Peeta squeezed Katniss's hand for comfort the same way he had the day they had been Reaped. She recognized it as a sign of comfort, yet also a request for support.
She didn't see why he needed it. She was much more nervous than him. They had been cordially invited to the First Annual Victor's Gala. Neither of them saw much of a point since there were very few of them, but not just seven. At least, that's what the letter addressed to them had said.
It had come two months ago, and it had taken Peeta all sixty-one days to convince Katniss to come. He knew she was the antisocial type, but he also knew this was something they needed to attend. Besides, he wanted to meet all of these people who were supposed to be dead, and reconnect with the other Victors, too. They had lost touch with all of them but Annie over the past two years.
"Come on, Katniss," Peeta said to her. "You can do this."
"You don't understand Peeta. You're… much more social than I am. You know I don't like meeting new people."
"Come on, Kat, I know you at least somewhat want to do this. That's why we're still in the limo and not heading back home on the train right now. I know you're curious. And besides, we have to do this, for Annie, and Beetee, and Paylor at least. They worked hard on the Recon missions."
There was a pregnant pause.
"Fine," said Katniss. "Come one."
They stepped out of their car, and into the brisk winter air, onto the long, empty street, at the end of which was a café: The Winning Soldier. And along the straight road leading to it, seventy-five pale white marble statues, thirty-eight on one side, thirsty-seven on the other, a white marble nameplate underneath each one, along with a photograph framed on the board.
Now Peeta and Katniss realized why this café had been chosen.
This was the fabled Walk of Victors.
They approached the first one. The girl in the photograph facing them was smiling though it looked strained, put on, but oddly both Peeta and Katniss knew this what not for her sake but for the others'. She had long brown hair that fell down her back, and a tall head with warm features.
"Cordelle Opal," Peeta said. "We've both learnt about her in History, remember?"
"Yes," Katniss replied. "They said she was a pacifist."
"Haymitch called her a saint if there ever was one."
Cordelle Opal, Victor of the First Hunger Games
Age: 18
District: 3
Gender: Female
Kills: One
It was a sign of how truly disgusting the train they had shipped the tributes in was that Cordelle preferred the dank and dark windowless cement box of a room the twenty-four of them had now been crammed into. The corner she clung to was cold, but at least it was dark and a place for her to nurse her wound with the Twelve girl, Lilly's, socks. At least she had Lilly to huddle for warmth with, but the tiny girl was practically skin and bones and could not have weighed more than eighty pounds.
The culprit, the Two girl, sat in the corner opposite Cordelle, and occasionally, when she was brave enough to stop averting her eyes, she saw the girl leering at her menacingly, flipping the knife that had the blood that had poured from her cheek. If Cordelle had taken the hint she would have stopped years ago, but it always amazed her how many people were wallowing in pity when there was so much good in the world, how many people chose anger and war over peace, and, she spared a glance at the Two girl, how many people enjoyed actually causing sadness and fear.
"I think you're right, Cordelle," Lilly said from right beside her. "Too many people need good in this world."
Cordelle smiled for the first time since she had been heckled into the corner by the horde of angry children. "You can call me Cordie. That's what my friends call me."
"Thank you, Cordie," Lilly responded, and they giggled, giggled, giggled in their imminent doom. A truer feat than the better hospitality of their cement cage than the poop-speckled barn they had been transported there in.
"I have friends too," Lilly continued. "Bessy and Old Lady Sue and Piper and Johnny and Mama and Papa and all my brothers and sisters and pets. I sometimes go down to see my friends and feed them, but my parents don't know, so you can't tell them." She put up a finger to her lips and Cordelle nodded. "Who are some of your friends."
Cordelle hesitated. "Well, my sister Chippa, and my cousin Wira, and my parents, and my best friends Physca and Leo…" She trailed off into nothing, thinking of the worried family she had left back home, the family she would do anything to make happy, and of her two friends who had been crushed by rubble she avoided by feet. The memory still haunted her today, one of the only times she had ever given into tears, because everyone needed someone to be happy for them.
Lilly sensed the sadness and curled up further to Cordelle as she scanned the room. She wondered whether the people in the room with her had anyone.
She recognized many faces. The girl from Eight, Chiffon, in the corner over from hers, had been a rebel figurehead. She had been the one who bungled that war mission. And the boy from Eleven was also famous. And then there was her partner, Coil, who had run a rebel podcast. She liked Coil. He was still holding out like her, still holding out for so small a hope, even though he probably knew deep down he would never be making it out of the arena alive. The Six and Five girls were daughters of famous rebels.
The Nine girl Virginia crying off alone most certainly had a family, as did the One girl Sparkle whose parents had been so desperate to save her and was now being comforted by the Five boy Bright was his name, and so did the Two girl, Claudia, whose father she had recognized when he yelled out to save her, he was a high ranking Peacekeeper. A bunch of angry young adults had rioted when both the Seven girl and Eleven girl had been Reaped, and the Six boy and Five girl held each other off in the distance, lovers.
The boy from Nine was all alone, she knew for he said absolutely nothing and looked ready to die, as did the young Eight boy. Ash, Lilly's partner, had been a soldier who had had absolutely no will to live, Lilly had told her, when she first walked over to nurse her wounds, tears trickling out of her eyes.
"Do you think it will really happen?"
Cordelle looked back to Lilly. "I have faith in people here that no death should actually take place, not at the hands of the Capital nor those in the room with us." It was through faith that things would come true for her, and maybe if one person believed in humanity more would.
However, irony mocked her as the Eleven and Ten girls started screaming.
"Get away from me or I'll carve you like a pig you dirty district rat!"
"Go to hell with all your evil friends, Capital lover!"
The Eleven girl fell to the ground with a bloody nose as the Claudia tossed the Ten girl, Alaska, the knife she smuggled in. The Eleven boy raced in to fight with his district partner.
Cordelle sprang up and skidded to a halt in the middle of the Ten girl and Eleven boy, only to be slashed in the shoulder and shoved away into the wall by the Ten girl.
The Eight boy scrambled away from her as Lilly and the Bright raced over to help patch her up.
The two tributes continued to fight, two polar opposites, the Elevens with the numbers, the Ten girl with the knife. And finally, with a bloodcurdling squelching noise and ear-piercing scream, the Eleven boy fell to the ground, dead.
His partner lay screeching in the corner, being brutally stomped by the One male.
Cordelle felt tears flowing from her eyes like waterfalls as she was restrained. It was her fault, she could have prevented this one of many deaths, it was her fault! The tributes swapped their gaze between the Prince, the One boy, Claudia, and Alaska as the retreated to their corner and Cordelle her tears the only noise in the echoing room aside from Turnip from Eleven moaning in the shadows. Cordelle did not care, because it was her fault, and the one thing she was made to do, her purpose, she had failed at, and it was her fault, hers, and years later when her kill total said one, she knew to herself it should have said a number much higher, much, much higher, because maybe, maybe if she had kept the peace, had united the tributes, maybe so many deaths would not be on her hands.
Hours later, as the tributes tried to go down to sleep despite the stench of death beginning to pervade the room, Bright said to her, "It's okay, it's okay. Sometimes you fail, and you just have to live with it. You'll get used to it… I think there'll be a lot more death here. I'm just glad it was me, I'm satisfied, I died enough good in the world, saved enough people… You should make it out. You're the best of us. One of you two. Just promise me that you'll help old Sparkle over there, once I've sacrificed myself, she needs it."
Cordelle never closed her eyes that night, for they were too full with tears that she had failed to stop, had given in to, as the realness of it hit her, and the imaginary blood coated her hands, and that the boy beside her knew he was not going to survive.
Cordelle tried to stop it, but the next morning Sheaf from Nine did not object when Claudia pointed her finger at him when the Peacekeepers found the body of Silas.
She and the other twenty-one watched in their launch rooms as he was executed.
During the first years the tributes were left to their lonesome in the launch room, and while most were reproachful about getting into the capsules, Cordelle had psyched herself up. She was nervous, very nervous. But she had to stay strong, for herself, for Lilly, and for her family watching back home.
Finally, shaking on the inside, Cordelle rose up into the first ever arena of the Hunger Games.
It was a large Roman inspired gladiator arena. Fitting. Cordelle was a smart girl, and history would be one of her favorite subjects if not for the constant bloodshed, but she had studied ancient civilizations a few years back, and was one of the few tributes, along with Prince, Claudia, the Ten boy, who was vomiting into his shirt, Ash, and Atom, the Five girl. Surrounding the arena was a sparse valley of grass with a few tiny forests sporadically placed, leading up to a frosty mountain range on one side and a brisk forest on the other.
Half of the tributes were surveying the arena in disbelief that they were actually inside of it, while the other half were bawling. On one side of Cordelle was the Seven male, a massive and muscled man whom Cordelle guessed had been a rebel soldier, and on the other was Corduroy from Eight, oddly tearless, despite only being thirteen.
By the thirty second mark, some were starting to get anxious.
"Someone step off!" yelled the Six girl. "The Capital is just toying with us, nothing will happen!"
"I wouldn't be so sure," said Atom from her pedestal.
"Don't! Be safe! If none of us kill each other-" Cordelle was cut off by the One boy.
"Just get on with it!"
And at fifteen seconds, out of the blue, Corduroy closed his eyes and began to step off.
"No!", Cordelle screamed, but she had no influence on the poor orphan boy who dropped to the ground and, a millisecond later, was blown across the field in a ten-yard radius.
Cordelle and the panicking Four boy were sprayed with blood and chunks of flesh. High pitched screaming erupted from all ends. Cordelle was frozen, silent. The gong ticked to zero, but no one moved, not even Alaska the crazed loyalist. Everyone was scared that the landmines really had not been deactivated.
The louder tributes bickered about whether or not they should take a step. Cordelle remained frozen.
"Cordie," called Lilly from the very end of the line. No answer.
Finally, Ash took a step. He was not demolished. Slowly and gingerly all of the other tributes stepped onto the ground. Except Cordelle. All of the others ran around collecting food and water, peacefully, but not for long. Lilly ran to Cordelle, shook her, dragged her off the platform. Cordelle looked her in the eye, and both of them squeezed them shut to rid themselves of tears.
"Come on, Lilly, let's get supplies." Her voice only wavered slightly.
And so they all stood there, gathering. Some even sat down, content to live out their days there instead of killing.
Cordelle finally was at peace, for she knew that it was all going to work out. Coil ran across Cordelle's line of vision, purposefully making way for her. He nodded, before running to grab a knife fifteen yards away. When he turned around, however, he looked into the Ten girl's eyes. Cordelle screamed. The edge of the silver axe protruded from out of Coil's back. His legs gave way, and he fell onto his back, the life draining away from his eyes.
Utter mayhem ensued.
Prince let out a booming laugh for all to hear and swung his sword at Atom from Five. She barely dodged, and her boyfriend Cargo swung his bat and the One boy.
The Four boy, Maverick, was launched into a fit of paranoia. His partner Marina ran at him to propose a truce. He turned around, and, thinking she was Claudia, stabbed her in the throat. The innocent girl was dead before she hit the ground. He let out a scream, something unintelligible, and panicked.
Meanwhile, Claudia threw a knife into the shoulder of Sparkle from One, who was mid panic attack. She fell to the ground squealing in pain.
Bright ran across the battlefield, finally in his element after months of dormancy, trying to save the girl he had made friends with. Prince, bloodied along with Cargo and Atom, who were running for the hinterlands, intercepted, and he fell to the green grass turning red, blood oozing from his stomach, desperately trying to hold in his own organs.
In a crazed fit of carelessness, Ash from Twelve grabbed a pickaxe and stalked towards Sparkle, bleeding out on the ground. Spartan from Two yelled, picked up a sword, and ran over to the Twelve boy to slam it on his neck. Ash fell to the ground, dead, and Lilly let out a scream so powerful Cordelle's left ear was damaged for the rest of her stay in the arena. Cordelle seized her moment and stopped painfully and painstakingly picking up supplies and trying to hold it together to restrain Lilly. Spartan promptly puked onto the ground and Sparkle desperately began scooting away into the woods.
Only one more death would take place that day, as Cordelle pulled a screeching Lilly from the clearing. Alaska wanted to finish what she started, and poor Turnip could hardly move, she was so bruised. Alaska punched, and slit, and punched and slit and punched, with help from Prince and Claudia, until finally, after an excruciating five hours, she was dead.
Cordelle stumbled through the forest with Lilly, desperate to get as far from the land of carnage and dead bodies as possible. Thorns cut them and roots tripped them, but they ran vehemently, and gradually more and more sloppily, tearfully, until they both fell to the ground, a mess.
Lilly cried into Cordelle's shoulder.
"Why, Cordie? Why did they have to die? Why?"
"I don't know, Lilly."
Cordelle strengthened herself for the sake of her ally. She knew that if they had just listened to her, if the world had just listened to her, there would be none of this. And so, in a way, she believed these were also her fault. Everybody's fault in a way.
Eight cannons rang through the air.
Eight people. Fifteen more sure to join them. But Cordelle still held out hope. Maybe she could still appease the tributes. Maybe she could get them to work together. Maybe, they could even make their own utopia, and the Capital would save them all, and send them back to their families. But underneath all of that, Cordelle knew that, no matter how hard she tried, it would never work. The only way of leaving the arena alive would be with twenty-one dead bodies left to rot inside it.
At midnight rang out the Capital Anthem, the faces of the dead shone. The boy from Three, the girl from Four, the boy from Five, the boy from Eight, the boy from Nine, both from Eleven, and Lilly's partner from Twelve, who she let out a wail to see. Cordelle knew how Ash had died and thought it best not to break it to her ally.
Cordelle knew all eight souls by their full names. She had memorized them. And those twenty-three names would haunt her for the rest of her life.
Coil Oberon. Maybe she could have just told him to look out, to watch his back.
Marina Stark. It was farfetched, she was just grasping at straws, desperate to bestow the blame not on the humanity for which she still believed to be good, but onto her, for it was she who she blamed in forgiveness and respect, and because she did not want them to be bad people. But maybe if she hadn't let her hair run free. She could have plaited it like Marina and Claudia. Both of them were around 5'5 and were brunette. Maybe Maverick would have thought it was her and not Claudia.
Bright Ambley. What if she had officially offered Bright a spot in the alliance. If Sparkle had ran to them and not for a pack. Bright was so good. His loss hurt the most.
Corduroy Bennett. If she had just convinced him to stay on the podium.
Sheaf Beckham. He took the blame. He wanted to die. But is she had just been quicker to take up for him, maybe Claudia would be the one executed right now.
Silas Graves. If she had just stopped the fight.
Turnip Perryseed. That was why Turnip was here now, too.
Ash Rhodensia. Why? What did Ash think that motivated him to try to commit that horrible deed? Either way, he was in a better place.
Later that night, as she and Lilly huddled up in a hollow tree, Cordelle thought, maybe she could still save one life.
The Capital was, for the most part, loving this.
The bloodshed, carnage, to see those petty district mongrels turn upon themselves in penance for their heinous crimes and rebellion. Exquisite!
Of-course there were the few hiding out in their old and musty apartments on their ruin-filled streets that objected, but they were not important.
The Capital's favorite three definitely have to be Prince, Claudia, and Alaska. The Threatful Three, as they were called, had killed five of the tributes altogether, six in reality, since Claudia framed Sheaf for the murder of Silas. There was a serious demand to help these three tributes who were aligned together and already scrounging the arena for district scum.
They also had eyes on the Two boy, Spartan, but he seemed to be just to reluctant to kill. "Why?" they thought. He killed many in the war. What a disappointment.
Still, for the most part, the Capital was loving the show. It was a humongous success, one that would continue on for years to come, the president would make sure of it. He just wanted to see Maverick have an incredibly painful death, then he would be satisfied.
On Day Two, Cordelle and Lilly decided to move camp and look for more possible allies. They found two.
Spartan was sitting on a log, too dehydrated to cry, and less than half a mile from him was Sparkle.
First, when Cordelle approached Sparkle, she was too immobile to even look directly at them her shoulder wound had somehow lengthened, they would later find out from being cut by a branch, and it now spanned her whole torso. Worse yet was that all of it was infected.
"Hello, Sparkle," Cordelle said as she and Lilly approached her. "Bright wanted us to look out for you if he… passed on. Can we."
Sparkle then burst into tears.
"He died because he was trying to save me! It's my fault! He should be here! I'm worthless!"
"No, no, no, you're not worthless." It was Lilly who said this, before moving in to help with the cut. "Can I help?"
Sparkle slowly nodded. "It hurts. It hurts really bad. I just want to see Mama and Papa again," she finished weakly.
While Lilly set to work with her meager supplies, Cordelle noticed a glint of silver off in the distance. She set off towards it.
"Cordie, where are you going?"
"I see another ally."
She continued through the leaves until she reached the clearing Spartan sat in. He didn't seem to notice her.
"Hello?"
No response.
"Hello, Spartan, I just wanted to possibly recruit you…"
She was cut off by the look of smoldering hatred. A look that she would never forget. And then Spartan brought his knife and slit his own throat.
The earsplitting scream of "NOOOOOOOOO!" that erupted from Cordelle's mouth would echo off the walls of the arena.
It was Day Four, and Cordelle had for the most part gotten over what she saw. She would never fully get over it. That morning they found a river, and they were able to drink, and Sparkle wounds were able to be fully washed out, allowing them to be cleaned with some sponsored alcohol in the pack she obtained. Sparkle then slammed the bottle onto a root, and the bottom completely shattered.
"Weapon," she said.
For the sake of Sparkle Cordelle and Lilly did not toss the thing into the lake, yet they still had to pick up the numerous glass shards now scattered around camp.
That day on the other side of the arena the pseudo-careers, the so-called Threatful Three, found the Ten boy, who was then mocked and slit open for ours. Prince had practiced for the Hunger Games by stealing pigs from the butchery and cutting them open alive. He told that to the boy, Churner, who cried and squealed just like one until he passed on.
Later that day, poor Virginia died of dehydration. She never did anything to deserve it. She just existed, and that was enough in the Capital's eyes.
That night, the other trio in the arena, Cordelle, Lilly, and Sparkle, cheered each other up by talking about their homelives.
"It was nice," Cordelle began. "Me and my sister Chippa and cousin Wira used to create Brainteasers for each other. She lived with us, because my uncle and aunt died in a factory explosion very early on into the war. We took her in and we treated her like a sister. I would always have to stop the fights between them, because they're two years younger than me.
"I met my best friends Physca and Leo by stopping a fight they were in. I think they both liked me and that's why they put up with the other, but now we're all good friends. The three of us joined up to run for President, Vice President, and Secretary in Student Council. I wasn't elected, but they both were, and they said they would quit since I wasn't elected. I guess they didn't, since…" She looked at her surroundings.
"We used Chippa stores of chocolate and cream, and the wartime crackers the Capital caravans threw on the ground when they passed with the faces of the Capital people on them to make something called s'mores in our bunker. They were tasty.
"I love my Mommy and Daddy, and Chippa and Wira, and Physca and Leo so much. I know they miss me."
Lilly spoke. "I love my family, too. Even all the ones that aren't actually my blood family, they're just friends. They call me their little flower, all of them, my parents and older siblings.
"Mommy runs an apothecary, and all the time I help people that come in, when they're sick or injured. Mommy and Daddy were war medics in the war, and Daddy lost his legs, so know I get to pamper him.
"Sometimes I go down into the Seam, where the unlucky people live, and I give them food." Lilly had forgotten about the cameras. "And they all say I'm their favorite girl in the world."
Lilly trailed off, smiling wistfully, and also crying, staring into the night.
Sparkle began. "My Mama and Papa love me very much. And before the war they would get me anything I wanted, and they would hug me and kiss me and read me bedtime stories. They say I'm they're little Christmas Joy, because I was born on Christmas, you see, and I'm, the best present they ever got.
"And school I had lots of friends. Crystal, Beauty, Amber, Venus… But now they all call me piggy and fat and stupid and a traitor, even though Mama and Papa, they were doing the right thing, and now everybody… everybody hates us…" She trailed off into tears. Cordelle and Lilly came in to hug her.
"It's okay, Sparkle, don't cry," said Lilly.
"We're your friends now."
On Day 5, the Threatful Three chose to separate. Those in the Capital began to take sides within the three of who was the best, and a fight or two even broke out over it.
Alaska decided she wanted to go to the cornucopia, to exchange weapons and get some rest after the constant trekking of the past few days. Prince was not jaded in the slightest, and still continued to prowl through the woods. Finally, Claudia wanted to head north to get high ground, and was tired of her allies' constant raging about how the districts were inferior. She would let it slip to no one, but her mother was actually a poor trainhopper from Six her father sought after on a drunken night. She still thought they were inferior, though, of-course.
It took two days for the next eventful thing to happen. Alaska reached the cornucopia, only to realize something was suspicious. There was something smoking just beside the cornucopia. She approached gingerly, and peered to look at the flame, and found merely a burning crate. She turned around, and there she found Kia from Six, holding a precious grenade somehow not found by the trio who had stayed in the cornucopia on the first night.
Kia pulled the pin from the grenade, said "The district will reign supreme!" and threw it into the cornucopia.
Both girls were knocked back from the explosion. Alaska was the lesser damaged of the two, and so she crawled over to Kia. Both girls had belts of knives. But one was rendered temporarily unconscious.
Kia lay bleeding out in that field for hours. The Capital laughed. The districts looked away in respect. Her parents would have been proud.
Cordelle and her younger allies, Lilly and Sparkle, were doing fine. Lilly and Cordelle cried every time a cannon boomed, and, still on the river, every night death was victorious, made a monument, a tiny and somewhat pitiful one of paper and sticks, but a monument still.
The three girls had all become fast friends, and the atmosphere, if taken out of the current context, was quite cheery.
That all changed when Maverick from Four ran across the river in a fit of panic.
Yards behind him was Claudia herself, cackling venomously and brandishing a belt of throwing knives. She threw one and missed, chopping off half of Lilly's braid. Lilly and Sparkle shrieked and ran for cover along the river. Cordelle, however, had a different plan.
She ran into the river, tackled Claudia, and won by surprise, standing over Claudia.
"Wait!" she yelled to Maverick, who did not wait, but promptly tripped on a stone and sprained his ankle. As he paddled his wait to the sand and Claudia wrestled against her current captor, Cordelle continued, "You don't have to do this! I've said this so many times and almost no one has listened to me! We don't have to kill each other! We can live in peace! What would happen to all of us if we refused to kill and the Capital got bored? Maybe they would take us all out! Please, you've got to believe!"
She looked to where Maverick was, only to find he was already to the sand bar. Claudia used this moment of distraction to escape, thrust a knife into Cordelle's gut, and toss two more. One knife caused a masculine gasp that told her Maverick was beyond saving, and the other, a shrill scream of pain that dropped a weight into Cordelle's bloody stomach.
"Cordie!"
Adrenaline filled Cordelle's veins, and she had no care for anyone but her allies. She raced to the place where they lay… to find Sparkle propped up on a tree with a knife in her back.
"Cordie!" Sparkle was bawling. "I don't want to die, Cordie!"
Tears wet Cordelle's eyes as she dropped down beside her.
"I want to see my family again. And I don't want them to miss me. Cordie, I want to go home."
Lilly was in tears too, and she hugged Sparkle. Cordelle joined in.
"It's okay, Sparkle," said Lilly. "Now you'll get to float up to Heaven, and see everyone you've lost, and someday your parents will fly up there and see you again, and you'll be able to fly all over the world together…" Lilly could not stop the copious amount of tears pouring from her eyes.
"You'll be okay, Sparkle. Just remember we love you so much, and neither of us will ever forget you, and one day we'll come see you in Heaven, too. So… so you're not dying, not really."
Sparkle looked Cordelle in the eyes. A tear dripped from each one, and she said to her, with the last bit of energy she had left, "Thank you."
Lilly went away, and when she came back, she had petals that she set on Sparkle's eyelids. "A tradition," she said. "Back in Twelve." Cordelle found that she had set some on Maverick's eyes, too, when they went back to gather their things. She also found Claudia had doubled back and stolen everything remotely valuable.
That night, Cordelle hugged Lilly. They both wept. It was just the two of them again. Cordelle vowed on her life that night that she would do anything she could so Lilly could survive. Because Cordelle knew, knew that only one of the ten souls still residing in their bodies would be leaving the arena. The time for preaching, for trying to convince people not to kill was over. It was a matter of self-preservation, of refusal to engage in murder, and in that way, if Cordelle survived, she would not have that lead weight forever squeezing her conscience. And no, she did not cry about this, because she could not cry anymore. She had to fight.
Three long and deathless days went by. Cordelle and Lilly made huts, moved frequently. Claudia's knife had not pierced any of Cordelle's major organs, and within days she was pale and feeble yet recovering. One time they saw creepy Ember from Seven asleep in a tree muttering about fire. The chose to pass her by. Lilly liked to explore, and Cordelle kept herself happy and occupied by entertaining her, and they used crushed petals to paint faces onto sunflowers and play princess.
On the other side of the arena, Prince finally met those whom he had been seeking for so long. Atom and Cargo. His sister had been among those killed by the bomb dropped on the capital that also destroyed the southwestern edge of One and gave many terminal illness, via smoke and fumes. It had been engineered by Atom's parents, the bomb dropped by Cargo himself, a fighter pilot.
He was consumed with rage and swung his sword. The lovers fought valiantly. It was two against one, but Atom was tiny, and Cargo had a concussion from their previous encounter. Eventually, Prince faked Cargo out, and then he twisted around and gutted him like a fish. He slid off the sword and to the ground, Atom dropped to her knees, and gave him one last kiss. He died.
Atom continued to fight, but her drive was diminished. She had just lost the love of her life. She would never see her parents again. She was bruised and battered. Her dodges wore down, and her left leg tendons were severed. She screeched. Prince threw her against a tree over and over and over, rage powering every blow. He let go. Her lungs stabbed by her snapped ribs, her head almost caved in.
"You'll never, never win," she told Prince. "You may have won the battle, but you'll never win the war. It was a necessary evil, dropping that bomb. But what you did is worse. This is worse. You will never win, patriot."
"RAAAAAAAGGHHH!" One final slam, the most powerful, and Atom was dead. Her avox parents stood watching from their owner's sitting room.
"Avoxes, go fetch us some wine." They did not move. "Now!" The man threw a vase.
They looked at each other, and in perfect understanding, they took hands, and ran as hard and as fast as they could for the window hundreds of feet over the bustling Capital street…
An equally as monumental death occurred later that night. As Cordelle and Lilly set the monuments of the fallen couple on the river stream, Alaska and the Seven man, the lumberjack Alder, dueled. They fought, they fought hard. Alder had the rage of a rebel who lost, Alaska the hatred only one who despised those beneath her could possess. Alder had strength. Alaska had precision and speed. Alder had an axe. Alaska had a dozen knives.
And eventually, Alder threw the loud loyalist to the ground, yelled, "go to hell, bitch!" and brought his axe down upon her skull. That was the end of the girl who had caused so much damage in the arena.
It was down to the final seven.
Prince ran through the arena searching for more victims. Many historians would argue his strategy was to manipulate Alaska into believing she was the most powerful, and now that she was burning in hell, he was free to spread his wings.
Claudia also prowled the arena like a wolf, skulking around in the shadows looking for prey.
Alder was doing okay. He was recuperating from his wounds from the battle and readying himself for the chance to win.
Chiffon was dying of dehydration, little of the spotlight focused on her. She was desperate to show them, to show all of me how powerful and strong she truly was, and after she found the stream, she would search for the strongest tribute in the arena and take them down. That ambush would be successful, she told herself.
As for Ember, she spent her days sheltered form the cameras in the trees, singing hymns about fire and crafting an odd red ball of something honey-like, mushy fungi, and sticks.
Cordelle and Lilly were faring well. They were becoming closer and closer. Now they were practically sisters. They loved each other as such. On Day Fifteen, Lilly told Cordelle, "One day, I'd like to fly, I'd have fairy wings. We read about them in school, and my sister Bluebell told me about them. I would have a magic wand that I would tap someone with and then they would get really happy and be healed if they were hurt or sick."
"That's a wonderful fantasy," Cordelle said happily. "In mine… maybe I would live in a great big mansion house, and so would everybody, and there would be no Hunger Games, and everyone would be peaceful."
"I didn't think about it like that. Yours is way better!"
"Oh, it's okay, don't feel bad. Maybe I would be a fairy too, and I could make all sorts of plants and trees grow. I've always liked plants and trees and all of that stuff. We don't have much of them in Three, but I know how they work, and it's really cool."
"We have them everyone in the meadow in Twelve, me and my sisters always pick them and put them in our hair. We're all named after flowers. There's Rose, then Crocus, Bluebell, Oleander, Violet, and me.
"Rose used to sing a song to me that she made up. She's a bit of a poet, you see. It went like this…
"Happiness is a flower, that is yet to bloom,
In the mind of the man who is yet to open his eyes,
Yet if you open your eyes, look at the world,
It's sure to happen, what a big surprise…"
Cordelle thought privately that Rose wasn't much of a songwriter, but still Lilly taught her the lyrics.
They spent the rest of the day putting flowers they found in their hair, and Lilly was able to identify all of them and their medical properties.
Cordelle wanted to cherish this time of peach while she still could.
The next day it all came to crash.
Crashing and screaming alerted the girls, who ran to look. They found Claudia, injured and gripping life with only her fake nails, beside the corpse of Alder.
"…h…help," she said feebly.
The girls immediately dropped down to the body. Both were too good to just leave her to die. Despite the lies that led to Sheaf's death, the murders of Maverick, of Alder, of Sparkle, they were too kind and forgiving to let her die.
However, it soon became clear that she was beyond saving. An empty hole allowed the girls to peer through Claudia's stomach to the space beyond her back. She had no feeling from the pelvis down from an axe to the back. Her left arm was hanging onto her shoulder by mere threads of skin.
And they told Claudia this. She was so angry, she thrust her knife into the chest of Lilly.
"NOOOOOO!"
Cordelle scrambled over to her ally.
"Cordie?" she asked.
Cordelle was so overcome with tears, she could only nod.
"Cordie, you're my best friend. You need to win, Cordie. You need to show them how we can all be… better."
"I will Lilly… I w-w-will…"
She pulled Lilly in for a hug.
"Cordie?"
"Y-yeah?"
"Can you sing for me?"
Cordelle nodded. She readied herself.
"Happiness is a flower, that is yet to bloom,"
She blanked on the next line momentarily, and so Lilly sang it with her.
"In the mind of a man who is yet to open his eyes…"
Cordelle kept on singing. She would not stop, even as the life disappeared from Lily's eyes. Not until she finished the song. In the honor of her fallen friend. After the song, she placed flowers on Lilly's eyelids. Some she placed on Alder's too. She stomped on Claudia's now-dead face. Her debt to the little girl who she had loved so much in the seventeen days they had known each other was yet to be fully repaid. She would win. For Lilly. And she would spread her message, of love, and joy, and peace.
Cordelle spent the rest of the day, along with all of Day Seventeen in tears. She was so close. In the president's office, he told his officials and his ministers, "Yes, she will win. Not on either side. She won't make anyone mad. Of-course, the Capital won't like a patsy, but the other three are out of the equation."
And so, on Day Eighteen, the final day of the Hunger Games, began the finale.
Ember laughed maniacally as she threw her red ball of fire into a bramble of wood that was lit aflame in an instant. It spread like, well, wildfire, and in seconds the whole clearing was engulfed.
"Fire, burn with all your beautiful majesty!"
And she was consumed by the flames, by the flames she loved so much, and she did not stop laughing until she died.
Cordelle ran for high ground at the first scent of smoke. She had experienced bombings before, and PTSD was still alive in her. She instinctive covered her head for rubble as she ran for her life for the rock at the highest point of the arena.
Chiffon had finally found her match. Out of nowhere she ran at Prince, screaming as she did so. She was going to prove herself, prove everyone wrong. Alas, no she was not. She fought for a mere twenty seconds before being slashed in the stomach. She was left to be engulfed by the flames, forgotten by everyone as they watched the final two running for the same peak.
Cordelle reached and scaled it first. As she looked down from the top, she saw Prince, her last opponent, the only one standing in her way of becoming victor. Yet, she did not want to kill. By the time Prince was still halfway up the ladder, fire surrounded the peak. They were fifteen feet from the flames, twenty-five from the ground. Something Ember put in those flames that only she would ever know made them extra fast, extra large, and extra consuming.
Cordelle let Prince climb to the top without interfering. She did not want to kill this boy, she did not want to kill.
"Well, hello," he said to her. "So, you're my last opponent. Well, this will be easy."
He began to walk towards her. Cordelle edged back slowly, coming up on the edge of the rock jutting from the ground.
"You don't have to do this, you know," she said, shouting over the flames. "You don't have to kill me! I know that you don't want to kill deep down, Prince! I know that you may not know it yourself, but revenge isn't enough!"
"Shut up! I have to do this! I have to make you all pay!"
"No, Prince, you don't!"
He hesitated. Remorse flashed briefly in his eyes.
"Yes. I do."
"Prince, is this what your sister would have wanted?"
"Beauty is dead, and it's because of you!"
He charged.
With a gust of wind sent by the Gamemakers, he ran with all of his might. Cordelle tried to hop out of the way, but she left just a foot in his path. Prince tripped, and tumbled, tumbled, tumbled, for what seemed like an eternity, before he hit the ground, and shrieks of pain erupted from him.
He looked into Cordelle's eyes. She could see anger, pain, but also sadness, incredible grief. He pleaded with her in between shrieks of utter agony.
Cordelle took a stone from the edge of the rock, rolled it to above where Prince lay, and muttered two words he understood. "I'm sorry." And the rock crushed his head.
She had killed him out of mercy. And now she was victor.
Cordelle used her Victory Tour to preach about love, joy, forgiveness. Almost no one listened. But there was the odd man or woman or child especially who did. Sparkle's parents. Lilly's parents. Her family and friends.
Cordelle would never give up that message. She would tell it to everyone she ever knew. She was renowned as one of the most beloved victors of all time in the victor community.
She was one of the most successful mentors, and every child she failed to bring home would haunt her for the rest of her life, as would the names of those other twenty-three. But when she thought of the faces of Sparkle and Lilly, she did not feel haunted. She felt pride that she had won for them, and that if they knew they would be overjoyed. She did not let the grief trouble her much, for, as she told herself and every other victor aside from the three past her time, there was too much to enjoy in life to be brought down by the sadder things.
"They called her the Mother of All Victors," said Peeta.
Katniss looked up at Peeta.
"We can turn back, if you want," said Peeta.
"No," responded Katniss. "I want to do this. I have to do this."
And so they moved to the next memorial.
"Romulus Forsythe," Peeta read. "That name sounds familiar, huh?"
A brutal image flashed in Katniss mind of Brutus mangling Woof. "Yes."
"First ever volunteer. And the original career."
Hello, everyone! This is a little story I have decided to write, and I hope you enjoyed it. I put a LOT of work into this, so please review if you read it. This is heavily inspired by CragmiteBlaster's incredible story Cheating Death, and if you haven't already please check it out.
This will be on the side compared to my other story Façade: The 157th Annual Hunger Games, and if you haven't, go check that out. The same applies to a one-shot I did a few months back about this that centers around the first Hunger Games that I am also very proud of. Expect updates of this at least once a month, because I am really only going to work on this when I feel like it.
Thank you so much for reading and please review!
-Mills