Hours flashed by. No one could pinpoint exactly the time that it was Pavement became the last standing but everyone knew what happened directly afterward. He remembered. Pavement stood, unable to sit, unable to function, an entire week later and he waited for the time where it would all come flying back. They said that he was in shock before, but he wasn't. There wasn't a moment where he forgot or woke up thinking it never happened. All the lies they'd told him, the sweet lies they made movies and books out of, they were just that. Lies.

Pavement could never forget. It was a fact he was constantly aware of, as he sustained no head injuries and getting drunk only made them sharper, tenser. The thoughts were there and he didn't pretend that they weren't. For that too would be a lie.

He was tired of lies.

Memories were moments and moments were life, yet he had no memory of life. Just death. Just the cannons of those he knew and those he wished he had never known. People, things, they all became objects after the games.

He was tired of games.

"There is only before and after," he whispered. Trembles overcame him the way waves did the ocean. Up, down, he tried to keep himself above the waves. Higher than zero. Warm, alive, and yet to drown. Afloat, even though he'd lost his buoy.

Pavement only desired one thing in life and that would never, ever be returned.

Creeks sounded and fell as the door opened. A handle turned and a breath was inhaled. Slowly. Softly. A scared man a scuttled in and stood across the table, inferior next to the mass of muscles and man dressed up to his very best. He was nothing compared to the boy with the pretty face and scarred life. The tiny man was well dressed but resembled a child in several ways, as though he had never grown from boyhood. "He-hello," the man started. His voice was his stutter. Any other time, Pavement would've wanted to jump his bones and scream aloud. But the games had ended.

So had he.

"Cyril, isn't it?" Pavement asked, voice steady and chilled to the core. "It's over. What more do you want? My interview isn't for a few more minutes."

"I-I needed to ta-talk to y-you," he said. If he continues on I'm going to kill him. It was a simple statement with no emotion attached. A reminder that it would never end. I can leave the arena but the arena can't leave me. "I-I-I wanted to te-tell y-you that I-I am sorry."

"For?" For killing them? For forcing us all in an arena and making us kill and maim for fun? For training up generations of bloodthirsty fiends? For making me care and proving why the Career life is the only right choice? For showing me why caring hurts worse than anything?

I would rather die then be in love.

But I don't get a choice now, do I? You took away all my choices and nothing will ever bring them back. Nothing will bring him back.

Muscles bulging, Pavement waited for the answer. Breath heavy and heart beating too hard, he wanted nothing more than the adrenaline rush and to have a set of hands at his throat. For a sword in his hands and blood coating him.

For the arena to return.

Instead, the ground was solid and unchanging. It was warm, not freezing. The man before him was a child, but not wielding weapons or filled with adrenaline filled hate. He held a package in his hands and played with it as he stuttered. "They-they told me about the heart," he said at last.

His jaw clenched.

"They-they wo-wouldn't let you keep-keep-keep it. I-I-I am so-sorry. I know they wo-wouldn't let you and I-I-I wanted to, to give you this..." Cyril, looking forlorn, slid the package across the table.

Pavement stared down at it, not wanting to pick up the fragile looking package. It was round yet square shaped, a squoval design, with squiggles that he assumed was handwriting all across it. "Fragile" it read, the handwriting almost as bad as his voice. It could have only been Cyril's.

"What is it?" he asked. Thrums, a magnitude of pain, refused to slow and became a steady beat of anger that refused to stop. The longer he went without knowing the more it grew. "What is it?!"

Outside the room came the distant sound of cannon. He flinched. Laughter rumbled throughout the entire building as an audience rewatched the ending ceremonies.

A sound had drawn everyone back to the center--perhaps it was the large number in the sky, a bold four, that led them all to draw closer. Or perhaps the freezing temperatures that slowly burnt at Pavement's extremities. Thick and muscled as he was, there was no fat there to provide enough warmth. No longer could he rely on Sam to warm him or their dirtied blankets to keep him happy. Only death was left and the arena knew it. Frost froze itself and hit the ground in chunks, every exhale a fog of white that hung around only to use the wetness against them and glaze their cheeks with ice.

"Are you ready?" Pavement asked them. Am I ready? No one wanted to respond, instead only warily watching. Eyes didn't want to see. Ears didn't want to listen. Hearts didn't want to beat.

And yet, they did.

There were weapons left out from before, mostly swords both dull and sharp alike. Choices, but we are the true choices. As the tornado grew and lapped at their sides with icy heat both Pavement and Myra reached for them. A duel to the death. It was now or never and he was finally ready to win.

Like lightning they struck, sparks flying and catching flame in the air as they parted. Myra let out a gasp of a laugh, "I never figured the end was near!"

Pavement too laughed, but no smile found home on his face. There was no joy in winning. "I know," he told her. He trusted forward, slicing into her arm as she kicked him in the leg. Pain rushed up but he ignored it to pull out the weapon. Another attack and both grunted, a cry escaping Myra's lips as she rammed her sword through his side.

Crimson, sharp against the white, and the wind burnt through faster and harsher than the blade. Gasping, he dropped to the ground, barely blocking her next attacks. Shit! Fucking hell, that bitch stings.

"It's a replica," Cyril said.

Again, a flinch. A shake. Tears are at Pavement's eyes, the edges blurred and the throb growing louder and thicker than anything else. It's happening. I have to kill them, he thought. Memories were caught in the past and lost beyond repair. Sam. I have to kill Sam.

Cyril didn't exist.

"I-I-I had them se-search through his records and they--they copied it for you," he said. Except it wasn't his voice. It wasn't his face. It was strong, not weak, and handsome in ways too irresistible to name. Green eyes, not brown, stared deep into his. Lips of pink and delectable plumps opened and Sam's tongue flicked out to lick over them. Then, the memory. The arena. The swirling mass of pain and ice that melted into itself.

Christina lay in pieces as the flames of ice rose and licked up the sides of her arms. Hisses and squeals came from the frozen flames. Heat, in all it's exalted glory, swamped them, melting everything that Pavement had come to know as truth. Verity broke down into pieces and hit the ground with a clatter as a fury of hot and cold mixed. It swirled around with the driving power of a super tornado.

The trees became illusions, shifting and melting, combustion changing them into gas as explosions rocked the  world.

Sam stood in wait, his chest heaving greatly. Blood ran down his face in thick icicles, dripping just barely to the ground. His stained hands held tight to the weapons in them. "Pave," he croaked. "Pave."

"Shh," he whispered, "it's okay."

"She's the last one. It's just us now, Pave."

It's just us now.

It'll only be just us, Sam. Hands balled into fists, Pavement slammed into the table. The package shook. "What is in the fucking package?!"

Cyril screamed, a short cry of shock. "It's him!" he shouted, then he ran out, leaving Pavement alone the same as everyone else had. No one ever stayed. His parents had only seen him an hour since he won and that was only to tell him that he would be living alone. Though he didn't mind that he minded the quiet and the still and the absence of a warm, tall soul with dark hair and a darker, bloodied heart.

A heart that took a sword to pierce and a week to steal. A heart that had already stolen his from the first night, when he'd awoken to the ties and demanded to be set free. Moderately deep, his voice had spoken wonders and had made threats and promises with no intention of keeping them. Lies had built the man and lies had set him free. Despite the blood, muscle, and cells that made up the heart, it was the bits of warmth in the freezing night, the half-poems and small smiles, the occasional chuckle and the gasps of pain that truly built it. Pavement had held it in his hands, he knew every inch of it, had felt the last beats and had watched as the life drained as it was pulled out.

He had felt the cold scream and had heard the last words Samuel Markaine of District Two ever spoke.

"It's okay to kill me," Pavement told him.

"I don't want to kill you."

Swirls of putrid death filled the air, thick and salty in taste. "I understand," Pavement said, "I just don't want to be alone anymore."

"I can't kill you."

"Why not?"

The package teased and taunted him. There it was, only seconds away from being ripped apart and dissected, yet he held no want to. Pavement was a mass of muscle yet he didn't have the strength to open it himself.

The blood. It fell in rivets. Neither boy could take it anymore, and one lingering glance from Sam said it all. Pain had become too much for him and the words fumbled in his mouth. "It'll...be...okay," he said. "I won't...leave you." Sam coughed, the red so bright it could destroy entire cities. "Win for me, Paul...win for me."

The sword.

The blood.

The cannon.

"It's over," he whispered. "I won't open it. The games are over. He's gone. I'll never have him again. I dropped him, I let him go. I can't have him. I lied."

Pavement held the heart tenderly in his hands and felt the sticky blood warm him as he waited for the end to come. All the cannons had sounded--all but his. It was the end and yet all he could think was a name, pounding through his body almost as hard as the kiss had. "Sam."

He had loved and he had killed, and finally it was done. "Thank you for giving me your heart, Sam. I'll never drop it again."

"I can't open it."

Hands, faster than he, held him by the shoulders. Thick gloves and impersonal masks that hid who they were. Lies and Capitol mutts. That's all they were. Pavement screamed at them. "No! I won't hand him over to you! You can't have him!"

One shook his head, gun raised and pointed at his head. "Drop it," he commanded.

"No. No, no, no. I won. I fucking won. You can't take this away from me too!"

"They took it. It's gone," he muttered. Yet his fingers itched and the paper was rough, delightfully so. He opened it.

With the slightest flick of the tip of his weapon, an entire group of people stood, all wielding the same type of gun. Pavement didn't care. He could die. All he wanted was Sam. Sam was there, alive, in his hands. Sam wasn't going to leave him, not like everyone else had. Death would not force their part but rather it would bring them together--forever would Pavement care for him.

No one could ever hurt Sam again.

"Drop the heart!" he shouted, the command deeper. They all moved in close and the helicopter still refused to lift into the air.

No escape from the arena.

"Stop! Fucking stop it!"

Pavement had no weapons to help him, none that could get them to stop prying it out of his hands. They stole it from him and no amount of kicks of hits could stop then. Muscles had become soup, for he had used up all of his strength. It left his hands and he slumped to the floor. With it, he was no more. Sam. Sam, don't leave me. Please, Sam...

Mushed, the matter dropped thickly onto the floor, clumps of blood drying as it hit. The tears streamed down faster than that and his voice grew soft and desperate. Please, don't go...I can't survive without you.

"Please. Give it back. It's all I have of him. I need him. Give him back. I can't live without him. Not again. Please," he whispered. A lump formed in his throat, masking swallowing and breathing near impossible. Hitches of high pitched sobs rose and fell in uneven patterns that screamed out what he could not bear to say. The three words he never told. The eight letters and two spaces never shown to Sam.

I loved him.

Cyril was gone. The door slammed shut behind him, an echo of a smaller man who would never be big. Light glinted from the green and showed flickers of life inside it. Green, the color of eyes that would never be. Green, the symbol of death and life. Green, the color of spring and an escape from an endless winter of memories and thoughts that surpassed all else.

Green, the color of the glass heart now held in Pavement's hands.

It was a useless color.

"Fucking Sam," he said. Then he picked up the heart, holding it high into the air, and the tears fell down stronger than ever. Cleansing his body and mind, they left the arena behind. They left the pain behind. "I have you again. You didn't leave me."

It finally hit him--the epiphany that was so often spoken of. Thoughts, not random, but true, coursing through his mind. Telling the true story, the one that he had been searching for the entire time. The story of Pavement.

Even as he got cracked they patched it back up. Pavement held up pavement. Mixes of tan and white and small rocks intermingled with one another, the pebbles forming a bigger, solid rock. No confusion, only layers. No contradictions, only incorrect patterns for a mismatched heart. Nothing was needed, no outside materials, no other people. All he ever needed was himself.

It took an entire Hunger Games, but he finally figured it out. The question everyone asked but so few ever found the answer to. "Who am I?"

Paul Afflvement.

Pavement.