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The sun sets over the cornucopia and Rebecca heaves out a heavy breath. She’s keeled over on the ground, panting on all fours, doing anything to sustain herself, to keep going. The rush of her heart, the adrenaline pulsing through her trying to keep herself alive. She can hear her heart beating in her ears.
The final beams of light fade over the trees.
Defeat of another day.
And with the light goes Rebecca. She rolls over onto her side in front of the metal cornucopia and all consciousness fades, turning her world to black. Nobody in the arena should ever have to leave themself this exposed, out in the open and vulnerable to attacks, but there is no longer anyone here to attack her. The Game is won, she hears her name called out over the loudspeakers but doesn’t listen. All she can do is let her eyes flutter close and try not to think of the wretched things that lie down beside her. She tries not to think of the things she had to do in the final hours.
She’s made victorious. She can be free of this arena, be safe. In time they will pull her out of here and she will be sleeping. A life of luxury awaits her.
Consciousness seeps back into the mind of Minx slowly, but she brushes it off. Let her sleep for just a little bit longer, reality can wait a moment more. She’s never slept this deeply before, let her have her peace just this once.
But consciousness is persistent. It needs her alive, awake, alert.
When she can no longer hold it back any longer, Minx lets it roll back onto her like waves, coming to in a milky haze. It takes her too long to realize where she is, what she is looking at. There’s too much white here, the world too bright. She’s far too used to waking up hungry in the dark, hours before the sun rises, but now the world is perfectly illuminated in an artificial glow.
Minx uses the back of her hands to rub the sleep from her eyes, blinking in confusion.
She’s laying on a bed in the middle of a white room. White bedding, white walls, white tiles floor, white hospital gown. There’s nothing to indicate where she is except for a window on the back wall that displays nothing but the sky from Minx’s vantage point.
It’s enough to give her an idea of where she might be, of who has brought her here.
That’s right. She won. She defeated the arena.
This must be where the Victors go after they are pulled out and she wonders for a fleeting moment how long she has been here. The injuries that ravaged her left leg are now gone, not even a scar to hint that they might have ever been anything there at all.
Minx’s feet meet the ground as she steps out of bed. Something here feels so off, like she is walking through a dream. Her body doesn’t feel like her own, each step feels like it’s being taken by someone else. Everything is so hazy now, so different as if she is not the same Rebecca at all.
Every inch of her body is masked in a fuzzy pain. Not pain so sharp that it’s all she can think about, but a dull throbbing in every join and across every inch of skin.
Minx reaches up and grabs for her long hair.
It’s only then that the panic sets in, the fog of such deep sleep slowly fading with the morning. She only panics over her hair, something so trivial, because it is not her hair at all that she holds in her hands, at least not the hair she remembers from before.
The hair she laces through her fingers is bright and smooth. It’s the color of honey or the golden grain. Maybe there’s even a tint of strawberry there, Minx has never actually seen a real one before so she wouldn’t know, but either way it doesn’t matter because the panic of seeing her hair like this overtakes any thoughts of fruit.
Rebecca’s hair is not blonde, not at all. It’s always been dark, a deep brown that cascaded down her shoulders or tied up so she can work. When did this happen? Nobody asked her if she wanted to change her hair color.
There’s a slight feeling of fear that sets in then, trickling through her body. Who thought they had the right to just do this to her? Of course, if given the offer of dying her hair to a lighter shade, she probably would have said yes, but that’s not the issue. The issue is that nobody asked.
Minx bites her lip in trepidation and that’s when things really start to fall apart.
Something happens when Minx bites her lip, but she can’t tell what. The effect of the drugs they used to sedate her still hasn’t worn off because she can feel the wetness of her chin but not quite identify it. She doesn’t think there’s anything wrong until she hears the tiniest splat in a room that’s completely silent.
Minx turns her gaze to the white tile of the floor and stained in front of her is a drip of red. Another falls beside it.
And all in once she begins to panic.
It’s on the white of her hospital gown, turning the fabric crimson in different blots. Minx reaches up to wipe it off her chin but it only smears it across her face, her hand, and begins to hyperventilate.
She isn’t afraid of blood, no one from district 10 is afforded that luxury. There is too much death there, too much blood. There’s the slaying of cows for their meat, the blood that stains their hides. She’s seen cattle give birth, animals be killed before they can walk. Blood is an old friend, and uninvited but still welcomed houseguest. She doesn’t fear the color red.
It’s not the blood that scares her, it’s the source of that blood that pins Minx in place, holds her cold like a stone where she stands.
Minx looks at the blood in her palm from wiping at her chin. She sees the way it smears across newly sharpened nails, each a little dagger at the end of her fingers. They cut everything they couch.
And then in a rush of fury she is running her finger over her teeth, her tongue over those pearly whites. Then she’s screaming, her voice broken and scared.
Each little tooth is jagged, sharp. Each one a knife, a fang. They’re not even human-looking anymore.
Minx is finally able to break the spell that keeps her locked in place and rushes to the window on the back wall. Peering out she sees that wherever she is, she is hovering high above the trees down below. She’s never seen the world from this angle, from the window of a hovercraft. Under normal circumstances she should be mystified by the view, stupefied by its grace and its beauty, but she can’t be because all she can see is her reflection in the glass of the window and her blond hair and sharpened teeth.
She drops to her knees like a child in defeat or perhaps a woman in prayer. She tips over and lays down on the freezing tile, pulling her knees to her chest and begins to sob, to scream. What has become of her?
She was supposed to have won the Games, she’s supposed to be free, but she doesn’t even know herself now. She’s a twelve-year-old girl, she should be too young to know the horrors of this world but she has been forced to grow up far too fast.
And twelve-year-olds be damned because nothing of that twelve-year-old is projected back at Minx from her reflection in the glass. In the window there stands a woman, someone who Minx doesn't even know. That woman is a feral creature, a beast who wears her skin.
What is she becoming?
Minx doesn’t feel like the Victor, the winner of these games. More than anything she feels like this is an indicator that she has only lost. Is this the price she pays, her punishment for railing against them in her interviews, in her mannerisms? She was so loud, so rebellious but the Capitol couldn’t squash her out because the people loved her. She was a twelve-year-old spitfire ready to take the world by storm. Only the third twelve-year-old to ever win these games, the first one to do it in the past two decades. She was their shining star.
But perhaps she shined a little too bright, spoke just a little too loudly, and this is her punishment.
She hasn’t won a thing.
She fought until the very end, stood upon that cornucopia with her fist in the air claiming her place. She stamped out innocent lives of other district children for what? Her very soul has been taken from her, traded to the Capitol for monetization purposes. She’s their prized little Minx, an exotic creature they parade around on a leash.
Minx might have won these games, but she has killed herself in the process and she can never be resuscitated. They stripped her of everything, down past even the bone, for they’ve already sharpened her teeth. She has nothing left. What right did they have to do that to a sleeping child? They ruined it all. They defiled her very being. She has nothing to herself now, not even the right to her own appearance or body belongs to her. Everything she is and ever will be belongs to them.
She howls in fear of herself, of what they have made her into. She’s still curled up on the floor when her escort walks into the room and finds her lying there. Minx is bundled on the floor with her knees to her chest, blood and tears still running down her face when her escort enters the room.
If she thinks he’s going to show her some kind of sympathy at her pathetic display, he gives her none. He gets one look at her and only purses his lips.
“Your prep team will be here in five minutes to get you dressed.”
She gapes up at him, hardly able to see, her vision so blurred from the tears in her eyes.
“Wh--where are we going?” she asks, incredulous.
He lets out a short breath, clearly annoyed with her.
“We’re going to district 1. You have a Victory Tour to put on.” With that he turns around and closes the door. Minx hears a sharp click of the lock behind him.
Not much later her prep team comes bumbling through the door, chatting amongst themselves like there is nothing wrong. They pretend not to see the blood that dribbles down Minx’s face from the cuts of her teeth into her lips, they only take a rag and wipe it away like nothing was ever there. They do not acknowledge her tears.
They dress her up in some small, dark get up, much too revealing for a twelve-year-old but Minx keeps her mouth shut. They powder her face too many shades lighter, draw dark wings around her eyes until she is completely unrecognizable. Her new brand.
All she can think about all the while is her teeth. It’s such a small detail, there are so many things to get upset about, but her mind gets snagged on teeth and she can’t shake it.
They didn’t even ask.
But then again when did the Capitol ever ask for anything? They never have, she doesn’t know why she expected them to make an exception this once. No one ever asked her if she wanted to be a cow herder, no one asked if she wanted to be reaped. No one asked if she wanted her teeth sharpened into a wicked grin.
They’ve never asked her permission for anything at all.
So Minx steps on that podium in district 1, she reads the damned cards.
There is no umpth there though, no wicked sharp bravado, no fire. She is normally so wild, so full of gunpowder, but in front of the people of district 1 she stands stoic, somber. Minx gives her speech in a hushed voice and mourns for herself all the while. She mourns for herself who was never pulled out of the arena at all. Rebecca was left for dead in there, or maybe even earlier back in district 10 when her name was drawn. Who knows? Nobody is asking for her opinion anyway.
It isn’t perfect, far from it, but this is as close to her funeral for her past self as she’ll ever get, showboating her victories over the family of the district 1 tribute, showing off her animalistic snarl.