*Merry Ratmas, Thundy*

The boy’s footsteps were uneven, the dragging of his foot echoing through the empty chamber. Step, drag, step drag across the foyer’s floor, making interesting patterns in the layer of ash that had settled there. The boy was new to this world, and did not know what may wait for him beyond the large iron gates that loomed at the end of the room. In his gut he knew that it could be nothing heavenly, he hadn’t earned that. His mind could only race through the possibilities of endless torture that threatened to claim him. The lobby to this afterlife was steaming and although sweat was running down his back he refused to stop. Can’t be a coward now. It’s too late.

When he finally reached the enormous black gate, he peeked through the metal bars. All he could make out was more of the same crimson red rooms and unrelenting heat. Maybe it won’t be so bad after all. After looking for a handle to open the gate, the boy laid his hand on an ornate knocker. It was shaped like the sniveling face of a gargoyle, albeit a little cliché. He slammed the metal against the bars sending echoes all throughout the cavern. For a long moment, the boy thought no one would come. That he would live out his eternity sitting in front of the gates of hell with nothing to occupy his time but his thoughts. It seemed too cruel of a punishment to be damned to torture just outside the gates of the realm who housed it. Only he was not condemned to that fate for a figure appeared on the other side of the metal bars.

Brown eyes stared back at him and the greeter’s lips twisted into a mad grin. The boy took a step back, gritting his teeth and letting the knocker fall back into the metal sending another aftershock through the chamber.

“Welcome home, little brother.”


Reyes Moreno was not the first person Jae would have liked to meet in Hell, but he didn’t seem to have a choice. "When you die, Jae, I'll welcome you to Hell." Well the son a bitch did it after all.

“You’re dead,” Jae spit the words out like venom, as if the words would melt his brother where he stood. The great Reyes Moreno had died a year ago after sulking across the Arena and tearing up at the sight of blood. The older boy only looked down at his brother, his face unearthly calm. How blank someone can seem without a smirk or a wink.

“So are you,” it wasn’t a jab at him or a snarky comment. It was the truth, and that made it hurt more than any threat.

Silently, Jae followed Reyes into the depths of the chambers until they reached a room where a few other people milled about. Upon further investigation, he found that they were all of the Reaping age. A tall, petite girl sat on the edge of a ledge and a boy with blonde hair was leaning against a stone pillar beside her. When the pair of brothers entered they snapped their heads over to see the new arrival. Jae kept a solid two feet between himself and his older brother, sliding a sweaty palm through his hair to keep it in place. From behind him, Jae could see Reyes’ hand twitching every now and then. It would jerk to his side then his fingers would curl into a fist and spread out again. Examining closer he noticed that underneath his shirt, Reyes’ shoulders muscles did the same and his legs followed suit. It was subtle, but if you watched you could see the little dance Reyes was constantly following. It reminded Jae of the mad waltz the older Moreno had done in his Arena. The insane flurry of steps while honey dripped down his chin and the finally a blade to the heart cut it off.

Jae glances down to his own hands to see that they are all in one piece. Having lost so much in his Games that having it all be returned was one heck of a difference. However, they were on the same. The severed fingers were too stiff and didn’t like to bend, his eye was sensitive to even the dimmest light and he ended up closing it more than he used it. His body felt like a rag doll that had been patched together with bits of different material. Tweed with cotton, plaster with cardboard.

“What I say, Seah?” Reyes crooned, walking over to stand next to the blonde haired kid. Jae examined the boy who was wearing brown cargo shorts and a golden colored t-shirt that looked like it had been to hell and back. Well, maybe not back. “Seah” had a rather pointed nose, thin face and his eyes were staring back at Jae with the same intensity that a mathematician studies a problem. “This is little Jae Moreno and I was right. You look crazy similar.”

Jae took in the Seah boy’s face and found that it was almost like looking into a mirror. There were as a difference in how he held himself and the way he moved his face but the features were very much alike.

“Seah here is from Four, maybe you two are long lost brothers or something,” Reyes said, chuckling. It was odd for Jae to stand there and see Reyes so… normal? Death had calmed him and it was almost like a strange family reunion in this chamber where aunts and uncles talk about how much you are your cousins look alike. Meeting distant relatives for the first time and telling stories about their lives.

Just then a loud scream came from behind a metal door to the right almost hidden among the rock. Banging could be heard against the metal and more yelling accompanied it.

“Ignore her,” the dark haired girl said, jumping off her rock ledge and proving to be much taller than Jae had originally assumed. “That’s Mercury and, well, it’s better for everyone if she’s in there.”

The girl had moss green eyes and cheekbones like those of the rail thin women in the Capitol that they show on TV in the outrageous clothes. She was pretty enough, however Jae could see scars crisscrossing her skin where her neck ended but before her shirt rose to cover the marks. She wore an unzipped parka which seemed ironic for such an environment. She held her hand out, an ugly scar ran across her palm and winded up her wrist and disappeared beneath the sleeve of her jacket.

“I’m Zinnia,” the name seemed familiar, but Jae couldn’t seem to place it. He had seen those green eyes before and that name is not exactly a common one.

“She’s a tribute too,” Reyes crooned from behind the girl, watching as Jae shook the girl’s hand.

“I’m from the Fifty Fourth, District One and Seah there is from the Fifty Eight representing District Four,” Zinnia informed him. That’s when it all clicked. The pictures of past tributes that are paraded on occasion, he must have seen her there before. Jae had only been ten years old when Zinnia’s Games had occurred and besides, at home he had his own Games to be playing than watching her. Obviously she didn’t win and wasn’t worth much to remember her. Yet here she was in flesh and blood in front of him. A girl who had died seven years ago but still doesn’t look a day over fifteen.

Loud, muffled yelling came from behind the door off to the side and Zinnia rolled her eyes. “And that’s Mercury Duval, Fifty Sixth Games from District Six.”

Another loud bang against the metal.

“Five! She’s from Five,” the banging stopped for the time being and Jae turned toward the rest of the group that wasn't being restrained. There were five of them here in total, all from different Games and all from separate districts if it weren't for Reyes. “If it weren't for Reyes” would have changed a lot of things in Jae’s life, and afterlife, but he decided that no good would come from dwelling on it. There was an awkward minute of silence as they all took each other in before Jae spoke up.

“So, why are we here?” his eyes went from each tribute to the next, searching each face for an answer, only to come up fruitless.

“We've thought a lot about it ourselves,” Seah said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Why are the select few of us thrown down here? Where are the others? What do we have in common? The questions never end.”

“And the answers never come,” Reyes interjected, pulling himself up on a rock shelf to hang above the rest of them, overlooking the entire chamber. “Although, little brother puts a missing link in here, doesn't he?”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Jae snapped when he saw the two others nodding their heads in agreement.

“Well, it shows that we aren’t dropped here just randomly,” Zinnia added.

“If you are here with your brother then that puts a whole other variable in the equation,” Seah muttered, more to himself then to anyone else. Jae’s bad eye twitched at the word “brother” but he held his tongue.

“So, what do you do down here?” Jae asked slowly, assuming that they were below. He knows well enough that he would not deserve a place as pristine and white as the heaven people like to talk about. No, this setting better suits the stories of hell although the never ending torture didn’t seem to be anywhere- well, except maybe being locked in a closet for five years.

“Tell stories mostly, and now we have a whole new ear to spill them out to,” Reyes chirped, grinning wildly. His feet were dangling off the edge of the rock, swaying this way and that, a twitch to the left, a slight jerk back to the right.

“No, I’m tired of you two. I want to hear what the new kid has to stay,” Zinnia said sitting on the floor with her legs crossed reading to listen to the tales of the Sixty First Hunger Games.

“Well, they weren’t very glamorous,” Jae said, rubbing the back of his neck and trying to figure out how to put the most important few weeks of his life into a single story. His retort was met with laughter from all of them. Zinnia guffawed, Seah was chuckling and Reyes had his signature grin, slapping his knee and rocking back and forth on his perch. Even the girl named Mercury could be heard snickering from her prison.

“And you think ours were?” Zinnia managed to snort between laughs. That his Jae right between the eyes, they had seen just as much horror and gore as he had, even with his extra training at home.

Jae began his story, describing the opening ceremonies and the tribute. He talked about the alliance he had joined and when they heard the Districts all three of them looked surprise.

“Three, Ten and Nine? Those are hardly Career Districts,” Seah said, burrowing his eyebrows together as if he could look hard enough and see Jae’s motives. Reyes, for once, didn’t say anything but Jae knew what he must be thinking: that’s why you didn’t win, brother.

“Yeah, it turns out they weren’t much help in the long run. All the Emberstatt wanted to do was hold hands with the little girl and mull over his feelings. The boy from Nine was okay, he did catch a rabbit but-,” Jae’s speech was cut off by an abrupt and loud cry from Seah.

“A rabbit?!” the boy inquired, stepping forward with a wild look in his eye. “He actually caught one?!”

“Uh, yeah but he cooked it with the skin on it and ruined it,” Jae muttered, worried by the boy from Four’s change in character. Seah’s fingers went to his hair, tugging at the blonde locks before turning around and throwing himself down, facing the wall. A few moments went by before anyone decided to tell Jae anything.

“Um, Seah had an unfortunate experience with a rabbit,” Zinnia said, her eyes looking around the room but refusing to rest anywhere.

“Oh yeah- Wilson, right?” Jae said, snapping his fingers as the memory of the boy’s Games flooded back into his mind. It had only been three years ago and the memory was still fairly fresh. Try as he might, the boy from Four could not catch the rabbit that continuingly escaped his grasp. It drove him insane, but that madness did not last long before he was pitted against Lethe Turner, who went on to win the Fifty Eighth.

“It was too much,” it was the barest of whispers that floated over form Seah’s little corner. He had wrapped his knees up to his chest and rocked back and forth like how mothers get their babies to sleep. “I killed so many kids but I couldn’t… I couldn’t catch that stupid rabbit.”

Everyone in the room seemed to droop under these words. All of them turning into themselves and reflecting on their own troubles and tribulations.

“I’m useless,” Zinnia’s voice broke the silent thinking in the room, her eyes staring down at her hands, her voice cracking at the end of her sentence. “I never could do anything right. I couldn’t even die right. Aren’t we supposed to just go into nothingness?”

Her head bowed down and Jae felt a similar feeling rise in his gullet. Beaten by a little girl in his Games, his kill list hadn’t been anything special and his alliance was a group of fools. The only thing people will remember him for is being a Moreno- the brother of the coward who took his own life rather than face death like a Career.

Weren’t they all like that? Careers that failed in the few moments that counted the most?

“I begged for death.” “She called me ignorant.” “I let them bring me down.” “I begged him to kill me.” “I am ignorant.” “I failed. I lost.”

“I ran.”

Reyes’ voice was unfamiliar in the chorus of regrets and they all turned to him. His self assured smile was gone, replaced by a wide eyed, glazed over look while his feet twitched over the edge, swinging together in the steps of his insane dance.

They all felt like failures and in truth, they were. All of them had died while others went on to wear the Victor crowns. All of them groomed to reach the top, but fell short of the last rung on the ladder. They tried, and they were broken. Their superficial Career morals shattered once they were put to the test.

“Worthless.” “Useless.” “Failure.” “Coward.”

That was the eternal torture that they had all failed to see when they first arrived in their holding chambers. In this afterlife there are no chains, no hellfire, no red devil to mock you for the rest of time. Only your thoughts. Only the regrets of the life you once lived accompany you there, and that is hell enough.