Love in Despair ~a Skephalo fanfic~ ✔️

XVI

A couple more days passed, there's only five of us left. The brother sister team plus me, Bad, and Tommy. The night I found out my partner, Minx got killed I was crushed. When I found out Niki passed it was even worse. She was the sweetest soul, she didn't deserve this. But there's nothing we can do now.

The arena is absolutely huge. We haven't even seen the district five team yet. I found this went by pretty fast, we are only on our fourth day in the arena. The other day we got our first sponsor. Well, I got my first sponsor. It was a medical kit with only some disinfectant and bandages. I decided to use it on Bad because Tommy and I didn't have any serious injuries yet.

We decided to make our way to the middle of the arena, hoping to find some left over supplies. Mostly food. I shot a couple of rabbits in the couple days for us, so we weren't completely starving.

"When are we gonna be there?" Tommy complains rather loudly, slowly trudging behind me and Bad. I quickly shush him to not draw as much attention to us.

I had my bow in hand with the bag of arrows slung on my shoulder. We were fairly close to the middle, starting to get closer and closer to sand. "Yes! We're almost the-" Tommy exclaimed quickly getting cut off by something. I just assumed he stopped his thought process to get distracted by a mushroom or something, but when Bad looked back at him he stopped dead in his tracks.

"Tommy!" He exclaims in shock. I look back to see Tommy stood there frozen in fear and in pain with- an arrow in his chest. My heart drops. I look around, raising my bow. I spot one of them, the girl, in the distance at least ten meters away. It took me a couple of shots to finally hit her. I race to Tommy crouching down as his body dropped to the ground. Bad ran off to get the other one as I stayed back.

"Hey bud, it'll be ok. Alright?" I try comforting him. "I-it's ok. I saw this coming." His breath hitched as he clenched his chest in pain. I already carefully took the arrow out. "No. You're going to live, ok?" I tell him trying to hold back my tears. "Zak, it hurts." He complains through clenched teeth. "I know, I know." I say in a reassuring voice, trying to stay calm as I held his hand. I felt him squeeze it harder and harder every agonizing second.

As I sat with him I couldn't help but start to feel worried about Bad. He hasn't come back yet. He chased after the district five male almost ten minutes ago. I start to hear Tommy gasp for air, trying to catch his breath. "Zak-" I start to panic. Shit. "T-tell my family I love them, a-and th-that..." He pauses mid sentence to squeeze my hand tighter, a silent tear rolling down his cheek. I swallow back my tears, trying to stay strong. "And that t-they are the b-best family I c-could ever ask f-for." He finishes his sentence, swallowing nervously. His breathing started to die down. His heart beat coming to almost a complete stop.

"No no no no no no!" I panic, pressing down on his chest. Trying to do some kind of CPR. "No, please no." I whisper to myself, feeling a tear roll down my cheek, watching it land on the blond's lifeless body. I wrap my arms around his limp body as I cried. We got pretty close in the last couple of days.

"Zak!" I hear my name being called in the distance. He's alive! I quickly stand up. Looking around frantically for the tall brunette. I whip my head to look to my right where I saw Bad a couple meters away. "Bad!" I exclaim excitedly. I run as fast as I can towards him, immediately collapsing in his arms where I let my tears out all at once. "Wha- is Tommy ok?" He asks looking down at me, realizing I'm crying.

"No." Is all I answer with. My words being muffled by his shirt as I buried my face in his chest. Trying to block out the rest of the world. "Come on, let's go." He whispers to me in a calm voice. He wraps his arm around me as we walked. I calmed down a bit once we made it to the middle.

It was the only out in the open spot in the arena. I turn to him, only a foot away from each other. "We're the only ones left." I realize. I watch as his expression doesn't change, but his eyes do. His eyes gloss over with fear and pain, making me feel even worse.

"Kill me." I say after a moment of silence, lifting my chin a bit to show my confidence in my words.
"W-what?" He asks in disbelief.
"You heard me. Kill me." I repeat. "I can't." He protests. "It'll look better for your district if you win." I explain. "I can't." He repeats sternly. "Why!" At this point I start to get a little annoyed.

I'm sacrificing myself for him and he doesn't even give me a reasoning for his protests. "It's not that hard!" I exclaim trying to grab the throwing knife out of his hand. He lifts it out of my reach. "I just can't!" He yells back.
"You want me to do it then!" I argue waving my hands in the air as I back away from him. "No!" He yells slipping the knife back into his bag. "Why! Explain to me why you're acting like this when I'm literally sacrificing MYSELF for YOU!" There can only be one winner.

He stays quiet, just staring at me. "Well..." I cross my arms impatiently. There can only be one winner.
"Are you going to-" I continue, but he cut me off. "It's because I love you, ok!" He yells taking a step towards me. I just stare at him with an unreadable expression. It felt like the whole world froze, leaving only me.

"But there can only be one winner." I stutter in a quiet tone, my eyes watering up for the second time in the last twenty minutes. I couldn't tell if he was just putting up this whole act so we can both get off the hook. He quickly proved my suspicion wrong as he leaned into me, placing his lips against mine. I stood there frozen in shock.

After awhile we slowly break apart for air, immediately making eye contact. "There can't be more than one victor, so let's give them none." Bad says, taking two of his throwing knives out of his bag. I swallow down my nervousness and take a knife from him. We slowly count down from three, making eye contact the entire time.

One.

"See you on the other side."
Bad smiles sullenly, pressing the knife to his throat, me following close behind. I press down, feeling my skin start to break as small drops of blood start to drip down my neck.
"Pause! Wait, wait!"
A loud voice calls over the speakers, sounding rather annoyed. They sigh.
"We have two victors this year." He announces reluctantly.

My eyes widen in shock as I drop the knife. I immediately wrap my arms around Bad in a tight hug as a helicopter landed to pick us up.