Anella Finch
District 10 Female: Victor
4 weeks after the 300th Annual Hunger Games
"Felix!" I scream out the train's rusty, obviously tinted window, watching the mop of curly auburn hair fly across the train station. I start to get up from my seat, staring at him as he comes to a stop a few yards from the train. Maya fiercely reaches for my left forearm to keep me stationary and I let out a low growl at her.
"They need to unload first." She reasons.
"No." I say, narrowing my eyes at the woman. Her cropped white hair sits calmly against her shoulders as her strained, dark eyes stare directly into my own. I can see the trauma and the screams swirling deep in her brown pupils and instinctively I want to wrap my arms around her. Comfort her like she had done to me the second I'd stepped off the Capital Hovercraft. But I don't, instead, I turn back to the transparent window. A small tear starts to gather in the corner fracture of my right eye as I think of my younger brother. I have to see Felix again, he's the biggest person in my life after all.
I won for him.
"Anne!" Felix shouts, seeing my tan, utterly broken features in the tinted window. I smile pleasantly at Maya, ripping my arm from her grasp.
"Felix…" I croak, weaving my way through the unloading crowd until I reach the train's giant, agape door. The driver looks at me for a second before pressing a small yellow button and the door creaks open with a loud crunch.
"Anne, you did it." My little brother says, engulfing me in an embrace. His strong arms wrap around my waist and even at fifteen, he is already terribly strong. I finally, for the first time since I left Ten, feel at home again.
"I did," I say, running my hand through his auburn hair that flies wildly in the wind. "For you." He presses his face into my shoulder, sobs racking his body.
"I missed you." He balls, squeezing his arms tight around my waist.
"Where's everyone else?" I croak and his freckled face looks up at me, giving a small nod to the train station's golden embroidered doors.
"I was the only one allowed in." He replies, his eyes puffy and red, shadowing against his sun-kissed skin. "I can't believe you made it home."
"I-" I start but the image of my best friend drips into my reality, spoiling the nice moment with my brother. Bittersweet, that's all it tastes all of the sudden.
"Anne?" he asks, sensing the sudden mood shift. He lets go of my waist and looks into my eyes, searching for something deeply lined in my irises. "Sunna?" he asks and I can't do anything besides nod.
"I'm so sorry." He replies and that's when I lose my bearing and wits. The tears stream down my face in an unholy matter, staining my pale purple top and dripping down my flushed cheeks. Sunna was the greatest friend I could have ever asked for, the only one I could rely on in the arena. She was the stability to my ambition, and I let that all go. I let her go.
"She's dead." I croak and Felix just nods, wrapping me into another hug. This time it's not him clinging to me, but offering support. I know Felix wants what's best for me and I can always count on him but it's just… Sunna.
"Her memory will heal with time." He comforts, his voice light and airy. The words roll off his tongue with ease, obviously a phrase he said a lot while I was gone. It makes sense, Felix and I are the ones to hold the family up and when I disappear he'd have to take my place as well. I felt so bad when I was reaped, leaving him with this mess. I could barely hold the thought of his fifteen-year-old self taking care of our entire family, all on his own. Without anyone to care for him.
The feeling almost as strong as the image of Sunna's pale face whispered against the cold pitch-black sky of the giant ice maze. The one that had foretold my best friend's fate, her name written across the starless sky. Leaving me to drown in her memory, fucking alone and that's something I will never forgive her for, no matter how selfish that makes me. She tried to escape, the words of her little sister pulling her to the Tribute Chest Hall's utterly dark walls.
She'd reached for an escape, clinging to nothing. She came up empty-handed, the life drained from her body. The body once full of beauty and liveliness. The body that convinced me that these Games weren't as bad as I thought they were. Sunna's death, however, ultimately proving that feverish hope to be a twisted lie. The games were bad, terribly bad-
"Anne you ugh!" Maya screams, the woman's words pulling her back to the nosy train station littered with workers who muddled through the train's cargo.
"You should go." Felix says, dropping his arms from my shoulder and side. His green eyes shine up at me with utter vibrance, eerie emerald pools of soft kindness.
"I love you." I croak, drying my wet checks with the fabric of my shirt sleeve.
"Anne get back here!" Maya shouts, standing in the train's entrance, pointing out the cargo the teams were almost done loading.
"I love you too." Felix whispers as he gives me a small push towards the train. My feet feel like chained lead, both stuck tightly to the ground as Maya calls me forward.
"Finch you idiot," Maya says, stepping down onto the train station's platform before grabbing tight to my arm and leading me back inside.
Anella Finch
District 10 Female: Victor
2 months after the 300th Annual Hunger Games
All I can envision is Sunna, her light blonde hair tied back in her typical ponytail with a few wispy strands escaping and curling around her pale features. Her sweet face embodies my nightmares every night, tearing apart my utterly shattered reality. She's the one thing keeping her in the Capital yet making me want to leave the earth entirely. I feel so conflicted, why me? There had been so many better tributes who should have won, not me. I should be dead, lying in the ashes with a bad blow to the head. Something, anything else besides life. Every single one of the other tributes would be a better fit as victor.
I have been able to, with my victory money, start up a small camp for poor Capital children. One I have no idea if will work but have good faith in. I want to help children out there who are hurting, the Capital is a piece but the next step would be moving to the Districts.
Young children have always had a special place in my heart, which is why I keep in touch with Lavender, Sunna's young sister. Thank Panem both her and Lilac had survived the attack on Nine but her brother... The young boy had been burned like many of the other unlucky citizens of District Nine.
Sunna would have been so sad to see that her brother is dead but I hope they're thriving wherever they went. Wherever human's reside after death, or at least what I think is death. I, honestly, haven't been too sure about anything lately. Sunna's memory often is distracting me, she somehow follows me everywhere. Her face brings me both guilt and strength and I'm not exactly sure what to make of it.
Sunna. Felix tells me to try and forget her but that's not an option. She was my best friend and over the course of a month, we'd grown close, probably too close. Had I listened to Maya and not gotten close to any of my allies, maybe I wouldn't be hurting this bad? But the hurt gives me a weird feeling. Reminding me that I'm still here, that I'm still breathing and very much alive. I'm not dead. I survived.
But, I now have nightmares, haunting, eerie ones that twist the features of the other tributes. I never had problems sleeping before I was reaped but now I'm hardly able to get even a few hours of sleep.
Ciara is a big person who likes to appear in a lot of my nightmares, always playing the villain though. The destroyer. I'm glad I killed her but hate that I did at the same time. Ciara might have become a demon who killed my best friend and district partner but somewhere trapped in her soul was the Ciara I'd known during the pregames. The sweet, funny girl I'd known. And now she's dead- but a villain? I'm not exactly sure if she's the villain the Capital makes her out to be… I don't know anymore.
The only thing I do know, is that I have to live with this fucking guilt until the day I die. Come what may but I'll forever have twenty-three grey balloons hanging over my head. Watching me daily until they pop. I don't know how to pop the burden of all twenty-three drops of blood staining the ashes, but eventually, it will happen, or at least that's what Felix says. I guess I'll still have their memories to live by and all wounds heal with time. I just can't believe I'm the only one sitting here on a neatly-made Capital bed. I, in no way, deserve life.
Sunna does.
Zach does.
Ciara does.
All of them do yet I'm the one left behind. I wouldn't have been left living if there wasn't a reason, right? I have to use all twenty-three of their spirits to keep living, living for them. Proving their deaths weren't all for nothing?
I turn slowly and look out my window at my younger brother who runs, laughing into the wind as my mother just stands, watching him with folded arms. How much I wish to be as carefree as him. How much I wish to be free of these twenty-three chains gripping my wrists. But that's not how life works, it never was fair like that.
Life might not be fair, but it's what I've been given. Given to use well, to thrive and no matter how guilty I feel about it, that's the truth. Always has been.
Forever will be.
Forever might not be as long as I think but that's alright, Sunna will be waiting for me in due time. Eventually, I will meet her again but until then, I have to live. For her. And on days I don't feel like living anymore, I'll just have to remember that I won for a reason. A reason some might call luck, but I call fate.
A/N: Annnnd we're back… or at the end. I'm so so so sorry this hasn't come out sooner, I really wanted to tackle a victor tour and attach it to this chapter. Which lead to three months of me staring at only the first 6 districts and no motivation for the other ones. So, tonight I realized that I couldn't keep going like this and deleted the victory tour, so I could post the final chapter. I hope you guys don't mind.
(TW this is going to get emotional and no matter how much I like to avoid becoming sappy, this is going to get it).
I'm not exactly sure how to start this except with a thank you. Yes, lot's of subbers have fallen off this story and stopped reading, but to the few who are still here: thank you. Thank you for trusting me with your kids, giving me the joy of bringing them to lie. Watching all of them grow as characters. And I know, my writing isn't the greatest, the characters are flawed and a tad cliche and the subplot is pretty lousy but I'm so proud of how much I've improved. How much I've grown as a writer and as a person. I'm no longer the girl who simply said 'fuck it, I'm doing it' after subbing to a grand total of 2 stories. She literally JUMPED into the deep end of syots with so little prep or caution.
Holy fuck, how much that girl got a punch in the face when she realized how hard this would be. But she got over it and she, honesty, loves each and every one of these characters. Even though almost all of them are dead.
Ashes of Snow and Ice is my first story in the sparks verse and all 24 of them will live on in my heart. All the fighters, the lovers, the revenge-artists, the lizardbreaths, the bullies, the peacefuls- all of them. They bloomed like sunflowers in my mind. Rising up, filling my thoughts with swirling petals and bright colors.
So maybe I didn't love every minute I spent writing. There were a lot of tears and angry-slam-laptop-shut moments and even times where I just wanted to scream at my own thoughts for not making any ideas connect. But you know what? Those moments helped me just as much as the good ones did. I grew from both but if I'm being honest, it's not all me, this story wouldn't even be here without some of the most incredible people I've met along the way.
To anyone who's ever reviewed, shared their thoughts or just simply said 'good job', thank you. For when I wanted so badly to give up, to let this story fall through the cracks, you guys lifted me up and gave me the motivation to write. I wouldn't even be in the community if it weren't for you guys, for my friends, for my internet family.
This story has led me to create the best family I could ever wish for. And I'm not just saying that because a few are reading this right now, no, I'm saying this because when I fell down, hard, guess who was there to pick me back up? Them, but I would like to shout out two in particular. I have no idea if either are reading but I would like to thank the most wonderful, MeTheFantic19 and the outstanding Averyrandomauthor. These two I would trust with my life. (HURT THEM AND I WILL STEAL YOUR KNEE CAPS, TRUST ME, I KNOW HOW TO HIDE A BODY). They bring me so much joy and I really couldn't have made it this far without them.
And yeah, that's all I got, as always- have a good day/night/afternoon.
Goodbye Ashes,
Marie
Final kill count:
Sasha: 1 (D5F, self)
Ciara: 2 (D6F, D10M)
Kinnik: 1 (D3F)
Misty: 2 (D9M, D2M)
Kai: 1 (D5M)
Abram: 1 (D12M)
Angel: 2 (D3M, D12F)
Tyree: 1 (D6M, self)
Elizabeth: 2 (D1"M"-NB, D4F)
Anne: 3 (D11F, D8F, D7F)
Zach: 1 (D11"M"-NB)
Allegro: 2 (D2F, D4M)
Liz: 1 (D7M)
Lily: 1 (D1F)
Arena: 2 (D8M, D9F)