Nine
I travel a long way without seeing anyone else. My belief is that aside from Marec and I, no one else has found this passage. What is bothering me is that I have not seen any source of water. Marec is gone barely twelve hours and I'm already missing him. Daeme, too, is constantly on my mind.
If not the cameras surely on me, I would talk to myself for sure. But they are, so I don't. Five deaths. It surprises me that no so many people go mad in the arena. The weight of killing someone, I find, is quite taxing. Every night I have go to sleep thinking that somewhere, a family is crying because of me.
I have not seen Marec. I do not really expect to see him either. I know better than that. The audience must despise me right now. No matter, some other competitor would most certainly pick me off.
I keep moving. I don't know if anyone else has found the other set of tunnels but it's no time to find out. Surely Marec has gone back to the main set. The arena is a remarkable feat. They must have been planning this arena for many years, certainly since Mellark and Everdeen rebellion had been sedated.
Not five days in the arena and I had already counted thirty dead by day three. I lost track after that. The death toll was massive. About 40% of those deaths were not due to other tributes. Starvation, dehydration, old age even. At point, I was only watching for faces in the sky. I saw a lot of old people, a lot of young people and a lot of children.
Another cannon fires. Its past noon and I am beginning to tire. Dehydration is finally getting to me. The Gamemakers are cruel people. I am tempted to leave the series of tunnels I am in and wander around the main tunnel system in hopes of finding another water.
Water is, at this point, my only goal. I know at this point that going back to that pool of water where Marec and I had been was impossible. Other might have if they had been in he same situation, but I just cannot bring myself to do it. I am getting severely desperate and I am sure that Odair and Delorus are either wheedling their sponsor resources or laughing to their death at my desperation. Or both. Either way, I am confident that they could get me water. I wonder what the audience thinks. Ironic, isn't it? Coming from District Four, the fishing industry, and here I am dying from lack of water. Dying. Ironic. What a thought.
"Water, damn you Odair," I murmur. The cameras wouldn't catch it up and the audience would never know.
"I suppose I can share," someone says. I whirl around and it is the girl from District Three with whom I had fought with in training. Demarex. She holds out a flask of water. I glance at her. It's poisoned, I think to myself. I should just kill her now and be gone.
"How long have you been following me?" I ask instead.
"Whole time."
I glare at her. "Why?"
"Because you're smart. And you've got the guts to kill someone," she replies. At this point, the cameras that have been following us are surely being shown. Sponsors, and even the audience, would not want to miss this conversation.
"So what if I can kill someone? Every other victor could too. I am no different," I snap back. "What makes you so confident?"
"The water isn't poisoned. Take it," she tells me and shoves the flask back at me. At this point, the lack of water is gnawing away slowly at me and I'd rather die of poisoning then by dehydration so I give her another death glare and take the flask.
"So where is your family?" I ask tentatively after I have concluded that I am not going to die of the water.
"Dead by now."
"Cornucopia?"
"Yes. You must be the person who-"
"Yes."
At this point, we've probably been cut off. After all, what I did was dripping with rebellion. And after the reaping, the Capitol must hate me. So its a good thing that I'm going to die in the arena. Otherwise, my life outside the arena would be living hell- even worse than inside.
"So where to next?" she asks me. I shrug and greedily gulp down another helping of her water.
"Where did you get the water?" I say instead of answering her question. I have no idea where to next.
"Cornucopia," she tells me. "Its the only thing that's useful so far."
"What else did you get from the Cornucopia?" I inquire curiously. She shows me a small container with what looks like iodine. Not useful really, there's no natural source of water. So far, there probably is one in the main set of tunnels.
"Just the iodine, and some other stuff," she tells me. The other stuff being a nice assortment of food, her water flask and a key. A key? What on earth does this key open? The Gamemakers are really stretching themselves this year.
"I bet there are only a few of these keys. I bet they open something important to the arena," I say. She nods. Apparently she had already come to that conclusion. We keep moving exchanging comments between us. Nothing interesting. The cameras would have other places to look at.
Hehe. Late update. Just as I was uploading ten, I realized that I hadn't added nine, even though I've had it written for some time. So enjoy the double update ^^
Thanks for reading! (review if you've got time!)
Marionettes
