#arena task

She was breathing heavily. This was becoming a list: Francis, Otto, Doriss, Amalthea. Shit. Shit. Shit. What was she doing?

H.W. is a liar.

They know.

Holland, you are a fucking killer.

She and Aspen ran through the streets, searching for somewhere safe, a building that hadn’t collapsed. The bag hanging over her shoulder bumped against her hip rhythmically as they moved; it now contained a last bit of thread she was saving for Nico, should he need it, as well as the strange mask she’d gotten, the rope, and the small vial.

The knife remained in her hand, still dripping with Amalthea’s blood.

She stepped through the large, open doors of one of the buildings, from which a strange, damp odor floated. “In here,” she said, waiting for Aspen to come through the doors before closing them. There were some hooks with some robes hanging from them, sandals on the ground. She immediately started stripping out of her tunic, which had blood on it, though whether it was Thea’s or Doriss’s she wasn’t sure.

Spotting a staircase spiraling upwards, she took it, desperate to find somewhere she could hide that felt actually safe, not like someone could come around the corner at any moment. Medea flashed before her mind’s eye but she focused on the stairs–

And then, the person on them. She jumped a little, clutching the iron railing. “Shit, you scared me.”

Sword in hand, he traveled to the east, towards the rising sun, stopping only when he saw a ferris wheel looming above him. This really was a town, more complete than the one he’d grown up in, even, when they’d only really had one carnival come through in his entire life. It had been pretty lame, too, and he hadn’t won any of the stupid rigged games.

He walked over to one of them. A baseball laid in the grass in front of a booth and he picked it up, spun it in his palm for a moment, before throwing it at the only one of the targets that was miraculously still clinging to its wall.

It landed on the bullseye and as a result knocked the entire target off its nail, falling with a clatter that made him jump a bit, startled.

She didn’t trust them. Sue her.

She and Aspen had stepped away from the house in the hopes of finding more food. Their stomachs were empty once again after she’d decided not to eat whatever was in the tavern, after seeing its effect on Thetis. They were approaching another temple, this one with VOLCANVS written above the large doors. She was about to say something, a little quip about what that sounded like, when something rubbed up against her bare legs and she jumped. Looking down, the last thing she expected to see was what she saw: a cat. A small, black cat.

She should have learned her lesson from the horse, but she didn’t get a sinister feeling from this cat, who rubbed its teeth against her leg now, clearly wanting attention. She smiled at Aspen, kneeling down and offering her hand for the cat to sniff at. “You think this little guy just wandered in by accident?” she joked.

She moved through the area of the town that was most familiar to her, gnawing on an apple core. She’d been living on the food from gardens, forcing herself to eat though her stomach turned. The events of the night and stress were all on her shoulders, weighing her down, slowing her pace.

She could run into an enemy. It was more likely than running into a friend, anyway. She should return to Aspen, who she’d parted with at the safe house, now just known to her, Wren, and Aspen. Their little alliance completely cracked, broken. Stabbed through a couple dozen times with a knife, the handle of which she gripped in her left hand.

Hearing a strange sound, her interest piqued, and she moved towards it. It was not a sound that she’d expected to hear in the Arena; it sounded like a baby’s cry, but even the Gamemakers wouldn’t be so cruel as to put an infant in this environment, right?

She came upon a temple that she’d seen before, near the cemetery, but she’d never heard these sounds before. Caught off guard, her grip on her knife loosening, she walked the perimeter, searching for the child.

Of course, all she found was Nico Wylin.

Who knew she was a liar. Who must have run into Amalthea. Who must have heard the whole damn tale, but from Amalthea’s lips, it probably sounded worse than it was. Right? Did he judge her, did he hate her? She wanted to go back in time, to his feet in her lap, but she’d done too much now. It was too late.

“I was hopin’ I’d find you, thinking you might elaborate on your message,” she said, fingers gripping the handle once again, dropping the apple core on the ground as she neared him.

Amalthea had admitted everything they’d done, particularly she and Wren, on camera. Ever since, she’d gotten several empty packages with notes that clearly indicated the sender thought there were contents. But something was horribly wrong. In the outside world, she was being punished, and the punishment was because of what Thea had said. Of this, she was completely certain.

She and Aspen had been together, searching for supplies near the Cornucopia, within the stalls, most of which were empty. Aspen had the axe in her hand, while Holland filled her bag with the odds and ends they were able to gather.

When they ran into Wren, Holland was quick to spill everything to both of them. She’d kept it from Aspen, wanting her to think everything was normal, to protect her, but she no longer could with Wren around. Plus, they were where they’d been the first day, where they’d run into Amalthea for the first time in the Arena, and the parallels were too many. If they saw Thea, she couldn’t allow her to get a word in; she couldn’t allow her to win over the other girls.

She told them how Thea had said everything that had happened; she exaggerated just a bit (she couldn’t help it) how much Amalthea had said it was a team effort, that all three of them had been involved. But she needed to rally enemies against Thea. This was the best way to do it. She was certain, completely certain, that Amalthea had to die for what she’d done.

History repeated itself when she spotted a figure in white across the way, near the center of the open space. She held out a hand and stepped a little closer.

Amalthea. It was her. She reached down to pull Amalthea’s knife from her shoe, beckoned for them both to follow her, hoping Aspen would go along with it, hoping she wouldn’t hate her.

“She’s the reason we’re all fucking starving in here and we haven’t gotten shit. She’s the reason we’re in trouble. If we want to end this shit, to make it right, we need to kill her.”

But it wasn’t that; instead, it was a key and a note. This time it wasn’t some cryptic message from a mentor that indicated there was supposed to be some gift that hadn’t come through. Rather, it was instructions, and it became clear that this was the next thing the Gamemakers had thought of to shake everything up.

At least this time, it wasn’t a literal meaning of the word.

She had made her way to where the instructions seemed to be sending her. It said that it was near the cemetery, across the street. When she got there, of course, just her luck, the rope that held her makeshift toga bag on her shoulder came untied, so she was redoing it, supporting the bag with her knee on the crumbling wall of the cemetery, when she heard footsteps.

Whirling about, pulling the knife from her boot, she brandished it towards the newcomer, before recognizing it as Honey. Her expression softened, but only somewhat. She had seen enough Arenas to know there was a likelihood that things weren’t as simple as finding the door her key unlocked. Maybe she’d have to fight Honey. Maybe she’d have to kill her. And what was inside the house? Was it insanity to be searching?

“Does your key have a fish?” she asked, trying to hold the knife out in defense as well as to finish fixing up her bag simultaneously, acting casual while not feeling casual in the least. Could she defeat Honey, who had probably gotten sponsor gifts raining from the fucking sky for her, while Holland had nothing? This whole fucking bag, which was a pain in her ass, and... no gifts at all. Just a bunch of notes and empty containers, which she’d filled her bag with by now.