Author Games Compilation [Cycle 2]

Task 3 - The Victor and the Spark [HOLIDAY]

AUTHOR GAMES: CANON - TASK THREE

By the time he's able to leave the brambles, Moire knows he'll be getting no sleep tonight.

The air is too cold for even the thought of it, of rest, and in the hours he's been sitting in this one spot, right where he'd been before the other tributes came by and scared him into the thorns, the ground has developed a thin layer of frost. His knees dig into it, melting patches where his limbs lay, but all around, he can see the softly whitened tips that adorn each dead, dry blade. His boots have made no imprint in the rest of the narrow clearing because he hasn't had the courage to move, not since the anthem drew him into fresh air. It's the faces, he thinks, that keep him rooted to this one spot. The faces belong to dead people. If he moves, he'll be dead people too.

Moire swallows and fiddles again with the brown pack resting against his lap. He's been in this same position for hours, long enough for the grey in the sky to blossom into a purple bruise, knuckled by the brutal, angry fists of the bloodbath. He hasn't wanted to pull the zipper because it's just so quiet, and even too loud of a breath from his own nostrils makes him flinch. He doesn't want anyone to find him.

But I need to figure out what I have. Teeth bite down on his bottom lip. The wind picks up again, rustling the brittle needles, and he takes this chance to yank the zipper open and dump out the pack's contents. Heavier items crunch against the frost, and this makes his chest flutter, because the bigger the better. He brings his hands to the chilled items and squints through the darkness to see what he's got.

When his fingers brush the plastic cover of a tarp, he wants to cry, because that's more than he could've asked for. It's nothing spectacular, only big enough to cover a portion of his slender build, but it's enough. Everything else is smaller, but equally good for at least the week. Or maybe half the week. I don't know, he thinks, I don't know how long a bottle of water or one pack of six crackers lasts. I don't know how long I'll get by with four matches. But he's okay with the outcome. He's more than okay with the outcome. Then again, the crackers even back in Eight would be cause for excitement.

Ideas begin to churn, ambition. He thinks of Mellory, of how he can try to track her down so they can put together what they have. And what they have'll blow away, if he doesn't stuff everything back in the pack, but he's too busy looking at it all, at how if it rains he'll be okay and if it gets cold he'll at least be warm. Which way had she gone, again? She can't be anywhere but the same forest as he - that was the way she'd fled, after the bloodbath. That's good, at least. But as soon as his hopes rise, they quickly fall again, for even this portion of the arena is massive, and it holds more than just Moire and Mellory.

The tarp rustles too loudly in the wind, and delicate fingers reach out to quiet it, to roll it up and dejectedly shove it back in the pack. It'll be near impossible to find her - perhaps the only person here he can at least halfway trust not to stick a sickle through his trachea - and he's already given up. I'm on my own. He has to pat around in the darkness to find the water bottle, but he manages to get that in there, too. I'm absolutely, completely on my fucking own.

Nobody survives on their own. Not really.

His grip tightens on the pack and then weakens completely, letting it slide to the cold earth. He lets his hip slide down to the cold earth, too, the packed soil bringing an ache to his bones. One hand presses against the grass, supporting him, and he splays his legs out mermaid-style, comfortable. "I'm gonna die," he whispers, curling his fingers through the crystalized grass, scooping up dew in his palm and studying it, "and I don't even know when." But then, that's life, isn't it? You know you're gonna die but you never know when. So he clarifies, for an audience: "Well, within the next week or so. But I don't know the day. Or the hour. Or anything."