Ice

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When I wake up the next morning, the pain from Yixing’s death is still raw in my heart. My hands clench and unclench by my side until I finally force my unwilling body up. Bright birdsong, incongruous with my dark mood, serenades me as I break fast quickly and gather up my few possessions. The familiar routine of packing up camp helps to ground me somewhat, but I feel a sense of finality in my actions. Today, no matter what happens, everything ends.

In due time I set off on the trek back to the cave, though not without a final glance back at the tree arch where Yixing’s body lies buried. My only company is myself, which inevitably leads to brooding. Why am I going back to the cave, when I could wait for Jongin and Baekhyun to destroy each other? I don’t know, nor do I particularly care. There is only a numbing need in me to end it all.

My rations are all gone, and I drink the last of my water as the cave starts to become visible. I have no more weapons, either, but it is no matter: anything can act as my weapon in the land of snow. As I near the cave, I see a figure hunched into the snow where the battle took place yesterday. With a start, I realize it’s Baekhyun. What is he doing? I stare at him until it comes to me. He still is kneeling by Chanyeol’s death spot, though Chanyeol is long gone, no doubt collected by a hovercraft many hours ago. I see in Baekhyun the same fatigue that has overtaken me.

He is just like me. He no longer cares anymore. Who lives, who dies, who wins, who loses: it is inconsequential compared to the monsters we have all become in these Games. That is the true crime.

I walk forward until I’m towering over him. He shifts a bit as my footsteps crunch the snow, but does not do anything that might signify the acknowledgment of my presence. I nudge him in the side with my foot, and he lets out a little moan.

“Baekhyun.”

Baekhyun finally looks up. His eyes are clouded, unfocused. Silence reigns around us, oppressive, until he breaks it. “Minseok. So you lived.”

“As did you,” I answer curtly. He nods emotionlessly. I see in his eyes what words he will utter next.

“Kill me.”

I will do it. Baekhyun is ready to die. Without Chanyeol, he is nothing. A shadow whispers across my heart. And without Yixing, you are nothing. I shake the chill away and focus my power through my hand on the snow. Within seconds, a glistening ice dagger has formed. I think as I raise the dagger that the Capitol must be finding this ridiculously anticlimactic. Down to just three tributes, yet all the fight has disappeared out of our poor bodies. Well, mine and Baekhyun’s, at least. I cannot speak for Jongin. After these thoughts leave me, I’m still standing there like a fool, hand holding dagger in midair. Below me, Baekhyun waits.

My hand quivers. I cannot afford hesitation, but I wish desperately that Baekhyun would close his eyes. Cursing softly, I focus on an image in my mind. Yixing’s terrible burns, crawling up his body. Rage torrents through me, the hesitation gone, and I stab down resolutely into Baekhyun’s chest.

He lets out a gasp as the blade penetrates him, and it becomes a terrible gurgling noise as he starts to bleed. I watch as the light fade slowly from his eyes. There is a silent gratitude written in them for me. He will be gone soon. As I start to stand up, I see something else, a different emotion, flash sharply in his eyes, which are focused on something behind me.

What is it?

I realize, much too late, that Baekhyun’s eyes are wide in horror. Blood pumps through me, and I whirl around in a heartbeat just as the terrible screaming begins.

“I’m blind! I’m blind!”

Jongin. Stumbling backwards. Hands over his eyes. Scythe dropped at his feet. Scythe that would have been in my back in another moment if not for- if not for-

Baekhyun! His power- it must be light- it must, he must have blocked the light from entering Jongin’s eyes.

He saved me. In his dying moments.

I stare at Baekhyun in amazement, but I know instantly that he’s too far gone. It will be only moments now until he dies, until this mysterious protection he has gifted me with his last breath is gone. I should take the scythe, kill Jongin now while he’s disabled, or else Baekhyun’s sacrifice will have gone to waste. My mind is a wild frenzy of activity. I scan the ground desperately - there! - and lunge for the scythe just as the cannon sounds.

Jongin gets there first, back in full ability instantly. His eyes, now sharp and functioning perfectly, push into mine with hatred, and I scrabble backwards, forming another ice blade in my hand as I do so.

I stand, facing him fully, and despair courses through my veins at the opportunity I have missed; I have ruined everything. We size each other up carefully, as hawks eying their prey might. Who is the hunter, and who the hunted? Only this fight can tell.

For a tight, breathless moment, we are both suspended in stillness. Then Jongin moves, and the fight begins.

The clash of our weapons rings through the vicinity. Though my ice blades are strong, they can only take so many hits before shattering to Jongin’s scythe, no matter how much I fortify them. Forced to continuously make ice weapons, I feel my strength draining away from me. I am not aware of much else: everything is a vague fury of movement and noise that I barely hold my own against. Blood pools on the snow, flowing freely from a cut on my leg that the scythe perpetrated. It is a minor wound, but minor wounds are often the difference between victory and death. At some point, I land a blow to Jongin’s arm and then he, too, is splattering red on the snow. I have never felt so fatigued, yet the fight seems like it will never end. Jongin’s screams of rage weave in and out of my battle-feverished mind, and I add my own to the savage maelstrom of activity. Darting, nonsensical thoughts: how did it end up being me and Jongin? I don't think anyone would have predicted this. And then: Jongin is too fast for me. He teleports constantly, and I freeze the places where his feet are as fast as I can, but I keep on missing. I bleed from uncountable cuts, far more than I have afflicted on Jongin. Black spots have begun to dot my vision. I’m almost spent. Jongin teleports again, but does not reappear. Where is he? Has he decided that he is done? That he would rather die by his own hand than see more bloodshed in this arena?

Then I sense him. Behind me, again. I turn, meet wild eyes and an anguished cry-

“For Kyungsoo!”

-and then Jongin buries the scythe in my back.

It is over, I think, and there is no regret in my voice, only relief.

Then the pain, excruciating, indescribable pain, brings me to my knees. Jongin collapses next to me in victory, breath heaving in short, heavy gasps. Our eyes meet, and he is the one who looks away.

The blood gushes endlessly from my wound. I am bleeding slowly to death, yet something comes to me in a flash of crystal clear realization, an idea so repulsive that my entire being recoils from it. But I cling to it as a dying man clings to his last dark desire.

I am not dead yet. It is not over.

The ice dagger in my hand burns with possibility. Last chance for second thoughts. My humanity flashes before me in a split second. The blood I have already shed. Everything Yixing stood for. Letting Jongin win, as he rightfully has. Fighting the monster who lives inside me. Finding the human who I know still exists somewhere in my soul. I come to the conclusion coolly: Yixing was too good for me. I loved him, but I am not as good as he was. And I will never be.

I feel nothing as I raise myself with great effort, and I feel nothing as I drag myself closer to Jongin, and I feel nothing as I bring the dagger down and impale him in the heart.

The Capitol has done their job well.

Jongin makes a gasping noise. His eyes roll back in his head as he writhes for a second, and I watch impassively as they roll back down and become blank and glassy. The cannon follows immediately after.

And so the Hunger Games ends. My job here is done, and soon... soon I will be done too. Only one thing remains now.

I must find Yixing before I die. I will never be the same again, and so I will never allow myself to live, to be crowned victor. My resting place lies in this arena, next to Yixing in the quiet snowlands. Nobody will disturb us there.

There is so much blood now and it's getting harder to breathe but I keep dragging myself along, away from Baekhyun and Jongin, towards the copse of guardian trees. The trail of red behind me sullies the beautiful white snow starkly but it's okay because now more snow, falling softly, covers up the ugliness.

I can see the arched trees in the distance, but when I reach into myself for more strength there is none left. A terrified cry rips itself from my throat.

"No! Please, God, if you are there, please, grant me strength, please..."

A heaving sob wracks my body. I cannot make it. I am so afraid that I will not make it. I have never feared anything as much as I fear this cruel, cruel truth.

I can't move, can't feel my arms anymore. I cough weakly, and the white in front of me is spotted with scarlet. I look up, the trees still beckoning. I am agonizingly close, but even a fool as great as myself knows when the end has truly come.

The snow picks up, and the trees blur out of sight. My vision is flickering, my breath slowing, and I can only feel the weight now of snow drifting gently onto me, burying me just as it buried Yixing. I close my eyes, lean into that cool, loving caress,

and then, at long last, I let go.

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