Vesper Lynd- District Twelve female
I was stretched out on the damp grass, looking at the trees overhead and the fruits so far out of my reach. It was so tiring to walk. I'd taken to crawling. My muscles felt like water. My stomach clenched and growled. It had been sore lately, and I suspected it was digesting itself after so long without food. It had been ten days in the Arena, and I hadn't eaten yet. All the fruit trees, and I couldn't climb.
"Please hurry, Demi," I whispered, hoping she could hear my weak voice. Where were my sponsors? Surely someone was out there. All those people at the parade, cheering me on? All those middle-aged men in Twelve who addressed me in pet names and gave me shiny presents, saying a little thing like me needed to be spoiled? I knew what our relationships were, but I hadn't known I was this expendable. It didn't cost much- no more than the presents they gave. They were all watching at home. It must be they already had a new plaything.
I started to cry, and the effort exhausted me. I lay still, the tears dripping the last of me energy and water away. No one cared about me. All the worth I ever had was what I had to offer someone.
No one's going to save me. The thought was cold and ugly, but it changed something. It seemed to clear the thick air above me and leave me freer somehow. No one is going to help me. I'm going to die unless I do something.
I turned on my side, breathing heavily with effort. I looked at the grass around me and looked for something to eat. In front of me, perched on a blade of grass, was a little green beetle. It looked like one of the jewels I might have gotten from a lover. I reached my hand out towards it, cupping my fingers over the grass and plucking it up. I brought my hand to my mouth and felt the beetle's legs scramble at my lips as my teeth crushed it.
It wasn't the beetle that saved me. It was the act of eating it. New independence galvanized me. Nobody found the beetle but me, and no one found all the others insects I searched out and ate. I found the strength to sit up, and then the strength to crawl. Finally, I found the strength to stand.
No one but me found my weapon. No one sent me the tools I used to make the spear. It was my hands that were scratched raw and bloody as I scraped at the stick with a rock. It was my fingernails that were broken and torn out as I stripped the edges away from the point. I was the one who crouched over the river, stringy hair over my face and legs aching with the strain of sitting still. I was the one who shuddered with primal triumph when I pulled the spear back with a fish wriggling on the other end, and the food I'd caught with my own hands was the best I'd ever tasted.
I didn't go looking for a fight. It was Alexa who found me when we were the last two left. My spear could skewer a fish, but Alexa was stronger, and her bones were thicker. My spear broke in her ribs, and she hit me hard enough to knock us both into the shallows. No baubles or fur stoles were going to help me. It was my arms that turned her over facedown in the water, and my strength that held her, my entire weight forcing her head into the mud. I won the Games. No one else.