Run. That was the first thought through Sam's mind as the funnel cloud dipped towards the ground, spiraling and weaving like an angry harpy sent from Olympus. She felt her legs take off before her mind realized what was going on, pumping against the ground as fast as they'd take her. On cue, Gannet and Storm wordlessly moved after her in the rush of the moment. The Gamesmakers had reared their ugly head again, and this time survival was much more about escape than fight. You couldn't beat this kind of enemy.
The tornado ripped into the canyon walls like a lawnmower as it made contact with the earth. Rock and debris flew as destructive meteors through the dark air. Sam felt pinpricks of pain as tiny pebbles struck her at full speed, raining welts across her back and neck. The landscape before her zipped past, forgettable, unseen – she had to keep moving, to outrun this great gray beast that snaked up the road behind her.
Over the din of the screaming tornado, everything amalgamated into a cacophonous tunnel of raw noise. Sam panted in labored breaths with each stride; sprinting at a full gate became more and more difficult with each passing second, but the tornado showed no signs of stopping. Its intensity only seemed to convey some vendetta the Gamesmakers had against the trio; as if they'd crossed the line by surviving this long, and the great disaster behind them intended to rectify the problem.
"We have to find someplace to get down!" Storm yelled from behind. Sam barely heard his words over the roar, but caught just enough to get the meaning.
They'd never make it like this.
A sickening thought crossed Sam's mind as she struggled to gain distance. Gamesmakers often tried to bring tributes together to kill them off, rather than create artificial ways of knocking off the children. One great way to do this was via natural disasters: staying in the path of danger invited death, and very few tributes lived with a death wish. Of course, the logic there said that running from danger invited the same thing, only by the hands of a dangerous and angry Career rather than a Gamesmaker button. It was a great catch-22 where the only outcome was death.
The wind gusted out from the twister in a gale of force, hurling Sam off her feet and throwing her against a rock. She scrambled to get up and stay moving, snatching her spear and feeling Gannet's hand close around her own. Bless that little girl, Sam thought, pulling herself up just in time to avoid a rock hurled by the tornado come smashing in.
The Gamesmakers quickly threw in a twist. As the tornado roared across the canyon behind the three, it picked up width – raking at the ravine's walls and sending showers of rocks and down. As Sam hurdled a downed eucalyptus tree, a rockslide erupted just before her as the entire canyon wall came collapsing down. She shrieked in fear, moving as fast as she could through a hail of scree and stone showering around her. Sam narrowly made it through the rockslide, turning a bend just as the tornado hit the pile of rocks. An explosion of debris shot out behind her, slamming into where she'd just ran from.
"Cave up ahead!" Gannet yelled through the roar.
Sam spotted it just as Gannet reported it. The river's entrance – a large, black cavern that the water ran from. It'd be a risk with the tornado tearing up everything behind them, but out here they'd get torn to shreds. There was no other option…and no doubt the Gamesmakers knew that.
Storm plowed into the cave first, tripping on a rock just as he reached the entrance and sliding into the river. Gannet came right after, with Sam holding up the rear, gripping her makeshift spear tightly as she scrambled into the cavern. She grabbed a hold of Storm's arm as the tornado neared closer outside, hurling an arsenal of stones in every direction. Sam pulled Storm free and behind cover as it reached the entrance, rumbling with a great thunderous roar.
Water from the stream spewed out across the three as they huddled behind a large boulder. Sam hoped in her heart it would hold – without it, they would be open to any and all punishment the wind could throw at them. She couldn't even hear her own thoughts in the din, her eyes pressed shut with the force of nature's fury and her body rooted as firmly to the ground as possible. Gannet's hands had wrapped tightly about her waist, finding something to cling on, as Storm shielded the two girls from anything else. It was a cumbersome position, and one that wouldn't last forever.
Fortunately, the Gamesmakers had had enough – or had achieved what they planned to do. The tornado snaked up into the sky after several minutes of holding position outside the cave entrance, reeling like a wounded animal back into the stormy sky. Sam looked about the cave, trying to catch her bearings – but opposite the entrance, only a gloomy darkness pervaded. The inky black extended for some untold depth, following the river that followed the flow of the cave.
Storm got to his feet, letting go of Gannet and Sam to take a look around. "C'mon. Let's check out the cave. There's gotta be a reason that thing drove us here."
To get us killed, probably, Sam wanted to shout. It was all too nicely done – the tornado had sent them scurrying like rats, just to find shelter in time? This was not a coincidence – but she had no chance of stopping Storm when he had his mind set to explore.
Gannet, however, looked absolutely frightened. "Nothin's gonna happen," Sam put on a fake smile, trying to re-assure the girl. "There's three of us and just the darkness."
"It's the water," Gannet replied, her green eyes downcast at the stream. That sent chills up Sam's spine; if someone from District 4 who had sent their lives on the ocean said something wasn't right with water, then something wasn't right. "It's not normal. It's too…rigid."
"Probably just from being sucked up by the twister," Storm said in a rather bored voice, his eyes peering into the black. "I doubt it's anything."
"No. We have riptides back at home," Gannet pleaded, her eyes large and full of trepidation. "They just make the water look calm. This is…different…it's not right. It's like there's something in the water."
"Storm, we can explore later," Sam tried to play mediator in the situation. "Let's try and find out what happened outside; at least we can see."
"Hold on," he replied. "I think there's something back here…"
By now, Sam knew Gannet was on to something. A low hum, just barely audible, seemed to be coming from the rear of the cave, somewhere deep in the darkness. Unnatural ripples in the water spoke of movement from further in. Perhaps worst, Sam's gut told her something, natural or unnatural, was looking to get the three tributes – the Gamesmakers had to be having a good laugh.
"Think I got something here," Storm spoke up, leaning into the darkness.
He'd no sooner done that then a black shape rushed out like a dark nightmare. Sam barely had time to take in the dark-skinned boy before he'd flattened Storm like a car accident, bringing his arm back for a weapon. Sam lunged for her own spear just as the boy – District 11's tribute, she briefly acknowledged – pulled a very deadly-looking chain flail off his back, swinging the weapon once and just missing Storm's head with the spiked club attached at the end. Storm rolled away, his own spear out and prepared to engage.
Sam rushed in, operating entirely on instinct and animal brain as she jabbed forth with her wooden spear. The boy from 11 countered easily, wrapping the polearm up with his flail and diverting it away. He swung the weapon at her, off-kilter and missing but striking a rock in the process. The stone exploded in a shower of debris from the hit, blasted into pieces by the force of the impact.
"Get outta here Sam! Go!" Storm yelled, thrusting his weapon twice at the tribute from 11 like a fencer. "Go! I'll find you!"
Unfortunately, the two boys had rounded and turned so that the entrance was a no-go. Sam would have to retreat further into the cave…right into the inky darkness and whatever waited.
"Gannet, come on," Sam grabbed Gannet's hand, half-dragging her away from the ensuing fight. As much as she wanted to help Storm, she knew he had a point – fighting as two individuals with two styles against a boy who clearly knew how to use a weapon like that only asked for one of them to go down. Of course, Storm was also looking to protect her – but Sam didn't want Gannet caught up in the fight either. She had the trio's knife out, but that weapon was virtually useless against something like a flail.
"We have to help him!" Gannet pleaded, struggling to run back.
Which will just get one of us killed, Sam thought. Nice to want to help, but too many chiefs and not enough helpers makes everyone dead.
Turbulence began kicking up in the stream more as daylight became less and less visible. Sam had to physically hold on to Gannet to make sure the girl was still following her, inching her way along the dark cave. That the boy from 11 had managed to hide out here and stay sane was remarkable – the black of the cavern, along with the low hum in the background that progressively grew louder and louder with each noisy step through the cave, unnerved Sam to no extent. She began to doubt the tribute had been here alone – and she began to wonder if she was leading Gannet right into a trap.
A blinding flash of red confirmed her fears. Out of the darkness, a flare blew away the black into a kaleidoscope of eerie light. The flare found its way to a rock ledge, bathing the entire cavern depth in lighting ready-made for a horror scene. Sam had just enough time to push Gannet to the ground and raise her spear before she saw the aggressor.
Laredo.
Sam's fellow tribute from District 10 came charging out of the dark like a raging bull. The arena seemingly hadn't fazed him one bit, and the flare's light pattern made him look all the more physically imposing to Sam. He hadn't come unarmed, either – he gripped a short, curved sword in his right hand, like a kukri but longer and with a more angled point. The red light glinted off the edge as he snarled at Sam, swinging the weapon forward like a mace.
She let out a cry of recognition before just managing to bring her spear up to catch the blow, glancing the kukri off the wood and away.
"Laredo, it's me," Sam yelled, backpedaling and looking for a way out. "It's Sam! From District 10!"
"I know!" he shouted, missing with a wide swing. A crazed, almost animal gleam shone out of his eyes, as if killing were the one thing that satisfied him. "I've been looking forward to this!"
Laredo moved in with ferocity as Gannet scrambled out of the way, ignoring the girl from District 4 and engaging Sam in a bloody rage. He swept his blade in rapid, wide arcs, keeping Sam off-balance and forcing her to protect herself defensively, lest she be decapitated. Sam dove and somersaulted as he struck vertically, missing her torso by inches and ripping up a shower of rock.
He's gone completely crazy, Sam thought in the heat of battle. Every year, the arena managed to drive some tribute or two into a complete animal fervor, destroying the very notion of what was and was not human. Laredo's wild, undisciplined actions, his carnal snarl; everything spoke of a kid from District 10 who'd gone completely unhinged. She envisioned him and the boy from 11 camped out in the cave, frothing at the mouth and eating rabid animals.
Didn't Storm say he'd seen the boy from 11 while you were unconscious? Had the tornado driven them here, too?
Sam had no time to think about such questions as Laredo went for another killing stroke, stabbing with the point of his blade and slamming the kukri into Sam's spear. Laredo lunged for another blow, but pulled up suddenly and short with a cry of pain. Gannet! The girl had raced in, slicing across his left calf with her knife before jumping out of the way as Laredo swung in a semicircle with the kukri. Risky move, but someone wasn't walking away from this alive.
If Storm was even alive still…
"Get back here you bitch!" Laredo snarled, hobbled but still more than capable of fighting.
Sam readied herself for another round of attacks, stepping back and trying to get out of the flare's light. The combat had stirred up the river, however…and suddenly, Gannet's prediction about the water "Not being right" seemed more potent than ever.
With a feral cry, something reached out with a long tentacle, purple and oily in the red chemical light, and swatted Laredo to the ground. Sam ran in without thinking, pulling the spear back to finish off Laredo before another arm came out and snatched her off her feet. She barely had time to hold on to her spear before it tossed her against the side of the cave, dragging her back. Suckers on the arm latched onto her skin, pulling with incredible force on each square inch like a great sponge. Too late Sam noticed parallel rows of sharp, needle-like teeth that lined the arm as they picked over her skin like feelers, preparing to lay a nasty bite.
"Sam!" Gannet shrieked in terror, frozen between Laredo's recovering form and whatever horrible thing had crawled out from the cave.
Sam stabbed the tentacle with her spear in a rush of adrenaline, eliciting a screaming, guttural howl from the darkness. It let her go with a screech and retreated, but not before Laredo had gotten back on his feet and rushed forward, ignoring his leg injury. Sam rolled into the water to avoid his swiping attack, caught between trying to make a move against him and watching out for whatever Gamesmaker invention lurked in the black.
"This is how it has to be," Laredo panted as he and Sam squared off. "You, me, and whatever the Capitol can come up with that's worse than either of us. We're just a bunch of killers, Sam. We have to be. Nobody makes it out of this arena alive!"
"We don't have to kill each other!" Sam tried one final time. "Come on! We don't have to die like this!"
"You don't get it!" Laredo laughed. "I don't even believe there's such a thing as a victor anymore! Not after all this. Even if I come out of this, I never really win, do I? I might as well just kill as many as I can, get it over with. If I can't ever win, I can make sure you can't either. The Capitol's always going to be with us no matter what. District 10's always been the trash pile of the Capitol, Sam. Might as well keep it that way!"
"This is how it is!" he yelled at the cave wall before narrowing his eyes at Sam. "Killing each other forever."
He rushed forward with the kukri raised high as Sam prepared to make a killing stab to his unprotected gut. Before either could make contact, the unseen beast from the darkness rebounded and roared as it snatched Laredo's good leg. He dropped the kukri and face-planted into the river, reaching in vain for the weapon that had slid out of his grasp. Sam dashed to the blade and snatched it up, avoiding a sucker-covered arm that swiped at the air for her. It landed on Laredo instead, latching onto his chest and holding tight.
"How it is!" he laughed maniacally as it slowly dragged him towards the blackness. "Never stop killing! Not even me!"
The tentacle on his chest unsheathed its needle teeth, ripping them into Laredo's chest . The boy from District 10 screamed in pain, fighting with both arms to pull the Gamesmaker beast away from him. It only yanked harder, tearing at his flesh with both arms. The one on his chest latched free, but not due to any part on Laredo's behalf. It exploded with a red mist, ripping away enough skin and sinew to leave exposed muscle glistening in the dim light of the flare.
Run. Run.
Everything in Sam's mind told her to run, but Laredo's screams of agony pulled her back. He'd tried to kill her, yes, and she had nothing but disdain for the brute of a tribute who'd just happened to come from the same district as her. But nobody – nobody – deserved to die that way. He was getting torn apart piece by piece as the beast from the darkness reached out with another tentacle, gripping tightly about his waist.
Do it. He's already dead.
But Sam couldn't run. Laredo wouldn't make it five minutes even if the beast let go and swam back to whatever hellish hole it had come from, but she could end it. She rushed up to him and swatted one of the beast's sucker-covered arms out of the way with Laredo's kukri.
"I'm sorry," she whispered quietly, and brought the blade down on his neck.
Red blood spattered her face like a sprinkler as his head darted back. Laredo flopped about in the beast's grasp as Sam sprinted backwards, finding Gannet in the flare's dying light and hurrying as fast as she could go in the opposite direction. She turned her head back, getting a last glimpse of Laredo's body being torn into shining chunks of raw meat and the beginning of a slimy animal head before she rushed away. The beast roared and continued its work, every grisly tear and rip a damning note on Sam's actions.
You killed him. Mercy kill or not – you killed a fellow tribute from District 10.
"Sam!" a pained voice shouted down the cavern as she and Gannet made haste for daylight.
In the din of the monster's lunch behind her and fear dripping from the wall, Sam didn't recognize the voice at first. Gannet apparently didn't either, having grabbed Sam's old wooden spear and raising it defensively. The two rounded a bend in the cave and caught just a glimpse of daylight before a figure ran smack into Sam. Three bodies fell down into the river, clamoring for weapons and prepared to fight. Sam lunged at the figure with her kukri, quicker on the uptake and grabbing the boy who had fallen down.
"Sam! It's me, it's me, Storm!" the boy pleaded – Storm!
"Oh my God," Sam fell off him, lowering the weapon and grabbing him in a hug. "Are you okay, is-"
Gannet came in with the voice of reason. "We have to go, that thing might still be behind us!"
Before Storm had a chance to ask "What thing?" Sam grabbed him by the hand and began pulling him towards daylight. The three tributes scrambled for the light as squelching sounds of Laredo's remains echoed down the cave from the rear – he wouldn't be headed back in a box. It'd require a bag to pick up all those parts…if there were even any parts left.
The trio burst into the light of day under the cloudy sky, clearing ten meters from the mouth of the cave before they slumped down into the dirt. The tornado had left a path of destruction, strewing rocks and vegetation as far as the eye could see. An entire wall of the canyon had collapsed, leaving a scalable hillside that completely rearranged the orientation of this side of the arena.
Right now, however, Sam could do little more than count her blessings.
Storm grabbed her, turning her to face him as his gray eyes showed concern. He scanned the blood on her face, shocked by her condition: "Sam, I killed him - but are you okay, what happ-"
Sam slapped him in the shoulder and buried her head in his chest, releasing pent-up adrenaline and emotion from the fight and killing. Words wouldn't do justice to what had just happened: the quiet, shy girl from District 10 had just unearthed the reality of everything the Hunger Games and the Capitol were. There was no celebration, no amiable atmosphere of spirit and camaraderie. No matter how much Constantine Flickerman and Claudius Templesmith could spin the event, this was no friendly match of sport.
There was only death and pain in the Hunger Games. Laredo was right: even if she was a victor, the Capitol's brand would never leave her now.
A/N: Blood, guts, and dead tributes. Like the action, hate it? Lemme know how I did - writing, combat, how stupid/cool the mutt was. Constructive criticism always welcome!