The Bloodbath

[ d10f bowie gamble | intro ]

He stands still and stoic, looking down the barrel of his own fate as the Peacekeeper's usher him into the room, dressed in ice and snow and as cold as both of them. His breaths catch in his throat, nervousness shooting up from his gut and making his heart pound in his chest.

Mace follows in after him, stepping out from the shadows and saying nothing. There's not much to say anymore, they both know this. Mace squeezes his shoulder once, rough grasp against his skin and Bowie does nothing but stare at the floor, counting the scratches and the scuff marks of tributes past that still litter the ground. The Capitol doesn't wipe this coffin of a slate clean after each Games, not like they probably do with the Career districts.

It's like they want him to remember them, it's like they want him to remember that he's already forgotten.

"Maybe don't try to come home," Mace starts, stepping back from him and into the shadows. Bowie's gaze lifts and stares down his mentor. "just try to keep goin' on." At least, what's left of him.

He wants to feel angry at the words, wants rage and fury to bubble up from his guts but it doesn't, it won't, and it leaves him with nothing but a soft gaze and an empty stare and a heavy heart. He respects Mace, doesn't understand him but understands his pain, accepts that it's easier to forget about a boy like him than force yourself to remember.

"I will, Mr. Emberstatt."

Men in white step forwards, his reflection bending and twisting in the black void of their helmets and Bowie watches as their hands wrap around the guns they carry, a warning sign before anything starts, unnecessary and unneeded. He steps in without a fight, resigns himself to one last show before he's buried.

By the time the gears below his podium start turning he's half-checked out, wires crossed and a metallic heartbeat coming to life beneath his feet and the pedestal slowly beginning to rise. His eyes shut instinctively, mind whirling and collapsing into the void and desperately blurring the line between past and present, forgetting what's to come in his future.

The curtain is pulled back, a spotlight drags softly against his flesh when the daylight finally presses into his skin.

He's met with dead heat and the smell of burnt metal, one hand blocking the sun from his face as his eyes adjust to the sudden blast of light. The arena they throw him in smells of rot and decay, of death and dust and he watches as heat rises in waves in the distance, bending and distorting the land until it becomes nothing more than a hellscape.

He gulps, taste iron and ore in his spit, then stares down into the eyes of a fallen behemoth. Items spill out from its wounds like blood, doing nothing but gathering dust and taunting them all.

The voice above him starts with robotic stoicism, his jaw clenches in response and his fingers curl into fists and his heart races inside hollow chest. Eyes dart left, then right, locking eyes on each of his allies, letting the sweat drip from his forehead and down his cheek.

This is it. The voice hits one and his brain goes to autopilot, adrenaline cutting into his veins. Showtime.

He sprints.

The wind touched at Esther's face as she stood on the rooftop, staring at the void of darkness that towered above her, a starless, empty void, cloudless and moonless. A never ending black ocean poured out above her, the distant waves of which were always just out of reach. Beneath her, a coral reef of light, energy and colour, metal structures reaching up towards the distant surface of the ocean above them. Somewhere in the distance on the wind she could hear the drumming beat of music, deep and primal and as she stared up at the sky, feeling the warm glow of the city lights dance across her face the sky lit up with fireworks and her pale skin was cast in a kaleidoscope of colour- reds and pinks and golden.

It must have been nearing midnight, she thought as she finally drew her eyes away from the abyss above to the colour below, her fingers tightening around the railing that ran around the circumference of the training centre roof. Only the Capitol would party harder the closer the children sleeping beneath her feet grew to the executioner's block; if she closed her eyes, she could feel it. Their excitement. It was almost tangible- if she reached out she could brush her fingers through it like a curtain but she was afraid if she drew it back, she might be infected too, the excitement might fill her bones and she would crave the taste of blood on her skin.

Holographic streaks of eyeliner and eyeshadow began to streak down her cheeks as Esther began to cry.

It was the first time she’d cried since arriving in the Capitol. It was as if the emotion had being coiled up inside her like a taught spring- gaining energy until it could hold it no more. She felt it snap inside her and like the toy monkey in the training room she felt herself explode inside, and she let out a small sob, followed by a deep and gutral howl. Her whole body shook now- not just the tips of her fingers or the corner of her mouth that would sometimes twitch particularly when she was tired. It was now her whole body, uncontrollably shaking so hard that she was certain that her limbs would tear from their sockets and she would end up lying broken on the ground like a marionette doll who had her strings cut.

I don’t want to die Mama.

She stood on the rooftop for what seemed like an eternity, sobbing so hard that her cheeks felt raw in the cool wind of the neon coloured midnight. As her emotions steadied, settling like the sky does after a storm, Esther was left panting, her breath billowing from her mouth in cool shades as it misted on the air. Her fingers ached from grasping the railing tightly and she was certain that if she turned her hands over to look at them the soft skin of her palm and fingers would be bruised black. Her stomach still churned and while she could barely muster any more tears, she felt the wretch ripple before she felt the sudden overwhelming nausea and she lurched over the railing to throw up what little was in her stomach- mainly mimosa’s and bile, cast to the wind before it hit the force field and disintergrated, turning to electric glitter before her eyes.

Staring at the the distant street below, Esther suddenly felt the urge to move. There was part of her screaming for her to stop but she could not help as it as she slowly kicked off her stupid high heels and slowly stepped up onto the first rung of the railing, then the next. The voice inside her head was so distant like it was shouting from above the surface of the nightsky above her head, so distant it was beyond the edge of their own universe, but no matter how hard they screamed Esther still found herself balancing on the edge of the railing, wobbling as she tried to balance herself. She wondered if the owner of that distant voice’s throat was raw like hers was as she stared down at the depths of the glistening ocean of metal, light and colour, her holographic dress billowing and flowing in the night as if she were a jellyfish, floating above the ocean depths.

A beat.

“....FUCK!” Esther yelled as loud as her lungs would allow her, her voice echoing into the void, getting lost in the carphony of fireworks and celebration music and clocks chiming as it finally reached midnight. She paused, inhaling again, the cool midnight air tasting sweet as she did before she screamed again “FUCK!”

As the last of the air left her, she felt herself tipping backward and fell back onto the concrete of the roof with a huff. Lying there, staring at the empty sky, Esther felt empty now- like she had been hollowed out. It was as if she had snuffed out every emotion that had boiled and frothed inside her until only the smoke remained. The only sound she could hear in her mind was the beating of her heart, no little voice, no anxious hands around her throat, no urge to pick at her hands- even her hands were still. All she could feel and hear was the sound of her heart- that lifeline to this world and the anchor from preventing her slipping into the next.

She lay there for 10 minutes, allowing the lights of fireworks to wash over her and the sounds of the city to dance around her. When everything seemingly stilled, when the fireworks stopped and the music in the distant became distant again, Esther pushed herself to her feet and walked from the rooftop, leaving her high heels behind in the midnight air abandoned at the edge of the roof.

---

The next morning was still, but it happened all at once and before Esther knew it, she was stood in a dark room beneath the belly of the earth taking a step onto the podium. Esther blinked, looking back over her shoulder at the empty room behind her- her life stretched behind her and unknowing stretched forward toward her as the podium closed around her and rose and Esther entered the bloodbath.