Chapter 19: Memory and Blood

Alhaitham- Admonishing Instruction

I sit up clutching my throat, gasping for air. Then I look around. I'm just in a cave. I need to chill. It was just a dream...right?

Blood rains down from the sky. Everyone is gone. The games have consumed everything. Everyone and everything I once loved is gone. I scream, there's nothing else to be done.

I shake my head. Just a dream.

Maya must have heard me gasp earlier because when I look down at her, she's staring at me, her face plastered with a worried expression.

"You ok?" She asks.

"Yeah I'm fine." I replied "Just a bad dream. I'm sorry if I woke you up."

"It's fine, it's about time I woke up anyway."

Maya pulled her hair into a braid and let it drape a little past her shoulders. While she's doing this, I pick up my hoodies from the floor, dust them off, and then put them into a small travel bag that I brought with me.

Eventually Maya sits down, laying the back of her head on the obsidian wall and closes her eyes.

"What is it?" I ask Maya while sitting beside her.

I know that whenever she's in a pose with her eyes closed such as this, that means that she is in deep thought.

"I'm thinking about things before the Hunger Games started." She whispered.

"Anything specific?" I ask.

"Christmas eve."

I sigh before copying her position and recalling the old memory on Christmas Eve.

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"Is she here yet?" Maya asks anxiously.

Me, Ame, Chloe, and Kaveh are all gathered up at Maya's house. All we're waiting for is one of Maya's friends, Addie, to show up.

All of a sudden, the doorbell rings.

"I got it!" Kaveh and Maya screamed at the same time before running to the door.

"Careful-" I start to say but it's too late.
Both of them run smack into the door. Both of them fall to the floor, Maya clutching her shoulder in pain, Kaveh clutching his face.

After a moment, Maya gets up and opens the door.

"Addie!" Maya screams, throwing her arms around her friend.

"Nice to see you too." Addie says while laughing.

Eventually when we're all settled, we decide to watch a Nightmare Before Christmas.

"I thought a Nightmare before Christmas was a Halloween movie." Kaveh states.

"It's a Christmas movie, that's official." Ame says.

"Halloween!"

"Christmas!"

"You guys." Addie calmly interrupts. "It's literally called a Nightmare Before Christmas, It's a Christmas and a Halloween movie."

That shuts Ame and Kaveh up.

Everyone's eyes are glued to the screen, and occasionally their popcorn or hot chocolate.

Eventually I feel something hard hit my shoulder and look down to see that Maya fell asleep on my shoulder. I pull the blanket further up her to where only her head is peeking out. I look at everyone else and see that I'm the only one awake.

I sigh before leaning my head on top of Maya's and falling asleep.

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The morning of Christmas I wake up and see that Ame , Maya , and Addie are missing from the room.

I go to the kitchen and see that they are checking out some kind of blood test kit, Addie is baking cookies for everyone in the kitchen

"Ok so...basically this thing says you withdraw blood and then it's supposed to tell you your future." Ame says.

"You know I'm not superstitious right?" I ask Ame.

"I know, It'll be fun though."

"It'll be painful too."

Maya stood up.

"We should wake everyone else up." Maya says.

"Please wake everyone else up before the cookies get cold." Addie calls from the kitchen.

I sigh before retreating to the living room and sitting down on the couch. A few moments later, Maya enters.

"I didn't know you were an early waker." She says to me.

"Well I am now...I guess." I reply, hinting uncertainty in my voice.

"Help me wake the rest up?"

"Any excuse to slap Kaveh across the face."

Eventually we woke everyone up, and I ended up slapping Kaveh in the face. Let's just say he wasn't very happy. We eventually make them come to the Dining room

After explaining the "future told by blood" thing, we began. Everybody withdrew some blood and inserted it into the kit. We waited a bit before looking at the color of the blood. Then we took our fortune slips based on that.

"Mine says: the moon will be beautiful ahead, you won't be the one to notice it however" Addie says.

"Mine is: my loved ones will fade around me." Chloe says with a sob.

"Mine is: you will be taken down both in a card game, and in real life." Kaveh says with a nervous laughter. "I think they mean TCG, right?"

"Mine says that separation will occur, from the ones I love with my heart and soul." Ame says.

"Mine says that: love has losses, and you will be somebody to experience that." Maya says casually.

I look down at mine.
"Mine says that...The world will fade around you, somewhere better awaits you in the near future, somewhere away from the world." I say.

"ALHAITHAM'S GONNA DIE?!?!" They all screamed at me.

"Chillax you guys." I say to them. "It's just a fortune slip after all...I'm not going anywhere soon."

"Please don't." Kaveh says. "Who will be there to steal my house keys then?"

"Even though that was a couple of years ago...do you still think you're gonna die like the fortune slip said?" Maya asks me with that worried expression on her face again.

I gently wrap an arm around her shoulder for comfort.

"Like I said all those years ago, I'm not going anywhere." I said to her.

"Do you think those fortune slips might be right?" She asks.

"What makes you think that all of a sudden?" I ask her.

"Albedo and Klee are dead...They are Chloe's husband and niece. Kazuha is dead-somebody Ame loved...The phrase "The moon is so beautiful tonight" means I love you...maybe somebody told that to Addie."

I think about what she said just now. Could it be true?

"I'm really scared for you..." She whispers.

"Hey," I whispered, "Like I said many times...I'm not going anywhere."

"What do we do now?" She whispers.

What happens now? The world will fade away. My screams are drowned out by the sound of blood gushing in the river. My nostrils are filled with the scent of blood. My mind grows fuzzy as everything fades away. The last thing I see is a crimson moon.

A crimson moon? All of a sudden I gasp

"What is it?" Maya asks.

"My dream, the crimson moon,the fatui attack, the blood...Arlecchino is helping run the games."

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