it's the art of the fall {#squadghouls day 2 vs mutts}

No no no no no.

The sound of cannon fire reverberates in my chest.

I stop running, hunch over, and vomit in the dirt. Whatever was left of my breakfast is now splattered across the forest floor, and my eyes water from the force of it, snot leaking out of my nose. I spit into the dirt to clear my mouth and end up coughing frantically, and I find solace in a tree to my right, hunching into it like I would a hug. I hold on tight to something, anything to clear my head.

The image of Serena Fennel on the ground causes more roiling anxiety in my stomach and forces bile up my throat. I bend over and get sick on the tree’s roots, and it splatters onto my shoes.

“Sorry, sorry,” I mumble to the tree, pressing my forehead against the trunk as I stare down at my own vomit. I cling to it for dear life, world spinning from the alcohol spreading through my bloodstream. I press my forehead so firmly into the trunk that I think I might start bleeding, but I don’t care.

This is real, this is real, this is real.

Deep breaths, deep breaths.

My body’s at war with my own common sense, stomach roiling and hands shaking and mind reeling. I should turn back, I should find my allies, but I stay stuck to this tree, hoping for my body to calm the war with itself.

I stay there for a long time. Or a short time. It’s impossible to tell.

After an indeterminate amount of time, I hear shuffling in the distance.

Fuck.

I turn and hide behind the tree. I don’t dare peek out in fear that the ambush party is hunting for me, done away with my allies and searching for more.

Instead, I hear a familiar voice.

"Those fuckers, fuck them."

Alice.

I gasp and scurry out from my hiding place, but I stop short when I see the scene in front of me. There’s a lot more struggling than normal walking, and that’s because Alice is –

Oh.

Oh no.

She’s got fire in her eyes, but the blood at her neck, spilling onto her uniform, that’s different. As I approach them, I think for a second that it might not be hers, she might be fine, she might have conquered the world and killed all of those motherfuckers and saved us all –

But it’s hers. I can see the way the wound opens, the uneven flesh of her throat, the way she struggles to move and breathe.

“Oh, Alice,” I say, my face contorting something awful. It looks really bad. I press my hands to my forehead and turn away, resisting the urge to vomit again. My heart weighs heavy like a rock in my chest, squeezing tight with my struggling lungs. I can’t get the rhythm right, I can’t, I can’t, I –

Breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe –

I take a few steps away and cover my mouth with my hands, trying to cover the sound of my struggle. And Alice keeps telling us she’s fine, she’s fine, she’s FINE, and eventually she gives up on telling us so.

“Go on, I’ll catch up,” she says weakly, and I shake my head. I don’t have anything to cover her wounds, nothing to make it better. But I sit with her.

“Alice, you’re – “ dying I want to say, tugging at a piece of my sleeve.

As I sit with her, I remember our conversation in the broom closet. I was hiding from my District Escort because of my abysmal training score, and Alice stumbled upon me there while I was worrying about the entire world.

"Moreno? The fuck you doing in here?”

She shoved her hand through the door, holding a bag of something. “Want some chips?”

I declined, mostly because I didn’t trust… well, anyone. I thought she might poison me, which seems stupid in hindsight.

I didn’t really know what to say, but she filled the silence anyway.

"What's with you? Come out of the closet."

“Uh, no. I’m hiding.”

"From what? Nothing's gonna murder you today. Is an escort all up in your butt or something?"

I gave up and told her about my 1, about how the escort was disappointed in me, about how I’m going to die for sure because I can’t fight. I told her more than that, too. I decided it didn’t matter, so I told her about my family, about the times I’d nearly died, about how I was always afraid because my house was not a home. I’d grown up in fear, enveloped myself in it, and I still worried about what they thought of me. Even a world away.

“I think you need this more than me,” she said. She gave me a cider then, and we passed it back and forth.

(To be honest, I didn’t trust that it wasn’t poisoned.)

"Real talk though, your family can go fuck themselves. Are they the ones fighting to live? No, so fuck ‘em. They don't fucking matter. You do."

I remember feeling uncomfortable, opening up about my life like that.

“What about you?” I asked.

She told me about her sister who died in the Bloodbath, about her father’s murder, about the sister she still has. Her family fell apart after her dad was killed, and her life hadn’t been the same since. It felt nice to know that someone else’s life wasn’t perfect, either. It felt like solidarity.

“I think we're all scared, Moreno,” she told me. “I mean, not as much as you because I'mma fucking destroy everyone and everything in that arena, but it's not like we're all having a cakewalk."

She reminds me of my brothers, the ones who pretend they’re unstoppable. But no matter how much Alice Sullivan pretends, there’s no doubt she’s a stronger soul than I am.

"Say the word though, and I'll punch whoever you're afraid of in the throat, mkay?"

I nodded and took a big swig of cider. My head felt lighter, and I decided it was time to stop hiding from everything.

It helped that I had someone in the Arena who would have my back.

Now here’s Alice, bleeding into the dirt.

There’s a tightness in my jaw where the sadness settles, clenched to steady my breathing and stop the tears from blurring my vision. I tug at the sleeve of my uniform and busy myself by staring at the treetops. Alice’s breathing is uneasy, but she’s still fighting, and that gives me hope. She’s too stubborn to die, so it won’t happen.

“You can’t die,” I tell her, staring down while she struggles. “Who else is going to punch the bad guys?”

There’s a pause (she’s fighting against death) and I can feel the bite in her tone even now, even on her deathbed.

“You, you dumbass.”

Alice Sullivan stops fighting.

-----------------------------------------------

We walk for a long time, not talking. I’m still crying, still struggling to breathe, and it gets worse as the alcohol leaves my system. I end up pulling the bright fruit from the branches and eating as many as I can. I want to make my head feel fuzzy, to distance myself from the here-and-now. This is the only way I’ll be able to function.

“Ezen, it’s okay. Just breathe,” Mila tells me. But she’s lying, she’s lying, it’s NOT okay. It’s not even a little bit okay. I just shake my head, and we keep on walking. We travel onward until night sets, and then we curl up on the forest floor. It’s not comfortable or warm in the slightest. I wish we had blanket or sleeping bags, something to keep us warm. But I don’t care. I can’t sleep anyway.

Every time I close my eyes, I think about what Alice said.

You, you dumbass.

I don’t think I have that kind of bravery in me.

Eventually – I don’t know how – I’m able to fall asleep. Exhaustion and fear will do that to you, and I drift off in bursts, dreaming of death and strange noises in the night. Each time I wake, it’s another reminder that this is real, and I struggle to find sleep again.

The morning arrives before a good night’s sleep does, and we move on. I ask Mila where we should go, but we’re wandering, lost in the reality of this Arena. The forest seems to stretch endlessly, so we couldn’t plan our destination if we tried. My brain whirls from the apples, and it takes all of my mental energy not to be sick.

The trees eventually thin, and we’re back where we started. Pumpkins rot on the ground, but nobody’s here. The battleground of the previous day is a silent cemetery now, marked by the gravestones of our predecessors.

As we near the Cornucopia, I find the gravestone of one of my brothers.

Reyes Moreno, 60th Hunger Games.

Reyes didn’t have to worry about being brave, I think.

I touch the headstone just as an infernal screech sounds through the air. My heart seizes, and for the first time I notice a giant bird hovering above us, a muttation of cruel Gamemaker design.

“Mila!” She’s running at the creature with her weapon, fighting it alone. “Stop, you can’t – “

Can’t fight it alone.

No no no no no no no

Every ounce of my body wants to run, my feet unsteady in the dirt.

I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.

Who else is going to punch the bad guys?

...

God dammit, Alice.

The blade of the axe misses the beast by a mile, and the force of my attack makes me trip over my own feet. I stumble forward, axe dropping to the dirt, and it takes me a few seconds to gather my bearings.

In those few seconds, the beasts divert their attention toward my ally.

Someone brave might pull their attention away. Someone brave might take them on alone, saving the one ally they have left. But I’m not brave, and that’s not what I do. I stand in fear, hands clammy from sweat, and I watch as if in a dream. The beasts charge at Mila and tear into her flesh, and it’s not me, it’s not my pain, but I cry out for her.

“Mila!”

My feet are glued to the dirt.

The last brave move I made was one of desperation, and I can’t muster the will to fight.

"Ezen, get your fucking shit together," Mila urges, and I begin a game with myself.

In three seconds, I will move.

3

2

I WILL move.

1

I take a step, and then another, and then another. And now I’m running towards the beasts just as Mila cuts one of them down.

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH,” I yell, swinging with all of my might.

(Which isn’t much, sadly.)