In his last moments, Enjolras finds that Perpetue is the one with him.
The porcelain-washed walls of the bare room they're in offers not a single semblance of comfort. As Enjolras loosens the collar around the outfit assigned to him - it's a standard outfit assigned to all tributes, Perpetue explains - he finds that it's not his clothes but the small space that's suffocating. There's nothing to look at but a solitary cylinder that shoots up to what is, Enjolras can assume, the arena.
"Find water." Perpetue advises as she ushers Enjolras nervously in to the contraption. She's eyeing it distastefully, and something occurs to Enjolras only then. "You don't agree with this, don't you?" he asks, and the way her eyes widen answers his question in the way her silence would never. "You're all still so young." she says instead. Her voice is low, quivering; Enjolras wonders how she is capable of so much emotion. He had never been particularly nice to her, and the thought of how empathetic she is getting over his departure has him adding another thing to be guilty of. (An ever-growing list, he thinks bitterly.) "And that boy, Gavroche..."
"I'll keep him safe." Enjolras answers on impulse. The smallest of smiles tug at Perpetue's sad face, but there is still a great deal of skepticism in her eyes. "Find water." Perpetue repeats. "Clean, fresh water. And do not eat anything you are not familiar with. What a shame it would be, to die because of a couple of berries instead of at the hands of a worthy comrade."
This makes Enjolras laughs. He's pleasantly surprised that he's able to find humor in such a dire situation, and that Perpetue is capable of cracking a joke worthy of a chuckle. Their happiness is short-lived; a low sound hums through the room, and whatever hint of hilarity was in Perpetue is promptly drained. "Quick. In to the tube." she says urgently, and Enjolras lets himself get ushered in to the cylinder. The glass doors of the chamber snap shut, and as the floor beneath him starts to hurtle upward, Enjolras commits to his memory the last thing he sees of the world that had failed him - Perpetue, white-faced but determined. The face of rebellion.
/
The metal plate pushes Enjolras out of the cylinder, and he finds himself squinting. The sun is shining directly in his eyes - he's able to identify a distinctly sulfur-like scent before the sound of Javert's voice jolts him to reality. "Messieurs and mesdames, welcome to the Hunger Games!"
Enjolras' eyes adjust, and he finds himself part of a loose ring. In the center of it all is what he'd been told was called the Cornucopia; a giant golden horn shaped liked a cone with a curved tail, the mouth of it spanning at least twenty feet high. Its mouth spills with things that can be used in the arena, everything from weaponry to food to protection. There are other materials strewn within their circle, decreasing in value the farther away it is from the center of the Cornucopia.
They have sixty seconds.
Atala had warned them not to step off of their plate until they're given the signal. If they were to not heed her instructions, the land mines - activated until the show formally begins - would blow them to smithereens. They would die even before the games had started.
Enjolras takes the sixty seconds to look around him. To his right is Joly, who is shaking so bad that Enjolras is afraid he will fall off of his plate. Joly's eyes dart wildly around his surroundings, and the unfamiliarity of it all is sure to be the cause of Joly's nerves - he was probably already thinking of all the possible strains of bacteria that such an alien place would bring him. Enjolras tries to survey the arena to the best that he can.
Beneath their plates is what was probably once smooth grey concrete, now dotted with pioneering weeds. The ground bellows with dust and spiderweb-like cracks span across the expanse. All around them seems to be the remains of a city that once was - crumbling buildings and empty roads, abandoned homes and quiet streets. What strikes Enjolras is the faint smell of trees, and, even more indistinct, the scent of the ocean. He twists slightly on his plate and finds that, quite a distance behind him, is what seems to be a scatter of woods. Coastal woods, Enjolras believes - where else would the salty aroma come from?
A loud sound like a gunshot resonates throughout the arena, and for a moment, Enjolras' mind blanks.
The few seconds it takes for him to decide where to run - to the Cornucopia for supplies, to the city for shelter, to the woods for resources - is all it takes for Joly to scuttle away in to the disintegrating town, and Gavroche - who Enjolras hadn't noticed was at his left - to bolt straight in to the heart of the Cornucopia.
As Enjolras' feet pound against the concrete and lead him to the Cornucopia, he catches glimpses, flashes. Grantaire's curls running past the bounty and straight in to the city; Bossuet's arm shooting out to grab a tent pack just as Gueulemer reaches for it. Enjolras flinches as he watches Bossuet get effortlessly thrown back by the buff Gueulemer. He knows he ought to do something, but his feet are bolting in the opposite direction, his sights are set on a carbine propped against a bright red backpack. During the revolution, the carbine had been his choice of weapon; such a light automatic rifle would do the job, quick and quiet; and its presence seemed like a sign. Something Enjolras couldn't deny.
A trap.
Before he can take hold of the weapon, someone jerks him backward and spins him around. He feels a sharp sting across his face and he stumbles slightly to find Gibelote glaring up at him, face ugly with fury. "This is all your fault!" she screeches amidst all the chaos. She's clutching the front of Enjolras' shirt in one hand, and in the other, she holds a knife. It takes a horrifying moment for Enjolras to register that she had slashed at his face. "Gibelote," is all Enjolras manages to choke out before Gibelote raises the knife to his chest - only to be tackled off of him.
"Get out!" Éponine roars. She has Gibelote pinned underneath her; the barista is screaming bloody murder, but is unable to push off Éponine for all her scrawniness. There's a wild look in the Thénardiers' eyes; she is impossibly even more outraged than Gibelote. "Did you not hear me, bourgeois boy? GET OUT!"
Enjolras does as he's told without another word, making a mad grab for the carbine and the backpack near it. He doesn't turn back to thank Éponine or see what will happen to Gibelote; he makes a mad dash for the part of the city with the distant woods, slinging the two straps of his backpack over his shoulders and running for his life. A part of him wants to turn and survey the field - do damage control, as the Les Amis would have called it - but his blood is pounding in his ears, and he's afraid of what might happen if he stops, so he keeps going.
He ducks in and out and through the disintegrating buildings and deserted roads, only allowing himself to slow once he reaches the edge of the woods. From there, he begins to alternate between jogging and walking, daring himself to go as far as he can without pausing. Enjolras feels like he's been going for hours; he's not sure if he's ever run so much in his life; but he is too nerve-wracked to actually do anything besides occasionally look around to see if anyone had followed him and keep up with sprinting. When the sky peeking through the woods starts to take on a pale orange tint, he decides it's the safest he can get - he stops in a clearing and, after making sure no one is around, unpacks what he grabbed at the Cornucopia.
The red backpack contains a pack of saltine crackers, a box of matches, a thin blanket and a slingshot. Enjolras' heart skips a beat when he feels a waterskin at the bottom of the bag, only to find that it's empty. It's of no virtual use until he can find a water source. Perpetue's repetitive advice echoes in his head, and it only starts to make sense when the simplest signs of dehydration start to catch up on him - his cracking lips, his dried throat. He had been on the move for God knows how long.
Leaning against the bark of a nearby tree, Enjolras tries to even out his breathing. He wonders who has survived the day.
Tired, he drowses off for what he thinks is just a few minutes, disturbed only by the sound of a high-pitched whistle. He jolts awake to realize that the woods are eerily quiet, blanketed in the darkness of what can only be night; the sky above him lights up, and faces begin to appear.
A head shot of Madame Hucheloup flashes above, bathed in a bluish, holographic light. Next to her appears Bossuet's smirking face; and then, Gibelote's smug expression. Enjolras is not sure what this means until three chilling words appear under their photographs: repose en paix.
Rest in peace.