Two Weeks Later- Final Interview
Under the white-hot lights, onstage next to Caesar Flickerman, I sit stiffly on the plush green couch. Everything is wrong, and everything feels wrong, from my surgically perfect body to the cheers of the crowd, though the room is too darkened to make out the individual faces.
It's a lucky thing for my safety that Ivin and Kyler have so ingrained the phrase 'Do not cry' into my mind, because the only figure I can make out besides that of my interviewer is that of President Snow, face bearing a distinctly displeased expression.
I gulp, and go back to trying to listen to Caesar. He is an honestly good person, and he will try to help me.
"So, congratulations, Diane! Thank you for those details into your strategy! Knowing what we do now, let's see the games. Are you ready?"
Somehow I manage to reply, keeping the pain out of my voice. "Yes."
What follows is three hours of the cruelest torment that any madman could have devised. I am treated to the video of my prone form being wheeled onto the train, the tearstained faces of my family, and brief clips of all the other reapings. Apart from my own, the most time is allotted to Kali, Actassi, Hetcher, and, most painfully, Carden.
I am once again reminded of his spirit, his bravery, and that he didn't have to die. His goal, saving his brother, was achieved. But such a cost. It's all I can do to keep the tears back, as we hear inspirational, stirring music, and I seem to emerge directly from my gurney to the chariots.
The look of orchestrated bravery on my face is so laughable, I am dying to cover my current face in embarrassment. What was I thinking? That I would win?
The training is a montage, mostly showing my capability with a bow, focusing for a few seconds on my meeting with Hetcher and Anona. Anona…
When I see the interviews, the regret is worse. Anona, my forgotten ally, seems so sure of herself, it is terrible to think of how she died. My approach to the interviews, however successful, is simply embarrassing to watch. But watch I do, if only because I can catch the occaisonal glimpse of Carden or Hetcher in the background, and pretend that they are still alive.
A gong sounds suddenly, and I see eight deaths in quick succession as the careers decimate the weaker tributes. A slow motion shot of my arrow, and Paris falls. Royce gets a second to tenderly close her eyes, and Hetcher and I disappear over the horizon.
On screen, I fall ill in the night. Hetcher tries to tend to me, but comes to the conclusion that only the careers have the necessary supplies. The alliance with the two twelves stitches the older girl's wound, and a career from District Five dies.
Hetcher confronts the careers, and loses his spear. We are turned away from the cave island by the little girl and the redheaded boy.
With me over his shoulder, still unconscious, he discovers our campsite, invaded by poisonous lizard-like mutts. I slowly wake up. The careers fix their boat, and the Four girl and the One boy go hunting.
I watch, paralyzed in my horror as the two Sixes stand up to the careers for their allies. It's even worse, knowing why Hypatia and Carden initially refused to ally. When I think there's nothing left to shock me, the boy stabs his dying district partner.
How could I have thought my own sufferings to be so large?
The Four girl can't find her paddle, and swims out with the boat dragging behind her. The Two boy allies mysteriously with a tiny girl, hiding in the Cornucopia. Hetcher and I row off to the cave island. We are trapped with the two remaining allies in the first cave-in.
Sitting, straight-backed on the small chair, I am barely able to keep my mind away from the memory of the second…
Maren makes it back. Two more careers, Kali and the boy I killed, go hunting. Him, reluctantly. Soren and Lecia escape the island. Kali begins to burrow into our cave, under cover of darkness.
I drowse inside the cave, leaned up on Hetcher's shoulder, blissfully unaware of the demon only a meter away. Carden mutters in his sleep, and Hypatia tosses restlessly. In the morning's pinkish light, Soren and Lecia are attacked by dolphins. Soren, unknowingly, kills Lecia by trying to pull her from the water.
Kali is inside the cave. In a single blow, she snaps most of Hypatia's ribs. The little girl is knocked backwards, and Hetcher is frozen with fear as I continue the battle. My height has me at a disadvantage, but the Four boy saves me by drawing Kali back out.
Hypatia dies. Our alliance parts ways.
Back at the career island, Kali snaps Soren's neck and cuts out his jaw. Hetcher and I barely escape the huge lake monster, which I now understand to be an alligator or immense proportions.
At the feast, I very nearly defeat Kali, though the true winner is Carden as he speeds off, relatively unscathed. The Fours rebel against Kali's insanity, and she kills the girl, Maren, as the boy looks on in terror. Kali is sorely wounded, as well, and he kills her. I understand, now, his fear when I called him murderer. He was as scared as I was, scared of his achingly sore conscience.
He had less reason to be than I did. His actions were justified.
The days following show a fine selection of torments for the boy; Hetcher and I are relatively uninteresting, besides a quick shot of my discovering the icy spring. Carden shelters in a tree for a night, driven up by muttation crabs. He barely escapes, thanks to a crossbow delivered by a sponsor. Actassi battles a twisted image of a woman who must be his mother.
My stomach churns. He emerges victorious, but much the worse for wear. That night, he shelters on the island of poisonous berries.
I am given a full shot to go hunting, meandering through the woods around the cave. As the cave begins to rumble, Hetcher's terrified expression is etched into the screen, and my mind.
"Diane? Diane! Where are you!" he cries.
Even though the girl onscreen runs to the fullest extent she can, he is gone by the time she reaches him. I remember the oaths I swore only too well, and I have to cover my face to sheild myself from my own stupidity. I couldn't have known...
Actassi crawls away from the island, trying feebly to reach mine. Carden has found his way to the Cornucopia, and immediately falls asleep.
When I kill Actassi, it takes a full five minutes, at least. They show every angle, dissected for my conveniance. I can see just how monsterous my grief for Hetcher made me, only a shadow of my former self. His eyes are huge, dialated with fear, and I tremble and turn away, though the Diane on the screen does not. Another cannon blasts.
Up there, Carden is still alive. If only for a few more minutes.
A slow shot plays of the mountains crumbling, and suddenly, a storm is raging, and I reach Carden on the Cornucopia. The rest is too painful to watch, and I feel my eyes begin to glaze over with pain. I don't see the screen any more, but no amount of trying can stop the sounds from reaching my ears.
"I-I can't move! Diane! I'm stuck!"
The final, resounding crash, and my scream as my wrist breaks and Carden, and my right arm, are crushed beneath the rock.
"Carden! No, CARDEN! CARDEN!"
I am left with the searing image of my horror-struck expression, until the onscreen Diane screams herself hoarse, and finally passes out. The screen goes dark, and the cheering starts again. Why are they cheering for me?
It's not like I won.
-x
I love every one of you readers from the bottom of my keyboard, so I apologise now for every incontinuity, typo, and general 'error-of-stupidity' I have made since I began writing aCE. Just know that I honestly did make an effort to keep you guessing, sometimes totally changing plotlines in the process.
I think, to a lot of you, thanks are owed for keeping with me. So, here is my list of thanks, by username unless I know you personally.
I would like to thank, specifically:
-Mel, for being an awesome muse, brainstormer, online friend, and general ninja. I would have abandoned this story at least three times without you.
-Pen, for being the only person I know who can stay on this site longer than I do, and updating her stories so fast it puts me to shame.
-Vivid, for being ten times better at writing than I am, but still inexplicabley liking this story. And for letting me use a similar format for my kill sheet. Thanks!
-Ally, for being the first, hundredth, two hundredth, three hundredth, and four hundredth to review. Who knows if I would have gotten off the ground without you?
-Maren, for dying in one of the most epic ways I could think of. I'm sorry you never got to backhand Soren.
-Soren, for being great inspiration for one of the most fun characters to write.
-Esther, for unwittingly becoming a victim to my story when you were in my cabin last year. Forgive me..?
-All my pals at SDitEaBotC, for being generally epic in every way.
-It was all a PUZZLE, for sparing my life on several occaisons when I killed your favorite characters.
-Megan Warner, for being as awesome as any reader out there.
-Antimony Trifluoride, for having an impossible to spell username, and for all your in-depth comments and criticism.
-xXKillerxxCupcakesXx, for leaving great feedback even when you were disapponted in my choices.
-Artemis Randall, for having an even better grasp of THG than I could ever claim to, and for showing it in your comments.
-Stephanie Zorander, for having an EPIC effeffdawtnet last name, and sticking with me from the beginning.
-Fieyra, for leaving comments that made me smile, and using the most creative emoticons.
-BlackRoseOpal, for being one of the people who was brave enough to point it out when I succumbed to cliche.
-Mockingjay1199, for being one of Paris' few fans, and arguably displaying the most loyalty to any character in the story.
-TigerToa, for being Carden's favorite cheerleader.
-FoalyWinsForever, for having a hilarious avatar that made me giggle more than once.
-Snowhiskers, for liking Soren even when he was being reaaaally unlikable, and not giving up on me when I killed her favorite characters.
-Persephone's Flower, for commenting on most chapters, even though you started reading late in the game, and giving me a whole lot of pick-me-ups.
-Skellydoll, for reviewing, even once, and making me feel appropriately bad about Carden's death.
-Rosefire84, for being a sadly disappointed D3 fan, and seeing the good in my tributes.
-BananaPieThiefX, for not skewering me with her pitchfork, even though you had a perfectly good reason.
-Operation T.A.C.K.L.E.H.U.G, for doing everything possible to let me know what you thought, even back when you couldn't review.
-Scoobygal, for even continuing to read at all once you accidently saw a review about a particular character death.
-The Tester, for liking Actassi from the beginning, and partially convincing me to let him survive the bloodbath.
-Calypso3266, for keeping up with the story, and generally keeping me informed on what you thought.
And, finally...
-Everyone who ever read this story, whether or not you reviewed, favorited, or alerted it. My thanks to you could fill up a book, let alone a little internet page like this. That's why I'm writing a sequal. Because the only way I could ever possibly repay everything you have given me, is to write more of what you enjoy. I mean, I started out as a hospital-bound teenage girl with too much time on her hands, and 100,000 words later? Wow. Thank you.
Expect the first chapter of the sequal some time in the next two or three weeks. It's the quarter quell, and believe me, this one's going to be epic.
I'm sorry, I'm a terrible rambler. But, know this: YOU are the reason I got this far. All of you, thank you, thank you, thank you. And now, finally, the words I've been simultaneously wishing for and dreading.
-The End-