Round Two - Ruth Baran vs. Roxana Burke

She falls and all I can think is breathe.

BREATHE.

Those foes are gone, and unless the group of three decides to turn their weapons against me, I felt a sense of relief in that moment. The grip that death held on me in those last living moments of the girl. She, like the boy, were now lifeless. I felt lifeless in that moment. Breathing, heaving like a dog trying to catch it’s breath. Like a pug, like the one that we sometimes saw roaming around at home. How the little pup would breathe and snort with every single movement that was made as if the movements hurt.

If this is anything like that dog experienced on a daily basis, god damn, I would rather be dead. Especially if it’s a daily pain. But I won’t feel this pain forever, no, they would fix that. The capitol would patch me up like a little doll, using the stitches to say that everything is okay. Everything feels okay and looks okay and acts okay. But the body does not speak for the brain. The brain speaks for the body. It’ll whisper in the ear of those who still live, reminding them of what they have done. Who they did it to.

It’s only now that I look up and notice the banners that presented our faces. Printed out and slapped onto various corresponding colors as if we were royals, it was now that I knew the names of my victims. My poor, unfortunate victims. The boy whose skull is now split in half is the first face I recognize, despite being the face I’ve seen the shortest. There’s a noticeable difference that I remember, the face I saw before and after the axe I now hold, splattered with the DNA of two fallen children. I know his face as him on that banner - someone who had a home, or I hope a home, and a family.

Manu. From 2. I always wondered what 2 was like. I always wondered if it was anything like 11; how split our communities are back home. How the farms act as barriers between groups of people. The various fruit farmers; pomes, drupes, aggregates, hesperidiums. We all had our community, exchanging the sweet harvests of the fuit between each other like secrets. Was it a split community like home, or do they live in unison? Do they trust each other like nobody does in 11?

Liza was the girl that just fell, laying at my feet now. From 10. I don’t know much about ten, either. I know that Liza has experience with livestock, with sheep, specifically. Things like us, things that get herded into a corner and do what they’re told until they get left alone. In this occasion, told to kill until we’ve done so. She had a bite to the way she spoke, so maybe all of that livestock murder gave her an edge to her words.

I’m not that good at words if you couldn’t tell.

It felt like time stopped in those moments, pondering over who these people were. Wondering what lives I just took them from. That silence was severed by the voice of another boy, one from the other group of people fighting in our section. His voice pierces like a needle to a balloon. ​"God, shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up-" a glance between him and the banners that I now fully understand shows his name, Pascal, as I return my focus back to a middle finger to the face. His voice continues to direct itself at me. Like everyone at home who would blame me for doing what I was told. ​"And fuck you-!" this feels like a bottle, an inferno of fire being released from him because he doesn’t know what to do with it, and at least he can do something with it. My bottle is boiling, edging to be released, but I’ve struggled with processing my emotions just as much as my words. ​"I'm no different than before I got here and you can't tell me any different! If I die at least I go down knowing there's nothing wrong with me-" the statement is completed by one, two bodies falling soon after, and they aren’t mine or his. By elimination standards, Bryony and Cedar were the two that fell in our quadrant.

And it’s silent.

Quiet. His voice continues, like a mother in a movie longing for her fallen loved ones to come back. Screaming into the abyss, hoping for a response. ​"It's such misery business being stuck here with the likes of all of you-!" I feel for him, and I understand the pain. Being surrounded by this war isn’t fair. It’s not right. But we won’t ever leave. We never can. Cedar and Bryonry and Manu and Liza will all be ingrained into the back of that boys mind. ”Better get used to it. They’re with you for the long haul now.”

He’ll always know the body of his victims.

Smoke begins to fill the air, our nostrils, whispering into our brains. What? I look around to find the source, and as if on cue, the banners ignite into an ember. 16 of them, to be exact. The ones that died. I watch as the very last tributes to Manu, Liza, Bryony, and Cedar go to ashes, burning further and further away, until the flags have left like their life. The two from each section who lived were held up by a drone, away from the flames, because we had not died yet. We, too, will soon be ignited in flames. Just the one who lives from this shithole gets to the party late.

Similar to the banners in our quadrant, two banners hover over the burning ones in the other three. The crowd cheered as those banners crisped up and dissipated, to then fall to a silence once those banners were gone.

What now? Whispers began to beat throughout the crowd, wondering if we would be expected to go directly into the next fight. Soon enough, a voice welcomes itself into the arena. ​”All tributes, please report to the edge of the arena to prepare you for the next round.”

Shuffling to the edge, it felt that my body could hardly even handle the idea of moving any further. A part of me hoped they’d let me fight how I was, one single blow and I’d be dead. However, this was not the case; after ten minutes of a costume change and some repair work done on my body, I wasn’t as close to dying as I was. It wouldn’t take much to get the rest of the job done, though.

We reentered the arena to a roar from the crowd, ready for round two of their meal. The arena has changed ever so slightly; the section I reside in is now a mixture of green and yellow. I guess they want to mix us up as much as possible. Our banner still hang in the color of starting point; me in green, and this next opponent, Ruth, in yellow. Something along the lines of “begin” was mentioned, and we now must fight each other. I don’t know how much fight I have left in me.

The other girl speaks. ​”I’m Ruth. Yeah, helpful. I needed that clarification. ”Roxana.” There wasn’t any need for deeper conversation. One of us was going to die soon. Become a part of the bloodstains that have dyed the sand. I watch as her feet dig into the sand and her grip on what looks to be a spear leads the charge to my body. A cry of sorts leaves her mouth. Like a warrior or some sort of battle agent. She wasn’t much for the small talk before one of us dies either, it seems. Her weapon misses me, and I take a moment to step back and look at her.

While the small talk didn’t prove any important to me, I wanted a change from the last fight. The bickering. ”I guess we can take this as a chance to know each other. Let someone know our story hoping we’re about to leave, no?” The axe still resides comfortably in my hand, breath only a hinge lighter than it was when it was on the edge. ”What do you do back home? What is the Ruth version of District Eight like?” I’m sure her experience is different from everyone elses. If she was anything like the tribute from eight that I just fought next to, she was definitely going to be just as much of a story. Sadly, her story can’t last longer than mine. I just can’t let that happen. I raise my axe in her direction and take the swing, hoping for the best.

My axe scrapes her arm after my question, causing a splatter of blood to follow it. The juice from the berry, per se, that I’ve grown used to ever since starting this adventure. I figure there’s a sense of surprise in the girl that I want to know who she is. I don’t want to take another life without not knowing what their life meant to other people. How can I say I did a good thing, the right thing of fighting a boy like Manu? How did he live at home? Is his death going to cause a domino effect with the people around him? I’m unsure, really, and I guess I’ll likely never know.

I’m not sure if I want the guilt of knowing either.

The girl- Ruth (use their name, their identity. they are real, not another chess piece like you,) speaks. ​“My district eight is… a basement church on Sundays with my family. Stealing moments with my friends to do nothing at all. Helping my parents run a laundromat.” I take a moment to imagine the girl in her element. At home, in the basement. On her knees (or however she does it) praying. Spending time with family - does she have a big family? Close uncles and aunts and cousins and sisters and brothers. Do they love each other?

The thought of having friends alone was a mystery to me, too; a daydream, imagining what nothing is to them. Is it laying on the ground and looking at the sky on a cool day or night, enjoying the presence of the others? Or is nothing wreaking mischief? What does it feel like to spend time with a group of people who enjoy you and don’t think that you’re there to promote a family good? She works at a laundromat. Helping her parents. Like me with the farm, maybe. My family never really used a laundromat, so I don’t know how tightly-knit of a working force is required for one.

Ruth steadied her feet on the ground. ​“All I know about Eleven is that your days are long, but most of you spend them out in the sun.” This caused a light smile to reveal itself. The heat, while absolutely shit, was something I always liked. It made going back inside once we’re done so much nicer. Getting to shower and feel the cool embrace of water to reward your hard work for the day. Lemonade on the porch.

​“Do you believe in anything?” Believe in what? Morals? Fairytails? Ghosts? What is Ruth seeking for in an answer here?

The question causes an internal rift, because I don’t know how to answer that…my mothers never took me to church. It felt like the farm was our religion, almost. I never thought much about God, or Gods or Goddesses. It wasn’t something that inspired me to be better, to support, so why bother? Yes, my family always held the belief of treating community as family, because we are all each other has at the end of the day, but I don’t need God to be a good person.

I might need him after this though.

Opening my mouth to respond, the only word that came out was ”I-” before she spoke again. ​“You don’t have to answer that,” Ruth declares, speaking once more before she jabs her spear at me. ​ “But what will you do if you get out of here?”

I wish I knew.

There’s what I want to do versus what I’ll have to do. I want to take over the farm; be a part of our legacy and grow us to greater things than just berries and jams. I want Burke’s Berries to thrive under my rule, not the rule of my mothers. I want to rebrand ourselves into a business that people know they can trust, not one they can doubt. Maybe trade in one of our plots of strawberries for a place for homeless people to stay. Let them work for a little bit to get off of their feet.

But I don’t know if that’s what I’ll do.

”I don’t know if what I want to do is what I will do.” I ponder for a moment before continuing. ”I mean, look at the people that have already won.” I glance around the stadium, catching a glimpse of a few of the victors. ”I’d love to go home and take over the strawberry farm my mothers run, but I think I’d end up just becoming another pawn in the audience.” I’m already a pawn in the stadium, so I guess they like keeping everything here. Like the blood from Manu’s split head.

I wonder if going home to take the farm was worth it, either. Would fewer people purchase our products out of spite that I won? I already earned the luxuries of winning; what does that bitch need a business for?

I guess time will tell because I’m too far in now to give up.

Once again, my axe scrapes her skin and it feels like this fight moves as slow as my fight with Liza. Like we’re both inching towards death. Both of us are scared of dying, but both of us also seem to be scared to send the one into that realm. To think that there are only three people left after this between my farm and me is enough of an inspiration to come back home.

But maybe the church, the family, and the friends that Ruth has are her own inspiration. To say that my only inspiration is a bunch of berries is kind of embarrassing to admit. Sure, my moms are a worthy cause, but who else do I have when I get home? As much as I’d like to say a boy like Thayden is waiting for me at home to tell me everything is okay and help me forget about the trauma, I don’t. I only have two money-hungry mothers and an even more money-hungry grandfather - I can’t imagine what the winning of all that wealth would turn me into. His new little nugget farm to steal money from time to time - asking the parents of not only the strawberry farm, but the orchard my cousins have over the hill, too.

He’s like the Capitol, really, but instead of just taking our products, he takes our gains too. It’s gross. Grandfather has always been like that. Wanting to use people for the good, trying to take advantage of what he can - like that one berry idea I was supposed to never know about. Whenever he’d bring it up, my mothers would shush him down, followed by a point and a ​”not while she’s around” harshly whispered into his ear, loud enough that even the farm cats could hear.

Of course, a girl gets curious when hearing that so often, so one day I spent a bit of extra time snooping around the office one day after he left. On his table listed some document that said “Body Berry”, which was a code name for it, I guess, and essentially it had the ingredients that would kill people upon ingestion. My Grandpa wanted to kill people with our products. Confine to the narrative that the district has directed onto us, one of mistrust and evil intent, and use our products for bad. ​”It’s all about branding,” he once stated as my mothers shooed him away, tired of the constant pestering, ”if that’s what they see you as, become it!”

As if he’s not the reason we’re looked at this way, either.

Maybe if I come back I won’t even touch the farm. He’ll see it as even more as an opportunity - the girl who killed with an axe now kills with berries. What a downgrade, really.

But what would I do if I didn’t have the farm? I’ve never done much outside of it. I lived and breathed it. I liked tending to our stand, talking to people, and giving them opportunities to learn about this field that I knew so well. It never felt like I really belonged anywhere else, so where do I?

Ruth begins to speak. ​“Pawns can still move across the board,” I’m not one to correct her, even if she was right. I don’t know if she is. I farm, god damn it, I don’t have time for chess. I don’t even know what an actual pawn is in the essence of chess; people just refer to themselves as one a lot.

I guess they move a bit, according to Ruth.

Do I belong on a chess board?

​“And they may not look like much, but they can still move, space to space. And if you give them time, they can turn into a queen, too.” After that, she rushes me once again, leaving a scratch for the first time in this fight. It didn’t hurt. It can’t hurt compared to losing an arm. It’s simply a familiarity, something that I grew to know very well. I forgot what it felt like for a second, the Capitol healed me up and I felt like a brand new warrior.

Okay, that’s a lie, but I did forget slightly that I was vulnerable to pain. Or scratches or scars - whatever Ruth has left to give me.

She, like the pawn she described, rushes in hopes to become the spot of queen that a pawn desires to have. ”From the way we keep fighting,” I let out a breath, gripping my axe as I step back to look at the girl from eight, ”We really are just pawns fighting for the queen’s throne.”

And my fight isn’t over.

Not yet, at least.

[roxana attacks ruth, axe]
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[3.5]