Arena, Day Six.
Vance Derora, 16 years, District Eight Male.
I know how to fix certain things, but not everything.
There's no real way to tell if something in Kelsea's ankle or foot is actually broken. It certainly looks it, but I'm no doctor. Her foot has swelled to twice it's normal size, purpled and blackened all along the side and stretching up into her calf.
If it's not broken, I may as well just jump off a balcony right now. There's no way I could be any more wrong.
She can't put any weight on it, not that I've even really let her try, and even hopping around seems to hurt. It's not like I've ever even broken anything. Maybe in a few days it'll be better, but who knows if the two of us will even still be here come then.
It's a bit easier when she's sleeping, or at least dozing on and off. I've got her spare boot tucked away into her backpack but I don't imagine she's going to need it anytime soon. The first-aid kit is doing approximately nothing, because there's no magical cure for a broken bone in there. If only someone would send us one, it would solve at least one of our problems.
What we do have is the barest supplies imaginable in this hell of an arena. The bandages won't do any good as is, but maybe combined with something that could help keep her leg straight for the time being. It takes me enough time just to find some pieces of wood that aren't full of splinters, and even longer than that to arrange them into something that even mildly resembles a splint.
I don't know how much good it will do, but even a single percent is better than what we currently have.
I'm about to shake her awake, gently as I can, when I smell it.
That's been the one blessing, up until right now. Every other sense getting assaulted was alright as long as I had one to myself, even if I didn't realize it until right now.
And I seriously didn't realize it until I smell the smoke.
It almost feels like I'm imagining it. It wouldn't exactly be the first time I'd imagined something that wasn't there, now would it? I sit there for longer than I probably should, but the acrid, bitter tang of the smoke only gets stronger in the air. The door is mostly closed, and when I see the faintest wisps of smoke in the hallway, too much like the shadows that appear in the night, that's when I decide it's time to properly freak out.
I reach over and shake Kelsea's shoulder, stumbling to my feet. The unsteadiness is almost gone but it still takes everything in my power to stay upright as I open the door and stumble out into the hallway. Maybe that's because I don't want whatever's happening to be a real thing.
"What's going on?" Kelsea asks blearily. The smell is even stronger out here and I draw my shirt up over the bottom of my face, struggling to breathe.
"What day is it?"
"Six? I think." Her eyes are slowly widening, as the smell reaches her as well. "Why?"
When she told me about the first tower I almost didn't believe her. It's like my body didn't want me to be awake for that, and maybe that was for the best. Still, looking down and seeing nothing but the ruined ground where the first tower had been was like a punch to the gut.
Three towers, three days.
I almost don't want to be right.
"Okay, you put the backpack on," I tell her. The smoke's coming thicker from one end of the hallway, where the stairwell is. I'm sure there's another one somewhere along the opposite side, and the air seems clearer that way.
There's still a small part of me that's panicking. It feels like the ground beneath my feet is growing warmer by the second, and I don't know if it's real or not. By the time I screw my head back on straight Kelsea has somehow struggled to her feet, the backpack over her shoulders, holding my half-finished splint. She half slides and half hops towards me, wincing with every foot she gains.
"What is this?" Kelsea asks, waving it at me, and yeah. Maybe my craftsmanship really isn't that great. That's why Dad fixes things and not me, the cars from the rich parts of the square and the broken radios, the projectors.
We all know what my hands were built for, and it's not that.
"Doesn't matter. Up you get."
She gives me a doubtful look as I crouch down but grabs my shoulders anyway, and her struggling onto my back is easily one of the most awkward things I think she's attempted thus far, but at least my hands can be free if I need them to. She loops one arm around my shoulder and holds onto the splint with the other. I hook my hands under her knees and haul her up a bit further.
It's not the worst set-up we've ever had.
"What do you think's happening?"
I can't manage anything but uncertain silence. Kelsea won't take that as an answer, and even though we're headed away from the smoke she tugs at my shoulders, all but steering me into the nearest room. There's only one window, half-boarded up, but she pokes her head through it, leaving me hardly any room to see at all.
I didn't want to be right.
The water down on the ground has been getting worse for days now, flooding everything in sight. It's nearly covered the entire first floor by now. No one's going down there now, not unless it's one of the Fours. There's no way to move buildings except for the bridge.
It doesn't really help that half the building below us is on fire either.
You can't even hear it, the crackling of the flames. Despite the rain drowning everything out the fire continues to grow higher and higher by the second as we stand there and watch it.
It's maybe ten or so odd floors from the bottom of the bridge, and we're a little bit further than that up above it.
"I was really hoping it wasn't that," I manage, but there really isn't any time to focus on that.
I tighten my hands around her knees, and she clutches harder at my shoulders, and I take off for the stairs.
Early Sinnett, 14 years, District Three Female.
I'm never going in a building again when this is all over and done with.
Every single thing we've seen or stumbled upon has been nothing but bullshit at the end of the day. No food, hardly any water, not a weapon in sight except for the pen in my pocket that only serves to make me angrier every time I remember it's the only thing I've found.
It's hard to accept the fact that the stupid pen would be the only thing to my name at all if Zion wasn't around and so willing to share the contents of his backpack with me. That level of helpfulness is almost enough to be suspicious, if he hadn't been like that since the very beginning, with virtually everyone.
I'm pretty sure that he's going to make friends with a damn vulture if one of them ever comes close enough for him to try it.
Just once I want something to not happen. I want to think it's happening and for life to push back and tell me it's not, that everything's okay. That I can close my eyes and nap for five minutes without wondering if I'm never going to wake up from it.
Right now is apparently not one of those times.
Though really, what was I expecting, a miracle? Obviously not.
I'm only running ahead of Zion right now because I think the smoke's thinner the lower you are, and he's been giving the skyscrapers a run for their money in the height department since the day he walked in here. Realistically we should be crawling, but we're never going to get to the bridge like that.
I've already seen two people cross the bridge into what I'm sure will be the last remaining tower, the black one. Telling Zion that will only make him panic. Who knows if there are others that have crossed over already. We very well could be the last ones; it took us so long to notice that we probably are.
He's coughing, behind me. Realistically I could probably outrun him. Realistically I could hide on him in five seconds flat and leave him to stumble somewhere on his own and die of smoke inhalation, so why won't I?
Probably because there's no way he'd do the same to me. He'd come after me and die of smoke inhalation too before he ever let that happen. He stood strong and waited for me when the first one fell, was the one who stopped my head from bleeding all through the night.
Speaking of which, I don't think all this running is helping that situation either.
The smoke is so thick by the time we get to the fiftieth floor that I can hardly see and nearly go sprinting right past the door. It's only Zion's hand locking around my arm that even stops me, fingers digging into the point of pain, but that's grounding.
He drags me closer and closer to the bridge. The rain may be bad, as we've previously learned, but it's no worse than being doomed to burn to death.
I notice what Zion doesn't.
Issue is, I notice it way too late. What else is fucking new?
I don't know the science behind it. I just see the icy rain and the flames licking at the bottom of the bridge and how the whole thing is splintered all the way across. It cracks again, a sharp, ugly sound, and then Zion's foot hits it.
That's apparently the last thing it needs.
Several shards of glass spiral away towards the ground, and it's only his momentum that saves him. He launches himself further out, towards the bit that at least looks intact for now. His grip on my arm is simultaneously the best and worst thing to ever exist in the world.
He hurls himself so hard forward that my feet have no choice but to slide forward, directly into the space where the bridge is already falling, and then I fall with it.
There's almost nothing to describe the sickly, bottomless pit of your stomach when it realizes that there's no longer anything beneath your feet. Zion's hand is still locked around my arm, even as the last of the glass cracks away. He falls to the ground, slams into it really. He nearly pulls my arm out of my socket I slam to a halt so fast, swinging away in the empty air.
He reaches his other arm down and his fingers close tight around my wrist. That still doesn't really stop me from noticing the fact that I'm hanging fifty stories above the ground with nothing but his bare hands to stop me from falling, already reddened by the rain.
"Stop wiggling, stop," he demands, and I fall still, feeling far too much like a dead fish for my liking, soaked to the bone. At least moving gave me some purpose. Now I'm just hanging her waiting for him to either pull me up or lose his grip, whatever happens first.
"We're having really bad luck with these buildings," Zion points out after a second, cheek pressed hard to the glass, the broken edges digging into his skin. His grip on my arm hasn't faltered once, even with the rain.
"Yep. Pull me up now please."
Thankfully he ignores the frantic edge to my voice, as he very carefully starts to wiggle back, pulling me with him. It seems almost effortless to him, as he gets both my forearms up over the edge and then the rest of my torso. As soon as I get a good grip on the railing he lets go with one arm, reaching down to tangle his hand in the back of my jacket. That's grounding too, oddly enough, a reassuring weight against my spine.
He manages to sit up, taking me with him. I've got to be crushing one of his legs but he doesn't seem to mind, as he stares at the end of the now second broken bridge, the burning building just a few feet away.
"Fuck this arena," I decide. I'm holding onto him, now, because I can still feel that sickness in the bottom of my stomach from when I thought I was going down with the bridge, and it wasn't a feeling I particularly enjoyed.
After a moment, Zion manages a smile. God, is he weird.
"I'm with you on this one."
Well, it's about time.
Isi Akiloff, 17 years, District Five Female.
I don't know which one of them I'm annoying more.
The rhythmic tap tap tap of my foot hitting the ground has to have gotten to them by now. Shirin's good at ignoring things, always has been, but the tilt of his head away from the source of the noise is still noticeable. Away from me.
For once, Tanis is hiding it better. Maybe she's learned to accept it and really isn't annoyed at all. She did deal with Camden every waking minute of the day, after all. When you look back at him, maybe I'm a much smaller blip than even I've realized.
The skin at my ankle is still distorted where the shadow grabbed me, almost white before the coil stops about halfway up my calf. I keep waiting for something to happen, to wake up screaming in agony like my leg's been set on fire, but nothing has. It feels like a mark of death, like I've been branded. It's something or nothing at all, and who knows if I'll ever find out.
Shirin leans his head into his hand, fingers flitting over his ear. Yeah, he's definitely trying to drown out the sound I'm making, and god is it satisfying. Even Tanis notices that, and smiles at the sight, ducking her head back down before Shirin can see.
The three of us don't fit together. That's obvious enough. There's a fire raging outside and the water rises far below us with every passing second but the mystery of us seems so much more prominent than wondering about what's happening outside.
"Stop," Shirin says finally, quietly. I think he's used to saying it and people actually listening, whereas he hasn't figured that out with me yet. It's almost funny to watch him try.
I rest my boot flat on the floor and tap my fingers along the ground instead, one after the other.
Tanis never stops smiling.
"If you don't wipe that look off your face—"
"What?" Tanis replies instantly. "You're the one more upset by her making a noise other than breathing than the fact that you killed someone a few days ago. What are you going to do? It's a fact."
It's almost comical, how bold she's getting with him. She's doing the same to me, obviously, but the difference is he's annoyed by it and I'm not. I much prefer this to the judgmental looks I felt like I was on the receiving end of before.
"Go on, act like you're a good person, if that helps you sleep at night," Shirin says. "Everyone here knows you're not."
"I haven't—"
"Killed anyone? Congratulations. Still doesn't make you any better than the two of us. You can act morally upright all you want, shit on me for it, but we both know you're not. Just because you haven't gotten your hands dirty yet doesn't mean you're an innocent little angel."
"Says Mr. Holier-than-thou," I mutter.
I never thought he would be the buzzkill in all of this. I also never thought I'd be sitting here, siding with Tanis of all people, because there's no one else to side with. There's no way she thinks she's an angel, not when she's watched us kill two people and said nothing against it.
She wants to go home too. She doesn't care who gets her closer to that point.
"Well, if you don't think she's doing enough," I say. "Then let's go do something. I'm bored anyway."
"Should've stood at the edge of the bridge and killed anyone who ran across," Tanis grumbles under her breath, sounding irritated. Great, now they're both pissy. I thought I was that enough for all three of us, but apparently not. I didn't know personality traits spread this fast or this effectively.
"Now that's a good idea," I announce. Clapping my hands together feels like too much. "Let's go."
No one mentions how close the building is to completely demolished, or how the bridge is already pretty thoroughly destroyed. No one else is getting across. It's still better than sitting here doing anything, because I'm getting antsier by the minute. Antsy me is not good.
I offer Tanis one of my knives, which almost feels too dangerous. Even she looks at me in surprise, and then Shirin when he finishes adjusting his backpack, staring at the space between our hands. She takes it from me, as if there was any doubt she would.
I'm already one down, and now two, but we all have to start somewhere. If she wants to prove Shirin wrong, she's going to need something to do it.
I have a feeling she's gonna be doing it sooner rather than later, too.
Rory Mirevale, 17 years, District Four Male.
It's a good thing we got back into the black tower when we did.
It was only a matter of time before they pushed us even closer together. Nine deaths in six days isn't something I ever thought I'd hear. It almost doesn't even sound real.
We're all together, now. There were no cannons, and the tower's nearing a burnt out shell now. No one in there would have survived this long, and no one besides the two of us would dare brave the ground right now. Or the water, rather. There's no land anywhere in sight.
It's unnerving, knowing there are thirteen other people in this same building right now. That some of them could be listening to us walk by right now.
At least Celia has ended her abrupt streak of running off and telling me not to follow her, which was heart-attack inducing for a while there. I don't know if following her is any better, really, if she's just looking for danger. Better to look for it then for it to find you, I guess.
She's been on the quieter side since yesterday, which is weird. The weapons had made her bolder for a bit there, but even that seems to have faded.
I think yesterday was the first time she really looked at me, and I looked back and didn't know what to say.
I didn't really know what to do, either. Even when she had hugged me it had felt like that was about to be ripped away too, even if I knew there was nothing around us to stop it.
Despite the fact that she keeps checking over her shoulder to make sure I'm not far behind, the quiet is still unsettling.
The arrows hardly do anything to quell that, like they have been doing so far. Not even the bow. At least Celia's holding onto the crossbow more than halfheartedly. I'm not even really doing anything other than following along while she pokes her head into rooms and wanders into some, keeping watch out in the hallway.
Nothing in the next room. The door on the next one is wedged shut and she puts her shoulder into it, frowning when it doesn't move. She hits it again and finally gains a few inches, and at her next kick it swings open.
Something also comes swinging down from the ceiling at the exact same time.
I don't have to even yell, because she sees it at the same time. Whatever it is, it's a decent size and spiked, and it comes hurtling through the doorway. Celia hardly gets out of the way in time; she all but throws herself into the room to avoid it hitting her dead on, the thunk of the crossbow hitting the floor audible from out here.
She yelps, and then swears, and I have an arrow notched before I can even really think about it.
Because she's not the only person in the room.
The spikes that came down from the ceiling have stopped swinging, and I finally find myself in the doorway, arrow pointed inwards. Celia's got her right arm tangled in a mass of rope, nearly pinned against the wall, the crossbow a foot away from her feet.
The two people staring at me have completely different expressions. The Five boy, who looks like this is just somehow his normal every day life, and the Nine boy, who looks like he's even closer to throwing up all over his own shoes than I am. He's the one holding the ropes taught, while Five has a shard of glass nearly the length of his forearm.
"First one to make the decision to let me go gets spared," Celia offers. She could throw a knife at one of them, maybe, but with her left arm she's not going to be able to do it that well. The sword's useless and we all know it.
Besides, neither of them are really looking at her. They're both looking at me, and the end of the arrow.
"I knew we didn't build it as good the second time," Nine says weakly. His hands still don't falter at the rope, and neither do Five's eyes. That glass is held too high for my liking, brandished towards her like they've had all of this planned for far too long.
Five takes a step forward and I switch targets. Nine looks more threatening, physically, but I've changed my mind.
The arrow levels somewhere around his chest, his throat.
"Parker, don't. Don't move," Nine pleads. "You guys— wow, I do not remember you guys having weapons before, what the hell?"
Before? Parker's gaze doesn't change, and I can imagine that glass in Celia's throat all too easily. She's still trying to get free but isn't managing much at the current rate. Clearly Nine is panicking, but he's only embodying exactly what I'm feeling on the inside.
I'm panicking. There's no other way to put it. My hands aren't as steady as I want them to be, and I can see the point of the arrow moving. Faltering.
"You're not going to do it," Parker says slowly. "If you were going to kill me, you wouldn't have hesitated in the first place. You won't do it."
He takes another step forward, and I don't let the arrow go. I should, but my hands won't release the bowstring, won't let the arrow fly.
"Rory," Celia says, and looks right at me. She sounds way too calm for the current situation. Whatever she's trying to communicate, it's not working. My brain is literally incapable at the current moment.
"You're not going to kill me," Parker repeats. He's still inching closer and closer to her, and I can practically see her blood all over the floor already, hear the words over and over again. It's too easy to believe them. I didn't come here because I thought I'd wind up killing people to eventually win.
I didn't come here because I thought I'd make it out.
I tighten my grip on the bow, and he stops to watch me. Not because he thinks I'm going to kill him. That's not it.
His fingers readjust along the shard, and he moves.
He moves, and my panic bubbles over.
The arrow's halfway across the room before I even recognize making the conscious decision to release it, and it slams directly into the center of Parker's chest at the same time that Celia manages to rip her arm free of the ropes. Parker staggers backwards with my arrow buried deep in his chest and topples over, landing with a dull thud at Nine's feet. He's trying to say something, nothing but choked air coming out.
Celia slams into me so hard I nearly drop the bow, and she has me out the doorway before Nine even makes a single noise. Like the realization just now hit him.
Somewhere along the way Celia scooped the crossbow back up and now the edge is pressed into my chest, that sharp, uncomfortable point of pain the only thing keeping my feet where they are. That, and her hands, one around my arm and the other on my chest as she wrenches the stairwell door open and pushes me down.
It takes everything in me not to just crumple and fall, a house of cards taken out by the slightest gust of wind.
I don't know how many floors down she takes me, but the bang of the door hitting the wall is synonymous with the cannon going off, and the walls shake and move with the noise.
I can blame the smoke drifting through the entire arena for the tears burning my eyes, but not for the ache in my chest, like the arrow rebounded and hit me instead. It feels like it should have.
"Hey," Celia starts. "Hey, it's fine. You're fine. You were protecting me, okay, everything's fine."
That should make it better. It doesn't. All I can focus on is her hand flat against the side of my neck, and how she must be able to feel my pulse jackhammering against my skin like it's trying to force it's way out.
"It's not," I manage, the only thing that will come out other than frantic air, and Celia no longer looks like she has a solution to any of this. Her eyes are filled with nothing but disbelief, like she didn't see this coming at all. And neither did I.
"It's—"
"Hey!"
The voice startles me so much that it clears a little bit of the fog in my head. Celia whirls around, and Blair's standing at the other end of the hallway, grinning from ear to ear. Dimara pokes her head out of the adjacent room, eyes wide.
"Family reunion already?" Blair asks. "Please tell me that mace is mine."
I forgot about the mace poking out of the backpack, the spear hooked through the straps. Neither of us say anything. I don't know what else I'm even capable of saying. Dimara's eyes narrow, and Blair's face folds, watching the two of us. No one says anything.
"Bad timing?"
Dimara Vespoli, 18 years, District One Female.
Something's gone horribly wrong here.
You can see it all over Rory's face, at the way Celia's looking at him and then back at us like she's not exactly sure where to go from here.
I know I said I didn't think Oeshe actually killed her, but seeing her alive and in front of me six days in is still something else. I still smile when I step out into the hallway, because it only feels right. Not exactly the big reunion I think we were all planning, but it's better than what I expected to get.
Celia cracks a smile, and with Blair waving his arms around the way he is, it doesn't look like anyone's up for attacking anytime soon. We should've seen that coming, the way we were all sticking so close to each other during training. Maybe Tavian really was just doomed to be the one to suffer for it.
Blair, full of tact as always, walks right over to them without a care in the world for what's going on outside of the current situation. Maybe that's a good thing, though. Whatever happened is tainting this entire moment, and if Blair has to tear the walls down to keep that from happening then I'm pretty sure he will. He drapes an arm over Celia's shoulders and then Rory's, although I mostly suspect that he does it so he can get a hand around the mace, wiggling it out of the backpack.
The makeshift one has been doing wonders for his attitude, but nothing compares to the real thing.
"You're my new favorite people," he announces joyously, and the lack of absolutely anything on Rory's face is almost starting to disturb me. Either Blair's ignoring it or he's really, really unobservant.
"Fuck you too," I say, joining them at the end of the hallway. "Gimme a hug."
Celia finally lets go of Rory long enough to turn and hug me. I think we grew closer than we were meant to, or at least supported each other. Hard as it is to admit, it was always different than Oeshe. That was just a chance we took, one that I may have worked out better in another universe.
I don't know if anything of what I'm doing is right, but it has to be.
I told Kali this wouldn't be the end of us.
"You okay?" I ask her, and she nods. "What happened?"
"Maybe just... not here. Probably should get some distance anyway."
Blair eyes the stairwell, still holding onto Rory's shoulder. Well, at least he noticed, and I don't have to call him stupid for it later on. That's a relief.
Besides, it's not like we haven't attempting to lay low ourselves. Trying to find food and water to little avail. Blair's been trying to make me something to use in that time too but there's almost nothing to find in here. Everything good was in the towers that are all but non-existent now, the burnt wreckage slowly sliding down into the water below.
The room we've been staying in isn't much, but it's got a desk to block the door for when one of us falls asleep when we shouldn't.
When we get the two of them inside I shut the door behind us. The smoke out the window is slowly spiraling away into the clouds, the sky becoming clear again. Still nothing on the horizon but the rapidly rising water, and everything underneath it.
It's then that Rory wrestles a spear out from his pack, something I hadn't even noticed, and offers it to me. It feels stupid to have made fun of Blair for it, all of a sudden. Closing my fingers around it feels like finding a missing part of myself, an extension of my own arm.
That's almost how I feel right now, realizing the four of us are actually together.
"Where in the world did you get this stuff?" I ask, turning to Celia.
"Doesn't matter now." She shrugs, trying to look nonchalant about it, but even she looks happy about all of this. It's Rory that I would expect to be happy right now, the one who wanted all of this since the beginning, and I turn back to him.
"What happened?" I repeat. I don't know if I'll get a better answer from him than Celia. His eyes are downcast, staring at the space between his feet, or maybe his fingers locked around the bow.
"Doesn't matter now," he echoes, voice flat, and I have no choice but to accept it.
Kinda like a lot of things.
I turn back, looking at Blair and then Celia in turn. "Allies?"
Blair shakes his head and has the audacity to snort, turning and looking out the window again. This time Celia doesn't manage a smile, but there's no uncertainty in her next words.
"As if there was any ever doubt."
Yeah. As if.
Rooke Arvelle, 16 years, District Nine Male.
The cannon fires, echoing off into the distance, and takes a part of me with it.
It sounds so stupidly cliche, all of it, but I'm staring at Parker's body on the floor and the arrow in his chest and that's all it feels like. A cliche. Like something that should be happening to anyone else but me, right now.
This wasn't meant to happen.
Issue is, I can't make myself move from where I all but fell to my knees next to him. There's still blood soaking rapidly through the front of his shirt, even if his heart's stopped beating. The worst part is his eyes, just that one last brief flicker of horror before he died. He had been so sure.
I feel like I should be screaming. Crying. Hitting my fists against the wall.
Nothing will come out. It's like there's not enough air in the world, all of a sudden. My breath is coming too fast, but that's it. I know that I'm probably two seconds from a panic attack, but nothing I think will make my heart slow again.
It's all back to the first day, when I felt like this. Parker had sat in front of me and apologized and done nothing else, but somehow that had helped.
He's in front of me now too. But I'm not going to get any kind words from a corpse.
There is something so, so wrong with how I feel right now. Laurel had been a shock, like getting hit by a lightning bolt. But watching him step away from me and towards her, I was waiting for it. Waiting for one of the arrows to hit him. He was so certain of himself and I was anything but.
I gave everything to him. The glass, all in his pockets now. The rope, and the wood. My hands aren't going anywhere near him to collect it.
The thing is, with Parker it almost felt like I had a purpose. He told me what to do and where to go and maybe to anyone else that would have been embarrassing. Taking orders from a thirteen year old like I was completely clueless, like I didn't know what life even was.
Sitting here now, I realize why it never bugged me.
Sitting here, I have no idea what I'm supposed to do next.
Get up, move out of this room. Away from his body. That would be what anyone else would do. But what after that? Our trap is done for. The other buildings are gone. The people who just killed him ran off to god only knows where.
"Just tell me what to do," I manage finally. "I don't know what to do."
Nothing happens.
I don't really know why I expected it to.
Not even Crux can save me from myself right now. There's got to be people no matter where I turn, and he can't tell me something as obvious as that. I can't run into anybody.
"Okay, just get up."
Talking to myself already. A really great sign.
I grab the wall behind me and rise unsteadily to my feet. My boots are still too close to him and I step over his legs, nearly crossing half the room with that one step alone. The hallway is thankfully empty. If they were just around the corner waiting for me I don't know what I'd do.
I can't help but turn back, even if it feels wrong. I almost want to go back in, too. Surely something in here could protect me better than this. Just simple old me, with no clue in the world.
The glass is lying a few inches from his outstretched palm, fingers already deathly pale.
I reach forward and close the door.
There's nothing else here for me but a dead body that was working on becoming a friend, in whatever way he knew how to. A thing that almost but not quite existed, even though I never expected it to in the first place.
That room is nothing but a grave now.
It's time to go.
Shout-out to my nephew Barrett who was born Wednesday, who, several years from now, will probably discover all the atrocious things I've done on the internet and be extemely unimpressed.
So the accidental panic murder being a thing for me was like, half a joke, but I'm slowly realizing as I go on that it most definitely isn't. Coupled with someone who shouldn't be killing actually killing someone and you've got my full collection of tropes rounded right up, apparently. Also did it seriously take me three years and three stories to get together a group of entirely almost completely functional Careers? You bet your ass it did.
We're almost to what I'm thinking is my favorite stretch of chapters that I've ever written, I'm pretty sure, so that's exciting as well!
Until next time.