Impavid

Blood ran down my face. I could feel the hot, sticky plasma, dripping down and coating my skin in a warm, red glaze. My lungs burned and I was tired, but ignored the exhaustion, I ignored the hunger, and I ignored the pain. But most of all, ignored the fear. I ignored the need to sink down to my knees and die.

One more to go. One person had to die, and it was all over. Picturing my families face, I knew that I could not let that person be me. I pictured my little brother, still learning how to fish and tie hooks. I thought about my mother, who taught me how to weave nets, and I thought of my father who taught me how to spear fish.

The arena was blackened by night. Wind crept through grassy plains, blowing the tall grass. By day it would have been a golden ocean, but by night it was a grey ocean, bending to the will of the wind.

I stood on the outskirts of the plains, shivering. Goosebumps layered my arms, and I clenched my muscles to fight the need to shiver. Grinding my teeth I began pushing through the grass. The tops of the grass were at least two feet over my slight height.

A shift in the breeze made the grass sway in a different direction, causing it to split slightly. A body moved many yards in front of me, shifting with the grass, but it was too late. I saw him, and he saw me.

My heart began to pound in my chest as he let out a barbaric yell, charging at me. Somewhere within me, a roar built, ripping through my throat as I ran forward, digging my feet into the hard soil for traction and speed. I shifted the trident in my hand, one of the many weapons I had skill with.

As the boy and I met, his face went from bloodied and scarred to my brothers. But I was still moving, I was still launching up in the air, jumping high over him and thrusting downwards with my trident, stabbing him through his throat.

Blood spurted out of his windpipe and his eyes rolled back. I screamed in horror on top of my lungs.

“Lana!”

Screaming, I sat up, panting and rolling away from the sound of the voice. My eyes snapped open and it took me a minute to take in my surroundings, my head turning each way wildly, trying to find the source of the voice and find my way out of the grasslands.

Only, I wasn’t in the grasslands of the arena. I wasn’t in the hunger games, and I wasn’t sixteen anymore. I was in my bedroom, at age twenty-two, in the victors village, crouched like an animal at the edge of my bed with Finnick Odair, friend, mentor and even co-mentor standing at the side of my bed, looking at me.

My heart was still bounding, but I took a deep breath, falling onto my bed and looking up at the white ceiling. In the distance I could hear the ocean crashing against the rocks and lulling onto the shore line. I could smell the salt and even taste it coming through my bedroom window. I was at home in district 4.

“When did you get back?” I asked quietly, not bothering to look at him. It wasn’t the first time that he had come running from across the street and into my house, having to wake me from my nightmare. Sometimes the other victors would bang on the door until I was quiet. I was the only one who suffered in loudness. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

“Just a little bit ago.” He sat down near me, careful. I knew that his light colored eyes would be scanning me, looking for signs of weakness. With my jaw clenched, I remained emotionless. “Soon enough to stop you before it got too loud.”

“Thanks.”

“Stop sounding like a wounded animal. We all have them, Lana.”

“Not like I do. You don’t scream and almost kill people in bed.”

“It doesn’t mean I don’t have them.”

Silence fell between us. Finally when I felt strong enough and my limbs had stopped quivering from the fear of the dream, I sat up, leaning against my headboard. My room was grandiose for my taste, large and ornate with blues, whites and greens. It was beautiful to mask the horror within.

All the rooms looked the same, in the victors houses, and all houses were alike as well. Huge, white, on a private beach, and mostly empty. There were only a few of us that occupied the village, though I knew it was still a fair amount more than the other districts.

My head hit the wood behind me and I closed my eyes, sighing heavily. Finnick shifted again, and I could tell that he had moved even closer. He always did this, approaching me in small doses, always worried that I would have a flash back and lash out.

“You smell like the capitol,” I murmured quietly, opening my eyes and rolling my head in his direction. He smirked. Dark circles were under his eyes and they did not seem as bright. He looked worn, slightly, but still handsome. Finnick was always handsome, always charming, and always easy to be in love with. “Clean. Rosy.”

“Well you smell like salt and sweat.”

“Salt is in sweat.”

“You know what I mean.” He looked over my head and out of the window. “Let’s go down to the beach, shall we?”

“The water is freezing.”

“I didn’t say we had to get in, Lana Banana.” Watching him stand, I knew I would get up and follow him. After years of mentoring tributes by his side and being mentored by him and another, I knew that I would follow him anywhere. “Come on.”

Peeling myself away from the bed, I followed him down stairs and out of the back of the house. Sand met my feel, swallowing them in their tan grains with each step that I took. Walking in the sand instantly buffered my fears, and I found myself sitting down at the oceans edge, where it was damper.

It was winter, and though it did not get cold enough to cause us to wear thick clothes, the water was bitter and cold, meeting my toes and making me flinch slightly at the icy touch. Cold salt water was not something to be reckoned with.

Out on the ocean, waves rolled one over the other. The breeze was only slightly, not enough to make the ocean crest in whitecaps. Down the left of the beach, the land grew in height and into black, cragged cliffs, the water crashing into the rock and weathering away at it, bit by bit.

“Do you ever have nightmares of the tributes we could help live?” Finnick looked at me, taken surprise by my question. I pulled my knees into my chest and wrapped my arms around them. “Do you ever feel awful that it was our job to mentor them and help them survive, but they never do?”

“We can’t save them all.”

“We haven’t saved any in years.”

“Do you see how young they’ve gotten? Only a few volunteer now. Last year we sent in children.”

I tucked my face into my knees. “I don’t even remember their names. What does that say about me?”

“That you don’t want to get attached.”

“You knew my name.”

He hesitated. “You were different.”

I was only sixteen, when I entered the games. Finnick and his old mentor Mags were my female and male mentors, leading me to survive. Between my skill with weaponry, drive to win for my brother and between both my mentors popularity, I had won.

But I hadn’t really won anything except two bonds that were very different from anything that I had ever experienced. On one hand, there was Mags, who was like a second mother, who understood me in a way that my mother couldn’t. My mother and father allowed me to give them the money they needed for my brother’s illness, but they did not live with me. Not when they knew about the nightmares.

And then there was Finnick, who had been eighteen years old at the time. He always said there was something different about me, that I had more of a reason to live than just wanting to survive. I wanted the riches at the end to pay for my brothers seizures. Somehow Finnick thought it was heroic.
“Was I so different from the countless tributes you’ve had?”

“You know you were, Lana.” He looked me up and down. “You were a career tribute who didn’t want to be in the career pack, and you had more skill than anyone else. You also… befriended me.”

If befriended, he meant fell helplessly in love with, he was completely correct. But no, he meant befriended. He had no idea about the later, at least not that I knew of. “I guess I couldn’t help but like your arrogance and your boyish charm.”

We sat on the beach for hours, I was sure. At least, that’s what it felt like, when I was finally dragging my feet, blinking my eyes in exhaustion and falling onto my bed, ready to fall back asleep. Finnick always did that; he made me so tired by talking that I had to fall asleep. There was no other choice.

Curling into myself, I closed my eyes, falling asleep. This time, I dreamt that I was sitting on the beach during the summer, with Finnick sitting next to me and my brother Cain on my other side of us. They were the only two boys that I would ever need in my life.

It was a good thing to dream of.