The 55th Hunger Games

Chapter 24

        "No" I whisper, because it can't be true. Samantha can't be dead. The screen must be lying. Samantha singlehandedly defeated Pearl and Crown, as well as Seth. How could she have possibly been defeated? It must have been Sapphire who killed her, but I still find it difficult to picture. Samantha had taken down the giant male, Seth, but yet seems to have lost to a female possibly a little less than her own size and weight.

        I feel Aponi wrap her arms around me. I do not shrug away from her, but hold her back and feel my eyes prick with disbelieving tears.

        I don't want to believe it, but I must. Samantha is dead, killed only a few hours ago, and now only four remain.

        Tears burn my eyes and I feel very sick inside my stomach. The worst part is that Samantha might be alive right now if I had not gotten in her way at the feast. She could have made quick work of both Seth and Sapphire, and the one responsible for her death would not have been alive to kill her.

        Unbelievable guilt swells within me. I will not win the Hunger Games, and District 7 will go hungry for another year. Out of the four of us left it is not difficult to predict that the Victor will be Sapphire. The rest of us cannot match her strength, and right now she is probably hunting us down.

        But guilt and fear are not the only reasons I am upset now. I just lost my district partner, the one I had grown to know and respect even if she did not feel the same towards me. And even though she loathed me, she saved my life at the feast and tried to save Aponi and I from starvation by capturing the rabbit and leaving it for us. I knew her and now she is dead. Just as her cousin died in the Hunger Games, so has she, and I will surely be following after her soon.

        "I'm sorry Taslim." Aponi whispers as my mind swells with thoughts. "I did not know her as you did, but I'm sure she is happy and free in District 7 now, like you said we will be if we die."

        I nod silently, and try to put her death from my mind, but I can't seem to. The image of her face in the sky is still fresh in my mind as though it was burned there.

        "Can you sing your song for her?" I ask, my voice quavering. "The one your district sings at harvest moon?"

        "Of course," She replies, and then begins to sing.

        She sings softly, probably out of precaution, because really, Sapphire could be anywhere right now. Soft in volume her voice may be, but it is certainly no less sweet than I have heard it before. I sniff as more tears trace down my face, but I have no heart to lift my hand and wipe them away so I just let them fall.

        My heart begins to stir as she sings and I find myself almost transported off to another place away from here -away from Panem even. It a place of safety and beauty which surely must exist on earth some way away on a remote island left above sea level after the terrible floods. Surely there is more to earth then just this terrible cruelty where children must fight to their deaths in brutal battle arenas. But maybe such a place only exists in our minds.

        Then, almost without realising it, I begin to hum to Aponi's song, catching onto the tune. And very slowly the last lines of the song come back to me as though I had known them all along. They pull themselves from my mouth.

        "...we love this light, we love this moon, why ever must you... go so soon?"

        Aponi looks up at me and we meet each other's eyes. She smiles at me.

        "She is safe now." She says.

        I smile sadly back at her. "I know."