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There's always that pull. That itch. That desire that bubbles up in his gut when another player steps into view. The desire to just butcher them. Beat them like a pinata. Scatter than insides like confetti across the grass and stone.
Martyn knows this feeling and pointedly discards it.
The Watchers designed this game to create insatiable bloodlust. He knows this.
The Watchers' influence is strong but Martyn has spent three other life games shunning it. The burning in his chest and the twitch in his fingers has become a familiar companion.
He can see it in Scott too. The way his red eyes linger on Martyn's throat. How he pauses too long when he stands behind him. The sweat that covers his brow as the burning heat of his red life runs through him like a dying star.
His partner is also acclimated to the itch and shows just as much resilience as Martyn when fighting the pull to decimate and slaughter and leave ruin to everything. He builds and decorates and smiles at Martyn even when he can see the bared teeth just barely hidden behind the niceties. Scott's always been good like that. He doesn't shout or rush in and he doesn't fall apart under the red pressure.
He's steady.
He's strong.
He's collected.
You have to be all these things if you don't want to be corrupted and turned into a feral animal driven only by time, death, and rage.
Joel and Scar are gory examples, clothes forever stained with the blood of their atrocities and eyes always on the lookout for their next victim. Scar's obsessive trap-laying and Joel's need to dive head first into battle after battle are only two symptoms of the Watcher's influence on their minds.
Martyn's confidant in his willpower. He's withstood the test of time. He hasn't collapsed under their violet stares. He hasn't fallen to the malicious code that wraps around this world and fights to enter his veins.
But . . .
Martyn watches as Scott and Impulse strip off their scratched and battered diamond armor, and from a thousand miles away he can feel himself doing the same, their armor stacking in a pile with noisy clangs that echo in Martyn's ears.
This noise is distant, but sharp.
The world is diluted, but in perfect focus.
"We'll make our ancestors proud," Impulse says. He smiles at them, warm and friendly even with the red veins crawling across his face. "It's just a shame we don't have any cactus on hand to make a ring."
"Yeah, a real shame," Martyn agrees, though he doesn't control the movement of his lips, his voice acting of its own accord.
The lava burns as they take their own lives and level the playing field, but Martyn's chest is burning even when he wakes up in bed and the flames have gone out, his heart a throbbing ember.
The burn rises in his throat like acid, soaking his tongue and teeth.
He knocks the bucket of lava over, and lunges.
Martyn can almost imagine the delicate cloak of green draped around Scott's shoulders, one of the Listeners' desperate attempts to protect the player from influence.
And his sword is slicing through it, tearing that delicate cloak to shreds.
Martyn can feel the tingle of his own cloak dissipating. Of Scott's hot blood splattering across his snarling face.
Green gives way to violet, and Martyn rages.
" Nah. I don't want to play this silly game."
His sword pierces and tears through Scott's stomach. He wrenches the diamond blade to the side and Scott collapses, entrails spilling across the grass and Martyn's feet. Red eyes, slowly draining of color, look up in shock as Martyn steps over his corpse and advances despite the weak hands that claw at his ankles.
"I want to do it this way. I want to do it exactly this way!"
His sword cleaves into the back of Impulse as he flees, tearing clothing and flesh as the other man shouts in surprise and then begins to beg.
"It doesn't matter who you are!" he screams, his sword piercing Impulse through the back, slotting between ribs. He pulls out the blade and drives it into Impulse's back again, just for the sake of it.
The man falls, asphyxiating on blood, and Martyn ruthlessly tramples the body of his fellow player as he stalks across the grass, face raised to the heavens.
His expression is euphoric and crazed, a red-streaked grin tearing his face open in a mockery of joy.
He opens his arms, inviting the world to dispute him as he claims his victory.
"This is a death match for a reason!" he howls to the sky, the world around him bloody and stained.
Martyn laughs.
And his eyes, red having been washed out by violet, cry.
InTheLittleWood
ran out of time!