Final Reality (THG Fanfic)

Chapter XXV

There's hardly any conversation between Primrose and I. A few helping words and a thanks here and there is all that is exchanged between us. It kind of reminds me of our first day in training, how she was cautious and quiet as I first approached her, and just one touch could break her into a million pieces. I don't think she's quite as scared nowadays. Two days in the arena is enough to toughen up even the most fragile of persons, and break even the strongest. It’s been half an hour since we’ve set off for the beach. The insects have begun clicking and we’ve made it more than half the way down to the beach. We’re both pushing ourselves to the max and soon we’ll be in need of a break and a drink of water, that would mean the possibility of failing the mission and killing no one but probably the keeper of the spool.

“Primrose?” I call out to her ahead of me, trying to overpower the sound of the clicking insects.

“Yeah?” she huffs out. “You know, you can just call me Prim, you don’t have to say my whole name.”

I ignore the last comment. I like calling her by her whole name, it makes her her. It makes her seem more pure and human. And if I start calling her Prim here, I feel as though I’ve killed the real Primrose and have lost her to the Capitol. “Can we move a bit faster? I want to put as much distance between us and that beach.”

There’s a short suspicious pause between us, regardless, in response, Primrose takes the spool from my and we run. I know it’s not wise to be running with such a heavy object and our loud breathing, if anything it’s probably slowing us down more and increasing our chances of being killed, but we have to get our asses the hell out of here. Crashing through vines, jumping over roots and heaving over large boulders, our breathing drastically quickens and so does our production of sweat. When the cornucopia swims into view, we are stopped abruptly when the spool gets caught on something, rendering Primrose to go flying backwards. I wait as Primrose tries her best to tug it free, but when the cable snaps and curls at her feet, everything goes haywire. Pun intended.

Amongst the boulders we’ve just cleared, the black-headed girl with glowing skin from Two pops up. Just as Primrose drops the spool and arms her bow, I speedily knock her out with the butt of one of my knives and she falls to the ground, groaning in pain. I grab her right arm from her head and dig into her forearm with my knife, searching for the tracker while Primrose screams her head off. It’s not hard to find it, and when I do, I wrench it out with all my strength. Blood stains my hands and I can hear Ayano coming closer.

The plan.

The plan.

The plan.

Smearing blood on to Primrose’s neck, I sternly whisper to her, “Shut the fuck up and stay down.” She obviously doesn’t respond, either unconscious or actually listening to me. Or maybe she’s in shock from my sudden turn of motives. I stand up and blindly throw a knife at Ayano, and quickly hightail it out of the scene. As I leave Primrose, the thought of her thinking that I have betrayed her revives the piercing pain in my heart, but I can do nothing else but run.

I don’t know where to go though. My instincts tell me to go towards the tree to find Cathal or Quent. I don’t know whether to ignore them or to follow them. I head towards the insects and slowly veer my path towards the lightning tree, all the while hearing name’s, including mine, being called out by different voices. The insects grow louder, almost deafening me in my left ear. Suddenly, after crashing through vines into a clearing, I am tackled to the floor. Initially, it’s quite obvious for my attacker to be either Deven or Ayano – and I would make the easy choice of connecting the blade of my knife to their head – but when the familiar olive-skinned face belonging to the boy from District 12 shines in the moonlight, what do you do?