From the Perspective of Finnick Odair
The mutts look like skinny horses. They have scaly skin and forked tongues that flicker in and out like snake's tongues. The mutts have four soulless black eyes. I can see their ribs poking through their sickly green skin. The muttations have no mane or tail like a horse and their teeth are like a shark's. They look like demon-horses.
"Iggy!" I scream. One mutt has Iggy's wing in his devilish teeth and one of its graying hoofs on his wing. It yanks its head backwards and Iggy cries out in pain. I can see the joint of the wing being ripped out of its socket. Iggy howls in pain again and claws at the ground. I have to get Iggy, I think. I seize my trident and leap down from the Cornucopia. I hit the ground running. Tears spring from Iggy's eyes. I ram into the mutt attacking Iggy. It falls over and hisses angrily, kicking out. One of its hoofs hits Iggy's head and blood begins to flow. I thrust my trident into the abomination's chest. It goes limp. I lean down to help Iggy up, but he is unconscious, blood is still seeping through his strawberry-blonde hair. Another mutt leaps at me, its tongue flickers out between its sharp teeth. The new mutt rears up to kick me. I stab it in the neck and it falls onto one of its comrades. I grab Iggy's shirt and unceremoniously drag him to the Cornucopia. I shove him onto the top of it and I begin to climb up it.
I collapse on the top of the Cornucopia. Fighting the mutts had reopened the wound on my arm. I look up. The boy from eleven is standing over me. Blood is trickling out of the wound he gave me. The boy looks pretty bad. He has cuts all over his body and a black eye. He realizes that I'm the guy he almost killed and his eyes light up in a horrible way. I squeeze my eyes shut because the last image I want to see is not my killer's face. I am in no shape to fight. I'm weak and bloodied.
"Say goodbye, Four" he sneers behind my closed eyelids. I can imagine his arm rising to hit me over the head. I wince, waiting for the blow. I hear the boy wheeze out and I open my eyes. The boy from eleven is standing over me. His eyes are round and they fix on me for a second and he tries to say something. All that comes out is a small grunt. He falls backward and lands with a THUMP! On the Cornucopia. A BOOM! Tells me that he is dead.I stare, how did he die? Then I see it, a long, deadly, barbed quill protruding from his blood-spattered chest. Behind him, a mutt has its tail above its head like a scorpion. A quill shoots out of its tail, but its aim was too low and the quill lodges itself in one of the gold ridges on the Cornucopia. I slam onto the ground as another barb whizzes over my head and a spike re-grows in its place on the mutt's tail.
A girl yelps somewhere in the moonlight. "Get down!" A boy answers. A figure is pulled onto the ground and I realize it is the pair from Seven. I somehow climbed the Cornucopia with my trident the second time and I grab it in the dark. It takes a second for the spikes to re-grow on his tail. I jump up as soon as that second comes. My right shoulder rotates backward and my hand grips the trident tight. Then, like a spring, my arm shoots forward. The trident flies from my fingers. My entire torso swivels. My left leg lifts off of the ground and follows my hips. The momentum from my entire body propels the trident forward. It finds its mark and lodges itself deep in the mutt's neck. The mutt screeches in pain and rears backward. It kicks out and falls onto a different mutt. The muttations begin to fight with each other and I crouch near Iggy.
"Okay," I think out loud. I'm trying to calm myself down. I need to help Iggy. "Its okay Finnick. He doesn't look so bad."
"He looks bad." A girls voice says behind me. I flinch and whip my head around. A girl with messy muddy-brown hair is standing above me. In a smooth movement she leans down next to Iggy. She has large dark eyes, the trademark look of everyone from District Seven. A boy stands next to her with a rat's nest of black hair and, of course, large dark eyes.
"You better take a step back or I will kill you," I growl menacingly. The effect I want doesn't work very well because I am pale from lack of blood and I feel almost to weak to move. If I was sitting I would not be able to get up very fast.
The boy puts his hands over his head in a sign of peace. "We're against this slaughter. We won't hurt you. Nitya is a healer in Seven. She is going to help your friend. We won't hurt you." He sounds incredibly honest.
I nod. "Sorry Nitya, right?" I slouch a bit in relief. Nitya gives me a small nod without looking at me. She is pressing on Iggy's chest and then mutters something about his ribs being whole and how strong they must be. It sounds a bit crazy to me because Iggy is skinny and doesn't look very strong. "He has wings by the way." She nods as if the fact of his wings doesn't matter.
"My name is Leonis Alary and Nitya's last name is Aldjoy. We're from District Seven. Nitya heals people and I chop trees. We met when a tree fell on my leg and we became friends. Then we became more than friends." Nitya's pale face blushes in the moonlight, but Leonis smiles brightly.
"I'm Finnick. So Iggy is going to live, right?" I ask. My mind races, please say yes. Please say yes.
"Well," she says carefully. Oh no, my eyes widen. "He will not survive in the arena. If he was in the Capitol he would, but since he's not… I'm sorry. He will not live for long." I fall onto my knees and Leonis puts his hand on my shoulder. Wait, if he is in the Capitol… My hand slowly creeps to a quill stuck deep inside the golden horn. If I can get Iggy to the Capitol he would live. But that would mean I would have to kill myself. I'm torn, but I know one thing. Leonis and Nitya have to die to keep Iggy alive.
"Hey Leonis…" I say. My hand pulls the barb out of its hole silently.
"Yeah?" he answers. I grip my makeshift weapon tighter and I shift my centre of weight. I will be moving a lot really soon and I can't fall over. That could kill me and Iggy.
Leonis realizes what I'm doing fast. His eyes widen and he begins to move backward. I pounce on him. Nitya shouts in alarm. Leonis is on the ground and I pin his shoulders down with my knees. I raise the spike above my head, I need this hit to count. I shove it deep into his chest. BOOM! Nitya leaps at me and pushes me off of him. She is on me in a second, screaming bloody murder at the top of her lungs. She hits me in the stomach, but it barely hurts. I kick her in the face and her nose begins to bleed. She falls onto the ground face-first. She pushes herself up. Her hair is slick with blood and tears. She looks at me with her dark eyes. They peer into my soul. They see my thoughts and how I hate myself for killing Leonis. Her eyes see look at my broken heart and soul. They see how I cried after I was chosen and no cameras were on me. They see my thoughts about every girl that has ever flirted with me. They see how I feel about the odd girl I met swimming at night.
"Finnick" she says softly. I look at her, crouched on the ground in the dark like a baby animal, a helpless girl whose love was just killed. She reminds me of Valencia in a way. I stare at her. "Please kill me." My face must have registered my astonishment because she explained. "I don't know why you killed Leonis, but I can't live without him. He is everything. I need him to actually live my life. I need him." Her eyes are pleading me to kill her. I can't kill her, I know I can't, but my hand still reaches for the quill sticking out of Leonis' chest. I stare at it in my hand. It seems part of the night. The blood glitters in the little light and it's so thin, I couldn't imagine it killing someone. "Finnick?" she says. Her voice is sweet and pure. It squeaks some from her tears and pain, but it is beautiful. I look up. Nitya has silently jumped from he Cornucopia to the ground. She moves gently and with her large eyes and soft feet she reminds me of a deer. I will never be able to kill her. She walks to the muttation I recently killed without hesitation. She leans towards its face and touches the scaly cheek as if comforting it. She pulls my trident out of its neck and wipes away the small river of blood that leaks from the wound. She methodically stands and cleans my trident on the grass. She climbs up the Cornucopia and walks to Leonis' body. She stands over him and then, without a word, she raises the trident and pushes it through her chest. I catch her as she falls and I lay her down next to Leonis. She is almost gone, but she gives me a true smile. As she leaves the arena forever, a single tear drifts down her cheek and she closes her eyes. I blink away a few of my own tears.
"Goodbye" I whisper to the pair from Seven. I hear the now-familiar BOOM! A hovercraft comes to take them away and I turn my attention to Iggy. I kneel next to his body and put my hand over his heart. A faint thumping gives me relief.
"Just hang on, Iggy. Just hang on, you're going to be home soon." I brush a piece of hair out o his eyes. His eyes that used to not see. He never saw his sisters or brothers. Never. A tear is onto my lashes. It drops onto Iggy's shirt and leaves a dark stain. I stand and pick up my trident. I stare at the arena. The sun is rising and throwing streaks of pink across the bloody grass. The Cornucopia gleams and the water reflects the pink sky. I stand over Iggy. His wings wrap around his body and his knees are pulled toward his chest. His eyes are closed lightly and his hair is like a halo around his head. He is an angel. He is an angel fallen from the heavens and sent to keep me sane in this blood bath. My trident feels to heavy for me to hold. It would be so easy to kill him, to put him out of his pain. He wouldn't fight. I would win. I could see the ocean again. It would be so simple just to push it through his lungs or heart or neck. I could do it, but I would never be able to live. My life would be full of sadness. I would hate myself. Iggy's life would be full of sadness if I killed myself for him. He would feel regret for me, I know that much. He can lie, but I know how he feels. I think, Twenty-four come in to the arena, but one must come out.
I lift my trident high and let it fall into Iggy's chest. I close my eyes and hear the cannon. I hear a Gamemaker saying how I won. I won by killing my friend. I won by killing my guardian angel.
From the Perspective of Iggy Griffiths
I snap upward. I can almost feel the trident pushing into my chest. A scream leaks out of my mouth. I blink. I blink again, but see nothing. No Finnick, no arena, no mutts. Not anything. Not even the sky. All I see is black.
"Iggy." Jeb's voice says soothingly. "Are you okay?" Tears begin to slide down my cheeks. I'm at the Institute. I know it. I'm also blind. "Do you know where you are?" His voice is soft, but not like Finnick's voice. Finnick's voice that was strong and caring. "You're at the Institute." Even though I knew this I still hate to hear it. I whimper. "Do you know what is real and what was fake?" I hate him. I hate what he is going to say. "The Institute is real, but the Hunger Games is not. There is no Finnick. There is no Phox or Valencia or Terra or Rupalia. They were all fake. They were all tests. You could never see because your eyesight was fake." For some reason it hurts more to know that Finnick never existed, compared to knowing I could never see. I hate Jeb. I want to talk to Finnick. I want to hear his voice. I want to know he is alive, even though he never was. But I can't ever see him. Never.