Alli's POV:
Crack! The tip of the lash slices her little brother's back one more time. His back just dripping in his blood. His screams sending chills down everyone's back in the town square.
He screams one more time.
'Serves you right for not carrying out my orders.' Says Ma-Ma. 'Lucky you didn't get an execution'
He screams again as the lash slices him open. The blood now landing in his dip-dyed hair. Tears staining his ocean blue eyes.
I know it's coming and my muscles tense as much as they can. The knowing doesn't soften the blow. The whip is flown hard as it cuts through the air, spraying the fragments of his back everywhere, tipped with a drop of his blood I hear his bone split into an untold number of fragments as I see his mind become inoperable. The pain takes him not far away, but deep inside himself to some primitive place that knows how to cope with the kind of pain that precedes death. His vision is blotched with violent colours that move and merge without pattern or design. The wall of pain still cripples .
Daniel is in so much pain, his complexion is ashen. His creamy skin, sunken in tone to something so lifeless and cold that it scares me. His eyes close and he sucks himself in and into a deeper place to cope every time that whip claws at its back, as it draws another line on his skin, soon coloured in with his blood, scars that can never be erased. From time to time, his empty lifeless eyes look up from his encasement and I'm the first thing he sees. Even though the emptiness clouds his eyes, I can see the internal screams they contain.
I've been in his dark place before. I felt more pain than I know a human body can handle and it breaks me to see him being hurt the same way.
His eyes are almost frozen over like the surface of a winter puddle, robbing them of their warmth. It pains me knowing that really, there's an innocent man behind them, trying to look for a way out. Exhausted from the pain that his body holds and doesn't let go.
He looks like he took a huge step back from life. I want to reach out and cover the scars that tell a different story. I want to rekindle the flame in his eyes that he once kept burning, but in an instant, those flames are fanned out by his uncried tears.
13 knew that the killer's youngest brother always kept a pain hidden inside, but now for the first time ever, it's visible on his face and I wish it would go away.
The pain-it just arrives like a gift you never wanted.
His pain-like an ocean of unknowable, unpredictable depths, swift currents with lurking beasts that hide underneath.
How I just want to run to him and wrap my arms around the man and protect him from the torturous reality created by his sister.
How can his older brother, Daryl I think, not do anything to help his own family?
'I'M SORRY! I'M SORRY!' He cries.
'I know' She says as she orders the man whipping him to stop.
A single tear escapes from my eye as I see the man in front of me crying in pain. With no-one to help him. No-one to save him.
She giggles as she walks over to him.
'Wow...that was a great show. Thanks for entertaining us' Her clan cackles as her brother looks up from the chained wrists and inhuman brutality.
She walks on over back to her truck and speaks into her radio.
'Troops. Prepare for the games.' The games are held again this year. But that's not what's troubling me right now.
She then jumps into her truck with all the men jumping in behind her, holding their machine guns that glint under the faded light.
'NO-ONE WILL HELP HIM UNTIL I SAY OTHERWISE!' She screams at the people before she bangs on the truck door and they disappear into the distance. Into the frosty silence. Into the echoing night.
He just kneels there, chained and drained. Blood running down his cut up back and face stained with the tears that Ma-Ma forced him to cry. His world crashing down in front of him.
One by one, the town leaves to go back to the lives they are forced to live in. And as soon as I am sure that none of the Ma-Ma clan is still present, I dangerously run to the young man and wrap a cloth round his back that I ripped from my dress.
'What...what are you doing...she said...'
'I don't care what she says. I'm going to help you whether she likes it or not. She shouldn't always have her way. Enough's enough.' I then uncuff him from the chains that encase him in this life. His arms then drops to my shoulders as I help him up to his feet.
'You're crazy, you know that?' He says to me as I notice his pure blue eyes, staring deep into mine.
'I've done worse.' I say as he chuckles and leans on me.
'Thanks' He says.
'That's alright...'
'Hi. Nice to meet you.' He says through short forced breaths and smirks.
I chuckle as he says this.
'Really? Under these circumstances?'
'Haha. Yeah. There have been more...worse circumstances...' I laugh as we both limp our way to my flat.
Then, little white flakes starts descending from the cloudless sky and they fall so elegantly on 13. Creating a soft white blanket on the earth, wrapping itself around the sky and land. It starts to snow lightly as the chilly air dances its way through us.
I hear him wince. Pain and distress posessing his body. 'It's okay. I'll help you'
'Thank you'
'I'm Daniel' He says as the white flakes bury themselves deep into his dip-dyed blond hair.
'Hi.' I say as we both give each other a small smile.
'I'm Alli'
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Daniel's POV:
'PLEASE!PLEASE! I'M BEGGING YOU! SHE'S CARRYING MY CHILD!' I scream as I try to convince Ma-Ma to not let Alli play in her games.
'You betrayed me. And now you are your family will play for your mistakes.'
'PLEASE! MA-MA PLEASE! I'M BEGGING YOU. DO WHAT YOU WANT TO ME! DON'T HURT THEM PLEASE!'
'NO! I'm your savoir! And you will do as I command!'
Then she truns her back on me.
No.
You will not hurt her or my child.
Then, I lift my hand in the air and without a second's thought, I punch her right ear and send her flying across the air and landing in her giant network of computers.
She collides into the wires, she jerks terrifyingly as the current goes electrocuting her small body, making her veins glow blue. Then, one of the computer screens crack and leaves a giant slit in her cheeks all the way to her ear, blood drizzling down her face as smoke starts escaping from the colossal wreck.
I gasp and just stare at her.
What the hell have I done?
Then, she starts to froth at the mouth and for just a minute she loses consciousness.
'AAGGHH!' She screams as she worms her way out of the havoc. Her skin blistering from the current.
She then stares at me, giving me the most murderous eyes with her cut up face. Her face crying blood.
'I'm...I'm...sorry, Ma-Ma!'
'...you better run...cuz they're going to hunt you down...'
'What...?'
She then pulls out her radio from her pocket and screams into the speaker.
'TROOPS! ARREST DANIEL MAGDELINE! AND SET UP THE TOWN SQUARE FOR HIS EXECUTION TOMORROW MORNING!'
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Alli's POV:
I remember being grabbed by the men. Being thrown into the 'cubes' and being thrown into her games! I remember hiding little Ashley so they wouldn't find her. I can't bear to think what she will when she wakes up and doesn't find me there. I remember our time in the Valentina Gardens. What I would always tell her.'Straight arms, relaxed shoulders, focus, exhale...release...' That one day where we actually smiled. Where we weren't played with. Where we weren't seen as her toys. The baby starts kicking again.
I wish I had time to tell Ashley the news.
The baby start to kick inside me as I take my second step on this floor. Not now. Please not now! I rub my hand over my belly as if it will comfort it. As if it is a sign that everything will be just fine.
I can just hear the acid's hunger burning underneath me. Eager to melt me away and disintegrate my flesh and savor my taste in its mouth.
The baby starts to kick again and my heart starts to beat faster as I see the time run out. I just want to win the games and escape from this torture. And give this baby a life away from 13. Make sure it's life ain't going to be nothing like my life.
Then I am about 3/4 of the way. Maybe I can do it! I have bags of time left.
One step, then another, then another...Yes! I've beaten her games!
Then, I hear her scream.
I turn around and see that a little girl, light skin and curly hair, has slipped and fallen, her leg half devoured by the liquid.
She just keeps screaming.
Then, without a second's thought, while clutching my belly, I swiftly run back down the stars and catch her hand before she slips away forever.Her skin on her leg starts to melt and dissolve, the acid still clutching on her flesh like claws. Then I pull her up back on a step and we both start running back up.
Before the 10 seconds are up.
Then, the door is in sight. I push the little girl to the door.
'...Thank...you' She says through sniffled sobs.
'Don't worry about it! Let's just...---
But before I can finish the sentence, the stairs below me gives way and I free fall into the darkness. I feel myself descend as I splash into the burning acid. My last sight is of the girl screaming as her hands slips away from mine.
As my hand clutches my belly, My last tears fall as I realize that I couldn't save this child or give it life. My last tears fall knowing that I couldn't be with Daniel. My last tears fall as I realize that my life has come to an end. Under the rule of Ma-Ma, trapped, chained and encased inside her rules.
Then, the liquid swallows me whole and invades my body. The acid then slowly burns my skin and instantly I feel my belly being kicked inside. Like my child is feeling the pain too, like my child is trying to fight back but the acid just consumes everything and melts me away to nothing.
Nothing. What we are to Ma-Ma.
I was just a pawn in this game. Another pawn that has been knocked out by the king.
Then, the acid seeps into my eyes and everything just burns and it hurts and hurts and hurts and hurts!
Then, I close my eyes, waiting to meet my child in heaven.
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Alli's POV:
I wake up and find them all surround me. I look at myself and find me chained to a pole. Then, I start to panic as they all stare at me with their machine guns. I panic when I see Ma-Ma standing there with her bow loaded with a red-tipped arrow. I panic when she's aiming at me.
Then, I stop breathing.
I look at myself and see that my skin is a ghastly purplish colour with warts and scabs plaguing the surface like some disease. My mutilated skin and deformed bones sends fear to run through my body.
'Like your new makeover...?' says Ma-Ma.
I look up and see myself in the glass window. All I see staring back is a monster. Ghastly purple skin, warts crawling up my body, deformed bones that stand grotesquely and blood-curdling black eyes that look empty, that look like they stretch deep in for miles.
I try to talk, but I can't. I try to speak but I can't.
She must've done something to me.
'How are you feeling...Alli?'
I try to say something when I realize something. I feel different. Why?! what's wrong with---
I don't feel my baby in my belly anymore...
Then, I feel dry patches of water that stain my clothes and blood dried up against my skin from my waist down. Did I give birth or something?
I wanna scream. I wanna shout but I can't.
What has she done to my child?!
I try to speak but then I realize.
She's cut out my tongue.
Then, I start thrashing around violently in my position. I try to bang my head against the pole and I start stomping my feet and my demonic black eyes start to cry tears.
Blue tears. The're fucking blue tears.
I start violently jumping and flailing from where I am to reflect my anger and exhaustion, and I try to say what I want through my actions, where is my baby? What have you done to it? And what have you done to me?!
when suddenly...
...I hear a pair of babies crying
Then, that's when the nurse bring them in.
A little girl and a little boy. Both with the darkest blue eyes. The little girl with blonde hair and he boy with my brown hair. I was carrying...
...twins
The little people then stop crying as they take a look at me. As if they realize that...
it's me. That I'm their mum. That I was the one who rubbed them when they were in my womb.
But then they start to cry hysterically again. And the rest of the clan laugh as they witness this. My own children, scared of
...me.
They look at me like A monster. The Kind of monster that you fear is living under your bed.
When really, the real monsters are inside your head.
The nurse then looks up at me. She has the lightest skin...and the curliest hair and she reminds of someone. She reminds me of that little girl in the arena. The one I saved. She's like an older version of her. Like an older sister.
'Take them away...' She orders the nurse.
'MMMM!MMM!MMMM!' I scream and scream to see them again. To hold my first children for the first time but the last they see of me is a monster. The last I see of them is two scared children, who'll soon become orphans.
Again, I start to thrash my body against everywhere, I brutally start to wriggle and try to break free but soon, even my children are taken form me.
'I'm their mum and dad now. They belong to me!'
Then, I spit in her face. Blood dotting her eyes and face.
'AAAGGGHHH!' She screams.
Then, from the corner of my eye, I see a table being rolled by, a body on the table with a white sheet covering it like a large veil. Blood patches stain the white sheet. What the hell has happened?
Then, the sheet falls to the side, and unveils his face.
The sheet unveils the dip-dyed hair and white skin, and it unveils the purest of blue eyes.
With red dots swimming in them.
Then, I see him, My reason for living, being taken to be just another body to burn.
I am about to throw another tantrum and scream until death opens its doors for me when I look over at the Ma-Ma clan and her, her bow is again lifted up and aimed at me, a single red-tipped arrow eager to be fired, yearning to cut through me and gorge on my flesh.
'Saving your little sister was pointless, Alli sweetie. Because she's next.'
The arrow's then pulled back.
'You lose, bitch...just like your children will...
...'Straight arms, relaxed shoulders, focus, exhale...release...' Says Ma-Ma, Like she's mocking me.
Then, she releases the arrow...
I look outside the glass window, and white little flakes start to descend from the cloudless sky. They fall and dot the earth but together, they form a giant blanket that soon wraps around the earth, hugging it almost.
It's snowing. Just like it did the day I met Daniel. And it's still snowing on the day that I lose him.
Then, it sinks into my mutilated body and green fluid starts pouring out from my soon to be corpse and the pain starts drowning. I scream as loud as I can but they are soon muffed as the blood starts squirting from my throat, erupting a fountain of gore.
The deeper it sinks into my lacerated and disfigured body, the more I feel my lifeboat rocking, swaying from side to side, almost giving into the monstrous waves, almost a second away from drowning, almost a second away from being swallowed up by her wave, her flood. A second away in being lost in her hurricane, a second away from being possessed in her tornado. Almost a second away from being dragged and span in her whirlpool.
I just wanna stay afloat. I'm all alone.
Why didn't anyone save me and my family?
Then, Everything starts to fade and blur and I lose consciousness. My eyes begin to droop. And I feel a light coming towards me.
Then, I look at the face of the person who could've been my last hope. Daniel's last hope.
I look at Daryl. Arms crossed. Gun slung over shoulder. Standing beside his killer sister. Just like every other slave, soldier, plaything.
Then, I see a single tear fall from his eye as he mouths the word, 'sorry' to me. I look at him, and I could tell he understood from what I tried to tell him through my empty lifeless eyes that death has owned.
I stare at him for the last time as I see a golden light flying its way towards me. Lifting me up and soon I feel like I am almost flying.
Flying away. Setting me free.
And the last thing I hear is him whisper to me:
'You just started a war, Alli. And I'm going to fight it for you, your children and for Daniel. I promise'