The Fourth Annual Writer Games: Canon

The Assault | Dioria Rose

She hasn't trained for failure. Letting fear take over, making bad decisions, having regrets – none of that was part of the game plan. She's gone off the map, now, and she's lost. A day ago, she'd been connected to the voices of her trainers and her predecessor, each one singing in her head, signalling the way. This is how you play, they would tell her. This is how you win. A day ago, she cut that cord and broke that connection. The voices are gone, and so is their advice. The choir no longer sings in her head.

Dioria has failed.

She knows, of course, that this isn't failure, or at least not a totalizing one; that would be death, and she's still very much breathing. In some ways, her decision to avoid the feast was even successful: Maur is dead, Dioria is alive, and there are only five tributes left between her and the crown. She didn't have to risk her neck to rid herself of her biggest threat, but now she doesn't know who took him down. She doesn't know if one of the outliers has a secret skill that might threaten her, and she doesn't get to claim Maur's death as a kill of her own. She doesn't get to claim any death, not since the two at the bloodbath, the girl from Eleven later on, and the girl from Eight. Four kills – not bad, but nothing special. Nothing enough. Sponsors will look at her and see a coward. People back home will look at her and see...see what, exactly?

Dioria Rose prefers raisin to orchid, wine to periwinkle. She likes her purples dark and brooding, stormy and moody and altogether just sad. When she gets down on herself, she likes to do so properly, likes to think that the world is ending – that she is ending – because of one mistake. Who is she, now that she isn't the Career she thought herself to be? Who is she, if not Dioria Rose, the deadly girl from One that the other tributes must have feared to encounter at the feast? Who is she, if not every girl from One to pass before her? What does it mean, in practice, to be herself?

She doesn't know, and so she has failed. As she wanders the broken woods, Dioria wonders what it might've looked like when it was full. The same trees that surround her must have reached for the skies, their leaves meshing together in harmony despite the clashes between each one. Some must have been dark, some light, some big or small or pointed or smooth. They must have been different, each and every one, but that's what must've formed their unity. Each one brought their own perspective, their own nature, and together they formed a forest. Together, they formed a whole.

Faust had been hesitant. Pandora had been vicious. Dacre had been arrogant and Ara had been radiant. And Dioria is proud. Each of them held their own traits, their own persons, but for a few days they had formed a team. A whole. Now only she remains, stripped from the unity where she let herself hide. She stands alone, and this thought should not frighten her. She knows how to rely on herself. Dioria is self-sufficient, always has been. All she needs are the knives tucked into her boots and the daggers she grips in her hands. Even the packs she lugs around are extraneous, unnecessary. They're a luxury, but she clings to them. Isn't that what District One does best?

A single leaf hangs overhead. Apparently, one of the trees has survived, at least partly; the destruction isn't as complete as Dioria first thought. It looks weak by itself, but it has clung on this long so surely there must be some strength rooted in it. She wonders, for a moment, if the other tributes have seen such signs in their time wandering the arena. She wonders, too, if someone else has claimed the Cornucopia since the feast. It would be a stupid idea. No one person can guard that place; she knows that better than anyone.

There's a rustling behind the bristle next to her. She thinks she imagines it at first, but then she hears short, shallow breaths. Someone is there, and they're trying to hide. Maybe they're hoping to take her down. More likely, they hope she won't notice. But she has, and it's too late in the Games to let any opportunity pass by.