Writer Games | Masquerade of Martyrs & Family Ties

Task Seven: The Flood /SF - Anna Smith

Fame, we all want in and  in a way, all of us need it. Some of us more than others. I kept  walking through the destroyed garden, eyes seeing nothing but the face  of my dead son, spiked between piles of silver coins. Even though the  rain blurred everything out, his face and the coins were crystal clear.  His eyes, wide and utterly  vacant, screamed my sins to the world until I  was swimming  in them.

Traitor.

I could almost hear his  voice, ringing in my head while the rhythm of the rain kept time. I  wanted to block everything out, keep his voice from shouting the  accusations in my head. My knees hit the mud as I  screamed at him to go  away and pulled at my hair in the fistfuls, pulling out loose strands.  Horror-stricken at my sudden act of aggression against myself, I simply  stared at the long, graying locks and let them wash away. It wasn't  until they floated away that I realized just how deep the water had  gotten.

"You best get out of there or you gonna drown."

I looked up, smiling  faintly as I took in his familiar features. Keith was always a rough  sort of looking man. His eyes, a liquor-amber colour, always hardened in  times of trouble. His scraggly beard was starting to grey, just like my  hair, but it seemed to add wisdom beyond his merely forty-four years. I  just looked old.

"What are you doing  here, honey?" I reached for his hand but he stayed where he was. He was  in my mind, I knew that as soon as my hand hit the water.

"Getting you out o'  here. You ain't gonna die on me. Not after all we've been through," he  said. His voice was full of steely resolve. He'd always liked to imagine  himself as a cowboy from the Pre-Panem Era. It's the sole reason that  he talked the way he did. People laughed at him when we were younger but  I always found it attractive, imaginative. He told me that when we were  famous, his way of speaking would become a trend.

"I'm not going to die,  Keith," I said gently. I got to my feet, though it made no difference.  The water was already halfway to my knees and growing steadily higher. I  stepped forward, breathing his musky scent in. He frowned again.

"You deserve to, for  what you did to me." Judas's voice came with hot breath into my ear,  trickling down my wet back and curling into my stomach with a sick  feeling. I turned, watching as my son moved through the water with  grace, like a cat stalking it's prey.

My hand went to the  locket that hung around my neck. I didn't dare open in right now. The  rain could wash away his blood, wash away his hair. "I had to. You were  going to kill me."

"Don't listen to Junior,  here," Keith warned. But Judas's eyes were captivating, still vacant of  emotion but there was something there. He looked the same as when he  died, pale with blood staining his shirt and his lips. His dark hair was  tousled, streaked with blood from where my fingers raked through it.

Judas shot Keith a glare  so poisonous, I would almost see air tremble between them. "Your wife  is a madwoman, a murderer and a liar. Eventually, she will leave you  behind to get what she wants. It's what she did to me, to everyone else.  Blood means nothing to her unless it paves the road to her success."

"Anna, get out of here  now. There's a way to build a raft at the Cornucopia. Go make one and  ride out the storm," Keith ordered. I started moving forward, not  listening as my son threw all sorts of insults at my back. I knew he and  Keith were following me because their voices were never far off.

The rain kept falling  but I was so much closer to the Cornucopia. I stumbled over something  and pitched head first into the water. I wanted to lay there, give up  but that feeling only lasted a second. I stood again, wading towards a  free raft in water up to my waist. Once I got on, I curled into myself  and watched as my husband and son moved closer.

"Tell me one thing,"  Judas said, bringing his long legs up under him. Keith sat behind me,  giving my strength to face our son. Judas watched us with guarded  expression. "Why did you do it?"

I smiled sadly. I knew  he wouldn't like the answer but I told him anyway. "I came into the  arena with the decision that until you die for me, and as long as  there's a light at the end of the tunnel, I won't stop until the whole  world knows my name. For a moment there, I thought maybe we could make  this work. But you weren't listening. You were only getting angrier and I  had to defend myself."

An indignant look flared  as I finished speaking. I could read how offended he was in his body  posture. But his voice was what really alerted me to how hurt he was.  "You're saying this is my fault? You are so sick that you can't even  tell right from wrong anymore. You made me what I am."

"I didn't make you anything. We all chose our own path," I argued.

Judas laughed. It  sounded off and perhaps that's because he was just a figment of my  imagination and I'd never heard him laugh before. "I disagree. It's our  experiences that make us who we are. I grew strong, distrustful but I  think those things are what kept me from killing myself all those years  ago. I made a name for myself, by myself. If you had kept me, maybe you  would've gotten some of the benefits. But then again, just one mistake  is all that it takes before everything is gone and all you could have  had isn't possible anymore."

"Are you actually suggesting that giving you up for a better shot at life was a mistake?" Keith asked incredulously.

"Are you actually  suggesting that what I suffered through was a better shot at life? Look  at us now, Keith. We're all in the same boat," Judas replied. He looked  at us sadly. "We've always been in the same boat. Miserable nobodies who  only want to be loved. You want to be loved by the world. I only wanted  to be loved by my parents. Look at where it's gotten us."

Even as part of my mind,  he could never be more right. A silence fell between us as we floated  through the arena. No cannons sounded and not another soul was heard. I  could only see my son and his vacant eyes, the pain of abandonment rigid  in his features and the blood that stained his shirt. My fingers  tangled and untangled the thin chain that hung around his neck as I  continued to stare into his eyes.

"I think at some point, I  fell in love with you. But the world is cruel to you unless you become  something. Until we make ourselves known and go down in history, we're  just a joke to the rest who will be remembered for centuries," I said  softly.

"So you sold me for  whatever you could to make that name for yourself?" It wasn't really a  question. We both knew the answer but I knew he wanted me to admit it.

"Yes. Your father and I thought that if we gave you away for money that we could use to make ourselves someone," I answered.

I saw a tear trickle down his face. His voice started to break as he asked, "How much was I worth to you?"

My own voice fractured. "Thirty thousand."

He nodded once and I  guess that was all that he needed. He was there for a minute and then  his features began to fall apart into a pile of silver coins. As they  fell off the boat, I lunged forward to save them. And as they dissolved  through my fingers, I realized that I was only willing to keep my son if  it meant I could get money in return.