𝐂𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐅𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐬 [𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐤 - 𝐇𝐮𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫 𝐆𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐬]

7 | 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞

Content warning at the end notes: please skip down and check if you feel like you should!

N E O

— AND I WAKE UP TO CANONS. One, two.

"Them mines." Deckard rasps beside me, and I startle, head snapping to him. His hair's somehow a pure white through all the dust, and his face is scuffed up and bloody. He stares out at the yawning sky, knees drawn close to his chest with shaking, clasped hands.

"'Same a'home. Y'don't go straight'ways. Suffocate fo'a while."

His speech is battered, a sign of brain damage, I think, wondering what else has been irreparably lost to hyperthermia. He seems tearful, and I see no way to put him at ease. I look away, mirroring his compact form.

The sky's dark. The stars, bright. There's a campfire burning away, the shine reflected in Tilsee's arrows, which belong to Hazel now. The girl is still present, perched on the very cusp of the haloed campfire light. She counts her invisible arrows. It feels cruel to kill her now, when she's already dead inside. Attacking something with no means of logic. Seth's there, probing the fire, Hazel's there, patching up a bleeding slice on her shin. They surround me at the edge of the world.

"How many?" I ask, and Deckard nods to the sky, and as if called, the anthem begins to play. Ten, eleven. Eleven gone. I take in their names and promise I'll remember them.

There's the boy from 10, but not the girl. She's okay, at least, though now I wonder if I should find her at all. Maybe not, not when these four surround me, against all odds. Surround me, when I'd given up a little past halfway through the day. They'd stayed, as if they couldn't move on without me there, despite being mere steps from our goal. Our false, meaningless goal. My backfired distraction.

I've pledged my loyalty to too many people, it seems. I've cared too quickly, again.

I hate myself. Not even a little, but a lot.

The houses tower now, with their single and double storeys, just faint shapes in the dark. It's been far too long, and no time at all, if I find these buildings tall, overbearing. I almost don't want to step inside again.

The anthem finishes, all marvellous and somber, like it's saluting war veterans. Of course, Panem doesn't have veterans. Panem doesn't have war. Sacrificial lambs remind us of this. Going by that standard, coerced children are an easy second to honoured soldiers.

"The days have changed again." Hazel says, her voice raspy once more. We need more water. "You've been out for a couple hours, but we're back to normal time."

"It's like the Gamemakers have been stretching out the Bloodbath." Seth grumbles.

"They're just trying to tire us out." Hazel huffs, and I get the impression that they've had this conversation too many times, if her frustration tells me anything.