Day Fifteen, Part I

Mirane Saffell, District 8, 17

A part of me wouldn't have expected to wake the moment I fell into a slumber, considering the Gamemakers had spiked my meal. So relief flooded through me immediately when I slowly drifted into consciousness. My head hurt a lot. I groaned, and instinctively tried to reach it before I noted that my hands were tied together above my head. I was strapped against a single beam of wood. My legs were tied too. I was unable to move.

So this is what the Gamemakers had warned me about. Drowsiness quickly wore off and I glanced around the ruin frantically. I had been here before; the broken French doors in front of me, leading directly out into the grounds, took me back to when Darius, Hadley and I ventured out here. The ruin of the labyrinth was close by. I just needed to find some way to escape.

I pulled my hands desperately to no avail. No matter how much oomph I put into it, no matter how much I kicked and shouted, it was firmly attached to the concrete ceiling above and the sturdy floor beneath. I looked around for any resources I could exploit: my knife was firmly strapped into my belt, whereas my gun hung off my belt much more freely. I thrust my hips forward strongly, feeling awkward as I desperately let it budge from my belt slowly until it clattered at my feet.

"What are you doing?" That affectionate voice asked.

... No... It couldn't be.

"Pullox, I don't have time for your mind games."

"You know it's not Pullox," Darius said. "Don't insult me like that! I'm nothing like him."

I knew it wasn't true. And yet my heart seemed to stop and freeze with joy, as if I had discovered he was alive afterall. I'd been good at putting Darius at the back of my mind - I had much worse things to worry about. And yet the scars were still there, and in a split second they had opened again and I was trying to hold back tears. I couldn't appear weak. This was a Gamemaker ploy.

That was confirmed when three of those things emerged from the shadows. It was those robots that had been there at the beginning of the Games, with their masquerade masks, wigs, fancy clothes and blades for hands. This time they seemed that little bit more threatening. Their masks had wide, malicious grins. There were two male ones and a female one, and the leader of the pack seemed to speak with Darius' tone:

"I thought you were the smart one, Mirane."

The illusion of Darius being alive had immediately shattered now I had seen the thing that spoke with his voice. It was so inhuman and depersonalised. And yet I realised that had virtually appropriated Darius, put his voice and way of speaking into a machine that was designed to kill me. That stung more. And it was definitely his voice. I couldn't shake it from my mind.

"And yet when you were hungry you accepted food knowing well it would have consequences. When you were knocked out, all we had to do was drag you and tie you up. We wanted to kill you but we weren't programmed to do that. We wanted you awake while we slowly dissected you."

"And you picked this bitch over me," the female said. It sounded like Brandy, but so much more cool and calculating. I had forgotten just how child like she had sounded.

"You aren't real," I mumbled to myself as I slowly prised my feet out of my torn up shoes. Whilst my legs were tied, I was able to move my feet. With the gun only an inch away from them, I think if I was subtle enough I could use it to get out. "You weren't real..."

"Really? Maybe we aren't," Darius said. "But we're programmed with the lives and thoughts of people who once were."

I glared up.

"You know what that means?" The male behind said. Only the Gamemakers could make Hadley's gentle tone seem harsh and cold. "These aren't original thoughts. Everything we're saying comes from the people we're designed after. It makes sense, doesn't it? You know deep inside that nobody liked you Mirane. I certainly didn't want you in the group, only I was too much of a coward to not say anything."

"You're not real," I said to them, glaring. Despite the conviction in my tone I was beginning to not believe myself. What if the Gamemakers had programmed them to believe the things they believed? What if they all truly hated me in life?

I couldn't let myself be distracted. I slowly tried to get my feet around the gun, to seize it with my toes.

"You know it's true, I know it in your face," Darius-bot said, storming close to me. I flinched as he moved his blade-like hand to my cheek, almost affectionately like he used to. Only this time he slowly carved a slit down it. I felt a stinging pain as blood pooled out.

"You told me you loved me," I mumbled, as if I were talking to the real Darius. The mask looked so terrifying up close, with the dark holes for eyes and the mischievous smile. He slowly began to slip the blade down my other cheek.

My words made the other two bots laugh.

"Love? Really?"

"Tell her how it really was, Darius."

Darius-bot let his arm fall limply down his side. I realised the Gamemakers weren't aiming to just physically hurt me, but they wanted to mentally damage me too. I refused to believe Hadley and Darius could ever think that. And yet with every sentence Darius spoke I felt myself feel more and more deflated.

"Do you know just how hard it is to get laid in District Eight? All the girls are so high strung. Hell, I tried with one girl for god knows how many years and we were just 'best friends' or some bullshit," I remember Darius mentioning her in a much more affectionate manner. I wondered how she felt watching this. "But I saw you on the train, flaunting around with your faux confidence because you were such a slut. I knew that with the high stakes you would be an easy catch," the other bots let out loud and mechanical laughter that made me feel truly humiliated. "When you told me you'd been with other guys physically, that confirmed it to be true. And I finally succeeded eventually. I wouldn't say it was worth dying for, but-"

"Fuck you," I snapped at the machine, though internally I was directing it to the Gamemakers who had come up with this twisted idea. "Fuck you."

"He's been there and done that," Brandy-bot said. Cue more laughter from all behalves.

"And now I finally get to kill you," a pause. "Or we will. First, I think I'll start with your intestines. I can rip them out and you'll still be alive as we flay you. We want you alive as long as possible," Darius bot slowly moved closer as I carefully wrapped my feet around the gun, using the sole of one foot to twist the barrel and using the toes of my other to press the trigger. I was playing with fire, but it was better than waiting to die. "Maybe you'll even be alive when we gouge those little eyes of yours out..."

"One thing?" I asked.

"What?" He said, raising his blade, ready to butcher me.

"When the hell is anyone in this goddamn arena going to learn that if you talk instead of killing you're just gonna die?" I said. There was a pause, as if they needed to process what I had said. The two robots behind Darius-bot turned to face each other, as if confused. I moved my face out of the gun's aim and shakily tried to use my feet to aim the gun at the wiring that kept me tied, using my toe to pull the trigger. I was shocked that I even managed to fire the gun, and even more shocked when I felt the bullet whiz through the air and cut the wiring.

The bots immediately launched into action, but I did too. I grabbed Darius bot and launched him aside before he stabbed me, ducking as Hadley-bot's knife jammed into the plank of wood above me. I grabbed my knife and rose upwards, smashing it into the thing's head. Sparks shot out and almost burned at me as I felt machinery whir and then fade around my dagger.

"I never, ever wanted to do that," I said, shoving the now defunct Hadley-bot aside. Brandy-bot charged at me: "But I always wanted to do this-"

I launched the blade and watched it jam into her face, splitting the creepy mask that covered her wiring and circuitry. The sound of the machine fading filled the air as she toppled backwards, cogs smashing out of her as she was completely destroyed. I leaned down and used my hands to tug at the wiring that bound my legs, somehow managing to untie it and release myself. I had no idea how the hell I had survived that, but I had.

So the Gamemakers had planned for me to eat the meal and then suffer a slow, painful death. Well, I had ate it, and didn't feel half as vulnerable as I had last night. I also wasn't slowly being torn apart by robots. I guess that was a win-win situation if I ever saw one.

When I ripped my dagger out of the Brandy-bot, I heard a voice behind me that made me jump and turn around:

"You think you got away, didn't you?" It no longer sounded like Darius and sounded like a machine. I glanced at the half-smashed, half alive robot which was lying on the floor, slowly fading. "You thought that was the worst we could do?"

"What?"

"We hoped more people would fall for the Gamemakers' trap, see who could survive what we had in store for them..."

"And what was that?"

"This..."

The sound of something activating was heard, and all the robots around me whirred to life despite being destroyed. I glanced at the violet haze that erupted from their corpse. At first it was only vapours of steam, but it began pooling around me. I didn't even want to know what it was, but it was slowly colonising the air. I turned and began to ran out of the Palace, knowing that breathing it in or even touching it could be deadly.

And yet it stalked me. It followed behind me.

It was everywhere.

Trojan Reid, District 3, 15

I stood on a concrete platform that shook underneath my feet, looking out into the grounds. Judging by the fact it was connected to the remains of the Palace it was safe to assume this was once part of the second floor. It was only held together by cracked concrete structures and rotting wooden beams, so seemed to shake whenever I applied any weight to it. Thankfully I was good at being light on my feet.

I'd just been sitting here, looking out into the sky and trying to get my thoughts together. Day fifteen. This would inevitably be the last day of the Games, and the final three contestants would be hurled together. It was likely that this would be my last day on earth, and I didn't quite know how I felt about that. Death was so much more scary than I thought it would be. I wanted to live... But I didn't want to just survive anymore. I wanted my life to mean something. After this ordeal, I didn't think I could ever find meaning in anything again.

The sky was clear, which showed off the faded sun. But despite that, it was chilly. Usually on the last day of the Games there was some kind of chaos. I remembered the two-hundredth and second Games, with the storm and the swarms of insects. Then there was the previous Games with their devastating earthquakes. But this was just calm. Somehow, that made the looming finale more anticipatory.

"I remember you told me about the Games," a familiar yet distant voice said. "You told me you would fight to survive, but you weren't scared of dying... Do you remember?"

I jumped and turned around, the floor beneath me shaking and releasing a shower of dust into the ruins below. I didn't remember her voice very well, but I was certain that was Liz speaking. The first victim of the Games. My District partner. It had felt like years since I had last seen her. She had desperately tried to fight the Two girl, but had naturally failed. I remembered how she tragically slumped against the wall, trying to talk to her parents as the life bled out of her.

But that couldn't be her talking. She was dead, and dead people didn't stand up and talk again. But her voice was so clear. I knew that it was very common to hallucinate in times of distress such as the Hunger Games, but I didn't think I was that mentally vulnerable... Right?

"I bet you regret being so confident..."

I kept turning around and surveying the proximity. It was probably an auditory hallucination, as I couldn't see anyone around. I purposely acted coolly, as if I wasn't hearing anything. I didn't want people to think that I was going insane even though that was certainly possible.

"Death isn't pleasant, Trojan," another feminine voice said. That voice was more sultry, with a very distinctive drawl to it...

Carlie?

"I should know. I died. No thanks to you," a snigger. "It was slow and painful. You feel the emptiness eat you from the inside out, and then you feel nothing at all," she taunted. "You remember it, right? After the Eight girl pushed you? It's just dark... And cold... And lonely..." I sat down and stared at my own hands, trying to convince myself that I wasn't going insane. This would be the worst time to hallucinate. I needed to be strong for the finale because I didn't want to die. I couldn't die. "Imagine what you felt when the Eight girl almost killed you, but it's permanent. It's like being asleep but you're not able to dream."

"Don't pretend you can't hear us," Liz smirked. "You ignored us all when we needed you. You watched me die. You watched Carlie be cast out on her own where she was vulnerable and weak..."

"You even killed me," the most terrifying voice of all said. I winced. No, not Seb... I couldn't face Seb... "And now I'm going to kill you."

I finally saw them. Or a shallow representation of them. It wasn't even a clone, or a bot that looked like them. It wasn't even a bot that was meant to symbolise them; it was merely three robots with masks. Two female, one male. All wearing wigs. All having an identical, menacing smile and black holes for eyes. They stood at the ruins below, quite a distance away, looking up at me.

"What the fuck," I mumbled, edging to the end of the platform. It shook beneath. I didn't think they could get to me, which was a bonus.

They stood there, unmoving and staring at me while I removed my dagger. The wind blew harshly. I just eyed them for twenty whole minutes while they fixated on me, not coming closer, not doing anything. Eventually, something formed what looked like a tidal wave in the sky. It was smoke, I realised. A whole wall of it. It was beginning to spread and take over the air. As it spread, it shifted from a pale lilac to a light blueish colour in front of my eyes.

"Tell Pullox I said hi," Carlie's voice came out of one of the bots.

They then immediately fell apart, which puzzled me. What were the Gamemakers planning to do with this? Piece by piece of them fell off and in its place smoke gushed out. Smoke similar to the stuff that filled up the horizon. My eyes widened when I realised what the danger really was. It was concentrated smoke that slowly spread out and wafted towards me like a demonic hand that wanted to snatch me and drag me into death.

They weren't a hallucination, that smoke was real. I didn't know what it was, but I had an idea what it would do. I rushed over to the platform and leapt off it, my feet landing on the shaky wood of what used to be a corridor while I heard crashing rubble collapse behind me. I didn't even turn around to acknowledge the smoke that was probably chasing me. I just sprinted and sprinted, hoping I would find some kind of shelter.

Mirane Saffell, District 8, 17

I'd never ran so much in my life. It wasn't that I wasn't very athletic, or that I hadn't even had to run much during the Games, but I'd never had to run like this before. One glance behind me and I could see the rising tide of gas that was slowly but surely grabbing every bit of air in the arena. I stopped for a second as it slowly tried to catch up to me, exhaling and grabbing onto what used to be a fountain for support. As soon as I felt like my lungs were stabilised again I began sprinting immediately, ignoring the burning in my legs and the stitch that stabbed into my side.

The remnants of the Palace were scattered around me. Considering I'd ran for so long, I'd acknowledged for the first time just how huge this place was. It could probably even comfortably house half of District Eight. And in a split second it was destroyed, and now I was weaving in and out of its ruins in the hope that I could escape the Gamemakers' trap.

I turned around and saw the smoke. It was at a somewhat comfortable distance now but it completely dominated the skyline before me. I thought this was something that had been used to target me, but I realised this was an arena wide disaster. I hoped that it would kill Pullox or Trojan, but with some horror I realised that it wasn't the Gamemakers' purpose to watch me choke to death. They wanted to herd me with the others to get their final battle. Unless I did something stupid, it wouldn't be the gas that killed me.

... But that didn't mean I was safe. I charged forwards, realising I was most probably running towards my own death. This was it. This was the grand finale that the Gamemakers wanted and it would either end with my death or with me surviving these wretched Games. I knew I was a fighter, but a part of me was definitely shocked that I could make it this far... or even win.

With that in mind, I decided that mindlessly running from the gas was going to get me killed if anything. The Gamemakers wanted me to live, they wanted me to end up somewhere. So instead of panicking I had to let it guide me. I stopped in the middle of what I think used to be kitchens, glancing around frantically and noting that the gas was still far behind me. So did that mean I just had to keep sprinting forwards?

I ran through what I think used to be a kitchen, though it was hard to tell with the broken furniture and splintered wood surrounding me. I vaulted over a tipped over table, trying to stabilise my breaths. After skirting around a large stream of water that sprayed down from the floor above, my question was soon answered when I saw more of the blueish smoke forming ahead of me. Had there been more of those bots in the arena that had triggered it? I glanced at the smoke that had overtaken the landscape behind me, and the smoke that formed in the opposite direction.

What way was I supposed to go?

I mumbled under my breath and tried to keep my thoughts calm. I'd always been good at keeping composure. When Lexie, Honora, Trojan and others were trying to kill me I'd kept a cool head and kept alive. If I broke away from my rationality for one second I knew that it would be the end of me. This was the end of the Games; you couldn't afford to screw up. One screw up equaled death.

Going with my instincts, I turned to my right. There was none of the stuff in the horizon, which made me feel like either that or the left was a good deal. I kept a ready pace and found myself moving through the grounds, occasionally having to jump over an uprooted tree or other obstacles. Only leaving a second to pause and catch my breath, I turned around and saw a wall of smog behind me. It was everywhere. It had taken over the whole arena. The Gamemakers had sent a clear message to me: no turning back unless I wanted to die a horrific death.

Thank Panem I'd eaten something. Had I been starving I wouldn't have been able to keep up, and I didn't want to know what that stuff did to you. I sucked in a burst of air and started sprinting. I knew who I would find: Pullox, or Trojan or maybe the both of them. I'd know where they were. I'd sprinted forwards a few more metres and soon the silhouette of a large, domed building was visible.

It was perfect. Pullox would love to hideout in there, set up some of his traps. It was safe from the gas. It was somewhere the Gamemakers would want to end a dramatic series of events.

Ignoring the deadly substance that slowly cascaded behind me, I sprinted towards it.

Pullox Shimmers, District 1, 18

When I glanced out of the window all I could see was blue mist. It completely hazed the landscape, making it impossible to see. No doubt it was deadly, but there had been no cannons. That only confirmed my suspicions: it was meant to drag both Trojan and Mirane into my little lair. I didn't have to summon them like I did Lexie; the Gamemakers did all of the work for me.

The reflection of my pale face smirked back at me. Good. I hoped they would put up a good fight. I hoped I could watch the determination leave their eyes.

Potential finale next chapter? ;)

So my exams are over and I'm so glad that all of that is out the way. And this is officially my most reviewed story! I guess this is the right time to just say thank you for being on this near 2 year journey with me :D hopefully the next one won't be as long, but will be just as epic. So, how about helping me reach the 1000 milemark? :D

Eulogy!

Lexie: I don't know where to even start. I'd always liked you, even in the moments you weren't so likeable. That said, I think everyone in the arena has done screwed up things, so you're not alone. Your intentions had also somehow remained (somewhat) pure despite everything you had to undergo. Although I'll leave the readers to decide how justified your plans were, I think you gave sway to extremism, which is always pretty dangerous. But you were sheltered, you'd never experienced any misfortune, and a lot happened to you all at once. You cracked. All your grief and the emotions you'd been harbouring had been channeled into the sudden powers you'd been given. I think that mixture of grief, lost innocence, a desire for political change and a newfound power trip had led to you becoming a very different person, although despite that in your death you were still the little girl who loved to dance inside. I always found it hard to write you in pain (which may have been a factor in you initially having a very clean Games), just because I always felt you conveyed the most innocence, so I guess it's kind of ironic that your death - despite not being gory - was probably excruciating.

Aaand that ended up becoming a psychoanalysis more than a eulogy. But yeah, I actually liked Lexie a lot, and will miss her (flaws and all). I even considered having her break out the arena just to spice the story up a bit, but I knew from the very beginning this story wouldn't have a happy ending at all. I knew it would end with the rebellion being crushed, so to speak, so having her breaking out would have been inconsistent to the tone.

~Toxic