XXVII: Day Seven, Dawn.
Gideon Mallory, 16
Applicant #20
He's always been an early riser.
Baseball practice just sort of did that, he guesses. If they weren't practicing after school the coaches insisted on practicing at Hell O'Clock In The Morning, some god-awful time that no actual human being existed in.
It's a good thing he never minded waking up that early, because the amount of windows in this place has made it impossible for him to sleep any later than the dawn. Jupiter seems to be having no problem with it at all, curled up in one of the largest armchairs he's ever seen. It doesn't look as good as it once did, he's sure, but it's still pretty damn nice.
The whole place is, really. It looks like something out of a book - probably was, once upon a time, if he's being honest with himself. Everything just has that ornate quality about it - the crystal chandeliers that are all half-broken, the outdated wallpaper and rugs, the high ceilings and wooden details and just all of it, really.
He's not usually one to appreciate things like this, but all the dark wood and little details are bringing him back to Seven for now.
He never thought he would miss Seven, not like how he missed the Capitol, but he had finally built a life there. One that he was probably never going back to, even if he was the last one standing. Had the Sentinels ever said anything about a victor, about one possible survivor? He tries to wrack his brain but can come up with almost nothing.
Oh well. He's not going to dwell on it. They've survived this long.
He picks up the bat and the long, curved knife he found yesterday, leaving Jupiter with the fire poker they had pulled out of the ashes in the front hall's fireplace. Not that they're ever going to use it, he has no doubt, but he feels better leaving them with something.
They still haven't found much in the way of food; he's still eating almost nothing but flowers and other things he's plucking from the bushes outside, but there's a well out-back with stale water at the bottom. It's been rejuvenated by the recent rain but still doesn't taste all the way right. Still, he'll take a stomach-ache over the constant exhaustion that comes from dehydration. It's not a bad trade-off.
He makes his way outside, slowly, scanning the hall and everything they searched yesterday just in case they happened to miss something.
Deep down he's still praying for some food.
He has to be quick about this, though, because if Jupiter wakes up they'll come tearing after him, worried, no doubt, about something that has yet to happen. They might as well sleep for as long as they can, while the both of them are relatively safe. It doesn't even look like anyone else has been here any time in the past seven days - no, they're the lucky ones, somehow.
He doesn't feel very lucky, although maybe he should.
He nearly trips down the stairs and then again on the cracked tile next to the back door. He tucks the pot by the door under his arm and makes his way out to the well. The dawn's light is still weak, filtering in over the mountains and through the trees. Right now it has no effect on his reddened, sensitive skin, which is, in the very least, an indeed lucky thing.
Really he just needs to shut the hell up and stop complaining, because he's alive, unlike twelve others.
God, there's only twelve of them left. How are half of them really, truly dead?
He attaches the pot back to the rope dangling from the well's arch. The bucket was gone, leading him to believe he was going to have to crawl down the rock interior to get to the water, which he damn well was about to do before Jupiter had ran back inside to get something else.
It's a good thing he had them, really. He probably would have done something stupid enough to get himself killed by now.
Death via being stuck in the bottom of a well didn't seem very appealing. At least he would have had water.
The crank isn't as hard to turn as it was yesterday now that he's wedged it free, and although it's a bit difficult with the level of the water and the awkward angle of the pot, it's not so hard to get some and pull it back up when you've come as close to full-out dehydration as the both of them have. Like he said, he was about to dive down there yesterday. It really isn't so bad.
He downs nearly the entire pot of water before Jupiter makes their way out of the building behind him, which is longer than he expected to be alone. It still tastes funny, like iron and rust and just... dirt, really, but he could care less.
"Are you going to share that?"
"Nope," he announces, shaking the last few drops of water into his mouth before he drops the pot back down the well and repeats the process to fill it up again for them.
"Rude," Jupiter informs them, peering over the lip of the well to the water below. "This probably isn't good for us, isn't it?"
"I'd be surprised if it was."
They hum, apparently as uncaring as he is. He pulls up another potful of water and they take it, taking just as large of gulps as he previously was.
Yeah, they definitely don't care either. He'd be shocked if they did. Maybe it matters more to them, with the cancer and all that. He has fuck-all knowledge about how that effects the immune system in the long run. He probably should have listened to his dad more, or anyone for that matter. Hell, maybe if he even picked up a book he'd know a few more things than he did.
"Thanks," Jupiter says once they've finished draining the pot. They thank him every time, for anything, no matter how often he tells them not to.
At this point he's just letting them do it.
He unties the pot, resting it against the side of the well. "Well, what do you wanna do today?"
They laugh. "Quit it with the terrible jokes."
"Well you laughed, didn't you?"
"Stop!" they insist, still laughing. "I don't know, enjoy the day, I guess? It's nice out."
It is. It's still early, it probably won't be later on, but he doesn't have the heart to say that aloud and ruin the nice moment that they've pointed out. It would just be nice to take an easy day, to rest, to catch up on some much-needed sleep. His legs could really use a break.
His brain could too, if he's being honest.
"Sounds good to me," he agrees.
And it really does.
It feels good to admit that, finally. It's not all bad.
Not yet, anyway.
Isperia Martorell, 16
Applicant #17
Everything that's happened is her fault.
Now that she's alone, there's no convincing her otherwise.
She sits behind the rock after everything's done and over with for hours, crying for no reason at all. It's not because she's allowed to feel bad - if she wanted to feel bad, she would have intervened. Not because she's alone, now, she's always been most comfortable that way anyway.
It's just... odd. She can't figure out why she's crying. She's never cried so much in her life.
When she finally starts walking it's with no real rhyme or reason, clutching her ramshackle tin can bomb against her chest and stumbling through the sand closer to the mountains. She doesn't stop, doesn't try to sleep. In the few seconds when she dares to blink she sees Meris' body, the close up, terrible version of it. She doesn't even know how it is that she died because she wouldn't head that way to check after the others were gone.
She imagines a lot of blood, though, unknowing if that's the truth or if it even could have been less messy.
Everything just seems very messy these days.
Her entire body is drooping with exhaustion by the time she reaches the edge of the mountains, looking up at the climb with a weariness settling heavily on her bones.
She deserves that. It's fine. She's the worst sort of person that could possibly exist at this point in time.
Not any further up above her though is a little shack, bigger than the one they had been staying at previously. Big enough to house several different rooms, so not really a shack at all.
And there's a car behind it. A ramshackle, almost in two entirely different pieces car.
She speeds up at the sight of it, trips, and nearly falls.
Okay then.
The entire car groans when she pushes even a finger against it, so rusted away that she can practically see through the entire thing. The engine is still there, though, and most of the things that typically belong under a hood. She thinks, anyway. She's not so much of a car person. She just knows they need fuel, obviously, to run, and old-fashioned ones like this almost always had a battery. That's what she needs. Acid and fuel.
She almost starts crying again.
The bomb had seemed like a distant possibility no matter how tightly she clutched it against her chest like a lifeline. She had almost dropped it so many times in her exhausted state, especially in the mile or so that she had been followed by a few very petulant wasps. She didn't even know there were wasps out here, and now they were following her and stinging her. A sting hurt more than it usually would - it was sharp, intense, a strike of pain in her shoulder and then another on her thigh.
It was a good thing she wasn't allergic.
She puts the tin down on the ground up against the building along with her bag and begins to pry off what's left of the hood, wincing at the shrieking sound it emits. It nearly disintegrates in her hands, particles of rust and metal all turning into one.
She finds the battery quicker than she expected - first because of it's bright blue label spread all the way along the front, and then because of the faded 'SUV BATTERY' sign at the bottom.
She really isn't good with cars.
Her hands find a home in the car's guts, really, pulling the battery apart from the rest of the machine without much confusion. She finally wiggles it free. It's much heavier than she expected, and she's not entirely sure how to get what she wants out of it, but she'll figure it out. She doesn't really have a choice.
The fuel tank is much easier to find, more obvious. She inspects it for a few long minutes, looking for an easy solution that just... doesn't appear. When she peers into the hole after uncapping the thing it appears that there's gas in it, but she's not about to siphon it out. And with what, anyway? She has no tube to get it out with.
Eventually she cuts her losses and rolls under the back end of the car, banging her head against the edge of it for good measure.
That's just her life right now.
It's a little bit cooler here than it is anywhere else. There's a little buzzing and a bee comes crawling out of the mess of the car above her.
"No," she says flatly, as if that will dissuade it. It takes flight and buzzes right over her face, disappearing.
There's a small bolt screwed into the bottom of the fuel tank, as if plugging it. She twists at it a few times but it appears rusted shut, sealed tightly to the tank itself.
Well, not for long. She's not leaving until she gets it open.
She shuffles out for a moment to grab the bag and the empty bottle of hydrogen peroxide, ignoring the thoughts that come with it. There's another sharp, stinging pain in her ankle as she kicks out and wiggles back under the car - that damn bee, and she finally rolls back under it and begins to twist at the bolt again.
It takes her nearly fifteen, probably twenty minutes before the bolt comes loose at all, and another five before she moves out of the way to hold the bottle underneath, feeling confident in how far along she's come. By that time she's panting with exhausting, sweating all over despite the cool air hidden in this little bit of shade. Her arm is strained and shaking from all the work, reminding her of just how little she's done in way of exercise virtually ever.
A steady little flow of fuel spills out of the tank and into the bottle, some trickling over her fingers.
Once again, she nearly cries. She could break a new record.
She fills the bottle up as much as humanly possible at this odd angle, her body tingling with numbness, and caps it before she rolls back out into the sunlight. There she lays as she regains her breath, wetting her lips although it does no good.
Her lips are sort of numb, too. Why are her lips numb?
She sits up and everything stays in one place, thankfully. Is she that out of shape? She rubs at her head where she smacked it against the underside of the car and then grabs onto it as she rises to her feet.
She puts down her right foot and nearly shouts with pain as it threatens to give away underneath her. What the hell?
Her skin, when she touches it at the skin of her ankle to roll her pants up, is tender and red, already starting to swell. Instead of the barely visible sting of a bee there are two puncture wounds in her ankle just above where the bone juts out, bleeding only slightly. When she tries to put weight on it again she knows without trying that she'd be struggling at an awkward limp, unable to put most of her weight on it.
Not a bee. That's a snake.
She looks around, wildly, but there's no sign of the thing. Under the car. She backs away from it and nearly slams into the building, clutching at it with shaking fingers. What do they say about snakebites, that you should try and see what kind it is to better treat it?
Nope, nope. She's definitely not doing that.
This isn't good. This is very, very bad. Her lips are numb when she prods at them and part of her right cheek, too.
That's really not good.
It doesn't matter if she looks, because there's no treatment. There's no hospitals, no access to antivenom or anything that could save her. She could delude herself into thinking it's not poisonous, but the numbness, the swelling, the pain...
It's definitely poisonous.
And she's definitely going to die.
Icarus Devereux, 17
Applicant #10
His neck is very sore when he wakes up.
His head is leaned very awkwardly up against the window, the seat-belt digging into his neck. Why does he even have that on, again? He doesn't remember buckling it.
Really, he doesn't even remember falling asleep. They were driving. Soran had finally looked like he wasn't about to pass out the second Icarus glanced away, so he had leaned his head up against the window, and—
Had he really fallen asleep?
The car definitely isn't moving anymore, instead parked in the narrow space between two buildings. Buildings aren't great, from what he remembers, and there are several of them spread about. He doesn't remember stopping, because he was asleep, and he doesn't remember succumbing to that either.
To his left, Soran looks conveniently a hundred and fifty percent dead in the driver's seat. He's also asleep, knees up to his chest, curled into as little of a ball as he can manage. He stares for a long moment before he gives in and pulls his hand free from where it's curled around his knees, feeling for a pulse at his wrist. It's still there, miraculously, even if he still can't see the rise and fall of his chest.
What he can see, now that he has the light to, is how god-fucking-awful he looks. There's blood everywhere - arms, neck, face, places he probably can't even see.
Icarus' face is throbbing in places he didn't know it could throb, but he's not that bad off.
Eventually he clambers out of the car and looks around, at the cluster of low-lying, non-descript buildings. It seems to be tucked away enough, and they weren't killed in their sleep, so that's good. He peers into the cracked window of the building they're closest to - it's nothing but one large room and a few pieces of furniture, signs of an old kitchen broken down on the other side.
Okay, this is on him now. He's relatively intact. More intact than Soran.
He pulls open the driver's side door, thankfully prepared for when Soran comes sliding out as limp as can be, hitting his outstretched arms with a thud. Icarus all but drags him out of the car as gently as he possibly can, which really isn't that gentle at all.
"Ow," Soran mumbles, the second his feet are somewhat against the ground. If Icarus let go of him right now he'd hit the dirt. "Why?"
"I'm bringing you inside."
"Inside where?"
"Wherever the hell you stopped us last night."
Soran isn't cooperating in the slightest, which isn't surprising. He grapples back at Icarus' arms, trying and apparently failing to stand up right. "You fell asleep."
"How long are you going to hold that against me?"
"Forever."
"Great," he says flatly. "After I saved your life?"
"You wouldn't have had to save my life if you hadn't left," Soran points out. His feet really aren't anywhere near solid on the ground - Icarus gives up and starts dragging him towards the front door instead.
"Are we really getting into this right now?" he asks.
"If you want," he mumbles in response, wincing when Icarus accidentally runs the two of them into the doorframe.
"You can't even look up, let alone hold a proper conversation with me."
"Everything hurts," he complains, which is about as close as Soran will get to admitting he's in pain and suffering a whole hell of a lot for it. The fact that he's relying on Icarus alone to keep him upright says a lot too. He drags him over the thresh-hold and into the building, depositing him in the corner of the room nearest to the couch that's full of too many holes to properly sit on. Once Soran's sitting he looks around, dazed. Icarus watches him sway in place for a moment.
"Where are we again?" Soran asks, genuinely confused.
"No clue."
He hums under his breath and then slumps back against the wall, wincing when his head connects with it. He raises up one of his arms and even Icarus is pained with the amount of effort it looks like it takes.
"My skin is hanging off my arm," he observes, and Icarus is torn between looking and well, throwing up.
"Great," he repeats. "Don't move. I'm gonna go get the stuff."
There's a first-aid kit in there. He can do something with that. Whatever's in there isn't going to do anything for the apparent pained mush that is Soran's current state of mind, but he needs to take baby steps here. If he could patch him up, at least help alleviate some of the pain...
He stops outside and puts his head in his hands, ignoring the tenderness that radiates out from the middle of his face when he presses his fingers into his eyes. He had already been about to come back, but then he had heard the fucking scream and that had nearly made him throw up as well. There wasn't any question in his mind when he had went back in there, no fear at all because if he let himself be scared then one of them, at least, was going to die.
He hadn't wanted Soran to die - every part of him had known that, because of how much he fucking cares.
He cares way too much. Way more than he ever wanted to, and there's no getting rid of it now.
"Fuck my life," he announces yet again, scooping up the bag from the backseat along with the sword and few knives, still lying abandoned between the front two seats. Why does he have to care, especially at the level of he does?
If he's being real with himself, it's beyond caring.
It's beyond caring, and he wants to punch himself for it.
Once back inside he stops, just inside the door, staring at Soran's limp form, now curled up on the floor once again in a little ball. He looks asleep again, doesn't move even when Icarus walks right up to him.
"Soran," he tries. No response. He sits down next to him with a sigh. At least he's alive - this close he can see the rise and fall of his chest, at least, and that's somewhat reassuring. He's not going to die, or else it would have already happened.
He upends the contents of the bag on the floor to his right. There's a decent amount in it; food, water, medical supplies. Hopefully enough to get them through whatever the rest of this will even entail, and once Soran wakes up they can work on the injuries. He doesn't have the heart to wake him up now that he's seen firsthand just how out of it he really is.
And Soran's right, too - if Icarus hadn't left chances are this wouldn't have happened. They could have taken the guy together, probably.
He pulls the last of the supplies from the bag and then folds the whole thing in half, ever so gently sliding his hand under Soran's head to lift it up, wedging the backpack underneath it as much as he can manage. He mumbles something under his breath but doesn't properly wake, and Icarus pulls his hands away carefully, grateful beyond words that his eyes never re-open, that he isn't properly disturbed.
With yet another sigh he lays down next to him, staring up at the cracked and dirty ceiling.
This is his life now. This is really, truly it.
It's all sorts of bad, of scary. He feels sick just looking at Soran now, at the damaged state of him.
They're really, awfully good at hurting each other, unintentionally or not.
He doesn't want to hurt him anymore.
Starting today, he's done with it.
Sabre Hennedige, 15
Applicant #6
Jay's face looks progressively worse as time goes on.
He hasn't once complained about it since the actual incident, keeping silent instead and grimacing when he thinks Sabre can't see him doing it, rubbing at his face gingerly.
His nose is definitely broken and a hair crooked. He doesn't think pointing that latter part out will go over well, so he doesn't.
When he finally stops the bike it's because the terrain is getting rockier and rockier by the mile and although he won't say it, he can tell Jay's not enjoying it. They could drive on for a while longer as there's no point in stopping, but it's been a while since either of them have slept, and they could both use a break.
It's been a tough time accepting that he needs a break, and more importantly that he's allowed to do so. Not everything he does needs to be so driven, so hyper-focused. It's worth taking time for himself that doesn't involve stressing him out even more.
And right now's really not about him, anyway. He's felt that way a lot in the past, but at least right now it's because he doesn't think he's worth it.
"Are we stopping for good?" Jay asks, glancing around.
"If you want. There's enough rocks - good cover from the wind.
And from everyone else, too. No Meris' will be creeping up on them if they're hidden.
Jay nods and gets off the bike. Sabre rolls it a few more feet forward before getting off likewise, setting it against one of the larger rocks. Jay sits down in the shadow of it with a thump, still insistently prodding at his face. It's all swollen and bruised, blood crusted around the bottom of his nose and lips.
"How's it feel?"
"Awful," he answers. "Is that normal? I've never broken my nose before."
"I haven't either," he admits. "I think that's normal. As long as you can still breathe I think it should be fine, so just keep an eye on that."
Jay glances down at his own nose, or at least tries to, eyes nearly crossing in his rather pointless quest. It feels like a piss poor attempt at humor even if he didn't intend for it. He gives up for good only a few seconds in, flopping over onto his side and cushioning his face with his arms. It still doesn't look particularly comfortable.
He picks his own spot more carefully, settling down just in front of him with the bag in his lap, wrapping an arm around it.
"Stop doing that," Jay says, though his voice lacks the conviction that would make Sabre really question it.
"Stop doing what?"
"Messing with your ear. It's already got like, a hole in it, dude, and I'm trying not to focus on it but you keep messing with it."
He pulls his hand away from his ear; how long has he been doing that, exactly? More than once, too, judging by what Jay has said. He can feel the ridge, the separation in his lobe from where the earring tore through it. It's all scabby now, doesn't burn as fiercely.
"Faye tore it out when she fell," he tells him. "She tried to grab onto me. I don't think she meant it."
"Yikes," Jays flatly. "Seriously, stop messing with it. You're just going to make it worse or rip off the scabs or something."
"Stop touching your nose, then."
Jay jerks his hand away from his nose as if it started to burn, suddenly. "I'm not."
"You are. It can't feel good."
"It doesn't," he agrees. "It feels like twice the normal size, I can't help it."
"It's not - just a little swollen. It's still a lot smaller than mine."
Jay cracks his eyes open, rolling over a bit. "There's nothing wrong with your nose."
"I didn't say there was."
"No, but you implied it," Jay insists. "Coming from someone who has an awful lot of opinions on an awful lot of faces, take it from me. Yours is fine. It could definitely be worse."
Sabre's not sure what that is, exactly. A backhanded compliment? It could be worse? Sure, like most things. But again, like most things, it could also be better. There's not really any changing that. Jay seems so confident in everything he does, even when it comes down to him bashing his own face in.
"How do you do it?" he asks.
"Do what?"
"Like yourself. You do it very easily."
"You don't... like yourself?" Jay questions, and he shrugs. He's still not really sure. He's trying, but most days it's a struggle. It's even harder when he's also trying to come to terms with what he's done, trying to find appropriate ways to cope with it that don't involve him destroying himself. That's usually the path he goes down first, and it's never done any good.
Truthfully, he wants to get far away from that path.
"I guess," Jay starts. "I mean, my arms are like spaghetti noodles, right? Not going to impress anyone. But you can't change that unless you have the right mindset. And that's super hard, too."
"So..."
"I'm not saying you have to get up tomorrow morning and be like, in love with yourself, because it's not going to happen. You just have to start somewhere. You can think oh, my arms look like shit all you want, but you're probably the only one thinking like that."
"I don't think your arms look like shit?"
"Exactly," Jay points out. "You're your own person, which means you have to learn how to handle yourself first. And once you do everything seems a little easier, or something. I don't think anything can be easy if your own brain is fighting you the whole time."
He nods. "Alright, then. I think I've got it."
Not wholly, but like Jay said, things like that don't just happen overnight. There's no miracle 180 to be had here. And the thing is, Sabre has accepted that he's probably, almost certainly, going to die.
He doesn't want to, but he definitely doesn't want to die hating himself.
If he's going to die he wants to die being his own person.
Arwen Paoul, 18
Applicant #1
She concedes to let Jahaira drive for just a few hours.
It's a painfully slow process, but it's nice to get a break. She has so many things she could say - quips about her rather luck-luster skills as a driver when there's nothing even around them, quips in general.
She doesn't know why she doesn't. It's all she's wanted to do for days, clearly, based on how she treated her when she dared to go back and bury Topher.
Right now she just doesn't want to, and she's accepted it. Being a bad person is exhausting.
It had felt like she was good, almost, once upon a time. Back before everything had fallen apart, before Emmi and Myra and the split.
"I want to bury my camera," Jahaira says out of the blue, eyes resolutely focused on the path she's driving, both hands locked white-knuckled around the steering wheel. Arwen remembers feeling like that when she had been taught how to drive as well, a rare moment of weakness.
"File that under sentence I never thought I would hear," she says drily. "Why?"
"It's a reminder of things I don't want to be reminded of. And you were right. It's just making everything worse. I can't make anything better with it - I'll never be able to."
Jahaira has completely shattered and she's watched it happen - now she's certain of it. Just like there's no turning around her good cop bad cop deal, there's no getting back the Jahaira that existed back at the Institute, laughing and joking, clinging to Myra in the simulation.
"Stop the car, then," she offers, shrugging. It's not as if she really cares. It's not her property, not something she's ever cared about. She didn't take pictures of many things that weren't herself.
Jahaira pulls the car into a small patch of brush, where the earth looks easier to dig into. Not like where they buried Topher. And she won't have to dig such a ridiculously big hole, either, just a shallow little scoop. Enough to get rid of it.
Arwen watches her pull from the backseat, running her fingers over the sleek design and then all of the buttons over the top. It is pretty nice, that she can admit. It seems like a shame to let it go to waste, but that's none of Arwen's business.
"Do you wanna see?"
"See what?" she asks.
"What I've taken the past few days."
To be honest she's surprised the damn thing even has any battery life left. Instead of answering, unwilling to break in that regard, she offers out her hands until Jahaira drops the camera into her open palms. She's seen her turn it on and navigate its settings so many times that it's easy to pull up the full menu of photos.
A lot of it is exactly what she expected to see. A lot of flowers, courtesy of Gideon and his goddamn tendencies to wander off. Lots of that stupid cliff - pretty sunrises and sunsets alike, though. A lot of silhouettes of them, not all the way in focus.
There's a few shots of just her - everyone, really, in some capacity, standing or sitting or laying down alone. She's managed to capture the full range of human emotions in a few dozen pictures of the lot of them.
She stares at one for a heartbeat too long - the one of her and Emmi, just the two of them. Long enough for a lump to rise in her throat.
"Yeah," she agrees, shaking away the encroaching sadness. "Let's bury it."
Jahaira smiles, sadly, as Arwen suspects she's been doing the whole time, feeling exactly the same emotions. She doesn't ask for the camera back, just climbs out of the car and takes the shovel with her as she paces a few feet away from the truck and begins to dig the thing into the earth.
She follows more slowly, hovering just behind as Jahaira scoops out a hole big enough to fit the camera into.
"Alright," Jahaira says. "You wanna do the honors?"
She hesitates, one of the half dozen times she's ever done that in her life, and then steps forward to place the camera in the hole. She almost drops it before she thinks better. They're already burying the thing - no reason to break it as well.
She pulls the shovel from Jahaira's hands, almost goes ha, just like old times! but doesn't, and instead focuses on covering the camera just like she did the body, patting the dirt down on top of it for good measure.
"Anything you wanna say?" she offers, and the smile Jahaira manages to crack isn't as sad as it was before. Her eyes are still the same, filled with a deep, unsettling amount of pain, but it's something.
"If I happen to survive this and get back home, my parents are going to kill me anyway. That was expensive."
Past tense, like it's already gone.
It kind of is, if Jahaira doesn't chicken out and unearth it.
"Very touching," she says, the lie rolling off her tongue easily. "If you happen to survive this and get back home, you can tell them I did it."
Jahaira is still smiling - Arwen actually sees a flash of teeth for a mere second too, before it's gone.
"Can do. Thanks."
She skirts around Arwen, still not close enough to touch, and gets back in the truck. She stares at the little impromptu burial spot for a moment longer, unable to help but linger on what just passed between them.
It felt nice, to say it. Felt nice to have a semi-normal conversation for once.
But she knows that Jahaira isn't surviving, isn't getting home, because that would mean Arwen wouldn't.
And there's no way in hell that's happening.
Emmi Langlois, 17
Applicant #13
Her mom is there.
That's the only reason Emmi knows she's still asleep.
She's been floating in so much darkness for so long, burning from the inside out. Sewed herself up as best she could, stopped the bleeding, but the fever still comes anyway. Sleep is easier when it feels like your body is fighting back against you.
She's seen her once before, distantly terrified that she had come to collect her like some sort of reaper, but she had just stood over her, watchful. Emmi had closed her eyes, as much as one who was already asleep could close their eyes. She was safe, for the time being with her mother watching over her. Her fever-slow, muddled brain knew that much.
"It's time to wake up, sweetheart," she says. Her voice is nothing like Emmi remembers.
She's certain she only truly knows her mother's face because of pictures, anyway. It was so long ago, she was so young...
"It's going to hurt," she mumbles, planting her face back in her arm.
"Not as much as you think. It's time to go, Emmi."
"Go where?"
"Anywhere else. Anywhere but where you are now. For me."
She looks up, at this woman's slightly unfamiliar face and even more unfamiliar voice. For her, for someone she hasn't known for so long. She has to go somewhere, has to do more than lie here and die. She has to fight like everyone else.
"Okay," she agrees softly, closing her eyes again. "Can do."
She senses her mother's smile, just before she properly wakes up. "I know you can."
Her eyes are so blurred over that when she wakes, for good, she can hardly see at all. For one irrational second she fears she's gone blind, but blinking a few seconds rids it quickly, and she wipes her hand over them for good measure. There's no sweat over her brow.
The fever is gone. Broken, sometime in the night.
And miraculously, she's alive.
It hurts, still, but her mother's words ring true. Not as much as it used to. Her stomach still throbs and pulls, her side less so. The taste of blood is still the thing at the forefront of her mouth and she reaches for the bag without moving, dragging it closer to her. She hasn't eaten in God knows how many days. She tried, a few times. Never kept is down.
She pulls a bag of granola out and shoves an entire handful of her mouth, missing almost half of it but crunching away regardless.
The Sentinels haven't come to kill her, for some reason. She looks at the bracelet, which must still be displaying some sort of tracking information regardless of the damage it took from the fall.
They haven't killed her. She can't take that for granted.
She works through the entire bag of granola and then a water bottle after it, the feeling of uncomfortable fullness an odd one in her stomach. She places a hand over top of it, over where she stuck pins through her own skin to knit some of it back together, and inhales. Exhales.
It hurts, but not enough to keep her down.
She sits up slowly, letting her head spin as much as it damn well wants to, taking another sip of water to calm the sudden turmoil in her stomach. It's still going to be slow going, there's no doubt about that, but she doesn't have to stay here. There's still the object of getting to her feet, but there's no point in that just yet. She takes all of the discarded supplies, spread out in a haphazard heap around the indentation she's practically made in the ground, and one by one puts them all back in the bag.
The pain in her shoulder has been reduced to a dull ache. She carefully unwinds her makeshift sling and stretches out. Not too bad.
She just has to get her legs to work now. They better damn well work, if they're the only truly uninjured part of her.
The wall proves good purchase as always, and she settles on her knees for a few seconds to get used to the feeling, blood rushing back all the way down into her toes. She shifts back and forth - the bandages taped over her stomach and side hold firm, and she can't feel any of her make-shift stitches pulling too much.
There are other words her mother didn't say, but that she can hear anyway. Take it easy, take it slow.
There's no rush.
Emmi gets the feeling there is need for a rush, though. She has no idea how long she's been out, and the bracelet...
There's only twelve of them left. How many were there, when she last fell asleep? So many more, she's certain. She can only imagine the horror that's gone on since she's been out of it, who's still alive out there. Some of the others, maybe. If anyone, Arwen would at least be worth finding. More than worth it.
Okay, that's a goal. A good one.
She just has to get up.
She drags the bag closer to her feet so that she won't have to bend much once she's up and pulls herself to her feet, still using the wall for balance. She wobbles alarmingly for a few seconds, vision spotting with gray and black at the edges. She squeezes her eyes shut, blinks rapidly until they disappear. Once again she presses her hand over the bandages to check them, but there's no fresh blood.
The backpack fits snugly over her shoulders once she's able to get it up off the ground, and it helps to anchor her some when she feels like swaying out of place. She puts the gun in her belt along with the machete, two of the knives alongside it.
When she looks down at them something about it makes her smile - her cracked lips tear open anew, and she tastes blood in her mouth again, but it's worth it.
Emmi's not dead. It doesn't make any sense, but she's not. In fact, she's on her feet, she's armed, she's ready to go.
Her mother won't be coming with her past this point, but that's alright.
She can handle that.
"Thanks, mom," she says to the empty little cavern, towards the blood staining the rocks.
With that, she heads for the exit and starts back up the cliff.
I know there's still twelve left but there really isn't all that many Game-related chapters left so... take your bets now, I do suppose. Apparently I'm incapable of writing a very long endgame and resort to immediate and terrible murder once about half of them are left.
Anyway.
Until next time.