It's all wrong

When the human Aria is chosen for the celestial tournament that happens every century, she is confused. The tournament is meant exclusively for celestial beings, yet Aria has to compete anyway.

‘This is just wrong, all wrong,’ my appointed mentor paces back and forth in front of me whilst I sit in a slightly too short chair in and wait for him to finish panicking. ‘It can’t be, it’s not possible.’ I know that, everybody knows that. You’d think for a well respected professor at one of the most elite magical universities in this part of the world, not to mention the dean of said university, he would have something more intelligent to say. But allas, I’m stuck with stating the obvious. 

Those were the last things my mentor said to me before I was made to enter the arena. Very reassuring, getting scolded like a toddler. See, a mentor is meant to give the last minute counselling before the tournament starts. Some encouraging words, maybe. In my case I was hoping for a quick rundown of what to expect, perhaps some how-to-survive-for-dummies, or tips on a good hiding spot if I was lucky. I had already been interrogated at length by an endless list of official people. And now it appears I’m going into the celestial succession tournament blind.

‘And…may the best celestial win!’ A voice over the speaker announces the start of the tournament. I take off my blindfold and for a moment I am blinded by the light of the midday sun. When my eyes adjust I find myself to be on a platform of about two meters, to the left and right of me are the abandoned platforms of the other six candidates. We seem to be in a desert or something, I can see kilometers away from here. S**t. 

I see some of the contestants run in different direction. The guy in purple and the girl in blue run at each other, colliding in a violent showdown. I see them both pulling a weapon out of nowhere, and in seconds both their suits are stained red. I don’t want to see two teenagers slaughter each other, but I can’t seem to look away, like I’m hypnotized by the disaster of it all. I don’t want to be here. I begged, pleaded to be relieved of the duty that was suddenly thrust upon me. The duty that was never meant to be mine at all. But my pleading was to deaf ears, and here I stand watching my fate unfold before me.

A sudden gust of wind knock me off my platform and ends my quiet wallowing. I see a girl in yellow hover over me as I lay on the ground. So this is it then? Ever so slightly disappointed, I really thought I would have at least lasted an hour, maybe two. 

I open my mouth to toss all my pride aside and beg for mercy and for her to spare my miserable life, when she cuts me off before I can even start. ‘What are you doing?’ She hisses at me. ‘Get up you idiot!’

Again I open my mouth, but she puts her finger on her lips and motions me to come with her. Then she sprints off into the distance. With no better options, I guess I’ll follow. I could well be running into a deathtrap, but I’m on borrowed time as it is. 

-

It takes about an hour before we reach an oasis and stop running. Or probably maybe half an hour at best, but I’m really out of shape and any running feels like time is stretched out, let alone running in a desert. Again, I did not want nor expect to partake in the celestial succession tournament. I’m not even a celestial. The girl standing in front of me is though. She gives off the eerily beautiful aura that all celestials do, they’re not quite human even though they look it. The main difference being their ability to use magic of course, as well as their lengthened lifespan. A celestial can live for about two centuries, two and a half if they are lucky. They just age slower. So whilst I am 21 and this girl must have at least 40 years under her belt, we look to be about the same age. 

‘So what’s this all about then?,’ I ask. ‘You wanted more privacy to kill me?’

‘I’m taking pity on you, dumbass. Don’t make me regret it.’ She hisses back. 

Oh. I didn’t expect that at all. ‘Why?’ As soon as the word leaves my mouth I regret it.  I should not be questioning what is clearly a gift from the heavens. 

‘Because there is no honor in killing a defenseless nobody, and no point either. You can’t win because you can’t become the next supreme leader of celestials. You’re no celestial.’ She makes a good point. Imagine I win, against all odds. Then what? I can’t lead the celestials since I’m not one of them, and they cannot be without a leader for a full century. It is better if I just try to sit this one out. 

‘So now what? I just stay here and wait for a winner to be announced?’ 

‘Well make yourself useful while waiting. I’m not your servant,’ the yellow celestial answers. Sure, yeah, I’ll just make the bed, dust the storage area and mop the floors. What the hell is there to do in an oasis in the middle of the dessert? I can maybe try to start a fire, but that’s really all. She does not strike me as the chatty type though, so I shut up. 

-

Come nightfall Marigold, the yellow celestial, and I are sitting by a measly little fire I made using the remains of a palm tree. I tried to be more useful but I really wasn’t worth much of anything, so Marigold just snapped at me telling me to “back off”. A little while ago we heard a speaker announce there’s only four candidates left, three if you don’t count me. 

‘I could injure you, you know. Maybe break your legs.’ Marigold says to me to break the silence. It sounds like threat in any other context, but it’s actually a very kind offer. You see, I don’t need to die to get out of here, no one does. If you’re injured beyond fighting you are disqualified. And I don’t know why I don’t take that offer, but I don’t. Maybe it’s fear of the pain, maybe it’s a tiny part of me that just wants to try a little more before I opt out, but I answer: ‘Oh.’ 

‘Just to get you out, just enough,’ she explains further. Like a mercy-kill.

‘Oh. Well, maybe later, okay? I’m really tired right now,’ I say. 

I can see in her face she takes offense to that. She probably thinks I’m so stupid for not taking the out. I probably am. 

‘Do you have a preference?’ I ask, pointing to the make shift “beds” we made. 

She scoffs. ‘What do you think.’ I lay down in the shittier one. The one that I very obviously made. Worth a shot, I guess. 

I no longer feel like talking to Marigold, so I just turn my back to her, entering what is sure to be a near sleepless night.

-

It’s impossible to tell how long it’s been since I turned my back to Marigold when a gut-wrenching scream pierces my ears. It comes from … not Marigold at least. A breath I did not know I was holding leaves me when I finally see her. She is not the screaming one, she’s the one making the green celestial scream. All the remaining sleepiness in my body is immediately replaced when I finally grasp what’s going on. Marigold is driving a spear into a green guy’s chest a little further away a girl in orange is scrambling to get back up. Marigold is screaming for me to do something, anything. The whole scene is so surreal, no wonder it took me a minute to wrap my head around it. 

I jump up out of bed, desperately searching for something to become a weapon. A pointy rock. A pointy stick. Just any stick or rock. Literally anything, please! A sort of dagger hidden in Marigold’s bed catches my eye. I pick it up, locking eye with orange girl. 

Is this real? Am I about to fight this woman? I take on the best fighting stance I can muster, cocking my head as if to say, ‘bring it on’. Fake it ‘till you make it, right? 

In the corner of my eye I see Marigold and the green guy still struggling. They’re rolling over the ground with no telling whose blood is whose. I mean, the guy had a spear in his chest, but surely Marigold has injuries of her own by now. 

The orange girl and I lock back in. Her eyes dart between me, the pair in the middle of us and back to me. Back and forth. She takes a step back. Very slowly she takes another and another. I don’t trust this, is she tricking me? Is this some kind of mental fuckery? Then, quicker than I can blink my eyes, she turns around and sprints off into the bushes. 

What just happened? What the actual hell just happened? I don't have time to figure an answer out before Marigold’s screams reach me again. 

‘Do something!’ she yells at me. Do what, I scream at her mentally. And I don’t do anything, at least for a little while I am frozen in fear. Pure panic.

I stand idly as Marigold gains the upper hand on the green guy. The endless rolling around and shifting positions ends in Marigold sitting on top of him, barely able to lift herself enough to drive a dagger into his chest. And again, and again. He goes limp, the struggling stops. 

Finally, my cowardice breaks and I carefully approach Marigold. ‘I think he’s had enough Marigold,’ I say softly. Worryingly, it takes no force at all to for me to take Marigold’s blade from her hand. ‘Marigold?’ I ask carefully. She does not look at me. She stares straight at the carnage that is left of the man’s chest. The horror she inflicted. ‘Okay, come here,’ I reach for her, she doesn’t need to see this anymore. My fingers barely graze her shoulders when she collapses forward. Onto the green man’s corpse.

Dragging Marigold off of him, I realize just how bad their struggle had been. Marigold is laying on her back on the blood soaked grass, her wounds fully visible to me now. She has three deep, gaping wounds on her stomach and chest, several less intense cuts spread all over her legs, arms and face. She’s lying there so peacefully, she might well be dead. It’s only when I listen at her mouth, I can hear some shallow, painful breaths. 

I sit at her side for a paralyzing few minutes. Holding her unresponsive hand, I sob. For the first time in the last week I let it all out. All the fear, all the injustice, all the anger. Marigold may not have liked me, but she was all I had, the only one to see that I did not want to be here anymore than the celestials wanted. Marigold, who was strong and beautiful and so young. Marigold, who fought with all she had and came out on top, even though it cost her her life. Marigold, who told me to do something, who asked for help. And when she needed me most, I wasn’t there. I was too afraid. 

I scream at the gamemasters, the celestials, all those who are responsible. But really, I scream at no one, I scream into the nothingness. As loud as my vocal cords allow, for as long as my lungs can manage. I curse them for this murderous tradition, I beg them to let me go. Most of all, I plead with them to save Marigold, who is not quite dead yet. 

Then it hits me, once again I am the reason for Marigold’s suffering. Once again, it is because of my inaction that Marigold could well die. I need to leave, only then will they come save her. However counterintuitively it is, I need to leave my dying ally to save her life.

I scramble to get what few items seem worthwhile: a blanket, a handmade cup for water, and Marigold’s daggers. Then I hurry out of the oasis, looking back at Marigold only once to thank her silently.

-

Crossing the desert to another oasis is taking half an eternity, or so it feels. Behind me is nothing by an ocean of sand, in front of me a whole other ocean yet to be crossed. The sun came up so long ago, it’s almost going down again. I can’t sleep in the sandy ocean, I just can’t. I’m fully exposed here. As easy a prey as it gets. Maybe there is no other oasis, crosses my mind as I climb yet another hill. I could be walking to nothing. Dying of thirst instead of violence. I’ve been going back and forth between natural causes and a violent death, unable to make up my mind. I fear the violence, yes, the goriness of it all. But at least it would be quick, right? Dying of thirst or hunger would mean days, weeks, of agony. Would it be better to get it over with? 

When I’m not preoccupied going back and forth between something that isn’t in my hands anyway, my mind goes back to Marigold. I can still see her. Drenched in blood that might be hers, might be someone else’s. Barely alive. I can still feel her hand in mine. Her screams echo in my head, making me wish for death. Then again, her silence is so much worse.

I wallow in self-pity, guilt and remorse. I, unknowingly, wallow myself all the way back to the starting point. I’ve reached the seven platforms, knowing that just two days ago at least four of the people standing here were alive and well, and today they are not. Looking to my left, I can still see a brown patch of sand. That’s where blue and purple fought themselves to death. 

I slump against my original platform. It’s fitting really, almost too poetic, to end it all right where this nightmare started. This is where I die, I decide. Be it of violence or of natural causes, I can at the very least pick the place I die if I can’t pick how I die. And with that depressing, yet somehow comforting thought, I close my eyes. 

Author's Note

Hi everyone! I would love to hear your thoughts on this one, as I always do. Do you want me to write further on this story, or does this ending seem fitting?