By tomorrow we'll be lost amongst the leaves
In a wind that chills the skeletons of trees
And when the moon, it shines
I will leave two lines
Find my love, then find me
-Daughter, Tomorrow
You stop when you come to the edge of a lake. It's enormous, bigger than anything you could've imagined, but that's not important. The other thing you grabbed, you realize now, is a water bottle.
It could be poison, but it also could be the only water source in the whole arena, so you fill it up and decide you'll camp out and watch until someone else comes and drinks it first.
With your gauntlets dangling from one hand and your water bottle screwed shut and tucked into one of the gloves, you wander a bit back the way you came and start climbing the branches of a tree. It's fairly tall, but the branches are all very close together, and it's easy to get to the top. You set your bottle in the hollow where two branches split and keep climbing until you're above the canopy.
It's incredible; You can see all the way back to the clearing where the cornucopia is, and the continuing forest beyond it. Looking around, it seems like the entire arena really is forest. If your luck continues, the others will all kill each other and forget about you.
You have a feeling your luck will run out before then.
BANG
Shit, you must have fallen asleep-
BANG
Are these the first cannons or did you miss some?
BANG
No, you couldn't have slept through that-
BANG
Besides, they'll show the pictures of the kids that died anyway, you can count them then.
BANG
You made it, though.
BANG
You made it through the first day.
BANG
You can do this.
BANG
…
Silence.
Eight dead, if you didn't miss any.
Only sixteen left.
You can do this.
You wake again when you hear splashing from the lake.
Not splashing like someone drinking or collecting water, but splashing like someone swimming.
You sit up and silently climb back to the top of your tree to get a view of whoever it is that's stupid enough to make that much noise when there are surely several other people within earshot.
It's the other District 1 girl, the one with all the hair.
She's floating on her back in the lake now, stopped with all her splashing. She looks peaceful, at one with the world, as if she isn't in a place where she will die if she doesn't keep her guard up. It's like she thinks she's invincible.
You could kill her right now.
Except no, you couldn't, your only weapons are your gauntlets, and you need to be up close to use those. And besides, you think you see someone else down there, anyway. Yeah, it's the 2 boy with the stupid chunk of purple in his hair. You think you saw him training with a rifle, he's probably gonna take care of her right now.
But… he's not killing her, he's pacing nervously back and forth in front of the beach. Almost like he's guarding her. Shit, you would have thought it would take longer for everyone to start forming alliances. They look like they're alone, though, so maybe it's just the pair of them?
However many of them there are, you're staying away from it.
You climb back down to where you slept and get ready to wait out the rest of the night.
You're a week in.
You've managed to survive a week in this fucking hellhole, and your competition has dwindled to seven others. There were several cannons in rapid succession a few days ago; You saw the younger district 5 girl take out her teammate. She was screeching about killing someone else and ruining their plan, and stabbed her in the chest. Her arm was already gone when you got there. You'll need to watch out for her.
You've developed somewhat of a talent for watching people. Perhaps stalking is a better word, actually.
You're currently stalking the frankly absurdly large 4 boy. You've been following him for three days, and so far he's shown no interest in killing anyone or getting involved with anyone else. He's perfectly content roaming around, trying and failing to shoot arrows at trees.
He fascinates you.
He seems to be getting ready to move on from this spot, now, so you make your move without giving it proper thought. You drop down from your perch in the tree above him.
This is what a good partnership is, you think.
You keep each other in check. You learn that the reason he has been avoiding conflict is because he has the tendency to spectacularly dive off the handle at the slightest provocation. You learn that his excuse for being terrible at archery is being too strong for it, and that he has a crazy superiority complex about districts. He's quite fond of you, though.
You're something like friends, as much as you can be where you are. It's strange.
This relationship of yours is symbiotic, and you're both better off for it. You're the one who provides food, as much as he gives you shit about killing animals, and he serves as more of a bodyguard. He teaches you quite a bit about self defense, and you spar sometimes.
You try not to think about what will happen if you're the last two standing.
