A/N: Inky is here today! I am using LCS's All-Stars story. To spare me heart break and to fit in-universe Kerry has been switched with a random loner named Joule who happens to have randomly killed Lyte before Frankie sniped him prior to the beginning of this story. So we have Inky, Peach, Elara, Jack, Jay, Des, Vera, Emmeline, Vextrix, Apollo, Frankie, and River. How will Inky persevere? Well that's what this story is about :D
P.S. This might be confusing but Inky's Games were Kerry's Games. While I didn't write her death in my portrayal of Kerry's win, in this story she died when she did in LCS's original 40th Games story, right along with Zinnia in the cave.
I fumble with my fingers, rubbing the little pebbles from the shadowy corner of the mausoleum between them. Gray, gray, gray, gray, gray. Plop, plop, plop, plop, plop. One, two, three, four, five. I take deep breaths and count to five over and over. I counted to five for days on end and still everyone died. Alinta died. Addie died. Silver died. Mouse and Alice died as I watched, too weak to tell them to stay away from the pretty sprite woman. So many people died, so many more than five. One, two, three, four, five. Five fingers on my hands, and those fingers roll pebbles back and forth.
I hear a crack and a hiss, and I shoot up. I count the silences. One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five! ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE!
"Peach?" I warble out, and she wakes quietly, murmuring, "Huh?"
"There's someone here."
Elara strikes lightning fast, her dagger arcing through the air towards Peach. I squeal in terror and count as fast as my mind can, or else I will burn in eternal torment and Peach will be locked in the garden of death. one two three four five. uno dos tres cuatro cinco. No matter how fast I count, no matter if it is in Spanish, Peach cannot act fast enough. Elara's dagger slams into her abdomen, and Peach gives a wet "umph", and curls up in a small ball on the floor, holding her guts in. Elara looks towards me, but I'm already hurtling towards her, a length of rope in my hands. I tackle her, and she slams against the rough stone wall, trying to fight. I knock the dagger for her hands, and scream, "ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE! I WAS COUNTING ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE!" Elara looks at me with dark, frightened eyes as I smash her shocked form against the wall. I dig my fingers into those eyes and wrap the rope around her neck and give it a tug. "ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE DID YOU NOT HEAR ME?!" She tries to suck in air but cannot, and I tighten the noose even more. She flops on the ground like a fish on land, and I leave her there, twitching awkwardly, and rush to Peach's side. My only ally is dying, and when the cannon booms I blanch. But Peach is still breathing raggedly; I scurry over to Elara's side, and press my fingers to her neck. Nothing. I have killed my first person.
One, two, three, four, five. I wrap five bandages around Peach's slashed open stomach but it isn't enough, it is never enough. Peach grabs my feverishly working hands slowly, firmly, and she looks into my eyes, and I squint to get a better view of her face in the dark.
"Let go, Inky. O-o-okay? Let...let go." I slowly release my hands from where they've been pressing the wads of gauze into her wound. I know how to treat a wound and I know I was doing it wrong, but I needed to stop the blood, or in one, two, three, four, five seconds Peach would be as still as Elara beside us. I hold her and try to redress the wound but it's hopeless. I have ruined the bandages, and even then it was hopeless. Five is not a kind number. Five never works, but it is so even, so delectable. It is a better number than seventy six, the number of minutes that pass as I hold Peach and try to use the bloody scraps of cloth and bandages to save her. She doesn't complain, she just lays there and lets me try to play doctor, lets me try to be the hero. I am no able maiden in the story books, rescued from her tower and then helping the night fight off the dragon or the invaders. I am a frantic girl who counts to five in heretic prayer and killed a girl and couldn't save a second. When the cannon fires, I don't check Peach's pulse. She's stopped breathing, and the blood on her stomach is drying. I kiss her forehead and sit there for one, two, three, four, five minutes before gathering my supplies and leaving the mausoleum, which truly stinks of death now.
I don't want to find another place to rest; any place I rest will be where I find three tributes, or six, or some other unsightly number of humanoids that will flay me and tear me limb from limb like ravenous dogs. I shake, and count how many tributes are left. Ten. Nice, even. If I want to go home, there will need to be one. An awkward, okay number. Still not good. Do I want to go home? I do not know. 5th place would be respectable. 10th, even. How many did we start with? 74? Couldn't they have added someone else, like that nice girl Granja from my Games? Made it a nice, even 75?
I hear screams after hours of wandering through the eternally damp, dank, dark graveyard slumber night. I hunker down behind a tombstone and watch with horror as Vera and Frankie, the strongest tributes left, turn in confusion as rocks and things are pelted at them. They're looking in the wrong direction, towards me sort of, and I see a huge silvery axe emerge out of a fuzzy shape behind them, the thing throwing the rocks. Frankie turns to see the axe whistling right towards his temple, and he does not even react when the top half of his skull is loped off and a cannon fires. I try not to throw up, and Vera screams. I sink into the open grave next to me, and curl up in a ball, pulling debris over me. I hear metal against metal and aggravated cries and finally a cannon. I peek over the edge of the grave, and see Vera stumbling away from the place where Frankie and Desiree lay, dead, holding the stump of her right hand, which is hopefully her fighting hand, it must be. Her eyes lock on mine, and I sink further into the grave. She starts towards me, and I prepare for death. Eighth is...better than other numbers and placements. But Vera stops short and leaves after she stumbles. She must be disoriented from blood loss, and her little medic boy is dead. I wait for one, two, three, four, five minutes five times until the fear gets back down to the normal level of Hunger Games fear and I can function. I scuttle out of the grave. The bodies of Des and Frankie are already gone, and so is Vera. I let out a rattling breath and thank my lucky stars. I have five of them.
Crouching behind the grave marker, I eye the Cornucopia nestled between the strange angel statues. I remember the initial confusion, the huge flying mutts picking off tributes left and right. I ran straight away, and now here I am, right back at the start. The faces of Elara, Peach, Frankie, and Des played several hours ago. I am thirsty, and there must be water at the Cornucopia. Due to the initial confusion, there must be some stuff left. No one would dare camp out there, but I think, I hope, at least, that the Gamemakers want to see the stupid plan I have contrived. I ask them quietly to let me go into the Horn in peace five times, and then I burst from my hiding place and lope quickly towards the Cornucopia.
Once I am inside the mouth, nothing attacks me, no one lunges towards me. I search through empty crates and half full backpacks and find a couple of bottles of water. More valuable than those, however, are the three things I find in the back of the Horn. A big metal bear trap. Batteries. And a big, bright red toy car. I pick them up and grin bigger than I ever have. It's like a little mini Feast all for myself.
I grab a huge burlap sack and drag my newfound toys away from the Horn. I settle down in a mausoleum near the Horn, and then I sit down and look at my supplies. It's not my original plan at all; I was planning to rig some traps to confuse the other tributes enough to get them to be so disoriented I could strike. But with these seemingly useless goodies, I can win the Games. I will win them. It will just take...five kills on my part? Hopefully less, but I am never opposed to the number five. If I make four more kills, maybe I will be forgiven for the deeds I have done, and maybe the world won't shatter and break.
As I am rigging up the bear trap in the mouth of the Horn some time later, I hear a cannon shatter the stillness of the arena. Several hours later, Vera shows up in the sky and I stare at her pretty face incredulously. Vera...Vera is dead. So are Desiree and Frankie. Peach and all the others are dead too, granted, but three of the strongest players left in the arena are gone. It is myself, Apollo, Emmeline, Jay, Jack, River, and Vextrix. Some of them are rather smart. Emmeline and Vextrix might not fall for my trap. Hopefully someone else will take them out. I return to the Horn after some thought.
Hiding inside the Horn, wreathed by shadows, I perk up once I hear the sound of rocks underfoot. I look up and see Jay Dallas weaving his way past the Horn. He looks curiously at the Cornucopia, and I wonder if I will even have to bait him. He starts towards the Horn but turns around and decides not to. Should I pull the old screamer like Kerry did last year, or should I try out my little race car?
Vroom vroom. The cherry red Ferrari zips out of the Horn and circles around Jay. My fingers swirl across the joystick, and Jay swipes at the car with his machete and misses. He pursues it dumbly, pure instinct telling him to follow the strange bright red target. I drive the car towards myself, and it clatters into the back of the Horn. Jay is hot in pursuit. He doesn't see me although he is fifteen feet away. He steps into the mouth of the Horn, into the shadows.
Snap. Crack. AUGGGH!
Jay weeps pitifully as I stride over to him. His entire left leg is trapped in the bear trap, and he moans weakly, the pain from his mangled leg blocking out everything else. His machete has fallen from his hands, and he begs for me to stop. I lift the thick knife and sever his spinal cord on his neck. The cannon shatters the world around me. Two down, three more to go. Jack, River, Apollo are my targets. Emmeline and Vextrix will be taken out by others. Wow, only...five, yes five, others left. One, two, three, four, five. I haven't counted to five in hours. Five of them, no more. Five isn't essential, is it? It provides, comfort however.
As I walk out of the Horn after unhooking the trap from Jay's leg and putting it in my burlap sack, waiting for the hovercraft to retrieve Jay's body, I count to five slowly, trying to stay positive. If I get home, I can make my entire house a library. Only Tillo lives in Eight's Victor's Village. I can convert the house next door to mine into a library. That will work, and all the kids in the District who want unprecedented access to literature can come to Inky's Books and pick up free titles. A charity; running a bookstore, maybe writing or reading, can be my talent. I imagine living in a cozy bookstore with a small smile on my face, friends and family and maybe even a...boyfriend? Chil...children? In my first Games I was optimistic but deep down I knew I was never making it out. I'm happy Kerry did, he deserved it, but...back then I knew I didn't stand a chance. Now, with no Careers, with five others left, I can formulate my future. It may be for nothing, and it probably will be, but what's wrong with clinging onto newfound hope? She is an elusive creature, after all. You must hang on tight when she comes into your grasp and decides to stay. I can think about a husband and friends thanks to the sacrifice of my alliance. They kept me alive long enough for me to discover my true purpose.
I circle back towards the Horn, but I am too restless. We still probably have close to a good week left in this arena, and I'll probably die, but I just want this to end. Would that be too much to ask? I voice my question aloud, and in response minutes later Harlequin's merry voice, tinted by something like grief, comes over the arena speakers. I listen intently, sitting the mouth of the Cornucopia.
"In twelve hours, a Feast will commence at the Cornucopia. There is something all of you need there. There are twelve bright green stars in the sky; when the last star is gone, the Feast has become. Attendance is not mandatory. Good fighting, tributes." Her voice clicks off, and I find myself springing to my feet. I grab a spade from one of the crates of seemingly useless supplies, the supplies that are good for me. The spade is smaller but sturdy, and I dig deep into the mushy soil outside the mouth of the Horn. Soon a huge pit is opening up before me. I throw a crate in to use as a device to climb out on, and then I step into the pit. It only comes up to my waist, so I dig deeper. By the time my head is an inch past the ground's surface, there are only three green stars left. No one else has come to the Horn yet. Knowing the players left, all of them will probably either abstain or come right as the last star winks out.
No one has come to the Cornucopia since the start. Things only semi-important have been left. The machetes and water jugs were the things people fought over and grabbed as they ran like crazy. They left the crates, the coils of rope, the little green glass bottle of poison that could kill a man in under ten minutes with its deadly toxins. I use a sharp dagger to dice apart the crates and sharpen their points. Once I have fifteen stakes, less than I want but just enough to function, I undo the stopper on the poison and let the poison drip out. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. A small ritual, five drops of deadly poison onto my stakes. I gingerly take them into the pit one by one, moving fast but slow. I dig small furrows into the ground and place the base of the stakes in, and then pat the ground down around the stake so it will stay standing. With time running out I finish my punji stick trap. I drag a flimsy net over it from the back of the Cornucopia, and then I am tearing at the muck of land around the Cornucopia, scooping up mud and weeds and sticks and rocks and smoothing them out over the net. The last star seems to flicker above me as I finish concealing the pit. I retreat into the shadows of the Horn, and several minutes later the table bearing six packs rises up. I grab mine quickly before falling back. The table is a pace behind my hidden trap. The darkness plus its decent concealment will disguise it well enough.
I open my pack. A cursory bottle of water and an energy bar; I already have enough supplies here to last me a week with fair rationing. There's also a dart gun with five metal darts. I dip their silvery tips in my jar of lethal poison and thank Tillo silently. I wonder if she still thinks I will die. One, two, three, four, five times she told me I would die my first Games, this time only twice. It was uncomfortable and uneven; I almost asked her to tell me of my imminent demise thrice more so it could even out and I would be happy. I hunker down and wait. I want to open the other packs, to see what the others need and analyze whatever hardships my competitors are facing, my five competitors, even, nice, but that time will come.
Apollo is the first as I expected. He seemed like he'd be foolish enough to come, maybe, and if he did so he'd get here as fast as he could. I quickly realize my mistake, that the District Eight pack is gone, but there's nothing I can do. As Apollo walks towards the table, holding bags marked 3, 7, 11, 11, 12. He creeps closer to the bags, and suddenly Jack springs out of nowhere from one of the sides of the Cornucopia. I gasp and cover my mouth, but neither boy hears me as they wrestle. Jack lifts up his machete and whacks it down on Apollo's neck, slicing in again and again. Apollo struggles and gurgles out blood, and with one last desperate push he shoves Jack off of him. Jack lands with a crash on the top layer of my punji stick trap. He howls as he lands on the sharp stakes and they slice into his skin. A cannon fires; Apollo's chest has fallen still. I creep to the edge of the pit and watch quietly as Jack twitches. He's bloody and weak from weeks of living in the arena like the rest of us, and in one, two, three, four, five minutes the poison's got him. I watch with silent satisfaction, and then I pull off the other packs from the table. Only Emmeline, River, Vextrix, and myself left. I might have to take out one of the smart ones. I've killed three; I should stop at five, it's even, it's nice. Emmeline's pack has batteries and a coil of copper wire, River's has bundles of food, Vextrix's has a book and a water bottle, Apollo's has cookies and a dagger, and Jack's has a machete and a picture of an aging, motherly looking woman. I eat some of the food and drink some of the water and toss away the things that don't mean anything to me like Jack's photograph or Vextrix's book about teddy bears. I feel a twinge of guilt for destroying things probably made to deeply motivate the others, but guilt is not important this late in the Games. It is entirely insignificant.
I reassemble my punji stick trap and lay in wait.
Five days later, I'm starting to run out of food and water despite my careful rationing. I seem to have overestimated the amount of extra food left in the crates. I am relieved when I hear a cannon, but I also hear the screams accompanying it. I step around my punji trap, a precarious thing. I almost fall in. Then I dash towards the screams, still continuing. My dart gun is held tight in my right hand, and I lift it as five minutes later I stumble into an area with a huge white obelisk marking some rich aristocrat's grave. The three names carved on it chill me to the bone.
Vextrix Webb
Emmeline Blythe
Incense Balboa
River Summers
A slain Emmeline lies nearby, an exact replica of herself except with rotting flesh and dead, gray eyes and missing teeth gnawing at her still warm flesh. The screams are far off now, but I can see River running from a poltergeist just like her. It's chucking huge rocks at her and she's narrowly avoiding them. One smacks into River's head and she falls, weeping. The poltergeist leaves her as blood trickles out of the corner of her mouth. The obelisk begins to glow and I'm already running away; I've awoken some beast destined to end me. Vextrix will be the Victor without any finale kills, the Victor by default, just because she wasn't curious enough to inspect the screams and the glowing white obelisk which sentenced certain doom.
As I run past River, I waste a dart on her. It digs into her bloody temple, and in moments the poison sets in and she's gone, her intense internal cranial bleeding speeding up the poisoning process. Four killed, one left. I realize, then and there, that I am in the Final Two, and I am absolutely floored.
I turn around once, and see the huge rock golem, spitting clouds of dark gray soot, its fiery eyes intimidating. A huge gray-green serpent emerges from the obelisk as well and twines its way across the graves and weeds towards a mausoleum nearby where a girl is folded on the roof, trying to breathe steadily. Vextrix. It must be her. It simply has to be her; there's no one else left unless I've calculated incorrectly.
I run towards her, and the golem slows. They know I'm up for the fight. There is no more time for traps or tricks, just a little poisoned dart heading towards Vextrix's heart. In case she has some traps rigged up around her, I stop fifteen feet from the mausoleum. She's spotted me, and she rises, hauling herself off the roof after a moment's consideration. I fire, and the dart nicks her elbow. She sees the green sheen of poison sinking into her skin and knows she has just a little time before it claims her, just a little time to kill me so the Capitol doctors can save her. She rushes towards me, and I fire another dart. It misses. I only have two left. I fire a fourth, and it hits her boot. I can't tell if it hits the skin. I keep the last dart and run. I just have to stay alive for a couple more minutes, until Vextrix's body succumbs to the poison coursing through her veins by this point.
I run, zig zagging. Vextrix has a machete and she is faster than me by a good amount of speed. She quickly gains on me, and tackles me like a football player. Her movements are becoming sluggish, slow, and she stifles a yawn as she raises her machete. She brings it down, but the poison in her arm makes her shake. It cleaves deep into my shoulder, and I scream. I'm pinned underneath Vextrix but I shove my knee into her crotch. She recoils, hissing, and I lift my arm, the arm holding the dart gun. It hurts like hell and I'm nearly paralyzed with fear and worry, but I manage to squeeze my finger onto the trigger at point blank range. The dart sinks into Vextrix's forehead, piercing her skull. She's gone in five seconds, five little, weary, terrible seconds as she crumples at my feet, gray and dead and defeated like seventy two others. I have my five kills. Nice, even. Five is good, five is okay. It's okay that I murdered if it was in an increment of five. It's okay that I murdered. I still sing "One, two, three, four, five" until the hovercraft comes anyway. Old habits die hard.
A/N: I should have worked on BMO or Bite Size but I felt like doing this instead xD Inky is my baby child and I adore her and I hope this did her the justice she deserves. Now she joins Kerry and they're both alive and well as Victors and will probably become friends! xD I hope you enjoyed this, and please drop a review if you can. It would be helpful :D
Until Next Time,
Tracee