Memories of the bloodbath at the Cornucopia haunted my dreams as I slept, hatchet pressed against my chest. I was laying on a bed of moss, surrounded by tall reeds in a marshy area to the west of the Cornucopia that I had no choice but to run to after I'd managed to retrieve my hatchet. I saw it there on the outskirts of the giant golden horn, and knew it was for me. I was from District 7, a broad swath of a District filled with dense forests we used for lumber. My male counterpart, a fourteen year old boy I knew only as Yarrow, was not as lucky as I was during the bloodbath.
His sallow face flickered in my dreams. He, like most of us in District 7, was poor. I didn't know much about him other than that he was the youngest in a family of seven. I didn't know who his parents were, or who his siblings were. I only knew that they'd never see him again except through the cold, impersonal screen of their television. Poor Yarrow. He made the mistake of rushing the Cornucopia head on.
I was only a few feet away when the curved blade of a knife slashed at the tender flesh of his throat. He collapsed to the ground, terrible gurgling noises emitting from his thin lips. Blood gushed from his exposed esophagus, staining the dirt. I didn't stick around to see who killed him. I escaped the brutality with only minor injuries to my cheek. Someone, a Tribute from District 1, I guessed from her unnatural lime green hair, slashed at me with a dagger in an attempt to scare me away from the hatchet.
I did the only thing I could do. I dove behind her, grabbed the hatchet, and buried it into her spinal column. She died before she knew what had happened. I dislodged the hatchet from her back and ran as quickly as I could. I ran and ran and ran until the gasps of the dying faded away and the metallic stench of blood was buried in the murky scent of the marsh.
In retrospect, coming to this particular spot in the arena was probably a bad idea. From what I'd learned about it, the arena was divided into three sectors. You had the marshlands to the west, a coniferous forest to the north, and something unknown to me to the east. You could see the massive trunks of the trees from the Cornucopia. They were so tall that you could not see the tops of them because they were shrouded in a blanket of eerie fog.
I should have gone there. The forest was my home. I was not accustomed to the wet, boggy ground squelching underneath my boots, to the moisture that covered my skin, making it feel sticky and uncomfortable. I longed for the shade the trees provided. The marshlands were hot, strange bubbling noises gurgling from the bog a few feet away.
I was sleeping a bit more peacefully than before when a spectacular crashing noise came tumbling through the reeds. Despite my knowledge about poisons, I knew that fear was the most potent one of all. Fear was a liability in most circumstances, and in others, fear was your greatest asset. Fear sent adrenaline pumping through your veins. It awoke your most primal instincts, instincts that usually slept dormant in most people.
As Tributes, we were not like most people. As Tributes, we had to kill or be killed, and I was not going to let myself die. Not tonight.
Something stirred in the pit of my stomach as I shot up from my mossy bed. My left hand curled around the rough handle of the hatchet, while my right flew to my mouth to help muffle the sound of my breathing. The smallest of movements, the tiniest of sounds could be fatal.
The crashing grew louder and louder as my intruder came nearer. I held the hatchet tighter, my knuckles blanching paper white. The darkness was thin and seemed to be tinted in green, the blocky shape of a boy ambling around not far from where I sat. Silently, I cursed the night. It was too dark, the figure too obscure. I couldn't throw the hatchet, not yet. There was a good chance, even though my aim was steady thanks to Zander's lessons, I would miss.
I couldn't afford to miss.
My only option was to flee. Fighting in these conditions would be idiotic. The ground was too unstable and the shadows were too dense. But, if I did try to run with the enemy so close, I could have easily been brought down with a carefully placed throwing knife or an arrow. Despite what my instincts told me, I remained in place on the moss, stiff as a statue.
The reeds rustled again. A stricken groan. He was hurt. Good. It would be easier for me to kill him, then. Muscles tense, I readied the hatchet, aligning it with the shambling Tribute ahead of me, my green eyes peeking through the reeds. Zander's smooth voice murmured in my ear as I waited for my enemy to wander within striking range.
Aim to kill, Ivy.
Before my name was Reaped, I would have never thought that I would become the murderer that I knew I was. I hunted animals, small game such as rabbits, but that was it. I had never killed a person before the Games. Killing a rabbit was different. It was a food source, a way to survive. In the Games, the rules were flipped. Everything and everyone was out to get you.
Maybe if I had thought of this boy as a rabbit instead of a person, I wouldn't have felt as guilty for throwing the hatchet directly at his looming silhouette. The miniature ax cut through the saturated air with a low whistle. I stopped breathing in anticipation. The boy screeched loudly and fell into what was probably a puddle, judging by the splash.
I waited for him to stop screaming in pain before I scrambled out of my hiding spot, doing my best to keep the sick feeling that almost paralyzed my legs at bay. As it turned out, the boy was much closer than I had previously thought. I had only taken a few steps before my boots stepped on something fleshy.
I crouched down to retrieve my hatchet from his abdomen, expecting to find his body riddled with wounds. It wasn't. The gash where the hatchet had been was the only one he had, save for a few cuts and bruises. He was tall and bulky as I expected him to be, skin drawn taut over bunches of muscle in his arms. His skin was lightly tanned, his hair thick and curly. If my memory was correct, he was Sylvan Mable from District 4.
My second victim.
I shook my ever darkening thoughts away to focus on the task at hand. Sylvan was simply a set-up, a sad little decoy probably forced into playing puppet for the Careers. I'd been hiding from them all day. Ever since I killed one of their own, the green haired girl at the Cornucopia, they decided to make me their main target. I'd been able to evade them thus far, but as I yanked my weapon out of Sylvan's side, something, an arrow, I guessed, whizzed past my head.
Stifling a gasp, I threw myself onto the ground, blood pounding in my ears. I had walked right into a trap. Stupid, stupid, stupid! I should have never attacked Sylvan. I should have just waited for him to leave. My left hand, the one that wasn't clutching the hatchet, was buried in the peaty mud, fingers digging deep into the earth.
"Hah!" I heard a voice snort, dripping with satisfaction. "I knew she'd be here!"
"You didn't know anything," sneered a separate, definitely female voice. "You just saw her run over here from the Cornucopia is all."
"You're just mad because she killed your boyfriend," the boy snickered. Their voices sounded closer than ever.
"He wasn't my boyfriend!" The girl cried out indignantly. "Besides, aren't you the least bit sad that Sylvan's gone?"
"Nah," the boy said. "It's kill or be killed, Jasmine."
There was an evil in his words, a sinister undertone that the girl, Jasmine, was probably deaf to. She trusted him. Trust, like fear, was a liability in the Games. He was going to kill her soon and she wouldn't know it until her throat was slit or her head was taken off.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Jasmine asked carefully.
I closed my eyes, imagining what a kick the people watching the Games were probably getting out of Jasmine's and the boy's exchange. They probably just wanted him to kill her already.
"Nothing," the boy mused.
I started crawling forward on my stomach, holding my breath the entire time. I paused when Jasmine screamed.
"Julius, what are you doing?" She choked helplessly.
"I don't need you anymore, Jasmine. Sorry, your time is up."
One last, strangled scream followed by a sharp snapping noise. My stomach lurched. I didn't have much time before Julius found me. I crawled into the undergrowth as quickly as I could, dragging the hatchet stained with Sylvan's blood with me.