Disclaimer: I still don't own these characters, unfortunately. A bit of graphic violence in this chapter. Warning y'all.
This arena is truly, truly horrible. In only one hour, we have seen the District 6 male and female literally ripped apart by some creature. Really, all that was left was some blood. They had to gather the scraps to be able to take them home; nothing is identifiable besides some of the tribute outfit.
We haven't moved into our separate rooms yet, apparently according to Cecelia, those are only used for sleeping and sponsoring, but other than that, we'll be in the big room.
The cannons have yet to tell us who has died, meaning the fighting has been going on quite a long time. We've seen most of the fighting, but only blips of our little group walking through the forest. Peeta is in front, slashing the jungle trying to make a path, then Prim is walking, half asleep on her feet, Delia is on Junipers back, and Sayer's in the back watching their backs. Nessa, Seeder's daughter is dead. She was stabbed repeatedly by Emmeline, the women from 1 who almost killed Juniper.
Seeder has not made a reappearance from her separate room since. Chaff is in there too, hopefully comforting her, saying that her son is still out there.
Finally, the cannons go off. 1, 2, 3, all the way up to 7. Not as many as last year. The camera is now focused on our group.
"Only seven. I wonder who they were." Peeta speaks up and Sayer nods. I forgot that he doesn't know that his sister is dead.
"Could be anyone." Sayer continues, taking Delia from Juniper and Juniper relaxes and takes the knife from him. Peeta nudges Prim, who is literally half asleep.
"You okay?"
She nods. "Just tired. Can we find a place to rest?"
"We probably should. We should get somewhere."
"Do you think this jungle ever ends?" Juniper asks, wiping sweat and blood from the man from earlier from her face and crinkling her nose when it appears on her white jacket sleeve.
"I dunno. Maybe if we keep walking forward we'll get somewhere." Sayer says as Delia adjusts herself on his back. The small girl's hair is tied up in some weird pigtail things, and I must say that even though she probably will die, she's cute.
Then a scream rips through the jungle, causing all of them to look up and around, awake. The camera flashes to the pregnant women, as she's stumbling through the forest, with District 1, 2, and the girl from 4 right on her heels. I know that nothing good can come from this. The women, being pregnant, is having a very tough time getting through the jungle and trips on a vine as they all catch up and surround her.
"So who wants to kill her?" The women from 1 taunts, holding up her knife.
"I'll do it. That way, I'll have a matching set." So he's the one who killed her husband. "That's right. He's dead." He smirks at the women, who screams as tears stream down her face.
"Nolan!" She screams out his name as the Careers inch forward to her.
"So how's the baby of yours?" I feel sick to my stomach now. "Doing good? I think you're going to have an early birth." Huh? No, no, she's not ready to give birth. She's not even close to it!
Gale tugs at my arm, trying to get to me to look away, but I can't even tear my eyes from the screen as the male from District 1 sends his knife down on her protruding stomach and she shrieks and falls as her blood falls all to the ground along with her body. Her stomach is gushing blood as the man hacks away at her, prying the small, growing fetus out of her and hacking away at it too. The women is screaming and screaming and screaming as she watched the blood and life drain out of herself and her baby.
My jaw is dropped open as Gale finally manages to get me to look away from the horrible scene and he holds me close to him as her screaming continues to echo in my head. I can't get the picture out, not of the women, or the baby, or the blood, or the Careers face. That's the worst.
"That's rough." I hear Johanna mutter under her breath. "Even Brutus looks disgusted, and he thrives off of this stuff." I glance over at Brutus and find that he does look a bit disgusted. This may be the lowest anyone has stooped in the Games, killing a mother and her unborn child.
"That's really, really horrible." Ceceila says out loud, "Especially when she has to watch it." I don't know who Ceceila is talking about. The women, or someone else. I can imagine all pregnant mothers are feeling the same way now... Ohh.. right.. I'm supposed to be pregnant. I forgot.
A cannon booms on screen and laughter peels out to all of us as the Careers leave the womans mangled body in the trees. I don't dare look at it. Instead, I focus on my hands, because I still feel like I'm going to be sick.
"Eight." I hear Peeta's quiet voice from the screen. I look up at the screen to see Peeta looking up at the sky as the body goes away with the hovercraft. "I wonder who it was."
"It could have been anyone." Juniper says, shoving Peeta along. "Come on, we need to find a place to stay. I don't exactly want to stay here with God only knows what." She sounds exceptionally irritated.
"Then you can stand over here and we can keep going, if that's okay." Sayer says, obviously messing with the girl who glares at him but then smiles quickly before it fades.
"Or not." Prim squeaks, getting a laugh out of Juniper before all happiness of the moment fades and they continue walking in silence, occasionally saying something about something in the forest.
"How old is Juniper again?" Beetee asks Cecelia quietly.
"Fifteen."
"And your others?"
"Ten and seven."
"Right.." Beetee trails off and says that he's going to take a nap. Pretty soon, a lot of the Victor's have gone to sleep, as night is falling. But, before a lot of the can go, the anthem plays, and then proceeds to show the faces of the dead tributes. First to come is the man from District 3. Then the two from 6, then the pregnant women and her husband. The man from 9. The women from 10. And finally, Nessa. Sayer's face shows a sign of shock before it shows anger, then confusion, then sadness. It's complete and utter sadness.
He presses the heels of his hands into his eyes, trying to prevent the tears. Seeder disappears back into her room, with fresh tears. Sayer, on screen, moves away from the group for a bit and punches a tree repeatedly, giving him several splinters. Peeta and Juniper talk in hushed voices away from him, as Prim and Delia sleep.
"I feel bad for him." Juniper tells Peeta and he nods, looking over at Sayer as he punches a tree.
"You and me both. I really do wonder how it would feel to see someone you knew up in that sky."
"I really wonder." Juniper changes the topic as Sayer comes back over and flops on the ground next to her, rubbing his eyes again. "So how'd you end up here?"
"Me?" Peeta asks, pointing to himself, "I'm friends with Madge and sort of Gale."
"Sort of?"
"I don't know him as well as I know Madge." I nearly snort at this and Gale shoves me away from him slightly.
"Oh. That's good, I guess."
"What about you?"
"My mom. I'm just glad it was me and not either of my sisters."
"How old are they?"
"Ten and seven. To young." She says, glancing toward the sleeping form of Delia, who is only ten. "I wonder how she got here. Same with Prim."
Peeta looks at Prim. "I know for a fact that if volunteering would had been allowed, Prim's sister would've been on that stage in a heartbeat."
"You know her sister?" Sayer finally speaks up, after moments of silence.
"Yeah." Peeta doesn't offer up anymore information. Katniss will swamped with interviewers now. She'll kill Peeta if he gets out of this alive. The conversation dies and Peeta and Sayer stay up for the first shift.
They're still in the jungle, but, they are close to a district, one that I cannot name. I think it might be.. Six? Maybe?
"What district is that?" Gale asks out loud and Johanna responds, with a monotone voice.
"Seven. You know what sucks? Both of my tributes are out already." She puffs, flopping backward's on a couch with a glass of water.
"Did you know them?"
She laughs coldly, with no emotion. "I have no friends. Or family. There's no one left I love."
I shift uncomfortably in my seat next to Gale and he sighs, pulling me to him. My head falls to his shoulder. "You should get some sleep." He mumbles in my ear and I frown.
"I'm not tired." But then my body decides to yawn and Gale smirks at me. "I'm not!" I try to protest, but end up coughing and yawning again, causing me to start coughing more.
"You did say I could force you to sleep, so go sleep." I narrow my eyes at him and he laughs, pressing a kiss to my temple.
"Yeah, Madge, you should get your sleep." Finnick mocks and I glare at him as he laughs at me. Finnick's tributes are currently making their way towards ours, about three miles away, near the mini-District 4.
"Go, Madge. I'll wake you up if anything happens." Gale says before I glare at him one last time and then stand and slowly walk to the District 12 room, my footsteps quiet. I grab the handle and attempt to pull it open. It doesn't work. It seems to be locked from the inside.
"Madge?" I hear Gale call from the other side of the room, and then footsteps as he gets closer. "Madge." He reaches out and grabs the handle. "The doors push."
"Oh. I knew that." I try to wave it off and he smirks at me, again.
"I told you that you were tired." I ignore him and go into the room and fall onto the bed, crinkling my nose at the screen as Gale mutes it for me. "There. Now please try to sleep. You know how much I worry about you when you don't sleep."
"Yeah and it worries me how much you worry about me more than you worry about yourself." I mutter and he laugh as I rest my head in his lap and he absent-mindedly plays with my hair.
"We worry too much."
"Yeah I think I figured that one out on my own." I say and he smiles down at me as I sigh and stare blankly at the screen.
"What's wrong?"
"I can't get the woman out of my head. The image of her."
"Try not to think about it. Think about something else, something happy."
"Like what? There's nothing happy in this world."
"Think about... Think about what's going to happen after all this is over."
I stare up at him for a moment before he continues. "Think about the family we could start. Think about that."
I smile softly and speak. "Tell me about the family."
He grins quickly before kissing my forehead. "We can get married, for real, not what they want. We can live in one of the Victor Village's houses and have ten kids."
"Uh, correction, we're not having ten kids unless you carry half of them." I point up at him and he grins again.
"I believe that that is anatometly incorrect, I can't carry children."
"Oh shut up."
He smirks again before continuing our story. Our. Not mine, not his, ours. "And then when we get older, our kids can have kids and then we'd be grandparents."
"So you're still holding out on that ten kids thing?"
"Uh huh." I know he's kidding. I honestly don't think I'll be able to withstand going through labor ten times. Maybe not even like three.
"You are kidding right?"
"I'll have as many kids as you want." He leans down a kisses my nose and I have to smile. "Now, please try to sleep. I'll be right out there if you need me."
And I do sleep. I sleep better than I have in weeks. I keep holding onto that dream, which hopefully will happen one day.
I wake up naturally for once, not by screaming myself awake. The room's spinning again, though. So I sit up, slowly, and rub my eyes as the room slowly stops spinning. I glance quickly at the screen to see Juniper laughing at something someone said. Delia's actually walking on her feet, her wrist tied to string that Primis holding onto. Apparently the small girl is ADHD, otherwise making it hard for her to focus. Plus, she's ten. Sayer looks exceptionally irritated, and he has bags under his eyes. I take it he didn't get a wink of sleep last night.
Slowly, I stand and everything goes out of focus again and I grip the door handle tightly, as I can see straight again. Then, I open the door correctly and walk back into the room slowly. I hear Finnick laughing and Johanna cackling at something. Gale's back is to me and I know Johanna and Finnick are making fun of him and Finnick winks at me as I approach.
Gale catches it and turns around. When he sees me, his eyes brighten and his scowl morphs into a smile. "Hey." He sees quietly, moving over so I can sit down next to him.
"Hi." I sit down and curl up next to him, coughing a bit. He wraps his arm around my waist as Finnick gives me the lovey-dovey eyes. I stick my tongue at him and he smirks. Cecelia comes over and sits down on the other side of me. "You should go sleep now." I tell Gale and he sighs, rubbing his eyes.
"Fine." He actually gives in to me. Wow. I thought he was going to protest. He presses his lips onto the top of my head quickly and then disappears into the room that I came out of moments ago.
"I have to say it," Ceceila speaks a few seconds after Gale dissapears, "you two are just precious."
I feel myself blushing as Finnick laughs. "But you two are polar opposites. You're all happy and smiling and then he's all grumpy and scowly."
"He is not grumpy or scowly!" I protest to Finnick but he cuts me off.
"Around you. He's not around you. He's different, gentler, calmer around you."
"And your point is?"
"My point is that for a little during the Games last year, I didn't know if all of that between you two was true or not, but now I know that it is."
My silence eggs him on. "What I'm saying is that you really love each other. Especially him."
"How can you tell?"
"It's obvious. You can see it in his eyes when he looks at you." I'm blushing like crazy and Cecelia and Finnick smile at me. Johanna looks bored.
"Can we move on from all of this love stuff and talk about something else now?" While the rest of them converse, I don't join in the conversation, instead thinking about what Finnick told me. Can you really tell how much someone loves you when they look at you?
My thoughts are interrupted when I hear a blood-curdling screen. It's Prim's.
A/N: Another warning, these Games are not going to be pretty. They're gonna be pretty bad. Like, really bad. Favorite parts, scenes, thoughts? And, fyi, I've posted a new story, and I was wondering if y'all wanted to check it out? It's called Fate's Tricky Methods, and obviously, it's Gadge. Just go to my profile and you should see it.