I know horses don't stomp people because I almost got stomped once. Lucky for me horses are nice, even when they're stampeding. The rest I know because I have a skewbald pony named Chickadee.
One cannon...
It was obviously Rapture's. After Bob stopped stomping and shying, I could see his broken form under me. But if it was Rapture's cannon, Emma's hadn't sounded yet. She couldn't possibly live after what happened, but I had time to get to her.
I rode Bob closer and jumped off her back next to Emma. She was right where I'd left her, blood spreading out across the grass around her. She was pale, and I could tell just by looking at her how cold she must be. I knelt by her.
"Oh, good. I was afraid that was my cannon," Emma said, and she smiled. Her teeth were stained red. "Don't worry. It's nothing."
"Stop it! Just stop it! It's not nothing! You're dying!" I yelled before I could stop myself. "You keep saying you're fine. You're not invincible, Emma!" I was horrified when a tear slipped out. I told myself it was just because I was so angry.
"Maybe I'm not," she said. "Looks like you are, though." I had an impulse to try to stem the flow, but there was hardly any flow anymore. She was leaking away.
"You killed him," Emma said. "You're right. I'm not that strong. You're the strongest now," Emma said. I didn't know what to say. I didn't want her to die, but I did want her to be dead, in a way. I didn't want to lose her, but I wanted to be the survivor. And she would know if I said something untrue to comfort her. If I begged her to stay alive or said I wanted her to win, she'd see right through me. Her breathing started to hitch, and her chest heaved.
"You're almost there," she said. I waited for the sappy saying, like 'make me proud' or 'win this for me'. But she knew I'd see through her just as well.
"I hope you live," she said. Her breaths grew louder, and they were wet with blood. She choked and coughed up a cloud of blood. The air sighed out of her all at once, and she left with it. I laid a hand on her arm and felt the cold stillness as her cannon sounded.
I was a fool. I never had friends besides Dustin before. I thought of other people as nothing but potential betrayal and heartbreak. I didn't consider companionship worth the effort and risk of friendship. I broke my own rule when I met Emma, and I broke it at the worst possible time. I didn't want to risk losing a friend, so what did I do? I made my first friend in the Arena, in the only place I was guaranteed to lose her.
I'd known Emma such a short time. I'd learned so much about her, but there was still so much I didn't understand. She was a bundle of contradictions. She was born in luxury but disdained it and yearned for challenge. She was a Career immune to pity, a hunter who didn't spare children. But she stayed with me and I didn't think the idea of betrayal ever entered her mind. She was a trained, expert warrior, but she died as easily as anyone else. She seemed to me like a invincible soldier, but she was more fragile than she ever let on. Now it was too late to ever learn more.
I stayed back and watched as the hovercraft took her. In the distance, her muscular form looked tiny and frail inside the thick metal claws. The arms that killed so many dangled limply in the air. Her hair fluttered in the hovercraft's wind. She'd torn the extra skirts from her dress to free her movements, and the tattered edges flapped. I was just close enough to feel the breeze.
Emma was dead, and I was alone. We'd known it was coming, but we weren't ready for it. I wondered what would have happened if it had been me that died. When she was alive, Emma would have said she'd be sad for a bit and then move on. Before the Arena, I would have believed her. But I'd seen how she pretended to be tough on the outside even when I could see the blood gushing from a dozen wounds. She was the same on the inside. She may have gone on, but the hurt would still have been there. She was my friend as much as I was hers. I would go on, eventually. But for a while, I was going to sit by the tree and mourn my lost friend.