Glory and Gore

"You've been drinking like the world was gonna end. Took a shiner from your best friend."

Vixen Rhodes (D10)

Vixen was sleeping when the alarm went off. It was hard to keep track of time in the dark corridors of the arena. Even when there was light shining through a window, everything still felt dim. Dim, dark, and silent. So Vixen stopped worrying about the time. She slept when she was tired and felt reasonably safe, which was seldom. She most certainly had enough on her mind without thinking about sleeping at her normal time.

Nathan's face had been haunting her.

Needless to say that the alarm had been startling- she thought she was being attacked when she woke up. Immediately, she bolted to her feet, banging her head against the low ceiling of the cell she had been sleeping in. By the time her knife was out and shining, she probably should have been dead. Luckily, she wasn't actually being attacked.

Nope, instead the entire arena seemed to be screaming. Red light flooded the cell, blinking in tune with the noise. After a minute, she lowered her knife and slipped on her pack. Something was happening right now, and she wanted to know what it was. Creeping slowly down the hall, she noticed one thing immediately: the lights were much brighter to the left. So despite the fact that she hadn't explored any further in that direction, she began to delve deeper that way.

"Let's see what the Gamemakers have to show me," she muttered to herself. Somewhere off in the Capitol, she imagined that people probably thought she was pretty brave, walking blindly towards whatever potential danger lay ahead of her. At least, that's what she hoped they thought. The fear in the pit in her stomach wasn't easy to hide.

Turning a corner, she found herself standing in front of a large steel door, bigger than anything she'd seen since she'd left the Capitol. It was propped open a little. Ignoring her fears, she stepped through it.

There was a girl lying in the middle of the floor.

Vixen's grip tightened on her knife as she jerked it upwards, preparing to run. But the girl didn't move. It was like she had fallen asleep or something, and hadn't woken up, despite the overpowering alarm. A chill suddenly ran through Vixen. It was like the girl was dead.

No cannon had sounded though, not since yesterday when Dorren Hallows died. Nontheless, there was no denying that the girl was incapacitated at the moment, so, cautiously, Vixen dared to step a little closer.

Well the mystery behind the girl's identity was solved quickly. There was a Twelve stitched on her bicep. She was clearly still alive too. There was a glass room a little above them, and its door was open. It didn't take a genius to guess that Ayla Forester had fallen out of it. Probably because of the alarm. Vixen wondered if the younger girl had triggered it somehow.

Glancing over at Ayla again, Vixen suddenly remembered Madison. Immediately her palms began to sweat. To put it simply, she couldn't just leave Ayla there untouched. Her mind went back to the bloodbath, to when she had run into Ayla, and had thought for a terrifying moment that she was actually going to have to fight the girl. She had promised Ayla that they'd wait until next time.

She wondered if Ayla still would've left her alone back then if she knew this was how they'd meet up again.

Vixen lifted the knife over her head before she could allow herself really process what she was doing. Just before she brought it down though, the arena went silent. The alarm had stopped. And as if she was in sync with the arena, Ayla stirred.

"Mmmmm," a low groan floated from her lips. Vixen leaped away from her, holding her knife out fearfully as Ayla started to come to. Shakily, Ayla's hand rose to her head, feeling around for some sort of bump. Her fingers seemed to find the bruise, as another moan escaped her.

Vixen knew that this was her chance. She should be attacking the girl while she still didn't know what was going on. But she was afraid to. What if Ayla was more aware than she seemed? What if she fought back?

They want you to kill someone. They don't care who. Kill your friends if you don't have the guts to kill your enemies. It won't make a difference to them.

Madison's bitter council returned to her.

"Ayla," Vixen said slowly.

Immediately she tensed. It was like the grogginess was ripped away from Ayla Forester's sore form, and in its wake, she flopped. Stumbling onto her side, Ayla turned towards her fearfully.

"V-Vixen," she stuttered, trying to pull herself to her feet. She was still weak though from her fall, and so she just ended up on her hands and knees, looking like a deer stuck in the head lights.

Vixen stared back for a minute before remembering her words. "Sorry about Carmine," she finally got out, remembering their time in training.

Ayla looked like she had been slapped. "Sorry a-about Nathan," she replied.

Now it was Vixen's turn to wince.

"Are you all alone now?" she asked tentatively, changing the subject. Ayla nodded quietly, and Vixen let the silence settle for a moment. "Do you, um, want to be?"

"To be alone?" Ayla said quietly, looking a little lost. There was a spark there though. Vixen knew in that moment that the rest was going to come all at once.

"Like, do you want another ally, maybe," she elaborated. Ayla's chapped lips immediately spread into the widest grin. She seemed almost on the verge of tears she was so happy.

"I'd love one," she said, nodding her head vigorously. "It's...I've...Everything has just been so lonely without Carmine here."

"Can you walk?" Vixen asked with a soft smile.

Ayla looked down at herself, and started to try and get up. She was moving slow though. Her pain wasn't masked at all. Closing the distance between them, Vixen offered Ayla her hand. The other girl took it, and after a moment, Vixen had Ayla's arm around her shoulder's as she helped hold the girl steady.

The girl from Twelve seemed completely oblivious to the fact that Vixen was still twisting her knife in her left hand.

"You okay?" she asked quietly.

"Yeah," Ayla nodded with a warm smile."Just a little rocked, that's all."

"Good," Vixen said back.

Then without another word, she swung her left arm around, and stabbed her knife upwards into Ayla's throat. The girl from Twelve made a startled choking noise as the blade cut into her skin. She didn't suffer for long though. Vixen could feel Ayla's muscles give out as she lowered her to the ground.

Boom!

Vixen stumbled backwards, tripping over Ayla's limp foot. Her entire sleeve was soaked in the other girl's blood, and she could feel it making her fingers sticky.

The deed was done, but the guilt quickly crashed over her- stinging more than any knife wound ever could.

Keela Monroe (D6) and Ernest Berridge (D12)

Keela stopped abruptly as the screeching arena suddenly went silent. Ernest, of course, promptly bumped into her, not expecting it. She glanced back at him with a look of weary annoyance before returning her suspicious gaze back to the walls. The two had started moving the second that it had begun. For obvious reasons, it made both of them rather concerned.

Only a few moments after the alarm stopped, a cannon sounded.

"It wasn't meant for us," Ernest mumbled thoughtfully, not sounding relieved in the slightest.

"It's all meant for us," Keela corrected him tersely, her voice tight with exhaustion. She felt like she hadn't slept at all since Hawk had died. Even when Ernest was on watch, she could barely force herself to close her eyes. Nightmares were the only thing that would come with sleeping. Not that wakefulness brought any respite from that. Her entire life was just one walking nightmare right now.

She moved to start walking again though, despite everything. She felt like a zombie a lot recently, trudging along with no real destination.

"Keela wait, maybe we should pick a cell and start to rest again," Ernest called after her. His voice sounded even more dead than hers, but she didn't think that it was because he was tired. She knew she had been wearing on his nerves. To be fair, he had been wearing on hers, not that it took much to annoy her. It had reached a point where she felt like all they did was exchange little bitter quips. Ernest was more patient than she was, though. He hadn't exploded on her yet.

It made her wonder what it would've been like if it was Hawk instead, who had survived. She doubted that Hawk would've put up with her shit this long. He didn't seem like he had a patient bone in his body. But then again, if he had lived, would she really be in such a dark place right now?

She supposed she wouldn't have.

"What?" Keela turned on Ernest. "It's not like we were getting any rest before anyways."

Like usual, he stared at her in silence for a moment. She could see his jaw clenching as his dark eyes bore into her. She waited for the submissive response that she had become accustom to from him.

"Do you hate me?" he finally asked.

"What?" she blinked.

"You heard me," he replied. "I want to know if you hate me, or just the fact that I'm alive and he's not. And don't you dare turn around and brush me off this time. I'm pretty sure you were the one who told me about the honesty policy."

Keela stared at him. She knew that Ernest was going to snap eventually. She supposed that the only question left was whether their split was going to be peaceful or not.

"I'm not sure anymore," Keela finally found her words.

"You need to be sure," Ernest told her gravely. His arms were crossed, Keela noted. Ernest's sword was still saftely away in his belt. "Because I didn't join this alliance because I thought it was worthless. I knew that any one of us could have died in the bloodbath. I had thought about this scenario- where it was going to be just you and me. And to be fair, I thought about it the other way too, where you were the one who died. And I thought about what it would be like if I ended up on my own as well. I decided that it was worth it though, even if Hawk died. But I think I've changed my mind. It's only worth it now, if we both think it's worth it."

"If you just hate that I lived, and he didn't, so be it. I guess I can deal with that. But if you can't stand me, and you think I'm a terrible human being who you can't even trust to take watch at night. Well, I guess I can't do anything about that. Then, I think, it's probably better we part ways now, before you kill me in my sleep."

She didn't know how to respond to him. Since she'd seen him first walk onto the stage during the reaping recaps, Keela didn't think she'd heard Ernest Berridge say so much. But now that he was actually speaking up for himself, she wasn't actually surprised by what he had to say. Ernest was smart, even if he wasn't completely aware of it himself.

Keela finally let her shoulders sag. This wasn't going to come to blows.

"I hate that he died," she finally said. Saying the words was like being able to breath again. "I hate that that damn career gutted him like he didn't mean anything. I hate that you followed me out of there and didn't have anything to say. I hate that you're doing things that he should be doing. I hate that I'm doing things he should be doing."

Ernest nodded, his eyes dark and thoughtful now. The burning urgency of his speech had dissipated from his face. All that was left was the aftermath. "I think," he finally said. "That we should all be allowed to grieve, even here."

She hadn't even realized that there were tears running down her cheeks until she tasted the salt in her mouth.

"Maybe," she said, her voice shaking slightly. "Maybe it would be a good idea if we stopped to rest for a few minutes."

Ernest nodded, and the two turned around to go find a quiet nook to hide in for a while.

Loden Tsiperial (D8) and Barric Yule (D9)

It was getting brighter as they walked down the hallway. Loden hadn't noticed the light contrast when they were fleeing from the mayhem of the bloodbath, but now, thinking back, he did remember the twist of fear in his gut as he had followed Barric into a dark corridor that horrible morning. He didn't register much after Sylvan died, and he supposed that was normal.

Of course, now things had changed. As they inched closer to the main hall, Loden was beginning to regret their hopeful decision the night before. There were so many things that could go wrong visiting the Cornucopia again. For instance, the careers might actually be there. If they were, he knew they'd most likely slaughter Barric and him in seconds.

"Cheer up," Barric whispered, glancing back at his friend. "We're being smart remember." His eyes were confident to a fault, but Loden could sense that Barric was genuinely trying to make him feel better. He always meant well, at the very least.

"Yeah," Loden muttered. Barric stopped then, turning back and giving Loden a full once over.

"Hey, do you remember what you said earlier," he asked.

Loden blinked at him.

"It's been a really eventful morning," Barric elaborated. "With that alarm, and the cannon. What, it can't have been more than an hour. They don't need to kill anybody else right now."

"Just 'cause they don't need to doesn't mean they won't," Loden pointed out meekly.

"We're going to be fine," Barric just shook his head. He looked over his shoulder towards the light at the end of the hallway. "Come on, if your nervous then it will be better to get it over with right?"

Hopping into a bit of a jog, Barric moved forwards. Loden, naturally, had no choice but to follow him, despite the growing pit in his gut. He kept envisioning Sylvan's twisted expression as Biathyst sunk her knife into his chest in the back of his mind. He didn't think Sylvan had screamed, but he wasn't nearly as brave as his fallen ally. At least, he didn't think he was.

Whenever he pictured his own death, he always seemed to be a broken mess of tortured shouts and tears.

Ahead, Barric dropped to his stomach and turned a corner. Loden felt his heart leap to his throat, and with trembling hands, he followed suite. The two boys had chosen the third floor for their approach, and as the main hall came into view, he found himself grateful for that choice. Even in the bright orange jail suit, the dark iron grated floor offered at least a little bit of a barrier between himself and any prying eyes on the ground. Barric, of course, already had his head cautiously stuck out over the ledge, as he squinted down at the ground.

"Anything?" Loden asked, his voice barely audible.

Barric didn't move for another moment before slowly shaking his head. "I think it's deserted," he said. Then, ever so slowly, he rose to his feet and stepped out into full view. Loden could practically hear his heart beat thumping in his ears. But as the seconds continued to tick by without any action, even his nerves seemed to calm themselves.

"Ready?" Barric breathed, glancing back again. Surprisingly, he seemed just about ready to jump out of his skin as well. There was something eerie about the silence around them. It almost felt as if they were the only two people in the entire arena. Like perhaps, in some cruel twisted joke, the others had all escaped and left the two boys alone in the prison to meet their own ends.

"Yeah," Loden said, shaking away the thoughts and standing up and joining Barric by the rail.

Hurriedly, they scrambled towards a ladder and climbed down onto the ground floor. The moment their feet hit the ground, they were sprinting towards the Cornucopia, each with their knives out. When they reached the center, both slowed down a little. The contents of the Cornucopia weren't nearly as organized as they had been on the first day. Obviously the careers had sifted through everything rather thoroughly after all the bloodshed had ended.

"Don't rush it," Barric said, as he bounced on his heels, his eyes roving over all of the scrambled supplies. "We need to make sure we get everything we can."

"Aye aye," Loden replied. As the time ticked by, his confidence was growing. He couldn't completely shake the gnawing vulnerable feeling that had settled in the back of his mind, but their sense of urgency had been numbed slightly. Dropping to his knees, he began to spill out the contents of the scattered packs onto the floor. Swapping out bag own for a bigger one, he began grabbing everything that seemed mildly useful. Most of it was just food, but he didn't pass over some of the other tools, like a flashlight for instance, the Gamemakers had left for them.

A few feet away from him, Barric was following suite. Before long, they both had two brand new packs filled to the brim with all sorts of goodies.

"Ready to go?" Loden said, glancing around one last time at the quiet corridors that surrounded them.

"Yeah, let's move," Barric nodded, a triumphant expression stretching over his face. Loden nodded, and in an instant, they were both sprinting back towards the catwalk they had come from, and returning to the safe familiarity of D block.

Biathyst Darlucaan (D1), Brodus Battles (D2), and Ula Taylor (D4)

"Let's go left," Biathyst announced lazily as the trio approached another fork in their road. Brodus sent the girl from One a rather weary look as he gave a gruff shrug in response.

All considering, the three of them had been doing fairly well since they had split from the rest of the pack that morning. Of course, everything was much quieter now that each of them seemed to have lost any of their real companions. Ula no longer had Calder or Jeremite. Brodus didn't have Siobhan to hover by. And, well, Biathyst was still just doing Biathyst. Every now and then she'd let some sly comment slip out meant to get on somebody's nerves.

Unfortunately for her, neither Brodus nor Ula were ever that susceptible to outbursts. Quite frankly, ignoring her occasional uncanny quirks, the three of them were operating at the very core of what a career pack was supposed to be. There was no bickering nor was there bonding. They all seemed to just be going through the motions, all acting towards a common goal.

Brodus couldn't help but feel as if the danger in the air had thickened immensely since the change.

He had decided an hour or two ago that it was better this way. It was easier to be detached when you were around less emotional people.

"We should take break soon," Ula broke the silence after another fifteen minutes of walking. "It's probably about dinner time."

"Let's turn another corner or two," Biathyst shook her head with a crooked smile. "Something is changing, I want to see what's ahead."

Brodus didn't comment. He was never much of a leader. It was much easier just to let the two girls take point in little things like this. They all knew that they were thoroughly lost anyways. Any hope of finding the Cornucopia today seemed just about lost- Ula was the only one of them that was really bothered by this fact. Biathyst's comment did stir something though. He thought he had noticed the cells becoming thinner around them. There were spaces in the wall now, and he wasn't sure what to make of them. So far, every sign seemed to point towards the idea that this was a high capacity prison. It seemed to have been built for the sole purpose of holding scores of people. It seemed odd that whoever designed the building would waste precious space on more concrete.

Unless they were worried about prisoners being too close, of course. That was the thought that bothered Brodus the most.

"Do you see that?" Biathyst piped after another minute or two. Brodus followed her line of sight into the dim ahead.

He couldn't quite make it out at first, but after another second of walking, the pale outline of a white door seemed to emerge out of the black. When they took a few steps closer, he could make out big dark block letters across its center. It read: Max Security

Brodus could suddenly feel his palms becoming rather clammy.

"Interesting," Biathyst commented curiously. Twisting the handle on the door, she plowed forwards. Ula hesitantly glanced back at Brodus.

"You good?" she said after a moment.

"Fine," Brodus mumbled back. He didn't seem all together there though. Ula frowned at him but continued after the girl from One.

They entered a long narrow hall. Unlike the one they had came from, it didn't have any cells on the left side of the wall. Instead it was lined with small barred windows that let a rather substantial amount of light in. The right side of the wall, as expected, was still filled with a row of cells; however, they weren't like any that they had seen so far. Instead of the familiar pitiful pits that the three were used to, they couldn't even see into these new cells. The doors almost looked like the sort you might find on a refrigerator back at home. They were big white and seemed more or less air tight. Each door had two rusted pieces of metal on them- one ring shaped handle and one square flap.

Of course, the first thing Biathyst did was pull on one of the rings. The door made a suction noise as she wrenched it open. Behind the heavy white barrier was a two rows of chipping green bars that appeared to slide open to the right, and behind the bars there was a small patch of dirt, not quite big enough for a full grown adult to lie down in.

"Interesting," Biathyst said thoughtfully.

"We should keep moving," Brodus said tightly. His fists were clenched as he stared into the horrible little hell holes that they had stumbled upon.

"What are they for?" Biathyst asked allowed, completely ignoring Brodus.

"Solitary confinement," Ula said quietly when Brodus didn't answer. He could feel her eyes on him as he shook silently. When he finally dared to return her gaze, he found that she looked bizarrely sympathetic. Her usually apathetic and strategic expression had been replaced by furrowed eyebrows and a slight frown.

He let out a huff.

"Yeah Biathyst, I think-" Ula began to say as she turned away from Brodus. She didn't get to finish her thought.

She was interrupted by a disturbingly unconcerned. "Whoops." Biathysted had found a lever beside the vault that she had opened and had pulled it while her two allies had been preoccupied. The reaction wasn't instantaneous, but after a beat of nothing, the chamber let out a slight moaning noise, and a pipe in the back of it slid open. Almost immediately, little grey creatures scuttled out of it, swarming the floor in the cell before pushing out and breaking into the area around their feet.

Biathyst already had her throwing knives out, and immediately began to pin them on the ground severing their little squirming bodies as they lunged at the trios feet with teeth bared. Ula drew her blade a second later and began to hack at the little beasts. It was Brodus, however that was most moved. He seemed to fly from his spot across from Ula with extrodinary speed. Leaping over the escaping mutts, he lunged straight for the door and heaved it shut, crushing several in the process.

Then wheeling around towards Biathyst he met her curious gaze with a maliciously stoic glare. "Don't touch the vaults" he breathed, eyes glinting in the dark.

Biathyst cocked her head at him, returning his glare. After a moment she nodded. "Lesson learned," she said, her voice level and unfazed. Her eyes continued to burn into his for another moment of tension before she swung around and took a seat with her back against the far wall.

"I think now is a good time for dinner," Biathyst said, nodding towards Ula. The girl from Four glanced towards Brodus trying to measure his silence. She seemed to be having a hard time though.

After a moment, she nodded. "Okay." And then the trio went on to eat their meager dinner in silence.

Glory and Gore by Lorde

A/N I think I warned everyone that updates were going to come to a very unfortunate halt once school started, so the long update period shouldn't be too much of a surprise (hopefully). But, yeah, as promised I'm still here, it's just taking me five times longer than usual to do things.

Anyways, R.I.P. Ayla

Writing loners is always a rough. I've found that really, the only time it seems fluid is when said loner has a real purpose (think Avell on his mission to destroy the careers) and a concrete story arc. I just didn't have that for Ayla. I thought about setting her back up with Ernest and Keela for a while, but they have other things ahead of them that wouldn't have been as natural with Ayla there. So unfortunately, she had to go now. Thank you to Buttons301 for submitting her.

Any who, don't expect another update for a while. I think I want to get out the reaping chapter for Facing the Fallout published before I get around to the next FB chapter. (But again, I'm not going anywhere, even if I seem like I have disappeared for a month or something)

Until next time,

Tales