Anthem - Day 5 IC

I'd stood in the darkness all day and watched them ski all day. The viewing room was luxurious, a real party that officials had been invited to. One wall acted as a window, displaying the mountain side and the tributes that slowly made their way down. Champagne made its rounds around the room and I'd downed it like it was water, pressing the cool glass to my forehead in a corner of the room.

The sound was too loud there, too joyful. My palms were clammy and eyes straining too hard to see the tributes on the mountainside.

I left them to it, unable to bear the jovial atmosphere any longer.

I seemed to be the only one unable to live with myself.

That wasn't news, however, for the longest time, I'd thought I was alone with it, that particular blend of weighted darkness. I thought that the sickness inside of my head was only mine to bear. I hadn't been able to read the way that Apollo had drawn away, hadn't been able to see the crushing force on his own chest until it was too late.

Every day, the idea of joining him seemed more enticing.

The clock on the control room wall ticks and I watch it from my place against the wall, bottle of champagne open and bubbling quietly beside me. It reads somewhere at quarter past one and I raise my glass in the dark to the dead girl. Mercy. She'd received none.

I can't stand the deaths but I can't stand how achingly slow the fights move, I want it to be over with, all of it. I want my freedom.

My phone buzzes in my pocket and I take it out after a moment, staring at the display. There are seventeen texts from unknown numbers and just one from Achilles, received an hour ago.

I wonder how long it just took me to get my phone out.

The clock reads somewhere between two and three and I decide to call him.

I listen to the phone ring quietly, eyes on the sleeping tributes on the screens in front of me. When no one picks up I wait for it to go to voicemail.

"Achilles," I begin and then pause for too long, knowing it's been days since we've spoken.

I'm a shit father.

I don't know what to say.

"I'm alright."

I hang up.

The champagne's all gone.

I might be an alcoholic, I've considered that recently. I hope not, but I don't feel any shame about my apathy towards it. If I can't sleep anyway, if the nightmares hold me down anyway, at least I'm drunk. I don't have to think about him.

About his brains.

About how cold his skin was and how his eyes stared into space.

I squeeze mine shut, gazing at the clock again, flicking through the channels.

The tributes are too far apart, tiny armies spread out across a map that is too wide. If I don't do anything about it, they won't run into each other at all on this day and there'll be a note, vague and unsigned slipped under my door, telling me I have one more chance.

I don't know what happens when I run out of chances but I'm certain I won't like it.

I stand with a sigh, staggering over to a set of controls and I turn the areas like little tops on a table. If a group was sleeping across the area from their adjacent, it's now changed so that they sleep nearly on top of each other's camps. There's no way they won't come across each other now, no possibility that there will not be fighting on this day and I curl my hands into fists at my side, hating myself more.

I wish I could let them rest but that isn't my job.

My hands brush over the dials, warming up the arena by a measly two degrees. If they die of cold in their sleep at least it will be painless.

"Forgive me," I whisper, knowing that the blood shed today will be because of my actions.

I start the day, fingers pushing the sun up as bright as it will go.