A/N: Last update before exams starts. Maybe I'll upload double chapters after that to celebrate :D
Thanks so much to Ecargnotrom for reviewing repeatedly :)
Disclaimer: I never wrote the Hunger Games.
Johanna, you have failed.
The words swarm around in my mind, plaguing me, making me want to yell out loud for them to go away. They do, after a few hours of aimless wandering and gathering of various medicinal and edible plants, and eventually dissipate into the air behind me. It stays peaceful like this for half an hour before two cannon blasts, ten seconds apart, bring the words back to my mind. Johanna, you have failed. They're right. I have failed. I've failed to keep everyone alive. I haven't been able to admit that very soon, it will be me who will take their lives, but maybe that's because I know I will have to do it either way. I can't escape having to kill. And as much as I wouldn't want to say it, I will very likely kill because I want to, not because I have to. Again, the realisation hits that I'm no better than a Career.
Two cannons. Who could that be? Soraya? Cade? I better be going back now. I think I know the way back...I wander around for another two hours or so, or was it minutes? Days? I've lost track of time. I've lost track of who I am. But soon my senses snap back and I spot the strange swirling mists over the lake in the distance. I stumble back there, sweat dripping down my face and into my eyes even though it's still as cool as it was the first day. Overhead, it's sunset and the same orange and pink streaks crowd the sky, cleverly painted as if from an artist's brush, like the colourful scales on a fish. I glance wistfully at the lake, and all of a sudden surprise myself by taking off at top speed towards it. My pack bangs against my back as I sprint with sheer rashness. The four haunting words have fled the wind and now it whispers me on. Go on, it says. Go. Run.
The lake draws nearer with every ten metres I cover. Eventually I stop abruptly and feel my pack slam hard against my back. It's not because I'm tired. I'm never tired. It's because I see someone. The scared tribute boy, jacket pulled tight around his bone-thin arms, with nothing but a small stale loaf of bread. Alone. The familiar eyes turn towards me, pupils dilated in fear, limbs frozen, about to get up from the ground and run off. But he's too late.
It's the boy from 8. The one I saw with Soraya on the first day of training. He had turned towards me with resentful eyes that day, unwilling to speak. And now he's scared of me. Oh, what the Games does to people.
I react before I can think. Before I know it, the obsidian has left my hand and finds its target in the boy's chest. When he falls to the ground, I don't know what to do. I don't know what I've done. I go over, my confidence level below zero, and stoop down to retrieve my obsidian. He's breathing heavily, blood trickling out from his chest where he was hit. Then his movements stop altogether and the cannon fires. At the sight of this boy lying so helplessly on the grass, I feel a little bad, but shrug it off and run towards our rocks. The emotions will come later. It's done already, anyway, and I can't undo it.
But halfway I stop and look at my hands and my knife. Full of blood. I run to the lake to wash it off, and watching the blood float into the water and fade away, it upsets me. The blood flows away, but my guilty conscience does not. What have I become?
I enter the rocks when the sun has dipped below the horizon and the sky is the same electric blue as it is at home. Soraya pounces on me right away, wanting to know where I went and why I was gone so long. But I'm at a loss for words. All I do is just shake my head and ease myself down on the ground. I pass her the plants I gathered without any explanation, and sit with my head in my hands.
"Johanna? Is there something wrong?"
I look up to find the same bright green eyes looking into my dark ones. Bright green eyes that could have been gone this morning if the water was bad. "No, I just..."
"Well, eat something." She extends her packet of food and I take some of the biscuits inside.
"I...I'm sorry."
"For what, brainless?" She attempts to laugh and lighten the heavy feeling, but I just manage a weak smile.
"I...I don't know. Thanks anyway." I lie down and curl up. "Wake me when it's the anthem, ok?"
"Sure." Comforted by her smile, I close my eyes and let myself forget the events of the day. Might as well get some rest.
The loud blare of the anthem wakes me more efficiently than Soraya, and I sit up bolt upright, pressing my eye to an adequately large gap in the ceiling. The girl from 4 comes up first, which really surprises me. I can't say I was expecting a Career so soon. Then it's the boy from 8, whom I killed, then the girl from 9 and the boy from 10. Something inside me stirs when I look at the boys' faces. Maybe it's the realisation that they're gone, never to be back. It makes it worse I took notice of them before, that they have some place in my mind, however small that place might be. And I feel especially bad when the boy from 8 comes up. Long after the anthem is over, his face is burned into my mind, the scared look that greeted me when I saw him, the helplessness when he lay dead on the ground.
Right after the last cadence of the awful anthem is played, I lie back down, staring at the cold, hard rock surrounding us. I reach out a finger and scrape at the rock. I'm glad for the hood on my jacket as I pull it over my head. Johanna, you have failed. The whispers come back to haunt me again.
My sleep is restless and disturbed. At some time dead people that I knew before come back to life and they keep whispering my name over and over again, never pausing for breath, never tiring. It just goes on and on. JohannaJohannaJohannaJohanna...
I wake with a start and nearly hit my head on the rocks. In the dim light, I can make out Soraya hunched in a corner of the rocks, cupping my flashlight in her palm so the light won't show outside. I can hear the soft patter of droplets on a smooth surface, and look up to see the plastic stretched over my head like a roof, somehow tied to the rocks with rope. It's dark outside, and thunder rumbles. Some rain splashes onto my jacket from the holes in the wall of the rocks. The air is even colder now that it's raining.
"What time is it?"
Soraya looks up. "Around 10 in the morning. You were really knocked out, and it started raining a few hours after you slept."
I notice she looks tired. Probably didn't sleep yet. "You sleep now. I'll keep watch."
"Sure, brainless. Your breakfast is on your backpack." She switches the flashlight off and places it on the ground. Then she curls up in the same position as me, and I watch her drift off to sleep.
I switch the flashlight on and cup it in my hands like I saw Soraya do. A handful of mint leaves, some nuts and two biscuits lie on my pack, neatly arranged. My bottle of water, still full, sits beside it. I force down the bitter memory as I open the cap and take small sips of the water. Then I indulge in the food and a couple more mint leaves from my pouch. Who knows how long this rain will last, but hopefully it'll go down enough for us to get out and find more food and refill our bottles.
I watch Soraya as she sleeps, so peaceful, as if she weren't in the Games. Her look is relaxed and the creases on her face are non-existent. She doesn't move much; apart from the gentle rise and fall of her chest, she's so calm and relaxed it would be hard for one to believe she was in an arena full of children who are hunting her down. The only clue that gives that fact away is the scars, big and small, all lengths, running randomly on her abused hands.
The rhythmic drumming of the rain slowly dwindles to a light drizzle. I have nothing to do and just sit there, watching Soraya sleep, trying my best not to recall what I've done these past 24 hours. After a while, I start to whistle a tune I last sang years ago. There was the time when I was young, barely past four, and my mother would sing these songs to me. Her voice is as I remember it, clear and melodic, rising and falling with the words of the songs. I can still remember the times she sang, but I have to admit music has slipped my mind after her death all those years ago.
The tune flows with the drizzle. I look up at the clear plastic above my head, and watch the pools of water gather above. The rainwater should be clean. At least we'll have something to drink. I stuff some mint leaves in my mouth, relishing the blissfully minty taste. Then I pick up my obsidian knife from the ground and trace the tip on the surface of my skin. Bad choice. Almost at once, the invisible blood it is still coated in flows out into my hands. Innocent blood.
I press the sharp tip into my forearm, cutting a long, shallow gash on it. Now the tip is coated in my blood and though I don't really know why I just did that, at least the guilt is momentarily quenched. At least I have to suffer as well. At least I paid for my actions, however little I did.
The rain stops.
