If you recognise it, it's not mine.
I once had a twin sister. We were identical, almost. We knew each other better than anyone. I know that now.
This is a goodbye. An apology. An explanation. Because this is the story of the end of my life.
It was warm, the day it started. A bit cloudy with a cool breeze. We walked to the square together. She was wearing a diamond studded blue dress which swished round her ankles. I was wearing a grey suit and blue tie. We knew we looked good. Silkie was excited. She had spent months begging, bribing and blackmailing everyone we knew. Because this year, she had a real chance. Because we were going to the Reaping. It was a Quarter Quell. And all the tributes would be voted in. When we arrived, instead of the reaping balls, two machines stood in front of the stage. A long line was at both. All of the population of District One who were over the age of ten was there. When it was my turn, I scrolled down the list of girl's names until I found Silkie Claret. I clicked it, and a list of boy's names came up. I searched through it and carefully chose someone weak, who couldn't threaten my sister in any way. Then I entered the roped off area to await the results. The woman who usually takes the reapings stands up and unfolds a screen from the top of each machine. She begins to read out each girl's name and how many votes she got. Eventually, she reached the last few.
"Satin Ribald, five hundred and twenty.
Shimmer Mirth, five hundred and fifty."
She paused for effect.
"And with five hundred and fifty-one votes, our female tribute is... Silkie Claret!"
I catch Silkie's wink as she mounts the stage, blowing kisses to the camera. One vote, and she got it. Then the woman read out the boys.
"Rival Lark, six hundred and four.
Rosette D'Angelo, six hundred and fifteen.
And our male tribute-"
She double checks, leaning over the screen.
"With seven hundred and forty-eight votes, our male tribute is Velveteen Claret."
No. Not both of us. She must have said someone else. But mother has tears running down her face, and Silkie is chalk white.
"Velveteen Claret?"
Trembling, I walk to the stage. As I stand next to Silkie, the crowd begins to notice how we look alike, remember our matching surnames, and slowly begin to recognise us. We are the twins, simultaneous, identical. And we are both going into the arena. At least one of us will die.
The Capitol crowd probably love all this. Drama, excitement. So how do our mentors, three of them, choose our strategy?
"The crowd will have favourites out of the pair of you" says Glamour.
"That means that each of you will gain sponsors as the game progresses" adds Locket.
"After all, everyone loves a bit of tension!" squeals Titanium.
I suppose we're lucky. Some districts don't even have any mentors yet- Twelve, Seven, Three, a couple more.
Silkie grins. "So we have to be equally attractive?"
Locket shakes his head. "No. You have to try and be better than each other."
Silkie doesn't quite understand, but I do.
From now on, we are enemies.
Our stylists are playing up the whole twin thing though, as in the chariot rides, Silkie looks breathtakingly beautiful in a pure white dress which seems to fly around her body. I am dressed in a suit of the same material. We both have golden feathered headresses studded with gemstones. Glimpses on the huge screens show how we look like angels from another world. Training is almost fun, as we begin our routine of trying to outshine each other. I have some skill with throwing knives but Silkie can hit a target from the other end of the room. She's about average with a sword though, whilst I disarm the trainer in a few minutes. I am stronger than I look, but Silkie turns out to be a wicked shot with a bow. At lunch, we sit with the tributes who will form our alliance. Most of them are seventeen or eighteen, strong and prepared, but there is one girl, a twelve year old from Four, who looks closer to nine. Marina, her name is. I can't think why her district would send such a young child in the one year they could have prevented that, but then she stands up, and I see that her legs are withered and bent underneath her. She scoops a pair of crutches from the floor and catches my eye.
"I can't walk at all without them. I'm useless at home. I asked to come here."
Then she hobbles away slowly, leaving me amazed at how such a small girl is capable of such open bravery. In the interviews she wears a short green dress. When she is asked if it hurts, she replies calmly. "Yes. All the time. On bad days, I can barely move."
The audience laugh and several jeer disbelievingly. Marina's eyes narrow in anger and she snaps defiantly, "You don't believe me? Try me. Hit me with one of my crutches."
And as it descends, her eyes widen, just slightly, but enough to let me know that she isn't lying. The firm wood makes contact with a crack, the whole audience winces and gasps, but those are drowned out by the horrible, horrible noise Marina is making. Her face is a sickly shade of grey, and before anyone can do anything, she slumps unconscious to the floor. The audience begins to scream, to cry for this poor, brave child. It takes several minutes to calm them down before the next person can go up.
The day we go into the arena, my stylist, Laurent, helps me get dressed in the loose, thick robe with a hood. "I don't think it's been treated for much, maybe it can protect from sunlight" he says, frowning.
Then he passes me something else. "Your sister wanted you to have this."
It's a tiny ring, barely large enough for my pinky. I recognise it. It's the only thing Silkie ever treasured, more than anything. I made it when we were about eight, out of a few scraps of thread and a gold button. And now she has given it to me. It speaks of apology, sorrow, but most of all, forgiveness. Then it's time to step on to that metal plate, and I am lifted into the arena. All twenty-four of us are standing around the golden Cornucopia, in a large clearing. We can't see much of the rest of the arena because it is obscured by thick leafy hedges, broken by a few stone arches.
We are in a maze.
I glance round and see Silkie waving at me cheerfully, Marina leaning on a rest built into her metal plate.
The ground around us is scattered with equipment and food. I see Marina desperately looking at something in the mouth of the Cornucopia. I follow her gaze and see a pair of bronze crutches. Then the gong sounds and I race for the weapons. I really don't want Marina's death on my conscience though, so I grab two swords, a handful of knives, a large backpack and the crutches before sprinting towards Marina. And just in time. The boy from District Seven is approaching her with a large axe in his hand. I grab one of my knives and hurl it at him. It flys into his back with a sickening thud and he collapses on the ground. I hand the crutches to Marina and try to give her a knife but she waves it away.
"I don't need that. Look."
She lifts up one of her crutches and I see the wickedly sharp, barbed spearhead on the tip. Then her eyes widen and she gasps. "Duck!"
Her voice is so full of panic that I do, and I catch a glimpse of the crutch swinging over my head at an approaching attacker.
"Hey, wait!" a girl shouts, and I recognise the voice of the girl from Two. Reyna, I think her name is.
"You with us or not?"
Marina glances at me, then nods.
"Then stop trying to kill our teammates!"
I look up and see Silkie, her face smeared with blood, a shallow cut on her leg, bow raised to her shoulder. Quick as lightning, she notches an arrow and lets it fly. I yelp, and instinctively duck to the side, but the arrow flys past me and buries itself in the head of the girl from Five. I guess the fighting isn't over yet. Slowly, the six of us retreat to the Cornucopia, Silkie shooting arrows everywhere, the others stabbing anyone who comes too close. I carry Marina as she slashes away with her crutches. Suddenly she screams in agony, and I see a small dart sticking out of her leg. I whip round and see the girl from Eight slipping through one of the arches, blowgun in hand. I yank the dart from her leg and then the fighting is over. Silkie is panting, but her eyes dance in pleasure. I glance round, and see Reyna and Larch, the boy from Four, approaching. The boy from Two lies motionless several meters away, a spear sticking out of his ribs. So that's us. Me, Silkie, Marina, Reyna and Larch. That makes four good fighters, five if you count Marina. I remember seeing a girl, maybe from Twelve, staggering away with a gash in her throat from the sharp crutches. Yes, there she is, lying a couple of meters away from the metal plates. Then the cannons ring out. One, two, three, four, five, on up to ten. I quickly count the bodies. Eleven. So where is the last cannon? Suddenly, the corpse of the boy from Nine rears up, sword in hand, just a few inches away from Reyna. I yell a warning, but it's already too late, and as Silkie's arrow enters the boy's head, she's sinking to the ground, hands floundering at the blade in her chest. Two more cannons fire. All we can do is close her eyes and wait for the hovercraft to take her away. So that's twelve of us dead. Of the remaining twelve, eight made it into the maze, some with supplies. Marina says she feels dizzy, Silkie is tired, despite her almost manic smile, and Larch seems shellshocked. None of them are in any state to hunt, so I suggest we go through the remaining stuff. I still have my backpack, so I look inside it and find a loaf of bread, a slingshot, a first aid kit and several balls of string. I also have both my swords, two knives and a blanket I grabbed off a fleeing tribute. Silkie has her bow, and takes possession of the remaining arrows. Larch had the foresight to gather anything he could from the dead tributes, and has several spears, three knives, two sleeping bags and a small backpack stuffed with dried fruit and crackers. The Cornucopia has several larger items like barrels of water or sacks of apples, and it has smaller things like matches or empty bottles. Once we've got everything sorted and have bandaged wounds, we lay out the sleeping bags, and despite Marina's protests, make the girls lie down for a rest while Larch and I take first watch. As night falls, we hear the anthem and watch the faces of the dead tributes shine before vanishing forever. Reyna appears first, then the boy from Two. Both from Three. The girl from Five. The boy from Seven. The boy from Eight. Both from Nine. The girl from Eleven. Both from Twelve.
The next day, we decide to explore the arena. We choose one of the four openings and tie one of the balls of string to the opening. After about five minutes of walking, we reach a fork in the path.
"Let's spilt up" Larch suggests. And while I'm a bit worried about leaving Silkie, I can't leave Marina either. So I agree. I throw another ball of string to them and we take the left path. But we've barely gone ten meters, what with Marina's crutches, when we hear screams. Silkie. Without thinking, I drop the string, turn and rush to the place we split up at. Marina hobbles along behind me, as fast as she can. I follow the string until I find them. The last of a host of scorpions the size of dogs scuttles away as I approach, and I see them. Silkie, leaning over what's left of Larch, sobs uncontrollably. I kneel beside them, pulling out the first aid kit, although I already know it's useless. Silkie babbles out the whole story.
"We didn't even know they were there until Larch heard something in the hedges. Then they swarmed out, all over him. They...they began to tear off bits, fingers, feet. I tried shooting them but the arrows just bounced off, so I jumped on them until you got here."
As I try and clean Larch's wounds, I see a strange cut, just above his heart. I touch it gingerly. It's nothing like the rest of his injuries, as it narrows down to a point the deeper it goes. As I puzzle it over, his eyes flicker open.
"Velveteen" he whispers. "Silkie... she...can't trust..."
"What?" I shake him. "Larch, what do you mean? Larch?"
But his eyes are shut. His cannon fires. And I will never know exactly what happened.
We continue to hunt, but as a pack this time. We hear more screams, followed by another cannon. We steer away from that section. Eventually, we go back to the Cornucopia, only to find that half the remaining stuff has been looted. We load the rest into the two backpacks, ready to carry with us. After we have a quick meal of apples and crackers, the anthem plays and we watch Larch and the girl from Seven, the one who died this afternoon, fade from the sky. Just ten left. Silkie volunteers to take first watch, and I'm so tired I don't bother arguing.
During the night, I jerk awake to the sound of a cannon. Marina sits up too. Silkie is nowhere to be seen. I yell her name, heedless of bringing pursuers. Marina switches on a torch and scans the clearing. Suddenly, a hovercraft appears a few meters into the maze. A body is lifted up. Marina shines the torch and I catch a glimpse of short blond hair, and then she's gone.
"Silkie" I moan. Then, footsteps approach. Marina switches off the torch and I hear her curl up as small as possible, but I stay standing. Let them come, let them kill me. A cold blade presses against my throat, and then a voice whispers "Did you miss me?"
Silkie! I leap up and throw my arms round her. "I thought you were..."
She laughs. "I heard something, so I went to check it out."
"Who died?" Marina asks.
"I don't know, I was at the other arch. Who's left, aside from us three?"
"Both from Six and Ten, and the boys from Five and Eleven." I reply.
"The girl from Eight. You know, the tall one who uses a blowgun,"
Marina adds.
Seeing as I'm already awake, I suggest that I take over on guard. Silkie nods and snuggles into the sleeping bag. As I watch her, thinking about how I nearly lost her, I notice a small wound on her cheek. A tiny puncture hole, as if a needle had pricked her. The sort of mark you'd get from a dart.
The next day, I don't say anything. We decide to go along the path the body came from, in case the killer is hiding out there. We find nobody though, and get deeper and deeper into the maze. Then we find a small camp, with a smouldering fire. We hide behind a hedge, waiting for whoever stays here to come back, and soon enough, a boy creeps in from a different path, a long cut on his head. Silkie's arrow flies straight into his heart and the cannon fires. That makes eight. We still hunt though, pausing to strip the boy of two knives, matches and a bottle of water. Later, we come across another boy. Silkie leaps in for a fight. Marina whispers to me "I think he's from Eleven."
Wherever he's from, he's pretty tough. Armed with a long knife, he slashes at Silkie, forcing her to keep back. But then she dances back more, arms her bow, and shoots the hand holding the knife, so that it clatters to the ground. Then he knows he's beaten. Silkie approaches him, pulls out an arrow. But instead of shooting him, she steps forward and plunges it into his chest. As his blood splashes to the ground, I realise that I have seen this wound before. A cut narrowing down to a point. I kneel beside the boy, examine it. It penetrates deep enough to be fatal, but ensures a slow death. As I reach for the boy's knife he mutters to me. "That your sister?"
"Yeah." I reply.
"She done this before. I see her eyes. She practiced."
She has done this before.
"I know," I whisper. And then I stab the knife into his chest. The cannon fires. And I walk away to Marina and Silkie.
That evening, we watch the faces in the sky. The boy from Five. The girl from Eight, so that's who died in the night. The boy from Eleven.
Something is preying on my mind though.
Larch, with that cut in his chest.
"Don't trust.."
The boy from Eleven, with an identical cut.
"She done this before."
Marina getting that dart in the leg, from the girl who used a blowpipe. Silkie, with that mark on her cheek as if she had been hit with a dart. The girl from Eight who used the darts, who died in the night, while Silkie was at a different place. Supposedly. Somehow, I think she's not telling us something. But why?
The competition has dwindled now. Just seven people left. We decide to stay put for a while. "Let them come to us," Marina explains. "We could walk for hours and not find them." But the Gamemakers have other ideas. Within an hour, we hear snarls, screams and a cannon. We see a body rise from the maze, but it's still quite far away. Then we hear more screams, nearer now, and another cannon. Silkie swears under her breath. "Whatever these things are, they're driving us together. Soon the other two will be here, and then what?"
But the Gamemakers don't want anything so basic, not in a Quarter Quell. As we prepare to defend ourselves, it begins to rain. A drop lands on my finger, and I jerk it back. The water seems hot, as if they're emptying boiling water on us. But then I look again. Just in time to see my nail turn black and fall to the ground. I'm up, shouting for Marina and Silkie to run, heading for the hedge, when it happens. I'm just through one of the archways, where the acid rain stops, when I hear the scream. A girl. I turn, and see Marina struggling in Silkie's arms. They're close, barely a metre away, when it happens. Silkie throws Marina. She lands beside the Cornucopia, and instantly begins to moan. Silkie stands beside me, strands of hair falling to the ground. I begin to lunge forward, desperate to save her, even though this is the Hunger Games and that's not how they work, but Silkie grabs my arm.
"Don't. Be. Stupid." she hisses, punctuating each word with a stab of her long nails. Marina continues to writhe on the ground, until the cannon fires. But the rain doesn't stop. It slowly dissolves her robe, her body, until all that's left is a tiny skeleton and a pair of crutches. The hovercraft takes her away. And everything becomes calm again.
Now it's as if it's just me and the girl who used to be my twin. But then we hear footsteps. Silkie arms her bow and I draw my sword. The two boys from Ten and Six step out from the hedges. Each of them is bleeding from various wounds, but they both have long knives. Automatically, we all move into the clearing, where the rain has stopped as if it had never been. Slowly, we raise our weapons.
"What killed the others?" Silkie asks, at the same time as one of the boys asks "What are your names?"
Silkie answers. "Silkie and Velveteen Claret. District One."
The shorter boy with the dark brown hair replies. "Stitch. Stitch Morris. District Six. And this is Owyn. District Ten."
Owyn, bleeding from a deep slash in his leg, speaks in a shaking voice. "The girls, Flax and Linne, died a couple of hours ago. A group of mutts attacked our camp. They looked like cats, giant cats with long fangs and claws. Their eyes...they looked like they didn't care about anything. Linne was lucky. They stabbed her through the heart. Flax...they tore at her, played with her. We managed to fight them off, or maybe the Gamemakers got bored, but it was too late. Then we came here. We want to end this, one way or another."
Silkie grins. "Your wish is my command." And she leaps forward.
I don't know how long it lasted. Me and Silkie fought back to back, Stitch and Owyn battled each of us. The first to die was Stitch. Silkie's arrow shot him in the throat. As he collapsed to the ground, he reached into his pocket. His hand brings out a small fabric patch. He brings it to his nose, and his eyes close as he smells his home. Then the cannon fires and the fighting continues. Spurred on, it seems, by the death of his companion, Owyn attacks us so hard that it is almost accidental when my sword sticks into his chest. Down he goes. Silkie finishes it with an arrow through his skull. We look at each other in excitement, until something happens to Silkie's face. Then I realise the horrible truth. Only one can come out. One of us must kill the other.
"Silkie," I breathe.
"Save it,"she snaps. "I am not going to waste time here. I know the rules, twenty three die, one comes out, yeah?"
Her arrow is still pointed straight at my heart. And I remember. "Larch. When he was dying, he said your name. He said not to trust you! He had a cut...like the one the boy from Eleven had. When you stabbed him with your arrow." Her eyes betray a flicker of something, maybe surprise. I carry on. "And the girl from Eight. She died that night, when you were somewhere else. But how did you get that mark on your cheek? Silkie, why? Why did you kill your own teammate? Why did you kill Larch?" A sick thought hits me. When I say it, my voice sounds an octave lower.
"Why did you kill Marina?"
Silkie shrugs. "She was in the way. They all were. The thing about getting what you want, brother, is to get rid of what you don't. Larch was quite a good fighter, but he had already noticed a few things. The girl, the little cripple. Marina, you said? Well, she never had much of a chance. I suppose they could have fixed her legs if she'd won, but really, I didn't want to give up my life for some little kid."
"She was twelve!" I scream at her. "She was just twelve years old, and you murdered her!"
Silkie pouts. "Aww, what a shame. Oh well. Looks like it's just you and me now though. Brother dear."
And she lets the arrow fly.
Instinctively, I throw my hand up in front of it. I hear a rush of air, a quiet clang, and feel an impact in my finger. I look at my hand. The fragments of that tiny ring I made more than ten years ago fall to the ground. The arrow bounced off the button. But where is it now? I see it, lying at my feet. But before I pick it up, Silkie takes a step forward. Her foot catches on the shaft. The point stabs into her ankle. Not expecting it, she stumbles, falling to the ground, hitting her shoulder off the Cornucopia. Instead of getting up, she lets out a scream, rolling to her side. And that's when I see one of Marina's crutches, wedged in her stomach. I drop to my knees beside her. "No, Silkie, no" I gasp out. She smiles at me.
"I guess pride comes before a fall then."
Her eyes close. I begin to sob, uncontrollably. I almost miss her last words. "We had the best times. Understand? The best. Goodbye, Velveteen. See you soon."
Silkie's cannon fires. Trumpets play. A hovercraft appears above us. The bodies are collected and a ladder descends. I step on to it, tears pouring down my cheeks. I don't know what she means, see you soon. But I figure it out.
When I explained to Locket and the others what I wanted, they didn't try and stop me. So I have left this note on my desk, along with the fragments of the tiny ring I salvaged from the arena before I left. The device on my head will inject a lethal poison directly into my brain at exactly the same time as the plate begins to rise to the stage. The device will disintegrate into dust before anyone notices it. These are my last words.
Five. I figured out what she meant.
Four. My sister, who I thought was gone forever.
Three. Who knew me better than anyone else.
Two. Me and my twin, inseparable.
One. See you soon, Silkie.