#jared luminel

jared…

district : five

private training : seven

kills : one

weapon : sword

After the slaughter of three children, the remaining two tributes are injured beyond belief and descend the stairs presented to them. That night of rest is valuable to them, and on the wall of their holding-cell appears to be a hologram television for them to view the fallen clips that they are very used to by now.

5th - Jared Luminel, killed by Seraph Sinclair.

4th - Lola Liu, killed by Apricot Thompson.

When he woke up, Jared quickly gathered his belongings and started walking. There was no way to turn back. All he could do was move forward. To where? He didn’t know. During his walk, he constructed a noose with the rope around his waist to pass the time. The hallway seemed almost endless until Jared finally reached a large room. He turned his head to the right, where his former ally stood. 

In the dark and cold, Seraph stirred and awoke with the shapes of torchlight burned through her eyelids, the light leaving a pattern similar to a flower in the incandescence and her vision. This was not her cave. She was still alone, but the isolation felt different. Before, it was open and free, reeking of independence and self-sufficiency. The isolation of this hallway bore down on the shoulders of its occupant, gnawed at bone and pressed against skin. It could be addicting in self-destructive scenarios. The walls were imposing, seemed to gaze down with a hard stare.

We see you

Seraph rose to her feet and walked down the corridor with machete in hand, something that was second nature. Her footsteps echoed and she sensed she had been swallowed by a great beast and was walking through its cavernous interior, like that old Bible story her mother had told her once. 

The hallway’s draft become stronger and stronger, audible enough to bounce around the confining walls. An opening in the wall is ahead, leading into a simple room. Television set. Sink. Table. And one more thing. Jared. Standing across the room, emerging from the opposite wall. The hallway seals behind him with the sound of scraping stone. The same noise goes off behind Seraph and she can only assume her exit is obstructed as well. In the dim light, something glittered on Jared’s finger. Seraph had never really noticed the ring on his finger before, the one that must have been his token. It was ironic, compared to hers. A gold crown gilded with crystals versus a band of grey iron. A prince and a serf, brought down to a level playing field. 

“There you are.” He sounded so relieved. “I was hoping to run into you again. I guess being a traitor is just in your blood, huh?”

Seraph said nothing as she pulled her machete from the rope around her waist, held it at the ready.

Jared sneered, mimicking her actions and wielding his sword at the ready. “Fucking rebel scum,” he spat. “Surprised you didn’t slit my throat in the night, you filthy little rat.”

This was expected. The anti-rebellion slurs, the politically driven resentment. Those things held no relevance in the arena. Allegiances outside the game were to be left outside the game. Seraph had convinced herself of this at the beginning. But it pinched a nerve in her.

Rebel scum.

While Jared sat high and mighty on his broken throne, he was blissfully oblivious to all the torment he had been supporting. Now, he was face to face with evidence of the destruction people like him had caused. If he was going to die, Seraph wouldn’t let him die ignorant. Equal punishment to equal crime. After all, he was just like the rest of them. Too busy with their own luxurious stories to care about the repercussions of their actions. But this was Seraph’s story now. And Jared, he was disrupting the narrative.

Eyes met. The air was still. Then machete met sword in a clash of steel and diamond.

Of course he would be the first to attack. Seraph smirked at the expected move and brought her machete up to come clashing with Jared’s longsword. Sparks flew as their blades collided with each other. The redhead then aimed the scorpion stinger to Jared’s arm, but he swayed to the side and it pricked his abdominal area instead, which was protected by the breastplate. Unable to penetrate through solid diamond and to her opponent’s fatal internal organs, Seraph glared. She took advantage of the blonde’s arrogance, however, and sliced his arm with the machete. 

The royal hissed as his wound was reopened. Jared kicked Seraph down to the ground and jumped to avoid the scorpion stinger which she intended to drive to his leg. His training at the gymnastics stations enabled him to leap pretty high. Jared’s foot then collided with Seraph’s face, mere seconds before he reached the ground, sending her soaring backwards onto the table behind her. The wood collapsed under the force, splinters upon splinters. He stabbed at her with the sword, narrowly missing her when she rolled over. Her back was exposed. Jared acted quickly.

Diamond broke her skin, a long gash trailing up her spine, tearing at her nerves. Her silence broke as she cried out, dropped her machete, gasping at the pain. Jared smirked, crouched down over her. His hands closed around her windpipe, his muscles shaking with the force. He wanted to kill her like this, with his own hands. Air halted and stalled in Seraph’s lungs, cut off with nowhere to go. Her hand clawed at his, prying away, a desperate attempt for him to release her. She could feel every degree of oxygen being wrung from her, the sound of blood rushing to her head almost deafening. Using all of her strength, Seraph thrusted upward, causing Jared to loosen his grip on the girl, but only slightly. This was all she needed, however, for a second after, she had managed to punch him in the face, causing him to topple off of her.

Air filled Seraph’s lungs in massive gasps, trying to take in as much as she had lost. As she regained her composure, Seraph was shocked to feel what felt like rope wrapping around her foot. 

Successfully lassoing Seraph’s foot, Jared yanked the redhead back to him, only to be punched in the face a second time. Blood dripped from his nose. The royal growled and swung his weapon down on her right shoulder, assaulting a wounded limb from her previous fight. A sharp crack could be heard, but Seraph didn’t even groan. Unfortunately, that didn’t mean the pain wasn’t present. While she was in agony, Jared took the opportunity to elbow her back, causing Seraph to fall face first on the ground. He then quickly tied her feet together and chopped off the excess rope with his longsword. 

Then another punch to her face. Seraph fell to her side, unable to get up properly due to the rope that bound her feet together. She looked up to see Jared making his way over to the machete.

Ratsis had been smart back in the cave. He’d given her an idea. And she was going to put it to use. 

Three throwing knives were stored up her sleeve along her wrist and she ran a thumb along one, edged it into her hand, and then quickly closed the distance between herself and Jared. The blade sliced clean through the soft flesh of his cheek, a crooked grin reaching back to his jaw. The pressure from her throat gave up all at once as his hands flew to his marred face, a cry ripping out of his throat in pain. Air filled Seraph’s lungs in massive gasps, trying to take in as much as she had lost. She struggled to her feet and yanked Jared up by the collar, flinging him towards the television. He collided with the screen head first, the glass shattering, sparks flying. She pulled him back out of the set only to throw him back to the ground. Glass stuck his skin and blood poured from his half-Glasgow smile. 

“Y-you can’t do this to a king!” Jared said, panic evident in his high-pitched voice. 

Seraph simply shook her head at the pathetic sight. One time she saw Jared look up into the sky and chant Panem’s national anthem when the Fallen were posted. It was like he worshiped those pigs in the Capitol and treated them as if they were Gods. Seraph hated loyalists like him. She was glad she could finally end Jared. Beneath her, he was nothing. Helpless and under her mercy. “King or not, that so called crown on your head will be the reason you die.” 

Jared coughed up blood like there was no tomorrow, his face was basically getting smashed in, like how Everest killed Charlie, but much slowly and more agonizing. Seraph’s words played in his head. “Crown… kill…” That was when the idea hit him. Jared took his token off his thumb and managed to free one of his arms. With one quick stabbing motion, he jabbed Seraph’s nose with the ring. The pointed tip penetrated through the thin layer of skin and to her nasal bone. Jared thought fast, knowing Seraph would be quick to react. He remembered how someone got out of a similar situation during training. Ratsis. Either his concussion was getting worse, or Jared could actually hear his voice again.

Grow some balls, your majesty!

Before he could make his next move, however, Seraph had taken him by the collar and tossed him violently to the ground. Then, she placed a foot on his ribcage, pressed down hard enough that she could feel the bones bending, ready to snap. Jared screamed, the sound strangled and wet with his disfigured cheek. Seraph picked up her machete then cocked her head at the boy. “This hurts you. Can tell you have never experienced pain like this before. Too busy cooped up with your riches to see the face of war. But you can see it now. Focus, right here. Right here.” Jared’s eyes stayed shut, screwed up in agony. Seraph’s heel pressed down harder, his ribs cracking underneath the pressure. Jared screamed as his fingers were ground in fragments. 

“Look at me.”

Jared’s watering eyes met Seraph’s, paper against steel. He panted, trembling with panic. “Stop! Stop it! Please!”

“Stop begging. Are you a prince or a dog?” Seraph stepped off of his ribcage, instead yanking the boy up by his collar and slamming his back against the wall, pinning him there with her upper left arm. With her right arm, she brought the machete up to his throat, the flat of it facing upwards so the sharp edge was hovering a small fraction from his skin. Her face was so close to his she could feel his ragged breathing against her cheeks. “This is the face of vengeance. You are going to look at me. I will be the last thing you see.”

He did look at her. His expression was soft, like a therapist’s attempt at consoling an agitated patient, somebody trying to calm a rabid dog. Trying to negotiate. Looking into the face of his opposite, Jared pleaded once more. “Seraph, you don’t need to do this. I’ll give you anything. I swear, I will always be in your debt if you just let me go. Seraph…” 

Her name on his tongue. He was unworthy of speaking that name. There was a harshness, a disgust that poured into her skull upon hearing him say that. You could cut open her head and it would spill onto the floor, dark and acidic, eat it’s way through the cement beneath their feet. 

Seraph’s breathing was erratic. Fast and shallow. She spoke. “Men get mercy… Dogs gets put down.”

The machete was thrust forward, through muscle and spine until it severed Jared’s head from his body and completely and met the concrete wall. The impact of the execution was felt by the thunder of a cannon. His body crumpled to the ground in a heap, his head still balanced on the flat of the machete. Beheaded. Like a disobedient royal at the guillotine. Seraph brought her machete back and let his head fall to the ground, roll to its side before falling still. His eyes no longer looked at her, but they had in their last moments of life. His blood coated her machete and she looked at it with distaste, wiping the crimson off onto his uniform. Seraph spat on his corpse, disgusted, then turned on her heel. The sink shifted with a series of low concussions, disappearing to reveal a shear of dim light that bled from a descending hall of steps.

Alone once again. That was how it always was. In the end, she always wound up alone. She turned back and studied the collapsed scene. Detritus left of the television and table. Shapes of drying of blood like ink blots in a Rorschach test. A body without a head, the latter dropped on the floor with blank eyes staring forward like headlights. All of the mess caused by Seraph. Freeze on this frame. Now call down your dark and your cold and grey and be damned. 

A sponsor gift falls lazily from the sky and lands in front of Jared. Inside is a 3 oz. tube of antiseptic, 2 rolls of medical bandages, and a pack of 10 matches. There is also a note.

Jared and Everest vs. Charles

As he walks onward through the forest with his alliance, Jared notices a golden colored backpack descending from the treetops with a parachute attached to it. Inside is a single loaf of bread and a single sleeping bag. There is also a note.