Courage.
"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear." - Mark Twain.
Alton Shelding, District Ten Male.
"Attention tributes, attention. As a reward for your commitment, struggle and courage shown through your time in the Arena, the Capitol would like to bestow upon you each a gift."
I look up from the shadowed corner, the chilled morning air cool against my tired face.
"There will be a feast held at the Cornucopia, there you will find whatever it is we know you require more than anything. You have until midday to collect your gift. Good luck."
A feast. I rub my eyes, barely managing a weak laugh as I scoot under the bed to pull out my one and only backpack. If there's a feast, whether or not there's something I require more than anything, itwon't matter to the Gamemakers. A fight is a fight. We'll be pulled together, drawn somehow. I intend to get there ahead of the chase, it'll be awfully embarrassing to fall before I can even get there and fight for my life.
Might as well make a spectacle of my final moments. Or my victory.
I won't lie and say I'm not scared. Throughout this entire journey I've felt that gnawing on my stomach, the sense of fear that instead of letting fill me up and take control, I kept away and banished with Davin, and then by myself.
Maybe there were parts of me that grew insane, fitting with the place I've lived in the past week or so. The place I grew to accept people like Davin, Raelyn and others similar. Where I put aside my own distant, apathetic amusement so I could bring about my friend who was losing himself. Then through tragedy, I realised the folly of who I was becoming, what I had become, and maybe what I currently am. I took out the beast because it gave me not just something to do, but something to add to my name.
I was nothing before coming here. Granted, I'd rather be safe in my home. Death isn't something I want, regardless of the transformation towards it. But with bad luck, or random luck, or just no luck at all, I'm here and I'm learning.
These Games are a mixture of random nature and the way people dedicate their time. Sometimes it's just a matter of which turn of a corridor you take. One leads to a tribute ready to slaughter you, another leads to an empty path with a room to sleep and food to eat.
It's always been that way. My life in Ten, random nature gave me this amusement, the way I didn't need to care because it didn't matter what I felt or how I could go about changing things.
But this is something I can do for myself. No luck now. Not anymore.
The feast is the final gathering where we truly get to see ourselves for who we are, put our skills to the test in a final match of skill, and see who gets out alive.
No more luck, that's no longer the case. Neither is it a random string of occurrences brought about by the Arena and our own choices. I'll go about this with drive, because without drive, I'll die. And I'm not ready to die just yet.
I'm ready to live, to win. To actually come out the Hunger Games alive.
I never thought this would be my future.
I leave the room with this confidence, like a buzz inside my ears and stomach, a warmth that rekindles the fight I may have lost with Davin and brought back with the mutt kill. I take large strides down the corridor, putting past experiences and memories to rips in the wallpaper to guide my way. I spot the large pool of congealed, not quite red blood where I slew the creature. Tears in the wallpaper, split wood and the footsteps cast into the carpet forming miniature craters where the floorboards have cracked.
Each brings a memory I put to use. I walk faster and faster. The feast is terrifying, a place where the Gamemakers want us to go to decide the outcome of this Game. It's where the two remaining Careers will congregate and fight us. The place where Elijah and Kennedy, allies united through the loss of Atarah will try to kill me.
If Megaera and Calliope are together, if Elijah and Kennedy are also a team, then that puts me at a disadvantage. Or provides the one thing neither of them have, the thing that might get me through the Games.
No connection. Nothing.
I won't take a step back if someone falls. I won't see myself in them or the friendship that grew. I don't know of their circumstances, I've met no one but Celene, Davin, Raelyn, Tirzah and Lochlan during my time here. None of them alive. The boy who saved me from my crazed partner dead, all of them, my ties cut loose.
It gives me the greatest advantage. Sadness, sure, but here and now those emotions I put aside because if I cling to them, I'll lose what I need to win.
I reach the top of the stairs, past the point where Raelyn killed Davin and glide down them fast. Raelyn's fractured skull is a ghostly memory, tailing me when I fly down the step she was killed and continue into the next part of the Arena.
I'm taken aback quickly. I heard the distant thuds of something coming from within, but here I see what it was exactly. Cell doors are all open, lining a corridor covered with bits of debris. If I thought above was trashed, this is something else.
I can barely take a step without my toe stubbing against a loose bit of rock, or the sound of something falling making me jump, only to look and feel the flush of embarrassment at being so foolish. Each corner is new to me, this time me running blind. There was a staircase that led completely from the Cornucopia to the top floor, but that I can't remember the way to from above. This entire area is new.
Each turning, each lump of stone, even the... the creatures that turn to me in unison, grey lips pulled back to the snap of teeth.
I don't make a noise when I move to run. My heart beats fast in time to their loud footsteps, a chorus of the hungry come to feed on their next meal. A cell door creaks open besides me and something with a spear steps out, naked apart from a strip of blood-stained cloth round its waist. I groan and continue faster, breathing in and out, running, sprinting just to get away.
One of them gets too close but only knocks me forwards, not pulling me down to feast on my intestines or rip me apart. It pushes me away with its hands and then snarls, tailing after me at a slower pace now that we're too close.
They're a guide Alton, nothing more.
I nod my head and continue on at a fast enough pace. There's a blur ahead, the girl from Eight sprinting down another corridor that is quickly consumed with the flood of these mutts running after her. When they pass I take the side they just came, looking for the staircase. There must be a good amount here to lead us down, not just one route but three or four.
If I don't find that staircase in time, I'll either be saved from the fight, or jumped on by these things because I took too long.
That's not a possibility. I'm not strong or emotionally stable to the point of being able to think clearly. There's enough happening to pull me away from what I have to do, but I don't allow it. Not yet, because if I do, I'll fall now when there's just one more hurdle in my way. I haven't got strength, but I do have others things guiding me.
Maybe I came here believing I'd die, telling my parents not to bet on me, that I was a lost cause.
But I truly see myself winning now. We all do. The flame of hope, the dreams of a future bathed in riches and fame throughout Panem. None of that is as important as my life, but the package sounds good.
I'm going to fight the hardest I can. And if I win, I'm going to right the wrongs I've made. Show people I care. Show them I won because I had the right frame of mind to make it to the end.
I'm going to win the Hunger Games, it's not a dream, it's a possibility.
Elijah Fawkes, District Nine Male.
A raft of wood cascades down the chute of water, rotting and chipped, but at the same time my only means of escaping this rising river.
I get a solid grip on each end, hoisting myself from the depths that tug on my trousers, and settle onto my knees. My stomach churns as I collide against metal walls, the green water pushing me at a faster pace than I imagined. We go over a corpse, decaying into slop with fungus growing from a grisly wound in its neck
I grimace but hold on tight, as tight as I can. At one point, I lean over and throw up, my insides hurting with limited food. All that falls is a dribble of acrid liquid that burns the back of my throat. I cough once, holding onto my knife and the last few scraps of food.
If that bag holds what I need, it has to have a weapon. This is it: the end. No point for food if I have something just to shove down now before we begin. Give me the energy.
Not once did I plan on preparing myself to kill a person, let alone Kennedy. It was always about going day by day with my friends and seeing things out together. Without the together part, with only my own thoughts and my own motivations to guide me, I'm becoming the person the Capitol finally wanted.
If I still know how to smile, that's gone. But this determination inside, the fight and drive, it's the same sort I had only manipulated because all I have is the desire for revenge.
A warm, twisted sort of revenge. Built from loyalty, not anger. Or at least me trying to understand Kennedy rather than condemn her. Despite how hard it is to not picture her face and feel my own rage rising in time to the green surface, I go on, knowing my path and seeing my future.
It's not just about killing Kennedy now, it can't be. It's about wining for myself and Atarah, maybe even the little girl I plan on taking out.
Everything I've pieced together within this Arena has fallen apart, sides of me I never thought existed. I never imagined I'd lose my smile, or lose the people I held dear to hands of someone within the same friendship. With hope of patching myself up here gone, it's about doing it outside. Maybe it'll be impossible to return to normal, but I can still try.
Atarah would have wanted me to go on, Kennedy killed for survival. So if it comes down to the choice of me killing someone else to win, someone who I have no quarrel with, I will.
The water recedes, jolting the wood and sending me falling forwards. A slab of cold rock greets me, knocking the wind from my lungs as I struggle to get into a standing position. The water dribbles away into cracks in the flooring, my guide gone.
When I look up, the Cornucopia stands drab against the backdrop of ruin. Black, riddled with filth and other parts that don't belong on the golden shell. I see the table rise and dash forwards, forgetting about the fear and only seeing the future ahead of me.
My hand fumbles to tear open the large bag with the number '9' centered in silver thread. Something pricks my finger but I ignore it, the pain nothing but a distant presence as the sickle topples out and clatters to the floor.
For a moment, I can only stare down at it, gaping at the curve of the blade, the sharpness of the metal. Behind me footsteps snap me to attention and I scoop it up. The decent side of me washes away when Alton Shelding comes into view, staring at me with narrowed eyes. They wander to my sickle then down to his hands, the meager bloody knife nothing to match against me.
What am I becoming?
I don't think in terms of weapons and how deadly they are. That's not me. Alton did nothing wrong, nothing. He allied with people I admired from afar, fought through their deaths. Only he didn't have to do it through betrayal.
Celene was killed by Megaera, I saw it. And unless Davin attempted to kill him, their alliance had the easy way out. Easy, there's no such thing as easy. I can feel myself falling apart, that strong determination burning out.
If I let it all go, I die.
I picture Atarah's sweet face, her hair a golden halo, and charge for him. He prepares himself, raising his knife and one fist to counter against it and then meets my lunge.
I've never used my strength this way. Tilling the fields, working the grain to support my family. It built me up, that's why his face flashes with momentary fear even if he bites his lip to control himself.
He sees me a monster. Maybe I am, now that everything has happened. Maybe the once good Elijah, the kind one who couldn't bear to see someone hurting, has gone.
If he has... then why do I continue?
Kennedy. Hope that you'll become a better person. Do what you have to do, even if Alton doesn't deserve it.
My fist collides with his nose. He reels back, clutching the waterfall of blood that pours down his crumpled face. Pain flashes through his eyes, the way he quivers on the spot. But still he comes, forwards, staggering through the haze of pain.
He wants to win as much as I do. He might even deserve it more than I do. Thoughts like mine can't be teeming inside his head, the quest for a misguided sense of revenge. But at the end of the day, we're both here to kill. If I don't kill him, he'll kill me.
I'm not ready to die. Not until I've made right the wrongs of Atarah's death and what Kennedy's made me become.
My sickle catches on his own weapon, steel ringing out when he cries out with pain from his broken face. He teeters on the spot, trying to curl around me and run for the table in some mock show of his own weakness. I don't buy it. I bring the end of the sickle and smash it once more into his face. This time he howls, a grinding noise that shatters my resolve.
One more step, one more move. I can end his pain, and I'll be one step closer to doing what needs to be done.
"I can win..." he mumbles through flashes of agony, grinding him to a halt with his knife, nothing but a sheet of useless metal in his wobbling hand.
"You made it this far," I bring my sickle backwards, gritting my teeth, mumbling a silent apology for what I'm about to do. "Maybe you could have won, but I need to win too. We all have to do the worst kinds of things to survive."
Kennedy.
I see her once more, Atarah's sweet face transforming into ash. My sickle cuts through his neck, half decapitating him in a gurgle of blood that pours from his mouth and out his throat.
BOOM!
Alton sways and then crumples in a heap.
Behind me there are more footsteps, Calliope opening her bag and bringing out nothing but a note. Her face curls into a tiny grin, something amusing her, then she looks up at me. She prepares herself, and all I can do is ready my own sickle.
If I fall now, I'll fall without knowing what I would have done in Kennedy's presence. Wondering if I could have continued down my twisted path of vengeance and loyalty for Atarah's life cut short.
She takes one more step, then the sound of someone coming down the stairs grinds us to a halt. We turn in unison, fear rooting me downwards, whether it's Megaera or Kennedy, knowing either option will bring disaster.
It's all coming to an end. Life, humanity, all of it. This Arena has killed us all, even the person leaving alive.
Calliope Cartier, District One Female.
She appears down the staircase, a monster creeping from the dark.
Megaera's brief moment of surprise at the scene in front disappears entirely, her eyes glossing over the boy from Nine near his victim, clutching the sickle in his hands as if it'll bring him life.
Well, it killed the boy from Ten. Maybe I shouldn't have overlooked him. I saw his friendly smile as nothing but the life of a boy with too much heart and too much to lose in the Arena. It always came down to people I saw the spark of talent in. People like Megaera.
And now, this is it.
"Calliope," she rolls her tongue with the mid-section of my name, clambering gracefully over rubble that obstructs her path and kicking aside supplies left to rot away with the rest of the Cornucopia. Its once golden shell nothing but dark and black to match this gloomy, horrific Arena.
I used to believe I wasn't afraid of anything. Not arrogance, just acceptance of the world's horrors. That was until I came here and realised what it meant to be scared. It won't break me, not now, not when I'm so close. I've done things the way I meant to do them, with the exception of Lochlan's murder, I'm still the same girl I walked in.
The Capitol will get their fight, and I will get the victory I've rightfully, and with dignity, fought for.
"You," her eyes flare with threat, glaring over at Elijah. "If you intervene, I'll cut you limb from limb. She's mine."
There was once a time I didn't believe people like Meg existed. Not that I didn't understand what killing could do to a person, the lure and temptation of riches, fame and glory. To others it warps their mind and gives them this new exterior presence. The one of evil. Even as I watch her near me with her sword point extended out, the blade one with her arm, I compose my breath and harsh beating of my heart.
There's not just the slight and sensible spark of fear, there's that raging anger. The kind I don't like, the part of me that isn't me at all. Only when I truly understood what kinds of people there are in this world, when I met Megaera's true nature, did this come out. If I can't fight it, I'll use it.
I'll kill this monster and win. It's all I know.
"Let's get this party started," she winks and closes the gap, charging with a battle-cry so loud it almost knocks me backwards with shock. I balance out, grip onto my sword with a straight face and meet her blow.
I sidestep from the swipe for my neck, dancing backwards and over the feast table, bringing the flats of my hands to project backwards and roll elegantly into a standing position. Megaera hisses, an actual hiss, and comes for me with pure glee covering her face from the spark in her eyes to the curl of her cruel smile.
I catch Elijah staring once with wild shock, and that's all the time I get because she's on me and pummeling away.
Our swords meet to the bitter ring of steel. I push downwards, exerting my muscles as the sharpened edge nears her neck. She only laughs and pushes up with her arms, the other fist colliding with my stomach and knocking the wind from me. Despite the rush of pain, I grit my teeth and push on, knocking her back with lunge after lunge as she nears the table edge.
"Not bad," she blocks each one, matching defense with offense and curling her fingers against the table to stop me from knocking her onto her back. I'm not shocked with her skill, the ferocity mixed with a certain grace to each blow.
She's been trained by the best. So have I, I have to say to myself. So have I.
"Did you kill Alistair?" I ask, repressing the bottled emotions that came alongside his face in the sky. She pivots round, bending her knees and pushing backwards up onto the table with a perfect landing. I duck under a blow that would have split my head from my body and wait for her to say something.
She only laughs, a cackle that echoes around the room, bouncing off the metal catwalks and grating against my eardrums.
All around us, it's as if time has come to a halt. I see Elijah's pasty face rooted with both disgust and fascination at the way we fight. There's the sound of our heavy breathing, metal against metal and our footsteps moving us backwards and forwards in time to what we do.
She doesn't quite do a flip off the table, but her body rolls with such speed that it would be easy to mistake for one. With the table between us, she shakes her head.
"Matteo did."
"Matteo?" I ask, unable to hide the shock from my tone. Matteo and Alistair were always close. I start to feel a certain something, now that Matteo is dead, maybe happiness that he got what he deserved? The thought is vile, I shake my head and only then notice the way her eyes shine in that playful fashion.
"You made him, didn't you?"
The answer's there, clear as night and day. She nods her head and with another roar, veers round the table with speed and barrels for me. She curls her knuckles, another fist to bring to my cheek, but I turn away from it and knock the butt of my sword against her back. Away from her, she staggers and curses out loud, a shocking snap from glee to anger taking over her expression when she turns and spits at me.
"I've been chasing after you for so long. Time to split that pretty skull of yours."
Words, the same sorts of words that I barely even feel anymore. Nothing but air.
I charge at the same time she does, connecting with her next attack and scraping my sword up and then down when she tries to trick me and stab into my stomach.
That's when a rock hits her, square in the face.
Elijah stands undaunted on the spot, even when Megaera turns to him, my own sword still by my hip as I watch her lips practically curl into her cheeks at the noise that leaves her throat.
"What. Did. I. Say?!"
She loses herself, knocking an elbow into my neck and running for him. He's on my side? Or maybe it's just the side against Megaera. The vindictive, cunning, evil bitch that's done nothing but hurt the people who get close to her. The Hunger Games aren't about her sick fascination with turning ally against ally, enacting her own playful dreams on those who she counts a victim.
Elijah must die for me to win. Not now, not until she is dead.
I charge after her, faster than she is now, blinded by her fury. When she raises her arm to split him from shoulder to navel, my own sword connects. It bites through skin, tears through bone and muscle and with a single, dull thud, her forearm lands in the dust.
Blood spurts, that's the first thing I notice.
Elijah is doused in it, he falls and shrieks out loud, nearing the dead boy from Ten and wiping it from him.
Then the loudest noise, perhaps a noise only monsters can make, comes out from Megaera's lips when she turns to face me.
Her face has lost its colour but those eyes... those eyes.
She screams, pulling out a dagger with her sword useless by her arm, lying on the ground in blood. It pumps faster, so fast. Faster than I thought. She staggers forwards with inhumane strength, such monstrous ferocity, and charges, coming for me with extended hands.
"I'm going to..."
She stills, the pain too much as her face crumples. I bring my sword upwards quickly, displaying nothing on my face that might show how long I've waited for this. For now it doesn't matter what that makes me.
I savour the rush as it goes through her stomach at an angle, up through her insides, and out the top of her spine.
BOOM!
Megaera falls when I pull out my sword, her eyes level with the bloody limb as the life pools around her in a rush of blood. Megaera... she's... she's gone. Finally gone.
I wait what feels an hour for more rushing footsteps. From the same staircase as Megaera, the girl from Eight sprints forwards. The creature behind her immediately halts in place, splitting apart in a vile array of pus and blood as blisters and wounds open and fall into nothing.
Kennedy stares with wide eyes at my sword, red from point to hilt. Then she turns to face Elijah, something going on between the two when the boy stands and brings up his sickle.
Something happened. Something awful, something painful. Something that doesn't matter now.
I killed Megaera. She's finally gone.
Now it's time to take one more step, just one more. Two more victims and I can go home.
The Finale. I've made it.
Alton Shelding, District Ten Male.
Megaera Cassian, District Four Female.
Elim. Alton became a favourite the moment I wrote that goodbye section. Sometimes, I struggled with what I could do with him. It was either keep him as he's always been without an alliance, or give him two people completely the opposite to his personality. If I had have gone with the former, it wouldn't have given him this realisation as to who he was and the change he could go through. In the end he was still the same boy, just with a determination to win. However, just because he wanted to win, doesn't mean it was going to happen. I loved him for what he was, the way he thought and what he gave to this story. I'll miss him.
Cloe. So, she received mix responses. Some people enjoyed her for what she brought to this story. Others didn't and probably thought someone else should have made it this far. I loved her, maybe that's just because I had her full form and was writing her, but I really did. I appreciated what she provided for this story, especially during the Games. If it wasn't for her, nothing that happened within the Careers would have happened. She provided the entertainment, the true antagonist, the fun side to things, so that's why she made it this far. Thanks Cloe for letting me write for her, I really will miss Meg!
And there you have it, the finalists: Calliope, Kennedy and Elijah!
Favourite out of these POVs and why?
Predicted Victor?
Who you'd prefer to win?
I'll miss Alton and Megaera, they made it to the final five because they each brought their own side to the Games that I had fun exploring. But these were the three I had planned for a while, I knew it would come to one of these guys winning.
Next chapter you get to see who the Victor is! Finale time ;)