The Deep Abyss
Day Two of the arena
08:00 hours
It's hard to tell what time of day or night it is down here. Or even if it is day or night. But Kalo managed to get some shut-eye for a few hours when her eyes felt too heavy to stay open anymore, so they assume it must be morning now.
She remembers her dreams vividly, as usual, they were of her father's rage-filled outbursts, but they were in the games, Maika's games, and spiders began crawling all around their feet. She watched Maika die again from multiple stab wounds and was unable to stop it - she never is.
Kalo rubs their eyes and glances around into the eerie silence. Nisa is standing above her, smiling down at her.
(It's her, she's the reason Kalo keeps having these nightmares of Maika. Some deep part of Kalo doesn't mind because at least she's able to talk to Maika again, even if it's in their dreams.)
"What do you want now?" Kalo groans, mostly from tiredness.
"That's a nice thing to say to the only one that stepped up to volunteer."
"You're right, I'm sorry, you made a good night watch," Kalo replies.
"I was talking about being your friend…" Nisa jokes and the two of them burst into a chuckle.
"Come on," Nisa says, hauling Kalo to their feet.
She hands Kalo a katana from the cornucopia. Then Kalo steps in front with Amur and the two of them lead the way out of the town, back across the stone bridge, and towards the church.
Much to Reinhardt's annoyance, the pack decided to wait out attacking the tributes at the church to gather some more supplies that they lost to the spider creature yesterday.
However, as most of them predicted, the line on the spider web is still moving in that direction - so the tributes must be hiding out in the church as a permanent base.
Kalo finds themself striding confidently at the front of their wolf-pack with Amur next to her, peering through his spider orb. Reinhardt strolls next to Amur, standing tall and holding his head up high with his war hammer gripped tightly in both hands. Roland and Shimmer are on Kalo's left - munching and passing rations between each other. While the quietest two members, Nisa and Frost, are at the very back on either side.
The church spire now looms overhead. In the darkness, the building can only be seen as a silhouette, but its grandeur still has the group frozen on the spot. A wide, narrow staircase leads to two huge double-doors.
Reinhardt gestures to the door then faces Kalo. "Well Seven, you're leading the way, aren't you?" He smirks, condescendingly.
"Keep pushing it, asshole," Kalo jabs back.
"Wow, you two managed to go all of half an hour without having an argument, it must be a new record," Amur chimes in, glancing between them.
Nevertheless, Kalo embraces the role, and heads straight into the church - she always has to know what lies beyond.
They press their hand against the two doors and give it a firm shove. The two old doors creak open to reveal a vast, derelict hallway on the inside. Two curved, stone staircases climb up to two parallel wooden doors on either side. In front of them is an oval, stained glass window.
Nisa's eyes are the only bright thing in this place, everything else is grey and littered with dust and cobwebs.
"Cheery," Amur comments as the boy steps beside Kalo.
The first thing that grabs their attention is the corpse of the boy from Nine; he's lying on his back with a stab wound in his neck and dark-red blood streaming out.
"Must have been the outer alliance," Shimmer comments.
"Then we need to be careful."
The group forms a circle while Kalo and Amur scan around the interior of the building with their orbs. The lines on the web are moving in almost all directions - tributes are all around them!
"They're everywhere," Amur mutters.
"Must be the outer alliance," Kalo says.
"Then it seems it's time to make this 'outer alliance' a dead alliance," Reinhardt adds, readying his weapon.
Amur holds out his hand. "Not so fast, big guy, I'm thinking we should split up to cover more ground."
Most of the group nod in agreement. Kalo isn't so sure, splitting up is a gamble which has a high chance of horribly backfiring.
(Like all of her siblings splitting from her until she was left alone with a monster.)
Amur inhales. "Me and Nisa will go with Frost and…" He pauses. "Actually, Reinhardt you come with us as well… best to keep you two apart," he says, his dark eyes moving between Reinhardt and Kalo.
"That's the best idea you've had so far, sea-man," Reinhardt smirks, giving Amur a pat on the shoulder.
"On that, we agree," Kalo sneers.
"Finally! Some common ground!" The Four boy chuckles, throwing his arms out.
Kalo is tasked with going with the Ones to hunt through the right door… She trusts them more than Reinhardt but they do wish Nisa was with them. That girl makes her feel a warmth in their heart against the icy cold of this place.
The trio traverses the right staircase, and on the other side of the door, they find a spiral staircase - leading up and up to the top of a tower. This place is more like a castle than a church - Kalo thinks to themself.
Shimmer trots ahead up the staircase, leaving Kalo sandwiched between the couple. Her eyes move between the pair like a detective. She won't let them out of her sight.
Shimmer slips a bag of chips into her hand, beginning to munch on them. If Kalo had been asked to describe a girl from District One before the games, then it would have been Shimmer; silky, straight blond hair, an athletic figure, and a death stare that makes Peacekeepers gulp.
The girl glimpses down at Kalo from the staircase, crunching another chip in her mouth. "Between us, every time you antagonize Reinhardt, we're bursting with laughter inside," she comments.
"Wait… really?"
"It's true," Roland adds from behind. "Please, don't stop, nothing will ever beat him turning red like a fresh tomato."
"Noted…" Kalo mutters, almost chuckling.
Maybe Kalo was wrong about the Ones. Shimmer's death stares were never personal after all. She looks at everyone like that, except for Roland. But they can't unsee what the two of them did to the girl from Ten yesterday.
(But then, isn't Kalo just the same as them? A monster? She never hesitated to plant their axe into the boy from Ten. Isn't she just like them? And why would she care if she was?)
Momentarily, Kalo's mind is cast back to listening to the chattering of her sisters, Makeole and Medo. They aren't a whole lot like Shimmer and Roland, but they were a distraction from the empty hole that their mother left, and the abuse from their father.
Faint footsteps scuttle up above! Kalo's ears prick up. "Wait," they murmur sharply.
Shimmer and Roland pause and Kalo pushes in front, reaching the top of the tower.
"What is it?" Shimmer whispers.
Kalo shoves their red orb over her eye. Red blobs are heading right toward them! "Heat signatures!"
BANG
An explosion shatters Kalo's eardrums from above! The force throws her forward, and her allies back!
Everything is blurry! A piercing ringing sound stabs at her ears, and they cover them but before they can even think, somebody crashes into them, pushing them back into the concrete balustrading! The girl from Three launches a vicious attack on her enemy with pure hate in her eyes. She smashes her fist into Kalo's cheek! "Was it you?" The girl demands to know. Then she strikes Kalo again, this time in the throat. "Did you kill him?"
She must be talking about her District partner - that tiny boy who was brutally bludgeoned to death by Reinhardt.
"No," Kalo croaks, still holding their throat from the girl's strike.
The Three girl slams her fist into Kalo's jaw again, and blood spurts from their mouth! For such a small girl, she hits surprisingly hard.
"Doesn't matter, you're with them!"
Kalo lets out a howl of anger, and smashes her forehead into their attacker's nose! The girl yelps in pain and releases Kalo. Although, this only seems to reignite the rage in the girl's eyes.
Kalo quickly glimpses back down the spiral stairs for her allies - they are currently being set upon by the tall, athletic boy from Eleven. He must have snuck up on them from the other side; the outer alliance planned this; it was an ambush!
The girl from Three charges again, and the two of them begin grappling on the edge of the balustrades. Kalo's assailant is persistent but not strong enough to force Kalo over the edge of the balustrades to plummet to a gruesome death. So, she starts crawling onto Kalo's back like a spider, and shoves something sticky onto their neck!
"What the fuck?"
Whatever it is; it's making beeping sounds which are steadily getting faster! It's one of those sticky bombs that the Threes were making in the training centre! A wry smile stretches across the Three girl's face, and Kalo's heart begins to pound, and her breaths increase. No, if they don't stay calm then they won't survive - Kalo thinks.
She plants a kick into the Three girls' guts, sending her to the ground. Then, she is finally given enough space for her hand to find the katana, strapped to her back.
She yanks it out, slowly peels off the glue from the bomb with the blade, and lets it drop over the edge of the staircase - just as the beeping sound had reached maximum velocity!
BOOM
Kalo glances down. The explosion helped free the Eleven boy, who was pinned underneath the Ones, but it also meant that Kalo survived.
The girl from Three lets out a frustrated growl, charging for Kalo once more. But this time, Kalo is ready. They throw themselves back against the Balustrades. They then use the momentum of the girl's charge to launch her headfirst over the edge!
A primal cry erupts from the Three girls' lungs as she falls down through the spiral staircase, followed by the sound of a splat on the concrete, and then rapidly - a cannon.
Kalo is now breathing heavily, holding their jaw in pain, and spitting out blood. Another cannon, another death.
(Was the girl wrong? She had every right to be mad, her district partner was innocent and so was she.)
Kalo trots down the stairs to rejoin her allies. "Where'd the other guy go?"
"He got away," Roland groans, nursing a freshly bruised eye.
"He's a slippery bastard," Shimmer adds.
"Uh-huh," Kalo mutters, moving past them.
She reaches the bottom of the stairs to where the Three girl's body is splattered against the concrete. Kalo puts her hand into the girl's bag and begins rummaging around. They pull out three metal balls with still green lights on them - the girl's bombs. She must have created them from the ones at the cornucopia while Kalo and the careers were off in that town.
"Come on, he went this way," Roland's voice startles them, and they subtly slip the bombs into their own bag.
"You're not wrong," Kalo confirms, checking through the spider-orb.
Shimmer hauls a lamp down from the wall and empties the oil onto Roland's swords. She then slowly touches the candle against the blade. With that, Roland's swords are set ablaze, bright like his hair!
The two of them begin howling like wolves. "Time to make him pay!"
The pair from One speed off after the Eleven boy. Kalo, unexpectedly finds herself respectfully closing the eyes of the girl from Three.
(They're not quite sure why they did that.)
She chases after the two fired-up careers. But with each step, her feet tire, and struggle more and more to keep up.
"There he is!" Roland calls from ahead; he's pointing through an opening in the stained-glass window that's been smashed through.
But dizziness has spread into Kalo's head from the lack of sleep, water, and the beating they took from the Three girl.
She follows the lights of the flames burning on Roland's swords, leaping through the hole in the window, and landing on a narrow alleyway next to Shimmer.
But, when she turns, their heart jumps in their chest! Jorah is standing there, as calm as ever with his curved dagger sticking into Roland's neck! A fountain of blood drips down from the career's neck - the boy from One's fire has gone out.
Jorah un-hands Roland and the career's body collapses down in a heap against the church wall. The slim, pale boy then stares at his remaining foes, his eyes almost yellow like a harvest moon but underneath, Kalo can see torment there, and pain, as she's all too familiar with it herself.
The cry that flies from Shimmer's mouth is of pure rage. The girl falls down to her lover, just as the boy from Fourteen scurries up a ladder above.
Shimmer desperately tries to put pressure on the pouring of blood from Roland's neck but its too late.
BOOM
What was she expecting? They volunteered together. Did she really think this was some kind of fairy tale? Did she really think they'd live to the final two and it would end like some kind of tragic romance story? - Kalo thinks.
No, he was there one minute, gone the next. Just like Medo, just like Makeole.
Shimmer lets out another cry of anger, clambering up the ladder after Jorah.
"Shimmer, wait!" Kalo calls, beginning to haul themself up the ladder behind their ally.
If the pair from One are anything like their siblings, then when one disappears - the other soon follows. Besides, if there's one thing they've learned about Jorah and his outer alliance, it's that they seem to always be one step ahead.
But Shimmer doesn't listen, and she is already zooming after her boyfriend's killer - over the church roof.
Kalo's tired legs do their best to clamber after the career girl whilst also trying not to slip off the roof.
A bell tower looms overhead, where Shimmer is already climbing after Jorah.
Suddenly, there is a large crash, and the awful sound of bones crunching, followed promptly by a cannon.
BOOM
Kalo rubs their eyes. No, she is not hallucinating. Shimmer has been crushed underneath the large, rusty bell of the bell tower. It's as she knew - gone as fast as her siblings. The banter with the Ones on the staircase seems so distant now.
Kalo isn't entirely sure why, but for some reason, she finds herself peering up the bell tower. They just watched Jorah outsmart and kill two careers, but they can't help but feel there's more to him, that he's not just insane.
Jorah glances down from above; next to him is the boy from Eleven and the girl from Twelve. He gestures for his allies to scram.
Kalo steps over Shimmer's crushed body and follows them up the bell tower. At the top, Jorah is already running across another section of the roof.
Jorah halts, yanking his hood over his scruffy hair, and Kalo brings her katana out, swinging straight for his head!
Jorah stays still, sticking his leg out so that it impacts Kalo's stomach!
"Argh!"
They topple down to the church roof, with the wind knocked out of them. Her hands instinctively push her back to a sitting position. Jorah calmly steps forward and retrieves the spider orb, which Kalo dropped when he kicked her.
He examines it in his palm, turning his eyes to Kalo. "I'm not your enemy, Kalo, none of us are," he says in his croaky voice.
"Is that what you said to the Nine boy?"
Jorah doesn't answer, he simply twirls the orb in his hand, then slips it into his sachet.
Under normal circumstances, Kalo would want to be ripping this boy's head off right now but for some reason, she is intrigued by him - like a puzzle waiting to be solved or an adventure waiting to happen.
She swallows back. "What were you talkin' about before? During training?"
All of a sudden, Jorah's eyes dart around nervous - immediately Kalo gets it.
"Another time?" They ask.
Jorah nods.
And with that, he runs in the opposite direction across the roof, once again disappearing into the darkness.
Kalo groans, clutching her stomach in pain. The journey back to find her remaining allies is strange. They are fumbling in and out of reality, their vision is blurring and their head is ringing. They reach the edge of the ladder, and the sound of hushed chatter fills her ears.
"Who'd ya think the cannon was for?" a voice stutters, Kalo recognizes it as Nisa's.
"Well, yer know who I want it to be," a deeper, gruff voice responds - Reinhardt.
Kalo slides down the ladder. "Sorry to disappoint, it was Shimmer's."
"Two careers down?" Reinhardt exclaims.
The surviving careers are gathered around Roland's body - still in a lifeless heap against the wall.
Nisa reaches forward to Kalo for a hug, Kalo steps back, caught off guard. "What are you doing?" They murmur.
Nisa does her usual shrug. "I'm just glad you're ok… I guess."
"Why?"
Kalo turns her head to the sound of a scuffle. Reinhardt drags a boy out by the collar and tosses him down at Kalo's feet.
"I believe you know each other?"
Olive skin, brown hair - Kalo's district partner.
Jack raises his head, shooting daggers into Kalo's eyes. "It's just as I said, you're right where you belong," he mumbles. He has a deep bruise on his eye from where Reinhardt undoubtedly struck him.
Reinhardt gestures to the body of Roland with his precious war hammer. "You know how it is, blood for blood," he says, turning to Kalo.
And when he brings his war hammer down on Jack, Kalo finds that they have to look away, and Reinhardt grins with pleasure.
A cannon sounds.
Reinhardt is winning the mind game. Kalo honestly thought that they'd be the biggest monster thrown into this arena but… every time they kill, they feel something, and they don't want to.
(Did the Capitol feel anything when they sentenced Maika to death? Or Anyone here?)
(But Jack, the girl from Three and the boy from Ten - their eyes looked just as hers did when she was face to face with her father.)
Kalo storms past Reinhardt, shoulder-barging him on the way.
The pack decide to post up in the entrance to the church - where they first came in. They weren't best pleased that Kalo lost one of their orbs to the outer alliance, but Amur still has his, and the outer alliance has since retreated.
Faces begin appearing above them - faces of the fallen. The first two are Shimmer and Roland in that order then the Three girl, Jack, and the Nine boy.
Reinhardt snorts. "Great, now I'm surrounded by outliers."
This time everyone else collectively ignores him, and he eventually plonks himself and his hammer down on the floor for some shut-eye.
The death announcements means it must be midnight. Plus, Kalo's eyes are extremely heavy. Not that they want sleep, that would mean the nightmares will return. But Kalo can do nothing to avoid slipping off…
Kalo sat on their bed with her hands huddled over their legs, as irate shouting between her father and her sister Makeole, echoed up from the kitchen into their room.
"If you've got a problem, then come speak to me about it, leave Kalo out of it. She's thirteen!" Kalo heard Makeole bellow.
Moments later, the door swung open. Kalo glanced up to find her sister storming in, and plonking herself down next to her, rubbing her hair.
Kalo shivered inside. She hated seeing everyone like this, her family falling apart like a derelict house slowly breaking to pieces. They never remembered a time when their father wasn't constantly shouting, gaslighting, and manipulating them. But he was just hurting too, right? - she thought to herself. Given enough time, they'll get their father back.
Above all, they just wished they had their mum back - then everything would be right again.
"If he ever makes you feel like that again, then just tell me, ok? I'll take care of it," Makeole said, rubbing Kalo's hair.
She then extended out her pinky. "Pinky promise?"
Kalo wiped the tears from their face and then locked their pinky with their sister's.
Not long after, Makeole went back downstairs, and in turn, the yelling resumed but louder this time.
SLAM
Kalo gasped, the door slammed hard. She raced downstairs, almost freezing in horror as Shimmer's corpse lay strewn on the stairs - her eyes wide, and lifeless. Kalo stumbled over the body, racing to the door, only to find their father leaning against it and particularly red in the face.
"Makeo… where's she gone?"
Her father released his hands from the door. "No idea, but she won't be coming back, you can count on that," he responded, coldly.
"But… but we were just talking…. Will I be able to see her again soon?"
Her father shook his head. "I'm afraid not," he said, bolting the door.
Kalo turned and rushed back upstairs. Makeole was there, and then she was gone. Kalo has never heard from her since.