Worth it | F.O.

XXII

A full day and accounting of the dead had passed and that brief peace in which she lingered among the ranks of Careers had drawn to a close just as swiftly as it had arrived. 

That night they had even just as well admitted as much to her that she was nothing but a murder errand girl to them, if that wasn't an odd enough statement on its own. They made it clear that, to them, she would serve her purpose in wiping out all others hiding in the depths of the swamp, and they would find some way to get rid of her too before turning on each other. 

So that night, she had sat by the fire closer than any dared, thinking over everything that had and was bound to happen. Her mind flooded with images of blood and glory, crowns and crowds, and burning streaks of flame and arcing lightning. 

The careers had been fortunate enough to locate a nearby stream clear of any animals, murderous bacteria, and tributes alike and so her bare face clean of the blood drowning it before did nothing to reflect what state her mind was in, nor how she itched to back far away and allow cool night air and not the heat of fire to grace her wide, youthfully full cheeks. Nothing could hope to change how tarnished her clothing had become in the process of the bloodbath so at least, she supposed with a want for more to scream at the world so she didn't have to, there was that. 

But the state of red seeping further into her ancestral token of a cheery yellow now re-entwined into her hair was something that soured her mood more than anything. It was as though the games were trying to take that light in her life away from her desperate grasp and into its gloating one. Or cut her free from the one rope tying her to the edge of a cliff and holding her just above the jaws of the unknown, of death, and of despair inescapable. 

Hungry red flames flickering gold and orange reached for the dark skies noticeably lacking stars in the reflection of her brown eyes, its grand arms stretching hopelessly to the bodies of flesh, bones, and blood that had yet to lay within its vast stomach. Flesh, bones, and blood that, in that moment, were being reduced to ashes. 

This, too, occupied much of her thoughts as she gazed into the fire. 

There was only one person resting in there, only one belonging to the very first kill she had used to taint her soul. Sure, Nivea knew well enough his family would be furious at her for dragging him off into those growing flames before the hovercraft could carry him away, but she did not do it without reason. She didn't do anything without reason anymore. All she had wanted to do was give the dead the justice they deserved at the hands of this system. Nine's family wouldn't understand, she even doubted they would take a moment to, but this was what he had wanted, after all. 

For, of all the things he could have possibly cashed in as his first words to her that day they met and "bonded", he had chosen tearful, determined, and resigned spoken in a whisper when he dared to glance up in the silence, “I don't know how you'll do it, but when I die, I don't want the hovercraft to take me away. Let me be cremated, I've never wanted my family to see me as anything less than that. They don't want me to, they'll try to stop you, but please burn my body when I die.”

For the first time in quite awhile, Nivea had been genuinely shocked, even so into silence for much too long. “You mean if. And, how can you be cer -”

“People like me just don't survive the Hunger Games, Vida.” He shrugged as he cut her off, the flippant nature of it a complete oxymoron alongside the heartbreak on his face, in his voice, “And I just know. Whereas I will die, I can already tell you're one of those that will survive. So live, and give me this one thing, please.”

At the time only silence had answered him. But this silence around the fire of his remains was an answer, more so than any she had ever given to any question asked by any one person.