Tommy and Tubbo's Survival Guide to the End of The World

The Fight (Part Two)

this one will probably be the second most painful chapter in the story ngl

tw: not mild gore and like a panic attack

EDIT: so nobody was going to tell me how many typos there were in this thing .-.

~~~

Tommy POV

The heat was familiar to me.

There was a tightness in my throat and heaviness in my chest that made inhaling hard, yet I continued huffing anyway, fingers tight around the handle of my vlog knife. Sweat was running from my face down to my neck, the stuffy and crammed crowd only adding to the midday sun's unforgiving and stifling heat. Somehow even my breath felt hot as my clothes stuck to my skin. A hitched inhale, a choked exhale. That was all I had to do.

The pressure and stiffness in my body felt just as tense as the last time I entered the pit, and although my hunger was certainly tamer, my stomach continued growling ravenously inside me, fueling the desperation that had quickly made a home with me. There were bodies all around me, surrounding me, trapping me. I tried not to pay the sickly way they felt against my skin any mind, instead focusing once again on the daunting task before me.

All I had to do was win, nothing more. It didn't matter if I was nothing more than entertainment, because I had done this once before, and I'd do it again. My life was worth the risk if it meant Tubbo and I could remain another day away from starvation. But my hands didn't quite get the memo, still continuing their shaking around their grip on my short blade while my wide eyes flitted anxiously around the dogfight already in progress in the pit. It even felt as though my entire body was quivering from the anticipation.

The fight before me was coming to the close; I could sense it, and so could all the other sweltering bodies around me, somehow managing to suffocate me even more despite how tall I was. My working eye focused on the final exchanged of the battle, the victor still unclear: The older girl swept her blade, striking the smaller one. Her scream from the sudden onslaught of red that was purged from her chest was just about the only thing that resonated in my mind, once again too clouded to pay anything else much mind. I flinched when she began weeping, begging for mercy. Her opponent gave her none, and soon, she was slumped in the red water like so many defeated before her.

And just like that the round was over. Her barely breathing body was dragged out unceremoniously out of the water and ignoring her moans and weeps, her wounds having turned the murk an even darker shade of crimson. Everyone around me was yelling, either in celebration or in bitter disappointment. I watched impassively as she was dragged against the rough surface of the broken remains of the city, clenching my fist tighter still around my knife while I bit the inside of my lip. No matter what, I would not let that be me. There was just too much at stake here.

Like before, the heat made its way into my lungs, sending my heart racing and pounding so hard against my chest that I could feel it in my ears and fingertips. This time though, the stinging and burning sensation from my previous fight was present. A sharp inhale passed through my lips when a heavy hand pushed me once again forward through the stifling crowd, their eager eyes now upon me. Eager to see me get slaughtered horrifically, or eager to see me slay gruesomely were none of their concern. They just wanted to see red.

The water lapped once more against my feet as I was shoved back down into the pit. My chest felt so heavy, so hard to breath. It should have been easy, so why did my body feel ready to faint? My opponent emerged from the other side, this time another boy, seemingly younger than myself, yet almost my height.

I readied my blade, standing threateningly in my position while I watched him do much the same. My sweat was starting to trickle down my back, heart thrumming faster than I could feel, eye continuing to flit around the scene before me. None of that mattered, I had to focus on what was important, because all that mattered was winning.