The Fifth Annual Writer Games: The Fall

The Fall of Troy - Males

District 1 Male – Chet Jackson

It's been a four day night. Chet's hat came off in the middle of it, now his headband sticks like a second skin. The branding on it feels like it's branded on his forehead now. His hands scramble to it and pluck it free, now. He thought he may have to pry it. He sweated that. There is a crowbar type thing on the far wall, less far than it was before. He leaves it for now. He examines the cornucopia shelter in brief, his fervor at odds with his grogginess. Each whipping scan takes twice the time to process. And his head is such now, that he knows no other way. A bead of sweat glances through his scribble of sight, and through it, he can see pulsating worlds of color. Black and purple then, stunning yellows and oranges now. Bags and packets once filled with air and some sustenance are now only air. The sustenance is stuck between his teeth, and the stench of it festers before him. The one way to get rid of it, he knows now, is to slip off his boots. Slip is the right word; Chet tramps up and down upon his bundle of blankets, bent at the waist and trying to untie both shoes seemingly at once. Now, only the shoes remain standing. Mold and mustard billow from their rubberneck chimneys. He sprawls and swears upon his sopping sleeping bag. Soaked with sweat and snot and sugary beverages. He crawls to all fours then stands then stumbles back to fours. Standing now. He runs a finger under his nose. This cold, the one the snow and the red wherever his skin sees light tell him is still strong, but the same that his body no longer feels now, that cold has ran his nose like a tap. Only when it isn't running, does he notice it now. All he feels now is the tickle of hair, as if a poorly made rope was sat above his lip. A scowl sends a wave through it and he only feels it more. He sleeps with a blade small enough to shave it and the river which runs by is reflective. With a plan and an excuse in place now, he stumbles towards the taper of light. His blade is behind, still in a stand, and the little food has fallen from his pockets, and his ally lay asleep, neck flexing from the cold and from cold blood. But he can worry about all that later.

Icicles line the maw; useless teeth that don't do much even when floundered into. Crystal dust tangles in his hair, while bigger shards pave the path he has ahead of him. Walking upon them is like walking on coals and Chet hasn't got the bearings to make it in time. He tumbles, cursing the ground and the sky and the ground again as he rolls out of it. He rolls into it more than anything. He's askew in the path-side ditch. Last night's snowfall laps at his sides, and fresh stuff tap-dances on his turnip nose. His feet stick up into the air, covered in boils and the edges singed black. Then they're back on the ground, snow squelching through the toes. They walk the slopes they walk the sky, they walk him. A puppet lead is tied to the biggest toe of each of his feet, and those, rather than any reason or reasoning, drag the rest of him along. And the heat.

It's boiling by the backpacks and steaming beside the snow angels left by the - well, it was the bloodbath, if you weren't dead when you went to ground, you would be soon. Chet's eyes pick out the tinges and turn them into infernos boiling over with blood. He retches. He thinks he might have actually retched. If he turns back to see - if he tries to - he doesn't. He only turns all the way around so he ends up just where he started. Many times he tries to thwart this phenomenon, starting out with all intents of a swooping spiral and ending up stumbling through the rest of it, desperate to stay on his feet. One time he doesn't. His feet go in the sky, his feet go in the snow. His blade skitters off somewhere.

Still, past the pines where Venus couldn't find him even if she came out and looked, it's still sweltering. His shirt suffocates him. Why did they make the collar on this so tight, he wonders, pulling in from his neck, well-sown strings screeching till they snap. He fights his clothes like they are a second skin which webs between his arms his body and grows like a cap over his head. Finally, he throws off his shirt and it lands somewhere over there in a ball in the snow. Staggering and blind, Chet falls beside it. Feet in the sky, feet in the snow, feet in the sky...