Twenty Four Shades of Blood [A Hunger Games Fanfic]

Paradise Lost - 15

When his breathing is as close to normal as it’s going to get, he twangs the string of the trap aimlessly, listening to the note reverberate. It’s a good trap, well hidden, and suitable for both animals and...the thought stops him with a jolt, his fingers freezing above the rope.  Suitable for tributes.  Suitable for children.

For a second he almost tears the trap apart, but something stops him.  Somewhere in his confused and terrified mind a little voice tells him it’s them or you and he knows it’s right.

He looks around. The trees are close enough together to make his mouth slightly dry with fear; District Nine, his home, is all open spaces, where the sky stretches endlessly above your vision and the weather can be seen coming all the way from the horizon. This darkness, this enclosure and the way that even empty space feels thick with vines or branches or broken buildings, it all feels wrong. The thin, camouflaged string that makes up his trap is almost invisible, though now he knows where it is he sees it constantly, ready to trap his first meal in the arena or his first kill.

Somewhere nearby, a twig snaps.  Thom doesn't wait to see if there’s someone approaching, he just heads off into the shadows in the opposite direction.  His heart is pounding again, a throbbing beat against his ribs that makes him gasp for breath.  Over his shoulder he hears a voice, but he can’t make out the words.  Thom’s eyes dart frantically, looking for somewhere to hide.  Every nerve in his body is tensed, waiting for the sound of steel singing through the air behind him, but nothing comes and his feet carry him on.

A gaping hole in the side of a building catches his eye and he veers towards it, rushing through the entrance headlong without thinking to check for other inhabitants.

The first Nash knows of his company is when he feels the body crash squarely into his back from above.

The next thing he knows, he’s spitting long golden hair from his mouth and it feels like he’s been crushed, one ankle looser than it should be, tingling painfully. He wrenches the hair away from his mouth - this prompts a cry, young and female - and attempts to scramble away, his good foot digging into the loamy ground and his hands squelching as he tries to pull himself along, intent only on getting away before the figure attached to the hair recovers from the fall.

It feels like he’s being crushed because he is; the weight that is pinning him down is warm and in places digs into his stomach, elbows, knees. It’s moving too, as desperate to get off him as he is to get away from her - he notices a glance of fear and the girl gasps - something not sharp but painful jabs into his kidneys.

As Nash doubles up in pain, Eden finds herself tumbling onto the floor, dampness soaking into her side. She should have known she’d fall out of the tree trying to stay out of sight. She aches all over but it’s just bruises and she’s fallen out of trees before. The ground here is soft, at least, not the baked turf of the endlessly repeating orchards back home.

The boy beside her thrashes, trying desperately to regain his feet, or at least get off his back.  She’s reminded of the beetles from home when they were flipped onto their backs.  His eyes lock onto hers for a moment.  His fingers open just enough for her to see the glint of silver inside.  He’s armed, and it’s her or him.

Run! It’s the only thing she can think to do, her breath suddenly solid in her mouth and her feet ten times bigger, stumbling away as fast as she can, the jungle blurring into green and brown streaks as she dodges through it, twisting and turning and expecting a blinding pain in her back any second.

It doesn’t come. She risks a sharp glance behind her and something hammers into her from the front, slamming into every inch of her and making her whole body rattle. She staggers back, spitting blood; it feels like she’s knocked a tooth loose. Through the stars bursting across her vision she see Nash in front of her, arm cocked back. She throws herself to one side instinctively, rolling off the bark of another tree and grabbing onto a spiked branch to keep herself upright. Steel bites into the tree behind her. Then something inside her snaps and she lunges toward him, dagger clenched tightly in one hand.

Red.

So much red.

Eden reels away, the knife dropping with a clatter from her bloodied fingers.  Nash’s small frame twitches slightly, his fingers lurching against the mossy ground.  Eden retches violently as the metallic taste of blood lodges in the back of her throat.  She just killed someone.  Her hands are speckled with gore and she rubs them frantically. The red streaks daub patterns down her palms and her thin, sun-baked fingers, but doesn’t come off.

She has blood on her hands, literally.

Nash lets out a little squeak and Eden drops to her knees beside him, pressing her hand against the welling hole in his neck, desperately trying to staunch the flow of blood.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she chokes out as she watches the bright red fluid pulsing through her shaking fingers. He doesn’t respond and she can’t do anything except stare at his white face as his eyes flicker shut for the last time.

The cannon thunders overhead, making her flinch. She’s not sure why she remains there, kneeling in the spreading puddle of blood beside the dead boy. She ought to run away, in case the sounds of a fight attracted any stray tributes, but her legs won’t move. Her eyes are fixed on the glassy expression in Nash’s eyes. He seemed nice, confident, a dark horse. Now he’s dead and it’s her kill. The cannon sounds over and over again in her head, tolling ‘murderer!’ every time. 

The body; why haven’t they picked it up yet?

Through the fog of her thoughts, she realises that they won’t pick him up whilst she is nearby. It aches to get up, bruises from her fall already flowering on her arms and her mind still close to numb, but somehow she does it and she’s clinging to her tree again, searching for something solid, something to remind her of home so she doesn’t feel quite so crushed by the guilt of murder. Her stomach heaves again.

A few minutes later the hovercraft appears overhead, the long claw winding its way through the trees. Nash, already small, looks like a tiny doll, dwarfed by the huge arm. As it scoops him up, a perverse arm cradling a child, his limbs dangle and his head lolls sideways, his eyes looking both straight at her and far, far beyond.

Eden watches until the pale face is lost in the gloom above her.