Sugarcubes // Finnick Odair - Hunger Games Fanfic

XVIII.

I think that it's water at first. I will never forget the misguided feeling of relief and happiness that flooded me as I felt liquid drop down on my head and shoulders. Slow and small drops at first, turning into fast and heavy droplets.

I'm justified in my thinking that the drops are water; after all, what else would fall from the sky in such force and speed. But water isn't supposed to be hot and suffocating. Water is supposed to be cool and relieving. That is my first sign that something is gravely wrong.

I haven't exactly been a very big fan of water. But rain? That's a different story. The feeling of cool rain pouring down on my shoulders amidst working hard in the forest was always a feeling I loved and cherished. Seeing the small flowers pop up after the rain, and the fresh after-rain forest smell have always been sweet memories in my mind eye.

Nobody with such a sweet memory of liquid falling from the sky will expect that liquid to be something other than water.

The game-makers have been creative this time.

The second sign that something is wrong? I tilt my head up at the sky, trying to catch a glimpse of the mysterious liquid which is now pouring down on us as the others awaken groggily. A drop falls in my mouth. Blood. I know the taste pretty well now, from sucking on my cuts in the lumber yard, so I spit it out and stand up in a hurry. It's hot and scorching, and it's starting to pour down hard enough to block my vision.

"Blight!" I scream, and hot blood fills my open mouth. "Beetee! Wiress! It's blood! We need to get out of the forest! Fast!"

By the time that all of them are up the rain is really pouring down. I yank on Blights arm, and pull him behind me as we run, as fast as Beetee and Wiress can manage. To say I'm a little scared; which is what I'd like to be written in history in case I die because of this smothering blood rain, would be an incorrect statement to a great extreme. I'm absolutely terrified. I didn't think dying would be this scary; but I guess thinking about dying and actually doing it are to different things.

For one, instead of water, which the rain should've been in a normal and sane world, pouring down on us in the middle of the night is thick hot blood. Thinking about where the Capitol procured this blood sends shivers down my spine. I think of the avoxes in the capitol, a sore reminder that nothing can be ruled out when it comes to Snow's cruelty. But as I'm running for my life trying to wade past the vines and green barriers trapping us in the cloud of rain, there is little chance for thinking, much less seeing or breathing.

Another thing that makes this rain terrifying? It has completely disoriented me. We could run into a force-field at any moment, instantly ending the life of whoever had the misfortune of crashing into it – seeing as doing chest compressions would be nearly impossible. As the rain makes a coating of itself over my skin, I can feel it get harder to move, and my brain get a little foggy – probably from lack of oxygen.

"Kendria," Blight grunts, letting go of my hand and moving perpendicular to the line I was running in, "I think we're going the wrong way." He starts to run, and the events that follow happen way to fast for me to register anything properly. There's a loud bang and a sizzling noise, Blight is flung away from the direction he went in and I think rests on the ground motionless. I scream. A true wretched scream of desperation and crash to the ground, feeling my way blindly to where I think his body might be. Then I hear the cannon. Blights Cannon.

The only person I deemed worthy enough to be my dad, gone in two seconds.

"Kendria, we must get out of the forest." I register Beetee's voice, but it only makes me angrier. How is his life any more important than Blights? Because Katniss wants him? It takes all my self-control not to kill him right there. The rebellion, right? That's why we're doing this. Not Katniss. The rebellion.

"Blight going in that direction helped us, we know which way to go to get to the beach."

I stand up slowly, taking a deep breath, trying to breath through the blood. The rain is slowly easing up. I don't want to be there when it stops – I don't want to see Blight's dead body, laying motionless on the floor.

"Let's go." I tell them, wiping away the think blood that covers myself. "We need to clean up – now that we know where the force-field is," I gesture my head towards where Blight had just disappeared, "we can go the opposite direction to get to the beach."

"That logic sounds reasonable. We need water at the earliest." He says, looking at Wiress who is slumped against a tree drenched in blood.

"Agreed. Let's go"

I toss my axe in the air to readjust the grip and get going, trying not to let the loss of Blight settle into the part of my brain that feels emotion still. I guess Blights death, along with the upcoming deaths of some of my closest friends in the quarter quell will settle in with my 'ignore at all costs' memory bucket previously reserved for all my memories of my father.

We walk slowly in a straight line away from Blight's site of death. Hoping to reach the beach in time. Surprisingly, with my axe in hand, stalking through the jungle is the most I've felt at home since we left district 7. I'm not a person that can put on a show for the audience, The part of the games in which I can actually contribute anything towards staying alive is the actual arena.

We finally break out of the thick jungle enough to see the beach. Driven solely by the stickiness of the blood, Wiress's constant nagging caused by dehydration, and Beetee's moaning about the technicalities of the games, I run out on to the beach as fast as possible, dumping my axe in the water and scooping handfuls of water into my hair trying to get the blood off of it.

From a little way away, on the beach, I hear somebody scream my name. Instinctively, I pick up the axe that lays beside me, standing at guard as Beetee and Wiress join me in the water.

"Kendria!" I hear the voice again, and I immediately know who it is. I drop the axe back in the water, taking off running in his direction.

"Finnick!?" I scream, my wet hair, drenched with salt water and blood flies behind me.

"Ria?!" His bronze hair comes into view, and then I can see his piercing eyes. I'm so happy I can cry.

"Finnick!" I yell, jumping into his arms. He spins me around to cushion the impact and places a soft kiss on my head. He puts me down just as fast as he picked me up, and just like that, the moment is over and we're back in the hunger games. Reality really sucks.

I march back over to the spot where I dropped my axe and continue to clean it. Wiress joins me in the water, pulling on my elbow and whispering "Tick-Tock" into my ears. I brush her off lightly, trying to clean myself off. The blood, Blights death, Mags's disappearance; I notice as Katniss and Peeta join us, and the hunger games are enough to leave me overstimulated and stressed.

The hunger games are made for that I suppose. The game makers and capitol people watching us from the comfort of their homes are probably laughing at me, telling each other that I'm moments from killing somebody. They wouldn't be wrong, but it doesn't make anything less cruel.

And then I can imagine Lia and Danny and Jo and Terry watching us too. A totally different feeling amongst them, waiting to see if I die. I wonder how Terry reacted when Blight died. When he saw his best friend abandon his father. And just like that another wave of guilt washes over me, to add to my initial feelings of stress and over stimulation.

Because what would the hunger games be without Kendria Parstons slowly falling apart?

Published: 25 March, 2024