｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆
𝔤𝔞𝔪𝔢 𝔬𝔣 𝔰𝔲𝔯𝔳𝔦𝔳𝔞𝔩
dix. — the first kill!

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"How did you manage to get all of this?"

Elpis questioned Sol in the early evening a few hours after the girl had saved her life. After finding a spot to make camp and eating dinner they decided to lay all their supplies out and combine them. Elpis knew she needed an ally to watch her back if she wanted to survive, but as she gazed at the surplus of equipment before her she wondered who this girl was. Laid out before them was; a large selection of dried food, several bottles of water, weapons that ranged from knives to a molotov cocktail, a strange pair of sunglasses that Sol explained as glasses that let her see at night, torches and the gas mask that she had been wearing when they had met, "This is insane, there's no way you could have managed to lift this all from the Cornucopia."

"During the bloodbath I knew I had to play it smart if I wanted any supplies, so when everyone was busy fighting I wiped the blood of one of the tributes that had already died all over my neck and face, played dead and waited," Sol shrugged nonchalantly as she took a sip of water, "it wasn't too long before all the Careers left to hunt the other tributes and I made my move."

"That is the most stupidly brilliant thing I've heard in a long time," Elpis released a breathless laugh that sounded slightly hollow to her own ears, "what's with the gas mask then?"

The other girl clutched it in her hands and shrugged, "I'm not much of a threat to look at, but when I wear this mask they don't know who I am, it seems to trigger something in them and they usually run in the opposite direction."

"Fear of the unknown." Elpis mused quietly to herself, impressed by the girl's survival skills, "Get some rest, I'll take the first watch."

"How do I know I can trust you not to kill me in my sleep?"

"You can't," Elpis shrugged thinking back on her conversation with Finnick, "you can't trust anyone in here," or out there, "but in here you need someone to watch your back — so you can either stick with me or take your chances on your own. It's your decision."

Sol stared at her intently for a few long moments, eyes narrowed as she scanned the girl's emotionless face, before finally pulling out three spiked throwing stars from her pocket, "Here that makeshift spear is pitiful, if you're on watch you need a proper weapon. I saw your aim in the training centre."

Elpis took the sharp metal objects in her hands with a nod of thanks, twirling them a little as they glinted in the darkness. The Capitol symbol appeared in the sky and the faces of the boy from eleven and the girl from two burning into their minds, "Well that's one Career down."

Sol smiled sleepily at her before tucking herself into Elpis' sleeping bag. Breathing in a sigh of relief when she heard the younger girl's breath even out, Elpis rested her head on her knees for a long moment, the events of the day finally catching up with her. She eyed the bruises and scrapes that littered her arms for a long while, her shoulder ached and her chin stung so she was sure she had bruises and scrapes in those areas too.

Elpis had almost died.

From a stupid mistake of simply leaning against a bush, she allowed her guard to lower for a moment too long and had Sol not been there she would've simply been another face in the sky that night, forgotten almost immediately leaving behind less than a handful to mourn her death.

It had been at that moment that she realised just how much she didn't want to die, not in the arena for the Capitol to gaup at as her life drained from her. Some would cry, and some would cheer but her face would fade from their minds almost instantaneously.

It made her sick.

Her own incapability made her sick too though she knew deep down buried under layers of self-loathing it was not entirely her fault. Elpis was the type of person who valued predictability more than imagination, she relied on her past experiences to guide her, and was most comfortable in familiar surroundings. The Games were unfamiliar and unpredictable at times, something that left Elpis feeling strangely vulnerable as she struggled to gain control of her surroundings only to remember that her current surroundings were being manipulated for entertainment.

Elpis spent so much time thinking that night that she hadn't even noticed that she had forgotten to switch shifts until the sun rose in the sky and her overtired eyes were burning from the light. She made a start on breakfast for herself and Sol, using the rabbit meat the other girl had caught. It was amusing watching the younger girl wake up as though she didn't have a care in the world, the scent of breakfast making her nose twitch in her sleep as she awoke slowly, "Is it morning already?"

The girl spoke through a yawn making her words hard to decipher as she stumbled out of the sleeping bag on unsteady feet, "Yeah, I figured you needed the rest and I owed you one for yesterday."

"What's the plan of action then?" Sol sat down in front of her, the small and dying fire that had been used to cook breakfast already having been stamped out, remaining as a barrier between them, "What do we do now?"

"We stick close to the water, try and find if it leads anywhere and try and stay away from the other tributes," Elpis sighed running her fingers through her hair which was already fading to a more strawberry blonde, "we wait for them to kill each other off, and when there's five of us left we split up and hope someone else kills the other one of us."

Sol frowned as she listened to the plan of action but decided not to voice her thoughts just yet. Murderous thoughts that had the Career pack at the centre of them, "Morbid."

"Realistic." The two of them finished their breakfast in relative silence, before dividing their supplies up so they had an equal amount of weight to carry and set off on their day.

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"Okay, what did I do?"

"What do you mean?" Elpis questioned with her usual frown in place as Sol wandered behind her at a leisurely pace.

"You look like you want to rip my head off."

Elpis scoffed, her brows furrowing as she turned to the girl who was now walking beside her, "That's just my face."

"You should really work on that then," Sol shrugged as the older girl turned to her with narrowed eyes, "you didn't look at that Melody girl like that though."

"Mallory," the words were hissed through gritted teeth, Sol jumping slightly in shock. After spending a few hours with the girl she had come to learn the girl spoke of most things with a detached slightly cold tone, and yet in that moment it was filled with venom and passion, "her name was Mallory, Mal."

"Sorry," Sol shrunk into herself a little, but quickly recovered, "you cared for her?"

All she received back was a distant hum as the other girl tried to ignore her presence, "My district partner Azo was so cocky, said he didn't want me holding him back. Funny thing is when I finally made it into the maze I found him. He fell into a pit of spikes probably not even five minutes into the games," Sol shuddered at the memory, "guess me and you are proof that it's not all brawn in this game."

"No it's not," Elpis placed her arm out so the girl could walk no further as she held a finger to her lips in a gesture to be quiet. She reached for one of the throwing stars as she hovered in the spot just before they would turn the corner, "it's a game of chance."

The words were spoken in a low hiss that Sol had to strain her ears to hear when the taller girl suddenly struck. Elpis did a forward roll and passed the protection of the shrubs as she threw the star with a starting speed, the silver only a mere whisper in the wind before it made contact with flesh.

Elpis stayed crouched low to the floor as she watched the girl's body drop to the floor — the sight of the star embedded into the other girl's forehead forever burned into her mind. It was eierlie silent for Elpis as her ears rang and those few seconds stretched out on an endless loop for eternity. The feeling's stirring inside her were impossible to pinpoint as she felt both akin to an impenetrable block of steel and a fragile china teacup ready to shatter into a million pieces.

( WHY HAD IT BEEN SO EASY? )

She promptly fell completely to her knees and vomited, the acidic taste burning the inside of her throat as she tried to keep her eyes dry, refusing to give the camera's the satisfaction of seeing her cry. In that moment she truly hated herself for memorising the names and districts of her fellow tributes, perhaps it would have been easier if she didn't know anything about the girl.

Ivy, District nine. Her first kill.

A young freckled face haunted her behind closed lids as her whole body shook with involuntary tremors. Elpis forced herself to breathe deeply as she repeated Finnick's words in her mind killorbekilledkillorbekilled. Though she knew the acts she would have to commit in the arena would haunt her for life, at least she would be alive for them to haunt her. Dying in the arena under the Capitol's thumb for the world to witness was not an option.

As she washed her mouth out with water, Sol took the task of removing the blade from the girl's skull with a few moments of struggle. Elpis was staring blankly ahead when the younger girl presented her with the blade that she had hastily tried and failed to wipe down, "Come on, El — we've gotta keep moving," Sol frowned at the clouds brewing overhead, "looks like there's a storm brewing."

Sure enough when Elpis looked up she found rapidly greying clouds descending on the once clear sky until they were bathed in a darkened glow that made the maze appear all the more sinister. A storm certainly was brewing.

AUTHORS NOTE!
I'm so sorry for the long wait for this chapter! I honestly just don't even notice time passing anymore tbh all the months have blurred together lmaoo.

I know this is a shorter chapter than usual but I just wanted to get something out there and I'm so excited cause I've just hit 20k words on this story which is so fun!

Remember to vote, comment and or share please lovelies if you enjoyed <333

Unedited
—summer