Day Ten: Unrecognizable

"Annie."

The voices are speaking again. So close and so far. They want me. I won't let them.

"Annie."

More insistent now, and they want me to accept them. To talk to them. Instead, I fall back into memory. Memory where I'm safe. Memory where I don't have to focus on what's true.

Running through the arena. Harbinger with me, others as well. Our boots are crunching against the sand and rock, and the girl from Seven is panting ahead of us. She can't run for much longer, she must know that, but she keeps running. Jumps, and makes a landing that buys her a few precious seconds. Enough time to begin climbing a rock wall, and then stand at the top. Brandishes her spear, and by this point none of us have anything that can dislodge her. Climbing, maybe, would work, but I look around at my four (four?) Allies with a sigh. Acknowledge that she'd get one of us on our way up. "Well. We'll have to find another way."

Thankfully, we don't. Because Luscious, who's somehow got up there, is bounding from rock to rock, nimbly stepping until she stops besides the girl with a smile. "Peekaboo." One scream is all she has time for, before the Seven girl is tumbling, spearless, down the rocks. Everyone else steps out of the way, I take a step in. When the screaming girl lands at the bottom, I'm there, my trident levelled at her throat. "Sorry, sweetheart. Better luck next time."

Luscious clambers her way down, before giving a little giggle and a wink and planting a kiss on my cheeks. "Thanks Annie!" Her attention is turned, and one of the long, cruel knives flashes into her hand from that wrist bracer. I still don't know how she does that, or why I acquiesce when she tugs my trident in to keep the girl down before leaning in herself. "Hey, Seven. Don't worry, we'll be done in a few hours! Then you can go be a nice little Seven with whatever you think happens afterwards! You'll be nice and pretty, as well."

Luscious lands a thin slice along the girl's cheek, and even though I keep my trident levelled my head is turned away. Easier to ignore the whimpered pleading then, and the high, cold laughter of my ally. Then the scream of rage, and the clink of metal against the ground.

A spear is lodged through the girls back, courtesy of Plaice, and I'm glad for a second. Luscious isn't an easy person to be around after she does what she does, better headed off now. Plaice glares, voice trembling as he speaks, and in an instant I know what that sign of weakness is going to bring. Still, I listen. "You didn't have to do that. She was beaten. Take the kill and move on." That tremble stays, and it's already too late.

"What the hell?" Plaice has fallen, Luscious pushed him, Eyja and Harbinger at her back. "You don't do that, Four. You're here because Annie said you wouldn't fuck us up. I said you weren't trustworthy." A vicious kick to his side, and I know I should intervene. I won't. I can't. "And I trusted her judgement over mine. I think she was right. I think you won't fuck us up."

Gilt is behind Plaice, and before I can step in he's pinned against a boulder. Luscious holds out one hand, and after a moment's hesitation from my ally takes the sword from Harbinger. "Plaice Vang, you've screwed us. You don't fight the outers, you fucking try to ally with them. You let them take the supplies from the cornucopia. You didn't let me have playtime, which is a crime." A round of laughter from the Twos and Ones.

"It's only because I do respect Annie that you're getting this quickly. You know how much I love my knives. So, Plaice Vang. Last of your name to volunteer. Second Son of District Four's Vangs. Volunteer. Ally. Et cetera, et cetera, I won't stand on ceremony." She waves her hand, and despite the gravity of the situation it's hard to suppress a laugh at the dry tone. "I sentence you guilty on charges of preventing playtime, treason, attempted desertion and being a general idiot. Oh, and preventing a useful death."

"For which the sentence, regrettably, is also death. Hold him still." Plaice is trying to writhe, trying to escape even with Harbin's massive hand on his head. It isn't working. The silver blade is wrenched free of the scabbard, almost

"Annie." Plaice whimpers, looking at me. I can't stop this, I can't, even as Luscious looks at me and then at him, a smile slipping over that perfect face while she hefts the silver blade in her hands. It looks heavy, but seems to weigh nothing at all as she raises it, casting a wink my way. "Sorry about this, Annie. Feel free to stay. But this little fish has outlived his usefulness."

The blade swings down, and in an instant Plaice isn't there anymore. His head is, rolling down the sand. His body is, kicked with disdain by Harbinger until it tumbles down the slope. His blood is, daubing Luscious' face like war paint when she smiles, unrecognizable, at me. "Well, Annie. Wasn't that fun. Harb, here you go."

She resheathes the sword, ignoring the corpse lain on the ground, and hands it back to him. He smiles at me, and for an instant I remember why I'd fallen for him. Then I see the broken body on the ground, and run. Run, ignore the yells behind me and the yells around me and the yells then and the soft words now.

I'm snapped back to reality. Look down at the hands I recognize only for their role in bringing about the blood, and then around at people I can't recognize. Then I bury my face in the pillow.

You can't recognize anything in the darkness.