A/N: My god. We're so close. I already have the obituaries written for the Bloodbath. I don't know whether to be excited or terrified tbh. Well, here we go! ALSO SUBMIT TO PESTILENCE IT'S STILL OPEN BTW AND THERE'S A LOT OF EMPTY SPOOOTS ~
Alicia Marleen, District 12 Female
My heart is beating fast- too fast. I bury my head in my pillow, but my head is pulsing with so much pain that I can't imagine I'll ever sleep again. Sweat pours from my pores, wetting the blankets until I'm a sweat-stained, burning mess with a headache for the ages. I swear, my heartbeat's moved to my cranium. My eyes seem to be glued open.
I pull myself from the bed and my stomach heaves. My face twists. Acid eats at my insides. I double up, my lips scrunched into a tiny frown. I don't realize I'm crying until my cheeks are wet.
Something is very, very wrong.
The thought registers in my head right before I double over and puke my guts out.
Sick splatters the ground as my arms tighten around my middle. Acidic tears slip out from beneath my tangled lashes. I barely manage to straighten up before I barf again, green chunks splattering across the ground. I slip in my own puke and manage to skid across the room and out the door. I turn my sick-spotted face to the security cameras, silently pleading.
Ten minutes later, I'm shivering under a blanket. Amara is shivering too, although she isn't hurling. Every few minutes I need to puke, and everytime I do, she flinches. My heart hops like a jitterbug.
"Amara, I think something's wrong." I say hesitantly, after a few minutes of agonizing silence. She jerks up, and I pathetically spit some chunks into the bin. "Other then nerves, you mean?" She worries. I nod. "My heartbeat is really fast…" I say quietly. "I have a big headache. And I can't sleep." Amara's eyes widen, and then, surprisingly, narrow.
And then she says-
Well, she says-
"Did… did you drink regularly in twelve?"
Six minutes later, we've confirmed. I'm dealing with alcohol withdrawal.
"I don't know how this happened." I say in between tears and barf. "I… I just… there was nothing else to eat and drink so we just…" I trail off and wince at how this sounds.
"I'm… I'm not addicted, Amara! We literally didn't have anything else to drink, and, and…"
I hunch over and hurl again, tears dripping from the edges of my eyelashes. "That sounds pathetic." I whisper. Amara sighs and rubs my back comfortingly. My fingernails bite into my thighs.
"I understand, baby." She whispers sadly. "I get it."
I blink up at her, confused. Droplets cling to my lashes. "You're a victor." I say hesitantly. "You can have whatever you want." Amara leans far back into her chair, pointy nose aimed for the ceiling. "I grew up in twelve too, y'know. I was surrounded by poverty my entire life, just like you."
And before I know it, I'm listening to Amara's life story.
"I was a merchant's child, but that doesn't mean I was rich. That's a common Seam misconception about merchant kids, or so I'm told." She begins, the palm of her hand rubbing circles on my back as I retch. "It just meant I starved a little less. I got as little food as everyone else, but while Seam kids got dandelion bread and barely-edible herbs, I got sticky pastries and curls of sugary icing. We didn't have more food. We just had heavier food."
She affectionately ruffles my hair. "We needed tesserae too. Not for food, like the Seam kids, but to trade for necessary items, like soap and thread. We only took about one extra slip, though, so the chances any of us would be reaped were slim."
"But lo and behold, our escort pulled my name out of the bowl. I was petrified, y'know. Nearly pissed my pants on the spot. I was a barrel of tears."
Her long, slim fingers twitch in my thin locks.
"I was a sobbing mess up until the interview where I just… snapped. I was so tired and so done. I couldn't muster up the energy to shed another tear. So I started laughing. Joking. The audience was bewildered by me. Baffled. But it worked. They saw my change of face and decided I was determined enough to win this thing."
"I wasn't, really. I hid in a hole until the final three. My arena was a wheat field, and I got by by curling myself into a ball and keeping myself from starving by pure force of will. It was simply luck that the scarecrow mutts didn't decapitate me, or that the crow mutts didn't peck my eyes out. At the final three, the Gamemakers set the arena on fire and warded us towards the cornucopia. I was with two Careers, the boy from One and the girl from Two. The girl from Two was already wounded, so the boy killed her easily. Then he approached me. I had never been so scared. I leaned away from him and grabbed my pocketknife. I hid it behind my back as he approached me…"
Her face grew taught as her hand retreated. I waited in breathless expectation, so floored I had forgotten to puke.
"He pinned me to the ground and rose his machete, thinking I didn't have a weapon. I gripped the handle of my knife, shut my eyes, and plunged it up. I heard his screech of pain and a thump. I cracked my eyes open and saw him lying on the ground, moaning in pain."
"But I wasn't brave enough to end it."
"I crawled into the cornucopia and sobbed my heart out on the cold metal floor, overflowing with tears and disgust for myself. How could I do this? How could I let him suffer? But anytime I thought about ending it, my entire body froze. I wasn't even thinking of victory. My mind was completely glued to that boy, writhing in pain."
"Human emotion is funny." Says Amara sadly, pulling me into her chest and letting me dry my face on her shirt. "He was a horrible person, the peak of human stupidity and cruelty. But his ordeal made my stomach twist into knots. He murdered three people, and would've murdered me too, but the thought of killing him made my brain scream in protest. So I just leaned up against the cold wall and waited. I prayed. I cried. I think I cussed out the audience at one point. It was all a blur."
"Finally, finally, six hours later, his cannon rung loud and clear and I emerged to scorched prarie, blinking in the sunlight like a mole. The trumpets played. The claws lifted me up. I was free, and yet I couldn't stop thinking of the neat red hole in his stomach, of his writhing and howling. It was a poisonous loop playing in my head…"
The doorbell ringing cuts her off. She startles, like a frightened mouse, and scuttles to it. An avox hands her a capsule, which she passes off to me. I swallow a pill as she instructs me.
My headache doesn't clear immediately, but I stop feeling the surge of nausea, which is good. Amara pats my brow and plants a kiss on my head before leaving, shoulders slumped, fingers twitching.
I sleep on the floor, and think of my mother.
A/N: Originally there was going to be one long chapter, but once this hit 1000 words I decided I was better off splitting it into halves. Two chapters until the bloodbath, guys! I'm so scared but so excited at the same time. Thank you for following this story, and I urge you not to stop following it if your character dies. Because A, I'll get pissed, and B, it's kind of a shitty thing to do. Thanks!
((whispers: also submit to pestilence pls))
-Spark
