Author Games Compilation [Cycle 2]

Task 1 - Lava [CORR]

AUTHOR GAMES: BREATH OF LIFE - TASK ONE

He can't stop looking at her.

Against the cave walls, she is a silhouette of bronze, sporting a veil of ink around her head, the curls mussed into a mess falling free of its rubber tie. She is a silhouette of familiarity, though he has never met her prior to this day, and she walks beside him, carefree but not careless, his pack descending from her fingertips as she dives in, taking stock as they walk. She, Bellona Viellana, is invested in this task, but he, Corradhin Cole, is invested in her.

And he can't stop fucking looking at her.

"So you knew Beckett too?" she asks, and her voice echoes down the tunnel. It scares him, her first words, and he flinches at how the strength of her voice reverberates in his ears.

He's not even sure how to reply, though the answer is simple; he is wearied and confused and how does one express words when they can't identify the emotion behind them? So instead of answering, he gets lost, and says, "You were his ally. You saved him a few times." It's not a question. It's a fact he's been thinking over and if it's true that means she knows plenty about him already and still, he knows only the filtered version onscreen.

"Yep," she peps, "and then he fell down a hole and I never knew what happened next. I know that he died but that's all."

End me. What comes next is heat, an increasing humidity that makes his eyes flutter and skull dizzy, and he sways to the right, sways up against a wall of rock as nausea hits. He's drenched in his own sweat and blood and everything sticks to him like moist plaster, molding to him, and there are aches at every limb and muscle. There are bruises of black and blue almost everywhere he can see, and he thinks again: End me. A pained sigh hisses out between his busted lips.

He's finally stopped looking at her, but now she's looking at him, too close, and he winces at her touch. "Please don't do that," he whispers, and she holds her hands up in surrender.

"You need to take it easy. I told you we should've rested but you ignored me." She pauses. "Which was not nice, by the way."

Well, I'm resting now. Happy? He remains silent and wipes a glob of sweat from his forehead as she continues rustling through her pack. But soon she's got it zipped up, thrown on her back even though he'd been the one to grab it. He doesn't understand why she can't just let him do the heavy lifting like he wants. It makes an uncomfortable itch of stress settle in his chest.

"We don't have any medicine or bandages. I-"

"I dropped them a few meters back and forgot to pick them back up," he lies. He's not a liar at heart and not a good one either but it's Bellona and it's Beckett and it's the Careers with all their little targets on his back that drives him to say it, that makes his fingers twitch for something to change.

And though the dim facial features Corr can see are bent in exasperation, Bellona speaks nothing of it, and instead turns down the way they came. "I'll get them, then. You stay here, I'll be back, don't faint."

She turns back to fetch nonexistent items. When she's far enough away to not notice his departure, he pushes off the wall and takes off down the cave corridor, body aching, screaming at him to pause, to rest; he's not a good listener, however, and even as the heat in the air rises, he continues to flee, ignorant to the details all around.

When he dives through an opening, the world lights up in tones of fiery orange and thick, molten black, and he nearly falls forward, into the source of heat waves beating up violently against his skin. It lights him up dimly, but he feels it brightly. The churning lava reminds him of a family curse he's convinced of and so he presses himself up against the wall immediately, shirt wettening further with whatever coats the cave.