futile || cato's story ✔️

the feast

Author's Note: WARNING this gets RIGHT into You Know What like immediately please prepare yourself.

I feel hazy, meandering in the forest. I haven't slept all night and have been incredibly uncomfortable being left alone with no Clove but ample thoughts.

I still am unsure of how to approach our relationship, but one thing I'm certain of is that I will not be going home without her. It seems silly, almost embarrassing, to have gotten so attached so quickly, but it's the result of a snowball of emotions set loose from long ago.

In the grey morning light I walk around Katniss' area, near Thresh's area, and I can't bring myself to think of either of them. I'm in some other world, only one eye open to this one and my duties here.

Mainly I'm thinking of her. Her voice promising a thrilling day. Her hands, dancing with her blades or softly touching my skin. Her eyes, my reflection in them.

I bounce on the balls of my feet a few times and prepare myself. I tighten the backpack around my shoulders, readjust the sword in my belt, and grip my spear tightly, ready to hurl it at anyone who approaches. I'm certain somebody will die today, and if we're lucky we'll snag more than one. Determined, I jog closer towards the cornucopia.

It's a quiet, lazy feeling morning but I know there must be action there at the golden horn, each district vying for their special prize as the day awakens and the feast begins. But out here it's quiet. So quiet...

Her scream cuts through the day like a blade, like a flame, and immediately I'm in a sprint. It's faint and so far away, but hits my ears like something explosive.

Someone must be coming my way. We must be readying for a kill. She's shouted to warn me. But as she screams again, more desperate, my confidence falters. Time goes too quick and too slow.

My thoughts swarm. Is she hurt? Is she fighting? Has she killed? No, no cannons. Is she outnumbered? Is Peeta truly there with Katniss? Is Thresh closing in on me as I run?

"Clove!" I shout, to ensure she and anyone around her knows I'm coming and there's no escaping it. To hell with my own safety. Let them come to me if only to draw them away from her. 

My voice is high and thin as it blends with her cries. Cries, they're cries. They're the cries of somebody who is not winning, somebody who needs protection, somebody who I never should have left. Time moves so slowly. My feet are like lead. My lungs bleed and scream. It can't have been even twenty seconds since her first cry.

"Cato!" her voice is close and distinct now as I draw near. Fifty feet away... forty...

"Ca-!"

Something cuts her voice off. A cannon sounds. My breath catches in my throat, causing me to choke and slow down. Thirty feet... I feel nauseated, like someone is forcing dirt down my throat.

My mind can't form a clear thought as I walk, casual, lazy, towards the clearing. Twenty feet, fifteen, ten, five. And I'm there.

I take a tentative step and take in the scene. Thresh disappearing over his ledge with two large packs. No sign of Twelve of Five other than their packs missing from that empty table in the mouth of the golden horn as well. The golden horn where such a short time ago Clove and I were huddled near the fire, the horn where I killed Max and all the others.

One cannon. Thresh running. Katniss, Peeta, Five. Twelve and Five's bags gone. Thresh running. One cannon.

One body.

My feet carry me unsteadily forward, and my world stops turning. 

At first I can't make sense of it, like reality has hit a snag.