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Description
Tarikun adjusted the gas mask he had kept from the science department. It kept the smoke from all the rubble and remnants of the demolishing out of his lungs, but it narrowed his field of vision significantly. He twiddled his new bottle of acid, which was unlabeled. It was a much larger bottle than before, but he had no way of knowing what type of acid it was. He shook it tensely. He had gotten quite far, and he could not break his promise to all his previous opponents – he had to survive.
As if the heavens had replied to him, a helicopter whirred past, leaving behind it a trail of paper snow. Glossy pictures, the standard 4x6, drifted, fluttered, and littered the ground around him. He bent down to pick up one of the photographs, and he felt, more than saw, the ground come up to punch him in the face. Split seconds later, he finally realized that his final opponent, Charlotte Emerson, had kicked him from behind. The mask did not cushion his fall, but instead cut him on the cheek. The sting brought tears to his eyes, but in his mind he was irate, fuming that he had let down his guard. As well, he was quite irritated that he was facing a very dishonorable opponent.
"Not so smart now, are you?" came a voice behind him.
Slowly, Tarikun got up. He had the upper hand – the Uzi from John was tucked into his pocket. He reached for the photograph he had tried to pick up before, and he recognized the person inside the photo. It was Tek, at his deathbed in the library. Tarikun's eyes widened, and he scrambled for another photograph – the next one was of Dexter. His hands grew white from fury – how dare the director treat them with such little respect!
Charlotte was not sure what was going on. Her scout-instincts told her that it was not the time to fight right now, but she also knew that if she let her guard down Tarikun might attack her.
Tarikun could almost read her mind. "Don't worry, I won't attack you. You might want to see this."
His mental profile of her was already complete. He had gleamed some information from some of the idle chatter he had heard, and he confirmed most of it. Charlotte, like all the other opponents before her, was taken aback. She was not prepared to have her mind read by the last opponent she would have to face. Tarikun motioned her down, but she did not budge.
"I don't trust you either, Charlotte. But you need to see this."
Charlotte took a few steps back, and while keeping her eyes on Tarikun, she lifted a photograph up into her peripheral vision. It was Tom Striken, her first opponent. She nearly retched at the gruesome photo, his face beginning to rot and blood soaking his skin. "What the hell?!"
She grabbed another photograph, this one depicting Alex, her first real acquaintance in the game. His body was charred and blown apart, and Charlotte crumpled the photograph in disgust. She hated Eleanor for that.
Tarikun stood up slowly, so as to not alarm Charlotte. No matter what she thought she was like, he knew for a fact that her mind was actually quite fragile and malleable. He chose his words carefully, resorting to his most well-known skill of psychohistory. He had already planned out a conversational tree, each one with a different counter action in order to prevent her from tipping over the wrong side.
"I know you hate them as much as I do. They have no right to do this to us."
"Damn right! I was blackmailed into this stupid program!"
That was branch number 42. Not bad at all. Tarikun continued: "But you do know that we have to fight each other."
Charlotte interjected sarcastically, "No, we have to kill each other."
That was sub-branch 20. It wasn't the best possible outcome, but he could manage. "I really don't want to kill, and I hope you realize this."
Charlotte, emotionally torn and somewhat sick as well, burst into tears. "So you want me to kill myself?! With my sisters waiting for me to walk out of here alive so that I can try to live a normal life with them again?!"
"Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap, crap," thought Tarikun. That was the most wrong he could have ever done. He had fumbled over the words "want to kill". He had meant "want to fight you." Tarikun desperately tried to maneuver her mentality back onto the right track. He had to compensate for the damage he'd already done to her.
"No, of course not. I know you love your sisters, and I respect you very much for that. And I know that you only kill in order to protect them."
Charlotte's face was wet with tears, and the soot from the dust began to clutter upon her face. "I just can't leave them. I know you aren't a bad person either," she sniffed, "but I can't just let you kill me."
Tarikun's mind sparked a small idea. "Charlotte, listen to me. We don't have to do this. We can work together to escape. We are the top two in this stupid game, anyways."
Instantly, his 'necklace' sent a small but firm electric shock down his neck. Charlotte received the same treatment. Some speakers, hidden within the smokescreen, warned them against plotting to get away. "If you attempt to escape a second time, your collar will detonate. This is your only warning."
Charlotte was half-pumped. She did hate the program, but she didn't want to die like this either. "We can only fight."
Tarikun nodded. "Let us pay our respects to those who died before us, shall we?"
Charlotte hesitated, but then agreed. "Okay."
The two Battle Royale finalists stood in complete stillness and silence as they remembered and reminisced their battles and fights before. For a full 5 minutes, neither made a single move. You could almost hear the irritated fidgeting of the directors, watching their every move through hidden cameras. It was Charlotte who broke the silence.
"Tarikun, I cannot let my sisters wait any longer."
"And I cannot stay here forever either."
Tarikun held out his hand, as a gesture of regard towards Charlotte. She shook it with a firm shake, and tried to drop her hand. Tarikun held on, and he said through clenched teeth, "No matter who wins, one of us is going to end this program for good." She nodded and grinned, and he let go of Charlotte's arm, and smiled in return. "If I lose, help me greet your sisters."
Charlotte sighed. "And if I die, wo-"
"No. Don't worry about your death just yet."
Charlotte was stunned by the outburst, but she regained her senses quickly. "Alright. On the count of three."
Tarikun prepared himself for improvised fighting. His previous plan would have either ended in her pleading, or raging, but he had received too much interference. Now, all he could do was wait.
Charlotte reached for the hunting rifle she kept strapped to her back, which she had taken from Alex. It was low on ammo, but it would still be of use. Tarikun gripped the Uzi tightly with his right hand, while he fiddled with his acid-vial in his left.
"Three."
Tarikun watched as his opponent surveyed her surroundings for anything she could put her girl scout training to use.
"Two."
Her eyes caught sight of the two towers, almost entirely covered by the smoke.
"One."
Tarikun relaxed his grip on the Uzi and pulled out a shard of glass from the science lab.
"Go."
Tarikun flung the shard directly into the path of Charlotte's dash, and he cut her left arm open. It wasn't a deep wound, but it was enough to cause her to scream in pain. She did not stop running, however, and she climbed up the tower with her blood leaving a red trail. She had taken the one on the left, which gave her an advantage – the one on the right had collapsed earlier from the demolition. She unstrapped the rifle and aimed with her bloody hand. The recoil nearly knocked her off the tall, brick towers, and she missed by a mile. Tarikun grabbed the rest of the glass, cutting himself several times in the palm of his hand, from his pocket. He threw them one by one, each time getting closer and closer to embedding one into Charlotte's skin. They ricocheted with a dull 'ping' off the tower walls, littering the ground. He soon ran out, but he had not hit or even grazed her. She aimed once more, and fired. This time, it tore through Tarikun's right thigh, and he collapsed heavily. He had thrown away his dress (it was too wet and it was moldy), so instead he ripped off part of his shirt to tie up the wound. Charlotte threw the empty gun away, aiming to hit Tarikun.
Tarikun, whose reflexes were so keen that scientists would puzzle over this next move for years to come, reached up with his hand and caught the gun by the handle without ever looking up. He unclipped the Uzi's ammo as Charlotte reached for her sickle which was tied to her waist. Tarikun fit the rifle with several Uzi rounds, hoping that it would work. Surprisingly, the bullets fit almost perfectly.
He lifted the rifle, which was much more accurate than the Uzi, and aimed for Charlotte's face. He muttered, "I'm sorry," before pulling the trigger. The gun exploded in his hands, sending fragments of rifle into his cut and charred hands as well as the gas mask. The plastic covering on the mask shattered, and Tarikun's hand began to bleed heavily. The injuries were not deep, but they stung.
On the ground near Tarikun was a single bent key, blackened by smoke and twisted by the force of the explosion. Charlotte had stuck it into the chamber, and Tarikun had been too careless to notice it.
Tarikun heard Charlotte's laugh from the tower. She had managed to find a window, and had crawled into the hollows of the tower. She held her sickle firmly and proudly in her right hand, her left hand staining the floor with a dark crimson. Tarikun loaded the first of four clips of ammo he had taken from John. Clipped to his pants was a canister of liquid fuel from John's flamethrower. He pointed the Uzi at Charlotte and fired, but she dodged back into the tower.
Charlotte's will to live was stronger than her desire to kill, so she was playing it safe. Tarikun had no choice but to throw himself into a disadvantage, and he limped over to the door of the tower. It was a metal door, bolted shut. He emptied two full clips of Uzi before the door reluctantly fell down. Loading his third clip into the worn out Uzi, he prepared himself for the treacherous climb. The bottle of acid he had before was left outside, forgotten.
"A grenade from the bathroom encounter would be very useful right now," thought Tarikun. He listened as the footsteps grew louder from above. She was running down the stairs now, knowing that she had no escape from above. A loud thump was heard, and screaming ensued.
Charlotte had missed a broken step, and was now tumbling down the tower. Her mind was blank, knowing nothing but probable death by falling.
In just a few seconds, Charlotte was in the arms of Tarikun, who had dropped his Uzi to catch her. He set her down gently, and asked quietly, "Are you alright?"
Shaken to the core, Charlotte could only nod. She was dazed, confused, and scared all mixed up. She sat for a minute or two while Tarikun waited for her to regain her senses. The first thing she said was, "Why did you save me?"
Tarikun did not smile. His voice was solemn, strict, and somewhat creepy. "You cannot kill yourself. I cannot face your sisters if you do. If I kill you, at least they can blame it all on me. If not, they will be broken, even more broken than if I was the one to kill you."
Charlotte noticed for the first time that her sickle was no longer with her. Her eyes fretfully danced across the walls and the brick staircase, before falling on a pool of blood that was growing beneath Tarikun's feet. She looked up, eyes tearing up and lower lip trembling. Tarikun closed his eyes and reached for his left arm. He slowly removed the sickle, which had embedded deeply into his arm, and let out a large breath of air. The blood flowed down his elbow and dripped onto the staircase, splattering onto Charlotte's feet as it did so.
"Oh… my… gosh! Are you okay?!" Charlotte cried, rushing to her feet.
Tarikun held her down with his right arm. "I'm okay. You shouldn't worry about your opponent so much. The damage has been done."
"But you saved my life, and I cut open your arm… ohhh…" Charlotte wept, sobbing and blubbering. Tarikun put his good arm on her shoulder as forgiveness for her actions.
"It's not your fault, Charlotte."
"Yes, it is!"
"It isn't. But the show must go on."
Charlotte hesitated. "What do you mean?"
"One of us must die. If I don't fight you quickly, I'll die of blood loss. And you know I won't let that happen."
A voice came over the speakers again, but this time it was a more soothing voice, almost like singing. "Hello and good day, my two competitors. You're both in the tower, I see. Actually, I don't actually see, but the GPS on your collars both say so. Anyways. We're getting kinda bored of the games you two are playing. So, I've kindly convinced the crew to set a time limit of 3 minutes. Once that time is up, both collars will detonate. If one of you die before that though, well then… you get the point."
Tarikun was fuming. This was not a fair game.
"The timer starts now. Hurry, hurry!"
Charlotte got to her feet. "C'mon, let's get outside. We'll finish it there."
Tarikun moved aside. "Ladies first."
Charlotte did not know why, but she felt that she could trust Tarikun now. She turned her back towards him and crept carefully down the tower, as a voice blared, "2 minutes and 45 seconds."
Tarikun was about to toss the sickle away, but he stopped himself. It would not be fair to throw away his opponent's weapon. Yet. He picked up his Uzi with his bloodied arm, and followed Charlotte.
"You have 1 minute 15 seconds left."
The two finalists faced each other, covered in the soot and dust. Charlotte had her sickle in her right hand, Tarikun had his Uzi in his right. They waited for the next announcer's time call.
"You have 1 minute left."
Charlotte made a zig-zagging dash towards Tarikun, throwing her sickle at him. Tarikun raised his Uzi, dodged with great effort towards the left, and pulled the trigger. His sense of prediction was heightened by his adrenaline from the wound on his left arm, and he easily followed her movements. Bullets tore through her body, sending her sprawling through the dirt. Tarikun let the last bullet fly out of the chamber before dropping the Uzi onto the ground, clattering and breaking. It would never shoot again.
He made his way towards Charlotte's body, and kneeled beside her. She looked up at him, eyes teary but still bright. "You win. I can't make it through."
"I know. I'm sorry."
"Don't be. I know you were forced into this-"
"I wasn't. I came here on my own accord."
Charlotte's eyes widened, but she convulsed from the pain. "You mean… you came here to kill people?"
Tarikun dipped his head down low, so low. "In a way, yes. I needed to test my skills."
Charlotte's eyes began flowing again, and her tears made little streaks across her face. "Why me… why me?"
Tarikun shook his head slightly. "I didn't mean for this to happen. I'm so sorry."
Charlotte nodded. "It's okay. I forgive you. I've ruined your arm, and you've taken my life. In a way, it is a fair trade."
Tarikun sat down next to her. "Talk to me. You're not going to die anytime soon with those wounds."
Charlotte smiled weakly. "Yes, I am. I know it."
She convulsed again, this time coughing up blood and staining her clothes all crimson. "Even if you could save me, don't. It would be torture to live knowing what I know and what I've been through."
Tarikun nodded. "I'll tell your sisters what happened."
"Thank you. …Promise me one thing, Tarikun."
"Yes?"
"Promise me you'll end this game… once and for all."
"I will."
He stroked her hair back from her tear-covered face and bloody clothes. "I will."

Description
Tarikun adjusted the gas mask he had kept from the science department. It kept the smoke from all the rubble and remnants of the demolishing out of his lungs, but it narrowed his field of vision significantly. He twiddled his new bottle of acid, which was unlabeled. It was a much larger bottle than before, but he had no way of knowing what type of acid it was. He shook it tensely. He had gotten quite far, and he could not break his promise to all his previous opponents – he had to survive.
As if the heavens had replied to him, a helicopter whirred past, leaving behind it a trail of paper snow. Glossy pictures, the standard 4x6, drifted, fluttered, and littered the ground around him. He bent down to pick up one of the photographs, and he felt, more than saw, the ground come up to punch him in the face. Split seconds later, he finally realized that his final opponent, Charlotte Emerson, had kicked him from behind. The mask did not cushion his fall, but instead cut him on the cheek. The sting brought tears to his eyes, but in his mind he was irate, fuming that he had let down his guard. As well, he was quite irritated that he was facing a very dishonorable opponent.
"Not so smart now, are you?" came a voice behind him.
Slowly, Tarikun got up. He had the upper hand – the Uzi from John was tucked into his pocket. He reached for the photograph he had tried to pick up before, and he recognized the person inside the photo. It was Tek, at his deathbed in the library. Tarikun's eyes widened, and he scrambled for another photograph – the next one was of Dexter. His hands grew white from fury – how dare the director treat them with such little respect!
Charlotte was not sure what was going on. Her scout-instincts told her that it was not the time to fight right now, but she also knew that if she let her guard down Tarikun might attack her.
Tarikun could almost read her mind. "Don't worry, I won't attack you. You might want to see this."
His mental profile of her was already complete. He had gleamed some information from some of the idle chatter he had heard, and he confirmed most of it. Charlotte, like all the other opponents before her, was taken aback. She was not prepared to have her mind read by the last opponent she would have to face. Tarikun motioned her down, but she did not budge.
"I don't trust you either, Charlotte. But you need to see this."
Charlotte took a few steps back, and while keeping her eyes on Tarikun, she lifted a photograph up into her peripheral vision. It was Tom Striken, her first opponent. She nearly retched at the gruesome photo, his face beginning to rot and blood soaking his skin. "What the hell?!"
She grabbed another photograph, this one depicting Alex, her first real acquaintance in the game. His body was charred and blown apart, and Charlotte crumpled the photograph in disgust. She hated Eleanor for that.
Tarikun stood up slowly, so as to not alarm Charlotte. No matter what she thought she was like, he knew for a fact that her mind was actually quite fragile and malleable. He chose his words carefully, resorting to his most well-known skill of psychohistory. He had already planned out a conversational tree, each one with a different counter action in order to prevent her from tipping over the wrong side.
"I know you hate them as much as I do. They have no right to do this to us."
"Damn right! I was blackmailed into this stupid program!"
That was branch number 42. Not bad at all. Tarikun continued: "But you do know that we have to fight each other."
Charlotte interjected sarcastically, "No, we have to kill each other."
That was sub-branch 20. It wasn't the best possible outcome, but he could manage. "I really don't want to kill, and I hope you realize this."
Charlotte, emotionally torn and somewhat sick as well, burst into tears. "So you want me to kill myself?! With my sisters waiting for me to walk out of here alive so that I can try to live a normal life with them again?!"
"Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap, crap," thought Tarikun. That was the most wrong he could have ever done. He had fumbled over the words "want to kill". He had meant "want to fight you." Tarikun desperately tried to maneuver her mentality back onto the right track. He had to compensate for the damage he'd already done to her.
"No, of course not. I know you love your sisters, and I respect you very much for that. And I know that you only kill in order to protect them."
Charlotte's face was wet with tears, and the soot from the dust began to clutter upon her face. "I just can't leave them. I know you aren't a bad person either," she sniffed, "but I can't just let you kill me."
Tarikun's mind sparked a small idea. "Charlotte, listen to me. We don't have to do this. We can work together to escape. We are the top two in this stupid game, anyways."
Instantly, his 'necklace' sent a small but firm electric shock down his neck. Charlotte received the same treatment. Some speakers, hidden within the smokescreen, warned them against plotting to get away. "If you attempt to escape a second time, your collar will detonate. This is your only warning."
Charlotte was half-pumped. She did hate the program, but she didn't want to die like this either. "We can only fight."
Tarikun nodded. "Let us pay our respects to those who died before us, shall we?"
Charlotte hesitated, but then agreed. "Okay."
The two Battle Royale finalists stood in complete stillness and silence as they remembered and reminisced their battles and fights before. For a full 5 minutes, neither made a single move. You could almost hear the irritated fidgeting of the directors, watching their every move through hidden cameras. It was Charlotte who broke the silence.
"Tarikun, I cannot let my sisters wait any longer."
"And I cannot stay here forever either."
Tarikun held out his hand, as a gesture of regard towards Charlotte. She shook it with a firm shake, and tried to drop her hand. Tarikun held on, and he said through clenched teeth, "No matter who wins, one of us is going to end this program for good." She nodded and grinned, and he let go of Charlotte's arm, and smiled in return. "If I lose, help me greet your sisters."
Charlotte sighed. "And if I die, wo-"
"No. Don't worry about your death just yet."
Charlotte was stunned by the outburst, but she regained her senses quickly. "Alright. On the count of three."
Tarikun prepared himself for improvised fighting. His previous plan would have either ended in her pleading, or raging, but he had received too much interference. Now, all he could do was wait.
Charlotte reached for the hunting rifle she kept strapped to her back, which she had taken from Alex. It was low on ammo, but it would still be of use. Tarikun gripped the Uzi tightly with his right hand, while he fiddled with his acid-vial in his left.
"Three."
Tarikun watched as his opponent surveyed her surroundings for anything she could put her girl scout training to use.
"Two."
Her eyes caught sight of the two towers, almost entirely covered by the smoke.
"One."
Tarikun relaxed his grip on the Uzi and pulled out a shard of glass from the science lab.
"Go."
Tarikun flung the shard directly into the path of Charlotte's dash, and he cut her left arm open. It wasn't a deep wound, but it was enough to cause her to scream in pain. She did not stop running, however, and she climbed up the tower with her blood leaving a red trail. She had taken the one on the left, which gave her an advantage – the one on the right had collapsed earlier from the demolition. She unstrapped the rifle and aimed with her bloody hand. The recoil nearly knocked her off the tall, brick towers, and she missed by a mile. Tarikun grabbed the rest of the glass, cutting himself several times in the palm of his hand, from his pocket. He threw them one by one, each time getting closer and closer to embedding one into Charlotte's skin. They ricocheted with a dull 'ping' off the tower walls, littering the ground. He soon ran out, but he had not hit or even grazed her. She aimed once more, and fired. This time, it tore through Tarikun's right thigh, and he collapsed heavily. He had thrown away his dress (it was too wet and it was moldy), so instead he ripped off part of his shirt to tie up the wound. Charlotte threw the empty gun away, aiming to hit Tarikun.
Tarikun, whose reflexes were so keen that scientists would puzzle over this next move for years to come, reached up with his hand and caught the gun by the handle without ever looking up. He unclipped the Uzi's ammo as Charlotte reached for her sickle which was tied to her waist. Tarikun fit the rifle with several Uzi rounds, hoping that it would work. Surprisingly, the bullets fit almost perfectly.
He lifted the rifle, which was much more accurate than the Uzi, and aimed for Charlotte's face. He muttered, "I'm sorry," before pulling the trigger. The gun exploded in his hands, sending fragments of rifle into his cut and charred hands as well as the gas mask. The plastic covering on the mask shattered, and Tarikun's hand began to bleed heavily. The injuries were not deep, but they stung.
On the ground near Tarikun was a single bent key, blackened by smoke and twisted by the force of the explosion. Charlotte had stuck it into the chamber, and Tarikun had been too careless to notice it.
Tarikun heard Charlotte's laugh from the tower. She had managed to find a window, and had crawled into the hollows of the tower. She held her sickle firmly and proudly in her right hand, her left hand staining the floor with a dark crimson. Tarikun loaded the first of four clips of ammo he had taken from John. Clipped to his pants was a canister of liquid fuel from John's flamethrower. He pointed the Uzi at Charlotte and fired, but she dodged back into the tower.
Charlotte's will to live was stronger than her desire to kill, so she was playing it safe. Tarikun had no choice but to throw himself into a disadvantage, and he limped over to the door of the tower. It was a metal door, bolted shut. He emptied two full clips of Uzi before the door reluctantly fell down. Loading his third clip into the worn out Uzi, he prepared himself for the treacherous climb. The bottle of acid he had before was left outside, forgotten.
"A grenade from the bathroom encounter would be very useful right now," thought Tarikun. He listened as the footsteps grew louder from above. She was running down the stairs now, knowing that she had no escape from above. A loud thump was heard, and screaming ensued.
Charlotte had missed a broken step, and was now tumbling down the tower. Her mind was blank, knowing nothing but probable death by falling.
In just a few seconds, Charlotte was in the arms of Tarikun, who had dropped his Uzi to catch her. He set her down gently, and asked quietly, "Are you alright?"
Shaken to the core, Charlotte could only nod. She was dazed, confused, and scared all mixed up. She sat for a minute or two while Tarikun waited for her to regain her senses. The first thing she said was, "Why did you save me?"
Tarikun did not smile. His voice was solemn, strict, and somewhat creepy. "You cannot kill yourself. I cannot face your sisters if you do. If I kill you, at least they can blame it all on me. If not, they will be broken, even more broken than if I was the one to kill you."
Charlotte noticed for the first time that her sickle was no longer with her. Her eyes fretfully danced across the walls and the brick staircase, before falling on a pool of blood that was growing beneath Tarikun's feet. She looked up, eyes tearing up and lower lip trembling. Tarikun closed his eyes and reached for his left arm. He slowly removed the sickle, which had embedded deeply into his arm, and let out a large breath of air. The blood flowed down his elbow and dripped onto the staircase, splattering onto Charlotte's feet as it did so.
"Oh… my… gosh! Are you okay?!" Charlotte cried, rushing to her feet.
Tarikun held her down with his right arm. "I'm okay. You shouldn't worry about your opponent so much. The damage has been done."
"But you saved my life, and I cut open your arm… ohhh…" Charlotte wept, sobbing and blubbering. Tarikun put his good arm on her shoulder as forgiveness for her actions.
"It's not your fault, Charlotte."
"Yes, it is!"
"It isn't. But the show must go on."
Charlotte hesitated. "What do you mean?"
"One of us must die. If I don't fight you quickly, I'll die of blood loss. And you know I won't let that happen."
A voice came over the speakers again, but this time it was a more soothing voice, almost like singing. "Hello and good day, my two competitors. You're both in the tower, I see. Actually, I don't actually see, but the GPS on your collars both say so. Anyways. We're getting kinda bored of the games you two are playing. So, I've kindly convinced the crew to set a time limit of 3 minutes. Once that time is up, both collars will detonate. If one of you die before that though, well then… you get the point."
Tarikun was fuming. This was not a fair game.
"The timer starts now. Hurry, hurry!"
Charlotte got to her feet. "C'mon, let's get outside. We'll finish it there."
Tarikun moved aside. "Ladies first."
Charlotte did not know why, but she felt that she could trust Tarikun now. She turned her back towards him and crept carefully down the tower, as a voice blared, "2 minutes and 45 seconds."
Tarikun was about to toss the sickle away, but he stopped himself. It would not be fair to throw away his opponent's weapon. Yet. He picked up his Uzi with his bloodied arm, and followed Charlotte.
"You have 1 minute 15 seconds left."
The two finalists faced each other, covered in the soot and dust. Charlotte had her sickle in her right hand, Tarikun had his Uzi in his right. They waited for the next announcer's time call.
"You have 1 minute left."
Charlotte made a zig-zagging dash towards Tarikun, throwing her sickle at him. Tarikun raised his Uzi, dodged with great effort towards the left, and pulled the trigger. His sense of prediction was heightened by his adrenaline from the wound on his left arm, and he easily followed her movements. Bullets tore through her body, sending her sprawling through the dirt. Tarikun let the last bullet fly out of the chamber before dropping the Uzi onto the ground, clattering and breaking. It would never shoot again.
He made his way towards Charlotte's body, and kneeled beside her. She looked up at him, eyes teary but still bright. "You win. I can't make it through."
"I know. I'm sorry."
"Don't be. I know you were forced into this-"
"I wasn't. I came here on my own accord."
Charlotte's eyes widened, but she convulsed from the pain. "You mean… you came here to kill people?"
Tarikun dipped his head down low, so low. "In a way, yes. I needed to test my skills."
Charlotte's eyes began flowing again, and her tears made little streaks across her face. "Why me… why me?"
Tarikun shook his head slightly. "I didn't mean for this to happen. I'm so sorry."
Charlotte nodded. "It's okay. I forgive you. I've ruined your arm, and you've taken my life. In a way, it is a fair trade."
Tarikun sat down next to her. "Talk to me. You're not going to die anytime soon with those wounds."
Charlotte smiled weakly. "Yes, I am. I know it."
She convulsed again, this time coughing up blood and staining her clothes all crimson. "Even if you could save me, don't. It would be torture to live knowing what I know and what I've been through."
Tarikun nodded. "I'll tell your sisters what happened."
"Thank you. …Promise me one thing, Tarikun."
"Yes?"
"Promise me you'll end this game… once and for all."
"I will."
He stroked her hair back from her tear-covered face and bloody clothes. "I will."