It was just after dawn, the sun still burning red a little bit above the horizon. The platform stopped, and looked around at the Arena. It was breathtaking.
A meadow full of tall grass and willowy, weedy flowers, blowing in the wind. All of the Tributes were standing on platforms like mine, in a wide, wide circle around the Cornucopia, glittering brilliantly in the rising sun. The districts were all mixed up. Colleen, the twelve-year old from Eleven was on my right, and Abarrane, the sixteen-year old from Seven was on my left, each about a hundred yards away. I couldn't see Doe. Scattered through the food, weaponry and packages, were smaller boxes wrapped in metallic paper with our names printed neatly: I saw one for Frieda, but not mine or Doe's. I knew I had no chance at the the better prizes nearer to the monumental horn, so I tried to pick out useful things as far away as possible. I couldn't just run off without anything. The giant screen above us was in the last 15 seconds of the countdown when I saw a flash of red fall out of the corner of my eye. The next instant an explosion nearly knocked me off the platform and I felt a lot of something wet hit my face and right side. I was momentarily dazed, blinded and panicking and deaf, tasting copper.
Colleen had dropped her ball, her memento of District Eleven, and set off the mines surrounding the platform. The wetness covering my whole right side was all that was left of her. A cannon sounded a second later, but no one moved. The timer had stopped at 13, barely visible through thick brown smoke that hung heavily in the air.
A voice, placid and sugary sweet, echoed from the hovering screen.
"Again, please remain stationary until the timer has run out and the cannon has signaled the beginning of the Games. Otherwise, you face disqualification."
I struggled to focus, intent on regaining my composure and plan. I tried to wipe the blood out of my eyes. Everything sounded incredibly far away, nearly drowned out by the high-pitched ringing.
The timer above resumed counting down.
3... 2... 1.
The bell sounded and I was off like a shot. All I needed was the box with my name and rope for a net, I could scavenge the rest. I was tilting wildly, still unbalanced from Colleen. At least the smoke was providing just enough of a screen.
I couldn't waste time looking for much in particular. I saw a knife and grabbed it. A large backpack that looked empty.
The first few Careers reached weapons and the slaughter began.
I realized I was getting dangerously close to the Horn. I looked up to see my box in the hands of a smaller girl, from Eight, I think. My mouth fell open and I was about to shout instinctively when a spear erupted from her chest and pinned her to the ground like a butterfly under glass. My present skittered away. I locked eyes with the giant working the spear out of her back, Ore from One. I ran while I had a little bit of time, my legs pumping furiously, towards my box and the relative safety of the woods. I picked up Pell's box out of instinct by the satiny ribbons. I felt something sharp trace its way across my right shoulder, and I think I screamed, but I was at the treeline now and didn't dare look back. For a while I just ran blindly, crashing through dense underbrush. I thought I heard rustling that wasn't me. I swore I could feel someone breathing down my throat, a step behind me, about to strike, and I'd flinch every so often. I only stopped to catch my breath and shove everything in the pack. Even then only slowed to a brisk walk. I was too scared to think about eating. My heart was beating so fast it felt like it was humming. Cannons were going off pretty regularly, up to nine, including Colleen. Almost half of us were gone, and it'd only been a few hours.
Adrenaline carried me much further than I'd ever go otherwise. The terrain was changing, from the soft groundcover of fallen, rotting leaves to dampness and moss and pebbles. Trees were sparser and thinner, craggy. Wizened, fighting for purchase and sunlight in the shadows of hulking, tumbled, jagged boulders. I stopped and looked back. I had been running up a gentle slope for some time, a truly enormous mountain. At least I figured it must be. I'd never seen one before. My ward in District Four was all flat coast or gently rolling hills. The weather had changed as well. It wasn't as warm, but it was very humid, almost waterlogged. There was a mist rolling in, adding to the off-kilter, claustrophobic feel.
I realized I heard the familiar sound of water. Not the crashing of surf, and there was no salty tang in the air, but the distinctive roar of a lot of water falling very far. I couldn't tell if it was my mind, breaking from sheer, prolonged terror, or if there was really was someplace nearby. I followed it for a while, trying to calm my own ragged breathing to something approaching quiet. The day was getting on, and my hearing was still dulled from the explosion earlier, though it seemed like it was slowly returning. I kept glancing around, thinking I heard the snap of a twig, or a squish of heavy feet on the moss. No one. I didn't dare hope I'd escaped from the Cornucopia alone... Alone. The word crashed through my brain, grinding my suddenly shaky legs to a halt. I'd left Doe at the Cornucopia to be slaughtered. All the promises I'd made to myself, my plans for how this would go, the one piece of morality and honor I wanted to protect, gone. I was a coward, and I left a thirteen year old girl, one I knew personally, one I knew was dear to so many people... I left her to die alone.
I dropped to my hands and knees, the backpack smacking me in the back of the head. Darkness swirled in the edges of my vision. Desperation set in. If I passed out, someone would kill me. Through sheer force of panicked will, the darkness receded. I realized how very, very thirsty I was. My throat was painfully parched, and my lips were cracked. It's possible she's not dead yet, I told myself. I'd only know for sure if I saw her face at the end of the day. Until then, I'd assume she'd escaped.
I rose, still shaking, to my feet and wandered in the direction of the water. I hadn't run into or been followed by anyone, from what I could see or hear, but I gripped my knife tightly all the same. Boning knives are no good for hand-to-hand combat. The blade is long, flexible, thin and tapered, closer to a stiletto. It's curved, meant to strip meat efficiently from bone with gentle, horizontal strokes. Stabbing anything with it would probably snap it. The moss underfoot was springy; my footsteps were disappearing a few meters behind me. A little further ahead through the dim, damp landscape, there seemed to be an open space. My first thought was I had gotten turned around and had headed back to the Cornucopia, but the sound of a waterfall and sense of space was unmistakeable.
About a quarter of a mile more, and the ground nearly fell out beneath me. About 30 steep feet below sprawled the pebbly beach of a very large lake. It stretched far enough that there was a green island somewhere near the middle and the cliff behind it was black, grayed out by fog, with a giant strip of white on the cliff face and the tiny ripples hitting the shore indicative of the power of the waterfall. I picked my way down slowly. Scree and loose boulders threatened to bury me with every step; it took me about a half hour to get down. I gasped my way over to the water. It was crystalline and deep. A shallow slope, covered in gravel and sparse water weeds dropped off suddenly to deepest navy. It was breathtaking. If the whole Arena wasn't choked with death, I might have been happy here. I dipped a hand, and it was cool. I waited for a moment, to see if the water suddenly turned to acid or something came roaring from the abyss, but nothing. I drank. It was the sweetest water I had ever tasted, almost like light liquified; pure and cold and utter heaven. I drank until I was sated and my hands were numb from cupping it, feeling refreshed. I ripped off my shirt. I had sweated off most of the blood and gore from earlier, but my shirt was still coated; dark, rusty-looking stains blossomed all along the right side, and my hair was matted in bunches to my face. I checked my shoulder; something had left a red and angry scratch- maybe an arrow?-, but it looked harmless. I kicked off the leather boots, stashed them in the pack, which seemed waterproof. I waded in about waist high, expecting the water to be a shock, since water that was cold enough to drink and numb my hands was dangerous to swim in, but it was pleasantly warm. Not as hot as a hot-spring, but relaxing and balmy all the same. I figured it was a trick of the gamemakers, and if they were giving me warm water to bathe in that was cool to drink, I wasn't about to complain. I swished my shirt around, watching a dark cloud form as it became cleaner. I noticed scores of fry and fingerlings in the shallows, darting back and forth in masses of shadows in the clear water against the light, pebbly shore. They looked like bluegill or bass, both of which were easy enough to catch, and this many in the shallows meant this was a well-stocked lake. I was getting slightly wary of this sort of good fortune. I watched the surrounding hill of scree. Being on the low ground gave me a serious disadvantage, but anyone coming down would make a hell of a racket, and if they were in too big of a hurry, it would bury them alive. There were boulders and giant sheared-off slabs of rocks dotting the wide shore- perfect cover.
What I wanted to do was get to that island and wait it out. If I could just stay here, I had a reasonable chance of defending and surviving.
I waded back onto shore, looking around for anything that would be useful. Fires were risky, but would probably be necessary to dry everything out; it was temperate but very humid here. Closer to the scree piles, there were a few black rocks that stood out from the gray and brown ones that made up the beach. I picked one up. One side looked normal, if charred. The other side however, was glossy onyx, a mostly flat surface where the rock had broken. Obsidian. When I was younger, I used to troll along the beaches for rocks and shells with June. Occasionally we'd run across sea-glass made of obsidian, the normally sharp edges washed smooth by the sea. Even now, some people still made knives and jewelry and things out of it, though they were strictly controlled by the Peacekeepers. I stashed the grapefruit sized rock in my pack, along with a few others. Hopefully I'd have time to make a better weapon.
The backpack, a dull, pasty blue, was indeed waterproof. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. This was too much good fortune. I packed everything I wanted to keep dry inside, and tried to gauge the distance to the island. Maybe a half an hour's swim? The sun was getting low, and I realized I was getting light-headed. Dashing around like a terrified cat and not eating was taking its toll. I figured it would be safer on the island. Even if someone came tumbling down the scree, Doe and I had the advantage of knowing how to swim.
I waded in again, watching for any nasty surprises. When none appeared, I pushed off, settling into the ground-covering butterfly crawl. Breath, two strokes, breath, two strokes. It took a bit to adjust to the backpack weighing me down and dragging in the water, but soon I was up to speed. The island was just a little closer every time I stopped to recover, until I was three-quarters there. I decided to push through to the end. Breath, stroke, stroke. Breath, stroke, stroke.
I became aware of a voice singing, so softly at first I thought I was imagining it. A delicate, haunting, unearthly melody, every time I was fully submerged, drowning out the ringing from the explosion earlier. The more I noticed it, the more enraptured I was, and I forgot everything else. No one was hunting me, I wasn't exhausted or hungry, I forgot the rhythm, arms and legs flailing wildly. It was just this voice, beckoning, calling from some underwater cavern. I had to go to it had to find whoever was singing. I couldn't help myself, it was too beautiful to ignore. I began to dive. A hand, or a foot, or maybe an elbow popped out of the water for one little second, and I came back to myself, like wrenching awake from a nightmare. My lungs were screaming for air, and my muscles were burning. I tread water, trying to catch my breath. I had gotten turned around, and was heading back to the deepest part of the lake, between the shore and the island. A cold, slinking fear came over me then. Of course something would be off about this place. The gamemakers wouldn't give us anything without an exorbitant price. I was so tired.
The butterfly crawl was fastest, but I didn't dare be fully underwater again. I switched to the front crawl, which was slower and more tiring, but kept at least part of me out of the water at all times.
It felt like forever, but eventually I reached the island's sandy shore, exhausted.
I dragged myself up and out of the water, collapsing a few feet away, and lay there for some time.
The sun was low, setting over the cliff. It was still temperate, but I forced myself up anyway. I needed to find food, shelter, and make sure this island wasn't inhabited by anyone or anything else.
I pulled my socks and boots back on and trudged towards the center of the island. There was low, lush foliage with sparse trees. I trudged right by them, until something told me to look up.
There, in the waning light of the sunset, near the top of the tree were clusters of young green and ripe brown coconuts. I'd been walking right by food for about five minutes.
I was so happy I hugged one.
The hard part would be getting up to them. I debated taking off my pants and using them as a counterlever to shimmy up the tree, but I was utterly spent, and chances are I'd get a third of the way up and fall and break my neck. If I was going to die here, it would not be pantless.
I took off the backpack and got a few of the rocks out. I congratulated myself on getting hefty rocks. I sized up the distance. The most promising cluster was about 15 feet up, and I heaved a rock towards it, hoping to knock it down. In that moment, I realised that the Arena was probably filthy with tracker jackers and I had no idea if any were around here. The first rock overshot. It missed an impressive number of coconuts, smacked into the trunk, and got trapped above the cluster. I cursed, and listened for a long moment. There was no angry buzz or whir of tiny wings, which was a relief. I only had two others and the obsidian rock, and I needed all of them. If this one didn't work, I wasn't sure what I'd do.
I heaved it up with all my might, and heard a crack as it split a coconut, but didn't drop it. The rock landed with a thud under the tree, and I tried again. A thud, followed by three more as the rock hit the ground, followed by two brownish coconuts.
I gathered them up, stashing them in my pack. I thanked my lucky stars there weren't any insects, and went inward to set up a camp.
It wasn't long, maybe five more minutes, and the trees thinned into another pebbly beach. This time, however, it was an expansive pond, mimicking the larger lake the island was sitting in. A miniature iceberg floated in the middle of it.
Apparently the island was tiny, less than half a mile across. I hadn't come across tracks or signs of anything living.
It was dark now. I cleared a space in the sand for a fire and set about looking for some kindling.
Deadfall from the coconut palms, dry bushes, not much else. I gathered what I could and returned to the pit in the sand. I was so glad I had bothered with the firestarting kiosk in the gymnasium during training. After a bit of fiddling, and a few sparks from the back of the knife against a particularly rough rock, and I had a small fire. I gathered a bit more fuel and settled in.
I turned my attention to the coconuts. By attention, I mean I bashed them with the rocks and smashed them together until first the outer shell and then the coir broke open, leaving me what little water didn't spill out and the white coconut flesh. I inhaled it. Fresh coconut is incredibly potent, silky and intense. I was used to the older nuts which were mellowed even further by being prepared and sitting out in the market. It wasn't quite enough; I was still ravenous. I was sick of the taste halfway through the second, but it was food and I was exhausted. I consoled myself with the prospect of fishing in the morning.
I remembered the two boxes from the Cornucopia and pulled them out of the pack. A bit dinged up from the rocks jostling about, but not too much worse for the wear.
They were wrapped with extremely bright paper, with wide satiny ribbons crisscrossing them. A giant tag had our names printed neatly on them in bold, thick lettering.
I tore mine open, half expecting something to spring out at me. Instead, a note lay atop a neatly coiled length of netting, along with some sort of wire with small plastic handles.
Dear Annek,
In accordance with your scores, we present you with a net and a garotte, to use as you will. May the odds be ever in your favor.
The Gamemakers"
I was wary, to say the least. The net was fine, much finer than I could hope to make in the Arena and would be immensely useful trying to fish. I opened Pell's. Inside was a small granola bar, and an 8 ounce water bottle. I fought the urge to smack myself for carrying food around and starving.
"Dear Pell,
In accordance with your scores, we present you with a day's worth of food.
May the odds be ever in your favor.
The Gamemakers'
I stashed the net and food in my pack, and wrapped the garotte around my wrist for easy access. I hoped I could just stay here until everyone killed everyone else, but it couldn't hurt to be prepared.
I was nodding off, in spite of myself. The fire was warm, and I was propped against a tree. Overhead, the giant floating screens flickered on. It was time, and my heart was in my throat. I was suddenly wide awake again.
Colleen appeared first, her name, age (12) and district (Eleven) appearing underneath her face. Her family wouldn't get anything back. She was in pieces in the Cornucopia field.
A boy was next, Eduard, 17, from Twelve.
Abarrane, 16, from Seven was gone.
Rowan, 15, the girl from Six.
Judah, 15, the boy from Ten.
Maemi, 14, the girl from Eight who was stealing my box.
Henley, 12, the boy from Eleven. That District was out.
Ben, 12, and Frieda 13, both from Three. So two Careers down.
That left Caelan, the boy from Six; Pell, the boy from Eight; Umar and Vanya, both from Nine; Erica from Ten; Mala from Twelve, myself, Doe, and the Career group: Ore and Diamond from One, Brutus and Belle from Two, Ulrich and Nan from Five, and Moss from Seven.
Fifteen, most of them Careers.
There was a fierce mix of joy and pride swelling in my heart. She was alive, she was fighting. I would find her, somehow.
I huddled into myself and tried to get a few hours' rest.
Thanks to everyone who's reviewed and favorited, especially mintjellyfish and the inestimable beta reader, Mother Crumpet :3