Hi! This is my eighth oneshot for the Caesar's Palace Color Challenge. It's a great challenge, check it out! All the prompts are colours, and so far I've done Green, Pink, Brown, White, Gray, Bronze and Rainbow. This is Red: Interlock. I've been wanting to do the Female Morphling's story for a while, so this somehow ended up written :)

This story is formed with three interlocking stories. If you're confused, imagine this: the three stories are A, B and C. This is the format: A B C A B C etcetera.

Hope you enjoy it! Kara x

Interlock

The female morphling from District Six wasn't always that way. Nobody ever is. There's always a story, a reason. In her case, there were three stories that all interlock into one-the story of the scarlet juice, the boy who snapped and the painted flower.

The first six years of Calliope Asker's life are bliss. She lives in a ramshackle and far-too-small house, but it's home and that's all that ever mattered. Yes, sometimes she yells at Mommy that she's still hungry when Mommy firmly insists, no more food; sometimes she might sulk when Daddy tells her to go to bed early; occasionally the thought of the new life growing inside Mommy's belly fills her with burning jealousy. But for the most part they're a happy, young family, completely oblivious of what is to come.

(An oblivion that comes naturally is something many covet and few find. Calliope never realised how lucky she was.)

One day, when she's tottering on little legs and staring, awed, with huge five-year-old eyes, she comes across a bush with little red berries. She snatches a fistful (a heinous crime in this strange world she scarcely understands) and races back home, disregarding the possibility of skinned knees and bumped heads (oh, to be so young and for that to be your greatest danger) and crowing at Daddy that she's found pretty berries, come look, come look!

At first Daddy is angry, saying they could be poisonous, but then his eyes glitter and Cali somehow knows she's found something valuable. Her heart swells with pride at his adoring gaze.

"Thank you, that looks beautiful." He's grinning, all traces of weariness gone. "Would you like a taste?" He hands her a berry and she wordlessly crushes it in her teeth, and instantly amazing sensations overcome her curious tastebuds-a sweetness, yes, but with an underlying tartness that she's never come across when her staple diet is porridge and bread, satisfying but stolid.

(In District Six, this is as good as it gets.)

She begs Daddy to get more, gives him directions to the place where she found these 'cranberries' (that's what Daddy calls them, joy in his voice) and he starts to refuse but she pleads and cries and bats her tiny eyelashes and promises to love him forever in that manipulative childish way, and eventually he agrees and sets out, bringing back a bagful of cranberries.

They eat well that night, and Calliope Asker has no idea what the consequences are-she just sees her parents' contented faces, and that's all she ever desired.

"Calliope Asker!"

The name hits her like a bullet from a Peacekeeper's cold metal gun. Tears form tracks down her grubby cheeks as she shakily walks up the steps, meeting her mother's horrified eyes in the crowd, holding little Magnet's hand. She turns slightly to meet her father's eyes and she's somehow surprised when his form is now just empty air.

(It never gets any easier.)

"Titus Benson!"

Through the blur of shock, a boy around her age is just about visible, next to her on the stage. His features are blurred, but she can make out his striking red hair that sticks out, unruly, from his scalp; and those memorable blue eyes, with a look that's somehow kind yet determined.

Cali decides that this boy has to be her ally. She has no intention of becoming unhinged and broken in the arena, and she needs another living, breathing, warm soul with her there, to keep her tethered to home and sanity.

(A fourteen-year-old girl can never comprehend the possibility that if she does make it out-if-then home and sanity might be nothing but a fading impression of a memory.)

The girl who walks off the train is Calliope Asker, but then again it's not. This girl has flawless skin; toned muscles, different colour eyes, a slightly limping gait, and a haunted, gaunt expression. This is not the scared but hopeful and sweet young girl who left for almost certain (almost) death a month ago.

(But it can't have been only a month ago…it's not possible…right?)

They tell her it's over, she can go home now. A ghost of a smile stretches those slightly off features, and Cali bounds off for her little ramshackle house on the outskirts of the city centre. The men with the cold metal guns and cold metal faces constantly tell her that her house is in the Victor's Village now, but that's not the home she left and it's not the home she'll come back to.

(They don't tell her the truth because shocked and haunted expressions warm their cold, metal hearts.)

Wait, this was definitely where her house was a month ago…but now there's just a burnt-out shell of a dwelling, still belching choking smoke, and even though faux-sympathetic voices are murmuring things like 'fire' and 'fatalities' and 'freak accident' her brain won't make the corroboration because it's not possible, any minute now little Magnet with the shining eyes and Mommy with the beautiful hair and even Daddy with the booming laugh will walk out of those ruins of her life, they're not gone, they're not gone…

(Passers-by notice that Calliope Asker stands in front of those smoking ruins for all of three hours, heartbreakingly expectant expression on her young face, before all at once she crumples and starts to cry.)

(But nobody helps her, because victors are all so strong, so brave, and so lucky, that none of them ever need help. Why is she sobbing her heart out onto the dusty ground, anyway? She will never have a reason to cry again.)

(Or at least, that's what the cold metal people told them.)

Her Daddy's strong, calloused hands make quick work of the soft and defenceless berries. He crushes them to a pulp, drains off the juice into a hollowed stone cup, and passes the cup to her, genuine smile fixed on his face as he watches the light flicker on in her eyes.

"Yay! I love you, Daddy!" Cali beams as the sweet-yet-tart magic juice slips down her throat, setting off fireworks in her mouth. She raises the makeshift stone cup to her lips again and is mid-gulp when an uncomfortably loud knock rattles the air.

"Cali, finish the juice quickly," Daddy immediately says, a spark of fear in his eyes, and he starts frantically clearing the cranberries from the counter and hiding them in a drawer. He's muttering something, but Calliope doesn't dwell on what as she reluctantly gulps the rest of the juice, the overwhelming sensations still almost too much, even though it's been a year since she raced home with the jewel-berries tucked in her tiny palm, brilliant scarlet against her porcelain skin.

(She's always wondered why Mommy and Daddy tense up whenever there's a knock at the door. New playmates are fun, right?)

The door is thrown open and in the doorway is a grinning man Calliope recognises as her father's friend. Daddy instantly relaxes, smiling from ear-to-ear, and he warmly greets the friend, laughing in relief as he passes the friend some of the berries.

(Cali notices that as soon as he sees the berries, there's a glint in his eye. She's not sure it's a good glint, but oh well, grown-ups are strange.)

(Why was Daddy so relieved, anyway? Who did he think was there? She's not sure she wants to know, because Daddy is so strong and brave that anything that scares him must be something terrifying, like the monsters under her bed.)

Is it her imagination, or can she hear the mines ticking under the ground? They seem in perfect sync with her racing heart, pulsing loudly in her ears as her muscles tense to run, the countdown beginning. She looks wildly around and finds Titus easily, with his striking red hair. An attempt of a smile; he reciprocates, and it's uneasy and forced but somehow it still manages to loosen the knot in her stomach a bit.

(He always did have that effect on her, ever since that first moment on the stage.)

"Let the 63rd Hunger Games begin!"

In a split second, she debates racing for the alluring gold, but then realises that's an enticing suicide. Hands reach out swiftly for the most proximate items-a sheet of plastic, a packet of dried fruit, a lone throwing knife-when she feels the pressure of a hand on her shoulder, and she freezes like her Daddy did on that day nine years ago, but she breathes out in relief when a tuft of striking red hair flashes into her vision.

(Daddy was relieved too…but he shouldn't have been. I hope it's not the same with me, she thinks worriedly, then realises that's the least of her worries when children are being murdered by other children a minute's walk away.)

"Mountain," he says decisively, and she blankly nods as they race through the woods-it's a miracle that they don't bump into a tree at the speed they're running-and she blindly reaches out a hand and somehow it connects with his, just for a second (she'd never admit it, but it's a comfort) and just for a second she allows herself to feel, before she locks it all down again.

(After all, that's the only way you survive in the Hunger Games without going mad, and Calliope Asker has no intentions of losing her sanity. She's worked too hard.)

I should've known, she thinks emptily. No emotions come, and she's not eager for when they do. Oblivion is a rare thing that she knows she'll come to covet, and even just a few moments of it coming naturally is something to be cherished.

The Victor's Village is deserted-there was another Victor, back in the 2nd Games, but they disappeared mysteriously about ten years ago. It occurs to her somewhere in her mind, now she's truly alone. She spares a humourless laugh for the irony-she always seems to end up alone.

(Fourteen years old is too young to be alone, to have given up on companionship. Then again, who cares? She's a Victor, she's strong and brave and lucky and she'll never have a reason to cry again. Or at least, that's what the cold metal man told her.)

A hand that's attached to her but isn't hers (she's certain that she had a scar there from a fight in the arena, and a crooked little finger from a rock landing on it when she was seven-not like it matters) reaches for the gilded key and turns it in the lock. The door swings open and she surveys her new 'home.' It feels bare and empty without Magnet's shining eyes and Mommy's beautiful hair and Daddy's booming laugh. It's all cold metal now. Then again, she has no right to complain, considering it's her fault.

My fault, she thinks vacantly, curling up into a ball on the plump sofa with tailored cushions, so pretty, like her, and dead inside, same as her. It's all my fault.

"How is it that after three years, this is still always so yummy?" Calliope beams as she downs another gulp. Her legs are a little more sturdy and her eyes contain a little more wisdom and she's got another tooth now, and the little girl doesn't hesitate to remind her Daddy every day, "I'm a big girl now, I'm six!"

(In truth, the father is saddened that his daughter is so eager to be a 'big girl.' He'd much rather she was little and sweet and oblivious forever. But he still smiles and nods and crosses his fingers and silently prays that the day she realises is as far away as possible.)

"Thanks, Daddy, can I have some more?" Her half-joking, begging look would make any father's heart melt like butter in sunlight, and he winks at her as he takes the hollowed stone cup to crush more berries.

"FREEZE!"

The door swings open so violently that it breaks in two and clatters to the floor. About ten cold metal people, gripping cold metal guns, burst in and seize her Daddy, and wait, why are they here? She doesn't like it, the noises they're making and that her Daddy looks so scared, so she lets it out, because she doesn't know any better; she starts sobbing her six-year-old big-girl heart out, but although her Daddy tries futilely to twist out of their grip, nobody comes to her aid.

Then they force him out of the door and she's terrified now, screaming for her papa, her Daddy to come back, where is he going? But although her legs are a little sturdier than they were a year ago, she still can't keep up with the cold metal people, so she settles with plopping down onto the grass and screaming and sobbing, yet still nobody comes to her aid, since Mommy and little baby Magnet are out.

In the corner of her eye, she sees Daddy's friend, the man she doesn't like, the one with the glint in his eyes. Next to him is a cold metal person, and the cold metal person with the gleaming gun passes the friend something that looks like money and the glint comes out again, but Calliope doesn't have time to dwell on these things.

Where is Daddy going?

Calliope's legs are a lot sturdier than they were when she was six, but it's still an agonising struggle to climb down the seemingly never-ending mountainside. She grips Titus' hand for support (she'd never admit it, but it's a comfort) and it seems like years but eventually they make it to soft ground. He tugs his hand away and she doesn't notice that his cheeks are flushed, and not just from the exertion.

(She'll never know.)

They come to their senses and recognise this patch of woods; it's right next to the Cornucopia. Curiosity simultaneously capturing them, they silently creep to the edge of the artificial woods, and fix their shared gaze to the shimmering golden horn in the sunlight. It's deserted and they're about to run for it to try and find any extra supplies, since they're running low, but just in time a scream rings out and the five remaining Careers pile into the clearing, an unfortunate girl in tow.

Titus doesn't recognise the girl, but Calliope's eyes widen; it's Talia, the little twelve-year-old from Nine who she befriended in training. Calliope was the one who taught Talia to throw knives. A pang of guilt ricochets through her; clearly she didn't teach her well enough, and now she's going to die. Another death on my conscience.

Smiling sickeningly, the boy from Two raises the knife and Cali shuts her eyes as Talia screams, then the screams stop. She opens her eyes, expecting Talia's dead body to be lying silent forever, but instead Talia is clutching her arm, breathing heavily to stop herself from yelling, and laughter from all the Careers rings through the clearing.

(Well, she says all of them-there's a girl from One who she remembers as being fourteen, same age as her, although she can't recall her name for the life of her, who looks close to crying. Cali feels a pang of sympathy, then wonders why.)

Lucius, the boy from Two, digs the knife into Talia's other arm and Talia lets out a pained yelp; more laughter. Cali squeezes her eyes tight, and she doesn't bother reaching for Titus' hand because nothing, nothing can comfort her now, because now she's realised that they're going to torture Talia to death, she's been ripped out of sweet oblivion and back to this twisted reality.

(But she can't look away. Her gaze is locked on this horrific scene, so much so that she can't even turn her head to see how Titus is reacting. Although later, in hindsight, she supposes that's quite a good thing.)

Cries and shrieks of agony ring out for over three hours afterwards. They plunge knives repeatedly into her limbs, then the girl from Two whips her until she doesn't even bother to try and stand up any more, she just whimpers and stays still as the dead. The boy from Four sticks her in the stomach with his trident in the exact places where it won't pierce her organs-just trying to prolong the suffering-and the sadist from Four does things…so horrible…that Talia isn't even a girl by the end of it, she's just a lump of meat. And she's stopped screaming.

But she hasn't stopped breathing.

(Calliope Asker doesn't remember the moment at which she herself stopped breathing.)

"Come on, Sunshine, finish her off, coward," her sick comrades jeer. Shaking and pallid, Sunshine picks up a knife and throws it into her throat. The cannon sounds and they all groan, chiding her for ending their fun. She passes it off as having bad aim, but Cali knows that she wanted to end Talia's suffering.

(Her stare has nothing in it, no joy, no sadness, no anything. "Talia's suffering is over, but mine is never…ever…going to end…")

Finally it's over, the hovercraft takes her body away and only then can Cali tear her gaze away, (although it's far too late) and vomit all the contents of her stomach up behind the nearest tree. Shaking, she turns around, staggering steps, the only thing keeping her from screaming being that she'd end up like Talia…and when her eyes focus from the blur of blood and pain, an unexpected and surreal sight meets her eyes.

She would've expected sweet and kind Titus to be throwing up behind a tree, same as her, but he's striding along purposefully back to camp. Confused and sick to the stomach, she catches up with him and glances at his face. What she sees almost makes her shattered heart stop beating entirely.

He looks…normal to the untrained eye…but there's a hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth…and his eyes…they've changed…they've got that glint, like that deadly friend of her father's but much, much worse…

(She passes it off as a trick of the light, and she doesn't realise that Titus isn't Titus any more, the boy who she thinks she might, maybe, possibly, love. He's the boy who snapped.)

District Six Victor Calliope Asker walks into her kitchen to find an unfamiliar new woman in her kitchen. Her hand tightens around the knife's handle, so much so that her knuckles turn white, but she attempts to calm herself down.

"Hello! I'm your new maid!" The voice is far too jovial and it makes Cali clutch her head as the too-loud noise jars it. "I was sent here directly on orders by the President. He also told me to make you this." The contraption that I've been told is called a 'blender' starts whizzing and she turns to one side so the blender's only partially obstructed.

(She stays calm, but wants to stab this woman until scarlet flows over the coldly perfect white floor. After all, that's what they want, isn't it?)

"Cranberry juice. He specially requested it for you!" She pours it out of the blender, puts it into a 'proper' cup (what's wrong with hollowed-out stones?) and holds it out. Cali just stares blankly, and suddenly something breaks in her already glass-fragile mind.

The maid's overly jovial and plump face morphs into the President's cold mask, and he laughs and speaks in an outwardly gentle voice with a knife's edge in its words: "We told you that there would be retribution if you broke the rules. It's all your fault that you're here, alone. It's all your fault. Your fault."

President Snow's cold metal mask ripples and suddenly it's her beloved Daddy, and Cali wants to reach out and hug him but there's something off, Daddy's not speaking in his normal voice, it's much emptier and sounds like he's choking. "You…did this to me…if you'd never been so manipulative and forced me to get the berries…I'd still be alive…you should be dead, why aren't you dead? It would be best for everyone if you were dead…it's all your fault, your fault!" His fixed smile turns blank and his skin is now mottled blue, eyes rolling in his head, just like that day, and the haunted girl screams in pain.

She half knows what's coming next: Titus, with mad eyes and bloodstained lips. "You made that girl die…which made me kill those other children…all your fault…your fault!" He licks the blood from his fingers and smiles, a twisted happiness.

Screams echo through the walls as she starts hysterically sobbing, she runs out of the room and the maid wonders why she's constantly muttering, "My fault, my fault, MY FAULT!" to herself. Oh well, she's a victor; she's strong, and brave, and lucky, and she will never have a reason to cry again, so the maid leaves her to it.

In the beautiful, tailored bedroom, so pretty and dead inside, she hurriedly opens the drawer, agony and guilt coursing through her veins, and pulls out her failsafe. She can't be fast enough to rip off the packaging and prepare the syringe. She spares a look at the sky, and a whispered, "I'm sorry," before plunging the syringe into her vein, and the agony is replaced by oblivion as she lies back and sighs, content, eyes unfocussed.

(That's when Calliope Asker truly dies, and in her place is a shell, the yellow-skinned girl whose soul has joined the boy who snapped, except now he's not broken any more, he's whole and kind and determined again, and she can fall in love with him knowing they're not star-crossed, they're just two children in love.)

(Or at least, that's what she hopes.)

"For repeated thefts of forbidden fruit from private property, the law-abiding citizens of District Six ask that you sentence this man to death."

"Agreed," the man with the mean eyes and funny curly wig replies, and the cold metal men smile. Calliope doesn't understand what's just happened, but anything that makes the robots happy can't be good.

"Jet Asker, you are therefore sentenced to death by hanging, to be carried out immediately."

Her Daddy's eyes are vacant and his breathing laboured and ragged as they take him into the woods, Cali struggling to keep up with them. Mommy is crying, and Cali wants to comfort her but she feels so inadequate and for the first time in a while she feels like a little girl, one who always knows less than the grown-ups.

Daddy is forced up a bunch of stairs to where a rope necklace is hanging above a box. They push his face into the rope necklace, jeering all the while, and Cali wants to curl up in a ball and block out the rest of the world (the first of many times) but she knows that being unhappy will make Daddy unhappy and Daddy's sad as it is, tears are dripping down his face as they roughly secure the rope necklace around his neck, and Calliope Asker doesn't like it.

"Go." A simple word, but it sends her normally serene Daddy into a frenzy.

"MARISA! CALI! I LOVE-"

She never hears what he was going to say next because the robots gleefully kick out the boxes from under him, and his face turns mottled blue and there's an audible crack and an outbreak of cheers from the cold metal men with their gleaming guns.

"NO!" Mommy falls to the floor, banging her fists and hysterically sobbing. Cali just stands there; blank and uncomprehending, as the crowd disperses. She's there for over three hours, standing silent with her mother, not moving or speaking and scarcely breathing as she attempts to take in what's happened, before Mommy tugs her back home.

(Cali wonders, when is Daddy going to take off the rope necklace and come back home too? It must be cold, out there in the wind and rain.)

Titus is gone far too long to just be getting berries, and she's getting paranoid (except that in the Hunger Games it's by no means paranoia) when thank god, he's back, and holding a cup of something that he's occasionally sipping like it's the delicious Capitol hot chocolate.

"Sponsor gift?" she asks, a gentle smile in her voice that's a little forced. He doesn't reply.

"I heard more screams earlier. If any of those Careers…I wish I could just go and shoot them all for what they did to Talia." Her voice has gone sad, big blue eyes flashing, dark and troubled like a stormy sea. He doesn't reply, just takes another swig from the cup.

Cali's slightly irritated that a cup of a mysterious liquid is holding his attention so raptly, so she glances into the cup and catches a sight of scarlet. Her heart rises and plummets at the same time. Cranberry juice. God, I love that drink…but it brings back so many memories I wish would just disappear…

Still, it's a long time since those fireworks went off in her mouth, and as much as she's always denied it since, she misses those plump, jewel-coloured berries.

"Would you like a sip?" Titus smiles, and there's something off about it, but she doesn't dwell on it as she eagerly complies and gulps down a mouthful.

Instantaneously, she turns around and throws up repeatedly behind a tree, retching long after at the disgusting taste, not even attempting to keep her so-valuable food in her stomach. It's not the scarlet juice, not at all; it's salty and has a horrible metallic quality that seems to hang in the air around this place.

Wait…salty…metallic…scarlet…

She doesn't want to make the corroboration, but she twists her head to face Titus and that confirms it. No. No. No. No. NO! Please god, anything but that…

Titus, the boy with the kind and determined eyes (or at least they used to be) and striking red hair, is casually twirling a knife in his hand, gaze locked on Cali as he dips two fingers in the half-full cup and licks the scarlet off in what, in a different place and time and life, might be quite seductive.

(That's when her heart almost stops beating.)

"So, you realised, huh?" His tone is relaxed; his words would be in any other scenario. Wordlessly, she nods. But she's been through too much to scream.

"Who was it?" Her voice is a perfect monotone, just like the cold metal men with the gleaming guns who killed her father. In a different place and time this would scare her, but right now she expects it because she has nothing left.

"That fourteen-year-old bitch from One. Her friends were right-she is a coward. Begged for mercy for over an hour before I got sick of it and cut out her tongue."

(That's when her heart skips about three beats but still keeps thumping, as fast as a speeding train.)

He twirls the knife again, his eyes flash, and that's when she runs, Sunshine's scared face fixed in her vision, Titus' maniacal laughter resonating through her skull, and that time, she does scream.

(That's when she's sure her heart should stop beating, although the steady, fast thump still carries on unexplainably.)

Calliope Asker isn't too sure where she is. She asked Spire (they may be the 'Morphlings,' but Spire has always just been a little more aware of the grown-ups' world than her) and Spire called it the 'Reapings,' which stirred something inside her that was uncomfortable, so she just stuffed more drugs into her yellowing skin and swollen veins, and dopily smiled at him.

He grips her hand in his (she'd never admit it, but it's a comfort) and waits for the man to do something. What? She's not sure, but ever since that first syringe twelve years ago, she has a motto: do what the others do, it's easier and safer.

"Spire Menthe!"

The faintest remnants of shock are visible in Spire's dopey eyes as he walks up the stairs, letting go of Cali's hand. Calliope doesn't like that, so she runs up the stairs and grasps his hand again. The escort sighs (she may have been stuck with the boy, being the only male victor and all, but she's purposely rigged it with the much younger and saner female victor) and dolefully announces that Calliope Asker and Spire Menthe are the Victor tributes for this year's Games.

As they wait at the train station, some men in black suits with shiny eyes sneak over to them and start talking about a subject, and as soon as the word 'rebellion' is mentioned Calliope tunes out. She just thinks about a new shade of green to try when she gets back to her house (she will never call it 'home' even when Spire is there) but it's not really green, it's got elements of blue and speckles of red and would be perfect for nature scenery, and by the time she's finally got it visualized she's on the train with the rattly wheels and she's not sure when she got here but it's okay, because Spire is gripping her hand, and she decides to admit it, it's a comfort.

She doesn't know where she's going, and she doesn't really care any more. Just as long as it's not that arena again, the dark place that drove her back to sweet oblivion, she doesn't care.

"Mommy, when is daddy coming back?" It's been six months since her daddy wore the rope necklace and his face turned mottled blue, and little Calliope wonders when daddy is going to take off the necklace and come back to pick more cranberries. She has so much to show him, after all, since he's been gone; her legs are slightly sturdier, and she can finally pronounce 's' without that thtupid lithp. Now she's a real big girl.

Just as usual, Mommy doesn't answer, but today Calliope is feeling more persistent. "Mommy, tell me! Tell me now, or I won't love you any more." She doesn't mean it and her eyes widen at her own daring as she braces for a spanking, but her Mommy just sits down, blank and empty.

"It was the berries." Almost inaudible.

"What, mommy?" Mommy gets up. She looks angry and she starts yelling. Cali doesn't like it when Mommy yells but she's so full of vitriol that Cali is too scared of the consequences of tuning out to try.

"It was the berries! Those fucking illegal berries you kept selfishly asking him to get for you! They caught him with the berries and they hanged him and he's DEAD! And it's all your fault!"

Instantly the mommy snaps out of it and realises what she's done, that it wasn't Calliope's fault, her old sappy husband loved Cali's beaming smile so much that he would've done anything to get the berries for her, and Calliope wasn't the one who hanged him, it was the Peacekeepers with their cruel eyes and cruel laughter and cruel guns. She instantly holds her daughter tightly in her arms, rocking her softly, and cries and says over and over again, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it, I'm so sorry sweetheart, every endearment under the sun, for hours and hours, even when little baby Magnet starts to cry.

But all Calliope can hear is her first, vicious words, over and over again.

All my fault…all my fault…daddy's dead…all my fault…

That night, Calliope takes a kitchen knife and punishes herself again and again and again, making small cuts up her legs, forcing herself to stay quiet and not scream as she cuts deeper and deeper because she deserves this, she killed her daddy, she's a terrible bad girl and going to Hell. She may not even be seven yet but she's a big girl, she should've known better and now the lovely daddy is dead and he's never coming back and scarlet stains her pink duvet, flooding it with streaks of red.

The next morning she tries to hide them, but her mother sees them and flips out, yelling and crying and sobbing, guilty beyond belief, and eventually she just sews them all up and kisses every one and makes Calliope promise that she will never hurt herself again.

Calliope promises-she doesn't want to hurt the mommy. (She never wanted to hurt Mommy, and yet eight years later Mommy and baby Magnet go up in smoke and it's like she struck the match herself.)

(She ends up breaking her promise, but not in the way Mommy meant. No, her way is so much worse, and she never allows herself to forget.)

District Six Tribute Calliope Asker breathes a sigh of relief when Titus' face adorns the sky, then instantly guilt submerges her. It's my fault he snapped…but the boy I may have possibly grown to love disappeared long before that face just appeared in the sky, what's done is done, no use worrying about it.

(Later on, she reminisces to when she thought that, laughs, and injects yet more morphling into her swollen, yellowing-parchment skin.)

A jolt of fear hits her as she realises, it's the final two, and the only person whose face hasn't appeared in the sky apart from hers is Netta, that sick little sadist from Four. Cali creeps, petrified, into the clearing, when she hears a whisper behind her.

"Who wants to come out and PLAY?"

Netta pounces on her, licking her lips in desire for the scarlet blood, so like cranberry juice in appearance but tasting so different, flowing through Cali's blue veins. In the two seconds where Netta just looks at her, sizing her up, deciding how exactly to dismember her, Cali, relying completely on animal instinct, tugs off her metal choker necklace, loops it around Netta's spindly neck, and pulls.

It's surprisingly quick and anticlimactic, a rare end for the Games. Netta gurgles, panicked, trying to bat Cali off with her knife but she's too disoriented to do any damage, and thirty seconds later, she feels the sharp edge of the necklace slip through Netta's windpipe, the cannon booms and trumpets fanfare.

"Congratulations, Calliope Asker of District Six, Victor of the 63rd Hunger Games!"

Cali can't focus. She can only see Netta's dead face, the exact shade of mottled blue that her father was when he wore the rope necklace…

All my fault, my fault!

The eyes insane, just like Titus' after Talia was tortured to death…

All my fault, my fault!

The steady thump of Netta's heart has stilled and there's angry blue bruising around her windpipe. She's cold, pale, and dead as Daddy and Talia and Titus...

All my fault, my fault, my fault…

She curls up into a ball and stares vacantly, silently, wondering blankly if there's any possibility that she died, so she won't ever have to face living again.

(But that would be just too kind, wouldn't it?)

As they take her up into the hovercraft and snatch away her bloodstained necklace with warning glares and muttered profanities, somewhere in the back of her mind it occurs to her that it's not allowed to use tokens to kill, the Capitol won't like it, and that there will probably be retribution.

(Oh well, it doesn't matter. She's already dead.)

Calliope Asker wanders, lost and disoriented without her sweet oblivion, through this strange place. It's the arena all over again, and it makes her want to scream and jump into the inviting false sea; but it's different to her arena, which makes it just, just possible to imagine that it's just a figment of her overactive imagination, and really she's back at House (never home) trying to find the exact right colour for the sea on a stormy winter's night, with Spire dopily smiling and pointing out certain tones and shades that might work.

(In 'reality' or whatever you call this place, he's dead, quite dead, and Calliope knows full well that she'll never pick up her paintbrush again, but she doesn't want to accept it, and nobody's about to force her to.)

A glimpse of a human and screeches that don't sound human, and Calliope is running, running, and sees it's the boy with sunshine hair and that monkey is poised to kill him and quick, Spire told you to protect him! Run faster!

(In truth, for once, she wouldn't have needed Spire's encouragement-she likes the boy with the sunshine hair, and his love with the fire in her eyes. He reminds her of Titus before…never mind.)

It's like slow motion as she leaps into the air in front of the monkey, and his fangs sink deep into her ribcage and she feels them pierce something and that can't be good but what does it matter? She's dead anyway, she was dead at seven, she was dead and fourteen and now at twenty-six nothing's changed, except her skin is sallower, like yellowing parchment. And normally she'd say that it wasn't real, that it's just a figment of her overactive imagination, but now she doesn't really want to, because it's finally hit her after all these years of suffering in only a temporary oblivion; she wants death more than anything else.

This arena she so dreaded returning starts to happily fade, and she's happy as a little child as the boy murmurs sweet nothings to her, murmuring softly about colours and rainbow and sunlight and peace. She dips her hand in the scarlet juice, idly thinking that it can't hurt her any more, and draws a flower on the boy's cheek. Flowers remind her of new life and pretty things and love, and the boy with the sunlight hair symbolises all three.

"Thank you. That looks beautiful."

Cali dies glad.

I hope you enjoyed Interlock! Remember, everyone knows Fanfiction authors live for the reviews! :)

Kara x