VII: July: District Seven.
There is something waiting for us at the edge of the woods, and it is our fate to meet it.
Just a few minutes ago she was holding Brycen's hand, shaking like a leaf as she stared down the tube that would take her into the arena.
Their palms had been equally clammy—he had made a great show of wiping his own down across his pants before he left the room to get a laugh out of her, his eyes crinkling around the edges.
Sanne had been the one shaking, though. It only got worse once he left. Him sneaking into her preparation room in the first place had startled her, but him leaving was far worse. The second he was gone, she wanted him back.
It seemed like no time at all, that she had him so close.
And now she can't see him at all.
Sanne hadn't been able to see any of them. Not Brycen, Carya, or Sylvan. It was as if she had been dropped into some parallel dimension where her allies didn't exist. She was alone as the carnage began, though even calling it that was somewhat of a stretch. Most of the kids around her just looked panicked.
She felt as if she had so many plans, but they were all lost in the clouds, the trees that surrounded them. Sanne had assumed it would be the picture of Seven, as all the arenas had been, but it was uncanny. The towering trees, the long grass, the scent of pine thick and cloying in the air. Birds sang in the distance. Squirrels chattered in the treetops.
Someone screamed, just in front of her.
A girl around her age falls courtesy of two elder ones, but Sanne can't even recall her name through the fuzz in her brain. She had been so focused on keeping herself grounded, and she couldn't even do that. Perhaps Brycen's hand had been the only thing keeping her tethered—without it she was doomed to float away, lost in the sky above.
Where was he?
Sanne shoots by another fight, more evenly matched than the last. She's long since past by the time the boy crumples to the ground, but she hears the heavy sound of him thudding against the grass. The noise attempts to pull her back, her eyes so tempted to look.
She almost does. The threat of tripping over another body just before her makes her stop, feet skidding to a halt before she can trip and fall flat on her face. This one, though, is not as unrecognizable as the rest. The pale hair, the blood-stained, freckled face. Sylvan.
Her heart does an odd stutter-step at the sight of her ally dead at her feet, a hole punctured through the center of his chest. Blood seeps into the grass and stretches towards the tips of her boots, but Sanne can't even make herself backpedal away. He's dead, just like that, glassy eyes fixated on the sky.
She told him they were going to be just fine.
"Sanne!"
She jumps, flinching away from the person that races by her a moment later. Whoever they are, they're not fixated on her in the slightest. Sanne is inconsequential right now, an ant in a colony of thousands. Only one person would be calling for her with such panic in their voice.
Brycen appears from around the back of the Cornucopia; in his arms, and pressed up against his side, is Carya. She clings to him, their feet knocking together. Somehow the younger girl is managing to trip them both up, threatening to bring them to the ground.
Sanne can't understand why until her eyes finally focus, landing on the knife buried in Carya's stomach.
It just doesn't seem like any of it can be real.
There are only two solutions—to sit down in the grass and cry, wait for someone to free her from this misery, or to do something. She can't save Sylvan, but Carya is still alive. It doesn't even look like she's bleeding that much. They can fix this, if Sanne moves. Getting out of here was always their number one priority.
She wants nothing more than to throw her arms around Brycen and squeeze him to her until this all feels real again, but she forces herself to Carya's other side. The girl lets out a pained squeak as Sanne draws her right arm up and over her shoulders. Together they take her slight weight between them and all but carry her away, over the supplies laying strewn out on the ground and the corpses, all the way past the pedestals.
Sanne should have been doing something instead of running around like a panic, the perfect picture of a new worker dropped headfirst into the lumber-yards with no direction. A weapon, food, a first-aid kit. If anything, that's what they're going to need right now. They've already lost one person, and Sanne isn't sure she can handle losing anymore.
It doesn't matter if that's the name of the game; she didn't ask for this anymore than the rest of them.
"We're okay, Carya," Brycen says out of the blue, the darkness of the tree-line swallowing them whole. Sanne glances back, but no one appears to be following. "We're going to be okay, you hear me?"
The girl nods, a hiccuping sob breaking free from her throat. Sanne tightens her grip. They will be okay. They have each-other.
That will just have to be enough.
No matter how far he moves through the trees, he can still hear it.
It doesn't seem plausible that Seven can be causing this much of an uproarious bloodbath. They're no Careers, untrained and unwise in the art of staying alive. It shouldn't be happening like this.
Ilan knows, from personal experience, that Seven is quiet. Unless you're close to the yards or the logging roads, you can hear every little individual sound the forest makes. When he climbs up into his backyard's giant oak and lays down in the treehouse everything is so hushed he can hear every beat of his own heart—Vitali's too, when they were laying side-by-side. You could hear everything.
This was a different sort of everything, and Ilan was quickly discovering how much he despised it.
It almost seems like the noise is getting closer, somehow. Ilan flattens himself to the nearest tree, the bark pressing rough up against his cheek. A shout carries throughout the pines, followed by a heavy thud. It's close. Not really the bloodbath at all. His heightened curiosity carries him closer, using the trees as cover as he catches sight of two people amidst the undergrowth, just pulling themselves to their feet.
A fair fight it is not. Though they're of the same stature, equally fit, only one of the boys present before him has a weapon—a long-slightly angled machete that appears black under the cover of the tree-tops. The weaponless one is trying to drag away his backpack, searching for enough purchase to pull the bag free, but his progress appears minimal.
All it takes is a few quick hacks of the machete into the offending boy's arm. Blood flies. The white of bone peeks one from his slashed open forearm as he howls, still trying to rush forward.
It really is strange how people work sometimes; he most likely could have lived, had he not tried it again. Instead Ilan watches as the machete sinks into his chest, a choked gurgle spilling free from his mouth.
And then everything is blissfully quiet again.
The still-alive one bends down to free his machete, re-adjusting his backpack along his shoulders. A quick glance back in the direction of the Cornucopia proves the path is empty, and then his gaze turns to the undergrowth and trees that surround Ilan's hiding place.
If Ilan can see him…
Anxiety grasps a near stranglehold around his heart as the boy locks eyes with him. "You gonna sit in there forever, or?"
He probably shouldn't. He's already been spotted. Ilan doesn't move though, nor does he speak. Conversating isn't the east sort of thing, these days; why do you think he came into this without allies? It wasn't as if people were lining up in front of him, begging to tag along. Ilan was more than pleased to withdraw into himself and stay alone.
He hadn't wanted to. Ilan never really wanted to, but as life had taught him, he didn't often get what he wanted.
"I'm not going to kill you," the boy says. "Didn't want to kill him either, but y'know. Shit happens."
"So why did you?"
It's odd, speaking from the foliage, leaves dappling shadows over his face. The boy shoots him an amused smile, shuffling back and forth on his feet. He's already starting to forget that there's a dead body between them. "He was chasing me down, trying to steal my stuff. I guess he thought he had a better chance against me than all the others back there."
"Didn't you have an ally?" Ilan asks. He knows so. Spending all that time alone during training means he knows who stuck to themselves, and who linked up with others. No one made any secret of hiding it, giving him enough mental notes to file away that he could easily shove out everything else that had been swirling around in his brain for the past week.
"Quennell," the boy says. "He's dead."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"I'm sorry?" Ilan tries.
"Me too."
Ilan should probably go. This boy has already killed one person, even if he's claiming to not be a bloodthirsty murderer, and his legs are beginning to cramp. When the boy takes a few steps towards him he nearly crashes backward into the brambles, narrowly avoiding cutting his arms open.
A hand is thrust down towards him. "I'm Redmond. And you are…?"
Ilan stares at his hand. The thought of anyone touching him, especially now, is so unappealing he can't imagine a worse thing. He quickly stands instead, making a show of brushing his dirtied palms against his thighs.
"Ilan," he responds. Much to his relief, Redmond drops his hand before the awkwardness stretched between them can grow any thinner and step.
"Are you going to try and steal my stuff too, Ilan?"
"What—no," he says hurriedly. "I'll just… be going now."
"Wait," Redmond insists. "You could stay, if you want. With me."
"Why?"
He shrugs. "I'm not good at being alone. Got a big house, a lot of siblings. The quiet drives me nuts, man. I think I'll go insane out here if I'm by myself."
His ally is dead. If Ilan refuses, he has no doubt that Redmond will let him go and walk off in another direction. He'll likely never see him again.
That's what he should do, and what he cannot.
When Redmond said I'm not good at being alone all he wanted to say was me too. Being alone never led to anything good. As much as he liked the quiet, that's when things got bad, too. He's lived through that enough to know the very worst of it.
Ilan nods. Redmond's answering smile is not just pleased, but relieved. He won't be lost to this dark forest all alone, and neither will Ilan.
"Come on, then," Redmond urges. He holds an arm out to allow Ilan clear passage out from the brambles, and points further into the trees. He's not sure how wise of an idea it is so listen, or to follow—it's not like he has any good experience with it from his past.
But Redmond's nice. He doesn't question, either, the slight limp Ilan has to his gait as they descend further into the trees, the one that never quite goes away.
It's probably for the best.
Sanne told herself yesterday that by today, they would have answers.
By today, things would be looking up.
She wishes she could say such things aloud without them being outright lies.
It feels odd to only have a knife to her name, a knife that she doesn't even want to be carrying. It makes no sense to have Brycen holding onto it though, when he has just about as much inclination as her to attack anyone. His arms are full with Carya, anyway—piggybacking her had been the answer, for some time, but she was in too much pain now to do anything other than be cradled like a child as they moved deeper into the woods.
Sanne can't help but question every decision they've made. Should they have taken the knife out? Should they have ripped apart two of their jackets to try and bandage the wound when there's such a chill in the air?
She knows they shouldn't still be moving. Getting away from the others means nothing when all the jostling about keeps making Carya bleed. There are stains of it down Brycen's front and back alike, making Sanne do a double-take every time she catches sight of them.
It's so dark now, too. Sanne keeps a hand forward constantly, making sure that Brycen is within reach. There's nothing out there in the woods to worry about; as long as she keeps telling herself that, there's no reason to be afraid.
"I think we need to stop," Brycen says. Carya is shivering in his arms despite their proximity, eyes squeezed shut.
Of course it's worse than Sanne wanted to believe—when you never think anything can be all that bad, it always turns out that way.
Sanne cradles Carya's head as Brycen moves to set her down. She can't help but glance skyward, finding every single star and the sliver of moon overhead, praying something will drop on them from above. Some medicine, bandages, a handful of matches. Anything. It doesn't seem right that they'll let a fourteen year old girl die like this.
When has anything about this ever been right?
"You can go to sleep, if you want," Brycen offers quietly. "I'll watch her."
Sanne isn't sure she's ever been so decisive in her life, shaking her head as she moves to sandwich Carya's trembling form between them. She can't go to sleep while her ally is suffering.
Suffering seems like an even worse word than dying, somehow.
She draws the younger girl's hands in-between hers to keep them warm, though it seems futile with how hard she continues to tremble. Whether it's from the cold, the pain, or a lingering infection they have no clue about, Sanne can't tell. Knowing might be too much for her anyway.
Her dream would be that Carya wakes up and gets better, but what then? At least one of them still has to die anyway. Imagining Brycen in her place is no better, and Sanne doesn't want to die either.
She doesn't want anyone to die.
Brycen's hands fold overtop of hers, the three of them joined together in the darkness. Sanne can feel herself beginning to shake as well, but it has nothing to do with the cold. How easy it would be to run away and be witness to none of this.
"Do you know who did it?" Sanne asks, voice scarcely a whisper. Disturbing Carya now is not a risk she's willing to take.
"Thatcher," Brycen answers. "We go to the same school."
How quickly they've all thrown out whatever traces of their humanity remain. Sanne doesn't plan on giving hers up so easily.
She's not even sure why she asked. It's not like it matters. She can vaguely picture him now, a giant of a boy with not a trace of happiness in his face. That was who went after Carya, someone twice her size who never allowed her the chance to get away.
She tightens her grip as the girl's breaths grow more shallow, the rise and fall of her chest unsteady. Brycen's thumbs strokes a soft, repeated pattern over her knuckles in a half-hearted attempt at comfort, as if it's not someone else dying on the forest floor between them. It would be nice to tell him how much she appreciates it, but the lump in her throat is too thick.
By the time Carya's cannon fires, somewhere like halfway through the night, Sanne feels numb. The tears that splash across her face trace a burning path down her icy cheeks. Even though her ability to see has been somewhat hindered, it's impossible to miss the equal amount of tears gathering in Brycen's eyes.
Their hands, all three of them, are no longer joined. Brycen's thumb swipes across her cheek as he reaches over, smearing away some of the tears that have gathered there. "C'mere," he says quietly, opening his arms as she scrambles across the ground towards him, hardly able to catch her breath. Sanne presses tight against his side, head tucked beneath his chin as they wrap their arms around one another.
It's more than just an embrace—this is them holding each-other together, refusing to allow things to splinter apart anymore than they already have.
"We're gonna be okay." Sanne forces the words out even as they sting like acid on her tongue. She feels him nod, tightening her fingers in his jacket as he clutches her closer to his chest.
More lies. She's not sure how much longer she'll be able to tell them.
Redmond's a nice kid.
He talks a fair bit. Has this weirdly positive attitude behind everything he does, even though he killed someone two days ago. Nothing in him hesitates when he moves to share food or water with Ilan.
In a weird way, the worst kind, Redmond reminds him of Vitali. That didn't sting at first, but it's starting to.
It feels like forever since he last saw him, when it can't be any more than a week or so. The last time he saw him was June 28th, three days before the reaping. He hadn't even come to Ilan's side in the pens like he had the year before, to hold his hand. It had just been him all alone in a sea of nervous, sweating kids, expecting to be doomed to die.
Even when he had been on the stage he couldn't see him. Even when he was sitting in that goodbye room waiting for him, Vitali hadn't shown his face.
Ilan couldn't shake the feeling that he knew, somehow. Why else would the person he loved the most abandon him in such a time? Vi must know that he was damaged goods, couldn't handle it anymore… how could Ilan expect him to, anyway, when he couldn't even handle it himself?
Still, at least if he got out of here, Ilan could at least call him. Hear his voice again. That's all he wanted.
"You good, man?" Redmond asks. A heavy hand lands on his shoulder and he flinches, unable to escape the grip. Somewhere inside himself Ilan knows it's a friendly gesture, something coming from a place of concern, but he pulls away from it regardless.
Redmond's not bad, not good. He's not Hudson or Vitali, or anyone at all, really.
Ilan doesn't like even the mere feeling that he is.
"Want me to go start on the firewood?" he asks thickly, hoping to sound more put-together than he really is. Just like last night, Redmond hands him the machete without question—he came back last night with a bundle of firewood in his arms, so who is to say that he can't do the same tonight?
Everything, really.
He tries not to focus on the sickly feeling of Redmond's hand brushing against his as he passes the weapon over, on the way his skin crawls all the way up to the base of his neck. It doesn't make any sense, how unsafe he feels at any given time. Ilan is practically the token expert of just how quickly things can go south; he's never been all that good at trusting his instincts before, but he needs to start.
Redmond may talk like Vitali, act like him too, but he's not. Even if Vi abandoned him at the very end, he refuses to have anything so negative associated with the memory of him.
"Ilan?" Redmond questions. He's crouched on the ground at Ilan's feet, hands focused on scraping together a pile of kindling and twigs. Though his head cranes back over his shoulder, no doubt wondering why Ilan hasn't yet headed off, there's so much exposed.
His back, for instance.
"Ilan?" he asks again, though there's something else behind it, this time. Probably because he's turning the machete, holding it like you would a dagger. Raising it.
Redmond does move, at the very last second, but it's not fast enough. It's like something takes over Ilan's body, some sort of malevolent being that has a hatred for everything in the world but it's host. He stabs down, the blade finding a home between Redmond's shoulders just once, and then two more times in quick succession. Though the younger boy tries to keep his arms beneath him, they give way finally as he crumples face-first into the grass.
Ilan isn't capable of stopping, not for what feels like a few long, ugly minutes. The blade keeps sliding back into place, finding a home in the cuts he's already opened on Redmond's back. In all actuality it can't be more than a few seconds with how fast he moves, the speed at which his arm is operating.
This thing, whatever's inhabited him, is the thing Ilan wishes he could have had years ago. Maybe then nothing bad would have happened to him.
If he had the strength to fight back, life would be better.
Not that it matters now. He can't go back to those beginning moments and change anything. Ilan can only do things now.
Whether or not the right things, he may never know.
Sanne isn't sure whether her and Brycen holding hands once again is an unconscious decision or not.
She doesn't remember walking so close to his side, nor does she remember reaching out. It's just his hand in her, palms flat together, fingers linked.
Just like back in the prep room, it's grounding. There's no reason that his hand should make her feel any safer, but the arena and the horrors within it seem somehow distant with Brycen in such close proximity. It does nothing to fill the gaping absences of Carya and Sylvan, but at least they have each-other.
It's more than what she had back at home. Half a dozen friends and chatter surrounding you in school was all well and good until you went home and had nothing to greet you. A part of Sanne wonders what life would be like if she had a younger sibling or two—perhaps her parents would feel more obligated to be around. If not, she'd take faithful care of them herself. At least that way the house wouldn't echo, creaking ominously in the dark.
"Hey," Brycen says quietly. "Look at that."
He points into the distance, thankfully with his opposite hand. Until the shadows move between the trees everything seems to bleed together, one mass of nothing after the next.
The one in the lead finally pulls away, elegantly long-legged as it cracks branches beneath it's slim hooves. It's antlers are barren and yellowed in the cold, each fork and point seeming more lethal than the last. Each member of the herd lingering behind it looks nearly identical, bringing to mind an image of the every-day Seven, their hoofprints imprinted in the dirt wherever you went.
They're normal enough, at least, save for their beady red eyes. Each set appears to practically glow, a uniquely neon quality that makes them all the more unnatural.
"D'ya think they're dangerous?" Brycen asks, bending his head closer to hers.
Neither of them dare move, though she squeezes his fingers all the more tighter as the lead buck huffs, cold air puffing out in a cloud around it's great antlers. It regards them for a moment before it turns back to grazing, the rest of the herd following suit as they lower their heads back into the tall grass.
"Deer with red eyes?" she questions. "Nah. Totally innocent."
His answering smile, in any other setting, would be enough to fill her heart for a good few years. The uneasiness that lingers just beneath the surface of it stops Sanne from enjoying it proper, but she still allows herself a smile too, holding a quiet laugh under her breath.
It feels good to smile, even if the situation hasn't called for it. Doing anything other than crying and walking in aimless directions allows Sanne to feel more human than she has in days.
Of course, Brycen has a lot to do with it, too.
"Let's go," he urges, tugging gently on her hand to pull her further from the herd. She feels eyes on their backs as they move further through the trees, but no charging feet. Nothing to be worried about.
For once, Sanne may just be right in assuming her own safety.
Taking all of Redmond's belongings is morally wrong.
That doesn't stop him from doing it.
Granted, Ilan already has the machete. The rest just seems… methodical. The backpack with several full water bottles and dried food, a few meager first-aid supplies. He feels at his worst when he peels Redmond's bloodied jacket from his skin, but it's frigid out here, and Ilan has never been inclined to the cold.
In the very least, he clears out enough to allow the hovercraft to come for him. Finding the tallest, thicket pine tree in the vicinity after that is easy enough. Needles prick at his palms as Ilan begins to scale the trunk, bark crunching ominously beneath his boots, but he pulls himself halfway up between two of the largest boughs and settles.
Or he tries to, anyway.
His sleep is fitful, but by the time he wakes Redmond's jacket, draped over one of the branches next to him, is almost dried all the way through. It's stiff when he forces his arms through it, the fabric unwilling to give, but the extra layer wards off some of the morning chill. He's sore from not having moved in so long, but he feels comfortable up here.
It's not quite the treehouse in his backyard. It's not painted up. There are no pillows or blankets, no stashed art supplies in an old wooden box in the corner. There's no Vitali.
If he closes his eyes he can picture it all there. When he opens them, the gravity of his situation slams into him like a felled tree.
Ilan doesn't have very many choices. For one, he could scale back down the pine tree and set off in a random direction, but it's not like anything's going to change. He's not going to find a warm spot out of the blue, or a better tree to camp out in. Worst case scenario he finds a lot of people who aren't near as friendly as Redmond ever was.
Life may not have been the kindest to him, but that doesn't mean he wants to die.
He stays put. Ilan only lets himself touch solid ground again to stretch before he climbs back up and tries to get comfortable for the second night in a row. This time, the woods around him come alive with noises, with the hoot of owls and the incessant chirping of crickets. It seems impossible that this many things are thriving in such cold, but squirrels continue to skitter across the branches above his head and blot out the moon when they settle, plunging him into absolute darkness.
Somehow, he sleeps. The noise is just like home, even if he shivers half the night away. If he ignores the pain in his back and the cold racking his body he could be back home, tucked away in his favorite place of all with the person that matters most. Sure, maybe his parents aren't thrilled by the situation, and he has that appointment in the morning, but those things seem inconsequential when he's where he's supposed to be.
Waking in the morning is the worst sort of pain. Every inch of his body aches, and the cold has sent his lips running with fresh blood. Even the squirrels above his head have yet to move, hunkered down and fluffed out against the chill.
There's a different sort of sound, though. Distant. Somehow just as recognizable.
Footsteps.
They're careful ones. Calculated. Only occasionally do they break a branch in the minefield that is the forest floor, so sporadically that you just might be able to pass it off as an animal. Ilan sits up straighter, wincing as he just manages to catch sight of the figure shuffling slowly through the forest below. They're hunched forward against the bitter wind, strands of fiery hair tearing free from the confines of the food they've placed over their head to conceal it.
They have nothing that he can see. Not a weapon, not a pack. After four days, it's pretty damn lucky they're even still kicking.
Only a moment's hesitation overcomes him before he calls out. "Hey!" Ilan shouts downward. The person in question stumbles, flinching backward as they spin in a frantic circle, trying to find the source of the noise.
"Up here!" he calls.
They look up, finally, squinting. The girl's blue eyes are watery even at a distance—something about her is recognizable, a nagging feeling in his gut, but Ilan can't quite place it. A schoolmate perhaps, or someone who lives in his neighborhood.
How easy it would be to drop down and kill her. If only the loneliness pressing down at his shoulders didn't demand another path.
Ilan puts the machete away and begins his descent.
"What are these, anyway?" Brycen asks, rolling a few of the purple-blue spheres back and forth in his palm.
"Huckleberries."
"If you make me eat any more of these, I'm going to turn into a huckleberry," he says pointedly, though tosses a few more into his mouth for good measure. Sanne smothers her smile in the front of her jacket as he munches away
"You're not trying to poison me, are you?" he continues. She's filled her pockets with the things, eaten several dozen of them herself. As far as a food source goes they're not the most filling, but it's better than nothing.
"Guess you'll find out," she fires back, allowing herself to be cheeky just this once. He reaches over to flick the tip of her nose, rolling his eyes as he turns his attention back to their makeshift supplies.
They did this so many times in training together that it should come naturally; granted, it's harder when your hands are infringing on a state of numbness, but they're taking turns. Once again Brycen scrapes their chosen stick against an indented log, following the path they've managed to create.
Sanne isn't sure if it's delusion or not when she begins to smell the faintest hint of smoke, but she keeps her hopes high regardless. "You got it," she murmurs, easing their pile of kindling closer just in case.
It's always a risk, lighting a fire. They've seen smoke more than once in the faraway distance. Apparently everyone else is chancing death against the opportunity to gain some warmth.
When she finally sees the thin tendril of smoke curl into the air she eases closer, letting her breath wash over it as a spark flickers to life. Sanne hears the reassuring crackle of flames spouting to life as they press the kindling overtop and a few sticks to boot, the fire struggling to life against the freezing air.
It's nothing impressive, no raging inferno, but it's all they need for the two of them.
"Look at us go," Brycen exclaims. "Fire masters."
"You did most of the work."
"And you helped. Credit where credit is due."
Sanne ducks her head, laying a few more of their sturdier branches overtop of the pile as the fire continues to grow. The smoke isn't even all that thick, and they're in the thickest part of the forest they could possibly find—if they're owed a bit of good luck, no one will even be able to see it at all.
"I hope Astrid's proud of us," she says quietly. "She did tell us to learn this."
"I know she is," Brycen offers. Their mentor was always so warm with them, so kind. Firm when she needed to be, but the first to offer a shoulder to cry on if it was needed.
It's wrong that a woman her age even has to be in the Capitol to watch so many of them die; she's done her time, nearly watched her son die in the third Quell. Celadon's here too, of course, mentoring his own collection of kids from Seven, but it seems as if the two of them have been through enough pain already to last a lifetime.
And then there's Evette, of course, a girl their age so soft-spoken and gentle she had no right to win in the first place, not against the field of competitors she was faced with. Sanne knows Evette is the reason the previous Gamemakers were all put to the firing squad, that the Capitol has no current love for Seven. It makes her wonder what their chances really are—two of them have to escape this horror, of course, but in the long run? Next year, when the finale happens?
Her heart aches merely thinking about it.
"Whatever you're worrying about, quit it," Brycen says, tearing her from the thoughts coursing through her brain. He holds his arm open, leaving her the proper amount of room to tuck herself into his side. The warmth from both him and the fire blazing in front of them makes her feel somewhat like a human being again, for the first time in ages.
It takes her away from those dark thoughts too, if only for a moment.
Her name is Hollis.
He does recognize her, it turns out; once he's standing on the ground before her it's impossible not to. Ilan's seen her in the halls, lingering outside the front of the school with her friends. She was always smiling and laughing.
It's safe to say she's not doing much of that now.
Haggard is the best way to describe her—maybe that's why, when he drops down in front of her, Hollis doesn't run. If anything she looks weekly resigned, shaking from both hunger and cold.
Just get it over with, Ilan is all she says, a deep sigh escaping through her lips. Her eyes are trained on the machete sticking out from his pack, her bloodied knuckles flexing in anticipation. There's a deep gash across her shoulder, another thinner one cutting across her cheek.
He didn't remember her name, but she knew his. So many people did. Ilan knows why, but thinking about it too deeply sets things in his brain spinning.
Do you want me to? That's what he had asked. Hollis had shrugged, then shook her head. She didn't want to die, but she hadn't seen much of a choice otherwise.
His peace offering is one of the few bags of jerky stored away in his pack. Hollis stares at it as if it's poison, but eventually her hunger wins the battle, and she snatches it from his fingers like a wild dog, her rumbling stomach begging for her to cave in.
It occurs to Ilan that they never really said what it is they were doing, exactly. But Hollis hadn't left, and he had given her a bit more food and some water, too. The thought of taking her up on her offer to get another kill had lasted only a few seconds—helping her was the kind thing to do. It didn't make any sense given what he had done thus far, but Ilan had to extend an olive branch somewhere.
She sleeps for most of the night, after she chugs away half his water and then shows him a babbling stream to refill the bottles. Her exhaustion is evident in the way she curls up tight, half pressed back into a thicket of bushes so that nothing can sneak up on her. It's against all instinct when she falls asleep with Ilan watching her, but he doesn't dare move.
If he does happen to get out of here, his back isn't going to thank him any for remaining in such still and awkward positions.
"Did you stay up all night?" comes her voice first thing in the morning, startling Ilan out of his rather dazed stupor. He shrugs just like she had the day before, unsure of the answer himself. Sleeping and wakefulness feel like the same thing in this cold, dark woodland—for all Ilan knows, he's dreamed this whole encounter.
He doesn't think his toes would be so cold in his boots if he was dreaming, though.
Ilan tosses her a half-full bag of dried fruit and one of the water bottles instead of fighting for a true response, and stays quiet while she works through the entire contents. At least her stomach isn't growling anymore. Her eyes look brighter too, the shadows under her eyes lessened. The gash on her face remains as gnarly as ever, blood clotted at the edges.
"How'd that happen?" he dares to ask, lacing a few strands of grass through his hands.
"Tried to fight someone for an axe."
"Did it not go well?"
"Halfway," she says, jabbing a finger at her face. "I mean, I killed him. But he got me first."
"Killed who?" Ilan wonders.
"Quennell."
And everything just comes full circle, doesn't it? He thinks of Redmond's ally left behind in the bloodbath, nothing more than a corpse being shipped back to Seven in a nondescript wooden box like the rest of them. Of course the girl in front of him was responsible for it, and of course it didn't work out in the end regardless.
Thankfully, she doesn't ask about the dried blood that's begun to flake off the machete's blade, nor does she linger on the splash of dried maroon down the back of Redmond's jacket—his jacket, now. Considering the fact that he's wearing two jackets at all, maybe Hollis can hazard a guess.
They've both killed someone. It's not like they can get accusatory about it.
No wonder she's wary, though. Hollis knows exactly what it takes to end someone's life, given that she's done it herself, and now someone who's done the same is offering her food, daring to keep her alive. Her eyes never quite leave him even if she gazes into the distance.
It doesn't matter how suspicious she is, really. He's got enough food and water to last them a few days, and that's good as gold. Hollis knows it.
As long as she treads carefully, she'll be alright.
Sanne will never be quite sure what wakes her in the first place.
The dawn isn't yet bright enough to launch an assault on the thin skin of her eyelids, and the fire behind them is merely a hotbed of remaining coals, just enough to cast wild shadows across the ground.
When she lifts her head from Brycen's arm, creases pressed into her cheek from his jacket, the forest is silent.
It's not until she moves that it comes to life.
There seems to be some sort of rumble hidden beneath the earth. Branches crack all around her, as if a thousand people are charging through the brush. There's no sign of the herd from earlier; red eyes do not gleam anywhere through the trees no matter where she looks.
It's when she glances over her shoulder that she sees it.
A giant emerges from the woods, so tall and stocky that she reckons him as some sort of God, illuminated by the very edge of the firelight. From her position still on the ground he looks even more grand, a lone figure stalking towards them. The axe at his belt reflects dazzling light back into her eyes.
Sanne thinks several things in quick succession. One—Thatcher. The boy that hurt Carya. The one that killed her. He's here now, alone and looming.
The second strikes here much fiercer, fear sending her stomach plummeting. He's here to kill them.
And she still hasn't moved.
Sanne screams as he reaches down for her, half terror and half-hoping that Brycen will finally open his eyes. She doesn't get to see if the decision has worked—Thatcher reaches down for her, hands empty of any weapons, and drags her up. Sanne doesn't feel herself leave the ground. For a moment, she feels weightless, about to float away.
That feeling ends abruptly when he sends her flying into the base of a tree. Something gives way in her side and cracks. Blood spills down the base of her skull, soaking into the collar of her jacket as stars fire across her vision, unique starbursts that blot out nearly everything else around her.
Not everything, though. If Sanne didn't have to see this, it would have been so much kinder.
That's why she does.
Brycen is only half-risen when Thatcher descends on him—he looks so small, all of a sudden, dread blotting out the other emotions from his eyes as Thatcher frees the axe. Sanne hardly recognizes the feeling of herself screaming, but the rawness lingering in her throat can be attributed to nothing else. Her scream ebbs and flows, rises and falls as he raises the axe.
It doesn't feel like it can be happening, even as she watches it.
When the blade cuts into his chest, knocking him back to the grass, it feels like a movie. Like Sanne is safely on the other side of the screen while some paid actor gasps and gurgles their fake-life away. Except that's Brycen she's watching crumple back to the grass, caught so firmly on the blade stuck in his chest that no amount of twisting will free it.
Her screaming dies with him.
Her abrupt silence, however, is not enough to make Thatcher's focus whittle away. His attention turns back to her as her hands fumble for weak purchase against the tree trunk, the knife still an uncomfortable lump in her boot.
She can… she can fix this. She can fix Brycen, if she gets there in time.
If only there wasn't a titan standing between them.
Sanne scrambles upwards, but not fast enough. Thatcher is there before she can right herself, pushing into her so hard that her knees falter as she droops back against the tree. His hand closes around her throat, fingers pushing in against her windpipe as he pins her there. The axe… where is it?
She can't think about where he's left it. She needs her knife.
Sanne's arms do nothing to cooperate, but her legs still have some sort of function left to them. She kicks, throws her knees up, wiggles in any way she can until her boot finds a blessed home square between his legs. In the split second that his grip falters on her throat, Sanne drops like a stone—she slithers free from him not unlike a snake as she crawls around his legs, fingers fumbling the knife free from her boot.
She can't even strike out before he grabs a hold of her once again, an arm wrapped tight around her torso as he lifts her neatly off the ground, like she's a toddler trapped in its parents arms.
The grip is so tight that she swears something pops in her left shoulder, but Sanne can hardly let out more than a whimper. His hand raises, curling around her fingers until both on the left snap in more than one place. The knife falls into the loop of her thumb and forefinger, teetering dangerously on the edge of nothingness. One wrong move, and it's over.
As long as she has that knife, though, nothing's ever just over.
On her first stab she misses. If she was watching from the comfort of her own home, witnessing someone slice a knife back across the edge of their own ear might be somewhat comical. It flows down the side of her neck, a mere sting that feels like nothing against the threat of her chest caving in, her heart bursting open.
Sanne thrusts the knife back again, and Thatcher howls. Something wet splatters across her hand. When he drops her, Sanne only makes it two steps before she's back on the ground, struggling for breath.
He still looms over her, colossal as ever.
There's not much threatening about him, though, with a knife's blade plunged deep into his left eye.
Her stomach heaves. She forces bile back down her throat as he continues to scream, fingers continuously rising to grasp at the knife's hilt, too slippery with blood to get a proper grip on. She has no weapon, now, no way to really end this. When Thatcher frees the knife, a spray of blood washes out over her, dripping heavy into the grass below.
It looks black in the glimmering twilight, almost invisible in the shadow of the flames.
Sanne gets to her feet, against all odds. Thatcher stands before her, hands pressed over the blood seeping down his face. When he doesn't move, she steps forward. If he can see her, he gives no indication.
She stretches her arms out, bloody fingers landing against his chest, and she shoves Thatcher back with all her might.
He topples just like a giant would.
When he lands, nothing happens. He must not realize, either. The heat against his back must seem inconsequential to the agony rippling across the planes of her face. She watches the embers grow, though, bright orange flickering back to its true form with proper fuel.
Everything is still, for a moment, and in the next Thatcher goes up like a pile of kindling.
Their makeshift fire-pit was not so primitive after all.
His screams turn bloodcurdling as the flames lick over his back and converge over his chest, overtaking his arms within seconds as he flails out. The longer the noise goes on, the less Sanne hears it—her feet shuffle around him, the stifling heat that radiates through the trees.
Her knees ache when she falls down by Brycen's motionless form. Her left arm refuses to move. Her right fingers throb when she curls them beneath his back, pulling his stiffened weight into her lap. Even as he comes to rest against her, head sagging against her stomach, Sanne expects to feel something more than hollow.
She doesn't cry. No sobs rip free from her chest. It's as if the previous screaming has dragged everything out, leaving behind an empty husk in its wake. With her aching fingers she brushes a few strands of hair from his forehead, his glassy eyes uniquely bright as the fire blazes around them.
It doesn't feel like he's gone. Brycen is here, still in her arms. If he's here, then there's a way to fix this.
Isn't there?
A hovercraft is her answer, gleaming dully in the early light as flashes of it peak through the trees overhead. Sanne leaves streaks of blood down the side of his face as her hand drifts down to his jaw, holding him steady as she presses her lips to his forehead. "You're safe now," she whispers, tears finally gathering in her eyes. "You're okay."
The world was never going to be prepared to deserve a reality in which Brycen Novello lived a long, happy life.
The buffeting wind pulls some of the tears free from her eyes, strands of her hair sticking to her wet cheeks. Just before her, Thatcher continues to burn—what's left of him, at least. Second by second more of him disintegrates away, turning into nothing more than ash on the growing breeze.
The fire, too, is a near-raging inferno. Now that it's escaped it's confinement, tendrils of flame racing along Thatcher's corpse, there's no putting it back in its place. Sanne watches sparks fly into the grass, each green shoot blackening upon impact. Smoke curls into the air, more and more of it as she watches.
It's one of those same huckleberry bushes that she had been foraging from yesterday that goes up first, branches curling beneath the flames. Framed by two trees, it takes only a few heartbeats for the bark to catch. Sanne's head cranes back as the fire races upwards, shooting for the foliage that hangs overhead.
Carefully, she lowers Brycen into the grass. The crackling is growing into more of a roar as the fire grows. If Sanne had acted immediately, maybe there was a chance in stopping it.
But she didn't; she hadn't wanted to, either.
That same hollow feeling returns as she watches the trees around her go up in flames. The fire pulls further and further away, foraging a burning path through the woods.
She gives herself one last glance down at Brycen. There's nothing even remotely peaceful in his face to treasure.
Sanne gets to her feet. She doesn't grab the knife, discarded in the burning grass, nor wrestles the axe from the boy she cared so much about.
All she can do is steady her feet, and turn to follow the fire that continues to blaze.
"Hey, Ilan?"
He hums in acknowledgement, listening to the quiet fall of Hollis' footsteps behind him. She's never attempted to match his pace.
"You're the one that missed some school, right, when we were younger?" she questions. "You broke your leg, or somethin'?"
Ilan manages to squash down his flinch thinking of the unimaginable pain that had splintered throughout his entire body when his femur had cracked, the plummet down the ladder that seemed to last an eternity.
"Right," he forces out. "Why?"
"No reason."
There's a reason. He can pinpoint it, nor is he sure he really wants to, but Ilan can hear it hidden somewhere in her voice. "Why'd you miss so much school?" she asks, seeming to dance so carefully around the severity of it that it seems so much lighter than it really is.
He remembers the early stages of healing at home, and then the ones following in Dr. Hudson's office. Stretching out his leg, building his strength back, re-learning how to walk like he was an infant.
"Physical therapy," he answers.
"Surprised your 'rents had the money for that." She snorts. "Mine sure don't."
She's much bolder with a full stomach, he's noticed. Given she doesn't talk quite as much as Redmond has, but it's always more pointed. Hollis picks up conversation as if she's on a mission every single time.
His parents would have done anything for him—they still do. They've wrapped him in their warmth, devoted their time to raising him and his brother, even gone so far as to pull him from Dr. Hudson's office and never let him return after that day his mother walked in and saw him—
"What's your boyfriend's name again?" Hollis interrupts. "Vito?"
The mere mention that Ilan offered up yesterday has been remembered. It's like she's made a mental note of every single thing he's said, important or not. For some strange reason, Hollis has been unwilling to let such things go.
Ilan shakes his head instead of answering proper, refusing to provide his real name. "Does he go to our school?"
"What's with the questions?" he asks finally, craning his head back to peer at her. Hollis' eyes dart away, as if she had been fixated intently on his back.
"Just curious."
"Why?"
"'Cause everyone is. There's not a single person back home who doesn't have you pinned as some sort of enigma."
There's no possible way people think of him that often—if they do, then surely they've figured something out by now. They know about Hudson, or his parents putting him in therapy. They talk about him behind his back and laugh where he can't hear them, packs of people like Hollis and her friends lingering outside the school doors.
Ilan's hand tightens around his belt by the machete's hilt, fingers twitching.
"What school does he go to?"
Hollis picks right back up again as if she had never stopped. She must know something. No one is ever just this blatantly curious—this is the truest form of prying, trying to uncover something she knows is lingering just beneath the surface.
"Can we stop with the questions?"
"Ilan—"
"Stop," he says more forcefully. "With the questions."
Even still, Ilan finds himself slowing his pace when Hollis grinds to a halt, something to his words easing her to a silent stop. "You know, I'm beginning to think what everyone else does," she says. Ilan stops himself, turning back to face her.
"What does everyone else think?" he wonders. The golden question. The one that he's dying to know the answer to as much as he dreads it.
Hollis shrugs, hip cocked to the side as she leans into it, looking infuriatingly blasé. "That you're fucked in the head."
He stares. Vitali doesn't think that. His parents surely don't. Sure, maybe his brother does, some days, but it's not like Everest of all people is the pinnacle of good judgement. The list of people isn't long, but it's something.
As he stares, Hollis' hand rummages against the inside of her jacket. When she pulls it free there's a knife in her grasp. Where the hell has she gotten a knife? Had she been in possession of it this entire time?
"It wasn't personal last time," she says evenly. "And it isn't now, either."
She was trying to rile him up, trying to tip Ilan off an edge so that something happened. Clearly he hasn't given her what she wanted.
Now she's taking matters into her own hands.
Ilan lunges to the side as she charges him, struggling to free the machete from his belt now that he's on the move, unable to find a proper grip. Hollis' knife cuts into the back of his shoulder as he moves away from her, just able to keep enough distance so that she can't land a killing blow. This is what she did to Quennell, he realizes. Went after him. Tried to take what was his. Killed him, even if the rest hadn't been so successful.
He fed her, kept her walking, let her sleep through the night, all while she bided her time.
So much for kindness.
Once he's freed the machete, he spins about-face. The blade flies, knocking into Hollis' arm as she stabs towards him yet again. Ilan doesn't have the faintest clue what he's doing, but he's not dead yet.
Vitali would hate this. He's always been a peacemaker.
Hollis slices open his forearm when he stumbles, and then across the back of his hand when he attempts to block her next hit. This is what a fighter should look like, on the offense, aggressive as ever. This is someone who wants to live.
But so does Ilan, oddly enough. Even after everything, he still wants to live.
Hollis pauses so abruptly that he stumbles when he throws his arm up in preparation for her next hit, only to be left untouched. Her knife, hanging halfway midair, seems to tremble as she stares beyond him.
There's an odd glow in her now-worried eyes. "What the—"
Ilan thrusts his arm forward and stabs her clean through the chest.
The gasp that escapes her parted lips is unlike anything he's ever heard before, soft and breathless. The type of noise that you can only truly make when you're dying. At least with Redmond he was lucky enough to escape his dying look—Hollis stares right back at him, accusatory. As if she hadn't started all of this in the first place.
Still, when she falls, her eyes flicker past him. The machete tears free from his palm as he lets her go, the faint thud as she hits the ground hardly audible in comparison to what Ilan is beginning to hear behind him.
Crackling. The popping of twigs and the sizzling of tree sap.
When he turns, he's sure his eyes look exactly as Hollis' did, rendered orange by the burning woods.
The world is on fire.
The true tears don't arrive until much, much later.
Sanne doesn't even feel them until the heat around her has engulfed everything else, the fire shooting through the trees yet refusing to touch her.
She is its creator and master, the one who gave it its freedom. Of course it isn't going to touch her.
Even when she falls to the ground, tripping over her own two feet, it seems to take a wide berth as it razes through the grass. All Sanne can manage to do is press her cheek into the earth and sob until her chest aches so fiercely she wonders if her heart is about to tear free from it's cage.
Amidst her own sobbing, hours of it, she hears cannons. So many of them that she loses count, after a while.
And they're all her fault.
She feels no grief for them that's greater than her own, the kind she harbors for Brycen and Carya and the girl she used to be. Somewhere in this forest people are dropping around her like flies, and after some time Sanne begins to feel nothing at all.
Time is reduced to nothingness. The day and the night all look the same when the sky is awash with red. The pain in her shoulder and side and hand fades into a series of dull aches that only pull at her when she moves too fast. It's not like she's doing much of that. It takes everything in Sanne to pull herself back up everytime she falls, to keep walking without an end-goal in mind.
There's screaming, too. So much of it, high and low, that she becomes desentized to it. Each outburst of fear and pain from someone else out there fades, eventually, and it's easy enough to forget about.
She can hear it again now—a girl's voice, surely, shrill and agonized. The noise seems to bounce between the trees, echoing so fiercely that no matter which way she turns there's no focusing on it.
There can't be very many people left out there, not after this. Whoever's out there dying now is oh so close, and they're not going to get there.
Sanne's lungs sting and heave for breath as she claws her way up a hill, fingers digging into the soot-ridden earth. Her eyes stream with tears, rendering her blind as she finally hits the top. Her knees crash into something soft instead of the unforgiving ground, hands brushing against… fur?
She blinks, hands dragging across her face, and finds herself in a minefield of corpses.
Not people. Animals. The scorched carcass of one of the bucks, ribs poking out from beneath it's melted hide. Her fingers come free with clumps of hair without any pressure—the brown-black bristles tickle at her fingers, slipping between them to land without a sound.
She's surrounded by them. A dozen, at least, the picture of stillness in the middle of chaos. Only one continues to move.
If Sanne lets her mind wander far off, it's the same one that was watching them a few nights ago.
She crawls towards it in the grass, it's twitching limbs and frantic huffs nearly disguised by the flames behind them. There's nothing menacing about it's blood-red eyes now, not when the world around them is so much more dangerous. The creature looks like it fits right in, destined to be here.
Dying on the ground.
She lays a hand against its side, the buck heaving in response. "I'm sorry," she murmurs, the life that struggles through it's limbs growing weaker by the second.
Sanne does not apologize to the smoke-filled air as the screaming picks up in the distance, yet again. She does not have the capacity for it, not after what's happened here.
And why should she?
He can see someone there, deep within the flames.
The heat stings at his flesh, threatening to sear his unprotected eyes as he leans closer against all instinct.
Ilan's never had the best set of those, if he's being honest with himself.
No matter how close he gets, there's no telling who's lost within the fire before him. Even being so close his boots are beginning to stick to the ground, the plastic melting into the dirt. The ache in his leg has already flared up something fierce, worse than it usually does. It's not as if he can venture in there and try to lead them out… chances are, they're already half-gone.
Ilan's seen more corpses than he's cared to since he left Hollis. There's been a trail of them, a practical corpse road that has led him here, which appears to be nowhere at all.
You're close, his mind says. You're so close.
You should try to save them, comes Vitali's voice instead. It's the right thing to do.
The fire makes the air shimmer, turning the figure in the flames to something almost like a mirage. They could be ten feet away, or a hundred; there's no telling. If Ilan walks in there, he's as good as dead no matter how far away they truly are.
It's what Vitali would do. The right thing is always the first one on his mind.
Ilan thinks he's too tired to do the same—after all, the person lost in the fire is just like him, another suffering young soul with no way out.
And no one ever bothered to save Ilan, did they?
When they fall, whoever they are, something settles within him. The urgency is gone. Something shifts in the air around him; it's as if someone dumps a bucket of cold water over his head without warning, a shiver rolling all the way down his side.
The fire wanes. The flames lessen until he can begin to see something other than the glare once again, the skeletal trees and their now-barren branches. As the noise fades, he hears a cannon.
The noise feels like being awakened from a century's long slumber.
Behind him, the ground seems to crack. When Ilan turns it's to face a girl, slight and willowy, her face blackened with ash. She's emerged from the dwindling fire with the ends of her hair singed, her jacket eaten away. Though she stares directly at him, he can't tell if she really sees anything at all.
Her lips part, breathing in the clean air that begins to flow over them. "I think we won," she rasps, voice hoarse from disuse.
The announcement ringing overhead is the loudest thing of all.
THE VICTORS OF DISTRICT SEVEN... SANNE LEVESAY (16) AND ILAN AZAR (17).
thecentennialcelebration . tumblr . com
Thank you to Corey and Linds for Sanne and Ilan. ❤
All hail the April Fool. Me and Ilan, btw. It's both of us.
I feel as if this is one of the more... unconventional sets of Games? Not sure if that's the right word for it but that's always the vibe I've gotten. Sure to leave you with some lingering questions, I'm sure, but that was definitely more of the point with this ones than some of the others you've read thus far.
Also, victor blog I guess. URL is on my profile if you are interested. It's not the biggest deal in the world but it has all the basic information as well as who is mentoring who in this final Games, at least which has been revealed as of now. As long as I remember I'll be updating those two little tidbits every week. Feel free to check it out if you're interested.
Until next time.