ACT I, CHAPTER NINETEEN ❛chase, stumble, slice ❜ content:blood/gore/injury, character death, violence, heavy dissociation, heavy angst.
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A / N this is another graphic chapter, mostly near the end. please read with discretion.
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One, Seven, Eight, Nine. The numbers rattle around Madaket's head as she tries in vain to find sleep. Nothing else makes sense past the dazed fog her brain swims in. She can't even feel the sand against her skin, not the granules, not the pain, only its heavy weight against her. All she can see are those four numbers, four little faces of her opponents. The only people standing in her way. One, Seven, Eight, Nine.
When dawn stretches pollution-brown over the dunes, Madaket figures she won't be able to sleep until she's out of the arena. The thought makes her frown. For days, she had thought that the fear and adrenaline would stagger off once Marie and Huxley were dead, but it now feels like the fear has become a part of her. Like it has latched its gnarled claws around her heart, making ice creep through her veins, frozen from the inside out. Her body is entirely numb to the point of cold, despite the growing heat. She can't feel anything.
She spends the morning walking to the edge of the dunes sector, only she can't remember anything of it. Her brain seems to jolt back to reality when she sees what remains of the desert. The earth is gone, the trees, the cacti, the entire Skies-forsaken desert—all of it, gone! Consumed by the flames beneath; Now an endless valley of hellfire, burning so hot the haze in the air obscures her vision past a mile and she can feel the heated wind against her cheeks, even a whole dune away.
The sun is gone too, she sees, the sky brown-black from thick smoke. But the arena is sweltering, not as bad as the first few days, still enough that she feels sweat trickle down between her shoulder blades. Fumbling, she pulls out her canteen and takes a small sip. With the river gone, no source of water exists in the arena anymore, so she must measure every swig.
She must have decided to start walking again, because next thing she knows she's stumbling through sand again, following the rough, circular edge of the dunes sector. It unnerves her, these gaps in her memory. For the life of her, she can't even recall putting away her canteen, but she finds it stowed safely in her bag. It's like she isn't even in her body, like stubbornness alone is the only thing keeping her feet moving forward. She doesn't like it at all. She fears something is horribly, irreversibly wrong with her mind, worrying so much she bites down on her cheek again, swallowing metallic blood. Is her memory vanishing? Am I going mad? she thinks, panic rising. Please, I beg whichever cutthroat god listening: You've taken my childhood, let me at least keep my mind! But next thing she knows it's sunset and the sky is darkening, and still she walks round the edge.
Something is wrong with her. She knows it.
Then she sees the body.
Half-buried in sand, curled in the fetal position, so much like Kaimana's dying moments that Madaket stops breathing. For a minute, she thinks she sees butterflies perched on Kaimana's rotting body. She blinks, and Kaimana is gone, a boy tribute lying in her place. Cropped red hair, a faded gold jacket, scrawny build. This person is not Kaimana, Madaket doesn't have to kill her again. Kaimana's dead and her seashell token is heavy in Madaket's pocket.
