The bed in my room is soft, too soft, actually. My bed at home is just a mattress stuffed in the corner, and it's lumpy and ridden with holes. I and Jonathon have to share it, and we sleep back-to-back, fighting over the thin blanket that we used. This bed is almost cloud-like, the bed is smooth and I feel almost like I'm floating.
Yet still, I can not sleep. I toss and turn all night, looking for the furnace that is my brother. Yesterday I had been so far lost in my thoughts and fears I could not sleep, but I did not miss my brother's presence, though I could not sleep anyway, musing over strategies and my fellow competitors. But now, when I have decided my strategy and have mused all I can about the others, my mind is hollow, and all I can think of is my family.
I flip onto my side and watch the glow of the Capitol through the window, the lights of skyscrapers and streetlights dancing in the darkness. For the first time in a long time, I miss my mother. She always had creativity and imagination about her, and she could weave a story about anything. The twinkle in her eyes, the curve of her lips, and the cadence of her voice could make even the most trivial fable into a grand epic.
I wonder what story she could make about the dancing lights of the Capitol. She could make them in fireflies caught in a war, she could have them be sunlight peaking through and fighting for our attention. I shut my eyes and I can almost hear it, I can almost feel her hands brushing through my hair. I feel the hot pinpricks of tears start to build, and I instinctively reach for Jonathon, but find only a cold sheet.
And then the most frightening thought comes to me. If I do lose, would it be so bad? Would I get to see my mother again?
I am torn from these thoughts by the sound of the door opening, and I look up to see Blight standing in the doorway, the dim light of the hallway casting him in a dark shadow.
"Can't sleep?" Blight said, stepping into the room. I scowl at him and sit up.
"No, I'm just sleeping with my eyes open," I shoot back, and Blight chuckles under his breath. He takes this an advantage to step closer into the room, and the lights come back on with a wave of his hand.
"I could not sleep before my Games either," Blight said. "Your insomnia will most likely get worse the longer you're here." I grimace and hug one of the pillows to my chest. Great, I'll be going into the arena sleep-deprived.
"Why are you here?" I ask. Blight stands casually in the middle of the room, still wearing the same socks from the train. I vaguely wonder if he ever wears shoes.
"I'm here to discuss strategy," Blight said. I raise an eyebrow.
"And we must do it now? In the middle of the night?" Blight raises his own brows in return.
"Well, Trapper is rather…. clingy," Blight says. "I don't blame him, this is a terrifying situation, and I'm the only one around here that is not from the Capitol beside you." Blight has a ghost of an affectionate smile. "It's almost sweet."
I frown. Though I can feel myself softening to the young boy, some part of it is still unnerved by his insistence we be trained separately. Blight either doesn't notice or doesn't bother to comment on my look, because he just continues talking, beginning to pace the length of my room.
"So…. have you given it any thought?" Blight asked. I hesitate. If Blight is really in this to help me, I should tell him. He could be able to play it up, make it into something more viable. But what if Blight dismisses it? Makes me pick a new one. What if he uses it against me to get Trapper home? Only once of us can go home, and Blight will most likely through all support behind the one with the higher chance. If we're thrown in and Trapper has a better chance, I feel like Blight will not hesitate to use this against me.
I shake my head to clear my thoughts and hug my pillow closer to me. Not everyone is an enemy, and it's best to not make many so close to my final days.
"Helpless," I say softly. Blight turns to me, surprised.
"Helpless?" Blight repeats. I nod. "Would you enlighten me as to what 'helpless' mean?"
"My reaping was a shitshow," I say. "I look like a scared baby. And I'm many things…. but I'm not scared. I want to play that up. Make me seem like I'm not a threat, so they'll ignore me and pick themselves off first."
I am not scared to kill. I am not one to turn away from a fight. I may feel fear pool in my belly as I realize I might lose, or this is the end – but I do not run. I am afraid, but I am not scared. There might not be a difference to everyone else, but to me, those two words felt different. One gave me power. The other didn't.
Blight considers this for a moment, shutting his eyes and rocking back and forth on his heels. As the moments become longer, I realize that Blight may refuse to help me with it. Felt it was not good enough. I refuse to switch it. And if I refuse, he will not help me.
"Are you a threat?" Blight asks after a long moment, slowly opening his brown eyes.
"What?"
"You said you wanted to make yourself seem like you're not a threat," Blight said. "And that begs the question, are you even a threat in the first place?"
In my mind, visions of when I and my classmates would have ax-throwing contests pass through. I never missed. Pictures of me and Jonathon, hunting during the hunting days, cleaning game, and fish. Memories of tending to the sores on Paw Paw's legs. I may not be trained like the others, but I am not to be dismissed out of hand.
"I think so," I say. I hope my voice is more confident than I feel. Blight scoffs and runs a frustrated hand through his hair.
"You think so?" Blight asks. "I'm sorry Johanna, but 'I think so' is not good enough. There is no time for grey areas in the Games. If this strategy is going to work – for me to help you – I have to know it'll be worth it in the end."
"That's not fair –"
"I told one thing when you got on that train," Blight said. "I told you I would be straight with you. Not fair. Not nice. Not even your friend." Blight shook his head and began pacing again, drumming a finger against his lips. "Maybe we can still play you as a love interest, someone desirable to the audience –"
"No!" I say. Blight stops dead in his tracks, and he turns to me, not quite angry.
"No?"
"No," I say. I push the pillow to my side and lean forward towards Blight. "I can do this. I am a threat. I know I am."
Blight bits his lip and there is a fire in his eyes, a fire telling me his patience is much thinner than I thought it was.
"I'm not sure you are," Blight says. He looks down at me like I am the most foolish person he has ever seen. "All you have done since you've got here is worry about what is happening and whine about being here."
"I think I'm entitled to a little complaining," I shoot back. "I am going into the Games!"
"But complaining and worrying won't win you the Games!" Blight counters. He pinches the bridge between his brows. "Winning the Games comes from strategy and strength. Winning the Games means you have to be willing to do the unthinkable – you have to be ready to kill other people. Not animals. But people – real people, that have done nothing to deserve this." He clicks his tongue. "I am not sure you have that in you."
I grit my teeth. "But I do!"
Another moment flitters into my thoughts, the moment I promised myself I would never let myself think of it again.
"Really?" Blight scoffs. "I doubt that."
I take a deep breath. Is it worth it? It makes me sick to use that as a means to survive. To cheapen what happened for a few extra days in an arena. But a part of me that wants to live, that wants to go home to my brother and grandfather, tells me that if it gets me home, it doesn't matter. What if I don't take the leap, and I die, then I will have kept something that could have saved me. If I take the leap, and I die, then the secret keeps with Blight alone.
So, I take the leap.
"I know I can," I say shakily, looking at the wall next to Blight, "because I've done it before."
Blight does not react at first. His lips open in a small 'o' as he processes what I've said. He takes a step towards me, and then a step back.
"You've…done it before?" Blight says slowly, careful with each word. I nod once, still not looking away from the wall. "When?"
I pick at a loose thread on my blanket.
"I was twelve," I say quietly. "They-they weren't innocent, the one I killed. But I still – I'm the one that killed them."
"Was it some kind of accident?" Blight prodded. I am unsure if he asking as a mentor, or as someone that does not want to be disgusted with me. Maybe it is both.
"No," I say. Though I feel heat cloud my cheeks, I do not feel tears begin to gather. I did not cry then. I will not cry now.
"Wh-who was it?" Blight asked.
"My father," I say. Blight tilts his head, and that is all the prompt I need to tell the rest of the story.
It had been a late summer day. The Games had just ended, and I and Jonathon were walking back from town. I had a thing of shoelaces in my hand, and Paw Paw was carrying a paper bag of bread. I remember that Minnie had been looking from the window of her home, watching us pass with a smile.
When we had arrived it was quiet, and that immedailty had set all three of us on edge. When he had left, it had been a cacophony of sound. My mother and father yelling back and forth. Both had terrible tempers. Father's was far worse than hers, the smallest thing could set him off and send him into a yelling fit. But mom was formidable on her own, and that tongue that could weave stories turned into a sharp knife of its own.
It would go on for hours. Days even. The three of us had left, Paw Paw insisting that we go to the marketplace and let them work this out. Our mother had shot her father a grateful look as he herded us out the door. She had not liked fighting in front of us.
But when we came back – nothing, no fighting, no noise at all. We entered slowly and found neither of them in the front room. Me and Jonathon had wordlessly shared a look and known what to do. Jonathon led Paw Paw to a kitchen chair and started to help him take off his shoes, and I had gone to the back room to look for Mom and Dad.
What I had found inside made me wish I had sent Jonathon instead. On the floor sat my mother, sprawled out unnaturally, blood pooled around her. There seemed to be a cut on her dress it had come from. I blinked and looked up at my father in the corner, who was clutching a knife and crying. For a moment I had not understood what that meant.
"Dad?" I had called out, but then the crazed look he gave me when he turned told me everything. He had done this. And he was not afraid to do it to me. He started towards me, and I do not know what it was – instinct, dumb luck, or maybe even divine intervention – but my hand reacted first, grabbing my father's ax by the door.
My father was five steps away when I pulled my arm back and swung,
My ax met him before the knife met me.
It hit him square in the head. He had fallen with a thud and a matching pool of blood started to drip onto the wooden floor. I stared for a moment.
And then I screamed.
When I am done with my story, I am hugging the pillow again, still not looking at Blight. He does not look at me.
"He-he had never been violent before that," I say. "It-it was like something in him just…snapped. And I-I…."
"You killed your father?" Blight asks. "In self-defense?"
I gulp. "Yes."
It had taken me a long time to not feel like a monster after that day. Jonathon had convinced me over time that I had done what was right – he had killed Mom, and he was going to kill me. He was most likely going to kill all of us. And though now I feel sorry, I know that … it….that I can go on.
Blight blinks and then nods once, wiping his face of all emotion.
"Johanna, I think your strategy will be fine."
And then he left, not even saying goodbye.
Chapter Bible Verse:
Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." — Isaiah 41:10
I hope you all are doing well.
Review Replies:
ReadBooksWriteThings: Johanna will have allies eventually, I don't think you can win the Games with no allies, but we won't officially meet them till we start training next chapter. I wouldn't say she's gone so far as to see him in any kind of positive light, just kind of understanding light. Trapper and Johanna are two characters I really like to work off of each other because unlike Katniss and Peeta there is no history to influence how they interact now as competitors. And thank you for saying you like my writing! I don't usually write in the first person, so I can feel with each chapter I'm getting stronger with this kind of point of view. I hope you're having a blessed day!
Any comments, questions, or concerns? Let me know. Have a blessed day!
-PrincessChess