Dying is easy, living is harder

Part 8

They were given a wide angle shot of the tributes all getting off their metal circles as the gong ran out.

Astrid spotted Annie then. She was sprinting swiftly across the field. She watched her leap over a girl who fell with a knife in her back and keep going.

Stoick made a horrible noise that reminded her of a tortured animal.

"Thor's hammer," Gobber breathes.

Astrid couldn't look away if she wanted to. For a horrible second she thought that she was actually heading for the Cornucopia, but then she ran past it and showed no signs of slowing down. Fishlegs let out a sigh of relief.

The wide angle shot was replaced with more individual shots now as close-ups of the first wave of killing were broadcast. Astrid questioned numbly in the back of her head at how the camera was able to get that close to the tributes.

Annie's district partner was upsettingly good at killing. Astrid watched him cut down the boy from District Ten with no more effort than one would spend when swatting a fly. Ruffnut gripped her hand as they watched the blood of his kill splatter across Percy's face. Amity from District One took on the boy from District Eleven. The boy was probably six feet three in height, but within minutes Amity had cut his throat.

"Fuck," Tuffnut whispered.

They stared at the screen in horror as the girl From District Two with the crazy eyes hacked the girl from District Nine to pieces. She was dead, why wasn't she stopping! She wanted to yell. Sadie wouldn't stop swinging the axe at the body until it was completely dismembered, and then she just moved on to the next closest person. Throwing a glance at Fishlegs to see if he needed to leave, her eyebrow raised in surprise. He was sweating and his palms were white from how tightly he was holding his notebook but he didn't look away.

She forced her eyes back to the screen reluctantly just in time to watch the girl from District Ten have her guts spilled all over the field. Screaming from the screen was heard even off camera but they soon didn't need to wonder as it focused on who it was coming from. Astrid frowned, watching as the cameras zoomed in nice and close, ready to capture every detail.

Grayson had the girl from District Twelve on the ground. Everybody in the living room watched silently as he kicked her around repeatedly until she stopped trying to get away. He then forced her onto her back and pinned her to the ground with his own weight. She'd stopped screaming and was now just crying hysterically.

"Come on, Bevvie..." he drawled, placing a hand to her throat. "You knew this was coming, didn't you?"

They watched as she pleaded for her life and begged for her mother as he strangled her to death. Astrid's stomach twisting as Grayson pressed his lips to the dead girl's before climbing off of her. She dearly hoped that somebody would kill that son of a bitch before he got anywhere near Annie. Ruffnut's almost painful grip told her that she agreed with that hope.

"Do you think rape happens in the arena sometimes," Fishlegs said shakily.

"No! It can't!" Snotlout said aggressively and then pleadingly to Ollana.

She opened and closed her mouth, unsure of what to say. Astrid realized she was a bit shaken by what happened on screen.

"Well? Answer him!" Stoick growled.

"I've never seen it happen," she hurried to say. "There's rumours but rumours aren't always the truth."

Astrid's thoughts raced. What if it does happen and the camera just switches to another tribute before the deed happened? Maybe sexual assault is too much for even the Capitol.

"Why don't you all take a break in the kitchen for a bit," Ollana said, voice quivering. "I'll tell you when Annie comes on screen and you can just... take a break. She's escaped the Bloodbath and it's going to focus on that for another half an hour at least before showing what those who escaped are up to."

They didn't argue with her. They all needed a moment to recuperate from all the gory.

Stoick finished his can of beer with a large gulp and threw it in the garbage. Astrid's eyes followed and she could see that his garbage bin was soon going to be overflowing with bottles and cans.

"So that was the worst thing I've ever seen," Ruffnut flopped in her seat. They could still hear screams from the TV.

"You would think with how much gory we're exposed to in movies, we'd be more or less okay with this but..." Astrid trailed off.

"But this is real," Fishlegs finished.

"She made it past the Bloodbath so the hardest part is over," Snotlout said, eyes shining with something disgustingly close to hope. "Like Ollana said, she's just that much closer to home."

Astrid eyed him with pity. This was his cousin in that arena. The girl who used to be the closest thing to a little sister that he would ever have. Their relationship had deteriorated to the point that he was bullying her at school but this was high school. Astrid knew the big lug and he probably always figured that when they are older, they'd be cool again. They're family after all, they'll always be in each other's lives. But Annie was never going to make it to her nineteenth birthday, no reconciliations will ever come to be and no one wanted to be the one to tell him that. So they didn't.

They all know that she's going to die at one of these kids' hands. If she's lucky, it'll be Amity who does it. From what Astrid could see, she killed quickly and didn't try to draw it out like Sadie and Grayson. But she didn't say that out loud.

Astrid just drank her glass of water and stewed in silence.