Chapter 14: Rising Flames

When the explosion starts once the tree falls on the ground, Topaz and I are blown backwards. I fall hard on my back and a loud roar goes through the entire arena, making my ears rings. Everything is one fire now, and multiple explosions can be heard else where. The ground is shaking and trees are beginning to fall.

Topaz shouts something at me that I can't hear over the roaring of the forest. She then grabs my wrist and hauls me to my feet. She has a deep cut on her forehead and my arm is bleeding badly. She starts to run, and I'm about to follow her, when I notice I don't have my trident.

I freeze and almost fall over as the earth jerks again. I look around the fiery abyss for the golden weapon that has kept me alive. I scan the area and I think I hear Topaz shout something again, but I ignore her. I then see the trident, lying right next to a wall of flames.

I race towards it, ignoring Topaz's next scream at me. I dodge falling branches and waves of fire and I stumble a few times as the ground jerks. I can't hear anything except from the roar of the explosions. I feel a gust of air sweep by me and I look up, seeing a large branch fall down. I dive to the ground as it falls right where I'm standing, seeing another wall of fire blaze up.

I grab my trident which is now in front of me, shouting as the heat from the metal burns my hands. I stand up, seeing fire every where and the ground still shaking, but starting to settle. I hear Topaz again, but she's behind the new fire that has come up. I only see one way out, and that's starting to close up as flames engulf a near by tree.

I take a deep breath, then start coughing as smoke begins to rise up. My eyes are tearing because of it and my throat burns from it. Each breath is excruciating as I take in the deep smoke. But I grip my trident hard, ignoring the searing heat, as I race through.

I scream as fire has latched onto my leg. I fall to the ground, unable to support the weight on it. I twist and turn, trying to get it out. Once I finally do, I don't bother in looking at the wound, because I already know that it hasn't burnt the nerves on my leg because I can feel the horrible pain tingle in me.

I don't have enough energy to get up though, and the fire seems to grow with each second. The smoke seems to be settling around me, threatening to suffocate me and the ashes fall on my back. That's when I see Topaz.

"Finnick!" I can hear her now, because the explosions have stopped but the fire rages on.

She runs over to me and tries to lift me up, but she can't support my weight. She tugs again and I give out a yelp of pain. She looks around wildly as the flames inch closer to us, her brown eyes wide with fear and her golden hair crazed and some of it burnt off so that it lies on her shoulders.

"I need you to help," She tells me, "I can't carry you on my own!"

I grit my teeth, and force myself to nod. As she lifts me up, I use my good leg to support me. I gasp as the pain in my right leg shoots through me and I almost fall to the ground again. She supports me on my right side as she leads me through the flames. I'm thankful that this is a natural fire caused by bombs and not one created by the Gamemakers, or else there would be some sort of twist.

We both limp through the fire at a surprisingly slow speed. The fire is at our heels, but we push ahead. I give out a cry of pain every now and then, for the burning pain in my leg is too much to bear. Just when I think I'm about to either die or collapse, I see an end.

The burning trees begin to end and I see the expanse of emptiness again. The heat of the fire and the air is making me dangerously dehydrated and making my vision and thoughts obscured. My eyes are tearing and each breath is painful as I take a step, dragging my bad leg behind me.

There's absolutely nothing here except for the sand-colored grass. Some smaller fires rage out here because of the heat, but it has nothing to catch on to and it soon dies. I can feel the edges of unconsciousness poking through me as my mind becomes foggy and everything seems to dance around me.

It's then that the whole world disappears and everything goes dark.

…...

The first thing I wake up to is the horrible pain in my right leg. It's a bit better than it was before, but is still excruciating. I feel the heat of my surroundings and it's so hot that I think I'm still in the fire. That's when I gasp and open my eyes, but my panic dissipates as I realize where I am.

I see a large amount of rocks, and I notice that we're in that rock area that I saw in the beginning of the games. The sun is starting to set and a high, pointed rock provides us shade. It's a bit like a cave, except that it's still outside, but the pointed rock provides a roof and shade.

I'm relieved when I realize I can hear, but my left ear still rings. I hear a bit of clanging and I lift my head up a bit. I see Topaz there, arranging our gear and sorting through some food. She caught a rabbit it looks like, and it's out in the sun with rocks under it, cooking it. I also notice that my clothes are cleaner than they were, but not damp anymore since it probably evaporated. There are some bottles of water in the shade and a nearly dry cloth over my leg wound.

I try to move, but the burn wound on my leg sends a shock of pain through me. I grunt and fall back down where I realize Lily's sleeping bag is under me. Topaz looks up and smiles a bit, seeing that I'm awake.

"Welcome back," She said, "I thought we lost you for a bit there."

"Obviously not," I choke out, my voice rough and croaky.

"Here," She hands me a newly filled bottle of warm water, "Drink."

I don't argue as I sip it, forcing myself to go slowly. I only drink half of it, knowing I'll have to ration with such poor water sources. I set it down as Topaz takes another bottle and puts it on my wound. It's still flaring red, but it's not down to the bone, thank god. She wets the cloth again and puts it back on top of the wound, making it sting a bit from touch.

"Where'd you get the water?" I ask, my voice not croaky anymore, but still slightly rough.

"I went back into the forest to see if the river survived," She said, "It didn't though, nothing did. It's all a wasteland back there now. So I searched around here, and I found some water crevices in between the rocks."

I rub my head and then ask, "How did the explosion start anyways? Like how did it destroy so much?"

Topaz sighs and leans back on the rock behind her and explains, "You know the land mines around the platforms we go up in?" I nod. "Well, since the Careers weren't there, Citrine deactivated them some how and dug them all up. There was also some other bombs in the Cornucopia that she took. Then through out all the days we've been here after the first explosion, she's been digging around and planting bombs. She connected them using the vines and waited a bit to see if anyone would step on one. It didn't happen, so she waited till we were close enough, dribbled some water trails to make sure we met up at the same place, and then set it off by sending down that branch."

I blink a couple of times, trying to process it since my brain is still a bit foggy. Finally I ask, "And how did you figure this entire thing out?"

Topaz smiles and says, "When I went to find water, I ran into her. I was about to kill her, but then figured I should get her story. I made her tell it."

"But…" I said, sensing something went wrong.

"But," She sighs, "She had a weapon and flung my bow out of my hands. When I went to get it, she was gone."

"Damn," I lean my head back, "I think she's the one we should all be trying to kill."

"Yeah," She shrugs her shoulders, "I guess so, but you need to rest."

I frown and just say, "I can't rest for two long, there's only 5 of us left. Maybe even less if anybody died in the explosion."

"We can only hope," Topaz says, "At least rest for tonight."

I'm about to argue, but I just say, "Fine, whatever."

"Good," She leans back and then says, "I guess we'll see in the sky tonight who died."

"If anyone died," I point out, "It could be possible no one died."

"If they didn't they will be seriously injured," She says, "So we'll all be weaken."

"Except for Citrine," I mutter.

"I don't know," Topaz murmurs, "She didn't look in too good of shape."

"She'll be better than the rest of us though."

"It doesn't matter," She waves it away, "Only one of us can win this thing."

I just look at her and nod, because there's no way to say anything to that. We both know that one of us will have to die, and it'll most likely be me because of how injured I am. It's hard to imagine that it's only been 3 days since I split up with the Careers, and so much has happened. The first week was a bit slow, but now everything seems to just come up out of no where. I guess that's what happens in the finale.

The sunsets and it's dark out, the coldness sets in. I settle down in Lily's sleeping bag, as Topaz sits beside me, shivering.

"Do you want to share?" I ask, opening it up a bit, "You're going to freeze to death."

She shook her head, teeth chattering, "No, I'm f-fine."

"Bull shit," I say, "Get in."

She sighs but reluctantly gets in. It's warmer with the both of us in and the bag reflecting body heat. I ignore the pain in my leg as much as possible as the night goes on. Then we hear the anthem and the symbol appears in the sky. We wait for a face to show, but nothing does and it goes away in an instance.

"No one died," I whisper.

"Nope," She shook her head, "No one."

I pause before continuing, "What are our plans for tomorrow?"

She looks at me and says simply, "We start hunting."