***Dedicated to Zoe, this is the ending that she described. Click here for Part 6, and click here to see all the stuff that I skipped***
My teeth chattered as I lay shivering in the District 10 pen next to my sleeping ally Jonathan.
The bleak sun is rising, I think, I can’t tell. I don’t even know what day it is in the arena, due to the heavy snow. It’s been snowing for a while, and it is unbelievably freezing, my entire body is stiff and numb-feeling. I don’t know what the Capitol is playing at, normally they drive all the tributes together so they can enjoy a nice bloody deathmatch
This time seems to be different. Instead of coming up a pack of wolves, or an angry swarm of tracker jackers to force the tributes to the Cornucopia, the Capitol decided to make the arena like a massive freezer. The cold winds were whipping my hair into my face while large chunks of was practically ice raining from the sky.
The pen did about nothing to shelter me and Jonathan from the weather. The wind blew around the pen, making everything about 10 times worse than it was already. Within 2 minutes of the start of the bad weather, we were already huddled for warmth and shivering uncontrollably.
Suddenly, my insides became jelly, and I curled up in the damp snow, shaking really badly. I try to sit up, but when I start to sit up, my body becomes liquid again and I curl into a ball again on the ground. I begin to rapidly sneeze and cough. What’s going on? Have I caught a disease? If I have, was this a disease planted by the Capitol, or was it a normal cold or sickness? I’m really worried now, I can’t stop sneezing and coughing and I can’t sit up, let alone stand up. What happens if another tribute, the killer girl from District 2 or the athletic boy from 8 or Quincy charges in the pen and takes out a weapon? I won’t be able to hold my knife properly, which means I will have no defence if someone picks this moment to attack.
Terrible, terrible pain shoots through my body, and I can’t breathe or think or move, what’s going on, what am I doing, am I dying, is this the end of the Hunger Games for me, the end of my life?
And then it stops, or half stops, at least. I gasp, half frozen tears running down my face. It’s pain like nothing else in the world, like a cold blade of ice pierced my body. The really bad pain has stopped, but I’m still sneezing and coughing like before, but it’s 100 times worse. I roll over, coughing and crying and trying to scream but with a faint croak escaping my mouth instead
My foot connects with something else. I think it’s Jonathan that I kicked, but I can’t be sure, I’m not focusing on that, it’s mostly the pain that I’m focusing on.
‘Leila, what’s wrong?’ Jonathan is awake now, probably because I kicked him. I’m still rolling around like crazy, my body is out of my control. I’m still floppy and weak, but at the same time I’m spinning around in the frozen snow, my body forced to jerk around in pain. I hear Jonathan say something, but it’s distant and quiet. Suddenly the horrible pain comes back, and a loose shriek emerges from my mouth as I roll around, the pain’s back, I’m dying, please make it stop –
And as sudden as it came, it left. I’m left weak and I’m violently sneezing and coughing in a ball on the snow. Jonathan is still hovering above me, uncertain of what to do. I can barely say a word but I manage a faintly said request. ‘Please…end it…take my knife…Jonathan’ I choke out. He looks down at me in shock and horror. ‘You want me…to murder you? Leila, I can’t, I just can’t. Come on, you can pull through this-‘ ‘No!’ I croak. ‘Just…do it…please…’
Jonathan inhales shakily, before reaching out to my sheath of knives. He pulls out 1, leaving the other 6 inside. He raises the knife, closing his eyes. I know he doesn’t want to do this, to commit the crime of murder.
The sharpest pain that I’ve had so far hits me. I scream and scream and scream, and then it’s black.
Leila’s writhing body is thrashing around like a fish out of water. A terrible scream of pain gurgles from her mouth, her eyes squeezed shut, tears leaking out of her eyes. I see why she wants this to end. I can barely life up my arm, but I do, and I close my eyes as I swing the knife down.
The knife definitely hits her body, I don’t know where, I don’t want to know. I know that Leila’s dead, gone, and that I was responsible, because her wracking sobs stop nearly immediately. I yank the blade out of her body, and I open my eyes reluctantly. Red stains the clear white snow beneath her body. A distant cannons signals her death. I sit down, ignoring the cold, closing my eyes. I don’t even know what happened to Leila. I think she got sick because of the coldness. Killed by snow, my brain thinks in a weak attempt to lighten things up. But it isn’t funny. And anyway, if the cold and snow was responsible for her death, it was nothing compared to me
She’s dead because of me. Dead because of me, Jonathan Brownley
***I don’t know who Zoe wanted to win, so for now I’m going to say Quincy (because I’m a mean person )***