[PREQUEL TO RADIANCE]
❝you have one job: convince me, or you may find yourself in the rubble of a ruin that was your own making.❞
ontari nightfall is the newest victor for the capitol to add to their list. she'd heard about the horrors that come wit...
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┍━━━━━━━♔━━━━━━━┑ VICTORY IS NOT SWEET ┕━━━━━━━♔━━━━━━━┙
｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ
ONTARI WASN'T SUPPOSED to get this far. As the daughter of a seamstress and carpenter, she hadn't grown up prepping for this her entire life like the Careers have. She doesn't even have many valuable life skills. Average memory and average swordsmanship weren't supposed to carry her until the final two tributes of the sixty-eighth Hunger Games. But here she is, hunting down a Career before she can be hunted herself.
Her old allies are dead. She, Alder, and Dew had decided to split up as the numbers had dwindled so they wouldn't have to kill each other. They'd both been killed by the Careers that very same day. Ontari is completely and utterly alone in this. As a middle child and with siblings extremely close in age, she isn't used to being on her own. Not having anyone to watch her back has granted her sleepless nights and scarce breaks in the event of an attack.
Her lips are so dry and cracked that they'd started bleeding long ago, and now the pain that shoots through her mouth every time she pants is a distant memory. The sun must be synthetic because her ivory skin should be blistering with sunburn by now. Instead, it's merely caked with so much sand that she's positive it would take weeks to get all of it out. It's everywhere— in her brunette hair, burried under her nails, in her clothes, and stuffed in her boots.
It doesn't matter, anyway, because it's not like she'll be alive long enough to take another shower.
The sword in her hand contains the weight of a mountain. Her muscles ache from the effort to carry it, still not used to bringing a weapon everywhere she goes. Life as an upcoming seamstress in District Eight made her hands dainty. Now they're calloused, dirty, and coated with blood— both metaphorically and literally. The crimson staining them is from the District Twelve boy she'd killed two days ago, having whispered a prayer of forgiveness before sneaking up behind him and cleanly slitting his throat. He hadn't felt a thing.
Her steps are languid and uneven, the colorless scenery around her swirling together until she can hardly distinguish earth from sky. The sun beats down mercilessly, making her more fully aware of the dryness in her throat and how her mouth feels like it's been stuffed with cotton. She must be feeling the effects of dehydration. Even though she isn't medically trained, she's not stupid enough to dismiss that as a possibility.
A heavy exhale from her mouth. Two. Three. Her legs feel like gelatin, wobbling under her weight even though she'd lost a few pounds while in the arena. She's always been curvy, but now her hipbones are more prominent than they've ever been and her cheeks are slightly hollow. When's the last time she'd scored a meal that wasn't a single piece of cactus fruit? She doesn't remember. Time is irrelevant here. She doesn't even know how many days it's been since the bloodbath.
