Chapter title comes from the song "Fight Song" by Eve
General reminder that Theo's pronouns are she/it!
IX.
Towards the Verge of Death
Due to the nature of the arena and Quell, sponsorship was not permitted this year.
That was what Theo and Char were told when they entered the prep room to be outfitted with their arena clothes. Two large waterproof backpacks were in the far corner of the room, filled to the brim with bottles of water and small meals wrapped in biodegradable paper, and when Theo had asked, both stylists had anxiously exchanged glances before explaining things.
They also explained that, because each tribute pair counted as one singular tribute, they'd be launched together on the same podium. That was why Char joined Theo when they got changed, and that was why the launch elevator was twice as large as normal.
The swimming gear they were outfitted in gave away fairly easily what the arena would be—mostly water-based, maybe with minimal land to run around on. A belt was sewn onto the swimsuit that was filled with gel, and the stylists informed Theo and Char that it would be used as a floatation device if they triggered it when it was needed. The nylon shoes they were provided had rubber soles, and while most of the arena gear was coloured black, stripes of oxide ride ran down the shoulders and sides of Theo and Char's uniforms.
Theo's stylist helped it to repurpose where the yarn and signet ring would rest. The ring was slid onto Theo's middle finger, where it fit snugly, and while the yarn was still looped through the ring, the stylist pulled back Theo's sleeve and tied the yarn around its wrist. Now it wouldn't come loose, the stylist told her, and they rolled her sleeve back down over the yarn to make a point.
"Please be careful," Char's stylist told the duo. "Arenas with large bodies of water are always the most unpredictable."
"Can either of you swim?" Theo's stylist asked.
They both nodded, confident, and the stylists seemed reluctant to send the duo off despite the confirmation.
After all the travelling needed to get ready—taking a diagonal elevator underground and walking long corridors where each tribute eventually broke away from the crowd when their stylists collected them—the time finally came for Theo and Char to step into the moderately sized elevator and stare out at the stylists. The reinforced glass door shut them inside, and they held hands as they slowly were lifted up into the darkness of the elevator for a brief couple of seconds.
A small window with minimal light could be seen ahead of them when the elevator came to a stop. They weren't out in the open, not under the sunlight, and Theo looked around the podium with a nervous breath. Char shifted on his feet a little, and Theo made sure to tug him back into flattening his feet. Even if they weren't aboveground, the podiums were still likely to be armed. Any part of the floor around them could be rigged to blow.
True to Theo's concerns, there was a brief flash through the window as a low rumbling reverberated through the elevator. A dull thumping, like an explosion caught underwater, and Theo gripped Char's hand even tighter.
"Forty-six," Char muttered, breathless.
Another flash, more rumbling.
"Forty—" Theo started, but then there was another rumble, this time closer to their elevator. The walls felt like they were shaking as the light flashed briefly, brightly, from their left. "Forty-two…"
A light behind them turned on, a fluorescent red light totalling at only six inches in width with a metal cage over the top of it, and the room was bathed in a harsh crimson glow. But they could see better now, and Theo stared back at the small window ahead of them. A watertight door with a wheel handle was in front of them, and without the light to see them, none of the other tributes would've noticed the tripwire attached to the wheel that led back to the explosives within the elevator wall. Theo let out a low breath and blinked. It made the right call to not let Char move. If he'd touched the door, it would've been the end for them.
A speaker resting just under the light crackled to life. Theo looked back at it, and the voice of the announcer filled the room with a grainy tinge as they stared at the door with bated breaths.
"When the countdown ends, the One Hundred and Seventy-Fifth Hunger Games will commence. May the odds be ever in your favour."
And then an automated voice began to count down from sixty. Theo gripped Char's hand tightly, and they both peered through the window on the door. It was hard to see what was ahead of them. It looked like, as lights flickered on beyond the door and bathed the arena in a near-natural sunlight, a corridor was in front of them—another door at the end of it with the same airtight design and wheel. But Theo couldn't make out what was past the second window, even as the lights came on.
"How far do you think the cornucopia is?" Char asked.
Theo swallowed a lump in its throat. "Too far. We're going to encounter the other tributes unarmed."
"Think we can get away with using a full water bottle to bludgeon them?"
"Depends on who it is."
"As long as it's not the other careers?"
"As long as it's not the other careers."
Char let go of Theo's hand briefly to spin his bag around, and Theo buckled it around his back as it acted as a chest guard. Char let out a slow breath and rolled his shoulders. He unzipped his bag and pulled out two bottles of water, dual wielding them confidently.
"You handle the doors, I'll throw the bottles," he told her. Theo nodded and adjusted her bag, making sure it wouldn't slide off when she ran.
Another dulled explosion rocked the elevator. Theo sucked in a short breath and muttered, "Forty."
Eight tributes gone before the countdown even ended. That was almost half of a standard Hunger Games, Theo thought. Almost a quarter of the tributes were dead, and Theo couldn't help wondering how many of them were the grudge decisions that resulted in the spurned chosen partner taking them both out in one fell swoop.
The automated voice finally read out the last five seconds on the clock, and then a small siren blared to signify the Games' beginning. The bombs in the wall audibly disarmed, and the tripwire on the door fell off and limp against the floor in front of them.
Theo rushed forward and grunted as it turned the wheel handle and felt the door loosen. She counted four turns, a relatively quick unfastening, and Theo pushed the door open with a triumphant sound. Char darted past her, and now that they were in the corridor, it was easier to see what kind of arena they were working with. Beyond the door, beyond the corridor, it was like standing inside of an aquarium. Water encompassed them from all sides, a dimly lit abyss surrounding them, and when they looked up at the ceiling of the corridor, all they could see was something large, larger than the entire size of the arena, blocking out the sun above them.
A tube from the elevator extended up to the giant disc above them, and when Theo looked back down to see where the other tributes were—she saw one of the other corridors on their left completely flooded with water and with limbs and tattered backpacks floating through the length. The shockwave of the blast must've sent the door flying into the corridor, and Theo pointedly looked away from where the podium should've been.
Better to not see if any blood or body parts aside from the disembodied fingers and leg were visible.
From the looks of the corridor on their right, there were no other tributes immediately with them. As Theo and Char got closer to the next door, they could see a clean white room beyond and what looked to be a giant red cross above the door on the other side of the room. Theo spun the wheel four times, once again a sufficient amount to unlock the airtight door, and Char rushed inside as the door opened into the corridor.
No one else was in the room. As Char went to check the corridor on the right side, making certain that no one else was coming—he announced that the tributes on the right side blew their podiums as well—Theo quickly jogged through the sanitised room and surveyed its surroundings as it ran for the other door.
The room was sizable, like a miniature hospital ward, and the cots lined up in rows gave a good idea of what this room was for. But just to make sure to hammer the point home, cabinets filled with all manner of bottles and bandages lined one side of the room and an adjustable bench for a patient to sit on, which seemed to double as a surgical table, was a little distance from the cots. Clipboards with instructions for how to use some of the medication—weight charts for proper dosages of morphling, guides on proper stitching techniques for wounds, step by step instructions on how to properly disinfect before surgery—were littered about the other surfaces in the room among the myriad of medications and bandages and crutches found within.
Theo made it to the door and peeked through the window. She didn't move to open it, but as she stared through the circular glass, she could clearly see a large garden on the other side. Only one kind of flower was there, and it looked almost like a greenhouse.
"I think we got put near a med bay," Char reported. He relaxed a little and moved towards the walls of the room. It wasn't quite square-shaped, more a trapezoid, and the larger half of the room was made to accommodate the different corridors leading from the podiums. "I think every launch elevator leads to one of these rooms. And look."
Theo looked back at him. He was pointing up, and when Theo looked at the glass ceiling, it furrowed its brows. Another airtight door, but this one was only big enough to fit one person. When Theo looked around it to see inside the tube it led to, she found metal surrounding the tube and blocked the view inside.
"An escape hatch?" she asked. But that couldn't be right. The ceiling was at least fifteen feet above them, and Theo and Char weren't short people. If she had to guess, this room was around twenty feet in height—from floor to ceiling—and the cots certainly wouldn't help with reaching the hatch. "No, maybe not…"
"Theo, there's a swimming pool in the dome next to ours!"
Theo startled and ran to where Char was standing. At least the glass walls, ceiling and floor allowed for them to see the other rooms in the arena. Like Char said, there was a swimming pool in the dome to the right of theirs. But more than that, there was sand and parasols and even beach chairs all throughout it. And when Theo peered closer at the pool, it quickly noticed that it got deeper the further it went—until it finally opened up to the ocean around them, a surefire escape route if someone could hold their breath long enough to swim to the disc above the arena. But that was a big distance to swim. The domes themselves were already at least twenty feet, and the tubes above each room and launch podium were at least twice that.
They were six fathoms under the water at minimum, reaching the point where no sunlight should be visible to them. Frankly, it was a miracle they could see anything outside the dome thanks to the light inside. In fact…
Theo glanced around. Sure enough, on top of the shelves and cabinets and even above the glass ceiling itself, attached to the disc, ambient light filled the room thanks to what appeared to be portable lights scattered through the room. They weren't the same soft red that the elevator had, but the vague yellow light certainly helped to keep the room lit.
When Theo looked back at the swimming pool dome, it saw four people running around and yelling. It was easy to figure out who was in the three corridors—or rather, two, since it appeared the farthest one exploded as well—based on the colours on their arena uniforms. Leathery brown streaked one tribute's uniform, which Theo could quickly make out as District Eight's before a boy with a donkey brown grey stripe tackled him.
"Eight and Ten," Theo said. "See who's on the other side. We might have to get to the garden and lock ourselves in, especially if the cornucopia is past the garden."
Char moved to the other side of the room, and he let out a low whistle as he saw what was on the left side of the med bay dome. Theo watched as the boy from District Eight was thrown into the pool and held down by the boy from District Ten. And the twelve-year-olds that accompanied them screamed and ran around all the while. At least the little girl from Ten was able to realise just how dangerous it was, and in what seemed to be an act of mercy, she helped the young boy from Eight open the door to the garden the beach room led to—filled to the brim with hyacinths, almost swallowing the boy whole.
When the boy from Eight stopped moving in the pool, the boy from Ten ran to the girl and gave her a big hug. The girl resisted, screaming at him, but he just hugged her and rocked back and forth on the sand.
Of course the girl reacted like that, Theo thought with a heavy heart. She just watched someone she loved turn into a murderer before her eyes. She didn't understand yet that he did it to prevent the boy from Eight from attacking her first.
"Shit." Char sounded alarmed as he spoke. Theo turned around, and he was already sprinting to the door. "Shit. Montresor. Shit."
Theo didn't hesitate to move. She ran over and helped Char open the door, but not before diving for a nearby surgical kit and yanking some of the tools from the table. It recognised a scalpel, at the very least, but the weird hooked scissors were lost on it. Whatever it did, Theo would find a use in weaponising it. For now, though, it was time to run.
They had an ally to save.
The smell of the freesia garden hit Theo and Char with an overwhelming force. Theo gagged a little, and so did Char, but Char at least took the scalpel from Theo when it was offered. Theo crashed into the door to the next room—the visage of the cornucopia was right in front of them, surrounded by tanks of jellyfish at every angle, through the circular window—and twisted the wheel hurriedly, and then she and Char were bursting into the cornucopia room at the same time as the boy from Eight.
He screamed and bolted in the direction of the cornucopia, hiding inside of it, and on the other side of the cornucopia, Theo would see familiar red hair come into view. Saffron wore diving goggles on her face and held a small oxygen tank that was splattered with blood, and Truffle was right behind her with an equally bloodied oxygen tank in their hands. While Truffle beelined for the cornucopia to grab weapons and another bag, Saffron waved the duo down and happily called for them.
"Montresor!" Char called back. He darted for the airtight door to his right, barely pausing to elaborate.
"Montresor?" Saffron asked, confused.
"Montresor!" Theo screamed.
Truffle burst out of the cornucopia and had a spear in her hand. She hesitated, clearly trying to estimate how long it'd take to run to Theo right now, and all Theo heard was them calling her name before it looked back over—just in time to see the spear flying awkwardly through the air, falling into a spin that would've skewered Theo if Truffle hadn't warned it.
The yari felt familiar in Theo's hands as it caught it. She saw Truffle go back for another sword, a cutlass this time, and begin to run after the duo from Two as Saffron took the throwing knives from her.
Theo could see inside the gladiolus garden when it followed Char, and Char was already opening the door to the room Montresor was in. Theo could barely catch its breath as it saw Fortuna burst out of the door and into Char's arms, dragging a metal ball on a long chain with her. All Theo knew was that Montresor was approaching the door with a mace in his hand, winding up to bring it down on Char and Fortuna as they scrambled to get off the floor, and Theo took stance to throw the spear across the garden.
She could kill him right here. She could kill him right here. She could kill him right here.
Theo could kill someone.
Theo's heart stopped.
Without meaning to, Theo's aim changed away from Montresor's chest. It couldn't stop itself, couldn't correct itself, and it let the yari fly through the air before Theo could even register that it'd sacrificed the fatal blow to spare Montresor's life.
The yari nicked Montresor's waist, and he doubled over as he jumped back from the brief impact. Char was quick to push Fortuna aside, shoving his weight against the door, and he slammed it shut in front of Montresor with all his might. Fortuna quickly jumped up to her feet and limped to Char's side, and she spun the wheel with enough force to make it spin multiple times in one go. The airtight door made a noise as it suctioned shut, and Char looked around for something to block it with.
As he searched, Theo called out to him, "Above the door!"
He reached up, fumbling a little, but he found the small red lever above the door and pulled it down. Theo saw multiple mechanical bits on the frame of the door move, almost like a lock sliding into place, and as Montresor banged on the door and screamed at the window, it became obvious that even if he did spin the wheel, it wouldn't budge.
Each door had a lock. Theo looked back at the door to the garden, now that she was halfway inside, and she saw Truffle cut down someone from District Nine who tried to shove them inside and lock them in. Blood seeped through the doorway, and Theo had to look away from the corpse as Char dragged Fortuna over.
"You had the kill shot!" Fortuna yelled at her. "Why didn't you take the shot? You should've taken the shot!"
"Yell at her after we're back in the med dome!" Char snapped. He pointed to the dome he and Char came out of and yelled to Truffle and Saffron, "Make sure no one gets in that dome!"
Saffron bolted immediately. Theo could see her hurl a knife at a tribute who got too close, and then Char was pushing Theo out the door as he carried Fortuna. Fortuna shoved her weapon to Theo, the heavy metal ball at the end definitely giving Theo pause, and the group ran back to the freesia garden and locked the door from the inside. All of them were gasping for air as Theo reached up and pulled the red lever above the door, and they didn't pause for rest until they were back in the medical dome and settling fortuna on top of the bench.
As soon as Theo spun the door shut, Truffle collapsed onto the floor and groaned.
"I was hoping he wouldn't be near us," they lamented. "We got lucky…"
"We wasted an opportunity," Fortuna snapped. She hissed as Saffron poked at her ankle, and Theo only just noticed the giant purple bruise beginning to form on it. The foot couldn't even move properly, the whole ankle likely shattered as a piece of bone protruded against the skin. "What the fuck, Theo—"
"Drop the attitude." Char dumped his bag on the floor and put the scalpel back on the bench. He moved for the cabinets and began to rifle around for bandages, but paused when he found a small transparent tablet. The black screen was somewhat clear, and Char turned it over a couple of times before holding his hand under it. He pressed a button, and the screen flashed briefly before showing Char an x-ray of his hand. He tucked it under his arm and rifled around for bandages again. "We didn't expect him to be launched into the fucking armoury."
"Try being launched with him," Fortuna growled. "He tried to strangle me before the countdown even ended. Do you know how badly I wanted to just blow us up— Oh my God, Saffron, stop touching it!"
Saffron raised her hands innocently and backed away from the bench. Truffle rubbed her back reassuringly, and they both moved closer to where Theo sat by the door.
"I cut him," Theo gasped.
"You spared his fucking life," Fortuna said.
"I hurt him."
Saffron blinked at Theo, staring at its face for a moment, and before Fortuna could continue to yell, she asked, "Theo, were you prepared to hurt people in the arena?"
Theo opened her mouth. She shut it. She looked down at the floor in shame.
"Char would've handled it," Theo mumbled. "He always said he would."
"What if Char needed you to kill someone?" Saffron asked.
"I would! I would…" Theo chewed its lip and looked up at Saffron, and it was clear that Saffron didn't believe Theo's words. Saffron just looked like she pitied it, and it hurt Theo even more. "I really would—"
"Should'a, could'a, would'a." Fortuna sat up and glared over at Theo. Theo looked back down at the floor, and she focused on rubbing the yarn wrapped around Alamo's ring. "Seriously, I thought you were the best in District Two."
"It is," Char growled. He slammed the tray of medical supplies he'd gathered onto the bench and pushed Fortuna to lay back down. "They don't let us practise killing living targets, you know."
"But you're allowed to practise on each other," Fortuna countered.
"Not fatally, we're not. Stay still."
The next hour or so was spent in relative silence, with only Char and Fortuna speaking. Theo eventually unlocked the med bay door for Saffron and Truffle to relax in the garden, and they took peeks into the cornucopia dome every so often. Theo stayed in the doorway, still trying to calm down, but it was hard to get the image out of its head as the silence stretched on.
The way the yari had nicked Montresor just sat with Theo. She'd hurt him—she had hurt him. Theo, the person who fussed over the smallest of injuries on a person. Theo, the person who felt immediate guilt once she realised she'd attacked the rival career pack in order to help Khoi. Theo, the person who kissed wounds better rather than caused them.
Theo curled up into a ball and held its breath. Trying to look around at the other domes wasn't helping much—not with the other tributes still killing each other at the cornucopia—so the best Theo could do was close her eyes and count to ten, rubbing the yarn between its fingers over and over.
By the time Char was done with Fortuna, the twins had come back from the garden with a bouquet of freesias that they presented to Fortuna. Fortuna took them, albeit reluctantly, and it was obvious that the painkillers Char had given her were mellowing her out. Theo was still hesitant to approach, guilt-ridden that she'd let Fortuna down by fudging the kill shot but also struggling to face anyone after they'd found out Theo wasn't prepared to kill someone; the best Theo could do was watch from afar as Char read over the medical chart and flicked through the instructions with a frown.
"I think I got it," he said eventually. "You said he tried to…?"
"Hobble me?" Fortuna asked, eyes glazed over.
"Right… Well, because he didn't brace it against anything, the break was minor," Char reported. "I'm comparing the x-ray with the examples and it's not as bad. Maybe just spend a few days in here and recover? We have plenty of medical supplies to last a home treatment."
"What about food?" Truffle asked. They dropped their backpack to the floor and unzipped it. "Saff and I looked at our bags—it's mostly bread and protein bars. Tuna needs more than that."
"Maybe the med bay has some of those tubes with liquid meals," Saffron tried.
Theo looked over at Char, and it could see how frustrated he was with the situation. "Okay, first, I'm not a doctor and I don't know how to intubate people. I could drown Fortuna if I did that. Second, she's not dying. We keep that as a last resort, okay? Besides, if this arena has a small hospital dome, it should have something like a kitchen."
Truffle perked up at that. She nodded enthusiastically. "I saw someone running towards the cornucopia with a whole armful of food. I'll bet they launched in a kitchen dome."
"How many different types of domes are there?" Theo piped up. Everyone seemed to pause, almost like they'd forgotten Theo was there, but Char blinked and looked to consider the question.
"That's…" He glanced at the twins, and both he and Theo looked to the far side of the medical dome—where the twins had dumped their small oxygen tanks in the corner, out of everyone's way. "A good question. What was in your dome, guys?"
Saffron reached up and took her goggles off, and she pursed her lips before reporting, "I think it was all diving supplies."
"We tried to look for a harpoon for Theo," Truffle chimed in.
"No luck," they both said together.
Theo's eyes darted up to the escape hatch at the ceiling. When she looked back at Char, he was looking in the same direction. He looked back down at it and nodded, and Theo was relieved to see he was thinking the same thing. If there was diving equipment, then some kind of extended swimming was going to be expected later. And maybe, Theo thought, the possibility of the rooms flooding meant that swimming to the ceiling was the only way to reach the hatches.
How would they flood a room, though? That was the biggest question.
"Truffle, Saffron," Char said to the twins. "Go through every cupboard and drawer in the room. Look under every mattress in every cot, and then under the cots themselves. I'll bet that, because we can't receive sponsorships, we have sponsor items hidden in the room to use."
"No Hunger Games has had this much medical supplies right out the gate," Theo agreed. She began to stand up, a little calmer now that there was an idea slowly piecing itself together, and Theo looked to Fortuna as she approached the others. "I'm sorry I didn't kill him. But you said you were making a cry for help, didn't you? You wanted Montresor for yourself. So I'm going to stop at crippling him. You finish what you started and put him back in his place."
Prone on the bench and exhausted beyond words with the adrenalin wearing off and the morphling in her system, Fortuna didn't fight back. But she did nod, silent, and sighed heavily.
It was only when the twins were rummaging through the cupboards at the back of the room that Fortuna brought up something so important, Theo was horrified that it'd forgotten.
"Where's the big-boned girl who was with you?"
For a brief moment, Theo didn't know who Fortuna was talking about. It looked to Char, who was equally confused, and as they stared at each other, Theo could see Char piecing things together at roughly the same pace as it. They both gasped, aghast, and sprinted for the garden door as they yelled together, "Bellatrix!"
They just barely reached the door and began to spin the wheel before someone crashed into the door in an attempt to force it open. Theo pushed Char aside, tightening the wheel again to keep the door shut, and she could feel someone trying to tug the wheel open on the other side. Theo looked at the window, gritting her teeth as she tried to hold the wheel in place.
Montresor had been released from the room Char had locked him in. A bloodied and bruised Ajax was behind him, holding a bow and aiming an arrow at the door, and Theo yelled at Char to lock the door again. A bloodied fist punched the glass, trying to crack it, but it was no use. Montresor screamed at Theo, lips moving and words flying, but the thick metal muffled it enough that Theo didn't have to pay them any mind.
Char reached up and pulled the lever down again. They both backed away from the door as Montresor continued to pound against the door. Saffron had run after them—to see what was going on—but she was quick to hide behind Theo as she saw Montresor turn his attention to her. The more Montresor yelled at the window, the more his breath fogged up the glass. But before he was obscured completely by it, Theo was finally able to make out what he was screaming as it read his lips.
Give me Fortuna.
Hand the bitch over.
I'll kill you all.
Char let out an incredulous scoff and muttered, "This guy's insane."
"Obsessed, more like," Theo mumbled. It turned to usher Saffron back into the med day, still looking at the door. Montresor banged against it a few more times, but the sounds of him trying to force his way inside were dying down quickly. His bloodied hands were smearing the glass, and soon he wouldn't be able to see any of them through it all. "Let's… We're gonna regroup and think about what to do with Bellatrix."
"Should we wait it out?" Char asked.
"I don't know, I just—" Theo looked away from the door and chewed her lip. "Look, Ajax was with Montresor, and if everyone was launched in pairs, she was with Ajax. So it might be best to wait until the death announcements to see if she managed to hide somewhere. I want to help her, especially if she's on her own, but we have no clue where she launched or if she survived the bloodbath. We need to wait for the announcements."
As much as it hurt to leave Bellatrix hanging like this, especially given how much Theo had done to try to help her survive so far in training, this was their best option. They had no weapons, save for the swords and throwing knives the twins had grabbed for themselves and Char, and whatever weapon Fortuna had was useless if Fortuna couldn't move with it. Without the spear that Truffle had thrown to her, Theo was dead weight against someone with a mace. Not to mention, if Ajax was even half as good as Betty with a bow, he'd snipe them fatally from afar.
Despite the glass walls allowing access to everything they could see, it was increasingly harder and harder to see past each wall to try and find their ally. All they could really do right now was hope for the best, even if the best might be Bellatrix rationing her food until the day her allies could find her.
Just as long as the outcome wasn't that Ajax had killed her, Theo thought.