Narrator: Annie Vanil
In which a girl uses poison to turn water silver.
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Warnings:
Death
Violence
(Brief) throwing up
Swearing
Crappy writing
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The thing not many people from the districts know is that a lot of poison is artificially dyed silver in the capitol. They do it because the unnatural silver colour makes it easy to notice in food or drinks. I only know because it was all written out on a little note that came with the poison itself. See, in the Hunger Games, a District 11 tribute has to really prove themselves to get any sponsors. I've done that, stabbing that boy and bashing that girl's head in. The boy, I killed during the bloodbath. The girl, I killed less than an hour ago.
Neither kills were creative, or even particularly unique, but that isn't what matters. What matters is that they were both brutal, aggressive. I remember exactly how each kill went. Both were weirdly satisfying. Before the reaping, I'd never even considered killing anybody. During training, I came to terms with the fact that it would have to happen eventually. I just never thought I would enjoy it. Not until I slit that boy's throat. He was the first person I've ever intentionally harmed, but gods did I feel great doing it.
I ran towards the cornucopia the second they hit the gong. A boy and I had ended up grappling for a dagger. I'd won, and shoved it into his throat. His blood had spurted out a little bit like water would a fountain. The dagger is still tinted red with that very same blood.
The girl was harder to kill. She put up more of a fight. I'd won fairly easily, and I'd bashed her head in with a rock. The image is still vivid in my mind. A pretty girl, but prettier dead. Her blood had stained the snow red and soaked into her hair, mixing with the orange and turning out looking like some sort of twisted sunset. Red and orange, sunset colours. Ironic that she'll never see tonight's sunset, or any after this.
Speaking of tonight's sunset, it's beautiful. Even more ironically, it's red and orange. Fire, sunset, blood in ginger hair. Wait. Sunset means it's getting dark, and it getting dark means that I won't be able to see anything.Time to stop reminiscing about killing people, I guess.
I drag my mind back to the present to find myself still staring at the vial of silver poison in my hands. Beyond that, the pool of water. Water in this arena is limited, I've noticed. Drinkable water, that is. There's the lake, but it looks gross and unsanitary. That means this ought to kill at least one person. As much as I love getting my hands dirty, sometimes it's better to stay out of harm's way.
Hopefully the other tributes will think the water is just weird. Even better, it'll be dark and they won't notice anything is off. I uncork the vial and pour about half of it into the water. The other half, I'll pour somewhere else. Now, I wait.
✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧
It's late and I'm almost asleep when I hear footsteps. As quietly as possible, I peek my head over the bush I've been hiding behind just enough to see. Two people walk into my line of sight. It's hard to make out exactly what they look like in the dark, but the moonlight piercing the trees makes it possible to see basic features.
The shorter one is a girl, and the taller one is a boy. Both of them look younger than I am. The girl has messy shoulder-length hair that looks like it's either white or bleach-blonde. The boy has curly blonde hair. Along with the light skin, they look similar enough that I think it's safe to assume they're from the same district.
The girl pulls out two water flasks and starts filling them in the pool I'd poisoned just hours ago. She turns to look at her companion before she starts filling the flasks. "Tommy, is this really safe?" she whispers.
"Would you rather get water from the lake? People swim in that," he whispers back. Avoiding the question generally means no, so I can only assume that he's pretending to believe what he's saying for her sake.
"If you say so," she tells him, although I can hear the skepticism in her voice. He watches as she gets the water. "Here, take this." She hands one of the flasks to him.
"Thanks Marble," he tells her, lifting the flask to his lips. I smile to myself, well aware of what's about to happen. Apparently this is a semi-slow-acting poison, probably meaning it takes maybe a day at most to kill somebody, but the more somebody drinks, the faster it kills them. Much to my disappointment, he pulls away after a second. "Does this taste weird to you?" Shit. I never considered that it might taste strange.
The girl takes a quick drink from her own flask. "A little. But you said it yourself, it's puddle water. We're used to tap water, that's why it tastes weird," she tells him. Yes. Yes! You go, you naive little girl!
"Seriously Marble, I used to drink from puddles all the time as a kid and they never tasted like this."
"I'm three years younger than you, how am I being the reasonable one here? Trust me, it's probably fine." At this point, she sounds more like she's trying to convince herself than him. She takes another drink of the poisoned water, almost as if to confirm that it tastes like water.
"The water is all silver and shit, I don't think that's normal!" he tells her.
"It's fine, Tommy. I'm drinking it now and nothing's happening, see? It's perfectly-" she pauses to take another drink of water- "fine. I'm fine, see? I'm perfectly-" But she isn't, and I know that better than anyone.
She puts a hand to her stomach, wincing a little bit. Then she starts coughing. Her mouth starts to foam, and I silently cheer when she collapses. Her white hair contrasts with the green-brown grass, but her black jacket blends in in the dark.
"Marble!" He kneels down next to her, reaching out to shake her shoulders.
"You were right," she mumbles, before she's overtaken by another coughing fit. After a minute of body-shaking, clearly painful-as-hell coughing, she goes still and the night is silent once more. I might even dare say dead silent. I wasn't sure how fast the poison would act, as it was surely diluted by the water, but it happened so much faster than I could have ever expected.
"Hey, stop messing around. That isn't funny." He hesitantly tries to touch her again, which warrants no response."Seriously, it isn't funny." Still nothing. "It- It is a prank, right? You're making fun of me for thinking the water is weird?" I don't think I've ever taken the time to properly appreciate silence. "Well, great job! I've been pranked, please get up now. These woods are scary and I don't want to be alone, even if you're just pretending to be passed out."
As her silence persists, it slowly dawns on him that she isn't pranking him. Slowly, painfully so, he reaches out to take her pulse. There must not have been one. He stands up shakily and walks over to a tree, reaching out to grab it like he needs something to stabilize himself. I watch as he bends over and throws up. Now, watching somebody die is one thing. Watching somebody get sick is another that I'm so much less down for.
Seconds later, a cannon shot rings out. The boy takes one last look at the girl. "I'm sorry for saying that drinking the water was safe," he whispers, before turning tail and running off into the pine trees. I get up and start making my way in the opposite direction, but not before blowing a mocking kiss at the girl's body. For the sake of the people watching, you know? After I do that, I really start trying to get out of there. Being around when the body gets taken sounds unpleasant.
Running through the woods, knowing I have three kills under my belt, I feel more free than I have my entire life. Why, who knows? I guess that murder is something you really have to try to know if you enjoy it or not. I, personally, do.
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(1404 Words)
A/N: I'M SORRY I'VE BEEN GONE SO LONG I'VE BEEN BUSY WITH SCHOOL AND MY GRANDPARENTS BEING AT MY HOUSE SO AS AN APOLOGY TAKE TWO CHAPTERS IN ONE DAY
I'M ALSO REALLY SORRY IF THIS CHAPTER IS TERRIBLE I CAN'T WRITE DEATH AAAAHHHHHHH
OKAY SO I'M BACK TO TELL YOU THAT MURDER IS MOST DEFINITELY NOT SOMETHING YOU SHOULD TRY DO NOT KILL PEOPLE PLEASE
Thought of the day: If the past tense of speed is sped, and the past tense of run is ran, shouldn't the past tense of speedrun be spedran? I hate the English language
