TW: graphic depictions of illness & gore.
II: The Malady
Sickness is an ordeal. Of fearfulness. The foolish die, the clever go further. If you knew it was a boon, would you not die? But what is lordly about seeking what is known?
When Nadra awakens, she has a headache.
It's no surprise with how many tears she shed last night and how little she's been taking care of herself. If there's one thing that she knows she should still remember, it's that a healer has no use if they're ill. Though she's resigned to her death, she still wishes to be useful.
If she can't help Jehan, she might as well still help somebody.
The only person in mind to receive that help is Pandora, for reasons Nadra doesn't want to evaluate. When she stumbles out of her room and into the lounge for breakfast, Markus sits at the breakfast table with a folded slip of paper held expectantly.
"Looks like this is for you," he states, his voice so matter-of-fact. She's thankful that whatever the note is, Juno wasn't the one who discovered it - if it had been, she knows that the woman would have no doubt read the entire contents already. Markus doesn't seem like the kind of man to do something like that.
Wiping sleep from her eyes, Nadra squints as she takes the note and unfolds it. Written in cursive more similar to her mother's doctor-scrawl than to her own hand, she realises almost immediately that it was penned by Pandora.
Hey, Nadra. Or Jehan, I suppose - but if you do pick this up, give it to Nadra!
I couldn't find either of you tonight, so I just figured I'd slip this under your door and hope you get to read it before launch. Some more shit went down after the other interviews that I'm not sure you'll be aware of since I can't find you assholes (affectionate) anywhere - the Five bitch is definitely cooking something up and I think we need to be really careful in the morning. She and Quill kind of had an altercation backstage and things are tense. They're really not happy that you two didn't show up last night, by the way - best to apologise as soon as we're settled down in the arena, or better yet hope there's time before the hovercraft sets off so we can sort it out before then.
Julius is pissy too. Between you and me, Nadra, he's done some really suspicious shit to be here. His brother was screwed out of being chosen volunteer last year, and he's sabotaged basically everyone else at the Academy in the meanwhile. He'd never be picked otherwise - he's fucking dangerous, and a hazard to us both. I trust you, Nadra, more than anyone else in this fucking pack, so believe me when I say as soon as things start going south (because they will) I want you to come with me.
I hope you're alright, and that you and Jehan sorted things out. I mean, if you didn't, you can always abandon him and come with me after the bloodbath, hey?
Pandora xoxo
"It's from the One girl," Nadra says when she finishes reading. "Pandora. Updating us on what we missed last night."
"A lot, I assume?" Markus asks, his voice tired and non-judgemental, like he's run out of energy to give. "Look, Nadra. I might not be your mentor, but I'm going to give you some advice - when I was tasked with bringing Juno home over a decade ago, I did the same for Chrysoberyl, too. Whilst your primary focus should be your district partner, surviving the Games means sticking out of drama, especially with your allies. When things start going south, you get out of there - kill them if you have to. If you trust the One girl, then take her with you - three's a good number, y'know? If anything, she might serve a good shield for the both of you."
Something bothers Nadra about the insinuation that Pandora is only worthy of taking a blow for Nadra - but she nods and keeps her mouth shut, despite how she wishes to protest. It's not worth it - she's already mentally checked out of the promise she'd made to her mentors, after all. It's not worth it to overreach emotionally at this point when she has more pressing things to worry about.
She doesn't plan on dying this morning. She knows that no matter what, she just has to see Pandora again. Just the two of them.
She doesn't when she's in the elevator to the rooftop, to the hovercrafts awaiting to depart and take the twenty-four to their battleground. As the numbers keep ticking upwards, Nadra's anxiety only mounts; which floor will they inevitably stop at? Every one above them except Seven is a bad outcome. Either they're trained outers or they're cannon-fodder, and Nadra would rather avoid dealing with either.
When the elevator halts at the District Six floor, she sighs.
In comes the two extremely pathetic-looking tributes - the boy, despite his height, is biting his lip as he sees Nadra and Jehan waiting, like a rabbit who's just caught sight of the wolf. The other, much shorter than anyone else, already seems dejected, the dark shadows under their eyes a testament to the fact they've probably had an awful time these past few days. Nadra thinks she remembers them training with the boy from Eight, though she'd hate for them to land on that floor next, considering their other tribute is a member of the anti-careers.
Jehan is the one who presses the button to continue their ascent, and the more Nadra looks at the two Sixes, the worse she feels. Of course she knows she'll have to kill people - she might even take a life today. But looking two tributes who are so obviously doomed in the face bothers her in a way she can't really place. It's for the best that she knows neither of their names. She won't ask them - she's sure that they wouldn't appreciate it if she did, either.
There's a mild morning breeze on the rooftop, and she and Jehan make their ways over to the hovercraft without issue. The Six boy seems to be having some sort of breakdown, his district partner unable to aid him and Peacekeepers having to drag him on after them. It makes Nadra cringe to look at. She's prepared for over a decade to be here, to look death in the face with a smile, but the reaped kids? They've been unceremoniously torn from their families, something that Nadra's taken for granted. Her family loves her dearly, and she left them by choice. The other tributes had no choice.
Maybe she understands where the government is coming from with their expansion of the training system. It may threaten Two's livelihood, but at least if the system were entirely voluntary, there wouldn't be situations like this. The Sixth Quell proved that, after all. And back then, a District Six boy ended up winning.
Ugh. She needs to get her mind back on track, stop aimlessly wandering to places she wishes it wouldn't. There's no way she's actually finding herself understanding the motivations of the anti-careers, or sympathising with the reaped kids. She's from District Two.
(Even if she's already acknowledged that things are changing, and Two needs to adapt to survive. Even though she's already accepted her fate, and Jehan has as well - that without either of them alive, there's nothing they can do to help their district along, or where either of them will see a day where there's not a single tribute who didn't ask for it.)
It only takes a few minutes for the pair from One to show up, taking their assigned seats near the hovercraft entrance and next to Nadra and Jehan. Pandora smiles at Nadra and offers her a friendly wave, though with Julius wedged between them, it's more than a little awkward.
"Sleep well?" Nadra asks.
"Could've been better," Pandora admits, "Hope you're all good now."
"Better, for sure. Thanks for thinking of me," she replies, hoping the other girl understands she's referring to the note.
"'Course," Pandora replies, a Peacekeeper ensuring she's properly strapped into her seat.
"Can you both shut up? I want to get some beauty sleep," Julius interrupts, rubbing his temples.
"You know that soon enough everyone's gonna be crying and pissing themselves? How you think you're gonna get any shut eye in here really is beyond me," Pandora laughs in his face.
"Unless the sound of wailing children is soothing to him, Pandora. You never know," Nadra shrugs.
Julius just scrunches his eyes closed and grunts. Nadra can't help but laugh a little - sure, she doesn't want to get on his bad side, but it's his own fault if he can't take a little playful jab. Back at the Institute, stuff like this would make people like her more. Maybe because when most people have a terminal case of stick-up-the-ass, it was refreshing that at least one person was a lot more carefree.
(Those were the same people who turned their backs on her the moment she was selected for volunteer. Nadra Sidero, the girl who only existed to support others, taking the slot from other trainees who'd been leagues above her in combat prowess. They too had built their entire lives around going into the Hunger Games - it only cemented more in Nadra's mind that she was right to keep her distance from the majority of her peers. If she'd overcommitted and actually made real, genuine friends other than Jehan, maybe she'd have felt guiltier taking the position. Maybe she wouldn't be here right now.)
(But it's too late to think of that, of those unimportant people back in Two who are actively rooting for her demise. They'll get their wish, but Jehan won't play along. That, she's utterly certain of: her trust in Jehan is really the only thing that matters.)
(When Pandora laughs at her joke, she feels that belief slipping ever so slightly.)
As she'd expected, the hovercraft flight was sort of a mess. Nadra quickly apologised to Quill, though she only rolled their eyes; they were far more concerned with throwing taunts at the anti-careers. The younger tributes sobbed as the trackers were inserted into their forearms, and Julius looked as if a blood vessel were about to pop in his forehead the whole time. Nadra's not sure how long exactly they were flying for, but it seemed almost like a lifetime, her headache worsening with every yell or cry. The tension was palpable, not just between the different alliances, but within her own, too. Whilst some tributes fiddled with their tokens, others looked out into space, despondent.
Vitali, sitting opposite Julius, was one of these tributes. Knowing at least vaguely about what brought him to the Games doesn't make Nadra feel very confident in his ability to perform, but all she can do was pray he'll get his shit together before they launch. Of course, their plan is to take control of the cornucopia as the careers do each year; something in the back of Nadra's mind keeps her from seeing it as an inevitability, however.
She keeps her cool as she enters the underground facility with the other twenty-three, quickly separating off into her own tunnel. The cold, clinical walls and the silence punctuated only by her footfalls reminds her too much of her mother's practice. That is a place for healing, at least; the purpose of these halls would equate them more to catacombs.
Her stylist is waiting for her in a box-room, a set of clothes on a table and the glass tube leading up to her fate just ahead. Her throat feels like it's closing up in anticipation - all these years, all her training, and she's almost there. Almost in the arena. All she has to do is change and say her final goodbyes before everything comes together.
The outfit she's handed is olive green, a set of rough but thick wool pants and an old military-style jacket to go over a simple white button-up. The jacket's collar and shoulder pads are hewn in Two's signature burgundy red, a bold '2' on each side. Though it's done up with shiny gold buttons, she's instructed to put on a matching red leather belt, and finally slips into simple black leather boots that stop just below the knee.
"Let me do your hair, too," her stylist declares, followed by rapid twisting and pinning that secures her long dark locks in a bun at the back of her head.
Though her legs itch against the fabric, the outfit seems more than fit for combat and survivability. She's seen outfits like these in her history books - the sorts of clothes district soldiers would wear in the Dark Days. It's a lot less humiliating than what the tributes some years were provided, at least.
Nadra thanks her stylist for the aid and steps into the tube. Breathe in, breathe out.
This is what you've always wanted, Nadra.
It's finally here.
And as she begins ascending, she glimpses a hazy orange sky.
Twenty-four children rise from within the earth, stalwart soldiers in a ruined town. The air is warm and thick against their skin, the sky hazy and tinged an unnatural orange hue. At the centre of the town square they have risen into lies a rich bounty of supplies, stacked up within a geometrical stone horn that protrudes spikes and whose tail towers high into the sky.
60… 59… 58…
Nadra Sidero, Two's sacrifice, searches the ring for her partner. Jehan Claes, standing eight tributes to her right, sees her from across the square and nods sharply, once. Nadra nods back, turns to position herself, and knows she is ready.
50… 49… 48…
Pandora Adaeze, One's scholar, sighs as she sees Julius Vuitton fixing his hair for the cameras. He is a disgrace to their district, and she wishes nothing more than to be in the history books as the one who triumphed, though when she sees Nadra, her heart aches with want.
40… 39… 38…
Vitali Zelcova, Seven's wretch, tightens his hands into fists, if only to stop their shaking. Is his brother watching? Will he laugh when Vitali inevitably falls? He hopes it isn't today, at the very least - he has something to prove, first. That he can be more than just a tragedy.
30… 39… 38…
Venera Zelophehad, Five's executioner, has no doubt that everything will fall into place in the coming minutes. Though she has prepared far less than the other tributes she's up against, killing is in her nature. All she has to do is give her district partner the sign, and all hellfire will break loose without her even getting her hands dirty.
20…
19…
BOOM!
Off somewhere to Nadra's left, a cacophony of screams rings out - she flinches, not falling, not quite, the tip of her boot positioned at the edge of her pedestal. Ten metres away the concrete is ruptured and all that remains of the tribute who stood there just moments ago is blood and guts, a smear of red where a living, breathing person once existed.
She realises, with dawning horror, that that person was Quill.
Her mind goes blank, panic setting in. The other tributes are similarly mortified; the one nearest the ruined pedestal gags and throws up, the remains of breakfast and yellow bile pooling on their plate.
10… 9… 8…
Zhenya Oritz, Five's pest, pants rapidly and tries not to heave as he looks upon the mangled flesh that was once the District Seven girl. Venera had said if he did this, she'd spare him. She scares him well enough that he was willing to do it. Willing to rid her of her enemy, if just for a chance of survival. As the tears begin to fall down his cheeks, he thinks he may have made a miscalculation.
7… 6… 5…
Julius Vuitton, One's star, stares in horror across the cornucopia at the remains of Quill's corpse, viscera splattered upon the tributes to each of their sides. The leader of their pack, gone in an instant. He's sure the rat who threw his token in their direction thinks he was fucking them over, but no - once he overcomes the initial wave of shock, Julius realises that he'd be stupid not to capitalise on this opportunity.
4… 3… 2…
Jehan Claes, Two's champion, knows that he is here by choice. He was not strong enough to overcome the will of his father, too indoctrinated by dogma and the fear of failure. Once upon a time he was proud to be one of Two's greatest, but he is realising now that all is not as it seems. Nadra looks to him in horror, but all he can do now is steel his nerves and dedicate himself one last time.
1…
"Let the 169th Annual Hunger Games commence!"
The gong rings out across the arena, and Nadra runs like she's never run before in her goddamn life.
She calls out Jehan's name, her feet carrying her in his direction, and she picks up a pack at her feet on the way there - a canvas satchel, looped haphazardly around her torso and bouncing against her thigh with every footfall. She crashes into a smaller tribute, and whilst she stumbles they fall to the concrete and bang their head harshly with a crack - she has no time to dwell on it, swerving through the other tributes until she crashes into her partner.
"What the fuck was that?" She hisses as Jehan grabs her wrist and they make haste in the direction of the cornucopia.
"No clue," he pants, his voice ragged. "We don't have the time to worry about it now."
She must agree - taking back her wrist and running for the centre, she notices Julius already there, a spiked bat in hand as he's engaged by the Ten boy, Orion, promptly swinging at his head. Orion falls, his face bloodied, and he attempts to drag the One boy down with him before Julius kicks him in the crotch and continues brutalising him, his skull caved in by the time Nadra and Jehan reach his side.
"Took your damn time," Julius growls, wiping blood off his face with the sleeve of his jacket. "Where are the others?"
"Duck!" Jehan yells as a bolt whizzes through the air, only shallowly missing Julius's head. He turns, his face a grimace, to see the Five girl standing safely at a distance as she grins menacingly, crossbow in hand.
"We have to move," Nadra states, her eyes darting around for Pandora and Vitali. The One girl is in her peripherals, bloodied and kicking the girl from Eight to the ground and making her way to the centre.
Another bolt whizzes in their direction, but this time it hits Jehan right in the back of his shoulder, and he curses, Nadra's face contorting in worry as he falls back against the cornucopia.
"Fuck, Jehan," she hisses, immediately snapping the wooden shaft of the bolt and bloodying her hands, sticky red and cloying.
"I'm fine," he growls, Pandora rushing over to meet them, worry in her eyes. She reluctantly turns to Julius, sensing the Twos already predisposed.
"Vitali?" She asks, picking up as many supplies as she can carry. Though Orion is dead and Eliana is down, they're not clear to take the centre yet.
(Nadra isn't even sure if she wants it, what with Quill's bloody remains lying thirty metres behind them.)
"No clue," Julius states, "Don't care. Listen up - let's just leave."
"What?" Pandora responds, incredulous. "What the fuck are you on about, Julius?"
"I said what I said," the One boy persists. "Quill's dead - I'm taking the lead, now. No ifs, no buts. Grab as much as you can carry and we'll regroup to figure out our plan of attack - right?"
Nadra nods rapidly, and Jehan sighs an agreement, grunting and shaking Nadra off his shoulder. She wipes her bloody hands on her pants, hoping to whatever's out there that their packs will have medical supplies.
Pandora, though, has her brows furrowed tightly. "Are you sure we can't just take them here?"
Julius heaves a satchel over his shoulder and stares daggers. "Fucking look at Jehan - his injury will only be agitated if he has to fight. If we leave, we'll know they're all based here. They'll go on patrols, and we can take them out one by one."
Nadra doesn't have the mental capacity to join Pandora in arguing - if they just stand here and bicker, they'll all die. The horn has no regular weapons - rusted sabres, packs of scalpels, links of chain and rope. There are no more crossbows, the first evidently taken by Venera. She takes the scalpels, whilst Jehan and Pandora take a sabre each, and within moments the four of them are off. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Venera and Neptune focused on a pair of outer district kids, but still there is no sight of Vitali.
Whilst the fighting and bloodshed continue around her, she sees the Three boy - the one who'd been playing with his district partner last night before interviews - storming directly at them. His brow furrowed and a knife raised - Jehan dodges his first swing, elbowing him in the ribs to wind him with his good arm. The boy perseveres, tackling Jehan round his waist, dropping his sabre - the others are gone, and Nadra freezes for a moment before taking the rusted blade and plunging it into the Three boy's back. He rolls to the side, and she pulls Jehan up off the ground, finding his shoulder is gushing even more blood.
"Come on!" Pandora yells, having continued running, Julius far ahead. Nadra has no time to look back as she follows, dragging Jehan away from the bloodshed.
One and Two, leaving their usual haunt. The cornucopia belonging to the outers.
If that isn't heresy, Nadra doesn't know what is.
They don't stop running until they reach the outskirts of town, the decrepit streets and worn-down houses around them not ending for what feels like miles. They only stop once they reach a river, twenty metres wide and snaking its way around the outskirts of the town proper. Beyond the water, over a stone bridge, the houses are much scarcer; deciding they're far away enough from the bloodbath, Julius lets up his pace to an amble.
"Don't let your guards down," the One boy mutters, "We're not stopping for long. Nadra, tend to Jehan's shoulder, will you?"
He didn't need to ask. Nadra sits Jehan down on the cobbled wall that encloses the town's limits from the river, unlatching the belts of her satchel and rummaging around. Rations, drops of water-purifier, a canteen that sloshes when she shakes it, and thankfully a first-aid kit. It's not like the bright green ones scattered around the clinic at home - she almost didn't notice it as one at first, being that it's a dented metal box. She quickly gets to work peeling off Jehan's coat, unbuttoning his shirt and properly assessing the damage.
"Your shoulder blade is shattered," she says clinically, prodding about after she's pulled on a pair of slightly dodgy gloves, "could be a lot worse, though. The bone took most of the impact, so it hasn't penetrated far."
"Fantastic," Julius sneers, his arms crossed as he paces. Pandora is taking inventory of the rest of their supplies as Nadra instructs Jehan to take a deep breath before she pulls the tip of the bolt from his shoulder, an unpleasant squelch accompanying a fresh spurt of blood as Nadra stuffs gauze into the wound and hastily bandages it up. She pulls the gloves off, shoving them back in her pack as she looks around the metal tin, finding a tab of small blue capsules. She's not sure what their use is - there's no label on the back, but she can only assume they're either painkillers or antibiotics. She's not desperate enough to feed mystery drugs to her district partner quite yet, though.
"That should be good for now," Nadra sighs. "Let me know if you're in a lot of pain."
"Thanks," Jehan grunts, shrugging his bloodied shirt back on, but leaving his jacket unbuttoned. "Should be fine for now."
Nadra nods once, turning back to the Ones. "So, what's the plan?"
Whilst Pandora still rummages through their bags, penning a list on a small, yellowed notepad, Julius cards a hand through his ruffled blond hair. "Well, first of all -"
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
As the cannons fire over their heads, the four of them all stop to listen. "Seven," Pandora counts. "That's pretty small, honestly."
"As I was saying," Julius continues, "We should go through some of these houses and set up a temporary base. I also want to find Vitali, preferably as soon as possible."
"How are you sure he's not one of those seven cannons?" Pandora scoffs. "We left ridiculously early. You'd think if he was alive, he'd have found us by now."
"You have so little faith," Julius retorts. "The only reason Quill died was because of a dirty trick. I'm sure Vitali is still out there."
"Then how are we gonna find him?" Jehan asks, his voice rough. "The good doctor here probably wants me to rest up. You can't go out alone. Are you just banking on the fact that we'll run into him eventually?"
"No," he says, detached. "Myself and Nadra will go tonight."
"What?" Nadra asks, incredulous. "Shouldn't I be the one staying back to take care of Jehan?"
"He's fine. I would simply appreciate your company - just for tonight, until we find Vitali."
Nadra takes a deep breath. Pandora's staring at her, irritatedly flinging her inventory list back into her satchel and looping it around her chest.
"Shall we get moving, then? Better to find a base now whilst there's still some light."
"You're good to continue, Two?" Julius asks.
"All good," Jehan says.
She doesn't trust this one bit. Still, Nadra nods her head and follows the One boy, dread pooling in her stomach.
Another cannon goes off as the group finally have their bearings. The large house they've settled in isn't of terrible quality by any means, though it's still a state - the grass surrounding it is overgrown and yellowed, like much of the vegetation they've passed by. The building is surrounded by a rusted black iron fence, more than twice Nadra's height, which they've secured shut from the inside with a chain lock found within Pandora's pack. The extra layer of defence calms Nadra's nerves slightly; it's not that she doesn't trust Pandora to be alone with Jehan. It's more that she wouldn't want the two of them to be ambushed.
The house's interior is odd. Mismatched furniture, flaky paint and damp spots blooming on the ceiling, coloured silks hanging from the walls that cover up old oil paintings. There's something unsettling about those, too - portraits of agony, wailing women and flocks of crows. There's a landscape, too, just above the fireplace in the main living room, showing an endless yellow steppe with some sort of creature shrouded in the fog off in the distance.
Nadra can only hope they don't run into whatever that is.
Either way, the cannon jostles Julius enough that he decides he's ready to head out immediately. Nadra finishes her rations, somewhat disparaged by the fact that the taps in the kitchen only creak and hiss when she turns the knob, and Pandora and Jehan agree to continue searching around the house in her and Julius's absence. The One boy picks up his spiked bat, and Nadra a sabre, stuffing a roll of gauze and a couple of scalpels in her coat pocket. When the two of them leave the house, the sky has turned from the hazy orange of earlier that day to a reddish-black, the moon and stars invisible behind a blanket of thick clouds. They stand together on the rickety, warped porch, waiting for the Capitol anthem to begin blaring through the arena - to see whether or not their mission for the night will be able to go ahead.
A few minutes pass before it does, the projection upon the clouds almost hard to make out. The first face is that of the Three boy, the one Nadra had killed just earlier that day. She tenses, having to look him in the face, but he is quickly replaced by the boy from Five.
"Oh, thank fucking god," Julius exhales. "That's the brat that threw his token at Quill."
Nadra had missed witnessing their death herself, but Julius had launched just far enough away to have seen the entire thing. Somehow she doubts that he's really thankful the boy got his comeuppance - after all, he was far too eager to take over the role of leader whilst their mangled remains were still warm. She holds her tongue.
Quill's face is the next one displayed in the sky. Somehow she's surprised that both of the Sixes made it out alive, but she doesn't dwell on it too deeply. Quill looks so utterly confident in her portrait that it's almost unbelievable that she came last place. Nadra didn't care for them on a personal level, but their death is the reason why their alliance is currently cowering on the outskirts of town instead of at the cornucopia, after all.
Julius sighs with relief as the next portrait is of the little boy from Nine. "Right," he begins, turning to Nadra. "He's alive. That's all we need to go off of."
The pair unlock and relock the gate, heading back the way they came towards the centre of town. Rickety street lamps illuminate the streets with a dull, flickering glow.
"So," Nadra begins, keeping her voice hush as they pass more decrepit brick buildings and near the bridge across the river, "You wanted to talk, I assume."
Julius keeps his eyes forward. "Yes - you'd assume correctly. We both had a bad showing last night, Nadra, and I'd like to be frank with you. Can I be frank?"
"I feel like even if I decline, you will be regardless."
"Right on. You're smart, I can see that. You act all flippant, but I can tell you're hiding something. I'll admit I am too. But I'm sure Adaeze's already told you all about that."
A lump forms in Nadra's throat, but she makes herself laugh in response. "Look, Julius. I'm - I'm not in any position to judge you. I'm not supposed to be here either."
He finally looks at her, his eyebrows raised. "Oh? Do go on. I'm sure the viewers at home would love to hear it."
"I'm no pariah," she says carefully, "I've wanted the Games my whole life. I simply wouldn't have been the Institute's first choice. Not without Jehan."
"Interesting."
He doesn't continue prying for now - up ahead of them, lying sprawled out in the centre of the street, is something far more pressing.
It's a body.
"A cannon didn't go off just now, did it?" Nadra asks, immediately on edge.
Julius appears similarly uneasy. "I don't believe so. Last one was around half an hour ago."
Nadra cautiously approaches the body, whom she vaguely recognises as the girl from Twelve. She appears to have been injured in multiple places, the olive green of her uniform stained red. Pierced cleanly through her heart is one crossbow bolt; she lies in a still-wet pool of blood. Nadra tenderly reaches out to feel her skin, finding it still slightly warm.
"She must have been that last cannon. She's not gone completely cold yet - can't have died more than an hour ago."
"Do you think…?"
It seems they both realise it with rising horror. "They're not collecting the bodies."
Looking back up to Julius, she thinks this is the first time she's seen him truly unnerved. "This is fucked," he mutters under his breath, grasping his bat tighter.
"And the bolt," Nadra adds. "You think it was Five?"
"I think you'd be surprised, Nadra," comes a male voice from above. Nadra whizzes around, only to find Vitali hanging out a second storey window, crossbow in hand. "I was wondering when you'd pass by. Kept me waiting long enough."
"Fuck's sake, Vitali, you scared the shit out of me," Julius seethes.
The Seven boy laughs, pulling back his crossbow. "I was gonna shoot until I realised it was you."
"What is his deal?" Nadra whispers, but Julius ignores her.
"Do you want us to come up there so we're not yelling in the street? Or are you gonna come to us?"
Vitali is gone from the window before Julius can get a response. In a moment's time, he's opening the door to the building, though he stays in the doorway. "I think you might like what's in here, Nadra."
She grits her teeth. He's acting strangely - at least, from the short amount of time that Nadra spent with him during their time in the Capitol, he never seemed this exuberant. Maybe he was just inhibited, but she isn't about to jump to conclusions.
He notices her reluctance, and drops his smile. "Hey, hey, it's just me."
"Why didn't you follow us out of the bloodbath?" Nadra questions.
"I-" he stutters, "I was pretty overwhelmed about Quill. My own district partner, blown to smithereens. I didn't even like them all that much, but they were home, y'know?"
"You don't look all that hurt," she persists. Something isn't right here.
In response, he sighs and steps out the doorway so she can better see him. He's limping ever so slightly, a bandage tied haphazardly around his thigh, stained with red.
"I stand corrected."
"Look - I panicked, and I was cornered by Five, but I managed to take her crossbow and get out of there. I saw you guys go off in this direction and followed, but my leg hurt too badly, so I just stopped here. I know it's not ideal. Twelve came along and I shot her, but they didn't take her body away, so I figured… if you'd come look for me, that'd probably be a good signpost for you to stop."
Nadra's heart sinks ever so slightly, feeling more than a little guilty for her immediate suspicion.
Julius looks relieved. "Well, it worked, didn't it?"
"I feel a little bad for using her as bait, but uh - the Games are where morals go to die, huh?"
"My sense of morality was dead before I even boarded the train," Julius says, "so, what is it you so-badly wish to show Two?"
Nadra and Julius follow Vitali into the building, and she's immediately awe-struck at the find. Dried herbs and flowers hang from the ceiling, and behind a hardwood counter there's shelves upon shelves of labelled glass bottles filled with all manner of substances.
"An apothecary," she mumbles, "I could sit here all night and look through this."
"Probably shouldn't, though," Vitali mutters, leaning against the counter to take weight off his leg, "I assume you've left Jehan and Pandora somewhere safe for the night?"
"Indeed we have. Nadra, see anything worth taking now?"
She thinks they're mostly good for the moment - though a bottle of oxycodone tempts her. Her mother has warned her about the risks of opioid medication, but she doesn't think long-term addiction is a risk, for whatever reason.
She takes the bottle from the shelf, scanning her eyes across the other bottles. Medications for bowel problems, heart disease, liver failure - none of those are worth her time. "Just some painkillers," she sighs, a small smile on her face.
"Thank god you understand what all these gibberish names mean," Vitali chuckles. "I didn't wanna take a sip of anything in case it accidentally killed me."
"Now that would be embarrassing," Julius sighs.
"You could take a sip now, if your leg's still hurting," Nadra says, unscrewing the cap and handing it to the Seven boy. "I can properly dress your wound when we're back at base - we left everything there."
At least Nadra feels she has a purpose. The arena may be uncanny, but she's got knowledge none of her allies do that is actually proving to be of use. The three of them cautiously return to the house, not seeing a single other tribute the entire time. It's almost like a ghost town. And whilst things are going far too well, and she knows they'll eventually get worse, Nadra would be remiss to admit that she's glad for the uneventfulness.
The night passed with no new deaths. Jehan began complaining about his shoulder, and so Nadra offered him the painkillers she'd found whilst she re-dressed Vitali's leg. Frankly, she was already exhausted, but they slept in shifts, allowing Nadra to get at least some rest. Two of the three upstairs bedrooms were occupied by Jehan and Vitali, with Julius taking the third "because I'm the reason we're all still alive", and the girls were too tired to argue. When it was Pandora's time to keep watch, sitting by the window and observing the path for any passing tributes, Nadra groggily sits up off the couch.
Noticing her grumbling, Pandora turns back, sighing, "Nadra, go back to sleep."
"We haven't talked yet," she mumbles, wiping crust from her eyes, "I'm sorry for disappearing last night."
"Eh, don't sweat it," the One girl shrugs. "Everything's sorted out now. No need to make a mountain out of a molehill."
"You know I don't trust Julius either, right? And I'm just - I'm still trying to wrap my head around how Vitali got away from the cornucopia. It doesn't sit right with me."
Pandora turns from the window, giving Nadra a pensive look. She sighs. "I was worried, y'know. That something would happen to you."
Nadra blinks, laughing nervously. "Well, I'm fine, now. We should go back down to the apothecary tomorrow and take another look - we can get more acquainted with the town's layout, too."
"If Jehan feels okay, we should take him, too. I don't want him alone with Julius and Seven."
Her voice is so matter-of-fact it takes Nadra somewhat by surprise. Sure, she might have a point, but it's based on the assumption that Vitali and Julius are up to something suspicious. If they didn't do anything to Nadra, then they shouldn't do anything to Jehan. And after all, they're in the early hours of their second day in the arena - surely it's in their best interests to keep as many of them alive as possible, at least for now, until the numbers truly start dwindling?
It makes Nadra's brain hurt. She wasn't built for making choices like these.
"I just don't want him getting into a fight," she says quietly. "My job here is to protect him, not endanger him. If Julius plans on backstabbing us, I don't think he'll do it very soon. It would be pretty damn stupid of him."
"Maybe you're right. Man, I don't fucking know. He just pisses me off, y'know?"
Nadra looks down at her hands. Dried blood still lingers in the creases of her palms, underneath her nails.
"He's asleep," Nadra says. "You could kill him right now if you wanted to."
Pandora pauses, her face a blank mask.
"If you really don't want him around, this might be your best chance. But I'll also advise against it. You should know better than I that career packs that fracture too early don't survive."
"Go back to sleep, Nadra."
She pouts, sighing as she rolls back over on the moth-eaten cushions of the couch. She feels almost childish, but she doesn't want to fight. It's not worth it.
Even if she's no longer carrying Jehan to the finish line, it's best she be patient and keep the peace as best she can.
As dawn breaks on the second day in the arena, something keeps her mind whizzing as she and Pandora prepare for their day of exploration and resource gathering.
When exactly was she going to give up?
She'd checked up on Jehan and Vitali's injuries, and there were no signs of infection yet, at least, but something in the back of her mind kept telling her that Jehan's suffering was only being extended by her keeping him alive. They were both going to die, eventually. All she was doing by treating him was delaying the inevitable, drawing out the process.
But still, an equally loud voice in her head told her to keep doing so. Keep being useful - there's nothing worse than a life devoid of meaning, so she might as well be there for her allies whilst she still could be.
And that's why when asked to be the one to leave their base for the second day in a row, Nadra accepts. There is no use in staying stagnant at the house while both of her compatriots' conditions are stable - she only hopes that Jehan can cope with Julius's nagging.
Pandora's brows are furrowed in thought when they begin their walk down the desolate street and into town. If they wandered just a little bit beyond the backyard of their house, they'd be met with the forcefield - really, they're right on the outskirts of the arena already, proving that the whole place is relatively small. In years with lots of engineered structures, that's usually how things are, if only to save on budget. The more immediate issue, though, is Pandora - things were too quiet.
"Sorry about last night," Nadra starts, left hand nervously clutching the strap of her emptied-out satchel, other hand wrapped around Julius's bat.
"There's no need. You were right."
"Yeah?"
"It's far too early to break the pack. If we don't, Julius won't. We need to at least outlast the anti-careers. Their numbers are one less than ours, but they might have grown them since the bloodbath by taking hostages. We just have to stay cautious."
Nadra nods as they approach the bridge. "So, if we head the way we came yesterday, we'll reach Twelve and the apothecary -" she says, pointing forward. "Or, we could go left or right and see where those roads take us."
"Let's go to the apothecary then make a loop?" Pandora suggests.
"Sounds good to me."
When they pass by Twelve's body, she's well in the throes of rigour mortis, her limbs stiff and her skin ghostly. It's unsettling, seeing her like this. Nadra feels she should at least be moved out of the centre of the street, if only to be respectful.
She clearly grosses Pandora out. "Fucking hell, she's starting to stink. I hardly believed you when you said they weren't removing bodies, honestly. Gamemakers haven't pulled shit like this for years."
They quickly make their way into the shop, Pandora gazing out the second storey window just as Vitali had the night before. Whilst Nadra carefully studies names of medications, stuffing bottles of liquids and salves and bundles of dried herbs into her bag, Pandora comes barrelling down the stairs with a grin on her face and a cardboard box in hand.
Nadra raises an eyebrow. "And that is…?"
"A pack of playing cards, duh. I just realised we never played any games as a group together when we were in the Capitol. Really missed that bonding opportunity - so long as it's something low stakes, I think it could be key in getting us to stick together for longer."
An incredulous smile breaks out on Nadra's face. "I think you might be onto something, y'know," before raising a bottle labelled isopropyl alcohol. "No drinking games, though. This stuff is basically poison if you drink it, and then we really will be the cause of our own demise."
"Being drunk here seems like a terrible idea, anyway," Pandora laughs.
It's a surprise they remain unnoticed by other tributes with how loud they are.
"Do the taps work?" The One girl asks.
There's a sink just behind the counter, and when Nadra turns the knob, just as in their house no water spurts out, just a dry hiss. "There's your answer," she says simply. They have enough for a few days, but they'll have to find a steady source soon enough. Nadra just isn't sure she can trust the river - it's filthy, smells horrible, and purifying it seems like one hell of a task. They pop into a few more houses on their way around this section of town - they manage to find some cans of preserved meat, packets of crackers, and a few bags of mixed nuts. Still, no fresh water.
By the time their packs are full, they figure it's about time to return back to base and unload. Nadra's not sure how close to the cornucopia they got, but still, somehow, she saw no sign of the other eleven remaining tributes. As they wander down the cobbled streets, the orange haze seems to become more cloying with the midday heat, and it makes Nadra curse their woollen outfits. She thinks she notices a few rodents scurrying around and into houses, and a few of them have boarded up doors and windows that send a shiver down her spine. Turning a corner, they see a building much larger than any other they've seen so far, with a large open square out front.
"Going in there feels like asking for trouble," Pandora murmurs, stuffing a handful of hazelnuts in her mouth.
"Looks like something we investigate later, then," Nadra says. "What'dya think it is?"
She hums in thought. "We have a lot of theatres back in One. Got that kind of architectural style."
A theatre, in such a tiny town? Are they not all already actors, putting on a show for the rich elite of the Capitol?
(… Truly, how much of Nadra is pretending, and how much is truly sincere?)
(She's not sure.)
The looming structure of the theatre kept bugging Nadra into the next day. They'd all been given roles to play - the tributes, that is - but Nadra especially. Her role was to guide Jehan to victory. But what happens to an actor who cannot stay on script?
For now, she'd try to. After all, funding for each training centre depends on how well their tributes did the previous Games - so long as she died first, it would all be in Jehan's hands to decide if he could go on without her or succumb to his fate.
Things were advancing slowly. The last cannon they'd heard had been Twelve's on that first night, yesterday's Capitol anthem revealing no new faces in the sky. Nadra could tell that Julius was getting antsy, the boy pacing around their house incessantly and murmuring to himself. It was rest time that Nadra had pressed for - but now, both Jehan and Vitali were insisting that they were all good to move on as a pack and get the Games really going.
Just as they're packing to leave, Nadra hears a scuttling noise. Quiet, at first, almost unnoticeable over the sound of Julius's footsteps and her allies' banter. And just out of the cracks in the plaster crawls a shiny, brown insect - then another, and another.
"Guys," she says, her eyes trailed on the multiple other places in the walls where the cockroaches have started crawling out, clicking and scurrying as their numbers only increase. "I think leaving is a great idea."
Vitali is the first to follow Nadra's gaze, and he screeches at the sight of the now dozens of insects coming from the walls.
Pandora grits her teeth and heads for the entryway, stamping on as many of the little freaks as she can on her way. "Fucking Gamemakers are probably as bored as we are!"
By the time the five of them are outside, there's a torrent of bugs, so many they can't even see the floorboards, clambering over one another to get to their bodies - or, at least, they were when they were still inside, because they stop their advance as soon as they're sprawled out on the dry lawn.
"So," Jehan pants, hands on his knees. "We're not coming back here, are we?"
"No." Julius grunts. "How much did you manage to bring out?"
Between the five of them are four full satchels and their respective weapons - at the very least, they didn't lose all that much.
"They're gonna want us to find the other tributes, now. We didn't see anyone heading directly back up the way of the cornucopia, so," Nadra mumbles, "do we head right or left along the river?"
"Who cares," Julius says, "Hopefully we'll run into someone either way."
And that, they do. Ten minutes into their hike down the left side of the river, Julius puts out his arm to stop them in their tracks. Up ahead of them is a singular figure sat with her face in her hands on the side of the road, shaking like a leaf. It doesn't look like she notices they're even there.
"Vitali," he whispers. "Shoot, but not to kill."
The Seven boy raises his crossbow, locks in a bolt, and lets it fly. It hits the girl in her knee, a spurt of blood and an unpleasant crunch accompanying her shrill scream as she tries and fails to stand up and run off. As she trips and falls, unable to pull herself back off the ground, Julius saunters over without a care in the world and kneels by her head. She tries to hide her face, but the One boy takes her frizzy hair in his hand and tugs her head upwards aggressively to force her to look him in the eye.
"Hey there, Four," he says sweetly as recognition blooms on his face. "Fancy seeing you."
Nadra stays back. There's something horrific about it, like watching a cat playing with a mouse before the killing strike.
"Fuck, One, let me go," she sobs, "I have nothing to give you. I don't know where Neptune is, I don't know his plans, I don't know anything -"
Julius tugs again, her head jerking to the side as she keeps trying to fight him. "Tsk, tsk, Four. I wasn't going to ask you about your partner. We're well aware they're still all at the cornucopia. I was going to ask you if you'd seen any other tributes, full stop."
"No - no, I haven't, I promise, please just -"
Nadra hardly even noticed Jehan moving over and sticking his sabre into Four's chest, just over her heart. As she goes limp and her cannon rings out through the arena, Julius galres daggers into the Two boy's eyes and stands to match his height, rage etched on his features.
"The fuck was that, Two?"
"It's not very dignified to play with your food, Julius. She had no allies in training - she was telling the truth."
"Come on, is the stick really wedged that far up your ass? I wasn't even doing my worst."
"Guys, she's dead, give it a rest," Pandora sighs, sauntering up to the pair. "Fifteen left. If we can find a couple more, we'll be at the halfway mark already."
Julius grunts, moving round to pull the crossbow bolt from the dead girl's leg. Waste not, want not.
She makes eye contact with Jehan, just a glance, as he wipes his sabre on his pant leg. He made the choice to put Four out of her misery so fast - as soon as he saw that Julius was going to brutalise her for information she simply didn't have. So decisive - he didn't even hesitate.
If Nadra is ever faced with having to put someone out of their misery like that, she's not sure she could do the same.
She's back to feeling useless again. Night falls, and so does a thick white fog that smells acrid, like chemical fumes and burning rubber. It hangs heavily above the fields of short yellowed grass that reach over the murky river and out to the forcefield. Thus, whilst she advises the group to stay away from it, it seems like common sense - it's clearly suspicious, even a child would stay away.
Most of the houses around here are boarded shut. They had to cross the river again to find one that looked stable enough to camp out in for the night, but without the security of the fence, Nadra feels more uneasy. As she takes her watch, seeing the Four girl's face in the clouds, more rats scurry through the cobbled streets. They're ugly little things, mangled snouts and marred tails, dirty coats teeming with fleas. Whenever one gets too close, Nadra absent-mindedly jabs them with her sabre, leaking black blood as they let out an unpleasant squealing.
Their presence is unnerving. One particularly horrid winter when Nadra was younger, maybe a decade or so ago, a bad flu spread through the Miner's District. Her mother had to take in far too many people for her small clinic, so many that the sick were sprawled out on the waiting room floor, and from her room upstairs she could hear them hacking and coughing. The larger hospital in the Sculptor's District, far from where they lived and worked, refused to take in many of the patients, not wanting to endanger their paying clientele - though it came at risk to herself, Amaia Sidero and her assistants had taken on tackling the spread themselves. Nadra and her sister had been lucky not to get sick themselves. When the winter passed, and with it, the illness, she'd learned far more about death than she'd been comfortable with. By that time, she'd decided to dedicate herself to training for the Games - in the arena, death would come swiftly at the end of a pointed object, before the bodies would be removed, leaving only a bloodstain as proof someone had passed. With sickness, death is prolonged. Those who died that winter in dingy apartments and on the streets had their suffering far extended, and often, their families couldn't afford lavish burials for them, leaving them to rot without dignity.
Nadra doesn't want that to be what's happening here. Her mind wanders to the Twelve girl, the Four girl, to the others who'd been bloodbathed and to Quill, decomposing in the streets, an uncomfortable reminder of the fact that they had, in fact, been here. A lump sits uncomfortably in her throat as she swats away another rat - she'd read in her mother's textbooks that in antiquity, rodents often were carriers of disease - and with the boards covering up windows and the insects and the decay…
There's no use kidding herself. She's not stupid - the signs are all here. They're trapped in a town about to be hit by plague. The only thing to worry about now is when exactly the tributes will start getting sick.
Nadra freezes in place when she hears coughing.
Jehan's covering his face with his jacket, wiping spit from his mouth. Is he paler than he was yesterday? The bags under his eyes are certainly darker - out of them all, he's certainly the worst for wear. She wants to get close, to check his vitals, but something in the back of her mind keeps her rooted to her spot on the rickety chair she's seated on in the cramped kitchen space.
"What kind of a medic would you be then?", his voice from the night before the reaping rings in her ears, though it's hollow. She doesn't even know the infection mechanisms yet, but for all she knows, all of them could be in danger of withering away as they speak.
"So, for today," Julius intones from across the table, trying to choke down their unfortunate breakfast of a far-too-salty pâté on crackers, "I believe we should continue our advance towards the cornucopia and stage our attack. We'll take the anti-careers by surprise and be rid of all of them at once. Any objections?"
"I just wanted to say, and this isn't me objecting, but - I have a few suspicions about arena mechanics." Nadra mumbles, almost nervous. She shouldn't be - she's warning them, and if that makes her overly cautious if she's proven wrong, then so-be it. Julius's cold glare just doesn't help with her confidence.
"Go on."
"Boarded up houses. All the strange-smelling fog. Leaving the bodies to rot. Rats scuttling about, all those insects - it seems obvious to me that they're going to get us all sick. Release some sort of illness into the arena. Maybe they already have."
She feels several sets of eyes on her. Surely this can't be a surprise?
"...And, this means…?" The One boy presses.
Is he just trying to be difficult? "And that probably means… We just need to be careful. Cover our mouths when we're outside. I'll conduct some check-ups on everyone before we go out for the day."
"Seems overkill," he drawls, "but sure. Whatever makes you happy, doc."
The first of the group she checks up on is Jehan. He's the one who looks the worst, and he's always been Nadra's highest priority, regardless. Rooting around in her satchel, she finds a disposable surgeon's mask, strapping it over her mouth and nose. A precautionary measure, of course. It doesn't mean Jehan is contagious, is what she tells herself as their allies leave the kitchen.
"Do you feel alright?" She starts, trying to keep her voice as soft as she can, like the Nadra from home who hadn't a care in the world, not the Nadra from the arena whose mind runs rampant with paranoia and fear.
He stifles a cough with his fist, about to answer when she notices a welt on his hand. "I'll be honest, Nads, kinda not great."
She takes his hand in her own, staring at the red marking just below his thumb. "This looks like a bite," she says, wincing as the splotchy injury weeps a creamy-coloured pus, "why didn't you let me know about this sooner?"
"Look, it didn't seem serious at the time. It was only last night, Nadra, I swear - you were busy with other things and I figured hey, it's just a nick, not even close to my worst injury so far."
"Just look at it, Jehan - it's already infected," she says, trying not to sound too exasperated. She pulls out the bottle of isopropyl and a pad of gauze, dabbing at the wound gently, eliciting a hiss from her district partner. "Sorry. Should have warned you it'd sting a bit."
"It's fine," he mumbles. "I'm sorry for worrying you."
"What did I tell you about apologising?"
He sighs, and buries his mouth in the crook of his arm to cough again. Once he's done, he laughs, ever-so slightly. "God, wouldn't it be pathetic if you're right and I really am sick? Two's champion, killed by a rat, yeah, but not the ones our mentors are so worried about -"
"Jehan, please shut up." Nadra exhales, finishing dressing the bite with a dab of antiseptic paste from a glass jar found in the apothecary and a solid wrap of bandages. She wonders, then, if the single mask she has would be better off over his mouth. Sure, sharing masks is a bad idea, but if whatever he's contracted is airborne, their other allies could contract it too, and where would that leave Nadra?
She takes it off and secures it around Jehan's face. "Don't take it off for anything - we don't know how this thing spreads, and we don't want everyone getting sick."
"Just me's fine, yeah," he says, a sarcastic twinge to his voice. "In all sincerity, Nadra - I really, really do hate that you're in this position right now, but… I'm glad you're here with me."
"Who else would bandage all your boo-boos, yeah?" She laughs, almost but not-quite able to push her worries to the back of her mind. "Um… I'm glad I can help."
If he dies, she'll be left alone with a group of people she hardly trusts, no more than strangers. If he dies, she'll already be a pariah in her district, expected to follow him to the grave with all swiftness for breaking her promise.
She can only hope it isn't so soon. Though she's tried to convince herself otherwise, Nadra is still scared of death. She isn't ready to give up the ghost quite yet.
The rest of their group were fine - Pandora, still with a couple of cuts and scrapes from the bloodbath that are healing up nicely, Vitali with the gash in his leg improving quite quickly, and Julius with absolutely nothing amiss at all.
"All good to go," she tells them, pep in her voice.
"And you're sure Jehan is fine?" Pandora asks, concern etched on her features.
"Well, the mask is just a precautionary measure. If his cough is in fact some Gamemaker-engineered illness, it's for the best of us all to be slightly protected against it."
"And Jehan, you feel well enough to not drag the rest of us down?" Julius questions, but his tone isn't concerned - it's more like a threat.
"I'm fine." Is all he says in response, and it's enough for Julius.
"Right, then," he says, exasperated. "Once we near the cornucopia, Vitali will conduct a quick perimeter check, and from there, you'll follow his signal to attack. Go for Five if you have the choice."
It's still morning, but there's something a lot more off about the streets today. More debris scattered about, a slight hum above their heads coming from god-knows where, and a muffled metallic clanking from off in the distance. Nadra's already unsettled, and the new collection of noises doesn't exactly help with that.
BOOM!
"Can't believe we're missing all the action," Pandora says half-heartedly.
"Shut up." Julius drones, "Not helping."
"I wasn't trying to," she sneers. God, the day the Ones don't argue over absolutely nothing is the day one of them finally kicks it.
(Pandora might be kicking the hornet's nest, but she still hopes it isn't her.)
As they continue onwards, off from an alleyway to their side, a little tribute comes sprinting, crashing into them as if she couldn't even see them. She falls backwards into the ground, and as the pack trails their eyes on her she begins scuttling backwards on her hands and knees, but the One boy is too quick for her. He immediately rushes over to catch the girl, and it's just like with Four yesterday - he pins her to the pavement with his sabre pierced through her shoulder, and she's weeping, so small, and Nadra knows she's the Three girl. All alone - all alone because Nadra killed her partner. Guilt gnaws at her as Julius spews the same spiel as the day before - "I don't know, I just heard the cannon and saw someone and got scared and started running, I'm sorry, please let me go," - before he tires of her high-pitched voice and raises his sabre again, slicing clean through her throat.
Her cannon sounds, and Julius flicks the sabre, a splatter of blood landing on the cobbles.
"Thirteen left, now." He says, a smirk on his lips. "I do wonder if we should head the way she came - she said there were people there. Worth a look, either way."
It's not a suggestion. Just as they move to follow his lead, Nadra feels a hand clutching her shoulder, spinning around to see Jehan looking terribly unwell. She mumbles his name just as he collapses in a heap, and panic crashes over her, a wave submerging her and blocking out all other distractions.
Someone's at her side, but all she can see is his fluttering eyelids and his spasming limbs as he lies prone, her vision narrowing as it seems all her worst fears come to reality before her.
"They're gone," comes a voice as a door squeaks shut behind Nadra. She doesn't look up from the suffering boy on the cot, wooden and rickety, thin cotton sheets repurposed as a rag to mop up the sweat pooling on his forehead.
Nadra doesn't turn when Pandora sits beside her, eyebrows furrowed as Nadra works on autopilot, despondent.
Of course Julius and Vitali would leave.
They're dead weight.
It wasn't like Nadra was going to leave Jehan to die. She hardly remembers yesterday, the events after he collapsed a blur in her mind as she did everything she could to get him to a more stable condition. When he stopped seizing, she'd been able to drag him into a house with the help of Pandora, Julius and Vitali murmuring to one another behind them. She tried to feed him painkillers, antibiotics, nausea meds - they all just came back up. They stuck around a while, probably waiting for Jehan to die as he violently threw up on the floor, tinged a sickening red. When he persisted, they must have silently disappeared in the night, when Nadra was too distracted to notice their footsteps. Since then, he's fallen unconscious, hacking up blood and phlegm every hour or so, and his normally olive skin is pale as a sheet, slick with glistening sweat and cold as stone.
It's obvious that he's dying. It's also obvious that there's nothing she can do about it by just sitting around.
"Nadra," Pandora says softly, "you should get some rest. I'll watch."
She shakes her head. "He needs me," she whispers, her voice trembling.
He needs her. He needs her. It's what everyone back in Two said. "He needs your help to win, Nadra!"
… She knows there's no winning, now. No chance in hell. Not with over half of the tributes still alive.
(It'll only be half when he passes, comes the grim reminder from the back of her head.)
Her cheeks are wet, though she's not sure when she started crying. She's scared - god, she's so scared. She was never suited to the life of a medic, though that's all she's been reduced to here. All she's done is care for the sick and injured, when it's a life she desperately attempted to avoid by volunteering.
(It's all her life will amount to if she dies here.)
Jehan's not been lucid for hours. She's not sure how many hours - time has passed strangely here. When was the last time she ate something?
(What does it matter? Her best friend is dying. The only person she values enough to sacrifice her life for…)
"Nadra," Pandora tries again, pleading. "Please, you need to -"
KNOCK.
The two girls turn their heads, towards the door and the source of the noise, and a shiver runs down Nadra's spine.
"What was that?" Pandora asks, her voice hush yet hurried.
KNOCK KNOCK.
"I don't know," she mumbles, a wave of nausea washing over her. The door rattles on its hinges as whatever stands behind it bangs and bangs.
"Another tribute wouldn't knock," Pandora says, grabbing the spiked bat that Julius had left behind and tentatively getting to her feet.
Nadra can't really process it. Her mind is still focussed entirely on Jehan, his sickly form before her that she cannot leave.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.
"BRING OUT THE SICK."
The voice isn't human. It's warbled, like it's echoing around in a small chamber, not right, not natural -
She can't give up Jehan. She can still save him, right? She can't give up now.
"Nadra," Pandora says, teeth gritting as she holds her weapon out in front of her. "Get out of here."
"What are you -"
But before she can finish her sentence, the front door is blown open, Nadra watching on in horror as beyond the entryway stands a figure that definitely isn't a tribute.
It's tall, taller than the doorframe, cloaked in black and red rags, small bones hanging from its lapels that chime and tinkle as it hunches over to gaze into the room. Its head is small compared to the rest of its body, a bleached-white bird skull with a crooked beak ending in a sharp point, empty eyesockets glowing orange like the sky. It smells cloyingly sweet, like lavender and decomposing flesh - it glides in, gaze trailed just behind Nadra, towards Jehan.
Pandora raises her bat as soon as it passes the threshold, swinging up at its head, the white bone immediately cracking with a horrible crunch. The thing looks hardly bothered, craning its beak unnaturally down at the One girl, and Nadra hates that she can't force herself up, can't take her own weapon in hand to fend it off - Pandora swings again, harder this time, and shattered fragments of bone fly off and ricochet against the wall.
Nadra isn't sure what horrifies her more: that there's nothing but a black void lying behind the shattered fragments of the bird skull, or that it continues advancing towards her, ignoring Pandora entirely despite how she mutilates it. Pandora yells something at her but she doesn't quite comprehend it. It feels like her body is moving on its own to cover Jehan's, her hands gripping the splintering wood of the bedframe to keep herself upright.
Pandora's calling her name again, but it doesn't matter. She's flung the bat to the ground and picked up their sabre, and from the front of the mutt's chest comes the pointed end of the blade, soaked in viscous black blood that drips onto Nadra's face where she's cowering below. The mutt lets out a choked rattle as Pandora pulls back her blade and it collapses almost directly onto Nadra before her mind finally clocks the situation and she raises a leg to kick it backwards. It crumples in a heap as it falls onto a chest of drawers, knocking empty photo frames and a ceramic duck onto the floor with it. Nadra's panting hard, shock still etched on her features, her hands shaking.
The One girl before her pants, dropping the sword and wiping at her brow with the back of her hand. "Nadra," she exhales, not looking her in the eye, "I-"
"I'm sorry," she interrupts, finally snapping back into reality. "I just froze - it… I…"
Pandora hunches over and puts up a hand to stop her stuttering. "It's fine - looks like it's dead now, at least."
"It wanted to take Jehan."
"I could garner that," she grunts. "We'll have to… we'll have to move soon. What if more of them come?"
She's right. Nadra turns back to look at Jehan, still out cold despite the ruckus that just occurred. She doesn't even know where to go, not after she's already depleted her options by feeding him a concoction of drugs last night when he was still slightly lucid. Nothing's worked. He's only gotten worse.
She lets out a shuddering breath, cradling her head in her arms. She wants this all to be over.
"Nadra," comes an almost inaudible croak. She stirs from where she must have finally fallen asleep, head cushioned in her arms at Jehan's bedside. She raises her head, and is shaken entirely from slumber as she sees Jehan's eyes open, only slightly, his cracked lips parted.
"Jehan!" She exclaims, jumping to attention, leaning over him. "Jehan, oh my god. Fuck, I'm so sorry -"
"Don't… Apologise…" he says, his voice rough. His eyes are bloodshot, cheeks hollowed.
"You're going to be okay," Nadra says, a promise she's desperately trying to keep. "Everything's going to be fine."
Jehan hacks up a laugh, blood dribbling from his lips. "Listen… Nadra… Don't kid yourself. I… There's no coming back from… this."
It's a pitiful sight, one she can only look on in horror. There are tears welling in her eyes, but she can't show her weakness, not here. Not now.
"I just… I need you to… do something for me."
"Anything." She replies, not missing a beat.
"I know we - we said about dying together… but," horrible coughs rack his chest again, and he looks so fragile, Jehan Claes, Two's finest, reduced to a sickly withered husk - "I'm not sure I want you to go through… this. You can't."
She wants to tell him he's delirious, that he doesn't know what he's saying, but she doesn't have the heart. "But I don't know if I can," she says, instead, her voice cracking.
She doesn't know if she can go on. If she can do anything without him.
"Promise me, Nadra," he says, quieter now. He's fading, but there's conviction in his eyes. "Fuck Two… You need to do this. For yourself."
She grasps his hand tighter, unwilling to let go. She can hardly force herself to speak, but she does. "Okay," and he smiles, a forced thing, all the life drained from it. "Okay," she repeats, and a cannon fires.
"Nadra," a soft voice pleads, shaking her gently. "Nadra, he's gone."
Pandora had been out gathering supplies when Jehan's cannon fired, and Nadra thinks she arrived not long after. Time isn't something she's been taking much notice of in this dark room, though. She remembers sometime after the mutt - she'd called it the plague doctor, cuz' of the beak - tried to take Jehan away, Pandora had kicked its corpse into the street, leaning the door back on its hinges, and - well, after that, she doesn't remember much. Jehan had woken up for a few moments just to die, and Nadra almost thinks that it would have been better if he'd never regained consciousness at all.
"I know," she replies, but she's still holding Jehan's hand, cold as marble and getting stiffer by the minute. She's covered his face with a sheet because if she doesn't have to look at his unmoving features and sunken eye sockets she can somewhat kid herself that he's still here.
She hasn't told Pandora that he woke up yet. That he told her to live. That she should place her own happiness above the wills of District Two.
Isn't that what she thought, for the longest time? That her own personal happiness was tantamount, that it was her primary driver in life, too afraid of amounting to nothing that she was willing to die for the chance of being free of all obligations?
That now, she was without the only thing from Two that mattered, and even if she lived now, she's not sure that winning would make her happy?
Pandora looks truly apologetic. Her hand moves from her arm to the top of her back, rubbing gently in circles. She didn't have to stay with Nadra when Jehan couldn't go on. She could have left with her district partner, but she didn't. That says something about her, Nadra thinks. That, like Jehan, she's a truly good person. She doesn't understand why she's given so much up for her, though. Nadra hasn't done anything special. She's not remarkable.
"We should go," she says, so soft. "I know it's hard. But we're not gonna get anywhere just sitting here."
She wishes she could sob, but her cheeks are dry, like she's already been hollowed out. She's alive, but she doesn't feel like she is. Her mind is still just focussed on what they must think back home, of their failure of a healer who couldn't save their champion, who couldn't even put him out of his misery. He might not have asked for it, but he was clearly doomed, suffering, and it would have been a mercy for her to kill him. But she hadn't. How many days has it been, now? Holed up in this dingy little room, stinking of acidic bile and blood and sweat?
And so, she asks. "What day is it?"
Pandora sighs. Nadra doesn't like that she's concerning the other girl. "Day six. It's morning."
It's really been two days? "Fuck," she mutters, leaning her forehead on her palm.
"We at least need to move somewhere else. Even if it's just upstairs."
Nadra knows she's right. She might have learned that the illness doesn't spread from tribute to tribute, but that doesn't mean she can sit here with the body forever. He might not be harmful, but it feels wrong to leave him. They were inseparable. That's why they volunteered together.
She wants to ask Pandora why, in all sincerity, she's still here. She could leave on her own. She's just afraid that if she asks now, she'll be written off as not thinking straight, overcome by grief. She doesn't want to burden her even more than she already has.
And so, she silently agrees, prying her own living fingers from Jehan's stiff ones. It still doesn't feel right to leave, but she knows it's what she should do.
Pandora sits with her on a torn-up old couch upstairs, and Nadra doesn't push her away when she wraps an arm around her shoulders. In fact, she leans her head on the One girl's shoulder, so exhausted that she can't resist the comfort. It's wrong, though. Nadra isn't used to intimacy of this sort, not with near-strangers; before all of this, the only people she'd dare get this close to were Jehan and her family. Jehan, who is rotting only downstairs, and god, it feels so wrong. She wishes they were collecting the bodies if only for the fact that she's not sure she can leave him. How long will the Games go on for? How long will he lie here, untended to by the hands of a pathologist? Will his body even be intact when it's collected, or will it be decayed so badly that his father won't be able to look upon his son's face one last time before he's entombed within the earth?
(Will his father even care? He's got more sons. More chances. Jehan meant nothing to him. He was just a statistic.)
Gentle hands comb through her greasy hair, and Nadra uneasily closes her eyes, hoping that when she wakes again she'll be clearer of head, sounder of mind, and anything but the liability she currently is.
That evening, Pandora helps Nadra fully cover Jehan's body, makes her eat something, and softly pets her hair, waiting oh-so patiently for her to be ready to move on. It just makes her feel worse, like she owes something to the girl. She doesn't voice this, though, going through the motions, letting Pandora distract her from her grief.
(She shouldn't be viewing Pandora as a distraction. She's her own person, with her own life, her own motivations for being here. The world doesn't revolve around her - all she's learned since she was selected to volunteer is that she's a side character, the natural conclusion of her narrative arc being aiding someone - now, probably the District One girl - to victory. It isn't what Jehan wants her to do, but what other choice does she have? She's not suicidal, but she can't think of anything to live for.)
(A victor may have it all, but 'all' does, too, include trauma that will never fully heal over.)
When the day's haze fades and the moon rises, now visible and unobscured by clouds, the two girls sit and look out the upstairs window, turning their gaze from the plague doctor mutts who roam the streets to the sky, the Capitol's anthem preluding only Jehan's visage. She sobs, finally, breaking down in Pandora's arms like she had in her mother's when she'd been selected. Somehow, it's… cathartic. It isn't closure - far from it, really - but it's definitive proof that he's gone, that she needs to get her shit together. If not for anyone back in Two, or for the audience that has sponsored them nothing, for Pandora.
(For yourself, comes Jehan's voice in the back of her mind.)
(She ignores him.)
On the morning of their seventh day, Nadra pulls herself together. She pulls back on her dirty green jacket, organises their supplies, and picks up a weapon, waiting by the door for Pandora to ready herself to leave. The room stinks, but Nadra tries not to think about the source of the smell lying just below the blood-and-sweat-stained cotton sheet.
She says a silent goodbye to her best friend as she and Pandora slink outside, silent as ghosts.
The streets are a mess. Debris lies everywhere, bloodstains are painted across the cobbles, and the plague doctors roam, though they ignore the two girls. They're only interested in the sick - that much she's garnered. Now, the only thing she needs to watch out for are the infectious rats that she assumes carry the disease, since a bite is what ultimately doomed Jehan. Even so, they stay to the shadows - though it's seemingly early in the day, the sky is an ugly shade of grey-green instead of the orange it had been the first few days, and large dark clouds hang above their heads. They're not heading towards the cornucopia, that much Nadra knows; though no cannons have sounded apart from Jehan's, meaning Julius and Vitali haven't yet ambushed the anti-careers, they still need to be careful. In fact, it's all the more likely that there's a larger group of tributes out there, and Nadra and Pandora as a pair are vulnerable. They're both uninjured, at least. They can handle themselves - just not against a group of twice as many others ganging up on them.
(Nadra's always struggled with group combat, anyway. She's fine, good even in a duel, but when there's multiple bodies in the fray to keep track of, she falls short. That, along with her inability to pick a signature weapon, were her largest faults at the Marmoreal Institute.)
"How about we check out the theatre?" Asks Pandora, turning back to look Nadra in the eye. "I'm feeling kind of homesick, myself. Maybe even just looking around will be a nice change. A big, spacious hall, y'know? Better than the tiny dingy shacks we've been stuck in."
Nadra forces a small smile. "Yeah," she mumbles, trying to sound optimistic. "That sounds good."
Whilst Pandora's sick for home, Nadra can't think of anywhere she'd rather not be more than District Two. She can only imagine how she's being vilified by the Institute right now, by Markus and Juno in the Capitol.
It's not long - she remembers the general direction towards the theatre well enough, down a curving street along the river. They approach from its left side, the imposing building standing the same as it had five days ago, in all its art deco glory. It almost doesn't fit the rest of the town's aesthetic, like it's been plucked right out of District One from about a hundred years ago. Pandora pushes the fragile glass doors open, their hinges squeaking. The foyer clearly was once magnificent - the rich red carpets and geometric chandeliers that hang from the ceiling are dirty, stained, the bulbs flickering or simply put out entirely. There's a small restaurant in an adjacent room, a bar stocked with smashed bottles of wine, though there are a few precious intact glass bottles of water gathering dust on a shelf.
"Watch this," Pandora says with a smirk as she takes one, sabre in hand, lining it up with the rim of the bottle at an angle. "This is how you open champagne back home, but this is just as good, right?"
She does a swift uppercut, the glass rim coming cleanly off with the cap. Nadra claps as Pandora bows; they refill their canteens, and continue onwards.
"So," Nadra says to fill the space, "you like theatre?"
"Well, it's not my first choice of interest, but yeah. Mom's always loved it - used to work in the orchestra that played for a lot of shows before she got sick a few years back."
"Oh," Nadra softly voices, "I'm sorry. Is she… watching now?"
"Dunno. I kept on telling her I wasn't volunteering because of her, 'cuz I didn't, but I think she's still mad at me." Her face drops. "It was all my choice, y'know? My passion. She can just… be really self-centred, at times."
"We really are alike," Nadra mumbles. Because it's true - she was the opposite of Jehan, but Pandora really wants it, needs it like she does. "My parents cried when I volunteered. I don't think they were expecting it."
"Yeah, I think I remember you saying after interviews," she replies.
Of course, she'd had that little meltdown and told her everything, hadn't she? Was that why she'd become so attached to her?
They arrive at the main auditorium - a massive hall with hundreds of plush chairs, a large wooden stage with ripped red curtains before them. Above their heads, the ceiling has caved in, plaster and wood hanging from the rafters. Pandora whistles, hands on her hips as she surveys the scene.
"I mean, even with the roof, it's still a nice change, huh? And uh.. Fresh air, not super used to that."
She can almost forget the fact that her best friend is dead with Pandora here to fill the void. Of course, he's still at the back of her mind, the space at her side not even close to being adequately occupied… but it's something. They sit together on the velvet seats, and Nadra feels herself relaxing for the first time in days.
The peace doesn't last long.
Nadra wakes from her light slumber, shaken awake by Pandora. "Someone's here," she whispers, and she's immediately on guard. She takes the spiked bat from where it's leaning up against the seat in front of her; Pandora's already taken the sabre, laser-focussed in the direction of the foyer.
Above them, visible through the gutted ceiling, the moon is full and shining brightly in the pitch black sky. It's somewhat hard to see - the moon is the only source of light in the room.
"I heard voices and the doors opening," she says, Nadra following her into the aisle and up the steps. "There are two of them, I think."
Two. Two's fine. They can handle that.
Nadra flexes her fingers around the handle of the bat. "Are we going to the foyer?"
"No," Pandora says, "We'll wait just by the doors. You go the left, I'll go the right. We'll catch them by surprise."
She nods, and takes her place, back flush against the wall, bat held out in front of her. She looks to Pandora, and when the doors to the auditorium open, they only have to wait a moment before two figures make themselves apparent - Pandora nods, and they both attack in sync. Nadra only gets a glimpse of the boy from Eight, the shock in his eyes as she hits him square in the side before he immediately retaliates, the large knife in his hand planted square in her gut. She screams, and Eight's companion does too, the small, sickly-looking tribute from Six skewered on Pandora's sabre. Both she and Eight look to their respective allies in tandem - "Nadra!" Pandora yells, "Veile!" Bellows Eight.
He pulls out the knife, and blood immediately gushes from the wound, adrenaline and pain making Nadra dizzy as she instinctively drops her bat and presses her palms to her stomach. Nausea overwhelms her, and she raises her gaze back to the other tributes, seeing Pandora scream as she attacks Eight, her wrist snapping down faster than she can comprehend, like it's a whip, and blood spurts from his throat. He chokes, dropping his own knife, hands raised to his neck in a pathetic attempt to stop the bleeding. It's futile - Nadra stares at his mutilated throat, the gash so deep he's almost decapitated, and after a moment his cannon fires.
Veile from Six is cowering on the floor, nursing their own wound as Pandora approaches, her expression scarier than Nadra's ever seen it. She hasn't seen the One girl angry before, but as she plants the sabre so deep in Six's chest it wobbles, Nadra knows why the Arcadian Academy picked her.
Before Six's cannon has the chance to fire, Pandora rushes to Nadra's side where she's slid down onto the floor, back pressed against one of the seats. Her vision is going blurry as she feels Pandora's hands on hers, putting pressure on the wound, though her face is contorted in panic.
"Nadra, fuck," she spits, "I should have known they'd have weapons, I'm sorry -"
She shuts her eyes, focusses on her breathing. "'S fine, Panda, just - get me over to our bags, quick -"
She severely hopes Eight didn't damage her organs all too much, but she can feel that she's rapidly going into shock and she needs to act fast before she passes out. Pandora picks her up like she weighs nothing, rushing down the aisle to where their supplies are. She places her down gingerly on the steps, Nadra half-lying, half-sitting as she fumbles with her buttons. Six's cannon fires, and Pandora kneels down beside her, undoing her jacket and shirt for her.
"What do you need?" She asks tersely, throwing Nadra's clothes to the side.
She swallows thickly, keeping her breathing as steady as she can. "There should be - uh, a tin with a needle and thread… water… bandages…"
Pandora brings them to her, her hands shaking. She first gives Nadra a sip of water before opening the tin with the suturing kit. "Do I just thread the needle?"
"No, you - there should be a clamp, too, put the needle in that - then I need you to… fuck… there's like, a set of foreseps… pinch my skin so I can thread the needle through."
There's determination in Pandora's eyes as she does as she's asked, handing over the threaded clamp. Nadra takes it with shaky hands, biting down on her lower lip as she looks down to her stomach. The wound's only a few inches wide - it shouldn't be that bad. It shouldn't be. Still, she's horrified at the fact she's even in this position to begin with.
She can hardly feel the first puncture, but her hands are shaking as she pulls the thread through. Pandora moves the forceps without needing to be told, and she threads again, pulling the first stitch through.
Again. And again. And again.
Each stitch takes more and more energy, and by the end Pandora's taken the clamp from her, finishing the final two stitches herself and tying the thread in a tight knot. She splashes the now-closed wound with some of their water to clean it of some of the blood before reaching under the small of Nadra's back to loop the bandages around her middle.
"Thank you…" Nadra mutters, the last thing she sees before passing out being Pandora's bloodstained and exhausted face.
In all honesty, Nadra's almost surprised she regained consciousness at all.
When she opens her eyes, her head thumping and her mouth dry, Pandora is at her side. She finds that they're on the stage, her head cushioned with her jacket and a ripped piece of curtain draped over her as a makeshift blanket. She tenderly pushes herself up, though her arms feel like jelly, and the One girl turns around and immediately breaks into a grin.
She doesn't have the time to brace herself before Pandora almost crushes her in a hug. "Nadra, god, you scared me," she says softly, then quickly realises she's clutching her a little too tight and pulls back, though her hands remain on Nadra's bare shoulders.
"I'm okay," she wheezes. "I'm okay now."
"I was so worried. I just - I really didn't want to lose you."
Heat rises to Nadra's cheeks, as does what she believes is a fresh wave of nausea.
She didn't want to lose her. She wants her to stay alive.
Nadra finds herself thinking the same - she doesn't know how she'd have been able to get through any of this without Pandora at her side. She'd envisioned Jehan here instead, but without him… this is the next best thing. She's glad to have had a partner.
"Well, good thing you're a fast learner," she chuckles, "and a damn good assistant. I don't think I would have been able to stitch myself up all on my own."
"Oh, you flatterer," Pandora waves off.
"No, I'm being serious!" She exclaims, then clears her phlegmy throat. "Could you hand me some water?"
"Oh, shit, yeah, totally," the other girl says, reaching to her side and pulling up a canteen. "Do you need a hand?"
Nadra shakes her head and takes the flask. Her arms are still weak, but she manages to raise it to her lips to drink - more than anything, she didn't want the embarrassment of being fed by the other girl.
"And some painkillers, too - somewhere in my bag there should be a bottle of oxycodone? And a tab of antibiotics."
She hands her that, too, and she takes a swig. It's bitter, and washes out her mouth with the water as she swallows the tablet.
"Y'know what would really hit the spot right now? Morphling."
She's only half-joking - she knows how terrible the drug is, but its sheer effectiveness at numbing pain is surely why it's seemingly the only substance that wasn't in stock at the apothecary's. Pandora cracks up at it, at least. Nadra finds that she likes making her laugh.
(God, what happened to the Nadra who performs her role for others, who keeps an arm's distance from everyone? Who hates overcommitting to anything, especially in relationships?)
(The Hunger Games aren't the place to be making friends, let alone developing a childish crush.)
"Um, so…" she starts, "we're obviously not doing anything today. Gonna nurse you back to health like you're a baby bird."
"I can feed myself, thank you very much," she chuckles, though she feels her cheeks heating still. The laugh sends a spike of pain through her abdomen, and she instinctively clutches at it. She's bled through the bandages a little, specks of red dotting the stark white.
"Are you good? I tried to be really careful but -"
"Yeah, yeah," she grunts, scrunching her face together and raising up a hand. "I should just -" and she flops backwards, "- lie down for a little bit."
Looking up out at the sky, it's no longer shrouded in thick clouds - instead, it's still just that deep, sickly green colour, somehow blinding despite how she hasn't yet seen the sun once. It's still warm, at least, and she honestly feels relief without the heavy wool jacket on, finally able to let her skin breathe for a bit. She smells awful, like sweat and blood and bile, but Pandora isn't much better, at least.
Without a word, the other girl shuffles over to her side and lies down, too. Though she rests her head on the bare wooden planks of the stage, she looks entirely unbothered by it. She looks to her side, and Nadra looks back, and Pandora smiles, Nadra noticing the dimples on her cheeks, and -
It's wrong. Joking around with and smiling with and being genuine with anyone who isn't Jehan is wrong.
(Would Jehan be mad at her for not wallowing in her grief, for not going entirely catatonic at his passing?)
(... She knows he wouldn't be. But the mental block remains.)
The rest of that day, Nadra watched as Pandora hefted the bodies of Six and Eight out of the theatre and out to the plaza just out front, sorting through all of their supplies and dearly hoping that nobody else would intrude on their temporary paradise. Pandora says she's boarded up the doors as well as she can, and doubts anyone will be able to make it inside - she's relatively confident that she's right. She has to be, really - putting her trust in the One girl is all she can do now, especially whilst she's still hurt and at her mercy. Two cannons fire; one in the afternoon, not too long after Nadra woke up, and the other a few hours later.
"Hope one of them was Julius," Pandora says absent-mindedly as she tries to scrub some blood out of Nadra's uniform. She can't help but agree - though she wonders what he and Vitali have been doing these past few days, she doesn't dedicate too much space in her brain to them. In the grand scheme of things, they're unimportant - out of sight, out of mind. When the faces in the sky are that of the little girl from Nine and of Neptune from Four, Pandora looks irritated, but then the two make a realisation.
"Final eight," Nadra says. She'd never planned on making it so far, regardless of how much she wanted to, deep down.
"That means they're interviewing our families right now. Maybe they already did earlier this evening," Pandora remarks.
She wonders what her parents are saying. What Sora would say, if they got her to leave Five's barracks to be interviewed, too. There are already crews there anyway, for Venera. If they're proud - her sister always has been, always supported her in anything she pursued. If they're upset at Jehan's passing - her mother always doted on him when he came round occasionally for dinner.
Nadra waves in no particular direction, hand poking out through the curtain she's now draped around her shoulders. "Hi mom! Hi dad! Hi Sora!"
Pandora laughs, covering her mouth with her hand. "Stop, that's too cute. Okay, okay, lemme do the same -" and she does, leaning up against Nadra's side and waving, "Hi mom! Hope you're doin' good! Hi Athena!"
"You have a sister, too?" Nadra asks absentmindedly.
"Oh, yeah. Little one, though. Yours is older, right?"
"Yeah, she's a Peacekeeper. Works in Five… I haven't seen her outside of video calls for four years. Kinda fucked up, huh?"
"Little bit," Pandora admits. "I'd say I hope you get to see her again, but I want to see my sister, too."
Something jabs - be it her wound acting up or her heart, having forgotten again that Pandora has as much of a life as she does back in her district. Her smile drops for a moment, and the other girl definitely notices.
"Hey," she chuckles lightly, "Nadra, I didn't - well, I meant it, but I didn't mean for you to take it like that, okay?"
Nadra just forces a smile and shakes her head. "It's fine, really. We both volunteered to win, didn't we?"
Pandora knows of the arrangement; she knows that Nadra didn't, in all actuality, volunteer to win. Vocalising the contrary feels strange. It's what she used to want more than anything, wasn't it?
"Right," she agrees. "We did."
The rest of the night is a little awkward. Pandora hops off the stage and lounges in an audience seat, and Nadra sleeps uneasily, not only because of the physical pain, but because she doesn't want to think of the inevitable. That one of these days - be it tomorrow, or when it's just the two of them left - one or both of them will die. And that now that she's vocalised that she volunteered to win - that the entire reason she pursued the Games in the first place is to risk it all for a life really, truly worth living - she can't help but see Pandora as being in her way.
(With Jehan dead, has she not become their champion?)
(The guilt gnaws at her stomach, the sutures the other girl helped stitch itching. She could rip them out and bleed out right here on stage for all of Panem to watch if she really wanted to. But why would she? Ungrateful to Pandora, ungrateful to Jehan.)
(He wanted her to win.)
"Good morning, tributes!"
The chipper voice interrupts Nadra and Pandora's breakfast, chiming out through the arena. It's clearly Chantilly Apsinthos, the Master of Ceremonies - despite her joyful cadence, her intrusion brings anything but joy.
"Congratulations on making it to the final eight! That's such a wonderful achievement, and you should all be so proud of yourselves!"
Despite how genuine she'd seemed during her interview, Nadra can tell that she's putting it on, now. There's something more than congratulations she's here to announce.
"We've noticed that a handful of you are currently rather ill! That's truly unfortunate - for your sakes, we have decided to lay out a bountiful feast for you all at the town hall, just south of the cornucopia! There, you'll find the panacea - or, in simple terms, the cure! - to the sickness plaguing this poor, poor town. Best of luck, tributes! May the odds be ever in your favour!"
The two girls share a glance. "Bit late for us, huh?" Pandora sighs.
"Yeah…" Nadra replies. They'd been lucky to have not seen a single rat in the entire theatre, though Pandora said the streets were swarming with them when she'd disposed of Six and Eight's bodies. Neither of them were sick, though clearly things were different across the rest of the arena.
"There's no point in attending, is there? I mean, you're still healing up. If the other six tributes are all going, then that's just asking to be ganked on."
Nadra swallows another round of antibiotics as she chews on Pandora's words. Honestly, with how she stitched herself up with dirty hands and what certainly wasn't a sterilised needle, she's surprised her wound hasn't gotten infected. "You're right," she mumbles, "We can let everyone kill each other over there and wait for the numbers to whittle down before we head out."
"What's a good number, do you think?" Pandora asks, chin resting on her hand.
"Probably four-ish. So we equal the amount of our competitors, yeah?"
Pandora hums, flopping onto her back. "And what if we're the last two left, Nads?"
Nadra freezes up, her muscles tensing at the nickname reserved only for Jehan and Sora. She unclenches her jaw, trying to sound as normal as possible as she responds. "Well… We can think about that closer to the time?"
"No," Pandora insists, sitting back up and staring Nadra in the eyes. Her intensity only puts her further on edge. "What do we do?"
"Uh… an honourable duel? It seems only right, considering we're both careers."
Pandora clicks her tongue. There's a objection there - probably something about how Nadra is at a severe disadvantage due to her injury - but she doesn't voice it. "Sounds good enough," she concedes.
BOOM!
"That was fast," Nadra hums.
"God, I hope today kills Julius," Pandora sighs. "Bastard never shut up about wanting to do some huge raid on the anti-careers and show them what's-what. Hope now he's finally at the cornucopia he eats shit."
"I think I'd prefer he die slowly and painfully of the illness, y'know," Nadra says, her voice detached. "It isn't right that Jehan went through it. On his own, I mean. Someone more deserving of it needs to go through that, too."
"Fuckin' hell, Nadra, that's brutal. You're right, though."
Nadra doesn't really care what others may say is brutal - it's simply her honest opinion. Julius abandoned them when they were no longer useful to him, and whilst she understands that objectively that was the right choice for his own self-preservation, she can't help but begrudge him for it. If he was so irritated by Jehan getting sick, she thinks he should experience the same as he did, just to get a taste of his own medicine - or, well. Not his own medicine.
BOOM!
Another cannon sounds through the arena. They're already down to six - two closer to ending this, if their plan goes well.
"Do you wanna move today?" Pandora asks. "We can head further north, maybe. Or, I mean - if you don't think you can, that's fine, too."
Nadra laughs nervously, and another sharp spike of pain shoots through her left side. "It'd be a great idea if I could really move all that much in the first place."
She's still only just been able to get to her feet to hobble to the bathroom, but she usually has to bring the bat with her to act as a crutch. The worst side effect of the painkillers she's doped herself up on is the drowsiness - she might feel relatively alright, but she's sleeping an insane amount. Honestly, she's surprised the Gamemakers haven't pulled any dirty tricks like they did on day three to get them to move. Not that she wants them to, of course - whilst she hates sitting around feeling useless, she isn't that stupid to think that she could stand up against most of the remaining tributes. There must be a couple of reaped kids left, unless they were both just killed in the feast - she supposes she'll know come tonight.
When they watch Julius's face flash in the sky, Pandora barks out the loudest laugh Nadra's ever heard.
"God, I'm almost sad we didn't go, now. What I wouldn't give to have seen him kick the bucket, good lord."
The other face in the sky is the tired-looking girl from Eleven, who Nadra is honestly surprised has made it this far. She makes a mental note of all the tributes left - she, Pandora, Vitali, Venera, Eliana from Eight, and… whatever the boy from Six is called. She wonders aimlessly about how Julius died - was he killed by the anti-careers at the feast? By the plague she so hoped he'd been? The only way she'll know is if someone she runs into has the courtesy to tell her, or if she wins. Not that knowing how Julius Vuitton died is such important information that she'd make the active effort to live solely for that. That'd just be ridiculous - he really did not matter to her at all.
They'll wait for two more to die before leaving the theatre. Nadra hopes it doesn't take all too long. There's only so much of this she can take.
Pandora wanders over to their supply bags, checking that they have enough to sustain themselves within the theatre for a little longer. They've already ransacked the restaurant, the One girl knowing the layout of the building now like the back of her hand. "We should be able to make it another two deaths," she mutters, "so long as they're both tomorrow, I think."
Nadra swallows thickly, and puts on her peppiest voice. "Well, then let's hope we can end things tomorrow, huh?"
Pandora looks back to her, and she smiles weakly. "Yeah. Tomorrow would be ideal."
If things go according to plan, if things end tomorrow - this may very well be their final night together. "Um… if we do head out tomorrow, and if things do end - in this controlled setting, I just wanna thank you. For everything. Helping me, and stuff. I… I couldn't have asked for more."
Under the faint light of the moon, Pandora's features aren't all too well defined, but her laugh and how she cocks her head almost make Nadra want to collapse in on herself. She didn't mean to sound so sappy - but she's really being honest. If it weren't for Pandora, she wouldn't have been able to leave Jehan. She wouldn't have been able to carry on, even having the option to fulfil his dying wish.
"Aww, Nadra," she coos, "You don't have to. Whilst I wish we weren't here together, yeah… I'm glad to have met you. You and Jehan really saved me from having to deal with Julius and all his ridiculousness. Not that that's what's important! I really, uh… have come to care for you, y'know. I'm glad I made a friend here."
Friends. They're friends. She hasn't ever really had one, other than Jehan - and somehow, the title doesn't feel wrong. In another life, maybe they could have stayed that way, in a world where they weren't together in a fight to the death.
But things aren't that way. At least, if everything goes accordingly, they'll have a little more time. Nadra smiles, genuinely, and stifles the heat rising to her cheeks. "I'm glad, too. Goodnight, Pandora."
"Night, Nads."
The nickname still bothers her - Pandora isn't a replacement for Jehan, nor does she want her to be one. She still doesn't bring it up, though. There's no need. She doesn't want to reveal all of her personal hold-ups now, not when the entire nation can hear. And so, Pandora will never know all of the little details about her and Jehan, but that's alright.
Nadra can live with that.
A cannon shakes her from her uneasy slumber.
In retrospect, Nadra should have seen something like this coming. They wouldn't be safe forever, and their peace in the theatre was a tense one, one they took for granted. They might have blocked off all the entrances, but it wasn't enough. It'd never be enough.
Someone would find them eventually.
As she opens her eyes, adjusting to the light of dawn, there are two things that Nadra notices immediately but doesn't understand. Standing a few metres away from her is a girl, tall and blonde, her pale skin marred with cuts and blood. She's just stood up, and at her feet is another girl, sprawled on the floor, her ashen face a mask of horror, eyes blown open in fear. Whilst there's no blood surrounding Pandora's body, Nadra can put two and two together when she sees the balled-up woolen jacket in Venera's hand. Her arms shake, uneasily holding up her body in a sitting position, and she wills herself to get up, just get up, because Venera's smiling sweetly at her, but she doesn't move. She can't. Venera's got nothing on her - no weapons, no nothing, just her jacket, which she casually puts back on, heading away from Nadra - that's when she sees the rope, hanging from an exposed beam in the caved-in ceiling.
"See you, Two." Is all the Five girl says as she heaves herself effortlessly up the rope and onto the roof, disappearing from her sight.
Nadra can't force herself to move as she watches her leave, can't vocalise anything, can't do anything but sit and stare, mouth agape in shock. Is she breathing? She can't tell.
She forces her gaze to move downwards, to Pandora, who - fuck, she can't even look at her, it's so wrong that she was caught so off guard - she can hardily even process it. She'd been fine last night, laughing, smiling at her, convincing Nadra they'd make it to the final two together… she rolls over, nausea overwhelming her, and she gags, trying to choke back the bile rising in her throat and failing spectacularly. This is wrong - it's all wrong, and it's just like Jehan all over again, Nadra was useless, she couldn't do anything and all her plans have fallen apart like rock shattered by the force of a hammer…
Why did Venera not go for her instead of Pandora? Why is it that Nadra is still here, living and breathing instead of Jehan, instead of Pandora - she… she…
She doesn't notice when she gets to her feet, uneasy, wobbling on weakened legs. She doesn't move towards Pandora, sprawled out on the stage, staring accusingly up at her. Why not you instead of me?, her glassy-eyed gaze says, when you didn't even volunteer to win?
"I'm sorry," she mumbles, her voice hollow, feeling wetness on her cheeks that just won't stop flowing, stumbling uneasily to the stairs that lead off the stage. She almost trips, catching herself on a railing, her stitches throbbing. She can't stay here - she can't, she needs to leave, but what if Venera is out there, getting her weapons, waiting outside to ambush her?
Let her get me, part of her brain tells her as she hunches over, trying to hold herself upright on one of the audience seats. Let her kill me and take the crown for Five second year in a row.
She shakes her head roughly, squeezing her eyes shut and letting out a loud sob. No, she corrects herself, because Jehan had said "For yourself", and Pandora had planned for it to just be the two of them left, either her or Nadra taking the crown -
"Fuck Two," Jehan says in the back of her mind.
"I don't know if I can," Nadra sobs, speaking alone to an empty crowd, to a boy who's been dead for days, her voice small and desperate like she's just a little girl. She's not Two's champion, not their paragon of strength and virtue - all Nadra is is a coward who keeps getting lucky.
She sits there, collapsed and shaking, for what feels like hours. She lets herself cry, lets herself spit out bile and tremble as she attempts to calm her breathing and let her head clear itself.
Five tributes are left, now. She knows her chances are reasonably slim, already injured and all alone. Still, she has to at least try - Jehan would be disappointed in her if she didn't try. Pandora proved that she can live without him - that she can be more than just a tool for someone else, that she can be her own person…
(And now she's dead, and she feels like she's back to square one, back to feeling lost and afraid, and she wonders for a moment if she should have hesitated for longer at the reaping and let someone else take the position at the last minute, if she should have refused the Institute's election of her to volunteer all those months ago, because this just isn't worth it -)
"Get yourself together, Nadra," she snaps at herself, willing herself to stop shaking. Heaving herself off the ground, she manages to make her way over to their bags, putting all she needs in one of them - her painkillers and antibiotics, which she takes as she has since she was stabbed, their limited supply of rations (that'll last just her two more days, she thinks grimly), the rest of her first aid supplies, and the bat. More than just being used as a weapon, she needs it to move with any amount of comfort. Even though she's tried to only take what's necessary, the weight of the satchel is still almost unbearable. She's done nothing but rest for two days, but she still aches, and she grits her teeth as she trudges her way up the aisle steps. She's glad to have left behind her own jacket on the stage; she couldn't cope with the extra bulk.
(Both physically and mentally. The coat is the only signifier that she's a tribute of District Two, the collar and badges on the shoulders bearing their colour. With being Two comes unattainable expectations, ones she's squandered with her cowardice, with her reluctance to act when needed most. If she is to get out of here, she must do exactly as Jehan told her - Two must be out of sight, out of mind. Nadra is the only one who matters, now, and she's more than her district number.)
She almost wants to look back as she reaches the bloodstains by the entrance to the hall, but she stops herself before she can even try. She can't look back now. Not when she's made up her mind that she'll try her best to continue living, her preordained fate be damned.
She hasn't been outside of the theatre since day seven, and the outdoors is not a pretty sight.
Unblocking the doors was hard enough, but even harder proved figuring out where to go whilst batting away rats and looking out for the acrid plumes of gas that seem to be around every corner. There was no way Nadra could stay in the theatre - not with Pandora in there, and she feels awful for leaving her - but what else could she do? If she stops now, she'll break down again - if she stops now, thinks about her stiffening, cooling body, left behind in that building that reminded her so much of her home, she won't be able to move forward. If there's anything she learned from leaving Jehan's body, it's that she can't function when faced with horror of that magnitude, and all she can do is put it out of her mind. Focus on herself, on the only thing she's ever wanted, even if now she's less certain with each passing hour that she has the strength to make it out of here.
Venera is nowhere to be seen. She's glad for it, but she can't help but feel paranoid; like the blonde spectre will be around any corner, or on the rooftops waiting to strike from above. As she passes rows of buildings, all boarded up and broken down, she has less and less faith that she'll be able to find anywhere to rest, and so she forces herself to truck along. She passes the apothecary, where the girl from Twelve has languished for nearly ten days - her skin sloughs from her frame, stomach caved in where her organs have begun to liquify, and her eyes have seemingly been devoured by vermin. Maggots crawl over her exposed fat and muscle, devouring her rancid flesh, and Nadra has to do all she can to keep herself from throwing up again.
(She wonders how Jehan looks now. She stops wondering just as quickly, because she knows she'll spiral if she focuses on it too much.)
(She needs to end this quickly, so Pandora doesn't meet with a similar fate.)
She continues on down the street, finding it ends with a left turn - ahead of her is a large field of that same dry yellowed grass, withered husks of trees dotting the enclosure, fenced by black iron bars. She follows a dirt path, seeing nothing else she could do; she passes a dried-up fountain, the stone lip of the basin smeared with blood. Ahead of her there's what appears to be a gazebo, in a state of disrepair like everything else here. Sitting on the bench within it is what appears to be a figure, hunched over - Nadra can't make out their face, but she's immediately on guard.
Her pace slows; the figure isn't looking at her, but as she nears, she sees the short brownish-blond hair of the Six boy, and she lowers her bat.
He must hear her, then, because his head snaps up and he almost falls backwards off the bench, letting out a yelp and a "Who's there?!"
Nadra freezes, staring him down, and recognition flashes across his face - she's the girl from Two who'd been in the elevator with him the morning of launch, who'd walked past him casually as he broke down on the roof - surely, he's got some preconceived idea of her character.
Usually, she'd let it slide. But that isn't who Nadra is, and she frankly isn't interested in hurting him. Not when he's the only other person in the arena she can count on to be harmless.
"Relax," she says, keeping her voice level. "I'm not gonna kill you."
"How can I trust that? You're a career!" He rebuts, his eyes laser-focused on her.
"You can't trust me, I know. That'd be too much to expect."
He swallows thickly, and she sees him relax a little, but he's still tense. "What do you want?"
What is it that she wants, really? She can't actually be desperate enough to give the boy her energy, not when she could be killing him and whittling their numbers down to four, one step closer to getting out of here.
Alas. She can't look any worse in the eyes of Two than she already does.
"Just some company."
Nadra's never been good at keeping or making friends. Her problem is she never feels the need to open up to others, content with superficial conversations just to fill the space. Sitting with a near total stranger - Ansel, she learns his name is - feels a lot like sitting with a group of random trainees from the Institute, no strings attached nor any expectations in their relationship. Of course, Ansel's no trainee - stick thin, even thinner than he was when Nadra first saw him in the Capitol - and there's some amount of expectation here - that soon, she'll leave him for dead or kill him herself, since she's Two - but still.
Nadra does not function well on her own. That much she's learned. If she doesn't have another person to keep her attention, she'll inevitably fold inwards, and right now all she can think of are her dead companions, which she can't let herself do if she wants to have any chance of surviving this. The best way to avoid having her old allies plague her mind is with a new one.
Gladly, she's not all that attached to him, and she's under no assumption that they'll be fast friends.
"So you're the last one left from your alliance?" The Six boy asks.
"I might as well be," Nadra says, crunching on a handful of nuts. "Two of them abandoned me on day… four? I think? Vitali's still around, though."
"Oh, the boy from Seven?"
Nadra looks up at him, and Ansel blinks a few times.
"I saw him and One at the feast," he clarifies.
"Oh, shit, you went?" She asks, slightly incredulous that such a meek boy could make it out of a feast.
"I kinda had to… I got bitten, see," and he shows his wrist, where a scabbed-over red mark is visible. "I was being hunted by these huge mutts for a whole day. Scared shitless, I didn't really have the option but to go… and y'know, you gotta do some bad stuff on the streets of Six to get by. I've done my fair share of petty theft, and, well… I was in and out for that cure as fast as possible."
She doesn't know Ansel. She won't, either, but still, part of her is still glad that he could actually survive the sickness that killed Jehan. She wouldn't wish it on just some guy who hasn't done anything wrong. "And you saw Vitali?"
"Yeah, I looked back just when I was almost out of the square. I think he killed the guy from One, though I might be mistaken. I swear I saw them together a lot in the training centre, so it didn't really seem right to me."
It definitely takes Nadra aback. "Are you sure?"
"Seemed that way to me," Ansel shrugs. "Then I saw him again later, heading up north. I was round the slaughterhouse for a bit a few days ago, but I left when those two set up shop there."
It's striking Nadra now how little of the arena she's actually experienced. She doesn't think she's been north of the cornucopia once, and she's never seen the so-called slaughterhouse. Not that she really wants to, given the name. "Do you think he's still round there?"
"I dunno, he might be. It's anyone's guess."
She furrows her brows and makes a pensive face. She thought she'd had the Seven boy figured out during training, but his every action in the Games has been in contrast to that image she'd built up. The meek, teddy-bear like boy she'd first met at the parade had now killed two people, one who'd never seen him coming and the other who'd been his only ally.
"Seems like he's a loose cannon," she mutters, "Think we might be able to track him and catch him off guard?"
Ansel scoffs. "Dunno why you're asking me, Two. Aren't you the one holding me hostage?"
"Hostage?" She laughs, because it really is stupid - isn't the reason she was selected to volunteer because she isn't like Twos of the past, those brutes who would in fact be taking hostages? "I wouldn't say that. You can stay or you can come with me to find the remaining tributes. Tomorrow, though - I'm pretty exhausted."
He'd noticed the large slash in her blouse before, the patch of dried blood and the bandages lying behind it, and she doesn't think she has to elaborate on why she's not ready to go hunting today. That, and the events of the morning still have her shaken up. She may be good at hiding it with lighthearted conversation, but she still feels sick if she thinks of Pandora's glassy eyes.
Ansel nods, and as the sun begins setting, he takes her to the only house that hasn't been boarded up around the park, and they agree to sleep in shifts. When night has fully set in, Nadra gazes out the window, the Capitol anthem preceding Pandora's pretty face in the sky. Her heart tugs, but she forces herself to keep herself from crying. She was her friend, her first friend since Jehan, but in the grand scheme of things, she was temporary, like many of Nadra's fleeting interests in life.
It never would have lasted. She's not even sure she could have committed to their plan, anyway. She's never been a fan of following a path set out in advance.
That morning, they prepare for their excursion. Nadra reluctantly shares the last of her rations with Ansel, meaning they really have no choice but to leave. It bothers Nadra for reasons she can't quite articulate.
At least her abdomen actually feels alright today. Seems her daily regimen of hardcore painkillers and antibiotics have kept infection at bay, and as she changes her bandages out for clean ones, she notices it already beginning to scab and form scar tissue. She won't take out the stitches - there's too big of a chance of things going wrong. If she makes it out of here, the Capitol will surely patch her up for good.
"If we run into someone, you put your agility to use and distract them whilst I go for the kill, yeah?" Nadra states, and Ansel nods, though he's shaking a little bit. She pats him on the shoulder and smiles like he's a kid, even though he towers over her by over half a foot. "Then let's go."
Ansel knows the direction to head in to get to the slaughterhouse - right now, it's their best bet of running into any other tributes, and ending these Games as soon as they can. She's hoping Vitali won't be too difficult to take on since he's alone - what she's worrying about, though, are Venera and Eliana, considering they were allied together; though with Venera seemingly being alone when she killed Pandora, the state of that relationship is up in the air. It may be wishful thinking, but she has to hope that they'll self-destruct on one another like Julius and Vitali did.
It takes ten minutes to make it to the river, swerving around fog and avoiding the unnerving glares of the plague doctor mutts, but from there it's essentially a beeline to the imposing structure that is the slaughterhouse. It's constructed of smooth concrete, towering at least five storeys tall with no windows to be seen. The sight sends goosebumps down Nadra's arms, though when Ansel leads her to the door, she steps in without hesitation.
When Nadra sees the interior of the slaughterhouse, she understands how it got the name. Long rows of filament lights line the ceiling, which extends upwards through the entire verticality of the building. From the gaping central room there are offshoots into other sections of the building, fenced-off walkways criss-crossing each of the five floors upwards. It stinks of decomposition - canvas sacs filled with god-knows what hang from the ceiling, as do rotting carcasses from meat hooks. On dented metal tables lie tools for butchery; Ansel, weaponless, picks up a cleaver.
"You know where they were last you saw them here?" Nadra whispers, leaning as close to the Six boy as she can.
He nods in return, and she follows him up a flight of steps in a stairwell to their right. "Y'know," he whispers as they spiral up and up, "I've been on my own this whole time. It's been… sort of nice, unexpectedly."
She smiles, though he's still turned away from her. "Glad to hear it."
He'll have to die, this she is aware of; she's known him for only a day, but a lonely death is the worst thing Nadra can imagine. She's glad that he'll be able to avoid such a thing.
They stop at the top floor. Ansel peers around the doorway of the stairwell before stepping out onto the landing. Everything is just solid, smooth concrete, no actual doors to be seen; the yellow glow it's all bathed in, no natural light to be let in makes it all extremely eerie. Ansel points to a doorway opposite the gaping hole in the room's centre that reveals just how high up they actually are. She clocks that he's referring to where Vitali and Julius had set up camp. She can't see into it from here, but if he is in there, they should be able to catch him by surprise.
They tiptoe around the landing - it's one right turn and ten more metres, then they're at the spot.
It happens far too fast. As soon as Ansel steps in front of the doorway, he's quickly driven backwards with such force that he flies backwards off the landing, screaming as he plummets the full five storeys to the ground floor with a bone-crunching thud.
A cannon sounds. Adrenaline courses through Nadra's veins as she stares on in horror.
"I know there's two of you - come on out, now, don't be shy!" Comes Vitali's mocking tone.
"Only if you don't immediately shoot me," Nadra seethes, her aggressive tone masking her fear.
She hears a wooden clatter from inside the room - assumedly his crossbow. "I won't, Nadra, don't worry."
She peers her head around the doorframe to check - there the Seven boy sits, on a rickety wooden chair in the centre of the room, his crossbow discarded off to the side. The room appears to be a tannery - leathers hang from racks against the walls, his supplies kept on a desk off to the corner with the sabre Julius had left with leaning up against it. One leg is crossed over the other, and his expression can only be described as unbothered.
"You could have at least rung the doorbell," he says, a blithe lilt to his voice, but Nadra isn't laughing.
"You could have not immediately shot to kill, but here we are," she replies tersely.
Vitali shrugs. "Touché. I figured you were here to kill me, though. Best to even the playing field by ridding you of your advantage, though, right?"
She furrows her eyebrows. Maybe it was unfair, coming to tag team him - but it is the Hunger Games, where that sort of thing is to be expected.
"Well, are we going to kill each other, now?" She asks, voice strained.
Vitali uncrosses his legs, hunching over on his chair and crossing his arms. "Are we not gonna have our final little cinematic catch-up?"
"I don't think one matters," she says. "I'm not interested in whatever spat you and Julius had."
"A shame," he replies, cocking his head. "Damon won't be very pleased."
Nadra furrows her eyebrows in confusion. "I thought he killed your passion for the Games? Why, all of a sudden, are you so concerned about that?"
It's truly baffling. From their interactions in the Capitol, she'd been under the assumption that there was nothing but animosity between Vitali and his brother, that Damon Zelcova was languishing in a cell somewhere in Seven for committing abhorrent crimes against those closest to his own brother.
(She remembers hearing from Pandora that Julius had done something similar. Dots begin connecting in her head, but she's reluctant to jump to any conclusions.)
"I just thought that the best way to overcome all of that was to force myself to stop caring," he mutters, detached, almost bored. "Become the monster he is - the monster he would have been if he was here. He could have made it and won, y'know. But I'm here instead, so this is the next best thing."
It sounds miserable. Coercing yourself into becoming something you're not, just for a shot at winning the Games. Coming out no longer yourself.
(It's what Two wanted from Nadra. Taking away her autonomy, forcing her into a role, just for a victor. She's determined to give them one - she knows she isn't the one they want, and she'll never be enough, but she can't find the energy to care anymore.)
"Sounds pretty damn sad to me," she scowls, gripping the spiked bat tighter. "I'd quite like to get this on with, if you don't mind."
Vitali sighs dramatically, standing up and clicking his back. "Fine by me."
The Seven boy doesn't pick his crossbow back up off the floor - instead, he immediately makes a beeline for the sabre, and Nadra follows him, now fully in the room. She takes a swing at him, but he nimbly dodges off to the left, taking a swipe that narrowly hits her middle. All it succeeds in doing is slicing open her bandages, but she persists, swiping out again and striking his left arm. He sucks in a breath through his teeth as he tumbles off to the side, quickly regaining his footing by grabbing onto the back of the chair.
Nadra hardly has the time to react when he lifts it high above him and bashes her over the head.
As she tumbles to the floor, bat falling from her grip, her head pounding, Vitali stands tall above her and swings again - she raises her arms to soften the blow, but all that results in is fresh pain. The flimsy chair shatters, splinters flying, and Nadra curls onto her side, grimacing as she reaches out for her weapon. Vitali promptly stomps on her hand, the heavy sole of his boot grinding her fingers into the concrete and eliciting a squeak of pain from between her lips.
Desperately, she raises a leg to sharply kick Vitali in the groin, and he stumbles backwards, giving her a precious few seconds to reach for her bat with her bruised fingers and stagger clumsily to her feet. Her vision is blurry as she attempts to regain focus on the Seven boy, and she swings hard, hitting him directly in the face, bloodying the rusted nails and leaving half a dozen punctures on his cheek. He teeters, spitting out a bloodied tooth, and makes a dash for his discarded sabre. As Nadra raises her bat for another swing, raised high over her head, she realises a second too late that she's left her torso unguarded - looking down to find Vitali crouched down in front of her, the tip of the sabre skewered through her middle.
She lets out a pained gasp, the bat almost falling from her grip, as she instinctively moves backwards, a hand finding where he's entirely torn open her stitches and deepened her wound. As she raises her bloodied fingers, Vitali storms forward and -
With a slice, they're no longer there.
She can't even scream as she watches four digits fall to the ground, blood gushing from her ruined hand, mind blanking entirely as the Seven boy yet again advances. He slices at her again and Nadra makes an attempt at a dodge, the sabre catching her face, only narrowly missing her eye. Hot blood drips down her face, and she's helpless but to tumble backwards into the racks of leather skins that line the room; helpless before the boy becoming a monster.
(The last thing Nadra wants is a life without meaning. That also extends, now, to Vitali. If he wins, she has no doubt that whatever life he leads will be a falsified one, a wasted one. He'd said it himself, once, that death would be a mercy, death would be better than returning to Seven.)
With that thought, left hand - or whatever remains of it- pressed tightly against her shirt, she tightens her grip around the bat in her right hand and aims for the hand Vitali holds his own weapon in. A nasty crack sounds through the room, followed by the clash of metal on concrete as he drops it, and as he curses, Nadra takes the opportunity to strike out at his head again. She hits, more blood flowing, his left eye now dripping blood, turning purple as bruises form under his skin. She kicks out, and he topples over - she yells out as she slams down with the bat, again and again, her shrieks of passion and pain becoming quieter and quieter, and before she knows it, she's staring down at something unrecognisable.
His face is caved in, features a mangled mess of bone and blood, and her aim hadn't been the best, so his neck and chest are ruined too, the emerald green of his collar stained black with blood. A cannon fires, and the adrenaline rushes out of her like the wind, finding herself overcome with dizziness. She falls, weeping as she curls in on herself, pressing her hand further into the fabric of her shirt, now stained almost entirely red. Hot blood seeps into her eye as she sobs, pain overwhelming her entirely.
She tries and fails to crawl to the desk, where she's praying there'll be something she can numb the pain with, dress her wounds, anything - but with humiliation and fear, she remembers that last time, she had Pandora. Last time, she had someone to carry her, to assist her, to be there when she needed her most.
As she falls into unconsciousness, Nadra Sidero realises she is entirely alone.
Nadra wakes back up in the theatre.
Disoriented, she stumbles, legs uneasy; staring down at her chest, her stomach bleeds and bleeds, gushing red onto the stage. Bile rises alongside dread; Nadra doesn't think she's ever seen this much blood, let alone coming from her own body.
"See you, Two," a mocking voice jeers to her left, her sweet smile and coy wave unwelcome, for she's an invader in their temporary haven - below where the Five girl has disappeared up into the rafters, the form that Nadra knows to be Pandora lies, but…
Where Nadra looks, all she sees is rotted flesh and dark skin pulled taut over her bones, hundreds of maggots crawling and writhing in her eye sockets, rats nibbling at what little left they can scavenge off her corpse. The girl who was so beautiful in gold at the parade was now nothing - Nadra takes a step back in horror, and bumps into a figure, and she jumps out of her skin, turning swiftly to face it.
Though he's ruined and decayed like Pandora is, she knows it's Jehan.
"Why didn't you try harder to heal me?"
"I was the one who was supposed to win, Nadra."
"Or did you let me die because you've always just wanted to win for yourself?"
BOOM.
Nadra wakes with a start, immediately overwhelmed by pain that makes tears well in her eyes. Everything hurts - she's still curled up in the fetal position, wrapped around her left hand which she can't bring herself to look down at - beneath her prone form is a pool of her own blood, oh, so much blood, and her head pounds like nothing ever has - she must have banged her head on the floor on the way down, too, though the chair probably did most of the damage. She lets out a shaky breath as she steels herself to peel her hand away from the fabric of her shirt - she balled it hard to stop the bleeding best as she could, and she - (can't feel her fingers, they're just gone) - can feel how the dried blood from her open wound has coagulated and dried, sticking itself to her blouse. She holds herself upright with her right arm, leaning on her elbow; deep breaths, in and out, an attempt to try to calm her nerves as she looks down to her lower torso and begins prying her hand from the dirty, bloodied cotton.
She lets out a pained whimper as, inch by inch, she levers the stump of her hand outwards from her body. She has to go slowly or else the wounds, clotted and clumped over with dried blood and flesh, will stick and pull on the rough fabric of her shirt, sending spikes of pain up her arm. Eventually she frees herself, and she almost collapses back down in a heap when she looks at the ruin Vitali left behind him - the stumps where her fingers used to be have begun weeping blood again, and she can hardly see the light brown of her skin, ashen with blood loss, beyond the red that stains it. She lets out a sob.
How the fuck is she gonna make it now?
(The nightmare plagues her mind. She doesn't know how long she was out for, but what she does know is that it felt all too real. The gore of Pandora's body,, Venera's ethereal glow as she rose above her, Jehan's words -)
(- Jehan would have never said those things. He was honest, so fucking honest, and in the decade she's known him, Nadra can't imagine him hiding spite, can't imagine how he'd possibly curse her out in his dying breath. He wanted her to win for herself.)
(She'd always needed the Games more than he did. The Games wasted Jehan's life, squandered all of his potential, and Nadra refuses to let the same thing happen to her.)
As she begins to crawl, like a wretch, like a worm, her abdomen shoots with pain, but she grits her teeth and ignores it. She also ignores the corpse of Vitali Zelcova, only a few metres behind her - the slaughterhouse already stinks of death and decay, so she finds it easy to just see him as part of the scenery. She reaches the table in the corner of the room, Vitali's supplies lain out upon and around it, and though it's not like her own stash of medical supplies, he still had a roll of gauze and bandages and pot of antiseptic paste. Probably thieved from her when they abandoned them. She keeps hold of it between her knees and unscrews the cap with her right hand, and can't help but wince and let out a small cry as she dabs some on her hand. She's not sure of the good it'll do - if she dies, it'll have done nothing, and if she lives, it probably won't be long until she's under the care of the Capitol's physicians. Still, it's out of habit.
Nadra takes one end of the roll of bandages between her teeth, using them as a lever as she wraps her hand. She's not sure what she can even do about her stomach wound at this point - though it's crusted over, when she moves she feels it leaking blood. She desperately needs surgery - she knows this. Nothing she can do at this point is gonna help all that much. Even so, wrapping it up is better than leaving it. When she pulls up her shirt, the old bandages are still there, entirely ripped and soaked through; Nadra tears them off even though the pain is almost too much to bear. This time she sticks her left thumb through the centre of the roll of bandages and uses up the entire thing securing her middle. She takes a moment to lie down on her back for a moment, panting. If she closes her eyes now, she's not sure she'll be able to get back up again, so she instead rolls back over and surveys her situation.
She only has one functional hand. That limits her options.
Either she can take her bat, able to be used as a crutch, or she can take Vitali's crossbow. The bat offers comfort and safety; it's been with her for the entire Games. The thing is, she doesn't know if she can afford another bout of close quarters combat, not in her state. She doesn't know how badly injured the other remaining tribute is, if at all - be it Venera or Eliana, they've both trained enough to threaten her chances of winning. But… if she can catch them unaware, from a distance…
She might have a chance.
Crawling over to where the crossbow lies on the concrete, Nadra takes it. In Vitali's pile of supplies there are two bolts; two chances, it seems. If she finds Ansel's body downstairs, that'll be three.
She takes a deep breath to steel herself before she stands, but she's still hit with a wave of dizziness. Her vision blurs for a moment, but she steadies herself against the nearest wall. Slowly, painfully, Nadra fumbles her way across the room, out onto the landing and to the stairwell. The task of getting downstairs, five flights, is so daunting that she feels herself getting lightheaded again. She ultimately decides to sit at the top step and gradually slide herself down, one at a time, each bump sending waves of pain through her torso.
Still, she persists.
Getting to the bottom takes what feels like a lifetime. Every movement hurts, and it takes all her concentration just to keep her head on straight. When she's finally at the ground floor, she leans up against the wall again to anchor herself, stumbling into the centre room and quickly finding Ansel's broken body. She squints as she nears him - the sight is too disgusting to look at fully. As she pulls the crossbow bolt from his chest, she mumbles an apology. Her only solace is that his death was quick.
Fresh air is a gift. Unlike her entire time in the arena thus far, beyond her head is a pale slate-blue sky, like those above District Two on a frigid winter's morning.
(It's the only thing so far that's reminded her of home.)
(... Home. She's thinking of District Two as home.)
Beyond the slaughterhouse to her back is an endless field, a flat plain of dry grass. It beacons her, far more than the town does. The town is sprawling; she'll never find the other tribute before she collapses of exhaustion. And so she trudges on, though her feet stumble through the dirt and the turf, but she keeps going, no destination in sight, she just needs to leave the town and all of its corpses and decay. As she passes and leans upon the occasional outcrop of rock, she clings to the fact that she's closer to home than ever, the earth beneath her feet invigorating her to keep going, just keep going.
She can't stop now. If this is the one thing in her life she truly dedicates herself to, then so be it.
Off in the distance, obscured by fog, is a figure. It almost looks like the painting back at the house on their first day, but she knows it's no mutt or monster.
Nadra hastily turns her body towards it, back flush against the rock, using it to prop herself up as she takes aim. She'd already loaded the first bolt into the crossbow at the slaughterhouse, and with shaking hands, steadied by her stump, she places her finger on the trigger. She takes one deep breath, then two, waiting for them to approach slightly closer. She can't afford for her aim to not strike true.
When the figure is just over a hundred metres away, the blonde hair gives away their identity immediately. Venera's limping, clutching a knife in one hand and her abdomen in the other.
Same injury, it seems, Nadra wonders as she furrows her brow and pulls the trigger.
The bolt flies, but it whizzes just past her head. Nadra curses under her breath as she realises now that Venera's seen her and quickens her pace. Quickly, she fumbles with the bolts in her pocket, holding the crossbow up against her chest as she loads it awkwardly. The limited mobility slows her down, but it's back up within a few more seconds and she takes aim once more.
This time, she hits Venera in the shoulder, just as she herself had hit Jehan in the bloodbath. She thinks, distantly, that this is the same crossbow used to shoot him back then, if Vitali's word could be trusted. The Five girl lurches, crying out in pain and annoyance as she rips the bolt from her torso. Again, Nadra reloads, hearing her heartbeat thump in her ears, Venera now running towards her. She doesn't have much time. This one's her last shot.
If she misses now, she's as good as dead.
Trembling, she shoots one last time.
Venera falls. Nadra doesn't exactly see where the bolt hits, but Five falls, less than twenty metres away, but her cannon doesn't sound. Nadra's almost scared she'll climb back up, but she's close enough now to see that from where she's punctured the right side of her chest, it's only a matter of minutes before she drowns in her own blood. Nadra lets out a whimper of relief, dropping the crossbow and falling to her knees, burying her face in her hands.
"Two," comes a weak croak, a dying girl. Nadra looks up, seeing Venera's hand raised out towards her, bloodied and quivering.
Nadra stumbles to her feet, limping closer to the other girl. She looks broken, so unlike the ethereal, almost untouchable adversary she's been to Nadra since she first saw her reaping on the train.
She almost pities her. She doesn't know her story, why she chose to train and volunteer, but she realises that just like her, like all of the careers; she's someone who wanted to risk everything for victory, someone who failed, the weight of that failure hanging heavy on her shoulders as she beacons Nadra to humour her in her dying moments.
She makes sure to keep twice an arm's distance from her prone form. Just in case she tries to take her down with her.
"Why didn't you kill me instead of Pandora?" Is the only possible thing Nadra can find to ask her.
Venera laughs, blood bubbling around her lips. "To mess with you."
She can't quite find the words to express her confusion. Venera can clearly see it on her face.
"Not the most logical course of action, I know -" she says, more blood spilling from her mouth, face rapidly losing all colour. "But not all choices are logical. And I simply decided I'd rather put on an interesting show."
And she laughs again, delirious, her pale eyes staring deep into Nadra's own dark ones, and Nadra sits there, unable to find the words for her. It doesn't matter, though. It only takes another moment more for her cannon to fire.
"Announcing the victor of the 169th Hunger Games: Nadra Sidero from District Two!"
And as the hovercraft materialises overhead, all Nadra can do is sigh in relief that it's finally over.