Get me, being all organised :D You have to be impressed. I'm never usually this good.
So, as promised, here is chapter nine. :)
The Hunger Games and Finnick belong to Suzanne Collins. The other tributes belong to me.
Enjoy – and please review.
Chapter Nine: Alliances
"Oh, hey - I'm alive." The arena was boiling and my hands were throbbing, but I wasn't dead. "What a nice surprise."
I opened my eyes and winced at the sudden light. The arena didn't appear to have changed since I passed out – no grass had suddenly sprouted, no rivers had started flowing through the forest, the sun was still beating down. I wrapped the material of my costume tighter around my head, hoping to block out more of the heat. No luck. My arms were aching, but the pain was manageable.
I slowly raised myself into a sitting position, becoming more aware of my surroundings. I was still in the forest, but a different part to where I had been. Here, the trees were much more densely packed and they were much bigger. The clearing I was in was large and was able to accommodate a group of people – which, I realised, it was.
On the other side of the clearing to me there was a crackling fire surrounded by the low hum of voices. Though the heat was still overwhelming, two tributes were sitting close to the flames, talking quietly to each other. At first, smoke blocked their features but as it cleared their identities registered. Genn and Lian, the overconfident siblings from District 7. As cocky as they had sounded in their interviews, they were obviously wary of me and both of them clutched their spears tighter as I sat up.
"Hi." I propped myself up against a tree, while considering the problem this posed. Somewhere, somehow, they had found spears. I had nothing. My backpack, with my knives, was next to the fire. Damn it. Perhaps casual conversation would postpone my imminent death.
"Have you noticed how both of you are alive? Isn't it a great way to start the day? You're alive and the sun is shining! What more could you want from life?" There was a stony silence from the other side of the clearing.
I yawned and stretched, presenting an uncaring, self-absorbed attitude. It wouldn't do me any good to start crying and begging for my life, after all. "Are you going to kill me? Because if you are, please just get on with it, I have other places to be, you know? Heaven, for example."
"We aren't going to kill you," Lian said.
I paused as I processed what he had just said. "This is the Hunger Games, you realise. It's understandable if you want to kill me. Survival of the fittest and all that."
"You didn't kill your allies when you left them. It's not a decent thing to do – killing someone in their sleep."
"You were watching me? That's…" Freaky. "Strangely flattering."
"Keep your enemies close," Genn chimed in. She had a pretty voice, I realised.
"Why did you keep me alive? I know I have an exceptionally brilliant personality, but I wasn't expecting to make such a good impression on tributes." And then it dawned on me. "Unless you want an alliance?"
"Yes," the girl said quickly. "That is, if you want to join us," she hastily amended.
Their cockiness had annoyed me during the interviews, but both of them had lost that. Maybe they had realised the true essence of the games, or recognised the fact that they couldn't win. The second was much more likely – I had seen them in training, and though they weren't terrible, neither could be described as good; they probably were recruiting me as a bodyguard. But whatever it was, their newfound insecurities – and the fact they hadn't murdered me in my sleep – made them much more likeable.
"Well, you haven't killed me, even though you had a perfectly good chance to – I guess you're trustworthy enough."
Genn's worried expression relaxed and she moved closer to me, Lian was next to her in a flash, his stance was possessive. Genn glared at him and elbowed him in the ribs. Hard.
"Lian, stop it. Finnick's an ally now – he's not going to kill me. Besides, he can't even stand up." Lian backed away, but he was still obviously alert. It was a waste of his energy. As Genn said, I was too physically weak to get up, let alone attack anyone.
"So how long have I been out?" I asked as Genn sat cross legged a few metres away from me, pulling her hood back up over her face.
She counted on her fingers. "Three nights and two days, pretty much three days. It's day five at the moment, and about the midday."
Three days. The fact they had kept my alive for three days showed that they were in desperate need of help. And it explained why I was ready to eat dirt. I looked at my damaged arms for the first time. They were both wrapped in a thin layer of white cloth – bandages. I peeked under a bit of the material; my arms were red and raw in patches, with soft new skin making them tender and fragile.
"How did you manage that?" I asked, "Keeping me alive, I mean."
Genn pointed upwards. "We got medicine after we found you. It took us a while to work out how to use it, but we assumed keeping you around – with all your gifts – would be a good thing."
Obviously I had caught the Capitol's attention – medicine was extremely expensive this far into the Games, and sending it to some random tributes who might possibly cure me was a risky strategy. Obviously some people had wanted to keep me alive. I bit back a smug smile.
"Who's dead?" Several tributes should have died by now – after all, the Careers had another seventy two hours of tribute hunting under their belts.
Lian counted them off on his fingers. "Bryd and Cloud, from 1 and 2, the boy from 6, Will, I think his name was... And someone else, but I can't remember who."
"The girl from 9. She died the evening after you fainted."
Bryd and Cloud? I couldn't keep the shock off my face. It would have been acceptable if one Career died, but two was unimaginable. Maybe they had gotten into a fight. I didn't know Will at all – I could vaguely remember that he was older than me, either fifteen or sixteen, but nothing more. I knew a lot about the girl from 9.
"Alys," I sighed. I really had liked Alys, she was the closest I had to a friend in the arena. We both understood each other. "I guess you don't know how?"
Genn shook her head. "Sorry, we stopped stalking the Careers once you passed out."
I grimaced, but nodded my acceptance. I had expected that they wouldn't know, but it didn't stop the bubble of hope from expanding in my chest. If they had known who killed her, maybe I could avenge her. But the Games were about survival – not revenge. Shaking my head to clear the unwanted thoughts, I turned to the next problem at hand.
"D'you have any food you're willing to donate to a worthy cause? My last meal tried to eat me, you see..." I trailed off as Genn rolled her eyes and scooted back over to the fire and grabbed something from a backpack. When she returned, I saw it was a bag of dried fruits and a bottle of water. The dried fruits were probably a gift from their district. I ripped open the packet and stuffed a handful into my mouth.
"Much appreciated," I garbled through my mouthful. I flipped the cap off the bottle and drank greedily. Obviously the medicine hadn't given me any sustenance while it cured me. My new allies stared at me while I ate; Lian fingered his spears subconsciously, reminding me of my other big difficulty.
I swallowed the mush in my mouth and nodded at the spear. "Where did you get that? It wasn't at the Cornucopia, was it?"
"We made them," Lian answered. "There were some really good stones around one of the piranha ponds that made good tips, and the wood is just from the trees."
"Is it possible to make me one? I've only got stupid throwing knives… Wait, did you say piranha ponds?"
"The ponds are full of piranhas and leeches. It's a nightmare to get drinking water out of them."
So that was the Gamemakers' strategy to make the arena even more torturous; they gave our water teeth.
"And yes, to your first question," Genn continued. "We made loads of spares. Just take the one that you like the most. Did they not give you the weapon you wanted?"
I snorted. "Nope, there were no tridents or nets in the Cornucopia. Feel free to use my knives," I added. I didn't particularly want to be in debt to either of them if I would have to kill them later on. "They might be useful for hunting or something."
I took another swig of water and looked at my new allies. They were both covered in dirt – probably because they couldn't use any of the pools to wash. And their clothes hung off them in a way that suggested they weren't eating particularly well. But apart from those small things, they looked healthy enough for two tributes – there were no obvious bruises or scratches from fights with other tributes and neither of them had been eaten by piranhas. Overall, they were probably the best allies to get, apart from the Careers.
"So what do we do now?" I asked.
Genn and Lian looked at each other before Genn said, "We want to move on. We've been waiting here for you to wake up for three days and it's only a matter of time before other tributes find us." She hesitated. "Are you up for walking?"
My legs didn't feel as though they were, but I nodded. "If you pass me a spear I can use it as a walking stick. I'll be fine."
Genn grinned and lightly threw a spear at me. I caught it in one hand, enjoying the familiar feel of the weapon, and shakily got to my feet, leaning on the stick heavily. My legs wobbled underneath me, but didn't collapse as I stumbled forward a few steps. Genn hovered next to me, her hands ready to catch me if I fell. Once I got the feeling back into my legs I wandered over the fire and picked up my backpack.
"I'm good to get some exercise," I said. "Where are we going?"
"Lian's already found us another good place," Genn said and turned to put out the fire, masking all traces of our presence in the clearing before she grabbed my hand and pulled me towards Lian, who was waiting on the fringes of the wood. "I'll show you."
Ah, Finn, you didn't fail in this chapter! Congratulations. :D
To my readers – next chapter will be posted 15 /16 January.
And, once again, please leave a review. I will love you forever if you do :)
