing for forehead. She hisses in pain a moment before she charges again and I brace myself to see more blood, a scream of pain, and a string of curse words. But her swords buries itself into the heart of my district partner, a powerful movement that causes my body too shudder. Fuck, this girl was scary.

My jaw drops and I staggered back wordlessly, eyes wild with fear as I turn to face the girl with glasses. She seemed so unconfident with her words, yet she moved a tenacity that was staggering. The body hits the deck a moment before another canon is fired into the air. Only this time it causes our ship to shudder violently, the body of my district partner, slipping across the wet, bloodied deck. Crying out I try and steady myself, but my feet slip on some blood, throwing off my center of balance. Shit, shit, shit, shit.

I swing wildly into the air, hoping that my blade saved me from one to the heart, from my body joining my district partners, lifeless and broken sliding across a bloodied deck.

[ saunders collection '05 - rave ]

Ughhhh I am damn useless with this sword. Maybe being the shark’s supper is becoming more likely than ever. A nice whack across the girl from Five’s forehead and well, it does nothing really. Everyone else has much better weapons than I anyway. Where the hell did they get them? I have had no hope of surviving this from the get go. An arm throbbing and foot that feels like it is going septic. Maybe accepting this fate already is making the panic fade, the fear to be non-existent. I really am numb to the idea of dying. Numb to the idea of waving goodbye to my dull dreary life. Whatever is next for me, it better be magnificent. I can only really go up from here. Even hell seems like a five-star destination compared to my eighteen years of existence.

Yeah so, I am that damn useless with this sword that even after a whack to the head, Five goes and shoves her own sword through the chest of the one from Four, I had kind of not noticed that one was here. Well, she is not here anymore…

The first to go, we really are in a line now.

Boom

It is a lot louder than the other bangs that sounded just moments ago. A lot closer. Enough to send vibrations through both ear drums and straight down to my ass. Everything rattles, the ship’s deck, from bow to stern including my own bones. One of the canons on the side of the ship, that is what caused it. It was almost synchronised to the moment that the girl’s body hit the deck.

I battle with my balance; I can’t add to the pile of embarrassment again by falling over but my disorientation is knocked right out. I don’t know whose path I am sharing but I do know how to work this mouth. ”Wow girl, you really fired the canon. You are right, you have not died first. But it looks like second has become available. “

I drag the cutlass across the deck, each step a little more wobblier than the next. ”I have just got to find you first. You have really caused a ripple in the tides. You see the domino effect you have caused? The bodies are going to pile high from now. That’s why the canon has sounded. It is time to get excited!”

[ saunders collection '05 - rave ]

“Oh. My god.”

No matter what she had been telling herself, Daniela could not have been prepared for the moment her blade had gone straight through the flimsy fabric, tore through flesh and sinew, and pierced right through the girl from four’s beating heart. She stared at death as though she’d never seen her before. Her glasses fogged in the moment she struggled to grip her cutlass and pull it free, as though the blood blossoming from the wound hadn’t already drenched her knuckles and dripped over her hands.

Just as she managed to wrench the sword from the girl’s breast, a BANG set the whole ship rocking, gold smoke cascading across the deck. Daniela flopped down against the cedar of the floor, eyes still on the body in front of her.

“Nononono…” She kicked back on her butt, feet pressing back as she tried to put as much distance between her and the body as she could. She could taste the bitterness at the back of her throat and tried to swallow all of it back down again. What had the girl from six said? She could’ve used someone saying something, anything to distract from the fact she’d ended someone’s life.

Had she wanted to kill someone? Well – she had been trying, but that felt a whole lot different than stabbing someone in the freaking heart. If she’d just maimed her, Daniela could have some plausible deniability about how much she’d contributed to her death.

What was Aurelia going to think? Or her parents? Would Samiyuq be able to look at her the same way? Did Mohamed already think she was a monster?

The whole boat was spinning when she stared back through the smoke.

When four’s district partner came through the clouds, she’d screamed, and rolled to her left, his axe glancing her arm. She reached to grab the railing and pull herself up and turned to brace against the cool of the wood as Russell charged, slicing off four’s hand. She blanched at the sight and tried to swallow down the bile at the back of her throat.

Six went into another soliloquy as she dry heaved.

You see the domino effect you have caused? The bodies are going to pile high from now. That’s why the canon has sounded. It is time to get excited!

“I think I’m going to be…” She spoke, the boy from six burst through the gold smoke, advancing at her left, Russell at the ready. Six’s was more right than he could imagine, cutlass squelching through the viscous center of Russell’s eye.

“…sick…” She heaved out whatever had been in her stomach over the side of the ship.

She coughed and wiped away the acrid dribble at her lips. She just had to get the world to stop spinning, and then she could put her head together. The haunting tapes of the previous year’s hunger games had been full of children who seemed brave and noble, people who put faith in themselves over the fear that surely dwelled in their hearts. Except Daniela was neither brave nor full of faith in herself. She was fifteen and wanted more than anything to just be able to wake up in her bed tomorrow morning.

She wasn’t here to right the wrongs of all the wounds of war. She was a girl, a sister, and a person who’d done the best that she could up in the mountains far away. Sometimes she wondered if all this – war and its echoing pain – would linger so long as men sought righteous power above wanting to know who someone like Daniela had ever been.

“Daniela,” She remembered what six had asked. Her voice shaky as her legs as she stood. “From five. Same as Samiyuq and Mohamed. And Russell.” She took up her cutlass then, and staggered forward, swinging through the lingering smoke.

“HRRG!” At least she could try for a little longer.

[Daniela uses her cutlass to attack Daisy d6f]
frDYkwhw4rsword
result: 1171 -- Miss -- 0.0 damage

(Sword)

1-3
1: 4m Caspian Black
2: 6f Daisy Sarasaland
3: 6m Giorgio Cham

[ saunders collection '05 - rave ]

I'd heard the terrifying tales of sailors that got lost at sea. Bear was a great story teller and he often spoke about the stories of how storms wiped away boats. How fishermen were thrown overboard to drown or become shark bait, and those who make it home are traumatised and broken. I'd never expected to be one of those mens caught in a storm, surrounded by chaos. But here I was, another wave crashing violently against the ship launching me across the deck, my hands waving wildly, "fuck, this is ridiculous-"

Blinding pain shoots through my arm, my throat choking on a scream. Among the chaos, and panic I hear a gentle thump and I turn a fearful eye down to my wrist. 

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"

My hand. My hand. My hand.

"OH SWEET MAMA, IT HUUUUURTS! AHHHHHH OH MY RIPRED WHAT THE FUCK MAN!!" The scream rips from my lips, tears of distraught, of pain filling my eyes. 

Where my hand used to be was a cleanly sliced bloodied stump. "Oh my god, oh my god, my hand! My fucking hand! Where is it? Where'd it go? GOD DAMNIT IT, IT BLOODY HURTS! UUGH AHH" My stomach churned as the searing pain intensified, salt kissed water spraying onto the exposed flesh. I was going to be sick. Distressed, I press the stump gently to my chest, trying to protect it as the ship swayed angrily-

BOOM

Widly I whip my head back and fourth until I see Chatty Catty's blade protruding from the face of the boy who had severed my hand. My stomach churned once again, my face paling. The body hits the deck, rolling across the bloodied deck as the chip rocks violently. Cursing I try to keep my footing sure, desperate to keep the distance between myself and the girl from five, and the boy from six. "I think I'm going to be sick. This if fucked up man- Stay back! Don't come any closer," I growl at the girl from five (who says her name is Daniela), the boy from six. "Stay away-"

"You might as well say your name as well Mr. Handless." Daisy, I think it was, asks a moment before another wave crashes into us, sending her flying across the ship, the tip of her spear burying itself into Daniela stomach. Deep. My head spins and suddenly I am haunched over, fighting against the spasms of my stomach, of the angry waves. Unable to fight any longer I expel the contents of my stomach onto the deck, tears streaming down my face. 

"C-Caspian." I choke out, wiping my mouth with the back of my arm. I don't know why I bother to tell them my name. It felt to personal to let my potential killer to know my name. Intimate in a way, and it made my skin crawl. I didn't want to know them, not knowing their blood coated the blade of my axe. I didn't want to know if the kids before me were as innocent as I was. I didn't want to know if they had their family back home, waiting for them to return. I didn't want to know because I was selfish. 

I was selfish and a coward.

So when the next wave crashes against the ship, I grip the shaft of my axe tightly. Waving it through the air I don't fight the momentum.

My eyes are wide, but I swing blindly.

[ saunders collection '05 - rave ]

None of them were supposed to be there and yet somehow it felt as though this was exactly the right place for them. At least, in the dizzying loss of blood Daniela supposed that each of them was just as ridiculous as the last. Her having clumsily ended someone’s life and upchucking over the side of the ship; Daisy, swearing and carrying on so freely Daniela wondered where she had been raised; Caspian, now stumpy and without one of his hands, rightfully crying out over it; and Giorgio – at one point forgetting his own name and chittering more than her elderly grandmother when she used to tell stories to Daniela and her sister.

“I don’t know Mohamed,” Daniela replied, the boat still swaying, though she might’ve just been unbalanced after all the rocking, “But he seems honest. Samiyuq ze – I met hir. Ze’s like family. I would tell hir that, if I could. Reminds me of somewhere far away.”

When Daisy’s trident pierced her stomach, she knew it would be ending soon. There were still so many of them on that boat and she was starting to struggle to stand. She could hear her heartbeat through her ear, and reached a hand to pull back the trident and feel where the blood began to come pouring out. She coughed, blood now starting from her lips.

She’d imagined death to be an empty thing. Like dandelions caught in the wind, scattering to nothing. But now she wasn’t so sure.

Oh well.

She’d never get to see Bogotá.

Or sing behind her sister, on a stage, with her guitar in hand.

When Giorgio caught her hip she doubled over, practically losing her grip on her cutlass. The blood trailing over her hands made it slippery, but she held on.

“I’d say you talk too much, but I don’t think that’s fair.” Daniela peered out the corner of her glasses, then hanging down the bridge of her nose. “We all have got so much to say, but they never wanted to hear it. I hope you get it all out. Even if most of it is stupid.”

She grunted as she pressed off the boards of the deck and managed to rise one more time. It’d be better not to just lay down and die, no matter how bedraggled she was.

Her girlfriend Dayna must’ve been watching, too. She couldn’t well have her thinking that Daniela had lost the fight, now could she? She was a mountain girl – they were built different.

She staggered forward and slashed her cutlass hard at the ready for whoever was in her path.

"HNNG!"

[Daniela attacks 6m Giorgio Cham with her cutlass]

rZgXgCGsBisword
result:1080 -- Shallow Cut on Back of Head -- 4.5 damage

(Sword)

1-3
1: 4m Caspian Black
2: 6f Daisy Sarasaland
3: 6m Giorgio Cham

[ saunders collection '05 - rave ]

My axe bounces off Giorgio's thick skull once again, widening the gash on his brow. He barely even winces at the blow, instead he seems kind of unfazed, rubbing at it lazily like the blow was nothing but a temporary interruption to one of his spiralling monologues. He continues going on about how he was named after his grandfather or something, I lost focus, his voice like a sharp nail burning itself into my brain.

"Man, do you ever get sick of the sound of your own voice?" I snap, preparing myself as another wave crashes into the ships side. The wood of the deck groans, and I sway unsteadily. I wasn't sure if it was the pain that pulsed with each rapid beat of my heart, or the churning in my stomach, I was irritable and Giorgio and his monologue was only loosening the grip I had on my temper. "Just shut up mate, your insufferable. Isn't in already punishment enough that we are already conscripted to fight in this fucking arena?"

Daniela seems to handle the situation much more calmly, her words softer than and less sharp. Though when she doesn't discourage him from his continued rambling I blame it on the blood loss. She looked to be one of the worst, unsteady on her feet as the deck beat her became stained red. Blood dribbled from the corner of her mouth, and her skin had gone pale. I found myself wondering what Elena might do if she was in this situation. Would she swing her blade at the dying girl, a mercy killing that would see an end to her suffering? Or would she look the other way, unable to bring herself to be the one to take it?

Could I kill her?

Could I end it?

Did I want to?

The thought has me uneasy, the muscle in my jaw twitching. No. No I didn't not want to.

But I think I could. I think I could, if I had too. If I knew it could save her from suffering. If I knew that taking her life might mean that I might make it off this ship. Could someone be selfless and selfish at the same time?

"I don't think we have a choice. We fight here to the death..." Daisy's voice breaks through my thoughts, the harsh reality of our situation thrown like a bucket of cold water over the lot of us. We hope that one of us make it out alive. Though they might not come out in one piece. Hell, I was already missing my hand.

"I'm not fearless," I whisper, my hand tightening on the handle of my axe as the boat moved roughly beneath me. "I am a coward." If I was fearless I would have confidently aimed my weapon at Daniela, ready to end it. I might of aimed it at Giorgio who was obviously struggling to keep it together after being whacked in the head a couple times too many. But instead I move with hesitance, grunting as I swing my axe in a wide arch.


"I'm sorry." I'm sorry I couldn't be heroic.

[ saunders collection '05 - rave ]

She didn’t quite believe that she was still standing. The gentle rock of the boat then subsiding and the yellow haze drifting off to the open water, but there she was. Still dripping blood from her stomach down her legs and onto the deck, still tasting rust at the back of her throat. She’d curled her fingers tight around her sword and held on, hoping against hope that she wouldn’t have to fight off the other three. She didn’t think she had the strength.

But the fight didn’t come, at least, not then. Daisy and Caspian found Giorgio and made him their mark. One blow after another. The girl from six casually striking at her district partner while the other screamed at him and swiped his axe. Anger at Giorgio for continuing to scatter words upon words, as though they could fault him for wanting to speak. If she wasn’t so afraid of drawing attention to herself, then she’d have told him off, too.

“Fearless…” Daniela repeated as she watched Giorgio, then drawing up a bluster to tell them a story of his family, of his pain, and all the things that seemed bottled up within him. So much his rage must’ve been that he didn’t notice how he was holding his own sword, twisting and turning, until he managed to catch himself.

And then, the boy that had been very much full of life was not.

“It’s done now.” She looked over the side of the boat. “May he get some rest, at least.”

Her hand shook as she held her cutlass, but not from fear, it was that she could scarcely continue to hold onto it. She’d be still as the rest of those that had fallen soon. The question remained as Daisy had so aptly put it, were they fearless, or crazy?

She wanted to see her sister Aurelia again and to lie in the tall grass with Dayna. She wanted to wake up unbearably early to see the sunrise and to get the eggs from the henhouses. She’d even volunteer to clean the barn if it meant she’d have a chance to see home again. She hoped that if her sister watched, she’d remember to live her life for all the things that Daniela would never be able to do. To sing just as she’d wanted, to travel, and to think about her once in a while.

She stared down at her cutlass and caught her reflection looking back.

"I don't want to die." She said to herself, soft so she might've been the only one to hear.

"I don't want to die." Again, short and whispered.

"I don't want to," Her voice breaking as she felt the spark of pain flash across her stomach, "I don't want to die..."

"Please," She asked as though this was something either of them could give. She wasn't fearless like Giorgio or Daisy.

[Daniela attacks Daisy Sarasaland 6f with her cutlass]
N7rcf3t6Resword
result: 1128 -- Shallow Cut on Forehead -- 4.5 damage

(Sword)

1-3
1: 4m Caspian Black
2: 5f Daniela Bedolla
3: 6f Daisy Sarasaland

[ saunders collection '05 - rave ]