What are you fighting for?

4. The Rain

Setting the bomb was the easy part, keeping his cover in tact was more challenging. Adyn worked with calculated precision, the right wires to the right place in a colour coding only he understood, using a trigger he had designed himself. He turns around, it was art and he wanted to remember it whole and pretty. But the real work was just about to begin, the fights.

His plan was working, with the explosion he ordered a blackout and every flashlight extinguished.

Zana staggers to her feet, feeling shaky. She's having trouble seeing and her ears feel like they're stuffed with cotton. She's confused. What happened to Kaiora? Who did this?
Although she knows very well what happened and who is responsible for this.

Clinging to the wall Zana gets up. She wobbles over to the door to get back inside when she throws one last look to the place where the bomb just detonated and sees a figure evolving from the smoke.

Runyon running towards her, the white of his weapon burning in Zanas eyes. She needs to get back inside, fast. The door flies open and Zana is being pushed inside. Looking back she sees Merce with his daggers and Keon with his polearm, ready to fight Runyon. So they did hear the explosion.

But where is Adyn? There is no time to rest. In fear he might already be inside the building Zana drags herself up the stairs. She can't fight now. Not now. She knows she's an easy target and literally feels the red target on her back.
Ares must have calculated that she was unable to do anything incase of an attack.

The high pitched ringing feels like her head might explode, although there is no external sound.

Zana is stumbling up the thousand steps she just ran down. Completely soaked from the rain crashing down, the smoke in her lungs, the heat in her skin, her bones feel like they're about to break every moment from the slam against the wall.

Coughing she collapses on the stairs, hanging onto the rail. Keon could be dead by now and she wouldn't even know it. With the last strength in her arm, Zana pulls her weak body up and proceeds crawling upstairs.

It feels like an eternity until Zana reaches the room with her sniper.
Quickly, she grabs it and lays the gun on the floor with the big window. She lays down and tries tracking the boys. But there is too much smoke, any figure she believes to be a person is just another cloud of dusk making it's way up to the sky, crawling between the buildings.

For a split second Zana spots Runyon falling out of the smoke, Keon jumping out of the black cloud. It's like a fight between night and day, shadow and light, good and bad.
Runyon is visually the exact opposite of Keon, although he is not a bit less attractive with his dark skin, the brown eyes, crinkly hair and the beard he starts growing around his broad chin.

Zana thinks about releasing a shot but the two move so fast, the risk of shooting the wrong one is too high. The smoke engulfs them again and the light blue of pixels brighten up the dark smoke.

Zana could feel her heart beating against her rib cage, slowing every second. Realization dawns on her, he is dead. She tries to move her chest, trying to suck in air, but none came. Her heart stopped.

It was like the first time she woke up in this arena, alone.
She awoke to find herself not in her cozy bed, or even in the protection of her house. Zana awoke to find herself in another world, a world of suffering. As the numbness of sleep slowly faded from her limbs she felt the pain poking into back, like tiny needles.

It wasn't until the day Keon found her, that she had another home.

She knows that he is not dead but she feels left alone. He left her in a world she never wanted to be in.
Sadness and exhaustion close her eyes and she falls asleep on the floor by the window.

"Zana!"

Her eyes shoot open at the sudden touch on her shoulder. The daylight burns on her retina. She must have slept through the night. Confused she turns around, catching the destruction outside, the rain had stopped, to find a pair of familiar dark eyes.

All the energy that had left her body yesterday returns and allows her to jump up into Keons arms.
"Where have you been? Did you-? I just saw the blue of the pixels"
She feels Keon smiling at her neck
"It was Runyon. I'm sorry, I slept in the bed downstairs. I just wanted to search you now"

"We did it"

It's just now that Zana not only notices the frustration in his eyes but the red note in his hand as well.

"What is that?" She asks, her voice back to the usual calmness
"He was here" Keon frowns, turning the paper around for Zana to read it.

Three vs. One
Is that fair?
I believe not, so I wanted to shuffle the cards again.
How about you look outside that little window of yours.
3 pm, the circle.

Ps: I suggest 4 days later at dawn, same spot. 2 versus 2. A fair fight.
Accept my terms or witness a public execution.

~A

Merce.
She rests her head in her hands. What a night. The explosion, the fear, death. Everyday here has been a fight and a loss. She just needs an unbroken night and she'd be a new girl.

It's three o'clock and the couple waits at the window, the sniper on the floor just in case.

One of the four doors of the round arena opens and somebody is being pushed inside, tied up, stumbling and falling on the dusty ground. Adyns black boot steps out of the door. He grabs Merce, pulls him to his feet and turns to face the city. And although it is impossible, it feels like he is staring right into her eyes.

Keon gasps at the sight of their friend. He was taken hostage that night.

White knuckles from clenching her fist too hard, and gritted teeth from effort to remain silent, her hunched form exuded an animosity that was like acid - burning, slicing, potent.

Adyn pushes Merce to his knees and leads his gun, brushing Merces brown hair with it.

Do you accept my terms?

Zana lays down on the floor and aims.

"What are you doing?"

But it's like Zana is in a bubble, and shoots.