Naya Illumina, 17, District Four Female
Naya Illumina has felt helpless before. Helpless when her father dug himself into an unfathomable mire of abuse and recklessness, helpless when her pleas for environmental change went unheard, helpless when Marquis was killed by that girl from Seven... the world has doled out misery after misery for Naya to watch, without ever being able to do a thing.
Naya thought she'd vanquished it, this feeling of utter inadequacy. Surfing on the ocean, feeling the sun secure and real on her shoulders... training so hard that she almost overworked herself, only to be rewarded for her efforts. But here in this haunted city, there are no oceans and there are no training grounds. Here she is in the Game, in real life.
But this shouldn't be real life. No, this is only a terrible stretch of death, one which she will overcome. She has to make it through to the other side.
Naya is emburdened by death, bogged down by the tragedy of it all. She has seen more horrors in these days than she possibly could've imagined. She used to think that she was superior, with her fragment of foresight about the Games and what they entailed. But now she knows... nobody was prepared. They all went into this ignorant, and oh, how they've been enlightened.
But this is not enlightenment. This is cruel, unnecessary violence, and Naya wants to be through with it, see it all done and over. But... to be done with it would be to lose more allies, people she's come to know. Not as much as a leader should, most definitely, but she still feels as if these people are her comrades, her brothers-in-arms.
Perhaps she shouldn't think that. Not with Tremor and Blade at each other's throats, and Alessio practically alienated, hardly speaking or looking at her.
This isn't how she imagined things would go. Perhaps that's naive of her, and Naya has never wanted to be naive, because the rescuer of the environment can't afford to be. She must be a realist, hard and analytical, all sense and statistics.
But Naya is too much of a dreamer for that. She's never thought of herself as such, not until she entered this Arena and realized how dismal the world could be. She'd always known that her saving of the Earth would be daunting... how could it not be?
But this... this is impossible. Naya is too flawed for the task.
She's never really thought that before. That she is too sullied to carry out her mission. Somebody has to, and surely she's the most just among this pack of hungry wolves.
Her eyes drift to Blade, bandaging his own wound, the way Alessio watches his every movement with a kind of concern that she's never seen on his face. Tremor stands suddenly, as if a switch was flipped inside him, and walks over to Alessio.
Tremor speaks softly, a determined set to his jaw, but the room is silent and close. The words carry easily.
"What is your quarrel with me?" His words are clipped, blunt.
Alessio blinks, glances back at Blade. The Six boy is pointedly looking away. "What do you mean?" Alessio's voice, too, is flat and matter-of-fact.
"Why do you look at me like I'm made of stone?" And Naya has never heard this frantic quaver to Tremor's voice, never seen this side of him—a glint of humanity shining through the veneer.
(Naya once thought that there were two kinds of people in with world: the oppressed and the oppressors. The oppressed—good; the oppressors—bad.
But now she's beginning to realize the truth. Nobody is all good or all bad. It's a staggering realization, one that has begun to wear down at Naya, just as her years of helplessness did.)
Alessio still looks perplexed. "You've hardly even tried to talk to me."
Naya catches the slightest pucker of frustration in Tremor's brow. "Have I done anything to make you hate me so much?"
"You haven't done anything at all." There's an implication there that Naya easily picks up. She's watched these three and their complicated web of trust and mistrust, paranoia and vulnerability. She knows more than they realize.
Tremor lets out a sharp breath, a slight crack in his exterior—though Naya can't see his whole face beneath his wolf mask, she can guess that his lips are tightening. "That's not true. I saved you earlier today."
Alessio looks tired and drawn. "You ignored me. Tremor, what is the point of this?"
Tremor's eyes are depthless; they give away nothing. His soothing aura, once so convincing, is all but gone. Those eyes that once pulsed with lulling openness now gleam with a dangerous light.
"Your perception is flawed," Tremor says softly. "You don't understand. But you will, soon. You'll see the good I've done."
Alessio's eyes harden into that warning look Naya's become accustomed to. It's a look that could wither grass.
"I don't know you," he says, and his voice speaks of finality. "And you don't know me."
Tremor's gaze freezes over again. "Fine." And he turns away like a child, not once looking back at Alessio.
Naya looks on, paralyzed—a watcher, only. She feels as if she'll always be destined to observe from the sidelines, unable to influence anything for good, until the pressure builds behind her eyes and she's forced to watch her friends die, watch the world crumble, and her with it.
What if all this is hopeless? What if the world is only death and gloom and hate? What if... what if Naya wins, and she still can't convince the President of her ploy? He had seemed kind, back at the Capitol, but what does she know?
Clearly not enough to salvage a pack, no make a friend.
She's hated a boy fiercely enough that it burned her peaceful nobility to the ground—she's killed a girl with hardly any provocation... Naya is not perfect. And maybe she can't hold anything together; maybe it's all destined to dissolve like sand in the grand scheme of things. She...
She has to get a grip. Not only for herself, and her cause, but for Tremor and Blade and Alessio. She has no small amount of dislike for Tremor, but the others... she's their leader, and responsibly obligated to save them.
If there's one thing Naya's good at, it's water. She'll find it, find some way to keep everyone afloat, along with her ambitions and dreams. She cannot let herself be swallowed up by the tide of powerless despair and hopelessness. The world, and her allies, would be swallowed up with her.
She watches as Alessio stares into the distance, a troubled look in his eyes, watches as Blade dozes against the wall beside the Twelve boy. She can't ignore Tremor, arms crossed tight over his chest, every inch the rigid and stone-faced peacekeeper.
Perhaps she does not feel connected to these people, but she does feel indebted to them, obligated to protect them. The thought of keeping them safe, of taking action, keeps her above the surface of doubt.
Tomorrow, she will set off to find water. Tomorrow, the world will turn itself right again, and Naya will understand everything. She will know what she needs to do in order to keep the world safe. She'll know how to save herself from this helpless place she's wound up in.
Naya knows too well the danger of placing her hopes on one day, one moment. But it helps, to have a plan; almost as if she is making a deal with the universe. If she only manifests hope and safety and purity, surely it will come true.
This will all work itself out. Naya knows it—she just has to be strong, and brave, and loyal. She needs to take action, to do good in the only way she knows how... and she'll just have to pray that it's enough.
...
Luz Contreras, 15, District Nine Female
The wakefulness comes bright and cruel and full-force, too much light and too much space. As soon as Luz opens her eyes, a flood of feeling crashes over her, the weight almost unbearable.
Luz has long carried other people's burdens, cared for her little sister and her family and the stream of customers at the apothecary. She's eased Asa's anxieties more times than she can count. But she is unaccustomed to so much grief and heartache within her own soul. She doesn't know what to do with it, has no idea how to comfort herself. She's not even sure that she wants to—there are more important things, other people to soothe and watch out for, and if Luz has to suppress her own emotions to do that, then she's willing to make that sacrifice.
She just wonders how much she can truly carry.
She opens her eyes fully, lets herself search outward into the hut and the sunlight beyond. Through the crack in the door and the meager walls that barely keep the shelter upright, she sees that it is not morning but mid-afternoon. She's slept in again, far too long.
She shakes off her fatigue, a vicious motion, and feels the bitter chastisement of self-frustration rise inside her. Why does she keep doing this? She fell asleep last night and left Cal to keep watch well into the afternoon. Perhaps if she'd just sleep less, maybe she could do more, help with supplies and keep Cal safe.
But it's too late for that. At least she's awake now.
"I'm sorry," she murmurs, looking over at Cal. The boy is sitting straight-backed, writing in a bound journal. She frowns at the book, not recalling ever seeing it on Cal's person before. "You should sleep. Were you awake all night?"
"Not all night." He looks up at her and his face breaks into a smile, one of gentleness and forgiveness.
Luz's heart cracks a little, seeing him direct such kindness at her. Surely she doesn't deserve it, after failing to save Asa and sleeping half the time, only serving as a burden...
Luz suddenly recalls her earliest encounters with Asa, how he'd sometimes worried about being a burden to her. But she'd shaken her head, told him it was a pleasure to help him, and that she had no pity for Asa—only sympathy. The memory stabs at her heart, makes her lungs constrict... but she knows Asa would hate to see her chastising herself. She's still grieving, might be for some time, and punishing herself will only make things worse.
Still... it's so hard not to blame herself for bad things happening. Because at least when it's her responsibility, it's in her control, and it makes more sense. At least she can hope that, had she done something differently, Asa might have lived and things could have turned out alright.
Luz feels like a coward, in some ways. Just thinking about Asa makes her lungs implode—if she were to open his letter, the last thing she has left of him after burning his mask, she's not sure what it would do to her. Reading his words, undoubtedly full of love and hope and light, might just destroy her. Had he been alive, they would've comforted her beyond measure, but now she fears they'd only serve as a reminder of what might've been. Still, Asa would've wanted her to read the letter. She wishes she was strong enough.
"Luz?" Cal's voice is soft. "Do you see that?"
Luz blinks out of her reverie. He's standing by the door now—when had that happened? She crosses to join him and stares, pushing the door fully open to see clearly.
Light streams into the shack, and Luz spots a silhouette, a distant shape coming closer and closer...
"It's flying," she murmurs. Dread rises up inside her. Something is terribly wrong, and Luz isn't sure she can take another danger, another battle—
The creature comes into full view, and Luz steps back, reaching out instinctively to shield Callisto. Hideous and winged and glinting in the light, the creature swoops and dives, heading straight for them.
Surely an Arena full of kids turning against each other, a deadly plague and a shortage of water is misery enough, a surplus of entertainment to appease the Capitol. Surely there can't be more...
But Luz can't ignore the sight in front of her. A creature touches down against the dirt-packed ground, making its way slowly through the outskirts of the village, turned toward Cal and Luz still frozen in the doorway. Its wicked talons carve scoring marks into the ground, terrible slashes of soil. Luz backs away, pulling Cal with her.
But as soon as she moves, the creature lunges, moving too fast for her to register. There's a blinding stream of moments too fast for Luz to process, wingbeats and ruby red eyes burning into Luz. She's knocked back as the creature slams into Callisto. Luz's lungs cry out and her chest spasms, her arms flailing out at the ground beneath her.
She can't lose more. It's the only thought that crosses her mind. She's been taught to give without question to those in need, to invite the weary and alone into her open arms. The Capitol can't take that from her.
But the gargoyle dips its head toward Cal and snatches him between its talons, the fabric of his shirt tearing as it lifts him from the ground. Luz runs back inside, staring at her meager supply of weapons, at Asa's small knife discarded on the ground.
Luz is made of logic, its clear-cut lines tracing over her heart and mind. The gargoyle is made of stone and the knife is small and powerless, and the thing has Callisto, and there's nothing, nothing, nothing Luz can do about it.
She clutches the knife close to her chest even still, imagining that she can feel the phantom warmth of Asa's fingers, the imprints he might have left behind. She hurries back out into the unforgiving light, and watches as the gargoyle begins to bank upward, back into the sky, rising and rising. Callisto is hanging in its grip, unmoving. The gargoyle is taking flight, yes, but Luz can tell it's weighed down by the boy it carries. It's moving much more slowly, barely a few feet off the ground but continuing to gain altitude.
Luz's body moves without her permission; her heart takes over. Logic is scattered to the winds. She falls to her knees, face turned upward. "Please," she cries out, knowing nobody will hear her. "Please, spare his life. I'll do anything—"
The gargoyle keeps rising, and Luz realizes that there is nobody who will listen to her. Nobody will come and save him, just as no one rescued Asa.
They could have. And they can, now. The Capitol has power in their hands.
But they choose not to use it. They delight in this suffering, this terrible bloodshed.
She catches one last glimpse of Callisto, looking back at her from the gargoyle's claws. His eyes are not filled with fear or hate or regret. They are filled with peace, a solemn kind of acceptance. It seems to Luz like he is meeting her gaze across miles of space and height.
For a moment, she is lulled by his calming gaze, how he stares back at her with the unflinching boldness of bravery. But then the gargoyle makes a swift motion with its claws, and she sees them dig into Callisto's arms, drawing blood. And suddenly, she knows that Callisto is beyond her help. Dead where he is.
And he doesn't even look afraid. He gazes off into the distance as the gargoyle tears into him.
And Luz has to look away. She hates how much of a coward she is, hates that she can't reach Cal as he dies in the air, at the mercy of the Capitol's terrible creation.
But she cannot bring herself to watch him die, watch the light leave his eyes like she'd watched Asa's—
She can't think about that. She can't.
The cannon fires moments later. At least his death had been quick. This distant thought brings Luz no peace.
She hears his body drop to the ground, watches the gargoyle soar away, its job done.
Luz runs back into her shelter, and it's as if somebody has cracked her open, taken everything precious and vital out of her. She presses her cheek to the dirt and tries to breathe, listens distantly to the sound of her own ragged gasps, her lungs trying in vain to draw in air against the clamoring pulse of panic and horror in her ears.
Why is this happening?
A pointless question, yet one that echoes and echoes in Luz's head.
Callisto was good, and kind, and steady. He'd died with his gaze cast into the distance, accepting death with all the grace that he could. And Luz had wanted so much to save him. He'd not deserved to die.
None of these kids do. Nobody deserves to die, not like this.
But... maybe they won't. Maybe nobody else has to.
If Luz can figure out a way to end all of this... if she can take the reins of this terrible Game into her hands... if she can regain control...
She searches through her supply of poisons and medicines, tiny glass bottles. Her eyes are smudged with late-coming tears, silent stragglers that linger over her eyelids but never fall.
She knows she has a sleeping draft here somewhere, a tiny, light—blue bottle. She'd spent all of the first day labeling, identifying, organizing, all to the rhythm of Asa's laughter and happy chatter. Before everything happened...
She needs to stay focused. She needs to make sure that nobody else suffers the same fate as Asa and Cal. She knows she can do this, that it is her responsibility to do this. Somebody has to care for everyone, care about them enough to keep them safe from the monsters inside and out...
Luz tries desperately to disentangle herself from the unraveling of her own thoughts, clinging on to her idea as she searches and searches... she finds it.
A potent sleeping draft. A single drop can last a few hours, but the entirety of the bottle... it could put many to sleep. It could even work on, say... five people. If Luz's identification is correct, and she doesn't doubt that it is, it could put five people to sleep for days. Enough time. Enough for the Capitol to give up this charade, to become bored and let everyone go.
If Luz puts the other Tributes to sleep, it will at least buy them time. Nobody will die or kill, and the Capitol will be forced to let them go. If Luz doesn't vocalize her plan, there's no way for them to know exactly what she's thinking.
Luz feels unfettered and clueless in this moment. She knows there were fifteen Games before this one, but she knows nothing of how they were run, and she's unsure if anyone has tried something like this before. If she'd had time to research, to compare... if she was thinking straight in the wake of losing Asa and Cal... maybe she'd have something more concrete, less desperate.
But it's her only hope. If it doesn't save them... it will at least keep them alive until she thinks of a better plan, or until everyone comes to their senses and stops killing—
But she's not lost her friends through other Tributes' hand. Both Asa and Cal fell to the Capitol's hand.
Who's to say this won't make them even more enraged at her?
But she's got nobody left to lose. The thought almost sends her over the edge of despair, the vial slipping through her fingers, but she steels herself against hopelessness. With nothing left to lose, this is her last attempt at saving herself, at saving the others. They can't keep them in here forever, and if nothing happens for a few days, maybe...
She does not let herself examine the idea carefully. Even she can see the flaws, the gaping holes growing wider.
But what else can she do? She's not going to sit here and wait and weep until everyone else has died, until the last remnants of hope have long gone dark. This is all she has. And Luz is not afraid of what the Capitol will do to her.
She searches for the vial, realizing her fingers are slack, and finds it. Tiny and dark blue. Yes, this could work.
This has to work. She has to do... something. If she does nothing, knowing she could have prevented all this somehow, it will destroy her from the inside out.
For the first time in what feels like centuries, Luz ventures beyond her area of the Arena, back into the orderly buildings of the main square. She remembers seeing a fountain earlier in the week, right in the center...
Yes. There it is. It's full of clean, clear water, shaped into the figure of a nymph with her head thrown back, water flowing from her mouth. Luz pauses. Does she really want to risk this?
She's running out of water, and that means everyone else is, too. Someone will be desperate enough to drink from this fountain, and then they'll be asleep. Not dead, no. Luz has made sure this draft isn't lethal—if there's one thing she knows, it's poisons and plants. She knows the herbs that this liquid was made from, uses them sometimes when patients need a potion for sleep.
Luz knows, deep in her soul, that this is what she wants. There's such a small chance it will work, but Luz is willing to take that chance. Asa would've wanted her to help these people, to make it home safe. And Luz knows this is a good plan—she's always been a great planner.
(She ignores the worry that her logic abandoned her before Cal's death and still has not come back.)
Luz watches the water, checks the fountain's bottom for a drain but finds none. Something is broken about this fountain—the water pours and pours but does not drain away, only flows and spills over. She knows there is enough liquid in the vial—she does not worry about it dispelling. She does not let herself stop and think, only knows that her heart is aching for the Tributes already dead, and knows that she'd do anything to keep another death from happening, to see all these souls safely home.
She uncorks the vial and dumps its contents into the fountain, watching the liquid swirl and dissolve.
...
Jacqueline "Jack" Baylor, 17, District Ten Female
She wonders if this is the thing that will finally break her, crush her to nothing. Sitting alone, curled in the pews, trapped in the vaulting vastness of the church and knowing that this was a place once filled with friends, with voices, with bravery and warmth. Now it's just her.
Jack has felt many things in her seventeen years. She's experienced fear, enough of it to keep her subdued at her father's mercy; that fear eventually morphed into courage, the boldness that let her escape. Or perhaps that was just more fear, wearing different clothing.
Jack has experienced anger—an entire heart's full of rage and injustice, so much she was afraid—always more fear—that she wouldn't be able to stand it, wouldn't have the resolve to come out on the other side and still be Jack. Whoever that was.
Yes, Jack has felt grief. But never so much, and not all at once.
She has heard stories of what grief does to people, tales of heroes walking to ow ends of the Earth to save their lost love, or deteriorating into mere husks of themselves. She's even seen it firsthand, in her siblings and in Wren and Darla. But she does not think her grief is like anyone else's, because it manifests itself in the greatest exhaustion Jack has ever felt.
It does not make sense, for her to be tired. She's been sleeping, as much as one expects to in the tumult of a death match. She's constantly afraid, anxious and troubled, but that shouldn't have had any affect on her state of wakefulness.
Jack cannot understand it, and that makes her even more frustrated, the sharp edges of irritation becoming all the more painful in the face of her fragile state.
But despite its incongruous nature, Jack knows she cannot ignore this fact; she is tired. Tired of this pointless game. Tired of losing friends. Tired of being pushed around.
Jack has been tired before, but never like this. She's never imagined there could be so many things to be tired of, but here she is, curled against the floor like a child, hiding from nothing at all.
Surely there's some kind of escape from this all-encompassing exhaustion. She could sleep, but it's still early evening, and Jack knows that won't cure this gnawing heaviness, the kind that drags down every single piece of Jack's body. She doesn't know how to shake the impact that life has had on her, but she knows she should do something, at least. Keep moving, keep walking, keep being kind so that nobody has to be treated as she was by her father...
But there's nobody left to be kind to, nothing left to save. She no longer has a purpose here.
Except...
The budding thought is jarred from Jack's mind as she hears the nightly announcement, somehow resonating through the church walls to reach Jack's remote corner. The Capitol will not leave her alone.
"Ah, so it is. The final days of this tragedy. Friends are lost and journeys ended before they truly began. 'Tis a truly tragic thing to lose someone you'd just begun to know.
"Dear Wren, who was lively and brave 'til the end/Who lost her own life to save her true friend.
"And Callisto, so careful and quiet and wise/Who died with a legacy spotless of lies.
"Ah, my young players, you are so small in number. Remember what I've told you. Nothing can stay the same forever; things must always be changing. It is the nature of life, you see. Don't hold anything too tightly, now."
The world falls silent again, and Jack gasps at the yawning emptiness inside her, a gaping hollow larger than even the space of this church. Wren had died trying to save her. Her last wish was to see Jack protected, and here she is sitting around, withering away and wondering at her purpose. Shouldn't she at least live, so that Wren's sacrifice will be worth something? Her friend had been so full of life and love, and she'd spent it all on Jack's behalf. Jack can't waste that.
She stands up, lets feeling come back to her legs. What can she do? She has already felt sad, hopeful, afraid and exhausted. She knows she can make no more friends, extend no more kindness—it would surely break her to see it destroyed by yet more sadness.
But there is always... there is always anger. And revenge.
The thought sends a horrible chill over Jack's skin. She's only ever allowed herself to be angry at distant things, meaningless things. The Capitol, herself. But there is one thing she should be angry at, something that she has cause to hate, that she has not let herself examine.
The Careers. More specifically, Tremor Atilius.
If he had not killed Britta, killed Dria, then Jack would still have her friends. And if Tremor hadn't trained under her father, he wouldn't have been so powerful.
It always comes full circle, doesn't it? It always comes back to her father, whose influence she can never escape. He will always be looming, thwarting every attempt Jack makes to escape, to become something more than the girl she'd once been.
Jack tries to breathe past her panic, the tears streaming down her face. To Jack, it seems as if Tremor is the cause of every terrible thing that has happened to her in the span of the past week. And she wants him to regret it. She wants him to see the consequences of his actions.
Never has Jack had such a dark thought, so much potent rage toward another person. Yes, she hates her father, is angry at her father—but he's far behind her, and she was afraid of him, too. Always far too scared to act, to prevent him from hurting her or her siblings.
Now, she is free—in a sense. She is unafraid. And she needs to protect herself. She will doubtless be Tremor's next target.
But she's ready for him this time. She'll kill him first, if he ever tries to hurt her, to take away this gift Wren gave her—life.
Wren would want her to be strong. Even if it changes Jack, even if this rage feels almost corrosive inside her, she knows she has every reason to be vengeful. She knows it's her right. She's been through so much, bending and bowing before the gales of all the terrible years, all the love and the hope and the loss afterward.
But Jack will never let herself break. She will not crumble. And this anger keeps her from sinking, from succumbing to the shackles the Capitol and her father have forced upon her.
If she must, she will break those shackles and give the world a taste of all the pain it's given her. No longer will she withstand this loss with silence. She cannot let it take her as it has so many times before.
No more losing friends. No more curling into herself against cold, uncaring tiles. Jack is finally taking matters into her own hands.
She just... she fears that there won't be much of her left, after her vengeance runs its course. She fears that the girl Wren saved is already gone.
...
7th Place: Callisto Novella, killed by a gargoyle. Oh Cal, my awkward, moralistic and endlessly kind boy. I loved Callisto so much. His desperation to do the right thing among so much chaos and sadness, yet his inability to truly find the right answers and take action was so poignant and heart-breaking and relatable. He went through so much, and still managed to have such a quiet strength that lifted everyone around him. I'm so proud of him for finally being kind to himself and realizing that the weight of the world wasn't on his shoulders, and for finally finding the peace he deserved. Thank you so much, HumanWiki, for giving me Cal—I hope I wrote him well. Here's to Callisto, our timid philosopher; I hope you find a place in your own journey.
HI! Welcome to day 7, part 2, but more importantly, welcome to 2023! I can't believe it; last year was a blur, and also kinda rough, so I'm hoping for a clean slate in 2023! My New Year's resolution is to write even more angsty things that make me sad! Okay, not really, but it'll probably happen regardless lol. We are now in top 6?! Things are getting crazy. I hope you all had a very relaxing weekend and have some fun plans for the start of 2023... I'm not ready to go back to school but that's beside the point! This chapter had a lot of things going on, even if it was a... quieter, more introspective chapter. What'd you think? Hopefully I'll be back next Monday with the next chapter! Either way, I hope everyone has a great week, and thanks for reading!
Much Hope for 2023!
Miri