𝐂𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐅𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐬 [𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐤 - 𝐇𝐮𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫 𝐆𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐬]

8 | 𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞, 𝐅𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐡 𝐁𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐝

Content warning at the end notes: please skip down and check if you feel like you should!

Also, my keyboard broke, so tell me if there's any mistakes please! It was a lot harder to type and correct stuff (I've got some hand/joint issues) so I was a bit clumsier with my editing this chapter. Thanks, enjoy!

Okay, ironically, right as I finished typing that, my new keyboard arrived. Life is so fun.

N E O

            — THE DOGS COME AT MIDNIGHT. It's only luck, really, that I'd packed up so swiftly that day. Only luck that I had felt restless and keen to move, had decided that I would start travelling at late sunset, rather than sit about for complete darkness like I've been doing for the last few days.

            The coyotes, like me, prefer to hunt under the blanket of darkness. Knowing this, I still feel that it's the right decision as I swipe the blood off my palms on the fallen mutts' ragged fur and retrieve my sword form where it lays in the terracotta dust. The low-lying forest of ashen shrubbery and cacti peters out about the base of one of the sandstone formations to the south, and even from a great distance, I can see the barely suppressed flicker of a fire against the crevices in the splitting rock.

            I approach with purpose, sword still gripped in one hand even as I spend a good portion of time navigating the shoulder-high undergrowth in frustrating silence. My fingers, bloodied by puncture wounds, constantly shuffle around the hilt of my longsword — starting to dull and rust a little with the blood of many wild dogs; of which seem to have been stalking me these past few days. I'm nauseatingly unsure of what I'll find at the source of the light — whether I will've approached the wrong person. If so, the intention I've shown means that they'll have to die. I can't be evasive if I'm also the invader. The anticipation distracts me, so much so that I hardly notice the critters about my feet until a sand-coloured snake builds up the courage to attack — its flimsy little teeth snapping on the steel toe of my boots. Guiltily, I step over it; leaving the small thing disarmed and vulnerable feels intensely wrong.

            And then the fire goes out. I halt, pull in a quick breath and wait. My heart thuds in my ears, one, two, three, and then my resolve gathers itself, so I take a restrained, quiet breath and sneak closer. The crack is nothing more than a divot, and my shoulders squeeze inwards so I can slip through the stone unheard. It's a foolish move, but I'm blinded by hope. Still, I grip a short knife tightly, held close to my hip as I shrink myself down to fit amongst the rocky walls. There's no opening, no widening of the path, but instead a cluster of felled stone, cropping out over each other, creating small platforms. To my left, no taller than my knee, a campfire smoulders beneath sand and dust, a black streak of ash on the stone. I adjust, knife close, fist tight, surrounded on all sides like a fool. I can almost hear the automated voice of the simulation chamber declaring me dead, almost see the flickering blue spear wedged between my ribs in a brutal throw. Can see the youngest trainees snicker as I stumble off the platform, cheeks hot with embarrassment at my incompetence. It was harder, back when I was just starting out, to hide the emotions that begged to shine across my face — my humiliation stronger in the early days of training, although it didn't help that I was the only twelve year old in a class of first years. My memory pieces together a blue sheen across the rock; although a part of me knows this must be the darkness of night meeting the pearlescense of the twilight hour. Its a passive thing, the way my body shifts and twists to assess every angle and measure every step, every attack and counter available. I suppose this is what it means to be a Career — to calculate every move, every chance.