"This is the end"
A/N: Welcome to the 102nd Hunger Games, The Last of Us, the final installment in the Role Model SYOT trilogy. For those of you that are new, don't feel intimidated by this being the third story! Anyone is welcome to submit, and I have a summary of the story thus far so you're not lost reading mentor POVs. Even without that, though, with this story having practically zero sub-plot, you should understand things just fine.
For those of you that have just finished No Apologies, first of all: sorry. I planned everything out like 3 years ago, and had to go through with it, but god did it hurt. On the bright side I've basically run out of characters to kill so we're good on that end. Also, the amount of bleakness and death in these stories has gotten to be so much I needed to plan out a soft-reset universe where everything is happy instead. And then that spiralled into a story idea, and now once I'm halfway through this story I plan on starting another SYOT that will not be totally bleak and depressing (for more info on that check out my discord, which I have a link to on my profile).
Anyways, all that out of the way now, check out my profile for submission info and my mess of a discord server. I'm so excited for this story, and already have received some amazing characters, so keep them coming. Submissions will be open for about 2 weeks I'm thinking, and the blog and confirmed tribute list will be posted with the 3rd prologue. Every character will get a stupid long intro (because I love intros), and then two more pre-games POVs. It's gonna be a fun (ish) ride, so strap in, and enjoy the beginning of the final installment in this trilogy.
PS: I'm switching to 3rd person because that's how I've started to write my stories and it just feels more natural for me.
~It hurts to set you free
But you'll never follow me
The end of laughter and soft lies
The end of nights we tried to die
This is the end~
Glory Fairfax, 11, District One, Victor of the 100th Hunger Games
A single house stood among the ashes in Victors Village. A cold breeze ran through the house, snaking through cracked windows and worming its way through the halls. The chill slunk around corners, closing in on its target with precision as it brushed against the back of Glory Fairfax. Prickles ran across the girl's skin, the hairs on the back of her neck standing up as she shuffled through the halls in her pajamas. Fuzzy fabric rubbed against the carpet as she walked towards the kitchen. The crashing sound still reverberated through her ears. It was a familiar sound for her at this point, cracking bottles and glass littered hardwood becoming more a part of her nightly routine than sleep was.
Her eyes were as cracked as the bottle of whiskey lying on the floor was, red roots splintering across her emerald green eyes that struggled to remain open. The first night she woke to the sound she had been wide awake, shocked and scared and worried. It didn't take too long for her to just become tired.
Glory wouldn't need to even have her eyes open to know what was going on. The scene was a repeat, just as much a constant in her life as her nightmares and her panic attacks that stole away her breath for minutes at a time. She wouldn't ever get used to it, but she could at least expect it.
Hailey Hills sat on the floor, propped up against the fridge and holding the remains of a bottle, glass shards creating a moat around her still body. Dark brown eyes bore into the ground ahead of her, a green beanie tucked firmly over her head so that only a few strands of her brown hair poked out. Across the fourteen-year-old victor's eyes were those same red cracks as Glory's.
Both of them stood still for a long while, neither one of them seeming to realize the other was there. Glory stood, shivering as her body swayed back and forth, but feeling a calming presence that kept her in place. She had been having nightmares anyways, she reckoned with herself.
"Livia's dead," Hailey slurred, hiccuping as she casually tossed the rest of the bottle across the kitchen. Glory flinched as it broke against the floor.
"What happened?" Glory mumbled. She shuffled over to the counter and hopped up onto the chair.
Hailey didn't move. She traced her fingers along the cracks in the wood, her fingers surfing along the pieces of glass as they met them. "Alcohol poisoning," she said. "They found her passed out in her office at the academy."
Glory looked over at Hailey. She saw the wet splotches on her dirtied t-shirt, the pools of foul smelling liquor on the floor, and the peeled back whiskey labels stuck to the counter she sat at. She didn't bother to make the obvious dig.
"That's sad," Glory said, her monotone voice not backing up that statement. She peeled away at one of the labels, flicking it onto the floor as it came stuck to her thumb. There wasn't enough in her to feel pity for the mentor from District Two. Livia wasn't her friend, she wasn't anything close to it. She could only expel so much energy into mourning, and that tank had gone empty long ago.
"Only five of us left now," Hailey murmured. "Lucky us."
Glory didn't try to argue. The first few weeks she had tried to, at least after the shock had worn off, but it didn't take her long to realize she wasn't even convincing herself. They'd been left behind, and nobody was coming for them. Nobody was left to.
"I need a drink," Hailey grunted, glass cracking as she slowly but surely rose to her feet. She began to stumble towards the cabinet.
"We're out," Glory called out meekly, wincing at the word we.
"No, I ha-" she hiccuped, "have some vodka left."
"There was an emergency, someone got hurt real bad in the park and needed something to disinfect the wound."
Hailey took a moment to process the information, staring at Glory for a long while before eventually shrugging. "I'll get some more than."
Glory sighed. "It's three in the morning."
"So what?" Hailey slurred, nearly tripping over herself as she stumbled towards the counter. "I'm Hailey fucking Hills. I'm a victor, that means I can do whatever I want, whenever I want, doesn't it?"
Glory bit her lip. Maybe it was because of the victory tour coming up, maybe it was the news of Livia's death, or perhaps it was the bloody scene she had witnessed in the park, but she felt herself needing to say something. She knew that Hailey wouldn't listen to a single word she said, that she would continue to spiral her life out of control until five victors became four. But if she didn't stay quiet, then maybe she could at least not add another face to the dozens that already filled her nightmares.
"Why do you have to do this?" Glory asked, her voice rising just above a timid squeak. "You don't ever feel any better when you drink. You just feel worse."
"No, I don't," Hailey said, leaning into the counter. She began to trace the pattern on the table, her eyes dropping away from the accusing, pleading stare of her co-victor. "I feel exactly the same. All it does is make it so I don't feel like I need to hide it. I'm sick and tired of pretending that I'm okay." She suddenly slammed her hand down on the table, pushing herself back, swaying back and forth as she struggled to keep her balance. "A week from now I'll go to District Twelve, and District Five, and I'll smile and wave and thank them all for letting me kill their kids. I'll tell them I'm real thankful for their sacrifice and then be on my way, all the way to the Capitol. Then I get to smile and say how happy I am to still be alive, and how glad I am to be a victor. It's all just fucking bullshit, and I'm sick and tired of it already."
The room seemed to chill, that cold wind permeating the air as the two stood in silence. Hailey's hands were shaking, her heart racing as she took in heavy breaths. Glory was too stunned to say anything at all. It was the most either of them had said since they came back to the Village, after everything had happened. Glory struggled to find the words to say, tried and failed to imagine what someone else would have told her. Melody would have been kind and gentle, Galavant would be harsh but honest, but Glory wasn't sure if she was able to do any of those things.
"You don't have to act around me," Glory said at last, deciding to throw away attempts at mimicking someone else and just speak her truth, whether it was the right thing to say or not. "I feel the same exact way that you do, every single day." Glory's voice began to break up, and so she cut herself off short. "You don't have to pretend."
Hailey was quiet for a long moment. She stuffed her hands into her pockets, and tried her hardest to let in deep breaths of air, anything to calm the nervous energy that raced through her veins.
"We live in a graveyard, Glory," she finally said, her voice somber and low. That anger was gone, replaced by a quiet resignation, a deep and honest and brutal truthfulness. "Melody, Galavant, May, Luxor, your family, they're all buried beneath our feet. I don't know what you're hoping for. Maybe you think there's some light at the end of this, some version of this story where we get a happy ending. And if you see that, good for you. But it isn't happening."
"I never said things are gonna get better," Glory said, her voice shaking as she blinked away tears. "I'm just tired of them always getting worse."
Glory looked across the table, bloodshot eyes fixing onto her as they silently pleaded a cause they knew wouldn't be won. Hailey was wrong, Glory knew how this story would end. But that would never stop her from trying. That blind, hopeless fight was all that she had left.
"There's no point fighting anymore," Hailey said, a bite in her voice as she turned away. "The only reason I'm still here is because I'm not gonna be like them. Galavant, my dad, when things got hard, they took the easy way out. I won't do that. Not while there's still one person left in this world I care about."
Glory felt tears pool up in her eyes. Hailey's words stung, but even then she couldn't help but feel the smallest bit of warmth because of it. Glory could never blame Galavant. She hated what he did, and wished so badly that he hadn't, but she couldn't blame him. But hearing from somebody that they cared about her, even if it's in a drunk, depressed stupor at three in the morning, was enough. She would cling to every single thing that she could find, every tiny bit of hope or content, no matter how small or meaningless.
She felt her eyes fall to the floor. A part of her only wanted to crawl back to bed and try to find some sleep before the morning light would wake her up. She held her next words at the tip of her tongue, and thought about swallowing them, and just leaving it be. But even when she knew what the answer would be, even when she knew that hearing that response would take away that tiny bit of happiness she had just found, she had to try. She had to have hope. Even when she knew deep down it was hopeless.
"If you care," she said, the words caught in her throat as she tried to find some non-existent combination of words that could fix everything. "If you care, you wouldn't leave. You wouldn't leave me alone in this awful house, so that even when you're here. . . you aren't. Not really."
Hailey continued to look away. Even as Glory stared at her with pleading, desperate eyes that struggled to stay open, she refused to look back. She was silent as she reached into a drawer, pulled out a sack of coins, and stuffed them into her pocket. Her shoes crushed the glass beneath her feet as she walked towards the exit. As she opened the door, she called back to Glory, and still didn't look back.
"I'm going out. Go get some sleep."
The door slammed shut behind her, and Glory was left alone in the cold house in Victors Village, nothing around her but ashes.