Props to XMistressChaosx, who went back and reviewed every single chapter after she caught up reading. Impressive fortitude! :)
There will be a new poll after a few days in the arena. Thanks to everyone who's voted on the newest one- if you haven't yet, DO IT NOW!
Still stuck on a story cover... right now I'm working on an idea with a friend, but it's slow going. At this point any fan art would be the cover. I have now challenged thee... :)
This chapter starts the day after the bloodbath. R&R!
DISTRICT TWO MALE: GRAY TANNER
The dimly flickering lights seem brighter than the sun when I force my eyelids back. Groaning, I attempt to sit up, only to find the simple task nearly impossible. I clutch my head and curl up into as little a ball as I can manage.
"Hey! He's alive!" Someone shouts out from right above me, their voice drilling through my brain and hurting my head even more.
"Unngghhh," I croak, trying to shut them all out. Right now I wouldn't mind being dead or still unconscious. It's not cool at all to wake up in pain and confusion. And in a hospital.
Wait, where am I? The last thing I remember was being knocked on the head in the bloodbath of the Hunger Games- which is embarrassing enough on its own. So why am I in a hospital now? I couldn't have won the Games by laying there dead to the world for days on end. And that's Camilla who was yelling... although she might have been whispering, judging by the fact that even soft footsteps are pounding in my skull. I must still be in the arena. Yes, that's right, the arena looked like a hospital.
"Gray? Are you doing all right?" another girl shakes me and sends another wave of pain through my head. Athena.
"Don't shake him, it could give him brain damage at this point!" a boy speaks this time, "Since we don't know how bad the injury is, we should let him get up on his own."
"Hey buddy," my voice creaks, "Are you still alive, too, Alex?" My friend laughs and it cuts through four sighs of relief.
"Yeah, I'm fine, but you got knocked on the head pretty hard."
"I think I knew that." This time four people laugh. The throbbing in my head refreshes itself.
"You can talk, so I think you can stand!" Flavia growls, hauling me to a sitting position. The simple motion leaves me breathless. I might be able to stand, and I might be able to talk, but I sure can't do both at the same time! At least the pain in my head seems to fade when I'm upright.
"You're deathly pale, Gray," Athena says concernedly.
"I'd say it's time for breakfast anyway," Adrian suggests, "We've made it through the night and we all are still alive, so…" he trails off and shrugs, leaving his sentence unfinished.
"… let's eat!" Camilla and Athena finish it for him, both obviously irritated by the speaker. Alex helps me to stand up and points out our 'camp' to me. A small door leads to an equally small room that my allies have crammed with supplies. There's just enough room for six sleeping bags on the floor, five of which are rumpled and messy. Granite would not approve.
"What time is it?" I mumble. Camilla bites her lip.
"Um, the clock over there on the wall behind the Cornucopia says it's about six-thirty in the morning- which, judging by the sky outside is correct- but yesterday it said six-fifty about midnight, when I had my watch. It's weird. We think the Capitol put it there to mess with us. But right now, it's right."
Alex and Camilla veer towards a small heap of packs, leaving me alone. I probe the side of my head with my hand. I gasp with pain, but it's not just my head. Several of my fingers are bandaged and I remember that Alec Ryans hit them. They were either broken or dislocated, and somebody has taken the time to try and salvage them. Using my other hand, I discover a large bruise on my temple. Ouch. It's probably purple or black.
"Hey, Gray- catch!" I look up in time to see a can of food flying at my head. I swat it out of the air with my good hand and pick it up. It's dented from the floor- dented so much that the lid has started to come off. Some sort of anonymous meat lies in wait; I shudder but I don't complain.
"So, Flavia and I have come up with a plan for the day," Athena says, and we all listen. We're disciplined enough to know when a meeting has been called to order. "Flavia? I'll let you do the honors."
Alex leans over and whispers to me, "Athena's been trying to pacify your district partner ever since she- Athena- finished off some girl Flavia was torturing." I grimace, but quickly rearrange my expression when I realize Flavia is glaring at us, waiting for Alex to shut up. I figure she'd be angrier if she actually heard, so I relax a bit as she begins to speak.
"We've labeled the four-person alliance the biggest threat to us, since Luis Thomsen, a member of said alliance, personally threatened Gray here," I nod, remembering. The movement brings back a faint wave of pain in my head and I freeze. "So we'll be going after them. We know they went upstairs, thanks to Alex keeping an eye on them." My friend grins and shakes off the praise Camilla and Athena offer him. Adrian looks a little miffed. "We will kill any other tributes we find on the way up. Except… if one of you finds the male from Ten, bring him down here and keep him here for me." Several of us fidget nervously at the thought of what she plans to do to him. "Camilla will be staying here."
"We'll have one person guarding our supplies at all times. The Cornucopia does not need to be guarded, since we've moved all the contents. Everyone will eventually have their turn- if they live." Athena breaks in for a moment.
"As I was saying," Flavia continues angrily, "Gray, Adrian and I will begin on floor 5 and work our way down to floor 4. Flavia and Alex will begin on Three and work towards the basement. If they are not found, we will regroup here by noon and five of us will go to floor 6- and Gray, no offense, will be left here." I shrug.
"None taken."
DISTRICT FOUR MALE: ALEX ISIS
Flavia stands and motions for us to head out. The light from the windows is getting brighter, so the day is coming strong. We need to get out there before the other tributes wake up, or so Athena has said. I stride to the weapons and arm myself with two short swords and a crossbow. Flavia has a set of throwing knives, Athena has a longbow, Adrian has a light sword, and Gray picks up a flail. Camilla, of course, has her trident. She spent hours cleaning it last night from her kill, the thirteen year old boy from District Eleven. She feels terrible about it.
We slip from our camp and into the Cornucopia lobby. The floor is partially coated with dried blood and in some places there are scraps of white fabric. As Flavia leads the way to the staircase, I fiddle nervously with the turquoise stripe on my scrubs. Gray and I were the only ones to not get a kill in the bloodbath, and Flavia will be expecting me to fight. And murder. At home the only killing I did was with fake blood- onstage. Here I could kill- and die- for real.
The five of us trail up the stark staircases towards the new territories. Athena leads the way with an arrow already nocked and the sheath of her backup knife already loosened; Flavia stalks along almost stepping on the older girl's heels. Nobody's hanging out on the stairs, so Flavia and I turn onto the third floor and nod goodbye to the others without any hazards.
"Where do we start?" I mutter, staring down the blank hallway. The lights flicker ominously at my words.
"I see five doors, not counting the door to the stairwell," Flavia replies curtly, "I'll start at the end. That's where most of these scared losers will be cowering." I hold back an equally mean retort and nod, stepping towards the room closest to the door. She remains where she is for a moment and I shiver as open the heavy door.
A flash of movement catches my eye and I slam the door shut. Flavia glares at me. "What was that, you idiot?" I try not to stutter as I lie through clenched teeth.
"Oh... um, I was wondering if you would be torturing anyone you found?"
"What do you think?" the girl takes the first knife out of her belt and twirls it in one hand. "I have to practice for Blue, don't I?" She grins maniacally and steps silently down the hallway. I creak the door open again, carefully stepping around and checking for the person behind the door. I don't want any nasty surprises. Nobody's there. The room is dimmer than the Careers' room and the hallway- the only source of light is the window; the electrical lights aren't turned on. If there's a tribute in here, they're smart. They never did anything to alert someone to their presence.
I walk carefully to the gurneys, looking underneath and behind for my opponent. Still nobody to be found. Nothing in the room suggests any sort of human presence.
Except for that.
A few cracker crumbs, in the very back corner of the room. A faint footprint, leading away from said corner. Pointed towards the bathroom door. I creep to the access and rest my hand on the cold metal doorknob.
The door flies open to reveal a small, dark-skinned girl quivering in the corner, holding a dagger in one trembling hand. She squeals in fright and drops her knife. Bay Farris. I raise my crossbow and lock the bolt into position. She's too afraid to run for it; she's crying.
I can't kill a crying fourteen year old girl. I can't kill at all. I won't kill. And the thought makes me extremely happy. Bay bites her lip.
"Can't you just get it over with?" she squeaks. She sounds like Arietty- and I'll never get back to my little sister if Flavia finds out about this. I can never attack her, but I have to.
"No, kid, I can't." I lower the bow and hold out my hand to her. She looks astonished- no surprise when I think about it. "I'm Alex."
"You're a Career," she stutters, still hesitant, "Both my allies died because of you guys." How would she know that? Well, I guess most people would assume the killing at the bloodbath to be done by the Careers. Most of it was.
"Yeah, and? Look, you need to stay here right now. Flavia- of course you know who she is- is right down the hall and she might even be in the room next door. She'd kill you in an instant."
"I thought you would do that." Her words pierce me like a knife.
"I thought I would, too. But just stay here!" Bay nods quickly and I shut the door, stamping over the footprint to disguise it and sweeping the crumbs away. I need to check the other room or my ally will get suspicious, and I don't want her to find Bay.
I duck into the room adjacent to the stairwell and look around. No sudden movement, no one in the bathroom or behind the door. I can hear Flavia across the hallway- no cannons and no screams, so she must not have found anyone. I peer into the dimly lit room. The beds are empty. I scan the room from in-between the two gurneys.
I almost laugh at myself for not seeing it. The tip of a shoe sticks out from under a bed; when I bend down to look underneath the chartreuse stripe of District Five seems to leap out at me. The girl is sleeping, but it's a restless sleep. As I watch, she moans quietly and moves her head side to side. Her leg is bent at an unnatural ankle- broken, and badly. Adrian said something about breaking a girl's leg.
Another thing to hide from Flavia. Oh joy. I creep back into the hallway.
"Anyone?" she asks. I shake my head. "Why did you take so long in just two rooms?"
"I don't know, maybe I just checked more thoroughly than you!" She blushes a furious red.
"Shut up and get to floor one!" That's when the cannon sounds.
DISTRICT TWELVE MALE: LUIS THOMSEN
Sara absentmindedly swings her slingshot in lazy circles as she keeps watch at the doorway. We've only opened the heavy wooden thing a tiny crack, so we can hear voices in the hallway. We have to stay pretty quiet, too, but when the door is completely closed we could probably scream and not be heard. Those things are pretty soundproof. This entire place is. Why did we decide to camp out on the rubber room floor?
"L-L-Luis?" Octavian hoarsely whispers. I turn around swiftly, scaring the younger boy.
"Sorry," I say gruffly as he twitches and coughs. "What do you want?"
"I… I think L-L-Laken is wa-waking up." I nod and relay the news to Sara.
"Can you take the door? I want to see if she's finally back to herself. Merry was hanging out until she fell asleep and it almost killed me to hear twelve hours of fairy ranting." My district partner is genuinely concerned for our ally.
"That was Merry the whole time? Really? I thought Laken came back at the end." I assume the position at the door and toss my axe from hand to hand.
"Well, if you hadn't been so woozy after I patched up that knife wound in your back, you would have been listening when Merry said that the change can take a while. She hasn't taken this much time as of yet, but since this entire arena is a mess of stress, it'll be longer." I nod shortly and focus on the hallway. In the back of the room, I can hear Laken and Sara talking, with Octavian hovering nearby.
"Sara? Where am I?"
"In the arena."
"I don't remember this. Is the bloodbath over?" I can imagine Sara nodding. "Then why don't I- oh. It was her, wasn't it?" Her voice is wobbly with sadness now.
"Yeah. But you're alive. There are seventeen of us left. And you're back now." Laken lets out a few sobs, but then I shush everyone.
"We'll check everywhere!"
"C'mon, let's start here." It's the Careers, or at least several of them. I freeze.
"Luis, what is it?" Sara hisses. I grab the weapons sitting by the door and tiptoe to the back of the room.
"The Careers are right there. They're hunting." The tension is so thick I can almost taste it.
"Laken and Octavian," Sara whispers, her voice barely audible, "you guys need to get out. When Luis and I engage them when they come in, you run. To the staircase, to the other rooms, wherever. But get away." The younger kids nod fearfully, too afraid to even cry. I hand Laken her hatchet and Octavian his small bow. I have my axe and I give Sara two knives to try and defend herself with. A slingshot is not a hand-to-hand combat weapon.
The door creaks open. We crouch in the far corner behind the lone bed.
"See anyone, Athena?" Gray Tanner says. I hate that kid. The girl must have shaken her head, because the boy from One speaks up.
"So let's look around! I bet someone's in here!"
"It's the first room, Adrian. I doubt they'll be in he- THERE!" Gray shouts out. "THEY'RE IN HERE!" I push Laken and Octavian under the bed and stand up, trying to draw the Careers to the other side of the room.
"I'm so honored that you wasted your pointless little lives hunting us down," I snarl. Athena raises her longbow and with one swift movement has an arrow nocked. I sure hope I can dodge that thing. It's only twenty feet away. Sara climbs to her feet as well and Athena's arrow wavers between us.
"I've got him, Athena," her district partner says. He swaggers forward with a sword drawn and I almost laugh. For a guy about half a foot shorter than me and two years younger, he's got some attitude.
"I'll take the girl," Gray says softly, "There were two others and I think you can find them best, Athena." It sounds like flattery, but the boy's serious and sincere. The Career leader nods curtly and the two boys leap.
My axe easily parries Adrian's strike, and Sara leaps over the bed to take on Gray, leading him away from Laken and Octavian. Athena is more interested in combat than finding the two and she sends Sara flying into a wall before the girl can finish off Gray. The two kids scramble out from under the bed and make a dash for the door.
I can't see if they make it because Adrian leaves my cheek torn open and bleeding with the tip of his blade. I roar in pain and lunge at him, which hurts my back- no thanks to Lucia for knifing me. I end up swinging the axe too slowly and instead of lopping off Adrian's head, I jar my arm against his sword. His blade is lightweight but swift.
His next attack scrapes against the edge of my axe as I deflect it up and away from my heart. I twist the axe and the sword snaps in two. As the boy gapes at his jagged, broken saber, I grin.
There's still fire in his eyes as he looks up at me again. He swings and I bring up my axe to deflect, but I misjudge thanks to the shortened length of the sword. He charges, sword right at my stomach.
But in bringing up my axe too fast, I have swung into his gut and his blade hangs useless. The cannon fires. Two kills for Twelve.
DISTRICT SEVEN FEMALE: LAKEN MARX
Clutching my hatchet in one hand, I scoot out from under the bed and make a break for the door. Octavian's right in front of me, and we're right at the door when he coughs once and Athena whirls around.
"Get them, Athena!" Gray calls out as he swings his flail into Sara's side. My ally cries out and I shove Octavian into the hallway and run as fast as I can after him. I can't let the girl in my head take over now. I need to stay myself so I can stay alive! I try and come forward, but for once poor Laken is actively fighting against me and I am repelled to the back of her mind. Ouch. I scramble towards the staircase and the footsteps behind me give me motivation to keep running. For Tennan. For Luna. For my mom. I run and run, occasionally stopping to haul Octavian up an extra step when he has a coughing fit.
"Nice try, girl. You're faster than you look." I hear the disembodied voice- Athena's, although I thought she got left behind a while ago- and the next thing I know I'm landing painfully on the steps. Octavian stops for a moment and looks back in horror, but ultimately continues running.
"OCTAVIAN!" I scream, but he doesn't return. The snake. I need to come out! She needs my help! Athena rolls me over and helps me sit up on the steps.
"I won't torture you. Not like some of my allies," she says disgustedly. "But I can't let you live. I'm sorry." She takes the arrow out of her quiver and holds it to my throat.
My hatchet! I knee Athena in the stomach and scrabble for the small axe. She grits her teeth and lunges at me again, pinning my arm down. "If you don't want this to hurt, don't move," she breathes. I jerk my head up and we collide painfully. Seeing stars, I grab my hatchet and run again. I can see the floor 4 sign when Athena full-on tackles me. Her eyes are tearing up; it could be her reluctance to kill or the pain from our headbutt.
"Girl, I really am sorry." She tilts her head to one side. "For both of you." I twist my head to the side in one last effort to escape death and I feel the arrow slit my throat on the side of my neck. Blood starts to flow and I can feel the life draining away from me. It's deep. And the pain is so strong. So stro-
I wake up in the rubber room on the bed, partially blanketed by a straitjacket.
"Sh-sh-she's awake!" Octavian calls. I'm alive, is more like it. Unless we all died. I can feel a bandage, rough around the soft skin of my throat. It's fairly well done, so I guess Sara did it. She and I worked at the first aid station together.
"Don't sit up too fast," Sara wheezes, pressing a hand to her side, "Gray may have broken some ribs, but Athena just about gave you gills. Don't even try." I can breathe all right, although it hurts when I think about it. I brush my fingers against the bandage and wince with the pain. "I stitched up the wound as best I could," she offers. I smile weakly.
"It's all right," I try to say, but a wave of pain racks my throat and I wheeze until it ebbs away.
Sara and Luis seem concerned; Octavian is as twitchy as ever. "Try talking again," Luis says after sharing a look with his district partner, "Slowly." I gulp- mentally, I don't want to physically gulp right now- and open my mouth.
"It's all right." Nothing comes out. "It's-" I snap my mouth shut. I can't speak.
"You aren't t-t-talking," Octavian stutters.
"I think we all realize that, Octavian," Luis growls.
"What did she do to you?" Sara says. I can shrug without pain although I'm a bit sore from being slammed into the stairs over and over again.
"I don't know. How do you go to kill someone, they survive a slit throat, and then they lose their voice?" Luis is completely befuddled.
"I-I-I think I k-k-know," Octavian pipes up; everyone looks at him. "Wh-wh-what if Athena cut her v-v-vocal cords?"
"Then that girl's got some seriously tragic aim," Sara says bitterly. "The vocal cords are so close to the windpipe- if she had hit that, Laken would have been dead long before we found her on the stairs." Luis nods thoughtfully.
"We're glad you fought back- Athena's got at least one cut from your hatchet somewhere, because there's a slight trail of blood down the stairs."
I stand up, feeling really out of everything, and if I could scream without ripping my throat to pieces, I would. Instead I bite my lip so hard it bleeds. Adrian Rain lies with him eyes open in the center of the room.
"We don't know how they'll get rid of the bodies. I mean, they have to, don't they?" Sara worries. "I think we have to distance ourselves. I'm relieved he's gone, but I hate that we played into the Capitol's hands and went along with their game. At least only one died." We shuffle to the door and then, after a few minutes, into the hallway. A whirring, creaking sound comes from the room and we watch as a section of tile slides out from beneath Adrian; his body disappears into a black void.
"Question answered," Luis says, still watching as the tile slides back into place. All that remains of Adrian is a bloody smear on the ground. "And then there were sixteen."
"Sh-sh-should we stay here?" Octavian asks, "They kn-kn-know where we a-a-are, after all." I nod in agreement.
Luis sighs. "Grab your stuff, fellow tributes, because we're moving."
DISTRICT TEN MALE: BLUE ANSTON
"Why are you trying to kill me?" Cordovan says.
"I'm not," hisses the boy from Nine, "You're out to get me!" He raises his double-bladed staff and jabs at Cordovan with it. My brother sidesteps and uses his spear to slice open a gash on the boy's arm.
"We don't have to kill each other!" Cordovan pleads, gasping for breath. The wild-eyed boy from Nine leers at him.
"Then why are you attacking me?" My brother protests and tries to turn and run, but it's far too late. At age fourteen, he is one of the youngest competitors. The other boy is a year older, and burly from working in the fields. He shoves Cordovan to the ground and impales him on the end of his staff. But the cannon does not sound yet. The blade is buried in his stomach, not hitting any instant killing points. Cordovan gasps in agony and doubles over around the staff. The boy from Nine goes to slit his throat with a small knife, but an arrow suddenly is embedded in his right eye. Then his cannon sounds. The tributes from One, Two, and Four watch curiously as my brother dies. BOOM!
I knock my head on the wall as I'm sitting up. Was that a cannon? It must have been. And a scream echoes from down the hallway.
I run out from my room at the end of the floor 5 corridor and immediately figure out the location of the fight.
"Athena! ATHENA!" One of the Careers calls out frantically from the room across from the stairwell. I don't believe for a second that the leader of the pack died. Then the clang of a closing door explains that Athena has left and the boy is calling for her to return. So who died? I didn't even know that there was an alliance in that room!
"C'mon, Gray! Adrian's dead, so you either fight and die or run and live!" District Twelve. I should have known- they could kill Careers; the pack wants them dead anyway.
And for some strange reason, eerily reminiscent of Cordovan and the boy from Nine, Flavia Baxter has been calling for my blood.
Gray Tanner, Flavia's district partner, bursts from the room and stands in the middle of the hallway, gasping for breath and glancing back at the room where the other alliance is waiting. "Go on, get out of here!" Sara Ross yells, flinging a sling stone at him. It misses, but barely; Gray yelps and dodges, fumbling with his flail. I freeze. I'm standing out in the open and I'm not as forgettable as some. His head turns- I feel like time has stopped and my heart has stopped with it- but he runs away and doesn't see me. My heart, abashed, climbs down from my throat in no sort of hurry, but leaps back up, trembling, as Sara and Luis charge out of their room and down the stairs. They don't seem to see me either, but I see the worry on their faces as the faint cries echo from below. And then things were silent. I lunge back into my hiding room as the Twelve kids stumble back up the stairs with Laken Marx supported between them. She's bleeding profusely from her neck.
"Quick! Bring the bandages!" Sara orders Luis around as she tries to save the younger girl's life. I can hear most of what they're saying and footsteps as the last member of their alliance makes his reappearance.
"Wh-wh-what happened to her?" Octavian blubbers.
"Athena tried to slit her throat," Luis replies darkly. It shuts Octavian up pretty quickly- it wouldn't surprise me if he was supposed to stay with Laken. They close their door and everything starts to go back to normal for me.
As normal as anything can be in this place. I ran from the bloodbath and I haven't seen death yet, so I feel like I'm stuck in a dream. At least I'm living in this dream, unlike so many others who died. Like my beloved brother, who never came home. I'm going to make it home, for both of us. I'm determined. I've already made it a day further than Cordovan did, but I wonder if his strategy had some value. He allied with the boys from Twelve and Six during training, and they both made it all the way to the top eight- together. I can definitely see the good points of having an ally or two, but to me it would just intensify the pain. I've already lost my brother- my best friend- to these Games, and losing a friend at the same time I'm trying to stay alive would send me over the edge. No, it's better for me to be alone.
I run my dry tongue over my lips, wondering where I can find water. I seriously doubt any of the sinks that one would expect to find in a hospital will be providing clean, easily gained water. I'll try, though. I'll find a bathroom somewhere and try the sink. I guess this is a really nice arena, if they bothered to give us indoor plumbing. They want duels and backstabbing and murder, not a bunch of kids going off and dying from starvation or sickness. Probably, though, they'll spring something on us when it gets slow, to shrink the tribute pool and get some action. They're terrible, the Capitol is. Almost two decades of this and they refuse to stop killing us.
I don't have anything except the clothes on my back, so it's easy to pack up. The wards, I think will be the best place to go, although I'll return to this room later on. Stay on the move during the day, set up a specific spot at night. I'll move it in a few days, though, or the Capitol will certainly bring somebody or something to me.
Right now I only care about water.
ADRIAN RAIN: "I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend." -J.R.R Tolkien
CURRENT STANDINGS:
Careers- F1 Athena Monroe, F2 Flavia Baxter, M2 Gray Tanner, F4 Camilla Thyra, M4 Alex Isis
A1- M3 Newt Hillen, M6 Chandler Mathews
A2- M5 Octavian Amorous, F7 Laken Marx, F12 Sara Ross, M12 Luis Thomsen
A5- F9 Cenia Trallon, M9 Alec Ryans
Alone- F5 Delany Lavis, M10 Blue Anston, F11 Bay Farris
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