The Trials of Neo City [WINWIN • YUTA]

🖤 34. you should see me in a crown 🖤

Ten could imagine it easily. His name in the minds and on the lips of every citizen of Panem, the only person left to survive in this cruel game. His teammates, the other tributes... all dead.

His psychotic smile only wondered as he imagined the bodies of his allies. Was it sick to imagine Lucas, dead at his feet with a knife in his skull? Maybe, but who's fault was it that Ten found him as dumb as a box of rocks? Lucas was really just Ten's muscle, a vessel to finish the job when Ten didn't feel like it. His brain honestly wasn't needed now, who cares if Ten gave it a curious little poke with a sharp object, such a poke leading to the color in his face and eyes draining?

And Johnny? Him too, eyes gouged out and lips bloody red as Ten imagined painting them with his own blood, making a pact even beyond the grave. A shame really, considering that Ten was just starting to like Johnny. He was tall and oh-so charming and maybe Ten would have fallen for him in a different setting, another circumstance. But Johnny was in too deep, clearly enamored and amazed by Ten's horrific nature; like a poisonous flower alluring it's prey, prey knowing none the wiser.

Poor Yangyang would have joined them in the pile if he hadn't been so weak. His little horrified eyes ingrained in Ten's memory, Ten imagining himself moving the corners of his mouth into the smile that made the Capitol swoon over how adorable the child had been.

Pity, truly. Maybe in another life they all could be friends with one another.

Or perhaps sworn enemies after what transpires here.

He didn't particularly like that he thought this way, didn't try to either. It just amused him how easy it was to end a human life. He wasn't any sociopath, he just enjoyed the game.

He was supposed to. One and Two train their entire lives for this moment. Just a second of weakness or empathy would be shunned, would be humiliating. Death was a better option.

It was only the way of the world, the rules of the game.

"...up this area." Lucas trailed off, snapping Ten out of his rather disturbing thoughts. He pulled a knife from his jacket and turned around defensively. Lucas was feet away, boarding up the windows of their hideout, kneeled down near the window as he grabbed the wood rubble and a heavy rock.

"Oh, Lucas. I hadn't heard what you said." Ten admitted, nose towards the sky as he looked down on the younger boy. He finished tying the tourniquet around his own shoulder, hissing when his blood soaked through the rough material.

"I said that Johnny and I would board up this area. There's a pattern to the building demolitions." Lucas whispered the last part. "Johnny told me that if they follow that, we're safe in our building."

Ten hummed and looked out of the window before the evening's light fleeted, blocked by Lucas's wooden boards, hammering them into the window frame with such vigor and a small boulder in his right hand.

"Right... where's Johnny?" Ten asked, Lucas gesturing towards the doorway, a metal beam holding up the door's foundation.

"Looking for food the others left behind. Y'know, the dead ones." Lucas added on, Ten rolling his eyes.

"Oh, sorry. I thought Johnny was looking for the living tributes's rations, idiot." Ten spat, tone laced with sarcasm. He scoffed to himself, thinking about how stupid Lucas really was.

It was quiet after that.

Then Lucas broke the silence with a pitiful voice.

"Why did you let Yangyang die? I liked him." Lucas's voice was small, not deep and booming as it usually was. He didn't looked at Ten, only kept bordering up the windows, waiting for a response.

Ten rolled his eyes. "He was weak and begging. I thought he was stronger when he killed that one kid at the beginning, but all he'd done after that was disappoint me. I regretted even keeping him alive in the first place."

Lucas didn't nod or speak again, silently putting up boards across the room.

The Panem anthem played again, loud as if it were taunting them. As if the portraits of his fallen allies tainted him, flashing in the sky, never to be seen again.

Some allies, Ten thought.
Yuta and Shotaro betrayed his trust, Yangyang and Chenle were too fragile and died too easily. Now there were only three of them left.

"We rest tonight, we strike tomorrow." Ten's voice was quiet. He stared at the moon and grimaced, hating how brightly it shined. The more light, the more vulnerable they were. Yangyang and Chenle were gone, Hendery had found him, Shotaro had shot him... there was too much to lose.

"Wait, but aren't we... the Fours are off limits, remember?"

"You're an idiot, the alliance was called off last night. You were there, you idiot. There's fewer of us. Other tributes are running around rampant. The one from Eight. Both from Four. They might have teamed up with someone else, and then what?" Ten asked rhetorically. "We die? They already shot me, Lucas. It's us or them, Lucas."

"How do we draw them out of hiding? We know where they are." Lucas asked after several minutes of silence. Ten looked over at Lucas, then to the bloodied arrow on the ground. A blank stare glazed his eyes over and he curled his mouth into a small smirk.

And then he laughed. The sickening sound rang too loudly for Lucas's liking, Ten doubling over in an absolute cackle. It felt like forever, Ten letting out small chokes in between hysteric giggle fits, before stopping and narrowing his eyes at Lucas, the smirk never leaving his face.

And in Ten's mind, more bodies joined the pile, his mind's trophy case of corpses. One with small, innocent eyes. Lightly tanned skin sunken in and sullen without a pulse. Eyes wide open and body beaten, maimed, bloodied. Another with long red hair, matching the deep red of his clothes, knives adorning his chest like jewelry. The two held each other closely, the bruises and wounds matching each other a sickly color. Ten desperately wanted to see it come to fruition, a giddy and excited feeling bubbling up through his spine.

The moonlight illuminated Ten's face, highlighting just how horrifying his cat eyes looked in the moment. It terrified Lucas.

"The kid" Ten suddenly looked to the moon rising into the sky, the last piece of light let into the room, before meeting Lucas's gaze again.

"That's it, Lucas. We'll kill the kid."