Author Games: World Seasons

Task Two - Blood and Snow - Bonfire Tributes

Epethemeus Ash

As soon as the timer hits zero I launch myself off my plate and start running for my life. I hear Fiametta call my name and I spin ninety degrees so I can run over to where she is, holding both our gifts. We don't bother to waste another minute at the bloodbath, sprinting as far away from the thing as we can. Watching white snow be polluted with red is not high up on my list of things to do.

Fiametta says we should stop running when she thinks we're a safe distance away from the bloodbath. I stop to breathe, leaning over and panting so I can get some air back into my lungs. Once I'm sure I can breathe normally again I straighten up and carefully open the lid of my gift. I can't help the grin that spreads across my face. A machete, a box and some rope; just what I'd been hoping for. Clearly playing around with a machete for a while has made them realise what I want. Etta had some gunpowder, five daggers and a backpack. Even though I know it isn't the smartest idea and I manage to blurt out to Etta I'm not sure if I completely trust her yet, we still put everything in her backpack and decide to take turns carrying it. I hook my machete on the inside of my jacket so I can pull it out quickly if I need to.

After a while, we hear footsteps and the voices of two tributes. One male, one female. Without even thinking I pull out my machete and hurl it in the direction their voices came from. There's a gasp and a small scream, before I imagine one of them is dead. The other one definitely hurls the machete back though, because I have to duck so it doesn't hit me in the forehead.

The Valentines boy drags the Christmas girl through to where Etta and I are perched on some tree stumps. He sees us as her killers and the large bloody hole in her stomach suggests to me that I'm a better shot than I thought I was. He stares at us, wondering how we could just heartlessly kill his ally.

I manage to get out the words that he'd have backstabbed her anyway, before grabbing my machete out the tree and flinging it towards him, something he catches right in the eye. I also comment about how bloody it is, before having to go retrieve my machete out of his eyeball which may be one of the most disgusting things I'll ever do. Who am I kidding? It's the most disgusting thing I'll ever do.

Etta is watching the scene with a bit of a stunned expression that I have just casually taken two lives without thinking much of it. It hits me now though, that I really have taken two lives. The girl scrabbles desperately to find the boys hand, but all she's going to find is his cold, stone, dead hand.

It goes without saying that Etta and I leave the scene shortly afterwards. I'm still feeling slightly guilty for making two unprovoked kills. Well, really one and the other was to save our lives because otherwise we would have been dead, dead, dead.

Etta stops and asks me where we're actually going, only for me to respond that I don't know. We stop to think for a while, before we hear yelling and screaming. Both of us know that a fight is going on and as we achknowledge looks we know to just head on and see what's going on. It never hurts to witness the action so you're ahead in who's dying and who's alive.

Our heads poke around a tree as we see two tributes from the Valentines district trying to battle off a selection of tributes. I don't think they're allied, but a second bloodbath seems to be going on here. It looks as if they're fighting over possession of the cave, but judging how unprepared the Valentines duo looks I'd say they're being attacked. It's not fair to take someone’s shelter. As Etta agrees with me I realise I've said it out loud, but all I can do is shrug. They capture anything you do on camera.

It's Etta's time to shine as she manages to take down a boy with a staff with one of her ornate daggers. The girl (Fools?) stood next to him yanks it out his back and keeps on fighting, trying to take out the alliance who desperately push back. I'm the one that delivers a machete into her back, and Etta's dagger slips out from between her fingers as the girl crashes to the ground. There are still two tributes pushing on, but the Valentines girl is a seething cauldron of anger and quickly manages to stab one of them with the victims own arrow. It's pretty funny, although the circumstance is just disgusting. I actually disgust myself in the way I happily laugh at some deaths. I am just Capitol scum now, admiring the games. I hate myself.