Texancoconut51, Silken-Winged-Angel got it right! YAY! It was Hail. The title kind of had to do with how he felt Ayla would come with him. Ya know? Ok cool next one!
No Air
Jack Stains – District 2
I wake up just as the sun emerges in full above the horizon. Ahh, my first sunrise in the arena. The desert sky is lit with deep reds and oranges over our green tents. Rosalina bursts through the trees and I see a strange possum creature in her hands. She gaps when she sees me.
"I- I saw them last night," she says lifting the creature, "I thought the best time to catch one would be right before it got light." She quickly sits in the sand and starts to build up another fire. Ayla wakes up and lazily scoops her hair over one of her shoulders. I thought she and Hail were sleeping in sleeping bags last night but I don't see him. Maybe he moved to a tent. I get up and feel Ayla's eyes on me as I move to the tent Zeke is sleeping in. Not there.
"Hey, Rosalina," She looks up, "have you seen Hail? You've been up for a while; you should have seen him get up." She shrugs, she's useless. "Ayla?" I add extra anger in my voice just 'cause now I'm pissed off.
"No." She replies casually and pulls her fingers through her dark hair. Sapphire unzips her tent and steps onto the desert sand. She flips her hair back and looks around at us in minor crisis mode. Well me, I'm frustrated and these girls hardly seem to care.
"What's wrong Jack? Your forehead is turning red…" She looks at me then Ayla and Rosalina with her doe eyes. Zeke emerges behind her already angry looking.
"Will you kids shut up? I was trying to sleep and all I hear is your pointless chit chat!" He storms over and kicks the possum out of Rosalina's hands. Now would not be a great time to tell him we're missing somebody. Rosaline crawls over to the half skinned possum and picks it up while Zeke kicks his way over to the canteen pile. "WHO THE HELL TOOK TWO CANTEENS?"
We all look at each other before Ayla speaks hardly above a whisper. "I'm guessing Hail."
Zeke's face goes stony and red as he looks around the camp for Hail, when he fails to find him he turns back to Ayla. "Well where is Hail?" He says through gritted teeth, his hands in fist by his sides.
"Umm… we don't really know." She looks around at all of us with an uneasy expression on her face. Zeke stomps through the sand towards Ayla and steps on Rosalina's leg in the process. Rosalina yelps as he passes but he doesn't stop, his cold eyes are fixed on Ayla. He grabs her by her hair and pulls her to her feet as she grunts and screams.
"HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW?" Ayla claws at Zeke's arms but he ignores her mediocre attempts to get free. Sapphire and I look on not trying to step in but Rosalina is on her feet.
"Let go of her!" She runs over and tears Ayla free as Zeke shoves her to the ground. From the ground Rosalina yells at Zeke, "He was gone when we got up! He just left! That's it! Just let him go!"
"He's a traitor and a thief! Don't defend him! Come on Jack let's go!" Zeke grabs his sword and throws a spear in my direction. He takes off into the jungle and I follow after him. Soon I hear Rosalina behind us running to catch up.
"STOP! ZEKE STOP!" Her voice shrieks higher than I've ever heard. Zeke spins around and closes the distance between them. He smacks her cheek with the back of his hand making an audible noise. The impact is so hard a drop of blood streams down her face.
"DON'T EVER SPEAK TO ME LIKE THAT ROSALINA!" He goes to a nearby tree and snaps the braches while screaming at the top of his lungs. Rosalina cradles her cheek and tries desperately to calm her breathing. I try to take in the scene around me but it's hard to focus with so much going on. Hail is gone. Zeke is a madman. Rosalina is slumped against a tree trying to keep back tears. I'm the witness to it all.
Aric Lankis – District 3
The first thing I notice when I wake up is that Blaze is gone. The second thing I notice is that Luna's head is resting on my shoulder. Her dark hair is fanned out across the blanket and her arms are held tight against her body in between us. The sun is almost completely up and the red sky is too close to blood for my liking.
I don't really know how to handle this situation. Do I get up or keep lying down? Either way Luna will realize she was laying on me almost all night. I decide to be selfish and I stay where I'm at, enjoying Luna's company way too much. She mumbles something in her sleep and I try to listen closer. "Nico… May… stop… breakfast…" To me that sentence means nothing but I'm sure in her dream she enjoys being with her family, so I let her mumble.
Zia spontaneously flails her arm around and sits straight up. She looks left and then to her right, right at me and Luna. "Well, hi there." Luna twitches at Zia's voice and squeezes her eyes tighter. "Not to interrupt the cuddle fest but where's Blaze?" Luna opens her eyes and looks at me. Her cheeks redden and she shoots straight up, twisting the blanket around her feet as she stands.
"I'm right here." Blaze emerges from the jungle, with a possum creature in his hands, and Eplis, Marzipan and Fallon begin to awaken…slowly. "I saw one of these things last night and though I should get one before everyone woke up. Luna darts over to it and takes it over to the dead fire, not looking my way.
"Did you see anything else out there?" Eplis says and Blaze looks taken back. "Food I mean, nuts, berries, other animals?"
"Oh, no. Not yet that is, it's still a little dark in the jungle." Eplis stands up and quietly kneels down next to Luna at the fire. Together they coax a fire and begin roasting the small animal. I stand up and stretch my stiff muscles. Zia starts folding up the blankets and soon Fallon helps her so I jump out of the way.
Just as everyone starts to straighten up and the possum is cooking we hear a commotion in the jungle. We all freeze in our places; Zia next to Fallon, Luna half-way between the fire and me, Marzipan rolling up her pant leg, freeze. The thundering footsteps seem to come closer and Eplis is the first to grab a weapon and stand next to Blaze. Marzipan gathers all the weapons and throws them to us individually. We stand close to each other and hope that we won't lose somebody; I can't believe they're coming for us, whoever they are. The voice that follows reveals who it is.
"STOP! ZEKE STOP!" A shrieking voice cuts through the jungle and the footprints stop all together. We all look at each other and I see Blaze shift next to Eplis. Next a crisp smack echoes past the trees and I hear Luna gasp beside me. Wow, she's so close; and she steps closer, behind my right shoulder.
"DON'T EVER SPEAK TO ME LIKE THAT ROSALINA!" He slapped her? Tree branches snap but slowly they get farther and farther away. Blaze grips his dagger and starts walking towards the trees, across the clearing.
"Blaze, they're leaving, they don't know we're here." Zia whispers and Blaze faces her with a hard expression on his face. Eplis walks towards him and mumbles something I can't make out, he only relaxes slightly before he stomps to the fire and removes the possum. When we're sure the careers have left I exhale and out of the corner of my eye I see Luna breathing unevenly.
"Are you all surprised by this?" We all turn to the source of the voice and find Marzipan. "It's not the first time he's hurt her." I don't know what to say to this. What does she mean? Blaze seems suddenly at attention. "You didn't see her bruises during training?" I look at Luna but she's just as lost as I am. Marzipan shakes her head and sits down to sharpen her spear with a knife.
I've been awake less than twenty minutes and I'm already mentally exhausted. Fallon and Zia sit down and sort through the two small packs we didn't go through last night and Eplis sits with Blaze. Luna and I use some of the small tarps from the bags and try to build a water proof shelter. After all this is a jungle, sooner or later it's going to rain. We hang the tarps at an angle near the tree line and use the vines from the trees to hold them in place.
By late morning we've decided to dig a trench for drainage. "…So this one day, when Nico and Nina were still young, May and I decided to pick flowers for my mom when she was sick in bed. So we went walking around town trying to find a flower… in the middle of winter." She laughs and continues digging in the soft jungle earth. I don't know why the stories started but it definitely keeps my mind from more unpleasant things around us. "So in February my sister and I ran through town until we came to a field and found small purple flowers everywhere! We gathered them up and brought them to her. Turns out they were weeds." She laughs and digs her hands deeper into the dirt. "Ever since then though my mom will pick us purple weed-flowers and bring them to us. It's a silly family tradition but it works." Luna looks up and smiles at me. "What about you?"
What about me? "Um, I don't know." My family hasn't really had a good moment in a while. Luna still looks at me expectantly.
"There has to be something." She sits back on her heels and waits for me to speak.
"Well, my sister Abby," I look at her trying to find any change in her expression. Nothing, I guess she's not really in on district gossip. "She had her2nd birthday not too long ago and my dad decided to get her a cupcake from the bakery. Pink frosting, flowers, all the girly things. As soon as my dad put it in front of her she smacked it with her hand. She had to eat it off her hand all night." Luna laughs and we go back to digging, for a second I forgot we were in the arena. I guess some things are short lived.
Aria Skye – District 8
By the afternoon we finished off the last of our bread and still our stomachs ached with hunger. We've been sitting around doing nothing all day and I'm starting to get impatient. We need to be productive in the arena.
"Guys, we need to find food." Kaylee wavers as she stands and grabs her knife.
"Your right, there has to be something in the jungle." She helps Tawlen up and Harley stands on his own.
"Should we split up or stay together?" He asks grabbing his own sword and then straightening up to look at me.
"I don't think it'll do us any good to split up. If we find food we'll find it together." With that Kaylee leads us into the jungle and begins searching the area. The trees are cooler but the humidity clings to my skins and makes me uncomfortable. I'm not used to humidity this strong. I move my eyes over the jungle floor hoping to see some animal tracks I learned about in training but the jungle is too cluttered to offer much help.
"Hey guys, look at these." Tawlen goes over to a short thin tree right off the path we were walking on. The tree holds large leafy bundles of small nuts all intertwined with each other. Tawlen reaches out and they fall into his hand easily. We all huddle around as he holds them in his hands. The small oval shape is maybe the size of the whites of his eyes. They're so small I wonder if they'll keep us full.
"They look alright," Harley says flipping one over in Tawlen's hand. "I bet they have a lot of protein." Tawlen nods and picks one up between his thumb and index finger, getting a closer look. Tawlen takes the small nut and places it in his mouth. Harley and I turn around and start to pick the nuts from the small tree. We stop as soon as we hear the screaming.
"Tawlen? This isn't funny stop!" Harley and I turn around and find Tawlen grasping his neck while Kaylee stands back, frantic. "Tawlen stop!" Her voice wavers and she runs up to Tawlen. She grabs his hands and removes them from his neck uncovering a lump the size of a peach. She gasps and stumbles back into me as she realizes that it's the nut. Inside Tawlen's neck the nut grew 20 times its size completely blocking his airway.
"What do we do?" Harley asks and Kaylee runs back to Tawlen as his face turns red. He falls into her arms and she steadies him onto the ground.
"Guys there has to be something we can do!" Tawlen's face is turning scarlet and he simply lies in Kaylee's arms.
"Could we cut it out?" Harley asks grabbing his knife and cautiously stepping forward.
"No, that'll kill him." I stop him and I lean down next to Kaylee. No doubt this is the gamemakers doing.
"Tawlen, I'm so sorry." Tears fall from her cheeks; there is nothing we can do. Tawlen grabs Kaylee's hand and they look at each other until Tawlen's eyes shut and the cannon sounds.
BOOM!
Kaylee stands and wipes the final tears from her cheeks. Together we all walk away from Tawlen and watch as the hovercraft takes him body away. Nobody speaks. We make our way back to camp as the sun starts to lower in the sky casting elongated shadows. My wound starts to dribble blood and I apply pressure again. Harley shifts the dying coals and adds more wood to create a fire again. As the sun sets I sit closer and closer to the fire while Kaylee sits alone. She wraps her arms around her legs and rests her head on her knees facing away from us.
"I can't believe he's gone. He was just here a few hours ago." Harley says quietly looking at the fire. I turn back from looking at Kaylee and see the fire's shadows dance across Harley's face.
"Yea, it all happened so quickly." Poor kid. What a terrible way to go. He couldn't even say his last goodbyes to Kaylee. I hardly knew him but Kaylee and he were close, well they seemed close. Kaylee stands up and looks at the sky for a moment, and I see a tear fall down her face again. She lies down on the ground a few feet away and faces her back to the fire. I doubt we'll be hearing much from her for a while. I lie down away from Kaylee and try to fall asleep but all night I have nightmares of drowning, struggling for air.
"But how do you expect me
To live alone with just me?
'Cause my world reloves around you
It's so hard for me to breathe"
Sorry I took so long guys, I got my permit today though! Driving is freaky haha fun too :) Ok Hope you liked it!