*Drumroll* Ladies and Gentlemen, the finale!
Livius Ostrovski, Head Gamemaker.
It was 7.45 PM. Televisions in every home, bar and sunbeaten square blared statistics, predictions and footage of these Hunger Games and previous editions. News-time, compulsory across the Districts and the Capitol, took a mort festive air during Games season. One million pairs of eyes, from the bleary-eyed miners of Twelve to the hard-jawed Career trainees of Two's Annex, would be riveted on the recap to be aired in less than two hours.
Livius' shoulders ached from tension as Panem held its breath. Around him, the command room was unusually quiet.
District Seven male and district Three female stood frozen, their backs to the waterfall, their gazes locked.
"They don't look too keen on killing each other..." Cassandra pointed out.
Livius frowned in consternation. Yolo was an unknown value but the female had proven she could kill in cold blood. Now was not the time to be difficult!
Of course Livius was prepared for such an eventuality. Uncooperative tributes were more the norm than the exception.
"Cortès, tell the hovercraft to land and prepare the course."
"Yes, Sir. Forty seconds until the first path is dug."
Livius raised the microphone linked to the arena speakers to his lips. "Mercury and Yolo," he began, his voice booming in every house in Panem, "for eight days you have faced darkness and tortuous grounds and survived through wits, ability, and sheer strength of character. There is a hovercraft waiting for you at the top of the waterfall. The hovercraft will carry only one to the Capitol. May the odds ever be with you!"
Yolo grinned at Mercury. She flashed him a hesitant tight-lipped smile.
"I've closed the dam to reduce the waterfall noise. Mutt ready to be inserted at your mark," Eloise announced.
Livius pressed his lips to the microphone. "Run," he breathed.
The rocks to the tributes' left sunk into the ground, revealing a steep path snaking upwards towards a thirty yard cliff, and beyond, a grassy plateau and the hovercraft. Mercury and Yolo were off, running at breakneck speed.
"Change the music to something more rousing, Cassandra," Livius ordered. "Stop! That's perfect."
The male was predictably quicker on his feet. He scrambled up the rocky path, half-running, half-climbing. Soon, it'd be all climb.
Time to give the arena some teeth. "Eloise, mark!"
The cameras switched and the screened zoomed out, embracing the flooded valley. Fifty yards beneath the tributes, Aurora and Corsair lay motionless, their fingers almost brushing.
"Close up on, Corsair. Eloise -"
"Got it, Boss," Eloise interrupted.
The cameras were almost delicate as they zoomed on the Two's dead champion, tracing his chiseled muscles, and giving the slightest shake, like a tremor, as they encountered blood and torn clothes, and the throwing knife impaled in his neck.
Corsair moved.
Midas and Xerxes gasped.
A white blur filled the screen. The wide-angle cameras captured Corsair, thrown like a ragdoll into the water below.
The white wolf muttation the size of a bull howled, its bared teeth the size of Yolo's forearms, its jaw locked on the knife it had yanked out of Corsair. Red eyes burned and turned towards Mercury.
The beast ran. Next to it, the tributes were slow as snails.
"Last live survey indicates no marked preference in the crowd. Yolo gained fifteen percent in the last ten minutes. It's 51 percent to 45 in Yolo's favor."
Indeed. Who'd have thought that gangly thing had it in him to kill Mesmer? It helped he'd done it to avenge the beautiful Aurora. So very tragic.
Mercury, already lagging behind, glanced backwards and missed a step.
Her eyes blinked, once, twice. She opened her mouth. "Aster, I need claws!"
Livius glanced at District Three's sponsor income. It had skyrocketed after Georgie's delightful "compassionate" murder and Mesmer's rescue, but so had the prices.
"Midas, give it to them. Eloise, hit the brakes on that thing."
The wolf slowed, eyes never leaving Mercury. It lifted a leg, freeing a jet of acid piss against the rocks.
The silver parachute marked '3' zoomed down amidst the wolf's threatening snarls.
Mercury, half-way up the rocky path, swiftly slid the weapons on. Six seven-inch long steel blades shot out of her balled fists and glinted in the light. Livius's golden mustache twitched in anticipation. He'd expected her to run, to reach the cliff just in time to avoid the beast. Late mutts were good sources of tension, but having them decide the winner didn't sit too well with the audience.
He couldn't say no to a fight, though.
Yolo had reached the top of the path and now was faced with thirty yards of slippery rocks and roots. Without a look backwards, he expertly began to climb.
Behind him, the white wolf howled and sped off once more. A shiver seemed to bend Mercury's body in half. Her pale blue eyes were wide in fear. Despite the claws, she looked so very breakable.
"Keep -"
"I won't kill her, Boss, promise." The glee in Eloise's voice didn't completely ease Livius' nervousness.
The female abruptly broke into a run. In the beast's direction.
"A little bite, maybe?" Eloise teased, her fingers flying over the console that remotely controlled electrical stimuli in the mutt's brain.
"No, no!" Livius wasn't in a joking mood. "We can do better. It's not over yet."
The wolf leaped, huge, airborne, foam dribbling from its snarling mouth.
Mercury let herself fall backwards to the ground, claws up.
She vanished under the beast. Livius sucked in a breath. Eloise could keep it from biting but she couldn't control its weight.
A blood-freezing howl of rage and pain burst from the mutt's lungs. It rolled away from Mercury, crashing to the ground.
The gamemakers gasped as one. The mutt's stomach was shredded, blood pooling over its white fur and intestines dangling out. Spittle mixing with blood, it clumsily dived towards Mercury, in a daze on the ground.
"Kill it, Eloise! Now!"
The female from Three would feel heroic when the mutt slumped, or lucky if she was half as smart as she pretended to be. Nobody would be the wiser, and she'd walk out from the confrontation bloodied and looking like a beast herself.
That was the heart of the job, Livius had learned. Make the tributes look dangerous. Make them look beastly. 'A teenager, with metal claws, can kill a huge wolf, that's why we need a higher peacekeeping budget.' Oh yes, Livius knew exactly how things worked in Panem.
The light dimmed in the wolf's eyes. Its bloodied canines snapped shut a foot away from her neck. With the right camera angle, it would look like a near miss. It opened its mouth again, its snarl strangled.
Its paw slammed violently but sluggishly into Mercury's chest.
Mercury, still half-stuck under the wolf, screamed in pain under the wolf. She raised her unhindered arm with blinding speed and screamed. The mutt twisted, its teeth twisted going for her. Livius winced. Eloise had control but biology wasn't 100%, that beast still had some instincts.
"OOh, atta girl!" Eloise squealed. "Dead, two seconds early. Those blades went right through its hypothalamus"
Mercury wriggled out from under the shredded, bloody mutt-heap, she pulling a limp arm covered in spit and blood out of its mouth. Her other arm was clutching her chest.
Obvious teeth mark marred her right wrist and forearm.
Midas whistled in appreciation. "I was scared and I know Eloise had a handle on Wolfie. Kid's a wild one."
"I want her to have a chance at catching up," Livius ordered, a hungry smile lighting his features. "Keep the suspense up, collapse the cliff, bottom-up."
Slowly, the rocks began to crumble beneath Yolo. The young buck, a full fifteen yards above the ground, pushed himself harder.
As if he had any power here.
Another part of the cliff collapsed to reveal a much easier, if steep, path to where the hovercraft was waiting.
Her face twisted in pain and her right arm limp by her side, Mercury stumbled towards the shortcut, a flinty determination in those blue eyes. Soon, she was at the same altitude as Yolo and gaining ground.
Agile as a squirrel, a panting Yolo reached the top of the crumbling cliff.
"Mercury Kernel just gained a twenty percent lead on polls with her last stunt," Cassandra said, her wry voice denoting her experience at dealing with the ever-changing fancies of the Capitol audience.
"Collapse," Livius ordered.
The rock Yolo was standing on fell from under him. The tribute leaped, grasping a protruding root. His feet thrashed as he desperately sought more grip, his eyes riveted on the cliff edge, just out of his reach.
The root cracked under his weight.
All the cameras zeroed in on him.
Livius bit his lip. If the fall killed Yolo... Well Caesar would spin some bullshit about him not fighting hard enough.
A hand appeared on the screen, latching itself on Seven's male's arm. Yolo gasped and pulled himself to solid ground.
"Why did she do that?" Eloise exclaimed, gaping.
"I think she's asking herself the same question," Antonio muttered.
The bleeding, teary-eyed tribute from Three looked both appalled at herself and triumphant as she finished helping Yolo up. A wry grin bloomed on Livius' face. Now that was footage they could have fun with.
The music changed to something slow and ominous. A great mood setter. Livius gave Cassandra thumbs up.
"The rocks down there looked painful," Mercury said with a small smile.
Yolo was looking at his feet. "Sorry I left you to the mutt."
Aww. "Wake up the grass." Livius had no intention of returning to the stalemate of two tributes unwilling to kill.
Cassandra switched the soundtrack back to an epic symphony.
As if they had heard, the two tributes' eyes were riveted on the three hundred yards of green grass separating them from the now visible hovercraft. Within seconds, they were running again.
Spiked vines seven feet high shot out of the ground. The closest ones darted towards the warm running bodies.
Yolo's agility was something to marvel at, he dodged and jumped, unmindful of the energy it took, and yard by yard, grew nearer to the hovercraft.
Xerxes and Midas had taken to cheer in tandem at each of his better dodges.
Mercury was nimble herself, but slower and more careful to spare her energy. Or simply too wounded to do better... Her blades cut the whip-like plants as much as she dodged them.
Livius couldn't care less who won, he just wanted this win unforgettable.
"Be ready to stop the vines, Cortès. I don't want two corpses," he warned as the two tributes avoided simultaneous strangling attempts.
The female stopped, drunkenly hacking at an incoming vine. Her strength was quite obviously waning.
"Is she giving up?" Eloise said, her painted lips pursed in disappointment.
Crying out in pain, the seventeen-year-old dug a blade into her right upper arm. Livius winced as blood spurted out. She looked close to fainting. What was she doing?
"We lost her tracker!" Xerxes announced.
"The plant's sensors are blind to her now." Cortès said. "Do I reveal the pits?"
Mercury stumbled towards the hovercraft, unhindered now and gaining on Yolo. Her ragged breathing grew more labored with each second.
"No. if she doesn't faint, she's good," Livius decided.
"If tributes start messing with their trackers..." Cortès mumbled crossly.
Cassandra put a soothing hand on his arm. "And who in the audience will know she removed her tracker? They don't even know about the trackers."
"It's the last two! Who gives a damn," Xerxes said, his eyes riveted on the screen.
"The boy's still in the lead. Speed up, Yolo," Antonio said eagerly.
The blonde's head twisted backwards as the female overtook him.
He stumbled. A strange look entered his gray eyes. He'd been strung as a bow. Now... Livius frowned. What's going in on in that little head of yours, Seven?
Yolo ducked out of an aggressive vine's way. He straightened with a gasp, his run awkward, his eyes wide. His concentration had surrendered to something wild.
His hands shook. They weren't empty anymore. A wooden whistle.
Yolo, pale and shaking with exhaustion, emptied his lungs in it.
An odd bird-call sound exploded from it as Mercury overtook him.
The tributes' version.
Mercury's POV
Mesmer was dead. Mercury could barely wrap her mind around it. Dead. Yolo had killed him. That long-haired kid who had seemed immune to negativity.
She stood frozen two yards away from Yolo, salt water dripping down her neck.
She knew what she had to do. She'd done it before. Except, no. Not like this.
Yolo was thirteen, cheerful and loved. She could save him and end this nightmare.
She stood unmoving. She couldn't kill him. She didn't want to die.
Their eyes were locked, twin pleading stares, yearning for a means of survival that wouldn't come at such high a price.
She didn't dare look away. Three corpses, Corsair, Aurora, Mesmer, were right there, at the edge of her vision.
She swallowed. She kept her eyes on Yolo. Yolo smiled awkwardly, his eyes filling with tears. Mercury blinked back her own.
The Head Gamemaker's announcement put an end to their stalemate.
Mercury felt like weeping in relief.
She was cowardly enough that she smiled back at Yolo. But it made all the difference. To not be the one drawing blood. It was semantics, a pathetic piece of comfort, but here of all places it felt like an obscene luxury. She breathed easier, adrenaline burning up her limbs.
"Run," the Head Gamemaker's voice ordered, his whisper chilling the whole arena.
Mercury ran like she'd never run before.
Between gulps for air and arms cutting the air, she blinked. She drew in a sharp breath, her short lived exhilaration morphing into panic. Yolo was in front. The distance between them was growing.
She chanced a glance backwards. Was it instinct or luck, she'd never be able to say.
That glance saved her life. Behind her was a mutt. A man-sized white wolf, rushing for her.
The distance between them was decreasing much too quickly. She was prey. She'd never reach safe ground in time.
Her mind scrambled for a solution. Any solution. She took a burning breath. These were the Hunger Games. Her life depended on a showy response.
She needed a weapon, and fast.
A scream built in her throat and lungs and stomach. "Aster, I need claws!"
Yolo's POV
He was quicker, of course he was. Mercury was a girl and not used to tough physical work.
She shouted. He tried not to listen. His lead was good. He smiled between his gasps. He didn't want to smile. It felt mean to her. He couldn't help it.
Shae, I'm coming home!
Yolo never looked back as he kicked his shoes off and began climbing the slippery vertical cliff. It was harder than any tree he'd climbed in the swamps. He could do it, though. He felt like he could do anything right now.
His hardened feet and calloused fingers found the best grips. He pushed himself up. He groaned. He cursed. He climbed.
His bare foot slipped when a beastly roar slammed into him. He locked his position down, his fingers white on the cliff, just in time to be skewered by a scream of pain.
People shouldn't scream like this. Ever.
Yolo screamed too. He screamed louder because he was alive and he had to get out. Out of this evil place. Home. Shae, Liana, Dasheen, Mom, Dad, Trudy, Billy. The trees and songs from home. Even the swamp eels. He forced himself up, forced his bleeding fingers to pull. His screaming legs to push.
He didn't look back. He couldn't look back.
He slowed when there was no cannon for a long time. He was almost at the top.
Bad idea. Beneath him, rocks began to fall off, as if they'd been held together by glue and now the glue was falling off.
Was there anything here that wasn't a lie? Yolo swallowed his rage and scrambled the last of the distance to the top. He could see the flat grass leading to the hovercraft. He was so close!
He tore his eyes away from the cliff-side when he heard fast shallow breathing to his left.
She's alive! He thought, relieved. His smile died, realizing what the Gamemakers giving her a shortcut meant for him.
The rocks were falling too fast. Now putting speed over safety, he forced his tense arms to use roots as levers and cut his feet on the smallest of grips to propel himself up. He was pushing his body beyond endurance. His head swam as he struggled to breathe.
So close. The cliff's edge was just an arm-length away.
Mercury's POV
She's never thought she'd one day be able to withstand such pain.
He chest felt caved in. That unnatural white beast had put all its weight against her ribs. Every breath was like walking through a wall of sharp thorns. She was surprised see her wrist was still attached to the rest of her body, because she certainly couldn't feel it. It was as if someone had hit her right shoulder with a searing hot frying pan.
But she'd killed it. She was alive.
Her legs moved of their own accord up the path, one step after the other. She didn't have to look to know Yolo was climbing, that little squirrel. She didn't think she could have climbed that even on a good day.
Mercury kept her head down, afraid she would collapse if she lifted her eyes and saw how far she was from her goal.
One more step, just one more and it's all over. She told herself, willing her body to accept the lie.
She breathed in deeply. The stabbing sensation in her breast had her cry out.
Light-headed and stumbling, she almost snickered. What a wreck.
She'd never thought it could hurt so much.
She blinked. Flat grass.
She raised her head.
The hovercraft, not so far, in the grass. It was just grass.
She could make it.
Loud groans right at her feet caught her attention. Mercury finally noticed that the cliff was collapsing.
Yolo was desperately clutching a root, tearing it out of the rocks. A thirty yards fall.
Before she could form any conscious thought, Mercury was on her stomach, her good hand the only thing keeping Yolo from falling.
She blinked. She really should let him drop now. She felt drunk, if drunkenness was pain. She shouldn't be functioning. It was like her brain had even given up registering it.
Two hands, slender hands, calloused hands, were latched around her wrists.
Yolo's terrified gray eyes were riveted on her face as he pulled himself ip.
Her lips twitched, exhilaration making the pain almost bearable for a second.
Let the Capitol do the hard work.
"The rocks down there look really painful," she managed between gasps, the twitch on her lips blooming into a small smile.
Yolo's POV
His body was on fire.
The thorny vines' aim was just good enough to force him to dodge in the most tiring way possible every time one went near him. Which was every four or five steps, at most.
He was ahead again, despite feeling like the slowest of snails.
He gulped down air, which felt more like fueling the fire than helping at all.
So close to home.
Somehow he kept going.
The girl from Three screamed again.
He could see her in his mind, so much blood everywhere, her hair all tangles but her smile true. Some of her blood was on his hands.
He owed her.
He owed his family.
His feet were coated in Mesmer's blood.
He was furious and sick. The Games were a trap. There were no right choices.
Duck under a vine, jump and dash to the side, duck again. He wasn't even thinking about it anymore.
His brain froze. He could hear her, wheezing not far behind.
How? No mutt had earned her a shortcut this time. An anguished snarl left his lips. Did they want him to lose?
He dived a hand in his pocket to grasp Shae's whistle, desperate for any kind of support. He willed his legs not to betray him, finding against all odds the strength to roll to the side, scramble back to his feet, and take off again for what seemed the hundredth time.
Against all odds.
'May the odds ever be with you!' Capitol voices sing-sang in his head.
The hovercraft.
Mercury, close enough he could see her just by turning his head, running with none of the grace she'd had before. She was so pale. There was blood on her lips. Her face was wet with tears.
He slowed. Not on purpose. He was just so exhausted. They'd given her shortcuts. If he fell back, maybe, maybe they'd give him one.
The thought became spikes in his brain. They. They'd give. They. The Capitol. They were doing this. They were making him do this. They were making them do this.
Shae's whistle dug into his sweaty palm.
We are all puppets for the Capitol, he'd cheerfully told Gamina during the Chariot rides.
He remembered how sick she'd looked to hear it. He stumbled. He was going to throw up. This was so wrong. So disgusting.
Gamina. Bryony. Rachel. Aurora. Paloma. Drake.
Yolo barely avoided the new vine. His hands shook. His vision blurred. He could barely see the hovercraft anymore. Mercury was overtaking him.
He blew the scented rough whistle. The smell of home, of songs and truth.
He tried to find a smile. He couldn't.
He couldn't be their puppet. What if they decided he wasn't enough? What if they made Shae and Rael their puppets too?
Yolo tried to accelerate. He couldn't. His mother's sad eyes were at the edge of his vision, but he couldn't do it. His legs were wood.
Now he saw Blight's eyes. His mentor, both of them. Victors. They look like they'd won anything. Yolo gasped. He wanted to throw up.
It was so wrong!
He just couldn't do it.
Shae and Rael were so little. The others would have to make them understand.
Lungs burning, his muscles so numb he could barely feel them, Yolo fiercely hoped they would be happy.
He screamed, somehow he had the strength to scream. The girl from District Three turned to him, blue eyes tearing from pain.
He threw her the whistle. The whistle his baby sister made.
"Give," he began, his voice building into a desperate shout. "Give this -"
Mercury's POV
The vines aim was too good, Mercury could feel her strength ebbing away.
Vines aim? How?
Trackers. Her memory supplied. The trackers they injected in your arm just before the Bloodbath.
A spike of agony shot through her as she dug the chip out with her gloved hand. The pain soon faded in the background. Her arm was slick with blood, she felt lightheaded and bulky, her balance shaky, her vision blurs and shadows.
She had to stay conscious!
One step, just one more step. Failure was not an option.
Grass under her bare feet. No monster-plants out to get her. Blood in her mouth. A lot of blood. She spat.
Just one step.
Yolo's scream of rage made her head turn. By instinct, she caught something. Something small and hard.
She stumbled on, uncomprehending as something hit her arm. Ow. She barely caught it. A whistle?
"Give this to Shae," Yolo shouted. "Wi - winning would still be dying for me but in- in someplace worse! I'm not going anywhere bad. Just don't forget,"
Mercury missed a step but didn't let herself fall. Any fall would be her last; if she slowed she would stop and never make it out.
Yolo's words were ringing in her head, there but meaningless. Only the end. 'Don't forget.'
Later. She vowed. Later she'd remember and try to make sense of it. She didn't have the energy left.
Somehow the grass gave way to cold metal under her feet.
She let herself fall. Feeling nothing but the pain.
She wanted to go home, to forget.
She would be going to the Capitol.
Aster was in the Capitol. Mercury almost smiled.
"Thanks for the claws," she mumbled before letting darkness take her.
This was both heartbreaking and liberating to write. I hope you didn't feel cheated by the Game's end.
I think this is a great place to review. (seriously, great. I'd find it disrespectful if you don't review, especially for the loyal lurkers who have silently stuck with me for over 160k. I don't care if the story is complete, I'm still on the website.)
Don't worry, just because the Games are over, it doesn't mean there won't be anymore action, the next chapter most certainly isn't filler or gratuitous post-game angst.
For those who are lazy you should read from the victory tour on: we'll meet relatives of the tributes, canon victors and then even more canon victors and follow Mockingjay and Catching fire in the last two chapters.
For those of you who have trouble finding inspiration for reviews:
Who was your favorite character(s), why?
How do you feel about Mercury winning? What do you think of her?
Who was your least favorite character, why?
What did you think of the arena? The maze, mutt bats and goats, caves, feast and flood?
Did you have a favorite lines/scenes?
Any further comments?