These Flowers Are Rotten, a hunger games fanfic

CW: unlawful arrests, extortion, drug trafficking, suicidal ideation, graphic descriptions of injury and decay.

These Flowers Are Rotten

He can't see straight. Every drop of rain that hits him feels like it's going to be the one to drop him to the ground. He can't breathe.

I can't -

There's not even anywhere to sit.

As Laszlo takes in the absolute glory of the room he's been unceremoniously shoved into, that's his first thought. The second is that someone could've at least bothered to clean the spiderwebs off the windows. And the third is that this room smells worse than the sewage that comes out of the local bar.

He drags his feet through the year-old layer of dust and leans against the radiator. To no one's surprise it gives entirely under his weight and cracks against the ground along with a string of curses. Laszlo kicks a large chunk of it out of the way and sits down in the semi-clean imprint. It's not that he expected luxurious decoration in any room contained in District 6, but a fucking chair would've been nice.

His head falls into his hands as he sits there, not caring that there's a sliver of ceramic digging into his ass. To say that Laszlo is upset about something as stupid as interior design wouldn't necessarily be true. He knows that's not the reason why he wants to send the rest of the radiator through the window. He also knows it won't feel better or help his cause to do so.

What cause? Laszlo is more than aware of what just happened on the Reaping stage. As soon as he heard his name he knew, but there was exactly nothing he could do about it. The Mayor, the Capitol-based benefactors, and all of their fucking mothers want him dead. They've more than proved that over the last six months.

Laszlo just didn't actually think they'd get what they wanted. The hunt was a game to him - one that he was half-decent at in fact. He was certainly not the only man on the Peacekeepers' to-destroy list, nor the most important. All he'd done to get himself there was overhear the wrong conversation. Hell, the Peacekeepers probably could've talked themselves out of it if they'd had half the brain to do so.

Instead, their reaction proved that everything Laszlo had accidentally uncovered about District 6's drug rings was true.

And he wasn't going to stick around long enough for them to figure out what to do with him.

Except it turns out they don't actually need to know where he was to put an end to this manhunt. Laszlo didn't consider the Hunger Games. He didn't even remember that the Reaping was today until he heard the crowd heading to the District Square.

Imagine if I'd missed my own death announcement. The thought makes Laszlo crack a smirk for the first time since his name was called.

And the door opening wipes it right back off.

"Lazlo?" He closes his eyes before he can really see him but, if the voice doesn't give him away, the gentle footsteps certainly do. Laszlo doesn't rise as the room falls again into silence, in fact when he opens his eyes they remain fixed on the crumbling floorboards. How long has it been?

Laszlo doesn't have to think hard to remember. He hasn't seen his father since he left Wither's hideout that day. It was too dangerous. He wouldn't have been able to explain what happened. He couldn't face his father knowing that something else had gone wrong in the perfect life he wanted for Laszlo.

One hundred and seventy-three days…

"I thought-" his father swallows audibly as he takes another step towards him. Part of Laszlo wants to close the gap, to wrap him in an apology because he already knows the rest of that sentence. There are a dozen things that could've happened to Laszlo, not a single one of them pleasant. His father has always warned him about the drug alleys, the weapons hidden in belts and boots. He always wanted more for his son than the drug-induced dreams that he and his wife slept in for years. He's always worried. He's always pushed.

That's why Laszlo never told him anything. His father doesn't know it, but Laszlo's been keeping secrets since he turned fourteen. Laszlo hadn't wanted to, but he was so embarrassed. He knew he didn't do what he was arrested for, but he also knew his father wouldn't believe him. Their relationship had already started to fray, but that day built a wall between them that neither's been able to cross.

Of course, back then, Laszlo had only been gone for three days. This time, it's been nearly half a year.

So much has happened.

The moment Laszlo finally stands up, his father envelops him in a hug that brings forward every bit of guilt he should feel. District 6 isn't a nice place. He knew his father was going to worry when he simply stopped coming home. There were already so many questions before then that Laszlo couldn't answer. His father had to have expected the worst when he simply dropped off the face of Panem.

Laszlo always meant to go back. They'd had their share of arguments, their cold silences, but he never hated his father. He had no intention of abandoning the only family he ever had.

Except, as he pulls away from the embrace, he realizes that that's exactly what he's done. It's exactly what he's going to do again.

There's no way in hell they'll let him come home.

Laszlo swallows, hating himself for what he's about to do. In his mind, however, there's no other answer. He dug this grave and, in a matter of days, he's going to have to lay in it.

His father doesn't deserve the headache of mourning him, of missing him. No matter what's happened between them.

"I wanted my own life," Laszlo says, hoping that he won't hear the quake in his voice. "I didn't want to keep listening to you. I should've told you, but I didn't. I hoped that you would move on."

The change in his father's expression is impossible to ignore, and Laszlo doesn't allow himself to look away. This has to be believable. In a matter of minutes he's going to be hauled away. This is the last time his father is going to see him outside of a coffin. He's already buried his wife, and now he's going to do the same for Laszlo. It's easier if he believes that Laszlo doesn't care. It's easier if his father can find a way to stop caring himself.

Laszlo drops his arms away and takes a step back, feeling the gap widen far more than a couple of feet. His father stares at him, tears building like a wall of glass over his eyes. His hand flinches up towards Laszlo, but he turns away and it drops again to his father's side.

"If I come back-" Laszlo says, pausing as he tries to prevent tears of his own. He knows these words are important. He isn't coming back, but his father doesn't know that. And if Panem-willing he does, Laszlo doesn't want him involved in this mess until it's over. "If I come back, don't look for me. I'll send enough money over, but I don't want to see you."

Then, Laszlo forces his steps to return to the door and one shaking hand turns the knob. He nods back to his father, giving him every option not to respond. Truthfully, Laszlo hopes he won't. He doesn't want to hear his father plead for him to take his statement back.

He doesn't know if he'll be able to stand it.

Yet, when his father nods in return and starts slowly towards the door, Laszlo still crumbles. He watches his father turn once more, his mouth agape with something else to say but Laszlo shakes his head. He doesn't want to hear it.

He doesn't have a choice. "I love you, Laszlo."

Laszlo hasn't even shut the door before tears burn through his eyelids. His breaths come in silent gasps, his body unwilling to give any audible indication that he wants to take all of it back. Laszlo sits down again, in the room without a chair, in the last room he'll ever see in District 6.

And, thankfully, for the remainder of his time there, he's alone.

"I love you, dad!" Laszlo called over his shoulder as he ran out the front door. As usual, his backpack was only slung over one shoulder and a piece of half-eaten toast sat in his opposite hand. No matter that his dad always got him up in time for school, Laszlo always found himself running behind.

"Laszlo!" He turned to see his dad frantically waving from the front steps. He barely made out the notebook swaying in the air before he's on his way back. Laszlo grinned sheepishly and took the notebook, an apology visible in his eyes. Instead of scolding him, however, his dad planted a kiss on his cheek and ruffled his hair.

"Don't be late," he chided. Laszlo nodded quickly and took off again for the main road. He didn't live far from the school, and at eight years old he knew the way. This was the first year that his dad's letting him walk alone, and he's going to make him proud.

Truthfully, that was the only thing Laszlo really wanted.

His dad was the only constant in his life, and he wouldn't have it any other way. Laszlo never knew his mom, nor did he have any siblings. Sometimes, when money's tight, the Richter's would have someone stay in Laszlo's room while Laszlo stays with his dad. Right now, though, it was just the two of them and that's the way he liked it.

Sometimes he wished they could talk about something other than homework. Sometimes he wished that his dad would believe him when he said he was trying his hardest even when he didn't get a high score. Sometimes he wished they could take a walk through the merchant neighborhood to see the dahlias bloom even if it was "too dark" when his dad got home. At this point, Laszlo was old enough to know that his dad had to work the hours he did. It's what kept them in the house and him in school.

And school's always been the most important thing.

The train looks no nicer than the type they make to transport cattle. Truthfully, as Laszlo's shoved aboard behind the other reaped kid, cattle is exactly what he feels like.

He turns to give the Peacekeeper a dirty look, only to find them climbing in closely after him. Four in total, their white-gloved hands ready on their rifles, step past Laszlo to take their positions. With one standing in each dreary corner, he finds it hard to look at anything else. They stick out like sore thumbs against a skyscape of dirty grey.

For six months he managed to evade every white suit in the district, and now he's within arm's reach of four of them. Laszlo crosses his arms indignantly over his chest, hoping to send a clear message that he's not going to make this easy for anyone. He'll get on the fucking train, but not because they said so.

No, I'm totally doing it for another, more sensible reason, he thinks sarcastically. The thought has barely crossed his mind before the train lurches forward and Laszlo slams into the metal railing by the stairs. He and the other kid barely manage to catch themselves before toppling straight over the top.

The girl, he doesn't know her name nor does he care, rips her hands away as soon as she's righted and gives him a disgusted look. Laszlo can only roll his eyes in response. I didn't even fucking touch her.

"You'll find the ride a lot more pleasant if you take a seat." Both tributes' heads snap up to the middle of the tiny train car. He recognizes both of the people sitting there, but certainly not by choice. The Hunger Games and the associated treaties were part of mandatory annual testing for every school-aged kid in District 6. Laszlo's had the Victors' names drilled into his head since age five.

Marcsa Toth and Aliz Molnar - the only Victors that District 6 has ever had.

He can't help but glare back as they examine each of them in turn. Laszlo's never seen either of them in person, and honestly he's not very upset about that. Sure, shit happens and he's sure they're as ticked about their situation as he is. Actually, scratch that; they can't possibly be as pissed off as him. He hasn't won shit and he's not about to.

Yet, when the train hits a bump that all but sends him flying, Laszlo takes Marcsa up on her offer.

Unlike the usual passenger cars Laszlo's used to seeing in textbooks, this one has three benches of seating forming a semi-circle. They're not quite the same dreary grey as the concrete walls, in fact Laszlo would probably call this shade a miserable grey. When he sits down, the seat is about as uncomfortable as he expects it to be. He can't help but notice that the two Victors' seats don't look much better.

"I'm Marcsa," she begins once both tributes have sat down on opposite benches. "And this is Aliz. We'll be acting as your mentors for the duration of this year's Hunger Games."

"So until we're both dead." Laszlo half-expects the words to have come out of his mouth, but they sound a little too high-pitched. He puffs out a half-laugh and lets the smirk linger on his face. Nothing about this situation should be funny to the average person, but what better way to cope?

Marcsa raises her eyebrow at the girl, but he finds it hard to decide if she's scolding her or not. Her response doesn't help him make that distinction either. "Potentially."

"We're here to help," Aliz interjects, looking between the two tributes with soft nods. She's younger than Marcsa, having only won four years ago. Her soft demeanor is also immediately more grating. "In any way we can."

This already feels like a fucking funeral and they likely haven't yet left District 6. Laszlo doesn't want their pity, though he knows it's just about all either of them can offer him. Whether they know what happened to rig him here or not, they're basically useless to him. He isn't going to win. He isn't going home. The only good a mentor can do for him is tell him the most efficient way to choke on his own blood.

Given that they're both currently alive, they probably can't even give him that much.

"I know a lot has already happened, and I'm sorry that things have to be this way," Aliz continues. "But we'd be happy to answer any questions that either of you might have."

Laszlo cracks another smirk. "Yeah I have one."

Aliz straightens and turns to him with an encouraging smile. "Of course."

"What's it feel like to die?" He asks bluntly, then upon seeing her obvious discomfort he decides to elaborate. "How long did it take the people you killed to stop struggling? What did their eyes look like? Do you think we'll feel everything or do you black out at a certain point? How much blood was on the floor before their cannon-"

"Enough." Marcsa is up and leaning towards him before Laszlo ever sees her flinch. She stands in front of Aliz, who's already sunken as far into the bench as the stiff material will allow. The older Victor's stare tells him she's had enough, but Laszlo finds it hard to actually give a shit.

She's not the one heading into a death match. She's alive and rich and coming to the Capitol as little more than a mascot at this point. Laszlo will say whatever the fuck he wants to make this shit situation feel just a little bit lighter.

He's already beyond saving, and maybe for a second he wants to forget that fact and have a little bit of fun.

"You might not have gotten it through your thick skull yet, but we're the only people you're going to meet that are even trying to help you," Marcsa snaps. "The Capitol couldn't give less of a shit. The other tributes and their mentors, they'll be cheering every time you mess up. You don't have to like us, but you will show us some respect."

"Any chance that's negotiable?" The girl asks with a smirk.

Marcsa ignores her statement, instead turning back to Aliz. She gestures to the back of the train. "Go."

The younger Victor glances between the tributes, but ultimately decides to follow the instruction. She stands with her arms wrapped around herself and heads to the back corner, where Laszlo only now sees a door behind one of the Peacekeepers. It doesn't close behind her, but it's not open enough for Laszlo to see inside.

"Cots fold down," Marcsa says flatly, pointing off to the right. "If you get hungry, ask one of your friends here. If you're lucky they stocked the jerky-flavoured bars, the vegetarian ones taste like cardboard. Otherwise, we'll see you this evening. Try not to kill each other before then."

Even Laszlo is taken aback by the apathy in her words, but he quickly decides that it's not worth his time to care. He didn't want to talk to the Victors and he got his wish. He should be happy. The promise of food and a bed are a bonus even if Marcsa was trying to make them sound like a punishment. After months sleeping on floors and mats, even a pull down cot sounds pretty good.

The older Victor is gone before either of them respond, not that Laszlo honestly thought they would. The door closes behind her with a loud click that tells him she's not coming back anytime soon. Laszlo turns to where the other tribute had been sitting, but she's already left the bench in favour of the train car's only window.

At least he won't have to deal with small talk.

Laszlo cried out as he was pulled by his bound wrists. He landed with a gasp in the back of a large truck with benches on all three walls. There were no longer any open spots to sit, each taken by people of all ages. Some of them looked like they'd been living on the streets for months, others had clothes that were frayed like his but just as clean.

He was shaking as he climbed to his feet, a task made much harder with his hands behind his back. Laszlo'd never seen the inside of one of the Peacekeeper trucks, but their presence around the district had grown in the past months. Whispers in the market said that they're cracking down on drug trafficking again. Prisons had been overflowing with people awaiting trial. Public executions had more than tripled since the summer.

Laszlo still didn't know what any of that had to do with him. He swallowed and scooted himself as far into the near corner as he could get. As the truck started to move again, the tip of someone's boot found its way into the middle of his back. Laszlo was shaking too hard to even care.

("I'm just on my way home," Laszlo tried, pointing one trembling finger towards his street. He'd never been stopped by a Peacekeeper before; he didn't know what to say. There were no eyes to look in, just an unyielding mask of black behind their white helmet. There wasn't a kid in District 6 that wasn't terrified of them.

"Enough." Laszlo thought the voice sounded like a man, but he couldn't be sure. "Get on the ground, arms up by your head. You're under arrest as an accessory to drug trafficking."

And when Laszlo hesitated, the Peacekeeper shoved him hard to the ground. He whimpered as handcuffs were roughly clipped to his wrists, but he didn't struggle. He was too terrified to even think.)

This wasn't supposed to happen to him. His dad had always told him that following the law and getting good grades were the key to success, to a life outside of the Burrows where every house sat in disrepair. Laszlo had never questioned him, not even when good grades became more difficult to get or when his dad's hard work wasn't enough to afford breakfast.

That morning, as Laszlo sat silently in the back of the truck, was the first time he realized that the world didn't owe him shit.

"Laszlo!"

He ignores the shout from his mentor, discarding the stupid hat on the stylist's table. A half-dozen tubes of varying substances clatter to the ground but Laszlo doesn't have it in him to care. He rubs both hands down his face, which feels as slick as a greased motor and twice as itchy. His fingers come away covered in oil that has the slightest sheen of gold and he wipes them on the front of his overalls. His only priority is getting away from all of this, but a Peacekeeper stops him before he can make it to the door.

Laszlo tries to go around the white-suit, but that only attracts the attention of a second one. He huffs in annoyance and keeps his stance in front of them. The filming for his stupid commercial is over. He should have every right to leave and take a fucking shower if he so pleases.

It's hard to believe that everything that's happened thus far has been contained in a single day. It's even harder to believe that tomorrow will be any better, because it more than likely won't be.

"Laszlo." He closes his eyes for a moment before turning to face her. It would've been easier to swallow if Marcsa looked upset or even annoyed, but the faint pity in her expression makes him even more frustrated. His mentor, because apparently that's what Marcsa is now, has said maybe a half dozen words since their spat on the train. Probably a third of them have just been his name in varying tones.

"What?" He snaps. "We're done, right? That's what you said."

Marcsa takes a slow breath before responding. "At least let me show you where you're going."

Laszlo allows the tension in his shoulders to recede just enough to shrug. It's clear that she's already done with him, and the feeling is mutual. He doesn't understand why they have to do any of these extra things. Laszlo's here for a fight to the death, not a commercial shoot and certainly not to be picked apart by Capitolites who've never met a speck of dirt before.

The sun went down and he missed dinner in the time it took to get him clean. Not only that, but the stylist team dressed him in a laughable version of a mechanic's uniform complete with a gold-tinged oil slick spilled down the front. When Laszlo looked in the mirror, he hadn't even looked like a person let alone himself. He looked like a doll.

Like a tribute, he can't help but think, because apparently that's all I am now.

He just wants to get all this stupid shit off of him.

Marcsa nods and the Peacekeepers move to let them pass. Honestly, Laszlo doesn't know where he's going; there's been no time for exploring. As soon as their train pulled in he was brought to some underground beauty parlour to be prodded and ridiculed. By the way the white-haired trio who worked on him were acting, Laszlo was at least two days late and ten notches too in need of their attention.

Even after they were done it wasn't him that was beautiful, it was their work. Every rude remark was somehow his fault - every overgrown nail was a personal error and every split end was a slight at them. However, the things that Laszlo's stylists loved, namely his curls and round eyes, were something that they accentuated.

He wishes he could forget they ever touched him. He's pretty certain he's not going to get that lucky considering the lineup of events waiting for him in the coming days. If Laszlo never learns their names he'll consider it a win. Panem knows they don't care to know his.

Laszlo doesn't even flinch when there's another Peacekeeper waiting in the elevator for them. At this point, he'd have been more shocked not to see one. Sometimes it felt like they were everywhere back in District 6, but that doesn't even compare to this place. It's as if the Capitol is preparing for them to act up, and honestly Laszlo doesn't blame anyone who might. If they're going to treat them like criminals, they shouldn't be shocked when criminals are exactly what they get.

He's just too tired to care at this point. Laszlo barely shut his eyes on the train, and even then it was too bumpy to really settle in. By the way his district partner tossed and turned, he suspects he wasn't alone in that feeling.

"Do you have a plan?" The casual way Marcsa asks the question, she might as well have been asking about the weather. Laszlo turns to give her a dirty look, but there's no smart remark ready on his tongue. The long day seems to have drained every last one of them away.

Instead he just shakes his head.

Marcsa nods stiffly. "I'm still willing to help. First impressions can be tough, and being here at all is even tougher. I can look past what happened on the train if you're willing to help yourself."

He doesn't respond as the elevator dings and the doors slide open in front of them. Unsurprisingly, there's another Peacekeeper standing in front of a door once they get off. They see the pair and move to allow them past.

Unlike the train, no expense was spared on the apartment waiting behind the door. Laszlo can't stop his eyes from widening as he stares inside, finding sharp grey and bright pops of colour decorating every wall. The furniture appears to have been made with metal, yet the cushions look like the most comfortable things in the world. Laszlo spots a small kitchen on one side complete with a round table and chairs. No matter where his eyes land, they seem to find something new to take in.

"Go on," Marcsa says softly and he takes a slow step inside. He feels as out of place here as he did in the prep room downstairs, but for a completely different set of reasons. Laszlo didn't think a room could look like this. It makes every house he's ever seen in District 6 feel like a prison.

He swallows and turns to look at his mentor. "Why?"

She shrugs. "This is the Capitol's idea of quaint. It's not the same for us district kids."

"Quaint?" Laszlo can't imagine using that word for this space. It's at least double the size of his entire house back in 6 and he can't even compare the interiors.

"Your room's the first one down that hallway," Marcsa tells him gently, pointing off to the right. "There's a shower and fresh clothes inside. We'll request dinner when Aliz and Benca get back."

Benca, so that's her name.

He never thought to ask.

Fourteen year-old Laszlo was still shaking as he lowered himself slowly into the wooden chair. His stomach turned no matter where he looked in the old office, but there was nothing left inside to throw up even if he wanted to. The others in his hallway said that it'd been three days since Laszlo arrived. To him, it felt like a lifetime had passed.

Dad… Somewhere deep down, Laszlo hoped that his dad would come and clear everything up but of course that hadn't happened. No one knew where he was, and there's likely not much his dad could've done even if he had. Every jail in District 6 was surrounded by a fence that's at least double his height.

The only way in were the trucks Laszlo was brought in on.

Ways out, well he was still hoping to find one. No matter that the cells were filled with people who said the opposite, Laszlo had to hope. The punishments for drug trafficking were some of the harshest, from lifetime sentences to execution. Given that the prison population had apparently doubled in just under a year, the current inmates seemed to believe the wardens were primed to choose death.

Laszlo felt sick all over again remembering all the whispers he heard.

"Laszlo Richter?" The man that addressed him was wearing the familiar white Peacekeeper uniform, but the helmet was sitting neatly on the desk in front of him. This was just about the only proof Laszlo had seen that the figures beneath the suits were even human.

He nodded. "Yes, sir."

The man looked up to where the guards who brought Laszlo in were still standing. He waved his hand gently towards the door and both were gone in seconds, leaving just the two of them. The lump in Laszlo's throat refused to budge, in fact it seemed to be shaking alongside him.

"You were arrested on evidence of being an accessory to drug trafficking."

It didn't feel like a question, but Laszlo nodded again. "Yes, sir."

"Your first offence," the man continued. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

"I-" Laszlo's first attempt at words were swallowed by fear that sent his body into shivers. When inmates went to see the warden, more often than not they didn't come back. He'd only been there a few days, but who's to say the same wouldn't happen to him? "I didn't do anything, I promise. I-I was on my way home and-"

"Save it," the man said, raising a hand to stop him. "It's your first offence and our records show you have no familial ties to any known drug operations. Now normally, this infraction would carry a minimum fifteen year sentence with a possibility of life. However, you've come at a lucky time, kid."

Laszlo could barely hear him at this point, however the last sentence somehow made it through. He lifted his chin to look the Peacekeeper in the eye, and what he saw was most easily described as nothing. The man didn't look particularly glad that Laszlo's gotten "lucky" but that word had to mean something.

Right?

He could feel the man examining his expression and it made the shivers start again. It was as if somehow he could see past Laszlo's features and into his mind, yet didn't actually care about anything inside it. He felt far more exposed than his days-old school clothes should have allowed.

"I have a proposition for you," he said finally. "But you'd be under a sworn oath of secrecy. You can't tell anyone, and believe that I'll find out the second you do."

Over an hour later, Laszlo found out that there was in fact an exit to that awful place. However, as he walked out with none of his meager belongings returned, he had to wonder if he was making the right choice. He didn't understand every word out of the Peacekeeper's mouth, but he still knew it would be dangerous. As he made his way up his front steps, a practiced lie ready on his tongue, he had to believe that he did the right thing.

Even if it was the first time Laszlo ever had to lie to his dad.

He should've known that she would come get him, but Laszlo still jumps when the knock on his door finally comes.

He groans and peels himself from the thick sheets with not a single hair on his head in place. He opens the door and sure enough finds Marcsa waiting with her arms crossed. She looks about as pleased to see him as he can expect given that he's already late.

"You have to go," she says sternly. "If you're not out here, in your training uniform, in five minutes-"

"Then what?" Laszlo can't imagine she's been given permission to forcibly drag him downstairs. So what if he misses training, he's only hurting himself or whatever other bullshit she's going to say. Marcsa might not have gotten on his nerves last night after the commercial filming, but she's sure not getting a head start on keeping things that way.

Marcsa pauses. "Then I have to call the guards."

Any hint of comradery Laszlo felt with her is gone with her words. He was right, she's no better than a Capitol mascot here to keep tabs on him. He rolls his eyes. "How about six minutes?"

"If that gets you out here, I'll take it."

It takes seven before Laszlo's finally in the elevator, but to her credit Marcsa doesn't say a word. He's definitely late considering most of the other tributes have already dispersed themselves amongst the various stations, but Laszlo doesn't mind.

"District 6." His nose wrinkles as he recognizes the Capitol accent. When he turns around, there's a man dressed in a similar black jumpsuit standing far too close to him. "We were worried you got lost."

"Nope," Laszlo says with a shrug.

The man's strained smile tells Laszlo that he doesn't appreciate the remark. Apparently wit is not a trait that Capitolites are known for. "You'll find weapons training in the area to your left, survival stations on the right. No fighting and no sparring with other tributes. In two days you will be evaluated in a private session with the Gamemakers. Don't waste their time."

He's gone before Laszlo can even think of a response. Instead he mocks the frigid expression to the trainer's back as he walks away. Don't waste their time. This whole thing is a waste of time, and Laszlo's the one with not much to spare right now.

He settles at the first survival station he finds. It might not be the best use of his time, but given that he's not going to be allowed to sulk in bed all day it'll have to do. Laszlo doesn't have any interest in learning about all the different blades that might be used to kill him in a few days.

"Hi." He jumps half a foot in the air and barely catches himself on the table. He whirls around with wide eyes to find a pair seated at the table behind him. Laszlo hadn't even noticed them, or really looked too hard at any of the surrounding tributes.

The girl remains focused on whatever contraption sits in front of her, but looks up for a moment when Laszlo doesn't answer. The younger tribute, however, doesn't break eye contact even when Laszlo shoots them a dirty look. Both wear the same number on their sleeve, 11, which at least explains why they're already up each others' asses.

Laszlo rolls his eyes and turns back around. He doesn't have any interest in making nice with the other tributes. Truthfully, he doesn't have an interest in anything this place could offer him except maybe some lunch.

"Hi!" This time the voice is louder and followed by a soft chuckle that probably comes from the girl. Laszlo's face twists but he forces himself not to turn around. One of the trainers sets an array of supplies in front of him along with a piece of paper that has far too many instructions on it. He couldn't have picked something simpler?

"Pssst!"

This time, Laszlo can't help himself. He turns quickly and looks the kid dead in the eye. They can't be more than thirteen or fourteen, but that's plenty old enough to know when to leave people the hell alone. "What?"

"You're doing it wrong," the kid says with a gap-toothed smile.

The girl beside him shakes her head without looking up. "He hasn't started yet, Chey."

"Exactly," Chey says, their smile widening. "He's supposed to start."

"Fuck this," Laszlo mutters as he stands quickly from the table. He stomps across the gymnasium to a quieter corner without looking back. He's got enough on his plate without having to deal with some shit-eating kid too.

The first station in this area is strewn with pinned flowers of all colours and sizes. Laszlo doesn't intend to pause, but finds himself staring anyway. District 6 isn't known for its wildlife, but even it had a few stray gardens. Mostly the old rich people used them to occupy time that regular people spent trying not to starve to death. Gardens were expensive, they had to be replanted every year because of the harsh winters and constant smog. No one in his part of town had one. Laszlo used to purposefully lengthen his walk home from school to see them, if only because they were a nice break from concrete and steel.

Even those tiny gardens were better than this. Half of the flowers are trapped behind glass while the rest are pinned to little cushions. Laszlo doubts any of them are actually still alive.

He shakes himself out of his thoughts and scuttles past the station entirely. It's pointless for him to spend time staring at dead petals. This entire thing is pointless.

And thankfully, for the rest of the day, the others steer clear.

Laszlo emptied the dustpan into the nearby trash as the room bustled around him. He'd gotten quite used to this type of work, and to listening as he did it. He rarely spent enough time in a ring to be given actual, relevant tasks and this time was no exception.

Yet, even if Laszlo had only been here about a month, it was the most comfortable he'd ever felt.

It's because I'm getting better at this, he tried to reason but he shrugged himself off. None of the other rings he'd been tasked with 'watching' had been so welcoming. More often than not, they looked at Laszlo with apprehension for the first few days then roughed him around for the next week. He was the new guy everywhere he went. He had something to prove to everyone that looked his way.

This one felt different. "Wither" as everyone called him had taken the time to greet Laszlo everyday on his way in. Despite multiple other low-levels warning him to steer clear, he couldn't help but kind of like the man. He might've been a drug dealer, in fact he might've been one of the "Big Six" as Peacekeeper Ramier said, but he seemed to at least be a person underneath.

It was hard to say the same for a lot of the people Laszlo'd met over the past two years.

He checked in with Peacekeeper Ramier once weekly to report any information he learned. Twice in the last year, Laszlo was moved to another ring - once because the ring was raided and once when another "Cronie Dupe" stuck better. Laszlo hated the title, but there was nothing he could do about it. There was nothing he could do about a lot of things.

He sighed and replaced the broom in the far corner of the room. There was no end date in sight, not for Laszlo. More than likely, Wither and all the people under him would be marched into the same prison Laszlo stayed in two years ago. He'd move on to another part of the district, infiltrate another ring until…

Laszlo didn't have an ending to that sentence yet.

All he knew was that his choice two years ago was the right one. A life in exchange for lives, but at least they're guilty. They might've had no other option, like some of the younger kids that cleaned or did deliveries for a place to stay. This might've even been the world they were born into. District 6 didn't have a lot of opportunities even if you got to stay in school and had at least one living parent.

Where would I be if I wasn't here? Laszlo wished he had an answer to that question, but none of them felt adequate. His dad always wanted him to succeed, to get good grades, to stay on the right path, but where had that gotten him? Even if Laszlo hadn't been arrested for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, did he really think he'd be any happier?

No.

This answer came readily, and it certainly wasn't the first time.

"Laszlo."

HIs name greets him almost as soon as he's stepped through the door. Laszlo sighs and turns to the couch, unsurprised to find Marcsa sitting there alone. Benca hurries in behind him and is slamming the door to her room before either of them speak. He doesn't know where Aliz is, but at this point she's missed her chance.

"Please," Marcsa says quietly. "Sit down, it'll only be a few minutes."

Common sense screams at him to follow Benca's example, but Laszlo moves carefully to take a seat. Besides the mornings where he doesn't have much of a choice, he's avoided seeing Marcsa in most capacities. He didn't hang around the common area after training yesterday and only grabbed food when everyone was asleep. Honestly, his intention for tonight would've been the same if it weren't for the interviews.

Laszlo isn't hopeful that he'll be getting out of those and, as much as Marcsa frustrates him, he'll take her over the Capitol stylists anyday.

He sits stiffly on the couch across from her, tucked as far into one of the corners as possible. This is the first time he's actually sat on any of the furniture besides his own bed. Laszlo has to wonder why no one's slept out here yet, the fabric feels like it was wound out of spiderwebs without the stickiness.

"How's everything?" She asks.

He shrugs. "Fine."

"This isn't the interview, you don't have to lie," Marcsa says with the briefest flinch of a smile. "I heard that you refused some allies yesterday, District 11?"

"You heard right," Laszlo replies.

"You're going alone then?" She nods, seeming to already know the answer. "What about Benca? The two of you could still make an agreement, she hasn't settled down with anyone either."

"No allies, no truces; I don't need anyone."It's the same thing Laszlo told the District 11 pair yesterday and he means it. He isn't going into the arena with another back to watch or mouth to feed. He's got enough problems to worry about. Benca and him agreed in the elevator on the way down this morning, they owe each other nothing.

More people create more problems.

Laszlo's always been just fine by himself.

Marcsa pauses for a moment before nodding again. "Full transparency, you don't have a lot of sponsor interest right now. That could change tomorrow if things go well, but I want you to understand either way. If you're choosing to go alone, you will be alone. I won't be able to help you until sponsors pick up, but that won't happen until closer to the end."

"Don't bother," Laszlo says flatly.

She tilts her head and sighs. "The worst thing you can do before it starts is count yourself out."

"I was rigged in. They're not going to let me win," he says flatly, wishing that his voice didn't quiver on the way out. His eyes land on the ground between them and he shakes his head as if willing his own words away. He doesn't know why he told her. It doesn't change anything but her expectations and Laszlo's never cared about those.

"Why do you think that?"

"I don't believe in coincidences," Laszlo shrugs.

Marcsa lets the smile sit on her face just a little bit longer this time, but there's no joy in it. While Laszlo recognizes the pity behind it, he sees something else there too - grief. "Neither do I."

"Tomorrow doesn't matter then," he nods. "I appreciate what you're trying to do, but it just.. It doesn't matter."

And he actually means the whole sentiment.

"What are you going to do?" She asks. By the look on her face, he suspects that she already has a guess at the answer.

He swallows. Truthfully, this is just about the only question that's occupied his mind these past few days. He knows what he should do, and it's exactly what he plans to. It's too late to change anyone's mind about him, he's already here. It's far too easy to get rid of him now and Laszlo doesn't think highly enough of the government to think they'll spare him.

He loses either way, but that's not what Laszlo's concerned about right now. If he's going to lose then so will they. The Hunger Games might be their way of silencing him, but tomorrow he'll still be alive to hold the microphone.

Laszlo's going to expose everything he's learned. District 6 deserves to know what's really happening. They deserve to know that they're being manipulated, pressured, and punished.

And Laszlo has nothing to lose anymore.

"Tell them." It's a simple answer, but he hopes Marcsa will know what he means. Laszlo hasn't figured out what words he's going to use, but he's at least decided to use them. It's the only power he has left, and it'll be gone tomorrow night.

Marcsa's expression doesn't change. "The Capitol can be far crueler than you think, Laszlo. This might be punishment for whatever you've done, but it won't stop here. I've seen what they're capable of."

"You don't think I should do it."

It's not a question, but Marcsa still shakes her head. "I won't stop you, but I want you to know that if there's anyone back home-" She swallows and closes her eyes for a moment. "I can't protect them for you."

Laszlo pauses. He's thought about that too, but hearing it so readily from her makes his jaw clench anyways. The only person that the Capitol could hurt in Laszlo's place is his father. Before the Reaping, Laszlo hadn't seen him in nearly six months. Deep down, he has hope that this fact will protect him.

But there are no guarantees.

"I know." He means this too.

Marcsa gives him a knowing look and sits back further on the couch. Normally, Laszlo would take this opportunity to run back to his room, but he suddenly doesn't want to. This doesn't feel like the same Marcsa that he met on the train.

"You know," she says softly, "You're not the first kid someone has wanted to get rid of."

His eyes snap up, but as soon as the surprise reaches him it seems to dissipate. Of course he isn't. In twenty-one years of the Hunger Games, there's no way it wouldn't have occurred to some Peacekeeper sooner. It's far too simple of a solution to a kid you can't control.

"What happened to them?" The words leave without permission and Laszlo has every desire to pull them back. Still, some hopeful part of him wishes for an answer that's different than the one he knows he'll get. He wants there to be a chance no matter how stupid it is to wish for one.

This time Marcsa's eyes reach the floor first. The smile is gone when she looks up again, replaced by narrow lips and mournful eyes. "I think you already know."

Laszlo had thought far too much that week.

Thankfully he'd already made up his mind by the time he stepped inside the old warehouse. He wasn't as nervous as he used to be despite the dust that puffed up around him. He knew the crumbling concrete was little more than a safe mirage for his Peacekeeper overseers. The building was in a similarly sketchy part of the neighborhood, but about a forty minute walk from Wither's place.

If anyone saw Laszlo wandering in, they'd just think he was running a deal. Generally, though, no one would risk venturing too close. If you didn't know an area in District 6, your best bet was to steer clear. Rings were as territorial as some of the gangs around here, and often just as deadly when crossed.

That's not something Laszlo learned over the past years. It was information that most children in District 6 were either born knowing or learned shortly after. It's about as important as walking or reading, and some said it was twice as helpful a skill as either. It kept you safe. It kept you from making enemies with the wrong people before you could even start out in life.

Laszlo had to believe that he'd made friends with the right ones. The past years had been anything but easy, but they weren't spent behind bars. He still had his life, no matter how compartmentalized it had become. He still had a chance at happiness even if he couldn't see it through the dust falling around him.

Even if near everything in his life had to change.

Even if the words exchanged with his father became few and far between.

Even if the way out of this new world was something Laszlo couldn't even dream of.

He swallowed as a distant door clicked shut. There was no world in which he believed that anything would be different about today. Laszlo was supposed to report what he heard, even if that was only supposed to apply to Wither's ring. He knew this was the right thing to do even if his stomach felt one inch from dropping off the factory roof.

Laszlo waited silently until the whispered footsteps grew close. He stood at full height as Peacekeeper Ramier turned a corner into the large room. He tried to convince his heart to stop pounding because he had nothing to fear.

It didn't listen.

"Good evening, sir."

The Peacekeeper held his helmet close to his side, though Laszlo would've been able to recognize him by footsteps alone. Ramier was the only Peacekeeper he dealt with since being arrested. For as much as he seemed to know Laszlo, Laszlo felt like he knew him just as well.

He believed that Peacekeeper Ramier would help him.

There was only a small voice that doubted it, and that voice had drowned in the sewers outside. He didn't have time to doubt. Something needed to be done and at this point the only person Laszlo trusted enough to do it was Peacekeeper Ramier.

He was strict in his duties, but he'd never been cruel.

"Laszlo," the Peacekeeper nodded. "What news do you bring?"

He swallowed before answering, his tongue suddenly dry. "Nothing new from Sector Seven. I do have something else to discuss with you, though."

There was no going back now.

"Permission granted." Peacekeeper Ramier raised a curious eyebrow. Laszlo's job was to watch over Wither's drug ring in Sector Seven. He was supposed to figure out their trafficking circles and whether he had any other safe houses. Laszlo firmly believed that what he was about to say was more important than any of that.

"Someone in your ranks is supplying the rings," he said softly, only now worried that they might be overheard. "I heard them talking about it last time I went in for my tech inspection."

"Heard who?" Laszlo couldn't see any change in expression, but the fact that he didn't immediately shut down the notion was promising. When Laszlo had last visited the Peacekeeper storehouse in Sector Nine, he had to wait outside the tech office for his turn. He was mandated to check in once every month to have his GPS tracking watch updated as well as to turn in his notes.

Laszlo had been early, and he'd overheard the Peacekeepers on duty there. They'd been talking about one of the drug syndicates that'd popped up in Sector Fourteen. Laszlo wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't heard it himself.

They'd been talking about when they were going to get the next delivery out to the ring. One of them had said it would be suspicious if he went because he'd gone on the last delivery. The second just said they'd need to talk to someone else because he was already scheduled to do it.

The longer Laszlo listened, the more and less he understood.

Peacekeepers were delivering drugs and supplies to the trafficking rings, that much was crystal clear.

But … why? Peacekeepers were the ones who cracked down on every ring that popped up in District 6. They were the ones that had stiffened laws so much that, at fourteen, Laszlo would've been jailed for life simply for being an accessory to trafficking. They upheld the law, and the law said that drugs were banned.

The only logical conclusion that sixteen year-old Laszlo could draw was that some Peacekeepers were setting people in the rings up somehow. Perhaps they were even making money off them, because Laszlo knew how much drug supplies could go for.

And the whole thing was disgusting.

"Peacekeepers at the storehouse," Laszlo answered. "They talked about delivering a case of morphling to a syndicate in Sector Fourteen."

"Is there anything else?" This time when he spoke, Ramier's jaw was visibly clenched. He held his helmet even closer to his side, the ends of his fingers turning nearly as white as his uniform.

Laszlo shook his head. He wondered if he should've stayed longer or somehow gathered more proof. For a moment he believed that Peacekeeper Ramier was going to simply laugh him off or tell him to focus on his job.

Then, the Peacekeeper's eyes squinted ever slightly. "Thank you for notifying me of what you've heard. I'll check in with you again next week."

Somehow watching him walk away was the most comforting sight Laszlo had seen all week. He knew that whatever happened wasn't on his plate anymore. He did all he could and someone else would take care of the rest.

And Laszlo didn't have to worry about any of it.

Laszlo stands at the front of the line now, his hands shoved as far into his suit pockets as they'll go.

He doesn't know why he's so nervous, but his legs have been shaking since he left his stylist's chair. He didn't have very much energy left despite having the morning off, but it took all of it not to fight every powdered brush that came near him. Laszlo knows that wouldn't have gotten him anywhere. He found that out on his very first day in the Capitol.

It only makes the torture last longer. He's still going to look exactly as they intend for him to. At least today instead of overalls and grease, Laszlo's wearing something that mostly looks like clothes.

He lightly touches the edge of his collar. His stylists decided to continue with the concrete theme, so like his denim overalls the entire suit has been coloured steel-grey. The button-up shirt underneath and the stiff tie are a slightly darker shade, but still grey. They even darkened his hair with some powder and used makeup to deepen the contours of his face.

Laszlo hates every bit of it. He still hasn't gotten used to looking in the mirror and seeing someone entirely new. His stylists took one look at him and decided to dress him like a corpse.

They don't know that Laszlo wore green and blue t-shirts almost everyday, with jeans that were so faded they were more white than denim. They never saw him with his roots lightened from days under the sun or when his freckles took over every square inch of his cheeks.

They met him when he'd been hiding inside for nearly six months.

Maybe their choices make more sense than he gives them credit for.

Laszlo crouches down and narrowly avoids running his hands down his makeup-coated face. One of the backstage workers pulls him near-instantly back to standing and he doesn't have a lot of energy to resist. He spent the morning in his room before being dragged downstairs for several hours of washing and prodding. Marcsa stopped by for some of it, but she at least could tell he wasn't interested in advice.

She probably just wanted to remind him that none of the sponsors wanted him. Maybe she expected that would change his mind about what he's going to do.

She's wrong.

Sponsors don't matter at this point. Laszlo is going to say what he needs to say and that's final. No amount of truth about the repercussions of it are going to sway him. The nation deserves to know what's happening in District 6. District 6 deserves to know that they're being lied to and exploited.

He's the only one who can do anything about it and right now is his only chance.

Odds are he'll already be dead by this time tomorrow.

So why am I second guessing this? He asks himself, but there's no answer. There doesn't need to be. Laszlo knows there's only one thing stopping him, and unfortunately he was bluffing when he said that one thing didn't matter. There's no guarantee that Laszlo's absence at home over the last six months will protect his father.

More than likely, it won't.

Is Laszlo willing to condemn his father for this? That's the real question now. Does he believe it's worth telling the world how their corrupt government is abusing District 6's drug trade in exchange for a single life? When Laszlo thinks of it that way, there's no question about what the right answer is. Thousands of lives trumps one every time.

Yet, this life is the only one Laszlo cares about now.

And when Benca's interview ends and his name is called, Laszlo knows he won't be able to go through with it.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you right now."

Laszlo sat on the ground in front of Wither's desk, feeling every bit as small as his current position intended. The man held a small knife between his fingers, but Laszlo was near-certain that there were bigger ones in other pockets. Wither might've greeted him in the mornings, but he was still the leader of one of the largest drug rings he'd ever heard of.

And that fact alone validated the fear sweating down Laszlo's neck.

"Because that's exactly what they want." Laszlo didn't know if that was entirely true, but he believed it enough to sound convincing. When he saw Peacekeeper Ramier walking up his front steps that morning, Laszlo knew something was up. He wasn't supposed to see him for five more days.

Thankfully his father had still been at work, but Laszlo made the immediate decision not to open the door. He held his breath as rapid knocks shattered the silence of his bedroom and prayed that he would just go away. When the front door was kicked open anyways, Laszlo knew something wasn't right.

He was out his back window before Ramier caught wind of him, but he'd never run faster than he did at that moment. By the time he showed up at Wither's hideout, he was covered in sweat and shaking from head to toe. Laszlo might not have gotten any answers from Peacekeeper Ramier, but he didn't need them right now. The sinking feeling in his stomach was enough.

Even if it forced him to tell a very dangerous man that he'd been lying to him for months.

"You've been leaking every secret I've given you to the Peacekeepers," Wither said stiffly. "They know where to find us and you've put me and my people in a very dicey situation."

Laszlo started to open his mouth, but Wither stopped him. "The oldest I have here is seventy-three. The youngest just turned nine this month. Your people will execute every single one of them."

He swallowed, watching as the man's eyes glazed over with tears that should've been angry but looked more desolate than that. Wither really seemed to care about his members, and he was right. Laszlo had been double-crossing him since the moment they met and now he was here asking for help.

"Move to a new location," Laszlo said softly. "You can get all of them to follow, and there's no other dupes in your ring. Don't let anyone else in and you won't have to worry."

Wither tilted his head to one side, then the other as if considering the idea. "Some people have nowhere else to go, Laszlo."

He once again opened his mouth, but paused when Wither slipped the knife back into his front pocket. "I suspect you know that feeling well."

"I guess I do."

"What you're telling me makes sense," Wither said quietly. "And that's the only reason I listen. When I first started all of this, years ago, I was approached by someone I've never seen since. He told me he could get me supply for cheap, and every week he made good on that promise. After a while I got established, took in more people, grew up a lot. He stopped coming."

Laszlo furrowed his brow, not understanding the story, but he wasn't going to interrupt either. Wither folded his hands on the desk and eyed Laszlo carefully. "I've met a lot of people with that same tale to tell."

"He was a Peacekeeper," Laszlo said, suddenly understanding. "He was the one giving you stock to grow the ring, but why? And why wouldn't the corp want to stop someone from making their job harder? The more drug rings there are and the bigger they get, the harder they are to stop right?"

Wither just shook his head. "You're thinking too small. Where's one Peacekeeper going to get that much supply?"

"I don't understand," Laszlo said, shaking his head.

Wither smiled sadly . "If people are looking at the rings, filling their brains with chemical fog, they won't see anything else. We're the problem; not the poverty or the people living on the streets because walls are too expensive. If they really push it, they could even convince the world that we're the cause of all that." Wither turned away from Laszlo and the grin dropped from his lips. "In some ways maybe we are."

He still wasn't sure what Wither was talking about, but Laszlo sat silently as he waited for the man to continue. This was getting far more complicated than he meant it to, but he hadn't been turned away yet. He chose to take that as a good sign.

"You can't stay," Wither said several minutes later. "But I won't hang you out to dry. You have a lot of guts coming here, and you've given me a couple of puzzle pieces too."

Until nightfall, Wither let him remain hidden in the office. Laszlo didn't hear what he told the others, or if he told them anything at all. He trusted the wrong person last time but, even stuffed in a closet, he didn't think he made the same mistake twice.

And when the sun set, he climbed out the office window. He was wearing mostly black with his bright-green shirt left in the trash can under Wither's desk. Laszlo didn't have his backpack anymore, nor the keys to his father's house. It all had to stay behind.

The only thing he took with him was an envelope of cash and a promise from a man he betrayed.

Marcsa waits until Aliz and Benca leave in the elevator before she turns to him.

Breakfast, a bland array of toast and meat meant to keep them full for as long as possible, was taken in near-silence. Laszlo and Benca seem to be having a competition to see how few words they can say to each other and at this point he can't decide who's winning. He guesses it doesn't matter at this point.

Today's the day and Laszlo feels sick to his half-full stomach. Sleep after last night's interview felt impossible, not because of what happened but because of what didn't. He couldn't make himself talk, even though he promised from the moment his name was called that he would. He's going to die without anyone knowing what happened to him or what's still happening in Six.

He wavers between regret and relief with every passing minute.

Truthfully, that probably doesn't matter either.

"Why didn't you do it?" She asks, and he closes his eyes in shame. Laszlo knew she would be wondering, but he'd half-hoped she wouldn't bother him today.

After a minute he sighs. "I don't know."

"You do know," Marcsa says gently. "You were scared, but you know what? You made the right choice. The minute the truth would've so much as twinkled in your eye, they would've cut your mic and called it some tech error. No one would've heard you, and you would've been punished anyway."

She pauses for another moment before she places a soft hand on his from across the table. "You did the right thing."

Laszlo looks up, unwelcome tears quivering in his eyes. He doesn't care about what she thinks is the right thing. All he cares about is that this is it. This is the last room he'll ever see that's not part of the arena and she's the last person he's going to see from home. The last thing he wants to do is cry about it, but the sleepless night is weighing on him.

He grabs both hands back from the table and presses them into his eyes to keep the tears back. Instead, his arms start to shake as the sentiment finally sinks in. This is the last day he's probably ever going to see, and if it's not today then it'll be tomorrow, or the next day, but he's never going to see a single one out of the arena again.

"It's okay to be afraid." Her voice sounds so unlike the Marcsa he's grown used to, and that only makes the tears more insistent. Laszlo wants to tell her that he's not, to push her away even further than the table allows, but he doesn't. He is afraid. He's scared to fucking death and there's nothing either of them can do about it.

Marcsa continues. "But you're not dead yet."

But all Laszlo hears is the 'yet'.

The night was colder than Laszlo expected. He slipped his hands into the faded hoodie's pocket, suddenly thankful that Wither picked one that was several sizes too big. The pants he was given were also too big, but at least he could stuff the extra fabric into the top of his boots. His scuffed black boots were the only thing left on Laszlo that actually belonged to him, but even they felt unfamiliar.

The whole district did.

He scurried along the street, as close to the buildings as possible without stepping on any of the people sleeping there. Truthfully, in the hours Laszlo spent waiting in Wither's office for night to fall, he never actually considered where he'd go. There was the obvious decision that he couldn't go home because there was no doubt Ramier would keep checking there. Besides that, Laszlo assumed he would know what to do.

Standing there, even with more cash than he'd ever seen weighing in his pocket, he was already out of ideas.

Laszlo only made it a few streets before the tears started to build in his eyes. At first he could blame the cold, but as the first one fell he knew the frigid weather wasn't the reason. He was lucky, he wasn't like so much of the district that knew this feeling. Laszlo had never had nowhere to go.

But that night, that statement became untrue. He couldn't go home. Wither demanded that he promised never to come back to the bunker. He couldn't go anywhere near the storehouse he used to meet Ramier in. Any building that he'd been seen in before was off limits.

So where did that leave him? Laszlo didn't yet have an answer to that question.

All he could do was keep moving, keep running, and maybe that didn't have to be such a scary thought. He could go anywhere he wanted, to any part of the district because no one was here to tell him what to do. He didn't have school or duties to fulfil. In truth, Laszlo had nothing but the clothes on his back and two feet made to run.

He was going to keep running until they caught him.

And that's exactly what he did, until he found a room with no chairs and no way out.

o.o.o

It's not over… The launch tube jumps before the memory of Marcsa's words can continue.

As the darkness surrounds Laszlo, all the trembling he tried to suppress emerges at once. His ears pop as the tube ascends. He forces his eyes shut then back open. The sharp scent of Capitolite perfume from the launch room is gone. The rising humidity that coats his skin smells unfamiliar, like a wet alleyway but far fouler. It's all he can taste as he gasps in a breath like it's the last one he'll ever take.

When the light reappears, it's the brightest thing Laszlo's ever seen.

He squints against it, raising a hand to try and block it out. The air is even heavier up here, and it weighs against his chest with every panicked breath. Laszlo tries to calm them before opening his eyes fully, but it makes no difference. The first colour he registers is green… more shades of it than he thought could exist.

Towering trees weep over the tributes, their spindly leaves hanging close to the ground. Several meters behind the platforms, dense fog consumes every bit of greenery. Up ahead, dark mud sits beneath a thin layer of water that reflects the scattered sunlight back at him. Tufts of grass peer out every so often, growing thicker as they approach the center structure.

Laszlo didn't expect it to be so massive. He's watched enough of the Hunger Games to know what to call the metal beast looming over him, but it's not something he ever thought he'd see in person. Even from a few dozen meters back, he can tell the mouth of the Cornucopia is easily twice his height. It's tall enough that he'd be unable to see whatever waits behind it even without the surrounding fog.

Sweat already coats the back of his neck as scattered sun rays beat down on the large clearing. All he can hear is a faint pulse in his ears as he waits for them to readjust. Laszlo swallows as he takes another glance around the arena, but he's unable to take in any single detail. He needs to find the clock. He needs to know how much time he has left because this has already felt like an eternity.

It's not over til it's over.

Laszlo closes his eyes for a moment as Marcsa's words echo. She wasn't allowed in the final prep room, but they were the last thing she said to him before he boarded the hovercraft. In truth, it wouldn't have mattered if she were allowed to follow him straight to the launch tube. Laszlo's barely been able to focus on anything since they left the apartment. None of it feels real.

Despite it being the same hallways, the same elevator, the same stylist team - it was all too overwhelming. Are these the last stairs I'm going to climb? Is this the last time I'll feel carpet under my shoes? Laszlo has never been the sentimental type. He's never been the type to take anything seriously even when it probably would've made things so much easier.

It turns out that when death's door is only a few steps away, even the jester falls silent.

It's not over…

Laszlo closes his eyes quickly and chokes the thought off before it can continue. Between the pounding in his chest and the rush of blood in his ears, he feels about ready to leap straight off the platform. He can't stand the dread that comes with waiting. He can't stand the quiver that seems to underlay every inch of his skin.

He shouldn't be nervous. A dead man has nothing to fear.

Laszlo glances around, but only a few eyes join him. The rest point in one of two directions - towards or away - the only choice the tributes have to make right now. Except Laszlo hasn't made his. Until last night, his interview was the only thing he let himself worry about. He had to make sure to say the right words as quickly as he could. He had to make sure the world would understand because Laszlo knew he wouldn't be around to explain further.

He finally finds the countdown as a hologram projected above the Cornucopia. The neon numbers look out of place against the backdrop of fresh green, warm brown, and deep grey. Even the tributes, their faces powdered and hair combed, look more natural. Though each district seems to wear a different colour or shade, all of them somehow fit within the landscape.

Laszlo looks down at his own sweatshirt, the sleeves extending down into soft, fingerless gloves. When he first put it on in the launch room, it seemed like another play on grey by his stylist. He swore they were trying to make him blend into the concrete hallways outside. Now, he doesn't think so. Between the cotton sweatshirt and leather pants, belt, and boots, the various shades look more like the surrounding fog.

He swallows and looks back up to the countdown. This time, his eyes lock with the numbers as they seemingly start to flip faster and faster.

10, 9, 8 -

Laszlo's thoughts continue to race. He can see the scattering of supplies in his periphery, but is it worth trying to get to them? He knows that the best loot will be closest to the center. He also knows that he won't survive very long with nothing.

One wrong step and I'm dead. Laszlo tries to remember the other tributes, to pull up faces of those he should avoid but he comes up blank. He never paid attention. He didn't think it mattered, but right now it's just about the only thing that does.

7, 6 -

There has to be something out there, he thinks as he glances behind him again. He's not sure if he believes that. Every year tributes die of dehydration or from eating poisonous plants out of desperation. Laszlo doesn't know anything about what's safe.

5, 4 -

He quickly positions his feet towards the Cornucopia and holds his breath as the last numbers flash above the structure.

3 -

He doesn't have a choice. Marcsa's words are right in one aspect - it's not over yet.

2 -

Laszlo will just have to see how long that lasts.

He barely registers the sound that follows as movement starts all around him. Laszlo takes off running in the exact direction his feet were pointing, but the moment his shoes touch soil he nearly loses balance. The soles of his boots sink at least an inch in and splash brown water up his pant legs. He's not the only one that fumbles, but at least he manages to stay standing.

A tall girl to Laszlo's right lands hard in the mud, but he doesn't stop long enough to see if she gets back up. Several others stumble and Laszlo has to slow his steps in order to keep going. He stoops at the right moment to grab a small bag that hangs loosely over his shoulder. It doesn't feel like there's anything in it.

Laszlo trains his eyes on the Cornucopia that still lays empty. The muddy terrain means that no tribute's been able to reach it, but that's not going to last long. He sucks in a heavy breath as his feet reach more solid ground before stumbling forward. Laszlo lands with two outstretched hands but there's no mud to cushion the fall.

When he looks up a second later, the Cornucopia is flooded with tributes.

He scrambles forward to the first thing his eyes land on. Laszlo swipes another bag from the top of a crate, holding it close rather than wasting the time it'd take to put it on. He does, however, make the mistake of looking over his shoulder as the first scream rings out.

And, when Laszlo turns back, there's someone blocking his path.

The girl is easily the same height as him, or perhaps it's the way she stands calmly as people flee around her. Even in the scattered sunlight, her eyes are so dark they're nearly black. Besides the machete taut in her grip, they're the only things Laszlo notices and they're pointed straight at him.

He hits the ground as she lunges forward, the blade audibly slicing the air where Laszlo's neck had just been. He rolls out of the way at random, sheer luck the only thing standing between him and the machete that lands in the mud to his left. Laszlo jumps to his feet, eyes wide as more screams join the first. He instinctively looks to the side as a sharp cry pierces through the air. It sounds like whoever it is is right beside him.

It's almost enough time for the Career girl to free her weapon from the ground.

Almost.

Laszlo slides the backpack straps over his shoulders as he takes off running. Mud slips beneath his feet as he reaches the outskirts, but this time he's prepared. He feels something pull at the backpack, but the feeling only lasts a second. It looks like the trees are still too far away. The screams don't sound like they're getting any further.

He can feel his heart pounding faster, harder than his footsteps. He can see the Career girl every time he blinks, standing there as if the surrounding scene was nothing to fear. He has little idea if she's following or if she's decided he's not worth it.

He's already out of breath.

Laszlo gasps as he trips just before reaching the ring of platforms. He wipes at the mud that hits his neck as he tries to right himself, only noting the red between his fingers when he's already standing. His head whips back and it doesn't take long to find her.

The tall girl, her throat torn hastily open, lays just a couple steps behind him. Laszlo doesn't have to see the red spot on his shin to know exactly what he tripped over. He looks away as soon as he realizes, but that doesn't stop him from seeing her blood as it pools together with the muddy water.

There's nothing to do but run. She isn't moving; Laszlo doesn't know her or owe her anything. Yet part of him hesitates to leave.

The sound of approaching footsteps squelches that out of him in record time.

Laszlo crashes through the treeline, his breaths louder now as the fog and distance offer some sound protection. He gasps out a trio of wheezes before his feet demand to move again. The ground is even wetter in the next few meters, but as he continues on it begins to dry out again. That's the pattern and, for as long as Laszlo's shoes continue to put one foot in front of the other, that's all he sees.

That's all he thinks about.

Not where he is.

Not the rust coloured mud.

Not the girl that lays dead or the others that Laszlo refused to even look at.

He keeps walking long after his calves burn and long after his heavy breaths return to normal. The trees grow taller and rivers of sludge-brown water run beside him. Large pieces of metal, broken furniture, and other debris litter the ground beneath his feet. The smell that assaulted him at the Cornucopia turns more pungent. It starts to remind Laszlo far too much of Six's alleyways in the summer when bodies were left to the humidity.

He only stops when the first cannon shakes him from the inside out.

Laszlo crouches to the ground, his trembling hands coming up to cover his eyes as more follow. Each one seems to reverborate louder in the hollow part of his chest. He forgets to start counting, but by the end he knows there's been at least seven of them.

Seven. Only sixteen to go.

Words aren't enough to describe how much he wishes that hopeful thought would leave his fucking skull.

He stands up slowly, the air now silent around him. Every bit of Laszlo is already drenched with discoloured sweat and the bottom of his pant legs are splattered with layers of mud. He barely remembers the walk here. He has no idea how far he's gone nor how long it's been. Looking around at the humid stillness, neither of those things seem to matter.

It almost looks calm. Laszlo feels anything but.

He shrugs the bag off his shoulders and scowls when he finally notices. The bag has been sliced horizontally, and whatever had been in it is long gone. The smaller one he grabbed first is gone entirely, probably cut with the same knife. Whoever got him when he was running away from the Cornucopia obviously got the last laugh. Laszlo gives the bag a hard shake, but the only thing that falls out is a pitiful bundle of thin rope.

At least I have a way out, he thinks morbidly. His normal reaction would be to laugh, because when there's shit all he can do about a situation that's just about all he has left. Except now, Laszlo doesn't even have that.

In the truest sense of the word, he has nothing.

So, without another look back, he keeps walking.

Laszlo winces as he tries to free another chunk of wood from the mud. He loses his grip twice before the debris finally leaves the ground with a nauseating squish. Hardly a second later, Laszlo drops the piece and scrambles back from it. The entire bottom half of the wood chunk is covered in burrowing maggots.

He wipes his muddy hands off on his pants, but the leathery material barely makes an effort. The front of his sweater is already soaked through from rifling through the last area. This one is more overrun with trash than the other places he passed earlier. Laszlo hopes he'll be able to find something useful in it, but so far hasn't had a shred of luck.

The only thing he wants to do is sit down, but he's wholly convinced he won't be able to get back up if he does. A good night's sleep and a meal are just about the only things that would help him now, but he blew his last chance at either back in the Capitol. At this point it's just a waiting game.

Laszlo Richter is simply waiting to die.

It'd make more sense to just lay down and let it happen. He'd waste less energy and surely someone would stumble across his deteriorating body eventually. Perhaps the long cut he found across his back a few hours ago will get infected and do him in. Maybe one of the muttations he's already seen scampering about will decide he's had enough good fortune. There are a myriad of ways it could happen, and he's only making himself more miserable by continuing on.

Yet, he still moves to examine the next piece of trash stuck in the surrounding mud. Laszlo sighs loudly before wrapping his fingers around a small piece of slick metal. Whatever it used to be, its only remaining use now is as part of this awful place. It looks far too well-made to be part of anything Laszlo might recognize. Still, he has every expectation that the bottom will be decayed and unusable. Everything else has been.

So why am I still trying? He doesn't know the answer. Logically, he knows that none of this effort will make a difference. The fact that he made it out of the Bloodbath is probably more of a curse than anything else. It just sets him up for a more drawn-out end, one where he's greased like a sewer rat and covered from head to toe in mud. That's going to make everyone back home so proud of him.

He shouldn't care about that either.

Laszlo swears as he finally frees the metal from the ground and drops it at his feet. He presses his opposite hand to the line of red growing across his palm. At least I know it's fucking sharp.

He glances back at the piece on the ground and sees a line of discoloration from where it'd been buried. In fact, the bottom half of the material is warped and folded in on itself. The top part that cut him looks clean enough at least. It would still be nice to have some kind of safe handle, but it's probably the best he's going to get.

He stuffs it carefully into his pocket and his stomach starts to growl at the same time. He can't have been in the arena that long, but he'd already give a couple of teeth for some warm soup or a slice of bread.

Luckily, this trash dump of an arena is absolutely swimming with food options.

Laszlo has never thought about food this much in his life.

As he pokes at the various debris in his path, it feels like he never stopped walking. Most of the things he's found today have crumbled completely as he prodded them. He even saw - or maybe hallucinated - a mouldy loaf of bread that fell apart as soon as the mud rippled around it. Laszlo hopes he hasn't already lost it barely twenty-four hours in.

The sun is only a few inches above the treeline, and despite the humidity, he still finds himself shivering. The night is a distant memory at this point, thankfully gone with the rising brightness. In fact, it still feels like he's walking through the same day. He knows he must've slept for at least a couple of hours because he feels marginally better in that department.

In every other one, however, Laszlo feels infinitely worse. No part of him is dry, whether it be from the mud, water, or muggy air. He can feel the dirt sticking to every inch of skin; in fact it feels like the fog that stays close to the ground is nothing more than a dirt-cloud. His stomach feels like it's turned inside out and is now in the process of tying itself into one of those decorative knots.

He's never felt more pitiful. The only thing Laszlo has to his name is a clump of rope and the same metal piece that's currently cutting up the inside of his pocket. He's searched for what's probably been a full day and found nothing that even resembles food. At this rate, a bloodbath death would've been a blessing.

Every complaint falls silent as the sound of footsteps starts behind him. His next breath gets caught in his throat as he quickly looks around. He doesn't see anyone, but the fog is thick enough here that he can only see a few meters in either direction. Laszlo crouches down and half crawls, half scuttles to the nearest tree. It has the same weeping branches as the ones around the Cornucopia, but despite it being far taller it offers much less coverage. If someone is lucky enough to walk the right way, he'll be getting his own blessing soon.

All he wants to do is close his eyes and wait for whoever it is to pass, but when he tries they fly back open. He turns his head slowly, trying to catch a glimpse of who it might be. Truthfully it doesn't matter. If they get close enough, he has to try. Laszlo's hand barely graces the top of the metal in his pocket.

And in that moment he knows that he's not going to lay down and let it happen. As stupid as he might be for trying despite the circumstances, his body isn't ready to do anything else. He's starving, dehydrated, and already injured, but he isn't dead yet.

It's not over til it's over.

He holds his breath as the steps get closer, and his hand automatically tightens around the metal piece. He has to focus to force his hand to let go enough not to earn another wound. The ones that he has are bothersome enough. The last thing he needs in a disgusting place like this are more openings for infection.

How long would that take to kill me? Yet another question that Laszlo doesn't have an answer for. The only thing he remembers from training is the flora-fauna station, and that's not going to help him now. He completed the mandatory activities - was middle tier for all the physical tasks and far below that for most of the survival ones.

Helpful.

It feels like an eternity passes before the steps finally begin to echo away. Laszlo never saw who it was, and he doesn't trust his senses enough to decide if it was one person or multiple. Honestly, if they're leaving anyways, it's probably best he doesn't know. With any luck it was another muttation, this place seems to be crawling with them.

Most other options are far grimmer. He shivers as he remembers the Career girl from the Cornucopia, the look in her eyes that was almost… playful. Laszlo can't imagine any of her allies will be much kinder if they happen to be the ones to find him. Fucking pigs.

It's hard to imagine that any of them volunteered to be here. Laszlo hopes each of them took one look around this arena and cried for their mommies to come pick them up. At least that thought makes his lips curl ever slightly.

Probably for the first time since he got here, now that he thinks about it.

When he's certain they're gone, Laszlo crawls out from under the tree cover. He wipes the fresh mud as carefully as he can off the open cuts on his hand. Even he knows that he has to at least try to keep them clean. It's too bad that just about nothing he has on him is clean enough to actually make a difference.

Still, he does his best and, when he looks back at the tree, he wonders how he ever thought that thing would hide him. He'll probably have better luck just trusting the fog.

Truth be told, it's the only constant he has in this place.

Laszlo gives himself five more minutes to get up. Perhaps the only good part about being outdoors is that there are no clocks to tell him how long he's been sitting here. The sun is still peering through the trees, so he has time before he needs to settle in for the night.

There's plenty of time to waste time, he thinks bitterly. Laszlo wipes the day's sweat from his face, no doubt leaving behind a trail of mud and scabs. The temperature is only just starting to drop, but his damp clothes already feel like ice against his skin. It's going to be another long night and he can do absolutely nothing about it.

Laszlo sighs as another stab of hunger makes his stomach turn. If he's still measuring the days correctly, which at this point he can't be sure, it's been about thirty-six hours since he's eaten. He already feels like absolute shit and it hasn't even been that long.

Water is his main concern right now. His throat seems to have turned to concrete, and Laszlo's not convinced he'd be able to talk even if he had a reason to. Even though the sun's started to set, his eyes still burn and feel like they're covered in grit. He's not going to last very long without water, but the only rivers he's seen are dotted with trash and are the same colour as the dirt.

Laszlo can almost convince himself that it's worth it to try. He shudders, but he can see the edge of a river from where he's sitting. The longer he stares, the more he wonders if he's going to have to do it. How much longer does he have? Another day maybe? If he would've paid attention in training, maybe he'd know the answer.

His eyes travel automatically up to where the strings of branches meet overhead. Just as quickly, Laszlo shakes his head. Marcsa said he didn't have any sponsor prospects. He can't imagine his awkward interview turned that situation around.

You're on your own kid, he thinks sorely. Laszlo forces his legs under him and stumbles a few meters until he reaches the edge of the river. He half-hopes that the longer he looks down, the more he'll be able to convince himself that he doesn't need to do this.

His head spins and the water looks as disgusting as he remembers, but he almost doesn't care.

Laszlo brings a handful of water to his lips, closing his eyes before he can cringe at the colour. He doesn't want to know what's been dumped in this place to make it smell like this. He wonders for a moment if he'll be able to taste it.

As soon as it touches his tongue, he has his answer. Laszlo gags and the rest of the water ends up down his chin or back in the river. He shivers as the taste clings to the inside of his mouth, but his throat still begs for more. As nauseating as it is, he lifts another handful to his mouth and forces himself to take a few more sips.

Laszlo backs up a few inches from the river and puts his head in his hands. His fingers are shaking and his stomach feels about ready to reject what he's just done, but that will only mean repeating it. Part of him craves more, but one thought to the muttations that have bathed or worse in that water stops the greed.

He gives himself thirty seconds to stand up, and surprisingly his legs actually listen. The ground beside the river is too muddy, he'll be half-frozen to death by morning if he's lucky. He needs to find somewhere drier, and hope for another uneventful night.

At least if someone finds me it'll be quick, Laszlo tells himself. Truth be told, he's not as bothered by the thought as he would've been this time yesterday.

Back to reality.

He isn't counting his steps when it happens, but Laszlo bets he hasn't taken twelve when something clamps hard around his ankle. His palm barely muffles his shout as pain digs deep into his skin and he's brought back to the ground. He swears into his hand and grimaces as he tries to pull his ankle away. That only makes the pain increase tenfold.

"Fucking sh-" Laszlo blows out a slow breath to try and calm himself. He looks down, but his foot has basically disappeared under a crumpled pile of dead leaves. As he starts to pull them away, it doesn't take long to find the source of his confinement - a ring of spiked metal that's now closed around his skin. "Motherfucker."

He shakes away the rest of the leaves and that's when he finds the attached chain. Laszlo drags himself along it, already expecting what it'll be anchored around but he still curses when he confirms it. The length of chain has been wrapped around a nearby tree. Laszlo feels along it, searching for a weak point where one of the links might've been opened to hook up the trap. Of course, he doesn't find one.

Laszlo stares indignantly up the height of the tree. How the fuck did they set this up?

And, more importantly, how is he going to un-set it.

Laszlo's eyes burn as he tries to keep the metal piece in line with the link's seam. He positions it again, holding it in place with both the sole of his boot and the tree's trunk. He swallows against the dryness in his throat and pushes as hard as he can. He managed to find a duller part of the metal to hold, but pressing against his previous wounds feels almost no different.

The only thing Laszlo achieves is making the chain jump away again, still fully intact. He swears and shoves the metal hard into the ground beside him before curling into a ball. He's exhausted, but the dread of being trapped has been enough to keep him awake so far. He has no idea who set the trap, who might come to check it eventually, or, even worse, who might not.

There's every chance in the world that he'll be stuck here until he dies. He's not close enough to the river to get another sip of water. He already searched the area for food, but all he found were flowers so rotten they turned to glue between his fingers. The worst part is, if Laszlo had any indication that they weren't poisonous he would probably eat them anyways.

He always heard that starvation was one of the worst ways to go. At least, soon, he'll know for sure.

The joke doesn't even manage to crack a smirk this time. Laszlo leans his head against the tree and stares down at his trapped ankle. If he thought he looked pathetic before, this is about as low as a person can get.

He looks back over at the metal piece, his only shot at breaking through the chain. Whoever set this trap did a thorough job of clearing the area of anything useful. At this point, the only thing that's going to save him are some industrial-strength cutters; anyone can see that. The fact that none have arrived only confirms that Marcsa was right about sponsors.

Who would bother?

The worst part is, Laszlo knows there's not a single person in the world right now that would.

He curls further into the tree, leaving the metal piece alone for the time being. It's been dark for a while now, and he feels every bit as cold as he did last night. The strangest thing about the arena might be the silence. During the day, Laszlo remembers hearing the surroundings whether it be the soft ruffling of branches, rushing water, or the muttations moving about.

At night there's nothing. It's as if the Capitol has put the entire arena on mute.

Which makes it so much easier for the shuffling footsteps to wake him hours later. Laszlo stiffens, blinking in the darkness as he tries to figure out where they're coming from. He's barely conscious enough to remember his stuck ankle when he spots them.

The moonlight isn't even kind enough to hide their faces. Laszlo straightens and one hand finds the metal piece where he'd left it, now freezing cold. He folds it into his palm despite its sharpness. If they don't know he's armed, maybe they'll make the mistake of coming too close.

"He's awake."

The District 11 pair look like they've been doing about as well in the arena as he has. Their skin is stained with the same grime as his, though on them it's far less noticeable. There are more than a few tears in their clothing, mostly on the hems. The most noticeable difference, however, is that each of them has a bag slung over their shoulder.

"Are you okay?" This time it's the girl who speaks, and her voice is far softer. She stops before stepping within reach of Lazlo and pulls her district partner back when they try to go further. Even after two days in the arena, the kid is still as oblivious as ever.

Laszlo doesn't answer. Whether it be the dryness in his throat or the strangeness of her question, he doesn't even think of one. He stares indignantly at the pair. If they think he's about to fall for some fake kindness, they're wrong. He's not that stupid. If the girl knows not to come closer, she knows about the trap. Hell, she was probably the one who set it.

"I can-" Chey, Laszlo's shocked he remembers the kid's name, starts.

"Do you have any weapons?" Their district partner asks, cutting them off completely.

He shakes his head, but his grip on the metal piece tightens reflexively. Her eyes find it immediately and she raises an eyebrow. "Drop it and we'll help you."

"Why?" Laszlo croaks. After days of disuse, his voice sounds more like sandpaper than an actual person. He pretends he doesn't notice how horrible it is.

"You sprung the trap?" He doesn't have to nod, she can see the evidence in front of him. Laszlo made no effort to hide his ankle before they got here. He didn't think he'd need to. "You won't find a weak point, I saw him do it."

Laszlo's eyes move to the girl's district partner, but she shakes her head. "It's Natan, he's been setting them by the rivers. The leaves are his giveaway."

He stares at her a while longer. He's not sure who she's talking about nor why she's saying any of it. They're not allies, he already told them that during training. Laszlo wasn't and isn't interested in their little spirit squad. By the look of it, no one else was either.

"I'm not going to take it," she sighs finally. "Just throw it out of reach and we can free you."

Begrudgingly, he tosses the piece of metal to his right. It's far enough that it looks like he won't be able to get it while stuck in the trap, but he knows that the chain goes at least that far. It turns out the girl knows this too, because when she steps forward the first thing she does is kick it even further.

She steps lightly until she finds the chain on the ground. He expects her to examine it, but she doesn't. Instead, she hands it straight to Chey who takes it with a smile. Before Laszlo can even ask what they're going to do, the kid is scaling the tree like their fingers are made of double-sided duct tape. Laszlo is watching in confused horror as Chey approaches the very top.

"You'll want to stand and keep your foot high," the girl says quickly, helping him into that position without asking. Laszlo has half-a-mind to rip himself away, but as Chey starts to pull the chain tether over the top of the tree he understands. Even with his foot as high in the air as he can, the quick yank on his ankle sends a wave of nausea over him.

The chain hits the ground and Chey waves from the top. Their district partner shakes her head, offering the tiniest hint of a smile which seems to satisfy the kid. They're back on the ground, the only sign they were up there at all being a bit of heavy breathing.

Laszlo wishes he felt half as energetic. Even standing right now is taking far more energy than he'd like to admit.

And running away is going to take even more.

"Thanks," Laszlo says quietly, part of him hoping that neither of them will hear him. As much as he needs to keep both of them in sight, he also doesn't want to look at them. He thought he reached pity-maximum, but being saved by these two has to be a hundred times worse. The last time they spoke involved Laszlo insisting that he didn't need help.

Unfortunately, he's not the only one that remembers. As soon as Laszlo starts to turn away, she speaks again. "Are you sure you don't need anyone, Laszlo?"

He pauses, taken aback by the fact that she knows his name. However, the surprise doesn't last long. He looks her right in the eye and nods. "Yes."

No matter that he's never been so uncertain.

She swallows and, for a moment, it looks like she's going to give up. She looks down to her district partner and Laszlo starts to limp towards the metal piece. Every movement he makes is a dozen times louder thanks to the chain. He might be free, but he's also gained another twenty pounds of weight to carry around until he can untether it from the trap.

The trap itself? Laszlo doesn't have any idea how he's going to remove that, if it's even possible to do so.

"What if we need you?"

He stops and turns to face the pair again. He takes in their appearances, no longer lying to himself that they look as bad as he does. There's no blood on either of them save for a few scrapes on Chey's chin. The backpacks they carry are drooping down past their back, meaning they probably contain something useful. They both look tired, but they're not struggling to stand. They've probably been able to find water, if not food.

They couldn't possibly need him.

"You don't," he answers quickly.

"We need protection," she says quickly, for the first time showing some level of fear. "We have food, enough to share for a few days if we ration. We're not fighters."

"You think I am?" Laszlo gestures down, knowing that every pathetic wound and stain is on full display. He's got some kind of prong collar around his ankle for Panem's sake. Out of the three of them, he looks the closest to death by a long shot.

She swallows, her eyes landing on the shin of his pants that are still stained red from the first day. He wonders if that's why she called him a fighter, because he fell over some dead girl. He's half-tempted to correct her, but what good will that do? Let her be scared if she wants to be. "Numbers will scare people off."

"Not the Careers," he shoots back. As far as he knows they're all still alive, but truth be told he hasn't been paying much attention. There've been a few cannons since the initial set. Still, upper-district tributes don't tend to fall so early.

That's what we're for, he can't help but think. Districts 6 and 11 are first day fodder, some of many, and it's become almost a joke in the Capitol broadcasts. The fact that it's two days in and the three of them are still alive is a wonder in itself but that doesn't mean any of them are fit to last.

Laszlo expects her to argue, but she just nods. "Not the Careers, but we won't do that alone either."

He rolls his eyes and turns away again. This is stupid, and they're stupid if they think they can avoid the inevitable. Food is just about the most tempting thing she can mention, but it's not going to solve his problems. At best, it'll delay them a few hours.

"Please." He hears rustling behind him and he turns around quickly just in case. When he does, the girl is holding out half of a biscuit, its edges so dry they've cracked in several places. Still, even the sight of it makes his stomach turn in anticipation. "You help us and we'll help you."

No matter how much he wants to, Laszlo can't force himself to refuse.

"Look." Dahlia points across the river, where a stripe-tailed, grey animal is poking around. He looks closer and sees that it seems to be washing something metallic between its paws. Sure enough, a few seconds later, the muttation hobbles away with something wet in its mouth and disappears into the fog.

Chey giggles and the pair devolve into whispers that he doesn't bother to listen to. Laszlo turns away from them and his eyes once again focus on the metal fixed around his ankle. Dahlia was able to untether the chain from around it, but advised it would be less painful to leave the trap in place. He's still able to walk. Thankfully the teeth dug in right above his ankle joint and not across it.

He doesn't understand how they're so comfortable here. Sure, Laszlo feels better after having something to eat and was even able to catch a bit of sleep after being freed last night. That hasn't put a dent in the exhaustion he still feels. Honestly, seeing the pair joke around like this is only making him feel worse.

It's not like being in a quasi-alliance has changed much of anything. They're still just wasting time, waiting for enough hours to have passed before they break into the food again. They're still wandering around hoping for something useful to pop up; hoping that no one more capable finds them first.

Waiting for the inevitable.

"You don't talk much." Laszlo jumps as the voice comes from beside him. He shakes himself out of his thoughts and finds that he's staring down at another piece of trash - a crumpled plastic bag if he had to guess. More than likely, the bottom half is already dissolved.

"You do," he answers flatly.

She breathes a quiet laugh. "We're not that bad are we?"

Laszlo shrugs in response. For the majority of the morning, both of the tributes have given him a wide berth. He's not sure what changed, nor how to get back to that arrangement. Laszlo isn't here because he wants to be. He's here because it's marginally better than starving himself into unconsciousness.

"If we were going to hurt you, we would've tried last night," Dahlia says softly. "Did you know that your nose whistles when you sleep?"

Laszlo stops walking and crosses his arms against his chest. It takes her only half a step to turn back for him, which somehow frustrates him even more. "What's your plan here?"

The words come out as spiteful as he means them to be.

Dahlia's gentle smile slips, but she doesn't seem upset by the question. She simply shrugs, as if Laszlo had asked about her favourite sandwich toppings. "Numbers are safer."

"The two of you aren't exactly intimidating," Laszlo mutters and continues walking. The trap around his ankle forces him to keep his legs further apart, but he's already gotten used to it. No part of him expects Dahlia to continue. He thought he made it clear just now that he wasn't interested in small talk.

"There would've been four," she says sharply. Her voice is even quieter now as she looks over to where Chey's staring up one of the nearby trees. It's obvious that she doesn't want them to hear. "It should've worked."

Laszlo turns back around, but Dahlia has already moved back towards her district partner. There's no sign of the bitterness of her last words in her expression as Chey points towards the treetop. Laszlo has no idea what they're looking at, and he doesn't bother to try and figure it out.

Yet, her words turn over in his mind for the rest of the day.

"Go back to sleep, I'll keep watch."

Laszlo pauses. He hasn't said anything, but his footsteps must've given him away. For a moment he considers heading back for a few more hours but the softness of her voice stops him. He half-wonders if she thinks he's Chey.

Dahlia hadn't spoken to him for most of the day, at least not anything beyond the occasional question or instruction. He's not sure why he noticed, or why he had to admit that it bothered him. Laszlo isn't interested in getting to know the District 11's. That was never even a tendril of the reason he agreed to do this.

Laszlo sinks down across from her, just close enough to see her expression in the moonlight. She looks up cautiously as he tries to get comfortable, but she doesn't tell him to get lost. He doesn't think she has it in her; honestly neither of them do. Today, the only thing that Laszlo learned was that they were being honest with him the night before. They do need protection.

And, unfortunately, they chose him.

"You should try to rest," Laszlo says quietly.

She shakes her head. "Really, it's fine."

He shrugs. It's her choice whether to sleep or not, but he doesn't stand to leave either. Laszlo gives her a few minutes, expecting that she'll cave but she doesn't. Finally, he decides to ask the question that's been crowding his mind all day.

"What happened to the other two?"

There are only three real answers for what it could be. Neither of the 11's seem to be looking for anyone, so that strikes an unexpected separation off the list. That only leaves two options - either they left because they wanted to or-

"They're dead."

Her voice doesn't crack, there are no tears that start pouring down her cheek, and no huge show of devastation that pulls across her features. The only thing that changes is a slight shift of moonlight as her eyes drift toward the ground. Yet, a weight still forms in Laszlo's chest that stops him from saying another word.

"Don't mention them to Chey," she says quietly. "I've been trying to help them forget."

"They look okay," Laszlo replies, glancing over to where the younger tribute's fast asleep. He hasn't noticed anything close to grief in Chey since last night. The kid seems as chipper as they were in training.

Dahlia's lip twitches up slightly before she makes any effort to keep it there. "They saw Tilden go down. The two of them got pretty close, but it's how the games go I guess. I just wish they didn't have to see it so soon."

"When-?" He starts to ask, but she cuts him off with the answer.

"Day one." She pauses. "Tilden was gone in the first minutes. Nima almost got out, but one of the Careers was waiting by the platforms. None of us had weapons."

Laszlo swallows. "I'm sorry."

Dahlia blinks quickly and shakes her head. "Me too. I didn't expect it to be just us so quickly."

He nods but he doesn't understand. Laszlo didn't learn most of the other tributes' names, but he vaguely remembers seeing the District 11's with two other tributes. If those are who Dahlia's talking about, she should've expected their alliance wouldn't last long. She's almost definitely the oldest, and none of them looked particularly strong or skilled.

They were always going to die. Nevermind the fact that only one of the twenty-four will live, but outer district kids who aren't natural giants are little more than cannon fodder. An alliance of four of them will never do well. Out of the group, only Dahlia seemed to have any chance at all. If he remembers correctly, she received the highest outer-district score.

"You can say it."

Laszlo looks up, realizing that it's probably been silent between them for several minutes. He shakes his head, not because there's nothing he's thinking about but because he certainly can't say it. He understands that it's not going to make her feel better even if they both apparently know that it's true. "I don't think you want me to."

"You think I made a mistake taking them." The way she says it is so matter-a-fact that she hardly sounds upset, but it still makes him turn away. "Chey's one of the youngest here, hasn't hit their growth spurt yet. Tilden and Nima were taken down so quickly."

"I don't know if I'd call it a mistake," he tries, but he doesn't have anywhere to go from there. In truth, he does think she could've done better. Even alone, Dahlia could probably have gotten enough sponsors to get her through. Maybe she wouldn't have won, but outer districts almost never do. Especially not Eleven.

Instead she's wasting her supplies trying to save people that were never going to survive.

"Do you have any beliefs around death in 6?" She asks and Laszlo wonders how she remembers what district he comes from. Dahlia seems to remember far too much about a lot of the tributes.

When he doesn't answer, she continues. "Back home, we believe that if no one's there to be with someone after they've passed, the spirit will get lost. In the days leading up to burial, family members watch over the body to ensure the spirit doesn't stray. When they're finally laid to rest, the spirit is set free but it always has somewhere to come home to. So we never truly lose them."

His throat feels dry as he listens. Laszlo has heard a few superstitions around death, but nothing like this. Bodies are left to the streets for days at a time, sometimes longer. More often than not, their families don't ever find out that they're dead. Laszlo remembers a bunch of people with missing family members in his classes.

"Their family are good people," she says, her voice dropping even softer. "I never knew Chey, but I want to be able to tell their family that they're not lost. If I bury Chey here I hope, somehow, they'll find their way home. I don't know if the Capitol will leave them here. I don't know what happens if they don't."

His brow furrows, but no matter how long he turns the words over in his mind he finds no response. It makes no sense and so much sense at the same time. Laszlo thought she was doing this as some pathetic, sacrificial act. Dahlia treats Chey like a younger sibling, trying to keep them entertained and out of danger. He never considered that it might be because she knows what's going to happen and is trying to make it less horrible for their family.

"I know Chey won't win," Dahlia says finally, closing her eyes as if this is the first time she's admitting it even to herself. "I want to be wrong. I made sure that they tried a few weapons in training, but when you look at who they're up against." Her eyes glance up at Laszlo and he has to look away. "I just hope it's fast."

They sit in silence for far too long. Laszlo knows he should say something, she's trusted him with more than he's ever deserved, but anything he comes up with feels wrong. He feels like he owes her an apology, but he never actually said any of what he was thinking to her. He wonders if Dahlia only told him all this because she knew what he thought of her.

Pathetic. Unrealistic. Stupid.

It turns out she's just doing what she can to make it easier on some kid she barely knows. She doesn't think she can save them from death, and isn't going to lay down her life so Chey can have a second chance. Part of Laszlo still wants to claim it's stupid, that in looking after someone else she is dooming herself too, but what exactly would she be doing if she were alone right now?

Probably exactly what Laszlo did the first few days.

After a while, Dahlia stands up without a word. He wonders if he should've said something, but nothing about her expression tells him she's upset. She starts to head back to where Chey is sleeping, but he stops her.

"Have you given up?" Laszlo asks.

He thinks he knows the answer, but that doesn't stop the words from leaving his tongue. She eyes him curiously for a moment before shaking her head. "No."

He's glad she doesn't ask him the same question. He's not sure he'd have an answer so quickly.

To anyone else, the next day would look no different from the last.

However, as Laszlo moves just a few steps behind the others, he couldn't disagree more. Whereas the morning prior, he'd been up long before he was supposed to, today he had to be all but shaken awake. When he opened his eyes, Chey's toothy smile had been staring down at him. To his credit, Laszlo had only jumped about halfway out of his skin.

Everything seems just a little more comfortable. Laszlo still drags a bit behind his allies, but he's close enough to hear their quiet conversations. Sometimes he's even listening. They don't talk about anything in particular, or even about what their plans are for the day. Laszlo doesn't ask about those either. After last night, it doesn't feel as important to know.

The Hunger Games will happen. There's a leftover dread that tells him this can't last forever, but he can ignore it for now. They don't have weapons or even much that could pass as one besides his metal piece. Most of the things they've found today are far too big to lug around. If anyone finds them, their only real option will be to hide.

Laszlo knows that's not going to last forever. Dahlia does too. Even Chey, who skips along and weaves between trees and debris to jump out and scare them, doesn't seem as chipper as Laszlo previously would've said. There's something in their eyes that suggests they might know too.

Are we all just waiting? Laszlo supposes that they are.

The only time they all stop moving is when a single cannon shakes the arena around them. All three crane their necks to look at the sky, their mouths dry even though they'd just filtered a fresh store of water. It reminds them for a moment what they're waiting for. Maybe then it's fitting that Laszlo and Chey both stare through the treetops far longer than Dahlia does.

"Look at those," she whispers once the air finally feels still again. Laszlo follows her gesture to a strip of undisturbed soil, one of few he's seen in the arena. Most of the terrain feels like it's been plodded through, probably from the trash that the Capitol no doubt dumped here. Still, even though they look untouched, no one would look at the petals and think they're anything close to beautiful.

Even from afar no one would be fooled; these flowers are rotten just like everything else in this place.

No matter how many times they all keep trying to forget it. In the eyes of the Capitol, the tributes are no more deserving than the trash that's been thrown in here with them. Laszlo felt that sentiment in the Capitol and he feels it again every time his eyes settle into his surroundings. The people watching the Hunger Games don't care about them. Realistically, they won't even care about the one that eventually leaves.

None of them are supposed to be beautiful, just like these flowers.

"Boo!"

Laszlo chokes on the little bit of water still stuck at the back of his throat. He coughs loudly as Chey climbs over the piece of wood they'd been hiding behind. He rolls his eyes, not exactly upset but trying hard to fake it. It certainly doesn't help that they've been sitting in the same clearing for what's felt like hours. Dahlia seems to be taking full advantage of her solo trip to the river.

"How long do we wait, Laz?" Chey asks, glancing behind them to where their district partner disappeared not too long ago.

He shrugs, stiffening at the nickname but deciding once again to let it slide. Honestly, if he told Chey it bothered him, he half-expects they'd use it even more. Besides, Laszlo can't exactly find it in him to chide them. "Until she comes back."

Chey looks a little bit disappointed but before long the usual half-smile is back. They disappear once again behind the trunk of a larger tree, but Laszlo doesn't pay much mind. He moves his leg, the one still stuck in the trap, up to rest against the nearby tree. They're just trying to entertain themself. When he realized that's what the constant talking, moving, and sightseeing was about, it was hard for Laszlo to blame them.

Nothing of note's happened since he joined the pair. At least not that Chey would've seen. Having spent a few days with them, Laszlo finds it hard to still think of Chey as just some kid. They can be annoying, but they don't seem unaware of what's going on. They seem like they're trying to distract themself from it if anything. Laszlo can't blame them for that either.

Chey's only fourteen, the same age that he was when he spent three days in jail. Laszlo can't imagine being thrust into this place back then, especially if near-all the other tributes were bigger and older than him. Jail was hard enough and it was temporary. He remembers the days where all he had to think about was the possibility that he would be executed. Laszlo would've given anything to distract himself.

He glances back to where Chey disappeared. They have to know that it's not likely they'll be getting out of here. He can't imagine what that's like for someone so young. He's living it, but at least he's a few years older. In theory his age and stature give him a chance at winning.

In practice, well, perhaps he and Chey have more in common than he thought.

"Del!"

The scream pierces through the small clearing and Laszlo's on his feet in seconds. He looks around, his heart beating loudly in his throat until he doesn't even know which way the sound came from. For a moment it doesn't feel real; he wonders if he imagined it. Then, a second shriek quickly follows and he knows he has to move.

Del, Laszlo thinks as he tears past the piece of debris and into the fog beyond it. That's the nickname they use. They're screaming for Dahlia.

He can't even be sure that he's going the right way. Laszlo bursts into another clearing, his soles an inch deep in mud but he hardly has the time to notice. A flash of movement catches his eye and he runs towards it. Just beyond the clearing he sees a spot of deep orange but that's not what keeps his attention. It should be, but no, Laszlo dashes after the second person as they try to leave the clearing.

I need to get them away. It's the only thought he can formulate as the adrenaline takes over. Orange means his allies. No two districts wear the same colour. This other person, their uniform so caked with mud that the colour is indistinguishable, is not friendly. He needs to get them away from Chey, to kill them if he can or has to, to keep them away from Dahlia.

He's supposed to protect them.

Laszlo's ankle begins to burn as he continues, the trap catching on every stray blade of grass and pulling at his mangled skin. He can't breathe but he keeps going. Every time he's about to stop, he catches a glimpse of them up ahead. He hasn't lost them. Not yet. Laszlo holds tight to the metal piece in his pocket, not caring as it opens up old wounds that Dahlia's told him time and again to keep clean.

The tribute takes a hard left. Laszlo follows.

Right. His feet change directions easily.

The thing that finally stops him isn't some debris, a tree in his path, even the fog obscuring the area ahead. Laszlo crashes over all of these things, his eyes searching for the tribute whose steps he can still hear. Even the pain building around his ankle doesn't stop his frantic footfalls.

The only thing that stops him is the sound of cannon fire.

Laszlo's steps stop before the rest of his body and he hits the ground hard. He skids across the mud until he slams into the base of a nearby tree. He gasps as the air returns to his lungs, but by then the sound is gone. The surrounding arena is impossibly, devastatingly silent.

"Chey," he whispers as he forces his shaking limbs to stand. Both legs feel like they've gone numb from exertion, but they still manage to hold his weight. Laszlo looks around quickly, but he doesn't recognize where he is. The air feels heavier, thicker. For the first time in days he feels every bit of dirt and humidity as it sticks to his skin.

He takes off in a jog, finding his earlier path easily. There are two sets of skidding footprints and most of the scarce brush is flattened where they stepped. Laszlo climbs over a broken skid, his throat drier than it's been in days. His limbs feel heavy, but they move automatically now. There's no part of him that's ready to re-enter the clearing.

His steps don't care. Laszlo slows as he gets closer, his hands coming up to move the weeping branches out of the way. The air here is just as silent; just as leaden.

Dahlia turns as she hears his approach, every ounce of grief written across her expression. Laszlo doesn't have to see past her to know. The answer is in the tears that run freely down her cheeks.

Yet, the second her eyes lock with his, he finds something else entirely.

"Dahlia I-"

"He was just a kid," she says through clenched teeth. He can tell she's trying to hold back the tears, but that only makes the dam crumble more quickly. Her hands are shaking as she pushes their body further behind her. All Laszlo can see is the bottom of their orange top and their knees crumpled behind her. He doesn't think he wants to see more, yet at the same time feels guilty that he can't.

The way Dahlia's crouched in front of their body, it's as if she's trying to protect them.

Protect them from him.

She squeezes her eyes shut, her nails digging deep into the mud as if trying to hold onto some bit of comfort. "You could've just left."

"I-" Laszlo searches for the words but he can't even comprehend what she's saying right now. Does she think he did this? He wouldn't hurt Chey. She has to know that, doesn't she? "I didn't- Dahlia. I wouldn't-"

"You could've just left!" She shouts again, seeming not to hear him at all. Dahlia does a half-glance towards her district partner, but flinches back as if she's been struck herself. Laszlo swallows, staring at her as his mind races for what to do to convince her. He wouldn't have done this. He couldn't have.

"Dahlia-" he tries but she cuts him off entirely.

"Get away from us!" She screams, her hands frantically reaching to bring Chey closer to her. It's as if she doesn't want Laszlo to have the chance to take them. Even though their cannon has already sounded, she's still trying to protect them.

Protect them like I couldn't.

"Leave!" Her voice cracks as her voice gets even louder.

Laszlo gets a sudden wave of uneasiness as the air seems to shiver around them. He does a short scan of the clearing, but nothing seems different from when he entered. Still, he can't shake the disquiet that starts to quiver in his chest. He just doesn't know what it means.

Then, he hears them.

"Dahlia," he whispers, trying to keep his voice even. "Someone's coming."

She swallows, looking down before her eyes rise back to his. "I'm not leaving them."

Laszlo crouches down, being careful to travel no closer. He knows what this means to her, to Chey and their family, to her district. If they can manage to hide her and Chey, they can do this. He doesn't think the steps are getting any nearer. He can't be sure that it's a person at all, it could just as easily be a muttation or the wind.

There hasn't been a breeze in this place since the games started. Laszlo hasn't seen a mutt big enough to be making steps this heavy.

When the muffled voices start, he knows that Dahlia hears them too.

Hide, he mouths and for the first time she actually seems to listen. Dahlia carefully slides herself and Chey to the edge of the clearing towards a large block of what looks like siding. Laszlo stays completely silent, listening in an effort to figure out where they're coming from.

He can hear at least three separate voices. He doesn't have to know anything else about them to guess who it is. The hair on the back of his neck stands on end as he remembers the Career girl from the Cornucopia, the way she looked at him like he was some kind of toy.

They're going to find us. He knows it's true without being able to picture another one of their faces. Careers are made for these games, they're not going to simply pass them by. Another tribute might just be wandering around, but they won't be. Careers don't roam, they hunt.

Laszlo shuffles the distance between them as quickly as he can, but she shrugs him off. He grabs hold of her shoulder and forces her to look at him. He tries everything in his power not to look down.

"Careers," he whispers through clenched teeth. "Come on."

She rips herself away and shakes her head quickly. Laszlo can hear the footsteps getting louder. He knows she can too. This is important to her, but they can't stay, she can't stay. If they don't run they have no chance. The Careers aren't going to miss them; there isn't enough cover here.

They heard her shouts. No doubt they heard him chasing Chey's murderer too. He has no doubt that the Careers know exactly where they are.

If they hide they'll be surrounded. Right now at least they seem to be moving in a pack. That means there has to be a way around them.

"You said you haven't given up," he whispers.

Her eyes are still filled with angry tears when she turns towards him. "I haven't."

"Then run."

Their steps start out quiet, but that doesn't last long.

Almost as soon as they start moving, Laszlo spots the first one. He doesn't recognize them, in fact he doesn't see more than a flash of their uniform as they pass through a break in the fog. Yet, he knows it's them. He can feel it in every tight breath that escapes his chest.

They've already started to disperse.

Like wolves they're moving in and suddenly stealth doesn't matter.

The Careers already know where they are.

Laszlo takes off in a sprint and he can hear Dahlia following close behind. The relief that she's coming is quickly overshadowed by the frantic fear that forces his feet to move. This isn't like the earlier chase. Laszlo isn't the one trying to track their steps. He's not the hunter.

He's prey. They both are.

And it doesn't take long before he can no longer hear her steps. Laszlo skids to a stop, listening hard for any indication of where she might be. For a moment he can't hear anything. The crashing footsteps are gone. He wants to believe it's because the Careers have lost track of them. Perhaps Dahlia found somewhere to hide out and they've for some reason already given up.

All of those thoughts shatter when a scream pierces through the nearby air. His heart lurches into his throat and his legs threaten to give entirely. He's exhausted from the earlier chase and now this. His mind keeps returning to the clearing, to the crumpled knees that he desperately wants to pretend are still walking beside him. All of it wants to pull him to the ground without care for who might find him.

The rushing water nearby doesn't come close to drowning out the laughter that follows her next scream.

His legs are shaking, but no longer with exhaustion. The first step Laszlo takes is towards the voices, but he stops himself. He pulls the metal piece that, by some stroke of luck, hasn't yet fallen out of his pocket. It's barely the length of his hand. He swallows, but nothing comes forward in his mind to the contrary. He can't beat them.

He can't protect her either.

Laszlo doesn't tell his feet to move, but they do. Each step feels like it takes a lifetime, the laughter and screams interlaid between them until he can't hear anything else. The rushing water seems to go silent. Even the sound of his own footsteps gets blocked out. He can still hear her screaming, but that's strangely enough the comforting part. Someone can't scream if they're dead. The fact that Laszlo can still hear her voice means she's still alive.

Even if the Careers' laughter proves that she's already lost.

Laszlo finds the edge of the river first. It's the largest of the ones he's come across, the same one they decided to make camp near so that they could keep filtering fresh water. He stares across it, to the caps that would be white in any other reality. Here, they're brown - the same shade as the mud and thick with dead bugs and leaves that the river is pulling along.

Over the rush of water, however, he can still hear them.

He doesn't remember turning around, but he'll never forget what he sees as he peers through the branches. There are five of them, less than Laszlo expected, but they form a semi circle around her that blocks most of his view. What he can see is splatters of blood painting the mud by her feet. He can see that she's still sitting up. He can hear that she's still alive.

Laszlo sinks to his knees but none of the Careers so much as turn around. Every gaze is centered on Dahlia, despite the fact that she doesn't have anything to defend herself with. He can see each of their weapons from here and no doubt there are several more hidden from view. They don't need even two of them to kill her.

He watches as one of them winds up for a kick. His ally's face comes into view for a second before the Careers move in again to the sound of even more laughter. It's long enough to see the blood running from her nose and the mud smeared across her chin.

It's long enough to see the absolute terror in her eyes.

Laszlo wants to tear his eyes away. His conscience doesn't let him. I was supposed to protect them.

He doesn't expect what comes next. He sees her boots suddenly shuffle out of view; he hears a shout from one of the Careers as they realize. He hears the splash as she enters the water.

Laszlo only has a second to react as the rushing water immediately pulls her under. He doesn't take even half that long to decide. He gasps as the cold water surrounds him in an instant and he tumbles backwards with the force of the current. In a matter of seconds, he doesn't know which way is up, only that he needs to get there. He needs to find Dahlia before it's too late.

He coughs out a breath of muddy water as he resurfaces. Laszlo's arms flail wildly as he quickly realizes the river is far deeper than he thought. His body hits a floating piece of debris and it turns him around. Water sprays up around him every time he tries to move. His chest slams into something solid and he scrambles for purchase.

He reaches out just in time to catch Dahlia before the river rips her away. Laszlo gasps out several breaths, trying to formulate a plan as the world moves far too quickly past them. He can't tell if she's still breathing. The river is far too loud to hear it if she is; he's not certain he'd be able to hear a cannon if there was one.

Laszlo promises himself that he's not too late. His fingers tremble against whatever debris he's managed to grab hold of. One wrong move and they'll both be pulled away by the current. Laszlo doesn't think he'll be able to keep hold of her if that happens. It's more than possible he's made a mistake.

He looks up, squinting against the water that tries to splash in his eyes. Either he's hallucinating or he's got to be the luckiest person alive. Considering the dark water he's fighting for his life in, he can't imagine that it's the latter. Yet, as Laszlo moves his grip up the branch, it doesn't tear away. He inches up it, waiting for the moment when it breaks free of the tree it's leaning from.

By the time he drags them both onto the riverbank, there's no part of him that isn't trembling. Laszlo has to struggle to his knees, all the while trying to stop the dripping water from finding his eyes. His breaths come too quickly to let words pass, but when he sees her he forgets all of that.

While Laszlo's clothes are soaked through with mud and water, Dahlia's are quickly turning red. Blood blooms on her torso from two slices that cut all the way across her chest. Another spot expands up from her abdomen, another on the top of her thigh. The longer he looks, the more stained it all becomes.

Laszlo doesn't know where to hold. He presses a hand firmly in the center of her chest but blood quickly bubbles up between his fingers. Tears start to build but he blinks them away. His second hand finds the cut on her thigh and leans in to try and stop it. His hands won't stop shaking, but he doesn't let go.

He looks around, behind him, even up because someone has to be able to do something.

Laszlo swallows down the whimper he finds at the back of his throat. He rips open her backpack - still somehow looped around her shoulders. He knows he shouldn't let go of the wounds, but he doesn't have a choice. There has to be something inside that can help him. He knows she has supplies. Dahlia used them to patch up his hand and back on their first night together.

He finds what he's looking for, but the pouch of gauze is soaked through. Laszlo looks around again, but there's no one coming. He should know this by now but he can't stop himself from being hopeful. He isn't the person that knows how to handle this. He never learned how to patch up injuries or what to do when there's so much blood. It seems to be coming from everywhere at once.

Laszlo presses the gauze to her thigh, but it turns red near-instantly. He sniffles loudly and tries to squeeze out the excess water before replacing it. Blood still continues to trail down to the riverbank. The gauze isn't even bothering to collect it.

A hand comes to land on top of his and he almost loses it entirely. He looks up to find Dahlia's eyes watching him. She coughs out a breath of water and her fingers grip his hand tightly. He watches her, waiting for an instruction but the only answer is her shivered breaths. He can see every bit of pain reflected back at him; feels it in how tight her grip on him becomes.

"What do I do?" He whispers.

There's never been a moment in his life that Laszlo's wanted someone else to answer that question. He's used to playing on unfamiliar fields with someone else's voice lording over his. Everyday until he left Wither's hideout, Laszlo had to be told what to do. Study hard, his father would say. Blend in, came the words from Peacekeeper Ramier. Leave at sundown, the final words from Wither before he left Laszlo alone in his office.

That's what made being on the run almost… exciting. Laszlo was his own person for the first time in his life. He could go anywhere, be anyone as long as he didn't go home. Looking back, it's the freest he's ever felt. Before now, Laszlo couldn't imagine giving that feeling away. The last thing he wants is to be under someone's thumb again, so tightly bound he can barely breathe.

The last thing he wants now is to watch her die because he didn't know how to save her.

Laszlo bows his head into the ground when she doesn't answer. There has to be something I can do. "Please."

Dahlia tightens her grip on his hand and he does the same. He can see the pain in her eyes, in the trembling that goes so much deeper than his own shivers. Her nails dig into Laszlo's hand hard enough that the area around them goes white. He clings to her just as tightly.

The blood that runs from his hand doesn't matter; it's just another drop in the sea that surrounds them. Laszlo doesn't stop the tears as they build this time. He turns away as the first one drips down his chin, but he doesn't leave. At some point her grip loosens. He watches as her cheeks grow ashen and the mud below them turns to rust.

Because, sometimes, there's nothing you can do.

And there's nothing Laszlo can do to save her.

His eyes still burn as he sits at the edge of the river. Laszlo isn't sure whether to blame the river water, the surrounding trash, or the long-dried tears that he hasn't bothered to wipe away. In truth, he's not sure if the difference even matters enough to think about.

The arena feels so much more alive than it had before her cannon. It shouldn't. Every direction he looks is a memory of what happened. The silence is little more than the absence of Chey's jokes and laughter. The cold that sticks to his damp clothes is just a reminder that the blankets Dahlia carried are soaked through with her blood.

He glances to where her body lays silent. He knows he should take the supplies she was carrying, but he can't bring himself even a step closer. It feels wrong to be close, but just as wrong to move away. Laszlo's been able to find as good of an in between as he thinks exists. Almost no part of him gives a shit if the hovercraft takes her with the supplies or without.

The hunger that's become a near-constant through his time in the arena has heeded to something far deeper. He suspects that if he even tried to eat something, he'd throw it back up. Death isn't something new. He hears about it all the time from his classmates or neighbors. Laszlo's stumbled past bodies that are just as likely to be dead as they are to be sleeping. By the time he left school, it wasn't even something he stopped to think about anymore.

But Laszlo's never seen someone die. He's never had to think about the way they used to roll their eyes at him and then stare down at their corpse. It's never happened so close to him. He's never felt the need to jump back in the river that nearly drowned him just to get the smell of blood out of his clothes.

He runs his fingers along the inner edge of his hand, feeling the raised lines without having to look down. They sting but that doesn't stop him from pressing down harder. The marks have already scabbed over, they've already stopped bleeding, but he quickly breaks them open again.

The tears return soon after.

His was the last hand Dahlia clung to, yet he couldn't fucking save her. That's all the bleeding nail marks remind him of - how little he tried before giving up. Anyone with half a brain would look at her and know that it was too late. The Careers did too much to her before she tried to escape. Logically, Laszlo knows he didn't kill her by dragging her out of the water. The guilt beating in his chest says otherwise.

He wonders if she went into the river because drowning seemed like the better option. When he closes his eyes he can still hear them laughing, laughing, like Dahlia wasn't a person that deserved to live more than the five of them combined.

Laszlo hopes their deaths are twice as painful. He hopes they suffer twice as long, more if possible.

His gaze travels towards her and he has to snap it away before it gets there. He should've moved on by now; the sun is already starting to go down but he hasn't been able to think of a 'next'. Truthfully, the group was never heading anywhere specific. Laszlo could pick a direction and be just as confident in it as he was yesterday. It's a matter of putting one foot in front of the other, again and again and again until it's his turn.

He knows what he's waiting for.

Laszlo squeezes his eyes shut and tries to force himself to take a deep breath. If the hovercraft hasn't come by now, odds are it isn't going to. He wants to not care. He's spent far too long here already, and it's not like he actually knew Dahlia. They made a deal and it only lasted a couple of days. Laszlo's not stupid; he knows where they are. It's why he didn't want anything to do with them back in the Capitol.

He doesn't owe her anyth- I'm not leaving.

Laszlo looks back at the river. It looks so much calmer than it did, or perhaps it only seems that way. In truth, he's searching for a change, for something to be different because he feels so different. In a matter of minutes everything changed, but how is that different than when Dahlia and Chey took him in? Everything changed then as well, but Laszlo doesn't remember feeling so completely shattered back then.

"Please just take her," he whispers to no one in particular. He knows who he wants to hear it - the Capitol - but no part of him honestly believes they care enough to listen. If the Gamemakers cared what the tributes wanted, her and Chey would already be kilometers away from here to be with their families.

How can someone hear her tiny request and feel nothing? Laszlo doesn't know that he believes in spirits getting lost, but the important thing is that she did. She deserves at least this much.

He cranes his neck to the sky despite not hearing any hint of a hovercraft approaching. Even if someone did come, there'd be no guarantee that they'd stay with her. Most likely, her body would be laid with the others until they could be shipped out to the districts. She could still get lost.

Laszlo sighs and stands up suddenly, not even aware of what he's about to do until he's already knuckle-deep in the surrounding mud. Angry tears burn his eyes as dirt fills the spaces under his nails and the hole grows larger. He doesn't know how long he keeps going, but when he finally decides it's enough the air around him has already gone dark.

He can't bring himself to take the backpack from around her shoulders. It takes far too much of his strength not to look at her half-open eyes as he drags her body to the shallow grave. It takes even more to start replacing the mud back over her. Laszlo doesn't position her, doesn't close her eyes or try to hide the blood-soaked clothing. He doesn't see how making her look more presentable would help anything.

This is what the Hunger Games wanted.

And not even the idea of covering that up with dirt makes Laszlo's lips curl. The Capitol wants blood and suffering from people who weren't even alive to see the war. If they're leaving the bodies to rot instead of removing them, that means they want that too.

He only hopes he's not dooming her to stay here. He hopes that her spirit will know where to go, if spirits even exist in the first place.

He hopes she'll be free.

Laszlo pushes the last bit of mud over the gravesite and smoothes it over. He's only just made it to the river's edge to wash some more blood and dirt off his hands when he hears a chitter from behind him. He turns around to find one of the stripe-tailed animals sitting directly over the plot. Laszlo waves his hands, trying to shoo it away but the little creature doesn't even seem to notice.

The mutt shoves its dirty paws into the dirt and Laszlo all but throws himself toward it. The animal chirps and dashes back behind the fog before he can make it another step. Laszlo smoothes the mud again, getting rid of the stupid prints but he can hear more of the creatures not too far off.

He sighs and looks around, finding a large sheet of metal not too far away. It's a lot heavier than it looks, which is perfect. Laszlo slides it over and places it over the burial site. He dumps a few more pieces of debris on top of it for good measure. When he's finally finished, he sits back at the edge of the river, facing the site to make sure it's not going to move.

It's hard to explain even to himself why he cares so much. Keeping Dahlia's body from scavengers isn't going to change much. If the Capitol wants to decorate their arena in bodies, Laszlo's not going to be enough to stop him. They could send a storm or some high winds to disturb it. Hell, they might even be able to program the mutts to uproot her for all he knows.

But if one small act of defiance means that much to the Capitol, Laszlo's more than willing to work for it.

His eyes barely open as the anthem rouses him from sleep. Laszlo stretches along to the familiar tune, flinching when his hand hits cool water. He sits up with a start, not remembering where he is until he sees the flat sheet of metal laid on the ground nearby.

Until the moment he looks up, he'd forgotten what Dahlia actually looked like.

Laszlo's throat runs dry as he remembers. There's no blood in her image, her skin doesn't have a cold greyness beneath her dark tones. Her eyes aren't glassy slits that stare off towards nothing at all, they're intense and focused. There's no mud caked along her braids or smeared across her forehead.

There's even a hint of a smile that he didn't expect to see. Dahlia really only had it when she looked at Chey or talked about home. Laszlo had barely even noticed that it was lopsided until now.

And just as quickly as he does, she's gone.

He swallows, remembering who he's going to see next. Unlike Dahlia, there's no poignant recollection to make when he sees them. Chey looks exactly as they did both in training and in the days they spent in the arena. There's a little less grime, and the scrape on their chin isn't there yet, but they look the same. The playfulness that annoyed Laszlo when they first met is so alive in their eyes he half-expects them to speak to him.

But they don't, and a minute later he's staring up at a blank sky.

Laszlo shakes his head, feeling dizzy as he crawls to his feet, but that doesn't stop him. It's still night, but there's enough moonlight to see where he's stepping. Besides, this can't wait until morning.

In fact, he might already be too late.

His foot falls seem to drag more with each passing minute. Laszlo blinks back the early morning sunbeams and continues along the river. Every clearing looks the same as the last, and none of them have brought him any closer to finding Chey.

He's starting to wonder if he made a mistake. Perhaps the hovercraft didn't come because Laszlo was too close to her body. Maybe if he'd walked away, the Capitol would've brought her home. The longer he continues on, the more he's been able to convince himself that he wasted all that time on nothing. He might've even made it more difficult for Dahlia's family to get her back.

Laszlo pauses to attempt to rub more fatigue from his eyes. He hasn't seen a trace of another tribute since yesterday and he's not even certain he's headed in the right direction. Their camp could've been anywhere, it's not like they ever actually settled in. Moving any of the debris around would've just made it easier for someone passing by to find them.

That all seemed like a smart move, but now it feels so utterly pointless. Why not point the Careers in their direction? Why not shine a beacon on them to speed this whole thing up? Why not lay down in the middle of the next clearing and hope to be the next face in the sky?

If it was that easy to convince himself, Laszlo would've been long gone by now. As it turns out, the hardest thing he's ever tried to do is die. There have been so many opportunities - the platform surrounded by mines, the Careers afterwards, the sharp metal that's weighed in his pocket since the first day - yet here he is. Laszlo still walks the arena when he has less right to it than anyone else. He's never going to get out, not with five Careers still strutting around and not ever.

So why am I trying?

He doesn't have an answer and suspects he never will. There's so much building inside of him that he's never had to feel before. Laszlo's never felt anger like when he heard Dahlia's attackers laughing at her pain. He's never felt guilt so strong that it made looking at Chey's crumpled body impossible. He's never had tears fall because of someone else and he's never wished so hard that he could stop something that's a million times bigger than him.

All of these emotions and he still has nothing.

At least nothing that matters.

His gaze raises as a spot of orange catches his attention. In an instant, the despair melts again into shaking anger. Laszlo can hardly see them as bitter tears start to build alongside the nausea burning a hole in his stomach. It would've been better not to find them.

It would've proved that someone actually cares more than leaving the fallen tributes to rot.

He sinks to his knees several feet away and puts every bit of emotion into moving the mud away. Laszlo can't bring himself to look at them, yet the crossed boots in his periphery refuse to go unnoticed. They're not that much smaller than his, and truthfully Chey wasn't that much younger than him. They weren't some naive kid that didn't know what was going on. They knew they were going to die and somehow that makes all of this worse.

Laszlo doesn't bother to wipe away the tears that drip down his chin as he digs. He's so angry that it's almost helpful to do something that'll fade some of the trembling from his body. He can't hurt who actually deserves it. The Careers will kill him if he even tries and Laszlo's not even certain who actually got Chey.

And deep down, he knows they're not the true monsters. Laszlo has no love for the Careers, but they didn't build this place or choose their names. They're stupid, brainwashed, and dangerous, but killing them won't change a fucking thing.

As he drags a large chunk of wood over the freshly padded dirt, he knows nothing will.

Laszlo feels like he's between dreams as he makes his way through another garden of trash.

He kicks at something that looks like plastic, but it folds far too easily to be useful. His eyes still burn with leftover tears and minimal sleep, but his steps haven't even thought about stopping. Laszlo isn't sure how long it's been since he left Chey nor how far he's traveled. Honestly, he's been doing his best not to think at all.

Thoughts only lead to more anger than his tired body will allow him to feel. They only remind him that everything he's doing and has done up til now is pointless. At best the thoughts are a distraction from the hunger burning in his stomach. At worst, they're a waste of time that's not running out quickly enough.

His eyes trail upwards as a cannon shakes between the weeping branches. The last one he heard was at the river. He half-wonders whose face will replace Dahlia in the sky tonight. The other half knows that he won't recognize them so it's pointless to wonder.

He doesn't even know their names.

Laszlo hadn't been aware of how little he knew about the other tributes until .. well until Dahlia started using their names. She seemed to know every name and district; she knew his name and he knows he never gave it to her. She even knew the name of the person who likely set the trap that's still tight around his ankle.

The next few minutes he tries to think of it, but that trail of thought is broken by another cannon.

He squints up again, the question not even forming in his mind before a third cannon interrupts it. There haven't been this many so close together since the end of the Bloodbath. Laszlo doesn't know what to make of them. He's not sure how many people are left; the easiest answer is one of the bigger alliances clashed with the Careers. It feels too late in the game for an alliance this size to still be kicking. Then again, it hasn't been that difficult to remain hidden here.

Laszlo has to wonder if he's somehow counted wrong when a fourth cannon follows several minutes later. He glances around, but the arena is as still as it's been for the past day. There's no audible struggling, no distant screams, no indication that four hearts have stopped beating within a few kilometers of him.

It's all far too quiet.

The space between two weeping trees is as good a spot as any to rest. Laszlo doesn't make the conscious decision to stop until his knees have already collapsed and his head is already cupped in his hands. Sleep is easier than it should be. He doesn't take in the tree canopy until his eyes squint open again hours later. If he dreams, Laszlo doesn't remember any of it.

It's growing dark again. He's losing track of how many days it's been. Every morning, it feels like the sun never actually set. Each night he can't imagine it rising again. He still has a little bit of food from Chey's backpack, but it's gotten so much lighter. There wasn't much inside to begin with.

He wonders if Dahlia's had more, and that's why the pair decided it made sense to share with him. However, Laszlo only remembers them taking food from Chey's bag.

He tries not to dwell on that thought, but distractions are few and far between. From the moment he opens his eyes, his mind tries to find anything to focus on besides the rumble in his stomach. There's never been much but, if possible, the arena is even more still tonight. Laszlo just can't put his finger on why.

He only makes it a few minutes away from his resting spot when a nauseating smell makes him stop. Laszlo uses the torn sleeve of his uniform to cover his nose, and somehow the smell of damp swamp water actually helps. He looks around, the hair on his neck standing on end as if it knows what he's going to find.

Laszlo flinches when he spots a smudge of burgundy between the trees. His steps bring him closer, but what he finds makes him wish he'd never looked. Her hair is damp and half-sunken into the mud, the blonde almost masked entirely. She's curled in on herself and the dirt beneath her abdomen is sticky with blood. Laszlo can't see her face, but her neck and hands are bloated to twice the size that her uniform suggests.

If he had to guess, he'd say she's been dead for some time.

He presses his sleeve even harder into his face as the smell starts to sink past the fabric. There are various marks that look to be the work of animals, and several that could be from almost anything. Laszlo looks behind him suddenly, the realization striking that he hasn't seen any muttations since yesterday.

That's why it's so quiet. He shivers and turns away from the dead tribute. Wherever the creatures have gone off to, they still managed to do a number on her first. Her head is the only part that doesn't seem to have been touched.

Laszlo walks quietly back towards the clearing he'd come from. It doesn't take long to realize that his hands are shaking again. He can't get her blonde hair out of his mind, the only part of her besides the uniform that shows she was ever human. She's just another arena decoration, like the weeping trees and rushing river.

How dare they just leave her there?

He sighs loudly and doubles back, telling himself to turn around before he can make it back. He never met this girl, doesn't recognize the blonde hair from training or elsewhere. If Laszlo ever laid eyes on her he's forgotten and yet-

His knees dent the mud as he drops to the ground beside her. His hands are so used to the motion that it doesn't take long to keep digging. Laszlo can't protect her from decomposition. Her family isn't going to get back anything resembling the whole person she used to be. All he can do is stop the Capitol from using her as some fucking background piece.

He glances up as he stops to catch his breath. He wonders if they can see how much he despises them.

He doubts they care.

His hands are shaking as he sucks in another breath. The ground is more solid here, not melting to water the further down he gets, so it's taking longer. If Laszlo had anywhere to be, maybe he wouldn't bother.

This one hasn't been dead nearly as long. His skin is warm and there's no sign of the bloating from the last one. Laszlo can imagine the whimpers, but he forces them to the back of his mind. The boy was still breathing when he found him, but barely. The blisters around his mouth ooze pus that's the same colour as the vomit on the ground beside him. He didn't even flinch when Laszlo approached.

Laszlo doubts he's been conscious for the past hours, maybe even days. There are no visible wounds, but he's thinner than most of District 6's homeless. Judging by the foul smell of excrement, the Careers likely can't claim this one.

He sighs and starts again. There's still several more inches to go.

Laszlo looks up from the inside of the Cornucopia. The sun has made it back to the top of the sky, and the lack of tree cover means that he's all but coated in sweat. He wipes some from his forehead and grimaces. Only a few hours under the sun and his skin already feels like sandpaper. He should head for the shade soon, but there's only one more to move.

He'll start replacing the dirt later tonight.

Laszlo crawls over to the final body, another person that he doesn't recognize. It's better this way. It's better if he doesn't remember that their chest used to rise with breaths and that the blood surrounding them used to pump through their veins. The four inside the Cornucopia are by far the worst, not because they've been here long but because of how inhuman they look. While the ones outside - likely here since the first morning - are bloated and smell of rot, most have only a single visible wound. They died quickly; Laszlo finds himself envying that fact.

The ones that survived longer have been far more gruesome. There's the boy he found beside a shallow stream, his entire body withered yet he was still alive when Laszlo found him. There's Dahlia, Chey whose wounds were bigger and messier. And then there's the four inside.

Laszlo waited until the others were buried to even walk through the mouth of the Cornucopia.

He swallows and takes a gulp of humid air, hoping it will last the trip. The worst thing by far is the smell, but for a different reason this time. The other bodies smell like death, something that Laszlo recognizes though the humidity's made it far more pungent. These four tributes still just smell like blood.

Laszlo trembles with the effort of dragging the last of them to join the other graves. He tries not to stare, but he always does. He finds he can't stop himself. Every time he forms another grave he starts to put the pieces together, to form a face that's not bloated with decomposition or streaked in mud. For this one, that's far more difficult. Almost every bone and layer of skin has been torn away. Not even their eyes were left untouched.

He shivers despite the beating sun. Laszlo has to hope that whatever did this wasn't human. When he looks at the other three, seeing similar patterns of tearing and splattered blood, he has to believe it. Laszlo just doesn't want to think about what kind of animal may have trapped them here. The only evidence is tufts of fur that are so coated in mud and gore that Laszlo can't even discern a colour.

He gives a final shove and the body lands within the shallow grave, one arm still clinging to dry ground. Laszlo pushes it gently to the tribute's side. He doesn't look again at any of the graves as he leaves the Cornucopia. It's too hot inside; he'll return when the sun goes down.

As he reaches the edge, a quiet buzz catches his attention and Laszlo looks up automatically. He snatches the silver capsule as soon as it gets close enough. He cracks it open and the smell is immediately intoxicating. The broth is thicker this time but just as cold. Laszlo barely tastes it as he takes the first sip.

The note is an afterthought, one that he only looks at once he's finished the last lick of soup and discarded the container under a nearby tree.

Keep going.

- M

Laszlo doesn't attend the feast.

It's not as difficult of a decision as it should be. There've been no sponsor gifts for the past day, but even that's not enough to entice him. Laszlo ate his fill of cold soup at the Cornucopia yesterday and still has the water filter that was sent to him the day before.

The only draw is the fact that this may be his last chance at something fast. If it's time for the feast, that means there aren't many of them left. While to most tributes that would be exciting and definitely terrifying, to Laszlo it means relief.

He knows it's almost over, and so he stays right where the night left him.

In fact, he doesn't move again until his water bottle runs dry. It's not as sweltering past the Cornucopia, but the humidity makes the warmth stick to his skin. Laszlo glances up, finding the sun directly above the tree canopy. More than likely the feast is long over.

There hasn't been a single cannon.

One side of Laszlo's lip curls up ever slightly. He wonders how disappointed the Capitol must be with them. Good.

Let their feast be a disappointment.

He's the most exhausted he's ever been, and his mind is as fogged over as the surrounding trees, but not even that can ruin this sliver of spite. It doesn't make the past days worth it. Nothing will. But if he can ruin this little game even for a single year maybe it will be. In truth, that's all he wants now.

Laszlo knows that, for him, it's well past too late. He doesn't know why he's still here, why the same muttation that got that group in the Cornucopia didn't come find him too. It's not like he's been hiding. It's not like he truly believes that playing smart will lead to anything but disappointment. At this point, Laszlo's not even playing the real game. He doesn't plan to.

For him, this is the game. The Capitol wants to fill this place with rotting bodies that smell worse than the trash itself. They want to liken the tributes to garbage and not even allow families to get back something resembling a whole person. To the Gamemakers, the tributes aren't people. Laszlo isn't a person.

He'll take every chance he gets to tell them to go fuck themselves, to ruin their cruel game.

That's the way he's been able to rationalize this. He's been privy to so much suffering back in District 6, been the cause of too many arrests and executions while he worked under Peacekeeper Ramier. Laszlo isn't going to sit here and pretend he's changed. He's not trying to save the tributes by burying them, because there's nothing left to save by the time he gets there. He's not doing it for them; he's doing it to spite the people who put them here.

Yet, when he thinks about Dahlia, when he remembers Chey, he's not so certain. Laszlo looks back on the hours he spent digging their graves, placing debris over them so the animals couldn't dig them up, and he doesn't recognize that person. The feeling he had where tears just kept falling and everything inside of him seemed to ache, it's not something he can rationalize.

Laszlo Richter is not a good person. He's like the flowers that lay by the riverside. The outside doesn't look so bad, but as soon as you know him the illusion falls apart. When Laszlo plucks a flower from the mud, its petals melt and the paste left behind smells like rotting flesh.

And he certainly knows what that smells like.

He pauses as something catches his eye. When Laszlo turns his head, he doesn't see anything, but the leftover uneasiness doesn't leave. He wipes the rotten flower on his pants and takes a slight left, doing his best to keep his steps quiet. It's likely just a mutt of some kind, but even that intrigues him. Laszlo hasn't seen any in days.

What he finds isn't an animal, but something far more familiar.

Laszlo swallows as he watches her, for some reason surprised that she's still alive. He's missed more than his share of anthems, half because he didn't want to see and half because as soon as the images popped up he forgot them altogether. For a while, Laszlo doesn't actually believe that it's her. However, the grey uniform shirt is a dead giveaway.

When her chest rises, he flinches back and rustles the branches of a nearby tree.

Benca's eyes find him immediately.

I'm sorry, he tries to say but his voice comes out as an unintelligible croak. He's too stunned to try again.

Her gaze travels over him several times, but Laszlo doesn't move. He's not sure what he's expected to do or say, nor is he particularly sure what she's going to do. Benca looks no better than him, in fact she looks far worse. The sunken contours of her face remind him of the boy he found by the stream. The bloodstains on her uniform remind him of the tributes outside the Cornucopia.

If she hadn't moved, Laszlo would've bet she was already dead.

"Get the fuck away from me." Her words are so quiet he could've sworn he imagined the whole thing. However, the glare piercing through her glossy eyes says otherwise.

Following that instruction should be the easiest thing in the world. He barely talked to Benca before the games started and doesn't have any knowledge of her or her family back in Six. Laszlo doesn't owe her comfort and, in truth, it doesn't look like she wants it. They both made their decisions clear to their mentors by the first day of training - no allies, no truce.

It looks like Benca's followed through with that. There's no one else around, no evidence that someone's coming back or caring for her. Laszlo can still feel the bandage on his back that Dahlia gave him. It's the only one that hasn't fallen off yet.

The only thing she has is a small knife clutched in one muddy hand. Even the mostly-empty backpack hanging over Laszlo's shoulder and the metal in his pocket are more impressive. Laszlo wouldn't be surprised if she hasn't eaten for days, maybe longer by the way the skin around her eyes has retreated.

She would've gotten the gifts, he reasons but he doesn't believe the logic. What he doesn't understand is why. Laszlo was under the impression that the gifts were for simply being alive, because maybe some wealthy Capitolites decided he had a chance. But if that's the case, why does she look so emaciated?

Laszlo grabs at his pocket, but it's empty. He didn't save anything, couldn't bring himself to portion it out because he was so desperately hungry himself. He swallows and forces his hand to drop back to his side. Even if he had extra, he shouldn't give it to her.

No allies, no truce.

"Benca," he says finally, not knowing how he's going to end the statement but he doesn't have to. Her eyes widen and Laszlo spins around, narrowly missing whatever had just come flying at his back. He stumbles back several more feet as he tries to find whatever it was. Instead, he sees a familiar mud-coated uniform jump down from a nearby tree.

Laszlo's on the tribute within seconds, grabbing him by the arm and tossing him to the ground. The boy's dark eyes stare up in surprise, a small crossbow still caught in his grip but there's no bolt locked inside.

Laszlo pauses, his gaze locked with the boy's before he can even think about finding a weapon. It's the same eyes. It's the same frame.

It's him.

His heart picks up speed as he kicks the tribute hard in the back of the head. His arms come up to protect himself but Laszlo just kicks those instead. He can't stop himself; no part of him is even thinking. His shoe lands hard against the tribute's hand, hard enough that he can feel the popping of bones through the leather. The boy's lips part but if he screams, Laszlo doesn't hear it.

He hears Dahlia's shallow breathing.

The silence that's followed him ever since.

Not even the heavy thuds of his boots against the tribute's skull can break through.

Laszlo's chest heaves as he keeps going. The boy writhes, trying to scramble for any kind of purchase in the mud but Laszlo doesn't let him get it. All he can think about is Chey, is Dahlia, is the fact that it's his fault because in this moment it is. Laszlo remembers the frame, the mud that's so thickly coated for camouflage that he can't even see what colour his uniform is underneath.

He killed Chey. He's the reason Dahlia's gone. It's all because of him.

Laszlo collapses to his knees, every bit of energy sucked from his body but the tribute doesn't try to stand. His eyes flutter and his arms curl into his chest. The boy's small frame is shivering, no not shivering but something far more malignant. Where there'd been only mud moments ago, his hair and neck are now caked with blood.

And Laszlo feels no better. He stares down, every bit of anger gone and replaced with a steely cold that freezes him from the inside out. He can't tear his eyes away no matter how much he wants to.

What have I done?

He's so… so small.

These are the only thoughts that can cut through the frigid fog. The boy's body still shakes, his eyes barely open enough to see a sliver of white. His wrists are as thin as two of Laszlo's fingers held in a circle. His mud-caked uniform hangs like a sheet over his thin frame.

He can't be any older than Chey.

This is the thought that breaks him. Laszlo scrambles forward, ignoring every bit of fear that tells him not to touch the boy. He grabs his shoulder, but his muscles are so tense that shaking it moves his entire body. It doesn't make a difference either way. Laszlo swallows, trying to remember anything that might help but he doesn't know what to do.

What feels like eons pass before he stops shaking. Laszlo gently squeezes his shoulder, knowing that it's not going to do anything but he's no longer thinking. What have I done? What have I done? That's what runs through his brain, over and over again but still no cannon fires.

Laszlo can still see his chest rising. It's shallow, barely present unless he's staring straight at it, but he's still breathing.

He swallows. This time the silence doesn't feel like blood pumping in his ears. It feels like nothing at all.

Laszlo turns stiffly as a soft whimper catches his attention. Tears he doesn't want blur the clearing into the surrounding fog, but he still finds her. The only thing that's moved is her hand, now clutching something near her inner thigh.

His heart rises to his throat before he can even blink the tears away. Part of him just knows.

"Let me help," he rasps, but in the silence of the clearing it's the loudest thing he's ever heard. Laszlo crawls towards her, putting a hand gently on hers. He can feel himself trembling as he stares down at the bolt. It's gone deep enough that only a couple inches of it are still visible.

Benca tenses as soon as he touches her and he pulls away. When he looks up there are heavy tears cutting through the grime on her cheeks. Somehow they make her look even more exhausted, even more emaciated. He can't imagine what she's been through by this point.

And this is what I wanted, Laszlo reminds himself. To do this alone.

He was so stupid to think that he could.

"Here," Laszlo starts as he shrugs his bag back to the ground. There has to be some kind of bandage in here that can help. He's looked through Chey's bag as sparingly as he could - it felt like he was intruding - but this is different. Chey would want him to help her. He knows they would. "I can wrap it or-"

He doesn't know why he's crying. There are a hundred reasons to - the bolt, the tribute behind him, the isolation that's been pulling him apart thread by thread - but he doesn't know which to blame this time. Laszlo rifles through the bag, but his hands are shaking too hard to grab hold of anything. He can do this. He just needs to find something to cover it, he'll figure out how they'll get around later. The sponsors will gift him more food. He can find a river to get water. He can-

"You can't help me," Benca spits.

Before he can stop her, she looks him dead in the eye and pulls the bolt free.

Laszlo lunges forward, putting his hand where it'd been but the area is already spurting with blood. More runs between his fingers; he can feel it pulsing against his palm. The ground is covered before he can even blink. It's everywhere.

Still, he presses down on the wound. Laszlo knows that's the only way. It was the same when drug runners would come back with stab wounds. You hold it until it stops bleeding or until someone comes with bandages.

Except there's no one coming.

And her cannon comes far too quickly.

Laszlo sucks in a breath through his teeth, doing everything he can not to collapse completely. He keeps his hand firmly against her thigh, but it too begins to tremble. Part of him hopes he's wrong. He hopes it's not for her, but he knows. Laszlo looks up at her face, counts the seconds that go by without a breath. Her face is so pale, her lips are almost the same colour.

He pulls his hand away and both come immediately to catch the tears that start again. Laszlo slams a fist against the ground and a splatter of blood sprays up at him. He doesn't care. Why didn't she listen? He knows the answer. That doesn't make it any easier to look at her now.

Another cannon comes between heavy sobs. Laszlo collapses to the mud, not caring for the bits of his uniform that were still dry seconds ago. His hand slams again and again to the ground beside him. It feels like a million needles are stabbing into his skin as his yellowed wounds cry for stillness, but he can't stop.

Why?

There's no answer.

"Why?" He asks aloud. Laszlo wants to scream but his tongue doesn't allow it. In the end, it returns to silence. It always heeds to what the arena wants - silence.

As he smooths the last bit of dirt over their graves, all he wants is for the silence to end.

This time, the tears never completely fade away.

Whether it be due to the newfound lack of dehydration or the malignant stillness that thickens with the setting sun, he doesn't know. Laszlo sits with a permanent blur in his eyes no matter how many times he blinks. He can't honestly say that he cares. He hasn't moved in hours even as the sun's set around him. The spot he's chosen is too wet to stay for the night, but he doesn't care about that either.

Laszlo turns the sticky stem of a flower in one hand. There's half a garden's worth right beside him, but his gaze settles only on the one he holds. The white colour has melted into something resembling sewage and it drips steadily down his fingers. It's fucking disgusting.

He flinches as another cannon trembles through the arena. When he looks down, the remaining petals are crushed in the center of his palm. It takes several seconds to open his fist again. This time, Laszlo doesn't even bother to wipe the rot away.

There's no point in pretending he's any better than the trash, the mud, or the rotten flowers. He might as well wear it all. It doesn't make a hint of a difference.

Laszlo's lips tighten into a thin line as a soft buzzing descends past the trees. In the stillness, even it sounds out of place. He supposes that's the point; the gifts are meant to grab his attention. He looks up as the pristine white canister floats gracefully towards him. Of course it's spotless. It's not from here, it's from the Capitol, and the Capitol is always perfect.

They're the trash that needs to be disposed of - the tributes, the districts - not the Capitol.

They belong here.

…. He belongs here.

Laszlo waits for the canister to fall beside him, coating one white side in soggy dirt. Inside, he finds another container filled to the brim with cold stew and a new filter for his water bottle. His first thought is that he doesn't want anything from them, but it doesn't last long. In seconds, Laszlo's torn open the food and eaten half of it before taking another breath. The rest is gone soon after.

He hates that he relies on them for anything. He also knows that, without these gifts, he would be no better off than Benca.

He hates that too.

The next day's gift wakes him before the sun has even risen above the trees. Laszlo blinks sleepily, searching in the semi-darkness for a few moments before he can find the white blotch floating towards him. He pops it open, but instead of food he finds a small, curved blade with Marcsa's note sitting on top.

3, be ready

- M

Laszlo turns the knife over in his hand. It looks nothing like the rest of the weapons he's seen here. The Career girl's machete, Benca's knife, the mud-covered boy's crossbow - all of them were black with dull silver. The curved knife is no longer than his hand and it's so perfectly white it looks like it's made out of paper. It's almost the exact colour as the outside of the canister.

The next thing he does is plunge it so deep into the mud that it and his fingers completely disappear. Laszlo cracks a half-smile as he pulls it back out, seeing the dirt coat every edge. However, it wicks off completely a few seconds later, leaving the blade as pristine as it had come.

What a fucking joke.

He has half a mind to throw the gift back to them, or at least as far away as possible from him. He doesn't understand it and truthfully doesn't want to. It's clearly some kind of sick plan to get one last laugh at his expense. Given the content of Marcsa's note, it sounds like the games aren't going to last too much longer.

He looks up, his forehead wrinkling as he watches one side of the small clearing. For a moment, he can't quite put his finger on what's different, but it doesn't take very long to figure it out. The air is considerably darker on that side. He glances up, but can't see any distinct source of the shadow. On one side it's there, and on the other it's simply not.

Laszlo swallows and drops the knife into the pocket that still contains his makeshift weapon. It's light enough that it hardly makes a difference, but he still has the urge to leave it behind. Truthfully, if Marcsa had sent him this in the first week he would've done just that. Weapons like this, no matter how small it is, are expensive. If she's spending the money there has to be a reason.

He slowly crosses the clearing and examines the dark area more closely. He doesn't remember seeing it last night, and he'd spent hours in this very spot before the sun went down. Laszlo's gaze traces the line that divides the clearing nearly in half. If he didn't know any better, he'd swear it's moving closer.

The moment he looks up, the first crack of thunder makes him jump a solid foot in the air.

What follows is just as familiar, the sound of pouring rain that seems to start in the distance but grows quickly closer. Laszlo scrambles back from the dark line, all but tripping over his own feet in the process. The rain sounds like it's coming from the inside of his skull, that's how loud it is. He presses his hands over his ears, but that doesn't help even a little bit.

After days, maybe weeks, of silence, it takes everything in him not to search for cover.

If the storm's as bad as it sounds, he needs to get out of here. Laszlo looks up and one glance at the treetops tells him it's not safe here. Thunder doesn't come without-

His thought is interrupted as a flash of lightning brightens the clearing. Lazlo hits the ground; it feels far too close for comfort. By the time he stands up, the rain has already reached him. He's soaked through to the bone within seconds and it makes every inch of clothing feel like another weight against his skin.

Laszlo breaks out in a run, hoping that he's correctly remembering which way the darkness was moving. He can't see more than a few meters in front of him and he has to squint to avoid the trees. He slips twice, landing in what could be a stream but is probably just the sopping wet mud. His trapped ankle, the foot now numb underneath, screams at him to slow down but he can't. It doesn't feel like he's getting anywhere, but each flash of lightning frightens him forward.

He knows what this is. He's watched enough years to put the pieces together. Nevermind the fact that Marcsa's note included the number '3'.

The Capitol wants to end it.

He doesn't know where they're trying to bring him, but when he bursts through the treeline no part of him is surprised. Laszlo hits the ground, his chest heaving as he tries to catch his breath. It's still raining here, but it's more of a sprinkle than a downpour. From here, Laszlo can see that the rain outside the treeline hasn't let up even a little bit.

He turns to face the familiar structure, hating it with every bit of energy he has left. Unlike the rest of the arena, which has become fouler with each passing day, the Cornucopia remains untouched. The metal looks unaffected by the humidity, the heat, or even the storm. Just like the white knife in his pocket, every disgusting trace just sloughs right off.

In comparison to the one beyond the trees, this area is so quiet.

Laszlo steps softly towards the structure, the only sound now the distant rainfall. Every so often, there's a crack of thunder or a flash of lightning, but those too feel far away. It's like he's entered another dimension, where the weather is little more than a ghost and maybe neither is he. The ground is still. The Cornucopia doesn't sway with the storm. When his boots touch the ground, he can't even feel them.

He swallows, glancing around at the dirt piles that've been further smoothed by the rain.

Every direction he looks, Laszlo finds another one. The time he spent here feels like it took place in another lifetime. The first day, where he tripped over that girl and was nearly killed just before, feels even further away. He looks back to the platforms, empty as they've probably been for weeks. Even without the pounding rain, the whole area feels as heavy as the wet clothes on his back.

He slowly lowers himself to the ground just inside the Cornucopia. Rain drips steadily over the entrance, the sound lulling Laszlo into a calm that he hasn't felt in days. He knows they'll be here soon, but his weapons sit untouched in his pocket. He doesn't have a grand plan for what's going to happen next. Marcsa is probably pulling out her hair watching him right now, but he's only doing what she said.

I'm ready.

And, for the first time, he believes it.

A cannon fires far away from the Cornucopia, the sound louder than the thunder but not enough to shake him. Drip, drip. Laszlo watches the raindrops splash into a puddle near the entrance. The air outside is thick, grey, heavy like the weight keeping him here. He presses his thumb against one of the yellow-tinged cuts on his hand. He reminds himself that he's supposed to be afraid.

Part of him is, but not the same way he used to be.

Drip.

Another crack of thunder, another flash of lightning that doesn't quite reach the clearing. It feels like the rain's never going to end. Laszlo glances around, remembering how green the arena was on that first day. Now, the only colour he sees is grey.

Fitting.

He sees her as soon as she enters the clearing. At first, he believes that he's imagining the familiar figure. The first time he saw her, the pale blue uniform shirt had been untouched by the arena. She'd stood very close to where he sits now, a machete in one hand and a playful curiosity alive in her eyes. Now, the blue has turned to dark red. There's no part of her that isn't coated in the colour.

He swallows, not moving as the Career girl steps towards the Cornucopia. Her eyes don't latch onto him, in fact he doesn't think she sees him at all. They're the same black as the first day, have the same liveliness despite the torn red and dark yellow they're set against.

The closer she comes, the more he can see, and the more he wishes he couldn't.

The marks… the shreds of uniform that barely cling to her body… he recognizes all of it. Laszlo turns to the graves that surround him, the ones that contain the bodies of four larger tributes that'd bore near-identical wounds. It doesn't take long to fit the pieces together.

Those were her allies. The four bodies inside the Cornucopia were the rest of the Career pack. All of her allies were dead in a matter of minutes.

Laszlo barely turns his head towards them, but the simple movement sends a wave of nausea over him. He expects tears, disgust maybe, but the growing tension eventually falls to… nothing. He remembers the wounds, and can still see the blood that coats the inside of the Cornucopia. If he hated the Careers before, he realizes suddenly that he no longer does.

They suffered enough.

And, just as quickly - they didn't deserve it.

When Laszlo turns back to look out the entrance, he finds the Career girl staring from afar. She's barely made it past the platforms, but her eyes settle solely on him. He should stand. If he wants a chance at anything right now he needs to. However, his muscles don't listen.

He sits there, staring back as the rain slows outside the clearing. She doesn't move and neither does he. The heaviness settles, but it's not the weight of the air that keeps him still. He's not sure what does.

Finally, she breaks the silence. "Who did- how?"

Laszlo doesn't answer. He looks around, seeing what she does now for the first time. She's a Career, and no doubt her alliance used the Cornucopia for days before most of them were killed here. She would've seen the bodies. She would've spent near-half the games stepping around them.

"They're still here," he says stiffly, nodding to the disturbed patches of dirt. Her eyes follow. He can't discern her expression through her wounds, but the confusion narrows her gaze. Eventually, it turns back to him.

"It was you."

There's no question in her tone, so he doesn't answer. Laszlo watches her as she looks around, not standing even when she starts to come closer. He should be afraid, but he isn't. She looks as much like a ghost as he feels - one foot in the surrounding graves and one still holding to the ground outside it. She doesn't look anything like the hunter from the first day.

Even the machete is gone. In its place, clutched loosely on her right side, is a black blade that looks like the shadow of the one in his pocket. Laszlo reaches for it and rests it on one knee. Her eyes are drawn to it immediately.

Two weeks ago, if someone had asked him if Careers had the capacity for sadness he would've said no. Now, he sees proof that they do. She looks at the white blade like it's been plunged through her skin. Her next breath seems to shudder against it.

"A gift?" She asks, punctuating the question with a joyless laugh. Despite still being several meters away, her voice is more gentle than he expects. Her eyes, however, don't leave his knife.

He shrugs. "If you can call it that."

"The ones out there," she asks without pointing. "Did you bury them too?"

He thinks of Dahlia, of Chey and the boy that he found half-dead by the river. He remembers Benca and the boy with the crossbow; the swollen girl. Laszlo nods and a tear slips from his chin. It feels no different than the rain that still runs down his back.

"Why?"

He's not prepared for this question. His lips part, but close again soon after. Truth be told, he doesn't know. He wants to think it started as a favour to Dahlia, to Chey because it's what they would've wanted. He doesn't know why he kept going. He's spent days trying to explain it to himself.

"It's the least they deserve." The voice sounds like his, but without the usual sharp corners. He turns over the words, wondering where they came from. Yet, he knows without question that they're true. None of them deserved this. None of them deserved to be displayed like grotesque decorations. Maybe the Capitol doesn't agree, but he doesn't care.

They can hate him for the rest of his life, odds are it's only going to be a few more minutes anyways.

Her gaze finds him again, then looks past him. "Can I see them?"

Laszlo nods softly and moves slowly to his feet. He leaves the mouth of the Cornucopia and she takes his place, staring inside for several minutes. He doesn't interrupt; he can't bring himself to.

Of course she would care about them; she spent all of training and the beginning of the games with her allies. If the rumours about Careers are true, she probably knew the male from her district long before that. Still, Laszlo never considered that she might actually miss them.

When she turns back, he's not sure what to expect. This has already lasted longer than he thought it would. In every scenario, she walks out of here. In every one, he lays dead at her feet by the end of the hour. She probably knows it as well as he does; that's why he hasn't bothered to end this already.

"Thank you."

He swallows, but his mouth still runs dry long afterward. Laszlo stares for several seconds before nodding. He doesn't know what else to do. He knows she's talking about the graves, but not how to respond.

He wonders, if he knew who they were beforehand, would he have even bothered?

His answer proves that he's not the saint she thinks he is.

"I have to end this," she says softly, turning towards him with something like regret. Laszlo doesn't expect anything different. They can't stay here forever, neither of them can. One has to leave, and the other has to die.

He lets out a slow breath and nods.

Despite the obvious pain of her injuries, she moves quickly. Laszlo tries to step out of the way, but she sees it first. He has to throw himself to the ground to avoid the blade that arcs towards him, and then he's at a clear disadvantage. Laszlo rolls to the left at random. He manages to grab hold of one ankle and bring her down beside him.

The knife misses, but her arm does not. Laszlo's head snaps back as it slams into his chin but his body reacts automatically. He grabs hold of her wrist and wrenches it behind her with a pop. The only reaction she gives is the flash of pain that slips across her eyes.

Her foot comes up hard right to the side of his mouth. Laszlo doesn't even register the pain, but he chokes out a breath as something hits the back of his throat. He pushes her away and retches loudly over the mud. Two slimy teeth land on the ground in front of him inside a mouthful of blood and spit. He doesn't even look up in time to see the blade before he feels it lodge in his throat.

He should count himself lucky. Before now, the worst thing he's felt was the trap snapping around his ankle. Now, the pain makes his vision swim near-instantly.

Laszlo reacts automatically, his fist flying out towards her and landing square in the center of her chest. She gasps and he pushes her again, harder, trying everything to simply get her away from him so he can breathe. As his shove sends her further away, the handle of his blade is torn from his hand completely.

He turns and takes the pause to retch again into the mud. The only thing that escapes is a bit of pink-tinted foam. More blood dribbles from his lips and his remaining teeth feel like they're coated in it. He can't even see straight. Every drop of rain that hits him feels like it's going to be the one to drop him to the ground. The cold metal still lodged in his neck feels like it's made out of ice. He can't breathe.

I can't-

Laszlo's eyes are frantic as he presses his hand to the front of his neck. Don't rip it out. His only instinct is to do exactly that. Don't. It's as if his entire vision has been coated in fog, or maybe this is just what happens when you're dying. He can't see anything. Laszlo drops to his knees, gasping silently. It feels like no air's been able to pass through, but that's impossible. He'd already be-

Boom!

His eyes flutter open and the first thing he sees is the mud pressed against his cheek. There's something else. He opens his eyes again. White catches his attention, but his whole vision is dark again a moment later. Laszlo doesn't know how long it takes for his eyes to open this time. Seconds if he had to guess. He sees her when they do.

Her dark eyes stare blankly in his direction. The white handle of his blade sticks out from the center of her chest.

That's the last thing Laszlo remembers.

o.o.o

Kind.

It feels like he's heard that word a thousand times, yet Laszlo still doesn't know what it means.

He's beginning to wonder if anyone does.

He sits in the furthest corner of the train car as it reaches the edge of the Capitol. Laszlo's hand is still pressed gently to the bottom window, his eyes staring blankly out as trees overtake the tall buildings. The smile he's been told to keep is gone, or maybe it never reached his lips at all. The dull reflection watching him seems to suggest the latter.

("They love you." Laszlo remembers looking out the window of his hospital room. The nurse came in to find him standing lost in the center of the room. He couldn't remember why he'd left his bed that evening. It was agony to stand, his ankle still bandaged with a half-dozen drains sewn between the wounds. Every single one of them was still badly infected.

The pain was better than sleep. It was better than the nothing that came with each dose of morphine. Laszlo couldn't explain that either.

His gaze followed her hands as they undrew the curtains. On the street below his window, several hundred people started cheering though he couldn't hear a word they said. They pointed and waved, their colourful clothes jumping excitedly. She was right, they loved him. They were all waiting for him.)

They were still there the next day.

And the next.

Hundreds of people waited at the train station this morning to see him off. Dozens of Peacekeepers kept them off the platform, but they still smiled gleefully as he was helped up the steps. A third of them carried signs, more than half wore his favourite colours. White flowers were tossed in his direction, sticking to his clothing in a way that made his skin crawl. Laszlo couldn't even hear himself think.

Now, it's all silent again.

He can honestly say that he prefers it this way.

("Momma!" Laszlo glanced up from his walker, his legs still shaking with his weight. It was his first time leaving his hospital room, the first time seeing how far he still had left to go. The pain in his ankle was many times worse than it'd ever felt in the arena. The drains on the underside of his foot made balance almost impossible.

In front of him, a small girl ran past the nurse guiding him. She glanced up, her wide eyes nearly as large as the bow on her bald head. He could see the sickness in the yellow-tones of her skin. Her smile didn't seem to care about that as she wrapped her arms around one of his legs.

"It's Laszlo!" Her accent was just as thick as the staff's. When Marcsa turned the corner to join them, however, her toothy smile melted away near-instantaneously.

"Cacia!" Her mother called as the small girl sprinted back into her arms. The older woman wrapped her daughter in a protective hug, her uncertain gaze locked solely on his mentor. Marcsa looked down at the ground and fell several steps back. That seemed to make both the woman and her daughter feel better and their eyes returned to him.

He didn't know what to do. The nurse shuffled him away with an apology, but Marcsa never said a word.)

"Mind if I sit down?"

Laszlo glances up and nods as his mentor takes the empty seat across from him. This train couldn't be more different than the one that first brought them to the Capitol. In place of the semicircle of rigid benches are two plush rows of seating with a table between them. There's a small kitchen off to one side, two doors that he's been told lead to a bedroom and bathroom respectively. It's like a barely-smaller version of their apartment in the Training Centre.

"You've been busy," she says gently, not meeting his eye but that's almost become normal. They were never close before the arena, and that hasn't changed. Marcsa visited him almost daily for his first week in the hospital. She seemed to come around less and less often after that. "I'm sorry I haven't been by as much."

He nods again. He'd finally been cleared to speak after a series of evaluations by one of the Capitol doctors. Laszlo's yet to do so outside of the exam room.

"You don't have to talk," Marcsa reassures him. "Just listen. Something happened back there, something that none of us have ever experienced. After they saw what you did for those kids, people actually started to care and not just because they thought you could win. They cared because you showed them something that isn't supposed to happen in the Hunger Games - kindness. The Capitol doesn't know what to do with a tribute that's kind."

Laszlo looks away, directing his gaze back out the window where thick trees now block a good chunk of the morning sun. "They don't know what to do with you."

"I'm not kind," he croaks. It doesn't hurt to speak, but Laszlo still hates the sound. It doesn't feel like him anymore; the way the air moves through the gaps where bottom teeth are still missing feels wrong. The doctor said it'll get more comfortable over time, but that he should still be wary of overusing it. The knife that almost killed him in the arena only severed the very upmost part of his vocal cords. He's been told a dozen times that he was lucky it landed where it did.

Lucky, kind - neither are words Laszlo would use to describe himself these days.

"You don't have to believe it," Marcsa replies gently. "You just have to let them believe it."

Tears build again and he clenches his jaw in an attempt to stop them. Every time he hears that word he wants to tear it apart. No part of him thinks back on the arena and considers the person inside to be kind. He left Chey behind. He didn't defend Dahlia when she needed him. He killed people - he beat a barely-teenage boy to death with his boots. There's nothing kind about someone capable of that.

There's nothing kind about Laszlo Richter.

"Why?"

"Do you remember the knife you were sent, Laszlo?" She asks and he nods stiffly. It's in every nightmare he's had since arriving back in the Capitol. Every single thing he sees that colour - from the hospital walls to the containers of bleach the staff cleaned them with - reminds him of it.

"I didn't send it," she admits. His eyes raise to meet hers, confused and more than a little bit apprehensive. She's his mentor, anything that he received had to have come from her. "Or at least I didn't send that one. You garnered more sponsor support than any other tribute in past years. I could've sent you any weapon you wanted, and while it's true I chose a knife it wasn't white. There were no options to send you anything besides the weapon set the Gamemakers had selected in advance."

I don't understand. He's about to say so when Marcsa puts a hand up to stop him. "Remember what the doctor said." He nods and she continues. "Someone from the Capitol-side chose that one instead. The District 1 girl - Mahja - someone chose to change her mentor's gift as well. White and black; good and evil; beautiful and rotten."

Someone set us up. Laszlo furrows his brow; he still doesn't understand what this all means.

"Everything that represents the Capitol is clean, spotless. Look at the canisters that your gifts came in. The Gamemakers, or maybe someone beyond them, saw how the public was reacting to you. Beautiful isn't a word anyone in the Capitol would use for us tributes. They wanted to lean in to what the public saw; that you weren't just a tribute, but someone better."

"Them," he rasps.

Marcsa nods. "The white knife was a representation of them. If Mahja had killed you, she would've been killing someone that the Capitol - rightfully or not - saw themselves in." She pauses, this time looking away herself. Laszlo can still see the ache in her eyes. "They would've hated her."

They sit in silence for a moment as her words sink in. Laszlo thinks back to when they arrived in the Capitol. There'd been crowds, but none cheered for his mentors. They stared with something like morbid intrigue; the same thing sparkled in his stylists' eyes. There's not a moment Laszlo can remember before the hospital curtains were opened when anyone actually seemed excited to see him.

"The Victors," she starts again, but her voice trails off quickly. Marcsa swallows and her eyes refuse to meet his. "The Victors are meant to be hated. Sometimes they can be admired, maybe even respected, but they're not meant to be loved."

He understands what she's saying almost immediately.

The Gamemakers had wanted him to lose. Laszlo doesn't know what to think about the fact that they got exactly the opposite. It explains his interactions with the staff in the hospital. They'd never seemed to be afraid of him, but gave Marcsa a wide berth. If what she's saying is correct, they would've done the same to Mahja if she'd won. Perhaps even worse.

The Capitol loves him, and that's not what the people in power want. From the sounds of it, that's never been a quality they've looked for in a Victor.

For the first time since waking up weeks ago, Laszlo feels a fearful chill run down his spine.

"I spoke with many head officials while you were still in the hospital," Marcsa tells him. "They want to bring you back to the Capitol in a few weeks when your voice has had more time to heal. They've set up interviews, galas, tours of places you've probably never heard of. After that, they want to send you to the districts-"

Laszlo shakes his head quickly, then again. He doesn't hear anything else she says because it doesn't make sense. If he wasn't meant to win, then why does he have to come back? Why do they want to parade him around if he's nowhere close to their first choice? He doesn't understand.

"I know," Marcsa says. "You want to forget, but you can't, Laszlo. The safest thing for you to do is everything they say. The public loves you, no one can do anything to you without sparking their outrage. Do you remember what you told me before the games? Why you thought you ended up here? All you have to do is keep them on your side because the moment they forget about you-"

She doesn't have to keep going. Laszlo is more than capable of reading between the lines.

"I'm not-" Laszlo starts, his voice cracking so hard it almost hurts. "Kind. They're - wrong."

"I thought you didn't care what people thought. You certainly never cared what I thought."

He shakes his head. He doesn't care what they think, but they're still wrong. He's not kind; the Kind Victor like the broadcasts call him. When Laszlo thinks back to what happened in the arena, none of it was done because he was trying to be kind. He buried Dahlia and Chey because it was the least of what they deserved. He kept going because… he doesn't know why he kept going. Part of it was to prove that the Capitol can't just do anything it wants with them. The rest? Laszlo's still trying to figure that part out for himself.

It wasn't because he was kind. That much he knows.

The rest of his actions prove it.

"There are worse things to be called," she says gently. "You might not agree, but 'kind' isn't so bad. Trust me."

Laszlo doesn't respond and she doesn't press him to. He leans back into the plush bench, lets his cheek rest against the window. Marcsa's right about two things. She's right that he doesn't agree, and that he likely never will. Their evidence doesn't sway him, he lived it. The second thing that she's right about is that he has to play the game. They haven't killed him yet. They're letting him go back home and he has to believe that he'll be safe there too if he goes along with this.

After everything that's happened, the district won't be able to punish him. He's won, and with that brought a year of increased rations and rewards for District 6. The only thing they have to do is keep him safe.

When he thinks about it like that, they're as trapped in this game as he is.

They might have more cards to play, more things to exploit, but Laszlo's ace trumps them all. He's worth more to them alive than dead now. He just has to be careful.

And not just for himself either.

Hours later, Laszlo swallows as he steps out onto the train platform. It's late in the evening, far past when most of the rail workers would've gone home. He half-expects a crowd like the one in the Capitol, but thankfully there isn't one. All he finds is a spattering of night workers and two Peacekeepers waiting just a few feet away.

He sighs and walks towards them. He doesn't have any bags to carry, nor any idea where they're going to take him. Marcsa is just a few steps behind him, but he still feels so vulnerable. It's like his body doesn't remember this place even while his mind whispers that he should.

So much has changed.

Laszlo's not talking about the train station.

The last time he was here, in his mind at least, he'd been heading to the graveyard. There'd been anger, more than Laszlo can even begin to describe, and grief that he hadn't known what to do with. Now, there's a sense of longing that aches from the pit of his stomach. Part of him wishes he was the same person that boarded the train all those weeks ago.

As Laszlo stands here now, he realizes that almost every core piece of that person is gone.

Marcsa touches his shoulder and he turns in that direction. His throat goes dry as he watches a single figure step slowly closer. Laszlo swallows, but the dry lump doesn't dissipate. He takes a few steps towards him, unsure which of them is expected to speak first. Laszlo didn't think he would come; yet, the moment he stepped off the train his eyes had still automatically searched for him.

"Laszlo." His father stops a couple meters away, both hands stiff at his sides. His gaze locks with Laszlo's and then drops again before returning. After a moment, he brings one hand up in offering; between his fingers is the thin stem of a single dahlia. It's not white like the petals thrown at him in the Capitol. They're the brightest, boldest red he's ever seen. "I know.. I know what you said, but I-"

Laszlo interrupts him as he closes the distance between them, wrapping his dad in a hug that immediately warms him. His dad drapes his arms around him, one hand coming up to cup Laszlo's cheek against his shoulder. He feels the slight tremble as his breaths give to relieved whimpers. Laszlo's own follow close behind.

"I'm sorry- I-" This time it's his turn to stutter, but he feels his dad shake his head. The hug tightens.

"You came home," he whispers, his breath close enough that only Laszlo can hear the words. "There's nothing to be sorry for."

His tears fall faster, relief flooding out every other emotion until it's all that's left. Marcsa's warnings from the train melt away. The pressure of a hundred weights on his shoulders falls to the ground. Here, in his dad's arms, he's just a kid again.

And, until he opens his eyes again, nothing has to change.

For Professor R.J. Lupin1, Laszlo's parent and creator, and the SYOT Verses Victor Exchange 2023