Only a short note this time, I hope you enjoy the tension and the itty bitty cliffhanger. I promise, the next chapter is going to be…well, you'll see. I do think you'll love it though.
As always, keep reviewing and may the odds be in your favour!
"Even if she be not harmed, her heart may fail her in so much and so many horrors; and hereafter she may suffer-both in waking, from her nerves, and in sleep, from her dreams."
―Bram Stoker,Dracula
The mist is creeping off the lake, and it's just past dawn when an odd sound reaches my ears. It's like something is part slithering and part dragging across the ground. My eyes are wide and alert, but when I reach for it, my axe is gone and in it's place is the length of rope I made from my hair.
What's going on?
That's when I see it. He's here.
I can feel my heart catch, and throb against my rib cage as if it's going to explode. This can't be happening. It can't be real. It can't be real.
But he's there. Griffin is here!
He's on his stomach, crawling beneath the branches of my hiding spot. There's a purple mottled bruise around his neck. His fingers are caked with blood—my blood and his eyes, they're wide and staring—bloodshot.
His look is accusing as he overtakes me, he has the boot I stole from him and he's pressing it over my mouth and nose. I can't breathe, I can't move! He's going to kill me!
But he's dead! He's dead, I killed him myself! I fight against him, but it feels futile as his hands rove my body. What the heck is he doing? But then his fingers find my pocket, and the small token of home and his grip lessens. He's shrinking back, crawling backwards—his eyes still wide and staring at me.
My breath is coming in great gasps, and I'm screaming it over and over again.
"BUT I KILLED YOU! YOU'RE DEAD! I KILLED YOU!"
My eyes snap open, but I haven't moved or screamed. It was just a dream. Just a dream, wasn't it?
My hand creeps up where I touch my neck. It's still whole, unhurt…unbruised. I take deep filling breathes and the cold air feels delightful as it instills calmness in me. My fingers travel to my pocket—his token is still there. I shut my eyes a moment just to breathe before I try to take in my surroundings.
It's the middle of the day and it's still awfully chilly. It doesn't help that my body is covered with a thin sheen of sweat from my nightmare. Just the thought of it causes me to shiver. Thank goodness, it's cold enough that most will think that's all it is, and most of all that I didn't scream my head off.
Stiffly, I roll out of my bag and tighten it up and put it in my pack, just in case. It's so heavy to move around in with all my muscles aching and screaming in protest, but I like the feeling of control it gives me. I down another bottle of water before making my way up to refill it and treat it, then splash some cool water in my face. The effect is instant, I feel so much more alert.
…
I'm laying in the shade of the edge of my trees, looking across the perimeter. I wait a full hour before I come out again. By this time, I've already figured out exactly what stone I want. It's large, and jagged on the edges.
I approach it tentatively, before lifting it up. It's a good sized rock, a little over two fists wide in the middle, and a little thicker toward the outside edges—it's only these edges that are rough. It looks like it chipped off some large rock at some point.
Picking it up, I try to figure out how to best go about it. I take a knife, though I hate to risk damaging it and place it in the center of the rock. With my other hand, I grab a stone and keep banging it repeatedly into the knife. I pause after every strike to make sure I'm still alone.
I hate doing it in the open, but it's the easiest way to keep track of if I'm attracting anyone else. In my den of trees, I would have no warning if someone heard it. By the time I saw them, they'd have me.
It takes me an hour, and severe throbbing in my stitched up hand before it's cracked through. Tucking the knife back in my belt, I grab both pieces and my axe up before making it back to my tree home.
When I reach the middle, I sit down and make a meal while I study the split rocks. The edges are nice and jagged but not nearly pointy enough. I finish off half of my second bottle of water, while I eat some cheese and meat. My stomach yearns for more, but I force myself to wait a bit.
Reaching into my bag with my good hand, I bring out Griffin's boots. Carefully I cut off the lower part—the boot part, and put it back in my bag. Slitting the part that goes on the leg, up the side, I start cutting the leather into pinky wide strips. After I've cut it all up, I jam the strips one by one into the water in my half full bottle, making sure they're all under the water.
Digging out the earth, I sit it in the indent so that it can't fall over. I get out the other rock I had pocketed earlier, it's harder and more solid looking. It's rudimentary at best, but I grip the larger rock between my feet as I use my left hand to sharpen the rock.
…
As the hours pass, I'm glad that there's been no interference. It's not easy to try to make a home-made axe with brute force. It's going to take me a good day, maybe two to finish this off. The first "axe" head is shaping up rather well. It's still a long way from being done, but it's molding easier than I thought. But I've been at this for hours and my hand is throbbing and bloody. I can't even use my right hand to help today. The pain of gripping anything is too great.
I take another large meal as I lean back to relax. The meat tastes amazing, and the cheese is delicious. It's not something we could really afford in seven, so even here it's a special treat as is the meat. That's not to say in seven we didn't get meat, because we did. It was so cold that we had to have more to live off of than just bread and gruel. Back home the allotment of meat lasted us a long time.
My grandmother always used the grain and water to make some very bland bread. What made our hunger better was that she kept the grease from the meat. Of course, there wasn't anywhere to keep it really for long—if you left it outside to stay cold in the snow it would be gone—animals, peacekeepers…whatever. So it was always cooked, some eaten fresh, and the rest made into jerky to keep later.
My grandmother would keep the juices and as the bread cooked, she'd pour it over that. It was like having meat and bread every night—almost. It wasn't as satisfying, but it stopped the pain of hunger more than once. If that's one thing we learned in seven, was that you could fool your stomach into being complacent by little tricks. But in the summer, we didn't even have the meat then—it wasn't practical.
I come back to reality suddenly. Compared to home, this food is heaven. But unmistakably this arena is hell.
…
Washing up, after my meal, I carefully unwrap the bandage on my hand, because I'm going to re-use this one if I can. I don't want to run out before I need to stop using them, after all. I'm delighted to see that though my hand is very painful, nothing looks red or inflamed. There's tiny areas of red, but only where the stitches enter my hand—which stands to reason as the stitches are in holes in my flesh. It's normal from what I can remember of my last stitches. I don't' spare the antibacterial cream, and smear it all over my wound. Carefully bandaging back up, I decide I'm going to get some exercise with this hand. I have to learn how to overcome the pain and force myself to use it.
For the first five minutes, I'm tempted to quit as I practice picking up a few pieces of pine straw. It stretches my stitches uncomfortably, and my hand gives a throb so hard I think I'm going to be sick. But I persist, doing it over and over again until it's more stiff than displeasure. Pushing myself just a little, I pick up a small stone. It's not as bad as I thought it would be—it's only faintly unpleasant.
As I pick my stone back up with my left hand to work on the axe head again, I hear the cannon.
It doesn't sound close though, but I sit there for a minute or two just listening. Tonight, I won't miss the recap—I need to know who else I face.
…
The rest of the day blurs by. My fingers of my left hand are aching and bloody from using the stone so much. I hate to, but I just can't do anymore today. The first axe head is pretty much fashioned, but the second one—I've decided on something different. It's more like a pick-axe, a lot more cutting. Tomorrow, I'll finish it up though.
I relax and eat my third meal of the day. By now, I've finished off the first thing of meat and nearly all the cheese. I know it's stupid to eat like this, but I don't plan on being in this arena long. Plus, I'd feel unsafe eating this meat after a few days, even if it was chilly. If there was snow…that'd be another thing.
The sun's down and air is making me shiver as I shimmy out to the edge of my trees. I'm looking up at the sky waiting for the recap when the cannon booms again. But the birds carry on, nothing even pauses around where I am—it's not close.
About an hour later, the Recap begins. I see three faces in the sky. The boy from six, Griffin from ten, and the girl from 11. The seal comes up and it's over.
I crawl back to my den and sit. I don't know who the first eight are, not really but I'd almost bet the careers were still intact. There are eleven dead. The playing field has almost been cut in half. There are thirteen including me.
That leaves me some time. It's moving quicker than I thought which is good. I should just have enough time to create my spare weapons before the final eight.
It's all I can do to keep my lips from twitching in anticipation.