SHOUT OUTS:
"Floracat", "mystic night92", and "Samy58787667757": You subscribed or favorited this story but didn't review. Normally I'd PM you about this but it wouldn't let me so I'm doing this instead. Could you please review this chapter? It can be short, but it helps me keep track of who's reading and what they like and don't like.
Special shout out for "The Ice Within" who's reviewed every chapter!
Special thanks also to "SonofHell666", "ifweburnyouburnwithus", "shieldmaiden19", and "prim001" for reviewing the previous chapter!
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DISCLAIMER:
There are several concepts, characters, and real life things that I use and/or mention in this chapter that I don't own. These include but are not limited to the Hunger Games, Finnick Odair, Mags, EpiPen, and 5-hour ENERGY.
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A/N: I'm SO sorry about how long this took. School started, and I have extracurriculars, and I'm not used to high school yet (I'm taking AP's, never done anything like it), and I had writers block...anyway I'm really sorry about that and hopefully it won't happen again. Also I tried to tone down the language a bit here since several of you commented on it. Enjoy!
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IN THIS CHAPTER: Mild adult language, Moderate violence, Strong intense/frightening scenes
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CHAPTER 12
"Do you want first watch or should I take it?" Korey asks.
"I'll get it since I didn't do anything today. Get some rest and I'll wake you up in four to five hours."
She nods. "See you in the morning, Finnick."
"Night, Korey"
We've made a camp in the desert about half a kilometer[1] from the oasis. Since we don't have a tent anymore, it's just our two sleeping bags and various equipment organized in a triangle shape behind a large boulder that I sit on while taking watch. From there I can see the oasis straight ahead, and if I squint the edges of the savanna on the left and the jungle on the right. About five minutes after we got here a cannon went off; most likely the careers got into an argument about whose fault it is that Korey and I got away and it turned violent. Careers are idiots, which is why we left when we did. Since then the night has been pretty quiet, but the Capitol wants a show, so if it gets too quiet there will be Gamemaker intervention. In training they told us that having a round-the-clock watch was more about that than other tributes. When some human eating mutt comes in the middle of the night with no warning and you're asleep, you're kinda screwed regardless of how fast your can get up and get a weapon. In the Games, seconds count. About an hour into my watch, I grab something to eat. It seems like days ago that we were eating dinner with the careers, but in reality it's probably been about six hours. The bread is crunchy but not stale, a luxury I haven't been able to afford in six years. Four is a generally well off district, but both my mom and I were working jobs that were considered part-time and low paying even for that, so we were feeding two on a salary that would be low for one. A richer district means a higher cost of living. I've eaten better here in the arena than I did at home. Fruit and vegetables are expensive, and according to my mom vegetables are more important, so fruit was rare in our household. We were by no means starving, just eating significantly less than comfortable. The "so hungry you don't even feel hungry anymore just tired"[2] state was rare. A strange feeling of homesickness washes over me. Sure things were rough, but I can't deal with the idea of never seeing it again.
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"Finnick, I'm up, go to sleep," Korey says. I nod, and after being up for almost twenty-four hours straight, I fall asleep as soon as my head hits the hard pillow attached to my sleeping bag. And then the nightmares come. At first I'm in Lecia's Games and it's the same scene as when Glamour kills her except I am Lecia and Lecia is Glamour. My sister throws the axe and I see it end up in my own head. After that the scene fades so I am drowning in the oasis. The water is only a foot above my head, but some force is keeping me from surfacing. Claudius Templesmith, the announcer, is commenting on the irony that the best swimmer in the Games drowns. Then I'm watching Obsidian beat Korey's head in with a mace, before turning and coming to me. Diamond has strip-searched me and taken all my weapons, so there's nothing I can do as he comes at me and thrusts it against the base of my skull again and again and again...
Needless to say, I didn't get all that much sleep.
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In the morning I'm still exhausted, but I get up anyway and let Korey know that I'm up.
She nods and starts to get out some food when several parachutes come down. I open them to find two glasses of juice, a loaf of bread still warm from the oven, a cup of seaweed butter, and two portions of shark fin soup. Shark fin soup. My dad, the accident, a shark...yeah didn't need to be reminded of that right now.
"Shark fin soup? Really?"
Apparently Korey remembers too.
Figuring there is a camera on me somewhere, I say, "Thanks Mags, Sponsors, but can we get chowder next time?"
Yeah, I know. I'm in the arena getting Capitol food and being picky. But the Capitol loved us, so we'll have sponsors. Lots. That's what you get when your good looking, talented, and likable. The perfect tribute. Perfect tributes get to be picky.
Korey and I sit and eat the soup with two pieces of bread each.
"Soooo...what are we doing today?" Korey asks.
"Um...I was thinking maybe we could go scout out the jungle, just to see if there's anything we can use."
She nods. "That'd be good. When we go over there can we go through the oasis?"
"Sure, I wouldn't mind a short swim."
'Wouldn't mind' is an understatement. Anything that would remind me of home would be greatly appreciated.
After we finish eating we pack up and head out to the jungle. Korey finds some vines that we could use to make more of those gill nets and a couple of guava[3] trees that could be a food source if necessary. We've decided not to eat anything in the arena unless we have to, because although the Fiftieth Games were a year before I was born, I heard the stories about everything being poisonous. I'm not dying because of a flippin' fruit.
As we get ready to head back a parachute glides down containing two bowls of exotic looking fruit and two glasses of water.
"What's that?" Korey asks.
"A snack."
"Snack? Didn't we eat just over two hours ago?" she asks.
"Yeah."
I turn toward what I think would be the best angle for a camera and say, "Thanks sponsors and Mags," before starting to eat the fruit. I recognize pineapple and mango, although both are infinitely better than I've ever tasted. We could never afford them unless they were overripe, not rotten, just mushy and so sweet they made your stomach hurt. These ones are sweet too, but only a hint of sweet. Just right. There are also some little red seeds that I assume are from a pomegranate, which I've only heard the really rich kids talk about. Like the mayor's kids, victor's relatives, and a few business kids who's fathers have a complete monopoly over their field. The kind of kid I would have been if my dad hadn't died. There are a couple of others mixed in, but I don't question them since the food's from the Capitol.
Afterwards we pick up our stuff and head back to our little camp. About a third of the way there the jungle changes. The foliage gets much denser and something about it is making me nervous. Maybe because we've never been in this part of the jungle before. Maybe because my only weapons are a dull knife and a dart gun. I don't know. But my gun is cocked on my shoulder as I maneuver through the jungle with Korey. Soon I can see the border, and I decide I was freaking out about nothing.
And then four foot-long scorpions surround us, one from each of the cardinal directions.
We learned the proper way to kill these in training, but with the adrenaline rush comes apprehension, so I just kill the closest in the easiest way possible, stepping on it and swiveling my foot until it is ground into a paste. I look up briefly and see Korey trying to kill a scorpion the way we learned, using her sword to keep it from getting too close as she searches for the right spot to stab with her dagger.
"Just step on it!" I yell, but she's in that super focused mode where she is totally oblivious to everything around her. I've seen her do it before in training when she loses herself in an especially intense round of sparring. Another scorpion comes towards me and I repeat the process, driving this one even further into the ground. At this point Korey's managed to kill her first one, but now the second is only a few centimeters from her shoe. She manages to scoop it with her sword and brings her dagger down onto it's vulnerable stomach and I breathe a sigh of relief.
But just before the dagger makes contact, the scorpion rights itself and jumps onto her right arm, immediately sinking its claws into her skin so she can't shake it off.[4]
Oh sh*t.
I pull my knife out of my belt and throw it as hard as I can, hoping to make the scorpion release its hold. It does, but not before it forces the sharp tip of its tail into her skin and injects a ridiculous amount of venom.
Bleep.
As soon as the scorpion hits the ground Korey freaks out and stomps on it over and over and over again until it's completely ground into the jungle floor and she's just stomping on this bare spot in the foliage while screaming about stingers and poison and fangs and death. I want to say it's just an Aspergers thing and move on, but I know it's not and I've never been good at lying to myself. Aspergers doesn't make people go crazy. I decide to walk over to her and figure out what's wrong, but when I get about thirty centimeters away she gets scared and cowers behind a tree. When she turns I realize that the site of the sting has swollen to the size of a small guava, and green stuff is oozing out. I creep closer to her and call out softly, "Korey?"
She turns swiftly and her eyes grow wide. "Chrissy? Why are you here?" she whispers.
Chrissy? Who the heck is—her sister. So whatever was in this sting is causing some major hallucinations.
"No. Finnick."
"Finnick? Why are you—spider!"
I turn and look behind me. I don't see any spiders, but I know Korey has a bordering on irrational fear of them.
"Get off! Get off, get off, GET OFF!" She yells, shaking her now swollen arm.
I sigh. She's going to be out of commission for a while, so we need to get back to our camp where I can watch better.
"We need to go back to camp."
She continues to yell about spiders and doesn't acknowledge my comment.
"Seriously Korey, you need to follow me."
Nothing.
I walk over to her and take hold of her wrist.
She starts screaming bloody murder. Not words, just screaming. Anyone within a four hundred meter radius can probably hear her.
We have to get back to camp. If the three careers that are still alive find us here, which they very well could the way Korey is screaming, we'd be screwed. My only choice is to force her to come with me, so I pick her up bridal style, the only way I can carry her the way she's acting, and begin to trek through the jungle.
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Almost half an hour later we arrive at our camp. I set Korey down in her sleeping bag, take a seat on our watch rock, and completely zone out. The memories from home come rushing back, and I find myself more homesick then ever. All of Lecia's friends fawning over me at her sweet sixteen party. An oversized cake on my seventh birthday almost a year before dad's accident. Lecia showing me how to swim even faster after she got off from work early on a Saturday. Passing my placement test for training and moving up to Korey's class. My first date with Irlissa. Qualifying for Advanced Spears which you usually have to be sixteen to take. Last week would have been my first class. I am so lost in my thoughts that when a cannon rings out I jump almost a foot. Half of us dead in two days, twelve left. Korey, who I thought was asleep or knocked out, starts screaming again. D*mmit. I walk over to her, stopping about twenty centimeters away to judge her reaction. She abruptly stops screaming and just stares at me, her eyes cloudy. I reach out to take her hand, not sure why, just a reflex I suppose, and she freaks out again.
And punches me in the jaw.
Did I mention we took hand to hand combat together? Her aim's a bit off, probably because of the whole going insane thing, but she's still strong.
I hear some nasty crunching noise and my mouth fills with blood, and I know she has either dislocated my jaw, fractured it, or both.
When she sees the blood she scurries back to her sleeping bag muttering something about blood, evil, and kill.
Nice.
My ally has gone crazy and just broke my jaw. I can barely open my mouth, but I manage to say, "Some kind of first aid would be nice" although it comes out more like "Sum kite uh forse aid word be knives."
A large parachute floats down, and I open it to a large first aid kid with the words "FACIAL INJURY" printed on it. I open it to find two large packets labeled "Bandages" and "Cotton Gauze", a bottle of water, a box of pain medicine, a topical anesthetic, and a tin of mints.[5] I rinse my mouth with the water and then try to figure out what to do with the rest of it. The pain medicine is pretty self explanatory, and I knock back two of the pills before moving on to the topical anesthetic. I know an anesthetic is a numbing agent, but I thought those came in shots. I open it to find this jelly looking stuff. I don't really know what to do with it, so I just take some with my finger and rub it along the right side of my jaw, inside and out of my mouth, which makes it start bleeding again. My mouth quickly floods with blood, and for a second I'm afraid I'm going to choke. I spit and start digging through the kit looking for something to help the blood clot. Cotton Gauze. Perfect. I hastily tear open the package and find about fifty small squares about five centimeters long. I take about three and tuck them in into the right side of my mouth. With nothing else to do, I take a seat on the rock and watch the desert while basking in my own thoughts.
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About half an hour later another parachute arrives. This one contains more pain medicine, two bowls of what seems to be pureed corn chowder, and a needle labeled "Tracker Jacker Venom Antidote".
Tracker Jacker venom.
It all makes sense now.
The scorpion was a mutt carrying tracker jacker venom. It was enhanced by the Gamemakers to allow it to jump that far, and after Korey got stung she totally lost it.
I pick up the needle. It's about 23 centimeters long and wicked sharp. If she punched me for trying to touch her, how the h*ll am I going to persuade her to let me stab her with a needle? I read the directions:
Pull off gray safety release
Jab black tip firmly into outer thigh so it 'clicks' AND HOLD on thigh for approx. 10 secs.
Seek medical attention
Seek medical attention? Obviously these weren't designed for the arena. I walk over to Korey and see that she is asleep. I think. I kneel down next to her. Definitely asleep. You can hear it in her breathing. I rock back on my knees. What's the best way to do this? I think. I could pin her arms back and do it, but then she might wake up before I can get the needle in. Or I could just do it, but I really can't afford for her to swing at me again. I bite my lip. I decide to just trust my reflexes, putting a hand up to catch her wrists if necessary. I hope the thing can go through clothing, because I'm not going to be able to strip off her pants without waking her. I take a deep breath, remove the safety cap, and plunge the needle into her thigh.
She bucks as soon as it makes contact, but I catch her flailing arms and pin them behind her head.
One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand, four one thousand, five one thousand, six one thousand, seven one thousand, eight one thousand, nine one thousand, ten one thousand.
I pull out the needle and she immediately falls back onto her sleeping bag, knocked out.
Umm, was that supposed to happen? I think. It looked bad. I look to the sky and voice my concerns. No response. Nothing to do but wait, I suppose. I return to the watch rock, and try to eat the soup Mags sent. It's honestly quite a pain. Every time I open my mouth a flash of pain like getting stabbed with a knife courses through my body, and a couple of times I open my mouth too wide and my jaw locks, leaving me to massage my jaw until it snaps back into place. Since the last death things have been pretty quiet. I finish the soup, thanking my mentors and sponsor like usual, and sit in silence, wondering about what's to come.
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Four hours later, at about 19 o'clock[6] another parachute arrives. This one has some undistinguishable soup, a bottle of water, and a small cylindrical container labeled "5-hour ENERGY. I read the directions. Apparently you just knock it back and it starts working in less than ten minutes. I do. I have a feeling it's going to be a long night.
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FOOTNOTES:
Approx. .31 miles. I'm American but I'm using the Metric system for this story because I know I have readers who don't live in the US (We learn Metric they don't learn US Customary) and for swimming and running you use Metric. And it's just easier somehow…
Been there, done that. I participated in something called 30 Hour Famine at my church where you collect sponsors and then have nothing but water and juice for thirty hours and the money helps kids who are starving. After about ten or twelve hours your not even hungry anymore, just really tired.
Guava is a tropical fruit. Grows on a tree, kind of pink inside, although it can be white. I've had fresh guava once (when I was in the Caribbean) and it was sweet and really good :)
Normal scorpions can jump about a foot. These are genetically engineered Capitol scorpions. Please suspend your disbelief.
To get rid of the blood taste. Like your parents might (have) given you gum after your throw up.
I'm using twenty-four hour time too. It's easier for me in my planning, and it's easier for you guys to figure out what I'm talking about (hopefully)
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A/N: First, I posted a link to a picture I drew of Korey on my profile! It is labeled "Korey Kassidy PROFILE SHOT!". If you haven't checked out those links, most of them are related to When Life Became A Game, and you might find them interesting so check them out! No, you won't be seeing a picture of Finnick. If someone could draw me a good base, I'll color it and write you a 500+ word one-shot on a HG character of your choice! Seriously, send me a link if you have anything good. Third, do you guys find "that's what she said" jokes annoying? I just realized how much I use those, and no one has commented, but if you don't like them let me know and I'll tone it down a bit. Did you guys notice the language? This chapter only had three curse words, and no f-words. I'm not promising to keep it this low, but I will try to keep it reasonable.
Please review, I really appreciate the feedback!
-cindella204