house of {mirrors} // leticia day 1

It feels as though there’s a river flowing out of her chest, only the river is warm and red, and drains the energy from her every second she runs. Her scythe is tainted with the blood of the girl whose ear she sliced off, and she tries not to think too hard about it but when she closes her eyes all she sees is how clean the cut was and then she sees the girl’s knife whirling towards her chest and curses herself for not running sooner. All she has is the scythe and the sack – she has no food or water, and no clear way of obtaining any.

But she’s alive.

She presses her hand to her chest and feels the warmth and the liquid dampening her dress. Without thinking, she brings her hand up to her lips and allows it to pass onto her tongue, tasting the iron. For some reason, it soothes her, so she cleans off the remaining blood on her hand with her tongue and breaks into a run again.

One cannon fires from the bloodbath – one tribute dead. She wonders who was the first to become a killer out of the twenty-three others, and who was the first victim. Her memory flashes back to the boy from her district, but she saw him before the knife caught her and he looked relatively unharmed. It doesn’t matter if he’s dead. She tells herself that, but the idea of the final piece of home being taken from her forms an uneasy feeling in her stomach.

Surely once the bloodbath is over they’ll be showing highlights of it back at the Capitol. She wonders if Delia thinks she’s a monster now. She hasn’t killed, but she’s spilled blood; the blood of a girl she doesn’t even know the name of. A girl with a home, a family, just like her own – but she knows Delia would want her to protect herself. She tries to remember what the girl who threw the knife looked like as she traces her finger over the puncture in her chest – too far to the right to pierce her heart, but pretty damn close to it.

Eventually, she reaches an area that draws every breath from her lungs and leaves her speechless. A big top, worn down and ravaged, yet standing still in the ground. Similarly to the cornucopia, there are fliers around the place, only these aren’t wanted posters – they show the acts that would have taken place here. She remembers what she said to Ronan (she finally learned his name when the scores were revealed) on the train –

“I’ve always wanted to be a circus performer.”

If the situation was any different, she'd feel inclined to laugh.

Taking a tentative step forwards, she investigates the area, hand still placed flat across the wound on her chest to protect it. She allows her other hand to feel over a tipped-over popcorn machine, and excitement swells in her heart, even if she knows it’s short-lived. It perishes as soon as she lays eyes upon the pile of bones in the centre. Of course; the Gamemakers can’t have anything nice unless there’s a hint of death and decay in the midst of it. Her stomach turning, she faces away from the bones, examining her environment.

There’s nobody else around, as far as she can see. She knows she can hide – she’s small enough to conceal herself within one of the rundown attractions of the ruined fairground. With the fragments of childhood scattered around her, she feels older, wiser, even if it’s only been minutes? hours? since the Games began. Something floats down towards her, and she catches it in her hand, running her fingers over it and taking a few moments to register that it’s a… poncho?

It fits awkwardly over her dress, but it grants her a small amount of warmth, and she wonders if it’s a sponsor gift or just something the Gamemakers have planned. Did anyone else receive a poncho? She doesn’t dwell too much on it, because thinking about other tributes makes her remember that there are twenty-two others left and that makes her remember that one of them is a killer already and the rest are just going to follow suit until there’s nothing but killers left and she can’t think about that right now-

The poncho covers the wound on her chest, and for once she can take away her iron grip on it and not be greeted with crimson.

Her legs ache from running, her heart feels as though it’ll be consumed by anxiety, but she’s standing nonetheless. The same can’t be said for the person whose cannon still echoes in her ears. Be thankful that you’re alive. That’s what Delia would say if faced with her situation. She can find food and water another day. For now, she needs to make sure she’s safe.

Safety isn’t an easy thing to come across in the arena, but as she clings to her chest and cautiously manoeuvers around the area, careful not to tread too harshly, avoiding the sight of the pile of bones, she realises that the little safety she can find is all she has now.