XLII: The Capitol - Training Center.
Casimira Ruiz, 17
District Eleven Female
It's the commotion that first grabs her attention.
Casi can't see and she isn't sure why. She feels… pain, sort of, but in an almost distant way. Not all-consuming, not fiery. It's just dull, and somehow that's almost worse. She tries many different things—thinking of something else, imagining a better place, even going so far as to try and shift her weight, but none of it works.
The second she tries, however, the noise begins. Voices floating towards her, all around her. Buttons being pressed, something beeping ever so obnoxiously. The rest of her senses begin to float back after her hearing. Beneath her back is something soft, not quite comfortable, but well enough. The bitter scent of disinfectant, sharp and clerical, invades her nose. Until now she had never quite imagined what cardboard tasted like, but it might as well be the flavor that's clinging to her tongue now.
It's everything except her sight.
"Can you open your eyes for us, sweetheart?"
So she still has eyes. Funny. If they are there they feel undeniably heavy, laden down by some unknown force. She squints and blinks, tries to anyway, and nothing at all happens.
It feels like it takes forever until her left eye cracks open, and the light that assaults her is so vicious and blinding that she closes it again anyway. In that brief second, she saw a tiny glimpse of the world before her, drawn out in shades of gray and white.
The world is there, and it should not be.
It strikes Casi all at once that she should be dead.
When her eyes open, it's not because she was desperately trying. It's a sudden fear that strikes her, terror so strong she hadn't even felt it when she was dangling over the edge of the roof. All she remembers is falling; the impact was so brutal and so quick that she never even had the chance to feel it. Typically, that means dead.
But when she opens her eyes once again there are soft curtains surrounding her and a wide-eyed nurse. The crinkles at the corners of her eyes fade away when Casi looks back at her, something like relief evident in her features. The woman takes her hand, fingers catching against the tape and tubing stuck there. The railings to her left stop her from catapulting away from this stranger—if she even could, anyway. Casi doesn't think she can move.
She fell to her death. She shouldn't be alive, let alone be fit to walk.
"You're alright, sweetheart," the nurse says. If Casi had a voice, she'd snap at her. Stop calling me that. She can hear the pet name in nothing more than her father's voice, so patronizing and ridiculous that she had taken a disliking to the name immediately.
She thinks she could speak, but everything is too dry to even get a word out. "I'm sure this is all very alarming to you, but we're here to help. We're going to explain everything to you. Do you understand?"
No. Casi doesn't understand anything beyond the fact that she should be dead and is here, instead, unless this is some sort of half-way place. Purgatory. Not that she really believes in any of that, but maybe she was finally wrong about something. Still she nods, almost stupidly. It's a relief to be able to move her neck, sore as it may be. That seems to be all the strength she has left; even the desire to detach her hand from the nurse's own doesn't afford her the energy to actually do it.
Casi focuses though, really focuses, and when she stretches out she feels every single muscle in her body protest as her toes curl and uncurl. The ache and burn is welcome. She can walk; perhaps she's dead after all. Only the afterlife would afford her such a miracle after falling so far.
When the woman finally releases her the rest of the voices float back in. Most of them are unfamiliar but some make her brain itch undeniably, as if she's meant to remember them for some strange reason. She knows them, but they sound so far away. Surely whoever's out there hasn't left her alone in here with this nurse forever… they can't. Sooner or later someone will show up to collect her.
It keeps getting louder, though. It's not a valley that rises and falls in peaks, but a crescendo. It's building.
The nurse returns with a small cup of water in her hands, but Casi doesn't even bother reaching for it. The noise is so loud. The curtain ripples in from some unknown force outside.
Before the water can even make it halfway to her lips, the curtain is yanked aside.
For the first time, Casi thinks she may just be alive after all—there's no other reasonable explanation for how her heart stops in that moment. The girl looking back at her is wild-eyed, hair askew, hands still braced outward as if to prepare herself to shove someone away. There are people behind her, but Casi sees none of them. It's only her.
Her throat burns. Aches. The name still escapes her anyway. "Tella?"
And Donatella smiles. It's like the sun has risen. What was previously so gray around her brightens to a magnitude she can't even begin to describe. Everything around them has fallen to a quiet hush, making the weak laugh that Tella rewards with her with all the more better. She remembers the last time they saw each other, the grief and the feeling of the cobblestone beneath her knees as she collapsed under the weight of this girl's death.
Here she stands before Casi once again.
"Are we dead?" she rasps. There's a small, silver-white scar on Donatella's temple that wasn't there before.
Donatella shakes her head. "No."
They're alive. Casi is alive.
She hasn't cried in more years than she can even begin to count, but tears spring to her eyes. In mere seconds Tella is there right before her, a hand on Casi's cheek, warm and trembling and so alive that it almost hurts. It's not possible, but when Donatella leans their foreheads together it feels that way. Undeniably real.
"We're alive," she whispers, but it sounds like the loudest thing Casi has ever heard. A joyous cry, one deafening enough to wake the entire world from slumber.
Finally, her body begins to come alive again. Her fingers are weak and clammy where they come up to clutch at Tella's arm braced alongside her, but her lips when they brush against Casi's knuckles breathe further life into her, so much so that she feels as if she could conquer anything. Be the person her father never thought she could be. Hold onto a girl she has no right to. Get back up against anything that may try to strike her down.
Even survive death, somehow.
Alexa Karamov, 17
District Seven Female
They've never made any progress.
Lex can't help but feel like today's the day, or it will never happen at all.
She doesn't want to do this, to be clear, but she doesn't think Shoah Jensen is going to let her go otherwise. Lex has no real desire to return to Seven, at least not for reasons that anyone would consider valid—she wants to be back out on the water. She wants to return to some of her normal life.
Lex wants to see her sister, too, but if she had to head to Four to do it she thinks it may be off-limits. Delaney will have to come to her.
Going to Four after everything just seems asinine, really.
When she sits down in the same chair as usual something feels different. Off, somehow. That's when she knows that today's the day. If she doesn't start talking about something worthwhile, she'll either be trapped here forever or Shoah will pry the words from her stubborn body. If she has to admit to anything aloud, it's going to be on her own terms.
That serves two purposes; it makes Lex feel better, for one, to take ownership over the more fucked-up aspects of her life. The second is worse—it just makes her think about Varrik.
She wishes she never had to think about him again.
"How are you today?" Shoah asks, and Lex forces herself to sit straighter. A bad, slumped posture isn't going to do her any favors here.
It's the same as every other day. "Fine," she answers. It's an easy lie, one she would tell her parents all the time. The only difference is her parents believed her. They never noticed the subtleties, the little things that were off. If they had they would have recommended she talk to someone sooner, even if Lex never would have agreed to it.
"Have you spoken to anyone else, like I suggested?"
"Does Tanis count?" Lex asks under her breath, already knowing that her mentor most certainly doesn't. They haven't spoken that much, anyway. It's trivial things, conversations that don't matter. She doesn't think her and Veles have spoken more than a dozen words in passing since they both woke up, and she has little interest in changing that. All of her other allies had a hand in killing her.
Who is she supposed to talk to?
"You know who I mean," Shoah reminds her gently. "I know forgiveness is… difficult."
"There's nothing to forgive," Lex says firmly. "I tried to kill them. They killed me instead. That's all there is to it, and it doesn't mean I have to fix anything. I don't need them in my life."
"So that's it, then? You'll return home and forget about all of this, like it never even happened?"
That's the plan, the only one she has. Lex will once again throw herself into the deep end until her muscles begin to burn with familiarity. She'll live knowing that the eventual burn of alcohol will put her into a haze that renders the memories of how much she ate for breakfast all but gone. All they have to do is let her go back to Seven, and life resumes. Nothing has to change.
Everyone else is accepting their change and growing from it, but Lex won't allow this failure—one giant, continuous failure—to plague the rest of her life.
She won't make it very far if she allows that.
Besides, how is she going to make headway with the others when she can't even make progress with herself?
She hates this more than she ever thought possible. If Lex knew what the outcome would be, she never would have filled out the application in the first place; it was more trouble than it was worth. She won nothing, proved nothing. The second she steps off the train and back into the wilderness of Seven everyone will know the truth.
Lex is weak—weaker than she ever wanted to be.
"I'm still going to recommend talking to them—at least one of them," Shoah says. "I can't force you, though."
"Right," Lex says. "You can't."
Shoah looks disappointed at that no matter how much she tries to hide it. This woman wears her heart on her sleeve in an environment she doesn't think necessarily calls for it. She has to care, of course, but she could do it with more tact. But no, instead all Shoah had to say yesterday was that she suspected Lex cared much more than she would ever let on. About the situation, about what had happened to her, and about everyone that still existed around her.
She was wrong in at least one regard, though—Lex didn't think she cared about herself anymore than she once had, no matter how many times she rowed back out onto the water.
"Is there anything else you'd like to recommend?" Lex asks, trying not to sound too eager at the prospect of being rid of this place. In comparison to what she's used to this little room is practically a prison. There are no windows. No sound except their breathing, and she knows her own is much faster than Shoah's. Her body betraying her yet again—how is she even surprised at this point when it continues to fail her?
Shoah takes a deep breath, pen tapping at the edge of the desk. Lex wants to snap at her to quit it out, but she presses her lips together.
"I would say trust in yourself, but I think you already do," Shoah says. "So I'm going to say that it's okay to put trust in other people sometimes. Letting people in is a tricky process but often worth it in the long run."
Her stomach churns uneasily at the mere thought; she doesn't tell Shoah as such, but she wonders if her face gives it away. Lex has spent years making a perfectly crafted version of herself, facade uncrackable. She wonders when the first crack appeared. She thinks, maybe, that it was when Varrik caught her instead of letting her fall like he should have.
Thinking about it doesn't help.
Lex nods. "I'll keep that in mind," she agrees. "Anything else?"
"I'll clear you to be released, if that's what you want. So if I never speak to you after this…"
She won't, but there's no point in speaking that aloud. Coming back down here is not in her cards for the future. Lex stands but forces herself to wait despite her bubbling impatience. At least like this she feels tall again, looking down at Shoah the way she should be.
"Good luck, Alexa," Shoah says simply. Not quite a goodbye, but it feels final.
That's good enough for her.
"You too," she says, reaching for the door. Shoah will need it more than her given she still has so many of them to deal with. It's the least she can say to her in such a trying time. Lex knows that she could have done so much and said even more, but it's not in her blood.
Besides, wishing her luck makes Lex feel better. It makes her feel like she herself doesn't need it.
Even if that's not the truth.
Lisse Rockefeller, 15
District Ten Female
She hates being lonely and only has her own stupid self to blame for it.
Predictably, of course, everything is Lisse's fault somehow.
It feels like years ago when she was lying in the hall of the mansion pinned beneath Casimira Ruiz, just waiting for her ally to end Lisse's poor life. Even worse was the knowledge that her allies, her friends, had run so easily. They hadn't even tried to save her.
Lisse had watched the tapes numerous times since then. How were they supposed to save her? Against people who were armed, no less, even if it was with crude weapons. There were more of them. Penny already couldn't move as well as she liked. If they had tried to save Lisse she thinks all three of them would have died, and that's not what she wanted for them.
Of course they died anyway, but at least they got something more than Lisse did.
She's always wanted to be free, and Lisse feels like she has a chance at that now. Being alone and free though means nothing to her, really. She doesn't want to go through life being bitter, holding onto grudges that shouldn't really exist. She can't blame those girls for prioritizing themselves in an awful moment.
Lisse doesn't know if she would have done the same, but it would have been an option in her head nonetheless.
It's not worth hating them over.
There's no use in asking someone else in the vicinity to bolster her confidence about this whole thing—Kelsea is off somewhere no doubt dealing with their inevitable arrival home, even if Lisse will refuse to go until the bitter end, and Hosea is well… Hosea. Probably drinking, but at least he has company. More people than she has, anyway, which is to say none at all. Lisse can only talk to herself for so long because she goes certifiably mad. Some people would say that her talking to herself means she already is. Lisse has never been so keen on listening to the opinions of others.
She's not a nervous girl, but Lisse feels her stomach plummet along with the elevator. It's not even that far to go, but trepidation fills her regardless. If anything, it just makes her feel silly, far from the confidence she normally holds.
You see, Lisse is a runner. Always has been, likely always will be. When problems arise she's the first one to turn tail and head for the hills—she's never the one that tries to solve it. The girls are giving her space; they know that if Lisse wants to talk, she'll talk. They're all playing a waiting game, and Lisse has finally decided the time's up.
The inevitability of them being on the ninth floor is imminent, so Lisse heads down to Eight first just to check. Finding it empty is almost a relief—she still knows them at their heart. When the elevator shoots her back up she holds her breath, resisting the urge to press any other button that can take her away. These are the girls she trusted, the ones she wanted to call friends.
And she can still do that.
When the elevator doors open, Lisse is given one blissfully long moment to take in her surroundings. They're all collected around the table, the beginnings of a lunch that has yet to be passed around between them all. It's not just Penny and Marigold. Ren is there too, and he's evidently convinced even Mazzen to crawl out of whatever self-depressed little hole he's created to hide from Velcra. Micah is on Penny's other side, and sandwiching him is Oksana. It's such an odd little collection of people.
Lisse steps out of the elevator just before the doors can squash her, putting on a bright smile. It's Marigold that's first out of her chair, practically tripping in her haste to get to her feet. She's smiling too, but there's something different about it. More nervous.
"Hey," she says, breathless despite having only just stood up. Maybe she's just as nervous as Lisse is about all of this.
"Hi," Lisse manages. She didn't think this through well enough. It's not like that last little meeting with her parents—she had that planned. Right now Lisse is at a loss for words for what might be the very first time in her life.
They're all staring at her. Not something Lisse would mind, normally, but something about it now makes her want to crawl under a rock and die. No wonder Mazzen's hardly come out of his room up until this point. Lisse is starting to see the appeal of it herself.
The scrape of her chair is harsh when Penny stands, too. "What's up?" she asks, trying for casual and missing by a mile.
Lisse appreciates it nonetheless.
The silence is terrible. Maybe even worse than death, as terrible as it sounds. They're all waiting for something, but none of them quite sure what it is.
Lisse has to do it. "I miss you guys, alright? I'm… I'm stupid, I guess, and I was blaming you for what happened but it wasn't your fault at all, really, you kept telling me we had to leave and instead I could've gotten us all killed instead of just myself, and even if I try to blame you guys it doesn't stick because I miss you, like I said, and I just want—"
Her never-ending stream of words is cut off abruptly as arms are thrown over her shoulders, weaving tight around her neck. She gets a face full of blonde hair as Marigold squeezes the living daylights out of her. "I'm sorry," she says, muffled into Lisse's shoulder. "I'm so sorry."
"Me too," she says quietly, allowing herself to hug Marigold back. Almost instantly she feels a million times lighter. Even just being with them, getting a hug again… it's working wonders. There's nothing really for either of them to apologize for, but the words will only help them in the long run. They can be friends again. They can move on.
That's all that Lisse really wants right now.
"You having lunch with us, or what?" Penny asks, her voice travelling across the room. She doesn't get much of a choice as Marigold drags her back to the table by her arm, so welcoming and enthusiastic. One of Penny's arms wraps around her shoulders and then she's dragged into her side, warm and safe and protected, somehow.
"Missed you too," she says. "But I'm starving, so…"
Lisse laughs. It's the first time in a while. Penny chuckles too, and Marigold is smiling, and despite all of the horror everyone looks content, even for just a moment.
It's just as perfect and ideal as she could have imagined it to be.
Oksana Varsano, 16
District One Female
It felt good to be normal again.
Just talking and being with other people in a normal setting had lifted her spirits. Oksana hadn't done that in quite some time.
She knows she hasn't got everything sorted. Far from it, in fact. But it's nice to pretend, even for a little while. Oksana is quite good at pretending and, as she's realized, Micah is too. They're both still shaken and wary, jumping at sudden sounds and looking around far too much to be normal, but she feels much more like herself when he walks her back downstairs.
Because of course he does. As if he would bother letting her go when they've been back in each other's company for such a short period of time.
Now they have years of time to do so, Oksana thinks. She thinks… she thinks she can do this, if she really tries. For so many years she thought people were lying about what they said when you were looking death in the face. So many people wanted to die until it was right there in front of them, inescapable. The darkness is still there, don't get her wrong. It creeps up on her and lingers even when she doesn't want it to.
Oksana thinks some of it will always be there; the shadows won't just dissipate and turn into light one day. It's something she'll be fighting every day of her life.
But is it a life worth fighting for? It might just be, now.
Micah makes her feel that way, like life is possible. She still holds onto his arm sometimes like she did when they were in the arena, but it's with none of the same energy. It's just comforting. Oksana hasn't had a good friend in a long while. He can never replace Konstantin, nor would he ever try, but it's pleasant to know that she has him now.
Perhaps she even has many of them now. That lunch was… nice. They're all a bit awkward with each other, but the casual conversation and easy energy of so many others was incomparable.
If only she could have convinced Ambrose to have come along.
She knew it was a lost cause before she even opened her mouth, but that hadn't stopped her from trying. When she steps back onto their floor she's unsurprised to still hear noise, a clear sign that he hasn't left. So far Ambrose hasn't shown any desire to. What she is shocked by is the noise itself, so soft and gentle she could almost be imagining it.
The piano.
She blinks. She can't see it, not from here, but it's just around the corner in the parlor. He hadn't even touched it before the Games, not like on the train.
Why now?
She steps closer and Micah waves her forward, lingering back while she peers into the next room. There he is on the bench, his back to her, fingers drifting lightly on the keys without really applying any pressure. The little notebook Dimara had gotten him is lying abandoned across the top, but she doesn't think he's writing anything down. Just a failsafe, in case someone shows up, and here she is.
Oksana makes her footsteps obvious as she makes her way to him. He startles just like she does nowadays, never properly settling. Thankfully he doesn't so much as flinch when she slides onto the bench next to him, watching his hands as they find random key after key. She doesn't think it's a sign that he's recovering as much as it is that he's just grown used to her presence.
"That's pretty," she murmurs, unwilling to let her voice drown out the music. Ambrose's hands still over the keys, one rising up to his notebook and pen. Not playing anything, she sees him write.
"I know," she says. "Still pretty, though."
It's odd not hearing him, but it's for the best. Sometimes he talks to her in nothing more than whispers when Dimara's not paying attention—Oksana thinks he does it more for her benefit than his own. Of course he wants to recover fully. He wants his voice back. Another check-up tomorrow will hopefully announce some sort of progress, and if it doesn't…
Well, Oksana doesn't allow herself to go there. She's not sure she can handle the very reason he volunteered being so brutally torn away from him; if she can't handle it, Ambrose may just shatter on impact.
And that, she thinks, will ruin them both.
Oksana watches his hands return to the keys though there's something hesitant about them now, as if a fear of judgement has crept back into his system. Perhaps he knows Micah is still back there. Surely he can't be worried about her opinion?
His hands still. "I'm scared."
She doesn't get the chance to steel herself before he speaks, and she's sure he notices the little flinch she can't quite hide. "Of what?" she asks, trying to shake away the feeling. His hardly audible, rasping voice sticks in her eardrums lngt after it's stopped, though she doesn't tell him to go back to his paper and pen. She should, but she can't.
"Tomorrow."
Right. Of course he is. "It's going to be good news," she attempts. "You've been resting, letting yourself recover… they said if you make enough progress they could do another surgery, right? To improve it?"
That's all she can hope for. Dimara will take him downstairs tomorrow and when they return they will have only good things to tell Oksana. Even if it's slow-going something has to give. Ambrose doesn't deserve to be stuck in this loop of pain, so many questions left unanswered. Is he ever going to get his life back?
"And what if it isn't?" he whispers. She wishes she could offer him some sort of reassurance, but is there any use in lying?
It could be bad, too. Just because they've had enough bad so far doesn't mean it's due to end anytime soon.
His hands settle over the keys and slide to the very edge of the piano, hardly hanging on. Oksana wishes—no, prays—for him to pick it back up once again. This is the most life he's shown in days, otherwise so despondent and quiet that she fears losing him to the same shadows that have tried to take her for so long. Until now he had never admitted fear, even if they had all seen it.
Ambrose's head is bowed, shoulders shaking. Fear isn't a strong enough word.
When she sees the beginning of tears begin to splash over his trembling hands it takes all of her willpower not to join him immediately. She blinks back the burn in her own eyes, laying a cautious hand on his shoulder. "No matter what they tell you," she says. "It's going to be okay."
But who is she to say that, really, when she has no idea? Ambrose shakes his head—clearly he can't believe it very easily either. Though she can't see much of his face she knows his tears are only coming quicker, falling farther. All of the emotions that he's bottled up and practically crushed inside his body are finally coming out.
Oksana doesn't consciously make the decision to reach out, but she sees her arms do it all the same. Ambrose doesn't reach back but he folds, crumpling in on himself until he's sagging in her direction, arms wrapped around himself. With his weight laid against her she wraps her arms around him, holding on as tight as she can manage without hurting him. She couldn't bear hurting him.
Not after all of this.
"It's going to be okay," she says, because it certainly isn't right now. Not with him sobbing into her chest like a lost child, so unsure of his future. Anything has to be better than this, right?
Oksana starts when a land lays flat on her back, but Micah's presence is welcoming as always as he sits on the little bit of bench she's left behind her. His other hand reaches for Ambrose's shoulder, his grip unyielding despite his frame. He doesn't say anything where she thinks he normally would; his answering smile is sad when she manages to turn to him, and nothing more.
She doesn't allow herself to cry, and maybe she should. For the first time in her life, though, Oksana feels like she can be the strong one. She can keep everything from falling apart.
She has to.
Mazzen Sylstina, 17
District Three Male
Locking himself in his room has never felt so good.
Mazzen knows it's wrong to shut himself away from the world so often, for so long, but there's no other option. This is how it has to be.
He's a recluse and he knows it. It's not healthy. Not smart.
Clearly nothing Mazzen has done thus far has been smart, so at least it's fitting.
He's not sure when he crossed that line into being okay with what was going on around him and to hating every second of it—the place itself, the people, every second of their conversations. Waking up was fine, at first, but maybe that was because there was no one else around to tell him otherwise. Now he's locked in a labyrinth with both the best and the worst of them. There was no exit that he could find.
Someone would have to direct him out sooner or later. They would be forced to let him go home when they shipped everyone else off.
Would home be any better, though? Three had all of the memories of Otto, the ugliest of them. It had his parents who would never understand what he did. Worst of all it would have Velcra, even if it wasn't right away. Someday they would let her get on a train home when they deemed her stable enough, and then his nightmare would begin all over again.
The living one, anyway. Mazzen already had enough nightmares whenever he closed his eyes.
He had no right to any of them. Somehow that was the worst part. He had gotten a quick death when Velcra would have drawn it out in any other scenario. He didn't get days in the arena of worrying and obsessing about it. It was just one stupid, rash decision, and that was it. Game over. Not anymore time to think about it than that.
But he dreamed. God, did he dream, each one worse than the last. They had given him something to help him sleep, but Mazzen was beginning to suspect that the pills were meant to fake him out. No way they would let a kid freshly out of the Games self-medicate when they were already so far down the gutter, no, that was just asking for it.
Mazzen flushes the remaining pills down the toilet fifteen minutes later—no point to them, really. He'll still have nightmares tonight whether or not he takes them, and no one can stop it from happening. He thinks Ren is beginning to figure it out. The kid keeps showing up, keeps talking to him, inviting him to lunch. All such a valiant effort from someone that he abandoned not ten minutes into things.
Ren had a way of making you feel bad about refusing even if it wasn't intentional. Mazzen went because it made him look good.
These little outings, though, only made him feel worse. He had sat around that table today, sure, but no one had really spoken to him. No one would even look him in the eye. Mazzen was only there because Ren would feel guilty if he didn't extend an invitation; he certainly wasn't anyone's friend. Not their first choice. Never was. The only time Mazzen had been chosen first was that damn reaping, and look how well that went.
It was better to just lock himself in his room, was what he had discovered. He could feign sleep if Ren came to bug him. He wouldn't have to see Velcra. He wouldn't have to talk or pretend or even exist, really.
He had no right to be this messed up.
When the nightmares return tonight he'll try his damnedest to fend them off, but Mazzen knows that he won't be rid of them. Not truly. His dreams are worse than any sort of reality, and his brain has had no trouble conjuring up a million awful things that could have happened to him. He sees his own body as if he's floating above it, a thousand open cuts littering his body from the end of Velcra's knife. The pain is still there. Mazzen couldn't be lucky enough to escape it.
Every night it's a variation of the same thing. He dies over and over again. She never stops killing him, the manic smile growing on her face until he wonders if it could split her face in two. Somehow it only keeps getting bigger, stretching to illogical proportions. His brain knows his silly it all is, but it refuses to allow him to wake. Mazzen has to live out every moment of the torture until his body finally gives in and slips away.
After that he doesn't sleep. Who could, really?
Talking to someone would be good, he knows. Even Ren would listen. If only Mazzen knew how to get the words out.
He just can't shake the feeling that Ren wouldn't care. He would listen, sure, but would he really do anything? At the end of the day Mazzen is still their twenty-fourth, their forgotten one. The ideological, obsessed kid who thought he could fight a monster and somehow win.
He lost. He lost, and now that very monster is roaming around outside. Just waiting for another opportunity, he's convinced.
Maybe his nightmares are real after all.
Ilaria Landucci, 18
District Six Female
She's been staying in bed more than she would have liked as of late, but this morning Ilaria makes a pact with herself.
She is going to be a victor.
It doesn't mean near as much as it would nearly any other year, but this is the year Ilaria's been given. The one she chose, technically. She knew what she was getting into, though assuming she understood their full intentions would, frankly, be insulting. Then again, Ilaria still would have done it even if she knew. There was no other option.
For a while she's selfish in her own right—she wishes that it was just her. It would have been so much easier for her to wrap her head around if that was the case. It's awful and Ilaria knows it, to wish death on so many children, but it would uncomplicate everything Ilaria is currently dealing with. No doubt some of them hold that same resentment towards her as well, for having the audacity to live when she had no right to it.
But everyone died, and she lived, and somehow they're all in the same boat. Stuck in limbo, or so it feels like, unable to tell which way is up and which one's down. They're spinning in endless circles.
No doubt most of them are trying harder than her now. Ilaria knows nothing but a life of hardship and resilience; sue her for crawling under the covers for a bit to wallow and reflect on how twisted all of this is. She knows damn well most of the others are working on their futures, trying to move on, and all she's done is close herself off. Call it a by-product of being with the Halflings for so long, perhaps. It's so much easier to distance yourself than not.
She knows she's bad because even Cal is trying with her, attempting to coax her out of her room in his gruff, almost off-putting way. She's glad he's not acting any different, though—in fact, she's glad that he's so blatantly similar to before. Ilaria isn't sure she could handle such a change on top of everything else.
There is no coming to terms with this overnight. Ilaria doesn't think she'd fully understand it even if she had the fortune of a thousand years under her belt. She has a choice here—she can hide and let misery wash over her, or she can stand up.
She can be a victor. That's what they all deserve.
It's not just about the audience, the Capitol, the Districts. Not her parents, if they're even watching, or Ceto. Ilaria owes it to all of these kids here, the ones she killed and the ones who died around her, to do the one job none of them can do. Regardless of the fact that they're all alive now, she's the person everyone will look to whether she likes it or not.
She can speak for them. Ilaria can be the person that safe-guards not just her own future, but all of theirs.
This never has to happen again.
When she finally makes her way out of bed she devotes some time to herself, letting the pulsating heat of the shower ease away some of the knots in her shoulders. She isn't sure what they're borne of, sheer uncomfortable or simply the stress of it all. Afterwards she examines the scars peppered over her bare skin in the mirror; she's covered in them both big and small, but Ilaria knows she'll never have the heart to get rid of them. They're a part of her now as much as anything else. In fact, she feels more like herself than she has in quite some time.
As the water pours down the drain and drips down the tiled walls it feels like she's washing away so many of the sins that have plagued her so long. With them gone, no one can take her prisoner anymore.
Emerging from her room, Ilaria almost certainly expects to be alone. Finding a set of familiar faces looking back at her is quite the shock—Emmi was always going to be there, if anyone. Cal is there too, though, and Licia is sprawled out on the floor drawing patterns in the rug aimlessly with one hand.
Ilaria knows what they see when they look at her. Freshly dressed, hair pulled back, eyes tired but holding onto a promising amount of vigor.
"You look good," Emmi comments. Not only that, but she feels good too.
Properly alive again.
She won, whether she's accepted that or not. Winning doesn't make her a monster. She did what she had to in order to survive, and one day she'll make amends with that. Maybe not today. Maybe not anytime soon, in fact.
But one day.
Ilaria is a victor. The victor.
And she will not allow herself to be scared of the future.
And with this we have officially seen all of our lovely, and not so lovely, children again. What happens after this? That's for me to know and you to find out.
Until next time.