Helen's Revenge [ Bloodbath: Lower Middle District Tributes

and i'll be your historian
and you'll be mine
and i'll fill pages of scribbled ink
hoping the words carry meaning

‘歴史’ was the most beautiful word for 'history' out of all the languages he knew.

The first letter ‘歴’ meant continuation and passage of time, a word that whispered gently of pasts long gone by. The second letter ‘史’ is a verb – to chronicle, to record.

To remember.

‘歴史’. History.

Remember the past, lest you forget it.

It was an interesting notion to someone who couldn’t remember anything before his second birthday, a day that came to him in snatches and otherworldly sensations the way childhood memories did – full of silhouettes, cracks on a wall, incoherent murmurs, bursts of color. 

To remember.

Ilya couldn’t. He was born in a time of war, which meant he was born into a history of nothing but fire-scoured ruins and gunpowder. And now this, this will be his history as well. A tribute in a game.

A sacrifice made in vain.

He spent the last few days alone, in complete quiet. He'd grown used to being isolated from the rest of society since his days at Candlekeep. He wasn't a socialite; he was a scholar. He kept himself entertained by making lists in his head of all the words for ‘fish’ in the languages he learnt, or by recalling the stories bored milk-maids would tell other women and children alike by the washing fountains – about soldiers, about the war, about borders and victories and losses. Stories were collectibles in the way marble or trophies are. He was quite proud of his collection.

Ilya couldn’t help but ponder about his next big collectible too, his next big story. He’d thought of how it would go in his head. Maybe it’ll be a thriller, one of those cheap tales that authors sold for quick bucks, or maybe it’ll be a tear-jerker, another of those cheap tales. Regardless, it was a story that would be cemented in history.

That was why he hoped, rather bleakly, that it will be a good one.

And as the gates creaked open and he looked out from behind the iron bars, he knew that this story would … not be like the others ones. Ilya had helped other members of Candlekeep write records of the games, meaning he predicted sandy grounds stained a dull scarlet and sun-baked bricks, scorching under a blue sky. Idyllic, in a way, for a place to die.

The scenery ahead, however, whispered of a different story. Small ripples lapped against the stony rim of his cell and as he watched, deep-blue waters gleamed like a painting made real, almost inviting in the way they rolled and shifted. He’d read about oceans before and this was how he’d imagined one. And he now understood why they called it a colosseum; everywhere was an endless blue until you saw the rows of seats, full of people cheering for bloodshed.

Between the sudden racing of his heart and the splashes of water and the cries of the people, there was one thing he’d forgotten – one thing that seized his left foot when it rose to take a reluctant step towards the water’s edge.

Ilya did not know how to swim.

What is the word to describe what happens when you can’t swim? Ah, yes. Утопление. Drowning.

His heart leapt up to his throat, and his skin suddenly felt too clammy under the already hot clothes. Water wasn’t his favorite from the beginning – a danger to keep around ancient tomes and freshly-written records – but now looking at it made him feel as though he was one of the many pages he’d spilled water onto, no longer flesh and bone but shriveled and all paper. He was usually reserved, he could keep his emotions on check. But, it was unmistakably fear that iced his heart right now, and damn everything good in the world, it refused to thaw.

‘歴史’ was the most beautiful word for 'history' out of all the languages he knew.

And as Ilya gauged the water’s depth and then the near impossible stretch between him and one of the grand, bright-hued vessels drifting like an island, he hoped his history would not end by drowning. Ilya had so much more to chronicle, and so much to live for.

This, he mused, was the dark humor of what it meant to be a chronicler or a historian.

They had to stay alive, lest they became the very thing they studied.

and i'll be your historian
and you'll be mine
and i'll fill pages of scribbled ink
hoping the words carry meaning

[ saunders collection '05 - rave ]

I've nearly cut my way through an iron bar when the cage door swings open.

Which is typical. Another failure like all of my other escape attempts. It had been bad enough that I didn't start running as soon as my name was called. When the keepers grabbed me by the shoulders, and I could feel my insides catching fire within my body. To the point that I couldn't even express the pain I felt. Just a gasp for air, a tear down my cheek, the perfect picture of a child going off to die. Quietly, with no one to fight for them. Not even myself.

But then I was trapped in the train, nearing the Capitol with my heart in my throat — and all their backs were turned to me, and I threw a vase through the window before I could stop myself. And I don't know what my plan was; I placed my hands on those shards of glass and pulled my torso through, felt the wind flatten me against the steel and choke me with my own dark strands of hair. Even though I was killing myself, I could see the outline of trees blurring past me, and I was still trying to pull my legs through.

At the very least I'd fall into a kinder grave.

But they had me dragged back through just as suddenly, and after a brief moment of shouted words all I can remember is a fist — or maybe a heel — something that collided with my jaw and knocked me out cold. Waking up with my body aching, cheek pressed against mud, cold water in my boots. Or, someone's boots. I kicked them off before I could consider a better option, glancing down at the strange clothes hanging off my scrawny frame. No memory of what happened beyond the dried blood in the palm of my hand.

That's when the anger started, I think. Something more than the panic that had been swelling inside of my chest. More than seeing the other tributes curled up in their prisons, the vast stretch of water so threateningly close to the ground beneath me, and the sound of jeers echoing all around me. The fear was still with me, but something else was, too. A rage that brought my fingers to my belt, grabbing at anything metal and stripping it from the leather. Bringing it to one of the bars — knowing that even if I got out, I would still be exactly where they wanted me.

And they were laughing at me, drawing attention to the fool that couldn't come to terms with their reality. I was working my fingers raw for their viewing pleasure, until I could feel a sudden warmth washing over my still fresh scars. Just another blood sacrifice. I couldn't bring myself to stop, even though it was useless, and I was failing — and then we're here again, with the door swinging open. I run out with such reckless ambition that I'm swallowed up by the water in a matter of seconds.

Breaking through the surface, gasping for air, so focused on the fact that I'm some kind of free that I don't even notice the constant screaming. Until I see the large fins moving through the waves, and feel the way my cuts are stinging, and realize that I have no clue where to go. I flail for a moment, suddenly so sure that there's something lurking beneath me, a creature that I can't even name — and then I'm forcing myself to move forward with what little swimming experience I have.

I've traded all my time for mourning on trying to escape.

Can't stop now.

I slip beneath the water when something slams into my stomach, a mass of grey muscle that swishes in front of me as it fades into the murky darkness. A tail of some short, knocking the breath out of me, bubbles in my vision and salt in my eyes as I try to make sense of an underwater world that has never existed for me before this. Everything in me tells me to get out, to find something to climb and find safety somewhere out of sight — but then there's that restlessness inside of me, that undeniable urge to explore everything, and a tiny glimmer of light just a few feet below me.

So, of course I dive down. With my lungs burning, like all of my other organs, and my eyes wide open even though the skin around them is screaming out, begging me to close them, to use my head — wrapping my fingers around a rusted surface, and forcing myself above the water again. Into the fray once more, into those screams and the sound of churning waves. I finally notice the strange contraption just a short distance away. It's familiar enough that it's made out of wood; some nearly sunken treehouse with pink cloth flying overhead. I propel myself out of the water, using what I now realize is a hook to move myself higher.

It's almost peaceful during the ascent — even with my clothes still weighing me down, and the terrible knowledge that something is moving down there in the depths, and that just a few inches away I'll be expected to fight for my life. Like I've watched on the television set for the last four years. I turn for a moment, nearly there, letting the aches move through my body as my hair brushes across my face in the breeze. And there's only this massive lake, and the blur of other wooden machines on the horizon, and the familiar voices taunting me. All of us.

The shadow falls across me when I go to pull myself up, one hook and five fingers moving over the edge. And then I stare up at my district partner, a boy I do not know despite our shared home — and I watch as he lifts his boot, holding it over my exposed knuckles. My eyes widen. My breath catches. This is the moment where I stare up at my own death, and I don't even have to wonder how it'll happen. I'll lose my grip, and I'll fall into dangerous waters, and all I'll have to look up at is his face. A face that I can't even hate for betraying me.

What I truly hate is the fact that I start to let go, too stubborn to give him the satisfaction of killing me — just reckless enough to damn myself before he can. But just as I'm slipping his hand reaches down to grab mine, catching my weight with his grasp and pulling me up to stand beside him. We're silent for a moment, just our own breathing and all the other songs of destruction playing around us. I can't find the words to express my gratitude.

Not as I notice his blade, and I feel the absence of one in my own belt loop. I clutch my hook that much tighter, nodding at him with a tight jaw. "You know I'll never get the chance to repay that favor." I think that maybe I'm saying it to myself more than him. In just the blink of an eye, one of us will surely be dead. I've watched this before, as much as I'd like to forget. I know the inevitable. And, fuck, even with my way of thinking there's no escape route. Nothing more than driving this hook through the eye socket of everyone around me.

Even my savior's.

I bring my free hand to my mouth, swallowing down an anxious whimper — then I take a few steps back, turning to look over my shoulder. There are others here, standing with us and climbing up to meet us. But I'm alone. So terribly, undeniably alone. "Do you know where we are?" He doesn't, surely, but I can't stop myself from asking. This is a place I don't recognize, a nameless graveyard with empty tombs. It's a world I've never seen. Never touched. Perfectly, frighteningly uncharted.

My dream grows thorns in my hands, but I don't dare let go. This is not where I disappear.

[ saunders collection '05 - rave ]

we'll never get free
lamb to the slaughter
what you gon' do
when there's blood in the water?

Splash. It was a sound, then the feeling of matter disappearing underneath him. Everything became quiet, if only for a second.

And then his pulse screamed and his arms thrashed. The water had him now, and it was not friendly. The current seized his legs, dragging him down, and the moth-eaten fabric of his clothes now felt a hundred times thicker, a cruel second skin draped over his first. He screamed, or thought he had. Everywhere bubbles sizzled like he was in a pot ready for army stew.

He was drowning.

He remembered a word for it in another language he knew –溺死的– where the characters had arms that thrashed his own. Swim, he urged himself. Ilya couldn’t let this mark his end, although it wouldn’t be too bad to make history as the first tribute who succumbed to a watery grave. His eyes got used to the stinging and he opened them underwater to do a sweep of his surroundings.

It felt all too quiet in the depths and suddenly he understood why.

Everything here looked frozen in time except for the silhouettes of other tributes he could see around them. What light that broke through the surface was reduced to shafts and fragments here, and shadows flickered almost languidly on the hazy spread of the floor he could barely make out. Ilya found it peaceful for a sliver of a moment. 

Then, there.

A twinkle of light, as if beckoning him.

And ever the curious, he corrected his muscles and tried to wrestle control of them from the water, paddling his way towards the flashes. He’d read of sunken treasures in storybooks before, and as he took in exactly what the light had come from, he thought the stories to be true. The weapons glistened like they were abandoned there by spirits and oni’s, although he knew it was another excuse to make the story bloodier.

Ilya pulled free a long pole with a point at the end. It felt light enough for him to wield. Despite his short stature, he had always been strong in a lithe sort of wa, thanks to the long hours spent carrying heavy piles of books for the nomads and training with them, too. Members of Candlekeep protected history, wrath onto everyone that attempted to destroy scribbled time.

Now he needed to get back to the surface. Tilting his head back, it looked far away, but the water tricked him. His legs flexed, and his arms swept.

Every ounce of blood in his veins froze, however, once he saw the silhouettes that flicked around him. He had dismissed them as other tributes struggling the way he was but now that his eyes had adjusted to the saline waters, he saw snatched glimpses and … it wasn’t tributes. It wasn’t human. Could it be? Ilya’s heart lurched in his chest. He was going to say impossible but that word had lost its meaning long ago. Nothing was impossible when it came to the whims of these games. The most harrowing punishment, he remembered reading in a book once.

And as he began to desperately paddle, he knew that was the ultimate truth. The dark shapes cut through the waters like razors across wet paper, and they came fast, as quick as hunters on their prey. Move, he urged his muscles, trying to get them to acquire more speed. He knew it wasn’t enough when he saw a glint of teeth.

Ilya screamed.

It was wound in salt. Briny water flooded down his throat, and he choked on it as he swept his harpoon recklessly.

In the haze his pain wove in his head, he remembered a story from long ago of a creature called 鮫人, which meant shark-man—

a grey-scaled humanoid with inky black gills and rows of serrated teeth that befriended a fisherman and cried tears of rubies for him. Though the shark-man’s tears, the fisherman became rich.

The only things true about the story though, were the teeth and the ruby rivulets. But it wasn’t the shark that cried them, it was Ilya’s skin.

Move, he urged himself even more strongly. The wound he knew was at his side stung as he rose to the surface, and then broke it after what felt like a painful eternity. Air swelled the dried gourds of his lungs, made the burn in them so much more palpable. He searched wildly to get his bearings until he saw the ship.

Ilya made for it.

His clothes, his stupid clothes, made the swim so much harder than it should be, and by the time he’d reached the wooden belly of the vessel, every part of him ached from a dizzying mix of pain and fatigue. He soldiered through it like he was reading a tedious book, although the two weren’t that similar. He strapped his newfound weapon to his back, and then clambered on board with a great, agonizing heave.

His arms were burning by the time he set afoot on the ship. Every breath hurt. He pressed on the bright burst of pain that pulsed on his side, and looked down as his hand came away red.

“Пиздец,” a hiss of thick syllables—damn it. This particular language was the best to be vulgar in.

As he kept pressure on the wound, he looked around at the people that had begun to climb up on board like they were washed up here, driftwood on wet floorboards. The ship lurched slowly as if they rode on the polished back of some great, mythical creature. Sunlight bore down hard on Ilya’s shoulders. He needed to find a hiding place, or unstrap the weapon on his back. After a moment of thought, he chose to do the latter.

Better he hid after having a weapon in his hand.

He watched the others, and the tension that immediately brewed on the ship was palpable, thick as smoke. They were at an impasse for now, but for how long? It was the calm before the storm, the spark before the fire.

They had to fight. The reminder of what happened when tributes refused was stamped in his soul, as it was he who recounted the events of the games before this towards the scholars for archiving. Lions. Lizards. Crocodiles. His knuckles whitened around the length of the harpoon.

"Do you know where we are?" the girl* near him asked, and he answered in a murmur without skipping a beat:

"A place where history is made."

the price of your greed
is your son and your daughter
what you gon' do
when there's blood in the water?

[ saunders collection '05 - rave ]

The ship's name was Helen's Revenge. I had my weapons in hand, and looked at the other tributes. This was it. The Hunger Games. The Fifth Annual Hunger Games. They were about to begin, and I was going to be right in the middle of it. I looked more beat up than the other tributes, at least a little bit. It's not my fault the sharks wanted a piece of my ass.

No one had attacked yet.

We were all just sort-of gathered there, seeping wet, bloody and holding weapons. A bunch of kids, ordered to kill each other. I was going to try, too. I was going to try to win this, no matter how bad my wounds were already. I had to get back to Bellia. I'd promised myself that, after all. There was a reason I was chosen. There had to be. It was to win. It had to be.

I looked from tribute to tribute. I was pretty sure one of the kids was from my District, but I wasn't positive. I'd only caught a glimpse of him at the reaping, and I'd never gotten the chance to speak to him.

Other than that, I couldn't place anyone. They were all strangers. Even the boy from my District was a stranger, I suppose. I had to let that help me. Maybe them being strangers would make it easier to fight them. Easier to kill them.

I didn't know what I would feel in the moment, if I did kill one of them, but I suppose that was to be seen. Would I be like one of those cruel-seeming tributes who liked the blood, or would I be like one of the tributes who wanted to repent for all the damage they inflicted on other tributes? Or one of the tributes who showed mercy?

I don't think I'll show mercy.

I have to fight for Bellia.

She'd want me to come home, and I want to be home for her.

I want to come home, and I want to live.

Survival is probably the goal of most of the tributes here, though. I'm one of twenty-four. The chances are low, but that doesn't mean I can't try.

Weapon in hand, I prepare myself, and it looks like I will have to strike first.

Before I attack, however, I speak to the boy (the one I vaguely recognize) on the other end of my weapon[*].

"Let the Games begin."

Then, I lunge.

-----
notes:
*d8m, Penn Garrick

[ saunders collection '05 - rave ]

It was an arduous affair. Swimming. Something I've never done in such a place as this. The largest body of water I've ever set foot in was the clawfoot tub in my father's old house. Before the Keepers blew off his head with one of his own guns. The irony, I always think whenever the memory flashes in my mind's eye. Most girls would be sad, shed a tear for their late papa, but not me.

"Fuck him," I mutter under my breath as the cell door before me opens with a loud creak, water rushing in and soaking the boots they gave me before dawn.

He got what he deserved. The thoughts come and I don't stop them. I let them control me, for far too long than I should. I let them overwhelm me until my hands are balled into fists and I'm lunging at the wall over and over until my knuckles bleed. He's the reason I'm here in the first place.

They call it a reaping. 
In Nine we just call it a death sentence.
But the only way out is through.

So, I swim. Or try to, at first. The concept is awkward and the water here is freezing. It tastes disgusting, almost causing me to gag the first time I submerge myself with an open mouth. Ugh, don't do that ever again, I make a mental note and keep my mouth shut the rest of the way. At least until I feel something brush against my leg beneath the surface.

"What the fuck IS that?" I shout out, popping back up above the water, heart racing and panic starting to set in. This isn't fresh water. It's salt. "REALLY? SHARKS?" Another shape emerges and this time I spot a fin and it's headed right for me, but I'm so close to the ship. I just need to make it. I clench my fist and try to swing. Despite the water slowing down my momentum, I make contact with rubbery flesh. It's a glancing blow, but I use the creature's shock to take off as fast as I can, reaching the ladder before it can catch me. Thank fuck. 

"Am I late?" I heave myself up and over the railing of the ship and collapse atop the deck, laying there for a moment to catch my breath. Soaking wet with a long, deep gash across my torso now, I'm ill-prepared for what's to come. But without missing a beat, the fighting starts. Weapons clash and blood splatters onto the floor. But as I push myself up to my feet, I realize this is nothing like what it looks like on television. That's an actual rusted hook that girl just swung with the intent to kill. There's a real sword sheathed at my side that I'm meant to use to defend myself. In this place, it's life or death. Watching it on a tiny screen makes it seem so fake. Like it's scripted. Like a show you're meant to watch intently and then forget about as soon as it's over. But that means I'm just as forgettable as the last hundred or so kids who have died in this very circumstance. 

And that just won't do.
I'm nothing if not memorable.

I unsheathe the blade on my hip. It glistens under the mid-day sun. As I look over to my target, a girl who looks more dead than alive, I think of my father.

He always said to never bring a knife to a gunfight. 

Little did he know, I am a sword.
I am sharp edges. 

I am a knife.

[ teddy attacks kaira ]

yKw1q|rJFusword

[ miss lolz ]

[ saunders collection '05 - rave ]

we'll never get free
lamb to the slaughter
what you gon' do
when there's blood in the water?

“Not mine.”

Ilya turned to take a quick glimpse of the other then. She was such a contrast to the rusted hook she held in her hand, every part of her youthful and folded neatly together like an origami swan ready to unfurl its wings. What was this girl’s story, he wondered absently. Was she a princess lost in the woods, or an heir to a grand family name? Was she a wanderer, or just a girl trying to overcome her growing pains?

He would never know.

This was a place was where history formed, and that meant what came before this competition did not truly matter in the grand scheme of things. They were all a single current of history that flowed a winding path from one to another, a river emptying into itself. All of the dead would become history, and the one left alive would have to carry it all like their own personal amulet.

And Ilya was fine with that.

That was what historians did. He couldn’t let his guard down here.

By then, another face emerged over the origami girl’s shoulder. “Duck,” he said to her, his first and only warning, as sunlight caught onto the silver of a blade.

But the attack wasn’t meant for her – it was for a sandy-haired boy, someone that looked like a prince but bled like all commoners. First blood had been shed. The impasse had become undone.

Ilya turned on a heel as his district partner, loud and boisterous, joined the fray. It had begun, it had begun, it had begun. The clockwork gears in his head whirled to being the moment he searched his surroundings. There was ample room to run and hide, but what would be the punishment for that? He wasn’t eager to find out.

Clench of a fist, his body insisted – fight. Sear your history into the wood of this ship, crave your history into the flesh of this world.

He caught sight of a boy who clambered on board before him, a quiet wallflower that hadn’t spoken yet. Ilya knew at first glance, they would be put in the same category – he wasn’t one to squander his time on spoken words, too – but he was far from a flower. Children born in the border towns he grew up in are a tangle of thorns that sprouted from wild and brazen hinterlands. He may be paper, but he cut all the same.

After trying to catch his eyes, Ilya dipped his chin in the lowest, and briefest, of nods at the boy. Осторожно. It was a word burly-shouldered men loved to hiss from their vodka-stained lips, and it meant ‘beware.’

That was his first and only warning.

[ ilya attacks boone, unarmed ]

x8LUnapPayunarmed

5099 -- Thrown to Ground -- 0.5 damage (Unarmed)

He lunged, yet stopped short before they made contact. The momentum, however, was already there and it lent him the necessary force to kick the legs out from under the boy. Ilya turned on his heel again, facing him in a matter of seconds. But this time, the rusted weapon strapped to his back glistened in his hand. 

the price of your greed
is your son and your daughter
what you gon' do
when there's blood in the water?

[ saunders collection '05 - rave ]

"Okay," they say to me. "Let's play to end it." Then, she lashes out with the rusty hook that resides in her grasp. I duck out of the way, avoiding her strike. A serious expression makes its way onto my face. I'm ready to fight, but I'm not ready to die. I'm going to do whatever it takes to try to win.

Another tribute is after me now, too.

"Am I late?" she questions as she swings her weapon at me. I step back just in time, and her attack misses.

The boy I had struck to start all of this speaks up, insisting we don't have to do this, only to be dive-bombed by seagulls. The Capitol punishing him, perhaps? I wouldn't be surprised, honestly. They want to see the blood. They don't want us to just stand around.

One boy is thrown to the ground by another, and I sincerely hope I can stay on my feet.

I hear the snap of bone. The boy I'd attacked gets hit by the one who'd been tripped, and I can just tell that his arm is broken. Ouch. That guy packs a punch. Luckily, with the boys preoccupied, I can focus my attention on my attackers.

"Two on one isn't exactly a fair fight, now is it?" I question them. "I suppose we don't fight fair here, though."

I don't know why I suddenly have so much confidence in the way I speak, but I'll take it. Normally, I'm a bit shy and awkward, at least back home. I may be confident in my appearance, but when words surface, I'm often at a loss.

My hands are sweating, but I hold my harpoon tight in one hand while my sword is in the other, refusing to let go of either of them.

I'm still drenched from swimming in the water, and it's dripping onto the deck of the ship. No wonder that boy was knocked off his feet so easily. I have to keep myself grounded, though. Falling isn't an option, and giving up isn't an option. The only option is to fight and to try to win, so that's exactly what I decide to do.

[ saunders collection '05 - rave ]