Trigger Warning: This chapter's pretty upsetting but explaining why would be a major spoiler. If you want a more accurate warning, PM me for more details.


Turbin Bloodhawk, District 5

"I don't exist in usual places."

Belle and Sebastian, Simple Things


My name is Turbin Bloodhawk. Fate chose me to watch Luka Starkwain die.

My old mentor's the toughest person I've ever met. I know it would take someone equally tough to kill him. And the name of the man who'll kill Luka Starkwain, who's been destroying him for the last few months, is... Luka Starkwain.

It had all started when President Snow had read out the Quell twist to us all. We'd all reacted differently. Some of us had just shrugged it off, like Tesoro, who'd just gone back to his drink, or Sotope, who'd offered to volunteer if Becquerel was reaped. Some of us had taken it badly. Becquerel had panicked because she hadn't wanted her kids to watch her die, and then she'd heard that Sotope had wanted to volunteer and panicked because she hadn't wanted to watch her old mentor die. Elisabeta had immediately began studying the victors who had the potential to be her competition.

Even I hadn't been pleased. It wasn't the thought of dying in the Quell that'd bothered me so much as the attention the Capitol would've given me had I been reaped.

But Luka had taken it the worst out of all of us.

I know him well. I've been living down the street from Luka Starkwain for the last four decades. If there are two things that matter to him, they are justice and family. It was clear that he'd seen the Quell as going against justice, and it'd had the potential to fracture the family he'd tried to protect for his entire life.

It'd only been getting worse since the Quell. Soon, it'd become clear that not even the victors who'd avoided the Quell were safe. One day, Sotope and Becquerel had gone on a run and never come back. I hadn't really been that close to either of them but, to Luka, they'd been his best friend and his daughter-in-law. Every time I'd spoken to him after that, he'd told me that they'd be coming back soon, even though I don't think even he was completely convinced.

For the last few months, I've been watching my old mentor suffer. Even though the two victors who'd been killed in the Quell were Elisabeta and Tesoro, the two victors that Luka had probably cared the least about, he seems angry. Maybe another victor would join the rebellion that's rumoured to be raging through the district but Luka Starkwain is a patriot. I can imagine him silently beating himself up for every rebellious thought he has.

Even if he gets over his old beliefs, he won't be able to do much. District 5 has the best peacekeeping force out of any of the outlying districts, a peacekeeping force built by Luka himself. He's been trapped in a prison of his own making. Powerless.

Sometimes, I invite myself round to his house, just to see what's going through his mind. His kids - Iona and Arcas - have moved in with him, even though they're both old enough to live alone. They'd brought their kids with them. I think I know what Luka's doing. He's keeping his family close because he's scared of losing them.

If he is, then I wish him luck with that. May the odds be ever in his favour.

It pleases me, watching Luka's suffering. Not because I care about whether or not he deserves it, just because suffering has always fascinated me. I don't like causing it. I'm not a serial killer, though I could tell horror stories about some of the people who'd mentored in the years I had. It's all the more satisfying if you wait for suffering and it comes of its own accord.

It's early in the morning when I see him sneaking out of his house. The sun hasn't even risen but I could recognise Luka's silhouette in an instant. There's a light in him, like lightning caught in a thundercloud, but it's fading. He's got the look in his eyes of a man who's having everything he loves torn away from him.

Wondering what Luka Starkwain, family man, would be doing sneaking around at night, I slip out the back door and start to follow him.

I follow my mentor through the ruined streets of District 5. I haven't been following the news of the war; I prefer to watch the war play out within a single man. I suppose I should be surprised by the rubble and the devastation everywhere.

But I'm not.

It's easy to follow Luka. I'm great at slipping around without being spotted. That was how I'd managed to kill so many people in my games. He's so slow, as well. Even though he's pretty fit for a seventy-seven year old, something else seems to be slowing Luka down. Maybe it's the pain from seeing his district - his home - in ruins. I know that Luka was alive during the war, even though he was only a baby when peace had been declared. I was born in the year Coriolanus Snow became president, long after the war.

And I never considered District 5 my home. I never considered anywhere my home.

Finally, we skirt around a pile of rubble to a surreal, beautiful sight. Water was lapping gently up the street. Luka walks so close to the edge that the waves splash against the toes of his boots.

He stops.

"Turbin?" He says, voice hollow. "I know you followed me. I mentored you, kid. I know all your tricks."

I sigh, annoyed. Luka's the only person who's ever been able to sense me sneaking up on them. He has instincts that would make a Career green with envy.

As much as I hate to admit it, I've somehow developed a bond with him. I wouldn't consider him a friend or anything ridiculous like that, but, over the years, he's come to understand more about who I am and how I work than anyone else has.

"What are you doing out here?" I ask.

Luka turns to look at me with piercing, blue eyes. As he turns, a lightning bolt flashes in the dark sky behind him. Thunder rolls. The wind picks up the waves and brings a chill to our bones. My mentor looks like Jupiter again.

An aged, defeated Jupiter, but Jupiter nonetheless.

"Nothing," Luka whispers. "I never did anything, did I?"

"I've always thought you did too much," I say.

Luka laughs, slightly hysterically. "Maybe I did! Maybe if I'd just let myself take a beating every day, or quit my job and taken up a post at a plant until the radiation killed me, or let Pann go into the games and get killed like so many damned older brothers did every year, none of this would be happening. But no, I had to do something. And now we're back where we started. At war."

Lightning flashes again. It looks like a scene from a dream about the apocalypse.

"You think you caused this war?" I ask.

"Maybe not the whole war," Luka admitted. "But definitely the war here. I heard the fighting's completely stopped in Three. It's finishing up in so many other districts. But District 5's just getting warmed up. And do you know why? Because I funded those damn peacekeepers. I thought I was making the district safe. I thought I was putting an end to the chaos I'd grown up in. But I've just set it up to start again."

"I suppose that's true," I muse. I wonder if Luka's expecting me to comfort him in some way. He ought to know better. I'm having plenty of fun watching him have his little breakdown.

"What's gonna happen once this is all over?" Luka asked, eyes wild. "How many kids are gonna have to grow up fighting like I did?"

He takes a shaky step backwards, further into the water.

"What are you doing?" I ask, curious.

"You haven't seen the news, have you?" Luka says. "The rebels blew up a dam. There are floods all across the district. People are stranded and the peacekeepers aren't rescuing them. I don't know why."

"To punish the rebels, perhaps," I offer. I'm surprised that Luka never thought of that option, since he killed eight kids with no guilt just to punish the rebels. His entire life was lived to punish the rebels.

"I'm sick of innocent people dying because someone thought it'd make a good punishment," Luka cries. "My entire life, I've been fighting for a side that I don't even know is the right side anymore. I've been fighting and beating people up and hurting people so much that I stopped feeling anything. It's all I can do, just destroy things, like I've been destroying this district. I need to make sure I never destroy anything again..."

He looks down at his hands and takes a deep breath, something that could've almost been a sob.

"I'm going out there. And I'm gonna save as many people as I can. I am gonna do some good for once in my life. And I'm never coming back."

He's about to turn and walk further into the water when I cry out.

"Wait! What about your family?"

I'm shocked. I didn't know I even cared about Luka's family. Maybe it's just because it feels wrong for him to just abandon them in the middle of a war zone.

Something is definitely wrong with Luka.

Not that I care that much.

"You have to protect them, Turbin," he says. He's got that look in his eyes, the look of a dying man. "I don't trust myself to do it anymore."

But you trust me? I think to myself, as he begins to swim away.

I watch my mentor swim further and further away as a storm churns the sky and stirs up the water. Soon he's out of sight, lost on a beautiful horizon, a stretch of endless sky and water.

I've been presented with the perfect opportunity to slip away.

I walk into the water, smiling as the waves tickle my legs. The sun begins to peek over the horizon, casting a lovely, golden glow over everything. I'm grateful that my last moment tethered to the mortal world, to my old life and my famous name, is something so enchanting.

I'm not the strongest of swimmers, but it doesn't really matter. I'll be achieving the same thing, whether I drown or whether I swim to a world where I can live alone.

I'm achieving the dream. I'm becoming invisible.


Two sociopaths in a row! I bet none of you expected that (some of my evil author mode lingers). Turbin's not evil, just really, really indifferent to everyone else's problems. He lives in his own world. He definitely wins the prize for most reclusive victor. I left it ambiguous as to whether he survived the rebellion (Turbin would've wanted it that way) but I can confirm that Luka definitely drowned.

As for Luka, remember when I gave him a happy ending about five chapters ago? I lied (yes, I'm definitely in full evil author mode). I'd had this kind of death planned for him since I realised that I was going to have to kill him off. Luka's a tragic hero, and probably the biggest tragedy about him is that everything he did to fix his district after the first rebellion just sealed its fate when the second rebellion began. At least he had four decades living peacefully with his family before then. He also got to go out like a hero, saving people's lives. I'm getting a little teary-eyed killing him off in such a tragic manner, since he's one of my favourite characters. Off the top of my head, he's probably my fourth favourite (my top three were all major characters in The Bride and The Widow so you'll meet them all later). I'm not sure why he manifested himself more vividly than most of the other victors but some characters just take on a life of their own.

Anyway, it's going to be a little weird seeing Luka in later chapters, since you know how he's going to die. I don't have him planned to appear as frequently as he did, since he retired from mentoring the year Turbin won, but he'll still be a prominent figure in District 5.

I have something fun planned for next chapter (but not another sociopath, I promise. Three in a row would be overkill). Let's just say, you'll find out who a certain mad scientist from the Seventy-Second Games decided to name his pet Frankenstein's monster after.