12. The Fire Walker - Warmth
Renault Flint, District 6, Fifth Place Tribute of the 68th Hunger Games
Renault's last piece of firewood had completely burned out.
Since he'd seen the sun sinking low in the sky, he'd been striking his flint and steel, desperately trying to find something in the dead ashes of his campfire that'd catch. He knew it was hopeless.
Earlier today, there'd been two cannons. Renault only looked up from his fire to see the two faces in the sky - the boys from Four and Ten. That meant what Renault had been dreading all day, that he was the last outlier left in an arena with four Careers. And even worse, that still wasn't enough for the sponsors to send enough to him for a bundle of firewood.
And why would they? When Renault had seen the boy from Ten sneaking up on his district partner, he hadn't tried to fight him off. He hadn't even been able to warn her due to his stutter. He'd just turned and ran. The sponsors had to know that, if the Careers drew near to Renault, he wouldn't put up a fight. He'd just run. And he was so fast, he'd probably get away. Renault was probably the fastest tribute in the arena. He was the champion of his school's track team. Keeping Renault alive would prolong the game of cat and mouse for days, and it was clear that the Capitol didn't want that. They wanted the last four Careers to fight.
It was either that or something that Renault dreaded even more. Maybe Mercedes had got sick from overworking herself and couldn't send him any.
Mercedes Matthews was the most hardworking and selfless person Renault had ever met. It was only her second year mentoring. She didn't have to take Renault under her wing because his mentor was too addicted to morphling to look after him, but she did it anyway. She was also just as full of anxiety about the games as Renault was, which had been comforting in a way. It was nice knowing that the victor mentoring him wasn't some untouchable all-powerful being, but a regular teenage girl who it was safe to talk to.
Renault had thought that maybe if he somehow won this, once he'd got his grandma settled down in his new home in Victor's Village, he'd work up the courage to ask Mercedes out for coffee. A nice warm cup of coffee…
He hoped Mercedes was sleeping now and she wouldn't have to see this. Or maybe that'd be worse. Maybe she'd hate herself when she woke up.
Renault kept trying to light a fire as he felt his limbs growing weaker. His fingers began to break. Eventually, he couldn't hold himself up anymore. He fell into the snow and used the last of his strength to curl up into a ball, trying to conserve the last of his warmth.
Well… I picked the obvious tribute for this prompt LOL. I went for a shorter chapter this time because I'm going through a bit of a burnout. Renault was also a good candidate for a shorter chapter because he's one of the quieter and less complicated tributes in the 68th Games and his legacy doesn't have much of an impact on the 76th Games. I guess we might see Mercedes in some of the Control Centre Chapters of A Traitor's Tale, as she's mentoring Petra, but I'm not planning on giving her any POVs, so I'm not sure if Renault's name will be brought up. If I carry on being burned out, I'm planning to prioritise the three remaining POV tributes from A Traitor's Tale. And also Treech, because why not?
Our next act will be the Lion Tamer.