Writer Games: Pending Secrets

Finals - There is no Home - Jay Rowan

Then the muffling of words like someone clamped their hand over Naomi's mouth. And finally, the sickening sound of blade ripping flesh and the gurgle of fresh blood.

I whirled around, dagger up in hand and poised to strike. But a massive hand knocked the weapon from my grip and it clattered on the cement as rough hands gripped me by the shoulders and lifting me off the ground. My body went limp from terror like the bones were draining from my body. I felt very vulnerable as I stared wide-eyed into the raging face of a very angry Peter Mask.

"Uh, h-hey Peter," I stuttered nervously with a shaky laugh. "Fancy meeting you here."

Peter didn't find this amusing. "Did you kill him?" He demanded, shaking me to emphasize his point.

I opened my mouth to reply, to ask who 'him' was in a final defense of innocence when a puddle of scarlet caught my attention.

Naomi lay still, her chest unmoving, with her throat slitted and Shyen Ann standing over her. There was a large bruise between Shyen Ann's eyes where the hilt of my dagger must've hit. She glanced up at me and stared coldly back. Any wit I may have kept about me quickly scattered in the sea-spray wind. I utterly lost it.

My bottom lip trembled and my vision blurred. My throat constricted on itself. I struggled to breathe and only drew in raspy breaths. Sobs threatened to rack my body. I thrashed in Peter's grip and choked on my own throat until I finally gave up and threw back my head, screwing my eyes shut.

"I'm a monster!" I wailed into the sky. "Yes, I've killed! I know I'm sick! Revolting! I disgust myself!" I sobbed and screeched, screamed and cried all at once, my audience long forgotten.

"I hate myself," I whispered. The grip on my shoulders slackened and I slid to the cement in a jumbled, tear stained heap.

"I want to go home," I whimpered pitifully and wrapped my arms around my knees and pulled them to my chest.

But we all know that's not possible. Nothing's left of District Thirteen but rubble and memories, my family included.

Jess and my parents and the hope we would be reunited was the motivation that kept me alive. Without something to fight for and determination to return home to them, what's the point of fighting for something you can't regain?

Suddenly, questions flooded my brain in rapid succession.

Where shall I go should I win the Games?

Even if I live to tell the tale of my time in this cursed arena, insanity will lurk at the edge of my conscious, growing more welcoming by the day until I accept it and I'm put down like the rabid beast I would've become. But until then...

Should I go back to District Eleven?

There I could find a job. But agriculture is not my profession. I wouldn't know anybody and no one could really help me get a house because they won't be far above the poverty line at best themselves.

Should I stay in the Capitol?

Absolutely not. They'll probably shove a bunch of money at me and I'll grow fat in the plush life. Living right beside people who agreed to send in assassins to kill my family, who probably urged on anybody coming remotely close to killing me. Capitol chicks will be thrown at me and while I could start a family with any of them, I don't want to.

What will I do with the rest of my life?

Now that's a big one. This one depends on where I'll go after the Games. I can't quite answer it yet.

Jess must know there really isn't a point of living for me. She must know living and making hard decisions doesn't appeal to me, not when she's dead. Yet she wants me to make it out alive.