The Music of Living

by AuroraMiri25

"Let life be like music, and death a note unsaid." In the early-morning glow, young Yomi Nishikaze stands over two graves, smiling sadly as they recollect everything she's seen and done. (For the 2023 Victor Exchange.)

This is a story about death. But it's also full of life.

It's beautiful, and it's ugly. It's dreamlike and it's nightmarish. Tinged with joy and laced with sadness. Really, it's just one big balancing act. Or at least, that's the hope.

Oh. And it's also mine. But you already knew that.

I struggle with a beginning. Somewhere to start. Because despite this story hinging on life and death, it's also uncertain and strange. Just like I was when it all began. Just like I still am, sometimes.

If I'm honest, I don't think I'm even supposed to be telling this story. The Capitol keeps it under wraps, as they do many things. And as you probably guessed, it will be difficult for me to relive it all.

But someone has to hear it. And I have to tell it. Because stories matter, just like life. Just like death.

And if there's one thing you should know about me, it's that I'm full of surprises. I enjoy the unconventional. So though telling my story in this manner might seem uncouth to some, that won't stop me from doing it.

Let's begin in a graveyard. Early morning summertime gilds the place in an otherworldly light. There's a dark-haired teenager bent over her parents' graves. They release a wistful breath and brush a loving hand over the headstones. The sun is just rising, and the young person smiles.

Don't be alarmed. The graveyard was one of my most frequent haunts, and I watched over it with impossible care. I was not smiling because I took the situation lightly—I was smiling because I remembered a time when life and death went hand-in-hand. When they were beautiful blessings.

Oh yes. That odd eighteen-year-old soul, standing alone in the graveyard and smiling sadly, was me. Yomi Nishikaze, she/they. I like poetry and I think about death more than the average person, and I smile a lot. I hope you're ready to know everything about me. We'll be here awhile.

But now I'm stalling. Let's rewind to my eighteenth year, in the early morning, when my birthday was just over the horizon. I was on the precipice of change, and not the kind I was hoping for. We know that now. But she doesn't.

The graves were all in perfect order. Flowers wreathed their faces, arranged lovingly by the ones left behind. Many of the mementos were from me—in some cases, I was the only one who remembered these people, despite the fact that they lived not so long ago. I took a moment to breathe it all in. To recite the names and summon the faces of the dead in my mind.

They could finally be at peace. A balance, hopefully restored. I brushed cobwebs and dust from the neglected grave of Felina Yarrow, one of the brave souls who fought against the Capitol's control in the Dark Days. One of the many whose life was taken long before it was meant to.

I passed Felina's grave and bent over those of my parents, side by side and laid to rest. But instead of the peaceful satisfaction I usually felt, there was a terrible twinge inside me. Aesha and Katori Nishikaze weren't supposed to be here. They were the very people who taught me all I knew, who showed me that death is a blessing to those whose time has come. But now, looking at their graves and remembering their funeral—the very first one I led by myself—I couldn't understand it. If things happened the way they were supposed to, and life and death hung in equilibrium, then why would such brilliant souls be taken away?

I swallowed the pain, because I knew that there were so many before me who'd felt this grief tenfold. I should be helping them, and living out my parents' legacy, instead of lamenting what had already transpired. I wanted to make a difference, more than anything else in the world. So why was I here, staring wistfully at my parents' memorials and longing for the warmth of their voices? Why was I wishing they were here to tell me that everything would be okay, and that they were proud of me?

Grief was a natural part of the cycle, even for me. I knew that. And yet I still felt as though I should be above that. My very calling in life was to ease the heavy hearts of others in the time of death, and to put their lost loved ones to rest. Here I was filling up the hours with my futile sorrow.

And yet, if my parents were here, I knew they'd only hug me and tell me it was okay to be sad. So I allowed myself one more moment to press my hands to my heart and the empty space that lay therein. Then I sprang to my feet, drawing on my endless reserves of energy. It was time to begin a new day. My birthday gleamed on the horizon like the promise of a sunrise, and I longed for its arrival. I was so close! Soon I'd be old enough to carry the funeral home on my own shoulders. The Nishikaze bloodline would not die with my parents... I would keep the embers burning.

I glanced back at the graveyard. Others expected death to be sullen and forlorn, morbid and terrifying. But this graveyard was an echo of all the vibrant lives these souls had once led. It was lovely.

I stepped out into the streets of Eleven and caught sight of Moises outside the funeral home, waiting for me. "Hello!" I chirped. "How has your morning been?"

He looked up at me with great delay, like lifting his head was the most difficult thing he could possibly imagine. And there, painted on his face with impressive permanence, was his oh-so-familiar scowl. I returned it with a grin, still vainly hoping to soften the edges of his sharpness. Perhaps there would be a day when I'd impress him, when he'd see the importance of this work and my ability to do it well...

But that day was certainly not today. He gave me only a terse nod in response, as if he hadn't been the one waiting for me. He proceeded to heave a great sigh and look at me like I was his greatest trial in life.

I grinned on, in spite of his eternal grumpiness. Soon, I wouldn't have to face that glower. I'd turn nineteen and he wouldn't be my legal guardian anymore. But for now, I just had to bear it.

But oh, what a terrible substitute for my parents he was. Yet I still tried to impress him, hoping that someday he would smile at me. Though if he did ever crack a smile, I think it'd sent him into shock. Such an emotion would be a drastic change, one he might not be able to handle.

"Was there... something you needed?" I said amiably. "Is there any new business to take care of?"

He huffed a long-suffering breath. "You'd know better than I. You're the one running this funeral home."

And what a sudden change that'd been. One moment, my parents were lovingly guiding me through every funeral; and the next, I was left completely on my own, with a man totally unwilling to teach me. But he was... wise. And at least he was letting me run the funerals now—in all else but name—instead of pushing me away. So all in all, it was quite a bearable situation. I certainly wasn't counting the days until I wasn't a minor anymore so I could finally have all the say at the funeral home and be rid of him... even though I was a much better director than he. That would be inconsiderate. Disrespectful toward his years of training and knowledge.

"Goodbye, sir!" I said quickly, realizing I wasn't going to get anything else out of him.

He simply harrumphed. I smiled to myself. Typical Moises on a typical day. But I knew—I just knew—that hope was in my future. Soon, the summer would be over, and I'd be free. Good things were coming.

(Ah, I'm sure you know how wrong I was. There would be beautiful moments, without a doubt, and those aforementioned "good things." But before that... well. Let's just allow the story to unfold, and let young Nomi enjoy their short-lived optimism. She'll need it.)

Despite its purpose—flourishing abundance and agriculture—Eleven was far from beautiful. It hung heavy with tired workers, the stifling heat, and the palpable dread for the coming harvest and the Capitol's constant demand for more. Perhaps it had once been a utopia—my parents were alive to see it, and they told me as much. But now we were beneath the Capitol's terrible regime—constant work, sickness and starvation, and always the fear of retribution. I hated the Capitol for taking all the light away, for killing the rebels who fought for Eleven's prosperity. Theirs was a terrible unbalancing—they wielded death as if they were in control of it, turning it into a horrible profanity instead of a natural end.

Beyond the sun-bleached fields and the harrowing labor, there was also the fact that the time had come again. The season when the Capitol came to take children away—the way they'd been doing for the past eleven years. Nobody knew exactly what happened, but I was aware of it more than others, because I buried the bodies that were sent home. Children, killed, for no reason at all. Always the children.

I shivered and warded away that thought by smiling at citizens as they roused for work. Their heads were heavy and their shoulders hunched. I'd always hoped that somehow, my easy smile and jaunty walk would pull them from their despondence—or at least inspire them to do the same. But Panem knew I couldn't predict anything—my parents' deaths were evidence of that. Instead of cheering them up, my presence only seemed to confuse everyone else. For some reason, they couldn't understand why a person so touched by death could be so joyful.

They didn't realize that life and death were linked, and that both were a blessing.

As I passed neighbors and friends, many of whom had visited the funeral home over the years, I watched them hastily turn away from me and begin whispering amongst themselves. I didn't need to catch their words to know what they were saying.

Everyone's always called me cursed. Strange. Unnatural. Some even whispered that I brought my parents' deaths.

I knew I shouldn't care. And I didn't hate them for what they said, because they didn't know any better. But the words stung anyway.

They thought I was some kind of witch, tainted by ghosts, bringing death to everyone around her. Well, I could be their witch. I could show them ghosts.

The very idea that they thought I'd have that kind of power was amusing to me. I smiled to myself as I imagined myself as a grim, silent shadow. My best friend knew that I both talked and smiled far too much. But, despite all of their exposure to me, the town still didn't.

I pulled a handful of pomegranate seeds from my pocket—yes, I kept random things in my pockets for these specific occasions. I clutched them tight and plotted as I made my way through the neat rows of small houses that made up Eleven. I stopped at a windowsill, that of Kallias Winslow, a common believer that I could summon ghosts and that I would bring about Eleven's demise. He just so happened to have an aunt who died in the war fighting for Eleven, one Pepper Shale. I neatly arranged the seeds on his windowsill and wrote in big, loopy letters on the pane: FROM YOUR AUNT PEPPER, WITH LOVE.

I tapped on the window and then ran away, trying to smother my grin. They called me strange and eccentric... Well, they weren't wrong. Sometimes I couldn't resist poking a little fun at their superstitions, as long as it was harmless fun. Luckily, that was my specialty—when I wasn't working, at least.

Sadly, nobody seemed to appreciate my antics. I did have Cassian, but besides that I was a lonely soul, as much as I hated to acknowledge it. But I could live with that—if nobody wanted to take me as myself, then they weren't worth my time anyway.

Still... It would be nice to have someone who shared my joy as I wandered the streets of Eleven like the ghosts I so often imitated.

There were a few moments in that morning sun, with the lightness of my laughter buoying me up, that the future seemed aglow with hope. But then I heard a distant clattering and clopping, incongruous in the usual lethargic quiet of Eleven. I turned my head, echoing the movements of other workers and children on the street.

A carriage was approaching from the outskirts of town. I could just see its outline in the glare of the sun, but I recognized the Capitol's colors immediately. Nobody else in Eleven would've had a carriage, let alone one so embellished. A sick feeling assailed me, and I resisted the urge to turn away just as so many other villagers were. But no—I couldn't hide from the Capitol. Besides, I might need to support someone, provide a semblance of comfort, if they were here for what I suspected. This has been happening for years now. Sometimes they were more discrete, coming in the dead of night when the children huddled beneath their covers. Now they paraded through the district in broad daylight, as if no longer caring whether we saw them or not.

(Later, these Games would be an entirely public affair. But right here, right now, they are a subtler threat, like a knife in the dark. Nobody sees their duration. They only glimpse snatches of the beginning and the end, the things the Capitol wants them to see. Their children, taken away, and returned with ghosts in their eyes, or still and dead, with varying degrees of care for the bodies. Nobody knew what was happening at the time—but even then, I think I knew what was coming. And I refused to turn away from the Capitol's threats.)

I sucked in a breath, remembering Cassian's haunted eyes. My best friend had lost someone in this secret Capitol affair that left children dead in its wake. He never got to say goodbye, never understood why someone he cared for could be taken away so quickly.

Our grief mirrored each other, in that way. Maybe that's why we became friends—something in both of us called out to the other. We were both marked by death—twins, of a sort. Oh, and we liked poetry.

I searched for him now in the ducked heads of the crowd, but picking out his figure was near impossible. In that moment, a kind of grim helplessness fell over me, knowing that the Capitol would take more of us away, two-by-two, like some kind of tithe. Death was not a debt to be repaid. It should not be controlled by the Capitol as if they had the authority over such a thing.

A man stepped out of the carriage, which had now positioned itself roughly in the center of town. His face was hollow of any emotion. Having spent so much time at funerals, I'd grown accustomed to the colors and shades of grief, anger, anxiety, and numbness. This man bore the last emotion—as if any scrap of feeling had been sucked from him after many years of Capitol employment.

Working such a terrible career had to do that to you. Of course, some would say that about being a funeral home director, and here I was happy as a lark, so maybe this puppet of a person had no excuse.

He stood tall and raised a hand for silence, though he needn't have bothered. The streets fell into a corpse-like stillness, only somehow even more grave.

"I'm looking for Yomi Nishikaze and Roe Solano. If they do not offer themselves up to be taken within the next fifteen minutes, I will be forced to take greater measures." He spoke as if he'd forgotten how to use proper intonation, the opposite of poetry. And his face was as blank as marble, strangely serene for such—

My thoughts stalled. He'd said my name. Yomi Nishikaze.

Everyone always whispered at my being cursed. And for one fleeting moment of horror, I wondered if they were right.

But no, no... I couldn't jump to conclusions yet. Even if I practically knew the Games' "mysterious" nature by now, I couldn't resign myself to an untimely end just yet. Because surely it wasn't my time to go. The world wouldn't take me before it was ready, it wouldn't upset the balance like that...

But that was exactly what had happened with my parents. Despite all reasoning, the world had been robbed of their brilliant smiles. They'd been taken from me.

I reminded myself to stand just a bit taller. Square my shoulders and school my face into something neutral. Easy.

I was a person carved of the strongest steel. The Capitol would not see my turmoil.

I crossed to the carriage, my feet gliding over the ground as if I were in some dreamlike state. Words were passing over my head but I didn't catch them. The world seemed to slip away from me like oil... until I was in front of the doors. As I walked, I let the horrified, angry thoughts slip through the cracks in my composure.

Climbing the steps—I hated the Capitol—with my head held high—for the way they carelessly tossed away lives like they were nothing—I entered the carriage. It was chill inside, as if the Capitol's cruelty had worn off on the interior.

This couldn't be happening. Not when I was so close to escaping Moises and his peevishness. Not when I was just beginning to accept the balance and beauty of life and death. Here, I would die. I wouldn't be able to handle whatever the Games entailed, if it meant twenty-three other lives being taken.

"Hello."

I jerked upright, having begun to curl in on myself like a child despite all efforts at coolness.

That was what I was. Just a child still...

"Yomi, right?" My eyes finally took in what was before them. A boy, younger than me—maybe fifteen. His too-long blonde hair tumbled into his eyes, which were the vivid green of Springtime. He held out a small, trembling hand. "I'm Roe. Roe Solano?"

Suddenly, everything else had faded away, and it was just me in front of this boy who looked so afraid. His soft voice reminded me of Cassian. I... was he even here? I'd left him behind.

I'd left the funeral home behind. Who would run it in my stead? Who'd ensure that the dead were well cared-for, well-remembered?

Who would ensure that I was remembered?

I shook myself from my stupor and squeezed Roe's hand. "Hi," I said, with as much liveliness as I could muster. "That's me, Yomi Nishikaze! I don't think we've met."

"No." He smiled just a little, and I noticed the splash of freckles across his nose and the roundness of his cheeks. He looked so young. "But I know who you are."

(I can still see his face so clearly. Those freckles and dimples, his hair that he was always pushing away from his eyes. And in those last moments, the way he'd looked at me... dazed and unfocused... yes, he certainly was young, and undeserving of the things he'd see and experience. But perhaps I shouldn't tell you that.)

I laughed. "I'm sure you do." I pictured his parents warning him away from the terrifying graveyard and its death curses. Telling stories of a girl who dressed in black and ushered in darkness.

But, to my surprise, he looked serious. "Actually, I-"

The carriage jolted, and suddenly we were moving. The roads of Eleven were nonexistent at worst, shoddy at best, and a plume of dust and rocks rose behind us like they were waving goodbye. My eyes fastened to the window as we passed through the town, toward the outskirts where the funeral home was. The home that was going to be mine, that I hoped would still hold my parents' echoes... the one I had so much hope for.

I saw a figure running behind the carriage, growing ever-closer, and it took me only a few seconds to make out the features of Cassian's face. He was yelling something, probably my name. I pressed my face against the window and his eyes finally met mine.

His usually calm demeanor had turned desperate. I managed a smile, for him. Typical me—smiling in the grimmest of times.

He'd caught up to the carriage and there were tears in his eyes. I touched the window and his palm reached to press against the glass...

But the carriage left him behind, pulling me away. The last I saw of him was his look of utter defeat as he stopped in the middle of the street. There was a book clutched to his chest—he always carried one with him. Now he clung to it for dear life.

My breath hitched. But I managed to get control of myself, just as I had at many funerals. Those people deserved to be celebrated and respected... and for some reason, I felt a similar need to keep calm for this boy I didn't even know. I didn't want him to see me cry.

We passed the funeral home. I stared at it, imagining my mother working in the graveyards, my father poring over a ledger. But instead, I saw Moises, who'd finally found another expression besides that of utter, brooding apathy.

Now he stared after the carriage with a kind of stunned unreality. As if he'd just seen a ghost.

I turned my attention to the boy again, desperate for something else to focus on, and realized he had no family trailing after him, no friends calling his name. At least I had someone, even if I sometimes longed for more. But Roe looked so alone, cradling a bundle of fresh wildflowers against his heart.

He glanced up at me and smiled. It seemed he didn't have many words, but his smile spoke volumes. His eyes sparkled, just a little, despite the fact that we'd just stolen what might be the last glance of our city. Though his lip quivered, he was still wearing a brave face.

He reminded me of myself, in that way.

The carriage stopped abruptly, and me and Roe both jerked a little. The doors opened, spilling in the light of an early-morning sun. I stared out at the world, starkly peaceful against the harsh outline of the carriage.

Roe looked at me. "Are we supposed to get out?"

We'd reached the outskirts of Eleven, far away from prying eyes. I bunched my hands in my skirt and pondered whether I could run. But then I realized I'd be leaving Roe behind, or else consigning him to punishment if we got caught.

Everyone deserves a chance to truly live before the gentle release of death welcomes them home...

And yet I worried there'd be no sweet gentleness about what awaited us. I couldn't control what was happening and I didn't know what to do and suddenly it felt as if my life was spinning away from me, and all I wanted was to catch one last glimpse...

But then the men were coming to pull us out by our arms and I wondered what the purpose of all this was. Why all this futility, when there was so much for me at home? When I died, I wanted it to mean something. I dreamed of changing lives for the better and leaving something behind, like the afterglow of sunlight. So as we were dragged from our first prison to enter our second, I met Roe's eyes and I smiled, infusing as much merriment and reassurance into that single glance as I could.

His eyes found mine, and something in the crease of his brows eased, just a little.

"What are we doing?" I said, raising my voice above the nervous clopping of the horses' feet.

"The train will come to fetch you, and then you'll be out of our hands." It was the same official from earlier, with his lifeless eyes.

I wanted to ask what the point of this stupid carriage was if there was a train coming for us, but something about standing up to him worried me. If he punished me, he'd probably turn on Roe soon after. I'd never wanted to be angry at someone more than I did in that moment—it was a foreign, uncomfortable feeling for me, like finding slippery ground where solid footing should be.

He must have seen the spark in my eyes. "We don't have a hundred trains to spare at all times," he said, and in his voice there was finally some sign of emotion—irritation. It made me want to smile, just a little. "We didn't want to bring the train all the way to the district." I suspected it had more to do with the fanfare of a carriage and its dramatic entrance, but I didn't voice that thought.

As if he'd summoned it by speaking, I saw the train's sleek silhouette and felt its ominous rumble. Despite myself, I watched with rapt fascination as it emerged from the trees, a harbinger of chaos in what could've been a peaceful world.

It was too bright, too big, too fast. The fact that a creature so large could move at such speeds was unnatural, and that both terrified and amazed me. I waited for a puff of smoke or a barrage of sound... but the train moved silent and swift, not even showing any signs of humanity. A terrible, well-oiled machine.

I looked down at Roe. His eyes were round as pennies and his fingers held those wildflowers, now wilting, in a deathgrip. I put a gentle hand on his shoulder. "It can't hurt you," I whispered.

He looked up at me and I saw something in his eyes, along with the fear. A kind of calmness, slowly transforming his face into a peaceful mask. He had the uncanny ability to conceal his emotions at any given moment, though I saw that his hands betrayed him.

The train stopped before us, seeming to blot out everything else in the world. We were herded to the steps, and I had the sudden urge to reach for Roe. There was grief inside of him, and I felt an echo of it in my chest. That was one thing I knew how to deal with.

"Need a hand?" I said. He adjusted his bouquet and linked his fingers through mine, and together we mounted the train steps.

My entire being rebelled against leaving the world behind. It enticed me, that big wide open space. There was so much left for me to do, to see. So many stories yet to be told. So much life in those verdant fields and sun-streaked skies.

I turned away from it. Because I had no choice. Because that most basic human function, to live, was taken away from me. From all of us.

All of these stolen children had lives unfinished, stories untold. And I wanted so badly to know them, to remember them.

I searched for life not through the windowpanes, as I so badly wanted to, but in Roe. For as long as we could, we would live. I refused to die before my life had been fulfilled, before I'd found something outside of the Capitol's terms.

But then... that would mean I lived while others died. At what cost would I find these last stolen moments of my life?

And here I was, being morbid again. Resigning myself to death, when we weren't in the Capitol yet. I'd have a few hours at least, unless the train flew off the rails or the food was poisoned... but no matter the time I had left before it was tainted by the threat of corrupted, unbridled death, I would make it count. I would live a hundred years in the span of seconds.

But that wasn't a life, not really. It was a glimpse. Still, I wanted that last taste of life so badly... I refused to let the Capitol take it from me.

We were led into a ridiculously plush room where there were long tables... and upon those tables was a feast. I could feed three funerals' worth of people with this much food and still have some to spare. There was just so much, and in that moment I realized we were the only guests. Just me and Roe in this large train with the world racing away from me beyond the windows, and suddenly it became very hard to breathe.

I sank into a chair and Roe sat beside me. We stared wordlessly at the display of excess. I saw dishes I couldn't even name—strawberries and candied nuts and spinach in a salad, the rich warm broth of a soup... but I couldn't ponder long on the food. It made me a little sick to think of all those in Eleven who'd died of starvation, but here was this array of dishes just for us.

I didn't deserve to eat this. I couldn't bring myself to take a single bite.

I glanced over to see Roe still transfixed. "I've never seen this much food in one place," he said, and he sounded a little disbelieving. Like the Capitol was making some kind of joke. Like none of this could be real.

And I knew he was right. None of this would last. The Capitol was fattening us like animals for the slaughter.

"I like your flowers," I said, my voice tentative. I knew the subject change was abrupt, but the only way I'd learned to cope was through talking and laughing and filling the world with as much light as possible.

Roe cracked the corner of a smile. (I still had yet to see the dimples. But I'd earn them in time.) "I know they'll die soon. But I thought they were pretty."

Nausea rose inside me. The flowers weren't the only ones fated for death. The difference was that theirs was natural and ours was untimely.

"How do you know me?" I said, hating that every topic of conversation made me want to curl up and give myself up to the Capitol's whims. "I mean—you said..."

"Oh." His eyes lit up. "You're the one who owns the funeral home, right?"

I nodded. "Funeral home director-in-training, at your service!"

"The graveyard is really pretty," he said shyly.

Of all the things he could say, I hadn't foreseen a compliment. It was surprisingly sweet. "Thanks," I said. "I figure the dead deserve to be someplace beautiful."

He hummed in agreement, and his eyes were suddenly wistful and very far away.

I didn't understand that look. There were so many things I didn't understand about the world, and now I might never get the chance to—

I shook myself. My thoughts were never this gloomy. Besides, it wouldn't be fair to my companion if I didn't hold up my end of the conversation.

"You should eat," I said gently, since his eyes were still fixed on the food like it was a very tempting mirage.

He blinked quickly. "Oh no, I—I couldn't..."

"Aren't you hungry?" My tone was still careful, gentle. But now it harbored just a bit of the light teasing I was used to.

"I—well, yeah..." Now he was smiling too, just a little. I saw the brief flash of his walls going down, a window being opened inside him. I wanted to see beyond that barrier.

I wasn't quite sure why. Maybe it was just in my nature to be as obnoxiously friendly as possible. But also... well. This might be my last chance for a friend. And as much as I couldn't bear the thought of having to let go of that friendship, I also flinched away from the familiar chill of loneliness.

"It won't bite," I said. "Or at least... I hope not. That fish-thing looks a little questionable." I pointed to a few slimy creatures, still in their shells, floating in some kind of oil.

This made him smile for real. Dimples and all. "Now I really don't want to eat," he said. "The Capitol eats the weirdest stuff."

"I couldn't agree more. But there's, like, fruit and nuts if you want that instead. Semi-normal things, at least."

"It wouldn't be polite," he said. "You're not eating."

I heaved a sigh. "Oh, is that what's bothering you? I'll eat something then, as long as you promise to eat, too." In truth, he looked half-starved; his frame was just a little too thin, and the way he looked at the food suggested he actually needed it. I'd been well-fed all my life—I couldn't understand this kind of hunger.

He watched me for a moment, as if hunting for some kind of deception. But then he smiled again, with that easy sparkle in his eyes. "Deal."

For a minute, I felt almost all right again. Seeing Roe happy inexplicably lifted my spirits as well. I didn't want his smile to go away.

We sat in silence for a while as he ate—still a little tentatively—before he looked up at me. "That boy and old man... were they your family?"

I laughed, though there was a trace of sadness in it. "Them? No. My parents died years ago."

His face fell. "Oh."

No apology, I noticed. I liked him more immediately—it wasn't anyone's responsibility to apologize for death. Well, maybe it was the Capitol's. But I knew that was wishful thinking, that they'd ever feel remorse.

"I'm surprised you didn't know, actually," I said. "People gossip about me all the time."

His eyes widened. "I... I mostly spend time in the orphanage. But I guess I do hear about you."

"So you know the rumors," I said lightly. "About me being able to speak with ghosts and summon the dead. About how my graveyard is cursed."

He watched me, pondering, for a moment. Then he shook his head. "I don't believe that."

"But I'm strange," I insisted. I didn't mind that fact, but there was something in me that didn't believe he could be kind, after the way most people treated me. I wanted to make sure he had the full picture before accepting his friendship.

He laughed, just a soft exhalation of breath, but it made me feel perfectly at ease. "So am I. We have to stick together ÷times, us weirdos."

I stared at him, surprisingly touched. Those words themselves weren't too extraordinary, but... well, people had always treated me strangely at home, as if my 'death curse' could wear off on them if they dared say so much as a kind word to me. Few had looked at me with such candid understanding before—as if I was not only someone who could hold their burdens and truths, but also someone worth listening to.

I beamed at Roe. "I like you, fellow weirdo." I made sure to imbue this last part with as much endearment and lightness as I could muster—I didn't want him to misinterpret it.

But he only nodded. "And I like you, future funeral home director. Now hold up your side of the bargain." He gestured, ever-so-gently, toward the enormous heap of food still weighing down the tables.

His voice was soft, and as I looked at him, I could believe that he cared about me—that he genuinely wanted me to be comfortable. It was an odd feeling, after bearing the funeral home's weight alone for so long. But I welcomed it with open arms.

Our train arrived silently. I'm not sure what I imagined—perhaps some kind of welcoming parade? An orientation? But it was foolish of me to expect anything from the Capitol. The servants chaperoned us wordlessly, herding us through the train doors—even they slid open without a sound.

The world shouldn't be this quiet. I wanted to fill the space with sound, something other than the clipping of our shoes as we descended the steps. It reminded me of the moment after my parents died and their hands went limp in mine. I'd stared up at the ceiling and the world had fallen away beneath me. My breath was stolen by the thickening air, the coldness of my mother and father's skin. I thought perhaps the world should have cried out at their leaving. Later, I'd filled the room with my muted sobs, but in that paralyzing moment between unreality and grief, all the sound and color in the world had been stolen.

Silly, that I should expect any kind of mourning at my sentence to the Capitol, any sort of welcoming call or sound of outrage from the world itself. Perhaps nobody minded that I was gone.

But no. I would be honored properly at my inevitable death... wouldn't I? Was that thought out of place? Was I selfish to expect something in return for the hundreds of souls I'd seen to their peaceful ends—happy as I was to do it without reward?

It was my greatest fear: to be forgotten, unloved. If someone could remember me from this side as I experienced the blessing of death, that would make all of this worth it.

I looked at Roe. He'd been watching me with those soulful green eyes, not pitying or suspicious but with a surprising mildness. He was thin and pale and meek—if life was in order, he'd live a fulfilling life and have the chance to follow whatever he dreamed. It was his birth-given right.

But here, among these silent walls and hungry wolves, he wouldn't stand a chance.

I linked my arm through his. "Let's go see what's in store!" I tried to make my voice light, even cheery. But I couldn't possibly lie to him. It went against everything inside me to disguise my fear. So I let my voice tremble a little, allowed my knees to weaken. And then I straightened and descended the last few steps of the train.

I was immediately overwhelmed by the new world around me. City lights bathed the streets in a garish, artificial hue. Instead of the familiar scent of oak-wood paneling and new-turned earth, I inhaled the smell of new paint and an iron tang I couldn't place. It was all too gaudy, too manicured. A building towered before us, one tucked away in a back corner of the city. It looked like something from an old photograph, with its domed ceiling and monochrome walls.

The train streaked away without preamble, and the servants ushered us through sliding doors and onto waxy, colorful tiles.

The building felt cavernous. The ceilings vaulted and the empty space from wall to wall stretched farther than it should have. I stepped back, dwarfed by the immensity of it all—and also the emptiness. I disliked the image of the entire building swallowing us up, leaving us estranged from anyone we'd ever known.

What was life, if not to intersect with the others making their way through it? What was my purpose if not to impact the people around me?

I reminded myself of Roe, standing passive and still beside me. He gave me a weak smile, and I had the sense that we were both trying to reassure each other while we secretly crumbled on the inside.

The servants motioned for us to wait, before disappearing through doors at the other end of the room. I turned toward Roe, but just as I was about to speak, the doors breezed open and two other kids walked through.

They looked equally entranced by the Capitol's fine architecture, its lavish finery. I sent them a smile and a wave. "Where are you two from?"

They looked at each other, then fearfully back to me. I raised my hands placatingly, the way I might toward a skittish animal.

"I'm not gonna hurt you. I just wanted to say hello... and that I'm sorry this happened to you."

The girl was mousy, her face still holding the roundness of a child's. The boy only watched me with apprehension.

"I don't know what's happening," the little girl whispered. "I want to go home."

I crossed the space between us and gently placed a hand on the girl's shoulder. "I know it's scary."

She looked up at me and tears filled her eyes. I held her shoulders and whispered consoling things, and she let herself cry. And that was all. I'd found that sometimes all it took was for someone to look at you and acknowledge that you were grieving, that you were afraid, and hold you through the duration of your sorrow. I didn't—couldn't—fix anything for her, but I allowed her to feel everything without judgment, and that seemed to be enough.

Over the next few minutes, a stream of teenagers made their way through the doors from the outside, the emotions on their faces ranging from cautious to downright terrified. I could only gape at the sight of it all. Two kids from each District suddenly made the room very crowded. I realized that while Eleven had never seen a Victor, many of these Districts probably had, which made me feel a little sick.

The far doors opened and I steeled myself for whatever would come next. A young man stepped through the door, and—miracle of miracles—I saw actual emotion in his eyes. It filled me with a ridiculous amount of relief to know that not everyone in the Capitol was a mindless machine.

He stepped forward and actually spoke, which did even more to put me at ease. I liked him immediately.

"Hello." He offered us an imitation of a smile, though it looked forced. "I'm to properly dress you for the Capitol. I'll take you one at a time." He looked at us with a strangely lost expression, before pointing at the little girl.

She shrank against me and shook her head. I made ready to defend her at all costs, but saw that the man's eyes had softened somewhat. A little of the dizzying dread in his expression faded.

"I won't hurt you," he said. "It'll only take a little while."

There was something in his tone that must've calmed her, because she hesitantly stepped forward. I gave her a little encouraging pat, even if the whole situation was putting me on edge. Just because I liked this stranger didn't mean that this place was without its perils.

The man was back within minutes, now without the little girl. I watched him suspiciously as he gestured carefully toward me. I looked up and suddenly had the impression that everyone was watching me. The pressure of twenty-or-so pairs of eyes drove my spine straight. I followed the man through the door without a word. But as soon as we were out the doors, the questions poured from me.

"Who are you? What's your name? Why are you working for them?"

The faintest edge of a smile peeked through his mask, and I saw something like sincerity in his eyes. I was glad he hadn't prickled under my onslaught of questions.

"I'm Chalet. The Tribute stylist. And I..." He glanced around as if afraid of someone overhearing him. "I didn't really have a choice." He averted his gaze, his hands tightening into fists.

I stared at him and felt a little silly, not for the first time today. "It's... nice to meet you, Chalet! I'm Yomi. And I guess I didn't really have a choice either."

He nodded. "I know. I'm sorry." There was something guarded in his tone, like he was holding back from caring. Or maybe it was something deeper. There was a familiarity in the tightness of his voice—I heard it in those who had lost too much.

"Don't apologize," I said quickly. "It's not like you can control what the Capitol does, so it's not your fault... Unless... this wasn't your idea, was it?"

His eyes widened. "Of course not."

"Exactly." I tried to keep my voice gentle. "It's useless to apologize for something beyond your control."

I wasn't sure if I imagined the guilt harboring his eyes, or the way he shifted from foot to foot. Quite honestly, I don't know why I cared. Perhaps it was that when the entire world was off its axis, I tended to either laugh or reach out to anyone seemingly off-balance. Either way, I hated the silence and the way it stifled everything else. So I tried to smile. "Are you supposed to make me look nice?"

He looked away again and nodded, as though what he did was some kind of crime.

"And I'm assuming you don't want to be here."

The briefest suggestion of a laugh. "Hold still. I'm just taking measurements."

We filled the minutes with words. He said little, but I let everything stream out of me as he adjusted my hair, painted my nails, applied makeup to my face. It was all very uncomfortable, but he was gentle and unobtrusive, so I minded a little less.

"I've seen a lot of death," I told him. "It's a beautiful thing, sometimes. When the world decides it's time."

I saw the shock in his eyes. Watched as he tried to school his features. Then he sighed. "I wish it could be that way here."

"Have you lost someone?" I said.

He guided me into a dress and I watched forlornly as my favorite skirt was tossed aside. "Not really. I... I shouldn't grieve people I didn't really know."

"You mean the other kids who've been here before."

He nodded. "I remember them all, for some reason."

In this, we were alike. "Me, too."

For some reason, we made a connection, despite the fact that he was stealing my belongings and putting makeup on me. It was hard to admit to myself, but I think I was a little desperate for friendship, leaning toward anyone who might show me so much as a glimpse of light. I had no idea how much time I had left, but I'd set my sights on finding friends before the Capitol took everything away from me.

"Why do you have to make me look nice?" I said, trying to be gentle while also unable to hide my annoyance at the antics. "What do they care?"

He smiled, a little sadly. "I think... I think it's their way of showing that you're theirs now. Not giving you any choice in what you wear, where you go. This whole business is about taking away your autonomy." He watched me sadly for a moment, before asking me to pick from an assortment of ornate hair clips. The gesture was small, but I saw what he was doing.

He was showing me that I didn't have to do exactly what the Capitol wanted, despite their claims. That I still had free will in some things, and they couldn't take that away. I saw that it was his version of boldness.

The transformation didn't take long, and soon I was staring at an unrecognizable face in the mirror, their eyes heavy with makeup and her hair pulled up in an elaborate crown of curls. I didn't like the way she looked, as manufactured and prim as a doll.

"That's not me," I murmured, unable to stop myself. Chalet gave me one last look before ushering me out of the styling room.

I drifted back into the main area where the rest of the kids waited. They were in varying degrees of dress, and I immediately saw the ones the Capitol had already tampered with. They wore numbers on their chests—no names. It was all impersonal and blank. In minutes, we'd turned from outer-district kids to flawless statues.

As I scanned the room, I noticed it was furnished with various items to train with. Gleaming knives and bows, swords and hammers, all implements meant to hurt and kill, hung from the walls on vainglorious display. A few kids gathered around the weapons, handling them as one might utensils—casually. Others, like me, shied away from their sharpness.

I hated the very sight of them. Though at this point, I'd come to realize that I would hate everything about the Capitol, from their strange food to the intricate laces of my dress.

All the same, my hate felt futile. I was a bug in a jar, tapping my wings against the glass. I'd never change anything. That thought unseated everything inside me. I couldn't stand not being able to care for people, to partake in the wonders of the world. I couldn't sit around and wait for the unsavory end that would come all too prematurely. So I squared my shoulders and looked for people to talk to.

She caught my eye because she was standing alone in a corner while everyone else clumped together in a fearful huddle. She gazed off with the most stormy expression I'd ever seen on someone who was merely staring into space. It was as if she battled the world itself with that gray-eyed gaze. And I wanted to know her immediately. Call it my obnoxious tendency toward curiosity, if you like. I wouldn't be able to deny that I was impossibly annoying at times—it was the way I dealt with the world.

But if that doesn't explain the way I gravitated toward her immediately, call it the pull of a kindred spirit. I've always believed that certain people were destined to meet, just as death would come at exactly the right time. Everything happens for a reason, and there was certainly a reason that I saw this girl.

(And before you ask, I remember her just as vividly as Roe, if not more. Her face haunts me day and night. Her memories stain me like pools of ink—her shadow follows mine. But we're not at the sad part yet. So please, let yourself believe that everything about this story is steeped in idealism and friendship. I'll leave you in peace for now.)

I approached her cautiously, allowing myself to slip into the ever-familiar role of someone comforting a mourner—one who looked particularly angry. I saw that this girl had her walls mile-high, and it did not intimidate me. I'd lived with the grumpiest man alive for years—but this was even better, because I was sure I'd like this girl who was about my age.

"Hey!" I said, attempting to keep my voice soft. I think I might've failed.

Her gaze snapped to mine, and I was met with the full brunt of her wrath. "Why are you talking to me." Her tone was flat, as though I'd done something grievously out of line, instead of just offering a friendly greeting.

"Oh, I just wanted to say hello! Nothing wrong with that, right?" I must have sounded a little bit desperate, because her eyes softened—and now she was looking at me like I was a child.

"I have no interest in talking to anyone." She stepped a little closer to me until we were inches apart. "I don't know what gives you the authority to walk up to me like we're best friends when we'll all be dead within a week."

I flinched a little. "You know about that?"

She pressed her lips into a line. "Anyone smart would've put that together."

"I know about it because I see the dead kids every year. I've held all the funerals and comforted every broken family those kids left behind." She watched me for a moment, speechless, and I felt myself deflate a little. "So... yeah. That's how I know. I didn't really have to fill in the blanks."

She only kept caring at me, before letting out a harrumph. "Well." I could see she was a little flustered, and that gave me a small measure of joy for some reason. "You're obviously just trying to... confuse me or sell me something or whatever. I'm not interested."

"Sell you something?" I couldn't help but smile. "What would I sell you? This fancy hairpin that's stupid and impractical? Oh wait, you already have one."

"Why would I want that?"

"Exactly! I'm not trying to bribe you, especially since I have literally nothing of worth."

"Then what do you want?" Her face had gone a little red, and her voice was just a bit too loud.

I crossed my arms. "Just wanted to be friendly. But if you insist on being utterly deplorable—"

"What language are you speaking?"

"Poetry, I'll have you know."

That gave her pause, though I couldn't fathom why. "You... read poetry?"

"Write it, actually." I tried to sound nonchalant about the whole ordeal—though in truth, it had been a ploy to make more friends, to help the public see that I was a real person instead of the town pariah. It sort of worked. For about three people.

She shrugged. "Huh. You're odd."

The way she said it was like a compliment. She sounded impressed about the fact. I grinned. "Thank you kindly!"

"I wasn't... ugh. Are you always this persistent?"

"Most of the time. Ask the graveyard flowers. They took forever to grow, but I just kept going."

Her shoulders sagged, as if I'd completely exhausted her—which wasn't my intention in the slightest. Despite my flippancy, her exasperation saddened me a little. "Fine," she said. "You want to talk? Be friends or something?"

"That would be preferable, yes." I bounced on the balls of my feet like I was preparing for flight—as was custom for me, talking with this mysterious girl had bolstered my spirits.

She stuck out a hand, the movement as robotic and detached as a machine's. "Raina Quintana." The name was soft and melodic, but she cracked it into the air like a whip, or a match lighting. "Nice to meet you, I guess."

"Yomi Nishikaze, and it's wonderful to make your acquaintance!" I squeezed her hand enthusiastically. "I think I'm going to follow you everywhere now. And introduce you to my other friend Roe whenever he comes back from Chalet's makeover."

My own boldness scared me just a bit—who was I to befriend this random girl with fire in her eyes? Could I even trust her? But the Capitol was large and lonely, and so I cast out for anything to hold onto. Besides, the lively banter took the edge off the darkness. So I welcomed it gladly, boldness and all.

Raina lifted her eyes skyward—or rather, toward the lavishly-painted ceiling. "What have I done?"

"Oh, don't worry," I said quickly. "I'm nice!"

She sighed, a long-suffering sound. "That's exactly what I'm worried about."

Out of breath from talking, I took a moment to really look at Raina. She had nice long hair, its deep black color looking extra glossy after the Capitol's treatment. Her high cheekbones and storm-gray eyes made for quite the striking demeanor. She had light brown skin and was much, much taller than me. She looked a little sad, a little scared, beneath that paper-thin veneer of strength.

I thought she might be my polar opposite. And yet I couldn't help liking her. I guess it was a little like a challenge for me, to see beyond her mask and discover how much truth I could pry from her. I didn't want to change her or anything like that—it was merely my undying curiosity. And the aforementioned pull of two people destined to meet, for better or worse.

Raina eventually left my side, wandering off to her corner again. I promised myself that I'd find her later, but I knew it was probably difficult to process everything with my constant chattering. I passed the time by watching the others in their shiny new Capitol get-ups, finding bits and pieces of emotions in their downcast faces. I occasionally saw a glint of light in the way they'd run disbelieving fingers through their hair or say a few mumbled words to people around them. But mostly I saw a group of dispassionate, apathetic kids. Every ounce of identity had already been scraped from them, leaving only shells behind.

I wished I could reignite the spark of life inside them. To help them understand just how beautiful living was. That detached uniformity scared me more than I wanted to admit.

But for the first time, I wondered if giving them something to live for moments before their untimely deaths would be cruel. Perhaps that was the greater crime—to give them hope, make them fond of life and the people surrounding them, all while their lives were stolen.

Suddenly, everything that had seemed simple and lovely was now multi-faceted and double-edged. To live would mean a wasted life in your wake—but to die before your time was even worse. And how was I to navigate the space between? I didn't want to sit idly by and let the Capitol guide the strings of fate. But then... who was I to force someone's path to go a certain direction, to tug the life from their saddened souls only to see it taken away the next instant?

How I longed for the peace of a life well-spent, the resolution of a gentle death. The Capitol had twisted everything until it was merely unrecognizable, and now I couldn't find the light. Was there anything left to hold onto?

Perhaps death had never been a blessing. Maybe my parents, too, had been taken before their time. Maybe I truly was the morbid and unnatural soul the world made me out to be.

But it felt strange to go peacefully into the mold, slipping into the darkness like a pair of too-small shoes. The Capitol wanted conformity and subservience. But regardless of whether I died tomorrow or in a week, I would not let them win.

Maybe I already had... maybe there was no way to truly have everything without losing something.

But that didn't mean I wouldn't try anyway. I was a sociable creature, and nothing could take that out of me. So I'd try my best to smile and make do, making it absolutely clear how very much I hated this situation while also trying to glean the positive moments. Like the tall girl with the intriguing scowl, and the boy who'd miraculously seen me as a real person instead of a caricature. Like the kind eyes of the stylist and the tantalizing beauty of the world outside.

Like the fact that, no matter what, I wasn't going to change. I wouldn't let these doubts slip past my boundaries. There were certain things they'd never take from me. And I settled into that reassurance like a coat that fit almost too well. It was deceptively comfortable. It was temptingly perfect.

And I think some small part of me knew even then, that it wouldn't be so easy. But I wanted so badly to believe it. That nothing would change me or sway me from my beliefs. That life and death would continue in their beautiful, unbroken cycle. That everything was either ugly or beautiful, kind or poisonous, uniform or unique. Like I said, it's that space between that's the most dangerous. And I was bound to slip through the cracks.

Before dinnertime, I'd made a point to learn everyone's names. And not because I wanted to have twenty-one more friends, though that was a little tempting. It was also not meant to simply annoy them without a cause, though many unfortunately saw it that way. No, I did it more because I wanted to remember them. Soon we'd all be forgotten to time, pulled behind the curtain of the Capitol's obscurity. We'd be nameless sacrifices, just like countless kids before us. I didn't want their faces or stories to lose their shape, despite the fact that we were all trapped here. I wanted them to live on, in some respect.

Of course, my own life expectancy was dwindling—I didn't expect to outlive anyone here, nor did I want to. So perhaps there was also the small, selfish hope that they'd remember me, too. That whatever lucky soul, if any, who made it out would do something to honor my death. I wanted poetry readings and celebrations and candles burning bright. I wanted carnations littering my grave with their bright-headed beauty. I... I wanted to be missed and loved and commemorated.

The potency of that wish scared me just a little, sent guilt careening through my chest. So I pushed the thoughts away and gazed at the would I now knew as individuals, much to my satisfaction. Many, when I'd asked their names, had watched me with dead eyes that slowly began to kindle with recognition as they shared a piece of themselves. Others had been haughty, as if I was too lowly for the blessing of their presence. They gave out their names reluctantly, acting as if they were doing me a favor instead of the other way around. I didn't let it shake me—they were richer, healthier kids, but that meant little in the full scheme of things. Their pettiness would not do them any favors once death's shadow was looming over them. I passed their little huddle, giving them a jaunty wave as I did so, to seek out my new friends.

Roe looked just the slightest bit intimidated by the immensity of it all, his shoulders hunched into his new clothes. He looked small and ill-fitting in the lavish Capitol outfit. I rushed to him and gave him a smile. "Roe! I made a new friend, she's in our group now! Is that okay with you?"

He fidgeted a little. "It's not them, is it?" He pointed to the group of kids from One and Two—Dresden, Isolde, Hale and Medea.

I laughed at the very notion. "No. According to them, they don't need our friendship. We wouldn't benefit their lofty goals."

A tiny smile stole across his face. "Goals such as eating peeled grapes and strutting around like peacocks?"

I giggled, not dropping my aristocratic tones. "Precisely those, my dear."

We shared a quiet smile before I remembered Raina. "Let's go find Miss Sunshine, shall we?"

He looked at me. "Why do I get the feeling you're being sarcastic?"

I winked. "I can't imagine why you'd think that."

We found her in the corner—she had inhabited it so much that it was now her designated place. Not just any corner, but the residence of Raina Quintana. She looked up at us with just the tiniest hint of dread in her expression. It seemed she was warring between amusement and chagrin.

"Oh, you again. And you brought a friend." She sounded none too pleased about it.

"Sure did!" I mustered a smile and gestured between them. "New friend Roe, meet my even newer friend Raina. Hopefully you two can get along nicely, since... I really like you both?" Looking between them, it seemed unlikely. Raina appeared unimpressed, and Roe approached her as if she were a dangerous animal poised to attack.

They stared at each other for a tense moment, before Roe hesitantly offered a hand. He looked a little pale, probably wilting before Raina's thorny scowl. I pressed a reassuring hand against his shoulder.

He performed that impressive magic act again, his face transforming into the picture of ease. "Hello, Miss Sunshine." He said this with complete earnestness, though I saw the twinkle of mirth behind his eyes. I think Raina brought out a little boldness in both of us. Or maybe it was simply that both of them would always take me by surprise.

Raina just stared. Her lip twitched. For a moment I thought she'd be angry, and I prepared myself to step between her and Roe.

But then she chuckled, and I could only stand in awe as her nose crinkled just the slightest bit. She took his hand and shook firmly. "You two are something else. But you're brave; I can respect that."

She said it grudgingly, but with the slightest lilt of softness in her sharp-edged voice, so that I immediately knew she was complimenting us. Roe smiled a little hesitantly and pulled his hand from hers—gingerly, and very slowly. I looked between them and grinned.

"This'll be fun! You're warming up to each other already!"

As I leaned forward in my excitement, I caught the slightest hint of smoke in the air. I'd learn that Raina seemed to carry that scent with her always. The warning of something burning.

But I ignored the sharp scent clinging to her hair, so at odds with the Capitol's refinement. I was not afraid of her and the walls she fortified. I was... not quite joyful. That wouldn't describe it nearly enough. It was the feeling of knowing we could become best friends, if we only had the time—if the threat of the Capitol's schemes were not lingering over us. I longed for that simple happiness, and yet it was contaminated by the knowledge that it would end all too soon.

I don't think that can be compounded into a word. It was dread and wistfulness and sorrow mingled into a beast of a feeling that even I could not tame. So I simply ignored it, and allowed myself a moment to feel grateful that I was not alone anymore. I still had the chance to be known, perhaps even remembered. And, of course, to do the same for these two.

I hoped we would make a wonderful trio. Raina would be the shadows and darkness, Roe the never-ceasing light. And I... I wasn't quite sure who I would be. A mix of both? Some kind of impossible balance?

Of course, Raina's eyes were as fierce and undying as candles. And Roe was edged with a darkness and grief he'd yet to unveil. So maybe they didn't have to be one or the other. Maybe they could be both?

That thought scared me a little, and I couldn't quite place why. So I left it alone for now, and I walked with my newfound friends to dinner.

The dining hall was, as I'd come to expect by now, utterly extravagant. Mountains of food took center stage on long tables, and the atmosphere was made all the more intimidating with luminous candles and crystalline glasses at close intervals throughout the space. I could not ignore the beauty of it all—but I knew the Capitol well enough by now to understand that this was all meant to dwarf us. To show us that the Capitol would always have more than the Districts, that they could waste this much resources without even pausing. I must admit that they succeeded a little—I felt small and breathless among the Capitol's grandeur. But then Roe touched my arm, as if to break the spell. His eyes were round with wonder, but he kept a tight, anchoring grip on me. A gesture that promised he wouldn't let it all swallow me up.

The Capitol was well-versed in keeping us silent—the very atmosphere had a way of discouraging sound. Nobody spoke as we moved to separate tables, the servants who'd ushered us here drifting back into the woodwork. I stuck close to my friends as we found a corner to settle. I stared down at my empty plate, adorned with jewels, and felt that familiar nausea from this morning rising inside me.

I was dizzyingly, impossibly homesick. I longed for simple, familiar food; for the comfortable buzz of a chattering crowd, and the comforting hands of my parents on mine. But I couldn't have those things. Most of me believed I might never have them again.

"Pass the salt?" I said, and my voice was high-pitched and warbly in the eerily quiet hall.

Roe sent me a smile and slid the salt over, although I hadn't yet filled my plate with food. He didn't comment on the futility of my request, nor the fact that I was obviously grasping at conversation topics.

I tried to imagine this silence as the peaceful, reverent kind that sometimes filled the funeral home as we bore the coffin to its grave and said farewell to the departed soul. But this silence was not reverent, nor reminiscent. And it certainly was not peaceful.

Just as I was ready to begin telling jokes, if only to ease the tension, the door opened and a strange assortment of adults walked in. I counted them—seven, all of slightly different ages. Some smiled, while others averted their gaze. They had the air of people who'd seen too much heartache. They carried it in heavy eyes and sinking shoulders.

As they entered, they split and began sitting at separate tables. With their arrival, a smattering of murmurs rose up from the twenty-four teenagers who were more like statues.

Two women came to our table—one sweeping a white cane over the tiles. The other, an older woman whose very walk carried the air of fierceness, was talking animatedly while her friend listened. I felt a little spike of anticipation at seeing them come toward our table. Perhaps they'd liven things up a little.

"Are these seats taken?" the older woman said, and her voice was full of music.

"All yours!" I said, and my voice was a little too loud again. Raina was once again staring intently at the ceiling. I decided that she was probably fascinated by the patterned tiles, instead of embarrassed by my perfectly welcoming response.

"Thank you." The younger woman sat across from me, resting her cane against the table. The older woman sat beside her, looking the picture of regality. It was more something she seemed naturally carried than an intentional act, but I was drawn to her immediately.

"I'm Linnet." Linnet had a gentle voice and careful movements. "And before you ask, I'm blind." She smiled a little, and I got the impression that she'd been asked far too many questions. Having been treated strangely my whole life, I felt a bit of kinship with her immediately, and returned her smile.

"Mirabelle McMaster," said the other woman. "At your service."

"Yomi!" I said. "It's nice to meet you both. Who... who are you?"

"We..." Linnet turned her head uncertainly toward Mirabelle.

"We're Victors," she said simply. "Meaning we lived through the Games."

The Games. That's what they were called; it was a fitting name, for the Capitol seemed to constantly be playing tricks with our minds and carefully arranging their pieces. We were mere pawns to them.

It took me a moment to process this. "You mean... you won?" I watched them with a new wariness.

Linnet wilted a little in her seat. "We made it out," she said softly, and I noticed the timbre of her rural accent.

I didn't have all the pieces at that moment, but I quickly figured it out. These two were not Capitol-born. They'd been taken just like us and had won... which meant that twenty-three others had died in their wake.

I shivered a little. "Well, uh... these are my friends Roe and Raina. Roe's my District partner, we're from Eleven. And Raina..."

For the first time I saw the number on her chest. She gave me a flat look. "Nine."

Linnet brightened. "That's my home District. I miss Nine..."

Raina hummed, unimpressed. "I don't."

It was silent for a long moment, before Linnet and Mirabelle laughed lightly. I figured they'd seen worse than an ill-tempered teenager in their days. I certainly had.

Mirabelle's smile made laugh lines appear around her eyes. "This one has spirit!"

Linnet hummed thoughtfully. "I think they all do."

For some reason, that single remark lifted a weight from my shoulders. I had spirit. And if I had that, surely I could make it through anything. Although I wasn't sure I wanted to, not if my friends had to die for me to live.

"How do you all bear it?" I said suddenly, unable to keep the words to myself. "Being taken by the Capitol and... living through it all?"

Linnet reached out and put a hand on mine, seemingly unfazed by my abruptness. "You carry far too much than you should," she said. I didn't know if she meant me in particular, or the entirety of the Victors. Perhaps they were one and the same.

"I feel like I already do that," I whispered. And I felt ashamed to admit that my burden was heavy. It would be disrespectful of the dead to admit such a thing.

But sometimes ghosts held impossible weight. And sometimes I carried the brunt of it.

How could Linnet see so much of me in a single moment? How did she pick her words so carefully, as if they were precious things?

She kept her hand atop mine for a few more moments before drawing back. "I shouldn't talk about things I don't understand," she murmured apologetically.

"No!" I said quickly. "I feel so lost. We all do. You have to know more than us. I'm sure you're a fount of wisdom."

Mirabelle laughed at that. "Would that I was wiser," she said softly, then shook herself a little. "What are we doing, baring our souls to these kids?"

"We're lonely," Linnet said, and now her voice was feather-light. "We can't help but get attached to the first person that shows any interest."

I was enchanted by these tired-eyed women who'd faced the Capitol's horrors, who'd seen so much death, and could tell the tale with a smile. Who could bear it all on their backs and still be kind.

"Can we be best friends?" The eagerness and hope in my voice took even myself by surprise.

"She likes friends," Raina whispered theatrically, her hands cupped over her mouth.

Linnet and Mirabelle smiled at me. But their joy was laced in sadness—an impossible duality, but one that I was all too familiar with.

"Of course, Yomi," said Mirabelle. "And you two as well."

Roe looked up from his plate for the first time and gave them one of his genuine grins. "I like you both," he said seriously. "You talk to us."

"A low bar, but we'll take it," Mirabelle said. "Would you three like some advice?"

"Please." I'd never felt so uncertain. I was sailing blindly through a vast sea, searching for a lighthouse.

"Prepare yourselves," Mirabelle said grimly. "Tomorrow, you will face the Arena. And you will see terrible things. Don't let the Capitol's silver spoons and pretty jewels conceal what they have in store for you."

She did not disguise the truth. Her words were blunt and sharp. But I took them anyway. I'd seen the bodies returned from the Capitol. Some didn't even come back at all; I assumed they were not even salvageable enough to be sent back. I was prepared, wasn't I? I understood how the Capitol mistreated the dead and the living. I was braced for whatever they threw at me.

But there was a part of me, perhaps the child who'd pleaded for the universe to spare their parents, that still knew nothing at all. A vulnerable, idealistic piece of me that hoped it was all a dream and I'd wake up soon to see the sun shining through my bedroom window.

So I understood that when the Victors told me to be prepared, they meant a hundred different things. Just because I'd seen countless deaths did not mean I was ready for what awaited me.

(I'm sure you're a little confused at this point. What did I mean, we'd go to the Arena tomorrow? What about the mentors and the interviews and the private sessions? Well, dear reader, the Capitol's greatest weapon during this time was its shroud of mystery. Any connection to the outside world was forbidden for us. As soon as we entered the Training Center, we were sealed away from the outside world—permanently, for most of us. Until Signet Graymore came along with his misguided visions of spectacle, the Capitol kept everything from the Districts—and their system worked well.

So no, there weren't any interviews. They did not give us the luxury of knowledge or preparation. I was thrown to the wolves not twenty-four hours after I arrived at the Capitol.)

The rest of dinner passed fairly silently. Before the servants took us away again, I clasped Linnet's hand and sent Mirabelle a grateful look.

"Thank you both."

They were quick to smile back—their kindness was easily given. "I wish we could do more for you," Linnet whispered.

"It's alright. Your advice was... helpful." My voice caught a little.

"Are you afraid of death?" Mirabelle's face was utterly calm.

I almost laughed. "Of course not! It's this unnatural, unbridled control that scares me. The Capitol shouldn't be allowed to take us before our time. None of us are supposed to be here." As soon as I said the words, I realized how hollow and silly they were.

It didn't matter that I disagreed with the Capitol. It didn't matter that we weren't supposed to be here. The Capitol's very goal was to strip the Districts of their joy, to keep them in check and remind them that nothing would ever stand against them. Even our funeral home, which honored rebellious heroes, could be seen as an infraction.

I should have known they'd take me away and try to suck the life out of me. So when I looked up again at the two older women in front of me, I expected anger. Or a distant pity. But instead, I caught the briefest flash of twin flames in their eyes.

Mirabelle leaned very close to me, so that even Roe and Raina would not hear her. "Don't give up hope quite yet. You are not alone in your disagreement of the Capitol's ways. There are still those who strive to protect individuality and peace. We may have an uprising on our hands sooner rather than later."

Mirabelle was bold, tossing her words into the world without a care that we'd barely met, or that I could share the information with anyone. Her statement sent a little thrill through my chest. An uprising? I glanced at Linnet; the hint of a smile had stolen over her face.

"Be brave, you three," she said at normal volume. "And lean on each other; it'll be your best hope. There's strength in you yet."

Roe seemed to melt beside me, as if the Victors had eased some of his heartache. Raina just shook her head and stared off into the distance, masking her face. I stood reluctantly as the servants ushered us toward the door.

I caught one last look at the two women. They shared a sad smile, their shoulders slumping—but when Mirabelle saw me looking, she brightened and winked at me.

I left them behind, a twinge of melancholy escaping into my chest. It was not unfamiliar to me; I'd felt a similar disconnect at my parents' funeral. It was the sensation of being amongst a crowd and yet feeling entirely alone.

But I wasn't alone. I couldn't be.

There were quarters from Roe and I, separate from Raina's. Her floor was first, and she paused on the landing of the staircase to stare back at us. For a moment, her gray eyes were soft, catching the light in the sconces above.

"'Night," she murmured. "Sleep well, I guess. If anyone can manage to sleep in this place."

Then, like a mirage, she was gone. Vanished into the dark. I squeezed Roe's fingers and we kept climbing the stairs, shadowed by servants.

"She scares me," he whispered, his lips tugging just slightly upward.

"I can't tell if you're serious or not. But don't let her scare you! She's pretty scared herself, I think, just like all of us."

"Are you scared?" He looked at me hesitantly.

I warred briefly with myself. In my mind's eye, I saw snatches of my younger self standing before a crowd, my fingernails creased with dirt. I was wrist-deep in the earth, sending my parents' polished coffins to their eternal rest. I talked about death being a natural end. I convinced myself that this shouldn't be a mournful day, that all things happened for a reason and the world had decided it was time for my parents to leave me behind.

But I couldn't even convince myself. Inside, a part of me was sinking six feet under as I sealed the ground back together, and my parents' fates with it. They were forever buried, and in my chest my heart was stuttering, desperate to escape. I could not lie to the crowd, could not tell them that I'd made peace with death, when the sickness had so cruelly cut their lives short. It wasn't time for them.

But if it wasn't their time, who could say if it had truly been anyone else's?

I saw that scared child brushing the dirt from their hands as I pressed my palms to my frantic heart and lied to Roe Solano. "No, I'm not scared. Everything's going to be okay. Because whatever happens, we'll make do. We just have to trust..."

But there was nothing to trust in, not when the Capitol had warped everything I'd once understood. Not when my numbered days sat heavy on my shoulders, and the burdens of Roe and Raina's lives dragged at my heels.

Roe looked at me then, and he saw through everything. "It's alright to be afraid." He squeezed my hand briefly and pulled me through the doors to our rooms. "We have each other, remember? And I'm scared too."

"I..." For once, I couldn't find words.

Roe treated me so delicately. With Raina I was unabashed and scrambled, our every turn of conversation unexpected. But Roe treated me as I might a new mourner—not with pity, but a natural understanding of every painful thing inside me that I tried so hard to hide.

"How do you know so much, Solano?" I said a little wryly.

His face sombered as we stepped out into the main room. We had adjacent bedrooms, and there were guards stationed outside our doors. Not to protect us, I knew, but to ensure we didn't stray from the Capitol's careful watch. Couldn't have us running away from their captivity.

Roe caught my gaze. His eyes were serious. "My parents are dead. I don't even know their names, and sometimes I go to the funerals just to imagine what it would be like if they had faces, and I could mourn them." He looked away, his breath catching a little. "So I know you, a little. And I'm pretty familiar with feeling lost."

I was a hundred things right then—remorseful, though I knew not why; heartbroken for him; and entirely thankful for his honesty.

"I... did the funerals bring you comfort?"

"Somewhat. Although I knew they were never really for me."

"You don't have to know someone to appreciate their life, or to understand the impact they made on the world even after their death."

He smiled a little—and with his rosy cheeks and sad eyes, he looked both young and far too old. "Sleep, Yomi. I'm glad I finally got to meet you."

"Me too. Thank you."

He tossed one last look over his shoulder before retreating slowly into his room.

I watched him for a long time, troubled with thoughts that refused to take shape, before finally entering my own room. The silk sheets and brocade quilts, though irresistibly comfortable, were entirely unfamiliar. I was stifled by their warmth, missing the sounds and scents of home. Countless hours passed behind my eyes, and still sleep refused to come for me.

I was thinking about death and how, for so long, it had been interwoven with my life. I thought I'd understood it, and the role it played. I'd comforted countless grieving souls, prepared the bodies with undying enthusiasm.

And yet in the darkness of this new place, I couldn't make out death's shape. And for the first time, its presence in my mind filled me with fear instead of contentment.

They came for us in the earliest hours of the morning, when even the sun didn't dare to lighten the windowpanes. Their frantic rapping sent me spiraling into consciousness, and I knew immediately where I was. It didn't return to me slowly, but with a nasty, jarring recollection.

I was in a death match. And powerless to escape it.

So I tried to breathe through the fear that filled my lungs, focusing on a sleepy-eyed Roe instead of the impending unknown. He was pushing a rumpled mess of light-blonde hair from his eyes, looking utterly bedraggled. He didn't belong here. Nobody did. I hated that there was nothing I could do to change it, that the very thought was useless.

I sent Roe a weak smile, but the edges of my optimism had begun to fray. "Good morning!"

His face had taken on that unshakable serenity. "Hello."

I did not attempt small talk. I couldn't give the condolences or reassurances that I was usually so proficient at. So I just walked, and I didn't fill the space with conversation. And for once, the silence felt almost okay—Roe's placid demeanor seemed to be wearing off on me a bit.

I descended the steps with trepidation, trying to remember a poem I'd written. Perhaps it would give me solace.

But those poems were all so imbued with hope and the prospect of healing. It would hurt too much for me to ponder them, like staring at an oasis that was just out of reach. I tried to console myself with the thought that whatever happened, I could reckon with it. If my friends suffered, I would try to provide them with some measure of peace.

But death was irreversible. And the possibility of Roe or Raina meeting such a fate was entirely too real for comfort.

As we descended the steps, I saw Raina standing at the landing just around the corner. Her retinue of servants was pushing her forward, but she shook them off—none too gently—and stood her ground.

"Let go of me," she hissed, her eyes smoldering with determination. It brought me a margin of satisfaction to see her standing there, one I couldn't quite pinpoint.

"You waited for us!" I said as we approached. "How charming!"

Her expression soured, if that was possible. "Maybe I was just pausing for a breather. Maybe it wasn't even about you."

I sighed theatrically, taking a leaf from her book. "You're right, there's no way I could possibly know. Except for the fact that your room is about three steps from these stairs. If you dislike walking this much, I worry for your ability to keep up with us."

She only frowned while Roe attempted to cover his laughter. It was the sweetest sound I'd heard in a long time. I liked seeing him happy, and I'd even become fond of Raina's perpetual frown.

I was getting too attached to them, and I knew that. I was captivated by Raina and comforted at Roe's ability to accept everything about me as few others had. The thought of losing them made me flinch as if I'd pressed my hand to the coals of a stove. Too much, too much to handle.

But what else was I to do? I couldn't just leave them behind. I didn't want to be alone.

We arrived at the room with weapons gleaming on its walls, my thoughts not even close to resolution. Soon it was all twenty-four of us, a procession of sacrifices for some unworthy cause. Chalet emerged and began his now-familiar routine, preparing us for the day. The way he fussed over us, I imagined he was preparing us for our wedding days. Or perhaps for burial. It was strangely telling how similar they were. How others dolled us up and we became our most beautiful selves on the cusp of an event which would permanently alter us.

I didn't dwell on the morbidity of the thought that we were already dead. I couldn't hold resentment against Chalet, not when he was so mild and apologetic. And I'd yet to meet the real faces behind this fiasco, so my blame sat heavy inside me with nowhere to go.

Since when had I come to blame anyone? Death was no one's fault—it was only a part of the natural cycle. But if that were the case, why were twenty-four children being primed for their end? The Capitol gave us the means to destroy each other, hiding behind their screens and turning us into monsters.

"Yomi?" The soft voice broke my reverie, and I looked up to see Chalet standing in front of me. "Are you all right?"

I laughed bitterly. Never had I heard such a happy sound reduced to such sadness. "I don't know how to answer that. Is it my turn?"

A troubled look passed over his face before he nodded, and I followed him wordlessly into the small styling room. As he brushed my hair, I caught my reflection in the mirror. I couldn't help but stare at my own face, no longer primped and polished to an unnatural sheen but stripped of all vitality. My hair was limp around my shoulders. My eyes had become distant and hollow.

I tried for a smile, but the person in the mirror was not to be swayed. Their eyes were creased with pain, and she trembled at the attempt toward happiness.

All those years being shunned by the world around me, looked at as strange for my views on death, and this was what finally broke me. I'd always felt myself to be above it all, as ethereal and untouchable as a flower's velvet petals. To grieve for my own sake had always seemed selfish, when there were so many others who'd suffered far greater. And so I scrounged every inch of joy that I could find, unmoving in my optimism.

Now I could barely recognize the sallow face in the mirror as my own.

Chalet gently turned my face toward him so he could brush foundation over my cheeks. Just the slightest hints of makeup, not nearly so gaudy as yesterday.

We didn't speak. There was a latent sadness in his eyes, which he tried to cover by lowering his gaze. But I caught it, as I was always able to for those souls who'd lost something. Now I had not the energy to try and combat it. So I just stood still and let him help me into a simple black dress.

It was eerily similar to what I might've worn on a typical day at the funeral home. He pulled a simple necklace from a box, its onyx stones almost luminous in the light.

I gaped at him. "Why did you choose this?"

He shrugged, almost modestly. "I saw the dress you were wearing yesterday. I thought maybe I could recreate it, but I had to add the necklace because the Capitol insists on finery. I'm sorry, did I do something wrong?"

The tug of memories, burning incense and the pallid peace of my parents' faces just before I buried them... the flowers I'd coaxed from the ground in their memory... and the rhythmic strains of poetry. I smoothed my hand over the dress and felt a terrible duality of sadness and longing.

"It's wonderful," I managed, and then I turned away from him so he could clasp the necklace. One last look at Chalet's face, a portrait of melancholy; I did not bother to assess the stranger in the mirror.

Then I was gone.

When I emerged into the main room, I saw Raina immediately. Her usually dour demeanor was now offset by a brightly-colored floral skirt and blouse. Her hair was bedecked with a circlet of leaves, almost like a wreath, and the dusting of rouge over her cheeks brought out her skin tone.

I had to laugh, just a little. She looked like Springtime incarnate, which was entirely at odds with her personality. Roe was right behind me, yet untouched by Chalet's handiwork, and I waved as he vanished into the styling room.

"You look cheery!" I said as I approached Raina.

She looked up at me, unamused. "I don't want to hear it."

"No, really! You look like a fairytale sprite. If sprites can scowl."

She crossed her arms, but I caught a glint of curiosity in her gaze. "How do you do it?" she said softly. "Joke at a time like this?"

It didn't sound accusatory. There was awe ringing in her voice.

I sucked in a breath. "Lots and lots of practice. I've dealt with grief my whole life—most of it not my own. The way I see it, my joy isn't a disregarding of that grief. It's... kind of a complement to it? Life is full of joy and grief, but I've always felt like joy in itself can be a revolution, a way to show the Capitol I'm not just giving in to their barbarism..." I trailed off, realizing I was rambling. "Does that make any sense at all?"

Her eyes had never been so inscrutable. "Sorta. I guess."

At that moment, Roe appeared, dressed all in white. His fluffy blonde hair encircled his face like a halo, and Chalet had somehow managed to make him look even more cherubic. I could not decide if he looked more like a ghost or an angel. Either way, it made me shiver a little.

"How old are you again?" Raina drawled, doubtless referring to his innocent appearance.

"Fourteen." Even younger than I'd pegged him.

His face had become utterly passive. I decided that such neutrality and calm was his coping mechanism, just as aloofness was Raina's.

The last person was dressed and prepared. Like clockwork, a Capitol official entered and signaled for us to follow. We did so, silent and waiting for retribution—just as the citizens of Eleven had. We spent our lives preparing for a blow, when we could be doing a hundred other things. I hated the way they had so much control over us.

They led us to another train, which we all boarded together. I stuck close to Roe and Raina as we made our way through the shifting throng, finding places closer to the back at Raina's insistence. I didn't mind the seclusion from the other kids—their presence had begun to send prickles down my spine.

My eyes were once again glued to the window, and that elusive world I so longed to inhabit. The sunshine was tantalizingly bright. I missed being able to dance through the meadows and go about preparing funerals without a care in the world. Once, my biggest worry had been making sure everyone's deaths were as peaceful and beautiful as possible, along with that pesky loneliness. Now my own life was in peril; but I had friends by my side now, somehow. It was a miracle and a curse. Yes, my life had always been full of darkness. But for the first time, I wondered if I could cope with it all.

The train entered a tunnel, and the last thing I saw of the world above was a gleam of sunlight reflected off the pavement—fleeting and illusionary. Before long, we were swallowed by the darkness.

It seemed to me that we traveled miles and miles underground. As we streaked through featureless tunnels and junctions, I felt myself floating and drifting, trying to ignore the fear rising inside me. The train itself was claustrophobic with the compounding panic of twenty-four souls... but I was somewhere far away. Frustration and guilt battled with dissociation; I should be eagerly attending to everyone's needs, or comforting their sorrows. But at that point, everything had become too much for me. I could not bear to touch all the confusion and fear that lingered inside me.

We stopped, and the doors hissed open. For one paralyzing moment, nobody moved. Then we all spilled out like cargo from a crate, streaming from the train and out... into a cavern.

No sooner had I stepped out, my hand in Roe's, than the train left. It was just us and twenty-one other kids, stranded in an unfamiliar place.

The cavern was composed of solid black rock, maybe obsidian. Stalactites wavered on the ceiling, hanging like shards of crystal above our heads. The walls seemed suffused with an unearthly glow, likely a result of the strange mushrooms and moss creeping over the stone. The cavern was bisected by a black river, raging before us with dizzying speed. A few boats sat moored at its edges, and I could just make out a distant shore on the other side. The river's song was amplified by the space, filling it with a dreamlike rushing. I thought I could catch snatches of words in its current—but the more I listened, the more haunting and garbled the words became.

I hated to admit it, but I was transfixed. Like belladonna or hemlock, the scene was intoxicatingly beautiful. That such loveliness could coexist with absolute darkness was fascinating to me. It called to something inside me.

The peaceful, suspended moment was broken by a voice filling the cavern from some unseen source. "Welcome, Tributes of the Outer Districts, to the Hunger Games—and to the Land of the Dead. Your souls have been Reaped by the Capitol in order to atone for the grievous rebellion your Districts performed against us. It is only our right to take what is owed to us.

"However, as a token of our graciousness, we will allow one Tribute to escape. Said Victor will have to outlive everyone else in the Arena, becoming the last one alive. Should they win, they will be flooded with rewards and allowed to return home."

I thought of Linnet and Mirabelle, their haunted eyes and undying kindness. They didn't seem very appreciative of the Capitol's so-called graciousness. Eleven certainly knew nothing of such rumored courtesies—we didn't have a single Victor.

As if in defiance of my thoughts, the disembodied voice continued on. "Best of luck, and may the odds be ever in your favor. Let the twelfth annual Hunger Games begin!"

Viselike fingers closed around my wrist and I almost screamed, before realizing it was Raina. Something new had entered her eyes—a kind of steely resolve. Her eyes were live wires of panic. "Let's go." She pointed to one of the boats, small enough to be treacherous on the choppy waters.

I sucked in a breath. "Raina..."

"Come on!" She pulled me along, and Roe was forced to hurry after us.

The rest of the kids had started to move, milling around the edges of the vast cavern. A few others were making their way toward the boats; I noticed Dresden and his group, the ones who'd been so enamored with the weapons back in the Capitol, taking the lead.

Raina dragged us along, then jumped into the boat. "Get in," she said desperately.

The reality of the situation had not yet set in for me. I was still spellbound by the wonder of the cave. "Careful not to capsize," I said distantly.

(I might have expected something else after the Capitol's greed declaration—perhaps a burst of light or a clamoring of desperation. But for us, the onset was slow—we didn't quite understand the ramifications. But we would, we would...)

Roe took both my hands in his, and I focused on the tranquility in his gaze, marred only by his trembling. Together we eased into the boat, and Raina pushed us away from the black rock.

We were a tight fit, Raina at the oars and Roe squished between us. The boat wobbled briefly before steadying, but I was still overwhelmed by the roaring of the river and afraid of losing my balance. As I stared into the depthless black of the waves, I caught sight of refuse in the water.

Countless castoff items floated in its currents. Overcome by curiosity, I leaned slightly over the side to see better. Silver coins tarnished by the water. Shiny candy wrappers and water lilies. Woven baskets and worn sneakers.

To me, none of it looked like garbage. They were glimpses of the human condition, memories from a hundred lives. This didn't excuse the fact that it was technically littering, but I saw the intention in the strange items. Most of them were entirely ordinary, but they made up the contents of life. Mundane and beautiful and special.

"We can probably use some of those," Raina said idly. "Can you try and grab something that would be helpful? I'm a little busy here."

Her perspective was jaded and skewed to me—I hadn't even thought of using these items to survive. But I did as she asked, my gaze searching the waters for anything particularly promising. I saw the occasional glint of something shiny, what looked like a familiar, intricate shape—

My fingers plunged beneath the water and immediately began to burn, but I didn't care. I lifted the object to the dim light at the surface, barely registering the effects the water had on my hands.

That was my mother's wedding ring.

Her ring.

I would recognize that ring anywhere. I remembered the gentle touch of my mom's hands on mine as she guided me through painting coffins, or smoothed my hair from my forehead affectionately, always with that ring glittering on her finger.

I'd recognize it anywhere. How could the Capitol have found it? I know she'd been buried with that ring...

I felt sick. The ring blurred with the wetness of my eyes, and I was suddenly back in my parents' bedroom, their lives draining away in the span of a few days, a months-long downward spiral finally culminating in their death.

They'd gotten sick, and I... I couldn't do anything to stop it. I'd pleaded and pleaded, but it seemed the universe was not keen on straying its course.

"Yomi?" Roe was gently holding my hands in his, eyes widening as he took them in.

I gazed down and saw that the skin had blistered and scabbed where it had touched the water. Pain, too intense for even the marks on my skin, hit me in a wave.

"Shhh, it's okay," he murmured. "Breathe..."

How could I breathe with my parents' memories weighing down on me, their legacies still unfulfilled?

I was broken from my trance by a sudden rocking of the boat beneath me. I stared down at the churning river and saw that a few Tributes had begun to dive in, obviously in search of the objects in the current. Or maybe they were just desperate to reach the other side, unwilling to be left behind.

My heart twinged as I saw the little girl I'd met what felt like so long ago. It had only been yesterday. Her curls bobbed in the water as she gripped the side of the boat, desperately trying to pull herself up.

"Help!" she squeaked.

I reached for her, but she was on the other side, closest to Raina. I leaned forward, dizzy with the pain from my hands and the raw reminder of my parents. Raina was...

I blinked. She was slapping at the girl's hands with an oar. "Raina!" I cried out, unconcerned with the shrillness of my own voice. "What are you doing? Help her!"

Raina looked back at me, and her eyes no longer smoldered. They were coals without fire. They were cold voids.

The little girl was screaming now, writhing in the current. I imagined my own pain tenfold. She was experiencing the river's strange effects all over her body, and I noticed her movements becoming more sluggish as the seconds slipped on.

Raina reached over the side, oar forgotten, and pried the little girl's fingers from the edge of the boat. With hardly a sound, the girl plunged beneath the surface.

I'd never feared death. My parents had instilled in me the natural pacifism toward life which included a respect for the dead. Death was to be something peaceful and beautiful, not to be disrespected by stereotypes of morbidity or negativity. Everyone deserves to have a fulfilling life, culminated by an honored death. And a wonderful funeral and burial was the best way to show that respect and love.

How could I fear death, when it had become such an integral part of my life? How could I be repulsed, when these bodies deserved the best of care? Death was only a result of others' horrible actions—but passing on from this life was something natural and essential.

As I watched the river consume the girl, her last movements drowned beneath the water, I wished that death was still beautiful. I wished I could lift her from the waves and give her the proper burial, guiding her to eternal peace.

I wished things could be simpler. So much that seeing her violent, untimely death brought tears to my eyes.

A part of myself was dying with her. Just as when I'd closed my parents from the world they so deserved to live in.

But this time, the little girl's death had been anything but natural. She'd had no one to hold her hand, nobody to ensure her well-being. And Raina...

Raina. With her smoky eyes and her smirk that was almost like a challenge. The way she'd waited for us on the staircase and extended her hands toward Roe. Her grudging compliments and fairytale wreath.

I'd been a fool to think she was any different from those rich upper-District kids who'd handled weapons as easily as coins.

"Look, Yomi..." Raina's eyes were slowly beginning to lighten again. She was looking toward me with the strangest expression.

But I did not care to decode her anymore. What did it matter whether her scowl was genuine or merely a shield? She'd willingly ended a life before its time, while I'd begged her to stop.

We'd reached the far shore. I gripped Roe's hand, hissing at the pain that had only intensified. Then I stepped from the boat without looking back.

I'd never felt the sting of anger so deeply as I was now. For the villagers who'd gossiped about me behind their hands, I'd always felt a mix of pity or amusement, because they didn't know better. For Chalet and the servants at the Capitol, I held no resentment because they had no choice in their actions.

But for Raina... Well, my own feelings against her frightened me.

"Wait!" Her voice was sharp as a birdcall. I tried to pull Roe along, but he planted his feet and resisted my grip.

I stared back at him. I must've looked a sight, with tear tracks marring my skin, and my hands a mess. My breaths hooked savagely against my throat, and my dress was torn at the hem. Already, I was coming apart.

"What are you doing?" I said, trying to gentle my tone for his benefit. It was not him I had a quarrel with, if that was even a strong enough word. But I was new to anger, and I felt it slipping from its careful bonds—uncontrolled and inexplicable. Two things I hated.

"I think we should wait for her." His voice was entirely calm, as I'd come to expect. But this time, it irked me a little.

"How can you be so cool and collected while Raina murders children?" I sounded unreasonable, even to myself. Linnet and Mirabelle had been right—I wasn't prepared for this.

He looked up at me with liquid green eyes. "I don't like it anymore than you do. But we can't just... leave her behind?"

By this point, Raina had long caught up with us. She lingered a few paces behind, obviously pretending not to listen.

I let go of Roe and considered my options. They were... far from plentiful.

"Raina," I whispered, and I'd never heard such deadliness in my own voice—me, who'd rather stick a needle in my eye than kill someone. "How could you do something like that?"

She looked at me sadly—she had the gall to look regretful. "She would have died anyway. Did you see what the river did to your hand?"

"But we could've helped her! Why would you speed the process by drowning her?"

"She wouldn't have fit in the boat," said Raina, all too patiently—like she was talking to a stubborn child. "We were cramped as it is—and she was soaked. How do you think that would have affected us?"

"No matter your justifications, you still killed her. Directly. You pushed her into the water."

"Did you ever think maybe it was a mercy that she died quickly, instead of suffering for hours or days before all the life finally drained out of her? Before the pain was too much for her body to take?"

I shivered, and I wanted to tell her that murder could never be a mercy. But hadn't I always said that death was a blessing?

Perhaps it was her time.

But no. That couldn't be true. I shuddered, my own philosophies muddied and confused for the first time in my life.

I thought I'd understood things. I thought death, of all things, was simple.

But nothing could ever be that easy.

I shook my head, brushing tears from my eyes. It was infuriating, the way the Games—the way Raina—had reduced me to a mess within minutes.

"Okay," I whispered. "Roe wants to give you a chance, and I'm not leaving him. But I still don't forgive you. Not in the slightest!"

She looked at me straight-on for one second, two... then she looked away. "Maybe I don't need your forgiveness," she muttered.

That should have driven me away. But there was something so infuriatingly mesmerizing about her. I wanted to understand her, even now. I wanted to help her understand me, as silly as it sounded.

Besides, perhaps I'd been too harsh on her. It embarrassed me, even now, to lose my cool in front of my friends. Raina was much more pragmatic than me, and obviously had strategies up her sleeves. I saw no way forward that wouldn't involve having to kill.

But shouldn't I have every right to be angry, after she'd betrayed my trust and so clearly ignored my pleas? It angered me that I felt I had to hide my own morals, and it troubled me that her reasoning seemed all too logical, and it saddened me that none of it really mattered anyway because I was here, and I'd lost so much. But I'd never expected to lose my sense of self, the very foundations which had shaped me.

So I just shrugged and I ducked my head so she wouldn't see my tears.

We stood there for a time, breathing in the stone-and-water scented air. So different from the fresh, pollinated air of Eleven. Have I mentioned already that I missed it, missed working with Cassian, with a never-ending ache? Probably a hundred times. I was even beginning to miss Moises' unpleasant demeanor. He did know some things, was even qualified for the job... when he wasn't acting as if my very presence inconvenienced him. Not that I minded much.

I saw what my brain was doing—latching onto random topics so I'd avoid being in my current surroundings—and I quickly reeled my thoughts back in. I could hear the distant screams of kids as they searched desperately for supplies or weapons in the roiling water. Some of them were probably surprised that the gleaming weapons they'd found in the Capitol were not patiently waiting for them here.

Well, you know what they say. You can't take it with you...

Wait. That was a saying about death. And we weren't dead yet. This wasn't death. Death was certain and merciful and full of love. Death meant a life well-lived.

And even if this was my end, even if I wasn't long for this world, I could still leave things behind. I just hoped it was all enough. Living one's life to the fullest didn't quite adapt itself to a gloomy—though admittedly beautiful—Arena.

I looked down at myself and realized I hadn't managed to scrounge any supplies, after all that. Even my mother's ring—or rather, the Capitol's cruel imitation of it—had been lost in the chaos.

I'd failed on all counts.

"Let's keep going, shall we?" I said, unable to think about what my lack of supplies might mean. Unable to notice the increasing pain in my hands.

Roe watched me for a moment. "Are you ready?"

I stared ahead. The cavern continued on for a stretch before... a shape loomed in the distance, almost obstructed in the darkness. A gate, maybe?

If this was only the prelude, I was not ready for the full extent. But I smiled anyway, feeling a little guilty for coming undone earlier.

"Of course I'm ready! Ominous gate in the distance, here we come."

The gate turned out to not be so far away after all. We walked together, my hand still in Roe's despite the fact that the shape of our dynamic had changed somewhat. Raina's action affected us all.

But how could I blame her completely? It was the Capitol who'd put her in that position. Oh, how the possibilities dizzied me—the thought that death and the wrongness of murder could be more than one-dimensional.

As we traveled, the cavern's walls seemed to close in on us. I caught sight of those mushrooms again, coupled with that eerie moss, and was careful not to touch the strange plants. I knew a little about poisons, though you didn't see them much in Eleven. What I did understand was that nothing in this Arena could be safe.

They'd called it the Land of the Dead. What a horrible irony. What cruelty they possessed, to give Death a personification only to turn it against us. But I was tired of calling the Capitol cruel and unfair; I'd grown restless at the hatred for them that continued to build in my heart. My time would be better spent living, touching the lives of others instead of growing angry at the Capitol's pettiness. At this point, their unkindness had become a fact of life—almost as certain as death itself. Not that I liked that in the slightest.

I began to hear a sound over the rushing of the river and the screams of the others. Low and rumbling, it seemed to resonate in the very stones beneath us.

I sensed that Roe and Raina had heard it, as they tensed beside me. "Just keep going," I murmured, trying to reassure myself just as much as them.

We did just that. As we plowed through the darkness, my eyes caught a bulking shape—very distinctly un-gate-like. It was definitely alive; trust me, I knew about these things. Its body seemed to pulse and pace in the murky space which only continued to grow smaller.

I pulled in a breath as my eyes finally adjusted to the light and we'd grown close enough to the creature. When I saw its full shape, my legs became utterly useless and I stumbled backward into Raina.

She caught at my shoulders, gently nudging me aside so she could see. We were both too afraid to cry out. As for Roe... Well, I couldn't pry my eyes away from the sight before me long enough to see him.

Standing before us was a dog. Now, I'd encountered strays in the graveyard and around Eleven before. We had a neutral relationship—as long as they weren't making things more complicated for funerals or at the graveyard, I was fond of them. But this... this was another beast entirely.

And that was the only word to describe it, a beast. Its beady eyes, large and glowing in the darkness, were fixed on us—though I could barely see them through the mountain of fur obscuring its face. On its hindquarters, it stood at probably twice my height—maybe more—and its body took up the entirety of the gate embedded into the stone, almost hiding it from sight.

I had seen the outline of the gate before, spired and sharp. But now I only saw the giant dog, and... oh. I let out a little squeak. As the dog paced in its confines, I caught a glimpse of its long tail—it was serpentine. Like, an actual snake, somehow attached to its body.

I'd seen a thousand strange things in my lifetime—why, I myself was entirely strange. But this... it was the most bizarre and terrifying thing I'd ever seen. And I didn't take that statement lightly.

But Roe's magical calm must've washed over me, because suddenly I was not afraid. It was as if I'd surpassed every symptom of fear—I'd already felt the rushing in my ears, the iron taste of panic in the back of my throat, the ungainly racing of my heart. Now it was just the tingling warmth of being entirely too afraid. My body had no reactions left but the very last resort—an impossible peace.

I wondered if this was how Roe always lived. And I pitied him a little, because he must've had a heap of fear in his early years to feel this way.

The machinations of a human mind were still unknown to me. But I had a memory, in that moment, of the days after my parents died. After my strangled sobs, after the unbearable silence, I had gone into a kind of isolated autopilot. It was only me left in the world, or so it seemed. And so I ran their funeral, I dug their graves, I gave their eulogies. And throughout it all, I was utterly removed.

Now I saw yet another case of the unfathomable. I saw the drool and blood hanging in ropes from the enormous dog's fangs. The Capitol had placed it here to kill some of the Tributes, and it seemed it had already succeeded.

But here were my friends, complicated as they were. I wasn't great with people—I longed so much to understand them, and I wasn't there yet. But I knew that I liked these people—at least a little bit. Against all the odds.

And so I stepped forward and I did, in Raina's later words, what might've been the craziest thing to ever be done. I began reciting poetry.

Yes, yes, I know. We were in a dire situation. Why would I recite poetry at a Capitol-engineered monster?

I knew that poetry was yet another of the beautiful things that made up the human condition. It held a magic of its own, in the rhythm and the beautiful words. No creature under the sun could hear it without being moved.

Never mind that we were technically not in sight of the sun. We were still beneath it. And I had the unshakeable belief that everything deserved to live, that there was a scrap of humanity everywhere. And I hoped there was something akin to emotion inside this creature.

Of course, I mostly wrote poetry. And I wasn't the greatest poet in the world. But all writers must take inspiration somewhere, and my muses were the old poems from before the Dark Days—so long ago that nobody could attribute a date or author. It awed me that people had been creating poems since time began.

I stood tall and began to approach the creature. "Out of the night that covers me..." My voice was as steady as rain on a windowpane. "Black as the pit from pole to pole..."

The beast lifted its head. It continued to growl.

"Yomi!" Raina shrieked. "What are you doing? We're turning around."

But I knew there was nothing for us in that tiny cavern, that river of pain. This was my best option. I wasn't about to give up.

"I thank whatever gods may be, for my unconquerable soul." My voice lifted with inexplicable calm. It was like speaking at a funeral... only I wasn't honoring someone already dead. I was keeping us alive.

Or, trying to. In perhaps the stupidest way possible. But I kept talking nonetheless. It took another stanza for the dog's growl to subside. I stared into its eyes and saw only darkness. No trace of emotion.

But I kept on, refusing to break my rhythm. "Beyond this place of wrath and tears looms but the horror of the shade."

The dog rocked unsteadily on its colossal paws. Perhaps it was confused by my absence of fear—or, at least, my ability to hide it well.

My voice was echoing in the cavern now, bouncing between the walls. "And yet the menace of the years finds and shall find me unafraid."

The dog inched to the side, leaving the gate's latch unguarded. I glanced back at my friends, quickly, and tried to convey everything that I wanted them to do. It was an easy enough message—I hoped they'd receive it.

"It matters not how strait the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll..." My voice had become hushed now, in hopes of drawing in my audience. Which was, yes, a murderous canine who scared the living daylights out of me. But it was an audience nonetheless.

My friends slipped closer, and the dog did not move, seemingly mesmerized by my closeness. By the way I stood my ground. Or perhaps it really was the poetry.

(Yes, I can hear the cynics among you clamoring for your say. Perhaps it was my luck, or maybe the Gamemakers interfered for one reason or another. Either way, it was beyond question that I swayed the creature, somehow. And sometimes that's all that matters.)

"I am the master of my fate." My hand reached out to it, just barely brushing its fur. "I am the captain of my soul."

The beast slumped to its knees. It dropped its head slowly.

The gate opened. Humming reassuringly, I inched away from the dog with as much grace as I could muster.

The dog stirred behind me. I continued to walk away, humming beneath my breath, and squeezed between the gate and the stone wall. Roe and Raina beckoned me forward and let the door close behind me.

The dog's mournful howls broke the silence. It also stole away that brief serenity that had fallen over me. My legs promptly decided they'd had enough, and I was suddenly on my knees. Roe and Raina gathered beside me, supporting my weight so I didn't topple entirely.

Raina was gaping at me and Roe was giving me one of his priceless smiles.

"What. Was that." Raina was gazing at me head-on, and I saw how her eyes were flashing between bewilderment, belated fear, and bliss. "You just—you—"

I was suddenly laughing hysterically. And my hands were shaking. No, it was my whole body.

"We should find some shelter," Raina finally said, and Roe offered his hand so I could stand. "But... seriously? Poetry?"

"Not all problems have to be solved through killing." The words slipped through my lips before I could catch them. "Sorry! That—that wasn't..."

Her eyes had become distant again, but I still saw traces of respect there. "No. You're right. You… you did well."

"It was beautiful," Roe said with his usual sincerity. "You were... you were wonderful. I can't believe that actually worked."

"Don't be too excited," I said, the full implications dawning on me. "It could still kill a lot of people. But hopefully not... I wouldn't want it to die." Even animals deserved peaceful lives.

"Not everyone has your innate gift of poetry and dog whispering," Raina drawled.

It startled another laugh from me. "You can make jokes that aren't totally vitriolic!"

"Didn't quite catch that last part, but yeah, I guess so." She threw me a look over her shoulder. One I couldn't even come close to deciphering.

Roe stilled beside me. "Look at this place..."

We were standing in an endless field. It was the only way I could think to describe it. Cold soil beneath our feet, the air impossibly chill, and a multitude of poplars dotting the expanse around us. Myrtle trees stood in among the poplars, pale and haunting in the half-light. Though we had emerged from the depths of the cavern, the world was still inexplicably dim.

I couldn't stop trembling. Perhaps it was the chill of the air, or the lack of sky above us. When I looked up, I saw only a smudge in the distance. I couldn't glean the source of what little light we had.

I thought my eyes were tricking me. Surely there had to be a sky. The Capitol couldn't just wipe out the sun.

But then I remembered we were still underground. This was all some kind of concoction they'd created with their technology. For what purpose, I didn't understand. I could only stand in horror for a moment.

"It's not too bad," Raina said hesitantly. The wreath of leaves had gone askew, tilting toward her brow. "I mean... it's nice and quiet."

Opposites, we certainly were.

I noticed that Roe was examining my hands, blistered and ravaged by the river. Suddenly the pain and exhaustion and fear caught up to me. I couldn't escape them so easily.

"They look better," Roe said soothingly. I felt a twinge of guilt at being comforted by a fourteen-year-old whose own hands were still shaking. But who was I to refuse his comfort? I didn't necessarily feel that I deserved it, but he was still offering his kindness. Unaccustomed as I was to such kindness outside of my parents or Cassian, I shied away from its light.

"We should rest for a bit,- I whispered. "Find some shelter, maybe..."

But the fields seemed to go on forever in every direction besides the one we'd come from. And none of us were in the mood for walking; so we settled for the shade of a poplar tree, our backs against the trunk.

Roe promptly curled up on the cold ground, his head pillowed on his arms. He looked up at us through half-closed eyelids. "Just gonna... rest for a sec," he murmured. "Is that okay?"

I had the sudden urge to reach out and pat his shoulder or ruffle his hair—an affectionate, older sibling-like protectiveness that I'd never felt before. "Of course it's okay. Sleep, if you want."

I figured it must be midday or late-afternoon by now. Without the sun to track the hours, time was already beginning to blur. That thought scared me a little, but I tried not to show it.

Roe closed his eyes and curled into himself. He was asleep in moments, his curls already spilling across his forehead again without Chalet's treatment. His breathing was near-silent; he could evidently nap on command. An unmistakable fondness rose inside me and I couldn't help but smile.

"He's a funny one, isn't he?" I caught the same traces of emotion in Raina's voice, though not nearly as strong as mine.

"Not nearly as strange as me. It's boring to be normal, anyway."

"Mmm."

"Raina?"

"What do you want?" Her voice was stripped of sharpness. She gazed up at the sky and did not look at me.

"I think I understand. Why you did what you did earlier, I mean."

She puffed out a breath. She still smelled like campfire smoke. It was a remnant of herself that even the Capitol couldn't wash away. "I don't want your apologies."

"Good, because you won't be getting them." I tried to keep my voice light, but in truth, I was getting a little frustrated and flustered. I didn't know how to go about this at all.

I wasn't doing it right.

"I just meant..." Raina's voice had softened a little. Her eyes were still lost to the fathomless space above us. "You don't have anything to be sorry for. You don't like killing, I get it."

"It's more than that." I struggled briefly for words. "That's not how life was designed. We're all supposed to be on equal footing; everyone deserves to live a full life, and experience death only when their time has come."

"You say that like it's a good thing. Dying."

"I mean, everyone dies. We'll all be gone eventually." The thought sent a chill through me, knowing that now it would be sooner rather than later. My own morals no longer brought me comfort, but I pressed on anyway. "What matters is what we do in our lives, and the people we meet and impact along the way. We all have the chance to be remembered by someone for doing something wonderful with our lives. And after death, our stories can still live on in the ones who loved us."

Raina narrowed her eyes at me. "Fine, we can play this game. What about the people who never have the chance to do something great? Are we any less deserving of love?"

I fell still. She'd brought my own fears to the light.

"If you don't serve some predestined purpose, does that mean your life wasn't worth it? Are we only as good as what we can do for others, what we can provide?" She was breathing faster now, her hands clenched into fists. "And what if everyone who loves us leaves us? What if we feel useless because we aren't good for anything? Your fantasies of love and kindness are just a luxury."

She was heartbroken and hurting. Scared and sad. That was why she lashed out at me. I knew that, but it didn't dull the sting. "It's a luxury that everyone deserves," I whispered. "If life and death were in balance, everyone would have that."

"Why are we even here?" She leaned a little closer to me, and I saw that she was truly trying to understand now. "If not to suffer and hurt everyone else around us? We're just leeches and monsters from beginning to end, searching for what we need and not caring for much else. We live, we take, we destroy the world, and then we die. That's it. How could there possibly be anything else?"

I reached out and laid my hand over hers. "I know you said you didn't want this," I whispered, "but I'm sorry. I'm sorry that your experience has been that way. But I have to believe we're here for a reason. That something will come out of our lives."

"And what if that's not the case?" Her voice was hoarse now, and in that moment I saw her, entire—the vulnerability and the ugliness and the hint of beauty. "The Capitol has shown us that our lives are worth only what we can contribute to their skewed society. We're just debts to be paid in their eyes, examples to be made for everyone else. So what if that's all we are?"

We sat in silence for a long time as I cycled through fear, and hope, and despair, and confusion. Then I let out a breath.

"Then we'll just have to change that. Maybe we exist to question the way things are, to... open our minds and make way for new ideas. Sometimes even joy, even living, can be enough. Sometimes it's all we can do to simply hope, and that's okay." In this, my conviction was still unshakable.

Her face crumbled, just a little, in the tightening of her brows and the sinking of her chin. "I couldn't recognize joy if it marched up to me and started reciting poetry."

I grinned. "Are you saying I'm joy?"

Her lips quirked, just a tiny bit. The barest suggestion of a smile. "I wouldn't want to put that weight on you. But you definitely seem to have a lot of it."

She'd given me more words in these few minutes than I'd heard from her in the past day. I pulled back, releasing her hand. "Your worth isn't just what you can do for others, Raina. But I think it's more than you realize. And you're entitled to be happy and sad and whatever else. That's the beauty of life—some things will always be your choice. It's a gift—to even exist. Your life is already beautiful, and meaningful, no matter what you contribute or whether you're remembered."

Now, if I could just believe that myself... maybe then I'd feel right in the world again.

"I want to believe you." Her voice was the crackle of tinder and woodsmoke. "I really do."

I smiled at her. "I wasn't trying to sway you one way or the other. I don't expect you to agree, it's just... Well, I know life is hard sometimes. And I'm sorry that you've had that experience. But I hope life gives you something beautiful before..." I trailed off, unable to cobble my thoughts together. Unable to say the last few words, despite my unflinching familiarity with death.

Her words had unnerved me. I'd never seen life through that lens, and now the distorted images were circling behind my eyes. I'd always been afraid of being forgotten. But what if I was? Would that make my life any less important?

"I liked it, by the way," she muttered.

I squinted at her. "Liked what?"

"The poetry. I didn't really understand it, but... you know."

I didn't, not really. But I beamed anyway. "I'm most glad to hear it, Miss Raina Quintana."

She scowled at me. "Do you always have to talk like that?"

"Only if it annoys you." I winked at her, just to show I wasn't entirely serious.

She sighed. "You're certainly good at it."

But I didn't forget her words. About how she liked the poem, and about joy. I hoped I'd brought some of that to her.

But I also knew that her life was not mine to control. It was her journey, and I could only watch. But I was glad to have been a part of it, even as darkness and murder stained our view. I wished it could go on like this just a little longer—Raina picking at her manicured fingernails like the polish itself had wronged her, Roe contentedly sleeping beside me. If only I could take them home and show them my garden, introduce them to Cassian...

But that would never happen. So I only breathed deep and tried to preserve the moment in my mind, imagining it could go on forever if I only wished hard enough.

But moments were always meant to be temporary. Change was the nature of life, while death was permanent and certain. That perfect balance. Sitting under the unseeing sky, feeling a semblance of safety, I almost wanted to upset that balance—awful as the sounded—just so things wouldn't have to change.

I awoke early—it must've been, because my body still felt half-drained. When I opened my eyes, the same shadowy half-light greeted me. The same void in place of the sky, everything distant and blurring.

I might have expected sunshine and birdsong. I definitely longed for those things. But we were still here, in this wasteland. And that wouldn't be changing anytime soon.

The announcer had called this place 'The Land of the Dead.' The memory left a bitter taste on my tongue. I knew the Capitol didn't actually have the power to send us beyond the grave; but it might as well be, with all the dying souls. They'd blotted out the sky, leaving us to choke on the remaining breath that was left for us.

Unless... unless one of my friends made it out. The thought, strange as it seemed, had not occurred to me in such clarity before. I could see one of them safe, out of this Arena for good.

But did I want any of us to turn out like Linnet or Mirabelle, wandering the Capitol halls and waiting to say goodbye at the newest sacrifice? And if Roe or Raina did escape, it would leave them without the other. Without me.

Though I'm not sure if they would care about that. Perhaps I'd not done enough for them yet to be worth remembering.

It certainly wasn't the best fate, but there was hardly an alternative. None of us would leave this unscathed—if we left at all.

A sound startled me—sort of a quiet rustling, along with a little gasp. When I glanced at Roe, I saw that his face had tensed in sleep. Sweat glistened on his forehead, and he breathed rapidly. As I watched, his arm twitched, reaching toward me. A soft sound of desperation escaped him before his eyes flew open.

For a moment, he looked vulnerable and afraid, facing a thousand monsters inside his head. Then his gaze cleared and his composure came up. He swept the hair from his eyes and tried at a smile.

That protective urge came again, and this time I let myself reach forward and touch his shoulder. He flinched before his eyes focused on me.

"Yomi?" he said. "I'm sorry... Did I wake you?"

"Shhh, of course not," I murmured, holding my hands up placatingly. "Don't worry about it, not for a minute."

He still looked a little dazed. "I hate sleeping. But I was so tired that I forgot..."

"Nightmares?" I said gently.

He nodded. "That's part of it. But I could never sleep at the orphanage. If you so much as made a sound in the night, someone was bound to punish you. I was in a room with a dozen other kids—I was always worried about waking them, or Mistress Crawley." He paused. "Sorry. Not sure why I'm telling you all this."

"No, that makes sense," I said. "You don't have to worry about that with me, I promise. I'd never be mad about being woken up—which you didn't, for the record. And besides, taking up space isn't a crime."

He cracked a little smile. "Thanks, Yomi."

"You two are jabbering as usual," drawled a voice from behind us, still creaky with sleep.

I turned and met the fiery gaze of Raina Quintana in the morning. It was a frightful sight to see—her dark hair was wild around her face, and her scowl was somehow even more pronounced. But I did not flinch away; and when Roe shied back, I gave him a reassuring smile. He'd still not gotten over his fear of Raina, despite my efforts. Though, I think the average person would've shriveled before that half-asleep glare.

"I mean, we talked last night," I said good-naturedly.

"That was last night, at a sane hour of the day."

"And how would you know what hour it is, Miss Quintana?" I said, bringing myself to full height... which was still shorter than her, and not too effective while I was sitting.

"I happen to have a good head for these kinds of things," she said, though not in a gloating way. More like it was an unquestionable fact. "And it is the morning of July sixteenth, just before dawn."

"Have you been counting this whole time?" Roe sounded stunned.

"Maybe I have, maybe I haven't."

It took her words a minute to settle in my brain. When they caught up to me, my stomach turned.

"You okay?" Roe was watching me worriedly.

"Definitely! I just, uh... realized something..."

It was my nineteenth birthday. The one I'd been looking forward to ever since Moises took over the funeral home. The one I'd always known would be a beautiful day. A day of new beginnings, of freedom.

I was finally an adult. No longer a minor; old enough to have grown out of guardianship. Mature enough to run the Nishikaze Funeral Home all by myself.

And none of it mattered. Because I was stuck here in this borderless Arena where the sun didn't even show its face, where my and my friends' lives were spilling away before our very eyes.

My nineteenth birthday held no magic, no real powers of liberation. I was still trapped, and no amount of my previous childhood dreams would change that. It didn't matter that I was now old enough to have slipped the Capitol's clutches.

I was forever frozen in this place of uncontrolled death, and there would be no candles. No celebrations of adulthood. But I could find no way to unpack that all before my friends. I didn't want their pity. And I couldn't burden them with this information.

There may as well have been candles, though. Because I was watching years of hope, a day that had been brimming with meaning, become nothing but ashes and smoke. It was all dispersing before my eyes.

"We should walk." Raina's voice was gentler than usual—which was like saying a knife was duller than usual when it drew blood from your thumb instead of cutting the entire finger off. It didn't mean much, but it was noticeable. "We can't stay here forever. We have nothing—and I'm so thirsty."

I wanted to tell her to alert me if she saw any drinkable, non-acidic water sources around. But I bit back the uncharacteristic comment and hauled myself to my feet, trying my best not to put any pressure on my hands. "Agreed!"

Roe was still looking at me like he didn't really believe that I was fine, but he didn't put up a fight. Just stood beside me and shoved his hair away from his forehead—to me, it looked like he was bracing for a blow. "Let's do it."

We walked. And walked. I won't bore you with the details—at least, not too much. It was all blurring landscape and parched soil, trees that grew in inexplicable lines. The cold seeped into my bones. The hours became sluggish and distorted. The silence was bearable compared to the thirst, the exhaustion, and the pain.

At times, I swore I heard distant notes on the wind—like mourning songs, or wailing. I thought I could pick out shapes in the distance, barely anything but vapor. But they were there. I swore they were.

After what felt like an eternity of the same poplar trees and gray haze, Raina spoke into the silence. "Alright, fine." She sounded awfully decisive about whatever she'd reasoned herself into.

"Yeah, I have no idea what you're talking about," I said lightly, my voice coming between puffs of air. It was harder to breathe down here—it was as if the air was being siphoned from my lungs.

"I want to hear it. Your grand idea about why life is worth living. Tell me what there is to live for."

She always spoke like that, making demands. Hardly ever asking questions. I was fascinated by her, perhaps even more so now that murder stained her soul. Morbidly, destructively so, yes—but I was still fascinated. And said fascination confused me beyond belief. I didn't understand anything.

So I gave her an answer, though perhaps not the one she wanted. "Butterflies. They're pretty nice."

"And flowers," Roe piped in.

I grinned. "Laughter—"

"Cake," he supplied.

"Friendship and love." As strange as those entities seemed to me. "Sunlight."

"Cats."

I laughed, a little startled. "You like cats?"

"They're cute," he said shyly. "And fairly easy to understand."

I saw that Raina was frowning, despite the lift in my mood. "You didn't like our answers?"

Raina glanced up, and her eyes were full of unknowns.

It seemed like she truly wanted to understand. Fine. I would tell her one of my truths. It didn't cost me anything.

"I sometimes feel like... I don't even understand life. I want to, so badly! I want to know everything—about why we're here, how the world works, what makes people tick. But sometimes I feel... at a distance from it all. I don't always know the answers. So I guess for me, sometimes it's the curiosity of it all—the thrill of knowing there will always be more to discover."

"And that doesn't make you feel left out, like you're missing things. Or lonely?" Her voice dropped a little, and she wouldn't meet my eyes.

"Oh, it does," I said hastily. "I mean... I'm not kept awake by it or anything. But sometimes I do feel sorta... isolated from everything else. And I want to be a part of it. I want to taste every food, see everything in the light. I—"

I broke off. I wouldn't be able to do those things. Not anymore.

Slowly, almost reluctantly, I let my gaze drift up to my friends—first to Roe. He was easier. And he was looking at me with wonder in his eyes.

"You're really good at words, aren't you?" he said, and his lips tugged gently upward. "I guess I want that, too. To... I don't know, understand life?"

"And death," I whispered, glancing over at Raina. Her gaze was thoughtful.

"Nothing you say makes sense," she said, sounding almost amused by the idea. "It's like you steal all the words out of my head. You confuse me."

"I've been told," I said, and I was a little hurt. "That my actions are contradictory, that I shouldn't act the way I do."

"No!" Her voice was suddenly very loud—I gaped at her. She put a hand over her mouth. "I just meant that... Well, I've never thought about things the way you do. But it's... well, I don't hate it."

That startled another laugh out of me. "...Thank you?"

She gave me a rare quirk of her lips. "You're most welcome."

"Look at that! My perfect manners and elegant words are wearing off on you."

"Oh please," she drawled. "You're the most devilish creature I've ever met."

I mock-pouted. "You wound me. And besides, I prefer the term 'puckish,' thank you very much."

Roe grinned at me. Somehow, we'd scrounged a fragment of contentment, gleaned light from the darkness. We were full of life in a place meant only for death.

And it was beautiful. The contradiction. I was beginning to expect them by now—my life had become littered with paradoxes and dualities. Nothing could ever be as simple as it had been.

But I didn't mind that—or at least, not yet.

Some hours later, we came upon new terrain. Or rather, an archway. It was glaring because everything around it was so monotonous. But we all perked up a little when we saw it in the distance. A collective relief at something new.

By this time, my mouth had become parched and dry as sandpaper. Roe looked paler than usual, and Raina's healthy skin tone was beginning to look a little wan. It worried me, to see the Arena's effects on us after only a day.

I gasped a little when we reached the archway. Raina whispered, "Thank Panem" beneath her breath. Even before standing under the archway, things looked a bit more luminous, as if the stagnant dimness was finally increasing.

The archway itself was draped over with vines which had seemingly grown from beyond it. I didn't really question the strangeness of a metal archway set into the very earth—I'd already seen far more alarming things here. I leaned forward to read the inscription written in gold leaf. "Persephone's Garden?" I said, feeling the familiarity of the name but being unable to place it.

Raina gave a rare grin, her eyes sparkling with intrigue. "Gardens mean food and water."

She stepped through the archway without preamble, and Roe and I had no choice but to follow. Not that we wouldn't have in the first place, but there was an uneasy feeling growing inside me. The sight of the garden and the name of the archway left an imprint in my mind, as if I should've known more but didn't.

The subterranean garden turned out to be adorned with jewels. Gilded roses and crystal vines, a curtain of emeralds and onyx. I had hoped for something natural, perhaps some vegetables or...

I caught my breath. Hanging from skeletal branches further in the garden was the crown jewel of the array: pomegranates that gleamed like gems. Plump and luridly red, they swung back and forth in the slightest breeze that rose through the soil. Beneath them was a tiny spring, as clear and inviting as anything I'd ever seen.

Raina was already across the garden, a pomegranate rolling between her palms. "Wish I had a knife," she muttered.

Roe was gaping at the riches that grew impossibly around us, reaching tentatively toward a golden apple. I still couldn't tell if the fruit was real or not.

I myself was mostly unimpressed. Yes, the garden was hauntingly beautiful, but it was yet another display of the Capitol's careless wealth. For them, money did grow on trees—and they weren't afraid to admit it.

But then, it was a little lighter here. And the canopy of star-bright jewels above us helped me forget about that unnerving void where the sky should be. I sank onto a bench that looked to be made of petrified wood. It gave me a little shiver, to see this imitation of nature. Where carnations and peonies should be blooming, there was only luminous fruit and unrelenting amber.

Raina had managed to break the pomegranate over her knee—because of course she would do that. The blood-red seeds were now on full display. She reached for a handful, and her eyes were brighter than I'd ever seen them, lacking the apathy they usually possessed.

If the idea didn't seem so ludicrous, I'd say the Capitol had her under thrall. That the fruit had called her with its siren song, just like in the old stories I barely remembered.

Her hands were already stained red to the knuckle.

I stood suddenly. Roe was standing on tiptoe to reach his own pomegranate. "Wait! I don't think you should eat these."

Raina was already bringing a handful of glistening seeds to her mouth. She popped them between her lips before looking at me strangely. "Are you crazy? This might be the only food we see for a while."

Roe looked at me nervously. His lips were chapped and there were dark circles beneath his eyes.

"I just have a bad feeling about it," I said a little testily. "The Capitol could have poisoned them."

"They... they wouldn't leave us without food, would they? That would be impossible. We'd all die within days... would they want that?" I'd never seen Roe take Raina's side over mine. Not that I minded... maybe I was just being foolish.

But I couldn't shake the ominous feeling, and I'd just remembered something. I was familiar with others' perceptions about death—to see death in stories had always intrigued me. In one old myth, if you ate something in the Land of the Dead, you'd never be able to leave.

And the irony wasn't lost on me. I used these seeds to leave faux messages from spirits—I'd always thought of pomegranates as the food of ghosts, and this wasn't the first time I'd encountered them. It almost seemed as though the Capitol was taunting me, using my own ideas about death against me.

Roe offered his pomegranate to Raina hesitantly. She looked at him. "You want me to help?" she said dryly.

"Maybe?"

She broke it in half, just as easily as she had the last. Roe looked back at me. And how could I deny him when he looked like that, all innocent and pleading?

I shrugged. "I guess you're right. We don't know when we'll see food next."

Roe smiled at me reassuringly. "I'm sure it'll be fine."

I wished I could have that same certainty. But the dread just kept collecting inside me, creating a build-up that I could not scrape free. There was something wrong here, something coming.

I distracted myself by going to the spring. I stared down at its cold, clear water. Was this safe?

Was anything?

I cupped my hands and drank, trying to soothe myself with memories. I was walking the streets of Eleven, delivering flowers and causing mischief. My hair blew free behind me. I was living... I was unafraid.

What a beautiful, fleeting dream it had been. Before everything had turned clouded. Before I'd begun to question.

"I want to steal from them. The kids from One and Two."

I nearly choked on the icy water. I hardly looked up, not realizing how thirsty I was until I started drinking. "I'm sorry? I must've misheard you—"

"You heard me right." Raina's voice was surprisingly careful. "I saw them earlier at the shore, using the stalactites to lift things from the water. Or maybe they were weapons..." She must've seen my shoulders stiffen, because she coughed quickly. "Anyway. They have supplies. They have more than they deserve."

"Raina, I couldn't agree with you more. But how do you expect to find them in all this? Have you thought about how dangerous it could be?"

Maybe she understood danger better than I did. Maybe it didn't frighten her, just as murder did not. The thought turned my stomach.

"Of course I've thought about it!" She paused. "Okay... maybe I haven't thought about everything you just said. But why does it matter anymore, whether it's hard or easy? Safe or dangerous?"

"Because I want you to live," I whispered, unable to fill my voice with the exasperation I wanted.

"What?" Raina crouched next to me; we were eye level now.

"I think you heard me right," I said, mimicking her earlier words with just a hint of amusement.

Raina huffed a breath. "Why would you care either way?"

Her habit must've rubbed off on me, because I was suddenly rolling my eyes to the bejeweled leaves above us.

"I mean—" she said quickly. "You care about everyone."

"I like you, Raina; of course I care about you. But even beyond that, I just don't think anyone deserves to die, not like this." I was quiet. A little sad; the emotion had snuck up on me like a petty thief, stealing away my certainty.

"Well, people are dying," she said darkly. "And I'm doing this because I want us to live longer."

What a terribly delicate balance this was. The scales of life were tipping and I couldn't stop them.

"Okay." I shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant. "But don't expect me to join you..." As soon as I said those words, I realized how silly they sounded.

But Raina just nodded. "I'll find you both again."

I shook my head. "In all this darkness? How will you find your way back?"

"Aren't we picky today?" Raina said lightly. "Besides, I'll be fine. I've a mind for this kind of thing."

"Thievery? Or mental mapping?"

She laughed—actually laughed! It was a fluttery sound, catching me wholly by surprise. "I meant the second one. But maybe I'll make a good thief too."

I choked back my misgivings. "Maybe you will."

"Here's what'll happen," said Raina decidedly. We'd all rested in the garden for an unknown stretch of time, and now we were back on the endless path.

Raina clapped her hands together. There was actual enthusiasm in her eyes—it made me happy to see it. "We find the... I'm getting tired of calling them 'the kids from One and Two.'"

"Grape-eaters," Roe supplied.

"Aristocrats," I said demurely.

She huffed. "Can either of you be serious for one minute? Anyway, we find them. You hang back while I sneak in and take their stuff. Then we creep away like professional shadows, or whatever."

"Mmm," I said.

"You don't like my plan?"

"It's a good plan!" I chirped. "Just... never mind. It's a good plan."

I trusted her. Didn't I?

Should I?

Roe looked up mildly. "Raina, are you... sure?"

"Sure about what? That it's terrible here? That you're both getting on my nerves?"

He smiled a little, then shrugged. "Sure about stealing from them? What if they don't even have supplies?"

"They'll have something. And at the least, I can figure out their plan."

I smiled. "You have thought this through." I was guilty for my lack of faith in her, so I tried to compensate.

"I think everything through. It's just that it all flashes in front of me in a few seconds and then I know what to do."

"I think of what to say for at least a minute," Roe said sheepishly. "Let alone what to actually do."

Words were easy for me, by turns a shield and a release. Things made a bit of sense, when they were in writing, or in the cadence of someone's voice. I could still remember my parents' philosophies as if they'd just spoken them.

But sometimes words weren't enough. I was beginning to understand that.

We walked for what felt like ages. The spring water left me feeling invigorated, but the constant walking was beginning to chip at my resolve. I had begun to open my mouth and ask for a break when distant voices made me freeze.

"Do you think it's them?" Roe's voice trembled a little.

"We'll find out. You two stay here." She cast a wry smile over her shoulder. "I'll holler if I need help—which I won't."

(Oh, the painful irony of it. I should have known... so many things. But I wanted so desperately to believe in her.)

I waved with a flourish. "Safe journeys, Miss Raina."

Raina gave me a scowl, but her eyes were gleaming like embers. One last look—then she was gone.

I turned to Roe. "We'll listen. We'll be able to hear if something happens."

He nodded at me. "Are you alright?"

"Never been better..." I trailed off, shaking my head. "Never mind. I'm nervous. I'm terrified."

He offered me a smile. "You'll figure something out."

He believed in me. But I couldn't help a quiet laugh. "Me?" I put a hand on his shoulder and we eased a little farther away from the voices... which had now become silent. "I have no idea what I'm doing, Roe."

He looked up at me. "You're wise. You know things. I think... whatever happens, you'll be able to find a way."

"A way for what?" I whispered.

He shrugged, but there was an understated certainty in his eyes. "A way to keep going."

A chill raced up and down my arms. And then I heard the harsh cry.

"Raina, you idiot..." I muttered through gritted teeth. I should've known.

I should've stopped her.

The dread had reached its apex. I met Roe's gaze. "Stay here. I don't want to lose you."

He looked like he wanted to protest. But then he nodded, and his shoulders sank. He'd succumbed to defeat already.

I scampered through poplar trees, light on my feet as I made my way toward Raina. I'd save her. We would all be fine.

But I could never ignore that impending pressure in the air. I could always feel death, as strange as it sounded. Like a cool touch against my neck. And now, it was looming closer.

I'd stop it. This time, things would turn out differently.

I edged my way closer to their encampment—and that was certainly what I'd call it. They'd set up in a copse of trees, perfect for hiding in. I could see from here that they had tarps where they'd stored supplies—just shapeless lumps to my eyes. Littered around the outskirts of the camp were various castoff items that they'd obviously decided were of less import. My gaze was immediately drawn to a shovel, its end looking wickedly sharp in the hazy light.

I inched forward and closed my fingers around its handle. I'd used this tool countless times before. Never as a weapon. My hands grew clammy just thinking about using it on anything besides dirt. But I held tight anyway.

Crouched beneath the safety of the poplars, I could see Raina running. Her arms were full of stuff, and I could hear the sharpness of her breath even at this distance.

I scurried closer, my limbs surprisingly agile. I supposed it was all those hours skirting through the graveyard and tending the gardens. My body was used to squeezing and adjusting, depending on the space.

Raina was being tailed by Dresden, the boy from One. He was holding, against all odds, a knife. Black as pitch, and wicked sharp.

I wanted to scream. His gaze glinted with murder—his legs were muscular, longer than Raina's. He'd catch her.

But she just kept running, clutching her bundle for dear life. Still weaponless.

She could kill him. She'd have... whatever it was. I might've once called it callousness. Cruelty. Carelessness.

But now I saw it in layers. And I wanted her to be brave. I wanted her to escape.

Dresden caught her when she was only a stone's throw from me. Pinned her against a tree without preamble. His knife at her throat.

Those smoky eyes, always filled with fire. That candlelit hair. She fought against him with unrelenting ferocity—and all the while, her eyes searched.

He didn't see me—he was too preoccupied. But Raina's eyes were sharp and keen, and I was in her line of sight.

Our gazes locked. Dresden was saying something—I could hear the cruel lilt of his voice but couldn't quite catch the words.

I dared a few steps closer, pressing through the trees. Raina saw the shovel in my hands. Her face lit with hope.

She nodded at me. Just the slightest gesture, but it elicited a line of blood that ran down her neck. The knife pressed closer.

What happened next was merely a moment. But for me, it was the details that wouldn't stop coming. I couldn't stop thinking about the diamonds encrusted in Dresden's blade, the gold flecks in Raina's eyes, the staccato of her frantic breaths. The way the shovel dug into my palm.

I remembered preparing the dead for burial. How my mother would smile so proudly at me, and my father would take my shoulders and look at me like I was important. Like I was doing something meaningful, something beautiful.

What would they think of me, if I killed Dresden now? It seemed the only way to save Raina. Screaming would cause commotion, running away might alert him of my presence. But if I was quick enough, keen enough...

I could kill him, stab him in the back as Raina was practically begging me to do. Or just knock him unconscious. And then...

What? Would Raina and I run? The others wouldn't let us go...

And I couldn't. Beneath the layers of details coating my mind, I knew it in my bones. I could not kill Dresden. Not even if it meant saving her.

And something in me broke at that thought... I became ghost-like. I wasn't really there.

I was thinking about how no matter what, someone's life would end in this situation. But somehow, it was easier to let others take action instead of directly murdering someone.

And it made me feel selfish. Wretched. To think that I couldn't even move, not even to save someone I cared about.

Time unstuck, and his knife found its target. Raina's eyes filled with hurt. A pain I would never grasp.

I couldn't look away—didn't want to. Not with this new shame burning inside me.

It wasn't the blood that disturbed me. It was the way Dresden's face froze over, and he pulled the knife free like it was nothing, wiping it over his dark jeans. Bloodstained... he was bloodstained.

So was she.

I'd always thought that a murder was a murder. Full stop, no complications about it. But now I knew that there were a hundred different ways to spin it. So many lenses and so many justifications... it overwhelmed me beyond belief.

It wasn't my place to weigh lives on the balancing scale. But I thought, in that moment, that Raina's life held so much more than this haughty boy, who turned away as Raina collapsed.

"What do we do with it?" His District partner had come to watch, her gaze as disinterested as if she were merely a spectator in a chess match.

It. The body.

"Leave it," he said.

"Do you think she came alone?"

"Doesn't matter. If someone is watching, they'll have learned their lesson. Besides, they'd have come to her defense by now, if they were any good."

My heart imploded, just a little. The world was spinning, spinning...

Raina had long since fallen. I couldn't stop staring at her hair, its black strands painted with blood.

"We need to move on anyway," said Dresden. His voice was so empty. "Can't have them making a second effort."

And they left, just like that.

It was as if the world broke open around me, and suddenly I was falling forward. Reaching for her.

They hadn't taken the supplies she'd stolen. Maybe they were planning to come back. Her fingers twitched, and she pointed at the spilled supplies. "Take them. Let it be worth something, at least."

"Raina." I couldn't breathe. Couldn't see. "I'm so sorry, I should've—"

"Shhhh," she murmured. There was an impossible distance in her gaze; she was already half-gone. "No time for apologies. I understand you, Yomi."

"No," I choked out. "No, I don't even understand myself—what I did was wrong."

"Did you kill me?" she said, and I saw that corner of her wry smile. Against all odds, she was still smoldering. Not quite burned out yet.

I shook my head wildly. "But I might as well have! I should've stepped in—"

"Nothing... you can do now... I just—" I looked down at her. She was struggling to hold my gaze. "Just wanted... to find something... worth living for."

I took her hand, unsure what propelled me to do it. I could've pleaded for her to hold on a little longer... but I'd seen enough dead bodies to know she was already on her way. I couldn't pull her back. "Did you find it?" I whispered, my voice stolen by tears.

Those dark eyes... they sparkled as she looked up at me. "I had hope that I would. Eventually. And that's... more than I could've said before."

So many tears. I couldn't hold them back.

"Raina, please—"

But those starry eyes were guttering out. Not hooded or dwindled but... flickering into nothingness. I watched the last of her smoke wick into the air. I watched her still against the soil.

(Death is full of so many endings. The last smile, the last goodbye, the last time someone looks at you. And usually, you can't see them coming. If I'd have known that was the last time I'd see Raina Quintana's eyes fill with light, I'd have pulled that moment close and done everything I could to preserve it.

But I didn't, not then. Now I understand we could have been something beautiful. I could have watched that joy spark in her eyes time and again. But death obeys no master. Least of all me. Still... the what-ifs crush me sometimes. I can't fathom the vastness of my foolishness, how So didn't understand that those last moments held magnitude.

Or perhaps I did, even then. But regret clouds everything else. And all I can do is try my best to remember.)

I wanted to scream. But I couldn't waste the gift she'd given us.

A twig snapped and Roe burst through the trees. "Raina, Yomi—" He cut off.

Would he have been strong enough to do it?

"I'm here," he whispered. "I came, I wanted to help..."

His eyes went distant. He bent in front of me and clutched my still-healing hands in his.

Raina's body was cooling beside us. And I was coming apart. Staggering beneath my own guilt.

"She's gone, I killed her, it's all my fault..."

Roe held my gaze. He let me cry. Gently, he lifted me to my feet and gathered the supplies beneath one arm.

"We have to bury her body—I can't just leave her here." I was hysterical. Delirious in the face of my despair.

Roe looked at me, and I saw the impossibility of my request. "We'll come back. I promise," he whispered. His voice was soft and gentle. How was he holding it together? "But right now we have to move. You have to breathe; can you do that?"

He hadn't been as close to Raina as I had. Somehow, we'd clicked together with impossible ease... even when she'd killed someone before my eyes. Even when she'd made horrible voices and questioned the very fabric my life was built upon.

Even then, I was drawn in. Her smile was a challenge won.

And if I could say that I'd done something to improve her life... I'd be happy.

But even then, it wouldn't be worth it. Wouldn't change the fact that I couldn't kill, not even when her life depended on it.

Did that mean I didn't care enough? Even after all this time...

That sent fresh tears running down my face. I leaned into Roe's shoulder and sobbed. He held me.

"I know, I know..."

We walked until we were out of sight, until I could no longer hear the voices, still casual as if nothing had happened. Then we sank to the ground, and I curled into myself.

She'd begged me to kill Dresden. Did that make her selfish? And yet, it didn't make the pain any less potent. And it didn't mean I mourned her less.

Wanting to live should never be selfish. I had to believe that.

But then... What did that make Dresden? Perhaps it was different for him.

I couldn't think clearly, not now. So I just let Roe trace gentle circles on my shoulder blades. And I emptied everything inside me. I'd become punctured and spent, unable to conjure that liveliness I so often possessed.

"I failed her," I whispered. It was all I could think of.

I'd found her and lost her so quickly.

I'd hardly even known her, but I'd... I'd wanted to, so badly. Despite everything else...

Roe lifted my chin. He made me look at him. "You didn't. You didn't fail her." I had never heard such strength in his voice. His eyes were so kind—I couldn't help but feel that I didn't deserve such warmth.

I'd had the chance. I could've stabbed him in the back... I realized I was still holding the shovel, clean and untarnished. I let it fall from wooden fingers.

"How can you know that?" I said hoarsely.

"There's no way to know either way," he said.

I heard the implication in his voice; why not assume that I'd helped her? I'd given her hope...

But what could be worse than luring her with the tempting prospect of a beautiful life, only to watch as it was taken away?

I was so lost... I could've buried my hands into the ground until my fingernails were blackened and bloodied. I could've screamed into the uncaring sky, sharpened my grief into anger.

But I hated sharp things. I didn't want to become one.

Roe still needed me. I could help him, I could save him...

But the idea seemed so empty now. What was I, really, against the Capitol? My ideas of balance were only precarious blocks that the Capitol could blow over; they so loved destruction, and I was no match for them.

"I'm sorry, Roe," I sobbed. The tears wouldn't stop coming. I could have watered a thousand graveyard gardens with them.

He looked into my eyes, and he reached me—against all odds. He never faltered. "What could you possibly be sorry for?"

I shook my head. Words wouldn't come. Even they had abandoned me.

His gaze was persistent. "Yomi, you hate when others apologize. Why?"

I couldn't help but laugh, even now. "It's not their responsibility to apologize for death. Death is permanent—but it's also a blessing... and none of that applies here."

He reached out and gently brushed the tears from my cheeks. "I know."

I looked at his troubled frown, the twitch of his lips. "You want to say something else."

"I could tell you that it was the Capitol's choice to bring us here. That it was Raina who wanted to steal from those kids—to protect us. And that Dresden was the one to take her life." For the first time, sadness penetrated his layer of calm. "But none of that would really help, would it?"

I shook my head, a little stunned. "How do you know so much?"

"I—I don't. You should rest."

I could only stare at him. My tears had finally subsided—probably due to dehydration more than anything else. My grief still flooded over me like a tide.

And I was back again... in that sickness-stifled room...

Roe touched my shoulder. "Would you rather keep walking? We could..."

I shook my head. I was sluggish. I was impossibly guilty. And I was sleepy.

"No, we can rest," I said, trying not to sound too eager at the idea. "You should, too—"

"Nah, I'll keep watch. We don't know if..." He trailed off. "Well, they could come back."

They might. Or perhaps I would come after them. Vengeance was a looming presence in my view—that's how impossibly confused I was.

"Okay," I whispered. "Okay, that's fine. I mean—"

He gave me an understanding smile. That was the thing about Roe—he seemed to always know what I was thinking. "Do you want my shoulder? To sleep on?"

I laughed a little. "Wouldn't that bother you?"

He looked at me strangely. He was used to sleeping beside other people, and he offered comfort and soothing as if it was second nature. Still, I felt guilty.

He just watched me patiently while I warred with myself. But I was tired. And he was there, somehow. His presence was a wonder to me—he should've left... maybe a long time ago. He deserved better.

But he was looking at me so warmly, as if it wouldn't be any trouble, and I was half out of my wits. I wanted to accept his beautiful kindness, just as I'd valued and accepted Raina's. So I slumped against him eventually. And it felt nice to lean on someone, even if his presence was diminished somewhat by memories of firelit eyes and that reluctant half-smile…

I dreamed of better times. I wanted to stay forever in that world of sunlight, wrapped in the knowledge that I was doing something important. That I was bringing beauty to an otherwise desolate world. I wanted to keep smiling on while the darkness threatened to take me, unwilling to be dragged down by its jaws. I wanted to make light of the world again.

But I woke up beside Roe instead, my head pillowed against him. He looked drawn and tired, but he smiled at me as I pressed myself up to sitting position.

The grief pooled behind my eyes. It dragged at my heels. It settled itself between my shoulderblades and reached into the darkest corners of my mind, refusing to be ignored.

But I smiled back anyway. I pretended I wasn't sinking beneath the weight. "Do you think it's morning yet?"

My body went on autopilot and I looked toward Roe's other side, expecting a dry remark about Raina's brilliant mind. Hoping for a prompt answer about exactly what time it was.

But that space was empty. And Roe's smile had faded.

"Should we keep walking?" I said brightly.

Something clicked in Roe's expression, and he smiled along with me again. "Let's."

When I stood, my legs were like sandbags. I dragged them into submission before lifting my shovel—I couldn't leave it behind. Roe slung the bundle of supplies over his shoulder. I wanted to check what was inside... but Raina's ghost still lingered, residual. I stepped forward anyway, ignoring the thought that she'd been the last to touch it.

"Let's see if there's anything useful in here," I said, my voice catching a little. I unclasped the top of the bag, unsure where exactly the Ones and Twos had gotten it.

Inside was a collection of silver coins, a coil of rope, a bride-and-groom wedding cake topper... I rifled through the paraphernalia, almost laughing at the idea of Raina picking it all up. She'd find it all useless—but maybe she knew that I'd find some way to make it work. Or that I'd see the beauty in it.

Now it all seemed so tragic. So futile.

There was a tin of cookies stowed at the bottom—I lifted the lid and gave a few to Roe. He eyed them dubiously before popping one in his mouth. "Nutritious," he murmured.

Raina's snark had rubbed off on him somehow. Her ghost... everywhere. Remnants of her continued to surface. But maybe that wasn't such a bad thing. Perhaps I could still treasure the marks she'd left behind.

I popped a cookie into my mouth, admiring the fanciful shape and the colorful sprinkles. It was good, except that it sucked all the moisture from my mouth. I might as well have eaten very dry air.

A pretty ceramic bottle had been filled with water. I twisted the lid and stuck my finger in, testing. It didn't burn.

I offered the bottle to Roe. He hesitated, looking a little torn, before taking it from my hands.

He really did look tired. Bearing the weight of my grief, or at least beating it back with his calmness, must've taken a lot out of him. I swallowed the urge to apologize.

"I want to get back at Dresden and his crew," I whispered, closing the bag again.

She would've said something similar.

Roe looked up sharply. I saw the alarm in his face.

She would've wanted it.

"Okay... if you think that's best." He didn't even question it, at least not with his words. His eyes were full of turmoil.

I guessed it was like prodding at a tender bruise and feeling the sting every time. I wanted to go back—I wanted to keep poking and prodding, despite the pain. Despite the hopelessness of it all. I wanted it all to be resolved, against the knowledge that it would never be so simple.

Back in Eleven, I'd played jokes on people to show them that their whispers didn't bother me. That I could still continue to be joyful, despite their cruel remarks. Now I wanted to show Dresden that I would not be intimidated. I used to think they were too privileged to hurt anyone—now their pettiness had grown claws, and I wanted to take that away from them somehow.

No... that wasn't quite it. I didn't want vengeance.

I wanted to keep going with my usual routine, as if nothing had happened. I knew that these people weren't just harmless, ignorant townsfolk. They were violent and retaliatory.

But I didn't care. I wanted to... to take some of the ache away from my heart. And I thought doing this might accomplish it.

I knew there might be repercussions. But I would bear them alone. I would make sure Roe was safe.

"I'm not going to hurt them!" I said quickly. "I still think that nothing can be solved by violence. Just..."

And what was it that I really wanted? To prove to them that their actions would not go unpunished? I wouldn't be doling out retribution as if I were part of the Capitol itself. That was what they wanted me to do.

I sighed, feeling small. "I think I'm going to die anyway," I whispered. "And I can't stand waiting here, not knowing when they'll strike next. Maybe I could take their weapons, leave them without a means to hurt anyone else."

Roe still looked worried. "What is it?" I said gently. "You have that look, like you want to ask me something."

He smiled a little, but grew serious again as he spoke. "I just don't want things to escalate. Right now, it seems like they're planning to leave us alone. Why would we want to rile them up again?"

I brushed dust from my eyes—it had been kicked up by our shoes and now hung like a cloud around us, clogging my vision and caking in my hair. "But that's the thing—we'll have to see them again eventually. They'll come for us again, if it means they can win. And I don't want them to..." I couldn't finish my sentence; if I didn't want them to win, that would mean I wanted them to die. And I'd never wanted something like that before—it left a terrible taste in my mouth. "I just figure, if we're gonna run into them again, it might as well be on our terms. Mine, I mean; you don't have to get involved."

Roe looked at me, wide-eyed. "Of course I'm getting involved. I'm not gonna leave you."

I stared off. "But you don't have to stay; you know that, right? Maybe you'd be safer without me anyway." My voice had become choked and quiet.

He put a hand on my arm. "I'm not going to leave you." He paused, his eyes going distant. "Back in Eleven... Well, it was terrible. I never knew if I'd survive past eighteen, and I never had anybody who knew me from any of the other faceless orphans. I was just a boy they'd be happy to throw out on the streets once I was old enough. I didn't think I'd ever find a friend."

His words hit me. I shook my head, reeling from the aftershock. That loneliness inside me, the questioning whether anyone truly knew him, felt all too familiar.

"But then I met you." He laughed. "This sounds so cheesy. But you immediately started talking to me—you didn't care that I was poor or hungry, or that I didn't have any parents, or that I sometimes came to your funerals just to try and understand what love and loss looked like. And I think you did that for Raina, too."

There were tears in my eyes again. I'd never thought I could cry so much. But this time, they were happy tears. "Roe?"

"Mmm?"

I put an arm around his shoulder, something I often saw siblings do. "Thank you."

He shrugged. "Just telling the truth."

And suddenly it came to me: it didn't matter so much, the guilt that I held onto. Not for Raina's death—that was still my fault. But for getting to know her before her death. I realized that somehow it was still worth it. Everyone died eventually, but Raina had died with me by her side, and the beginnings of forgiveness glinting in her eyes. I hadn't cursed her. I hadn't led her astray.

Roe was right. She'd made those choices. I had no say over when death came for her—but I did have control over how I treated her while she was living. And those few days, knowing Raina Quintana, had been wonderful. Her presence in my life had reshaped me.

So maybe that had been worth it. That part—being her friend, making wisecracks and searching for her subtle smile—I could not regret. It would be doing her a disservice.

As for Roe... Well, he was still here. We were still together. And I wasn't so overly concerned about death anymore. I still had some life in me—I would spend it trying to bring peace, and joy, and understanding.

But first... I had to follow this impossible draw toward Dresden's group. I had to show them that they didn't have nearly as much sway over things as they'd once thought.

But throughout it all... I'd protect Roe. That hope inside me was just too potent to resist.

Or maybe I was only back where I'd started... Maybe I was ignoring the grief like a pesky stain and hoping it would go away. But I couldn't just sit here and let Raina's efforts go unremembered. Even if it meant I'd be safer for a short time, my rebellion—my choice to live and have joy—would mean more in the grand scheme of things.

We walked for a long time. The poplars went unceasingly on, like sentinels that never left their watch. When I closed my eyes, all I saw was grayness and that unbroken pattern of trees. We passed a group of Tributes, and I knew they were not the kids from One and Two from the defeated slump of their shoulders. It was the pair from Eight, and they looked far worse off than us.

I longed to stop and give them some of our supplies. Tell them about the garden, at least, or warn them of the treachery they faced. But another part of me was beginning to grow world-weary and untrusting, afraid that they would take what little we had. We couldn't afford to lose anything else.

It was horrifying, that transformation. Once, I'd have been the first to extend my olive branch. Now I was shriveling under the sunless sky, becoming apathetic and paranoid.

"Roe?" I said after we'd left them behind. "Tell me something I don't know about you."

He looked up at me, half-smiling. Bewildered and amused. Then, in an instant, he grew serious again, and I couldn't help but feel the solemnity didn't quite fit him. "Are you okay, Yomi?"

"What?" I laughed a little, but the sound was too shrill. "I was asking about you."

"Exactly," he said gently. "You're deflecting. But you know that it's okay to be sad? You don't have to put on a brave face for me."

Was I doing that? Yes... maybe I was avoiding the pull of grief. Maybe I was switching my focus to something I could control. Roe saw my face and spoke quickly, "I'm saying this as the biggest suppressor of emotions, so I shouldn't talk. I just... you're allowed to be sad."

"Of course," I said quickly. "I know."

But perhaps I didn't know. I'd been spending my whole life trying to find the light in every situation, pressing onward despite the barrage life tended to throw at me. And my life had been beautiful and easy, at least relatively. The Games had reshaped me, but I was still trying to squeeze into old habits like too-small shoes. Pedh he was right... but for once, I was wordless and without a response.

"But I will tell you something," he said with a smile. "You might not like it, since it's kinda the same idea... but when I get sad—which is a lot—I go somewhere else. And then I can be calm again, because I don't want anyone to see. I think it's my attempt to not be a burden." He was saying all of this lightly, like it was an entertaining story.

I smiled at him. "I think I already knew that, Roe," I said. "We're similar, in that way."

He nodded, a kind of relief entering his gaze. Maybe he'd feared something from me—perhaps rejection. It made me sad, to think he'd worry about such a response. "Maybe we should stop trying to make ourselves smaller."

I laughed a little—because it was all I could do. "We definitely should."

"And I've always wanted to create things," he added quickly, like he was afraid the words wouldn't come out unless he rushed through them. "Bake, or plant a garden, or something. That's something else you might not have known. There was so much darkness and destruction in Eleven, and I just wanted to make something beautiful."

I squeezed his hand, once, then let go. "That's amazing," I whispered. "I hope you can do that, someday. Create. It's one of the most powerful things about being human."

He nodded then. And, if it was possible, I loved him even more. Raina and I had so much between us, a hundred unsaid things. But the bond that brought Roe and I together was simple and sweet. We were friends, almost siblings. Or at least, that was what I hoped. I didn't know how I'd grown to care for Roe so quickly, and how that feeling grew every day, but somehow both of those things happened. I wanted to keep him safe. I wanted him to have the chance to fall in love or see the sun and the flowers that bloomed beneath it. The two of them—Raina and Roe—had become so much to me. And we were all bound to lose something. That was always what life held in store for us.

But there had been happiness too. And walking with Roe, I experienced just a little bit of that joy, in tandem with the sadness which I was slowly letting myself feel.

It wasn't long before we came upon another camp, this one seeming far more permanent. The surroundings weren't too different—just that endless gray fog and the skeletal, gnarled trees that rose from its misty depths. For all I knew, we could be right back where we started, forever wandering in circles. The camp certainly looked the same, though this time it was vacant. No sign of Isolde's golden curls or the harsh, hawk-like sharpness of Dresden's figure.

"Do you think they left for good?" said Roe, stepping forward cautiously.

I grinned. "Nah. They've only gone off on an evening stroll—all of their supplies are still here. They wouldn't have left it all behind."

They'd assembled everything just so—the tarps and branches that created little shelters, and the supplies arranged in patterns. They were fond of excess, but it was a carefully constructed excess. Still, I knew they were far from perfect; they had a tendency to leave their supplies without keeping watch—a lapse in judgment that would be their undoing, as jittery as the thought made me.

A part of me wondered if perhaps I just wasn't seeing them clearly enough. They were just trying to stay alive, like all of us. Didn't they deserve supplies just as much as everyone else?

But the problem was that they held far too much, and they weren't willing to give any of it away.

"Stay here," I told Roe. "For real this time."

He nodded. "But if I hear anything, I'll come find you."

The certainty of his promise surprised me. I smiled back at him before running into their camp.

I'd begun to carry Raina's bundle of supplies, and now it was slung over my shoulders. I felt light, a little unreal, as I made quick work of the groups' meticulous organizing. I toppled their containers of coins. I pulled makeshift arrows from their quivers. I left everything in disarray.

Such destruction wasn't characteristic of my usual methods. But there was a fire inside me, a hundred unnameable feelings that were too bright and sharp for me to hold alone. I didn't want Raina's murderers to escape unscathed. I wanted to leave them a mess to clean.

I didn't take much, or break anything. But I did get a bitter kind of joy at seeing their camp, and how easily it could be taken apart. From the backpack, I pulled a quarter of a pomegranate. Its seeds I scattered over the chilled soil, creating little trails across the camp.

I was angry. I was hurt. And I knew only one way to deal with it: find some humor, some joy, from the barren darkness.

I thought about leaving them a note, as I'd sometimes done back in Eleven. The deja vu of it all was clinging to me—I'd done this so often, to show others that I wasn't just some gloomy, untouchable pariah. Now I didn't care if the group knew that it was me or not. I just wanted to shake them a little.

I wanted to feel like I was accomplishing something.

After a few more minutes, staring at the disorder I'd created and wondering if I'd restored any kind of balance after all, I slipped away. Dancing back between the trees, I did not let the confusing questions of morality catch me. I was only relieved to escape unscathed.

As soon as I was through the copse and away from their camp, a scatter of giggles escaped me. Roe looked up at me from where he'd been waiting, and a slow smile came over his face.

"It seems our grape-eating friends will have a lot to clean up when they return," I said.

And I ignored the fact that I felt just as empty as before. This had been a fool's errand... but I would never admit it.

Roe stood and I noticed the exhaustion rolling off him in waves. He looked stretched thin, even as he drew himself up and tried to look brave.

It hadn't all been for naught. "I found us some water. Left plenty behind for them, of course."

I never wanted to hurt them. But perhaps I'd hoped they would feel a similar kind of loss as I did. That clawing emptiness that I'd never quite escape.

We walked until the trees became a blur again, until we were a safe distance from the camp. Then we made our own shelter, or some meager version of it. I'd given up hope in deducing whether it was evening or morning—the air seemed always to hang in that in-between state. And perhaps it didn't matter anymore.

We sprawled out over the cold, thirsty earth. And those voices rose up again; distant, keening wails in the night. A wispy, shapeless host of cries that send chills prickling over my neck.

"Roe? Do you hear that?"

Roe flinched at my voice, then nodded. I wasn't entirely crazy.

For one delirious moment, I wondered if they were calling to me. Begging for their deaths to be remembered and resolved.

Raina's body would be back in Nine now. Even if I somehow made it out of here, she'd be forever out of reach. Cassian or Moises would never know about her, never give her a proper burial. And I didn't know if she had family at home.

What would they do with her? She deserved to find rest beneath a beautiful oak tree, where the lavender and azalea bloomed free. But I couldn't help but imagine her someplace cold and dark.

I was halfway between sleep and awakeness. "Goodnight, Roe," I whispered.

But I didn't hear his response. I was lost to dreams of ghosts calling out to me, pleading to be heard. I was entangled in a labyrinth of catacombs, surrounded by decaying bones. I was backed against a cliff with a knife in my hand, and Dresden was pushing me ever closer... I plunged my knife toward his chest—

I was half-awake again, reaching for Roe's familiar warmth. But the soil beside me was cold. They'd taken him... somebody had stolen him away and I'd been too far gone to know. I'd failed him, I'd always fail him...

"Two can play at this game," a voice like silk whispered.

The darkness swallowed me again. I thought I heard him call my name. But I couldn't make my lips move. I thought I might be awake, but paralysis had taken my body. My mouth was glued shut, and I couldn't twitch even one of my fingers. Something pressed against my chest...

My eyes flew open. What a horrible, haunting night... I tried to blink away the remnants of the nightmares that'd plagued me. If I didn't know better, I'd say the Capitol sent them somehow... or maybe it was this Arena full of ghosts, playing tricks on me.

I sat up. "Morning, Roe! Sorry if I cried out in the night... you were right about the nightmares. They're awful."

Silence.

My fingers reached, instinctively, toward my side. It took a moment for me to force my eyes open. I turned my head, very slowly.

But my mind knew it, even if it wouldn't quite let itself realize.

Some of it hadn't been a dream, after all. Roe was gone. Taken from me.

I now recognized the silky voice from my dream, or what I had believed to be a dream. It was Isolde, Dresden's District partner. What did they mean, two could play at this game? I'd done nothing except leave trails of pomegranate seeds and make a few harmless messes. But now they'd taken a boy, a child, with gentle eyes and a long life ahead of him—one who'd had nothing to do with my antics.

He'd been right. I should have never crossed those kids again—they were far too dangerous. And I'd been reckless and sad and misguided. I'd wanted life to be like before.

But life could never be as jovial and rich with vitality as it had been before. My every action here was as weighty as the sky itself.

He might not be dead yet. I told myself not to lose hope—they were taking him as part of their game, but that did not mean he was gone forever. They wanted to lure me back in, make me pay.

I couldn't leave him behind. This time, I had a real chance to save him. And I wouldn't waste it on frivolities—no, this time I was wiser. If I had to search every corner of the Arena to find him, I would.

Brushing tears from my eyes, I pulled myself to my feet, even though my body felt strung out. I lifted the bag of nicknacks and supplies from the Ones and Twos, clinging to the memory of life and its beauty. I would return to Roe what he deserved. I would see him happy.

For a moment, I was mesmerized and daunted by the scope of it all—those endless trees, that empty sky. This couldn't be where the dead were really laid to rest... this place was loneliness and cold. It was everything that death wasn't supposed to be.

I wanted to get out of here, with a new fervor I couldn't shake. But I didn't want to see any more violent deaths. It was a perilous dance, and not one I wanted to think about right now. So instead I focused my attention on finding Roe Solano, and saving him from an untimely death. I didn't think about what that rescue may entail, and what they might have already done to him. I just started walking.

My feet moved sluggishly, in a dreamlike state. I was somewhere between waking and sleeping, my feverish mind clinging desperately to the fact that I needed to find Roe. Days passed, and those ghostly cries took shape in the night—they were wails of pain, children calling their friends' names, sounds of battle and death. I started reciting poetry until it matched the rhythm of my waning steps. I tried to count the poplars, but there was no destination for that futile exercise. No end to the drudgery.

I felt this Arena might just suck all the life out of me. But I clung to bright-hued memories—Raina's campfire smell; the Springtime green of Roe's eyes; my parents' loving voices, sweet and warm as chocolate; the butterflies that would wing their way over the treetops as I watched from my window. These things kept me moving, brought on comfort as I lost everything else.

Sometimes I could hardly feel my body. Thirst and hunger hollowed me out. I'd run out of supplies for the most part—at least, the kind that was edible. My water had run dry a long time ago.

Sometimes I'd meet others along the way, looking just as dispirited as me. I'd send them smiles, when I was feeling alert enough, and the darkness would peel back until I felt almost myself again.

How long had I been here? How many children had succumbed to death—or been killed—by now? Was Roe wasting away, or already dead? And ₣ he was, did it matter at all that I searched for Dresden?

(It was Dresden I punished in my mind, for the others seemed always to be following him like puppets on a string.)

These questions haunted me, unraveled the steady cheeriness which had once kept me company. I thought that if I found the Ones and Twos, and they'd killed Roe, I might've snapped. Violence might've reared its head, even in someone so peaceful as me. And that thought left me the most ashamed—the idea that I could become part of the Capitol's sickly cycle, and take a life before death was ready to claim it.

I might've fallen asleep standing up a few times. Or forgotten where I was. Or called out to Roe in a voice which was reedy and quavering from fear. All I knew was that everything had become formless, and I was still clinging on to the last vestiges of hope and understanding.

I came upon variation, finally, from those cursed poplars and myrtle. A tiny clearing where the branches bent low, secluding it even from the half-twilight. I pushed through the underbrush and had to blink several times, just to make sure I was really there.

A brazier sat in the center of the clearing, burning merrily but somehow never overflowing. The flames never once escaped their enclosure or passed the borders, though they crackled at the pile of wood that waited there. Nearby was a mountain of food. Fresh-baked bread and ripe strawberries, seasoned pork and iced drinks in crystal glasses. I laughed, a little hysterically, because I fully believed that it was some kind of joke.

But I liked jokes, for the most part. Especially ones that involved food. And I was so hungry, so lost in my own dwindling mind, that I had never wanted anything so much. No food had looked so good before.

I tried to make sense of what lay before me, puzzling through the things I'd heard. Then it came to me: these were most likely burnt offerings, which people used to make in hopes of good luck, or devotion to some faraway deity.

That, or they were simply tributes to the dead. I'd seen people leave their lost loved ones' favorite dishes at their graves. I was neither ghost nor god, but I had the wild, selfish hope that this had all been laid out for me. Perhaps Mirabelle or Chalet had sent it; it all looked so fresh, as if it'd appeared only moments ago.

I couldn't hesitate much longer. I was a little shocked by the speed with which I inhaled the bread and cheese and fruit, smearing my fingers with honey and crumbs in the process. But it tasted as delicious as it looked, and even though it did little to fill the hole in my heart, my body felt entirely rejuvenated. I sat by the fire for a moment, luxuriating in its rare warmth.

But then I remembered Roe, who might've been twice as hungry and cold as I was. I stood, a little of my usual spring returning to my step. Then I bowed my head to the brazier, feeling utterly ridiculous and also entirely grateful. "Thanks!" I said breathlessly, before hurrying from the clearing.

Somebody was out there, looking after me. Looking after us. I had to believe that.

At long last, the endless ranks of poplar and myrtle broke, until I could see some kind of border. I laughed in relief—some part of me had thought that I'd be stuck in that cold, misty place forever, and I knew that whatever lay ahead couldn't possibly be worse.

Or, well... perhaps that was tempting fate just a bit. It would at least be a change of scenery.

My body could feel it, the transition, as I crossed into this new place. For a moment, the two areas blurred together, and I let myself stand at that in-between point just to take it in.

The sky had become fiery... not like the sun, but more of a cold, unreachable flame. As if to remind us how far away from the world above we really were. The land, which had previously been bleak and nondescript, was now craggy and unpredictable. Yet another river raced along the rocky shore—this water was not black, but milky white. No plants grew here at all—there was only the parched rock and the sandy limestone. Like the cave I'd been in before, but somehow more open to the paralyzing chill of the gaping sky.

No trees blocked my vision anymore, but in the distance I thought I saw crags and spires—like the tip of some unearthly castle.

That swirling white water called to me. It needed no charms or Capitol influence—it had now been days since the altar and its offerings, and the hypnotic lull of dehydration was enough to lure me.

I stepped forward, over the uneven ground, and gasped when I heard a crack. I looked down and saw that what I thought had been pale, jagged stones were actually bones, disjointed and fragmentary. They were pale as moonlight, clean of the bodies they'd once held together.

The one I'd stepped on now crumbled to dust beneath my shoe.

I gave a little trembling cry and tried to breathe deeply. When I cared for bodies, it was always to make sure they were as healthy and clean as possible before they entered their burial. But this careless heap strewn over the ground was nothing but destruction. These bones that had once belonged to living people now lay forgotten. As if death was an excuse to desecrate someone's legacy.

Their stories lived on somewhere, I knew. But to see them reduced to this... it made me feel small and powerless. These bones would never find their proper rest.

I stepped forward anyway. Roe and the promise of water drew me closer. My head was light and my gait unsteady, but I made it to the edge of the river. Hesitant from previous experience, I bent low and gently skimmed my finger over the water's surface...

I was on my back. The world had gone blurred and distorted. I looked up and saw that the sky had become fiery... not like the sun, but more of a cold, unreachable flame. The land, which had previously been bleak and nondescript, was now craggy and unpredictable. Yet another river raced along the rocky shore—this water was not black, but milky white. No plants grew here at all—there was only the parched rock and sandy limestone. Like the cave I'd been in before, but somehow more open to the paralyzing chill of the gaping sky.

I turned my head toward Roe and Raina, meaning to ask them what they made of it, but... they were gone.

I came unsteadily to my feet. The world spun out of focus. Roe and Raina... were gone. Roe, still alive... I had to find him!

I stared at the river and its swirling white depths, ensnared by its gentle song... but an ominous feeling rose inside me, and I turned away just as quickly.

I did not want to drink from that water, no matter how desperate I was. My gut told me to stay away, and I wanted to trust that instinct. Even though I'd started to wonder if I could even trust myself at all.

As I continued on, I wondered at how death could be so beautiful and yet so ugly all at once. I wondered why ghosts had to move on, when I wanted so badly to hold them tightly. Questions that I'd never thought about before rose to the surface.

I felt that I was betraying my parents in every sense. To be peaceful again, and to flow with life's beautiful cycle... I wanted that more than anything. But before my parents died, I'd never experienced true grief. Then, it was easier to bear the weight of death when I could comfortably say that I understood it all. It was easier to say death came for a reason, when it was someone else's pain—in a way, I could empathize and heal them better that way. My own mind was an entirely different beast.

Worse, I felt that this could all be in control, somehow. If I'd only been stronger, I could save everyone.

But it wasn't time to mourn just yet. I still had someone... someone who might make it out of here and hold on to the stories unsung, allow some part of us to live on through him. I was confident Roe could bear that weight... or at least, mostly confident. It was hard to imagine someone else filling the role I so often played.

I'd never wanted that before; my greatest wish had always been to keep the Nishikaze legacy burning. But now I wondered if I was worthy of outliving everyone else here.

At that exact moment, I heard the crying. Initially, I shook off the sound, believing it to be yet another phantom. But then the desperate, choked sobs took on a familiar edge. Funny, how crying could sometimes sound so like laughter. And I knew Roe Solano's laughter, its rasp and stutter, like the wings of a bird as it took flight.

I was running, my body becoming fluid and unearthly beneath me. Some untapped well of adrenaline burst inside me, and I honed in on that sound. I'd never heard Roe so anguished. He was beyond the point of worrying that someone would hear him. And I imagined Roe didn't cry often.

There was panic, serpentine, in my throat. But at the same time, a morbid relief at knowing he was still alive. I'd begun to tune out the horror of the bones crunching beneath my feet, of the choking wind that blew in my face. My only goal was to find him, save him—

Their camp was familiar to me at this point; they always set it up in the same careful way. I lingered momentarily out of sight, trying to discern if anybody else was there. But all I heard were Roe's gasps for breath.

I launched myself forward to reach him... but as soon as I caught the full impact of his silhouette, my legs were like water beneath me. I slipped to the ground.

They'd chained him to one of the taller spires of jagged rock, the rope digging into his wrists and ankles. He was splayed out against the stone, hardly fighting but for an occasional twitch of his limbs. And he looked...

I could barely contain my nausea. He was almost unrecognizable. Blood trailed down through his blonde hair, which was stuck to his forehead in a horrible tangle. His eyes were swollen and bloodshot, almost closed.

My mind took in jagged edges of details, one piece at a time. Face and arms mottled with bruises... his chest soaked with blood and his shirt cut to pieces... his body sagging forward against the restraints. His lungs made staggering attempts at breath, like an old car engine stuttering toward life.

He was dying. He was... dying.

"Roe!" My voice was high and thready. "Roe..."

His lips were split... They parted to reveal a few missing teeth. "Y-yomi...?"

"Hey." I immediately softened my voice, trying not to let him hear the horror there. "Everything's gonna be okay... I just need you to hold on for me, alright?"

His fingers were bent at an awkward angle. There was no part of his exposed skin that Dresden and his crew had not destroyed in some way. They'd left him irreparably hurt.

Why would they have done it? Why not a quick death, like Raina's?

I swallowed my anger, and it seemed to cut at my throat. "I'm gonna get you out of here, okay? I just need you to breathe... Can you do that for me?"

I set about untying his restraints, my fingers already slippery with his blood... oh stars... I could hardly think through the panic climbing up my chest—

(I never used to be repulsed by bodies. Why should I be, when it was my solemn duty to give them peace? The least I could do was sympathize over the misfortunes that had befallen them.

But gazing at Roe, a broken bird with clipped wings, I saw death in a whole new light.)

His restraints came loose and he collapsed with a pained, choked sigh. I caught him, lifting him in my arms. He was unbelievably light—I couldn't tell if it was the shock, or if he'd truly lost so much. Perhaps when the Ones and Twos had beat him, they'd taken half of him away. Perhaps he was only a sliver of a boy now.

"Yomi..." he whispered as I hugged him gingerly to my chest and started to hobble away, "Yomi."

"Shhhh, love, everything's okay now. I've got you."

Perhaps I'd expected a tearful reunion, a daring rescue. But there was no release, no victory, in the way Roe trembled against my chest. He was free from the torture, but the ghosts still latched onto him. They refused to let him go.

We escaped the camp and I stumbled over the uneven terrain. There was no shade, no sunlight, but I found a place in a hollow of stones, where that strange sky could not touch us. We were secreted away, for now, but it brought me no comfort.

I'd prevented nothing. What Dresden had done, I could never escape. Nor could I fix.

I cradled Roe to my chest as scant tears cut trails over his cheeks. I tried to brush them away but he gasped at the sting.

Perhaps my trying to save his life would only do more to prolong his pain. Nothing I could do would possibly ease his suffering.

Except... but no. I didn't—I couldn't—

"Yomi!" His voice was desperate, and his eyes held nothing of his usual neutral calm.

"I'm here," I whispered.

"Can you... help me..." he whispered, softer now that he had my attention.

"Anything you need, I promise I'll find it." I was desperate, unmoored. I made no sense, even to myself.

But I would've bargained with the Capitol, the universe, even the stars themselves, if it meant he could keep living. Or that I could at least ease him gently into his final end...

But no! It wasn't his time, it couldn't be...

"I want to drink... from the river," he said softly. Those green eyes were pleading.

I stroked his hair and my fingers slicked with his blood, making me flinch. "You..." I didn't want to deny him, but I wasn't sure he knew what he was asking. "The white river? Okay—okay, I can do that."

He shook his head, trembling. "You don't understand... they tried drinking from it... Hale forgot who he was." A sickening recollection came over me then. I'd touched that water, and it had made me lose sight of my surroundings. I could hardly imagine what actually drinking it would do.

Roe continued haltingly. "He was disoriented and h-he fell in."

It was too much... I couldn't comprehend this much sorrow. How did Roe hold it all?

"Roe, I'm so sorry you had to see that. You're—you're safe now."

He reached up, hand trembling, and gripped mine. I squeezed back, ever so gently. "I want to forget," he whispered.

For a moment, there was only the river's awful song, and Roe's rattling breaths. "What?"

"I'm sorry." Fresh tears poured down his cheeks. "I'm sorry, Yomi."

"No." Something in me hardened, like the amber in the gardens. "No, please don't apologize. If you want to forget... okay. I can do that."

And suddenly, all the words were rushing from him, as if he'd contained them all these years. "They tortured me... thought maybe if they did it enough, the Capitol would end this. Or let them out. They said it would be an extra bargaining chip if you came back for me... they wanted to gain something from the Capitol, but I still don't understand why. Maybe they were just so... lost to it all. They weren't people anymore—they were just... pieces in the game."

I was trembling violently now. I thought I would never be warm again.

"Why is there so much darkness in the world, Yomi?" he whispered, and his voice was fully broken now. As if recounting the story had taken even more from him.

I was trying so hard not to cry. "I don't know. But it's—it's not all like that... there's light, too, so much light."

There was nothing I could say that would make any of this better. Nothing.

I'd always thought I was fairly empathetic, skilled at helping others work through their feelings—or at least knowing how to act around them, the right words to say. But I had no idea how to fill the cavern that had been excavated inside Roe's heart, that path of blood and uncontrolled death that could never be erased.

Unless...

And suddenly I understood, just a little. My vision cleared. "Okay," I whispered, meaning it this time. "You can forget."

He gripped my hand a little tighter. "Thank you, Yomi... I'm sorry..."

"Shhhh," I whispered. "Soon you'll be at peace, I promise."

Making that promise—letting him go—broke everything inside me. When Raina died, I hadn't been able to make a decision. But now, I was allowing Roe to choose for himself. I was helping him reach his final destination. And that yawning feeling, the saying farewell, hurt for entirely different reasons than with Raina.

As I reached in my bag for a discarded ladle—another seemingly useless castoff from ordinary life—I felt a great opening inside me. As if all my layers were being peeled away, and that tender space within was being unveiled.

Only days ago, I'd discovered the beauty of friendship and warmth. Now I was letting them go.

"I wish I could remember the good and let go of all the darkness," Roe said softly. "I don't want to forget you. I don't want everything else to outweigh you and Raina."

But it had. And no one deserved to bear such impossible weight.

"I know, Roe," I said. "You don't have to explain it."

He smiled, a little sadly. His smile would never be the same again... but I captured it anyway, the way I wish I had Raina's. Her death had been jarring—this one was slow and paralyzing, like poison. "If you make it out of here... plant some flowers by my grave. If you—if you can, that is."

"Of course I will." I couldn't stop the tears anymore. "I promise."

That fond look entered his eyes again, as if he'd known me for a hundred years instead of a week. "I'm ready."

I wasn't... I would never be. But it was not my choice, and I could not hold on to him any longer. Sometimes living was the greater agony. For Roe Solano, perhaps death truly would be a blessing.

But for him to forget it all... everything that had made his life worth living in the first place... it made me sick. I let him sag to the ground for just a moment, so I could reach forward and dip the ladle into those cloud-white waters. Then I returned to his side, and I propped him up against me, and I held the ladle to his lips.

I wanted to beg him to reconsider, ask him if he was absolutely sure. But a larger part of me wanted, so deeply, for him to have rest. If the world could not let him live peacefully, let him die that way.

"I'm glad I met you, future funeral home director." A wistful look passed over his face, and he hesitated as if to change his mind. But then he closed his eyes and nodded.

The water of forgetting passed through his lips. My heart tugged, as if I were being cleaved in two. Roe went slack against me, his head on my shoulder, and that placidity was back. As if he were merely sleeping.

But then his eyes opened again. I'd always appreciated the way Roe saw me like nobody else... but when he looked up at me, it was like he saw nothing at all.

"Roe," I said gently. I was mourning him, even before his death. I'd lost him.

There was no recognition in his gaze, even at his own name. His face twisted in pain as he stared down at the blood seeping from his skin. I wanted to reach for something to soothe his wounds—I wanted to believe there was still hope.

But I couldn't look away from him. Not when he looked so pained and aimless. "Roe, I'm Yomi. We're friends."

He just kept staring at me, shell-shocked and dazed. He didn't know me. Didn't remember me...

Nothing terrified me more than that untraceable void in his gaze. "Did you kill me?" he whispered. He looked hollow—his voice held no note of accusation, just a haunted resignation.

Every part of me recoiled at the words. "No! I—I'm trying to save you..."

I wouldn't save him, not anymore. My only chance now was to give him peace before death. I pressed a hand to his forehead and he shivered.

"Sorry, sorry," I said quickly. "Just rest now, alright? Just close your eyes..."

"Roe," he said uncertainly, as if he were saying it for the first time. "Is that my name?"

I nodded, unable to speak.

He let out a breath. "And we were friends? Before..."

"Yes," I said softly. "You were like a brother to me."

He smiled, as if the thought was pleasant but far too distant to hold. "Did I... was I a good person?"

"The best," I whispered. "You told me you wanted to create beautiful things."

He hummed and cast his eyes toward that strange sky, bathed in a cold light. He'd never see the sun again. "Is this what the world looks like? It's not supposed to be like this... is it?"

"No. No, it isn't." I didn't want to undo his final wish; he'd wanted to be safe from all the horrors of the world. But I could at least reintroduce him to a little of the beauty. "We're just somewhere else now, but it's beautiful where we live. There are stars and flowers and acres of forest. And sunshine." I missed the sunshine.

He looked back at me, a little wonderingly. His gaze was childlike, so far removed from that wise-eyed boy I'd met on the carriage. "I want to go back there. Can you take me?"

I could hardly speak through the tears. "Yes. You can go back."

Then his gaze unfocused again. "I can see it. All of it." And before I could tell him everything, or ask him what he meant, he went still against me. Roe Solano died in my arms, his eyes forever cast toward impossibly distant stars.

I let go of his hand. Felt the air charged with everything that I felt I would never reach. The misery and injustice and horror of it all were too much for me, and the pressure just kept building and building...

A scream wrenched from me, a primal sound that I couldn't believe I was making. One of pleading for this all to be over. One of mourning, for all that I'd lost and taken, from the despair I'd seen in my friends' eyes that I could never take away. One of horrible disbelief at everything happening around me.

I'd wanted so much for Roe and Raina to be safe. But death followed no easy path, and it bowed before no one. I could not stop a soul from passing when the tides of fate had willed it so.

It no longer mattered that the Capitol had orchestrated this game, that none of this would have happened if it hadn't been for them. It was only me, and the grief that death had wrought, and the knowledge that I'd somehow played a hand in it all.

Could I have stopped them from leaving, if I'd only tried harder? Even someone so well-versed in life and death as me could not have prevented the sickness, the sorrow, the violence. I wasn't strong enough.

But I wanted to be, so desperately. I wanted things to run their course naturally, as they should be.

But there was a cooling body in my arms which had once been a boy who'd forgotten my name. I'd watched a girl warring with anger and morality be taken from this life, a bright star burning out. And I'd sat with my parents as the sickness stole them away.

None of it had felt natural. Death should have been kind and easy; now I knew that it could be twisted and ugly.

But the world did not cry out at the injustice. The river flowed on, and my heart kept beating. Relentlessly, time refused to stop turning. I sat alone on the riverbank where the days lost their number, and I saw everything I'd once known crumbling against the horizon.

But the grief, strange as it sounded, was unchanging and constant. I knew its vicious steps by now, like a dance I'd seen too many times. I mourned for Roe Solano, and I promised myself to remember him—even if no one else, not even himself, could. I was all he had left—I swore to treasure the moments we'd had. I would not let his candle gutter out completely.

Ensnared in my grief, I was heedless of the fact that I might not escape. Heedless of the worry that his story—along with Raina's and my parents—might die with me. I could only stand vigil and cling to my memories, both lovely and haunting, as the rest of the world fell into chaos around me.

I never thought I could love somebody enough to let them go. For so long, I'd wanted Raina and Roe to be safe, to live. And I still believed that Raina had been taken too soon. But Roe... he'd seen so much horror and evil, things I hadn't witnessed and could not understand. For him to forget everything—even me—had been a mercy. But his loss still tore at my chest.

I walked desperately on, becoming lost in this new version of torture the Capitol had laid out of us. Sometimes, I could not contain my wailing, and I knew that the cries of pain renting the air were not those of ghosts. It was I who made those haunted sounds. This truly was a Land of the Dead now, and I felt like one of the last people living in it.

My delicate shoes wore through against the sharp protrusions of rock and rubble and bone. Soon, my skin was ragged. Sometimes I collapsed and pressed my face to the cold stone, longing for that connection I'd always felt to the world around me. But the world was black and cold and so far away.

I should have given them more—Roe and Raina. Done something more to ease their suffering, bring out the light inside them. I might've had the courage to tell Raina more. I might've had the strength to give Roe greater peace.

But now their lives had ended, as quickly as a match burning to cinders. I truly was alone now, wandering the barren plains with my only cause being to remember them. And oh, how they haunted me. Still, along with the guilt there was the gentle knowledge that they had brought me so much joy and light, and I would forever be grateful for it. They had given me so much, and I knew even in my sorrow that nothing could make me unworthy of their love.

Sometimes I would imagine Roe asking me to read him more poetry. I would have recited every poem under the sun if it brought him joy. Or Raina moving toward me, and me not shying away from the warmth and light inside her.

Nothing could be all light or all darkness. All blessing or all curse. Everything had to be a mix. When you gained trust, you risked betrayal. When you lost love, you gained so much sorrow. You could not love without losing something—and yet, you could not be alone without wanting for companionship. What a terrible, delicate counterbalance... but I was starting to understand it all now.

I was starving and thirsty, drowning in my solitude. I eventually came upon a pool, clear and crystalline, with a tree growing from its splendor. The tree sagged under the weight of green apples, lush and tempting. It was as if I saw a glimpse of the world above, and I longed so much for its familiarity.

The pool's edge was lined with stones as shiny and round as new coins. ∠ perfect smoothness unnerved me for reasons I couldn't explain, but I was in no state to hesitate. My curiosity overcame me, and I stumbled closer. At a glance, I thought the water might've come to my waist—it was deep enough to stand in but not so high that it would submerge me. I imagined my battered feet in the balm of the cold water, and stepped into the water.

As soon as my feet pierced its surface, the water pulled away from me, receding like an ocean wave—something I'd heard about but had never seen, despite my longing to experience and know it. Now I felt the water's cold absence with a surprising loss.

I just wanted a drink. I think I would've given anything for it. I sat on the lip of the spring and lifted my feet. The water flowed back up after a moment, and I waited for a few seconds—as long as I could bear—before dipping my fingers into the water.

It spilled back into the ground again, leaving only an echo of mist against my fingertips. A shiver passed over me.

I stood and reached for the tree with its gleaming apples, imagining their honey-and-sunshine taste. Something in me knew what would happen, that this mirage was hopelessly out of reach, but I tried anyway. The branch snapped up and away from my grasp, and when I looked closer I saw the fine tracery of metalwork, warped so delicately that I'd believed the branches to be real.

But no, nothing in this world could be held onto. All of it was manufactured and Capitol-engineered. I stood on tiptoes and managed to snag an apple, pulling it from the branch. As soon as my hands made contact, separating it from its source, all the light leached from the apple. Its sweet-green skin withered in my hands, and a tiny worm inched its way over the dwindling stem.

The apple fell from my grip and I sank to my knees. Would I never have peace? Could I never have the chance to understand the workings of the world, to be among the bustling brightness of life?

No, I was always on the outside. Death-touched, edged in darkness. Cursed. My life had always been on the brink of something—the chance for friendship, love, freedom. All of it miles beyond my ken, and fading by the minute.

I'd once thought to be independent of others' thoughts. I was myself, unbridled by their judgment, and that was enough. But now loneliness and loss uncoiled in my chest like venomous serpents, and I found I could no longer smile to cover their tracks.

My joy could not fend off their fangs, not anymore.

I had never felt so heavy. I uncurled myself and stood, taking a bracing breath. The world was not done with me yet. And I was not finished with it—I couldn't be. Not until I'd seen the fleeting light of a rainbow, heard the plaintive warble of birdsong, tasted the sweetness of berries, smelled the electric oncoming storm, felt the gentleness of another person's love. If I could only experience it all one more time, I'd be satisfied.

I wanted to feel the thrum of the earth beneath me again. Wanted to experience that simple, unceasing joy.

But part of me knew that loneliness wasn't something to be wished away. It could not be painted over like any fading, peeling wallpaper. It was real too, just like any emotion, and I could not smother it. Sadness was a part of the balance, and I was no exception. I was not free of its clutches.

I could not escape it. Only allow it to run its course.

I picked up my bag again and began walking toward a blotted-out horizon, an unknowable end. So began my quest of staying sane—a delicate yet unexpected operation. It included counting steps, constructing poems in my head, and crying as much as my limited hydration would allow. I went through the wringer of it all. I began to wonder if perhaps nobody would remember me if I ever emerged from the depths of this horror. To question whether I was even worthy enough to stand beneath the sunlight again.

I started talking to myself—or, not exactly myself. I was talking to the dead, but perhaps that wasn't much better. Either way, there was nothing else for me to fill those arduous hours in which I found no direction, and nobody around to hear me. If my voice carried in the silence, let them come. I had wandered far beyond the point of caring.

"Hi, Mom," I whispered. "Hi, Dad. I'm walking in the underground. They say it's the Land of the Dead but I don't believe them. You're somewhere much prettier, right? You have to be.

"Anyway, I might as well be a ghost now. But I know you'd hold me and tell me to keep living, that the sun would rise in the morning and I'd be warm again. Well, there's not even a sun down here—if you can believe it."

I told them about how I'd calmed a beast with poetry—"I hope he's still alive, but if you see him tell him hello!"—and how I'd lost my friends. The words generated a kind of warmth inside me. My belief in ghosts and what came after death was smudged and confused, but it didn't matter if they answered. I just wanted to be heard—for someone to listen to me, even if that was just some imaginary version of the people I loved so much.

"Raina? I miss the light in your eyes. You always looked so alive. I wanted to tell you that I think I was a little bit in love with you. But I didn't know it at the time—is that possible? Anyway, I wanted so badly to know you. I'm sorry I never got the chance."

Those parched plains marched on and on, and a kind of feverish dizziness came upon me, like I was a balloon floating up and up...

"Roe, it's so cold here. I'm sorry you had to see this place—that it was the last thing you looked at before you left. But you told me you were seeing everything; I hope that's true. I hope it all comes back to you..."

I wanted to make some joke to lighten the air around me. But there was no one at the receiving end—no one who would laugh at my curious morbidity. I wondered if perhaps the worst thing in the world was to die alone and unremembered. But then I saw Raina behind my eyes, and I remembered that to live at all was a blessing. My very existence was priceless... wasn't it? I'd told her as much; surely I could apply the same to myself.

Perhaps all of that didn't matter anymore. The only thing I knew was that I might not live to see the next outcropping of rock, the next snatch of fire-bright void above.

I passed a pale, knobby-limbed girl. She was pushing a boulder up a small rise in the terrain. "Just... have to get to the top," she whispered. Her voice sounded like the absence of joy.

I saw no point in her futile journey. But she saw more than I did. I was paralyzed, in that moment, with the knowledge that there were twenty-one other kids whose stories I would never know, against all my efforts. I was always seeing pieces, small panes in the stained-glass mural that was their lives. My heart had become hollowed out, but I still stepped forward and closer to the girl.

She pushed the boulder further up the hill. I winced as I saw bloodied smears over the unforgiving rock where her hands had been scored. She just kept pushing... she was almost to the top of the rise...

"Let go," I whispered. "Why are you carrying all that weight?"

She did not seem to hear me. The boulder teetered and spun out of her grip, out of control. She lost her balance. She'd been holding on to something she'd never needed to in the first place.

I rushed over the stones and skinned my hands against the ground. The boulder rolled over the girl in a topsy-turvy rush. I gasped, my lungs aching from the toxicity of the air around us. I had to reach her...

She was punctured like an old soccer ball. Blood... blood soaked the stones. I did not look away. I saw it in all its brutality. I stood watch over her twitching form.

She reached out, tears streaking her face. "Help," she whispered. "Please, I just wanted to get to the top."

She was sliding slowly down the incline. I bent, and with wearied arms, I picked her small body up.

"Celie," I whispered. Her name came to me in a flash. "I'm here."

She blinked up at me. Her face was a mess... like Roe's...

We mounted the tiny rise and I laid her down on solid ground. She sighed, a small part of her troubled expression melting away. "Tell me a story?" she said. Simple and trusting.

I held her hand. I recited a poem about the surly bonds of Earth and laughter-silvered wings. One that made me feel the exhilaration of freedom, the rhythm of life, for just a moment... before Celie fell still beside me. Her eyes were closed.

Everything in me ached. My mind and body gave out and I just... collapsed there beside her body. A rush of air above me, and the weight of her presence was gone.

I was thinking about letting go. About holding too tight. And the balance of it all.

Roe had been good, but he'd also been flawed. Brave, but afraid. We were all strange and multi-faceted, glowing different shades when turned beneath the light. Death was not always beautiful—but that did not mean it was always ugly, either. It was all about that space between. The denial of the absolute.

My own thoughts made little sense to me, but they were shaping inside me. Raina had been tinged with darkness, and yet so rebelliously alive. Moises was wise, but he was also stingy with his knowledge. People were so complicated...

I could not eradicate the world of violence and sadness and sickness... and that didn't weigh on me like I thought it might. No, it left my soul feeling light as seeds on the wind.

I could not hold the world in balance, not all on my own. Not from expecting death to be perfect, and not from giving myself too much responsibility. Sometimes things didn't perfectly align, but maybe accepting that was part of the balance. Knowing that I didn't have to hold it all up.

Somehow, my body yielded forth more tears.

With pain, there was always healing. And after the impossible ache of loss came the warmth of something gained. Always, without fail, there were ups and downs. It was only the question of how long I could endure the storm before the sun came out again.

And I knew it would. It had to. That was the great, painful cycle of things. It was the unexpected duality of life. And I thought I was beginning to understand it, just a little.

Was it all worth it? Was the joy worth the fall? It had to be. I had to believe that someday, I would find happiness again. But I knew it never came without its precursor or afterimage of sadness, and that knowledge hurt. But it was also soothing, in its way.

I slipped into numbness then. Perhaps it was sleep, perhaps it was waking... I didn't know. Death tortured me as it never had before, taunting me with the amount of lives I'd witness bleed away. I lived at such a cost... I lived while they died, and I couldn't save them...

I smelled incense and heard the distant song of the wind. Remembered how I'd become so desensitized to death. I was duty-bound to honor the dead. I would not flinch from them.

But now the balance was upset and I knew that I shouldn't blame myself for it all, but I still spun in that vicious cycle and I could not let go—

Footsteps and the crackling of old bones...

All I could see was the light in their eyes fading away...

"Well, what do we have here?" A voice, soft and well-oiled. Someone bent over me.

Death was by turns cruel and kind, unexpected and welcome. I had to reckon with that... the idea that it wasn't always just one or the other.

"Looks like we're the only ones left, little troublemaker. Don't know how you're not dead yet..."

I was still living, clinging to life... but in doing so, I'd taken so many others down. And I'd never even fought, never killed a soul.

"Wait... are you even alive?"

My eyes peeled open, struggling for consciousness. They were burning and sealed shut with tears, but I blinked stubbornly, determinedly. Even this was an action of rebellion. The cogs inside me kept turning.

"I should kill you quickly." His voice was almost gentle. "It would be a mercy."

An old spark rekindled in me. I thought of Raina and her fire.

"You stole a lot from us," he said softly. "Caused quite a few complications."

I looked up into Dresden's cruel-cut face. It was distant, like a beautiful painting. His hands were very smooth, fingers long and elegant. "Where are your allies?" I croaked.

His jaw tightened as if I'd said it to spite him, but I really wanted to know. To me, death still mattered, even for the ones who'd taken so much from us.

"Hale forgot himself." His voice had gone empty, like he was reporting some long-forgotten historical war. "Medea got sick—we still don't know why. And Isolde got in my way."

Why did he hate me so? I hadn't killed his friends, poisoned his drink, destroyed his relationships. Everything that was taken from me in this Arena had been their fault, and yet I couldn't even bring myself to hate them. Because I knew that Dresden was not entirely evil, that even he had reasoning for his actions and darkness in his past. That there was something redeeming in him. But it didn't excuse what he'd done to me and my friends. And it didn't make things easier.

Strange birds circled above us, their wings as inky as the deepest night. It was as if they knew something I did not. Maybe they sensed impending death and were simply waiting to dive close. But that thought hurt too much, and so I imagined they were guardians, coming to protect me. Or to guide me home.

I looked into Dresden's ice-blue eyes. Some people killed because they could. Because they thought it was their undeniable right to take what they wanted without looking back instead of letting life run its course.

I sat up, just slightly. "Why?" I whispered. "Why did you kill my friends? Why do you want to hurt me?"

He looked down at me pityingly, like a vindictive king on his throne. "That girl came and stole from us; she was asking for it. And I didn't kill the other one—I left him there for you to find. I thought maybe with all that supplies, you'd be able to heal him."

Why did he sound so sincere, so genuine, even as his words cut to my very core?

"And you?" He leaned closer, caging me in. Making me feel as small as a grain of rice. "You're a means to a greater end."

As Dresden pressed his heel into my chest, pushing me against the ground, I could not stop thinking about endings. Raina had believed that the contents of one's life was what mattered, regardless of whether you left a mark or not. Perhaps the ending, the destination we all hoped for, was nothing but ashes compared to the brilliant flare of our lifespan. Once the journey was over—then, and only then, would death come to carry you away.

It was such a beautiful thought. I held it close as Dresden pressed harder, his foot cutting off the airflow and constricting my windpipe.

I was a mere insect beneath his feet. Just another life, bartered away so he could rise to the top. But then, perhaps I'd done the same thing. All this time, had I merely been using my friends' lives, throwing them away as I continued to live?

No... no, that wasn't true. I'd loved them. I'd wanted them to win.

"I truly am sorry..." Dresden's smug voice in the distance, tinged with just a hint of regret.

Regrets: I had so many. If I died here, my friends' stories would go untold. Our bodies would wash up in boxes and nobody would ever know that our lives had intersected, that for a moment things had been beautiful. They would not know that Roe wiped his memories if only to be free of the horrors the Capitol had forced into him. They would never know of Raina's bravery. It wouldn't matter that I'd turned nineteen, that I'd refused to eat the pomegranates—because all of those stories would go forever untold.

I'd always thought that people never truly died alone. Surely there was someone on the other side who would mourn them, even if they were technically by themselves when death came. Now, as my breath became spent, I knew that some of these kids would never find a resting place. And all the while, Dresden and his aristocratic hands would be absolved of all blame.

"Say goodbye, troublemaker."

He didn't even know my name...

Something took over me then. I didn't leave myself—no, I was fully aware of what I was doing. But it was as if a spark had come alive beneath my skin. That old drive, that need to find the light, was back.

I still had that pointed shovel in the bag that Raina had given me. Now, my fingers searched for the opening, twisting madly in Dresden's grip...

"Resisting is pointless," he said sadly.

But I knew that was a lie. My own joy, my own refusal to be taken too soon, was its own rebellion. My remembrance of the souls that were so easily forgotten by time was a rebellion.

And I wanted to die in resistance. I would not go gently.

Perhaps I should... maybe his life did outweigh mine. But as I reached into the bag, my fingers closing around the shovel, I could feel a hundred hands guiding mine. My parents, Roe's and Raina's, even Felina from Eleven. Everyone whose death I'd witnessed gently urged me to live on.

Even when it hurt... even when everything turned on its head and what I'd once thought to be entirely universal was full of nasty surprises... even when the very thought of outliving another twenty-three souls was impossible to bear... I had to live on. It was not yet my time.

I hated that that meant it was Dresden's. It was a horrible balance I'd faced before within these awful fields... and then, I'd frozen. But now I had to act.

"Be still," he said. "It will be easier that way."

There were tears on my cheeks as I withdrew the shovel, my arm aching from being twisted. I shouldn't have this power... it wasn't my place.

But neither was it his. No matter how much he claimed it was his right, Dresden would not be taking any more lives.

I fought against him, very suddenly. He gasped and stepped back, then pulled that awful black knife from his belt. "Fine," he said coldly. "If you want to do it this way."

I didn't want it—I'd rather do this a hundred other ways. But life and death were so much messier than I'd ever understood. That didn't mean I wanted to give that life up. Above all, I wanted so badly to live. I still believed that life could be a blessing.

Perhaps... Perhaps death could still be, too. Maybe this was how things must be.

He lunged at me, cutting a long arc down my arm. I gasped at the pain but rolled away, trying to get to my feet. I swayed dizzily and he picked me up like a ragdoll, throwing me against the stones. Against the bones.

They were begging to be remembered and known. Calling out to me to be brave.

There would be no excuses. It was not Dresden's time to die, not naturally. He pressed his knife into my shoulder and the pain was hot and unbearable... and so, so futile. What was it all for?

Why was there destruction in the world? Why couldn't everything be peaceful and natural and in its order?

Because... because there was no joy without sadness. No light without darkness. No life without death.

He was leaning over me, and still I would not let go. I squeezed the shovel and lifted it, inch by inch.

The terrible impending weight of what I would do tumbled onto my shoulders like a hundred boulders. I wanted so badly to give in to the weight. It would be easier.

Still, I kept on. My shovel pressed against the exposed column of his throat, and my heart ached.

"I'm sorry," I whispered. "I really am. I'm sorry that you thought all of this evil was necessary. I'm sorry that they turned you into this."

My shovel pierced his skin, and I felt the act of violence like a phantom pain. It was behind my eyes, in my chest, clawing up my throat...

We both screamed. Something in me shattered at the realization that I could not escape the horrors of the world. That I'd broken the balance my parents so treasured.

Gently, I pulled the shovel free. Dresden fell to the rocks and the light left his eyes. I... I was a murderer. I was perhaps just as awful as those I hated.

I stared down at my hands. They were scarred and blistered from the river, scraped raw by the rocks, and tinged with so much blood... and his, still clean and smooth and aristocratic. There was no absolving what I'd done. No taking it back or explaining it away.

But he would have escaped this arena without a moment's remorse—I knew it. I saw it in him. Every one of those lives would have been washed away... still, it didn't lessen the crushing weight of it all. And it didn't mean I was any more worthy of living.

Still, the knowledge that I'd remember them all—or at least try my best—was comforting. That, and the fact that even Dresden had a story. He was worthy of forgiveness, of peace. And I hope he found it, even if it didn't justify the fact that he was gone. They were all just gone...

The ghosts crowded in around me. I was afraid of their blame, of all those unresolved lives snuffed out too fast while mine beat steadily on. But I felt an impossible sense of warmth. Of acceptance.

The ache and the horror and the guilt would all come creeping back in soon enough, but for a moment I allowed myself to feel hopeful.

Maybe balance wasn't about holding on tight. Maybe it was all about letting go.

The Capitol hovercraft came from seemingly nowhere, its sleek refinement stark against the bloodied rock and scribbled-out sky. A voice called out, amplifying and breaking the almost sacred silence that had fallen over everything.

"Congratulations, Yomi Nishikaze! You have won the twelfth annual Hunger Games." As if it was some kind of glowing achievement, instead of a twisted road paved with twenty-three deaths.

A ladder came trundling down from the hovercraft, but I made no move to climb it. I was scalded and chilled and aching in a million different places. A glaze of shock fell over me, a kind of incredulity at my own aliveness. And my consciousness was a thread held very loosely.

Eventually they had to drag me like a discarded doll. They deposited me in the hovercraft seat and buckled me in like a child. I pressed my face to the window as we took off, and gazed down at the receding world around me. I was leaving it all behind, as if I'd come full circle. But this time it was the forsaken souls of people I'd only known for a week that I was leaving in my wake. Except I had this strange feeling that I was not leaving some of them behind at all. I imagined—I hoped—that they could emerge with me, from this place where we'd all taken our lowest forms. That their lives, which had all held so much meaning, would never be wasted.

We pierced through the un-sky as if it had never existed, all of it fading like an afterimage behind me. I wondered what would become of the dog who'd taken to my poetry, and the birds of prey that'd circled above me.

As we slowly rose through the cavern and the long tunnels, which were a tight squeeze for the large craft, I felt as if I was waking from a very long dream. Someone was pouring the cold splash of consciousness over my face, and I was blinking and adjusting to a new world.

A world where there was no perfect balance, no endless peace, no all-encompassing ideal. Only living, and dying, and people, and flaws. Only the murder I'd committed, and the slow unspooling of the simplicity I'd once known.

It was all so impossibly complicated. I knew that from the start—it was not as if the world had always been painted in extremes. But I'd always been an idealist, and that hadn't exactly changed. It was just that everything was taking shape in a whole new light.

But even I couldn't process philosophy at the moment, so I closed my eyes and felt all of the pain as if for the first time. I'd lost so much, and yet it was small compared to all the suffering I'd seen, everything the others went through. It was hard to glimpse that enduring joy through all of that darkness.

And I decided to be alright with that, for now—the sadness and the loss. I let it roll through me.

The tunnel opened up ahead and I braced myself. I was coming back to the world, to the sunlight and the flowers and the stars. I would see it all again...

But even as excitement unfurled inside me, I felt the cold press of shame and guilt and regret. All of those other kids—Roe and Raina—would never see what I saw. Perhaps that meant I didn't deserve to either.

I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to deny myself the solace of seeing it all again. It felt like only a fraction of the punishment I deserved.

But then I felt a great rush, and the very air seemed to change. I would not look, I would not allow myself this joy...

But then I felt the sun's warmth dappling over my face. It was so familiar, so lulling... so unflinching. The sun was not afraid to cast my face in its light.

I thought I could hear Roe and Raina whispering, as if from a distance. "Open your eyes, love."

I trembled at the full weight of it all. And then, very painstakingly, I opened my eyes. The sun beamed at me through the thin windowpane. It stole the breath from my lungs, made my vision misty with tears. There was the sun, flanked by fanciful clouds. And the sky, as blue and unceasing as if it had always been there.

They were still there. I was still here.

I was alive. And the world around me teemed with energy and beauty and, yes, darkness. Everything that made life worth living—that teeming, undeniable rhythm that ran through everything.

For a moment, I felt estranged from that rhythm, discordant from its harmony. I did not deserve to be nourished by its light or embraced in its warmth.

I pulled open the window and felt the wind fan my face. I breathed it in, the clean scent of plants and earth. I was crying in earnest now, struggling to fit now that my edges were sharpened and warped.

But didn't everyone deserve to flourish under the forgiving light of the sky? Flowers and free-roaming birds and humans alike... we all lived and died under this sky. I was not an exception, strange and dark as I felt now, clinging to the window's frame and gasping at the world's breadth.

I was here. I was living, against my every belief that death waited for me. It was not my time yet.

Yes, I'd lived at the cost of others' lives. But they hadn't all been sacrificed so I could shrink away from the sun and be robbed of the joy, the sadness, the darkness and light.

I would feel it all, I knew. There could never be just one or the other. And that thought sent warmth flowing through me, thawing all the coldness that had built up inside me.

An improbable laugh burst from my chest. I reached out the window and felt the very air play through my fingers. Tears still soaked my skin, but I could not turn away from the sun and the sky. I could not quench my wonder at the world racing by below me, with all its tiny streets and the souls that inhabited them. Gazing down with a bird's-eye view, I felt at once very immense and very small.

It was a beautiful contrast. It meant, without a shadow of doubt, that I was alive.

I had to believe that there was a reason for my still being alive. That death would have found me if it was meant to be. But I could not forget that I'd chosen to end Dresden's life, as bitter as the thought tasted. I'd chosen to live. I could never go back and change what had transpired—death was blessedly, infuriatingly irreversible.

No, I had to believe that I was here among the living, breathing world for a reason. I would not squander the gift I'd been given.

Perhaps that was too generous a term for it. Life was a gift and a curse. It was so achingly difficult to live sometimes, and yet my life was mine, even as it intersected with the lives and stories of others. That was what I clung to—that this life was mine, and I would always have a certain freedom to live it as I wished.

Now, I chose to laugh and cry all at once, taking in the blissfully blue sky like I was seeing it for the first time.

As soon as we arrived, I was rushed to a hospital room on a gurney. Returning to the Capitol's hollow finery felt strange, and all I wanted to do was return home. They injected cool fluids into my veins and murmured too quietly for me to hear.

I almost considered making a quip about whether they would throw a party for me or something, but the levity felt forced and out of place here. I still felt entirely in mourning, ′tant from the world around me. There was a bridge between the living and the dead, and I felt that I'd been halfway across for so long—not quite reaching the shores of the dead, but not living either. Still, as they dressed me in bandages and gave me balms for my blisters, I felt some of the feeling coming back to me. It was a slow process, I knew, but the light was slowly making its way back in.

Soon, I had visitors. The first to arrive was Linnet, her shoulders heavy with anticipation. Her young face was wrinkled and creased in worry, and she looked like she'd run all the way here.

"They never tell us anything," she said breathlessly, almost like she was talking to herself. "Who is it? Who came back?"

I was smiling and crying at the same time again—it was honestly impressive how often I did that now. "It's me, Yomi."

She gave a little cry of joy and stumbled to the chair beside my bed. Tears filled her eyes. "Oh, you sweet child. There's so much sadness inside you."

I was fully weeping by then. "I just wanted to go home," I whispered. "What was it all for? Why so much sadness?" I wasn't sure if I was making any sense, but Linnet was leaning toward me and she spoke so gently. I wanted to spill everything out for her to see.

"I know," she murmured. "I know. Let it all out, darlin'."

"I shouldn't say that," I said. "I know there's joy and light too. But I don't know if it's enough, if I even deserve to feel that now. After everything I did..."

"We are all flawed," Linnet said, reaching for my hand. "But nobody is undeserving of the light. You're allowed to forgive yourself, just as you might forgive others."

"I don't even know if my parents would recognize me now," I whispered.

Linnet nodded. "I know that feeling. It's so hard. It hurts so much. But it's okay to feel and acknowledge that pain, and to embrace the joy when it does come back. And it will. I promise."

I sort of... melted a little, with Linnet holding my hand and humming softly beneath her breath. I knew she understood some of what I'd faced, the choices I'd made. But she didn't scorn me or make me feel foolish for all the feelings roiling inside me. She was just... there.

I was almost asleep by the time Mirabelle came in. She let out a breath and knelt beside me. We didn't say anything for a long time, but I felt impossibly safe between them. Mirabelle smiled at me. "I'm glad you're here," she said gently. "I know it might seem like you don't deserve to be here right now, but know that there are so many people whose lives were better because you were in them. There's a spark inside you, one that will never go away, no matter what happens."

I wanted so badly to believe it. "Thank you," I whispered.

She gave me a sad, secretive smile, like we were sharing an old joke. "I know you're going home soon, but if you ever wanted to join our... group, we'd be happy to have you. I'm sure you might never want to come back, but we'll be here to welcome you."

I knew they were talking about their revolution. I smiled a little. "Oh, you can count on me coming back. I certainly have some... choice words for the Capitol."

Mirabelle laughed. "Don't we all."

I remembered what I'd told Raina: joy could be its own revolution. But somehow, the pressure to be ever-bright and ready to soothe others had eased somewhat. I was composed of both laughter and tears in that moment, full of regret and the undeniable ring of truth. As long as I had the truth of myself in its entirety, I would be at peace with the world. It hurt, to face the memories and to know that my hands were not completely clean and that they never would be. But among that loss were the bright seeds of hope, and the memories of my wonderful friends that still clung to me.

They hadn't been perfect; none of us were. But we'd lived, and we'd loved, and we'd suffered together. Perhaps my legacy wouldn't be entirely spotless—maybe it wouldn't even exist at all. But somehow, it didn't matter to me as much anymore. I was the only one who knew my own story, fringed with the remnants of others' stories like an endless, unfinished tapestry. I could almost hope that I was worthy of life, and that I didn't have to accomplish great things and leave something behind in order for it all to have been worth it. Living, and even dying, was all about change. Nothing was ever certain. But somehow, that knowledge was freeing.

Soon enough, I was ready to leave my bed and return home. They wheeled me out of the room and through the hallways. I said a tearful goodbye to Linnet and Mirabelle, who embraced me gingerly, careful not to disturb my wounds.

"No last words of wisdom?" I asked, a little teasingly, but also because I still felt that I didn't understand the world around me. But perhaps that was the point, and the hope—that I didn't have to right now, but someday I might.

Mirabelle grinned. "I think you're wiser than the two of us combined."

I sighed wistfully. "Hardly. Though, I guess I'm a full adult now."

"Soon enough you'll be dispensing your knowledge to the future generations," Linnet said mysteriously.

I chuckled at that. The idea was intimidating, though not wholly unpleasant. I enjoyed the thought of growing old and wise (—not that Linnet and Mirabelle were old. Please don't tell them I said that!)

Just as I was about to leave, Chalet came running to meet me. "Yomi!" He looked a little shocked to see me.

I felt a full grin come over my face. It felt so nice to smile again. "Hey, Chalet!"

"There's that smile," he murmured. "You made it."

I gave a stunned little laugh. "I guess I did."

"I have something for you." He pulled out a butterfly ring, simple yet delicately constructed. "I wanted you to have something that wasn't themed with the Arena." He looked a little uncertain.

I smiled and took it. "I usually hate jewelry, but I'm in grave danger of changing my mind. Thank you."

He nodded. "I hope you find peace again." Then he turned and vanished down the hallway.

I looked after him and tried to imagine making peace with everything I'd faced in that Arena. Roe's tortured face, Dresden's wicked knife, the river of pain and that infuriating apple tree that was always out of reach. And somehow, I felt that I might be able to let it all go. I didn't have to carry the full brunt of its weight, but I didn't have to forget it entirely. I wanted so deeply to find that happy medium and make space for all the memories, without letting them overtake me completely.

I gave one last look at the building while servants helped me board the train. It was so full of silence and secrets, and yet there were people like me who'd managed to fill it, just a little bit, with kindness and strength. This place would always be tangled in complicated feelings, and I would never remember it without feeling some measure of dread. But it was also where I'd met so many wonderful people. And I realized that I didn't have to lose them, not fully. I could acknowledge all the pain I felt without forgetting the kindness, the love, the hope that never stopped peeking through the clouds.

When I said goodbye to the Capitol and the Arena and the people I'd met there, it was not a permanent farewell. It was a new beginning.

I was finally going home.

Here I was, no longer trapped in that in-between place but gliding toward some unknowable end. The path wouldn't be straight, I knew; sometimes I would double back and stumble upon the great uncertainty of it all. Sometimes I would feel as though I would never be truly free of the paralyzing newness the Arena inflicted upon me. The curses, the pomegranate, the sadness—all of it followed me as I saw it all play out again. I was on a train, back to Eleven without a green-eyed boy sitting across from me. Utterly alone with the world outside streaking by. But I didn't feel it, the loneliness. My mind was full of memories and hopes and possibilities.

The train dropped me off at the outskirts of Eleven without fanfare. No carriages, no blank-eyed officials coming to take me away. My breath caught as I stepped out onto dirt, the warmth of the soil seeping through my shoes. The air was so fragrant and the sun so full in the sky. And there, standing in the middle of nowhere with all that sky sprawled out around me, I could imagine myself falling in love with being alive again. Coming to terms with death and all it entailed. Feeling safe in my own skin and connected to the world around me, even the parts that I would never get back.

I spun in a dizzy, giddy circle as the train pulled away, receding into a tiny speck in the distance. "I'm here," I whispered, a little disbelievingly. As if I was wishing it into reality.

The sun and the trees and the sky... they were their own kind of Elysium. A heaven. Hesitant hope blossomed in me, aching and tender as a new bruise. The darkness was not gone entirely—now, I understood, it would never be. But the world had welcomed me home, and in it was the possibility of light, of peace... but even the ground beneath me seemed miraculous. I took it all in, childlike.

And then I was running over the fields, past wildflowers and magnolia trees. When I saw the first signs of civilization, a bow-backed woman in her late thirties, I gave her a full-flung smile and a wave. "Hi, Mrs. Sel!"

She gawked up at me. "Yomi?"

A little of the sadness came back into my expression. "The one and only." Then I kept going, toward the funeral home.

When I approached, there was a great tugging inside me. Mounting the steps, I saw my younger self clinging to the banister, climbing these same stairs a hundred-thousand times. Tears stung my eyes. It looked the same—of course it did. It didn't disappear while I was gone.

I pulled open the door and listened to the familiar song of its creak. Stepping inside, I immediately saw Cassian's figure in shadow. He was polishing coffins, and for a moment I debated sneaking up on him. But then he was turning at the sound, his face schooled and ready to meet some new client... but it was only me, with my lopsided smile and that new sadness in my eyes.

He dropped his brush and it clattered unceremoniously over the tiles. I caught my breath and just.:. looked at him for a minute, taking in my best friend's shocked eyes, his gentle presence.

Roe and Raina would've liked him... I just knew it.

"Yomi?" His voice was hesitant, almost disbelieving.

"Hi," I whispered, and then I couldn't help but tease him just a little. "What, you've never seen someone come back from the dead before? Come here already!"

He gave a startled little laugh and came running through the aisles to meet me. His arms were around me and he was just... holding me. No questions, no fear. Just my head on his chest, and every feeling inside me unspooling until I was breathless with the release of it.

"I missed you," I whispered. "It's so good to see you."

And he just nodded and didn't speak for a long time, which I was used to by now. He had a way of saying a hundred things without really speaking at all, and I was at home in the silence.

"Happy late birthday, by the way," he said. "Do you feel different now?"

Oh, he didn't know the half of it. For now, he was ignorant and uncaring of what transpired in that Arena. Someday, I would tell it all, and I knew he wouldn't leave me behind; he would just make space for everything I'd seen and done. The surety of that knowledge was endlessly comforting. Still... I couldn't help but be a little afraid.

"I'm not..." I struggled momentarily for words. "I'm not the same Yomi you knew. I've changed."

He smiled a little, holding me at arms' length. "Everyone changes. And besides, you're still you. That will never stop being true."

As I stood in awe of my best friend's uncanny ability to hold me up while I was on the brink of collapse, a familiar croaky voice pierced the quiet. "Cassian? What's all that racket about—"

In came Moises, just as stern and curmudgeonly as I remembered him. The funeral home coordinator stood in the light of the candles and stared, his eyes growing wider by the second.

"Not you too," I said gently, stripping the wry note from my smile. Pause. "I'm back, sir. You don't have to run things anymore."

And then he did the impossible: he smiled. And he didn't keel over from the shock of such joy. In fact, that twinkle in his eye suited him perfectly. "I knew we wouldn't be rid of you forever."

I gave a laugh like bells, the first one in a long time. Only Moises would give a response like that.

"So... Do I get to run the funeral home now?" I said cautiously, with all the hope in the world braided into my words.

Moises huffed. "I should hope so. Although I've always thought your ways were unconventional..." His voice softened fondly. "Your parents would've wanted it. They'd be proud."

Then, without a backward glance, he stalked from the room. He was probably off to some dream retirement destination, and it made me smile to know he trusted me with all this. Finally, finally...

Even though my dream of carrying on the Nishikaze legacy seemed small and washed-out after all I'd seen, it was still sweeter than all the golden apples in the world to see it become realized. There were still so many things to live for.

Cassian watched me strangely, as many tended to do. "You didn't really... come back from the dead, did you?"

My bell-like laugh again—how I'd missed it. "More of a place than a state, really, but I did almost die at least five separate times."

"Can I hear that story later?" Cassian said, and I sensed he knew it was more than just a light fairytale recounting my many misadventures. He'd seen the new weight in my eyes—and the lightness there, too. I know, those contrasts can be infuriating sometimes. That's the balance for you.

I smiled up at him, a smile like the first gentle suggestions of dawn. I knew that it would eventually give in to darkness again, but I was ready to face it—I'd permitted myself to feel all of it. "Of course you'll get a story later. But first I have to hold some funerals. You'll... you could stick around to be my assistant. But I wouldn't want to ask for something you don't want—"

"Oh hush, Nishikaze." His eyes were warm and welcoming as hot tea. "Of course I'll be your assistant."

I struggle with endings, just like beginnings. It seems that my story will never truly come to a close. That's the beautiful, evolving nature of stories—they are ever-living. There's a kind of immortality to truth.

But sometimes stories die. Sometimes they end on awful, painful notes, and sometimes they fracture and fall over time, disintegrating like autumn leaves. But that doesn't mean they weren't beautiful in their time. That doesn't mean they're not worth looking at.

Because sometimes our lives don't feel like blessings, and sometimes death feels like a thread cut too short. That's the real nature of the balance, that sometimes it doesn't exist. But we keep living. That's the uniting thing about humanity—we all hurt and heal and break. We all lie and make mistakes. We wake up the next day and we try again, and sometimes we're struck by the beauty of it all. And sometimes we marvel at the sheer ugliness, the unfairness, of life.

Nothing can ever stay stagnant. We are all made of change—and it hurts to know that. But it's okay to hurt. Okay to be unbalanced sometimes. To mourn and celebrate and let go, all in tandem.

I've kept you for longer than I ever expected, spun in circles of philosophy and indulged in far too many metaphors. But I think the crux of it all, the reason I'm even telling you all this, is that nobody can guarantee you'll be remembered. Even the sun itself can leave you sometimes. People leave you behind, and sometimes you move on without them.

But that doesn't mean the ghosts of them, the memories, leave you. And all of it is your choice. To hold on, to let go. To accept loss or fight it at every turn. It's not for me to say whether your life should be lived a certain way.

But I think there's something to be said for living every day knowing you might not be remembered,, might not accomplish something extraordinary. It doesn't mean your life is any less beautiful in its duration, in every kind word and broken promise and untold story. All of it is worth more than gold.

We progress, we fall back, we try and we fail. We take too much blame or too little. But all of us are working toward something, and it's that fraught, flawed journey that makes it all worthwhile.

And sometimes we come full circle. If you picture it, you can just see a graveyard full of people. In their midst, there she is: Yomi Nishikaze, now a full-fledged adult and funeral home director. Cassian helps them lower two polished coffins into two freshly-dug graves. Her hands are caked in dirt and, at last, Yomi feels in tune with the earth again, made peace with its unpredictability, with the fact that their control can only go so far—and that's okay.

She tosses handfuls of dirt upon those sealed coffin lids. Feels handfuls of tears cascade down their face and does not try to stop them.

A graveyard garden surrounds her—peonies and daffodils and carnations in full bloom. Roe and Raina finally got that beautiful resting place they'd so deserved.

Soon, the ground will be closed again over these two souls, and the twenty-one others who lost their lives, but a part of them will always be in the world, carried on in stories and memories. Yomi imagines that they are all at peace now, that they all somehow let go of every sorrow that once weighed them down. She holds their memories loosely, not letting them drag her down, but also hoping that they don't fade. And if they do... Well, it won't diminish the beauty of their lives.

Yomi turns toward their audience and gives a sad little smile, preparing to give their speech. Feeling the presence of those both dead and living, guiding her forward. She is no longer ashamed to let the world see their sorrow and grief.

"Dear friends, we are gathered here to celebrate, mourn, and honor the lives of Roe Solano and Raina Quintana—beloved friends and brilliant souls, forever cherished and never lost..."

...

To the wonderful Linds, Yomi's creator. I adore your child; she is an absolute delight and I'm so glad to have the honor of writing them; I'm sorry for the pain along the way, but I do hope this story brought you as much joy as it has brought me. I can't wait to continue with her journey and implement them into my Verse. Thank you so much for reading. This was a project for the SYOT Verses 2023 Victor Exchange, an event which was such a privilege to be involved in. If you'd like to join the Discord server, please reach out to me and I'll send you the link; it's an awesome group and we'd love to have you. I'm not even sure what to say further except that I made myself cry writing this, I did not at all intend for it to be this long, and the Arena was inspired by Greek mythology, which I'm sure was very apparent already lol. The poem quoted in the summary is by Langston Hughes, and the two poems that Yomi quotes throughout the story are "Invictus" and "High Flight," so credit goes to those poets as well! Once again, thank you to any who may be reading this, I couldn't have done it without everyone's support and encouragement.

With Love,

Miri