Disclaimer: I do not own the 'Hunger Games' series. But guys, if I did...
AN: I apologize for wrong phrases, tenses and misspelled words. Please tell me if something has to be rewritten!
Lightning Strike
She stared into blank space.
Twenty-one. Twenty-two. Twenty-three.
Her hands trembled even as she tightened them into fists. It was an impossible task to steady her mind and focus on the surroundings. At some point she realized that she was shivering with cold. Minutes passed until she remembered her warm gloves and put them back on. She had used her bare hands to get his blood off her face.
Twenty-one. Twenty-two. Twenty-three.
Surrounded by snow of the winter area she had used it to clean herself and it had felt like the white mush was made of thousand tiny blades cutting into her skin. The tainted remnants were thrown away as far as possible. A boulder about three times her size blocked her from view at the moment, at least to some degree. If she looked straight ahead there was nothing but flat, snow-covered land though and the possibility of someone creeping up on her unnoticed from that direction was somewhere near zero. The real danger waited on the other side of her rock and it was just a matter of time until she had to face it. She whispered soothingly to herself, looking at the little clouds of breath that accompanied her words.
Twenty-one. Twenty-two. Twenty-three.
She allowed herself to go to a happier place. A place where getting up early to squeeze in some hours at the factory before school was the worst thing in the world. Officially it wasn't work though but a promotion program for very talented children and because they got breakfast containing nutrition bars and coffee their parents remained mute about the absence of payment. She was good at becoming invisible among a crowd so she used her ability to swipe a few bars and then some every other day. Either she was as discreet as she thought or simply nobody cared she wasn't sure.
Who would have thought the fact that people tended to overlook her would lead to this.
She rummaged through her early memories and stopped at a particular one of her brother. He was older than she was and when they were children he looked after her during the days their father worked until nightfall. Sometimes he would ask her to do little tasks pretending to need her help when in fact she just slowed him down. But he never complained and even praised her clumsy attempts at stacking firewood or cutting food for dinner and under his reassuring gaze she felt proud of herself.
On one evening when she was about five years old there was a heavy thunderstorm and she was too afraid to go to sleep alone. Some of the neighbor kids had made fun of her just the previous day and claimed that because her father worked at the metalworking department their house was so full of metal dust that sooner or later it would be struck by lightning. So she told her brother that she wasn't tired at all and asked him to tell her funny stories but of course he wasn't fooled. When she told him about the kids he just laughed and then leaned towards her conspiratorially. He said he was going to teach her something only clever children knew about and immediately had her full attention. He persuaded her to follow him to a window and when a flash of lightning appeared he began to count. Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four. Suddenly she heard the thunder and her brother smirked at her. He explained that as long as she was able to count to at least twenty-three before the thunder was heard the flashes were too far away to hit their house and she was safe.
There were still three people left including two careers and herself. Now was the time she had to come up with a plan. Either she hoped for the miracle to happen which would be the two of them killing each other before she had to act, or... well or walking over to the Summer-area and die. But she had not much of a choice really because if she stayed behind this rock for the night she would freeze to death anyway.
Boom.
With a start she came to an upright position. The blood rushed so loudly through her veins, it was hard to make out noises. She peered past the boulder but although the cannon had been near there was no one to be seen.
This was it. Maybe the one left was so badly injured that she would be able to take him out. The other one for sure had put up quite a fight so there was a possibility...No, not possibility. If she wanted to be a victor she had to think like one. For the first time the odds were in her favor and she would leave this arena as victor no matter what. There were just too many things left she had to tell her brother, things to thank him for.
Gripping the knife she had taken from the boy from District 8 she almost ran to the summer area. As she reached the bushes marking the border between the two areas there was a cracking sound to her left.
I hid in a bush and waited until she was close enough, then I stabbed her with my spear from behind, right through the heart.
Twenty-one.
Not a nice move to not even give her a chance to defend herself but I was past morals and had lost too much blood to stand another fight.
Twenty-two.
For a short moment I wished I could remember her name. But it didn't matter really. People would remember my name, Irving Garey.
Twenty-three.
In the distance a cannon went off.
Thank you for reading!
