Break The Rules But Be Smart About It: The Second Quarter quell

Chapter twelve

Tick tick boom.

Penelope's body hangs gracefully as the wind blows. My shoulders flop down, and my Knees give up. Suddenly I am on the floor looking at the two bodies' turn. The wind is carrying both bodies, and I sit there almost as if I were bowing down to them. Penelope's wide-opened eyes look at me, and they eventually roll to the back of her eyes, showing only the white part.

I can't stand up. my body has no motivation to stand or to move around... I have no energy, no diction to even think. Several bugs land on me, but I do not flinch from moving them away from me.

A tear run down my face.

Murder has become more comfortable. I have killed eight people. The death has become easier to accept, but... I don't want to accept this one. Penelope died on my watch, on my order...by a trap I made. She didn't die because a knife went through her heart; she didn't die because of an illness. She didn't die because she was malnourished. Penelope died because of a trap I set.

Because I something I did. But the death doesn't hit me hard, the drips of blood that fall on the ground in front of me.. it doesn't bother me, the white snow that turns red doesn't bother me, the two hanging bodies don't bother me... Penelope's flowing curls don't bother me. But why? Why are death and murder becoming my new reality, my new fortune? Why has the capital done this to me?. I lye with now potentially over fifteen watches on me, and every death has become easier to accept. What an awful way to think.

I unlatch the rope from the tree and do the ceremonial thing I should've don't with Fauna. I unravel Penelope's broken neck from the rope. I hold her frail, skinny body in my arms as I did several days ago the first time, and I place her weak body on the snowy ground. She would say right now, "oh my gosh Haymitch why are you carrying me?... Haymitch my hair!" so I unravel her braids and style her hair in her usual style, leaving her curly bangs to put and leaving Her curly hair to lose. I take her oversized shirt that we stole From Zayden off and leave the regular female tribute clothing on, showing her skinny feline figure. I tuck her black shirt in her shorts and fix her undershirt to be straight like what she would've liked. I can't do much to her body. But I stay there. No tears run down my face; I stand there in agony.

My best friend died. I often considered Effie my acquaintance and Amy, my girlfriend, but Penelope will always have a reserved place in me. Penelope's lips turn purple, and her legs have flaked old blood all over them. I leave her body there, with her arms hanging around her waist. Untouched and almost perfect, she looks, for a Hunger games funeral her body lyes there. I can hear her voice yelling at me and then laughing with me, her "come on haymitch lets stop" after every mile of walking. I hear her voice for the first time when she said to me, "Hi I am Penelope Marie, district 11," and it replays in my head as I look at her body and give a faint smile. I could never forgive myself for accepting an ally... but this ally taught me something nobody could, which was true friendship. In death, we were friends. In the trial, we were friends. Again Penelope will always have a place in my heart. To finish off the ceremonial things we would typically do but, still hunger games style, I open her pocket and retrieve the watches, four watches, I pick up her kills and Penelope's pocket watch, I turn the quarter-sized pocket watch, and on the back of it, the watch is engraved "consider the probability of your intimate death" the side of my lip curves and gives a faint smile. I cover the watch's front with my thumb and retire the watch to the pocket with Faunas watch. Heading towards Aurella's watch, I don't bother to look at the depressing quotes they all probably have on theirs, so I place them among the other watches in my pocket. Soon with-teen watches turned into twenty-five, almost more than all the tributes lives fall in the pockets of my jackets. One thing that gran told me as a child was to when times get tough was to think that this will all be over tomorrow. So I take dear grans wise words, breathe in and out, turn my body against theirs, and leave.