The second day of the Games passed by without any deaths. The sense of foreboding in the arena increased as all the tributes prepared themselves for the Capitol's way to make things more interesting: muttations. The group awoke on the third day to blood curdling screams and the sound of running as something thundered outside of the rocks they were hiding behind. Chirler made to leave the cave to see what was going on, but Rema held up a hand and shook her head. Chirler wasn't as light on his feet as she was, and was more likely to attract attention. Instead, Rema and Metelle left the cave silently, following the sound of heavy footsteps through the woods to a clearing, where they hid in the bushes.
"What the hell is that?" Rema asked the red-head, watching in horror as a four-legged animal began to devour one of three trapped tributes.
"I-I don't know," Metelle replied, her voice quiet as she clutched the silver handle of a knife in her hand, one of the few things she managed to scrounge up before the bloodbath. The cannon sounded, revealing the muttation had killed its first victim.
The mutt looked in their direction at the sound of their voices, but seeing nothing, turned back to devour the next tribute. "I think it's a horse," Rema breathed. The cannon went off again, signaling the death of the second tribute. Metyse clutched the knife tighter and began to stand. "What are you doing?" Rema whispered, pulling her back down. "There's nothing we can do for them now."
"We need to leave," Metelle whispered, her eyes locked in slight horror at the scene, but still managing to stay composed. "Relocate as fast as we can...preferably a tree." The cannon went off a third time.
Rema started nodding, but caught herself. "No. If that thing comes back, we have to warn the others. We have to get them to safety."
"I know that much, I figured that goes without saying," the redhead responded, her brows crinkled up slightly at Rema for a moment.
The mutt began to walk toward them, nose in the air, apparently catching their scent. "Crap!" Rema exclaimed. "We need to go..." Before she finished her sentence, the mutt fell over, a knife sticking in its side. Rema looked at Metelle questioningly, but she was still holding her knife. "What the...Kelid!" She burst forward out of the bushes and hugged the tribute emerging from a tree to their left.
The color drained from Metelle's face as she clamped a hand on Rema's shoulder. The remaining mutts were beginning to close in on them.
"This should be fun," Rema grumbled, throwing a knife at the mutt closest to her. It fell quickly, blood spurting out of its wound. The remaining four mutts drew the tributes into a tight circle in the center of the clearing.
Metelle drew a knife from her belt, throwing it quickly past Rema to lodge into the throat of a mutt who decided to charge, the point sticking out through the other side of the mutt's neck before it collapsed.
Blood spattered all over Rema's shirt and she looked at it in disgust. "Well, that's going to be hard to remove," she mumbled, throwing another knife. It hit a mutt that was running at Kelid and the mutt fell to the ground, inches from Kelid. Kelid took out the last mutt easily.
"Sorry," Metelle apologized, walking over to the mutt she had killed and yanked the knife out, grimacing as she wiped off some of the blood by rubbing it against the coat of the mutt.
Rema extracted her own knives, cleaning them on some moss hanging loosely from a near-by tree. "I hope that's the last of them."
"Let's head back and get Chirler," Metelle suggested. "If there are more, I don't think we want to be around dead, potential relatives."
Rema chuckled. "That's possibly the best idea I've heard in a while." She led the way back to the outcropping, where Metyse and Chelmot were standing at the mouth of the cave, keeping guard. "Hey, look what the cat dragged in!" Rema chuckled, allowing Kelid to walk into the cave.
"More like the psychotic horse, but..." Metelle commented. Rema snorted, almost choking on the water she was drinking. "Oh, that reminds me." The redhead ducked out of the cave, heading a few feet away to wash off her knife in the small creek. The water wasn't fresh, so she knew no one would be dumb enough to drink it without purification.
"So, now what?" Rema asked the group once Metelle had returned. "Do we stay here or keep moving?"
"I think we should keep moving," Chelmot said.
"Yeah, it'll be really easy to follow the trail of destruction those mutts caused right to here," Metyse agreed.
Rema nodded. "Then that poses another question: Do we move today or tomorrow?"
Chirler looked up at the sky. "I say we wait. It's almost five now. We might not find another good place to camp in the dark, plus we'll be at a disadvantage if any of those mutts decide to follow us."
"The morning it is."
The rest of the evening passed by slowly. If there were any more of the horse-mutts, they didn't show themselves, and there wasn't any more cannon fire. The Capitol's emblem lit up the sky that night, and after the anthem, the faces of the three that had been mutt-chow lit up the sky. Two of the three had been from District 3, the other from District 5. The death count was now up to nine.