#colborn

“I want to go home, O,” he murmured as tears fell down his face. “I’m… lost.”

“Ben,” his brother withdrew from the embrace and grabbed Benin’s face in his hands. “You’re going to be fine. You’re going to get out of this.”

Benin shook his head, closing his eyes and clenching his teeth together. “I’m fucked. It’s over.”

“It’s not over,” Oman shook him a little bit, tightening his grip on his head. “Ben, I swear to god if you don’t give this everything you’ve got then there’s nothing you can do to bring yourself back to us. You’re gonna have to find your own way or you’re lost forever.”

Benin was silent. What if everything he had wasn’t enough? A poor kid from Twelve who hated the government was never going to be able to outlive these Games. Everyone had it out for him: the Peacekeepers who had burned down his parents’ butcher shop, the government agents who took his parents from him and left him and his siblings poor and alone, the Gamemakers who hated his guts. Home was no more than an impossible hope.

But he had made it this far. And if he could outrun and outlive nineteen tributes what did the other four matter? He was going to get there. Alive. At whatever cost possible. He nodded his head looking up at his older brother, who smiled and let go of him.

“Come home,” were the last words Benin heard before the screaming woke him up.

Benin jolted up in the bleachers, realizing the exhaustion had caught up with him and he’d dozed off after making camp. Right hand still on the bat, he unzipped his backpack to ensure easy access to its contents should something fishy happen.

The screaming got closer, and it seemed to be accompanied by multiple cheers and whistles. And then, out of nowhere, the crowd appeared. Kids not much older than him, by the dozens, storming towards him.

“Shit,” he muttered as he gathered himself and starting running away. This was the last thing he wanted to get involved in. And yet, the crowd caught up to him in a manner of seconds. Two burly football players grabbed him by the shoulders and lifted him up. They dragged him along as he yelled at them to put him down but either his commands were lost in the noise or they were just ignoring him because they didn’t make any moves to set him down until he was tossed in the center of a ring of people.

Suddenly a voice carried through the arena, and Benin raised an eyebrow as he realized it was none other than his very best friend, that Head Gamemaker lady.

“I think you all deserve a break…”

As Benin listened he realized that all four of the other tributes must be close. The other ones had undoubtedly been dragged here as well, but he was left in the dark about this until after Agatha’s voice went silent and the crowd parted.

The first guy he saw was unfamiliar. Tallish with a haughty look on his face and an eyepatch over what had probably been an eye a couple of days ago, Benin had a hard time sizing him up. Cocky and confident, yet had been barely present until now.

The second person he identified immediately…

“Nice to see you here!” he called out at his district partner, waving pleasantly.

Busted and broken, Jo’s body is tossed haphazardly in the middle of one righteous rager.  She tries to fight off the disturbing students that encompass the other tributes, but their were too many to fight off. Smells of beer and regret lingered in her nostrils as she franticly gets to her feet after taking in the sights. Yet again, Jo’s control was completely taken away. (Agatha strikes again)  She clutches her weapons tightly in hands while the gamemakers voice chimes in over the booming of firecrackers and music. If a party was to be held, Jo would be sure to be the life of it.

It wasn't until she heard a voice calling her name that the reality really set in.

“Thought you’d be fuckin’ dead by now!” she answered.

Benin shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a stubborn asshole. Like the new shaven look?” He ran his hand over his stubbly head, unsatisfied that his nervous habit had been taken away by that bitch from Eleven yesterday.

“Well this has been a lovely reunion for the district partners,” Colborn suddenly spoke, having appeared from the shadows. He sauntered forward with an axe in hand. “But unfortunately both of you guys have gotta go. Sorry ‘bout it.”

Benin adjusted the grip on his bat and stepped forward. “Me too.”

Wasting no time to fight, Colborn rapidly approaches Jo’s front. It appears as though he made his move and Jo was his first intended target. Just as he reaches her with a raised axe, Jo swipes at his chest with her bat. He instinctively ducks and gets low, missing the opportunity for a kill strike, but nevertheless connects a hit. Although not deadly, Colborn manages to slice through her flesh. She winces as an unforeseen metallic burn lacerates her thigh, followed by a trail of blood coming to surface. Colborn smiles at the sight of ichor and punches Jo in the stomach. He follows it up with another combo at her side to crack a rib. Jo felt blood vessels burst and her diaphragm collapse under the force the fist packed behind it. In a moment of weakness, Jo’s bat slips out of her fingers and skids just out of reach. Her eyes now began to focus on Colborn’s hands, watching the rhythm in hopes of avoiding another blow. As she took note of his missing appendages, the boy has taken his weapon of choice and plundered the edge into her left shoulder.

“Scream if this hurts,” Colborn taunts.

In the wake of metal, flesh and bone bend under the chop. Blood continues to pour outward as he dislodges it from her shoulder. Jo of course screams in agony, for this hurt more than any other wound she’s ever had. It wouldn’t be much of a fight if she were to keep at it like this. Already hot on her heels, Colborn advances again. Besides a thirst for killing, little is to say about his thought process. It was more than apparent he sought to destroy the weaker of the three first. Jo saw his thought coming, but refused to allow it to happen. She removed her hands from the open wounds and bravely faced her opponent head on. She’d be damned if he uprooted her life that quickly. She might fall, but she also won’t go down without a fight.

Being more eager than the girl, Colborn attacks Jo with the rapier, aggressively trying to hit every part of her body he could manage. Jo throws up her arms in an act of defense, trying to be quick enough to catch the weapon with her hand. By the grace of god, Jo manages to clasp her fingers on to his wrists at just the right time, effectively stopping Colborn from slicing her to death. She fights for it, despite his superior strength and throws her boot straight into his crotch. The boy is compelled to drop his dominance and hold his dick in pain. Jo takes the advantage of him being temporarily incapacitated and returns the bat to her hands. She swings it around ferociously, banging it against the base of his skull. She swings again, and again, and again until, finally Colborn's cannon fires in the distance. One down.

“No,” Jo adds. “Scream if that hurt. Oh wait. You can't. Your dead. Sucks."

Suddenly Benin, who managed to sneak his snakey ass in the battle, limps over and socks Jo across the face with his knuckles wrapped in chain. The hit resulted in Jo rolling away from Colborn’s body with ears ringing in dull pain.

Now facing Benin, Jo started to breathe heavy, getting as much oxygen into her lungs as possible, she tilted her head to the side and swung the sword in her hand with a menacing smile on her face.

Covering her mouth, Jo gags as the blood flowed out. “Benin, what the fuck?”

“Sorry bout it,” He scoffs.

“So,” Jo bellowed. “It’s like that now?”

“Ohh, it’s like that.”

"Yup. So, had fun in the arena so far? Ready to die?"

She shrugged. “Not as good of a time as I’ll have back home after I win. I’d invite you to the welcome home ceremony but it seems you’ll be unable to RSVP.”

Benin smiled. “How nice of you.”

Jo pursed her lips and took him in, noting the ugly injuries scarring the previously quite attractive eighteen-year-old. “You never were a talkative one, were you?”

In answer Benin simply shrugged and bent down to pick up the rapier that Colborn had dropped during his death. Sheathing it through one of his belt loops he looked back up at his district partner. “And it seems you were always all talk. You coming at me or what?”

Jo swung her baseball bat around at her side and cocked her head. “Thought you’d never ask.”

Quickly, she ran at him and swung her baseball bat at his left side. Though adrenaline was pumping through Benin’s body his reflexes had apparently not caught up to his smart ass mouth. The bat connected with the already weakened side of his torso and he grit his teeth and groaned quietly in pain. She swung it again and it sunk into his upper arm, forcing him to land on his ass on the ground. Benin quickly army crawled backwards to get out of her reach and spun his backpack around, shuffling through quickly to find something to defend himself with. When Jo swung again he used the pack to deflect the hit, buying himself a few more seconds of time.

As she brought her arm up to swing at him again Benin rolled over onto his hands and knees and pushed himself up from the ground, dodging the blunt weapon and taking off towards the edge of the ring of students.

“Let me through!” he yelled as he hit a wave of kids partying. He tried to squeeze through but a large frat guy held him off.

“Who do you know here, bruh?” he asked as Benin worked to push his way into the crowd.

“Nobody I just need-”

“Nah man,” he said, pushing Benin away with a hand strategically placed on his sword wound. “Omicron Zeta brothers only. Your girlfriend can come, though.”

“Girl-” Benin started, but in realization he ducked and jumped off to the right. Jo, swinging her bat to aim at Benin’s head, hit the frat guy instead, knocking him out cold as a few sorority girls yelled at her for being “such a downer narc bitch!”. Benin reached into his backpack and felt his fingers clasp around the hilt of something. As he pulled out the cleaver he turned around to face Jo and backed up a few paces.

His butt hit something hard after several steps backwards, and he pulled his left hand back to feel the edge of a table that had blocked his path. Benin felt around a little until he could wrap his fingers around a plastic cup, filled halfway with a mystery liquid. As Jo approached again and raised the bat to smash it into his skull he brought the cup up and splashed the bright red liquid into her face. It smelled like cheap alcohol and fruity juice drink and she screamed as she brought the bat down to where Benin had just been standing. He’d ducked and rolled as soon as the liquid hit her face, so instead of the metal bat colliding dangerously with him it took out several glass bottles of alcohol, which crashed and spilled onto the ground. Some kids yelled at her for spilling perfectly good drinks but she ignored them as she wiped the jungle juice out of her eyes.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” Jo screamed.

Taking advantage of the few moments he had free, Benin noticed the target he needed to go for. The bat would be useless without a hand able to hold it, but his battle with Polly had proven that the cleaver couldn’t cut through the entire hand in one go. As Jo let her right hand, clutching the bat, drop to her side, Benin swung with all the strength in his arm towards its handle. He didn’t hit the wrist, or even the bulk of her hand, which made him smile.

“Fuck!” Jo dropped the bat onto the ground, along with the three center fingers of her right hand. She held her hand up to look at what had been done in disgust, seeing that her thumb and pinky were now the only ones still attached to her hand. To Benin it looked like a familiar greeting.

“Shaka brah!” he grinned, holding up his left fist and sticking out his thumb and pinky.

“You fucking asshole!” She screamed as blood poured from the wound in her hand.

“Oh don’t worry Jo,” he conceded. “I’ll be sure to invite you to the welcome home ceremony.”

Her left hand reached into her pocket, and before Benin knew what was happening he’d received several volts of electricity into his gut via the taser she’d kept at her side. So he wasn’t the only one with a taser, he thought as he fell to his knees and dropped the cleaver to yank the prongs out of his abdomen. Suddenly warmth was hitting him in the face, but unlike the pleasant embrace of his brother in the dream he’d had not an hour ago, it was metallic-tasting blood. Jo was shoving her wounded stump of a hand on his face and into his mouth. Why were these other tributes so fixated on cutting off his air supply? He gagged on the blood running down his throat as Jo jammed the stump down his esophagus.

“Choke on it, bitch!” she enunciated through gritted teeth. Her face looked scary, with the red of the jungle juice still glistening on her face looking not too different from the blood that was draining from the wound in her hand. Benin shook his head violently, then bit down hard on her hand before feeling the vomit come up. Jo yanked her hand away just seconds before her own blood plus the water and energy bar and cheeto crumbs he’d had not too long ago came back up all over her arm. She retracted in disgust, apparently shocked that pressing on Benin’s uvula as well as pouring her own blood down his throat had triggered an automatic vomit response.

“Thanks for that,” he panted as he rose and kicked her in the chest to get her away from him. Reaching over to the table, he grabbed the one full bottle of vodka that Jo hadn’t smashed and brought it down on her head, giving her a concussion, crashing the glass, and spilling the alcohol all over her body. She looked dazed and starry-eyed from the collision with her head, but the confusion didn’t take away her will to live.

Jo pounced on Benin’s legs and forced him to fall backwards, grabbing for his collar or tie or anything else that was within reach. Benin reacted by throwing a knee up into her gut and forcing her off of him into the puddle of alcohol she had spilled. A thought coming to him and not much time to execute it, Benin reached behind him and pulled out the chain from a strand that was hanging from his open backpack. He jumped onto the girl, chain in front of him, and pinned her arms down to her sides as he kneeled on her. Benin brought one end of the chain around her back and flipped her over face first into the puddle, putting one foot on her left hand as she worked to wriggle free.

“Get the fuck off me,” she spat at him, her face turned to keep from drowning in the puddle of alcohol.

“Sure, just be patient,” Benin remarked casually as he continued working the chain around her, much as he had done with Polly only the day before. After the chain had been wrapped three times he pulled Jo into a sitting position, her arms locked tightly against her sides as she flung curses and swears at him and tried to kick at him.

“Let’s play two truths and a lie, Jo,” Benin said calmly and reaching for his belt loop. “If my memory serves correctly you seem to enjoy that game.”

He stood behind her as he pulled out the rapier he had only just now taken from Colborn. Sliding the thin blade into three stacking chain links he then shoved the sword as deep as he could into the ground, trapping Jo in place as he walked away and reached behind himself into his bag.

“What the fuck are you doing?” she asked, a wild look in her disoriented eyes.

“Number One. I’d do anything to get back home to my family,” he began as his first statement, his voice unwaveringly serene. He reached into his side pocket again and pulled out another bomb. Beep.

“Number Two. I fucking hate anyone and everyone who tries to get in between me and them.”

Beep. Jo fought against the restraints, leaning forward and managing to pull the sword out of the dirt. Without a reliable sense of balance or the use of her arms, though, she simply fell over into the puddle again. Beep.

Benin looked over the bomb and then gingerly rolled it towards the girl struggling against her restraints. It landed harmlessly beside her left thigh in the pool of vodka.

Beep.

The chains loosened and Jo managed to get the sword out of the lowest one, using her left hand to push it up out of the other two. It rolled away from the puddle as the chain fell around her waist. But it was too late.

“Number Three. You’re gonna make it out of this alive.”

Beep.

The bomb exploded, taking out a chunk of Jo’s thigh as the entire six-foot radius surrounding her erupted into flames. She screamed as the fire sprinted up her alcohol-soaked body, causing her skin to bubble and burst and sizzle and char. It engorged her face, sparking a magenta color from the sugar still dripping down her cheeks.

“No!” she screeched, her voice growing hoarse.

Her shrieks of pain were slowly dying off, however, as the smoke from the fire penetrated her throat and nostrils, choking her, killing her.

She stopped struggling, and Benin couldn’t tell whether she had passed out from the pain or from the smoke asphyxiation, but it didn’t particularly matter. The fire was still consuming her and her cannon hadn’t fired yet. He paced around her, picking up the sword and the cleaver he had dropped, then taking Jo’s baseball bat.

“Thanks for the replacement,” he told the blazing body of his district partner. Her cannon fired, startling Benin, and he realized now what this meant.