It felt like I was blindfolded. I was fighting someone with my eyes covered, and when I finally opened them, I saw my dead little brother. I didn't know what I was doing or why, I just did it. My little brother Ax died because of me. I don't know why I was sent to the Games or why I have now taken his place all of a sudden. Ax' lack of resistance is just another thing to confuse me in the middle of all this. My entire chest collapsed in on itself when I saw his dim eyes.
I think I cried the next couple of hours after it happened. I didn't even think to touch the axe that I was equipped with going into this, or the knife that I used to actually kill him. What bothers me the most about all of it, is that I don't remember much of what actually happened, I just knew what I had done when my eyes 'opened'. I had killed my brother. Now I am supposed to take his place and wander around these ruins trying to stay alive by avoiding tributes, or kill the ones I encounter. At this point though, it feels pointless.
Time seems to travel endlessly slow. I don't know what time of day it is, but the sun is coming up over the horizon. I guess it's early morning then. I should've used these first few hours in here trying to get some rest because I don't know when my next chance of getting that will come. Speaking of chances, I have thought a lot about what my family thinks of me. One thing would've been me killing other tributes in the Games to survive and come back home, but it's a completely different thing to kill my own brother in order to get back to them. I don't really know if I want go back.
There has been a deafening silence covering the Arena since the Capitol-anthem played over the speakers and the pictures of the fallen tributes covered the sky. I didn't recognize any of them, except for my brother. In the early stages of the Games, I didn't really pay attention to anything related to the Games because I didn't want to sit there and watch as my brother endured the various challenges and horrors. I shouldn't have underestimated him though. He was smart, attentive to details, fast on his feet. I will never measure up to any of those things. I'll spend the rest of my life seeing his shadow wherever I go, for however long I have left to live.
Even though these are the Games, I try to take as deep of a breath as possible and enjoy the silence as long as it lasts. At this point, I could hear a pin drop on the sand, and it stays this quiet for a little while longer before the sound of screeching and chirping fills the air, cutting through my ears like nails to a blackboard. I immediately grab the axe and get up on my feet. I turn my head in every direction possible. The sound can be heard in the distance, but it's getting closer. The closer it gets, the more it send shivers down my spine. I decide to try and put some distance between myself whatever that's causing it, but it seems to know every turn I make.
Just as I come around of the corners, I see a crow and a raven in front of me. The raven is on the right, the crow on the left, twisting their heads at me out of curiosity. I tighten my grip around the handle of my axe. My instinct is to threaten them so that they go away, or just kill them considering they might be mutts. Somehow, I just get the feeling that I will get myself into more trouble than just being here really entails. They keep making that obnoxious sound that makes me drop the axe and cover my ears. In a way, they bring back images of what I did to my brother and I don't want them.
"Stop it", I scream with full lung-capacity. When I stop, I have to catch my breath a little bit, as the birds in front of me just look at me. "Tell us a secret", the crow finally says. I look at it curiously. It just spoke to me. "A secret", I ask. It takes a few steps closer to me. "Tell us a secret", it repeats again as I look over at the raven. If the crow wants one thing of me, the raven must want another. "Tell us a lie", it then says. If I go by the crow's request, I choose to expose a secret that nobody knows. If I go by the raven's request, I have to make something up. If I am brutally honest, I don't know like either of those options.
"What kind of secret am I supposed to tell you", I ask the crow as if I am expecting it to answer that question like a normal human being. "Tell us a secret", it repeats. I shake my head surrendered. This is a mind-game, of course, and I don't want to take part in it. I grab my axe and turn my back on both birds. Do I have secrets? Yeah, of course I do. We all have secrets, some very dark ones that we don't want anyone to know. It's called a secret for a reason. The crow and the raven are following me however, continuing the screeching and disturbing any trail of thought I have inside my mind.
"Freaking stop it", I yell, turning around abruptly and throwing my axe in their general direction. It lands right in the middle of the two of them. "Tell us a secret", the crow repeats again. "Tell us a lie", the raven on the other side suggests. I am not getting away from this. I look up in the sky, or the artificial sky where I know the Gamemakers are watching my every move. I curse them silently as I close my eyes. Whatever I say, truth or lie, my family will think it's real. My brother was lucky in a way. He didn't have many secrets so this scenario would've proved how bad of a liar he was.
"Tell us a secret", the crow goes on for what feels like the hundredth time. I nod weakly before I close my eyes.
"My little brother decided to step out of the family tradition about a couple of weeks before it happened. For many generations, it had been a custom for the family members of Nairn to go into lumberjacking. Our father was actually thinking of starting a small family business. My younger brother Leaf and I were in on it from the start, as we could bring the business on after our father. My grades and Leaf's grades weren't grades to shout loudly about so we didn't have any other choice than to follow tradition. Ax' grades were a lot better. He was offered and he accepted a job as a furniture-decorator",
I have to take a deep breath, while swallowing.
"My father was furious. He was so angry with Ax that I'm sure he would've tried to kill my brother if it wasn't for the fact that Ax was a son of his. My father would yell at him a lot. Leaf and I, along with our mother, tried to make our father see the benefit of the choice that Ax had made for his life. He was going to bring in a good amount of money for the family. It would help us in starting up the family business that my father wanted so badly, but he refused to accept any donations from Ax. He didn't want to owe his 'disappointing son' a dime.
He froze him out. Ax lived in the same house, ate the same meals, participated in some of the same chores in the house, but our father hardly recognized him. My brother Ax tried everything he could to make his father like him again. He made our father a pocketknife of special design with many different functions, but my father simply tossed it in the trash. He refused anything that Ax did to win back his approval, unless it was that Ax had changed his mind and would join the family tradition. My brother Leaf and I had to talk him out of it several times. Ax was growing desperate",
I have to take another break of going down this memory lane. Most of this is common knowledge to my entire family, and going back there now with Ax being dead, just makes it all hurt more. It also makes me a lot angrier with my father for not opening his arms to Ax all those times Ax tried to win back his father's love. What I am about to say next, my father doesn't recall all that well, but I do.
"I confronted my father eventually. I told him how Ax was doing our family a solid favor. We were a large family. There were five people who needed clothing, food and a place to sleep which weren't for free. I wanted to make him understand how we needed to think of our family's situation in the district and how Ax' better income could help us in so many ways. It would make it easier for our father to start up the family business, but he kept arguing that he would feel more humiliated accepting the funding. He was adamant that he was not going to accept money from his biggest living disappointment.
More and more I felt this anger pulsate inside my chest. I just wanted him to listen to me! I wanted to make him see the talented brother that the rest of us saw. Our father was the man of the house however. He was not going to listen to anyone defending a weaker member of the family. Ax never truly responded to the numerous insults that my father threw his way. Ax wasn't the type to grow aggressive like I sometimes would. It was just that, one day I had had enough of it and I punched him",
My heart is pounding my chest as I try to visualize my family hearing about all this.
"He was in his and my mother's bedroom all alone when I confronted him and had a huge blowout at him. He answered back, mocking and insulting my brother right to my face so I punched him. It caught him off guard and I hit him with such an immense force that he stumbled backwards and hit his head on the cupboard. He landed on the floor with his eyes closed. I was almost sure I had killed him. I was too nervous to feel his pulse through my fingers so I ran out of there and kept a distance from the house for a couple of hours before returning home.
A few hours later, Ax was the one to find me and told me that our father had collapsed. He was pale and scared, despite of how our father had neglected him for so long, Ax loved him. When we got home, my mother said she found him on the floor. The doctor was also there telling us that our father had most likely just passed out, collapsed and hit something on the way down. I was nervous when I saw our father in the bed. However, he seemed clueless. He didn't remember what happened. He wondered why I had a certain look on my face. I almost wanted to ask if he didn't remember that I punched him, but I kept it to myself. I did for years",
Until now.