A/N: You're going to like this one. *grins evilly* Bwahahahahaha!
Kiss me, out of the bearded barley,
Nightly, beside the green, green grass,
Swing, swing, swing your spinning step,
I'll wear those shoes and you wear that dress.
So, kiss me, beneath the milky twilight,
Lead me out on the moonlit floor,
Lift up your hand and strike up a band
And make the fireflies dance,
Silver moon's sparkling,
So, kiss me...
- 'Kiss Me' by The Fray
D9- 15- (Artemis Nightheart) – Day Five
"Will you talk about it now?" I asked, around five.
"No."
"Now?" Five fifteen.
"No."
"Now?" Five thirty.
"No."
It's the same answer. Every fifteen minutes or so, it's the same answer. Now, at six o'clock, I ask Addelynn for the final time. She glares at me, long and hard. Her glare is stern and like my mother's. It tells me to Stop. Now. It makes me feel young and makes Add seem old. Like she has authority, wisdom. Suddenly I have a billion questions to ask after the initial question she'll say no to.
"Fine," she breathes, and I raise my eyebrows, pleased. Everything about Add makes me feel so much younger, makes me act so childish. I make my face go back to a regular, bored look as she sighs. "I heard Max. They started to look for me, I shot a girl named Collette, and then I ran, got back here before things got bad. Okay?"
Her exasperated tone makes me want to ask her to give me more details, just to get to her, but she's my friend, I think, so I'm not going to. Instead, I think of what to ask her about her home life. Somehow, she doesn't seem like a really young mom.
"Do you have siblings?" I ask quietly, cocking my head to make me look innocent. To get answers. Years and years of acting innocent so I don't get put in jail for thievery, and now it just comes naturally to me.
She looks down, her eyes glistening suddenly. Her voice is small. "It was my dad. He…um, constantly abused me, and then… I have four kids," she explains. Her lip trembles, making me wonder how awful life really must have been back home for her. "Faye. She's three. The twins, Lily and River. They're five. And then six-year-old Liam, who's running the joint back home when my friend Dru can't."
I frown. "But…he's…six," I say, trying to compute Add's life story.
"Tell me about it."
D12- 12- (Chaste Christensen) – Day Five
Dark and chilly, the outdoors beckons to me like a mother to her child on an endless night. If you were in the middle of the castle, it might seem like midmorning at this time. But, being near one of these rare windows, I see that it's very early morning. The sun has just risen over the horizon. It settles and kicks out its footrest, making its slow way to the top of the sky.
I remember being captivated last night, captivated to the sun as it shone over the Ring of Fire. It seemed like it was falling from the sky. Its phosphorescent fire shone across the arena. I'm sure someone in the Ring of Wind could've seen the fiery holographic figure create such a beautiful picture, its reds, yellows, whites, and oranges melting to the green hills from one of the rings and the gray walls around the rings.
I lie back down on the cold concrete floors and cuddle against the dark black wall, hugging my knees to my chest. Coldness still creeps into my system, but I try to push it away. Drowsiness is overriding me, but I just can't seem to drift off. Stars of fire and bloody heat lick at me when I close my eyes, so I have to try to go to sleep with my eyes open.
When I do sleep, I have a nightmare.
I'm running. From what, I don't know. I don't question it though, not for a second. I don't even look back. I just continue to propel my legs forward in an insane attempt at running from my relentless enemy—whoever or whatever my enemy is.
Heat kicks at me like a playful child with a soccer ball. Except, this is painful. It hurts me and pinches me and bites at me with its raw, utter, evil force, so much so that I collapse and am forced to allow this wave of heat to beat me until it has burned every portion of me and I am nothing more than a crisp, not even salvageable. A miner after an explosion.
Suddenly my dad shows up. His eyes burn into me. He touches me, and all the raging pain I didn't know I felt comes flaring up, then pulls down until it stops. All is soothing and peaceful. My father's eyes still bore into my skull as I sigh happily, about to get up and go find Mom so we can all go pick flowers in the Meadow together.
"Chaste!" he screams. I've only ever heard Dad speak like this before, bellowing so loud people in the next district could hear, menacing and making anyone—even those he knows—feel a shiver creep up their spine and then back down, like a spider crawling up a wall. "Do not die. Do not, under any circumstances, join your mother and I. You hear me?"
"Yes, Daddy. I miss you, though," I say as he wraps his arms around me.
"Stay on the other side." Suddenly he's frantic. "We've lost her, Mother-dear! She's…with us."
I snap awake, frowning. That was the strangest dream ever.
I go back to sleep, smiling softly. I love my father. I miss him. Maybe this time I'll dream a good dream, and about him.
Only, it's not sleep when you never wake up.
CAPITOL POV.
Attica watched as the District Eleven female's cannon fired. She frowned, wondering how she could have just simply…died. She blew it aside. Oh, well, she thought. It's better this way, narrowing it down to our victor. Speaking of which…
She flipped over to the camera in which the Careers were on the screen. The normally-bickering pair of boys was not in a heated argument today. That disappointed the president. Instead of fighting with the other, Drake was sitting in a lawn chair, pale as a ghost, looking sick as a dog. That's odd… the president thought.
Nearby, her victor was vomiting all over the place, sicker than sickness can make you. Her victor! This was an abomination! Hunter was to be protected, not infected. How did they all get sick, anyway? The arena was supposed to be an illness-free environment. If one person got sick, the arena was supposed to make that person's illness not contagious in the least. How…
"Miss President! Miss Jacobson!" shouted the Head Gamemaker, Marco Rambodini, from outside her door. "May I come in? It's urgent!"
"Come in," Attica sighed angrily.
As soon as he came in, she melted, like always, to his face, just like Julius's…
Focus!
"There is a disease, as I'm sure you know, in the arena," Marco started. "It targets the brain. If you're younger, you can usually make it through without all the symptoms and then randomly die in your sleep, like our friend Chaste. But the older you are, the more symptoms you get, the more you vomit, and the more hallucinations you get when you're close to death.
"This disease has infected and started to show for the following: Hunter Blackthorne (but we're working to find a cure or at least something to help the disease so she wins, don't worry), Drake Flint, and Drew Reox. You can expect Myra De La Rosa and Maxmilian Leone to start to show soon, too, being so exposed to the disease and all. Especially Miss De La Rosa, as she has been…close to Drew.
"Those who have it but are in a good stage where no symptoms," Marco went on, "and very few strands of it is in their system—meaning we can fully cure these people—are: Melanie Dove and Artemis Nightheart."
"So…Gray, Myra, Maxmilian, and Addelynn are the only ones who don't have it at all?" Attica asked. She was appalled. How did such an awful thing get into her arena?! Someone was going to be killed.
"Yes, ma'am. We have reasons to believe that if Myra doesn't catch it soon, she is immune. And Addelynn is immune. We've run tests through the arrow's she's shot, and they've come up with the same answer," the Head Gamemaker told his president. "Immune. Every time. Myra's is always inconclusive, and Maxmilian and Gray's—theirs popped up as 'not immune.' Obviously Artemis, Melanie, Hunter, Drake, and Drew aren't immune—as wasn't Chaste."
"Okay, stop with this! How the hell did it get in the damn arena in the first place?" President Jacobson burst. She slammed her palms against the table in a fit of rage. "Who?! Which Gamemaker was it? They will be executed."
"He's already been fired, I can assure you, but execution seems a good choice, miss," Mr. Rambodini said, not at all shocked—or at least not showing it—at her outburst. "It was Dr. Daniel Smith-Wright, age twenty-four, and he's living in Apartment 307 of the Acres Building on Snow Street. He was in charge of checking over the immune levels for sicknesses in the arena, and he obviously did awfully."
Attica stood up, enraged. She threw a pencil at her copier. "Obviously! Kill him. Kill him now. Arrange his execution— No, wait. Let me arrange it."
"Of course, Miss Jacobson. Now, we've been sending down all the cures we've hired doctors to try and come up with based on their brainwaves and the oddness of the disease. Many have come close to working, but none have kept any of the sick healthy for long. In fact, those who caught it overnight got an immediate positive reaction, but five minutes later, they were ill again."
"Those being?" demanded the childish president.
"Drake and Hunter. Melanie caught it overnight, too, but she isn't far into yet. She was one of the two half-immunes whose immune system will be able to partway fight off the disease before giving up. The other half-immune is Gray. He hasn't caught it at all yet, and he hasn't moved much since he last settled, grieving for his dead ally. His brainwaves have shown us he is stressed and angry, though, and they point to the probability that he will go off on a hunt to kill someone soon, therefore most likely catching this disease," Marco explained thoroughly.
"We call it the Halved Disease, as, if it spread outside the arena, it could halve what's left of the human race right here in Panem. It could endanger our species. Which is why duplicate bodies will be sent home from now on, and the real, infected bodies will be stored in an underground area where we've stored sick or malfunctioning mutts for the past twenty years. That area will be closed off for mankind's safety, and most likely the volunteers to take the bodies will be killed. Of course, they will be troublemakers. We can't risk killing off too many at this stressful point in time, Miss Jacobson. Mindless deaths will be paid for when the last man on the planet dies.
"I am finished. I'll update soon. Goodbye, president. Don't forget antibacterial hand soap if you take a trip to the store," Marco concluded, and left Attica all alone again.
D3- 14- (Myra De La Rosa) – Day Five
"Here, Drew, another thingy came in," I tell him as he coughs up District Three and then vomits it out. I look away, the sight making me feel queasy.
He shakes his head vigorously. "It's not gonna work!" he bellows, anger and madness in his voice. "It's gonna help for a moment, and then it's just gonna bring it all back full force."
"I know, I know, but can you try it—for me? Do it because I want you better." I pause, looking at his involuntary look of guilt as he pushes it away as quick as it came. "You don't want me sick, do you?"
Immediately her reluctantly snatches the container from my hand and turns its lid slowly. Once a pop sounds, he pulls off the lid and throws it through the Ring of Shadow's forest we made our way into. The two brains of intelligent District Three children practically raised—whether we listen or not—for this stuff worked well together between us when I woke up, and now we're in the forest, my blackened, disgusting legs useless and his stomach a pit that holds so much food, and then makes him choke it up.
He told me it's all really painful. I didn't want to believe he was in so much pain, so I've told myself for the last twenty-four hours that he's over exaggerating; trying to get me to believe my condition is not as bad as it could be. I know that's not it, but somewhere in me I keep hoping that that's what it is and still I don't give in, for fear he won't quit. For fear that he will really have to explain to me what's going on, that it hurts.
He sips the medicine until the container is dry. Though his pale skin reddens immediately from the heat and his illness-filled eyes light up with relief, a scowl stays on his face. I don't blame him. He gets up, walks around, and sits down. Suddenly his scowl leaves and the face that means he's in a rush all of the sudden appears on his face. He gathers up a knife or two from me, and a lot of rope from my backpack.
"I'll be back in an hour. Go to sleep," he orders.
I nod. Sleep might not be so bad.
Once he's left, I try to hug my knees to my chest and sleep in a curled-up ball, but then I remember their useless, motionless burdens, not legs. They're no longer even limbs. So instead, I shift myself to my side and feel the awful weirdness that is not feeling the sticks poking on my legs, when a fly lands on one of them. A shiver creeps up my spine as I think about it. Even the parts that didn't get in fire—from my knees up—is a little burnt, and all useless. My legs are ruined.
Suddenly that's not what I'm thinking about. Suddenly all I can think of is Drew, and the relief I felt when he took this last medicine, the fear I feel for him now.
I drift off, wondering—Why am I thinking of Drew?
He shakes me up, bending over me with a smile. "I'm all better." He shows me a dead rabbit with its feet cut off, and lots of greens.
I smile back. He helps me sit up and then sits next to me. I look over at him at the same time he does to me, and then lean in and kiss him. The weirdest part—he kisses back.
And then…we're just encased in each other's being, wrapped in the other's warmth and the sensation that we just want each other until we finally pull away for breath.
And the one thing I can think of to say is "I had to do that."
A/N: A disease?! *gasp* How dare I!
Haha, nice little thingy there with the thingamabob, right? Now, just because Drew was healed, doesn't mean yours will all be. He wasn't tested for the disease, so they don't know he's a half-immune, and the cure that worked on him only works for half-immunes. They will, though. It's all piecing together to become one giant screw up of a Games, trust me.
AND FINALLY! DE LA REOX! (Myra and Drew's couple name is officially De La Reox.)
The tributes whose names are bold are alive:
D1- (Luxuries)
Male- Kaiden Johnson 16. 22downwiththecapitol22
Female- Hunter Blackthorne 17. Rikachan101
D2- (Masonry)
Male- Drake Flint 17. jblonde123
Female- Collette Finch 16. jblonde123
D3- (Technology)
Male- Andrew "Drew" Reox 16. CallingMeFakeWontMakeYouReal
Female- Myra De La Rosa 14. CallingMeFakeWontMakeYouReal
D4- (Fishing)
Male- Ryan Melly 12. Bowserboy129.
Female- Blessia Fornbrex 17.
D5- (Power)
Male- Sam Ryans 12. goldie031
Female- Miracle Rawlins 13. goldie031
D6- (Transportation)
Male- Apollo Ephraim 14. Rikachan101
Female- Melanie/Aureliana Dove 15. CapitolRules
D7- (Lumber)
Male- Tasi Merkava 16. RockSolid
Female- Temari Hyuga 18. ladyyuuki16
D8- (Textiles)
Male- Colin Crowe 15. experiment15
Female- Sahra Lemo 14. Bowserboy129
D9- (Grain)
Male- Gray Hager 18. Bowserboy129
Female- Artemis Nightheart 15. Rikachan101
D10- (Livestock)
Male- Maxmilian "Lion" Leone 18. CapitolRules
Female- Addelynn Demetriu 18. iJustMightBeCrazy
D11- (Agriculture)
Male- Rogis Trakholm 17. blueyoshguy
Female- Roslynn Ellis 17. experiment15
D12- (Mining)
Male- Haver Grale 17. Bowserboy129
Female- Chaste Christensen 12. Araka-chan
That is 9 out of 24! They are going quick!
Sorry if I killed your character. It had to be done. I mean, there is only one victor, right?