seventeen - demise
- - - ➳
"no!" carly screams, her voice echoing through the woods. before i can blink, an arrow whizzes past me so quickly it's a blur and lodges itself in titus' eye, killing him instantly. he slumps to the ground, lies motionless, and bliss looks shocked for about two seconds before launching into action.
she moves to attack matthias, who is tending to a fallen asher, and i wonder if there's any hope for the district four boy to stay alive for much longer. i rush forward, all my terror gone, and instead focus on my increasing rage that bubbles up like lava exploding from a volcano. i am so furious that bliss had something to do with asher's soon-to-be death that i am blinded by it. i don't care. i want this girl dead.
i unsheathe my knives from my belt and body-slam her backward before she can chop matthias's head off. she grins sickly at me, her long, black hair falling into her face from where it has come out of its ponytail.
"ready to take on a career, twelve?" she sneers, swinging her axe around threateningly. i used to be terrified of her. now i'm not the least bit afraid.
"only asher can call me that," i growl, and saying his name only makes me even angrier. right as bliss swings at me, i duck and roll. the good thing is that since her weapon is so heavy, it takes her longer to move, costing her precious seconds. the downside is that she has much more momentum from it, and it can basically kill me with one chop.
i reach as close as i dare and make a deep scrape along her arm before jumping around to different positions, confusing her. bliss looks around wildly. as soon as she spots me, i move to a different position. it's extremely tiring, but it's working.
"you little–" she swings. i try to move out of the way in time, but the tip of her axe grazes my side, tearing my clothing and skin open. it burns like fire, but i try my best to ignore the searing pain and reposition my knives in my hands, ready to retaliate at her.
i move to stab at her, but she ducks in the nick of time. right as she stands back up, one of carly's arrows hits her in the stomach. she immediately breaks the shaft and tosses it to the side– she must know that haphazardly pulling it out will only cause more damage. now we are both moving slowly due to our injuries, but i'm still quicker than she is.
but right when i see the window of opportunity, i second guess myself. do i want to kill this girl?
but then i remember. it's the hunger games. it's kill or be killed. it's me or her. and so i reach my arm back and plunge a dagger into her stomach beside the arrowhead and drag it to the left, watching blood pour out of her mouth and gut after i do. i have no desire to watch as she dies, so i yank the knife out and run to asher.
matthias is above him, putting pressure on his wound as asher lays on his side. he is fading fast, i can tell, but he's alive right now and that's all that matters to me.
"listen to me," asher commands, his voice weak and uneven as he struggles to breathe. "when any of you win–"
"when?" carly repeats. asher glares at her for the interruption before wincing in pain.
"let me finish. when any of you win – and i'm saying when because i know one of you will – and you're on the victor's tour, say something to my siblings." he swallows before continuing. "please. that's all i have to ask."
i nod quickly, tears rushing to my eyes and blurring my vision until it's nearly impossible to see. my voice sounds quiet and not like my own when i speak. "of course, asher. of course."
"okay, i'm dying and i know it," he continues. "i've been dying since i got stung."
i'm confused by this. "what do you mean?"
"'the stings affect everyone differently,'" asher quotes matthias, making me wonder how much of his odd behavior he actually remembers. "for me, it was feeling high and then death."
asher has known this entire time that he has been dying– that's why he never put on the ointment. he always knew he was going to die anyway, and he accepted it. he accepted his death, and i think that is the strongest thing anyone can ever do.
bliss' cannon punctures the atmosphere. it sparks realization into asher's glassy, hazel eyes, spurring him on to talk even quicker.
"i'm going fast and so i have to make this as heroic as possible." asher turns to carly. "why won't you love me?"
when i look at carly, that's what causes all the tears that are built up to finally fall. she is the first of us to cry, tears already streaming down her face as she stands a little ways away from us with her hand over her mouth. it takes a few seconds for his words to register, and when they do, carly removes her hand from her face, her voice cracking as she asks, "what?"
"you wouldn't even love me," asher says, shaking his head as tears gather in his own eyes. he takes a deep, shaking breath. "i tried" - a crack in his voice and another shaking breath - "so hard."
carly starts shaking her head and sinks to her knees in the dirt as if the physical act of standing is too much for her body to bear. "asher–"
"no, it's okay." he pauses and coughs, blood coating his nearly colorless lips. i gasp and close my eyes at the sight. the pain in my side is nothing compared to the pain in my heart. "i know you care now. you killed that bastard."
this time asher looks at matthias, whose hands are still against his wound, trying to help him live as long as possible. matthias looks devastated. he is close to breaking down and i wonder if he actually will. but when asher says his final words to him, i know the answer.
"you're not so bad, rutcher," asher says, and matthias laughs a little while choking on the oncoming sobs. he closes his eyes, and there it is– a tear spills and slides down his face. "now let go."
matthias's eyes snap open, confused. "w-what?"
carefully, and obviously using every last bit of strength in his dying body, asher takes matthias's bloody hands and removes them from the wound. he rolls onto his back, half of his face covered in dirt. i reach over with a trembling hand and brush it away. i try not to notice that his pale skin is losing its warmth already.
"and thalia..."
his voice is weaker than ever. he coughs again. more blood paints his lips red. my head snaps up to look at him, biting my lip because if i don't i think i'll scream. tears are still cascading down my face and i can't really breathe.
ironically, there is a ghost of a smile on his face as he whispers, "nice talk, twelve."
and he takes a few more strangled, choked breaths before i visibly watch the light fade from his eyes. asher's breaths cease. his chest no longer moves up and down. he is staring into nothingness. the cannon goes off.
carly is the disbelieving type of griever. the cannon has gone off, proof that asher halloway really is gone, but she still reaches out to him.
"asher?" her voice is soft yet frantic. she shakes his unmoving body, her face twisted in pure agony. "asher? asher!"
"carly," matthias says thickly, his breathing uneven as he stares at asher's lifeless body. "he's gone."
"he can't be." carly shakes her head. "no. impossible." she touches his hand, and when she does, she withdraws like he had somehow burned her. he can't already be that cold, but i guess his fading body heat is what really strikes the truth in carly. asher is dead.
i stare, barely registering it all, at my first real ally in the games. my heart is like dead weight and i choke on my tears.
matthias grabs me and pulls me into a hug, making my wound tear open more, but the pain only gives me more of a reason to cry, and i need to. i need to let all the grief out.
i sob and sob into matthias's shoulder, hugging him back tightly. i'm so grateful that he did this, because it reminds me that i'm not the only one feeling this way– like a major organ has been torn out of my body. our now-uneven number of allies feels like a weight has been removed from our scale, making it tilt off-balance.
matthias's head is buried in the crook of my neck and i feel the wetness of his tears on my skin. he rubs my back comfortingly while mumbling words over and over again. at first i cannot comprehend what he's saying, but eventually i do.
"i know. i know. i know."
soon afterword, matthias releases me, his face red and blotchy and tears still running down his face. the redness of his eyes makes the blue of his irises pop. "we should go. they'll come to pick him up soon."
"no." carly is still kneeling, staring at asher like she's trying to force him back to life, trying to will him into breathing again. "we can't leave him."
i look at asher. his eyes are still staring open, unfocused and glazed over. the blood on his lips is starting to dry. i know that this image will forever be imprinted in my brain. never will i forget the face of the deceased asher halloway.
"carly, we h-have to," i say sadly, my voice shaking. she continues to look at him for a few moments before placing a kiss on his blood-splattered cheek, then standing up and wiping her face with the backs of her hands.
i try to stand and let out a hiss of pain, dropping back down. i look at my axe wound and notice it's bleeding heavily. some of it has crusted onto my jumpsuit, making it flake when i stretch the skin. the gash is ugly and covered in crimson.
matthias catches me before i fall. "why didn't you say anything?"
my heart hurts even more when i reply, "asher had it worse than me."
carly tears the pack off matthias's shoulders and digs through it before producing a roll of bandages.
"you had those this whole time?" i demand, forcing my eyes not to flicker back to asher's unmoving body like they seem to want to.
"don't worry," matthias lays me in his lap so he can easily patch me up. "they wouldn't have helped him any, and you heard him– he knew that."
carly hands the bandages to matthias. "i stole those from a tribute. i can't remember who."
i loop my arms around matthias's neck to keep myself in place as he unrolls the bandages. once he thinks he's at the right length, he tears them off with his teeth. i notice his hands are still bloody from holding asher's wound and note that we will be in serious need of a swim to clean it all off.
carly hands him the blanket, which has been soaked with water, and he dabs it on the wound. i grit my teeth and control my breathing, feeling the pain more now than ever.
after matthias finishes cleaning the wound, he uses the blanket to wipe off his own hands, leaving them tinted light pink. he patches me up and helps me to my feet.
"can you walk?" he asks, then smacks himself. "stupid question. here." before i can protest, he puts one hand between my shoulder blades and the other beneath my knees, lifting me up.
"what are you–" i start to ask in bewilderment, but he cuts me off.
"carrying you," he replies. "you can't walk, and we need to move. this place has too many ghosts."
carly starts walking alongside us. "that's where you're wrong, matthias. we've always been living in a graveyard."
-
after the events that have just occurred, we all need a while to calm ourselves down. we have climbed up trees to be safe from the horrors below and tied ourselves to branches with rope. my eyes have grown heavy and tired from crying, but i refuse to sleep. i need to be there for carly and matthias.
"go to sleep," matthias says like he can sense my exhaustion. "don't worry, i'll fight off any nightmares."
i roll my eyes and adjust myself on the branch, getting as comfortable as possible. it hurts my side, but i ignore it and close my eyes, falling asleep almost instantly.
matthias was wrong.
asher appears in my dream. he is standing in a grassy field, facing away from me. the plants come up to his thighs. for me, they are at my waist.
an inexpressible amount of joy fills me. i push through the long grass, running toward asher as fast as i can, feeling the wind in my hair and the exhilaration of the peaceful outdoors.
"asher!" i call, a growing smile on my face as i finally reach him. "asher!"
i tap him on the shoulder, but as soon as i do, a horrible stab wound develops on his back. i stand, horrified, as he turns around. he is paper-white, pale as anything. though his eyes are blank and unfocused, i can somehow still tell he is looking at me.
"oh, thalia. what have you done?" he asks, suddenly reaching out and grabbing my arms. "i didn't want to die. i wasn't ready. thanks to you, i can never see my brothers and sisters again." he grows angrier and angrier with each word, his mouth turned downward in a furious sneer that's all bloodied teeth. there is still no emotion in his eyes, however, which is the scariest part. i am talking to a dead asher. "it's all your fault. it should have been you!"
he spins me around so i'm facing the other way. my heart starts beating faster, and i realize something's not right in his iron grip that digs painfully into my shoulders. sheer terror replaces the joy i felt before.
two figures come up from the grass a distance away. i realize with a start that they are bliss and milo, and they're coming toward us.
milo is also extremely pale, his skin white as the clouds in the sky. his eyes are bloodshot and i notice crimson liquid coming from his mouth. purple veins are very prominent beneath his papery skin. all are side effects of the poison. this is what milo looked like when he died.
"what did i ever do to you?" milo demands. "i would still be alive if it wasn't for you!"
"you killed me!" bliss shrieks, face twisted in hateful rage. she, milo, and asher all have the same unfocused, glassy eyes. her long hair is matted with red at the ends and there are multiple holes and gashes in her stomach that make it look like some sort of gruesome smile. i can see the field through them, my stomach rolling at the image.
i thrash around, trying to get out of asher's grip, but instead of letting me go, he turns me back around to face him. now his lips are coated in dark blood, just like when he had coughed it up before he died. his lifeless eyes stare into me, and i find myself unable to look away. the sky darkens above us, the azure blue replaced by a stormy, threatening grey.
"let me go," i command, trying to keep my voice level though i am absolutely terrified. i am still fully aware of milo and bliss coming closer and closer, every hair on the back of my neck standing up straighter with every one of their steps. "asher, i'm not the one who killed you. titus is!"
as if on cue, titus pops up from behind asher. there is a hole where his left eye should be, blood trickling out of it. i can see the inside of his head. i choke on the bile that rises in my throat but refuses to make it out of my mouth. "that's what you think," he sneers, his lip curling. "you just want to tell yourself that to beat the guilt away."
cael joins them, looking zombie-like as he walks. there is a tiny, arrow-shaped hole in his adam's apple where carly had shot him. "you're the reason for all of us. we will never go away. we will haunt you for as long as you live."
"stop!" i plead desperately. "i had nothing to do with you two!"
none of them respond. my heart thuds in my chest. asher's iron grip tightens on me until i scream, looking back at him with tears in begging eyes. why would asher do this to me? i try to kick him, but to my horror, my foot goes right through him like he's not even there.
asher smirks evilly at me. "you see, thalia, that's a perk of death. you can't hurt us, but we can hurt you."
"thalia!"
i wake with a start and discover tears streaming down my face. i am panting, taking short, quick breaths that don't satisfy my burning lungs. my heart thuds faster and harder than ever, and i am slick with cold sweat. the sky is pitch black now.
"oh my god," i mumble, my hands shaking violently as i push myself up against the bark and move my damp hair out of my face. "i can never sleep again."
"what happened?" matthias asks gently. "you were whimpering in your sleep and thrashing. i thought you were going to fall out."
i close my eyes, but immediately i am plagued with the memories of cael, bliss, titus, milo, and especially asher's threats and mostly their dead expressions. my eyes snap back open and i swear on my life i will never close them again.
"let's just say you didn't do a very good job of fighting away the nightmares."
gif is carly when asher....*takes deep breath* dies....
---
I CRIED SO HARD DONT WORRY YOU'RE NOT ALONE.
I AM SO SAD NOW MY LIFE IS OVER
but matthias is bae af and he put the pants on and got everyone together. go him.
thank you so much for 10k as well! it means a LOT and wow, ten thousand reads is a lot. your support means so much. i love you!
dedicated to wolfism bc she is asher af (sorry bout that)
(still dead inside)
xoxo,
kristyn