#seraph sinclair

seraph. . .

district : two

private training : eleven

kills : four

weapon : machete / prosthetic arm

Seraph had dreamed that her parents had their tongues cut out while a dull grating was heard in the mountains. She awoke with a gasp and a shudder. Room still dark beyond darkness. Herself a vessel of aching bones settled on a hard mattress like sediment on a river bed, the dust and marrow gathered from creatures long dead gathered together as the water’s foundation. A dull pain had been growing in Seraph from day one, increasing with each nightfall. Tired bones and strained muscles. She slept hard every night and every night she had a different nightmare and it was for this reason she knew she was still alive.

The dull grating sound from her dream was real and she wondered if she was still dreaming until the shock of cold water grazed her skin. She stood and gathered what she could, leading herself to a door she had sworn was not there previously. A flight of stairs followed, a cramped space of steps that echoed the sharp, flat tones of footsteps. Seraph tried to remember how she’d gotten so far beneath the ground, but she couldn’t recall. She’d been moved in her sleep, and who had done so or how was beyond her knowledge. There was a light up ahead, like the one her mother had told her she’d see when she died. She braced herself for the cold of the frigid island she had been on during the fifth day, but it never came.

What came seemed to be absolute nothingness. Grey upon grey of a place she recognized from clips of broadcasts and history lessons. A place that had once been so full of people that, now that it was vacant of life, felt not just empty but hyper-empty. An acute atmosphere of an absolute population in the negative. Their absence glowed like neon signs that left an emotional afterimage of their previous home. District Thirteen.

Walking around the wall in front of her, Seraph was startled by her own reflection. The paleface streaked with black. But there was somebody else in the mirror. Seraph turned and found Everest standing across from her, about ten yards away.

Everest and Seraph had come full circle since the reaping.  Both products of circumstance, they had a sense of familiarity and understanding in each other, despite being as different as can be.  They were the first tributes each other had met, and would end up as the last tributes they would see, or hear, before escaping the arena for good.  It was Everest who had lifted Seraph up in the parade for all to see, but now he would be the one to take her down in front of Panem.  Though they had made a pact of non-violence among each other, it seemed that all truces were about to crumble like the former District 13 that surrounded them in smoldering ash.

Everest curled his toes in the gravel and tapped a wall, feeling a bit disconcerned at his surroundings.  With tall walls in front of him and a loose flooring below him, it would become harder for the blind tribute to hear or feel where Seraph would walk.  This would be the first time he faced someone well aware of his handicap, but she too had her own disability to deal with, thus refused to underestimate him.  As he heard Seraph’s first steps and the gravel move beneath her feet, Everest abandoned the posture he was told so often to keep when on camera.  Leaning down into a familiar hunching position, Everest sent a message out to those watching, that there was nothing human left in the tribute.  

Too often, Dr. Thorne would demonstrate Everest’s posture as a sign of progress in his assimilation with humanity.  Pointing at the classic evolution of man silhouettes, he tried his best to have Everest follow in suit, from a crouching beast to a poised member of society.  But his betrayal and thrusting Everest back into survival mode did the complete opposite as the whole of Panem began to notice him day by day reverting back to the hunched and ferocious thing that belongs in the dark.

Now, Everest couldn’t see Seraph, but he knew she was there. On the first day in the arena, she’d hoped somebody else would kill her district partner eventually so she wouldn’t have to do it herself. But he was a survivor. He’d lived in a cave for the majority of his life. Of course he’d lived long enough that Seraph would have to kill him. And in the space of time in which they were separated, something had altered him. He didn’t appear right. He seemed feral, but not the confused sense he’d carried with him before. This was a ferocity of somebody pushed too far for too long. But perhaps this was the way he’d always been. His default state. Perhaps Seraph never really knew Everest at all.

From her past two fights and the ones she had witnessed, it seemed as though there’s always a discussion between the opponents before they lunge for each other’s throats. Mocking each other or telling them something they’d been dying to say for a long time. There was none of that here. They took steps towards each other, shortening the distance between them. Everest snarled and his teeth… His teeth. Rows of white filed down to sharp points. Oh God, she wanted to say. Oh God.

“Everest.” There was no point in saying this, but she said it anyway. “I’m your friend.”

Don’t trust her, don’t trust her, don’t trust her.

He huffed back, moving to arm himself, and Seraph acted first instead. Seraph flung her throwing knife and ran right after it.  Everest felt the blade sink into his thigh, then felt a foot pinning him against the wall.  Seraph dug the blade down his leg then pushed off, tearing the knife back out.  She took off behind a wall.

Seraph put the knife away and remained silent, moving only to take out her machete.  Sound, check.  She kept her feet still, refusing to make a single vibration.  Touch, check.  Seraph heard Everest shuffling around, making a lot of sound as he tried to find her.  

Everest knew Seraph had only one arm, and though she could certainly kill with it, she couldn’t climb like he could.  He scaled the wall she was hiding behind, smelling the scent of his own blood on her knife to pinpoint her hiding spot. Seraph looked up to find him leaning over the edge.  Scent, unchecked.  She silently winced and dashed away just as Everest took out his sword and  leapt from the wall.

Everest swung the sword and she spun to counter, both parrying as Seraph was gradually being pushed back farther and farther until she found her back against one of the mirrored walls. Before she knew it, Everest had her pinned to the mirror. He held another weapon, something chrome and strange. Flames spouted from the weapon, inches from Seraph’s face. She grabbed his wrist before he could bring it closer. Intense heat burned her cheeks, singed her hair. Seraph kneed Everest in the stomach until he stumbled back, the wind knocked out of him. Everest started up the blowtorch once more, but Seraph knocked it from his hand with a swipe of her left arm. It fell to the ground away from the two.

Then Seraph traded her machete for the knife once more. Everest felt a knife enter his thigh, but before he could reach for it, it was suddenly pulled out.  Seraph yanked back and dove in with the knife again, hitting his hip this time.  Confused and unaware of what was going on, Everest pulled out his bullwhip. Seraph quickly dashed away, dodged a crack of the whip, and pulled out some of her rope. She tied a lasso to latch onto the corner of a wall.  She clamored up the rope and hung tight, trying to stay off the ground and be silent.

Behind the wall, Everest took his sword and plunged it straight down through the gravel, embedding it in the concrete below.  He gripped the handle as he fell silent and still.  Unaware of where Seraph was, he held tight and focused, waiting to feel a single vibration in the sword before rushing off after her.  Seraph clung for dear life as she felt the rope slipping between her gloves.  Her injured shoulder started to pulse and quiver, until she could no longer hold on and fell to the ground with a loud and vibrating thud.  Under the wraps of Everest’s bandages, his eyes shifted with intrigue.

“Found you.”  He mumbled.

A flurry of gravel flew up as Everest took off towards her.  Seraph scrambled to her feet and held her machete up, hardly able to keep it steady as Everest’s whip lashed out again, this time wrapping around Seraph’s half of an arm. Everest pulled on the whip, trying to drag her towards him. Her feet dug into the stones as she tried to stay in place. The whip tightened around her arm, cutting off circulation, about to break the skin. It strung between them, taught like a tightrope. Just the way Seraph had wanted. With a quick strike, she cut the whip off at the handle. The leather fell off the handle onto the ground, lying useless on the gravel.

Seraph reeled towards him, not pausing in her attack. The blowtorch was gone, the whip was gone but he still held onto the sword tightly. She lashed out with the machete into Everest’s collarbone, then slashed across the neck, trying to end his life.  Everest dodged back and gripped a bright yellow lemon that had been on his person the whole time, squeezing it in her face.  But Seraph wouldn’t be fooled.  She knew exactly where he had gotten the deceitful fruit and what it did.  She kept her mouth slammed closed but lemon juice still squirted over her eyes and face.  Everest tucked the lemon back in and tried to slash the newly-blinded girl, but she quickly hit the floor and jabbed the machete into his inner thigh.  

Everest kicked her across the face, and was surprised when she lept up and tackled him to the ground, her machete falling to the side, his sword flying away.

She straddled the boy and swung her fist down at his nose, hard enough to crack bone and cartilage. She struck him again and again, the skin on her knuckles splitting, gathering blood before Everest struck her across the head. She fell to the side and felt his weight crushing her, saw him bare his teeth. He’d eat her alive. She sent her knee into his groin once, twice, until he doubled over and she could push him off of her. She scrambled to grab her discarded weapon. Rocks flew. She could hear Everest standing up as she wrapped her hand around the handle. Everest was ready to stomp her skull in when she slashed at his ankles, severing the Achilles tendons. Blood gushed out of the vital tendons like cars plummeting off a raised highway. Everest roared in pain and swayed in the spot where he stood. A hand reached down and yanked Seraph up by the back of her uniform. Everest flung the girl into the mirror behind her with a crash of shattering glass and the crunch of bones breaking. Broken pieces of mirror clung to her skin. She tried to sit up but she couldn’t. Her shaking hand still gripped the handle of her machete desperately. Her last hope.

With his sword lost somewhere beside him, Everest desperately reached for the lemon once again.  Seraph was running out of blood quickly, but knew if she could get up and kill him off soon enough, the Capitol would treat her wounds.

“You’re not getting me to eat that, Everest.”

Everest tilted his head towards her voice.  Though streams of blood dripped from his face, his smile lifted, flashing bloodied and sharp teeth.  It was a chilling sight, as Seraph had never seen Everest smile.  But what came next was even more horrific.  For the first time, Everest had put together a full sentence.  

“The lemon not for you.”  

Everest tore through the deceitful citrus with his teeth and swallowed it’s entirety.  Instantly he felt and unsatisfiable thirst and hunger.  Right in front of him was flesh to satisfy his hunger, and blood to quench his thirst.  The key to winning the games was to release all sense of humanity and dive deep into an animalistic berserk.  Everest tore off with flared nostrils and bared teeth and leapt through the air at Seraph.  She screamed with fury as she swung the machete out and severed his arm, but the brute still pounced and lifted her up.

He dragged her up by the collar and bowed his head and teeth tore through the side of her neck like a razor against an eyeball, sunk into muscle and threads of veins and ripped away with a solid piece of Seraph’s flesh as she screamed and gasped in agony. Blood poured freely from her neck, too much, too fast. The feeling of nerves being torn in half grated like bows against rusty violin strings. She fell forward, slumped against Everest’s frame, and her machete stabbed through his abdomen. She yanked it sideways, eviscerating Everest where he stood, blood spilling onto their feet.

Seraph’s hand left the handle of the weapon to clutch at her neck as she tried to support herself up against him, an instinctual response. Everest grabbed at Seraph, both trying to use the other to hold themselves up. They slid to their knees together. Everest collapsed onto his back, his insatiable thirst and hunger fading from the single lemon, and Seraph followed him down, too weak with blood loss to stay upright any longer. She rolled off of him onto her back and they lay there next to each other. Bleeding out together. Dying together. All because of what they had done to each other.

Blood traveled up Seraph’s throat, spilled onto her cheeks. It seeped from her neck through her fingers, slick and horrible. She writhed on the ground, legs twisting and heels digging into gravel.

Her heart keeps pumping out blood that doesn’t go anywhere but the rocks beneath her and she could feel herself dying, feel life leaving with every pump of blood that followed every arrhythmic heartbeat. And she could feel Everest dying next to her, could hear him groaning and convulsing and struggling to keep his viscera inside his abdomen or his tendons from emptying themselves. They were stuck. Nobody would come for help until one of them dies. Now it was just a race to see who would die first.

Then Everest speaks. His voice so quiet Seraph wondered if he’d even spoken at all. It was a hoarse, dying whisper that she couldn’t make out. Everest tried again. “You... friend…?”

Seraph laughed and it came out as a sob. Tears slid from her eyes and she tasted copper mixed with salt. “Yes. Y-Yeah.” She gasped past the lump in her throat that strangled her. “I’m sorry. I-I’m so– fucking sorry, Everest. Everest, I’m sorry.”

Everest didn’t say anything else. He breathed fast and shallow, a groan escaping him at intervals. The sound was horrible and he wasn’t dying fast enough. He didn’t deserve this. He should have stayed in his cave or hidden, something that could keep him from having to be in this hell. He could be back with Dr. Thorne, but he was stuck here bleeding to death instead. Seraph had to make it stop, make him stop. She calculated her move, knowing she only had a few precious seconds to spare without applying pressure to her neck. Seraph brushed his arm with her left, trying to somehow comfort him. “It’s okay,” she mumbled, the words slurring together. “It’s okay…”

With a shaking, blood-coated hand, Seraph pulled the throwing knife from her sleeve and reached her arm over to Everest, plunged the blade into his throat and dragged it sideways. He stopped groaning after that. Seraph brought her hand back to her neck. A cannon fired. It sounded very, very far away.

Seraph had stopped writhing and lay still in a pool of her own blood by the time a voice echoed across the arena.

“Ladies and gentlemen, may we present to you the Victor of the First Annual Hunger Games… Seraph Sinclair!”

Everything sounded distant, like she was being held underwater. Dark shapes moved above her, a dull whirring shook the ground. Figures jumped out and she was placed on something soft. She caught pieces of sentences, a litany of words, like flicking through channels on a television. Cardiac arrest, shock, bleeding out, evac, emergency, is she dead, we’re losing her, she’s dying. The voices sounded panicked, but Seraph was beginning to feel calm. A calm that smothered her. Until everything was dark and she was asleep because she knew, then, that it was all over.

When he woke up, Jared quickly gathered his belongings and started walking. There was no way to turn back. All he could do was move forward. To where? He didn’t know. During his walk, he constructed a noose with the rope around his waist to pass the time. The hallway seemed almost endless until Jared finally reached a large room. He turned his head to the right, where his former ally stood. 

In the dark and cold, Seraph stirred and awoke with the shapes of torchlight burned through her eyelids, the light leaving a pattern similar to a flower in the incandescence and her vision. This was not her cave. She was still alone, but the isolation felt different. Before, it was open and free, reeking of independence and self-sufficiency. The isolation of this hallway bore down on the shoulders of its occupant, gnawed at bone and pressed against skin. It could be addicting in self-destructive scenarios. The walls were imposing, seemed to gaze down with a hard stare.

We see you

Seraph rose to her feet and walked down the corridor with machete in hand, something that was second nature. Her footsteps echoed and she sensed she had been swallowed by a great beast and was walking through its cavernous interior, like that old Bible story her mother had told her once. 

The hallway’s draft become stronger and stronger, audible enough to bounce around the confining walls. An opening in the wall is ahead, leading into a simple room. Television set. Sink. Table. And one more thing. Jared. Standing across the room, emerging from the opposite wall. The hallway seals behind him with the sound of scraping stone. The same noise goes off behind Seraph and she can only assume her exit is obstructed as well. In the dim light, something glittered on Jared’s finger. Seraph had never really noticed the ring on his finger before, the one that must have been his token. It was ironic, compared to hers. A gold crown gilded with crystals versus a band of grey iron. A prince and a serf, brought down to a level playing field. 

“There you are.” He sounded so relieved. “I was hoping to run into you again. I guess being a traitor is just in your blood, huh?”

Seraph said nothing as she pulled her machete from the rope around her waist, held it at the ready.

Jared sneered, mimicking her actions and wielding his sword at the ready. “Fucking rebel scum,” he spat. “Surprised you didn’t slit my throat in the night, you filthy little rat.”

This was expected. The anti-rebellion slurs, the politically driven resentment. Those things held no relevance in the arena. Allegiances outside the game were to be left outside the game. Seraph had convinced herself of this at the beginning. But it pinched a nerve in her.

Rebel scum.

While Jared sat high and mighty on his broken throne, he was blissfully oblivious to all the torment he had been supporting. Now, he was face to face with evidence of the destruction people like him had caused. If he was going to die, Seraph wouldn’t let him die ignorant. Equal punishment to equal crime. After all, he was just like the rest of them. Too busy with their own luxurious stories to care about the repercussions of their actions. But this was Seraph’s story now. And Jared, he was disrupting the narrative.

Eyes met. The air was still. Then machete met sword in a clash of steel and diamond.

Of course he would be the first to attack. Seraph smirked at the expected move and brought her machete up to come clashing with Jared’s longsword. Sparks flew as their blades collided with each other. The redhead then aimed the scorpion stinger to Jared’s arm, but he swayed to the side and it pricked his abdominal area instead, which was protected by the breastplate. Unable to penetrate through solid diamond and to her opponent’s fatal internal organs, Seraph glared. She took advantage of the blonde’s arrogance, however, and sliced his arm with the machete. 

The royal hissed as his wound was reopened. Jared kicked Seraph down to the ground and jumped to avoid the scorpion stinger which she intended to drive to his leg. His training at the gymnastics stations enabled him to leap pretty high. Jared’s foot then collided with Seraph’s face, mere seconds before he reached the ground, sending her soaring backwards onto the table behind her. The wood collapsed under the force, splinters upon splinters. He stabbed at her with the sword, narrowly missing her when she rolled over. Her back was exposed. Jared acted quickly.

Diamond broke her skin, a long gash trailing up her spine, tearing at her nerves. Her silence broke as she cried out, dropped her machete, gasping at the pain. Jared smirked, crouched down over her. His hands closed around her windpipe, his muscles shaking with the force. He wanted to kill her like this, with his own hands. Air halted and stalled in Seraph’s lungs, cut off with nowhere to go. Her hand clawed at his, prying away, a desperate attempt for him to release her. She could feel every degree of oxygen being wrung from her, the sound of blood rushing to her head almost deafening. Using all of her strength, Seraph thrusted upward, causing Jared to loosen his grip on the girl, but only slightly. This was all she needed, however, for a second after, she had managed to punch him in the face, causing him to topple off of her.

Air filled Seraph’s lungs in massive gasps, trying to take in as much as she had lost. As she regained her composure, Seraph was shocked to feel what felt like rope wrapping around her foot. 

Successfully lassoing Seraph’s foot, Jared yanked the redhead back to him, only to be punched in the face a second time. Blood dripped from his nose. The royal growled and swung his weapon down on her right shoulder, assaulting a wounded limb from her previous fight. A sharp crack could be heard, but Seraph didn’t even groan. Unfortunately, that didn’t mean the pain wasn’t present. While she was in agony, Jared took the opportunity to elbow her back, causing Seraph to fall face first on the ground. He then quickly tied her feet together and chopped off the excess rope with his longsword. 

Then another punch to her face. Seraph fell to her side, unable to get up properly due to the rope that bound her feet together. She looked up to see Jared making his way over to the machete.

Ratsis had been smart back in the cave. He’d given her an idea. And she was going to put it to use. 

Three throwing knives were stored up her sleeve along her wrist and she ran a thumb along one, edged it into her hand, and then quickly closed the distance between herself and Jared. The blade sliced clean through the soft flesh of his cheek, a crooked grin reaching back to his jaw. The pressure from her throat gave up all at once as his hands flew to his marred face, a cry ripping out of his throat in pain. Air filled Seraph’s lungs in massive gasps, trying to take in as much as she had lost. She struggled to her feet and yanked Jared up by the collar, flinging him towards the television. He collided with the screen head first, the glass shattering, sparks flying. She pulled him back out of the set only to throw him back to the ground. Glass stuck his skin and blood poured from his half-Glasgow smile. 

“Y-you can’t do this to a king!” Jared said, panic evident in his high-pitched voice. 

Seraph simply shook her head at the pathetic sight. One time she saw Jared look up into the sky and chant Panem’s national anthem when the Fallen were posted. It was like he worshiped those pigs in the Capitol and treated them as if they were Gods. Seraph hated loyalists like him. She was glad she could finally end Jared. Beneath her, he was nothing. Helpless and under her mercy. “King or not, that so called crown on your head will be the reason you die.” 

Jared coughed up blood like there was no tomorrow, his face was basically getting smashed in, like how Everest killed Charlie, but much slowly and more agonizing. Seraph’s words played in his head. “Crown… kill…” That was when the idea hit him. Jared took his token off his thumb and managed to free one of his arms. With one quick stabbing motion, he jabbed Seraph’s nose with the ring. The pointed tip penetrated through the thin layer of skin and to her nasal bone. Jared thought fast, knowing Seraph would be quick to react. He remembered how someone got out of a similar situation during training. Ratsis. Either his concussion was getting worse, or Jared could actually hear his voice again.

Grow some balls, your majesty!

Before he could make his next move, however, Seraph had taken him by the collar and tossed him violently to the ground. Then, she placed a foot on his ribcage, pressed down hard enough that she could feel the bones bending, ready to snap. Jared screamed, the sound strangled and wet with his disfigured cheek. Seraph picked up her machete then cocked her head at the boy. “This hurts you. Can tell you have never experienced pain like this before. Too busy cooped up with your riches to see the face of war. But you can see it now. Focus, right here. Right here.” Jared’s eyes stayed shut, screwed up in agony. Seraph’s heel pressed down harder, his ribs cracking underneath the pressure. Jared screamed as his fingers were ground in fragments. 

“Look at me.”

Jared’s watering eyes met Seraph’s, paper against steel. He panted, trembling with panic. “Stop! Stop it! Please!”

“Stop begging. Are you a prince or a dog?” Seraph stepped off of his ribcage, instead yanking the boy up by his collar and slamming his back against the wall, pinning him there with her upper left arm. With her right arm, she brought the machete up to his throat, the flat of it facing upwards so the sharp edge was hovering a small fraction from his skin. Her face was so close to his she could feel his ragged breathing against her cheeks. “This is the face of vengeance. You are going to look at me. I will be the last thing you see.”

He did look at her. His expression was soft, like a therapist’s attempt at consoling an agitated patient, somebody trying to calm a rabid dog. Trying to negotiate. Looking into the face of his opposite, Jared pleaded once more. “Seraph, you don’t need to do this. I’ll give you anything. I swear, I will always be in your debt if you just let me go. Seraph…” 

Her name on his tongue. He was unworthy of speaking that name. There was a harshness, a disgust that poured into her skull upon hearing him say that. You could cut open her head and it would spill onto the floor, dark and acidic, eat it’s way through the cement beneath their feet. 

Seraph’s breathing was erratic. Fast and shallow. She spoke. “Men get mercy… Dogs gets put down.”

The machete was thrust forward, through muscle and spine until it severed Jared’s head from his body and completely and met the concrete wall. The impact of the execution was felt by the thunder of a cannon. His body crumpled to the ground in a heap, his head still balanced on the flat of the machete. Beheaded. Like a disobedient royal at the guillotine. Seraph brought her machete back and let his head fall to the ground, roll to its side before falling still. His eyes no longer looked at her, but they had in their last moments of life. His blood coated her machete and she looked at it with distaste, wiping the crimson off onto his uniform. Seraph spat on his corpse, disgusted, then turned on her heel. The sink shifted with a series of low concussions, disappearing to reveal a shear of dim light that bled from a descending hall of steps.

Alone once again. That was how it always was. In the end, she always wound up alone. She turned back and studied the collapsed scene. Detritus left of the television and table. Shapes of drying of blood like ink blots in a Rorschach test. A body without a head, the latter dropped on the floor with blank eyes staring forward like headlights. All of the mess caused by Seraph. Freeze on this frame. Now call down your dark and your cold and grey and be damned. 

Across from the cave, a falcon fell down the long blue wall of a mountain and broke with the keel of it’s breastbone the midmost from a flight of cranes and took it to the creek below, all gangly and wrecked and trailing it’s loose and blowsy plumage in the still air. The air tasted like iron, hard and cold and remorseless. Seraph sat on the edge of the cave and watched the sun break over the craggy rocks across the basin. She had had a nightmare in her sleep, of blood and broken teeth, and for this she was thankful. When you dream of bad things, it means you are still fighting and you are still alive. You should start to worry when you start dreaming about good things. If you are happier in an imagined place, what does that say about your survival in reality? Seraph shivered and pulled the wolf pelt tighter around her.

She sat on the edge of the cave’s entrance, machete in her lap, scorpion’s tail still tied to her left arm. On her left shoulder she had tied the diamond shield in lieu of holding it in her left hand. She watched the landscape through her goggles. There were perks to being paranoid. It meant prepared. It meant unshakeable. She sat and felt like she was waiting. Waiting in the eye of an imminent storm. Every sound, every drip of water, every shift and settle of rocks were picked up by her ears. Then there was a noise, a heavy noise that grew behind Seraph, rumbling and swelling. There was struggling against rocks, scraping, feeling around. Something alive. It grew closer, followed up to the cave. Then it all stopped.

With the creak of iron and a thud, something has entered the cave. With a hesitant step, she made her way over to check out the source of the noise… and to see who had entered her cave.

The first thing Ratsis notices when he wakes is the crypt has begun to flood.

“Shocker,” he mumbles as he stands and gathers his belongings, flinching only slightly when a wall near him crumbles revealing an opening. The entranceway to the crypt was now sealed off and taking the hint the boy began to move down the new hallway pausing only when…

“Seriously?” he said over a slight chuckle seeing the familiar white rabbit perched up on a pile of rocks, looking at him expectantly, “I’m not that heartless.” he said as he opened his pack and let the critter hop inside.

Ratsis followed the tunnel cautiously, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness before a faint glimmer of light appeared above him. He paused and ran a hand along the stone ceiling, tracing the outline of a trap door. He had no idea where it would lead or whether someone, or something was waiting above, and rather than fall into another one of the Game Makers traps he decided to use this brief moment to prepare himself. He pulled the knife from behind his back and used a portion of rope to tie it to the underside of his wrist, securing the blade to his person. He abandoned the soaked blanket on a pile of rocks in the meantime and using the handle of the ax slowly pushed the trap door open slightly, his height allowing his eyes to scan the surroundings without difficulty. A cave lay atop his position, a smattering of gemstones decorating the walls, the floor slick with water.

“Shit--” he grunted as the trap door was forced down, alerting him that he was not alone. Above Seraph stood poised and at the ready, having arrived in the stretch of cave moments prior and took her own opportunity to prepare herself, standing behind the trap door hoping to catch her unexpected visitor off guard when she heard movement below. Her shield was tightly gripped in one hand and scorpion tail locked in her prosthetic, the machete slipped along her waist and the bulk of her supplies tucked off to the side of the cave, having been left with no way of carrying her belongings due to Jared’s impromptu departure with the majority of the former alliance’s supplies, the backpack included and Everest being in possession of the pink bag. And yet, the girl was adaptable, having survived the hardships of the war and the loss of her arm.

Below Ratsis knew it would be stupid to throw the trap door open and blindly hop topside. Now that’s an idea, he mused to himself as he pulled his bag in front of him and dug within its contents.

“Let’s see how lucky you really are.”

Seraph tensed seeing the trap door begin to rise slightly, bringing her shield close to her person and weapon at the ready, an expression of utter confusion taking her face when a small, white rabbit scurried out from beneath.

“Wha--” she hummed quietly. The rabbit served its purpose as a distraction as Ratsis threw the trap door open, it colliding with Seraph’s knees and pushing her back a step. The boy quickly pulled himself out of the hole and turned just in time to see Seraph swinging her offensive arm at him. He ducked and returned the gesture with a swing of his ax to which the red-head avoided as well. The moment of chaos halted when Ratsis pivoted back a step, the strip of blanket holding the glass shards in his hand scattering around the trap door during the initial scuffle. He put a pace of distance between he and Seraph, who walked around the hole in the ground to face her opponent.

Ratsis spoke and he sounded amused. “Hey, sweetheart. You all alone? I could keep you company, if you like.”

Seraph said nothing. She remained seated at the edge of the cave, her body now turned towards him, but she said nothing.

“Not much of a talker, eh?” Ratsis smirked, lips crooked. “That’s alright. You don’t need to say anything, I don’t mind. You must be pretty lonely, though. All alone in the middle nowhere, a big cave all to yourself. I could stick around and we could get real cozy. What d’ya say?”

Seraph said nothing.

“Alright, you can cut the silent act now, it’s gettin’ real fuckin’ old. Just say something, will ya?” No response. “It ain’t nice to ignore people, sweetheart. I asked you a question, I expect a fuckin’ answer. Y’know, I think–”

“Ugh, Ratsis.” Seraph elongated the vowel sound in his name in a melodic lilt, something disturbingly out of place for a girl who usually spoke in a dead monotone. She shut her eyes, head tilted up in exasperation, before letting it loll to the side. Eyes flicked open, a robotic click of the lids, stared straight into the boy’s. “You are really running your mouth..”

Ratsis stared at her. He stared and he smiled. It was less a smile and more just a twist of the lips. “There. You talked. That wasn’t so hard, was it?” The axe in his hand was struck by a stream of light coming from the mouth of the cave, the steel glinting. Seraph rose to her feet, slowly, towering, machete in hand. Ratsis took a step forward, light hitting his gaunt face. He raised his axe at the ready.

Though they only interacted once during a rare moment of fun in the training center his impression of Seraph still held true. He was not about to underestimate her due to her missing limb, the boy possessing his own disability and knowing first hand it was not a hindrance, and given the weapon attached to Seraph’s body it would appear that she had more an advantage over him.

Keyword, appear.

“Groovy.” he muttered nodding to her prosthetic. “Army of Darkness fan?”

The girl didn’t reply.

“Ya know, Bruce Campbell flick… Ash Williams…Deadites… ’shop smart, shop S-mart’..?” Ratsis sighed, and lifted his ax, “‘This is my boomstick’?”

Silence.

“You need to get out more, kid.” Seraph listened and maintained her stature, a hint of annoyance brewing in the pit of her stomach when he called her a “kid,” viewing it as a taunt that revived memories of her time with Dory at the hand-to-hand station. But unlike then she was not training with the lean boy with dark features before her and given the circumstances for running into him she could only guess what the gamemakers expected of them.

That suited the girl just fine.

“So are we doing this or can you only function with that partner of yours around?” Ratsis commented, snapping the girl to life as the space closed between them. He wasn’t one to taunt another for their disability, but if there’s one thing Ratsis knew he was good at it was pissing someone off and he wouldn’t hesitate to antagonize his opponent. Unbeknownst to him the banter would only fuel her fight and she was not as helpless as she looked.

Suddenly, a throwing knife slid from Ratsis’ sleeve and into his hand, then hurtled towards Seraph, slicing the air. The point of the knife stuck itself into Seraph’s side. She resisted the urge to look down at her wound, keeping her eyes instead on the task at hand. Just as quickly as the last, the second throwing knife hurtled towards her chest and this time Seraph had the reflex to raise her left arm, the diamond deflecting the knife with a metallic clang. She yanked the knife out of her side, the bloodied metal skidding to the ground.

She lunged forward, closed the gap between them, and swung a horizontal arc at Ratsis with her machete. He stepped back, narrowly dodging the attack, then swung back with his axe. Seraph jerked to the right, letting his missed swing carry him forward so she could duck behind him. She cut at his back, a slice across his shoulder blades, the material of his uniform ripping open and a thin line of blood showing on his newly exposed skin.

“You little shit,” Ratsis hissed, wheeling around and swinging his axe again and narrowly missing Seraph’s chest. With his axe arm still forward, Seraph used the scorpion tail to knock the weapon out of his hand and let it skid to the front of the cave. Ratsis backed away, more furious than ever. What Seraph didn’t know was that he was still armed. He brandished a baton from his backpack, like it was no big deal, like losing his axe was just a small inconvenience. He swung the baton and struck Seraph against the head. Once more, the boy moved as if to hit Seraph, causing her to dodge. Unbeknownst to her, however, it was simply a feint. Letting his body collide into hers, he pinned her against the wall, the knife attached to his wrist moving at the same time and slicing into Seraph’s left shoulder.

Seraph stomached the pain, a familiar wave of panic overcoming her being in such close quarters with someone else. Reacting on impulse she snapped her head into Ratsis’s, the goggles on her forehead bruising his cheek and giving her the opportunity to push him off of her and drive the scorpion stinger into his hip, a curse passing from his lips. Seraph moved to withdraw the stinger and found Eight’s hand wrap around it before it left his body, forcing his weight to the side and dragging her down to the damp ground with him. Her own advantage proved to be a disadvantage in the resourceful boy’s hand, especially when her box of matches went tumbling to the ground leaving them useless thanks to the inch of water coating the cave floor.

He wrapped his legs around Seraph’s to immobilize her and let his weight rest on her left shoulder ensuring the stinger remained stuck in his body. It was a daunting sacrifice to make but it would secure his lead in the fight and keep her in place. With his free hand he delivered a sharp jab right between her eyes, stunning her momentarily as he plunged the a free knife into her right shoulder, causing her to finally loosen her hold on the shield.

Off, off, get off, the girl cried in her head as she brought a sharp right hook to Ratsis’s face, red beginning to stream from the boy’s nose as she relentlessly jabbed at him: his face, throat and finally a hard jab to his ribs. Ratsis returned strike for strike, adrenaline absorbing the pain as he was determined to maintain the lead in this fight and keep her offensive arm immobilized. Feeling herself beginning to lose control and knowing her anger would only consume her, Seraph had to think fast and free herself. Her right hand slipped down and grabbed the familiar hilt of her machete, jabbing it downward and reopening the boy’s already wounded thigh, giving her the moment she needed to free herself. She forced her weight backwards from Ratsis, knocking him in the chest with the hilt of her weapon to loosen his lock on her legs, breath leaving his lungs as her knee collided with his groin, and Two only barely managing to pull herself loose.

Seraph grimaced at the pain as she stumbled back. She calculated her advantages. She could keep dodging and weaving around him, she was good at that. But it was getting her nowhere. She had to take Ratsis down hard and fast, otherwise they’d be dancing around each other all day. She charged forward, all brute strength, and rammed into him shoulder first, knocking them both down. She straddled him, swung the machete down like a hammer. Ratsis turned his head to the side, the blade merely grazing his ear and hitting the stone surface beneath them with a metallic clang.

It gave Ratsis enough time to crack the baton against Seraph’s back, knocking the wind out of her. He took the advantage and rolled over so he loomed over her. Seraph tried to stab at him with her machete, but he pinned her arm down and grabbed the weapon from her grasp, sending it over to the cave wall.

Seraph struggled beneath him, kicked and kneed him and swung her makeshift prosthetic at him, but Ratsis was overpowering her fast. He kept her right arm pinned and worked at the ropes fastening the scorpion tail and diamond shield to her arm.

Seraph’s weapons were gone, but she still kept thrashing, desperate to get the advantage again. She knocked her head into his nose, felt the cartilage crunch at impact, and he growled in frustration. He rolled her onto her stomach. Untied the rope from around his waist and tied her arms together instead, binding her arms uselessly together behind her back. Rose to his feet and yanked her up by the hair before hurtling her into the cave wall, her body falling to the ground next to her machete with a heavy thud. Seraph writhed and struggled against the ropes, desperate to free her arms. She rolled onto her back, leaned her back against the wall of the cave. Ratsis strode towards her, lips still twisted sickly. He had one more trick up his sleeve, literally. He took the last throwing knife into his hand then lunged for her throat. But before he could stab her, she held him back with her foot, holding him back as he pressed forward with knife at the ready, bearing all of his weight down in an attempt to get close enough to her neck.

Ratsis was getting closer every second and Seraph knew she wouldn’t be able to hold him back much longer. The ropes stayed tightly bound to her. She needed to be smaller. He’d tied her up and he was going to torture her and cut off her limbs and eat her if she didn’t get small enough to work her way out of these ropes.

Gritting her teeth, Seraph rammed her left shoulder back against the rock behind her. Then again. And again. With each hit, she felt the bone slipping from its socket, little by little. Thud. Slip. Thud. Slip. Thud–

POP.

With a grating of bone against bone and tweaked nerves, Seraph’s humerus dislocated from it’s socket. Her ears rung with the pain, black spots marring her vision. She twisted her limp left arm out of the ropes, the ropes beginning to slack around her body with the limb out of the way. The ropes loosened slowly, slowly.

Her weakened stance clued Ratsis that his assault was beginning to take a toll on her, likewise his opponent could see he had taken his fair share of blows but he was not slowing in the slightest. And neither was Seraph.

Ratsis brought the axe down on the shield with all of his weight behind it, Seraph moving through the pain and ducking under his strike the same way she had during her sessions at the hand-to-hand station, putting her behind the boy and striking him between his shoulder blades with her shield. Blocking was difficult for her, especially now given her damaged arm.

As he was forced forward from the strike he let himself fall, tucking into a front shoulder roll and immediately spinning on the ground to face the girl with the knife attached to his wrist extended, slicing the blade across her knees and causing her to buckle slightly. Springing from the ground he made contact with the shield, knocking it into her chest and forcing her back a step and then snapping his own foot up in a high roundhouse kick, striking true to her head. The kick stunned Two and caused her to see spots, the lingering effects of her concussion still present. Ratsis dropped his ax and went to dig out his matches from his pack, abandoning them when he felt the box was wet from the flood below and instead seized the Peacekeepers baton.

Seraph fought through the spots and nausea that came from being struck in the head, now relying solely on her signature machete knowing that to use her shield would weigh her down more and swiped fiercely at the boy, aiming to tear him open and end this fight. Ratsis blocked and the pair parried off, Eight finally striking her in the chest with the baton, Seraph losing her footing from both the force of the blow and the scattered shards of glass on the cave floor, nearly falling down the trap door.

“Don’t worry, I got ya!” Ratsis called as he tackled her forward, the pair disappearing beneath the cave to the flooded tunnel below.

Ratsis released her on impact, both she and the water cushioning his fall. Seraph broke through the surface choking and coughing up water, her long hair soaked and draped over her face.

As she pushed her hair to the side, Seraph saw with wide eyes that Ratsis was coming for her. Panic set in and, with a last ditch effort, she quickly reached around her, looking for the machete that dropped along with her. Just as he was about to be on her, Seraph felt the handle and, without a second thought, thrust it forward into his stomach.

He didn’t cry out. He didn’t groan. It was as if all the air had been forced from his chest, his lungs flattened and depressed, pushing all the oxygen out of his body. He sunk down on the blade, his hand dropping the knife as Seraph removed her foot and let him drop his full weight onto the machete. She felt the machete tearing through every muscle strand, working it’s way straight through his guts and out his back. Warm blood spilled from his wound onto Seraph, staining her uniform with a sickening deep red.

Seraph pushed herself forward, struggling against the water, yanking the machete out and sending Ratsis backwards, his hands clutching at his wounded stomach. Seraph could hear the oxygen churning in his chest, his lungs filling with blood and water. Crimson bubbled past his lips and slid down his paling skin. She crouched over him and found herself paralyzed, watching the boy die before her eyes. Then, whether out of fear or desperation, Ratsis reached a bloody hand and grabbed her jaw, blood smearing against her mouth, and Seraph was triggered into motion. Panic hit her like a bucket of frigid water and she felt herself swing the machete down on him again, lodge itself in his face. 

The impact of the machete was magnified by a booming cannon, but she kept going, hacking at his face over and over. Blood and water splashed her face and a tremor ran through her wrist and her breathing grew erratic and tears spilled over her cheeks and she kept hitting over and over, even as he was underwater. She hacked at him until Ratsis no longer had a face, just a messy pulp of blood and skin and cracking bone and soft brain matter where a face should be, underneath the surface of the flood.

The entire fight, she had pictured killing her abductor, but this wasn’t him. She could pretend Ratsis was Earl all she wanted, but he wasn’t him. He was Ratsis. Just another teenage boy. And she had killed him.

Her entire body shook violently and her fingers slacked, the machete dropping from her fingers and splashing near Ratsis’s body. Seraph collapsed onto her side and she couldn’t stop convulsing. She hid her face in her arms, tried to calm herself, shaking it off shaking it off but it wasn’t going anywhere. A sob ripped out of her throat, just only horribly lonely sob. And then she was done. No more. She wouldn’t let this break her up anymore than she’d just let it. She sat up, the shaking subsided, and wiped at her eyes with her sleeve. There was the unshakeable feeling that something was still watching her. Her head whipped around, looking for any trespasser. Then she spotted it.

A camera. A camera fixed to the wall of the little waterway trap door. This was a reality show, after all. Through that camera were millions of viewers, Capitolites and District citizens alike. Did they like the show? Were they expecting something more? Well, Seraph could offer them one last spectacle.

Ratsis lay under the water with a cloud of blood pooled around his ruined skull. Seraph pressed the back of her thumb against the blood. She rose. Found the camera winking at her in the corner, the camera that had filmed the entire encounter. She stared down the camera. Then she scraped her thumb across her right cheek, then the left, a streak of watery blood on either side of her face. War paint. Her eyes held the dead, steady gaze of the camera lens. Her prey. She held the gaze and imagined a hand made of steel holding a rope that strung their stares together, not letting it go slack.

Clovis, Seraph, Hilarian, Ratsis, Parker, Kyla, Nico, Tillie