Innocence

Prolouge - Kim Rider

Hanging on to the last tendrils of sleep, my thoughts come together slowly. I don't want to move. I want to let myself drift away into the painless sky, I want to let my aching body seep into the cracks in the earth and stay there forever. But no matter how much I want the ground to open up and swallow me, I know that it won't.

The wind is chilling as it rushes across my face and for a moment, I taste new morning dew. I lie there, unmoving, trying my hardest to savor the peace. Then the calm happy feeling in my chest vanishes, as the full soreness in my limbs registers. My legs feel as if they're being pierced by thousands of tiny needles, and I must have bruised my ribs in a million places. I shift onto my side, but it only makes the pain worse. Despite my attempts to be silent, a groan escapes my mouth.

I hear a cough somewhere to my right and freeze. My mind, numb with sleep and half-frozen, doesn't process the sound in any logical way. Panic swells in my chest as I try to remain as still as possible. What do they want? Slowly, so I won't make a sound, I tilt my head just enough to look at them out of the corner of my eye. Blurred but with certainty I see a girl with pale skin and short blonde hair crouched by a pitiful looking fire. Avery. Sudden realization hits me like a ton of bricks. Avery, my ally. Avery, the arena. Avery.

I jump up, racking my aching body with pain. Forgot about that. Some agonized noise comes out of my throat. Avery, startled, shrieks and rears up, dropping something she was holding into the fire. I catch a glimpse of it, some sort of dead rodent or lizard. Avery shoots a glare at me, and tries to retrieve the burnt carcass, without success.

"Was that really necessary?" she asks, and the panic pulsing in my chest fades slightly. I'm not any more afraid of Avery hurting me now than I would be if we weren't stranded in an arena, fighting for our lives. Don't get me wrong, I spent many sleepless nights watching my back like a hawk when we first formed our fragile alliance, but now I can firmly say we've become friends, or as close to friends as two people can come when they know only one of them will be going home.

"Sorry", I say.

"Yeah, me too," She replies sarcastically. "There goes breakfast"

Breakfast!? Has it been that much time already!?

"How long have I been asleep!?" I try to shout, but after a day without water, my voice is rough and parched.

"I wasn't tired,"

"Avery! I told you to wake me after a couple of hours!"

I know I shouldn't care so much, but our system of shifting watches is important to me. It's become something that I know will be constant even when everything else changes. It's a way of keeping myself sane in the arena.

"It's fine." She replies, more forcefully this time. "I wasn't tired, so I went to get us something edible. Not that it's edible anymore." She gestures to the scorched animal on the ground distastefully. Oh.

My stomach protests, growling .

"Serves you right." She mumbles, though I know she doesn't mean it. No-one could ever deserve this.

We met about two weeks ago, banded together when a pack of wild dogs attacked. The memory makes me shudder. I can see the snarling animals in my mind, clear as if it happened five minutes ago.

I was so elated to have found a cave so perfectly hidden that I never stopped to wonder if it was already inhabited. I knew this cave could be my lifeline, high enough to see incoming tributes, yet concealed enough for them not to see me. As I started toward the entrance a sudden wave of heat washed over me, stinging my eyes. A fire, set by one of the tributes.

I felt my stomach tingle with anticipation. If the tribute was big, like the girl from seven, or worse, the career pack, I needed to get out immediately or risk losing a lot more than the cave. But if they were small, I might be able to kill them. I could sneak up, stab them in the neck, and take the cave for myself. Brutal? Yes. But necessary. Just how the Capitol likes it. It could even win me a sponsor or two. Would it be worth the risk?

I inched closer to the entrance, making sure to keep the rough rock in front of me, blocking my figure from the tribute's view. The fallen leaves crinkled under my feet, and every time a twig snapped I was convinced my fate had been sealed.

Eventually, I decided it was too silent and calm in the cave for careers, and peeked in. There I saw Avery, rocking back and forth, rubbing her hands together over the fire, trying to keep out the cold. Her blonde hair was tangled and fell across her face in messy strands. She was small, maybe just small enough to overpower. Silently I lowered myself to the ground and picked up a sharp rock.

The silence shattered into a million pieces as four wild dogs rushed into the cavern, bone-crunching teeth bared, spit and bile dripping from their open mouths. Already bloodstained tongues and fur told me that we hadn't been their first victims.

Avery moved at the same time I did, jabbing and slashing with her knife at the dog's fur, clumps of matted hair flying everywhere. A gray one, with a bloody stump where one of its ears should have been, rushed at me with a wild, hungry look in its eyes. I lunged out with my new rock-knife. It never even tried to dodge, just barreled into the blade, not caring about anything but my destruction. I saw Avery take down another dog to my left, when all of a sudden the remaining two, called away by some irresistible voice, bolted.

I collapsed, leaning against the cave wall for support, exhausted. Avery just stood there, not looking tired, just shocked. It dawned on me how powerful she was. If I had attacked her as I had planned, she could have easily killed me despite how small she seemed. I told her I hadn't even realized she was there, which I thought was a safer story than I was actually gonna kill you but now I'm thinking that wasn't a very smart decision.

She seemed relieved to see another person and asked me to be her ally. I would have refused, but I realized that the other option was probably her killing me. At this point, I could use somebody on my side anyway.

After a while, I realized that she didn't have a bad personality either, and we became friends as well as teammates. I'm pretty sure my "just passing by" story hadn't worked, but she didn't seem to mind. She always took the lead on things, 'We need to find shelter, Kim', 'Let's go hunt, Kim', 'We should scout out the area, Kim'. I'm honestly not sure how I would survive without her.

And now here we are, sitting on fallen leaves around the fire celebrating our 25th day of surviving the arena with empty stomachs and the looming knowledge that one of us, probably both, will die. Happy 31st Hunger Games.

"Today's the day we find him, Kim". Avery says as she stuffs the few supplies we have, a canteen, a rope, and three sharp rocks we use as knives into her pack. I don't need to ask to know who she means. Today we are going to hunt down the district 4 boy, the only other tribute in the arena with us, as far as we know. I can only hope he kills Avery so I don't have to.

I know we should have cut off this alliance long ago, but I can't imagine braving the other tribute on my own. Right before we fight him, I'm planning to head off and hope Avery takes him on by herself. Hopefully, he'll overpower her and be injured enough for me to defeat. I'm sure Avery has some plan for her survival as well, but I can only hope it doesn't involve direct fighting between the two of us.

"Let's go". I reply, guilt gnawing away at my resolve. I lean down and brush my hands over the footprints we left in the dirt. Avery is by the fire, burying the remaining charcoal beneath a layer of ground. I can feel the dry gritty soil between my fingers, making my need for water evermore persistent.

Finally finished, Avery and I head towards the cave exit. I glance over my shoulder at our old camp with an unusual kind of sadness. It's almost as if we were never here, as if no one was ever here. It's the arena's cruel way of reminding us that no matter what friendships we make, what bonds and truces we use to deny the truth, none of it matters in the end. At the end, it's friends against friends, blood against blood, grief against ever stronger grief. It all comes down to who among us has the greatest will to live. I sigh and reach for my rock-knife.

That's when the ground begins to shake.

I shriek and drop to my knees as a boulder the size of a cannonball crashes down near my head. I feel the impact as if it landed on me, not next to me.  Dust is everywhere, in my hair, in my mouth. I can't see anything and my eyes feel like they've been lit on fire. Another boulder, this one even bigger than the last lands a few feet away. Gamemakers. They must be trying to create some action in this sleepy arena.

I wrench my burning eyes open and roll out of the way of more giant chunks of rock. Somewhere I hear Avery scream and I crawl towards the voice. More rocks. More dust, in my eyes and all around me. But wait, somewhere up ahead... light!  I crawl towards it with all the strength I have left. I'm not going to make it! My ears start to ring.

I reach out and a fist-sized boulder bounces near my waist and hits me at the base of my skull. The pain is crippling. I am caught in this moment. No sound, no light, just pain, horrible unwavering pain. I cough up blood and dust, sinking towards unconsciousness. A sickly sweet force overtakes me, weaving its way into my thoughts. Rest. Come rest, Kim. I hear the voice as if it's really there.

Fine. I think. You win. Take me, I don't care. Another boulder, bigger this time, hits my thigh without the meager cushioning of a bounce to soften the blow. The agony of it, though terrible, is really what saved me in the end. I think about the pain in my head and thigh and imagine it everywhere, choking me, smothering me. Don't give up now! Keep moving or die! The pain keeps me going. The pain is my only friend in this time of darkness. I grab onto the lip of the entrance and drag myself out.

Again, I hear her screams.

"Avery!" I gasp. She is lying close to the cave entrance, but the constant crash of the boulders obscures my view. I can make out one thing though. It pools around her, a ghostly halo in the rubble. Blood, so much blood. She reaches out towards me and I know I can get to her. I start to crawl.

Then I hear a cannon blow, and time stops short. No. No. No. It's the only thought I can seem to form, because Avery isn't dead, and if the cannon wasn't for her... No. No. No. I look at her, lying there, helpless. I have to save her! But how can I when saving her means killing me? These thoughts chase each other around my head, tying my heart into knots I don't think I will ever be able to unravel.

The boulder falls, and I don't run to her. I just stand there, unmoving. Our eyes lock, and I see her lips move to form a single word. Kim. I hear the scream before it comes. I hear the scream as the cannon blows. I hear the scream as I rise into the hovercraft. Avery's cries echo in my mind, and I am crying right along with her.

Something in me, some final thread of sanity snaps. It's not for a few seconds that I can process that I'm not dead, that I'm a victor. How? How am I alive? I felt my heart break, my mind snap. I felt the life drain from my body. I felt the ties between myself and the rest of reality fall away. Is that not death in and of itself?

A cold, empty smile starts to prickle up the sides of my mouth as I ascend into the sky. I realize that dead or alive, I like this feeling of victory. This is mine, this bloody battleground. Nothing matters beyond this fact.

These are my games, and I am their champion.