¹ THRONE ─ the hunger games

EXODUS: life finds a way

THE DESCRIPTION ON THE BACK OF THE
TAPE LABELLED: "68TH HUNGER GAMES"

THE 68TH ANNUAL HUNGER GAMES WAS SAID TO BE THE MOST FRIGHTENINGLY INTENSE HUNGER GAMES, WITH THE UNFAMILIAR ENVIRONMENT BEING A HISTORICAL CINEMATIC SETTING, COUPLED WITH THE ROAMING MUTTATIONS BEING MORE DANGEROUS THAN THE TRIBUTES THEMSELVES. ADDITIONAL DANGERS INCLUDE HOSTILE SHRUB LIFE, POISONOUS VEGETATION, FLORA THAT INDUCED THIRD DEGREE BURNS AND SKIN RASHES. THE TERRAIN COMPRISES OF A VALLEY, WITH HILLS AND MOUNTAINS AND RIDGES THAT ARE DIFFICULT TO SCALE AND NEAR IMPOSSIBLE TO NAVIGATE, AS WELL AS PADDOCKS AND OTHER FORMS OF ENCLOSURES MEANT TO HOLD PREHISTORIC LIFE.

THE GAMES SPANNED ACROSS A DURATION OF 7 DAYS, BUT IT HAD BEEN THE QUICKEST 7 DAYS THAT THE PEOPLE OF PANEM HAD EVER SEEN.

THE EMERGING VICTOR IS DISTRICT TWO'S IKO MORIYAMA.

* * *

IKO WATCHED HERSELF CRASHING THROUGH THE BOTTOM OF A RAVINE. This part of the arena was unfamiliar, but she was already running from something else. Another monster she'd stumbled upon earlier. A T-Rex, Caesar had called it, in his commentary as the screen began to flush with greenery so intense Iko nearly flinched in her seat onstage. She must've blacked out at this point, right before she'd gone on her rampage to track Sage down, since she didn't remember tripping, didn't remember leaving Alex's body in the shed, didn't remember dragging herself through the jungle, all her heartbreak forming jagged edges around her body, making the world bleed as she hurt.

Prior to this, Iko couldn't watch the video, the montage of the pre-arrival scenes in the Reaping, the tribute parade, the interviews. Even when the bloodbath began to splash the screen with its sea of red, the harsh lights flaring over the audience's hungry faces, lapping up every single moment of the action, Iko couldn't bring herself to revel in her victory, in the fact that she'd risen above the ashes, richer, sharper, scarred.

Iko touched a hand to her arms, fingers sneaking up the sleeves of her interview dress to her mutilated skin. They'd fixed her up after they'd lifted her from the arena, but she couldn't remember if she'd told them to leave her scars alone or if they knew she wanted them with her, a new set of armour. Now, she felt along the harsh ridges of scar tissue from where the mutts had ripped her flesh open. She felt thinner than she'd ever been, but she was also stronger. Hardened. The sounds of the audience reacting to the confession, the revelation, all the pieces of the puzzle aligning right before their eyes as truths unravelled barely reached her. In this cold fortress she'd built for herself, Iko was alone. For real, this time. There was no one waiting for her back home.

When the screen had flickered darker, the lights dimmed, Iko thought it was over, but one glance caught Alex's face cradled in her arms, his smile, so present, and so gone, and she couldn't stop the avalanche between her lungs, the crack in her chest nearly fissuring her invulnerable facade as the threat of tears wrapped around her neck, constricting like a barbed snake. Iko couldn't look. Instead, while the audience watched on in silent reverie, Iko spent the entire time staring at the corner of the screen, at Caesar's crimson suit until the colour burned into her vision, turning her stomach, until she couldn't handle the colour red anymore. Anywhere else but Alex.

And then: the hole in her memory, a void space where she'd supposedly torn apart the arena, ripped through every thicket of trees, every building, scaled up the watchtowers, overturned the underbrush for Sage. 

This disconnection, this slice of desiccated reality, wherein she couldn't remember what she'd done, only the swelling intensity of her rage, the whining in her ears. As she turned to her onscreen self, shock pierced through her chest like a spear. There was nothing in her eyes. An all-consuming darkness where the light had been extinguished, a murderous hunger for blood, for vengeance. She looked half-possessed, crashing through the undergrowth, covered in blood and lacerated skin, something ripped from a nightmare, this object of abject horror. Something inside her had died that day, too. Strange to think this was only a day and a half ago.