A/N: Edward. Doesn't. Die. Just to let you know, I don't want you to hate me when you get to a certain scene.
Also, I turn to melodrama a little later on. But it does have a purpose, believe it or not. And I got past writer's block! That's good, isn't it? I might actually be updating regularly sometime soon.
The Sunrise
It isn't dawn; not yet. But the Games wait for no one.
I detect her scent only a moment before she, the girl from District 7, comes into sight. She is flying at full speed. Edward and I should have run then; before we saw the wall of fire descending upon us. The girl from 8 is right behind her, tearing at her clothes and trying to extinguish the flames. They already lick at her hair and face. There is nothing we can do to help.
Flames lick up the trees and into their branches. My first instinct is to scramble away as fast as possible. I am not as fast as Edward. He is ahead of me by at least ten or twenty yards. I cough against the smoke and break into a sprint. I am not fast enough. Edward, still faster than I, snatches my hand and starts dragging me forward. "Come on!" he shouts, still moving much faster than I. I push off, bounding forward again. He catches the message and does the same.
The world morphs before my eyes. Trees become bonfires; snow becomes water and then steam. What's left of it condenses on my skin and in my eyes, half-blinding me. There are disadvantages to being cold. The ground flies underneath me, but we are still not quick enough. Flames flare along the ground. Are they driving us somewhere, or is this just for action? I wonder in a brief second. Another trail of fire makes a beeline for us, catching alight on dry grass. It moves too quickly, the angles are too sharp. This is no forest fire.
We come to a gorge, a deep crack of a river in the earth. It's lower on this side than the other side. We have to jump across. The girl from 7 bounds ahead of us and over it, but a pile of burning branches crackle and fall into our path. I halt, stuck between the wall of fire and the blockade. I could jump across, but up and across? The branches block my line of sight. How far is it to the other side? Edward leaps across without hesitation. The girl from 8, no longer on fire, is next.
Every sense I have goes into overdrive. Left behind. I scream as a cloud of embers sprays from above. The wall of fire comes closer, and my rag of a shirt catches. Shrieking, I bat at the heat. I can't hear over the roar of flames, and I certainly can't smell. There's too much smoke in the air for that. I don't need air, but I still gag. How do I get across? I see that the crack isn't quite as wide a little while down, but it's through the haze of flames.
Another branch falls in my direction. React or die. I grab the nearest and largest piece of wood I can and charge through the fire. The condensation evaporates into steam, and it scalds. My vision turns completely red, but I keep running until the crack is narrow enough for my liking. Edward shouts in protest from where he is. Branches and falling fire limit me. I don't have a choice. I hurdle over the fire and onto land. Not high enough. When my feet catch land, I let myself fall to meet it and roll.
I return to standing. The fire is gone. I glance around. My eyes sting, and their vision is still blurred. Edward finds me a second later. "Don't you ever do that again," he says under his breath. More branches are catching fire and falling. I grab his hand and run.
This is no campfire gone out of control, no accidental occurrence. We're immune to cold, the only reason for fire is death. No one has died since yesterday. There have been no cannons. The flames have unnatural uniformity, unnatural height; they are human-made, machine-made, Gamemaker-made. These are the vampiric Hunger Games, promised to be the most exciting one yet. The Capitol audience must be getting bored. These Games are verging on dullness. This is the one thing they must never, ever do.
It isn't hard to guess the Gamemakers' motivations. There aren't very many of us left, and this arena is vast. We are dispersed too thinly throughout the massive arena. The fire is designed to bring us closer together. To flush us out. It may not be the most original device, like the wolves and the dogs and the Mutts. But it is very, very, very effective. The one way to kill vampires, hurled right into our faces.
More embers, more flames... there is nothing green here. It's orange and red and swirling. I am moving, the world is moving, and suddenly I am beyond dizzy. There are too many sounds, too many smells, and, without sight, I can't process it all. Edward appears to be struggling, too. We have perfect equilibrium... until my senses start to contradict each other. My ears aren't working properly; there is a low rumbling in them that I must be imagining.
The flames are hot, and in a matter of minutes, my throat and nose are burning. The coughing begins soon afterwards. I do not need to breathe, but I also do not need or want burning embers and red-hot ash in my throat. My lungs feel like they are being cooked. The distress turns to discomfort, so I stop breathing altogether. But I have to cough, the searing pain is all-too much. I manage to take cover under a stone outcropping for a moment, my lungs still trying hard to expel the fire. But the distress becomes a burning pain.
Edward looks worse off than I do— or at least worse off than I feel. His hair is disheveled and slightly charred. I lift up a few strands of my own and it's the same. I wonder if it will ever grow back, but I don't have much time for speculation. We need to keep moving, it's only common sense. The Gamemakers will most definitely not give us a break. In their eyes, we don't need one. One minute, I tell myself. You get one minute to rest.
My muscles quiver with the fury— the same unfamiliar "balance" of physical alertness and overexertion— and my brain is clouded with the use. I take the time to order my thoughts. Which direction are we moving in? We are moving towards the jungle. The area is fairly unexplored, and the Gamemakers wouldn't want their prized and deadly area of the arena to go unused. How are we going to make it through the forest? The same way we did last time, I suppose, unless they reprogram the Mutts to not attack us. What are we going to do when we get there? Half of the arena is the rainforest area. Surely danger beyond danger lurks there. It would make a nice finale to the Games. We will have to avoid the others at all costs. How can we avoid the others if it means defying the Gamemakers or even the Capitol? We will survive, we will overcome them. We will stay out of the second bloodbath at all costs. My minute is over, but I can't bring myself back out into the forest. "Bella, come on, we have to move," Edward finally says. I can't respond through the constant coughing, so I just nod and force myself back into the fire.
The searing pain returns immediately. The entire landscape is swathed in fire. I am still light-headed, but it is better than it was a moment ago. The mountains are on the horizon. Beyond that, the jungle. My panic rises. How am I supposed to make it through again?
There is another scream.
The girl from 8 comes rushing by us, shrieking. The flames on her have relit. She wasn't quick enough. She never had a chance. Now she is running so fast that I would expect the fire to be smothered. This is Capitol enhanced fire, and it won't relinquish itself until she dies. Her already scalded face is now on fire. It spreads to her hair, to her back, down her legs. I freeze in place. "Bella, come on," says Edward. I cannot. She runs by, a streak of flame. "There's nothing we can do, now come on!"
She lets out a strangled sob, and is silent as it engulfs her completely, as though she is finally giving in. There is a sound that I have never heard and I hope I never hear again, the whoosh of fire now on a hearth, only louder and gut-wrenching. She cries out twice. The flames flare, burning so bright that I look away. Then there is silence and I hear a cannon. She turns to ash.
I don't scream, I swallow, and then run. Edward is waiting for me several years ahead, and I'm nauseous again. It's strange, to feel so physically ill when you know that illness is impossible.
Is it? Nothing makes sense anymore.
Where are we going? The jungle, that's where they're driving us. I take the time to sniff the air, and it's the entire forest. They're burning down the entire forest. Cato, Clove, the girl from 5, and Thresh are all coming. And then I start thinking of the fight that will follow. The flames won't burn indefinitely, but the battle that could take place afterwards... it suddenly occurs to me that we could circle back around, away from everyone else.
Still running at maximum velocity, I look over my shoulder. There are occasional gaps in the wall of fire. If I timed it right, if a gab was big enough for both of us, if the Gamemakers didn't decided to kill me for the fun of it, if the odds are ever in our favor... we could make it through. To where? a small voice in my head chides. The only thing beyond the flames is ash. Turning back to forwards, I swallow.
The low rumbling grows louder. I can't ponder it for long, because the fire is growing hotter. Or maybe I'm tiring of the heat. The girl from 7 is still ahead of us. She whirls around to see us, and to see the empty spot where her fellow Tribute should have been. Her eyes widen in shock. I'm the first person she sees after realizing what happened. Too late, I understand what she's about to do...
"No!" Edward shouts at her, but it's too late. I'm running forward, she's running towards me, and we collide midair, she knocking me to the ground with a painful thud. The fire is getting closer, and an enraged Edward is shouting at her to get off of me.
She rips at my hair, snaps at my neck, and pounds her fists into me. She isn't trying to kill me, she just wants me to feel pain. I bat her away, I kick at her, but she doesn't move and the fire just comes closer. I hear the sounds of footsteps. "Get off! Get off! Get OFF!" I yell at her. "They're coming!" She is beyond coherency, even when Edward tries to rip her off of me. She locks her iron grip around my arm, still hitting me in the face. The flames are dangerously close. Edward gives a final tug. The girl doesn't let go of her grip on me. I cry out. There is a crack and a snap. The world turns red, and everything is muffled and slow for a moment, like I'm watching the world from a vat of corn syrup.
Then there is a fierce pain in my shoulder and I wonder briefly if I've caught on fire. I'm lying on the ground, unable to move, and I see Edward shouting at the girl who attacked me, but I can't hear him. She gasps, and her expression of anger turns to one of panic. She flees, and he considers going after her. Experimentally, I blink, and the pain erupts again.
Sitting upright, I glance down at where my arm should be, and there's nothing but a granite-like stump. My arm is lying a few feet away.
That's when I scream.
The flames are too close to me right now, and I'll be a whole lot more flammable if I don't get this thing... reattached. I take the time to shudder. Edward reaches down and grabs my good hand, helping me to my feet. "Grab your arm and go," he hisses into my ear. Possibly the funniest statement I have ever heard. Still, I don't laugh; I obey.
I feel strangely clumsy and unbalanced. I constantly want to fall over to the side where my good arm is, and when I try to compensate I almost fall over. My feet are still flying beneath me, so fast that I nearly trip over myself. The world is spinning from the endless embers and flame.
Finally we reach the mountain range. I don't even pause. I know we are going towards what could very easily be our doom, but what choice do we have? If it's certain doom versus probable doom, I'll gladly take the latter.
I keep plunging forwards, now in the middle of the mountain range. There is a strange vibration here, almost certainly computer generated. It isn't my imagination. The sound makes what's left of my equilibrium even worse. I keep moving. The fire accelerates again. I dodge it. I think back to when this first began, only a few minutes ago. Ten minutes? Twenty? The audience doesn't want to watch us dodging flames until the end of the Games. Something is coming.
My foot hits a rock the wrong way. Edward is caught off-guard. He can't catch me in time. I stumble forwards, flailing in midair. Trying to regain control, I push forwards, only to make it worse. The ground rushes at me. The jagged edges of the rocks do nothing to me. It's the impact that makes me hurt, and, despite my efforts, I give a soft yelp. Panting heavily and on my hands and knees, I begin to notice something. The rumbling I heard earlier is growing louder. And louder. I would think it is my imagination, but the ground is vibrating. Not just a tremor, like an earthquake.
Earthquake? It wouldn't do anything to our kind. Edward notices the danger a second before I do, his gaze darting to the mountain peak. I look up towards the sky. The mountains are collapsing. And they're bringing fire with them.
In all honesty, I wish I could appreciate the beauty of the sight. Flaming mountains are falling apart and turning to rubble, boulders big enough to crush tanks rushing at us at astounding speeds. The world is a violent, vivid red, and the sky is flushed with orange from the coming day. Gorgeous. Gruesome. Deadly. All rolled into one.
It isn't even the Quarter Quell. The Gamemakers are going to have a difficult time outdoing themselves next year.
Then I am brought back to reality.
Edward drags me to my feet, but he starts running first. We have to move, and now. The flames are coming closer. From behind. From above. From everywhere. I nearly fall over again, and Edward pulls us to a halt.
"Give me your arm," he says.
"Why?"
"Just do it."
I lift it up. The sensation is eerie, but I don't linger on it. Every instinct I have— human, vampire, Capitol programed— is screaming for me to run.
"Lick it," he says quietly.
"What?!" Like a postage stamp?!
"Yes. Lick it."
Sighing, I do as he says. "Now what?" I ask quickly. The fire is getting closer.
"We have about ten seconds until our survival is impossible," he says. "Relax."
I hate you. Well, actually I love you, and my existence would be nothing without you, but still. I hate you.
"Just put it where it's supposed to go."
I do, looking down at the broken piece of me. I am mesmerized as a thousand microscopic threads instantly sew themselves back together. Fiery pain erupts again, but afterwards there is some relief. The venom does sting. But it also heals. "Thank you," I reply. He nods. "Can I just leave it, or—"
"Don't move it." Edward glances back at the world around us. "Okay, let's go." We start moving away. "No, seriously, go!"
He yanks on my good arm so hard that I am afraid it will fall out, too. We run, and we continue running. I breathe heavily. I don't need the air, I tell myself, but my lungs don't believe it. I am beginning to shake again when the fire comes closer. Edward is running at blinding speed, but I am stronger. He makes me move faster, and I make the bounds have more strength. We are moving swiftly. Not swift enough.
The fire enters the valley. I think I am prepared for it, but I am not. Because that's when the first fireball whizzes by me, missing my face by inches. It explodes off in the distance with enough power to shatter a bunker. The force of the blast nearly knocks me off my feet.
The Game has taken a new twist. The fire was only to start this. The collapsing mountains were only a spectacle. The fireballs. This is the real show. I hear another hiss. I am more prepared for this one, but it still shocks me. The blast is hard for me but... Edward. He is so much older, not as strong, and... no!
He is falling behind me, still recovering from the first ball. Before a third one hits, I frantically drag him in front of me. The explosion is where he was standing not a moment early. The blast knocked the wind out of him, and he can't say anything. He just nods to me and we continue pressing forwards. I glance behind me. The rocks are sealing the path behind us. The message is clear. We are not allowed to go back. Fire makes it all the more threatening.
An explosion in the distance causes a scream— the girl who attacked me— shortly followed by a cannon. Or possibly another explosion, I can't tell. The smell of incense makes me lose hope.
More fireballs fly at us. To remain still is to die. Time looses meaning now. All that matters is survival. The vague plans disappear from my mind. Another bomb goes off, the fiery aftershock nearly envelops me. Move or die. Again. And again. My vision turns faintly crimson again. Whether it is the fire or the fury I can't tell. I am coughing again. The heat is too much. There is not time to rest, only to survive.
Whatever is left of my humanity disappears in those moments. I zigzag, leap, and dive to avoid the fireballs. Each one is only the size of an orange, but they pack insane amounts of power. This is why the Capitol won the war. Every sense I have plunges into overdrive, and I am so light-headed that my vision is blotted with blood-red. The need to survive takes over. There's no time to judge if a move is the correct answer or the one that leads to death. When there's a hiss, I act or die.
Just like the Mutts, I tell myself. This will end eventually. One way or another, my mind adds darkly. That's when I begin thinking about what is next. I've been fairly good in life. Edward doesn't think we have souls. Nonexistence is preferable to Hell. And, if that's where I am going, I doubt it would be very different from the blazing pit of fire I am in right now. But, of course, if it is worse... Heaven help me, I'm going to die.
I don't know how long we scramble through the valley, dodging fireballs. My hazy mind wonders if it's long enough for Rome to be built. It wasn't built in a day, it was built in a few thousand years. That's a fairly apt description.
Finally, the attacks begin to abate. I still hear shrieks and yelps in the distance. But this battle is almost over. The smoke is so thick that I doubt human eyes could see. It could literally be cut with a knife. We are nearing the jungle. I can see it on the horizon. I start gagging from the haze again. The smoke finally becomes so intense that my sense of smell vanishes entirely. My vampire mind has cut it off, deemed it useless. The void following is disturbing, and it catches me off-guard for a fraction of a second. Fascinated, I begin to slow down, just on the edge of a twenty-foot drop that separates us from the forest floor— or, as I learned last time, more likely the treetops. I marvel at the sensation of not being able to smell, to taste the air around me. Then the hissing registers.
It's on my side this time, and I dive for the ground. Edward whirls around to stare straight at the fireball, and time seems to slow down. I shout his name, my voice echoing onward. This moment is frozen. This has to be happening to someone else, not to me. Not to Edward. Still in midair, my hands fumble to get him in my grasp. I drag him downwards. It whooses by me, but Edward is higher in the air than I am. He moves downward, it moves towards him. It skids across his back, just grazing the skin, just kissing it. He catches fire. And then it explodes.
It is just far enough away. Still shrieking, I drag us down. We tumble downwards through the air, off of the precipice and towards the trees below. The aftershock misses him by inches, but it still singes his hair. We continue through what I thought was the ground and through the branches until we hit the forest floor. The second he hits the ground he starts rolling, trying desperately to stop the flames.
On fire, he comes very close to screaming. The groans he makes are loud, yes, but I have to let him have that dignity of not screaming. And for a moment, he yells. He doesn't scream. He doesn't. He yells. The flames won't smother. I remember what happened to the girl from 8. Horrified, I watch. I start to approach him, maybe I can help, but he shoots me a desperate look. There's nothing we can do, his voice says again in my head.
Is it possible for a vampire to hyperventilate? No. Is it possible for whatever I am to hyperventilate? I am coming very close to it. There is nothing I can do, nothing I can do, just sit back and hope... and scream inside my skull while I watch him suffer.
I'm sorry you have to see this, I think at the sky. I'm sorry you have to see how I've failed. Alice, Jasper, Rosalie, Emmett Esme... and... I swallow. ...and Carlisle? I don't know where you are right now, I don't know if you can hear me. For that matter, I don't know where any of you are right now, and I know that none of you can hear me, but... I am sorry, I am so, so sorry. With every whimper Edward makes, my self-loathing and shame double until I have no room to feel pity for myself. He's going to die. I have to watch him turn to ash and there's nothing I can do. I look skyward. "I'm sorry," I whisper up at my family.
He cries out again. I wince. It's as though I'm the one who's fighting fire. I am burning. "I'm sorry," I say again, this time louder.
I bury my head in my hands, trying to block out the world, trying to block out the sounds of suffering. It's my fault, I couldn't save him. I didn't hear it in time. I could have saved him. A dry sob shudders up from my chest, and I curl against the thick bark of a tree. Something solid to shield myself with. As if it could protect me.
Maybe, if I plead hard enough, the sky, and the ethereal, empyrean sunrise can bring him back to me. "I'm sorry!" I scream at the sky. "Anything! I'll do anything..." I plead as another sob shakes my entire body. "Not him! Please, not him... please!" The last word deteriorates into a sob. No longer on the verge of a nervous breakdown, my vision blurs until the world is dim and finally black. I strain for unconsciousness, but it doesn't come. And it never will. I'll always be trapped in this, with pain digging its way into me. My heart is already dead, but, without him, it is rotting. "Please, please, please," I chant at the clouds, daring to look upwards. I know you're up there. "Don't take him. Don't take him, too. Do whatever you want with me, I don't care... just... just kill me. Kill me. Not..." I choke on my own words. "Not him."
There is no response, and, abruptly, I am more enraged than I have ever been. Darting to my feet and shaking a finger at the sky, I proclaim, "If you take him, the world will never, never be right again! We will hate you forever, and I won't stop. I won't stop, until..." Until I turn to ash, too, but the words fail me. "Do you want to risk losing?!" Him, I was going to add, but I am sobbing again. I cannot speak. I lean against the tree, hiding my face.
Silence.
Has he died? I can hardly bear to move. There is no need to confirm what I already know. But what if he is alive? I wonder. I turn away from the tree to glance at him.
Edward lies face-down on the ground. He doesn't move, he doesn't breathe, and he most certainly does not burn. He just lies there. But he is alive, and my breathing starts to come naturally again. I am motionless, still staring at him. My eyes are blurry with tears that will never fall.
I don't dare move. Surely he is a mirage, ready to vanish at any second. He is alive, I know it, but...
But he was dying! He was in anguish, the Capitol-made fire about to kill him. He couldn't smother the flames. I saw what it did to that girl; they don't smother, they don't relinquish. Once you catch, you die. So how is he alive? Is it a delayed reaction? Will he vanish soon, or can I allow myself to believe it?
Vaguely, it occurs to me that my pleading might stopped the fire. I may have touched the Gamemakers hearts. Perhaps the Capitol enjoys the Star-Crossed Lovers from District 12 too much to lose him now. I might have just saved his life.
I probably did.
A/N: This is the oddest place I have ever ended a chapter. But it was the only appropriate place I could find.
Sorry if this chapter was horrible. I personally think it was, but I've been working on it for weeks, so...