When Luck Runs Out

Don't Dwell On Dreams

    "You still don't trust us?" Jeanette asked, sitting against the concrete wall.
"I never said that." I lied.
"You implied it, multiple times." She pointed out. "You know not everyone in this world is cruel?"
"I've only met a select few." I insisted.
"Well, I've met a lot more, and I've found that trust is the first step to actually getting to know a person." Jeanette pointed out.
"I don't trust you." I insisted.
"Who do you trust?" she asked.
"John, Molly, Mrs. Hudson." I decided.
"What about your family?" she pointed out.
"I really don't know them too well to be honest." I shrugged.
"That's depressing." She decided. "Is that why you're gay?"
"Excuse me?" I asked.
"Because you don't trust anyone, you just latched onto the first person who was kind back, and it just happened to be a guy." Jeanette guessed.
"I'm gay because I'm gay, it's not like I chose it." I insisted.
"You could have." She pointed out.
"I knew Molly sooner than I knew John, and she was plenty nice to me. I just never felt a click, like I did with John." I insisted.
"He doesn't really strike me as the type to be going out with another guy." She decided.
"Shockingly enough, it doesn't matter what he looks like." I pointed out.
"Oh, defensive." She laughed. I scowled at her, the only thing worse than getting asked questions about your sexuality is, well, I don't know actually.
"So, you and Greg don't want to kill us or anything?" I asked nervously.
"If we had wanted to kill you we would've done it, we had the perfect opportunity back in the department store." She pointed out.
"Would you have, if you didn't know us prior?" I asked.
"Probably would've, yes. I would've felt bad though, you two seem so happy." She decided.
"Me? Happy?" I laughed.
"I've never seen two people more perfect for each other." Jeanette insisted.
"Well, yes, but you've watched the news, right?" I asked.
"Not particularly, why, what's on the news?" she asked.
"About me going all psycho on those paparazzi, about me hallucinating during evaluations, you saw none of that?" I asked.
"I think I did, I just thought nothing of it." she admitted.
"Well I'm miserable. I'm mentally unstable, I can't sleep, I have nightmares, John is the only beacon of hope in my tempest of a life, that's why I can't let him get killed. Then the storm will take over, and I'd just crack." I admitted.
"You're so poetic." Jeanette laughed.
"It's true." I admitted.
"I had a boyfriend once, that I thought I couldn't live without, I thought that if he left me I'd just shoot myself in the head. Well, I left him, and look at me now." She laughed.
"Are you saying that my relationship with John is just a fad?" I asked, deeply offended.
"No, no, I'm just saying my relationship was just a fad." She corrected.
"It's not, we've been together for a year now." I pointed out.
"I never said anything about that!" Jeanette insisted, looking like she was going to laugh.
"If we weren't in the games I would've married him, we would've been happy, we would've grown old together..." I sighed, sliding down the concrete wall in defeat.
"There's no such thing as a happy ending in this world." Jeanette shrugged.
"I can make it happy for him. He deserves it." I decided.
"You're all obsessed with this idea that if you die for him then he'll be happy, but without you, how could he ever be happy? Imagine your life without him, how miserable you'd be, he'll be just as miserable, you want him to live the rest of his life like that?" Jeanette asked. I sighed, staring down the tunnel with grief.
"Of course I don't, but I just want him to live. If he died I would never forgive myself, I couldn't live with myself, I'd just kill myself as soon as I got out of the arena." I shrugged.
"If John does die then you better live. He'd kill himself to ensure you lived, you better live Sherlock, for him." Jeanette inside.
"You say it like we both won't be dead before we can pick." I laughed.
"Worst case scenario I suppose." Jeanette shrugged, and I smiled.
"This whole thing is a worst case scenario." I pointed out.
"Too true." Jeanette agreed.
"Guess what we found?" Greg announced at the top of the ladder.
"Hopefully what you went to get." I muttered.
"No, you have to guess." John insisted.
"I'm going to kill you both." I decided.
"I'm sure you will, catch." Greg instructed. I went to the ladder and caught two canisters of the decontaminating chemicals and stuff. I unscrewed one of the caps and read the directions. It was pretty self-explanatory, fill it up with water, pour packet in, wait an hour for the process to do its magic. So we filled up the containers, put the packets in, and walked upstairs to our rooftop penthouse, still thirsty but very much looking forward to when our hour would be up.
"God, I'm starving, can we have a late breakfast?" Greg asked.
"Have some sunflower seeds to hold you over until lunch." I insisted.
"I'm not too fond of those things since I found a bit of rat poop in my last handful." Greg muttered.
"Then make sure to check extra carefully." Jeanette insisted. Greg just rolled his eyes, but sat down without getting anything to eat.
"So, what now?" I asked.
"No idea." John admitted.
"How about some more training?" Greg suggested.
"That would be alright." John agreed.
"More like terribly embarrassing." I debated.
"It'll pay off in the end, I saw you using some of the jabs I had taught you on those wolves, and you're not dead, so they must have worked." Greg insisted.
"True, they did help." I sighed.
"Alright then, get our your weapons." John decided. Jeanette once again displayed her master art skills by carving another crude man into the wall of the air conditioner, and we all practiced throwing stuff at it. My knife actually hit it in the chest once, and at the moment I thought that was the most exciting moment of my life, discovering that I wasn't absolutely horrible at everything.
"See, I told you that you could do it!" John insisted, patting me on the back proudly. I just smiled, a little bit flustered with pride, which was a bit lame because it had only been one god throw.
"Alright, alright, he did well, but there won't be any time to celebrate a death if there are two or three people coming after you." Greg insisted. John nodded, and then, without much preparation, stood and hurled the knife at the wall, hitting the man in the head.
"And once again, John is better." I laughed. Once we were all fairly sure the man was dead, or at least there wasn't any more flat metal to aim for, we decided to call it quits, making two pieces of peanut butter bread and splitting each piece since there were now too many of us to each have a whole piece. It was fine though, I wasn't all that hungry, but I knew Greg wasn't too happy with the food selection around here. And I wasn't too, but it was the games, food for every meal of the day was as luxurious as you can get around here, even if it's not that much food and it's not exactly what you were hoping to eat.
"You okay Sherlock?" John asked. The two of us were sitting on the edge of the roof, our feet hanging down off of the ten story drop. Greg and Jeanette were somewhere on the roof I supposed, but out of earshot.
"No, god no I'm not okay we're in the games." I insisted, finishing off the last bite of my bread and licking the excess peanut butter off of my fingers. The bad thing about this reoccurring meal was that peanut butter made you extra thirsty, and we still had to wait another ten minutes or so for our water to be done filtering.
"I think, for the games, that this is actually a lot better than I thought." John insisted.
"I know that, of course. But I don't know, do you honestly trust them?" I asked.
"I do. If they had wanted to kill us they've had an abundance of opportunities, they could've closed us in with the wolves, pushed us off the ladder, slit our throats when we first met them, they've helped us and I hate to admit it, but without them, we'd most likely be dead." John insisted. I sighed, swinging my feet off of the roof and frowning a little bit
"I had a dream that they betrayed us." I muttered.
"Oh, so then you're a fortune teller now?" John laughed.
"No, but it means that inside I don't feel comfortable with them, dreams reflect the feelings that you might not even know you had." I pointed out.
"Usually my nightmares are about feelings I know I do have." John pointed out, his hand slowly creeping into mine, interlocking our fingers. "Like, I see that Jeff kid, trying to kill me, I see us, getting killed in the games, I see you, waiting for me at the end of an aisle." I blushed, but I couldn't keep a smile from penetrating my lips.
"Most of my nightmares are about losing you." I admitted.
"You don't have any good dreams?" John asked.
"Never." I sighed.
"Well, if you did, what do you think they would be about?" John asked. I thought for a moment, but there only seemed to be one happy thing in my life.
"You, of course. Both of us getting off of the hovercraft, having a happy future, having a quiet, peaceful life in love." I decided.
"Precisely. And unfortunately we know that won't happen, so don't dwell on dreams. They're here to help us, and unless somehow the four of us come out on top, they won't turn their blades towards us." John assured.
"It could happen." I decided.
"What could?" John asked.
"Our dreams of happiness, it still might happen." I insisted.
"How?" John asked.
"Well, has there ever been a game where two people make it out alive? A mercy rule or something?" I asked.
"Never." John decided after a little bit of thought.
"Well maybe we should be the first. Refuse to kill each other." I insisted.
"Sherlock then the gamemakers will just kill both of us." John pointed out.
"Just, try to think positively." I muttered.
"The positive is impossible; you know that more than anyone. You know I'd love to do anything I can to get the two of us out, but we have to be real here." he insisted.
"Please John, let me die." I muttered.
"You know I can't do that." John insisted.
"But I can't let you die either." I pointed out.
"Let's just focus on getting us both to the end before we decide who'll die and who won't. We might not get to pick." John pointed out.
"I have to belive we will." I insisted.
"It'll work out Sherlock, one way or another, it will end. All of this pain, this suffering, this sadness, it will end." John sighed, looking over the arena.
"It's actually kind of pretty up here." I decided, looking at the crumbling brick buildings, seeing them stretch out endlessly before my eyes.
"Does the arena seem smaller to you?" John asked.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, I can't see the barrier, and I doubt I will, but when we first got here it felt huge, and the second day it kind of felt a little bit smaller, it's like it's shrinking." John decided.
"We have no way of knowing I suppose, unless you're psychic." I shrugged.
"I'm definitely not psychic." John assured.
"Then I guess we have nothing to worry about, do we?" I laughed.
"I guess we don't." John agreed.
"Hey love birds, if you two care, we see someone!" Jeanette announced. I scrambled off the edge of the roof, pulling John with me in case someone would hear our voices. We both crept over to where Greg and Jeanette were looking over, not seeming too worried about detection.
"Who is it?" I asked, peering over the roof and seeing two people walking below us, both visibly armed, but with only one small bag draped over the larger one's shoulder.
"The people from four." Greg decided.
"How do you know that?" I asked, not able to make out any details.
"One's a man, that's obvious, and one's a girl. She seems to have frizzy hair, and he's pretty muscular." Greg pointed out.
"Quite an eye you've got." I laughed.
"Oh, well, it's something you need in this line of work." Greg shrugged.
"This is work?" I asked.
"Of course it's not, stop taking things too seriously." Greg laughed. The two of them continued walking, obviously unaware of their stalkers from above. It made me wonder if we had been watched like that as we scampered around, looking for shelter.
"Are they a threat?" John asked.
"I saw her fight, she's decent, but I think I could take her." Jeanette decided.
"Well you're a good fighter, against me..." I pointed out.
"You'll be fine Sherlock, you did great against the wolves, and even with our little training sessions, you're getting better." John insisted.
"It's not enough. Against anyone else in this arena I'm dead." I pointed out.
"That's not the attitude you need. The first step to killing someone is believing in yourself." Greg insisted.
"Well, that was almost motivational." I shrugged.
"I've got that on the back of a tee shirt." Jeanette laughed. The two people from District Four moved on without noticing us, and before long they were out of our line of vision. But it made me wonder, how many other people would wander through here? We weren't alone, no matter what we wanted to think.