Author Games: The Last Cannon

TASK NINE: Castiel Lyons

Water surrounds me. The sun mirrors off of its curling surface and the sounds of imploding waves erode the silence. I blissfully stand, hindering on the edge of the hunt. Blinding light sends an ache to my eyes and a shoot of pain through my skull. A familiar beat taps in the distance and the welcoming seems all too surreal. With everything left ahead of me, my well-known pain injures and plagues my thoughts.

I never thought I'd be back, thinking of the things I fought so hard to erase. The truth is, it wasn't so hard; forgetting. After a while, it stops hurting. After all the nights that you stay awake in the exhausting darkness, and all the days you so wish would end, I promise, soon enough, the pain fades. At the end of everything you just have to ask yourself what's worth it.

My depression.

My victory.

Truth is I cannot regret something I wanted my entire life. However much hurt there is that comes with it. When you've grown to know what you want, what you feel no longer makes a difference. You sacrifice yourself because you have to.

Cosmo.

I was your downfall. But fuck, you were the luckiest girl there was. A death quicker than rushing water, painless as a prick of a needle. And I your last thought, your last word, your last sight. You always said I was the closest thing you ever had to a family.

"You came."

"Of course I did," I whisper to her, cradling her and pulling her in as close as I could. Samus lied dead behind me, his lips and skin dried with the splattering of his own blood. He was weak when I got here, his eyes begged me to show mercy, but his movements were so resilient. Almost as though he just couldn't control what he was anymore.

Cosmo looks up at the sky, a small opening of trees lies above us and I can see the reflection of the stars in the voids of her pupils.

A small whirling buzz broke the silence, as like the twisting of a machine. I turned around to see a camera gradually zoom closer to the both of us. For that moment there, I had forgotten what the games really were. I had forgotten that we were entertainment. I had forgotten that we truly have no entitlement to our freedom. In school, we were always told that 'We are slaves to our sentence.'I turned back Cosmo and tightened my grip on her. The golden girl smiled, her stained lips and bleeding teeth gently moved with her shivering breaths. "Showtime." She murmured and her eyes flickered shut. I felt her once vibrant and warm body turn to cold and lifeless stone. Mia was out there somewhere, but right then she could of cut my neck and I'd not of cared.

I picked up a flower beside me, its pink and curling petals shining across the green landscape. The blood on my hands dyed its stem and its liveliness seemed to droop. With a single sniff, I placed it on Cosmo's chest and stepped away. Soon the carrier had collected her and I watched her join the dazzling stars as the aircraft vanished from sight.

She loved me. In what way, I'll never know. But I know enough to keep going. To keep riding the long walk.

I look down at my hands, opening the cracking palms to show not a single trail of blistering crimson on its surface. You wouldn't see it now, but it took years before the blood finally washed away. My hands were always stained, my scars always searing.

But like I said... after a while it stops hurting. And the world moves on. A new year, a new games, a new victor.

Casimir.

A broken memory but you're never gone, your image hasn't quite crumbled from my mind. I see you when I look in the mirror. I hear you every time I open my mouth to speak. I see you standing behind me in the tears of your mother's eyes. Our, mother. After all these years, I still can't get used to it. For some reason, every day my mind resets. Every day the endless hike continues and I wake up not knowing who she is.

The drumming beat brings me back. I take a single breath in and drop my hands to my side, the dense heat is almost worse than my arena all those years ago. The water splashes against the pedestal and covers my feet. I brace to jump, to dive into the open ocean, as all of the others around me. We each of us have only one goal now.

Mine is the long walk, the only thing left I know.

To die for glory, to die for honor.

"Let the 75th annual Hunger Games, begin!"

To die at all.