Seven Stages of Grief

The alarm blared.

What time was it now? 7: 00am, the clock told him. This may very well be his last day alive, and all he felt was a leaden weight on his body, making him dizzy and sick. He wanted to go back to sleep, but knew that would be impossible.

His eyes, hooded and heavy with sleep, opened slightly to shoot a disapproving glance at his alarm clock, which kept beeping. He didn’t move his arms at all, or indeed to anything other than blink as the sound continually beat his eardrums. The word ‘merciless’ comes to mind; although most of his thoughts now were dim ones. He had read somewhere that there was this thing every human went through when dealing with death—The seven stages of grief: Shock, denial, guilt, anger, bargaining, depression, and hope.

The day of the Reaping seemed a lifetime away, even though he could still remember the disbelief he felt. The gravity of the situation hadn’t hit him. Even on the train ride back, speaking with his mentor and fellow Tribute, Elicia, he was in deep denial about where he was going and what he was going to have to do. His fourth night here, he didn’t remember too well either, because he had spent most of it trashing his bedroom leaving glass and flowerpot water everywhere. Somehow his mattress was half on the floor and the phone cord dangled from the ceiling fan. The Avoxes and Capitolites attributed this to a boyish tantrum—maybe his food was too hot and it burned him, or the training outfits weren’t stylish enough. Yes, that made perfect sense. It wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that he was pretty much sentenced to death, and on the road to hell, he may or may not have to kill someone.

Whoever wrote the steps, had no idea what they were talking about. Clearly guilt came after anger. Draken had felt so sorry he even cried so hard he was almost too useless to help the Avoxes clean. He was sorry for the room, sorry for leaving his dad all alone, and sorry he’d have to kill… though he still hadn’t worked out if he would yet. In no way did he have the gumption to end someone’s life simply for his own longevity. It wasn’t right or fair but… would he when the time came? The boy was never terribly religious but he prayed every second he could spare since he got here, asking an invisible God to take him back to his father. To make this nightmare disappear.

He got dressed, and while doing so, he couldn’t help but think that his night of rest was a good one. Perhaps his body knew the terror he would soon have to face and gave him a good night’s sleep as a farewell present. A pleasant thought amongst a horizon that had never before looked darker.

And now, wandering these empty halls, fully dressed and toted along by these Peacekeepers, he felt like he would never get the chance to leave the state of depression he was in. What was worse, he thought he’d never get over it. He wouldn’t live to feel the joy and peace acceptance brought him. He wouldn’t live to see His dad’s face ever again. The thought of lying down and dying was oh so tempting, but a quitter he was not.

After he woke up and left his bedroom, he gorged himself on water until he could actually hear it slosh around when he walked, forced down a grapefruit, poured over his books and retaught himself to make his weapon in midair, over and over. He knew the pressure points pretty well and could knock the others unconscious if they got too close – he tried not to think about how, if they got close enough with a knife of a spear and his aim wasn’t precise, he’d be done for. He could make a dart shooter, he reminded himself, and then prayed some more that there were trees wherever they were going. He would be fine for days without water on the amount he was drinking now, and he didn’t need anything from the cornucopia, though something would be nice. Though, at the same time, he would like nothing more than to roll over and let a knife slip into his chest right about now.

As he drank, nearing the bottom of his gallon of water, he looked up to see his fellow district 5 tribute just staring and picking at her almost emptied plate. Disturbingly, he noticed her glass of juice was still full. The hunger games were supposed to be a competition—Elicia was supposedly his enemy, though she had shown him no malice. She wished him luck before his interview, goaded him into ‘moving his ass’ so they didn’t miss their cue on the chariots, and smiled once at him during their joined reaping to humor him. They weren’t, by any means, best friends, but if the worst came to the worst, he wouldn’t be able to hurt Elicia in exchange for his life. That, he thought, fell under the category of unthinkable.

“Another, please?” he asked an Avox, gesturing to his jug. In no time at all, it arrived. He picked it up carefully and stood, wandering to the other side of the table to the dark skinned girl there to set it down. “Drink this. Hydrate as much as you can.”

“I’m not thirsty,” Elicia countered.

“It doesn’t matter. You drink this, and you’ll be fine on water for a few days at least. Please?”

Elicia gave him a why-do-you-care type look, her newly carefully plucked eyebrows pinched together, making her look almost angry. Draken didn’t relent.

“It would make me feel better,” he said and then retreated to his own seat. Maybe it was pride that made the girl hesitate, but a moment later, the boy smiled at the sound soft gulp gulp coming from the other end of the table.

In thirty minutes the hover craft that had picked them both up from the helipad on the north end of the building would land and they’d be in the arena at last. Draken was terrified of heights, but now, he was so numb, it felt like he was gliding through the day and it was just happening to him.

The aircraft shuddered to a halt, bringing Draken back to Earth just in time to be shunted out onto a new platform with the others. One hover craft transferred tributes from districts 1-6, and the other 7-12. The boy didn’t understand how the others could talk, let alone smile like this was nothing more than a day trip, though then again, these were the Careers he was talking about. He, Elicia, and the others were lead through a labyrinth of pure, blinding white hallways. One by one, a peacekeeper and their assigned tribute parted ways in this maze until Draken was alone with his, following with wobbly knees. He regretted not wishing Elicia good luck when she and her peacekeeper rounded a corner and disappeared from view, but his throat was tight and his voice was insistent on failing him. At last, when the sound of his footsteps were starting to get on his nerves, they arrived in a room with a yellow-green tinted tube. He felt his breath rise in his throat but ignored it. There was nothing he could do about that now. Doubtful they had inhalers in the arena for the tributes with Asthma. Yea right.

Now that he was this close to go-time, his thoughts were severely jumbled. Phrases like “High ground”, “Water”, “Run from the bloodbath” jumped at him, making him feel nervous and uneasy. His stylists weren’t here, not even his mentor Dakota. All of them were presumably with Elicia right now. No sense wasting their breath on a lost cause. Draken’s breath caught in his throat again and he swallowed it. That got harder to do each time it happened. He felt alone now more than ever because he missed his dad so fiercely, his chest ached. None of these capitol workers were talking to him, and apart from the woman who shot a tracker into his forearm, no one even acknowledged that he was there.

“Excuse me,” he said, boldly trying to catch the attention of the man punching codes into the monitorless computer. Still polite, still quiet, still scared out of his wits, “If I don’t make it, will my body go back to my father?”

Surprised by such a question, the technician nearest in charge of working the tubes eyed him reproachfully. “Yea. And he’d get a medal from the Justice building too. Neat, huh? Like a participation trophy.”

Draken ignored that last part. The people from the Capitol were so stupid it was alarming. Hating them would be like hating a puppy for peeing on the rug—although here, the situation was much graver. License or not, Draken hated the Capitol and everyone in it, and especially the government and the President for not abolishing this barbarianism long ago… His voice caught in his throat again. He wanted to clutch his necklace that was under his shirt, but knew he shouldn’t or they would make him take it off. No outside apparel allowed (apart from his shoes since they didn’t seem to be able to find a small enough size for him, he went ahead and used his own yet again). He needed to keep this necklace on though, not only for his mother’s sake, but if his remains were really to go back to his father, he’d open the locket and read the four word note inside it. And maybe, just maybe, he’d be alright after.

It was hard not to cry, stepping into that tube and thinking about the tiny piece of paper curled so close to his heart that read ‘I love you, dad’, but somehow he managed. He was surprised by his own steadiness in fact as the countdown began and he rose up in the chute, determinedly standing stalk still.

Sixty, fifty-nine, fifty-eight.

High ground. Water. Dart shooter. Pressure points. Thank God there were trees.

Forty-two, Forty-one, Forty.

He was sandwiched between the boy from 8 and the girl from 6; Devin, who looked as scared as he did, and Beau, who was kind of tall but looked focused on the cornucopia.

Thirty-five, thirty-four, thirty-three.

He was a spot away from the girl from 4, Ferryn. Three tributes separated him from Charm. The plane was uphill, Cornucopia about 100 yards out.

Twenty-one, twenty, nineteen.

He was never going to reach age nineteen.

Fourteen, thirteen, twelve, eleven.

There was a pack and a knife right in front of him. In the pack, there could be water or water purifier, or matches to light a fire. The knife would save him the hassle of skinning his fingers red and raw while making his weapon. And further away was a bottle of water and a pill taped to it…

Seven, six, five, four.

Now or never.

Three, two, one.

It seemed to take an eternity for the word ‘one’ to leave the speakers and the gong to shatter the still air. Draken immediately felt sick when he tried and failed to move forward. He realized he was having some sort of panic attack right next to his pedestal. He got up on all fours and pushed himself off of the ground in time to avoid someone’s foot that came whizzing up to meet his head. He tried to swallow but he couldn’t, instantly dizzied by the chaos that broke out. Before he lost his mind entirely, he did the only thing that made sense and dived for the knife a few feet away.

Just as his hand closed around the hilt, another body flew out of nowhere and lunged for it too. He cursed himself to choosing the knife over the backpack, and knew if the water wasn’t long gone by now, it wasn’t safe to backtrack and get it. There came a snarl and he was pushed onto his back, miraculously, knife still in hand. He saw a whip of hair and dark skin before instinct screamed at him to defend himself and he turned around and sunk the knife as hard in he could into the flesh at the back of his attacker’s hand, nailing them to the ground below with its blade. Jumping back to his feet, leaving the knife there and panicking, he needed to get out, he needed to get out! He spotted an unclaimed bag, and, abandoning his scramble for the knife, he dashed towards it, snatching it up just barely by the tips of his fingers, and using gravity to his advantage, running downhill as fast as he could, breathing hard. His heart was caught in his throat and he felt like it would stop beating at any moment, but he didn’t dare stop running.

He ran for what seemed like hours, though really was only maybe ten minutes at most. He was fast—impossibly so, but that was mostly attributed to him being scared out of his mind and tiny for his age. He stopped around a tree large enough to obscure him from view to catch his breath, and realized that he was crying. He hadn’t killed anyone, and some of the contents of his open bag had busted free in the chaos—but he wasn’t crying from disappointment or anger. He was crying for the tribute he had hurt. A knife, clear through the hand that had left their blood, now thick and crusted, on his palm. He cried and cried and tried to swallow and catch his breath. Wheezing and choking, he attempted to keep quiet, but it was no use. The smell of blood was too potent in the air, too pungent invading his nostrils like this…

He heard footsteps nearby, but asthma wasn’t exactly something he could control. He slapped his unsoiled hand over his mouth hard and fished in his shirt with the other. He was finally free to do so, clutching his mother’s necklace until his knuckles turned white and the sensation that he might have a heart attack at any moment finally died. Minutes later, when he could spare no more tears for his poor attacker’s hand for fear of ruining his morning’s mantra of water chugging, he hitched his pack over his shoulder and, trembling, moved off into the forest, trying hard to ignore the telltale booms that shattered the air after a tribute-- alive earlier today, who woke up at 7 in the morning and ate breakfast, thinking they had as much a chance as any out there-- died.

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