Round One - Green

One of the tributes, a boy, from the other fight raises his voice. ​​"You know, I'm open to alliances," That’s a stupid idea. Not that having a group of people you can trust isn’t good; a community of people who support you is important. Where you can step out onto the porch or lawn and feel like your purity and sincerity weren’t being judged.

But this isn’t a home.

”An alliance in a games to the death? Seems foolish to me.” The other girl in this fight speaks what I’m thinking, and internally I praise her for not needing me to bite back. She begins to speak some more as a smile creeps across her face, as if a string were pulling her mouth open to create a doll-like feeling to the way that she’s playing their game. ”I don’t think you guys are much different, ya know, than the sheep.” Her weapon raises, as if another string causes her to prepare to swing. Except they tend to put up more of a fight, she finishes her statement as her body lurches forward, making contact with skin from the green-crusted weapon. Another scratch on my skin creates another crevice of the juice that humans produce. The dark red that at times looks like it could be sweet.

The killer berry is something my grandfather was exceptionally interested in. The idea of genetically modifying such a sweet and beautiful fruit to be able to kill on ingestion - he loved it, he wanted us to start working on such. I always heard my mothers deflect it, saying not yet, they’re too young, when they’re older. They didn’t want a seven year old girl with the ability to wield deadly fruit.

Not that it exists though.

I’m not the one to talk about it.

Another axe is wielded by the boy begins to talk more, questioning the sheep herder herself. "Never meet an axe-wielding sheep in all that time, I take it?" If all people were sheep, not all sheep need weapons to kill. Science is a powerful thing. "If you think humans and sheep are the same, you've got another thing coming."

We may not be sheep, but we’re damn close to animals. Treating us like some psychology experiment like the one room they pulled me into earlier this week; the prospect of reward, give a dog a task and the stupid mutt will do whatever it is in order to receive that reward. Life. A treat. Going outside.

Murder.

"Maybe we’re just animals."

Not pawns.

"Mutts. Lions. Sharks. We play their game for the sweet bell of victory.”

My axe gets tighter in my grip. Hopefully the sweat doesn’t make me lose it.

"And then they do it all over again. To hell with the sorry bitch that lives."

[roxana attacks manu]
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[result]

[roxana attacks liza]
axe
[result]

He crumbled. Like a doll. Like a forest to the fire or the arm to a fall. Axe meeting the head of a boy who I never even had the chance of knowing and he falls.

The crowd roars in response. Like a lion that just got fed; they’ve been given a taste of what they wanted, but now they want - no - need more. It’s sick. I hate this game that they made us play.

I hate it.

I hate how limp his body is. How his body looks as it lays there. It was like a berry, freshly squeezed. Popped like there was one more just like it in the row over. But he wasn’t a berry. He wasn’t some produce you can grow from the ground and serve to the community as a commercial good. He was a real boy. A real, living being who can’t be copied as plants can. Nobody could ever replace him like a crop can replace a hunger.

I hate it.

The other girl smiles. ​”Well, there’s your first. How did it feel?”

I hate it. He didn’t deserve that.

But none of us do.

I spit, disgusted with myself and wanting the bitter, dry, uncomfortable taste my mouth formulated out of my senses.

”I hated it.”

She laughs. Like a witch. Like someone who enjoys this kind of thing - killing people - and I’d believe it. ​”He seems to be better off than us now, yeah?”

And I begin to laugh too. He is better. So much better. He’s in a world where the government doesn’t exist and doesn’t watch your every move. Doesn’t dictate what you do with your body or what your children do or the safety of your children. He’s somewhere where everything is all right.

We’re somewhere that it’s all wrong.

”I suppose.” The axe once again in my grip. ”I don’t know if saying ‘good luck’ means hoping you die or not, though.”

With the pain, it’s all the same.

The crowd roars.

They finally got what they have been waiting for. A fallen body, an almost severed limb, and two girls butchering each other or their own sick entertainment. They are hungrier now than they were before. I can feel it in their cheers and the tension rolling off of them in waves.

They are starving.

And we are simply the appetizer.

He lays on the ground next to us. Unmoving, but somehow still looking up. It's like his eyes are locked on something, heaven maybe. They always told me there wasn't an afterlife, but I refuse to believe them. It was the only thought that let me sleep at night, knowing that they weren't suffering. Knowing that they were happy together.

Maybe I would join them too.

"I hated it."

My weapon came crashing down towards her, but she was too quick. Her slender body was able to dodge the brunt of my attack. I cursed under my breath.

"It might be easier to forget. I doubt they'll let you though," I say with a shrug as I sweep my weapon towards the crowd. However left this arena was never going to be able to forget.

They were never going to be the same.

”I suppose. I don’t know if saying ‘good luck’ means hoping you die or not, though.”

Her weapon comes crashing down and I am barely able to dodge the axe. It slices into my skin and more of my blood spills onto the already stained ground. My muscles are screaming at me, telling me it is time to quit, but the cheers from the crowd tell me otherwise.

"Even if you make it out of here, will you really be alive? Will you even be you?"

I knew I wouldn't.

I was already broken.

They would somehow need to figure out how to glue me back together.

My axe grazes skin to create a rift similar to the many cracks in pavement back home. Luckily, we don’t have cars, because those cracks would tear those tires apart. But the girl I’m fighting isn’t pavement, isn’t some crack in the ground that can be half-assedly filled up to make it seem like the ground wasn’t so fucked up after all. That crack will stay. It might scab, but I can’t fill the hole of her existence with another one of her.

Just like the boy. I can’t copy him. I can’t copy her. What spot at the table - or wherever he goes - is going to be empty now?

​”It might be easier to forget,” thank god, I don’t know if I want that image of a skull splitten boy in my head forever. ​”They won’t let you though.” Referring to the crowd above who now thirsts for more after a first taste, I wouldn’t put it past them. They won’t. They’ll make me their icon now that the sweet strawberry picking girl from 11 split someone’s head open.

”You’d expect them to compete with how at peace they are with it.”

Disgusting.

The government won’t either, I’d bet. They’ll make me one of their toys - like the other ones. I’ll be dragged along to every single one of these shitty ass colliseums and be expected to watch as future generations die.

​”Even if you make it out of here, will you really be alive?”

No. I doubt it, really. We are all dead in theory already. Nobdy lives forever, we all know that the life we live doesn’t have permanence. It’s how you’re going to spend your life. Bitter? Excited? Open-armed and ready to take any single option given to you by storm? I can’t imagine what I’ll be like when I get back, but I can certainly tell that I won’t be just picking berries.

​”Will you even be you?”

The girl’s axe comes into contact with my skin, creating another crevice similar to the one I gave her. Our scars are becoming a pattern. Something the capitol will later patch up and act as if they were brand new, and nothing happened.

Fuck it.

”None of us will be. We’ll never be our full selves again - mentally, phyiscally. We’re now one huge fucked up psychology experiment that only ends happily for one of us.”

For a moment I can see them.

Ma and Pa.

They are waiting there patiently to welcome me back to them. Their arms outstretched, gentle smiles on their faces, like they have been patient this whole time, just waiting for the perfect moment to welcome me home. I reach out in desperate longing, my fingers stretching, desperate to connect with theirs. And that is when her weapon comes crashing down.

I blink.

They are gone.

And so is my arm.

I have no screams left in me now. They have all been stolen by the countless gashes that scatter across my body, now memorialized by my arm lifeless next to me. It hits the ground with a large thud, and now river of red runs through the dirt next to my feet. I want to yell, I want to cry, but the pain is so unbearable that even my jaw stays locked tight. Instead, my eyes flash back down to my arm on the ground that was already hanging on by a thread, and then back up to the girl who wields the weapon that cost me my limb.

"You really know how to kick a girl when she's down, huh?"

My fingers grip tighter around my axe. I am not sure if it is blood, sweat, or tears that are dripping down my cheek, but I still somehow manage to lift my weapon. Blood fills my mouth as I bite my lip in determination, and I stand taller than I have stood before.

I will not go down a coward.

”None of us will be. We’ll never be our full selves again - mentally, phyiscally. We’re now one huge fucked up psychology experiment that only ends happily for one of us.”

A laugh escapes my lips one final time.

"If you think surviving is the happy ending, you have another thing coming."

The crowd was on the edge of their seats.

Hands gripped tightly on the edge, legs bouncing, nails digging into palms, and fingers crossed hoping their favorite tribute manages to come out on top. I didn't have to look at the crowd to know that each audience member that sat there was seething in anticipation. I didn't have to look to know many of them were praying for my death.

I didn't have to look to know they were all animals too.

Two girls battled each other to the Death, each one standing on His. The question is, who will fall first?

His presence has been here the whole time, but it grew stronger each time a weapon made contact with an opponents skin. It grew stronger each time more of our blood stained the dirt floor. It grew stronger as each of us neared closer to our last breath.

My parents are no longer here. I can feel Him behind me, waiting, and I know my parents lay on the other side of His door, waiting for me to come back to them. Part of me wants to lay my weapon down and let Him take me, just so I can feel their warm embrace once more. But the other part knows that they would be disappointed that I decided quitting was easier.

And all these years, that is the one thing I have tried to avoid.

I lift my weapon up just as the other girl's comes crashing down. The axes bounce off each other, the metals colliding and sending a piercing noise echoing throughout the arena. I shake my head, trying to dispel the noise and refocus.

"Nobody escapes happy. Nobody normal at least."

A soft smile plays on my lips.

"Sounds about right. But I bet in years to come, there will be tributes who live and breathe these games. Because don't forget, we're all at least a little not normal."

And I swing one last time.