I do not own Hunger Games or any of its characters.
A.N.: EXTREMELY DARK CHAPTER!
Broken
Trever screamed in fear and pain as his attacker, a large, brutish boy from District Two, drove his knife into Trver's side. He had never wanted this. He never wanted to hurt anyone. To fight. To die. He never wanted to compete. He'd only had to make it two more years. He was seventeen. It had only been two years and he could have been free. But he wasn't free. He was competing. He was afraid, and he was in pain. And he was fighting. As the tribute raised the knife again, Trever twisted. It wasn't a conscious decision. He simply turned, striking the tribute in the nose. The tribute toppled backward, but he lashed out, slashing Trever across the chest. There was so much pain. So much fear. So much pain. His side hurt. His chest hurt. His fists hurt. When the tribute stabbed him in the thigh, there was so much pain. He never wanted this. There was so much pain. So much fear.
He just wanted to be home, with his dog, and his little sister, and his mother, and his stories. But here, here there was so much pain. So much fear. So much noise. That horrible screaming. That sobbing. He wanted it to stop. He needed it to stop. It was too much. Too much noise. Too much pain. Too much fear. And then...And then...And then...Nothing.
Trever stared down at the mess below him. A pair of broad, powerful shoulders, a shirt stained red, a thickly muscled neck, and...a pretty red stain. There were flecks of white mixed in, a few hairs sticking out of the mush, but nothing that resembled a head. Trever's gaze drifted to his own hands. Scarlet, warm, wet, and sticky to the elbows. Some of the blood was his. Most of it was not. The rock clutched in his hands, one about half the size of his head, was new, but he dropped it where the tribute's face should be without a second thought. He stood slowly, his blood-drenched face slowly morphing. It was slow at first, like the flickering of a tiny flame beginning to peek through a pile of kindling. But soon enough, the tiny flickering flame, the twitching of his lips, had changed. It grew rapidly, hungrily. Spreading to consume his face in a horrible, cruel smile.
He turned, walking away from the tribute, toward the cornucopia. As he passed through the trees, he gathered fallen sticks and branches, small rocks that fit in his palm, vines from the trees around him, leaves, grass. At long last, he pulled the knife from his leg, his terrible smile never wavering. It was like one of his stories. He loved writing stories. Stories about love. Stories about childhood joy and wonder. About imaginary friends. About loss and pain. But for now, he thought he might try a new genre. This time, he'd write a story about murder.
And oh what lovely stories he could write. A thin, healthy tree bent just so, tied with vines and lined with sharpened sticks. A final bed, no more than a foot deep, but ten feet each way. The bed lined with sharpened sticks and branches and roots, all arranged in such lovely, perfectly aligned rows. A fallen tree, tied up in a swing, its branches broken off and sharpened. And oh the screams. The suffering. One of the characters would die when they stepped on the tripwire holding back the slim, young tree. One would fall to his rest in the final bed. Two more would be embraced by the swinging tree. Another came across the bed, but joined its first occupant with a bit of encouragement from Trever.
And still, that same, horrible smile danced before the cameras spread through the arena. There were more chapters to write. One character would meet his end to a surprise attack from beneath a blanket of leaves that hid Trever from view. Another would die by an attack from a tree. One was caught about the neck by a snare, another was assaulted by sharpened, aerial stones cast by a pair of folded around trees. And on and on the story went. More chapters were added, and then more still. And finally, he reached the cornucopia. He tossed his knife aside, dulled and chipped, and instead picked up a new knife. He had done the math. Over and over he'd counted. There was only one character left for this story's murderer to kill. One more. But this one was no fool. No simple hurdle to be jumped over. He was the strongest. The most skilled. The best trained. He was a career. Trained since he was young for this. To kill. To win. He had to be the best. But he wasn't. Trever had done the math. In this story, the murderer had found more victims than any other tribute. So now, the question was simple. Could the murderer have one more victim, or would this one last victim prove himself the murderer's superior?
There would be no traps. There would be no cheap tricks. The story had progressed past that. It had come to its climax. And so, it required a true climax. A fitting conclusion. And he would give it one.
The final tribute, the male from District One, rounded the cornucopia and stoppes, staring. A nightmare smiled back at him. One splattered with blood, smeared with mud, flecked with grass and bits of bark, and smiling that terrible smile. The tribute roared a fierce battle cry and charged. He stopped short, neglected to run Trever down, and slashed hard. But there was an error. A discrepancy. The tribute should have decapitated Trevor. Should have cleaved his head from his shoulders. He had done it once already. He had the power. He had the skill. He was the strongest. The best trained. But he wasn't the fastest. That was Trever's medal to wear. And so, when the sword whipped around, Trevor leaned back, evading it. The tribute recovered quickly, slashing down at him diagonally, but Trever leaned aside lashing out with his dagger and nicking the tribute on the forearm. It was nothing. A taunt. An insult. But the tribute shouted in pain. Backed off. And then, he charged, bull-rushing Trever, and the fight was decided. Trevor ducked low, then stood as his shoulder met the tribute's thighs. As the tribute flipped over Trevor, Trevor's dagger drew a line across the backs of his knees, severing the tendons there in a fluid stroke that could almost have been casual. The tribute crashed down on his back, screaming, but before he could raise his sword, Trevor had added a line to the eye of each elbow.
The tribute screamed, pleaded, begged. But the story had to be finished. The murderer had bested his rival, and now he had to show his absolute dominance. It wouldn't take much. Mostly precision. One inch cuts spaced out half an inch from each other all the way around the neck. The cuts didn't need to be deep, only just enough to make it through the skin. Then, once those were finished, he added one last stretch of matching cuts leaving up to the tip of the chin.
With all of the cuts finished, Trevor threw his knife into the ground, the blade stabbing halfway into it, and gripped the tribute's hair. Then came the strength. More than he was expecting, but not an impossible amount. At seventy percent of his strength, the cuts, which had been bleeding mostly superficially due to him being careful to avoid major blood vessels, began to bleed more thickly. At seventy five percent, flesh began to tear, slowly at first. At eighty, the tribute's face began to stretch, then move. And at eighty five percent of his strength, the tribute's flesh came free, the skin leaving him like a mask. In its place it left a skull, muscle, eyes, teeth, and blood. So much blood. The tribute was still alive, still screaming, staring through eyes that could no longer blink, as Trever held up the face he'd removed. And then, the tributes eyes began to dry out, to wither, and the screams began to taper off as the tribute expired, the last of his life trickling into the pool around his faceless body.
Trever's smile flickered slightly, just for a moment, but then the announcement was made, and the smile had returned. The Sixty-Ninth Hunger Games were over. Peacekeepers were coming to escort him away to his glory and fame. It was time for him to write a sequel. The murderer would breathe again.
"You'll understand, of course, why we're not meeting in person," President Snow, the aged ruler of their fucked up country of Panem, said from the screen ahead of Trever.
A smaller window on the screen, just to the left of President Snow's head, bore a playback of Trever's short-lived but brutal assault on the Peacekeepers. An assault during which ten of twelve had been wounded, three dying to his dagger, one to the faceless tribute's sword, and one to bullets by the other Peacekeepers, before someone finally managed to knock him out.
"You did well in the games," Snow continued. "You now hold the record for the most tributes eliminated by a single player. Of course, we couldn't televise what you did to that last player, and we couldn't televise what you did to the Peacekeepers. And of course, we're not going to be parading you around the city and on the news. But you'll be returned home. You and your family, and your dog, can all live in peace and comfort in the Victors' Village. That's not so bad, is it?"
Trever remained silent, staring at Snow. Snow fixed him with a look somewhere between disappointed and challenging, then disappeared as the screen switched off. Trever huffed, then twisted his right index and middle fingers, pinching the needle against them with his thumb, and his shackles clicked open. He took them off, slipping the needle into his mouth again and massaged his wrists. A few hours later, the train slowed to a stop and he was led off of it at gunpoint, herded through his home, where he found nothing but fearful looks and muttered insults masquerading as conversationations. Finally, he reached the Victor's village and his mother hugged him, weeping. His younger sister, barely five, who hadn't watched the Hunger Games, hugged him tightly. Their puppy, barely four months old, leapt from the floor into Trever's arms, and Trever smiled.
It was a happy smile. The kind he used to wear. He stroked his hand over the puppy's back as he followed his mother to the kitchen where she'd already started dinner. He decided to help her cook. And as it needed only to finish cooking and the preparations were complete, he decided to join his sister in the living room, where she was reading one of his newer stories. She'd always loved his stories.
Not long after, dinner was ready, so Tyler set the table for his mother. She'd done enough recently. She'd raised him, worried about him, prayed for him while he competed, cooked dinner for him after. So, he set the table himself. He gathered his mother and his sister to the table once the food was ready. He served the stew his mother had cooked carefully, not spilling a drop, then smiled as he tasted it. His mother had outdone herself. The vegetables were perfect, the broth was thick and warm without being hot, and the meat melted in his mouth. Deer, if he had to guess.
He smiled, sitting back and watching his family as his left hand gently stroked the dog who still lay in his lap. After a moment, however, his smile turned into a frown. "What's wrong, you two? Aren't you hungry?"
He rested his hand on the puppy's still form, then frowned. The puppy wasn't breathing. Oh, but that would be on account of the needle he'd stuck into its brain through its eye, then wiggled. Even now, he could see the needle sticking out. He looked back up at his family with a frown. He felt like he should apologize, but his family looked uninterested. They merely sat there in their matching red dresses with those vacant looks on their faces. Except, his mother's dress had been yellow, and his sister's had been blue. And also, they weren't blinking. In fact, neither had blinked since they sat down. But, of course, it was hard to blink when Trever had used a steak knife to draw a second smile from ear to ear, underlining their jaw.
Trever sat back in his chair, frowning. However, slowly, ever so slowly, the reality of what he had done, of what he was staring at, dawned on him. And once it had, the late, dark night beyond the walls of the house was split by a terrible, horrified shriek.
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