Day Seven

Xaran Lilth, District Three Reaped (16)

Maurie and I sat at the water's edge fishing. Usually that's where one fishes, of course: somewhere near water. But witty asides couldn't distract me from what we were talking about, no matter how much I tried.

"It's funny. No matter how many times we see people die, we still assume it can't happen to our family," Maurie said.

Dads aren't supposed to bury their sons. But what about the sons? How do you bury someone who was supposed to always be there for you? I wouldn't even get to bury him. If I did get home, he would be long in the ground. Nothing but a stone to visit.

"And it's just… forever. Everything we had with them for so long, gone like that," I said, and I threw a stone into the water, where it disappeared. A stone that might have been there forever was lost beyond all hope of recovering..

"I knew a girl who was nine when her little sister drowned in a pond. She was a normal little kid before that, always smiling and playing. She turned into a little adult that day. She was a little girl screaming in her little-girl voice as she ran around the pond yelling for the grownups to find her. When they lifted the little body from the water, she went quiet. I don't remember her ever screaming after that," I said. I didn't know why I told the story. It just resounded in me, the way death changes the one who dies and also the ones who remain. My voice was thin at the end. It was easier to cry about someone else than to admit I was crying for myself.

"I always felt responsible for people younger than me," Maurie said in a voice so small it almost wasn't there. "When you're stronger, it's your duty to shield and protect people who are still small and easy to hurt. If someone dies that small, there's someone else who didn't protect them." He wasn't talking about the girl.

"It's okay, man. You can't let it be your fault," I said. I leaned against him and put an arm around his shoulder. He leaned back into me and we were hugging.

My skin tightened all over with the pure human need for connection and the physicality of an embrace. What began as relaxation flowed into a tensing in an area I hadn't thought about in a long time. I opened my serenely closed eyes and stared in horror over Maurie's shoulder.

Oh my god what is happening? Sometimes the loins had a will of their own, but this was not the time. Maybe it meant something, maybe it meant nothing, but either way, it was incomprehensible. I wasn't looking for romance. I was mourning my dead father. Did this mean I liked Maurie that way? Or was it just one of those random moments? I wormed my hips farther away from Maurie and prayed to anything

Thank goodness Aisha appeared.

Athos Flint, District Two Chosen (37)

Athos could only feel his veins popping blood all over the floor.

That wasn´t what was happening though. What was really happening is that he had gone hunting for food, probably after Aisha went hunting for tributes, and Logan kept sleeping. And now he was crying, instead of picking a goddamn berry.

He wasn't focused at all. He was in a total mental chaos, and he didn´t know how to solve it. He shouldn´t be crying for someone he barely knew. For someone he couldn´t handle or do anything about. He should be man and man up and be strong, be mental stable and such.

But here he was. Crying for goddamn Tucker Galvani.

He wasn´t sure he was crying why he was crying. If he knew he should he would be like this he should have allied with him.

Oh god, now he is crying worse.

He can´t handle it. It´s like a monsoon of emotions that came floating to him, and trapped him inside a bowl of sadness. He doesn´t wanna cry, but he can´t help it. He cries and cries and cries, and he thinks he is going to die of sadness.

Oh god, like Tucky died.

More tears fall from his eyes. He is feeling not well. Not well at all.

He remembers the time they made him take the vasectomy. He remembers that he didn't want to do it at the time, that he was so goddamn young, and at that time he still wanted to someday have kids. He still wanted to a family man, to be someone who had a legacy to uphold and to have someone who loved him survive him.

But no. To be a peacekeeper strong measures had to be taken. During the years that the action was taken by the Peacekeeping Academy, he was a still a youth. A simple, naïve youth that all he wanted is to have a legacy- no, a son. A daughter and wife.

But no. To be someone in District Two you gotta be a peacekeeper. And to be one, you must be sterile.

The Capitol takes no chances with this. After a long line of D12 peacekeepers started fornicating with the resident of the land, the Capitol couldn´t stand it anymore and went mayhem. No more opportunities for you, soldiers. Just a line to follow, and if you stray for it, you will be executed and die.

Athos is just crying. He cries as he picks berries. He cries chops a tree with his axe. He cries as he kills a deer. He cries as cannon sounds.

Probably the District Seven boy, since his last ally died.

Then, he realizes that everyone is watching him. They are all watching him cry. Cry like a motherfucking baby.

"What the hell are you watching here?! Do you think this is fun?! To see cry me. Yes, I am crying. A peacekeeper is crying."

That moment, Athos stops crying and walks to the base.

It will be a new day soon.

Logan Van Diamanten, District One Reaped (16)

Logan wakes up to the sound of a cannon.

Hmmmm, another day with dear Aisha.

Wait, where is she? Logan walks around the camp, and doesn´t see either in the camp or around the camp.

He doesn´t see Athos anywhere.

Where are they? Did they leave me?

But can´t be that. Most supplies are still here. So where could they be, he asks himself.

Wait, there was a cannon? Oh no.

"Aisha! Athos! Aisha!" He yells at the air, knowing he will probably get an answer any time soon.

But still, he gets one right away.

Athos comes up from the trees and he is there, with a bunch of berries in one bag and… blood on his axe.

Oh no he didn´t!

"What is wrong Athos?" He says, cleaning liquid from his face. It looks like if someone had spit on him with saliva! Did he do what I think he did?

"Emmm, Athos?

"Yeah?"

"Do you know where Aisha could be?"

"No, why?"

"Nothing, nothing really. Could you turn around for a moment? I think one berry feel on the floor behind you."

He turns around to see, well, the floor. "Logan, I don´t see any-

And then a slash. Athos´s throat bleeding and Logan behind him, with a bloody knife in his hands.

Athos barely has time to turn around before falling to the ground, and ending up there, bleeding, suffocating in his own blood, with no way out.

No way out of dying.

And Logan is just there, angry and sad, because he knows he killed Aisha. Itis the only conclusion he has for the moment, and probably the only one who knows the truth about her.

Because she couldn´t have just left him. No, no after their special moment.

Not after that

He still remembers going inside her, leaving the flowers aside on the floor, and just turning to passion. He still remembers her not wanting to make it a big deal, and being still after the fact. People like Kaj would call it a quasi-rape, but it was consented! No one can tell him otherwise.

No, she had to have loved him till the day she died. She had to, she had to.

There is no other possible way.

None.

Maurie Stafford, District Ten Chosen (22)

(Before)

It was good to hug someone. Xaran and I were both hurting and when we held each other it was like we absorbed each other's pain. That would seem like we'd have the same amount of pain as before, but someone else's pain was easier than your own. This was a messed-up, screwed-up situation. We needed any comfort we could get. It was like a splash of aloe on a throbbing burn.

Xaran stiffened. In a flash we pushed off from each other and turned to face whatever he'd reacted to. It was Aisha, standing fifteen feet off and not moving. She didn't look like she had before. Everyone lost weight in the Arena, even the Careers, but she'd lost more than she should have. Her countenance was ashen. Her hair was dull. But she had a knife stuck into the waist of her pants, where she could easily get to it.

Xaran didn't let her. He grabbed a spear and shot to his feet.

Aisha held up her hands. "Wait," she said, all soft and broken like a bereft lover. "I don't want to-"

Xaran threw the spear. It passed through her chest like a needle through fabric. She looked at us sadly before she settled to the ground. She lay tilted on her side, looking up at the sky. I saw the trail left by a tear on her cheek.

"What have you done?!" I screamed at Xaran. It was clear I wasn't mad at him. I was mad Aisha died.

"I killed her," he said without inflection. His head and eyes tilted in recognition.

"She wasn't-" I started yelling and it broke into a wail. "She wasn't going to hurt us."

She wasn't going to say 'I don't want to die,', I knew but didn't say. She was going to say 'I don't want to hurt you.'

"I know," Xaran said. There was so much we both knew. Aisha hadn't wanted to kill us. But it didn't matter. Aisha would kill us, or try to, eventually. It didn't matter that she hadn't wanted to kill us or that Xaran hadn't wanted to kill her. We were in the Hunger Games. None of us had any say in our future anymore.

"It's all right," I said without force or weight. Xaran said nothing back. It was not all right. Nothing we could say or do would make it so. A tear shone in the sun as it dropped from Xaran's jaw. In the silence between us, the cannon sounded.

We gathered our things and started walking. Aisha's body was in that place, a damning reminder of what we'd done. When we heard the hovercraft we knew we were far enough. We sat down and watched it fly overhead and hugged once more.