denouement // 95th hunger games finale

It starts with, of all things, the endings.

Time has dissolved itself in the steel walls of the Training Center, lost somewhere between what you know and what you've lived through, caught in red and drowned in blue. Twenty four bodies, twenty two corpses and two heartbeats left in their wake. The suites embrace you with the same stoicism as the first time you stepped foot within them. Perhaps you cling to the remnants of a home you don't know anymore- the dim lighting of the mines or the fog of the forests. Or, maybe you run from the ghosts you've carved into the legacy of your soul, blood in your wake, sin in your bones.

Wherever you end up, for a time, is monotonous. Tranquil, empty, peaceful.

But peace is earned, never given, and deep down something within you knows that you have not earned it... not yet.

It's why you shouldn't be too shocked when they begin to stir, marble coffins of the victors that have walked these walls for years before and years to come, stirring from slumber with weapons still in their grasp, crowns still etched into their skulls. They have written their beginnings, have stolen their endings, have made it home to a place that claims them as royalty, and as they slowly begin to march out of their homes and towards an unknown destination you can feel the question vibrate through the energies- will you join them?

The lighting of the hallways dims as you make your way through the floors, stepping softly in the path carved by giants, bloody crowns and bloody souls. The silence gnaws at you on the stairwells, heavy footsteps lacing themselves into the steel of the steps. By the time you come to the back rooms of the Interview Hall there is poison growing deep in your stomach, a pit carved of the desire to live, the need to kill.

There is near darkness on the stage, curtains drawn and the dim glow of half-hearted lighting barely illuminating the way the victor statues take their spots at the back of the stage steps, their shadows cast onto a battlefield of your own making, of their own design. Death here comes, life turns to greet it.

You meet your final opponent across the stage and, in turn, Panem meets their final spectacle.

The curtains pull back, light swarms the floors of the hall and you are met with the eyes of a thousand Capitolites occupying the seats. They scream in delight, merchandise and signage claiming their temporary loyalties, faces plastered in delight from behind the soft distortion of the forcefield around the stage. It's a last knife in the gut, that your final coffin will be a cage, that you are reminded of what all of this is for- not you, not your opponent, but for them. You know what you're to do next, know what is expected and what has to be done to claim a crown. Amongst the eyes of spectators you will claim a throne of red.

Go forth, tributes, earn your peace.

Let the show begin, let the show end.

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Tribute Information:

Eyvindr Forrester - 0
Poison
Vengeance
Camouflage - Active

Marik Shadow - 6.5
Blades
Camouflage - Active