A Thousand Years. (A Clato Fan Fiction) {Editing}

Chapter 8 "Let the Hunger Games Begin!" {Edited}

Cato’s PoV

It’s our last night here. It is rhapsodic, and all we can do is sit in our rooms and despise everything. We bid our mentors and stylists our final good night, and brace ourselves for a myriad of deaths each and every day. Emotions mix inside of me, all of them amorphous. I pray for Clove to come out alive. Then I feel lassitude from all this worrying and hatred.

I fall into a deep sleep, hoping to never to awaken.

“Clove!” I call her, but she doesn’t reply. “Clove!” The snow crunches beneath my boots and the blizzard whirls around me. I can hear shrills of her screaming.

“Cato! Help me!” I slice through the branches with the perpetual wind throwing my arms back. All I can see is white.

“You’re too late.” I can’t tell who it is. Blood soaks into the snow when her neck is slit open and she falls lifelessly to the ground. I react to this by lunging my sword into the man’s throat and watch him bleed to death. Her eyes aren’t a crystalline green anymore, they are dull without life. And her face isn’t as dulcet as it used to be. The snow falls into her dark hair, making a constellation. Holding her hand and using the other to thrust my sword deeply into my heart, I fall to her side, awaiting her angelic face.

 

The first face I see is Lumina’s, wiping my face with napkins.

“Sweetie, it’s time to go. Have a shower, get changed and I’ll meet you on the rooftop.” I know she’s being nice to me because she knows that I will lose everything from now on. Clove is only on my mind throughout my whole process of showering and getting changed. We have to wear a black t-shirt and cargo pants. It is comfy and easy to move around in. Lumina is actually at the elevator when she escorts me to the rooftop. The sun glares into my eyes when the door open. Peacekeepers stand at the door of the hovercraft. I enter after saying a small goodbye to Lumina. The only seat left is next to Glimmer, with Clove on the far corner away from me. Marvel is sitting across me. They begin putting tracker devices into our arms. I can hear whimpers of pain from the weaker tributes, I feel only a pinch. Clove doesn’t seem like she feels any pain either. She’s smirking arrogantly at Katniss who looks nervous. I lean forward when the hovercraft begins moving and Clove glances at me. She smiles and looks up. I’ll admit this is kind of exciting but not really when you know that you could lose everything in the next two hours. Peacekeepers separate us once we land at our destination. They lead me down a twilit hallway to the catacombs, otherwise known as Launch Rooms. It is underneath the arena. Lumina enters the room with someone in her hand.

“It’s a locket, but you keep it in your pocket.” She opens it for me and it has two pictures, my family, including my deceased sister and Clove with her brother, Blade.

“Does Clove get one of these?” I ask.

“No, she has her engagement ring from you, of course.” Her voice is gentle and fluid, like a lullaby.

“This is your jacket.” I put it on, not zipping it up but placing the locket in the pocket facing my chest.

“I hope you go quickly because honestly, you are the only Career, other than Clove, to ever have a heart.”

“You hope I go quickly? Isn’t that the slightest bit rude?” I laugh.

She giggles. “I just hope you don’t have to endure any pain, not even a broken heart but one of you have to so…” Lumina begins to sob.

I place my hand on her shoulder and then walk to the glass cylinder and it begins trapping me with only my fear and despair.

“All the best, I hope we’ll meet again someday,” she says, tears streaming down her blue-tinged cheeks.

I am plunged into darkness.

Clove’s PoV

“Ladies and gentlemen, let the Seventy-Fourth Hunger Games begin!” Claudius Templesmith announces as the countdown on 60 seconds starts. The air feels thick and stuffy, like it’s trying to suffocate me with the heat and tension that is arising. So here’s my plan, I have to run to the throwing knives straight away. During killing other tributes I should collect the backpacks.

The gong sounds and everything happens too quickly. I am already obtaining throwing knives, taking five out and leaving the others in the case, which I leave there. Something flashes past me and I realise it’s Katniss. She’s my target now. The District 9 boy chases her, almost bringing an axe down to her head. As much as I want her dead, I want her to be mine to kill, so I throw the knife into his lower, making sure I hit his spine. Now for the main course, he was just an appetizer. I swing my arm with a force that makes the knife bound to hit her. Her instincts are sharp. She blocks the knife with her orange backpack, her eyes painted with fear. By the time I get ready to throw another knife, she is already disappearing into the woods. I curse, knowing that I can’t go after her  or else I will get lost.

I am sucked into all the death that is happening around me. Marvel is slashing the male from District 7's throat with a curved sword from the ground. Glimmer is impaling the District 5 male in the abdomen, his blood pooling into the lush grass. Where is Cato? Then I see the District 6 female tackle Glimmer into the ground. Glimmer screams when the girl yanks her hair. The girl is soon dead once Glimmer obtains her dagger. All this blood is repulsing, although I am trained to look at it. These shrieks of pain, crash into me. An axe flies past me into a girl’s leg and she topples over, crying out in pain. I run to go finish her off but Marvel has already thrown a spear through her body. Someone is trying to escape, I can sense him or her running behind me. You will not escape. I flick the knife towards him and he falls to his knees. The blonde hair catches my eye as I see a glimpse of Cato in the Cornucopia. He’s collecting weapons until he finds the District 4 boy, hiding behind a crate. Cato’s eyes are bloodthirsty when he knocks the boy over with his sword, slitting his neck open.

“Clove!” I hear Marvel, snapping me out of my gaze.

The District 7 female is only metres away from me so I tackle her, trying to get my knife. She overpowers me, pushing me into the ground, holding a dagger. Something pokes me in the stomach slightly and the girl falls off, dead. It is a spear that has just missed me.

“Thank you!”

Cato is out of the Cornucopia now, slamming a ordinary sized boy into the ground, after he almost killed Glimmer. I am envious that she got to be saved by him, and I didn't.

“Glimmer!” I yell after seeing something hiding at the side of the Cornucopia. She is alert, luckily, straight away stabbing the girl in the back. The girl dies when her blood sprays everywhere and she hits the ground helplessly.

Does it have to be this gruesome? I feel guilty about all the futures and dreams we have stolen. We have just murdered innocent children for the sake of fame and money. Is this really what we’ve turned out to be? Stupid Capitol, I bet you they are making us feel this way so they can get their entertainment and more money, and food and more opulent things.