18 DAYS

Chapter 19: The Muttations.

DAY 16

What is reality? Obviously no one can say, because it isn't words. It isn't material, that's just an idea. And the longer you live, the more you realize that the only things that truly exist in this reality are merely pain, suffering and futility. Everywhere you look in this world, wherever there is light, there will always be shadows to be found as well. As long as there is a concept of victors, the vanquished will also exist. Hatred is born in order to protect love. Without that love, nothing is born. Barren consciousness. Time to wake up.*

Cato didn't think he would. After killing Thresh, he had passed out from bloodloss, welcoming the darkness. But somehow his eyes opened the next day. And the tear around his ribs had dried up, forming a thick scab pulling at the hedges of his stab wound. It wouldn't hold. When he came back to his senses, Cato had grabbed the bag Thresh took from them at the feast. Inside he had found a Capitol made armor, absolutely unpenetrable. But even with that to hold his intestines together, the lesion still wouldn't stick together much longer. And if Cato knew anything about medecine, he'd realize the red starting to spread on his stomach showed first signs of infection. The physical pain had subsided in favor of his emotional hollowness. So he couldn't feel that it was the contagion from an untreated cut making his hallucinations grow. Instead he had thought it was his unforgivable crimes contaminating his mind with visions of death. Beheaded necks, empalled torsoes, lifeless eyes... All those eyes tourmenting him, following his pace through the infernal woods. The pair staring the hardest was brown.

Wandering without purpose, Cato let his legs pave the way back to the Cornucopia while his mind was being pulled appart. He thought maybe dying there would be the most entertaining way to go. Even better, maybe it would push someone to come finish him off that he could take to the great beyond with him. In general, Cato wasn't thinking much he was just walking forward blankly.

Suddenly a canon fire yankes him back to consciousness. Who could it be ? No way to know before the evening, when the face of another dead child would light up the dark sky. But it makes Cato realize something else. With this tribute and Thresh gone, they were three left. If Peeta and Katniss are still alive, they only had to kill him to go home as per the new rules. Evidently, if only one of the two had survived along with the redhead girl, there was still only two murder left on the menu. Either way. Three left.

After days of lethargy, something tugs at Cato's heart. It sends shockwave from the tip of his skull to the nerve endings at his feet. Giving up this close to the end... Clove would have punched him in the face. If Cato was the one with the snapped neck, he wouldn't have been able to forgive her for giving up so easily after doing so much to protect her. Now that she was gone, he didn't want to live anymore. But what if she wasn't? She was his reality, and without that he wasn't anything. But a part of her still lived on. She whispered it to him in the cave: "That's why I volunteered. I wanted to sacrifice to save you." She was ready to die so he could live. Only the new rules had made them believe both would make it outside. Before that, they never thought they would. And just like him, she still wished to come into the arena and sacrifice for love. Even with her gone, her wish was still alive. Because he was still alive.

For Clove he had to respect that wish, or he was saying her love had meant nothing.

With a shaky breath, Cato lifts his armour to look at his wound. It was ugly. Uglier than the snake bite, turning green and puss giving out an acre smell. Without medical attention, it was going to kill him. If he was to decide to try to save himself for her, it would have to be quick. That cut couldn't wait a couple more days. With a newfound determination, Cato walks up to a tree and cut off a branch to use as a stick. Next on his list was to hurry back to the Cornucopia. If you took into account the storm created to bring him and Thresh together, the Gamemakers would come up with another idea to push the three tributes left to the same spot in the arena. If he showed himself before they put their distraction in motion, he wouldn't have to worry about another unknown factor.