Going Solo // [River]

there's a sick little suicide in all that we do
you decide, which one's for you?

He'd watched the aircraft carry Emerald's body away, listened to the hum of its engines long after it had departed the sweltering arena. He blinked after a time, found his eyelashes crusty with tears, and finally pushed himself back through the sand and roots to gather his strewn supplies. He had just put the remnants of his medical supplies in his pack when a bell dinged overhead. He felt nothing so acutely, through and through, as he looked up just before the sponsored parachute dropped on his head. It still beaned him, right in the forehead, and reminded him of being shoved.

He shuddered as he wrapped his arthritic fingers around the offering, tucking the whole silver canister into his backpack without opening it. The parachute he left to cover the bloody sand. Was it a gift to honor his prowess? Was someone pleased that he had dispatched another tribute? The first to die from District One? Whatever it was, he wasn't grateful for it, but he didn't resent it either. He just didn't care about the gift at all.

His leg and arm were feeling significantly better. He moved almost without the help of the harpoon, his gait awkward and limping as it had been in Twelve. The battleaxe was a heavy counterbalance to his bow and arrows, but his backpack grew lighter every day, especially since he had eaten the mostly raw snapping deer meat. It was bloody, just like his hands and soul.

He used the harpoon to check for snake and other creepy crawlies as he moved along the beach. He'd so thoroughly forgotten about the leeches that when he one dropped to the sand from his armpit, he squinted down to inspect its bloated belly before shoving the sticky tip of his harpoon into it. "That's mine," he said shakily, watching his blood burst over the grains of sand. He drew several heavy breaths before steadying his resolve. He laid his harpoon in the sand, dropped his pack and slowly lifted his arms to reveal a colony of leeches. He started with one closest to his left elbow, twisted and wiggled until he plucked it free. The skin beneath was puckered, bruised almost black. He couldn't see if it had left any teeth or needles or whatever it was that leeches used to drink from him.

He started a pile of sated leeches in the sand.

When he was done, he looked like a leopard from the elbows to his shoulders, round patches of black-blue sucking marks. He looked down at the bugs which had hurt him, damaged him as he had not been damaged in days, and began to wail. At their victory and his pain. At the memory of Emerald's lone eye. At the idea of his blood scattered over the sand. He pounded his harpoon into the pile, into the ground, spraying sand with his anger, with his agony. He couldn't stop. Even when he heard someone or something moving towards him, he kept attacking the sand with his harpoon. He didn't know how to stop, how to express the futility of it all.

"Not me, not me!" He screamed, and hammered the long dead leeches.

[ Asunder is sponsored a jar of tar. ]