azure || joselle's death

Blood. Blood and chaos fly everywhere, and I can't even be sure that the sound I heard was a cannon or just a hallucination. The floor is becoming sticky beneath my feet, and every new sensation only adds to the overload of information my mind is trying to process. I know I'm not good at thinking on the fly. I have to stick to the plan, and the plan is to flee now, and thinking about following a plan keeps the panic at bay until this is all over and I can breathe for a moment.

A glancing blow strikes my hand, but my grip remains firm on the hilt of the sword, knuckles white against its surface. Just the texture of sturdy fabric against my palm makes me feel powerful; with barely a single glance at the other tributes still stumbling around in their high heels, I turn to run, every step making me thankful that I had taken them off before stepping into the cabin.

The horizon beckons, all wisps of fog and craggy hills, an alluring unknown. It always has, even in District Four, a burning curiosity about the undiscovered and the temptation of safety it offered, safety from people.

I made it out, I thought. I've always been good at escaping, at gliding past others' notice -

Time freezes.

The entire world locks around me as knuckles connect with the base of my neck and I crumple to the ground. I try to get up, to slip away before they could finish me off, but my body lies limp, refusing to obey my commands. I can't feel my legs. I can't feel my fingers. All that I feel is the blinding sun on my face and the awkward angle of my neck letting out an unrelenting throb. My mouth opens and closes its last gasps of desperation, but no air enters my lungs.

My slightest twitch is met with sharp, burning pain that forces tears to my eyes. I want to wipe them away, erase the signs of weakness from my face, but I'm trapped in an aching head and an unfeeling body, unable to even take a breath. The Career standing above me leers triumphantly, his facial features crazed as though he enjoys the act of killing, enjoys the feeling of my bones smashing beneath his fists.

I was never strong enough, or stealthy enough, or charming enough. I never deserved to survive the Bloodbath anyways. In the end, I still let myself be an easy kill, a trophy for that stupid Career bastard as he lifts the sword from my limp hand and turns away. Promises aren't worth anything here, his smirk seemed to say. You think just because my ally doesn't like violence that I won't relish in ending all of your pitiful lives?

Derek used to say I spent too much time in my head. To die like this, then, my thoughts running on overdrive as I slowly suffocate helplessly, is the ultimate irony. No twitch of my body, no rise of my chest, no words from my mouth as I try to desperately yell to my allies to flee, as I watch Kimmie crumple to the ground and tributes piling on her, striking with fists and swords and everything they had. I didn't see Rachel at all, but I hoped she could make it out of here. I guess I can't help caring about them after all.

I'm sorry I didn't save you, Kimmie. I'm sorry I couldn't even keep track of where you were, Rachel. I'm sorry I was an absolutely useless ally. Tears, of regret and of pain, don't stop coming from my eyes, brimming over and trickling down in two neat drops to mix with the blood soaked into the wooden cabin. I've given up on suppressing them, but still hope the cameras have something better to show than a vulnerable, dying tribute.

Bolts pulls his glaive out of the fallen Kimmie, and a drop of blood spatters across my cheek. There's a look of intensity on his normally mild-mannered face, and it's here, reflected, that I can see the meaninglessness of trying to divide the world into good and evil, into who has what moral high ground. One we entered the arena, we were all fighting for survival, fighting to go home, fighting to be free. Yet every time I chased after freedom, I was confronted by the bitter truth that it was all an illusion. Derek never gave me freedom from want. Killing him didn't give me freedom from shame. Staying in the shadows didn't give me freedom from being reaped. And death - there was never freedom from death.

There is an old District Four fairy tale with many versions, about a mermaid who exchanged her tail for legs and walked on the land among humans. The first time, my father told it to me, and I thought it was a stupid story, that no one would be foolish enough to bet their life on a man's love. The second time, an old fisherman at the docks narrated it, and I thought it was a stupid story, that no one would be foolish enough to give their life for three days, even three days in a world of luxury. In the third version, the sea witch tricked the mermaid into accepting; she didn't have a choice.

I killed my prince years ago, his blood dripping on my bare feet, but I am still condemned, my life taken by the Capitol in exchange for a game I never wanted to play. My time is up and I will dissolve, forgotten, just like the sea foam that crashes over the docks. It is just as well that I have no family to mourn me, no love to sunder, no soul to reminisce fondly about me. The thought is strangely calming as my senses fade away and I no longer even have the strength to hate the Career boy any longer.

Four tributes, dividing up the wealth of items from the cornucopia, is the last I see before my eyes glaze over, blank and lifeless - and then, no more.