Final Reality (THG Fanfic)

Chapter XXIV

I hold myself close to Quent, only the layer of my bikini top separating us, as we hike up the slope towards the lightning tree. We have left the flooded beach far behind us, and at any moment now, the lightning tree should come into view. As you would expect, there hasn’t been much conversation along the journey.

This is the end. Even for those who know what is exactly going to happen, this is end. They think they’ll be frying the fish in the sea and possibly killing other tributes. They ponder about what will happen after we supposedly blow a food source. Who will die, and how will we pull away from the alliance. They think it’ll just be us in the end. They think they are destined for death. So badly, I want to tell them that there is a way they could be saved – we could be saved, a future could be guaranteed for us. If they are told, however, they may see our gesture as betrayal of their trust and friendship. They will overlook the rescue and see it as robbing their fate.

These are the thoughts that seem to always worry me and occupy my mind. And it kills me inside to know how impossible telling the truth seems to be. So often I try to distract myself with memories or dreams or Quent’s lips, if only for a moment, but the pain follows me like a shadow. I’m constantly reminded by Quent’s arms and Pommel’s kindness and Primrose’s precious face and Jaeda, oh God, Jaeda. I just feel hurt.

Suddenly, the Capitol seal, accompanied by the famous Panem anthem, illuminates the sky. In my head, I sing along to it. It was compulsory for all citizens of Panem to know the anthem. One word wrong, and it was considered treason in District 6. I don’t even want to speak of the punishment treason gets you, especially when the face of Lyon is the only one that appears tonight in the sky.

“Hey, you okay?” Quent whispers into my hair, his lips pressed against my scalp.

No matter how much it kills me to say this, but I have to admit sometimes I wish I hadn’t fallen in love with Quent. Sometimes I wish he hadn’t tackled me to the ground. Sometimes I wish he hadn’t hugged me before my private performance with the gamemakers. Sometimes I wish he didn’t have the power to make me smile and feel indescribable feelings. And maybe, just maybe, I wouldn’t feel like my heart is about to fall out of my ass into a pit of snakes and swords and sharks and jagged rocks and cacti and other things sharp and deadly.

I don’t tell him that, obviously. Honesty in I only lasts so long, and to hurt someone’s feelings is nearly impossible for me to do. I go for the alternative truth. “I’m afraid,” I whisper.

“Afraid?”

“Terrified, actually, of what’s going to happen next.”

“What do you mean by ‘next’? We’ll be electrocuting our enemies,” he says, oblivious to my thoughts.

No, he can't know. “No, after that – after we fry the fish, what’s going to happen to us?”

“Us two?”

“The seven of us. You know we all agreed to save Primrose,” I let the words fall out. “In the end, it’s just going to be us … and I don’t want to have to be the one that pulls the plug.”

My mind goes back to our last day of training – must’ve been four or five days ago, and yet it feels like months – to when I had my head leaned against Cathal’s strong, warm shoulder, my anchor. Cathal’s name was to be called next for his private evaluation with the Gamemakers, and I remember how cold and lonely I felt when he left. But before that, I had taken a look around the room, taking in all the young, innocent, vulnerable faces of children. I can still feel the guilt I had felt before, dragging me down. ‘How are we going to kill these people?’ I had asked Cathal. Tears threaten to appear in my eyes as I recall the memory. I remember picturing how my brothers and I would look in the future, all happy and vibrant, then hearing a familiar lullaby my mother would sing me to sleep. And where I am now, it seems all so plausible that that future and memory have and will never exist.