this is not a place of honor { 87th finale }

Ugh I am going to have to pull it out. I really do not want to pull it out. But I am gonna have to pull it out. Fuck. It is going to hurt. I have been sat down at the base of the tower for about half an hour now, staring at spear that is sticking out of the bottom of my leg. My leg is stretched far out, the spear is only about a few inches smaller than me too. There is going to be so much ouch. So much agony. The price I am paying for today.

Maybe I should count to three.

One.

Two.

Three.

No, I cannot do it! I am going to scream so loud, whoever is alive is going to come running straight to me. No, but I am going to have a septic shower and go into shock. No, it needs it come out! Okay, I will count to five. One…two..

…three…

…four…

…five!

”Aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!” I try and grit my teeth, even biting down on my bottom lip to contain the pain but it still slips out. The whole thing is finally freed from the wound. It looks a little nasty and while my hands shake from the sudden influx of pain, I quickly wrap the bandage around it. I just wish I had some kind of antibacterial wipe to give it a little clean. They should really keep those in the medical kits, not just thread and a few rolls of bandages. If I win this, that will be my feedback. I will literally suggest it to the gamemakers when they greet me. Thanks for trying to kill me but next time, slip some antiseptic wash in the kits please!

I am finally free for a moment, a break before the final draw. The anthem is probably the most anticipated I have ever felt. I am not hiding this time, hoping I do not see a particular face. I just want to know who is left, who that unknown is. Whoever they are, they will be the last face I see, or I might just be the last face they see. Damn, well I feel sorry for them if that is the case.

Castor is the first in the sky for this truly short anthem. He looks so normal in the sky. So young, so much life left. His body once laid a few feet away from me, and now he is just a picture in the sky. At least he will be with his friend in the sky too… Belle Jaune, the District Eleven! Finally, the unknown is identified and so that leaves… Lenox. Silk Le Roux’s murderer. I just hope she did not pick up that lightening rod. Dear ripred, I have seen the destruction that powerful weapon has caused…twice.

The final night, I am tired, yet I am not. Just me and my thoughts and the empty surroundings to stare at. I am clutching at hope right now. I am so close. I have defied all odds and now I must just push once more. One more round of six bullets just like the two days before. I am good at being consistent.

What is the first thing I am going to do when I get home?

Hug each and every one of my sisters. Bump fists with my friends, maybe dare knock on George’s door but I will speak to the others about that first. Then to District Four, a promise needs to be fulfilled. Isobel Carter, I hope she is still waiting. I will help. So, I will have had to kill three to save the lives of another four. Is that really a balance?

---

Again, my body does well in just simply jolting myself awake. I wait for the third morning coughing fit in a row, but my throat does not itch. My lungs do not ache. Everything seems…clean? There is no sunrise to greet me, not one even hidden behind a thick coat of smog. It is still dark but I can finally breath. It is a taste of what is to come. It is really a tease.

A tease that does not last long.

Water droplets begin to hit me, the intensity grows with each drop…it burns. The rain burns! ”Ah shit!” One great ginormous clap of the earth sounds across the arena and well damn, I am not staying here to watch this show. My feet are forced to scramble through the rain. Where am I meant to go?

Zap! Well, I know it is not that way. A bolt of electricity blocks my path. Is this Silk and her lightening rod playing games with me from the sky? ”I can’t run very fast!” Its only been a few hours since I pulled spear from my leg, each movement sends curses through my body. ”My legs!”

The lightning bolts mark a path back to the wasteland. Back to where Nan and I faced Silk and Saylor. So, this is where the grand finale will end.

I pull out an unused clean revolver, loading it full of six left over bullets. This is it; my last chance all lies on this piece of metal contraption in my hand. I owe everything to it; I could not imagine swinging big swords or charging with the spears. Even throwing one like Castor. Damn I am useless.

”It is really between you and me then? I bet nobody expected us two.” It is not long before the final battle is introduced. I have no quarrel with this girl other than wanting to survive. We were literally fighting the same people a few days ago, allies in a clash. Now we are forced to be foes. Literal neighbours put up against each other. ”Did you take Silk’s lightening rod?” I need to stop shaking now, it is pathetic. I want to live! If I want to live, I need to add another name the list! Tommy. Lorraine. Castor and…

I do not know her story, but we share the same goal. The same goal I am throwing my life on the line for. There is so much to do at home. So much that just needs to happen. There is a whole lifetime to write. Thirteen years is not a long time to live. What even has been my life for the past decade and a smidgen? School, school, school, and school. The same buildings every day, the same rooms, and the same faces. I have not lived yet. Yes, the goal is to make sure George stuck to his end of the deal. Yet there was no clause on me winning but this can really shake up everything. I can go home and be someone else…with ghosts attached of course.

I have one up over Lenox, I fire first. I cannot tell if there is blood on her leg or not. Everything washes away with the rain. My whole brow is dripping with it, it burns when it cycles past my eyes. It is all a little dramatic this scene. A thunderstorm battle, sometimes I forget someone has already pre-written this script.

I am glad it is not easy to aim this gun, there is the experience behind me but what kind of monster turns numb to murder? They might teach the careers how to flush the memories from their mind but all I can see if their faces. Their faces before. Their faces at the end. And then their faces so fresh in the sky. It is never going to be easy, but I only must do it one more time. One more trauma to add to the pile. Just one more. I am not the only one to have been here. Teddy Ursa and the others, at least there will be support back home.

Lenox has a spear in her hand, oh fuck, she must have taken the lightening rod! I brace for the shock as the spear end nears my face but…nothing. Just a kiss on my forehead. It stings when the rain washes the wound, but I am still standing. My nerves have not shut down like they would have for Revan when Silk struck him. It is not over yet. I still have my chance. ”So you didn’t take the spear then? I would have.”

I have my one up, I have my five bullets left. I should be so easy just aim and duck. But it is just not going to be. It is literal life versus death, Lenox says she must kill me and well damn, same here! I hate it. I hate how we are forced to justify everything. I hate it. I hate it! I just want to be home, with mom, dad, and everyone. I hate it here! ”Yeah I kind of figured that was the whole point of us being forced together and yeah, there can’t be life without death.” My voice croaks with every word, the clean air just a tiny relief now my throat is already corroding. I raise the gun to my eye level, right arm extended out towards the girl from the forest neighbours. ”But it is not going to be my death today.”

Guilt does not tie itself with the bullets today. It is as if this fight is just a burden to me, something in the way that I want to quickly push aside. Lenox is in the way of me running off the train back to Six to see every face that will bother to greet me at the station. Lenox is in the way of everything, and every minute stood here flicking the trigger of the revolver is excruciating. It is all so damn close. So damn close that my hope is igniting and falling and igniting all at once. Life cannot tease me and get me this far for nothing. I have defied all odds; I just have one more fence to jump and it will be a well-placed bet for anyone who has dared waste their money on Flynn Garner.

"I took the damn spear, Flynn, but it's not working,"

A loud brutal Ha follows Lenox’s confession about the spear. Silk must be playing games in the sky; I would do the same with my murderer. ”Or maybe you just don’t know how to use it.” Honestly, fear captured every part of me when I was aiming the revolver at Lorraine. Right now, I am just irritated by everything. The big burden in the way of a possible sixty…maybe seventy years left of my life. Just one click of the gun will do it, I do not want to play games anymore but damn she is so frustrating. ”If you give it here, maybe I can show you.”

The spear does not peacefully land in my hand, instead the girl drives its edge into my chest. Joining my collection of stitched up wounds and those that are yearning for a paste of antibiotics. Fuck. I need to hurry up, I need to watch myself. I need to use my one up over Lenox. I cannot just let this all slip away when I can literally see the end. Fuck. What would Nan do?

Lennox says that she is going to murder me in cold blood. Great and Lorraine said she was going to blow my brains across the floor and well, did she? No, I can feel my head on my shoulders, my brain is not working at its capacity but its still there. Controlling every movement but it just needs to do a little better. ”You are not really kind aren’t you? Everyone has said the same and I am still stood here” Maybe five days ago my trousers would be wet, tears would be rolling and I’d be pleading to Nan to help me run away. Right now, I have no energy for the taunts. They are nothing, they have never meant anything. Yeah, whatever we both have the same goal. We are both in the way of each other.

It is just that I want it more. I have every right to have it. I was just the butt boy from Six that was easy pickings over a week ago. Just a bit of fodder to entertain to Capitol. But now I am stood here, I have proved every right that I have deserved it more. I have defied everything. ”I really don’t care right now Lenox. It is good that you are not afraid. I would have called you a monster a few days ago but you just sound like a bitch.”

What are they all thinking right now? Everyone at home? I have just called a girl a bitch, proven the lack of empathy I have right now. I doubt Nan will approve of this. She will be shunning me from the sky right now but at the same time telling me to aim a little higher than the neck. It is hard juggling the good and the bad. I do not want to be cruel. I do not want to be a murderer. But I chose to be here and I am choosing to survive. It is just damn hard this living stuff.

Blood unites with the toxic rain, it is all starting to look familiar. It is looking like the day on the bridge as I was stood over Lorraine at the edge. It is back to looking like Castor, just as young as I and with just as much motivation to find his friend like I did Nan. The pinch of hope is becoming too much to handle, it is turning my stomach to suddenly switch through emotions. Fuck I cannot handle this. No textbook had ever told me how to handle this.

"I didn't think lowly of you until that, Flynn, but now I do. Nobody is good here. Not you, not me. I'm not going to feel guilty for accepting that when we both know that being bad is our only way out."

Lenox misses with her spear but hits me with so much force with the truth. Its just as painful as my missing ear wound. Its just as painful as the emotions torpedoing through my mind. I have written off ever being good now, I can be the cry baby with tears on his face but I will never be the innocent little boy. I didn’t even enter the arena as an innocent, a name already on the death list. Fuck. I hate this.

”The truth hurts.” I try and wipe away the rain that floods my eyes, I am not even sure if there tears on my cheeks or not. I am too dehydrated for that but it clear now that Lenox is failing. I have got my chance now, the same chance I has two days in a row. Now is not the time to battle the morals and demons that are congregating i my mind. Fuck its clear now that I am definitely not the same kid I was a week ago. One whole week and I have been through probably a decade’s worth of trauma. Seeing things that make people’s hair go grey and eyes winkle with premature age. I am well and truly broken now.

But I can go home. I can try fix everything. I can make amends with those I owe it too. ”If being bad is my only way out, then I am going to take it. It is a goodbye then Lenox.”

The gun is feeling lighter with every bullet that bursts from it. My chances are growing lighter with each one. Everyday before, it came to the last one, life on a knife’s bullet’s edge. This is too much. The acid in my stomach is whirling, a whole week of rations and breathing in radiation. Maybe that is the cause of the poisonous sensation inside me, or it is just the constant rise and fall of hope. I have won so many little games at home before against Dale, Tarquin, Jodie, George, and Tommy. But I have never felt like this. My life has not been the forfeit before.

The fourth bullet lands in Lenox’s stomach but it is not enough to push her over the edge. It is not a goodbye just yet, the fifth is my chance. "This isn't goodbye, nah, not really. Something tells me you'll be seeing a lot more of me, Flynn." Then the lightening rod without its spark come sailing again, my arm is battered, wounds on top of wounds. I am going to be crawling away. Fuck. It just hurts. Agony after agony. There is something tingling from head to toe, physically and mentally. There is no escape from any sensation of pain. It is shit, it is horrible, but I signed up to this and I am signing myself out of here, alive.

She says I will be seeing a lot more of her, another ghost to haunt my nightmares at night. Another ghost to fill my mind during the day. There is going to be so many scars on my body when I leave here and just as many in my head. But I will take it. I will take it to be able to see all those faces back home again. I am ready to run away from this.

”You are going to be saying goodbye to me and hello to Silk. To Lorraine. To Kyler and everyone you killed to get here.” My voice aches, each syllable croaks as I spit out the words. I cannot keep up with this, it needs to end now. ”Here is your ticket to see them.” Just one more click of the trigger will do it. Leftovers are always a treat. Memorabilia maybe.