The Fourth Annual Writer Games: Canon

The Victor and the Spark | Males

District Two – Maur Verrill

Maur Verrill isn't afraid of dying.

The world is full of beginnings and endings, and death is naturally one of those things. It's the end of something beautiful, of a life well spent, and, Maur believes, it must be some sort of beginning to something equally grand.

The wind is louder than before, a wail in Maur's hair as it weaves through the ashen branches of the skeleton trees. The smell of sulfur is thick in the air, burning his chest and burrowing into his lungs. His throat is dry and burning, and the smoke tastes acidic on his tongue. He coughs out a spat of blood, and the red sprays the dead, brittle grass. His back is pressed up against a tree, a sick feeling clawing at his stomach.

Beads of sweat gleam on his forehead, the dark circles beneath his eyes hanging like shadows. His muscles scream in agony, aching and burning until it hurts all over. Fatigue grips Maur tightly, clinging to his arms and his legs, slipping into his thoughts. The memory of the blood that squirted from his wrist is still vivid in his mind, and though the blood loss was significant, the cauterization techniques that the Training Center back home in Two had provided him with were enough to stop the blood. However, infection is still likely, and Maur is more scared than ever--not of death but of failure. How can he win the Hunger Games if he's dead?

Though the Training Center prepared him to prevent exsanguination, it never prepared him for the pain. It's like a blade is ripping through his body, but it goes slowly, beginning from the tips of his fingers and toes as it gushes inward towards his chest. His blood is hot and boiling, and his heart beats frantically in his chest, thrashing against his rib cage and clawing at his lungs. Maur stumbles in the burnt forest, palms buried in the trunks of a gnarled tree as its shaking branches shower him in ash.

His vision is bleary and the weariness is seeping into his eyes from the rest of his body. He closes his eyes to a burnt forest, and when he opens them again, it's a burning forest.

The fire is blood-orange and ruby red, a mess of the two swirling and dancing as a softer lemon yellow bleeds into them. The flames crackle and pop, licking up the deadened grass and devouring the leafless trees. It isn't a beautiful sight. The black is pitless and hollow, the color of destruction, and Maur is in the middle of it all.

His legs ache as he pulls himself up, calves burning and burning until there's tears in Maur's eyes. He reaches for the tree as he pushes himself forward, grasping a low-hanging branch for support, but the brittle wood breaks at his weight. His bones and skin crash against the grass as he falls, the ashen branch landing beside him. The flames are closer now, nipping at his backside, and a scream builds up in his chest, knocking at his ribs and thrashing up his throat. He catches it his mouth with a bite of his lip, but it's only for a moment, and then it's torn from his lips, and out it goes, unbidden and free.

It's now, when the fire is so close Maur can feel it breathing on his neck and death is a hair's length away, that he feels the adrenaline shoot through his body, burning in his blood and traveling so quickly, so freely, that for a moment, Maur can feel the entire world beneath him. He runs, one foot after another, as he fights the fatigue pulling at his legs. He combats the weariness in his thoughts with sheer determination, willing himself with everything he has to run and run and run and never stop.

The wind whips at his hair, warm and dry and stinging in warning. The reds and oranges line his sides, chasing him from behind, but in front of him, he sees the brittle brown grass of the plains, and for once, it's brown that's promising. His vision blurs, and all he wants--all he needs--is brown, brown, brown--