Writer's Games Entries

Task 6: "Remembrance" (QF) (E)

The cannons boom over the sky as the pictures of the last four dead tributes appear on the sky. We're down to the last eight of the Games. As my God's powers disappear, I feel that my backpack turns lighter, my sword returns to its rather broken state and I feel somewhat emptier and weaker. I suddenly remember that I'm actually human. I need food and I need water to get by. When I was carrying the powers of that God, everything was just overrated. I'm coming more and more back to myself as I realize that that God made me someone that I would never consciously be.

When I was this God, I also noticed that my head was free from the voices. The voices that have been haunting me ever since that night in the ruins when I heard people scream in agony for me...my family that was. After a while, even the dead tributes were talking inside my head. Now, I feel that sense of powerlessness coming more and more over me. The presence of those voices return and the moment they do, I feel just as weak and powerless as the last time when I was fighting inside the Colosseum. "Hah, you think you can win the Games?! You're a freaking disgrace! Ha-Ha, you're so pathetic!" I drop my sword and try to cover my ears. The voices are all so contorted and distant that I can't make out whose it is.

I get down on my knees as I'm bending forward, trying to shut the voices out. It takes everything I've got and more, which I don't have, to keep them at a distance. I fail. I can't get them out as they keep tearing me down. "Your family has to be so disappointed in you. You couldn't even prevent me from getting killed!" I grab harder around my ear-lobes. "Shut the hell up!" I almost scream out. I don't care if someone hears me. I can't stand this anymore. I'm about to collapse and give it all up when I sense my hands are shaking badly and my breathing is cramped. What more do I even have left at this point?

After a while of just standing there on my knees, I start to feel heavier and heavier. Sleepiness comes over my eyes and I can't remember having felt it this bad before, especially not here in the Arena. My eyelids are getting too damn heavy to keep open and I feel like I'm about to pass out. I start seeing double after a while of managing to keep my eyes open. Something is going on. The voices are disappearing, drowning in this haze that I feel coming towards me before I land on the ground.

Something feels completely different. When I open my eyes, I know that something isn't right when I turn my head and have a look around me. I'm in some sort of room. It doesn't remind of the Arena at all. I'm still supposed to be in the Games, right? I mean, nobody's won or anything...we're still eight to go. This has to be a dream. I keep telling that to myself as I get up on my feet and touch the wall closest to me: cold and made of steel. When I look down on my hands, they seem unscratched, as if they haven't done anything. That's when I notice something else.

One of the walls is just one big mirror. When I look at it, especially focusing on the boy supposed to be me, I don't recognize him. The last time I looked at myself in the mirror, I was healthier, better built than I am right now. I've been without proper food for many years. My face is haunted because of the voices and the loss of my family coming back to me that night in the ruins. Looking around at the scenery of this room, it just doesn't feel real, but at the same it does.

"Rex?" A chill runs down my spine the moment I hear that voice. I recognize it far too well as I see the outline of her appear on the mirror. I gulp loudly to myself as I realize that it is in fact her, except...she's dead...how is this possible? My breath is starting to cramp up for real as I see her face when I turn around to face her. "M-...mom?" I barely manage to let out as I sense my chest is about to explode. It's pressing in on itself. I'm struggling to stand on my feet as they just disappear below me when it finally dawns upon me. My mother is in fact standing right in front of me as if she was still alive and well. Except she isn't alive...She's been dead for two years, yet she's standing right there, on the right, a couple of meters away from me, out of my reach.