Chapter 10

I woke up with a burning in my throat and my eyes blinded a strange whitish green. It took me a moment to pull my thoughts together. I was blind because I still had night glasses on and it was daytime. I took them off and put them inside my suit. I could see again. Not much had changed except that instead of the suffocating night, it was a brilliantly bright day. I stretched my neck slightly and tried to stretch my stiff shoulders. And promptly fell off the floating thing.

I cursed myself as the freezing water bit into me. I could barely feel my legs from the sleep they had received in the cold. I ha to find something bigger to sleep on next time.

Next I addressed the burning in my throat. It was thirst.

I swung up the drink bottle and shook it. It was probably barely halfway full. I sighed. If I died out here in the middle of the water from dehydration I would be very annoyed. Probably a bit more than annoyed, I corrected myself with a laugh. At this point, though, it was very difficult to take death seriously.

I took a mouthful of water, letting it run down my salt incrusted throat. It felt like bliss, but it wasn't enough. I was about to swallow down the entire bottle when some hidden reserve of discipline stopped me. I would need this water later.

Instead, I pulled out one of the nutrition bar things that I had stowed in my suit the day before. I had enough good humour to laugh at the odd shapes protruding from my suit that made me look like some sort of freak as I pulled it out. I might as well have been a hit box. These were small shapes made of thick strips of paper that children would hit on their birthdays and, if they hit hard enough, little presents would come pouring out.

If the careers found me, they would probably be hitting me enough that little bars and swords would come out. I giggled and then stopped abruptly. This wasn't funny. What was wrong with me?

I forced myself to eat. It tasted bad because of the salt water and I really didn't feel like it at all, but I was clearly hysterical if I was finding the idea of my imminent demise hilarious.

I swallowed down the food, the first I had eaten since the beginning of the games, and climbed up higher on the floating thing. I managed to straddle it and keep myself fairly high out of the water with only my feet and legs from the knees dangling down. I was going to have to be careful that I didn't end up with frostbite on my legs.

I wiggled my toes. They felt rubbery. I remember once staying in the tub too long on a hot day and watching as my hands and feet went strangely like a sponge. I had been afraid that they would never go back to normal, but my mother had assured me that they would. My feet had now been in the water for probably close to six or eight hours. They would definitely be looking spongy now.

I looked around again. I had somehow managed to keep fairly away from everyone whilst I had been asleep, which was lucky. In fact, it looked as though no one had really moved at all. The water was completely still and we were completely still on top of it. It unnerved me.

I waited all day for something to happen but nothing did. Of course it wouldn't. Everyone outside of the games needed time to recover from the first day. They would need to be meeting their bookies and discussing the excitement and wondering whether they had ever had such an exciting opening to the games. I felt slightly sick as I remembered that I had said similar things only a year ago when the games hadn't had me in it.

No, at this stage, everyone would be recovering. The careers wouldn't want to kill anyone just yet; they needed to get their bearings. The capitol would all need to sleep the day away from having stayed up all night watching the games. No, I was safe for now. The worst that could happen is that someone would want to desperately end the games to stop from drowning. But, looking out at everyone who was left, it seemed that everyone had found something to keep themselves afloat for the moment. We needed rest and that made us safe. I slept again, pulling my jacket up over my head to keep the bright sun away.

There was another canon at about midday that jolted me awake. There was no movement on the water so I knew that it hadn't been violent. Someone had just slipped away, probably from exhaustion.

As night fell I pulled out another bar and drank some more water. I saw something floating towards me. It was something similar to what I was sitting on.
It came closer and closer and I noticed that a girl kicking a single leg propelled it.

As she approached I saw that a pool of blood surrounded her floating thing. She didn't even seem to be awake, but her leg was still kicking feebly. There was a gash on her face and, I was sickened to see, her kicking leg was her only leg left.

When she approached near me, she abruptly stopped kicking. She looked at me through glazed, unseeing eyes. She looked like she was from district 11. She coughed feebly and lowered her head.

Slowly, like a child being lowered into a bath, she slipped from the floating thing into the water and she went under. I knew that she would not be getting back up again.

It took me thirty seconds to recover from seeing her and pull her floating device towards mine. I regretted not taking the rope with me, but I managed to tie them together a little and position myself so that I could finally pull my aching feet out of the water.

I pulled off my shoes straight away and put them beside me. I looked at my white, spongy feet and rubbed them in the lowering sunlight, forcing feeling back into them. There was no way I was going to lose my feet. I needed those.

Night fell and I started to feel more human once my legs became dry. I drank more of my water; it was getting disastrously low now, and ate more. I whipped my night glasses back on and did a final check on the rest of the tributes. None were close enough to me to be a problem.

I lay back as the capitol music blared through the arena and looked up at the faces of the fallen. There was Acacia and the girls from 3, 5, and 7; the boy from 8; and then, lastly, the one legged girl from 11. Their faces disappeared from the clouds.

So that left me, Jasper, Slade, that strangely resilient girl from 4, and the boy from 3. Only five left and I was still alive. I allowed a bubble of hope to rise inside me.

I knew that District One would be vying for Jasper. But, surely, if I won, they could not complain about that. With any luck all four of the others would slip off quietly in their sleep like the district 11 girl. I could only hope.