She's dead.

He keeps running. He's not sure where he's heading or if he should turn around and run the other way. Why would he care? She's dead. He picks up speed. Breathe in. No, she's not.

This arena must end somewhere. What's awaiting when the arena stops? He wants to find out. He needs to find the limit, the void, he needs to live in a place where neither the reality he had believed in nor this cruel game he had thought they were the best at exist. Children never like to play once they know they won't win. Once the thrill is gone comes the realization. All this time wasted. There was never a chance for both of them. And therefore, there was never a chance for any of them.

I wish I had known you earlier.

Like every time he's talking to her in his head, his own voice sounds muffled and far, far away. A deep, soft voice. A voice he wished was really his. But nothing about him was ever soft. They wouldn't have allowed it. It was District Two. It was Panem. Nothing soft here. Silk turns into stone.

He closes his eyes violently, as if it was going to shut down all of his senses along with his sight. He wants to see darkness but he only sees flashes of lights, colourless, blinding. Why isn't it painful? It's supposed to be. He wants to evacuate all of this violence within himself somehow, since he can't do it with his feet, with his fists, the way he has learned to. So he puts all his strength in his eyelids as if he wanted to seal them forever, wanting it to burn his eyes, to make him hurt so bad he would scream and fall on his knees. Why isn't he falling? How can he keep running with his eyes closed? He should be falling. Perhaps he already lost all balance, and that was the key. His body was light because everything else was heavy.

She's dead. Breathe out. No, she's not.

Lights turn into darkness. His eyes still don't hurt, or not enough anyways. He bites his lip hard, he puts all of his sorrow in his teeth. He wants to taste blood. He needs to bleed so his hands stay steady, don't tremble, don't close too hard on this face he's holding. She doesn't look like a she-wolf anymore, like when she had her eyes narrowed in a fearless mask. No. Now she… she looks like a lamb. Why isn't he falling? Because he's already on his knees. He's holding her almost limp body but it feels like running. He's out of breath. His eyes water a little, he's running too fast, the wind is blocking his lungs. He's not sure if he's breathing anymore. Is she?

She's dead. No, she's not. No, she's not. NO !

The cannon fires.

Her cheeks are cold, almost freezing. He remembers how cold her body was when their skins met, how hot his seemed in comparison. She wanted to know flesh before the games. Even if she pretended to be eager to crush and kill, she knew it was going to change her forever. She wanted to live for a night before walking around dead for decades. He was always burning and she was cold-blooded. He continually wanted to press her little, hard frame against him to keep the fever from burning him alive. The cannon is still ringing in his ear but he can already feel the flames catching up. He had loved holding her when she was trying to get away, rough when they should have been tender, groans instead of whispers. They didn't have a choice. They couldn't play by the rules. There was only one game they were allowed to play.

He wants to rip out a throat, to cut through muscle and bone, but he doesn't want to let her go. Because when he does, it will mean she really is dead. There's no going back. His eyes are now open and he wants to remember every detail of her fierce face but he finds himself looking away. No. She isn't a dead girl. She is the most alive person there's ever been. It's like trying to fall asleep when your body is wide awake. Feeling every little muscle clenching and unclenching, having this urge to spasm, to kick something. But he can't. He's still holding her delicate cheeks splattered with blood. His body is too there. All he can do is leave her, and leave himself.

He curls up above her, their foreheads touching and he screams.

Not a sentence, not a word, just a noise. Coming from so deep within himself it feels like it would never end. Like a cord being pulled out of his mouth. A noise loud enough to make every other Tribute's skin prickle. A noise loud enough to scare the Game Makers. A noise loud enough to make the birds in the trees nearby take flight. But not loud enough to wake her up. It echoes a few seconds between the trees and he can hear her voice floating in the branches. Stay with me. His mouth brushes against her cheek until it find hers, and he closes his teeth on her lip. More gently than he ever was with her. It wasn't like them. She would never have let him be gentle. Why is this so painful, this was never supposed to feel like someone was setting his lungs on fire. She was dead from the start. When their feet left that platform and they ran to the Cornucopia, she was already exhaling her last breath. They weren't livers. So why does it hurt so much? His fist tightens in her tangled hair and he grips her tight in a way that could only be achieved when one knows one's not being watched. There's no way they'll let that appear on the screens. District Two brings up warriors, soldiers, gladiators. Not lovers. Nobody feels sorry for District Two. So he swiftly takes a knife from the inside of Clove's jacket and throws it as hard as he can on one of the cameras which immediately cracks, emitting a satisfactory sound of exploding plastic. They don't deserve to see her leave. They don't deserve her death. Nobody felt sorry for District Two.

This time he's running, but it feels like curling up on the ground. Every part of him is shattered. His tongue tastes like metal and mud. He needs to kill someone and he knows exactly who.

Her silhouette was black against the window. Sun was coming up, and a grey pallor was filtering through the curtains. He was lying in his bed, on his luxury Capitol sheets, yet it felt like white-hot coals. He couldn't make out her features in this back light but mentally traced the outline of her body. Her slender legs, her familiar hips, her ribcage that you could feel while brushing the palm of your hand on her chest. She seemed so fragile. He knew better than to believe that, yet he delighted in the impression that he could break her so easily. For once in his life, it wasn't about destroying. It was about keeping safe. She was the only thing he felt like caring about. Too bad she wouldn't let anyone protect her.

"I can't see your face."

She turned around, gazing across the window. Her back was now to him, yet she said "I can see yours."

He couldn't believe her. Even when entwined, they felt so distant. He had known her before volunteering though. It had never felt like this. Were they so morbid they were in love with the idea of their deaths? Of course they were. They were made to win, or to not live long enough to see someone else do.

"You're colourless." Her voice was echoing a little, made higher by its reflect on the window. "You're black and white. You're just angles. Where are your colours?"

And he knew what she meant. He knew she was as scared as he was. He hated her, because he could already feel the taste of his future victory on his tongue, and it was bittersweet. It had a price.

He swung his legs out of the bed and went to the window in three steps, so fast she barely had the time to turn around before he crashed his lips on hers. It wasn't a kiss. They never kissed. What they did was more harmless. It was brutal, it was by force and intimidation, it was like throwing themselves on the ground and going at each other's throat. It was nothing as devastating as kissing would be.

His hands closed at her sides and clutching hungrily the exposed flesh. Her breathing became shallow, was it because she was pressed so firmly between him and the window or because she was warming up when against him, he couldn't say. All he knew was that she was the only medication against this ever-worsening fever that was eating him up. "Stay with me."

The footsteps are coming closer. He can hear him. All of his senses are heightened and he hates himself for that. What he wants is to dull out every sensation. But just after that. There is some unfinished business to complete first. If he is going down, he is taking them all with him. And whatever the outcome, only one thing's for sure : there's no way up.

He's a Career. They all believe in him. He's tall, muscular, bloody, he's a winner. He will prove them all wrong. Victory isn't worth anything. Victory doesn't even exist. What do you win, besides stigmas? He wishes he could kill himself with one of those knives but he can't. He's not finished yet.

"Stay with me," Her voice was shaking, her eyes were pleading. She was begging, he realized. She never begged. And that simple thought made him dizzier and sicker than any poison ever could.

"Why?" His fists clenched at his sides to keep from going up to her hair.

"Because it's the last time…" her voice bubbled in her throat and she swallowed back the river flowing in her. "Because tomorrow we become killers."

"Become? BECOME?" He couldn't believe there was so much cruelty in her. "Can't you see it? We're already killers! You've already killed me!"

She threw herself at him, trying to hit him with all of her strength and it doesn't feel very different from their so-called embraces. Being driven by madness or by mad desire, in the end, it's all the same. In the end, they're already dying. But if silk turns into stone, why was he coming undone?

And then it's almost over. Almost done. He knew from the beginning who was going to win. Because even if he had been the last, it would have been lost. But they're two and they're alive and he wants to scream to them that it's too late, that they're already dead. That being alive is a concept only applying when you're not born yet. That they'll be spending the rest of their lives hearing the clock in their heads. The ever-present tick tock of the seconds slipping by. Barely alive, almost buried. Seldom are the people who live. And he doesn't even envy them.

He wants it all to end and eventually, it does. The fangs piercing on his skin are the sweetest sensation he's ever felt. It means rest is getting closer. He doesn't believe in anything after death. If he did, he'd do everything to keep breathing. But he knows for a fact it's dark out there, it's empty. Finally somewhere where he'll belong. Every part of his body is aching and for the first time, just at the edge of oblivion, he feels alive. Pain keeps him awake when all he wants to do is slip away. He hears the barks, the screams, feel the chaos around him but he's peaceful. Because he can recognize her eyes. Her ice-filled eyes. His mouth mumbles things but he has no idea what. He wants to tell her I'm sorry. I'm sorry I killed you. I'm sorry we couldn't be dying together. I'm sorry we couldn't stop time. I wish I had known you earlier. Or not at all. We weren't born to live. We were born to be dying. I'm sorry I'm giving up, but this was never our victory.

Last moan, his final relief. His fever stops. He's cold. He's deliciously cold. His eyes stare into space but he can't see anything. Everything is blurry. Rounded. Angles don't exist anymore. He hears a faint whistling and knows it's the end. In this fraction of second, he can make out what the arrow is whispering to him. The three words that killed him long before the arrow did. Stay with me.