forbidden fruit | ulysses (death)

U L Y S S E S.

"A quick death, then. You deserve that much."

Funny how the thoughts you have days ago can return within a flash. Fortified in that circle of trees, I hoped that someone might kill me in my sleep. "Quick and easy." Larissa's words ring true as her glaive brings me face down in the thick of the mud. She scatters off shortly after.

The taste of rushing water and soil fills my mouth, coughed out every few seconds just to be huffed in again. I'm grateful… I think. There could be much worse deaths than the one she's decided to give me. Bleed me dry. Break all of my bones. Destroy me. No. She left me alone here with the opportunity to find my own peace. Choose what my own peace really means.

Rainwater dampens my clothes and freezes everything underneath it. The pulse of the pendant's crescent moon is faster than my own, but even that everlasting glow is dying. This is it. The giggles, no jokes. Just the cruel end of a game; eliminated, bankrupt, out.

I've heard stories back in Eleven that a tribute's cannon blows before they're fully dead. One last mind game from the Capitol. I haven't heard mine, but I'm waiting for the moment when they're certain– without a doubt that I'm not going to make it back. Rain still pounding on the back of my neck, I pull myself underneath toward cover from the trees. It's still chilling here, but less overstimulating for a dying kid.

Quieter, calmer… nicer.

Torian… I've got my fingers crossed for you to death.

Caspian, Jayson… here I come.

Mom, Dad… I'll see you soon.

An apple falls, splashing in the puddle ahead of me. Poor thing, its mother let go of its hand. Not long for a world like this, as seen by the dozens of fallen fruits now squished and deteriorated into the soil they grew from. Unrecognizable to the world that ruined them.

I inch closer to the apple, already brown from the mud and rain. I probably shouldn't, but I'm going to anyway. When has "shouldn't" stopped me before?

"Tasty."

The cannon blows now. They know. I know.

I bite the apple. The biggest, most anticipated crunch of my life. Juicy at first, rancid second. And… and…

---

The apple that Ulysses chose is easy to bite through. Mouth wide open, they make their way through all the way to the core. Initially, it tastes like a sweet red apple, but as his mouth closes, it changes. The taste is detestable and rotten now. The first seed bursts in his mouth. Dozens of seeds no bigger than an ant explode within their body like a chain of landmines in the middle of a warzone. Each detonation pushes the other seeds further through Ulysses's body. Mouth, brain, throat, chest, stomach, arms, legs, feet. His body erupts with heat and pressure until no piece of him is left unexposed. The flowers beneath him grow sporadically, unsure of where Ulysses begins and ends.

Their flesh, their bones, and their clothes. All destroyed. Unrecognizable to the world that ruined them.

One thing remains intact: a pendant in the shape of a crescent moon, a faint glow remaining to show that Ulysses is still there.

-end-