Pain did not truly exist. Pain was a stupid, idiotic lie told by the insignificant little tweeblets that didn't know how to fight. Giving in was inexcusable. No one could give in, not now, not ever. Those that gave in had nothing to fight for, and even though Sepia knew that her thing was only one person, it was more than enough. She was fighting for herself--that meant giving in to pain was useless.

So many had become lost, totally lost, inside a sharp pain that wasn't seen until white hot flashes of light came in the form of razors that burrowed into the skin. Sepia could feel that pain burrowing inside her. It wanted to take her away. So hot. So weak. So destructive. She was not weak, but god, was she hot.

Outside of the hut the world had continued as though what happened meant nothing. Red's torture was little, her words less, yet Sepia couldn't get them out of her mind. It happened so quick. Too quick. The pain slipped inside and she fought desperately for it to stop. Everything was easy, but it wasn't. The pain was fake, yet there it was. Playing out before her. Weakness, coming to haunt those weak enough to allow it. With a scream, she fell against a tree and listened to the memory that she'd held inside so long.

With a scream, she let the weakness begin.

"Don't fucking scream," he whispered. His breath hot, flashing, and she hated every damn second of it. Not that she would say it because saying it was weak. She was afraid of what would happen if she admitted it. "That's it. That's it."

God, his hands traveled down her.

Clean.

Dirty.

It almost felt nice, if not for the oily skin and repulsive breathing that smelled of too many rotted meals. He was a flash of a man, so tall, so strong, and yet so awful. Someone to be remembered.

Someone to try and forget.

"Tell me your secret!"

A pain, constant, that wasn't real yet was. The memory flashing, fleeting, yet there. Hands. Hands touching. Hands traveling. Burrowing. Finding the best, nicest spot to weasel into before bursting and breaking. Red hot and icy cold, the flares that her soul had grown.

"Peacekeeper whore!"

Pain inside legs.

"Sepia gave in like the rest. Such a whore."

A whore would moan. She would go home, enjoying every second, and accept the meager pay offered. She would be given a choice.

"Don't say a fucking word."

Sepia was not that woman.

"If you scream, I'll kill you here. Don't fucking move, you slut. I'll teach you a lesson about speaking your damn mind."

Pain was false--so was that incident.

It was a lie.

"Fuck," Sepia grunted, shaking her head. It burst and dribbled down, the blood, spilling from her side yet still slowing and becoming closed. The sensation grew and yet didn't. "Fuck. Fuck. She's gone!" Ain't no way in hell she gone! I'ma kill a bitch up in dis mess if she don't show her small ass up again.

She was gone. Coming and going, Red had left, leaving Sepia in burning heat. Daylight had become too ugh and shifted, darkness taking hold, endlessly changing. Heat, such a wonderful thing, was an enemy to her. The water she'd obtained was little and seemed to evaporate straight from her stomach.

Fuck fuck fuck.

It was a crapstake of nothing. A huge crapstake, different from the tiny ones, because the huge ones had teeth. When nothing holds teeth only then does it obtain the ability to kill. Though crap often was deemed death, the stake of life wound inside it in the form of a cat of nine tails, with rocks the finale as it burst inside. Each step was the crapstake. Each step burned as nothing ate away at her. A bomb, nothing was a bomb, and she knew it would grow.

Her mind was playing tricks. She was confused, lost, and the world had become a crapstake? No, that can't be right...can it?

Trees pulsated at every turn as the heat rose, flaming into existence the hatred of nothing that imbedded itself so deeply into her dying bones. Aches and groans were nothing. Pants left in streams as she moved, pace increasing as she blindly followed the steps of a deranged woman in red who'd flown away too fast. Small often outran the big and Sepia slumped down, draining herself as the rays of heat bore down upon her. Thick, like scorched lentil soup, it rained down on her. Water, sloshing, followed it's every movement as it slithered closer.

"When," she breathed, trying to regain herself. Feeling faint was for the weak. She couldn't be weak. She'd tried it before and weak simply didn't fit around the waist. "When did water gain teeth?"

It snarled and gnashed at her. Angry, sudden bursts of water that could not be contained splurged forth. Come it did like a wave of inflamed hail in the shape of someone's butt. Sepia would've laughed had she had the strength. Flying asses. Because Witchy wasn't enough, right?

Only then did she realize that it was not water pouring over her.

As reality bore down into the not coherent mind of a poorly confused girl, Sepia screamed. Fire scorched her wounds. It burnt, lapping at her blood and boiling it. Everything within her gained energy--every second a fury--nothing lost--nothing gained--and yet she could not see. She could not feel. Hatred and anger coursed yet at what she had no clue.

Someone had started a fire. Someone had been careless. Someone screwed shit up. And now, the forest was burning and Sepia lost the remains of the stupid sweatshirt they'd put her in as the back eroded and fell off in taters. That didn't matter. Pain didn't matter. All was an illusion.

All but the fire.

Char drifted through the skies like a lullaby, floating past her, screaming in her ear. Move, move, move! It shouted, twisting and turning, not ready for her to be enveloped but dying to push her inside the lasting flames. Death was a parade that ran instead of walked, each step pulling Sepia closer and closer. Move, it whispered.

Move!

Pain came in gasps, breathing down her side and vibrating throughout. Each little movement was a stitch inside of the stab, cutting deeper, allowing the wound to open up again and again. Spinning, color betrayed her. Reds and yellows danced where they had been brown seconds prior.

The arena had started with those colors--it only felt right for them to mark the beginning of the end. Oh, it was near. It drew close and hugged her with dead tears flowing. Somewhere, a lake lay in the forest. Sepia had yet to see it, but she knew from the whispers of others in the beginning--before everyone had disappeared into their own mental dungeons--it was poisonous. Poisoned water is still water. Thoughts bounced and sang. Run run run! Poison, fire! Everything's falling apart. And it was--the sky scorched by the plain, evil nature of a fire that consumed all. Blue and white faded into red and black, a torrent of design that threatened to maim all. It was all coming to an end.

Plans could do little, yet she grasped desperately at them, trying to keep them within her.

Fast, she ran, moving, not quite sure what was real. Fire lashed at her. It stung. Within that sting was reality gripping at her, telling her that she had to move, urging her to find the water that once again might save her.

Trees crackled and fell, hitting the ground heavy and blowing more air her way. Branches fell upon her and she let out a sound that was no longer human. It was not a scream, it was not a cry. The sound was Sepia.

She would not die.

With a cry, Sepia flung herself forward through the trees. Safety had been close and she fell into it--diving off the edge of a tree branch straight into a body of water large enough to devour her. Water! God, screw me shitless.

Devour it did, soaking every inch and hissing as it went. The pain rushed and yelped as she let the steam pour from her barred teeth. As she surfaced Sepia felt what was around her. Dead. A shudder passed through and she fought the urge to gag. Nasty tasting acid lined her throat as her stomach heaved at the sight. Arms and legs broken off, slit throats, bloodied bodies. She could see the bodies of the fallen surround her like cloth, floating in the current of past and future deaths. Last year's were at the top and just beneath them lay the precursors and those who had come years and years before.

Bruises rotting off of bony fingers seemed to reach out for her. Jesus Christ.

The bodies moved, playing upon her imagination. The strongest, the most worthy of winning, the girl who had so much to win for...was dying. The desire of just her life wasn't enough, that had been shown to her. Selfishness was a curse that only brought ruins to the games and those who competed inside it. She needed something real to live for, yet there was nothing. Sepia had nothing. She had become nothing.

Hands raked at her body, dragging her under. She coughed and hit at them, kicking her pegs to stay afloat. It was a losing battle. The tide gave and it took, destroying what little remained. Nothing was swept away and Sepia fell prey to the nothing, feeling her body join the current and the dead.

Whispers of doubt crept upon her, their wounds digging into her flesh until she was no more. As she floated the blood drained off her, staining the water pink and brown as dirt came with it. Ash rained from above, coating her rinsed body and covering her. The dead accepted this.

Sepia had begun to accept it too. Her neck tilted up to the sky, tears staining trails down her soot coated skin. Black coated the brown, her eyes closed yet even there she knew the brown was covered. The irises had taken over and her eyes were a dot of solid color in a pool of white. She'd become like the dead, floating there.

Soaked in the blood of all, the sweet solitude of water that had sounded so nice, Sepia felt herself giving in to the tide. Again, the hands raked at her. They felt inside places and dug into her skin, clothing riping, tearing, killing her without death. Fuck. Thinking hurt the most of all, she realized. Each word she screamed released a piece of the agony, but thoughts, the thoughts wound up like barbed wire and ate into her scalp like daggers.

I can't do this. I'm no better than the dead.

Before, she had prayed for the water. For her throat to be quenched and for the pain to disappear.  Now, she only prayed for the dry to return. For life to stop screwing her over. For an arena she could control.

I don't wannna die, she thought with a sob. I...I don't wanna die. I ain't able to do this, but I don't wanna die.

Dry was an illusion of weakness that would kill anyone within seconds if they were to give in. The weak had failed before--last year's tributes had been weakened by the cold and this year by the dry. Heat and fire took down the freezing ice of before and this year, the arena wasn't destroying itself. It was destroying them--it would win.

Last year's tributes had failed. This year's were failing too. It would be funny if Sepia hadn't been a part of them. Good entertainment was hard to come by. A good fight to the death was perfect, yet no one fought. Torture, psychological shit, everything was stupid. It was painful, not gory. It was saddening, not charging. Death became real, not fake, and it became thick and heavy.

Death was the crown Sepia no longer wanted to bear.