13
I'm in my meadow. Where the fragrance of ripe strawberries fills my senses. Where the sky is clear and cloudless. Where the birds sing melodies as I lie in a beautiful white dress of satin in the tall grass. A crisp breeze sooths my skin. Haymitch, dressed in a clean white t-shirt and baggy jeans, lies beside me with his arm wrapped around my shoulders. He smells of fresh cotton. In the distance I see Pazima, Noraleen, Ezra, and Yule giggling as they chase one another playfully in the field. They're all wearing pearly white attire too. My skin feels soft and for the first time in my life I feel utterly relaxed. There is nothing weighing me down now- just the arm of my true love draped around me. I am happy; I am at peace.
Am I in heaven? No- I knew I was dreaming. I knew it was all too perfect to be real. Haymitch leans in toward my ear. "Maysilee?" he whispers in a sweet gentle tone. I blush.
"Yes?"
"Kiss me." And then he leans in to my face. A fairytale come true. His lips send butterflies fluttering to my stomach. It's the best feeling in the world.
But suddenly everything begins to shake. The ground is quaking and cracking open. My head starts spinning and the vibrations are unbearable. I stare back to see Haymitch and find him gone- completely disappeared. I no longer see the others out in the field. I am alone as my meadow begins to shatter. The sky is now black, and the meadow is beginning to set fire. Smoke fills the air and I begin to choke.
Choking.
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.
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"MAYSILEE!" It's Ezra's scream. Flashing my eyes open, I find myself back on the forest floor beside Ezra. It takes me a split second to realize what's going on. The air is thick with fog…wait, not fog. Smoke. Thick, warm smoke. Suddenly the ground is vibrating- just like how it had in my dream. The shaking must have been what affected my fantasy. "What's going on?" Ezra yells again, reaching out for me.
"I don't know! I think it's an earthquake!" I reply apprehensively. I sensed it wasn't just an earthquake. Something big was happening. "We've got to get out of here, Ezra. Grab your stuff!" I began to become frightened. Not knowing what's going on isn't exactly something I deal well with.
"Is it smoking? Why is there smoke?" Ezra stutters as she stumbles to grab her backpack and spear. Quickly we throw our sacks over our backs and I grasp Ezra's arm. To my right, I hear distant screaming. To the left it is then. My heart is pounding a mile a minute. Ezra's shaking like crazy as I begin to guide her in a gradual run. Suddenly what sounds like fifty cannons combined echoes. The impact from the blow knocks both me and Ezra to the ground. When I finally open my eyes, ashes fall from the heavy smoke cloud above. We are both coughing madly. I lift Ezra back off from the ground. "Oh god what's going on?" she cries. "I can barely hear anything! Maysilee?" And it's true- the earthquake was so loud it was blocking out my ear drums.
"Ezra, I'm here. We've got to keep running." We're not going to die now. Not this way. Half-blinded by the dense smoke and guiding my completely sightless ally through the woods away from it all was practically impossible. What looked like meteorites began dropping out of the sky with loud, whistling fires. Fireballs- that's what they were. Tears were streaming down my face, but I kept pushing on, pulling Ezra behind me. She began to slow down as her coughing fit worsened. "Come on Ezra." I cried. "We can't give up now. We're going to get out of this." We're going to get out of this! The fire was spreading as the sky continued to chuck flaming rocks down toward us. The earth was still intensely quaking. My eardrums were ringing. Apart from the thundering of boulders and crackling fire, I could still hear the distant screams of tributes. My back began to burn. Gazing over my shoulder, I widened at the sight of my jacket on fire. "SHIT!" I yanked the thing off and threw it aside. "Ezra take your jacket off- it's caught fire too!" As Ezra yanked off her coat leaving her in just the black tank top, I noticed she had also lost her backpack as well as her spear. That's not important now; I've got to get us both out of here alive. But the fire and smoke didn't ease up. Flaming ashes sizzled on my bare shoulders. A fire erupting earthquake? No- something was telling me that that snow-capped mountain I had seen when the Games began wasn't a mountain. A volcano…
"Maysilee…" Ezra was coughing and collapsing to the ground. "Maysilee just…go."
"Ezra I'm not leaving you!" I snapped with tears streaming down my face. "Ezra!" She had completely tumbled down. Without a second thought I scooped her up in my arms. "Stay with me Ezra! I'm going to get us out of this!" But even my words sounded hopeless. Keep fighting. Stay brave till the very end. The fire was all around- my head was spinning as the smoke messed with my mind. Which way? Which way? I picked the direction that appeared to be the least dense. I ran and ran… God- let me get out of this alive. But I realized I no longer believed in a God right now. In the Hunger Games, there was no God.
My aching legs were robotic now- as much as I wanted to be able to stop running; my mechanical feet wouldn't let me. Even though Ezra was probably half my own weight, my arms had become numb. Slowly the quaking was coming to an end, but the fire and smoke wasn't. "We can do this, Ezra." I tried to whisper, though I doubted she could hear me. My voice had no life whatsoever. I needed water desperately. My coughing fit wasn't loosening up. …but Ezra's was. No.
I tripped. Ezra and I went sailing to the hard ground. Fire was all around us. "I'm s- sorry. Y-you o-okay?" I stuttered in between winded gasps. Ezra didn't move. I dove beside her. "EZRA! Stay with me! Can you hear me? Ezra!"
"Go." she replied heartbreakingly. "D-Don't…give up now Maysilee. Please, get ou-out of h-here."
"No," I whispered. Tears flooded my eyes and poured down my cheeks. "Please."
"Goodbye, Maysilee." Ezra murmured. I held her hand tight as she closed her eyelids. Her breathing came to a stop. I pressed my head to her heart and listened as it came to a gentle end.
"Goodbye Ezra." I choked. I quickly kissed her cheek and stumbled back up to my feet, failing to take a deep breath. A cannon fired. Another one would fire too if I didn't get out of the fire. 'Please get out of here'…I won't let you down Ezra. I'll get out of here.
I continued to run.
.
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.
.
The smoke was loosening up. At least I thought it was- my mind was still whirling. With much struggle, I had managed to get out of the brush fire. Stinging burns scorched my arms, and my entire body was black with soot. My entire body was throbbing- like I had been hit by a train. When I finally felt safe, I toppled to the ground. The air was much clearer and fresh. I took some heavy wheezing breaths, but it didn't help much. My whole body was trembling. I didn't know what felt the worse- my debilitated body, the agonizing burns that covered my arms, my spinning headache, my dehydrated throat, or the pain of watching Ezra die. I reached for my backpack and unzipped the tethered bag. I yanked out my precious canteen of water. Ezra's canteen. I took a few large gulps to soothe my throat. Then, I took a few capfuls to clean off the burns.
Back leaning against a tree, I closed my eyes. Nothing but absolute silence now. No more screams. No more cannon fires. No more roaring of growing flames. All the birds that had filled the branches of the forest had fled. No tweeting melodies. Just my own flashback of the whole nightmare. I pulled my legs to my chest and wept. I sounded like a baby…I wanted to go home. Come on Maysilee! If you don't pull yourself together you'll never be able to go home! Stay brave and fight to the end! I wiped my wet cheeks dry, and took some more deep breaths. Ezra was my friend- I had watched her die…that memory was scarred in my mind now for life. But what happened, happened. Crying wasn't going to bring Ezra back. "It's alright to feel sad, but crying solves nothing." my parents had taught Yule, Noraleen, and I. For now I had to put aside the sadness; for now I had to let it go. It was time to focus.
After a long rest by the tree, I gathered my stuff- a now empty canteen, half of the food that Ezra and I had split up between our bags, a torn up blanket that I had used strips of as bands for my bleeding injuries, a pocket knife, a few feet of rope, and my dart gun. I needed to keep moving on. I was safe from the fire and thick smoke, but I wanted to head toward more fresher air.
"A volcano…" I muttered to myself disgustingly as I trekked. I wondered how many tributes had been killed by it. Certainly many were at least weakened by it. Well, I'd see tonight just how many faces would appear on the projector. Once again I thought about Haymitch. Where the hell was he? Was he nearby when the volcano erupted? Was he alive? Suddenly another booming sound broke my wandering thoughts. Paranoid, I dove to the ground and covered my head, half-expecting more flaming rocks. Instead I was greeted by the gentle trickle of rain. It soothed my burns wonderfully. At least the fire will be put out, I thought. I filled up my canteen and simply lied there while the refreshing drops poured down. The rainstorm didn't last long though; soon the clouds had passed and the afternoon sun was again shining. "What do I do now?" I questioned myself. What could I do? Stay hidden and just wait? Go out looking for kill? Attempt to find Haymitch? Whatever it was, I had to try to keep my mind off of Ezra. The world was watching; I couldn't afford to appear weak now.
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.
That night, I lay uncomfortably in an oak tree, secured by a knot of rope. The Capitol anthem came to a finish. A total of nine tributes had died today. 9 tributes. Seeing Ezra's face made me weep. Yet still, no Haymitch; he was still out there. A majority of the Careers had been killed by the volcano. Titania was still out there, too though. And so was that girl Liekin.
Suddenly I realized: nine more tributes dead meant…there was only 9 of us left.