The Eleventh Hunger Games~ A Mags Fanfic

Chapter Eighteen: Day Twelve

Quite possibly the most anticipated chapter yet! I do apologize for the agonizing wait. AP exams and finals robbed me of my time in May, but now that it is finally summer break I will have far more time to write! (*Cheers*) Also, I am about halfway through with the following chapter, so hopefully that will be up very soon! Just one chapter left...(*sobs*) Again, the comments, votes, and reads I have been getting despite my quite horrible updating just make my day, so thank you all so so very much, they do mean a lot :) I hope you enjoy this chapter!

Kindest Regards,

Ninjafranbow

Chapter Eighteen

Day Twelve

Rain pours in icy sheets tonight.

It penetrates the night air like the beat of a drum before the start of the war and drives into the muddy ground like bullets from a gun. It bites my skin and burrows through my veins and freezes my blood like a parasite.

It echoes in my ears like a heartbeat.

I hardly notice the helicopter take him away. Hardly notice him etched into the night sky. Hardly notice his possessions right where he left them. All I can see is red. The color that stains my hands forever. The color that announces the arrival of Death. Through it all his face haunts me, robs me of my thoughts. First he was smiling. Then his lips were parted in shock. First his eyes were gleaming with life. Then they were veiled in Death. First he was here. Now he is not.

My mind is foggy as if I'm walking through a dream. I don't even process the sense of betrayal, something I have become so familiar with in the past month. I should feel angry. Angry that in the end he was just like my father. Angry that he most likely played me since the very beginning, and all of the words about his mother and his life back at home were just fiction, decoys to gain my trust. And eventually, I did. Like a fool I trusted the silence and clung to the bait, only to be pulled out of the water and nearly taken too.

But all I feel is empty.

......

Hours pass; days pass; minutes pass. By the time I push myself to my feet the icy rain has made its way to my bones. Rivulets have formed, carving their way through the muddy land and spilling into the rising river. A tiny voice in my head tells me that I need to move and find shelter. But I continue to sit on the soaked ground, staring off into the void of nothingness. And even when the night sky gives way to a gray morning I find myself in the same position, staring off into the same chasm of red and death.

It's only when the cannon booms in the heavy rain do I slowly stand up. I numbly pick up our—my—dripping belongings and stuff them in my backpack before looking around. The thick curtain of rain masks the world around me, save  for a handful of feet ahead. My feet stumble forward, though after days of aimless traveling I realize I have no idea which direction the willow trees are.

With one hand loosely clutching my backpack and the other pressed against my chest, I wander through the marshy land. I wonder what they must be thinking back in District Five, Ben's friends and family. They must be cursing my name and grieving over the body of their boy, the boy they thought would be buried in mounds of winnings, not in mounds of dirt. I promised myself not to harm—let alone kill—anyone once I got into the arena. It was supposed to be just me, flitting from the weapons of Death until it cornered me, just as it would twenty-two other tributes. But here I am, yet another puppet in their twisted games, being tricked and pulled into something I'm not. I look down at my hands. I am just like one of them; I am a monster.