The Third Annual Writer's Game: Roots

Veni Vidi Vici | Roscoe Wayland

Her hair trails behind her, the same color as the trees surrounding her, as she runs. The angle of the camera is constantly shifting, but no matter how hard the Gamemakers try, they can't seem to be able to get a solid shot of her face. There's no need; from the short glimpses the cameras do get, the fear in her eyes, the panic stretching across her youthful face. Her movements aren't graceful: her legs careen wildly over logs and fallen branches, her arms flail back and forth across her bod, her head turns over her shoulder every few seconds. It's then that the cameras get the clearest shot of her face.

All motion stops, and the television zooms into her face. In that moment, she looks both shockingly beautiful, and terrified beyond belief. Beads of sweat are beginning to glisten on her face; already, a strand of hair has fallen out of her tight braid. No doubt, this photograph will soon adorn the walls of many Capitol children.

"Miss Wayland." Although the Gamemaker's voice had grown to be nothing more than a buzzing in my ears, he now sounds more taunting than ever. "At sixteen, she's the same age as her father when he entered the Games."

"Now not many people remember this," the second, the older of the two, continues. "But another tribute in Roscoe's Games was in a similar situation - a certain Aspen Summers from District Seven. Needless to say, she wasn't successful."

"Do you think she will be much more successful?"

"It's doubtful, but Roscoe seemed a long shot at this point in the competition as well." They must be doing this on purpose now, to taunt me, to remind me of everything I've been through, of the slim odds of my daughter making it through. "Of course, Roscoe didn't have a massive target on his back, or a Career hunting him either."

On cue, the aforementioned group of Careers appears on the television screen, replacing the picture of her. Their weapons are still stained from the Bloodbath, a bloodthirsty smile hangs from their lips, but it doesn't seem to slow their speed. Relentlessly, they run forward; a map at the bottom corner of the screen shows them edging in closer and closer on my daughter.

"Ready a cannon," the younger Gamemaker says, a palpable excitement in his voice.

Everything happens all at once. The Careers pick up their pace, uncaring of how much noise they're making or if anyone will hear them. Let them hear us, they seem to brag through their bloodthirsty smiles. Make them choose whether to run towards or away from us - whether to be executed or hunted down. My daughter chooses the latter, and it's only a few moments before a knife has pierced her skin, her blood has spilled on top of the soil, the light has left her eyes, and the cannon has fired.

*

The cannon stuns me into waking. For a moment, I'm surrounded by darkness before my my eyes adjust to my room. Sweat has soaked into my clothes and my sheets, and the cool night air chills me to the bone. I'm transported to my time in the arena. I can see the cave wall around me, hear Jeffery's heavy breathing as he sleeps, feel the coldness of the rain that hasn't yet dried from my skin.

"Roscoe," Joel's voice calls to me, pulling me out of my trance, out of the darkness. "Your name is Roscoe Wayland."

"My name is Roscoe Wayland," I repeat. "I am from District Eight. I won the Hunger Games when I was sixteen years old." As I say these things I know to be true, the image of the cave fades away from my mind, replaced with that of my bedroom. It's as though every moment from then till now speeds past, over the moment I won, when my blade entered Leo's neck, to my first time home without mother. Reluctantly, reality returns to me, or rather, I do to it. No longer do I see Jeffery's face, but Joel's. His eyes aren't shut in sleep, but wide with concern. I allow myself to take him in for a few moments. My breathing slows, and I am home.

"Another nightmare?" he asks, his soothing voice lower than any Capitol announcer's I've heard.

I nod. A surge of guilt floods me, the way it always does on nights like these. Every time, I promise Joel that it will be the last, that he'll never wake again in the middle of the night to my pants, my cries, my screams. No matter how many times he argues to the contrary, I know it's my fault that he can't live a normal life. I never should have forced that into one other person, much less two. He waits expectantly for a moment, and I can tell he wants me to explain it to him.

"Our daughter was in the Games," I say, forcing the lump out of my throat. "She made it past the Bloodbath, but the Careers still killed her. I watched her die."

My eyes glance across the room, to our daughter sleeping in the crib. She looks so beautiful, so tranquil in what must be a dreamless sleep. She isn't mine, an orphan Joel and I happened upon, but she could be. Her skin is as dark as my mother's, her hair loops in the same tight curls. At times, I can almost convince myself that she is my mother, or a reminder of what she could have been. Again, my heart falters.

"I had a dream about her too," Joel says, his gaze following mine to our sleeping daughter. "She was grown, in a world free of the Games." His words, although I'm pretty sure they're empty, are reassuring to me. He laughs, and for a moment I'm thrown off guard. "It's funny, you know," he says. I actually see a legitimate smile on his face. "You see everything bad that can happen to her, and I see everything good. Not the first time we've balanced each other out like that."

I smile, and I'm not thinking about the Games. It's these moments, the moments where I'm not consumed by my thoughts of the Games, or of worry of the future, or anything like that, that have kept me going since the Games ended years ago. Everything becomes clear.

"I think I know what I want to name her," I say. A smile crosses my face - a genuine one like Joel's, not the one I've become so accustomed to wearing.

"What?"

"Hope."