"When I misbehaved in service to your grandfather, do you know what happened to me?"
"He sent you to bed without any supper?" Ohm's rage continues to simmer and build.
"Hardly. The beatings were the easiest part. Eventually, your body stops reacting to physical pain. No, that is why President Snow saved a special treat for me. Sometimes, it was when I had failed to fold his shirts to his exact specifications. Others, it was when there was a spot on his favorite table linens. Sometimes, it was just because he felt bored….His guards would drag me to a viewing room in the back of his private quarters. There was a special chair: a chair made of steel that no matter how long you laid in it, was ice cold. So cold, it would numb the skin seconds. I would be strapped down, so tight that the leather manacles would cause my wrists and ankles to bleed. Then, my head would be locked in a cold steel vise, followed by a pair of lid locks. Do you know what it's like to have a pair of steel hooks crammed underneath your eyelids and then screwed open, Colonel? Feeling your eyeballs dry out and tear until some nameless assistant remembers to drip some saline into them?" Ohm's ranting is becoming angrier and more nonsensical. I actually begin to grow frightened. I hold out my hands to the sky in a gesture of feigned friendship.
"No, I don't, Rikard. I'm very sorry about what President Snow did to you. Please, understand that I hate him as much as you do."
"Oh, I doubt that very much, Ares, for we haven't even gotten to the best part yet. He would stand over me, breathing his disgusting rose-scented stench into my face; a smile creeping across his crimson lips. He would tell me whatever he was upset about, his snake eyes glowing in the dim yellow light of the room, savoring the agony that I was about to endure. Snow wouldn't even bother to wipe his damn mouth with a handkerchief as he was speaking. He would just let the blood drip onto my face from his diseased lips…"
Suddenly, a clap of thunder echoes across the island. Large clouds form in the sky, blocking out the sun. I soon notice that there is something very off about these clouds: something unnatural. Another clap of the thunder and I feel raindrops hitting my head. The sound of the rain on the leaves of the jungle grows louder and louder till it is almost deafening. My mouth drops in horror as I realize that I have seen this once before, but it didn't have the same effect on screen as it does in real life. Looks like Ohm wasn't kidding about throwing in some Quarter Quell surprises. As the tiny rivers formed by the sudden deluge drip down my face and into my mouth, the warm, salty taste confirms that this isn't any illusion. Blood is falling from the sky, and it is only getting worse. I dash toward the trees trying to find some shelter as Ohm continues his rant.
"Sometimes, there would be a prick of a syringe as well. It depended on his mood. If it was a minor infraction, like say not filling his wine glass enough, it might be as little as a trace. However, if it was something major, like a chip on his favorite set on bone china, he would inject enough into my veins to almost kill me. Have you ever been injected with Tracker Jacket venom, Colonel Snow?"
"No Rikard, I haven't." I say trying to find some shelter among the leaves, but there is none. The storm has only grown in strength. The jungle is now starting to flood with crimson. The creek bed which had been a mere trickle a few minutes ago is now nearly filled to the top with a flowing river of blood. "Again, I'm very sorry about what was done to you. I honestly deplore it as much as you do, but you have to realize that it wasn't our fault. We both have the same enemy, and killing me isn't going to change that." Ohm ignores my apology once more.
"Since you don't know what it's like, let me try to describe the sensation of the world around you, melting into burning fiery pain. But it's different than any other pain you've ever felt because it comes from inside of you. Leaving everything you experience completely unaffected, or so it seems to you. The hallucinations blend seamlessly into reality. Suddenly, it seems completely normal to see poisonous snakes and spiders crawling out of people's mouths and eyes, dropping all over you before they begin to bite at your flesh. I always tried to scream, but thanks to my surgical alterations, all I could do was make muted gasps of horror." The flood of blood continues to grow. My legs sink in the red mud until they are up to my ankles.
"Rikard, please stop this."
"I always tried to ask that same thing to my torturers, but of course I couldn't, Colonel Snow." He continues, "That's when the recording of my wife and son's death would begin, just as the horror of the venom reached its zenith. My son dies first. A Peacekeeper grabs him by his neck, lifts him into the air, and puts a pistol to his head. Then, in a flash, he is just gone: dropping off camera and forever out of existence. My wife's execution, however, is much more up close and personal. They shoved the camera directly into her face so that her horrified, screaming visage would fill the entire screen. Through her tears, she always asks the same question, 'Why are they doing this, Rikard. What did you do?' Yes, my wife blamed my actions for my family's execution. Then, the same Peacekeeper puts his pistol, still splattered with my son's brains, behind her head and pulls the trigger. Snow always had the video slowed down, so that I could see the bullet pass through her forehead, the same forehead that I kissed so lovingly every day my previous happy life…Do you know what it's like to watch your wife suffer and be powerless to do anything about it, My Dear Colonel?..."
"Lizzy!" I scream over the sound of the red rain pouring down around me.
"Why don't we find out?" The holoimage in the sky returns projected against the crimson clouds. Lizzy is panicking in her plastic prison. The water has now reached almost to her waist.
"Ares!" she yells hoping that I can hear her.
"Elizabeth, I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" I scream over and over again but apparently Ohm keeps my words silent to her.
"Do you finally want to know what the little red button does, Colonel?"
"Ares," Lizzy continues, "don't let him break you. No matter what he does, I will still….AHHHHHH!" Lizzy's entire body clenches in pain. She screams in agony and the sound of her suffering echoes through the entire jungle. I press my hands over my ears as hard as I can, but cannot block out the sound of my wife's torture.
Lizzy is briefly released from the pain and manages a few more words.
"Ares, don't look just don't look. I know it's not you! I know it's not your fau…AHHHHHHHH!" Lizzy's violent screaming returns. I huddle on the floor of the jungle as the tide of blood rises around me.
"Make it stop! Just make it stop!" My pleas seem to fall on deaf ears.
"So it seems the mighty God of War does indeed have a weakness…..HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!" Ohm's thunderous laughing returns and blends with my wife's piercing cries of pain. My tortured mind doesn't know what else to do. My only desire is to block out the hell around me. I press my head down into the mud pushing my face deep into the blood-soaked earth trying to find any kind of quiet refuge.
"It seems like Ares has become….an ostrich! Do you find that funny, Mrs. Snow?" I choke on the mix of dirt and blood. My breathing slows, as my heart begins to flutter. All I want is to die and end this sickness once and for all. Images of my grandfather's face pass through my mind as Ohm's laughing blends with the vision to become one picture of terror. Suddenly, I am the Avox strapped to the chair, unable to move, speak, or even cry out in horror. I just want my pathetic life to end and this pain to stop. I want to vindicate Ohm and have my evil family name die right here and now with me in the mud.
However, just as I am about to black out, Lizzy's screaming stops and she saves me once again. Through her gasping breaths, I hear her rejuvenating words:
"No, Ares, get up! Fight for me Ares! Fight like I know you can. YOU CAN'T LET HIM WIN! GET HIM FOR ME! SWEAR YOU'LL GET HIM!"
The world instantly changes. My face is no longer buried in the mud. I am on my feet and running through the jungle. My hands clench around my weapon as Lizzy's orders have given me the focus of a laser beam. There is now only one way to end the evil lineage of the Snow name. A Snow must stop this evil, and erase it from the world once and for all.
I look back into the sky just in time to see Lizzy's body give out from the agony and she collapses unconsciously into the pool around her. Her head comes to a rest just above the water line.
"You failed, Ohm! Once again you've proven just what a fool you are! Nothing has changed. I'm still alive and still going to kill you. The only difference is now I have more of reason to savor your last breaths before I end your life!"
Ohm's laughing has now turned back to fury.
"Very well, Colonel! The Games shall continue as planned. Your wife still lives and I still hold all the cards. I'll be sure to keep a recording of this little exchange to show along with the footage of your death for when she's the silent one strapped helplessly into a steel chair!"
"Bring your worst, old man! I'm still willing to play if you are!"
"EXCELLENT! Fourteen hours left till the mermaid breaths her last gasps so be sure not to hide like a coward for too long!"
Less than a minute later, the whistling returns, but this isn't a few random rounds designed to slow me down. No, this artillery barrage is designed to level half the island. Explosions rip through the trees, sending falling branches and metal shards screaming through the air around me. I keep running as fast as I can toward a small group of rocks I see in the distance. They are my only chance to get shelter from the steel and blood storm that continues to rage around me. Another artillery shell explodes directly above my head in the canopy. I feel shrapnel tear through my arm and rip into my flesh but I still don't stop. That's what he wants.
I suddenly remember that he's no longer able to track me. If I can disappear, he'll lose me until a time and place of my choosing. I break sharply to the right, running deeper into the jungle's cover. The strategy seems to be working as I notice the artillery impacts beginning to spread out more. Eventually, I dive into a depression shaded by another tangle of tree roots and begin to crawl.
The explosions fade into the distance and soon the only sounds are the blood rain dripping through the trees and my own breath as I struggle onward. Ohm must have lost me, because his voice returns for a final time.
"Keep running, Colonel! Don't you dare stop, because as soon as I find you, I will laugh as I force your little Lizzy to watch you die!"
"Alright, Ohm," I think as I continue to crawl through the cover of roots and branches. Finally, I see a gap at the other end and take off sprinting once more toward the rocks in the distance. "I'll keep running. I'll keep running straight for you…"