Chapter Sixteen.
w w w. breaktheicehg. blogspot. c o m
Cassia Roenisch
District Three, 15 Years Old
Cassia enviously watched Marcella sound asleep.
Cassia was exhausted, but she couldn't sleep; she stayed awake for most of the night, on edge, expecting to hear a cannon at any moment. She was torn about the cannons, too; on one hand, it meant one less person her and Marcella could encounter in the arena. One less fight. On the other hand, it meant one more child that wouldn't be returning to their family back in their home District. Cassia imagined how her family, how her friends, would react to seeing her face in the sky. Cassia didn't know it was possible to feel so optimistic and so pessimistic at the same time.
She wondered if her parents would cry. Of course they would. Even her sister would probably shed a tear. I hope so, anyway. When she thought about her friends – none of them were memorable, as Cassia had a tendency to speak to everyone she saw in class or on the streets, thinking that everyone was her friend – she thought they'd miss her too. All of District Three would.
Thinking about her life back in District Three, rather than focusing on her heightened anxiety that a cannon might shake the arena at any given moment, made her feel more at ease. More calm. Cassia snapped a branch off of the tree, peeling away layers of the stick, exposing the lighter-colored wood underneath. She dragged the tip through the snow, drawing a number three and a number twelve, side-by-side, and then drew two stick figures in the snow. She made Marcella's figure a tad shorter than her own and with shorter hair. Marcella was much shorter, much skinnier and more frail than Cassia. Cassia smiled at her stick-drawing representation of her and Marcella's alliance.
Cassia spun around in her sleeping bag and dug the stick in the snow behind her. She drew another stick figure, representing her, and drew three more next to it. One for her father, one for her mother, and one for her sister. Her father's figure was much taller than the others, her sister's hair longer than her own and her mother's. She missed them all dearly; everything they did for her. How loving, involved, and accepting they were.
As she drew a circle around the four stick figures, she felt so childish and silly, but it worked. Cassia drifted into a sleep – a light sleep where she could be startled awake by the sound of a cannon – with her hand gripped tightly around the stick. The stick represented everything that could be; if only sixteen more tributes died, she'd be able to see her friends and family again. To see District Three again.
She dreamed about District Three that morning.
About living in the Victors' Village.
Cara Waycrest
District Eleven, 16 Years Old
Cara awoke to a dreary overcast and snowy day in the arena.
Donegan was already awake, shuffling his hands around in his backpack looking for something to snack on for breakfast. Donegan fell sound asleep the night before, exhausted from the walking that seemed like it went on for hours, but Cara stayed up late, staring at the sky, unable to think of anything other than the image of Ciana's face. It was engrained into her mind, her hair pinned down on the sides, a ponytail in the back, a wide smile on her face with all of her teeth showing. That was the Ciana that Cara would always remember.
"Morning," Donegan said plainly. "How'd you sleep?"
"Not good," Cara replied, sitting up and stretching out her limbs. "Is there any water? The cold air makes my mouth so dry."
"Bad news," Donegan said, tossing her a metal canister. "There's no water in it, but I found a stream not too far away from here. I cracked the ice and scooped some water into it."
"Thanks," Cara replied, catching the canister and placing it besides her as she stood up, and Donegan pointed in the direction of the stream. "I'll go do that now. I need to stretch from sleeping in whatever that is."
Cara hummed softly as she walked towards the steam, and after only a few steps, she stopped in her tracks and looked down at her hands. She smirked, chuckling at herself; she forgot the canister. Cara turned back around, retracing her boot prints in the snow back to their camp site, and on the way, she saw a type of fruit hanging from the branches of the trees. She squeezed her pointer finger and thumb around it, the juice squirting out from it splattering onto her jacket. Cara wasn't familiar with the fruit, but maybe Donegan was. She picked it off of the tree and brought it with her. When she returned, she saw Donegan hunched over, his back to her. He was digging around in Cara's backpack, clearly looking for something, and Cara looked at the other items surrounding him.
There was an assortment of different colored berries mixed into the snow besides him. It looked like he was replacing those berries with something else, and she held up the fruit that she found on the tree, and it clicked. The berries she found, that Donegan found too, were poisonous. Only someone like Donegan would know that.
He was the bushcraft connoisseur, after all.
"What are you doing?!" Cara shouted, startling Donegan. He fell backwards, the pouch of berries in his hands. "Donegan, what are you doing?"
"Shit," he muttered, hoisting himself off of the ground and standing upright. "This isn't what it looks like."
"What were you going to do?" Cara snapped, instinctively already sliding her hand down her leg and reaching for the knife strapped to her boot. "Were you going to poison me?"
"I… I…," Donegan stammered, his fingers tensing up, conspicuously looking at what surrounded him. There was no other weapon near him, only the berries in his hand. "Cara…"
"Save it," Cara snapped. "I'm not surprised."
Donegan regained his composure and didn't look so shocked anymore. Cara caught him red-handed. He didn't look so confused because he regretted what he was about to do, it was because he got caught. He was trying to kill her; he didn't have to explicitly say it.
"This alliance was destined to fail once that gong sounded," Donegan explained. "We lost Amias and Rhea. It was never supposed to be just you and me."
"So, you were going to kill me? Why not just run away in the middle of the night?"
"Why would I do that?" Donegan replied. "Killing you would mean one less competitor."
Cara and Donegan stared at each other. Donegan felt reassured by his decision; he wanted to kill her without having to exert any physical energy. At first, Cara felt offended, that Donegan would betray her in such a conniving and deceptive way. Then, she felt angry, as if she should've seen this coming. She remembered how she first felt about Donegan when they were first discussing their potential alliance.
Untrustworthy. Dangerous. Selfish.
Donegan proved to be all of those things.
Cara snapped out of her thoughts as Donegan spun around and sprinted through the trees, and although she wasn't sure what she would do when she caught up to him, she ran after him. They zig-zagged through the trees, grazing against the trunks of the birch trees as they jumped in between them, and as Donegan's pace started to slow down, Cara pumped her arms, picking up speed. With every stride, the frustration boiled inside of her. She was angry. She let her guard down. She was naive to think that Donegan wouldn't try to kill her.
Cara caught up to him, gripping the knife tightly, and with a swift motion, swung the knife upwards. The blade buried deep in Donegan's lower back, and he shouted out in pain, toppling forwards. On his way down, Cara pulled out her knife, and Donegan lied on his stomach, moaning. She opened her mouth to speak, but she was speechless. She did it out of self-defense.
He was going to kill me.
Donegan reached out his hand, grabbing onto a nearby tree, his arms shaking as he tried to pull himself up. His hand slipped on the ice, and he fell forward, his face burying in the snow. He lifted his head up, spitting out the snow, and with every ounce of strength in his body, flipped himself over. Cara stared down at him, watching the blood seep out of him and into the snow. The circle of blood around his body grew larger by the second, staining the snow around him, and Cara took a step backwards. Donegan's mouth was wide open, his hot breath hitting the frigid air, and slowly, the small puffs of mist gradually faded away.
Donegan was writhing in pain, she raised the knife in the air, and brought it down into his chest not as a way to end his suffering – not like Ciana – but in self-defense. She had to kill him, rather than leaving him there to bleed out, to potentially receive a sponsor gift that he would use. He could come after her. The blade pierced his skin, cracking through the bones in his chest. His eyes were wide open, staring up at the sky, and Cara winced at the sound of his cannon. Her grip on the knife loosened, her fingers starting to tingle and feel numb, but she clenched them tightly around the knife's handle and yanked it out of Donegan's chest.
Cara killed. Twice. First Ciana. Then Donegan. She saw Ciana as a choice – she killed her out of mercy, to end the pain and suffering she was enduring – but she didn't see Donegan as a choice. She had to kill him. He exposed himself as an ally that was willing to kill his only surviving ally. If she wanted to live, to keep her chances of surviving and winning high, she had to kill him. She knew she had to kill Ciana too, even if it was for different reasons.
If she wanted to return to District Eleven, she knew it wouldn't end there.
She'd have to kill again. And maybe again.
It wouldn't end until she was crowned victor.
Denali Felder
District Eight, 16 Years Old
The owl squawked and came tumbling down the tree, flapping its wings as it implanted into the snow. Renour scooped it up, brushing snow over the blood from the owl with his foot, and yanked the knife out of it. He held the owl out towards Denali, and she looked away, scrunching her nose.
"Now we have dinner for tonight," Renour said, the look on Denali's face not matching his enthusiasm; food was food in the arena, and Renour couldn't afford to be picky. "What? You don't have owls in District Eight?"
"No," Denali replied. "Is District Two their natural habitat?"
Renour shook his head. "Nope. I just figured they'd live in an exotic place like Eight."
Renour plucked the owl's white wings speckled with gray patches, tossing them to the side, and gripped the knife and began to skin it. Denali stared at him, mesmerized with every motion as he dragged the blade down the owl, tearing off the white skin to reveal its bloody, pink insides. The owl's beady eyes stared back at Denali, and although it disturbed her, she couldn't look away. Renour placed the owl meat on their makeshift fire, flipping it over after a few minutes, letting both sides cook through.
She couldn't believe this was her new life; eating owl with a random boy from District Two in the freezing cold. The ragtag team of allies – the son of a District Twelve victor, the estranged District Two Career with a target on his back, and the hoity-toity social climber from District Eight – was down a member, and this was all she was left with.
When it was finished cooking, Renour passed her a piece of the meat. Denali had to spark a conversation before the sight of the bloody owl made her throw up the crackers she ate that morning. They were gross enough as is to eat and she doubted they would taste any better the second time.
"I know nothing about you," Denali said, closing her eyes as she sunk her teeth into the slab of owl meat. She winced at the texture and chewiness of the meat, moving her tongue around her mouth to find any tiny pieces of bones. "All Beau did was talk about himself, so I knew everything about him, but you… you're a mystery."
"A mystery that you jumped into an alliance with," Renour replied, smirking at the look of repulsion on Denali's face as she sniffed the slab of meat. "You don't like it?"
"It could use some lemon, maybe some rosemary," Denali said, her lips trembling as she tried to force a smile on her face while she was chewing. She did not like owl meat. "I still feel it's beady eyes watching me."
"Pop 'em out," Renour said with a laugh. There was something about Renour that fascinated, that perplexed, Denali. "Just kidding. In the academy they taught us that we should expect to eat like the District folk when we're in the arena."
There was a lot to unpack there.
"First of all, we do not eat owls in Eight," Denali replied, forcing her tone to change, to not sound so harsh. She was offended by his assumption that she's classless, but she reminded herself that it was just a joke. He wasn't actually questioning her social status. "You mentioned an academy. What's that like?"
"Well, it has four walls, a roof," Renour began, and Denali rolled her eyes. "Fine. It's similar to the training center in the Capitol. Nothing special."
Nothing special. Training for the Hunger Games was nothing special to Renour.
"When did you start training?"
"On my twelfth birthday," Renour replied, raising an eyebrow at the shocked and confused expression on Denali's face. "That's when most kids in Two start. What did you do when you were twelve? Learn how to skin and prepare an owl?"
The ongoing joke was tasteless and insensitive. Denali never ate owl, nor would she ever have to. Denali lived a life of luxury in District Eight – or she lived adjacent to a life of luxury. Not for too much longer, though. Once she won the Hunger Games, her wealth and power would surpass the Harker's.
"School," Denali replied, racking the snippets of her childhood memories to provide a better answer. She was more interesting than just school. "Oh. I met my boyfriend when I was twelve."
"Ah, the mysterious boyfriend," Renour replied. "I've heard you mention him a few times to Beau."
Denali giggled. "There's just so much to say!"
"What's he like?"
"He's nice."
"Nice," Renour repeated. "He sounds like a great guy."
Denali mentally moved on from talking about her boyfriend. She didn't want to think about District Eight, about the gossip circulating from one townhouse to another on Nero's street. She imagined Nero's parents were her biggest supporters, albeit there was no sponsor gift to prove it, but she wasn't so sure Nero was rooting for her.
"You know Georgia from the academy, right?"
Renour choked on the piece of owl he was chewing. "Unfortunately."
"What was she like?"
"Where do I begin?" Renour said, leaning back against a tree, resting his hands on top of his head. He was much easier to handle, to talk to, unlike Beau who was so self-absorbed that Denali couldn't even hold a conversation about the weather with.
Denali eagerly listened as Renour divulged the gossip, the rumors, the things said behind her back. Soon, she'd be able to repeat these things to the Capitol at her victor's interview as they watched the recaps of her Hunger Games. She'd watch this intimate, heartfelt moment that she was having Renour with a tear in her eye. She wouldn't miss her time in the Capitol, since she would've preferred to avoid all of it altogether, but she'll cherish it to some extent.
Miss was a meaningless word to Denali. People come and they go, just like Beau. Just like Renour, eventually. Denali wasn't going anywhere, though. Denali was going to win, to be the victor. Her life as it was – plus her aspirations, her goals, her potential – were too important.
Denali had a reason to win.
She couldn't fall short of reaching a higher pedestal.
Everett Landry
District Three, 18 Years Old
It was a new day.
Everett spent the night questioning who he was. His integrity. What he stood for. Everett had strong morals – never pick on the weak, respect your elders, to never be like the bullies that tormented in school – but those were seemingly disregarded once he stepped foot into the arena. Despite what Kit said, Everett was convinced he killed Beau. He shuddered at the thought of him lying in the ice, bleeding out, moaning in pain, crying out for help. Within seconds of the Hunger Games, he turned into the exact person he swore he would never become. According to his actions, his morals meant nothing to him, even though he still convinced himself he abided by them.
It was a new day, and his allies were still alive, but Everett felt like an entirely new person.
The Hunger Games turned him into an unrecognizable, an unfathomable, version of himself.
"Pass me the backpack," Kit said, and Everett tossed the bag, and when it landed in the snow at her feet, she glared at him. "Snap out of it, Everett."
"I passed you the damn backpack," Everett snapped, and Kit had to clench her jaw to suppress her anger with him, resisting the urge to snap back. "What's his problem today?"
"He's actually injured," Kit replied. "He has an actual issue at hand, unlike you who won't stop nagging and whining about who knows what."
"I'm a murderer," Everett said. "Doesn't that scare you?"
"No," Kit deadpanned. "The fact that Gunnar could die scares me. The fact that you might drive me insane if you don't stop talking scares me."
Everett huffed. "There's a few ointments in the bag. Pick one that'll shut him up."
"Thanks for your help," Kit replied sarcastically. There were a few white tubes of ointment in the backpack, all with different colored caps. Kit flipped each of them over, looking for more information on what it contained, but there was nothing. She held them up in front of her. "Any idea what these might be?"
"No," Everett said. "I'm not a medic. Gunnar, which one do you think it is?"
Gunnar groaned, bringing his knees up to his chest. He wrapped his arms around himself, his words coming out as short, pained moans. His wound got worse overnight, looking more bruised and infected, and Kit's makeshift bandage and whatever ointment she put on him didn't work as well as she thought it would.
"I used the yellow one yesterday," Kit mumbled to herself, stuffing the yellow-capped tube back inside of the backpack. "Red or purple… Red or purple..."
Everett covered his hands over his ears, not wanting to listen to Kit talking to herself about what color tube would be better than the yellow. Everett didn't care. Gunnar was dying and any attempt to heal his wound was futile. Caspian's knife lodged deep inside of Gunnar's shoulder and there was no point in trying to help him. Neither of them were trained medics.
"Red or purple?" she asked, holding them in front of Everett's face while Gunnar continued to moan in the background. The sound of Kit's grating voice and Gunnar's incessant mumbles were frustrating – were boiling – Everett.
"Purple!" he shouted back, the rage in his voice evident, and frantically, Kit twisted the purple cap off of the tube and squeezed it all over Gunnar's shoulder. As soon as she did it, she knew she did something wrong.
Gunnar shrieked in pain. Everett snapped his head around to see Gunnar clawing at his skin as the color of the wound distorted, the unpleasant yellow and green blotches making him nearly sick to his stomach. Beau's face – his bloody, beat up face – flashed through his mind again. Kit was stuttering over her words, unsure of what to say or do, watching Gunnar yelp and scream in pain, digging his nails into the wound.
"What did you do?!" Everett shouted, jumping to his feet and pushing her to the side. "Kit!"
"You… you told me to use the purple one," Kit stammered.
"You should've known better!" Everett quipped. "You're the genius!"
The skin around Gunnar's shoulder started to bubble up, oozing out a thick yellow pus, and Everett covered his mouth as he watched the greenish and yellowish colors spread throughout the rest of Gunnar's skin.
"Kit!" Everett shouted, but Kit was silent. "Kit! Get water!"
Kit hurriedly grabbed one of their canisters and twisted it open, pouring it all over Gunnar's skin, but it simply slid off of him and dripped onto the ground. Everett bent down and forcefully tore the rest of Gunnar's thermal shirt off of him, exposing the rest of his torso, and when he saw that the rest of his skin was turning that putrid color and oozing pus, Everett crawled backwards.
"Gunnar," Everett mumbled. "Kit… Gunnar…"
"You were yelling at me!" Kit screamed, pointing her finger at Everett. "You told me to use the purple one! I had no idea what it was!"
It's not my fault… not like Beau…
Kit weeped, burying her face in her hands, tears streaming down her face. Everett stared at Gunnar, his hunched over body lying in the snow, neither one of them knowing what comes next, but the sound of a cannon told them all they needed to know. Apparently, Kit wasn't as smart as she thought she was. Everett's morals weren't as strong and meaningful as he thought they were. The two of them weren't as reliable, as smart, as Gunnar thought they were.
Gunnar was dead.
And it was Kit's fault, not Everett's.
They both had blood on their hands.
Cleo Halston
District One, 18 Years Old
The cannon sounding in the distance didn't disturb the Careers' conversation. To them, it was simply another tribute that died. All of their allies were accounted for, so they knew it wasn't one of them. The death was meaningless and went unnoticed. To Cleo, though, every cannon sounded meant that her time was ticking to implement the plan she devised; first, she had to recruit Caspian and Nereida, and then, she'd be able to… well, she was still figuring out the details.
"Are we above water?" Caspian asked, tapping the tip of his spear into the ice. "Let's find out."
Caspian lightly tapped the layer of ice with the tip of the spear, slowly chipping away at it. He poked it again, digging deeper into the ice, and eventually, he poked all the way through to the water beneath it. He nodded and murmured something to himself, and with the heel of his boot, he kicked the ice in more and cleared away the ice around the edges of the hole. He dipped his spear into the hole, swirling it around in the water, and pulled it out.
"Yep, that's water," Caspian said, leaning forward to look down into the hole. Caspian squinted his eyes, plunging his spear down into the water. He retracted his arm, and after two more attempts, the spear pierced something by the look on Caspian's face. "And there's fish!"
Caspian pulled out his spear, grabbing the flailing fish by the tail. He pulled it off, the fish flapping back and forth in his hand, and Cleo winced as Caspian squeezed it. He sat on the ground, and Nereida joined him, and reluctantly, Cleo joined too. Caspian sliced the fish in half, descaling the skin of the thick slabs of meat and flicking away the fragments of bone. Caspian and Nereida were both nearly licking their lips, drooling as Caspian passed Nereida some of it. He cut a smaller piece off of his piece, sliding it across the ice to Cleo, leaving a slimy residue as it inched towards Cleo. The expression on her face told the pair from District Four that she was not going to eat dinner with them that night.
"What?" Caspian asked, swallowing the fish and raising an eyebrow.
"Are you eating raw fish?" Cleo replied, swallowing the bile rising in her throat.
"Yeah," Caspian replied. "Want some?"
"Absolutely not," Cleo snapped, shaking her head. Cleo ate fish, but only when it was wrapped in a leafy green or on top of a bed of rice. She missed the Halston's personal chef more than anything else from District One. "I don't eat that."
"So," Cleo whispered, nodding her head towards Hardy and Georgia who were also eating their dinner. "I have a plan."
"If it includes recruiting an outlier," Caspian said. "I'm out."
"No," Cleo replied. "It includes a certain outlier, though."
"You want to kill Hardy?" Nereida asked. Cleo wanted the two of them to stop interrupting her.
"I want to kill both of them," Cleo said firmly, Caspian and Nereida freezing mid-bite, looking at her. "Tomorrow."
"During the day?" Nereida asked. "Why not do it while they're sleeping?"
"They're not stupid," Cleo replied. "They don't sleep at the same time, so we need to lure them away from each other."
"Go on," Caspian said, moaning as he swallowed the last piece of fish. He licked his fingers clean and threw the carcass to the side. Repulsive.
"Tomorrow, we go hunting like the Careers we are," Cleo gushed, speaking quickly, excited to finally inform them of her plan. "If Hardy wants to be a Career so badly, then let's give him the full Career experience."
"You don't think they'll want to go together?" Nereida asked, and Cleo nodded. It was a fair question.
"Caspian's his idol," Cleo explained. "He's everything Hardy wants to be and more, so Caspian will go with him, and Nereida, you will go with Georgia."
"And what will you do?" Nereida retorted. That was also a fair question.
"Guard the Cornucopia," Cleo replied matter-of-factly. "We can't leave all of this unsupervised."
The other tributes scattered around the arena desperately wanted what the Careers had. Cleo might not have had a stable alliance, or any kills to pat herself on the back for, but she had supplies. It was something that others wanted but couldn't have, and that was enough for Cleo. She was still relevant in the Hunger Games simply for their proclaimed ownership of the Cornucopia.
"Are you sure that's it?" Caspian asked. "Or do you not want to get your hands dirty?"
"I would, but it would be too suspicious," Cleo replied. She had it all figured out. "Hardy will only spend time with you, Caspian, and Georgia at least tolerates Nereida. If I suggested to Georgia that only the two of us go hunting, she'd know something was off."
That's what she told herself, at least. Subconsciously, however, she wanted everything to work in her favor without actually putting in any effort. It was like one of those pesky group projects in class that she didn't want to contribute anything to but still wanted to receive a perfect grade. The Hunger Games were that simple to Cleo.
Caspian and Nereida nodded; Cleo had a point. Nereida knew betraying Georgia and willingly fighting her was a risk, but, based on Cleo's training score of eight and her performance in the training center and thus far in the arena, Nereida began to doubt Cleo's abilities. If Cleo was the one to distract Georgia, taking her somewhere deep into the forest around the lake, Nereida doubted that Cleo would return.
"Well, you two better eat up! Big day ahead of us tomorrow!" Cleo chirped, poking the skin and bones of the leftover fish with her foot. "You don't actually enjoy that, right?"
"I do," Caspian said, his lips crusted with saliva and fish juice, and Nereida nodded in agreement. "Reminds me of home."
The two from District Four were odd, like walking-cliches. They were proficient at swimming, and apparently, fishing too. There was always something about the water-born tributes from District Four that Cleo found fascinating; District Four wasn't like the cookie-cutter boulevards of District One, with buildings made of marble and sidewalks lined with planters of bright-colored flowers. District Four was more natural, more green and blue.
But, Cleo hated the outdoors. The sweat, the bugs, the sun beating down on her. Maybe that's why she found District Four so foreign. It was an odd place that produced odd tributes, but they were smart and strong, and if all went according to plan, they would be the only remaining members left in the Career pack. Once Georgia, and Hardy by association, were gone, Cleo would be in charge.
Soon, it would be Cleo's Hunger Games.
Orion Adarna
District Seven, 16 Years Old
Orion wandered aimlessly around the arena.
He couldn't concentrate on anything. The cold, his lack of supplies, his numb fingers and toes, his ice-bitten nose… none of that mattered to Orion. He thought of Ciana, her face in the sky, among the other dead children. He didn't know anything about them besides their names – who they were, what their District was like, what their deepest, darkest secret was. He didn't know what they wanted to be in life once they turned nineteen years old, out of reach of the Capitol.
The Capitol willingly killed their youth. The future of their country. None of it made sense to him.
There was nothing Orion could do that would make anything of it seem normal. There was no excuse for what the Capitol was doing – making the Districts pay for their role in the Dark Days, sacrificing their own children was utter bullshit. Now that he was in the arena, and now that he made it to day two, he realized there was nothing to live for in Panem, not even the Hunger Games. Orion didn't want to win; if he did, he'd be feeding into the system he opposed. The system that killed Ciana. That killed all of the other faces in the sky. The system that would soon kill him too, victor or not.
There was no purpose to life in Panem. In District Seven, he used to enjoy life by taking one day at a time as if tomorrow wasn't guaranteed, just like the other tributes. Orion wanted there to be a tomorrow, just like Ciana and all of the other tributes. He wanted there to be a tomorrow, but at what cost? For what purpose? Would he lose his mental sanity as he tried to safeguard his own future?
It was all so fucked up.
Somehow, winning seemed worse than dying.
The weather seemed to get significantly colder as if the Gamemakers had some way of knowing what Orion was thinking. Orion imagined a Gamemaker in a control room somewhere far away in the Capitol, turning a dial to make the weather drop so drastically. Adjusting a knob to unleash the muttations. Hitting a button to sound a cannon after a tribute's death. The Gamemakers enjoyed watching them suffer. Watching them squirm.
Orion was adamant on not giving them the satisfaction they craved. He continued walking, dragging his shivering body through the snow as every part of him twitched at the dropping temperatures. It was cold, but Orion couldn't let them know that he was freezing his ass off. That's what they wanted to see, but that wasn't the show Orion would perform for them. He might have had no purpose in life and he saw no purpose in winning the Games, but that wouldn't stop him from doing whatever he wanted to do. If he was going to die, he was going to die on his own terms.
He held his middle finger to the sky.
Fuck the Capitol. Fuck Panem.
Avena Raiden
District Nine, 14 Years Old
Avena tossed and turned inside of her sleeping bag.
As Avena stared up at the bright moon and the twinkling stars high in the sky, she, once again, tried to fall asleep, tightly closing her eyes, but they snapped right back open. She was kept awake by her mind being flooded with thoughts and her chest feeling like it was caving in from feeling so useless, so guilty.
From feeling like a burden.
Avena sat up, digging her fingers into the snow and scooping up a handful of it. She clenched her hands into a fist, a tingling sensation shooting through her fingers and palm. She slid the sleeping bag off of her and started rolling it up and then grabbed her backpack and clipped the sleeping bag onto the back of it, bringing the straps around her.
Avena couldn't sleep during the first night in the arena, either. She considered the idea of leaving him the night prior, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. After the second day, though, she felt even more inclined to do so. Aedan had to physically carry her on his back as they trekked around the arena, watching as he dug in the snow to find sustenance. Water and fruit were hard to come by, and when they did find it, Aedan gave most of his portion to Avena.
He was sacrificing himself – his health, his well-being – for her. She was a burden.
So, she had to leave, for his sake.
Avena was going to miss Aedan, but she was doing it for him. She hoped he would understand that.
With shaky hands, she unclipped the blue ribbon from her hair. She held it in her hands, wrapping her fingers around it, hoping that her mother would understand as well. Avena's mother bought it for her, but Avena wanted Aedan to have it as a way of remembering Avena. She wanted to leave a piece of her with him. Then, if he won, he could return to Avena's family. Avena truly believed he could win; he resembled the other victors from District Nine. Older, taller, stronger than some of the younger tributes sent from District Nine, like Avena. She couldn't see herself as a victor, but that didn't mean she didn't want to be the victor; she wanted to win more than anything. She wanted to win, to return to her family, to have all of the money the Capitol raves about.
To never have to worry about anything ever again. To buy all of the colorful, Capitol-esque dresses she saw in the windows of the shopping corridor in District Nine. She shook her head, reminding herself to be modest, to not be so wishful. To not be so naive.
Avena wasn't stupid. In fact, she was the opposite of stupid; she was thinking realistically and practically. She enjoyed, and missed, her time in the Capitol, but she only let herself indulge in it to distract her from what was to come, and now that she was in the arena, she knew she had to prepare for what was to come next. Avena wasn't going to give up, to just lay down and die. Avena was still going to try, but alone. She didn't want her life to weigh on Aedan's shoulders anymore.
Avena placed her blue ribbon next to Aedan as he slept. He was wrapped in his sleeping bag, resting his head on his backpack, his curly dark red hour speckled with snow. Avena watched him breathe in and out, his chest heaving, and knew it was the right thing to do. She took a step backwards and turned around.
She walked forward and although she wanted to run back, to lie down next to him and fall asleep… she couldn't.
She was doing this for him, so he could win.
Goodbye, Aedan. I'll miss you.
I hope you'll miss me too.
Donegan Ward, District Ten – Placed 17th
Gunnar Altman, District Five – Placed 16th
Author's Note:
Sorry for the delay with this chapter! By now, I'm sure everyone has seen something about the protests happening across the United States. I have not been able to sit down and think about FF tbh. I live in Washington, DC, and besides everything that's happening in the city, work has been hectic this week.
Fanfiction is an odd platform for this but I feel inclined to say something. What's happening is not unique to the US, it's a worldwide issue as we can see by protests happening in a lot of different countries and cities. Regardless of where you live, it's soooo important to stay up-to-date with current events and educate yourself, to vote, to donate if you can, to show up to protests or rallies if you're comfortable doing so, to post on social media, to have difficult and uncomfortable conversations with your friends, family, or random people on Facebook, to sign petitions or send emails. Do whatever you can because it all makes a difference!
*steps off of my soapbox*
I forgot to mention the last chapter, but POV length will start to vary. I want to make sure we touch base with every remaining tribute each chapter, so some POVs will be shorter than others. As you can see, I also switched back to individual third-person POVs.
A Career showdown is inevitable, so what are your predictions for what will happen?
ANYWAY. That's enough from Cashmere67. See you later y'all.