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Scar sat in line with the target, his bow aimed perfectly. Thwip. Thwip. Thwip. Three back to back bull’s eyes. He rolled to retrieve more arrows, hitting a lever to reset the targets. He heard the footsteps, and flipped his weapon around.
“Woah there, Hot Guy!” Skizz raised his hands in mock surrender.
Scar turned back to his targets and let the arrow he had prepared go. Thwip. He moved quickly on to the next one, attempting to shoot two at once, which wasn’t exactly going to give great results, but he was being flashy now with an audience.
Without looking, he asked, “What can I do you for today, Mr. Skizzleman?”
“Just checking in on my neighbors.”
“Sounds like a bit of a bluff,” Scar pulled the lever again. “Not gonna lie. We haven’t met up for anything other than work in the past few weeks. You’ve got something going on in that big brain of yours.”
He pulled another arrow out. Skizz stood in silence. It had been the truth. The pair hadn’t talked outside of formal business since they closed their discussion on the truth.
“Are you here to ask me more questions?”
Skizz shook his head. “Not if it upsets you. I’m really just trying to work this all out for Gemstone.”
“So talk to me about what you know…”
The older man hesitated, crossing his arms and staring at the targets. “I wake up most nights thinking I have literal blood on my hands. I see it sometimes… during the day. I feel this cold-bloodedness within me. This need to take. This need for revenge.”
“How does that make you feel?” Scar said with a smile, his voice detached.
Skizz shrugged. “Paranoid. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“You’re an angel, aren’t you?” Scar bit back. “Your self pity is pathetic. Do you know how much blood is actually on my hands! Sure you have bloodlust, but you haven’t killed anyone compared to me.”
“Like I said, we don’t have to talk about i–”
“I feel a tingle, I just want to get unhinged, Skizz…” He looked up at the man with a devilish smile, repeating his own words. “They made you scared of being the villain, but they made me the villain.”
Skizz gulped. The silence sat thick between the pair, the only noise was that of the birds song. As the yellow canary flew overhead, Scar reached a hand up and captured it in his fist. Skizz looked down at the poor creature, trying to remember the parable that he had witnessed time and time again. A boy running. A girl with pink hair.
“Won’t you shut up, Jimmy!” Scar hissed at the bird, letting it choke slightly before releasing it.
The bird did not get very far before– thwip – an arrow was pointed right at it’s heart. Slowly, meeting Skizz’s eyes again, Scar retrieved the creature and returned to his neighbor. The older man looked like he was trying not to gag.
“Look, Skizz,” He grabbed Skizz’s hand and pressed the bird’s corpse into it. “If they want you to think you have blood on your hands, you might as well have blood on your hands.”
“Why? Why would you do that?”
“I’ve seen a few canaries fall. I’ve won. I was killed at the hand of the man I love. I feared them for too long. So why not just play along?”
“You scary me. I– don’t think I want to play along. I want to get out. I want us all to be able to get out.”
“Skizz, do you know how many games we’ve been in at this point?”
He tried to remember, but his memory filled with purple and red haze and anger, a lot of anger. “Two or three.”
“Six, he’s run six games. Yet here I am, being his neighbor again. I don’t know how much I can love him anymore. But we are trapped. He dragged you here, probably cause you were fun to toy with… because they like you and he is always on their bad side. Ask Pearlo.”
He turned away from Scar. “We will get out of this one way or another.”
“Sounds like perma-death to me. I prefer torture.”