Serena Hyland, District Ten (15)
No one would have predicted that Yasmine and I would be in the top eight. We'd been hiding burrowed into piles of garbage for two weeks. It took that long to get to the final eight. After the Bloodbath people only died every few days. There was so much food and so many places to hide that the Careers had to work for every kill. And then the Career pack broke up, leaving just Margo and Rapture- the rest of us were outliers.
It was actually kind of fun rummaging through the trash. Yasmine and I found everything from a bicycle to a mattress still springy enough to jump on. We suspected the Gamemakers seeded food throughout the Arena every now and then, since two weeks in we were still finding edible stuff. Once we found a wedding cake. What a sad thing to find in a garbage dump.
Sunlight glinted off a dark piece of what looked like plastic or metal. I reached curiously into the garbage and pulled it out, expecting an old piece of broken tech or something.
I held a gun in my hand. I'd never known they were so heavy. It was a black handgun half again as long as my hand. There was the trigger, all curved and wicked and foreboding, and the barrel, and all the other parts I didn't know the names of. I turned it one way and the other, careful to point it at the ground, wondering what it felt like to shoot and what it felt like to aim it at someone and take a life.
"Oh my gosh," Yasmine said, coming up beside me. "That's a gun." It struck me how perverted a scene it was, two barely-teenaged girls looking down at a gun so big I could barely hold it. I'd never even played with toy guns as a kid. Lots of people where Yasmine came from knew someone who was shot by a mugger. Lots of people in Ten knew someone who was shot by a Peacekeeper.
"Yeah," I said, still not believing it myself. I felt cold inside holding something like that.
"How many bullets are in it?" Yasmine asked.
"I don't know how to tell," I said. I turned it upside down and looked at the belly. I didn't know how to take out the bullet holder and I was afraid if I tried it would go off. I held it super steady in one hand and sort of slid the top portion back with my other, still pointing it at the ground.
"One, I guess," I said, looking at the bullet inside the gun.
"Don't miss," Yasmine said.
"You think we should shoot someone?" I asked. The Games were kill or be killed but I didn't know if I could be part of that. I wanted to go back to my family. I wanted to see my boyfriend again. But I didn't know if I could do that to someone else. I saw the word "safety" written on the side and clicked the switch into that position. I still didn't like the feeling of having a loaded gun so close to my body.
"Margo or Rapture. Whichever finds us first," Yasmine said. She said it like a magic spell- something we couldn't really do but that would give us some fantastical reassurance. I just hoped we didn't see either of them.
Yasmine didn't end up seeing either of them. One night as we were sleeping a cannon woke me. I jolted upright in our little hollow and saw a trail of blood leading to open air. I hadn't even heard the rat mutt that seized her by the throat and took her. And I didn't end up seeing Margo either. Rapture walked away from that fight with a broken rib and half his ear missing. Margo didn't even walk away.
I didn't see Rapture either until after he saw me. Another ten days went by as the remaining outliers were whittled to nothing. There must have been some pretty angry gamblers out there when I was the last one left with Rapture. Just dumb luck. Just pure dumb luck I was the last one he happened to find.
I was walking along and the trash next to me came to life. He melted from his hiding spot like a leopard falls from a tree, grabbing my arm and twisting me around. I saw his sword reflecting the sunlight as he brought it back by his side to impale me.
I reached into my waistband and pulled out my gun. One shot. Point-blank. I couldn't miss. Boom, headshot.