The numbers count down and lives tick away and they stand, two dark figures squinting in the sunlight. They are miracles of blood and bone and life, fragile miracles among the coming death. Their fingers clench and unclench, their eyes dart to the woods, their lungs heave, their hearts beat.
Rue's fingers snake up to her necklace. She closes her eyes and pretends she's somewhere else. Anywhere else. But the numbers are dwindling so she forces her eyelids open. And there she is. Fire Girl. She looks like a cornered animal, like the stray cats around District 11, with nothing to lose. Fire Girl plays with the end of her braid and looks up at the cloud-dotted sky.
Thresh doesn't move. He's seen enough tributes blown sky-high before the gong to even scratch his nose. Which, now that he thinks about it, is beginning to feel like ants are crawling all over it. Fire ants at that. He twitches his nose and listens to the numbers count down with a steady beat.
The gong sounds and everything she has ever known is shattered. She skitters from her platform and runs, seeing only shards of the carnage at the Cornucopia. In quickly, grasping downwards, fingers close, dance away. Run, run, run away, she tells herself. Her necklace bounces against her chest. And then she is soaring through the air to land in a crumpled heap. The breath is knocked out of her and she begins to panic. And then she realizes that she tripped over a tree root. Only a tree root. She pulls herself up and watches a blonde boy crumble, blood pouring out of his chest, a grinning dark-haired girl standing over him. Time to run.
Cato leaps from his platform, snarling. He's the first one to the Cornucopia. Thresh grits his teeth, lowers his head like a bull, and charges after him. He doesn't see dying kids gulp their last breaths. He just focuses on the Cornucopia, shoving away the tributes who stumble into his path. Swinging a black backpack over his shoulder, he looks around, heart pounding. Where is she? When he sees a small body, his heart stops, but it's just the District 4 boy. No time to pause here in the eye of the storm.
The forest flashes around her. She stumbles into a tree and gasps for breath, her nails digging into the soft bark.
She's alive.
The screams from the Cornucopia are fainter now. She shakes her head, trying to make herself focus. She can't stop trembling.
Slowly, she looks down at the object she has clenched in her fingers. It's a tiny blue backpack. She struggles with the zipper and peers inside.
Socks.
Capital socks, hi-tech socks, not like the thick woolen socks Mama knits.
And a water skin. No water, though.
It's okay, she tells herself. She whispers the words. "It's okay."
But it's not.
Glinting gold flashes next to a ruined body. Thresh lurches over and nudges the dead boy's hands aside. It's a curved golden sword. A scythe.
Something crashes into him with a sickening splat. He whirls around, and the body of a blonde girl slides off him. Terror bucks up in him, but he forces it down, forces himself to meet the eyes of the girl's killer.
Cato.
The guttural screams and dying shrieks and gleeful cries of bloodlust dissolve as he meets Cato's dark eyes. They are tethered to each other. Thresh nods, once, and Cato curls his lip, raising a javelin. The chaos of the Bloodbath suddenly starts again and Thresh runs, runs for all he is worth, his footsteps shaking the ground. The javelin whizzes by his shoulder, a silver glimpse. He swings his new sword wildly, just trying to get away. And then he bursts out of the Bloodbath, ducking into the forest. He bites his lip until it bleeds, coating his mouth with the coppery taste.
And then he begins to walk, his footsteps matching the beat of his heart. He pushes through the trees and doesn't stop until he can't hear the screams anymore. But he can still hear the screams inside his head.
There you go: two chapters! :) I'd also like to tell you that I will be posting a short story soon and starting a new story. Merry Christmas!
