Grain & Blood | A Hunger Games collection

System Overload- Chapter Three

Kamalyn

My eyes slowly drift open and I groan. It hurts, my chest feels like it's been split open.

"Benedict..." the name falls out of my mouth like nothing until I realise that Jake is sitting next to my bed.

Kamalyn, it's Jake. Are you okay?"

Improvise, Kamalyn, improvise!

I lie silent in bed with my eyes shut, pretending that I'm still asleep.

"Kamalyn?"

He kisses my cheek and it takes so much to not squirm.

"I love you."

I hate him. Jake is the worst boy who could ever fall in love with me, especially as he saw the pain I endured after Benedict's death. He knew that I did not want anyone else, he watched me end Rift in the arena, the boy who loved me even though I didn't love him back.

"F**k off," I tell him.

"Oh- sorry." Jake sounds hurt, but I stopped caring ages ago. He is nothing to me.

Jake walks slowly out of the door, leaving me alone.

"You really don't like him, do you?" Somebody asks from the other side of the room.

My eyes peel open and I find myself staring at a girl around my age sitting in a hospital bed by the far wall. I recognise her light brown hair and green eyes, but as a person she seems like a stranger.

"Seems like you would have been better off with Benedict." Her words are joking but she spits them out in a hostile manner.

"I'm sorry, do I know you?"

She laughs a little, but her expression remains aggressive.

"Yes, you know me. It's been six months, but I would recognise you even if I'd been dead that entire time. Which I have."

What? She's been dead for six months?

"Six months ago was the Hunger Games, and if you were anyone from the arena I would remember you."

"It doesn't seem that way."

"You're from the arena?" This girl keeps on surprising and confusing me, like nobody ever has before.

Think back to before your operation, Kamalyn, when you saw the name Iris Sheaf on a door. Iris had light brown hair and green eyes, Iris was hostile, and Iris would most undoubtedly want me dead.

"Iris?"

"And they said you would never guess..." she muses quietly. "I guess that's what six months of being dead does to you."

We both let the moment sit in silence, trying to figure out why we're sharing a room.

"You killed my boyfriend." I blurt out.

"And you killed me. So my best friend and sister killed you. Planned."

"YOU KILLED THE ONLY BOY I'LL EVER WANT!" I'm furious now, going insane from the list of people this girl, my mortal enemy, has killed.

"AND YOUR STUPID BOYFRIEND KILLED THE ONLY ONE I'LL EVER WANT!"

"Who did he kill, huh? I doubt it'll be anyone on Benedict."

"He killed Rubella, the girl from District 7, with his trap."

Iris's face darkens, as if remembering the girl who she lost.

"You liked her?"

"I loved her."

I'm surprised at this. I thought she was in love with the District 6 boy, or at least that was what I was shown at the feast.

"I'm going back to sleep," I declare.

"You wouldn't last a night in this room, alone with me. The second we get left alone, I'll kill you again, because the first time clearly wasn't enough. The Capitol seemed to think you were better, that you should win, and to be quite honest, we both know that's not true. I killed eight, one of which was finished by you, and you killed six, many of which were shared with that stupid blond boy."

"None of that makes you any better than I am," I snap, trying to defend myself, even though I know everything Iris says is true, "At least they treat us like equals now."

She laughs with a kind of sarcasm that I didn't realise she had.

"Uh huh. Uh huh. Sure they do. When you were being serenaded with love and care, I was locked in a dark room, lacking human interaction. You could eat actual food, baby squids in tomato sauce, your favourite, fresh fruit, even water. My favourite too, but nobody seemed to care. I've been on an IV drip, the first time I ate anything for six months was yesterday, a slice of bread, for the doctors to see if my stomach could handle it. You can sleep whenever, I have drugs shot into my arm when the nurses are sick of me. And that bleached hair boy always chasing after you, I would be happy if somebody spoke to me with kind intentions. But they don't. You, Kamalyn Hutcherson, are a sh*t, and should stop taking your life for granted."

If this all nighter goes well, it'll be my ninth this year, my 11th in history, and my second this month. The other one this month was two days ago. And i have a sleepover tomorrow night so I'm not doing the best on sleep but *unintelligible noises* I'll be fine.

-Katherine