I pant, my lungs aching, as my fellow Careers (and that idiot Peeta Mellark from District 12) and I stop under a tall pine tree. That annoying girl, Katniss Everdeen, has scaled the tree, reaching heights I could only dream of climbing to. We stare up into the shadows of the tree, smiling at her soon-to-be-demise, and the girl merely just meets our gaze.
A while of silence descends between us before she speaks: "How's everything with you?"
My mouth drops for a second. Did she really just ask us that? A quick glance of the group confirms my exact thought on everyone's faces. Cato, a monstrous tribute from District 2, recovers before the rest of us and calls back to Katniss.
"Well enough. Yourself?"
I bite my lip and hope she'll give us some valuable information on her status. Her jacket has been cut to her ribs and is that a burn on her leg?
"It's been a bit warm for my taste," she answers, her face still smiling. "But the air's better up here. Why don't you come on up?"
"Think I will," Cato says, and he steps toward the trunk, ready to scale it.
"Here, take this, Cato." Glimmer, my fellow candidate from District 1, holds out her only weapons, a silver bow and its sheath of arrows. Frankly, I'm not sure why she even took those things from the Cornucopia. She's much better with a knife than a bow- and I'm being charitable when I'm saying 'much better'. Fighting's not really her thing, but she's decent enough at it when she's forced.
Cato pushes away Glimmer's offer. "No," he states. "I'll do better with my sword." I glance toward the blade at Cato's belt for a moment before I turn my gaze up to watch him begin climbing the tree.
I hope it's my imagination, but I think I hear Peeta Mellark take a deep breath as our heads craned up to watch Cato.
We watch Cato steadily get higher, but Katniss stays far out of his reach, climbing higher whenever he gets close to her.
Suddenly there's a crack, and Cato is flailing as he crashes to the ground. Clove, Cato's other tribute from District 2, rushes forward to help, but Cato is standing now, cussing like there's no tomorrow.
This time, I clearly hear a sigh of relief come from Peeta.
The girl from District 4, Finn, purses her lips. "Glimmer, why don't you give it a try? I'm pretty sure you're a lot lighter than the rest of us."
Glimmer gives an exasperated sigh, but she walks up to the tree and hoists herself up onto the first branch. She gets a bit farther than Cato did, but when the branches begin to snap underneath her feet, she stops climbing. She arms her silver bow and lets the arrow rip. I sigh as I watch the arrow strike the trunk next to Katniss's head. Katniss pulls it out and waves it in the air, struggling not to let a look of triumph come upon her face.
Glimmer slowly descends back to the ground. "Bitch," she mutters to us.
Cato lets a stream of cuss words free, his mouth working to pronounce every syllable of hatred. I stay silent, watching and listening as the other tributes grumble about their current annoyance. The only other person staying silent is Peeta Mellark. I search his face for any emotions, but either he now hates Katniss, or he's a really good actor; I wouldn't doubt the latter after seeing his interview with Caesar Flickerman.
The sky is growing dimmer, and our chances of killing her tonight are getting dimmer as well. I know the other Careers have realized this because they are suddenly throwing out random ideas but rejecting each one just as quickly.
Finally, Peeta bursts out, "Oh, let her stay up there! It's not like she's going anywhere. We'll deal with her in the morning!"
A moment of silence follows and slowly everyone agrees to wait until morning.
The Capitol's anthem still resonates in my ears, even though it played a while ago. A lone owl hoots as I stare up at the tree in the darkness, only illuminated by the torch we keep in the middle of our camp. I wish either Clove or Cato would lend me their night-vision glasses- I would feel a lot better being able to see clearly in the night. But knowing both of them, they would rather die than hand over the glasses.
The other Careers are sleeping, having left the finishing touch on the plan of how to lure Katniss from the tree for the morning. I can't quite see Katniss clearly in the night, but I know for a fact she has a sleeping bag, for she is lying in a black pouch on a branch high up. So that's how she's managed to get this far without freezing to death. I pull the thin blanket around me more tightly around my body, my back against the rough bark of the tree. That Katniss is so lucky; the only person with a sleeping bag in our group is Cato, and he threatened to kill us over the sleeping bag. And by us, I mean everyone except for Clove, because she is snuggled up next to him in the sleeping bag.
As I'm staring into the sky, I notice something come from the tree next to our tree. For a moment, I think I'm imagining things, because no rustle of leaves even alerts my ears of danger. But the longer I look at the protruding object, I discover it's an arm. Dark skin- that can only be District 11. Too small and thin to be the boy from District 11, so it's the girl. I think for a moment, and remember that her name was Rue from the Reaping footage.
As quickly as it appeared, Rue's arm disappears into the leaves. I wonder why she put her arm out in the open like that. I crane my head to look up into the tree, but Katniss doesn't seem to have moved, and it's too dark/high to see much else.
Peeta Mellark moves around on the ground near me. I glance over at him, expecting him to be asleep, but I am startled to see his blue eyes gazing at me.
"What's up, Marvel," he says after a moment, his voice sounding extremely alert for someone who supposedly should've just woken up. But I know he doesn't want to know what's up; he doesn't want to become friends with someone who could be the one to kill him. This is just small talk to make the tension between us decrease slightly.
"Shut up and go to sleep," is my only reply.
He doesn't say anything after that. A moment passes before he speaks up again: "Do you want to kill Katniss?"
"Yes," I snap immediately. "With her out of the arena, we'll be one step closer to winning." I don't mention the fact that we'll also be one step closer to killing each other. "If only I knew how she got that eleven… But what about you? Do you want to sacrifice yourself for her, Lover Boy? Let her run away as we kill you instead?"
I try my best to sound intimidating, but it doesn't work, for I'm younger than him. He merely only raises his eyebrows at me.
After a moment, he replies, "To answer your question: yes, I do want to kill her. She was so annoying back at home… you do realize all that at the interview was an act, right?"
Lover Boy may be able to lie on a daily basis, but this time, his emotion clearly shows on his face, and I can tell he is lying. But I'm too tired to argue with him anymore.
"Sure, whatever," I mutter, and he turns back around as I lean forward and poke Glimmer.
"…what," she growls after a few moments on awakening.
"Get up. You have guard duty next."
Troubled dreams keep me from sleeping soundly, each one of them filled with blood. Light creeps through my eyelids, but I keep them shut, not wanting to get up yet. I hear a bird chirp above me.
When sleep does not come easily to me, I finally open one eye, still drowsy. Glimmer is still sitting against the tree on guard duty, but her head is drooped, clearly sleeping. I hear a rustling in a tree nearby. Then another rustle, a bit further away this time. Probably just a squirrel leaping from tree to tree. I close my eyes.
…is that a sawing noise?
I snap my sky blue eyes open just in time to see something fall down from the tree into the middle of the camp. My mind is still groggy, so it takes me a moment to recognize the thing in the middle of the camp.
…a moment too late.
Tracker jackers stream out of the nest, angrily buzzing. I'm on my feet in a flash, practically screaming my head off as I run in a random direction, anywhere but here. I can hear the other Careers yelling as they wake up to the sight and sound of the devilish bugs. I feel a sharp sting underneath my left ear.
"To the lake!" Peeta shouts behind me. I hear people behind me as we sprint in the direction of the lake. I hear Glimmer screeching behind me; I would turn around and help, but there is no way I'm facing those wasps again. Adrenaline pumps through my body, allowing me to run a lot faster than I normally would. But even with my burst of speed, I still receive multiple stings. I hike my hood up, quickly checking that a wasp didn't get trapped in my hood afterward.
As we near the lake, Cog, the boy tribute from District 3, looks up from his duty of defending our food storage.
"Hey Marvel—" is all he can get out before he notices the swarm of tracker jackers following us.
"What the hell!" he shrieks, and he's on his feet in an instant. "What did you guys do?"
"Get in the water!" Peeta shouts from behind me.
Cog and I leap into the water at the exact same moment, the horror of wasps seeping away to a world of gentle blue. Unfortunately, I have to resurface again for a breath.
I splash back into the harsh light. I open my eyes, and immediately I realize my mistake.
The hallucinations!
The water is a blood-red, looking thicker than normal water. My hands are swollen badly, even though I don't see any stings on them. Someone surfaces next to me, and I look over to see Clove, her stings spewing an acid liquid.
I know she's seeing similar hallucinations when I see her look of horror when she turns to me. She shrieks and splashes to the shore. I look up in time to see Cato running after Peeta as they run back to the camp- why, I don't know. Trying to see past my hallucinations, I glance around. Other than trees ballooning past their usual thickness and extremely large butterflies, I don't see any trace of tracker jackers anywhere.
Cog resurfaces next to me. I turn to him. Are those spiders coming out of his blisters? Feeling sick and painful and not used to such swelling on my own body, I black out.
Note from the author: Wow, this is my first non-shipping story that has both Marvel and Rue in it! :D I wanted to write the Careers' POV for when Katniss was up in the tree, and I'm sort of happy with how it came out—but I hate the title. -.- Couldn't think of anything else. (Oh, by the way, if you were wondering, I write Marvel as a fifteen-year-old, so that's why he's younger than Peeta.)