#jesus h christ...

I rolled my lips in, thinking of the night before and how even though I should have been sleeping, I was having a night to remember forever (for however short a time that might be). He believed I could win. Ian and Harriett believed, even Tre did as he was fluttering around me, primping me for the pedestal.

“Fuck, you look amazing.” Two attendants were finishing off the braid in my hair, adjusting the seashells so they were sitting just so. He waved his hands impatiently at them to leave, different color blues of his perfect nails blurring at the peripheral of my vision. He turned me to the mirror and, of course, he was right.

All black; shorts, socks, boots, tank top and windbreaker. Even the harness. There was a pouch on one side - “for your odds n’ ends” - and space for a weapon to be holstered on the other side. I surveyed myself in the surrounding mirrors. Well, if I died at least I’d do so looking good, barring any horrible disfigurement of course.

I was surprised to see the large smile on my escort’s face falter, I met his brown eyes in the mirror. Behind the makeup, he was… sad? My throat tightened and I tried to swallow something like a scream. If he was moved to this spectrum of emotion, what was I in for? Or was it just me? Did this Capitol fuck get attached to me? I had grown attached to him and it made me feel a little sick. He’d never be in this position, but maybe he was finally understanding it, just a little.

“Just - just make sure you don’t step off the goddamn platform until the alarm sounds.” He cleared his throat and the look on his face was back to its normal disgusting excitement. “Now up you get.” Ushered with more force than I expected to the platform I whipped around and hugged him, tight. He made a sound of protest, pushing at my hands a bit before surrendering.

“Thank you, for last night and for that.”

“Yeah, whatever.” But he hugged me back and my stomach twisted, “Now get your grubby hands off me.”

I choked out a laugh as I stepped back, the tube closing around me. Laughing as I ascended to what was possibly my death. Why was I laughing? I couldn’t stop. Darkness surrounded me and my stomach started to hurt from the laughter. Some “Untouchable Water Queen” I was, obviously I’d cracked. The surface broke with a metallic SHINK and my laughter caught in my throat. A smell, putrid and thick immediately flooded the tube.

A sewer.

We were in a massive chamber, in the center a dias with the cornucopia, weapons spilling out where fruit and grain so often sat. In a large circle we all stood on pristine pedestals, while grime coated everything else around us. The young ones looked nervous, unsteady on their pressure sensing platforms and I sent out a prayer to whatever was out there that no one stepped off early. But then again, maybe that was the way to go, nice and quick. Explosion and boom, you’re done.

I heard the unmistakable sounds of vomiting. I could see the closeup on the monitors now, Capitol folk gasping at the impropriety, the weakness that they could never hope to understand.

Another laugh threatened me.

Ian had told me that I would die in a gutter someday. I looked around for a camera, to tell him it looked like he was prophetic. I closed my eyes and thought about the taste of last night instead, to calm the laughter and my stomach. The feel of Lucky’s warm skin, pleasurable pain of his fingers and nails digging into my skin.

I drowned out the sounds of Caesar and Claudius talking with excitement about the games rules with the memory of Lucky’s lips against my neck, his tongue hot and sweet on the sensitive skin. Snow’s message to the Tributes was washed away with the tight and comforting embrace of Lucky’s strong arms and the soft sheets, his words coming back to me. “Be smart, you can get out of this.”

As the countdown began, I measured my breathing. Don’t lose hope. I bade him to keep repeating it in my mind, a mantra I couldn’t afford to let go of. “I’m rooting for you.” Licking my lips, I opened my eyes. I could do this. I could save myself. Kill anyone I had to, especially that fucker Thomas. My eyes caught his a ways down and I glared at him. I liked that he looked scared. He should be, payback was a bitch.

Three… two… one.

The boom sounded, echoing through the cavernous chamber and 24 bodies charged from their pedestals.

*  *  *

The tangle of bodies and the smell of blood at the cornucopia had actually drowned out the smell of the sewer. It was a bloodbath up there on the raised center platform, but I’d made it out, smeared in blood with a bag of supplies and cudgel. The pipes were slick and winding, my memory helped me keep a map of the way I’d gone - but it also kept a list of faces of the people I’d just killed. Four. My memory would hold onto every piece of this experience. Maybe I should let myself die.

I couldn’t though, my mantra playing in the back of my mind.

Instead I trudged forward, I needed to find a spot to keep safe, a home base I could return to and maybe sleep a little. After an hour, I’d staked out a spot in a deadended tunnel. There were a lot of them, the place was like a maze. There were patches of fungus everywhere, glowing and giving off a sickly green light. I stamped out the ones that led to my new little haven, it twisted around a corner so if you weren’t paying attention, you wouldn’t have even seen there was a tunnel there.

By the light of the fungus I opened my supply pack. My hope piqued, all the necessities of making bombs. I could do that. I had done that.

*  *  *

Two days, another face that haunted me. But I’d needed water.

The canons had slowed, things were creaking to a stop. There were thirteen of us left. I sat back in my small corner, head in my hands. I refused to show weakness to the cameras, they wanted a character, they’d get one. Horrible, Wrathful Ocean Queen. I needed to make people continue to root for me.

But things were going to get ugly soon, it always did when the killing started to wane.

I caught a couple hours of sleep, confident in the tripwire I’d created with some of the bomb supplies to wake me if someone did find my secret tunnel. But it was screaming that woke me. Distant, but not so far that I wasn’t alarmed for myself.

I stood, pulling the cudgel from its sling on my harness and stowing a couple pipe bombs into the pouch on the other side. The screaming continued, the person was in agony and now I was hearing snarls, they echoed around the pipes and my stomach turned.

It had to be a muttation. But what was it?

A final cry flooded down the tubes, followed by a cannon boom and I felt my body start to tense up. I closed my eyes and forced myself to breathe. As deep as I could. In and out slowly, pulling the cudgel from its sling and loosening my muscles. Fluid, like water.

I heard the slithering steps heavy against the metal coming towards me, a deep sniffing - it knew I was there. I bent my knees slightly, ready for the attack. The steps stopped, I could smell it over the stink of the tunnels, like something dead and rotting. I was going to let that thing burn before it got to me. Behind the bend in the tube, I made a noise, drawing it forward into to tripwire, into the bomb.

It screamed when the small bomb maimed it. I didn’t wait for the fire to go out, I leapt in, an animal noise tearing from my throat as I swung the club. A mutation of a crocodile, more gruesome than I’d expected with large, thick muscled forearms and long claws, a tail resembling a scorpion’s and two heads, with hundreds packed into each upper and lower jaw.

I brought the club down on one head, rolling to narrowly escape the snap of the other head. The screaming again as the wounded head lolled sickeningly. It lashed out with an arm, claws so close to my leg, I cried out, almost losing my balance. I sank backwards in a fluid motion, sucking in a breath before winding up again. It snarled, teeth glinting in the pale green light like diamonds - maybe they were made of diamond.

I brought the club down again, missing its clawed foot by inches. I had to roll away again, too slow this time. I felt its nails graze my thigh, pain exploding upwards and flooding my body. I gasped for air, filthy water flooding my mouth. My hand brushed something hard and I grasped it as the beast lunge forward - a knife. I plunged it into the creature’s throat as it reared to strike. Hot, putrid blood sprayed in an arc, coating my face and chest as it collapsed onto me.

Agonizing minutes ticked by as I struggled to free myself. Agonizing minutes where I was completely vulnerable to whatever predator heard our less-than-quiet clash.

*  *  *

Two more days had passed, someone had sent me medicine for my leg. I’d used two empty water canteens to collect the blood of the muttation, covering myself in it, hoping it would help mask my scent from any others, and I knew there were others. I could hear them. I hadn’t been able to sleep since the first one. I saw them when my eyes closed. I heard the screams from the two kids I’d killed with a makeshift bomb. They’d set up a little camp in a tunnel.

A faint but familiar sound drew me to the edge of a pipe nearby - the sound of a parachute, a gift from a viewer. Somehow they were feeding them in through small pipes in each area. The pod was small, I cracked it open near a ring of glowing fungus. A silver locket. Strange, not practical at all. A creepy Capitol citizen? With dirty fingernails I opened it and instantly a smell lovingly enveloped me.

How it made it through the stench of the arena was beyond me, but tears filled my eyes and even though it had been five days and hellish beyond words, the scent was unmistakable. Lucky. There was no picture, only the scent, but it filled my cold limbs with something like warmth as I sank to my knees, giving myself one precious moment to reminisce, to believe I wasn’t in Hell before closing it. I wrapped the long chain twice around my neck and tucked it under my filthy tank top.

My eyes shot open. Something was wrong. The air pressure was different, I felt it subtly in my ears. The steady trickle of water that constantly filtered in was flowing faster. My mental map of the tunnels ticked through my mind, where was I? The water seeped into my boots, it was freezing. I needed to move, I tightened my pack as it rose to my calves. “Shit.” The way it was flowing it would lead the remaining five back to the center chamber.

The final bloodbath. Five days was enough? We’d all fanned out enough that slow starvation was the only way out now? Too boring - couldn’t have that. Not enough visceral action for the Capitol. Not enough punishment or torture. Still, it was drown here or escape.

I slogged through the rising water. Being quiet as I could. No sneak attacks in this high of water.

The current sucked me along, my balance being tested as the slick pipes beneath my feet made me feel more like I was skating than walking. A gush of water launched me forward as if they opened the floodgates and water crashed around me from all sides.

Swept under the current, I groped for a hand hold - anything - to stop my helpless slingshot forward toward the T junction I knew was ahead of me, but my nails cracked and splintered against the walls doing nothing to slow me. I hit the wall with no protection and then everything went black.

*  *  *

Sharp pain.

Again.

Coughing - was it me?

Dim light. More pain.

“Oh shit!”

“Get her!”

Realization hit me, followed by a blade of some sort in my shoulder.

Blinding white-hot pain.

A roar left my throat, tearing it to shreds as I rolled, my hand instinctively drawing the cudgel from its holster. I could feel the blood running down my arm - it was warm, almost nice. I wiped my arm against my forehead, it came away smeared with blood.

“You missed!” The District One girl snarled at her male counterpart. “How could you fucking miss?! She was just laying there, you idiot!”

Just the three of us, did the other two drown? Didn’t matter now. I flicked the ratty braid off my shoulder as I circled them, still coughing water out of my burning lungs.

“Let’s just kill this bitch and get it over with. No one’s going to cry over her. No one even volunteered in her place. They must have wanted her to die.”

I could feel something snap inside me. The fear seeping away, pure hatred filling me now. Anger and disgust. I wanted out. I was done. They were in my way.

Almost eaten by giant two-headed creatures, starving, dehydrated, bleeding…

“You want a psycho killer?” I rasped, “Fine.”

“What?!” The District One boy.

I drew the knife with my wounded arm and almost enjoyed the pain now. I felt my chest swell. “Come on, coward. Two against one. Here, I’ll make it easier.”

The cudgel and knife clattered, the sound echoing around us. The hysterical laughter from the first day came flooding back, and the District One’s exchanged glances. He gripped the machete in his hands tighter and lunged at me.

I dodged, whipping around him and slamming a knee into his kidney. He went to his knees, gasping. Planting my feet, I gripped his head between my hands and jerked with all my strength. The crunch bounced around the cavernous chamber, and he fell to the floor. A loud boom echoed behind it. My wounded shoulder screamed with pain, but I ignored it, adrenaline pumping through me.

Swinging around, my breath raced from my aching lungs as the girl struck me across the back with her spear. I went sprawling to the ground, sliding across the algae. Crawling to my feet, I leapt as she stabbed forward, a feral sound escaping her throat with the effort.

“Hey! I just did your dirty work for you! You would have had to kill him to win.” She swept the air with the blade and I easily dodged it, “It’s going to be really embarrassing when I beat you unarmed.”

She slashed fiercely, I moved in just behind her blades, sliding in the muck and pulling her down with me. We rolled through the mud, pulling and scratching, her nails on my cheek but I ended on top and I slammed her head against the thick metal platform beneath us. Her nails ripped at the skin of my arms, trying to stop me.

But I didn’t stop until I felt her life leave her body beneath me.

I sat back, gasping for breath, waiting for the cannon shot. My whole body shook. Where was President Snow’s voice? Shouldn’t he be speaking? Didn’t I win?

I looked around, dizzy, vision blurring and was knocked backwards.

A face above me. A face I’d swore would NEVER find its way above me again. He smiled.

“Thomas.”

“Kyra.”

He slid my hands above me, through the sludge, knees pinning me down. I could feel the hilt of the knife just barely out of my reach.

“How’d you make it to the end?”

He answered by way of fist to my face. I literally saw stars.

This wasn’t how I was going to go out. No way was he winning after everything. I sucked in a breath, holding it as I struggled underneath him now. I bucked enough to get my hands loose, both slimy with the filth around us. He dug his elbow into my sternum and I screamed, curling upwards. His gasping laugh invaded my mind and I burned. Fury blazing its way through me.

I reached up, grabbing his face and pressed my thumbs into his eyes. A laugh caught in his throat, I pushed back and he loosened up enough for me to reach back and grab the knife and plunge it into the side of his neck. He croaked, blood spilling out of his mouth onto my face. He hovered above me, eyes wide and wheezing. With a shaking hand he pulled it out.

He crumpled forward onto her, his blood washing over her face.

Pushing him off of her she crawled a few feet away, shuddering as the last cannon went off. The ceiling opened up, a hovercraft lowering into the chamber, floating above her. After a moment, Caesar Flickerman’s voice entered the chamber, so jovial and boisterous it brought tears to her eyes.

“Congratulations to District Four’s Kyra Barellis, you have won this year’s Hunger Games!”

She didn’t hear anything else.

*  *  *

The hustle and bustle of repairing the damage to her body and getting her into fresh clothes, interviews and lights were just a blur. Her limbs and voice did and said what she was supposed to but when she was finally done Tre led her toward her room, insisting she had a present waiting for her, she wanted to scream. He was smiling. How could he smile? She had been covered in thick layers of black blood less than 12 hours ago, her body ached and he was smiling and talking of presents. She’d murdered nine people.

She opened the door to her room, pushing it closed on Tre, not caring if it was rude. Her forehead rested against the wood and she sighed. A throat cleared and she whipped around, ready to fight.