XXXIV: Arena, Morning, Day Seven.
Milo Poliadas, 18
District Two Male
His feet hurt. Lungs hurt. Side hurts.
At this point there's nothing about Milo that doesn't hurt.
A part of him feels like he's been that way for a long time—months, at least. Since he got that knock on the door from one of his parent's supervisors, who, in his almost-detached voice, had said that he needed Milo to come with him. To leave the girls at home.
To, in actuality, identify two bodies so charred they were almost beyond recognition. He's never been able to rid that image from his head, his parents side by side, half of them burnt away. The plastic bag they had handed him hadn't had much in it—his father's wallet from his locker, his mother's small handbag, the wedding rings from each hand that still had bits of skin and char stuck to them on the inside. All of it had ended up pawned away in the weeks after to make ends meet, even as they packed up everything under their roof and moved far from it, somewhere much smaller. More manageable.
Even then it was a struggle.
In this hellish landscape Milo keeps looking about, almost expecting to see them, as if their half-vacant bodies will come walking from between the fiery buildings and what's left of the road-sides, the melting lamp-posts as metal runs into the street, bright silver. There aren't many mannequins left to run amuck at this point, but every one that so much as crosses his peripherals is mistaken, at least for a second, for that of one of his parents. One with a dark wig, scorched at the end, the unmistakable scent of burning hair permeating the air even amongst everything else. A tall, non-descript man that cuts down an alley and disappears into the haze as if he was never there.
A part of Milo almost wants to follow them, but he forces that thought from his mind. It's reckless, which is… laughable, in the very least, as if reckless isn't Milo's middle name or anything. He feels like it would be so easy to get lost among the smoke, be swallowed whole by it. A fitting fate, he thinks, for someone like him.
Some part of his body won't allow him to make that decision, however. The second his mind makes the decision his feet keep him on a certain path, resolute in their decision.
Milo knows where his feet are taking him. He's known for quite some time. It did keep him safe for long enough, after all—the mansion produced no harm towards him, in fact. Even from a distance he can see that the fire's left it untouched; excluding the Training Center and the avenue itself, it doesn't appear as if much else has been spared. It's his best bet, and possibly the only one Milo has left.
The scrape of footsteps behind him has Milo on high alert, expecting another eerie-looking mannequin, but it's only Micah as it has been the past dozen or so times. He's determined, Milo will give him that, face simultaneously white as a sheet and gray with soot. Sweat drips down his temples, but not just from the heat—his leg really is going to kill him, isn't it?
It's going to be odd when he dies. Quiet, probably. Micah will likely make it to some sort of safety, wherever Milo leads him, and then die in his sleep once the infection overtakes his heart. In a span of only a few hours Milo has grown used to him, a non-threatening presence that refused to quit even when it was severely unmatched. In a way it was nice to not have to look over his shoulder.
Even if he still was.
"You still alive back there?" he calls. To his left the roof of a clothing shop gives in and breaks apart the concrete below as it collapses, the road shuddering. When he turns back Micah has steadied himself against a relatively intact lamp-post, but rips his hand away when he holds onto it for too long. It'd be wise not to burn all the skin on his palms off, but Milo doesn't say that.
"Normally I'm fairly optimistic," Micah says, voice straining. "But I think we might be dead."
"Me in hell, sure, but you? I wouldn't bet on it."
"You… you don't even know what I've done."
"I know that you saved the life of a stranger when it would have been easier for you to get it over with and kill him."
Micah stumbles after him still, panting with exertion. "We're not strangers anymore."
And why is that? Right, because as Milo already stated, Micah chose to save his life instead of end it. He still has yet to figure out why. People aren't just that good with no reasoning for it—there's always an ulterior motive, something going on. If only he could look past the unfailing kindness and concern in Micah's eyes to find out what it was.
Now Micah knows his name. He knows that Milo has killed his fair share of people. Anyone else would have run the opposite direction.
At this point Milo isn't sure there are many other places left to go. The fire has created a path of sorts, practically leading them around the avenue's edge and back towards the mansion. The wind is alive with trails of ash that sting at his eyes and settle on his skin, but the fire never grows any closer. It's heat is felt no matter where Milo goes, but he knows it's not going to touch him.
It's dangerous to feel safe at a point like this, but something in Milo does. If the fire hasn't come for him yet, will it ever?
He hopes not.
"Where are we going?" Micah asks, though it seems obvious by now. No doubt he's noticed the path they're on too, it's ending inevitable at this point. So what is this, then—small talk? Milo's not good at small talk. You'd think someone as perceptible as Micah would have noticed that long ago.
Here he is, complimenting the guy when he should be killing him.
If Milo could do a neat turn-around and bury the axe in his chest, everything would be a whole lot simpler.
"If you can't figure it out, Eight, I think your brain might take you out before the infection does."
Micah huffs out a little laugh. More distant, now. Milo peers over his shoulder to find him maybe fifteen feet away, now, falling behind once again. He's always caught back up, though. Milo has no doubt that he'll continue to do it over and over again until they stop for good.
Micah's not leaving anytime soon.
"Still not going to kill me?" Micah rasps. Louder again. This time Milo doesn't bother checking to see where he is, because he can feel Micah's presence hovering just behind him. The ache in Milo's side grows more fierce, skin pulling with every step. It's starting to hinder him. Soon they'll be matched in pace, and who knows what'll happen then. Micah will keep talking. He'll be forced to answer.
Nothing good ever comes of talking.
"We'll see," he decides, but as of now Milo knows the answer as much as he hates it. When he wakes up after all of this, when he goes back to Two, maybe it'll be a funny little tale to tell. The big bad wolf from Two and the idiotic, too-kind boy who made the worst decision of his life when he saved him. Apparently no one ever told him that wolves aren't worth saving.
Regardless, he's sure everyone is eating it up. Whatever dynamic they've created here is fragile, but it's working somehow. Milo will take it for as long as he can get.
Everyone gets buried eventually, after all—at least he'll have some interesting stories to tell the dirt.
Ambrose Clarion, 16
District One Male
Ambrose is beginning to wonder if he's fused here.
He's numb all over. It ached, for a while, but now Ambrose can't even tell if the tile below him is still there or if it's fallen away, leaving him suspended in mid-air, buoyed by nothing but darkness.
That has something to do with his closed eyes, his hands pressed over his ears blocking out all sound. The tears stopped some time ago as he dozed, mostly unintentionally, but Ambrose hasn't looked up or at anything in quite some time. It's almost refreshing to feel so cut off from reality; he can't be scared this way if he's not even here.
If that isn't the most delusional thing that's ever come to Ambrose's mind, he's not sure what is.
He lifts up a hand, finally, but there's no noise save for a careful drip of water far down one of the train tunnels, so quiet it's hardly audible. It could be the fire above him, up the stairs, or just a vague crackling produced by his own ears—Ambrose is no longer sure. He takes a deep breath, the bloodied fabric of his pant legs scratching at his cheeks, and lifts his head.
Nothing is there. The air has possibly thickened somewhat as smoke begins to drift down into the underground stations, but it seems unchanged save for that little detail.
If Ambrose doesn't move soon, something is going to happen.
As awful as it is, he's already considered standing only to bury the rapier back in his own stomach, to end things quickly and on his own terms. Ambrose isn't worth anything anymore. Even if he gets out of here, his life is over. On top of that, he's too cowardly to even do it. The thought of the pain, of the people watching, of his body lying down here in the cold and the dark, utterly alone.
So that means he has to move, or something will make him. As much as Ambrose would like to sit down here forever and wallow about, the latter option doesn't exactly sound appealing.
He grabs the pillar behind him, keeping a hand at his throat just like always to make sure it holds as he gets to his feet. He's going to be just fine. He'll figure it out. The more he repeats it in his head the more it sounds like Jasper—his brother would give him all sorts of advice when they would spar, helpful encouragement and tips to keep pushing him.
It's his brother's voice, undeniably, that makes him get to his feet now. He'll have to tell him that if he gets home.
If he even has a voice, that is.
His temples pound upon rising, but there are too many factors to blame it on. The smoke, the crying, the limited amount of food and water he's been ingesting. Hell, at this point Ambrose wouldn't be surprised if the general universe wasn't just trying to make his life even more miserable than it already was. He has to pretend that Jasper is here, though, urging him along.
What did he always say? Something about anger? About how he could use it and control it if everything else seemed to fail?
Up until now Ambrose hadn't thought he was angry; he was simply too tired, too wrecked by the blood-loss, to feel much of anything. Spite fills his body, though, irritation and a certain crossness that makes him stand the straightest he has in days. They did this to him. Someone out there made the decision to let that thing rip Ambrose's throat out and then made it leave, too. They wouldn't even let it finish the job.
He can use this anger to get somewhere. If nothing else, he can use it to get back to the Capitol so that they can all look him in the eyes and tell him why.
Why did they have to ruin his life?
A deeper part of his brain, what little is still operating at full capacity, wants him to admit the truth; that he did this to himself, that mailing in that application sealed his fate. But Ambrose never asked for this, never wanted an end to everything he thought he could have.
He just wanted more.
He won't allow himself to accept that even if it is true. Like Jasper would say—he needs the anger.
Ambrose is going to do this.
But he's certainly not going back up there. Not into the smoke and the fire, towards the cameras. He's not going to give them anything that they want, not when they've stolen so much from him. Ambrose paces carefully to the edge of the station's platform, staring down to the tracks below. He sits down once again, swinging his legs over the side, and digs his hands into his neck as he allows himself to drop, leaning against the wall to avoid falling straight over. No fresh blood blooms against his fingers, but the train tracks are steady beneath his feet, an odd bump beneath his shoes.
Oddly reassuring somehow, too. He has no idea where they could go, where they'll lead him, but anywhere is better than what Ambrose has dealt with so far. He stares into the yawning darkness, finally freeing the flashlight from his pack. He wondered if it would ever come in handy again—at least he's found a purpose for it, now.
And himself, too. To most people it would seem like nothing, like he's wandering around on aimless errands. Maybe that's exactly what he is doing.
To Ambrose, at least, it feels purposeful. He's not laying there and waiting to die. He's not standing up and burying his own rapier in his body, either.
He's not dying.
There's more to him than that.
Micah Rossier, 18
District Eight Male
He only tells himself one thing over several hours: don't stop moving.
Everything else that comes to mind is trivial.
At the very least, keeping an eye on Milo's back is easy, a tall target to keep his eyes fixed to as he weaves through the streets after him, his balance nearly sending him over several times. What's left of his balance, anyway—Micah suspects most of it's flown somewhere very far away. Is that just a side-effect of the infection?
It could be. He wouldn't know. Milo was right when he advised him never to go into medicine.
Right now he's so close to Milo that it feels as if he's on a precipice, either a second away from falling or being pulled back to safety. If there was someone behind him he'd be more inclined to believe that being saved was an option. Only Milo is here, though, Milo and three others lost out there somewhere in the arena, wondering when this will all end. It's something he's been wondering about himself.
His fear of dying has always been prevalent, but Micah didn't know he was so scared of it possibly happening while he was alone. He didn't know he could possess such strong terror inside his body until now; it's overcome and nearly consumed him. It's what keeps him walking.
He continues to eye the mansion in front of them when Milo's form grows blurry, the lines of his shoulders wavering. It's his own vision, he knows, slowly beginning to fail him. It would be nice to blame the heat, but he's not that delusional.
Not anymore.
It seems like such a nice place to be; clean and calm and perfect, the way all things ought to be in life. A big, sprawling house like his family should have, with so much grass out in the back that his siblings would come back in at the end of the day stained with it, hands wet from splashing about in the river. All Micah can picture, though, is Ren's body flopping into the shallows and the inevitably of one of his allies bodies somewhere in the woods, gone now. Hopefully by a hovercraft's overwhelming claw and not the fire itself.
He stops at the bottom of the staircase, watching Milo ascend as dread dumps into his veins, an entire pitcher full. Can he even make it up there?
Does he have a choice?
Micah drags himself up stair by stair, expecting no help and receiving none. His arms burn. His leg threatens to give out. By the time he meets the halfway point he's practically crawling, yanking himself up over the lip of each one only to be faced with several more. Each time they somehow look impossibly taller, his hands dragging through a layer of ash so thick that he wonders if the stairs have somehow grown.
He doesn't realize he's made it to the top until there are a set of legs in front of him—Micah bumps into them, noting the way Milo doesn't even stumble as he drags himself around them and flops onto the ground.
He wishes he was that strong right now.
"I might be dead now," he tells him, voice so soft it could almost drift away on the breeze. "Just so you know."
"Would make my life easier," Milo comments, but he doesn't move. He doesn't offer a hand down to assist, either, but Micah chooses to enjoy the fact that he hasn't outright left over anything else. That counts for something, whatever it is. Milo's not all bad. He's still there, too, when Micah manages to pull himself over to one of the numerous concrete barriers, using a winged statue as a hand-hold until he can force his feet under him once again, no matter how bad they hurt.
Milo still hasn't moved. In fact he's staring at him, perplexed. Is he amazed that Micah is somehow still alive and managing this, or that he's stuck around for so long?
Both? He might just bet on both.
"Are we going in?" he asks, but Milo picks up again without responding. Ah, there it is. Back to normal. Micah keeps along the barrier's edge, using it as a guardrail to drop some of his weight onto as he follows Milo down the cobblestone path. He wishes they could talk more; maybe that's wrong of him, but it would fill some of the void Micah keeps stumbling into. He doesn't know what they could talk about, but there has to be something.
Micah starts filing away things—family? Friends? Jobs? Common things, easy things. Maybe he can make a break-through later on when he can actually speak properly.
Or maybe he'll die for it. He'll find out soon enough.
He watches Milo's feet do an odd stutter-step as they pass by the fountain outside the main entrance, three more stairs leading to the grand double-doors. Micah nearly bumps into him with nothing to hold onto, hand brushing against Milo's arm before he can pull back. It's not like he hasn't touched him already—he had to patch him up somehow, but Milo was unconscious for all of that.
Instead of being snapped at or shoved away, Milo doesn't seem to even notice. The fountain has him fixated, the once clear water as gray as the floating ash around them. Micah nearly swallows his own tongue trying to keep quiet, desperately ridding everything from his mind. All he has to do is not say anything, and they're fine. That's how it's worked so far.
But God, he wants to. He wants to ask what's wrong or touch his arm or do… or do something the way people in here have done for him. They always made sure he was okay.
"Milo," he says softly, voice even quieter than when he woke up to a knife inches from his throat. "Let's go in."
For a moment, he expects Milo's stillness to erupt into violence, to a blade stuck in Micah's chest. Though he can hardly see his face, Micah sees him breathe again, so deeply it must hurt. And then he looks around again, eyes frighteningly distant, thousand yard stare and all. Once again Micah's hand almost reaches out, twitching incessantly by his side. He wishes his rebellious limbs would cut it out, once and for all.
"C'mon," he urges. Doesn't touch him. Milo blinks, allowing life to seep back into his eyes. He steps away quickly when he realizes Micah's closeness, looking down at him through narrowed eyes.
Micah knew he was tall, built almost like the Careers of old, but he feels worryingly small at that moment. Like a mouse, or a bug about to be squashed under someone's foot. Only he turns away again, feet moving towards the door, allowing the tightness in Micah's chest to release.
He lets him gain a few feet of space, too, noting the way Milo holds open the door for a heartbeat too long, as if expecting someone to be right behind him when he knows there isn't anyone there. Micah only just manages to catch it, nearly tripping over the last step.
By the time he looks up, pulling himself across the thresh-hold, Milo has turned away again. But he thinks he saw something in Milo's eyes—no, he knows that he saw it because Micah has felt it so often before, treasured the feeling when everything else seemed lost and hopeless. It was a few and far between feeling these days, not something easily forgotten about.
Relief. Pure, deniable relief.
Micah doesn't think he could leave at this point even if he wanted to.
Inara Brea, 16
District Five Female
It's silly to wonder what the other tributes out there must be doing when she could be finding out herself, but it doesn't stop Inara from wondering.
Four of them… such a small number. With her it makes Five. District Five.
She may be going insane at this point. Hosea would not be pleased at that fact.
Not Micah neither, but truth be told she has no idea whether he's alive or dead at this point. Inara's inability to keep track of the faces in the sky since Hosea's death has finally proven troublesome. For all she knows the other four people out there are all blood-thirsty, animalistic monsters who will rip her limb from limb the second they see her. Her kids don't deserve to see that. Inara doesn't deserve to feel that.
Once again, like a disbelieving child, Inara waits for a sunrise that never comes. It looks as if blood has been poured into the sky, the collective amount of the nineteen kids that died somewhere out there. There wouldn't be enough of it even then; they'd only be able to color a small corner, if that. They'd have to get more blood elsewhere.
Yep, Inara is certifiably nuts. Like, toss her in a padded cell and throw away the keys level nuts. Why the hell is that something she's thinking about right now?
No one to talk to. Nothing to do.
Nothing good, anyway.
Maybe she should look for Micah. If he is still alive, somehow, he's probably not doing so great. She never had any siblings to call her own, and had far too many girls back at the home, but Inara never thought she'd have brothers. She still doesn't, now, but she thinks she might have come close. Family would look for each-other, right? Well, they would if they had known each other longer than a week.
She has her family, anyway. Inara makes sure to remind herself of that. Her family is back in Five and she has no intentions of abandoning them.
The mere picture in her head of them is enough to bring a smile to Inara's face; how sweet Kanea will look at the train station when Inara goes to hug her, the delight in Demi's eyes, the bright, toothy smile courtesy of Gilda when she realizes that they're free, finally free. Surely she'll be collecting kids she doesn't even know, but it's not the worst thing that Inara has ever had to deal with.
Far from it, in fact. In Inara's eyes it doesn't matter what happens when she gets back to Five—none of it can be as bad as what's happened in here. What will happen.
She tosses one of her spare, ill-fitting shoes up in the air, catching it like she's been doing for the past while. The other is safely packed away, ready to be thrown at a moment's notice. Inara stretches her feet out, laying her head back against the aell. Time to move out soon, again, even if she's not too keen on the idea. The smoke is pungent in her nose; everything stings in a peculiar way, as if the smoke is coming alive. A silly idea, she knows. Inara would be much less afraid of it if she wasn't in this damn arena.
Oh, well. Her own doing. She'll just have to get used to it.
The smoke is bugging her though, more so than usual. Inara peers around the corner, forcing her eyes to see all the way down the hall towards the back door. Smoke billows under the crack, so dark the mere sight of it is intimidating. She keeps herself close to the floor, knees scraping along the carpet, and covers her hand before she reaches out for the door itself. Even through the blackened fabric she feels the searing heat. If she had touched it without a cover her skin would have been angry and red by now, a quick, blistering reaction.
It appears the building might be on fire. You know, just might be. No wonder she's been growing hotter over the past hour or so. Inara scrambles back to her bag, drawing fabric over her mouth and nose once again as she makes sure everything is tucked away, including the second shoe. Mentor advice, and all—she might as well take it if she ever gets the chance.
To think she was going to sit for just a little while longer and drink her remaining bottle of juice, just as a treat. There was no one to share it with, now, but Inara felt as if she deserved it, the sweet and fruity taste that was likely the best thing left in here. Besides living, that was. If Inara wanted both of those things by the end of the next hour she had to get her ass out of here.
Inara doesn't think too much about her feet this time; they hurt, of course, but it's going to be a hell of a lot worse if she stands around in here any longer. She steadies her pack, securing it across her chest, and keeps a knife at the ready just in case as she heads back into the main bit of the shop, headed for the door.
Only, predictably so, for the entire front of the shop to be on fire as well. Because of course it is. Nothing would be that easy.
"You all suck," she mutters under her breath. They likely can't even hear her anyway. This could be the Gamemaker's doing or not. For all she knows the fire is beyond their control at this point. Inara hurries back into the last hall as fast as her feet will take her, squeezing her eyes into slits against the billowing smoke as she eases herself into the small, cupboard-like bathroom and slams the door shut behind her. She wasn't exactly planning on climbing out of a window today, but she's done worse things.
Hell, she's done it before.
For once Inara is glad she's on the smaller side—the window can hardly be considered one, frosted over and just wide enough for her to slip through. She jimmies it open, wedging her knife between the cracks until it swings out. Inara shoves her bag through, ignoring the damage it receives as it scrapes through a pile of still-burning embers across the ground, and boosts herself up, shimmying through as quickly as she can. Gamemaker's control or not, this building isn't going to last much longer.
Inara only has her head and shoulders out when she realizes just how true that is; the building next to it is up in flames as well, numerous ones across the street already burning and threatening collapse. She drags herself forward even faster, ignoring the miniscule burns that light up across her arm. They're nothing in comparison to the state of her feet, or at least that's what Inara's telling herself. What's a few little burns here and there when she could lose her life?
She's not even properly situated when she hauls herself to her feet, backpack cast over one shoulder, knife gripped tightly in the other hand. Inara doesn't care about any of that; she just takes off down the narrow space between the buildings and into the relative safety of the open street. Anyone could see her running out here like this, but it's better than being burned alive.
She thinks, anyway.
There's hardly anywhere left to go, only a few areas that the fire has seemingly avoided. They're being herded like they're out on a ranch in a faraway field in Ten but the ropes are already burning hot, searing patterns into their skins.
Inara has no choice but to let herself be herded.
Ilaria Landucci, 18
District Six Female
The fire is no longer sparing a single thing.
However it came about, Ilaria doesn't think it was intended to cause destruction of such magnitude. Ceto's had her watch so many tapes that Ilaria has lost track of some of the finer details, but the one that ended in mass disasters never tended to be the favorites.
She can't help but wonder if the fire has taken anybody away from this arena; it seems likely at this point, but Ilaria isn't sure there's any fun to be had in watching fire light somebody up. Someone out there would manage to find satisfaction in it, but the Capitol has always liked blood more than anything else. They want the screaming, the blades clashing, the fury and melancholy that comes with it.
It was satisfying only to watch the card melt into nothingness. A person, though? Ilaria doesn't think she'd take so sweetly to that. Considering how bad she still feels about Varrik, it would stick with her for too long.
Everything seems to, as much as she loathes it.
Somehow self-loathing and some amount of confidence have managed to coexist within her body the entire time she's been in here; not in a way that could exactly be considered healthy, but it's kept her alive this long. A part of her wants to stay hidden in the theater while it goes up in flames—she wouldn't be so pretty then, would she? What would they still fawn over her if Ilaria stayed inside and let her skin melt away, her muscles bubbling and crackling, blood boiling until there was nothing left of her?
They liked that though, she reminds herself. The good, the bad, and the ugly. If it just so happens to be a pretty thing it's merely a bonus.
She doesn't find that she regrets leaving when she backs out into the street, though, watching the billboards light up one by one, sparks flying. Almost like fireworks. Not that it matters when so much else is on fire; Ilaria is the only one who can see this particular show, lost amidst the rest of the blazes burning around the city. She backs up further as the main sign catches and burns in a matter of seconds, so many words carefully written in an elegant display gone, just like that.
Everything burns—even the Capitol. Is it unsettling to them to watch their home burn? Do they feel just as uncomfortable as Ilaria does in her own?
She wouldn't wish that on anyone.
Though her lungs protest the action, Ilaria allows herself to take a deep breath, what feels like the last one for quite some time. The fire feels almost good in a way, as if it's burning away the bad things, the brittle shell that still struggles to encase her entire body. It's not as if it's doing her any good—it hasn't for quite some time.
A part of the main building finally gives away, bits of it crashing down into the street not far from Ilaria's shoes. "Alright, alright," she says. "I get it."
Frighteningly enough, Ilaria finds she doesn't want to move away from the worst of the fire. In fact she almost wishes as if she could nestle a few embers in her palms and protect them, that way she can take them all the way back to Six and watch all of the bad things burn there, too. The fire couldn't hurt her. She was only going to use it to hurt everyone who had ever done her wrong.
It was a nasty thought. The worst of the worst. Something even Velcra would have appreciated her saying—it makes her skin crawl, the thought of the girl from Three lingering behind her shoulder. She's just a ghost now, if that, but Ilaria knows she's still being followed. That presence, along with several others, will likely haunt her forever. What's a few hauntings, though, in comparison to getting your life back?
Besides, ghosts can't hurt you. They can only haunt you, too, if you let them.
She has no intentions in letting invisible things control her, even the idea of them. Not anymore.
Ilaria finally allows herself to turn away from the burning theater as the front door shatters in a wide spray of glass that nearly catches her in its wake. She has no interest in being caught in something like that, not again. That dive through the window was enough for her at least for a good few years; she swears there are still bits of it caught in places she can't see, so small they're next to impossible to get out.
She feels as if she's walking through some sort of post-apocalyptic world, right down the center of the street, almost entirely alone. With her once-white clothes stained dark she feels better suited to blend in, silhouetted by the fire behind her to be nothing more than a dark, foreboding figure, sword in hand. Not unlike an executioner striding towards their next appointment.
Four more, she tells herself. Just four more.
A barely-there blur further down the road catches her attention, so small and so caught up in the blowing wind and ashes that it seems indistinguishable. Ilaria knows for a fact, though, that the mannequins have never moved that fast. In fact, the only two that are anywhere near, paired up on the adjacent sidewalk, are watching that direction too, seemingly just as curious.
It could be that grotesque mutt. For all she knows it's just as blood-splattered, living with tears from Varrik's body in-between it's too-long teeth. If it's the mutt, it has no interest in her. She has a feeling it would, after all she's done.
If it's not the mutt, it's a person.
Ilaria hasn't been this close to a person since… well, since Velcra.
She starts running. Feet moving rhythmically, arms pumping evenly by her side as soon as she slides the sword back in its sheath, more focused on catching up. That's another tribute out there in front of her, too busy running to check behind them. There's no one else around—no matter how many times Ilaria checks, eyes darting about just waiting for it, no one appears. They're not being chased.
Well, not by anyone but Ilaria.
She's so close to only making it three more people. She can do this. She has to do this.
But when she rounds the next corner, they're gone.
Ilaria doesn't mean to stop so suddenly, feet grinding to a halt on the pavement. As if they've vanished into thin air, the person is there no longer. Maybe if she kept running, if she looked a bit harder… do they want her running around blind looking for someone that might already be gone?
She was so close. She just wants to end this.
Clearly, though, someone else out there has bigger plans.
I promise I'm almost done drawing this out. The finish line is in sight.
On another note, yesterday I hit 300 reviews for the first time, surpassing by previous benchmark of 292. As someone who has never put too much thought or merit into review count I really never thought I would get to this point, and I only have you guys to thank for it—so seriously, thank-you so, so much, whether you've reviewed every chapter or just one. You all helped me get there for the first time.
Get your final predictions in, if you feel so inclined. There's no going back now.
Until next time.