Breathe in, Breathe out • F Odair² •

I

"I appreciate you checking in with me first, but that's still a no,"

•∘♔∘•

Athena Maris was running. She was dressed in a tan-coloured cargo jacket and pants, boots to match, and a white tunic; they were dirty and bloodied and torn in places. She was injured in many places; the back of her head was wounded, she had a slowly healing black eye, a swollen wrist, a sprained ankle, and several other cuts and wounds all over her body. She was limping due to the injuries on her legs, but that didn't stop her from running through the desert, the old city that had been torn apart by war, her spear and golden shield held tightly in her hands. She was seventeen again, terrified and running at top speed. She didn't know where exactly she was running to, but she felt an urgency to keep going, so that was what she did. She couldn't stop if she wanted to; she seemed to have no control over her body.

Kai Emerson seemed to materialize out of thin air, his bow already loaded with an arrow, with more slung across his back. He began firing at her at top speed, but she was running so fast that the closest his arrows ever got was skimming past her, dangerously close. He kept firing at her until the ground underneath him turned into that tar-like black substance and began to pull him under.

"KAI!" she cried out, drowned out by his screams of pain.

She wanted to stop running away and try to reach him, but her legs kept moving forward without her control, and she was too helpless to save him yet again. He sunk into the tar-like substance and disappeared from sight as the cannon went off, still reaching for Athena, who could never save him, not even in dreams -

She couldn't stop to dwell on it even if she wanted to; she kept running. Marjorie Hopper came charging at her from behind one of the buildings, her knife in hand, shouting something that she realized with an unpleasant lurch was her sister's name, Charity Hopper. Before Marjorie could even attempt to cause any real damage to her, though, a spear that looked sickeningly like the one she was holding went through her chest, and she dropped to the ground, letting out a choked noise while she fell. And again, Athena fought with all her might to be able to reach her, to try and save her while she could, but she could not stop her feet from running forward. The cannon went off, and the hovercraft materialized and collected her body, and she was gone.

"You let me die!" cried out an achingly familiar voice. "YOU LET ME DIE!"

Cara Savera was in front of her, charging directly towards her, her knives in her hands. There was also the spike that killed her sticking out of her back, causing her to bleed through her clothes, but she was forcing herself to move even as she bled out, determined to carry out revenge upon Athena. But at the last moment, she seemed to have lost too much blood and dropped to her knees, too weak to continue. Athena made herself speed up; Cara was in her path, if she could reach her in time and figure out a way to stop herself from running... but then Athena could see, even from this distance, the light leaving her eyes, and Cara Savera was dead all over again. The cannon went off, and the hovercraft collected Cara's body before Athena could have any hope of saving her.

She heard footsteps pounding behind her, and turned to see Rowan Lindell, his grown-out black hair falling over his face which was twisted in anger and aggression in a way that she had never seen on him. He raised his axe as he quickened his pace, and she knew at once he intended to use it on her. Suddenly, though, two arrows went straight through him, one in his stomach and the other in his chest, and he dropped to the sandy ground. Athena tried desperately to stop and turn around to reach him, but she couldn't do anything but keep running forward. She knew, however, without needing to look into his face or hear the cannon go off that Rowan Lindell had died again. The hovercraft collected his body, too, and she forced herself to look away.