Thud. Thud. Thud.
My heartbeat drowns my ears in ominous drum beats as I march towards the stone stadium and fate. I know he's there, waiting for me, maybe already setting traps and preparing for combat.
It's Vespasian. It has to be. I saw him kill Erinye with ease and take on two tributes without even sweating. I don't have a chance in a thousand years of beating him in a head-to-head fight, but what can I do? The gamesmakers are pushing me on, telling me it's time. I'm helpless, hopeless, and walking to my death.
The air stirs around me as if sympathizing with my plight, but my hair pricks up across my arms as a familiar voice in my head saunters out of the silence.
"Headed to death, little mouse? Is that what you think?" the voice taunts, shoving aside the empty void in my mind. "You and that rat who waits for you, who has yet to taste a sliver of challenge?"
The voice growls, and if it stood in front of me as a man, I could imagine it shaking in rage and frustration. "I admit, little mouse…I have been fascinated by your ability to stay alive," the voice says. "I would hate to toss aside such adaptability, such…potential…with one cut from a man-child who knows combat and nothing more. It would be such a waste."
"I think," it purrs. "We will…level the playing field, shall we?"
The voice trails off as I swallow my fear. I thought I had gotten over that voice in my head – the gamesmakers, the arena, my own subconscious, whatever it is that's haunted me through these tunnels. Yet it's right: Vespasian's a behemoth compared to me. He's trained and skilled with weapons, whereas I've slummed my way through the arena and have survived through luck alone. What's going to save me now?
I stop as I exit a wide street. The stadium looms large before me, a giant halo ringed by a hundred tall stone doorways. The fire beacon stretches out into the ceiling, disappearing behind the stadium's stone façade. A hundred feet above, dozens of thin black spires ring the top of the arena. I don't know what else lies in wait here, but I have the rising feeling that Vespasian won't be my only hurdle. This is the climax of the Hunger Games. The audience won't want it to be quick or easy.
Nothing left to do now but to walk in.
I grip my spear tightly and creep through the nearest rectangular doorway, careful to listen for any lurking danger. Vespasian could be right here. He could be standing in a shadow, his staff arched to skewer me straight through my eye.
It's dark in here. I've entered some sort of stone hallway lit only be glowing stones. A dozen or so meters ahead, a flat expanse stretches out into what must be the arena's playing field. That's it. That's where I have to survive. I can see the fire beacon blazing into the ground, but besides that, everything's covered in a black veil.
I step out of the tunnel as a cold wind starts to blow.
The ground underfoot's turned from hard cobblestone to loose, coarse sand. It's slippery, and I silently pray that I don't lose my footing in the midst of a fight. I look around and can just make out row after row of stone benches stretching up from the sandy field all the way to the arena's uppermost wall. I can picture spectators filled in, chanting my name, urging me to die for their spectacle. It's chilling.
Suddenly, the beacon dies and the arena goes dark. I hold my breath just as a thousand yellow lights flicker on brightly from the cavern's far-off walls, lighting up the arena with giant spotlights.
He's here.
On the other side of the sandy field, maybe fifty meters or so away, stands Vespasian. He doesn't look as if he's even taken a scratch. He still carries that deadly spiked staff he used to skewer the girl from District 2, and I swallow deeply when I imagine what it must feel like to be on the business end of.
He looks up, sees me, and sticks the wooden end of his staff into the ground.
"Color me a little surprised," he shouts so I can hear. "I didn't think you'd make it this far. I'm…happy it's someone worthwhile at the end."
My mind blanks. What's that supposed to mean?
"Yeah," I say, redoubling my grip on my spear. "I had some help."
Vespasian glances around the arena and grins. "Well, we don't need to draw this out, do we? To the strongest."
He picks up his staff and takes one step forward before he freezes on the spot. A loud, booming voice echoes across the chamber, and this time, it's not in my head. I can see Vespasian can hear this phantom speaker just as well as I can.
"The 69th Hunger Games!" the voice bellows and resounds around the stone and sand. "The culmination of decades of blood and challenge. Our work has brought us to this: One boy, one girl, fighting for the end of all things. But we have not always fought so nobly."
"First we rose from the ashes of a dead empire, the heirs of a land transformed, trapped in a world of our forefathers' founding!"
With that, a loud clanging sounds behind me. I glance quickly over my shoulder and see that metal grates have sealed over the many doorways in the arena's floor. The ground rumbles, and I see Vespasian's face mirrors the confusion racing through my head.
Without warning, stone pillars burst up from the floor. Some are low, just high enough for me to clamber on to, while others stretch off higher and higher. Narrow rock bridges stretch out from the tops of the pillars to one another, connecting them like some horrible vertical maze that turns the area into a three-dimensional labyrinth. I can just see Vespasian still through the garden of pillars, and I know I can't let my eyes lose my enemy.
"Then," the voice goes on, a blasting trumpet here in the subterranean depths. "We fought the Dark Days – brother versus brother, father versus son, bathing our motherland in blood until our rage blinded even the light of the sun!"
The lights around the arena all switch off at once, turning the arena so dark I can't even see my hands. Just as I begin to panic, the spires atop the arena send a thousand bright orange flames shooting into the air. The stadium glows in a flickering, ominous light where every pillar's shadow looks to jump out and kill me. I've lost Vespasian somewhere out there in the fire-lit twilight.
"Now, we fight the Hunger Games!" the arena's voice concludes, chanting with hardened vigor. "Our future pitted against one another in a struggle where our only aim is to survive, a battle where we must be prepared to face any and every obstacle that will stand in our way!"
Red fireworks shoot out from the top of the stadium, and in the light, I find Vespasian once again through the tangled mess of pillars. Suddenly, the clanging sound of metal against metal draws my attention from the side of the arena. A long, tall doorway in the wall slowly creeps open.
Something inside roars.
Just as the door retracts into the wall, I see a long, muscular, ashen-skinned leg step out with a thunderous slam. Sickly talons dig into the sandy floor of the arena. It's the hunter.
The mutt's enormous. It must have been a man once, but whatever humanity it once had has long since been stripped away from its eight foot tall frame. Each of its broad arms must be as long as I am tall, and their thick, clenched fingers could probably crush my neck in an instant. The mutt's torso slims out in a bony, spindly collage of protruding ribs and sick gray skin, but its elongated head is a gnashing mess of sharp, dagger-like fangs where a normal human's canine teeth would have been. Its eye sockets lie empty, merely voids into its skull.
Oh boy.
I'm frozen in shock just as I hear a pounding headed my way. I look up in time to see Vespasian charging towards me, his face set in stony resolve, his hands curled around his raised staff. He's looking to end this fight before that mutt can get involved.
That's not happening.
I shift my hands down to the lower half of my spear and angle my weapon towards him as he closes in. Vespasian ducks right and slams the spiked end of his staff into my spear with a thunderclap. It's a blast of power that I didn't expect from his lanky frame, and I'm just quick enough to keep my spear moving in time to counter the other side of his staff flying in towards my head. He's much faster with his weapon than Ladon, flashing the staff with both ends, jumping at me and retreating a step before lunging in again. It's a miracle I keep my feet and fend off his flurry of attacks, buying just enough time to swat away his staff with a hard whack! and dash away to put some space between us.
It's just enough time for the mutt to figure out where we are.
The mutt rounds on us and bellows a trumpeting roar. Vespasian freezes on the spot and turns his head towards the threat. I bet his training didn't prepare him for this.
I see an opportunity. I bend down as Vespasian's distracted for just a moment, grabbing a handful of sand and throwing it up in his face. He stumbles back and coughs, swinging his staff in front of him to keep me at a distance. It's alright: I'm not trying to attack him. I'm trying to get away.
The mutt charges.
Its feet slam the stadium floor with angry thunderclaps. Vespasian clears the sand out of his eyes just in time to see the mutt barreling down on him. He sprints off towards the edge of the arena as the mutt pursues.
That's my chance! I turn towards the nearest low-slung pillar and jump up to it, grabbing a hold of its bumpy top with my hands and pulling myself up. I need to get higher to get away from the mutt. No way can it climb up here – and I'll have an easier time with Vespasian on these narrow pillars and foot-wide bridges.
The mutt screams and snarls as Vespasian slashes it with his staff's barb. The creature just misses taking his head off with an arm as Vespasian hurtles back towards the pillar maze, but I'm already running up the nearest bridge towards a taller pillar to get higher.
Just as I get to the next pillar, however, the mutt turns and roars at me. It charges and slams into my pillar while scrabbling at the rock. My belief that the thing can't climb quickly is proven laughably wrong.
"Oh come on!" I hiss as the mutt claws at the rock, lunging higher and scraping at the top of the pillar to get at me.
I swipe and miss at the mutt's arm, but it's enough to keep the creature back for the moment I need to run across a bridge to a taller pillar. No sooner have I reached it then Vespasian's on me. I don't know how he get up here so fast, but I see his staff's barb coming in like a lightning bolt. I cry out and tumble away, slipping and getting to my feet at the edge of the pillar as Vespasian rounds on me.
He's breathing hard, and all the eagerness is gone from his eyes. The mutt's pushed him past enjoying the battle. He's fighting on sheer instinct.
Vespasian hops to the side as I stab at him. I shout and swing my spear faster, faster, trying to just get a good blow and knock him off the pillar to the mutt below. He jumps back to the edge and counters me with quick strokes. I'm getting tired from the speed of the fight, and before he can capitalize on my weakness, I swing and rush off to the next rising bridge. I hear him lurch at me, but I swing my spear aimlessly behind me and knock his strike aside.
Oh, this was a bad idea.
The mutt's climbed up the very pillar I've run up to. It shrieks and rushes me, a wall of talons and fangs coming at me like a train. I do the only thing I can do: I jump to a lower pillar luckily nearby, landing with a painful thud and gritting my teeth as the mutt snarls above.
I don't get a chance to breathe. Vespasian rushes at me again, juking past my spear and whipping his staff at my face. I lean back, but he takes the initiative and delivers a well-placed kick to my stomach.
"Oof!"
I tumble off the pillar and slam into the ground. Pain radiates through my back, but no sooner have I gotten to my feet then the mutt's back to the ground as well. It slithers between the pillars like a horrible serpent, its feet pounding across the sand. I try and run, but the mutt's on me in a second. It grabs me by the shoulder with one horrible hand, its touch like sandpaper that tears both uniform and skin. I scream in pain as it tosses me aside like a rag doll, slamming me into a pillar.
My head spins. I get up just as the mutt bears down on me again, but this time I'm ready. I step behind the pillar I crashed into and lunge ahead with the spear, driving it into the creature's ribs. It shrieks and steps back, leaking globs of viscous blood across the sand. To my horror, the mutt rips the spear out of its gut like it's a toy and throws it aside.
I'm weaponless. I run, keeping my eye on my spear as the mutt chases me through the pillars. It roars at me again, but it stops when I cross through the maze.
Vespasian's still a dozen feet above us, perched on a pillar and watching the action. His fragile peace is over: The mutt's spotted him and turned its attention away from me. I rush out towards my spear and grab my weapon as the mutt crashes into the pillar, driving its bulk into the column and unearthing the stone from the sand.
I hear Vespasian swear and hold on as the pillar comes crashing to the ground with a loud wham! He rolls off onto the sand, clutching his side and gritting his teeth as the mutt leaps on top of him. Vespasian shouts in pain as the mutt clamps its teeth down on his thigh and shakes its head like a dog, tossing the boy from District 2 into the sand like a chew toy. The mutt chases, but Vespasian's no easy target. He plunges his staff's barb under the mutt's chin just as it arrivews.
"Skree!" the mutt screams. It shakes him off and runs back towards the pillars in pain.
Vespasian's bleeding and limping as he gets to his feet. I might not have a better chance to end this.
I sprint towards him, ignoring the pounding pain in my shoulder and launching with my spear. He slams aside my strike, but Vespasian's wound has cost him much of the agility that made him so elusive and deadly. He stumbles back as I throw my last ounces of effort into the fight. We're both run ragged, bleeding, tired, breathing heavily, and desperate to survive.
I take one step too large as I jab at him and slip on the sand. It's all he needs to grab my spear and throw it aside before slicing me across the chest with his staff's barb.
"Ah!" I scream, leaping back as Vespasian jumps at me.
He grabs me around the shoulders with one hand, plunging his thumb into my wound and eliciting a shriek from my panting lungs. Vespasian drags me to the ground, rolling on top of me and shoving his staff's shaft towards my throat.
I grab the shaft just before it slams into my neck, but he's too strong. I won't be able to keep it off for more than a few seconds before he uses it to choke me to death.
No. It can't end now. Not after all that.
I don't think. I grab Vespasian's arm and rather than trying to push him away, I wrench him towards me. He's already forcing his arms down, and the unexpected move pulls him off-balance. I only have a second, but in that moment, I pull the staff just enough so that the barb falls under him.
"Ugh!"
I roll out from his grasp and step back. Vespasian's eyes are wide, his mouth gaping in shock. He's fallen onto the barb. The spike sticks out through his lower back.
Sickeningly, Vespasian stands up despite the grievous injury, forcing himself to his feet even with the staff protruding from his gut. I shudder and step back, reaching down for my spear as Vespasian shuts his eyes tightly and wrenches the staff from his body. A stream of blood trails out from the wound, and he stumbles back down to his knees.
I walk forward slowly, cautiously, watching for any quick movements. Vespasian falls down to his side and lays there in the sand, panting and huffing with thick, wet breaths. I kick aside his staff and lower my spear towards him. I've…I've beaten him, but I don't know what to do now that I have. I'm a killer, but not an executioner.
Vespasian looks up at me, one hand over his wound. "Give me a fighter's death," he gasps, his voice little more than a whisper.
I stare at him blankly. I can't do this. I can't gore a fallen child who can't fight back. This isn't killing Ladon or Morse. This is…this is wrong. I shake my head as bile rises in my throat and croak, "No."
Vespasian's face contorts. He lurches forward and grabs my spear, and in an instant of panic, I shove the weapon at him.
Whup!
My spear cuts a wide hole in his sternum. Vespasian gasps in pain and shock, his eyes wide, his mouth a gaping hole. He falls back to the ground, his hand still on my spear as his eyes roll back in his head. At the last moment, his face jerks and his muscles move as if on their own. He smiles.
I drop my spear and step back with a start.
Oh God. I did that. I just did that. I don't feel any of the hideous sense of excitement that I've felt in the arena from earlier, whether that was when killing mutts or killing Morse. I just feel…lost.
For the first time since I've fallen down into this horrible underground arena, I hear a strange sound. It's the unmistakable boom! of a cannon.
Something growls menacingly to my right. I look up as the mutt glares out at me from the pillar maze and slinks back into the shadows. I feel the sudden urge to pick up my spear and kill that horrible thing. It must have finished off Acton. I should get revenge, I should take its life just as it took my ally's – but I don't. I let it leave.
I'm too tired to fight anymore down here. I just want this to end.
A voice rings out over the haunting silence of the arena, but it's not the dark, ominous voice from before. It's Claudius Templesmith.
"Ladies and gentlemen of Panem," Claudius's words boom through the cavern. "Your victor of the 69th Hunger Games…from District 10, Summer Glenn!"
As a sleek silver hovercraft descends into the cavern from the oculus high above, I sit down on the sandy floor of the stadium, curl my knees up to my chest, place my face in my hands, and cry.
