XII: December: District Five.
We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.
To be destroyed from the inside out was not a part of the human principle.
It was one of the oddest things any type of person could accept about themselves—this is what Kai has discovered, these past few months.
When the plate locked into place, he felt nausea rising in his stomach. A dull headache lingered behind his temples. Despite having slept through the night against all nods, exhaustion pulls down at his legs. All Kai wants to do is curl up on his plate and go back to sleep.
There's no time for that, though. No one here is going to save him if he faints and pull him home, not like Axon did. His only ally was a twelve year old boy, for crying out-loud. Zeph wouldn't even be able to pull him out of this room.
It was a large room, to be fair. Long and sprawling with equipment spread about them haphazardly and a catwalk lurking above their heads, hardly any windows to be seen. Everything was shadowy and dim, making each person around him nothing more than an indistinct silhouette as the gong goes off.
He remembers watching District Six. He had been okay, then. They had all hesitated, eyes uncertain, wondering who was going to kick things off without having any murderous Careers in their midst. No one had tried to take control of the horn. It had been panic in its purest form, people slamming into peers who weren't going to hurt them in the first place, running in any direction they could.
It's not like this now. No one hesitates.
Kai doesn't bother running headlong into the fray—he'll be winded sooner than not, and they'll need to move further into the factory within the next hour. All he's to do is find a weapon, and his eye is on the prize. Once Zeph finds him with further supplies, they're out of here.
Kai knew what he was doing when he stepped on that stage, but he doesn't want to die. As he beelines towards the weapon he's had eyes for this entire time, he hardly feels a classmate breeze by. Piezo Rowland stares at him curiously as he heads for his own allies, perplexed in his own right. No doubt wondering why Kai isn't just dying the way everyone thinks he wants to. Why is he bothering to pick up a weapon? Why is the martyr preparing to fight?
The kid he volunteered for was older than him, is the thing. Eighteen. Minutes away from being out of the reaping for good.
If that was martyrdom, the world was done for. But it was the easier thing to see and believe in.
Kai scoops up the machete, easily the length of his forearm, and pays Piezo no more mind as he turns in search of Zeph. Just as soon as he does there's a familiar shout from across the room, a panicked yelp.
"Kai!"
No one else would be calling his name. No one else would bother with him.
It's not hard to find his smaller ally, laid out on the ground and clinging to a rather large backpack with all his might. Looming over him is someone arguably not all that intimidating—not in any old regular sense, at least. He can't even remember her name. She's taller than him, though. Easily bigger than him, with all the weight Kai lost over the autumn. The only reason Zeph hasn't yet lost the backpack is because he's wrapped around it, clinging to it with all four limbs as the girl pulls on it from above.
She sees him coming, but hardly reacts. To her, Kai isn't something to be worried about. He doesn't want to live.
Except he does.
Kai knows he isn't going to be strong enough, not in one fell swoop, but that doesn't stop him from swinging.
The machete slams into the back of her neck with a heavy crack and she howls, crashing down over Zeph and the backpack both. As his ally scrambles out from beneath her he tugs the machete out and swings down again. It's still not enough to take her head off, still not clean. His arms were shaking from the start, thin as rails.
"Oh God," Zeph stammers. "Oh, oh God…"
Zeph has the backpack. He has a weapon. They should be leaving, blowing past the machinery and the danger signs lining the wall. Kai would be leaving, if the odd hush that's fallen over the area didn't capture his otherwise laser-focused attention.
It's impossible to tell how many have fled, but what Kai knows is that the people who remain are staring. Some have stopped dead in their tracks. Every single one of them is staring at him, watching blood drip from the machete's end onto the concrete below. The girl's body has already gone still, but Kai feels the sudden urge to bring his weapon back down again, just to prove a point.
They placed all their expectations about him in order the moment he volunteered. Easy things, simple language. Everyone led themselves to believe that they could understand his motivations, his decisions, as if they had already walked a mile or a hundred in his shoes.
They thought they knew what he was doing, but they were all wrong.
Seven seems like a good enough number.
That's how many cannons fire in the early afternoon, how many people have supposedly bit the dust already.
Not that Zoya would know—he did a quick about-face off the back of his plate and booked it the second he knew the ground wouldn't explode beneath his feet. It's not like he needed food or any number of other random supplies. Water would become a problem, obviously, but a quick look at his surroundings told him that it shouldn't be too much of an issue.
It was a power plant of some kind, and that was as far as his knowledge happened to extend. The type of place where he would have inevitably ended up working when his apprenticeship finally went down the drain, like the rest of Five's dull and gray masses. His parents would be disappointed that he wasn't destined for greatness, sure, but not everyone with a halfway decent brain and a good work ethic could be. It's not like Zoya was special.
Or maybe he was. Just not in the way anyone necessarily liked. Wasn't that the reason he had chosen to hide under a desk in one of the back offices instead of doing anything useful?
Laying low and hiding in a place like this didn't seem like such a bad strategy. There were enough nooks and crannies to shove himself into. He could find a bathroom and a tap more than likely around every corner.
Winning seems like a mighty difficult thing to accomplish. Especially so when he was so certain he could hear footsteps outside the door.
It was an easy enough thing to imagine, but the tell-tale noise of the door creaking up not so much. Zoya could only freeze in place, locking his arms even tighter around his knees, sucking as much air into his lungs as he could before he wasn't allowed to breathe anymore. It made the door clicking shut all the more sudden, his heart thudding in his ears like an entire orchestra.
"Um," a voice says, confused. "I can see you."
"No you can't," Zoya says on reflex, unable to help himself. He draws his feet further from the mere sliver of light that seeps under the desk's far edge with a scowl—you know, he didn't expect to die so soon. Certainly not today.
A form nearly the same shape and size as his own leans around the desk, peering down at him with wide, dark eyes. Her face is soft, framed by messy curls that make her seem even less daunting.
"What do you want?" he snaps. It doesn't appear she has a weapon, either, or at least not one she plans on using. The girl backs away, and a moment later he hears the sound of a drawer sliding open.
Oh hell no. This room is his.
Zoya pops his head out from under the desk. "That's mine," he insists, watching her rifle through the drawer without a care in the world.
"Doesn't look like you're using it."
"I hadn't gotten there yet!"
"Slow," she chastises. "Or just too busy hiding."
She pulls something free, a small device that fits perfectly into the palm of her hand. Zoya is unable to make out what she mutters under her breath—all he can hear is the soft, barely-there crackle emitting from the speaker.
"What's that?" he asks.
"A Geiger counter."
"Which is…"
"It detects radiation," she explains. "Or measures it. Not that I know if these numbers are good or bad."
If they were bad, certainly everyone in here would be dead by now. At least that answers his question about what sort of factory this is, though the realization only serves to make his skin crawl. He should have known this was how it was going to go, based on the last eleven months. The Capitol just loves torturing them all with the things they see on a daily basis.
The girl pockets it before Zoya can even ask to have it. Quickly, the crackling is muffled to nothing at all.
It leaves more than enough time for the voices to become all the more clear, instead.
Zoya can't tell who they are, or how many of them. All he knows is that they're somewhere outside, and he throws himself back under the desk without thinking twice about it. There's a curse, and then another human body slamming into his as the girl joins him beneath the desk—all without asking. Her knee drives into his side, hands slamming into his chest as she pushes him back, trying to make room for herself.
"Hey," he hisses.
"Quiet, idiot!"
"You're an asshole," he insists. "I—"
"Takes one to know one. Now shut up!"
Zoya does, only because the voices just outside the office are much closer. Once again, he scarcely allows himself to breathe, the presence of someone tucked in by his side oddly comforting. At least if someone comes in here, he'll have another body to shove in their direction before he tries to take off.
Zoya's not much of a runner, you see. He'd need a damn good head start to escape them.
Neither of them make any headway in moving even as the voices fade off. The girl lets out a breath, shoulder brushing against his as she relaxes, letting herself slump against the desk's underside. "That was close," she breathes.
"You can go now."
Her following blinks are owlishly, the lean shape of the Geiger counter still bulky in her pocket as she stretches. "Or I could… stay?"
He didn't want allies. Didn't search for them, hardly spoke to anyone unless they spoke to him first. It was better, when it came down to it, if he didn't have to murder someone he was growing close to for the sake of it. Being alone was just easier; it helped matters, too, that he could chase off just about anyone with his biting tongue.
But she wasn't going so easy.
Perhaps Zoya didn't want her to.
The way Zeph shuffles after him, slow and uncertain, says it all.
He has the good sense not to ask the younger boy just why he's upset—any rational, sane person can and should be allowed to be upset at witnessing the brutality of murder.
Zeph still had blood on his shirt, too, from when he had clawed his way out from beneath the girl's body. He kept pulling at it, detaching the stickiness from his chest, but it was beginning to dry in a stiff tent, refusing to settle comfortably.
Kai's not heartless. He knows Zeph is struggling, the same way he knows that killing that girl was objectively bad. That's all there is to do, though, if he wants the Capitol to help him. Kai knew from the get-go what winning would entail—it's no wonder his father looked so distraught, when he told him of his intentions to volunteer.
Tybur Melchior already knew his son was going to die. Coming to terms with him being a killer was different; apparently much more difficult, too.
He would work through what he had done once he was out of this arena. For now, he had to keep his head on his shoulders and think of anything else.
"Let's see what we've got, hey?" he recommends finally, relieved when Zeph hands over the backpack without much of a fight. They should be safe enough for a few minutes to look over their supplies, but Kai keeps their backs to the wall just in case, crouching down to unzip the bag. Only when he lays the machete down does his ally seem to relax, shoulders slumping forward.
The haul is about what he expects—a few water bottles, half a dozen packets of dried food, a coil of rope, a lighter. It's not until he digs his way to the bottom of the bag that Kai feels dread pool in his stomach, the same way it has every time they've passed one of the danger signs lining the walls.
He pulls free two identical gas masks, a dark green-gray that seems to blend into the room around them. The material is elastic and pliable beneath his hands, but thick and sturdy enough to hold its shape. They seem to be of good quality, the lenses firm as he taps on them with a fingernail, the filters intact, but Kai has never seen one in person before. He's never had any reason to. He only knows the faintest thing about them because of his grandfather's stories, the outlandish ones about when he worked back at the nuclear plant. Try as he may, Kai can't recall all the details. His brain was fuzzy at best when he heard them the first time, and his pops has been gone too long for him to remember.
"What's… what's potassium iodide?" Zeph questions softly. With Kai's eyes lingering on the masks, he's revealed the last item left in the bag. The small pill bottle rattles obnoxiously in his hand, nondescript and blank except for that single label.
Kai hates more than anything that he has an answer, but that's what you get when medicine runs in the family. For once, even though his ambitions were never anything grand, Kai is grateful that his father pushed him down that path.
The answer lingers on the tip of his tongue, but he swallows it down. The masks are bad enough, but the pills confirm it. It was evident that they were in the shadow of danger from the beginning, numerous awful possibilities lingering overhead, but Kai is beginning to think they're already in the midst of one.
Something is creeping around them, unseen and unheard, and it has the power to kill them.
To tell Zeph would be the easy way out. Kai has already panicked him enough.
Like he said—he still has a heart.
He snags the bottle, quickly shaking two pills out into his palm. He lays one on his tongue, the chalky taste instantly coating his gums. The other he deposits into Zeph's hand. "Take it," he instructs, reaching for one of their water bottles.
"But what is—"
"Just take it," he insists, but not until he's taken a swig of water and swallowed his own dose.
Zeph waits for a heartbeat. Watches. And then, silently, he holds out his hand for the bottle, tossing his own pill down the hatch. He'll have to tell him eventually; hiding such a thing isn't just unfair, but impossible.
"Are we going to be okay?" Zeph asks. He grimaces at the taste left over in his mouth, but doesn't take another sip. Smart kid.
Most definitely fucking not, shouts his bitter psyche, but Kai bites down on the inside of his cheek. He nods, instead. His own cynicism may be heavy on his shoulders, but that doesn't mean he has to drop the same amount on Zeph's. For now, a kid like him deserves to live in blissful ignorance. He deserves a chance at true, unending happiness, before it's inevitably ripped away from him.
Kai never got that, not in his entire life. At least someone else can have a shot.
He has little to no idea why he's still following Enna around.
Worse still is why a girl whose name he just learned yesterday has so eagerly grabbed his hand.
She had done so just a moment ago, pulling him towards a set of stairs tucked up against the wall and then up them without explanation. Going up doesn't seem very productive in their mission to find a new hidey-hole to camp out in, especially when Zoya can't see an upper floor. There's the catwalks, far above them, and these stairs, seeming to lead to some in-between platforms that stretch out halfway across the factory.
There are no rooms, no helpful directions. All Zoya is able to see as he ascends the final step is numerous walkways, each one lined almost exclusively with layers of metal railing. Nowhere good to hide.
"Can we go?" he asks, pulling back on Enna's arm, but she seems undeterred. She drags him further down the walkway, leaning over one of the railings. Zoya finds himself staring over the edge into a great, blue abyss—a rectangular shaped pool takes up most of the area, so clear that he can see what appears to be at least fifteen feet down. At the bottom is some type of grid, and no matter how still the water is he can't quite make out what's hidden down there.
Enna grins, staring down into the water. "I think you should go for a swim, Zoya."
"Fuck no," he argues, but Enna chooses that moment to drag him between one of the few gaps in the railing, toes lining right up with the edge of the platform. If he shuffled forward, just an inch or two, he would tip over and right into the pool.
"You're a scaredy cat," Enna says, sticking her tongue out at him.
"You're the one that wanted to look for a better hiding spot!"
She shakes her head, clicking her tongue. Zoya finally tugs his arm free, trying to rub away the ache in his fingers. He paid attention in school, right, and looking down into this pool is giving him the heebie-jeebies. Zoya couldn't say exactly what the pool is, but judging by the place there in, the geiger counter still in Enna's pocket… it can't be good.
They take all of the kids in the grade above to tour the plants in the winter, to prepare them for their future. Zoya has never wished he was seventeen more in his entire life.
Without warning Enna drives her shoulder into his, sending him stumbling to the side. He holds onto the railing for dear life as one of his feet slips over the edge, managing to haul himself back up amidst Enna's snickering. "Don't you fucking dare," he snaps, heart hammering hard in his chest.
"Aw c'mon, Zo," she protests. "Don't be such a chicken."
Just for good measure, he shoves her back. Not too hard, but enough to make her reach for the railing too. She kicks her leg out, foot connecting with his shin so that he stumbles once again, and Zoya swears.
"I'm going to kill you," he informs her.
"You could try."
She kicks him again. In another second or so, Zoya is going to be forced off this platform, and like hell is he going swimming in that. So he lets go of the railing, despite his fear telling him not to, and shoves Enna hard in the shoulder. She flails backward with something that's half a laugh, half a shriek, and lands in the pool with a massive splash. The too-blue water undulates, rolling up against the platform in waves as he inches his feet back from it.
"Zoya!" she calls loudly, indignant. He crosses his arms over his chest.
"That's what you get!"
He crouches down, though, as close as he's willing to get, and holds his hand out. Enna isn't dead, at least. The water doesn't seem to be hurting her any. The issue now seems to be that she's not treading any closer, arms swinging about frantically. No matter how far he stretches out, he can't reach her.
The water hasn't changed. There's nothing pulling her down. She's sinking.
I think you should go for a swim, Zoya. That's what she had said.
Because she didn't know how to herself. Her shout of his name hadn't been upset—it had been fear.
"Enna!" he shouts, but it's unlikely she can hear him. Her body still twists and turns some five, ten feet below the surface, mouth open in a silent scream. Why didn't she fucking tell him? He would never have pushed her like that, never have even thought twice about it—
He could still save her. Jump in, pull her back up.
But something stops him.
She sinks like a stone, as if two great weights are attached to her ankles. Her eyes bulge from her skull, but they're getting so small he can hardly make out the fear, the dying desperation. In a single second she goes from thrashing, still desperate, to still. One of her feet bump against the interlocked grid at the bottom of the pool and her body stiffens, mouth still hanging open. Too quick to drown, even with her screaming like that. Something else happened, something that's down there…
A cannon fires. The platform shakes, water rippling.
And there's not a damn thing he can do about it.
All it takes is one good look at Zeph to know the truth.
Today is just one of his bad days.
Never in his life has Kai wanted to blame something on the effects of radiation, but for once it would have been nice to think that some outside force was making him feel this way instead of it being his own body, imploding from the inside out.
His ally is fine, though—a bounce to his step, a brightness to his eyes. And it all means he's beginning to notice.
Kai hasn't been able to stop shaking, today. His legs feel like they're made of lead. His on-going headache has progressed into a full-blown migraine that makes his vision spotty; each step feels like a risk when he's facing a set of stairs, as if he might plunge down them without a moment's notice.
"Kai?"
He wishes he could keep walking. Keep functioning. If only his knees weren't threatening to knock together.
"I'm fine," he forces out, because it's a well-practiced lie.
A hand brushes against his forehead and he jolts, not even having seen it coming. "You don't feel fine," Zeph states, confusion lacing his tone. Even if he's not clued into the inner-workings of this place, he's not stupid enough to ignore the fact that he's perfectly fine while Kai can hardly walk. "You're not hurt or anything, right? You'd tell me if you were?"
Kai's not good with being alone. There's always someone. His grandfather, keeping him company in the hospital, or one of his nieces. Axon and Pyrrhi, watching him like a hawk on their way to school. If he told Zeph from the beginning, he would have stayed away like everyone else did. No one wanted the burden that was Kai Melchior.
"I didn't tell you," Kai says. "I should have."
"Told me what?"
"That I'm dying."
"Well," Zeph says slowly. "I think… I mean technically we all are, right?"
"Not like this." Kai leans back against the wall, closing his eyes if only to relieve some of the building nausea. "At the end of October, they told me I had three months. Four, if I got lucky, but I doubt it."
"What?"
Kai swallows. "Cancer. Hit me when I was younger, came back this summer."
"Oh," Zeph says, so softly that he can feel the ache behind it. Even with his eyes closed he can see the younger boy's wide-eyed stare, the concern blossoming in them. "Is it… is it worse, this time?"
"So much worse."
"So that's why you're here," Zeph tries. "Do you think dying here will be easier than dying back home?"
Kai finally allows himself to slide to the floor, cracking open his eyes only to make sure that Zeph follows, close-by. He really doesn't want to speak to empty air. "The last thing I want to do is die."
"So why—"
"They don't have the resources, back in Five," Kai says. "Even if they did, we've been scraping the bottom of the barrel since my parents paid to get the prognosis in the first place. If I get out of here, they can fix me. The Capitol. I know they can."
The world knows, now. Kai can no longer play the role of the selfless savior, raising his hand to volunteer as if his only desire was to save an innocent life. Somehow, though, he only feels relief. Kai has enough burdens resting on him without having that, too.
Zeph hasn't run, either. That has to be a good sign. When everyone else avoided him, unwilling to be dragged down in what they suspected was a suicide mission, this kid has stayed. It could be because he had no other options himself, no one willing. Or maybe it's because he actually cares.
"I think you can do it," Zeph murmurs.
"What makes you say that?"
"'Cause you've gone all day without saying anything, even though you're struggling. You've kept moving even though it looks impossible. You may not be the biggest, or the strongest, but you're resilient."
He's all skin and bones, unable to even keep food down some days. The backpack feels like a hundred pound weight on his shoulders. All Kai wants to do is curl up into a ball and sleep.
He opens his eyes, though. Zeph is still there, faithful as always. A small, yet loyal companion. Who is Kai to talk about size these days, though, when Zeph will likely surpass him?
If they both live, that is. Kai still isn't so sure he'll make it that far.
"We shouldn't stay here," Zeph continues finally, gesturing at the empty hall. "Let's find somewhere to rest for a while."
He doesn't let Kai get a word in edgewise as he pulls him slowly to his feet, draping one of Kai's arms over his shoulders. It feels odd to lean even just a little bit onto someone younger, someone smaller, but it makes everything hurt less. For once, Kai doesn't let himself pull away.
Zeph is right, even if he won't say it aloud. Resting is not a common word found in the dictionary of Kai, but if he's going to get out of here, if he's going to fight back against this thing killing him, then resting is all he can do.
For now, he'll close his eyes, try to come back to himself. When he wakes up, there's gonna be hell to pay.
It's not a desk any longer, but a closet.
Zoya knows that's not any better.
He feels nothing more than numb now that the worst of his hunger has passed—there's nothing to stare at in the closet's gloom except for a metal shelving unit and an empty bucket and mop. Instead, all he sees is Enna's body, suspended in the abnormal water.
She should have fucking told him.
He just needs to stop thinking about her. He barely knew her for twenty-four hours. They lasted one night together, enough to know each other's names but not enough for Zoya to know that she couldn't swim.
It would be so much easier to forget all about Enna if there wasn't one constant reminder: the suspicious, too-loud crackling coming from outside the room.
It's the same sound that came from the Geiger counter. You know, the one in her waterlogged pocket at the bottom of the pool. In a sick sense, he wishes he had known to grab it before he had pushed her, but how could he?
Zoya pops open the door, poking his head out into the hall. The crackling is nearly deafening, but there's no clear direction it seems to be emerging from. He can't help but sigh as he slips out into the hall, knowing damn well that this can't be anything but the opposite of a good idea. That much noise… it sounds like a warning signal.
If only he knew how to ignore them.
Zoya presses open the double doors at the end of the hall, throwing caution to the wind. The room is large, but empty; his attention is caught on the control panels lining the entirety of the wall to his left, screens and dials and buttons stretching up onto the wall, nearly out of reach. Only a desk lies in the center of the room, a lone chair pushed up tight beneath it.
"Control room, reactor one," he reads quietly, the sign above the opposite door a garish neon red. As the others close behind him, the crackling comes to an abrupt stop. All he can hear now is constant clicking, the quiet hum of machines working against one another. Zoya drops himself into the chair and rolls himself to the largest of the panels, struggling to make sense of it all. Too many words to make sense of, notebooks lying askew, binders stuffed to the brim with laminated instructions.
Abruptly, one of the lights on the wall above his head flickers on, two identical off-yellow ones that blink and buzz in rhythm. On impulse, Zoya reaches forward and selects a button at random. On the third one, the buzzing stops—the lights, however, stay stubbornly on, blinking at him obnoxiously.
… he probably shouldn't be pressing buttons, should he?
Nothing bad seems to have happened, though. He's not dead. The only thing that seems to have changed is a small number panel, nearly at eye-level. Each number begins to rotate through, climbing higher and higher as each second passes. Now, Zoya is no expert on nuclear physics, but he doesn't think that number climbing past ten thousand, fifteen, twenty, is a sign of good things to come.
It was still, before. He hasn't pressed a button anywhere close to it. Surely the Gamemakers aren't fucking with him this heavily. Unless they were fans of Enna.
He should probably try to fix it, right? If something really is wrong, he can't make it any worse. Zoya thumbs through a few laminated pages, but each one may as well be written in a long-dead language for all he understands. He's never needed something dumbed-down for him like this before.
If only there was someone to help him. Cue Enna, stage right, or something.
Except he killed her.
The number on the wall continues to climb. It's above thirty thousand, now. Zoya knows he's imagining it, but it seems like the floor is trembling beneath his feet. What isn't merely a figment of his food-deprived brain are the noises—within the walls, something almost distant, something is rattling. It reminds him of the pipes back home deep in the middle of winter, when they get so cold that they shudder and groan, struggling to keep up with the cold.
The crackling. The possibility of something being wrong with the pipes. Now that he's focusing on it, is he really imagining the floor moving beneath his feet?
Something is most definitely going wrong, and in a place like this, wrong means game over. You don't come back from a nuclear reactor going wrong.
His eyes fall on the only thing that has truly kept his attention since walking into this room—a foot to his left, larger than the rest, is a dull red button contained safely beneath a hinged plastic lid. There are no words on it, nothing calling out to him, but it can only mean one thing.
A failsafe.
So he's hoping, anyway.
Zoya allows himself to think of no other possibility as he pulls the cover up and slams his hand down on the button. Immediately, the room flickers to a point halfway to darkness. Many of the control panels switch off. The lights dim. For a moment, it seems like his idea can only be the truth; how else could you explain the quiet hush that settles over the control room?
But now, the floor really is shaking. One of the notebooks slips off the edge of the desk. The whole room seems to quake, spiderwebbed cracks forming down the darkened screens, the room lighting up in crimson red as an alarm above the door begins to flash, each rotation of the light striking him directly in the eyes.
Without warning, Zoya is catapulted sideways from his chair, landing so hard on the tiled floor the breath is driven from his lungs.
The room goes black—for real, this time. All he hears is that alarm, wailing over and over. The real warning sign.
Even that alarm, though, isn't enough to stop him from hearing the explosion.
They're nowhere close to it, but that doesn't stop Kai from moving.
He doesn't think he's managed to close his eyes for long at all when he's shaking awake, the floor trembling beneath his weary legs. If that hadn't woken him, Zeph's alarmed gasp would have done the job quick enough.
He has no idea what it is, but he needs to know.
Kai can't quite manage a run, but he drags Zeph up without much protest. What he suspects is halfway there, the halls begin to cloud up, a thin veil of smoke drifting through the air. Without hesitation he stops, tearing open the bag's zipper, and jams one of the gas masks over Zeph's head.
"Don't take it off," he instructs. "You hear me? Not at all."
His ally gives a quick, jerky nod. It's almost a relief not to be able to see Zeph's panicked eyes as the dark lenses slip over them, the end of the mask settling around the base of his neck. He pulls the second one on, it's heaviness somehow comforting. Despite the stifling air, the pure claustrophobia, at least he knows he can breathe.
If it's really that bad, though, will a mask save them? They're dressed in nothing more than a plain cotton shirt and khaki pants, shoes that could fall apart with one wrong move. Kai isn't even sure he'd feel equipped with a full hazmat suit, but this? This is asking for it.
That doesn't stop his desire, insane as it may be, to know the truth. Zeph sticks to his back like velcro as they set off once again—second by second, the smoke grows thicker. The acrid tang of fire and chemicals manages to seep even through the mask's filtration system, each breath hoarse and magnified as Kai begins to slow his pace.
They're not far off from where they started, where the horn should be. The center of the building, he reckons. That's where the reactor core would be.
If it's that that's blown… they're screwed.
The smoke is so thick ahead of him he can hardly see, dark plumes wafting out towards them. Kai takes a few more steps into it and swears his skin begins to itch almost immediately, miniscule flakes of ash landing like snow on his skin. Through that swath of dark, though, he's beginning to see the flames—overwhelming, towering ones that soar all the way up to the roof high above, licking at the metal framework that holds the building together.
He pauses in the doorway, Zeph's hand still fisted tightly in the back of his shirt. They can't go any further. There's water on the floor, seeping outwards towards their feet. Even if there was anything left intact of the room itself, the fire would have concealed it from their eyes.
"I think there are people in there," Zeph says, voice muffled. It still has a worrying quake to it, fear permeating his every word.
Kai squints against the lenses. The smoke swirls and twists, the flames crackling so hot the air seems to shimmer with them. Truth to his word, though, two figures are stumbling from the work. Kai expects to recognize them in some capacity, but all he can tell is that the two boys are clinging to one another, trying to stay on their feet.
Other than that… it feels like he's watching death walk. Their clothes are burnt black, in patches and tatters. Their skin, where it hasn't been burnt away, is blistered and bubbling.
They shouldn't be alive. The smoke, seeming to cling around them in shrouds, comes ever closer.
And so do the two boys.
Kai shoves Zeph back and dumps the backpack in his arms for good measure. He reaches in, all good instincts screaming for him to run, and grabs both doors. Both of his palms burn when they lock around the handles, but not like they should be. It's a deeper kind of smolder, his skin tingling…
He slams both doors shut, relieved to be able to let go of them, and his machete between both handles. He could've sworn he heard one of the boys shout, a strangled and pained noise, but he doesn't know if such a noise is even possible. Between the fire and the radiation, they were as good as dead anyway.
Kai is just making it quicker.
He backs away from the door, just in case. It takes a long time, two or three minutes, before something slams into it from the other side. A weakened fist, a desperate strike of the foot. The door shakes against its restraints, but he doesn't have to watch for a great deal of time.
When the doors stop shaking the noise does, too. Kai takes a deep breath—the last one he feels he's going to be able to take for a while, if he's being honest.
Two cannons fire, one after the other. Zeph lets out a choked noise behind him. Those are the only two, though. It appears no one else was so unfortunate as to be caught in the irradiated blast as the two of them. Or perhaps the others left in this arena were just lucky enough for someone like Kai not to be standing on the other side of the doors.
It doesn't matter much, in his eyes, about the immediate results. They're children of Five, born and bred to understand consequences such as these.
The radiation is going to come for them all. It's going to poison them.
And he knows, Kai just knows, that everyone is going to take matters into their own hands before then.
This will be over soon. Sooner than even he could've imagined.
Getting out of the control room is the easy part.
Zoya soon comes to discover, even though it takes him a solid minute to peel himself off the floor, that half of the hall outside is destroyed. Most of the right wall is caved in, the ceiling crumbling overhead. It's all he can do to glue himself to the opposite wall and shimmy out amidst the debris, trying to find anywhere safe.
The control room probably wouldn't have been a bad place to stay. He could have barred the door, at least. Nothing was getting in that way.
Out here is everyone else.
Zoya can hear the screaming, too. Not unlike the siren still wailing throughout the halls, but deniably human. He can't tell what it is—pain, fear, rage. There are a multitude of things that come to mind.
All Zoya can prioritize is getting the fuck out of here.
Ahead, he sees come cut across the hall and disappear, not even looking in his direction. Their clothes are singed, but they're still moving. That has to be a good sign. Zoya hasn't irreparably destroyed things… they can still survive in this, somehow. It's not as if the sky is falling.
That one person, though, isn't the only one. Another comes stumbling into view, dragging themselves from beneath a crumbled part of the next hall over.
Zoya can't help but freeze at the sight of her, even twenty feet away. Her hair has been singed away, scalp bumpy with pustules that have yet to burst. Her left leg is charred black, the skin of her hands peeling away. If Zoya didn't know any better, he would think she was one of those classical movie zombies, the type the Capitol seems to eat up as long as they only see them in movies.
Slowly, agonizingly, her head turns towards him. Her eyes are red.
"What the fuck did you do?" she snarls, voice raw. There's nowhere for him to go except back, and even at her slower pace Zoya doesn't know that he'll get there, back through the debris, in time to lock her out. How does he get out of this, otherwise? Would someone like her, in such a fragile state, even consider listening?
He has to try, regardless. "I was trying to fix it, alright? Something was going wrong, and I—"
"Fix it?" she screams. "Fucking fix it? Does this look fixed to you?"
She spins around wildly, but Zoya has no idea what he's supposed to look at. She takes a few wobbling steps closer to the half dozen steps that separate them, squinting up at him. "Oh, you fucked up," she laughs. "You fucked up bad, oh God, do you even realize…"
There's a hysterical laugh hidden amidst her rambling. Blood trickles from her lips, her nose.
There really is nothing he can say.
"We're all going to die, do you realize that?" she questions wildly. "All of us… just like that. The radiation is going to get us. Because of you."
They've been in this arena just under two days—the dead faces today haven't even been displayed yet, Enna's one of them. He's already heard two cannons since the explosion. How many more are going to be added before the night is over because they share this girl's same beliefs?
All hell is due to break loose.
The girl nearly trips up the stairs as she lunges at him. Her speed catches him off guard; her nerves must be so fried that she hardly feels it, hands reaching for him despite the distance. There's nothing within reach for him to grab—the slabs of concrete too big, too awkward to carry around. The only thing even close to a weapon is down on the ground behind her, smaller pieces of cement and debris that he could pick up and—
And what, exactly? Zoya had no intentions for any of this, to be clear. All he wanted was to not die some gruesome fucking death, and what has he done instead?
Signed his own gruesome fucking death warrant.
She reaches for him, each movement looking more agonizing than the next. Zoya makes his decision, the sacrifice to throw himself under her arm and down the stairs, each one thudding painfully into the center of his back as he rolls head over heels, slamming immediately into everything he had been eyeing before.
Before he hits the bottom, though, he strikes out with his leg, kicking frantically. The girl topples onto the stairs with a wild screech, legs seeming to fold like they had no strength left to hold her.
By the time he rights himself, head spinning, she still hasn't moved. She's lying still on the stairs, eyes glassy as they look up at the half-intact ceiling. The rise and fall of her chest is rapid, each breath a horrifying whistle as the burns at her throat grow worse before his eyes, every second more gruesome than the last.
He doesn't think she has the energy to move anymore, the strength. Her body is giving out.
It doesn't matter what he was trying to fix—this is on him.
Her breaths make him shiver, skin crawling. Zoya scoops up a chunk of the debris without thinking and crosses back to her, slamming it down into her skull. He refuses to look, still shaking from his fall, arm and hand alike burning from the exertion. Over and over he brings his makeshift weapon down until he's certain there's no going back from it, the burnt skin caved in over her temple.
Nausea rises in his stomach when her cannon fires. Zoya stumbles back, letting his arm fall to his side.
But it still hurts. It's worse than just a simple hurt, though.
It burns.
The debris falls from his hands. With it shears away chunks of his skin, the tips of his fingers seeming to almost fold back in on themselves. There are gouges in his palm, raw and bloody, but the worst ones are in the joints of his fingers. The skin is gone. Beneath, the exposed fat and muscle bubbles and drips, searing his skin even further.
Zoya can see bone. Bone, exposed on his fingers, all the way down
It feels like a hallucination. Like the radiation is messing with his brain.
But when the pain hits, he knows it's real.
All he can do in response is scream.
Between the morning of yesterday and what Kai guesses is now, perhaps twenty-four hours later, seven people have died.
Those two boys, he knows. The ones he locked in that room, dooming them to die. After that, he can't even begin to hazard a guess. Kai isn't even sure he wants to venture into the upper levels to try and find out.
It was Zeph, in the end, who found this door leading into the bowels of the factory. The tunnels that crisscross through the earth are dark, the air damp, but at least they're sealed. That doesn't mean Kai has taken his mask off, nor has he allowed Zeph to either, but at least down here he feels better.
He only wished he could have slept. Through the night, or otherwise. Between the early doses of radiation making his body shiver, his head spin, and the already abnormal attacks his insides were dealing with, Kai was screwed. He couldn't eat. Even when he tried to drink his body immediately forced it back up.
He only had the constant taste of blood in the back of his mouth. It never went away.
It took until the morning for Zeph to start vomiting, too. Kai just had to be grateful for the fact that they weren't covered head to toe in irradiated burns. Though they seemed to almost match now, their skin blotchy and red, neither of them were dealing with unmanageable pain.
Most of that, he knows, is because they're down here. It goes against every instinct in his body to leave it.
It's Zeph's idea. To head back up, to try and find a way outside. It couldn't be much better out there, but anything seemed smarter than staying in here. Kai tries not to let irritation rise in his throat like bile as he follows his ally back out of the tunnels. The door they open is warm to the touch, the entire factory spread out before them now as dark as the rest of the tunnels.
Almost immediately he hears a loud banging. Zeph leaps back into him as a guttural scream erupts towards them. "That's where the doors were," he says quietly, holding on tight to Kai's arm.
So that's the way they have to go.
He tightens his grip on the machete despite it's disfigured handle; its warped appearance aside, there was no way he was leaving it upstairs to lock the doors for good. Kai feels much more at ease walking towards the screaming holding onto it, peering around the next corner as the banging picks up yet again, repeated thuds that don't seem to have any rhyme or reason to them.
"Let me out!"
"I think she's trying to get outside," Zeph whispers. "Do you think we could…"
Kai doesn't know how he plans on finishing that sentence; to be fair, he doesn't give Zeph the chance. He steps around the corner with his hands held up, coming face to face with a girl whose knuckles are bloodied, fists reddened from pounding at the sealed double doors that lead to freedom.
"Can we help?" he asks. Her eyes flicker nervously, from him to Zeph to back again.
"Where'd you get the masks?"
He nudges Zeph, leaning down to keep his voice quiet. "See if you can find a key or something."
His ally skitters off, darting around the nearest piece of machinery and out of sight. He'll stay close. There likely is no key, but there's no harm in looking. It doesn't take any special type of scientist to know that the Gamemakers have them stuck in here for their own entertainment.
Kai places his machete back in his belt as he comes up to the girl's side—she's shown no signs of volatility, at least, save for her slightly manic eyes. It's not like he can blame her for that. Once again she drives her shoulder into the door with a furious scream. He tries not to wince as it connects with the dent she's already made. It doesn't appear as if she's getting any further than that.
"Both of us?" he suggests.
"What are you going to do?" she snaps back, waving her arm at him wildly. No doubt referring to his bone-thin frame, the way his clothes hang off him. Right. All the older ones knew—this girl is no different. They all know that he belongs not here, not in this death-trap, but in a pediatric oncology ward where he can die a quiet, bedridden death like everyone else does.
Too bad he doesn't want to do that.
Zeph skids back into view so fast he nearly catapults himself into the girl's side. "There's no rooms, or anything," he pants. Kai really ought to have told him not to exert any more energy than strictly necessary. "I don't think there's a key. We might be stuck in here."
The girl lashes out with a savage kick at the door. "Not helping."
"I'm—I'm sorry," Zeph says immediately, sounding too genuinely apologetic for his own good. "I just don't want to get anyone's hopes up."
"Do me a favor and shut up."
"Sorry," he apologizes again. "Um. Maybe we could—"
She screams once again—until that moment, Kai had never heard such unbridled fury in a single voice. Her fist slams into the door again. Her other hand reaches down, towards her belt, and Kai can hardly move fast enough. He leaps back as quickly as his weakened legs will take him.
"Zeph!"
Kai isn't quick enough in that respect.
When she whirls, there's no time for Zeph to move. She might as well be Goliath looming over him, the knife that appears in her hand appearing much more wicked and threatening than it really is.
It looks even worse as the tip sinks into Zeph's throat.
He nearly throws up, again, but Kai doesn't think it's the radiation's doing this time.
She falls to the ground on top of his much smaller ally. The knife is forgotten about as her hands fumble for his bloodied throat—reaching for the mask, he realizes, slippery hands struggling to get a proper enough grip to hear it from his head. Beneath her Zeph continues to choke, each noise somehow more terrible than the last.
The girl, however, doesn't make a sound when he plants the machete between her shoulder blades.
She had been so vocal before. Screaming and snappish, so much fire contained in one human body. Her sudden quiet now threatens to tilt his world on its axis as he holds onto the machete's hilt for dear life, forcing it in as far as he can.
Even then it's not very far.
Kai puts the last of his strength behind the action of not fainting outright, and then allows himself to collapse to his knees. He can't move any further. He can't even lean forward to shove her off of Zeph, who has finally gone still.
It's that same feeling Kai got when he was back on the street, walking with Axon. He feels like he's going to pass out. Like all the air has been sucked from the room, or the radiation has such a tight grip on his lungs that he can't get a proper breath.
He blinks. The world, fuzzy as it may be, remains in front of him.
It's not like he ever thought Zeph had a chance. Statistically speaking, he was as likely as they come. It just doesn't make any sense that he's gone, so quickly and without warning. Just like that.
Kai is alone. He can barely stand.
He has no idea how the fuck he's going to win this.
Zoya only knows that he passed out because this is not where he would have chosen to sleep.
You know, half under a slab of concrete, in the middle of the floor? Not so ideal. Even so, he's only twenty or thirty feet from where the girl's body had been; there's nothing left but a small pool of blood, and he can't tell from a distance that it's not even dried.
He's not sure why he's awake, really. Zoya can't tell if he's hearing cannons or more of the building falling apart.
Just like last time, it takes a bit for the pain to creep in. His hands are beneath him, pinned between his chest and the floor where he must have fallen. He can smell his own charred skin, the scent only making him more and more light-headed.
He's scared to look. Scared to keep breathing.
Slowly, carefully, he pulls his left hand free. It's reddened in patches, and some blistering has formed on his last two fingers, but everything's there.
He can't say the same for his right.
Some of his skin sticks to the concrete when he hefts his arm up, shaking with the strain. What doesn't stick seems to slough away as it works against gravity, though it's not like there was even much left there to begin with. The skin of his fingers is gone, his nails eviscerated. Strips of cartilage cling to the exposed bone, what bits of it aren't already going black. Everything is dying, all the way from his fingertips and down below his first knuckle.
He must be in shock. There must be some explanation for why he's not screaming, not crying. Not doing something.
He blinks.
"That's not good," he says stupidly. Zoya knows how abnormally calm his voice is, and that it's not right at all. Why is he not screaming at anyone who will listen, not trying to bring the walls down?
Is it because he's only got one functioning hand, or because his brain is trying to save him from just how bad it really is?
Maybe he is hearing cannons. It sounds like them. That, or the roof is about to come down on his head. At least if it did, Zoya would probably be crushed before he felt that much pain. On that note, though, he probably shouldn't keep lying here. That's not a very big fuck you towards the Capitol for letting him press a stupid button in the first place.
With his left hand, weak as it is, he lifts it up towards a camera at the adjacent hall and flashes it at the finger. "You fucking suck," he announces, immediately choking on his next breath of air.
He can only imagine what his family is thinking. Chastising him, probably. Oh, Zoya, you're such a bright kid—why didn't you know better? You're smarter than that, sweetheart.
If his parents and Timur even care. If Danil even knows his name got pulled out of that stupid, ugly bowl, because why wouldn't now be the time to conveniently fall off the face of the earth? The only person he's sure to care is Iman, really, and even then his best friend is probably getting a good chuckle at what an idiot Zoya is making of himself.
That's definitely a cannon, though. There can't be that many people left. Maybe he wasn't even trying all that hard, but like hell they're going to get rid of him now. If the Capitol gets anyone, they're getting him—his atrocious looking hands, his fried arms, and everything else all the way down.
Doing this out of spite can't exactly be the correct move but he doesn't want to, otherwise. Moving feels like too much of an excruciating chore. Winning feels like more work than it's really worth.
He doesn't think death is coming for him the way he suspected, though.
He might as well get up and figure out why.
Kai isn't sure how long he sits there on the floor next to their bodies.
But he knows it's too long.
No sense of urgency can rise strong enough to make him move; the inner workings of his body are folding in on themselves, refusing to operate as one unit. Every part of him aches, each attempt at movement as if someone is intent on dragging him back down to the floor.
There's only so much one heart can take, and Kai thinks his is finally failing.
But he hears two cannons, somewhere along the line. They're what's real, amidst the smoke and ash, his bloodied lungs struggling for every rasping breath. Is there one other person left? Two? The number seems to matter so little, when you can tell otherwise that you're just so close.
If he can hang on for just a bit longer, he'll get out of here. The only issue is he can't even get his weapon back.
It's stuck there, deep in her back. Lodged in layers of fat and cartilage, perhaps scraping against bone. His arms feel as if they're made of gelatin, and no amount of pulling even wiggles the machete free half an inch, let alone enough to free it. He needs that weapon. The knife isn't good enough, doesn't have the reach… anyone who comes across him will have the advantage, with that.
But he can't get it out, no matter how hard he tries.
Kai takes the knife, finally, slick with blood. The gray landscape in front of him seems to double and blur as he pushes himself into a crouch, and halfway to his feet he vomits up a mouthful of nothing more than bile, spotted through with blood. It turns out, in a twist of fate that no one is surprised by, that he can't even stand up without holding onto something. The wall turns into his lifeline as he grapples for it, leaning his temple against the corner.
This knife will be the death of him, he knows.
He only has one thing left in his pack, the canvas dragging down at his shoulders despite its nearly empty state. Kai wraps the coil of rope around his arm and lets the backpack fall, finally—he feels no relief from doing it.
It takes him what must be the better part of an hour to cross that room alone, keeping his eyes fixed on the stairs and the catwalk above. He has to do this. If luck is on their side, whomever comes across him next, they'll fall and break their neck before they can struggle. If not, they die anyway. Maybe Kai can be a human again.
He has to drag himself up the stairs. He lays at the top landing for a good few minutes, forcing tainted oxygen back into his lungs before he begins to fasten one end of the rope to the adjacent railing, fingers clumsy and shaking. Kai completes the knot several times over, just in case; it's not as if he can pull at it with any great amount of strength to test its tenacity.
Once that end is completed, it's just the easy part. He's not a hopeful person. Kai will think of doomsday with the best of them, and it won't ever bother him to die.
But when he begins to tie that noose, just for a second, he allows himself to hope.
There's no good reason for him to go up there.
Then again, though, when has Zoya ever had a good reason for anything he's done?
He can't so much as look up without his vision doubling, head spinning, the whole nine yards. Zoya squints up at the catwalk above him, trying to make out who's up there, but it's quite the task when he can hardly fucking see.
He's pretty good at math, he thinks. If he hasn't been hallucinating all of those cannons, it's only him, whoever's up there, and one other person.
Logic would dictate that he should go up there, and ask for an alliance.
Zoya has decided he doesn't like alliances, but when did he ever?
Even from his position on the ground, at the very bottom of the stairs, they hardly look alive. He can see them breathing, but their eyes are closed. There's no obvious weapon, not that Zoya can see, but all he needs is one moment. If they're unconscious, oh well. They'll just die easier. Not like him, his body, which is evidently refusing to die at all.
Zoya can hardly tell if he's being quiet at all with the roaring in his ears, the pain lancing through his arms, but whoever's up there doesn't move a muscle. He tries to keep low, but letting any weight bear down on his semi-good hand is excruciating all on its own. Besides, he needs a good shot. He needs to be able to see.
Two steps from the top, he stares. The boy is frail, chest trembling with every breath. Their skin is the same, now—red and angry and inflamed. There are burns on his arms, too.
But there's a knife on the other side of him, balanced precariously on the catwalk.
So Zoya lunges, sluggish as he may be.
And so does the other boy.
So much for being fucking unconscious.
His hand grazes the knife handle, but gets no further purchase. The way the boy slams into him makes the whole platform shake, and in two quick seconds the knife is skittering away and off the edge of the catwalk. Zoya hears a loud clink as it hits the pavement far below.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" he shouts.
He's still looking far below, eyes on that precious knife, when the boy shoves him back into the railing. Unfortunately for Zoya, his head tips back and cracks into one of the metal posts. All he sees is black for one long, terrifying moment as his body goes limp, refusing to cooperate as pain shoots through him yet again.
The boy doesn't touch him. He's jerked roughly to the side as something is pulled from beneath his prone body, and then something is being forced over his head. It drags against his scalp, over his temples, making the already sensitive skin burn as whatever it is fits snugly beneath his chin.
Zoya only realizes what it is when the boy plants two hands against his side, finally, and pushes.
He can only think oh, please not this, before he tips over the edge. Every single part of him hopes to slam into the concrete below—Zoya would rather break both his fucking legs than deal with what's coming instead.
Halfway to the ground, the factory a dark blur around him, he's jerked to a violent stop mid-air.
The noose around his throat stops him from going any further.
The rope is taut, pressing into his windpipe so hard that he chokes instantly, trying to reach up for it. Zoya doesn't even feel the pain that erupts from his ruined fingers, trying to fit the ones that still exist somewhere beneath the rope. Trying to free himself. But that's not how this works, and it's not going to happen, and he's going to fucking die a hanged man, choking and writhing on the end of this rope—
It's another hallucination, what he hears finally. That's what Zoya chalks it up to. Because if he heard it for real, then the boy would be cutting him down. He would be letting him live.
There's no way that was a cannon.
But was it? It sounded just like it, and there are tears spilling from his eyes, legs kicking frantically for anything that will save him, and he's still not being freed. Zoya can't even scream, can't even beg. The air's all gone. He's never been in a room so full of it but had access to so little.
"May, I present to you, the Victors of—"
This can't be real.
Zoya hits the ground so hard he screams, or at least tries to. Nothing comes out. He can only scrabble at his throat, as if his hands will magically give him the air that he's been robbed of. The rope clings tight just below his jaw, but no amount of digging beneath it will force it off.
He still can't breathe. He's still going to die.
When air, smoke-tinged and vile, finally hits the back of his throat, he chokes once again. Tears continue to stream down his face. He tastes soot when they run over his lips.
His vision returns, and Zoya finds himself staring upwards. It's all a blur, save for the boy still on the catwalk above him. The rope has been released, but he's nowhere near it. He wouldn't have had the time to untie it before Zoya strangled himself to death on the other end.
The Gamemakers. Of course it was them. Not even the last other person in here would have cared enough to keep Zoya alive, not even if it was their only choice.
He wants to fucking kill him more than anything.
The knife is less than five feet away, hilt extended towards Zoya's palm as if in an invitation. Do it, his brain screams. Kill him. He was going to let you die.
His fingers twitch out for it in desperation. At the same time, a burst of electricity spasms so intensely up his arm that he sobs, hand falling uselessly to the pavement. His entire body twitches uselessly as it's forced still, the tracker just beneath his skin lighting up in a garish blue.
Of course they wouldn't let him.
"You bastard," he chokes, voice sounding something like a foreign entity. "You fucking bastards."
Might as well lump them all in together. They're one and the same to him.
A shadow falls over him, the moon blotting out the sun. In this case, an eerily white figure positioned directly in front of the lights dangling overhead. There are more around him, moving through the factory like specters. They're darting about too fast for Zoya's foggy brain to make sense of them.
The figure bends down towards him, though. It's a hazmat suit, he realizes. Gloves, boots, the helmet whose fabric drapes all the way down over the shoulders. All of it.
A white gloved hand ghosts over his forehead, a fleeting moment. "You're going to be alright, kid," comes the muffled voice, indistinguishable from the rest.
And if that isn't the lie of the fucking century, then Zoya isn't sure what is.
THE VICTORS OF DISTRICT FIVE… ZOYA OSSOF (16) AND KAI MELCHIOR (15).
thecentennialcelebration . tumblr . com
Thank you to Em and Ida for Zoya and Kai. ❤
And thanks to Chernobyl (2019) for being a legendary assistant. Watch it, btw.
But guess what y'all... we made it through! I know I put everyone through a lot with the super length chapters (myself included) but to everyone that made it to this point with me, thank-you. Next update will be a brief interlude before we move back to the kids - you'll be seeing that on Wednesday the 11th for reasons I will make glaringly obvious then.
There is now a poll up on my profile regarding your favorite tributes after round one. It'll be up for a while for reasons and also so that people will have time to catch up and vote on it as well, but don't be worried regardless as it has zero effect on anything regarding the Games or my personal feelings. For the most part, that shit is completely sorted anyway. You also don't have to use all eight selections, but I just didn't feel like putting anyone into crisis mode. Do with those eight what you wish. Or don't. Not like I'm gonna know.
Until next time.