The Reaper | F. Odair

Twenty-eight

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Aaron
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    The games are very impressive with all the camera angles and shots they can get. The feeling is coming back as I stare at the screen, my eyes are glued to his fingers that are tight around my throat. His face is red, his eyes are bloodshot, that once pretty hue of green is dull and terrifying. I almost forgot what he looked like entirely, how dark and greasy his hair looked, how pale and bruised he was on just the first day.

"Quinn!"

I sound so young, despite being strangled my voice is clear and squeaky in my ears. There are tears in my eyes. Did my eyes always look that bright? I blink as my sixteen-year-old self chokes out something inaudible.

"I want to go home, Aaron! I have a family!"

"So do I--"

"NO YOU DON'T!"

Quinn suddenly reaches for a hatchet next to him. I don't blink as the camera flips and the hatchet lands above my younger-selves left shoulder.
I wonder how people watched this as entertainment, how people could sit with popcorn between their fingers and eat with wide smiles at the sight of a girl being choked to death. My neck is bruising quickly as the boy screams again, but his scream is cut short as little me finds an open spot -- she swings her own scythe up, the blade piercing straight through the boy's chin and through his head. The camera just barely picks up the tip of the blade sticking out of his forehead.

A cannon shot goes and I mute the video.

I've watched it at least ten times now -- I think -- barely five minutes of my life and only the memory has come back, not the feeling. My sixteen-year-old pushes the body off of her and she buries her head into the dirt and she lets out an obvious scream as the camera cuts to a long shot from above. What was I feeling? I can see tears on my young face but I can't remember my thoughts, how fast my heart was beating, how my stomach was flipping, how my throat burned.
The version of me on the screen suddenly shoots up, grabbing the hatchet and throwing it straight at a tree -- it sticks, the blade halfway inside. She lets out another scream, I frown, how stupid was I? Screaming about killing some kid who betrayed me?
"Fuck-" she barely whispers as she falls to her knees, silently nodding to herself as her lips quiver.

It's hard to watch, and not because of the pain younger me is going through, but it's hard to focus on one thing. There's multiple cameras on the side, multiple shots and angles of every single tribute doing something interesting. I have it focused on me, but it's hard to focus on just myself when I can see the other tributes doing things much more interesting than chucking a hatchet into a tree.

Why don't I feel bothered by this?

I slump in my bed and bring my knees up further and bring the tablet with them. My mind is a mess, the gaps are slowly being filled but it just doesn't feel right. It's like I'm shoving a piece in the right spot but not in the right angle or direction. My finger skims across the screen and I slowly drag the footage to speed up -- the day after killing Quinn I was just on the run for hours, then a pattern continued of getting away to running and getting away again. I shudder at one of the scenes, I've shoved the girl from District 12 straight into the careers just to save my own skin -- unmuting the footage I can hear her horrified screams from Gold piercing her stomach repeatedly. The twins were fucking psychos.
I skip past more days and reach the part of meeting Kai and Annie, the two had seen me and ran away just for us to run into each other the next day and run from the careers together. I forgot how tall yet young looking Kai was, how sweet and kind he looked for his age. I forgot how pretty Annie was, too. I think they were scared of me for being covered in blood.