Chapter Text
Words. We need more of them in general, if you would be so kind. A whole new dictionary to leaf through and define, warbled amalgamations of pre-existing words frankensteined into new ones.
Because, in this case, fuck, wasn’t quite cutting it for Keith.
Even still, it was the only word his mind seemed to be able to come up with, repeating it over and over again like a broken record catching on the cracks of the vinyl in his mind. It didn’t even sound like a word anymore, just a feeling. A vague vibe.
It was pretty fucking accurate, though.
*
Keith was from district seven, known best for its relentless supply of lumber and not much else. Hands calloused from the hilt of an axe ever since he was an infant, he’d never known much else than the stretching expanse of softwood trees and the distinct smell of their needles.
The trees back home were quiet, they didn’t speak or move beneath the wind. They grew to their death at twenty feet tall, and fell without resistance. They didn’t make a sound when Keith’s name was pulled from the hat, either. Nobody did.
The young kids stopped darting around their mother’s legs, instead hiding behind their long patchwork skirts. Keith could feel their pitying eyes on the knot bobbing in his throat as he walked towards the stage, eyes glazed over.
The wood of the stage creaked as he took his place next to the woman as pale as the dead, her blonde hair made up tall and fruit nestled amongst its locks. She looked like one of the fruit trees in the orchard, though the peaches and cherries atop her skull were little but painted plasticine.
He would have much rathered a bullet to the skull, an aneurysm on the stage over having to play the games. It wasn’t the death that scared him, more the public objectification of it all. He was going to die watched, and there is nothing worse than having your insignificance ripped from you by the hands claiming to be doing you a favour.
Even Keith’s death was no longer his own.
*
A bird song called over the arena, constructed by computers, but why don’t we pretend it came from a real set of delicate bird lungs? Can we pretend, just for their last time.
The cornucopia centered itself in Keith’s vision, golden metal refracting blinding sunlight. It sat on a crumbling island in the middle of the circle of tributes, connected to the rest of the arena by rickety wooden rope bridges. Beneath the bridges lay, well- nothing.
Keith’s heart caught in his throat, which had dried like a fish dragged upon dry land. Beneath the bridges to the cornucopia were deep ravines, ivy snaking down from sandstone, strangling leaves tickling the expanse of nothingness. A wind tunnelled up from the dark, whipping his clothes tight against his skin. The bridge ahead of him moaned underneath the pressure, pieces of twine snapping and unraveling from the wood. The air tasted of dust and ozone, stripped of mercy- stripped of the calculated bird song.
Far below, fog snaked over where Keith could only assume the floor of the ravine lay in wait, hiding whatever waits to catch a falling body’s bones. What will cradle him if he takes even one wrong step.
Keith tore his eyes from the ravines, twisting his head slightly to see what was behind him. Behind the sadistic death trap that was probably a social commentary on greed, he was beyond relieved to see that it was just a normal arena. Well, whatever ‘normal’ really means in this context.
Fir trees lay in wake behind him, snow capped mountains painting a picturesque scene further back in the crowd to the most gruesome of shows.
Trees were fine, Keith could deal with trees. All of this ravine nonsense though? That was simply not happening. Gritting his teeth, he tried to avert his eyes from the glinting axe propped against the cornucopia. He reasoned with himself that refusing to take the obvious bait was defying the capitol and their entertainment, making it a stand for good, as opposed to just a really stupid fucking decision.
A robotic voice called over the arena, crunching through numbers like they made its amalgamation of ones and zeroes sick. Keith repeated mantras in his head, a method he hoped would soothe his subconscious, who appeared to have acquired a gun and was threatening to use it on itself.
10
I will die on my own terms, not what you have constructed for me.
9
I will sing the bird song of my people, back where they wait for me.
8
I will not die watched.
7
I will not die.
6
Watch the dead envy the living, for once.
5
*
A bird laughed it's warbled melody, whispering from its beak like it had created sunshine. For all Keith knew, it probably had. Blades of grass sprouted beneath the gaps in his fingers, rubbing against knife scars from a game he had watched his older brother’s play, and wanted to try. Turns out playing that game in the dark isn’t always the best of ideas.
“What would you do, if you ever got picked for the reaping?” Noah’s voice came from his right, emanating from the grass where he led, watching the clouds wander over the blue sky in puffs.
“Uh.. die probably.” Keith replied absent mindedly, trying to coax the bird onto his outstretched fingers.
“What?” Noah shot up from his led position, brown curls bouncing around his forehead. “You wouldn’t even try to win?”
“It just sounds absolutely terrifying, I’d probably go into some kind of weird paralysis. Or step off the pedestal before the countdown and be blown to bits. Have my right arm be used by another tribute as a weapon.”
“Ew.”
“You asked!” Keith laughed, he liked to pretend the games were some far off thing that only happened to the malnourished kids in district 12. He used to see adverts for the district 12 kids on the television, begging for charity. That ad got pulled by the capitol, though, twisting antennas no longer being able to pick up the signal from any of the other districts, let alone 12.
“What would you do then?” Keith asked, lying back in the grass, hoping that the bell to go back to work would be elongated so he could just lie there forever.
“Try and get a weapon from the cornucopia, then I’d run to a sheltered area. Try find a water source, then heat it up to purify it from bacteria-” Noah went on, but Keith closed his eyes, zoning him out entirely.
“Wow. You’ve really thought about this.”
“It’s more worrying that you haven’t, you know. What if you get picked?”
“Won’t get picked. But if I do- please don’t kill me with your calculated method. Not that you will either- just covering my back. If you go all stabby then please skip me.”
Noah laughed, his voice melting into sarcasm.
“If we both somehow get picked, then I won’t go all stabby and kill you.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.” Noah replied, though it was drowned out by the scream of the bell demanding work. Calloused hands closed around axes, and the same silent groan settled over the workers.
“I’d rather be in the fucking arena.” Noah murmured to Keith as they walked back towards the forest, and the pair of them snickered underneath their hands.
*
4
Keith locked eyes with Noah, and he searched his worried eyes over his body. Noah’s bones looked too big for their skin casing, as if they were threatening to break free, ivory bursting through pale flesh.
Noah always looked like this when he was scared, Keith had noted over the years. When he was scared, he was a child again, and he was more afraid of being a child again over anything else in his life.
Keith blinked and it was a child that stared back at him, curled brown hair framing eye sockets that were too large for his skull. Soulful eyes pleaded, and Keith had to look away. The arena was no place for a child, but that had been proven in the past not to be true
He scanned the other tributes, ever since the age bracket for the reaping had been widened, there were less kids forced to fight. There didn’t seem to be any this year, which was one good thing to come out of this god forsaken mess. At least the children would get another year of uncertainty, instead of having their fear cut short.
3
2
1
You know that silence, just as dawn breaks? Maybe a deer raises their head, or a mole burrows up from the ground, but apart from that- nothing but nature’s baited breath for what the day could hold.
And then, a door crashes open. Little kids run down the gravel path, kicking up stones and mud as they sprint to alert their friends that, yes- the sun did rise again. Birds erupt from trees in a cacophony of feathers and beaks, ‘nothing’ twists itself into ‘everything.’
Now imagine that same scenario but, instead of birds, twenty four people attempt to brutally murder each other in the sliver of an opportunity for life.
The more daring among them threw themselves over the bridges, tripping over uneven slats and clutching the morphing rope in the wind. A lucky few reach the cornucopia, burrowing through the loot with hungry hands and blind eyes.
Keith stepped back from the cornucopia, heart in an arrhythmia- he hadn’t had one this bad since he was a child. Sick rose in his throat as he watched a district one tribute clasp his hands around the thin neck of a girl from district 10. She fell to her knees, her face turning an aggressive pink, before bleeding into blue. She fell to his feet, and the district 10 tribute whipped his head around- he was looking for someone, though Keith had no idea who.
Legs buckling, Keith stepped back from his platform, deciding to simply just run like the fawn over the meadows between the lumberyard and the electric fence. Maybe he would grow inverted knees, and they would propel him over the plains to the fir trees.
Swallowing the lump in his throat, consisting of what feeled like the exact opposite of pride, Keith ran. He barely got ten feet before he was stopped by an axe wielding, mad-eyed, Noah.
Keith tripped over his words like they were stones in his mouth, keeping his eyes on Noah’s right hand, where the axe hung. It wouldn’t take off his head cleanly, it was a dull axe. Noah would have to hold him down, the real question was if Noah had it in him to do it. There didn’t seem to be a lot but pure survival painted on Noah’s face though, so Keith didn’t doubt his ability.
“Hey, man… We said no killing, remember? We promised.”
“That was outside of the arena, and unless you hadn’t fucking realised, we are very much inside the arena.”
Noah was like a rabid dog with a mewling baby bird, shaking its small, warm body until its head flew clean off. Keith backed away from him, back towards the cornucopia.
“You don’t have to do this, Noah. It’s me, Noah, we’re- we’re friends! You can’t just fucking turn on me like this!”
“All’s fair in the arena-”
Noah didn’t get to finish his witty anecdote, forever the entertainer, it appeared. Keith clutched his grip around Noah’s free left hand, and used his entire body weight to throw him backwards, over the ravine.
There was a thud that came from below as Noah’s body was cradled by the spiked rocks, blanketed with fog.
Keith couldn’t even think about what he’d done, dashing off into the fir trees with inverted legs of a fawn with blood caked around its mouth.