Victor's Crown: A Hunger Games Story

𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗲𝗿 [𝟭𝟴]

Finnick is not fortunate enough to remain entirely unconscious for the several hours it takes the venom to metabolize and be excreted from his system. He fades in and out of awareness, riding waves of searing misery to conscious shores, then back out into the deep waters of oblivion. At times he floats somewhere in between, in the nebulous waters between lucidity and senselessness, too somnolent to navigate his consciousness in either direction, but awake enough to know he's still in pain.

A presence he's cognizant enough to understand as Caspia comes and goes, an aquatic bird descending onto the surface of a lake, her hazy silhouette barely more than a dark shape to Finnick, who still drifts in the murky water below her. Before Finnick can swim up and figure out exactly what the shadow is, she's gone, taken flight to places Finnick is too lethargic to venture.

After what seems like an eternity of riding these tides, of washing in and out of consciousness, Finnick finally wakes up. At first, everything is still gloomy and vague, muted by a constant roar thundering in his ears. For a fleeting moment, icy terror clutches Finnick's heart and twists. The ant's venom has rendered him sightless. He will have to stumble around the arena blind, more helpless than a Callow, until someone takes pity on him and ends his suffering.

Then he spots the moon, or rather, a wedge of its silvery glow illuminating the ground beside him. So he's not going blind; it's just nighttime. Gradually, he becomes aware of other things as well: The soreness pervading his joints and muscles, the dry-sponge quality of his mouth, the sheen of sweat coating his skin. He clasps a hand to his chest, relieved to find all six of his knives still strapped there.

The white noise in the background focuses into a sound Finnick's ears finally recognize: A waterfall. Where is he? Some kind of cave or grotto, he deduces, cramped and dark and humid. His backpack is tucked in the corner, out of range of the waterfall's spray.

It takes longer than usual for him to get to his feet, but it turns out he can't stand up anyway, the cave ceiling is so low. So he grabs his backpack and crawls the rest of the way out of the space, his entire body damp with mist, and clambers to his feet behind a thundering waterfall. When he emerges from behind it, shaking water droplets from his hair, he finally spots Caspia standing at its base. His spear is clutched in her hand.

Before he can decide on a course of action, Caspia looks up and spots him standing there. She raises a single hand in greeting. Bathed in moonlight, ensconced in the waterfall's mist, she is mystic, otherworldly.

The smart thing to do would be to take off, disappear into the rainforest and leave Caspia to fend for herself. She's done all right so far, hasn't she? Finnick certainly isn't going to be the one to kill her. So what's the point of sticking around?

Instead, Finnick raises his hand as well, mirroring her gesture. On legs shakier than he'd care to admit, he makes his way down a slippery, treacherous path to ground level and meets Caspia at the edge of the river, just out of reach of the waterfall's spray.

"How'd you get me all the way up there?" he asks.

"You walked up there yourself," she replies. "You don't remember?"

No, Finnick doesn't remember. He doesn't recall anything except abject pain devouring him from the inside out. "How long was I out?"

"Eh, a few hours. You just missed the anthem."

"I don't suppose you're willing to tell me if any of the Primaries were gracious enough to go ahead and die from those excruciating ant bites?"

"Unfortunately not." Caspia regards him with that same sullen nonchalance as she did before the Games, with hooded eyes and a brazen smirk and a vaguely bored expression Finnick is sure drove academy personnel insane. "And they aren't bites, they're stings."