Worth it | F.O.

XX

Seemingly endless darkness swallowed her deep into its depths. 

And she remained in there for the next what very well may have been a mere 15 seconds or an expanse of hours as she drifted up in that glass tube, seeping her of all coherent. Then there was light washing it away with overcast skies and humid air pricking at her skin with the foretelling of sweat. Her eyes burst to life where they had been dimmed by disorientation, sweeping the ground - or, rather, expanses of mud and water - surrounding her. 

Then that horrid smell swept in almost instantaneously with the breeze she had heard from below, her every instinct begging her to block it out in any way possible. 

But she refused to impair her chances at survival, shifting her feet so she bent at the waist just as she had been taught, hands at her sides ready to pick up whatever she could use to take down her opponent, brown eyes instantly seeking out her shining silver target, and her heart pounding in her ears only picking up its pace when a voice boomed in the sky, seemingly surrounding her, “Ladies and gentlemen, let the sixty-eighth Hunger Games begin!”

The voice gave her a power and sense of reality Nivea had desperately needed. 

Just as with every game before hers - oh lords above, she was in the Hunger Games; she had actually made it, her life's purpose really, truly, lay before her now in the lives she would cease - every tribute, girl and boy, 24 bodies humming with energy, coursing with blood, stood in a circle on spotless platforms like hers. They were clothed in thick water-resistant camo coats, brown transitioning up into forest green slick form-fitting pants, and tight shirts of the same patterning clung to every muscle, the mesh of their long, green sleeves showing on the shoulders of a select few who seemed to have decided to prioritize style over survival. 

Now, as Nivea took those precious moments of silence with only the ticking of the timer to scan the arena, she understood everything. 

Every color on her person, bar for the bright yellow of the token she was beyond relieved she had been allowed to bring, reflected onto the dense landscape before her haunted with hunching trees and great expanses of mud dotted with bushes of all degrees of barren. And in the midst if it all lay the cornucopia on the one entirely intact, stable, patch of land in sight, it's metal and that of the weapons within its large front glinting in the inconsistent sun, packs and a variety of other items spread further out in various patches of mud itching at her poised muscles. One thing she noticed above all about it, however, was the startling lack of anything resembling food that normally would have been stacked left and right within the metal's depths and in the grass at their feet. 

Then that horrid smell sunk into her clothes and her nose wrinkled, brows furrowing as she knew the stench would come to bother her in the coming days. 

Nivea had never really had any burning desire to see, or experience, a swamp for herself and this certainly had not changed things. It was just her rotten luck she was stuck in such a miserable place for her mission. When her eyes landed on something resting against the inside of the cornucopia, however, almost instantly everything became that much more bearable from the sweat in her palms to the now-steady beating of her heart. 

A voice so blissfully unaware as to the plans she had set into motion came back to her then from a conversation she had had with Chaff just before departing to the hovercraft, “There's only one thing you need to do to get out of that initial bloodbath in one piece, little shit.” 

She had scoffed, asking skeptically, “And what would that be? I don't have all day, Handyman.”

His stare had been so shockingly serious Nivea had even dared to take him as such for a moment after he said, “Get the hell away. Nothing is worth it.”