Here is the next chapter. I am focusing on less characters now, but there will be a surplus of chapters (I don't like long chapters).
Chapter 12
It Sets InKilling.
That is the new reality of the contestants; they are in The Hunger Games.
As Joe breaths labouriously in a bush where he has good camouflage from any onlookers, he berates himself for thinking he ever had a chance. When he looks at his bleeding left arm, completely numb, he feels dread fill his body. Within a day, it would definitely be infected, unless Joe could amputate it.
This was nothing like his victorious Hunger Games, where Joe outsmarted the entire arena and electrocuted five people during the first few minutes of the game. His prosthetic leg isn't that big of an issue, but his spinal injuries are.
And now Joe was practically just delaying his death. Faiz had really done a number on him, even if Joe managed to impale him.
There isn't anything to fear. Joe does not believe in a deity. There is always the possibility of a higher power, but he doesn't buy into that. And yet the prospect of an afterlife now intrigues him as the world starts to become fuzzy. In the small chance that there is an afterlife...what would happen?
Suddenly, people become audible, and Joe's heart practically stops beating there and then. Joe still lies behind the bushes.
A beautiful place to die; amidst the animals of the valley.He doesn't know what else to do. He's already thought about his life, achievements, and family over the past few hours. He also saw a strange flying piece of technology flying about, no doubt one of those rumoured broadcasting devices. Joe's family would know that he went courageously. That he had no choice.
Batari and Roshani appear as Joe's vision begins blurring again. Why! Why did it have to be her? "I don't want to die to her...", Joe thinks. He hears Batari say something in their native language, but he can barely make it out. Are they showing mercy?
Their language is only used during prayers, sacrifices, or funerals nowadays.
Joe isn't dead yet, but he can't see anymore, and everything is painful.
He might as well be.
"Poxti Suxli sekxeyti", the High Priestess growls in the Údnei's native tongue. "[You should] hope that the Sun saves you". It's an oddly depressing site to see Joe, her only critic in Údnei, dying. But from Batari's experience, she knows that he won't truly pass for about ten more minutes as his body shuts down.
Guiltily, Batari stabs Joe with her dagger through the chest, and he dies instantly, without pain.
"Dzhoyi, Suxli, sekxeywa. Neguxwame tokrewa deigowa arskuweikwor".
"To Joe, the Sun, save him. I do not want to let him burn like the rest of them". He was innocent. Disabled. Deluded. Batari had never really thought about the hundreds of people that she had sacrificed. But now that it was someone she knew from her own tribe...
And something in Batari's mind snaps.
