Youtube Hunger Games

Goodness Gracianious

Joey's POV

Day four. I'd endured until day four. That in and of itself was a miraculous accomplishment, one I could barely bring myself to comprehend. My extensive survival was nothing short of an erroneous miscalculation, and no logical pertinence supported my continued existence. The confounded games had already unleashed an unstiflable mental hell on us, four people were dead, and I could barely distinguish left from right in my consistent state of perpetual panic.

However, there was one thing and one thing alone that preemptively constricted within my mind, sticking out like a sore thumb amidst an unending cycle of doom and ambivalence:

I wouldn't still be here if not for Shane.

I'd grown up with him, been fostered alongside him, stuck with him through thick and thin. And damn, was everything always so indisputably, precariously thin.

Neither of our families ever seemed to have adequate food, and our respective homes were far from decent shelter. Shane and I had spent the majority of our lives together, in the fields and orchards, harvesting and wresting crops we'd never get to eat, to be shipped to Panem and exploited and ruptured into whatever those soulless mannequins of people consumed. Together, laboring even before we could read and write, we'd manufactured a bond infallible, contesting even those of lifelong siblings and indiscriminate lovers.

By the time we were 10, horrific, gruesome and grisly tales of the Hunger Games had become a nonchalant pastime, and Shane had grown intrigued by the notion of the bloody, vehement recurrences. He'd spent years studying, reviewing previous Games, watching records of victors and victims alike, evaluating pictures too abhorrently gorey for me to stomach, and doing all he could to learn more. Always more.

He swore to me that if he ever participated in the Hunger Games, he'd win without effort.

I suppose he'd never considered the plausibility that he'd end up competing against me.

When we arrived at the arena, when that inexorable boom sounded, resonating our sealed fates and discerning our deaths with mellifluous glee, it had become immaculately clear that Shane's confidence in winning had been converted to an irredeemable goal to keep me alive. I couldn't understand it. I couldn't believe that he'd abandon everything he'd been taught, everything he'd so meticulously gathered, every survival skill he'd sharpened to perfection, for me.

But then I'd recalled something else he'd sworn.

"What will happen to me when you win the hunger games?"

"What do you mean?"

My eyes had met his, sharp green conferring with an infinitude of blue.

"What will I do? When you're gone?"

"I won't be gone, silly!"

"Huh?"

"You'll come live with me in the Victor's Village."

"But...but that's just for family."

"Then I'll marry you, and you can be my family."

I'd laughed at that, and he'd shot me a stupid, serendipitous grin.

"That's stupid, Shane."

"What is?"

"All of that! If you win the Hunger Games, you should be able to enjoy it. Not have to worry about me."

"What are you talking about dumbass?"

He'd gripped my shoulders, then, eyes baring into mine, countenance more somber than I'd ever seen as he whispered, "Who do you think I'm winning the Games for?"

The canon sounded, ricocheting in my perplexed precision, echoing indefinitely, rambunctiously announcing to the world something it never wanted to know.

And there was blood, blood everywhere. Ripe and red and pervading, warm and revolting as it festered about.

And there were birds in the trees, singing melodies inapt for the circumstances, too deceptively cheery, too compassionate and giddy.

And there was the blade lodged between his ribs, meant clearly for me, having missed it's target by a hair and paying dearly for it's misdemeanors.

And there was I, forlorn and forgotten, unbeknownst to a universe comprised of hate and despair.

"For me, Shane."

"You'd win them for me."