XXVIII: Day Seven, Evening.
Jahaira Aurelion, 16
Applicant #23
Much to her surprise, she's off picking flowers.
One hobby lost, one hobby gained. Hopefully Gideon would be proud of her, wherever he may be now. If he's even still alive.
It's really strange to think about the people she spent all that time with as just... dead. Most of the people she shared a room with, dead. Myra and Emmi for certain, the possibility of Meris and Jupiter being gone ratcheting up more and more with every passing hour, every number that trickles down on the bracelet.
Today's been calm, though. No one's dead. It's nice to have an even twenty-four hours where apparently nothing bad has happened, at least not that they have proof of.
She reaches out with the flat of her shoe to poke out at a cactus. "Can we eat cactus, do you think?"
"Cacti," Arwen corrects. "Try and find out. I reckon you'll get the spines stuck in your tongue, though, and that doesn't sound too fun."
No, it doesn't. She messes with it for a few more seconds, nearly knocking the fat pink flowers and closed buds at the top clear off. There's not much else around that's capable of growing from the rock, save for a few stems topped with withered yellow flowers. She doesn't know if they're safe to eat either. That's where Gideon would be coming in handy.
She drops two of them over Arwen's folded knees, the bright yellow ones.
"Are those good to eat?" Arwen asks flatly.
She shrugs. "I think so? They don't look harmful."
"Are you intending for me to be the guinea pig?"
Well... not in as many words, really. Jahaira really does think they're safe. Her brain as of late hasn't been the most reliable thing though because of everything that's happened, though, so she'd rather her try it out first. She really doesn't have any desire to die via poisonous, unassuming flower.
Arwen doesn't break eye contact when she shoves half the stem in her mouth and rips it off with her teeth, crunching down for a few thorough bites. Her face screws up.
"This tastes like shit."
"Are you implying the other ones didn't?"
"No, but this one especially," she insists, although she swallows it and then stuffs the withered petals in her mouth along in it, getting those down even faster. "Guess you'll see soon if they're poisonous or not. If I drop dead, don't eat them."
If Arwen dropped dead because Jahaira unintentionally made her eat something poisonous, then she'd probably want her dead. Arwen would come back from the great beyond to shove the flowers in Jahaira's mouth herself with her ghostly hands, if she didn't do it first once she realized how alone she was out here in the middle of nowhere.
Truly that's the one thing that's keeping her from taking any action against Arwen. The longer she waits, too, the more the hostility seems to die down. At first she had felt so much sadness, so much budding anger inside herself that she was certain one of them would have been dead by now. In fact, she would have bet money on it. The two of them weren't supposed to survive this long together.
Jahaira finishes picking the few flowers she can see in the vicinity and then plops down in front of Arwen in the dirt. She's picking at the dirt underneath her formerly well-manicured nails, the little flicking sound the only thing Jahaira can hear other than the crickets far off in the distance, her own breathing.
"Well, I think you're safe," she decides a few minutes later. Arwen hums under her breath and doesn't look up from her task. For a second Jahaira almost considers doing the same - her nails are filthy, along with virtually every other part of her, but she doesn't see any point. It's only going to get worse. There's no changing that now, and cleaning herself up a bit won't fix it.
She starts on one of the flowers herself - Arwen is right, it does taste like absolute shit, sharp and bitter against her tongue, like something that was left in the fridge for weeks beyond it's expiry date.
It's food, though, and her stomach has been crying out for anything of proper sustenance for days now.
At least they have the water. They'd be dead without it.
Maybe that would be better, easier, but she's too scared of the thought to properly confront it.
"Where do you think we would be now if Myra and Emmi hadn't gotten into that fight?" she asks. Arwen's eyes flick up to hers, leaving the tragic state of her nails.
"Does it matter?"
"I guess not. I was just wondering."
"I'm not sure we'd all still be one happy family, but in the very least I think more of us would be alive. I don't think it would have taken very long for all of the duos to go their separate ways. But Gideon and Jupiter had each other, and our other halves bit the dust, so we got stuck together."
"It would be nice," she says quietly. "If more of us were still alive."
"Try telling that to the Sentinels," Arwen invites. "I'm sure they think the exact opposite in that regard."
Probably. They didn't let them loose out here to be happy with the amount of them left at any given time. Half of them in what, a week, though? That's a pretty high number for a bunch of kids that had no idea what they were getting themselves into. The simulation was different, just a bit of fun... this is real life and death here, and there's no getting out of it.
Nobody was really prepared for this, not even the killers that came out of the simulation.
It was different back then. You could screw up and still have what you wanted afterwards like nothing at all changed. You could kill and die and come back from it all in the same minute, just like that.
That's not the case anymore.
Percius Marigold, 17
Applicant #2
He feels like a little kid that's afraid of the dark.
As soon as the sun starts to go down he begins to panic, well and truly. Last night was different, last night he was still caught in the haze of killing Verity and had sat with his head on his knees between two boulders until the sun came up, refusing to open his eyes.
Now he was out in the mountains, alone, the sun going down.
And there's a building right in front of him. A big one.
He nearly falls down the mountainside in his haste to get in before the sun fully sets. He's not afraid of the dark, really, because that's stupid, first of all, and unlikely as hell. He just doesn't want to be out here alone anymore. At least once he's inside he can hide himself away for the night until the sun comes back up. As stupid as that sounds, it's safer that way.
He trips over several of the rocks and large boulders all the way to the front gate and practically hurls himself across the courtyard to the first door that he sees, two big ones that creak and groan when he parts them to step into the front hall.
The setting sun is turning everything odd shades of red and gold, the already dark interior seeming to light up with a little something before it goes dark for the night.
It had never crossed his mind until right now that other people might be in here as well. It's a huge place by the looks of it, big enough to hide at least one other person or group. Hell, this could be the place where the Sentinels have been camping out. Although not the most well put together it's more intact than anything else he's seen out in the valley.
With that thought in mind he takes a few slow steps down the hall, brandishing the tomahawk in one hand and the pickaxe with the other. He feels like he's absolutely insane at this point, the pinnacle of someone who deserves to be locked the fuck up. That's what they do to cold-blooded murderers, especially of a thirteen year old. Put them away.
She had lunged at him first, is how he's justifying it. She was going to kill him because of the suspicions she had been harboring that he was going to do it first.
And he hadn't been, not until that moment. He had told her the truth.
If he ever got to tell someone that - her parents, the rest of her family, any of the public, they certainly wouldn't care. They would just care that he killed her at all when she hadn't technically done anything but follow the rules.
The way he talks about rules makes it well and truly sound like the Hunger Games. There's no difference, really. He's watched someone die, multiple someones, has killed someone else in return. He's burned and starved and been dehydrated, has had trouble sleeping through the night and wonders with every step and turn what awful thing is going to happen next. He jumps at every sound, can't keep his eyes from betraying his fear even though there's no one around to see it.
He steps very carefully past the broken chandelier, avoiding the worst of the glass. He can't avoid it all, though, can't see properly to do so, and winces at the sound of it crunching and breaking further under his shoes.
If someone is in here, they're going to have heard the door open. You'd have to be deaf not to.
Percy doesn't care. He'll lock himself in the first closet he finds and not come out until the morning if that's what he needs to do. Whoever else is here, if they are, can have the rest of the place. They can leave each other alone.
He's in the process of darting up the stairs when he hears footsteps, and in a split second decision bolts up the rest of them instead of going back down and fleeing outside.
He doesn't want to go back outside. He doesn't want to die.
He's not sure if he wants to kill anyone else, either.
Depending on who it is, though...
God, why is he thinking like that?
He passes a few closed doors as he hurries down the hallway, keeping his feet as light as he can, telling himself not to look behind him. He thinks the footsteps were up here with him, but who really knows, with his state of mind. It's not as if he's thinking all that clearly right about now, hasn't been since the first day if he's being honest.
Hell, he probably didn't have a good state of mind ever. He came here to follow a guy he had a ridiculously bad crush on.
He was set up to fail this from the beginning.
Finally he finds a room with an open door, appearing empty other than a few pieces of old furniture, and he throws himself inside, flattening himself against the backside of the door. They'll have expected him to close the door, so they probably won't even bother looking in here. If they'll just go away, then he can find a proper hiding spot.
None of this needs to happen.
The footsteps are coming closer, though, or so he thinks. Why are they looking for him in the darkness of the interior? It has to be one of the Sentinels, no one else would be fucking crazy enough to do this. No one else is a hunter.
They're definitely coming closer, though. He holds his breath, keeps himself completely still against the door as he hears the footsteps stop in the hall just outside. He wants to peek, so desperately wants to turn his head to see who it is through the crack, but he finds a point in the wall and keeps his eyes there no matter how much his brain is telling him to do otherwise.
He's not going to look. He can't look.
The footsteps start up again, inching closer to the open doorway. He squeezes his eyes shut as they sound right behind him on the other side of the door. He needs to breathe, but he can't. He'll give himself away, and he can't.
Just go, his brain is screaming. Just go.
A normal person would have given up by now. It's a Sentinel, it has to be. They're going to kill him; for running, for hiding, for all the crying he's been doing this past week.
And maybe that's what he deserves, but it's not what he wants.
He's still holding onto both weapons. He's going to get one shot before they wheel away and turn it back on him, fierce as they are. One shot will be all he needs if he can get it right - in the neck or the chest or the stomach. Somewhere vital, even if it's not quick. Something that will be enough to keep them down while he runs and hides.
He realizes a second later that they're tracking him, eyes flicking down without moving to the bracelet still fastened around his wrist.
They know exactly where he is. They knew all along.
Oh, fuck it.
He doesn't even take another breath. His head is practically spinning from the lack of oxygen when he lunges out from behind the door. He drops the pickaxe, wraps both hands around the tomahawk and leaps forward. The blade sinks into flesh - there's a sharp, horrified scream. That's not the noise he expected. It's too shrill, too terrified...
He looks up.
It's not a Sentinel.
Jupiter Valentine, 18
Applicant #9
They've been in a lot of pain in their life.
None that quite match up to this.
They see a shadow move just beyond the door, and then the shadow is a person. A person with the weapon.
And the weapon is buried in their stomach.
They see Percy look up, when they scream. His eyes widen, just enough for them to realize it wasn't meant to be like this, he didn't really mean it, he didn't know.
None of that matters, because they hit the ground with a thump anyway, and the axe comes free from the interior of their stomach with a hard pull. They screamed. Mal will have heard that, certainly. He's going to come running. They didn't even mean to - it was just shock.
They fold their hands over their stomach - there's an alarming amount of blood spilling out and soaking their shirt.
"Fuck," Percy says. "Fuck, fuck, I didn't mean—"
There's a harsh noise as the weapon that he buried in their stomach falls into the ground and then another, just after that. The sound of his knees hitting the ground is softer but they wince regardless. His hands are fluttering above over their stomach like he's searching for something to do, muttering profanities under his breath, the words not able to come out fast enough.
"I didn't mean it," he breathes. "Fuck, I didn't know it was you, I thought..."
They know what he thought; that no one would be following him around, looking for him, unless they meant him harm.
He didn't know. They believe that.
"It's okay," they force out. "It's okay."
Percy shakes his head and finally his hands settle over theirs across the wound in their stomach, pushing down. They clench their teeth together, holding down another scream at the fresh wave of pain that radiates all over their stomach and practically up their throat, the threat of choking on the pain suddenly a very real and tangible one.
They hear footsteps, distantly. Percy looks up, alarmed.
"It's okay," they repeat. "It's just Mal, it's—"
Definitely Mal. He comes skidding to a halt in the doorway, barely managing to catch the edge of the frame before he hurtles past it. It hurts too much to turn their neck to watch - they fixate on the ceiling, instead, on what little bit of Percy they can see as he leans back. Although his hands are still folded over theirs, keeping pressure on the wound, he's wary.
No, he's terrified. There's a difference.
In a sudden fit of movement Percy gets ripped away from them, on the floor one second and being dragged up and away from them in the next.
"Mal," they plead. "Mal, don't."
There's a burst of shouting. It's coming from somewhere behind them, but they can't turn their head to look in that direction. Mal's got Percy, now, no doubt about it. Mal's going to kill him because of what he did, and to be honest, they can't exactly blame him for it. That doesn't mean they want to be here when it happens. They don't want Percy to die because of this accident.
"Mal," they say, louder. It takes everything to get it to the volume it climbs to, but the shouting ceases, if only for a second. They're rewarded for their efforts when Mal gives up his reign of terror on Percy and crouches down by their side. He doesn't look at them, though, fixated on the blood no doubt pumping out of their stomach, just not fast enough to outright kill them.
They were never getting a quick death; they've known that for longer than they've been out here.
"What do you want me to do?" he asks, and they're more than alarmed when his voice shakes just a little.
"Don't kill him."
"You can't tell me not to do that."
"Well, I am," they insist. "Don't, please. He didn't know, he didn't mean it."
He looks beyond aggravated at that but they're not surprised in the slightest when he listens, at least for the time being. He won't worsen the already-skyrocketing distress going on in this room if they ask him not to.
It's once they're gone that's problematic. Who knows what will happen then.
Percy's footsteps are rapid, pacing somewhere to their right. Mal takes their hand in his, folded over their stomach, but doesn't press quite as hard as Percy was. There's probably no fixing this, or maybe there's just no point. They made it a lot longer than the doctors said they were going to. They made it here, they made friends.
They did pretty well, all things considered.
"I thought I knew what dying felt like," they say, kind of stupidly, and the distress on Mal's face intensifies. "Maybe I'm not dying."
Mal reaches across from them and picks up the tomahawk, weighing it in his hands. Percy doesn't even seem to notice. "Maybe."
Maybe not, but it hurts nonetheless. Not as much as they expected. Maybe they have a certain pain tolerance after everything, after the long stays in the hospital and the chemo, all of the injections and experimental drugs.
They're glad it was them and not Mal that came looking.
"You have to promise me something," they say. "Look at me. Don't kill him."
If they're not truly dying, they're still talking like that's what's going on. It's easy to accept it after all these years. Like they said, they expected to be gone long before this moment. At least they got a few days of something resembling a normal human life.
"I'm serious," they insist, while Percy starts up swearing again. "Don't."
Mal hasn't promised either way, and when Percy keeps up at it he looks up, towards where Jupiter still can't crane their neck enough to see. They would never expect Mal to promise because that's not who he is. They don't want lies in what could very well be their last few minutes.
"What?" Mal snaps, finally. "God, shut up, would you? Have you not made things bad enough?"
"A car just pulled up," he says wildly. "Fuck, yep, that's definitely a Sentinel - oh, God, is that her? Jesus christ."
Mal doesn't move from their side, much as they assume he wants to check himself.
"You should probably go," they say quietly.
"And what about you?"
"If I'm still alive when they get up here, they'll kill me. It's okay."
"That is not fucking okay," Mal hisses. "You think they're going to go easy on you?"
Probably not, but there's really no alternative. Percy's not going to do anything now, not even if they asked him. Really there's only one option, and...
"Mal," they say quietly. From far below there's a little burst of distant shouting. It appears that Percy's not lying to distract them after all. He doesn't move for the door - they're in the way. They don't think Mal would let him leave right now anyway, not unless it was over his own dead body.
"I don't want to," Mal says finally.
"You think I want you to?" they ask. "Not really. Not how I imagined it would go, but..."
They can feel tears gathering in their eyes. This really was not at all what they imagined.
It was something, though. It was certainly something.
"I'd rather it be you over them," they say thickly. "You know that, right?"
Mal nods a little frantically, hand tightening for just a second over theirs. "Yeah, I know."
And that's it. Mal squeezes their hand one last time, and there's a lot of words in that gesture that he would never say aloud. Like they said, they wouldn't expect him to, nor would they want him to. That's not him.
He stands up. He's still got the bat, but he has the tomahawk, too. Percy hasn't asked for it back, if he's even noticed.
The blade comes swinging down. Maybe they're imagining it, but they think Mal closed his eyes, just before he does it.
Suddenly there's a lot more pain, right in the center of their chest. Oh, there we go. That's worse. That's enough to kill. Mal skirts around their legs, though they can barely see over the next few seconds. Their vision is fading - all they see is him stepping away, so far that they can no longer see him, and he doesn't turn back.
There's words exchanged, things they can't make out. Then an awful, sickening howl of pain that's nearly enough to make them open their eyes one last time.
Well, they tried. They shouldn't have even bothered trying to make Mal listen in the first place.
They really want to open their eyes, truly, to at least see what Mal has done before they're gone for good, but they can't. They're too heavy to open. It's like one of the nurses sticking something in their IV all over again, the comfortable weight of darkness settling back over them.
This time, there's no reopening.
It's easy to accept it.
Gideon Mallory, 16
Applicant #20
His whole body feels sort of numb by the time he gets down the stairs and to the back door.
He doesn't even notice the blood dripping from the end of the tomahawk until he's outside, the color more obviously stark against the pale dirt than the darker interior.
The headlights from the car out front are illuminating even the area near the well. They know it's just him, now - he's the only one left to track. Once he was done with Percy he didn't see any need to stay up there with the two of them, looking at what he's done. It seemed like the logical answer to head outside; some would say the logical option would be to run, far and very fast, but it's taking everything he has to just drag his feet outside through the dirt.
The bracelet's down to ten. Funny how that works. It'll be single digits after him.
If they kill him, anyway. They might leave him alone because of what he's done in the past few minutes.
Percy didn't even put up a fight, just sort of accepted it like how Mal is accepting it too, right about now. He doesn't care about running. He doesn't want to.
He's just really tired of everything. Has been for a long time, really.
Jupiter wouldn't want him to call it quits, nor Connie or his parents. No one who really cares.
But they're not here right now, either dead or several hundred miles away, unable to stop it. They probably wouldn't be able to stop it even if they were; once Mal got an idea in his head it wasn't easy to put a stop to it. Take Percy, for example.
Someone approaches from the side of the building and he leans up against the well, nearly dropping the tomahawk. He's not even sure where he left the bat in the room upstairs, but he doesn't really care either.
Not like he needs it.
The woman approaching is decidedly not Carnelia, which seems like a small blessing. Judging by Percy's reaction she's somewhere in the vicinity. It's the one that was standing at her side in that room in the first place, the dark-haired woman that holds herself with nearly as much inspiring terror as Carnelia does.
So that's not good, probably. But it makes him feel a little bit better that he let Jupiter go, rather than let this woman have them.
Little victories.
"Hey," he says, voice drooping with an exhaustion that even his legs don't quite feel.
"Hey," she laughs upon approach. "Rough day?"
"Pretty much." That about sums it up. And now it ends with him half-joking with a Sentinel who's probably come to finish off his rough day with a bang. Literally, or not. Hopefully literally, because that will hurt less. He can take pain but he'd rather it be quick in the very least.
"Can you make it quick, at least?" he asks aloud.
"What happened to the ever so brave and bold boy who stood up in that room and looked Carnelia Trevall in the eye without blinking?"
"He realized how sick and tired he was, honestly," he admits.
"Of what?"
"Everything."
She laughs again. "Join the club."
"You're not being hunted down and killed," he points out. He sags down to the ground, letting his weapon fall to his side with a thunk in the dirt. She inches a bit closer and takes the gun out of her belt. He wants her to be as close as possible. Like he said, quick.
"You'd be surprised," she settles on, eyes a little troubled. The look disappears as quickly as he catches it, but it causes his eyebrows to knit together all the same. Something is going on here, something bigger than he knows. With how tired he is he's not sure it's worth finding out, but his curiosity has always been too strong for his own good. He's too stubborn not to ask.
"Surprised at what?"
"A lot of things."
"How very vague."
"Let's just say I thought you'd have been joining the Sentinel Killers Club right about now, instead of laying down to die. It doesn't become you."
"Because you know what becomes me, right? I don't know you, you don't know me. Let's just leave it at that. Get it over with, please."
She sticks out her hand, a spectacularly large shit-eating grin on her face. "Khia Rhodelle. Nice to meet you."
He stares at it, lets her hand hang in mid-air between them. She's just as stubborn as he is, clearly, refusing to drop it no matter how long he watches it hang there. He'd rather set himself on fire than touch her. She's one of the people that did this to them in the first place, and if he's classified as a monster now then he can only imagine what she is.
No, he doesn't want to imagine.
"Most people introduce themselves back," she explains, hand still extended. "An eye for an eye."
Much to both of their surprises, he starts to laugh. It comes out more manic than he expected, everything in his chest bubbling over in a large fit of hysteria that hits him so hard it feels impossible to stop laughing. She stares at him curiously. Her hand is still there.
"An eye for an eye," he repeats slowly, still breathless from the laughter. "I think a hand for a hand sounds better."
Her lips quirk up. She finds humor in this, in his new saying.
But that's not what he meant, and fortunately for him her hand is still there when his own closes around the tomahawk's handle to pull it up once again. The humor in her face changes to something more mirthless. Damn right it does.
He doesn't even get up - he shoots forward and swings the tomahawk down over her arm.
It cuts into her wrist, all the way through. Her wail is piercing, the blood that splatters all over his sprawled out legs practically burning. The detached hand that bounces into his knees and rolls off into the dirt doesn't really look so much like a hand anymore, when it has no wrist to be attached to. She's not even clutching at her stump of a wrist, letting the blood spurt out.
There's a bang so loud it nearly blows out his ears, a searing pain tucked into the spot just to the left of his breastbone. Right, the gun. He forgot about that for a second.
Oh well.
That's all he wanted to do, before he died.
He can go peacefully now.
Tarquin Vierra, 16
Applicant #4
It took all of eleven minutes. He watched the clock.
Eleven minutes, and three people are dead. Twelve to nine on the bracelet.
It's also in those eleven minutes that he finds an exit.
He spent so long wandering around in the darkness of the mines convinced there wasn't a way out except for the one he came in through, and he had no idea where that was now. He wouldn't even have been able to force himself to go back there, towards where he pushed the body into the deepest crevasse he could find.
They had still known, though. He was wearing his clothes, his mask, had all his belongings.
Of course they had known.
He had seen others, too, since his encounter with the girl. It felt like they were watching him at this point. One had followed him for a long while, saying only this must be the one Robin was talking about but he hadn't done anything else. Just followed, and then disappeared when Tarquin wasn't paying attention, as if he melted back into the walls.
They're toying with him, he's certain.
So he finds an exit and pauses before he steps outside, glancing back into the tunnel. There's no one lurking there. Certainly they're not just going to let him go, not after what that girl said to him. They play games. Kill people, like he has. If they really killed Noelani, they may have killed others too. There's no way their curiosity about him outweighs their urge to get it over with and kill him.
He makes it twenty yards or so over the wide outcropping of rock before he hears something, coming from just in front of him. He's in the heart of the mountains, now, can't see what could or could not be hiding behind one of the rocks like he's sheltering behind right now. Carefully, silently, he pulls an arrow out of the quiver and holds it to the bow, not drawing just yet. He doesn't want to kill someone like that again, but if they're going to kill him...
He might have to. All he'll have to do is pretend he's someone else.
There's another little breath, a sound like a whimper. It sounds almost like an injured animal, but distinctly human.
Ten feet in front of him, a hand creeps over the edge of a boulder. He freezes, raising the bow. The hand is clean of blood, covered in a thick layer of grime and dirt, struggling to find purchase as if they're trying to stand after having fallen.
He recognizes the dark sweater at their wrist, holding his breath all the same.
"Ria?" he tries, cursing his voice for being so loud, for shaking like a leaf. The hand freezes. He can't see if it's really her, can't dare to hope that it is.
It can't be. But it might.
He strides forward, all caution thrown to the wind. Even his hands aren't so tense anymore on the curve of the bow as he approaches the rock, so desperate for a familiar face. He sees just the edge of blue hair, nearly starts crying at the sight of it, at Ria clinging to the side of a rock like her life depends on it.
She looks him in the eye, sort of. She yelps, takes two huge steps back, and then falls down to the ground.
Right. He sort-of most definitely looks like the boogeyman.
"Ria," he repeats, holding out a hand and crouching down in front of her. She shies backwards, crowding herself up against the rocks that only let her flee a few feet backwards before she's trapped. He drops the bow, fits his hand under the edge of the mask until he can yank it up and off his head, tossing that to the ground as well.
"It's me, it's me," he insists. Her eyes widen and she wipes a hand over them, blinking frantically a few times as if she can't quite accept that it's him.
He knows that feeling.
"Tarquin," she manages, voice a shaky mess. Her whole body is trembling, and he can tell she's still at war with herself, here, wondering if her brain is playing tricks on her, as if he's nothing more than an illusion.
"It's me," he confirms, and she presses her hand over her mouth. He can't help himself, doesn't care just how much she's going to hate him for it - he leans forward and wraps his arms around her, squeezing the life out of her tiny little frame. Much to his surprise he feels her hands grapple back at his arms, holding the two of them together. They're both shaking. He can't tell who's worse.
It doesn't last long, because Ria wrenches herself away with an ugly retch and then throws up onto the rock, nothing more than a bit of bile and water. He grimaces regardless.
"Are you okay?" he asks, because he feels the needs to, hands still outstretched as if she's going to come back into his arms.
"Not... not really," she admits, retching again. "I can't stop, and I can't, I can't really breathe right."
Looking at her now he realizes how awful she looks, possibly more awful than him. Covered in a layer of sweat, shaking, hunched over and clutching at her stomach like something more is about to come up. Her foot, wedged nearly underneath his legs, is bare of any shoe, swollen to twice its normal size. It's so swollen that he almost can't make out the thin lines of blood running down her ankle and to the base of her foot, stemming from two tiny, little holes.
"Tell me that's not what I think it is," he pleads.
"I think— I think it was a rattlesnake?" she guesses, finally sitting back up.
"How long ago?"
"No idea. My vision's all... wonky and I can't even think straight. A while?"
A while, yeah, judging by the state of her. Not too long, or she'd most certainly be dead. He doesn't know how snakebites work, really, that's not something you worry about in the Capitol, but antivenom exists for a reason. They've made leaps and bounds on it in the Capitol - they can treat people in an hour, if the rarity so occurs.
But they're not in the Capitol right now.
"Can you walk?"
"Probably not," she says. "I sort of fell here in the first place. Are you okay?"
"Not really?" he says. "There are people living down in the mines, like a dozen of them. I... I killed one of them but they knew it was me and not him, and I've been trying to get out, but..."
"But what?"
"They might... they might have something down there. One of them said they had medical supplies - they could have antivenom, maybe? Or something to slow the spread. I could go check."
He knows where it is, vaguely. He remembered where in case he ever got desperate enough to head there, no matter what he would see.
"I think they might've killed Mel," Ria says, voice still struggling and shaking with every word. "You shouldn't go back down there."
"They killed Noelani, too," he tells her. "And God knows who else. But they haven't killed me yet - I don't know why. If I could find something that could save your life, then I don't care if I have to go back down there. I'll risk it."
They don't even know each other, really. He tried. She didn't want to.
And now it's up to him to save her life. He who got abandoned, certainly, left alone to die.
He's not dead yet, which means he still has time to accomplish something.
"Just stay here," he orders. "Take it easy, lay low. I'll come back whether or not I find something. I'm telling you, don't move - if it's someone other than me you'll know it."
She tugs herself out of his grip and rummages through her bag with weak hands, shoving things out of the way until she pulls a large tin can out.
"Take this."
"What is it?"
"A bomb," she says. "I think. I'm not sure it'll work - I've been trying to finish it over the last few hours. But I can give you the matches, and if something bad happens, you can use it."
He take it from her, clutching it as gently as he possibly can. It hardly looks like anything at all, but he doesn't dare to move it. Ria is smart, that much he knows. Smarter than most people. While she may not be aware of it's power, he's pretty certain that if she set out to do something she'll have finished it, regardless of her state of mind.
He pushes things out of the way in his own bag until he can nestle the bomb safely inside, wrapped up so it will move as little as possible. He needs to be careful, but he also needs to worry. There's no telling how bad Ria could get in the hours it'll take him to go down there and get back up. That's if he survives, if they don't find him and kill him first.
And he's going to have to go into what she called the dark room, where Noelani could still be...
But Noelani's dead. He has someone very alive right in front of him right now, and he could keep her alive if he goes.
So he's going to go.
This one hurt, ngl. They sort of all hurt from here on out in some way or other. Oops.
I'm going to be actively traveling or in a completely different timezone for the next two updates, so if they're a little off-kilter no need to be alarmed. I'll still be getting them up sometime on each Saturday, but I have no guarantees on the time. If you're on Discord with me I'll still shout it out on there, I'm sure. I'm not sure however that I'll be able to get to the blog until I get back, either - not a huge fan of screwing with that on mobile. I'll try my best, though.
Hope everyone is having a good summer. Let me know what your thoughts are.
Until next time.