Day Eight

Caprium Fael, District Seven Reaped (13)

Jadee was gone. I waited and waited, but she never came. Then I got the last look I would have of her looking out at nothing in the sky. Her face was still and lifeless. It was like looking at a corpse. That's what she was now. She was on her way home. She was on a train somewhere, riding in a box. The train shook on the tracks and she jostled in the box. That's what she was now- something that was jostled.

Everyone I had was gone. Grandpa was gone. I never could have imagined life without him. He was the one that took care of me and showed me what the world would be for me. And my parents. They died so early I could barely remember them. I remembered how when my father held me his hands were rough with calluses. I remembered that my mother had long shiny hair. I remembered the day they didn't come back from work. For a year I didn't know why. Grandpa thought I was too young, but I guess by the time I turned six the world had its claws in me and I wasn't innocent anymore.

The Arena took all the friends I'd made. Tucker, Kaj, Jacob, it took them all. It took all of us except the one who it left to remember. I'd already lost so much. I didn't understand why there had to be things like this in the world.

My hands were around my knees and I was crying when I saw something. It moved so slowly and plainly that I wasn't scared. A Career would move with more purpose and an outlier with more fear. I lifted my head and saw a deer looking at me. Just like back before I was Reaped, a deer. It had brown eyes with long lashes and teardrop-shaped ears that curved back.

It's the one from before, I thought, and knew it wasn't true. This deer was smaller and had more spots. It was something special, I knew. This deer was something more. It's Jadee, I thought. It never crossed my mind that it was Grandpa. He lived as long as a person should and he died protecting was no reason for him not to be at peace. But a girl not even fourteen who was cut from life to satisfy someone who never even knew her... that was a soul that might come back.

I stood and walked toward the deer. She stopped but didn't run. It stood still as I approached. The forest went silent again, like before the Reaping. The deer's eyes flickered to follow me. She looked right at me- at my eyes, not at any part of me that might attack. I wondered if she wanted to say something to me.

I stood a foot away from the deer. I was close enough to touch it. I lifted a hand and hovered it above the deer's nose. I set it down. The deer's fur was velvety under my fingers.

The deer yanked her head back. She reared on her hind legs and stepped forward to bring her front legs down on me. I saw then the expression in her eyes wasn't friendship or recognition but malice. I ran, and the deer ran after me.

Mercy Sollozo, District Six Reaped (14)

"Seven left. We're in the final seven," Hans said.

"I didn't think I'd make it this far," I said. When Nona was here, she said I could make it, and I believed her then. When my crazy grandma died, she took her crazy ideas like hope with her. Every day I woke up trying to make it through the day but never thinking farther than that.

When I saw Hans' face I wished I could take it back. People reacted to things like this differently. Some people would have imploded. They would have crushed inward and buckled into sadness and resignation. Hans was exploding outward instead. I could see his limbs all tense and thrumming with energy. He was shaking, actually shaking with stored-up emotion.

"We can make it, though," he said. "We can make it. We don't have to die. I don't want to die." He looked at me with the panicked eyes of a child running to his mother's bedside in the night.

"Yes. We can make it," I said. I moved closer and laid a hand on his back. I kept saying it. I kept saying it because I was afraid if I lost momentum, I would start breaking down with him. I was scared too. He needed me to be the strong one right now but I wasn't. I just had to fake it.

"I wish Xander was here," Hans said. "Everything was okay when he was here. I wish he was here to help us." He said Xander's name over and over. He drew it out in his mouth like it was something to be savored and respected. He didn't really think Xander could come. He was just holding on to all he had left of him: his name.

I'd seen things like this before. Usually it was my cousin Treader. Treader didn't take excitement like other people did. When something upsetting happened, sometimes he got all panicky, so bad he would shake and gasp and he was always sure he was having a heart attack even though he was eleven years old. If he lived in the Capitol he would have medicine or a therapist. In Six we just had family.

"It's okay. We're going to get through this," I said. I knew to keep my voice low and level and to make soothing motions with my hand on his back. With Treader, the most important thing was letting him know it was okay to feel like that and that we were there for him. I stayed soothing him like that for a few minutes. He started to breathe more deeply and then to stop shaking.

"How do you know it will be okay? How do you know we won't die?" Hans asked.

"I don't know we won't die," I said. His eyes went scared again. "But it's okay if we do." Nona was still there for me, even though she was gone. "Humans are more than bodies and minds. When we die, there's something more after. If one of us dies, it will be okay. We'll see each other again."

"Are you sure?" Hans asked.

"I'm sure," I said without hesitating. Whether I believed it or not- and I did- it was the only thing to do.

I stood up. Now we needed to start something productive so Hans couldn't lapse back into anxiety. "Let's find a place to stay, okay? I'll check this cabin."

Lilith Ri-Yuen, District Eight Reaped (18)

Lilith is ready to do this.

She doesn´t know what she will do next, but she is ready. The words float around in her brain, telling her she must be ready, that there is no other way it can happen, her survival being the it and her death being the no other way. Her spirit feels weightless, no longer holding her back with dumb morals and dumb correctness.

Killing small animals and eating anything she can find? She has done it. Killing a small little girl to survive? She has done it. Killing an old lady who couldn´t even fight back? She has done it. It feels pointless to discuss what is right and what isn´t anymore. She has done what she had to do, and she isn´t going to hold back anymore.

So then, when she hears a voice, she can´t help but smile. She is going to get what she wanted after all.

"Hans, i am gonna search on here. Wait for me for a second."

It is the perfect plan. She, inside this somewhat cabin with pretty bad architecture design, she must say, she sees Mercy go inside the cabin, and she hides inside the bathroom. When she sees her, oh when she her things are going down.

She waits and she waits, and she sees the girl through the lock walking around her, inspecting her temporary home, being ready to fight back at any given chance. Being ready to attack, to devour her soul.

Being ready to kill her. And then she, the poor fourteen year old, is opening the bathroom door, and the killer, oh the demon-ish Lilith, who is waiting inside the bath tub with the curtains put in their place for a surprise attack. And then the little girl, who is just washing her face, gets her mouth covered by a hand, a devilish hand and the stabbing starts.

The dance begins. The blood falls to the ground and she screams, oh Mercy screams, but she has no mouth anymore and she must scream. Her screams fall on wrong ears, as only her killer is the one who hears her, the walls being like sound-proof windows, where everybody on TV can see her, but nobody can hear her. Nobody can hear her pain, or her suffering. She is dying and bleeding and dying and falling apart, but nobody does anything, nobody.

As she stars losing count of the stabs and the cannon sounds, Lilith doesn´t stop. She doesn´t stop until she hears the entrance door open, and then she stops, not because she wants to do, not because she feels like it, but because she is getting ready for her next target.

She can´t wait for it.

Hans Miner, District Twelve Reaped (18)

Hans is worried

How can he not be worried? He is alone with Mercy and left to root on this dangerous land called "The Arena of the freaking Hunger Games". He is danger, and Mercy is in danger. How can he do anything but screw things up?

Mercy has taken a lot in the cabin; she is probably in the bathroom.

He needs to get away from her, but he can´t do it. It´s something that is drawing her near him. Likewise the inverse. But he needs to get away, to keep himself safe. However, he also needs to keep her safe. It´s a dual feeling with two sides pulling from his arms, each string hurting more and more still she or he bleeds.

That´s it, after the next death he is out of the alliance.

BOOM!

Well, how fast. He should go tell Mercy the alliance is out.

He opens the door, and it´s all very quiet. No liquid or poor falling or neither any smell of farts.

Weird.

He inspects the kitchen. There is not much food there, but there is some. The kitchen has not been moved a lot. Poor Mercy, not caring much about food anymore.

He moves around the house, from the bedroom, to the living room, to the bathroom… Wait, that´s over there?

A red liquid. A little girl´s body.

Mercy´s.

He goes over there and starts holding her, he doesn´t know why, but he cares. Oh damn he cares. He is not a bad person and he wasn´t going to hurt her, but his fears had gotten in the way and it´s pain now. Pain, utter disgusting pain who feels his veins.

"Hello, Hansie"

With revenge they are filled.

"How could you do this, Lilith?" He asks while in sobs. "How could do this to her? She is dead, and she was a little girl, and we know she was going to die, but how could you do this?" She is barely recognizable anymore. It´s her hair the only reason she still seems Mercy. She is destroyed, her body is broken beyond repair and she is DEAD, utterly broken DEAD.

"Are you upset little Hansie? Did I kill your girlfriend?" She says and she laughs, oh, the monster laughs.

"Ups"

That´s enough for Hans, as he takes the knife out of Mercy´s and directs it towards Lilith. She escapes the stab, not one, but two, three, four times, till she punches Hans in the stomach, almost rendering him useless.

Almost. He continues driving his knife, each time closer to Lilith. Each time something in the house falling, each time the audience of Panem and the Capitol roaring for their tribute to win, each time getting one step closer to ending a life.

It won´t be hard, Hans thinks, as she is monster, and a monster knows how to kill another one.

For Hans, it´s feels like an eternity before the battle ends. He feels dead after the fight, with no energy to move, and he just falls to the ground like dead weight.

Like Lilith is, bleeding, screaming, and Hans, in the floor, exhausted, keeps stabbing her. Keeps bringing all to a full circle.

Keeps bringing death to the world.

Because to Hans Miner it doesn´t matter that he is a monster anymore. Only that there are worse.

And they must die. They must get rid of, and die. Die, a painful death.

That´s karma for Hans. And for the world.