Colborn was in pain. Not the usual kind of pain. Actual pain. Everything in his body was on fire. All he could think about was how much he underestimated that little twerp from Nine. He slowly pushed the tip of the syringe into his bicep, stopping himself halfway. He put the other half inside of the medical kit he received from his sponsor. He cleaned his wounds, never getting used to the constant stinging with every touch. He wrapped his arm and side with gauze, securing it with medical tape.
Time to deal with the eye. Colborn barely touched his fingers to the socket, and he screamed, partially with anger, mostly with pain. Morphling only helped so much, and he knew he would want some more later. He put on the eyepatch, which was annoying and kept coming off, but he eventually figured it out.
All bandaged up and ready to get the hell out this field, he headed back towards the cornucopia to head for the building on the far east side of the arena.
Kendall wakes with a scream as she feels herself being pulled into the forest, a large thick root wrapped around her ankle. Before she can even think of grabbing her knife to try and free herself, branches and underbrush are cutting into her face and neck and she raises her hands protectively, hoping wherever the area was taking her, it wouldn't be as bad as fighting a snow leopard.
When her body finally skidded to a stop, her leg freed and her body banged up a bit from the impromptu trip, she pushed herself up, finding herself surrounded by trees and trees? Was that it? OF COURSE NOT. It's then that she spots two shadows approaching, silhouettes, in fact, and she immediately recognizes the shapes of them.
"Dad? M-mom?" She calls out, her voice breaking as the two figures step into the light.
As they approach, she loosens her grip on her knife, that is, until she looks into their eyes, which are a bright, vibrant shade of purple. Her heart drops, recognizing them to be inventions of the Capitol only. At least, she's pretty sure they're not real, right?
"You killed me, Kendall."
Her blood runs cold as her mother speaks, her voice the same as it always was and she can't stop the tears that come to her eyes. It’s not real, it’s not real! But it's already too real and the guilt that she'd been fighting, guilt that had been forgotten in this god forsaken place, rose up once more like a tsunami.
"I-I didn't. I didn't mom!"
Then it was her father who spoke. "Of course you did, love. You took the rifle and shot her in the back of the head in cold blood."
"N-no, I didn't! It was your fault!" She squeezed her eyes closed, backing up from their advances. "It wasn't my fault!"
"And now you're going to kill her again, aren't you? You're a little liar and you're going to kill her again."
"No! It was your fault! You promised!" She shrieked, her eyes wide and terrified, now. "You promised you would keep her safe!"
Her mother- wait not her mother- let out a cruel laugh. "And you broke your promise! Did you really believe him? You really believed the man who I fought against for five years? That's he wouldn't come for me with an army of Peace Keepers?"
"I-I-" Kendall wiped at her eyes, her voice trembling, "I just wa-wanted my f-family back!"
"Well, you certainly didn't get it, did you, you stupid girl. You're a murderer!" Her father said with a sneer.
"You killed me, Kendall, and for what? This? Look where you are! This arena, this game, it is your fault! You killed me and you're killing all of these children and all of the children to come. Look what you've done!"
"This isn't my fault! I didn't want any of this! I-" Tears were falling freely now, and she was gasping for breath.
"You're a murderer! You're a murderer!"
"You killed me, Kendall. You killed me."
Suddenly she felt herself backed into a tree, and they were closing in, the same words, like a chant, that somehow hurt more than anything she’d ever felt.
"You're a murderer!"
"You killed me!"
And then something snapped in her "I AM NOT A MURDERER!" She screamed, slashing her hunting knife out and away from her. She needed space, she needed air, she needed to get away from there right now immediately.
As soon as her knife made contact with flesh, her father left about a roar and they began to attack. Her father rushed at her, his hand slotting her neck, lifting her feet off of the ground. Her trachea was being crushed and she kicked helplessly, as she tried to free herself, watching as her mother came around, snatching the knife away.
"You're a murderer!"
"You killed me!"
The shine of the knife alerted her to how fire the situation really was and she kicked harder, her feet finally coming into contact with his abdomen hard enough to loosen his grip. Combining that with a second kick, she fell to the ground just in time to not get stabbed by her own knife.
Gasping for breath, she barely had a moment before the knife, wielded by her mother, was coming down on her once more, as if she was the mouse in the cartoon and her mother the exterminator. Swinging her legs out, she knocked them into her moms with enough force to wind her and the knife fell from her grip. Albeit, when it fell, it cut into her side, but at least it wasn't her face?
Snatching the knife away, she started to army crawl away, gritting her teeth against the pain of the gash in her side. She let out an earsplitting shriek when she felt two hands, wrap around her ankles, pulling her back. Flipping over to her back, her legs flailing, she sat up, yelping at the pull of her cut flesh and began hacking downwards on her father, adrenaline and racing through her.
"You're a murderer! You're a murd-"
Her father's words were cut off as his head was mutilated, her terror fueling her as continued to hack away, blood splattering everywhere, his words now garbled and in recognizable. She couldn't stop herself, though, as she thought about how he used her and pretended it was for her own good for four years of hellish war. How he refused to listen to her mother, how he had been so monumentally wrong and it had destroyed her life.
With a guttural cry, she felt her knife stick into the solid ground when she tried to pull it back out. What had once been her fathers head was now a pile of mushed up blood, tissue and bone. The sight brought her back to herself and she blinked as she stared down at herself. Blood covered her hands and brain matter and shards of skull stuck to her clothes and skin.
"You are a murderer, Kendall. Look what you've done. First you killed me, and now you've gone and killed your father." Her mother was standing a few feet away, leaning against a tree, her mom's grey eyes boring into her own. Grey? She blinked. No purple? No- grey? "And now your going to kill me too, aren't you? And when you do, you're going to have to admit it to yourself. Admit what you've always been. A murderer. You're a murderer and you killed me!"
"You're a murderer!"
"You killed me!"
He fathers voice echoed in her ears as she glanced over at the pile of organic matter. Bile rose up into her throat and she shook her head adamantly. "N-no! I-I didn't kill you and I'm not going to kill you now." Spinning around, she started running, running away from the mess she made of her father and what was left of her mother.
That is, until she ran straight into her mother once more, only this time, she was murdery again. If only she knew that the forest was not about to give up its prey so easily.
"Face the truth, Kendall! You murdered me!"
She felt her mothers fist before she saw it, her nose snapping under the force and before she could stop herself, she was falling again. Her mother was on her immediately, her fists are blurry flurry. Blow after blow to her face and bruised neck came flying at her and she tried to scream, but the attack was relentless. Her knife was just inched from her finger tips and she wiggled, trying desperately to grab it.
"You're a murderer!"
"You killed me!"
Tears from the pain, both physical and emotional began falling and blood began to fill her mouth from the onslaught. Gathering it up, she spit it out all at once, distracting her mother from her attack just long enough to shift over and grab her knife and stab it into whatever she could.
"You're a murderer!"
"You killed me!"
Her mother let out a scream the sound terrifying her more and Kendall kept going, stabbing her back and side, her blade cutting through flesh and tendons and organs. Kendall stabbed over and over and over until her mother finally fell to the side, her breaths shallow and pained.
"You killed me, Kendall. And you can't run from that forever."
snatched: the sequel (available in select theaters) | day three
I know that today is going to be a completely awful day when I wake up and my head is cold. Slowly, I raise my hand to my head, shuddering when I feel not synthetic hair under my touch, but instead, baldness. I am bald on national television. What a wonderful way to be portrayed. This is just spectacular. It’s amazing, cool, nice, really great, awesome. I might as well just get killed now. Walking around in this death arena bald is not something that I have on my to do list. Maybe that’s surprising to some, but it’s the truth.
Suddenly, I remember Apricot’s infatuation with my pink wig. She was always eyeing it, snatching it, obsessing over it. She’s taken it hostage many times, and I don’t think that she’s up to speed on proper wig care, let alone proper anything care. But also I am not either and Apricot is amazing so whatever. Blinking away sleepiness from my vision, I peer around the immediate area, looking for the hyperactive fruit child sporting a new fluorescent bob. But I don’t see her.
I see a group of three monkeys, one of which is serving a look in a pepto bismol wig-my pepto bismol wig. And it looks better than me. Nice. I’m glad to be getting shown up by a rodent in the arena. “Wow, Apricot. You look pretty good today, although the change has been a big one. I’m glad that the plastic surgery was a success, though,” I mutter, my voice a monotone, with no inflection.
“But honestly, I think chartreuse is more your color. The pink would look better on Kiwi,” I remark. I love what the arena is doing to me. It’s pretty cool, I would say. Slowly watching my sanity crumble away is an interesting, one in a lifetime experience. It’s really nice that the Gamemakers gave me this opportunity. How considerate of them.
And then I almost fall out of the tree when Kiwi and Avocado (I heard that she did crack in the Capitol and this is what happened to her. This must be a warning to all the kids in the Capitol.) leap onto my branch. I think I would rather be dead than fighting monkeys while I’m bald. Kiwi extends her beautiful little claw, gingerly placing it on my arm. She looks into my eyes with hers, which are a bright, neon pink. I see the devil in her eyes. Or maybe it’s just my reflection. Anyways, she drags her claws along my arm, slowly drawing blood. An unholy noise erupts from her mouth, something like my laughter but probably not as bad.
I’m not really sure what these monkeys are doing but they seem cool. Kind of like an emo monkey gang that needed money so they decided to be test subjects and then they turned into bioluminescent mushroom creatures. Sounds like a nice life. Kiwi continues to look at me, raising her claw again. Confused, I look around at the other monkeys, seeing if I can make some eye contact and be like: I don’t understand what’s happening. My small mortal brain is not developed enough to understand such complexity. But the monkeys don’t reciprocate the look and I feel Kiwi’s touch once again, but this time with more pressure. Before I even know it, I find myself smacking Kiwi. She’s flies off the branch and lands below with a crack and a thud. Nice, now I’m going to hell on what, three counts of animal murder? Or seven-hundred depending on whether you count the bats individually. So yeah, that’s up in the air, I guess.
And so am I, because Avocado is sent into a frenzy when I murder Kiwi. He leaps onto my back and begins pounding on my shoulder blades with his fists, and then turns to scratching my ears. An interesting approach. The screeching in my ears is nice as well. With my knife, I swipe behind me, forgetting that I’m sitting on a tree branch. Losing my balance, I slide off of the bough, now slick with the heavy moisture in the air, falling to the ground below. I manage to not die by latching onto a branch below. Just as I do that, the monkey leaps down to me, fangs bared and claws brandished. The spray of blood onto my face stops that after I hold the knife outwards, the monkey skewered on the blade. I fling the creature off and look to the queen monkey with my wig.
She swings down to me, landing directly beside me on the branch. Removing the wig, she offers it to me. I extend a wary hand to grab it, only to see the monkey retract her greedy hand and throw the wig higher into the treetops. I awkwardly climb up there, and not very skillfully. I finally reach my wig, securing it on my head. But then Apricot snatches it yet again, leaving me bald and vulnerable. Great. Absolutely great. “Fine. Just keep it,” I grumble, climbing down to the ground.
Although the knife I throw says otherwise. When the dead monkey lands on the ground, I finally get to collect my wig. But yes, I’m most definitely bound to go to learn out eternity in the flaming lakes of hell now that I’ve killed all these animals. Should be exciting, probably will find out soon.
With my scratches and bruises, I gather my things, examining the mushrooms on the monkeys before looking around to see where I can go.
I woke up sluggishly, my entire body freezing. My little snow mound was not helpful at all. I bolted up at that though though, remembering that I wasn’t in my small igloo anymore, but the warm cave. My body was shaking vigorously. I couldn’t comprehend what was happening.
I got up and reached for my containers as my hands struggled to support their own weight. The hyperfrostbite was even worse than it was when I went to bed. My fingers were a deep, shade of purple, and at the very tips, they were starting to look like a navy blue. I didn’t even want to imagine when my feet looked like.
I opened both containers, drinking the hot contents of one and pouring the other onto my hands and feet. I put on my regular gloves, despite knowing they wouldn’t be of much help, and rolled up my normal equipment in my sleeping bag. I left my whip and tomahawk out on the side of my waist along with my daggers in my shoes. I’d have to leave the meat until after I came out of the cave.
If the cave was so hot near the entrance, I could only imagine what it was like near the center. I go deeper into the cave, trying to find some answers.
I wake up, Uncomfortable and sore. My body aches in dull thrones that travel up my back and across my chest. The heat hasn't let up even slightly, and maybe has gotten worse. I want to get somewhere else, But from what I can see across this bridge it looks no better on that other island.
When I jump down, I see a line of ant traveling through the forest, all in a row and all carrying items for themselves. “Wow! Hello little bitches.” I whisper. A laugh escapes my lips just before I get swept away by the tiny creatures.
“WoW! Where are we going, I never purchased a ticket!” I announce, confused and patting my body to see if I have one. I hope I don't get in trouble for this. Is this what roller coasters are? When will I fid out.
Soon we arrive at another large tree. Like the spider tree. Fuck that tree. We enter through a large opening and the entire inside of the tree is hollow. “Wow, I love what you've done in here. its lovely!”
