AN: Written for the District 14 Monthly Prompt at Caesar's Palace, "gambling." Title is Latin, meaning "at odds."
Survival, in my eyes, is about not taking chances. About not making a move until you are as certain as possible of the outcome. You can never be 100% sure of anything-not unless you can see into the future-but I tried to get as close as I could. You can leap before you look if you please, but don't count on me to come running to your rescue.
It was all about the odds for me. It was all about knowing where each action was going to take me. It was about thinking quickly, but rationally. Never making a snap decision, because who knew where you'd end up?
I've seen the things they do to people in my home. I've seen what making a rash decision has done to my neighbors in District 11. It isn't pretty. It isn't fair, but it's what we must live with.
It is what we must survive with.
That was my main goal. Survival. Live through the day, get back to my family. Really, we'd been much luckier than most of our District. My father was the butcher, and with four daughters working in the fields, we did alright. Saved us from making stupid decisions as drastic as some.
Everything is a problem to me. A question, an equation. If I eat this orange, what is the probability that I'll get caught, killed? I don't see any peacekeepers. I'm well hidden in this tree. But what if it a peacekeeper were to walk by? If I allow myself twenty seconds to peel it and forty to eat it, that's a minute. Sixty seconds for a peacekeeper to walk by and see me. But I'm hidden, aren't I? Well, what if the peacekeeper looks up and sees me? How often do people look up? People hide in trees to eat fruit often enough. Do they look up often enough, too? Suppose I eat it? What do I do with the skin? I could leave it up here, sure, but what if an animal knocked it down? What if the wind blew it down? What would I do if a peacekeeper found it? They'd kill anyone if no one owned up to it. And it'd be on my conscience.
So I don't eat the orange.
If I volunteer to protect my younger brother, what is the probability that one of us will come home? Neither of us are strong. We can wield knives, being children of the butcher, but we could never kill people. We know how to scavenge and gather. But the Gamemakers would never leave us be and let us wait it out until the other tributes killed each other. We'd be bloodbath tributes. If not, we'd be dead before the top twelve.
So I don't volunteer.
As I predicted, Thrasher was killed in the bloodbath three years ago. He was twelve. I was fifteen. He might of survived if I'd gone. I'll never know. But I didn't know then if either of us would survive. I didn't take the chance. I survived.
But my sisters needed me. I couldn't let the both of us die. Egret, Sabine, and Sage would miss me. They missed Thrasher, too. Was I selfish? Maybe. Sensible? Yes. Our father could feed them, yes, but comfort? Never. I had to stay here for them. Maybe I wasn't the best sister to Thrasher. I had to make it up to him by being an excellent sister to Egret, Sabine, and Sage. I never made it there. I was trying, Thrasher.
My method was simple. If you aren't nearly positive that the outcome(s) you want will occur, you don't take the chance. Live your life simply, quietly. Harvest in the fields, keep quiet. Fight the temptation. I was pretty good at cooking up the meat scraps into something edible. I was eighteen, I had experience. Sage is fifteen. Thrasher was her twin brother. The two were named for the Sage Thrasher. Sabine's twelve, and she understands well enough. It's Egret that we all have to watch out for. She's only seven, she doesn't get it as well as we do. The fresh fruit calls, begs to her. She's nearly been killed before. We can't have that. Mom died giving birth to her. We could at least keep Egret alive.
I didn't gamble. I didn't take chances. I reviewed my cards once, twice, three times over. The move I made could be my last if I was not careful. So I was careful.
I was not a trusting person. I kept to myself, hardly even reaching out to my family. I tried for Thrasher, for my mother. But I couldn't place my trust in other people. I couldn't let my life out of my hands, even just a bit. I desired complete control over myself. A thing I'd never have.
The Capitol dangles the fact that we're never truly our own in front of our faces. They know that they have the real control. The Districts know that they have the real control. I can pretend that my life was contained solely in my hands, but I know that strings could've be pulled and I could've been killed at any moment. My life wasn't mine to keep, just like everyone else.
But why be careless? If one treads lightly, one gives the Capitol no reason to pull those strings. I had control. Not total, but almost. I was almost content. Almost pleased.
Almost safe.
I was almost a lot of things. Almost a good sister. Almost nineteen. Almost ineligible for the Hunger Games. Almost a little safer than I'd been for the past seven years. But only almost. I could still get reaped. Still get reminded that my life was never really in my hands. I could still get murdered in the arena, still get taken away from my family, still have to die even though I didn't volunteer to try and save Thrasher those three long years ago.
I thought of old lady Karma when I was reaped.
"Scarlet Terianon" sounded alien in that Capitol accent. It reminded me that I was different from the moment the slip was drawn. Now I was truly a pet of the Capitol. I would be dressed up and paraded around and fed like a pig before the slaughter. And oh, how I would be slaughtered. The Career boy from District 1 had a bone to pick with me. I'd gone mad in the arena, I knew it. I threw caution to the wind, something I had never done. When being careful mattered the most, I gave up. I lived rashly, walking around doing whatever it took to keep walking around. I was a zombie. A pet. A toy. Not Scarlet Terianon. Just Tribute 21.
Yacht was possibly less stable than I was. I knew the moment I killed Silk that it had been a mistake. I should have let her kill me. A quick knife through the heart would've been dandy compared to what I endured. Yacht sliced off each of my fingers, one by one. He slowly severed my hands, my feet from my body. He peeled off my lips, popped out my eyes. He left my ears. He wanted me to hear my screams of pain.
I didn't scream.
He carved a bloody X on my stomach and stabbed the center. He toyed with my innards, stringing them out. I couldn't see it. Perhaps if I could've, I would've screamed. He should've left my eyes.
After a long show, one which the Capitol probably fully enjoyed, he stabbed me straight to the heart. Falling into the arms of Death was easy, welcome. The screaming pain vanished from my limbs. My limbs! They were back. I was whole, healthy. Dead.
Being dead is a strange sensation. I watched as they pieced my severed body whole in the Capitol. They nailed it into a flimsy wooden box and sent it back to my family. I'd never seen my father upset before. I was always under an illusion that he didn't like me very much. That he put up with me because I could cook an okay meal and I kept Egret happy. I didn't look like my mother. I had his red hair and his gray eyes, not her blonde and green combination. Only Egret looked like her, and he never seemed to like my youngest sister much.
Yacht won those games. He was very arrogant, very dark. He cheered and pumped his fists when they showed all fourteen murders he had committed. None were elaborate and drawn out like mine. A knife to the jugular, a mace to the head, a spear through the heart, a sword through the neck, and so on. When asked about me in his interview, he said that he did it for Silk. He said he wished I was in Hell (a place I know doesn't exist). He said he was proud of how he killed me. That he would do it again. That the scent of my blood was invigorating, that the sight of my mangled body was empowering.
They ended the interview there.
Peacekeepers were stationed to watch his house in District 1. They said he was unstable, unsafe. He killed eleven of them before they carted him off to the Capitol to be kept under lock and key.
If I could, I would have haunted him. I would have haunted him mad, to his grave, to death. I know that the other thirteen tributes he killed would do the same thing. The peacekeepers as well. All those whose blood he had lusted over.
He took a chance when he killed those people. He didn't know what killing them would bring. I wish I could show him what making a snap decision can do to you. He thinks he won because he was the last tribute standing. I disagree.
I don't take chances.
I don't gamble.
Don't forget.
God forbid, never forgive.