I'm sorry these chapters are so short, I promise the next one will be longer!
I surprised myself by actually running when the cannon sounded to start the massacre. I guess I had better survival instincts than I thought. My mind was clear, my blood was still neatly contained inside my skin, and my adrenaline had kicked in at just the right moment. I had never run so fast in my life, and yet I found my self thinking, go faster, go faster, and you just might make it out alive. My legs were still sprinting when I tripped and fell flat on my face. For a split second, my only thought how embarrassing it was to trip to death. Then, I jumped to my feet as though nothing had happened. Thankfully, I was far enough away from the massacre that no one noticed my comical fall. They were all to busy doing one of two things; killing or dying.
I turned away from the sickening, ever-growing pool of blood to find what I had tripped over. A white backpack stood in front of me, easily camouflaging itself in the colorless room. It seemed to be mocking me, saying, you were just defeated by a backpack, HA-HA! I gave it a dirty look, then snatched it and ran as far away from the massacre as I could to examine its contents.
When I was sure I was out of viewpoint and earshot, I sat down behind a wall that blended in to look like part of the outer barrier and caught my breath. I dug through the backpack to see what I was lucky enough to grab. Two bottles clattered out first. The first one was shaped like a thermos, and I took it to be a water bottle. I found that it was filled with...well, water. What else would you expect to find in a water bottle? The second bottle, though, was cylindrical and filled with red-yellow liquid. I poured a drop onto my finger to figure out what it was made of. I was just about to taste test it when I felt a sudden, screaming pain in my finger. I drenched my finger in water and frantically shook it about. A drop-sized hole in the center of my finger remained. I realized I had seen this poison in action before.
To most, it was known as Essence of Nightlock, one of the most deadly poisons on the planet. If in contact with human skin, it can dissolve away an entire arm in less than a minute. If ingested, it has the same effect as the infamous berry. This poison would be invaluable to me, and my possession of it was key to survival in this Games. I had only seen it used once before, in a documentary on Capitol torture devices. Criminals arrested for murder were subject to Nightlock Water torture, where a drop of Essence is put on your head and each limb every 10 seconds, until all that is left is a bloody mass. I remember thinking that nothing in Panem could be worse than that. I was dead wrong.
I removed the image from my mind and continued sorting. I left a capful of Essence by my side for quick defense, and hid the rest of the bottle in my backpack. I pulled out a length of ivory rope, invisible string for traps, and what appeared to be a thick, pale coat. The arena was about the temperature of a power plant in July, so another layer of clothing seemed ludicrous. Why would the Gamemakers waste their time on futile supplies? I checked the entire suit for clues and found nothing inside to direct me to its uses. All that was on it was a small label; PALE: EVANESCENCE CONTRIVANCES. I thought back to my brief schooling before I was dragged into the power plants. What could those words mean?
Suddenly, a phrase from a past Games jumped back into my head: an evanescent mist of poisonous gas. The death cloud had disappeared after half an hour, resulting in 3 dead tributes. The mist had disappeared. Was it possible? I shoved my arm into the sleeve of the suit. It was as if it had disappeared into thin air.
I felt like I had just won the Hunger Games.
.