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[center][url=https://open.spotify.com/track/1XO1QUeaqLjEtoA2zcHz9m?si=89549714fa944c3c][img]https://i.imgur.com/ndfIoDS.jpeg[/img][/url][/center]
[COLOR=tan][indent][sub][B]Location:[/B] [COLOR=b03a2e][I][i]hell[/i]
[/I][/COLOR][/sub][sup][right][b] Human: #5.095 [/B][COLOR=SILVER][I]Bird of Prey[/I][/COLOR][/right][/sup][/indent][sub][hr][/sub][INDENT][sub][B]Interaction(s):[/B] [COLOR=SILVER][I] N/A[/I][/COLOR][/sub][SUP][RIGHT][b]Previously:[/b] [COLOR=SILVER][I]Fight or Flight!?[/I][/COLOR][/right][/SUP][/INDENT][/COLOR]

[color=gray][color=tan]“[i]--don’t–[/i]”[/color]

Haven hated his name. Hated the way it made her feel. Hopeless, small, lesser than, weak, broken, terrified.

The only thing worse than his name was the sound of his voice.

The static shocked her. The high-pitch of electrical whining filled her head and made her feel sick, pressing her hands to her ears did little to ease the noise that consumed her mind. Her ears were ringing by the time it settled, still recovering from the vampiric man’s sonic scream from the day before, and yet her keen hearing still picked up on the raspy breaths of her captor.

Haven stilled. Her neighbor had summoned him like a bad omen. His voice echoed off of the concrete and iron and it was all she could hear. Her own thoughts smothered and choked under his oppressing timbre. Dread quickly took hold of her heart as he began his speech. Feathers bristled and ruffled behind her, poking further through the bars that separated her from the other poor souls in the prison.

She stared at the crimson stained wall across from her, heart beating loud enough in the silence that followed his words that she could have sworn she heard it echo off of the walls too, and fought against her mind to stay lucid.

His voice erupted.

Images flashed and burned of his enraged form above her as she lay beneath him. His spittle hitting her cheeks as total panic seized her and broke her composure. Haven scrambled for the closest wall to her and pulled herself into a tense and trembling crouch where she tried to hide from his fury.

She could feel the gentle touch of his hand against her cheek in the aftermath.

Her heartbeat only continued to rise and she began to feel the familiar pain of growth sprouting at the center of her back. She fell forwards onto her hands, nails failing to dig into the concrete as she clenched them and dragged herself to the middle of her cell, heat building in her muscles and skin.

[color=tan]“No.”[/color] She choked out. This wasn’t the time for an episode. She shouldn’t be healing in this place. They would only steal her wings again. This place was meant to break her, to shape her into something entirely new. He’d see her growth as blasphemy against his procedures.

Yet nature did not heed to the musings of a madman. The pain of bones extending and muscles building and skin stretching, feathers forcing their way through fresh and raw skin to ruffle against the air in her cell. Haven grit her teeth and held her sob within her chest so that she wouldn’t alert her newest companion beside her.

Daedalus’s words filtered in and out of her overwhelmed mind. The very air she wheezed and sucked into her tightening lungs was [i]poisoned[/i]. Three doses. [i]Three survivors[/i] among the many.

As her wings extended behind her in a gruesome amalgamation of flesh and piston rending itself anew, rapidly growing to a length that began to surpass her former wingspan, Haven grappled with the thought that becoming one of those three would only mean further pain and suffering. If she subjected herself to this slaughter, debased herself so harshly that she’d take a life for a chance to see the sunlight again– the smallest hope that she’d ever see [i]Rory[/i] again– would it be worth it?

Death, while it may come slowly and horrifically, seemed like such a peaceful ending to the unfair life of Haven Barnes.

The buzzer sounded, and crimson light bathed her contorted form.

Figures were passing by her cell already as her heavy wings slumped onto the concrete beside her. They paid her no mind, maybe even considered that the poison had already claimed enough of her that she was no threat to their survival. She could hear the beating of fist against flesh already. The few ruthless ones among the prisoners had already begun the massacre.

She took one single breath, enough to fill her raw lungs with enough oxygen, poison too, to last her for as long as she could hold it. She’d been designed by her DNA to survive in places like this. To live on little oxygen and filter out most of the toxins that could be in the air. She’d unknowingly inhaled enough of the neurotoxin, before Daedalus announced his games and during her growing process, that she could feel a small ache forming at the base of her skull.

The longer she lingered, the more deaths would happen outside of her cell, the more the poison would claim her for itself, the higher the chance that someone bigger and stronger would find her alone and add her blood to the wall.

That’s where the stains came from, right?

Haven faced her open cell door with an expression that lacked any emotion at all, hazel eyes dull and weary. She’d boxed them all in the moment she decided to grasp for the small chance of freedom this could provide her. She was going to be one of the three to get the antidote. She was going to endure the horrors that awaited her afterwards.

She was going to see her sunlight again even if it meant tearing her soul apart to do it.

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Her world was a blur of flesh and blood, pain and nothingness. Feathers littered the blood-soaked ground where she had carved her way through the chaos. A few had been torn from her, ripped, bitten, broken where her wing had been twisted and used to fling her against the door that separated them from the fresh air outside and the metallic scent of the air within.

She’d taken three breaths since she left her cell. One to recover from a blow to her stomach. Another sucked in through her teeth after her head collided with the nose of another. The third was more of a gasping tremor. Her raw lungs expelled any air she’d been holding the moment her back hit the solid metal door.

Gravity pulled her to the ground, cheek splitting against the concrete as her head followed after her chest. Her hand splashed into a warm and sticky puddle that belonged to the last victim to fall from her current threat’s cruelty. Bile rose in the back of her throat and threatened to choke her. Emotions leaked out of her cracking composure with each life she took. She had never been so brutal before. Some she had plucked into the air like a bird of prey and silenced forever. The others she’d fought with fist and teeth. She couldn’t remember how many now. She was sure that she would remember each one the next time she fell asleep.

Haven grimaced where she laid but pushed herself onto her hands and wobbly knees despite the grief that was slowly taking hold of her. She stood tall again as her attacker laughed at her weakness, and drew her blood smattered and sore wings against her back. She couldn’t afford to be flung around again. Green and gold glared at him through her unblemished eye, the other quickly swelling shut, upper lip pressing into the broken and bloodied skin of her bottom.

He was already moving slower than he had in the beginning. The poison was working its way through him quicker, with his deeper breaths that were wasted on taunting words and larger moves. She’d seen his brutal nature at the start and had hoped that someone else would take him down before she was given a taste of it.

Now, with only five remaining among the bodies that littered the floor, he’d finally turned his malice towards her.

[color=white]“You’re tougher than I thought, little bird.”[/color] His thick accent was grating against her eardrums. [color=white]“I’ll have some fun with you before I put you to sleep.”[/color]

Haven grit her teeth. The single grey horn that protruded from his forehead swam in her vision for a frightening moment before she blinked to bring him back into focus. Unsure if the pounding in her head was a result of the toxin, or from the impact with the door and the concrete below it.

He lunged at her in a mighty movement that matched his rhinoceros nature, his muscled arms reaching for her smaller frame with bloodied hands and a vicious grin. Haven swiftly extended her heavy and aching wings out beside her and whipped them downwards. They lifted her into the air above him, the gust created by them disturbing the blonde hair on his head. She made it a foot above him before his meaty hand wrapped itself around her ankle.

She was quickly yanked downwards. Her wings beat hard as she fought against his pull, back burning with pain, and only when she realized she couldn’t escape him did she snap her wings inwards. She fell with his pull. Her arms clung onto his shoulders and she used the moment of surprise to grapple herself onto them. Her free leg swung itself around to the other side of his head before he could stop her and she crossed her legs in front of his chin and cupped his head with both hands.

Nails dug themselves into his skin and eyes, and she began to squeeze her thighs against the sides of his cheeks.

An angry roar erupted from his chest when the pressure in his skull became unbearable. The hand that gripped her ankle tightened its hold of her until she felt her bones crack. The other grabbed at her thigh, squeezing it, pounding it, but she did not relent. The pain that bloomed in her ankle, her grief, her anger, and fear, only added to the strength in her legs. She soon roared with him and their cries filled the space with their shared anguish.

One arm was wrenched free from its hold of his head, flesh tearing away under her nails, but it was a futile attempt. The bones in Haven’s wrist snapped and still she squeezed and squeezed. She could feel how close she was to ending the fight with each second that passed. It was almost done–

The beast of a man, in one final attempt to free himself, threw them both backwards. Her shoulders took the hit first, landing on the mangled body of a woman, saving her head from hitting the concrete once more. The force of the man’s head as it landed, crashing into her pelvis underneath, made her scream. Pain exploded in her hips, enough to push her past the last limitation of her legs.

The sudden pop that followed silenced her immediately. A warm liquid splattered against her stomach, chest, and face, coated her thighs and hips, pooled on the ground under her. She didn’t look down. Didn’t want to see what the remains of his head looked like. She could hear him gargling his blood until he drowned in it. His grip quickly went limp around what was left of her wrist and ankle.

Caught in the aftermath of her violence, Haven allowed herself to take a painful breath. Slowly, agonizingly, she pulled herself out from under the man she’d ended. A single tear escaped down her cheek as she collapsed among the carnage.

How many were left now? How much more could she take? Was it enough blood for [i]him[/i]? Was [i]he[/i] going to be [b]proud[/b] of her for it?

She stared at the ceiling above with a fractured mind and soul and thought of those she loved.

What would Rory think of her, if he knew this was what she had to become to have a hope of seeing him again? What would Harper see if she looked at her now?

A brutal killer.

A predator.

She felt like an animal.

She didn’t feel human anymore…[/color]