Your Final Home {60th HG Finale}

I will not! I won't go quiet!
Oh tell me that you won't, you won't go

My boy builds coffins with hammers and nails
He doesn't build ships, he has no use for sails
He doesn't make tables, dressers or chairs
He can't carve a whistle cause he just doesn't care

I'm a terrible Career boy.

The rising sand alerts me of my coming fate. Not that I haven't known all along. Two faces flashed in the glass sky last night, Avon Lightwood and Kiara Mason, the last of the girls. Poor things. I didn't know Kiara at all, and if not for her training score I probably wouldn't have even remembered her name. Isn't that sad? To be only remembered for a number. For a moment, I wonder what she did, who she was. I wonder who they all were. I only talked to a few tributes, and all but one are dead now. I know I've pondered this before, though I'm not sure when. All my time here has been a blur, albeit clearer than my normal life ever was. It seems more likely that my life has been forever here, in the sands, sleeping on pillows of tiny grains and swiveling my head around in circles for tributes and mutts and impending, glorious disasters like quicksand and gunfire. I can't remember home. It's far away and gone. But then, I was never born! I was born here, among the tributes, yesterday, with a dying girl. Born, and forever changed.

I'll have my picket fence one way or another.

But this boy that approaches me, what does he want? My eyes close as he nears me, far away but making my way quickly, and I try to think about who he is, too. Images flash behind my eyelids, but I can't know him, won't ever know him except for what he says and does today. I can't read his thoughts or look into his past or have a nice chat with him, and who am I kidding? The only bit of information I know about him is that he is a Career, nothing but a killer, and that during training he glanced upon me and thought I was weak for my lack of.. my lack of what? I'm strong, physically competent. I was unsure of myself the first time I saw him, unsure what to say. What does one say to a person who's likely to judge you for everything you do? Compliment them, that's what. Arrogant bastards do tend to appreciate pointless praise. Even so, I know I didn't say it strongly enough for him. I had stumbled, allowed my words to be weak. I didn't fit the Career mold. And he, he's a wonderful Career boy! Oh, so willing to fit into a perfectly made mold of a person, stretched and brainwashed and beaten into a sort of submission to make us think that we need to be bloodthirsty and this is all we're good for. Should I feel glad my parents showed me murder and agony before I was ready? They disgusted me early, didn't allow for enough time to brainwash. So Julian Bryze.. I won't ever know what Julian Bryze wants out of victory, because I'm a terrible Career boy! I'm not a Career boy!

I let him circle me as if I'm prey. I could run at him like an idiot, but he's likely to be quick. It would only do me harm, and that's not how I've seen the good finales go. They're slow and painful, not quick. My parents said the Gamemakers like it better when the tributes go about fighting each other this way, in the end. More suspense, I suppose. It can't be anticlimactic.

Which is nice, I suppose. I'll have my say if I die, a word or two here and there to let people know who I am. But I won't. I refuse to die today, I still need that picket fence. I told Avon – or, more accurately, she told me to survive. To go home, to start anew, to find out what this living thing is all about. I'm so ready to begin, however painful it might be. My dreams might haunt me, but who am I kidding? My dreams have always haunted me.

Hasn't it been such a nightmare? And I've woken up now, alive and kicking and ready. I won't let another dead boy ruin what life I've had.

“So it appears you were a true career after all,” Julian says, ever-circling around me like a vulture. But I'm not dead! He can't get to me.

Still, it takes all the power of my being not to lay down and laugh right there. But, of course, I throw my head in the air, up to the glass ceiling that tells me there's not much time left, and I burst into laughter as his monologue continues. Oh, I'm so alive. I don't interrupt the wonderful Career boy – I know well enough already that it's impolite to interrupt the dying words of a fellow human being.

“Do tell me, just how happy have your Hunger Games been? Have they been everything you hoped for?” He asks me. Am I supposed to respond, or what? But I can't, oh lord I can hardly breath from all this laughter, and I think yes, I'm having a damn good time with your jokes but I know he's telling me to think back, to regret everything that I've done. But I can't, I can't stop laughing. He continues on, his smile fading away. How dare he stop smiling, that devil. Clearly he doesn't find it as amusing as I do, but perhaps that's because he's dead, or brainwashed, or both. “It’s almost a shame they have to come to an end, isn’t it?”

Ha!

The vulture flies at me with his bladed pole, and for a moment I think he makes to attack me twice, but he can't. He's quick, but I am too. I step away, and I stand there. I stand still, let him come at me, and it tears through me. The blade is so sharp, so deadly, that it hardly takes a second thought in swiping away my right ear. I cry out in pain among the endless laughter, then continue laughing. He speaks again, as if he can't hear me – perhaps he can't; he seems to be missing an ear too – and though my hearing is now impaired I know this last part is the most important. This is how I handled my private training session, a poignant play on words in the end, something to be remembered by. Arrogance will always allow for snide remarks.

"Welcome to my finale, Reyes Moreno," he says. My laughter stops, if only out of pure disgust.

It's not his. It's not mine. We're here, but it's not ours. How dare he claim it as his own.

And now it's my turn to circle. I don't walk, though. The wiggling in my toes starts up, then the shaking in my knees, and as I back away I drop my backpack in the sand and grip Avon's Lamp in my hand. I toss my head around my shoulders, my hair flying wildly. Right, left! And I lock my gaze onto Julian Bryze as I cavort around him, a devilish grin on my face as I start up my laughter again. My arms cut loose from their bounds, and they fly with me in a circle. A never ending dance.

I cease the laughter, keeping the grin in its place, and I shake my head at him in disagreement.

”I beg to differ, Vulture. You're so wrong. It's not yours, and it's not mine either. Who are we to say that we own this, that these Games, this finale is ours? We're here, alive, yeah, but those dead tributes mean more than we do. Avon.. Avon gave me this weapon, it's name is Lamp. And she had a snake.. I forgot to bring it with me, but it seemed so happy with her I would have hated to disturb it. It's name was Cain. And Ink.. Ink.. Avon gave me her token. And.. the purple boy. I don't know his name, but good lord, Vulture, he was purple! And Naked! And batshit crazy, and I killed him. And the girl.. I don't know her name either, but I had her hatchet. She's the reason I'm standing here right now. Do you realize, Vulture, I owe my life to them all? They're the reason I stand here right now, and I know little about any of them. I didn't want to hurt them, you know? I can't ever say I'll know them, but they're unique. They have families and they loved and they had their quirks and their spunk and you're just a Vulture. And here you stand, telling me I'm a Career after all because I've made it this far, and you couldn't be more wrong. I'm here because of them, Vulture. And so are you. This is their finale.”

And I hustle, swing, sway, shake towards him, Avon's Lamp flying in the air to tear the wonderful Career boy apart.

La, la, la, booty shake.

[Attacks Julian – Lamp the Voulge]
[dice=200+13000]
Shallow Cut on Neck -- 4.0 damage

[rand=4597239415521579901185505139690286921045979475519091579104267383]

My boy builds coffins he makes them all day
But it's not just for work and it isn't for play
He's made one for himself
One for me too
One of these days he'll make one for you

I shake my head at him, a bit of knowledge creeping up on the corners of my smile. The slightest of changes in my face – and hell, he can't see it anyways. Behind the flying and the dancing and the flailing there is just a hint of controlled chaos, those small movements and careful gestures that make the dance something more, something dangerous. Through the hair flying about my face that expression rests. While the hands shake I settle them on my hips in defiance. As my feet dance around in circles, my toes cling firmly to the soles of my cleats, balancing me and holding me aground amidst the flight.

But they're trapped, my toes. Poor toes – always confined by shoes and socks out of protection, but also to be polite. Nobody wants to see dirty, smelly feet, so we cover them up.

So I fling off my shoes first, then the red socks that look like blood. (Or is that blood? It's difficult to tell now). The sand is warm beneath my feet, and my toes! It sticks to every crevice my feet have, grains and grains and grains and grains of earth beneath my feet. I've never done this before. Back home, it was all present yourself and show them how much better you are and the shoes were pretty much a requirement. Is this what it's like to be in a lower District? Dirty, clothes torn, but with feet planted firmly on the ground. I stop dancing for a moment, and stand in the way that I know how, shoulders back, chin up, knees locked with perfect posture. No shoes, though.

”Hmm.” The whole world must think I'm crazy, stopping in the middle of my death dance to stand. And my attacker, what does he think? Blood drips down the back of my head where he has sliced it open mercilessly, screaming something about lions and winning through sheer force. Very melodramatic, but I suppose I'm not one to talk. I had leaped back from him as the back of my head, along with my ear, started to bleed. I'll die of blood loss, as they all do. I'll die alone.

As they all do.

Still, not dead yet! Not dead yet, not dead, no, never, never ever, not dead and not going to let it happen. The sand under my toes is a new feeling, unclean but a nice sensation at the moment, because it's the only feeling other than physical pain my body can feel. I try to focus on this, on the sand, and ignore the horrible stinging of the gash on my head and the pounding in my ear, and it doesn't work. I'm not numb – I refuse to be numb. Okay. Pain. I can do this.

The dance begins again, but in the midst of it all now my arms and legs feel trapped beneath this ripped up jumpsuit. I'm already half naked from the gashes dealt all over my body, and in places I've ripped even more to bandage and sew, but the strands of cloth restrain me like chains. There isn't n effective way to get out of this thing, not with everything so mangled, but it's weak. I stop again, tear away tiny pieces of my covering. I'm basically naked anyway – just like most of those I've killed – but I don't stop tearing away pieces until they're all gone. The task isn't easy, either. With each strip of clothing left I must peel it away from the dried blood and the sweat that's accumulated on my skin, and I realize I probably look hideous. I don't know. There's not a mirror, but when I look down I look plain. Between the sand, blood, and sweat, I'm a regular person again. My hair isn't gelled up, my clothes are – ahem – all gone now, and I'm very very naked. It would feel awkward, but it doesn't. I mean, it should feel awkward. Cameras panning down to see me and all that. At least I'm not the first one to remove the jumpsuit. I don't care! I'm free, not the same person I was back in District One. The boy they send back in a makeshift coffin will be the exact opposite of the boy that came on the train.

Oh god – if I die, I'll be buried with my family. They'll claim me! Stick me in the ground next to all the other kiddies that have died. Fuck. Not dying today, nope.

Still, the death dance is so tempting. And I can fly now, freely, without anything to hold me back. But there's no time, not enough time. I've already taken enough of a pause to shred off the rest of my clothes – now it's time to get going.

”You don't understand – you're not listening. I realize what I've done, just as you realize what you've done. But maybe you don't, or you'd see the value in the ones you've trampled on. Not a single one of them died willingly, you know. I've fought, you've fought. Whether you 'tore through the sands' or not, Julian Bryze, the dead have replaced you. And me. We could be in their places right now, but we're not. It's not about how you came about killing them and taking your place here, ferociously or not. You're equal to them, no better, and just because we can wield weapons doesn't make us any more victor-worthy than they are. Isn't that the grand scheme of the rule that prohibited alliances? Anyone can win. But not anyone. Two Careers, still, aren't we? You owe your life to the Gamemakers.”

I shake my head again. Even I know none of it makes sense. Control leaves my limbs, and what energy I have left I use in springing towards the Vulture Lion boy.

[Attacks Julian – Lamp the Voulge]
[dice=200+13000]
Shallow Cut on Neck -- 4.0 damage


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