Helen's Revenge [ Bloodbath: Lower Middle District Tributes

The cutting beaks of the birds from above jolt Penn's like an electric current streaming towards water. Their wings flap and push at his neck and his shoulders, their feathers sweeping through his opened mouth as he fights them. They taste like a half-rotten corpse: mortifyingly dead but with just enough personability breathing through to remind him that life lingers, still present in the Capitol masterminds who planned the event.

They continue to blind him with their presence in his face, pulling at his eyelids to still keep sight every now and again. The vision of what is beyond him comes and goes in flashes. Open mouths tell tales of words he wishes he could hear outside of the fluttering caws around him. One swings at another and fails. A fully curled fist turns and damn. Penn falls to the ground, landing elbow first onto his right side. Pain surges all around the arm as he arches his back and shifts his balance off of it.

Maybe the seagulls prefer aerial torment to those barely off of the ground

penn gets attacked by angry seagulls
CmNvJeSlAb1-8
8: 2183 — shallow cut on cheek, 3.5 damage


Maybe not.

They torment him still, picking through his clothes and vulnerable skin. They force their way, eye to eye with him, dilated as if they're the ones being threatened. As if they're the ones whose lives are on the line. The birds back home swarmed for bread, but the ones piercing Penn with a thousand cuts much prefer blood.

The Capitol, and these Hunger Games, seem to be trying to rewrite the food chain. Themselves on the top, Penn and the rest of them on the bottom, everything else in the middle. It's not how it should be.

With the little energy he manages to still possess, he takes a stiff and shaky arm and reaches out to one of the seagulls, pulling it so its body is mere inches away from his, and twists the creature's wing until it squawks louder than he did when they tormented every inch of his body.

It flies away, clearly in pain.

But one by one, he feels a pinch here or there. His calf. His arm. His fingers. His hair. His thigh. His other arm.

He slides. They pull. His vision blurs as his head tips over the side of the ship and he can see the water again. Bit by bit, they pull him over board until his weight off of the ground becomes too much to bear.

He descends, eyes open but unseeing, into the furious body of water below him.

Not everyone must play their game.

[ penn gets dragged off Helen's Revenge by seagulls ]

[ saunders collection '05 - rave ]

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

He was tall. Maybe even taller than himself. And as he sprang back to his feet, there was a fierce look in his eyes that made him tauten his knuckles white around his own weapon, ready for whatever vengeance he would return.

But instead, he was met with a mock raise of hands, a false white flag. Ilya had no intents to lower his weapon at that. Whatever playful demeanor he exuded belied the brutish power of his chest and muscles – and he knew it to be true when the other swung at a nearby boy.

Fist landed in a resounding crack. He couldn’t hide his grimace. Arm bone, fractured at least, best be nursed by a good sling. The omma’s he grew up with would brew freshly-picked herbs and press it to make an earthy tea the color of roots for such an injury. 養生, they termed it; a potion of self-nourishment. It would warm all the way down the hollow of your throat and pool as a well of warmth in your gut, comfort made a tea.

And cold from the water, drenched like a forsaken cat, what he wouldn’t do to drink it again.

Stop, he chided himself. He needed to focus, not squander his attention on sentimental memories. He could drink it after seeing this through. As his eyes steadied on the boy from Seven once more, he caught the flick of silver coming from behind.

And this time, he gave no warning.

Blood spurted, bright and vicious. His eyes saw his district partner and felt the tiniest swell of pride. Nine was not to be underestimated and everyone knew—everyone knew enough not to mess with loaded guns.

The blood would need to be staunched. Like wind through rice fields, he softly muttered, “that’s rough, buddy.”

He tested the heft of his weapon again – heavy, yet not overbearing – as his eyes studied the boy before him like a book.

Table of contents, prologue, id description: male, brown-haired, broad-shouldered, of good build and height. He knew he was strong from the way he carried himself, but also from the way he’d pulled the origami girl overboard. This was brain versus brawn, Athena’s wits against Ares’ wrath. Look him over like a scientific illustration, crisp ink on a bright canvas, find the fault and—

The ship lurched with a deafening boom. His feet skidded across the already wet deck and he fell backwards, the impending jolt harsh enough to punch the air out of his lungs. His ears rang, rang, and rang, tetanus-like.

The golden-haired prince had fallen from the tower of wood. The shattered water in the place where he had fallen was beginning to mend itself when Ilya looked over the railing.

Water flashed like the scales of innumerable fishes, and he was gone, a part of that water now.

The panicked ba-dum of his heart made him scramble up to his feet, albeit arduously. The ship hadn’t stopped shaking from the water’s barest shrug and it was an impossible lottery to win his footing back. Not focused on anyone in particular, he swung simply to ward off anyone that strayed close to him.

Because if not, he would join the boy under the dark waters. He would be here, and then gone, a part of the drowned, a treat for the fishes. He would fade, vanish under the froth. 

And Ilya knows, for boys like him, there are no bookmarks to monument their ends.

[ randomized attack ]

1: 7f Kimber Darby
2: 7m Boone Finch
3: 8f Kaira Cotton
4: 9f Teddy King

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[ ilya attacks boone, spear ]

spear

3006 -- Deep Gash on Chest -- 9.5 damage (Spear)

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 ]

As everything unfolds, my weapon drives its way into a girl's foot. When I mention that we don't fight fair, one of the other tributes agrees. They say it's a rigged game, and she's right.

The boy from my District is suddenly swarmed by seagulls. They rip at him. They tear at him, and they drag him away, into the shark-infested waters below. I don't mean to, but I gasp.

BOOM!

It's the sound of one of the cannons firing, and it throws me off my rhythm. I don't know what I'm doing now. I stumble, and my ears are ringing. I can't even think well enough to think of words to say back to the tribute who'd spoken to me. I grit my teeth. I need to focus.

Letting myself just forget what I'd done so far wasn't an option.

The girl I'd struck cuts deep into the leg of one of the boys as she swings wildly. The boy is then hit again by another tribute, jabbing his spear into the kid's chest. That has to hurt. Really bad, too, I'd imagine.

The ringing in my ears and the sight of all this blood makes it hard to think. I decide that it's best if I just lash out somewhere, rather than not doing anything at all. I lunch with my spear, and hope for the best.

[ saunders collection '05 - rave ]

I can't help but gawk as the blade in my hand nearly slices off the leg of the boy before me. There's a squelch as I pull the sword free from flesh and then blood, so much blood. More than I've ever seen before. More than I've ever caused to seep from a wound before.

Swords are archaic, old and rarely used where I come from. Everything in Nine is crafted from steel and iron, eliciting a gunshot as loud as the crack of a god-like whip from above. But I still prefer a knife. And most of all, I favor stealth. I would rather slip a blade between someone's ribs from behind, so they never saw it coming, rather than clank metal against metal and draw attention with a fight.

The best kind of enemy is a dead one. 

My father's words echo in my head as crimson drips from the tip of my sword onto the deck. It pools beneath the boy's feet and my stomach churns. I know this is what I'm supposed to do. I know that hurting them is the only way I'm meant to survive. But my thoughts are pulled toward the last Games I watched. How all the tributes refused to fight, refused to kill one another for the sake of entertainment.

In the end, it didn't matter. Mutts slaughtered them all anyway, their bodies strewn across the colosseum, but that doesn't mean their message wasn't heard. The fact that I'm standing here taking pause is proof of that. The fact that I'm thinking about them as I walk their same path, wondering if dying for something is a better fate than killing everyone who stands in my way. 

But there's a reason they're all dead and I'm still standing.
So, I tighten the grip on my sword and lunge for another attack, because I refuse to be just another statistic in these death games. 

[ RANDOMIZED ATTACK ]

1 - ilya
2 - penn
3 - darby
4 - boone

HSlHSlI7KV1-4

[ teddy attacks boone ]

sword

[ stabbed in stomach - 9.5 dmg ]

[ saunders collection '05 - rave ]

Even gracelessly, I am not a threat.

Tumbling across the deck, blade in hand, lashing out at the same girl as she crosses my wayward path. I hit the ground as my sword cuts the sky. I try not to let it bother me, even as she counters my attack with a clumsy swipe of her harpoon. It's not intentional, I don't think. At least not on her end. And, yes, I'm still telling myself that I don't want to hurt anyone — but with fresh blood trickling down my cheek, I feel angry.

And useless, too.

A lot of other things I can't name.

Which is better than what comes next. Trying to regain my footing, still unaware of my surroundings, the ship still lurching beneath my feet. I slam into the railing, gripping it for dear life. My district partner comes into view again, eyes shining like cold earth. I still owe him a favor, one I refused to bargain, and I watch as the dark haired girl drives her blade through his stomach. And I gasp in shock, so torn between my desperation to escape and the way my stomach flips so easily. I'm shamefully soft.

But I still reach for him as he stumbles forward, face pale and the front of his shirt stained scarlet. I treated him like the stranger he was, but now as he staggers to the edge of the ship, all I can think about is home. And maybe that's why my emotions are so torn. Why I feel so tethered to him, and so ready to cut him free at the same time. They have to die. I've seen this before. But he slips, and falls, and I hear the cannon blast before he reaches the water.

That leaves four of us. On this ship, at least. I can't really bring myself to think about what the Capitol has planned for those of us who survive. Dodge a bullet, and take the next one straight to the head. And then what it had all been worth? I hold firm to the rails, looking down at the strangers I'm trapped in this cage with. It almost shocks me, listening as they share their names one by one. A mess of stolen youth, and clumsy blades. We share this.

Ilya.

Kaira.

"Darby."

And that's all I can bring myself to say.

Because either way, they'll never get the chance to know me.

I let go.

I always let go.

And I fall right back into war.

[ saunders collection '05 - rave ]