Piercing

Holland (D8)

"Someone's been here," Lissom says sharply, eyes whipping furtively back and forth. She doesn't look like she should still be standing up. It's as if the third of the brown blanket, which is wrapped around her shoulders as a shawl, is the only thing holding her together. Nonetheless, she clutches her knife in her right hand.

"What clued you in?" Skiff replies dryly, making a face at the heavy, burnt smell that hangs in the air. He, too, is looking hollow, but much less feverish than Lissom.

"Both of you," I sigh. "Let's look around."

I'm feeling marginally better since the bread we received last afternoon. Lissom all but stabbed me when I offered her my portion, and I was thankful, in the end, that she didn't take it. It's lovely to have something in my stomach again, though my system is really not used to it. I shouldn't be surprised.

We've reached a sort of rest stop thing. In fact, that's exactly what it is. The sign says as much. What little ground is free from concrete is beaten down by footprints, though there is no one in sight.

"Do you think mutts got that Career?" I ask. "Could the rest of them be ahead of us?"

Skiff huffs under his breath. "Unlikely. Wasn't it the girl from Two and the boy from Three ahead of us? It's them we're worried about. The Careers are down to two. And only one of them is really dangerous."

Lissom stops, tilting her head to look at him.

"What do you mean? They're both Careers. Both have higher scores than any of us."

"The one from Two isn't much bigger than us. He only got a seven, no? There are three of us. We could take him. He didn't even volunteer."

Lissom scoffs, stopping again. She raises an eyebrow at Skiff. I've been around the two of them long enough to know that she's about to launch off on an explanation of why Skiff is wrong, which will lead to a counterargument by the latter that will get them both nowhere and lead to a whole lot of annoyance as I play peacemaker.

"You know what?" I cut in, as she is about to speak. "I'm going to look at the machines. One of you should check the building, and I'd appreciate it if one of you would come with me. Sound good?"

Skiff shoots Lissom a withering look, which she immediately reciprocates.

"I'll go with Holland," Skiff says, not looking away from her.

"Have fun," she mutters, breaking off and stalking into the sheltered area.

"Look, man, can you at least try to get along with her?" I say, annoyed, as soon as she is out of earshot.

His reply is an annoyed sort of sniff.

We walk over to the machines, which I inspect. They're very colorful, and I don't recognize them. I turn to Skiff, who shrugs. One of them has a large hole in the glass panel. It appears to have been punched, likely by someone very strong and extremely angry. Most of the supplies are gone.

"They're… food machines?" I suggest, and Skiff shrugs again, inspecting the glass-paneled machine thoroughly. He taps the little keypad, and I think I see recognition in his eyes.

"Holland! Do you still have those little disks?" He asks quickly, the words tripping over themselves as they leave his mouth.

"Yeah," I say, struggling to pull the entire handful from my pocket. "What, are they finally going to be useful?"

"I think so," he says, snatching four of them and forcing one through a slot I barely noticed.

A little screen lights up, with the number '25'. I can feel my eyes widen. "What's it doing? Try adding another!"

The screen reads '50'.

Skiff's stopped paying attention to the slot, and begins to look over the jumble of packages inside.

"You know," says Lissom, appearing like a wraith behind us. "I could probably reach most of what's in there. You shouldn't waste the discs. Try them in the ones where you can't see the stuff."

I nearly jump in surprise, but Skiff, not as startled, nods grudgingly.

"How do I get them out?" he asks.

Wordlessly, Lissom points to a little silver button marked 'coin return'.

"Do I press it?" He says, turning to me for guidance. All I have to reply with is a shrug. I don't like the inconspicuous little button. I have a bad feeling altogether about the machines, in fact, but my stomach tells me not to think about it, just to get the food.

"Go ahead," Lissom replies, though he did not ask her. She takes a few steps away, though, as if she is expecting something to explode.

"Be careful," I advise him. "You're welcome not to."

I, too, step to the side, surveying the machine. Towards the bottom, I can see a large slot with a bizarre slant outward. Moving further towards the machine with pictures of bottles, I can see that it has a similar one.

Skiff bites his lip, glances first at Lissom and then at me, and smashes the button, quickly withdrawing his hand. The machine makes a tinny sort of gurgle, and nothing happens.

"Check the slot? On the bottom?" I suggest tentatively, and he shrugs, kneeling down to check for the two coins.

"I can't see a thing… it's awfully dark… hold on!"

The machine has started to whir, and I can hear a clink reminiscent of the sound the coins made in my pocket. I look up, to see Lissom's eyes wide, her mouth half-opened as if she is about to say something important, but rethinking it.

"Um," she says quickly, noticing that I can see her, "Skiff… you might wanna…"

A streak of silver shoots from the slot, its path angled slightly upwards. It covers the distance between its point of origin and its destination almost too fast to see, and I can't get so much as a word in before, slightly slower, it hits the pavement in a spray of blood.

Skiff, leaning up towards the slot, crumples. I'm lunging forward… there hasn't been a cannon yet, maybe we can save him… but Lissom moves much faster than me, leaping over his spasming body and trying to push me out of the way.

"Holland… wait!" she growls, her eyes flickering to the machine and back to me. "Come on! Move!"

"I need to help him!" I insist, pushing past her easily.

"Just wait! Wait! Get out of the way, or you're going to die!" Lissom shrieks, throwing all her weight onto her shoulder and knocking me to the ground, my face a few inches from Skiff's.

The machine makes another guttering clunk, but I can barely hear it over the cry that escapes unbidden from my lips. Skiff's eyelid hangs in tatters, twitching along with the rest of him over the tear in his eye itself. While the wound itself is deceptively clean, a sickening, clotted pool of blood extends from the base of his skull.

Lissom's fingernails dig deep into my arms, and my vision clears to her face contorted in some sort of emotion. She rolls away, her hand pressed tight to the shoulder that… blood is seeping out from under her hand, too.

And it's just such an awful moment. Everyone is bleeding. Skiff is dying, and if not for Lissom, I could be as well…

"I don't think we can do anything for him," she says gently. "He's lost too much blood. I'm sorry you couldn't help him."

"I can't… I can't see this…" I choke, trying to turn away.

"Cover your ears and close your eyes," she advises.

I obey, but my fingers can't keep out the sickening crunch as she crushes his throat with a bare foot, and the thin membranes over my eyes don't stop me from seeing it in my mind, over and over.

"Stand up, keep your eyes closed," says Lissom, putting a hand on my shoulder and steering me away from the machines as a cannon overhead seals my friend's fate.

My breathing is fast and uneven, which I know isn't good, but I can't seem to slow it down. Once I feel a shadow over my head, I open my eyes a crack. The scenery has changed, and we're in a huge, grungy, tiled bathroom. Air rushes in from the poorly sealed roof, and through a yellowed window in the ceiling, I can see a flash of orange as the hovercraft passes.

I choke back another sob as Lissom limps her way to a stall in the back of the room and closes the plastic curtain. Water hits the tiles, and I can tell time is moving forward, but I can't seem to bring myself to move.

Skiff was so real. I knew him, and I knew his flaws, and I knew that he did have a few good points, and I knew what they were… he was smart, he did what he thought was right… and though Perl, who I also knew, died… she wasn't as real. I didn't know her for as long, or as well.

Lissom, still in her brown swimming-suit and dripping wet with water and diluted blood, shivers as she walks over to join me by the door.

"I should have taken his jumpsuit," she says through chattering teeth.

"Don't talk like that!"

"I'll talk however I want. He's dead. We've managed to stay alive. He'd want us to have the best shot possible at winning."

"He's dead, and we're alive! Don't you feel bad about that?"

"And at least one of us won't be alive for much longer. Why are we discussing this?"

"Because we're people! Our responses to… to terrible things like this… are what define us!" I say, frustrated. "And right now, you're not acting very human."

She begins to dry herself off with paper towels from a slot in the wall, knotting a few together to make a sort of bandage for the still-open wound in her shoulder where the second coin sliced through her. It must not be as bad as it looks, because she barely seems to notice.

"Look, Holland," she says slowly. "I can tell that you're upset. And I get that, okay? But this was something you had to come here expecting to happen. People die in the arena. Lots of people die. Sooner or later, you were going to run into it personally."

I grind my teeth in frustration, feeling tears wet on my cheeks.

"What's the deal with you?" I ask finally. "You didn't just see him die… you killed him."

"I don't like to see suffering. It was for the best."

"Was it? Was it really?"

Lissom rounds on me, looking extremely tired.

"Okay, look, Holland. This is how I deal with stuff, okay? I don't talk it out. I'm not big on sharing anything. I'm hurt, and I'm cold, and this is really not the best time to get on my nerves."

"I saved your life," I say slowly, reluctant to pull out my trump card and already regretting it.

"In case you haven't noticed, I saved yours as well," she growls, her eyes narrowing, her hand flying to the bandage on her shoulder. "Did you see where you were headed? The machine could have taken you out exactly like Skiff, but it didn't."

"Oh…"

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry. Is there anything I can do?"

"Head on out, you can help me by making a fire. I just don't like talking, okay? Can we agree to be quiet for a few minutes?"

I nod numbly, walking out the door with a handful of brown paper towels for tinder. Lissom follows me a few seconds later, arms absolutely full of swaths of paper. She deposits her load on a scuffed concrete bench, and begins doffing around in the machine that brought us so much trouble in the first place.

As the fire is beginning to catch, and I am feeling a bit better, she walks over with a handful of bags.

"There weren't many left," she says simply, handing me a bag that says 'Funyans'. "But it should be enough to keep us going."

She slashes a hole in her own bag with her knife, and cuts open mine as well after a minute or so of struggling to open them without hands. The salty smell is intoxicating after so long without anything more flavorful than a piece of bread.

While I continue on and eat another bag after the first, Lissom looks vaguely ill and refuses.

"I can't just watch you sit there," I say, biting my lip.

"Yes you can. Eat up," she mutters, standing laboriously and beginning to construct a sort of nest from the paper towels.

Halfway through, she seems to run out. "I could go get more," I suggest.

"No, I'll do it."

I put my head in my hands, feeling the heat of the fire on my skin. It's just… so awful. Living. Being here, in the arena. Skiff being gone. Lissom being Lissom. I've got no one to talk to. And I'll probably die soon enough and remove myself from the whole equation.

At least life can't get any worse.


I'm not even going to try to apologize enough, seriously... just let it be known, the plot as a whole has undergone a major(and by 'major' I mean ENORMOUS AND RATHER DIFFICULT TO THINK ABOUT) overhaul. And... school. Just school. Seems to be the excuse of choice lately.

Anyway, it would pay to disregard pretty much any hints I've dropped up until now.

If LittleSchemer could PM me about her 'supermagicalgiftoptionthing', that would be awesome. :3

And as always, thank you for reviewing. You all keep me sane through these trying times of schoolwork and writer's block.

Edit: Eepta, some formatting issues... trying to fix this. Thanks for putting up!

This update's question: Let's talk about the 'apocalypse'. How did you prepare? How would you, if you knew it was going to happen?