The Capital Games

Chapter 23 {THE EIGHTH NIGHT}

Warning: The Hunger Games. Need I say more at this rate?

Merla was once again mesmerized by the view of the arena nightscape. She looked off across the city, her legs carelessly dangling over the edge of a concrete roof. She felt the breeze on her legs smiling with swollen lips as she watched a legion of golden lights dancing about the sinister black towers and ornate marble columns of the city. She simply smiled her bow in her lap, her legs swaying back and forth over the edge. Even in these times of violence, she was able to see the beauty; the myriads of lights floating about the arena, the near god like the architecture of the city and its twisting labyrinth-like roads.

    Merla closed her eyes and gripped the bow in her lap, thinking of home. It had been too long. Too long since she saw her mother and father, too long since she had her books, too long since she had been able to sleep without remembering the purple bloodshot face of Bettina Clark - the girl she had strangled to save herself days earlier. Merla’s eyes shot open once again as the image of a girl laid dead on the road, her lifeless face lit up by the lights dangling from the trees and branches above them.

    “I’m sorry” she muttered. “Really damn sorry” she finished. She didn’t know who in fact she was speaking too. Maybe it was Bettina, her parents, her friends, herself,  Leah… Merla looked up at the cloudless sky with the slightest hint of a smile. She imagined Leah back home, a girl with bright blue hair, skin like milk and the deepest chocolate brown eyes. Merla smiled thinking about her, her hand beginning to wander to the chain around her neck. She tugged at the silver necklace, bringing it out of her shirt. From the chain dangled a silver ring, moonlight glimmering off of it. She played with the ring, remembering the night Leah gave it to her, the night of the reapings. They both cried after the reapings, embracing each other in the last minutes of the visitors time before the tributes would be escorted to the main training plaza. Leah had taken her ring and given it to Merla, kissing her one final time before the guards came in forced her to leave.

Merla wiped a tear from her cheek, thinking about these things. She held onto the ring before slipping it back into her shirt.

“I’ll come home Leah, I promise,” she whispered looking out into the night sky. “I promise”

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“Shea… I think it’s time, ”

“No, no… Pat. It can’t be. There’s till t-”

“Shea, please. Just calm down there’s nothing that we can do,”

“Stop it! There are ways to survive! If only I could get a medkit, I know exactly how to do it! I read all about wounds back home!”

“Shea! Please… No one is coming to save us. You’ve done the best you could,”

“I should have done better,” Shea muttered burrowing her head into Pat’s shoulder as the life slowly drained from him. His torso was wet to the touch, his stock covered in a sticky red substance. His skin was pale and lifeless, it wouldn’t be long until he was dead, hours maybe. Maybe he’d even survive the night. Shea cried, lying with Pat in the warm wet alleyway. The sky was dark, yet the city around them bright and neon like a circus. The air was thick and warm, a relief to the heat of the day. Pat groaned as Shea lied with him, unable to move. He had sustained all too many wounds from Colin’s knife to survive the games. They both knew that. Shea thought of their former ally, Colin, slipping the knife in and out of Pat, before falling to his own death from the statue of the Mockingjay.

“God damnnit… It hurts. Why can’t I just die? It shouldn't be this hard,” Pat joked, watching Shea as she lifted up her head and looked up at the dying boy.