The Bloodbath

You wished you were home the moment you were placed in whatever place you were taken too. It all happened so fast. The reaping. Being taken from your family. The fact that you had no clue what any of this was.

You heard about the Hunger Games, but you never thought you would find yourself in them. Maybe that was because you thought that was a place where bad people had went. You, Coal Stone, had never done anything awful in your life had you?  At least, that is what you thought as you felt your heart drop through you stomach when you heard your name called. No one said a word, sure that maybe this was just a joke. Still, it was all so surreal, and the fact that children were forcibly being taken from their homes still shocked most of the district. 

It was all for the sake of redemption? Right? 

That was how it was phrased. A payment to the capitol for whatever they thought the districts owed them. You had lived through the rebellion, you had lost through the rebellion, and now here you were, about to face something that you never thought was going to end well.

The premise of it made it seem that way, and that thought scared you.

---

Not even your family knew what to do in this moment. You did not hear anyone cry out as your name was called, they did not protect you from the pain about to be inflicted on you, they did not take action, or plead with anyone. No one said it wasn’t fair or right or just or any other word that was synonymous with wrong. However, you had a feeling that because it wasn’t happening to them, then who cared? Right?

No one would, and that was the hardest part, because you didn’t have many connections here besides your family. There were people around the district that knew you, but they didn’t really. They had a face to the name, and that was pretty much it. Maybe they saw you in your mothers shop before the rebellion, or maybe even at her funeral as you laid her down to rest. Maybe they wondered if you would join her soon. Maybe they would watch to see what you do? 

Would they have a choice in the matter? Probably not. 

From what you understood, the world had to stop for this spectacle that you were about to be thrown into. At least the world you knew. 

That did nothing for you though back home, because even when they played it, it found its way to you. Whether it was before you went into your shift or after, all you knew what that this was a big deal, and that now you were potentially going to become part of this greater ideal.

And you hated every moment of it.

---

But you didn’t have a voice did you? You had always been the silent type, the type that would find a way to just focus on the task at hand and then worry about the emotion, or feeling later. Both of which scared you immensely. You had no clue how to function in a place that wasn’t your home, and you could tell that this was going to be ugly. Blood and gore, things you only had been exposed to on the television would not be closer then you ever wanted. 

You wondered if you could close your eyes and wish them away.

But even as they brought you closer to the capitol, it wouldn’t go away. Instead it became more vivid, and more apparent that you were going to be yet another lamb for the slaughter. For no ones sick joy, but their own.  

---

Maybe you deserved this.

You had always been the silent type, the one that could hide in the corner and get by because people thought you just wouldn’t pay them any attention. The one that did what he was told, because that was always the easiest. Easy said is easy done, that is what you were told. 

Except you knew that wasn’t the correct wording of the phrase. You didn’t correct people though because that made things harder. Its easier said than done. That is what you wanted to say, but you bit your tongue. You pressed your lips together and held in the words from leaking out of your mouth. There was no point in trying to fight what people thought was easy or hard, because you did not know what it meant to come from their walk of life. You only had your knowledge, and what you thought was easy. 

Your mother made that very clear to you, to always put yourself in someone elses shoes because you don’t know where their journey has led them. 

---

And then there was your father.

A man of brimstone and grace. He had no clue how to raise a family, but he did know what it took to keep food on the table. Seven children never stopped him from putting that mindset first, and while his wife had always been the kind one, he always found a way to subvert that. You were similar to him in that sense weren’t you? Both of you rarely opening your mouths until it was the absolute last thing you could do? You didn’t want to admit it, but the similarity was jaw dropping. Like father like son, even if that son didn’t want to play around with the dirt and grime that had been districts twelves life force.
You still don’t think you know the man as you are hauled out of his clutches and placed under the care of future murderers.

---

And that was just how it had to be, because it was not him chosen to be sent to their death. It was you. Coal Stone, of district twelve. The soft boy whose hands had been known to mostly create and rarely destroy. You always said you would adapt to anything, but could you learn how to kill? Could you do it if someone was trying to kill you? Would you be willing to steal, or take, or claim what is yours? 

That you didn’t know, but they wasted no time trying to even give you a glimpse of your new home. You could only see so much from the cages they kept you in, and it was almost similar to the coal mines, which did give you a small sense of home. Sure, you wished there was more room, but you did not deserve glamour and decadence. You were meant to put on a show, and that was that. Your blood would be streaked across whatever battlefield they placed you in, and you would have to fight just hard enough to make it out alive.

You still had no clue how you were going to do that, because all was fair in love and war and you did not know how to love, and you had no clue what war was like. Even if you lived through it, you only knew what loss was. It was hard, thinking about your mother and the aftermath of the fire that ravaged her and left her a memory of what she once was. People offered her condolences, but you wondered if people were going to offer your father the same type of respect. He had never been the kindest man, but then again, no one in twelve was. A district full of assholes that thought they knew everything. 

They mustve, because they were not here, and you were.

---

That didn’t scare you though did it? Because you were always honest with yourself. You were much stronger than you ever thought yourself to be. You had only experienced loss in the last three years before this moment. Your mother, your hopes, your dreams, and even your sense of self had all died in front of you in a cataclysm that shook the earth you walked on. Sometimes you wondered if there were people that shared your pain, but you realized that might have invalidated your feelings, and worrying about others meant that you had to put your own aside. That would have been a criminal offense.

You don’t commit crimes against yourself. You told yourself that as you learned to trade the thing you love, for the thing you hated. 

But you had to learn to adapt because that was the only way you were going to survive. There was no chance of recovering the store, or trying to convince someone that you could take on more than you could chew, because it was a flat answer. A no that would billow through the mountains and riverbeds and slap you right across the face. 

One that would leave you scared for the longest time.

---

And the night got even more restless as you all waited for the morning. You hadn’t even had time to really acclimate to the surrounding. This was not the moment to complain, as the menacing men that had delivered you here had made it very clear that you were nothing more than props to them. That if you died here, no one would care, except you had a feeling that you were much more precious to the capitol. 

You were much more vital than you were led to believe weren’t you?

You knew that feeling too. Because it reminded you of your father, and how much he told you that wanting to sew was not what he had in mind for one of his sons. However, he let it go because he would never fight your mother on it. He had four other sons that could do the work that you didn’t want to do, but he always made it a point to tell you that you would never earn his approval as long as you dealt in femininity. You didn’t care, because you did have someone in your court, and she would do whatever it took to make you feel like you were enough. 

You always laughed at how quickly that would change, and even now, you wondered what she would have said now. Would she have offered you false hope? Told you that it was just best for you to do what you were told? Die? 

All of it scared you, but you did have a sort of saving grace. You had one more night of freedom, and it seemed like the group of people that you had been brought in with would also realize that. 

---

The night was long, and you made sure to only keep yourself as close as you wanted to be to the gates of your cell. You didn’t even think about it that long before you heard the voice of a girl screaming at one of the peacekeepers across the way. You wondered what would happen, and you had been a master at watching things unfold right in front of you? Right? Thoughts and memories of watching your father cry on the bedroom floor caressing something that had belonged to your mother late at night. All of it just flooded your mind as you tried to take deep breaths. 

You weren’t sure if this was a panic attack, but the ache in your chest made it seem like it was. You turned away for a moment before trying to get the courage to press your face amongst the bars to get a better sound of what was going on. However, the very idea of that made you breath faster, so you kept yourself back just a little bit. The ruckus of the area had grown larger, and even if you wanted to sleep here, in this moment, you couldn’t. Because now this had become a warzone all over again. So you stood in place and watched, because that is what you had always been good at. That’s what you attributed your ability to adapt to something too. Because you would stand there in silence and simply just watch. Things came from other cages, but you did not speak a word. You waited and looked and watched and prayed that nothing bad would come of this. 

Of course it fucking did.

And all of the sudden you felt your body pulled hard and slammed against the metal bars for a moment. You staggered back for a moment only to be pulled up again by your shirt and slammed against the cool metal again. Your face hurt, and you could feel blood in your mouth. When you were dropped to the ground, you watched a piece of tooth fall out of your mouth. The blood tasted acrid and hot as you continued to spit it out almost regularly. Your tongued searched to find that it was one of your molars, which you picked up and kept it for a moment.

You ripped off a piece of the shirt you had been wearing and soaked it in the blood that hadn’t quite dried up yet. When a peacekeeper had walked by, you threw the fabric at them and then stood back in the cell so they couldn’t reach you. You stuck out your tongue for a moment before taking the tooth that you had lost and threw it at the peacekeepers mask. You watched it land right on his eye and he looked at you in disgust.  ”Youre gonna die tomorrow.” he screamed at you. However, who was he to say that you werent dead already. The taste of blood had already been permeating your stomach, and moments after his threats, you vomited all over the floor. 

He walked away in disgust.

---

By the time the morning had come, you had been tended too by someone. They brushed weird powders all over your face to make it look like you hadn’t been brutalized the night before. They gave you some weird shot in your mouth to mask the pain that came from your chipped tooth, telling you that if you came out of this alive, they would give you a new one. 

Then they asked you why you did what you did last night, and you simply laughed. It was none of their business. Because you didn’t even know what you did last night, or why you did it. All you could remember was seeing red, and then nothing. Maybe you did have a bit of a mean streak in you, that only came out when you felt like your life was in danger. Maybe you could murder someone in here. The more you thought about it, the more that you didn’t want to fight. 

They dressed you in some sort of ceremonial garb and you could tell from the moment they showed it in the mirror that it was hideous. However, you didn’t have a choice, and they even had a peacekeeper in the room to prove that. You undressed out of the clothes that were smeared in blood and bile and you looked at them as they placed the costume in your hand. You were no warrior in your eyes, and it was laughable for them to think that you would be in someone else’s. Until you realized that the peacekeeper was the same one from the night before. He made sure to make it known as he shoved his elbow into your side for a moment. 

However, you just took it, because you already had been so tired.

They left for a moment, and so you quickly ripped the red sash from the side of the costume and used the rest of your teeth to tear off other parts of it. You then flung it over your neck to make a scarf. When they walked back in, they immediately rushed you, thinking that you were going to try to hang yourself. ”It hides the bruises better.” you held out your hands and showed them the marks they had missed when applying the powder to your face.  The person dressing you looked relieved to say the least, but the peacekeeper looked like he wanted to punch you straight in the face. 

But you stood there with confidence, the same amount of confidence you had in front of your father when you proved that you could adapt to the life he forced you into. Of course, you still had no clue how to navigate what it was like to be a man, but you could at least find a healthy middle ground that would make both of you happy. Maybe that is what you had to do here?

Who knew.

---

And even as they pushed you through the corridors and into the arena, they made it very clear that the first couple of moments in this place was going to be the bloodiest thing that you were ever going to see. You had a feeling that they always claimed this, and that you were just going to have to see it for yourself. 

The scene from last night kept playing in your head, and there had been so many other tributes that looked like they had been beaten, battered, and bruised. You shared that feeling with them, and there was some sort of solidarity. Sure, you didn’t speak to any of them, because you did not know them personally, but now you shared something? Didn’t you? You winced as you moved, and before you had even had a chance to breath, you had been thrusted into a place that would soon be a graveyard. 

They told you where to stand, and then they handed you a sword, and you couldn’t believe just how heavy it was in your hands. The sun had been covered up by clouds, which was nice to say the least. It took you a moment to acclimate to the surrounding, and then you realized that when they told you all the begin, there was hesitation.

You wondered if there was going to be blood drawn.

But instead of trying to fight, you realized that maybe this was just not the place. Could you really kill someone? You? A boy that had no clue what it was like to watch souls leave bodies of people that you didn’t even know. Would you be able to adapt to something like this? Would you see red and just go to town? All of that played in your mind as you felt the sword become heavier in your hand. 

”Screw it.” you said, as you took the sword and plunged it into the ground. You then sat down with your back against it and began to look up at the sky. If there was going to be blood spilt, then it was going to be yours.

If you were going to die here, then you might as well let it be you first.

Because fuck them.

Right?