Calley Green, District Twelve female (17)
Winning the Games was the only way I would stay out of jail. The Hunger Games clearly showed how the Capitol categorized us. As it stood I was a murderer. I'd killed Jon and I deserved punishment. But that only stood when it was one equal killing another. If I won the Games I became a Victor. A Victor was the only non-Capitol citizen whose life had real value. Once I won the Games I would be one of the elite- and the elite didn't get punished for murdering a worthless Districter.
I didn't even have to kill anyone to win in this Arena. When the Bloodbath started I'd fled after grabbing nothing but an empty bottle of water. Sky was ahead of me as we sprinted away through the tall grass. Crackly stalks whipped against my cheeks and stung my eyes as we fled to anywhere but the Cornucopia with the backdrop of the screaming and death cries coming from behind us. Out of nowhere the ground opened up and Sky disappeared in a clump of multi-jointed legs like she'd been snatched by a black-gloved hand.
My lungs burned as I jerked to a stop, staring at the ground where there was no trace of a girl that had just been alive. My chest heaved as I swept my eyes over the spot. It looked like any other patch of ground. There was no sign of what waited underneath. I knew, though, that there were more. The Capitol wouldn't put just one in the Arena. There would be dozens of them, scattered all around the Cornucopia and littered throughout the rest of the Arena to make it an endless minefield.
I felt around on the ground until I felt a fist-sized rock. I threw it to the side of the spot where Sky had been taken. When no spider burst from the ground I walked over to the rock and threw it again. My heart shuddered when the ground opened and legs the size of a cow's scrabbled at the ground and sank back into nothingness when it concluded it was a false alarm. I continued on like that for a long time, the sounds of the Bloodbath ending but not the screams.
Eleven people died the first day of the Games. Based on the difference between the lingering cries of the Career-wounded and the sharp, cut-off screams of the spider pits, six died in the Bloodbath and five were taken by the spiders. I kept on my frog-hopping path, checking for spiders with every single step I took.
Before the third day in the Arena the idea had occurred to me. What I'd learned from seeing Sky die could win me the Games. All I had to do was be willing to kill. People think there's such a neat line between good and bad people. They think murderers are another breed with alien minds and incorrigible thoughts and that they were just "bad apples". There are a million different reasons people kill people. Some people are evil- life had taught me that. Other people never had a chance in life because of something so early in their life they were helpless to prevent it. Some people are eaten up by desires they never asked for and sometimes aren't strong enough to fight. Sometimes, like in my case, it's an accident. I was mad at Jon but I hadn't really thought the rock would kill him.
It seemed like there should be some transformative revelation after I did something like that. Surely I'd feel a scorching in my soul or some darkness swallowing me up. It turned out that killing someone didn't change me at all. I still felt exactly the same, though I knew what I'd done was unforgivable and that I could never take it back. What killing someone really taught me was how real it was. That any person really could just end a life. Something so permanent and with such staggering effects could be done.
After I won a lot of people asked me about my past and how that affected my decision to do what I did. I didn't do it because I had a lust for murder or to chase some obscene thrill. I wanted to stay alive, like everyone else. Most Victors had killed someone and they rarely were asked if they were sociopaths. I wasn't sure what my actions made me but I knew I wasn't a sociopath. If I was, then when I saw Elver carefully look all around the water bottle I'd left on the ground, then approach it, and the ground cracking open beside him, I wouldn't have felt such regret.