Chapter 12- Coping
Boom! The sound of a canon shook Sparrow from her sleep. She scrambled to sit up and get her bearings, confused for a minute as to why she had been sleeping inside a rocky cave. Then the memories from the night before washed over her and she had to lay back down again for a minute as her head swam with thoughts of the District Eight boy. She didn't even know his name or had ever spoken to him but she knew his death would haunt her for a long time.
Sitting up again, she opened her pack and ate a small handful of fruit along with a swig of water. She wondered whose canon that had been and started trembling at the thought that it could have been Salton's or Everest's. She hoped that it was Jade's. At the thought of that cold hearted tribute her fist tightened around the bag of fruit and she felt angry tears spring to her eyes. But wait, it was the Capitol to blame for forcing them into this situation. It wasn't truly Jade's fault for the way she had been raised and what was expected of her right?
Sparrow shook her head slightly to clear out those thoughts and risked sticking her head outside to see what was out there. It had mercifully stopped raining and only then did she realize how far up the slope she had really come. Directly underneath her was more of the same slope with no tributes in sight. Far below her to her right she could just make out the Cornucopia and what looked like two small figures moving around it. They must be the Careers! Sparrow instinctively shrunk back into the cave. She reasoned with herself that there was no way that they could see her and that even if they did, she would see them coming. Sticking her head out again, she looked above her where there was more of the same slope; it appeared as though she was about half way up it.
Suddenly, she saw movement between the rocks at the top of the slope but it didn't look like a tribute; it was far too tall and thin to look like a person at all. She narrowed her eyes and watched whatever it was before it was suddenly gone. She looked wildly around but it was nowhere to be seen and she suddenly felt a sense of dread wash over her. She didn't know what that thing was but she could bet that it was some sort of mutt that the Gamemakers had placed in the arena. She would also bet that coming into contact with it would be a very bad idea indeed. She decided that she needed to get out of there in case the creature had seen her and was coming for her. But where could she go? In front of her was the wide open expanse of marsh that held who knows what and to her right was the Cornucopia. She supposed she would try going to the left around the rocky slope and see where it ended up.
Packing all of her supplies away, she carefully crept out of the alcove and slowly made her way to the left, checking over her shoulder every few seconds for tributes and mutts. Soon enough she was out of view of the Cornucopia which was one weight off of her shoulders. Crouching behind a rock, she decided what her next move would be. She decided that she would now start heading diagonally downwards because she was getting sick of feeling so exposed on this rock face.
While she slowly made her way down the slope she contemplated how she was even able to force her legs to comply with what she wanted. They felt very weak from her mad dash up the slope the night before, from sleeping on hard rock, and from her trembling so much. With this thought fresh in her mind, one foot slid out from under her and she was suddenly falling, hitting her body painfully off of the rocks. She instinctively raised her arms above her head to protect her head and couldn't help a yell from escaping her mouth as her shin smashed off of a rock. She managed to slide to a stop against a rock far further down the slope than where she had been.
She laid there thanking her lucky stars that the fall hadn't seriously injured her and held her breath to make sure that no one had heard her and was coming for her. When she couldn't see or hear anyone coming, she gingerly touched her shin to see what the damage was. There was blood flowing out of the cut and she hissed through her teeth as she touched the region around it. Glancing around her once more, she painfully got to her feet and tested her leg. When she could walk relatively pain free she deduced that it was just a bad bruise. Assessing the rest of her body, she found one elbow scraped and a small cut on one cheek as well as a myriad of other bruises. Gazing at the slope above her she thought that she had fallen about twenty feet, maybe more. Judging by all of the sharp rocks and drop offs that littered the area, she was lucky to be alive at all.
Just as she breathed another sigh of relief, she heard a scream rip through the air not too far away from her. She ducked back down behind the rock and listened intently. Another scream made her jump and got her pulse racing. She started trembling as she realized that the scream was one of pure fear and pain. Several moments later, the sound of a canon confirmed what she had known already; that the tribute had been in serious trouble. It was a female scream and she wondered who it had been. She caught herself feeling relieved that it hadn't been a male scream.
Hearing no other sounds, she carefully started her climb downwards again, directing herself away from the scream she had heard. Seeing nothing but marsh stretching all around her, she was beginning to think that finding anything else was futile and decided to take her chances. She began heading straight downwards and after slipping a few times managed to make it to the bottom.
Ahead of her there was thigh deep water with strange plants and vines winding there way among small trees with fog filtering through the area. It had a very eerie feeling and she did not trust the place one bit. She decided she would walk the boundary between both habitats so that if one presented a danger she would dart into the other one for safety. She continued her path around the base of the mountain while looking carefully around her. Any small rustle would cause her to grip her knife and stare around wildly. She still felt far too exposed. If only there was a proper forest here!
She suddenly heard a larger sound from in the marsh behind her and bit back a scream as she felt something clamp down on her shoulder. She wheeled around to see Salton staring back at her.
"What is wrong with you? I had no idea who you were at first. I could have stabbed you!" Sparrow accused breathlessly, trapped between the feelings of relief and fear.
"Sorry I just saw you through the trees and was so excited that I acted without thinking," he frowned slightly. "Why are you all cut up?"
"Oh, I fell down that rock face an hour or two ago," she said calmly.
His blue eyes widened as he stared at her. "Well are you ok?"
"Of course I'm ok. I'm walking aren't I?" she snapped at him. Upon seeing his hurt expression she sighed, "I'm sorry I'm just kind of jumpy. Where did you go last night?"
"I ran towards the marsh because that's what was right in front of me and where I thought I would be most hidden. There are all sorts of weird things in there though. Vines that tried to wrap around me, weird flowers that spit what looks like poison, and others weird animals. I even had to kill one of them," he said while indicating his bloody sword.
"I'm so glad you're ok," Sparrow said as she wrapped her arms around him. "Hey did you hear those two canons earlier?"
His expression twisted slightly. "Yeah I don't know who the first canon was for but the second was my district partner. I saw her body as the hovercraft took it away."
Feeling like she would start crying if she opened her mouth, she simply held him tighter until another question came to mind. "Do you know what happened to Everest?"
"Not too sure. I saw him run towards the scrubland area during the bloodbath but that's about as much as I know," he said quietly.
Sparrow nodded and pulled away. "We should probably keep moving."
Salton nodded and together they began walking while he asked about where she had gone the previous night. When she got to the part this morning about seeing the strange creature on the ridgeline, Salton looked very serious.
"I've heard about those before. I think they were used in one of the Games before we were born. The twenty-second maybe? Anyway, I think they're called Shadow Walkers. They can appear and vanish at any moment and are very dangerous. You're lucky it didn't see you."
Sparrow's head was reeling from this information. She wondered what the creature would have done if it had seen her. Would it have killed her? Tortured her body or mind? She didn't even want to think about it.
They kept walking for what felt like hours and had not seen anything but rocks and marsh the whole time. Suddenly, Salton stopped and pointed in front of them.
"Do you see that weird shimmery stuff in the air in front of us?" he asked.
"I think I might see something," Sparrow said, craning her neck slightly. "What is it?"
Salton said nothing and instead bent to pick up a rock. He threw it at the air in front of them and Sparrow was astonished when the rock flew back at them.
"It's a forcefield," Salton explained upon seeing her confused expression. "It basically marks the edge of the arena. It can also be deadly if you touch it which means that we have to turn around."
"You mean all of this walking was for nothing?" Sparrow sighed in frustration.
"Yeah, pretty much," Salton said throwing a grin her way. "But, hey, it's almost guaranteed that we're far away from any other tributes right?"
Sparrow stared at him and for the first time in the arena, she smiled.
A/N: Hey guys sorry I hadn't updated in a while. What'd you think of this chapter? It was a bit of a filler but there can't be tons and tons of action right away. Review pretty please?
