the sun has faded

victor

His realization of the day is that Johanna is not the enemy. Sometimes he forgets, because she is scary, rude, generally confrontational, and she'd killed his tributes in her season. It's important that he remembers that the reason she had killed them was because of Snow and his games. Snow was the enemy. Josh shouldn't forget.

She's quieter now anyway. They sit and watch the games together, all the while negotiating with sponsors and pooling their resources to send Tyler and Hanna gifts.

For several days, they both stay out of trouble. The death toll and gamemaker stunts are not something that affects Tyler and Hanna. The tributes from 8, 10, and 11 that survived the initial blood bath are hunted down and killed by the careers. The careers then decide that the brutish girl from one is too big a threat and turn on her, pummeling her with sticks and rocks as a team. It is brutal to the point that Josh has to close his eyes and hum loudly to tune out her screams.

With so few tributes left, the careers fracture. The two girls from 2 and 4 stick together, and the boy from 1 disappears into the trees to hide. Josh can't stop shaking with nerves. He's never had a tribute make it to the final five before. He imagines being able to return Hanna to her family ALIVE. The dream is so tantalizingly close.

It's just when he's hit the painful peak of optimism that the girls from District 1 and 2, Diamond and Leopanine, track down Hanna and Tyler. Leopanine looks genuinely pained as she appraises them. "Hey Tyler, I'm sorry it's come to this. You know I think you're a sweetheart. But we can't all win."

Tyler nods weakly. He's got his axe gripped tightly in his hand, but he's not striking; he can't seem to bring himself to make the first hit.

"We could make it quick?" Diamond offers.

"I'd rather fight actually," Tyler answers politely. Josh suspects it's taking him a supreme amount of effort to not let his voice shake.

It's painful to watch, the way they start circling Tyler with predatory gazes. Leopanine swipes at him with her knife, trying to stick it in his gut. He manages to jerk out of the way just in time and responds with a swing of his axe. Leo ducks it easily. Josh hates himself for how much he wants Hanna to make a run for it. The girls are paying her no mind. She is no threat, easily disposable once they get rid of Tyler.

Diamond catches Tyler of guard with a sharp knock of her hammer that catches his wrist. He drops the axe. He. Drops. The. Axe.

Johanna is silently shaking beside him. He starts to scream at Hanna to run. She has no weapon, and no ability to defend herself without Tyler. She can't save him. She needs to leave.

Hanna starts to run. In the wrong direction. Josh doesn't see it coming. He probably should have, what with her comments about him being cute at the reaping, and the way she had been so thrilled to see him in the games.

Josh can't completely comprehend the strength she must have summoned in that moment. Hanna was not a particularly big or strong girl, but she still manages to drag Diamond and Leopanine forward with force of her forward momentum. She refuses to let go of them as the three of them fall into the water in a flail of limbs. She doesn't let go even as they scream and struggle, and it's only after the first two cannons have gone off that her grip finally loosens, and her eyes slowly fall closed.

Josh is crying. Johanna is hyperventilating. Tyler is screaming. Josh watches with his emotions shut off as he yanks her out of the water, desperately trying to pull the leeches off her puffy, unrecognizable skin all the while screaming her name urgently. "Hanna! Wake it! Stop it! You do not g-get to leave me." His words and frantic actions do not stop the cannon from going off.

That's when Josh walks out.

•

Some days are harder than others.

Tyler's victory tour has finally reached the capitol. His interview with Caesar makes reference to Hanna. Louis almost has a panic attack. He's always been better at quelling other people's panic than he is at stopping his own.

He blames a thousand people for Hanna's death. Sometimes he will rage against Diamond, Leoponine, Snow, the gamemakers, even Tyler. The worst thing is that at the end of his rage he can really only blame himself. He should have saved her. There must have been a way.

Tyler sees Hanna's face in every girl he passes on the street, and when he stops seeing her face it transforms into the past tributes he'd mentored, and when that particular hell is over he starts seeing the people he killed in his games. It is an endless cycle of grief and regret of which he has no means of escaping.

It's on those days that he will sit on the concrete behind one of the factories and stare at the pills. Misty, the victor of the 53rd Hunger games had given them to him when he'd first won. She had told him it would help him forget. He's never taken them. He never will.

Still, on the days that feel particularly hopeless he stares at the morphling tablets. He stares at them and imagines a world where he can not remember.

•

Josh continues to watch. Despite his best efforts, he has grown moderately attached to Tyler during the alliance. Plus Hanna gave up her life for that kid, the least he can do in return is win.

The gamemakers release giant snakes to drive the last two tributes together. It's nauseating to watch the boys hack off the slithering creatures' heads. Tyler's axe is stained dark red with snake's blood.

Josh is not even sure if he does it on purpose. Tyler had appeared to be completely focused on the snakes. His long limbs flail around wildly and without coordination, hitting snake...snake...snake...skull.

The District 1 tribute goes down. A split second later a cannon goes off.

"And the victor of the 72nd Hunger games...from District 7...Tyler Joseph."