The Sound of Falling Snow | A Hunger Games Fanfiction

Chapter 16

"Hand me my sword, would you?" Leander says, nodding to his ally on the left, who passes it to him obediently.

From my peripheral vision, I see Victoria slowly sliding a knife down her sleeve into her hand. Her lips form the shape of a word. Don't, I realize. She is trying to stop me from saying anything. Not like I ever would. I guess she just thinks that I'm too impulsive. I probably am. It's the two of us against the three of them. And they're all older than us, too. We wouldn't stand a chance.

Leander grins to his "friends" – or at least, I think they are, based on the trust they've shown between each other. I wonder if it's just a temporary sense of belonging that they've gained from their time in the arena, rather than a feeling of mutual friendship toward one another.

It happens suddenly. She gives me a small nod, and in one fluid motion, I crash into the boy on Leander's right, and Victoria is lying in wait, ready to spring the moment he hits the floor. She takes her blade and slits his throat, the skin splitting in a dark red smile. A loud boom follows, and he's dead in an instant. Gone. Ceasing to breathe as his blood slowly drains into the dirt, staining the ground with a deep crimson.

I see the glint of fear in his eyes, his lip trembling ever so slightly. You wouldn't notice if you weren't looking closely. But after a moment, he appears to regain his composure.

"Come on," he says to his remaining ally. "They won't make it, anyway."

Is he scared at our quickness to kill, or does he truly believe it? Or is he just trying to convince himself that we're not a threat, simply because he doesn't want to deal with a real opponent, someone who won't just keel over the moment they see a weapon?

That's all it takes. They walk off, their group now diminished to only two. Leaving the body to rot in the soil, for the blood to leach out as a wet, sticky substance. They could have at least shown some remorse. But clearly he, too, was just another obstacle in the way of them getting home. What have we all become? How easily we all have been turned on each other. We're forgetting who put us in the arena and blaming each other for everything. We've become just like the districts. Always thinking each other is the enemy. And ignoring the one that really is.

I try and make myself look away from the body of the dead tribute on the ground, but I can't help it. I helped kill him. My actions resulted in his death. It's unforgivable. The worst part is that there's no way back from it. I've traveled too far down the path of survival and lost my way in the darkness.

It was irreversible suffering that I helped to cause, and I knew it the moment I threw myself at him. But I still did it. Because I care more about my own life than his, as I had just shown. Even if it wasn't a direct kill, I still was instrumental in it. Somewhere back home, there are people who are mourning his loss, who have probably just seen the death in full over the television. Somewhere out there, someone is fueled by a fierce fury – even fury is too light a word for this – fueled by a hatred of Victoria and me, who have just ended his short life. Who have just murdered this boy. And even though we were thrown into the arena, forced to kill each other if we wanted to live, we didn't have to go along with it so readily.

If their goal was to show us what it was like to suffer from the Capitol's reign all these years, they've certainly accomplished it. But what's to be gained from revenge? It's a cruel form of torture, to sit by and watch the children of your home be killed for sport and entertainment, I'm sure, but after all this time of enduring it themselves, why should they be so quick to turn it around and use it once again, merely to punish us?

And after it's been started, it's just going to go in a vicious cycle of rebellion and agony and aggression. Nothing's ever going to change. Not then, not now. Around and around and around with no end to the pain. Someone will always be losing at the game. There's never a perfect balance. It's so easy to rupture, so easy to upset, so easy to throw once some form of equality has been created. One small touch could send the whole system crashing down, the whole world tumbling to dust. Just one action could start a chain reaction. Flawlessness to disaster in a single step. Faultlessness to catastrophe. Such a pure white turned gray with only a drop of black. Anything perfect will soon turn imperfect with a simple mistake. Darkness becomes more prominent in the light.

—

I rock myself gently to the rhythm of the falling rain, as it drip, drip, drips to break their symmetry in our empty water bottles, breaking against the plastic. The rain has kept us hiding out for almost the whole day, for fear of getting our only set of clothes wet. The temperature has decreased dramatically in the past few hours, and both Victoria and I decided it wasn't worth it to go out in this weather. We can defend ourselves. Like we did this morning. But was it self-defense? Or was it an attack? Both, I realize.

I bury my head in my hands, trying desperately but unsuccessfully to rid myself of the memory. But it's not something that you can easily forget.

My first kill. It's like a dull throbbing, one that never stops hurting. It doesn't go away, so you just have to learn to live with it, with yourself. Even though you may never forgive yourself for it.

A sound of rubbing snaps me back to reality, and I look up to find Victoria striking a small twig against a sharp bit of stone, trying without much success yet to start a fire under the small bit of shelter we've managed to secure. I'm skeptical of it, especially after seeing so many tributes defeated by making them and being discovered in previous Games. A blaze burns brighter than anything in this arena.

"No one's going to come hunting for us in this weather," she explains. "And besides, if they did, we'd be easy targets. They already know where we are. We haven't got anything left to lose."

But the once-brittle branches are too damp to light, and the attempt is useless. Victoria sits back with a heavy, frustrated sigh, dropping her hands to her sides and releasing the stone and stick, which have left small imprints in her palms that indicate the tight grip with which she was holding them.

We stay there, shivering, huddled up against one another, hoping that the extra body heat would be able to keep us warmer. We've got only the thin jackets they provided us with at the very start, when we were still in the catacombs, waiting with an intense fear for the final Games they've subjected us to participate in to begin.

And that's when I notice them. It's something you'd only notice if you've been in the arena, where everything means something dangerous.

The shifting shadows.