Day 11: Finale


Evelyn Darby, 15, District Six Female

The early morning sky is dark, but I'm still on the ground, for the first time since the first night of the Hunger Games. I didn't find a treehouse. I don't care. If the wolves find me, they can have me. I'm not the Victor the Capitol wants, anyway. The wolves enjoy a meal. My nightmare ends. Maybe I'll never wake up; maybe it's better that way. Even if I do win, is that really what I want?

Not with all the screaming, at least. Marleigh's screaming. Achan's screaming. Reuben's screaming, though I don't remember if he actually screamed before he died. I don't know if it matters at all.

Oh, and my screaming. I scream the loudest. Sometimes in my head. Sometimes out loud. It's hard to tell the difference.

But my vocal cords are fried now, worse than the doughnut Dad once accidentally leftin the fryer back home. I pull my knees tighter and press my face against them in my hiding spot tucked under a rocky overhang.

I'm in the final three. I never thought I'd last this long. I shouldn't have lasted this long. Maybe my odds are no longer zero. That's funny, in just a morbid way. Twenty-one scared kids like me had to die for my odds to go from nothing to… barely something.

But no number next to the percentage sign makes a difference when I'm not sure I care enough to win.


Barrett Adler, 18, District Ten Male

For the first time ever, there hasn't been a single howl all night. I pace back and forth along the outskirts of our little makeshift camp, where I've been watching all night for any sign of the wolves, ready to rush Bryson to the safety of the buildings at a moment's notice. I should be relieved that I haven't seen a single snout or tail in the dark woods, but the silence feels worse.

It means we're at the end.

The end of the Games. Alliances never make it to the end; it's a miracle the two of us haven't split up. Traditional alliances are based on mutual interest, built on the shaky understanding that either member could stab the other in the back at any moment.

We never were a traditional alliance.

Tired of pacing, I sit down on a large stone and rest my elbows on my knees, staring blankly at the silvery gravel that covers the ground. What do we do now? We can't stick together forever—the Capitol needs a single Victor. Odds are, if we don't fight, they'll send the wolves or the woodpeckers or something worse after us.

Is there a way out of this?

I sigh. There's always only ever been one answer. Find the other tribute, take them out, and then… the part I'd prefer not to think about, because then I picture my family, huddled together in front of the big screen, praying for me to win when I'm not going to win.

Maybe Alia's ghost will get rest when I go out too.

But this plan requires killing the other tribute. Evelyn Darby, the girl from Six. If I want Bryson to win, then I'll have to kill her. After Alia… I'm not sure I can do this.

"What am I supposed to do?"

I freeze—gosh, I'm talking to myself now? I glance over at Bryson and sigh in relief when he remains fast asleep. His lip's quivering; he must be having a nightmare. It's best if I leave him clueless and save him some extra worrying. He's been through enough.

But if I'm sure this is what I must do, then why don't I feel okay with it?

Assuming all goes according to plan, this will be my last day alive. Oh… that's such a horrible thought. It's one thing for death to come suddenly, but this anticipation weighs on my back, crushing me until I'm shaking where I sit, fingernails digging into my knees.

Maybe I'm not that good of a person. Maybe I can't handle it.

I pull the knife out of my belt and twirl it in the moonlight, where it reflects silver flashes every which way. This blade… inside of me. What a terrible, terrible thought! But the alternative is killing Bryson, and there's no way I'm doing that.

Please… I need strength for this.

My fist grips the handle so hard that I'm beginning to sweat. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. If only there were a way out of this, a way for more than one of us to live!

But there isn't. I've made my decision, and there's no going back. I'm sorry, Momma. As much as I wish I could… I won't be coming home. I hope y'all understand.


Bryson Fields, 13, District Nine Male

The growing pit in my stomach makes it impossible to sleep. I close my eyes, but my heart starts pounding and my muscles get tense and all I can hear is Final 3, Final 3, Final 3 in my ears like a jackhammer. Still, I force my eyes to stay closed. I'm supposed to be asleep.

"What am I supposed to do?"

It's Barrett. He's talking to himself. Oh gosh… has he gone insane? Did he snap? I've never heard him talk to himself before. My hand searches under the bag I use as a pillow, resting only when it closes around the handle of my knife.

I crack open an eye. Barrett sits hunched over on a rock a small distance away, his stiff silhouette bathed in silvery moonlight with his head bowed low. He twirls a knife in his hand, which flashes menacingly every few seconds with the light of the moon.

Every hair on my arm stands right up. He isn't thinking about… he wouldn't… right? I wouldn't have suspected anything a day ago, but what am I supposed to think now that he barely talks to me?

Gosh, now I can't sleep.

I crawl to my feet. He snaps his head up at the rustling, eyes wide and shoulders tense.

"Hey," I whisper. "I can't sleep anymore."

"I reckon we have… another hour left? Try again; you need all the rest you can get."

I try to smile. "Maybe you should try to sleep. Just a little."

"I'll be fine."

"Please?"

He hesitates and then sighs. "You sure?"

"You betcha. You look terrible."

The corner of his lip curls up. Though it isn't much, he doesn't look like he has the energy to give any more than that. "Thanks for the thought. Maybe I'll give it a try."

I stand frozen in place as I watch him lie down and close his eyes, soon followed by the regular rhythm of his breathing that's soothed me many a night in the past week, a rhythm that reassures me that I have someone looking out for me, even here in the Arena.

But is he still looking out for me? It was different when the other tributes were still in the Game; keeping me alive was a risky but plausible decision. Now that it's just us and Six, my existence threatens his.

Maybe that's why he's been off. Maybe killing Two meant that there was no longer a good reason to keep me alive, and that means he has to kill me. Maybe he finally realized that there can only be one Victor.

If that's the case… then I'm definitely in danger.

I shiver and jump to my feet, unable to sit still any longer. What do I do? Barrett is a beast of a man; neither I nor Six stands a chance against him—and we'd still lose if we teamed up on him. I only stand a chance if I attack him while he's sleeping…

Bryson! What am I thinking? Stabbing Barrett? After everything we've been through? I shake my head—that can't possibly be an option! There has to be another way to survive…

But there isn't. As much as I hate to admit it, I can't both have him alive and go home.

I want to go home more.

Could I kill him?

If I squeeze my eyes shut and focus really hard, Dad's face pushes out Barrett's.

Could he kill me?

Though I'm armed and he isn't, he could kill me with his bare hands if he wanted to. But he's sleeping. I'm awake. That tilts the odds in my favor. If I can get him in the heart, it'll be over before he has a chance to fight back.

I dig my knife out from under my bag and approach his sleeping figure.


Barrett Adler, 18, District Ten Male

I feel the fire first.

My eyes fly open. I try to sit up, but the moment I exert any energy, a ball of flame explodes in my chest and I fall back onto the ground. I stare up into Bryson's eyes. He's holding a knife, covered in blood that drips down on me.

Oh.

Is this what he was thinking when he told me to rest? I thought he was being considerate! After all that I've done for him and all I was going to do for him… This is what he does?

I'm not going home.

It would've been an easy win. The odds are firmly in my favor. But with that stab of a thirteen-year-old, my odds just went from a hundred to zero. I could've chosen to kill

But I know the truth. I never was going home.

If he hadn't stabbed me, I would've given myself up for him to win. And now that he's stabbed me… it's clear how my story will end.

The shock is wearing off; the pain skyrockets with every passing moment. Though moving rips lightning through my chest, I bring my hand over the wound, feeling around the sticky area until I find the spot, the location where I stabbed Alia, right over the heart. I tap it twice.

"You missed… Try here."

"I-I…" His eyes grow wide, watering at the edges. His shoulders remain frozen with tension, as if he was bracing for some kind of impact. This won't do. If he's going to win, he needs to be as intact as possible. This could've all been avoided… but it's too late for that now.

"Hey… hey…. Don't cry… Win for me… okay?"

He sniffles, wipes his eyes, and nods. This almost feels ridiculous—he's killing me, and I'm the one comforting him? There's still part of me that can't believe I was ready to give myself up for someone that was just going to stab me in my sleep. Oh… how it stings! Yet as I look up into his eyes, I can't hate him. I can't be mad, not under these circumstances. I could've done more for him if he hadn't acted first, but now things are out of my control.

I've done my best. The rest is up to him. With as much strength as I can muster, I pull my cheeks back in a smile and close my eyes.

Everything cuts to black.


The Arena


Boom.

Bryson staggers to his feet, the knife in his hand dripping with the blood of his protector, his guardian, his friend. He shivers although the fire next to him provides more than enough warmth, as if a thick, warm winter coat had just been ripped off his back. He knows he's the one that ripped it off.

When his stab didn't instantly kill, his life flashed before his eyes as he waited for Barrett's retaliation, a swing, a stab, a snap. It would've hurt to see him bleed to death, eyes accusing him to the last moment.

This is worse.

"I-I'm sorry."

His eyes stay fixed on Barrett's corpse—it can't be a corpse! He drops to his knees again, clutching Barrett's hand, but there's no warmth there.

Of course there isn't. He killed him.

Though the sun rises, shining its warmth over the Arena and bringing hopes of a beautiful day, Bryson's hope disintegrates, growing colder by the second.


Evelyn hears the cannon as she wanders the dim woods, where no amount of sunlight can chase away the shadows she sees. That means she's in the final two.

Final… Two?

It's time for the finale. She knows it from years of being forced to watch kids kill each other from the safety of her living room, never once suspecting that she'd be the one on the screen someday. Does she need to go to the Cornucopia? That's often where showdowns happen.

She shudders. The Cornucopia is scary. She doesn't want to go back. The Cornucopia is where her fellow tributes died, one of them her former ally. The Cornucopia is where the most screams happened.

But the Cornucopia is where she'll find an end. So the Cornucopia is where she'll go.

She turns back. And then her other back. And then her other back? The trees all look the same—aren't they all the same? In the dim recesses of her memory, she vaguely remembers figuring out locations with Reuben, but Reuben's gone and any mental marker she made disappeared with him.

A snarl ripples through the silence, rolling over her like a sound wave of ice that freezes her movements save for her unstoppable trembling. The sound is familiar, but she's never heard it like this, while the artificial sun still kisses her skin.

A snout pokes out from behind a thick clump of trees, quickly followed by the gleaming eyes, the grey-and-white fur, the bared white teeth that shakes her until she's not sure she knows how to walk. Then another. Then another. It's a pack, standing right there, watching her.

She laughs. Laughs. After a night of waiting, the wolves finally come out to eat her now? How generous! It saves her the trouble of finding the Cornucopia; end her now and they have a Victor—

Oh.

They'd have a Victor. That isn't what the Capitol wants, at least not yet. The Capitol wants a messy, gory death, not a random mutt kill out in the middle of nowhere. If she really wants to die, she could try running blindly into them and hope they tear her apart, but one look at their bared fangs is enough to keep her far, far away from them.

It's not so much death itself that scares her at this point. It's the getting there.

So she takes careful steps back, one foot at a time, watching the wolves as they advance with her, eating up the space she leaves as soon as she lifts her foot. She cowers further as they hedge her forwards, wincing at the anticipation of fighting the other tribute, who'll likely easily take out weak, little her. If only she had the guts to charge into the wolves and spare herself the extra pain.

The wolf growls for her to hurry up. She quickly obliges.


Bryson follows the river down to the Cornucopia, clutching Barrett's dying wish like a burning coal that eats him from the inside out. His senses are on high alert. He hears the rustle of the wind in the pine boughs, which sway in the breeze like sheaves of grain from home. He watches every ripple in the clear waters, every leaf that glides by, every fish that hurries away. If he notices enough, it might fill up his mind enough to take it off of… other things.

The Cornucopia appears up ahead; he picks up his pace. It's bright and golden as it was ten days ago, when he first rose up into this natural beauty of a hellscape. What was he thinking then? Worrying about where Barrett was? This time, he knows exactly where Barrett is. Up in a hovercraft, perhaps already in his coffin, shipped back to District Ten, where his grieving family will welcome him back with heartbroken sobs, likely surrounded by many, many friends. Someone like Barrett was bound to have many rooting for his survival.

But if Bryson wins, he'll go back to District Nine with Capitol fanfare, heralded as Victor, bringing promises of a year of plenty. Dad will surely be there; perhaps even Mom will. His separated family might have a chance at reconciliation, and—

Was it really worth it?

The river isn't around to take him off his thoughts anymore.

No.

So he kicks at the rocks, sending them flying against the Cornucopia in hopes that one will dent. There's still food scraps left over from the Feast; a little garden gnome lies among the fried chicken breading and broken glass, their crumbs laced with splatters of dried blood. He grabs a plate and spins it at the horn, where it shatters with a ringing that temporarily overrides his thoughts. But then the ringing ends and everything comes flooding back.

"Hurry up!" he yells, hurling a larger stone. "Let me go home!"

The only reply is the clang of rock against metal as his voice echoes back at him, bouncing back and forth between the mountains on both sides of him. He has no choice but to smolder in the suffocating silence.

So he waits.


The moment she gets a glint of gold, Evelyn wants to puke. Last time she was here, she was too hungry to remember anything. Now that she's had a bit of food in her, she notices the blood stains on the rocks.

Was that… Achan?

She'll never find out. She was too much of a coward to look back during the bloodbath. All that's left here is the stains of the dead, splattered across the debris. Amidst the chaos, a boy paces, unhinged steps uneven as he wanders to and fro. He turns to look.

"You're finally here."

It's the boy from Nine, the thirteen-year-old. His statement is an accusation. Why didn't she arrive sooner? The sight saps the energy from her muscles; her arms hang limply at her side from her drooping shoulders.

"I-I'm sorry…" she says, unable to put the rest of her jumbled thoughts into anything vaguely coherent. Sorry… that I'm not dead? That I took so long to get here? That I'm too scared to die? Odds are, she's still going to die anyway. She doesn't have a knife. He does.

If he hears her, he doesn't show it, or maybe any sign of acknowledgement is hidden by furrows far too deep for someone of his age. His brown hair hangs damp with morning dew, clinging to his face twisted with an indecipherable mix of emotions that blur together in his pained dark eyes.

She wants to hug him too, or say something comforting, or reassure him somehow that everything will be alright. But that's not an option anymore, not while he holds a bloody knife in front of him in defensive posture. Besides, last time she tried to care… she doesn't want to think about it.

You're not supposed to care in the Hunger Games.

She can't care. She can't fight him. So she stares. There's nothing more for her to do.


He stares back at the girl from Six.

She almost looks like a zombie, with the pale skin on her thin face pulled tightly over her skull, leaving holes for empty eyes that do nothing but stare and blink. When he last saw her in the Capitol, her hair was a curly mane fighting against the hair band that tied it back, but now it's a wiry, dirt-matted web that sticks to the skin on her neck.

If he were feeling confident, he'd say that he has a chance against her. Besides, he has a knife. She doesn't. That tilts the odds in his favor.

Déjà vu.

That makes it even worse.

"I-I don't w-want to f-fight you…" she says.

"I… I don't want to fight you either," he says, but the words catch in his throat and they come out as soft wisps of smoke that vanish as soon as they leave his mouth.

"Why do we have to fight?"

He knows the answers. To go home. To not die. Because it's what they've been told to do. But he knows she knows the answers too, and they're not enough for either of them.

Why do I fight? To make the nightmare end. To leave the ever-threatening artificial monster of the Arena. To find himself back in Dad's arms, where he can hide forever.

(If the lingering warmth of Barrett's hugs doesn't kill him first.)

The wolves have now formed a loose circle at the mouth of the Cornucopia around the two of them, about twenty feet in diameter. Neither of them is going anywhere unless one's in a coffin and the other's going home via the Capitol.

"I want to go home," he says, half to her, half to himself, as if to justify what he knows he has to do.

She nods mechanically.

He strikes first.

She's more nimble than he thought; she breaks left when he swipes with his knife. He lunges at her. The knife pierces her thigh, where it digs in her flesh for a moment before it slips right back out, dripping red everywhere.

She buckles, bends over, and falls to the ground. Bleeding. Crying. Screaming. As red spurts from her thigh, his breath chokes and he can't breathe and all he sees is Barrett, bleeding out, showing him where to stab instead of fighting him. He rapidly sucks in air, trying to hold on as his head goes so light it feels as if it might float away.

I… need… air…


She's blindly thrashing; it hurts with an intense flame that pulls her out of her vegetative state. She's not sure she wants to win, but she is sure that she doesn't like the blood, or the pain, or the knife that cut straight into her thigh.

I'm not brave enough to accept death.

"Get away from me!" she screams, but he's still there with the knife in his hands covered in her blood. He's going to stab her again, and it's going to hurt, and she'll have to suffer as she bleeds out on the glass-covered ground.

She must fight.

With a sudden burst of adrenaline-fueled energy, she swipes at him, clawing to get the knife out of his hands, to keep it away from him. He waves his arms, whacking her in the face. She grabs it and bites down.

He screams.

The sound pierces her ears, and she immediately releases, just as the red-drenched knife clangs on the ground. His scream echoes hers, ringing together in a cacophony of shrieking that conjures up the other screams. He's hurt! He needs help! But he's trying to kill her. He stabbed her. She grits her teeth and tries not to listen.

She scoops up the knife that he dropped, nicking her hand on a shard of broken glass, residue from the Feast. Here on this field, Achan and Reuben saved her once. Marleigh saved her once. With their hopeful faces in mind…

Maybe I don't want to die.

Dad and Mom are waiting for her. Theo must be watching—she can't let him watch his older sister die! Bryson's on the ground, hyperventilating with ragged gasps that don't seem to do him any good.

I've done it before. I can do it again.

Just like with Marleigh. Quick and fast. She holds her breath and tries not to think about the horrific feeling of the resistance of human flesh and she's ready to cut but he suddenly looks too much like Theo and—

She can't.

And now the choice is taken away from her.


He squeezes his eyes shut and blocks out the red with the black of nothingness. He grips his chest and forces his lungs to work, take deep breaths, stop hyperventilating. It's what Barrett would want.

As they fought, he saw it in her eyes. She wanted to kill him. She wanted him dead. And now he wants her dead too. So when she pauses, he slams himself into her and pries the knife out of her hand.

She's not a poor girl from Six anymore. She's his enemy. And she's trying to kill him.

"I.. got it," he pants once the knife is firmly in his hands. It's sticky with blood; it pulls at the skin of his palm. He forces himself to focus on his enemy before him. At this point, thinking about killing beats thinking about the dead.

She's trying to back off, pulling herself across the ground to scoot away from him, unable to walk with her wounded thigh. He scrambles to his feet; she can't out run him. He charges at her, knife ready to bring the drawn-out nightmare to its bloody end.


She screams when he leaps at her. A hand clamps down hard on her shoulder. I can't move! And the knife is coming down. She grabs his knife arm and pushes back while he presses the knife down with everything he has. She tries to push him away, but he's stronger than she is and she can't escape his grip. She wriggles and squirms until—

Aha! She rolls to the side, taking him with her, but the momentum thrusts them forward and they roll across the field over and over. Broken glass digs into her back, but he's trying to kill her and glass cuts don't matter anymore.

Bam!

Her back slams against a boulder. She can't move anymore.

It's over.

Her hand searches the ground for a rock, a glass shard, anything that'll keep the cannon from coming, even if it's just for a few moments more because her arms feel as limp as bread dough and his knife is about to end her life. Her hand hits something hard. Without hesitation, she strikes at him in a blind upward swing.

Her weapon shatters in a burst of ceramic and acid.


He screams. It's in his eyes, on his face, all over him. The burning coal gives way to the corrosive liquid that gnaws at him faster that Barrett's wish ever could. The blue sky and white clouds blur together into a soupy shade of blue, and then both disappear as a grey filter darkens over his vision.

Grey. Then dark grey. Then black.

He can't see.

I can't see.

His eyelids are open. He still feels the wind dying his eyeballs out. He gropes in the dark until his head slams into metal and he collapses to the ground, writhing in pain as the acid burns that cover him press into the dirt like animal brands searing every exposed inch of him.

I couldn't win for you, Barrett.

The fog of pain dulls his senses until the world is but a distant whisper in the back of his brain. All he can see is Barrett's dying expression, briefly flashing with hurt before returning to the kindness they always held.

This is what I deserve.


The boy's screams in her ear hurt more than the acid burns on her arms and chest, where it splattered after she smashed Marleigh's gnome against his face. She wipes her eyes, careful to keep the corrosive liquid out of them.

Even now… you're watching over me, Marleigh.

Bryson's whimpering, curled up beside the Cornucopia. The knife's next to him. She knows what she has to do. She doesn't want to. She wants to hide in a corner and slam her head against the floor to dull the painful dissonance. But he's in pain—pain that she caused—and every last exhausted sob twists her heart into another knot.

She half-hobbles, half-crawls over to him, even as the tears stream from her eyes from the pain of the gash in her leg and the acid burns all over her.

"I-I'm sorry," she whispers again

She gingerly picks up the knife and slits his throat. The bubbling red once would've broke her, but there's nothing left to break. It barely registers in her tear-blurred vision.

Boom.

Trumpets blare from above, echoing around the Arena. They sound distant.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, may we present the Victor of the Thirty-Seventh Annual Hunger Games…"

She looks to the sky in confusion. Victor. Did they get it wrong? She's not a victor; she barely survived, carried by the help of Reuben and Marleigh. But there's no one else around her, and she knows that there's not another living soul from where she is to the edge of the Arena.

"Evelyn Darby, of District Six!"

I should've let him kill me.


The Fallen

Barrett Adler (D10M), killed by Bryson Fields (D9M) — 3rd Place

BARRETT! MY BEST DISTRICT TEN BOY EVER. This pained me so, so much. I loved him with every fiber of my being; y'all saw how fast I finished the D10 Non-Reapings. I don't have the words to describe my love for this teddy bear of a D10M. To be completely honest… his death was the first one I ever came up with. And I feel horrible for it. But my horrible writer side had to do it. It was the most tragic thing that had ever crossed my brain and I almost literally cried writing it. I'm so, so sorry! Believe me, I got happy plans for him in the High School AU.

Bryson Fields (D9M), killed by Evelyn Darby (D6F) — 2nd Place

Bryson NOOOOOOO… It took a second for him to grow on me (since I have a mostly negative view of middle schoolers from experience), but once I got attached to him in training, there was no going back for me. I loved him so much! He was a perfect balance between being not-stereotypical for a thirteen-year-old yet also being… well, thirteen years old. He will forever hold a special spot in my heart.

and finally…

Evelyn Darby (D6F) — Victor

How did you win? When looking through my forms I was thinking Barrett or Lannister or Orysa… and then I decided I would have Bryson kill Barrett, which meant that the other tribute couldn't be anyone way out of his skill level. Plus I loved Evelyn? I related to her intro so much, with the way she literally couldn't function around people. She and Reuben had the sweetest district pair relationship (maybe save for Landmine), and I chose her for Victor because of her arc that began in the Capitol, when Reuben first tried to teach her how to make new friends to when she began to gain the courage to reach out to strangers (specifically Marleigh). This choice was so hard to make between Evelyn and Bryson… but this is what I've done, and there's no going back.


A/N And the finale is here! I'll keep this short because people are waiting in voice chat. I'll have concluding thoughts with the epilogue next chapter.

Thoughts?