A/N- This chapter is brought to you almost completely by my cousin's iPod and the songs found therein. For the curious, Adrian's POV is brought to you by the song "Hello" by Evanescence. Kiteriin's is inspired by "I'm So Sick" by Flyleaf. I own neither. Both belong to their respective artists. Happy reading!

Chapter 13

Adrian Martinez, District 5

"Reno Serman," I tell Baylyn as the kid's face fades away. "He was fifteen. He had a sister, Qwinne. I heard him mention something about her to Berra, the District 11 girl back in the pre-Games holding building."

I hear the rustle of grass under Baylyn's head as she nods. "What else do you remember about him?"

I sigh. "Not much. I never talked to him. But he seemed like a good kid. A really good kid."

"It's sad, isn't it? That the good kids are the ones who get punished and the cruel ones are going to win and live out their lives."

"Wrianin Abro wasn't cruel," I point out.

"You really think every winner of the Hunger Games is going to be a good person who just couldn't keep their friends alive?" Baylyn asks. "I don't. And for every Wrianin there's bound to be a…To, or a Eulkichu or a Wesley. Someone who's not afraid to kill if it'll save them. And the good guys just can't fight back, because they refuse to use the tactics that others will sink to."

"People say that good always conquers evil in the end, but sometimes it seems like the things that have to happen, almost make it seem not worth it."

I'm silent. I don't know if I'm supposed to say anything, so I just think about it.

"I don't think anything bad can go on forever. People are too selfish to let that happen. They won't put up with it," I say finally.

Baylyn nods again. "And then new evils just take their place."

I look at her from the corner of my eye. "So you're saying you think people should just give up? Should just stop trying to fix the world because we're never going to be able to get it perfect?"

"No- well…I don't know what I mean," She sighs. "It's just hard to keep fighting when you're pretty sure that you'll never be happy, no matter how things turn out."

"That sounds an awful lot like giving up to me," I say, half teasing and half deadly serious.

Baylyn sits up and tilts her head back to look at the frosty clear stars above our heads. I wonder what it's like for them up there, so distant from one another. From everything. Safe from pain and danger and love and happiness and everything else that makes life so strange and complicated.

"Maybe. I just get the feeling that even if I win somehow, it won't be worth it. The price is awfully high. Twenty-three people, at least one of which will die atmyhands…I don't know if I can want that."

"Which is why you deserve it," I say.

"And we're back where we started, with only the murderers being rewarded," she sighs.

"Maybe someone will find some way to stop it eventually," I say. I don't know what to call it. A dream, a hope, a prayer. I just know how much I want it. Want the killing to stop.

"Not in time for us to get away. Or at least, one of us anyway," Baylyn murmurs.

I'm silent, because there's absolutely nothing to say to that. What can you possibly tell someone who will need to die if you want to live? What lies could you tell them to make it better? Nothing more than they could tell you.

There are always words to say, even now, but to speak them is almost unnecessary. They're written into our hearts and minds. They're inescapable.

The full moon's light shines down, turning everything into black and silver. As Baylyn and I sit in silence, trying to avoid the idea that one of us will die for the other to live. It's almost a physical thing, the moonlight. It's like being in another world, being underwater. You could swim through the moonlight, float a boat over the weight of sorrow. My eyes slide over the silver-blue grasses that surround us. They're perfectly still, unstirred by even the smallest breath of wind. It really is like the world has stopped in this moment.

"If…it comes to that…" Baylyn says with difficulty, "What are supposed to do?"

I don't look at her, just keep looking at the horizon's black expanse. "I don't know," I answer honestly. A thousand different scenarios play out in my head at once. In some I'm crowned the winner, in others Baylyn is, in many more we're both lowered into the ground, cold and dead. In some we both manage to escape, but there's no plan behind it. It's just fantasy. Fantasy won't save us.

"Me neither," she murmurs, and puts her chin down on her knees.

I almost feel like Idoknow, but it's like I'm sure of too many things at once, that don't make any sense together. I feel like I know I'll win and that Baylyn will and that we'll both die here. But only one can be right.

"Do you want to win?" Baylyn asks.

"Yes," I answer honestly. "I want to go home. I want to have my eighteenth birthday. I want to find Lier again, make sure she's okay. I want to forgive her and hear her tell me she forgives me too. I want to see my parents again, and my friends. I don't want to die."

We're silent.

"You?" I ask.

"Yes," Baylyn says after a moment. "If I survive this I'll have more to live for than I ever did before. I won't have to marry off into money, because I'll have more than enough of my own. We can move out of the slums. Maybe I can even find some way to get my brothers to stop drinking. But…what else am I going to take with me? Guilt?" She asks, her face darkening.

"Nightmares," I murmur.

"The hate of twenty-three families. How can you move forward with that?"

"You find something worth living for, I guess," I say back.

A gentle wind blows and then dies down again, like a false attempt at a smile.

Baylyn sighs and slowly lies down on her back, eyes fixed again on the stars. "If it's you and me I don't think I'll be able to do it. What scares me is the idea that I might be able to. What if something happens, and I'm that changed, so much that I'm willing to kill you?"

I understand what she means. It will never happen, I'm sure, but it's impossible not to fear the person you might become or the things you might do.

"You won't," I say simply. Because I'm sure.

"Neither will you," she says with finality.

It's a pact, one that I don't quite understand. We've agreed that we won't hurt each other. But what if it's us two at the end? What are we supposed to do? But somehow I'm sure it won't come to that. It can't.

The wind blows again, gently. It doesn't die this time. It's like we were given a reprieve to work through all of that, and the moment is gone now. At any moment we could die. It's a reality I'm none too happy to return to.

The wind is cold and Baylyn curls up beside me for warmth and closes her eyes. I'm taking first watch, I guess. Alright. That's fine. I need some more time to think.

Kiteriin Fromet, District 7

I'm having a terrible nightmare, I know. But I can't wake up. I've already tried. I've ripped out my hair, screamed at the sky. I've begged someone to wake me up. But I'm stuck here.

I'm in danger, that's all I know. No matter how long the dream stretches, my death is a split second away from me. It wouldn't make sense in the waking world, but in dreams it is the truth.

I don't know what is threatening me. It crowds into my mind so totally that I can't understand what it is, like something held so close to your face that you go cross-eyed trying to look at it. It's pressing in on me like thousand pounds of pure hate and fear. It is all around me; it's so close to me. It hovers just outside of my body, malevolence and anonymousness clawing at my mind.

It cannot be outrun, but to stop is too much to imagine. Run, run, run. Run everywhere and nowhere because of no reason but the terror clawing its way through my gut. Ripping me open and tearing me apart before I can even cry out in pain.

I can't cry out; my throat is blocked by the sheer enormity of my terror. Why is everything so black? My vision swims as the mist hangs over me like a blanket, tucking me into bed to sleep forever. It won't let me scream. But I scream with my eyes, with the way my jaw works and the shaking of my body.

I trip and I fall toward the ground for years, catching myself on pebbles that rip into my hands like the sharpest edges of glass as they free my blood. Good, good. At least part of me can escape, can run away from this. If I bleed to death maybe all of me can escape in little pieces. My axe spins away and I forget about it immediately. It's of no use to fight this, just extra weight to slow me down.

I hum to myself because the music is supposed to help. That's why mother used to sing to me. So I wouldn't be afraid. But the danger drinks my song before it passes my lips, leaving me so silent that perhaps I'm not asleep but dead and in eternal punishment for the life I took. But her death was quick. This is far worse than death, and it's not over.

It slips down onto me like a hand against my skin and I can scream. I scream. I scream. I scream. I can scream again.

It coats my fingers and its touch is the clammy cool fingers of a drowned corpse. It touches my wrist like blood pouring from a wound. My elbows are consumed in acid. My head is wrapped in a funeral cloth and my shoulders are purged by fire. Spiders' legs rustle down my back and snakes' dry sliminess wraps my legs. My feet are frozen by mist that hangs in a graveyard like a silent mourner.

It has taken me completely. It is all around me, sinking into my skin just slowly enough to make me craze the death that is still half a moment away from me and always will be.

I am falling through myself as I scream and it chases me down where I thought no one could follow. I run deeper into my soul, feeling it tear me apart at the edges. It eats away my love, my joy, my humor. It rips apart the good inside me, so there can be more room for the fear. The fear that makes me want to kill the world so that it will stop and I will end. It runs through me like I do not exist but to give it form. Every scream that issues from my mouth is pure fear escaping to sweeten the world in its selfish way. Every hair my still-moving hands rip from my head is its food and drink and it revels in the sanity the pain drives further and further away. As I claw my face to cut it out of me, ripping at my skin, the funeral wrappings, the blood is merely fear running down my face. The tears are fashionable young ladies leaving a party, draped in mild-mannered silk and diamonds. They laugh at me struggle because it's lovely in their eyes.

I want it to stop, only for it to stop. I must kill it. I see it all around me. There! A movement catches my eye and I scream and launch at it.

I must kill it.

I must die.

I must wake up.

But I can't wake up. I can't. I can't wake up, because I'm already awake.

Surviving Contestants:

District 1: Wesley Sawr (Wez-lee Sahr)

Baylyn Homer (Bay-lin Ho-mur)

District 2: Hary Lumer (Hawr-ee Loo-mur)

Eewyn Carre (Yew-in Cuh-ray)

District 3: Nolaf Killt (No-lof Kilt)

District 4: Mattrick Brint (Ma-trick Brihnt)

Evita Cormichael (Eh-vee-tuh Core-michael)

District 5: Adrian Martinez (Ay-dree-un Mar-tee-nez)

District 6: None

District 7: Kiteriin Fromet (Kit-er-een Fro-met)

District 8: Caspian Toushone (Cas-pee-in Too-shown)

Roe Tamden (Row Tam-dan)

District 9: None

District 10: None

District 11: Dewq Deffen (Duke Def-in)

Berra Timsing (Bare-uh Tim-zing)

District 12: None