The Sound of Falling Snow | A Hunger Games Fanfiction

Chapter 18

Has the day really dragged on this long? Is it really still daytime? There has been so much tension today, with Leander's confrontation and the wild cat mutts hunting us. Was it really just this morning that Leander had come to kill us? That – my lip trembles, but I try not to show it for the sake of looking strong for the audience that must be watching us, watching me – we killed that boy, who could not have been more than fifteen or sixteen? I just want this day to be done. I don't want it to go on any longer; it's already deteriorated so well.

Our only set of clothes are still damp from the rain from earlier, which has slowed to only a very slight drizzle over the course of time, rather than the heavy downpour that soaked you instantly earlier. I'm scared to go out and venture into the woods, without any idea of what might be out there that would be all too happy to attack us. More mutts and tributes?

We've eaten through most of the provisions we got from the backpack at the very start of the Games at the Cornucopia, and I haven't enough, if any, knowledge on edible plants or how to hunt to be of much use at all.

I wish that we could go home. I wish we could just forget about the Games. Forget about the last few days, last few weeks. I wonder what it was like in the old days, before the Dark Days. Before the Hunger Games were created, before the districts and the Capitol even existed. When we were one united world. It's hard to imagine that it could have ever been like that. It seems so unreal, so impossible, so perfect. Could such a place have actually existed? And if that old world really did exist, how could it, how did it deteriorate so fast into this dystopia, this present, this place filled with people who torture each other to no end? This is our reality now, and so many have never known a place where people can be assured of their long lifespan and safety. So many have never known what it was like to be free. Including myself. Even in the Capitol, we were never truly free. Although no one said it, we all knew that any disobedience, any rebellion would cause us to be turned into an Avox. Or worse.

The system is fragile, I had overheard my grandfather talking to one of his assistants. It was why he had gone out to District 12 after the 74th Hunger Games, before the Victory Tour. The handful of nightlock that she had pulled out at the end of the Games as a double suicide. They didn't like how easily two tributes who were supposed to be under their control could show them out with just some poisonous berries. But the Games were never a solution to the problem, anyway. They don't solve anything. It's just cruel revenge. It has been for more than the past 75 years. Again and again. Justice. Revenge. So similar, yet so different. So many have confused them. The Capitol. The districts. Us. Alike, but at the same time two factors at the end of a spectrum. Two factors that could not be farther apart. So similar that they make you confuse right with wrong, sending you in circles and circles until you can't be certain which way is up or down or left or right. Until you can't be positive of who you can rely on, who you can believe, who you can trust.

Well, I'm confident that I can trust Victoria at least. We've been best friends ever since we were little, that time when I saw her sitting alone and walked over to eat with her during lunch so long ago. The Games won't stop that. The Games won't tear us apart. Haven't we just shown them that, proved to them that they can't take everything, everyone from us? Is this defiance that they won't tolerate? I suspect they won't let us keep an alliance for too long. They want to see us killing each other, just like we made them fight one another for so many years.

Supposedly, the victors who had survived the purge during the war had taken a vote as to whether or not there would be a final Hunger Games. Was it easy for them to simply say "yes" or "no" when the idea was, because they knew that they wouldn't be involved in it anymore? That no matter their choice, it would have no effect on them? It's a dark thought, the fact that someone could be that harsh, but it's probably true. I wonder how it was when the idea for the Games was originally introduced. Who decided it? It's been a secret kept even from Victoria and me. Even many of the most important families couldn't give you an answer to that.

My thoughts are interrupted with the anthem, which once again signals the end of the third day in the arena, ready to show us who has lived and died today. There are only two portraits in the sky tonight. The first is a younger girl, tribute number 3. I don't remember her from the reaping, but I feel as if I have seen her somewhere, recognize her. All in a moment, it clicks. We shared some classes together at school. Her name is Eliana. She was always so quiet and unassuming, despite the fact that her parents had been wealthy and important – so important that she was able to escape the fate of so many of the other children, who died in the explosion – that I hardly noticed her. And now she, too, is dead. My anger at Coin and those who agreed with her plans is renewed, a wound open and bleeding once again. How could they have killed someone like Eliana? Do they really have no sense of integrity?

A sickening feeling comes in my stomach, making it turn in dread. I know who the next one is. The boy we killed.

I clap a hand to my mouth to stop myself from crying out in disbelief and fury at my previous actions.

It was a dream. It was a dream. It was a dream. This is all a dream. I will wake up soon and be back home. No matter how hard I try to convince myself that none of this is real, it does nothing. Nothing will ever change what I did before. Nothing will ever justify it.

I had hoped that I could retain my innocence during the Games, and not hurt anyone. That didn't last for long. Three days in, and I've already assisted someone in a kill.

We went into the Games with a clean conscience. Or as clean as you can get, anyway, in the Capitol. Most of us, that is. When one of us comes out, the victor, we won't be that person anymore. We'll be stained with the crimes from our time in the arena.

I fall back against my homemade pillow of grasses and leaves, trying to banish the memories from my mind. Numb, numb, numb. Don't feel. Don't think. It will all be over soon.

So I sink into the blackness, succumbing to the temporary reprieve of sleep, even though it won't last. At least here I'll be safe. Relatively speaking.

Why? Because while we're in the Games, we'll never truly be safe.