It's a girl's voice. Dry and raspy, but distinctly high. She's panting, too, from what I can hear. She isn't moving though, she's noticed that I've stopped moving and is probably too scared to come closer. I can't say I blame her, with the enormous battle axe on my back.
"Mags?"
It's a voice I know, one I've definitely heard before. I'm not looking until I've got confirmation though.
"Mags? Hello? It's me. Beta."
Knew it. Sneaky little weasel has probably been tracking me all day. I turn to face her, and the image of the quiet, dark-skinned girl I'd known from the Capitol is completely gone. She's pastier than before, her skin paled from dehydration and starvation. The bags under her eyes are even heavier than my own. There's a deep gash in her left arm and a less fatal one across her waist. Instinctively, I pull my hatchet from my belt and inch closer to her.
"Look, if you're going to kill me please just get it over with," she says, with a pained look in her eyes. Her voice wavers, like she doesn't really want me to. For a moment, the only audible sound is the waves of the never-ending river. I place my hatchet back on my belt and remain still. One of those voices in my head takes over me again, and forces me to open my bag and hold out the pot of medicinal cream for her to take.
"What's that?"
"A gift from a sponsor. Just put it on your wounds. Don't use all of it though, please."
She walks closer and takes the pot from my hand, smiling gratefully. I just stand and watch as she sits and applies it to her injuries, still curious about them.
"What happened?"
"Mutt. A fox, I think."
"What was it like?" I ask, like I don't already know what she's going to say.
"It was all orange, with a blue tip on its tail. Its fangs dripped something poisonous, but that never got me. All it did was claw me up a bit, then I hit it on the head with a brick and ran the hell away. Lucky it never caught my scent and followed, aren't I?"
"Yep, lucky break. Can I have that back now?"
She nods and gives me back my sponsor gift. I offer her my hand to help her up.
"So, um, allies?" she asks, but seems to know the answer already.
"I'd rather not, one of us is bound to be dead in a couple of days. We can team up, if you'd like, but we're not allies."
"Okay, 'team-mate'," she smirks. I look behind her and notice that she is carrying literally nothing but the clothes on her back.
"Though I have a suggestion."
"And what might that be?"
"If you plan on staying alive, you'd better find a weapon."
It seems the sponsors are listening to me again, because not long after we've left the spot and started our walk along the riverbank does a small parachute fall in front of her. Beta sees the small 3 on it and squeals excitedly. I suppose when tributes are grouped the parachutes have to have some sort of indication as to who they're for. She unwraps it, grinning.
"It's a knife! I got a knife!"
"Great. Just don't stick it in my back after I basically saved your life."
We continue on our way through the night, each of us unable to sleep. Maybe she's suffering from insomnia in here. I, however, am refusing to sleep with this weasel around.
There are no cannons during the night. By the time the sun rises, we've reached something that looks like it was destroyed long before the rest of this city was abandoned. Even after all this time, there's still a thick layer of dust and soot around the remains of these buildings. It looks like there were two of them. I have a feeling the former citizens were planning to reconstruct them, because a little off the the left are a few forgotten vehicles, one of which I've only seen once back home. I think it's called a crane, and they used one to help rebuild the boatyard after a tsunami devastated half of the district. The memory makes me shudder. Despite the evacuation, we still lost a lot of people to the deadly wave.
"Maybe we should stop here for a bit? We don't have to sleep but we could just rest a while."
"Sounds good."
We find a semi-concealed spot between the two sets of ruins and I put all my possessions down. Beta has her knife safely tucked into the pocket of her trousers.
"Have you got any food?"
"Uh, yeah." I fiddle around in my bag and pull out two of the smaller beef strips for her. It might seem selfish but I'm not wasting food on a girl who's going to die anyway. Not to mention, I'm not her biggest fan. She eats them quickly and I pour out a cupful of water for her as well. That's all she's getting today. I take a swig of the water, myself, and put everything back in my bags.
After making sure I can see in all directions to be able to spot any oncoming attacks, I sit down about a metre away from Beta. I lay my battle axe on one side of me and set the hatchet on my lap.
"Just in case."
"That's fine. Hey, I meant to ask last night but forgot. Have you seen anyone else since the bloodbath?"
"No," I lie, "have you?"
"I followed that guy from Ten for a bit. He's gone crazy, by the way, since his little girlfriend died. Muttering to himself and all that. I swear, at one point he even laid out a meal for her yesterday. Weird, right?"
She may think so, but I've seen this happen before. To my own mother, as it goes. She took a similar turn after my father was killed.
The difference with Tilman is that the only way to end his suffering now will be to kill him. I just hope someone or something else gets to him before we do.
"Where did you see him?"
"In one of the buildings near the Cornucopia. Risky for him, but hey, maybe he's waiting for death to come his way. I'm pretty sure I heard him say something like," she puts on a mocking male tone, "'We'll be together soon, my love, I'll be back with you in no time.'"
"The Gamemakers will definitely have that one on suicide watch."
Beta laughs. I don't. If there's one thing I know, it's that the Gamemakers don't take well to cowardice. They like brutality and blood. If Tilman has even a single noose tied and prepared they'll mess with his plan and make him have a run-in with another tribute or two.
"Did you see anyone else?" I ask, in hopes that maybe she knows where Piccolo and his alliance are.
"Only the so-called Careers. That girl Liza has injuries on both her feet or something, and that Cadmus, from Two, is doting over her while the other two look for their next victims."
I smirk. Liza may have recovered by now but it's good that I caused some sort of lasting damage.
"What about my district partner?"
"I only saw him grab some backpacks at the Cornucopia and leave with Moira and Anton. Nothing of them since. But they ran in the opposite direction to me so I'm assuming they've found a safe place."
"Great. That's... great."
We sit in silence for a while and just watches as the sun gets gradually higher in the sky. My eyes remain fixed on it, and I start to feel drowsy but know I mustn't sleep, yet.
"I never knew mine."
Her words seem to tear me from my daydream. "What?"
"My district partner, Watson. I never actually spoke to him."
"Not even when you were at the Capitol, or in training?"
"Nope. He was pretty much an Avox. Not literally, of course."
The thought worries me. He didn't speak a word, and I remember his nervousness during his interview. I reminisce about the bloodbath, for though it seems like months ago, it was just two days that I saw him cut down by the girl I was later to maim.
"I'm sorry, Beta."
"Nah, it's fine. I think he just accepted his fate in the end and figured he wasn't going home, so didn't bother trying to impress anyone or make friends."
Well he certainly didn't seem to have given up when he got here. Nevertheless, I commend him silently for putting up a fight and holding out as long as he could; even if that wasn't very long at all.
"It's almost noon. We'd better get moving again. We're bound to run into someone eventually." I pick up all of our possessions, and she offers to carry one of the bags but I decline. I don't want to risk her running off with it.
We carry on along the nearest road, checking each turning as we pass. The roads seem endless, but I know the river runs along the other side. We decide to stick to a straight path, otherwise we're bound to wind up somewhere we don't want to be.
Even with half of the buildings still mostly intact, the shade provides little cover from the heat of the sun bearing down on us. I'm used to long jogs in the summer, so the rise in temperature does little to affect me. But eventually it becomes so unbearable that I'm forced to remove my jacket and tie it around my waist. This is obviously a Gamemaker's trick to draw one or two of the more mindless tributes to the acidic river and whatever other sources there may be in here.
Beta follows at my side at all times, fiddling with her knife as we walk.
"Be careful with that thing," I say, a bead of sweat trickling from my forehead to my chin, "you'll poke your own eye out in a minute."
"Relax, I'm not a complete moron," she says with a wink.
She's already enough trouble as it is, tripping over the cracks and almost falling through them at times. I have to grab her to stop her from being drowned in whatever the strange bubbling substance is at the bottom of them.
"Beta, look out!"
I run and tackle her out of the way just in time, as a huge chunk of wall from one of the buildings crashes directly in front of her. We lay in a dusty heap, panting.
"Th-tha-thank y-"
"No problem."
I remain unaffected by it, steady, calm.
Then the rest of the building collapses, and they start to fall behind us.
We both get to our feet and run, literally, for our lives. The dust cloud mushrooms ever larger with each piece of rubble added to the pile, longing to consume us in its chase. I wonder, for a second, if any tributes were in those buildings. I doubt I'd even hear a cannon. It's too late for them now, I guess.
Beta is slow, and small pieces of brick catch her legs as she runs beside me.
"We've got to turn somewhere!"
"I don't see any corners, do you?"
I scan ahead, my eyes darting hungrily from side to side, looking for an escape.
"There!" I point to a sign indicating a 'West 23rd St'. Odd, this sign is surprisingly pristine in comparison with its decrepit cousins littered about the roads. I don't dwell on that thought too long, though, because just before we turn into the street, I grab Beta's arm and yank her into the new street.
We've gotten out of the way with lucky haste, because the rubble storm engulfs the remains of whatever street we've just left in a matter of seconds. Feeling like we've earned it, we collapse and sit for a couple of minutes to catch our breath.
"That was a close one."
"You think?"
Then there's a scuffling noise, and a cough. How did I not predict this? The Gamemakers were bored and wanted to push some tributes together. Let's just hope it's someone we can take.
Cedar, the boy from 7, stumbles out of an alleyway about 50 metres away from us. He's covered head-to-toe in dust, and smalls cuts line his arms and a particularly larger one has torn his trouser leg open revealing a nasty gash.
But he's unarmed, and injured. He coughs for quite some time, and neither Beta nor I make a move towards him. Soon he notices us, and turns to run in the opposite direction.
"Wait!" I shout for him. This'll piss them off. I throw my sponsor gift in his general direction. He covers his head, thinking I'm throwing a grenade or something, I guess. Bless his heart. Removing his makeshift shield when he realises it's not dangerous, he picks up the pot, opens it and sniffs inside.
"Put it on your cuts, they'll heal in no time! Trust me!"
Cedar nods, and smiles. For a moment, he hesitates, perhaps thinking about allying with us, but decides against it. He continues on in the direction he was going to run before.
That's when the last building falls.