Disclaimer: I am not Suzanne Collins, and I do not own Hunger Games the series.
Note: This is pretty self-explanatory. Please read it—I worked very hard on this and I like it a lot. Read and review, my lovelies! Thankies. –E.v.
You watch as the inexpensive TV's screen ripples in long, colorful stripes as your father returns home from the factory line, slamming the door, and triggering the cheap electronic's malfunction. Patiently, you wait it out, although your fingers raise grooves in the worn loveseat's gray material. With a shudder and a nasal buzz, it settles again, returning to the poor-quality show.
It has been two weeks since your best friend, your three-year love, your utmost companion, was chosen for the Hunger Games. He will live. Yes. He must, you think, desperately. He cannot leave me.
The cameras are focused on the Career's camp, stocked readily with everything they will need to succeed. You watch a tense stand-off between the behemoth-sized District Two boy and his pack companion from District Four. Soon, it is resolved, and the cameras swivel and jump, and… yes.
There he is. You watch ponderingly as he cooks his snare-caught rabbit, barely aware your knees are locked on the edge of the seat cushions and your fingers dig into the worn, rough material. Your mind feels hyperactive, aware. You consciously scope every edge of the screen, staring for movement, just in case someone is coming. You do not even consider the fact that it would not matter even if you did see anything. You are with him, always. Yes.
You relax slightly: it appears nothing is happening. You nod in satisfaction as he purifies his water bottle and packs away the remaining meat. He is doing well for himself. Too well, a paranoid voice, your new enemy, whispers at you from the back of your mind. You ignore the voice.
However, you cannot ignore the clattering footsteps and snap of twigs near him, on the screen, coming from the far left corner.
Panic. Panic.
He turns with a start, snatching up his bag, seizing his last item, a short knife, and taking off. The cameras follow him every step, making it appear he has not traveled any distance at all. The shouts crop up behind him.
No. Panic.
The heavy, thudding footsteps—unmistakably those of the Careers.
No. No. No. NO!
Twisting, lurching, wrenching
You do not realize…
This is your heartbeat.
Your father, oblivious, leaves the house, slamming the door shut again—the TV ripples. No! wait! You're lurching forward, grasping wildly at the edges of the screen, attempting to manually fix it: you know this has never worked before, but you cannot help it—
Only noise
You hear only noise
Thud. Thud. Thud. Crunch. A commanding shout, a jeer, a catcall. A thump. A yell of agony.
"NO!" you do not realize you're screaming, too—
Wavering, rippling, lines of barbed color…
Solid shapes. Yes! You scour the screen, determined, anxious to discover what has happened. He lies in the lower branches of a tree, clutching a bleeding shin, exhaustion paling his skin. The Careers stand below, sneering up at him.
They jeer and yell, antagonistic, condescending voices spiraling upwards around the tree.
One of them, the slightest, a girl from Four, begins to climb cautiously, short sword raised poignantly, with precision. You know she can use that deadly point of steel.
He watches her, still rasping for breath, clutching his ankle.
No, no, no…
"Climb! Climb!" you screech at the screen, unaware, in your panic, that he is far from hearing you.
He makes a halfhearted attempt, but he has lost too much blood—his face is wintertime, his pantleg a crimson sunrise. The Four girl is close, now; her teeth are bared in a grim, deathly smile of anticipation. She reaches up—
Yes—no! no! nononono! NO!
Fine-skinned fingers
Speaking of wealth and status
Are transformed
Into point-tipped, monster's claws
In your eyes…
She grasped his ankle in her free hand, and, painfully, slowly, she pulls downward…
Her eyes are of a hawk
Her teeth of a wolf
Her beauty, once so real…
Now, just superficial
Unreal
Because this cannot be happening. You refuse to believe she is pulling his white, dying body from the branches of a tree. Slowly, inch by inch…
"No!"you sob furiously, slamming your fists into the moth-eaten carpet, pulling up dried tufts carelessly, tears of salt clouding your vision.
He falls.
In a sinuous
Catlike movement
The girl leaps down
Draws her sword back
Plunges it downward
Once
Twice
Again.
All is silent.
Writhing agony
Burning
Slashing
Tearing
Destroying
Your heart throbs
Physically painful
Your lungs rasp
Your eyes sting
Your throat closes…
"NOO!" you scream, reaching up, desperately, to find purchase on the TV, shaking it madly, sobbing, staring at the warped lines of gray, blue, green, black, white, as though they possessed an answer.
You are blind
To the screen
To the room
To the tears
You are deaf
To the buzz
To the shouts
To the cannon.
You are lost.