allielarke-blog

[allielarke-blog]

" tears stream . . . down on your face . . . i promise you i will learn from my mistakes . . . tears stream . . . down on your face . . . and i . . . "

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lights will guide you home, and ignite your bones. and i will try to fix you

[allielarke-blog]

Cannon #22 - Allianna Larke

Allianna Larke - District 8 Female Tribute

Killer: Ace Holcomb - District 5 Male Tribute

Since the Reaping, many of us have been rooting for little Allie Larke to win the Hunger Games.  She proved to be quite the underdog, being the youngest Tribute and lasting until the Final 3.  We are positive that her family, especially her older sister, Itsy, and soon-to-be-born niece, are proud of Allie.  Word is that Itsy is going to name her daughter after her courageous sister.  I can speak for all of Panem that we are proud of this little Tribute and how far she has come.

[allielarke-blog]

“run away, let your heart be your guide . . . you deserve the deepest of cover . . . you belong in that home by and by . . .

. . . you belong among the wildflowers . . . you belong somewhere close to me . . . far away from your trouble and worry . . . you belong somewhere you feel free . . . 

. . . you belong somewhere you feel free.”

[allielarke-blog]

With her small hand clasped in Ace's larger one, Allie closed here eyes for another few moments, allowing him to collect her in his arms, to pull her close to his chest. The movement caused the wound in her abdomen to scream out in protest, but the little girl swallowed the stabbing pain. She wanted to be held, to be loved. She didn't want to die alone. No one should die alone. They were both shaking, welded together by fate and pain and sadness. But the little girl was calm, even happy. It was all over, but she'd found that it was better. The weight of the world –of the games and of her family and of the lives she'd taken and let slip away– had floated away with the growing pool of blood that now spilled over the boy's khaki pants. She watched him take in her words, between periods of difficulty keeping hold of her consciousness. The little girl knew that as soon as she stopped fighting she would die, and she knew with equal certainty that she wasn't ready to go yet. She could see the shadows of the people she'd soon be meeting, extending hands towards their daughter, their sister, their friend. Darkness rose around her like a swelling sea, rolling her over and over in it's current. Pulling her under. But each time she'd swim up to the surface once again, each time farther down, towards the reaching figures. The boy's words came through the choking water, blurred and stretched to the point where they barely made sense.

“I'm sorry.”

Soon, she'd float away to join them. But not yet.

Not quite yet.

She forced her eyes open, watching the choked emotion on the boy's face. His fingers pushed back her hair, brushed the tears away from her face. He listened as she directed her words towards him, chewing his lip as she spoke. “I-I will.” Another young smile traced over her face, banishing the pain and fear, the marks the arena had left on her. Once again, Allie was a young child, a baby really. No longer weighed down by death and sadness. A smile could transform a situation, and this was an example of one. The next flash of the boy's words were lost on the drowning girl, but she surfaced enough to hear the end of it “... for the baby.” Another serene smile suffused her face, radiated out from her. She nodded weakly, eyes trying to hold his through the rising mist. The boy's head dropped, chin tucked into his chest as he whispered words to her. “I'm so sorry.” It took what seemed like an eternity to the dying girl for him to look at her again. “But you're going to be okay, Allie...Everything's going to be alright.” A half laugh broke through the haze clawing at her consciousness. The blackness was growing, pulling her down and in, blurring her vision and taking away the colors from the world around her. To the girl it seemed like the world around her was fading away –the details disappearing so that only pencil outlines were left in the frigid world the girl had moved into– but really she was the one who was disappearing. The world would not stop spinning when she died, and the only people who would really mourn her were closeted away in a tiny apartment in an urban wasteland a lifetime away. But still, the girl managed one last weak smile as her body finished it's betrayal. “It's ok, Ace. I volunteered for . . . this . . . For Itsy and the baby . . . so they wouldn't have to . . . I knew I would . . . die . . . I just hoped . . . I'd win . . . I'm going somewhere . . . better. I know it . . . I'm going to see my mother . . . and . . . Jayse . . . and Toby and . . . Troy. But you . . . You're going to . . . have to stay a . . . little longer . . . I'm . . . sorry, Ace.” Her eyes finally closed, and the girl was left slowly sinking into the dark water.

From somewhere far away a young blonde haired man reached out his hand, catching the floating child, pulling her into his strong arms.

The protracted rise and fall of her chest was the only motion left in the young girl.

Up . . . .

Down . . .

A woman with sandy hair pulled the girl away from the boy, and held her close herself. And then the girl broke away, spinning through a small clump of people. They were laughing, crying, holding her tight. With each neck she wrapped her arms around her smile grew, her feet danced faster and faster.

Up . . .

Down . . .

They were radiant.

Up . . .

Down . . .

By the end she was flying.

Why Can't This Be Easy? @Allie

[allielarke-blog]

" . . . i've heard there was a secret chord that david played, and it pleased the lord. but you don't really care for music, do you? it goes like this, the fourth, the fifth. the minor fall, the major lift. the baffled king composing hallelujah . . .

. . . hallelujah, hallelujah . . .

. . . hallelujah, hallelujah . . .

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. . . and it's not a cry you can hear at night, it's not somebody who's seen the light . . .

. . . it's cold and it's a broken hallelujah . . . . . . hallelujah, hallelujah . . . hallelujah, hallelujah . . .

. . . hallelujah, hallelujah . . .

. . .hallelujah, hallelujah . . . "

[allielarke-blog]

The little girl took deep breaths, her hands still and quiet. There was nothing she could do to help herself, nothing anyone could do. She rolled over onto her back as fear flashed through her, shining from her eyes as the ax pulled free of her flesh. Allie shuddered with the shock of it as the blood flow increased even more. But slowly, slowly the pain died away, to be replaced by a parlaying, stifling cold. It had nothing to do with the chill that had long since left the landscape, and everything to do with her heart pumping blood out of the deep rent in her abdomen. She was afraid, so afraid. Everything was falling apart, the world cracking and splitting around her body. The pool of blood was growing, seeping into the parched ground as flashes of color and darkness fractured her vision, pulling her in and down. Ace dropped his weapon to the hard ground, letting it fall from nerveless fingers. Silent tears began to fall down her white face, mingling with the blood and sweat and grit. Fear painted her features, desperation adding to the strange palate as darkness continued to pull at the edges of her vision. But suddenly everything came to a screeching stop; the fear, the hurt, the pain, to be replaced with a calm that flowed over her like water, soothing her. The boy was kneeling beside her, speaking, but she didn't listen. The tears stopped and her breathing calmed, as she accepted the outcome of the games, and her place within them, and the greater world around her.

They were both pawns, the dying girl and her killer.

She felt herself weakening, saw the darkness closing in, able to barely see the boy in the darkness of her dimming vision. His words came to her as if he was speaking them a long way away, more and more distorted as he continued to speak. “I'm sorry, Allie...” His hand reached out towards her, shifting in her clouded vision. Blinking slowly she raised her arm, feeling the limb move through air thicker than it should be to reach his shifting hand. A light smile crossed her calm face. She was pale as a ghost now, but radiant. “It's alright, Ace. It had to be one of us. And I made it a long way. You had to do it. We all had to do it. It isn't your fault.” Her eyes fluttered closed for a few seconds, her breathing slow and shallow. Her chest remained still until it seemed that she'd already gone, and then it rose again, her eyes opening. “I wish . . . I wish I'd gotten to see the baby, Itsy's baby. Does she know how much I love her? Does it? I couldn't let them come here, I couldn't. And my father. I wanted to see him sober, I never have. I miss my mother, I miss my brother. But I guess I'll see them again soon, won't I? There's got to be something more than this, than these games, than this world.” The words weren't really meant for the boy, or for the cameras. But for the little girl herself. Eyes clouded, wide, blurred. But then she shifted, focussing in on the receding boy. The next words were for him. “Tell Aleks . . Tell him I'm glad it's going to be him. And tell him . . . to look for my sister, to look for the baby on his tour.” It was clear she'd written off the other boy, based on her poison. And on her desire to see a friend win.

To hope for something close to a happy ending. 

Why Can't This Be Easy? @Allie

[allielarke-blog]

sorry for disappearing for a day or two. travel plans got adjusted. i'm still in transit, and ill get a reply up tomorrow! love you all!

[allielarke-blog]

". . . and the one poor child who saved this world, and there's ten million more who probably could. if we all just stopped and said a prayer for them . . . 

. . . so take these words and sing out loud, 'cause everyone is forgiven now. 'cause tonight's the night the world begins again . . . 

i wish everyone was loved tonight, and somehow stop this endless fight, just a chance that maybe we'll find better days. 

. . . so take these words and sing out loud, 'cause everyone is forgiven now. 'cause tonight's the night the world begins again . . . 

'cause tonight's the night the world begins again. "

[allielarke-blog]

The little girl could almost see the poison coursing through the boy's body, see his accelerated heart pumping it even faster to the important organs. His scream did little to dissuade her, but it did send a flash of pain into her heart. As she held him down on the sun-baked earth, she knew that winning this fight was within her grasp. Her hands frantically fumbled in her pockets, searching for a weapon that wasn't there. As the memory hit her –tucking the first and largest of her hand-made knives into the pack at her waist in the midst of her exhausted flight when it had continued to bang against her side as she ran– she saw the boy's eyes clearing. It was too late. One fatal mistake. That was all it took. His hands closed around her wrists, twisting and pulling, like her father had done many times before. Fear flashed through her body, paralyzing her, reading electric in her eyes. She didn't put up resistance as Ace flipped her over onto her back, images of her drunk father playing behind her open eyes, the searing pain of spiral fractures that had long since healed shooting through her arms. She let out a ragged sob as she landed on her back, but did nothing to right herself. Between her ghosts and the boy on top of her, it was too late. The boy staggered to his feat, then reached back to the ground to retrieve his weapon. Still, she couldn't move. All of her energy had been sapped away, draining into the hard earth at her back, the taught blue sky that filled her eyes.

And then the ax fell.

Allie felt the blade make contact with her abdomen, felt it rip through the flesh, the muscles, the other viscera, felt it tear at her, pull away, swing away with the same horrible sucking sound. Again, a half-strangled gasp escaped her lips, the pain burning a swath through her stomach and chest. Breaths came hard and fast as her eyes widened, growing full of fear and pain and sadness. And desperation. It perfused her body, sending her into unconscious shivers, causing the little girl to clutch in on herself, to let her body fall onto her side, curl in around the oozing wound. She knew what it meant, knew how much little time she had left. Much less time than her poisoned dart would give the boy. And that was without confronting Aleks, the remaining tribute. As her body refused to believe the injury, a calming thought entered her brain. Aleks would win. With Ace's body slowly succumbing to the poison she'd created and administered, her friend would have to survive. And it was with that thought –as well as a final understanding of her fate, perhaps even her purpose in these games– that the little girl accepted her end. It was coming, and it was coming quickly. Already, she could feel the weakness coming over her, as she bled out from the deep gash in her abdomen. Swallowing hard, the little girl allowed her body to relax, allowed her mind to clear, allowed herself to realize what was coming.

To embrace it.

She made no move to stem the flow from the terrible rent in her stomach, made no attempt to stop the tears that rolled down her face. Instead, the little girl closed her deep blue eyes, taking deep breaths –as deep as her pain-wracked body could manage– and let a final shudder flow through her body.

Then she opened her eyes again, at met the gaze of her killer.

Why Can't This Be Easy? @Allie

[allielarke-blog]

The little girl could almost see the poison coursing through the boy's body, see his accelerated heart pumping it even faster to the important organs. His scream did little to dissuade her, but it did send a flash of pain into her heart. As she held him down on the sun-baked earth, she knew that winning this fight was within her grasp. Her hands frantically fumbled in her pockets, searching for a weapon that wasn't there. As the memory hit her –tucking the first and largest of her hand-made knives into the pack at her waist in the midst of her exhausted flight when it had continued to bang against her side as she ran– she saw the boy's eyes clearing. It was too late. One fatal mistake. That was all it took. His hands closed around her wrists, twisting and pulling, like her father had done many times before. Fear flashed through her body, paralyzing her, reading electric in her eyes. She didn't put up resistance as Ace flipped her over onto her back, images of her drunk father playing behind her open eyes, the searing pain of spiral fractures that had long since healed shooting through her arms. She let out a ragged sob as she landed on her back, but did nothing to right herself. Between her ghosts and the boy on top of her, it was too late. The boy staggered to his feat, then reached back to the ground to retrieve his weapon. Still, she couldn't move. All of her energy had been sapped away, draining into the hard earth at her back, the taught blue sky that filled her eyes.

And then the ax fell.

Allie felt the blade make contact with her abdomen, felt it rip through the flesh, the muscles, the other viscera, felt it tear at her, pull away, swing away with the same horrible sucking sound. Again, a half-strangled gasp escaped her lips, the pain burning a swath through her stomach and chest. Breaths came hard and fast as her eyes widened, growing full of fear and pain and sadness. And desperation. It perfused her body, sending her into unconscious shivers, causing the little girl to clutch in on herself, to let her body fall onto her side, curl in around the oozing wound. She knew what it meant, knew how much little time she had left. Much less time than her poisoned dart would give the boy. And that was without confronting Aleks, the remaining tribute. As her body refused to believe the injury, a calming thought entered her brain. Aleks would win. With Ace's body slowly succumbing to the poison she'd created and administered, her friend would have to survive. And it was with that thought –as well as a final understanding of her fate, perhaps even her purpose in these games– that the little girl accepted her end. It was coming, and it was coming quickly. Already, she could feel the weakness coming over her, as she bled out from the deep gash in her abdomen. Swallowing hard, the little girl allowed her body to relax, allowed her mind to clear, allowed herself to realize what was coming.

To embrace it.

She made no move to stem the flow from the terrible rent in her stomach, made no attempt to stop the tears that rolled down her face. Instead, the little girl closed her deep blue eyes, taking deep breaths –as deep as her pain-wracked body could manage– and let a final shudder flow through her body.

Then she opened her eyes again, at met the gaze of her killer.

Why Can't This Be Easy? @Allie

[allielarke-blog]

This was obviously going to be the end. It all came down to an ax against a knife, a healer against an inventor, a little girl against a grown boy. It all came down to sweat and blood and sandy earth. And fear and anger, and hope. Always hope. Even when things had been at their darkest, even when she'd begun to understand the full breath of the games, the full consequences of the day she'd stood up and taken her sister's place at the reaping, Allie had held onto hope. And even now, as she caught Ace's cheek with her knife, felt his ax rip into the flesh of her leg, the little girl continued to think of the life she'd left behind. Of the life she could get back. Her sister was pregnant, and she wanted –more than anything– to meet her niece or nephew. But for that to happen she needed to kill Ace. And she knew it. There was no going back. They'd long since passed the point of no return. But then her knife was on the ground, out of her reach, and he was advancing on her once again. But he'd underestimated her. Like so many of the other tributes had. The little girl was agile, it had always been on of her strengths. At home it had helped her hunt in the sewers, helped her scrabble around the deserted streets. In training it allowed her to impress the Gamemakers enough to receive a nine as her score. In the arena it had kept her alive time and time again, allowed her to keep those close to her alive for a little longer as well. And here it saved her once again, allowing her to unbalance the boy.

With her elbows screaming in protest she pushed off of his chest, shooting herself back onto the balls of her feet as he fell backwards.

It took her a few seconds to regain her footing, but she kept her eyes on the boy the whole time. It was clear that she'd surprised him, that he hadn’t been expecting her to use her momentum against him. Because of this, she saw his head hit the ground, heard the crack as the sun-hardened sand connected with the base of his skull. For a second she felt a sudden flash of hope. Maybe he'd been knocked out. But she could see that that was not that case, as the boy groggily shifted. He'd been stunned, nothing more. Even so, it gave her a chance to re-gain an advantage. Her knife was a few feet from her now, and she didn't truly have the time to collect it. But she still had the sharpened pieces of bone that she'd tipped with an organic poison, created from the berries and roots of the thawed woodlands. It barely took her a second to pull one from the pouch around her waist, and to approach the fallen boy. With an open hand holding one of the poisoned darts, the little girls descended on the boy. She used her small weight to do her best to trap the much bigger body under her own, looking down at the boy's glazed eyes. Once again, the dart was her insurance policy. Slapping it into his exposed neck, the girl held it for a fraction of a second as he lay there –dazed– making sure that the poison had time to get into his flesh. Even if he killed her, he wouldn't be alive for long. Without a fever, the effects would be more predictable. But it didn't change anything about the situation at that moment. The girl was still in danger. She scrabbled again in her pocket –her knees pressing down into the boys shoulders to try to keep him pinned– frantic to pull one of her homemade knives from the recesses.

Time was the enemy now, in the time it took her to collect a knife, she'd be vulnerable.

In the time it took him to die from the poison, she could easily be dispatched.

Unless she could continue to fight back.

Why Can't This Be Easy? @Allie

[allielarke-blog]

“You don’t know who I am. Maybe this is who I am.” His words were quiet, but she heard them, processed them, tossed them away with a shake of her head. “This isn't who any of us are, Ace. And I know more about you than you think. I know about you and Aleks, and about you and Silas. And about the explosion.” She looked away for a flash of a second, averting her eyes from the boy who'd lost so much already to these games. Although, really, they'd all lost more than enough. Ace had lost Silas, and Aleks had lost Cora. And she, she'd lost almost everyone. While the relationships might not have been the same –at least, not yet, although she was young, she'd thought about growing up more than once, even as it slipped further and further away– Allie too had lost the people who'd meant the most to her. And as the games had progressed, her future had seemed to receded, instead of getting closer with each face flashed through the shimmering sky. With every step she came closer to being able to come home –at least, in the odds department– the further away it had seemed. None of that was real, not with the games raging around her. Things were happening quickly now, deaths and encounters and emotions. The games were almost over, and she knew that nothing could stop them, stop this. A sense of inexorability overwhelmed her as she felt tears spill from her eyes, blurring her vision. There was no longer a way out, no longer the chance to escape, as she'd done each time prior. With only three tributes left, if the little girl had any chance of making it out of the arena alive –to go back to the people she'd loved, to give herself a chance to heal and move forward– she needed to kill the boy. And he had the same ultimatum. Aleks, of course, would be the wild card, because from what he'd said, they would both have a hard time taking him on. Maybe not physically –at least for the other boy– but morally. None of that, however, changed the final pronouncement.

One of them would die here.

And with that thought in her mind –inexorability pulling her forward– Allie watched her knife flash, watched the boy dodge, watched the tip of the blade catch his cheek and spill hot, red blood over his face. The time for backing down was over. He must know that. “I'm sorry. None of us really have a choice anymore. Not if we want to get out of here.” The words were barely whispered, but with them she fully committed herself to a fatal outcome, to another broken family, another dead child. Allie shifted her own body to mirror his, breath coming through her cracked lips in sharp gasps. He grunted slightly, and then parried back at her. This time, the little girl knew she wouldn't be able to dodge it as well. She could feel her center of gravity wavering, feel the break in her concentration. Everything was falling apart. With a look of pleading desperation in her eyes the little girl tried to whirl away from the ax, but it was no use. The blade bit deep into her thigh, and then pulled away with a sickening sucking sound. It wasn't a fatal wound, but it would slow her down. The little girl stumbled backward, a high-pitched gasp of pain escaping her lips. Her foot caught on a small clump of grass, sending her careening towards the sun-baked earth. With a light wail, she dropped her arms behind her, using the spring in her elbows to catapult herself back upwards, feeling the joints pop with the effort. The knife clattered onto the ground behind her, but the boy was still coming. Without stopping to try to stem the flow of blood from her leg or taking the time to regain her balance, the little girl did the only things she could think of.

She threw herself at the boy, arms stretched pout in front of her, hoping to wind him, to startle him.  

Why Can't This Be Easy? @Allie

[allielarke-blog]

The little girl watched her words wash over the other tribute, watched the catch in his eye as she spoke. The games destroyed people, she knew that for sure. She'd seen the ghosts in the eyes of the mentors, from the young ones who'd only recently one to the ones who'd been around for longer than she could remember. They were all haunted, all dogged by nightmares and memories, and children they'd killed. Some were better off than others, and Allie believed that there was a reason for it. The ones who re-integrated the best into society were either the ones who'd had no humanity to begin with, or the ones who retained as much of it as the could. It was important, whether the boy thought so or not. As he deflected her knife –it finally made contact with the boy's shoulder after he blocked and dodged– the only emotion she felt was sadness. Sadness that this would be the end of one of them, that so many lives had been taken, and that the world would never be the same. She looked at the boy as he spoke. “I just want all of this to be over. I would like to think killing you in your sleep would be less monstrous than a full blown batter, don't you think. It would’ve been quick. It would have been simple. I would have been painless.” The little girl let his words sink in, but she knew that she didn't agree with them. He might believe them, but she didn't. He shifted his weight again, getting a better hold on the ax in his hands. The little girl tracked his movements, adjusting her own body to mirror him.

“It would have been much worse, Ace. It would have been wrong. It would have been low.”

Her voice was quiet. She watched him move, watched the weight of his body shift, watched the ax in his hand swing. As he moved she did as well, minimizing the area he could strike, pulling her free arm into her body to protect her vital organs. “I'm sure you're not completely blameless in these games, either.” When his tomahawk lashed out at her again she'd presented him with only the outside of her arm, and by stepping back as he lunged forward she managed to avoid the blade all together. She shook her head, feeling the air peel off the blade only a few inches from her exposed flesh as she shifted her body. “None of us is blameless, Ace. We all want to survive this. We all want to go home. But if we lose who we are . I may have killed people in these games. But I always gave them a chance to go unscathed. And I always gave them a chance to fight back. None of us is going home, Ace. Not really. Whoever wins this will never be the same. They'll never be safe. They'll never be home.” As she spoke, Allie could feel tears brimming in her eyes. But she didn't allow it to distract her. She would not cry. Not again. Instead, she lunged at the boy, standing on the tips of her toes and reaching up, slashing her blade across his face. Hopefully it would stun him, even get blood in his eyes or on his face.

If nothing else, she would make her mark.

Why Can't This Be Easy? @Allie

[allielarke-blog]

As adrenaline pumped through Allie's veins she continued to move, shifting her body away from her would-be-killer. It would take time for her t fully wake up, and until them she was working completely on instinct. Her autopilot was fully functioning, moving her away from the blade, allowing her to reach for her knife. Slashing away with it at the boy who had tried to kill her in her sleep. Contempt rose in her throat like bile. It was a cowardly move, and the little girl was glad that she'd escaped, and that she fought back. Her knife made contact with the boy's ribcage, but even without medical knowledge the girl would have seen that the injury would barely even slow the boy down. It had been a shallow graze, only enough to draw blood. It probably hadn't even slashed more than a few muscle fibers. Allie backed away, half-crawling in her sleep-deadened state. She kept the knife in her hand, raising it as she kept her wide eyes on the boy. Facts caught in her mind as she moved, images and memories. Blonde hair and blue-grey eyes. Another boy, laughing on stage with Ceaser Flickerman. A shadow falling over her in the hot sunlight; he was tall, well built. Words Aleks had spoken when she'd round him in the clearing in the rain with a slit down his wrist. The explosion, rocking her, shooting smoke into the sky. This –then– must be Ace, the boy who'd lost someone important to him in the explosion, the boy who Aleks had sworn to protect. It was only the three of them left now, the little girl knew that. But what could she do, other than fight back? At this point in the games, she wouldn't be able to allow him to walk away. Home and Itsy and a baby were only a few steps away. But the little girl knew that she would never be able to kill Aleks, and a happy outcome if left between them would be hard. This boy –on the other hand– could pose a threat to them both. And he would need to die for her to get home. It was a hard choice, to stand and fight instead of run.

The fact that his attack had begun while she was defenseless –asleep– spurned her on.

Allie's body recognized the swing of the blade before her mind had time to even think about it, and she was pushing herself away, on her knees now, scuttling like a crab. It took less time this time –however– for her mind to catch up with her body. The adrenaline was doing it's work, dragging her away from the vestiges of sleep that threatened to make her sluggish and slow. She felt the blade connect with her chest, tearing through the black material of her t-shirt. The pain barely registered in her brain, but she let out a tight hiss of breath in response, feeling the cool sting. It was nothing compared to other things she'd endured. The girl pushed herself to her feet, ignoring the blood that began to seep into the ragged edges of her torn shirt. She held her ground, letting the weapon swing back into his grasp. With her mind made up, she dropped into a defensive stance, bouncing lightly on the balls of her feet. “You were going to kill me in my sleep, weren’t you, Ace?” Allie couldn't help the questioning comment, advancing and dodging away, closer and further in turn. Her next words came more as a question. “How could you do that? Is winning worth turning into a monster, showing them what they want to see? Is it worth losing who you are?” Her blue eyes sparkled in the sun, wet, afraid. Once again, very young. Even as she raised her knife in her hand, the little girl looked lost. Captured in the moment, but sure that this wasn't where she belonged. From the beginning she'd known of the horrors of the games, known what they did to people. Believed that she could come through it. But now that she'd seen so much pain and death and despair, Allie knew that no one ever came out whole. As much as she hoped and wished, it all seemed pointless now. Toby was dead, Trevor was dead, Travis was dead, Troy was dead, Bayleigh was dead, Blaze was dead, Belinda was dead, Cora was dead, Rhiannon was dead. And in the wake of this confrontation, someone else would be dead. And none of it would really matter. And no one would ever really be going home.

She stabbed forward, then fell back, jabbing four or five times in quick succession as she danced away from him. 

Why Can't This Be Easy? @Allie

[allielarke-blog]

Just as the lack of sleep had caught up with Allie physically, it seemed bent on catching up on her emotionally as well. She hadn't closed her eyes since Troy's death, and quite a bit had happened between then and now. Of course, there had been the image that would long be burned into her mind. Cora, standing over Troy's horribly mutilated corpse. Then there was the look on Rhiannon's face when she'd snapped around –one of Allie's darts in her neck– to challenge the little girl. She hadn't been the target Allie had been looking for, and things had worked out. But the expression would haunt her, with all of her other new nightmares. The feeling that rose inside of her when she'd seen the face of her ultimate challenge flashing in the sky. It had floored her, shook her from her plan and her desire. And then there had been Rhiannon's death. Now her kill count was up to three –although she doubted Rhiannon's death would be attributed to her by the Gamemakers, she would always remember the girl as one she'd killed, along with Bayleigh and Belinda– and each ghost was ready to stalk her from the grave. The little girl's subconscious hadn't been able to torture her with any of the new images yet. Instead, it had been biding it's time, concocting new horrors to bend with all if her old nightmares, to torture the little girl with macabre images and bone chilling sounds. For over thirty six hours the girl had driven her body forward with no rest. Maybe she hadn't been trying to fend off the moment when she finally had to succumb to sleep, and to the visions that would be sure to come with it. Maybe she hadn't known what would be in store for her as soon as she closed her eyes. Then again, maybe she had. But one thing was for sure. Her nightmares were well aware of what they'd missed.

As soon as Allie had allowed her eyes to close from exhaustion and desperation, the terrors had come.

Permutations of all of the deaths she'd seen and been privy to during the games, interspersed and cut with images she'd seen in past games of freezing and flooded arenas, with flashes of Jayse burnt to death in her arms, of Blaze's broken skull, of Belinda's neck slashed in a blood-red smile, of Rhiannon shot through with arrows, of Troy's body riddled with knife-holes, of Bayleigh bleeding out into her own chest. As the nightmares continued they shifted and blurred, combining and intertwining into new and horrible things. The ghosts threatened to overwhelm the little girl, thick with accusations and pleas. Why had she killed them? Why hadn't she saved them? Why was she still alive, when they were dead? Allie struggled to surface from her dream world, but her mind wouldn't let her. But she fought it, trying to claw her way up from the manic hysteria. She shifted in her sleep, letting out a little noise, the fuss of a small child. It was of little use. And it did nothing to deter either the terrorizing phantoms, or the real threat, the tribute standing over the sleeping girl. But –as luck would have it– the little girl stirred once more, rolling a half turn onto her side, just as the thick blade of the ax swung down. That was enough to wake the sleeping child. Her eyes flashed open as the blade fell, in response to the sound, the vibrations, the electricity suddenly thick in the air. It sank into the dry earth beside her, directly where her throat had been. Fear flashed in her deep blue eyes, as her mouth opened in a soundless gasp. She continued rolling –away from the flash of the weapon's blade and the shock of blonde hair that she'd managed to catch in the melee– using the momentum of her dream-fed escape to catapult herself away from her attacker. Adrenaline pumped through her veins, fighting with the cottony numbing sensation of recently ended sleep. It brought her main weapon to her hand, dug from a pocket as she rolled.

Blindly, the little girl lashed out, the butterfly knife she'd gotten from Troy flashing through the air towards the older boy.

Why Can't This Be Easy? @Allie

It had been hours since Ace had last seen Aleks, and it was driving his nerves completely on edge. The sun had gone down, the faces had played in the sky – displaying Cora’s image among the night stars. Ace had been hoping he’d be there for Aleks when that occurred, he’d been hoping he’d be there to provide what little comfort he could offer at this point in the game. Shortly after the faces had shown themselves, a cannon had blown. A shiver ran up and down Ace’s spine at the thought of what tribute was behind that one, who had fallen and left three standing alive in the arena. Ace was one of the final three, and he may have just lost his only ally and didn’t even know it. Aleks could most definitely have been involved in that latest explosion. Aleks could even be the one who was dead. Aleks could be dead…and Ace wouldn’t know until the sundown. Unless, of course he ran into the boy, but that seemed to be looking less and less likely as the hours of darkness dragged on. Perhaps he should have just stayed put. At least that way Aleks would know where to look for him. At least that way he wouldn’t have to think he was traveling in circles. Brushing his fingers through his hair his eyes lifted up towards the quickly lightening sky, his feet continuing their slow path around the clearing that circled the only remaining water source in the arena. It surprised him that the flare hadn’t sent people running towards the watering hole in hopes for fresh kills. Then again, maybe Ace would have stayed hidden even if a flare had been sent into the air to alert him of another’s location. He probably would have taken it to be bait and stayed away to keep on the safe side, just in case someone was trying to play him a fool. Especially since that had been exactly what Aleks and Ace wanted, to draw people in for the easy kill. The fact that the flare didn’t bring anyone near shouldn’t have been that surprising, he supposed. He just hoped that he wouldn’t be spending the rest of his time in the arena without his ally. He hoped beyond hope that Aleks was alright, that he was just hunched up in a tree somewhere. Even an emotional Aleks over Cora’s image in the sky would be better than a dead one. Heaving a slow breath, Ace focused his attention on the ground before him once more, watching the shadows that played across the ground as the blistering sun continued to rise into the sky. Soon enough the canopy of the trees surrounding him left the leaf littered grass in deep shadows, while the clearing to his right was covered in the brightness. The shade of a tree would be a great spot to settle down. It was cooler there in comparison to standing beneath the sunlight and dark enough to catch a few minutes of sleep. So when he came upon a tiny form of a human curled up at the base of a tree beside the lake, he didn’t find himself surprised that the child had chosen such a prime spot to nap. While he wasn’t surprised of her being there, the sight of her sent a surge of adrenaline through his body. There lay one of his contenders, sleeping soundly. She was an easy target, lying right there for him to take. It would narrow the odds down to 2. He would have a 50% chance of victory. His other contender could still be Aleks…but that would have to be saved for a later time to worry about. This girl would need to be taken out of the way for him to survive one way or another. He could make it as painless as possible. He could just let it be done in a second and things would be over with. It was the best situation he could ask for. He rubbed his palms against his shirt before gripping the tomahawk in his fists, creeping slowly towards the small frame lying before him. He didn’t want to see her face. He hardly wanted to see her at all. He just wanted to be done with it and moving on. Quick and easy. Drawing in a slow breath Ace finished his approach, lifting the tomahawk in the air before bringing it down where the small girl’s throat had been resting prone to his attack.

[allielarke-blog]

“. . . goodnight, my angel, now it's time to dream. and dream how wonderful your life will be . . .

. . . someday your child may cry and if you sing this lullabye, then in your heart there will always be a part of me . . . 

. . . someday we’ll all be gone but lullabies go on an on. they never die . . . that’s how you and i will be . . .”

[allielarke-blog]

Allie had been wandering through the arena for more then twenty four hours, purposeless and alone. After her encounter with the girl from Twelve –Rhiannon–, the youngest tribute had continued her search for Troy's murderer, scouring the dry, hot arena. Shed looked up into the sky to see the faces of the dead. Two of the cannons she knew, but there was one left unaccounted for, one she'd heard while preparing for her hunt. While the little girl hadn't known who to expect, the face that greeted her after Belinda's and Troy's had flashed in the sky –each bringing its own surge of emotion that she pushed away– came as a complete shock. Cora Barre. Allie stopped, dead in her tracks. Cora Barre. It couldn't be. The images of the older girl standing over Troy's body, the blood covering the ground, the mutilated remains of someone who had once been a friend, the murderess coolly watching the hovercraft take him away flashed through her mind. A trained killer, without remorse. Allie had always thought she would be invincible, at least until they met. And –when she was honest with herself– even after that. But now Cora was dead. Taken away by another hand than Allie's, her righteous anger now without an outlet. She was deflated, purposeless. Now would have been the time to sleep, to plan, to come up with a new course of action for the rest of the games. But instead, it became the beginning of her aimless wanderings. Once the face had faded from the sky and the anthem had played, Allie had begun to walk, not stopping, not bothering to hide herself. Through the night she wandered, ignoring the rosy glow that heralded dawn. She'd lost track of time, hot and tired and thirsty. But conserving her water, rubbing grease from one of her last meals into her cracking lips to avoid drinking much of what she had. Around midday she stopped –more form thirst and exhaustion than any plan– and forced herself to eat and drink, but even then she couldn't seem to think of a plan, or to find any reason to continue. So she walked. Through the afternoon and evening. Through the anthem in the sky without any faces. That startled her, rousing her from her stupor. No deaths. No purpose. She checked her supplies, realized she was running out of water, and came up with the shred of a plan.

Still with little sense of purpose, the little girl began to search for the lake.

The night grew darker and darker, but still the heat barely slacked off. She took a few drinks of her precious water, knowing that even if she did find the lake she would have to bide her time and be careful of those around her. The only thing keeping her going now was the thought of seeing her sister again, of holding the baby that she might have already had, or would soon be giving birth to. That child–probably not even alive yet– was pulling Allie home. She stopped to adjust her braid into a knot at the top of her head, to keep it from the hot skin of her back. Long ago she'd stripped all of the jackets from her body, folding them up in the pack on her back. Her hands had stopped when they'd reached the blue backpack, shying away from it, from the memories it brought on. Through the night she walked, with the night vision goggles strapped to her face. But through her wandering she'd gotten herself quite lost, and she as having trouble finding her way to anything. By now she knew she was walking in circles, but even the landmarks she thought she recognized were distorted by the eerie light her goggles cast them in, made different and strange. She hadn't seen her cave since she'd left it, not that she was planning to return to it. Like the blue pack, it had too many memories. It was tainted now as well, as she knew that the entire arena would soon be. Whoever got out of this alive would never be the same. There were far too many ghosts. She stumbled –half-accidentally– into a clearing, her eyes caught by a figure splayed out on the ground. Was it someone sleeping? Or someone hurt? There had been no cannon, and even if there had been, the hovercraft would have claimed its victim by then. Who was it? And what was wrong? With small, tentative steps the blond girl approached the prone figure. The first thing that really caught her eyes was the massive pool of blood surrounding the body. Because really, that's what it must have been. A corpse. Or, close to one. Her blue eyes tracked over the figure, catching on the dark hair, the pale face.

“Oh. Oh, Rhiannon.”

The words came out in a hushed gasp, full of raw emotion the girl hadn't allowed to come through. She hadn't head a cannon, so Allie knew that the girl was still alive. But from the growing pool of blood spreading from the dark haired girl's torso, she knew it wouldn't be long. The two shafts showed that the arrows hadn't pierced anything utterly vital, but that the damage was enough to end the girl's life. Sooner rather than later. It was obvious that Rhiannon hadn't been conscious in a while, but Allie could see that while the blood-loss would eventually kill the girl, she would be in pain until her life bled out of her. Even while unconscious, the dark haired girl's body shuddered with spasms of pain. Once, the little girl had believed that unconsciousness brought a relief from pain. But not only had she been taught the strength of certain pains in the courses she'd taken to learn to heal, but she'd seen the lie in that assumption first hand. Pain was the strongest sensation, the only one that could cut through the relative peace of unconsciousness, to torment a victim that could do nothing to escape it. It was the epitome of cruelty. Allie knelt down next to the girl, ignoring the blood that seeped from the dying girl onto the legs of her khaki pants. One hand went to the girl's neck, checking the pulse. Even though the girl was far past saving –something the former-medic-in-training could see even without examining her patient– her heart continued to doggedly pump the blood through her broken body. But it wasn't fast enough to put the poor girl out of her misery. In fact, the muscle was doing its level best to prolong her life. Not that it knew any better. With a shaking hand, Allie probed the girl's wounds, hoping against hope that there was something she could do to save the older tribute. Even now –with four players left, and her chances of going home to her sister and her niece or nephew increasing with each kill– Allie would rather help the girl to recover than wait until she died. As with the others, she saw taking the life of something wounded –or leaving it to die when help could be provided– as despicable. But as her fingers came away stained with blood, the littlest tribute knew there was nothing she could do to save the girl. Instead, she simply pulled the shivering body in her lap. Gently, she brushed the dark hair from her face, smoothed the worried wrinkles from her brow.

And then the memories came.

Instead of a dark haired girl lying in front of her, Allie could see a thin, blonde haired young man, with angry red blisters covering his torso, neck, and face. Scalded from hot water that had spilled on him, burnt on the inside and out. The strangled breathing, rasping from a burnt out throat that couldn't scream. The little girl, shaking, holding him in her arms, as if she could change anything. Too afraid to let him go, too afraid that she would make things worse. Her big brother dying in her arms, and the little girl without the wherewithal to help him through it. That day –after watching him take three hours to die in her arms– she'd made a promise to him, and to herself. She could never, never let anyone else die that way again. It was a promise that hadn't meant all that much when it had been made, a worry for another day when a patient would be too far gone to save. But now, in the middle of the blistering arena with children dying in gruesome ways all around her it seemed utterly close. She would never let anyone die like that again. Not when she could take away their pain, lead them to peace. Her hand shook as she pulled her knife from her pocket, lining it up with the nape of the girl's neck, gently aligning the tip between two vertebrae. “I'm so sorry it had to end this way. It's a sick game, put on for their amusement. There's nothing else I can do, and I never wanted to be the one who killed you. Another kill to my name, isn't that how you put it? I didn't want any of them, not Bayleigh, not Belinda. And not you. Cora, I could have killed. Because of what she did to Troy. But I never wanted to kill you.” Her young voice shook audibly as she continued. “I promise it's kinder this way. I know, I learned the hard way. I had this same choice to make what seems like several lifetimes ago. And I made the wrong decision then. I was young, and I was scared, and I was weak. And my big brother suffered for three hours because of it. I won't be weak now.”

With those words, Allie plunged the blade of her knife into the girl's neck, severing her spinal cord with a single, painless thrust.

She let the girl spill onto the ground at the blast of the cannon, then adjusted her body as she had the rest. Eyes closed, hands clasped over her chest, face calm and serene. She stripped the quiver of arrows from the girl's back, gently fingering the Capitol-made shafts. With shaking hands, she picked up the gilded bow, testing it's give with her hands. Both were obviously carefully crafted to be deadly and swift, but oddly the little girl wished for the rough-hewn shafts she'd made for Troy, the bow she'd spent hours fashioning before the freeze had set in. But she shrugged off the emotional response, hefting them both over her shoulders. With quick hands, the girl searched the body, removing an empty canteen, and a small bottle that contained iodine tablets. Both of those things the girl tucked away, her hands shaking. “I'm sorry. I hope you're in a better place now. I like to think you are.” Gently, she re-adjusted the girl's body, eyes closed, hands clasped, hair tucked behind her ears. She took several deep, shuddering breaths, closing her eyes ans she swayed on her tired legs. The little girl knew she needed to move away, to allow the hovercraft to come and collect the girl to be taken home. But she was suddenly exhausted, ready to simply collapse next to the dead girl, sleep for as long as she could. Maybe until the games were over, no matter the result for her. Everything was pointless now, now that Cora was dead, and the proximal difficulty of the dying girl dealt with. Allie was tired, so tired. She staggered away from the girl, letting her legs propel her without thinking where they would take her. The sleep she'd been avoiding for the past two days came crashing down against her, dragging her down. Finally, the girl found herself at the edge of the lake, a few strides from a willow tree with thick, hanging branches. She made her way between the boughs, then finally allowed herself to stop, to sit, to close her eyes. By her judgment, it was between three and four o'clock in the morning, and she had at least a few hours before dawn would make her hiding place less secure. Taking a few sips of water from her canteen –she'd emptied the waterskins already, and was at least a quarter of the way into the canteen–, Allie allowed herself to drift off to sleep. Morning would come soon, and she would need to be ready.

If she could find enough reasons to continue, of course. 

a promise kept and a mercy kill

After hitting Aleks, Rhiannon took a step back, fully aware of what was coming next.  She trusted Aleks again, this time not trusting that he would not attack her, but she had complete trust that the career was going to end her life.  She was shocked at his reaction to her rage, but that didn't stop the hatred that she now had towards him.  However, none of that would matter, in a matter of minutes-maybe even seconds, her world would go black and everything would be over.  She would never make it back home to her family, there would be an empty seat at the dinner table, her things would be left untouched in her room, left from the morning of the Reaping.  Reed would no longer go running in the middle of the night to meet her at the church so they could hide, he would move on and find someone else.  Rhiannon's heart continued to pulse at a rapid speed as she saw Aleks draw back his bow, completely aware of what was coming.  She closed her eyes and said a quick prayer as the arrow pierced her chest and she felt warm blood dripping down her body.  The impact sent the girl backwards and she landed on her back, knocking out any wind she had left in her lungs, pain taking over her senses.  Her body relaxed and she blacked out.  Within moments, her breathing slowed and the ruby red blood continued to pour out.  Once Aleks saw that she was down and out, he left walking quietly away.

Within the hour she would die, but behind her ribcage, her heart continued to beat a slower steady pace and her body unconsciously writhed in pain.