hope in our eyes || 37th hunger games ✔️

Failure

Lily

After we've sat around the fire for about an hour talking about our homes and arguing- ugh, Eisley really gets on my nerves- the sun begins to rise. We stay sitting around the embers as the world turns golden and the trees cast long black shadows over our bodies, like fingers trying to grab us. I shudder a little because it feels... strange. Shadows.

"Should we split up and hunt again?" Aspen asks.

"Sure," Eisley says. "Aspen and I can go together. Hazel, Lil, you can go together."
Lil.

I start to object, but stop myself because I realize it's pathetic. I don't give a damn if they go together, why don't they go and make out for all I care.

But that's not what I really want to happen. Not with her at least. Lily, stop it, I scold myself. We all grab our weapons and split up, each group taking half of the supplies in case we get separated. We agree to meet up back here at sundown at the latest. Then we're off.

Hazel and I wander around for a while and have managed to kill a rabbit and gather some berries when we hear the snap of a branch ahead of us.

"What was that?" Hazel asks. I shrug, frowning. It sounds to big to be an animal. So either... a mutt or a tribute. Or, like, a bear. Honestly it could be anything judging by what we've seen so far in this arena.

We're all silent for a few minutes; Hazel and me and The Thing in the Bushes. Then it's lunges at us screaming and waving... a sword. It's a tribute. It's that damn girl from 6. The one who killed Mia.

Hazel and I dash out of the way and the girl falls at the place we were before. We stare in shock and lose the opportunity to just kill her right there. God, I can't believe I just used hat so casually...

"Lily!" Hazel shouts and I snap out of it. The girl from 6 is running for me.

The world seems to move in slow motion. The girl rushes at me, spitting mad, teeth bared, growling. Her sword is raised and she only a few feet away. Only a few feet away and I don't know what to do and I just do the first thing that comes to mind and I don't know if it's the right or wrong thing and all that's going through my mind is killer, killer, killer.

-

I close my eyes for a long, long time. I keep them closed because I don't want to see what I did.

Then, finally, I slowly open them. The girl from 6 is staring at me with cold, dead eyes. My sword is buried deep in her gut. She makes a grunting sound and I see something in her eyes, like pain, but mental pain. Then she slumps forward onto me and I shudder. A cannon goes off.

"Lily..." Hazel says.

I push the girl off and throw my sword to the side. It barely misses Hazel.

"NO!" I scream. Hazel says something that I don't hear. "God, no! This can't... I didn't..." and then I'm crying. Because I've done it. I've failed. Effing failed. I've just killed someone.

I'm a killer.

-

Hazel and I walk back to our camp in silence. I stare at my bloody hands. I left my sword there with the girl. I couldn't stand to see the weapon.

Sure, I've killed animals before. But this is different. This was a person, a child. I'm a child.

This whole thing is so messed up. Kids killing kids to entertain a bunch of wicked, screwed-up clowns.

And I've succumbed to their cruel ways. I've become the killer they want me to be.

Then something dawns on me randomly. It's just us. It's just me, Hazel, Eisley, Aspen and the Careers. Surely they'll find that out soon and then they'll be after us.

And I'm not sure we can survive an attack like that. Especially not without more freaking killing. How do you win at a game that requires failure?