"I just wanna die, but I don't wanna live like this." - Feel Something by Bea Miller
A Poem of Swine and Wrath - 40th Annual Hunger Games
Games, Day 7
Male Tribute from District Eleven, Onyeka Kaiis
Last night, I thought I'd wake up to see Misha instead of icicles hanging from branches this morning.
I didn't sleep much. I kept picturing the faces in the sky in my dreams. There was the boy from District Four, Tal, who was trying to kill me. Oddly enough, he was shirtless, abdominals glistening in blood, while he kept throwing spears at me. The dream was even stranger when it turned out spears kept materializing out of the palm of his hand. I screamed. I ran. But he kept chasing me. Catching up, even. Finally, I woke up when a spear entered my body.
Admittingly, I think I wet myself. But I try not to think about that as the sun sets higher in the sky, I tell myself that its time to get down from the tree. I have to keep myself moving, keep the blood flowing, or it's only going to make the pain worse. My bones feel wrapped in plastic we use to sometime cover fruit from the flies. Everything, from my ankles to my wrist hurt. They snap or pop, or even creek, as I move down the tree, branch by branch.
I've only covered two branches when I have to stop. My breathing is so loud that I can barely hear the birds chirping in the trees next to me. I don't have to be a doctor to know that its not good. I should have more energy that this. I shouldn't be this tired from just climbing down the tree. I hover up closer to the trunk, hoping the sunlight can give me more details on my wound situation. I unzip the red jumpsuit, immediately feeling the full brutality of the cold. Underneath I see the dark blood dried. The wound can't be frozen, I tell myself. The jumpsuit wouldn't allow that to happen. Would it? No, it's insulated. It's Capitol manufactured with some sort of thermo-heat technology. So there's no way the wound isn't protected, right?
Wrong, I think, when I continue to survey the wound. It's somehow clotted, but there's so much dark blood dried in my undershirt along with the inside of the jacket that I'm almost certain that's why I can't hardly move. Asleep, I didn't need the energy. But now, I do. And with all the blood loss, I doubt I'll have enough to keep moving. I'll have to reserve as much as I can, which means more than likely staying in this tree until another tribute or muttation pushes me out.
I pull out dried meat from my pack and chew it. The most I can do right now is eat and drink and maybe wash the wound. At the thought of washing, there's a heavy breeze, which quickly takes that option away. There's no way I'm pouring cold water on my already freezing skin. Nope.
I'll just have to eat, drink, and keep myself warm. If I'm lucky, Halona and the girl from District One, Blest, will kill each other, leaving the other to be wounded. I might stand a chance then.
I finish off the last of my meat and shove the empty container back in my bag. It's then that I see the first aid kit. I think of Rapture. I think of our conversation when she tried to hand me her first aid kit. I wish I'd taken it then. I wish I hadn't been so prideful. I shuffle through the pack, more desperately, hoping for anything that might have fallen loose. A pain pill. An extra bandage. Anything would help at this point. A sudden gulf of nerves hits me as I think about the feast. I'd left wounded. I'd left Rapture. Her face was in the sky. She'd died.
You'd left with a wound. She'd left in a wooden box.
Maybe she wouldn't have if I'd stay. Bert's face comes into my mind. It's the same with him. Maybe he'd be alive if I hadn't thrown the rock. I close my eyes, not wanting to think about Bert or Rapture. I tell myself that they had to die. That everyone has to die. But then I see the boy from District 8, Harland, come to mind. I picture him screaming out as I stabbed him once, twice, three times. I didn't even see him die. I couldn't. I just ran. Vomit coats my tongue. I taste the dry meat and have to force it back down.
I left him like I left Rapture.
I left Rapture like I left Bert.
I left Bert like I left Theo.
There's a pattern even if I don't want to admit it. I'm a runner. Not a fighter.
Theo. I picture him sipping moonshine out of a canteen. Everyone around him will think it's water until they smell his breath. Until they get too close. It's a perk of drinking heavy liquor-the heavy booze the old folks call shine. It has less of a smell, which means less of a chance the peacekeepers catching you drinking on the job.
I wonder if Theo is disappointed in me for leaving Rapture, Bert, and Harland. I wonder if he thinks I'm brave for lasting this long or if I'm just another coward turned reckless murderer. He's probably not thinking at all, Onyeka. He's probably so drunk his mind doesn't know what to think. You know that's what he does during the Games. Drinks and drinks and drinks, and I don't know why specifically, but the thought of Theo not watching my Games makes me feel the loneliest I've felt all Games.
Birds flutter up from the trees to left of me, squawking. Now that my breathing has slowed down, I can hear all the racket they're making. My heart pounds as I see them flying towards the mountain in the distance. I swallow down the dryness in my throat, and I even slink up against the tree, attempting to use the trunk as some sort of camouflage from whatever is approaching, but deep down I know that's silly. There's no hiding me.
The most I can do is climb higher, out of reach from whatever is approaching on the ground. I prepare myself for the move, and as I move away from the trunk, I notice how much my hands are shaking, how white they appear inside the palms. My heart pounds as I turn them over, noticing how my fingernails look blue. I take a deep breath, telling myself not to panic at the sight, but that's a fail, too, because I'm already panicking. I'm trembling. All I can think about is dying or being eaten by some bear or falling to my death. All I can think about is Theo waking up tomorrow, hung over, and having to be told I'm dead. There's no coming back to him. There's no redemption for the both of us. There's no victories over our living hells. Mine the Games. His the booze.
But maybe there's still some way I can live, I tell myself. Because my grandmother was a fighter, and I'm a Kaiis, we don't roll over and die. We take what life gives us and we shove it back, hard.
So I dig deep. I reach for the branch above me, ignoring the hollering and squawking of birds. I tell myself on three that I'm going to pull myself back up. It shouldn't be too hard.
One. I take a deep breath.
Two. I grip the branch.
Three. As soon as I pull up, a tightness wraps around my side, a pain digs in me so deep that I'm screaming through my teeth. The wound feels like it's splitting open suddenly, and I forget that I'm holding to the branch. My hands let go, wanting to grab the wound. Then I'm falling. My head connects with a branch that rattles my spine. The snow comes after the stars, the brief blackness, and I hear screaming and crunching and the chirping of birds. I don't look at my hands. I can feel the bending of my fingers, the warm blooding pooling down my wrist from all the brokenness.
Oh, God, I think. A tear slides down my cheek. Oh, God. Then there's an anger. There's a fire that if it was real all this snow would evaporate to mist.
Feeling the heat of the wrath, I try to move. I tell myself that this can't be it. That I've come too far to die from falling out of a tree. But then I hear the crunching of snow and look up. The girl from District 1, Blest, stands in front of me. My eyes shift from her matted hair, to the brown stuff dried around her lips. Is that dirt?
The knife comes before I answer the question. I don't feel it, just hear the whistling of the blade through the air.
"I'm sorry," I swear I hear her say. "I'm so sorry."
Then there's another whistling, only for it all to go bright seconds later.
Female Tribute from District Ten, Halona Ngaio
As soon as I hear the canon, I start sprinting. It doesn't matter. I don't need a hint. I know the finale is hear. And with it, comes the showdown.
The snorting and squealing of swines are so loud. They appear out of nowhere. Just like I expect them to, just like I know the Gamemakers would. They're rounding us up, the final two. Me and the girl from District 1, Blest. A part of me wishes I would have smacked her harder in the bloodbath. Had I, I would be victor now. It would all be over. I'd be heading for home. Not heading into a showdown where I might die so close to finally living again.
The swine grow louder, easily gaining on me, because of the weight of the shield and the weight of my pack. I think to shed off the backpack, questioning if I'll need it anymore, but then I decide against it. What if this isn't the last day in the arena? It's hard not to believe that, but it wouldn't be the biggest surprise. The Capitol sometimes likes to drag things out. For dramatic effect.
I keep running, not bothering to wipe away the sweat as I weave myself through trees. The swine are louder, so close I know that if I stop, they'll be on me, ready to have me for a mid morning snack.
I almost want to laugh at the irony of them using pigs in the finally. If I had to guess, they've done their history on me, interviewing my friends and family, and finding out how much time I've spent in the factories and the slaughtering barns. I bet the producers thought, "Hey, she likes pigs, maybe let's see how much more she likes living." The bastards.
Then there's our escort. The joke. With him referring to us as little piggies. I want to scream at the stupidity in all of this, of how because of what one man said on the stage, it could be the reason I die. He could have been the one who sparked this little idea, too.
But the Games are never about you, I hear my mother say. You're not the main character. The Capitol is. It's always about them. At most, you're a side protagonist or side antagonist, but in all its never really about you. It's about their story and your performance, your acting it out and how well you do it. That's what keeps you alive anyway, the acting, the playing their games like some nice little pawn.
But I want be a pawn. I'll never be a pawn for them bastards to play their game with.
Maybe it's anger. Maybe its wrath. I don't specifically know. But it fuels me to run faster, sprint harder, as I make my way to the cornucopia.
Still, a swine catches me. I feel the teeth in my calf before I'm comprehending the scream that's leaving my lips.
Pain ignites the wrath, making me come more alive, and I'm swinging the club, connecting it with its head, denting its skull. Another comes, running, squealing, but I'm throwing up the shield, blocking it. I hear it squealing and look up. I take in it's face briefly, noting the tusk broken.
"Come here, piggy," I say. Because why not give them a show. Why not embarrass the gamemakers for once?
The swine with the broken tusks jumps forward and I club it down. More come, one after another, but I know they won't kill me. They can't. It'd make the showdown anticlimactic. So I just smile, waiting for one to strike. But it's fear they want, not flesh. They want me afraid. But I'm not afraid of them anymore, I think.
I'm all wrath by the time I'm standing up, gripping my shelf and club. And I want the swine to get a taste of it. So I step forward, approaching the closest of them. It squeals and leaps forward. Quickly, I bring down the club, harder, crushing another skull.
"Is that all you have?" I scream. "Or do you bastards have more?"
The swine squeal in response.
And that's all I need to let myself go, to remove myself from everything that's occurred over these last seven days. I let all the fear, all the worry, all the faces that have died go, for just a moment or two, as I take on the next swine. As I go after them, instead of them going after me. By the time I've clubbed down a fourth, the remaining ones are scattering.
I look around me, seeing the blood, seeing all the dead swine, and still feeling nothing but wrath. Then it hits me, cold and creeping. A realization. I look up, noticing birds on the branches, no doubt cameras, capturing it all. Then I swallow hard. I did exactly what they wanted. I put on a show. I performed like they expected. The fiery hot head from District 10.
I swallow down the spit building in my throat. The birds flutter around me, and I can't shake it. The thought that rocks me to my core.
Even in my rebellion, they still control me.
A/N: So, there we have it. Our finale. Blest vs Halona. Two chapters away from completion. Sorry these POVs have been shorter, but I don't want the scenes to be dragged out, and we're moving a little faster with less characters.
Deaths are based on realism, plot development, and sadly if I struggled whether or not to write them. For those who have fallen, I hope the creators stick around and continue to read and review, but if not, I understand.
3rd. Male Tribute from District Eleven, Onyeka Kaiis. Haiden, Onyeka was probably one of my favorite males in this story. I loved writing his voice, and I loved his relationship with Bert and Rapture. I mean, I think he developed so much in this story, from just having a rivalry with D4 because of Misha, to actually talking with Rapture and developing respect. Seriously, their conversations for me as a writer were my favorite to write, because they were so opposite. I don't know. I hate to see him go, but this has been planned since the bloodbath to have Blest and Halona face off again.
Thanks: I want to say thank you. For this community. My life has been extremely hard this last month. I lost my job, am having to move back home bc of Covid and lack of income, and ended things with the girl i've dated for four years. I won't get into the details, because you're here for a good story, not to hear me complain. But, i just wanted to say thank you. This community has helped me finish my first story, and has given me confidence that I've lacked with writing fiction. I hope to one day put a novel on the shelves, and I feel like you all have helped me take the first step towards that dream. So just thank you. You've all been a light without really knowing it during one of the darkest seasons I've my life.
prayers for peace and protection. hope you and your families are remaining safe and healthy :)