Anger.
"Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean." - Maya Angelou.
Matteo Dallas, District Four Male.
Megaera sits glowering at the opposite wall, her face scrunched up with her hands playing with the sword by her lap. She's on edge at the moment, snappier than usual and far more bitter than I've seen her.
With the numbers now at six and Calliope still out there, she's worried. Worried about what Calliope might do, what the Gamemakers might do, and somewhere maybe she's worried about what I have planned for her.
I doubt it, I mean nothing, not a single thing. Part of me wants to be surprised at that, but she was always the girl to beat, and I was the Career who wanted to be known as something better than he really was. Once I kill my District partner, then I'll be known. I'm not here for fame or to make a name for myself, to stand out as some supreme Victor who triumphed over a sadistic yet shockingly talented killer from District Four. I'm here for the opportunities that come after victory, blinded by money for my struggling family.
It's a tale painted with heroism, yet I've never felt the hero. Whenever I worked, I didn't do it so I could feel an ounce of pride about what I was doing, I did it just so I could put food on the table. Illegal or not, it didn't matter. My work was a lifeline for my family, and here I am trying to fight so I can secure a life we always dreamed of.
Then Megaera came along, swaying around, teasing, flirting... killing, and she ruined everything. I wanted to win with my humanity intact, whether that makes me foolish or not, that's far from anything I care about. She's taken what I held dear: my security with the Careers, Alistair, my dignity, my humanity, and thrown it back in my face in a thousand pieces.
It's hard to charm her or play the way we did back in the Capitol. When all I see is a round red target painted on her face, those cunning eyes dark and dead to the world, it's impossible to find that light inside that gave me the chance to channel my talents into something productive and carefree.
If she wants to play the Game, I'll play it too. Only she'll have no clue what I'm planning. She wants me to lay down and die for her once we've taken out the biggest competition, then I'll surprise her and fight back. Maybe I will die. But I'll go down fighting, something Alistair never got the chance to do, something not many Careers really ever get. Careers go down due to cunning on the behalf of their other allies.
Tricks and back-stabs. I'll kill Megaera fairly, because I won't let vengeance blind my humanity even further. And if I die, I die happily.
Only if you die and Calliope is dead, who will stop Megaera?
Immediately Megaera senses something, better at seeing through people than I initially gave her credit for. The anger disappears quickly and she smirks against the wall, letting her sword fall to the ground next to her and pulling up a bottle nearly empty.
"Something troubling you?" The water swirls around once, playing with it, then she takes a gulp and nearly downs the whole thing. I try to smile back but the thought plays on my mind. How did I not think of that?
Surely, that must have cropped up somewhere? Maybe I was too blinded by my hatred to see the downside to killing Calliope for Megaera and then eventually dying if it was impossible to fight her. I want to live, no one wants to die. But I'm not stupid, it's part of my job, who I am, I could see the truth in situations and manipulate it for my eventual success. Only this isn't a story of a heroic boy battling his demons and coming out the other end unscathed.
Megaera's my demon, and she's too much for me to possibly overcome.
Unless...
Calliope.
She wants Megaera dead as much as I, and possibly every other tribute has done at one point.
Will she strike a deal? When the inevitable happens and the fight begins, surely switching sides will give us both the opportunity to take out the biggest opponent, and then, if I have to die, I go down knowing the better Career won. Calliope was never a bad person, committed, undeterred, but good. Just. She never played, she only did what she had to do.
"Not much else to think about except the Games. Hard to get this Arena out of my mind."
She laughs, a shrill kind of noise, the kind that scratches and hurts my ears. "You're far too nervous Matteo. Calm down, the entire Capitol wants to see our fight with Calliope. No-one's going to jump out of the dark and kill you." She smirks again, a thought amusing her. "Well, not yet."
I roll my eyes and she laughs again, loosening up at least from her previous down-in-the-dumps, stroppy teenage phase. Her eyes land once on her sword and gleefully she picks it up and swipes away a few drops of blood that haven't quite dried up yet.
"We should get moving," she motions for the door, creaking open slightly to allow the faintest flicker of candlelight to illuminate the broken wood and rusted metal that litter the room. It's creepy, I don't care what she thinks about fear, I am terrified.
I bet deep down she is. We're all scared of something, there's no way this Arena hasn't played with her mind just yet. She prides herself on being so nonchalant and dedicated to her goal, that she acts like nothing catches on her armor. I know it does. I've seen it, the side of her that's vulnerable. Even if she won't admit it, I have more control than either of us dare to say out loud. If I die, then she loses a shield in the upcoming fight.
She can pretend all she likes that I'm actually a true asset to her in the battle with Calliope. My skills are sharp enough but not against Calliope who's obviously made it here for a very good reason. She wants to use me, get me killed as a distraction, and then take out Calliope after a glorious, blood-stained battle. But only when Calliope and I are worse for wear, torn down with me left to die on the floor.
Fair fight my ass. She won't give me the chance afterwards. She wants Calliope to kill me, save her the trouble of adding a useless stain to her sword.
Only I'm smarter than she believes, because she's always been oblivious.
We stand up to reach the door, remaining quiet with the only distant sound being the creaking of doors and beating of hands against the inside of cells. There's that to worry about too, a horror stored away in the dark.
But for now, it's this. Everything comes down to this.
Defecting to Calliope, turning my back on Megaera because she never, not once, considered me anything but a victim. Then she'll be dead. And I can go on living until Calliope kills me, or I somehow make it out alive and live the rest of my life.
It doesn't matter what happens to me. It all comes down to Megaera. She will die, even if I'm inches from death, she'll come falling down with me. It's not about me anymore, it's about letting someone win who deserves to win.
Megaera never deserved it, not once, not ever. It won't be her. It can't be.
I won't allow it.
Megaera Cassian, District Four Female.
We walk side by side, Matteo reluctant to keep up the pace but doing his best to remain as close to me as he can. If he thinks I'm foolish enough to believe he feels anything but hatred towards my actions, he's more of an imbecile than I earlier pegged him down to be.
It's easy to see the way his cheeks flush with red whenever I open my mouth. How his eyebrows furrow, eyes narrow and lips curl into a snarl. He's better at creating fake positive emotions than he is at hiding those that create such an unspeakable rage inside of him.
It's his reluctance to fight me that's kept my sword still. Surely he won't jump on me until Calliope is dead, because without me, he can't hope to bring her down himself. He hasn't got a chance in hell at defeating me either, he can't be that naïve, boys like Matteo prefer to be on the winning team.
In that respect, I see a slight similarity. But that's where I draw the line. The way he huffs next me, panting through exertion when all we've done is walk, it's enough to bring about my own slight sense of anger. If he's so weak, I fail to see why he volunteered in the first place.
If it was some gallant way to bring about glory to himself and his family, boo-hoo. Here we fight and kill, we taint ourselves with the blood of children who, fair enough, have no right to be here. But that's the way it goes, so instead of arguing, I've buckled down and done what I had to do.
Anyone who gets in my way ends up dead. Life in Four stuck to that mantra, life in the Arena is very similar. As long as Matteo remains compliant, he has a place by my side. If he dares to raise a finger, it won't just be a hand he loses.
I'll make him regret it. I can be a nasty bitch sometimes, I pride myself on it. The power to exact such control over others, it's difficult to compare to anything else. There's nothing quite so sweet as punishing a disobedient dog.
"Having fun?" I ask over my shoulder. He's losing speed, jogging round the same ring over and over. When we reach the wider rooms stuck inbetween, there are more obstacles to jump and dive over. They catch on our legs, sometimes rubble moving with a mind of their own and grazing skin. The pain is a motivation, fusing anger with determination to make it to the end.
"I've had better days." He groans and raises his spear, clutching it until his knuckles lose their colour. He's either scared or... or planning something.
I take a moment with a fake, somewhat broad smile, to watch him further. His face isn't just angry. It's hiding something, something that he hasn't hidden for very long. It's new, because people like him aren't so good at coming up with plans that arise too far into the future.
He goes day by day, whereas I look at the end game. Killing Calliope hasn't been my only desire. I've wanted the satisfaction of ending her miserable life, but I'm also doing it because I recognise her skills She's the biggest competitor here. I can't hope to win if she's still breathing, it's just another incentive to kill her.
Only Matteo doesn't read it like that. He sticks by my side because he knows if he hadn't have killed Alistair, I would have slit the boy's throat and thrown my knife at his handsome face.
This is a new side to him. Confident almost, true confidence. Mixed under that anger, a plan is forumlating. A plan that...
"Matteo, I have a question."
He mumbles something impossible to hear. I see the slight hesitation in his eyes, the way they flicker once and then dart back to the wall as I jog backwards now. It's not too easy, I jump when my heel bumps against something. This is much more important anyway.
"Why did you come with me if you know you're going to die anyway? Why not attempt to kill me before we reach Calliope, it's not like you're actually leaving that fight alive either?"
I know the answer, I see it creeping up his face. Warping his features, a growing sense of fear widening those pretty blue eyes.
He thinks I'm a fool. Well, he was never that useful, was he? A shield. Nothing more. All previous plans about what he was to me, they fly away. Pointless.
"I think," I answer, before he can open his mouth. "I think that you don't plan on sticking to our deal. If you believe you're going to die by my hand anyway, you wouldn't want to help me kill the one person who might be able to kill me before I get to her."
His eyebrows disappear into his fringe. His legs freeze, and I stop too, bringing up my sword.
"See I think you're being a very bad boy." My sword point reaches his chest. His throat bobs once, a sweat pouring over his nose and splashing against the metal. "You won't help me will you? You have other plans, better plans. I don't like boys who don't do as they're told. You know what I do to those who disobey?"
I smile, pulling back an inch and-
He turns and runs, bolting from me before I can lunge forwards. I groan but plaster the same grin on my face, laughing as he turns the corner, scrambling around in rubble to get back to his feet.
"Oh you can run from me Matteo, it won't do you any good."
The chase begins. I run as fast as I can, vaulting over lumps of charred rock and beams that have cracked under pressure. I hear his loud breathing and heavy footsteps echoing round the corner as I use my hands to reach the bend and project myself at a faster pace.
One of his legs clips against a cell door, opened further than most. He grunts with pain, limping over more rubble as he passes the candles that sway with the breeze as he flashes past. He's faster than I give him credit for, despite the fear and pain.
That's not enough though. I don't know why I ever put up with him in the first place. Truly, he had no real use. In the Capitol I enjoyed the flirting and fun of us two together. But some people are more built for the Games, others lose their way and fall apart.
I've grown as the days have passed, whilst Matteo has fallen and lost his path. It's a shame, but it's the cycle of the Games. This is nature exerting its power. This is me killing the weak.
I reach the next corner and speed past, nearly caught up. I can almost smell the fear rising from him, the way his knees start to tap together, closer and closer.
The bottom end of his spear catches against a piece of rock, slipping from his hands as it clatters towards me. He makes the mistake of stopping.
A mistake he'll regret.
I lunge at him and bring him down with one arm lining up to his throat and pushing him to the ground. He gasps for breath, clawing at the ground as his back hits sharp rock. I turn back around, kick his spear away and level my sword closer to his flailing body.
His eyes dart once to my own face, then to the deadly weapon creeping over his cheeks and down to his chest.
"I am sorry Matteo," I say without smiling. It's not necessarily guilt I feel. But even now, even when I actually imagined this moment, it's not as fun as chasing him seconds ago. Matteo's not a bad person. He's just out of his depth, a confused young man thrown into an impossible situation.
"You were fun, and you know me, I'm all for fun. But I'm also here to win, so that means you can't."
He swallows his fear down as his face stills, calming with the rise of his lips.
"I hope she kills you."
I watch him die as my sword slides into his chest, all the way through his back and hitting the rock that he fell on.
When I pull it out, the cannon sounds and I turn around. His blood drips down, nearly up to my fingers.
"Then there were five," I mutter, walking away from my dead District partner.
If it had have been anyone else, maybe I'd laugh. Matteo though, his death a fault of his own, isn't that type of person.
I keep a straight face when I go back the way we came. It's sadness I feel, but it's not really anything too deep. I guess some people get to you.
At least the other four, they mean nothing to me. Calliope the enemy and three bratty non-careers. It's come down to this, a final five where only two really belong here.
She'll fall, I'll win, and it would have all been worth it.
I'm so close. One more step and it'll be there, the finale. I'll get to leave a Victor.
Kennedy Ames, District Eight Female.
Each step is painful. The rusted floor creaks under my boots, torrents of dust rising when my legs knock over wood that fractures into a million splinters. Earlier the sound of footsteps alerted me quickly to the danger, if there's one thing I have going for me, it's the capability to use my size to my advantage.
I hid until the cannon sounded. Part of me, the part that knew killing Atarah was for the best, hopes it's Elijah. If he's gone, then there's nothing else left here to bring up the bad memories. The memories that feel too much like the present and my future. Suffocating, drawing me away from my goal and the reason why I stabbed her in the first place. I keep telling myself over and over that it's better this way. Better to be away from anyone else now, where the idea of friendship clouded the real reason any of us were here in the first place.
Dragged from our homes to be offered as some sacrifice to the government. It's enough to make you want to fight, just to spite them that District people are worth more than numbers added to a chart. It gave me the drive, the anger, the determination to win.
I slip and slide around the room and yet, that unquenchable fire has disappeared into nothing but smoke and ash. All there is anymore is the sadness. The uncontrollable, gut-wrenching sadness because of what I did.
I want Elijah dead, not so it's easier for me to win, but so I don't need to face him and pay the price for what I've done. Even through my journey, each decision I've made for the better of my group and myself, I'm still a girl terrified of dying. There are still three Careers out there, unless the cannon was one of there's.
Three talented Careers trained to kill. Then there's Elijah, a boy whose smiles won't quell the desire for revenge. I know Elijah, he's my friend despite everything. He always will be the boy who pulled me from disaster.
He's a boy who's loyal to a fault, and with Atarah gone, it'll be me who he has to take out. Maybe not even out of anger, but duty and commitment to the girl I slaughtered out of a pure, selfish desire to make it one more day.
It's been two days now since I killed her, and yet victory still seems a mile away. Too many steps to take, a group of obstacles that have made it to this point for reasons I can't hope to match. I'm still a fifteen year old girl. Regardless of everything, that's who I am.
I spent the last days of my life betraying the one good thing left to me. If I die now, Atarah's death was unnecessary, pointless, disastrous. If I don't win, I killed a girl who maybe would have won. There's nothing I can do anymore, but I still feel conflicted, hurt over the two sides battling around. The side that knows I did what I had to do, and the side that wishes Elijah had never left the room.
Or Lawson, faithful Lawson, had never seen the spark in me and given me the idea in the first place.
Where would we be now? Safe, alive. We're never safe, but Atarah might still be alive, Elijah would still be whole.
Quickly, my feet carry me through the corridors. With another day nearly at an end, the candles are almost in tune with the sun and reach a level until they're nothing but dots of yellow to guide the way. The fear is choking, pressing invisible hands against my throat. If I don't stumble away into an open room quickly, tuck away and find a place to rest, I might collapse here and now.
It's nothing but me, feeling unimaginable guilt. And then the other side, knowing survival matters more than anything. It's left me tired, a fight without anyone to stick a sword through.
The roar of the anthem seeps out of cracks in the wall, shaking me and jolting me up. I jump and feel the same sort of vulnerable blush up my cheeks. Even now, despite everything, I don't like being made a fool of. It hurts, I've always fought. I don't want to crumble away.
The only face today is Matteo, the boy from Four. Seeing him brings about the tiniest ray of hope. One Career down, only two left. Two Careers that would tear me limb from limb in a heartbeat, but it's better than three. Maybe that would have made me feel worse earlier, before I'd killed a friend. Feeling grateful for a teenager now dead.
But now, I can acknowledge the benefits.
As if on a timer, with my next step and the Capitol seal fading from existence, I hear something click. A gentle, imperceptible click, but a noise that strikes through me harder than any knife.
I start to pick up the pace, over lumps of rock that tower over me, weaving through rafters that once held up the ceiling which now sags as if something large sits on the roof.
I've seen everything this Arena now has to offer, or at least I hope I have.
Green rising waters, luxury destroyed, an asylum reeking of death.
It's enough to break anyone. Break me further. I'm aware of the cracks. There's a certain relief knowing it's nearly over, tainted with the same fear of dying, but a relief.
As long as whatever this clicking noise is stops. The clicking that rises into a creak, the sound of metal sliding against rock and echoing down the walls, chasing me, rising higher and higher in volume.
I don't want to know what happens. Down below I saw what was in the chamber, the thing that hurt and mutilated Tatum. What it did to her. I don't want to know what else the Gamemakers might be doing.
Maybe it's a tribute. That would be easier to deal with. I could just keep running, I'm good at running. Keep going away despite the suffocating fear and run and keep running. All the way to victory, the victory I've killed and fought for.
Maybe I don't deserve it. But who really deserves victory, the people who have suffered and done nothing don't ever win. They fall too early.
The clicking reaches next to me. I jump up, slinking into the shadows of the wall. Shrouded in the darkness, I hold my breath, feel my heartbeat pound in my ears and blood run cold.
The door creaks open and a hand, an impossible skeletal hand with the flesh hanging in tatters, reaches the edge and pushes it further and further open.
I start to cry, even now, I know how to cry.
My legs take me further and further away from the monster. More doors start to fly open, more and more as I streak past, running... always running.
It's happening now. They've been hiding, but now, now they've been released. The patients are free.
Matteo Dallas, District Four Male.
Jess. Your tributes are always so well detailed, with enough layers to make them complex but not to the point that they're too rigid to write. Matteo may not have been the strongest, but he had his own set of morals on how to survive that got him this far. Only when he was pushed to kill did he start to let emotions he'd usually control get the better of him. Sort of with Lochlan, in the upcoming fight I always wanted it to be Calliope vs Megaera. I'm sad to let him go ;_;
I've been building up a few things for this point. Next chapter brings us just before the finale, with the patients now coming out, the tributes will be forced together for the ending. Two more chapters!
Favourite out of these POVs and why?
With the finale close, who would you like to see make it to the final three?
Who do you think will make it?
I know I've asked that question before, but not we're actually here I thought I'd ask it again.
Congrats to Calliope, Megaera, Kennedy, Elijah and Alton for making it this far! They've all reached this point for a reason, it's going to be hard to cut it down to the final three.
Until next time!