Sweetest Downfall

I used the last bit of my strength to pull my torso up onto my elbows and look around. I saw the body of the girl I killed and as I turned my head to the left I saw him. His body was lying face up with a trident sticking up through his chest and his hands, lifeless and grey were loosely holding the shaft of the trident. He was covered in blood and I could tell he was very, very dead. But that’s only two dead… why did a third… I turned my head even farther over and saw the body of my enemy and my friend. No.

“Emilyn!” I screamed, scaring myself. I instantly hushed myself and slowly flipped myself over and held my breath as I painfully dragged myself the two yards to his body across the broken-glass-like field. “Emilyn, you saved me.”

I leaned down and looked into his lifeless grey eyes. He was lying on his side with his head turned, his left hand was extended to me and in it I saw something shining through its blood-caked surface. I reached down and opened his fingers, and there lay his late token. I started to cry as I kissed his cheeks and closed his eye lids, just like I had for Ari and slipped the token around my neck beside the token given to me by Herring that also held Ari’s ring and my ribbon.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Claudius Templesmith’s voice boomed out from somewhere above me. “I am pleased to present the victor of the Fifty-sixth Hunger Games, Shay Vessa! I give you—the tribute of District Four!”

Voices from somewhere off in the Capitol shouting cries of joy were being played over top of me, but I only felt like something was literally pulling on the back of my head. I could feel the knock of death on my door as a ladder from a Capitol hovercraft dropped above me. I used my arms to push my body up just enough to grab hold of the last bar and hold on as the all-too familiar current rushed through my body and froze my muscles in place, but I could still feel the blood seeping out from the fatal wounds scattered on my body.

The second I was safely in the hovercraft the current released me and my body fell like dead weight on the floor, mainly because it was exactly that, dead weight. Doctors in white masks and sterilized suits grabbed me by the arms and hoisted me up on a cold table, I don’t even bother to move out of the uncomfortable position they laid me in, mostly because I was so drained of energy and will power. However just as one of them, a woman maybe three years older than myself started to lift the tokens off of my neck I bit her hand, just enough to catch her attention.

“Give them back. Clean them and give them back.” I must have had tears in my eyes because the second I spoke to her, her eyes begin to leak. She nodded and stuffed them inside of her pockets and hurried off. I could feel needles prick my sick skin and before I could open my mouth to thank her, the drugs took over and I slipped into a medicated slumber.



I slowly opened my eyes to see that an ugly yellow lighted ceiling was staring at me, followed by empty, windowless walls and no door in sight. I could feel needles, tubes and stickers inside of and on my skin but I did’t bother to take them out or off, nor to I bother to move at all. I could tell that I was naked under the sheets of the medical bed, but the familiar metals and silks of the tokens of the fallen rested between my breasts and I was instantly soothed. She kept her promise.

The sound of something sliding open startled me and it was followed by an Avox girl coming up and around my bed holding a covered tray. I felt my stomach scream for whatever it held inside the cover and she nodded her head silently at me before pressing a button that made the bed the slowly lift my upper body up into a sitting position. She rolled over a stand, placed the tray on it and opened the lid. I looked at it confused, a bowl of brown broth, a small serving of some kind of fruit sauce and a glass of water rested on the tray. She turned and left, taking the lid with her, but I couldn’t bring myself to hold the spoon and eat the food. I closed my eyes and tried to force myself back into the slumber that was once upon me. Opal, mom, I’ll be home soon. I thought as the overall sleepiness of my body took over once again.

After a long period of waking, eating the steadily growing portions of tasteless food, and sleeping once more do I find that the skin on my body and the hair are replenished to glory. The scars I had even before entering the arena had completely vanished and the only trace visible on me of my time in the games were the tokens that hung around my neck. I stepped out of the bed, not totally trusting my legs, considering the amount of anguish and pain they were in from the games, to find myself dressed by an Avox in a matter of moments and led down a hallway. I turned a corner and see Mags and my stylist, Lomet, waiting for me with open arms. I curled myself into the arms of the two of them and said nothing; the weight of the Games was still on my shoulders.

“Go with Lomet, he has to get you ready.” Mags said softly before giving me a kiss on the forehead goodbye.

I followed him down to another room, this one containing a feast and the rest of my prep team, Neetha, Talia and Kai, were waiting for me with tears in their eyes. They immediately grabbed me in their arms and whispered words of kindness and congratulations before settling down into their chairs. The meal that was before me, hot stuffed chicken, green beans, rolls, gravy, potatoes, didn’t get touched, or even breathed on. I just sat and stared at the food as my prep team and stylist ate merrily before turning their eyes and finally noticing the silence suffocating the room.

“Cherry Pop,” Neetha said softly. “Eat your dinner, it’s getting cold.”

I just looked sadly at her and shook my head; the dinner continued that way until Lomet ushered me into the prep room, not wanting Neetha, Talia and Kai to upset me anymore by pressing conversations, he offers to just take care of it all. I mentally blocked out the whole thing but when he turned me to look in the mirror I couldn’t help but smile. The soft blue fabric matched my ribbon perfectly, and that was tied up into a bow in my waved hair. The tokens glimmered in the lighting of the room and fell perfectly on top of the girly, beach-y maxi-dress I stood in. He slipped on a tan pair of gladiator sandals, irony at its best, and gave me a tight, fatherly hug before taking to the elevators and ultimately, the interview stage. The anthem boomed in my ears as I stood back stage, waiting for Caeser Flickerman to call me out. He presented the prep team first, then my escort, whose name still does not stick in my mind, then Lomet and Mags, and then lastly, me. The blinding lights and deafening roars of love from the Capitol citizens made my body literally stumble backward and Caeser had to come over and take me by the elbow to my Victor’s Chair.

There I sit and was forced to watch clips of myself before and during the games, though only a few of them burn my mind;

Herring and I talking the moment before his silent and so, so painful passing—receiving what sounded like muffled sobs from the crowd,

Me killing the girl by the lake,

The moment when Ari doubles back and helps me up from twisting my ankle—that produced cheers from the citizens,

Ari’s passing,

Me killing the girl with arrows,

The confrontation with Presh, then the rush into the cave that lead to her demise,

Cyrus’s death and the teaming of Emilyn and I,

The Trackerjacker round followed by the piranha attack,

Then the final battle at the Cornucopia that held the deaths of Micah, Catgirl and then the passing of Emilyn,

The final and most heart-breaking clip—as proven by the Capitol audience’s loud sobs—was a shot of me looping Emilyn’s token around my neck and closing his eyelids.

I felt a single tear trail down my cheek as the screen went black. I murdered five people. The President rose from his chair and strode steadily over to me, followed by an Avox with the Victor’s crown on a soft green pillow. He placed it on my head with a congratulatory nod and I just looked at him sadly and silently. As the crowd calmed down from applauding my crowning, and as the President withdrew to his chair, Caeser turned to me and smiled softly, “How are you, Shay?”

I tore my eyes off of the now blank screen and looked at him, the tears dried up and now the sadness and tiredness showing clearly in my done up features. “I’m tired, Caeser, and I want to go home.”

“Yes,” he mumbled softly before shaking his head and lightening up, interviewer mode. “What was going through your mind when you saw your two friends, Herring and Ari die?”

“Stay alive, stay alive and avenge them.”

“And do you feel that you did, avenge them?” He asked.

“No, no, they don’t need to be avenged anymore.” I said before taking a deep breath and continuing, my voice steadily rising from its mumbled tone. “No, only the dead get avenged, but they and Emilyn all live on in me.” I held my tokens in my hands as I spoke. “They gave their lives to save me, and they are all such beautiful people. I just hope that I can do them justice by keeping their spirits and dreams alive.”