Disclaimer: THe Hunger Games isn't mine. If it was Gale would have ended up with Katniss, Peeta would've drowned and Finnick would be a God (not that he already isn't. Just that he would be indestructable. Unkillable. Yeah.)
Innocent Blood Spilt On Innocent Hands
She never killed anyone. Never felt the slick-slide of a blade cutting into flesh in her palm, never felt the gentle tug-tug of the body it had distorted taking one final breath. She had never been responsible for the pools of blood welling out of open wounds; never felt the guilt of causing such grief among so many. Annie had never taken a life, but she had seen too many die.
The boy from Six is the first to die, merely seconds into the carnage. She watches in horrid fascination as the arrow, deadly sharp and pointed, embeds itself into the thick base of his neck and lines of red begin dripping down the back of his shirt before he has even fallen to the ground. No-one calls out to him as he dies.
The girl from Three ends up dead, face down in a river bank with a spear jutting out of her back. Bits of her spine can be seen around the entry wound, the bone spilt open with the force of the throw. The water runs a pale pink around her body, the river not strong enough to submerse her and carry her away like the ancient warriors of old. Annie can't help but remember the funerals of District Four where the lost are set out to sea, never to return. This little girl never got that chance.
She doesn't know how the pair from Seven die. She finds them while walking in the forest, two cold bodies curled up by a dwindling fire. Their faces are illuminated by the flames and her breath catches in her throat. They are the most beautiful beings she has ever laid eyes upon, faces soft and unscarred by the horrors around them. They look so peaceful that Annie almost lies down beside them, silently begging to share in their dreams. She doesn't even realise that they are dead until the sounds of the hovercraft shatters her dream-world.
One of the Careers is next, the strong, muscular girl from either One or Two who wields a sledgehammer in one hand and an axe in the other. Annie can't imagine that anything would have the sheer power to bring down the monstrosity but her wonderings are answered by the tiny hole revealed in her arm. Drugged to death by her own teammates. Later, she can't help but feel that it is by far the worst of all of the deaths she has witnessed.
The boy from Eleven is stabbed through the heart, although Annie can't be sure that the gaping hole in his chest is the cause of his demise. His skin is painted black and blue from fists and knuckle marks line his once pretty face, turning him into a depressing work of morbid art. Splashes of life, however, are trickled over his entire frame like an afterthought, the blood already clotting over his still warm skin. Precise incision marks are left like brushstrokes, covering every inch of the canvas with neat lines. His face has been rushed, the knife curving in an ugly arc and peeling off the skin on his cheeks. The painter was hurried, by an external source or his own excitement Annie is not sure, but his haste has ruined the artwork. It is disgusting and Annie is well aware of the thought flashing through her brain commanding her don't look! don't look! but she forces herself to stare into his lifeless blue eyes. It is the least she owes him – and the world – for she won't hide from the ferocity of the Games. Her noble sediment will turn her mad.
He is next. The burly henchman who throws knifes like Annie can throw fishing rods is beheaded before her very eyes. His head, a mop of black hair topping a blank expression, rolls down the hill and comes to rest by her feet. Some will say that she is lucky the executioner paid his token no more attention and continued on his merry way. In those few precious moments of clarity she dares spend dwelling on the Games Annie will disagree.
It is a slow process but each body has piled up and pressed down against the barriers of her mind until they are almost crumbling. His death sends them crashing down.
One cannot look into the harsh glare of reality for very long before one goes insane. Annie chose the degradation of her mind over the lies.
With the water comes sudden relief and the return of a part of her. The maddest Annie will ever be is in those few tangled hours when her weakening grip of reality fails her and she falls thousands of feet into the abyss below. But now she is drowning, submerged in the salty water of District Four and suddenly her scattered thoughts are pushed back and instinct takes over. She swims as she has always done, strong, even strokes at a constant rhythm. The beat helps her to relax and stops her throat closing up in panic. She does not swim to survive. She swims because it reminds her of home – a place she had almost forgotten.
She watches through blue tinted eyes as their bodies fall to the bottom, a trail of bubbles the only indication that they were once animated. Some fight the tide, thrashing and kicked out against the water in a hopeless struggle. Others are resigned and allow themselves to fall almost serenely to the lakebed, hair billowing out behind them. They look like mermaids under the water…
And appear as zombies once they have been extracted from the flooded basin with protruding, red-rimmed eyeballs and salt encrusted skin. Death cannot be romanticized.