Hawberry meets my gaze, almost pitiful. "I didn't do that for you," he says, voice rough. 

"I know," I respond, although I didn't, not fully.

"This is the Games," he says, because apparently he feels like talking. I don't mind. I can see his terror in the way his hands are shaking around the hilt of his scythe, his eyes wide and mouth just slightly ajar--terror not of me, but death itself. He just killed. It's natural. "It's what you have to--it's what you have to do."

"I know," I repeat, not condescendingly. 

We don't mention the unspoken words I am thinking, a repetitive mantra: don't kill me. Grant me mercy, Hawberry, keep me alive.  

He won't do it, I know. But there is always hope. Hope exists in all places, in all people, no matter how cold and frozen-over their heart has become. Hope finds a way. 

I stand, dagger still frozen in my grip, Taura's lifeless body lying between us. I try not to look at her--it--but fail miserably, eyes scanning her cold skin, the eternal mask of shock she will never be rid of. 

I almost feel sorry for her. 

No, I do feel sorry for her. I feel sorry for her because no one is born evil--some people find a way into insanity, and many find a way out. It's not Taura's fault she was the way she was. It's not her fault she was pulled into the force field of psychopathy, dragged into the depths of ruthlessness. She didn't have a choice in the matter. 

Hawberry steps closer to me, brandishing his scythe. "She's dead."

I nod. 

"That means there's three of us left... right? Did you hear that little girl's cannon?"

"No," I breathe, watching his blade carefully, just in case this is all a fake, planned to distract me. "No, I'm pretty sure Lua's alive."

"But not a threat," he finishes, and it's not wrong, so I don't respond.

"Then it's just you and me." In his expression, there is no trace of Taura's indomitable rage. And yet, he's not Wyatt, either, with his constant second-guessing and empathy. 

Hawberry is his own, unique person (as we all are, of course). When he meets my eyes, I find pity, and remorse for what is about to happen, and although I do not find confidence, there is a hint of determination that shakes me. 

Hawberry is not an evil person. He is not lethal by nature. 

But we all would do whatever it takes to survive. 

He raises his scythe. 

I turn, and I run. 

Towards the beach this time, though. I don't know what carries me--maybe it's the thought of Terra that consistently plagues my mind, or maybe it's a pure lust to see the water that covers my homeland one last time before I die. But, nonetheless, before I know it I am submerged and I am swimming, desperately gasping for air between strokes as I dive towards the island: Terra's island. 

I whisper a silent prayer between the waves. To Terra, this time, to the ghost of what once was. I know she did not feel quite the same way as me, not nearly with the same intensity. But I also know that Terra cared for me, that she harbored some small sort of love deep within her heart, even if she was afraid to share it. 

I pray to her ghost, to the spirit that was released here just days before, to the blood that still stains the sand where her body was laid to rest. 

I hear Hawberry behind me, hesitating at the shore, watch him grip his scythe harder and start into the waves. They are mercifully calm today, lapping against the sandy shore with a soft, slow rhythm. 

I make it to the island long before I imagine Hawberry will, wind whistling through my ears as I sprint to the other side, preparing myself for a final face-off. My eyes scan the two palm trees on either side of the small island, and I wonder if they are climbable--probably not, but it couldn't hurt to try, right?

Oh, it could, though. I could fall, and that would hurt. It could be fatal, if Hawberry got to me first.

So I don't try.

Instead, I look up towards the whirling sky, where the clouds have suddenly flared up, the wind almost knocking me down with its force. 

I feel the urge to recite a controversial soliloquy, a strong paragraph to finish my life off with. I don't suppress it, as I normally would. Because this may very well be the last moment, the last time I will ever have any substance in this material world, and it is just my luck that I am to be televised. That everyone in Panem will be watching right now, eagerly awaiting my death. 

"I don't regret it," I stutter, and find it is almost true. "I don't regret any of it, because it's what I needed to do, and..."

A tear drips down the side of my face, quickly being whipped away by the howling wind, but I wipe my eyes nonetheless. 

Eventually, I steel my expression. There is nothing that can be said about these Games that will ever be wholly true or false. They are evil--but then again, what is the deaths of twenty-four children to the overall massacre that would occur if the Districts were to rebel again? 

"Actually," I correct myself, even though my voice still shakes. "I regret all of it. If I could go back to two weeks ago, I would do everything different. I was a coward, and I'm ready to admit that. I'm ready to say that it was horrible. I'm not going to lie and pretend that I always made the right choices, or that nothing was ever my fault just because I avoided action."

I don't know where the cameras are--there are probably a few around the inner dome, and maybe some hidden in the leaves of the palm trees, and so I stare off into the distance, watching the forest be pushed around by this unrelenting wind, unsure of what else to say, of what else would even matter. 

And then I turn, because although it hasn't been very long, it's been too long, hasn't it? Hawberry should be here by now--should be attacking me now, that strange, remorseful expression of his sticking. But he's not. 

And when I look out at the churning waves, turned wild by the growing wind, I don't see him. 

Thunder cracks, and lightning strikes a tree far off in the distance, orange licks of fire consuming the trunk, quickly doused by the newborn rain. This precipitation soaks my clothes and leaves me shivering as thunder cracks again, yet this time, when I glance around, searching for the accompanying strike of lightning, I don't find it. 

I move away from the palm trees, knowing that at the next strike, they are the tallest object--they'll catch fire first, and I don't want to be around for that.

But the palm trees are not the most dangerous thing right now; Hawberry is. He's disappeared, and I have no idea where he is, no way to find him. He could be on the island by now! Probably is, honestly. There is a very good chance he's waiting down by the far shore, or maybe behind one of the trees, quietly plotting my demise. 

My hand grips my dagger tighter, because after all of this, I have to survive. How many people have died because of me? How many have sacrificed their own lives in favor of mine?

I don't think I'm willing to kill Hawberry, but I do think I am willing to defend myself, to perform necessary self-defense. That's just expected, isn't it? It's human instinct. I can't deny instinct.

I can, though. I've been doing it this entire Games. My philosophy is that you can deny anything if you try hard enough--nothing is set in stone, everything is fluid, flexible.

Suddenly, the storm stops. The wind subsides, the rain pulls itself back into the clouds, and the thunder is done with itself. 

The entire world seems to still, as if some celestial being hit pause on their remote of the universe. My own breath in my throat, heavy and gasping, is the only proof I can find that I am still alive.

The clouds part slightly and a shape descends from within them, silver and circular--a hovercraft. It reaches long, metal arms into the ocean, and retracts the body of a sixteen-year-old boy from the water, his arms hanging off the sides as he is carried into the machine, and then taken away, never to be seen again. 

My breath catches in my throat, and the storm stalls with it. 

Hawberry is dead.