Author's Note
I do not own The Hunger Games.
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Paradigm of Writing
Emeria Delilah Echavoque, 15
Sometimes it felt like the entire Capitol grieved for those that died in the simulation Games, but when Emeria visited Silverie's grave and sat beside it, it was only her. She could breathe and talk to the person that had been her entire world for the last few years, and by her side even before that.
"I'm sorry we couldn't save you too," she whispered, pressing her hand to the stone. "But we're trying to save the next ones. The ones they're going to feed into that death machine." Emeria closed her eyes. "We'll do it in your name."
Silverie had been competitive and sometimes angry, but not a real murderer. They wouldn't want this happening any more than Emeria did.
She laid her bouquet on the grave and stood, returning to the path. A short way away, Marcellina was at Calpurnia's grave, cleaning away graffiti and mud.
Emeria groaned as she approached. "Who would do something like this?"
"Lysandra, probably. Or someone else Calpurnia made angry. She made a lot of people angry."
"I'm sorry." Emeria crouched down and pulled her sleeve over her hand to begin scrubbing away mud.
The dead deserved to rest in peace.
Zephyr Almon, 13
He held tightly to Luminita's sleeve as she rushed him from the taxi and into the hospital. He heard a few people mutter around him, pointing out his blindfold and Luminita's status as a survivor. He was a survivor too, but they couldn't all recognise him like this.
"You alright?" Luminita whispered.
"They're talking about us."
"I know." Luminita stopped suddenly, and Zephyr walked straight into a desk.
"We're looking for Iridescence Sterling?" said Luminita.
A long pause, then a man's voice. "Ward Seven. She's with the brain specialist. I'll have you shown through to the family room by Octavia."
Octavia turned out to be an overly peppy woman who chatted away to them as they walked. Zephyr zoned her out. She was going to drown. He could hear it in her voice. Many would drown here. He could feel their wet hands.
"Here we are! And oh look, your friends are already here! Isn't that nice? Give me a call if you need a thing; it's just that button on the wall for my comm, see?"
"No," said Zephyr.
Ares snorted with laughter.
"Oh. Well, I…"
"He'll be fine," said Luminita, nudging him into the room. "Thank you for your help."
Zephyr listened for the door to close. "Where's Iridescence?"
"Still getting scans done. But she woke in the ambulance, so that must be good, right?" replied Phoenix.
"We have to protect her from the beaver man."
"You were serious about that?" asked Vivaldi.
"I'm always serious. People just don't want to listen."
"Zephyr thinks something's coming for us all," Luminta explained.
There was a snap, and the soft clattering of shoes.
"I believe him," said Phoenix.
"You're sure?" asked Ares.
"I trust him. And if he says Iridescence is in danger, I believe him."
"Then we need to get to her."
Iridescence Sterling, 17
Iridescence woke enroute to the hospital, as two paramedics fussed around her. Phoenix was sitting on a chair to her right, her arms wrapped around her chest.
"Mmmm ooookee," Iridescence mumbled, though she really didn't feel it. She felt sick, and her hands were trembling.
"You collapsed," whispered Phoenix, and her voice broke.
They arrived at the hospital amid screaming sirens, and she was rushed through to see a doctor. Phoenix stayed with her, but Ares and Vivaldi, who weren't relatives, had been left behind to find their own way to the hospital.
The doctors fussed about brain scans and chest scans and examinations of her blood, in case she'd been poisoned by something. One nurse remembered the seizures she'd suffered while in the arena, but the doctor, an older man with protruding front teeth, didn't seem to think that was the problem.
Everything blurred around her. People were moving too fast and too slowly at the same time. Many of the nurses left, their images swimming at the edges of her vision. Iridescence blinked, trying to clear the aftereffect with little success.
"Can I see my sister?" she asked.
"I wish I could see my sister," said the doctor, sorting through the cabinet.
"It's a busy life, working in a hospital," said the nurse.
The doctor sighed. "Oh no, it's not that. My sister died thirty four years ago. She was that year's tribute for the Hunger Games. Drowned in the bloodbath."
"Oh," said Iridescence. She had her voice back, but couldn't pull many thoughts together.
"You were meant to die in your bloodbath," he said.
"What?" asked the nurse. A bang. She hit the floor. Red blood splattered the wall behind her.
Iridescence screamed. The doctor spun round, raising the gun level with her. "You should have died."
Something clipped him in the head and sent him staggering. Iridescence rolled from the bed as the gun went off. The bullet embedded itself into the wall.
"Leave her alone!" shouted Ares, waving what looked like part of a broom. He waved it at the man that said he was a doctor as he rushed across the room. "Back off."
The doctor brought the gun level with his head.
Ares swung the broom handle at his arm.
Bang.