Melting of a frozen heart

Chapter 15

I peer down at the body that rests at my feet, and I feel condolence for the boy. As a group, we have already excepted having to take lives, even though it is wrong. But something about a wrongdoing like this, from an Capitol student, is disturbing. I know the whole group feels this way too. We all seem unsettled by this, but not very fazed either. It's no surprise that a boy like Blondie would go too far in "protecting" himself, assuming that was what he was doing.

I stop looking at the boy, and start walking away. Watching isn't going to change anything, and he was going to die anyways. Better now than having to do it myself. 

I can tell the rest of the group walked away too, from the almost soundless footsteps I hear. "What do we do now?" I hear Mizzen whispers to Coral.

"Hide out, and wait again I guess." she tells him. 

We all walk back into the dark hallways again, but we don't go back to where we were. Instead we opt for staying in the halls. "It would be easier, and faster to get the others that way. We won't have a wall blocking us" Coral tells us before we get too far. "Hey! You two idiot's go bring out the tributes from earlier, and bring them in the center of this hellhole. I don't want to trip over their dead bodies."

I have to resist the urge to throw something sharp at her right now, so instead I begrudgingly listen to get it over with. I walk in the direction that she was talking about, with Tanner close by my side. "She is getting ridiculous, you know?" he says.

"Yeah well. This is what we signed up for." I tell him. Not eager to hear his complaints.

"Well I just thought you would agree with me. Seeing that you aren't too fond of her either." he says. "You know this all would be easier if you were the leader, or whatever."

"What?" I ask, very confused by that statement.

"Well you seem to think more then she does. You seem smart I guess." He says with a shrug of the shoulders.

"Well I'm not as vicious as Coral is, so I wouldn't be too great at that job. Anyways I was just gonna fly solo before I got asked to join this group. But then I got the offer, and thought it would be smarter to have people by my side." I say to him.

"Yeah Coral can be quite feral. Like an angry cat, that you forced into a sweater." he tells me.

"You put a cat into a sweater?" I ask him, with a huff of a laugh.

"Yup. How do you think I lost my eye?" he asks me, and I shoot him a look. "I'm kidding by the way."

We end up approaching the two dead tributes from five, and we both go quiet. Mutually going over the emotional turmoil from the knowledge that we caused them to be like this. We both share a look, and under our stone faces is remorse in our eyes. I just swallow the guilt, and walk over to the closer tribute. The boy.

He isn't too bloody for someone who got choked out by a chain. By the looks of it his neck snapped before he could lose all of his air. I see cuts, and bruises on his neck, then a part where it looks like bone is trying to pop through the skin. I get closer to his head, and crouch down to his face. I bring my hand to gently close his eyes, before going to grab his arms. I look at Tanner, and he seems to understand, and he grabs the boys legs.

The two of us are fairly strong, so we were able to bring out the body, where Coral wanted, fairly fast. Then we both walked over to where the other tribute is. Once she was in sight, I subconsciously slowed down a touch. 

I went over near her head, and just stood staring down at her lifeless form. Unlike her district partner, she is drenched in blood. With a massive cut on her chest, with pieces of torn flesh peaking out. All remaining color from her face is drained, from the blood loss. She almost looks unrecognizable compared to how she once was.