||This Is The Sh!t||[Abri Day 1]

Somewhere in the chaos of the Bloodbath, my mind took note of all of the tributes. With the exception of the ones still at the cornucopia, all the tributes had disappeared into the forest of palm trees that had been behind my platform. I had figured from the moment I got reaped that my best strategy for the games would be to completely avoid all the other tributes. My arm is case and goddamn point. So, in keeping with that sentiment I move my body as swiftly as I can manage in the opposite direction.

I stumble until I can run, run until I have to jog and then end up right back at stumbling. The heat is unyielding, and I am glad for the hats they gave us. I pause a few times to throw up, but I always brush sand over the spot. Not that they won't be able to follow the blood trail. The sun is slipping towards the waving horizon and I wonder idly if the reason everyone headed into the palm-tree forest was because it was the only place with fresh water. I chew on my tongue and shake my head slightly to clear it.

When I finally reach the edge of the beach-lands, I run straight into the water without hesitation. The cool tide is soothing on my skin and though the salt in my wounds is like torture, I relish the pain. It's a new pain, not the dull throb of someone slowly bleeding to death, but the sharp sting of continuing existence. After a few long moments in the shallows, I drag myself back to shore and collapse just along the tide-line.

I rinse my hair of all the blood and sweat from the day and then tuck it up into my hat. I pull the drawstring out of the waistband of my shorts, they fit pretty well without it, and awkwardly manage to tie my half arm to my chest. It's excruciatingly painful, but it seems to lessen the blood flow slightly. And now I wont have to worry about it snagging on things.

I hold my arm lightly in my other hand, gently studying the swirling fingerprints and the callouses I didn't know I had. It's strange to hold something so familiar and feel nothing...Fuck, I lost my arm today. I laugh slightly, the sounding bordering on a sob, and collapse into the sand, my eyes falling closed.

I don't know if I sleep, or if I simply lose the will to be conscious but when I am fully aware again, the last rays of sunlight are shooting red and green across the sky and ocean, turning the world into one huge painted mirror. I could write symphonies about that sunset. There is less than little cover on the beach and I make a mental note to myself to move somewhere more rat-friendly if I am still alive in the morning. I pile sand over my legs and torso, and then wiggle my good arm under a thin layer. At least now they won't be able to see me right away.

I drift off again and my dreams start. I'm used to nightmares, the things I feel sometimes, and the conditions that I have often make me have vivid nightmares, the kind where you wake up screaming and sobbing and can't sleep for days afterwards. And that was before the arena. In this fucking hell-hole, everything becomes horribly magnified. I see the horrible deaths of everyone I've ever met at the hands of all kinds of monsters. Muttations, tributes, gamemakers, and worst of all, me. How many times do I watch myself murder someone in these few hours that I sleep? How many times am I soaked in some poor girl's blood?

When I finally manage to wake myself up, it's eerily dark and my gasping sobs break the deadly silence. My hand is locked into my hair and a dull throbbing in my scalp tells me that I have pulled a fairly good-sized chunk out of it already.

"Calm down Abri, it's just a dream. A fucking dream, you're fine. Jesus, calm down. Oh god please don't let there be anymore pain. Shit I'm going to die." I mumble to myself, rolling onto my knees and pressing my cheek into the cool sand. Slowly, I manage to regain my composure after letting fly a few of my best swear words. I take a final deep breath, roll over onto my back and gasp.

The stars. They're like nothing I've ever seen. You can see the stars in Twelve, but so much is blocked by the pollution from the mines, and in the Capitol it's never dark enough to see the moon let alone the stars. There are billions of them, I could count them for my entire life and never reach the end. They don't move, but something in the way they're laid out, like a splash of paint on a canvas it's like they've achieved their own fluidity. They swirl and roll and splay out, and twinkle and beam and glow. Their beauty takes the breath right out of my lungs and for a moment, I forget where I am and what I am here for and am allowed to simply bathe in the beauty of the stars.

"Oh, let me be a star..." I whisper, my fingers brushing through the sand. Might as well enjoy this now, I'm dead anyways.