"What'd you do to that little girl?"
Thresh sits with his arms folded tightly around his legs, desperately trying to force the awful images and sounds from his mind, a flurry of sentences spoken only hours ago going over and over in his head like a broken record.
"Did you kill her?"
He sees ebony hair pulled into a tight bauble like pony tail, A pair of terrified brown eyes staring into his own, a sprinkling of freckles over porcelain skin. He hears a voice so uncharacteristically childlike stammering the word "No".
"No, no it wasn't me!"
He remembers his anger, remembers his rage. Remembers that it was all over a tiny girl with tightly curled hair and a warm smile who he hardly knew, but felt he owed the world to, who he felt he'd failed. The one called Rue.
He remembers the other girl, the one with the porcelain skin and the dark hair had that girl from 12 pinned down in the grass, a tiny blade ready to slice into her face. He hadn't cared for the one from 12, was going to just take his pack and leave. But the smaller girl, the one who's eyes he now can't shake, she said Rue's name, said something about killing her. He remembers seeing Rue's face in the night sky, and the shame that came over him, the feeling of failure.
"I heard you"
"No, no it wasn't me!" The other girl had stammered, and the memory of her crawling along the ground on her back, so pitiful looking and small plays across his mind, as well as how weightless she felt when he dangled her in the air.
"You said her name"
The girl with the strange dark ponytail is screaming, calling out for Cato, her district partner, and now without that awful rage and shame blinding him he can remember her name, Clove. Cato and Clove, the Careers from 2. Both had seemed so menacing in the training centre, him with his spears and swords, she with her spot on knife throwing.
"You cut her up like you were going to cut up this girl here?"
He sees those horrified brown eyes staring up at him and he seems to recall the faintest trace of green near the centre of each iris. He can hear her screaming that boys name again, her voice so child like, so afraid, so desperate. He covers his ears with his hands, but it's no use, because it's all in his mind, and that suddenly small girl with the freckles and the wide child like eyes refuses to leave him be.
"Did you kill her?"
He did. He brought that damn rock down on the little rag doll's head so hard her temple caved in. He remembers the awful moan that escaped from her mouth, so pitiful, so not what he'd expected to hear. He'd failed one girl and then in an attempt to rectify that had killed another. He wipes a tear away from his face, hoping that none of the cameras are keeping track of him right now, not wanting the people in his district to see him like this.
"You said her name, I heard you"
He remembers hearing Cato screaming her name over and over as the hover craft carried her body away, the awful pain in his voice unlike anything he'd ever heard before in his life. It had sent chills up his spine as he ran through that tall grass, trying to put as much distance between himself and the awful scene at the cornucopia as he possibly could. It took a long time though before he was far enough away that he couldn't hear the other boy's pain.
"He got there first, the boy from district one"
The girl from 12 had told him about her alliance with the little Rue, told him about her death at the hands of the boy from 1, how she'd in turn killed him, buried her in flowers. He'd been thankful, grateful that someone had been brave enough to at least try and protect the little tree climber. Then he'd felt sick, because the girl lying in a heap at his feet, mewling like a child and still not dead hadn't even done what he'd killed her for.
"What'd you do to that little girl?"
He'd killed her to make himself feel better, to rectify his own guilt. Even though it was The Hunger Games, even though he knew he'd eventually have to kill someone, that he wouldn't be able to hide in amongst the tall grass forever, he'd hoped that when the time came, the death would be fair and just, against an opponent who had the nerve to attack him. Not some poor misguided girl hardly any bigger than the one he'd failed to protect.
"I buried her in flowers"
He wishes he'd had the guts to put the poor girl out of her misery, wishes he hadn't left her there dying a slow death. But he couldn't do it, was all too suddenly paralysed by the realisation that the life was slowly ebbing out of this poor thing because of him. So he'd ignored her, focused on the shaky girl from 12 who was stammering and crying about sweet little Rue.
"Do it fast Thresh"
He could still hear the girl at his feet moaning, so softly he was sure the girl begging him to make it quick couldn't hear it. But he could. It intermingled with the other girl's sentence, and it was like she was begging him not to let her lie there like the Clove girl, to not let her life linger in pain. He didn't want to do it. He was already disturbed enough by the dying girl with the taut ponytail. To do this to another girl, the one who'd done so much to protect tiny Rue, it would break him. He could not leave this field having left two young girls breathing their final breaths in amongst the grass that had already seen so much death, while another had died somewhere deep in the woods.
"Just this one time I let you go. No more owed"
He'd let the girl on fire go, because he does owe her, because she tried her hardest to look after little Rue, and that was a job that had been his, that he should have followed. He'd just been too selfish, too worried about making it back, trying not to think about what would happen to the little 12 year old girl that back home had almost always been the one climbing to the top of the trees and whistling out that eternal tune.
"For the little girl"
He untucks his legs from his arms, wipes the awful tears from his face. He knows the boy from 2 will be looking for him. He took both his own pack and district 2's, hoping to grant the girl on fire one final favour, to make sure Cato would follow him instead of her. But after he heard the boy screaming, begging the tiny ebony haired creature that lay dying in that grass to stay with him, Thresh knew that there was no need to take the bag. Cato would have chosen to track him down first either way, for the girl, the one with the knives and the wide pleading eyes. Thresh knew what it was like to fail someone you were supposed to protect. He knew what it felt like to fail.
"You better run fast fire girl"
Thunder booms through the arena, and the rain quickly follows. Thresh takes shelter under a tree, gripping his scythe tightly. The wild blond boy from 2 will find him soon enough. He can only hope that when the boy tries to rectify his failure in killing him, takes his revenge for the loss of his district partner he'll actually get what he wants from it, get the closure he himself so desperately sought. All he has right now is the memories of two dead girls to haunt him until he closes his eyes for the final time. He knows already that time will come mere hours from now, that maybe in death he'll be able to rectify his failures in the games.
"And you killed him."
When death finally comes via Cato and one of the dead girl's malicious little knives, Thresh can't help but feel relieved. As he slips out of consciousness, out of being, out of existence, images of Little Rue, with her bright eyes staring down at him as the anthem plays, and Clove, screaming for the boy that's taking his life from him are the very last things to cross his mind as it winds down into the Darkness.
Though you can hardly hear it in-amongst the crashing thunder and the pouring rain, a canon sounds.
Disclaimer- I don't own any of the words written in italics, the characters mentioned or the world and setting of this story. They belong to the Wonderful Suzanne Collins whose writing I am eternally grateful for.
ETERNALLY.