Author Games: Trial By Fire

Finally Final Entries - Luxure Amarta

Winning means fame... Losing means certain death...

These words rattle in my eyes as I scan the emerald sea. Beyond mists and clouds, seas and mountains, my district awaits... hidden in layers of hope... hope relying on me to achieve.

James was a bust; gone before the storm. Now I’m alone. Scanning and searching the shadows, hungering for that scarlet taste... I’m no better than them. But why should I not be? Always hungry... hungry for honour, victory and a red day showered in eminence and for what....? For life.

I brush away the leaves, hacking violently with the boasting steel. I’m primed for this moment, yet all I feel is... pain, sorrow... a pan of unsure regret. Nothing should tear me from this moment and nothing should avert my goal. Bobbie can be taken in seconds, but Claudine...?

Annie.

No, no more on her. She will die if I am to win... Die as the others have. She will take her place if I am to achieve that second victory that awaits so close to my grasp.

Wandering warrior. I take that form, striding the arena in hope that battle meets me; meets me upon the shores of victory bay. It is I who will take that stage... with these thoughts; victory burns ablaze in my demonic eyes.

 I run, though where too I do not know. I scream, though to whom I have no trace.

I see her... standing daringly by the steep edge... I grasp my moment and drift from the forest.

“Don’t come closer!” She shouts, staring into the sickening distance. The wind laps at her face and causes her short hair to whip the breeze... its grown from our time here. “Why should I let you do it, eh? Why should you be the one to take me from this shitting world...? Surely the honour is my own?” I silently scan the weakening woman, my grip tightening on my axe. She stammers slightly before turning.

Her dark eyes are burnt upon mine, swollen red as fire yet with streams of past tears.

“And could you?” Her frail voice cracks. This is not the strong woman I was almost threatened by in training... In the games you win or lose, and she’s lost. Given in to the fear that slowly consumed her.

She smiles a wry smile before scoffing and turning back to the skies ahead.

“Of course you could.... of course you could.” The silence is threatened by the waving breeze. Bobbie turns. “There’s no relief in running. I can’t hide...”Again, her eyes bore on my own, filling my thoughts with guilt.

“I find no safety here...” With an abrupt mind she presses one foot back toward the crumbling cliff edge.

My mind reacts. I can’t see this through. I leap forward, grabbing her arm in strange help. Aiding the enemy and serving my kill.

She now hangs, leaning on my strength, depending on my weight.

“LET ME GO! LET ME... GO!!” She cries in agonizing torment. I pull her away from the crumbling cliff and slam her into the trunk of a nearest tree. “LET ME DIE!”

“Ohoho, no... You really think I’d let you go?” Her face almost softens in response to my ‘Kindness’ “Ah ah...” I bustle, leaning into her ear, my hands pressing harder on her shoulders. “You’re my kill, bitch.”

My knee rams into her stomach making her stoop to the autumn floor. I just glimpse the satisfying widening eyes before my axe claims into her throat.

The hack is blunt.

A cannon shot sees me off the scene and once again I’m left to crave for the crimson waters. I spend the rest of the day, pondering over my possible victory. Guilt almost overwhelmed me earlier; I cannot let it happen again.