like lions after slumber
When the platform rises into the Arena all she can see is grey and green, and before she can think about where to move the gong sounds and everyone is running. There is no time to survey the area around her before she begins running down the hill, away from the Cornucopia. She hears screaming and it takes a few seconds for her to realize that it is her own and shit, there is something lodged in between her floating ribs but she can't afford to stop moving.
She has always been fast, but the Arena proves her to be too slow. She runs towards the tree line, because she is from Seven and the trees remind her of home. Before she can realize, the terrain is no longer the hard rock that they had been let out on and her foot gets caught in the soggy ground and she falls. The hill is steep, and she rolls down fast and hard, biting on her lip to stop the bile from rising in her throat.
When she hits the bottom it is the most she can do to assure herself that she is no longer falling and she has a brief moment of calm before she assesses her injuries and stands. Between her ribs there is a small metal disc that she knows the boy from Two specializes in throwing and she waits to pull it from herself. Her neck hurts like hell and she is covered in mud and cuts but besides that she figures that she is okay and moves on shaky legs.
...
She had been nervous on Reaping Day because her name had gone in twelve times (once for every year, three times for herself, three times for Sam, and three times for her mother) and there were so many things she liked better than dying. (Sam had told her once that the Capitol was committing slow suicide, they'll kill us all eventually, Jo, and then who'll be left to make their things?, and that the Games was just a symptom of that.)
When the man with the long yellow beard calls her name with a flourish she hears herself scream out crying, her mother's whimpers nearby. Peacekeepers surround her as she collapses in a heap. She's not quite sure what's happening but she soon finds herself onstage next to the Capitol escort who's smiling with his teeth, or fangs- she can't be sure. And then he's calling for the male tribute and she doesn't recognize his name, it won't matter in the end since they'll both be dead.
…
When she finally tests the muscles in her legs to move, she goes through the realization that she has nothing from the Cornucopia; she supposes it is better that she took her life rather than dying with an axe in her hand. The disk still inside her ribcage isn't giving her any problems for the moment and she considers the likelihood she would bleed out if she tried to remove it. So she keeps moving into the woods, not so far to reach the edge, but far enough to get away.
The night is hot and muggy in the Arena and although there is wood aplenty, a fire would be the easiest way to get herself killed. So she finds a rock about the size of her hand and climbs the thickest tree she sees. And once she reaches what she hopes is high enough to not be found she takes her rock and begins carving into the giant trunk.
As she slowly carves out a niche big enough for her body to fit, all she can hear is the sound of the cannons and she counts the faces in the sky. She sees thirteen faces, faces now familiar to all of Panem, and wonders how many more she'll see before her face is plastered among the stars with the rest.
It is hours before she makes a hole big enough for her torso to fit in but she remembers the woodpeckers in District 7 and she keeps on pounding at the ancient tree. The wood is surprisingly soft and the whole forest is barely recognizable to her, with its wet, branchless trees and the poorly lit understory that she currently occupies. Only now does she curse her luck and she wonders how realistic her chances are for making it out alive.
…
The train ride to the Capitol is painfully quiet because she refuses to look at the boy sitting to her right and it seems all their mentor can do is rock and forth on the plush couch. The Reapings of the other tributes play in the background so she tries to focus on the food. Although the rest of his party is wholly unwilling to converse, their escort, whose name she has now learned is Lux, is more than thrilled about the tributes of the year. A clear grin goes unhidden on his face. I think District 7 has a Victor this year! and You two will get plenty of sponsors! seem to be his favorite phrases so she thinks about the Victor curled in a ball in front of them and hopes she doesn't win if it means becoming that.
It is night when they reach the Capitol and all she can see is light and she cries because all she can think of Sam and her mother huddled around their fireplace. Her District partner, a phrase she scoffs at because partners aren't sent to kill each other, is asleep when they enter the Capitol and she restrains a laugh thinking about how much Lux will hate that.
It isn't until they send her to her room and she's supposed to be sleeping when she remembers that she'd rather die later, then sooner. And she thinks about Sam and her mother and that they can live without her, but she's better than resigning herself to death for this reason alone. She hasn't got her resolve yet, but she comes to the conclusion that she's damn close to finding it.
…
Her first few days in the Arena are spent carving out a hiding space and it takes her this long to realize she needs water. It is in a panic that she searches for the water-filled bamboo or vines she so studiously memorized during Training. The search for water, she realizes, has dislodged the disk from her side and she is suddenly bleeding and leaving a red trail in her path. All she can do to staunch the flow is reach down into the damp earth and place moss in her wound.
It turns out that, after returning to and climbing only a little further up her tree, vines are everywhere, and that she can easily slice them for water with the shiny disk she now has available for her use. With enough water in her stomach, she returns to her task of creating her hole in the Arena.
She works through day and night, pausing only when she hears signs of anyone coming, but no one passes. By the third night she is done with the hideout, and she slides herself into the hole to sleep.
…
By the time they are brought to the Training Center she has stopped crying and the shaking has subdued. The other tributes eye her condescendingly and laugh when they think she isn't looking.
She doesn't move during the first four days training and instead sits atop a small box and watches the competition. Her District partner looks at her with concern but all she does is wait.
On the fifth day she casually moves toward the Edible Plants station and stands behind other tributes as the instructor goes over where to find food in a desert. She doesn't listen because if it's a desert she won't be able live long enough to find shelter, let alone food.
Her District partner comes up behind her and takes her hand, and she's lost on what to do because they haven't even talked and here they are holding hands. She slithers, yes that's the right word, back to her box and her corner and she can feel 23 pairs of eyes burning a hole through her. She leaves training early that day.
At dinner her partner, doesn't look at her and she's not sure whether that's a good or bad thing. She sleeps better that night than she has for a long time.
…
She doesn't know how long she sleeps, but she wakes to the sound of four cannons thundering overhead and there is mist in the sky that distorts the faces. She realizes she's hungry, but not starving, and ventures out of her hole to get more water. She stops short before she is totally out of the trunk because she can smell roasting meat not too far off. It is just sundown and she doubts that any tribute would be stupid enough to start a fire, let alone cook, unless they weren't afraid of being found.
She figures the group must be the Careers, and are less than a mile away from her, so she's not taking her chances. She creeps slowly back into the tree and takes in a mouthful of mist for moisture hoping it's not full of poison. Then suddenly there's shouting and the boy from One is daring the girl from Two to say that again, bitch so she decides to hold her breath and makes no sound for the next ten minutes after she hears the tearing of steel on flesh as Two gets her torso ripped in two.
After a brief pause the boy from One orders the rest of the Careers, she thinks she hears two others, to pack up and leave. She counts to sixty seven times before she dares to move again.
…
She realizes she doesn't want to die the day before her session with the Gamemakers. It's not that she has any strong desire to live, but she's so, so afraid to die (not that she'd ever admit it).
She decides she's going to live.
…
It is another two days and one cannon later that she realizes she has to find food. There are six of them left and she thinks that it is about time for her to take fate into her own hands. She follows the trail of where the days old wood-smoke hangs in the air. For a short time she searches for any tool they may have left behind but it is in vain.
She moves in the direction of the Cornucopia before she can think and once she realizes what she's doing, she doesn't stop. There is very little standing in her way now, she reminds herself, and she washes away the fear with her now 17% survival rate that is oddly reassuring.
When she reaches the area where the forest ends, she stares at the mountain of mud and slate rock in front of her and ascends.
…
She gets a 2 for her training score by picking up and axe and throwing it about a foot in front of her. She figures that it's better not to get herself targeted before the Games begin but she knows that she has to get them to put at least one axe in the Arena or she will most definitely not make it out of the Arena alive.
When the scores are posted on the television she grins wickedly because she is done wallowing in fear and she will not give in because she is a fighter and she will live.
…
She remembers when Sam found her in the pest control shed, cyanide in hand; Life is for the living, Jo. Don't give up on it, not yet. You're stronger than the rest of us, Jo, and they can't kill you, I know you won't let them.
…
She starts climbing the hill cautiously but by the time she has reached the grey slate rock that covers the ground under the Cornucopia she is sprinting. There is a fair amount of supplies left, all things the Careers could not carry with them. She searches through the bags for weapons and her axe, where the fuck is it?, until she sees the telling glint of a wide piece of metal in the heart of the Cornucopia.
Then, a cannon, and in the midst of her frantic search she is brought to a complete halt by the sound. A moment of silence ensues as she regains composure and runs toward the axe.
It seems as though the forest is exploding in the next seconds as she recognizes the boy from One as he crashes through the woods to storm up the hill. And she feels no fear for the boy, only for death, and she remembers District Seven and what is feels like to be alive outside of the Games. So she plants her axe in the throat of the child (she reminds herself that none of them are children, no, not after this).
…
The 71st Hunger Games end when Johanna Mason beheads the District 4 girl with a swift swipe of her axe. She collapses to the ground after the burying blade of her axe in a tree and all she can think is you're not dead yet.