승자 // victors

It's not the first time you think there might be a chance. There's never been a point in assuming a foregone conclusion in anything anymore - after all, luck had swung your way and shown her fortune on you, granting you salvation when in literally any other situation you would have simply been one of the kids butchered by the Samis, the Babes, the Terras of the group. Hell, you'd seen your fate with your own two eyes last year, when a boy your age and a girl the age you were at your victory were your home's representatives in an arena of water. Daniela and Russell - their names committed to memory, even now - dead within minutes.

You still wonder if that would have been a better fate for you than the one you're living. Hell, you're seventeen now, still reaping age by all intents and purposes, but it's impossible to forget that that's two years of borrowed time, two years that you never should have had in the first place. Two years that you only ever managed to obtain through the very same trait that has thus far kept you largely unnoticed as you observe the train spinning round and round.

Sierra and Zane are their names this time, and in them you had some hope, because in them you saw the same fire you saw in your peers. Passion and a fighting spirit were enough to get through the games; after that came either luck or raw skill.

Hell, it'd happened to you. Who says lighting can't strike twice?

And for a while, it seems like there is, in fact, a chance. Tributes die by the droves, and it does not escape your notice that this year's fighters seem concentrated in the upper districts (memories of the boy Terra fought last year, memories of Adder's brutality and the insane fervor that a boy from Two had carried during Sami's games). But both of yours survive. Both of yours escape harm.

And then Sienna tackles the girl from Two but fails to finish the job, because raw determination and fighting spirit are going to fail against polished steel nine times out of ten, and in a matter of moments one of yours has met a gruesome end by a girl too cowardly to end her life personally.

Your eye twitches, the only sign you've been ruffled at all. There'd be a moment to mourn later, but you're seventeen now - a little older, a little wiser, six inches taller, and a little less likely to burst into tears at the slightest inconvenience - and you still have one kid to keep an eye out for.

But Zane doesn't fair much better, and it's almost as if the girl from One toys with him before finally, finally, shoving him off of the train and putting him out of his misery. And only then do you exhale, only then do you close your eyes and allow your hands to remove themselves from their death grip on the railing. Another failed chance - the even numbered lucky charm of District Five will not be renewing itself a third time.

Sierra and Zane. Two more names to commit to memory.

And it was inevitable, perhaps, with this year's competition - there's brutality involved, more like the wild animals of your own games than the scared children of competitions past - but it hurt more this time. During the Fifth, the bandaid was ripped off quickly, the wound already resigned to scarring over instead of healing fully well before the top twelve were reached, let alone the colliding of boats. This time was different - this time, there was more of a chance, both of your fighters lasting long - longer than they should have, without any weapons to assist them. You wonder if Sierra's fighting spirit and Zane's tenacity, in another life, with weapons at their side, would have stood more of a chance, or if this year was just a foregone conclusion to the warriors from the upper districts no matter what happened.

With a sigh, you remove yourself from your perch - there was nothing worth watching, not anymore - and make your way deeper into the car. It's an odd sight, rather - taller and gangly where you'd been a head shorter than most just a year ago - but you're still shy of eighteen in more ways than one, and it's perhaps that reason that you're largely unnoticed as you scan the crowd.

Something that Amira had once told you was that it was all in the attitude - if one was looking for a rebel in school, one would find a rebel in school easily. But no one expects rebels to be in places of innocence and youth, so completely opposite of the horrors of war, which is why the recruitment of child soldiers by the rebellion proved to be as effective as it was.

You suppose the same principle applies here - you were the youngest victor thus far, and whilst Adder and Sami were both in their twenties, Babe at two years older than you freshly nineteen, and Terra, being a year older despite winning a year later, at eighteen - so seeing a teenager in an area dedicated to sin and debauchery should have made you stick out like a sore thumb. Yet for whatever reason - your newfound height, your jacket even though it's the dead of summer, the fact that you may have simply lost your relevance as a victor now that the novelty of your games were a thing of the past - the most you get are a few double-takes as whispers of "holy shit was that-?" reach your ears.

You don't mind, really. The fame was just one of many unfortunate side effects that came with the trauma, and it was hardly the worst one.

You spot Babe quite by accident - waving to Terra over at a different side of the car - and decide that fuck it, there's no one else in here that you'd rather see - Sami having disappeared earlier in the day - so even if you're just playing an awkward outsider to whatever sort of killer bond Terra and Babe had forged over their shared roles as outer district victors and those that were forced to kill to achieve their victory instead of-

You catch yourself with a clench of your fist and a breath as deep as your newfound voice. No, you are just as much a Victor as they were. Even if you didn't kill anything aside from a couple of mindless beasts, you'd still suffered. Still been traumatized. Two years on, and you still had nightmares.

You approach Babe's position shortly after Terra, a quick nod sent their way as you position yourself as an awkward third point to the newfound trifecta of your group. Words, never your strongest language, are untrustworthy right now - hell, you probably still have the emotions from watching your charges die struggling to burst through from the mask of careful indifference you've plastered over yourself - and there's never been much point in trying to fight down your imposter syndrome so much as let it pass.

Your eyes flit from Terra's to Babes and back again, and unconsciously, the fingers on your right hand uncurl, almost reaching out towards Babe's form, before you catch yourself. Mentally berating yourself, you curl them back up and shove both fists into your jacket pockets, echoes of stupid, stupid, stupid reverberating in your skull. It'd been how many years since the last of your siblings gave their lives to save your own? And yet you still hadn't gotten over the habit to want to reach out and clutch a source of comfort like a lifeline.

And how funny was that - that you could still count the number of times you've talked to Babe and Terra alike in person on both hands with fingers leftover - and yet they'd started to morph into replacements of Khaled and Amira, your eldest brother and sister. The similarities are eerie - always close with each other and never far from the other's side, always caring and understanding and with good hearts despite the blood on their hands (because there was no denying it, especially towards the end, that they had killed to keep you safe), and it was no wonder that your body, starved after five years of being the eldest, the responsible one, has started making threads between the thinnest of comparisons.

But perhaps there is just something about your shared bond, your shared experience, the shared blood on your hands, that just exudes comfort. Familiarity. A want to belong.

It's only been recently that you've put two and two together, realized that touch was the love language of your family, and that for five years and counting now you've never quite found a suitable replacement. Another thing to work out on the lonely train ride home. Sami will understand if you hole yourself up, you hope.

It's nothing new, you rationale through the anger and heartbreak that roil around inside of you as your gaze rests somewhere around your peers' knees.

At this point, you're so used to living in a paradox, it's almost become a second home.