The art of War

Chapter 9: "I don't want to die alone."

As the five days went on Blake, Solar and Siren moved every night under the comfort of the darkness and sometimes they slept through the day. They were at the point of starvation and the only water they had was becoming scarce. Blake had been working tirelessly on the mines but he hadn't figured them out yet. It was the 12th day and no one had died since the 8th. It was a slow game. Blake had taken a break watching Siren sleeping, her body twitching in fear. Solar sat beside him leaning on him. "You should rest. You've barely slept." Solar pointed out looking up at him with her kind brown eyes.

"I can't sleep. I need to keep going." Blake muttered as he began fiddling with the mines, he still hadn't figured it out yet. He needed to figure it out. He was sitting down compulsively fiddling with the wires.

"You should at least have some bread." Solar held up some of her share to him but Blake shook his head as he kept his blue eyes on the mine. "Are you okay?" Blake stopped what he was doing drawing in a calm breath, he then placed the mine down on the ground and pulled Solar into his side holding onto her.

"Yeah, I'm fine. How about I sing to you?" Blake asked raising an eyebrow. "You need to sleep as well." Blake pointed out.

"I like the sound of that but are you okay?" Solar prodded.

"I'm great Solar. I just need some quiet." Blake informed her as he then began to sing, off key but Solar had grown to love it, she loved how he sang for her. After she'd fallen asleep Blake was still trying to turn the mine on, after two hours of nothing he screamed, his scream echoing off of the wall as he threw the mine against the wall breaking it as it fell into the hot springs. Blake let out another broken scream causing Siren and Solar to jolt awake. Siren quickly jumped up holding onto Blake's arm as he screamed again.

"Blake, what's going on with you?" Siren asked demandingly and Blake turned to her shaking his head as he tried to push her away but she wouldn't budge. She pushed his hands away gripping his face as softly as she could without him pushing her hands away. "What's going on?"

"It's not working, it's not going to work. We're going to die down here and there's nothing I can do. I can't protect any of you." Blake's body shook as the tears began cascading down his face and Siren pulled him into a hug kissing the top of his head. There was nothing she could say to ease his pain, she saw how broken and fragile he was and she knew it wasn't going to get better. She held him until he'd ran out of tears, she'd sung Solar to sleep as Blake's head laid in her lap, his mind racing not only with Rush's death, but his girlfriend's death, Ivy's death, Grove's death, the death of Rye and Amethyst and all the other people he would probably have to kill. "I can't do this anymore."

"You can Blake. We just need to give them a show. It will be fine, we'll get Solar out of here I promise." Siren whispered.

"What happens if Solar dies? What if I can't protect her?" Blake asked his eyes turning glassy as he tried to push them away, he tried to breath and calm himself to stop himself from crying as he looked to the small girl asleep in front of them. "What if the two of you die and I'm left?"

"Then I want you to remember this, you are the best person I know. The best person I've ever met." Siren whispered her hands running through his hair. "You can make it through this, and if Solar can't make it out alive, then you deserve to survive. You can do this."

"I'm not a good person." Blake muttered.

"Yes, you are. If you weren't I would have killed you days ago. I would have seen you fall asleep for the first time in a while without 7 watching over you and I would have killed you and killed Solar. But I didn't, because you, well you were the one thing I wasn't expecting to find." Siren found herself confessing and Blake shifted sitting up and looking to her, he used his left hand to hold himself up as he looked deep into Siren's blue eyes.