The End.
-x
Bell hopped in a little circle, clapping her hands. Amazing! The games were lovely! Last night's finale had been no exception, though there was nothing particularly exciting. Carden's little face had just been so dreadful when he learned who was left. It gave her goose bumps all over!
More than a little of Bell's excitement was due to the fact that she had been relieved of her announcer's duties after her interviews had received record ratings. She was officially restored to chief interviewer on the TGL network. Wonderful! She had been hoping for a chance to watch the games on her own. Sometimes they were nail-bitingly tense, and she didn't want the cast of TGL to see her at a bad moment.
Her recently promoted junior assistant, a natural blonde who's peppiness exceeded Bell's own, (almost…) was reporting as she flipped the channel to TGL. To watch the games anywhere else would be akin to blasphemy.
"In a startling turn, the odds shifted, for the first time since the twenty-ninth games, into the favor of the younger competitor! Twelve-year-old Carden Chaney is leading in terms of bets, though our Seventeen, Diane Glenn, is running a very close second. Who are you supporting, Harold?" the announcer chirped, smiling broadly.
"I'm not sure, Jennsen. Let's check the polls!" Bell's former co-anchor replied, smiling in a manor much the same.
A brightly colored poll flashed up, showing that fifty-four percent of the Capitolians polled favored Carden to win the games. Bell shrugged. She just wanted a good fight, something quick. Her favorite part was the interview at the end, where the victor always looked so much better!
She yawned, lounging back on her couch. The clock on her mantle read five minutes to six. Bell had woken up early to watch the games the second they were on. TGL would be running a few more stories, but their subsidy, TGL live, would be showing the action 24/7.
Bell flipped the channel up, stopping a scene in which Diane, on a blanket beneath a tree, shifted restlessly in her sleep. The tributes rarely woke before seven, but the Gamemakers would surely be planning something. Ratings would be down on every network the feed went to, and that's not a good thing on the last day of the games.
Clicking yet another button, Bell switched her system to 'immersion', and was quickly absorbed in the sound of the arena as the sun rose. A bird called, and the scene switched to Carden's.
He stretched, his eyes blinking open. The bird had woken him, but he seemed unhappy. Still half asleep, he looked up at the roiling grey sky, sighed, and lay down again.
The sky rumbled faintly, and patches lit up for a few seconds at a time. The effect was ethereally beautiful, though both tributes slept through it. Slowly, the sounds increased in volume, until, with a peal of thunder, sheets of rain began to sweep in from the East and West of the arena.
Carden woke up again, sitting bolt upright in his sleeping bag. His eyes were wide with fear, no doubt from a nightmare. He gnawed on his lip, pulling out the last of his provisions, the ones he was saving, from the little bag he carried around.
Relief flooded into his expression as he emptied the tiny bottle of water in three gulps, and ravenously attacked his last strip of beef and stale cracker. He had been better than most at conserving rations, Bell noted, watching with interest as he rooted through the pile of weapons that the careers had attempted to destroy.
He twitched a little with every clap of thunder, whirling around to see if someone was following him. He needn't have worried. The image cut to Diane, still asleep. She had scrunched herself into a ball on her blanket, and was shivering in the cool air that the rain pushed in. In no condition to try to find the Twelve.
Her expression was pained, and she slept fitfully, occasionally rolling nearly of the spread-out blanket. Nightmares were not uncommon on the final night of the games, but her's seemed worse than most.
Once again, clouds were shown sweeping in overhead, a particularly loud rumble of thunder following a period of light that completely dissolved the image on the screen.
Both finalists were awake. A bear couldn't sleep through that.
Diane's eyes were wide, but she seemed in a daze, groping around with a dirty, pale hand to steady herself. Her hair was a total mess, Bell noticed, sniffing in disdain.
Wind whooshed around both bedraggled tributes, an uncharacteristically cold draft being pushed in. Carden pulled himself to his feet, listening to the rattle of the leaves in the small stand on his island. Diane crawled off her blanket, shaking it out and wrapping it around herself. The deep brown fleece certainly looked warm enough.
The rain reached Diane first, and she began to shiver. A tiny stats page popped up next to her on the screen, showing that the air temperature was 9.2 degrees Celsius, the gusts blowing in were 7.8, and Diane's body temperature was 35.1, well below average. Bell wondered what that meant, guessing at 'cold'.
Carden found another package of crossbow bolts, but the replacement bow had been cleaved in two, and well-trampled. He was disappointed with his haul, but nocked a bolt despite it, and walked carefully into the forest.
Soggy and miserable, Diane dragged herself to her feet, hugged herself into the blanket, and abandoned her bow and last few arrows on the island. She simply walked away, wetter and wetter. A confusing choice.
Slowly, almost tentatively, she stepped across the trembling ground towards the Cornucopia.
"Hello? Is it you?"
Carden gasped from within the vessel, nearly screaming with surprise.
"Diane! Quick, get in here! The mountains are falling!"
In a startling feat for one as exhausted as she, Diane straightened.
"What mountains? Where? Carden, are you okay? Oh no, of course you aren't! I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry."
She scrunched up her features, slouching back down as she wearily trudged into the golden horn.
"It's been so long," she whispered, though it had only been about a week.
"Diane, there's no time! They're trying to kill us! The mountains are falling. We need to get out of here!"
"No. You mean the mountains around the edge, right?"
Carden nodded silently, tears welling up in his eyes.
"Yeah, those ones. We're going to die. We're going to die. We can't do anything about it. We're not going to kill each other. They'll kill us both. We're going to die."
"No! No, we are not! I am not going to let you die, you hear me? We are going to stay right here, and you are going to live. No one is going to die!"
The earth trembled again, as if in an attempt to prove her wrong. Carden, tucked into a ball, rocked on his heels. Diane positioned herself in front of him, facing the large opening. Wordlessly, she yanked off her dripping blanket, handing it back to him.
"Here," she muttered. "It's wool. You'll be warm enough."
Carden's hand shook, but he accepted it, adding to his pile of blankets.
"What's happening?" he whispered, extracting an arm to tap on her shoulder.
"I'm going to die. And you are going to go home, and forget these games ever happened."
His eyes, still wet, widened, and his mouth dipped open.
"But… Diane! Your brother, and your family!"
She scooted back, facing him. Her face, too, was damp.
"You have them too. And you haven't killed anyone. You're better than me."
Carden leaned forward, and, unexpectedly, hugged her.
"I'm so sorry. You don't have to, you know," he said, quietly.
"Yes I do."
She gently detached his arms, tucking him into the pile of blankets. Though the shaking Cornucopia had reached a fever pitch, she stood up, leaning on the side for support. The mountains in her view were gone, and the sun barely looked over the horizon. Through the rain, it had a strange, watery quality, barely existing.
The berry-bush island in the distance was crushed under a tide of seething grey. Diane nodded, bit her lip, and retreated into the Cornucopia.
"I don't know how long we'll have before the avalanche reaches us," she murmured, lost in thought.
Carden looked up at her with wide eyes, his expression pained.
"I don't want you to die."
"You can't change my mind, you know."
"I never wanted anyone to die."
She whirled around, suddenly angry.
"Well, we don't always get what we want!"
The rumbling of the ground, the Cornucopia, and the air in general cut off any further discussion. Carden looked hurt, curling tighter into himself.
"You have changed," he whispered. "Everyone has."
Diane didn't turn, merely continued to gaze out of the Cornucopia's gaping mouth. She continued to chew her lip, staring at the grey mass as it thundered towards them. The cave island was engulfed as well.
"We need to get out of the Cornucopia. When the rocks get here, we'll be trapped unless we move now. Bring the blankets."
As silently as they could, both Diane and Carden gathered their supplies, meager though they were, and stepped out of the golden horn. The avalanche was, on further examination, converging from all directions.
"Are you... sure that was a good idea?" Carden asked meekly, clambering after her on the soggy, shaking ground with his blankets in tow.
"We'll know in a bit."
He looked apprehensive, but pointedly avoided looking at where the rocks were headed. A small picture flashed up, showing a cartoon map of the arena. A huge patch of grey converged from all sides of the Cornucopia island, in the middle. Most islands were long gone in the tide. In the corner, a digital clock face showed that the tributes had 1.284 minutes before the first rock would hit their island.
They carefully stepped through the trembling, watery muck, heading towards an upwards slope, a few feet from the Cornucopia. Save the crumbling mountains, it was the highest point in the arena. They were both slimy with dirt, rain, and rotting grass, and shivering violently.
"Wh-what do we-e-e d-do now-w?" Carden queried through heavily chattering teeth.
"Wait-t. Th-that's all w-we can do-o." Though Diane had her jaw clenched much tighter than her companion's she still could not keep the cold from her voice.
No one wanted to wait.
The first boulder hit the side of the island with a dull thud, and Carden jumped. The next, and the next, and the next followed in rapid succession, and the individual noises were soon lost in a cacophony of bangs and clatters.
There were no other islands to be seen, and even the mountains had lost their definitive edge on the horizon. The rocks kept coming, though their origin was unclear. The first layer was lost beneath the second, and that beneath the third, closer and closer to Diane and Carden.
"I'm s-sc-scared," Carden stuttered, hugging Diane in a death grip.
She, too, seemed to be faltering.
"S-so am I," she whispered to him, "B-but you d-don't have t-to be."
They were quiet for a few seconds, but it felt much longer, with no way to tell the time. Diane closed her eyes, as if she was trying to capture the moment, to savor it, even if it was as terrible for her as it seemed.
She pulled a heavy, bent blade from the package of salvage she had collected from outside the Cornucopia, and leveled it ahead of her. It was an odd choice, considering how little proficiency she had shown with swords in training.
A boulder roughly the size of Carden's head careened off the pile building around the island, bouncing wetly towards them. Carden gave a little gasp, but Diane jammed the sword down in an attempt to deflect it. The rock ricocheted off, but the force exerted knocked the sharp end of the blade into her shin. A thin line of blood spread across her skin, and she cursed under her breath.
"I-I think we ju-ust hav-ve to d-dodge."
Carden nodded, but looked reluctant to leave their high perch.
Another boulder, from a different direction, crashed into the woods. It was bigger than the first one, and knocked over a small tree before rolling to a gentle stop a few feet from Diane's foot. With a grunt, she pushed it back down the slope. Almost immediately, two more flew from opposing directions.
Diane quickly moved a few steps to the right, dragging Carden with her.
"S-stay with m-me, here!" she yelled, trying to be heard over the roar or more and more incoming projectiles.
Though Carden's lips moved, his reply was lost as Diane pulled him sharply left, and a huge rock rolled through the space he had occupied seconds before. The Cornucopia let out a resonating beat as it was dented by an even larger boulder.
"Pay attention-n!" she snapped.
Dust rose in clouds, obscuring some cameras, and the tributes' fields of vision. Rocks began to pile up even higher, in layers around the low points of the island. The woods filled in the quickest, and the Cornucopia was soon full to the mouth with rubble. Neither tribute was unscathed, either. Carden had been caught by a smaller rock on his ankle, and was moving with a limp. Diane's nose was bleeding sluggishly from a glancing blow dealt by a fist-sized projectile.
Their area of motion had diminished hugely, the piles of rocks giving them only about five square feet in which to dodge. It was only a matter of time before something happened, and it did.
A huge, slightly oblong rock, rolling on it's side across the field of discarded rubble, moved threateningly towards them. It was at least seven feet long and four feet wide, and it rolled in a fashion somewhat lopsided. Nonetheless, it was fast. And what with that surrounding rubble, there was nowhere that either of them could run.
The audience, for the most part, had gathered that Diane's goal was not to survive the day, and yet, it was still shocking to see her stand to face it, arms spread in front, as if to embrace the boulder.
She didn't consider Carden's injury. He was hit by a smaller rock, sent sprawling on the groung. The rock was too fast for him to get up, too fast for Diane to shift forward, too fast for him to take a breath in.
Carden's left leg was smashed before he had any sort of chance to react. Brave Carden, who could do nothing but scream, who couldn't even scramble out of the way. That was when Diane reacted, jamming her arms forward, muscles straining, face red. The cold was forgotten.
She pushed with every ounce of leverage she could get, moving the rock, first an inch, then a litle farther.
"Climb... Come on, Carden!"
"I can't! I'm stuck!"
And then, another rapid change. Too fast, too quiet, almost too small to notice. A tiny, tiny, pop. So little, in the tempest raging around them, and beneath their feet.
But also, the biggest, most important event in the games.
Diane's wrist snapped beneath the weight.
Already teetering on it's edge, the rock fell. Trapping her lower arm, and Carden, underneath at least a ton of sheer weight.
Just like that, it was over. In as little time as it takes for the eye to blink, the wing to beat, the heart to love, the rain was gone. The rocks were still. And in that calm, a cannon broke the silence, and Diane screamed.
Because it was over.
And she had won.
Bell clicked the little red circle on the top of her remote, and the television blinked off.
Her eyes felt tight, and just a little bit wet. They always did, at the end. It always passed. The feeling of her stomach knotted up in her throat. Jennsen and Harold would be drying off their eyes, reporting on the winner, the victor, Diane Glenn.
The games were still lovely, of course. But a different kind of lovely. Not as happy, but still beautiful.
She dropped the remote, walking back to her bedroom, thinking only to go to sleep. It was too early to be awake, to have to think about what had happened. Bell smiled to herself. It had been a good games. Lovely.
But the sort that would be even lovlier at a distance.
-x
Oh, who am I kidding? This isn't the end, that comes in two chapters.
Can anyone honestly say they were expecting that?