To my great dismay, eventually my eyes open, revealing the dark nighttime sky, riddled with small pinpricks of light that, in another universe, could be called stars. 

A pain starts on the left side of my chest, spreading outwards towards my arm, the tips of my fingers. I recognize it as the dangerously deep wound below my heart, the stinging along my forearm. And yet, I am alive. 

Terra isn't, though. The thought hits me like a train, and a sob forces its way out of my throat, my whole body shuddering. 

A hand lands on my back, softer than the one that grabbed my hair just yesterday--was it yesterday? It could've been years ago; I could be home in Four, and I wouldn't know. Wouldn't want to know, with Terra gone. 

I shudder again, curling my legs closer to my chest, ignoring the small stab of pain that seems to come with moving, recently. How can I survive, without Terra? 

I can't. I can't I can't I can't...

"Hey, are you okay?" a voice asks, and I would like to scream that no, obviously, I am not okay! I have been stabbed in the heart because Terra is gone and I am projecting my sadness on national television, in a way that I'm sure will have everyone in all of Panem watching to see what psychopathic trail of thought I will follow next. 

Will Daphne leap up in a fit of rage, murdering everyone in the arena and taking the crown for herself? Will she curl into herself until she fades into nothingness? Or, least likely, will she get up and eat food, survive without the one she had called her reason for living?

I don't know the answer. I'm not ready to learn. 

"Daphne," says the voice, now clearly male. Apollo, maybe? 

A moment passes, a blink in the infinite void of time, more than an hour in the timeline I am unwillingly forced to follow. 

"C'mon, get up. We need to go," he says, Apollo says, and his voice is urgent enough to force my eyes open. "Oh, thank God, you're awake," he says, hand gripping my uninjured arm, too tight and it hurts. 

I stare at him for a moment, gaze meeting his own, but he looks away first, something akin to shame growing in his expression. 

"They got you real good, didn't they?" he says, and I begin to wonder if Apollo feels as if this is all his fault. His fault that Terra is dead, that I am in this state.

"You didn't kill her," I say, skipping the pleasantries, my shaky sentence accentuated with a cough that carries with it a few dreadful spots of blood. I stare at them for a while before wiping them on my sleeve, eventually finding Apollo watching me as well. 

"I should've stayed," he admits, proving my theory of his guilt. 

"We're in the Games," I answer, although his comment wasn't really a question. "It's not your fault. I don't blame you. She wouldn't either."

It takes a little bit to say, with breaks for deep breaths in and short-lived sobs. I wipe my eyes once again, eyes stinging red with an intensity that feels like it will never stop. 

He doesn't say anything, and there is a long break where we are both silent. To everyone's surprise (including mine), I am the one to break it. 

"Did you?..." I ask, trailing off, but he knows what I am suggesting when I gesture to the bandages covering my chest and arm. 

Apollo nods, and I watch his blond hair swishing slightly. It's grown out since the last time I've seen him, or maybe I just haven't been noticing. 

"Why?" I ask, preferring to keep my sentences short, in this situation. My throat feels terrible, my voice equally raspy. I don't know what from.

"You're my District partner," he says, seemingly not having the same throat problems I'm dealing with. "We have to stick together."

"You killed Orion and Vulcan," I remind him, as if anything in his pained expression suggests that he's forgotten. "For me."

"You endangered yourself with that girl from Two so she wouldn't shoot me, on the first day," he responds. 

Two emotions flash through my brain: annoyance, at his naming of Terra as 'that girl from Two,' and surprise, because I didn't think he would notice me moving her arrow.

It feels like forever ago. It feels as if years have passed since that initial countdown, since the bloodbath began and my old life ended, for good. I am a changed girl, for the better and for the worse. 

It was inevitable, it was expected, and yet, still it hurts. 

Terra will never be changed. She didn't have the chance to turn into my father, to receive the glory she so desperately deserved. I would have sacrificed myself for her, had she asked. We could have switched spots--I would be the dead body on the beach, she would be the murderer leaping from the shadows, ready to attack those willing to kill me. 

We would never have both survived to the end, of course, but I would have been content with second place. I would have been fine with it, if it meant Terra got to take first. 

Instead, she runs a lousy tenth place, nine whole tributes beating her out for the (apparently) respectable title of victor. And tenth place she will stay, until she is forgotten by history, the blonde girl who tried, who tried so hard, but in the end, lost. Badly, but not badly enough to be remembered. 

"Don't talk about Terra like that," I snap after a moment of hesitation, and we are both surprised at my sudden outburst. He backs up, hands moving from where they had been resting on my arm. A trace of his old personality resurfaces on his expression, and I wince. 

We are both silent for a long, awkward moment, and this time I am not going to be the one to break it. 

"We really need to go," Apollo repeats, along with a glance towards the mouth of the cave I am just now realizing we are in. It's raining outside, the pattering of rain on stone and leaves filling the air, along with the defined scent of petrichor. I inhale deeply, letting it fill my nostrils, until I remember that Terra will never again smell the rain as it falls from the sky, and my slight happiness fades. 

"They're hunting us?" I ask, although we both know it is not a question, it is an inevitability. Taura and her group of murderous misfits will have their sights set on me and Apollo, being the last two (potential) careers left alive. We are not dangerous--or, at least, I am not--but Taura doesn't know that. We are classified as careers, and yet we are outnumbered, so instead we are called targets. 

I shiver, and not just from the cold. An image flashes through my brain of Taura's spear through my gut, through Apollo's head, and I wonder if Terra will be waiting for me in the afterlife, if such a thing even exists. 

When I look down, my gaze finds my hand involuntarily applying soft pressure to the wound right below my heart, and I look to Apollo again, gaze questioning and eyebrows narrowing as I begin to harbor a slight suspicion towards his honesty. "How'd you get me away from them? The last thing I remember was passing out."

He can't seem to meet my eyes, which only proves to grow my doubts. 

"They left you," he says finally. I frown, decidedly giving up on appearances for the sake of my survival. 

"Why would they ever leave me? I'd be an easy kill." 

The words come out sharper than I'd expected, hitting me too close to home with their truth. 

"You were..." he starts, taking a breath and pursing his lips, "well, you looked pretty dead, to be honest. I'm guessing they thought you'd just bleed out."

Another frown, and I stand, leaning against the wall. "That's bullshit. Taura's not that dumb. She'd just kill me then, easy."

Apollo meets my gaze, the look in his blue eyes defiant. "I saved your life, you don't get to call bullshit. Does it even matter? You're fine now."

"But Terra's not!" I snap, the words leaping from my mouth before I have any chance to review them. Apollo seems taken aback, realization dawning in his expression. 

"Oh," he says, but it is not a comment aimed at my outburst, more at my words, at something he is just now figuring out. I don't know how he didn't see it earlier, but that's not my business, anyways. 

I remember the day of our reaping, the day my life changed, for the better and for the worst. If I hadn't been reaped, I would never have met Terra. And yet, if I had not chosen to volunteer, I would not have lost her, either. 

It seemed like such simple times, back then. The sun was warm on my face, the quiet cries of seabirds. There are no birds in the arena, at least that I've seen. There are small ground mammals: rabbits, squirrels, others I haven't seen yet. But there are no birds. 

My hand grasped Apollo's, all those days ago, and as we raised our clasped fists in unity, in hope, a small part of me truly believed I could do it. Really, how hard could it be? Every year, someone won. It wasn't rare for that person to be of District Four. Why not me?

Now, I see why not me. I see it in Apollo's eyes as he looks at me, the pity flooding his expression, replacing his previous remorse. 

He feels bad for me. He thinks I am weak. 

He's not wrong. 

okayyy i think this is my chunkiest chapter yet! it's 1690 words, which is absolutely insane. also not super interesting, just trying to force myself to work on my dialogue and make conversations last longer. i haven't realllyyy decided on the next part of the plot, but i think it'll be interesting! ;)

<3