Chapter 9:

The next thing I remember is waking up on the floor. My guess was that some sort of gas had been leaked into the whirring ventilation system when we got close to our final destination. The back of my neck ached. I thought it was because I slept on it funny. I wouldn't find out for years, when it was accidentally reveled to me, that there was a tracking device in it. They'd tell me I'd risk being paralyzed from the neck down if I removed it and I'd tell them that I didn't care and they'd take it out.

I was just coming out my delirium when I noticed I was being dragged. We were hoisted onto floating stretchers, led in a row down a long, wooden box of hallway, and dumped into little wooden rooms. When I was conscious enough to look around, I found myself in little better than a crate I could stand in. It was big enough that I could've laid down, but I knew I wasn't going to be in there for long. We were in the arena. Light was peering in through cracks in the makeshift holding cells. I had seen these on the television before, from the outside where there were floating cameras.

We were all in a row, in our own crate, waiting for an announcement that would tell us that we were in crates. When the time came, the crates would open, all at once, like gates for dog races. And we would run like our lives depended on it.

I could hear the people in the crates next to me. Adel was waking up on one side. Tezer on the other. I wouldn't want to be around when Tezer was let loose. From the sounds of it, when he started to realize where he was, he started tearing at the walls, which weren't built to be the sturdiest things in the world, since this wooden arrangement was meant to be carted off once we had cleared the area.

I could hear some of them crying. They just woke up in a box. If it wasn't for the light breaking in, one might've thought that she was buried alive. Maybe that would've hurt less.

We had to wait for everyone to wake up before the announcement would play over the invisible loud speaker, so I shook myself and was preparing to run for a good hour. The air smelled clean, and I could hear animals. There would be woods, I was sure. And animals meant a water source. I could survive this, I told myself. I had to keep moving, keep checking the cracks in the gate, keep whispering to Dell to see if he was awake, or else I knew I'd start thinking about the fact that I was in a box and was about to die. Can't think. Can't think here. Not now.

I asked Dell what he could see. He said trees. I told Dell that I was running. I wasn't waiting for him. He didn't want me to. Part of me wanted to throw in that I loved him, but no. That would've been just a little too melodramatic. I had taste.

The Head Gamemaker: Fourway's voice came over the loud speaker. The crying lessened as the children perked up to hear. He told us to fight well, and that the last one standing could go home. He didn't wish us strength, or luck, or favorable odds. No hope for us, just a mad desire to go home. He could take us home. We just had to put on a good show, a better show than everyone else. He made it sound like if we could just win, we'd never have to think about this again. But that wasn't true. He was a good liar, though. We believed him, then. That's why he was the Head.

There was a buzzer and the gates flew open. Blinded by the sudden light, I bolted out that door as fast as I could. In front of us was an open field, short grass slick with morning dew. There were trees around the edge of the field, but they were still far away. In the very middle, where we were pointed, was a pile of supplies. They were just in a pile, some in crates, some scattered about. There wouldn't be a Cornucopia until the first quarter quell where that whole chariot, gladiator theme took over. They liked that theme.

I wasn't the fastest, but I had long legs and I didn't slip on the grass. I aimed straight for the prize and grabbed whatever I could while in mid motion. I clambered over the left side of the structure, so as to avoid the tributes on either side of me. I pretended not to see them. Not to hear them. There was screaming already. I got a bag, another bag, a knife, first aid kit, rope, and ran. I clamped those supplies as tight to my body as I could and I ran in a straight line for those woods. I tried not to hear them behind me. Forty feet in, I diverted to the left and didn't look back.

Leslie, Jewn, Hue and Filly, Tine, Basil, and Maytew all dead in fifteen minutes. Daina died that evening. Poor thing must've gotten lost.

I kept to myself the first day. Meeting up with someone else was out of the question. Even I, with my friendship strategy, was so filled with fear and adrenaline that I would've wrecked anyone that got anywhere near me. I had to organize my supplies. I needed a safe place to organize my supplies. What's a safe place? I thought that maybe I could find a beach, but then I thought better of that, since a beach and open water would be much too exposed. Come on, instincts, come on. Where can I go? Left. Left is good. Up. No one wants to go up. Find some water. Find a water source. Find a tree. There were a great many pine trees where I was running. Old pines. They were thick enough to climb, but they looked sticky with sap. I was not looking for sticky. I tried to remember what I had been taught about tree identification. I think I passed some firs. Definitely evergreens. Oaks. I wanted to find an oak for no other reason then I knew what an oak was. I needed some familiarity, something to act as a haven, but I couldn't find it yet. I wasn't far away enough.

The arenas back then weren't all that big, usually just a mile or two in diameter. We wouldn't survive that long and there was only so much money since there were no sponsors yet, so usually they picked an area with some sort of gimmick to make up for the limited surface area and set us loose. No complicated natural disasters and special effects yet to draw the tributes together, just inevitability. They'd stir up a little fire if no one was moving at all, but usually they could just let us be for the next week or so.

I got to the edge of the arena eventually. It had been early when we started, early enough for dew. It was about mid afternoon by the time I found the wall, and the sun didn't look like it would stay up for long. The boundary was the usually giant, electrified wall. It was set up along a long, metal fence, which wasn't as tall as the trees so, of course, I did the smart-ass thing of trying to see if I could climb up a tree and over the wall. However, once I got up there and hucked a stick at the electrified invisible force field, I decided that there was no way I was getting over that wall. Even if I could, where would I go? I didn't belong out there. I'd probably die in the arena, but I definitely die if I tried to leave it. This would prove to be part of an even worse cruel irony later.

I could see the whole arena from up in that tree. It was about 2 miles in diameter, one's field of vision if she was standing up in a rowboat, lost at sea. However, since I was not in a rowboat, but way up in a tree, the arena didn't look very big at all. It looked disturbingly transversable.

We were in a temperate zone. There was the electrified wall around the outside and I could see almost all of it, except what was blocked by trees. Part of the arena was raised up on a bit of a hill and part sunk down a bit in a half bowl of a valley. There were strange rocky out-croppings and cliffs that isolated some parts of the small arena from others. There were no beaches or large bodies of water, but a small river and various streams could be seen crisscrossing the wood. Getting water would not be an issue, however there would be limited amounts of game. I wondered for a moment how the water was getting in and if there'd be fish there.

The battle over the supply depot looked to be over. There were tiny figures moving about in an unrushed manner, opening crates and sorting supplies and such. There was a lot of red, which I tried not to think about. I wouldn't know how many had died until that evening, when they announce how many are left. I wouldn't know who had died until I got out of that place. Who killed who. Which ones were me.

The supply depot was in the middle of one half of the giant, rounded box oval shaped arena. The center point of the other half, and the gimmick of this area, was an old town, by the look of it. I could see the outline of crumbling stone foundations, and rotting wood. The gimmick amused me then, but I would wonder later who had lived in this town before and what had happened to them. Maybe there had been a settlement there before the rebellion. I wouldn't think of this in time to ask about it.

I could see bits of movement from where I was sitting: underbrush moving, trees swaying and so forth, and I realized that with the arena being so small, there was a fairly good possibility that the other tributes will be able to see where the others are from similar tree tops. So the key would be movement. For the moment, however, I was done with movement. I took a minute to map out what I could see of the other tributes below, then I picked a rocky outcrop that looked like it'd be good to hide in. Before descending from my tree, I looked through my packs. It wasn't the easiest thing to do balancing in a tree, but I managed.

The larger bag, much to my dismay, was stuffed full of Capitol newspaper. Pages and pages of crumpled, brightly colored pieces of tabloid. It was really not what I was hoping for. I almost threw it away as junk when I discovered a big box of 'strike anywhere' matches in a plastic bag in the front pocket. I'll admit that at first I was more excited about the plastic bag than the matches. I did always love watertight containers. Surprise of surprises, the pack also had a long plastic bag stuffed in it that looked like it had once held a rolled up newspaper. So at least I had matches and tinder and a piece of plastic. And I could always stuff my vest with the paper if it got really cold. I was enthused and felt much better about my bag of crap. The second bag had a lot more useful things in it, mainly food. I had picked up a small pack of dried fruit, crackers and carbs wrapped in plastic, and salted meat. I was both extremely excited that I had food, and a little terrified that I hadn't thought to actively grab food from the supply depot originally. I clutched the small bag to my chest and thanked those horrid, horrid Gamemakers for its existence.

I ran through what I should do next very quickly in my head. I had been running all day and hadn't eaten or had water. I had equipment for fire and first aid. I had a few days of food, no water and debatably little to carry water in. I had some rope and I had a knife. I examined the knife. It was a good knife with a nice little serrated hunting blade. Perhaps not the best for combat, but would do quite nicely for preparing food. However, since I was currently less worried about food and more worried about combat at the moment, I decided to fashion a spear.

I packed up everything into the larger bag, slung the rope around my shoulders and descended from the tree. After a couple dozen minutes of nervous searching, gnawing on a piece of dried jerky, I found myself a decent shaft. Thankfully pine trees grew rather straight. I knew perfectly well how to bind a blade to a stick with a good piece of twine so in another ten minutes of unwinding and rewinding part of the rope, I had a spear and decided to make for my prospective camp site.

I was worried about the water, and I was a little worried about the food. I knew I'd be alright for a little while, but I was fairly sure I was not going to be any good if it came to a fight, which was bound to happen eventually. The arena was too small and there were too many of us. Something was bound to go wrong.

I tread as softly as I could, but I was practically full-grown and I wasn't a slight girl. No proper fisherman's daughter was. I thought of maybe setting up some snares, catch some animals. I was good with animals. I could skin and prepare them. Even if I didn't eat them myself, I could offer them to others as a peace offering. Maybe poison the bastard.

Poison. That was something I hadn't thought about before. I learned with plants were toxic, of course, during the survival training, and I knew what parts of an animal were less preferable to eat. I could poison a peace offering. Of course, I also thought that these kids aren't dumb. Some will trust me but there will probably be others that will want me to try it first. I'd have to be careful. Maybe if I poisoned one, but left the other. But of course, I was getting ahead of myself. I hadn't even caught anything yet. I was picking through thick underbrush, thinking about how getting too far ahead of one's self could be dangerous, when I stumbled into my first opponent.