No one said ill of the fighting scenes, so I guess I'm doing okay.
Don't own Hunger Games.
Alto POV
Our first impulse is to run, but since we're in a tree, we fall instead before taking off.
Everything around us seems to burst into flames; the trees, the bushes, I even see a bird or two catch fire, too slow to fly to safety. Ash and embers are raining down on both of us, and all we can do is cover our faces with either arms or hoods as we follow the horde of animals trying to escape the flames; birds, hares, wild dogs, deer, I even spot a cougar shooting past us without a second glance. I trust their instincts better then mine.
Katniss stumbles on a branch, and I quickly right her and push her in front of me.
"Move Katniss, move!"
I've always hated the heat, and the heat bearing down on us is no exception, but the smoke is the worst part about the fire. Katniss pulls her shirt up over her nose while I decide against it; it wouldn't make a difference.
"This was no accident!" I shout.
"No kidding!" She shouts back.
The Gamemakers made this fire, no doubt about it. The fire's way too damn high to be natural, and the same goes for the speed it's moving. The Capitol is board; they're weren't satisfied with the fight we had with 4 girl and 10 boy, so they're using the fire to herd us tributes.
Blood thirsty bastards.
I jump over a log, but not high enough as the tip of my foot catches it and I have to roll forward to keep my momentum. My throat and noes start burning after a minute of exposer; soon after my lungs start burning. Another minute later, I want to stop breathing all together because of the searing pain that runs through my whole body. We finally stop next to a downed tree, with me dry heaving and Katniss loosing her meager meal. We stay like that for a good ten minutes before we have enough sense to look around.
The surrounding area looks much like the area that was set ablaze.
Now, where the hell are we?
"K-Katniss. Do-do you know where we are?"
"I...haven't the slightest idea." She wipes the bile from her mouth. We both sit down on the ground since the fire's stopped chasing us and I hand Katniss the canteen which she finishes quickly.
"We'll need to be careful; tributes may be nearby since they stopped." Katniss says, still gasping.
"Yeah." I stand, helping Katniss up too. We begin moving, but I hear a hiss, and my first thought is a snake. I grab Katniss and pull her back for the lunge that was to come, but instead a fireball lands right where we were standing.
"Oh come on!" I shout as Katniss and I roll opposite directions, another fireball detonating between us. As if a wall of fire wasn't enough now they have to shoot fire at us.
We both wait until we hear a hiss in which we dodge. I roll, fire igniting the fallen tree behind me. I'm still in the middle of the roll when a third fire ball comes my way. I throw myself back with my hands, narrowly dodging it.
Those damn Gamemakers enjoy this too much.
"Holy-damn!" I yell out when a fire ball comes way too close to my head. Why did they have to make them so big? They're half my size for Christ sakes! Are we the only ones going through this? Maybe the Gamemaker I took the wig off and the one Katniss scared into the punch bowl during the sessions is controlling the fire, and this his way of getting back at us. Hell of a way to go at it.
Both of us don't have to think to dodge anymore, our bodies doing it for us. I hear a hiss, my body moves without waiting for my mind to react. And we're not given a moment's rest. As for how long they throw fire at us, I'm not sure. It feels like hours, but it's been only a few minutes most likely.
The fire just stop after a few minutes; simply stops. By now Katniss and I are both having coughing fists with pints of sweat pouring off of us; we're exhausted. I listen for more hissing, which comes just twenty seconds later.
My instincts tell me to run straight for a tree. Fire explodes around me; behind, in front, my left, my right. When I reach the tree, I run up the trunk and when I hear another his, I push off. The tree I used as a spring board ignites behind me and I'm sailing through the air.
I hear a scream. Glancing down, I find Katniss, rolling on the floor with her leg on fire.
"Katniss!"
I'm so preoccupied about Katniss that I barely have time to register another fireball coming my way. There's no time to dodge, and I can't really do that when I'm in the air. So I throw my left arm back, turning myself in the air and the fireball flies above my chest.
I hit the ground painfully and start rolling, screaming at the searing pain that's at my chest and trying to put the fire out. The fire doesn't want to go out, so I end up tearing off my shirt and throwing it away from me. I grip my chest but quickly retract it as my body rejects the contact. At this point the Gamemakers could kill us, but they won't. They can get more from Katniss and I, and there are more tributes out there to fight.
I pick myself up and stumble to Katniss, who's still on the ground. I pick her up by her arms, throw one over my shoulder, and we begin limping away from the area, being chased only by the smoke from the fire. You can't see one foot in front of you, so besides supporting Katniss, I have a tomahawk in the other hand, ready to defend the both of us in case a tribute or animal attack at the moment.
We have to make many stops for the both of us due to the burns. Katniss has regained enough sense to walk without much help, but I still keep a hold of her arm, guiding her through the black fog. It's evident that we're both hurting; Katniss is limping with that burn while every time I take in air it feels like thousands of needles are sinking into my chest and lungs. I'm so out of it right now that I want to drop and pass out.
Katniss is in fact the first to drop, but her hands land in a pond we stumble upon. I sit her back up as I refill the canteens and camelpack, treat them, and begin the task to rehydrate Katniss and I. I also wash the ash and dirt off of both our faces. I then take Katniss's hands into mine to examine them.
"Your hands don't look to bad." They actually don't. I expected more of a burn then the red angry blisters. "Let me see your leg." She lifts it and it's the same story. She props her boot on a rock and stretches her leg out into the pool, sighing in relief when the water hits the burn. She turns to me though with a concerned look.
"What about your burns?" She asks, looking at my slightly exposed chest.
I pull my jacket closer to my chest, earning a little wince. "We'll worry about me later, let's just make sure we're hydrated and ready to move if the time comes."
She doesn't make an argument and she continues to soak her leg while I take everything we have into account. Katniss's jacket has lost a foot due to the fire; our bags are fine, a little burned but still functional. My jacket only has soot on it amazingly, though my shirt is no more, burned to ash when my chest lit on fire, so I'll be without one for the rest of the Games. That doesn't bother me too much though because with the jacket and shirt, that was hot enough.
I let Katniss doze off as she soaks her leg and hands, drink water, and watch the sun rise and fall as I keep watch for her. She finally falls asleep around mid afternoon, in which she leans on my back while I sit there, occasionally drinking water and take a cracker or two, but what's bad is that I'm starting to doze off as well.
It was a good thing I didn't fall asleep, or else I wouldn't have heard the foot step of five tributes.
"Let's go!" I shout as she comes to, and we both take off. Katniss's leg slows us down, but it's not like I makes a difference. The five other chasing us are coughing and their voices sound ragged, most likely having gone into the fire like we have. Katniss knows we can't run forever so she points at a tree ahead of us to clime.
If running hurt, climbing is agonizing for her because it requires not only exertion but direct contact of her hands on the tree bark. She's the first to go as I follow her. When the five Careers reach the tree, Katniss and I are twenty to twenty five feet up, with the both of us watching them from up high.
They can't exactly clime this tree; I have throwing knifes, Katniss had a bow, and most are probably too heavy for the branches to support.
"How's everything with you?" Katniss calls down cheerfully. By the look on their faces they don't expect that response, but Cato does reply.
"Well enough." Says Cato. "Yourself?"
"It's been a bit warm for my taste." I say with a small laugh. "The temperature's much better up here. Why don't come and join us?"
"Think I will." He replies.
He hoists himself onto a branch and Katniss begins climbing again, and I follow her. We're about thirty feet up when we here a snap. We look down to see Cato fall with a few branches following him down. He hits the ground hard, swearing like a sailor. Clove tries the same and gets farther then Cato did, maybe forty feet while we're eighty feet up. The branches start creaking due to her weight, and she has the sense to stop. She tries throwing a knife at us, but at the angle it's going at and how long the distance is, I easily catch it during it's flight. I wave the new weapon.
"Please, you can do better than that can't you?" I taunt while smirking, which seems to make them even more aggressive. Katniss and I can't reveal our true colors though, as much as we want to. If we start shooting arrows and throwing knives, they may book it, making it harder for us to win the Games. So we have to think of something else.
Glimmer though has a cool head. "Just leave them up there. It's not like they're going anywhere." How I hate it that she's right.
The Careers set up camp beneath the tree while Katniss and I move back to the seventy foot marker, since I don't feel really secure up that high. By now, we're both miserable. We're hurt, tired, and surrounded by five of the most dangerous people in the Games. That doesn't bode well for our chances. The most we can do is sleep and wait; they have the advantage here. All they could do is burn this tree down if they really wanted to, and we'd either burn up her or become victims to their weapons.
We don't set the sleeping bag, our burns not allowing us to stay in it for long to begin. I pour some of the water we have on Katniss's leg and hands and we position ourselves for sleep, if it does come.
I hiss as Katniss puts her weight on my chest, and she retracts as soon as she hears it.
"Alto, let me look at the burn."
"I'm fine."
"No, you're not."
"You can't do anything even if it's bad. We don't have anything for burns. Water can only do so-" I pause as I spot a pair of eyes in the trees across from us. You could almost mistaken then for an animal, but I know that it's not an animal. Katniss looks in the same direction, catching the pair of eyes.
"It's Rue." I whisper.
"How long has she been there?" Katniss asks.
"Where the hell's Thresh? Shouldn't he be with her?" I say too. It is a very good question. Why would Rue be here alone? Maybe they were separated?
We simply stare at Rue, who moves her small hand a points above us. Our eyes follow her finger up into the foliage above us, about fifteen feet up. Our eyes have to adjust our eyes before we see some strange formation that hangs from the bottom of a branch, swaying ever so slightly. My ears also register a low hum.
"You've got to be kidding me." I groan. First fire wall, then fireballs, then Careers, and now a Tracker Jacker nest. Can't the Gamemakers just leave us alone for one day? I look back at Rue, but she's disappeared into her tree.
"So, you have any ideas Katniss?"
"I think I have one, but it might be the most stupidest idea I've ever had."
"Well, stupid might be something we need right now. So what is it?"
"We cut the Tracker Jacker nest down and let it fall on them."
...
"Um, ok. So where's the multitool? I can use the saw edge to cut the base of the branch." I rummage through the camelpack and pull said tool out before climbing the tree higher to the nest. It's a little tricky since the branches are so damn thin.
When at the nest, the seal of the Capitol shines above us and the anthem blares out, and begin to saw, using the anthem to my advantage. Once I've got a grove, it's much easier to work with. I saw away, occasionally glancing at the sky to register that there were no deaths today. That's fine since the audience has seen Katniss and I run from a wall of fire, balls of fire, Careers, and are now cornered. But the anthem's running out and I'm only three quarters of the way through the wood when the music ends, the sky goes dark, and I'm forced to stop.
"Almost done Alto." I say to myself. "Just have a little patience. You'll get through this. Just have to wait a little longer." I make my way back to Katniss.
When I reach her, she has a small package out about the size if her palm. She looks like she's relived. As I sit, she comes near me.
"Let me see the burn."
"I take it Haymitch sent us that?" I ask.
"Yes. It's burn ointment. So take off your jacket and let me see your chest."
"Ok." I gingerly peel off the jacket and get a good look at what the fire did.
The burn on my chest is about the size of my head. It's worse then Katniss: red skin with clear blisters. Mine is white with small streaks of yellow along with blisters all over. My breath hitches in my throat at the sight, having not expected this kind of damage to my body.
"Oh my god." Katniss whispers as she takes in the burn. "You should have told me."
"It's like I said before." I repeat, this time with a slight edge of panic to my voice, through I don't know if anyone caught it. "We couldn't do anything for it besides water. But it this case," I glance back at myself. "We'll need a lot more then water."
"I don't think this can do much besides take away some pain." She begins rubbing it on my chest.
I release a breath as some of the pain fades away, but it's still painful to breath. Guess that's what stays with you when you get second degree burns. She rubs the cream all over my chest, even the parts not burned just to be sure before she wraps the medicine in the parachute and stuffs it in the bag. "That's the most I can do." She says.
"Still hurts to breath, but it's better then it was before." I motion to the sleeping bag in the backpack. "You use it. I don't think I'll be able to sleep with this pain. I'll wake you when we're ready."
"You need-"
"Go to sleep Katniss." I repeat. She stares at me for a little before putting herself in the sleeping bag and, soon after, she falls asleep.
I spend the next few hours staring off into space; either at the Careers below us, at the tree Rue was in, at the nest that's above us, and the moons position in the sky. I drink water and eat a cracker or two, but before long, a bird calls in the gray morning light. That alone is enough to wake Katniss, and when she has a few crackers, dried beef, and water, she packs everything up. Like it or not today we need to get out of this tree.
Down below the Careers are sleeping. Glimmer was suppose to keep watch, but fatigue got the better of her after about half an hour before. Katniss calls Rue in a hushed voice, and the little girl is wide awake from the start. I makes a sawing motion with the multitool in my hand and she nods. She begins to move, but her foot catches a bad branch and it breaks with a loud snap. She catches herself, but the branch tumbles all the way to the ground, landing in a heavy thud.
The five tributes beneath us begin to stir at the sound.
'Oh no.'
If they wake and see what we're doing, there goes our chance of getting out of here.
"Katniss." I hand her the multitool. "Go up there and cut the branch free. I'll cover you."
Before she has time to ask, I quickly make my way down to the Careers, hopping from branch to branch to speed up my decent. They're all waking from that branch, but they haven't looked up yet. When I reach fifteen feet, I leap from the last branch, straight at Glimmer.
I'm very confident that the last thing Glimmer ever saw was me falling to her, my tomahawk raised above my head. When I land on her, I swing my weapon down, the tomahawk digging into the girls head, instantly killing her, and her cannon fires. The other Careers jump at this, having not expected me to attack like I had or attack at all, so this gives them pause, giving me time to press my advantage. I pull my knife and charge district one boy, Marvel, his name is.
He's slow to react, with me delivering the first strike, a tomahawk to the arm, but he was fast enough to avoid further damage by hitting the weapon away from him before it could go deeper. He retaliates by swinging a spear. I catch the spear with the knife and strike it in the middle with my tomahawk, splitting it in half. Before I could attack again, I catch Cato's sword and give him a hard kick to the stomach, in which he rolls back to avoid the next knife slash. Clove is next when she throws a knife at my face from behind, which I barely dodge, the blade leaving a small cut on the right side of my face. Four girl has a spear just like Marvel, but I swat it away, the weapon leaving her grip. Both Cato and Clove charge me from both sides at that, and it takes all my strength to catch both their weapons with mine and keep them at bay.
"Is that the best you can do?!" I swing the weapons out, grabbing two throwing knives and toss it at Marvel and Four girl, grab Clove and head butt her before charging Cato again. "Bring it you bastards!"
"Let's go Hayes!" He replies in kind, an eager look in his eye.
I throw the tomahawk down and he decides to catch my hand in his own. He thrusts his sword at my chest and I sidestep the attack, but can't dodge the punch the throws into my stomach. That single punch feels like someone swung a bat at me. This gives him enough time for two quick slashes. The first he lands on my chest, slashing across my scar, earning a hiss from me due to the pain from the slash and the burn I still have. His last one connects with my right calf, sinking deep into it, earning a yell from me.
That's all he gets as I tear the sword out of my leg and give him a slash against his chest that matches mine. I roll to the left and Clove comes in, ready to stab me in the back, but instead stabs Cato in the shoulder.
Marvel's recovered, an intact spear in his hands.
"How many do you have?" I raise an eyebrow.
"As many as it'll take to kill you!" He throws this one at me.
"Oh damn!" I flip backwards, narrowly dodging it. Cato returns, but before he can do anything, I slam my foot into his shin, a satisfying crack ringing in my ears as he falls to the floor.
Then the Tracker Jacker nest burst open like an egg on the floor.
I roll to a bush, hoping that the Trackers don't identify my as an enemy, but that doesn't happen. Three sting me; two on my arm and the last on my right calf. At the first sting the venom's already doing it's work, and I'm already dizzy. That's all the stings that I get, the Trackers concentrating on the Careers that are in the open. "To the lake! To the lake!" I hear four girl scream. It amazes me that we're that close, or at least close enough that they think that can out run the Trackers. When I'm satisfied that they have left, I break the foliage, stumbling. Katniss is already down the tree when another cannon fires.
"Katniss?!" I shout as hallucinations begin to fill my vision. I'm seeing what look like red and orange birds dotting the sky, along with thousands of spiders crawling all over the ground.
'This isn't real. This isn't real.' I think, but my mind's waring with itself now. I still spot Katniss and she books it the opposite direction the Careers took to, stumbling, screaming, and flaying her hands.
"Katniss!" This isn't safe, chasing a Tracker venom filled Katniss while I myself was venom filled, but we need to stay together. More of those birds are showing up, and they're diving us, some strange warmth radiating from them, the spiders try to swarm me, and now I can hear the roar of some animal. My arms start swatting my body, trying to kill all of the spiders.
We both keep running, stumbling, screaming, and flaying for a few minutes before Katniss falls. I'm only half paying attention and trip over her, landing in mud. She's already out, but I'm seeing more spiders and birds coming my way. I still panic even when I know it isn't real. The spiders are all over me, and I can feel their fangs sink into me multiple times, causing me to cry out and swat my entire body. The birds have burst into flames, but return again, and start stabbing at me. I'm curled up in a ball, trying to protect myself from these imaginary foes when I hear the roar.
I look up to find two red orbs staring at mine, the creatures' massive jaws open, barring hundreds of dagger like teeth.
And everything goes dark.
