[exo] nine kills
title: nine kills
word count: 7179
pairing(s): sehun-centric; (only if you squint) hunhan, krishun; (only if you squint really hard) baekyeol, suchen
rating: r for language and violence
summary: the victors of the 99th annual hunger games aren’t really victors. but then again, there are never any victors of the hunger games, only survivors. hungergames!au
“stay away from the careers,” yifan had told him before he left.
sehun should’ve listened to the other boy’s advice. he shifts his axe from one hand to the other and tries to ignore the sinking sensation in his gut as they cut their way through the forest.
“why did we let him tag along, anyway?” one of the district 2 tributes asks the other.
“because he’s taken out three tributes already, and that’s higher than your kill count,” lu han replies from the head of the pack. “maybe we should be asking the same thing about you.”
the district 2 boy takes a step back, scowling. “fuck you, lu han.”
“you wish,” the other boy retorts, smirking.
sehun watches the exchange warily. the 99th annual hunger games are games of a different kind, in honor of the quarter quell next year. double the usual tributes are reaped from each district, and boys and girls are placed in separate, identical arenas. one male and one female victor will emerge triumphant this year to compete in the next games as tributes for the capitol itself in the 4th quarter quell. it’s supposed to remind the districts of their ultimate purpose, even in victory -- the service of the capitol.
“hey, tree boy!” it’s one of the district 4 boys, jongin. “climb one of these trees and tell us what you see.”
sehun’s heart jumps to his throat. when he climbs the tree, his back will be exposed, and the others will be out of range of his axe. several of the careers are skilled with throwing knives and one even wields a bow. he’s easy meat if he goes, and good as dead if he stays, disobeying lu han. he doesn’t want it to end like this.
“no, jongin.” lu han is clearly the leader of the career pack. “why don’t we let no-kill ssi do it for us instead?”
he glares at the boy from district 2 who had questioned sehun earlier. the boy immediately looks at the other from his district, eyes pleading. he knows the fate of the one that climbs. zitao only shrugs.
“you agreed to the plan,” he tells his companion.
the boy from district 2 climbs the tree with the air of someone already dead, closely avoiding a fall several times.
“come on, no-kill ssi!” lu han taunts from the ground. “we don’t have all day.”
the boy scrambles a bit faster. when he gets to the top, he calls back down, “it’s like you thought, lu han. the arena is split into the four seasons -- winter tundra, spring meadow, summer desert, and forest in autumn.”
“good.” sehun sees the glint in lu han’s eye as he says, “crawl out on that branch a little bit further, no-kill ssi. see what’s in that direction.”
“please, lu han. you need me. i can help, really -- there’s no one as good as i am with a spear and you’ll all die without someone with wilderness skills!”
“alright, we believe you, no-kill ssi. just a little bit farther.”
sehun watches the boy’s eyes shift, as if calculating his next move. then he makes a flying leap for the closest tree, trying to escape before the others can act.
lu han’s knife catches him right in the chest and he falls through the branches like a stone, landing on the ground with a thud. the red of his blood almost perfectly matches the red of the fallen leaves. a cannon booms in the distance.
lu han stumps over and wrenches his knife free of the fallen tribute. he wipes the blade on the dead tribute’s clothing, the others watching as he does.
“three kills. we’re even, tree boy,” lu han says as he stares at sehun.
…
that night, they count off the fallen tributes as they appear on the sky. the boy from district 2 and one from district 10 in addition to the nine that died in the bloodbath. thirteen tributes left.
sehun pretends to sleep but he’s really counting the breaths of the others, waiting until they fall asleep so he can make his move. zitao has the first watch, wrapped in a thermal blanket with his sword propped up on the tree next to him. the others are scattered among the trees, around the remnants of a fire.
the breaths level off. sehun’s fingers curve around the handle of his axe. he deliberately chose the spot closest to the guard when they went to bed. the rustling of the wind disguises his movement through the leaves, his axe raised in one hand.
it’s him or you, he tells himself. the faces of the other tributes he killed flash through his head. the small one from district 9, the youngest of this year’s reaping. the scared looking one from 12, all skin and bones stretched over a prominent bone structure and hollow eyes. chanyeol from district 10, the one sehun trained with back in the capitol.
that stupid giant could never watch his left side, he thinks bitterly. it wasn’t my fault.
the axe comes down in the middle of zitao’s head with a sickening squelching sound. a cannon booms in the sky. sehun takes a quick look around him and sees the others beginning to stir. he’s up in a flash, snatching zitao’s sword and shoving it into his backpack before sprinting through the dark woods in the direction he knows to be the desert. it will be freezing in the nighttime, but the sand will hide him in the dark.
he can hear shouts behind him. the careers are trained to be light sleepers, awake at the sound of a cannon. they will know of his betrayal.
“shit!” he curses, skidding to a stop just before a steep drop into nothingness.
his eyes follow the dim outline along in both directions. there doesn’t seem to be any end. the voices behind him are getting closer. he quickly scales the nearest tree, grabbing a handful of nuts from the base. by the time he reaches the top, concealing himself haphazardly in fallen branches and damp leaves, the rest of the careers have arrived. sehun hurls the nuts through the darkness, one by one. they bounce off a tree on the other side of the ravine.
“he’s right ahead of us!” one of the careers calls. “don’t stop!”
the others laugh and hoot. sehun can see their weapons glint faintly in the light from the sliver of moon in the sky.
“we got him now!” another shouts.
“he’s mine!”
then screaming as they hurtle off the cliff and into the cleft in the earth. the screams cut off abruptly as their owners collide with the rock walls of the ravine. a cannon booms twice.
“stop!” it’s lu han’s voice, furious. “everybody stop!”
panting. then --
“it’s just me, lu han. the rest are dead.”
“fucking idiots!” lu han swears. sehun hears the sound of something heavy hitting the ground. “am i the only one with any damn brains in here?”
“good riddance,” jongin murmurs. “three less people to kill in the end. he did us a favor, really.”
“never fucking say that,” lu han snaps. “he did not do us a goddamn favor by fucking showing us up.”
“i didn’t say that, lu han!” a deep breath. “come on, let’s keep moving. we have to find somewhere else to sleep tonight.”
“no.”
sehun inhales sharply; he recognizes the edge in lu han’s voice. his fist tightens on the handle of his axe, sticky with blood.
“lu han, what are you doing?” it’s jongin, and he’s obviously scared. “we had a plan, remember? you need me.”
“i don’t need anyone!” lu han screams. then jongin grunts, his voice suddenly hoarse.
“how could you?” he whispers, reaching out in the darkness. then his mouth falls slack and he groans in pain. “lu han.”
the sound of a knife slicing through skin, a strangled scream, and the sound of a cannon. sehun’s blood runs cold at the sound.
“i know you’re there,” lu han addresses the air. “i’ll find you, tree boy.”
lightning splits the sky and rain comes pouring down, freezing. lu han laughs and raises his voice as if addressing the world, or maybe, the capitol.
“okay, i get the message. i’ll leave him alone for now. but i won’t make any promises for the others.”
he pads off through the darkness and sehun contemplates his situation. stripped of leaves as they are, the trees afford little protection from the rain. he could hold his jacket over his body, but that would do little for the cold. in the end he decides to head for the desert area again, figuring that it can’t be far and the rain won’t extend to the other climate area.
he slides down the tree and walks over to jongin’s body, wondering if there’s anything of use. but when he sees the state of the body he tastes bile in the back of his throat and staggers backward two steps. his face is torn in two, as if someone ripped a knife through the roof of his mouth straight up to his brain. blood still trickles from the gaping hole in his stomach to pool on the forest floor.
…
when sehun gets to the desert his stomach growls. he tears open the backpack he took from the cornucopia and wolfs down the packet of dried beef. then he looks at what he has left -- a handful of nuts and an apple -- and immediately regrets not taking jongin’s backpack. even though some of the others in district 7 would hunt in the forest, sehun never did. he won’t be able to find food, and then it will only be a matter of time.
he wonders what other tributes are nearby. he counts on his fingers the ones that have fallen: the eleven from last night, zitao, the two careers, and jongin. that makes fifteen. only nine still alive. besides himself and lu han, there’s yifan from district 6 and the two boys he was always with, joonmyeon from district 3 and yixing from district 8. sehun isn’t sure who the other four are. in that case, they probably aren’t anything to worry about.
for the first time since his name was plucked from that glass bowl, sehun begins to entertain the notion that he might just make it to fight another year.
he decides that he needs to sleep most of all. he sets up his things in the dip of a sand dune, propped up against his backpack and shivering under his thin blanket. his dreams are full of blood and familiar faces, mangled beyond any semblance of humanity. and beneath it all, a pair of dark brown eyes dancing with something almost inhuman, blonde hair damp with sweat and hands soaked in blood.
he wakes with a start to a blazing sun and a dry mouth. he needs food and water immediately. he’ll deal with any tributes he finds along the way. the cornucopia is his best chance, abandoned by the careers after the bloodbath. there’s a chance that lu han might have the same thought, but sehun will cross that bridge when he gets there.
the hot desert wind buffets him as he trudges along toward what he determines to be the center of the arena. it’s unnaturally quiet, in this transplanted, artificial desert. sehun shudders and speeds up, yearning for the familiar safety of the forest. but he can’t go back into the torrential downpour.
his thoughts are full of trepidation when he hears it -- a low hissing noise combined with deafening rattling. he immediately recognizes the rattlesnake when he sees it, but it’s nothing like the ones they have in district 7. it’s a mutt -- twice as thick as sehun’s torso, and twenty feet long. his heart pounds in his chest as he locks gazes with its shiny black eyes, stupid and malicious. one look at it tells sehun that it’s programmed to kill. he wonders how long he can outrun its poisonous fangs, and if in that time he will be able to think of a plan.
the snake darts forward, jaws snapping closed on empty air as sehun leaps out of the way. his axe swings loosely in his fingers, the handle smooth under his calloused fingers. he knows what to do.
the sand whispers around the snake’s body as it pulls back, regrouping. it surveys sehun with its bottomless eyes and then snaps again. from the looks of it, its scales are hard enough to repel any attack with his axe. sehun’s best bet is to attack its large vulnerable eyes, and he waits until the snake moves to act. watching the mutt is excruciatingly nerve-wracking, as he strains his eyes for any little movement and realizes that one slip-up could mean his life.
the snake lunges straight forward and sehun ducks under its head, grabbing tightly to the sinuous muscle of its body with both arms and legs as it tries to rid itself of its unwanted passenger. carefully, grabbing more tightly with his other arm, he uses one hand to raise his axe and bring it down on the mutt’s eye. the snake’s screaming splits the desert air. blood spurts from the wound and the snake thrashes violently, blood splattering everywhere. but as sehun holds on he realizes that it’s only blinded -- the cut isn’t deep enough.
his thoughts flicker to zitao’s sword. he immediately disliked the feel of that particular weapon in his hand during training, feeling uncomfortable with such a long blade, but he knows enough to be able to use it. he struggles to rip the weapon from his backpack and his axe falls to the ground in the process.
“fuck!” he yells as a violent contortion of the snake’s body sends him flying through the air. he lands in a sand dune, winded, but holding tight to the handle of the sword. blinded in one eye, the snake takes a while to find him, but sehun is too dazed to move until the snake is right on top of him, fangs gleaming with venom. he can’t scream for fear, but in the split second it takes for the snake to lunge forward he has time to register the thought that this is the end.
…
bloodcurdling screaming rings in his ears, but he can’t figure out where it’s coming from. he registers a sharp, throbbing pain in both of his forearms, but he can’t see anything because his eyes are squeezed shut. when he gathers the courage to open them again, he screams and shuts them because staring him in the face is the wide open mouth of the snake, one eye dull in death and the other still red with blood. its large incisors are buried in his arms, pumping venom into his bloodstream. he must have gotten the sword up and driven it into the snake’s brain just as its jaws began to close around him.
weakened and delirious, he manages to pry himself free of the snake’s grasp, panting and groaning in pain as he slides his arms free of the fangs. he staggers a few steps in the bright desert sun, reaching out for his axe where it lies in the distance, zitao’s blood still eerily red on the blade. the last thing he registers is a voice calling his name before he collapses.
…
“i heard the cannons and i saw the hovercraft,” someone says above him. “at least four deaths, plus the boy we saw last night. this means--”
“the career pack is all gone but one, i know,” a second voice answers.
“we can take him out, yifan, i know we can.” the first voice is earnest.
“no,” is the curt reply. “have you ever given any thought as to who killed those other five careers? if it wasn’t lu han, we have someone else to worry about, and if it was lu han, that just confirms that he’s too strong for us. he’s a career. we’re not going to go looking for him unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
“it can’t be that difficult. we can get him from a distance. i got the wire from the cornucopia, remember?”
“no, we wait.”
“it’s the kid, isn’t it?” the first voice asks after a pause. “he’s not going to make it anyway. it would be better if we ended it now for him.”
it takes sehun a moment to realize they are talking about him. he sits bolt upright and snarls, all of his muscles screaming in protest as he tries to find his axe. there’s shouting from both voices and he feels all the blood rush out of his head, his vision blacking out for a second.
“hey, calm down.” sehun finally recognizes the second voice. it’s yifan from district 6. “lie back down, sehun.”
he’s covered in someone’s jacket under the shade of a tree. both forearms are bandaged and his head pounds. the sun paints the sky red in the distance, long grasses waving in the breeze around them.
“what happened?” he asks. “who’s dead? where’s lu han?”
yifan laughs, but it sounds unnatural. “take a deep breath, sehun. we were passing by the desert when we found you. you’re safe now.”
“who’s we?” sehun demands. “how many tributes are left?”
“it’s the four of us -- me, joonmyeon and yixing you know, and jongdae you don’t. he’s from district 5. two more tributes died today, but we don’t know who yet. so there’s seven of us left -- the five of us here, lu han, and one more tribute that’s still alive.”
sehun is silent as he digests the information. his gaze settles on the other boy underneath the tree. it must be jongdae, because sehun doesn’t recognize him. he wonders what yifan saw in the boy. district 5 is power; that might be useful, especially since joonmyeon was from district 3 -- electronics.
“where are joonmyeon and yixing?” he asks to break the silence, his voice more quiet now.
“they’re--” jongdae begins.
“--looking for food,” yifan interrupts. “they’ll be back before dark.”
sehun shifts on the ground. “i should go with them. i need to start earning my keep.”
yifan looks pained. “you really shouldn’t. you’re burning up. we gave you water and kept you cool, but it didn’t seem to help.”
sehun blinks and realizes that he does feel fucking awful, his throat dry and sticky and his face burning in the evening air. his stomach sinks and he feels ready to throw up. “the venom from the snake?”
“it looks like it.” yifan pauses. “sehun, what happened? you were supposed to get your axe from the cornucopia and meet us near the perimeter of the arena.”
“it didn’t happen that way, alright?” sehun responds angrily. “but i’m here now, so it’s fine.”
yifan frowns. night is falling rapidly around them and at a nod from yifan jongdae starts to kindle a small fire.
“well, you should get some rest either way.”
jongdae silently deposits a packet of dried beef and some bread on his lap, and sehun forces himself to take a few bites. when he’s done, he leans back on the ground and tries to swallow down the lump in his throat. yifan and jongdae whisper some things above him, but he can’t bring himself to care. he wonders how long it will be before the venom reaches his heart, or his brain, or his lungs.
he closes his eyes and lets the events in the capitol come back to him, whispered plans and conspiracies hatched on rooftops. hopes that they would make it out alive, but for sehun only fear. he was supposed to join with yifan and the others. joonmyeon had the smarts to come up with a plan to get them out of whatever situation they were in, and jongdae, sehun supposes, went along with that. yifan was the mastermind, the one that brought them all together. yixing impressed yifan during training, both strong and skilled with sharp things from years in a factory in district 8, and sehun was just another grunt that was supposed to keep them alive longer than the other tributes. they were going to make it as a pack in the arena until they were the only ones left, and then one of them had this crazy idea that if they got that far they could somehow threaten the gamemakers into letting them live.
sehun never believed it. when he managed to pull off the second highest score of all the tributes in his private training session, the careers extended him an offer to be part of their pack as well. honestly, sehun just saw it as a chance to live for a few more days. yixing was good with a knife, and yifan and the others were smart, but in the arena they wouldn’t stand up to trained killers like the careers.
of course, he wasn’t so sure he wanted to join when he saw what kind of treacheries the careers were capable of, but his mind was made up at the cornucopia. all he can remember is being so afraid, and wanting to destroy anything in his path if it meant he would have a better chance at living. the careers were ruthless killers, but they didn’t give him false hope, and they didn’t try to stand up to the capitol, the one death sehun fears the most.
the only problem is that now yifan will expect him to stand up to the capitol, and that’s the one thing sehun can’t do.
…
sehun dreams of district 7, but instead of forests of trees, green and comforting around him, there are forests of skyscrapers. they are filled with little capitol creatures, girls with cotton candy hair and feathery wings, boys with teeth filed to points, claws in place of fingers and the hateful, luminous brown eyes of wildcats. no matter how hard he looks, he can’t find his way home, because every time he turns the last corner the only thing that awaits him is the arena, and the bodies of the fallen tributes, and yifan telling him that they can all survive but they really can’t. because there is only ever one victor.
when he opens his eyes, he’s not sure if he’s still dreaming. his vision is tinted orange, and all the noises echo strangely in his ears.
“yifan,” he calls out hoarsely, his voice cracking. “please, help me.”
yifan appears almost immediately. “i’m sorry, sehun. i don’t know what to do. s-something got yixing last night. we think it was lu han. and the two tributes from yesterday -- minseok and kyungsoo. did you know them?”
sehun shakes his head weakly. he can’t bring himself to care about anything but the burning ache of his body right now. “am i going to die, yifan?”
“i won’t let that happen, okay?” he doesn’t sound so convinced, and sehun isn’t either.
he thinks back to his mentor -- key was district 7’s victor eight years ago. he won his games at fifteen by staying under the radar, pretending to be everyone’s friend and then stabbing them in the back (quite literally, because his weapon of choice was a dagger he kept sheathed inside his jacket sleeve). he would approve of sehun’s decision to abandon the career pack, but sehun wasn’t sure how much help he would be now. he might consider sehun a lost cause and be concentrating all of his energy on helping the girls from district 7 -- krystal whose sister was a victor not long before key and victoria who could survive anywhere if you just gave her a knife and enough motivation.
no, he can’t depend on key. yifan won’t risk sending anyone to the cornucopia to try to find an antidote for sehun, not when yixing is dead and the boys that are left won’t stand a chance against lu han. the only one he can depend on is himself.
“how long do you think i have if the poison runs its course?” he asks yifan, his voice strangely steady.
yifan sighs. “a day or two? i don’t think it’s regular poison. more likely it’s capitol-made, designed to kill you as slowly as possible. from what you were saying in your sleep, it’s probably got a hallucinogen mixed into it as well.”
suddenly there’s the sound of trumpets from the sky. the announcer’s voice comes through the speakers embedded everywhere around them.
“congratulations to all the tributes that have made it so far. at this late hour in the games, the capitol would like to invite all of the remaining tributes to a feast at the cornucopia. there will be food and drink for all, as well as a very special gift for the first tribute to arrive when the feast begins at noon. we hope to see you there, and may the odds be ever in your favor.”
“you’re not going, sehun,” yifan says as soon as the announcement ends.
“i have to,” sehun replies. “the special gift? it has to be the antidote.”
“no. the gift has to have some value for all the tributes. it’s going to be something useless like another weapon or some special information. i’m not letting you get killed for something that we don’t even need.”
“well, either way, the antidote might be inside the supplies at the cornucopia, or i might be able to take down the other tributes or injure them enough to outsurvive them. this is my last chance.”
sehun struggles to his feet, much to yifan’s protest. the world spins around him. “don’t worry, yifan. i won’t die, not like this.”
he picks his axe up from the ground and hefts it over one shoulder. “which way is the cornucopia? i don’t want to be late.”
…
sehun’s breathing is labored. he can see the cornucopia, hazy in the distance, but at his current rate he fears he’ll never reach it. he’s making so much noise that it’s impossible that either lu han or the other remaining tribute won’t hear him. no matter how he looks at it, this is the end for him.
and yet somehow, he’s not afraid. he wonders if it’s the poison.
the grass blows around him, tickling his bare skin and creating a pleasant breeze. in the back of his mind he can hear music, and see figures dancing around him, flitting away as soon as they come in contact with his burning skin. he laughs because he knows that he is the only one bringing an army to the feast.
then something collides into him from the side. it’s another tribute. sehun’s hand tightens on the handle of his axe and his heart pounds in his chest. the dancing figures dissipate from around him.
“it’s you,” the tribute snarls in his face. “you’re the one that killed him. he was gone before i even had a chance to say good-bye!”
the boy raises the knife in his hand, far over his head. too far. as he brings it down, aiming for sehun’s chest, sehun lets out a wild yell and throws the boy off of him. with one hand he manages to lodge his axe in the boy’s shoulder, and the boy screams in pain, tears beading at the corners of his eyes. panting, sehun throws him to the ground. he’s smaller than sehun is, but in sehun’s weakened state he struggles to keep him pinned. the other tribute spits and yells and finally gets his knife aimed at sehun’s throat while sehun is regaining his breath.
“ah, you finally figured out what to do,” he smiles as he grabs the other boy’s arm just as it flashes up toward sehun’s throat. it’s the arm with the axe in it. it trembles and the boy screams as sehun twists it around, the muscles in his own arm bulging. the knife sinks into the vulnerable flesh at the other boy’s throat. blood splatters everywhere, gushing out from around the knife and sticking on sehun’s face. a cannon booms, thunderously. the boy lies dead in the grass, one arm holding his own knife in his throat.
sehun’s chest heaves as he yanks his axe free of the body and crawls off of it. he lies back in the grass, contemplating the perfect expanse of blue sky. it’s so pretty.
this is really the end now, he thinks as he struggles for breath. the poison must have made its way to his lungs. the hallucinations that stopped as he fought with the other boy are back, and among the dancing figures he can even see a parachute floating down from the sky. he smiles to himself. it’s funny what the mind can conjure up when it’s afraid, silly things like hope.
then the parachute hits him in the face and he realizes this is real. propping himself up on his elbows, he opens the little basket with trembling fingers. the letters on the note swim before his eyes.
hang in there -key
he looks at the little vial and recognizes it as the capitol’s cure-all antidote. taemin from district 4 crawled back from death and went on to win his games after receiving some of the antidote from a sponsor.
sehun can’t believe his eyes. his mentor hadn’t forgotten about him after all. deliriously, he wonders if this means he is gaining popularity in the capitol. he drops the vial twice in his effort to unstopper it, and when he finally tips the antidote into his mouth he collapses back onto the ground. the medicine is fast-acting, and sehun can already feel his body cooling off, his breathing steadying when he hears the boom of a cannon.
…
when sehun comes to it’s almost dark. he turns over and picks up his axe, standing up. he feels strangely refreshed.
he thinks back to that afternoon. the boy he killed, he realizes now, was baekhyun from district 11. he wonders if the boy he was talking about before he died was chanyeol. tributes from district 10 and 11 were always very close, with their industries so similar.
it wasn’t your fault, sehun tells himself. it was either you or him.
before he blacked out, there was another cannon, so that means there are at most four tributes left including himself. he wonders who it was that died -- yifan, joonmyeon, or jongdae. he can’t even entertain the idea that lu han is gone.
he looks around. baekhyun’s backpack had fallen off in their struggle, so it’s still lying on the ground, the grass around it red. he looks through it and finds two daggers, as well as some matches. he knows better than to touch the berries at the bottom, which look strangely like nightlock.
it’s too late now to try to find yifan and the others, so he props himself up against a tree not far from the meadow’s perimeter with the tundra, with the cornucopia in sight. he’ll have to wait for morning to see if anyone got the gift from the feast and to see how he’ll play the rest of his cards.
when the anthem plays, sehun sees the faces of yixing, baekhyun, and finally joonmyeon. his stomach sinks, even though it shouldn’t matter to him who dies, as long as he’s still alive. so it’s only himself, lu han, yifan, and jongdae. once the latter two are out of the picture, it’ll be him and lu han again.
he closes his eyes and tries to sleep, but he can’t so he listens to the night around him instead. hours pass and he muses on dark brown eyes and knives and death.
around what must be three in the morning by then he hears voices coming from behind him, the edge of the arena. it’s yifan and jongdae. sehun is about to stand up and go to them, but he hesitates. something isn’t right.
“it’s our best chance,” jongdae is saying. “that thunderstorm started again in the forest, and i have enough wire to run from there through to the tundra. all you have to do is lure him there.”
yifan sounds skeptical. “how can you be sure the lightning will strike at the right spot?”
“it doesn’t have to. it’s so wet over there that the electricity will conduct if i cover enough trees. he’s probably in the desert. just make a lot of noise and attract him over there.”
“alright.” yifan begins walking away, and sehun screams at him to stop. there’s a thunk a second later and the thud of a body on the ground. sehun recognizes yifan groaning.
it’s jongdae speaking now. “you couldn’t save joonmyeon, or any of the others. i was a fool to believe you could save me. there is only one victor, yifan. you should’ve known that from the beginning.”
yifan’s labored breathing cuts off and a cannon booms in the sky. sehun suddenly sees red. he gets up from his position on the ground, his axe in one hand, and starts to walk over to where jongdae is standing, outlined against the moonlight.
his footfalls are heavy on the ground and jongdae turns around. “sehun?” he asks, his voice almost confused. “what are you doing here?”
“i should ask you the same thing,” sehun replied, nodding at yifan’s body. “there is only one victor, jongdae.”
the other boy’s face hardens. “i know that. and it sure as hell’s not going to be you, you traitor. i knew you must have left us for the careers at the beginning of the games, or they would’ve finished you off a long time ago. you’re nothing but a capitol lapdog, just like the rest of them.”
sehun is silent.
“it’s your fault that they’re dead! when yixing and joonmyeon were gone yesterday? it was to get medicine for you! lu han killed yixing and joonmyeon was too injured to put up a fight when lu han came back for him! they died for you, a filthy backstabber!”
sehun’s mouth is dry but he shrugs. “what does it matter? they would’ve died anyway. there is only one victor. you just said so yourself. and without that stupid alliance, we both know who would win in a fight between us, especially when your only weapon is in yifan’s back.”
jongdae’s eyes shift from side to side, just like the boy from district 2, and then he yells, leaping forward at sehun. it’s a mistake. he might’ve had a chance to outrun sehun, who doesn’t have any long-range weapons. but at this close range, sehun only has to sidestep, grab jongdae’s arm, and push to send him to the ground. his axe comes down on the other boy’s head a split second later.
a cannon booms. sehun always knew it would come down to this. across the arena, he can see a sandstorm whirling in the desert. the gamemakers are getting ready for the final battle, bringing the survivors together. sehun will give the capitol a show. he jerks jongdae’s knife out of yifan’s back. he is armed with the weapons of three fallen tributes now, one career, one vanquished, and one friend.
…
“sehun,” lu han says when he arrives at the cornucopia, a golden hunk of metal hammered into the shape of a cornucopia. its tail points to the center of the forest and opens out to the center of the meadow, so lu han could approach unseen as sehun sat in the mouth of the cornucopia.
“lu han,” he acknowledges, standing up and clenching his fingers around the handle of his axe. “i guess it’s just you and me.”
lu han laughs. “what are you talking about, tree boy? it’s only ever been just you and me. everyone else was trash.”
sehun thinks back to yifan and the others. “no,” he disagrees. “they were just unlucky.”
“whatever.” luhan is impatient. “i can never seem to catch up to you, tree boy. our kills were even that first night, three and three. but you did in those idiots at the ravine, and zitao at the campfire. that gives you six. i had jongin, but the gamemakers got to the other tributes before i did. i did manage to get those tributes that were with you though. it must’ve made you feel helpless, huh, to be lying there sick while i killed your friends?”
sehun clenches his jaw. “what does that have to do with us?”
“nothing.” luhan shrugs. “but when you killed that boy from 11, that brought you up to seven kills. and i’m still at six. i’m okay with being tied if you’re dead, though. i’ve waited for this moment, to finally settle the score on equal terms. there’s nothing stopping me from killing you now.”
he pulls something out from his pocket and sehun just has time to dodge before he can fire it.
sehun’s leg explodes in pain. he doesn’t know what happened. firearms are never used in the games, and yet lu han has one. it must have been the special gift from the feast. lu han laughs and comes closer.
“you don’t have any long-range weapons, do you?” he asks, almost giddy. “you could try throwing that unwieldy axe of yours, but if you miss you won’t get it back. it looks like this is the end for you. and the beginning for me.”
another shot kicks up the dirt to sehun’s right, and he realizes that lu han can’t see him in the shadow of the cornucopia. but sehun can see lu han, with the moon shining behind him. lu han curses and stalks forward, firing again randomly, sehun dodges, scrambling further up into the cornucopia where racks of untouched weapons stand. he knocks up against one of them and a shot immediately after injures his strong arm, his axe falling from his grasp as the muscles in his arm spasm in pain. he suppresses a grunt but lu han has still found him. one more step forward and a shot hits him square in the chest. sehun’s eyes widen in surprise and he gasps as he falls backward, head hitting a rack of spears.
lu han laughs and bends close. “good-bye, sehun,” he whispers. “i’ll remember you even if the capitol doesn't, so don’t worry.”
sehun smiles. his fingers tighten around jongdae’s knife and he is just barely able to plunge it into lu han’s body. the other boy screams out in pain, blood streaming from his shoulder where he is wounded. sehun is back on his feet, his injured leg screaming in protest but just able to support his weight.
“how are you still alive?” lu han demands. “i couldn’t have missed!”
sehun doesn’t reply but wipes his hair out of his eyes with the back of his right hand, still holding the bloody knife. the blood smears onto his fair skin and turns his light hair pink. he drops the knife to the ground and slides zitao’s sword out from his backpack.
“what’s going on?” lu han screams, his voice hoarse. “is this some kind of joke? i won! i’m the victor!”
“wrong,” sehun pants, staggering forward with the sword clutched in both hands. “there can only be one victor, lu han.”
lu han yells and his gun fires three times in rapid succession, two shots ricocheting off the metal of the cornucopia and only one grazing sehun’s already injured arm. the next click of the trigger reveals that the magazine is empty. as lu han is swearing and reloading, sehun is already lunging forward, zitao’s sword flashing in the moonlight as he swings wildly. the blade slices through the sinew and muscle on lu han’s legs and he falls backward as his legs can no longer support his weight. the first shot of his newly loaded gun is straight in the air, flying off toward the meadow where so many tributes once lay dead.
sehun drops the sword as well, kicking it off to clatter with the other weapons. he grabs one of baekhyun’s daggers and stabs at lu han’s shooting arm, which is struggling to point the barrel at sehun’s face. two deafening cracks sound as the bullets embed themselves into the metal cornucopia, but sehun isn’t fazed. the dagger plunges into the hand holding the gun and lu han lets out a strangled yell, his grip on the gun loosening.
“no,” he whispers as sehun pries the gun from his grasp and rests his finger on the trigger. “this can’t be happening. i won.”
“good-bye, lu han,” sehun says as he aims in between lu han’s eyes and pulls the trigger. a single cannon boom sounds and sehun falls back on the ground, his disbelieving eyes watching the night sky. with trembling fingers he pries off the jacket he entered the arena with and examines the vest underneath, which he now knows to be bulletproof. the mangled bullet is embedded in the spot on the vest just over his heart. he sighs. he thinks it will bruise now, just over his heart.
he found the vest underneath the table the gun must have been sitting on. it was covered with black plastic, hidden, almost as if it were part of the table. he shakes his head. lu han was too strong, too ruthless for his own good. the capitol never gives anything for free.
he would know that. he crawls over to the spot where his axe lies in the very back of the cornucopia and turns it over in his hands. it’s dull with the red sheen of blood, the capitol-quality metal smeared with dirt and sweat. it’s so dirty, like him.
when he closes his eyes, all he can see are the faces of the other tributes, the friends that died because of him, the enemies that fought to the very end. he counts on his fingers the tributes he’s killed -- the one from district 9, chanyeol from district 10, the one from district 12, all dead in the bloodbath; then zitao and the two careers at the ravine; baekhyun yesterday and jongdae this morning. that made eight. lu han didn’t know that sehun’s kill count was actually eight. he didn’t know who killed the last two tributes, just that sehun had killed baekhyun. lu han would never have tied with sehun, even if he had killed him and brought his own kill count up to seven. the realization makes sehun strangely sad. including lu han, he has killed nine people in these games. more than one out of every three tributes died at his hand. he buries his hands in his face and wonders what he’s done.
“ladies and gentlemen, i am pleased to present to you the male victor of the 99th annual hunger games! oh sehun, from district 7! congratulations!”
word count: 7179
pairing(s): sehun-centric; (only if you squint) hunhan, krishun; (only if you squint really hard) baekyeol, suchen
rating: r for language and violence
summary: the victors of the 99th annual hunger games aren’t really victors. but then again, there are never any victors of the hunger games, only survivors. hungergames!au
“stay away from the careers,” yifan had told him before he left.
sehun should’ve listened to the other boy’s advice. he shifts his axe from one hand to the other and tries to ignore the sinking sensation in his gut as they cut their way through the forest.
“why did we let him tag along, anyway?” one of the district 2 tributes asks the other.
“because he’s taken out three tributes already, and that’s higher than your kill count,” lu han replies from the head of the pack. “maybe we should be asking the same thing about you.”
the district 2 boy takes a step back, scowling. “fuck you, lu han.”
“you wish,” the other boy retorts, smirking.
sehun watches the exchange warily. the 99th annual hunger games are games of a different kind, in honor of the quarter quell next year. double the usual tributes are reaped from each district, and boys and girls are placed in separate, identical arenas. one male and one female victor will emerge triumphant this year to compete in the next games as tributes for the capitol itself in the 4th quarter quell. it’s supposed to remind the districts of their ultimate purpose, even in victory -- the service of the capitol.
“hey, tree boy!” it’s one of the district 4 boys, jongin. “climb one of these trees and tell us what you see.”
sehun’s heart jumps to his throat. when he climbs the tree, his back will be exposed, and the others will be out of range of his axe. several of the careers are skilled with throwing knives and one even wields a bow. he’s easy meat if he goes, and good as dead if he stays, disobeying lu han. he doesn’t want it to end like this.
“no, jongin.” lu han is clearly the leader of the career pack. “why don’t we let no-kill ssi do it for us instead?”
he glares at the boy from district 2 who had questioned sehun earlier. the boy immediately looks at the other from his district, eyes pleading. he knows the fate of the one that climbs. zitao only shrugs.
“you agreed to the plan,” he tells his companion.
the boy from district 2 climbs the tree with the air of someone already dead, closely avoiding a fall several times.
“come on, no-kill ssi!” lu han taunts from the ground. “we don’t have all day.”
the boy scrambles a bit faster. when he gets to the top, he calls back down, “it’s like you thought, lu han. the arena is split into the four seasons -- winter tundra, spring meadow, summer desert, and forest in autumn.”
“good.” sehun sees the glint in lu han’s eye as he says, “crawl out on that branch a little bit further, no-kill ssi. see what’s in that direction.”
“please, lu han. you need me. i can help, really -- there’s no one as good as i am with a spear and you’ll all die without someone with wilderness skills!”
“alright, we believe you, no-kill ssi. just a little bit farther.”
sehun watches the boy’s eyes shift, as if calculating his next move. then he makes a flying leap for the closest tree, trying to escape before the others can act.
lu han’s knife catches him right in the chest and he falls through the branches like a stone, landing on the ground with a thud. the red of his blood almost perfectly matches the red of the fallen leaves. a cannon booms in the distance.
lu han stumps over and wrenches his knife free of the fallen tribute. he wipes the blade on the dead tribute’s clothing, the others watching as he does.
“three kills. we’re even, tree boy,” lu han says as he stares at sehun.
…
that night, they count off the fallen tributes as they appear on the sky. the boy from district 2 and one from district 10 in addition to the nine that died in the bloodbath. thirteen tributes left.
sehun pretends to sleep but he’s really counting the breaths of the others, waiting until they fall asleep so he can make his move. zitao has the first watch, wrapped in a thermal blanket with his sword propped up on the tree next to him. the others are scattered among the trees, around the remnants of a fire.
the breaths level off. sehun’s fingers curve around the handle of his axe. he deliberately chose the spot closest to the guard when they went to bed. the rustling of the wind disguises his movement through the leaves, his axe raised in one hand.
it’s him or you, he tells himself. the faces of the other tributes he killed flash through his head. the small one from district 9, the youngest of this year’s reaping. the scared looking one from 12, all skin and bones stretched over a prominent bone structure and hollow eyes. chanyeol from district 10, the one sehun trained with back in the capitol.
that stupid giant could never watch his left side, he thinks bitterly. it wasn’t my fault.
the axe comes down in the middle of zitao’s head with a sickening squelching sound. a cannon booms in the sky. sehun takes a quick look around him and sees the others beginning to stir. he’s up in a flash, snatching zitao’s sword and shoving it into his backpack before sprinting through the dark woods in the direction he knows to be the desert. it will be freezing in the nighttime, but the sand will hide him in the dark.
he can hear shouts behind him. the careers are trained to be light sleepers, awake at the sound of a cannon. they will know of his betrayal.
“shit!” he curses, skidding to a stop just before a steep drop into nothingness.
his eyes follow the dim outline along in both directions. there doesn’t seem to be any end. the voices behind him are getting closer. he quickly scales the nearest tree, grabbing a handful of nuts from the base. by the time he reaches the top, concealing himself haphazardly in fallen branches and damp leaves, the rest of the careers have arrived. sehun hurls the nuts through the darkness, one by one. they bounce off a tree on the other side of the ravine.
“he’s right ahead of us!” one of the careers calls. “don’t stop!”
the others laugh and hoot. sehun can see their weapons glint faintly in the light from the sliver of moon in the sky.
“we got him now!” another shouts.
“he’s mine!”
then screaming as they hurtle off the cliff and into the cleft in the earth. the screams cut off abruptly as their owners collide with the rock walls of the ravine. a cannon booms twice.
“stop!” it’s lu han’s voice, furious. “everybody stop!”
panting. then --
“it’s just me, lu han. the rest are dead.”
“fucking idiots!” lu han swears. sehun hears the sound of something heavy hitting the ground. “am i the only one with any damn brains in here?”
“good riddance,” jongin murmurs. “three less people to kill in the end. he did us a favor, really.”
“never fucking say that,” lu han snaps. “he did not do us a goddamn favor by fucking showing us up.”
“i didn’t say that, lu han!” a deep breath. “come on, let’s keep moving. we have to find somewhere else to sleep tonight.”
“no.”
sehun inhales sharply; he recognizes the edge in lu han’s voice. his fist tightens on the handle of his axe, sticky with blood.
“lu han, what are you doing?” it’s jongin, and he’s obviously scared. “we had a plan, remember? you need me.”
“i don’t need anyone!” lu han screams. then jongin grunts, his voice suddenly hoarse.
“how could you?” he whispers, reaching out in the darkness. then his mouth falls slack and he groans in pain. “lu han.”
the sound of a knife slicing through skin, a strangled scream, and the sound of a cannon. sehun’s blood runs cold at the sound.
“i know you’re there,” lu han addresses the air. “i’ll find you, tree boy.”
lightning splits the sky and rain comes pouring down, freezing. lu han laughs and raises his voice as if addressing the world, or maybe, the capitol.
“okay, i get the message. i’ll leave him alone for now. but i won’t make any promises for the others.”
he pads off through the darkness and sehun contemplates his situation. stripped of leaves as they are, the trees afford little protection from the rain. he could hold his jacket over his body, but that would do little for the cold. in the end he decides to head for the desert area again, figuring that it can’t be far and the rain won’t extend to the other climate area.
he slides down the tree and walks over to jongin’s body, wondering if there’s anything of use. but when he sees the state of the body he tastes bile in the back of his throat and staggers backward two steps. his face is torn in two, as if someone ripped a knife through the roof of his mouth straight up to his brain. blood still trickles from the gaping hole in his stomach to pool on the forest floor.
…
when sehun gets to the desert his stomach growls. he tears open the backpack he took from the cornucopia and wolfs down the packet of dried beef. then he looks at what he has left -- a handful of nuts and an apple -- and immediately regrets not taking jongin’s backpack. even though some of the others in district 7 would hunt in the forest, sehun never did. he won’t be able to find food, and then it will only be a matter of time.
he wonders what other tributes are nearby. he counts on his fingers the ones that have fallen: the eleven from last night, zitao, the two careers, and jongin. that makes fifteen. only nine still alive. besides himself and lu han, there’s yifan from district 6 and the two boys he was always with, joonmyeon from district 3 and yixing from district 8. sehun isn’t sure who the other four are. in that case, they probably aren’t anything to worry about.
for the first time since his name was plucked from that glass bowl, sehun begins to entertain the notion that he might just make it to fight another year.
he decides that he needs to sleep most of all. he sets up his things in the dip of a sand dune, propped up against his backpack and shivering under his thin blanket. his dreams are full of blood and familiar faces, mangled beyond any semblance of humanity. and beneath it all, a pair of dark brown eyes dancing with something almost inhuman, blonde hair damp with sweat and hands soaked in blood.
he wakes with a start to a blazing sun and a dry mouth. he needs food and water immediately. he’ll deal with any tributes he finds along the way. the cornucopia is his best chance, abandoned by the careers after the bloodbath. there’s a chance that lu han might have the same thought, but sehun will cross that bridge when he gets there.
the hot desert wind buffets him as he trudges along toward what he determines to be the center of the arena. it’s unnaturally quiet, in this transplanted, artificial desert. sehun shudders and speeds up, yearning for the familiar safety of the forest. but he can’t go back into the torrential downpour.
his thoughts are full of trepidation when he hears it -- a low hissing noise combined with deafening rattling. he immediately recognizes the rattlesnake when he sees it, but it’s nothing like the ones they have in district 7. it’s a mutt -- twice as thick as sehun’s torso, and twenty feet long. his heart pounds in his chest as he locks gazes with its shiny black eyes, stupid and malicious. one look at it tells sehun that it’s programmed to kill. he wonders how long he can outrun its poisonous fangs, and if in that time he will be able to think of a plan.
the snake darts forward, jaws snapping closed on empty air as sehun leaps out of the way. his axe swings loosely in his fingers, the handle smooth under his calloused fingers. he knows what to do.
the sand whispers around the snake’s body as it pulls back, regrouping. it surveys sehun with its bottomless eyes and then snaps again. from the looks of it, its scales are hard enough to repel any attack with his axe. sehun’s best bet is to attack its large vulnerable eyes, and he waits until the snake moves to act. watching the mutt is excruciatingly nerve-wracking, as he strains his eyes for any little movement and realizes that one slip-up could mean his life.
the snake lunges straight forward and sehun ducks under its head, grabbing tightly to the sinuous muscle of its body with both arms and legs as it tries to rid itself of its unwanted passenger. carefully, grabbing more tightly with his other arm, he uses one hand to raise his axe and bring it down on the mutt’s eye. the snake’s screaming splits the desert air. blood spurts from the wound and the snake thrashes violently, blood splattering everywhere. but as sehun holds on he realizes that it’s only blinded -- the cut isn’t deep enough.
his thoughts flicker to zitao’s sword. he immediately disliked the feel of that particular weapon in his hand during training, feeling uncomfortable with such a long blade, but he knows enough to be able to use it. he struggles to rip the weapon from his backpack and his axe falls to the ground in the process.
“fuck!” he yells as a violent contortion of the snake’s body sends him flying through the air. he lands in a sand dune, winded, but holding tight to the handle of the sword. blinded in one eye, the snake takes a while to find him, but sehun is too dazed to move until the snake is right on top of him, fangs gleaming with venom. he can’t scream for fear, but in the split second it takes for the snake to lunge forward he has time to register the thought that this is the end.
…
bloodcurdling screaming rings in his ears, but he can’t figure out where it’s coming from. he registers a sharp, throbbing pain in both of his forearms, but he can’t see anything because his eyes are squeezed shut. when he gathers the courage to open them again, he screams and shuts them because staring him in the face is the wide open mouth of the snake, one eye dull in death and the other still red with blood. its large incisors are buried in his arms, pumping venom into his bloodstream. he must have gotten the sword up and driven it into the snake’s brain just as its jaws began to close around him.
weakened and delirious, he manages to pry himself free of the snake’s grasp, panting and groaning in pain as he slides his arms free of the fangs. he staggers a few steps in the bright desert sun, reaching out for his axe where it lies in the distance, zitao’s blood still eerily red on the blade. the last thing he registers is a voice calling his name before he collapses.
…
“i heard the cannons and i saw the hovercraft,” someone says above him. “at least four deaths, plus the boy we saw last night. this means--”
“the career pack is all gone but one, i know,” a second voice answers.
“we can take him out, yifan, i know we can.” the first voice is earnest.
“no,” is the curt reply. “have you ever given any thought as to who killed those other five careers? if it wasn’t lu han, we have someone else to worry about, and if it was lu han, that just confirms that he’s too strong for us. he’s a career. we’re not going to go looking for him unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
“it can’t be that difficult. we can get him from a distance. i got the wire from the cornucopia, remember?”
“no, we wait.”
“it’s the kid, isn’t it?” the first voice asks after a pause. “he’s not going to make it anyway. it would be better if we ended it now for him.”
it takes sehun a moment to realize they are talking about him. he sits bolt upright and snarls, all of his muscles screaming in protest as he tries to find his axe. there’s shouting from both voices and he feels all the blood rush out of his head, his vision blacking out for a second.
“hey, calm down.” sehun finally recognizes the second voice. it’s yifan from district 6. “lie back down, sehun.”
he’s covered in someone’s jacket under the shade of a tree. both forearms are bandaged and his head pounds. the sun paints the sky red in the distance, long grasses waving in the breeze around them.
“what happened?” he asks. “who’s dead? where’s lu han?”
yifan laughs, but it sounds unnatural. “take a deep breath, sehun. we were passing by the desert when we found you. you’re safe now.”
“who’s we?” sehun demands. “how many tributes are left?”
“it’s the four of us -- me, joonmyeon and yixing you know, and jongdae you don’t. he’s from district 5. two more tributes died today, but we don’t know who yet. so there’s seven of us left -- the five of us here, lu han, and one more tribute that’s still alive.”
sehun is silent as he digests the information. his gaze settles on the other boy underneath the tree. it must be jongdae, because sehun doesn’t recognize him. he wonders what yifan saw in the boy. district 5 is power; that might be useful, especially since joonmyeon was from district 3 -- electronics.
“where are joonmyeon and yixing?” he asks to break the silence, his voice more quiet now.
“they’re--” jongdae begins.
“--looking for food,” yifan interrupts. “they’ll be back before dark.”
sehun shifts on the ground. “i should go with them. i need to start earning my keep.”
yifan looks pained. “you really shouldn’t. you’re burning up. we gave you water and kept you cool, but it didn’t seem to help.”
sehun blinks and realizes that he does feel fucking awful, his throat dry and sticky and his face burning in the evening air. his stomach sinks and he feels ready to throw up. “the venom from the snake?”
“it looks like it.” yifan pauses. “sehun, what happened? you were supposed to get your axe from the cornucopia and meet us near the perimeter of the arena.”
“it didn’t happen that way, alright?” sehun responds angrily. “but i’m here now, so it’s fine.”
yifan frowns. night is falling rapidly around them and at a nod from yifan jongdae starts to kindle a small fire.
“well, you should get some rest either way.”
jongdae silently deposits a packet of dried beef and some bread on his lap, and sehun forces himself to take a few bites. when he’s done, he leans back on the ground and tries to swallow down the lump in his throat. yifan and jongdae whisper some things above him, but he can’t bring himself to care. he wonders how long it will be before the venom reaches his heart, or his brain, or his lungs.
he closes his eyes and lets the events in the capitol come back to him, whispered plans and conspiracies hatched on rooftops. hopes that they would make it out alive, but for sehun only fear. he was supposed to join with yifan and the others. joonmyeon had the smarts to come up with a plan to get them out of whatever situation they were in, and jongdae, sehun supposes, went along with that. yifan was the mastermind, the one that brought them all together. yixing impressed yifan during training, both strong and skilled with sharp things from years in a factory in district 8, and sehun was just another grunt that was supposed to keep them alive longer than the other tributes. they were going to make it as a pack in the arena until they were the only ones left, and then one of them had this crazy idea that if they got that far they could somehow threaten the gamemakers into letting them live.
sehun never believed it. when he managed to pull off the second highest score of all the tributes in his private training session, the careers extended him an offer to be part of their pack as well. honestly, sehun just saw it as a chance to live for a few more days. yixing was good with a knife, and yifan and the others were smart, but in the arena they wouldn’t stand up to trained killers like the careers.
of course, he wasn’t so sure he wanted to join when he saw what kind of treacheries the careers were capable of, but his mind was made up at the cornucopia. all he can remember is being so afraid, and wanting to destroy anything in his path if it meant he would have a better chance at living. the careers were ruthless killers, but they didn’t give him false hope, and they didn’t try to stand up to the capitol, the one death sehun fears the most.
the only problem is that now yifan will expect him to stand up to the capitol, and that’s the one thing sehun can’t do.
…
sehun dreams of district 7, but instead of forests of trees, green and comforting around him, there are forests of skyscrapers. they are filled with little capitol creatures, girls with cotton candy hair and feathery wings, boys with teeth filed to points, claws in place of fingers and the hateful, luminous brown eyes of wildcats. no matter how hard he looks, he can’t find his way home, because every time he turns the last corner the only thing that awaits him is the arena, and the bodies of the fallen tributes, and yifan telling him that they can all survive but they really can’t. because there is only ever one victor.
when he opens his eyes, he’s not sure if he’s still dreaming. his vision is tinted orange, and all the noises echo strangely in his ears.
“yifan,” he calls out hoarsely, his voice cracking. “please, help me.”
yifan appears almost immediately. “i’m sorry, sehun. i don’t know what to do. s-something got yixing last night. we think it was lu han. and the two tributes from yesterday -- minseok and kyungsoo. did you know them?”
sehun shakes his head weakly. he can’t bring himself to care about anything but the burning ache of his body right now. “am i going to die, yifan?”
“i won’t let that happen, okay?” he doesn’t sound so convinced, and sehun isn’t either.
he thinks back to his mentor -- key was district 7’s victor eight years ago. he won his games at fifteen by staying under the radar, pretending to be everyone’s friend and then stabbing them in the back (quite literally, because his weapon of choice was a dagger he kept sheathed inside his jacket sleeve). he would approve of sehun’s decision to abandon the career pack, but sehun wasn’t sure how much help he would be now. he might consider sehun a lost cause and be concentrating all of his energy on helping the girls from district 7 -- krystal whose sister was a victor not long before key and victoria who could survive anywhere if you just gave her a knife and enough motivation.
no, he can’t depend on key. yifan won’t risk sending anyone to the cornucopia to try to find an antidote for sehun, not when yixing is dead and the boys that are left won’t stand a chance against lu han. the only one he can depend on is himself.
“how long do you think i have if the poison runs its course?” he asks yifan, his voice strangely steady.
yifan sighs. “a day or two? i don’t think it’s regular poison. more likely it’s capitol-made, designed to kill you as slowly as possible. from what you were saying in your sleep, it’s probably got a hallucinogen mixed into it as well.”
suddenly there’s the sound of trumpets from the sky. the announcer’s voice comes through the speakers embedded everywhere around them.
“congratulations to all the tributes that have made it so far. at this late hour in the games, the capitol would like to invite all of the remaining tributes to a feast at the cornucopia. there will be food and drink for all, as well as a very special gift for the first tribute to arrive when the feast begins at noon. we hope to see you there, and may the odds be ever in your favor.”
“you’re not going, sehun,” yifan says as soon as the announcement ends.
“i have to,” sehun replies. “the special gift? it has to be the antidote.”
“no. the gift has to have some value for all the tributes. it’s going to be something useless like another weapon or some special information. i’m not letting you get killed for something that we don’t even need.”
“well, either way, the antidote might be inside the supplies at the cornucopia, or i might be able to take down the other tributes or injure them enough to outsurvive them. this is my last chance.”
sehun struggles to his feet, much to yifan’s protest. the world spins around him. “don’t worry, yifan. i won’t die, not like this.”
he picks his axe up from the ground and hefts it over one shoulder. “which way is the cornucopia? i don’t want to be late.”
…
sehun’s breathing is labored. he can see the cornucopia, hazy in the distance, but at his current rate he fears he’ll never reach it. he’s making so much noise that it’s impossible that either lu han or the other remaining tribute won’t hear him. no matter how he looks at it, this is the end for him.
and yet somehow, he’s not afraid. he wonders if it’s the poison.
the grass blows around him, tickling his bare skin and creating a pleasant breeze. in the back of his mind he can hear music, and see figures dancing around him, flitting away as soon as they come in contact with his burning skin. he laughs because he knows that he is the only one bringing an army to the feast.
then something collides into him from the side. it’s another tribute. sehun’s hand tightens on the handle of his axe and his heart pounds in his chest. the dancing figures dissipate from around him.
“it’s you,” the tribute snarls in his face. “you’re the one that killed him. he was gone before i even had a chance to say good-bye!”
the boy raises the knife in his hand, far over his head. too far. as he brings it down, aiming for sehun’s chest, sehun lets out a wild yell and throws the boy off of him. with one hand he manages to lodge his axe in the boy’s shoulder, and the boy screams in pain, tears beading at the corners of his eyes. panting, sehun throws him to the ground. he’s smaller than sehun is, but in sehun’s weakened state he struggles to keep him pinned. the other tribute spits and yells and finally gets his knife aimed at sehun’s throat while sehun is regaining his breath.
“ah, you finally figured out what to do,” he smiles as he grabs the other boy’s arm just as it flashes up toward sehun’s throat. it’s the arm with the axe in it. it trembles and the boy screams as sehun twists it around, the muscles in his own arm bulging. the knife sinks into the vulnerable flesh at the other boy’s throat. blood splatters everywhere, gushing out from around the knife and sticking on sehun’s face. a cannon booms, thunderously. the boy lies dead in the grass, one arm holding his own knife in his throat.
sehun’s chest heaves as he yanks his axe free of the body and crawls off of it. he lies back in the grass, contemplating the perfect expanse of blue sky. it’s so pretty.
this is really the end now, he thinks as he struggles for breath. the poison must have made its way to his lungs. the hallucinations that stopped as he fought with the other boy are back, and among the dancing figures he can even see a parachute floating down from the sky. he smiles to himself. it’s funny what the mind can conjure up when it’s afraid, silly things like hope.
then the parachute hits him in the face and he realizes this is real. propping himself up on his elbows, he opens the little basket with trembling fingers. the letters on the note swim before his eyes.
hang in there -key
he looks at the little vial and recognizes it as the capitol’s cure-all antidote. taemin from district 4 crawled back from death and went on to win his games after receiving some of the antidote from a sponsor.
sehun can’t believe his eyes. his mentor hadn’t forgotten about him after all. deliriously, he wonders if this means he is gaining popularity in the capitol. he drops the vial twice in his effort to unstopper it, and when he finally tips the antidote into his mouth he collapses back onto the ground. the medicine is fast-acting, and sehun can already feel his body cooling off, his breathing steadying when he hears the boom of a cannon.
…
when sehun comes to it’s almost dark. he turns over and picks up his axe, standing up. he feels strangely refreshed.
he thinks back to that afternoon. the boy he killed, he realizes now, was baekhyun from district 11. he wonders if the boy he was talking about before he died was chanyeol. tributes from district 10 and 11 were always very close, with their industries so similar.
it wasn’t your fault, sehun tells himself. it was either you or him.
before he blacked out, there was another cannon, so that means there are at most four tributes left including himself. he wonders who it was that died -- yifan, joonmyeon, or jongdae. he can’t even entertain the idea that lu han is gone.
he looks around. baekhyun’s backpack had fallen off in their struggle, so it’s still lying on the ground, the grass around it red. he looks through it and finds two daggers, as well as some matches. he knows better than to touch the berries at the bottom, which look strangely like nightlock.
it’s too late now to try to find yifan and the others, so he props himself up against a tree not far from the meadow’s perimeter with the tundra, with the cornucopia in sight. he’ll have to wait for morning to see if anyone got the gift from the feast and to see how he’ll play the rest of his cards.
when the anthem plays, sehun sees the faces of yixing, baekhyun, and finally joonmyeon. his stomach sinks, even though it shouldn’t matter to him who dies, as long as he’s still alive. so it’s only himself, lu han, yifan, and jongdae. once the latter two are out of the picture, it’ll be him and lu han again.
he closes his eyes and tries to sleep, but he can’t so he listens to the night around him instead. hours pass and he muses on dark brown eyes and knives and death.
around what must be three in the morning by then he hears voices coming from behind him, the edge of the arena. it’s yifan and jongdae. sehun is about to stand up and go to them, but he hesitates. something isn’t right.
“it’s our best chance,” jongdae is saying. “that thunderstorm started again in the forest, and i have enough wire to run from there through to the tundra. all you have to do is lure him there.”
yifan sounds skeptical. “how can you be sure the lightning will strike at the right spot?”
“it doesn’t have to. it’s so wet over there that the electricity will conduct if i cover enough trees. he’s probably in the desert. just make a lot of noise and attract him over there.”
“alright.” yifan begins walking away, and sehun screams at him to stop. there’s a thunk a second later and the thud of a body on the ground. sehun recognizes yifan groaning.
it’s jongdae speaking now. “you couldn’t save joonmyeon, or any of the others. i was a fool to believe you could save me. there is only one victor, yifan. you should’ve known that from the beginning.”
yifan’s labored breathing cuts off and a cannon booms in the sky. sehun suddenly sees red. he gets up from his position on the ground, his axe in one hand, and starts to walk over to where jongdae is standing, outlined against the moonlight.
his footfalls are heavy on the ground and jongdae turns around. “sehun?” he asks, his voice almost confused. “what are you doing here?”
“i should ask you the same thing,” sehun replied, nodding at yifan’s body. “there is only one victor, jongdae.”
the other boy’s face hardens. “i know that. and it sure as hell’s not going to be you, you traitor. i knew you must have left us for the careers at the beginning of the games, or they would’ve finished you off a long time ago. you’re nothing but a capitol lapdog, just like the rest of them.”
sehun is silent.
“it’s your fault that they’re dead! when yixing and joonmyeon were gone yesterday? it was to get medicine for you! lu han killed yixing and joonmyeon was too injured to put up a fight when lu han came back for him! they died for you, a filthy backstabber!”
sehun’s mouth is dry but he shrugs. “what does it matter? they would’ve died anyway. there is only one victor. you just said so yourself. and without that stupid alliance, we both know who would win in a fight between us, especially when your only weapon is in yifan’s back.”
jongdae’s eyes shift from side to side, just like the boy from district 2, and then he yells, leaping forward at sehun. it’s a mistake. he might’ve had a chance to outrun sehun, who doesn’t have any long-range weapons. but at this close range, sehun only has to sidestep, grab jongdae’s arm, and push to send him to the ground. his axe comes down on the other boy’s head a split second later.
a cannon booms. sehun always knew it would come down to this. across the arena, he can see a sandstorm whirling in the desert. the gamemakers are getting ready for the final battle, bringing the survivors together. sehun will give the capitol a show. he jerks jongdae’s knife out of yifan’s back. he is armed with the weapons of three fallen tributes now, one career, one vanquished, and one friend.
…
“sehun,” lu han says when he arrives at the cornucopia, a golden hunk of metal hammered into the shape of a cornucopia. its tail points to the center of the forest and opens out to the center of the meadow, so lu han could approach unseen as sehun sat in the mouth of the cornucopia.
“lu han,” he acknowledges, standing up and clenching his fingers around the handle of his axe. “i guess it’s just you and me.”
lu han laughs. “what are you talking about, tree boy? it’s only ever been just you and me. everyone else was trash.”
sehun thinks back to yifan and the others. “no,” he disagrees. “they were just unlucky.”
“whatever.” luhan is impatient. “i can never seem to catch up to you, tree boy. our kills were even that first night, three and three. but you did in those idiots at the ravine, and zitao at the campfire. that gives you six. i had jongin, but the gamemakers got to the other tributes before i did. i did manage to get those tributes that were with you though. it must’ve made you feel helpless, huh, to be lying there sick while i killed your friends?”
sehun clenches his jaw. “what does that have to do with us?”
“nothing.” luhan shrugs. “but when you killed that boy from 11, that brought you up to seven kills. and i’m still at six. i’m okay with being tied if you’re dead, though. i’ve waited for this moment, to finally settle the score on equal terms. there’s nothing stopping me from killing you now.”
he pulls something out from his pocket and sehun just has time to dodge before he can fire it.
sehun’s leg explodes in pain. he doesn’t know what happened. firearms are never used in the games, and yet lu han has one. it must have been the special gift from the feast. lu han laughs and comes closer.
“you don’t have any long-range weapons, do you?” he asks, almost giddy. “you could try throwing that unwieldy axe of yours, but if you miss you won’t get it back. it looks like this is the end for you. and the beginning for me.”
another shot kicks up the dirt to sehun’s right, and he realizes that lu han can’t see him in the shadow of the cornucopia. but sehun can see lu han, with the moon shining behind him. lu han curses and stalks forward, firing again randomly, sehun dodges, scrambling further up into the cornucopia where racks of untouched weapons stand. he knocks up against one of them and a shot immediately after injures his strong arm, his axe falling from his grasp as the muscles in his arm spasm in pain. he suppresses a grunt but lu han has still found him. one more step forward and a shot hits him square in the chest. sehun’s eyes widen in surprise and he gasps as he falls backward, head hitting a rack of spears.
lu han laughs and bends close. “good-bye, sehun,” he whispers. “i’ll remember you even if the capitol doesn't, so don’t worry.”
sehun smiles. his fingers tighten around jongdae’s knife and he is just barely able to plunge it into lu han’s body. the other boy screams out in pain, blood streaming from his shoulder where he is wounded. sehun is back on his feet, his injured leg screaming in protest but just able to support his weight.
“how are you still alive?” lu han demands. “i couldn’t have missed!”
sehun doesn’t reply but wipes his hair out of his eyes with the back of his right hand, still holding the bloody knife. the blood smears onto his fair skin and turns his light hair pink. he drops the knife to the ground and slides zitao’s sword out from his backpack.
“what’s going on?” lu han screams, his voice hoarse. “is this some kind of joke? i won! i’m the victor!”
“wrong,” sehun pants, staggering forward with the sword clutched in both hands. “there can only be one victor, lu han.”
lu han yells and his gun fires three times in rapid succession, two shots ricocheting off the metal of the cornucopia and only one grazing sehun’s already injured arm. the next click of the trigger reveals that the magazine is empty. as lu han is swearing and reloading, sehun is already lunging forward, zitao’s sword flashing in the moonlight as he swings wildly. the blade slices through the sinew and muscle on lu han’s legs and he falls backward as his legs can no longer support his weight. the first shot of his newly loaded gun is straight in the air, flying off toward the meadow where so many tributes once lay dead.
sehun drops the sword as well, kicking it off to clatter with the other weapons. he grabs one of baekhyun’s daggers and stabs at lu han’s shooting arm, which is struggling to point the barrel at sehun’s face. two deafening cracks sound as the bullets embed themselves into the metal cornucopia, but sehun isn’t fazed. the dagger plunges into the hand holding the gun and lu han lets out a strangled yell, his grip on the gun loosening.
“no,” he whispers as sehun pries the gun from his grasp and rests his finger on the trigger. “this can’t be happening. i won.”
“good-bye, lu han,” sehun says as he aims in between lu han’s eyes and pulls the trigger. a single cannon boom sounds and sehun falls back on the ground, his disbelieving eyes watching the night sky. with trembling fingers he pries off the jacket he entered the arena with and examines the vest underneath, which he now knows to be bulletproof. the mangled bullet is embedded in the spot on the vest just over his heart. he sighs. he thinks it will bruise now, just over his heart.
he found the vest underneath the table the gun must have been sitting on. it was covered with black plastic, hidden, almost as if it were part of the table. he shakes his head. lu han was too strong, too ruthless for his own good. the capitol never gives anything for free.
he would know that. he crawls over to the spot where his axe lies in the very back of the cornucopia and turns it over in his hands. it’s dull with the red sheen of blood, the capitol-quality metal smeared with dirt and sweat. it’s so dirty, like him.
when he closes his eyes, all he can see are the faces of the other tributes, the friends that died because of him, the enemies that fought to the very end. he counts on his fingers the tributes he’s killed -- the one from district 9, chanyeol from district 10, the one from district 12, all dead in the bloodbath; then zitao and the two careers at the ravine; baekhyun yesterday and jongdae this morning. that made eight. lu han didn’t know that sehun’s kill count was actually eight. he didn’t know who killed the last two tributes, just that sehun had killed baekhyun. lu han would never have tied with sehun, even if he had killed him and brought his own kill count up to seven. the realization makes sehun strangely sad. including lu han, he has killed nine people in these games. more than one out of every three tributes died at his hand. he buries his hands in his face and wonders what he’s done.
“ladies and gentlemen, i am pleased to present to you the male victor of the 99th annual hunger games! oh sehun, from district 7! congratulations!”