Happy Halloween!

Trigger warning: This chapter gets a bit gory. Also, it might leave you a bit of an emotional wreck. I wouldn't recommend reading it in the middle of the night, or while listening to I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning by Bright Eyes (or any other sad album).

Also, there's some bad language. It'll be really cathartic, I swear.

The Tribute

My arm hurts.

At first, I was okay with the cut that Ramona 2.0 had left on my arm stinging a little. It'd made me feel better about killing her. She may have had her face melted off but at least I didn't get away completely unscathed. Now it's really beginning to bother me, to the point where I took a few painkillers from my medical kit to stop the constant, stabbing pain.

How long does it take a mutt to kill a guy? Why can't Fawkes just die already?

When Ramona sends me a package, I open it eagerly, hoping for some expensive medicine.

Instead, I get a compass.

"What's this for?" I ask. I know that Ramona can't answer me but I'm annoyed at her for sending me a rubbish gift. "I'm not lost, am I?"

But I am. I feel more lost than ever. Ramona must have known.

"Where should I go?" I ask myself, staring at the compass. I think of what Ramona would want from me.

She'd want me to win. She'd want me to do it my way.

She wouldn't want me to make the same mistakes she did.

I need to find Fawkes. I need to kill him. It doesn't matter what he did to me. I know I need to be better than him.

Besides, when he'd had a knife to my throat he'd told me that he was sorry. He'd had nothing to gain from that but he'd still said it. He was just trying to ease his own guilt.

Which means that he'd felt guilty.

I begin my search by walking in the direction that the mutt had taken Fawkes, knife in hand. The only sign of him that I find is a cracked pair of glasses on the edge of a massive hole in the floor. Assuming that Fawkes got dragged through that hole, he'll be in the house's basement. I don't want to risk injuring myself jumping down the hole so I consult my blueprints to see if there's another way down.

Right there, written on the Cornucopia room are the words, "Stairs to basement, C.A.L. 56."

By the time I trudge back to the Cornucopia, my head is pounding and the anthem's playing from my watch. I watch the faces, just to see if Fawkes and I really are the last ones left. I see Cornelia, Gravel and Picaresque. I don't need to see any more. I'd seen Stema's corpse and watched the life leave Ernest's eyes. I'd killed Ramona 2.0 myself.

It really is just me and Fawkes in the arena.

I search the room for a sign of the stairs to the basement. I know that the victor of the Fifty-Sixth games was Caramel LeClerc, who'd always stood out among Career victors for being the oldest victor of all time. She'd turned nineteen the day after the reaping, which would've really sucked if she hadn't been a Career. There's a small marble statue of a girl who looks vaguely Career-y in the corner of the room and, after examining it for a second, I find a button on the statue's pedestal.

I press it.

Before I can see what the button does, I'm suddenly seized by nausea. I bend forwards, vomit forcing its way out of my throat and I stare at it, stunned.

It's full of blood.

All the pieces fall into place in my head. Ramona 2.0, the girl who shared a name and an angle with a master poisoner, throwing her knife into my arm...

I almost laugh. I wonder if Ramona 2.0 had died knowing that she'd doomed me. I wonder if I deserve this.

There's a hole in the side of the room where a wall was supposed to be. I stagger through it and stumble down the stairs into the cold, stone passageways of the house's basement. I still have my knife. I could still kill Fawkes.

I could still win this.

I wander around, beginning to panic, until I find him on the floor of a tunnel, looking small, bloodied and helpless. His eyes used to have this spark in them, this light. Now they just stare at the ceiling, dully.

I'm shocked. It's only now, with that spark gone, that I realise how alive Fawkes had been. Even when he'd been trying to kill me, he'd been brilliant, a mad genius.

"Have you come to kill me, Binah?" He asks, in a hollow voice.

He's given up. I realise. Whatever that mutt did to him, it made him give up.

It feels wrong, standing over a defeated Fawkes with a knife. I sway, dizzy, and sink to my knees.

"Is it because I hurt you?" Fawkes asks. I can hear it. He's in pain.

"No." I say. "It's because you're hurt."

Fawkes laughs, bitterly. "Stop being so... noble. It was easier when you were the district partner from Hell. I felt less like the bad guy for wanting you dead."

"You really wanted me dead?" I ask, thinking back to Fawkes' whispered apology.

"I wanted to live." Fawkes says. "I wanted to have the rest of my life. I didn't want to die. I thought I was too young to die. Then I realised that everyone else was even younger and even then I fought. I tried to break you down because... that's the only way I know how to fight. My weapon up here," he gestures weakly to his head, "It hurts more every time I use it. Because I knew it was wrong. I was just too scared. Something had to give and then... you lied to me..."

"Did I?"

"You told me you loved me." Fawkes says. "When I had a knife to your throat and I'd just insulted you and your dead best friend. Honestly, Binah, how stupid do you think I am? You must've been so scared and angry and desperate and I'd made you like that. I made you lie. I made you act like me. I hated the thought of turning into a monster but it was only when I realised that I was turning you into one as well that I..."

A sob cuts him off.

My knife feels so heavy in my hand. Fawkes doesn't sound like the enemy. He sounds like a terrified kid who'd pushed himself too far. He'd lied so many times. Now he sounds so hopeless, so broken that I know it can't be anything but the truth.

"I don't want to kill you, Fawkes." I admit.

"You don't have to." He whispers. "I'm dying. I did everything to live. I did everything... And I'm still dying."

My head fills with fog. I know, even though Fawkes turned on me, that he only did it because he was scared. Even though he's in pain, he still doesn't want to die. It would feel wrong to kill him.

So I do the only thing that feels right. I forgive him.

"I'm dying too." I say. "How about we both lie here, forget we're supposed to be competing against each other and see who dies first?"

"Sounds like a plan." Fawkes says. "Let's give the Capitol the greatest, most dramatic finale in Hunger Games history."

I lie down on the floor, next to Fawkes and stare up at the ceiling. He immediately starts talking. It occurs to me that I'm what he'd wanted all along, someone to talk to while he was dying.

"This all feels like a romantic film." He says. "You know, the part where they both lie down and look up at the sky together? I miss the sky. It's one of the things I took for granted."

"I've... never seen a romantic film." I say.

"Good." Fawkes says. "You'd hate them. They always have the same ending, where the guy and the girl end up together. A happy ending. Which is okay until you compare it to real life and then it just makes you sick. I'd always thought… I'd get my happy ending. I guess I never will."

"You could still win." I say, quietly.

"But I'll never forget what happened."

Silence invades the tunnel. We both know that one of us is going to die and one of us is going to win, to live on.

"If I die," Fawkes says. "Forget I existed. Don't let me hurt you when I'm dead. I did it enough when I was alive."

"What about if I die?" I ask. "Don't forget about me. I want someone to remember me."

"Don't you have a family?" Fawkes asks. "I saw your parents in the Justice Building."

I stay silent, not wanting to waste what could be my final moments on my parents. Fawkes persists.

"Did they love you?" He asks. "It doesn't mean there's something wrong with you if they didn't. It's not your fault. You deserve to be loved by someone."

"Do I?" I ask, thinking back to Ramona 2.0, the mess I'd made of her face.

"Of course you do." Fawkes says, so quiet, he's almost inaudible. "You… you saved my life. In the bloodbath. If I make it out alive, I'm never going to forget that. You're somebody, Binah. You'll always mean something to me. I just… I want to be better than this. I just want a chance… to be better."

For a moment, the pain fades. I realise that I could die beside Fawkes, and I find that I don't really mind. This is the first time I've seen the real him, Fawkes when he's given up on being anyone else. I realise that I like him. I wish I'd seen more of Fawkes' good side before now, before we'd both given up on playing the games.

Then I hear a scream of wild, almost inhuman agony.

I'm shocked into action. I struggle to a seated position and turn to see Fawkes exploding. His limbs burst like overripe fruit, leaving nothing but splatters of blood and writhing, dark green tentacles.

We lock eyes, frozen. I see a myriad of emotions flash across his face. Pain. Fear.

Resignation.

"Kill me." Fawkes gasps. "Please, I... I can't take it."

I know that if the pain is enough to make Fawkes Chau - a boy who'd do anything to live - beg for death, that I need to kill him. I need to save him.

With the last of my strength, I hurl myself at Fawkes. I'm met by a wall of tentacles. They pour out of the holes where his limbs used to be. Some spill out of his mouth, muffling his screams. I hate the mutt that did this to him. It's almost like it knew that Fawkes loved talking and took that away from him in his final moments.

It's almost like the mutt knew that he'd been scared of turning into a monster.

The tentacles wrap around me, roaming over my bruised throat and the poisoned scratch on my arm. They hold me back from Fawkes. I can feel my strength fading. I wonder what would happen if I died in the mutt's grip and Fawkes lived. How far would the Capitol be able to change him back? Would he have to live like this, a shell of his former self, for the rest of his life?

No.

I can't let that happen. Fawkes is still screaming, even though he can't form any words. His eyes are still full of panic.

I'm angry. I'm not sure who I'm angry at, only that something terrible is happening to Fawkes and I can't stop it. I'll live the rest of my life like Ramona, haunted by the terrible thing that I couldn't stop. The one thing that I'd been fighting for this entire games is slipping away from me.

When I'm angry, I wreak havoc.

I summon all my strength. Condense all my memories of Fawkes, my annoying, terrifying, brilliant district partner into one place. Then, somehow, I manage to wrest my arm out of the monster's grip.

I bring the knife down on Fawkes' throat. As hard as I can.

All the wild, animal terror leaves his eyes. The tentacles relax and I fall forwards onto what's left of Fawkes.

"I'm sorry." I whisper, my face inches from his.

Fawkes looks like he's trying to smile at me around a mouthful of tentacles. Then the trumpets sound.

He's dead.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Claudius Templesmith's voice booms as I crawl off Fawkes' body, "I am pleased to present the victor of the Seventy-Second Hunger Games, Binah Katayanagi from District 3!"

I'd won. I'd done it my way. I know that Dellon would have been proud of me.

So why do I feel so empty?

The answer's lying right in front of me. I know that Fawkes had done some terrible things but nothing the Capitol would've taken against. He hadn't done anything to deserve that fate.

As the ceiling opens up and the hovercraft comes for me, I raise my middle finger to the world and cry out my first words as victor.

"Fuck you, Seneca Crane!"

Fawkes would've made a good victor. He would've done everything the Capitol asked of him and he probably would've done it with style. But since they'd killed him and proved that they don't deserve him, they'll have to make do with me.

They'd better hope that I don't do something that makes them regret it.

I hope you enjoyed the finale. Here's the final death recap.

2nd Place: Fawkes Chau, Mercy-killed by Binah after being destroyed by a tentacle mutt
Okay. Now the secret can come out. Fawkes was my favourite character. In fact, he was my favourite character I've ever written. He was one of those characters who I just couldn't control. Every scene I wrote containing him, I heard his voice in my head saying "Make me like this." and then "Hey, you know I'm your favourite. Give me nice things.". He defied pretty much all the plans I'd had for him. Often, while writing this, I came up with a detail about Fawkes on a whim and found that it suited him so much that I kept it in the story. At one point, I even wondered if I could let Fawkes win. I resisted the urge to make Fawkes the victor the only way I knew how: by making him the villain and giving him the most gruesome death. Except, he wasn't a total villain. Everything malicious that Fawkes did was either an act of psychological warfare - the only weapon he knew how to use - or part of an act for the audience. He never actually made any direct kills. In the end, he realised that his survival was unlikely and that the audience didn't matter and spent his last moments using his skills for good and apologising to Binah. I realised that, even though I made Fawkes a villain, he deserved a shot at redemption.

Victor: Binah Katayanagi
I think we all saw this coming. I tried to throw you off by making Ramona a POV character and making Fawkes... Fawkes, but I'd started writing this with a plan to make Binah the victor and not even the absolute force of nature that was Fawkes Chau could change my mind. Binah's journey through the games was a strange one. She'd spent the first week or so coasting on her alliance and then everyone started trying to kill her and she really started getting tested. Binah's character development was all about learning to forgive people. She was really judgemental at the start, to the point of being a hypocrite sometimes. The turning point was when Ramona told her about the pressure on the Careers that turned them into monsters. In the end, Binah forgave Fawkes for betraying her, which ended up saving her life. If she'd just left him to die, Ramona 2.0's poison would've killed her and Fawkes would've won, even though he had a mutt growing inside his body. That would've made a really bleak ending. Binah did what she set out to do. She won the games her way and she managed to save her district partner, even if she had to kill him to save him.

That brings an end to the Seventy-Second Hunger Games. This isn't the end of the story for Binah and Ramona, though. There'll be a few more chapters just to wrap things up. It's been a wild ride but there are still a few more surprises in store.