Song Suggestion: Stephen- "Crossfire"
A/N: I can't believe I'm writing this, but I received a message from someone complaining about the things my characters say to each other. Just because my characters say mean things, does not mean that it is my view or I condone bullying. They are killers; they are not supposed to be nice. I wish I could give an eye-roll emoji. Anywho... leave a review so I know how I'm doing! Reviews are the equivalent to cocaine in my brain.
A Torch in the Dark
"What is that?" Brighton asked.
There was no running from it. It would be on them faster than their legs could carry them.
Prim reached down to untie Ruby from the knots. Her fingers stumbled with cold and panic. She found the weak spot and pulled, allowing the rope to slacken and let her captive free. Ruby brushed off the ropes, hissing as a section contacted the raw wound. Her pain medicine already started to wear off. Brighton did not protest letting her go anymore. His eyes stayed locked on the horizon.
The screams grew louder. They weren't real but knowing did not steady Prim's heart. All the hair on her body stood on end. The three of them stood stunned a moment, unable to figure out what to do. There were only two choices: run or stay.
Brighton chose the first option. He twisted without a second glance or even a goodbye, knife still in hand, and sprinted across the barren, white wasteland toward the distant cliffs.
"Come back," Prim screamed, but it did no good. Prim had a strange impulse to run after him but stayed put.
There goes the only weapon.
He was about thirty feet away from them, when Ruby turned to Prim.
"He's a goner. We need to protect the fire. It'll be our only chance."
She was right. In all odds, they would probably be dead in a few minutes, but the fire provided a fragile hope. Brighton had none.
"It's supposed to survive anything," Prim said, but she already began to shove the snow up to create a wall, like she did in the cave. They only had thirty seconds at most, and there was no time to discuss theories.
"It's supposed to, but if anything could Capitol-made fire, that thing could."
It was a thick cloud, so high it blocked the sun, reminding her of a sandstorm she saw on a video in school.
Prim's fingers burned with the ice as she pushed the snow up and tried to pack it into a solid form. Ruby dropped to her knees beside her and began to help. They made progress, but not fast enough. It was upon them.
Prim withheld a scream.
"Get in front! We might block the winds." She grabbed Ruby's arm and pulled them together, crouching low over the fire. Ruby bent down as the first tendrils of darkness touched them, attempting to protect the flames without them getting burned.
The darkness slammed against them. It was a tangible thing, a thick slime, so heavy it was like wading through water. Her lungs gasped for oxygen. She could breath, but it was labored.
"Something's in the darkness." Ruby said in a whisper. Prim barely heard her over the noise. It was now loud as a train.
Prim felt something too. A claw trailed its way down the exposed part of her arm. She jumped forward, almost into the fire.
"A nightmare. We're in a nightmare," Prim said, but Ruby could not hear her. She was trapped in her own fear.
Ruby gave a scream.
"What?"
"It's trying to pull me away."
Ruby was being sucked back. In the light of the fire, she saw that a thin grey tendril was wrapped around her ankle. The wisp of darkness transformed into a monster hand tipped with claws. Her foot yanked back, strong enough that she stumbled. Prim grabbed at her, abandoning her post. The entity was too strong to pull her back. Prim knew that if Ruby was swallowed by the darkness, it would be the end of them both.
In a panic, she did the only thing she could think of. The fire logs were designed so that they burned from one end to the other, so she grabbed the unburnt end and threw it into the wall of darkness behind Ruby.
It gave a high-pitch shriek. She saw a humanoid form without distinct characteristics as it burst into flames, twisting as if in agony before it bellowed again and took back off into the thick nothingness.
Prim pulled a panting Ruby back to the confines of the flames.
A little spark can defeat the dark, Prim thought. It was something her mother used to say to her as a child when she was afraid to go to sleep.
They sat there for a second, recovering from the horror, but not for long. The darkness licked its wounds and was returning. It attempted to eat the edges of their artificial light. Wisps of shadows, a poltergeist in the mist, swirled around them. Occasionally, a see-through arm reached out to them, nearly touching her nose before rescinding.
"We need to break up the fire." Prim said, an idea forming. There was no way she could sit here, millimeters away from the shadows. They needed better protection. She couldn't keep chunking the logs, either. They would run out too quick, leaving them with no weapon.
"But that will kill the fire faster. It's already past its peak of flames. If we separate it, it will cut down the life by hours. We may have only thirty minutes at most."
"We won't last five minutes like this. If we breath wrong, those things will be able to snatch us."
Ruby looked at her, eyes wild and wide. This reaped career with a vulnerable expression had been prepared for the games, despite not finishing the training camps. She knew how to kill and fight and survive. However, she was not prepared for monsters in the night. Nobody was, not even Cato.
Finally, Ruby nodded.
They each grasped a few logs and placed them in a circle around their bodies, keeping as much in the middle as possible. The heat singed their skin, and they did not have enough room to lie down or move. Even though exhaustion and spikes of adrenaline left her sagging with fatigue, she could not let her guard down.
Prim kept her eyes glued as the things screamed and moaned, circling their fire, hungry for their blood
"I give us an A for teamwork," Ruby joked. It helped to hear a human voice instead of the inhuman screaming.
"It's not over yet," Prim told her. Whatever fatigue Ruby felt must be compounded by the wound. It would only be a matter of time before the fever took over and ate away at her ability to function. "We'll get out of here."
Prim did not believe what she said, but a lack of hope killed faster than anything.
"No one really escapes hell once you're in it." Ruby answered. The nightmare around them screamed in agreement.
Thirty Minutes Later
Their fire began to flicker. Ruby was right in that breaking it up shortened the flame's life span. Small wisps of darkness inched by with each dimming of light. Ruby sat beside her, going in and out of consciousness with her pain.
"We'll have to move soon. It's finding its way in."
Ruby groaned.
"You might have to leave me," Ruby said.
Prim reached around and took out her pill bottle. She opened it and shook out three precious capsules into her palm.
"Here, take this."
Ruby shook her head.
"I can't believe I'm being self-sacrificing for miss goody-goody, but I can't take these from you. I'm a dead woman. They'll be wasted on a soon-to-be corpse. Keep them for your own time of need, which will no doubt come sooner than later."
Prim shook her head.
"There's no use in keeping something I may never need. Besides, I can't survive this nightmare without help. It may just give us a running chance."
"Fine." Ruby grabbed the pills and downed them with a handful of snow, "I'm not very good at being the martyr anyway."
"It'll take a few minutes to take effect, and then we'll have to go."
"What do you have in mind?"
"The only thing they seem to fear is fire, so if we run we must take it with us."
"Using the logs as a torch?" Ruby said, "What if it burns out?"
Prim gave a shudder at the thought.
"Hopefully, this nightmare ends before then."
"How long did the fire in the forest last?"
"I don't remember."
"I don't remember either." Ruby admitted.
Trauma had a funny way of making time stretch to eternity.
"It kind of feels as if we are sticking our neck under a guillotine, knowing it will drop," Ruby said.
"I'd rather chase death than let it find me," Prim said, her mouth set in determination.
Ten Minutes Later
"It's time." Prim said, gripping the bottom of a log of the wood from the ever-ready fire. It was one of the smaller ones. The larger logs were on the outskirts of their circle and could not be reached without confronting danger. "Are the pills working?"
Ruby grabbed a second log and grimaced as Prim secured the rope and blanket in her pack.
"It went from agony to misery, if that counts for anything."
"You don't have many options."
"No," Ruby said with great effort and stood, "I don't." She turned to Prim. "Whatever happens I have to admit I never expected to make an ally in the game."
Prim smiled and reached out and touched her torch with hers.
"Ready,"
"Set," Ruby answered.
"Go."
They jumped at the same time, leaping over the flames. Ruby and Prim stayed back to back flinging the torches in arcs, attempting to fill all the dark patches with light. It worked halfway. Claws dug into both their legs. She felt slices into her shins, and she stabbed it with the fire. Again, the thing burst into flames the moment she made contact. They must be highly flammable, whatever they were.
They made their way slowly, a blind crawl across the barren wasteland, an army of poltergeist swirling around them, trying to find chinks in the light.
Eternity surrounded them. It was nothing but dark, pain, and screams. They knew nothing but the fatigue and sharp spikes of adrenaline of survival. Each time the darkness attempting to pull them away, the flame scorched the corporeal hands.
They stayed in this unending battle until Prim stepped into something that crunched and squelched.
Prim looked down to find her foot lodged into Brighton's chest cavity, her ankle between his ribs, boot pressing down into his spine. His skin was flayed off him, and something had eaten his organs. His face was frozen in an eternal scream.
Prim threw up, nearly into her flames.
"Keep going and get the knife," Ruby said coldly.
It was enough to remind Prim of her situation. There was no time for grief or horror against the nightmare. One slip would mean her corpse eaten and emptied beside Brighton's. Prim withheld another bout of vomit as she extradited her foot.
She reached down and plucked the knife from clenched, frozen fingers. It took a moment too long to open them, and the claws made a sharp slash down her arm before she whipped up and burned the entity back. In one hand she held her torch, which was beginning to flicker in and out, and in the other she held the knife. Prim gripped it tightly, despite knowing it would not make a difference in this fight.
Prim stepped around the body of the boy she once saved, trying to forget that he had a dimple, trying to forget the way he curled into himself innocently while asleep. She swallowed the lump in her throat and ripped her eyes from him, refusing to ever look at him again. She would remember him though, for the rest of her life, she'd remember.
Her boot made bloody tracks in the white snow as they continued their inch in the dark. They did not know where they were going. They could be headed towards a cliff for all they knew. They only knew they must continue forward. To stop would mean organs ripped from her chest cavity, to second guess would mean her skin flayed into ribbons.
"My fire is dying," Ruby said.
"Mine too."
The fire on the log ate its was down until it scorched her fingers. Her brain screamed at her to drop it, the nerves signaling that they were burning. Prim felt the skin on her thumb sizzle with the heat.
Prim would use the necklace to make more fire if she could, like she did in the cave with Katla, but she would need flint and dry wood, and she could not find it in the wasteland.
Ruby collapsed behind her, her body sliding along her back as she sat in the snow. She still held out the flame in front of her body to ward off the poltergeists. She could see them howling in front of her. A sudden flash of teeth appeared in the darkness, gnashing them in front of her face. Ruby did not move to get away. Her entire body was covered in thin lines of blood from the claws of the monsters. Prim assumed her body looked the same.
"We shouldn't have run." Ruby sobbed.
"We had to try."
Prim swallowed a mirroring sob, wishing to exit the nightmare. After a moment, she sat down, back to back with Ruby.
"I can't go further alone. They will tear into my back."
"I'm sorry." Ruby said again.
Prim sucked in a breath, wishing she could be mad at her for giving up. Instead she discovered a small peace, a resignation to the end.
"Even if you slit my throat, my death would not be your fault. Not really, so don't apologize. You're not my enemy."
"I'm not your friend either. If it came down to it, I'd leave you to be gutted by the monsters if it meant I could survive."
"Maybe not a friend but someone to die with. That's something, I guess."
Ruby did not answer, but dropped back her head a little, resting it on Prim's shoulder, defeated.
"Any last thoughts?" She asked. "Anything you want to say to your lover boys if one of them survives and watches recaps?"
"My words carry no weight. Cato would rage, and Gale would plot. They would not listen to my wish for them."
"Which is?"
"To finally live."
The sticky wind blew, and her flame nearly extinguished.
"It's time." With her free hand, Prim rifled around in her pack, taking out a separate pill bottle, containing something she didn't think she'd ever find a use for. "Take this."
Prim popped it open, giving two to herself and reached around and gave two to Ruby's waiting palm.
"What are these?"
"Sleeping pills. They are Capitol made, so it shouldn't take more than a minute to put us out."
Ruby waited a second before swallowing, understanding the gravity of the act. Prim popped it into her mouth and did the same.
"It's not much," Prim said, "But it's mercy."
"Hopefully this will be dreamless sleep."
Somehow Ruby could still joke. Prim appreciated the attempt.
"You never said your last words," Prim said.
"You're right, I'll have to remedy that." She dropped the torch. It landed on a rock, still bright enough to keep the monsters at bay. "Fuck you, Snow." She shouted into the impenetrable abyss.
Prim couldn't have said it better herself.
They were fully treasonous now. It felt fucking great.
Minutes later, Prim's torch slipped form her fingers, extinguishing into the snow as she fell into a dreamless sleep, uncaring the monsters salivated in the darkness.