Jeopardy: The Fourth Quarter Quell

Leaving - Daniel

Daniel

There's no avoiding it. One of us at least is going to have to go to the feast.

Alex is surprisingly calm. He itches absently at his forearm, staring up at the sky that he can't see. I daren't look at him. Not directly, anyway. Last time I did was an hour ago and his eyes were starting to cloud over, a thick grey haze coating the lively blue underneath. Thank goodness he hadn't been able to see me jump in fright. I'm not sure when he stopped seeing completely; he didn't say.

It's going to have to be me. We can't stay out here, both of us, and hope that the rest all kill each other off before we can starve. We have to at least try. Don't we?

Perhaps it'd be better to just fade away out here. Let's face it, I don't stand a chance. I must be one of - if not the - youngest tributes left, and I only got this far because I've been lucky. We've been lucky.  Two close escapes; the boy from Seven and the pair from Four. We must be done riding our luck by now.

The evening sun shines through the leaves, the gentle breeze creating dappled shadows over my face. Once I would have thought how pretty it was, wondered how to get it down on paper. Now it just reminds me that it won't rain again. Even though I took in as much water as possible, my lips are dry and cracked and running my tongue over them doesn't help at all.

And of course, the strip of red light keeps catching my eye.

What's it like? Not so much the dying; I can imagine that. Every so often back home you'd come face to face with it. Not through the Games - they're on screen, used to be another world away - but when disease would ripple through the district. They'd come quickly, silently in the night, take their fill and leave just as suddenly, leaving those behind ill or overworked. And then you'd build back up, get used to it, just in time for the next one. In the early stages, people always collapsed in the fields. They got back up quickly, especially if they saw a Peacekeeper coming, but they'd have this sort of queasy white complexion, like the inside of an egg. Then the next day you wouldn't see them at all.

Sooner or later it would happen to someone else, someone closer to home. Then you'd see it properly; the sweating, the swellings. When it was really bad you could hear them coughing at night. Pa always isolated us during outbreaks. Most families did something similar, only some were too slow. The Peacekeepers wouldn't often catch you because they'd be afraid of getting sick too. I was always terrified they would, though.

When Ma got sick, I didn't leave her bedside. I sat there all day and all night, drawing to distract myself, and I found myself drawing her. Even when she wasn't moving, she somehow managed to look in pain. And then one moment her face just went peaceful and I thought she'd died, and I'd shouted for Rena and started crying. But she'd only fallen asleep.

That was what they said when somebody died, though. That it was peaceful. Like they'd just ridden off into the sunset, never to come back.

I won't get the mercy of that.

I've seen it. Here it's not so much the death as the manner of it. Surely almost all families risk their children dying out in the districts. But here's it's almost a certainty, and almost certainly painful. Ripped to shreds, actually torn to pieces. What parent or sibling could cope with that?

Sorrow wells at the inside of my throat, threatening to explode in a wail. I clamp my lips and try to choke it down. It takes a lot. I'm not even sure when I start that I can do it, only that I have to. Alex must not hear me break down; it must be so much worse for him.

Something shuffles, something near Alex.

There's no danger. It's only Alex himself, shakily climbing to his feet. I open my mouth to ask him what he's doing, but all that comes out is a stammer. His head whips unseeingly in my direction anyway.