Writer Games | Death Wish & 51

Task Four: Agony - Females

District Two - Epona Jericho [3]

Epona Jericho had always been scared of one thing: storms.

Although she had  never let people know that she could be rendered terrified by something  as natural as the weather, the rumble of thunder would strike her with  panic and visions of unrelenting rain. The lightning seemed almost  blinding to her through the thick grey clouds and the sheet of falling  water that could soak an individual in seconds.

In District Two, she  the otherwise fearless tribute would not have even considered leaving  the house whilst grey storm clouds brewed and formed on the horizon. She  would remain indoors, behind the shelter of thick walls that sealed in  the warmth and trapped the weather outside where it belonged. However,  in the arena there was nowhere she could hide that would protect her  with a roof. The closest she could find were trees, their frail leaves  barely a barricade against the elements that tormented her.

She could already see  the clouds forming in the distance, almost as if they were being forced  out of a machine by the Game-Makers rather than being created naturally  from the vapor in the sky. The lightning had already begun to flash,  illuminating the rain that had already begun to fall. The loud echoes  could either have been thunder or the cannon signifying the death of a  tribute; Epona did not know. Either way, the sound caused her heart to  fluttering and the unwavering killer finally showed a moment of  weakness.

Back home, Epona  would have gladly run towards the edge of the District and try to find  Isla. If she could, she would have hidden the wolf pup inside so that  she did not have to endure the torture of the climate. If the fences  were removed from around the District, all of the animals could run  towards District Two and find shelter at the slightest sound of thunder  rolling over the hills that encompassed them. However, the fences  continued to stand for that moment just like the barricade that  surrounded Epona and forced her to endure her nightmares within the  arena.

The castle.

Epona had seen the  castle near the beginning of the Games, it's towers reaching up towards  the sky with all the might the building could hold. It was the only  structure that Epona could remember, the brick walls far more than the  cold tree-trunks and trembling branches of the trees that surrounded  her. It would offer her with more protection from the rain than her own  home, the ceiling so high that she could curl on the floor and not even  be able to hear the raindrops battering off the roof above her head. She  did not even have to worry about other tributes; she was more than  capable of fending them off, fighting and killing if they came too close  to her precious shelter. With so little supplies to her name, violence  was almost the only thing Epona Jericho had left. Violence, and a small  wolf waiting for her back in District Two.

The trek to the  castle was a long one. In the search for her treasured victory, Epona  had left the beginning of the Games far behind her. She was racing the  weather as it approached her, planning to engulf her frame in its clouds  and rain before she reached the shelter that she so desperately wanted.  However, even though fatigue was slowly eating at her the fear of the  storm kept her going. She almost broke into a run, before realising she  needed to conserve what energy she had in order to make it to the castle  in time.

Eventually, the  spires of the castle began to dance on the horizon. The very tops of the  towers were obscured in the grey smoke of the clouds, simply spurring  Epona forwards even more towards the protective shields of the castle  walls. She was so desperate to curl up within the soft grasp of the  building that her grip tightened around her weapon, preparing to fight  whoever may have waited in the shadows and prevented her from reaching  her destiniation. Instinctively, her default was violence.