#d: 1

[caroleyre]

A silver parachute drifts slowly to the ground. A medium box is attached with a note from trainer Ernesto Cassius. Inside is a dried fruit packet. The note reads: “Don't die.”

Standing at the edge of the sector, just waiting for time to pass, Beatrice was playing with the rubber bands of her wound, trying to secure them on her leg when they kept slipping, like cheap bracelets. When the noise first broke through the silence, she panicked, but then she recognized the saving sight of a sponsor gift up in the air. Bea hoped it was for her and stood up without looking around for other tributes first. Luckily for her, it wasn’t the case. 

She skipped to the box and grabbed the note first, smiling softly as she read it. She wished she could promise anything, but dying has always been a constant and factor existent in her life, even before the Games. It was a request never in her life could she keep, even if she hadn’t volunteered in Bitsie’s shoes. Yet, she nodded. “I’ll try to not die yet,” she settled for saying and folded the little note, placing it unstrategically in her pocket just to keep it close in case she ever needed another word of encouragement again by some miracle. Then, she moved to the box and it felt like Christmas morning. Curious about it’s content, she opened it in a heartbeat and squealed seeing dried fruit that she ate almost instantly. “Tha’k you!” she muttered, mouth full of them. She hadn’t even realized how hungry she was until seeing the pack. 

Bea couldn’t help but finish it there and then, and it had been so, so tasty. Fondly, she folded the empty pack and placed it back in the box, not wanting to leave garbage behind her even in the fake arena. 

[caroleyre]

children of the wild ones / self para

Still upset that she couldn’t get her jacket, although without a reason to, when she was still breathing and kicking, Beatrice got stuck in a moment of childish resentment, as if, deep down, she was expecting the arena and the Games in general to go smoothly and to her fancy, even if she did not win them. Stuck in her thinking and struggling to keep a straight line running, she felt something heavy against her leg and looked down at a knife stuck into it, widening her eyes as if the sight was out of that world. Her own ankle, penetrated. For a moment, just a flashed one that didn’t slow her down enough, she thought about Rosaline and how knives were the very lesson she taught her, that now was being used against her. The adrenaline made it impossible for Bea to feel the injury just yet, but she saw the second knife coming and ran to her left instead of ahead, having it land on the ground. 

Meters away, she spotted her district partner, only thirteen in age, therefore not much older than her, wielding the knives better than she did. Perhaps Rosaline taught him the arts of them too, and he was a quicker study. Widening her eyes, she had to say something in her defense, at least to stop him from throwing deadly weapons at her. “Rude! Rudeness!” she shouted, in lack of time to think of anything better. “Stop just now! We were supposed to be a team!” She suddenly felt betrayed by her mentor, that she didn’t realize belonged to every Five tribute every year, as well, for teaching him so much too, and betrayed by the universe that she couldn’t assimilate more of her lessons so she could stand up to him and be a match.

Cringing already, she looked at her blooded leg and decided that she had to do something to attack the boy back, since he was aiming deliberately at her and has only missed twice. Beatrice knew it would hurt, but she imagined that everything, death included, would too, and closed her eyes for just a moment as she pulled out the knife. Blood began to leave her body fast and she knew that she only had one shot before she would bleed out leaving the wound unattended. Almost careless and more focused on her deep cut that has penetrated through the skin and was stinging more and more by the second, making it a wonder that she was still on two feet, Bea threw the knife and almost didn’t have a target to begin with, but it managed to strike the boy, causing her to widen her eyes with even more surprise. 

It was just the shoulder, but he immediately screamed in pain and she felt like winning just because of that. Looking down at her injury, he pressed hard against the wound, screaming in pain, but hoping it would help as she folded up her trousers to have a better look at it. The sight of it alone made her cringe, but at least the bone was intact. She used a bunch of rubber bands  - the only thing she found at the edge of the Cornucopia - to secure the trousers on the wound like a dirty bandage. 

Then, she looked around and noticed the boy was wandering aimlessly with the knife in his shoulder, not knowing where to go and what to do in the slightest, though his wound wasn’t even close to being lethal. Bea, upset that he wanted to attack her, then walked towards him, discomfort in every step, but discomfort was something she grew up with and could handle. He was just a boy, so it didn’t take her much strength to pull out the knife from his shoulder. “Thank you...” he muttered, still airy and panicked, but less so seeing her help him. Except she wasn’t.

“Don’t thank me,” she shook her head. “You attacked me. I’m sorry,” Bea then spoke again and pushed the knife as hard as she could, with both her hands, in his chest, causing him to trip and fall on his back. But he wasn’t dead, and that scared the Five girl the most. She didn’t know what to do, so she glanced both ways if anybody saw - silly, thinking her gesture would escape without witnesses when there were hundreds of cameras in the arena - and tried to walk away before drawing the attention of another tribute. As she was trying to hurry into safety, another cannon flooded the sky and she wondered if she should feel worse.

[caroleyre]

now she’s back in the atmosphere / self para

The countdown felt heavy in her chest as she could feel blood getting to her brain. It wasn’t the change of pressure or the fact that she was having an anxiety attack - which she most definitely wasn’t as she was waiting silently, with a calm built on anticipation, in her tube not yet sealed. No, the reason why she was unsettled was because of the natural state of weakness following her like a dark cloud predicting a storm. Bea felt empty as the tube closed and raised to ground level, into the arena, but the look of it made her feel even dizzier. She couldn’t believe that this was happening, as quiet and serene as she was just moments before. The seconds were flying by her and she didn’t know what to do. She needed more time, but there she was, never ready, facing an imminent danger. 

When they got released in the arena, she still wasn’t understanding where they were, assuming it was a forest type of arena and being disappointed to potentially die in such mundane conditions. At least it was pretty, even if it wasn’t very interesting. 

She hesitated before getting off the platform, just looking at the children hurrying towards the Cornucopia. She smiled, thinking that it must have been beautiful running with hope and deep down feeling like a victory wasn’t so out of grasp. Just as she was having a moment, the first cannon boomed on the sky, and the nice thoughts were all scattered away. Beatrice knew she couldn’t just stand there and expect to survive at least for the day and not provoke another cannon noise. She wanted to run towards the unknown rather than get in the bloodbath, but something about the idea of that unsettled her even more than dying in the first minutes of the Games, so she jumped off the platform gracefully and tried to blend in with the other runners.

She was, of course, slower and got tired a minute after, but there was no way she would stop and live to tell the tale even an hour later. She kept running, breathing heavily and in hiccups, since nobody ever taught her to run by the book and hold her breath properly. Feeling hot in the costume they picked out, she wanted to lose it there, as she was running, but something in her guts was also telling her that there was a reason for the outfit. Stopping at the Cornucopia, she went for a thick jacket in a pretty, yellow color, that caught her eyes.