Loss.
"Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the o-er wrought heart and bids it break." - William Shakespeare.
Ward Bingham, District Six Male.
A slither of light penetrates the dingy room, beating off the resounding darkness. My sight swamps for a split second, the blurriness between vision and total blindness sending me in a dizzy spiral.
Then it clears, and slowly I stretch out. The dust has left a thin coat, the cobwebs sticky to my arms that quickly relent after a swift flailing. The effects of sleeping for a single day seem magnified here, as if I've been left to rot for months on end.
A single day. Twenty-four hours. However many seconds since Cynder was dragged from our escape and slaughtered at the end of that horrible bloodbath. And I never did a single thing. Her hands twined round his arm, dragged him kicking and screaming... screaming my name at a pitch ringing in my ears, and all I did was run.
I ran for my life and left my ally... maybe my friend... to die. Now I'm alone.
Through all my observations, calculations, compilation of strategies and tactics, I never considered his early death. Every plan involved Cynder. My survival, his survival. His downfall resulting in my benefit somehow. Not this early, not now of all times when I'm barely able to stand without feeling the world collapsing down in this forsaken cell. His company left me feeling something that wasn't hollow, he filled the breach between being able to sit and revel in my independence and actually talk and feel good.
The only person in a long time that has made me feel that way, outside of the close quarters I've always been myself in. And he's just another face in the sky, another name to tick off a roster.
For the first time in a long time, I'm scared to be left to my own devices. Scared of my lack of foresight and planning. Terrified that my observations have left me ruined in a place I can't hope to ever escape from, not without some help, something to guide me until I'm at a point that I know my footing and can travel in solitude.
I barely manage to hear the soft sound of a parachute. It lands in a pocket of darkness, shrouded in rot and decay, away from the illumination through the gap in the door. Wherever it is I stumbled in, it's not the most appealing place. Cell-like, claustrophobic, moldy.
I drag my knees across the chiseled concrete, ignoring the pain when my skin tears against a small crook. The canister is smooth and rounded. I pick it up and pop it open. A note pokes out from the top, above a small tub of ointment or medicine.
'You need to pick yourself up. I'm sorry about Cynder, but now it's you. Your survival. Your shot at victory. Use this for cuts and scrapes – D.'
The inside is a sickly green, matching the moss and fungus growing in the damp along the wall. I stuff it into my satchel that hangs useless against my tired leg. The rest of the contents is nothing but a few matches tied together with a rubber band, a plastic wrapping full of tiny crackers, and a half-empty bottle of water.
Did I drink this much, or was it already this way? This past day's been nothing but a haze, blocked through the dull longing for Cynder to come back. It shouldn't have been this way. He didn't deserve it, I didn't deserve it.
For the first time ever, even during my planning and will to survive, I feel the outright desire for another teenager's death. I want her dead. The girl that grabbed his chance for survival right from under me, the shred of hope we both shared at our escape, and dashed it in whatever horrific torture he went through. I've never been one for vengeance, mainly because I never trusted anyone to get close to me in the first place.
Keeping a distance stopped the pain, gave me time to just sit there and think through everything. Now I'm feeling emotions I've either bottled up and let multiply, or emotions that are only around because they're new, brought around through this hellish experience.
Pick yourself up Ward. Denley said so, Cynder would want you to. Even you, through this, know you want to.
Everyone must feel this way, in whatever Arena it is we're in and through whatever it is we're doing. We all want to win. Those who lost friends and those who took the lives of people's friends. We all want the same thing and that's to make it to the finishing line, cross it and return home. A new life, a harsh life forever in the eye of the Capitol. But it's still a life, something the rest of us won't be able to find comfort under. Cynder's now in a box, if not me, I'll do it for him and ensure I don't follow the same path.
For that I need to do the unthinkable. I need to repress the images about the career that killed my friend, I need to be the person I never expected to become unless it was in a situation that depended on life or death. It's up to me to be a hypocrite and kill other people so I can make it home.
All my thinking seems to have arisen to absolute zilch. Cynder was always at the central point of my plans, and now that he's gone, it's up to me and me alone to see the rest of this journey out.
Finally, with questionable, but faint determination, I manage to stand up. My legs creak and groan under my weight, but with each little step, I make it to the opening in the door and wrap my fingers round the silver, bolted edge.
It falls open on its hinges, unfolding the outside, revealing everything I've locked myself away from since the bloodbath. A single, cramped corridor covered with the destruction within and back when we had to escape. Other rooms like mine are either bolted shut, or swaying open just a crack. Some have shutters in the center that are peeled back to reveal the insides, darkness or light in those that are swaying on the hinges.
Something thuds against the inside of another one. Fear clings to me in an icy embrace, all my nerves on end as I pass the source and continue further down. Another bang. Another loud noise as someone or something fights its way from the inside to reach its freedom.
Whatever is locked away has to be the least of my worries. It's all about the other tributes running around, trying to survive. It's now about me, breaking all the laws of humanity to stop those innocent children, and the people responsible for my friend's death.
It's up to me to become the Victor, no one else is going to hand it to me freely. Without work, you never get anywhere. In the Districts we learnt it the hard way, and now we get to exact the same principles in the most extreme of fashions.
It's time to become a tribute.
Ada Bertrand, District Three Female.
Raelyn holds her knife out, fingers splayed across the handle in the most lopsided of manners. I grin and step up to her, placing a delicate hand on her shoulder and turning her around a fraction. She gets the hint to halt and follows the movement through. When her teary eyes lock onto mine, the briefest moment of happiness falters and I frown.
The beginning effects are still weighing heavily on Raelyn, bearing her down, creating a new Raelyn. With Kitty's death we're down a real fighter and I've had to step up, not in the sense of a leader, but in the sense of reason. Giving us a path rather than roaming about aimlessly, no real idea of direction.
"You don't need to hold your knife out all the time," I gently say, raising a hand and bringing it to the handle of the knife. Raelyn's lip quivers, a tiny little noise bubbling up and pouring from her mouth.
My body yearns to both hug her and continue onwards, an uncomfortable twist that sets my nerves on end. I've never been good at social interaction, comes with the package of being one of the intellectual, brainy types.
The clogging in my throat, a dry heavy tongue and the warm feeling of sweat on my forehead came with being me. It was all I felt being around Raelyn and Kitty at first, until I realized their strength wasn't quite as built up as I'd imagined. Until it was clear what I had to do, what they needed me to do, and now what Raelyn requires from me more than anything.
A guide, a helping hand. The idea of just standing back, worrying about how they think of me, what I'm coming across as, has left me. Or at least I'm pushing it back. Supporting Raelyn is my top priority, no matter what, it's about us two remaining together.
"I don't want to be unprep..." she trails off, voice warbling out on a thin line that cuts off. I get the idea, but thankfully she understands and lets the knife fall down just a small amount. Raelyn would never hurt anyone, she hasn't got in it her. The image of my once bubbly, energetic friend killing someone sends my mind reeling in fear. It's the way of the Game, but it's the wrong way in life.
The two can't be around at the same time. Raelyn has a right to decide how she wants to act, but if I can put it off for as long as possible, I'll have achieved something.
We pass underneath another rafter that barely clings to the bolts in the wall. The corridors weave in and between the broader, wider reception rooms that are trashed. We're either encased by metal cells that are filled to the top with the most unbelievable smells, or left in a room that leaves me feeling paranoid.
In and out, round and round, a constant maze of these patient rooms. I know we're in an asylum, a place for those who aren't mentally sound. Only this one is coated with neglect.
Raelyn takes a small step over a wooden beam that cuts off the corner, connecting one stretch of metal panels to the next. I follow over with a quick stride, balancing out and setting my hand out on the walls to catch myself.
I'm not sure how many corridors we're moving down, or even if there are that many in the first place. The larger rooms inbetween could be the same room we're crossing, only we haven't noticed it yet. For all we know, this is but a small segment to a much larger Arena that we're failing to find entrances too.
Or is it a good thing, that we're locked away tight from the other tributes? We haven't come across anything yet. It's better that way, it stops Raelyn from becoming-
Her sharp squeak snaps my attention upwards. She clutches the knife outwards, the blade shaking in time to her fear. At the end of the corridor, just rounding a corner, appears another tribute.
Another... tribute...
I feel something bubble up from my throat, a sob, maybe a cry of terror. I'm not sure, but I swallow it down to save Raelyn the knowledge that the only person she can depend on might fail her. This is the moment that counts. I have to be here for Raelyn, I have to... I have to fight...
Ward Bingham steps into the light. His face is a remarkable picture of fatigue, tired eyes rimmed with blue. Pale, almost transparent skin. This Arena, a madhouse, is effecting us in ways that are multiplied hour by hour.
Only the second day and we're already becoming shells.
"We don't have to," Raelyn calls out, before I can say anything. She brushes my hand off when I place it on her shoulder, disconnecting herself from my protection. "You pass us, we pass you. No one needs to fight."
She's found her weak voice for this scenario. My sense are on haywire, a hundred different outcomes and consequences to each decision that is made. The safer option, Raelyn's option, the option of mercy for mercy in return.
It gives us a sense of who we were two days ago, before we boarded the hovercraft. But it doesn't fit who we are now, who I am learning to be, and who Raelyn has to become someday.
I open my mouth, but Ward raises a hand, revealing his own sharp dagger. "If it were that simple, I'd oblige. But we're in the Arena now. We fight, we die, one us lives."
Raelyn shakes her head, weakening at his choice. I have to be her strength. Ward begins to take small steps, then larger strides towards us. Raelyn cries out with her own knife poised to hit air, her aim faulty, her entire idea of fighting crumbling as our enemy closes the gap on us.
Now Ada. No more cowering in thought, hiding in my mind. It's about action here, about moves and counter-moves. It's about killing.
I step forward, shoving Raelyn into the wall and biting my lip when she cries out in pain. Ward's knife meets mine, a bitter ring of metal on metal echoing up to the concrete ceiling and back down. My skills aren't anything, it's my resolve that brings up my knife and counters his. It's my will to protect Raelyn who stares at us with wide, crazed eyes through a blanket of greasy black hair that clings to her forehead.
For her I'll kill Ward... for her I'll...
It's over, quickly. Before I even get a chance to finish it.
When his knife enters my stomach, my own blade glides off his own and falls into the rubble. It disappears in one clean spark, and Ward catches my falling body. The wave of agony takes over any coherent thought. Protection. Selflessness. Intellect.
It all sheds when Ward lets me fall. "No..." the word leaves my wet lips, building up with red that pours through my teeth and splatters the front of my jacket.
I see Raelyn through the blood-tinged haze. She stares at me, then at Ward and I can't even will myself to want her to run. It's too much: the pain, the fear, the knowledge that I'm going.
She gets it though, and Raelyn pushes herself up. Her eyes lock onto my own, fighting the blurriness in my vision. Then she disappears back the way we came and Ward continues forwards, after her, or maybe deciding that the way he already came isn't the way he can go anymore.
The two disappear and I'm left in a heap. Dying... dying...
Dead.
Tyndall Martinez, District Three Male.
The chains clink together, the bones clatter, the concrete taps gently with the trickle of clotted blood. It's haunting, each footstep sends a reverberation through my entire body, solidifying me with fear for seconds on end. I shake it off, trying to be strong, and then I freeze up. A cycle through this ring of torture chambers, connected through low cut arches that lead onto more death.
The smell hangs in the air as a mist, decay and death clogging my nose with the bitterest of tangs.
"Who do you think that was then?" Lochlan runs a hand along the beaten wood, dyed the darkest of reds. He grimaces and turns to face the pair of us, halting the procession. I look up and shrug my shoulders, trying to fight off the urge to be sick. Thinking about which other kid just died isn't the answer to any of this. I don't want to know who just fell, I don't want any of this or any of what is to come in the near future.
What I want is out of this room, out of this Arena, out of this stupid place and back home. At least at home I didn't want to burrow away and hide, at home I could smile and cry and laugh and scream. I could do all those things without the sensation of my body failing itself, both mental and physical aspects shrinking because of the bud of fear blossoming inside my chest.
Lochlan sees what I want him to see, the light smile, the acceptance of whatever it is he or Tatum has to say. It's what I want them to see because the alternative, the truth, is too big a worry to deal with. If they believe it, I can at least try to see it in myself.
They're both so strong, and I'm... well I never was, was I? I was one of the to-be-forgotten tributes, a background character, a cannon in the sky.
"This room is making you morbid," Tatum says from her position. The cage sways in whatever breeze is chilling this room. It knocks into her shoulder and she scowls, again, batting it away and stepping closer towards the cleaner gap in the center. Lochlan grins and wipes a sodden strand of hair from his forehead.
"Good to see you have a funny side." He winks at her, a cheery smile playing his face. Tatum scrunches up her nose and turns away, attempting to block us out again, but no one can mistake the delicate red flush in her cheeks. I'd laugh if there weren't skeletons around us.
"I wasn't joking," she adds, before closing off entirely.
Lochlan quietens up, moving forwards again at a sullen march. It's hard to say anything unless it's related to the Hunger Games anymore. Earlier, Lochlan's attempt at instilling something remotely related to our lives back home ended in Tatum's obstinacy and this very connection of rooms.
I've reserved myself to this sort of life, for however many days it will still be a life. What started off as a group, mismatched yet somehow fitting, has left me feeling broken and closed off. Like Ada, wherever she is, I was always quiet. But a content sort of quiet, content to add a little snippet of a joke. I was good at cheering people up when it was required of me, but here and now when it's most needed, my brain blurs and I'm left feeling nothing but dread.
I've resigned myself to this balance between staying awake and shutting down. People like Lochlan and Tatum waken up in these sorts of life and death situations. People like me don't know how to react, so we close off. We become nothing.
"This door's closed." Lochlan's strained voice filters through the shadow he's hidden in. Tatum looks over at me, her lips opening and then shutting tight again. She brings up her hatchet, the metallic glint somehow less menacing with the equipment lining shelves left to rot away.
I follow Tatum, tentative footsteps in the general direction. We both reach Lochlan together and notice the door, a sturdy padlock holding it shut and keeping us from moving onwards. There's a small window in the door, covered with a thick mist that blocks out viewing what we'll eventually be stepping into.
My knees start to shake, but for their sake, I hold on and act the part.
"There has to be a key," I mutter, hoping there is. Anything to move on from this room. There has to be a way out of this ring of chambers. Lochlan turns to me and nods, then moves his gaze onto Tatum.
"What?" Her tone is hostile, but again, a little beaten down quiver in her voice. She's never been as tough as she'd like us to believe, I was always good at seeing people truly. Tatum's false pretense gives us a sense of strength though, stops me from peeing myself and resigning to death.
"Be a dear and search some of the shelves for the key."
She raises an eyebrow, glaring at him. "What about Tyndall?"
Lochlan shrugs his shoulders, the hint of that infectious glee in his eyes. Tatum sighs and nods her head, turning away and slinking off into the bloody room. I turn back to face Lochlan who continues to beat against the padlock with his staff, attacking the lock but leaving no mark on the metal. Through his groans and grumbles, I look over my shoulder and watch Tatum ruffle around through hooks and knives.
She peers through the rungs of cages, ignoring the skulls and blood stains that cling to the metal. If that were me, I don't know what I would do. But it's not me, for that I'm grateful to Lochlan for choosing Tatum. Maybe that's why he had no response... maybe he knows I'm nothing more than a...
"Aha!" Lochlan cheers, followed by the thump of the lock hitting the ground. Tatum continues to search, unaware of his success. The door opens on its hinges, creaking, the darkness still hanging thick. It obscures the way in front, but Lochlan as eager as ever, grabs onto my arm and pulls us into the next room. Only then does he remember Tatum. He halts, turning to call for her.
We wait patiently as she perks up, pushing away a bloody hook, and begins to walk over to us. She takes quick, purposeful strides.
Then the door closes. With Tatum on the wrong end.
Lochlan cries out and pushes me to the side, diving at the door handle. It doesn't budge an inch, the lock broken on the other side but through some contraption nothing will move at all. The window gives us a view of Tatum, fracturing as it dawns on her. Her eyes widen, head goes frantic as she moves back and forward in time to her fervent pulling on the opposite handle.
I see it, creeping up on her. Slowly, with precise footsteps. My breath hitches and I feel my trouser leg go damp. Too late for embarrassment. Too late for anything.
Lochlan's breath leaves him in a mist, his face pales and nothing he says reaches Tatum. It grabs her, pulls her kicking and screaming onto one of the racks. A human-shaped body yet disfigured to the point of monstrosity. It leers down at her, then looks up once in our direction, grinning a sick smile.
The window blacks out, blocking our ally and her captor. There's nothing Lochlan or I can do, frozen to the ground, trapped from the torture chamber.
Sabrina Calladine, District Eleven Female.
Although I try to feel the part, my body protests with each movement. I'm tired, past the point of alertness. It's dangerous to lose my sense of vigilance, reflexes that would come in handy if something fell upon me that I'd need to kick-start into action.
But all I've done is move, sluggish yet determined through these waters. When I move, it's as if my brain is connecting with the need to survive rather than the need to crumble down and cry. I didn't even know the boy, never felt like it was my duty to protect him because I'm fourteen and he is... was eighteen.
Eaton's smug face fills me with a deep sense of rage, it grips onto my stomach and I let my body feel the rush of hot anger. Eaton wanted him dead, he wanted an innocent, albeit annoyingly curious teenager to fall so I could take his entire focus. We aren't humans in his eyes. We are pawns that the Capitol control so that sooner or later, days or weeks, one of us emerges victorious.
He sees us all the same way the Capitol does, and all I can do is seethe and let the rage fester. I've wiped away angry tears, now I need to focus and move past his death.
There wasn't anything I could do. He wasn't your responsibility, move on. Forget him. If only it were easier.
The backpack weighs heavy on my shoulder, slowing me down at an even slower pace. There's a ripple in these murky waters, it drags on the back of my knees as if by some invisible force and tries to stop me from advancing. A tide I can't see through the still, bright green depths that continue to act more as a hindrance than anything else.
If I ever reach the point of dehydration, I'm not stooping to that level. I'd sooner stab myself than drink from these tunnels. They want us to feel that way, so I won't let them. In my own stubbornness, I'll defy the cruelest of temptations.
I leave the narrowness of one of the tunnels, stretching on into one of the wider compartments. An archway leads up the flight of stairs, at the top the Cornucopia and the alliance intent on eradicating the rest of us 'nobodies'. I bet one of them killed Sloan, dragged him and slit his throat before he could even have a chance at survival.
As much as the voice tells me to forgot about him, I know it won't ever work. For all my determination to build up that distant wall, barricading myself from others and stepping up as one of the better tributes, he'll still prod and pull at my conscience. If he hadn't of died, it might have been nice to see him here. Ally with him until we had no choice but to split. Now I'll never know company, not without some darker motivation behind it.
I tred the water again, dragging my legs through with my arms maintaining balance. There are boxes, metal poles and random bits of wood sticking out from ontop the stony platforms. A rickety bridge floats over the water, some of the connections skipping the top of the green surface leaving it damp. I could search the top, but down here I can move through to the next room.
Later I'll sleep, for now better to continue.
Something murmurs in the distance. A gentle pattering, a tapping of some sort. I've seen rats scurrying the tunnel walls, the tiny bit of stone that juts out giving them safe passage. I start to dismiss it when I hear their voices. Three voices.
"We can't stay here forever." A male voice. Kind and considerate. Unlike Sloan, unlike Eaton. I see their huddled figures on top one of the platforms. At first, my mind screams to run and hide, sensing immediate danger when really there isn't any. The girl on the right, hidden under a mane of sodden hair is the Kennedy girl. She might prevent a challenge, but her allies keep her tranquil.
If I stay hidden, I'll be fine.
If I...
The plan boils up, forming itself. They have backpacks, amongst them I see the bread and bottles of water that aren't filled to the brim with this infected gunk I'm wading through. Eaton knows me as the girl who won't hold back, the girl who plays with poison. Somehow the Capitol knew it was my thing, and they lined up the backpack just outside my door at the bloodbath.
I have my poison ready, but they forgot food and a substantial amount of drink. My stomach grumbles through hunger. Looking at their friendly, warm faces digging into their dinner brings about jealousy. Even if they aren't doing anything, the fact they're so content makes me slightly angry.
They're not even trying to fight for this, they're playing house, content to hug up and have a miniature feast as if they weren't in the Arena. If only life were so easy, but it's a delusion. A fantasy. Their faces are blurred due to the distance, I can't quite pick up their expressions but I hear their whispering as they share gentle laughs.
I play it alone because it's the best way. Friends, all of that nonsense, it's a ridiculous ideal. I play it this way because it's easier to be the person no one ever wants to be. I hid away because the strategy was that I never was identified as a threat, now I'm here, I get to push that aside and do what is necessary. I don't want to hurt these three, but they have what I have.
Basic survival instincts. Human nature. It encompasses the need for food and water. It will give me life, the chance to make it further and maybe, just maybe, make it to the end of this whole road and win the Games.
It's not a sure deal, nothing is a guarantee. All I can do is stay in this water, duck under a bridge and rest myself against a piece of stone to act as shelter. Then I'll strike, be the monster hidden away. Poison them because their deaths mean my chances of survival are higher. Steal their supplies because it gives me a longer life.
Eaton, are you proud of me? I shake away the contempt, let the emotions faze out and settle in my mind. It's about focus now. It's about surviving, no matter the cost.
Raelyn Houchens, District Ten Female.
Nothing makes sense, not anymore. I stumble blindly, zipping through rubble and other obstructions that barely register. Tears hang heavy on my eyelashes, with each blink a drop falls and splashes against my feet whilst they kick the concrete.
How long has it been? An hour, a few, a day? I continue to move my legs and arms, but there I hang above my own control, letting my mind do the work when all I can do is mope and feel the boundaries of reality shattering. I've never dealt with suffering on this level. Death, all of it. So much in such a small amount of time and it's crushing away the hope I've clung to my entire life.
Whatever existed two days ago, it's a distant dream my legs continue to run towards. It teases me, then sprints away in the wake of another disaster. The hovercraft ride, the bloodbath, Kitty's corpse, my own mind caving in, and then Ada's murder. Bit by bit, thread by thread, the cord is being cut.
Something heavy slams into my shin but the pain is a distant thud. Nothing really feels in place anymore, not when I run down corridor after corridor. Past the rooms that house the horrors which bump during the day, clawing at night. Those that are open, inviting us in only to be nothing but disastrous to look at.
If the Capitol wanted to break me, my mind doesn't rise to tell me they haven't. Maybe they have. They must have. Alton told me to snap into reality, to be serious. I don't feel serious. I just feel the lump surging in my throat, bobbing up and down as my heart shudders within my ribcage. If this is what he meant by being serious, then I don't want it.
I could act away the pain back in my District. Through struggle, I could be the ray of sunshine, a beacon that others either willingly or just to have an excuse of happiness would cling towards. Now, nothing, not a single twinge on my lips other than the tremble as I fight back a relentless wave of tears.
Few drops fall, but if I open up, they won't stop. Maybe they'll never stop.
With Ada dead, I don't know what to do anymore. Win would be the logical thing, it always came down to there being one victor and in a sense that always hovered as a dream. An unlikely dream, but not impossible. Through Ada and Kitty, it always seemed as if it could, no, would, be one of us. We were more than allies, we were friends. Through it all, we planned to stick together as the group and lean on one another, providing and supporting until the finale and we'd work out what to do then.
Foolish. Idiotic. All the words Alton may have used or others thought in their head. It's barely past the bloodbath and both Kitty and Ada are now gone forever, dead, on their way back to Three and Twelve where I'll never see them again.
Even if I do, magically, make it out of this Arena alive, they'll be buried under five feet of earth. Deep within a box, rotting like the wooden beams I continue to weave around. The dream of unity is now over, all that's left is the dream for victorship, and with each second it grows more unlikely.
Ada had her brain. Kitty had her strength. I have my... I had my optimism. Now I have nothing but a knife, a few crumbs and my shattered happiness. My grandma is at home, left to die. I promised her I'd return as we wept in each others arms, even me, letting reality sink through for a moment when I could say goodbye.
The goodbye feels permanent. Permanent like death, a forever occurrence. Something nothing can break me from.
I round the next corner and for once, actually let my eyes narrow and focus on what's in front. All of it seems familiar, the same ring me and Ada explored. Only we moved at a slower pace. I've been running and running, ignoring certain twists and turns in favour of others. Maybe subconsciously, my legs ran down those I recognized. And I recognise this one.
Through rubble, underneath a certain rock jutting out from the wall, I see the glint. The metal reflecting the candlelight. It flickers, the limitless breeze swaying the candle this way and that. The knife is unmistakable, the red handle, the one Ada tried to use to defend my life against Ward.
"No..." It leaves my lips, a croak of sorrow. More tears pelt the floor and trail my cheeks, mingling with the dirt and grime coating my face from yesterday's sleep. Behind the knife, I see the gentle clearing of rock where I cowered, letting Ada do it all because I was helpless. I tried to hold my knife for defense and it broke the moment Ward told us everything we knew.
It's about being a tribute, not someone who fantasizes about the Arena being a place full of normal humans and the careers. We're all in the same mindset now, only some kill for the sake of killing, others for a victory they never wanted before the reaping.
I'm not either. I'm just there, because I can only be there. Ada's death, Kitty's death, Ward's truth. It settles there, bringing up emotion after emotion but it doesn't ring anything inside of me. Doesn't reveal anything. I'm not in the aftermath of an epiphany. I'm just me, Raelyn, broken from too much that has happened in too little time.
Drops of blood smother the ground where Ada fell, and in time to the ghostly memory of her death, I shudder and drop to the ground. The anthem rattles the walls and I shout out, wrapping my arms round my head and slinking backwards into bits of rock half charred and splintered wood.
The girl from Two is first. Ada would have recognized the fact her death was a good thing. It only reminds me of death. What it is, the finality of it. Then Ada, timid smile, her pretty eyes and short cropped hair. I sob again, this time my entire body quivering and shaking out.
My foot slides in the drops of blood and I cry out, louder this time. Who cares if someone finds me? Ada's dead, Kitty's dead. I'm going to be dead soon enough.
I want someone to make it quick. I don't want this feeling twisting my insides. The burning agony as each and every thought sets alight a new look on life Alton wanted me to feel, yet I never ever wanted to experience. The Capitol seal fades in time to the second day of the Arena. In time to my consciousness, I dip in and out, before settling down in the rock.
In sleep, there's a blissful release. But I know, when I wake up one more time, what tomorrow will bring. If only I had the strength to end it now... if only...
Ada Bertrand, District Three Female.
Lupus. Ada was an interesting tribute to work with, her alliance really did help her shine for the short time she was around. However it was always going to come down to either Ada or Raelyn losing for the sake of their ally's development, in the end I went for Ada's demise in favour of Raelyn. I hope you understand.
Some fights stretch on for longer, but with Ward and Ada, both untrained and fighting for probably the first time, it made sense for it to be over in a matter of seconds. Anticlimactic sure, but realistic in my eyes xD
Anyway that's Day Two now wrapped up, now each chapter should cover an entire day of the Games. Day Two just went for a bit longer.
Favourite out of these POVs and why?
Four to go until the final twelve, who would you not like to see make it? Who do you think won't make it?
Thanks to everyone for helping me reach 100 reviews! Hope you enjoyed this chapter :)