10 - YELLOW
She makes her first kill on the second morning of the Games. She doesn't go searching for victims. She's just plain thirsty. She's been up all night painstakingly using the needles and vials she got from the Bloodbath to draw the toxins from the yellow poison dart frogs that live in the jungle trees. Only her nimble fingers, trained from years of putting together parts in the factory, save her from getting the poison all over herself. Once she finally fills up all six of her vials with the cloudy yellow poison, her entire body is tired and her throat feels like sandpaper. As the sun dawns over the arena, she tucks the plastic box full of poison under her arm alongside her now empty water bottle and treks back towards the brook she discovered the day prior. Mercedes is able to send her a bottle of iodine capsules since the Capitol is intrigued by her poisons, and Indigo knows now it's safe to drink from the brook with the little white tablets on her side.
When she finally finds the stream again, it's just before noon. With a sigh of relief, she's about to step out of the undergrowth when she hears moans of pain from nearby. Immediately, her heart starts beating rapidly in her chest as worry nags at her mind. Who could it be? A wounded tribute, for sure, but it could be a Career or someone feigning weakness to draw in victims. Iouna from Three could be luring her into an electrified trap or the bubbly Cordial from One could have her bow strung, ready to shoot an arrow right through Indigo's heart with a gorgeous little smirk on her perfect face. She knows that she should turn on her heel and dash away from the river. She's had enough to drink yesterday anyways, and she can find water somewhere else. It's no good to go near the sounds of death this early in the Games, especially when her only weapons are some vials and syringes full of poison.
Still, curiosity keeps her feet planted in place. She remembers learning about the poison dart frogs in training, but she has no idea what their toxins actually do to a human being. Maybe they just stun someone, or maybe they kill them instantly. Indigo has no earthly clue of the extent of the poison's power, and what if it's a little injured tribute lying nearby that she could easily overpower? The thought makes her stomach flip a little, the idea of shooting a syringe of poison into a dying little boy or girl, but she refuses to let it dissuade her. The beast tells her she cannot get squeamish about killing, because she will have to kill to emerge alive from this rainforest. This is the Hunger Games, and if her only weapon is this poison...she has to take the opportunity to see if it works.
She creeps through the undergrowth that lines the stream, following the groans and whines of pain. Within minutes, she spots their source, and she can't help but draw in a ragged breath. The boy from Three lays curled up in a ball on the bank of the brook, groaning as he tries to scoop water from the river with his hands. She isn't very scared of him; he had a similar training score to her, and he's injured. However, her eyes can't tear themselves away from the arrow that's embedded deep in his right shoulder. The arrowhead sticks out of the other side, and his entire shoulder is soaked in dried blood. The boy's obviously injured pretty badly, probably from the Bloodbath, and he has no supplies except for a Bowie knife that lays in the mud next to him. He doesn't see her as she observes him, and she knows he must be in terrible pain. The wound obviously hasn't been cleaned. It's probably already infected from whatever nasty things are floating around in this hazy jungle. His bony, bronzen face is creased in effort as he then proceeds to try to wash out his wound with the water, only to yelp a little and give up. She can't remember his name or anything notable about him as she continues to stare at him, and that makes her feel better about what she's about to do.
She's surprised by her steadiness as she silently cracks open her plastic case and fills up a whole syringe with the poison without her hands shaking at all. She slowly puts the metal cap back on the vial before hiding the case in a bush. She makes some rustling noises as she hides it, but the boy from Three is too occupied with his pain to hear the quiet sounds over the buzz of the jungle, the unfamiliar animal calls echoing through the trees. She steels herself, taking a deep breath and clutching the syringe tightly between her hands. This is her time to test out her weapon, and see if she's been foolish to waste all of her time on these poisons or not. With one last deep inhale, she leaps from the bushes and sprints at her victim.
Three doesn't hear her until she's mere steps away from him, and when he turns he looks confused due to her mud-and-leaf camouflage. She's able to tackle him to the ground and straddle him with her legs to keep him down. He screams, loud and guttural, his uninjured arm flailing wildly for his knife. However, Indigo kicks it further down the riverbank before jamming the syringe into the arrow wound in his shoulder. Three shrieks, kicking and clawing at her, but she manages to hold onto him long enough to press the plunger on the syringe and inject all of the poison into his body. The moment it's done, she rips her syringe free and leaps off of him, scooping up his knife before scurrying back into the undergrowth to observe.
The boy spasms and screams violently, and she watches as his shoulder wound puffs up and turns a sickening shade of bright, sunny yellow. Three's eyes roll into the back of his head and pale yellow foam starts to leak from the corners of his mouth as he convulses on the riverbank. Indigo's stomach flips again at the disgusting sight, but the beast inside of her growls with pleasure at the sight of the boy dying in front of her. It applauds her for a job well done, for having eliminated some of the competition and for having figured out a method to survive in this horrid rainforest. She resolves to stay and watch until the boy is dead when she hears far off voices and the sound of boots crashing through the undergrowth.
"I heard the screams over here!" she hears a faintly familiar male voice whoop, and she recognizes it as the voice of the male from One, Gilt. Indigo's eyes open wide at the sound of his voice, and she hears other voices, farther off and unrecognizable. She knows what that means, though. The Career pack is in her part of the jungle, and they've been attracted by Three's desperate screams.
Indigo doesn't stop around to wait for Three to die or the Careers to discover him. She grabs her supplies and dashes off into the jungle as quickly as possible, going the opposite direction from where she heard Gilt's voice. Her throat is still incredibly dry and her body aches for sleep, but she forces herself to keep running at a breakneck speed through the rainforest. She won't let the Careers catch her, not this early, not after she's just made her first kill. No one seems to follow her, but she doesn't let that still her pumping legs.
As she sprints deeper into the maze of trees, a cannon shatters through the low hum of the jungle. Even if the Careers finished the job for her, the boy from Three must be dead. She expects to feel empty or distraught, but instead Indigo feels a small smile fighting its way onto her face in spite of herself. She's killed, yes, but now she's closer to going home, and closer to proving to everyone who doubted her that they were incredibly wrong to write her off as nothing more than another hunk of cannon fodder.
She makes her second kill five days later, a week into the Games. Three cannons have fired since she killed Three, all Outliers; the boy from Eight and the girls from Nine and Eleven. She knows there are still over half of the tributes left, twelve others between her and the Victor's crown, and she knows these Games are going to drag longer than usual. She hasn't seen a soul since almost being caught by the Careers, and she's been using her time well. She's set up camp in a gnarled tree that hides her supplies well, and she's been able to collect adequate amounts of edible fruit to keep her alive. She's found a grove of bamboo and used the Bowie knife she scavenged from Three to create a blowpipe from the stalks. Mercedes was able to send her half a dozen silvery darts later that day as a sponsor gift to use with the blowpipe. She's been practicing firing the darts for hours every day, perfecting her aim so that she will be able to use the blowpipe effectively to defend herself. She spends long days establishing a routine: improving her camouflage, practicing with her darts, collecting fruit, and napping in her tree. She knows she should be thankful that the Gamemakers leave her alone and she hasn't faced any other tributes yet, but part of her aches for something to happen and for the number of tributes to thin.
Something does happen in the afternoon of the seventh day, however. Her least favorite part of her day is venturing to the stream for water. It's not the same brook where she killed Three, but she still worries the Careers will find her there. She has mastered flitting through the trees and going undiscovered due to her camouflage, but she has to go out in the open to refill her water bottle. No amount of mud and leaves will keep her disguised on the wide open bank. Every time she kneels by the little stream and lets the water flood the bottle, she swears she hears the Careers coming for her and taunting her. However, there's never anything there, and she forces herself to take deep breaths and tamp down her paranoia.
Today is different; when she shakes her head, she still hears faint conversation. Perking up, she looks around slowly, but she sees no one around her, and the words seem to have dissipated. Her water bottle isn't all the way full yet, but she doesn't care. Something feels different about this; she can sense someone nearby, the hairs on the back of her neck prickling. She snatches up the bottle and jogs back into the undergrowth, weaving her way through the maze of trees and vines in the direction of her campsite in a hurry. She has her darts and blowpipe with her, but she just wants to hide now. She wants to hunker down and let her camouflage protect her, but she knows that's stupid; if they've seen her by the stream, they'll be able to track her now. The beast growls that she needs to move faster, because she can still feel something following her, and if she doesn't move faster, she'll die.
As she keeps running, she hears twigs cracking and then the scrape of a blade against the trunk of a tree. Her throat goes dry at that sound, but no one leaps from the undergrowth. She runs for fifteen minutes, and still no one attacks her. Yet she still hears the occassional snap or rustle as she rushes through the jungle, and she knows what must be happening. The Careers are tracking her, and they're playing with her, teasing her by making sounds to freak her out. They've only killed at most three kids since the Bloodbath, and they didn't put on an impressive show there either. They need to hunt down any tribute they find now in an entertaining and bloody way. Indigo wants to scream, knowing that if they get her, her death will be more painful than she can even imagine.
Still, as she keeps running, no one leaps from the undergrowth. They are toying with her completely. Legs pumping, a plan forms in her mind. As she reaches her tree, she collapses against the trunk with a heavy sigh. She makes a show of looking about in fright, then shaking her head and mumbling to herself about being paranoid. She makes to crawl up into her tree, pretending to not be paying attention. This is the only way she survives, she knows, if she lulls the Careers into a false sense of security and then surprises them. She'll be able to take out one with her darts, maybe two if she's lucky. If the whole pack is here, she knows she's done for, but she won't go down without a fight.
As she anticipated, the moment she turns to scrabble up the tree, a towering tribute rushes from the undergrowth, a wickedly long and sharp sword clutched in his left hand. Indigo immediately recognizes him as the bronze-skinned boy from Two, Quintus, who scored the highest in training. She expects to feel nauseous and nervous at the sight of the strongest tribute, but instead she feels calm as she twirls and brings the bamboo pipe to her lips. No one rushes out behind him, and Indigo faintly remembers him talking about his independent spirit and his love for drama during the interviews. He's overconfident in his abilities, and he's been hunting alone, tracking and scaring any Outlier he can find. She almost wants to smile as she blows as hard as she can into her pipe and watches as the silvery dart shoots out and plants itself in Quintus's right bicep.
"Dumb bitch, you didn't even hit my sword arm!" Quintus bellows gleefully, panting excitedly as he gets into range and swings his sword hard at Indigo. She barely dodges its blade, and she backpedals around her tree, fear starting to tear at her. Quintus doesn't seem to be slowed yet at all by the toxins. With the Three boy, the poison took hold instantly, but she also put an entire syringe into him. This dart is soaked in the stuff, but is it enough? It has to be enough, or she's dead. The beast yells at her to run as fast as she can and find a way to safety, because she can't die, not yet, not like this.
Quintus charges her again, his face joyful as he rushes her with his blade lofted. This is all a simple game to him, one he no doubt thinks he will win no matter what happens. She lifts the pipe again and fires another dart, but it spirals over his shoulder and into the bushes. She tries to duck out of the way of his blade, but it's too late; the sword cuts deep into her right thigh. She screams and forces herself to run in the opposite direction, ignoring the blood bubbling out of the gash, the way her leg wants to buckle so badly. She prays as she dashes around the tree that the poison will take effect now, that she won't have to die today and that all of her hard work won't go to waste.
Once she reaches the far side of the tree, she hauls herself up into the branches, leaving a slick trail of blood behind her. She screams from the effort and the pain, but she manages to get herself into the boughs of her tree. She expects a booming laugh or Quintus's blade arcing through the air toward her as she pulls herself up as swiftly as she can, but all she hears is soft groaning. Relief floods her veins as she scurries through the limbs of the tree and peeks out the other side, where Quintus is crouching on the ground, having pulled the dart out of his bicep. He groans again in pain, looking at the small wound in his arm that is now a ghastly yellow color. He blearily looks up at Indigo, peeking through the trees, and shudders violently.
"What...did...you do...you bitch," Quintus coughs out as his body starts to shake more violently. Indigo doesn't say a word, watching as he shakes and convulses and foams at the mouth for a dozen minutes until he finally falls still. Once the cannon fires, and the Two boy's eyes are glazed over, Indigo's body finally stops tensing so rigidly. She begins to sob quietly in relief, still absolutely shocked to have survived her encounter with the strongest boy in the Games.
The wound on her thigh burns like hell too, her entire right leg below the hip now coated in sticky, grimy blood. She winces as she uses the water from the brook to clean it, and then she leans back against the tree trunk and lets herself sob a little more in an odd mix of relief and pain before collecting herself. Once she wipes her last tear away, she hears a faint tinkling above her. Peering through the canopy of her tree, she watches as several silvery parachutes drift down from the heavens above, rustling the sheaves of waxy green leaves above her. Inside them are bandages, antiseptic, iodine pills, more darts, and more food than she'd eat in a week back in Six. Indigo cries again at the sight, but this time it's tears of joy. Maybe she really does have a chance to go home now. Maybe she really will get to live her life for the first time.
She makes her third kill a little over two weeks into the Games. Her body shakes with fatigue as she walks through the ashes of the jungle. The wound on her leg is just a whisper of a scratch now due to her sponsors' wrappings and creams. After Quintus died, three more tributes passed in the following days: the girls from Four and Eight, and the boy from Nine. She has no clue what killed the girl from Four, but no other Careers followed her in the sky. She suspects the arena or the tech-savvy girl from Three, Iouna, did her in. Either way, after the girl from Four was in the sky, there were no deaths for three days. Indigo got to sit in her tree and enjoy her hearty meals from sponsors and wait, mercifully. When the third day came and passed without deaths, she knew something big was going to happen soon. The Gamemakers wouldn't let so long go by without death unless they were planning something big.
She was right, of course. The next morning, the jungle was ablaze. She was woken up by a cannon and the feeling of smoke filling her lungs. The flames were close, too close, and she barely had time to gather up her supplies before the fire was rippling across her own tree. She refuses to think more about her miles of dashing through the burning forest; the very thought of the ash and flames makes her legs shake. She's tired, she's weakening, she's ready for this all to end. It's been too much for too long.
She barely escaped the flames, and when heavy rainstorms came in the evening, half of the jungle had been burned through, blackened to cinders and ash. Three cannons boomed during the fire, meaning there's six tributes left now. That night, the girl from Ten and the boys from One and Eleven were in the sky. Indigo knows they're close to the endgame now, and she also knows there has to be some tributes that got injured by the fire. If the boy from One died, maybe more Careers were stuck in the blaze too. Her sponsor gifts are running dry, and she wants the Games to be over; she can feel her mind starting to wander and disintegrate with every hour she's still in the humid jungle. She has never been particularly fond of herself or her intellect, but she doesn't want to be like her mother was before she died, just laying in bed listless, tongue lolling out of her mouth like a stupid dog.
She searches all morning and into the afternoon, sifting through the mounds of ash and the charred trunks of rainforest trees. Still, she finds nothing but some dead mutts and ash-choked streams. She's ready to retreat back into the safety of the intact jungle when she hears wailing cries from nearby. She doesn't even think, she just dashes towards the sounds of pain as quickly as she can. If it's a trap or a mutt, oh well, it's been long enough in this jungle. She wants to live, but there's only so long that one girl can hide when she knows she has the power to kill.
Within minutes, she sees a female tribute kneeling next to a burned tree trunk, wailing loudly. "GILT! GILT! GILT, WHERE ARE YOU!?" the girl screams, and it takes Indigo several moments to realize it is the beautiful girl from One, Cordial. Her long honey-brown hair has been burnt almost completely off, and her pale, supple skin is covered in angry red burn marks. Her left arm dangles by her side limply, broken and bloodied, and it doesn't even look like she's attempted to fix it. Cordial continues to sob and scream for Gilt, her District partner, who was in the sky the night prior. Indigo bites her lip as she realizes that they must've gone hunting together. Gilt died during the fire, and now Cordial has gone half-insane.
It's too easy to sneak up on the girl and shoot two darts in quick succession into the back of her neck. Cordial turns with eyes open in fright after feeling the two sharp pricks at the nape of her neck, but she doesn't even lunge at Indigo or try to fight her. She just collapses on the ground and cries and screams for Gilt until the poison takes effect and makes her convulse and foam at the mouth. Indigo feels her stomach turn and she vomits on the ground as Cordial dies at her feet, swelling up sickly yellow. The pretty girl from One looks like a feral animal that's been tortured as she quivers and dies, stirring up clouds of soot as she spasms. It unsettles Indigo more than anything else she's seen yet in the Games. Tears streak down Indigo's face as Cordial falls still and her cannon fires, but she wipes them away before she starts sobbing. There's only four others left now, and she won't let the Capitolites see her tears, they don't deserve it. Victory is in reach, the beast reminds her in a guttural growl as she stalks away. Victory is in reach.
She makes her fourth kill four days after Cordial's death, on the nineteenth day of the Games. The boy from Five was in the sky the day prior, so she knows she only has three competitors left. There's the vicious Lorna from Two, who she remembers spent her time in training almost exclusively at daggers, disembowling mannequin after mannequin. She made the little boy from Ten wet himself on the first day of training, and Indigo wonders if she's still as frightening now. Then there's the genius from Three, Iouna, the girl who everyone was calling the second coming of Beetee Latier in the Capitol. She's not surprised she's made it this far, and despite the other two being Careers, Indigo fears Iouna the most. There's also the attractive Thomas from Four, with rippling abs, tanned skin, glinting seafoam green eyes, and a wry sense of humor. She doesn't know much about his weaponry skills, but she knows he must have a bevy of sponsors from his good looks alone. She knows they all scored 9s in training and raked in great amounts of bets before the Games began; while she's made up ground through her kills so far, she still knows that she is surely the underdog of the Final Four.
She has been hiking south after killing Cordial; she knows it's a risk to be out in the open ash fields, and she also has a feeling that the other tributes have collected in the eastern and southern parts of the jungle that didn't fall victim to the flames. She only stops to rest for a couple hours every night before continuing to explore the arena. She won't be caught off guard, not this late into the Games. She's clawed too hard through these Games so far, and the beast won't let her rest for long before forcing her to go on the prowl again. She feels hungrier and more tired than she ever has, but she keeps hunting because she will not die off guard, not after everything she's been through in this goddamn jungle.
On the nineteenth day, she makes it to the southern tip of the arena, a part of the jungle she's never been to. She hears rushing water, but it isn't the faint trickle of the small streams that criss-cross their way through the rest of the rainforest. It is a loud pounding rush, the sound of massive amounts of water pouring downward. She creeps forward and gapes as she discovers what lays at the far southern edge of the arena. Dozens of waterfalls fall off of jagged cliffs, pouring glittering torrents of water into a massive pool that collects at the bottom. The pool is crystal clear and cool, and Indigo's body aches to swim in it and sip its inviting waters. However, she spots movement in the pool below, and her breath catches in her throat as she spots Thomas from Four paddling around the pool lazily.
He's stripped down to nothing expect a skimpy pair of underwear probably sent to him by the Capitol, and he swims around the pool with a flirtatious smile on his face, splashing and laughing to himself. She spots his camp, situated on the shore of the crystalline pool. She thought she was popular, but Thomas has been wildly outfitted. There are two spears laying next to a large goldenrod yellow tent, big enough for at least four people, but Thomas seems to have it all to himself. He has several Cornucopia packs full of food and water too, and Indigo's stomach grumbles at the sight. She wants to snap this pretty boy's neck for how he's being treated like a king in the middle of the humid jungle. Meanwhile, she's been clawing her way through the Games like an animal, covered in mud and leaves. Yet she knows that she can take it all for herself if she takes him out.
She waits for hours as she watches him rest in his tent and then go swimming again, slowly making her way through the fringe of the jungle as it creeps down the cliffs. If he spots her, her element of surprise will be blown, so she makes sure to only move when he isn't looking in her direction. As the sun sets on the horizon, Indigo finally finds an easy trail down the cliffs. She waits until the arena becomes decently dark, and then she makes her way down the trail carved into the gray, rocky cliffs. She almost slips a couple of times, but thankfully she stays stable and silent as she crawls down the cliffs and reaches the shore of the pool.
Thomas is crouched on the ground next to his tent, grinning as he bites into a hamburger sent by a sponsor. A bright lamp lights up the world around him so he doesn't have to make a fire. Indigo creeps near him, circling just out of the reach of the lantern's light. Despite herself, she lets her shoes grind a little louder than usual into the sand, and something inside of her flips with joy as Thomas perks up, looking around nervously. She revels in his frightened expression; he will feel like she felt when Quintus was stalking her, except he will die and she will prevail.
She fires four darts at Thomas after he snatches up one of his skinny spears and stands to investigate the sound. He's dead in a couple of minutes, knocking over his lantern and shattering it into dozens of shards as he shakes and puffs up yellow and bloated, the same color as his extravagant tent. Once his cannon fires, she steps around his corpse, grabs one of his packs of food, and crawls into the giant tent, laying down with a satisfied sigh as she bites into a banana. Only two more to take down, and she gets to go home. She repeats that thought over and over until she falls asleep, the thick yellow nylon above her head blocking out the stars. Blocking out the dark thoughts she will not allow herself to think.
She makes her fifth and final kill the next afternoon. After Thomas's face fills the sky a few hours after she's killed him, Claudius Templesmith has an announcement for the tributes. There will be a Feast held the next day at noon, and attendance is mandatory. Indigo knows what this means; there's only three of them left, and these Games have dragged on almost three weeks. The Capitol is hungry to see these Games end, and today they will. Today, two of them will be dead and one of them will be lifted from the arena as the Victor. Indigo knows she's made it so far, but fear still chills her bones. She's been able to kill so far based on the element of surprise, but facing two stronger tributes in open combat is not going to be easy for her. The moment that the Feast announcement is over, Indigo gathers just her blowpipe, her darts, and a bottle of water from Thomas's horde of supplies. She only has a few hours left, no matter if they end in death or life; no reason to bog herself down with unnecessary supplies. Then, she begins hiking north towards the Cornucopia, determined to get there before the rest of the tributes.
By morning, she reaches the fringe of the southern jungle. The Cornucopia field is the same as she remembers it from all those days ago, when twenty four children were alive and the field was crowded with supplies. The golden Horn is barren now, however, and there are only three kids left breathing. She watches for a long time, waiting to see Lorna emerge from the Horn sharpening her daggers or to see Iouna set up some complicated electrical trap in the field, but she sees neither. It is her move to make. Her heart beats wildly in her chest as she takes a deep breath and sprints into the open field as quickly as she can.
Her mind flashes back to the first day as the tropical flowers brush her ankles and she madly runs for the Horn. She waits to feel electricity frying her skin or a dagger slicing open her back, but she feels nothing. She makes it to the Horn, and she collapses once she's inside the structure, breathing heavily from her sprint. There's nothing left inside the golden Cornucopia but some empty crates, and she crouches behind them, waiting. She knows there's a good chance that the others saw her running, but she also knows why they didn't attack. She's the weak girl from Six, and neither of them have seen her kill. They won't want to reveal their position to the other stronger tribute if they don't have to, and they're willing to leave her for the final battle since they think she's easy meat. She just tries to still her breathing as she hides behind the crates. She's so close, just two other girls in her way. She just wants to go home.
About twenty minutes later, she finally has eased her breathing, and she hears a loud grinding noise nearby. She peers out from behind the crates and sees that a table has risen up in front of the mouth of the Cornucopia. A hunk of moldy yellow cheese sits on the table, mocking her. They have to kill each other today, and two of them will die for a moldy hunk of cheese. Indigo's stomach rumbles, but she doesn't move. She'll either be dead or on her way to a real feast in the Capitol within the hour. The real prize is the fight that's about to start.
Moments after the table falls still, Lorna lopes into view, and Indigo blanches. The Two girl looks wild, her dark brown hair matted, her olive eyes feral, two bloodstained daggers clutched in her hands. She smirks as she spots Indigo quivering behind the pile of crates, and she shakes her head slowly, a chuckle leaving her lips as she advances on Indigo.
"It's wild that you made it this far, Six," Lorna sniggers, scraping the serrated edges of her daggers across each other to make a shrill screeching sound. "I promised I'd put on a show, so I'm going to put on a show. I'm just saving you from a lifetime of morphling addiction, anyway. You should be thankful."
Lorna lunges forward, daggers raised, and Indigo brings the pipe to her lips. Before she can fire a dart however, Indigo sees a blur of movement from behind Lorna. Before the Two girl can reach Indigo, a guttural scream rips from her mouth. Lorna shudders and screams again, her body quivering and jerking around in unnatural positions. Indigo watches as she collapses to the ground, seizing for several moments. The cannon fires once Lorna falls still, the smell of burning flesh wafting to Indigo's nose and making her gag. Iouna stands behind the now dead Career, two padded gloves on her hands. On each glove is a homemade electrical device that sparks and ripples with electricity, enough to electrocute a person to death. The Three girl sees Indigo crouched behind the crates and sighs as she advances, her face full of pity.
"I'm sorry you have to die this way, you don't deserve it," Iouna frowns, and Indigo knows the Three girl thinks she has won, pitying the last little girl who stands in her way. All she has to defend herself is a little blowpipe. Iouna thinks of her as a tiny, broken girl from Six that's done nothing but hide and cry for her mother. Indigo knows she's probably made more kills than this Iouna, this girl who thinks she is the 41st Victor of the Hunger Games already. Anger ripples through her at being dismissed yet again, and she knows she cannot let the Three girl win.
"I'm not sorry," Indigo replies before lifting the pipe to her lips and firing as many darts as she can at Iouna in quick succession. The Three girl's eyes open wide as the darts bury themselves in her arms, chest, and one in her forehead. She sways immediately, falling to her knees as she succumbs to the poison, and Indigo watches her writhe and foam yellow spittle next to Lorna's corpse. Spasming, she rolls onto her own electrical gloves, causing her to writhe even more intensely. Within a minute the cannon fires, as Iouna's limbs fall slack against the ground. Indigo can do nothing but stare and breathe in the smell of vomit and burnt flesh as the trumpets start blaring throughout the arena.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I'm pleased to present the Victor of the 41st Annual Hunger Games, Indigo Arnett of District Six!" Claudius roars, and Indigo's entire body begins to shake as she collapses to the ground, dropping her silvery blowpipe with a clatter. She crawls around the corpses of Lorna and Iouna and out into the tropical field of flowers, the warm sunlight feeling alien on her skin. She knows she should feel cold, sick, or evil but she feels nothing at all, just a giant pit opening up within her, from the back of her throat down to the bottom of her stomach. As the hovercraft descends, blotting the burning yellow sun up above, the only thing Indigo can do is let herself lay down in the golden carpet of wildflowers and frown a little, unable to understand the totality of what she has done.
A/N: It's been over a year, but I already have over half of the final chapters written and I decided to put one of them out there and hopefully convince myself to finish this because we're so close to the end. This was a really long chapter and I wasn't sure if it fit the vibe of the story with the detail it included, but I thought it was still an enjoyable chapter and it was important to share the details of Indie's Games. Let me know what you think, and hopefully more is on the way!
Until Next Time,
Tracee