BATTLEWORLDBATTLEWORLD

ROUND 2, BATTLE 11

HAIL HYDRA (#1-2)

VS

SIEGE (#1-2)

     Once upon a time there were two children, one boy and one girl, who only had bad things happen to them. Though the two never met, they had a lot in common. They lived in two separate lands, connected only by how violent and scary and filled with bad things they were.

The bad things weren’t always their fault, but when only bad things happen, you start to wonder if maybe it is your fault after all. You start to wonder if maybe you deserve to be in a world, where sometime even your friends want to do bad things to you, where you’re lost and alone, where there’s no escape in sight. Most people, even most adults, would give up right away. Because kids, a scary truth is,  grownups are just as frightened as you. That never goes away. Grownups just learn to hide it even though there are plenty of things out there that will still make them give up. But there was something special about these two.

No matter how bad things got, no matter how big the odds were stacked against them, no matter how many times parents and monsters and governments and gods tried to kill them, they never gave up. They never stopped fighting. Their names were Abigail Seige and Ian HailHydra. And even though Abigail and Ian had so much in common, and neither ever, ever gave up… one had to die.

Because sometimes, that’s just the way it is. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how many times you do good things when bad things surround you, and want you to be bad too. Sometimes it doesn’t matter that you survive everything the forest, the teacher, the seawitch, the desert djinn, the candy house, the Doomgod may throw at you. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how many friends or family members you’ve outlived and sworn to survive for their memory. Sometimes, it just doesn’t matter what you do, boys and girls. Because we’re all in a giant game, where the choices we make only matter for as long as they’re allowed to. And then the only thing that matters is we are not in control. No matter what we think, we are not in control. No matter what we do, death comes for us all.

And one day, even though he fought as hard as he could, and he tried to be brave and strong just like his dad (who of course, was his real dad even if he wasn’t his biological dad) raised him to be, Ian HailHydra died. Because, even though they never met, Abigail Siege fought harder. She faced more and moved on and became a better, more complicated person because of it. And honestly, Abigail and her friends just look cooler than Ian and his.

So today she won, and she’s safe.

…but someday it will be her turn to die,

just like someday it will be yours and mine.

Sleep Tight,

-MG