The second that the gong sounds, I am off the plate, headed toward the cornucopia much faster than most of the others. There are only two others that I will have to compete with, Joel and the girl from twelve. I make it first because Joel was tripped by a falling body, the boy from three. I notice that he isn't dead, just uncoordinated. The girl from twelve hesitated. By the time they arrive, I have two packs and the sword. She got the axe, much to my regret. I almost wish it had been Joel. At least he will be on my side for some amount of time.
The boy from seven rushes at me, I see it from the corner of my eye, and too late I realize that something is wrong with the sword. As I shove the sword at the boy's chest, which should kill him, it simply bounces back off. Rubber. Damn it. Throwing it too the ground, I set down the packs and grab his neck with both hands. His fingers claw uselessly at my hands. he is unable to breathe and his face is turning bright red. His mouth is opening and closing like a fish out of water. But he refuses to die, and I have others to deal with.
I knee him in the stomach, stomp on his foot, breaking a fair number of bones, and, just for show, snap a few of his fingers. Then I end it quickly by shoving his nose into his brain. I glance down to get my packs, only to find that Marlin has picked them up and that everyone except the careers have run into the forest. I see two others dead, both at the hands of Joel. Necks snapped, heads turned almost all the way around. Not much of a bloodbath, nothing like what it normally is here. I assume that most of the other tributes didn't want to bother with the miniature cornucopia and ran instead. The other careers didn't give chase because there were no weapons to use really, and they were lost without them. So I still had twenty more tributes to get rid of before I could leave this place and go home.
We set up camp, checking each of the packs. There are indeed a set of wicked knives in one of the ones I open. Perfect. Instead of pooling them like everyone else is, I slide three into my belt, leaving five. I have the two throwing knives and one wicked looking one with a curved blade and two points. The rest are much smaller. I give them to everyone, and they eye me warily, though they say nothing of the fact that I have taken three for myself.
One other axe is found, which Joel takes, and the rest is food and water, though each of us ends up with a pair of nice sunglasses and there are four pairs of night vision goggles.
"Hunting, anyone?" Joel breaks the silence.
"I think that at least two should stay", The redhead from two says. I still don't know his name.
"I'll stay", Marlin volunteers.
"Me too", Says the girl from two.
"Great. Okay, let's go. The majority will be in the forest", Said the redhead.
We grabbed a few bottles of water, the sunglasses and night vision glasses and headed off in the direction of the forest.
"Now, I was just wondering, how do you intend to kill them?", I asked, smirking a bit, "Sorry, but there aren't any weapons and I didn't see you kill anyone at the Cornucopia."
The redheaded guy looked like he wanted to strangle me, as if he could even get his hand within a foot of my neck, but the blonde from one shot him a glare, "Don't, Red," Then she turned to me, "They ran too fast"
This time Joel laughed, and both turned on him, "Hey, guys, unfortunately, she's got a point"
This time Red (Props to his parents for such a creative name), launched himself at Joel. Faster than the average person could see, his neck was snapped.
I would give it to the girl from one, she stood there and didn't even blink as he tossed the body aside like a rag doll. She simply turned and kept walking. After a few more minutes, we were in the forest. We had to put on the glasses right away. It was dark as night in here, despite the blazing sun in the desert. I immediately ripped a branch off of a tree that looked sturdy enough, but still thin, and grabbed a rock. I began shaving it down to a point. Looking over, I saw that Joel had a vine in his hand with a rock tied to the end. Looking a bit closer, I started laughing.
He frowned, "What?"
"That's...poison...ivy!" I choked out finally.
He dropped it like a hot potato, but the damage was done. I could already see the red bumps popping up. Backing up out of his reach, I asked, "Haven't you ever seen it before?"
He shook his head.
I rolled my eyes, "Okay, well, the rule is if you see three leaves, don't touch. Got it?"
He nodded again, and chose not to pick up anything else. We walked silently for a while, until both Joel and I heard a slight rustling in the trees. Ruby, the girl from one, seemed oblivious and kept walking. I grabbed her arm and silently motioned that there were people nearby and that she needed to stay quiet. I tried to tell her to stay here and wait in case they came out of the tree, then handed her a rock.
Joel glanced at me and nodded, then turned and began climbing the trunk of the ancient looking tree. Really, it was probably only a few years old, but it was thick, at least thirty feet around. Luckily the bark was rough and had dips in it because there were no branches for about twenty or so feet up the trunk.
We made it to the branches rather quickly and began scampering stealthily along the forest canopy toward the source of the noise. We found it after a minute. It was the camp of two people. It looked like the girl from seven and the boy from twelve. They were roasting some sort of plant and eating some berries. They had no idea that they were about to die. Poor them.
Like a two man army of death, we dropped out of the trees onto their camp. Joel landed gracefully behind both of them while I landed in the center of the fire. It went out immediately. It wasn't very big. The fear on their faces was clear. The girl looked about sixteen and the boy was about seventeen. Joel moved like lightning and snapped the boy's neck, but I put the girl into a headlock.
"Wait", I said when he moved to finish her as though I couldn't, "I think we should give our viewers a show", I smiled what I hoped was a scary smile.
He grinned, "I like the way you think" And he picked up the sharpened stick I had dropped, plus a vine that I assured him was not poison ivy. We tied her up easily, her hands above her head, and dangled her from a sturdy tree branch so that her feet were off the ground.
I circled her like an artist would circle a blank canvas, which at this moment she was to me, "Now, where to begin" I grinned as she whimpered in fear.
