The Outlier . . . || Self-Para
"My point is that... we might [even] come from different worlds, but the fact of the matter is that we’re all going out in the same world. Maybe it’s just me, but that’s not something I want to do alone."
Why exactly Amity went back to the small cave, he couldn't really say. His brain tried to reason that he could have left something behind before that he now felt drawn to retrieve, but the boy of course knew better than to believe that thanks to the library of lists and information stored away in his mind.
The scores from Training Sessions. Traps to remember located around the arena. Remaining supplies-- tributes. The statistical odds he had calculated for himself and the rest; memorizing the various digits and adjusting the numbers as time went on in order to deduce just who exactly he had to keep an eye for-- who he could survive an encounter with.
No, there was only one reason Amity could have had for heading back to the small cavern that was concealed so nicely behind its small entrance, which then opened into a more spacious stone room of sorts than wouldn't be expected by the typical tribute.
It was hidden away behind those rocks when the boy first had felt anything resembling a sense of security in the Games, hidden away with Axel until they deemed it necessary to leave. The memories still brought stinging tears to his eyes, and Amity found himself wondering how he even had any left to threaten spilling. Surely, one's body should have only been able to provide them with so many.
Still, as odd as it may have sounded, the boy didn't cry-- couldn't. He was simply exhausted and unable to exert himself anymore than he had already the past... how long had it been? It had all been such a hurried blur, he was certain any estimate he could have hazard would have been emotionally compromised and therefore incorrect. Before those moments that left him so shaken, Amity had a plan-- had always had a plan, but then... What was he to do now?
Strategies hadn't exactly been at the forefront of his mind when he finally managed to get away from Pluto-- distancing himself from any reminder that had been too painful in a place he was sure the other tributes wouldn't be able to locate him at.
The only thing the youngest of the remaining tributes could so much as think to do, in an almost uncharacteristic turn of events, was to sit himself against the cool and slick wall of the cavern-- an indeterminate amount of time passing, nothing more being done than simply allowing himself to fall into a numb, catatonic sort of state until his eyes finally fell closed after the long and exhaustive last couple of days he had experienced.
It wasn't until the steadily streaming water brushed at the fabrics of his pants when Amity awoke, not even in alarm, but rather in a sense of curiosity. What the boy hadn't expected was to see that the stream wasn't as light and gradual as he would have thought-- hoped, even. Instead, the water was actually coming in at a more rapid pace.
Since waking up to it just brushing where his body met the stone, the surface level already fell to about mid-shin-- prompting the boy into a standing position before his mind really could process anything. It was difficult for Amity to stand himself back up and make for the entrance, as what seemed to be a flood wasn't only bringing in water but mud and debris that had gathered around the base of the mountain after the slide days before-- as if it wouldn't have been difficult for someone from District Three of all places to swim under normal circumstances.
It seemed impossible to reach the opening of the cave before him, as the water and mud poured in, pushing him back even as he struggled to move through the thick substance surrounding him and building up-- escape only becoming more and more difficult as the cavern filled further and his panic increased.
The pure terror Amity experienced when he realized that he quite simply wouldn't be making it out of that cave alive-- not on his own, anyway-- was indescribable. Unfortunately, that was the only way things could be anymore, and the weight of it all-- the absolute horror quickly taking over his entire body-- began to take away his breath before the water even had a chance, rising just to his waist, leaving Amity to frantically force himself further along.
It was the unstable ground below him, slick with damp air, water and mud, that sent the District Three tribute sliding-- falling under the surface without a chance to even catch his breath. Time seemed to drag on for forever when Amity was stuck below, disoriented and scrambling for some sort of tell as to the direction he was facing.
The current swept him to the far back wall of the cave and, hitting the stone hard, it had been with a painful gasp for breath that air finally returned to his lungs after again reaching the surface of the flood. The water was now pressing against the middle of Amity's torso, and it angered the boy to think of how he had seen this all coming-- how his first, maybe second day in the arena he expressed the concern of the need for higher ground.
Somehow he had managed to find himself so emotionally fragile, so damaged, that none of it mattered-- that Amity was now willing to take any small comfort he could, even if it had meant some false sense of security. But, what angered him further was how everyone had been waiting for it.
Ever since his name had been drawn, everyone had been waiting for Amity to die, accepting his fate before he himself could even do so. Some would probably laugh at his death-- give credit to his survival to Axel and Pluto, refusing to believe that any of it had to do with him himself, of all people.
Surely, the fact that Amity's canon would sound not even an entire day after he was isolated from anyone else wouldn't help the matter.
As if Amity hadn't been the one to drag himself out of the Bloodbath that first day. As if Amity hadn't taken responsibility for himself every moment he needed to-- as if his life wasn't his own to be credited with.
They had laughed when he spoke of his hopes of winning, but here he was now-- probably only a day from the final canon sounding. Although, they had all been waiting, he made it. Amity wasn't some weak child who would pass away within the first few hours, as everyone had made it out as if he would. No, the second to last death would be his. He already did what he had hoped-- Amity was already an outlier.
"You hear me?" The boy practically screamed, palms coming down against the water roughly as if he hadn't put his exhausted body through enough. "I did it-- I made it further than any of you would have ever thought I would, and I'm here!" The words came out more so part of animalistic growls.
"I'm not the same scared little boy you Reaped at Three!" Amity insisted, ignoring the water that was rising up now-- hitting him in his mouth and forcing him to rise up onto his toes, mouth against the cool ceiling of the cave to find himself more air. "I'm not scared anymore-- death; it's... It's nothing."
His words were coming out more so as breathless pants now, assuring himself as much as he was his family and expressing his growing disposition for the Capitol-- the same disposition that now left him disenchanted and apathetic toward even his own life.
Perhaps it could have been heartbreaking if Amity himself still had anything left to give-- if his own wasn't already broken. It wasn't that the boy wasn't upset about it, about dying, but he wasn't going to sit around and cry about it either. That was what he told Axel the first day he met him, wasn't it? That he never meant life was sunshine and rainbows as much as it wasn't a dark storm. Maybe some days were just meant to be clear, and that was all.
“If we lived in a world full of half decent people, this whole thing wouldn’t be happening.”
That was what Axel had told him when reflecting on it all, and perhaps now more than ever Amity truly understood what he had meant. Seeing the horror of it all, seeing what even himself had become capable of doing, he was now willing to accept the end-- to be done with it. He was already an outlier-- had already defied not only the Capitol's expectations of him, but everyone's, including his own.
Valor and their father would have to continue on without him, but that would be fine-- would heal with time. Surely, they had seen it all coming, as well. Amity didn't know, couldn't think on it much more before the water and mud had the cavern filled to the very top. The boy, one of the youngest in the Games that year, instinctually went to hold his breath-- even as he continuously repeated again and again how he was ready for it, ready for his death, in his mind.
It was frustrating at first. Amity had remembered stories of seeing lights or some other things of the sort. Well, all sources of anything other than pure darkness were obstructed and that was all-- a black abyss the boy was teetering right on the edge of-- the precipice of the end, and it was miserable.
His lungs burned, his head was exploding, and there was pressure everywhere-- walls pushing onto him and forcing him in from every direction. Slowly, Amity was suffocating and again he was reminded of his first day in the arena-- the first time death had tried to claim him at the hands of Stelton Varic.
But the worst, the very worst part of it all, was that once he thought it couldn't get any get any darker, anymore bleak or dreadful, he held on longer-- prolonging it because no matter what he had said, what he had claimed, he wasn't ready-- not yet. No matter what, Amity just couldn't open his mouth. He couldn't let it end. Somehow, even when he thought he certainly couldn't take it any longer, he continued to hold on, and it was absolute agony. Until it wasn't. Until the darkness was no longer just darkness, but all that remained.
Amity would be with Axel sooner than he thought.
