Death is Patient

Why Are There So Few Stars In the Sky?

I wake with a start to the ominous sound of a cannon. I reach out blindly, grabbing for Fedya. My head is pounding and my ear hurts a little, but overall I feel better than the evening before thanks to the sponsored medicine. Someone with the hope of winning would be thankful, thinking they could make it to the end; to me it feels more like I'm being tortured for fun.

Two cannons. That means we're almost in the top 5. I'd never thought I'd make it this far. Some part of me thinks it's simply because the game masters weren't prepared enough with such a new arena, not understanding that the kids from district 8 would be able to handle a more urban environment. Or maybe it was simply pure luck. I didn't know much anymore. Every circumstance was a maybe. Maybe I'm lucky, maybe I'll die soon, maybe maybe maybe. The only thing I know is death.

Fedya doesn't grab my hand back when I grab his. It hangs almost limp in mine. He's looking somewhere else, above our barricade of trash bins. I get up onto my knees, fighting the slight vertigo. The sight makes me nauseous.

The walls has turned almost black with the swirling, deadly shadows. They squirm and roll over each other, shooting and rolling out in waves of spikes, like boiling oil on the surface of the buildings. It looked like a morbid dance. They were reaching for us, but they couldn't get all the way. That's what the cannon must've been. Another victim fallen to the wall shadows. Their movement reminds me of the silkworms at home, when moved from one place to another. White, long bodies crawling over each other - except these were like oil spills, deadly yet oddly beautiful.

"Let's go", is all Fedya says, breathless. He doesn't look at me. There's dark circles under his eyes, Diamond's blood still crusted on his clothes and under his nails. He can't have slept at all tonight. Maybe he's kept himself awake with his thoughts, needing to work through what he'd done. I'd rarely seen him as lost in thought as I usually was. He'd been the alert one of the two of us, always quick to react and a fast talker. Now he was quiet, almost brooding. I got up and followed him.

We started walking. To where, we weren't sure as of right now. There was only six of us left. Or five? I'd lost count.

The walls kept writhing. Whenever we came too close to either side of the street, a long, slick spike would protrude out, trying to spear through us. It was a precarious walk, one of them nicking Fedya's arm. We had to walk in a line instead of beside each other, chests tense and eyes on the ground. I couldn't see him, yet I could somehow sense a wall between us, like it'd appeared over night.

"There's only five of us left, you know", Fedya says. "We made it this far."

The knowledge settles in my stomach. I can't see his face from where I am behind him, but his shoulders are squared.

"Fedya, what-" I want to know what he's thinking. What's changed.

As if on cue, I hear someone yell. I look over his shoulder, and with ice in my veins, I watch the three remaining careers come around a corner. They, too, are walking carefully in the middle. It looks hilarious to me for just a second, like they're the three pigs going to build their houses so the wolf can't get them. I watch them stop one at a time, staring at us just like we are at them. A moment of balance, of mutual contemplating. As if they're sensing our anxiety, the shadows start moving quicker, spiking from walls even though they can't reach us. Like they're thirsty for blood, expecting more to be spilled.

"It's the fucking coward twins from district eight!" The one in the front screams. She's one of the ones who'd been hunting me when I'd been hiding at the start. I watch her start running for us.

Before we can even react to turn around and run, she moves too far to the right. We watch as one of the spikes shoot out for her, prepared for any wrong step. It buries itself in her ear with enough speed to shoot his brain fluid out through the other one. The end of it hooks around his head and pulls him with it to the side. A cannon is heard as the spikes cover him in black oil spill. We stare at the other two careers. Four of us left. None of us move.

Then Fedya turns around. I think he wants to run, but I know we can't. We need to square up. I don't have a weapon, but my gut reaction takes over. I need to put myself between him and them somehow, to make sure he has a chance of survival. He can win, I can't. I reduce myself to a human shield in that moment; a puppet of the capitol, a piece of flesh to stand in the way of my brother's life.

I start moving, but he grabs my arm, stops me. Something is wrong. I turn back to look at him, my eyes so alike to his meeting his. We're the same, yet in this moment that familiarity suddenly seems broken, like he's cut the string between us. I furrow my brow. He's distant, disappeared behind his eyes in a way he's never been. He's gone somewhere else, lost his old alertness. What is he thinking about?

I think, genuinely, that he's pulling me in for a hug when it comes. That though it's a bad moment, he simply wants some warmth from me, much like I too want the familiarity of someone so close to me. One last embrace before the inevitable end of these games. I lift my arms, the one that had been out of its socket painful, but our last hug needs to be proper. He turns his mouth to my ear.

"I'm sorry, Yeya", is all he says. There's something unreadable in his voice. Then he punches me in the gut. It's hard enough that I lose my breath. He pulls back, and does it again. I look down, trying to catch his hand, to stop him- but he's not punching me.

I watch the handle of the knife I'd thought I'd lost protruding from my stomach. The one I'd sawed the rope off with, to save his life. It's stuck inside me, my blood leaking out through the first wound. He's stuck it inside me. It's high up. I can't breathe. My hands tremble in the air as I stare at it.

My blood drips onto the ground. I remember the drop of blood we'd left behind on the floor of the train, if it'd been cleaned up by he avoxes or if it was still there. If it had been as insignificant as his promise.

My warmth starts seeping out with my blood as he pulls it out again. It's serrated and brings a lot of me with it, too. I watch it as he drops it to the ground. The sound is odd to my ears. For a moment, I almost stagger too far to the side, but Fedya catches me, keeps me away from the terrors of the wall despite what he's just done. His hands are soft, almost kind.

"What have you done?" I ask. I can hear my blood dripping onto the asphalt. It's spoken weakly. My legs give in but instead of sinking down with me, he stays up. I look down, trying to catch my intestines with my hands, aimlessly pushing them back inside the two serrated holes like it's going to help at all. "You promised", I tell him, but he doesn't say anything back. "You promised", I repeat, like he'll realize and undo what he's done.

The wound doesn't hurt.

As I fall to the ground, all I can see are his feet as he turns around and leaves me there. He doesn't stay to say farewell, doesn't hold my hand like he used to do when I was too scared of the dark to fall asleep.

The dark inches in on me now, darker than ever before, as he leaves me behind to bleed out, walking toward the careers. The stars should be out at this time of night, I think, as I start drifting. We should be able to see the constellations.

"You promised", I whisper, but I can't see him anymore. I can't see anything anymore You promised. You promised. You promised.

There should be more stars in the sky tonight. I can't see any of the constellations.