CONTENT WARNING: Explicit conversation/depictions of suicide. Begins in Dei's chapter.

If you would like a recap, feel free to PM me. Also, please do let me know if there is anything you would like to be forewarned about in the future. This is the Hunger Games, so I feel there is some level of knowing what you're getting into, but you never know.

Brooke Silversea | District 4 | 12

Blue snaps his fingers, an idea in his eyes. "I've got it!" he says. "Turn him into a sea urchin."

"A sea urchin?" I frown.

"Yeah! It'd be one of those divine justice curses. You know…" He clears his throat; his voice drops an octave. "Thou foolish mortal…as in life thou hast enjoyed inflicting great pain on those undeserving, so now, accursed, thou shalt have no choice." He grins triumphantly at his own logic. "Sea urchin."

I try halfheartedly to picture Selwyn Sur as a sea urchin. "He doesn't deserve that."

Blue stares at me. "He locked you in a storage closet."

This was true. I had been trapped for hours. It smelled awful—like dry rot and antiseptic both at once. And it was dark, so dark and so dizzying I couldn't think straight. At first I tried pounding on the door—then I heard an ominous scuttling from inside the closet, and I didn't dare make a sound after that.

It wasn't until well after school had ended that day that the custodian had come around to fetch the cleaning supplies. And even then, he had been so startled by my appearance that he had nearly slammed the door in my face all over again.

But even so, the idea of taking away someone's sense of self is unacceptable to me. I tell Blue this, and he seems to accept it. "Yeah, you're right. He'd lose all conscious thought anyway. And we want him to know he's suffering." He furrows his brow in thought for a minute longer. "...turn his hair into seaweed?"

I wrinkle my nose at the thought. "Wouldn't make a lot of difference," I say. "It's always so greasy."

"Yeah…which…is why it's so perfect!" Blue's realization springs him to his feet. "This is why all the best curses only change one little thing! Think about it…most of the heavy lifting is done for us! It'll be easy!"

For the record, I don't—I can't—curse people.

You wouldn't know it, the way people talk at school and in the orphans' home. If I'm caught looking at someone just a touch too long, it's because I'm seeing their future. If I say something even the slightest bit thoughtful, it's only because I'm tapping into the arcane. Now I'm too quiet? It must be because I'm talking to ghosts!

Do they actually believe this stuff? Something tells me they wouldn't go out of their way to provoke me if they really feared I could call upon unseen magical arts. But there's power enough in the rumor. My classmates, and even my teachers, keep at arm's length.

Blue is different. The way he plays with superstition so casually—stretching it, exaggerating it, waving it about like an old rag on a flagpole—makes it clear he's doing it to cheer, rather than to wound. He thinks it might help me take the more mean-spirited jokes less seriously. I'm still working on that.

There's an old saying in District Four—if something is a "pearl of great price," it is of such value that you would be willing to forfeit all your wealth, all your titles, all your material worth, just to keep it in your possession. Well, I don't have wealth or belongings. So I guess that makes Blue my pearl. While the rest of the world keeps its distance, he draws near. When the urge to just run away from it all overwhelms me, he will always find me, even if he has to dig me out from under the ground to do it.

Underground is where we happen to be right now, inside a hidden sea cave that I'm sure had been untouched for years before I discovered it.

It was late afternoon, about four years ago. At the time, the ocean had been my only escape from the world—I could float peacefully in patches where the sun hit the sea very nicely and imagine myself dissolving into the sea foam and floating far, far away. But that day, I decided to swim through a large crack in the cliffside. It was a stupid thing to do; I don't like to think about how long I went without air, and how much longer I might have, had things gone awry. But when I finally inhaled fresh air, I was no longer on the open ocean. Instead, I found myself in a large, dim cavern with jagged rocks, some that looked suspiciously like animal bones.

For a while I was too spooked to do much of anything—too scared to stay, too scared to leave. But the more my eyes adjusted to the light, the more comfortable I became in this space. The grey cave walls faded into yellow and green close to the waterline. The water dripping from the stalactites sounded almost like music. Faint sunlight came from little speckles in the rock above my head, making pretty patterns upon the water.

Blue cheekily refers to it as my lair. I prefer to call it my grotto. Whatever it is, it's all ours.

"We'll need seaweed, obviously," Blue remarks, examining the heap of refuse we've stockpiled over the years. That shouldn't be a problem. Our hoard is mostly seaweed, since we claim whatever floats into our grotto as ours. But occasionally something more interesting will wash up on our rocky perches. Over the years we've collected seashells, fishing line, driftwood, bits of seaglass, once even a broken-off harpoon that I practice brandishing like a spear.

"We also need something to stand in for him. Um." He looks at me thoughtfully. "How good are you at making voodoo dolls?"

"What? No! We don't need to go that far." My stomach twists at the thought, so I grapple for a softer option. My mind rummages through the fairytales I've read in secret over the years, stories that I know would be just another excuse for my classmates to shun me. "A bit of his hair should be all we need."

Blue nods approvingly. "Easy enough. Okay then, is that it? That can't be…what else do curses…?"

"A sacrifice," I say softly. Blue startles. "No, no—not a human sacrifice—I didn't mean—" My cheeks burn. "Just…something nice. A keepsake." I reach into our stash and pull out an unblemished, perfectly-shaped scallop. "Like this."

He's still staring at me strangely, like a different person has materialized in my place. He also seems…impressed. "Are you sure you're not…?"

"No." My eyes begin to burn along with my cheeks. "I'm not—I—I—read a lot, okay? Just forget I said anything."

But I can't take it back. I know what crossed his mind. In that moment, however temporary, he saw me as everyone else sees me. Which is to say, not me at all. He sees her.

My mom. The sea witch—they'd call her. I'd heard all the stories from our village. Only sometimes had I asked for them first. She sold charms and potions out of her back door. She wove seaweed into her hair and draped strings of shells and sea glass over the door frames. She read the fortunes on your hand and whispered to the ghosts over your shoulder. And then there were the nastier accusations, usually after I bumped into someone on the way to class, or knocked over a basket in the marketplace. About how she was nothing more than a fraud, or how she preyed on people's fears, or how she had deserved to die in childbirth for deceiving so many.

Some embraced the superstition. It was an accepted fact at school that my mom had laid a terrible curse on me with her dying breath. Some upperclassmen had spread that around my first year, pointing at my misshapen, discolored—one blue, one hazel—eyes as proof. They were so insistent, even I believed it for a time. But by the time I had the sense to question how they could possibly have known, it was too late.

I've asked about my dad too, to my teachers or merchants around town. I think he raised me for a year or two. But all anyone can tell me is he was a deep-sea fisherman from the city who died at sea two years after I was born. Most of them don't think he and my mom actually married. Some don't even remember his first name, and no one seems to recall his surname. The name the orphanage has on record for me is my mom's. Her stage name, at that. Mare Silversea. The sea witch.

It isn't fair, I've often thought, that—him being the one to raise me, even a little—I should inherit more of her.

And maybe not just her name or her legacy, but something inside me, that's tangled up in the very core of me in a way I can't change.

"You know," Blue considers, "forget the curse. Someone like Sur isn't worth the trouble. Besides," he motions to the scallop I turn nervously in my palm, "we can't use that anyway, it's got a flaw." So it does. A small hole perfectly in the center.

And this gives us another idea. At Blue's direction, I unknot a tangle of fishing line, extracting a strand that is the perfect length to wear around my neck. The shell—now woven through the string—settles against my collarbone. I like the way it feels.

"You can wear it into the city next week," he suggests eagerly. "Like a good luck charm."

I grimace. To Blue's credit, he is apologetic.

"Sorry," he says sheepishly. Immediate forgiveness swells in me. And I wonder how we ever considered sacrificing something as valuable as this, this reminder that, no matter how many turned backs I will face in my lifetime, Blue will always be with me. "Poor choice of words."

Dei Corentin | District 4 | 18

My day begins as usual. I've timed my run to begin with the first shards of sunlight.

I always take the same route along the clifftops south of the city. The sharp, uphill trails are good for stamina, and with the loose stones and on-a-dime turns, it's just as challenging going downhill at a runner's pace. Sprawled out, far below my feet, is the ocean. There's something about seeing it in the morning light with the gentle sea breeze in your wake. It looks placid, still. You forget about the waves crashing dozens of feet below you, or the storms projected to take place several miles out to sea.

Most of the ocean view is obstructed somewhat by a wrought-iron fence. But there are weaknesses where corrosion or natural phenomena have taken their toll. At the apex of one of the taller cliffs is a spot where the iron is all bent out of shape, as if someone simply punched the bars from their foundation. For all I know, they might have; only the truly desperate cross the fence at this point, where all that awaits at the bottom is a solid, flat slab of surfaced stone.

We call it Dead Man's View.

As the economic situation in Four declined, as our deep-sea fishers were forced to venture into further, more dangerous waters to cast, as boats streamed back into our harbors lighter than when they left, an alarming number of bodies have been found at the bottom of this cliff. More often than not, they belong to those once used to living in relative comfort, whose fortunes flipped. We find them bloody and bent at horrifying angles on the rocks below.

Some would stick notes on the iron spikes of the fence. Others would make the recovery team pry one from their cold fingers.

I always made sure to run past it—maybe out of some vague hope that just once, for someone, I will arrive just in time.

Today, I am lucky.

The young man pressed against the far side of the fence is completely still, perhaps practicing for death. His hold on the fence looks harder to break than the fence itself. So there's hesitation, good. What else? School-age, possibly my age. Likely does not attend school—I don't know him. Skinny. Severely malnourished.

I can tell he hears my footfalls, the scattering of loose pebbles; he tenses ever so slightly. But he won't spring unless he perceives me as a threat. That won't happen if I am careful.

"Good morning," I say. I strike a friendly tone, careful to keep my voice free of concern—for now. It is not yet time; a stranger's concern will mean little. "Mind if I join you?"

I don't wait for his permission, of course. I take a seat right on the precipice, planting my palms firmly behind me and letting my legs dangle over the cliffside. "You've got the right idea. This is the best place to watch the sunrise. No fence." I flash a grin at him. Of course, the sun's behind us, but we still get the colors."

"Oh…yeah…"

"You comfortable up there?" I ask. "You're welcome to sit. The cliff won't crumble on us. Probably."

"I'm…I'm good…"

"Suit yourself." I stretch one of my hands out behind me. "I'm Dei, by the way."

He stares at my hand; perhaps it gives him a place to look other than my eyes. "Zymon."

"Splendid. Well, Zymon, allow me to commend you for being one of the courteous ones."

"Huh?"

I point to a slip of paper impaled upon a spike above our heads.

It's a risky play, so soon into the conversation, but it catches him off guard. I think he even cracks a smile. "Oh…well, my sisters, you know, they don't like…blood…"

"Sisters?" I snatch this new piece of information before the conversation can fall away to a place beyond rescue. "How many?"

"Three, all younger," he takes a breath. "And three younger brothers."

"Six siblings? You must be a saint—I can barely manage one." I shake my head. "Though, to be fair, he is an idiot. One time…"

And I begin to weave my story into the emptiness between us.

The one that comes to mind is a blurry memory from a few years back, when Darren had made up his mind to adopt a jellyfish. Of course, I don't remember nearly as much as I let on. If I'm losing his attention, I exaggerate. If there are details I don't recall, I invent them. Really, it could be any story. The important thing is to keep talking.

Because with every syllable, every smile, every time I address him by name like an old friend, this scared boy—once empty of all but death—transforms. His grip on the fence behind him slackens. Before long, he is sitting by my side, rapt, eyes coming back into focus, even supplementing my tale with details of his own siblings.

And as we settle into comfortable silence, I know I've got him.

"They tell you it gets better, right?" I say softly, looking into the horizon. My tone is carefully neutral. As is my choice of words.

"I'm going to be reaped," he blurts.

For the first time, I can't get a word in. It's like squeezing out a sponge, the way his entire backstory gushes from him. Spilling onto the ground, seeping in between the stones, melding with his teardrops, are more words than I can hold at once. It's his entire backstory. Dropping out of school to find work. Failing every trade he tried. District Four volunteers becoming sparser Taking seven siblings' worth of tesserae for repeated years. And again and again, woven in like a motif, the empty fish nets.

I nod and hold his gaze, but inside me is a rush that I imagine to be not unlike what would happen if I plunged from this cliff myself.

I confess I had been worried. We had spent so much time on the topic of our families: for most, a positive, grounding topic that I knew was not likely to leave me with many options. But it's the Games he's scared of—a universal horror that renders family ties meaningless. Parents fear their own child-turned tribute. Siblings remain silent when a brother is reaped. And last year's Games had been especially macabre, both tributes from our district going terrifyingly mad. Yes, I can work with this.

The question is, what to do with him.

I could lean into the horror of the previous year, speculate my own brother would shatter, watching me die in such a way. Or perhaps I could play the squeamish one—feign a close friendship with any of the previous years' tributes, confide that I wasn't able to recognize the monster they became. Really, if he looked at it the right way, this was the noble choice, I would imply. Or I could simply rise, dust off my hands, tell him his decision was his business. Any one of these paths down which I steer him would lead straight off this cliff as effectively as if I had pushed him myself.

It's one thing to play with ordinary people and their ordinary lives. A smile here. A little tug in this direction. A softer touch when called for. Every day, I pull their invisible little strings, and they follow obliviously wherever I lead them. But after all these years of accumulating little, fleeting pleasures, watching those closest to me play the parts I've assigned them—I've never felt anything like this.

I hold a key to life in one hand, a key to death in the other.

And it's exhilarating. It's terrifying. It's satiating. I don't quite know, only that some long-forgotten feeling shivers down my spine and roils in my stomach. If this is what I feel now, I can only imagine the extremities of satisfaction that await in the Arena.

And there is my silver bullet: the swiftest end I could possibly bring to this conversation is by confiding my intention to volunteer next week. And for once, I wouldn't even be lying.

Partially. For maximum impact, I would, naturally, make it seem like I had come to the decision in that moment. I would reassure him that I had a better chance, was better trained, had honestly been on the fence on the decision until today.

He would regain his life. I would gain his gratitude and complete trust. I had little use for either. At the very least he may be another source of amusement.

For one last time, I entertain the idea of letting him fall. The few potent words that would sever his will to live await eagerly at the tip of my tongue. I could do it. I have the power to end him without lifting a finger.

I paint a serious expression on my face and stare him directly in the eyes. The gaze I receive in return is red-eyed, on the verge of collapse, and completely unaware of what I am to him. Tell me what I want to hear, it seems to plead.

"I want to thank you, Zymon," I say. "You've helped me make an important decision."

I'm going to let you live.

"I'm going to volunteer for the Games."

After all, I didn't particularly need for him to die, only to know that I could manipulate him to that point.

He will live, but I still hold his strings.

The Morning of the Reaping

My day begins as usual. I've timed my run to begin with the first shards of sunlight.

Yet it is not quite a usual day. It is strangely silent—the brisk, routine movements of my father are missing. On weekdays, we prepare for the day in tandem, though separately—him for work, me for training. Today, he has no work, and his stillness makes him seem more a stranger than his continual absence.

He knows, of course, what I intend to do today. He is close enough friends with my mentor and former victor, Clem Astair, to have known of my training progress for a long time. He told me he was proud of me. He seemed to mean it, perhaps even to think that it would mean something to me.

I wonder if, this morning, he's having second thoughts. His fingernails are white on the handle of his coffee mug, and I can see new splatters of brown on his cuffs.

The other surprise is that Darren is awake, reclining on the back porch steps. I allow myself to appreciate the effort that must have taken—Darren could sleep through a tsunami. He snaps into focus when the door closes.

"Dei? Dei! Hold up." He motions for me to sit beside him, and I do with a sigh.

"Not trying to change my mind?" I ask. With Darren, I am unperformative. He has earned my honesty.

By contrast, his voice is a song that betrays his every expression. I could break his casual veneer with a single, choice word—there are strong undertones of hysteria.

"Nah," he says. "I thought about it. For a long time. Tonight, actually. I got no sleep. Well, that much is obvious. Hopefully the cameras keep off me today." He blows out a breath. "But I've made up my mind."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. You've decided you need to do this? Then you need to do this. It'd be selfish of me to try to stop you. And…that's pretty much it. Although," he says, leaning forward onto his knees, "You know how we don't get volunteers anymore. Chances are, you'd be saving the life of some poor kid with no experience. So, when you think about it…it's actually kinda noble."

"Does it make you feel better? Ascribing me with a motivation?" I say evenly.

"I'm not ascribing anything," he says; whether or not he knows I've just challenged him, he meets it head-on. "Your motivations are your business, and I won't pretend I understand them. I'm…just saying that what you're doing just happens to be noble. Whether or not that was your intention." His tone grows softer, more thoughtful. "It's like, things can be good sometimes, but we don't need to have good intentions to make them that way. You know?"

I do. Some things, I've learned, just are.

Like Darren's goodness and his unshakeable presence, and that, knowing what he does, he doesn't loathe to call me brother.

When he speaks to me like this—seeming to draw some light from deep inside him—I am merely a spectator. I see his brightness. I know it is supposed to warm. But it never reaches me. I can mimic all I please. But what is nature to him is, for me, a mask.

And none of that matters. Because this is Darren. It makes no difference whether or not I can feel his goodness and care for me, because it's simply an objective truth about who he is.

"Anyway." He holds up his wrist, and I realize, to my amusement, he is wearing two watches: one black, one a rich brown. The faces are identical. "They're perfectly synced. I made sure of it. I thought—hey, don't laugh; I'm allowed to be a sap today—I thought you could wear it with you in the Capitol."

He transfers the black watch from his wrist to mine. "Whatever it is you need to find in the Games, I hope you do. I'll be cheering you on, I promise. But since I won't be there to remind you myself, all you'd need to do is check the time—" He taps his own watch face for emphasis. "—to know I'm with you—what did I say about laughing, dammit?"

My amusement is a mask. I don't drop it until I am safely away, at a jogger's pace up the jagged cliffside, and I've allowed myself to consider the possibility that this may not be a promise he can keep.

A riptide-like force drags my thoughts backwards in time, years ago, where I am the most afraid I've been since our mother's death. It's a starlit night. Dei stands behind me on an otherwise empty stretch of beach. The sky is clear, but the wind is picking up. The waves crash relentlessly onto the shore. I yell to be heard over them, my face stinging with oceanwater mingled with tears.

Filth spews from me, no worse than the filth I spread day-to-day, playing these sick games with people. Worse still, I like it. It's all I have left. I scream at him that I am a monster, that it would be better for him just to leave.

I am unhinged, throwing everything within reach into the crashing waves—stones, fistfuls of sand—anything to keep me too busy to look behind me and see Darren's retreating form.

But Darren doesn't leave.

"I guess…you're right. This doesn't sound normal. Not that…I have a lot of experience with…this. But I'm not leaving. He takes a step toward me. "I accept this. I accept you."

I wonder, will you still accept me, Darren? When you see what this monster is truly capable of?

By the time I pass Dead Man's View, I've left Darren far behind. My mind is firmly in the future—an imagined Arena, where the power to play with life and death will be at my fingertips, not just for one fleeting conversation, but every single day.

Well, then, Darren. Let's see how far your acceptance goes.

It will be the ultimate game of life and death. Twenty three opponents. No, twenty-three pieces in my own secret game. They'll be looking for a leader, an ally, perhaps a rival, maybe even a friend. I can be all of those. I can be exactly what they want. They won't even have realized who I really am to them before I lead them each off their own cliff of my choosing.

And it will all begin with the first name drawn.

Brooke Silversea | District 4 | 12

"Brooke Silversea."

Even here, I am forced to respond to a name that isn't entirely mine.

I've always been curious about the city, located in the sunny south where the temperature is always fair, the District center of commerce, culture, and supposedly, wealth. Most of my mom's clientele came from this place. To them, she was a novelty.

I can hear whispering, and it all seems to voices I recognize. One sentence carries, over and over again, on the sea breeze. It's the curse. It's the curse. It must be the curse.

It's the curse, I think desperately.

But I quickly come to my senses. There is no curse. There won't be any Games either. District Four is one of the volunteer districts. I've heard all about it. My little, northern village may be crumbling, but this is the city center. This is where the district's wealth must have been centralized this whole time. People still train here. Someone will volunteer. Someone will come to take my place.

Someone will come. I think back to the moment I first stepped from the train onto a gleaming mosaic tile, colors glittering in the sun like fish scales. Beautifully built homes and walls and arches reach in every direction. I look up, searching for a limit, and I don't see one. I see the tops of a row of happily-rustling palm trees, then slanted roofs of stucco homes, then—even further up—buildings mounted proudly upon the distant cliffs. Compared to this place, our small, dusty village barely pokes its head above sea level. A place this grand surely has the Capitol's favor.

I reach the stage unhindered.

Someone will come. Once-unacknowledged images float back up to the forefront of my memory. The fish scale mosaic is ill-kept, cracked, missing a piece here or there. Proud-looking homes rest uneasily on rotting foundations; boarded up windows make it look like they are squinting. The dust has not vanished. It's swept into dark corners and alleys, where skeletal figures glower warily from the darkness

Someone will come…

Haven't I been telling myself that for years? That someone, someday, will look me in the eye instead of right through me? That someone will treat me like a human being instead of a ghost story?

Nothing has changed, I realize, my throat tightening. Back home, no one will look at me. Miles away, elevated and lit up by the sun for everyone to see, everyone looks at me. But I am still completely alone.

Blue. He's always by my side when I feel most alone. Where is he now? I frantically try to pick out his face in the masses, but I may as well be trying to pick apart grains of sand. Did it start to rain? Why does everyone look all blurry?

Time speeds up. I lose track of the small movements around me. It is no longer silent, but I hate this new roaring that assaults me from all sides: the crowd, the sea, the Capitol anthem beginning to blast from the loudspeakers.

In the moments before I discovered my grotto, I remember panicking. I had thrashed around, earning scrapes up and down my arms from the narrow cave walls. I had fought to keep my eyes slightly open despite the awful sting of salt water. I thought I saw a dim light, but I couldn't tell whether it was real or one of the spots in my eyes. I feel just like I did back then, panicked, desperate for air -

"I'm so sorry this happened to you."

A voice, quiet and sincere, pierces through my surroundings. Hearing it is like taking a breath.

Did Blue finally find me in this mess? No, the voice belongs to my district partner. He stands a little way off, respectfully facing the audience. They're cheering for him—that's where the roar is coming from. But somehow, that matters less now.

At first, I think I had imagined it. He looks so at ease up here, smiling a winner's smile. But then he glances backward. A single crease in his forehead, a glimmer of concern in his eyes, as if he is truly pained.

Everything else disappears on the spot. Nothing remains except for me and this stranger who feels sorry that I…that I will…

"I'm Dei," he continues. The anthem is still on blast, but his words are meant for me. So I hear them with no trouble. "To tell you the truth, I'm a bit nervous myself. I confess I didn't catch your name."

It's like re-learning to speak, but I eventually find my voice. "Brooke."

Just as the Capitol anthem comes to an end, Dei faces me and kneels partway, coming down to around my height. His eyes lock onto mine—when was the last time someone held my gaze like this? "Pretty eyes," he remarks.

Pretty. Not the aftereffects of a curse.

"You too," I whisper without thinking, wondering if I've ever seen another human's eyes this close before. Though Dei's are a deep brown, there's a steady stillness to them that reminds me of the ocean from a distance.

He chuckles and reaches out to me with a gentle hand. His encouraging smile feels like a safe harbor. Maybe, just maybe, I won't have to face this alone. "I hope we can be friends."

Author's Note:

Wow.

How are y'all doing? :)

Special thank you to Dragon SilverTongue and My_Mental_Mind for your tributes! It was a genuine privilege. Truth be told, I have been wanting to write this chapter for a very long time, and I really hope I managed to pull it off.

And for all those who have reviewed, thank you! They were like little welcome-back hugs! I will make some time to respond when I can!

Some twists and turns for District 4! In this little universe I've made, they're in the thick of an economic crisis - the result of overfishing. As they have been unable to meet their quota for quite some time, the Capitol has been cracking down on career training. A privileged few still get away with it, due to family connections and the like.

And our newest tributes! How do you feel about them? And what do you think about their new friendship? 0:)

Once again, I appreciate you all. Until next time!

Cheers,

Grey