The Games - A PP OUAT Fanfiction

Twenty-Seven.

Apparently I looked bad. Sick, even. Everyone was asking me if I felt okay and why I looked so terrible. I just shrugged and said that I hadn't gotten very much sleep the night before. After breakfast, Jonathan pulled me aside. "Hey," he said cautiously. "Are you... Are you feeling okay? You look horrible. Like you spent your whole life in a cave and you've been punched in both eyes multiple times." This made me laugh a little, but even to me it sounded forced.

"You can tell me what's wrong," he whispered, putting a hand on my shoulder and bending his knees slightly so that he could stare into my eyes. "Please, I just want to help."

I just shrugged. "Nothing's wrong." Except for the fact that I witnessed the suicide of a guy I thought was my friend.

He scoffed. "Whatever." He straightened and removed his hand from my shoulder. "I won't push."

As I turned to leave he asked me something. "Hey, have you seen Picies this morning?"

I froze in my tracks. My eyes flooded suddenly, and I pulled him farther away from everyone. I looked deep into his eyes and made him swear to never tell anyone what I was about to tell him.

"Kasey, just tell me what's happened, please. I want to help you."

And I did. I struggled to get my voice out, and at the same time, I struggled to keep it down. Everything that had happened the night before up to Pan taking me back to my tent came tumbling out of my mouth and before I knew it, Jonathan was hugging me very tightly and trying to comfort me.

Mikah found us first. I was crying too hard to blubber it out, so Jonathan told her, and soon she was hugging me, too. Then Edith and Ellis both found us, and it was explained to them, and they were in the group hug, too. We stayed there for a long time, everyone's eyes pooling over as I cried. I don't know how long we stayed there, but I didn't care. I felt loved and protected and cared about, more so than my parents could ever make me feel.

My parents were my family by blood. But these guys? They were my family by choice. It hurt to think even one of them would die.

After a long time, Mikah took me back to my tent and lay me down gently. She gave me a glass of water and made me drink it. I did, gladly, and she ordered me to sleep. I didn't want to, but she told me I had to, so I did.

And I was relieved, if anything, to dream of inky black darkness and nothing else.

****

He had sworn to her. Sworn that she would never again have to feel that kind of pain, ever again. And he had let her down.

He left for five minutes to get dessert and suddenly felt cut-off. He had searched frantically for her blip, but couldn't find it. There was only one other person on the whole island that could do that. Picies.

It took a long time, but he found Picies. And Kasey. It was all because of her scream. He expected to find one of them either murdered or being murdered; But what he saw was a sight too horrifying for words. And right after he helped Kasey and took her pain away, he went straight back to Picies, and put his body back together, just to turn push it over the cliff again.

He killed him and rekilled him several times, until long after morning came along. He was just so angry. Eventually, though, he knew he had to leave. He made what was left of Picies' body burn and then his ashes burn. Then he left. He needed to know for sure that Kasey was okay. When he got to her tent, Mikah was standing guard outside. She told him that Kasey was asleep and needed at least an hour to herself.

Pan didn't like it. Not one bit. "Mikah," he said in a warning tone when she stepped in front of him. "Get out of my way."

"No." She said it firmly and without a trace of fear. Or anything else, for that matter.