If this arena were set in November we could have had a Black Friday Tom Sale

[justoutrunyou]

Who| Sandy, Tom, Thor, Carlos, Clara
What| Stay tuned for the thrilling conclusion to The Mall Arena.
Where| Main floor the ruins of the food court.
When| The final day of the final week
Warnings/Notes| Lots of killing, probably some cursing, child death...really it's everything you watch the Hunger Games for. The viewers at home will be thrilled.

The arenas always seemed so much bigger when the number of tributes had been reduced into the final ten or so.

In Sandy's memory she cannot think of the last time she was so close to victory, and all it had cost her was all her allies once again. She hoped desperately they were back at home cheering her on.

Exhausted from lack of sleep Sandy had finally given up and drank the water despite knowing it to be poisoned. Not much mind you but just enough that she didn't feel like she was going to die of thirst.

Instead she felt like she was going to go insane. The chemicals were reacting wonderfully to her already amped up anxiety. Play that off of her lack of sleep and increasing paranoia and you had a jittery girl armed with a pair of ice skate blades mounted on a broom handle.

She was particularly pleased with this creation that she had cobbled together during one of the nights she'd found herself unable to sleep for more then a couple hours at a time. While she hadn't used it to kill anyone the length of it gave her some confidence she would be able to hurt them long before they could hurt her.

And so rattled, hallucinating and armed Sandy returned to the food court in vein hopes that perhaps there would be some secret stash of bottled water she had missed. She doubted it very much but she had a master key and wasn't afraid to unlock every shop in the food court to look for anything to drink that had enough fluid in it to keep her moving.

Comments

[seestheman]

"Alright," she says, giving him a small though nervous smile.

A smile which falters a little bit at the sight of his...Susannah's gun. She doesn't know why, a gun would be more effective for this. Kinder to both of them, even. It means things will be over for her quickly and he won't have to deal with feeling her die by his hand.

Clara turns around and sinks down onto her knees, screwing her eyes shut. Carlos shouldn't have to see her face when she dies. "Just make it quick, okay?"

[youbarium]

He sees her turn around. That's just as well: it's better that she didn't see this.

But really, what was the rest of that?

"I -- I don't remember how the rest of it went," admits Carlos. "I do not kill with my gun. Guns don't kill people; we are all immortal souls living temporarily in shelters of earth and meat."

No, that doesn't sound quite right, either, but against all the odds, Carlos finds it a little comforting. Carlos had thought it was regular old Night Vale weirdness when he had first heard it, but isn't it true, here?

He takes a deep breath, and knows that he will pull the trigger. He looks at Clara, and knows that if he points it at her, he could win: he could escape the Arenas. The Arenas...but not the Capitol.

No. When he pulls the trigger, the gun will be pointed at him.

"It's okay, Clara," he says, and she will hear the small, small smile in his voice. "Dying isn't so bad. There are so many things that are worse than dying."

He takes a deep breath and puts the gun against his temple, on the side opposite the Capitol brand.

"Please don't be mad. This is what I want. I -- I'm sorry."

This is it. One command, sent from brain to nerves to muscle, and it will be over. He's ready.

"Goodbye."

A bang, a splatter, a thud partly muffled by a lab coat, and silence.

He'll explain back in the Capitol.

[seestheman]

Throughout all of Carlos's talking, Clara just wants to tell him to get on with it. Not out of anger or frustration, but because she's tired and hurting and would love nothing more than to wake up in her bedroom in the Capitol and go apologize to Rose for not being able to rescue her from the debris during the explosion or explain to Alex that what he saw between her and Rose was (mostly) an act (while hoping that he's back to being her Alex).

She remembers hearing once that you will never hear the bullet that kills you. Obviously, that isn't true since you can die from so much more than a headshot, but this should be a headshot. She hears the shot and then the sound of Carlos falling and turns around.

God, she wishes she hadn't. He's covered in blood and his skull is in pieces and she's pretty sure she might throw up if she doesn't turn around and run.

So she does.

She only stops because she's lightheaded from the blood loss and the adrenaline that's ebbing out of her system.

God, she's tired.

Clara sinks down to the floor, vaguely aware of the announcement being made that she's Panem's new victor. She can't even bring herself to care, to yell at the fact that this is wrong and she shouldn't be the winner. That there has to be someone else, anyone else.

But she's too spent to do that and instead falls asleep.