~Pontifex: King of Spades~
The next morning, I feel like shit.
I'm exhausted, unsettled, I have no voice, and my hair is still a mess despite me having a comb now. Last night was horrible and I hope that I never have to experience anything like that ever again.
I think that's what I said after I watched Atlas die. Ha.
It was a hard night, that's for sure. I sit up and slide my glasses on, blinking as I'm finally able to see clearly. This morning, I see the magenta backpack with a 2 on it sitting there, and I remember that I didn't look in it last night. I didn't feel like I could handle it.
I feel a lump in my throat but I reach over and unzip it slowly. It has the same provisions: brush, hairbrush, bandages, provisional food, and the like. I take out her scroll and open it slowly. There are words from her parents, from her friends Corona and Chantelle, and… Sandor, too.
Sandor. Fuck. I skim the words, not wanting to read them for fear of crying again. I roll up the scroll. The other thing in Janie's backpack, the one thing she needed most, isn't a weapon or medicine or even food.
It's an old, beat-up brown leather-bound book. I take it in shaking hands and open it carefully. Inside are pictures. Pictures of Janie when she's a baby, little chubby Janie with birthday cake all over her face, pictures of Janie as a toddler, pictures of Janie with no two front teeth, pictures of Janie and Sandor, Janie and Chantelle, Janie and Corona, Janie and so many other friends… Pictures of Janie and her older brother Magnus. Pictures of Janie with her parents.
One picture in there surprises me, though. It's someone I recognize well. My brother.
What's Pryderi doing in Janie's scrapbook? I take the picture out, and look on the back.
Pryderi Gallivan. Stayed with the family while he was getting back on his feet, moved out after Magnus's Games.
I flip through the whole book, documenting Janie's childhood and early teen years, so many pictures of the adorable Sandor Fairbanks who still makes me all flustered, pictures of Janie and her friends making weird faces and laughing out loud, all kinds of pictures that probably had silly inside jokes behind them.
The last picture in the book is one of Janie on stage, and I'm there too, looking solemn and angry. Amazing how things have changed. My hands shaking, I close the scrapbook and put it back in the backpack.
"I'm going to win for her," I say, to Sandor. Oh, and Janie's other loved ones, too, I guess. "I have to win for her."
Suddenly, a parachute comes down from the sky. I'm quickly on my feet, grabbing it as soon as I can reach. When I open the canister, I see a folded up blanket. I pick it up and find that it's still warm. I put the warmth against my face, and when I inhale, it smells… Familiar.
It smells like home. Like District 2. A smell that I never particularly liked but that I'm dying to get back to. I bury my face deeper and take a deeper breath. The blanket is warm, and it feels good considering how much cooler the beach has gotten since the start of the Games.
"Thanks for the reminder of home," I say to my sponsor, putting the blanket in my backpack. It's becoming more and more important for me to express gratitude, a lesson I probably learned far too late.
I take a portion of food for breakfast, savoring the taste. As the sun rises in the sky, I know that sitting in one place isn't going to do anything for me. I have to keep on moving.
So, I get up, take my new spade-shaped spear and start out on a hunt for tributes.
~.~.
~Gio: Joker~
I wake up and the sky is bright. When I look over, Atty is still sitting awake.
"Atty!" I sit up. "Why didn't you wake me up last night?!"
"Sorry Kiddo," he says. "You were actually resting and I couldn't ruin that."
We're in the final four. I realize it with a start.
"Atty… We're in the final four."
"So we are."
"Don't you want to dump me off now?" I ask, my voice small and timid. "If Tristabelle and Pontifex suddenly died…" a lump forms in my throat just thinking about it.
"Then you'd win," he says. He says it so simply. Like it's easy. A no-brainer. So certainly. Casually.
"Atty… No. You can't die by giving up. You can't sacrifice yourself for me."
He sighs. "Gio, listen to me. I bet you have a big scroll in your backpack with what people want to say to you. I have one person that spoke on my behalf, and he doesn't even know me." He hands me the navy backpack with a 3 on it.
"What was in yours?" I ask.
"A note from… A fan." I wonder why he says it so shadily. Could it be a secret girlfriend? Or boyfriend? Or significant other in general? Or maybe some family member forced into hiding or something? Maybe the alpha wolf of his pack!? I know next-to-nothing about Atty's life up to this point. I have so little information about Atty's home life that all I know is that he appeared and was lonely ever since. Obviously that isn't the case, I just wish he'd tell me what happened with his parents that made him so lonely. He shies away from the topic, so it might've been pretty bad.
I realize that Atty's past could be a factor to why he wants to save me so much. If something horrible or traumatic happened to him in the past, he may've volunteered because of it. Maybe that's why he's so set on dying. Because he can't stand to go back to a life that hurts so much. Maybe that's why he feels so inclined to protect me.
And where the line blurs for me is to find a balance between wanting to get home and trying to convince him to not die on my behalf. That's where I'm completely and utterly stuck. The inevitability of death seems to creep up on me more and more as the days go by.
"That's it?" I ask, after being snapped out of my thoughts by a hand waving in front of my face.
"No, no it's not. I also got a first-aid kit, knives to replace the ones I threw and couldn't retrieve, a good number of small things. Oh, and candy." He tosses a small piece of chocolate into his mouth. "Good shit."
"Did you look in mine?" I ask him.
He shakes his head. "It's yours. Not my business."
I unzip my backpack.
First I pull out a scroll like Atty said I'd find earlier. I open it up slowly and start to read.
Gio. We're all rooting for you. You have people depending on you here. People that need you to come home. All my life, you've been my home, and without you, I'll never have a home again. But we're all sitting here, and we're watching you give up on yourself. You think we can't see it, but we can. Please, stop. Please, you can't give up on yourself. We haven't given up on you yet. Who's to say you can't get home? Who says you can't make it? Don't accept death. Don't give up on yourself. You can't. Please. –Abriella
My heart sinks into my stomach. I must pale because Atty looks at me, his head tilted slightly in concern. "Gio…?"
"She's right," I mumble miserably, burying my face in my hands. "I'm giving up and trying to hide it from them."
"You can't-"
"I know I can't give up, but it's hard not to."
"Gio, we're in the final 4. Tristabelle's alone. Pontifex is alone, as well." Hearing him say that reminds me of the loud, hoarse screams we heard coming from the distance, carried miserably by the wind last night. It's a miracle I was even able to sleep. I swallow a lump in my throat. "It's a straight shot to the finish from here. What did your sister have to say about it?"
"She called me out for giving up," I mumble, staring at the ground. "She says I shouldn't give up. That if I'm dead she'll never have a home again…" My eyes tear up at saying the words.
There's a pause. "She's right, you know?"
"Yeah," I say quietly, "I know."
"You know," Atty's voice has taken on a tone of pure amusement, "She had quite a bit to say to me as well." He laughs a bit.
"Huh?" Atty shows me his scroll, and below a line of text from the guy he volunteered for is a block of text. Sure enough, the speaker is labelled as Abriella Piccozzi. "Why would she talk to you?"
"Because nobody else would speak for me, probably." His eyes twinkle with amusement as he looks down at the paper, reading over Abri's words to him again.
"My sister isn't afraid of anything," I remark. Really, Abri's fearlessness can be both a blessing and a curse. She's unafraid, but at times that makes her reckless.
Then again, sometimes I think reckless and spontaneous is better than being deadlocked out of fear.
"What else is in your pack?" he asks me. I pull out the biggest thing that's in my backpack.
It's a charger pack attached by black, red, and yellow wires to a metal skeleton. It's a finger.
The Capitol sent me a finger. To replace the one Dream hacked off.
"Oh… Woah." Atty looks slightly stunned. I don't exactly know how to react.
"This is definitely what I needed most," I say dumbly. "Let's see if we can't figure out how to use this."
Atty helps me attach the device to my arm and fingers so it fits in place. The skin around there is still a wound, and I grit my teeth, but once he's done the pain dulls again. Now, though, the unevenness is unnerving. Atty pulls another, identical armband out of pack, this one without a finger on the end. He looks confused, like a rat that wandered out on the street and can't figure out where it is.
I take it and quickly attach it to my other arm, feeling relieved. Atty blinks at me, and I know he can't understand it. "I'm even now!" I say. He seems happy for me even if he thinks I'm weird. That seems to be the story of my life.
"It'll probably take a bit of getting used to, though." He picks up a twig and tosses it to me. I fumble and drop it.
"Try holding the sword," he says. "You have to learn how to fight with that finger or else it's not going to do anything for you." He puts the sword handle in my palm and I slowly wrap my fingers around it. The new finger takes a while to secure itself around the sword and it takes me a bit to find a comfortable, stable way to hold it.
"See? If you were in the heat of battle, you'd be dead."
I swallow hard. Thanks for putting it gently, I think to myself. He seems to read my thoughts.
"Kiddo, I know it's frightening, but this is serious. You can't let your guard down. I won't be around to protect you forever." I must get pale out of fear because he adds quickly, "Hopefully we'll be the final two, though," which only makes me feel worse.
I couldn't stand to have him die because of me, whether he insists on it or not.
He pats my back. "You'll be ready when the time comes. By then I'll make you understand." I have trouble believing it.
He distributes some food just as a sponsor parachute comes down from the sky. I try to pick it up from the sky, getting used to the new prosthetic finger and how it feels to use it. I'm still awkward but I definitely don't intend on giving up.
If I ever think again about giving up, I'm going back to that scroll, and reading Abri's words, and knowing that I have at least one reason to never give up on returning home. My friends and family need me. Abri needs me.
She protects me, sure. I mean, she's fearless and I'm afraid of everything. I'm bullied, she makes bullies cry to their mamas. She stands up for me and protects me, I know that already.
But what I sometimes forget is that I protect her, too. I'm not completely dependent. Yes, what I sometimes forget is that she couldn't fully function without me. While Abri protects me from the the world, I protect Abri from herself.
If she wears herself down enough, the most random things can set her off. She's afraid of thunderstorms. Afraid of abandonment. Afraid of failure, afraid of her own imperfections.
She fakes her over-the-top bubbliness, but she likes it that way. She says it makes her happier. She says it keeps others from having pity on her, which she prefers. I support her, if that's how she feels.
But, when she melts down, when lightning cracks and thunder booms, or when a relationship falls apart, I protect her. Abri may be brave, but she's still young and has a lot to live through. And I have to be there for it.
I glance at Atty, who now hands me a roll of bandages and a folded up blanket.
"These are for you," he says. "Not me."
"Oh…" The sponsors haven't given up on me yet, either. "Thanks." I smile and pack up the supplies in my backpack. "No way in hell I'm going to give up. Abri, I swear I'm never going to give up on you, on anyone."
"That's the spirit," says Atty. "As time goes on, you're going to need that spirit."
I sigh quietly, even though I know it's true. "C'mon, Kiddo. Let's see if we can't get you more used to that finger today."
.
We work all morning and into the afternoon, practicing how to use the new finger. By lunch, I'm able to grab my sword quickly, strike back and catch things fairly accurately (I was never good at catching things before coming into the Arena).
After a small, light lunch, Atty glances at me. "Gio, do you want to learn how to throw a knife?"
"Huh?" I look over.
"I'll teach you."
"Why?" I ask, curious.
"It'd be helpful for you to know."
"Oh, uh, alright. Sure."
We spend the early afternoon throwing knives. Atty gives me a lot of tricks to the trade, and by the time we're done I can hit a tree with the knife and have it leave a mark, which is good enough for me. We drink some water and are about to eat dinner when I hear a rustle in the bushes.
"Shit," Atty hisses. He acts quickly, getting our stuff, and soon we're on the move. I thought the feast would've been enough for them, but obviously not. Pontifex's reaction must not have been what they wanted. Something about the process was fucked up, because now we're running for our lives.
I try to glance at what the mutts are, but Atty grabs me and pulls me forward. "Don't look back!" he says, "Just keep moving forward!" He keeps running, focused on getting to the beach. The mutts, huge-ass rodents with glowing eyes, don't stop once we're on the beach. I keep going until I feel my heel touch the water, at which the rats all retreat. I see Pontifex in the distance, but suddenly the water starts to have an unnatural tug. I lose my footing, and suddenly I'm being pulled farther out into the water.
Atty notices and quickly comes swimming after me. I hear him shouting, but my head is pulled under water. Suddenly, I feel some kind of webbed hand grab my ankles. I struggle to keep my head above the water, struggle to breathe as I'm being tugged under. I see Atty swimming closer, when I'm suddenly pulled under. I hold my breath, ready for death, when suddenly the hand is cut off of me. I quickly surface, gasping. Atty surfaces next, coughing up water.
"Get out of here," he says, quietly, panicked. I start wading my way back to shore, Atty behind me. My feet touch the sand and I turn around when I hear a strangled scream. When I turn around, I'm too late. Atticus is pulled back.
"ATTICUS!" I scream, panicked, going towards him. He's pulled further into the ocean. "Go," he shouts as his mouth is covered by a dark, webbed hand. He's pulled under, choking, before I can even act. I do what he says, though, and go. I go all the way until I'm back at the shore, coughing out water and retching. I hear the loud noise of a hovercraft coming and my head snaps up.
A cannon booms, and I realize what just happened.
The Ace of Spades is dead.
The adrenaline wears off. I'm left an exhausted mess.
Atty's… Gone. I don't have him here anymore.
My stomach aches, and tears come to my eyes. "Atty…." I choke, the hot tears coming to my eyes. I stare at the water, as if expecting him to surface with a snaggle-toothed grin and say, "Woah, sorry for scaring you, kiddo!"
He's never coming back. I'm on my own. The alliance I tried so hard to hold together is gone. I'm on my own, against tributes much bigger and stronger than I am.
He died for me. A sob escapes me, choked and quiet and miserable. It should've been me… Atty should still be here… "It should've been me," I whisper, my voice shaking, as my hands, shaking uncontrollably, pull the seashell out of my pocket. I almost drop it, clutching onto it tightly. The last memory of our friendship I have left.
More sobs come, tears fall out of my eyes and hit the sand. I clutch the shell in my hand and the triangular charm from Ori's necklace in the other.
I stay there for a while, on the beach, on my knees in the sand, sopping wet, choking, sobbing, whispering that it should've been me… It should've been me… It should've been me… He shouldn't have saved me… He should've dumped me off, and he didn't.
"You said I'd understand when the time came," I say, my voice quivering. "I don't understand! Why would you throw it all away for the likes of me!? I'm just a freak," I choke on the word, hanging my head as more tears drop onto the sand. "Why did you give everything up for a freak like me?" I ask him, "Why would you do this? Why did you pick me!? Why did you believe in me!?" the questions come out as pained exclamations, though not as loud or as angry as Pontifex's cries the night before.
I stay there, helpless, on the beach, staring out into the ocean, wishing he would come back, wishing for something to happen. The sun sets over the water, the sky painted pink and orange.
My first sunset without him. The first of many. Watching it sink behind the water as the sky darkens makes me choke with more tears. I shake uncontrollably, try to work up the energy to eat, try to do anything, but I just can't make myself do anything except for sob and think about how it should've been me, not him. Dammit, I hate being such a fucking crybaby.
I clench my teeth. I can't give up… Atty wouldn't have it… Abri wouldn't have it… Ori wouldn't have it…
I make myself sit up, though it's a tremendous amount of effort. I open a container and get a piece of ham, eating it and trying to enjoy how it tastes and the warmth as the cool night air hits my wet body. My hands shake as I take a sip of water. When I pick up Atty's supplies, I notice that he left his belt here, all the knives still in there but one.
Another lump forms in my throat. Atty left his knives here on shore. He took one, the one he used to cut that first hand off of me. Bastard knew he was going to die out there, he anticipated it, accepted it, and he left me all his weapons.
Hands still shaking, tears still flowing, I attach the belt of knives around my waist. It's still the slightest bit warm from his body heat. I collect his backpack, and I give one last look to the sky.
The first think I notice is the sparkling full moon, high up in the sky. Another sob tears out of my throat, louder than the others, and my legs give out from under me. What a testament to him, I think, miserable. It's absolutely beautiful, though, how the big, yellow, full moon reflects on the water. I take a second to look, to memorize how this looks, take a mental photograph of the sparkling reflection.
I make myself turn away, shaking. One foot in front of the other, I make myself go back to the jungle.
I keep my eyes on the moon and the stars for the rest of the night, afraid to sleep, making circles and circles, unable to do much of anything.
I'm in the final three.
And for now, I'm alone, with no hope of finding my allies again.
~.~.
A/N: *screeching* THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU SAY YOU'RE NOT GOING TO STAY UP LATE WRITING A 36 CHAPTER BUT THEN YOU STAY UP LATE WRITING A 36 CHAPTER. I AM TIRED AS FUCK BUT ITS DONE. ALSO I AM QUITE SAD NOW.
LEGEND THANK YOU FOR ATTY. I LOVED HIM AND IT WAS A PLEASURE TO WRITE WITH HIM. I HOPE YOU FOUND HIS DEATH TO BE CREATIVE AND ALSO VERY SAD. AND WE HAVE PLENTY OF ANGST AND AUS TO WRITE WITH HIM AND GIO OVER BREAK AND I LOOK FORWARD TO IT.
WE'RE OFFICIALLY IN THE FINAL THREE! I AM SO EXCITED! THIS STORY'S COMING TO AN END SO QUICKLY! AND IT'S KILLING ME! ALSO IT'S 11:11 SO I'M MAKING A WISH HOLD ON. OKAY. IT'S VERY LATE BUT I HAD TO FINISH THIS CHAPTER I JUST HAD TO. AND WHEN IT'S LATE CELTIC SPEAKS IN ALL CAPS BECAUSE SHE GETS VERY EXCITED.
CHAPTER QUESTION: We have our final three! So I'm asking to list how you would LIKE the placings to turn out, and then your prediction how the placements will turn out.
SCORES (GOD BLESS DOING SCORES AT FUCKING 11:13 AT NIGHT):
Scores:
AbbyCorabby123: 10
A-Bookworm-Named-Steph: 26
Beauty. Is. Strange: 61
Blonde4ever: 62
calebbeers21: 6
Coolgal02: 61
CrissKenobie-the-Numenorean: 31
Dreamer: 267
dreams and desperation: 56
elisa. anya: 5
Emrys Holmes: 66
epictomguy: 14
fat necrosis: 22
falyn. oliver: 43
FlawlessCatastrophe: 12
xGred-Forgex: 21
hopefuldreamer1991: 164
Ibbonray: 35
Jalen Kun: 12
Jess: 331
Josephm611: 52
Kate: 243
Xx-Katerina-xX: 56
Kyoko Rose: 26
Lady Lysa Arryn: 97
LokiThisIsMadness: 16
magicharity: 163
Medium-Indigo (Guest): 60
Music Rules The World: 4
Mystical Pine Forest: 20
nevergone4ever: 2
xxPeppermintxx109: 51
Programming: 7
xQueen-of-Applesx: 40
rising-balloons: 75
Rosemarie Benson: 12
santiago. poncini20: 46
Seahorse8: 17
seaotter99: 22
Shaunaicecream (Guest): 10
Sinfonian Legend: 305
superneet1214: 6
Skyflapple: 11
ThisWorldWeHate: 17
TyeTheLurker (Guest): 5
We're All Okay: 41
W. R. Winters: 56