Chapter 45

NARRATOR | Wyatt Aldridge, District 12

TIME | Day 10

TRIBUTES REMAINING | 10

For the first time in days, I finally feel peace, or at least the closest thing to peace I can reach in this Arena. Ansel watched over us all night, and he's taking a well-earned nap; talking to Ashlyn without Ansel constantly interrupting lets me finally imagine what things would be like without him here. Ashlyn and I watch him sleep, listening to the birds chirp as they pass by overhead.

"Our food situation is starting to freak me out," Ashlyn sighs, taking a look at our surroundings. We tried to find food all morning with no luck - for some reason, the berry bushes that used to line the Arena floor have vanished without a trace, and we're stuck rationing the last few crumbs of food left from the Bloodbath. Luckily, I'm used to eating less than I'm supposed to, but Ashlyn and Ansel have started to weaken, and their patience has worn thin as well.

"Relax," I say, reaching for her arm. "I've been through this before, trust me."

This is a new thing for me - reassurance - but Ashlyn makes me want to try it. Back in Twelve, there was no point; nothing you could say to anybody would make our lives any easier, and we all knew it. Ashlyn is different, though. She has a spark in her, something behind her eyes that shows that she believes things can get better. No matter how hard things get, she keeps herself optimistic. We have different upbringings, I suppose.

"I trust you," Ashlyn smiles, leaning closer to me. "We've helped each other make it this far. Still, this is the first time I've worried about keeping myself alive. All this chaos with Violet and Verity made me forget that I have to worry about myself, too."

"That's half the battle," I agree. "I wish someone would've told us, but nobody in the Capitol thinks about that. The killing is the only part that matters to them."

"Right," Ashlyn nods. "I don't eat much, but I worry about Ansel. I don't want him to get weaker than he already is."

Don't worry about Ansel, I want to snap, but I keep my mouth shut. Ashlyn cares about him, and there's nothing I can do to change that. Ansel's odd outburst a few days ago has created a tension between us that seems impossible to break; he apologized, sure, but I can't forget the way he attacked my character. I saw him for what he truly was - a terrified, desperate little boy, clinging to others for protection. Still, it's smarter for me to work with him than against him, especially with Ashlyn still between us.

Ashlyn shakes her arm, and my hand slides down to meet hers. Without thinking, my fingers close around hers.

Ashlyn glances down, her hair falling to cover her face, but she doesn't move away. "I'm glad you're here," she says quietly. "If we hadn't found you, I don't know where we'd be. Violet probably would've killed me, and I don't know if Ansel would've lasted this long."

"Well, I'd be dead if you didn't save me, too," I shrug, shuddering at the memory of Verity's knife on my neck. "So, we're even, I think."

Ashlyn tilts her head back, laughing a bit. "We're even," she echoes. "How's your leg doing?"

"One more day and I'll be back to normal," I predict. I was able to walk without Ashlyn's support for the first time this morning, and I couldn't be more relieved... ten days ago, I thought that my leg would kill me, and here I stand, almost completely healed.

"Finally, something I've done will actually work," Ashlyn huffs. "I feel like we haven't had one success since the Games started, but I think things will start to look up. There are only seven others out there. If the three of us stick together, we have a good chance."

"Right," I say, giving Ashlyn's hand a squeeze. I don't follow her logic - the seven other tributes out there are some of the most dangerous - but I appreciate her optimism.

Ashlyn freezes, her hand going rigid in mine. I meet her gaze; her head is tilted, a curious expression on her face. "Do you feel that?"

She presses my bare palm against the ground, and I feel it: the Arena is trembling, so minute that I didn't notice before. It's so subtle that you'd have to be looking for it to detect it. Unless you're Ashlyn, I guess.

The shaking grows stronger and stronger, and Ashlyn grabs ahold of my hand once again.

"What's going on?" Ansel asks, panic in his voice as he's shaken out of his slumber. He sits up, rising quickly to his feet as he looks around for incoming danger.

"What did they say in training?" Ashlyn calls back. "Earthquakes, tsunamis... volcanoes-"

A resounding boom echoes around us, causing Ashlyn to scream. Terror begins to rise in my body as I glance around at my surroundings; the Gamemakers could have anything planned, and we'd be powerless to stop them.

For a split second, I see it approaching, like an invisible wave washing over the Arena. The trees in the distance shake with the impact; by the time I open my mouth to scream, my body has already been thrown to the ground.

It's hard to explain what it's like to be tossed aside in the blink of an eye. Mentally, I feel that I'm still sitting on that mossy perch, Ashlyn's hand still in my grasp. Physically, my body is discarded on the ground like a ragdoll, my allies nowhere in sight. I think that's why it took me so long to move after the impact: I wasn't able to connect my two realities, and so I was stuck in two places at once.

When my mind finally catches up to my body, I'm overwhelmed by my surroundings. Over the ringing sound in my ears, I hear birds screeching, flying overhead. A cannon shot fires, sounding even farther away than normal...

Through the haze, a murmur breaks through, distant enough to be from another world. I hear it again, but the ringing in my ears is too loud to decipher. It repeats again and again, a thumping rhythm that registers only in the far reaches of my mind.

As the ringing in my ears begins to subside, the rhythm finally comes into focus; I crack my eyes open, groaning at the light pouring in through the treetops.

"Wyatt," a boy calls. Ansel. His voice is ragged, desperate. I crack my jaw open slowly, but nothing escapes but a croak of dead air.

"Wyatt, come on," Ansel calls; he sounds on the verge of tears. "Where are you?"

I slowly start to return to my body, and a spurt of energy flows through me. Where is Ashlyn?

"Ansel," I call, forcing the words through my teeth. "I'm here..."

In a matter of seconds, Ansel is hovering over me. He grabs my arm, squeezing it tight as he helps me sit up.

"Ashlyn is gone," Ansel huffs, his eyes flickering in every direction at once. "The tree... it-"

In an instant, I'm on my feet. "Show me," I hiss, pushing Ansel ahead of me. My head is spinning; he doesn't mean she's dead, right? That can't be true, it can't be...

But there she lays, her face peaceful even in death. A drop of blood crawls down her face, falling into the mossy ground below. Ashlyn's body is crumpled in a horrific position; it looks like she hit the tree behind her and it nearly snapped her in two. Her back looks broken, along with who knows what else.

A gust of wind blows past me, and Ashlyn's hair obscures her face. Only now do I realize how quiet it is; the birds have departed, leaving us alone in these woods, and the only sound I can hear is the whistling of the wind. Ansel has stepped back, his face turned away. Even in this moment of grief, he's giving me the space to say goodbye... maybe he's not as selfish as I thought.

I hesitate over Ashlyn's body, unsure if I should touch her, but the damage is already done; there's no bringing her back. I move her body away from the tree behind her, wincing at the crunching sound she makes. I lay her flat, pulling her hair away from her face.

I'm not sure what to do; Ashlyn saved my life, and I knew that we would protect each other until the very end. And just like that, she's been ripped from me... what more could I have done to keep her safe? How could I have known that the Gamemakers would do this to us?

I've said goodbye to a lot of people in my life. Too many. None of them hurt me like this. I feel like Ashlyn is holding an invisible sword through my chest, and to leave her behind would force me to slide it right out of me. How could I have become so attached to this girl in a week?

A tear slides down my cheek. Ashlyn was what I was looking for all my life, and I never realized it until it was too late. All those years I spent bowing down to Peacekeepers, acting like their slave for pocket change, forced me to keep my head low and my mind closed. Nobody in Twelve ever looked at me; I was like an Avox nobody wanted to touch. In this Arena, none of that mattered. Ashlyn saw me for the person I am deep down; she had that gift in her. She saw the good in all of us, even in Ansel.

Ansel finally returns, resting his hand on my shoulder. "Wyatt, we need to go," he mutters, his voice breaking. I can tell that he is devastated, but something is different about him. When Eddie died, he couldn't stop crying like a baby; this time, he's holding himself together the best he can.

"Ashlyn needs to go back to her family," Ansel whispers. "We have to let her go..."

Ansel is right - Ashlyn has fought hard in these Games, and it's time for her to go home to Eleven. I reach around her neck, pulling her locket out of her chest and laying it over her shirt.

I take a step back, my mind scrambling to think of what to do before I leave Ashlyn behind forever. I draw a blank - I've never been sentimental, and she's gone regardless of what I do.

"Let's go," I sigh. Ansel wordlessly follows, helping me gather our scattered supplies from the area around us.

As we walk away, Ansel grabs ahold of my arm, holding it for support. He's been mature through all of this - I'm surprised he hasn't started crying again - but he's still the same boy he was before, and Ashlyn's death is going to hit him hard.

"Must've been a volcano," he mutters, his voice hollow. He points to the sky, where a pillar of dark smoke is rising above the Arena.

I don't recognize the word - I didn't read any of the manuals in Training - but I know what's happening. Ashlyn told me about something like this... she'd said that ash would fill the sky, blocking out the sun and leaving us miserable. They used a similar tactic in the Games a while back. Looks like the Gamemakers are resorting to old tricks.

I watch the plume of ash rising into the sky, and my hopes soar. Ashlyn is gone, but optimism is still with me. Out of all the tributes here, I'm the best prepared for something like this. If the Gamemakers want to rain dirt and ash onto us, bring it on.

If District Twelve has taught me anything, it's how to endure this... for the first time since these Games began, I might have the upper hand.

A/N - Sorry if this chapter is a mess :P trying to get back into the swing of things!

RIP Ashlyn :((

~S